A bit of wood with a
nail in it is picked up and studied as if it were covered with
hieroglyphics. Possessed with this feeling, I was much interested
by finding, on a wild part of the coast, a bed made of grass
beneath a ledge of rock. Close by it there had been a fire, and the
man had used an axe. The fire, bed, and situation showed the
dexterity of an Indian; but he could scarcely have been an Indian,
for the race is in this part extinct, owing to the Catholic desire
of making at one blow Christians and Slaves. I had at the time some
misgivings that the solitary man who had made his bed on this wild
spot, must have been some poor shipwrecked sailor, who, in trying
to travel up the coast, had here laid himself down for his dreary
night.
DECEMBER 28, 1834.
The weather continued very bad, but it at last permitted us to
proceed with the survey. The time hung heavy on our hands, as it
always did when we were delayed from day to day by successive gales
of wind. In the evening another harbour was discovered, where we
anchored. Directly afterwards a man was seen waving his shirt, and
a boat was sent which brought back two seamen. A party of six had
run away from an American whaling vessel, and had landed a little
to the southward in a boat, which was shortly afterwards knocked to
pieces by the surf.
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