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The steepest grade is 80 feet per mile rising towards Nanaimo, and 79 feet per mile rising towards Esquimalt; these grades are rendered necessary to enable the line to overcome the summit lying between the two places, and which is 900 feet above the level of the sea. Running, as the line does, through a rugged country, there are a good many sharp curves rendered necessary.
"The harbour contains an area of about 400 or 500 acres, in which there is sufficient depth of water for large vessels to lie at all states of the tide. "The line of railway from Nanaimo to Esquimalt touches the harbour, and has a wharf at which coal from Nanaimo and West Wellington mines may be delivered at any time.
The distance from Esquimalt to Victoria is 75 miles. The line was not quite completed when we went over it; and the buildings, turn-tables, &c. were not yet erected, although some of them were under construction. "The traffic on the line will be light, the country being sparsely settled.
At "Port Moody," and even at the new "Vancouver City," I felt some disappointment that the original idea of crossing amongst the islands to the north-east of Vancouver's Island, traversing that island, and making the Grand Pacific terminus at the fine harbour of Esquimalt, had not been realized. Halifax to Esquimalt was our old, well-worn plan. The "Tete Jaune" was our favoured pass.
Hawke became denunciatory, and called Senator Hanway a traitor working for English preference and English gold. He said that Senator Hanway was a greater reprobate than Benedict Arnold. Mr. Hawke rehearsed the British armament in the Western Hemisphere, and counted the guns in Halifax, Montreal, Quebec, Esquimalt, to say nothing of the Bermudas, the Bahamas, and the British West Indies.
The fort was sound asleep, secure in an eternal certainty that the domain which it guarded would never be overrun by American settlers as California and Oregon had been. The little Admiralty cruisers which lay at Esquimalt were guarantee that New Caledonia should never be stampeded into a republic by an inrush of aliens. Then, as now, it was Victoria's boast that it was more English than England.
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