Cornwallis, The New El Dorado; or, British Columbia, continued

Chapter XIX:
OUR BIVOUAC BEYOND THE "FORKS."

As we advanced, low, umbrageous shrubs met our view from time to time, skirting the river, amongst which rank weeds and grasses grew up luxuriantly, and where startled water-fowl rose in the air or flew half-paddling along the surface of the water before us. I made ready my revolver, determined to bring down one of these birds of the Upper Frazer, but it was some time before I could find one sufficiently near for a certain shot; moreover, they were the wildest birds I had ever seen, and scudded with flurried and rapid flight into the scrub, or far out of reach, the instant the canoe was seen approaching along the various bends of the river.

However one rash bird suddenly flew from under cover of the weeds, a few yards only a-head of us; I had my revolver leveled in a second, when flash--bang--the bullet whizzed forward, and down for an instant went the duck, which lay disabled on the water when we came up to it; the bullet had pierced the back, and the bird died as we lifted it into the canoe. This was legitimate sport, and moreover very welcome provision, as of the latter our stock was becoming very attenuated, owing to the absence of natives; we, however, expected to meet with them every hour, when we should be able to negotiate for the purchase of bears' flesh, wild vegetables, and fresh salmon, which we were too much disinclined to catch in sufficient quantities ourselves, owing to the loss of time which it entailed. I watched along the right bank of the river with the view of having a shot at one near the surface, but nothing presented itself, so I was baffled in this my endeavour after destruction. We had to make another portage at about four o'clock in the afternoon, in order to keep clear of the rapids, and proceeded in the same order as on the last similar occasion, carrying our own "kit," while the Indian walked along with the canoe on his back; he was a fine, intelligent fellow, about six feet in height, and a kind-hearted a guide as I ever had the pleasure of being associated with in any enterprize [sic]. We only gave him four dollars a-day for his services, as he had the advantage of making a "pile" on the journey, if luck threw it in his way--a pile being, in digger parlance, a small fortune in "dust" or "nuggets." We had scarcely got the canoe into water again on the other side of the rapids, when I caught sight of an ordinary-sized brown bear, standing with one pay bent forward on a shelving part of the river's bank, about twenty yards a-head. His eye was fixed in evident curiosity, and I saw by his undecided position that his movements were uncertain. I directed the attention of the Indian and my companions to him, and quietly leveling my revolver, while the others did likewise, fired straight into his skull before he had time to move. He uttered a loud hoarse yell and rolled, struggling, down the bank into the water, tearing the ground heavily with his paws. We did not advance upon him instantly, well knowing that this kind of bear, and in fact all bears, the polar excepted, will instinctively feign death till the near approach of his assailant, when he will spring upon and gnaw and crush him horribly to death. However, in order to ascertain the extent of his liveliness, and to dispatch him the quicker, one of our party sent another bullet into his carcass; this seemed effectually to send the remaining life out of him, for he gave a kick and stretched himself immediately on its receipt, remaining there without further movement flat on his side, his face fronting the water. We then drew up and examined him; he was quite dead, and in ten minutes afterwards our Indian had successfully "hided" him, and amputated his fore hams and some steaks from off the hind-quarter--cut the tongue out of his mouth and otherwise mangled him. In the course of an hour from the time of his being shot, he was unconsciously undergoing the process of digestion in our respective stomachs, the Red Indian's included. Such is life.

Still no natives--we were surprized [sic]. Our guide, however, assured us, in a torrent of Chinook, with the smallest perplexing admixture of broken English, which he had acquired from association with the Hudson's Bay traders, that we should meet with plenty of them shortly;--it appeared that their encampments lay at some miles' distance from the shores of the river, generally near a creek or lagoon. Gold was just as abundant here as at Willow Bank, but still the grand object of our wild expectations remained unrealized--the mountain of gold was not yet reached. We had very little time to dig before nightfall, but what labour was expended was well repaid in the shape of sundry "specimens" and large grains of the shining metal which we noticed at this place; it wore a brown, crusty look, which was attributed to the action of the soil, air, and water upon particles long separated from the chief mass. However, it was gold, and that was enough for us; we gathered it, and only wished that we had more of it, for the digger is never satisfied; and if he could make a fortune in a day, his next wish would be to make one in five minutes.

We camped beneath the shadow of trees within sight of the river, in the same manner as on the previous night, having previously regaled ourselves with tea and a quantum of brandy, good neutralizers of the effect of bear's-flesh and dried salmon; we also tore the duck, before spoken of, after a cannibal fashion, and devoured it with all the rude appetite of explorers.

The weather had been throughout beautiful; but a little after dusk it began to rain heavily, accompanied with thunder and with lightning, but it only lasted about two hours, and after that all was calm; while the coolness which it produced was refreshing, after the heat of the previous few days. I noticed, however, that flies and other insects seemed to spring into life immediately after the storm, for they flew about in great numbers, and were almost as annoying as the mosquitoes in Australia; but of course in this respect the Frazer River country was no worse than any other, and no half so bad as by an English road-side, where the gnats sting and whirl round, biting poison into every passer-by--the pestilence of ditches. I have always found myself as free from mosquito-bites as from sea-sickness--a happy deliverance for me I own--but I candidly say, that I would sooner take my chance amongst all the mosquitoes in Asia, and all their varieties in British Columbia, than I would against a swarm of British gnats.

I was delighted with the country, and this sudden abundance of harmless insect-life did not mar my first feeling and enjoyment of it. The trees sheltered us almost completely from the rain; the upper foliage being dense, and the branches in some places interlaced. The reader has been already led to understand that the river freshets which occur between June and August are not caused by rains, but by the melting of the snow high up on the Rocky Mountains, which pours down through all the streams and rivers leading from them; thus the Thompson, the Harrison, and the Chilcotin rush into the Frazer, and the same is repeated, but to a lesser extent, along the Columbia.

A little after breakfast, and at about eight o'clock on the following morning, we were suddenly startled by the appearance of Indians, who came down to the river-side in a bevy of about a hundred, the number consisting chiefly of men wearing an aspect at once fierce and warlike: these were rapidly followed by about twenty on horseback, evidently men of the same tribe, who came galloping furiously along, and pranced about us in the most humorously despotic style, the whole moving multitude uttering vociferous yells, and brandishing their arms in authoritative delight and savage glee. Here was revelry. What was to be done? I at once ascertained from our native pilot, unpoetically called by us Jack, that although Carriers, they were not of his tribe; this I had anticipated, as we had advanced into other Indian territory since picking him up. Courage is a grand thing in first confronting the savage; it inspires immediate respect, whereas the slightest faltering or manifestation of fear leaves the traveler at the mercy of those who can entertain contempt, and detect a want of bravery as readily as any vassal of civilisation, and who holds as valueless that which they are not awed by. The best way therefore is to meet the aborigine with a bold, fearless front, a steady eye and a defiant look and posture; such self-possession is the white man's only moral defense against the hostility of the Indian, and the safest line of procedure he can adopt when friendly, and especially at a first meeting. With such a look and such a front did I face the rampant Red Indians of the as yet untraversed wilderness of British Columbia. I made signs of friendship to them in the best way I could, and put forward our Indian guide to make proclamations of peace and goodwill, and advancing myself to one more gaily caparisoned than the rest, who sat on a pawing steed, and whom I rightly judged to be a chief, I held out my hand in token of friendship, and remembering that I had a knife in my pocket, drew it forth and gave it to him with every gesture of delight at our meeting. The Indian received the gift, and after scrutinising it with evident pleasure, thanked me, and shook my proffered hand; a ceremony that he had no doubt witnessed and experienced before amongst the whites at the stations of the Hudson's Bay Company, with whom all of the Indians had long been in the habit of trading. During these movements the crowd assembled round us and looked on in silence and evident admiration. I saw that the knife has turned out a talisman, and that we need apprehend no danger at their hands. After this they indicated their intentions of trading with us in provisions; which we gladly acceded to, a detachment of the younger men and squaws being sent off to their villages for the necessary produce; in the meantime they displayed a curiosity quite unsatisfiable, ransacking everything belonging to us, eating up the remains of Bruin's carcase [sic] with evident satisfaction, and making temporary use of everything not actually in hand or on our backs, and all this in the most perfect good humour and friendship. The chief in particular seemed highly fascinated by my opossum skin rug, and wound it round his body and across his shoulders, and in various other ways, as if to see how it would look and suit him, strutting about meanwhile to the admiration of his people, who loudly applauded and violently gesticulated on each occasion of his altering the mode of wearing it. Our blankets were simultaneously doing similar service on the backs of half-a-dozen others, and my shirts -- two red flannel ones -- I had only three in all, and quite enough too -- were to be seen dancing about like drunken soldiers in the midst of a street fight. Of course this was very well to look at, and the fun of the thing was worth more than the shirts; but still -- well, perhaps my "particular" friend, Sir Buckram Starch, will say whether he would have liked it.

But -- tut -- all these things are well in their way, and I congratulated myself on my successful diplomacy, and had a hearty laugh at these wild appropriators of my travelling wardrobe.