being artistically arranged to give apparent
width to the chest; the legs and feet being
naked. A fine bag made from the skin of the
medicine otter, elaborately decorated with beads,
scarlet cloth, bells, and brass buttons, slung
round the neck by a broad belt of wampum,
completed the costume of my coxswain. The
canoe was what is commonly called a dug-out,
that is, made from a solid log of wood. The cedar
(thuga gigantea) is always used by coast
Indians for canoe-making. The process of hollowing.
out is long and tedious, but when complete
the requisite bulge at the sides is accomplished
by a very ingenious method. The canoe being
filled with water, red hot stones are continually
plunged into it until nearly boiling, then pieces
of wood of various lengths are jammed athwart
the canoe, and thus the sides are pressed out,
and when cold retain the shape given to them.
Nothing can be more graceful than the lines of
the canoes used by the Fort Rupert Indians.
Coiled round the sharp bow of the canoe like a
huge snake was a strong line about sixty fathoms
in length, made from the inner bark of the
cypress, neatly twisted. Laying along each side,
extending far beyond both bow and stern, were
two light spear hafts about sixty feet long,
whilst stowed away in the bow were a dozen
shorter spears, one end being barbed, the other
constructed to fit on to the longer spear, but so
contrived that the spearman can readily detach
it by a skilful jerk. Tied lightly to the centre
of each of the smaller spears, was a bladder made
from sealskin blown full of air, the line attaching
it being about three fathoms in length.

I had hardly completed my investigation of
the canoe, its crew and contents, when, to my
intense astonishment, the four Indians who
were to accompany me lifted me, as they would
a bale of fur or a barrel of pork, and without a
word deposited me in the bottom of the
canoe, where I was enjoined to sit much in
the same position enforced on a culprit in
the parish stocks. I may mention, incidentally,
that a canoe is not half as enjoyable as
poets and novelists, who are prone to draw
imaginary sketches, would lead the uninitiated
to believe. It would be impossible to trust
oneself in a more uncomfortable, dangerous, damp,
disagreeable kind of boat—generally designated
a " Fairy Barque"—that " rides, dances, glides,
threads its silvery course, over seas, and lakes,
or arrow-like shoots foaming rapids." All a
miserable delusion and a myth. Getting in,
unless lifted as I was bodily like baggage, is to
any but an Indian a dangerous and difficult
process; the least preponderance of weight to
either side, and out you tumble into the water
to a certainty. Again, lowering oneself into
the bottom is quite as bad, if not worse,
requiring extreme care to keep an even balance,
and a fexibility of back and limb seldom
possessed by any save tumblers and tight-rope
dancers. Down safely, then, as I have said,
you are compelled to sit in a most painful
position, and the least attempt to alter it generally
results in a sudden heeling over of the canoe,
when you find yourself sitting in a foot of cold
water.

We are off, and swiftly crossing Beaver
Harbour, the beech grows indistinct in the distance;
still the dusky forms of the Indians, the rough
gaudily painted huts, the gleam of many lodge-
fires, and wreaths of white smoke slowly
ascending through the still air, the square
substantial pickets shutting in the trade fort, its
roof and chimneys just peeping above all,
backed by the sombre green of the pine-trees,
together presented a picture novel in all its
details, wild and grand as a whole, such as
Turner would have loved to paint.

A few minutes and we round the jutting
headland, keeping close along the rocky shore
of the island, glide past snug bays and cozy
little land-locked harbours, the homes and haunts
of countless wild-fowl; soon we leave the shore
and stand away to sea. The breeze is fresher
here, and a ripple that would be nothing in a
boat, makes the fiat-bottomed canoe what a
sailor would call unpleasantly lively. Save a
wetting from the spray and an occasional surge
of water over the gunwale, all goes pleasantly.
The far-away land is barely distinguishable in
the grey haze. No canoes are to be seen in
the dark blue water, the only sign of living
things—a flock of sea-gulls waging war on a
shoal of fish, the distant spouting of a whale,
and the glossy backs of the black fish as they
roll lazily through the ripple. The line at the
bow is uncoiled, a heavy stone enclosed in a
net is attached as a sinker, a large hook made
of bone and hardwood, baited with a piece of
the octopus, a species of cuttle-fish, is made
fast to the long line by a piece of hemp cord;
then comes the heavy plunge of the sinker, and
the rattle of the line as it runs over the side of
the canoe, and we wait in silence for the
expected bite. While so waiting, it may be as
well briefly to explain, for the benefit of such
as are not familiar with fish, what a holibut is.

The holibut is a flat fish, belonging to the
genus pleuronectidæ of naturalists; it attains
a very large size in these seas, from three to
five hundred-weight. Holibuts are common on
the banks of Newfoundland, and are frequently
taken by the cod-fishers; they are also found
on the west coasts of Norway and Greenland,
and it is stated are common around the coasts
of Ireland and Cornwall. In 1828, a holibut,
seven feet six inches in length, three feet six
inches in breadth, and weighing three hundred
and twenty pounds, was taken off the Isle of
Man (Yarrell's B. F.). The holibut is a ground
feeder; its favourite diet, small fish, crustaceans,
and cuttle-fish. It spawns early in the summer.

A tug, that came unpleasantly near to upsetting
us all, let us know that a holibut was bolting
the tempting morsel, hook and all. A few
minutes to give him time to fairly swallow it,
and now a sudden twick buries the hook deeply
in the fleshy throat, the huge flat fish finds to
his cost that his dinner is likely to seriously
disagree with him, whilst in the canoe all are in
full employ. The bowman, kneeling, holds on