a northeast
passage. It was up Lynn Canal, where so many gold seekers have rushed
to have their hopes dashed, like Vancouver. Two officers had gone up
the channel in a small boat to see if any opening led to the Atlantic.
Boisterous weather and tremendous tide had lashed the sea to foam. The
long daylight was so delusive that the men did not realize it was
nearly midnight. At ten o'clock they had rowed ashore, to rest from
their fight with wave and wind, when armed Indians suddenly rushed down
to the water's edge in battle array, spears couched. The exhausted
rowers bent to the oars all night. At one place in their {289} retreat
to open sea, the fog lifted to reveal the passage between precipices
only a few feet wide with warriors' canoes on every side. A crash of
musketry drove the assailants off. Two or three men kept guard with
pointed muskets, while the oarsmen pulled through a rolling cross swell
back to the protection of the big ships outside.

On August 19, as the ships drove south to Norfolk or Sitka Sound, the
men suddenly recognized headlands where they had cruised the summer
before. For a second they scarcely realized. Then they knew that
their explorations from Alaska southward had come to the meeting place
of their voyage from New Spain northward. Just a little more than
fifty years from Bering's discoveries, the exploration of the northwest
coast of America had been completed. Some one emitted an incoherent
shout that the work was finished! The cheer was caught up by every man
on board. Some one else recalled that it had been April when they set
out on the fool-quest of the Northeast Passage; and a true April's fool
the quest had proved! Then flags were run up; the wine casks brought
out, the marines drawn up in line, and three such volleys of joy fired
as those sailors alone could feel. For four years they had followed
the foolish quest of the learned world's error. That night Vancouver
gave a gala dinner to his crews. They deserved it. Their four years'
cruise marked the close of the most heroic epoch on the Pacific coast.
Vancouver had accomplished his life-work--there {290} was no northeast
passage through the west coast of America.[2]

[1] The legend of Juan de Fuca became current about 1592, as issued in
_Samuel Purchas' Pilgrims_ in 1625, Vol. III: "A note made by Michael
Lok, the elder, touching the strait of sea commonly called _Fretum
Anian_ in the South Sea through the No