348 THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE BY LAND. 



as any Yankee could desire. Gold may be obtained 

 in the street of Yale, and a couple of Indians were 

 working with a " rocker" opposite the Hotel when 

 we were there. 



The next morning we bade good-bye to our kind 

 friend, Mr. McKay, and embarked on the steamer 

 Reliance for New Westminster. The river expands 

 rapidly below Yale, flowing between low, richly- 

 wooded banks. On the way we passed Hope and 

 Langley, old stations of the Hudson's Bay Company. 

 The site of the former is the most beautiful in 

 British Columbia — a wooded level shut in by an 

 amphitheatre of lofty mountains — ^Yale upon a 

 grander scale. Before the discovery of the Cariboo 

 mines, it was a place of considerable importance, but 

 has now '* caved in," and become desolate. Soon 

 after dark, we saw the lights of New Westminster 

 before us, and in the course of half-an-hour were 

 comfortably established at the Colonial Hotel. 



The city of New Westminster, the capital of 

 British Columbia, stands in a commanding position, 

 on ground gradually rising from the river, which is 

 here three-quarters of a mile broad. The town has 

 been beautifully laid out by Col. Moody, E-.E., the 

 late Commissioner of Lands and Works, and several 

 streets of good wooden houses already exist. 



The great drawback to its situation is the dense 

 forest of timber of the largest size by which it is 

 shut in. The little clearing which has been already 

 done has been effected with great labour by the help 

 of the engineers quartered there for several years ; 



