338 CAPTAIN COOK'S VOYAGES 



flat narrow ornament, made chiefly out of a solid shell or 

 bone, cut into little narrow pieces, like small teeth. 



" The men frequently paint their faces of a bright red, and 

 of a black colour, and sometimes of a blue or leaden colour ; 

 but not in any regular figure ; and the women, in some 

 measure, endeavour to imitate them, by puncturing or 

 staining the chin with black that comes to a point in each 

 cheek ; a practice very similar to which is in fashion among 

 the females of Greenland. Upon the whole, I have no- 

 where seen savages who take more pains than these people 

 to ornament, or rather to disfigure, their persons. 



" For defensive armour, they have a kind of jacket, or 

 coat of mail, made of thin laths, bound together with sinews, 

 which makeMt quite flexible, though so close as not to 

 admit an arrow or dart. It only covers the trunk of the 

 body, and may not be improperly compared to a woman's 

 stays. 



" Besides the animals which were seen at Nootka, there 

 are some others in this place which we did not find there ; 

 such as the white bear ; of whose skins the natives brought 

 several pieces, and some entire skins of cubs, from which 

 their size could not be determined. We also found the 

 wolverine, or quickhatch, which had very bright colours ; 

 a larger sort of ermine than the common one, which is 

 the same as at Nootka, varied with a brown colour, and 

 with scarcely any black on its tail. The natives also 

 brought the skin of the head of some very large animal ; 

 but it could not be positively determined what it was, 

 though, from the colour and shagginess of the hair, and its 

 unlikeness to any land animal, we judged it might probably 

 be that of the large male ursine seal or sea-bear. The 

 number of skins we found here, points out the great plenty 

 of these several animals just mentioned ; but it is remark- 

 able that we neither saw the skins of the moose nor of the 

 common deer. 



" The beads and iron found amongst these people left 

 no room to doubt that they must have received them from 

 some civilized nation. We were pretty certain, from cir- 

 cumstances already mentioned, that we were the first 

 Europeans with whom they had ever communicated 

 directly ; and it remains only to be decided from what 

 quarter they had got our manufactures by intermediate 

 conveyance. And there cannot be the least doubt of their 

 having received these articles, through the intervention of 

 the more inland tribes, from Hudson's Bay, or the settle- 

 ment on the Canadian Lakes. 



" May the 21st, I steered to the south-west, and passed 

 a lofty promontory. As the discovery of it was connected 



