[46]. This operation is represented by Mr. Webber, in his drawing of the inside of a Nootka house.
[47]. One of the methods of catching the sea-otter, when ashore, in Kamtschatka, is with nets. See Cox’s Russian Discoveries, p. 13. 4to. Edition.
[48]. We now know that Captain Cook’s conjecture was well founded. It appears, from the Journal of this Voyage, already referred to, that the Spaniards had intercourse with the natives of this coast, only in three places, in latitude 41° 7ʹ; in latitude 47° 21ʹ; and in latitude 57° 18ʹ. So that they were not within two degrees of Nootka; and it is most probable, that the people there never heard of these Spanish ships.
[49]. Though the two silver table-spoons, found at Nootka Sound, most probably came from the Spaniards in the south, there seem to be sufficient grounds for believing, that the regular supply of iron comes from a different quarter. It is remarkable, that the Spaniards, in 1775, found at Puerto de la Trinidad, in latitude 41° 7ʹ, arrows pointed with copper or iron, which they understood were procured from the north. Mr. Daines Barrington, in a note at this part of the Spanish Journal, p. 20. says, “I should conceive that the copper and iron, here mentioned, must have originally been bartered at our forts in Hudson’s bay.”
[50]. May we not, in confirmation of Mr. Anderson’s remark, observe, that Opulszthl, the Nootka name of the sun; and Vitziputzli, the name of the Mexican divinity, have no very distant affinity in sound?
[51]. It will be found at the end of the last volume.
[52]. As in the remaining part of this volume, the latitude and longitude are very frequently set down; the former being invariably north and the latter east, the constant repetition of the two words north and east, has been omitted, to avoid unnecessary precision.
[53]. See De Lisle’s Carte Générale des Découvertes de l’Amiral de Fonte, &c. Paris, 1752; and many other maps.
[54]. This must be very near that part of the American coast, where Tscherikow anchored in 1741. For Muller places its latitude in 56°. Had this Russian navigator been so fortunate as to proceed a little farther northward along the coast, he would have found, as we now learn from Captain Cook, bays, and harbours, and islands, where his ship might have been sheltered, and his people protected in landing. For the particulars of the misfortunes he met with here, two boats crews, which he sent ashore, having never returned, probably cut off by the natives, see Muller’s Découvertes des Russes, p. 248, 254. The Spaniards, in 1775, found two good harbours on this part of the coast; that called Gualoupe, in latitude 57° 11ʹ, and the other, De los Remedios, in latitude 57° 18ʹ.
[55]. It should seem that in this very bay, the Spaniards, in 1775, found their port which they call De los Remedios. The latitude is exactly the same; and their journal mentions its being protected by a long ridge of high islands. See Miscellanies by the Honourable Daines Barrington, p. 503, 504.