CEDAR BOTTOMS. 173 



is called a ' Cedar Bottom ' : and in order to properly appreciate 

 these forest scenes in all their perfection, commend me to a 

 ' Cedar Bottom. ' The one I allude to, is supposed to have 

 been originally caused by a beaver dam. Hemlock, cedar, 

 and Douglas pine were there, running up to such a height 

 that it almost made one giddy to look up : moss 4 or 5 feet 

 long hung from, and intertwined itself round the branches, and 

 the ground must have been covered yards deep with trees of 

 all descriptions, rotting with age, lying on the ground in every 

 possible position. The whole scene was as perfect a picture 

 of untouched Natural beauty as could well be imagined : and 

 no description can do justice to it. The skunk lily, and many 

 varieties of ferns, tended to show the dampness of the spot, 

 and also to make me realize how lovely a fernery can be 

 without the aid of art." * 



We might go on almost " ad infinitum " adding 

 paragraph after paragraph to a similar effect, culled from 

 the works of various authors; for many books have 

 been written about it. More than 35 years ago we 

 ourselves traversed these forests on foot in company 

 with Indians. We have hunted through them, and 

 fished in their streams and inlets, before the white 

 man had made any settlement in them; and encamped 

 beneath their shadows before the silence of these 

 grand old woods had been broken by the lumberer's 

 axe, or their natural beauty defaced by the work of 

 destruction which has since been commenced in them : 

 a destruction which it is grievous to us to hear of. 

 At that time, New Westminster, the capital of British 

 Columbia, was itself a mere collection of a few log houses, 

 planted in a gap cut in the forest upon the banks of 

 the Frazer River, and dark and lofty walls of pine 



* The New Far West and the Old Far East, by W. Henry Barneby, 

 1889, pp. 64 to 66. 



