May 1830. 



TIDE — CHANNEL — DEVIL. 



441 



we must either drive them away by force, or be plagued with 

 them all night, we at once packed up our things, and wished 

 them good evening. About three miles further westward, we 

 again landed, and fixed our tent in a cove, which gave us good 

 shelter through the night, without any interruption. It was 

 high water this afternoon at four o'clock (being the day of full 

 moon), and the tide rose three feet. The channel here, and 

 opposite the Narrow, is about three miles wide ; on its north 

 side is an unbroken line of high mountains, covered with snow to 

 within about a thousand feet of the water. Southward are like- 

 wise snow-covered heights, so that the channel is formed by the 

 valley lying between two parallel ridges of high mountains. 



8th. This morning it froze very sharply. We started at 

 sun-rise, with a fine breeze from the eastward, and made a long 

 run before it. The channel preserved the same character, and 

 nearly the same width ; on the north, the mountains continued 

 without any opening ; but a few miles farther, we saw what 

 appeared to be one. I soon found that there was one passage 

 leading westward, and another rather to the southward of west, 

 which appeared to open into the sea. The easterly breeze 

 failing, and squalls from the N.W. succeeding, we did not 

 make much progress in the afternoon ; yet before dark had 

 reached the place where the two channels commence, and stopped 

 for the night on a small island. Soon after dark, one of the boat's 

 crew was startled by two large eyes staring at him, out of a 

 thick bush, and he ran to his companions, saying he had seen 

 the devil ! A hearty laugh at his expense was followed by a 

 shot at the bush, which brought to the ground a magnificent 

 horned owl. 



" Next day, we continued our westerly route. No natives 

 were seen, though a few wigwams, of the round-topped kind, 

 were passed. The westernmost sharp-pointed, or Yapoo wig- 

 wam, was on the main-land, close to the island of the Devil ; 

 it was made of small trees, piled up in a circle (the branches 

 ^nd roots having been broken off) with the smaller ends meet- 

 ing at the top. The boat's crew said it had been a ' Meeting- 

 House,' and perhaps they were not far wrong ; for being so 



