END OF TERRA AUSTRALIS 475 



regarded as " the most important that had hitherto been 

 made by Europeans throughout the extent of the Pacific 

 Ocean " and the exploration of the West Coast of North 

 America from Oregon to the extreme North-West point 

 of the continent. Only the introductory part of the voyage 

 comes within our view. 



Cook sailed in July 1776. He called at the Cape, and Cook visits 

 when the Resolution left, " she was so stocked with animals pfjnien's 

 that she resembled Noah's Ark." Compared as a sea-craft Land, Jan. 

 with Noah's Ark, however, she was in a bad way. " If I I777 ' 

 return in the Resolution,'" wrote Cook to Banks, " the 

 next trip I may venture in a ship built of gingerbread." 

 He passed the barren islands discovered by his French 

 rival, Marion, and called at the barren island discovered 

 by his other French rival, Kerguelen. In January 1777 

 he came to Adventure Bay in Van Diemen's Land, and 

 repeated Furneaux's mistakes in his endeavours to identify 

 Tasman's landmarks. He described Tasmanian timber 

 as " tough, straight, suitable for spars, or even masts, 

 if any means could be found to lighten it." The natives, 

 he thought, had " less genius than even the half animated 

 inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego." Unluckily, he did 

 not think it worth while to sail Northward to Point Hicks 

 to test Furneaux's opinion that Van Diemen's Land and 

 New Holland are one land. 



In February he was once more in Queen Charlotte New 

 Sound. The Maoris gave an account of the massacre 

 of Furneaux's men, and he concluded that it would be 

 neither just nor, wise to seek vengeance. With all their 

 Tory faults he loved them still. Yet he saw the faults 

 clearly enough. The people of each hamlet by turn 

 applied to him to destroy the others. " They must live," 

 he explains, " under a perpetual apprehension of being 

 destroyed by each other ; the desire of a good meal may 

 be no small incitement ; war is their principal occupation." 

 Their articles of commerce, he adds, are " curiosities, 

 fish, and women." 



He left New Zealand in the same month, visited the Tonga 

 Hervey or Scott Islands, and spent two or three months Islands - 



