412 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



suspected that the ship was drawn that way by the distant 

 scent of roast beef. " The compass," he says, " showed 

 that the hearts of our people hanging that way caused 

 a considerable Northern variation, which was sensibly 

 felt by our navigators, who called it a current, as they 

 do everything which makes their reckonings and observa- 

 tions disagree." But Banks's suspicions were again 

 ill-founded. Cook's Journal shows that he was aiming 

 at the point of Tasman's departure, and with good chance 

 of hitting it. On the i8th of April, he was on a course 

 which, says Wharton, " would have made the Northern 

 end of the Foveaux Group, and probably have discovered 

 Bass's Strait." But on that day Cook records, " Winds 

 Southerly, a hard gale with heavy squalls attended with 

 showers of rain, and a great sea from the same quarter." 

 Before the Southerly gale he ran, with the result that 

 Bass's Strait remained undiscovered till 1798. At 6 a.m. 

 on the 20th of April Lieutenant Hicks saw land, " sloping 

 hills covered in part with trees and bushes, but interspersed 

 with large tracts of sand." Cook named the land Point 

 Hicks. 1 They could see no land to the South. Van 

 Diemen's Land ought to be there, and " the soon falling 

 of the sea after the wind abated " seemed to prove that 

 it was there. But the coast " trended South- West, or 

 rather more to the Westward," and this made Cook " doubt- 

 ful whether they are one land or no. However," he adds, 

 " every one who compares this journal with that of 

 Tasman's will be as good judge as I am." 



Point Hicks From Point Hicks Cook sailed North looking for a harbour. 



B a y On the 22nd of April, he noted Bateman's Bay as a place 



" very little sheltered, and yet the only likely anchoring 

 place I have yet seen on the coast." Next day he vainly 

 sought an anchorage in the neighbourhood of " the Pigeon 

 House." On the 26th he noted that Jervis Bay appeared 

 to be sheltered from the North-East wind ; but the appear- 



1 It seems that Point Hicks is the Cape which Stokes in 1843 un- 

 fortunately named Cape Everard. See elaborate discussion of Cook's 

 landfall in a paper by Scott in the Victorian Historical Magazine, 

 December 1912. 



