PACIFIC AND BEERING’S STRAIT. 
281 
purpose ; but latterly she shrunk from the scrutiny with a bashfulness CHAP, 
that would have done credit to a more civilized female ; and on my 
attempting to uncover her head, she cast a look of inquiry at her August, 
husband, who vociferated “naga,” when she very properly refused to 
comply. The young men were very importunate and curious, even to 
annoyance ; and there is little doubt that if any persons in our dress 
had fallen in with a powerful party of these savages, they would very 
soon have been made to exchange their suit of broad cloth for the 
more humble dress of furs. Their honesty was not more conspicuous 
than their moderation, as they appropriated to themselves several 
articles belonging to Mr. Collie. 
During three hours that we were on shore, the tide fell one foot ; 
it had subsided eighteen inches from its greatest height when we first 
landed, and when we put off was still ebbing to the S. S. W. at the 
rate of half a mile an hour. Four hours afterwards, when by our 
observations on shore it must have changed, it ran N.^E. at the 
same rate, and aiforded another instance of the flood coming from the 
southward. 
A thick fog came on after we returned on board. The next 
morning we closed with the land near Cape Beaufort, with a view of 
trying the veins of coal in its neighbourhood, as we were very short of 
that article; but the wind veered round to the N. N. W., and by 
making it a lee shore prevented the boats landing, and rendered it 
expedient for the ship, which was very light, and hardly capable of 
beating off, to get an offing. The day was fine, and afforded an op- 
portunity of verifying some of our points, which we had the satisfac- 
tion to find quite correct. The next day the wind veered to the 
S.S.W., and then to the westward. Throughout the 23d, 24th, and 
part of the 25th, it blew hard, with a short head sea, thick weather, and 
latterly with snow showers, which obliged the ship to keep at so great a 
distance that the land expedition would have passed her unobserved, had 
they been in progress along the coast. With these winds we kept off the 
coast. The night of the 25th was clear and cold, vdth about four hours’ 
darkness, during which we beheld a brilliant display of the aurora borealis, 
which was the first time that phenomenon had been exhibited to us in 
