380 Scientific Intelligence. 



tercourse with the American traders. The disgusting custom of flattening 

 the heads of their children was unknown here, but it was replaced by ano- 

 ther equally strange, though confined to one sex only. The females had a 

 large incision along their lower lip, in which they put an oval piece of 

 wood, varying in size according to the degree of dilatation to which the 

 wound has been subjected, so that it would seem as if some acquired de- 

 formity was necessary to complete the character of savage life. Previously 

 to returning to the Columbia, the expedition visited Nootka and De Fu- 

 ca's Straits. At the former place, the suspicious character of the natives 

 prevented our naturalists from spending much time on shore. It is really 

 painful to reflect, that the only savage chief of this country perhaps now 

 alive, who was brought into notice by Captain Cook, is one of the most 

 daring characters upon the coast. So late as the year 1816, this individual 

 succeeded in capturing an American vessel, of which he murdered the cap- 

 tain and all the crew except two individuals, who, after several years' cap- 

 tivity, escaped on board a vessel which accidentally visited Nootka. This 

 chief well remembers Mr Mears and Captain Vancouver, and even speaks 

 with gratitude of them. Maquina, a well-known character, is a stout 

 healthy old man, but is still the same importunate beggar that former visitors 

 had found him to be. His tribe indeed is now seldom visited by traders, 

 on account of the hostile character he acquired, and the poverty of the 

 place, yielding very few furs. 



The straits of De Fuca, and the gulf of Georgia, are still more rarely 

 visited. The natives bear a considerable resemblance both to those of 

 Nootka and of the Columbia. Their language is similar ; and they adopt 

 the custom of flattening the heads of their children. They appeared 

 to our navigators to be a peaceable and hospitable race, occupying both 

 sides of the coast in considerable numbers, and subsisting chiefly upon the 

 hunchback salmon of Vancouver and Mackenzie, and upon a species of ha- 

 libut. In the summer, they reside close by the water's edge, and there 

 lay in a stock of dried salmon for their winter provision. They migrate in- 

 to the interior about the latter end of the month of August, and return to 

 the shore in the month of April. 



On returning to the Columbia, Mr Scouler again saw Mr Douglas, who 

 had made the most successful journey to the falls of the Columbia, at a 

 distance of 250 miles from the coast. During this interesting route, he 

 had the good fortune to detect, besides several new plants, the greater num- 

 ber of those found by Lewis and Clarke. This indefatigable young man, 

 still under the auspices of the Horticultural Society of London, is fulfilling 

 the mission of that valuable institution, by returning over land to the east 

 coast of America. During the remainder of Mr Scouler 's residence upon 

 the North-West Coast, his attention was not wholly occupied by the bota- 

 ny and zoology of the country : he lost no opportunity of acquiring as com- 

 plete a knowledge, as the nature of the circumstances would allow, of the 

 manners and customs of the Indians ; add to which he collected many ar- 

 ticles of curiosity, such as the dresses, arms, domestic utensils, skulls of the 

 natives, and a well-preserved mummy. 



A more full account of the voyage of this zealous naturalist will be given 

 in the present and succeeding numbers of our Journal. 



