ide, 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
Beacon 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 were for Victoria.
The freight was transferred to small steamers for this city, and
also carted up by road.

We ourselves landed here from the steamer _Northerner_ with six
hundred others in February, 1859, and came around to Victoria in a
small steamer and landed at the Hudson's Bay Company's wharf. There
were several stages plying also, the fare being "only one dollar."
The "'Squimalt" road of that day was not that of to-day. It branched
off the present Esquimalt Road at Admiral's Road and ran eastward
parallel with the present road, climbing up a very steep grade before
reaching Lampson Street, and then keeping on straight till reaching
Craigflower Road. Then it branched into the present road again at
Everett's Exchange. This great change in 'Squimalt has not taken
pla