450 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



quite through the timbers, so that it was a matter of surprise, 

 to everyone who saw her bottom, how we had kept her 

 above water, and yet in this condition we had sailed 

 some hundreds of leagues in as dangerous a navigation 

 as in any part of the world, happy in being ignorant of 

 the continual danger we were in." In the end Cook 

 gave the Dutch shipwrights a very handsome testimony ; 

 " I do not believe there is a marine yard in the world 

 where work is done with more alertness than here, and 

 where there are better conveniences for heaving ships 

 down in point of safety and despatch." The Dutch 

 methods were different from the English, and better. 

 Journal sent I n view of the delay, Cook forwarded to the Admiralty 

 by a Dutch ship copies of his Journal and Charts. He also 

 wrote a letter to Secretary Stephens that is of singular 

 interest, as giving his own immediate impression of one 

 of the most famous, most dangerous, and most fruitful 

 voyages of British History. " Although," he wrote, 

 " the discoveries made in the voyage are not great, yet 

 I flatter myself they are such as may merit the attention 

 of their lordships, and although I have failed in discovering 

 the so much talked of Southern Continent (which perhaps 

 do not exist), and which I myself had much at heart, 

 yet I am confident that no part of the failure of such 

 discovery can be laid to my charge. Had we been so 

 fortunate not to have run ashore, much more would have 

 been done in the latter part of the voyage than what was, 

 but, as it is, I presume this voyage will be found as com- 

 plete as any before made to the South Seas on the same 

 account." 1 



"The Cook stayed in Batavia from the nth of October to 



place upon* the 2 ^th of December. It was a dreadful time. When 



the globe." the Englishmen arrived, they were; thanks to Cook's system 



of anti-scorbutics and bathing, in insolent good health. 



Not one man had been lost by sickness during the whole 



voyage. There was not one sick man on board. The 



1 See photograph, p. 451. Note that Cook first wrote : "as great 

 and as compleat, if not more so, than . . .," and then made modest 

 corrections. 



