James Cook's First Voyage
In 1740 a naval commander, George Anson, was dispatched to the
Pacific to take part in that ocean in the naval war against Spain.
Apparently, after rounding the extremity of South America, he was
content at first to proceed up the coast of Peru and plunder the
Spanish towns on the western coast of Tropical Africa. He then
sailed across the Pacific with his Spanish prizes by way of the
Spanish route to the Philippines, making no new discoveries on his
way, but passing through the Malay Archipelago to the Cape of Good
Hope. Twenty-two years afterwards a British fleet, conveying 6000
soldiers, sailed across the Indian Ocean and took possession of
Manila, but failed to conquer the Philippine archipelago, owing
to the bravery of the small Spanish garrison of 600 men. But when
this war drew to a close, Vice-Admiral John Byron (the grandfather
of Lord Byron, the poet) was sent out in the _Dolphin_ in 1764
to explore the Pacific Ocean and make some search for the Great
Southern Continent. This journey, however, like that of Lord
Anson's, resulted in no gain to geographical knowledge, for he
simply sailed by the northern tropical route from Mexico to the
Ladrone Islands, and then came back along much the same course
to South America and the Atlantic. After his return his ship,
the _Dolphin_, together with a vessel called the _Swallow_, were
once more dispatched to the Pacific Ocean through the Straits of
Magellan, but this time under the command of Captain SAMUEL WALLIS.
The Tahiti archipelago, which was to play such an important part as
a basis for Cook's discoveries in the Pacific, had apparently been
seen by the Spanish navigator de Quiros, as early as 1606, and named
"Sagittaria". It was rediscovered in 1767 by Wallis on this voyage
of H.M.S. _Dolphin_. Wallis named Tahiti Island "King George III
Island", and stayed on its coasts for a month. On his north-westward
journey he discovered the Marshall Islands. In the following year
there arrived at Tahiti the great Bougainville, the first French
explorer of the Pacific Ocean.
France, through her enterprising Norman and Breton seamen, was not
slow to interest herself in Far Eastern discoveries, and in 1528
defied the Papal bull and worried the Portuguese in Malaysia, just
as she followed up Spaniards and Portuguese along the east coast of
the Americas. Early in the sixteenth century her mariners, following
the Portuguese, had rounded the Cape of Good Hope and adventured
themselves in the Indian Ocean to snatch a small share in the trade
which was so jealously monopolized by the Spaniards and Portuguese.
It is even said (see p. 57) that the first hint of the existence of
a Great Southern Continent is due to a French navigator, le Testu,
who returned in 1532 from the eastern seas with stories of a Greater
Java which lay to the south of the islands of the Malay Archipelago.
But for various reasons the French slackened in their exploration
of the Indian Ocean in the second half of the sixteenth century.
Their interest in this direction was only revived under the great
ministers of Henry IV and Louis XIII. In the first half of the
seventeenth century the French laid the foundation of their
future claims to Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands, and founded
repeatedly chartered companies to deal with the trade of the Indian
Ocean. But none of their adventurers seem to have penetrated to the
Spice Islands or the Pacific until the eighteenth century. Their
colonial ambitions in Africa and Asia were awakened in a great
measure through the most remarkable of their kings, Louis XIV. With
farsighted ambition this monarch strove to acquire special interests
for France in Abyssinia (in which direction he failed), in Siam,
and Cochin China; and he took advantage of his occasional alliances
or friendship with the Spanish monarch to send explorers and men of
science to examine the wonderful regions of South America, under
the jealous rule of Spain and Portugal. One of these explorers
was Frézier (Fraser), of Scottish descent, and the work which he
published on his return, dealing with the southern extremity of
South America, drew attention to the unoccupied Falkland Islands,
known to the French as Malouines, and the Spaniards as Malvinas.
This hint attracted the notice of a very remarkable Frenchman, LOUIS
ANTOINE DE BOUGAINVILLE, who had served in the French Embassy in
London, and had also been an officer of the French army in Canada.
In 1765 he persuaded the merchants of St. Malo, in Brittany, to fit
out an expedition which should colonize the Falkland Islands. But,
this archipelago being claimed by Spain, it was handed over to the
Spanish authorities by Bougainville, who afterwards proceeded in
command of a ship called the _Boudeuse_ (the Sulker) to navigate
the Straits of Magellan and explore the Pacific Ocean. In his
westward course he touched at the Tuamotu Islands, and rediscovered
the Island of Tahiti, which he called Cythère (the Island of
Venus). Sailing westwards, he was probably the first explorer to
discover the Samoa group, named by him the Navigators' Islands,
from the bold seamanship of its Polynesian people. From Samoa he
passed on to the New Hebrides, and, then directing his course due
west, with the deliberate intention of searching for the Great
Southern Continent, he was stopped in this search by encountering
the Great Barrier Reef, which guards so much of the approach to
the north-east coast of Australia from south latitude 23° to
15°. Turning off, therefore, to the north-west, he encountered
and named the Louisiade archipelago of islands and islets, which
is off the south-easternmost extremity of New Guinea. Instead,
however, of venturing through the Torres Straits (the existence of
which was then a geographical secret in possession of Spain), he
turned northwards to the Solomon Islands,[66] and thence sailed
past the coasts of the large island of New Ireland (now known as
New Mecklenburg), and so on along the north coast of New Guinea.
Rounding this great island, and directing his course southward, he
arrived at the island of Buru, between the Moluccas and Celebes.
Here he found himself within the sphere of Dutch influence, and
after calling in at Batavia, the capital of Java, he made his way
back, round the Cape of Good Hope, to St. Malo, only having lost
seven out of a crew of two hundred men in this remarkable sea
journey round the world.
[66] The largest and nearly the most northern of the group is named
after him.
Thus, before Cook set out on his famous journey in 1768, the
position of European knowledge in regard to the Pacific Ocean
and the continent and islands of Australasia was as follows: The
outline of the Australian continent had been roughly traced by the
Dutch (who called the land New Holland) from Cape York westwards
to the southernmost point of Tasmania (which was not known to be
an island); a portion of the west coast of New Zealand (the North
Island and a small part of the South) had been placed on the map by
Tasman, but it was not known whether this land of high mountains
consisted of one or more large islands, or whether it might not
even be another peninsula of a mighty southern continent; Tasman
had discovered the small Tonga Islands; New Guinea was known in
regard to its western and eastern extremities and a part of its
north coast, but, owing to secrecy having been kept as to the
existence of Torres Straits, it was also thought to be an outlying
part of New Holland (Australia); New Britain and New Ireland (now
Neu Pommern and New Mecklenburg) had been explored by Dampier in
1700; the Solomon Islands, Santa Cruz, and the islands of the New
Hebrides group had been rediscovered by Bougainville, who had also
first visited and named the Louisiade archipelago to the south-east
of New Guinea. [The Solomons and the New Hebrides had been known
for two centuries to the Spanish Government, and for a shorter
period to Dutch navigators]. Easter Island--the easternmost of the
Polynesian islands, not much more than 2000 miles from the coast
of South America--had been seen by the English pirate, Captain
Davis, in 1685, but was only definitely known and named, after its
discovery by the Dutch navigator, Roggeveen,[67] on Easter Sunday in
1722; and was considered by some geographers in Holland and France
to be an outlying point of the great southern continent: which, if
this were the case, would be almost as large as Asia, and would
occupy quite half the space actually covered by the Pacific Ocean.
The existence of Tahiti was fully known, inasmuch as it was pitched
upon by the British astronomers as being the best place in that
region of the globe from which to observe the transit of Venus. The
existence of the Marquezas Islands had long been established by
Spanish navigators, but it is doubtful whether, before Cook started,
news had been received of the sighting of the Tuamotu archipelago of
islets by Bougainville, or of the Samoa group (Navigators' Islands).
Most of the largest and most important of the Pacific islands
remained practically or completely undiscovered. These were the
Hawaii archipelago (see pp. 121-2), the Fiji Islands, the southern
islands of the New Hebrides, the large island of New Caledonia,
the Loyalty Islands, the groups of the Gilbert, Phoenix, and
Ellice Islands, the Hervey or Cook Islands, the Tubuai or Austral
Islands, besides the whole east coast and Alpine range of New
Zealand, and the little Norfolk Island midway between New Zealand
and New Caledonia. Finally, there were the undecided questions
of the supposed connection of New Guinea with the north coast of
the Australian continent, and the existence of a vast southern
continent occupying much of the area of the Pacific Ocean in the
South Temperate Zone. The whole of these blanks in Australasian
geography were filled up and more or less accurately mapped, the
vexed questions were set at rest and solved, by the great JAMES COOK
in the two voyages of discovery which he made in the years 1768-71,
1772-5, and 1776-9.
[67] Admiral Roggeveen is also thought to have first realized the
separate, insular character of New Britain in 1723.
Captain JAMES COOK, who will certainly be regarded in universal
history as the foremost hero of Australasian discovery, was born
on 27 October, 1728, at the little Yorkshire village of Marton,
in the Cleveland district of northern Yorkshire, in a two-roomed
wattle-and-clay cottage. He was the son of a farm labourer, also
named James Cook and said to have been of Scottish origin. In
time Cook's father rose to the position of a farm bailiff. The
great James Cook, his second son, was sent to school when he was
eight years old, and received the elements of a good education,
especially in arithmetic. At the age of sixteen or seventeen he was
bound apprentice to a grocer and haberdasher, or, more correctly, a
general-store dealer, a man, in fact, who kept the principal shop in
the pretty little village of Staithes, in a hollow of the cliffs 10
miles north of Whitby. This move brought Cook into close relations
with a sea-faring life, as most of the customers of the shop were
fishermen and smugglers. In fact, his place of business was only 300
yards from the sea waves (which now entirely cover the site of the
original shop).
Evidently he did not like his work as shop apprentice, and longed
to become a sailor, with the result that he was transferred as
an apprentice to the employment of a coal merchant who owned or
employed sailing ships to carry coals to and from Whitby. Earlier
accounts of Cook's boyhood assert that he ran away to sea from the
grocer-haberdasher's shop, stealing a shilling from the till as
something to sustain his enterprise. There certainly was trouble
about a shilling in his relations with the general-storekeeper, but
it seems to have been that he saw--prophetically enough--a new South
Sea shilling[68] in the till, and, fascinated with its appearance,
changed it for an ordinary shilling of his own. The new bright
shilling was found in his box, but his explanations apparently
convinced his employer of his innocence. However, by some friendly
arrangement he seems to have been relieved of his apprenticeship to
the general-store dealer of Staithes, and was transferred to the
employment of a Mr. John Walker, whom he served as apprentice on
his ships for about three years. In between his voyages he lived
at Mr. Walker's house, where he was treated very kindly and where
the housekeeper gave him a table and candles in a quiet corner so
that he might read and study in peace. From apprentice he became an
able seaman, and at last, in the year 1752 (always working hard to
acquire the science of navigation and to educate himself in every
way), he became mate of a collier vessel. He was now twenty-four
years of age. Three years afterwards--in 1755--Cook, as mate of the
collier _Friendship_, found himself in the Thames on the eve of
the outbreak of war between Britain and France, and determined to
join the Royal Navy, which he did first as an able seaman; but, his
qualities being soon discovered, he was not long afterwards rated
as master's mate on board H.M.S. _Eagle_. Between 1755 and 1762 he
was employed mainly in American waters, and distinguished himself
there, not only by his gallantry in action and his many hairbreadth
escapes, but by his careful surveying work round the coasts of
Newfoundland.
[68] The original South Sea Company, which became so notorious
through its connection with the first great speculative mania in
England in 1720, came into existence in 1711 (partly promoted, it
may be, by Dampier and Daniel Defoe), for the purpose of trading
with the "South Sea", viz. the Pacific Ocean, and chiefly the west
coast of South America and the vaguely known islands of Oceania.
It received in course of time certain concessions from Spain,
such as the sole right to supply Negro slaves to the Pacific
coast of Spanish America, and from the British Government the
exclusive monopoly of British trade with the "South Seas". Although
fraudulently speculative, it did not smash in 1720, but continued an
uncertain existence till 1807. Amongst other privileges it received
permission to coin the silver it brought back from Peru into
shillings, and these were the "South Sea" shillings--coined mostly
in 1723--so often referred to in the history of the eighteenth
century.
In 1762 he returned to England and married. His married life lasted
for sixteen years, but it is computed that of that sixteen he spent
only about four and a half in his wife's society, chiefly at a house
in Shadwell, in the eastern part of London, which he bought for her.
Nevertheless they were fond of one another, and a family of six
children was born to them in course of time.[69]
[69] All of whom died young, from illnesses or accidents. Mrs. Cook,
the widow, lived to the age of ninety-three, and died in 1835.
Between the time of his marriage and 1768 he began to make himself
noteworthy by his publications of sailing directions and his work
as a mathematician and astronomer; for he found the opportunity
of observing a solar eclipse off the coast of North America, and
described it very lucidly. Consequently, when at the instance of the
Committee of the Royal Society, who were desirous that the transit
of Venus across the disk of the sun should be carefully observed by
competent persons from some central part of the Pacific Ocean, the
British Admiralty decided to appoint James Cook to take charge of
this expedition, and at the same time to make a determined search
in the Central and Southern Pacific for the supposed vast southern
continent, stretching from the south tropic to the South Pole. Cook,
therefore, was given a commission as a lieutenant-commander, and
appointed to H.M.S. _Endeavour_.[70] The _Endeavour_ was a sailing
vessel of only 368 tons burden, which had been constructed at Whitby
and purchased by the Admiralty.
[70] Originally the Royal Society had suggested a Mr. Dalrymple, a
sort of merchant-adventurer, who had traded a good deal in the Malay
Archipelago, and who had formed and promulgated theories about the
immense size of the Australian continent, but apparently Dalrymple
knew very little about astronomy, and the Admiralty wisely refused
to allow him to command the king's ship.
The Government entrusted to the Royal Society the sum of £4000, to
spend on equipping this vessel and paying her officers and crew.
Cook apparently received a clear salary of £120 a year, in addition
to a special gratuity of £105 for his astronomical work, and a
sustenance allowance for himself and his assistant astronomer, Mr.
Green, of £120. He was also paid by the Admiralty a small "command"
allowance of five shillings a day.
Next in importance to Captain Cook in the history of this remarkable
voyage will rank (Sir) JOSEPH BANKS, described by the Royal Society
as a gentleman of large fortune, and said in other correspondence of
the period to have an estate bringing in £6000 a year. He was born
in London in 1743, the son of a wealthy physician who had become a
Member of Parliament for Peterborough. Educated at Oxford, he early
conceived an intense interest in botany and zoology; and having in
1764 inherited all his father's property, he soon afterwards made
at his own expense a scientific expedition to Newfoundland and
Labrador, where he made a famous collection of insects and plants.
A neighbouring landowner, Lord Sandwich, had become head of the
Admiralty, and Banks obtained through him leave to join Cook's
expedition. He then laid out about £10,000 on all the stores and
other preparations necessary for the conduct of an elaborate enquiry
into the natural history of the lands and seas through which the
expedition was to pass, and he engaged a Swedish naturalist, a pupil
of Linnæus--Dr. Daniel Solander--to accompany him, besides four
draughtsmen to make pictures, and nine servants to do all the rough
work of natural-history collecting, &c.
The diary which Mr.--afterwards Sir Joseph--Banks kept on this
voyage, between August, 1768, and July, 1771, is almost as
interesting and remarkable as the diary kept on H.M.S. _Beagle_
by his greater successor in the same studies, Charles Darwin. This
journal of Sir Joseph Banks really served to give the substance of
greatest interest to the volumes published on the First Voyage of
Cook, which were edited by Dr. Hawksworth; and although Hawksworth
in his introduction laid stress on the important part played in the
narrative by the incorporation of Banks's journals (most generously
placed at his disposal), nevertheless the mass of the reading public
has been too apt to ascribe to Captain James Cook observations
and descriptions which were entirely the work of Banks. Though
Cook's mighty achievements as a navigator, and as one who laid
the foundations of the British Empire in Australasia and British
Columbia, can never be lessened by the results of any research
into the history of his voyages, it is only fair to point out that
the records of his first great adventure would not have achieved
their world-wide popularity but for Banks's co-operation and his
munificent expenditure on the expedition. Banks, in fact, was a man
born out of due time. His was a nineteenth-century mind which made
its appearance in the middle of the eighteenth century, just as
Shakespeare was an intelligence of the twentieth century which made
its appearance three hundred years before its appropriate period.
In order not to interrupt the course of the narrative it might be
as well to give in a footnote final information as to Sir Joseph
Banks's career.[71]
[71] The really scientific results of his expedition, largely the
work of Solander, consisted of "five folio books of neat manuscript"
(wrote the late Sir Joseph D. Hooker, the greatest botanist of the
nineteenth century, who died at the end of 1911), and seven hundred
engraved copperplates which are said still to repose in the hands
of the trustees of the British Museum never published to the world
up to the present day. The cause of this inexcusable negligence is
not given, but the matter is one which calls for urgent enquiry. In
1772, when Cook's Second Expedition was in course of preparation,
Banks proposed once more to accompany the great navigator, and made
such elaborate preparations for this purpose that he was obliged to
embarrass his estate for the purpose of raising the necessary money.
But the Board of Admiralty, which in those days regarded natural
science with contempt, put so many vexatious obstacles in his way,
amongst others, that Banks's principal assistant was not a member
of the Church of England!--that Banks at the last moment withdrew
and went off instead with Solander on a scientific expedition to
Iceland. Once again he handed over his journal and observations to
other people, who made free use of it in their works on Iceland. In
1778 he was chosen President of the Royal Society, and until the day
of his death in 1820 he was a true friend to science and discovery.
He practically founded Kew Gardens as the great botanical gardens
of the metropolis, he threw himself enthusiastically into what may
be called economic botany, and was the first person who advocated
the use of indiarubber in various industries, and the cultivation of
rubber-bearing trees and plants. He proposed the cultivation of tea
in India, and established botanical gardens in Jamaica, St. Vincent,
Ceylon, and Calcutta, besides taking an immense and practical
interest in British horticulture. He had much to do with the
dispatch of Mungo Park, Clapperton, and other travellers to explore
Africa; in fact, the full indebtedness of the world of science, and
of the British Empire in particular, to Sir Joseph Banks is not
yet fully known, and certainly not yet sufficiently appreciated.
All young students should make a point of reading the biographical
preface to the _Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks_ by an
equally great man, Sir Joseph Hooker, born just about the time that
Banks died, and a son of one of Banks's friends.
To a great extent Banks was admired and appreciated by the political
world of his day, but probably more because he was a wealthy landed
proprietor who was enthusiastic for science than because of his
own scientific achievements and deeds of great daring on behalf of
science. He was made a baronet in 1781 and a Knight of the Bath in
1795, and finally a member of the Privy Council in 1797.
The ship _Endeavour_ sailed from Plymouth on 26 August, 1768, with a
crew of officers, naturalists, seamen, and servants, of ninety-four
in all, with provisions for eighteen months, and an armament of
guns which would be quite sufficient to keep at bay any attack
by savages. Captain Cook, from the first, was resolved to combat
resolutely that foe of seamen-adventurers--scurvy--the disease
which is constantly alluded to in the earlier pages of this book,
and which I have described elsewhere as so seriously impeding the
first attempts of colonization on the part of the French in Canada.
In this resolve he was backed up by Banks, who had made special
enquiries on the subject of antiscorbutics. An attempt was made to
convey fresh cabbage from England to the Pacific, and casks of this
vegetable lasted out for nearly a year. The leaves and the heart of
the cabbage were preserved between layers of salt. But the greatest
benefit in checking scurvy was derived from lemon juice, of which
Banks himself took nearly 6 ounces a day. The juice of oranges and
lemons mixed with a little brandy had been evaporated till it was
very thick, and this essence was enclosed in small casks before the
_Endeavour_ left England. The expedition also took with it treacle,
turpentine, and "wort" (the unfermented infusion of malt), with
which they were to brew some kind of beer.
The _Endeavour's_ course towards the Pacific was via Brazil (where
she was mistaken by the Portuguese for a privateer or pirate and
received very badly) and the extremity of South America. Off the
coast of Patagonia Banks noticed "shoals of red lobsters", as
Dampier had done in the southern Pacific. These "sea crayfish", or
Langoustes as they really were (allied to the excellent Langouste
of the Mediterranean[72]), frequently astonished the pioneers of
the Pacific and south Indian Oceans by their immense numbers which
passed in shoals swimming on the surface, very often proving a
godsend to the crew by providing them with fresh and savoury food.
Unlike the lobster, which is only red when it is boiled, these
Langoustes (probably of the genera _Iasus_ or _Panulirus_) were
naturally of a bright crimson or scarlet colour.
[72] The real lobster is limited in its range to the northern
Atlantic.
Cook, Banks, and some of the seamen landed on Staten Island at the
extremity of the curly tail of South America. The Dutch had thought
in the previous century that Staten Island was a northern promontory
of a vast Antarctic continent, of which New Zealand might be another
projection (which was why Tasman had first called New Zealand
"Staten Island"). Banks was very anxious to examine its flora, and
found far more flowering plants at this season of Antarctic summer
than he thought possible of existence in such a cold bleak country;
yet, in the very searching for natural-history specimens, he and the
rest of the party were caught in a snowstorm and nearly frozen to
death. Two negro servants who had drunk too much grog and had lain
down to rest were killed by the cold.
After rounding Cape Horn, in January, 1769, the _Endeavour_ had
sailed as far to the south as the sixtieth degree of south latitude.
On her course north-westwards into the Pacific the ship was brought
to a standstill occasionally whilst Mr. Banks went out in a boat
to shoot sea birds, principally albatrosses. These were thought by
Cook to be larger than those of the Atlantic Ocean. One of them
measured 10 feet 2 inches from the tip of one wing to that of the
other. Their bodies, after being carefully skinned, were soaked in
salt water, parboiled also in sea water, and finally stood in a very
little fresh water (the phrase "very little" shows how necessary it
was in those days to be avaricious of the store of fresh water).
After this they were served up to table with a savoury sauce, and
the dish was universally commended. It was in any case a grateful
variation from the constant round of salt beef and salt pork.
Another inhabitant of these south Pacific seas which aroused great
interest was a large octopus or cuttlefish, apparently just killed
by albatrosses, and floating in a mangled condition upon the water.
Banks noticed that it was very different from the cuttlefishes found
in European seas, for its immense arms were furnished, instead of
suckers, with a double row of very sharp talons which resembled the
claws of a cat, and like them were retractable into a sheath, from
which they could be thrust out at pleasure. "Of this cuttlefish we
made one of the best soups we had ever tasted."
On 24 March, 1769, they noticed a log of wood passing by the ship,
and the sea, which was rough, became suddenly as smooth as a
millpond, so that they were probably passing by the vicinity of some
undiscovered island.
On 4 April, 1769, land was sighted and was discovered to be an
island of an oval form, with a lagoon in the middle, which occupied
much the larger part of it. The border of land circumscribing the
lagoon was in many places low and narrow, consisting chiefly of a
reef or beach of rocks; in other words, it was one of the coralline
atolls described on p. 21, and as usual possessed coconut palms. It
was inhabited by tall, copper-coloured natives, with long, black
hair, whose heads seemed to be remarkably large, probably because of
some cap or headdress. Eleven of them walked along the beach abreast
of the ship, with poles or pikes in their hands which reached twice
as high as themselves. As they so walked they were without clothing;
but after the ship had drawn off from the island it was seen that
they covered themselves with some light-coloured material. To Cook
and his mariners, who for a long time had seen nothing but water and
sky, except the cold hills of Tierra del Fuego, these coconut groves
of Lagoon Island in tropical latitudes seemed a terrestrial paradise.
The following day they passed another atoll, shaped exactly like a
bow, the arc and cord being land, and the space between them water,
that part answering to the arc of the bow being about 200 yards
wide, 12 or more miles long, and fairly well covered with trees,
while the straight, low beach answering to the bowstring was a long
strip of coral rocks, through which there were openings connecting
the lagoon with the sea. This island, like similar ones which
they sailed by in the succeeding days, was inhabited by Polynesians
of the usual type, brown-skinned, naked, tall, well-made, and with
abundance of black hair; but in some cases this bushed out from
the head, showing that the people were not without some Melanesian
blood. They seemed to be armed with wooden weapons, one of them a
slender pole with a knob at the end, and another a paddle, which
might be used for striking or stabbing or for navigating a canoe.
The canoes these people had possessed sails.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN COOK'S ARRIVAL AT TAHITI (1769)]
Passing by Osnaburg Island, already discovered by Captain Wallis,
Cook reached Tahiti (which at once struck them in its difference
from the atoll islands by being high and mountainous) on 12
April, 1769. Before even he could get near the shore his ship was
surrounded by canoes, in which there were bunches of bananas and
branches of a tree, which it was the custom of these people to wave
as a token of peace and amity. By signs they expressed the wish that
these branches should be stuck amongst the rigging of the ship as
a sign that they would be received with friendliness. This having
been done, the canoes approached the ship close enough to hand their
cargoes of coconuts, bananas, and other fruit on board, where it was
eagerly purchased by the sailors, being extremely acceptable after
their long privation from such additions to their diet. The next day
the ship came to an anchor in Port Royal Bay (Matavai). Here the
first thing that attracted their attention, when the natives came
off to trade, was the bread-fruit.[73]
[73] See pp. 64 and 160.
Before anyone from the _Endeavour_ was allowed to land at Tahiti,
Cook wisely drew up rules to guide the relations of the seamen and
officers with the natives, in order as far as possible to avoid
provoking quarrels with them, or enabling the latter to acquire
weapons which might be turned against the white men. Landing
himself, with Banks and Dr. Solander, a party of armed seamen, and
a native of Tahiti, who had come off to the ship and constituted
himself their guide, he noticed that the Polynesian people were so
awestruck that the first who approached them almost came creeping
on his hands and knees. Leafy boughs having been offered in token
of peace, the Englishmen likewise broke off green branches and held
them in their hands, and, the whole party having marched to a place
where there was a freshwater spring and where the ground was clean
and bare, green boughs were dropped by both sides in a regular heap,
and after that relations between them became much less formal,
especially after Cook's party had distributed beads and other small
presents. They walked for about 5 miles through groves of trees
loaded with coconuts and bread-fruit, and offering the most grateful
shade. Under the trees were the houses of the natives, most of them
being only a roof without walls, and the whole scene realizing "the
poetical fables of Arcadia".
The next day canoes came out to the _Endeavour_ evidently filled
with people of superior rank. Two of these chiefs came on board
and selected Cook and Banks to be their special friends, carrying
out this ceremony by taking off most of their clothing and putting
it about the shoulders of the Englishmen. Return presents were
given to them, and after a long row in the boats of the _Endeavour_
the notabilities of that ship accompanying their Tahitian friends
landed and went to a house of much greater length and size than any
they had yet seen. Here was found a chief by the name of Tutaha,
who presented them with a cock and hen and pieces of perfumed
bark cloth. In other houses they met the women, who received them
with such extravagant demonstrations of affection that they were
embarrassed. Soon afterwards another chief gave them a meal, which
they ate with the greatest heartiness. It consisted of fish,
bread-fruit, coconut, and bananas, cooked after the native fashion.
They were enjoying this meal, though perhaps not quite so much the
affectionate attentions of the native ladies (who kept plying them
with coconut milk), when suddenly two of the officers complained
that their pockets had been picked--a complaint, one would think,
under the circumstances, they might have waived on such an occasion.
However, Dr. Solander lost an opera glass, and Mr. Monkhouse, a
surgeon, his snuff box.
Complaint was at once made to the chief, and Banks somewhat
aggressively jumped to his feet and struck the butt end of his gun
on the ground. Immediately all the natives fled in a panic, with
the exception of two or three chiefs and their wives. The principal
personage amongst these at once took Mr. Banks by the hand and led
him to a large quantity of cloth which lay at the other end of the
house, offering it to him piece by piece, and intimating by signs
that if that would atone for the wrong which had been done he might
take all he saw. But this compensation was refused, and eventually
the chief, after being absent for some time, returned with the
missing snuff box and the case of the opera glass. This, however,
upon being opened, was found to be empty. Whereupon the chief,
catching Mr. Banks by the hand, led him rapidly along the shore for
a mile or more, till he reached a house from which a woman came out
and gave him a piece of cloth, which he hastily took from her and
continued to press forward. Banks had been followed by Dr. Solander
and Surgeon Monkhouse, and at last the whole party came to a place
where they were received by a woman to whom the chief presented the
piece of cloth and to whom the Englishmen gave a few beads. The
beads and cloth being deposited on the floor, the woman went out,
and in about half an hour she returned with the opera glass, and
expressing the same joy as was now shown by the chief. She also
returned the beads and the cloth, refusing to accept them.
The next day the chiefs came off to the ship with pigs, bread-fruit,
and other provisions, for which they received suitable return
presents of hatchets and linen. Cook then established an encampment
on shore, but their pleasant relations with the natives were
temporarily spoilt by the petulance of a midshipman named Monkhouse
(not to be confused with the surgeon of that name) commanding one of
the landing parties. A Tahitian had snatched away the musket of one
of the marines. Whereupon this midshipman ordered his men to fire
into the thickest of the crowd, afterwards pursuing the thief and
shooting him dead. However, thanks to the chiefs Tuburai, Tamaide,
and Tutaha, peace was made and intercourse soon resumed without much
restraint. The body of the man who had been shot in the encampment
was found to be wrapped in cloth and placed on a bier supported
by stakes under a roof, where it would be allowed to decay with a
terrible stench until at last it was nothing but a dry skeleton.
Charming as life was in many respects on this Pacific island there
was one pest which at times proved almost unendurable--apparently
none other than the common house fly, which existed in such enormous
numbers that it was an incessant torment during daylight. If one
of the draughtsmen attached to the expedition attempted to make a
water-colour study of any object, the flies would settle on his
paper so thickly that no part of its surface could be seen, and eat
the colour up as fast as he could lay it on. [It will be remembered
that Tasman noted the same plague of flies in the Tonga archipelago.]
The principal personage of Tahiti seemed to be a queen, whose name
was Oberea, about forty years of age, almost white-skinned, but now
very stout, though with evidence of great beauty at an earlier age.
There were several men chiefs of importance in the main island, and
something like an aristocracy. This "nobility" had faces of a more
Caucasian character and a taller stature than the common people, who
were many of them in the position of serfs.
The Tahitians believed in numerous gods, one of which was supreme
over the rest. They also had priests called _tahawa_, who were the
"wise men" of the land, possessing more knowledge of navigation,
astronomy, and medicine than the others. They believed vaguely in a
life after death, and their dead were disposed of usually (in all
but cases of worthless slaves) in the following manner (I quote from
Banks):--
"I found the shed under which the body lay, close by the house in
which the man resided when he was alive, some other houses being not
more than 10 yards distant. The shed was about 15 feet long, and
11 broad, and of a proportionate height: one end was wholly open,
and the other end and the two sides, were partly enclosed with a
kind of wicker work. The bier on which the corpse was deposited,
was a frame of wood ... with a matted bottom, and supported by four
posts, at the height of about 5 feet from the ground. The body was
covered first with a mat, and then with white cloth; by the side
of it lay a wooden mace, one of their weapons of war, and near the
head of it, which lay next to the close end of the shed, lay two
coconut shells, such as are sometimes used to carry water in; at the
other end a bunch of green leaves, with some dried twigs, all tied
together, were stuck in the ground, by which lay a stone about as
big as a coconut: near these lay one of the young plantain trees,
which are used for emblems of peace, and close by it a stone axe.
At the open end of the shed also hung, in several strings, a great
number of palm nuts, and without the shed, was stuck upright in the
ground, the stem of a plantain tree about 5 feet high, upon the top
of which was placed a coconut shell full of fresh water; against the
side of one of the posts hung a small bag, containing a few pieces
of bread-fruit ready roasted."
The emotions of the Tahitians were easily excited. Both men and
women readily gave way to tears, and would fly into hysterical rages
in which they struck their heads several times with sharks' teeth,
so that a profusion of blood often followed. A woman who acted
thus owing to some trifling affair which had piqued her, after her
bleeding was over looked up with a smile, ceased her loud, doleful
talking, collected the pieces of blood-stained cloth with which she
had dabbed her head and neck, and threw them into the sea. Then she
plunged herself into a river, washed her whole body, and returned to
the encampment as gay and cheerful as if nothing had happened.
Cook was greatly struck with the stature of the men and with the
beautiful shape of their bodies. One man coming from a small
outlying island measured nearly 6 feet 4 inches. The women of
the better class were in general taller than English women. On
the other hand, those of the more serf-like people were not only
below the average stature of Europeans but even quite dwarf-like.
Occasionally albinos made their appearance with skins of a dead
white, red eyes, and white hair. As to their tatuing, the Tahitians
pricked the skin, so as just to fetch blood, with a small instrument
something in the form of a hoe, with a blade made of bone or shell
scraped very thin, and from ¼ inch to 1½ inches wide. The edge of
this was cut into sharp teeth, and when about to be used the teeth
of the hoe were dipped into a black paste made from the soot from an
oily nut--a nut which the natives burnt in lieu of candles. Having
been dipped into this mixture and pressed into the skin, the top
of the hoe would be struck a smart blow with a stick, so that it
punctured the skin and left behind an indelible black stain. The
operation was painful and it took some days before the wounds were
healed.
Cook expatiates on the personal cleanliness of the Tahitians, who
constantly washed the whole of the body in running water perhaps
three times a day. After every meal their mouth and hands were
washed, and their clothes as well as their persons were kept without
spot or stain, "so that in a large company of these people nothing
is suffered but heat, which, perhaps, is more than can be said of
the politest assembly in Europe". For in Cook's day--and, indeed,
for nearly one hundred years later--civilized Europeans (to say
nothing of the working classes, who were most uncleanly) very seldom
washed their bodies. Tahitian clothing consisted of bark cloth or
matting of different kinds. The bark cloth would not bear wetting,
so it was only worn in dry weather and exchanged for matting when it
came on to rain. None of the materials of their dress were sewn.
Their clothes consisted of long strips of bark cloth or matting,
which would be draped about the body, principaly round the waist.
Large pieces were worn loosely over the shoulders in the manner of
a cloak, or allowed to fall about the limbs like loose trousers.
In the heat of the day clothing was mostly reduced to a scanty
petticoat for the women and a sash for the men. To shade their
faces from the sun they sometimes wore bonnets made of matting or
coconut fronds. These they would plait together in a few minutes.
The women also wore little turbans of cloth, and sometimes a very
elaborate dress made of plaited human hair. Of this material Sir
Joseph Banks brought away with him pieces that were over a mile in
length, apparently without a knot. They would wind these strips
of hair (like silk) round and round the head, and thus produce a
very pretty effect. Amongst these threads they stuck flowers of
various kinds. The men would thrust the pinkish tail-feathers of the
Tropic-bird upright into the bunch of hair on the top of their head,
or wear whimsical garlands of flowers or scarlet seeds, or wigs made
of dogs' hair, or men's hair, or coconut matting. Ear-rings made of
shells, stones, berries, seeds, or small pearls were also worn.
The only domestic animals of Tahiti were pigs, dogs, and fowls, but
the natives also ate wild ducks, which were plentiful. Cannibalism
did not exist in this archipelago, though there were traces of it in
the religious customs.
Their manner of executing and cooking dogs, which they bred for
eating, was as follows: The man who performed the double office
of butcher and cook killed the dog by holding his hand over the
dog's mouth and nose. In about a quarter of an hour the animal was
stifled. Whilst this was being done someone else was digging a hole
in the ground about a foot deep, in which the fire was kindled. On
top of the fire were placed stones to be heated. The dog was then
singed by being held over the fire, and scraped with a shell. Thus
all the hair was taken off. The entrails were removed, and the body
was cut up with a sharp shell. The entrails, after being carefully
washed in sea water, were put into coconut shells, together with
all the blood which had been collected from the body. When the oven
in the ground had been sufficiently heated the fire was taken out,
and some of the stones which were not hot enough to burn anything
were placed at the bottom and covered with green leaves. The cut-up
dog, together with its entrails, was then placed on these leaves,
and other leaves were laid on top. The hole was afterwards covered
with the remainder of the hot stones, on which earth was heaped. In
about four hours this oven was opened, and the dog's meat taken out,
"excellently baked, so that we all agreed he made a very good dish".
The dogs which were bred in Tahiti for food were kept wholly on a
vegetable diet--bread-fruit, coconuts, and yams.
The principal vegetable foods of the natives of the island of Tahiti
were bread-fruit, coconuts, bananas of thirteen sorts, and the long
banana which is known by the name of plantain; then there were
a fruit not unlike an apple, which when ripe was very pleasant;
another resembling a nectarine, and called _ahiya_; sweet potatoes,
_dioscorea_ yams, koko or taro yams (an aroid); a fruit known by the
name of _jambu_, and reckoned most delicious; sugar cane; a root
called by the inhabitants _pea_; a plant called _ethe_, of which the
root only was eaten; a fruit like a large kidney-bean, grown in a
pod and tasting like a chestnut after being roasted, called by the
natives _ahi_; the fruits of the pandanus; the _morinda_ fruit; a
kind of bracken fern, of which not only the root but the leaves were
sometimes eaten; and a plant called _theve_, which had an edible
root. There was also in the island the paper-mulberry tree (the
range of which extends from China to Polynesia), and several fig
trees, some of which, with their enormously extended aerial roots
and branches, covered an area of 60 square feet. This mulberry and
most of the figs provided bast which was made into cloth.
Bread-fruit was sometimes turned into a delicious dish by mixing
its farinaceous pulp with coconut milk, with pounded bananas, or
with a paste made of the _mahi_ fruit. This _mahi_ was gathered just
before it became ripe, and, being laid in heaps, was closely covered
with leaves. In this state it fermented and became disagreeably
sweet. After pulling out the core from the rotten fruit the rest
was thrown into a hole neatly lined with grass. The hole having
been covered with stones, the fruit then underwent fermentation
and became sour. After that it was wrapped up in leaves and baked,
and, both cooked and uncooked, would keep for weeks. It was eaten
hot or cold, and the natives seldom made a meal without it, though
its taste to Europeans was "as disagreeable as that of a pickled
olive". Salt water was the universal sauce to their food, no meal
being eaten without it, so much so that the natives who lived at a
great distance from the seacoast had to keep sea water in segments
of bamboos like tubes. A kind of butter was also made of coconut
kernels flavoured with salt water, which at first tasted to the
Europeans nauseous and rancid, but afterwards grew so much in favour
with them that they preferred it to the sauces they had brought out
from England.
The Tahitians possessed no narcotic like opium, betel, or tobacco,
and at first Cook thought that they knew no intoxicant. But he
afterwards found that they were able to get drunk on the juice of a
plant called _ava ava_ (the well-known _kava_ pepper vine, referred
to on p. 64). But the vice of drunkenness was almost confined to the
chiefs and the nobility, and was forbidden to the women.
Banks gives the following interesting description of how a Tahitian
gentleman would eat a meal:--
"He sits down under the shade of a tree, or on the shady side
of his house, and a large quantity of leaves, either of the
bread-fruit or banana, are neatly spread before him upon the ground
as a tablecloth. A basket is then set by him that contains his
provision, which, if fish and flesh, is ready dressed and wrapped up
in leaves, and two coconut shells, one full of salt water and the
other of fresh. His attendants, who are not few, seat themselves
round him, and when all is ready he begins washing his hands and
his mouth thoroughly with the fresh water, and this he repeats
almost continually throughout the whole meal; he then takes part
of his provision out of the basket, which generally consists of a
small fish or two, two or three bread-fruits, fourteen or fifteen
ripe bananas, or six or seven 'apples'. He first takes half a
bread-fruit, peels off the rind, and takes out the core with his
nails; of this he puts as much into his mouth as it can hold, and
while he chews it takes the fish out of the leaves and breaks one
of them into the salt water, placing the other, and what remains
of the bread-fruit, upon the leaves that have been spread before
him. When this is done he takes up a small piece of the fish that
has been broken into the salt water, with all the fingers of one
hand, and sucks it into his mouth, so as to get with it as much of
the salt water as possible: in the same manner he takes the rest
by different morsels, and between them, at least very frequently,
takes a small sup of the salt water, either out of the coconut shell
or the palm of his hand: in the meantime one of his attendants has
prepared a young coconut, by peeling off the outer rind with his
teeth, an operation which to a European appears very surprising,
but it depends so much upon sleight that many of us were able to
do it before we left the island.... The master, when he chooses to
drink, takes the coconut thus prepared and, boring a hole through
the shell with his finger, or breaking it with a stone, he sucks out
the liquor. When he has eaten his bread-fruit and fish he begins
with his plantains, one of which makes but a mouthful, though it be
as big as a black pudding; if instead of plantains he has 'apples',
he never tastes them till they have been pared. To do this a shell
is picked up from the ground, where they are always in plenty,
and tossed to him by an attendant: he immediately begins to cut
or scrape off the rind, but so awkwardly that great part of the
fruit is wasted. If, instead of fish, he has flesh, he must have
something like a knife to divide it; and for this purpose a piece of
bamboo is tossed to him, of which he makes the necessary implement
by splitting it transversely with his nail. While all this has
been doing, some of his attendants have been employed in beating
bread-fruit with a stone pestle upon a block of wood; by being
beaten in this manner, and sprinkled from time to time with water,
it is reduced to the consistence of a soft paste, and is then put
into a vessel somewhat like a butcher's tray, and either made up
alone or mixed with banana or _mahi_ sauce, according to the taste
of the master, by pouring water upon it by degrees and squeezing
it often through the hand. Under this operation it acquires the
consistence of a thick custard, and, a large coconut shell full of
it being set before him, he sips it as we should do a jelly if we
had no spoon to take it from the glass. The meal is then finished
by again washing his hands and his mouth, after which the coconut
shells are cleaned, and everything that is left is replaced in the
basket."
The Tahitian dances were often of an elaborate character; but some
of them of an immodest nature. The people were very fond of music,
and had a great sense of rhythm. Their musical instruments were
chiefly drums and flutes.
The Tahiti drum was made of a hollow block of wood, solid at one end
and covered at the other with sharks' skin. This was beaten by the
hand and not with a stick. The flutes upon which the people played
had only two stops, and therefore could not sound more than four
notes by half-tones. They were not applied to the mouth, but were
blown into from one nostril whilst the other was stopped with the
performer's thumb. Nevertheless, to the music of these instruments
four people would sing in concert, keeping very good time. They
also had an expedient for bringing flutes that were played together
into unison by rolling a leaf over the end of the shortest, like
a sliding tube, moved up or down till they were certain that the
playing was in tune, a fact of which they judged with much nicety
of ear. They were very fond of singing couplets, especially after
dark, to amuse themselves before going to sleep. Their language was
a melodious Polynesian dialect, but, being deficient in several
consonants, the native rendering of the names of officers and men
of the _Endeavour_ was quaintly imperfect. Cook was called Toot.
The sailing-master, Mr. Molineux, had a name which they did not
attempt to pronounce, so in preference they called him Boba, from
his Christian name, Bob (Robert). Gore was turned into Toarro;
Solander became Torano; Banks, Tapane; and Petersgill, Petrodero.
The Tahitian houses of the better sort were usually built, on a
raised clay platform, of bamboo poles and palm thatch or matting.
The furniture inside was very simple--little else than mats on the
floor. No pottery was required, coconut shells and calabashes taking
its place. The houses, when necessary, were lit up at night-time by
the kernels of an oily nut, which they stuck on a wooden skewer one
over the other. These candles burnt a considerable time, and gave a
very tolerable light.
These Polynesians of Tahiti, as elsewhere in Oceania, were still
living in the "Stone Age" when Cook visited them, but they had
already learnt the value of iron from the previous visits of
Bougainville and Wallis, and were very keen to obtain iron from
the crew of the _Endeavour_. Previous to their intercourse with
Europeans, fish hooks were made of mother-of-pearl, or some other
hard shell, filed into shape with pieces of coral, drilled with
holes by sharp-pointed stones, fixed into the end of a piece of
bamboo, which was then rotated between the hands. Coral rock made
excellent files for this and other industries. Their axes and adzes
were derived chiefly from basaltic volcanic stone. The skin of a
sting-ray[74] with its rough tubercles, and used with coral sand,
made a fricative for polishing or rubbing down stone surfaces.
With their stone axes they were able to fell trees, and, what is
more, to split the trunk into planks from 3 to 4 inches thick, the
whole length and breadth of the tree, though some of these trees
were 8 feet thick and 40 feet long. They would smooth planks very
expeditiously with their adzes, and take off a thin shaving from a
plank without missing a stroke.
[74] The sting-ray is so often referred to by Pacific voyagers
that some description of it is necessary. This fish--probably of
the genus _Urogymnus_ or _Pteroplatea_--belongs to the family of
the _Trygonidæ_, the whip-tailed or sting-tailed rays, so called
because the thin, pliable tail is armed with a series of bony
spines, as much as 8 or 9 inches long, which have proved very useful
to primitive man on the Pacific and Indian Ocean coasts (where the
sting-rays are often stranded) as a ready-made lancehead or dagger
point. The skin of some species of sting-ray is covered with bony
tubercles. The rays or skates are distantly related to sharks, but
are specially remarkable for being broad and flat--occasionally
broader than they are long--owing to the immense development of the
fin flaps at the sides.
Their small canoes for short excursions were flat-bottomed and with
upright sides, but the _pahi_, used for long voyages, was bowed
and with a sharp keel. The flat-bottomed boats, called _ivaha_,
were sometimes united at a distance of about 3 feet by a strong
pole of wood laid across them and lashed to the gunwales. On the
fore part of these double canoes a stage or platform was raised,
rather wider than the boat itself, and upon this stage would stand
the fighting men, whose missile weapons were slings and spears.
Below these stages sat the men who paddled the canoe, and who
furnished reinforcements to replace those who were wounded. Some
of the fighting canoes were 40 feet long, and their sterns might
be as much as 18 feet above the surface of the water. The _pahi_,
or long-distance boat, was sometimes as much as 60 feet long, but
very narrow. If intended for warfare it would be fitted with a stage
or platform, or for long-distance journeys contain a house. It was
steadied with one outrigger projecting 6 to 10 feet, and might have
one or even two masts carrying sails that were made of matting.
After discovering and exploring the rest of the Society Islands to
the north-west of Tahiti, which is an outlying member of the group,
Cook directed the course of the _Endeavour_ southwards in search
of land; but finding none, except the minute inhabited island of
Oheteroa (where the people were lusty and well made and clothed
in beautiful bark-cloths painted in stripes of different patterns
and colours, and armed with wooden weapons, sometimes pointed with
the sharp bone of the sting-ray), he turned his course more to the
west, and after sailing from 15 August, 1769, to 6 October, land
was sighted on the latter date and became the subject of much eager
conversation, it being believed that at last they had found "the
unknown Southern land" (Terra Australis Incognita).[75]
[75] About the same day the _Endeavour_ was seen approaching New
Zealand from the east and was taken by the natives to be a monstrous
bird with beautiful white wings. When she came to an anchor and a
boat was let down into the sea it was taken to be a fledgling whose
wings were not grown. When, however, the boat was seen to contain
people, the Maoris decided these must be gods, and probably evil
gods.
On Sunday, 8 October, 1769, the ship was at anchor in Poverty Bay,
off the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand; and Captain
Cook, accompanied by (Sir Joseph) Banks and Dr. Solander, and a
party of marines, landed--the first amongst Europeans--on the shores
of New Zealand. Their reception from the natives was not a friendly
one. When they had got some distance from the boat, four men armed
with long wooden lances rushed out of the woods and attempted to
attack the seamen who were left in the boat. The coxswain of the
small pinnace was obliged to fire in the air to scare them. This,
however, did not deter the Maoris, who renewed their attack, and
at last one of them was shot dead. At this the other three stood
motionless, as if petrified with astonishment; but as soon as
they recovered their senses they seized the body of their dead
companion to drag it after them, but abandoned it at last in a
panic flight. Cook and his party returned to the ship, and heard
the natives on shore discussing in loud voices what had happened.
The next morning Cook, accompanied by Banks, Solander, and the
interpreter, Tupia, landed and advanced slowly and quietly towards
a party of fifty natives who were seated on the ground, every man
of whom at their approach produced either a long wooden pike or a
small axe of green jade, about a foot long and thick enough to weigh
4 or 5 pounds. The interpreter, Tupia, called to them aloud in the
language of Tahiti, but they only answered by flourishing their
weapons. Then a musket was fired wide, so as to scare them whilst
the party retreated. A body of marines was landed, and marched with
a union jack carried before them to a little bank. The officers once
more approached the Maoris, and it was with great pleasure they
perceived that their Tahiti interpreter was actually understood when
he spoke, he and the Maoris only speaking different dialects of the
same language. (This was a very remarkable fact, that the Maoris
could understand the speech of other Polynesian natives from 1000 to
2000 miles distant, for the two peoples must have been separated in
time by about six or seven hundred years.)
[Illustration: THE ISLAND OF TAHITI AND ITS EXTRAORDINARY DOUBLE
CANOES: AS SEEN BY CAPTAIN COOK]
The New Zealanders were told that all the white men wanted was
provisions and water, and that they would give them iron in
exchange. The properties of iron were then explained to them. The
Maoris replied they were willing to trade, but declined to lay
by their arms, and insisted on the white men coming into their
midst. However, after some further exchange of shouted messages
to and fro, one of the Maoris put down his weapons, stripped off
his clothing, and swam over the intervening river, and with great
bravery (considering all the circumstances of the case) walked into
the midst of the white men, and was soon followed by other Maoris to
the number of twenty or thirty. Some of them were armed. To all were
given presents of iron and beads. But they set very little value on
either, particularly of iron, of which they had not the least idea.
In exchange they gave a few birds' feathers, which they considered
ornaments. They then offered to exchange their weapons for those of
the white men, and, when the latter refused, made attempts to snatch
them from the hands of the officers and soldiers. They were plainly
told that if they did not desist the white men would be obliged to
kill them. However, a few minutes afterwards, one of the officers
happening to turn his back on the Maoris, one of them snatched away
his hanger (sword), and, retiring to a little distance, waved it
above his head with a shout of exultation. The rest of the savages
now became extremely insolent, and called to their friends across
the river to join them. The invitation being accepted, it was
necessary for the white men to defend themselves. Thereupon Banks
fired at the Maori, who was still waving the hanger above his head.
The gun was loaded with small shot, which peppered the man at a
distance of about 15 yards. He still continued to flourish the sword
about, but began slowly to retreat to a greater distance. Whereupon
the midshipman named Monkhouse, who figures prominently in Cook's
narrative as a person very ready to fire on natives, and who was
responsible for the death of the first Tahitian (see p. 196), fired
at the Maori with ball cartridge and killed him. The main body of
New Zealanders, who in their advance had halted on a rock in the
middle of the river when the first gun was fired, began to return
to the other shore, while two of those still remaining on the side
where the white men were snatched the weapon of green jade (see p.
215) from the dead man, and another endeavoured to secure the naval
officer's sword. This was prevented by Mr. Monkhouse. Once again
the whole body of Maoris attempted to cross the river and attack
the Englishmen, but they were met by a discharge of small shot,
whereupon they recrossed the river and retired slowly up country,
whilst Cook and his men returned in their boats to the _Endeavour_.
This river was probably the little Ormond River, which flows into
Poverty Bay. Near the sea it was salt, so that Cook and his party,
unable to furnish their ship with fresh water, made an expedition in
boats round the head of the bay to search for fresh water. On their
way they saw two canoes coming in from the sea, one under sail and
the other worked with paddles. It was decided to intercept these
canoes and seize the people in them, so that they might be conveyed
to the ship, given presents, and, as it were, forcibly made friends
with, and then return on shore to open up negotiations with their
fellow countrymen. The two canoes, however, escaped the cordon of
boats by desperate paddling. A musket was fired over their heads.
Upon the discharge of the piece the men of one of the canoes ceased
paddling, stripped off their garments, and actually tackled the boat
that came up to seize them, fighting, with their paddles, stones,
and other weapons which they had, so vigorously that Cook's party
was obliged to fire on them in their own defence. Four, unhappily,
were killed, and the other three--boys or youths--leaped into the
sea. With great difficulty they were seized and hauled into the
boats.
On reaching the ship they had already regained their composure,
and evinced a most intense curiosity as to everything they saw,
taking especial pleasure in eating bread and salt pork. During the
night, however, they gave way to sadness, and sighed very loudly,
but Tupia, the invaluable interpreter from Tahiti, came and talked
to them so soothingly that they regained their cheerfulness, and
to pass the time sang a song with a degree of taste that surprised
the crew. The tune was solemn and slow, like that of a psalm,
and contained many notes and semitones. The names of these three
young Maoris are recorded as Taurangi, Koikerange, and Maragovete.
Next morning, after eating another enormous meal, and having been
dressed in European clothes and adorned with bracelets, anklets,
and necklaces, they were taken on shore by Cook and his party,
but evinced great fear when they found they were to be landed at
the mouth of the little river, since at that spot the natives
were the enemies of their own tribe. However, amongst the large
party of Maoris which began to advance on the landing party the
boys discerned a relation. Eventually peace was made between the
white men and the Maoris, and the boys probably returned to their
relations.
As the result of this turn in events a canoe came off from Poverty
Bay before the _Endeavour_ left the vicinity, others from the
neighbourhood followed, and soon there were fifty Maoris on board,
who sold everything they had, even the clothes from their backs
and the paddles from their boats. Cook sailed southwards at first
as far as the point which he named Cape Turnagain. The rumours of
his kindly treatment of Maoris on board the _Endeavour_ having
fortunately spread in all directions, whenever the _Endeavour_ came
to an anchor canoes would come off to visit the ship and to bring
produce for trade, and although one or two disagreeable incidents
occurred, such as when the natives attempted to kidnap a Polynesian
boy on board for the purpose of eating him--for their cannibalism
began to be patent to Cook and his officers--the relations between
the Englishmen and the Maoris became so friendly that frequent
excursions were made on shore, the houses of chiefs were visited,
and meals were taken with them.
The food of these New Zealanders consisted mainly of fish, with
which they ate, as a kind of bread, the roots of a bracken fern.
These roots were scorched over a fire, beaten with a stick till the
bark fell off, and what remained was a soft substance, somewhat
clammy and sweet, though not unpleasing to the taste, but very
fibrous and stringy. The natives, being tidy in their eating, kept
baskets by them into which they spat out the fibrous refuse of the
bracken-fern roots. They had no domestic animals except dogs, which
were very small and ugly. (The black, bear-like skins which Cook saw
being worn occasionally were probably skins of sea-lions or seals.)
But they had plantations of sweet potatoes, taro yams, and gourds.
The surroundings of their houses were kept scrupulously clean, and
there were regular places in which all litter, offal, and refuse was
piled up in regular dunghills. The women were not so good-looking
as the men, and made themselves uglier by painting their faces with
red ochre and oil, an adornment which was very disagreeable to
Europeans, because they found out the favourite salutation of the
New Zealanders to be that of rubbing noses, so that any attempts
to get into friendly relations resulted in most of the officers
having their faces smeared with greasy red paint. As a rule, the
men confined their decorations to the elaborate tatuing, which has
since become so famous, yet there were some who liked to cover
their faces, bodies, and clothing with red ochre, and went about
carrying pieces of this earth with which to renew the colouring
wherever it was removed by contact. Each woman wore a girdle made
of sweet-smelling grasses and leaves, and over this a petticoat of
roughly plaited _Phormium_ fibre.
They found the country luxuriantly clothed with forest and
everywhere a beautiful verdure. The species of trees in the woods
were unknown to them. They specially noticed here and there
cabbage-palms, which they cut down for the cabbages.[76]
[76] There is only one kind of palm in New Zealand (the North
Island) and that is of the peculiar genus _Rhopalostylis_ of which
there are two species. Most palms produce a "cabbage"--which is
simply the mass of undeveloped fronds, the heart of the tree.
The woods abounded in birds of great variety, some of them
exquisitely beautiful, but all quite unknown to the Europeans.
Amongst the food supplies of the natives were observed occasionally
"lobsters" (which were probably langoustes, see p. 190), besides
various wild birds, which the Maoris either roasted by fastening
them upon a small stick stuck into the ground and inclined towards
the open fire, or baked by putting them into the ground with hot
stones. Like the other Polynesians, these Maoris were given to
displaying their sorrow, either for the death of a relation, or for
some matter of mere personal pique, not only by shedding quantities
of tears and singing mournful songs, but by cutting their arms,
faces, chests, and thighs with sharp-edged shells, so that in the
middle of their paroxysm of grief their bodies were covered with
blood. Many of the natives met with were scarred from head to foot
with old "grief marks".
Some of the promontories stretching out into the sea were noteworthy
for the fortified villages, called by the natives _eppah_ or _pah_.
"The best engineer in Europe could not have chosen a situation
better adapted to enable a small number to defend themselves
against a greater. The steepness of the cliffs renders it wholly
inaccessible from the water, which encloses it on three sides; and,
to the land, it is fortified by a ditch and a bank raised on the
inside: from the top of the bank to the bottom of the ditch is 22
feet; the ditch on the outside is 14 feet deep, and its breadth is
in proportion. The whole seemed to have been executed with great
judgment; and there had been a row of pickets or palisades, both on
the top of the bank and along the brink of the ditch on the outside;
those on the outside had been driven very deep into the ground, and
were inclined towards the ditch, so as to project over it; but of
these the thickest posts only were left, and upon them there were
evident marks of fire, so that the place had probably been taken and
destroyed by an enemy."
The weakness of these forts as regards standing a siege was that
in none of them did there seem to have been wells sunk or any
provision made for storing water in large quantities. And although
always built near a stream, the besieged would be obliged every now
and then to elude the vigilance of their enemies at night-time and
renew their supplies of water by fetching it up to the fort from
the stream below. But otherwise these forts were provisioned with
quantities of fern roots and dried fish. The people's only weapons
seemed to be lances, pikes, and halberds of wood, pointed sometimes
with jade[77] or bone, and heavy jade clubs and axes; but they had
no bows and arrows or slings, and very few weapons that they could
throw.
[77] Jade, which is so often referred to (though sometimes miscalled
"green talc") in the works of early Pacific explorers, is a
beautiful green stone of several quite distinct species. The Jade of
New Zealand is either a fibrous silicate called nephrite or a green
serpentine silicate. The Maoris called these green stones _poenamu_
or _poiinamu_, and because Jade of both kinds was specially abundant
in the South Island this was called Tarai-poenamu=the Land of Jade.
On 20 November, 1769, Cook discovered a river at the head of a great
inlet, which he named the Thames, and in this region of the North
Island he noticed the splendid kauri pines.[78] One of these he
judged to be 89 feet from the root to the first branch, and perhaps
200 feet high altogether. Its girth near the ground was nearly 20
feet. In the most northern part of the North Island they met with
the paper-mulberry tree growing in the native plantations, and here
they frequently found a kind of celery, which was eagerly gathered
by the seamen as a vegetable addition to their diet.
[78] See pp. 35 and 42.
In December, 1769, they rounded the northernmost promontory of New
Zealand, which Cook at once identified with Cape Maria Van Diemen
of Tasman's discovery, and perhaps realized then for the first time
that the Terra Australis along which he had been coasting was none
other than the New Zealand discovered by Tasman. The natives in this
northernmost part gave a very interesting description, through Tupia
the interpreter (when asked if they knew of any other land besides
New Zealand), and said that far away to the north-west there was a
country of great extent, which they called Ulimaroa, and which had
been reached by some of their people in a very large canoe after
a month's sail. The most striking feature to them in this distant
land was that its inhabitants possessed and ate pigs, and they
called these pigs by the widespread name, _bua_. It is probable that
the land to which they alluded was Fiji; for though New Caledonia
answers better to the description, the people possessed no pigs
when this large island was first visited by Cook.
After rounding Cape Maria Van Diemen, the _Endeavour_ sailed
southwards along the west coast of the North Island and sighted
Mount Egmont, which is 8340 feet high. The appearance of this
mountain rising straight up from the sea coast was superb, and even
although it was the middle of the New Zealand summer its summit was
covered with snow. They next entered the broad gulf between the
Taranaki Peninsula and the South Island. The ship came to an anchor
in Queen Charlotte Sound. On the waters of this beautiful inlet they
saw floating the dead body of a woman. Landing shortly afterwards,
and getting into friendly relations with a small family of Maoris,
they enquired about the dead body of the woman, and were told that
it was one of their relations who had died a natural death, and,
according to their custom, they had tied a stone to the body and had
thrown it into the sea.
"This family when we came on shore, was employed in dressing some
provisions: the body of a dog was at this time buried in their
oven, and many provision baskets stood near it. Having cast our
eyes carelessly into one of these as we passed it, we saw two bones
pretty cleanly picked, which did not seem to be the bones of a dog,
and which, upon a nearer examination, we discovered to be those of
a human body. At this sight we were struck with horror, though it
was only a confirmation of what we had heard many times since we
arrived upon this coast. As we could have no doubt but the bones
were human, neither could he have any doubt but that the flesh which
covered them had been eaten. They were found in a provision basket;
the flesh that remained appeared manifestly to have been dressed
by fire, and in the gristles at the end were the marks of the teeth
which had gnawed them. To put an end, however, to conjecture,
founded upon circumstances and appearances, we directed Tupia to ask
what bones they were; and the Indians, without the least hesitation,
answered: 'the bones of a man'. They were then asked what was become
of the flesh, and they replied that they had eaten it. 'But,' said
Tupia, 'why did you not eat the body of the woman which we saw
floating upon the water?' 'The woman', said they, 'died of disease;
besides, she was our relation, and we eat only the bodies of our
enemies who are killed in battle.'"
Upon enquiry who the man was whose bones had been found, they told
the party from the _Endeavour_ that about five days before a boat
belonging to their enemies came into the bay with many persons on
board, and that this man was one of seven whom they had killed.
"Though stronger evidence of this horrible practice prevailing among
the inhabitants of this coast will scarcely be required, we have
still stronger to give. One of us asked if they had any human bones
with the flesh remaining upon them, and upon their answering us
that all had been eaten, we affected to disbelieve that the bones
were human, and said that they were the bones of a dog; upon which
one of the Indians[79] with some eagerness took hold of his own
forearm, and, thrusting it towards us, said that the bone which Mr.
Banks held in his hand had belonged to that part of a human body.
At the same time, to convince us that the flesh had been eaten, he
took hold of his own arm with his teeth and made show of eating. He
also bit and gnawed the bone which Mr. Banks had taken, drawing it
through his mouth, and showing, by signs, that it had afforded a
delicious repast."
[79] The natives of all these Australasian and Pacific islands were
styled "Indians" in Cook's day--following the silly fashion started
by Columbus. This practice lasted even to the early part of the
nineteenth century and in some of the explorations of the Niger and
Fernando Po in West Africa the natives are referred to as Indians.
Elsewhere along this coast human bones with the flesh on were often
offered to Cook and his men for sale.[80]
[80] On one of his visits to New Zealand of his second voyage,
Cook, to be quite certain of the cannibalism of the New Zealanders,
steeled himself to seeing them cook and eat the flesh of a young
man who had been killed on the beach (apparently for that purpose).
Many of the seamen with him who witnessed this disgusting spectacle
were literally sick at the sight, but the person most affected
was Oedidi, a youth from Tahiti, who had come with Cook as an
interpreter, and who nearly went out of his mind with disgust,
horror, and rage, extending his indignation to the white men who had
allowed such a spectacle to take place in order to satisfy their
curiosity.
On 30 January, 1770, on the shores of Queen Charlotte Sound,
Lieutenant James Cook hoisted the British flag and took possession
of the two great islands of New Zealand in the name of His Majesty,
King George III--of the two islands, for they had already learnt
from the natives the existence of Cook's Strait, which separated
the North Island from the South, and which would lead them back
into the eastern sea. The principal person to give this information
was an old man named Topaa. He was asked if he had ever seen such
a vessel before as the _Endeavour_, and whether white men had
ever visited the land in the memory of the people. Topaa replied
in the negative, but added that his ancestors had told him that
there had once arrived (probably on the North Island) four men who
had come in a small vessel from a distant country--Ulimaroa--but
upon the four men landing they were all killed. This additional
reference to Ulimaroa--which was either Fiji or the New Hebrides--is
very interesting, as it would show that it has been possible
for natives, probably of Melanesian type, to reach New Zealand
in bygone times, and, this being the case, it would explain why
succeeding French expeditions thought that in the Southern Island
they detected a negroid type of New Zealander, altogether uglier
and inferior in physique to the Polynesian Maori. It seems possible
that the Polynesian Maoris were preceded by a dark-skinned race,
who destroyed most of the Moas and other large flightless birds
which had apparently become nearly or quite extinct before the Maori
colonization took place.
Passing through the passage afterwards to be named Cook's Strait,
the _Endeavour_ turned to the north and once more sighted Cape
Turnagain, besides meeting Maori canoes, the occupants of which
recognized the _Endeavour_ and entered into friendly relations. From
Turnagain they sailed southwards in the early part of 1770, and
after zigzagging about in search of other islands which might lie to
the eastward of New Zealand, they at length reached South Cape, the
southernmost extremity of the Dominion, the promontory of Stewart
Island. They overlooked the passage between South Island and Stewart
Island, which was afterwards discovered by Captain FOVEAUX. Rounding
this, and following as well as they could the distant glimpses of
the coast, they reached the west coast of the great South Island at
Dusky Bay. Continuing their circumnavigation northwards they became
gradually aware that behind the hills of the coast was a ridge of
mountains "of a stupendous height, covered with snow in places".
Cook had, in fact, discovered the Southern Alps, the remarkable
snowy range of Southern New Zealand, of which the loftiest peak,
rising to an altitude of 12,349 feet, has been named after him. At
length, on 27 March, they were back again at Queen Charlotte Sound,
having completely circumnavigated New Zealand.
Before passing on with Cook to the discovery of eastern Australia,
it may be of interest to give here his first impressions of the
Maoris or indigenes of New Zealand--though the name of Maori did not
come into use till the early nineteenth century. The men were tall
and sometimes handsome (except for their frightful face-tatuing),
with the features of white men and a skin colour not much darker.
They usually wore short beards. The women were generally much
shorter in stature than the men, with darker skins and more negroid
features. [Even at the present day some of the Maori women are very
negroid in appearance. This was also the case with both men and
women of some of the tribes in the great South Island; and it would
really seem that New Zealand had at one time received a colonization
from the direction of Melanesia.]
The food of the Maoris has already been described in its main
elements--sweet potatoes, gourds, fern roots, and the flesh of
human beings, dogs, and wood-birds. Cook also mentions that they
ate penguins, albatrosses, and seals. They had no intoxicating
drink, and water was their only beverage. The Maoris seemed to Cook
singularly free of disease and to enjoy perfect and uninterrupted
health. The expedition never saw a single person who appeared to
have any bodily complaint or to suffer from any eruption of the
skin. Their wounds healed with remarkable facility, and in all large
assemblages of people were noticed the number of old men, who, by
the loss of their hair and teeth, appeared to be very ancient,
but who were not decrepit, and though not equal to the young in
muscular strength, exhibited great liveliness of disposition.
The Maori dress was of several kinds. The roughest was made from the
leaves of the Phormium[81]. These leaves were split into three or
four slips, which, when dried, were plaited into a material midway
between knitting and cloth, with the unwoven ends hanging out as a
fringe. Two or three pieces of this would serve as a complete dress,
one of them being tied over the shoulders with a string and reaching
down to the knees. At the end of this upper garment was fastened a
bodkin of bone, which served the purpose of raising a corner to the
shoulder or any other part of the dress. The second piece of cloth
was wrapped round the waist and reached nearly to the ground, but
both sexes wore a belt or girdle, which they scarcely ever removed.
The finer cloths were made from the fibre obtained by macerating
the Phormium leaves, and were roughly woven in a frame about 5
feet long and 4 broad, somewhat after the fashion of matting. This
beautiful, glistening, silky cloth was ornamented with borders
of different colours done with stitching, something like the old
English wool-work. Some of the chiefs wore dresses made entirely of
dogs' skin, but, this fur being very valuable, it was more often
cut into strips and sewn on to their clothes as an adornment.
Cloaks of sealskin were worn in the south. In both islands the men
and women trimmed their garments with birds' feathers, especially
those of parrots, penguins, and albatrosses. Dogs' teeth were
collected and strung into necklaces. The women wore bracelets and
anklets made of the bones of birds or of shells, while the men
preferred pieces of green jade or whalebone. Besides boring their
ears and wearing ornaments in the lobes, or decorating them with
the down of the albatross, which was as white as snow, they often
bored the septum or gristle of the nose between the nostrils and
thrust feathers through the hole. The chiefs would carry a staff of
distinction, generally the rib of a whale as white as snow, much
carved, and ornamented with dogs' hair and with feathers; or a
stick about 6 feet long, adorned in the same manner and inlaid with
mother-of-pearl. Chiefs and warriors also carried a great jade club,
called _patu-patu_. It was fastened to the wrist by a strong strap,
lest it should be wrenched from the owner in fight, but the chiefs
sometimes wore this handsome weapon stuck into the girdle round
their waists.
[81] _Phormium tenax_, New Zealand "flax", which is so important a
feature in the resources and development of New Zealand in earlier
days, was an aloe-like plant with stiff, sword-shaped leaves like
those of a flag in growth. From the centre of the mass of flag-like
leaves rises a tall flower column, perhaps 10 feet high, bearing
numerous orange-red tubular flowers like those of an aloe. Phormium,
indeed, belongs to the Lily and Aloe order.
The Maoris were of course, like all the Polynesians, completely in
the Stone Age when first visited by Cook, and ignored the use of
any metal. Their adzes and axes were made of a hard basaltic stone;
and a jasper-like stone was very useful in its small fragments for
making a sharp, hard borer. These fragments were chipped off a
block as flints might be. They were used in finishing their nicest
work until they were blunt, and then they were thrown away. With
these splinters of jasper they were able in no time to drill a hole
through a piece of glass. Their canoes were long and narrow, and
the largest sort would carry as many as 100 armed men. One such war
canoe was 68 feet long, 5 feet broad, and 3½ feet deep, with a sharp
keel. It consisted of three lengths hollowed out to a thickness of
about 2 inches, and fastened together with strong plaiting. Each
side consisted of one entire plank, 63 feet long and nearly 1 foot
broad. Both the prow and the stern were decorated with wonderful
pieces of carved wood. Some of the canoes, however, were only
dug-outs, trunks hollowed by fire and axes. The Maoris were experts
at sailing of the simpler kind, but their canoes could only go
before the wind. The sail was made of netting or mats set up between
two poles that were fixed upright upon each gunwale and served both
as masts and yards.
[Illustration: A VIEW OF DUSKY BAY, ON THE GREAT SOUTH ISLAND OF NEW
ZEALAND, WITH A MAORI FAMILY:]