•767. eat whatever was given them, but would drink nothing but
■ - - '• water.
When they left the fhip I went on fhore with them, and
by this time* feveral o f their wives and children were come
to the watering-place. I diftributed fome trinkets among
them, with which they feemed pleafed for a moment, and
they gave us fome o f their arms in return; they gave us alfo
feveral pieces o f mundic, fuch as is found in the tin mines
o f Cornwall: they made us underftand that they found it
in the mountains, where there are probably mines o f tin,
and perhaps o f more valuable metal. As this feems to be
the moll dreary and inhofpitable country in the world, not
excepting the worft parts o f Sweden and Norway, the people
feem to be the loweft and moft deplorable of all human
beings. Their perfect indifference to every thing they faw,
which marked the difparity between our ftate and their
own, though it may preferve them from the regret and
anguifh o f unfadsfied defires, feems, notwithftanding, to imply
a defect in their nature ; for thofe who are fatisfied with
the gratifications o f a brute, can have little pretenfion to the
prerogatives o f men. When they left us and embarked in
their canoes, they hoifted a feal fkin for a fail, and fleered
for the fouthern fhore, where we faw many o f their hovels;
and we remarked that not one o f them looked behind,
either at us or at the fhip, fb little impreffion had the wonders
they had feen made upon their minds, and fo much did
they appear to be abforbed in the prefent, without any
habitual exercife of their power to reflect, upon the paft.
Tuetday 3. j n this ftation we continued till Tuefday the 3d o f February.
At about half an hour paft twelve we weighed, and
in a fudden fquall were taken a-back, fo as that both Jhips
were in the moft imminent danger o f being driven afhore
2 no
on a reef of rocks; the wind however fuddenly fhifted, and
we happily got off without damage. At five o’clock in the
afternoon, the tide being done, and the wind coming about
to the weft, we bore away for York road, and at length anchored
in it: the Swallow at the fame time being very near
Ifland bay, under Cape Quod, endeavoured to get in there,
but was by the tide obliged to return to York road. In this
fituation Cape Quod bore W. 4. S. diftant 19 miles, York Point
E. S. E. diftant one mile, Bachelor’s River N. N. W. three
quarters of a mile, the entrance o f Jerom’s Sound N. W. by
W. and a fmall ifland on the fouth fhore W. by S. We found
the tide here very rapid and uncertain ; in the ftream it generally
fet to the eaftward, but it fometimes, though rarely,
fet weftward fix hours together. This evening we faw five-
Indian canoes come out o f Bachelor’s River, and go up Jerom’s
Sound.
In the morning, the boats which I had fent out to- found
both the fhores o f the Streight and all parts o f the bay, returned
w ith an account that there was good anchorage within
Jerom’s Sound, and all the way thither from the fhip’s
ftation at the diftance o f about half a mile from tire fhore ;
alfo between Elizabeth and York Point, near York Point, at
the diftance o f a cable and a ha lf’s length from the weeds,
in 16 fathom with a muddy bottom. There were alfo feveral
places under the iflands on the fouth fhore where a fhip
might anchor; but the force and uncertainty of the tides,
and the heavy gufts of wind that came off the high lands,.
by which thefe fituations were furrounded, rendered them
unfafe. Soon after the boats returned, I put frefh hands-
into them and went myfelf up Bachelor's River: we found a
bar at the entrance, which at certain times o f the tide muft
be dangerous. We hauled the feine, and fhould have
caught plenty of fifh i f it had not been for the weeds and