CHAPTER XXV 



THE SUCCESSORS OF COOK 



AUTHORITIES : 



FLINDERS' Voyage to Terra Australis. 

 Historical Records of New South Wales. 

 GRANT'S Narrative of a Voyage of Discovery. 

 PERON AND FREYCINET'S Voyage de Decouverle aux Terres 

 Australes. 



The Voyage of Laperouse. 



SCOTT'S Terre Napoleon. 



SCOTT'S Flinders. 



SCOTT'S Laperouse. 



LEE'S Log Books of the Lady Nelson. 



Successors THE voyages of Cook are the triumph of our story. The 

 ' hero has arrived, has done his work, and has ta'en 

 his wages. 1 We expect the interest of discovery to 

 dwindle. The big facts have been determined. The ex- 

 ploration of detail is a smaller business, and affords 

 smaller scope for heroic venture. So we think as we close 

 the last volume of Cook's Voyages. Yet many great 

 things remained to be done, and the doing of these things 

 called forth the energies of men of charming character and 

 of heroic build. In fact there is no chapter in our story 

 more rich in personality than the chapter which tells of 

 the successors of Cook. 



Cook was the destroyer of the Southern continent. 

 But while he destroyed he also discovered : he discovered, 



Zealand, and in addition to small islands, the three great lands of the 

 Australia. 



1 " He strives as an athlete all his life long, and then, when he has / 

 come to the end of his striving, he has what is meet." Plutarch, quoted \ 

 in Gladstone's Diary. Morley, vol. iii. p. 87. 



480 



