over its surface a pretty thick stratum of bears' grease, and then ploughing with a stick the requisite number of horizontal furrows.

Their other personal decorations consist of necklaces, bracelets, and pendulums for the nose and the ears. They have a species of shell called Ifwaw, which is procured with great trouble from the reefs and sunken rocks along the coast, and which constitutes their only circulating medium, as well as their most costly ornaments. It is of a dazzling whiteness,--hollow, tapering, very smooth,-three inches in length, and about three-eights of an inch in cirumference. The chiefs wear necklaces of ifwaw; and hang single shells upon the periphery of the ear, or in the gristle of the nose. But the common nosejewel is a slip of copper, or of some other convenient material, which is suspended from the cartilage by means of a wire or string, and sometimes projects eight or nine inches on each side of the face. As the commonality generally have them of wood, they can, without much expense, make their own jewels, as long as they please. These sprit-sail-yard fellows, as my mess-mate used to call them, when rigged out in this manner, made quite a strange show, and it was his delight whenever he saw one of them coming towards us with an air of consequence proportioned to the length of his stick, to put up his hand suddenly as he was passing him, so as to strike the stick, in order, as he said, to brace him up sharp to the wind; this used to make them very angry, but nothing was more remote from Thompson's ideas than the wish to cultivate their favour.'

Nootkian architecture is extremely simple. Six crotches are first erected,-one at each corner, and two at the gable ends of the contemplated edifice; next a very heavy pole is laid upon those in the middle and two lighter ones upon each pair on the sides: and the whole is then covered with planks split out of some fissile wood: τότε γίνεται πολλὰ ἄξιον κλίμα οἰκία. But it can hardly be said to be a go to the Nootkians; for, with a notable regard to the real utility of houses and clothes, whenever there is any thing of a violent storm,--instead of taking shelter under the roof,--they strip, to a man, and get on the top, in order to keep the planks from being blown off. As a recompense for this inconvenience, however, their houses serve all the purposes of a bass-drum,-when any extraordinary occasion calls for a louder noise than can be made upon the smaller boxes, which constitute their common musical instruments. The inside is as plain as the exterior,-except that the posts and ridge-poles are carved into bas-relievos, which were intended to represent the heads of human beings. There is but a single aperture, which is most commonly at one of the ends:

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and the smoke must accordingly go out at the same door with the inhabitants. Through the centre of the floor, which is nothing but earth, there runs a longitudinal hall; on each side of which are arranged the apartments of the several inhabitant families, beginning with that of the chief (every house has one,) and proceeding alternately with those of the patriarchs, according to their respective ranks. Each family has its fire; but their only furniture consists of a tub to cook in, and a tray to eat out of. When a meal is prepared, they take their places around the common dish, in a squat, taylor-like posture; and, as they eat but once in a day, each gormandizes as much as he can; though we read of none in Maquina's sty who ever became so greedy as to get into the trough. The king here, as in some other countries is considered as 'the fountain of honour;' and it is deemed a great mark of favour (about as good as a pension) to receive a morsel from the royal tray.--The great excellence of a Nootkian house, consists in its portability. About the first of September the whole tribe break up their settlement, and depart for Tashees, a village about thirty miles up the Sound, where they catch their yearly supply of salmon. Here they remain nearly four months; and then remove to Cooptee, another station about half the way betwixt Nootka and Tashees,--where they take their annual supply of herring. In each of these three places they have the crotches and ridge poles of a village; so that when they arrive at either they have nothing to do but to cover them with their portable planks.

Our readers will have already perceived that the chief portion of their food consists of fish. Through the valley of Tashees there runs a river twenty rods wide by about twelve feet deep, which is so abundant in salmon that Jewitt has seen no less than seven hundred taken in fifteen minutes. They are driven into a conical basket about twenty feet in length, four in diameter at one end, and about as many inches at the other. Their curation is consigned to the women; who cut of the heads and tails, extract the spine, and hang them in their houses to dry. Cooptee, where the herring are caught, is situated at the mouth of the same river which runs past Tashees. The fishers are provided with a slip of some hard wood about seven feet long, two inches broad, by a half of an inch thick, and beset on one side with sharp whalebone teeth,--take their stations in the prow, and when they encounter a shoal of herring, bring down their instrument with both hands,-invert it dexterously,-and turn the captives into the canoe. With a little economy these Nootkians might live around the whole year upon the salmon and herring which they catch at Tashees and Cooptee: but

the unthinking improvidents consume, or rather waste, their provision nearly as fast as they procure it. While they remain at the two villages just mentioned they do nothing but fish, and feast. They cook in two ways:-first, by immersing heated stones into a tub of water which contains their food,—and secondly, by placing it between strata of green leaves which are laid upon a bed of such stones. They have no seasoning; and so great, indeed, is their aversion to salt, that, when Maquina once detected Jewitt boiling away sea water, he snatched up the kettle and turned out its contents,-warning his captive, at the same time, that he must never be caught in such a business again. Whatever they eat, however,-whether it be fish, or flesh, or vegetable food,-is always accompanied with a profusion of train-oil. That the astringent qualities of salt may, in the long-run, prove injurious to the system, is very possible; that the loosening and digestive effects of oil, on the other hand, must tend to keep it sound and in order, is very certain; and that the unexampled healthiness of the Nootkians, therefore, (only five natural deaths occurred during Jewitt's three years' residence among them) may, in a great measure, be attributed to their abstinence from the former, and the free use of the latter, is, we think, abundantly probable. Colic is almost the only disease which ever afflicts them, and they cure that easy enough by merely rubbing the body.

The language of the Nootkians partakes of the simplicity which pervades every thing about them. If we can judge from the specimens given us in the Narrative, or if we may credit the positive testimony of the narrator himself, it consists of but two parts of speech,-of the noun and the verb; or, in other words, of those signs only which stand for the two great divisions of terrestrial phenomena,-to wit, objects, and events. It would, at the first view, seem almost impossible that thought should be communicated through these two symbols only; yet it is a fact, that hardly any written or printed sentence in our own language will become unintelligible by the erasure of every word except the nouns and the verbs; while in our colloquial language, on the other hand, we very frequently use nothing but the nouns, and supply the verbs by means of gesticulation. In expressions which are anywise complicated, we hardly think the adjective could be dispensed with; and yet we greatly doubt whether the Nootkians have a part of speech which is simply and purely attributive. The abstract word-goodness-is perhaps unknown to men in a state of savagism; and we suspect our natives have never gone further in abstraction than to institute some single substantive which comprehends what we should express by a substantive and an adjective. Thus we ap

prehend that by the word wocash they signify what in English would be good thing. Our conjecture derives some corroboration, too, from the manner in which they compound words for the expression of what in our own language would be male child and female child. The words chickup, klootzmah, and tanassis respectively signify, man, woman, and child; while the word which stands for the latter, united to those which signify the two former, that is, tanassis-chickup, and tanassis-klootzmah,―-constitute respectively the expressions for son and daughter, or man-child and woman-child.-Pronouns are not so indispensable as adjectives; and if we have conjectured rightly about the want of the latter, there will be no difficulty in believing the non-existence of the former. Accordingly we see, in the expression quoted on p. 157, for example, that, although we have substituted the pronoun in the translation, the noun is uniformly employed in the original. Literally translated the sentence would be- find the enemy-not fear the enemy-find the enemy asleep;' the Nootkian word matemas being repeated in all the three clauses of the original passage. Perhaps, indeed, it is the nature of language, that, while in a state of rudeness, all the labour of elocution is performed by one or two words; and that, as civilization advances, the general division of labour is even extended to the parts of speech. There is something in the idea which, we confess, has the appearance of refinement; yet it is the general process of nature, as in producing a flower, for example,-first' to throw out altogether, and at once (says lord Bacon), the rudiments of all the parts in one body;' and afterwards, we may add, to ramify the several parts into their appropriate functions and positions. In the verbs of all languages, it is impossible, we suppose, to detect the latent rudiments of a pronoun; but we think it can be done in the Greek, Latin, Spanish, and perhaps some others. TUTTμ, for example, seems to be compounded of TT and ques;—amamus is still more probably a union of amo with nos;-and we are very sure that habemos is compounded of haber and nos. The other subordinate words of a language seem to be absolutely creatures of civilization; and yet we presume they are, to a great extent, derived from some other words.

Such are the government, religion, manners, customs, and language of the people, among whom our captives were obliged to spend nearly three years of their lives. We cannot find space enough to tell our readers all the hardships they underwent from the frequent scarcity of food,-from the tasks which their master set them,-and from the insults which they were sure of receiving from the tribe whenever the phylarch

was away. Once in each week, however, they found rest. Both retired on Sunday to the borders of a pond not far from the village; Jewitt to approach his Maker, and Thompson to get away from the savages. Jewitt repeatedly wrote letters which the chiefs of neighbouring tribes promised, out of envy to Maquina, they would deliver to the captain of the first ship which might come on the coast; but nineteen were miscarried, or rather not carried at all. The twentieth reached the commander of the brig Lydia, from Boston; and the exclamation of 'Weena-weena-mamethlee-Strangers! strangers! white men!' soon after announced her appearance off Nootka. No words could have sounded more agreeably in the ears of our captives; and yet, lest any manifestation of joy should induce the natives to despatch them, Jewitt received the information with great indifference and told his comrade that they had better continue at work. Maquina was surprised at such conduct; and exclaimed, What! John, you no glad go aboard!' He wanted himself to go aboard, in order to procure such articles as his tribe stood in need of; and had come to ask Jewitt if he thought the enterprise would be perfectly safe. 'Certainly,' answered the honest armourer: you have generally received good treatment at the hands of all other white men; and why should you imagine there is danger in visiting those who are on board of this ship?'-The king, accordingly, determined to go,--provided John would write him a letter of recommendation. It ran as follows:-

TO CAPTAIN

OF THE BRIG

'Nootka, July 19, 1805. 'SIR-The bearer of this letter is the Indian king by the name of Maquina. He was the instigator of the capture of the ship Boston, of Boston, in North America. John Salter captain, and of the murder of twenty-five men of her crew, the two only survivors being now on shore; wherefore I hope you will take care to confine him according to his merits, putting in your dead-lights, and keeping so good a watch over him, that he cannot escape from you. By so doing we shall be able to obtain our release in the course of a few hours.

JOHN R. JEWITT, Armourer of the Boston,

for himself and

JOHN THOMPSON, Sailmaker of said ship.'

When it was finished Maquina placed his finger upon the signature, and, searching our armourer's countenance with an eye which seemed to penetrate him to the bottom,- John (said he) you no lie?' John's face was fortunately painted,--so that no signs of guilt could be seen in a change of colour; and when