340 A New Charr from British Columbia. 



them manned by two nearly nude savages, the one paddling 

 is seated in the stern, the other, standing in the bow, is armed 

 with a spear seventy feet in length. These Indians are stur- 

 geon-spearing — sturgeon five hundred, and sometimes as 

 'much as seven hundred weight, are speared and landed with 

 these frail canoes, that the slightest inequality of balance 

 would upset in a moment. We land in the evening on the 

 " Sumass spit," a large sand-bank at the junction of the 

 Sumass and Fraser Rivers. Here we find a regular Indian 

 town, not very large as regards the number of its houses, but 

 each house contains from nine to twelve families. The houses 

 are built like sheds, with cedar planks, a small part of the 

 interior is apportioned to each family, who sit or lie on the 

 bare ground round the fire, every family has its own fire, 

 and the smoke from the whole of them finds its way out as 

 best it can. A stockade about twelve feet high, constructed 

 of small trees and stout poles, encircles the village; this 

 defence is pierced with small apertures, through which arrows 

 or bullets, if need be, can be fired at an enemy. About three 

 miles higher up the river lives another tribe, we shall not see 

 their village, because it is situated inside a small island, and, 

 thus craftily hidden from sight, any one going up or down 

 the river, would not know of its existence. The owners, the 

 Chilukweyuk Indians, are dire enemies of the Sumass tribe, 

 hence the latter, being the weaker, need a stockade to prevent 

 their foes from pouncing upon them unexpectedly. These 

 Indians live in a great measure upon white fish [Coregouus 

 quadrilateraUs) and salmon, fresh and sun-dried. 



We have fifty miles more to accomplish ere we reach Fort 

 Hope, our destination. The river above Sumass gets swifter 

 in its course, rapids are more numerous and difficult to ascend, 

 and what is most astounding, heaps of drift timber, each heap 

 containing many thousands of immense trees, are piled up at 

 nearly every bend, or wherever rocks, a point of land, or a 

 sand-bank, has offered any obstruction to their onward course. 

 These trees are washed down by the floods, which commence 

 in May, and are at their highest during June and July, at which 

 time the sun rapidly melts the snow from off the hills. If 

 one did not previously know that the river rises quite forty feet 

 during the summer freshets, it would be a puzzle to conceive 

 how such gigantic trees could be piled one upon top of another ; 

 as the canoe glides along beneath their shadow, it is precisely 

 like looking- up at a cliff composed of huge trees. Two living- 

 things only are to be seen on this chaos of wood ; one of 

 these, the dipper [ductus American Us) hunts busily on the 

 submerged stumps for aquatic insects and larva:, sometimes 

 quite under water, at others only half immersed ; whilst the 



