on the north-west coast, and particularly to the Spaniards; and he was desired, if he met with any Spanish navigators, engaged in a service similar to his own, to offer them a free and unreserved communication of all his charts and discoveries. He was instructed to survey on his return the western coast of South America, from lat. 44° to Cape Horn. On his voyage out, Vancouver surveyed a considerable portion of the southern coast of New Holland, where he discovered King George the Third's Sound; at New Zealand, also, he was actively and usefully employed in completing the surveys which Cook had left unfinished. In leaving New Zealand, the Chatham and Discovery were separated by a gale. Vancouver, in the latter ship, discovered some rocky islets, which he named the Snares, and afterwards visited a considerable island, which he called Opara; but the true name of which is now discovered to be Rapa. In Matavai Bay he rejoined his comrade, captain Broughton, who had discovered Chatham Island, not far to the east of New Zealand.

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In April, 1792, Vancouver arrived on the coast of New Albion. On approaching Nootka Sound, he fell in with a ship commanded by captain Grey, the same person who was said to have passed through the Straits of Fuca to an extensive sea in 1789; but the American captain disavowed the reports of his navigation which had reached Europe. He penetrated, he said, only fifty miles to the east-south-east, where the strait was still five leagues wide; and the natives told him that it afterwards turned to the northward. Vancouver soon after entered the inlet, and anchored on the first night further within it than captain Grey or any other European had as yet penetrated. In his voyage thus far, he had examined 215 leagues of coast so closely, that he had seen throughout the surf breaking on the shore. On ascending an island in the middle of the inlet, he was enchanted with the prospect that met his eye. In every direction, noble trees were distributed as if in a park; and rose-trees in full bloom predominated amongst the brushwood. The country around appeared fertile, opening in some places into large meadows, while in others, especially on the main land, it was a wilderness of lofty trees, among which the oak was most conspicuous. A deer was bought from the natives for a small piece of copper, about a foot square, for they prize this metal above iron. They expressed much horror and disgust at the sight of a venison pasty, and some pains were requisite to convince them that it was not made of human flesh. The promptitude of their suspicion, and the strength of their feelings in this instance, prove that cannibalism, though not practised by themselves, was known by them to exist among some neighbouring tribes. In proceeding to the northward through this inlet, every branch of

which he explored, Vancouver met with two small Spanish ships, employed like himself in making a minute survey of the coast. The two commanders immediately united their labours, and even their names, in this part of the survey. The island which forms the western boundary of the inlet, and on which Nootka is situated, is named Vancouver and Quadra Island. The English navigator, however, imposed on the whole archipelago the collective name of New Georgia; and to the wide inlet, which ramifies into a number of inferior harbours, he gave the name of the Gulf of Georgia.

On his arrival at Nootka Sound, difficulties were started by the Spanish commander with respect to the terms of the intended restitution; and Vancouver, sending captain Broughton home in consequence, to acquaint government with the evasive conduct of the Spaniards, proceeded to complete his survey to the southward. The Columbia River was explored, as far as it was navigable for a small vessel. The natives were found, in general, to resemble those of Nootka in dress and manners, though not in language; they have many traits of civilization; and, in some places, evince a decided taste for architecture. Their houses are well-built wooden edifices, the timbers being well mortised and covered with planks twenty feet long, two feet wide, and perfectly smooth; so that when these edifices are considered in relation to the imperfect implements employed to frame them, they must appear wonderful monuments of ingenuity and labour. On the front of these houses is generally painted a human face of great size and hideous features; the mouth, which is represented as open, and forming an oval three feet in height and two in width, being in the door of the habitation. In January, 1793, Vancouver proceeded to winter in the Sandwich Islands, bringing with him a stock of live cattle, which he had collected in the Spanish settlements. In the spring of the same year he resumed his survey of the American coast, and returned again to the Sandwich Islands in the winter of 1794. His presence here may have exerted an important influence on the destiny of those Islands, as he was looked up to with peculiar respect by the great Tame-Tame-hah, the extraordinary man who was the immediate instrument of effecting a great and salutary revolution in the political and social condition of those islands. The islanders had already become acquainted with four European nations; they had learned that there were many others nearly equal to those in power and intelligence; and they perceived, perhaps, that, at no great distance of time, they would become the despised subjects of one of those foreign nations: they preferred, therefore, to place themselves voluntarily under the protection of England. For this purpose, a convocation of chiefs was called, and the cession

of Owhyhee to the sovereign of Great Britain was solemnly made, on the 25th of February, 1794. This important event was preceded by long deliberate discussion, and was concluded with great formality. The court appeared on the occasion in all its splendour, and dramatic entertainments were exhibited on a great scale.

In the spring of the same year, Vancouver directed his course to the American coast, intending to complete his survey, beginning at the remotest point. On entering Cook's River, he found that it was but an inlet, no stream falling into it which could entitle it to the name it had received. In passing to the south, he met with a fleet of skin canoes, such as he could not have expected to encounter in those seas: there were above 200 of these frail vessels, each carrying two men. The intercourse with Europeans seemed to produce disastrous effects, in the first instance, here as well as in the South Sea islands: the natives were clad in skins of birds and beasts of no value, their comfortable fur garments being all disposed of in trade. At length, on the 22d of August, 1794, the survey of the north-west coast of America was brought to a conclusion; and, in October of the following year, the ships arrived in the Thames, the bad weather and other circumstances having prevented the survey of the western shores of Patagonia. During the four years that the ships were employed in this laborious service, only two men died in both the crews. A circumstance which, if the mortality that attended long voyages while the arts of navigation were imperfect be considered, reflects the highest credit on the care and skill of the commander. The unceasing exertions which Vancouver himself made to complete the gigantic task of surveying 9,000 miles of unknown and intricate coasts-a labour chiefly performed in open boats-made an inroad on his constitution from which he never recovered; and, declining gradually, he died in May, 1798, before the last volume of his narrative was completely finished for the press. But he may proudly take his place with Drake, Cook, Baffin, Parry, and other British navigators, to whom England looks with pride and geographers with gratitude.

No further knowledge was obtained of the north-west coast of America until 1816. A Russian nobleman of large fortune, count Romanzoff, fitted out the Rurick, a small vessel of 180 tons, for a voyage of discovery, with a crew of twenty men, besides the officers and naturalists. He entrusted her to the command of lieutenant Kotzebue, the son of the celebrated German writer of that name. Kotzebue sailed from Plymouth in October, 1815; and, in March following, touched at Easter Island, where the natives, exasperated by the injuries committed on them by the American traders, resisted his landing. On the

1st of August, 1816, he discovered, on the American shore to the North of Behring's Strait, a wide opening commencing in latitude 66° 42′ 30′′, longitude 164° 14' 50". He entered this inlet; and, in the course of a fortnight, made a rapid and rather unsatisfactory survey of its shores. He suspected the existence of a passage out of it on the south east, communicating, perhaps, with Norton Sound: another channel seemed to conduct to the west. The naturalist who accompanied him were surprised to find here on the shore an ice-berg, one hundred feet in height, and covered on the summit with a layer of soil. and luxuriant vegetation. From a distance it had the appearance of a chalk cliff; at its base lay an accumulation of bones and mammoths' teeth, as Kotzebue calls them; though from his description, naturalists have concluded them to be the teeth of the elephant. The inhabitants seemed pretty numerous, and were well clad in furs and skins: they were acquainted, it appears, with tobacco, which they obtained from the Tshuktski. Kotzebue quitted the inlet to which he has given his name, on the 15th of August, and crossed over to visit the coast of Asia: by this imprudent step, he lost the opportunity of making some important discoveries on the northern coast of America. The sea, as far as he could descry, was quite free from ice, and a steady current set to the eastward. He wintered in that archipelago of the Pacific that includes the Nautilus, Chatham, and Calvert Islands. To all these he gave new names, and seems to have regarded them as new discoveries. In the following year, he again sailed to the north, to resume the track which he had so unwisely discontinued the preceding season. In his voyage northward he was met by dreadful gales, and, being thrown, by the pitching of the ship, against a beam with such violence as to break his breast-bone, his health was so seriously affected as to render him incapable of bearing the vicissitudes of a northern climate. His spirit being once sunk, difficulties were not wanting to justify him in abandoning an enterprise to which he felt no longer inclined, and he returned, to Europe without making any further attempt to penetrate the polar sea. As no harbour was previously known on the shores of Behring's Strait, the discovery of Kotzebue's Inlet, in which good shelter may be easily found, was of great importance, and the whale fishers were not slow to take advantage of it.

The immense line of coast which Vancouver surveyed, and which Spain was so anxious to appropriate, is now, for the most. part, divided between Russia, England, and the United States. The British portion is separated from the American by the river Caledonia, which flows from the Rocky Mountains into Admiralty Inlet, in lat. 48°. Nine degrees further north commence. the Russian territories in America. No colonies have been

planted on these shores; but the British traders from Canada and Hudson's Bay, braving all the hardships of the journey across the continent, have descended into the country from the Rocky Mountains. The natives are a cheerful active race, and friendly to the whites, who supply them with the comforts of life, and give their industry an object. They have encouraged the traders to settle among them. The latter have given the British dominion on this coast the name of New Caledonia. They describe it as a fruitful country, well watered with mountain streams, and so abounding in lakes that above one sixth of the surface is under water. The natives call themselves la' Cullies, or Water Travellers, being accustomed to pass from one village to another in their canoes. The British traders have established in the country a regular chain of forts or posts for carrying on their traffic.

CHAP. XII.

INTERIOR OF NORTH AMERICA.

Eagerness of the Americans to engage in the Fur Trade.-Emigration towards the West.-Daniel Boon.-Louisiana purchased by the United States.-Expedition of Lewis and Clarke.-They proceed to ascend the Missouri.-The Sioux Indians.-The Falls of the Missouri.-Its Sources in the Rocky Mountains. The Party descend the Columbia.-Dangers of the Voyage. They reach the Sea.-Winter on the Coast.-Journey of Pike to the Sources of the Mississippi.-He proceeds to explore the Sources of the Arkansas and Red River. Abundance of Game.-Pike reaches the Rocky Mountains.-Sufferings of his Party. He enters by Mistake the Spanish Territory.-Taken Prisoner. His Liberation and Return.-Expedition of Major Long.-He ascends the Platte.The sandy Deserts.-James's Peak.-Returns by the Arkansas and Canadian Rivers.-The Kaskaia Indians.-Journey of Cass and Schoolcraft. -Of Long and Keating.-Journey of Hearne to the Coppermine River.His unsuccessful Attempts.-He at length reaches the Sea.-Progress of the Fur Traders in the Interior.-Journey of Mackenzie.-He descends the Mackenzie River to its Mouth.-His Expedition across the Rocky Mountains.He reaches the Pacific.

Soon after the British colonies in America had won, by a hard struggle, their political independence, their attention was strongly invited to the lucrative trade carried on for furs on the opposite shores of the continent. Ships from Boston, we have seen, arrived at Nootka Sound, after a perilous voyage of a whole year, to procure a cargo of furs. The infant republic was at first too much engrossed in making those arrangements required by the novelty of its political existence, and had a population too feeble in proportion to the vast extent of territory which it claimed, to think of stretching its dominion as far as the Pacific Ocean; but the course of political events suggested and foster