(Port des), the name given by Perrouse to a bay, or rather harbour, which he undoubtedly discovered on the north-west coast of America. It is situated, according to him, in 58° 37' N. Lat. and in 139° 50' W. Long. from Paris. When the two frigates which he commanded approached it, as they were stretching along the coast from south to north, he perceived from his ship a great reef of rocks, behind which the sea was very calm. This reef appeared to be about three or four hundred toises in length from east to west, and to be terminated, at about two cables length, by the point of the continent, leaving a pretty large opening; so that Nature seemed to have made, at the extremity of America, a harbour like that of Toulon, only more vast in her designs and in her means: this new harbour was three or four leagues deep.

Some officers, who had been dispatched in boats to reconnoitre this harbour, gave a report of it extremely favourable; favourable; and on the 3d of July 1786, the two frigates entered it, and anchored near its mouth in three fathoms and a half, rocky bottom. The bay, however, was quickly founded, and much better anchoring ground discovered at an island in the middle of it, where the ships might ride in 20 fathoms water with muddy bottom. This ground was taken possession of, an observatory erected on the island, which was only a mule shot from the ships, and a settlement formed for their stay in the harbour. From a report made by one of the officers who had penetrated towards the bottom of the bay, Perouse had conceived the idea of finding perhaps a channel by which he might proceed into the interior of America; but he was disappointed. The bottom of the bay, indeed, according to him, is one of the most extraordinary places in the world. It is a basin of water, of a depth in the middle that could not be fathomed, bordered by peaked mountains of an excessive height, covered with snow, without a blade of grass upon this immense collection of rocks, condemned by Nature to perpetual sterility. "I never (says he) saw a breath of air ruffle the surface of this water; it is never troubled but by the fall of enormous pieces of ice, which continually detach themselves from five different glaciers, and which in falling make a noise that resounds far in the mountains. The air is in this place so very calm, and the silence so profound, that the mere voice of a man may be heard half a league off, as well as the noise of some sea birds which lay their eggs in the cavities of these rocks."

It was at the extremity of this bay that he was in hopes of finding a passage into the interior of America. He imagined that it might terminate in a great river, of which the course might lie between two mountains; and that this river might take its source in the great lakes to the northward of Canada. Two channels were indeed found, stretching, the one to the east, and the other to the west; but both were very soon terminated by immense glaciers.

In Port des Français the variation of the compass is 28° east, and the dip of the needle 74°. The sea rises there seven feet and a half at full and change of the moon, when it is high water at one o'clock. The sea breezes, or perhaps other causes, act so powerfully upon the current of the channel, that M. Perouse saw the flood come in there like the most rapid river; while, in other circumstances, at the same period of the moon, it may be stemmed by a boat. In this channel he lost two fallops and twenty men. In his different excursions, he found the high water mark to be about 15 feet above the surface of the sea. These tides are probably incident to the bad season. When the winds blow with violence from the southward, the channel must be impracticable, and at all times the currents render the entrance difficult; the going out of it also requires a combination of circumstances, which may retard the departure of a vessel many weeks; there is no getting under way but at the top of high water; the breeze from the west to the north-west does not often rise till toward eleven o'clock, which does not permit the taking advantage of the morning tide; finally, the easterly winds, which are contrary, appeared to him to be more frequent than those from the west, and the vast height of the surrounding mountains never permits the land breezes, or those from the north, to penetrate into the road.

As this port possesses great advantages, M. Perouse thought it a duty incumbent on him to make its inconveniences also known. It seemed to him that this anchorage is not convenient for those ships which are sent out at a venture for trafficking in skins; such ships ought to anchor in a great many bays, and always make the shortest stay possible in any of them; because the Indians have always disposed of their whole stock in the first week, and all lost time is prejudicial to the interests of the owners; but a nation which should form the project of establishing factories similar to those of the English in Hudson's Bay, could not make choice of a place more proper for such a settlement. A simple battery of four heavy cannon, placed upon the point of the continent, would be fully adequate to the defence of so narrow an entrance, which is also made so difficult by the currents. This battery could not be turned or taken by land, because the sea always breaks with such violence upon the coast, that to disembark is impossible. The fort, the magazines, and all the settlements for commerce, should be raised upon Cenotaph Island (A), the circumference of which is nearly a league; it is capable of being cultivated, and there is plenty of wood and water. The ships not having their cargo to seek, but being certain of having it collected to a single point, would not be exposed to any delay; some buoys, placed for the internal navigation of the bay, would make it extremely safe and easy. The settlement would form pilots, who, better versed than we are in the set and strength of the current at particular times of tide, would ensure the entrance and departure of the ships. Finally, continues the author, our traffic for otters skins has been so very considerable, that I may fairly presume there could not, in any part of America, be a greater quantity of them collected.

The climate of this coast seemed to Perouse much milder than that of Hudson's Bay in the same latitude. Pines were measured of six feet diameter, and 140 high; while those of the same species at Prince of Wales's Fort and Fort York are of a dimension scarce sufficient for studding sail-booms. Vegetation is also very vigorous during three or four months of the year; and our author thinks, that Russian corn, as well as many common plants, might thrive exceedingly at Port des Français, where was found great abundance of celery, lute, pine, the wild pea, yarrow, and andive. Among these pot herbs were seen almost all those of the meadows and mountains of France; such as the angelica, the butter cup, the violet, and many species of grasses proper for fodder. The woods abound in gooseberries, raspberries, and strawberries; clusters of elder trees, the dwarf willow, different species of briar which grow in the shade, the gum poplar tree, the poplar, the fallow, the horn-beam; and, finally, superb pines, fit for the

(A) This name was given to the island in the bay from the monument erected on it to the memory of their unfortunate companions. maasts of our largest ships. Not any of the vegetable productions of this country are unknown in Europe. M. de Martinière, in his different excursions, met with only three plants which he thought new; and it is well known, that a botanist might do the same in the vicinity of Paris.

The rivers were filled with trout and salmon; and as the Indians sold these fish to the French in greater quantities than they could consume, they had very little fishing in the bay, and that only with the line. They caught some ling, a single thornback, some plaice, fletons or failans, of which some were more than 100 pounds in weight (n), and a fish resembling the whiting, but a little larger, which abounds on the coast of Provence, where it is known by the name of poor-priest. Peroufe calls these fish capelans. In the woods they met with bears, martens, and squirrels; but they saw no great variety of birds, though the individuals were very numerous.

"If the animal and vegetable productions of this country resemble those of a great many others, its appearance (says our author) can be compared to nothing. The views which it presents are more frightful than those of the Alps and the Pyrenees; but at the same time so picturesque, that they would deserve the visits of the curious, were they not at the extremity of the world. The primitive mountains of granite or schistus, perpetually covered with snow, upon which are neither trees nor plants, have their foundation in the sea, and form upon the shore a kind of quay; their slope is so rapid, that after the first two or three hundred toises, the wild goats cannot climb them; and all the gullies which separate them are immense glaciers, of which the tops cannot be discerned, while the base is washed by the sea. At a cable's length from the land there is no bottom at least than 160 fathoms. The sides of the harbour are formed by secondary mountains, the elevation of which does not exceed from 800 to 900 toises; they are covered with pines, and overgrown with verdure; and the snow is only seen on their summits; they appeared to be entirely formed of schistus, which is in the commencement of a state of decomposition; they are extremely difficult to climb, but not altogether inaccessible.

"Nature affords inhabitants to so frightful a country, who as widely differ from the people of civilized countries as the scene which has just been described differs from our cultivated plains; as rude and barbarous as their soil is rocky and barren, they inhabit this land only to destroy its population; at war with all the animals, they despise the vegetable substances which grow around them. I have seen (says our author) women and children eat some raspberries and strawberries; but these are undoubtedly viands far too insipid for men, who live upon the earth like vultures in the air, or wolves and tigers in the forests.

"Their arts are somewhat advanced, and in this respect civilization has made considerable progress; but that which softens their ferocity, and polishes their manners, is yet in its infancy. The mode of life they pursue excluding all kind of subordination, they are continually agitated by fear or revenge; prone to anger, and easily irritated, they are continually attacking each other dagger in hand. Explored in the winter to perish for want, because the chase cannot be successful, they live during the summer in the greatest abundance, as they can catch in less than an hour a sufficient quantity of fish for the support of their family; they remain idle during the rest of the day, which they pass at play, to which they are as much addicted as some of the inhabitants in our great cities. This gaming is the great source of their quarrels. If to all these destructive vices they should unfortunately add a knowledge of the use of any intoxicating liquor, M. Peroufe does not hesitate to pronounce, that this colony would be entirely annihilated."

Like all other savages, they are incorrigible thieves; and when they assumed a mild and placid appearance, the Frenchmen were sure that they had stolen something. Iron, of which they appeared to know the use, and of course the value, most excited their curiosity; and when our navigators were engaged in carefully a child, the father was sure to seize the opportunity of taking up, and concealing under his skin-garment, every thing of that metal which lay within his reach, and was not too heavy to be carried off.

M. Rollin, surgeon major of one of the frigates, thus describes these people. "They have very little similarity to the Californians; they are taller, flatter, of a more agreeable figure, and greater vivacity of expression: they are also much their superiors in courage and sense. They have rather a low forehead, but more open than that of the Southern Americans; their eyes are black and very animated; their eyebrows much fuller; their nose of the usual size, and well formed, except being a little widened at the extremity; their lips thinner; their mouth moderately large; their teeth fine and very even; their chin and ears very regular.

"The women also have an equal advantage over those of the preceding tribes; they have much more mildness in their features, and grace in their limbs—Their countenance would be even very agreeable, if, in order to let it off, they did not make use of a strange custom of wearing in the lower lip an elliptical piece of wood, lightly grooved on its circumference and both its sides, and which is commonly half an inch thick, two in diameter, and three in length.

"This singular ornament, besides being a great deformity, is the cause of a very troublesome as well as disgusting involuntary flow of saliva. This appendage is peculiar to the women; and female children are made to undergo the preparatory operations from the time of their birth. For this purpose, the lower lip is pierced with a kind of pin of copper or gold, which is either left in the opening, or its place supplied with a ring of the same material, till the period of puberty. The aperture is then gradually enlarged, by substituting first a small piece of wood of the form mentioned above, then a larger one; and so on, increasing its size by degrees till it reaches the dimensions just stated.

"This extraordinary custom shows the great power of dilatation in the lip, and may encourage medical practitioners

(n) This is a flat fish, longer and not so square as the turbot. Its back is covered with small scales; and those which are taken in Europe are much less than the fletons of Port des Français. titioners in their attempts to remedy deformities of this part by the use of the knife.

"The general colour of these people is olive, a fainter tinge of which is apparent in their nails, which they suffer to grow very long; the hue of the skin, however, varies in different individuals, and in various parts of the same individual, according to their exposure to the action of the air and sun.

"Their hair is, in general, neither so coarse nor black as that of the South Americans. Chefout coloured hair is by no means unfrequent among them. Their beard is also fuller, and their armpits and parts of sex better provided with hair.

"The perfect evenness of their teeth led me at first to suspect that it was the effect of art; but after an attentive and minute examination, I could perceive no wearing away of the enamel, and I saw that this regularity is natural. They tattoo and paint their face and body, and bore their ears and the cartilage of their nose.

"Some writers have imagined, that the custom of painting the face and body, so generally adopted by the Africans, Americans, and West Indians, is only intended as a preservative against noxious insects. I think, however, that I am warranted in asserting its sole end to be ornament. I found it to prevail among the inhabitants of Easter Island and the natives of Port des Français, without observing among them either venomous insects or reptiles. Besides, I remarked, that they wore paint only when they paid us a visit; for they made no use of it when in their own houses."

M. Peronoe himself speaks not so favourably of the women as M. Rollin. "They are (he says) the most disagreeable of any on the earth, covered with flinching skins, which are frequently untanned; and yet they failed not to excite desires in some persons, in fact of no small consequence: they at first started many difficulties, giving assurances by their gestures that they ran the risk of their lives; but being overcome by presents, they had no objection to the sun being a witness, and absolutely refused to retire into the wood." There can be no doubt that this planet is the god of these people, since they frequently addressed themselves to it in their prayers; but our voyagers saw neither temple nor priest, nor the least trace of public worship at stated times. They burn their dead.

FREGATES FRANCAISE Boisse de, the name given by La Perouse to a dangerous reef of sunken rocks which he discovered in the Pacific ocean. On the north-west extremity of this reef they perceived an illet or split rock from 20 to 25 fathoms in height and about 50 toises in diameter. From this illet the reef extends more than four leagues to the south-east; and upon the extremity of the point in that direction, the frigates had struck before the breakers were observed. This was during a fine clear night and smooth sea. With great propriety, the Commodore returned in the morning to ascertain the geographical situation of this unknown rock; and he estimated the illet to be in 23° 45' N. Lat. and 168° 10' W. Long. from Paris.