hey paint their body and face, tatoo themselves,
and pierce their ears and the cartilage of their nose, for the purpose
of placing ornaments in them. Their food consists chiefly of game and
fish. Their huts, or cabins, are constructed of rushes, or the branches
of trees, and are covered with bark. The weapons of the men are bows,
javelins, and daggers. The women are chiefly employed in domestic
concerns: their dress consists of a leathern shirt, and a mantle of
skins; and their feet are generally naked.

The inhabitants of the country, adjacent to an inlet which Captain Cook
named _Prince William's Sound_, appeared to have a strong resemblance to
the Esquimaux and Greenlanders. Their canoes, their weapons, and their
implements for fishing and hunting, are exactly similar, in materials
and construction, to those used in Greenland; and the animals are, in
general, similar to those that are found at Nootka. Humming-birds
frequently flew about the ships while at anchor. Waterfowl were in
considerable abundance: but torsk and holibut were almost the only kinds
of fish that were caught. Vegetables were few in number; and the trees
were chiefly the Canadian and spruce pine.

North of Prince William's Sound, Captain Cook entered an inlet, which,
it was hoped, would be found to communicate either with Baffin's or
Hudson's Bay to the east; but, after an examination of it, to the
distance of seventy leagues from the sea, it was proved to be a river.
It is now called _Cook's River_.

The inhabitants who were seen during the examinations of this river,
appeared to resemble those of Prince William's Sound. They essentially
differed from those of Nootka Sound, both in their persons and language.
The only articles seen among them, which were not their own manufacture,
were a few glass beads, the iron points of their spears, and their
knives of the same metal. A very beneficial fur-trade, might be carried
on with the inhabitants of this vast coast; but, without a practical
northern passage, the situation is too remote to render such a trade of
any advantage to Great Britain.

A long peninsula, called _Alyaska_, extends, from the mouth of Cook's
River, in a westerly direction; and, from its extremity a chain of
islands stretches almost to the coast of Asia. The main land was
observed, by Captain Cook, to be mountainous; and some of the mountains
towered above the clouds. One of them, of conical shape, was discovered
to be a volcano: