FIRST VOYAGE. 107 



hospital, filled with unhappy wretches, sinking under the 

 rage of fevers and dysenteries.* In the space of six weeks 

 twenty-three persons died, exclusive of the seven which had 

 been buried at Batavia ; these were nine seamen, the 

 corporal of the marines, the ship's cook, two of the carpen- 

 ter's crew, the carpenterf and his mate, a midshipman, the 

 old sail-maker, who was in perfect health when all the rest 

 were ill in Batavia, and his mate, the boatswain, Mr. Monk- 

 hou&e, Mr. Sporing, who accompanied Mr. Banks, Mr. 

 Parkinson, draftsman to that gentleman, and Mr. Green, 

 the astronomer. $ 



After a passage in which nothing remarkable occurred, the 

 ship was brought to an anchor off the Gape of Good Hope, 

 on the 15th of March, 1771. Captain Cook repaired in- 

 stantly to the governor, who said that such refreshments as 

 the country supplied should be cheerfully granted him ; 

 on which a house was hired for the sick. 



At the time the Endeavour lay at anchor here, an English 

 East Indiaman sailed for the port of London, who had 

 buried above thirty of her crew while she was in India ; and 

 at that time had many others severely afflicted with the 



* " 30th January, 1771. In the course of this twenty-four hours 

 we have had four men died of the flux, a melancholy proof of the 

 calamitous situation we are at present in, having hardly well men 

 enough to tend the sails and look after the sick, many of whom are 

 so ill that we have not the least hopes of their recovery." Extract, 

 Captain Cook's Journal Records, Admiralty, Whitehall. 



j- " 12th February, 1771. Died of the flux, after a long and 

 painful illness, Mr. John Satterly, a man much esteemed by me 

 and every gentleman on board." Ibid. 



" 27th February. Died of the flux, H. Jeffs, E. Parrey, and P. 

 Morgan, seamen. The death of these three men in one day did 

 not in the least alarm us. On the contrary, we are in hopes that 

 they will be the last that will fall a sacrifice to this fatal disorder, 

 for such as are now ill of it are in a fair way of recovery." Extract, 

 Captain Cook's Journal, Records, Admiralty, Whitehall. 



N.B. These were happily the last deaths recorded. 



{In a letter in the Records of the Admiralty, dated " Endeavour " 

 Bark, 9th May 1771, Captain Cook makes mention of the deplorable 

 sickness on board in the following terms : " That uninterrupted 

 state of health we had all along enjoyed was soon after our arrival 

 at Batavia succeeded by a general sickness, which delayed us there 

 so much, that it was the 26th of December before we were able to 

 leave this place. We were fortunate enough to lose but few men at 

 Batavia, but in our passage from thence to the Cape of Good Hope, 

 we had twenty-four men died all, or most of them, of the bloody 

 flux. The fatal disorder reigned in the ship with such obstinacy 

 that medicine, however skilfully administered, had not the least 

 effect." 



