with his arms stretched out like a cross and motionless. The canoes were not constructed of wood as at King George's or Nootka Sound. The frame only, being slender laths, was of that substance; the outside consisting of the skins of seals or of such like animals. Though we returned all their signs of friendship, and by every expressive gesture tried to encourage them to come alongside, we could not prevail. Some of our people repeated several of the common words of the Nootka language, such as "seekemaile" and "mahook;" "2 but they did not seem to understand them. After receiving some presents which were thrown to them, they retired toward that part of the shore whence they came; giving us to understand by signs that they would visit us again the next morning. Two of them, however, each in a small canoe, waited upon us in the night; probably with a design to pilfer something, thinking we should be all asleep, for they retired as soon as they found themselves discovered.

ward. I did not follow it, but continued our course to the north, for a point of land which we saw in that direction. The natives who visited us the preceding evening came off again in the morning, in five or six canoes, but not till we were under sail; and although they followed us for some time they could not get up with us. Before two in the afternoon the bad weather returned again, with so thick a haze that we could see no other land besides the point just mentioned, which we reached at half-past four, and found it to be a small island, lying about two miles from the adjacent coast, being a point of land on the east side of which we discovered a fine bay or rather harbour. To this we plied up under reefed topsails and courses. The wind blew strong at SE., and in excessively hard squalls, with rain. At intervals we could see land in every direction; but in general the weather was so foggy that we could see none but the shores of the bay into which we were plying. In pass ing the island the depth of water was twenty-six fathoms, with a muddy bottom. Soon after the depth increased to sixty and seventy fathoms, a rocky bottom; but in the entrance of the bay the depth was from thirty to six fathoms, the last very near the shore. At length, at 8 o'clock, the violence of the squalls obliged us to anchor in thirteen fathoms, before we had got so far into the bay as I intended; but we thought ourselves fortunate that we had already sufficiently secured ourselves at this hour, for the night was exceedingly stormy.

During the night the wind was at SSE., blowing hard and in squalls, with rain and very thick weather. At 10 o'clock next morning the wind became more moderate, and the weather being somewhat clearer we got under sail, in order to look out for some snug place where we might search for and stop the leak; our present station being too much exposed for this purpose. At first I proposed to have gone up the bay before which we had anchored; but the clearness of the weather tempted me to steer to the northward, farther up the great inlet, as being all in our way. As soon as we had passed the north-west point of the bay above mentioned, we found the coast on that side to turn short to the east

1 Like the "oomyaks," or women's canoes, of the Greenlanders; as to which Dr Rae, of Arctic renown, has given such a pleasant description of his experiences, in "The Land of Desolation."

The weather, bad as it was, did not hinder three of the natives from paying us a visit. They came off in two canoes; two men in one, and one in the other, being the number each could carry. For they were built and constructed in the same manner with those of the Esquimaux; only in the one were two holes for two men to sit in, and in the other but one. Each of these men had a stick about three feet long, with the large feathers or wing of birds tied to it. These they frequently held up to us, with a view,

followed the anchor to the bottom. It is remarkable that in this very critical situation he had presence of mind to disengage himself, and come up to the surface of the water, where he was taken up with one of his legs fractured in a dangerous manner. Early the next morning we gave the ship a good heel to port, in order to come at and stop the leak. On ripping off the sheathing, it was found to be in the seams, which were very open both in and under the wale; and in several places not a bit of oakum in them. While the carpenters were making good these defects, we filled all our empty water-casks at a stream hard by the ship. The wind was now moderate, but the weather was thick and hazy, with rain. The natives, who left us the preceding day, when the bad weather came on, paid us another visit this morning. Those who came first were in small canoes; others afterwards arrived in large boats, in one of which were twenty women and one man, besides children.

they met with was the rudder of one of the boats, which they threw overboard to those of their party who had remained in the canoes. Before they had time to find another object that pleased their fancy, the crew were alarmed, and began to come upon deck armed with cutlasses. On see ing this, the whole company of plunderers sneaked off into their canoes with as much deliberation and indifference as they had given up the boat; and they were observed describing, to those who had not been on board, how much longer the knives of the ship's crew were than their own. It was at this time that my boat was on the sounding duty, which they must have seen, for they proceeded directly for her after their disappointment at the Discovery. I have not the least doubt that their visiting us so very early in the morning was with a view to plunder, on the supposition that they should find everybody asleep. May we not from these circumstances reasonably infer that these people are unacquainted with fire-arms? For certainly, if they had known anything of their effect, they never would have dared to attempt taking a boat from under a ship's guns in the face of above 100 men; for most of my people were looking at them at the very instant they made the attempt. However, after all these tricks, we had the good fortune to leave them as ignorant in this respect as we found them; for they neither heard nor saw a musket fired unless at birds.

Just as we were going to weigh the anchor to proceed farther up the bay, it began to blow and to rain as hard as before, so that we were obliged to veer away the cable again and lay fast. Towards the evening, finding that the gale did not moderate, and that it might be some time before an opportunity offered to get higher up, I came to a resolution to heel the ship where we were; and with this view moored her with a kedge-anchor and hawser. In heaving the anchor out of the boat, one of the seamen, either through ignorance or carelessness, or both, was carried overboard by the buoy-rope, and

In the evening of the 16th the weather cleared up, and we then found ourselves surrounded on every side by land. Our station was on the east side of the sound, in a place which in the chart is distinguished by the name of Snug Corner Bay. And a very snug place it is. I went, accompanied by some of the officers, to view the head of it; and we found that it was sheltered from all winds, with a depth of water from seven to three fathoms over a muddy bottom. land near the shore is low, part clear and part wooded. The clear ground was covered two or three feet thick with snow, but very little lay in the woods. The very summits of the neighbouring hills were covered with wood, but those farther inland seemed to be naked rocks buried in snow.

The

The leak being stopped, and the sheathing made good over it, at 4 o'clock in the morning of the 17th we weighed and steered to the northwestward, with a light breeze at ENE., thinking if there should be any pass age to the north through this inlet that it must be in that direction. At

MAY 1778.]

length, about 1 o'clock, with the assistance of our boats, we got to an anchor under the eastern shore in thirteen fathoms water, and about four leagues to the north of our last station. In the morning the weather had been very hazy, but it afterwards cleared up so as to give us a distinct view of all the land round us, particularly to the northward, where it seemed to close. This left us but little hopes of finding a passage that way, or indeed in any other direction, without putting out again to sea.

To enable me to form a better judgment, I despatched Mr Gore with two armed boats to examine the northern arm, and the master with two other boats to examine another arm that seemed to take an easterly direction. Late in the evening they both returned. The master reported that the arm he had been sent to communicated with that from which he had last come, and that one side of it was only formed by a group of islands. Mr Gore informed me that he had seen the entrance of an arm which, he was of opinion, extended a long way to the north-east, and that probably by it a passage might be found. On the other hand, Mr Roberts, one of the mates whom I had sent with Mr Gore to sketch out the parts they had examined, was of opinion that they saw the head of this arm. The disagree ment of these two opinions, and the circumstance already mentioned of the flood-tide entering the sound from the south, rendered the existence of a passage this way very doubtful. And as the wind in the morning had become favourable for getting out to sea, I resolved to spend no more time in searching for a passage in a place that promised so little success. Besides this, I considered that if the land on the west should prove to be islands, agreeably to the late Russian discoveries, we could not fail of getting far enough to the north, and that in good time, provided we did not lose the season in searching places where a passage was not only doubtful but improbable. We were now upwards of 520 leagues to the westward of any

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part of Baffin's or of Hudson's Bay; and whatever passage there may be, it must be, or at least part of it must lie, to the north of Latitude 72°. Who could expect to find a passage or strait of such extent?1

"[To this wide inlet which he had entered, Cook gave] the name of Prince William's Sound, and here was surprised to find that the natives, in dress, language, and physical peculiarities, were exactly like the Esquimaux of Hudson's Bay. Beautiful skins were obtained in plenty from these people for a very moderate price. On proceeding to the north-west, a wide inlet was discovered, which some conjectured might be a strait communicating with the Northern Ocean. It was deemed, therefore, advisable to explore it; but when the boats had proceeded as high as Lat. 61° 34', or about seventy leagues from the entrance, the inlet appeared to terminate in a small river. The ships now proceeded to the west, and doubled the great promontory of Álashka; and, on the 9th of August, they reached the most westerly point of the American continent, distant only thirteen leagues from the opposite shores of Asia. To this headland Cook gave the name Cape Prince of Wales. Crossing the strait to the western shores, he anchored near the coast of the Tshuktzki, which he found to extend many degrees farther to the east than the position assigned to them in the maps of that day. He thus ascertained distinctly the width of the strait that separates Asia from America; for though Behring had sailed through it before, he had not descried the shores of the latter continent, and, consequently, remained ignorant of the importance of his discoveries. Our navigators now pushed forward into the Northern Ocean, when they soon

1 The synopsis of remainder of Chapter IV. to middle of Chapter IX., Book IV., in Original Edition, is given from "Maritime and Inland Discovery," in Lardner's "Cabinet Cyclopædia,” vol. iii., pp. 80, 81.

We now stood to the southward, and after running six leagues shoaled the water to seven fathoms; but it soon deepened to nine fathoms. At this time the weather, which had been hazy, clearing up a little; we saw land extending from S. to SE. by E. about three or four miles distant. The eastern extreme forms a point which was much encumbered with ice; for which reason it obtained the name of Icy Cape. Its latitude is 70° 29′ and its longitude 198° 20′. The other extreme of the land was lost in the horizon, so that there can be no doubt of its being a continuation of the American continent. The Discovery being about a mile astern and to leeward, found less water than we did; and tacking on that account, I was obliged to tack also to prevent separation. Our situation was now more and more critical. We were in shoal water, upon a lee shore, and the main body of the ice to windward, driving down upon us. It was evident that if we remained much longer between it and the land, it would force us ashore, unless it should happen to take the ground before us. It seemed nearly to join the land to leeward, and the only direction that was open was to the SW. After making a short board to the northward, I made the signal for the Discovery to tack, and tacked myself at the same time. The wind proved rather favourable; so that we lay up SW. and SW. by W.

At eight in the morning of the 19th, the wind veering back to W., I tacked to the northward; and at noon the

latitude was 70° 6' and the longitude 196° 42'. In this situation we had a good deal of drift-ice about us, and the main ice was about two leagues to the north. At half-past one we got in with the edge of it. It was not so compact as that which we had seen to the northward; but it was too close, and in too large pieces, to attempt forcing the ships through it. On the ice lay a prodigious number of sea-horses; and as we were in want of fresh provisions, the boats from each ship were sent to get some. By 7 o'clock in the evening we had received on board the Resolution nine of these animals, which till now we had supposed to be sea-cows; so that we were not a little disappointed, especially some of the seamen, who for the novelty of the thing had been feasting their eyes for some days past. Nor would they have been disappointed now, nor have known the difference, if we had not happened to have one or two on board who had been in Greenland, and declared what animals these were, and that no one ever ate of them. But notwithstanding this we lived upon them as long as they lasted; and there were few on board who did not prefer them to our salt meat. The fat at first is as sweet as marrow, but in a few days it grows rancid, unless it be salted; in which state it will keep much longer. The lean flesh is coarse, black, and has rather a strong taste; and the heart is nearly as well tasted as that of a bullock. The fat, when melted, yields a good deal of oil, which burns very well in lamps; and their hides, which are very thick, were very useful about our rigging. The teeth or tusks of most of them were at this time very small; even some of the largest and oldest of these animals had them not exceeding six inches in length. From this we concluded that they had lately shed their old teeth. They lie in herds of many hundreds upon the ice, huddling one over the other like swine; and roar or bray very loud, so that in the night or in

1 Walrus.