Outside Victoria there are many pleasant drives and walks: to “The Arm,” where, amid a charming landscape, interspersed with pines and natural fir woods, wild flowers, and mossy rocks, there is a pretty little rapid, or fall; to Saanich, where the settlers’ homesteads have a semi-civilised appearance, half of the houses being of squared logs, but comfortable withal inside, and where a rude plenty reigns; or to Beacon Hill, where there is an excellent race-course and drive, which commands fine views up and down the Straits. In sight is San Juan Island, over which England and America once squabbled, while the two garrisons which occupied it fraternised cordially, and outvied with each other in hospitality. The island—rocky, and covered with forest and underbrush, with a farm or two, made by clearing away the big trees, with not a little difficulty, and burning and partially uprooting the stumps—does not look a worthy subject for international differences. But the fact is, that it commands the Straits to some extent. However, all that is over now, and it is England’s property by diplomatic arrangement. There are other islands, nearly as large, in the archipelago which stretches northward up the Gulf of Georgia, which have not a single human inhabitant, and have never been visited, except by some stray Indians, miners, or traders who have gone ashore to cook a meal or camp for the night. Any one who has travelled by small canoes on the sea must remember those happy camping-times, when, often wet, and always hungry and tired, the little party cautiously selected some sheltered nook or specially good beach, and then paddled with a will ashore. No lack of drift-wood or small trees on that coast, and no lord of the manor to interfere with one taking it. A glorious fire is soon raised, and the cooking preparations commenced. Sometimes it is only the stereotyped tea—frying-pan bread (something like the Australian “damper,” only baked before the fire), or “slapjacks” (_i.e._, flour-and-water pancakes), fried bacon, and boiled Chili beans; but ofttimes it can be varied by excellent fish, game, bear-meat, venison, or moose-meat, purchased from some passing Indians, or killed by themselves. It is absurd to suppose that “roughing it” need mean hardship and semi-starvation all the time. Not a bit of it! On the northern coasts now being described, one may often live magnificently, and most travellers learn instinctively to cook, and make the most of things. Nothing is finer in camp than a _roast_ fish—say a salmon—split and gutted, and stuck on a stick before the fire, not over it. A few dozen turns, and you have a dish worthy of a prince. Or a composition stew—say of deer and bear-meat and beaver’s tail, well seasoned, and with such vegetables as you may obtain there; potatoes from some seaside farm—and there are such on that coast, where the settler is as brown as his Indian wife—or compressed vegetables, often taken on exploring expeditions. Or,