Vikings of the Pacific Part 9

The great, indeed, primary and only authorities for Drake's adventures are, of course, Hakluyt, Vol. III; for the fate of the lost crews, _Purchas' Pilgrims_, Vol. III and Vol. I, Book II, and Vol. IV; and the _Hakluyt Society Proceedings_, 1854, which are really a reprint of _The World Encompa.s.sed_, by Francis Fletcher, the chaplain, in 1628, with the addition of doc.u.ments contemporary with Fletcher's by unknown writers. The t.i.tle-page of _The World Encompa.s.sed_ reads almost like an old ballad--"_for the stirring up of heroick spirits to benefit their countries, and eternize their names by like {168} attempts_."

Kohl and Davidson's _Reports of the Coast and Geodetic Survey_, 1884 and 1886, are also invaluable as establis.h.i.+ng Drake's land-fall in California. Miller Christy's Silver Map of the World gives a splendid facsimile of the medal issued to commemorate Drake's return, of which the original is in the British Museum. Among biographers, Corbett's _Drake_, and Barrow's _Life of Sir Francis Drake_, give full details of his early and personal life, including, of course, his great services in the Armada.

Furious controversy has waged over Drake on two points: Did he murder Doughty? Did he go as far north on the west coast of America as 48 degrees? Hakluyt's account says 43 degrees; _The World Encompa.s.sed_, by Fletcher, the chaplain, says 48 degrees, though all accounts agree it was at 38 degrees he made harbor. I have not dealt with either dispute, stating the bare facts, leaving each reader to draw his own conclusions, though it seems to me a little foolish to contend that the claim of the 48th degree was an afterthought interpolated by the writer to stretch British possessions over a broader swath; for even two hundred years after the issue of the Silver Map of the World, when Cook was on this coast, so little was known of the west sh.o.r.es of America by Englishmen that men were still looking out for a Gamaland, or imaginary continent in the middle of the Pacific.

The words of the narrative bearing on America are: "We came to 42 degree of North lat.i.tude, where on the night following (June 3) we found such alterations of heat, into extreme and nipping cold, that our men in general did grievously complain thereof, some of them feeling their health much impaired thereby; neither was it that this chanced in the night alone, but the day following carried with it not only the markes, but the stings and force of the night. . .; besides that the pinching and biting air was nothing altered, the very ropes of our s.h.i.+p were stiffe, and the rain which fell was an unnatural congealed and frozen substance so that we seemed to be rather in the frozen Zone than any where so neere unto the sun or these hotter climates . . . it came to that extremity in sayling but two degrees farther to the northward in our course, that though seamen lack not good stomachs . . . it was a question whether hands should feed their mouths, or rather keepe from the pinching cold that did benumme them . . . our meate as soone as it was remooved from the fire, would presently in a manner be frozen up, and our ropes and tackling in a few days were growne to that stiffnesse . . . yet would not our general be discouraged but as well by comfortable speeches, of the divine providence, and of G.o.d's loving care over his children, out of the Scriptures . . . the land in that part of America, beares farther out into the West than we before imagined, we were neerer on it than we were aware; yet the neerer still we came unto it, the more extremity of cold did sease upon us. The fifth day of June, we were forced by contrary windes to runne in with the sh.o.a.re, which we then first descried, and to cast anchor in a bad bay, the best roade we could for the present meete with, where we were not without some danger by reason of the many extreme gusts and flawes that beate upon us, which if they ceased, and were still at any time . . . there followed most vile, thicke and stinking fogges against which the sea prevailed nothing {169} . . . to go further North, the extremity of the cold would not permit us and the winds directly bent against us, having once gotten us under sayle againe, commanded us to the Southward whether we would or no.

"From the height of 48 degrees in which now we were to 38, we found the land by coasting alongst it, to be but low and plaine--every hill whereof we saw many but none were high, though it were in June, and the sunne in his nearest approach . . . being covered with snow. . . . In 38 deg. 30 min. we fell with a convenient and fit harborough and June 17 came to anchor therein, where we continued till the 23rd day of July following . . . neither could we at any time in whole fourteen days together find the aire so cleare as to be able to take the height of sunne or starre . . . after our departure from the heate we always found our bodies, not as sponges, but strong and hardened, more able to beare out cold, though we came out of the excesse of heate, then chamber champions could hae beene, who lye in their feather beds till they go to sea.

". . . Trees without leaves, and the ground without greennes in these months of June and July . . . as for the cause of this extremity, they seem . . . chiefest we conceive to be the large spreading of the Asian and American continent, which (somewhat Northward of these parts) if they be not fully joyned, yet seeme they to come very neere one to the other. From whose high and snow-covered mountains, the North and Northwest winds (the constant visitants of those coasts) send abroad their frozen nimphes, to the infecting of the whole aire with this insufferable sharpnesse. . . . Hence comes the generall squalidnesse and barrennesse of the countrie, hence comes it that in the midst of their summer, the snow hardly departeth . . . from their hils at all, hence come those thicke mists and most stinking fogges, which increase so much the more, by how much higher the pole is raised . . . also from these reasons we coniecture that either there is no pa.s.sage at all through these Northern coasts which is most likely or if there be, that yet it is unnavigable. . . . Add here unto, that though we searched the coast diligently, even unto the 48 degree, yet found we not the land to trend so much as one point in any place towards the East, but rather running on continually Northwest, as if it went directly to meet with Asia; and even in that height, when we had a franke winde to have carried us through, had there been a pa.s.sage, yet we had a smoothe and calme sea, with ordinary flowing and renewing, which could not have beene had there been a frete; of which we rather infallibly concluded, then coniectured, that there was none.

"The next day, after coming to anchor in the aforesaid harbour, the people of the countrey showed themselves, sending off a man with great expedition to us in a canow, who being yet but a little from the sh.o.a.re, and a great way from our s.h.i.+p, spake to us continually as he came rowing in. And at last at a reasonable distance, staying himself, he began more solemnly a long and tedious oration, after his manner, using in the deliverie thereof, many gestures and signes, mouing his hands, turning his head and body many wayes, and after his oration ended, with great show and reverence and submission returned backe to sh.o.a.re again. He shortly came againe the second time in like manner, {170} and so the third time, when he brought with him (as a present from the rest) a bunch of feathers, much like the feathers of a blacke crowe, very neatly and artificially gathered upon a string, and drawne together into a round bundle, being verie cleane and finely cut, and bearing in length an equall proportion one with another a special cognizance (as we afterwards observed) which they . . . weare on their heads. With this also he brought a little basket made of rushes, and filled with an herbe which they called Tobah. Both which being tyed to a short rodde, he cast into our boate. Our generall intended to have recompenced him immediately with many good things he would have bestowed on him; but entering into the boate to deliver the same, he could not be drawne to receive them by any meanes, save one hat, which being cast into the water out of the s.h.i.+p, he took up (refusing utterly to meddle with any other thing) though it were upon a board put off unto him, and so presently made his returne. After which time our boate could row no way, but wondering at us as at G.o.ds, they would follow the same with admiration. . . .

"The third day following, viz., the 21, our s.h.i.+p having received a leake at sea, was brought to anchor neerer the sh.o.a.re, that her goods being landed she might be repaired; but for that we were to prevent any danger that might chance against our safety, our Generall first of all landed his men, with all necessary provision, to build tents and make a fort for the defence of ourselves and our goods . . . which when the people of the country perceived us doing, as men set on fire to war in defence of their countrie, in great hast and companee, with such weapons as they had, they came down unto us, and yet with no hostile meaning or intent to hurt us: standing when they drew neerer, as men ravished in their mindes, with the sight of such things, as they never had scene or heard of before that time: their errand being rather with submission and feare to wors.h.i.+p us as G.o.ds, than to have warre with us as mortall men: which thing, as it did partly show itselfe at that instant, so did it more and more manifest itself afterwards, during the whole time of our abode amongst them. At this time, being veilled by signs to lay from them their bowes and arrowes, they did as they were directed and so did all the rest, as they came more and more by companies unto him, growing in a little while to a great number, both of men and women.

". . . Our Generall, with all his company, used all meanes possible gently to intreate them, bestowing upon each of them liberally good and necessary things to cover their nakedness, withall signifying unto them we were no G.o.ds but men, and had need of such things to cover our owne shame, teaching them to use them to the same ends, for which cause also we did eate and drinke in their presence, . . . they bestowed upon our Generall and diverse of our company, diverse things as feathers, cawles of networke, the quivers of their arrowes, made of faune skins, and the very skins of beasts that their women wore upon their bodies . . . they departed with joy to their houses, which houses are digged round within the earth, and have from the uppermost brimmes of the circle, clefts of wood set up, and joyned close together at the top, like our spires on the steeple of a church, which being covered with earth, . . . are very warme; the doore {171} in the most of them performs the office also of a chimney to let out the smoake; it's made in bignesse and fas.h.i.+on like to an ordinary scuttle in a s.h.i.+p, and standing slope-wise; the beds are the hard ground, onely with rushes strewed upon it and lying round about the house, have their fire in the middest, . . . with all expedition we set up our tents, and intrenched ourselves with walls of stone. . . . Against the end of two daies, there was gathered together a great a.s.sembly of men, women and children, bringing with them as they had before done, feathers and bagges of Tobah for present, or rather for sacrifices upon this persuasion that we were G.o.ds.

"When they came to the top of the hill at the bottom whereof we had built our fort, they made a stand;" . . . "this bloodie sacrifice (against our wils) being thus performed, our generall, with his companie, in the presence of those strangers, fell to prayers; and by signes in lifting up our eyes and hands to heaven, signified unto them that that G.o.d whom we did serve and whom they ought to wors.h.i.+p, was above: beseeching G.o.d, if it were his good pleasure, to open by some meanes their blinded eyes, that they might in due time be called to the knowledge of Him, the true and everliving G.o.d, and of Jesus Christ, whom he hath sent, the salvation of the Gentiles. In the time of which prayers, singing of Psalmes, and reading of certaine Chapters in the Bible, they sate very attentively, and observing the end of every pause, with one voice still cried 'oh' greatly rejoicing in our exercises."

"Our generall caused to be set up a monument of our being there, as also of her majesties and successors right and t.i.tle to that kingdom, namely a plate of bra.s.se, fast nailed to a great and firme poste; whereon is engraven her graces' name, and the day and year of our arrival there, and of the free giving up of the province and kingdom, both by the king and people, unto her majesties' hands: together with her highnesse picture and arms, in a piece of sixpence current English monie, shewing itselfe by a hole made of purpose through the plate; underneath was likewise engraven the name of our Generall. . . .

"The Spaniards never had any dealings, or so much as set a foote in this country, the utmost of their discoveries reaching onely to many degrees Southward of this place."

The Spanish version of Drake's burial is, that the body was weighted with shot at the heels and heaved over into the sea, without coffin or ceremony.

{172}

CHAPTER VII

1728-1779

CAPTAIN COOK IN AMERICA

The English Navigator sent Two Hundred Years later to find the New Albion of Drake's Discoveries--He misses both the Straits of Fuca and the Mouth of the Columbia, but anchors at Nootka, the Rendezvous of Future Traders--No Northeast Pa.s.sage found through Alaska--The True Cause of Cook's Murder in Hawaii told by Ledyard--Russia becomes Jealous of his Explorations

It seems impossible that after all his arduous labors and death, to prove his convictions, Bering's conclusions should have been rejected by the world of learning. Surely his coasting westward, southwestward, abreast the long arm of Alaska's peninsula for a thousand miles, should have proved that no open sea--no Northeast Pa.s.sage--was here, between Asia and America. But no! the world of learning said fog had obscured Bering's observations. What he took for the mainland of America had been only a chain of islands. Northward of those islands was open sea between Asia and Europe, which might afford direct pa.s.sage between East and West without circ.u.mnavigating the globe. In fact, said Dr.

Campbell, {173} one of the most learned English writers of the day, "Nothing is plainer than that his (Bering's) discovery does not warrant any such supposition as that he touched the great continent making part of North America."

The moons.h.i.+ne of the learned men in France and Russia was even wilder.

They had definitely proved, _even if there were no Gamaland_--as Bering's voyage had shown--then there must be a southern continent somewhere, to keep the balance between the northern and southern hemispheres; else the world would turn upside down. And there must also be an ocean between northern Europe and northern Asia, else the world would be top-heavy and turn upside down. It was an age when the world accepted creeds for piety, and learned moons.h.i.+ne instead of scientific data; when, in a word, men refused to bow to fact!

All sorts of wild rumors were current. There was a vast continent in the south. There was a vast sea in the north. Somewhere was the New Albion, which Francis Drake had found north of New Spain. Just north of the Spanish possessions in America was a wide inlet leading straight through from the Pacific to the Atlantic, which an old Greek pilot--named Juan de Fuca--said he had traversed for the viceroy of New Spain.

Even stolid-going England was infected by the rage for imaginary oceans and continents. The Hudson's Bay Fur Company was threatened with a withdrawal {174} of its charter because it had failed to find a Northwest Pa.s.sage from Atlantic to Pacific. Only four years after the death of Bering, an act of Parliament offered a reward of twenty thousand pounds to the officers and crew of any s.h.i.+ps discovering a pa.s.sage between Atlantic and Pacific north of 52 degrees. There were even ingenious fellows with the letters of the Royal Society behind their names, who affected to think that the great Athabasca Lake, which Hearne had found, when he tramped inland from the Arctic and Coppermine River, was a strait leading to the Pacific. Athabasca Lake might be the imaginary strait of the Greek pilot, Juan de Fuca. To be sure, two Hudson's Bay Company s.h.i.+ps' crews--those under Knight and Barlow--had been totally lost fifty years before Hearne's tramp inland in 1771, trying to find that same mythical strait of Juan de Fuca westward of Hudson Bay.

But so furious did public opinion wax over a Northwest Pa.s.sage at the very time poor Bering was dying in the North Pacific, that Captain Middleton was sent to Hudson Bay in 1741-1742 to find a way to the Pacific. And when Middleton failed to find water where the Creator had placed land, Dobbs, the patron of the expedition and champion of a Northwest Pa.s.sage at once roused the public to send out two more s.h.i.+ps--the _Dobbs_ and _California_. Failure again! Theories never yet made Fact, never so much as added a hair's weight to Fact! Ellis, who was on board, affected to think that Chesterfield Inlet--a great arm of the sea, {175} westward of Hudson Bay--might lead to the Pacific. This supposition was promptly exploded by the Hudson's Bay Fur Company sending Captain Christopher and Moses Norton, the local governor of the company, up Chesterfield inlet for two hundred miles, where they found, not the Pacific, but a narrow river. Then the hue and cry of the learned theorists was--the Northwest Pa.s.sage lay northward of Hudson Bay. Hearne was sent tramping inland to find--not sea, but land; and when he returned with the report of the great Athabasca Lake of Mackenzie River region, the lake was actually seized on as proof that there was a waterway to the Pacific. Then the brilliant plan was conceived to send s.h.i.+ps by both the Atlantic and the Pacific to find this mythical pa.s.sage from Europe to Asia.

Pickersgill, who had been on the Pacific, was to go out north of Hudson Bay and work westward. To work eastward from the Pacific to the Atlantic was chosen a man who had already proved there was no great continental ma.s.s on the south, and that the world did not turn upside down, and who was destined to prove there was no great open ocean on the north, and still the world did not turn upside down. He was a man whose whole life had been based and built upon Fact, not Theory. He was a man who accepted Truth as G.o.d gave it to him, not as he had theorized it _ought_ to be; a man who had climbed from a mud cottage to the position of the greatest navigator in the world--had climbed on top of facts mastered, not {176} of schoolgirl moons.h.i.+ne, or study-closet theories. That man was Captain James Cook.

Cook's life presents all the contrasts of true greatness world over.

Like Peter the Great, of Russia, whose word had set in motion the exploration of the northwest coast of America, Cook's character consisted of elements that invariably lead to glory or ruin; often, both. The word "impossible" was not in his vocabulary. He simply did not recognize any limitations to what a man _might_ do, could do, would do, if he tried; and that means, that under stress of risk or temptation, or opposition, a man's caution goes to the winds. With Cook, it was risk that caused ruin. With the Czar of Russia, it was temptation.

Born at Marton, a small parish of a north riding in the county of York, October 27, 1728, James Cook was the son of a day-laborer in an age when manual toil was paid at the rate of a few pennies a day. There were nine of a family. The home was a thatch-roofed mud cottage. Two years after Cook's birth, the father was appointed bailiff, which slightly improved family finances; but James was thirteen years of age before it was possible to send him to school. There, the progress of his learning was a gallop. He had a wizard-genius for figures. In three short years he had mastered all the Ayton school could teach him.

At sixteen, his schooling was over. The father's highest ambition seems to have been for the son to become a successful shopkeeper in one of the small towns. The future {177} navigator was apprenticed to the village shop; but Cook's ambitions were not to be caged behind a counter.

Eastward rolled the North Sea. Down at Hull were heard seamen's yarns to make the blood of a boy jump. It was 1746. The world was ringing with tales of Bering on the Pacific, of a southern continent, which didn't exist, of the Hudson's Bay Fur Company's illimitable domain in the north, of La Verendrye's wonderful discoveries of an almost boundless region westward of New France toward the uncharted Western Sea. In a year and a half, Cook had his fill of shopkeeping. Whether he ran away, or had served his master so well that the latter willingly remitted the three years' articles of apprentices.h.i.+p, Cook now followed his destiny to the sea. According to the world's standards, the change seemed progress backward. He was articled to a s.h.i.+p-owner of Whitby as a common seaman on a coaler sailing between Newcastle and London. One can see such coalers any day--black as s.m.u.t, grimed from prow to stern, with workmen almost black shovelling coal or hoisting tackling--pus.h.i.+ng in and out among the statelier craft of any seaport. It is this stage in a great man's career which is the test. Is the man sure enough of himself to leave everything behind, and jump over the precipice into the unknown? If ever he wishes to return to what he has left, he will have just the height of this jump to climb back to the old place. The old place is a certainty. The unknown may engulf in failure. He {178} must chance that, and all for the sake of a faith in himself, which has not yet been justified; for the sake of a vague star leading into the misty unknown. He knows that he could have been successful in the old place. He does not know that he may not be a failure in the new place.

Art, literature, science, commerce--in all--it is the men and women who have dared to risk being failures that have proved the mainspring of progress. Cook was sure enough of himself to exchange shopkeeper's linen for the coal-heaver's blue jeans, to risk following the star of his destiny to the sea.

Presently, the commonplace, grimy duties which he must fulfil are taking him to Dublin, to Liverpool, to Norway; and by the time he is twenty-two, he knows the Baltic trade well, and has heard all the pros and cons of the furious cackle which the schools have raised over that expedition of Bering's to the west coast of America. By the time he is twenty-four he is a first mate on the coal boats. Comes another vital change! When he left the shop, he felt all that he had to do to follow his destiny was to go to sea. Now the star has led him up to a blank wall. The only promotion he can obtain on these merchantmen is to a captains.h.i.+p; and the captaincy on a small merchantman will mean pretty much a monotonous flying back and forward like a shuttle between the ports of Europe and England.

Cook took a resolution that would have cost any {179} man but one with absolute singleness of purpose a poignant effort. At the age of twenty-seven, he decided to enter the Royal Navy. Now, in a democratic age, we don't talk about such things; but there are unwritten laws and invisible lines just the same. Standing on the captain's deck of an American wars.h.i.+p not long ago, watching the deck hands below putting things s.h.i.+pshape, I asked an officer--"Is there any chance for those men to rise?"

"Yes, some," he answered tentatively, "but then, there is a difference between the men who have been trained for a position, and those who have worked up the line to it." If that difference exists in a democratic country and age, what was it for Cook in a country and at a time when lines of caste were hard and fast drawn? But he entered the navy on the _Eagle_ under Sir Hugh Palliser, who, almost at once, transferred him from the forecastle to the quarterdeck. What was the explanation of such quick recognition? Therein lies the difference between the man who tries and succeeds, and the man who tries and fails. Cook had qualified himself for promotion. He was so fitted for the higher position, that the higher position could not do without him.

Whether rocking on the Baltic, or waiting for the stokers to heave out coal at Liverpool, every moment not occupied by seaman's duties, Cook had filled by improving himself, by increasing his usefulness, by sharpening his brain, so that his brain could better direct his hands, by {180} studying mathematics and astronomy and geography and science and navigation. As some one has said--there are lots of people with hands and no brain; and there are lots of people with brains and no hands; but the kind who will command the highest reward for their services to the world are those who have the finest combination of brains _and_ hands.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Captain James Cook.]

Four years after Cook had joined the navy, he was master on the _Mercury_ with the fleet before Quebec, making a chart of the St.

Lawrence for Wolfe to take the troops up to the Heights of Abraham, piloting the boats to the attack on Montmorency, and conducting the embarkation of the troops, who were to win the famous battle, that changed the face of America.

Now the Royal Society wished to send some one to the South Seas, whose reliability was of such a recognized and steady-going sort, that his conclusions would be accepted by the public. Just twenty years from the time that he had left the shop, Cook was chosen for this important mission. What manner of man was he, who in that time had risen from life in a mud hut to the rank of a commander in the Royal Navy? In manner, he was plain and simple and direct, no flourish, no unnecessary palaver of showy words, not a word he did not mean. In form, he was six feet tall, in perfect proportion, with brown hair and eyes, alertly penetrating, with features sharp rather from habit or thought than from natural shape.

On this mission he left England in 1768, anch.o.r.ed at {181} the Society Islands of the South Seas in the spring of 1769, explored New Zealand in the fall of the same year, rounded Australia in 1770 and returned to England in 1771, the very year Hearne was trying to tramp it overland in search of a Northwest Pa.s.sage. And he brought back no proof of that vast southern world which geographers had put on their maps. Promptly he was sent out on a second voyage to find or demolish that mythical continent of the southern hemisphere; and he demolished the myth of a southern continent altogether, returning from circ.u.mnavigating the globe just at the time when the furor of a Northwest Pa.s.sage northward of Hudson Bay, northward even of Bering's course on the Pacific, was at its height.

The third voyage was to determine finally the bounds of western America, the possibilities of a pa.s.sage between Europe and Asia by way of the Pacific. Two s.h.i.+ps--the _Resolution_, four hundred and sixty tons, one hundred and twelve men, which Cook had used before, and the _Discovery_, three hundred tons, eighty men--were purchased at Hull, the old port of Cook's boyhood dreams. To secure the good will of the crews, two months' wages were paid in advance. Captain Clerke commanded the _Discovery_; and the two crews numbered men of whom the world was to hear more in connection with the northwest coast of America--a young mids.h.i.+pman, Vancouver, whose doings were yet to checkmate Spain; a young American, corporal {182} of marines, Ledyard, who was to have his brush with Russia; and other ambitious young seamen destined to become famous traders on the west coast of America.

The two s.h.i.+ps left England in midsummer of 1776, crossed the equator in September when every man fresh to the episode was caught and ducked overrails in equatorial waters, rounded Good Hope, touched at the Society Islands of the first voyage, and by spring of 1778 had explored and anch.o.r.ed at the Sandwich Islands. Once on the Pacific, Cook mustered his crews and took them into his confidence; he was going to try for that reward of twenty thousand pounds to the crew that discovered a Northeast Pa.s.sage; and even if he missed the reward, he was going to have a shy at the most northern lat.i.tude ever attempted by navigator--89 degrees; would they do it? The crew cheered. Whether they reached 89 degrees or not, they decided to preserve their grog for the intense cold to be encountered in the north; so that the daily allowance was now cut to half.

By March, the s.h.i.+ps were off from the Sandwich Islands to the long swell of the Pacific, the slimy medusa lights covering the waters with a phosph.o.r.escent trail of fire all night, the rockweed and sea leek floating past by day telling their tale of some far land. Cook's secret commission had been very explicit: "You are to proceed on as direct a course as you can to the coast of New Albion, endeavoring to fall in with it in lat.i.tude 45 degrees north . . . and are strictly enjoined {183} not to touch on any part of the Spanish dominions . . .

unless driven by accident . . . and to be very careful not to give any umbrage to the subjects of his Catholic Majesty . . . and if in further progress northward . . . you find any subjects of a European prince . . . you are not to give any cause of offence . . . proceed northward to 65 degrees, carefully search for such inlets as appear pointing to Hudson Bay . . . use your utmost endeavors to pa.s.s through." The commission shows that England was unaware Spain had pushed north of 45 degrees, and Russia north of 65 degrees; for Spain jealously kept her explorations secret, and Russia's were not accepted.

The commission also offered a reward for any one going within 1 degree of the Pole. It may be added--the offer is still open.

For days after leaving the Sandwich Islands, not a bird was to be seen.

That was a bad omen for land. Land must be far, indeed; and Cook began to fear there might be as much ocean in that northern hemisphere as the geographers of Russia and France--who actually tabulated Bering's discoveries as an island--had placed on the maps. But in the first week of March, a sea-gull came swimming over the crest of a wave.

Where did she come from? Then an albatross was seen wheeling above the sea. Then, on March 6, two lonely land seals went plying past; and whales were noticed. Surely they were nearing the region that Drake, the English freebooter, had seen and named New Albion two hundred years before. {184} Suddenly, on the morning of March 7, the dim offing ahead showed thin, sharp, clear lines. The lines rose higher as the s.h.i.+p approached. They cut themselves against the sky in the form of mountains and hills with purple mist lying in the valleys. It was the New Albion at lat.i.tude 44 degrees 33 minutes, which Drake had discovered. The day was hazy and warm. Cook's crews wondered why Drake had complained of such cold. By night they found out. A roaring hurricane burst from the northern darkness with squalls of hail and snow and sleet, that turned the sh.o.r.e to one long reach of whitened cliffs straight up and down out of the sea. In commemoration, they called the first landfall, Cape Foulweather; and, in spite of the commission to sail north, drove under bare poles before the storm to 43 degrees, naming the two capes pa.s.sed Perpetua and Gregory. Only by the third week of March had the storm abated enough for them to turn north again.[1]

Now, whether the old Greek pilot, Juan de Fuca, lied or dreamed, or only told a yarn of what some Indian had told him, it was along this coast that he had said the straits leading to the east side of America lay; and Cook's two s.h.i.+ps hugged the coast as close as they dared for fear of roaring breakers and a landward wind. On March 23 rocks were seen lying off a high point capped with trees, behind which might be a {185} strait; but a gale ash.o.r.e and a las.h.i.+ng tide thundering over the rocks sent the s.h.i.+ps scudding for the offing through fog and rain; and never a glimpse of a pa.s.sage eastward could the crews obtain. Cook called the delusive point Cape Flattery and added: "It is in this very lat.i.tude (48 degrees 15 minutes) that geographers have placed the pretended Straits of Juan de Fuca; but we saw nothing like it; nor is there the least possibility that any such thing ever existed." But Cook was too far out to descry the narrow opening--but thirteen miles wide--of Juan de Fuca, where the steamers of three continents ply to-day; though the strait by no means led to Europe, as geographers thought.

All night a hard gale drove them northward. When the weather cleared, permitting them to approach the coast again, high mountains, covered with snow and forests, jagged through the clouds like tent peaks.

Tremendous breakers roared over sunken rocks. Point Breakers, Cook called them. Then the wind suddenly fell; and the s.h.i.+ps were becalmed directly opposite the narrow entrance of a two-horned cove sheltered by the mountains. The small boats had all been mustered out to tow the two s.h.i.+ps in, when a slight breeze sprang up. The flotilla drifted inland just as three canoes, carved in bizarre shapes of birds' heads and eagle claws, came paddling across the inlet. Three savages were in one, six in the other, ten in the third. They came slowly over the water, singing some song of welcome, beating time with their paddles, {186} scattering downy white feathers on the air, at intervals standing up to harangue a welcome to the newcomers. Soon thirty canoes were around the s.h.i.+ps with some ten warriors in each. Still they came, shoals of them, like fish, with savages almost naked, the harbor smooth as gla.s.s, the grand _tyee_, or great chief of the tribes, standing erect shouting a welcome, with long elf-locks streaming down his back.

Women and children now appeared in the canoes. That meant peace. The women were chattering like magpies; the men gurgling and spluttering their surprise at the white visitors. For safety's sake the guns of the two s.h.i.+ps were pointed ready; but the natives did not know the fear of a gun. It was the end of March when Cook first anch.o.r.ed off what he thought was the mainland of America. It was not mainland, but an island, and the harbor was one to become famous as the rendezvous of Pacific traders--Nootka!

Three armed boats commanded by Mr. King, and one under Cook, at once proceeded from the s.h.i.+ps to explore and sound the inlet. The entrance had been between two rocky points four miles apart past a chain of sunken rocks. Except in a northwest corner of the inlet, since known as Snug Cove, the water was too deep for anchorage; so the two s.h.i.+ps were moored to trees, the masts unrigged, the iron forge set to work on the sh.o.r.e; and the men began cutting timber for the new masts. And still the tiny specks dancing over the waves carrying canoe loads of savages to the English s.h.i.+ps, {187} continued to multiply till the harbor seemed alive with warriors--two thousand at least there must have been by the first week of April after Cook's arrival. Some of the savages wore brightly painted wooden masks as part of their gala attire. Others carried totems--pieces of wood carved in the likeness of bird or beast to typify manitou of family or clan. By way of showing their prowess, some even offered the white men human skulls from which the flesh had not yet been taken. By this Cook knew the people were cannibals. Some were observed to be wearing spoons of European make as ornaments round their necks. What we desire to believe we easily accept. The white men did not ascribe the spoons to traders from New Spain on the south, or the Russian settlements to the north; but thought this place must be within trading distance of Hudson Bay, whence the Indians must have obtained the spoons. And so they cherished the hope of a Northeast Pa.s.sage from this slim sign. In a few days fifteen hundred beaver and sea-otter had been obtained in trade, sixty-nine sea-otter--each of which was worth at that time one hundred dollars in modern money--for a handful of old nails.