With the example of the little mission-house and its garden before them, a number were inspired to have individual plots marked out for themselves. They cleared off their lots and had their houses built and neatly whitewashed, their gardens planted with fruit trees and bordered with shade trees, thus presenting a striking contrast to the heathen houses which they had left. In time a street was cleared and graded in front of these houses, and the contrast with the heathen village which faced the beach was complete. In a speech before the English Conference made after his visit to British Columbia, Dr. Wm. Morley Punshon said “that he had seen the powerful influences of the Gospel far away on the Pacific Coast, near Nanaimo, on the east coast of Vancouver Island, where he saw the heathen street and the Christian street side by side. As the people became converted they moved to the Christian street.” Later on I followed up this work of education among the tribes on the Nanaimo and Fraser Rivers, teaching them not only how to improve their homes, but to till their ground and plant their orchards, and in every way take their places among their white brethren. To-day the Indians of these districts have their little farms, cultivate their own grain and hay and roots, and raise their own cattle. To show the influence of this early teaching, more than one of our young men, who had earned considerable money and were urged by their friends to throw it away in the potlatch, chose rather to purchase cattle and horses with which to stock their little farms. But not only did we teach them the gospel of self-help. They were encouraged to undertake the local improvements on their own church and school-house, and to help spread the Gospel of the blessed Christ by contributing to the funds of the Missionary Society. FOOTNOTE: [4] Rev. Edward White was one of our first missionaries to the Pacific Coast, and during my earlier years at Nanaimo was my superintendent. His son, the Rev. Dr. J. H. White, now local Superintendent of Missions for British Columbia, is a worthy successor of a noble father. I still gratefully recall the many kindnesses shown me by our brother and his good wife while an inmate of the parsonage, before the little mission house was built in the Indian village. Brother White’s words of counsel and encouragement were always an inspiration to me. CHAPTER VI. _DIFFICULTIES WITH THE LANGUAGE._ “Jesus, ta skwish tseetsel tomuk Ta tlee-tlup tomuk shnays, Lee-zas ta mes-tay-oh wa-tlats Ta lee-am see-see nam tla-o.” (_In An-ko-me-num._) “Jesus, the name high over all, In hell or earth or sky; Angels and men before it fall And devils fear and fly.” The number and varied dialects of the Indian languages of the Coast were such that very few white men ever tried to learn them. Of the An-ko-me-num language alone there are at present at least five or six different dialects.