COOK’S VOYAGES. Ary 
frequently washed, and in rainy weather fire often made between 
decks, to dispel unwholesome damps and effluvia. 
He now sailed to the south far into a desert and unknown 
sea, crossed it in various directions, and after having spent 117 
days on the ocean, mostly among floating ice-fields, and without 
having once seen land, he steered northwards to the well-known 
coast of New Zealand, where on the 25th of January, 1773, he 
cast anchor in Dusky Bay. The feelings of the seaman may be 
imagined, when, after long wanderings over the waste of waters, 
he sees land, mountains, forests, and green plains rise above the 
horizon, when singing-birds take the place of the wild sea-mew, 
and friendly faces greet him on the strand. <A_ beneficent 
mind is ever anxious to do good, and thus before sailing 
farther on to Otaheite, Cook caused a little garden to be 
planted, in which European vegetable seeds were sown and con- 
fided with proper instructions to the care of the intelligent 
savages, who were moreover presented with goats and pigs. 
On the return voyage from Tahiti to New Zealand, where he 
intended to provide himself with fire-wood and _ provisions, 
before advancing once more into the high southern latitudes, he 
was pleased with the discovery of the small but lovely Harvey 
Islands, whose green girdle of cocoa-nut palms mirrors itself in 
the dark blue waters. 
And now again he cruised in al] directions through the icy 
sea, over an extent of 65° of longitude and as far as the 71st 
degree of southern latitude, without having seen any land; and 
having thus satisfied himself of the non-existence of a southern 
continent, or at least of its circumscription within bounds which 
must ever render it perfectly useless to man, he left those dreary 
regions of eternal winter, to continue his discoveries under a less 
inclement sky. 
He first visited Easter Island and the Marquesas, where a new 
discovery received the name of Hood’s Island, and on the way 
thence to Tahiti added the Palisser Group to the map of the 
world. We now follow him to the extensive archipelago of 
Espiritu Santo, first seen by Quiros in 1606, who took it for a 
part of the imaginary southern continent. Since then it had 
only been visited by Bougainville (1768), who however had 
contented himself with landing on the Isle of Lepers, and ascer- 
taining the fact that it did uot form part of a continent but 
