All night a hard gale drove them northward. When the weather cleared, permitting them to approach the coast again, high mountains, covered with snow and forests, jagged through the clouds like tent peaks. Tremendous breakers roared over sunken rocks. Point Breakers, Cook called them. Then the wind suddenly fell; and the ships were becalmed directly opposite the narrow entrance of a two-horned cove sheltered by the mountains. The small boats had all been mustered out to tow the two ships in, when a slight breeze sprang up. The flotilla drifted inland just as three canoes, carved in bizarre shapes of birds' heads and eagle claws, came paddling across the inlet. Three savages were in one, six in the other, ten in the third. They came slowly over the water, singing some song of welcome, beating time with their paddles, {186} scattering downy white feathers on the air, at intervals standing up to harangue a welcome to the newcomers. Soon thirty canoes were around the ships with some ten warriors in each. Still they came, shoals of them, like fish, with savages almost naked, the harbor smooth as glass, the grand _tyee_, or great chief of the tribes, standing erect shouting a welcome, with long elf-locks streaming down his back. Women and children now appeared in the canoes. That meant peace. The women were chattering like magpies; the men gurgling and spluttering their surprise at the white visitors. For safety's sake the guns of the two ships were pointed ready; but the natives did not know the fear of a gun. It was the end of March when Cook first anchored off what he thought was the mainland of America. It was not mainland, but an island, and the harbor was one to become famous as the rendezvous of Pacific traders--Nootka!