2 CHANGES IN THE COUNTRY SINCE EARLY DAYS

United States. The report which influenced them in
this decision was sent in by Captain the Hon. John Gordon
of H.M. frigate America, who had been instructed to visit
the country and examine its resources. It was a most
unfortunate thing that Captain Gordon evidently judged
the country simply by the sport he obtained during a
stay of not much more than two weeks, and paid but
little attention to the immense natural wealth that lay
waiting to be developed. According to the diary of
Roderick Finlayson, who was then in charge of the
Hudson’s Bay post at Camosun, which is now the City of
Victoria, and who entertained Captain Gordon during
his stay there, the Captain’s first animosity to the country
was due to the fact that our coast deer did not usually
frequent open ground, where they could be stalked, like
the red deer of the Scottish mountains. This in itself
aroused his ire, but, later on, when he discovered that
our waters teemed with salmon and he dismally failed to
induce them to rise to his flies, his disgust was intense,
and he is reported to have said: “‘ I would not give the
bleakest knoll in Scotland for all I see around me.” It
is greatly to be regretted that he was not either a better
fisherman, or more persevering, as our salmon will, under
favourable conditions, rise to the fly fairly well.

To the North-West Fur Company and its successor,
the Hudson’s Bay Company, attracted here by the great
fur trade, belong the chief credit of bringing this country
to the British Government’s notice. In the early days
this fur trade was a lucrative one, the most highly desired
pelt being that of the sea-otter, which was then so abundant
all along the coast and is now almost extinct. The
Indians originally killed these valuable fur-bearing animals
with their bows and arrows after lying in wait for them
at spots along the shore where they came to rest. At a
later period, when the otters were more and more hunted,
they changed their habits to some extent and stayed
out at sea almost constantly. Thereupon the Indians,
who by this time had become the proud possessors of
muskets, adopted a new method of slaughter. It was