For a distance of fourteen miles Discovery Passage is much the same width, until reaching Menzies Bay, where the rapids commence. At the base of these rapids, the channel, barely a quarter of a mile wide, suddenly opens out into a large pond-like space. The tide rushes down the narrow passage at the rate of ten knots an hour, and to get up through it was as much as our little steamer could accomplish. Panting and struggling, and sometimes hardly moving, at others she was carried violently against the shore, until by slow degrees she breasted the current and got safely through. I could not help wondering how Captain Vancouver ever managed to get his ship up this terrible place, so difficult even when aided by the power of steam.
Above the rapids the passage again widens to Point Chatham, the north-west termination of Discovery Passage. We puff by Thurlow Island, divided from Valdes Island by the Nodales Canal, and anchor in a snug harbour named Blenkinsop’s Anchorage. We start again at sun-up, the fifth morning since leaving Victoria. As we steamed steadily along through Johnston’s Straits, I could recall to my remembrance no scenery that was comparable, in wild grandeur and picturesque grouping, to the scenery on my left. The coast-line of Vancouver Island presented a series of small projecting headlands; the bays and creeks between, seldom rippled by the breeze, are very Edens for wildfowl. In the background, the hills rise sharp and conical, at this time crowned with snow, but all alike densely timbered. In the distance, Hardwicke Island, like a floating emerald, hid the water beyond it. To the right, islands of all sizes and shapes, so thick that one might suppose it had rained islands at some time or other: on the least of them grew pine-trees, any of which would have made a mainmast for the largest ship ever built. I have again and again threaded the intricate passages through the ‘Lake of a Thousand Islands,’ in the Great St. Lawrence; but I say, without fear of contradiction, that the scenery from Chatham Point to the mouth of the Nimkish river is wilder, bolder, and in every respect more beautiful, lovely as I admit the Canadian scenery to be.
The ship-channel hugs the shore of Vancouver Island, passing close to Cormorant, Haddington, and Malcolm Islands, and the mouth of the Nimkish river, navigable for canoes some considerable distance. This stream is used by the Hudson’s Bay traders to reach the western side of Vancouver Island. Ascending it in canoes as far as practicable, about two days’ walking brings them to Nootka Sound.
At the mouth of the river, I saw the village of the Nimkish Indians, situated on a table-land overhanging the sea, and inaccessible save by ascending a vertical cliff of smooth rock—a feat nothing but a fly could manage, unaided; but the redskins have a ladder, made of cedar-bark rope, which they can haul up and lower at will. The ladder up, the place is impregnable. Safe themselves, they can quietly bowl over their enemies, and sink their canoes.
These Nimkish Indians speak of another tribe that they call Sau-kau-lutuck, who have never seen or traded with white people. Their story, as interpreted for me by Mr. Moffat, the chief trader at Fort Rupert—who told me he quite believed it to be true—was as follows:—
‘In crossing over to the west side of the island, on a war-path, the Nimkis discovered these Indians by accident, took several of them prisoners, whom they subsequently used as slaves, taking also skins, and what other property they had worth plundering. They are said to live on the edge of a lake, and subsist principally on deer and bear, and such fish as they can take in the lake. They own no canoes, neither do they know the use of firearms, their only weapons being the bow, arrow, and spear.’
The wind came on to blow as we left this interesting spot, and soon increased to a gale from the south-east, making the Otter rock most unpleasantly in the cradle of the deep. About 10 a.m. we ran into Beaver Harbour, our destination. This so-called harbour, being nothing more than an open roadstead, is disagreeably rough; a heavy sea rolls angrily in, dashing in foamy breakers on the rocky coast.
We anchor about a mile from shore, the captain deeming it unsafe to venture nearer. To announce our arrival, a gun is to be fired: this, I observed, was rather a service of danger to the sailor who had to touch it off, as it was just an equal chance whether the bulk of the charge came through the barrel or the touch-hole; the latter having become so capacious from rust and long usage, as to necessitate the employment of an enormously long wand, with a piece of lighted slow-match tied to the end of it. All hands having cleared away, and carefully concealed themselves, the wand slowly appears from a secure hiding-place, and the wheezy bang proclaims ‘all’s safe.’
The report was still echoing through the distant hills, when countless tiny specks were discernible, dancing over the waves like birds. On they came, a perfect shoal of them, nearer and nearer, all evidently bound for the ship. I could make out clearly now, that these specks were canoes filled with Indians. By this time our boat was lowered; how I got into it, I never clearly remember: I have a dim recollection of descending a rope with great rapidity, and finding myself sprawling in the bottom, and being dragged up by the captain, much after the fashion adopted by clowns in a pantomime to reinstate the prostrate pantaloon upon his legs. At any rate I was safe, and the boat, propelled by four sturdy rowers, neared the shore.
On looking round, I observed the canoes had all turned towards us, and we were soon surrounded by the most extraordinary fleet I had ever beheld. The canoes were of all sizes, varying from those used for war purposes, holding thirty men, to the cockleshell paddled by a squaw. With the exception of a bit of skin, or an old blanket tied round the waist, the savages were all perfectly nude; their long black hair hung in tangled elf-locks down their backs, their faces and bodies painted in most fantastic patterns, with red and white. Keeping steadily along with us, they continually relieved their feelings by giving utterance to the most wild and fiendish yells that ever came from human throats.