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- CHAPTER XIV.
ITS DEPARTED GLORIES, OR ESQUIMALT,
THEN AND NOW.
THE other day I had occasion to go through the town of Esquimalt, to the end of the principal street, which runs north and south. It was to the north end I went to take a boat to board the cable-ship Restorer to see my son off for Honolulu.
I had not been on this spot, that I can remember, for thirty years, and I could not but stop and stare and wonder. Could this be the Esquimalt I used to know years ago?
I could not but conjure up memories of the past, of Esquimalt's departed greatness, bustle and busy life. In 1858, and before my time, this was the British Columbia headquarters of the San Francisco steamers, as well as the headquarters of the navy. Of the latter there were always three or four vessels with nearly always a flagship, and such a ship! It seemed like climbing up a hillside as you passed tier after tier of guns, and finally reached the upper deck.
The steamers running from San Francisco in those days were large also, so large that they could not come into Victoria harbor, and the Panama, I see by the Colonist of that date, brought 1,200 passengers on one trip.
Well, to proceed. As I walked down the street I 124
ESQUIMALT, THEN AND NOW 125
turned from side to side, trying to remember who lived in that house, and who in that one, in the days that have gone by. Oh! what desolation ! What ruin and decay ! Only about every fourth house was occupied?the others given over to the dull echoes of the past. I looked in several windows and saw nothing but emptiness, dust and decay.
Of the notable houses and notable people who formed the population of this once important town, there were the residences of Fred. Williams, a prominent Mason and Speaker of the Legislature; William Arthur, William Sellick and John Howard, hotel and saloon-keepers; William Wilby, the mail carrier, with his numerous family; the Millingtons and the Dodds. Of John Howard I have already written in my description of an early-time Queen's birthday celebration on Bea-con Hill. John was a great horse fancier, and owned some winners, which were generally ridden by the Millington boys. John, with his friend, Thomas Harris (first mayor of Victoria), and Captain the Hon. Lascelles, R.N., were then kindred spirits, and many a day's sport they afforded to the public of Victoria.
After reaching the end of the street and the landing, what did I see of the bustle, business and life of forty-nine years ago?a small forest of worm-eaten piles sticking up in the water in front of me. They were the remains of a large dock which had been covered with warehouses and offices connected with the shipping of the port. The late Thomas Trounce, of this city, owned the property and managed it. Imagine what the arrival of a large San Francisco steamer with 1,000 or 1,500 passengers and 1,000 tons of freight on this dock meant? All these passengers and all this freight
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