The united valleys contain upwards of 80,000 square acres of the richest soil to be found anywhere in the world. A yield of sixty bushels of wheat, or of sixty bushels of oats to the acre is quite common, and some idea may be had of the marvellous fertility of the soil when a meadow has been known to produce for twenty-five consecutive years an average of three and a half tons of hay to the acre, and that without having been re-seeded or fertilized otherwise than by the pasturing of cattle. On the levels and along the foothills an ever-increasing acreage of orchards--apples, pears, plums, prunes, peaches and cherries--may be seen, and vegetables of all kinds are grown in rich abundance. This garden spot, beautiful for situation, the joy of all those whose good fortune it is to live there, was at one time the home of great bands of Indians belonging to the Flathead nation. Where to-day there are eight small villages, there were thousands of people governed by certain great chiefs, whose authority was respected to a great extent throughout the whole valley. Their numbers have been reduced by disease and by their terrible tribal wars. The Indians from Cowichan and the coast made periodical incursions, massacring the people and burning their property. Their enemies were not always successful, for on one occasion, when the young men of the valley had gone down to work at Langley and Victoria, and had secured their pay in blankets, as was then the custom, the Cowichans became enraged at this interference with what they considered their labor market, and, gathering a large war party, they went up the old Chil-way-uk, prepared for the work of murder and destruction. They were met, however, with a stout resistance, their canoes were all captured and destroyed, and those who were not killed were forced to make their way home again stealthily and on foot. The Indians still have traditions of the visit of the first white man to the river, and of how the Gospel first came to the Chilliwack. We have in this valley what many call a model settlement, whose people are law-abiding, and whose business is carried on prosperously without any liquor licenses. Not one was ever granted, and the people do not want one to-day. In 1808, when Simon Fraser made his way down the great river which now bears his name, he landed opposite Chilliwack, at the mouth of what is now known as the Harrison River. Here he was received by hundreds of the natives, who thought, as they said, that “he was the pure white child of the sun.” The chiefs carried him upon their backs and set him down on mats in the place of honor, and then danced to the sun-god for days in token of their appreciation of the visit of his son. It was not long after that they discovered, when rum and disease followed in his train, that the white man was not the pure child of the sun they had imagined. THE VISIT OF THE FIRST GOSPEL MESSENGER.