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CHAPTER VIII.
VICTORIA IN 1859-1860.
I HAVE before me an old picture of Victoria as it appeared in 1860. It is a watercolor sketch, drawn and colored by H. 0. Tedieman, C.E., and artist. For me this picture has a great fascination, because it reminds me of those days gone by?" those good old days," as an old friend of those pioneer days remarked to me recently. A prettier place could not be imagined, with its undulating ground covered with grass relieved by spreading oaks and towering pines.
By the aid of this picture and information furnished
me by Colonel Wolfenden and Mr. Harry Glide, I am
enabled to give a pen-picture of the Queen City of the
West forty-four years ago. Colonel Wolfenden says that
when he first remembers James Bay he saw a gang of
Indians?it may be one hundred?under "Grizzly "
Morris, a contractor, and superintended by H. 0. Tedie-
man, with pick, shovel and wheelbarrow making Belle-
ville Street along the water and in front of the Govern-
ment building. The sea beach then came up in front
of the large trees on the Government grounds, about
eighty or one hundred feet further inland. All this
space was filled or reclaimed from the sea by the
Indians. I might say that Chinese were almost as rare
in those days in Victoria as Turks. Indians performed
all manual labor?in fact were to that day what John
Chinaman is to this. James Bay bridge, which was
84
CRAIGFLOWER, SHOWING SCHOOL, 1858.
FIRST BRIDGE OVER JAMES BAY. 1859.
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