. {184} Suddenly, on the morning of March 7, the dim offing
ahead showed thin, sharp, clear lines. The lines rose higher as the
ship approached. They cut themselves against the sky in the form of
mountains and hills with purple mist lying in the valleys. It was the
New Albion at latitude 44 degrees 33 minutes, which Drake had
discovered. The day was hazy and warm. Cook's crews wondered why
Drake had complained of such cold. By night they found out. A roaring
hurricane burst from the northern darkness with squalls of hail and
snow and sleet, that turned the shore to one long reach of whitened
cliffs straight up and down out of the sea. In commemoration, they
called the first landfall, Cape Foulweather; and, in spite of the
commission to sail north, drove under bare poles before the storm to 43
degrees, naming the two capes passed Perpetua and Gregory. Only by the
third week of March had the storm abated enough for them to turn north
again.[1]

Now, whether the old Greek pilot, Juan de Fuca, lied or dreamed, or
only told a yarn of what some Indian had told him, it was along this
coast that he had said the straits leading to the east side of America
lay; and Cook's two ships hugged the coast as close as they dared for
fear of roaring breakers and a landward wind. On March 23 rocks were
seen lying off a high point capped with trees, behind which might be a
{185} strait; but a gale ashore and a lashing tide thundering over the
rocks sent the ships scudding for the offing through fog and rain; and
never a glimpse of a passage eastward could the crews obtain. Cook
called the delusive point Cape Flattery and added: "It is in this very
latitude (48 degrees 15 minutes) that geographers have placed the
pretended Straits of Juan de Fuca; but we saw nothing like it; nor is
there the least possibility that any such thing ever existed." But
Cook was too far out to descry the narrow opening--but thirteen miles
wide--of Juan de Fuca, where the steamers of three continents ply
to-day; though the strait by no means led to Europe, as geographers
thought.

All night a hard gale drove them northward. When the weather cleared,
permitting them to approach the coast again, high mountains, covered
with snow and forests, jagged through the clouds like tent peaks.
Tremendous breakers roared over sunken rocks. Point Breakers, Cook
called them. Then the wind suddenly fell; and the ships were becalmed
directly opposite the narrow en