I did not intend, originally, to publish these observations, and have made no attempt, now, at literary ornament in producing them. Any value found in these pages will consist, I think, in their freshness and minuteness of detail, as well as in the more special consideration of social feelings, moral and intellectual characteristics and religious notions - matters which travellers among savages, ordinarily, have not full opportunity to do justice to. My private and official business on the west coast of Vancouver Island gave me an advantageous position for studying the natives themselves, and also the effect upon them of intercourse with civilized intruders. I lived among the people and had a long acquaintanceship with them; I did not merely pass through the country.