At six in the evening, we had strong gales at W.N.W. with violent squalls and much rain, and continued in our station till the morning of the 3d, when I sent the Tamar’s boat, with an officer from each ship, to the westward, in search of anchoring-places on the south shore; and at the same time I sent my own cutter with an officer to seek anchoring-places on the north shore.

The cutter returned the next morning at six o’clock, having been about five leagues to the westward upon the north shore, and found two anchoring-places. The officer reported, that having been on shore, he had fallen in with some Indians, who had with them a canoe of a construction very different from any that they had seen in the Streight before; this vessel consisted of planks sewed together, but all the others were nothing more than the bark of large trees, tied together at the ends, and kept open by short pieces of wood, which were thrust in transversely between the two sides, like the boats which children make of a bean shell. The people, he said, were the nearest to brutes in their manner and appearance of any he had seen: they were, like some which we had met with before, quite naked, notwithstanding the severity of the weather, except part of a seal skin which was thrown over their shoulders; and they eat their food, which was such as no other animal but a hog would touch,

Voyaging Accounts