More than a hundred years ago, there lived a man who dwelt in a mud
cottage in the county of York; his name was Cook. He was a poor, honest
labourer--a farm servant. This man was the father of that James Cook
who lived to be a captain in the British Navy, and who, before he was
killed, became one of the best and greatest navigators that ever spread
his sails to the breeze and crossed the stormy sea.
Captain Cook was a true hero. His name is known throughout the whole
world wherever books are read. He was born in the lowest condition of
life, and raised himself to the highest point of fame. He was a
self-taught man too. No large sums of money or long years of time were
spent upon his schooling. No college education made him what he was.
An old woman taught him his letters, but he was not sent to school till
he was thirteen years of age. He remained only four years at the
village school, where he learned a little writing and a little figuring.
This was all he had to start with. The knowledge which he afterwards
acquired, the great deeds that he performed, and the wonderful
discoveries that he made, were all owing to the sound brain, the patient
persevering spirit, the modest practical nature, and the good stout arm
with which the Almighty had blessed him. It is the glory of England
that many of her greatest men have risen from the ranks of those sons of
toil who earn their daily bread in the sweat of their brow. Among all
who have thus risen, few stand so high as Captain Cook.
Many bold things he did, many strange regions he visited, in his voyages
round the world, the records of which fill bulky volumes. In this
little book we shall confine our attention to some of the interesting
discoveries that were made by him among the romantic islands of the
South Pacific--islands which are so beautiful that they have been aptly
styled "gems of ocean," but which, nevertheless, are inhabited by savage
races so thoroughly addicted to the terrible practice of eating human
flesh, that we have thought fit to adopt the other, and not less
appropriate, name of the Cannibal Islands.
Before proceeding with the narrative, let us glance briefly at the early
career of Captain James Cook. He was born in 1728. After receiving the
very slight education already referred to, he was bound apprentice to a
shopkeeper. But the roving spirit within him soon caused him to break
away from an occupation so uncongenial. He passed little more than a
year behind the counter, and then, in 1746, went to sea.
Young Cook's first voyages were in connection with the coasting trade.
He began his career in a collier trading between London and Newcastle.
In a very short time it became evident that he would soon be a rising
man. Promotion came rapidly. Little more than three years after the
expiry of his apprenticeship he became mate of the _Friendship_, but, a
few years later, he turned a longing eye on the navy--"having," as he
himself said, "a mind to try his fortune that way." In the year 1755 he
entered the King's service on board the _Eagle_, a sixty-gun ship,
commanded by Sir Hugh Palliser. This officer was one of Cook's warmest
friends through life.
In the navy the young sailor displayed the same steady, thorough-going
character that had won him advancement in the coasting trade. The
secret of his good fortune (if secret it may be called) was his untiring
perseverance and energy in the pursuit of one object at one time. His
attention was never divided. He seemed to have the power of giving his
whole soul to the work in hand, whatever that might be, without
troubling himself about the future. Whatever his hand found to do he
did it with all his might. The consequence was that he became a
first-rate man. His superiors soon found that out. He did not require
to boast or push himself forward. His _work_ spoke for him, and the
result was that he was promoted from the forecastle to the quarter-deck,
and became a master on board the _Mercury_ when he was about thirty
years of age.
About this time he went with the fleet to the Gulf of Saint Lawrence,
and took part in the war then raging between the British and French in
Canada. Winter in that region is long and bitterly cold. The gulfs and
rivers there are at that season covered with thick ice; ships cannot
move about, and war cannot be carried on. Thus the fleet was for a long
period inactive. Cook took advantage of this leisure time to study
mathematics and astronomy, and, although he little thought it, was thus
fitting himself for the great work of discovery which he afterwards
undertook with signal success.
In this expedition to Canada Cook distinguished himself greatly--
especially in his surveys of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, and in piloting
the fleet safely through the dangerous shoals and rocks of that inland
sea. So careful and correct was he in all that he did, that men in
power and in high places began to take special notice of him; and,
finally, when, in the year 1767, an expedition of importance was about
to be sent to the southern seas for scientific purposes, Cook was chosen
to command it.
This was indeed a high honour, for the success of that expedition
depended on the man who should be placed at its head. In order to mark
the importance of the command, and at the same time invest the commander
with proper authority, Cook was promoted to the rank of lieutenant in
the Royal Navy. He had long been a gentleman in heart and conduct; he
was now raised to the social position of one by the King's commission.
From this point in his career Cook's history as a great navigator and
discoverer began. We shall now follow him more closely in his brilliant
course over the world of waters. He was about forty years of age at
this time; modest and unassuming in manners and appearance; upwards of
six feet high, and good-looking, with quick piercing eyes and brown
hair, which latter he wore, according to the fashion of the time, tied
behind in a pig-tail. It was not until the end of his first voyage that
he was promoted to the rank of captain.