Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/268

 and more lady-like than those of other tribes. Their hair, which was jet black and very long, hung loosely  about their shoulders, and most of them had fair complexions and rosy cheeks.

On the 3d a carrier arrived from Nisqually, bring-

LOSS OF THE PEACOCK.

ing news of the loss of the Peacock on the bar of the Columbia.

We soon weighed anchor and put to sea. The weather for several days had been cold and foggy. We ran down the coast in eighty and ninety fathoms of  water. At daylight, on the 6th, we made Cape Disappointment, Columbia River, and soon after sunrise came up with the cape and fired several guns. Shortly after, the Flying Fish hove in sight, coming down the Columbia. About nine o’clock the Flying Fish came alongside, when Captain Hudson came on board and informed  Commodore Wilkes of the total wreck of his ship, the  Peacock, on the bar of the Columbia. After the ship