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IF THE BOOK IS UNDER COPYRIGHT IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT DOWNLOAD OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE. _Title:_ Ballads of the Pacific Northwest _Date of first publication:_ 1946 _Author:_ Robert Allison Hood (1880-1958) _Illustrator:_ John Innes (1863-1941) _Date first posted:_ January 20, 2026 _Date last updated:_ January 20, 2026 Faded Page eBook #20260120 This eBook was produced by: Al Haines, Pat McCoy & the online Distributed Proofreaders Canada team at https://www.pgdpcanada.net This file was produced from images generously made available by Internet Archive. [Cover Illustration] BOOKS BY ROBERT ALLISON HOOD BY SHORE AND TRAIL IN STANLEY PARK THE CHIVALRY OF KEITH LEICESTER THE QUEST OF ALISTAIR THE CASE OF KINNEAR [Illustration: _From the painting by John Innes, by courtesy of David Spencer Limited_] “Captain Vancouver took us three, ‘Puggie’ Pigot, McKenzie and me. We had the DISCOVERY’S yawl. A jolly boat party it was and all were eating hearty and feeling fit.” _ROBERT ALLISON HOOD_ BALLADS OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST _Its Discovery and Settlement_ [Illustration: 1829] _THE RYERSON PRESS_ TORONTO HALIFAX VANCOUVER COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1946 BY ROBERT ALLISON HOOD PUBLISHED OCTOBER, 1946 REPRINTED, 1947 PRINTED IN CANADA Wrigley Printing Co. Ltd., 1112 Seymour St., Vancouver, B.C. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The author here wishes to make grateful acknowledgments to all those who have helped him with information, criticism and advice in preparation of this work, and more especially to the following: The late Mr. Lionel Haweis and the late Judge F. W. Howay; to Mrs. A. Chilton and Dr. W. Kaye Lamb for helpful comment after reading the proofs; to Dr. Walter N. Sage; to Dr. Ira Dilworth; to Mr. D. A. Chalmers; to Mr. Noel Robinson; to Mr. Eric F. Gaskell; to Miss Kathleen Shackleton and Miss Yvonne H. Stevenson; to Dr. J. B. Tyrrell; to Mr. E. S. Robinson and the Vancouver Public Library for the use of their special collection of books on the history of the Pacific Northwest; to Mr. Willard E. Ireland and the Provincial Archives of British Columbia for valuable assistance and the use of photographs and source material; to Mr. Thomas Binfords, Portland, Oregon; to Mr. David C. Duniway, Oregon State Archivist; to The Oregon Historical Society and Mr. Lancaster Pollard and Mr. Howard M. Corning of Portland, Oregon; to Mr. W. H. Cleland and Mr. A. E. Fisher of Invermere for the use of a photograph of the David Thompson Memorial Fort. Also to the Hudson’s Bay Company for the use of the picture of “Dr. McLoughlin Welcoming the Settlers”; to David Spencer Limited for the use of the plates of the frontispiece, “Vancouver Exploring Burrard Inlet, 1792”; to The Native Sons of British Columbia for the use of certain of the pictures by John Innes hanging in the library of the University of British Columbia; to the Canadian Pacific Railway Company for the plates of “Sir George Simpson”, “The Indian Boy (hunter)”, and the scene with the pack train; to the Northern Pacific Railway for the use of a number of the decorative plates; to the Secretary of State of the United States of America for permission to use the picture representing the Lewis and Clark party from the murals in the State Capitol at Salem, Oregon; and to Mr. H. E. White for the interest and skill exhibited in his drawings and decorative pieces. Books and articles that have been especially helpful to me in addition to standard histories dealing with the period are “Vancouver’s Discovery of Puget Sound” by Edmond S. Meany, “Mackenzie and His Voyageurs” by Arthur P. Woollacott, “Vancouver, A Life” by George Godwin, “The Search For The Western Sea” by Lawrence J. Burpee, “Cariboo Cameron” by Charles Clowes (Maclean’s Magazine) and “The Camels in British Columbia” by W. T. Hayhurst (Okanagan Historical Society). LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS CAPTAIN VANCOUVER EXPLORES BURRARD INLET _Frontispiece_ CAPTAIN VANCOUVER MEETS SPANIARDS OFF POINT GREY 20 SAT-SAT-SOK-SIS, HIS SON, THE PRINCE 59 SIR GEORGE SIMPSON 85 ALEXANDER MACKENZIE RECORDS HIS GREAT ACHIEVEMENT 93 SIMON FRASER FOLLOWING THE GREAT RIVER TO THE SEA 100 HUNTING WAS GOOD 121 SACAJAWEA 125 MERIWETHER LEWIS AND WILLIAM CLARK WITH PARTY AT CELILO FALLS ON THEIR WAY TO THE PACIFIC, 1805 132 DOCTOR MCLOUGHLIN WELCOMING THE SETTLERS 137 FORT VANCOUVER 150 THE PACKTRAIN 157 _Contents_ _Foreword_ ix _The Sailor_ HEARTS OF TRIPLE BRASS 3 CAPTAIN GEORGE VANCOUVER 26 _The Indian_ THE WHITE SLAVES OF MAQUINNA 38 THE NARRATIVE OF JOHN R. JEWITT 83 _The Voyageur_ MACKENZIE FROM CANADA BY LAND 86 ALEXANDER MACKENZIE 95 _The Explorer_ THE GREAT RIVER OF THE WEST: 97 Koo-koo-sint 99 David Thompson 108 An Indian Pilgrimage 110 The Mission to St. Louis 118 Sacajawea 120 The Lewis and Clark Expedition 131 Doctor John McLoughlin 132 _The Miner_ CARIBOO DAYS: 152 The Rape of the Boot 152 Walter Moberly 155 Cariboo Cameron’s Pledge 157 Moriturus 165 The Camels on the Cariboo Road 168 _Afterword_ 170 Foreword _Pictures in verse I here would bring you_ _from a romantic period long ago,_ _when science had not yet won the wondrous triumphs_ _that now have crowned her. Then the seas_ _were still perilous; and the lone mariner_ _left his home port aboard his tiny vessel,_ _forsaking kin and country_ _for months, perhaps for years,_ _the ship his little world_ _afloat in a watery wilderness of waves._ _Steam power and petrol had not yet been harnessed._ _There were no wires along the ocean floor_ _to carry messages from shore to shore;_ _nor was the air vocal to him with melody_ _nor charged with the news of current happenings_ _from day to day. Sport of the winds_ _he sped before them, his ship a fragile toy_ _was tossed on the turbulent wave or gently rocked_ _on the slow swells or it might lie_ _becalmed and motionless with even keel_ _’neath tropic suns that scorched the deck_ _or Arctic frosts that cased the masts with ice_ _while weevily food and scurvy vexed his body._ _Travel upon land had hardships too._ _Then were no aeroplanes to scale the sky_ _disclosing the earth beneath as on a scroll._ _The explorer with indomitable courage_ _set out into the unknown_ _to traverse lofty mountains and to trace_ _in frail canoe the course of mighty rivers,_ _at times shooting their rapids or portaging_ _with arduous toil through forests nigh impenetrable._ _And nature’s fastnesses were not his gravest perils;_ _for all along his route dwelt savage tribes_ _that oftentimes resented his intrusion_ _and either boldly barred his passage_ _or hung upon his flank to ambush him._ _Sometimes he won them o’er with gifts;_ _at others he had to fight them or to flee;_ _but with undaunted heart and resolute_ _he journeyed on through unfamiliar ways,_ _fired by the fervour of his quest._ _Presentments of fact and incident are here,_ _culled from the chronicles of those simpler times,_ _imperfect and desultory no doubt,_ _yet such as mayhap may serve to open vistas,_ _intimate glimpses of the rich glamour and beauty_ _of those most stirring days of high adventure_ _in this Northwest of ours._ [Illustration] The Sailor _What though loved voices seem to speak,_ _home voices calling kind and dear?_ _Yet the wanton, west wind fans my cheek_ _and the salt, salt sea sings in my ear,_ _as I set my face far lands to seek_ _with a steadfast heart and joyful cheer._ Hearts of Triple Brass I The stripling, George Vancouver, sailed with Cook, a blue eyed, fair-skinned boy but fifteen years, scarce yet the down of nascent manhood showed upon his tender cheek—for these the days when Britain’s sea-dogs took their training young— enrolled “A.B.” as was the custom then for those who were to tread the quarterdeck and learn the fine traditions of the sea and follow their great forbears. He was come of good Dutch lineage in paternal line, and on his mother’s side of county blood, his sire, Customs Collector in King’s Lynn, that quaint old Norfolk port. ’Twas there the boy had learned to think long thoughts about the sea, had heard tall tales from sailors on the docks and seen strange trophies brought from foreign lands and thrilled at news of battles fought and won, perils of shipwrecks on uncharted shores where savage cannibals and wild beasts swarmed to prey upon the hapless sailor man. The sea was in his blood. What luck, indeed, that such as he should sail with Captain Cook to search the Antarctic for a Continent fabled to lie in that far Southern sea! Three years before he would return again— three strenuous years of hardships and of toil in which the RESOLUTION was his home, a sturdy vessel suited for her task full bravely manned and nobly captained too. Cook was an inspiration to the boy, taught him the best he knew of seamanship, high sense of duty and of honour too, courage in danger’s hour and steadfastness, those sterling qualities that make the man and fit him to last out life’s trying day and keep his colours flying to the end. Fine seaman and a navigator skilled, Cook had as well the true explorer’s flair and the great gift of leadership. He kept his sailors free from scurvy, that dread scourge, by balanced diet and so saved his crew from its dread fatal ravages which else had brought the voyage to an untimely end. So young Vancouver learned his ’prenticeship under this famed explorer and he sailed with him the blue Pacific and he saw New Zealand and those favoured Southern isles, decked in their tropic splendour and romance— had watched the natives eat their enemies and seen his shipmates flogged for punishment and witnessed death at sea—all these and more impinged upon his growing mind ere home in three years time he came to Portsmouth docks, still boy in years but now a man in heart. There as the ship was mooring he looked back over their rich experience and his breast thrilled with a poignant thankfulness and pride, and wonder too that even to such as he had come these rare adventures and such friends as ’mongst his shipmates he had made this voyage. There had been bitter with the sweet, of course. Some pangs of sheer homesickness he had known when in the gun-room’s rough-and-tumble play his fellow-midshipmen had hazed him well— his seniors, veterans of a year or two— and flogged him with their colts[1] till black and blue to teach him due humility; again when boyish tricks or scrapes brought punishment and sent him to the masthead for his sins, sometimes in dirty weather when the wind cut through his flimsy sea togs clinging close, till he was numb with cold and when recalled could scarcely crawl down to the deck again; or when some sickness kept him in his bunk for days together. Even these chastened times in retrospect now seemed scarce hard at all viewed in the fair perspective of a voyage that had been full of wonder and of zest, of things to learn about the ship his home, her masts and sails and ropes and more, her moods so quaintly like a woman’s; and of the sea, that too so changeable. [1] A piece of rope used as an instrument of chastisement. [Illustration] II Another year and Cook set sail again the RESOLUTION still his gallant ship. The DISCOVERY was his tender, Captain Clerke. This time the venture had a wider aim. First he must chart these far Pacific isles he had discovered; then to sail North-east on past the Sandwich Islands and still on, New Albion and to Nootka forward still to seek the North-East passage, that bright dream of mariners for nigh two hundred years, to link the two great oceans, also chart the coastline as he went to be a guide for those should follow. When they sailed Vancouver’s name was on the muster roll of the DISCOVERY. Proud was he to be under his loved commander once again. It was a wond’rous voyage, that they made, at times heroic, full of incident. Far, far up North to sixty-nine degrees along that dangerous, serrated coast uncharted and unknown ’gainst peril of rock and tempest, fog and treacherous, hidden shoal, disease and hostile natives, thrusting through by small boat parties fingering tortuously, they penetrated till at last they faced a wall of ice through which they could not pass, a barrier bleak, awesome, unconquerable! Cook turned his helm and southward sailed again, leaving this bleak, inclement, barren coast— that was in April, Seventeen seventy-eight— to seek Hawaii’s languorous Southern shore, that lotus-eater’s paradise far famed, alas! a fatal shore it was to prove. III There on the beach that fateful day Cook died at Kealakekua Bay on bright Hawaii’s sunbaked strand, far from his misty native land. A boat was stolen the night before and so the Captain went ashore to ask Kar-re-obbo, the King to come aboard with him, a thing the old man first agreed to do— childlike he marked his pleasure, too, but his dark subjects showed alarm, dreading their chief might suffer harm; for Cook had come ashore attended by nine marines. They apprehended some lure behind the invitation— not without grounds their trepidation— so scurried fast across the sand and stopped their patriarch near the strand. With warning cries they voiced their fears, threatening the white men with their spears. Insolent grown, the hostile crowd hustled the little band and loud, taunted with shouts derisive till Cook fired at one and fired to kill. Too late he found it was not wise the native valour to despise— to think a musket shot would clear the rabble from his path in fear. He called the boats to come, stand by and cease their firing. Help was nigh. The ship’s guns belched with sullen roar— her Captain now had reached the shore. The savages about him swarmed, with spears and daggers they were armed, all following closely in his track; and then he fell, pierced in the back right by the water’s edge; and then they speared him o’er and o’er again. His men were forced to swim away— their Captain dead, why should they stay? Four of the nine marines were slain. The five attained the boat again, which barely could make good its flight to reach the ship. In piteous plight powerless the crew before their eyes, saw their fierce foes with dreadful cries wreak vengeance on their Captain dead, dash on the rocks that noble head and dabble all with gore that brow— alas, where its bright beauty now! Those vigorous limbs so strong and straight, the savage foes, made mad with hate and following tribal custom, tore from off the trunk for trophies. More ’t were ill to tell. This the sad end of Captain Cook; and his young friend, Vancouver doubtless sorely grieved for his great leader, felt bereaved and shaken by the loss, to see his goods put up for auction. He would take it hard. Yet life was sweet and he was young. He sure must meet this sorrow bravely . . . . IV Vancouver came again in “ninety-two” to drop his anchor deep in Nootka Sound, Commander now on his own quarterdeck. ’Twas fourteen years since he had sailed with Cook and seen him stabbed in Kealakekua Bay. The sailor lad was now a lad no more. Mature in years and training he had sailed on active service under Rodney’s flag in that great naval battle of the Saints as a lieutenant on the frigate, FAME, had fought the French and shared its victory. In the West Indies he had served two years, surveyed the Kingston Harbour and Port Royal and did the work with credit so preparing himself for his great life work still to come. These had been stirring years in world affairs. The War of Independence had been won and Britain lost her colonies; and here far out at Nootka on this Western coast John Meares, a former naval officer, trader in furs, had nigh embroiled in war England and Spain by a Memorial in Parliament whereby at Nootka Sound the latter Power, he claimed, had seized his ships despite their British flag. A “teapot” storm itself, yet was, no doubt, a culmination, the symbol of a graver, weightier issue, wherein Spain’s ancient sovereignty here in this Pacific seaboard was involved, and England’s firm encroachment. That great trade in furs of the sea otter was at stake and San Lorenzo (Nootka) was its depot. The Meares affair set Britain up in arms and caused a mighty mustering of ships— an armament indeed—just off Spithead. So Spain in fear of it ate humble pie and made a treaty granting Meares’ claim and ceding Nootka back to British trade, which she had claimed by prior settlement. Vancouver, then, came on a twofold mission. Under the Treaty terms he was to meet at Nootka with the Spanish admiral and there receive the territory back which Meares had occupied before; also he was to make some survey of the coast. So ere he came to Nootka, mark him now proceed with following breeze along the shore past the Columbia River’s yeasty bar and quite unconscious that behind it lay that great, majestic, navigable stream. Cape Disappointment’s barren promontories he skirted closely and with favouring winds he travelled on to Flattery’s rugged capes between Tatooche’s Isle and Duncan Rock into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Here they could observe the natives on the beach and others paddling in their frail canoes, of friendly mien and fain to come aboard had the Commander wished to shorten sail. And now beneath the high land’s sheltering screen the breezes moderated; gently the ships with easy motion glided down the straits past Classet’s village; and they sailed so slow, the smiling natives begged to come aboard and were with kindness welcomed and with gifts. The season now was May; and fragrant winds with summery softness blew from off the land, caressed the sailors’ crinkled, rosy cheeks and made them sing for joyance; and when soon they struck a sheltered harbour, here they stayed. Vancouver named it Port Discovery after his vessel and Protection Isle, he called the island lying at its mouth. [Illustration] V Menzies and two of the midshipmen went with me in the yawl and Puget, our second lieutenant commanded the launch and the Chatham’s master had charge of her cutter. We set off at five on a boisterous May morning with four days’ provisions on board; for the weather had changed. It was blowing a moderate gale. We had gone but a mile from the ship when the fog floated down upon us. Some two or three leagues we rowed from the shelter of Port Discovery and we moored in another harbour that stretched away to the southward. Here we laid down our oars to wait till the weather should clear; and we put in the time fishing, hauling our big seine net along the beach with great labour but with scant reward for our pains. To our joy then at last the fog lifted. Before our admiring eyes there lay a delectable inlet with a steep bluff right before us and away behind at an angle reared a most beautiful mountain rounded soft on its slopes and covered with snow like a mantle right down to the green at its base. I gave it the name of “Rainier” after my friend the Rear Admiral. Mount Baker stood up there North-east, stately, remote and grand, with tinted, diaphanous sides, its white peak pearly and cloudlike. Onward we steered and still onward and the land on the shores grew more open: fields fertile and green contrasted the snow peaks above them; and we found an excellent harbour which I named for the Marquis of Townshend. The southern part of the Inlet I called after young Mr. Puget, who showed such an excellent zeal in exploring its numerous fiords. A likeable lad he was, trustworthy, capable, wise, one I was glad to honour, one I was sure would go far. [Illustration] VI Out of us “middies” five of us went all very much on discovery bent: in the ship’s launch there were two with Mr. Puget, Barrie and Crewe. Captain Vancouver took us three, “Puggie” Pigot, McKenzie and me. We had the DISCOVERY’s yawl. A jolly boat party it was and all were eating hearty and feeling fit. We were explorers and proud of it. We passed a cape that we named “Point Grey” and sailing round it into the bay, a crowd of Indians came to meet us, two score or more seemed glad to greet us and gave us fish, a kind of smelt, (I soon had some of it under my belt). They paddled after us up the bay; at its head we found that an inlet lay stretching eastward with rocky shores. The wind had died so we took to the oars. It was almost night when we neared its head three leagues from its mouth. Our Captain said after we’d eaten dinner ashore and stretched our legs for an hour or more: “Men, we must back to the boats to sleep. This coast is too rough, its banks too steep to make it safe to pitch the tent.” The others rose and off they went. We boys asked leave to stay on land and make our beds upon the sand and this was given. “What fun,” said I “to sleep right out beneath the sky on _terra firma_ safe and sound and watch the stars go wheeling round.” “You’re right, it’s fun to be alone, we five together ‘on our own’,” said Barrie. “Yes, it’s jolly too with none to watch just what we do and we can lark just as we wish with none to listen but the fish,” said Mac; but Barrie raised his hand and filled Mac’s mouth half full of sand. The two then closed in playful fight and wrestled in the fading light prone on the stony beach; I, too, had straightway flung myself on Crewe while “Puggie” next the fun to share hovered about from pair to pair, thus swiftly joining in the lists pommelling us with his puny fists with indiscriminate blows; but soon wearied we ceased our play. The moon now rose in silver o’er the scene. The day’s fatigues had tiring been. We stretched ourselves upon the beach well up beyond the water’s reach (or so we thought) and as for me, I went to sleep at once carefree with all a boy’s abandon; dreamed adventures marvellous. It seemed my ship had foundered in a gale and I was riding on a whale, the last survivor of our crew. (The CHATHAM it had perished too.) The fish had suddenly appeared above the surface, when I feared that I must sink. In this sad plight I seized its tail and held on tight then climbed up on its back. My state of mind was piteous to relate as there I crouched. Then off it went at racing speed. I knew it meant that if the creature once should “sound”, then I must certainly be drowned. And so I drummed it with my heels to spur it on. A flock of seals had gathered round, a strange convoy. I was a most unhappy boy, and dumb with terror for, in chase, swordfish in shoals had joined the race to sheath their sharp swords in my steed. Most copiously it seemed to bleed until the sea was red with gore and down it plunged and luckless bore me far down with it, down, down, deep. Strangely enough I yet could keep my perch upon its back but fear still paralysed my limbs for near the swordfish followed, dogfish too and sharks, grey shapes of pallid hue, pursuing grimly snapped their jaws— to perish in these hungry maws, a fearful fate, indeed! Then more, I suffered much from cold and bore the pangs of death, began to choke— then mercifully I awoke to find it was not all a dream, for I was lying, it would seem, right in the sea. Up softly had crept the lapping waters while we slept. I rose in haste. My comrades too, beside me, Barrie, Mac and Crewe were half awake; in sorry plight they surely made a comic sight all soaked and shivering cold and numb. The first faint light of morn had come. I looked for little “Puggie” Pigot. There he was tossing like a frigate, a full rod’s distance from the beach and floating farther out of reach. I shouted but he slept so sound, he would have drifted off and drowned if I had not plunged in once more and dragged him dripping safe ashore. The morning air was keen and chill. Coldly the dawn’s light topped the hill. Our calls had reached the Captain’s ear and soon we saw the yawl appear to take us off. We gladly crept aboard crestfallen. “Puggie” wept still half asleep; and as we stripped the Captain said we should be whipped for “messing up” the boat; but smiled to show he was not really “riled”, then helped to chafe our limbs all numb with cold and served a swig of rum from his own flask. So unafraid we warmed up from our escapade; and now we five have sworn no more to make our bed so near the shore. VII ’Twas a bright and windy morning when we met the Spanish ships at the opening of the bay in the breaking of the day; we were going ashore for breakfast with a shanty on our lips and to land on Point Grey whence the mists had blown away; for the Captain said we might; we’d been cooped up precious tight; an’ the meanest thing afloat is a blistering open boat with the seats so hard beneath you and the broiling sun so bright; an’ our hams were achin’ sore but we didn’t get ashore— no, we never got ashore. For the Dons were kind and courteous and most amiably perlite, gave us breakfast of the best and we ate it with a zest; and washed it down with wine of a flavour to delight. They asked us all to stay but our Captain told them nay; for our shipmates were awaiting us some hundred miles away; and we rayther fancied too he was feelin’ kind of blue to find the Dons ahead of him—no, no, he wouldn’t stay. He liked the lads all right for they really were perlite— aye, they sure were most perlite. And as we rowed away from them we gave a rousin’ cheer, an’ we wished them lots of luck for they surely showed their pluck; in these crank and crazy cockleshells to navigate up here, just a schooner and a brig, each of rummy, foreign rig, barely forty-five tons burden and with scarce a score of men, grizzled sea-dogs out of Spain— aye, we told them we’d be fain to broach our rarest vintage when we met with them again. And the noonday sun shone bright as we watched them out of sight— aye, they faded from our sight. [Illustration: _From the painting by John Innes_ CAPTAIN VANCOUVER MEETS SPANIARDS OFF POINT GREY] “’Twas a bright and windy morning when we met the Spanish ships, at the opening of the bay in the breaking of the day; . . .” VIII I’ll name it Desolation Sound. No prospect pleasing to the eye is here nor pleasant places on the shore; no game or vegetable food to mitigate our coarse sea-diet salt and flavourless recurring daily morning, noon and night, from which the inner man revolts. Sometimes the very sap of life seems drained from out the limbs as if one’s body’s vigour were dissipated by the parching staleness and all one’s natural, physical functions are slowed to dangerous torpidity. And then the throbbing pain behind the eyes that comes at times, the gnawing heaviness that robs the nights of sleep, the dreary watches when one reviews the progress of the voyage, its perilous chances, its perplexities— the loneliness of rulership unshared, responsibility for the lives of men, two whole ships’ companies, for good or ill made subject to my sway and discipline. To keep their bodies well, their minds content beneath such hard conditions, no easy task; the seamen just like children to be praised or punished; no easy task to keep the happy mean, to hold the scales with keen, impartial eye, neither to be o’er harsh or too indulgent. Sometimes one’s angry feelings take control to bring remorseful aftermath. But He who knows the weakness of our mortal make-up, will have compassion on our frailty. Young Thomas Pitt now, that distressful lad, son of a peer and born to lofty station, a promising youngster when he joined the ship, plenty of pluck but not an ounce of balance, I often wonder what’s to ’come of him. I’ll not forget the last time he was flogged, the look of hatred in his eyes for me as he was led away. Thank God, save him, I have a loyal staff of officers. But there’s a wretched loneliness of rank that hedges the commander of a ship and bears upon one heavily at times. These rocky shores inhospitable, flanked by majestic mountains whose high peaks proclaim the paltriness of puny man and mock the effrontery of such as we who come so far to spy them out, this night have cast a gloom upon me, a mood of deep depression. Johnstone has not come back. For several days his boat is overdue. He went to seek a passage outward to the ocean; and now my mind is prey to grim forebodings they may be swamped and lost. Shame on me now for lending harbourage to foolish fears! ’Twere well to change the current of my thoughts. No doubt, ’tis something to warrant an honest pride, we should have fared so far into these Northern latitudes so lone to name new lands and chart unsounded seas for other, happier men to follow and build their homes and plant their crops and rear their children around them; and find their ways made pleasant by our pains. It is a heartening thing to think upon, consoling to the spirit ofttimes sad when the mind turns back with poignant longing and the heart hungers for old scenes and faces. What are they doing at home, at King’s Lynn, my sisters? There in the arbour tonight, do they sit in our old-fashioned garden, talking together of me and the happy times of our childhood, wondering how I may fare and when they may look for my coming? There I can picture them fondly, there in the deepening twilight, faces loving and sweet framed in the trellis of roses, (memory carries me back, almost I scent their fragrance). Dear Sarah and Mary, the thought of them fills me with comfort. Names that are sweet to my lips, how shall I do them due honour? Names that have brought me good cheer I shall give to those capes that we skirted, sailing into this sound, this Sound I have called Desolation. Long may they thus be known to call up home thoughts to the sailor. [Illustration] IX Thirteen guns for the Spaniard Quadra rang out across the waves at Friendly Cove, waking the echoes from the neighbouring hills ’frighting the seabirds, as the British ships swept to an anchorage. Then in reply thundered the Spanish batteries off the shore an equal salvo in Vancouver’s honour. And Indian watchers of the Nootkan tribe hearkening stood rapt in wonder at the sound but could not catch its import nor could guess the great occasion that it celebrated. Vancouver with his party went ashore to be with warmth and graciousness received; and lavish hospitality was exchanged. Feasting and fellowship seemed doubly sweet to these wave-weary mariners so long cut off from social converse with their kind. Don Quadra was a nobleman of charm. The two commanders learned a mutual love and admiration. This, despite that fate had given to each an uncongenial rôle in this, their two-part drama; for the one was to receive according to the Treaty the territories back that Spain had seized from British subjects; to surrender such, the bitter task the other had to face if he would implement the Treaty’s terms. But what the extent of those? Courteous and kind, with high-bred tact and winsome southern charm he sought to entertain his English guest but would not cede more than the merest tittle of what Vancouver thought the pact provided; and history’s verdict proves the Spaniard right. “Haul down the Spanish flag at Friendly Cove? Surrender all of Nootka to the British?” “No, no;” said Quadra, “for the power of Spain from San Francisco to De Fuca’s Strait, still it must reign supreme.” So back and forth in verbal argument, by formal script, the controversy raged between the two, Vancouver firmly holding his contention for full surrender of the Nootka district, which Quadra curt denied him. Thus, at length, lacking a common ground where they could meet, they then agreed to send the matter back for future settlement to their governments; and thus they parted, Quadra sailing south. The two would meet again at Monterey. Spain’s power on the Pacific it has passed and Britain rules where once her flag held sway. The two commanders long ago have gone to their last rest. Majestic steamers ply through these great waterways then barely charted. A noble city bears Vancouver’s name not far from where they held their controversy, he and Don Quadra; and as we look back in time’s perspective, this stands out the foremost for future generations to acclaim, that these two men each strong in his conviction, not to be swayed from what he held was right, could thus contend yet hold the even tenor of gentlemanly bearing through it all; they and their companies could meet and part with kindly courtesy, in cordial friendship. Their sojourn there at Nootka makes a tale, one of the fairest annals of their time. Captain George Vancouver It was the second voyage of Captain James Cook in the RESOLUTION on which the boy, George Vancouver, made one of the ship’s company, really as a midshipman although rated “A.B.” (able-bodied seaman) as was the custom with young gentlemen beginning their career as officers in the Royal Navy. The RESOLUTION accompanied by the ADVENTURE sailed from Plymouth 13th July, 1772, returning 29th July, 1775. Section 2 of the poem deals with Captain Cook’s third voyage. On his way North he stayed at Nootka Sound from the 13th March to the 26th April repairing his vessels, making observations of the Coast and trading with the Indians who became most friendly. He then sailed southward to Hawaii where his vessels cruised around for about six weeks before anchoring in Karakakooa Bay (now Kealakekua Bay), a sheltered harbour on the western side of the Island on 17th January, 1779. He was received with great enthusiasm and honour by the natives, who treated him like a god, prostrating themselves before him as he went about amongst them. He left again on the 4th of February but met with a series of storms. Many of the sails were torn to ribbons and the foremast of the RESOLUTION was badly damaged which made it necessary for them to seek safe anchorage to make repairs. They returned to Karakakooa Bay on the 11th. Here they were surprised to find that the mood of the natives, before so friendly, had completely changed. The old chief, Kar-re-obbo, was still well-inclined, but other chiefs were exceedingly hostile and had stirred the minds of the people to suspicion and hatred of their white visitors. The culmination came in the tragic happening described in the poem. In section 4 of the poem years have passed and the boy has become a man. George Vancouver, now a Captain, left Falmouth on this expedition on the 1st April, 1791, with his two ships, the DISCOVERY of three hundred and forty tons burthen and the armed tender, the CHATHAM of one hundred and thirty-five tons burthen. The DISCOVERY had a complement of one hundred and thirty-five men and mounted ten four-pounder guns and ten swivels; the CHATHAM had fifty-five men and was also armed. He proceeded southward to the Atlantic, then round the Cape of Good Hope, across the Indian Ocean to Australia and then traversed the Pacific to the western shoreline of the Continent which it was part of his mission to explore from latitude 30° northward. Referring to the great navigator’s failure to discover the river, Columbia, it is interesting to read this extract from his journal written after he had entered the Strait of Juan de Fuca: “It must be considered as a very singular circumstance that, in so great an extent of seacoast, we should not until now have seen the appearance of any opening in its shores, which presented any certain prospect of affording shelter; the whole coast forming one compact, solid, and nearly straight barrier against the sea. “The river Mr. Gray mentioned should, from the latitude he assigned to it, have existence in the bay, south of Cape Disappointment. This we passed on the fore-noon of the 27th; and, as I then observed, if any inlet or river should be found, it must be a very intricate one, and inaccessible to ships of our burthen, owing to the reefs and broken water which then appeared in its neighborhood. Mr. Gray stated that he had been several days attempting to enter it, which at length he was unable to effect, in consequence of a very strong outset. This is a phenomenon difficult to account for, as, in most cases where there are outsets of such strength on a sea coast, there are corresponding tides setting in. Be that as it may, I was thoroughly convinced, as were also most persons of observation on board, that we could not possibly have passed any safe navigable opening, harbour, or place of security for shipping on this coast, from Cape Mendocino to the promontory of Classet; . . .” Referring to the naming of Port Discovery and Protection Island, the Journal has this to say: “A picture so pleasing could not fail to call to our remembrance certain delightful and beloved situations in Old England. Thus we proceeded without meeting any obstruction to our progress; which, though not rapid, brought us before noon abreast of the stream that discharges its water from the western shore near five miles within the entrance of the harbour; which I distinguished by the name of ‘Port Discovery’, after the ship. There we moored, in 34 fathoms, muddy bottom, about a quarter of a mile from the shore. “The entrance of this harbour is formed by low projecting points, extending, on each side, from the high woodland cliffs which in general bound the coast; bearing by compass from N. 48 W. to N. 54 W. in a line with two corresponding points from the island already described, lying off this harbour. Had this insular production of nature been designed by the most able engineer, it could not have been placed more happily for the protection of the port, not only from the N. W. winds to the violence of which it would otherwise be greatly exposed, but against all attempts of an enemy, when properly fortified; and hence I called it ‘Protection Island’.” The circumstances in the naming of Puget’s Sound, Captain Vancouver describes in his journal of May, 1792, as follows: “Late on the preceding Saturday night, or rather on Sunday morning, our other party had returned. It was them we had seen the first evening of our excursion from the island, and they very distinctly saw our fire; but as they did not hear the report of the muskets, concluded it a fire of the natives, not having the least idea of any of our boats being in that neighborhood. They had explored all those parts of the inlet we had passed by, and found the three openings we had left unexamined, the first afternoon, leading to the westward, to be channels dividing that shore into three islands; and those we had not attended to on Monday morning formed two small branches leading to the S. W.; the westernmost of which extends to the latitude 47° 6′, about two leagues to the westward of our researches in that direction; that in which the deer was shot communicated with the S. W. branch of the inlet by a very narrow channel. They had also passed the opening we had pursued leading towards Mount Rainier; but agreeably to my directions had not prosecuted its examination; the termination of every other opening in the land they had ascertained. Thus by our joint efforts, we had completely explored every turning of this extensive inlet; and to commemorate Mr. Puget’s exertions, the south extremity of it I named ‘Puget’s Sound’.” The episode featured in Section 6 of the poem took place during the explorations of Burrard Inlet by Captain Vancouver in the course of an exploratory expedition he made with the DISCOVERY’S cutter and the CHATHAM’S launch. Leaving these ships in a bay towards the lower end of the Gulf of Georgia, now known as Birch Bay, on the morning of the 12th June with a week’s provisions in each boat, he proceeded northward past the mouth of the Fraser River and around Point Grey into English Bay. On the inlet he then followed nearly to its head is now located the harbour of the City of Vancouver, British Columbia, called by him Burrard’s Channel, now Burrard Inlet. It was named by its discoverer after Sir Harry Burrard of the navy. On the following paragraph from the Journal, this part of the poem has been based and, as will be seen, with imaginative enlargement of detail justifiable by poetic licence. The names of the midshipmen are taken from those actually of the two ships’ companies although it is not certain that they were members of the party. “The shores in this situation were formed by steep rocky cliffs, that afforded no convenient space for pitching our tent, which compelled us to sleep in the boats. Some of the young gentlemen, however, preferring the stony beach for their couch, without duly considering the line of high water mark, found themselves incommoded by the flood tide, of which they were not apprized until they were nearly afloat; and one of them slept so sound, that I believe he might have been conveyed to some distance, had he not been awakened by his companions.” The Journal then goes on as follows: “Perfectly satisfied with our researches in this branch of the sound, at four in the morning of Tuesday the 14th, we retraced our passage in; leaving on the northern shore, a small opening extending to the northward, with two little islets before it of little importance, whilst we had a grander object in contemplation; and more particularly so as this arm or channel could not be deemed navigable for shipping. The tide caused no stream; the colour of its water, after we had passed the island the day before, was green and perfectly clear, whereas that in the main branch of the sound, extending nearly half over the gulf, and accompanied by a rapid tide, was nearly colourless, which gave us some reason to suppose that the northern branch of the sound might possibly be discovered to terminate in a river of considerable extent. “As we passed the situation from whence the Indians had first visited us the preceding day, which is a small border of low marsh land on the northern shore, intersected by several creeks of fresh water, we were in expectation of their company, but were disappointed, owing to our travelling so soon in the morning. Most of their canoes were hauled up into the creeks, and two or three only of the natives were seen straggling about on the beach. None of their habitations could be discovered, whence we concluded that their village was within the forest. Two canoes came off as we passed the island, but our boats being under sail, with a fresh favorable breeze, I was not inclined to halt, and they almost immediately returned. “The shores of this channel, which, after Sir Harry Burrard of the navy, I have distinguished by the name of ‘Burrard’s Channel,’ may be considered, on the southern side, of a moderate height, and though rocky, well covered with trees of a large growth, principally of the pine tribe. On the northern side, the rugged snowy barrier, whose base we had now nearly approached, rose very abruptly, and was only protected from the wash of the sea by a very narrow border of low land. By seven o’clock we had reached the N. W. point of the channel, which forms also the south point of the main branch of the sound; this also, after another particular friend, I called ‘Point Atkinson,’ situated north from Point Grey, about a league distant.” The boat party explored Howe Sound which the explorer named after Admiral Richard Howe, who, as well as his two brothers, took such a prominent part in early American history. It then rounded Point Atkinson and proceeded northward to Jervis Channel (now Jervis Inlet) and was back again opposite Point Grey by the morning of the 22nd. Section VII of the poem celebrates Vancouver’s meeting with Spanish vessels at this time off Point Grey regarding which the journal gives the following interesting account. The friendly spirit evinced on this occasion is in keeping with that later to be noted between Don Quadra and Captain Vancouver and their companies. “As we were rowing, on the morning of Friday the 22nd, for Point Grey, purposing there to land and breakfast, we discovered two vessels at anchor under the land. The idea which first occurred was, that, in consequence of our protracted absence, though I had left no orders to this effect, the vessels had so far advanced in order to meet us; but on a nearer approach, it was discovered, that they were a brig and a schooner, wearing the colors of Spanish vessels of war, which I conceived were most probably employed in pursuits similar to our own; and this on my arrival on board, was confirmed. These vessels proved to be a detachment from the commission of Senor Malaspina, who was himself employed in the Philippine islands; Senor Malaspina had, the preceding year, visited the coast; and these vessels, his Catholic Majesty’s brig the SUTIL, under the command of Senor Don D. Galiano, with the schooner MEXICANA, commanded by Senor Don C. Valdes, both captains of frigates in the Spanish navy, had sailed from Acapulco on the 8th of March, in order to prosecute discoveries on this coast. Senor Galiano, who spoke a little English, informed me, that they had arrived at Nootka on the 11th of April, from whence they had sailed on the 5th of this month, in order to complete the examination of this inlet, which had, in the preceding year, been partly surveyed by some Spanish officers whose chart they produced. “I cannot avoid acknowledging that, on this occasion, I experienced no small degree of mortification in finding the external shores of the gulf had been visited, and already examined a few miles beyond where my researches during the excursion, had extended; making land, I had been in doubt about, an island; continuing nearly in the same direction, about four leagues farther than had been seen by us; and, by the Spaniards, named Favida. The channel, between it and the main, they had called Canal del Neustra Signora del Rosario, whose western point had terminated their examination; which seemed to have been entirely confined to the exterior shores, as the extensive arms, and inlets, which had occupied so much of our time, had not claimed the least of their attention. “The Spanish vessels, that had been thus employed last year, had refitted in the identical part of port Discovery, which afforded us similar accommodation. From these gentlemen, I likewise understood, that Senor Quadra, the commander in chief of the Spanish marine at St. Blas and at California, was, with three frigates and a brig, waiting my arrival at Nootka, in order to negotiate the restoration of those territories to the crown of Great Britain. Their conduct was replete with that politeness and friendship which characterizes the Spanish nation; every kind of useful information they cheerfully communicated, and obligingly expressed much desire, that circumstances might so occur as to admit our respective labors being carried on together; for which purpose, or, if from our long absence and fatigue in an open boat, I would wish to remain with my party as their guest, they would immediately dispatch a boat with such directions as I might deem necessary for the conduct of the ships, or, in the event of a favorable breeze springing up, they would weigh and sail directly to their station: but being intent on losing no time, I declined their obliging offers, and having partaken with them a very hearty breakfast, bade them farewell, not less pleased with their hospitality and attention, than astonished at the vessels in which they were employed to execute a service of such a nature. They were each about forty-five tons burthen, mounted two brass guns, and were navigated by twenty-four men, bearing one lieutenant, without a single inferior officer. Their apartments just allowed room for sleeping places on each side, with a table in the intermediate space, at which four persons, with some difficulty, could sit, and were, in all other respects, the most ill calculated and unfit vessels that could possibly be imagined for such an expedition; notwithstanding this, it was pleasant to observe, in point of living, they possessed many more comforts than could reasonably have been expected. I shewed them the sketch I had made of our excursion, and pointed out the only spot which I conceived we had left unexamined, nearly at the head of Burrard channel: they seemed much surprised that we had not found a river said to exist in the region we had been exploring, and named by one of their officers Rio Blancho, in compliment to the then prime minister of Spain; which river these gentlemen had sought for thus far to no purpose.” The reference to “young Mr. Pitt” in Section VIII of the poem, opens up an interesting story and an association that was to prove one of the most painful and distressing in Captain Vancouver’s career. The first notice we have of him is that when Vancouver went down to Falmouth in March 1791 to join his ship, he found the honourable Thomas Pitt there with his father. He wrote “I found my Lord Camelford here with his family all very well. They had been waiting a few days with some anxiety for the arrival of the ship. I have as yet in course been able to see but little of my young shipmate; however, cannot avoid observing that I was extremely pleased with his appearance and deportment.” The favourable impression formed by Vancouver at this time unfortunately was not to endure. The young midshipman proved insubordinate and was three times punished by flogging before finally he was dismissed from the ship at Hawaii. At that time he was really Lord Camelford as his father had died the year before although this intelligence had reached neither him nor his Commander. He went from there to Malacca where he joined the ESSEX with the commander of which also he got into trouble. He finally arrived home in the UNION. He had apparently been brooding over his treatment by Vancouver for when the latter returned home he at once challenged him to a duel. Vancouver pointed out that Lord Camelford had deserved the punishments he had received which had been found necessary in the enforcement of discipline but consented to meet him and give him satisfaction if any flag officer after hearing all the circumstances of the case should consider that such was due to him. Lord Camelford refused to submit the case to this test and more than once attempted to cane his former Commander publicly in the streets. The latter appealed to the Lord Chancellor for protection and the former midshipman was bound over in a sum of money to keep the peace. His subsequent career shows that he was a man of ungovernable temper. He was once fined £500 for violence in attacking a man in a theatre and he was court-martialled on the charge of murdering a brother officer. In the end he was killed in a duel with one of his best friends which he forced upon the latter much against his will. Vancouver has been blamed for great harshness in his dealings with young Pitt, but it would appear that there was probable justification for the punishments he imposed. In reference to the boat party under Johnstone, it returned safely and in high spirits having discovered a passage through to the ocean by Queen Charlotte Sound, now to be known as Johnstone Strait. The following is Vancouver’s own account of the proceedings on his arrival at Nootka and the reception accorded him there: “As Senor Quadra resided on shore, I sent Mr. Puget to acquaint him with our arrival, and to say that I would salute the Spanish flag, if he would return an equal number of guns. On receiving a very polite answer in the affirmative, we saluted with thirteen guns, which were returned, and on my going on shore, accompanied by some of the officers, we had the honor of being received with the greatest cordiality and attention from the commandant, who informed me he would return our visit the next morning. “Agreeably to his engagement, Senor Quadra with several of his officers came on board the DISCOVERY, on Wednesday the 29th, where they breakfasted, and were saluted with thirteen guns on their arrival and departure: the day was afterwards spent in ceremonious offices of civility, with much harmony and festivity. As many officers as could be spared from the vessels with myself dined with Senor Quadra, and were gratified with a repast we had lately been little accustomed to, or had the most distant idea of meeting with at this place. A dinner of five courses, consisting of a superfluity of the best provisions, was served with great elegance; a royal salute was fired on drinking health to the sovereigns of England and Spain, and a salute of seventeen guns to the success of the service in which the DISCOVERY and CHATHAM were engaged.” The negotiations between the two commanders were lengthy and involved, but were concluded in the manner described in the poem without any real unpleasantness in spite of the completeness of the break down. The Indian _These white men come to trade_ _and for our furs give guns and blankets_ _and knives and tools of iron_ _and rum that makes our stomachs burn_ _and sweet molasses thick and sticky._ _They come from o’er “the lake of stinking water”_ _in big canoes with monstrous, bellying sails_ _full of great wealth in weapons of war,_ _axes to cut with and vessels for cooking,_ _rare coloured cloths and curious ornaments._ _Sometimes they treat us fairly, ofttimes no._ _Greatly they prize our skins of the sea otter_ _of which they rob us when they get the chance,_ _mistreat our wives and make our children slaves_ _and shoot with fire on us in our canoes._ _So, do you think we will not seek revenge?_ _and put them to the torture till they die?_ _and take their goods for our enjoyment?_ The White Slaves of Maquinna I On a clear calm night in March of Eighteen-three, the good brig, BOSTON named for her home port in Massachusetts out from England last, dropped anchor close off shore at Nootka Sound to take in wood and water. Captain Salter had sought the place because it was reputed the natives here were friendly; King Maquinna welcomed the white man’s ships and loved to barter. Next morning early ere the sun was high, the sea still misty and the sky a mournful grey, he came in his canoe, a stalwart escort with him, to bid the Captain welcome, welcome to his country, and climbed up over the side, a savage noble of bearing with skin of coppery hue where not dyed a bright vermilion. His eyebrows were lined with black making the face look grim although the eyes themselves did not seem evil; the nose underneath them was Roman and the whole expression was hawklike. A cloak of the sea otter fur shapely and rich fell to his knees and was belted with cloth of the country made from the bark of a tree and wrought with intricate markings. He wore his black hair in a knot tied on the top of his head and glistening all over with oil. It was covered with curious down, white as the mountain snow presenting a striking contrast. His men not so stately of bearing wore cloaks of a similar fashion but their dress it was simpler and plainer, their mien was more modest, like children they gazed around them gaping in awe and wonder at all they saw in the ship. [Illustration] II I was the ship’s armourer, John Jewitt, from Hull in England, just turned eighteen; my first voyage, these my first savages too. Maybe you think I was thrilled to have them gather about me there as I worked at my forge clanging my hammer on anvil making weapons of war. (Maquinna had gone with the Captain to sample a bottle of rum.) These showed the liveliest interest in watching me pounding away or blowing the fire with my bellows. Their dark eyes glistened with pleasure to see the sparks fly from the coal; and their faces were happy and friendly. Some knew a few words of English and spoke them again and again like children proud to show off. And in the few days that followed, as soon as they came aboard, down they would come to see me and never wearied of watching. So they all learned to know me. Lucky for me in the sequel that it was so as you’ll see. III That was a happy ten days for us all. The month was March but in the middle the days were sometimes bright and sunny, not lionlike at all but mild and pleasant. The wind no doubt at times was biting, keen bearing the tang from distant, snow-capped hills that reared their lofty summits in the east; but it was freighted too with the soft breath of nearby forests, balsam, spruce and pine, and smooth-barked cedar, such a tonic fragrance that it was like an elixir to inhale and made my young blood thrill with ecstasy. The Indians brought us salmon; you may guess after our long sea diet of pickled pork and hard ship’s biscuit what it was to feed on such fine fare. We stretched our legs ashore and laid in wood and water. All went well. We gave the natives presents; they in turn brought us their gifts, such as they had, in kind and all went pleasantly but for one incident that rather marred the harmony though then it seemed to pass without much ill effect. IV I was down in the cabin. I heard the sound of angry voices, Captain Salter and Maquinna. The King had just come aboard and brought as gifts nine pair of wild duck, a welcome offering and a generous. Down they came and I could hear—— the King was speaking, his voice was harsh and loud: “The gun you gave,” he said, “is _peshak_; the gun is worthless, take it back I do not want it.” With an oath the Captain seized it from him, flung it down to me and to the King he said; “You dirty liar, what is this you say? That I would give you something that was bad? There, John, the clumsy brute has smashed the lo and puts the blame on me, ungrateful wretch, so do you try to mend it if you can.” ’Twas plain the King well understood the tenor of the Captain’s angry plaint and felt a keen resentment. Not a word he spoke but he was dark with rage; for I could see his face contorted and working strangely while with his right hand he rubbed his throat repeatedly and then his bosom as if to try to quell the mounting passions that sought to vent themselves. But then they turned to go on deck and left me——left me with the broken gun. V Next morning dawned serene; the sea was calm and bright the sunshine for the sky was clear. The tree-fringed shore was beautiful nearby. The dark-green foliage ringed with yellow sand rose in a solid wall behind the beach backed by the distant snow-capped peaks. It was a scene to soothe the eyes for peace and gladness; seaward were dotted here and there canoes of natives fishing; one or two were moored beside us floating idly on the tide with our own longboat, for their dusky owners had come to trade with salmon in the morning and idled on the ship curious as children. Before they came aboard we always searched them to see they had no arms. For this precaution the Captain made the rule. Just after noon Maquinna himself arrived from Friendly Cove. A small flotilla manned with chiefs and braves accompanied him. They moored and came aboard. The King himself seemed in a joyous mood. He wore a mask of wood grotesque and weird in semblance of an eagle’s head; in hand he held a wooden whistle. This he blew and set his men a-dancing to its tune upon the deck with curious, antic capers that won our hearty mirth. The grizzled tars grinned and clapped hands applauding; while above the Captain from the quarterdeck looked down smiling approvingly upon their sport. It was indeed a novel scene and gay—— the six-foot chief proud in his rich attire, his black sea otter robe revealing legs daubed with vermilion on their copper skin, this hideous mask bird-beaked upon his head; around him on the deck his painted men, cutting their capers with loud shouts and chanting, making the still air vocal with their song; and then the seamen in their tarry togs taking their ease and looking on amused, some with indulgent smile, some laughing loud according to their bent but merry all. And I, but yet a youth, surveyed it too in wonder and elation that to me should come such luck as to have part in it. In all my boyish dreams of bright adventure I had not pictured aught so rare as this; and as my thoughts went back to home at Hull, that peaceful seaport with its gabled streets and steepled churches and its masted docks, its quiet countryside of field and farm with cattle feeding by fair English streams, I called to mind my comrades of the town, these boys I played with, could they see me now, how they would envy me my happy chance. Maquinna ceased his piping and the dancers, wearied and scant of breath, desisted too and squatted down upon their hams. The King then joined the Captain on the quarterdeck and asked of him when he had planned to leave; (I stood close by and so could overhear.) “Tomorrow, Chief,” the Captain made reply, “I weigh my anchor for by now you see I have my wood and water all aboard, my men are rested and their bellies full of your fine salmon which we have enjoyed for which we give you thanks.” Maquinna smiled—— his mask was doffed and lay upon his knees an unseen one there was that hid his thoughts—— he smiled well pleased and bowed acknowledgment: flattered apparently he was to have his gifts so valued and he spoke again: “You like the salmon, why should you not take a-plenty with you? Why not send today your men to Friendly Cove to fish for them?” The Captain seized it for a timely thought. He called the mate to learn what he should say and took brief counsel with him. Then replied “All right, my King, I think your plan is good. We shall have dinner first and then the mate will take the jollyboat—and the yawl as well and nine men with their gear to catch the fish and you shall show them how and we shall see what goodly share of spoil their sport may bring.” Just then he turned and caught my longing eye: no doubt my pleading face was eloquent. “Aha, my boy!” he laughed and shook his head. “I know quite well what you would wish to ask. You’d like to go a-fishing too. No, no, you’ve idled long enough, I think, today and you must earn your wages. Don’t you see I owe a duty to the men I serve, my owners down in Boston, for they look to me to guard their interests and to make due profit on the voyage? So get your dinner and then down to the steerage to your vice-bench.” VI Clink, clink, clink went my hammer on the anvil the smith may work and let his thoughts go roaming: Clink, clink, clink, he may dream as any man will when left all alone; and mine went a-homing. Clink, clink, clink, I could see my father’s face when the day’s work ended, we all sat down to meat, as reverently he bent his head to say a grace, thanking the Lord for what we were to eat. Clink, clink, clink, by a cheerful necromancy there came before my vision other faces that were dear—— merry faces of my schoolmates——I could see them all in fancy as I played with them in Donnington but only yester year. Clink, clink, clink,—— What was that? my thoughts came back with lightning swiftness to the scene around me—— my vice-bench with the tools that lay about it, the steerage, its interior dimly lighted, the polished wood now here and there relieved with shining brasswork,—and its salt-sea smells—— strange noises overhead of shouts and blows; dull thuds and heavy scrapings on the deck chilling my blood with fear. Upstairs I ran convinced the savages had seized the ship. But scarcely was my head above the hatch when I could feel a rude hand grasp my locks—— thus was I lifted from my feet and hung in mid air for brief space——my hair being short the silk that tied it slipped and so I fell right back again all down the steerage stairs and as I dropped received a glancing blow that gashed my brow and took away my sense. How long I know not——but I did come to and tried to rise and fainted yet again. Then I was waked to consciousness once more by three tremendous Indian yells of hate that seemed to freeze my blood. A wave of terror swept over me, a sickness as of death—— for death I thought was near. And then the yells changed to an exulting triumph song. I saw the hatch above me had been closed and guessed that I was held for torture; worse than death might be my lot for I had heard dread tales told by a member of our crew of deeds done by the red men to their prisoners, skinning alive and burning at the stake and worse than these too terrible to tell—— tales that came thronging to my palsied mind as now I lay and listened. The hatch was drawn. Maquinna’s voice came down,——I knew it well; “John, you come up;” and I must needs obey. Groping my way I staggered up the stairs, my vision blinded by the blood that ran down from my wounded scalp and faint with pain and terror for the frightful fate I feared faced me. The King, who saw my sorry plight, bade a young brave bring forth a pot of water and wash the clotted blood from off my face so I could see. And what a sight was there! Six naked warriors with their daggers raised still dripping from the gore of my late shipmates to plunge into my breast. I raised my eyes in silent prayer that God accept my soul and waited to receive their strokes of death, but then the King advanced within the circle and stood before me. “John,” he said, “I speak, do not say “no” to me, for if you do, these daggers drink your life blood and you die; but you must promise true to be my slave; for all your life to work and do my will, to fight my battles and to make me spears and guns and knives for use against my foes: then I shall spare you.” I could but assent. What else with death the grim alternative? And at his bidding kissed his hands and feet to show submission; and as there I knelt the brutes about me clamoured for my death and shook their weapons with such show of rage it looked as if the King could not prevail to save me where I crouched low at his knees from these red daggers; and they argued loud that for their safety’s sake I needs must die so there would be no witness of their deed, the taking of the “Boston” and her crew, to bring the white man’s vengeance by and by. Raising his head with proud and lofty mien the King spoke quietly, calm before their wrath, and made them see he meant to have his will; so, soon with sulky looks they ceased their threats and I could tell that for a time at least my life was safe. Yet in the swift revulsion of feeling following and the chill March air—— for I had doffed my jacket for my work—— I shook as if with ague; and it seemed, for pain and weakness I must faint away. This the King noticed and he brought a cloak,—— the one the Captain wore, from out the cabin to fling across my shoulders——rum to drink right from the Captain’s flask and this revived my drooping strength so I was fit to bear the dreadful ordeal placed upon me now. Straightway he led me to the quarterdeck and there were ranged in rows upon the planking—— a grisly sight that was for years to haunt me—— the heads of my slain shipmates marred and gory. These one by one were lifted up to show me, the Captain’s first——and I was made to tell the name of each and what was his degree among the crew——it was a ghastly task. Some I could hardly recognize at all—— and as they passed before me in review, these my late friends, so hearty and so hale an hour or so before, I could but wish that I had perished with them, so at peace I would not then be facing such a fate, a mournful vista down the weary years—— which now stretched out before me, as a slave to these wild savages of Nootka Sound. [Illustration] VII I am the Prince Sat-sat-sok-sis, son of that great king, Maquinna of the Indian tribe of Nootka, twelve years old when next moon cometh. Wondrous things have lately happened—— all our people are so merry—— we have triumphed o’er the white men, taken their ship and brought it home here, killed them all and cut their heads off, all but two whose lives were spared them—— spared to be my father’s bondmen. John the young one, O I love him! He is good and he is clever, skin so white and hair all shining, soft and shining in the sunlight, eyes so blue just like the ocean, hands so kind and strong and supple. He has made me rings and armlets, brooches, earrings forged from copper, bracelets burnished like the sunset. And he combs my hair out daily, makes me wash with river water, wash to keep my skin all cleanly, sweet and fresh so “Wocash, Tyee,” well the people may acclaim me when I come to dance before them, I, the King’s son, Sat-sat-sok-sis of the Indian tribe of Nootka. John prays to his own Quahootze, whom he calls his Great White Father and although my skin is yellow I must worship too and fear him, for he loves the little children whether they are white or yellow—— so John says and I believe him. Once I went with John and Thompson—— Thompson is the other white slave, sire of John but not much like him—— he is cruel and I hate him—— to the lake outside the village where they prayed to their White Father from a book of sacred writings. And I too knelt down beside them for he is my Father also—— this John says and I believe him. So you see the days are merry for our happy Indian people. We are strong and we are mighty for we triumphed o’er the white man. But I think John is not merry though he’s brave and does not show it—— never when among my people; but with only me beside him, sometimes he looks pale and lonely and his eyes are sad with longing for the sight of his own loved ones. Then sometimes I sidle closer, lift my hand up to caress him for I know he is not happy and I hunger to console him. Then he puts his arm around me and I think he feels less lonely. He is kind and so I love him, I, the little Sat-sat-sok-sis, son of that great king, Maquinna of the Indian tribe of Nootka. VIII I was the sailmaker of the ship, John Thompson, of Philadelphia, U.S.A. saved from the slaughter of the crew, by the good offices of Johnny Jewitt, who said I was his dad so they might spare me and so they did. Well, if I had a son I had as lief that it were John for he’s a decent boy and has his wits about him——gad! ’T was like a play to see him rush to hug me and slaver all my nose and beard with kisses, me an old sea dog that has served the king as boy and man for seven and twenty years, sailed under Howe and fought the Frenchies and never willingly would look at woman since from my mother’s apron strings at eight years old I ran away to sea as cabin boy aboard a grimy collier. And the old chief and all these greasy, smelly savages stood gaping looking on nor did they know just what to make of it. John vowed he’d die if I, his poor old father was not spared, and moaned and wept and wrung his wretched hands. I could have laughed to split my bloomin’ sides and yet the youngster’s cries and groans and tears were done so natural and seemed so real, damned if they didn’t make me ‘pipe my eye’ and there I sniffed and slobbered down his neck just like that prodigal’s sire in Holy Writ until the very savages were fooled with our play-actin’ an’ they spared my life. But many’s the time I wished they had not done so and cursed the day that John thought up the lie that made the old boy spare me——aye, Maquinna, that greasy devil in all his furs and feathers. He never knew how many times his life hung by a single hair when these ten fingers trembled to grip his throat and had they done so not all that blasted, bare-legged tribe of his would have availed to pluck the bastard free before the bloomin’ breath had left his body never to enter it again. Aye, aye, but there was John to think about; and John had still his life before him and was all for getting free again and sailing home and for the boy’s sake I must needs be prudent, so swallow all the insults that the King heaped upon me his bondman, but now John he was the “white-haired laddie.” Did not that little nipper, Sat-sat-sok-sis follow him round just like a silly puppie, and sleep in his bed at night? The queen heaps on his plate her choicest dainties of putrid seal or salmon. To them he’s welcome for all of me. I laugh to see his nose turn up disgusted while he tries to feign appreciation of the loathsome morsels. Faugh! just to live with such a filthy rabble and be their slave, it fairly turns my belly so I could spew! To think that I must bow and stoop to do the will of such as these and prostitute my trade of making sails to shape a cloak for this mad, savage king and court his favour like a lordling’s lackey! Indeed, it were far better to be dead. If there were not the Sunday for our surcease I never could abide it. Now this John—— he has his wits about him I have said—— and he’s as good’s a parson——had the guts to tell the King that we must have our worship must walk apart for prayer each weekly season—— nor did the old Maquinna say him nay. And so we go with Bible and with prayer book on the Lord’s Day as John has marked it down to a small lake from Nootka not far distant but where the yellow heathen never come. There we sing songs of praise and read the Book and make our prayers in quiet to the great Captain that from our bondage he will set us free. I never was no saint——no not John Thompson—— my lips more apt for cursin’ than for prayer, so says to John, “The Lord will look askance to see me on my marrow bones before him. He’ll say, ‘young lad, you keep foul company, to bring along a pirate such as he, soiled with the stains of rank iniquities, to join in your devotions,’ he’ll have none of you.” But John he’d only smile his quiet, slow smile and gravely shake his head and softly say: “He walked with fishermen and humble folk,—— Peter and James and John and loved them well vile as they were with sins and sordidness, why should he not love you?” And so in sooth I companied with him and sat there attentive and listened reverently while he read—— and there were passages now and again words of the Master healing and heart warming, that seemed to have been spoken just for me and they would nestle deep within my mind and linger there like snatches of a song to comfort me with their recurring strains. John read of Jesus walking on the water and how He made the winds and waves obey him and healed the sick, recalled the dead to life, and of that shipwreck miracle of St. Paul wherein he brought the sailors safe to land and nary a one was lost. And then the Psalms of old King David——now there was a man that sure was kin to all our joy and sorrow, had words of cheer and wondrous consolation that seemed to fit the case of John and me. At first, I laughed and scoffed and teased the boy but after that first Sunday at the lake I never jeered no more for I believe that had it not been for the blessed peace and rest these hallowed seasons brought to us, the sense of trust and hope and quiet communion, with the supreme All Father, our Creator, we could not have endured our dreadful lot, the pain and fear and hardship that was ours through the long months and years that were to pass until that fateful day that brought us freedom. [Illustration] IX Long were the days for me; wearily they passed the chiefs were kind but not the common folk, who while we lived saw danger to themselves if any ship should come. Even King Maquinna, for all his kindness, kept a jealous eye to wean me from all wish to leave the tribe and so decreed I must wear Indian dress and wed an Indian wife. Not all my pleas could aught avail to turn him from his plans—— he said ’t was that or death, the choice was mine. And so I deemed it were the lesser evil that I should marry; and I gave assent to his decree. Then was he greatly pleased and granted grace that if I could not find amongst his folk a maiden to my mind, then I might choose one from some other tribe and he would back my suit with all his power. X I, Eustoqua, the King’s only daughter, the King, Upquesta, chief of the A-i-tizzarts, now relate what did befall me. The sun in the Western sky was sinking, sinking towards the water and in the golden river of its rays, lo, dark against its brightness, we saw approaching two strange canoes. In a brief space the beach whereon I stood and where before there had been none but children became a-throng with all our folk, who ran out from the lodges and the woods that lay behind them. Many raised hand to eye that ’neath its shading they might better scan the strangers in the offing. Were they friendly? Or did they come as foes? My father bore his arms, he and the other chiefs and all the men; and some did shake them, testing their weight, feeling the fineness of edge or point with a fastidious finger. The women pointing and chattering flitted here and there with frightened scutterings; but not for me, the daughter of the chief just turned seventeen, to show my fear although within my bosom my heart beat faster and a faint trembling fluttered my limbs as I stood motionless gazing to seaward. But they were not foes in the canoes for as they nearer drew we saw they were our Nootkan neighbours with whom we had no cause of strife or quarrel. Some time at rest they lay upon the bay; and when he knew their quest was friendly, my father sent Apala as his messenger to bid them all a hearty welcome and summon them ashore to sup with us. Then in our lodge there was great stir preparing the meal; my mother let me stay to see them land; so there I waited among the throng upon the sands, my cousins and other maidens standing by me. Maquinna first whom I had seen before, a noble figure of a chief, stept lightly on the shingle. Next Sat-sat-sok-sis, his son, the Prince and then the white slave we had heard of. We were all curious just to see him for we had heard such marvellous things that he could do, the weapons he could forge and rings and bracelets fashion out of copper and how he won the hearts of little children, he was so kindly with them and so gracious and made so many of the people love him—— when now I saw him I could understand it. Nor did he look a slave but walked erect and gazed about him fearlessly as if he were a chief; his face with shining fairness; his hair, not black, but sunny and golden, round his temples curling soft and lustrous. He wore his curious, awkward paleface clothes; right after him came forty Nootkan braves, and ten remained behind in the canoes wherein we saw were laden handsome gifts in furtherance of the purpose of their visit which we were soon to learn; nor did I yet know what a fateful thing it was to prove for me. They marched up from the shore right to our lodge, my father led the way with Chief Maquinna and I was fain to follow and to enter with all the throng; this was a thrilling hour, a ceremonial visit. We must await and here assembled all would learn its cause and list what these our friends had come to say with fitting dignity and grave attention. My heart beat fast. Curious I was to know what was their quest and I was conscious too of some new gladness I could not explain, rapture that swelled within me not unmingled with subtle pain poignant and penetrating when thinking of the pale face I had seen or greatly daring stealing furtive peeps, that face so lovely like the moon for paleness, that face I knew would haunt me in my dreams. [Illustration: “SAT-SAT-SOK-SIS, HIS SON, THE PRINCE.”] XI To be forced against one’s will to mate, it is a fearful fate but I was young and life was dear—— as an alternative there was death to fear. I felt my courage rise again once more as our canoes came nearer to the shore, by the force of fifty paddles spurning the blue waves and the foam churning to seek the village of the A-i-tizzart race. It was nigh sundown when we reached the place and ushered by their chief we were assembled in his lodge with his tribe. No wonder I trembled when told to look about me and choose my bride! There was a comely maiden by the chief’s side, modest of mien and winsome with a charming face lighter of hue than all the others and the grace of modesty and kindliness were kindled there; soft were her eyes and she had long, black hair of such a softness, her form lissome and straight like a young birch tree. Here might be a mate that one could learn to love. With hope anew my heart was lifted up; unwilling I drew my eyes away lest I should seem to stare at her alone among the maidens there; candidates unwitting were they all arrayed before me; and I too was on parade for it was plain they looked intent on me with a fixed, solemn gaze and I could see not only all the women but each brave had eyes for none but me. Maquinna’s slave, whose fame to all the tribes around had spread, who had wondrous skill making weapons, ’twas said. I looked to right and left beneath the curious stare of all assembled there. Maquinna, I was aware sitting beside me was watching closely too to see what I would do. There was a hush upon the throng and in my nervousness the time seemed long; but of all the maiden faces there there were none that could with the first compare I caught her eyes, one fleeting glimpse and when she turned them shyly down, why then it was I knew my choice was made and pointed her out to Maquinna. He said “You have chosen well. She is good as she is fair and the King’s daughter. Now must I do my share to buy her for you to become your bride.” Then he arose at my side and took me by the hand before them all and made me stand in the midst in front of Upquesta; and then he gave the sign for those of his men who were waiting outside, to bring the gifts to cast at the feet of the king. With haughty mien they strutted down the hall, bearing the cedar chests with them while all kept silence; and they laid them down before Upquesta, each with a forbidding frown as if they hated what they had to do and would have greatly liked to curse him too, (such is their curious custom.) All the throng rattled their spears and shouted loud and long, acclaiming the gifts, and made the rafters ring with cries of “Klack-ko, Tyee! thank you, Good King!” Then when the clamour had somewhat died Maquinna with an air of great dignity and pride explained our mission, introduced me by name and told of the manner in which I came to be his servant; how though of different hue I was as good as any of them; wiser too in many ways for I had wondrous skill working with metals and at my will could make from them daggers, harpoons and knives, vessels of iron to delight their wives and also the most delicate ornaments and rings fit for a chief’s adornment. So many things there were I knew, more than he could tell, about the countries I had travelled; and well I knew the heavens, could call the stars by name. Then he told how good I was——I blushed for shame; how even the children loved me and his son, the little Sat-sat-sok-sis was never done in speaking of me; how all day long the boy would chant my praise like the chorus of a song “John this,” “John that” and would follow me around just like a second shadow on the ground devotedly. In short Maquinna said so priceless was I that he would keep me always till I should die; and now when going to settle down in life most wisely I had decided to take a wife, so here tonight many leagues across the water had come to ask in marriage the King’s daughter, whose budding beauty held my heart in thrall. He said these gifts were mine and all of them I laid here at Upquesta’s feet, weapons and skins of matchless fineness meet to purchase such a bride. With accents slow and faltering first till speech began to flow Upquesta made reply and all his people cheered. First with a long harangue he said he feared he ne’er could part with such a paragon as this same daughter, her his only one and loved so dearly; but in the end he gave consent, called me his cherished friend and hoped that I would ever be kind to his Eustoqua. So would he be resigned to bid her farewell; and as for her dower I could take my gifts back, the skins for her bower and the weapons to guard her; and then two slaves he would give, two young men to cut wood for our household, catch fish for our table as it was his wish she should never be hungry or cold. Now the half of it cannot be told of the feasting that followed that night; but our party were off by daylight, Maquinna, his son and his braves with me and my bride and my slaves; and swiftly homeward we glided along as the paddles kept time with our song. XII I have sent her home, my wife with her babe. In weakness and pain from cold and privation I am nigh unto death. Forced by Maquinna to wear Indian clothing and to work in the woods cutting fuel for his fires. Hungry and naked, soon must I perish. She is good and kind, faithful and tender; but if I should die, who will befriend her? Here among strangers, far from her kindred, why should I keep her? I have sent her home, Eustoqua, my wife; she has passed from my life to return to her father. I shall see her no more; and I stand on the shore in weakness and pain, in sickness and sorrow, with no hope for the morrow. Forth into the dark night her canoe fades on my sight. XIII To part from my loved one, ’tis torment and pain; now I’ve left him for ever ne’er to see him again! For the lodges of Nootka sink low on my sight; and swiftly the paddles bear me far from delight. Why in life need I linger now its glory is fled? From my white love I’m banished and my spirit is dead. But his child’s at my bosom, his babe’s on my breast, shall I faint ’neath the anguish? shall I fail at the test? No, the papoose I suckle shall bid me to live; all the love that was John’s now to him will I give. But the mem’ries I cherish shall not dim with the years; nor his image e’er perish though blurred by my tears. XIV All health and vigour have gone out of me. I crawl along the beach crippled with pain. Naught can I eat and scarce can sleep at night. I would that death which seems so near might come. Poor Thompson’s case is nigh as bad as mine for rheumatism has got its grip on him. Today I saw a sight that made me sad: An Indian slave had died in dreadful torment; And when the breath had barely left his body his callous master dragged it down the sands and tossed it carelessly into the breakers to pass out on the tide. This, I reflected in a brief season will be my fate too, unmourned and unattended to be flung, food for the fish to feed on, whilst my folk will never know at home what has befallen me. My faith in God has hereto been my stay but in my pain and weakness even this now seems to fail me. Sweet was the surcease when every Sunday we could seek the lake, Thompson and I, and hold our solemn service but now we’re both too weak——O for a ship and liberty! or death with ease from pain! XV Maquinna, when he saw that there was danger I should die, allowed me to resume my European dress; and with proper warmth and nourishment my health began to mend and hope of freedom once again revived within my breast; Then Thompson too could walk again and I could not but feel that God who had most marvellously saved us from despair; and had put it in Maquinna’s heart to spare our lives thus far, might in the end restore us if it pleased his sovereign will. XVI One day working at the anvil, I and Thompson making daggers by command of King Maquinna, heard the heavy boom of cannon sounding loud across the waters, round the shores reverberating. This was what we long had wished for, that a ship would come to take us, and my heart’s tumultuous beating filled my breast with wild commotion, panic fear with hope contending. Soon the natives crowded round us at the forge where we were working, crying out with frightened clamour that a ship was in the offing. But we both kept right on working for we dared not show our feelings. Then came running King Maquinna crying, “Have you heard the tidings?” Taking time before I answered, I kept pounding on the anvil, feigning but a fine indifference to the purport of his question for we dared not show our feelings, dared not voice our heartfelt longings to return to home and kindred. “Would you like to go aboard her? go aboard and see the ‘Bostons’,[2] who have come here in this vessel?” asked the King, his keen eyes watching, puzzled by my dogged silence, “No, indeed,” at length I answered, “I have learned to live among you, learned to fish for whale and salmon, learned to hunt the great sea otter, and to face the mighty she-bear rearing with her cubs behind her, flesh my spear within her bosom. Why then should I want to leave you? leave this favoured land of Nootka, where the fish are never failing and the woods are full of berries, where the lean, lank wolf of famine, never lurks around your lodges? If I go aboard the vessel, these my countrymen would take me, take me back among the white men, wash the paint from off my body, dress me all in formal garments, cramp my limbs to my discomfort. No, I will not board the vessel.” “That is good,” said King Maquinna. “Go aboard yourself,” I urged him, “and this ship will make you welcome. They are here for trade and barter, seeking skins that you can sell them, precious furs of seal and otter; and they have no thought of vengeance, none at all,” I thus assured him. “All right, John,” he answered quickly, “I will go aboard this vessel; but first you must make a writing just for me to give the captain, telling him to make me welcome for the kindness I have shown you ever since you came among us. He’ll be glad then to receive me and to trade for my sea otter, plenty rum and sweet molasses, blankets, guns and shining bracelets all to make us rich and happy.” “That I shall,” I promptly answered, tore a sheet from out the notebook that I carried in my tunic and I straightway set about it while the King sat grimly watching— and my trembling fingers faltered, trembling as they held the pencil, just as if I had the ague. Then I read the letter to him, read it over not as written but as if it gave the message in the words himself had spoken. And the tenor of my story was of widely different purport, for I told the captain plainly he must keep Maquinna captive, hold him hostage for our safety. Setting out our situation and the substance of its peril, I assured him he could save us if he would but do my bidding. ’Neath Maquinna’s scrutinizing as I handed him the letter, I could feel the hot blood flushing in a flood right to my temples— he had treated me so kindly that it hurt me to betray him— but I put a bold front on it, luckily my face was painted so to hide the telltale blushing of the red stream that protested this duplicity I hated. Yet in such dire plight of peril it was justified I reckoned. Then the King, still hesitating, still in doubt, once more to try me, “Won’t you come with me?” he questioned, but I hastened to make answer that I had no wish to do so; and with this he seemed contented. So he straight dissolved the council saying, “This affair is settled. My canoe, be swift to launch it. I shall go. Your King has spoken.” [2] This was the name used by the Indians for American traders as their ships usually hailed from Boston. [Illustration] XVII So Maquinna arrived with his war canoe, bravely manned with its royal crew under the lee of the LYDIA lying at anchor with her house flag flying on the lazy waters of Nootka Sound, a brig from Boston now homeward bound. Her kindly skipper was Captain Hill, he had veered from his course with right good will taking the risk of the redskins braving, in the hope of Maquinna’s captives saving. He welcomed the chief with a hearty hail— but the crew were all mustered around the rail, with weapons at hand so should need arise they would not be taken by surprise. The afternoon sun shone bright and fair; balmy and fragrant the summer air blowing soft on the surface of the sea, freighted with breath of flower and tree from the forest of green that fringed the sand ’neath the purple peaks so lofty and grand outlined sharp ’gainst an azure sky. The prospect was fair to the Captain’s eye and as he surveyed the ravishing scene, he thought of the BOSTON that might have been still afloat with her master and crew, alive to enjoy these pleasures too. Maquinna climbed up o’er the LYDIA’S rail— his men’s dark hints had had no avail— Proud was his look and his eyes were bright as he stepped on the deck with naive delight. There was something hard in the Captain’s smile, a wryness of lip, a tenseness the while he read the letter the King presented but he shook his hand as if he meant it and ushered him down at once below to his cabin snug where a goodly show of biscuits and bottles and crystal bright seemed ready prepared for the guest’s delight. The Captain offered the Chief a chair, who straightway sat down with a satisfied air feasting his eyes in expectation, but not for long was his spirit’s elation; for into the cabin with faces grim five sailors filed surrounding him and there was a pistol cocked and ready in the captain’s hand held true and steady to plant a ball in Maquinna’s breast if he showed resistance. Then heavy hands pressed upon his shoulders and held him fast and shackles of steel on his wrists were cast while his ankles were bound with an iron chain. Resistance was futile, to struggle was vain. The captured chief did not cringe nor cower when he found himself in the white man’s power, but he faced his foes with a courage innate believing that death would be his fate. ‘A life for a life’ was his tribal rule, ‘Who spares his enemy is naught but a fool. He is always a danger until he is dead.’ “You are my prisoner,” the Captain said, “I shall hold you here till you restore the white men, your slaves on yonder shore, those who were spared of the “BOSTON’S” crew, all done to death by your tribe and you.” The terms seemed too good to be true to the chief, such clemency seemed almost past belief; and when Alana, his sub-chief was brought, he told him the trick whereby he had been caught and he sent ashore his royal decree that the two white captives should be set free and brought to the ship without delay. The message proclaimed this the only way to rescue him now from the white man’s power that had ta’en him by guile in an evil hour. XVIII Ere long we saw them coming back the men—but no Maquinna with them and from the folk around me rose a chorus of distressful sounds, subdued at first but rising fast, grunts from the men and women’s wails, for in the paddlers’ drooping mien, they sensed that there was something wrong. The big canoe soon reached the shore. With downcast eyes the men leapt out and stood dejectedly at bay before the crowd that sought to know why had they come without the King? They replied that their chief was in chains and ‘John had wrote bad of him,’ so the Captain was holding him hostage for the safety of Thompson and me. Then there was more howling and tears and women were tearing their hair. The men were all arming with spears and some of them threatened me sore and vowed they would cut me in bits or hang me up by the heels to burn me slow o’er a fire or would bind me fast to a tree and strip me and skin me alive. But I felt I had little to fear with Maquinna held hostage on board for they would not endanger his life by the killing of Thompson and me. Then the chiefs made the rabble keep quiet and bade me to tell them why their King had been treated this way. Did I think he was going to be killed? I assured them they need have no fear if they would but do as I asked to let me and my comrade go free. In that case their king would be safe. No harm would come to him at all. First they must send over my mate; and this they were willing to do, so I saw the sailmaker embarked and carried off safe to the ship. I was heartened to see him go and to know that at least he was free. My own fate was still in suspense but I asked those around me to say just what they proposed now to do. They argued together a while, then Alana, the sub-chief replied. A “paper-writing” I must make to the Captain on board the brig and bid him to send a boat with five men aboard and no more, who should bring Maquinna ashore. As soon as his foot touched the land, then I should leap into the boat and be carried back safe to the ship. Then all would be peaceful again. But I pointed out this would not do for the Captain would never consent to endanger his boat and its crew by venturing close to the beach, since he knew what had happened before to the BOSTON and all her men, my shipmates whose lives had been lost by trusting to them and their Chief. I proposed they should launch a canoe and man it with three stalwart braves and put me forthwith in the prow to carry me out in the bay within easy hail of the ship. Then I would the Captain call and ask him to send a boat with Maquinna on board out to us, so we could make an exchange, their loved chief for me midway between the ship and the shore. All the trouble would then be past. To this they were soon agreed. Three of them brought the canoe. Lightly I leapt to its prow. They were used to seeing me armed and forgot I was wearing them now— my dagger that hung at my side and my pistol stuck in my belt— while they had their paddles alone. Softly we skimmed o’er the sea. Exultant I looked at the shore, watching its outlines recede, the faces grow smaller and smaller, faces of foes full of fear, fear for the fate of their Chief and of hate for me as its cause. With my back to the ship I could feel that nearer and nearer we drew. The faint summer breeze fanned my cheek, the throb of the waves seemed to croon of freedom and friends and of home, fair faces I loved far away, in this perilous time of stress, these visions passed through my brain. We were soon within hail of the brig and the paddles had ceased to play, soon motionless lay the canoe. Now I knew that the time had come, I must act but my courage was cold. My limbs had grown suddenly numb and my lips dumb with craven fear as sometimes in a dreadful nightmare; but I put up a prayer to God to grant me my manhood again and straightway my strength was restored. From my belt then my pistol I drew and threatened the men whom I faced, now sitting there irresolute. I bade them pull up to the ship or suffer an instant death. They were taken by sore surprise and showed no resistance at all but were fain to obey my behest and paddled right up alongside. So then behold me climbing o’er the rail and welcomed heartily by Captain Hill, then after him by all his kindly crew. Thompson, whom I had hoped to see on deck, their hospitality proved too much for him and now he lay dead drunk down in the hold lost to the world. Indeed, he had succumbed, almost as soon as he had come aboard, to his potations; and thus Captain Hill could get nor rhyme nor reason out of him. So I must needs relate our stirring story from the beginning to him; and his wrath was fanned to fury as my tale went on. He vowed to hang Maquinna out of hand for the fell massacre of all our crew. Had I not showed him what great provocation from men of our own race the King had suffered and pointed out he lived by different standards than such as he or I; and truly told how he had saved my life and that of Thompson, had shown us numerous kindnesses as well, he would have done so; then he said at last he would be guided just by what I wished and thus would guard himself from any blame. XIX Maquinna brightened up at sight of me when I went down with Captain Hill to see him and cried out “Wocash, John!” I must confess to something of a shock to see the chief in chains. He, who had lately been my master even to the power of life and death, now sat before me with our rôles reversed shorn of his liberty and pride. Nor did it cause me any exultation to see him humbled thus before me; and I made haste to ask the Captain’s sanction to strike the irons from his hands and feet, the which I said it would be safe to do. I told Maquinna we would spare his life but he must now surrender all the spoils that he had ta’en ashore from off the BOSTON, so that we could restore them to her owners; and when his people brought those all aboard, then he would have his freedom and could go. Darkness was now descending. ’Twas too late tonight to bring them off but on the morrow this could be done. The King was much distressed at the delay and begged that through the night I would remain with him and this I did. For despite my assurance he was frightened the Captain still might punish him with death. His simple mind trained in the savage standard, ‘an eye for an eye’ could scarcely comprehend such clemency as promised. All night long he did not sleep nor would he let me do so, reminding me how he had stood my friend when all his tribe were clamouring for my death. So o’er and o’er again I strove to quiet him until at length the cheerful morning came. And then I hailed his men and straightway bade that they must bring the various things aboard, cannon and anchors and the BOSTON’S papers, my trunk and Thompson’s and my precious journal. When this was done Maquinna would go free. So, two hours later all had been restored. Maquinna’s war canoe came out to get him with sixty otter skins for Captain Hill, a present from the Chief in recognition that he had spared his life. And when at last, the Captain told him now that he could go, the Chief jumped up in ecstasy of joy and drew the royal mantle from his shoulders— four of the choicest skins it took to make it— to give his liberator; and the Captain with generosity not to be outdone, gave his own hat and topcoat to the Chief, who showed great satisfaction with the gift. The Captain also promised to Maquinna to come back later on within the year and do some trading with him and his tribe. Then Maquinna turned to me, deeply moved as I could see. Down his cheeks the big tears fell as he faltered his farewell. Strangely too I felt the parting nor could stay my own tears starting as he begged me to come back— nothing ever should I lack— he and his held me so dearly. It was plain he spoke sincerely. Then to the rail he lightly stept, and down among his warriors leapt, who bore him swiftly to the shore, o’erjoyed to have their king once more. Soon the little Sat-sat-sok-sis came out in his tiny shallop, just to take his farewell also. And he climbed aboard the vessel, climbed up o’er the rail to greet me, took my hand in his so shyly, hid his face against my tunic, could not speak he felt so deeply. In his eyes the tears were starting. I, too, deeply felt our parting. In my arms I quickly raised him, kissed him softly on the forehead; and he whispered, “Wocash, Tyee;[3] wocash, John,” he whispered gently. On the deck then soft I placed him; but he slipped from out my fingers, slithered nimbly to the water where at rest his shallop floated, seized with haste his tiny paddle, sped in silence swiftly shoreward. Thus the little Sat-sat-sok-sis and his father, King Maquinna of the valiant tribe of Nootka, passed from out my ken for ever. [3] “Wocash”, exclamation of welcome and approval. “Tyee”, Prince. The Narrative of John R. Jewitt _The White Slaves of Maquinna_ is based on the “Narrative of the Adventures and Sufferings of John R. Jewitt, Sole Survivor of the Ship BOSTON During a Captivity of Nearly Three Years Among the Savages of Nootka Sound with an Account of the Manners, Mode of Living, and Religious Opinions of the Natives”. This was written by Richard Alsop and published in Middletown in 1815. It was an extension in narrative form of “A Journal Kept at Nootka Sound” by John R. Jewitt, printed for the Author and published in Boston in 1807. 1807 was the year that Jewitt landed in Boston in the LYDIA, the ship that rescued him from his captivity and he lost no time in having his notes put into print as may be seen. He settled down in Massachusetts and eight years later Richard Alsop wrote the Narrative from the particulars of the captivity supplied to him by Jewitt. The latter made his living by travelling around the country selling this story of his adventures. It proved most popular and appeared later in numerous editions and in other forms and once in a broadside entitled “The Poor Armourer Boy, A Song”. As ethnological material it has proved most valuable because of the excellent and carefully detailed account of the natives and their habits, manners, customs and dress that are contained in it. The Indian Chief who captured the BOSTON and made slaves of Jewitt and his companion was the same Maquinna who was Chief at Nootka when Captain Vancouver visited there in connection with the Treaty. Their acquaintance was inauspiciously begun as the Journal recounts although later the Chief entertained the Englishman and a certain degree of harmony was established. The opening contretemps Vancouver describes as follows: “_Maquinna_, who was present on this occasion (the arrival at Nootka), had early in the morning, from being unknown to us, been prevented coming on board the DISCOVERY by the sentinels and the officer on deck, as there was not in his appearance the smallest indication of his superior rank. Of this indignity he had complained in a most angry manner to Senor Quadra, who very obligingly found means to sooth him; and after receiving some presents of blue cloth, copper, etc., at breakfast time he appeared satisfied of our friendly intentions: but no sooner had he drank a few glasses of wine, than he renewed the subject, regretted the Spaniards were about to quit the place, and asserted that we should presently give it up to some other nation; by which means himself and his people would be constantly disturbed and harassed by new masters. Senor Quadra took much pains to explain that it was our ignorance of his person which had occasioned the mistake, and that himself and subjects would be as kindly treated by the English as they had been by the Spaniards.” [Illustration: SIR GEORGE SIMPSON] “We are de fur traders an’ we make our highways o’er de _rivière_ and lake, our moving home de frail, birch bark canoe; . . .” The Voyageur _We are de fur traders an’ we make_ _our highways o’er de rivière and lake,_ _our moving home de frail, birch bark canoe;_ _mos’ time it carries us, sometime we bear it too_ _for when de rapides are too swift to run_ _we make portages. Always we toil from sun to sun_ _so hard, so hard de precious furs to bring_ _safe to de Fort, then by gar, we laugh, we sing._ _We no care now for perils that are past,_ _de rapides dangereux, de shrieking tempest blast._ _Non, non, forgotten all dose troubles of de trail_ _when we make beeg revel in de grande regale._ _’Tis then, de voyageur he feel like king_ _an’ he dance, he fight and do mos’ anyt’ing!_ Mackenzie From Canada By Land I We left Fort Chipewyan the Eighth of May at seven in the evening in our bark canoe, just twenty-five feet long inside, an easy burden for two men to carry. Three thousand pounds of load aboard her, provisions, guns and all our baggage and ten made up our party, seven Company men besides myself of proven loyalty and courage and then two Indians to interpret for us and hunt for game along the way. Ere we set off my people offered prayers that we might safe return; and those we left behind to hold the fort were moved to tears when bidding us farewell, knowing the dangers that we well must face on this wild journey now embarked upon, to cross the mountains to the Westward and seek a passage to the sea. II This Canyon of the Mountain of the Rocks through which the mighty Peace flows down tumultuously to pierce the foothills of the Rockies, deploying with its floods upon the plains, it nearly brought our enterprise to naught. Some Indians we had met had clearly told us that to ascend it was impossible; but we assayed the task. From side to side of the great stream manoeuvered skilfully, our fragile craft bearing its heavy burden we forced to stem the current. Near the outset ’twas crushed against a rock with shuddering force, broken and swamped but yet we pulled it forth and made repairs and dried out all the cargo, again consigning to the angry waters that sought to sweep us to destruction. And now we passed ’twixt walls of beetling cliffs, three hundred feet above the river’s bed that hindered from our course the sun’s bright rays and shrouded us in shadow and in gloom. By dint of almost superhuman effort we passed along from island unto island while up above, the Indians and Mackay looked down upon our struggles apprehensive that any moment we might meet disaster amid the maelstroms of the raging torrent. And now we used a sixty-fathom towline to pull our craft against the stream; and I myself climbed up the cliff, thinking that from its height I might direct the struggle with advantage; for from here the stream with all its whirls and rips and eddies and hidden rocks lay clear within my ken. But when I shouted down at the full pitch of my voice to tell them they must lighten the load in the canoe if they would have her live, the sound was lost in the river’s roar and the ceaseless din of its seething waters. O to watch them thus in their desperate strife as they fought with the flood, walking with uncertain footing when one false step must be fatal, straining at the laden craft when the rope might part at any moment bringing our voyage to swift disaster and be helpless to aid or guide them, was to suffer terrible torment. Nor was the danger from the stream alone; large rocks were ever hurtling from its cliffs and falling around them in potential death. Later the frail canoe was wrecked again and yet again we patched its broken sides. The day has been a day of direful toil and titan struggle. Now, thank God, it’s over; and here we rest upon a stretch of beach. And as we sup before our driftwood fire, our aching limbs relaxing in its glow that dries our dripping garments and we taste its pungent, acrid smoke within our nostrils, there comes a sense of comfort and of peace. The evening shades are closing in about us. Here as we thus recline we look on high o’er to the banks upon the other side and mark outlined against the darkening sky, a peaceful group of elk are quietly grazing unmindful of our presence. And we feel here in the desolation of these unknown wastes not near so solitary as before. A subtle, soothing sense of solace comes—— these are our fellow creatures and our kin ‘dreeing their weird’ too ’neath the Creator’s ken, whose providence thus far has brought us through. Cheered by the thought of His pervading care, I fortify my soul to meet the morrow. [Illustration] III Today as usual I went on ahead Mackay, my foreman, the two Indians with me; and we climbed up above, while the canoe and party down below made progress of their best along the stream. Laboriously at last we reached the summit only to find more hills that cupped us round and so we came back down unto the river and gave the signal that we had agreed on, two musket shots, to which no answer came. Thinking they were ahead we hurried on taking a short cut through the woods to cross the loop that there the river made and struck it higher up where we could see a long, straight reach ahead. Still no canoe and still our signal brought forth no reply to gladden our straining ears. On, on again we marched till noon and fired two shots once more with no result except to wake the echoes that mocked us. So then I went back to where we first had signalled; and there I found my men had retraced their steps four miles but had seen no sign of our lost comrades. So Mackay and Cancre, the Crab, one of our Indian hunters, I sent back down the stream while we, the other Indian and myself, went forward. The heat and fatigue and the clouds of mosquitoes and flies that plagued us each foot of the way made us ready to faint in our tracks. At last overcome with fatigue we were just making ready a bed of branches whereon we might rest when we heard musket shots to our rear, first one, then another, then two that seemed to be farther away. But I was not minded to move and was ready to camp for the night—— in spite of the hunger and cold that vexed us——but not so the guide, who was not as spent with fatigue, and he begged and implored me with tears to return down the stream. So at last I yielded myself to his will. Thank God! for his way was the best. Just at nightfall we heard a halloo in answer to ours. Then ere long we came within sight of a fire; and there were our friends safe and sound and there on the bank, the canoe. Soon with food and a jorum of rum the trials of the day were forgot. IV After all our toil and danger what a joy it was to find ourselves on a large navigable stream on the west side of that great range that perhaps might take us to the sea. But such hopes were ill-founded for some Indians that we met told us it was impassible with swift rapids in many places and high cliffs and rugged mountains besides fierce tribes that would murder us. But we learned that we might pass over land to a river running westward and a trail led out from this that would take us to the sea, that “lake of stinking water” as styled by the Indians. I was eager to attempt it but my men were faint-hearted, unwilling to follow me. They feared the hostile tribes through which we must pass and they were anxious to return. I secured an Indian guide and then I called my men to council and put the case before them when they all agreed to follow me. For I told them most earnestly that if they refused to do so I should still go on alone to seek a passage to the sea. [Illustration: _From the painting by John Innes_ ALEXANDER MACKENZIE RECORDS HIS GREAT ACHIEVEMENT] “I set my name, writ large, upon a rock in characters of bright vermilion: ‘Alexander Mackenzie from Canada by land’.” V We went back up the river, Tesse Tatouche. The Indian tribe to which our guide belonged took fright at our return and all had fled; and then, he too, infected by their flight departing followed them into the woods and thus it seemed was gone beyond recall. My people, they completely lost their nerve. They thought the tribes would surely ambush us and we would all be massacred; and so they wanted forthwith to turn back again. Our canoe was quite unfit for any use so that we had to build a new one. The men talked sulkily behind my back which I pretended not to know about. Then finally I let them understand that I was cognizant of all their thoughts; but I would have them frankly speak their minds and open up their plans. Yet as for me, my course was set and my decision fixed that I would journey onward to the sea. But still the work progressed with the canoe and soon it lay complete beneath our hands and then to my great joy the guide came back. He said that now his folk were friendly to us and he was willing still to lead our way. VI Next day we buried some of our provisions, pemmican, rice and other food supplies; and our canoe we set up on a staging covering it safe from damage by the sun. Then off we set upon our woeful walk of nigh three hundred miles to the sea each man bearing his pack near a hundred pounds on his back. This was the Fourth of July in “Seventeen-ninety three” and ere but fifteen days had passed though marching on short rations suffering much from cold, meeting with the various tribes who gave us help or hindrance, according to their several dispositions, we had traversed to the ocean. The Indians on the coast were far from friendly we dared not linger long among them. So on the twenty-second of the month we turned our faces eastward towards home hoping to reach the Fort ere winter closed. Before we went, for a memorial, I set my name, writ large, upon a rock in characters of bright vermilion: “Alexander Mackenzie from Canada by land” and gave the date as well for all to see. Alexander Mackenzie Alexander Mackenzie was the first white man to cross the continent north of Mexico. He was a native of Stornoway and came out from Scotland to Canada while a young man and went into the fur trade. When only twenty-four years old, he was sent to take charge of the district of Athabasca for the North West Fur Company to relieve Peter Pond, one of the partners. Here from Fort Chipewyan he explored the river now bearing his name which flows out of the Slave Lake and followed it about two thousand miles to its mouth in the Arctic Ocean. He travelled in a birch bark canoe with five men to man it. He was disappointed that it did not bring him out to the Pacific as he had hoped. That was in 1789 and it was in 1793, four years later, that he made his celebrated successful attempt to reach the Western Sea which is the subject of “_Mackenzie from Canada by Land_.” He was a man of fine physique and indomitable will and was possessed of high intelligence which qualities made possible his great accomplishments. He went back to England in 1801 and published an account of his _Voyage_. Here he was knighted for his distinguished achievements. He returned to Canada and attained to high influence in the activities of the North West Fur Company. He also entered politics but did not find it much to his taste. In 1808, he went home to the land of his birth and purchased an estate where he lived until his death in 1820. The Explorer _I penetrate to tracts unknown,_ _following the course of great rivers_ _and the shores of large lakes,_ _finding the passes through the mountains._ _With sextant and compass I labour,_ _making maps for others to follow_ _that the world’s waste spaces_ _may become populous and fruitful_ The Great River of the West Koo-koo-sint 1 I Consider David Thompson now, bred in Westminster, England, of humble stock taught in the Grey Coat School a charity foundation, and from there apprenticed to the Hudson’s Bay, a seven years’ term, and sent to Canada. Behold this tender lad of just fifteen arriving at Fort Churchill and from thence sent with two Indians to York Factory, a walk of just a hundred and fifty miles in that bleak, desert region of the North and there he stayed a year. Then next we find him away out west trading along the far Saskatchewan. Then fraternizing for the Company’s weal among the Blackfeet and the Piegans, he spent a winter in an old chief’s lodge, near where the town of Calgary now stands, and learned a great deal of the Indian ways and how to win their favour and their trust. He then took up the task that was to be the life work he would follow for the next nigh on to thirty years, to explore and to survey this virgin tract its rivers, lakes and mountains and its plains in which he travelled fifty thousand miles with compass and with sextant making maps and opened it to settlement and trade: his was a realm of wide expanse and wonder, the Kootenay Country and the Pend d’Orielles—— where live the Indians of the Pendant Ears—— and the Columbia River’s mighty basin, that mystic, fabled River of the West. From the headwaters down its winding flood, he was the first to follow. Ardent soul, this David Thompson, great geographer; of finer fibre than the common clay, wise with the natives, winsome in his ways, courageous, strong, and like the Christ in heart. [Illustration] Koo-koo-sint 2 The ways of destiny are strange indeed as one looks back on life, past human probing. We struggle on for years toward our end and meet with naught but hindrance and frustration until at last like pieces in a puzzle, events arrange themselves in favouring form the road is opened up which we may pass towards the dear aim of our hearts’ desiring. ’T was so with me in “eighteen-six” and “seven,” when I was sent to Rocky Mountain House with full instructions thence to cross the mountains and push the North West Company’s trade beyond. It was a time of progress and achievement. A friend of mine soon followed to the Coast the river Fraser which now bears his name—— that was up Northward, ’way there in the South. Lewis and Clark had crossed from the Missouri and paddled down the Snake to the Columbia, by which they traversed right out to the ocean. But in between there lay a mighty empire which was my oyster and I opened it. Our way was by the North Saskatchewan—— Lewis had had a brush with Blackfeet braves and all the tribes were on the trail for war and this had drawn the Piegans to the South and left the passes open through the mountains. I took my wife and children and MacDonald and with some half-breeds made the great adventure. Then when at last, after great pains and struggle, we reached a rivulet flowing to the west, reverend I prayed “May God in His great goodness, give me to witness where these waters join with the great sea and come safe home again.” From thence we travelled on by toilsome ways to the headwaters of that tortuous river, the great Columbia and we built a fort on its precipitous bank above the water stockaded on its landward sides with fir, that was Old Kootenay House of dear repute, the first fur-trading post on that famed stream, a place where I spent many anxious days. For ’t was not long that we were left in peace. Twelve Piegan Indians camped before the gates, ere yet the fort was finished; one month more saw twice as many others pitch their tepees beside them; and we lived in constant fear they would attack and kill us one and all. Though food was scarce I dare not let my men go forth for hunting so we went on rations and for our water nightly when ’t was dark two kettles to the river we let down. Then suddenly one day our foes had gone and yet we dare not count the peril past for shortly after, two more Piegans came, stalking in stolid fashion to the gate. At once I took them in, showed them around and pointed out the strength of our defense, the stockades and the bastions with the loopholes pierced in the walls through which to fire our muskets “We know,” I said, “that you have come as spies. Your tribe intends to put us all to death but many of you first shall fare afar to the great hunting grounds for which you yearn, your passage sped by bullets from our guns and those of our good friends and allies.” Then here I pointed where two Kootenay braves who, also come to visit us that day, stood glaring fiercely at their Piegan foes. “We shall not die alone you may be sure. This you can tell the chiefs who sent you here. But still to show my goodwill I shall send, rich gifts for all of them which you shall take. For Kootenae Appee, who was once my friend, a pipe of porphyry red and richly carved and six feet choice tobacco and for each of those the lesser chiefs, a fourth as much that all may smoke in kindly love and peace.” I then dismissed them with an anxious heart and forthwith all that host, three hundred braves who had assembled twenty miles away with purpose firm to fall upon our fort, they vanished as by magic on the morrow. Let Kootenae relate how it befell. [Illustration] [Illustration: _From the painting by John Innes_ SIMON FRASER FOLLOWING THE GREAT RIVER TO THE SEA.] “A friend of mine soon followed to the Coast the river Fraser which now bears his name . . .” Koo-koo-sint 3 I, Kootenae Appee of the Piegans, chief, had never wished for war with Koo-koo-sint[4]. He was my friend these many summers gone when we were camped by the Saskatchewan, (he spent a winter with us in the tent of old Saukamappee,) a white man true, who always kept his word and could be trusted and he would hearken well to all my tales and loved to hear me talk. Why should I now go out with other chiefs and seek to kill him? And this I asked of Big Nose and Tall Feathers, who thirsted for the blood of Koo-koo-sint and all those who were with him at his fort. I said to these two chiefs and to their braves: “How can we smoke to the Great Manitou and put up prayers that he will prosper us if, without warning, we swoop down to kill these friendly folk with whom we are at peace now ten long summers?” But my words were vain, the chiefs and all their braves cried out for war their chatter, first like pebbles in a pan, became a deafening clamour without sense like sound of many waters in my ears till I was forced to yield unto the fools. So here we were encamped three hundred strong and we had sent two spies to Koo-koo-sint to see how best to take him by surprise and learn the strength or weakness of the post. Now these had safe returned and we were met, all the war chiefs in council to confer; and as the envoys, standing in our midst, gave their report we lent attentive ear. But when they told how they had been received, how Koo-koo-sint had shown them o’er the fort, his high stockades and bastions and his guns, and promised that if we should take their lives full many of us first must needs be slain, the faces around me fell; frowns of dismay distorted features that before were calm; and when the spies told how our ancient foes, the Kootenay Indians would defend the fort and help the white men and they showed the gifts of choice tobacco Koo-koo-sint had sent, a clamour rose, “What can we do” some cried “with such a man as this? why these our women cannot e’en mend their shoes but he will see, this white man who wins wisdom from the stars!” There was a sudden pause ere Big Nose spoke: “With my sharp knife,” he said, “I well can cut through tents to stab and kill my enemies and so I have done and I still would do; but these strong walls of wood no ball will pierce with men behind them, who have been my friends and whom I cannot see, I do not like them! I go no further!” and he took the pipe, that wondrous pipe that Koo-koo-sint had sent, all colours like the rainbow in the sky, and filled its bowl full with the fragrant weed and handed it to me and I did smoke and all the others, one by one, they followed from hand to hand this pipe of peace went round. Then by the break of day we folded tents and tribe by tribe, each slipped off silently; and I rejoiced that Koo-koo-sint sat safe. He was my friend and liked to hear me talk, there away North by the Saskatchewan, and he would hearken well to all my tales, which, ’tis well known, is love’s true testament. [4] The Man Who Looks at the Stars, the name the Indians gave to Thompson. Koo-koo-sint 4 Ho! a great man that David Thompson! I took the trail with him on that wild trip; the Piegan Indians they were after us and we were forced to find a different route out of the mountains to transport our furs to save them and our own dear skins as well—— I’ll take my oath it was no picnic party. One long detour of nigh four hundred miles through such a country as you never saw of mountains, streams and miry muskeg swamp and fire-swept lands criss-crossed with fallen trees almost impassable for laden beasts, we made the Athabasca in a month of constant struggle. And our food was short for game was scarce. Not far from Brulé Lake the guide advised us that it was too late to take our horses through the mountain trails. We sent them back to Rocky Mountain House, all but just four we kept to help the dogs and make their burdens lighter. Now the cold was biting keen at “thirty-two below” with sometimes wind as well to make it worse and we made shift to build a shelter rude of logs inside of which we set to work contriving sleds and snowshoes for the trail. That took us near a month and then again we set off bravely up the river’s bed, urging the dogs along its icy face with whip and voice for their encouragement. Five days and we had reached the meadowed pools where the great Athabasca has its source, and beyond which there is no pasturage. Here we were forced to turn the horses loose to find their sustenance as best they might and climb the mountains with the dogs alone. It took us four days more to reach the summit and what a desolate, awesome sight we saw. Ranging all ’round about us lofty peaks snow-clad and roseate ’neath the Westering sun shimmered in shining splendour; on our right a mighty glacier lay whose eastern face showed a sheer drop of full two thousand feet. Nearby below upon the mountain side we could descry where some great avalanche had shorn the tree trunks with its mighty stroke to leave a piteous travesty of stumps, all equal length like bristles in a brush, where once a forest flourished. ’Twas a scene to chill the heart with loneliness and dread; and as we gazed around upon this sea of mighty mountains rising wave on wave far in the distance and then turned our eyes on one another, such a forlorn band of pusillanimous pigmies, then our hearts seemed turned to water, all our courage dead. The air was still but should a wind arise, the snow that clothed the slippery slopes above might thunder down in fearful avalanche and bury our whole band in one grim grave. Three of our lads had trimmed a slender pole with which they pierced down through the yielding snow full twenty feet or more yet found no bottom, then pulled it up again. We looked with awe into that hole, our faces tense and strained, aghast and staggered by the stunning thought of all that depth between us and the ground and still no contact with it. Words of dread we spoke of it in accents of dismay with mien of deep dejection and despair. A sturdy, stocky figure joined our group, our leader, David Thompson. He had watched our operations and had overheard our colloquy of fearfulness and awe. Here I should say in justice to us men that of our courage we had given our proofs in days gone by. If now we lost our nerve we were not normally a coward crew and I were blithe to fight the man who said so. But he, our leader, had a kindly way—— he never spoke with harshness or reproach and all of us would follow him through fire. Now he spoke softly glancing round the ring: “What matters it, Jules Tremblay, that you find no bottom to the snow beneath our feet, since we have snowshoes and can stick on top with greatest ease and walk about on it? Just look you here in this deep hole you’ve made, what a remarkable phenomenon I’ve never found before! See, by degrees how this same snow that ’frights you changes hue, grading from darkest blue below to green of purest emerald here at the top. My lad, this earth is full of wondrous things to charm our fancy and to lift our thoughts to the Creator, who designed it all; and since we know that we are in His hands we should not ever show ourselves afraid.” Serene and calm his mien, assured his voice, it was the scientist spoke, the man of God, with the trained mind and understanding heart, who with his vision clear and quiet faith was kept immune to sublunary fears. We looked and listened; and somehow the scene, before so lone and desolate and drear all in a moment lost its sinister air, the mountains seemed more friendly, less forlorn and we could face the future and fare on with quiet assurance to our journey’s end. That night so brightly shone the stars above, it seemed I might have touched them with my hand; Then in the morning we were up betimes, and with new hope and courage in our hearts, harnessed the dogs and started down the slopes that led to the Columbia’s mighty bed. [Illustration] David Thompson David Thompson was born in Westminster, England, in 1771 and was educated at the Grey Coat School. He was apprenticed to the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1784 but changed over to the North West Fur Company in 1797 as the former Company did not look with favour on his exploratory work and wanted him to give that up and devote his energies to trading alone. He worked with extraordinary thoroughness and has been spoken of as “America’s greatest geographer.” Besides his great work in surveying the North West he was occupied for ten years from 1817 to 1826 in the survey of the international boundary line from St. Regis, Quebec to the north-west angle of the Lake of the Woods. He died at Longueuil near Montreal in 1857 at the age of eighty-six, and, notwithstanding the great services he had rendered, his last years were lived in poverty. It is interesting to note in connection with the discovery of the Kootenay country (to use the present spelling) and the building of Old Kootenay House, that on 30th August, 1922 the old trading post was reproduced by the erection of a David Thompson Memorial Fort at Lake Windermere, B.C. In connection with this, an appreciation of the explorer as Canada’s Greatest Geographer by his biographer, Mr. J. B. Tyrrell, F.R.S.C., was written and printed for the occasion. In this Appreciation he makes the following striking reference to the crossing of the mountains by the Athabasca route: “Frequently the Thompson parties were in danger from hostile Indians. Indeed, to get his furs out of the mountains after he and his people were threatened with extermination, he was compelled to use an undesirable route. In 1807 he came in to the Kootenay country, Idaho and Washington by way of the Saskatchewan and Howse Pass. In 1811 he had to abandon the Saskatchewan route and get out by way of the Athabasca, at the cost of a journey which, for perils and escapes, surpasses anything invented by the most romantic writers. The detour was about 400 miles. Roughly, it meant going by the Grand Trunk Pacific instead of by C.P.R., with the difference that the furs had to be taken four hundred miles down the Athabasca up to Lake la Biche, one hundred miles north of Edmonton, and thence down the Churchill River to Cumberland House.” [Illustration: DAVID THOMPSON MEMORIAL FORT H.E. WHITE.] An Indian Pilgrimage 1 II I am Heeokstekin[5] of the Nesperees[6] tribe and when I was a boy I can remember a Flathead visitor to my father’s lodge telling a wondrous tale. There to his village recently had come a band of roving Iroquois far travelled o’er the mountains and the plains from Coughnawaga Mission near Montreal. Their leader, “Old Ignace,” a noble chief honoured the white man’s God, whom he declared had died to save us all and now He reigned on high in power and might; and He was greater far than all our gods. Yet He was pitiful and tender, more prone to pardon than to punish, loving the white man and the red man too, and caring naught for the colour of the skin so long as the heart was clean. As I lay listening upon the ground before the fire, I saw this Flathead’s eyes, there as he talked, glow with a kindling flame of fervour e’en my boyish wits could sense that showed he too now loved the white man’s God and was His loyal follower. He talked, my father listening eager to such end that on the morrow ere the sun was high they left together for the Flathead’s village. [5] Means “the rabbit-skin-leggings.” [6] Contraction for Nez Percés. An Indian Pilgrimage 2 That was now twenty years ago my father learned to love the white man’s God and so did I and others of our tribe and many of the Flatheads too. These Iroquois had wondrous tales to tell which from the “black robes” they themselves had heard—— white men who served this Saviour whom they worshipped, whose hearts were loving and whose deeds were kind, who set no store by furs and sold no guns but gave and wanted nothing in return even as they said their Master taught them. And as the years went by our love grew strong and we would fain learn from the “black robes” too all that they had to tell; and old Ignace said if they knew we wished it they would come and dwell among us; nor would distance daunt them nor danger by the way of savage tribes nor raging torrents, nor of desert suns, arrow by night or noisome pestilence—— all these they held as naught when call of duty bade them go forth bearing His joyful tale. [Illustration] An Indian Pilgrimage 3 So we set off, a group of us—— mounted on our fleetest ponies in the spring when the sap was flowing—— Flatheads and Nesperees, on the long, long traverse, to St. Louis, that great city, where we might find the “black robes,” those servants of the Great Spirit, who would come to teach our people and tell them about their Lord. And O the lakes and rivers, and O the weary mountains, the hunger and the thirst and the fear of the fierce foes who ambushed us by night and dogged us in the daytime, the heartaches for home, the longing for our own folk, that made our spirits heavy as we journeyed without flagging to St. Louis, that great city and we reached it at last—— but not all who set out—— alas not all who set out! For three died by the tomahawk, two were drowned in a rapid, a she-bear killed another whose cubs he had frightened, and but four of us arrived at St. Louis that great city to search out the “black robes” and make known of our quest to them and the hope that we cherished. An Indian Pilgrimage 4 We never knew there were so many people in the world; and all the wonders that we saw I have not words to tell of them. Our hearts that ever had been brave now turned to water at such sights as we beheld them; and our feet used to the soft ways of the wild were weary on their streets of stone, those endless streets that stretched so far—— our ponies we had long since lost—— We walked as strangers; as we passed the people turned their heads to stare. O we were lonely, we were sad but we were hopeful too and glad that our long journey now was done and we might find these “holy men” and learn more of our Saviour Lord. An Indian Pilgrimage 5 Did we find the “black robes?” Yea and they took us in, warmed us and fed us and washed our torn feet. They bound up our bruises with sweet smelling ointment and couched us in fine linen. But two of our number died of their hardships—— too late came their kindness, too late, alas, to save them—— O sad were our hearts! O solemn the funeral in the great mighty temple with its high lofty arches like the trees of the forest where their tops come together. O solemn the service which the “black robes” provided to do them great honour; the singing and chanting, the burning of candles and the smoking of incense. O sad were our hearts but the “black robes” assured us that the friends who had left us the Saviour would take them to feast at his banquet and dwell in His lodges for ever and ever and so we were cheered we two, the poor remnant of those who had braved this perilous pilgrimage. And then when we parted, took farewell of the Fathers they promised to follow, to send from their number, some who would teach us to worship the Saviour with words that were fitting and songs that were holy. And so we departed in joy at their promise, our hearts overflowing with praise and thanksgiving. [Illustration] An Indian Pilgrimage 6 And now the long, long journey home is done and I am back again among my own, a thousand weary leagues or more; but none of all who left with me returned. Alone at nightfall to my father’s lodge I crept and entering silently, I told the tale of all our wanderings while the listeners wept, shrilly there rose on high the women’s wail. “Weep not for them,” I said, “my comrades true, for they have passed to hunting grounds of bliss where summer ever stays nor will they rue the life that they have lost, they will not miss the joys of earth, the loved ones left behind when in the richness of their faith’s reward they taste its bounties with untroubled mind in the great feasting lodge of Christ, their Lord.” An Indian Pilgrimage 7 Now many moons have sped, they have not come these holy men of God, these “black robe” visitants to teach us more of Him whom we would serve and we have looked in vain, they have not come, scanning the river’s reaches eagerly hoping for sight of them in their canoe, hoping, yet fearing lest they may not come. The summer waneth and our hearts are sad, scanning the river’s reaches prayerfully, wistfully wondering “Will they never come?” The Mission to St. Louis The story told by Catlin, the ethnologist, about the stupendous journey which the Indians made to St. Louis to ask that monks might be sent to them to teach them about Jesus Christ, is a moving and a pathetic one. The “black robes” did come but not then or as a direct result of Heeokstekin’s pilgrimage. Jason Lee came, however, in response to the appeal, from the Methodist denomination with a considerable party and he founded a colony in the Williamette Valley. On the advice of Dr. McLoughlin of the Hudson’s Bay Company he decided to stay west of the Cascades. He confined his ministrations principally to the white settlers. When Heeokstekin and his comrades went to St. Louis, the Roman Catholic Church there was unable at the time to spare the missionaries that they asked might be sent. However, in the summer of 1835, Old Ignace, the Iroquois Chief who with his companions had first brought the gospel of Christ to the Flatheads, now with his two sons travelled to St. Louis to ask again that the prayer might be granted. They returned in the following year. In 1837 the old man with three Flatheads and one Nez Percé started off again for the southern city but the expedition turned out disastrously as the party they travelled with was attacked by the Sioux and all the Indians were put to death. Undeterred by the tragic fate of this pilgrimage, in 1839 the tribes sent Young Ignace and another Indian who travelled down the Yellowstone and the Missouri by canoe with a party of trappers. At Council Bluffs they met a Jesuit missionary, Father De Smet, and from thence went to St. Louis with letters from him to the Superior of that Order. They were promised that a priest would be sent in the Spring, and one of them went home to announce the glad tidings while the other stayed in St. Louis to act as guide to the missionary when he should come. The story of the career of Father De Smet and his ministry to the Indian Tribes of the Northwest is a thrilling one. It is pleasant to record that the persistent appeals of the Flatheads and Nez Percés were at length answered by the coming of such a great teacher. Sacajawea 1 III Now has my span filled out a hundred years. I, Sacajawea, of the Shoshone tribe, a princess of the Royal blood, here in my teepee on our reservation, calm and serene I sit awaiting death. My sons, Baptiste and Bazil, still do me honour and I have naught to crave for, naught to covet. For I have known rich mercies in my time, have seen high deeds and mingled with great men and merited their thanks for help I rendered and played my little part with credit. Aye! strangely enough the mirror of my mind, memory brings back my early years the clearest when I was young and lithe and light of foot; and with the brightness of the noonday sun their happenings flash upon my inner vision. Only these later days of failing vigour, of dimming eye and toothless gums and slower step and grosser body have suffered the twilight haze men call forgetfulness. I can recall as though ’t were yesterday how happy was my childhood and how free, the sunny days of merry play and laughter. I had two maiden friends of my own age—— but fifteen summers had gone o’er our heads—— and of each other we were passing fond. There were my parents too and elder sister—— my brother Cameah-wait five years my senior—— to cherish me and all were kind and dear. [Illustration: _By courtesy of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company_] “Hunting was good and we were happy. The young braves proud to show their prowess, yet sought to hide it ’neath a show of calm;” Sacajawea 2 Those days were not to last. That summer we went hunting far from home near the Great Falls of the Missouri river—— the men allowed us maids to go along for we could help them with the game they killed. We were right keen to join the party. At first, all things went well. Hunting was good and we were happy. The young braves proud to show their prowess, yet sought to hide it ’neath a show of calm; but we knew how they felt. We knew their eyes were not unmindful of our presence; and when the chase was o’er and we returned there might be hunting of another sort for these young warriors so strong and brave; and we would be the not unwilling quarry for we were nubile now. Then when alone we maids were wont to chatter and twit each other with a playful banter and single out whose eyes had looked at whom; but there was naught of spite in these our jests nor jealousies to mar our happy friendship and all the future seemed so bright with promise; and then the Minnetares set upon us! Ah that was long ago, but still the horror of that hour, the terror of that night remain as if ’twere yesterday! the war whoops of our foes, the death cries of the slain, defeat and utter rout and these young braves, my friends cut down before my eyes! myself and my two mates each seized in the fierce grip of a Minnetare; thrown across his horse and carried helpless through the night knowing a bitterness far worse than death. Then in the morning with the dawn’s chill light we were delivered at the old Chief’s lodge, each tossed like bale of blankets to his women to be his slaves and do their bidding, suffering blows and beatings at their will. Oh these dread days of horror and suspense! the numbing fear of what might be our fate, the furtive, sly regard of the young men, the uncertainty, the hopelessness! Only we were together, we three maids and that was cause for thankfulness indeed. Then one dark night there came the chance to flee. One of us was too fast asleep to seize it—— the other made clear away but I——I would not, I could not leave my comrade to her fate, and, so I let it pass and stayed behind, my mind o’erwhelmed with misery and despair. The Great Spirit willed it otherwise. [Illustration] Sacajawea 3 In the midst of these my woes a paleface came one day to visit in the lodges of my foes and he set up his tent to stay among us. Charbonneau, his name and from a bleak land, icy and cold, French Canada away in the North he came. As a child I had often been told of a race in the world such as he. True his face was as brown as the brackens in spring but his body where covered was white as could be ’neath his raiment. With joy he would laugh and would sing not a bit like us Indians——not stolid and stiff. Quite often he came to the lodge for a while to gamble and smoke; and to us just as if we were friends there was always a nod and a smile even though we were slaves, not the looks harsh and hateful that we had from our captors as though we were curs to be kicked. Do you wonder that we should be grateful for these crumbs of kindness? We learned it was furs that the white man was seeking. T’was trinkets and knives that he staked with the Chief. One night as they played, Charbonneau always winning, the Chief with his wives all around him, was sulky, while I and the maid, my mate in mishap, lay there brooding alone, the stranger cried loudly, “My winnings I’ll stake against your two slaves of the tribe of Shoshone.” The Chief quick assented the wager to make. Our suspense was not long. The pale face laughed loud, trilled the snatch of a song—— the Chief’s brow was a-cloud—— and each rose in his place, the guest grasping his furs in a greedy embrace, heeding naught the demurs of the squaws gathered round and he strode to where we lay, threw them down upon the ground. “There,” he cried, “we must away.” “You are mine now, pack your load. Henceforth you shall my burdens carry. Follow me,” and off he strode; and we did not dare to tarry for the old Chief waved assent, looking crestfallen and sad; fierce his squaws, as thus we went muttered and fumed; and we were glad, when we’d passed the portals through, Charbonneau should hasten faster from the scene; and happy too that we had another master. Ere the dawn began to break we were paddling down the river. Half asleep and half awake, I felt the ripples throbbing quiver. Soft their voices seemed to speak bidding me to banish sorrow while whispering night winds fanned my cheek and counseled courage for the morrow. [Illustration: _From the statue of Sacajawea by Alice Cooper in the City Park, Portland, Oregon_] “How joyful to think once more that I might see my loved ones! might view again the dear scenes of my childhood bearing the little Ba’tiste on my shoulders.” Sacajawea 4 We settled in a village of the Mandans and there I bore a son to Charbonneau; and I was one of his three wives, my mate another and we lived in peace; for he was kind to me after his fashion and struck me only rarely and without malice. Soon, following the time my boy was born, there came to spend the winter near our village a band of white men and they built a fort, thirty or more of them but one was black—— never had such a sight been seen before. His skin was like the raven’s wing in hue, his hair so thick and curly and our people came from all parts to look at him. The leaders of the band were Captain Lewis and Captain Clark and it was by command of one, a Great White Chief called Jefferson that they had set out on a long, long traverse to cross the chain of mountains to the westward and then to follow down that mighty river that wise men tell us joins the great, blue water far, far away. Soon when the sap was flowing off they would go. They said they hoped my people would give them guides to pass the Great Divide and help them take their goods across the mountains—— for, as they knew, our tribe had wealth of horses. So when these leaders learned I was a Shoshone—— my husband told them——and I knew the language and also was acquainted with the country they straightway hired us both to travel with them as their interpreters and guides. How joyful to think once more that I might see my loved ones! might view again the dear scenes of my childhood bearing the little Ba’tiste on my shoulders. Sacajawea 5 We left the Mandan villages in canoes up the Missouri——past the Yellowstone. Once the pirogue we sailed in was upset a sudden squall o’ertook us and my man who had the helm, by fear became confused, “the world’s worst waterman” our leader called him, and all the precious gear fell in the water; but by good fortune I just fished it back and Captain Clark was thankful for it seemed without that gear our pains were all for naught and all their journey would have been undone. Soon after I fell sick, knew weary days of heaviness and pain nigh unto death. I lay and languished, oft of wit bereft thinking myself at home a child once more carefree at play around my father’s lodge. Then every day came Captain Clark to tend me and I was conscious of his ministering hand and sensed the gift of healing in its touch. O he was kind and gentle and his care, restored me to my wonted health again. [Illustration] Sacajawea 6 And when we reached the Great Falls of the river we needs must make a mighty portage round them and there was much delay. Then too the weather was cold and wet and windy; there were hailstones as big as eagles’ eggs that beat upon us bruising the flesh and falling thick and heavy so even strong men sometimes lost their footing felled by their furious force. One day we went, the black man and my husband and myself with Captain Clark ahead of our main party—— the Falls were only half a mile away—— when suddenly a storm came down upon us. But ere it broke our leader made us haste to seek for shelter in a deep ravine under a sloping shelf that served as roof to shield us from the torrent of the rain and here we stayed an hour or so and watched in fearful fascination while it fell—— ourselves immune from danger as we thought. But the waters above us had gathered and in a great cataract swept with scarce a moment of warning down with devastating force through the cleft where we waited as though intent with devilish rage to dash us to destruction. And I with my baby as burden must have been borne before it had not Captain Clark come to my succour and, bracing his body behind me, pushed me up out of all danger, safe from the swift, swirling waters,—— at the risk of his own life he did it—— and Sacajawea was grateful. So from that time as we travelled my gratitude grew to devotion and I made it my loyal endeavour to help with his plans for safe passage—— not alone by the help of my people—— but in all the long journey beyond them down the River That Flows to the Westward. Sacajawea 7 More than three moons had passed and then at last I saw familiar hills upon the skyline and recognized the country of my people and three days after that we reached the place where the great river that had been our course forks in three parts. Here at this well-marked spot one of the leaders, Lewis, went ahead with three to bear him company, the rest would follow slowly up. We learned in time the stirring story of their great adventure. How they had climbed across the Great Divide finding the Lemhi Pass that let them through and then they met a squaw of my own folk, who, won by gifts and words of soft persuasion, guided them to our camp. Here they were met with smiling welcome from the brave young Chief and all his band, who lovingly embraced them with warmth and fervour. So then Captain Lewis requested aid from them in men and horses to bring the others of his party through up from the place where he had planned to meet them, there at the two forks of the Beaverhead. To this the Chief with eagerness agreed and he and forty braves set out at once and all went well; but at the rendezvous we had not yet arrived. Then ugly gleams, distrust and doubt becloud the warriors’ eyes. They feared these white men had it in their minds to lure them to an ambush by their foes, the dreaded Minnetares; and accused them their new-found friends, of this base treachery. Thus for a space it seemed that all were lost, the leader and his men might suffer death; but not for long. Lewis with dauntless nerve and wit resourceful, made a daring throw, confiding in the good faith of his host, handed his gun to him and straightway bade his men do likewise so the Chief might see there was no crooked purpose in their mind. He then proposed that two men be sent on, one of their own and one of his, as scouts to meet our party. This was forthwith done and so as we came up we met the two and shortly afterwards with all the rest. That was a happy moment then for me when the two bands were joined in one at last; and I was blithe to recognize my people and in the Chief himself to find my brother, my dear and loving brother Cameah-wait and we embraced with joy and happy tears. That was long years ago. I shall not tell the many happenings of our later progress, how the supplies were carried with much care across the Great Divide upon our horses and also the bowed shoulders of our women; and how through stress of strenuous toil and peril our party travelled westward to the ocean—— “The Lake of Stinking Water” our folk name it, through dangerous rapids, down the Great Broad River and how I saw a whale, a wondrous monster, and all that followed, no I shall not tell it. But it is sweet to think on now I’m old how these heroic leaders, great men both, kindly and brave and just, above reproach, gave me their loyal friendship, how they told me, but for my aid their enterprise had failed. Here my teepee in our reservation I view the past and think upon these things. The Lewis and Clark Expedition The Lewis and Clark Expedition was sent out by President Jefferson in 1803 with the object of getting American settlers into the Valley of the Columbia River so as to strengthen the claim of the United States to that territory by exploration. Captain Gray, an American, had been the first to discover the river from the sea. Their journey proved to be a splendid feat of courage and endurance and the rôle which Sacajawea played in it forms an interesting part of the story. [Illustration] Doctor John McLoughlin “THE GREAT WHITE EAGLE,” the Indians called him at Fort Vancouver where he held his sway, for ere he reached his prime his locks were grey; right kingly too he was in word and deed, so both by outward port and inward meed, they classed him with the King of Birds to pay their highest tribute in the name. For they found him their stay in every time of need; but he was also firm though he was kind. He kept his word with them for good or ill, was prompt to punish if they gave him cause; and often when they planned to break his laws, some helpless settler folk to raid and kill, counsel from him would bring a saner mind. [Illustration: _From the murals in the State Capitol, Salem, Oregon, painted by Barry Faulkner and F. H. Swartz._ _By courtesy of the Secretary of State._ MERIWETHER LEWIS AND WILLIAM CLARK WITH PARTY AT CELILO FALLS ON THEIR WAY TO THE PACIFIC, 1805.] “through stress of strenuous toil and peril our party travelled westward to the ocean . . .” Doctor John McLoughlin 1 IV I strolled on a bleak afternoon in winter nigh to sundown on the beach in front of the Fort and my heart was heavy and mournful. I felt the old days so spacious of splendid isolation, would soon be gone forever. The future seemed dark and forboding. I loitered there on the beach and looked out over the river to see with a sense of dismay, dotted here and there on its surface from the far East arriving, the first canoes of the settlers, the vanguard of “Forty-three” with a round eight hundred to follow. Late, too late in the year they had come to this land of promise, and dearly must pay for their folly, dearly in hunger and hardship. Food must be found till the Spring to save them from death by starvation; none but myself could supply it, none else could furnish them succour. There were the Indians too——these were a perilous problem—— They looked askance at those strangers, doubted their friendly feelings, feared they would take their land and drive off the game from the forests—— of late I had noticed an air of wildness and strain in their bearing! Now as I paused in my stride I marked between me and the river, ten or twelve in a group and they saw me coming towards them. Indians they were whom I knew and I feared they were plotting some mischief; one of them called to the others so loud he must know I would hear him. “It is good for us that we kill those ‘Bostons’[7] who come here to rob us.” I knew that he said it to sound me. How would I look on such action? So I rushed on him then in a rage with my cane uplifted and threatening; “Who is this dog” I cried, “who would talk of killing the Bostons?” “I did not mean any harm,” cried the fellow quailing before me, “but that is what all the Indians up at the Dalles are saying.” “Then the Dalles Indians are dogs to say such a thing,” I shouted “and you are a dog yourself who would dare in my hearing repeat it!” Forthwith I turned on my heel and I knew that the others had heard me. Now they would feel that the settlers were under my Company’s aegis and I surely would punish severely any who sought to kill them. In the past I had given them proofs that my justice was prompt and potent. Then I sent to the Dalles two boats well stored with provisions. When the later settlers arrived my men would be there to meet them; and to sell to those who could buy or to give to such as had nothing; thus all the Indians would know the strangers had me for their ally. This was the action I took and thus by such means was averted a horrible Indian outbreak, and murder of many settlers, and perchance our own death too, the destruction of Fort Vancouver, and a war between us and the States——a terrible culmination. And what of the body I serve, the Honourable Hudson’s Bay Company? Had I let the settlers be slain or perish of cold and hunger, would that have made lustrous our name? or rather sunk us in sorrow, everyone from the Governor down, ignominy and shame for our portion? As for the men of God, the missionaries to the Indians, who came to teach them the truth, the truth about God and salvation, a task that by rights was our own which we had but poorly attempted, could I do less for them than to give them the handclasp of welcome? I dare not drive them away——I had neither the right nor the power—— only humanity’s law; that was the mandate I followed. Courteous and kind to them all I rendered such aid as was urgent. Did that injure my Company’s cause? nay, rather it made for its credit. Starving, desperate men are a menace to any country. Hunger will force them to steal! the law of the jungle they follow! So if I saved them from that was it not to the Company’s profit? Six thousand miles away, what can they know of my problems? And of all those goods I have given the half may never be paid for, this to my personal loss and not at the Company’s hazard. Surely my conscience is clear. In their need I have clothed the naked, I have furnished the hungry with food; ’tis the sole vindication I offer. [7] The Indian name for Americans. The first American trading ships all hailed from Boston. [Illustration: _From the painting by Charles F. Comfort; By courtesy of the Hudson’s Bay Company._ DOCTOR McLOUGHLIN WELCOMING THE SETTLERS] “‘The Good Old Doctor,’ the settlers called him, for none had ever asked his aid in vain.” Doctor John McLoughlin “THE GOOD OLD DOCTOR,” the settlers called him, for none had ever asked his aid in vain. To clothe the naked and to entertain the stranger guest, this was his joy and pride; and thus they sought the Fort from far and wide. Such kindness made the Governors complain—— they did not want these settlers to remain to till the land. So, often would they chide but from this policy he would not bend. He could not let his fellow creatures die, there in the wilds where none could aid but him. So when from London came the fiat grim, ‘no aid to settlers,’ curt was his reply, ‘this brings my service with you to an end.’ Doctor John McLoughlin 2 “Cheer up, my friends, in two hours we’ll be there at Fort Vancouver; all your trials are past once you set foot within its strong stockade and you may sleep secure full fed and warm when the good Doctor takes you ’neath his wing.” So spoke out Joseph Hess in jovial tones. He for the Company was in command of this our crowded craft which it had lent to bring us from the Dalles to Fort Vancouver. His cheery words at first brought no response until that pessimist Pete Hunt replied, Kentuckian he of pioneering stock, a proper man for all his grumbling ways, had shown himself most helpful on the trail; “Aye, for the killing he’ll be fattening us; belike we’ll never see the Spring again. He’ll fling us out ere long to freeze and starve or fall beneath the Indians’ tomahawks; and he’ll be joyful to be rid of us. His Company does not want us settlers here to till the land and drive away the game. ’Tis furs, not farms, it wants.” He rolled his quid and spat across the gunwale in disgust. “Fie, fie, for shame!” my missus took him up, “have you no faith in God that you speak thus? It’s true we have no food or money left; our clothes are ragged and the cold is keen but He will send us help to see us through if we but trust in Him. Winter will pass and we can start our farming in the Spring.” Pete looked at her with pity in his gaze; “More like we will be pushing up the grass—— there ain’t no daisies growin’ here I guess—— and these here kids o’ yours, they will be slaves to them there redskins fetchin’ wood and water an’ damned for this life and the next to come. I wish that I at least had had the sense to stay content at home in ‘ole Kaintuk’; we never know our luck till it is gone.” My missus’ cheery face grew grave. Its smile died and her deep blue eyes were dark with pain. I saw her arm close tight round little Jim, who sat upon her knee, as if to shield the youngster from such fate as Pete foretold and my own heart was weighted down with dread. The others round about——their faces too reflected each thoughts that were far from gay. Empty our stomachs all and lack of food had left us faint, our minds fit prey to fear and for the time we were a craven crew, a score of grownups, five of us were women and there were children four. Mournful the scene. The rain had fallen relentlessly all day. Leaden in hue and sinister the sky, grim and forbidding was the river’s face. Forests of oak and pine trees lined its banks on either side with sad monotony depressing to our souls. The voyageurs paddled with steady stroke and easy grace urging the laden bateau down the stream, now roused to roughness by the Western wind that icily chill cut through our ill clad limbs cramped with long sitting on these weary boards, damp from the dismal, never-ceasing rain. We were too sad and miserable to talk. As for Joe Hess he merely shrugged and smiled but I could hear him softly to himself: “Oh well, poor devils, you will soon be there; and you will see if what I say is true when once you’re lodged beneath the Doctor’s roof to taste his generous hospitality.” Joe Hess had promised true, within two hours we landed at the Fort; darkness had fallen. From the log cabins for the men that lined the river banks there shined forth lightsome gleams of cheerful habitation. Those we passed with staggering steps, our limbs all stiff and numb, through the big gate within the high stockade its timbered ramparts looming tall and dark against the sky, to the great lighted Hall. It stood amid a group of lesser buildings, grand and imposing to our weary eyes subject so long to scenes of desolation. There on its threshold framed against the light a massive figure stood to bid us welcome, gracious and dignified with kindly greeting and friendly grasp of hand to all of us as one by one we passed into the room glowing with warmth and friendliness within. Deft hands removed our cloaks and boots; and all the ravages of travel were repaired by ministrant attendants; and the children were straightway fed, undressed and put to bed. Then loud and clear the big bell rang for dinner. To the great dining chamber we were led where stood the Factor at the table’s end—— full twenty feet in length it was and broad—— ringed round by gentlemen, a goodly group, chief-traders, traders, clerks and various guests, to each of whom he quickly gave direction where he should sit and so to each of us until the varied company was seated and everyone according to his rank. Then in sonorous tones a grace was asked with reverent air in no perfunctory fashion by the good Doctor. With his deep-set eyes and striking features crowned with hoary locks, and handsome dress he made a noble figure, like some great lord of ancient feudal days sitting among his liegemen. Now the viands were quickly served, roast beef and suckling pig, mutton and ham and salmon from the river with various vegetables, wheaten bread and drink to wash it down. The dinner set of delicate queen’s ware and the glittering glass, decanters filled with different coloured wines and gleaming silver made the table rich to satisfy the eye. The meal progressed, course after course. The talk both grave and gay was rich in story and well spiced with wit and often merry laughter filled the room, yet all was with decorum though the wine was freely quaffed except the host himself imbibed it scarce at all. His kindly eye surveyed his guests and spoke the word required to make the diffident stranger feel at ease. Then when the meal was over he arose and said to us: “You good folk from the East kindly attend me to my office now that we may take wise counsel for your case, consider duly your precarious plight and do our best to mend it.” So we passed into an ante-chamber bare and strait, his working quarters. Standing by his desk he made us form a circle round the room and then addressed us: “My good friends and neighbours as you are soon to be, I bid you welcome, although your coming gives me grave concern, arriving as you do late in the year with no provisions for your sustenance and scant equipment to start operations upon your farms when Spring comes round again. Last year I suffered sore embarrassment with full eight hundred of you on my hands (this year you number half as many more) and those I furnished all with food and clothing and seed to sow their lands preventing famine that must have followed such an immigration as has poured in upon us like a flood. I fear there will be serious suffering ere I can bring you all down from the Dalles and see you to your final destination; but I shall do my best. Tell me your names, each one in turn that I may take them down? how many in your family and your wants? and I must needs supply them. These most pressing, here at the Fort we shall make shift to furnish. I now conduct a store at Oregon City, opened for use of settlers such as you, and I shall see you get your outfit there.” Then from our number several cried at once, nigh moved to tears in accents of distress: “Doctor, we have no money left at all! How can we take your goods? We cannot pay and know not how or when we e’er may do so!” He only waved a deprecating hand: “Tut, tut,” he said, “I cannot let you starve. We are all brothers here under Christ’s care. My friends and neighbours too now and as such I durst not see you suffer.” One by one we filed before him and he took it down, our names and all our needs advising each with loving interest patient and kind. That night we slept secure beneath his roof with hopes restored anew and minds at ease. Doctor John McLoughlin “THE FATHER OF OREGON,” posterity calls him and brighter grows his memory year by year. Succeeding generations will revere this man who dared to rank his Company’s rule second to that of Christ, became a fool for his own interest. Favour nor fear perforce could move him; and his loved career of princely power rather than be the tool of selfish aims, he laid it quietly down facing with fortitude fortune’s decline; saw friends grow cold; and felt the bitter sting of base ingratitude. The Eagle’s wing ’tis true, was clipped; his spirit did not repine. History accords him now a rich renown. Doctor John McLoughlin 3 Old age is upon me, aye and poverty with it with death not far distant, I shall sleep with my sires. My traducers have triumphed. They have stolen my land, heaped my name with contumely—— some of those whom I succoured, the settlers saved from starving. Aye and others have charged me, demagogues without conscience, for their own paltry purpose of contriving the massacre of hundreds of their citizens at the hands of the red men. They have dared to indict me for blocking the settlement of this Territory of Oregon when the facts find most clearly that I laboured my utmost to foster and promote it. Had those first, early settlers been my brothers and my sisters I could not have done more to aid and advise them. And for this mine own people, British subjects have branded me a traitor to my country for following Christ’s teaching and saving those settlers, all American citizens, men, women and children from the torment of famine and the tomahawks of the Indians. I was the first one to take a claim in the country. What return do I receive from those whom I succoured? Why the loss of my land! for while all may get theirs, mine alone was reserved. By wrong representation and unfair legislation I am robbed of my rights! But my days have been full so I should not repine for not all have been false; still my friends are not few and I live o’er again the brave days in the past of my prosperous prime—— none can take those away! Lying lips may malign my fair fame for a space and its lustre may tarnish; but the judgment of time, free from bias or passion, will restore its old brightness, its dear honour once wonted, when this body is clay and my soul gone to God. [Illustration] The Father of Oregon There is good reason for the name of “The Father of Oregon” which has been applied to Dr. John McLoughlin. Had he adopted a different policy towards the early settlers in the country—the policy that would have suited the Company that employed him—its colonization might have been greatly delayed. Without his aid, many of these early comers would have had to leave. He not only furnished them with food and clothing and supplies but, at times, with seed and farming implements. In many cases he was never paid, but in others, the settlers, years after, honourably discharged what they owed. In the end he was unfairly deprived of his property in Oregon City under Section Eleven of the Oregon Donation Land Law and he died practically in poverty. Five years after his death, the State of Oregon reimbursed his heirs for what he lost in this way. His presence was a striking one as he was powerful in build and six feet four inches tall. His hair, which he wore long, was almost white in the prime of his age. He was firm and decisive in his dealings with his subordinates and his authority both with them and with the Indians was unquestioned. At the same time he was generous and humane and had a winning personality. In religious outlook he was broadminded and showed the same helpful spirit toward Catholic and Protestant, toward Methodist, Presbyterian or Baptist, and all were welcome. He embraced the Catholic religion in 1842 and proved himself a faithful son of the Church. Shortly before his death, he received from the Pope the insignia of the Knights of St. Gregory. After Dr. McLoughlin had passed away, there was found a document among his papers in which he presents a defense for some of his actions which had been criticized and notably those concerned with his treatment of the settlers. This statement, commonly known as the “McLoughlin Document,” is now in the possession of the Oregon Pioneer Association. The incident described in the text is taken from this document and was an actual happening. The section of the poem dealing with the group of settlers being brought down the Columbia in the boat and their reception at the Fort by the Chief Factor is based directly on an account given by David Watt, a pioneer of 1844, who was instrumental in starting the first woolen mill in Oregon in 1857. It is found in his “Recollections of Dr. John McLoughlin,” which was published in the _Transactions_ of the Oregon Pioneer Association of 1886. After describing the scene at the Fort where the Doctor writes out orders to the settlers for them to receive the supplies which they need, he says: “When we started to Oregon, we were all prejudiced against the Hudson’s Bay Company, and Dr. McLoughlin, being Chief Factor of the Company for Oregon, came in for a double share of that feeling. I think a great deal of this was caused by the reports of missionaries and adverse traders, imbuing us with a feeling that it was our mission to bring this country under the jurisdiction of the stars and stripes. But when we found him anxious to assist us, nervous at our situation in being so late, and doing so much without charge,——letting us have of his store, and waiting without interest, until we could make a farm and pay him from the surplus products of such farm, the prejudice heretofore existing began to be rapidly allayed. We did not know that every dollar’s worth of provisions, etc., he gave us, all advice and assistance in every shape was against the positive orders of the Hudson’s Bay Company.——In this connection I am sorry to say that thousands of dollars virtually loaned by him to settlers at different times in those early days, was never paid, as an examination of his books and papers will amply testify.” In the last section of the poem are put forth the principal points in the defense of his actions which Dr. McLoughlin set down at the end of the “McLoughlin Document” in which he wrote as follows: “By British demagogues I have been represented as a traitor. For what? Because I acted as a Christian; saved American citizens, men, women and children from the Indian tomahawk and enabled them to make farms to support their families. American demagogues have been base enough to assert that I had caused American citizens to be massacred by hundreds by the savages, I, who saved all I could. I have been represented by the Delegate from Oregon, the late S. R. Thurston, as doing all I could to prevent the settling (of Oregon), while it was well known to every American settler who is acquainted with the history of the Territory if this is not a downright falsehood, and most certainly will say, that he most firmly believes that I did all I could to promote its settlement, and that I could not have done more for the settlers if they had been my brothers and sisters, and, after being the first person to take a claim in the country and assisting the immigrants as I have, my claim is reserved, after having expended all the means I had to improve it, while every other settler in the country gets his. But as I felt convinced that any disturbance between us here might lead to a war between Great Britain and the States, I felt it my bounden duty as a Christian, to act as I did, and which I think averted the evil, and which was so displeasing to some English demagogues that they represented me to the British Government as a person so partial to American interests as selling the Hudson’s Bay Company goods, in my charge, cheaper to American than I did to British subjects . . . Yet, after acting as I have, spending my means and doing my utmost to settle the country, my claim is reserved, while every other settler in the country gets his; and how much this has injured me, is daily injuring me, it is needless to say, and certainly it is a treatment I do not deserve and which I did not expect. To be brief, I founded this settlement and prevented a war between the United States and Great Britain, and for doing this peaceably and quietly, I was treated by the British in such a manner that from self respect I resigned my situation in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s service, by which I sacrificed $12,000 per annum, and the ‘Oregon Land Bill’ shows the treatment I received from the Americans.” In 1887 the people of Portland raised a subscription for a life-size portrait of Dr. McLoughlin to be painted and presented to the Oregon Pioneer Association. The portrait was later turned over by it to the State of Oregon. Governor Sylvester Pennoyer, himself an Oregon pioneer, in accepting it on behalf of the State said in part: “This gift is alike creditable to the venerable men of your Association in its bestowment and to the State of Oregon in its acceptance. It does honor to the pioneers of Oregon, because it shows their full appreciation of the high qualities of a true and noble manhood; and the placing of this painting in the honorable position it now occupies in the senate-hall of the state capitol evinces a like appreciation on the part of the representatives and the people of this great state. Dr. McLoughlin was, indeed, a most extraordinary man. Entrusted with a most responsible position under the British flag at a time when there was a bitter contest for governmental supremacy in Oregon, it was the undoubted and honorable wish and prompting of his heart that the flag of his country might continue to wave over Oregon soil, and yet in instances repeated without number, he extended the hand of charity and unstinted aid to the poor immigrants of the contesting people, whose advent here threatened the supremacy of his government over the contested territory. While he was loyal to his country he was, as became his lofty character, more loyal to his conscience; and while never forgetting his full allegiance as a Briton, he never forgot his higher duty as a man . . . Then let this picture of the grand old man, whose numerous deeds of charity are inseparably interwoven in the early history of our state, ever enjoy the place of honor it now holds; and when our children and our children’s children shall visit these venerated halls, let them pause before the portrait of this venerable man and do homage to his memory, who, with his patriotic devotion to his country and his devout service to his God, crowned the full completeness of his high character with an unmeasured love for his fellow man.” [Illustration: _FORT VANCOUVER_, FROM THE _PAINTING BY H. J. WARRE_] The Miner _Mine is the maddening quest for gold,_ _mine the dream of wealth untold._ _O’er the mountains wild and steep,_ _through the valleys dark and deep_ _in river bed and rushing stream_ _hunting aye the golden gleam,_ _still with never failing zest_ _see me follow on the quest._ _Counting not the lands I’ve wandered,_ _recking not the years I’ve squandered,_ _though the search hath naught availed me,_ _though my faltering limbs have failed me,_ _still until my body perish_ _aye my heart its hope will cherish_ _yet to strike rich pay at last,_ _full reward for labours past._ _And if despite her long beguiling_ _Dame Luck will ne’er be on me smiling,_ _if scant the gold that I shall find,_ _when, old and lame and sick and blind_ _at length the Great Divide I’ve crossed,_ _I shall not count my labour lost._ _Lord, let me search for gold once more_ _there by the River’s shining shore._ Cariboo Days The Rape of the Boot I Intrepid Walter Moberly had many a vicissitude exploring in the Rockies and through the Cariboo. Right well he knew the dangers and he exercised solicitude as far as it was possible to obviate them too. He met with weird adventures, remarkable and numerous, far more than are vouchsafed to the ordinary chap; and some were spiced with danger, some gay and others humorous but his spirit never faltered whatever the mishap. He encountered savage grizzlies and the deadly rattlesnake and he backed bucking bronchos and rode them on the trail. Wild Indians could not scare him nor “bad whites” his courage shake, the Sheriff served a writ on him and then he did not quail. He had taken the first contract for the road to Cariboo. His men went off and left the work to join the search for gold. The Government would not pay him the monies that were due and cancelled his road contract with loss to him untold. He could have fled the country and left every obligation, but that was not his nature, although these were large and many; and it took him eight long, scrimping years to win emancipation. He was able then to liquidate and paid them every penny. To go into that deeply here is not in my indenture. It were a striking subject, a theme inspiring, big; but the aim of this slight ditty is to set out an adventure that befell this hardy pioneer pertaining to a pig. Once when travelling down the Fraser in his work of exploration one evening tired and footsore he arrived at Chapman’s Bar. There was none to bid him welcome but he asked no invitation to make himself at once at home for he had travelled far. It was hot and he was thirsty but he found some handy food there and with flapjacks and with bacon he soon cooked himself a dinner; and, washed down with fragrant coffee, he adjudged it very good fare for any old campaigner whether he were saint or sinner. There was a new log building with no doors or windows in it where a stretcher made of gunny sacks invited him to sleep. So he threw himself upon it and was “fast” in half a minute and knew no more till morning when the dawn began to peep. Then to his waking consciousness there came a curious snorting and a grunting loud and dissonant just close beside his head. So he opened wide his eyes in time to see a pig cavorting naively round the premises and nuzzling at his bed. In an instant he had raised himself annoyed by such intrusion and looked around for something to rap the porker’s snout. Then he picked up his boot in the heat of his confusion and threw it at the grunting beast with hope to drive it out. In this he was successful but, much to his astonishment, the pig “pinched” the missile and quickly made escape; nor waited to listen to the traveller’s admonishment, who followed in his stockinged feet indignant at the rape. “His pigship” proved the swifter and vanished in the thicket before poor Walter Moberly could catch him by the tail; and sadly he soliloquized “Now that just wasn’t ‘cricket,’ to steal my boot away from me when I must walk to Yale!” ’Twas a twenty-five mile journey without any road to follow and it proved a painful penance for his bruised and bleeding foot; but by nightfall he espied with joy the town’s lights in the hollow where he sojourned to recuperate and bought another boot. Walter Moberly Walter Moberly, C.E., was the explorer who discovered the route by which the Canadian Pacific Railway was built through the Selkirk Mountains. Eagle Pass was revealed to him when he followed, with his eyes, the flight of the eagles and noticed that although the wall of the mountains seemed impenetrable they had a route known to them which they followed through. In the year 1859 in pursuance of his object he was exploring the canyons of the Fraser River between Yale and Lytton when the incident featured in “The Rape of the Boot” took place. He relates it in his article. “History of Cariboo Wagon Road” published in “Historical Papers” under the auspices of the Art, Historical and Scientific Association, Vancouver, B.C. The writer has followed closely the story as given by him with but one embellishment. The explorer did not throw the boot at the pig as described in the text but the animal just picked it up and ran off with it. Walter Moberly tells in the same article how he with two associates received a charter to build part of “The Yale-Cariboo Wagon Road” from the Government under Governor Douglas. The contractors got into serious trouble when their men left the job to go off to the goldfields and the Government took advantage of the untoward circumstances and demanded relinquishment of the charter, also the surrender of all the supplies and implements on the works to the value, as he claimed, of over $6000. The Government itself was short of funds and was willing enough to profit by the situation according to Moberly’s account. He not only lost all he had but found himself heavily in debt. Notwithstanding the unfair treatment he had received, he put his personal feelings aside and acted as engineer on the road for the Government and for some of the contractors. In 1864 he resigned his position as government engineer to enter the Legislative Council of British Columbia as representative of the Cariboo District. He died in Vancouver in 1915 in circumstances of extreme poverty. [Illustration: H.E. WHITE] [Illustration] “With a train of goods on horseback had they come to this raw, mining town that with a mushroom growth had sprung to being.” Cariboo Cameron’s Pledge 1 II There came to Barkerville in Eighteen-sixty-two, John A. Cameron and Sophia, his young wife, from Summertown in Ontario through Victoria to seek their fortunes. With a train of goods on horseback had they come to this raw, mining town that with a mushroom growth had sprung to being out of the golden sands of Williams Creek. The first stage of the journey was by boat, Victoria to Yale and that was easy going. From thence the goods were packed on mules and the two Easterners rode beside them. Bob Stevenson, their partner had gone on in Spring. He had a trading business in the town—— and these had followed when the trail had dried, leaving in June not to arrive till August. These were the days before the Road was made. The trail they had to use was full of perils, precipitous-sided grades, rockslides and landslides, cougar and grizzlie bears and poisonous rattlers, wild beasts and hostile Indians, such dread hazards, as to affright the gently-nurtured woman, who chose to bear her husband company into this land so different from her own, so desolate and grim in all its grandeur rather than let him travel forth alone. The trading partnership proved fortunate for goods were at a premium and the two, Cameron and his friend, thrived on their venture. But there were richer gains below the ground than could be won by trade; and gold was all the talk upon men’s tongues. We find them next working the Cameron claim with four associates while yet the summer sun burned hot above them. Cariboo Cameron’s Pledge 2 September came and brought an early snowfall and Cameron’s wife fell ill. October followed, bleak and austere thirty degrees below with furious driving winds that drove the cold through every crack and crevice of the shack that was the miner’s shelter and ere long the stricken wife lay dying. Ere she passed she made her husband vow to take her home, home to her loved Ontario for her burial, far from this unkind country that she hated to one wherein her bones might rest in peace. The sorrowing man made no complaint or murmur but set his face to carry out her wish. Naught could be done till Spring except they laid her body in a coffin made of tin and cased inside with wood and ere ’t was closed they laid beneath her head a coloured shawl that she had worn, a present from her sister, to be her pillow all that weary way that she must travel. Then behind the bier a file of bearded miners followed slow adown the village to an empty shack where now they laid it, there to rest a space until the time should come to bear it forth to its far bourne. Meanwhile the little group, who owned the Cameron mine went working on. Despite the iron hardness of the ground and the keen, piercing torture of the cold they dug on doggedly. December came and they were down some twenty feet or more, the stricken mourner working with the rest, though now he took scant interest in the quest, when they struck gold in plenty of great richness such as exceeded all their fondest dreams. Cariboo Cameron’s Pledge 3 January snows piled deep and high and smallpox raged among the Indian tribes, more feared than all the perils of the trail but Cameron was staunch and would not stay. His promise urged him on to seek fulfilment and so he started out with steadfast heart, his partner, Stevenson accompanying him. When it was found that gold would not avail to tempt these hardy miners to the task, to face disease and all the painful rigours of such a hazardous trip, the faithful friend rallied to meet the need. “John, I will go,” he said; and that was all there was to that and go he did. No need to tell it here, the epic story of that arduous passage but it was March, the Seventh when with the body they reached Victoria and the following day, after the undertaker of the town had filled with alcohol the metal casket, there was a second solemn funeral held. Then the chief mourners took their journey back— back to the mine where there was wealth to win— and by the Fourth of April they were home. Cariboo Cameron’s Pledge 4 Three hundred and fifty thousand dollars that was the gold that Cameron took that year out of his mine—so it had been computed— and when the autumn came he left Cariboo for the Coast to finish his pact with the dead and Stevenson his partner went with him. So November saw them depart, taking the body along on a steamer sailing south, San Francisco the first port of call, and then down the Mexican coast to the Isthmus of Panama, that zone of withering heat. Thence to New York they sailed— these were days when travel was hard, painful and tedious and slow— and when they reached there at last they thought that now all was well and the worst of their journey was o’er but still there was trouble in store for the Customs would not let them pass. This ponderous casket they brought— it weighed nearly five hundred pounds— they thought it must surely contain something more than a pitiful corpse and these miners escorting it there had put forth an incredible tale. So, this meant a tormenting delay and the friends were in deepest distress; but aid influential was found and they swore affidavits a-plenty so, at last, those in charge let them through with the sorrowful burden they bore. And they brought it at length home at last to Cornwall where she had been born, the wife who had followed her man so far and thus bravely to die away in that lone Cariboo. And Cameron buried her there with the friends who had known her in youth to walk in the funeral train and see her laid safely away. And the husband was glad that at last he had kept his faith with the dead. Now there you would say was the end of a sad and a pitiful tale; and the brave, little wife was at rest to lie till the Judgment Day. Cariboo Cameron’s Pledge 5 But rumour like a running flame was busy now with Cameron’s name. From lip to lip the story ran about this strange, mysterious man: the wife he made pretense to mourn was not within this casket borne from Western wilderness to lie in Cornwall cemetery hard by the home where she was born. ’T was said, the woman was not even dead; but she had met a harder fate e’en at the hands of him her mate: for driven by his thirst for gold, this man his wife had actually sold in slavery to an Indian chief— it was a slander past belief and yet the story would not down. It blackened Cameron’s fair renown. The more he scored the fateful lie, the more his friends would pass him by with head averted; if they spoke ’twas with constraint. The ordeal broke the miner’s spirit; the iron nerve by which through all he did not swerve from keeping that grim promise sworn, daring the hardships he had borne and all the perils of the trail, before this danger seemed to fail. Here was a foe he could not face, which seemed to lurk in every place where he might turn. So nigh distraught, in his perplexity he sought advice from his old partner, who told him at once what he must do. Cariboo Cameron’s Pledge 6 So at Cornwall in the midst of a throng of relations and friends and of those curious to see such a singular sight, the coffin was raised from its grave and an opening was made at the head exposing the face of the dead. “It’s Sophy,” the sister exclaimed, “just as she looked in her life, girlish and fragile and young.” She spoke to the undertaker, just a word; and he put in his hand under the head of the corpse and pulled forth a patterned shawl. “It’s the one that I gave her the day she was married,” the sister declared; and she covered her face with her hands and wept; while the people in line passed by the body to view. He, the husband stood bitterly by with head bent and bared; but all those who had cherished and carried the tale— their heads were averted once more but now they were lowered in shame. The body was moved yet again to Summertown where it was laid to rest there until the last trump. And still in that far land of gold old timers will tell you the tale of Cariboo Cameron’s task and the way that he carried it through. Moriturus III I am the last camel, the last of the twenty-one who came to Cariboo in the year “sixty-two” from far-off Manchuria. What a country! what a people! and what a road to travel on! How we longed for the hot suns and the soft sands of the desert! How we hated our drivers! speaking strange oaths, wearing odd garments, with no knowledge or skill of how to load us or to ride us. How we loathed and despised them! O the meanness of the mules! with mouths like crocodiles and legs like battering rams, swift to kick like the lightning; and the horses as hateful undersized and unkempt, stubborn and vicious would go frantic with fury, try to unseat their riders with most odd, rocking motions. They had never seen the like of us and were terrified at the sight of us, sought to jump off the road whenever we met with them. And their owners swore loudly and smote us with contumely whose sires, the pride of Bactria, were the flower of riding camels. But we bore it in silence with heads high despising them, puny men of no poise, grasping and garrulous, fit subjects for ridicule. We enjoyed their discomfiture and looked on with derision as their packmules stampeded in terror at sight of us. But my comrades are gone, all dead now or scattered and I live here alone, on a ranch at Grande Prairie, old and stiff-jointed, from these terrible winters at the home of my master, lonely and loveless except for his daughter, who pets me and tends me. Full gladly I kneel to permit her to mount me, and when proudly I bear her, I dream with regret of the days of my youth when supple and swift I swept o’er the desert and breathed its warm wind like rich balm in my nostrils. But my days now are numbered. Tomorrow I perish— I heard them decree it— for destroying their fences. They thought to confine me with frail barriers of pinewood me, “the ship of the desert”, but I put my head under and tore them asunder. Yea, I am the last one, the last of the camels that came to Cariboo in the year “sixty-two” and tomorrow I perish. [Illustration] The Camels on the Cariboo Road The career of the camels as beasts of burden on the Cariboo Road was a short one. They were purchased in San Francisco in 1862 for Adam Heffley and Henry Ingram out of a shipment brought into California from China, either Mongolia or Manchuria according to an interesting article by W. T. Hayhurst on “The Camels in British Columbia” published in the 6th Report of the Okanagan Historical Society (1935). For twenty-three thus acquired, a price of six thousand dollars was paid. Only twenty-two of those arrived in Victoria where they made quite a sensation especially among the Indians who had never seen or heard of such animals before. They were straightway shipped to Yale and put into service packing supplies on the Cariboo Road. However, from the first they were not a success. Their feet were not suited for the rough and rocky surface of the Road and it was found necessary to shoe them with boots of canvas or rawhide. Then they caused consternation amongst the horses and mules of the pack trains which wound their way along the narrow winding ledge of which for the most part the Road consisted with its precipitous sides reaching far down to the river below. One can imagine the dismay and the disgust of the weary packer on turning around some bend in the Road to come full upon the camels and to have his whole train of horses or mules stampeded in their terror of those outlandish beasts of which even the smell was obnoxious. Ere long an appeal was made to Governor Douglas to have them prohibited from the Road and within a year from their first appearance they were gone. Some were taken over to the Henry Ingram place at Grande Prairie, forty miles from Kamloops, where they were used in hauling the logs for his house. One became a great pet of his daughter who used to ride it about the place. The animals had to be clipped like sheep in the Spring of the year and housewives of the district used the hair for making mattresses and pillows. The last of them was put to death by shooting in or about 1896. [Illustration] Afterword _Much of the old simplicity of life has passed._ _Speed and efficiency and all those fetishes_ _of modern civilization have entered in_ _to rob us of our restfulness and calm._ _Science has multiplied our comforts_ _and medicine has lengthened out our span._ _Distance has been abridged and now we know_ _about our neighbours since the air is vocal_ _to cast abroad their thoughts and aspirations,_ _their drama and their music and their songs._ _War has intensified its horrors_ _and slavery has come to many lands_ _that not long since were free._ _Tyrants have raged and fumed and worked their will_ _upon the peoples around about them._ _No more the bane of unemployment_ _brings misery; for ’neath this new regime_ _there is made work for all._ _But peace has now been won once more_ _and the buoyant spirit of youth still lives._ _Truth, courage and honour are not yet dead_ _and will in time prevail. When we look back_ _upon these stirring stories of the past,_ _and see what common, simple men have done_ _under the plan of Providence Divine_ _to shape the destiny of this Northwest,_ _whether selfishly or otherwise, in faith and hope,_ _it steels us with fortitude to face the future._ THE END TRANSCRIBER NOTES Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed. The sketches by H. E. (Harry Edmund) White have been removed for copyright reasons. Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur. Book name and author have been added to the original book cover. The resulting cover is placed in the public domain. [The end of _Ballads of the Pacific Northwest_, by Robert Allison Hood.]