202 Notes on Vancouver and its Neighbourhood. 
within the limit of his capacities. And this capacity for taking up 
new industries is all the more to his credit when we consider how 
lately British Columbia has been settled, and how very recently 
the Indian of the coast has come in contact with the white man. 
Alas! notwithstanding all possible care on the part of both the 
central and local governments of Canada; though a large police 
force is kept up to prevent any sale of intoxicating liquors to the 
Indians ; though lands on the best sites for their fish-drying and 
potato grounds are scrupulously reserved for them; though the 
Roman Catholic priesthood work amongst them with their usual 
devotion and success, yet their death-knell has sounded, and they 
are rapidly disappearing like their untameable brethren of the 
North West. 
Some weeks ago a great festival of the Catholic Church was 
celebrated at a pretty white village across Burrard Inlet, which goes 
by the name of the Indian Mission. Hither Indians flocked for 
many miles round, coming down the Frazer River in their canoes, 
and many hundreds at length crowded the white tents they had 
set up near the little village. Here they feasted and played on 
their uncouth instruments, and here too they crowded at all hours 
into their little church, and assisted at those picturesque 
ceremonies with which their church has attracted the poor and 
lowly in all ages. The close of this week of festival was marked 
by a grand procession of seventy canoes, each bearing its little 
altar, gaily decorated with flowers and bright with lanterns, so that 
across the Inlet a semi-circle of fire appeared to be slowly advancing. 
They sang, too, what were intended to be Catholic hymns, but 
which, coming from throats unaccustomed to Western music, had 
an extraordinary weird and strange effect. The next day white 
tents and canoes were no longer to be seen, and the Indians -had 
gone back to their peaceful labours. 
Before leaving England I parted with a work, Bentham’s 
British Flora, which I now know would have been invaluable here. I 
expected, after traversing these thousands of miles of land and 
sea, with three mountain ranges even between me and Eastern 
Canada, that I should find a totally new flora. I expected that 
species from Eastern Asia would be found here, but then I know 
nothing about what does grow in Eastern Asia except camelias 
and tea. What was my astonishment to find our own familiar 
flowers at every turn! Wherever the surroundings permit, that 
mixture of many plants which makes our English turf is found, 
utterly undistinguishable to my eye from the grass of any of our 
green lanes, even to the small white clover. But those lovely 
ornaments of our grass, beloved of poets and hated of gardeners, 
are missing: there are no buttercups and no daisies. Wild 
chrysanthemums (ox-eyed daisy) and wild camomile abound, and 
