I expected to see the anchor let go, and then a mad scramble for the boats. But our imperturbable captain cried, " She is a passepartout, this In fatigable! Go ahead! " Heaven was for us-the next cast of the lead showed four fathoms, and the depth increased at every plunge until we heard the cry "no bottom." We were out of danger, in the south channel.
About four that afternoon, we saw a canoe, hollowed out of a single tree-trunk, coming toward our ship. In it was an American who had been established on this coast for a number of years, accompanied by a dozen " siwashes " of the Clatsop tribe. We signed to them to come on: the uproar of their cries, all talking at once, would be hard to render, and my companions and the sisters were greatly amused. Upon the captain's invitation they came on board. It was then that we understood more clearly the danger from which divine Providence had preserved us. " You have gotten out of a very dangerous place," said the American. " We thought that you must infallibly perish, for no ship has ever come in that way before. When I saw you on the breakers I started to come to your rescue: but I could not overcome the fears of these poor Indians." The latter, for their part, indicated to us by signs the terror they had suffered at seeing us in continual danger of grounding on the bar: their gestures expressed their sentiments in so natural a manner that it was impossible not to be touched.
The better to understand the extent of our obligation to divine Providence, you must know that the Columbia divides near its mouth into two channels: one on the north, skirting Cape Disappointment, which is the one by which we should have entered, and the other on the south, which is shunned by vessels on account of its narrowness and its breakers, over which we had passed without accident. God had not chosen to share with any one the glory of our deliverance: he even permitted that an attempt to show us the right way, should operate to keep us from it. Mr.