WE LEAVE KAMLOOrS. 337 



A fearful mortality has prevailed amongst tliem 

 since the advent of the whites, 300 having died in 

 the neighbourhood of Kamloops alone from small- 

 pox the previous' year. Their curious custom of 

 leaving their dead unburied, laid out in the open 

 air, with all their property around them, we 

 observed on our journey to Kamloops, when, as 

 the reader may remember, we discovered many 

 victims to the ravages of the pestilence. Other 

 diseases have been almost equally fatal, and before 

 many years, the once numerous natives of this 

 country, although apparently easily susceptible of a 

 certain civilisation, will have diminished to a very 

 small company. 



On the 8th of September we left Kamloops with 

 Mr. McKay, and accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. 

 Assiniboine, the boy, and another Indian. We had 

 determined to take our friends down to Victoria, 

 for, although The Assiniboine had once visited the 

 Red River Settlement, the woman and boy had never 

 seen anything more like a town than a Hudson's 

 Bay Post. We crossed the Thompson at the foot 

 of Kamloops Lake, which is about twelve miles 

 long and not more than half a mile in breadth, and 

 surrounded by fine rocky hills; then, leaving the 

 river, we kept on to the valley of the Bonaparte, 

 where we struck the road from Cariboo to Yale, 

 as yet only partially completed. The Assiniboine 

 and his wife were both greatly astonished at the 

 Queen's highway, but the boy became quite excited, 

 exclaiming, whenever any person appeared in sight, 



w 



