CANDLE-FISH. 89 



upon its habits, its coming and going, and have 

 noted how it is caught and cured. 



Picture my home an Indian village, on the 

 north shore of British Columbia. The village is 

 prettily situated on a rocky point of land, chosen, 

 as all Indian villages are, with an eye to preven- 

 tion of surprise from concealed foes. Rearward 

 it is guarded by a steep hill, and it commands 

 from the front the entrance to one of those long 

 canals, which, as I have previously stated, resemble 

 the fiords of Norway, often running thirty or forty 

 miles inland. 



The dwellings consist of ten or fifteen rude 

 sheds, about twenty yards long and twelve wide, 

 built of rough cedar-planks ; the roof a single 

 slant covered with poles and rushes. Six or 

 eight families live in each shed. Every family 

 has its own fire on the ground, and the smoke, 

 that must find its way out as best it can through 

 cracks and holes (chimneys being objected to), 

 hangs in a dense upper cloud, so that a man 

 can only keep his head out of it by squatting on 

 the ground : to stand up is to run a risk of suffo- 

 cation. The children of all ages, in droves, naked 



and filthv, live under the smoke; as well as 



./ * 



squaws, who squat round the smouldering logs; in- 

 numerable dogs, like starving wolves, prick-eared, 



