PAGE INTRODUCTION. BY DR. ROBERT BROWN 13
CHAPTER I BIRTH, PARENTAGE, AND EARLY LIFE OF THE AUTHOR 43
CHAPTER III INTERCOURSE WITH THE NATIVES--MAQUINA--SEIZURE OF THE VESSEL AND MURDER OF THE CREW 58
CHAPTER IV RECEPTION OF JEWITT BY THE SAVAGES--ESCAPE OF THOMPSON--ARRIVAL OF NEIGHBOURING TRIBES--AN INDIAN FEAST 70
CHAPTER V BURNING OF THE VESSEL--COMMENCEMENT OF JEWITT'S JOURNAL 83
CHAPTER VI DESCRIPTION OF NOOTKA SOUND--MANNER OF BUILDING HOUSES--FURNITURE--DRESSES 95
CHAPTER VII APPEARANCE OF THE NATIVES--ORNAMENTS--OTTER-HUNTING-- FISHING--CANOES 112
CHAPTER VIII MUSIC--MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS--SLAVES--NEIGHBOURING TRIBES--TRADE WITH THESE--ARMY 129
CHAPTER IX SITUATION OF THE AUTHOR--REMOVAL TO TASHEES--FISHING PARTIES 142
CHAPTER X CONVERSATION WITH MAQUINA--FRUITS--RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES--VISIT TO UPQUESTA 156
CHAPTER XI RETURN TO NOOTKA (FRIENDLY COVE)--DEATH OF MAQUINA'S NEPHEW--INSANITY OF TOOTOOSCH--AN INDIAN MOUNTEBANK 172
CHAPTER XII WAR WITH THE A-Y-CHARTS--A NIGHT ATTACK--PROPOSALS TO PURCHASE THE AUTHOR 185
CHAPTER XIII MARRIAGE OF THE AUTHOR--HIS ILLNESS--DISMISSES HIS WIFE--RELIGION OF THE NATIVES--CLIMATE 198
CHAPTER XIV ARRIVAL OF THE BRIG "LYDIA"--STRATAGEM OF THE AUTHOR--ITS SUCCESS 223
APPENDIX I. THE "BOSTON'S" CREW 247 II. WAR-SONG OF THE NOOTKA TRIBE 248 III. A LIST OF WORDS 249
PAGE PORTRAIT OF DR. ROBERT BROWN (1870) _Frontispiece_ DR. BROWN'S "BOY" 14 PORT SAN JUAN INDIANS 16 OHYAHT INDIAN 24 INDIAN ENCAMPMENT NEAR THE LANDING-STAGE, ESQUIMAULT 33 HABITATIONS IN NOOTKA SOUND (TEMP. 1803) 97 INTERIOR OF A HABITATION IN NOOTKA SOUND 103 NOOTKA SOUND INDIANS 111 INDIAN CANOES, VICTORIA, V. I. (TEMP. 1863) 125 UK-LULAC-AHT INDIAN 135 SALMON WEAR NEAR THE INDIAN VILLAGE OF QUAMICHAN, V. I. 149 CALLICUM AND MAQUILLA, CHIEFS OF NOOTKA SOUND (TEMP. 1803) 159 INDIAN CHIEF'S GRAVE (TEMP. 1863) 209
Many years ago--when America was in the midst of war, when railways across the continent were but the dream of sanguine men, and when the Pacific was a faraway sea--the writer of these lines passed part of a pleasant summer in cruising along the western shores of Vancouver Island. Our ship's company was not distinguished, for it consisted of two fur-traders and an Indian "boy," and the sloop in which the crew and passengers sailed was so small, that, when the wind failed, and the brown folk ashore looked less amiable and the shore more rugged than was desirable, we put her and ourselves beyond hail by the aid of what seamen know as a "white ash breeze." Out of one fjord we went, only to enter another so like it that there was often a difficulty in deciding by the mere appearance of the shore which was which. Everywhere the dense forest of Douglas fir and Menzies spruce covered the country from the water's edge to the summit of the rounded hills which here and there caught the eye in the still little known, but at that date almost entirely unexplored interior. Wherever a tree could obtain a foothold, there a tree grew, until in places their roots were at times laved by the spray. Beneath this thick clothing of heavy timber flourished an almost equally dense undergrowth of shrubs, which until then were only known to us from the specimens introduced from North-West America into the European gardens. Gay were the thickets of thimbleberry[1] and salmonberry[2] wherever the soil was rich, and for miles the ground was carpeted with the salal,[3] while the huckleberry,[4] the crab-apple,[5] and the flowering currant[6] varied the monotony of the gloomy woods. In places the ginseng, or, as the woodmen call it, the "devil's walking-stick,"[7] with its long prickly stem and palm-like head of great leaves, imparted an almost tropical aspect to scenery which, seen from the deck of our little craft, looked so like that of Southern Norway, that I have never seen the latter without recalling the outer limits of British Columbia. On the few flat spits where the sun reached, the gigantic cedars[8] and broad-leaved maples[9] lighted up the scene, while the dogwood,[10] with its large white flowers reflected in the water of some river which, after a turbulent course, had reached the sea through a placid mouth, or a Menzies arbutus,[11] whose glossy leaves and brown bark presented a more southern facies to the sombre jungles, afforded here and there a relief to the never-ending fir and pine and spruce.