shore of British Columbia, latitude fifty-four
degrees forty minutes north. The village is
prettily situated on a rocky point of land,
chosen, as all Indian villages are with an eye
to prevention of surprise from concealed foes.
Rearward it is guarded by a steep hill, and it
commands from the front the entrance to one
of those long canals, like the fiords of Norway,
here often running thirty or forty miles inland.

The village consists of ten or fifteen rude
sheds, about twenty yards long and twelve wide,
built of rough cedar planks: the roof a single
slant covered with poles and rushes. Six or
eight families live in each shed. Every family
has its own fire on the ground, and the smoke,
that must find its way out as best it can, through
cracks and holes (chimneys being objected to),
hangs in a dense upper cloud, so that a man
can only keep his head out of it by squatting on
the ground. To stand up, is to run a risk of
suffocation. Under the smoke are the children,
of all ages, in droves, naked and filthy; blear-
eyed old squaws squatted around the smouldering
logs; innumerable dogs, like starving wolves,
prick-eared, sore-eyed, snappish brutes, unceasingly
engaged in faction fights and sudden duels,
in which the whole pack immediately take sides.
Felt, but not heard, are legions of bloodthirsty
fleas that would try their best to suck blood from
a boot, and by combined exertions would soon
flay alive a man with clean and tender skin.

The moon, near its full, creeps upward from
behind the hills. Stars one by one are lighted
in the sky. Not a cloud flecks the clear blue.
The Indians are busy launching their canoes,
preparing war against the lamp fishes, which
they catch when they come to the surface to
sport in the moonlight. As the rising moon
now clears the shadow of the hills, her rays
slant down on the green sea, just rippled by the
land breeze. And now, like a vast sheet of
pearly nacre, we may see the glittering shoals
of the fish. The water seems alive with them.
Out glides the dusky Indian fleet, the paddles
stealthily plied by hands far too experienced to
let a splash be heard. There is not a whisper,
not a sound, but of the measured rhythm of many
paddlers, as the canoes are sent flying towards
the fish.

To catch them, the Indians use a monster comb
or rake: a piece of pine wood from six to eight
feet long, made round for about two feet of its
length, at the place of the hand grip; the rest is
flat, thick at the back, but thinning to a sharp
edge, into which are driven teeth about four
inches long, and an inch apart. These teeth
are usually made of bone, but when the Indian
fishers can get sharp-pointed iron nails, they
prefer them. One Indian sits in the stern
of each canoe to paddle it along, keeping
close to the shoal of fish. Another, having
the rounded part of the rake firmly fixed in
both hands, stands with his face to the bow
of the canoe, the teeth pointing sternwards.
He then sweeps it through the glittering mass
of fish, using all his force, and brings it to
the surface, teeth upwards, usually with a fish
impaled on every tooth, sometimes with three or
four upon one tooth. The rake being brought
into the canoe, a sharp rap on the back of it
knocks the fish off, and another sweep yields
such another catch. It is wonderful to see
how rapidly an Indian will fill his canoe with
lamp fish by this rude method of fishing. The
dusky forms of the savages bend over the canoes,
their brawny arms sweep their toothed sickles
through the shoals, stroke follows stroke in
swift succession, and steadily the canoes fill
with their harvest of living silver. When they
have heaped as much as this frail craft will
safely carry, they paddle ashore again, drag the
boats up on the shelving beach, overturn them as
the quickest way of discharging cargo, re-launch,
and go back to rake up another load. This
labour goes on until the moon has set behind
the mountain peaks, and the fish disappear—
for it is their habit rarely to come to the surface
except in the night. The sport over, we glide in
under the dark rocks, haul up the canoe, and lie
before the log fire to sleep long and soundly.

The next labour is that of the squaws, who
have to do the curing, drying, and oil-making.
Seated in a circle, they are busy stringing the fish
up. They do not gut, or in any way clean them,
but simply pass long smooth sticks through
their eyes, skewering on each stick as many as
it will hold, and then lashing a smaller piece
transversely across the ends, to prevent the fish
from slipping off the skewer. This done, next
follows drying, which is generally achieved in the
thick smoke at the top of the sheds, the sticks of
fish being there hung up side by side. They soon
dry, and acquire a flavour of wood smoke which
helps also to preserve them. No salt is used
by Indians in any of their systems of curing fish.
When dry, the lamp fish are carefully packed in
large frails made from cedar bark or rushes—
much like those one buys for a penny at Billingsgate—
then they are stowed away on high stages
made of poles, like a rough scaffolding. This
precaution is essential; for the Indian children
and dogs have an amiable weakness for eatables,
and, as lock and key are unknown to the Red
Skin, they take this way of baffling the appetites
of the incorrigible pilferers.

The bales are kept until required for winter.
However hungry, or however short of food an
Indian family may be during summer-time, it
seldom will break in upon the winter "cache."

I have never seen any fish half as fat
and as good for Arctic winter food as these
little lamp fish. It is next to impossible to
broil or to fry them, for they melt completely
into oil. Some idea of their marvellous fatness
may be gleaned from the fact that the natives
use them as lamps for the lighting of their
lodges. The fish, when dried, has a piece of
rush pith, or a strip from the inner bark of the
cypress-tree (Thugia gigantea), drawn through
it, a long round needle made of hard wood being
used for the purpose; it is then lighted, and
burns steadily until consumed. I have often
read comfortably by its light; the candlestick—
literally a stick for the candle—consists of a bit
of wood split at one end, with the lamp fish
inserted in the cleft.