uses, and pieces of timber which might be occasionally sawn into boards were prepared and put on board; and both ships were cleared and put into a sailing condition. Everything being now ready, in the morning of the 26th I intended to have put to sea; but both wind and tide being against us, was obliged to wait till noon, when the south-west wind was succeeded by a calm, and, the tide turning in our favour, we cast off the moorings, and with our boats towed the ships out of the cove. After this we had variable light airs and calms till four in the afternoon, when a breeze sprung up northerly, with very thick hazy weather. The mercury in the barometer fell unusually low; and we had every other forerunner of an approaching storm, which we had reason to expect would be from the southward. This made me hesitate a little, as night was at hand, whether I should venture to sail, or wait till the next morning. But my anxious impatience to proceed upon the voyage, and the fear of losing this opportunity of getting out of the sound, making a greater impression on my mind than any apprehension of immediate danger, I determined to put to sea at all events.

Our friends the natives attended us till we were almost out of the sound; some on board the ships and others in their canoes. One of their chiefs, who had some time before attached himself to me, was amongst the last who left us. Having before he went bestowed upon him a small present, I received in return a beaver-skin of much greater value. This called upon me to make some addition to my present, which pleased him so much that he insisted upon my acceptance of the beaver-skin cloak which he then wore, and of which I knew he was particularly fond. Struck with this instance of generosity, and desirous that he should be no sufferer by his friendship to me, I presented to him a new broadsword with a brass hilt; the possession of which made him completely happy. He, and also many others of his countrymen, im

portuned us much to pay them another visit; and by way of encouragement promised to lay in a good stock of skins. I make no doubt that whoever comes after me to this place will find the natives prepared accordingly, with no inconsiderable supply of an article of trade which, they could observe, we were eager to possess, and which we found could be purchased to great advantage.

Such particulars about the country and its inhabitants as came to our knowledge during our short stay, and have not been mentioned in the course of the narrative, will furnish materials for the two following Chapters.

CHAPTER II.

ON my arrival in this inlet I had honoured it with the name of King George's Sound, but I afterwards found that it is called Nootka by the natives. The entrance is situated in the east corner of Hope Bay, in the Latitude of 49° 33′ N. and in the Longitude of 233° 12′ E. The east coast of that bay, all the way from Breakers Point to the entrance of the sound, is covered by a chain of sunken rocks that seemed to extend some distance from the shore; and near the sound are some islands and rocks above water. We enter this sound between two rocky points that lie ESE. and WNW. from each other, distant between three and four miles. Within these points the sound widens considerably, and extends in to the northward four leagues at least, exclusive of the several branches towards its bottom, the termination of which we had not an opportunity to ascertain. But from the circumstance of finding that the water freshened where our boats crossed their entrance, it is probable that they had almost reached its utmost limits. And this probability is increased by the hills that bounded it toward the land, being covered with thick snow, when those toward the sea, or where we lay, had

great quantity of fallen wood lying in them, which is carried in by the tide, and with rills of fresh water sufficient for the use of a ship, which seem to be supplied entirely from the rains and fogs that hover about the tops of the hills. For few springs can be expected in so rocky a country, and the fresh water found farther up the sound most probably arose from the melting of the snow, there being no room to suspect that any large river falls into the sound, either from strangers coming down it or from any other circumstance. The water of these rills is perfectly clear, and dissolves soap easily.

not a speck remaining on them, though in general they were much higher. In the middle of the sound are a number of islands of various sizes. The depth of water in the middle of the sound, and even close home to some parts of its shore, is from forty-seven to ninety fathoms, and perhaps more. The harbours and anchoring-places within its circuit are numerous, but we had no time to survey them. The cove in which our ships lay is on the east side of the sound and on the east side of the largest of the islands. It is covered from the sea, but has little else to recommend it, being exposed to the south-east winds, which we found to blow with great violence; and the devastation they make sometimes was apparent in many places.

The land bordering upon the seacoast is of a middling height and level, but within the sound it rises almost everywhere into steep hills, which agree in their general formation, ending in round or blunted tops, with some sharp though not very prominent ridges on their sides. Some of these hills may be reckoned high, while others of them are of a very moderate height; but even the highest are entirely covered to their tops with the thickest woods, as well as every flat part toward the sea. There are sometimes spots upon the sides of some of the hills which are bare, but they are few in comparison of the whole, though they sufficiently point out the general rocky disposition of these hills. Properly speaking, they have no soil upon them except a kind of compost produced from rotten mosses and trees of the depth of two feet or more. Their foundations are therefore to be considered as nothing more than stupendous rocks of a whitish or grey cast where they have been exposed to the weather; but when broken they appeared to be of a bluish-grey colour, like that universal sort which were found at Kerguelen's Land. The rocky shores are a continued mass of this, and the little coves in the sound have beaches composed of fragments of it, with a few other pebbles. All these coves are furnished with a

The weather during our stay corresponded pretty nearly with that which we had experienced off the coast. That is, when the wind was anywhere between N. and W. the weather was fine and clear; but if to the S. of W. hazy, with rain. The climate, as far as we had any experience of it, is infinitely milder than that on the east coast of America under the same parallel of latitude. The mercury in the thermometer never even in the night fell lower than 42°, and very often in the day it rose to 60°. No such thing as frost was perceived in any of the low ground, on the contrary, vegetation had made a considerable progress, for I met with grass that was already above a foot long.

The trees which chiefly compose the woods are the Canadian pine, white cypress, Cypressus thyoides, the wild pine, with two or three other sorts of pine less common. The first two make up almost two-thirds of the whole, and at a distance might be mistaken for the same tree, as they both run up into pointed spire-like tops; but they are easily distinguished on coming nearer from their colour, the cypress being of a much paler green, or shade, than the other. The trees in general grow with great vigour, and are all of a large size. There is but little variety of other vegetable productions, though doubtless several had not yet sprung up at the early season when we visited the place; and many more might be hid from the

APRIL 1778.]

narrow sphere of our researches. About | the rocks and verge of the woods we found strawberry plants, some raspberry, currant, and gooseberry bushes, which were all in a most flourishing state, with a few small black aldertrees. There are likewise a species of sow-thistle, goose-grass, some crow'sfoot, which has a very fine crimson flower; and two sorts of Anthericum, one with a large orange flower, and the other with a blue one. We also found in these situations some wild rose-bushes which were just budding; a great quantity of young leeks with triangular leaves; a small sort of grass; and some water-cresses, which grow about the sides of the rills; besides great abundance of Andromeda. Within the woods, besides two sorts of underwood shrubs unknown to us, are mosses and ferns. Of the first of which are seven or eight different sorts, of the last not above three or four; and the species of both are mostly such as are common to Europe and America.

The account that we can give of the quadrupeds is taken from the skins which the natives brought to sell, and these were often so mutilated with respect to the distinguishing parts, such as the paws, tails, and heads, that it was impossible even to guess at the animals to which they belonged, though others were so perfect, or at least so well known, that they left no room to doubt about them.

Of these the most common were bears, deer, foxes, and wolves. The bear-skins were in great numbers, few of them very large, but in general of a shining black colour. The deerskins were scarcer, and they seem to belong to that sort called the fallow deer by the historians of Carolina, though Mr Pennant' thinks it quite a different species from ours, and distin

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guishes it by the name of Virginian deer. The foxes are in great plenty, and of several varieties; some of their skins being quite yellow, with a black tip to the tail; others of a deep or reddish yellow intermixed with black; and a third sort of a whitish grey or ash-colour, also intermixed with black. Our people used to apply the name of fox or wolf indiscriminately when the skins were so mutilated as to leave room for a doubt; but we got at last an entire wolf-skin with the head on, and it was grey. Besides the common sort of marten, the pine-marten is also here, and another, whose skin is of a lighter brown colour than either, with coarser hair; but is not so common, and is perhaps only a mere variety arising from age or some other accidental circumstance. The ermine is also found at this place, but is rare and small; nor is the hair remarkably fine, though the animal appeared to be perfectly white; and squirrels are of the common sort, but the latter is rather smaller than ours, and has a deeper rusty colour running along the back.

We were clear as to the existence of all the animals already mentioned, but there are two others besides which we could not distinguish with sufficient certainty. Of the first of these we saw none of the skins but what were dressed or tanned like leather. The natives wear them on some occasions, and from the size as well as thickness they were generally concluded to belong to the elk or moosedeer, though some of them perhaps might belong to the buffalo. The other animal, which seems by no means rare, was guessed to be a species of the wild cat or lynx. The length of the skins without the head, which none of them had, was about two feet two inches. They are covered with a very fine wool or fur of a very light brown or whitish yellow colour, intermixed with long hairs, which on the back, where they are shortest, are blackish; on the sides, where they are longer, of a silver white; and on the belly, where they are longest, of the colour of the wool; but the whitish or

The sea-animals seen off the coast were whales, porpoises, and seals. The last of these seem only of the common sort, judging from the skins which we saw here; their colour being either silvery, yellowish, plain, or spotted with black. The porpoise is the Phocena. I have chosen to refer to this class the sea-otter, as living mostly in the water. It might have been sufficient to have mentioned that this animal abounds here, as it is fully described in different books taken from the accounts of the Russian adventurers in their expeditions eastward from Kamtschatka, if there had not been a small difference in one that we saw. We for some time entertained doubts whether the many skins which the natives brought really belonged to this animal, as our only reason for being of that opinion was founded on the size, colour, and fineness of the fur; till a short while before our departure, when a whole one that had been just killed was purchased from some strangers who came to barter. It was rather young, weighing only twenty-five pounds; of a shining or glossy black colour; but many of the hairs being tipt with white, gave it a greyish cast at first sight. The face, throat, and breast were of a yellowish white or very light brown colour, which in many of the skins extended the whole length of the belly. It had six cutting-teeth in each jaw; two of those of the lower jaw being very minute, and placed

ones. In these circumstances it seems to disagree with those found by the Russians, and also in not having the outer toes of the hind feet skirted with a membrane. There seemed also a greater variety in the colour of the skins than is mentioned by the describers of the Russian sea-otters. These changes of colour certainly take place at the different gradations of life. The very young ones had brown hair, which was coarse, with very little fur underneath, but those of the size of the entire animal which came into our possession had a considerable quantity of that substance; and both in that colour and state the sea-otters seem to remain till they have attained their full growth. After that they lose their black colour, and assume a deep brown or sooty colour; but have then a greater quantity of very fine fur and scarcely any long hairs. Others, which we suspected to be still older, were of a chestnut brown; and a few skins were seen that had even acquired a perfectly yellow colour. The fur of these animals, as mentioned in the Russian accounts, is certainly softer and finer than that of any others we know of, and therefore the discovery of this part of the continent of North America, where so valuable an article of commerce may be met with, cannot be a matter of indifference.

Birds in general are not only rare as to the different species, but very scarce as to numbers, and these few are so shy, that in all probability they are continually harassed by the natives, perhaps to eat them as food, certainly to get possession of their feathers, which they use as ornaments. Those which frequent the woods are crows and ravens, not at all different from our English ones; a bluish jay or magpie; common wrens, which are the only singing bird that we hear; the Canadian or migrating thrush; and a considerable number of brown eagles with white heads and tails, which, though they seem principally to frequent the coast, come into the sound în bad weather and sometimes