SIR JOSEPH BANKS 71 



seized with his great longing to see strange 

 countries, forests, flowers and butterflies ; bring 

 home specimens and drawings, and rare seeds 

 for the Physic Garden. 



And so, in spite of having more pocket- 

 money than is good for youth, and the certain 

 prospect of a great fortune on coming of age, 

 Banks must have remembered the fate which, 

 Horace says, awaits the rich heir, and set to 

 work to make the best of life. 



As an undergraduate at Christ Church, 

 Banks established a botanical lectureship for 

 Oxford. Two years after coming of age he 

 was in Newfoundland collecting plants ; and 

 three years later on Friday, 26th of August, 

 1768 through Lord Sandwich's influence, he 

 sailed with Captain Cook on the first and most 

 successful voyage. 



Banks had furnished Cook's ship, and had 

 engaged a botanist and draughtsmen at his 

 own expense. He had his reward when the 

 ship anchored and remained for a week in a 

 bay in the " great Southern Continent," and 

 he found himself in a land where animals 

 stood on their hind legs like men, among 

 strange trees, shrubs and flowers. There, 

 Banks relates in his journal, the collection of 

 plants became " so immensely large " that he 

 " carried ashore all the drying-paper, spread it 

 upon a sail in the sun, and kept turning it the 

 whole day." An attempt, meanwhile, was 

 made to pacify natives by putting beads, 

 ribbons and cloth into their huts, but the 

 natives had no use for ornaments or clothes. 

 The presents were left on the ground, and had 



