CHAPTER IV.
On the night of September 11th we observed the aurora. The breeze failed us about noon next day, within a short distance of Cape Edgecumbe. This remarkable land is not sufficiently described by Vancouver, or we should have reached the mouth of the sound, and derived the benefit of the floodtide, instead of being compelled to anchor and warp off the rocks.
Cape and Mount Edgecumbe may be easily distinguished; the latter by being a high dome-shaped peak, on which streaks of snow and bright lines of reddish-yellow clay radiate from its apex. There is not any other high hill on the coast, and the bluff termination of its western slope is Cape Edgecumbe, which, if the sound be open, will also exhibit close under its southern side two small but high islands called "Bird Islands."
In the morning we had stretched well into the southern part of the sound, and at daylight tacked to the northward with a light breeze in our teeth.
