Some Personal Recollections of Victoria. 317 



territory in consequence of the Washington Treaty (1846), was 

 selected by the Company as their future headquarters on the 

 Pacific Coast. It was nothing more than a remote little 

 trading post, where life passed in monotonous regularity, and 

 newspapers a year old brought the latest news. To the 

 utter surprise, and at first disgust, of the staid old factor 

 and officers, who were the sole white inhabitants, came the 

 first rush of the Californian miners. Many a time have I 

 listened to the story of this unwelcome invasion from the 

 mouth of the two men, Roderick Finlayson and Dr. Tolmie, 

 who as chief factor and doctor of the Hudson's Bay establish- 

 ment, had been two of the principal actors in those scenes. 

 Prior to the rush of the fifties, gold dust or nuggets were as 

 unknown as was any coin or banknote, for the Indian trade 

 was, of course, the only trade, and was carried on in kind. As 

 there was nothing to buy in the country, and nobody to sell 

 goods to except natives, the salaries of the clerks and factor 

 accumulated in the coffers of the company's head office in distant 

 London town or in the Montreal office. 



The following incident, told me by Finlayson, the founder of 

 Victoria, for it was he who ordered the first log to be " squared " 

 that went into the walls of Fort Camosun, on June i, 1843, will show 

 how entirely unknown gold then was among the fur traders. 

 When Finlayson, about six years after founding the post, was about 

 to marry, the visit of a priest to the settlement was to be taken 

 advantage of to bind the sacred knot with a daughter of the soil. 

 For this purpose a wedding ring was needed. " It was a case of 

 steal, borrow, or buy a ring," as the venerable old gentleman 

 with a kindly smile on his face expressed himself. " But that 

 was easier said than done, for in those days that conventional 

 symbol was, in our part of the world, an unobtainable attribute 

 of civilisation, and to wait for eighteen months or two years 

 till the annual ship could take home the order and bring out the 

 precious article was not to be thought of. Money there was none 

 in the place, for the Indian trade was exclusively carried on in 



