404 



THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



But New 

 Zealand 

 was not 

 part of the 

 continent. 



" Continent- 

 mongers." 



The islands 

 circum- 

 navigated. 



feeling " the force of the tide which roared like a mill- 

 stream, and ran at four knots at least when it flowed fastest." 

 Some of the officers still thought it possible that the land 

 they had now three-quarters circumnavigated might never- 

 theless be united to a continent by an isthmus somewhere 

 between Cook's Straits and Cape Turnagain. To determine 

 this question in a final way, Cook sailed North till Cape 

 Turnagain was seen from the South. " I then," says Cook, 

 " called the officers upon the deck, and asked them if 

 they were now satisfied that this land was an island, 

 to which they answered in the affirmative, and we hauled 

 our wind to the Eastward." 



It remained to be seen whether the land to the South 

 was also, as the old man had told them, no part of a con- 

 tinent but two islands that might be circumnavigated 

 in a few days. They sailed Southward, and Banks, who, 

 in spite of sceptical tendencies, was an enthusiastic " con- 

 tinent-monger," noted with regret that " the land inclined 

 a good deal to the West." " We on board," he writes, 

 " were of two parties, one who wished that the land in 

 sight might, the other that it might not, be a continent. 

 I myself have always been most firm in the former wish, 

 though sorry I am that my party is so small, that I firmly 

 believe that there are none more heartily desirous of it 

 than myself and one poor midshipman ; the rest begin 

 to sigh for roast beef " ; an accusation marvellously unjust 

 to Cook, to whom discovery was meat and drink, and who 

 would have preferred a continent, and indeed something 

 very much smaller, to all the roast beef of Old England. 



By the 10th of March, it had become evident, " much 

 to the regret of us continent-mongers," that the coast 

 was falling away to an end. They supposed Stewart 

 Island to be a peninsula, and were carried round the point, 

 "to the total destruction of our aerial fabric called Con- 

 tinent." They coasted Northward, noting "steep hills 

 covered with prodigious fine woods," a beautiful and fertile 

 country, yet without the smallest sign of inhabitants. On 

 the 25th of March, they were once more in the Western 

 entrance of Cook's Straits, and two days later anchored in a 



