248 



yonvnal of a Voyage through the 



at a very low ebb, and we had, as yet, no reason to expect 

 any assistance from the natives. Our stock was, at this 

 time, reduced to twenty pounds weight of pemmican, fif- 

 teen pounds of rice, snd six pounds of flour, among ten 

 half -starved men, in a leaky vessel, and on a barbarous 

 coast. Our course from the river was about West-South- 

 West, distance ten miles. 



Sunday 21. At forty minutes past four this morning it 

 was iow water, which made fifteen feet perpendicular 

 height below the high-water mark of last night. Mr. Mac- 

 •kay collected a quantity of small muscles, which we boiled. 

 Our people did not partake of this regale, as they -arc 

 wholly unacquainted with sea shell-fish. Our young chief 

 being missing, we imagined that he had taken his flight, 

 but, as we were preparing to depart, he fortunately made 

 his appearance from the woods, where he had been to 

 take his rest after his feast of last night. At six we were 

 upon the water, when we cleared the small bay, which we 

 named Porcupine Cove, and steered West-South- West 

 for seven miles, we then opened a channel about two miles 

 and an half wide at South-South- West, and had a view of 

 ten or twelve miles into it. As I could not ascertain the 

 distance from the open sea, and being uncertain whether 

 we were in a bay, or among inlets and channels of islands, 

 I confined my search to a proper place for taking an obser- 

 vation. We steered, therefore, along the land on the left, 

 West-North-West a mile and an half; then North-West 

 one-fourth of a mile, and North three miles to an island ; 

 the land continuing to run North-North-West, then along 

 the island, South-South-West half a mile, West a mile 

 and an half, and from thence directly across to the land on 

 the left (where 1 had an altitude) South-West three miles.* 

 From this position a channel, of which the island we left 

 appeared to make a cheek, bears North by East. 



Under the land we met with three canoes, with fifteen 

 men in them, and laden with their moveables, as if pro- 

 ceeding to a new situation, or returning to a former one. 

 They manifested no kind of mistrust or fear of us, but 

 entered into conversation with our young man, as I sup- 

 posed, to obtain some information concerning us. It 

 did not appear that they were the same people as those 

 we had lately seen, as they spoke the language of our 



* The Cape or Point Menzies of Vancouver. 



