8 Museum Notes

has the English Church obtained a more complete, early, and honourable footing than
in British Columbia.

To illustrate the perils of the Boundary Commission enterprise, I will close this
little sketch, suggested by seeing good Mr. Lord’s portrait, by narrating a sad episode
which occurred whilst they were (so far as they could be) under my supervision at
Fort Langley, and before they penetrated into the lonely wilds, far from even the
Indian’s home. As may be imagined, life in the midst of a great forest, in a climate
where gales are of continual occurrence, is one long peril to life and limb; every minute
the crash is heard, far or near, of some forest monster; often enough close to the
huts of the party—sometimes upon them, when asleep at night, or at work in. the day.
In one gale a poor sapper was crushed to death by the fall of a pine. His dying wish
was to receive Christian burial at my hands. His comrades resolved to attempt the
fulfilment of his sacred wish. Although the measured distance might be only twenty-
four miles, yet the carrying of a burden through the forest was such an undertaking
as none would attempt save from love, duty, or necessity. At last, late on one Sunday
afternoon, the little party made its appearance, under Lieutenant Darrah, R.E., who, I
believe, has since gone to join his comrade in arms. After the service in a small
wooden mission chapel which I had erected up there on the sandspit, we went to the
little cemetery belonging to the Hudson’s Bay Company, and just outside the fort.
After the graveside service I delivered an address to the people—storekeepers, Indians,
Chinese, gold-miners, Hudson’s Bay Company’s employees, but especially to the soldiers,
who evidenced their deep grief in losing a comrade whom they loved much. They
seemed to feel the address; and no marvel, for what comes from the heart finds its
way to the heart. And after ministering to a “mixed: multitude,” composed of waifs,
and strays from every nation under the sun, it touched me to the quick, and brought
dear old England home to me, to have a party of honest, intelligent, simple-minded
Englishmen, full of respect. and open to conviction, to whom to minister so many
thousand miles away from all that was dearest upon earth.

Such is the outline of associations awakened by seeing your, portrait of John Keast
Lord, then naturalist to the Boundary Commission. part of which was represented on
that Sabbath afternoon at a soldier’s grave in a strange land.

Beverly. W. B. CRICKMER.