sailed to Alaska, on the
north-west coast of North America. Cook had explored here "with that
courage and perseverance of which all Europe knows him to have been
capable," wrote Laperouse, never failing to use an opportunity of
expressing admiration for his illustrious predecessor. But there was
still useful work to do, and the French occupied their time very
profitably with it from June to August. Then their ships sailed down
the western coast of America to California, struck east across
the Pacific to the Ladrones, and made for Macao in China--then as now
a Portugese possession--reaching that port in January, 1787.

The Philippines were next visited, and Laperouse formed pleasant
impressions of Manilla. It is clear from his way of alluding to the
customs of the Spanish inhabitants that the French captain was not a
tobacco smoker. It was surprising to him that "their passion for
smoking this narcotic is so immoderate that there is not an instant of
the day in which either a man or woman is without a cigar;" and it is
equally surprising to us that the French editor of the history of the
voyage found it necessary to explain in a footnote that a cigar is "a
small roll of tobacco which is smoked without the assistance of a
pipe." But cigars were then little known in Europe, except among
sailors and travellers who had visited the Spanish colonies; and the
very spelling of the word was not fixed. In English voyages it appears
as "seegar," "segar," and "sagar."

Formosa was visited in April, northern Japan in May, and the
investigation of the north-eastern coasts of Asia occupied until
October.

A passage in a letter from Laperouse to Fleurieu is worth quoting for
two reasons. It throws some light on the difficulties of navigation in
unknown seas, and upon the commander's severe application to duty; and
it also serves to remind us that Japan, now so potent a factor in the
politics of the East and of the whole Pacific, had not then emerged
from the barbarian exclusiveness towards foreigners, which she
had maintained since Europe commenced to exploit Asia. In the middle of
the seventeenth century she had expelled the Spaniards and the
Portugese with much bloodshed, and had closed her ports to all traders
except the Chinese and the Dutch, who were confined to a prescribed
area at Nagasaki. Intercourse with all other foreign peoples was
strictly forbidden. Even as late as 1842 it was commanded that if any
foreign vessel were