memory, is, that they are going to bury her already, when it is not more than--yes, when it is not more than eight days since she died.' And you call that already? Why she ought to have been interred at least six days ago.'- By no means. The general custom in England is to keep the body above ground ten, or twelve, or fifteen days after the decease; and they never think of interring it till the expiration of a week. During twenty-five years that I have lived in this country--but hold! See,-the procession is coming out of the house.'-I ran to the window. The two black statues had at length altered their position, and had placed themselves side by side in order to begin the march. A man in the same costume now issued from the house. He had placed upon his head a sort of empty basket of an oval form, which might be about three feet in length by about eighteen inches in breadth,— was entirely covered with black cloth, and recently surmounted with a tuft of white feathers, in honour of the virginity which the deceased had preserved during seventy-five years;--reminding me of the feathers with which they adorn mules in Spain. He placed himself behind the two statues, and preserved, like them, a state of perfect immobility, until the whole cavalcade was organized.'

'The coffin now came out. It was not covered with the funereal cloth; for they wished to show the beauty of it to the whole neighbourhood. It appeared to be of great solidity, and much larger every way than our own. And it is indispensable; for I have since learned, that, in England, they do not, as in France, wrap up the head in a tight shroud,--but give you the liberty of the limbs, and place under your head a sort of pillow, in order that you may lie more at your ease. They covered the coffin with a funereal cloth of black velvet, bordered with a white fringe; and it was carried by four persons, who had not mantles like the three first,but were habited in a garment which evidently had once been black, though it now approached a colour betwixt yellow and green. The friends or relations of the deceased followed next. I counted eighteen; who were all in deep mourning, and covered, both male and female, with a black envelop exactly like the hood which they put on for a masque-ball in France. Each had a pair of white gloves, and held in their hands a white pocket-handkerchief which they now and then raised to their eyes, in order to wipe away the tears which seemed to be dropping.'

Our readers must have discovered by this time, the scope of our author's witticisms. Whatever is English, is considered as fair game; and he accordingly has a shaft for every person and thing he encounters, whether it be dead or alive. Nor must the Londoners imagine that he has yet done with them; for if his first Fifteen Days are well received, he promises to make them

a second visit.

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ART. IV.-A Narrative of the Adventures and Sufferings of John R. Jewitt; only Survivor of the Crew of the Ship Boston, during a Captivity of nearly three years among the Savages of Nootka Sound: With an Account of the Manners, Mode of Living, and Religious Opinions of the Natives.— Embellished with a plate, representing the ship in possession of the natives. New York. 1816. 12mo. pp. 208. Third Edition.

WE

E took notice of the first edition of this little work in our Number for June, 1815. Since that time it has been twice more put to press; and it would, at first sight, appear somewhat singular that a book which is very badly written, and a great deal worse arranged, should have already circulated in the Northern States alone to the number (we are told) of about nine thousand copies. It is not recommended by those interior and exterior decorations which ordinarily get off a book of travels; for instead of an equilateral quarto, as dick as all dis cheese,' accompanied by all manner of maps and plates and annotations,--we have here only a thin parallelogram of a duodecimo, embellished' (the author thinks) with a single effort at an engraving, and blotted on the outside with two daubings, which are intended to represent the king of the Nootkians, first, in his visiting costume, and, secondly, in the act of harpooning a whale. All the interest of the volume is, therefore, derived solely from the nature of the facts which it contains. Of these we have already expressed our opinion; and have only to add, that although Jewitt has not been had up two or three times a day for a fortnight and cross-examined by the imposing Members of the Royal Society of London (it is no wonder that poor Adams, the sailor, wanted to get back to his own country), we know from the simplicity and good faith which appears in the narrative itself, and from the consistency which the author has preserved in telling ourselves the story at different times, that what he has given to the world is a faithful record of the facts.

John R. Jewitt is a native of Boston, in Lincolnshire, Great Britain; and was employed as armourer on board the ship Boston, of Boston, in Massachusetts,-commanded by John Salter of the same place, and engaged in the skin and fur trade of the North West Coast. The captain left the Downs on the 3d of September, 1802; reached St. Catherine's island, on the coast of Brazil, about the 1st of October; stopped long enough to recruit his stores of wood and water; passed cape Horn on the 25th of December,--after a detention of twenty-six days; and cast anchor in Friendly Cove, before the village of Nootka, on the 12th of March, 1803. Maquina, emperor of all the Noot

kas, had so often commerced with such visitants that he understood enough of English to express himself intelligibly; and an intercourse was soon established between his own subjects and the crew of the Boston. On the 15th, the captain invited his Nootkian majesty to dine on board of the ship; and afterwards dismissed him with the present of an elegant twobarrelled gun. He dined with the captain again on the 19th; and two days afterwards reciprocated his present with nine pairs of wild ducks. Unfortunately, however, he had broken one of his locks, and as he had never heard Sancho's aphorism about gifts, he declared in the simplicity of his Indian heart, that the gun was peshak-bad. The captain retorted with the lie direct; and, after adding a few nautical epithets of opprobrium, snatched the piece from Maquina and transferred it to John, our armourer. Under this lingual flagellation the king uttered nothing; but his countenance spoke daggers; and John frequently observed him rub down his wind-pipe,-in order (as he said afterwards) to suppress his heart, which kept rising and choking him. On the morning of the 22d, the natives visited the ship as usual;-in the afternoon Maquina himself was paddled along-side; and, after smiling about with unwonted affability, invited the captain to accompany him on a fishing expedition. You love salmon-said he much in Friendly Cove:—why not go catch some?' The captain swallowed the bait.-He ordered his yawl and jolly-boat to be hoisted out; and while he was fishing in the Cove, the steward washing on shore, and our armourer at work in the steerage, Maquina gave the signal for a simultaneous insurrection. John heard an extraordinary bustle on deck; dropped his tools,— and ran up to see what was the matter: but no sooner had his head emerged from the hatch, than it was seized by one of the savages, and would have been cleft in two with an axe, if the Indian could have obtained a firm hold of his short hair. He received, as it was, a severe cut in the forehead, and fell back senseless on the cabin-floor. When he had recovered his senses, the door of the hatchway was closed; and he naturally concluded that he was only reserved to the privilege of being the last destroyed. But Maquina had ordered it otherwise. He designed from the beginning to preserve the life of the armourer,--as he knew such a workman would be of great utility in fabricating the knives, tomahawks, fish-hooks, and other implements, for which his people might have occasion. John was accordingly summoned upon deck a few moments after his recovery; and Maquina briefly told him,-in the presence of six gigantic savages, who were covered with the recent blood of his comrades, and stood ready to dye their suspended dag

1

gers in his own,-that he must immediately consent to become slave for life, or share the fate of those, whose heads he saw dressed in a line upon the quarter-deck. John,' said he, 'I speak,-you no say, No:--you say, No-daggers come.' John did not long debate which of the two to choose. His new sovereign ordered him to kiss his royal hands and feet; and then to weigh anchor and run the Boston on shore.

The poor fellow was now landed amidst the shouts of 1500 savages. It was about eight o'clock in the afternoon:-torches were lighted up in the village; men, women, and children hooped and yelled,-drummed with sticks all over the roofs and sides of their houses, and it seemed as if they could not possibly make noise enough to manifest their joy for the victory. The warriors, however, felt inclined to render the triumph complete by taking the life of the armourer; and were very urgent with Maquina to deliver him into their hands. But the king peremptorily refused; and, when they became too clamorous and importunate, he caught up a club and drove them all out of doors. The queen had compassion on our captive,--patted his head,--and told him to be of good cheer. The young prince, Sat-sat-so-kis, too, seemed to take an interest in his welfare,- --or rather in the metal buttons on his coat; and, as Jewitt thought he might secure the favour of the father by reciprocating the attentions of the son, he took the little fellow on his knee,-cut off his buttons, and tied them about his neck. Such conduct was not lost upon Maquina; and he ordered Sat-sat-so-kis to sleep by the side of Jewitt,--lest his warriors should come and knife him in the course of the night. About 12 o'clock he was roused by the king, and told that there was still a white man on board of the ship; who had knocked down one of the natives, and should die early in the morning. At first he could not divine who the person was; but after wracking his memory for some time, he had an indistinct remembrance that Thompson, the sail-maker, was below a little before the attack, and that his head was not among those which he had seen on the quarter-deck. Thompson was about forty years of age,--had an old look, and might be easily made to pass for his father. In the morning, accordingly, he took the young prince by the hand and accompanied the king to the shore. When the chiefs were about to ascend the ship in order to ferrit out the refractory survivor, Jewitt took occasion to ask Maquina if he loved his son,--and Sat-sat-so-kis if he loved his father? Both answered in the affirmative:--Jewitt then rejoined, that he also loved his father; and begged Maquina, on his knees, to spare the life of the person on board the ship, if he turned out to be his father. The king was moved by

his intreaties; and, as very few of his own people seemed inclined to risk the contingency of being knocked down, he sent Jewitt himself to bring the prisoner on shore. His conjectures about the survivor were well-founded; and, after giving Thomp son his cue, he led him ashore, and introduced him to Maquina as his father. The chiefs were clamorous for his destruction; but the practical argument of Jewitt had fixed the king in a determination to preserve his life; and both the captives were accordingly conducted to the palace, without suffering any other indignity than that of being exulted over by a set of cowardly savages.

During the 24th and 25th the natives were busied in stripping and emboweling the ship. The captain's writing-desk was of no importance to them; and accordingly Jewitt had no difficulty in appropriating that, together with a blank accomptbook, a Bible, a Common Prayer-Book, and a collection of drawings, which he had the good fortune to find on board. The tribes of all the country round about Nootka soon heard of the Boston's capture; and in a few days began to flock to the village with dried fish and other commodities to barter for a part of the spoil. We shall at present spare the jaws of our readers; and abstain from the transcription of the unpronounceable names by which these nations are distinguished. But we must not deny them the pleasure of reading Jewitt's account of the reception which the king gave his foreign visitants:-

Maquina, who was very proud of his new acquisition, was desirous of welcoming these visitors in the European manner. He accordingly ordered his men, as the canoes approached, to assemble on the beach with loaded muskets and blunderbusses, placing Thompson at the cannon which had been brought from the ship, and laid upon two long sticks of timber in front of the village, then taking a speaking trumpet in his hand, he ascended with me, the roof of his house and began drumming or beating upon the boards with a stick most violently. Nothing could be more ludicrous than the appearance of this motely group of savages collected on the shore, dressed as they were, with their ill-gotten finery, in the most fantastic manner, some in women's smocks, taken from our cargo, others in Kotsacks, (or cloaks) of blue, red or yellow broad-cloth, with stockings drawn over their heads, and their necks hung round with numbers of powder-horns, shot-bags, and cartouch-boxes, some of them having no less than ten muskets a-piece on their shoulders, and five or six daggers in their girdles. Diverting indeed was it to see them all squatted upon the beach, holding their muskets perpendicularly with the butt pressed upon the sand instead of against their shoulders, and in this position awaiting the order to fire. Maquina, at last, called to