shore, I took two boats, and landed, attended by
Mr King, to seek wood and water. We landed where the coast projects
out into a bluff head, composed of perpendicular _strata_ of a rock of
a dark-blue colour, mixed with quartz and glimmer. There joins to the
beach a narrow border of land, now covered with long grass, and where
we met with some _angelica_. Beyond this, the ground rises abruptly.
At the top of this elevation, we found a heath, abounding with a
variety of berries; and further on, the country was level, and thinly
covered with small spruce-trees, and birch and willows no bigger than
broom-stuff. We observed tracks of deer and foxes on the beach; on
which also lay a great quantity of drift-wood, and there was no want
of fresh water. I returned on board, with an intention to bring the
ships to an anchor here; but the wind then veering to N.E., which blew
rather on this shore, I stretched over to the opposite one, in the
expectation of finding wood there also, and anchored at eight o'clock
in the evening, under the south end of the northernmost island, so
we then supposed it to be; but, next morning, we found it to be a
peninsula, united to the continent by a low neck of land, on each side
of which the coast forms a bay. We plied into the southernmost, and
about noon anchored in five fathoms water, over a bottom of mud; the
point of the peninsula, which obtained the name of _Cape Denbigh_,
bearing N. 68 deg. W., three miles distant.

Several people were seen upon the peninsula, and one man came off in a
small canoe. I gave him a knife, and a few beads, with which he seemed
well pleased. Having made signs to him to bring us something to eat,
he immediately left us, and paddled toward the shore. But meeting
another man coming off, who happened to have two dried salmon, he got
them from him; and on returning to the ship, would give them to nobody
but me. Some of our people thought that he asked for me under the name
of _Capitane_; but in this they were probably mistaken. He knew who
had given him the knife and beads, but I do not see how he could know
that I was the captain. Others of the natives soon after came off, and
exchanged a few dry fish, for such trifles as they could get, or we
had to give them. They were most desirous of knives, and they had no
dislike to tobacco.

After dinner, Lieutenant Gore was sent to the peninsula, to see if
wood and water were there to be got, or rather water; for the whole
be