40 AUSTRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



endless succession of rocking icebergs and crunching floes, but no sign of land was 

 seen. In the gloom and storm they lost each other, but met again at their rendezvous 

 in Queen Charlotte Sound, where Cook upon arrival found the Adventure already at 

 anchor. Furneaux reported that Van Diemen's Land was joined to New South Wales, 

 with a wide bay between, and this stopped further enquiry in that direction, and they 

 again pierced the southern fogs, and crossed once more that chilly Antarctic Circle, 

 enduring many hardships from the severity of the climate, but no discovery of land of 

 any extent rewarded their efforts, and in a heavy gale which they encountered the 

 ships once more parted company. Cook again visited the Sound, where he waited for 

 three weeks, when, as the Adventure did not arrive, he sailed northward to the beautiful 

 islands he had previously seen to Otaheite, the New Hebrides, the Marquesas and 

 other groups. These had been already discovered, and many of them named, by. the 

 illustrious Frenchman, De Bougainville, only a year or two before ; but Cook was the 

 first to map them out completely, and to ascertain their exact positions. It was during 

 the course of this passage that he discovered and mapped out New Caledonia, and then 

 turning south in order to pass the hottest month or two of the year, he found on his 

 way that beautiful oasis of the ocean, wonderfully fertile, but lacking a single inhabitant, 

 to which he gave the name of Norfolk Island. 



After calling at New Zealand, Cook sailed for Cape Horn, where he employed 

 some time in making a very careful chart of the coasts. Still anxious to discover the 

 Antarctic Continent in search of which he had been sent, he turned south again into 

 the region of perpetual ice and this time found land. It was a high coast covered 

 with thick ice, which ever and anon slipped slowly down from the steep barren hills, 

 and breaking off at the cliff-verges plunged over with sudden splashes that echoed, from 

 minute to minute, far up the fiords and around the silent peaks that towered like 

 spires of frosted silver in the icy air. The Continent was at last, perhaps, discovered ; 

 but it was useless for settlement, and full of dangers. Cook soon abandoned it, and 

 sailed for the Cape of Good Hope. He reached England in July, 17/5, after an 

 absence of about three years, having circumnavigated the world, and thus completed a 

 voyage which, with all its windings, was not less than sixty thousand miles. The crew 

 of this expedition numbered one hundred and eighteen men ; yet of that number all 

 returned save four, a remarkable testimony to the care and assiduity of their Com- 

 mander who then, for the first time, found means of preventing the ravages of the 

 scurvy which had so long been the dread of mariners on long voyages. 



It will be recollected that the Adventure, Captain Furneaux's ship, had been 

 separated from her consort in the fog and storm of an Antarctic traverse, and subse- 

 quently meeting with tempestuous weather she failed to put in an appearance at Queen 

 Charlotte's Sound, the place of rendezvous appointed by Cook, until after the Resolution 

 had left. During her stay on this part of the New Zealand Coast some trouble of a 

 tragic character occurred with the natives. One day a boat's crew which had landed 

 from the Adventure were surprised, butchered, and eaten ; immediately after which Fur- 

 neaux set sail for England, and arrived there some months before the Resolution. 



Cook's reception by his fellow-countrymen was for the second time of a most 







enthus : istic character. Not long after his return he was raised to the rank of Post- 



