A STREET IN VICTORIA
Large and substantial stone and brick warehouses, well stocked with goods, line the upper part of the harbour on the town side. Between 1861 and 1862 alone, fifty-six brick buildings were erected and since that period, very rapid progress has been made in edifices of that character. Several spacious hotels, elegantly furnished, and supplied with every comfort which the most fastidious could wish, have been built.

Matthew Macfic, Vancouver Island and British Columbia, 1865