n 1728, the very {46} year that Bering had
set out on his first expedition; and he was in the Baltic when news
came back to St Petersburg of Bering's death. The year 1759 found him
at Quebec with Wolfe. During the next ten years he explored and
charted northern and southern seas; and when the British parliament
determined to set at rest for ever the myth of a passage, Cook was
chosen to conduct the expedition. He was granted two ships--the
_Resolution_ and the _Discovery_; and among the crews was a young
midshipman named Vancouver. The vessels left England in the summer of
1776, and sailed from the Sandwich Islands in 1778 for Drake's New
Albion. The orders were to proceed from New Albion up to 65 deg. north
latitude and search for a passage to Hudson Bay.

[Illustration: James Cook. From the portrait by Dance in the Gallery
of Greenwich Hospital.]

On March 7, 1778--two hundred years after Drake's famous voyage--Cook's
ships descried thin, sharp lines of land in the offing. As the vessels
drew nearer the coast towering mountains met the gaze of the explorers.
Cook had orders to keep a sharp look-out in this region for the strait
of Juan de Fuca; but storm drove him off-shore, and, although he
discovered and named Cape Flattery at the entrance to the strait that
now bears the name {47} of the old Greek pilot, he did not catch as
much as a glimpse of the great bay opening inland. In fact, he set
down that in this latitude there was no possibility of Juan de Fuca's
strait existing. Landing was made on Vancouver Island at the famous
harbour now known as Nootka; and Indians swarmed the sea in gaily
painted dug-outs with prows carved like totem-poles. Women and
children were in the canoes. That signified peace; and though cannon
were manned in readiness, an active and friendly trade at once opened
between the crews and the natives. Fifteen hundred beaver and
sea-otter pelts were exchanged for a handful of old nails. At least
two thousand natives gathered round the two ships. Some of the men
wore masks and had evidently just returned from a raid, for they
offered Cook human skulls from which the flesh had not been removed,
and pointed to slave captives.

Any one who knows Vancouver Island in spring needs no description of
the inspiring scene surveyed by the sea-weary crews. Snow rested on
the coastal mountains. The huge opal dome now known as Mount Baker
loomed up through the clouds of dawn and dusk on the