So late as 1886 the present site of Vancouver was covered with a dense forest of Douglass pines, cedar and spruce trees. The Canadian Pacific Railway was completed to Vancouver in May, 1887, when the first through train arrived from Montreal. The youthful city is well situated for commercial purposes on what is called Burrard Inlet. It has extensive wharves, substantial warehouses, and very good hotel accommodations. Well-arranged public water-works bring the needful domestic supply in pure and healthful condition from the neighboring hills. The surrounding scenery is strikingly bold, embracing the Cascade Range in the north, the mountains of Vancouver Island across the water in the west, and the Olympian Range in the south, while the great snowy head of Mount Baker rears itself skyward as the main feature in the southeast. The steamer which brings us here from Victoria passes through a beautiful archipelago of peaceful islands, verdant and wooded to the very brink. The busy population of this infant city number between thirteen and fourteen thousand, and the place is growing rapidly. It is lighted by both gas and electricity. Forty substantial edifices for business and dwelling purposes are in course of erection at this writing. There are steamers which sail regularly from here for Japan, China, and San Francisco. As it is in the midst of what may be called a wild country, there is excellent hunting near at hand and large game is abundant. Many sportsmen, especially from England, make their headquarters here while devoting themselves to hunting for a large part of the summer season. Four large English sloops of war were observed in the harbor at the time of the writer’s visit, together with a couple of torpedo boats bearing the same flag, destined for Behring Sea, to “emphasize” the British side of the Alaska fishery question as between our government and that of Great Britain. As one stands on the shore the harbor presents a picture of great variety and interest, comprising men-of-war boats pulled by disciplined crews; canoes, paddled by Indian squaws wrapped in high-colored blankets; boats loaded with valuable furs and propelled by aboriginal hunters; here a raft of timber, and there a steam ferry-boat. Just in shore there is passing as we watch the scene a native canoe carrying a sail made of bark-matting, brown and dingy, steered with a paddle by an aged, withered, white-haired Indian, while in the prow is a four or five year old native boy, trailing his hands idly in the water over the side of the tiny craft. A striking picture of the voyage of life: thoughtless, happy, vigorous youth at the prow, with weary age and experience awaiting the end at the stern. A couple of large steamers close at hand are getting under way loaded with preserved fish, put up at the canneries near by; one is bound for Australia, the other for England, by way of Cape Horn.