Note (return) — Chapter IV · TRANSACTIONS AMONGST THE NATIVES OF NORTH AMERICA; DISCOVERIES ALONG THAT COAST AND THE EASTERN EXTREMITY OF ASIA, NORTHWARD TO ICY CAPE; AND RETURN SOUTHWARD TO THE SANDWICH ISLANDS. (continued 3)

While we lay here, several of the natives came off to us, each in a canoe, and bartered a few fishing implements for tobacco. One of them, a young man, overset his canoe, while along-side of one of our boats. Our people caught hold of him, but the canoe went adrift, and, being picked up by another, was carried ashore. The youth, by this accident, was obliged to come into the ship; and he went down into my cabin, upon the first invitation, without expressing the least reluctance or uneasiness. His dress was an upper garment, like a shirt, made of the large gut of some sea-animal, probably the whale, and an under garment of the same shape, made of the skins of birds, dressed with the feathers on, and neatly sewed together, the feathered side being wore next his skin. It was mended or patched with pieces of silk-stuff, and his cap was ornamented with two or three sorts of glass beads. His own clothes being wet, I gave him others, in which he dressed himself with as much ease as I could have done. From his behaviour, and that of some others, we were convinced that these people were no strangers to Europeans, and to some of their customs. But there was something in our ships that greatly excited their curiosity; for such as could not come off in canoes, assembled on the neighbouring hills to look at them.8