But we
could get no direct answer, from any actual knowledge, to this question.
All had seen the canoes go out and return; but no one had seen them loaded,
or had been on board them. It appeared, however, from circumstantial
evidence, that, though the natives on these occasions might take some
articles of trade with them, it was impossible from appearances, that they
could take them in the proportion mentioned. We maintained then our
inference as before; but it was still uniformly denied.
How then were we to decide this important question? for it was said, that
no white man was ever permitted by the natives to go up in these canoes. On
mentioning accidentally the circumstances of the case, as I have now stated
them, to a friend, immediately on my return from my last journey, he
informed me, that he himself had been in company, about a year before, with
a sailor, a very respectable-looking man, who had been up these rivers. He
had spent half an hour with him at an inn. He described his person to me.
But he knew nothing of his name, or of the place of his abode. All he knew
was, that he was either going, or that he belonged to, some ship of war in
ordinary; but he could not tell at what port.
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