Of course, we gained great credit for the successful accomplishment of our voyage down the Frazer; but I consider that we were far eclipsed by the journey performed by Lord Milton and Dr Cheadle across the Rocky Mountains, by Jasper House and the Bête Jaune Cache down the Thompson and Kamloops. We had the pleasure of meeting at Victoria a very intelligent gentleman, who accompanied them from Edmonton; and from him we learned the particulars of their journey. The party consisted of himself, Lord Milton, Dr Cheadle, and an Indian hunter from the Assiniboine River, with his squaw and their son, a big strong boy. They had also several hones and a fair amount of provisions and stores.
“Ah, sir, it was very fortunate for those young men that they had me with them, or they would inevitably have perished. The countess would have had to mourn her son and his friend, the gallant Cheadle,” he observed, as he was introduced to us as the companion of those persevering travellers. “Yes, sir, I say it, fearless of contradiction, had it not been for my courage and perseverance they would never have accomplished the journey. I saw that, when I offered to accompany them; and if they did not know their true interest, I did. Why, that Assiniboine fellow would have murdered them to a certainty, but I kept him in awe by my eye—he was afraid of me, if he did not love me. Lord Milton is brave, but he wants that discretion and judgment which I possess; while Dr Cheadle is really a fine fellow, and would have made a capital backwoodsman. We had good horses; and as I am a judge of horse-flesh, I have a right to say so, and we got on very well till we began to cross the rivers. Some of the streams were fearfully rapid, and it was very evident that my companions were scarcely up to their work. I used, generally, to plunge in with my horse, and, leading the way, call them to follow. This they did, and I was always ready on the top of the banks to help them out. We had frequently to construct rafts, when I invariably set to work to cut down the trees and to carry them to the river’s brink. Sometimes, when I could not carry a log by myself, I had to call on one of them to help me; but I did so only in the last extremity. You see, Lord Milton was a delicately-nurtured young man, and I wished to save him as much as I could. I do not doubt that if he writes a book he will bear witness to the truth of my assertions. The Assiniboine was of a good deal of use, considering that he had only one hand, and his wife and boy were active too; but they could not possibly have got on without me. On one occasion, while I was asleep (or it would not have happened), the forest caught fire. I jumped up, and with a thick stick I always carried, so effectually attacked the flames that I put the fire out and saved the horses and our property.
“On another occasion, when all the rest of the party had gone out hunting, and, being disabled, I had remained in charge of the camp, I saw a huge bear approaching. I had no gun; but, sallying out with my stick, I put it to flight, and saved the camp from being plundered, which it would inevitably have been, of our most valuable property.
“Our first important raft adventure was in crossing the Canoe River, a tributary of the Columbia. A raft had been constructed. We embarked on it. The current was very strong. I warned my companions. They were deaf to my cautions. I saw that they were not up to navigating a raft. Suddenly, our raft was whirled round in a rapid current, which bore us to seeming destruction. A huge pine tree lay with its branches recumbent on the water. I shouted to my friends to hold on; but it was of no use. Dr Cheadle leaped on shore, followed by the Assiniboine and his boy. I sat firmly at my post; Lord Milton and Mrs Assiniboine hung on to the branch of the tree, like Absolom, only it was with their hands instead of the hair of their heads. To stop the raft was impossible; but to guide it towards the shore was practicable. I sat, therefore, calmly waiting an opportunity of steering my eccentric-moving bark towards a wished-for haven. This, with the assistance, I must own it, of the Assiniboine, I was enabled shortly to do. Lord Milton and Mrs Assiniboine were, meantime, very nearly carried away by the roaring flood. Dr Cheadle and I, at the risk of our lives, hastened to their assistance; and I must do the young nobleman the justice to say that he refused to be helped till we had got the woman out of her perilous position. I look upon that as true gallantry; and I told him that I should consider it a pleasing duty to narrate the circumstance whenever I gave an account of our adventures. However, Dr Cheadle, considering that he was in by far the most dangerous position, got him out at once, and, with the aid of my handkerchief, I helped out the dark-skinned lady.
“That was only one of the many fearful dangers we ran. As I before remarked, it was very much owing to my forethought that things were not worse. I used to rouse the young men up every morning, or I do not know how long they would have indulged in their downy slumbers; not that they were very downy, by-the-bye, considering that spruce-fir-tops formed the most luxurious bed we had for many a day. They were also improvident, and had a knack of leaving their things behind them, insomuch that, in spite of all I could do, we had only one small axe left with which to cut our way through a dense forest. We supplied ourselves with a second axe belonging to a dead Indian found in the woods. By-the-bye, my friends were very much puzzled to find that the said dead man had no head, and that it could not have been taken by a human being, as he would have carried off the poor man’s property; or by a wild beast, as it would have upset the body, which was found in a sitting position. It was close to our camp; and the fact was, that I had, not five minutes before, found the body, and lifted the head, which had fallen to the ground, with the end of a stick, and hid it in a bush hard by. Having crossed the mountains and found that we could not push overland to Cariboo, we turned our faces northward, to proceed down the Thompson River to Kamloops.
“None of our party were skilful boatmen. I do not myself profess to have any extensive knowledge of navigation; so my young friends would not venture to go down the Frazer in canoes, which, in my opinion, they might have done with ease. They chose to stick to terra-firma, and, in consequence, they very nearly stuck fast. First, they lost one of their horses, laden with numerous valuables—nearly all their tobacco and tea and sugar; and the other poor beasts were so completely knocked up that it was difficult to drive them. Now they went one way, then another; now they tumbled down precipices or got jammed between trunks of trees; then they fell into the river and began swimming away, and the Assiniboine had to plunge in and fish them out. This continued week after week. We were like babes in the wood, lost in that fearful forest, cutting our way through it; often making good three or four miles in the day, our provisions running shorter and shorter, till we were reduced to live one day on a skunk, a creature I thought no human being could have eaten. I own that I could not. Sometimes precipices faced us, and sometimes steep hills, which it took us hours to get round or climb up. At last we had to kill a horse, my little pet Blackie, which, owing to my careful and judicious driving, was in better condition than any other of the lot. The young men had expended nearly all their powder; and, at the best of times, rarely killed more than a few birds in the course of the day. We found horse-flesh tolerably palatable; but, by the time we had begun to eat Blackie, we were not very particular. However, he was only the first horse we ate—we had to kill another before long—and it seemed probable that we should have to eat up our whole stud before we could reach Kamloops. Several times we discussed the question as to whether we should kill all our horses and tramp through on foot, or build rafts and descend the river. I urged my young friends to persevere. They took my advice, with happy results, for, in a short time, we entered an open country, and met some natives, not handsome, but kind-hearted people. They knew of Kamloops; they could guide us there; and did so. We were hospitably received.
“Our troubles were over; but I must say that I hope I may never spend another eleven weeks such as we went through since we started on our journey over the mountains. I entertained a different opinion of the Assiniboine to that held by my companions, and I believe that had it not been that I kept my eye on the man he would quietly have murdered us all; but he was afraid of me—that is the fact. He behaved bravely on one occasion, certainly, when he plunged into a river and dragged out our horse, Bucephalus, that, with another, Gisquakarn, had fallen in. The latter was swept away with our stock of tea and tobacco, salt and clothes, and several important documents belonging to me. Had my friends taken my advice, they would have divided these articles among the various animals. Possibly they will do so another time. Lord Milton and Dr Cheadle talked of giving an account of their adventures to the world. If they do, unless their memories altogether fail them, they will corroborate all I have said.”
The fine island of which Victoria is the rising capital, with a population of some seven or eight thousand inhabitants, came into possession by the British Oregon treaty, which determined the boundary between British North America and the United States. Vancouver Island is by far the longest on the west coast of America; and the coast-line is broken into fine natural harbours, which will afford protection to ships in all weathers. Coal of excellent quality is found at Nanaimo, and copper and iron ores: the latter, found nowhere else on the North Pacific coast, are plentiful. Fish of the most valuable kinds, including the viviparous species, are abundant; as are also the elk, deer, grouse, snipe, etc, by way of game; and for fur-bearing creatures, the beaver, the racoon, and land-otter, are the chief wild animals. Indeed, considering all its natural advantages, and its vicinity to the gold-fields of British Columbia, Vancouver Island must soon take a prominent place among the colonies of Great Britain.
Queen Charlotte Sound, which separates Vancouver Island from the mainland, is scarcely ten miles wide in some places, and the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which waters its shores as well as those of the territory of Washington in the United States, is not more than eighteen miles wide. The island itself is 275 miles long, of an average breadth of 75 miles, containing an area of 16,000 square miles, with a population of 20,000, of which above one-half are Red Indians.