the present time, with the appearance of land and water as
an aid, to make a better interpretation of the journal than
the explorer himself could manage with only his memory for
aid. The modern investigator is aided by the facts that
the unfriendly Indians have disappeared, the craft is not
quite so crazy and the prospect of starvation is perhaps a
little more remote. There need then be no hesitation in
discarding the foot note, penned some years after his visit
to the coast, in which Mackenzie, in referring to the
location of the rock, says, ““This I found to be on the
cheek of Vancouver's Cascade Canal.”

“Under the land we met with three canoes, with fifteen men in
them, and laden with moveables, as if proceeding to a new situation,
or returning to a former one. They manifested no kind of mistrust
or fear of us, but entered into conversation with our young man, as |
supposed, to obtain some information concerning us. It did not
appear that they were the same people as those we had lately seen, as
they spoke the language of our young chief, with a different accent.
They then examined everything we had in the canoe, with an air of
indifference and disdain. One of them in particular made me under-
stand, with an air of insolence, that a large canoe had lately been in
this bay, with people in her like me, and that one of them, whom he
called ““Macubah”’ had fired on him and his friends, and that “‘Bensins”’
had struck him on the back with the flat part of his sword. He also
mentioned another name, the articulation of which I could not deter-
mine. At the same time he illustrated these circumstances by the
assistance of my gun and sword; and I do not doubt but he well deserved
the treatment which he described. He also produced several European
articles, which could not have been long in his possession. From his
conduct and appearance, I wished very much to be rid of him, and
flattered myself that he would prosecute his voyage, which appeared
to be in an opposite direction to our course.

“However, when I prepared to part from them, they turned their
canoes about, and persuaded my young man to leave me, which I
could not prevent.’’!7

From the fact that the obnoxious Indian produced
several European articles which could not have been long
in his possession it seems quite likely that he was the
individual whom Vancouver's party met on the 2nd of
June, towards the head of Dean Channel, and who avoided
them by poling his canoe up a small creek at the mouth of
which Vancouver left some trinkets. He probably imag-
ined the firing episode as soon as he had recovered from
his fright.3s

17 P, 344, Mackenzie's Voyages.

18 See “A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean and Round the World,”
etc., by Captain George Vancouver. London 1801, vol. IV, pp. 12-13.

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