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pended canoe, nor did it appear to liave been intended that it hshould. The 

 skeletons, found thus disposed in canoes or in baskets, bore a very small 

 proportion to the number of skulls and other human bones indiscriminately 

 scattered about the shores. Such are the effects; but of the cause or causes 

 that have operated to produce them, we remained totally unaccpiainted, 

 whether occasioned by epidemic disease or recent wars. The character and 

 general deportment of the few inhabitants we occasionally saw by no means 

 countenanced the latter opinion; they were uniformly civil and friendly, 

 without manifesting the least sign of fear or suspicion at our approach, nor 

 did their appearance indicate their having been much inured to hostilities. 

 Several of their stoutest men had been seen perfectly naked, and, contrary to 

 what might have been expected of rude natives habituated to warfare, their 

 skins were mostly unblemished by scars, excepting such as the small-pox 

 seemed to have occasioned, a disease which there is g-reat reason to believe 

 is very fatal amongst them. It is not, however, very easy to draw any just 

 conclusions on the true cause from which this havoc of the human race pro- 

 ceeded: this must remain for the investigation of others who may have more 

 leisure and a better opportunity to direct such an inquiry; yet it may not 

 be unreasonable to conjecture that the present apparent depopulation may 

 have arisen, in some measure, from the inhabitants of this interior part hav- 

 ing been induced to quit their former abode, and to have moved nearer the 

 exterior coast for the convenience of obtaining, in the immediate mart, with 

 more ease and at a cheaper rate, those valuable articles of commerce that 

 within these last years have been brought to the sea-coasts of this continent 

 by Europeans and the citizens of America, and which are in great estima- 

 tion amongst these people, being possessed by all in a greater or less degree." 

 While surveying Admii alty Inlet, Vancouver met with further parties 

 of Indians. Of the Skokomish, he says: "Towards noon, I went ashore at 

 the village point (southern end of Bainbridge Island) for the purpose of 

 observing the latitude; on which occasion I visited the village, if it may be 

 dignified, as it appeared the most lowly and meanest of its kind. The best 

 of the huts were poor and miserable, constructed something after the fashion 

 of a soldier's tent, by two cross-sticks, about five feet high, connected at 

 each end by a ridge-pole from one to the other, over some of which was 



