luff
point, bore N., 20 deg. E., two leagues distant; a point on the other
shore opposite to it, and nearly of the same height, bore N., 36 deg. W.;
our latitude, by observation, 60 deg. 37'.

About noon, two canoes, with a man in each, came off to the ship from
near the place where we had seen the smoke the preceding day. They
laboured very hard in paddling across the strong tide, and hesitated
a little before they would come quite close; but upon signs being
made to them, they approached. One of them talked a great deal to no
purpose; for we did not understand a word he said. He kept pointing
to the shore, which we interpreted to be an invitation to go thither.
They accepted a few trifles from me, which I conveyed to them from the
quarter-gallery. These men, in every respect, resembled the people we
had met with in Prince William's Sound, as to their persons and dress.
Their canoes were also of the same construction. One of our visitors
had his face painted jet black, and seemed to have no beard; but the
other, who was more elderly, had no paint, and a considerable beard,
with a visage much like the common sort of the Prince William's
people. There was also smoke seen upon the flat western shore this
day, from whence we may infer that these lower spots and islands are
the only inhabited places.

When the flood made we weighed, and then the canoes left us. I stood
over to the western shore, with a fresh gale at N.N.E., and fetched
under the point above-mentioned. This, with the other on the opposite
shore, contracted the channel to the breadth of four leagues. Through
this channel ran a prodigious tide. It looked frightful to us, who
could not tell whether the agitation of the water was occasioned by
the stream, or by the breaking of the waves against rocks or sands. As
we met with no shoal, it was concluded to be the former; but, in the
end, we found ourselves mistaken. I now kept the western shore aboard,
it appearing to be the safest. Near the shore we had a depth of
thirteen fathoms; and two or three miles off, forty and upwards. At
eight in the evening, we anchored under a point of land which bore
N.E., three leagues distant, in fifteen fathoms water. Here we lay
during the ebb, which ran near five knots in the hour.

Until we got thus far, the water had retained the same degree of
saltness at low as at high water; and at both periods was as salt as
that in the ocean. But now the marks of a river displayed them