SQG from CALIFORNIA TO 



entire possession of them as soon as circumstances 

 shall permit. Mr. Wilcox was now determined 

 to sail to the coast of California, to try his fortune 

 there. Before we parted, he gave me an account 

 of a group of islands discovered, in 1814, by the 

 ship America, from the United States, commanded 

 by Captain Andrew Walther, in a voyage from the 

 Marquesas to Canton. This group, he said, con- 

 sisted of low coral islands, overgrown with w^oods, 

 and was about thirty miles in circumference. The 

 captain found a convenient anchoring-place, on the 

 west side, where he landed to leave some goats 

 in the island. The latitude, by observation, is 

 S° 48' N. J longitude, according to the chronome- 

 ters, 159° 15', west of Greenwich. 



The 28th of November. At day-break we fired 

 a gun, and soon after saw the royal pilot, Mr, 

 Hebottel, accompanied by eight double canoes, 

 each manned by sixteen or twenty rowers. In each 

 of them was the owner, here called by the English 

 Jerri or chief, to see that order Avas preserved in 

 towing. Young sat in a small light boat, and di- 

 rected the whole. The scene on board the boats 

 was very entertaining ; they laughed and joked, 

 and even their work was done as if in play, and 

 the islanders appeared Uke sportive children. We 

 had a perfect calm ; the anchors were weighed, 

 and the canoes towed with such strength, that the 

 Rurick, by the log, made three miles an hour. In 

 half an hour we reached the harbour, and cast an- 



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