230 



tion, as they weru removed from one station to another, ehher as inehnation 

 might lead or necessity compel ; and, having a very extensive range of 

 domain, they were not liable to interruption or opposition from their few 

 surrounding neighbors. 



" From these circumstances alone, it may be somewhat premature to 

 conclude that this delightful country has alwa3^s been thus thinly inhabited; 

 on the contrary, there are reasons to believe it has been infinitely more 

 populous. Each of the deserted villages was nearly, if not quite, equal to 

 contain all the scattered inhabitants we saw, according to the custom of the 

 Nootka people, to whom these have great affinity in their fixed habitations 

 and in their general character. It is also j^ossible that most of the clear 

 spaces may have been indebted for the removal of their timber and under- 

 wood to manual labor. Their general appearance furnished this opinion, 

 and their situation on the most pleasant and commanding eminences, pro- 

 tected by the forest on every side except that which would have precluded 

 a view of them, seemed to encourage the idea. Not many years since, each 

 of these vacant spaces might have been allotted to the habitations of differ- 

 ent societies, and the variation observed in their extent might have been 

 conformable to the size of each village, on the site of which, since their 

 abdication or extermination, nothing but the smaller shrubs and plants had 

 yet been able to rear their heads. 



"In our different excursions, particularly those in the neighborhood of 

 Port Discovery, the skull, limbs, ribs, and back-bones, or some other vestiges 

 of the human body, were found in many places promiscuously scattered 

 about the beach in great numbers. Similar relics were also frequently met 

 with during our survey in the boats; and I was informed by the officers 

 that, in their several perambulations, the like appearances had presented 

 themselves so rejoeatedly and in such abundance as to produce an idea that 

 the environs of Port Discovery were a general cemetery for the whole sur- 

 rounding country. Notwithstanding these circumstances do not amount 

 to a direct proof of the extensive population they indicate, yet, when 

 combined with other appearances, they warranted an opinion that, at no 

 very remote period, tliis country had been far more populous than at present. 

 Some of the human bodies were found disposed of in a very singular man- 



