468 



THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



The 

 Marquesas. 



sixteenth century, and he concluded that it could be 

 " nothing but a small island." He saw plenty of birds ; 

 " but I do not believe," he wrote, with something like 

 temper, " there is one in the whole tribe that can be relied 

 on in pointing out the vicinity of land." In March 1774 

 Easter he rediscovered Roggeveen's " Easter Island," 1 and wrote 



March' 1774. an account of the big statues which seem to suggest a 

 clue, not yet fully understood, to the problem of Pacific 

 civilisation. 2 For the present, Cook pointed to the extra- 

 ordinary fact that " the same nations have spread them- 

 selves over all the isles in this vast Ocean from New 

 Zealand to this island, one quarter the circumference of 

 the globe." 



In the same month, March 1774, Cook rediscovered 

 the Marquesas, islands unvisited since Mendana and 

 Quiros discovered them in 1595. He determined their 

 exact situation, and thus obtained a clue to the geography 

 of Mendana's voyage. The change of civilisation was 

 illustrated by the change of name. The Port Madre 

 de Dios of Quiros became Cook's Resolution Bay. The 

 natives of the Marquesas, he wrote, are " without exception 

 the finest race of people in this sea " ; a statement which 

 makes the more sad R. L. Stevenson's sad description 

 in 1888. 



Tahiti again, In April he was in Tahiti again, where he witnessed 

 a grand naval review of one hundred and fifty large double 

 canoes, each containing forty men. Once more he was 

 plagued by the one fault of his friends; and he discusses, 

 with admirable understanding and charity, the question 

 how one may best deal with good-natured and even 

 affectionate kleptomaniacs. He called at his old haunts 

 in the Society Islands, and was everywhere received with 

 affection, which he returned in a way so warm that one 

 gets an insight into a sometimes unsuspected element 

 in his austere and reticent character. He describes one 

 chieftain as " a good man in the utmost sense of the word." 



1 The Spaniards had rediscovered it before him in 1770, and had 

 annexed it. See p. 458, note. 2. 



2 See Mrs. Routledge's Easter Island. 



