Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 6.djvu/425

419 JOURNAL AND LETTERS OF DAVID DOUGLAS. 419 I go immediately to Hawaii to work on these mountains. May God grant me a safe return to England. I can not but indulge the pleasing hope of being soon able, in person, to thank you for the signal kindness you have ever shown me. And really were it only for the letters you have bestowed on me during my voyage, you should have a thousand thanks from me. I send this, under cover to Captain Beaufort, to whom I have written respecting some of my astronomical observations; as also to Captain Sabine. As already mentioned, the only Journal of Mr. Douglas's Second Expedition, which has reached this country, is that commencing with his departure from the Columbia, including the voyage to the Sandwich Islands, and the ascent of Mouna Koa. From this, with the loan of which we have been favoured by its possessor, Mr. John Douglas, we make the following extracts: On Friday, the 18th of October. 1833, we quitted Cape Disappoint- ment, in the Columbia River, and, after encountering much variety of weather, and many heavy baffling gales, anchored off Point de los Reyes on the 4th of November, and remained there till the 29th of the same month, our attempts to beat out of the Harbour of Sir Francis Drake having proved, several times, ineffectual. On the 28th I ac- companied Mr. Finlayson in a small boat to Whaler's Harbour, near the neck of the bay, which leads up to the hill of San Rafaele, the highest peak in the immediate vicinity of the port. We landed at Mr. Reed's farm-house, placed on the site of an old Indian camp, where small mounds of marine shells bespeak the former existence of numerous f boriginal tribes. A fine small rivulet of good water falls into the b|/ at this point. Returning the same afternoon, we cleared the Punto de los Reyes, on the 30th, and, descrying the mountain of St. Lucia, South of Monterey, at a distance of forty or fifty miles, steered southward for the Sandwich Islands. The island of Mauai was indistinctly seen at sun-set of the 21st of December, forty-two miles off; and, on the 22d, Woahu lay ten miles due West of us. Hav- ing quitted the Harbour of Fair Haven, in Woahu, on Friday, the 27th, in an American schooner of sixty tons, she proved too light for the boisterous winds and heavy seas of these channels, and we were accordingly obliged to drop anchor in Rahaina Roads, for the purpose of procuring more ballast. An American Missionary, Mr. Spaulding, having come on board, I accompanied him on shore, to visit the school, situated on the hillside, about five hundred feet from the shore,