They catch in the sea, when about two inches long, two kinds of Mullet, the Grey and the White, with another fish of great delicacy, called in their tongue Ava, and remove them to large ponds of brackish or partly salt water, where they are suffered to remain a few weeks, and ultimately deposited in tanks of fresh water, where they grow exceeding large and fine, and are taken out for use at the pleasure of the owner. Thus you see these fellows are no despicable fishers.
"You may tell your little brother (who wondered that I could bear to go to sea, as there were Cockroaches in all ships) that I feel now a mortal antipathy, more even than he, if possible, to these insects; for having made a great number of observations in the Sandwich Islands, the vile Cockroaches ate up all the paper, and as there was a little oil on my shoes, very nearly demolished them too!
"I have never seen the Aurora Borealis, about which you inquire, particularly splendid, except occasionally near Hudson's Bay; but I hope shortly to go so far to the North as to see this phenomenon in all its magnificence; you shall perhaps hear of it by my next letter.
"I trust we may yet have a fine jaunt to the Highlands together, perhaps in the summer of 1835."
By the time I reach Fort Vancouver probably I may receive another letter from you. I have only a few hours left in which to write and thank Captains Beaufort and Sabine for all their goodness. Therefore be pleased to pardon this hasty epistle, and allow me to say again how greatly I feel obliged and gratified by this last token of your esteem, and to permit me to assure you that it is not bestowed on one who is incapable of feeling and appreciating it.
Early last November, by the arrival of the annual express across the continent at Fort Vancouver, I had the great pleasure to receive your very kind and truly welcome letter of May, 1832, accompanied by a memoir of the late Capt. Carmichael, and a notice of the late Mr. Barclay from the Botanical Miscellany. I can not tell you with what fervour I peruse your letters, especially at this distance from home. When I tell you that your epistle was the only one I had received for a whole year, saving a short one from the excellent Mr. Garry, who most punctually forwarded your parcel to me, you will perceive how very precious a thing a letter is to me now-a-days.
Botany and ornamental gardening have sustained a great loss in the death of Mr. Barclay; the more to be regretted as no one seems to take that place which he held for so many years with honour to himself and advantage to the Science as one of its most liberal patrons. Last October, from the entrance of the Columbia River, by the last vessel which sailed for England, commanded by my excellent friend, J.E.
