last sale, 100 dollars each, are now being sold from 500 to
1000 dollars each. Six lots together in the principal street are valued
at 10,000 dollars. The figures at Esquimault Harbour and lots in that
vicinity assume a bolder character as to value, from the fact that the
harbour is a granite-bound basin, similar to Victoria, with an entrance
now wide and deep enough to admit the Leviathan. Victoria has a bar
which must be dredged, dug, or blown away. We noted at Victoria that
the most valuable lot, with a flat granite level, with thirty feet of
water, sufficient for any ship to unload without jetty, is now covered
by a large building constructed of logs, belonging to Samuel Price and
Company. A ship was unloading lumber at this wharf at 35 dollars per M,
which was the ruling price. At Victoria, on the 21st June, a Frenchman
landed from the steamer _Surprise_, who came on board at Fort Langley
with twenty-seven pounds weight of gold on his person, which we saw and
lifted. Another passenger, whom we know, states that there are six
hundred persons within eight miles of Fort Hope, who are averaging per
man an ounce and a half of gold per day minimum to six and a half ounces
per day maximum. The largest sums seem to be taken out at Sailor's Bar,
five miles above Fort Hope. The lowest depth as yet reached by miners
is fifteen inches; these mere surface scratches producing often 200
dollars per day. At Fort Hope, potatoes were selling at 6 dollars per
bag; bacon, 75 cents per pound; crackers, 30 cents. From Fort Hope to
Fort Thompson the road is good, with the exception of twenty miles. For
20 dollars, the steamers will take miners from Victoria to the diggings
at Fort Hope, and for three or four dollars more an Indian will
accompany you to Fort Yale. Bowen, steward of the _Surprise_, says that
about a hundred Indians usually ran after him to obtain little sweet
cakes, which he traded off four or five for 1 dollar in gold dust.
Sugar at Fort Langley, 1 dollar 50 cents per pound; lumber, 1 dollar 50
cents per foot; tea and coffee, 1 dollar per pound; pierced iron for
rockers, 8 dollars; plain sheets, 2 dollars each; five pounds of
quicksilver sold for 40 dollars--10 dollars per pound was the ordinary
price. The actual ground prospected and ascertained to be highly
auriferous extends to three hundred and fifty miles from the mouth of
Fraser River. One hundred miles of Thompson River has been prospected,
and found t