b • HANKS CKLEURATION. 



New Zealand, wliicli was sailed round, ami linally lett on lilst March,. 

 1770, tlie sliij) heading towards Australia; Botany JJay was 

 sighted, and soon atter the first kangaroo was seen. iSot long 

 after this the shi|) si ruck upon a coral-rock, and hy tlie moonlight 

 her sheaHiing-hoiirds and lalse-keel were seen to come away. Day 

 hrouglit calm weather, and the crew hegan to lighten the sliip.. 

 By night the ship was almost afloat, but the leak was only kept 

 under hy all the ])iim|)s working. At last she was hauled off, and 

 seemed to make no more water than w hen last on the I'ock. Alter 

 his hard work Banks threw himsell down for a rest, when the 

 alarndng news was re])orled that the water had gained four feet 

 in the hold. All hands started again to work, and then it was- 

 found that the carj)enter had made a mistake in sounding. At 

 this juncture one of the ii:itlshipn)en proposed the expedient of 

 " fotliering," by taking a sail and stitching handfuls of oakum and 

 wool in rows; this sad was drawn under the ship, and the suction 

 of the leak drew the loose materials into the gap, and stopped the- 

 flow of water. 



The ship was next worked into a harbour, the mouth of the 

 Endeavour River, where she was run ashore and her bottom 

 repaired; the leak was found to be partly stopped by a piece o£ 

 rocK as large as a list being stuck in it and broken oft' slioit. 

 rinally, llie ship was worked out through the barrier-reef hy 

 Cook's Passage. Java and Timor were passed, till Batavia was 

 reached in (October 1770. Sickness then broke out, and Banks,. 

 8olander, and Cook were prostrated by fe\er, the first victim to 

 the climate being jNloidchouse, the ship's surgeon. The requisite 

 repairs to the ship being finished, they set sad on Christmas Day.. 

 Several of the crew died at Batavia, and many more before the 

 Cape was reached; in turn St. lieieiia was visited, and on the 

 12th July, J^anks landed at Deal. 



It may be mentioned that not only Dr. Havvkesworth, but 

 Lieut. Cook adorned their somewhat prosaic narrati\es wiih 

 purple p itches from Banks's more vi\id accounts. 



Sir Joseph Hooker's estimate of Banks's services on the Expe- 

 dition are as follow s : — " It needs no reading hetween the lines of 

 the great navigator's [i. e. Cook's] Journal to discover his estima- 

 tion of the ability of his companion, of the value of his researcbes,. 

 and of the impoi'tance of his active co-operation on many occasions.. 

 It was Bank> who rapidly mastered the language of the Otahitans 

 and became the interpreter of the party, and wno was the investi- 

 gator of the customs, habits, etc., of these and of the natives of 

 New Zealand. It \\as often through his activity that the com- 

 missariat was supplied w ith lood. He was on various occasions- 

 the thief-taker, especially in the case of his hazardous expedition 

 for the recovery of the stolen quadrant, upon the use of which, in 

 obser\ingthe transit of Veiuis across the sun's disc, the success 

 of the expedition so greatly depended. And, above all, it is ta 

 Banks's forethouErht and at his own risk that an Otahitan man 



