- June 9th [actually June , 1853]. After waiting for ebb tide, and assisted by a light wind and oars, we passed through without seeing any of the horrors we had been told of. We soon arrived at a place called Gumbay, which I subsequently found was the best rendition the Indians could give of Capt. Fay, who had a house on the northeastern end of Whidby island. He seemed to be engaged in trade with the Indians. He confirmed the stories I had heard concerning Sla-hai as the murderer of Church, and showed me several articles belonging to Church and which the Indians had obtained from Sla-hai.
- This broad salt marsh is covered by rich grass and intersected by canals, which could not be more suitable for navigation if they had been made artifically. The Indian houses are built after the fashion of the buildings of the Hudson Bay Company. I visited one of the camps, of which there are a great many, and found the Indians gambling, as usual. They have ten little chips of wood. Nine of them are supposed to be klootchmen(Indian women) and the tenth one a man. These they shuffle in cedar bark, and an Indian takes five in each hand and his opponent guesses which hand holds the four klootchmen and one man. They play in this manner for whole days and nights. Gambling seems to be inherent in the savage as well as the civilized man. The propensity to plunder our fellow creatures without giving an equivalent other than an equal risk is so widespread that it may be regarded as natural, if not right in the light of Christianity.