him, with his long, shaggy, black hair hanging all round his cheeks and on to his shoulders, he looked absolutely wild beast-like. Things had, however, been prospering with him since we had last met. He had started a new suit of clothes, of a European cut, though he could not yet accommodate his feet to any description of shoes or his head to a hat. He had also increased his household goods by a large number of blankets and a young wife, of whom his old one was very jealous, and on the score of that bone of contention led the old hunter a sad time of it. In fact, I suspect he was rather glad to be out of the way, though he growled terribly at having to do the work of two men, another famous hunter, who answered to the name of "Tom," having disappointed us. Tom's tum-tum, or general inclination, was "sick," we were informed, and he didn't intend stirring. An Indian used to declare that the "white men were very onsarten," the white man returns the compliment. You never know that you have them until you see them trotting along before you, and even then you needn't be at all certain that before to-morrow comes your henchman may not be on the back trail. True enough, "they are the most onsartenest varmints in all creation," as quoth Jim Baker, trapper and Indian trader. The day was pretty well gone before we got Quasscon on the trail, and we just went far enough to get him clear of his village and of his tribal visitors, who soon smell out a white man's encampment, and calculate the "theory of probabilities" in reference to a supper, with a celerity and certainty that Mr. Joule knows nothing of in reference to higher abstractions. Millmen and runaway sailors had been in the habit of crossing here, so that the trail was well marked, and lay through an openly-wooded, ferny country. Merrily we sang as we marched through the woods, lightly loaded, and with light hearts-for we were 'coming home"-albeit most of our homes lay many a thousand miles on the other side of the world, yet we all, if we dared to confess it, felt a sort of regret at leaving our forest life, even though it was to taste, for the time being, the pleasures of Victorian civilisation— that winter Walhalla of the explorer, reserved for honest men who do their work while yet the summer sun is overhead. The pine marten would run up the trees before us, the grouse would "drum" amongst the fern, while the "partridge" would sit stupidly on the branches of trees -like its Canadian congener-and we popped them over with our revolvers in passing. Here is the great elk hunting-ground of the Opichesahts. Here in times past I have shared in great wawins, or deer-hunts, compared with which the skald-boasted hunts of Scandinavia were only murderous battues. I will, however, let my friend Sproat tell of them, as he has so well done in another place. There was no great hurry; we were our own masters for once in a way. We had plenty of food, and the deer peeped at us through the bush, almost inviting us to shoot them; but we had full stomachs, and we were-supremely happy. We were going home. Soon we climb a little ridge of mountain, and then down a steep hill, and a beautiful lake lies at our feet, with a strange white cliff ahead on its shores-a landmark which must strike every traveller. Horne's Lake, it is called by the geographer; "Enoksasent," the Indians from Opichesah, who occasionally hunt thus far, call it. Horne was a trader of the Hudson's Bay Company, who, in earlier times, was in the habit of periodically passing over here to trade beaverskins from the Indians at the head of the Alberni Canal. But in still earlier times there had been other traders who had ventured across here; and as the sun is getting low we encamp by the border

of the lake, and old Quassoon tells us the weird tale of that old trader :— "He was a Comoucs Indian, who brought over blankets and paint and all sorts of things on his back-he carried great loads, did that man-and then went back laden with beaver and marten and mink, and sometimes a sea-otter, for no traders visited us then; they didn't like to come so far up from the sea. He did this for several years, until he got so friendly that he took a Seshaht wife. Now once on a time he came over and went back with a big load of furs, and just as he went out of sight, he and his two slaves, a trader came and offered great prices for skins, but we had none to give him; the Comouc had traded them all. Now some of the young men started after this poor Comouc, and overtook him and his slaves asleep at the Qualicom River (just where we shall come out), and killed him and one of his companions, and took the furs back again and sold them to the white trader. But one of the slaves escaped, and brought the news to the Comoucs and Nuchultaws and Nanaimos, who ever since have been our enemies. Once they came over and destroyed one of our villages (you have seen the remains of it on one of the prairies on the river). A few escaped to an island in the lake, but the Comoucs found canoes, and came over and destroyed all. At that time we were a good tribe; now you know we have only seventeen men. Since then I have been afraid to go over to the Nuchultaw country. Once when out hunting I saw the sea and went back, but in general I do not come further than the lake (awuk)." Old Quassoon tells this story in such a disjointed, hesitating way, sometimes rather contradicting himself, that we are strongly of the opinion that the old fellow had, in his younger days, a slight share in the murder of the Comoucs fur-trader.

There had been other visitors at the lake beside us. Preserved meat-tins, with the broad arrow on them, are scattered about, and by other signs we recognised the visit of Captain Richards (now the hydrographer of the Admiralty), then surveying the Alberni Canal. The lake must be high in the winter, and the banks were so rugged and encumbered with fallen timber that we feared to die of old age before we could reach Qualicom by such a road. So we took to the water, and for five or six miles we travelled along the borders, often up to the knees, more frequently only over the ankles, surrounded by dense forests now shedding their seeds. The whole water was covered with the seeds of the Douglas fir (Abies Douglasii), which were washed up on the shore in little banks, which would have been a fortune to the seedcollector had they been sound, but they were nearly all empty. More curious still were the immense quantities of fresh-water shells washed up perhaps by the gales which in the winter season must agitate the lake; or, possibly, they were dead shells which had floated to the surface. They were almost all of them those of the fresh-water snail, so widely distributed over the world (Limnæa stagnalis, L.), though there were a few specimens of a rarer species-the L. lepida, Gld. The lake is shaped somewhat like a not over-crooked letter S, and flows out about two miles from the eastern end of the Qualicom River, down the banks of which three of our party travelled, while, with the rest of the party, I took the country back from the river. Here the land was fair and open, but the soil merely gravel, as was abundantly shown by the great growth of salal (Gaultheria shallon), a scrubby creeping shrub, which often covers great tracts of country, but always affects poor soil. We had noticed that in the interior the country was much clearer of undergrowth than on the coast. Here, for the first time in Vancouver Island, I found the fragrant cinnamon laurel bush (Ceanothus velutinus), the leaves of which are covered with a sticky gum which exhales a delightful odour, which, however, is sickening to some people

of delicate constitution, and I have known men in riding through thickets of it so faint as scarcely to be able to sit on their horses. Its blossoms consist of large bunches of beautiful white flowers, and altogether, in the summer season, it forms one of the most beautiful shrubs imaginable. Here was also the bright yellow-barked arbutus (Menziesii), the Californian madróna, of which Bret Harte sings so pleasantly, found commonly, though never in groves, all over the country, while the tall Douglas fir and the western hemlock formed the bulk of the forest. On this gravelly slope we found no water, and were glad to camp at dusk by a pool of rain-water which had gathered under the upturned roots of trees. We had been told at Alberni that the trail was "beautiful-like a turnpike, sir;" and though no way particular to a shade in our route, yet next morning we began to entertain grave suspicions that the "turnpike" would prove a

figure of speech. For nearly two miles our way lay over nothing but drifts of fallen timber, along which we "cooned it," like squirrels, never during the whole distance touching mother earth. Woe betide the man who had boots; and though the labour tired the best of us, yet the unfortunate booted met most mishaps-indeed, every now and then their heels were in the air, and I fear it must be acknowledged that curses, both loud and deep, were vented by the exasperated back-woodsmen on the "beautiful" Qualicom trail! Half a mile an hour was excellent travelling on such a track. Then again came a good country, stretching down to the Straits of Georgia, now in sight, with Sangster Island looming in the distance. Here our friend Quassoon, considering that discretion was the better part of valour, would have turned back, but we wheedled him into going a little way further, telling him (as we really thought) there would be no Nuchultaws here, as it was out of their track. The truth was, none of us were very anxious about shouldering the load which he was carrying. We were now about half a mile from the sea, when shouting was heard in the wood, to which we cheerily replied, thinking

that it was our river party, who had reached the coast before us. We were soon undeceived, for on crossing the old Comoucs trail (which here leads along the coast, though now almost choked up with bush) we were astonished, and our worthy guide horrified, to find it proceed from a party of Nuchultaws-the ruthless marauding chivalry of the North! They professed all sorts of regard and friendship for us, but our men were warned to be on their guard against theft. As for Quassoon, poor man, he was speechless with surprise and dread at falling, as he thought, into the hands of his hereditary enemies. On reaching the Qualicom River, we found our hunter, Toma, who had arrived some hours before. He was in mortal dread of the Indians, old hunter

and Indian as he was.

Half-breeds and Indians are always more timorous in this respect than white men, probably from their knowing the savage character better. He had lost his companions the night previous, as might have been expected, for though I repeatedly warned the men about this, yet such was the competition to be first on the march, that unless tied together it would be almost impossible to prevent them losing each other.

Forced to halt on the beach until our party was complete, we were soon surrounded by a party of Indians, begging and stealing, and openly offering their female slaves, and even their wives and daughters, for the vilest of purposes. We treated these rascals firmly but cautiously, and finding that they had some large canoes at their camp, half a mile up the river, I went along with one of them to make a bargain to take us to Nanaimo, as we knew that in two days the steamer for Victoria sailed. Travelling through the woods on this errand, we passed the

burnt shanty of a notorious Indian whisky-seller, who for some years had done a lucrative trade with the Indians, in spite of the law to the contrary, until, falling under the ban of the powers that be, he disappeared. The encampment of the Nuchultaws was newly built under some large-leaved maple-trees (Acer macrophyllum), in as pretty a situation as ever I saw for an Indian village, and the usual filth not having yet had time to accumulate in the vicinity, a visit to it was not so disagreeable a duty as it is usually. This river, and one about two miles south of it, belonged to the Qualicoms or Quallehums, but that tribe being now almost extinct, the Comoucs took possession of the latter and the Nuchultaws of the former for salmon-fishing purposes; and apparently they had just arrived from their permanent village in Discovery Passage. I found the old chief, Moquilla, to whom the canoes belonged, nursing his daughter, of whom more anon. His wife was on the eve of accouchement, and for her he had a little lodge roughly thrown together, placed at some distance from the regular encampment. This "separation of the women" 'prevails among the American aborigines from Vancouver Island to Davis Strait, and has been pointed to as showing their Eastern origin, and even their connection with "the lost ten tribes of Israel "-a now pretty well exploded idea. I bargained for his big canoe and the services of his son-in-law and his pretty wife, the young lady aforesaid (who had now recovered wonderfully and was smoking a short clay pipe in a corner), to take us to Nanaimo. For the benefit of those simple people who imagine that Indians work for a pipeful of paint and a brass button, I may mention that after considerable haggling, I was finally forced to agree to let them have $22, or something like £4 8s., for this service, a sum considered tolerably moderate, and given after a couple of summers' experience of Indian pay. This girl was one of the comeliest Indian girls I ever saw, and soon set all the susceptible hearts of the rough explorers in a flame; and though we afterwards learned that she was not so good as good-looking, not one, to their credit be it said, like right honourable cavaliers as they were, would allow one word of "scandal to be spoken about Queen Elizabeth!"

Floating down the river-where there were two camps-we found our two absent companions arrived, and not at all in love with the banks of the Qualicom, which they pronounced, emphatically," a hard road to travel." There was also a Comoucs white man, who had married a Nuchultaw squaw, waiting for some companions from Nanaimo. Moquilla asked me many questions about Quassoon, whether he was a chief, and so on, all of which I answered very much to Quassoon's glory. He also asked in his own way to be introduced to him, a ceremony gone through after this manner-" Quassoon, kumtux okok hyas tyhee Nuchultaw, Moquilla; Moquilla, kumtux Quassoon hyas tyhee Opichesaht pe nika tillicum klosh" (Quassoon, know the great chief of Nuchultaws, Moquilla; Moquilla, know Quassoon the very great chief of the Opichesahts and my good friend). How disagreeably cordial were the old fellows, though poor Quassoon stood very sheepish and said but little, for he had little to say, and was a country bumpkin before Moquilla-a man from cities, who had seen Fort Rupert and Nanaimo-ay, had even been at Victoria, and more than once drunk on bad whisky! He must stay with him a few days, for all trouble between their tribes was now at an end. So quoth Moquilla; but Quassoon took an early opportunity of whispering me, "Ah! his tongue does not speak straight. No sooner are you gone than he will follow me and sell me for a slave to the Hydahs.* I will bring

* Queen Charlotte Islanders.