ay which is to throw actual
fighting troops into the East some day when our hold of the Suez Canal
is temporarily loosened.

All that Vancouver wants is a fat earthwork fort upon a hill,--there are
plenty of hills to choose from,--a selection of big guns, a couple of
regiments of infantry, and later on a big arsenal. The raw
self-consciousness of America would be sure to make her think these
arrangements intended for her benefit, but she could be enlightened. It
is not seemly to leave unprotected the head-end of a big railway; for
though Victoria and Esquimalt, our naval stations on Vancouver Island,
are very near, so also is a place called Vladivostok, and though
Vancouver Narrows are strait, they allow room enough for a man-of-war.
The people--I did not speak to more than two hundred of them--do not
know about Russia or military arrangements. They are trying to open
trade with Japan in lumber, and are raising fruit, wheat, and sometimes
minerals. All of them agree that we do not yet know the resources of
British Columbia, and all joyfully bade me note the climate, which was
distinctly warm. "We never have killing cold here. It's the most perfect
climate in the world." Then there are three perfect climates, for I have
tasted 'em--California, Washington Territory, and British Columbia. I
cannot say which is the loveliest.

When I left by steamer and struck across the Sound to our naval station
at Victoria, Vancouver Island, I found in that quite English town of
beautiful streets quite a colony of old men doing nothing but talking,
fishing, and loafing at the Club. That means that the retired go to
Victoria. On a thousand a year pension a man would be a millionnaire in
these parts, and for four hundred he could live well. It was at Victoria
they told me the tale of the fire in Vancouver. How the inhabitants of
New Westminster, twelve miles from Vancouver, saw a glare in the sky at
six in the evening, but thought it was a forest fire; how later bits of
burnt paper flew about their streets, and they guessed that evil had
happened; how an hour later a man rode into the city crying that there
was no Vancouver left. All had been wiped out by the flames in sixteen
minutes. How, two hours later, the Mayor of New Westminster having voted
nine thousand dollars from the Municipal funds, relief-wagons with food
and blankets were pouring into where Vancouver stood. How fourteen
people were supposed to have died in the fire, but how