The
last time I wrote was so hurried and on...a topic that I shall
try to give you a long yarn, some thing more interesting and
congenial.
When we were last
here (20th March), snow lay on the ground four feet deep; leaden
skies and continual rains were the order of the day, and a vile
fog shut out the view. Now in the most delicious sunshine as
warm and bright as the finest day in June, the broad river
before us lies as placid as a lake. I am looking straight up a
wide reach, and can see nearly 5 miles, starting at the base of
the reach about 3 miles wide and narrowing up to a little more
than a mile wide. Four tiny boats with their white sails are on
their way up to the diggings, in the extreme distance a little
island called Tree Island, stands out in the middle of the
stream and behind all the old mountains I wrote you of still
sheathed in snow and clearly, sharply defined in every outline,
rising peak above peak in the blue distance.
In the woods the
wild flowers spring up in thousands, the delicious "ribes"
growing 7 and 8 feet high, full of bloom, wild raspberry with
its bright pink flowers, mimulus, pansy, lily, some exquisite
specimens all in trefoil, three leaves and trefoil flower
growing between, perfectly white, dogtooth violets, purple
flowers of the crocus tribe.
The air is alive
with the hum of bees, and humming birds chase each other in the
sunshine; and as one walks through the thick woods, little
squirrels sun up the stately cedars and peer at you with
enquiring eyes, and you hear now and then the sharp tap of the
woodpecker, a lovely bird brown and red. But there is always as
you know the dash of qualification, so I must not fail to tell
you of the mosquitoes which buzz in thousands about one in the
spring time, but take to biting when they come to years, I
should say weeks of discretion. Poor insect! Indeed! Poor victim
rather.
Being now in the midst of camp life and on the future site of a
great city, I must try and convey to you some idea of our
situation. Imagine yourself on the bank sloping down to a broad
river, standing in front of a small wooden shanty. On your left
a log hut, a little to your right a marquee (tent) (Captain
Parsons RE, a delightful scientific man, the head of the
survey, delicate and fond of blue pills and henbane); below you,
its foundations cut into the bank, a wooden store house where
things from the 'Thames City" have all been put.
Behind you,
stretching up into the woods and bearing to your right as you
look on the Fraser, tent after tent dot the ground, groups of
Sappers around them, and sitting in the open air at their rude
tables eating and drinking, camp fires
sparkling here and there, and a lot of dogs about of course. The
ground is fine sandy soil, everywhere little projecting snags
threaten to trip you up. These are the remains of the thick
underbrush through which we pushed and tore ourselves six weeks
ago. On every side huge logs and rotten trees lie about, being
gradually consumed for firewood, and on weekdays the crash of
falling timber resounds through the hills. You hear a slight
rustle, then a louder crackle, then a tearing crash, and at last
a dull bump as the monster reaches the ground. They have a plan of
firing the trees, lighting the bark and letting it gradually
burn. A few evenings ago we were dining on the
"Plumper" with Captain Richards, when we returned in
his gig, one of these tall fellows was on fire from root to
crown, and blazed out in the pitch dark night a great pillar of
fire. Anyone walking on a windy day is liable to get a knock,
for these half charred pines are ready to tumble at any moment.
Beyond the camp two or
three wooden houses for the officers etc. are
building, and on the space beyond Colonel Moody's house is to
be. Further on, still following the river, there is a deep broad
ravine, with a swift shallow stream running through it.
Across this,
after climbing up the other side, we come to the Marine camp,
where 130 men and 6 officers are stationed. This is an echo of
the other camp, our bugles sound and straightaway you hear the
Marines take it up and they follow suit in all the little dodges
etc. contrived in our camp. It is very pretty to hear early in
the morning and the last thing at night, the calls ringing in
the air, and making long echoes in the woods.
Leaving the Marines in
their camp for the present, come along through the
"trail" to the town. This has been chiefly cut by the
Marines, it is a
winding path through the cedars and pine groves, over logs
across small streams for about a mile.
All
the way we go the axe resounds on every side, and high fires are
burning up the heaps of brushwood. So - there lies "the
town" on the river bank, we wind down the slope to it, and
behold about two dozen wooden shanties, with a sprinkling of
tents and marquees, and here and there a canvas house, for all
the world like Greenwich fair. Here is the "Hotel de
Paris", where the guests sleep under the tables at night,
where they cook you recherché dinners in the back yard. Next to
it a small "store", where you may buy hams, axes,
beans, pork and flour, quicksilver, "gum boot" (India
Rubber), and all the mining luxuries.
A little further
the "Pioneer Saloon", where they dispense liquors,
cocktails and beer, and around which you see the miners in their
red, white and blue toggery, lounging and lazy, wondering over
the "prospects", and some disappointed ones coming
back full of wrath and growling. A nigger barber has a shop
about 6 feet square, his chair made of a barrel covered with
chintz, and his pole a branch cut from a neighboring tree with
some red and white paper twisted round it.
Custom House and
Treasury are rising a little lower down, both wooden but very
pretty places, all around them lie the great trunks of trees
like corpses on a battlefield, and you clamber over them
continually ere you reach the "public offices".
Now there's a ringing
of a fine toned bell tolling across the river and you see a
steamer, the "Eliza Anderson", bringing goods and
passengers from Victoria, few passengers, most of them bound for
the upper country. She lands them at a rough pier
extemporized
out of logs and projecting some 40 feet into the river. The
mechanics of the pier are simple and rough, a great lot of rough
logs hewn down, fastened together into a sort of basket, floated
far enough out into the river; then filled with big stones till
it sinks. This forms a buttress upon which long trees are laid,
and so in a couple of days you extemporize a strong pier out of
the "raw material".
It is astounding
the way they run up wooden houses that are nothing more than
exaggerated packing cases with doors and windows cut in them.
We have some nice Sundays up at the camp. The
Colonel reads the service, and on Easter Sunday, when I began
this, we had a frantic effort to get up the Easter hymn, but it
all ended in a poor duet between the Doctor (Seddall) and
myself. The Doctor is a fat jovial chap, and plays the
harmonium. We had it for the first time last Sunday, and with a
first rate Sapper choir got on famously, even to chants.
I am
to have a house in Queenborough, and have got a soldier's boy
named "Flux" for a servant; but I call him Frank for
euphony's sake.
