d other Chinamen gliding about in felt slippers
serving hot baked buckwheat cakes and maple syrup; the cakes are
beautifully flaky and about the size of a saucer; we soon dispose of
them and some decent coffee too, and return to the deck quickly not to
miss anything.

It seems no time before we are gliding along close to the land on the
other side, startling myriads of water-fowl, who fly up in front of us
in an endless cloud, or dive just as we get near enough to see them
well. Then a tall white lighthouse heaves into sight and we round a
corner into that famous salmon river, the Fraser. There are red houses
peeping out between the trees, and boats begin to pop up here and there,
but we don't seem to be getting on very fast, for we are zigzagging this
way and that across the water, almost more crookedly than we did on the
Nile or Irrawaddy to avoid sandbanks.

"See the nets?" asks one of the ship's officers, coming to a halt beside
us and pointing to a line of corks on the surface of the water; "we've
got to keep clear of them, and that's no job for a sleepy-head, I can
tell you." He goes on to explain that the nets are sixty feet long and
weighted with lead on the low side in the usual fashion. At this time of
year the salmon are all trying to get up the river. Salmon have queer
ways. They are born far up, in the head waters of the Fraser, or any
other great river, and come down as quite little fellows to the sea,
where they live a free bachelor life, enjoying themselves in the open
for three years; but at the end of that time an irresistible desire to
return to the fresh water seizes them, and in thousands and thousands
they press up the wide mouth of the river, tumbling over each other in
their eagerness to get there; this is the time they are caught. The nets
are made with wide meshes, and the fish in their struggle to get
forward run their blunt heads through, but when they try to withdraw
them they are held by the gills and remain fixed until they are hauled
out to meet their fate. But from six in the morning on Saturdays till
six in the evening on Sundays the law forbids netting, so a certain
number always escape and get up the river to lay their eggs, after which
they return to the sea and leave their families to hatch out; but their
life-work is finished, and they either die on the way or soon
afterwards. All this the officer tells us as we meander across the
smooth water.

We stop once or twice where the f