e ship _Victoria_.
This vessel my father afterwards purchased and sent to Alberni, or
Sooke, for a load of lumber for England, when we all were going with
her. The vessel never came back, having been wrecked somewhere near
where all the wrecks have since taken place, on the west coast of
this island. My father was ruined, for there was no insurance, so he
had to start life anew. He came north to Victoria in 1858, where he
entered into business until appointed Government Agent at Nanaimo,
where he served some years, dying at the advanced age of seventy-six.
My mother died in 1863, and at the present writing, in addition to
myself, there is one brother in Victoria--Rowland--and another
brother, Arthur, in London, England.

The author has completed his fifty-three years in this fair city.

Dingley Dell,
December 20th, 1911.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER. PAGE

I. The Experiences of a British Boy in San Francisco
in the Early Fifties 11
II. Theatrical Memories 20
III. My Boyhood Days in Victoria 26
IV. Victoria's First Directory 38
V. Some Recollections of Victoria by One who Was There in the Sixties 57
VI. A Little More Street History 68
VII. The Victoria _Gazette_, 1858 73
VIII. Victoria in 1859-1860 84
IX. Fires and Firemen 92
X. A Siberian Mammoth 100
XI. Mrs. Edwin Donald, Hon. Wymond Hamley, Hon. G. A. Walkem 109
XII. The Consecration of the Iron Church 115
XIII. The Iron Church Again 121
XIV. Its Departed Glories, or Esquimalt, Then and Now 124
XV. Old Quadra Street Cemetery 129
XVI. Pioneer Society's Banquet 144
XVII. Victoria District Church 149
XVIII. Christmas In Pioneer Days 153
XIX. The Queen's Birthday Forty Years Ago