lo CAPTAIN COOK 



Abuse and the stick were the sole manifestations 

 of the feelings of the grocer towards his as- 

 sistant. 



James Cook put up with this life uncomplain- 

 ingly. Close beside him was his great consoler 

 — the sea. He passed the few hours of leisure 

 which he could snatch on the jetty of the little 

 fishing harbour. This was the sailors' rendez- 

 vous, where they smoked their pipes while wait- 

 ing for the tide. They took a liking to this 

 young apprentice, who questioned them with 

 such naive earnestness. The old sea-dogs gave 

 full rein to their imaginations, and spun the most 

 amazing yarns. James Cook, all agog, treasured 

 these marvellous stories in his heart. Once back 

 in his master's shop, he dreamed of the strange 

 images evoked by his friends the fishermen. He 

 saw in imagination the luminous Northern 

 dawns of the Arctic Ocean, the savage storms of 

 the North Sea, the enormous suns of the tropics, 

 vessels torn by enemy shot and sinking in the 

 bottomless deep, the slow agonies of thirst, the 

 brutal discipline of the lower deck, the cat-o'- 

 nine-tails. . . . And, above this dreaming, the 

 child felt the soaring, irresistible and mysterious, 

 of the boundless poetry of the ocean. 



One morning in July more than a year after 

 James Cook first came to him, Mr. Saunderson 



