Awaking early, I wandered out, and up into the bastion of the fort. The sun was creeping from behind the ragged peaks of the Cascade Mountains, tinting with rosy light their snow-clad summits; the wind had lulled, or gone off to sea on some boisterous errand; the harbour, quite smooth, looked like burnished silver. There was a wild grandeur about the scene, that awoke feelings of awe rather than admiration; everywhere vast piles of craggy mountains, clad from the snow-line to the sea with dense pine-forests; not an open grassy spot, or even a naked mass of rock, peeped out to break the fearful monotony of these interminable hills. The trading-post is a square, enclosed by immense trees, one end sunk in the ground; the trees are lashed together. A platform, about the height of an ordinary man from the top of these pickets, is carried along the sides of this square, so as to enable anyone to peep over without being in danger from an arrow or bullet. The entrance is closed by two massive gates, an inner and outer; all the houses—the chief trader’s, employés’, trading-house, fur-room, and stores—are within the square. The trade-room is cleverly contrived so as to prevent a sudden rush of Indians; the approach, from outside the pickets, is by a long narrow passage, bent at an acute angle near the window of the trade-room, and only of a sufficient width to admit one savage at a time. (This precaution is necessary, inasmuch as, were the passage straight, they would inevitably shoot the trader.) At the angles nearest the Indian village are two bastions, octagonal in shape, and of a very doubtful style of architecture. Four embrasures in each bastion would lead the uninitiated to believe in the existence of as many formidable cannon, with rammers, sponges, neat piles of round-shot and grape, magazines of powder, and ready hands to load and fire—and, at the slightest symptom of hostility, to work havoc and destruction, on any red-skinned rebels daring to dispute the supremacy of the Hudson’s Bay Company. Imagine my surprise, on entering this fortress, to discover all this a pleasant fiction, two small rusty carronades, buried in the accumulated dust and rubbish of years, that no human power could load, were the sole occupants of the mouldy old turrets. The bell for breakfast recalling me, I jokingly inquired of the trader if he had ever been obliged to use this cannon for defensive purposes. He laughed as he replied, ‘There is a tradition that, at some remote period, the guns were actually fired, not at the rebellious natives, but over their heads; instead of being terror-stricken at the white man’s thunder, away they all scampered in pursuit of the ball, found it, and, marching in triumph back to the fort-gate offered to trade it, that it might be fired again!’