CHAPTER X 



ON THE ISLAND OF VANCOUVER 



HAVING finished my business in the city of San 

 Francisco, I determined on a visit to the Island of 

 Vancouver. It was the month of September, when 

 deer were at their best, when salmon and sea-trout 

 were running up the streams and rivers of the west, 

 and when a hunting and fishing trip was obviously 

 opportune. Leaving the metropolis of the Pacific 

 coast, with its regular streets, its gigantic hotels, its 

 perfect cable- car system, and its temperate climate, 

 behind me, I went north one evening in a railway 

 sleeping-car, and some forty hours later found myself 

 under the British flag in the town of Victoria, British 

 Columbia. I had traversed en route some of the most 

 fertile valleys of Northern California, smiling with 

 their harvests of pears and peaches, hops and wheat ; 

 crawled round Mount Shasta ; crept backwards and 

 forwards along wooden trestle viaducts, that would 

 have horrified a British Board of Trade inspector, 

 over the Siskiyou Mountains ; traversed the State of 

 Washington ; crossed the majestic Columbia River ; 

 and steamed from Seattle over the international 

 boundary along Puget Sound to Victoria, on the 

 south end of the Island of Vancouver. 



