abound on the coast, and are taken by a long comb with teeth about an inch asunder, and ten inches in length. This instrument is beaten into the shoal as the canoes glide over it, and as the operator feels it strike the fish, they are, by a slight inclination of the hand, turned into the canoe.
The sides of the bay are covered by salmon-stages in the summer season, when that fish is very abundant. Gooseberries, strawberries, and the whortleberry appear to be plentiful in summer, and probably the raspberry.
No vestige remains of the settlement noticed by Vancouver, nor could I discover on the site of the Spanish battery the slightest trace of stones employed for building. The chiefs pointed out where their houses stood, and where the potatoes grew, but not a trace remains of an European.
On my taking leave of them, the chief and his family exhibited much feeling; indeed, I was not without some slight share of it myself. I had become much interested about the party. Their general courtesy and freedom from importunity, daily present of ten salmon, and information rudely imparted, added to a very pressing invitation to visit them at Tasheis, had convinced me they were superior to any we had yet fallen in with, and that they deserved encouragement.
If the season had permitted, I certainly would have gone with them to Tasheis, and examined that part of the country, but time was precious, the bad
