

. / 1 :V TR. I L. I SI A ILL L 'S TRA TED. 



an explorer of unknown seas. The death list, indeed, was frightful. The astronomer, 

 Charles Green, died ; the surgeon, Monkhouse, died ; the first lieutenant, Hicks, died ; 

 among others who died were Sporing and Parkinson, both of Banks's party ; two mid- 

 shipmen ; the master ' a young man of good parts, but unhappily given up to intem- 

 perance, which brought on disorders that put an end to his life ' ; the boatswain : the 

 carpenter, his mate, and two of his crew ; the sail-maker a good old man of seventy, 

 who had kept himself from fever in Batavia by getting drunk every day and his mate ; 

 the corporal of marines ; the cook, and in all about a dozen seamen. This was a 

 goodly roll out of a company of eighty. But this was the last voyage in which scurvy 

 was to demand such an enormous proportion of victims. Cook was going to prove the 

 best physician ever known in the prevention of scurvy. The only true method of pre- 

 vention, however, the mode of preserving every variety of fresh food, was not discovered 

 for a long time afterwards. Mr. Clark Russell has remarked in his 'Life of Dampier ' 

 that in those days they over-salted the beef and pork. The remark is equally true of 

 the provisions served out in Cook's time. They were over-salted. George Forster, of the 

 second voyage, complains bitterly of the time when the private stores of the officers and 

 passengers were exhausted, and they had to live on the ship's provisions just like the 

 crew. He tells us how, every-day, the sight and smell of the salt junk that was served 

 to them made them loathe their food, which, besides, was so hard that there was neither 

 nourishment nor flavour left in it. Imagine the misery, the solid misery, of having to live 

 upon nothing but a fibrous mass of highly-salted animal matter, accompanied by rotten 

 and weevily biscuit ! Think of this going on day after day for a hundred days, and 

 sometimes more, at a stretch three long months with no bread, vegetables, butter, or 

 fruit ; even the water gone bad, and no tea, coffee, or cocoa." 



From such a commissariat, and the sickness and death which it induced, the crew 

 of the Endeavour obtained a respite at the Cape, where a long stay with fresh food and 

 much care re-invigorated them sufficiently to set sail in April, and continue their home- 

 ward voyage. After a call at St. Helena, the vessel anchored in the Downs on the 

 1 2th of June, 17/1, after an absence of nearly three years. 



Cook brought back to England the shattered remnant of a crew, and a vessel with 

 sails and ropes so rotten that they dropped to pieces at the slightest strain, and the 

 Endeavour's safe return to port was a subject as much for astonishment as gratitude. 

 But the astronomical, geographical, botanical and ethnographical results of this voyage 

 were so great, and awakened so much enthusiasm, that the King desired another expedi- 

 tion to set forth without delay. The great navigator was promoted to the rank of 

 Commander, and the publication, by Dr. Hawkesworth. of an account of his adventures 

 excited the greatest interest and attention in the national mind. The Earl of Sandwich, 

 who was at that time at the head of the Admiralty, selected two vessels, the Resolu- 

 tion and the Adventure ; Cook was placed in command of the expedition as Captain of 

 the former, with Tobias Furneaux, who had been Wallis's first lieutenant, as his 

 associate, and the preparations for departure were pushed busily forward. 



Curiously enough, during the Endeavours absence on her celebrated first voyage, 

 Dalrymple, whose command of the expedition had, through some misunderstanding with 

 the Admiralty, reverted to Cook, published his famous " Historical Collection of 



