402 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



caused him to think it likely that there existed a passage. 

 Thirdly, " when he came the length of Cape Maria van 

 Diemen, he observed hollow waves to come from the 

 North-East, from whence he concluded it to be the 

 northernmost part of the land." Cook was to test 

 Tasman's three guesses. He found that the first was 

 wrong, and that the second and the third which 

 had been much distrusted, we remember, by Tasman's 

 employers were 'quite right, and very much to the credit 

 of his seamanship. 



New On the 7th of October land was seen. 1 Cook named 



Oct. 1769 the P omt: Young Nick's Head, after the boy who first saw 

 to March it. He sailed into a Bay which he named Poverty Bay, 

 " because it afforded us no one thing we wanted." 2 Natives 

 appeared in canoes, and Cook, wishing to capture them 

 and gain their friendship, fired over their heads. He 

 expected them, it seems, to jump overboard and surrender. 

 It was a primitive method of seeking friendship, but might 

 possibly have succeeded in Tahiti. Instead of surrendering, 

 the Maoris took their arms, and attacked with such ferocity 

 that the Englishmen had to kill two or three to save their 

 own lives. Cook admits that he had made a bad mistake ; 

 but one cannot consent, he adds, to be knocked on the 

 head. Then he sailed South, past the Great Bay which 

 he called Hawke Bay after the First Lord of the Admiralty. 

 He followed the coast to Latitude 40 34' ; and then, 

 " seeing no likelihood of meeting with a harbour, and 

 the face of the country visibly altering for the worse," 

 he decided that his time would be better spent by examin- 

 ing the coast to the Northward. He gave Cape Turnagain 

 its -name " because here we returned." Sailing North, 

 he rounded East Cape, visited " the Bay of Plenty," 

 observed the transit of Mercury in Mercury Bay, explored 

 " a very fine river " which he named the Thames, because 

 it was " as broad as the Thames at Greenwich," anchored 



1 See map at the end of this volume. 



2 He first wrote " Endeavour Bay," then struck out that name, 

 and wrote " Poverty Bay " (see above, p. 380), a singularly inappro- 

 priate name, say New Zealanders (M'Nab's Historical Records of New 

 Zealand, vol. ii. p. 5). 



