Early Botanical Explorers on the Pacific Coast 3 3 
his bow and quiver beside my gun, and then struck a light and gave him to 
smoke and a few beads. With my pencil I made a rough sketch of the cone 
and pine I wanted and showed him it, when he instantly pointed to the 
hills about fifteen or twenty miles to the south. As I wanted to go in that 
direction, he seemingly with much good-will went with me. At midday 
I reached my long-wished Pinus (called by the Umpqua tribe Natele), 
and lost no time in examining and endeavouring to collect specimens and 
seeds. New or strange things seldom fail to make great impressions, and 
often at first we are liable to over-rate them; and lest I should never see 
my friends to tell them verbally of this most beautiful and immensely 
large tree, I now state the dimensions of the largest one I could find that 
was blown down by the wind: Three feet from the ground, 59 feet 9 
inches in circumference; 134 feet from the ground, 17 feet 5 inches; ex¬ 
treme length, 215 feet. The trees are remarkably straight; bark uncom¬ 
monly smooth for such large timber, of a whitish or light brown colour; 
and yields a great quantity of gum of a bright amber colour. The large 
trees are destitute of branches, generally for two-thirds the length of the 
tree; branches pendulous, and the cones hanging from their points like 
small sugar-loaves in a grocer’s shop, it being only on the very largest trees 
that cones are seen, and the putting myself in possession of three cones (all 
I could) nearly brought my life to an end. Being unable to climb or hew 
down any, I took my gun and was busy clipping them from the branches 
with ball when eight Indians came at the report of my gun. They were all 
painted with red earth, armed with bows, arrows, spears of bone, and flint 
knives, and seemed to me anything but friendly. I endeavoured to explain 
to them what I wanted and they seemed satisfied and sat down to smoke, 
but had no sooner done so than I perceived one string his bow and another 
sharpen his flint knife with a pair of wooden pincers and hang it on the 
wrist of the right hand, which gave me ample testimony of their inclina¬ 
tion. To save myself I could not do by flight, and without any hesitation 
I went backwards six paces and cocked my gun, and then pulled from my 
belt one of my pistols, which I held in my left hand. I was determined to 
fight for life. As I as much as possible endeavoured to preserve my cool¬ 
ness and perhaps did so, I stood eight or ten minutes looking at them and 
