304 cook's voyage to april, 



spears could not penetrate the hide-dresses, one of our 

 gentlemen shot a musket ball through one of them, 

 folded six times. At this they were so much staggered, 

 that they plainly discovered their ignorance of the 

 effect of fire arms. This was very often confirmed 

 afterward, when we used them at their village, and 

 other places, to shoot birds, the manner of which 

 plainly confounded them ; and our explanations of the 

 use of shot and ball were received with the most 

 significant marks of their having no previous ideas 

 on this matter. 



Some accounts of a Spanish voyage to this coast, 

 in 1771', or 1775, had reached England before I 

 sailed ; but the foregoing circumstances sufficiently 

 prove, that these ships had not been at Nootka.* 

 Besides this, it was evident that iron was too common 

 here ; was in too many hands ; and the uses of it were 

 too well known, for them to have had the first know- 

 ledge of it so very lately ; or, indeed, at any earlier 

 period, by an accidental supply from a ship. Doubt- 

 less, from the general use they make of this me- 

 tal, it may be supposed to come from some con- 

 stant source, by way of traffic, and that not of a very 

 late date ; for they are as dexterous in using their 

 tools as the longest practice can make them. The 

 most probable way, therefore, by which we can sup- 

 pose that they get their iron, is by trading for it with 

 other Indian tribes, who either have immediate com- 

 munication with European settlements upon that 

 continent, or receive it, perhaps, through several in- 

 termediate nations. The same might be said of the 

 brass and copper found amongst them. 



* We now know that Captain Cook's conjecture was well found- 

 ed. It appears, from the Journal of this Voyage, already referred 

 to, that the Spaniards had intercourse with the natives of this coast, 

 only in three places, in latitude 41 7': in latitude 47 21'; and in 

 latitude 57 18'. So that they were not within two degrees of 

 Nootka; and it is most probable, that the people there never heard 

 of these Spanish ships. 



