Pioneers in Australasia

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 Sou...

At some date of unknown remoteness--it may be a hundred or two hundred thousand years ago--a primitive type of man entered the island continent of Australia, coming from New Gui...

It is remarkable what a bait to the European in discovery have been both spices and strong perfumes, once so popular in cookery and in the toilette. The Romans and Greeks were d...

William Dampier--the surname, like so many in England, is of French origin--was born, the son of a farmer, at East Coker, near Yeovil, in the south of Somersetshire. His attenti...

In previous books of this series dealing with the achievements and adventures of the pioneers whose journeys led to the foundation of the British Empire beyond the seas, I have...

On 31 March, 1770, the _Endeavour_ sailed from Cape Farewell on the north coast of the South Island of New Zealand, and on 19 April sighted the coast of what Cook still knew as...

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...

In the Malay Archipelago and the Spice Islands both Portuguese and Spanish were attacked by the Dutch, and gradually dispossessed from the end of the sixteenth century onwards....

About the time that Bligh was dispatched in the _Bounty_ to obtain bread-fruit plants great developments were instituted in regard to Australia as the result of Cook's earlier v...

COOK'S first and second expeditions had drawn special attention to the bread-fruit as an article of food. The English planters in the West Indies thought that the bread-fruit tr...