THE PRECURSORS OF COOK 377 



was wonderfully right. Two days after losing sight of 

 the Solomons, Bougainville was at anchor in a bay of New 

 Britain. A sailor, looking for shells, found buried in the 

 sand a piece of lead with the remains of English words. 

 The plate had been nailed, but the savages had torn it 

 down, and had broken it in pieces. It was evidence 

 to the French that Carteret had been there before them, 

 and they found vestiges of the English camp. " This," 

 comments Bougainville, " in a very strange chance by which 

 we, among so many lands, came to the very spot where 

 the rival nation had left a monument to an enterprise 

 similar to ours." 



The French had anchored in St. George's BayinDampier's 

 New Britain, the island which French and British geogra- 

 phers had agreed to recommend as the best site for a colony 

 in all Australasia. They were in urgent need of refreshment, 

 for they were in desperate health, suffering from scurvy 

 and " cruel famine." But their search was strangely 

 fruitless. To them New Britain was a land of snakes Disappoint- 

 and scorpions and earthquakes, strange insects, beautiful ment - 

 shells, and tremendous cascades. They found little to 

 eat except a few thatch palms and cabbage trees, which 

 they must dispute with gigantic ants. Dampier's luck, 

 explains Bougainville, had taken him to Port Montague, 

 " an inhabited district, which promised him refreshments, 

 and whereof the productions gave him room to conceive 

 great hopes concerning the country ; and we, who were as 

 indigent as he was, fell in with a desert, w r hich instead of 

 supplying all our wants, has only afforded us wood and 

 water." 



Bougainville, unlike Carteret, did not discover that 

 St. George's Bay was the opening of a passage separating 

 New Britain and New Ireland. He sailed round the North North coast 

 coast of New Ireland, believing, as Dampier had believed, ^ f ^ ew 

 that" it was part of New Britain. Distress' increased, 

 but not one Frenchman was downhearted. " The officers 

 set the example, and the seamen never ceased dancing 

 in the evenings, as well in the time of scarcity as in that 

 of the greatest plenty. Nor was it necessary to double 



