Kamloops

“ This stream, the Shushwaps informed us, came from the Cariboo Lake, and passed through a tolerably open region.331 And lastly, a road could be made down the valley of the Thompson to Kamloops, from whence the Shushwap, Okanagan, and Kootanie districts—where diggings of the richest kind have lately been discovered—and the road on the Fraser, are easily accessible. From The Cache to within eighty miles of Kamloops the only way lies through a succession of narrow gorges, shut in on each side by lofty and inaccessible mountains. ”

“ Fort Kamloops is situated at the confluence of Thompson's River and its north branch; the Indians attached to it are a tribe of the Atnahs. Their lands are now destitute of fur-bearing animals, nor are there many animals of the larger kind to be found; they however find subsistence in the variety of edible roots which the country affords. They have the character of being honest, quiet, and well-disposed towards the whites. As [pg 12] soon as the young women attain the age of puberty, they paint their faces after a fashion which the young men understand without explanation. ”

“ The fort was palisaded as usual and was the trading post for the Shushwaps and Lower Fraser River Indians. It had been the headquarters of David Thompson, the mountain explorer long ago, and had been named after him; but on a change of the site was called after the name of the Indian lake. The mountains, which have seemed to crush in on the wayfarers like walls, widen out at Kamloops to upland prairies and rolling meadows flanked by forested hills. To the wearied hunters of the north-bound brigades, it was like a garden in a desert, an oasis of life in a wilderness of mountain wilds. ”

“ On the afternoon of the 28th our guide turned back, after showing us a distant range of hills which marked the position of Kamloops, and gave us to understand that we should sleep there that night. The man had treated us very kindly, and we presented him with the Assiniboine’s gun. We heard afterwards that he dared not visit the rest of the tribe near the Fort, afraid of retribution for a grievous offence against the Shushwap laws. It seems to be the rule with them, as with the Jews, that should a man die childless, his brother shall marry the widow. ”

“ Then he sends his hunters afield and remains in the fort with no companion save his wife and three children. Four years passed tranquilly and Chief Lolo rose to be the ascendant leader of the Shushwaps. For the story of Tod’s rule at Kamloops, the world is again indebted to Bancroft, who obtained the facts from Tod, himself. In the band of three hundred brigade horses roaming outside the palisades was a beautiful cayuse pony, which Lolo, the chief, coveted. “It was the custom,” says Bancroft, “to send a party from Kamloops to fish on the Fraser. This year (1846) Lolo was to lead the party. ”

“ A Scotchman abhors a lie; at least, a straightforward lie that gives no quarter to conscience, but somehow Tod conveyed to those Shushwap warriors the astounding warning, that if they lowered or used their [319] vaccinated arms for some time, it would be absolutely and swiftly fatal. So Tod saved Kamloops, and volumes might be written of the legends lingering about the old fur post. Other chief traders succeeded Tod at Kamloops. ”

“ It is when the snow begins to melt in earnest and the rivers and creeks come down in flood that real sport commences, and this usually happens towards the end of May. No sport can be obtained in the Thompson River below Kamloops Lake at this time, as the water is discoloured by the North Thompson flowing in at Kamloops, which makes fishing useless, and it is only in the South Thompson and the Shuswap Lake that good sport can be obtained. ”

“ Only way to get in and out is the Columbia, and that is more likely to land you in Kingdom Come than back in Civilization. Best forget about the Big Bend and go after sheep and goat and moose in the Kootenays.”
At Kamloops I was told of an Indian who had gone round the Big Bend the previous May, before the Spring rise, and come out not only with his own skin, but with those of seven grizzlies. I was unable to locate the Indian, but did find a white man who had made the trip with him. ”

“ The stock was driven around through the hills on the old pack trail. The train ultimately reached Kamloops. Palmer made a second trip in 1859, in about the same way. From 1859 on, there was considerable travel in one way and another from Walla Walla, The Dalles and other Columbia river points, to the British Columbia mines, which went up over the Okanogan trail. Some of these old-time gold hunters and freighters stopped off and settled in the Okanogan country, and they became what has come to be commonly accepted as the "first settlers" of the Okanogan. ”

“ Sometimes the Lake (it's on the Shushwap, you know, close to the head of it) rises up in dancing water-spouts. It was once a home and haunt of bears (and is again by now likely) , but when Pete stepped ashore from the hay-laden lake wagon called the s.s. Kamloops, it wouldn't have been easy to find a bear or a caribou within earshot. The Street, the one Street, was full of men. There were English, French, Germans, Dutch, Swedes, Norwegians, Russians, Finns and Letts, mixed with autochthonous Americans with long greasy hair (Siwashes who lived on salmon) and other Americans of all sorts. ”

“ Other diseases have been almost equally fatal, and before many years, the once numerous natives of this country, although apparently easily susceptible of a certain civilisation, will have diminished to a very small company.
On the 8th of September we left Kamloops with Mr. McKay, and accompanied by Mr. and Mrs. Assiniboine, the boy, and another Indian. We had determined to take our friends down to Victoria, for, although The Assiniboine had once visited the Red River Settlement, the woman and boy had never seen anything more like a town than a Hudson’s Bay Post. ”

“ From Fort Vancouver, McLoughlin sent men to hunt to the death the murderer, ordering John Tod to take charge of Kamloops. All traffic at the fort must be stopped until the murderer should be delivered. Calling the Shushwaps, Mr. Tod informed them not a hair of their heads should be hurt; but the guilty person must be found.
“Then arose Nicola, chief of the Okanogans. ‘You ask for powder and ball,’ he declared, ‘and the whites refuse you with a scowl. Why do the white men let your children starve! ”

“ Cambie admitted that these were great. Mr. Cambie spoke particularly of the Cherry Bluffs section, and said that quite a stretch of it was laid out by a few men, as there was only room for a few to work. Two agile men, with experience on sailing vessels, sprung ropes from rock to rock or from tree to tree. Then a few engineers, steadying themselves with these ropes, went along in their bare feet to lay out the work, with a precipice and then Kamloops Lake, of unknown depth, down below them. Mr. Cambie admitted that he was one of these engineers. ”

“ Now, what man does here in a small way, and with infinite labour and pains, Nature has been doing on a grand scale for unnumbered centuries. Let us, for instance, take the Fraser River and its tributary the Thompson, which is again made up of the North and South Forks, which unite at Kamloops, as the main rivers do at Lytton. The whole of the vast extent of mountainous country drained by these streams is known to be more or less auriferous. Many places, such as Cariboo, are, or were, richly so ”

“ Kaljush (Kaluga, Kalusch, Koliugi, Koljush, Kolosch, Kolosh, Koloshians) , Kolush, name for Thlinkeets, i., 95. Kamash (Kamas, Kamass) , i., 265, See Camass. Kamloops, Inland Columbian tribe, i., 250-91; location, i., 311; special mention, i., 290. Kamloops Lake, iii., 613. Kamucu, Quiché song, iii., 52. Kamulas, South Californian tribe, i., 402-22; location, i., 459. Kan, Maya day and calendar sign, ii., 755-6, 760-1. Kanagist, i., 69, See Koniagas. Kanal Acantun, Maya god, ii., 703. Kancune Island, Yucatan, antiq., iv., 260. Kangjulit, Koniaga dialect, iii., 576. ”

“ Impressions in the rock are still shown by the Indians, and Hat Creek, near the mouth of which they were made, was named from the incident. A conflict with the eagle monster resulted in the death of the eagle and the capture of its eaglets, pulling out the tail feathers from which, Knil-i-elt reduced them to common eagles, able to harm no man. At the outlet of Kamloops Lake was an elk monster that lived in the middle of the river and killed and ate men. Knil-i-elt, having made a raft, embarked and floated down the stream, when, before long, the elk seized and swallowed him. ”

“ Automobiles, motor trucks, motorcycles and bicycles may be seen spinning along good roads.
My time had been overstayed in Entebbe, so we took our departure for Kampala, the native capital. The lake stopping-place is called Port Bell. Seven miles from the little port is located Kampala, the ancient capital of Uganda, and that distance is traveled in a government motor car. Rubber trees and banana groves line the roadway for the distance. About 75,000 natives live in Kampala, but the huts are so scattered and buried under banana bushes that one would not think there were one-third that number. ”

“ Camfield confided his intention to escape, and obtained a promise that a horse should be brought to a certain place at a certain time for his use. But the Canadian failing to appear with his horse, Mr. C. set out on foot, and under cover of night, in the direction of the Lapwai mission. He arrived in the Nez Perce country on Thursday. On the following day he came upon a camp of these people, and procured from them a guide to Lapwai, without, however, speaking of what had occurred at Waiilatpu. ”

“ Cambodia.The close connection between Java and Cambodia, the alternate supremacy of Cambodia in Java and of Java in Cambodia, the likelihood of settlers passing from Java to Cambodia explain, to a considerable extent, why the traditions and the buildings of Java and Cambodia should point to a common origin in north-west India. The question remains: Do the people and buildings of Cambodia contain a distinct north Hindu element which worked its way south and east not by sea but by land across the Himálayas and Tibet and down the valley of the Yang-tse-kiang to Yunnan and Angkor. ”

“ The Kamooks and Kamaits, who attend to the elephants and fell the timber, belong to the dwarf races of Indo-China, and are brought by their masters from their homes in the neighbourhood of Luang Prabang, and hired to our foresters at from sixty to a hundred rupees a year; each master keeping twenty-five rupees or more out of each year’s salary, and the foresters find the men with food.
The Khas, who include the Kamooks and Kamaits, are doubtless the aborigines of the country lying between the Meh Kong or Cambodia river, and the Annam and Tonquin seaboard. ”

“ Corruption and barbarity are general in Cambodia.
HOME OF THE STIENS.
I now determined to visit the savage tribes living to the east of the great river, 104° east long. from Paris, and of whom I had heard M. Arnoux speak; he had promised me a welcome from M. Guilloux, the missionary there. I sent Niou back to Udong to ask the king for the letter he had promised. He soon returned with it in due form, and on the 22nd July I quitted Pinhalú in a small boat with two rowers, which I hired as far as Pemptiélan, situated on the Mekon river, about forty miles to the north of Pénom-Peuh. ”

“ There are Siamese, Chinese, Anamese, and Manilla men among the inhabitants, as well as the native Cambodians, and there are no long streets of fine buildings, such as you would expect a capital to contain. It is situated on the banks of the Mesap, a small river of Cambodia that empties into the Mekong: the greater part of Panompin is on the right bank of the stream, but there is a small portion of it on the opposite shore, and another on an island near the junction of the Mesap with the Mekong. ”

“ The breakwater forms an excellent promenade except in rough weather, and is much improved for that purpose by the people who reside in the neighborhood. Having good anchorage space, sufficient depth of water, and a sheltered harbor, Colombo is now the regular port of call for the great steamship lines sailing to and from China, Japan, the Straits Settlements, Australia, and Calcutta, and is justly entitled to the name of the commercial as well as the political capital of Ceylon. ”

“ On the western borders of Nepal lies the British district of Kumaon, and joined to it and overlapping its northern boundary the district of British Garhwal, the river Sarda fixing the boundary between Kumaon and the western districts of the Nepal kingdom. Lower Kumaon is a very charming district of sub-Himalayan hill country; the lowest slopes of these foot-hills abut on the plains of India, and many merge into the great Terai, or forest belt, which is almost continuous from the Duns of Dehra and Sirhind to the Brahmaputra. ”

“ In the laying-out of the town, and in the public spiritedness of the inhabitants, Kalgoorlie resembled Coolgardie in its history. Mr. John Wilson, in May, 1895, became the first mayor. The centres of the other important districts were already developing into towns, and as the circumstances demanded, one and another appointed Progress Committees. Indeed, the goldfields people, from beginning to end, have shown a singular aptitude to manage their own affairs and to obtain a just recognition of their rights. The town site of Kanowna was declared on 14th December, 1894. ”

“ The last night out the head-hunters always sleep near their kampong, and early next morning, while it is still dark, they come singing. The people of the kampong waken, array themselves in their best finery, and go to meet them, the women wearing their newest skirts and bringing pieces of nice cloth to present to the conquerors. ”