posed in the case of Kananaskis Pass, but on the other hand it would be the most suitable for the construction of an easy wagon-road.”*

The long and almost level valley into which all these passes, from Howse's Pass southward, open out, is one of the most remarkable features of this part of the Rocky Mountains.

"It is continued to the south," says Dr. Hector, "from the Columbia Lakes by the valley through which the Kootanie River flows; and the famous wintering ground in the Bitter Root Valley, to which the settlers flock from Colville and other places, is, without doubt, the continuation of the same great natural feature. It is the belief that this valley is continued to the north, following the course of Canoe River, that makes me so sanguine, that by this route a passage could be effected into the valleys of either Thompson or Fraser's River. However, we know so little of the head-waters of those rivers, that I think it would be premature to offer an opinion on the point.

As far south as lat. 51° N., I found great difficulty in traversing this valley, from the nature of the woods with which it is clothed, consisting of a forest-growth of northern character. After passing a bend which occurs in that latitude, however, the forest assumes almost suddenly a Californian aspect, free from underwood, with stretches of open prairie clothed with bunch grass, the prevailing tree being the pinus ponderosa; whereas, farther down the Columbia and to the north, spruce-firs predominate.

The Columbia River continues to be of large size to its source, as from the small inclination of the valley through which it flows it preserves more the character of a sluggish canal than of a mountain stream.

A narrow belt of open timbered land, only slightly elevated above the upper Columbia Lake, separates the source of the Columbia from the Kootanie River, a swift stream of large size flowing to the south. Before reaching this point the Kootanie River breaks through a rocky cañou, and it is at this point that it enters the great longitudinal valley, through which it flows to the south, forming the camping grounds of the Kootanie Indians."+

The country lying between the southern end of this valley and Fort Shepherd on the Columbia, just within the British frontier, was travelled over by Mr. Sullivan, Captain Palliser's secretary; and this gentleman was thoroughly convinced of the "entire practicability" of a road between those points more than three-fourths of which might be rendered available for a railway, whilst even in the remaining part the principal obstacle seems to be the quantity of fallen timber left by the fires which constantly devastate the forests. From Fort Shepherd westwards three routes seem to be practicable. One is the old Hudson's Bay Company's trail to Hope, which runs nearly parallel with the boundary line. The objection to the adoption of this line is the great expense of carrying a road across the Cascade Range. A Further Papers, p. 22. + Ibid. p. 27.

A A

second course is to ascend the Columbia, which is "said to be navigable for steamers" all the way to the upper Arrow Lake, and thence to cross a table-land, "along which it is said that horses may travel," to Great Okanagan Lake. The third plan would be to go up the Okanagan Lakes themselves, or the valley of the Similkameen River, and across to Lake Nicola; from whence the road would either follow the course of the Nicola River to Lytton, or of the Buonaparte River to Kayoosch.

We have left to the last a subject more important, perhaps, than any other which can be named in connexion with British Columbia, and, indeed, with all future settlements in the northwest territory. We have to legislate not only for the white settlers, but for more than 100,000 Indians also. It is the fashion with some persons to speak of the extinction of these aboriginal races as the result of an inevitable law. In a certain sense this statement may perhaps be true. The uncivilised red man can hardly live side by side with the white man, and there is little probability that pure-blooded Indians will ever be found existing as distinct and civilised communities in the midst of an Anglo-Saxon population. But it is sometimes convenient to forget that isolation, whether barbarous or civilised, may not be the only or even the preferable alternative; and the inevitable law has too often been invoked to give a sanction or an excuse to deeds which disgrace humanity. It would seem to be a part of the process of extinction that the conquered should impart to the conqueror a double portion of his ferocity, and the "favoured race" maintains its position in the "struggle for life" by the unprovoked burning of İndian villages, and the indiscriminate slaughter of Indian women and children. Fortunately, indeed, British territory is as yet unstained by the atrocities which have made the Indian wars of the United States so notorious; and, on both sides of the Rocky Mountains, the natives have been favourably disposed towards the English by their experience of the Hudson's Bay Company's rule. But we must not trust the ordinary impulses of humanity too far. The low estimate of human life, which is the characteristic of an adventurous state of society, the still lower estimate of Indian life which results from habitual and distrustful intercourse,† the justification too often supplied by a sense of danger,-all these adverse influences will come into play so soon as the interests of the settlers are found to be opposed to those of the natives. All history tells us that no 75.000 in British Columbia, and from 40,000 to 60,000 on the east side of the Rocky Mountains.

+ In California, we are told by the New York Times, "it is the custom of miners generally to shoot an Indian as he would a dog; and it is considered a very good joke to shoot at one at long shot, to see him jump as the fatal bullet pierces his heart."

effective interference on behalf of a subject race can be looked for from the persons immediately interested in their subjection. The machinery for the protection of the Indian must be the work of the imperial authorities, not the offspring of colonial convenience, or the plaything of colonial caprice.

But it is easier to say who are to be the legislators than to determine precisely the nature of the legislation required. If we listen to the Aborigines Protection Society, they tell us that "the Indians regard their rights as natives as giving them a greater title to enjoy the riches of the country than can possibly be possessed either by the English Government or by foreign adventurers;" and they suggest," that the native title should be recognised in British Columbia, and that some reasonable adjustment of their claims should be made by the British Government," such adjustment to include "payment for that which it may be necessary for us to acquire." Now, passing over such obvious objections to this theory as that, if "the native title" is to be recognised, the British Government, as an adjusting and controlling power, has no business in British Columbia at all; and that dealing with the natives on equal terms implies a right on their part to decline dealing altogether, in which case it is absurd to talk of its being "necessary for us to acquire" any thing, let us look at the experience of the United States. There the common practice until lately has been to conclude treaties with the native tribes for the purchase or exchange of their lands. But no money-payment, however large, can make up to the Indian for the loss of his hunting-grounds. His old manner of life is closed against him; he has no help given him in finding out any other. The consequence is, that he either courts immediate destruction by rushing into a hopeless war, or lingers on an outcast in a land which daily becomes more unsuited to him. In some cases, however, lands beyond the limits of the settlements have been allotted to the natives in lieu of those taken from them; but the process of extermination is still only delayed. The minds of the white settlers have been familiarised with the idea of removal, and by the time that the Indians have begun, slowly and painfully, to settle down to a changed life, and to make some progress in the cultivation of the soil, the advancing tide of population has caught them up, the settlers demand their expulsion from their new dwelling-place as loudly as they did from their old one, and so the process is again and again repeated, while, with each successive change, comes a fresh and more hopeless relapse into the barbarism from which they might, at one time, have escaped. The only means of preventing these evils seems to be to insist, in the first instance, that the natives shall be regarded as a charge upon the lands to

which they belong. A system of this kind has been successfully introduced by Sir G. Grey at the Cape of Good Hope, and Mr. Douglas proposes to form Indian reserves, in anticipation of settlement in all the districts of British Columbia inhabited by native tribes.

"These reserves should, in all cases, include their cultivated fields and village sites, for which, from habit and association, they invariably conceive a strong attachment, and prize more for that reason than for the extent or value of the land. . . . The remaining unoccupied land should be let out on leases at an annual rent to the highest bidder, and the whole proceeds arrising from such leases should be applied to the exclusive benefit of the Indians. An amount of capital would thereby be created, equal, perhaps, to the sum required for effecting the settlement of the Indians; and any surplus funds remaining over that outlay, it is proposed to devote to the formation and support of schools, and of a clergyman to superintend their moral and religious training.

The support of the Indians will thus, wherever land is valuable, be a matter of easy accomplishment; and in districts where the white population is small and the land unproductive, the Indians may be left almost wholly to their own resources, and, as a joint means of earning their livelihood, to pursue unmolested their favourite calling of fishermen and hunters."*

Still it will not be enough to plant the natives in these reserves; they must at the same time be fitted in some degree to endure the contact of a white population. The difficulty against which we have to struggle in the attempt to civilise the North-American Indian, is not so much an intellectual inaptitude as a moral distaste. There are instances on record of Indian tribes which, under favourable circumstances, have made very considerable progress. In the United States, the Cherokees, before their last removal, in a community of 15,560 persons (including 1277 Negro slaves), had 18 schools, 36 grist-mills, 13 saw-mills, 762 looms, 2480 spinning-wheels, 172 wagons, 2923 ploughs, 7683 horses, 22,531 black cattle, 46,732 swine, 2546 sheep, 430 goats, 62 blacksmiths' shops, with public roads, turnpikes, ferries, and newspapers in their own language. But generally speaking, the Indian does not care for civilisation. He recognises its presence, wonders at its achievements, admits his own inability to resist its approach; but he feels for it neither admiration nor sympathy. He regards it as a barbarian might have regarded the civilisation of the Roman Empire, or as a feudal baron might have regarded the progress of the great trading

Papers relative to British Columbia, part ii. p. 68.

† Stuart's Three Years in North America, quoted in Merivale's Colonisation and Colonies, p. 550.

cities. He has a certain contempt for it all the while. He dislikes the restraint which it imposes upon him, the interference to which it subjects him. Civilisation keeps her prosaic side turned towards him; and in the exaltation of labour he sees only degradation, in the habits of settled life only the loss of the excitement which made life pleasant. No gentleman of the old school has a more thorough sense of the vulgarity of the new state of things than the North-American Indian. Our first step, therefore, in dealing with him, must be to find out some means of altering his estimate of the white man, some element of superiority which he will not only recognise, but desire to share. We believe that the only way of civilising him is to begin with giving him religious instruction. If this can be done successfully, our great difficulty is over. He no longer regards the white man as a being of an alien, and in some sort an inferior, race. And that it can be done successfully may, we think, be taken for granted.

"The North-American Indian," says Mr. Merivale, "is of a disposition peculiarly religious; and it is remarkable, considering the great amount of observation and of theory which has been expended on this singular race, how imperfectly and unjustly its qualifications in this particular have been appreciated. For it is not by the positive tenets of its belief, if such they may be termed, that the religious tendencies of the savage mind are to be estimated.. A far better insight into the religious state of the American Indian will be obtained by observing how peculiarly and emphatically he is, in the words of the apostle, 'a law unto himself.' I mean, how distinctly he evinces, in the whole moral conduct of his life, that he lives under a strong and awful sense of positive obligation. It is of little matter with what doctrines that sense of obligation connects itself. It often appears to connect itself with none. The Indian cannot tell why a burden is laid upon him to act in this or that manner. He obeys a law undefined, unwritten, but mysteriously binding upon his spirit. . . . . If religion be what its name implies, id quod relligat, that which binds the will and enforces self-denial and selfdevotion, be the object or motive held out what it may, then no people, taken in the mass, is to be compared, in this respect, to the savages of America. . . . . Now when we consider that the same creature, whose moral organisation is thus wonderfully developed, is one who has frequently not the slightest taste or appreciation for the advantages of material improvement, and who ranks so low, in point of intellectual acquirement, that he is, perhaps, unable to count beyond ten-can any one entertain a doubt at which end the process of culture ought to begin? Surely the comparison of their moral state with their condition in other respects is, as it were, the crucial test, pointing out infallibly the direction in which alone, if in any, success is to be reasonably expected. In the expressive words of Penn, What good might not a good people graft, where there is so distinct a knowledge both of good and evil !'"* * Colonisation and Colonies, pp. 526-528.