JAMES COOK 77 
ice some penguins were heard but none seen ; and but few 
other birds, or anything that could induce us to think 
any land was near. And yet I think that there must be 
some to the south behind this ice; but if there is, it can 
afford no better retreat for birds or any other animals 
than the ice itself, with which it must be wholly covered. 
I, who had ambition not only to go farther than anyone 
had been before, but as far as it was possible for man to 
go, was not sorry at meeting with this interruption, as 
it in some measure relieved us, at least shortened the 
dangers and hardships inseparable from the navigation 
of the southern polar regions. Since, therefore, we could 
not proceed one inch farther to the south, no other 
reason need be assigned for my tacking and standing 
back to the north.” 
Another reason may be suspected, however, for even 
the iron constitution of Cook could not resist a diet of 
old and over-salted meat and rotten biscuits half-de- 
voured by cockroaches, combined with the constant ex- 
posure and anxiety of navigating a ship in such seas. 
The horrors of extreme cold and of darkness were for- 
tunately spared these first “intruding mortals,” to use 
Forster’s phrase, but the monotony of nearly perpetual 
daylight is in itself hard to bear and the constant neigh- 
bourhood of the freezing point makes a miserable mid- 
summer, when there is no dry place in the ship. The ship 
had not gone far on her northward voyage before the 
captain broke down; “a bilious colic,” he called it, but 
apparently it very nearly proved fatal, both to himself 
and to the ship’s surgeon, who tended him by day and 
night without intermission until the crisis was passed. 
Illness, whether of his crew or of himself, never stopped 
the work of James Cook when he could think or the men 
