CHAPTER VI.
Port Moody—Victoria—San Francisco to Chicago.
At "Port Moody," and even at the new "Vancouver City," I felt some disappointment that the original idea of crossing amongst the islands to the north-east of Vancouver's Island, traversing that island, and making the Grand Pacific terminus at the fine harbour of Esquimalt, had not been realized. Halifax to Esquimalt was our old, well-worn plan. The "Tete Jaune" was our favoured pass. This plan, I believe, met the views both of Sir James Douglas and the Honorable Mr. Trutch. But I consoled myself with the reflection, that if we had not gained the best, we had secured the next best, grand scheme—a scheme which, as time goes on, will be extended and improved, as the original Pacific Railways of the United States have been.
The sea service between "Port Moody" and "Victoria," Vancouver's Island, is well performed; and Victoria itself is an English town, with better paved streets, better electric lighting, and better in many other ways that might be named, than many bigger American and English towns I know of. I spent four delightful days in and about it, including an experimental trip, through the kindness of Mr. Dunsmuir —the proprietor of the Wellington Collieries, a few miles north of Nanaimo—over the new railway from Victoria to Nanaimo, constructed, with Government aid, by himself and Mr. Crocker, of San Francisco. I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of Sir Mathew Begbie, the Chief Justice of British Columbia, to whose undaunted courage Vancouver's Island and British Columbia owed law and order in the dangerous and difficult times of the gold discoveries.
Upon the question of relative distances, engineering, and generally what I saw between Port Moody and Chicago, I again take advantage of Mr. Edward Wragge's excellent notes.
"Table of Distances between Liverpool and China and Japan, via the Canadian Pacific Railway, through Canadian territory, and via New York and San Francisco, through United States territory:—
"ROUTE THROUGH CANADIAN TERRITORY.
"Summer Route MILES.
Liverpool to Quebec, via Belle Isle 2,661
Quebec to Montreal 172
Montreal to Port Moody 2,892
Port Moody to Vancouver 12
Vancouver to Victoria 78
Vancouver to Yokohama 4,334
Vancouver to Hongkong 5,936
"Winter Route MILES.
Liverpool to Halifax 2,530
Halifax to Quebec 678
Other points as in summer.
Summer route, Liverpool to Yokohama 10,071
Winter route, " " 10,618