Haszard. — Foot-tracks of Captain Cook. 25 



■or rather his courses, northwards, calling in at several places 

 along the coast ; and on the 4th November was opposite the 

 opening of a large bay, to which he subsequently gave the 

 name of " Mercury." He states, " My reasons for putting in 

 here were the hopes of discovering a good harbour and the 

 desire I had of being in some convenient place to observe the 

 transit of Mercury, which happens on the 9th instant, and 

 will be wholly visible here if the day is clear."* 



At the tune of the " Endeavour's " visit there seems to 

 have been a fairly large native population in and about the 

 bay, but these people were nearly all exterminated some thirty 

 years later in intertribal warfare, as will be related further on. 

 The vessel remained eleven days in the bay, and, as a whole, 

 the crew got on well with the natives, who showed Cook 

 through some of their fortified pas, of which he has left very 

 minute descriptions. During the stay some minor pilfering 

 went on, and one native was shot by Lieutenant Gore. Cap- 

 tain Cook apparently, a la Gilbert and Sullivan, believed in 

 "fitting the punishment to the crime," as his comment on 

 this incident will show : " When they [natives in canoes] 

 first came alongside they began to sell to our people some of 

 their arms, and one man offered for sale a haahou — that is, a 

 square piece of cloth such as they wear. Lieutenant Gore, 

 who at this time was commanding officer, sent into the canoe 

 a piece of cloth, which the man agreed to take in exchange 

 for his ; but as soon as he had got Mr. Gore's cloth in his 

 possession he would not part with his own, but put off the 

 canoe from alongside, and the natives then shook their paddles 

 at the people in the ship. Upon this Mr. Gore fir'd a musquet 

 at them, and, from what I can learn, kill'd the man who took 

 the cloth ; after this they soon went away. I have here 

 inserted the account of this affair just as I had it from Mr. 

 Gore, but I must own it did not meet with my approbation, 

 because I thought the punishment a little too severe for the 

 crime, and we had now been long enough acquainted with 

 these people to know how to chastise trifling faults like this 

 without taking away their lives."! 



One of the most interesting events in connection with 

 Cook's visit to the bay is his transit of Mercury observations, 

 and I have been trying to locate the exact spot from which 

 they were taken. Unfortunately, Cook has not described the 

 position with his usual minuteness, and recent testimony is 

 rather conflicting. The best description of the event which I 

 have seen is in Admiral Wharton's edition of Cook's Journal, 

 page 150, which reads as follows : — 



* Wharton's edition Captain Cook's Journal, p. 148. 

 f hoc. cit., p. 151. 



