DISCOVERY OF EASTERN AUSTRALIA 439 



and spirit in a passage of unusual frankness. " Such," 

 he comments, " are the vicissitudes attending this kind 

 of service, and must always attend an unknown navigation, 

 where one steers wholly in the dark, without any manner 

 of guide whatever. Was it not from the pleasure which 

 naturally results to a man from his being the first discoverer, 

 even was it nothing more than land or shoals, this kind 

 of service would be insupportable." The explorer will 

 certainly be accused, either ^of " timorousness and want 

 of perseverance," or of " temerity, and perhaps want 

 of conduct." Cook was certain that the first of these 

 charges would never be brought against him. But he 

 owns that he has engaged more among the islands and 

 shoals upon this coast than perhaps in prudence he ought 

 to have done with a single ship. But, had he not done 

 so, he would have remained ignorant of its produce ; in 

 short, " it would have been far more satisfactory to me 

 never to have discovered it." Thus Cook apologizes ! 



Cook had leapt from the frying-pan into the fire, and Is there a 

 was now glad that a second leap had brought him back strait 

 into nothing hotter than the frying-pan. He was again 

 encompassed on every side by islands and shoals, " but 

 so much does a great danger swallow lesser ones that those 

 once dreaded spots were now lookeduponwithlessconcern." 

 Moreover, he was determined to clear up once for all the 

 ancient uncertainty whether or not a strait existed between 

 New Holland and New Guinea. In this determination 

 he was facing a great risk. If there proved to be not a 

 strait but a bay, he would have to fight out, as Bougain- 

 ville had fought out, against the trade wind, and in most 

 dangerous seas. But he had been convinced, by Dal- 

 rymple's Chart, and by Banks's explanations, that it 

 was very probable that there was a strait, and he had 

 come "to the fixed resolution" to bring home exact 

 news of it. 



It is hard to trace his slow progress among shoals and Cape York, 

 islands, " by a route that no one has again followed," 1 

 with boat all the time ahead signalling shallow water. 2 

 1 Wharton, p. xxxi. * Wharton, p. 309. 



