Strong drink has been the greatest enemy to the Indians of the Coast and one of the greatest difficulties in the way of Christianizing and civilizing them. At our first mission station, history has it, a coal mine was sold for a bottle of rum. We are not sure just how this occurred, but it is stated that an old Indian who made discovery of the first vein of coal was promised a bottle of rum and repairs to his old flint-lock musket if he would bring to Victoria, seventy-five miles away, a sample of the mineral, and afterwards show where the vein was located. The old man loaded his canoe with coal and paddled away for days until he reached the place, and delivered it to the party, who gave him the bottle of rum as agreed. The Indian was always afterwards known as “Coal Tyee.” In our first work among the natives hardly a day passed but they had liquor, procured either from the miners or sailors, or from those contemptible characters who spent their time in vending the accursed “fire-water” among these deluded people. Many a score of bottles of whiskey had to be destroyed in those days. Sometimes, of course, the owners became terribly exasperated at our action, and we were always, while living right among them, exposed to danger from wild, drunken men. Two men followed me one night for some distance, and said they were determined to break my head with a bottle. Sometimes for whole nights together it would seem as if all of the people of the village were intoxicated, and often I have been called up at the midnight hour to settle some trouble, or possibly to prevent bloodshed, due to the presence of whiskey. On a trip along the coast, near where Ladysmith now stands, a young man under the frenzy of whiskey had shot down his own father. A council of the chiefs and people was being held, and I was called in to witness and hear the speeches and the talk of vengeance on the white man who had given them the liquor. One after another spoke, and finally one chief directed a most appealing address to me. “Oh, Missionary,” he said, “you bring us good words, the Book tells of good things, but look at that dead chief. Are you not ashamed of your white brother? Why don’t you convert him? He has the Book, why don’t he stop making and selling whiskey? Why don’t you convert the man who gave the liquor to that man who shot his own father?” And as the old orator poured forth his eloquent address in his own language, I felt, for the first time, ashamed that I was a white man. THE LAW IN OUR OWN HANDS. More than once, realizing the awful effect of this dread traffic upon the natives, the Missionary felt impelled to take the law into his own hands in dealing with this illicit trade. [Illustration: WITCH DOCTOR. _p. 119_ CROSBY TEACHING INDIAN CHIEF. “COAL TYEE.” _p. 127_ WITCH DOCTOR’S WIFE. _p. 119_ ]