3

harness, and the only difficulty with them is in going down
hill, when it is a great trouble to get them to keep the sleigh
back, so that on a long hill before you get to the bottom they
break into a full gallop to prevent the sleigh coming upon
their heels. There is only one road here, that is to say one
Waggon road, and it leads up to the American Garrison which is
15 miles from here, but in going out for a drive in the after-
noon we seldom go more than a few miles from home. The Hudson's
Bay Co's establishment where they exchange English goods for the
Indians' furs is about 2½ miles from here and that is very often
our lounging place in the afternoon. The gentleman in charge
of the Fort as it is called has an Indian wife and a large fa-
mily of children who speak broken English and are very amusing.
The wife cannot speak English at all, but she speaks Canadian
French: which is so different from European French that it is
impossible to understand her even when she does speak in that
language. The only thing really objectionable about any of them
is their want of cleanliness, and as it is a part of the nature
it is quite hopeless ever to do them any good in that particular.
In the winter here, there is really nothing to do out of doors.
It is impossible to get about anywhere except along the beaten
track for in many places now the snow must be about 2 feet deep.
In some winters according to the account of the old residents
the snow is half way up the windows so you may imagine what a
mess it is when all this begins to thaw. The unfortunate horses
belonging to the Indians have a very severe time of it now, but

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I believe they persevere and scratch away the snow till they get
at the grass underneath. Their coats in the winter become very
thick and are more like a dog's winter coat than that of an ordinary
horse. They are never shod except in very severe travelling when
shoes made of buffalo skin are tied over their hoofs, but it is
most extraordinary what amount of travelling they really can
stand over very rocky places. The Indians have most extraordinary
powers over a horse and will frequently make one horse travel be-
tween 60 and 70 miles, when a much less distance with a white man
on its back would knock it up. They have no bridle, but merely
a rope made of horse hair tied round the lower jaw and with the
assistance of this they can manage the wildest young horse riding
on its bare back, or sometimes merely a blanket underneath. In
swimming the rivers the Indian will twist the upper part of the
horse's mane round his left hand, and urging the horse into deep
water will make him swim in any direction by tapping it on the nose
or splashing water in its eyes. Some horses swim much deeper than
others, so that sometimes where the horse swims nearly in the same
position as if he were walking the rider can retain his seat on
the horse's back, at other times I have seen horses swim nearly
perpendicular and then it is impossible for the rider to keep his
seat but/has to strike with his legs and swim, and then only the
head of the horse and the man is visible above the water. In some
rivers the current is so swift that you would almost think it im-
possible to reach the opposite side in safety, and in crossing 200
yards the current very often carries them down ½ a mile, and it is

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a very amusing sight to see what a fright the dogs get into when
they find themselves being carried down with the current so rapid-
ly. When we first came up into this country last May we had about
120 horses and mules with us, and altho' they had to swim 6 or 8
rivers none of them were drowned. Cattle are more stupid and one
man with a herd of 70 cattle lost 17 at one river, but as he had
bought them at 1½ d. per lb and was going to sell them at 2/s a
lb he could very well afford to lose a much larger per centage
than that. I have had no real practise with the rifle since I
have been out here, for I should say that this was the most miser-
able country for game that ever existed. I have not even seen a
single wild live deer since I have been out, and I have only seen
3 or 4 bears. I used to come across the trcks of the deer
several times every day, but I never saw the animals themselves.
The Indians seldom or never shoot them but nearly always trap
them by setting traps in the trails down to the water. I have
seen I think 2 beaver, and these I could have hit down with a
stick if I had been quick enough. They were in a small ditch
full of water, and they came up to the surface to breathe close
to where I was standing, but went down again like a shot. We
have wolves prowling about under our very windows now, and some
are often seen about the Barracks at night. In the day time it
is very difficult to get within rifle shot of them, as there is
very little cover for concealing one's self. We have several traps
set in different places and we have trapped about 4 already this
winter. The trap catches them by the ankle, generally by one leg

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only, and then they are sometimes shot in the trap, or killed
with a blow on the head from a heavy stick. They have such a
thin skull that they are easily killed in this way. Nearly all
our horses and mules are wintering about 15 miles from here on
a large flat where there was a great quantity of hay cut down in
the summer and as it would have cost a great sum to have had the
hay brought to this place all the animals were sent down there
to winter. The hungry magpies torture them most cruelly, per-
ching upon their backs and tearing away at their skin, till they
are nearly driven frantic. All the men that came out with me
with the exception of one are getting on very well. That one
deserted at the beginning of the year in consequence of being pun-
ished too severely for some thoughtless irregularity. Their ser-
geant is a great man in authority and is quite independent of
all the other sergeants which is a great advantage. He has charge
of all the provisions and stores and has no other duty at all
to perform. He and the Colonel don't get on very well together,
but as scarcely any body does not get on well with the latter
it is not to be wondered at. The sergeant told me if I were writ-
ting to Emmerson, he would be much obliged if I would thank him
for Emmerson's kindness to his (the Sergt's) wife in seeing her on
board the ship, and paying her several other small pieces of at-
tention before she left Southampton. The man that was my ser-
vant is very steady now, and I don't think he has been drunk more
than once or twice since he has been out, and luckily for him the
Colonel was out of the way at the time or he wd. have been very

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severely punished. The same man is a photographer, and has been
very busy at his profession since he has been out, so that we
have a very good collection of pictures of the different places
that we have passed. These are retailed to us at 1/- s apiece,
which is very reasonable as they are all first rate photographs.
I was so delighted at getting your picture and would be very
glad to send you mine, but there is not sufficient light to take
good pictures at this time of the year, so you will have to wait
for another 6 weeks. You are certainly very much grown, and per-
haps a little altered in face, but still I don't see that it is
in the least like myself according to Janet's account, altho'
you and I are not competent to give an opinion on this. We have
been having a few disturbances down here all caused by the spirits
imported by the disgraceful white men. They are not allowed to
sell or give the liquor to the Indians, but of course it is done
on a very extensive scale and is the cause of great misery. Only
a few days ago a party of Indians had been supplied with liquor
by one of these white men, and some of them became very drunk.
They then went on to another establishment of the same sort, and
demanded admission which being refused the foremost Indian stabbed
the white man in the chest whereupon the white man rushed out and
half killed the Indian with a billet of wood. The Indian then
escaped and soon after the friends of the wounded white man col-
lected, went up to the Indian's huts and secured the Indian that
had stabbed the man. It is supposed they were going to hang him
by Lynch Law as soon as he was sober. Then all the Indians be-

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7

gan to collect with their guns and were going to have a regular fight when somebody came up to our Colonel and told him there was going to be a row. So I went with him, accompanied with four of our own men with loaded rifles down to the white man's log house only about ¼ mile from our Barracks and we saw a great crowd there. The unfortunate white man had a deep stab over his heart and was lying down on his bed, and the Indian culprit was lying down on the floor close by, as drunk as a man could possibly be. However our men marched him off in a blanket, the four corners of which were held by four of the Indians and was placed for safety sake in our own Guard House and nobody present interfered. As we are in American Territory it is difficult to know how to act, however the Colonel communicated with the American authorities on the following day, and they approved entirely of what he had done, as it undoubtedly saved a general fight which certainly would have taken place. I don't think the stabbed man will recover as he has a wound 3½ inches deep right over his heart, so it is a great wonder he was not killed on the spot. The Indians had a row among themselves two days afterwards, and one stabbed another from jealousy and this man also lies in a precarious position. So we have a pretty bad lot all around us, always drunk, always riotous, and at times positively dangerous. All the Indians pretend to be very friendly to the English, but they hate the Americans and that is the reason that an American Garrison is reqd. for the protection of the settlers. The Americans have always used force towards the

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8

Indians, and so there are incessant fights and massacres in dif-
ferent portions of the country where there is not much of a mili-
tary force at hand. There was a party of emigrants 40 in number
massacred only the other day, and an expedition is to be despatched
in the spring to exterminate the authors of it. The Indians
seldom move about in large bodies, but hover about in small de-
tached parties and cut off any stragglers that may be a short dis-
tance from their companions, and at night they break into camp,
and by raising a sudden yell they drive off the white peoples cat-
tle or horses into places where no one dare pursue them. Two
years ago a large American force under a Col. Stepton was nearly
annihilated and lost all their officers but one or two, all the
wounded men being killed, in fact no quarter is ever shown on
either side.

I had a man very badly frostbitten the other night. He was
out with me observing some stars and complained of the cold a few
times, and went into a room to warm himself and on taking off his
boot and sock of one of his feet which he thought was numbed he
found it perfectly white and without feeling, and directly after-
wards he lost all feeling in both his hands. So his hands and
foot were put in iced water, while three of us kept on kneading
the hands and foot just like a baker would knead dough. We kept
up this for about an hour, and at the end of that time he experi-
enced a tingling sensation, and in the course of time most intense
pain over his foot and hands. His foot is still very bad in conse-
quence of the skin having been rubbed with ice by some stupid

96

fellows before they told me that the man was frostbitten. One
has to be very careful out in this country for it is very easy to
lose one's toes and fingers altogether in this way. I am very glad
to hear you had a good report at school. I hope you will work
hard and strive to be first in some things. I did not know my-
self what I was going to be till I was 16 3/4, so you have plenty
of time yet to consider what you want to be. If you choose
what you are going to be, yourself, then you will have no one to
blame if you don't succeed.

With best love, Believe me, my dear Jack,

Your very affectionate brother, Sam

20.

Boundary Commission Barracks

Colville, Washington Territory, U.S.

Feb 2, 1961

My dearest Janet

I was delighted at getting another letter from you yesterday dated Dec. 1st, and for a wonder our mail was only a day behind its expected time. We have been wonderfully fortunate in getting our letters so regular this winter and I am in hopes that the worst of it is over now. In fact for the last two or three days a regular thaw has set in, and the whole place is covered with ponds and little rivers, and some of the workshops had 3 or 4 inches of water in them. So we had to cut deep dykes in all directions and leading to the river, for the frost has penetrated so deeply into the earth that the water will not soak through, although it is a sandy soil. The rivers are all in their lowest state at this time of

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2

the year and the melting of the snow causes them to increase more
and more till about the end of June when they are at their highest
from which time they gradually begin to get less and less till
Christmas time. All operations are of course suspended till most
of the snow has disappeared and then the continual rising of the
rivers causes a great deal of trouble, as streams which are easi-
ly fordable during the early part of spring and latter end of
autumn are impassable during the summer. So we are obliged to
build bridges or hollow out canoes for all the numerous rivers that
have to be crossed and this of course causes a great deal of delay
especially when the bridges get washed away after all. I have
seen a river rise about 18 inches during a night and just float
our bridge cleanaway in the quietest manner possible. When the
rivers are too wide to be bridged as in the case of the Columbia
River at this place, a large flat-bottomed boat is built which
carries about 10 mules at a time with their loads on their backs.

Since I last wrote to you, about a fortnight ago I have been out
as far
very little and only once have been/as 3 miles from this place.

The road being in a such soft state and there being no place
worth going to, make walking any thing but a pleasure, so no one
does it except as a matter of duty and it is any thing but agree-
able taking a long walk by one's self. Our Colonel is sometimes
very amusing about money matters, much worse than Aunt Pit in
beating people down, and I should think the most unpleasant man
possible to do business with. He wanted me to buy some iron
for him the other day, and said "Mind you beat them down". So I

98

merely inquired the price and left him to conclude a bargain.
He was always tormenting me about the prices of things, and we
found out quite casually the other day that he keeps all his
wife's accounts and strikes bargains with his butcher and his
baker and his cat's meat man, and in fact manages all the house-
hold accounts. He said to me "what 8d a lb. for pickled onions,
why at home they are only worth 1½ d per lb." Of course I do
not attempt to argue about the home value, so the unfortunate
tradesman has to knock off about £ 25 per cent off his bill,
for fear of losing future patronage. Everything is undoubtedly
very dear here and money is of very little use to the settlers
themselves, as their farms produce all the food they want, and
as for clothes the men use generally leather, tho' they have
to purchase cotton dresses for their wives, which cost them about
2/- a yard out here. I am beginning to get rather tired of winter
Quarters now, and shall be very glad when we start out again. To
be shut up without society is such a great drawback to this coun-
try, and for the loss of which money will not compensate. It
does not matter so much when I am actively employed, but it makes
a great difference remaining in one place for so long. Yet, I
was very lucky in being sent abroad so soon, as my proper turn
would not come till I had been 4 or 5 years in the service, and
I think it is much better to get the service abroad over, first.
The proper "ration" is 5 years abroad and three at home, so I
shall be doubly lucky in getting such a short tour of the former.
All my contemporaries are at home still. ... I believe I
shall get too fat if I don't take more exercise, for I still weigh

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5

99

166 lbs without my boots so you need be under no apprehension
that I shall lose flesh in this country. I have had wonderfully
good health since I left home. Oh! What a blessing it is. I
hardly know what a headache is now, and as for a cold or a cough
I have quite forgotten what they are like. Rheumatism is the only
thing I am afraid of catching and some people are martyrs to it
in this country, tho' I am sure it is from their own carelessness.
I have lately had an addition to the furniture of my room in the
shape of a camp bedstead of the most portable character, and af-
ter being accustomed to sleep on the ground for so long, I could
not sleep on it for the first two or three nights. Its width is
just 1 ft. 10 inches, length 6 feet; so turning in bed is equiva-
lent to rolling out of it altogether. My bed is generally tucked
up so tight that it becomes a regular bag, and consequently it
is not a very easy matter to get into it without disarranging
the clothes. There is a regular gale of wind coming thro' the
cracks of the floor and thro' the chinks in the wall so I regular-
ly bury myself and then the whistling of the wind on all sides
sends me to sleep all the sooner. We are getting very warm weather
now, and I am obliged always to have my door or a window open.
It is curious that, in this place which is in about the same lat-
titude as Paris, there should be such extremes of heat and cold.
I suppose the principal reason is that we are so far from the
sea, which has such a wonderful effect in equalising the tempera-
ture of a country. This place is so completely shut in by high
hills that I should think the heat in the summer time would be

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7

almost unbearable. In a short time there will be only 2 or
3 men left here and all the rest of the party, numbering up-
wards of 100 will be scattered about in all directions north
and south of the Boundary Line. We shall have to traverse about
330 miles of country to get to the Eastern extremity of our
work on the summit of the Rocky Mountains, so the actual tra-
velling there and back will take about 50 days which makes a
great hole in the short season in which operations can be car-
ried on. Dr. Hector will tell you all about the style of coun-
try that we have to go over, as he knows it well. I certainly
would not accept the whole country even if it were offered to
me as a gift, unless it was made optional with me whether I
would live in it or not. In the majority of places where we have
been marking the Boundary Line, I should think no white men
would ever be seen there again, except men going for mere cu-
riosity sake. It comes to be a very serious thing with tra-
vellers when they have to carry with them not only food for them-
selves, but also food for their horses and mules as a horse can
only carry about 20 days food for himself; and there are no half
way houses to get fresh supplies. All Yankeedom is still in a
great state of excitement, and each succeeding mail brings more
unsatisfactory news. All the officers of the American army
that are near this place are in a very uncertain and critical
position, as they are bound to follow whatever course their
state does. So if certain states separate themselves from the
Union, all the officers belonging to those states will have to
give up their Commissions in the regular army. Of course it is

101

a matter of little or no interest to us, but we cannot help
being amused at the various exposees which appear from time to
time in the papers, showing forth in plain terms the rottenness of
the whole system. A man came down here the other day to take
possession of a certain Indian that we had in custody for stab-
bing a man. The afore-said man came to the Colonel, stated the
object of his coming, and the Colonel looked up at the man, a
dirty disgraceful looking man, and recognized him as one of the
plasterers that were employed about this place, and the Colonel
had found fault with this very man for bad plastering. So he
looked up at him rather astonished and asked him who he was,
so the man answered, "I am Judge Hall", thereby nearly knocking
the Colonel down. He said he wd. write out a warrant if it were
wanted, however as he was undoubtedly a man in authority, he was
not troubled to do that. Anybody can be a judge by paying a
little money and justice is a commodity not known. I hope you
have received all my letters lately. I wrote two last month
and this is the second this month, and I hope to send you two
next month, and I am afraid after that I shall be deprived of
the opportunity of writing to you by every mail. . . . . . . . . . . . .

Your most affectionate brother,

Sam

21.

B. C. Barracks, Colville

Washington Terr., U. S., March 1861

My dearest Janet,

I thought I should have found this winter very

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7

tiresome and long, but in this I have been agreeably disappointed.
The snow is disappearing rapidly now and people are beginning
to make a move. Small parties of miners are going up the River
Columbia here from this place, and I have no doubt but that the
truly energetic men will make money in some way or other. Money
cannot be had for the asking out here, as some people at home are
led to imagine and I am sure that the majority of the men who
have not fixed employment must undergo great hardships from time
to time. I had a letter from Bob yesterday, written from Fort
Hope on the Fraser River dated Feb 11th, and he writes in good
spirits, tho' I suspect he must have passed a very severe win-
ter. I should have liked so much to have got him on this Com-
mission, in fact I made a special application to our Commissioner
about him. I did not get a decided answer, but the Colonel said
he was very unwilling to employ any extra person, but that if
any one were of course he could give the preference to Bob, tho'
as our present force was sufficient for last year's work he
thought no one else would be required for this year, but he told
me to let it lie over for a few days. It is folly to think that
any one could make a fortune out here, except by speculation, and
then the chances are very decidedly in favour of your being ruined
altogether. I believe if I were landed in this colony (my own
master) I would sooner work my way back to England as a cabin boy
than spend a miserable existence out here. Of all occupations that
I should choose gold mining would come about last. The excitement
with it does a man a great deal of harm, it is most uncertain
and full of risks, consists of speculation from beginning to end,

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8
Mar 1961

is the high road to gambling, leads a man into the lowest com-
pany, and with but few exceptions ends in disappointment after
all. It so unsettles men, that they find it a matter of the
greatest difficulty to accustom themselves to business habits,
and with some men that I have seen out here it makes their ruin
complete. There are so many young fellows looking about for
Government appointments that it is impossible for them all to
find employment, and then the pay they would get would just cov-
er their expenses and that is all. The tradesmen shopmen, petty
merchants, make most of the money that is made out here, pur-
chasing clothes of all sorts in San Francisco and selling them here
at about 100 per cent on their value in that city. In America
they call it keeping a store, for they never use the word "shop".
They make us pay 40/- for 25 lbs of shot, for which you would pay
about 7/- at home, so for ordinary shooting we always use half
charges, which do equally well, when shooting for the pot. Accor-
ding to the latest accounts all the young ladies in Victoria have
been married off;3 of one family called the Miss Werks whom per-
haps Hector will tell you about were all married off in a month.
All the young ladies are of course very fashionable, rather dif-
ferent to what it used to be 2 years or so ago, when on the occasion
of a ball being given on one of the ships ten young ladies were
reported to have walked 3 or 4 miles with their evening dresses
tied up in a bundle. That when approaching their place of des-
tination they retired into the woods, changed their dresses there,
and then paddled themselves off in a canoe on board the ship for

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the ball. However I suspect they would not like to be reminded
of that now. ....................

Sam

22. Boundary Commission Barracks, Colville
Washington Terr., U.S.

April 1st, 1861

My dearest Janet,

.................. I am thinking of making a move soon, most
likely in a day or so, and probably be away 10 days or a fortnight.
I am going to survey a piece of country which will take me about
that time. It is about 40 miles from here, the nearest point
of it that is to say, and I shall be very glad to be making a
move again. I shall try to be back in time to send you a letter
by the next mail, but if you do not get one you will know the
reason why. I shall only have about 7 or 8 men, and a dozen
mules or so, and I hope we shall be back before they make the
regular start eastwards; so I expect to be more or less on the
move now for the next eight months between the Rocky Mountains
on the East and the Pacific on the West, 400 miles across. I
shall be moving about independently of any one else all the time,
and I look forward to having a very pleasant time of it. The only
drawback is that we shall not hear from one another so often,
but you may depend that I will write by every opportunity. The
snow on the hills has scarcely melted at all yet, tho' it must
begin to do so soon. Last Friday was Good Friday this year, so

105

for Good Friday happened to fall on a Friday this year, so there
was a general holiday and church as usual like Sundays. The men
are all marched into the Mess Room where the Colonel reads prayers,
a small table covered with a Union Jack for table cloth, serving
as a reading desk. There was a great game of cricket in the after-
noon with home made bats and ball, which answered the purpose ad-
mirably. The Hudsons Bay man Mr. Macdonald said he had never seen
a game of cricket played before in his life, which I was astonished
to hear from a "Britisher". Some of our American friends who were
staying with us could not understand the practise of having hot
cross buns on Good Friday as the free and enlightened citizens of
America have not kept up this ancient custom of their mother coun-
try. I would not be a citizen of the United States for something
now. They are politically in a most complicated mess, and the last
mail gives less hopes of a favourable settlement of the difficulty.
I hope it will not cause much suffering in England among the poor
people of the large manufacturing towns; if so I hope the British
public will come forward as readily as they have done for the Vol-
unteers. I suppose the Volunteers have eclipsed the regulars long
ago, and I wonder if in case of an invasion a Volunteer might pos-
sibly be in command of regular troops. I hope the Government will
keep the two forces entirely distinct else I am afraid it would
lead to a great deal of jealousy and ill feeling. The movement
had only just begun when I left England, so I shall expect to find
very great changes when I go back. We had a small
fight about twenty miles from here about ten days ago, between the
Indians and the miners which might have ended in a general rising

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106

I know Eb would like this kind of life very much for a change;
it would add very much to the enjoyment of it if we were a lit-
tle nearer civilization. We actually had a visit from a tax
gatherer a few days ago, who wanted to assess the British Govern-
ment on the value of our Barracks. He was given to understand
that we wished he might get it. He was contented with the good
wishes and withdrew his printed form. Please give my best love
to Jack when you write, and also to Robert. I hope I shall hear
something about the latter in your next letter. I must now say
Good Bye, dearest Janet, for the present, and conclude this prosy
letter. If you were imprisoned in a place like this for 43 months,
you would find it very difficult to write a long letter so you
must make allowances for this. With my fondest love,

Sam.

24.

Siniakwateen Depot, Pend d'Oreille River

Washington Terr., U.S., June 4th, 1861

Dearest Janet,

We have been vegetating at this place
since May 25th and now it is June 4th. We have been delayed till
the band of mules bring up all the supplies to this place, which
is about 120 miles from our Barracks at Colville. Our expressman
arrived this afternoon with some official letters and American
newspapers, but no English letters or newspapers; however as I
received three last time I am not going to grumble. The expressman

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118

brought us the agreeable intelligence that we shall be another
week at this place, as by some bungling or another, our second
lot of provisions and stores were not delivered at the place
previously settled on, till 5 days after the appointed time, and
consequently they will not arrive here till a week from this
time. It is miserable work being in a place, where it is diffi-
cult and in fact almost impracticable to go about, to be obliged
to stay idle for a fortnight or more. Luckily there are plenty of
books belonging to different people which are at the disposal of
everybody, so we shall not be so badly off after all. Two waggons
that we had despaired of ever seeing again, arrived here a few days
ago, and brought a supply of luxuries for the mess, such as pre-
served soups, and pickles, and saucés and jams. They (the luxuries)
had come all the way from England round by Cape Horn, and the
glass bottles containing pickles etc. had suffered fracture to the
extent of 50%. In consequence of the arrival of all these good
things we have been living in clover ever since, for we can enjoy
these things much more when we are all together than when we are
by ourselves. This is not much like roughing it in the Rocky
Mountains. Living in a log hut and having all kinds of luxuries.
I am going to have a regular old wife attached to my party this (year).
On one or two occasions when he has been told either to wade a
river, or go and sleep out without a tent but with one or two blan-
kets he has hesitated to do so, and given as his reason, that he
must be very careful of himself on account of his *little ones*. Of
course he has to obey orders but it is not satisfactory having a

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4

man who tells people he is thinking of his little ones, and not
of his work. Among ourselves he always goes by the name of "The
little ones", now, altho' he has never referred to them before
me. I suppose you will say that I must consider you and Jack
and Eb, and Aunt and Uncle and everybody else as my "Little ones",
and take care of myself accordingly. The great subject of conver-
sation is still about our being in or near England by this time
next year. We have unfortunately been delayed so much at star-
ting that I am afraid we shall have very little time to spare in
order to get our work done before the winter sets in. Everybody is
groaning and grumbling and out of temper in consequence of being
kept so long in such a miserable place as this, and losing so
much of our valuable time. But there is no help if the means of
transport will not be here for another week, and of course with-
out them it is impossible to move. The water is rising very ra-
pidly still and a great deal of the ground all round our camp
is very swampy. There seem to be a good many beaver about as
they have constructed a dam about a hundred yards from here and
have gnawed all the small trees round about. They are so shy
that even an Indian watching night and day for them seldom gets
a shot at them, but has invariably to catch them in traps. All
our goods and chattels have been terribly knocked about during
the few days of travelling they have already had. I saw the Doc-
tor's Medical chest tumble down from the top of a mule and roll
over and over 2 or 3 times, making a nice little rattle of the
things inside. All my personal property is cased in leather, so

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can

Send

I have not suffered very much. The iron frame work of my portmanteau was snapped in 2 or 3 places, but it is not going to give in yet. We are beginning to have a taste of mosquitoes now, and nearly every one wears veils during the afternoon and evenings. I have not had to wear a veil yet for I find they do not worry me, any thing like so much as they seem to worry other people. The mosquitoes do not become really bad till the water begins to fall, when as there is a great quantity of land left swampy by the receding water, the mosquitoes are produced from the swamps in myriads. The great thing is to wear thick clothing and keep moving about, and then the mosquitoes do not settle and bite.

Sam

25.

Kootenay River, Lat 48 - 25', Long 115 - 30'

July 3, 1861

My own dear Janet,

It is now nearly a month since I last wrote to you from a place called Sinyakwateen and we have been more or less on the move ever since. Having got so far on our journey, and considerably reduced our supply of provisions, about 30 miles are to be sent back most likely the day after tomorrow, to our nearest depot at a place called Chelemta, on the Kootenay River, and about eight days journey from the place where I am now writing. The above mentioned depot is 4 days beyond Sinyakwateen, so that I am now about 12 days journey from the place where I last wrote to you.

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Our progress on the whole has been very slow. We left Sinyakwa-
teen on June 15th and up to July 3rd, we had only reached 120
miles beyond it, altho' we followed nominally a beaten track, used
by the Indians of these parts. They speak quite a different lan-
guage from the Colville Indians, and it is consequently impossible
to communicate with them in any way but with signs; this is not
a very difficult matter as the questions to be asked are so sim-
ple that they can very easily understand what you want to find
out. For instance the information one would try and get from them
is, whether the trail is clear and fit for packed animals to tra-
vel over. Whether there is good grass everywhere for grazing,
and whether the rivers are fordable or navigable by canoes or
rafts etc. We have seen very few Indians, however, only a few fishing
families at the places where our two depots are, but we frequent-
ly see the remains of very large camps, principally the framework
of their lodges forming a conical enclosure. In some of the more
recent ones the network of branches and leaves, or regular thatching
still remains, and they look remarkably snug and cosy inside. The
fire is made in the middle of the lodge which is about 12 feet
in diameter at the bottom, and the smoke of it escapes thro' a
hole left in the very top. Each family has a lodge of its own;
the younger members do all the hard work of catching fish and
procuring water and fire wood, the older ones gamble most of their
time away when their clothes and any other small things frequent-
ly change hands. This amusement seems to be a part of their nature,
for they have their own peculiar gambling games as well as games

2

122

played with packs of cards. I suspect the latter can scarcely
be very common among these Indians, as they have such few oppor-
tunities of intercourse with white men. On leaving Sinyakwateen
we had to cross the Pend d'Oreille River which was at that place
nearly a quarter of a mile wide. In fact it was nothing more
than a large lake, the water very deep and clear, and the current
very sluggish. We got all our animals and baggage across in a
flatbottomed boat and canoes, except 13 head of cattle who were
too stubborn to go into the boat so they had to swim across. This
was not done without some considerable trouble and shouting, and
when they were in the water they had to be chased by men in canoes,
to prevent them turning back and swimming to the side they star-
ted from. They made several attempts to do this, and one did
succeed, but the rest after being about 20 minutes in the water
reached the opposite side about ½ a mile below the proper landing
place. The single one that escaped was afterwards brought back
with some waggon oxen for it would have been impossible to drive
him anywhere by himself, and by means of the other tame beasts he
was enticed into the boat, and went across in quite an aristocratic
way, and so rejoined his companions. Generally speaking they
seem to be very easily managed. They always keep very close to-
gether and never stray far from the camp. Nearly all the horses
have to be tethered every night to prevent them wandering away;
the mules are allowed to go at large as they generally keep quite
close to the bell mare, whom they follow every where and generally
eat all the hair off her tail, tho' they get sundry kicks from

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her for their pains. During the first two days of our journey we travelled thro' thick woods, cedars and pine trees, so thick as to make it impossible to see anything of the country thro' which we were passing. The waters were at their highest point at about this time, so at the end of the second day we were brought up to a halt by half a mile of the trail being under water, and the bridge over the river at the same place was in a floating condition. The same night the river fell 6 inches which made the bridge steady again. The water over the trail was about 3 or 4 feet deep, and then about 2 feet of soft mud underneath all that. However the packers tried to force the mules through and there was such a scene of splashing and floundering and shouting, and then after the convulsive struggles had ceased, the heads and necks of the animals would be visible, their body being sunk in the mud. After 8 or 10 of the foremost animals had settled themselves in such a way as to make them perfectly helpless, the attempt of forcing the way through was abandoned, and all energy exerted to extricate those already imbedded. You may imagine it took a great deal longer time to get them out, than it did to get them in, for they had almost to be lifted out by main force, and they were all got out safely after some time, except one which was badly staked, and was just able to limp off. There was no alternative but to make one continuous bridge for about 6 or 700 yards. This piece of work occupied 40 men about 2½ days and being built some considerable height above high water mark is likely to last for years for the benefit of the natives. The

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4

water fell gradually all the time the bridge was being built
and by the time it was finished the water had disappeared off
the trail, tho' the ground was still very soft in some places.
The rise and fall of some of the smaller rivers are so uncertain,
that in the course of the night they are just as likely to rise
as to fall. At any rate we should have been delayed at the a-
bove place for 3 days even if we had waited for the falling of the
river, and of course it is much better for the men to have employ-
ment than to remain idle. At this place only we found the mos-
quitoes really annoying, but with good thick clothes, a pair of
gloves and a veil one can defy their attacks during the day.
The nights being very chilly they were not very troublesome after
sunset, tho' they used then to retire to the tents to roost, and
they had to be burnt out before one could dare to venture into
bed. It was curious to see the mosquito curtains stretched out
in a rectangular shape over the men's beds in the open air, where
of course they can lie as snug as possible unmolested with plen-
ty of fresh air all round. I have not had to sleep under a mos-
quito curtain as yet this year. They make the air all round so
close and oppressive, that it is very uncomfortable to sleep un-
der them at first. I generally turn into bed early, and before
I have been asleep apparently more than an hour or so I hear a
voice at my tent "¡ to 5, please Sir". I instinctively answer all
right, and then I begin to think that the ¡ to 5 summons was a
part of my dream. Then the Mexicans begin to shout and to use
sundry exclamations which in English I suspect would rather astonish

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us, and the mules being driven in walking over one's tent ropes,
and braying away lustily soon rouse one completely. Breakfast is
on the table at ☌ past 5, hot tea and fried bacon, but at this
early hour in the morning I never feel very hungry. We have our
portable tables and chairs set up under a tree, a table cloth
spread and everything done in a civilized style, except the
cooking which I am sorry to say is not always so successful as it
might be. Sometimes we get bread that won't rise, meat that won't
fry for want of a proper amount of fat, the beans that won't become
soft, and soup that will not thicken. However we all manage to
thrive wonderfully in spite of the cook's designs, and by 5 o'clock
in the evening everyone is too hungry to be particular about the
cooking. After passing the place where we had to build the long
bridge we were able to continue our journey for two days without
any trouble, the country being a little more open and not flooded.
At the end of that time we arrived for the first time at the Koo-
tenay River, one of the main tributaries of the upper portion of
the Columbia River. The Kootenay was about 300 yards wide, and
getting all our animals and baggage across cost us two days. We
had a flat bottomed boat or raft constructed by erecting a plat-
form over two canoes placed parallel to one another and about 10
feet apart, railings being fixed on each side of the platform to
prevent the animals jumping into the river. At this crossing of
the Kootenay, called Chelemta, there were 2 or 3 old log houses
erected by the Americans last year which some of our men have now
taken possession of to take charge of provisions which will be
stored up there and which will be sent to the different parts of
the country as they are wanted.

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5

At this place, and in a great many other places along this river there were a great quantity of wild strawberries which though small had a delicious flavour, and afforded us employment as long as we liked to pick them. The only objection to the place was that it was almost swarming with snakes, some of a very doubtful appearance, and which the Doctor would not pronounce harmless.

They were very stupid snakes too, and were not easily frightened away like the rattlesnakes that we saw last year, for the latter always tried to get out of the way as quickly as they could, though they seldom escaped altogether. The first view which we had from this place of the Kootenay Valley, up which is the regular route to the Rocky Mountains, was not very prepossessing. The River is bounded on both sides by steep hills densely covered with timber and extending down to the banks on both sides. In many places the trail, which was often not more than a foot wide, ran into the river, and then one had to get all the axes and picks and shovels to work to make a new pathway for ourselves, which was rather tedious work in rocky soil. In one of these places we had 6 or 7 mules who walked straight into the river, with their loads on their backs, and sometimes swimming and sometimes with their feet just touching the bottom they dropped down the river about half a mile, when they were pulled out, all safely but one who sank close to the shore though in deep water. The unfortunate animal had several photographic things on his back which will not be easy to replace in the field. On that day I think our total progress was 3 miles, and the mules were occupied during the greater

127

evening. Since then it has been rising higher and higher in
the sky, and now he is visible every night for several hours,
his large tail being perceptible over almost half the heavens.
I think he is the largest comet I recollect seeing, tho' there
have been several visible during the last ten years. Today,
July 5th we arrived at the second crossing of the Kootenay River,
and as we shall have to make two canoes and a flatbottomed boat
we shall be delayed here two days. We are now about 35 miles
south of the Boundary Line, and from this time we shall go steadi-
ly North till we get within a few miles of Her Majesty's Dominions,
when we shall change our direction due east to the Rocky Mountains.
I suppose it will be 3 weeks before we arrive there, and it was
expected that we were to have been there by this time, but we
have had sundry delays that could hardly have been anticipated.
I am glad to say that our delightful salt bacon is nearly finished,
so the men are very busy in killing off some of the oxen and
drying the meat in the sun, by which process it is preserved quite
as thoroughly as if it were salted. All the meat has to be cut
in thin layers about as thick as one's hand; in this state the
sun will dry it in two days, and it will keep good for any length
of time without saturating it with brine....................

Sam

26. Boundary Line, Kootenay River

Sept. 1st, 1861

My dearest Janet,

I was wondering only this morning when the next opportu-

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Rocky Mountains and I am sorry to say they have all disappeared
but two, from the book that I had placed them in. I was very
much annoyed to find they were gone, for I am afraid there is no
chance of getting any more. Please give my love to Mb, and thank
him for me for his letter of April 14th which reached me on Aug
21st. My best love to Uncle John, and Aunt Harriet, and Yourself,
Believe me, my dearest Janet,

Sam

Kind love to Jack and Ralph

27.

Boundary Commission Barracks, Colville, Wash. Terr.

U.S., Nov. 20th, 1861

My dearest Janet,

The day after I sent off my letter of
Sept. 1st I had to remove my camp back about 25 miles to mark the
Boundary Line at a place where a much used Indian trail crosses it.
Having first ascertained the position of the Line we had to build
a large monument of stones, of a pyramid shape and square at the
base. There were no stones to be found exactly at the spot so we
had to call in the assistance of our mules to pack the stones, and
I think it took about 60 loads of stones to complete the monuments.
Having finished this we moved back to the camp we had 3 days before
quitted, and commenced operations for getting our mules and stores
across the Kootenay River which was about 260 yards wide, very deep
and very sluggish. We soon made a rough raft and took all our
things across the same day, and swam our mules across in the evening.
We got the mules across without any trouble, but 2 or 3 of our horses

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of the mountain that I had previously determined ascending, as I
knew we should get a view from it of the whole surrounding country.
It had a bare rocky top which was somewhat unusual, so that there
was nothing to intercept our view. We took advantage for about 2
miles of a broad beaten footpath used by the "cariboo", an animal
nearly as big as an ox, their big broad hoofs were distinctly marked
on the ground, but of course I had no time to go hunting after them.
From the summit of this mountain I was able to get a rough sketch of
the country we had to survey, and also to form an estimate of the
probable time it would take us and the necessary amount of provisions
required. On the evening of the third day we reached our camp in
the Kootenay Valley, having returned by a different route, for we
travelled along the bed of the stream for a few miles. We had to
fix upon a route along which, with the least amount of labour, our
pack animals could travel, but neither the way we had gone out,
nor the way we had returned could ever have been made passable for
them. This was about in the middle of September. I was in a state
of rags, my boots were all torn with the rocks and my hands and
face were all scratched with the bushes and with the sundry tumbles
I got, and my feet were blistered. However in a day or two I was all
right again, but my garments were beyond repair. Even my wide-awake
hat had a big hole torn in the crown, but now that I have returned
to this establishment where there are hat pegs I find the hole in
the crown to be an advantage, for in hanging up my hat I can regu-
larly impale it on the peg, so it never by any chance gets knocked
off, and nobody else ever takes it in mistake for their own. My

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the gold mines in the Upper portion of British Columbia, somewhere
near the Russian Territory up there and that news had unsettled
them very much. There was a great deal of labour expended in
clearing a road for the mules. Sometimes they progressed half a
mile in a day, and sometimes more, but the trail so made was very
rough and in some places very steep, but the mules were just able
to travel along it and that was all we wanted. We had splendid
weather for the first three weeks, an occasional storm now and
then but no really wet weather. The mountains had two feet of snow
on them on Oct 25th last year, so as we were getting near the middle
of October and our work not finished I was getting very anxious
about it, for the snow was beginning to collect in thin layers and
the cold bleak winds foretold that winter would soon set in. We had
penetrated about 23 miles by road into the mountains about the mid-
dle of October although we were not more than 15 miles in a straight
line from our starting place, but the nature of the mountains of course
would not allow us to take our mule trail in a direct line to the
place where our work terminated. The weather was beginning to get
bad, so I determined upon not taking a mule trail any further. It
was very uncomfortable work working in the snow, but it was useless
to stop for fine weather. My last resource was to convert my axemen,
as I had no Indians, into pack animals, to carry our surveying in-
struments and provisions across the mountains over which we had not
sufficient time left to clear a trail for the mules. I expected
they would refuse to do this, as they were only engaged as axemen and
not for general service, and at one time they talked of going away
and abandoning the work altogether, but I spoke to them, and the

142

rougher ground than I ever saw before, and the steepness of the
mountains was so great that we had to descend more than 2000 feet
in about three quarters of a mile and immediately make an equally
steep ascent on the other side to go in the required direction.
However on the third day we had completed our work, but too late
to commence making a retreat on that day. Returning was a much
easier matter as we had eaten nearly all our provisions, and the
very fact of going homewards made the travelling much less fatiguing.
I felt greatly relieved when everything was finished, as there was
always a doubt about the practicability of the portion of the Boundary
that was allotted to me. In fact the American Commission after
having had a look at the place and spent 5 days on a reconnaissance,
abandoned it altogether. So I always felt that if I did not succeed
in completing the survey of the Boundary Line between the co-
lumbia and Kootenay Rivers, I should not have been blamed, tho' of
course our Commissioner would have felt disappointed, as it would
have been the only link that was *wanting* between the Pacific and the
summit of the Rocky Mountains, a distance straight across along the
Boundary, of about 420 miles. I am afraid I have been boring you
with things which will be but of little interest to you, but I *must*
give you an account of the way my time has been employed, and I have
very little to write about except on matters connected with the
Commission. One is so completely isolated out here that if our
work did not give us continual employment morning, noon and night,
the time would hang so heavily as to be almost unbearable. As it
is the days and weeks and even the months slip away far more rapidly

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than I wish sometimes, simply because there has always been a great
deal to do and a short time to do it in. We were not able to get
on the ground and fairly commence work before July 17th this year
and the last stroke of work was done on Oct. 19th. The snow com-
menced to fall then and has been falling almost daily on the moun-
tains ever since. The snow remains even on the low ground till April
and on the north sides of the mountains remains all the year round.
We were from May 15th to July 17th in travelling to get to work, in-
cluding delays, and it took me from Oct 21st to Nov. 14th in making
my retreat to Winter Quarters. When I started on Oct. 21st I was
only 50 miles in a straight line from Colville, but the nature of the
intervening country compelled us to go by such around about way
that it took us 24 days to get to Colville. This will give you some
idea of the difficulty of travelling from one place to another in
this country and consequently the immense cost of transport, where
instead of charging by the hundredweight or by the ton as they do
at home everything is charged by the pound weight, from 6- to 1/- per
lb. for 14 or 20 days journey. So where large instruments, tents and
all kinds of stores have to be carried and are charged at so much a
lb. the costs becomes enormous. I believe it cost our Commission
no less than L 10,000 for the transport of our stores from the lower
part of the Columbia River to our depot at Colville, about 14 or 20
days' journey, or a little over 230 miles. This was done for us by
contract last year, and of course the Contractor cleared a great sum
of money by the transaction, but as there was nobody else who was
either in a position or willing to take the contract he was able to
make his own charges. I had a miserable time of it on the journey

145

returning to this place, rain or snow every day, and nothing is
more uncomfortable than moving or pitching camp in wet weather.
The rain manages to soak thru' every thing; even the blankets get
wet, and it is not agreeable on turning into bed to find the blan-
kets wet or even damp. It does not matter however if one dry one
is left to be nearest the body, and then the dampness of the upper
ones does not prevent them from contributing to keep in the warmth
and keep out the cold. I had a large band of mules with me at that
time about 60 altogether, and at this time of year when grass is
poor and scarce, they gave a great deal of trouble in being kept
together. On pitching camp every night on the march all the animals
are turned loose to graze, and with the exception of about 2 hours'
sleep they continue to feed themselves all the night, and in so
doing get scattered about 3 or 4 miles all round the camp. The
Mexicans turn out as soon as it is light in the morning to bring
in the band of mules to be saddled and packed and go on another
stage in the journey. The mules are supposed to be gregarious
like oxen, always feeding together and keeping together, but in
the latter part of the year when the feed is scarce they become
separated and get lost. The great work of the morning is to hunt
up all the stragglers, and generally in the course of a couple of
hours every animal is found and driven into camp. It is wonderful
how the Mexicans ever find them at all, but they seldom fail to
find them. I was unfortunate in losing one which was a notorious
straggler, and after the Mexicans had hunted all over the hills and
the little hollows for 2 days, unsuccessfully, I had to abandon him

146

and came on without him. On one occasion I had four mules missing in the morning, but hearing that a Mexican was on their tracks and would certainly find them in the course of the day I sent on the rest of the mules and the camp, so as to prevent us losing a day. However that night the men did not appear so I had to lose a day then, and sent back 3 more men with provisions to give the man away something to eat, and afterwards to assist him in the hunt if necessary. In the course of the day the three men came back with three of the missing mules, one being still lost. We heard that the original Mexican had tracked the mules, although it was snowing heavily at the time, for about 15 miles down to the banks of a deep river about 100 yards wide, that he swam his own riding mule across the river, found the tracks again on the other side, and at last found the three mules amongst a band of Indian horses, 3 or 4 miles beyond the river. He had driven them back across the river the same day and beyond until it was too dark to go further that night. The 3 men I sent back met the Mexican returning with 3 of the mules, and after handing over the mules to them to be taken to the camp he took the provisions and insisted upon going back again himself to find the fourth mule, and said he would not come away without it. We continued on our journey then, and on the fifth or sixth day the man overtook us with the missing mule. They are very faithful men, the Mexicans, but great drunkards. This particular one was as drunk as a man could be the night before we lost the mules. I have no doubt that the Indians drove off the mules at the instigation of some white men, who prowl about the country stealing

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horses and passing counterfeit coin among the Indians and settlers. I was unfortunate in losing two mules which were killed and eaten by the wolves in the night. There is a large grey wolf which roams over the country killing all the colts and any weak animals that are unable to escape from its attacks. I think the wolves must creep upon the animals when they are sleeping, and soon kill them by seizing hold of them by the throat. I never saw nor do I care about seeing this large species of wolf. The smaller kind of wolves I used to see often creeping among the bushes round our camps to get any scraps of meat that were lying about. The camp dogs used to have frequent fights with them, in which the wolf always was the greatest coward, running away and then howling furiously. They must be very badly off for food sometimes if one may judge from the way they pass the nights in howling, but during the spring and summer they can find plenty to eat in the shape of young birds and squirrels. I was very glad to get back to Colville again, after all my field work was finished. Last year I did not come in from the field till the middle of December, but it is an earlier winter this year, tho' we have not had as yet any severe cold. All our old friends including the two ladies have left the American Garrison, and the members of the U.S. Boundary Commission have also left, for the latter completed their work in August, so they are all at home or at the war by this time. We were very sorry to lose our friends at the Garrison. We were always welcome there, and when at leisure we often used to ride over there, spend the evening and return next day. The officers of the Garrison left only a few days ago, all the regular troops on

148

being made for our going home in the spring, for I knew nothing
of it till my arrival here on Nov. 14th. The Admiral of the Pa-
cific station Sir Thomas Maitland has been requested by the home
authorities to assist us on going to Panama as far as he could.
Col. Hawkins happened to be at Victoria at the time, when the Ad-
miral who was there then, received the letter. He said the "Topaze"
commanded by Captn. Hon. T.W.S. Spencer was going from Victoria to
Valparaiso in the spring, and that she could take us from Victoria
to Panama. She is a large new ship, and I am sure we should be
much more comfortable in her than in the dirty American vessels
which carry 12 or 1300 passengers at a time. Dr. Turnbull whom
you have mentioned in some previous letter is on board the Topaze.
A British magistrate is going to take up his residence on the Co-
lumbia River near the Boundary Line and about 25 miles from here.
The Columbia mines have been paying well this last season, and they
say that next spring there will be a great rush of people to British
Columbia. Provisions will be sent from this portion of the country
on pack horses to all the important mining places, where they will
fetch 4 and 5 times their original costs. It is those kind of people
that make all the money at the mines. The miner who does all the work
pays away his gold dust by ounces for flour and other necessaries,
and often expends the rest in gambling and spirits. Of course some
are saying and as the Americans say "make their pile", and on account
of a few making a small fortune the newspapers delude the unfortunate
people into the notion that anybody and everybody who goes to the
mines may expect the same good luck, and thus out of a hundred 2 or

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3 lucky ones are paraded as a sample of the whole. Everybody makes a little of course, for one never hears of a starving miner. They always seem to have enough to keep them going and men at the diggings get to know one another so well, that even the most unfortunate are never in want of food.

Col. Hawkins about a fortnight ago returned from a trip to Victoria, and he is full of the gossip of the place. The great event of the day was the Governor's Private Secretary running away with and getting married to the Governor's daughter. The governor in speaking of the matter to Col. He said it was a case of a "monster running away with the innocent". Most people are disposed to reverse the terms, for certainly the man was the more innocent of the two. She was a very cunning young lady, for how do you think she conveyed her wardrobe away without attracting notice. Why, every day she professed to go out to take a music lesson, and on all these occasions she attired herself in 3 dresses, and as many crinolines as it was impossible to wear under them, and thus in a few days she had carried all her wardrobe and safely stowed it away in a house she was going to live in after her marriage. In consequence of thespirited conduct of the young lady, the people of Victoria have a much higher opinion of her than they used to have. Of course the Governor has dismissed from his service the offending gentleman but I suppose the "enraged parent" will be softened down in course of time. If the Governor had half a dozen such daughters in England he would find it very difficult to get anyone to run away with them. There is a good story told against this young lady. I must tell you

151

must have dropped half a pound of it in the soup by mistake.
That was the only poison that the cook could have had in his
possession, but of course he denied ever having used it to fla-
vour the soup. However what ever the cause might have been, we
were all unwell for the rest of the evening, and had to go to
bed early. This attempt at poisoning rather spoiled our enjoy-
ment of Christmas evening. One of the members of our mess was un-
well for three days afterwards, but the rest of us were quite
well by the morning. Jan. 10th. The mail that we have been wai-
ting for so long has not arrived yet, so a second messenger is
to be sent to'morrow to take our mail away and also to look af-
ter the missing postman. I shall consequently have to finish off
& despatch this letter without being able to acknowledge the re-
ceipt of the batch of letters that I have been daily expecting.
However I know you will like to hear from me in any case, tho'
frozen up as we are in this place there is very little to write
about. This is a wonderful establishment for ventilation. There
is a gale of wind blowing in at all the four corners of my room,
and sundry breezes come up thro' the cracks in the floor. I al-
ways keep up a roaring fire in my room all day, and sit to write
at a little table immediately in front of it, so that I can always
keep one side of myself warm. It is quite an occupation in itself
to keep up a good wood fire, for good dry logs of wood soon burn
away, and if I am away for half an hour or so the fire gets so low
that the ink freezes and thermometer falls 15 degrees or so below
freezing point. There are a great quantity of Indians living about

156

half a mile from this place, but on the opposite side of the ri-
ver. They come down near the river in winter time, as the snow is
too deep and the cold too severe for them to remain in the moun-
tains. I should think they ought to feel the cold very much, as
many of them are miserably clad and the lodges they live in are all
open at the top and consequently much exposed to the wind. They
cruise about the river in their frail bark canoes which are so
flimsy that if a man with boots on attempts to get in his foot is
almost certain to go through and make a big hole in the bottom.

The river is covered with floating pieces of ice, and it is a great
wonder to me how they manage to escape being crushed between the
large pieces of ice among which they steer their canoes in crossing
to and fro from one side of the river to the other. All the In-
dians are a mercenary set of vagabonds, and they will sell their
only blanket for money. I am sure I cannot tell what they do with
their money, except buy poisonous spirits which are sold by the
Yankee Traders, at the head of whom is the Justice of the peace of
these parts. Even the Hudson's Bay Company here have to give money
to the Indians for their furs in a great many cases, but I suspect
a good deal of the money comes back to them. They (the H.B.Co.)
make most enormous profits, something like 5 or 600 per cent upon
what they sell, and they make almost an equal percentage on the
furs they trade from the Indians. The principal furs they get here
are the Bear and the Marten. The latter is a small animal not so
high as a rabbit, and his fur when it reaches England is called
sable. It is nearly the most valuable fur for the Hudson's Bay Co.

157

["can afford to pay the Indians 6/ in cash for each little skin.\nBut the most valuable fur is the silver fox, a very rare animal.\nThe Company can afford to pay an Indian 50/ in cash for a skin of\nthis animal. I have never seen any ladies at home wearing this,\nso I suppose they are exported to Russia and China. At the latter\nplace the furs fetch fabulous prices according to the accounts I\nhave heard here. A most extraordinary number of Chinamen have emi-\ngrated into British Columbia within the last year or two. They are\nwonderfully persevering in penetrating into the country, for there\nare a great number on the Columbia River 40 or 50 miles from here.\nThe other miners do not like them, as they will always work for\nless than other men will, and the spend very little of their money.\nChinamen are the laundresses out here, getting up fine linen etc. and\nI believe they do it very well, charging of course enormously. Some-\nthing like 8/ or 12/ a dozen. I doubt very much if any of the Chi-\nnamen were to die so far inland as this, whether their bodies would\never be transported back to China, as is their custom. It would\nbe a very expensive operation packing a dead Chinaman on a mule's\nback 25 days journey to Fort Hope on the Frazer River, which is the\nplace thro' which they must have all come. . . . . . . . . . . .

of our horses are accustomed to be driven in harness so they always have some frolic or other whenever they are put in the sleigh. Two of them were harnessed on this occasion and everything was made ready to start. Wilson had to drive, so we got in the sleigh, had ourselves well muffled up and tucked in with buffalo robes and furs and as soon as the groom let go of the horses' heads off they started capering and kicking about, smashed the pole and swingle trees before they had gone 50 yards, and then tried to kick the sleigh to pieces. Luckily they did no further damage but of course the sleigh could not be used any more that day. So we had to get out, and as I did not care about being disappointed on what I had made up my mind for, I had my own horse saddled and rode on alone, for Wilson was too lazy to ride. I had warm fur boots on and a comforter tied round my head and ears to prevent the latter being frostbitten, and with 2 great coats on, I started on my journey. The road was very heavy. A good deal of snow had recently fallen and there had been but little traffic to beat a good track, so it took me nearly 3 hours to do the 17 miles. The only animal I saw was a red fox who stared at me for a little time and then trotted leisurely off with in pistol shot. The poor starved beasts get so tame this weather that they come round the kitchen and eat the pieces that are thrown out, and every now and then they wake the dogs who chase them round the barracks, giving tongue lustily. The volunteer officers were a curious set of men. One had been a detective (by the bye he was in arrest for allowing one of his men to give him a black eye), one a hack driver, one a stage driver, and one a fencing master, one a

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supercargo on board ship, another a Gold miner, and another a sergeant in the regular army of the United States; consequently few of them would be likely to have any ideas or feelings in common. They were all more or less rough as you may imagine, and had not paid much attention to the rules of English grammar, but they were exceedingly hospitable and as kind and attentive as could be. I dined at their mess and had a tolerable dinner, and one of the many things that amused me was being pressed to take some cheese with my mince pie. It is amusing to see how many things they pile on their plates at the same time, and one and all make a practise of putting their knives in their mouths a barbarous custom which I believe exists even in the more civilized parts of America. In the evening some private theatricals came off, in a House fitted up in every way as a Theatre, stage, lamps, curtain, scenery everything complete. The female characters were taken by men and they certainly performed remarkably well. There was a slight row or "muss" as they call it. One of the soldiers who was a little drunk shouted out and called one of the officers some name, whereupon the officer himself, instead of ordering his sergeant to do it, rushed at the man in order to take him over to the Guard Room. The man immediately pulls out a bowie knife with a blade about 12 inches long, but this was wrenched from him by some bystander and the officer himself collared the man, had him down on the floor and struck him repeated blows on the mouth, severe enough to knock the skin off his own (the officer's) knuckles, and after this little "muss" the man was removed, and the officer received a great deal of cre-

161

keep dancing over and over again till the music is tired, when
the ladies rush to their seats and a fresh lot spring up immedi-
ately and the fiddler has to begin again. There are only 2 things
required to get up a Ball in this part of the world, and these
2 things are a Gallon of Whiskey and a Fiddler. We had 4 fid-
dlers at our Ball who relieved one another so there was no cessa-
tion of music. The ladies are rather shy and generally say "Non"
or "Marche" (the latter equivalent to "Hook it") when they are
asked to dance. You then have to take hold of them by the hand
and pull them out, and when once they are out in the middle of
the Room they submit willingly. On 2 or 3 occasions however after
I had got my partner out, on looking away for an instant I found she
had bolted, and really one is so much like another that I could
not find her again, but had to take another at random. The men
had the room very nicely decorated with flags and swords and rifles
and all kinds of pictures on the walls. I suppose there must have
been 80 or 90 people present including about 30 ladies. The lat-
ter showed no symptoms of being tired, for they kept on dancing till
daylight. I stayed up till about 3.30 a.m. and I felt I had enough
of the Reel de Huite, so I turned in and left them dancing away as
lively as ever. Three of the American officers came down. They
started in a sleigh with 4 mules about 12 o'clock, smashed the sleigh
before they had gone a mile, borrowed another sleigh which brought
them within a few miles of this place. Then they had another break-
down and their mules escaped, and at last they found their way here
in a third sleigh and arrived about half past 7, long after dark.

4

163

["great improvement upon the straight up and down appearance of\nthe ladies' costume without them. I did not go to bed at all\nthat night for I got home just in time to complete my toilet for\nbreakfast, but as you may suppose I did not feel fit for much\nthat day. The majority of the people, instead of going straight\nhome made an agreement to drive straight to some other house,\nwhere they carried on the dancing all that night and went home the\nnext day. One night of it nearly knocked me up, and yet the wo-\nmen were able to stand 2 nights of it in succession. I don't think\nI shall go to any more of these gatherings. I had a great curio-\nsity to see what they were like, but now that that has been gra-\ntified I should find the whole thing stupid and stale. The old\nFrenchmen seem to enjoy themselves themselves heartily and having\nno intellectual nor physical occupation beyond chopping wood for\ntheir fires, all the time is at the disposal of their friends during\nthe winter months. I think there will be a general clearance of\nall the men in the spring, for everybody will be off to the mines.\nThere are two places one in American and the other British Terri-\ntory both said to be equally rich, and the people seem undecided\nat which place to try their fortune. . . . . . . . . . . .

this winter was during the last fortnight in January, and since
that time the cold has so far moderated as not to freeze the ink
in my room during the day, as long as there is a tolerable fire.
In the beginning of last month Colonel Hawkins and myself made
an excursion across the Columbia River on the ice. In some pla-
ces the ice was sufficiently thin for us to hear the rushing of
the water underneath but in most places the ice was piled up to
the height of 30 or 40 feet above the level of the water, and
the large blocks of the drifted ice were rent by large fissures
not more than 3 feet wide, but extending downwards almost to the
surface of the water. Even where the river is not frozen across,
there is a broad sheet of ice quite 50 yards wide jutting out
from both banks of the river and along this ice was one of the
pleasantest walks we had. The Colonel was out by himself one
day and venturing too near the edge, tumbled through, but lucki-
ly caught hold of the edge of the stronger ice as he fell, so he
only got half a wetting. If he had gone through nobody would
have ever known what had become of him as the hole would have
been frozen over again in an hour and a slight breeze drifted the
snow so as to cover all the foot tracks on the ice. We have had
a great many snow storms lately which have made the snow on the
ground about knee deep, but in many places where the snow has
been drifted by the wind the depth is much greater than that.
Early in the morning the snow has a crust upon it so that one can
walk on the top of it, but as soon as the sun gets up, the sur-
face thaws, and then one's feet sink to the bottom at every step.

133

The Indians do their hunting on snow shoes, which are in shape
very much like a boat, between 4 and 5 feet long, and with these
clumsy looking things on their feet they are able to run down
deer, or foxes or any animals they see. All the unfortunate
quadrupeds are in a miserably lean state at this time of year,
but in the depth of winter the furs are in prime condition. The
fur bearing animals are not killed in the summer time on account
of the inferior condition of their fur during that season, but
the Indians employ themselves in laying up a store of roots and
berries, hunting deer and catching fish which they dry and put
aside for their winter use. The American Government are very li-
beral to the Indians in the winter time if they are in want of
food. The Commanding officer at the neighbouring garrison fills
the office of "Indian Agent" and has power to issue flour and meat
are
to the Indians if they/short of food. There is a certain sum of
money appropriated for this particular purpose, but as a general
rule the money does not get beyond the pockets of the agent who
is supposed to distribute it in the shape of food. To swindle
the government as much as possible is a recognized thing among al-
most all American officials, and their late Secretary for War
Floyd, or the arch traitor as they now call him, was the greatest
swindler of all. A man that cheats a private individual is called
"almighty mean", but a man that can swindle the government success-
fully is called "tarnation smart". It is very tantalizing to be
kept so long in total ignorance of the exciting events that must
be taking place in the eastern states, to say nothing of the greater

167

annoyance of receiving no news from home. We all have ceased
to complain now and seldom even speculate upon what kind of news
which we shall receive, but we have all learned to wait patiently
and never to expect any news till it actually appears. We all
find occupation for ourselves during the day, except the Colonel
who is like a fish out of water having finished all his despat-
ches and letters and he wanders about with a novel under his arm
looking after everybody and everything. Whenever I am short of
work indoors I invariably commence a letter and write portions of
it till something turns up requiring immediate attention, conse-
quently I often have a letter a week on my hands before it is
finished. They all have a great joke against me as they often
drop into my room and finding me writing a letter so they are
always enquiring after "Her" or the lady to whom they presume my
letters must be always addressed. We all get on very well to-
gether which is a great thing, considering what a miserable life
we should lead if we were all at loggerheads. The Colonel is a
nervous man and easily excited, so "rows" occasionally happen be-
tween him and the various members of the Commission about some
small matters when he contrives to work himself up into a passion
and to say disagreeable things, but after the explosion has ta-
ken place he rapidly cools down and forgets all about the matter
10 minutes afterwards. One good point about him is that he will
always say at once to your face what he really means, whether it
be unpleasant or otherwise, and he never sulks but is as friendly
as possible directly afterwards. We generally play some sort of

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game in the evening which helps to pass away the time pleasantly.
We have been playing lately an old game called 4 handed cribbage.
Wilson and myself whom they call the "boys" play against 2 of the
others and we make a tolerably even match in that way. There is
a little but not much "play" in the game, but it is a livelier
game than whist and does not require so much study, and besides
that everyone can talk as much as they like during the game. It is
the only English game that any of our American friends could play
at. They have a wonderful assortment of games with cards purely
Yankee, and the same games I believe are played by all classes of
Americans from the President down to the "Hack" driver, who if
[not] impossible is even a greater ruffian than the London cabman.
I wonder if the old place will look very different when we go back
there? We have a large map of London nailed upon the wall in our
Mess Room at this place. It is on such a large scale as to show
even the houses, dear old Glencoe House included, and it also
shows several roads between Clifton Road and the railway at the
back all filled up with houses which are new to me. Our map shows
the names of All Saint's church, the Eyre Arms, and the Swiss Cot-
tage and all the other buildings having well known names. I often
go and study the map, and take a walk in imagination over the old
roads again which we all know so well. I have become so accustomed
now to see houses made of wood in the shape of planks or rough
logs that it will seem very odd to me at first to see a good brick
house. The mining towns in this country are composed almost en-
tirely of wooden houses, so the risk of their being destroyed by

169

fire is very great. The city of San Francisco has been partially
destroyed 2 or 3 times during the last 10 or 12 years, but since
the last conflagration a good many people have taken to building
stone houses and brick houses also. In all the American towns
most of the householders are enrolled as firemen, and a body of
men are enrolled called a Hook and Ladder Company whose duty it
is with their long and powerful grappling hooks to isolate the
fire as much as possible by pulling down the houses in the immedi-
ate vicinity of the flames. There is a great bell in every town
which is tolled at the breaking out of a fire when the members of
the fire companies turn out and hasten to their regular rendezvous
where they place themselves under the orders of their head man or
"Chief Engineer" as he is styled, who goes about wearing a gorgeous
helmet as his badge of office. The fire engines are paid for and
kept up by public subscription, and the firemen being volunteers
receive no remuneration whatsoever for their services. The Volun-
teer troops at the Garrison near this place, have been behaving
tolerably well for them. One of their officers (the ex Detective)
whom I have spoken about in a previous letter had some dispute in
a drinking saloon outside the Garrison with one of our lately
discharged civilians, a man who had been with me all the summer and
always had the character of being a quiet and inoffensive man. The
officer went away quietly, purchased a sharp pointed Butcher's knife,
went back to the house where the man was and stabbed him 3 times
in the chest. The unfortunate man, mortally wounded, rushed at
his assailant, wrenched the knife from him and would have stabbed

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the officer in turn, but the wounded man fainted and died in less
than half an hour without speaking a word. The officer rushed to
his own Quarters shouting murder, and when the particulars were known
he was merely placed in arrest and allowed to remain in his own
Quarters. He remained there for about a fortnight and then a man
who styled himself a sheriff applied for him, and the prisoner
was handed over to the sheriff. The prisoner is now residing
with the sheriff in his log house some distance from the Garrison
and they are reported to be living on the best of terms, so as soon
as the snow begins to clear off the ruffian will mount a horse and
be off. Lynch law is a bad thing, but it is the only kind of
law applicable in a country where the proper authorities will not
enforce punishment for crime. The prisoner does not express any
regret for his crime, and he is decidedly of opinion, as every
one else is, that he is not going to be hung. The volunteers are
said to be very indignant at one of their officers disgracing him-
self so, and the majority of them coolly talk of walking off to the
mines when the weather becomes a little warmer, and abandoning the
Garrison to the care of their officers. The Commanding officer is
a very determined man and would as soon shoot down half a dozen
mutineers with his revolver as look at them. The Volunteers gave
a soiree the other day to which all the settlers and ourselves
were invited. They had their Barrack room very nicely decorated
with evergreens and flags, the Union Jack and the stars and stripes
side by side and Victoria Regina in large letters at one end of
the room. They had a small band of 2 fiddlers, a guitar and a ban-

171

["4", "This was the third time I had been at Fort Vancouver once on my\npassage out from England in '59, and the second time in May '60,\nwhen the whole Boundary Commission were on their way from Vic-\ntoria to the interior. The Hudson's Bay Company had an estab-\nlishment here at that time and we were most hospitably entertained\nat their table the whole time we were delayed here. This was one\nof the very first settlements of the H.B.C. and 20 years ago they\nhad a very large establishment here, as this was the Depot whence\nall the other trading posts were supplied. On the formation of the\nColony of Vancouver's Island, the principal depot was placed at\nVictoria. It is melancholy to see what a miserable wreck the old\nbuildings that sheltered us so hospitably two years ago have now\nbecome. The H.B.C. abandoned the place on account of the unjust\ntreatment they received at the hands of Gen. Harney the American\nofficer in command at that time, and I believe as yet they have\nno redress. The San Juan difficulty still remains unsolved and\nthree marine officers that I know have been wasting their exist-\nence there for three years and still no prospect of relief. We\nare now encamped on a flat grassy place on the bank of the Colum-\nbia, and we are likely to be delayed here 6 or 7 days waiting for\nthe steamer to take us to Victoria, that being our next destina-\ntion at present. We are at present rather doubtful about the way\nin which we shall go from Victoria to Panama, as the Mexican dif-\nficulty may make some considerable change in the movements of H.M.\nships on the Pacific Station. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2

32.

Fort Vancouver, Washington Territory, U.S.

May 5th, 1862

My dear Jack,

.................. All my land journey is finished now,
in fact it was finished on the 20th of last month, and all the rest
of my journey home will be by water. I hope to be on the salt wa-
ter in the course of tomorrow, but I do not anticipate much incon-
venience, as I shall know I shall be getting nearer and nearer home,
and nothing can be more encouraging than that. We have been more
or less on the move since April 2nd and are not yet out of American
Territory. The Americans have a very pretty military post estab-
lished at this place, and garrisoned at present almost entirely
by volunteers, about 400 men altogether. The volunteers are a
horrible looking set of scoundrels, desperate enough however
to make good fighting men, if they could only be restrained by
strict discipline. This is to be the last day of our camp life.
It has been a particularly jolly and healthy kind of life for me,
and I have contracted a sort of affection/my tent that has shel-
tered me so faithfully from wind and rain. All our tents and camp
equipage are to be sold off today, and I wonder when I shall lead
a similar life again. I have never suffered a day's illness from
cold or rheumatism or any other of the numerous ills that are pop-
ularly supposed to be contracted by having too much fresh air, and
by sleeping on the ground. Everything around us looks so green
and flourishing now, a most pleasing contrast to the snowy country
we left behind us not so many days ago. From the melting of the
snow the Columbia River is rising so fast as almost to create alarm,

178

about a foot in 2½ hours, in fact one of the government wharfs
is already under water. We hope to be on board the Ocean Steamer
the "Nevada" tonight May 5th and get out to sea early to-morrow
morning. We are earnestly hoping to have a safe and pleasant
voyage. Wishing you happiness good health, and success in all
that you undertake, believe me, my dear Jack,

Ever your most affectionate brother,

Sam.

33. Boundary Commission Barracks, Victoria
Vancouver's Island, May 13th, 1862

My dearest Janet,

My last letter to you was despatched on May 5th from Fort
Vancouver on the Columbia River, so I trust you are aware of all
my movements up to that date. A steamer has just arrived here
from San Francisco direct with over 1000 passengers destined for
the Carriboo mines, and as this steamer will leave again this
evening I have only a short time for writing this letter. We
started from Fort Vancouver the same day that I sent off my last
letter. We had to go down the Columbia a few miles in a little
river steamer to a town called Portland which is the place at
which the ocean steamers stop. We went alongside the big steamer
at once and transferred our baggage and men by about 6 o'clock
in the evening. The steamer was not to start for Victoria for
half an hour or so, so we went on shore and had some dinner at
one of the Hotels. The town was perfectly filled with miners,

179

as ever except in one corner where some industrious sailor had
been employing his leisure time in fencing in a small piece of
ground, and in making himself a pretty little garden which will
shortly have flowers in full bloom. At this time of the year
everything looks so fresh and pretty. The rocks are covered with
little flowers of all shades and colours grouped together so closely
as to form growing bouquets. The humming birds are all in great
glee. One sees them at one instant poising themselves in the air
while they insert their long slender little beaks into the flowers,
then they dart off with the rapidity of lightning and then one hears
them 30 or 40 yards off hovering over some other flower. Their
plumage is most magnificent, and from their throats are reflected
all kinds of magnificent colours, according as the light strikes
upon them. Looking at the throat it would appear bright ruby,
looking from another point (of) view it would appear a rich purple,
but different species have different colours. In the afternoon
of the day of our arrival I walked up to Victoria, and the first
thing I did was to go to the Hudson's Bay Cos. establishment and
get myself an entire new rig out of clothes. I was soon fitted
with a new suit and a pair of respectable shoes, so I left my old
garments behind me and in the course of a quarter of an hour ap-
peared in the streets tolerably respectable but everything looking
unpleasantly new. I went and called on the Governour but luckily
he was out. Great preparations were being made for the marriage
of his eldest daughter on the following day, and as soon as they
heard of our arrival we were all duly invited. Unfortunately I had

183

along a dreary road after dark, or without stopping at one of
the Hotels. I consequently spend most of my time down here, ex-
cept in the afternoons which I spend out of doors, for we are
kicking our heels here at present with little or nothing to do.
The only thing we are waiting for now, is for the Colonel and
Wilson (our secretary) to finish up accounts and pay all the bills
in which matters I am glad to say I have nothing to do. The men
have nothing to do and we might all start tonight by the same stea-
mer that takes this letter, if it were not for the outstanding
debts of the Commission. It is not quite certain whether we shall
get off even by the next steamer that leaves this on the 23rd,
but I think we shall get to San Francisco in time to catch the
steamer leaving there for Panama about June 8th. We still hope
to be home some time in July. I shall write whenever I have an
opportunity of sending a letter in advance of me. With fondest
love to you all, believe me, Your ever affectionate brother,

Sam

(PS) ................

34.

Clarendon Hotel, New York

May 16, 1869

My dearest Janet,

.................. You will be delighted to hear that I
have taken a passage by the "Australasia", a Cunard ship which
leaves for England on the 26th May, and if all goes well I hope
to arrive in Liverpool about the 7th June, and to present myself

185

prised that there were so few present, probably about 120 altogether. The President was too busy to attend the reception, but he appeared late in the afternoon, to take his wife and the ladies attending upon her out for a drive. For the last four days, that I remained at Washington, I went no where except to our office, where Colonel Hawkins and I were busily engaged up till 4 and 5 o'clock, as we were anxious to get through our work as speedily as possible. On Friday the 7th May all was finished that required the co-operation of the American Commission, and on the following morning after/paid a round of farewell visits I took the midday train to Philadelphia, leaving Col. Hawkins who had his despatches to write, to follow me in the course of two or three days. I passed through the city of Baltimore which is about 40 miles from Washington, and our carriages or cars as they call them here were drawn thro' the town for about two miles by horses. After an uneventful journey of about seven hours I reached the city of Philadelphia, the principal city of the state of Pennsylvania. My baggage was taken charge of by the railway company at the outset of the journey, and brass tickets with numbers corresponding to the duplicates on the different packages were handed to me. Towards the end of the journey an official came thro' the train to take the addresses of the people who required their luggage, which in my case was to the Continental Hotel. I found a street-car just outside the station which deposited me at the Hotel. In this way one was able to escape the American cab drivers who are a terrible set and most exorbitant in their charges. I found myself in an Hotel of most

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9

colossal proportions. In the body of the Hotel were shops of
different sorts, telegraph office, and newspaper office. I was
too late for dinner, but they gave me a hot supper, and I found
myself assigned to a comfortable bedroom on the second floor, with
the option of going up and down by the lift which is continually
travelling. ... Colonel Hawkins joined me at
Philadelphia on the Wednesday the 12th and dined with me at
George Woods that evening at another dinner party, and the next
day as we were anxious to push on, we said Good bye to our numerous
friends, and reached New York the same evening. I have been here
now four days, and Col. Hawkins has had much to do in the way of
writing, and has not nearly finished yet. I was delighted to re-
ceive your letter of the 30th which was written at Wylan, where
you must (have) had a most agreeable visit. As far as I can see
at present, my plans are to go as far as West Point on the Hudson
River this afternoon, and visit the military college there
to-morrow. To take the train in the evening to Niagara, arriving
there about noon the next day. I am afraid Colonel Hawkins will
be obliged to go back from there, as he wishes to finish all his
writing before starting by the steamer on the 24th. From Niagara
I hope to go on to Toronto, Montreal and Quebec, and return here
about the 25th, in time to catch the "Australasian" which leaves for
England on the 26th and in which I have secured a berth.

Sam Anderson

188