CAPTAIN COOK. 



39 



Voyages," with a dedication which reads as follows : " Not to him who discovered 

 scarcely anything but Patagonians ; not to him who, from twenty degrees South Latitude, 

 thinking it impossible to go on discovery into thirty degrees South, determined to come 

 home round the world into fifty degrees North ; nor to him who, infatuated with female 

 blandishments, forgot for what he went abroad, and hasten'd back to amuse the Euro- 

 pean world with stories of Enchantments in the New Cytherea ; but to the man who, 



CAPTAIN COOK SIGHTING TIIK GI.ASS-I IOUSK MOUNTAINS, KAM KK.\ AUSTRALIA. 



emulous of Magalhanes and the heroes of former times, undeterr'd by Difficulties, and 

 unseduc'd by Pleasure, shall persist through every Obstacle, and not by Chance but by 

 Virtue and Good Conduct succeed in establishing an intercourse with a Southern Conti- 

 nent, this historical collection of former discoveries in the South Pacific Ocean is 

 presented by Alexander Dalrymple." 



Cook seemed pointed to by a kindly fate as the man who, by virtue of inherent 

 right, was to appropriate this dedication of Dalrymple's, and he himself writes of his 

 second voyage that it was undertaken " to complete the discovery of the Southern 

 Hemisphere." But he did not find it. The Great Antarctic Continent, which had filled 

 men's minds for centuries, the thought of which had spurred them on to much heroic 

 effort, did not exist ; and to Cook belongs the credit of dissipating the fascinating dream. 



On the i3th of July, 1772, the two vessels sailed from Plymouth Sound, and after 

 a voyage of one hundred and nine days made Table Bay, where Sparrman, a pupil of 

 the great Linne, joined the expedition. After a stay of about three weeks, the Resolu- 

 tion and the Adventure left the Cape in the month of November on the dreary quest 

 of an Antarctic Continent. Heading direct south. Cook crossed the Circle amid wild and 

 stormy weather, neither sun nor moon being visible for nearly two months. In the 

 rolling fogs, and thick and sombre atmosphere .of these inhospitable regions, the two 

 ships wandered up and down, threading their way with incessant watchfulness amid an 



