I then made him place his bow and quiver of arrows beside
my gun, and striking a light gave him a smoke out of my own pipe
and a present of a few beads. With my pencil I made a rough sketch
of the cone and pine tree which I wanted to obtain, and drew his
attention to it, when he instantly pointed with his hand to the
hills fifteen or twenty miles distant towards the south; and when I
expressed my intention of going thither, cheerfully set out to
accompany me. At midday I reached my long-wished-for pines, and
lost no time in examining them and endeavoring to collect specimens
and seeds. New and strange things seldom fail to make strong
impressions, and are therefore frequently over-rated; so that, lest
I should never see my friends in England to inform them verbally of
this most beautiful and immensely grand tree, I shall here state
the dimensions of the largest I could find among several that had
been blown down by the wind. At 3 feet from the ground its
circumference is 57 feet 9 inches; at 134 feet, 17 feet 5 inches;
the extreme length 245 feet.... As it was impossible either to
climb the tree or hew it down, I endeavored to knock off the cones
by firing at them with ball, when the report of my gun brought
eight Indians, all of them painted with red earth, armed with bows,
arrows, bone-tipped spears, and flint-knives.
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