Nothing could exceed the pride of Maquina when he first put on this royal robe, decorated, like the coat of Joseph, with all the colours of the rainbow, and glittering with the buttons, which as he strutted about made a tinkling, while he repeatedly exclaimed, in a transport of exultation, "_Klew shish Kotsuk--wick kum_ _atack Nootka_."[105]--"A fine garment--Nootka can't make them." Maquina, who knew that the chiefs of the tribes who came to visit us had endeavoured to persuade me to escape, frequently cautioned me not to listen to them, saying that, should I make the attempt, and he were to take me, he should certainly put me to death. While here, he gave me a book, in which I found the names of seven persons belonging to the ship _Manchester_, of Philadelphia, Captain Brian--viz. Daniel Smith, Lewis Gillon, James Tom, Clark, Johnson, Ben, and Jack. These men, as Maquina informed me, ran away from the ship and came to him, but that six of them soon after went off in the night, with an intention to go to the Wickinninish, but were stopped by the Eshquates, and sent back to him, and that he ordered them to be put to death; and a most cruel death it was, as I was told by one of the natives, four men holding one of them on the ground, and forcing open his mouth, while they choked him by ramming stones down his throat. As to Jack, the boy, who made no attempt to go off, Maquina afterwards sold him to the Wickinninish. I was informed by the Princess Yuqua that he was quite a small boy, who cried a great deal, being put to hard labour beyond his strength by the natives, in cutting wood and bringing water, and that when he heard of the murder of our crew, it had such an effect on him, that he fell sick, and died shortly after. On learning the melancholy fate of this unfortunate lad, it again awakened in my bosom those feelings that I had experienced at the shocking death of my poor comrades. FOOTNOTES: [101] These trees are not found in Vancouver Island. Possibly, though they are not very like, Jewitt mistook them for the Oregon alder and the American ash, both trees of that locality. [102] This is the migratory red-backed species (_Selasphorus rufus_, p. 19). [103] "Tashis Canal" of seamen--the Tashis River flows in at its head, Coptee is at the mouth, Tashis farther up the stream. [104] Salmon used to be bought at Alberni at the rate of a cent apiece. There have been times when the garden at Fort Rupert was manured with fresh salmon. [105] This is a fair specimen of the kind of _lingua franca_ which even then had begun to spring up in the intercourse of the early traders with the Indians, and which by now takes the shape of the Chinook Jargon. For, apart from the imperfectly pronounced Indian words, there is no such term as Nootka in any language. It was a misconception of the first visitors there. They probably mistook _Nootchee_, a mountain, for the name of the country generally (p. 29). CHAPTER X