SKETCHES FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF A NATURALIST- 

 TRAVELER IN OCEANIA DURING THE YEAR 1923 



By Casey A. Wood 



Since every visitor to Polynesia and Australasia must perforce say 

 something about Captain Cook, the mutineers of the Bounty, and 

 the Southern Cross, I need not apologize for beginning my obser- 

 vations with a few notes on these attractive subjects. 



Imprimis, I discovered that my recollections of the three voj'^ages 

 of Cook and of his remarkable scientific career were not as fresh as 

 they ought to be for one who proposed to travel over that quarter 

 of the globe he described so clearly over a hundred years ago. In- 

 deed, after reading the account given in his " Voyages," one feels 

 that very little of importance has since been published touching the 

 early history of the South Seas, many of whose islands he placed on 

 the map. Certainly, since the publication of his reports we have 

 not learned much more concerning the customs and lives of the 

 natives. 



James Cook, son of a common agricultural laborer, was born in 

 Yorkshire, October 27, 1728. His parents tried to fashion him into 

 a haberdasher, but the lure of the ocean was too much for him and 

 them and — an old, familiar British boy's tale — he quit the trade and 

 went to sea as a common sailor. After various adventures along the 

 British coast and in the Baltic he volunteered as an able seaman in 

 the royal navy, assisted at the capture of Quebec, charted the lower 

 St. Lawrence and the shores of Newfoundland and succeeded in 

 proving to his superiors that he was no idler in his chosen profes- 

 sion but aspired to the highest command possible to a self-taught 

 mariner. When, in the year 1768, the Government, at the suggestion 

 of the Royal Society, decided to send an expedition to the South 

 Seas for the purpose of observing the transit of Venus over the sun's 

 disk. Lieutenant Cook, then 40 years of age and in the full posses- 

 sion of his powers, was placed in command. From that date the 

 Pacific and its wonderful islands became his special domain and his 

 accounts of his three voyages of observation and discovery make 

 fascinating reading. It must be remembered that at least two of the 

 adventures were undertaken in the company of well-trained natural- 



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