Chapter 9

At this juncture Captain Cook, happening to look at the old man who had been distinguished by the name of Prime Minister, imagined that he saw in his features a disapprobation of the present proceedings, and willing to improve the advantage, he grasped the Indian's hand, and gave him an old broadsword. This well-timed present produced all the good effects that could be wished. The prime minister was enraptured at so honourable a mark of distinction, and, brandishing his sword over the head of the impertinent Portuguese, he made both him and the men who commanded the party sit down behind him on the ground, and the whole business was accomplished.

This island of Savu is between twenty and thirty miles long; the women wear a kind of petticoat held up by girdles of beads, the king and his minister a nightgown of coarse chintz, carrying a silver-headed cane.

On October 10, 1770, the captain and the rest of the gentlemen went ashore on reaching the harbour of Batavia. Here the Endeavour had to be refitted, and intermittent fever laid many of our party low. Our surgeon, Dr. Monkhouse, died, our Indian boy, Tayeto, paid the debt of Nature, and Captain Cook himself was taken ill.

We were glad to steer for Java, and on our way to the Cape of Good Hope the water was purified with lime and the decks washed with vinegar to prevent infection of fever. After a little stay at St. Helena we sighted Beachy Head, and landed at Deal, where the ship's company indulged freely in that mirth and social jollity common to all English sailors upon their return from a long voyage, who as readily forget hardships and dangers as with alacrity and bravery they encounter them.

_II.--Round the World via the Antarctic_

The King's expectation not being wholly answered, Captain Cook was appointed to the Resolution, and Captain Furneaux to the Adventure, both ships being fully equipped, with instructions to find Cape Circumcision, said to be in latitude 54° S. and about 11° 20' E. longitude from Greenwich. Captain Cook was to endeavour to discover whether this was part of the supposed continent or only the promontory of an island, and then to continue his journey southward and then eastward.

On Monday, July 13, 1772, the two ships sailed from Plymouth, passing the Eddystone, and after visiting the islands of Canaria, Teneriffe, and others, reached the Cape of Good Hope on September 29. Here we stayed until November 22, when we directed our course towards the Antarctic circle, meeting on December 8 with a gale of such fury that we could carry no sails, and were driven by this means to eastward of our intended course, not the least hope remaining of our reaching Cape Circumcision.

We now encountered in 51° 50' S. latitude and 21° 3' E. longitude some ice islands. The dismal scene, a view to which we were unaccustomed, was varied as well by birds of the petrel kind as by several whales which made their appearance among the ice, and afforded us some idea of a southern Greenland. But though the appearance of the ice with the waves breaking over it might afford a few minutes' pleasure to the eye, yet it could not fail to fill us with horror when we reflected on our danger, for the ship would be dashed to pieces in a moment were she to get against the weather side of these islands, where the sea runs high. Captain Cook had directed the Adventure, in case of separation, to cruise three days in that place, but in a thick fog we lost sight of her. This was a dismal prospect, for we now were exposed to the dangers of the frozen climate without the company of our fellow voyagers, which before had relieved our spirits when we considered we were not entirely alone in case we lost our vessel.

The spirits of our sailors were greatly exhilarated when we reached Dusky Bay, New Zealand. Landing a shooting party at Duck Cove, we found a native with his club and some women behind him, who would not move. His fears, however, were all dissipated by Captain Cook going up to embrace him. After a stay here we opened Queen Charlotte's Sound and found the Adventure at anchor; none can describe the joy we felt at this most happy meeting. They had experienced terrible weather, and having made no discovery of land, determined to bear away from Van Diemen's Land, which was supposed to join New Holland and was discovered by Tasman, in 1642 A.D. Here they refitted their ship, and after three months' separation met us again.

During all this arduous experience of seamanship, sometimes involved in sheets of snow, and in mists so dark that a man on the forecastle could not be seen from the quarter-deck, it was astonishing that the crew of the Resolution should continue in perfect health. Nothing can redound more to the honour of Captain Cook than his paying particular attention to the preservation of health among his company. By observing the strictest discipline from the highest to the lowest, his commands were duly observed and punctually executed.

After a lengthened stay with the New Zealanders, and all hopes of discovering a continent having now vanished, we were induced to believe that there is no southern continent between New Zealand and America, and, steering clear the island, we made our way to Otaheite, where the Resolution lost her lower anchor in the bay. Excursions were made inland, and King Otoo, a personable man, six feet in height, and about thirty years of age, treated the party with great entertainment.

On January 30, 1774, we sailed from New Zealand, and reaching latitude 67° 5' S., we found an immense field of ice with ninety-seven ice-hills glistening white in the distance. Captain Cook says: "I will not say it was impossible anywhere to get further to the south, but the attempting it would have been a dangerous and rash enterprise, and what I believe no man in any situation would have thought of."

We therefore sailed northward again, meeting with heavy storms, and the captain, being taken ill with a colic, and in the extremity of the case, the doctor fed him with the flesh of a favourite dog.

On the discovery of Palmerston Island--named after one of the Lords of the Admiralty--and Savage Island, as appropriate to the character of the natives, we had some adventures with the Mallicos, who express their admiration by hissing like a goose.

We stayed some time in Tanna, with its volcano furiously burning, and then steering south-west, we discovered an uninhabited island, which Captain Cook named Norfolk Island, in honour of the noble family of Howard. We reached the Straits of Magalhaes, and, going north, the captain gave the names of Cumberland Bay and the Isle of Georgia, and then we found a land ice-bound and inhospitable. At last we reached home, landing at Portsmouth on July 30, 1775.

_III.--The Pacific Isles and the Arctic Circle_

Former navigators had returned to Europe by the Cape of Good Hope; the arduous task was now assigned to Captain Cook of attempting it by reaching the high northern latitudes between Asia and America. He was then ordered to proceed to Otaheite, or the Society Islands, and then, having crossed the Equator into the northern tropics, to hold such a course as might best probably give success to the attempt of finding out a northern passage.

On the afternoon of July 11, 1776, Captain Cook set sail from Plymouth in the Resolution, giving orders to Captain Clerke to follow in the Discovery. After a short stay at Santa Cruz, in the island of Teneriffe, we were joined by the Discovery at Cape Town.

Leaving the Cape, we passed some islands, which Captain Cook named Princes Islands, and made for the land discovered by M. de Kerguelen. Here, in a bay, we celebrated Christmas rejoicings amid desolate surroundings. The captain named it Christmas Harbour, and wrote on the other side of a piece of parchment, found in a bottle, these words: _Naves Resolution et Discovery de Rege Magnæ Britanniæ Decembris 1776_, and buried the same beneath a pile of stones, waving above it the British flag.

Having failed to see a human being on shore, he sailed to Van Diemen's Land, and took the ships into Adventure Bay for water and wood. The natives, with whom we were conversant, seemed mild and cheerful, with little of that savage appearance common to people in their situation, nor did they discover the least reserve or jealousy in their intercourse with strangers.

On our landing at Annamooka, in the Friendly Islands, we were entertained with great civility by Toobou, the chief, who gave us much amusement by a sort of pantomime, in which some prizefighters displayed their feats of arms, and this part of the drama concluded with the presentation of some laughable story which produced among the chiefs and their attendants the most immoderate mirth. This friendly reception was also repeated in the island of Hapaee, where Captain Cook ordered an exhibition of fireworks, and in return the king, Feenou, gave us an exhibition of dances in which twenty women entered a circle, whose hands were adorned with garlands of crimson flowers, and many of their persons were decorated with leaves of trees, curiously scalloped, and ornamented at the edges. In the island of Matavai it is impossible to give an adequate idea of the joy of the natives on our arrival. The shores everywhere resounded with the name of Cook; not a child that could lisp "Toote" was silent.

Before proceeding to the northern hemisphere we passed a cluster of isles which Captain Cook distinguished by the name of Sandwich Islands, in honour of the Earl of Sandwich. They are not inferior in beauty to the Friendly Islands, nor are the inhabitants less ingenious or civilised.

When in latitude 44° N., longitude 234° 30', the long expected coast of New Albion, so named by Sir Francis Drake, was descried at a distance of ten leagues, and pursuing our course we reached the inlet which is called by the natives Nootka, but Captain Cook gave it the name of King George's Sound, where we moored our vessels for some time. The inhabitants are short in stature, with limbs short in proportion to the other parts; they are wretched in appearance and lost to every idea of cleanliness. In trafficking with us some displayed a disposition to knavery, and the appellation of thieves is certainly applicable to them.

Between the promontory which the captain named Cape Douglas after Dr. Douglas, the Dean of Windsor, and Point Banks is a large, deep bay, which received the name of Smoky Bay; and northward he discovered more land composed of a chain of mountains, the highest of which obtained the name of Mount St. Augustine. But the captain was now fully convinced that no passage could be discovered by this inlet. Steering N.E., we discovered a passage of waves dashing against rocks; and, on tasting the water, it proved to be a river, and not a strait, as might have been imagined. This we traced to the latitude of 61° 30' and the longitude of 210°, which is upwards of 210 miles from its entrance, and saw no appearance of its source. [Here the captain having left a blank in his journal, which he had not filled up with any particular name, the Earl of Sandwich very properly directed it to be called Cook's River.] The time we spent in the discovery of Cook's River ought not to be regretted if it should hereafter prove useful to the present or any future age, but the delay thus occasioned was an effectual loss to us, who had a greater object in view. The season was far advanced, and it was now evident that the continent of North America extended much further to the west than we had reason to expect from the most approved charts. A bottle was buried in the earth containing some English coins of 1772, and the point of land was called Point Possession, being taken under the flag in the name of His Majesty.

After passing Foggy Island, which we supposed from its situation to be the island on which Behring had bestowed the same appellation, we were followed by some natives in a canoe who sent on board a small wooden box which contained a piece of paper in the Russian language. To this was prefixed the date 1778, and a reference made therein to the year 1776, from which we were convinced that others had preceded us in visiting these dreary regions.

While staying at Oonalaska we observed to the north of Cape Prince of Wales, neither tide nor current either on the coast of America or that of Asia. This circumstance gave rise to an opinion which some of our people entertained, that the two coasts were connected either by land or ice, and that opinion received some degree of strength from our never having seen any hollow waves from the northward, and from our seeing ice almost all the way across.

We were now by the captain's intention to proceed to Sandwich Islands in order to pass a few of the winter months there, if we should meet with the necessary refreshments, and then direct our course to Kamtchatka in the ensuing year.

_IV.--Life's Voyage Suddenly Ended_

We reached the island called by the natives Owhyhee with the summits of its mountains covered with snow. Here an eclipse of the moon was observed. We discovered the harbour of Karakakooa, which we deemed a proper place for refitting the ships, our masts and rigging having suffered much. On going ashore Captain Cook discovered the habitation of the Society of Priests, where he was present at some solemn ceremonies and treated with great civility. Afterwards the captain conducted the king, Terreeoboo, on to the ship with every mark of attention, giving him a shirt, and on our visits afterwards on shore we trusted ourselves among the natives without the least reserve.

Some time after, however, we noticed a change in their attitude. Following a short absence in search of a better anchorage, we found our reception very different, in a solitary and deserted bay with hardly a friend appearing or a canoe stirring. We were told that Terreeoboo was absent, and that the bay was tabooed. Our party on going ashore was met by armed natives, and a scuffle arose about the theft of some articles from the Discovery, and Pareea, our friendly native, was, through a misunderstanding, knocked down with an oar. Then Terreeoboo came and complained of our having killed two of his people.

On Sunday, February 14, 1779, that memorable day, very early in the morning, there was excitement on shore, and Captain Cook, taking his double-barrelled gun, went ashore to seize Terreeoboo, and keep him on board, according to his usual practice, until the stolen boat should be returned. He ordered that every canoe should be prevented from leaving the bay, and the captain then awoke the old king and invited him with the mildest terms to visit the ship. After some disputation he set out with Captain Cook, when a woman near the waterside, the mother of the king's two boys, entreated him to go no further, and two warriors obliged him to sit down. The old king, filled with terror and dejection, refused to move, notwithstanding all the persuasions of Captain Cook, who, seeing further attempts would be risky, came to the shore. At the same time two principal chiefs were killed on the opposite side of the bay. A native armed with a long iron spike threatened Captain Cook, who at last fired a charge of small shot at him, but his mat prevented any harm. A general attack upon the marines in the boat was made, and with fury the natives rushed upon them, dangerously wounding several of them.

The last time the captain was distinctly seen he was standing at the water's edge, ordering the boats to cease firing and pull in, when a base assassin, coming behind him and striking him on the head with his club, felled him to the ground, in such a direction that he lay with his face prone to the water.

A general shout was set up by the islanders on seeing the captain fall, and his body was dragged on shore, where he was surrounded by the enemy, who, snatching daggers from each other's hands, displayed a savage eagerness to join in his destruction. It would seem that vengeance was directed chiefly against our captain, by whom they supposed their king was to be dragged on board and punished at discretion; for, having secured his body, they fled without much regarding the rest of the slain, one of whom they threw into the sea.

Thus ended the life of the greatest navigator that this or any other nation could ever boast of, who led his crews of gallant British seamen twice round the world, reduced to a certainty the non-existence of a southern continent, about which the learned of all nations were in doubt, settled the boundaries of the earth and sea, and demonstrated the impracticability of a north-west passage from the Atlantic to the great southern ocean, for which our ablest geographers had contended, and in pursuit of which vast sums had been spent in vain, and many mariners had miserably perished.

WILLIAM DAMPIER

New Voyage Round the World

_I.--Buccaneering in Southern Seas_

William Dampier, buccaneer and circumnavigator, was born at East Coker, Somersetshire, England, in 1652, and died in London in March, 1715. At sea, as a youth, he fought against the Dutch in 1673, and remained in Jamaica as a plantation overseer. Next he became a logwood cutter on the Bay of Campeachy, and finding himself short of wood to barter for provisions, joined the privateers who waged piratical war on Spaniards and others, making "many descents among the villages." Returning to England in 1678, he sailed again in that year for Jamaica; "but it proved to be a voyage round the world," as described in his book, and he did not reach home till 1691. In 1698 he was given command of a ship, in which he explored the Australian coast, but in returning was wrecked on the Isle of Ascension. In 1711 he piloted the expedition of Captain Woodes-Rogers which rescued Alexander Selkirk from the Island of Juan Fernandez. The "New Voyage Round the World," which was first published in 1697, shows Dampier to be a man of considerable scientific knowledge, his observations of natural history being trustworthy and accurate.

I first set out of England on this voyage at the beginning of the year 1679, in the Loyal Merchant, of London, bound for Jamaica, Captain Knapman commander. I went a passenger, designing when I came thither to go from thence to the Bay of Campeachy, in the Gulf of Mexico, to cut logwood. We arrived safely at Port Royal in Jamaica, in April, 1679, and went immediately ashore. I had brought some goods with me from England, which I intended to sell here, and stock myself with rum and sugar, saws, axes, hats, stockings, shoes, and such other commodities as I knew would sell among the Campeachy logwood-cutters. About Christmas one Mr. Hobby invited me to go a short trading voyage to the country of the Mosquito Indians. We came to an anchor in Negril Bay, at the west end of Jamaica; but, finding there Captains Coxon, Sawkins, Sharpe, and other privateers, Mr. Hobby's men all left him to go with them upon an expedition; and being thus left alone, after three or four days' stay with Mr. Hobby, I was the more easily persuaded to go with them too.

I was resolved to march by land over the Isthmus of Darien. Accordingly, on April 5, 1680, we went ashore on the isthmus, near Golden Island, one of the Sambaloes, to the number of between 300 and 400 men, carrying with us such provisions as were necessary, and toys wherewith to gratify the wild Indians. In about nine days' march we arrived at Santa Maria, and took it, and after a stay there of about three days, we went on to the South Sea coast, and there embarked ourselves in such canoes and periagoes as our Indian friends furnished us withal. We were in sight of Panama on April 23, and having in vain attempted Pueblo Nuevo, before which Sawkins, then commander-in-chief, and others, were killed, we made some stay at the isle of Quibo.

About Christmas we were got as far as the isle of Juan Fernandez, where Captain Sharpe was, by general consent, displaced from being commander, the company being not satisfied either with his courage or behaviour. In his stead Captain Watling was advanced; but he being killed shortly after before Arica, where we were repulsed with great loss, we were without a commander. Off the island of Plata we left Captain Sharpe and those who were willing to go with him in the ship, and embarked into our launch and canoes. We were in number forty-four white men who bore arms; a Spanish Indian, who bore arms also, and two Mosquito Indians, who always have arms among the privateers, and are much valued by them for striking fish and turtle, or tortoise, and manatee, or sea-cow; and five slaves taken in the South Seas, who fell to our share. We sifted as much flour as we could well carry, and rubbed up twenty or thirty pounds of chocolate, with sugar to sweeten it; these things and a kettle the slaves carried on their backs after we landed.

We gave out that if any man faltered in the journey overland he must expect to be shot to death; for we knew that the Spaniards would soon be after us, and one man falling into their hands might well be the ruin of us all. Guided by the Indians, we finished our journey from the South Sea to the North in twenty-three days.

_II.--Adventures with the Privateers_

It was concluded to go to a town called Coretaga (Cartagena), and march thence on Panama. I was with Captain Archembo; but his French seamen were the saddest creatures ever I was among. So, meeting Captain Wright, who had taken a Spanish tartane (a one-masted vessel) with four petereroes for stone shot, and some long guns, we that came overland desired him to fit up his prize and make a man-of-war of her for us. This he did, and we sailed towards Blewfields River, where we careened our tartane.

While we lay here our Mosquito men went in their canoe and struck some sea-cow. This creature is about the bigness of a horse, and ten or twelve feet long. The mouth of it is much like the mouth of a cow, having great thick lips. The eyes are no bigger than a small pea; the ears are only two small holes on the side of the head; the neck is short and thick, bigger than the head. The biggest part of this creature is at the shoulders, where it has two large fins, one at each side of its belly.

A calf that sucks is the most delicate meat; privateers commonly roast them. The skin of the manatee is of great use to privateers, for they cut them out into straps, which they make fast on the sides of their canoes, through which they put their oars in rowing, instead of pegs. The skin of the bull, or of the back of the cow, they cut into horsewhips, twisted when green, and then hung to dry.

The Mosquitoes, two in a canoe, have a staff about eight feet long, almost as big as a man's arm at the great end, where there is a hole to place the harpoon in. At the other end is a piece of light wood, with a hole in it, through which the small end of the staff comes; and on this piece of bob-wood there is a line of ten or twelve fathoms wound neatly about, the end of the line made fast to it. The other end of the line is made fast to the harpoon, and the Mosquito man keeps about a fathom of it loose in his hand.

When he strikes, the harpoon presently comes out of the staff, and as the manatee swims away the line runs off from the bob; and although at first both staff and bob may be carried under water, yet as the line runs off it will rise again. When the creature's strength is spent they haul it up to the canoe's side, knock it on the head, and tow it ashore.