seen on land or water. The towering mountains, that rise almost from
the banks, are covered deep with snow, and the river is fast bound in
ice to the depth of six or eight feet. Slowly the ice begins to break
higher up, and the tides, rising and falling, bear away immense
quantities. At length a few seagulls appear in the western sky, and the
cry echoes from camp to camp that the fish are at hand.

Immense shoals of oolikan come in from the Pacific, followed by larger
fish such as the halibut, the cod, the porpoise, and the finned-back
-whale. Over the fish hover the sea-birds--"an immense cloud of
innumerable gulls," wrote Bishop Hills after a visit to the place, "so
many and so thick that as they moved to and fro, up and down, the sight
resembled a heavy fall of snow." Over the gulls, again, soar the eagles
watching for their prey. The Indians go forth to meet the fish with the
cry, "You fish, you fish! you are all chiefs; you are, you are all
chiefs." The nets haul in bushels at a time, and hundreds of tons are
collected. "The Indians dry some in the sun, and _press_ a much
larger quantity for the sake of the oil or grease, which has a
considerable market value as being superior to cod-liver oil, and which
they use as butter with their dried salmon. The season is most
important to the Indians; the supply lasts them till the season for
salmon, which is later, and which supplies their staple food, their
bread." "What a beautiful provision for this people," writes one of the
Missionaries, "just at that season of the year when their winter stock
has run out! God can indeed furnish a table in the wilderness."

It was in the spring of 1860, that Mr. Duncan first visited the Nass
River. He received a most encouraging welcome from the Nishkah Indians
--one of the Tsimshean tribes--dwelling on its banks. The account is a
particularly interesting one:--