Cook's Second and Third Voyages
NOT long after Cook's return to England in July, 1771, he was
appointed to command a ship of 462 tons, built at Whitby by the
same person who had constructed the _Endeavour_.[91] She was named
the _Resolution_, and with her was associated a smaller vessel of
336 tons, called the _Adventure_. Almost immediately after Cook's
return it had been decided by the Admiralty to equip a still better
furnished expedition to complete the discovery of the Southern
Hemisphere. A lieutenant who had sailed with Captain Wallis in 1766,
TOBIAS FURNEAUX (no doubt a descendant of French Huguenots), had
been promoted to command the _Adventure_. At first it was thought
that the expedition should be accompanied by Mr. (afterwards Sir
Joseph) Banks and a number of assistants, who should make a careful
examination of the botany and zoology of the countries to be visited
by the ship under Cook's command. And Banks spent several thousand
pounds in getting his share of the expedition ready, the British
Government being then, as now, very loath to spend much money on
these branches of scientific research, in the value of which it is
only beginning to believe. But at the last moment difficulties were
put in Banks's way. He was offered so little accommodation on the
_Resolution_ that he decided not to accompany Captain Cook, and
went later on to Iceland instead.
[91] The _Endeavour_, it might be mentioned, was sent out soon
afterwards as a store-ship to the Falkland Islands, where she ended
her days.
Still more determined to combat scurvy, Cook included amongst his
stores such things as malt and a concentrated extract of wort and
beer, which, diluted with water, might in fact make for the men
throughout the voyage a drink of a wholesome and a palatable nature.
They also took sour crout (cabbage cut up and pickled with salt,
juniper berries, and aniseed) and salted cabbage, orange and lemon
peel, mustard, and "marmalade of carrots". This was the juice of
yellow carrots evaporated until it was as thick as honey or treacle,
and it had been strongly recommended by a learned person of Berlin
as being a great remedy for scurvy, but when put to the test was not
found to be of much use.
A landscape painter, William Hodges, was appointed to this
expedition in order to make drawings and paintings of the scenery
and people of the countries which might be visited, and in place of
Joseph Banks and his party a naturalist of German extraction--John
Rheinhold Forster--and his son,[92] were both engaged to make
botanical and zoological researches. (At the Cape of Good Hope,
Cook also allowed Forster to engage in this department a Swedish
naturalist, Sparrman.) The expedition, which was to search, amongst
other things, for the South Pole, left England at the end of June,
1772, called at the Cape of Good Hope, and then directed its course
to the south-east, getting amongst icebergs, over which the terrific
waves of the Southern Ocean broke even when they were 60 feet high,
soon after it had passed the fortieth degree of south latitude. Cook
had been preceded in these waters nearly forty years before by the
French navigator Bouvet, who had reported the existence of land in
the far south. But Cook, on this voyage, though he penetrated as
far south as 64°, did not even encounter one or other of the island
groups which dot the surface of the ocean at rare intervals between
South Africa and Antarctica. Yet he must have been near these
islands, some of which he discovered on his next voyage, on account
of the abundance of sea birds which they saw, including penguins,
which never travel out into the ocean far from land.
[92] They were poor creatures compared to Banks and Solander, and
the elder Forster made himself so ridiculous that he became the butt
of the seamen.
The expedition sighted the coast of the South Island of New Zealand
on 20 March, 1773, and anchored in Dusky Bay on the following day,
having been 117 days at sea, and sailed 10,980 miles without once
seeing land. Yet only one man had been seriously ill with scurvy on
this long voyage, and the excellent health of the ship's crew is
justly attributed to the antiscorbutics they had carried with them,
especially to the weak beer and to the portable broth. Immediately
after they came to an anchor in Dusky Bay one of the ship's officers
killed a seal (of which there were many lying about on the rocks),
the meat of which was most welcome to the messes. Cook had brought
with him numbers of domestic animals and birds from England to
introduce into these new lands, but a good many of them had been
killed by the stormy and cold weather through which the expedition
had passed, and had even suffered from a form of scurvy, so that
when the sheep, for example, were landed in New Zealand their teeth
were so loose and their gums so tender that they could not masticate
the grass of the country, and could only feed feebly on leaves.
The geese were landed on the South Island of New Zealand in the
hope that they might increase and multiply and so furnish this part
of the world with a valuable domestic bird. But apparently they
died out without leaving any issue, and about the only creature
that Cook's expedition succeeded in introducing permanently into
New Zealand was the pig. But this part of New Zealand was found to
abound in native ducks of five different kinds.
"The largest are as big as a Muscovy duck, with a very beautiful
variegated plumage, on which account we called it the painted duck:
both male and female have a large white spot on each wing; the head
and neck of the latter is white, but all the other feathers, as well
as those on the head and neck of the drake, are of a dark variegated
colour.[93] The second sort have a brown plumage, with bright-green
feathers in their wings, and are about the size of an English tame
duck. The third sort is the blue-grey duck or 'whistling duck', as
some called them from the whistling noise they made. What is most
remarkable in these is that the end of their beaks is soft, and of a
skinny, or more properly, cartilaginous substance. The fourth sort
is something bigger than teal, and all black except the drake, which
has some white feathers in his wing."[93]
[93] There are at least nine species of duck-like birds in New
Zealand. The four specially cited by Cook are probably classified
as follows, in the order mentioned by him: _Fuligula novœzelandiæ_,
the New Zealand scaup; _Anas superciliosa_, the New Zealand mallard;
_Hymenolæma malacorhynchus_, the celebrated "Blue duck" of New
Zealand (though it is not strictly speaking a duck but more related
to the slender-billed merganser and smew); _Nyroca australis_,
the Australian pochard. The remaining five species are the New
Zealand ruddy sheldrake (_Casarca_), a tree duck (_Dendrocygna_), a
shoveller (_Spatula_), and two teal (_Elasmonetta_ and _Nettion_).
But New Zealand once possessed black swans like those of Australia,
and a huge flightless goose (_Cnemiornis_) like the existing
Cereornis goose of Australia, and a musk duck (_Bizuira_). But all
these became extinct long before the white man came on the scene.
Cook also noticed the characteristic wingless rails of New Zealand,
which he called wood hens. "As they cannot fly they inhabit the
skirts of the woods, and feed on the seabeach; and are so very
tame or foolish as to stand and stare at us till we knocked them
down with a stick."[94] The natives were even then fast destroying
them. Amongst the small birds Cook particularizes the wattle-bird,
poë-bird, and fan-tail, on account of their singularities of form
and plumage.[95]
[94] The Weka-rails, _Ocydromus_. There was also a monster
Porphyrio, the _Notornis mantelli_, unable to fly, and consequently
soon killed out by the colonists.
[95] The Wattle-bird or Huia was so-called because it had two
wattles under its beak as large as those of a bantam cock. It was
larger and longer in body than an English blackbird. Its bill was
short and thick, and its feathers of a dark lead colour; the colour
of its wattles being a dull yellow, almost orange. This description
of Cook's refers to the chough-like _Heterolocha_, in which the male
has a short, sharp, straight beak, and the female one which is long
and curved like a sickle. The Poë-bird or Tui was about the size of
a starling, and belonged to the family of honey eaters. The feathers
were (wrote Cook) "of a fine mazarin blue", except those of its
neck, which are of a most beautiful silver grey, and two or three
short white ones, which are on the pinion joint of the wing. Under
its throat hang two little tufts of curled, snow-white feathers,
called its "poes", which, being the Tahitian word for ear-rings,
was the origin of the name given by Cook's people to the bird,
which is not more remarkable for the beauty of its plumage than for
the sweetness of its note. "The flesh is also most delicious, and
was the greatest luxury the woods afforded us." Of the "fan-tail"
warblers mentioned by Cook there were different sorts, but the body
of the most remarkable one was scarcely larger than that of a wren,
yet it spread a tail of beautiful plumes, "fully three-quarters of a
semicircle, of at least of 4 or 5 in. radius". These fan-tails were
probably flycatchers of the _Muscicapidæ_ family.
In Pickersgill Harbour, close by, the seamen thought that they
descried a small mammal about the size of a cat, mouse-coloured,
and with short legs and a bushy tail, "more like a jackal than any
animal they knew". This may have been a runaway dog, of degenerate
type, belonging to the natives; or just possibly some mammal
indigenous to New Zealand which soon afterwards became extinct.
Yet with the exception of bats (and the dogs and rats introduced
by the natives, and the seals which frequented the seacoasts), no
indigenous beast has ever been discovered in New Zealand, either
existing there in the past or at the time of its discovery.
During the stay of the expedition at Dusky Bay and elsewhere in the
South Island the small black sandflies were a serious pest. Wherever
they bit they caused a swelling and such intolerable itching that
many of the people who had landed were at last covered with ulcers
like smallpox. Nevertheless the whole crew soon became strong and
vigorous. A local conifer, styled a "spruce" by Cook, but in reality
a _Phyllocladus_, furnished an astringent beer in a decoction of
its leaves, the bitterness of which was tempered by using an equal
quantity of the tea plant.[96]
[96] Cook describes this as a small tree or shrub with five white
petals shaped like those of a rose. The leaves were like a myrtle,
and made an agreeably bitter beverage. If this was strongly brewed
it acted like an emetic.
On the way north from Dusky Bay towards Queen Charlotte Sound, six
or seven waterspouts were seen. According to Cook, they were caused
by whirlwinds which created a kind of funnel or tube of water, which
ascended in a spiral stream up to the clouds. In one of them a bird
had been enclosed, which the seamen saw being whirled round and
round as it was carried upwards. It appeared to Cook that, although
these spouts reached the clouds, it was not from the rainwater of
the clouds being drawn down to them, but by the column of whirling
water ascending from the sea to the clouds above.
When in the southern Indian Ocean Cook had arranged with Captain
Furneaux that if they should be separated by weather (as they were)
they should rendezvous at Queen Charlotte Sound. The _Adventure_
was separated from the _Resolution_, and after searching for her in
vain set out on a lonely voyage of 4200 miles through an utterly
unknown sea and reduced to an allowance of 1 quart of fresh water
a day. They steered for Tasmania, reached the south coast of
that island, and landed there on 10 March, 1773, finding the soil
very rich and the country well clothed with woods, and plenty of
water falling from the rocks in brilliant cascades 200 or 300 feet
perpendicularly into the sea. They were the second white men to
land in Tasmania. The _Adventure_ anchored for five days in the bay
since called after her. The trees of the forest they found mostly
burnt or scorched near the ground, owing to the natives setting fire
to the underwood, so as to make passage easy through the forest.
There seemed to be little variety of trees, which were mostly of the
eucalyptus kind; but there was an abundance of birds, Australian
"crows" with their sharp white beaks, several kinds of duck,
parakeets, and a large white bird about the size of a small eagle
and very like one.[97] As for beasts, they only saw one, which was a
kind of opossum (phalanger), but from the traces they saw of others
(kangarus) they believed the land to contain deer. There were many
signs of the natives--rough wigwams or huts,[98] in which there were
bags and nets made of grass, stones and tinder for striking fire,
spears sharpened at the end with a shell or stone--but the people
themselves kept out of the way of the Europeans and were not once
seen.
[97] Probably _Haliœtus leucogaster_, a white and grey fish-eating
eagle.
[98] "The boughs of which their huts are made are either broken or
split and tied together with grass in a circular form, the largest
end stuck in the ground and the smaller parts meeting in a point
at the top, after which they are covered with fern and bark, but
so poorly done that they would hardly keep out a shower of rain.
In the middle is the fireplace surrounded with heaps of mussel,
scallop, and cray-fish shells, which I believe to be their chief
food."--_Captain Furneaux_.
The _Adventure_ after this repose skirted the coast and islands of
Tasmania, as far as the opening of Bass's Strait and the string
of islands named after Captain Furneaux. The last-named did not
ascertain definitely that Tasmania was an island and not any longer
a peninsula of Australia. From a point very near the Australian
coast the _Adventure_ sailed straight across to New Zealand and duly
rejoined the _Resolution_ in Queen Charlotte Sound. The crews of
both ships felt "uncommon joy at their meeting" after a separation
of fourteen weeks.
From New Zealand the two ships made their way to Tahiti. On arriving
there the Tahitians enquired about Tupia, the invaluable interpreter
on the first voyage; but his friends and relations were quite
satisfied when an account of his death at Batavia was given to them.
Civil wars had brought about certain changes in the government
of the island, and one of the most prominent chiefs known to the
_Endeavour_ expedition was dead. This was Tutaha, and his mother
came to meet Cook, bursting into tears as she seized him by both
hands, and said: "Tutaha Tutayo no Tuti, matti!" (Tutaha, the friend
of Cook, is dead).
Goats were landed on this island to introduce a breed of valuable
domestic animals. The expedition then passed on to the adjoining
island of Huahine, and here they obtained another invaluable
interpreter for their further voyages--Omai, a native of the island
of Ulieta, and of rather negroid or Melanesian type, but a most
useful member of Cook's second and third expeditions.
In the interval between Cook's first and second visits to Tahiti a
Spanish ship had called at that island and had introduced several
noxious European diseases. The degeneration and depopulation of the
Society Islands was about to begin, and even their food supplies
were beginning to get short, owing to the demands made on them for
pigs and fowls by European ships, and by the civil wars which caused
much loss of live stock.
From the Society Islands the _Resolution_ and _Adventure_ sailed
westward, discovered Hervey's Island, and rediscovered the Tonga
archipelago already visited by Tasman. Here they met with such a
kindly reception, the natives coming out to meet them in canoes,[99]
and running along the shore displaying small white flags, that the
group was afterwards christened the "Friendly Isles". [The Tonga
archipelago under a native king is now a British protectorate.] The
people supplied them with abundance of fowls, pigs, bananas, and
coconuts.
[99] Cook describes the sails used by the Polynesians of the Tonga
archipelago as being lateen, extended to a lateen yard above and a
boom at the foot. When they change tacks they throw the vessel up in
the wind, ease off the sheet, and bring the tack end of the yard to
the other end of the boat. There are notches or sockets at both ends
of the vessel into which each end of the yard is put. He describes
the sails as being exactly similar to those in use at the Ladrone
Islands.
Cook gives the following description of a house of worship on
Tongatabu Island built on an artificial mound about 18 feet above
the level of the ground:--
It was of an oblong shape and enclosed by a wall or parapet of
stone about 3 feet in height. From this wall the mound rose with a
gentle slope and was covered with green turf, and on the top of it
stood the house.... Three elderly men came and seated themselves
between the Europeans and the temple and began a kind of prayer,
which lasted about ten minutes, then led the way so that the house
of worship might be examined. In front there were two stone steps
leading to the top of the wall. From this the ascent to the house
was easy. It was surrounded by a fine gravel walk and was built
in all respects like a dwelling-house of the country, with poles
and rafters, and covered with palm thatch, with eaves coming down
to within 3 feet of the ground, and sides or walls made of strong
matting. The floor of the house was laid with fine gravel, except
in the middle, where there was an oblong square of blue pebbles
raised about 6 inches higher than the floor. In two corners of the
house stood images rudely carved in wood, which did not seem to be
treated by the natives with much respect. The space of blue pebbles
was a sort of altar, and on this the Europeans laid their offerings
of things that the natives would be likely to prize.
Cook describes Tongatabu Island as a little paradise. There was not
an inch of wasted land. The beautifully made roads occupied no more
space than was absolutely necessary, the fences were only about 4
inches wide and mostly consisted of useful trees or plants, and the
ground round the houses and temples was planted with large and shady
fruit trees, which besides the customary bread-fruits, coconuts, and
the Tahiti _ahiya_, included shaddocks (a large kind of orange). The
people also grew sugar cane and made pottery. They were of the same
good-looking Polynesian type as those of Tahiti. The men applied
dyes to their abundant crops of head hair, which either bleached it
white or stained it red, or even blue. They had here the custom so
widespread in North America, and amongst the Bushmen of South Africa
and the people of Australia, of mutilating the fingers, especially
the little finger, by cutting off the two first joints to mark their
mourning for children, husbands, or wives.
Cook also noticed the lepers of the Tonga archipelago, some of
whom had the whole face and nose reduced to dreadful smooth scabs,
surrounding nearly embedded eyes, and emitting an intolerable stench.
From Tongatabu the two ships sailed to New Zealand, and on the
journey the _Adventure_ was lost sight of. Cook, unable to wait
(after searching for this ship along the coasts of New Zealand),
left messages behind in bottles, buried in the camps to which
they had most resorted, and then, on 26 November, 1773, sailed
once more into the Southern Pacific to search for Antarctica. He
reached ultimately to latitudes as high as 72°, where he found vast
mountains of ice or land covered with ice. He had, in fact, probably
reached the coast of Wilkes's Land. Some of the innumerable ice
islands they passed on this southern voyage could not have been less
than 200 feet in height, and terminated in peaks like cupolas or
domes.
Being now well satisfied that no land was to be found in this
direction, except unapproachable through icefields and quite
uninhabitable, Cook turned his vessel to the north to reach the
Tropics once again, and on 13 March, 1774, anchored off Easter
Island,[100] where the ship was at once met by a canoe paddled by
two men, who brought out a bunch of plantains. This gave the crew
of the _Resolution_ a good opinion of the Easter Islanders, who, as
we know, were not unfamiliar with Europeans, having been visited
already by Spaniards and Dutchmen. In fact, when they landed they
found one man with a good broad-brimmed European hat on, whilst
another wore a Spanish jacket, and a third a red silk handkerchief.
The people, though very friendly, were rather thievish, not only
towards the European, but each other. For instance, finding
that Cook's party was very willing to buy sweet potatoes, they
unhesitatingly raided a man's plantation near the landing place, and
sold them for what they could get.
[100] For the convenience of the reader I might repeat the statement
that Easter Island, in 27° S. latitude, is, as regards human
inhabitants, the farthest prolongation eastwards of Polynesia, and
is situated 2374 miles from the west coast of South America, and
1326 miles from Pitcairn Island, the nearest land.
Cook, being ill himself at the time, sent a party of officers to
explore Easter Island thoroughly. They had not proceeded far on
their journey before a middle-aged man, tatued from head to foot,
and his face painted with a white pigment, appeared with a spear in
his hand, on which he hoisted a piece of white cloth as an emblem
of peace. He then drove away a crowd of natives that followed, and
constituted himself a guide. The surface of the island appeared to
be a barren, dried, hard clay covered with stones, except where
the natives had cleared the ground and made plantations of sweet
potatoes or had planted banana groves. On the highest part of the
south end of the island the soil was a fine red earth and more
fruitful, bearing a longer grass, and was not strewn with stones.
But the most remarkable feature in this somewhat desolate island,
which has an area of about 45 square miles, were the statues of
stone and ruins of masonry. These were mainly on the east side of
the island and near the sea. Here the officers of the _Resolution_
met with three platforms of stonework, and on each had stood four
large stone statues, mostly, however, now lying prone on the
ground and some broken. Each statue[101] had on its head a large
cylindrical stone of red colour, wrought into a perfectly circular
form. One of these stone statues was 27 feet long and 8 feet across
the breadth of the shoulders, yet there were others larger than
this still standing, one of them so big that its shade at two in
the afternoon was sufficient to shelter the whole party of twenty
persons from the rays of the sun.
[101] Some of these figures are outside the British Museum.
Throughout the whole island there was scarcely any supply of really
fresh, sweet water. In fact this landing party only met with one
such pool or well, and this was very dirty, owing to the habit
of the natives going there to drink and at the same time washing
themselves all over. If a numerous party came up for this purpose
the first arrival leapt right into the middle of the hole, drank,
washed himself without the least ceremony, and then gave up his
place to another, so that the lastcomer had a very filthy liquid
to quench his thirst. But for the most part the wells or watering
places were brackish or even salt. The natives seemed to drink the
salt water without any reluctance.
In the course of this journey taken by the party from the
_Resolution_ the natives frequently came up with roasted potatoes,
sugar cane, and supplies of water. They distributed these supplies
of food and drink with great punctiliousness, being careful that
those in the rear should be as well served as those in front of the
expedition. Yet all the time they were taking trouble to minister to
the wants of the white men they endeavoured to steal from them by
snatching at their bags or any loose gear which they could easily
detach from their persons; so much so that at last it was necessary
to fire a musket loaded with small shot, which did not in the least
interrupt the otherwise friendly relations.
On the whole the natives of Easter Island (Rapanui, Hwaihu, and
Teapai, as it was sometimes called) were living in a somewhat
miserable condition when revisited by Cook, as though they had very
much degenerated. Their food supply was poor, not even fish being
abundant on the coasts. They had a few fowls and rats, and lived
chiefly on sweet potatoes, yams, pumpkins or gourds, bananas, and
sugar cane. The speciality of the island was the sweet potato,
which Cook thought the best he had ever tasted. It seemed to Cook
as though there were not more than 700 natives left on this island
(probably there were then from 2000 to 3000). Their houses were
low, miserable huts, or a kind of vault built of stone partly
underground. Their fuel (as there were scarcely any trees left in
the island) consisted of grass, and, above all, the stalks of the
sugar cane. They had a few canoes made of boards, and it was a
mystery where they could have got the wood from which to build them,
unless it was driftwood.
But of course the greatest mystery of the island, then as now, were
the stone terraces and platforms and the gigantic stone statues.
The workmanship of the mortarless masonry appeared to the officers
of the _Resolution_ to be not inferior to the best stonebuilding
work then known in England. The stones were morticed and fitted
into one another in a very artful manner. The side walls were not
perpendicular, but inclined inwards. The statues were, as a rule,
erected on these stone platforms. It is noteworthy that the ears of
these stone figures had their lobes prolonged downwards out of all
proportion, but resembling closely the artificially elongated ears
of the living Easter Islanders. Another puzzle was how the red stone
cylinders could have been placed on the tops of the heads of these
statues when they stood sometimes 25 feet or more above the ground.
It must have required also considerable art to raise these immense
carved stones to a perpendicular position. The statues did not seem
to be regarded as idols by the people, but as the memorials of dead
chiefs, and to have been in some way connected with the burial
places of notabilities. The stonework on this island, nearly 1400
miles from the nearest land--Pitcairn--which has also remains of a
similar nature, remains one of the world's great unsolved mysteries
in the history of the human species, and it is remarkable that such
small effort has been made by excavation to find some clue as to the
origin and affinities of this vanished race of stonebuilders, whose
works stretch across the Pacific from the Ladrone Islands to Easter
Island.
From Easter Island, Cook proceeded to the Marquezas archipelago,
already known through the explorations of the Spaniards. Here the
natives were of the usual type of friendly, boisterous thieves, not
provoked to much dismay or anger if any of their companions were
killed or wounded by the muskets which Cook was obliged to order
to be fired at them, to stop their carrying off things of great
importance to the ship. All the islands and most of the ports bore
Spanish names. The people were Polynesians, but far better supplied
with food products than the miserable Easter Islanders. They had
pigs, fowls, bananas, yams, numerous edible roots, bread-fruit, and
coconuts.
From the Marquezas the _Resolution_ sailed back to Tahiti, and,
after another visit round most of the Society Islands [where Cook's
relations with the natives were so peculiarly cordial and intimate
that he left them with some shedding of tears on both sides and many
appeals and promises to return], once more sailed for New Zealand.
On the way thither, Howe Island and Savage Island (so called because
of the ferocious attack made on a landing party by the natives)
were discovered and named. The _Resolution_ visited the northern
islands of the Tonga group, but curiously missed seeing the large
islands of Fiji, though Cook discovered and named Turtle Island,
the southernmost of the group, on his voyage from the Friendly
Islands to the New Hebrides. In like manner Cook never visited the
Samoan archipelago, though, with these two exceptions, he was the
discoverer or rediscoverer of almost all the Pacific islands.
The _Resolution_ reached the New Hebrides archipelago in July,
1774. The first island at which any stay was made was the second
largest of the group, Mallikolo. The people of this island and of
the rest of the group Cook at once saw were markedly different from
the tall, handsome, European-like Polynesians. They seemed to their
discoverers the most ugly and ill-proportioned people they had ever
seen; very dark-coloured and rather diminutive, with long heads,
flat faces, and monkey countenances. Their hair, black or brown,
was short and curly, though not so tightly curled as that of a
negro. They had strong, crisp, and bushy beards. What added to their
deformity was a belt or cord which they wore round the waist, tied
so tightly that they were wasp-waisted. The men practically went
quite naked, but the women, who were not less ugly than the men,
and had their heads, faces, and shoulders painted red, wore a kind
of petticoat and a bag over their shoulders in which they carried
their infants. They had ear-rings and bracelets of tortoiseshell,
and armlets made of thread and studded with shells; the bridge of
the nose was pierced, and through it was thrust a circular piece of
white stone. They were armed with wooden clubs and spears, bows and
arrows, and the bow, which was about 4 feet long, was remarkable for
not being circular, but had a great bend in its lower half, so that
the bow and bowstring together in outline were like the half of a
pear cut lengthwise. The arrows were reeds pointed with hard wood or
bone, and the tips were covered with a poisonous substance. Their
language was utterly different from that of the Polynesians, and it
was noticed that they expressed their admiration by hissing like a
goose. They had no dogs or domestic animals of any kind apparently
(probably, however, they had fowls, like the New Caledonians).
At another of the islands, Efate, an attempt was made to lure them
on shore, no doubt believing that their weapons were ineffective,
and that they might be easily robbed, killed, and eaten. But at
Tanna Island, the southernmost of the group, pleasant relations were
entered into with the people, who were of a somewhat different race
and spoke a different language to those of Mallikolo. They were
taller, better shaped, and with more agreeable features, and were no
doubt mixed with Polynesian blood. Their skin colour was very dark,
their hair curly and crisp. They had pigs, but no knowledge of dogs,
goats, or cats, calling them all pigs. They were frankly cannibals,
and asked Cook and his people if they did not also eat human flesh.
There was an active volcano on this island which during the stay
of the _Resolution_ vomited up vast quantities of fire and smoke,
making at every eruption a long rumbling noise, like that of thunder
or the explosion of mines. The air was sometimes loaded with ashes
or a kind of fine sand, and it was exceedingly troublesome to the
eyes. The volcano also hurled huge masses of rock into the air,
and when it rained it rained mud, on account of the degree to
which the atmosphere was charged with sand and dust. Whichever way
the wind was the ship's crew were plagued with the fall of ashes.
Nevertheless the natives seemed quite indifferent to these volcanic
manifestations. Unfortunately, at the close of their stay at Tanna,
their relations with the natives ceased to be friendly, owing to the
inexcusable shooting of one of them by a sentry. Cook throughout
his books has to complain on several occasions of the frequency
with which the marines, or even the midshipmen, fired at the natives
without sufficient cause.
From Tanna the _Resolution_ sailed north to the large island
of Espiritu Santo, and stayed in St. Philip's Bay, the harbour
discovered by de Quiros. The natives of this island were very
dark-skinned, and their hair short and woolly, yet there were others
of more Polynesian appearance, with long hair tied up on the crown
of the head and ornamented with feathers like the headdresses of the
New Zealanders. These taller people spoke a language apparently of a
Polynesian type. Their canoes had outriggers.
Sailing away from the New Hebrides in the direction of New Zealand,
land was discovered to the south on 4 September (1774). This was
the large island named by Cook New Caledonia. The people were found
to be obliging and civil, and with little reluctance came off to
the ship to receive presents and to bring supplies of fresh food
for sale. They had not the least knowledge of pigs, goats, dogs, or
cats, and not even a name for one of them, but had apparently (so it
is stated in Cook's journal) domestic fowls of a large breed. The
men went naked, but were nevertheless much attracted by presents of
cloth, especially if it was red in colour. When Cook landed he was
received by a vast concourse of people almost entirely unarmed and
very attentive to the orders of their chief. But the country was not
so attractive in appearance as the beautiful Pacific archipelagos
farther north and east. Cook at once noted in his journal that
"it bore in general a great resemblance to parts of New Holland
(Australia) under the same latitude", the forest being without any
underwood and the trees being of much the same species [there are,
however, no Eucalypti in New Caledonia]. The mountains and other
high places seemed for the most part incapable of cultivation,
consisting chiefly of rocks, the little on them being scorched and
burnt up by the sun, though it bore tufts of coarse grass and a few
trees and shrubs.
Whilst anchored off New Caledonia Cook very nearly lost his life
from eating a fish of a poisonous nature. "It was of a new species
something like a sunfish, with a large, long, ugly head. Having no
suspicion of its being of a poisonous nature, we ordered it to be
dressed for supper; but very luckily the operation of drawing and
describing it (undertaken by Mr. Forster) took up so much time that
only the liver and the row were dressed", of which the two Forsters
and Cook merely tasted a little. But about three in the morning they
were seized with an extraordinary weakness and numbness, and almost
lost the sense of feeling. They could not distinguish between light
and heavy bodies, so far as they had the strength to move, a quart
pot and a feather seeming to be the same in weight. They immediately
took emetics, and afterwards recovered the full use of their senses;
but one of the pigs on board, who had eaten a portion of the inside
of the fish, died soon afterwards, and they learnt from the natives
that it was a deadly food.
Besides giving the chiefs dogs for breeding purposes, Cook landed
couples of pigs in order to supply this island with domestic animals.
These people of New Caledonia were very like negroes in appearance,
but their head hair grew much longer and the men had abundant
beards. The men went nearly naked, the women wore a short
petticoat. Their language seemed to be a mixture between that of
the Melanesians of the New Hebrides and the Polynesians of New
Zealand. As regards weapons, they had something like a boomerang,
and a wooden club shaped like a pickaxe. They used slings and
stones, harpoons for striking fish, spears and darts. Their houses
were circular, but kept full of smoke from the ever-burning fire in
order to drive away the mosquitoes. They had clumsy dug-out canoes,
generally used double, secured to each other by cross spars which
projected a foot over each side. On these spars would be laid a deck
or platform made of planks, on which they could even have a hearth
of clay with a fire burning on it. These canoes were navigated by
one or two lateen sails. Bananas and sugar cane were here, and also
bread-fruit and coconuts, but all such things very scarce, and the
natives lived chiefly on roots, the bark of a tree, which they
roasted and chewed, and on fish. They had no other drink but water.
The coasts of New Caledonia, however, were beset with reefs and
shoals, so that it was practically impossible for a sailing ship
like the _Resolution_ to make any close survey without running
risks of being lost altogether. Cook therefore sailed away from
New Caledonia, and discovered the Isle of Pines at its southern
extremity: a series of islets, really, on which grew very tall
conifers.[102] One little island, scarcely more than three-quarters
of a mile round, was covered with a forest of these tall pines 60
to 70 feet in height. The wood was white, close-grained, tough
and light, and exuded turpentine. On this southward cruise Cook,
curiously enough, missed seeing the Loyalty Islands, which lie at
no great distance to the east of New Caledonia, almost midway
between New Caledonia and New Zealand. But he discovered Norfolk
Island, which was uninhabited. Here his people noticed the aloe-like
"flax" plant of New Zealand and a great abundance of splendid pine
trees--the now celebrated Norfolk Island pine (_Araucaria excelsa_).
The woods were full of pigeons, parrots, rails, and small birds.
There were also "cabbage" palms, not thicker than a man's leg, and
from 10 to 20 feet high, probably of the _Areca_ genus, "with large
pinnated fronds".
[102] There is an extraordinary development of southern conifers
in New Caledonia and the adjacent islands and islets. They belong
to the genera _Araucaria_ (eight species), _Podocarpus_ (seven
species), _Agathis_, _Dacrydium_, _Libocedrus_ (five species),
_Callitris_, and _Acmopyle_, a remarkable assemblance for a land
area of about 6450 square miles.
New Zealand was once more reached on 11 October, 1774. There were
evident traces in Queen Charlotte Sound that the _Adventure_ had
been there. The natives received them with a certain reserve, though
at first very joyfully. They told a story, however, of a white man's
ship which some months ago had been beaten to pieces on the rocks.
The white men had landed, but after their muskets had ceased to be
of any use they had been attacked, killed, and eaten by the natives,
though not by the people of Queen Charlotte Sound.[103] There being
nothing now to detain Cook at New Zealand, he left Queen Charlotte
Sound in November, 1774, and, sailing across the Southern Pacific,
reached Tierra del Fuego, at the extremity of South America, and,
after visiting the Falkland (Natives of the remotest Pacific
Archipelagoes. From drawings by W. Hodges, who accompanied Captain
Cook's Second Expedition) Islands and discovering the large island
of South Georgia, he continued his journey round the southern waters
of the globe till he reached the Cape of Good Hope, from which he
made his way to England, having been absent three years and eighteen
days, during which voyage he had lost but four men, and only one of
them from sickness. "The nature of our voyage carried us into very
high latitudes, but the hardships and dangers inseparable from that
situation were in some degree compensated with the singular felicity
we enjoyed in extracting inexhaustible supplies of fresh water from
an ocean strewed with ice."
[103] The actual truth of this story was that the _Adventure_,
returning to New Zealand to keep her tryst with the _Resolution_,
had sent a boat with a landing party to get wood and water. These
had landed, and, for some reason not explained, had been attacked
by the natives, who had killed them all but one, and eaten a good
deal of their remains. Apparently a midshipman, Woodhouse, escaped
slaughter, and afterwards managed in some way to get in a native
canoe to other islands and return to England in a foreign ship. The
_Adventure_ was obliged through shortage of supplies to give up the
idea of meeting her consort and make the best of her way to England.
Accordingly, she steered through the southern latitudes for South
America and the Cape of Good Hope. With a continual wind blowing
eastwards she was almost blown across the Pacific, and reached Cape
Horn in only a month from New Zealand, and from here sailed onwards
till she reached the Cape of Good Hope, and, eventually, England.
Her gallant captain, Furneaux, afterwards died in the American war,
at the early age of forty-six.
[Illustration: A CHIEF AT ST. CHRISTINA IN THE MARQUEZAS ARCHIPELAGO]
[Illustration: A MAN OF EASTER ISLAND]
* * * * *
On Cook's return from his second voyage he received, from the hands
of King George III, his commission as a post captain in the navy,
and soon afterwards was appointed to be a fourth captain at the
Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich, with a salary of £200 a
year, a residence, and certain allowances, subject, however, to
the right of the Admiralty to call on him for further sea service
should they require him. And the call--provoked by the eagerness of
Cook--was not long delayed, for in the following year (1776) he was
appointed to command once more the _Resolution_. To this ship was
added a smaller consort, the _Discovery_, which had a capacity of
only 300 tons, to be commanded by Lieutenant Clerke, formerly of the
_Resolution_.
In the Third Voyage, which began in the summer of 1776, the
exploration of the Pacific was to be continued, but more with the
intention that Cook should explore the western coast of North
America and find out conclusively if there was or was not any
sea way which would give a passage for ships across the North
American continent.[104] The new voyage to be undertaken by the
ships _Resolution_ and _Discovery_ was designed to proceed to
the Pacific by the Cape of Good Hope across the Indian Ocean in
southern latitudes, and past New Zealand and Tahiti to the west
coast of North America. Rumours had begun to reach England about
French discoveries in the South Indian Ocean, notably those by du
Fresne and Crozet and by de Kerguélen-Trémarec in 1772, which it was
desirable to investigate. An interesting member of Cook's crew was a
Tahitian--Omai--who had been brought to England by the _Adventure_,
and had not been spoilt by the kindliness of his reception. Omai
was to return with Cook to his native land, and proved himself as
useful, plucky, good-natured, and well-mannered an interpreter as
had done the unfortunate Tupia, whose bones lay buried at Batavia.
After the usual stay at the Cape of Good Hope, the _Resolution_
and _Discovery_ made their way into the Southern Indian Ocean
through mountainous seas and bitter cold weather, and discovered
or rediscovered Prince Edward's Island,[105] the Marion du Fresne
and the Crozet Islands, and came to an anchor off the large island
in 48° S. latitude, which had been already noted by the French sea
captain, de Kerguélen-Trémarec. This last-mentioned island now
bears Kerguélen's name. Captain Cook and the great French explorers
who had preceded him had found no vast southern continent in the
Southern Indian Ocean, but all unknowing they had found the last
remaining vestiges of such; for Kerguélen, St. Paul, and Amsterdam
Islands, the Crozets and Prince Edward's Islands, are the only
portions remaining above the sea of a great Antarctic land which
probably once united South America with Australia and New Zealand.
All these scattered oceanic islands rise from what is called the
Kerguélen Plateau, a region of the bed of the Indian Ocean in which
the depth does not much exceed 8000 feet.
[104] This matter has been dealt with in my work on the _Pioneers in
Canada_.
[105] After the father of Queen Victoria--the Duke of Kent.
Kerguélen is the largest of these islands--about 1400 square miles
in extent. Its mountains attain altitudes of 2400 to 6120 feet. One
of them is an active volcano, and the whole of Kerguélen has been
subjected in recent times to much volcanic activity, lava having
covered much of its surface. This eruption of plutonic forces seems
to have followed a severe glacial period, during which the island
was covered with ice. It is therefore not to be wondered at that
between them fire and ice destroyed a once abundant plant growth;
for Kerguélen, in Tertiary times, maintained great forests of trees
of South American affinities.
On this desolate wind-swept island of snow mountains and crumbling
lava the crews of the _Resolution_ and _Discovery_ spent Christmas,
partly to obtain fresh water ("every gully afforded a large stream")
and fresh meat--the flesh of penguins and other sea birds and seals.
The seals (chiefly sea elephants and sea leopards) also provided
quantities of fat or blubber, from which oil was obtained for the
ship's lamps. The principal feature in the vegetation (there were no
trees, except fossil ones) was a plant called the Kerguélen cabbage,
actually a kind of cabbage (_Pringlea antiscorbutica_). This was a
great boon to the ship's company, who ate it boiled and also raw in
their eagerness for vegetable food. Amongst the birds of the island
was a land bird, the sheathbill (_Chionis_), the size of a large
pigeon, with white plumage, black beak, and white feet, a bird which
is related both to the gulls and the plovers. There were also giant
petrels, king penguins, albatrosses, gulls, cormorant and a peculiar
species of teal.
On 24 January, 1777, the coast of Tasmania was sighted, and on the
27th the second party of Englishmen (the men of the _Adventure_
being the first) landed in that southernmost portion of Australia.
The following day a party of natives appeared, who approached them
unarmed without betraying fear. They were quite naked and wore
no ornaments, but their bodies were decorated by large weals or
ridges of skin in straight or curved lines. They were of average
size, rather slender, with black skins and black woolly hair. Their
features were not ugly. The language was wholly unintelligible, and
seemed even to be different from that of the natives of New South
Wales.
After a further visit to New Zealand, and a long stay in the
Friendly Islands (the Tonga archipelago) and the Society Islands,
Cook turned the course of his expedition northwards, discovered
Christmas Island, and sailed across a stretch of open ocean till
at last, in January, 1778, he sighted a wonderful new land in the
archipelago of Hawaii. To this he gave the name by which they
were long afterwards known--the Sandwich Islands. After a stay
in this region of eight principal islands and many islets, with
its wonderful volcanoes (the highest of which is snow-crowned
and 13,823 feet in altitude), its peculiar vegetation, and its
Polynesian people, he passed on to the exploring of the western and
north-western coasts of North America, with the results which have
been described in my book on the _Pioneers in Canada_. Returning
again southwards to continue the explorations of the Pacific
archipelagos, he met his fate in a miserable skirmish on the west
coast of the large island of Hawaii, the easternmost of the Hawaii
group.[106]
[106] The Hawaiians, though very friendly, were very thievish, and
their robberies on the _Resolution_ and _Discovery_ and attempts to
take away boats became so serious that Cook landed with a party of
marines and attempted to secure the person of a king or chief as
a hostage. In the struggle that followed he and four marines were
killed. The flesh from Cook's body was afterwards sent back to the
ship, but his bones were preserved by the priests as relics.
Cook's adventures and those of his officers, after reaching northern
latitudes such as the Hawaii archipelago, can scarcely be brought
within the limits of Australasia, so that Cook now passes from our
narrative. But he remains the most remarkable figure in the past
history of Australasia. He was perhaps the greatest of British
navigators, for he made not only all the most remarkable discoveries
of the Pacific Ocean between the ice fringe of the Southern
Continent and the Bering Straits; but he did so with singularly
little hardship to his men, whose health he studied with the utmost
care, while in his contact with the natives he has left behind him
an admirable reputation for kindliness and sympathy. From the point
of view of science he fully deserved the Fellowship of the Royal
Society. The books composed from his journals read like those of
modern travellers of the best type, so shrewd are his observations
and so accurate his descriptions. He stands in the first rank of
the world's heroes, and it is interesting to remember that, though
there are not many greater Englishmen in our national records, he
rose from being the son of a Yorkshire farm labourer, a boy serving
out groceries in a little shop, an apprentice on board a collier, to
command, as an officer in the king's navy, vessels which performed
voyages far more wonderful than that of Columbus, and which revealed
to the knowledge of science the coasts of the Arctic and Antarctic
Oceans, the Continent of Australia, the Dominion of New Zealand, and
most of the islands and archipelagos of the Pacific Ocean.