240 FROM THE ST. LAWRENCE ISLANDS 



ate with an excellent appetite. At table I met 

 the vice-governor, as he is called here, Don Louis 

 de Torres ; and this amiable man particularly inter- 

 ested us, as he had visited the Carolinas, and even 

 the group of Ulle. He related to us a great deal 

 about them, and promised to give us, in writing, 

 the observations he had made there.* 



De Torres was here when the Carolinians, in 

 1788, visited the island of Guahon, in a great num- 

 ber of small boats. The savages pleased him very 

 much by their mildness ; he received them with 

 kindness, and persuaded also the governor, who 

 dismissed them loaded with presents, and since 

 this time they have had the courage to come 

 every year. They told Torres that they had pre- 

 viously had a commercial intercourse with the 

 inhabitants of this island, and only given it up 

 on hearing of the settlement of the white men, and 

 having themselves been witnesses of their cruelty. 

 In 1788, after a long time had elapsed, they under- 

 took this expedition to barter for iron. Torres 

 asked them how they had found their way here, 

 as the distance from Ulle to Guahon is above three 

 hundred miles ; they answered, that the description 



* As M. Von Chamisso is master of the Spanish language, 

 he undertook, with pleasure, to copy the remarks on the cus- 

 toms of the Carolinians, and to lay them before the public, in 

 the third volume of my voyage. They are so far highly inter- 

 esting, as scarcely any thing is hitherto known of the Carolinas. 

 For this reason, I resolved to remain here longer than I first 

 intended. 



