GOVERNMENT ST., VICTORIA, B. C.
Victoria sprang suddenly into great commercial activity in 1858, when endless throngs of miners poured into the Fraser River gold fields, 30,000 of whom wintered in and around the city. When, as the excitement abated, the greater portion of them departed, and the tented city vanished like the camp of a moving army, it was demonstrated that a city had been founded which was destined to live, to grow with the province, and to become metropolitan as the resources of the surrounding reguin were developed.

Illustrated British Columbia, 1889