ESQUIMAU! FORTY YEARS AGO. 443 



(so this report assures us) are taken at Esquimalt trailing 

 with the spoon." * 



Esquimalt, we need hardly remind our readers is the 

 naval port of Vancouver Island, and the head-quarters 

 of the British squadron in the Pacific. The scenery 

 all around it is magnificent in the extreme, and in our 

 day a trail led through the forest to Victoria, a 

 distance of some four miles to the northward, and an 

 immense encampment of Indians was stationed to the 

 southward of the harbour of Victoria. In those days 

 Victoria itself was but a small place, and the whites 

 were but a handful in the midst of an overwhelming 

 Indian population. So that it was only the presence 

 of the navy that enabled us to live at all, for the 

 Indians had a great and wholesome dread of the white 

 man's " war canoes." 



Splendid sport can also be had along the coasts of 

 Norway, especially towards the northern portion of it. 

 Here, even over the sides of passenger steamers 

 anchoring during the summer trips, in the fjords, at 

 some of the many stopping places, very fine cod-fishing 

 can be had. Passengers proceeding as far as the 

 North Cape should therefore never fail to take with 

 them a good cod line, wound upon a frame, together 

 with a few hooks and some large spoons fitted with 

 strong triangular hooks. 



Cod-fish abound upon the Norwegian coasts in shoals 

 of almost inconceivable magnitude, so that in places, 

 at certain seasons, the whole floor of the sea is literally 

 paved with them. 



In fact no inconsiderable portion of the revenue of 

 Norway is the produce of these great fisheries, one of 



* See letter in The Field of December 7, 1889. 



