296 TRAVELS IN THE EIGHTIES. 



On the opposite shore, as I mentioned before, 

 could just be distinguished signs of the puny ravage 

 which the three inhabitants of the logging camp, the 

 only other human beings in the neighbourhood, had 

 made among the timber, in the shape of a faint small 

 yellow speck upon the water's edge, which denoted a 

 great raft destined to be towed at a painfully slow 

 speed, many a league down the Straits of Georgia ; 

 while I even fancied I could distinguish smoke rising 

 among the trees, from the place where the little log- 

 hut might have been situated. 



For lack of anything else to think about I con- 

 sidered the resources which the occupants of a canoe 

 would possess, if they happened to be wrecked on 

 these shores, as well might happen. The most useful 

 implement they could have would be an axe. If an 

 Indian were of the party, the whites would place their 

 reliance upon his savage instinct rather than on their 

 own reasoning powers ; for want of any other foothold 

 they would be compelled to follow the water's edge, 

 until in places, even at low tide, this pathway too dis- 

 appeared, where the cliffs descended sheer for many 

 fathoms below the surface ; and how they would be 

 forced to clamber round by means of bushes, in immi- 

 nent peril of falling, and ignorant whether round the 

 next point even this method of advance might not 

 be impossible, or else to take to the water where ob- 

 stacles were only passable by swimming with the 

 help of a log, while their fare would be limited to 

 mussels and salmon-berries. 



