Some circumstances, that occurred daily, relating to this, deserve particular notice.  In the cove, where we got wood and water, was a great deal of drift wood thrown ashore; a part of which we had to remove to come at the water.  It often happened, that large pieces of trees, which we had removed in the day out of the reach of the then high water, were found, the next morning, floated again in our way; and all our spouts, for conveying down the water, thrown out of their places, which were immoveable during the day-tides.  We also found, that wood, which we had split up for fuel, and had deposited beyond the reach of the day-tide, floated away during the night.  Some of these circumstances happened every night or morning, for three or four days in the height of the spring-tides; during which time we were obliged to attend every morning-tide, to remove the large logs out of the way of watering.

I cannot say whether the flood-tide falls into the Sound from the north-west, south-west, or south-east.  I think it does not come from the last quarter; but this is only conjecture, founded upon the following observations:  The south-east gales, which we had in the Sound, were so far from increasing the rise of the tide, that they rather diminished it; which would hardly have happened, if the flood and wind had been in the same direction.

SECTION IV.

A Storm, after sailing from Nootka Sound.—­Resolution springs a Leak.—­Pretended Strait of Admiral de Fonte passed unexamined.—­Progress along the Coast of America.—­Behring’s Bay.—­Kaye’s Island.—­Account of it.—­The Ships come to an Anchor.—­Visited by the Natives.—­Their Behaviour.—­Fondness for Beads and Iron.—­Attempt to plunder the Discovery.—­Resolution’s Leak stopped.—­Progress up the Sound.—­Messrs Gore and Roberts sent to examine its Extent.—­Reasons against a Passage to the North through it.—­The Ships proceed down it to the open Sea.

Having put to sea on the evening of the 26th, as before related, with strong signs of an approaching storm, these signs did not deceive us.  We were hardly out of the Sound, before the wind, in an instant, shifted from north-east to south-east by east, and increased to a strong gale, with squalls and rain, and so dark a sky, that we could not see the length of the ship.  Being apprehensive, from the experience I had since our arrival on this coast, of the wind veering more to the south, which would put us in danger of a lee-shore, we got the tacks on board, and stretched off to the south-west, under all the sail that the ships could bear.  Fortunately, the wind veered no farther southerly than south-east; so that at day-light the next morning we were quite clear of the coast.