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- 128 REMINISCENCES OF OLD VICTORIA
may imagine the number of men in Esquimalt harbor at that date ; not less than three thousand five hundred, I am sure, and how lively this must have made Esquimalt and Victoria. The whole population, figuratively speaking, turned out to welcome these six vessels as they came in from Race Rocks under full sail. It was a beautiful sight. The Zealous (armor-plated), Admiral Farquhar, welcomed Admiral Hornby of the Liverpool, flagship of the flying squadron.
CHAPTER XV.
OLD QUADRA STREET CEMETERY.
" Yet even these bones from insult to protect, Some frail memorial still erected nigh."
" Each in his narrow cell forever laid,
The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep." ?Thomas Gray.
I MUST first apologize for altering two words in this quotation from this most beautiful poem that caused the celebrated General Wolfe to say that he would rather be the author of it than have taken Quebec.
I am moved to write these lines by the fact that these bones require protecting from the vandalism of certain persons unknown, also I have been approached by pioneers several times to write about this desecration of the last resting-place of our pioneers.
It was in 1859 or early '60 that the Quadra Street Cemetery was opened, all the bones from the cemetery on Johnson and Douglas Streets being exhumed and carried to Quadra Street in carts. I have stood several times and watched the operation of digging up and carting away of the remains from the first cemetery. It was situated on the corner of Johnson and Douglas Streets, the brick building on the south-west corner being built on the site, and it must have extended into the streets also, as some years later skeletons were found by workmen digging trenches for water pipes. There
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