LIFE AT VANCOUVER. 26 1 



dustry, until the harvest waves on all these fields. And then 

 sickle and hoe glisten in tireless activity, to gather in the rich 

 reward of this toil — the food of seven hundred people at this 

 post, and of thousands more at the posts on the deserts in the 

 east and north. The saw-mill, too, is a scene of constant toil ; 

 thirty or forty Sandwich Islanders are felling the pines, and 

 dragging them to the mill ; sets of hands are playing two 

 gangs of saws by night and day ; three thousand feet of lum- 

 ber per day — 900,000 feet per annum — constantly being 

 shipped to foreign ports. The grist-mill is not idle ; it must 

 furnish bread-stuffs for the posts and the Russian market 

 in the northwest ; and its deep music is heard daily and 

 nightly, half the year. 



" But we will enter the fort. The blacksmith is repairing 

 ploughshares, harrow-teeth, chains, and mill-irons ; the tin- 

 man is making cups for the Indians, and camp-kettles, &c. ; 

 the wheelwright is making wagons, and the wood part of 

 plough sand harrows; the carpenter is repairing houses and 

 building new ones ; the cooper is making barrels, for pickling 

 salmon and packing furs ; the clerks are posting books and 

 preparing the annual returns to the board in London ; the 

 salesmen are receiving beaver, and dealing out goods. But, 

 hear the voices of those children from the school-house ! they 

 are the half-breed offspring of the gentlemen and servants of 

 the Company, educated at the Company's expense, prepara 

 tory to being apprenticed to trades in Canada ; they learn the 

 English language, writing, arithmetic, and geography. The 

 gardener, too, is singing out his honest satisfaction, as he sur- 

 veys from the north gate, ten acres of apple-trees, laden 

 with fruit, his bowers of grape-vines, his beds of vegetables, 

 and flowers. The bell rings for dinner ; we will see the c hall,' 

 and its convivialities. 



