Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 29).djvu/72

 Company, educated at the Company's expense, preparatory to their being apprenticed to trades in Canada. They learn the English language, writing, arithmetic and geography. The gardener, too, is singing out his honest satisfaction, as he surveys from the northern gate ten acres of apple trees laden with fruit, his bowers of grapevines, his beds of vegetables and flowers. The bell rings for dinner; we will now pay a visit to the "Hall" and its convivialities.

The dining-hall is a spacious room on the second floor, ceiled with pine above and at the sides. In the south-*west corner of it is a large close stove, giving out sufficient caloric to make it comfortable.

At the end of a table twenty feet in length stands Governor McLaughlin, directing guests and gentlemen from neighbouring posts to their places; and chief-traders, traders, the physician, clerks, and the farmer, slide respectfully to their places, at distances from the Governor corresponding to the dignity of their rank in the service. Thanks are given to God, and all are seated. Roast beef and pork, boiled mutton, baked salmon, boiled ham; beets, carrots, turnips, cabbage and potatoes, and wheaten bread, are tastefully distributed {268} over the table among a dinner-set of elegant queen's ware, burnished with glittering glasses and decanters of various-coloured Italian wines. Course after course goes round, and the Governor fills to his guests and friends; and each gentleman in turn vies with him in diffusing around the board a most generous allowance of viands, wines, and warm fellow-feeling. The cloth and wines are removed together, cigars are lighted, and a strolling smoke about the premises, enlivened by a courteous discussion of some mooted point of natural history or politics, closes the ceremonies of the dinner hour at Fort Vancouver. These are some of the incidents of life at Vancouver.