s
of the Men.--Of the Women.--Food, Animal and Vegetable.--Manner of
preparing it.--Weapons.--Manufactures and Mechanic Arts.--Carving
and Painting.--Canoes.--Implements for Fishing and Hunting.--Iron
Tools.--Manner of procuring that Metal.--Remarks on their Language,
and a Specimen of it.--Astronomical and Nautical Observations made in
Nootka Sound._

The two towns or villages, mentioned in the course of my journal, seem
to be the only inhabited part of the Sound. The number of inhabitants
in both might be pretty exactly computed from the canoes that were
about the ships the second day after our arrival. They amounted to
about a hundred; which, at a very moderate allowance, must, upon an
average, have held five persons each. But as there were scarcely any
women, very old men, children, or youths amongst them at that time,
I think it will rather be rating the number of the inhabitants of the
two towns too low, if we suppose they could be less than four times
the number of our visitors, that is, two thousand in the whole.

The village at the entrance of the Sound stands on the side of a
rising ground, which has a pretty steep ascent from the beach to the
verge of the wood, in which space it is situated.

The houses are disposed in three ranges or rows, rising gradually
behind each other, the largest being that in front, and the others
less, besides a few straggling, or single ones, at each end. These
ranges are interrupted or disjoined at irregular distances, by
narrow paths, or lanes, that pass upward; but those which run in the
direction of the houses, between the rows, are much broader. Though
there be some appearance of regularity in this disposition, there
is none in the single houses, for each of the divisions, made by the
paths, may be considered either as one house, or as many, there
being no regular or complete separation, either without or within, to
distinguish them by. They are built of very long and broad planks[1],
resting upon the edges of each other, fastened or tied by withes
of pine bark here and there, and have only slender posts, or rather
poles, at considerable distances on the outside, to which they also
are tied, but within are some larger poles placed aslant. The height
of the sides and ends of these habitations, is seven or eight feet;
but the back part is a little higher, by which means, the planks that
compose the roof slant forward, and are laid on loose, so as to be
moved about, either to