78 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
could move, and it must be remembered that the worst 
effects of scurvy were still kept at bay and there were no 
deaths. 
The Resolution sailed north between ioo° and 90° W., 
looking for Juan Fernandez land, the report of which 
had been made known by Dalrymple’s translation of the 
long forgotten letter of Arias, but no such land had been 
found when on February 21st, Cook reached the position 
assigned to its northern coast, 37 0 54' S. and 90° W., 
and after several days satisfied himself that if there was 
land at all, it could only be a Small island, as there was 
room for nothing of any great size between his track 
and those of the other circumnavigators. Having dis- 
posed of the Spanish myth, he turned westward to prove 
that the only kernel of truth in the great expanse of Davis 
Land as shown on Dalrymple’s chart was the quaint 
little Easter Island. The island was found none too soon 
to replenish the supply cff food, and its marvellous 
statues and terraces so unlike the work of any known 
Polynesian race formed a welcome object of study and 
description for both officers and naturalists. At length, 
on April 22nd, the blissful island of Tahiti was reached, 
all warmth and fruit and flowers, and the anchor dropped 
in Matavai Bay for a happy month amongst the guile- 
less natives, when, as Foster observed, the poet's 
lines : 
“To dress, to dance, to sing, our sole delight, 
The feast or bath by day, and love by night,” 
could be applied to the ship’s company with peculiar 
propriety. 
Not quite a month, however, for Cook, with restored 
health and a robust crew set sail on May 15th, 1774, for 
a fresh voyage of discovery. If heaping coals of fire on 
