We reached Victoria, that quaint, old, aristocratic, ultra-English town, just as the sun was sinking beneath the waves, that rolled restlessly on the surface of Juan de Fuca Strait. We were surprised to see so substantial and well-built a town as this, and one possessing so much of the air of age and independence, so far north and west. One might readily imagine, from the exterior appearance of the city and its surroundings, that he were in the province of Quebec instead of that of British Columbia. My wife felt that she must not remain longer away from home at present, and we were to part here; therefore, in the early morning she embarked for home, while I transferred my effects and self to the steamer Princess Louise, bound for Burrard Inlet.
At daylight in the morning we entered English Bay, having crossed the strait during the night. The sun climbed up over the snow-mantled mountains into a cloudless sky, and his rays were reflected from the limpid, tranquil surface of the bay:
"Blue, darkly, deeply, beautifully blue,"
as if from the face of a mirror. A few miles to the east, the triple-mouthed Frazer empties its great volume of fresh, cold, glacier-tinted fluid into the briny inland sea, and its delta, level as a floor, stretches back many miles on either side of the river to the foot-hills of the Cascades. Thousands of ducks sat idly and lazily in the water, sunning themselves, pruning their feathers, and eyeing us curiously but fearlessly, as we passed, sometimes within twenty-five or thirty yards of them. A few geese crossed hither and thither, in low, long, dark lines, uttering their familiar honk, honk; but they were more wary than their lesser cousins, and kept well out of range. I asked the purser if there was any rule against shooting on board, and he said no; to go down on the after main deck, and shoot until I was tired. I took my Winchester express from the case, went below and opened on the ducks. They at once found it necessary to get out of the country, and their motion, and that of the vessel combined, caused me to score several close misses, but I finally found the bull's-eye, so to speak, and killed three in rapid succession. Then the mate came down and said: