LIFE AT VANCOUVER. 261 



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 ■ hall,' 

 and its convivialities. 



