NATIVES OF NOOTKA SOUND. 



499 



First Lord of the Admiralty. He visited five of these islands, 

 one of which was Oahu. He found a remarkable similarity of 

 manners and coincidence of language with those of the Society 

 Islands, and in his journal asks the following question: — "How 

 shall we account for this nation having spread itself in so many 

 detached islands, so widely separated from each other, in every 

 quarter of the Pacific Ocean? We find it from New Zealand 

 in the south to the Sandwich Islands in the north ! And, in 

 another direction, from Easter Island to the New Hebrides ! 

 That is, over an extent of three thousand six hundred miles 

 north and south, and five thousand miles east and west !" 



From the Sandwich Islands Cook sailed to the northeast, 

 and on the 7th of March struck the coast of America, upon the 

 shores of the tract named New Albion by Sir Francis Drake. 

 The skies being very threatening, he gave the name of Cape 

 Foulweather to a promontory forming the northern extremity. 

 Late in March the two vessels entered a broad inlet, to which 

 Cook gave the name of King George's Sound; but it is better 

 known now by its original name of Nootka Sound. Cook 

 found the natives friendly and willing to sell and buy. They 

 were under the common stature, their persons being full and 

 plump without corpulence, their faces round, with high promi- 

 nent cheeks, noses flattened at the base with wide nostrils, low 

 forehead, small black eyes, thick round lips, and well-set though 

 not remarkably white teeth. The color of their skin, when not 

 incrusted with paint or dirt, was nearly as white as that of 

 Europeans, and of that pale effete cast which distinguishes the 

 Southern nations of Europe. A remarkable sameness charac- 

 terized the countenances of the whole nation, the expression of 

 all being dull and phlegmatic. It was not easy to distinguish 

 the women from the men; and not a female was seen, even 

 among those in the prime of life, who had the least pretensions 

 to being called handsome. 



Cook gives a very long and detailed account of the manners 



