Between one and two in the morning of the 30th, we weighed again with the first of the flood, the gale having, by this time quite abated, but still continuing contrary; so that we plied up till near seven o’clock, when the tide being done, we anchored in nineteen fathoms, under the same shore as before.  The N.W. part of it, forming a bluff point, bore N., 20 deg.  E., two leagues distant; a point on the other shore opposite to it, and nearly of the same height, bore N., 36 deg.  W.; our latitude, by observation, 60 deg. 37’.

About noon, two canoes, with a man in each, came off to the ship from near the place where we had seen the smoke the preceding day.  They laboured very hard in paddling across the strong tide, and hesitated a little before they would come quite close; but upon signs being made to them, they approached.  One of them talked a great deal to no purpose; for we did not understand a word he said.  He kept pointing to the shore, which we interpreted to be an invitation to go thither.  They accepted a few trifles from me, which I conveyed to them from the quarter-gallery.  These men, in every respect, resembled the people we had met with in Prince William’s Sound, as to their persons and dress.  Their canoes were also of the same construction.  One of our visitors had his face painted jet black, and seemed to have no beard; but the other, who was more elderly, had no paint, and a considerable beard, with a visage much like the common sort of the Prince William’s people.  There was also smoke seen upon the flat western shore this day, from whence we may infer that these lower spots and islands are the only inhabited places.

When the flood made we weighed, and then the canoes left us.  I stood over to the western shore, with a fresh gale at N.N.E., and fetched under the point above-mentioned.  This, with the other on the opposite shore, contracted the channel to the breadth of four leagues.  Through this channel ran a prodigious tide.  It looked frightful to us, who could not tell whether the agitation of the water was occasioned by the stream, or by the breaking of the waves against rocks or sands.  As we met with no shoal, it was concluded to be the former; but, in the end, we found ourselves mistaken.  I now kept the western shore aboard, it appearing to be the safest.  Near the shore we had a depth of thirteen fathoms; and two or three miles off, forty and upwards.  At eight in the evening, we anchored under a point of land which bore N.E., three leagues distant, in fifteen fathoms water.  Here we lay during the ebb, which ran near five knots in the hour.

Until we got thus far, the water had retained the same degree of saltness at low as at high water; and at both periods was as salt as that in the ocean.  But now the marks of a river displayed themselves.  The water taken up this ebb, when at the lowest, was found to be very considerably fresher than any we had hitherto tasted; insomuch that I was convinced that we were in a large river, and not in a strait, communicating with the northern seas.  But as we had proceeded thus far, I was desirous of having stronger proofs; and therefore weighed with the next flood in the morning of the 31st, and plied higher up, or rather drove up with the tide; for we had but little wind.