LEGENDS OF VANCOUVER

I suggested more tea, and, as he sipped it, he told me the legend that few of the younger Indians know. That he believes the story him- self is beyond question, for many times he ad- mitted having tested the virtues of this rock, and it had never once failed him. All people that have to do with water craft are supersti- tious about some things, and I freely acknow- ledge that times innumerable I have “whistled up” a wind when dead calm threatened, or stuck a jack-knife in the mast, and afterwards watched with great contentment the idle sail fill, and the canoe pull out to a light breeze. So, perhaps, I am prejudiced in favor of this legend of Homolsom Rock, for it strikes a very responsive chord in that portion of my heart that has always throbbed for the sea.

“You know,” began my young tillicum, “that only waters unspoiled by human hands can be of any benefit. One gains no strength by swimming in any waters heated or boiled by fires that men build. To grow strong and wise one must swim in the natural rivers, the mountain torrents, the sea, just as the Sag- alie Tyee made them. Their virtues die when human beings try to improve them by heating or distilling, or placing even tea in them, and so—what makes Homolsom Rock so full of ‘good medicine’ is that the waters

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