JAMES COOK 79 
an enemy’s head is an appropriate punishment, Cook’s 
reply to Dalrymple’s interminable strictures was to crown 
him with a burning fiery furnace seven times heated. 
Without uttering a word of anger or resentment, he pro- 
ceeded calmly and systematically to wipe out of the map 
of the South Pacific, as he had already wiped out of the 
South Indian Ocean, every line of that imaginary conti- 
nent which Dalrymple loved as his own soul. Quiros 
was now to share the fate of Juan Fernandez and Ed- 
ward Davis. Proceeding to Australia del Espiritu San- 
tos, which had been so gloriously annexed to Spain, 
Cook and the Resolution resolved the dazzling continent 
into a small, unhealthy archipelago inhabited by the 
most hopeless savages. He named the group the New 
Hebrides. Then, adding New Caledonia to his discov- 
eries by the way, he regained New Zealand, ready to take 
advantage of the third Antarctic summer. 
On November ioth, 1774, Cook left New Zealand 
bound for home after one more campaign in the ice. He 
crossed the meridian of 160° W. in 56° S., and held a 
course eastward between 57 0 and 53 0 S., meeting little 
ice and encountering no land until the islands of Tierra 
del Fuego were sighted on December 17th. Coasting 
those islands the Resolution found a favourable harbour, 
which received the name of Christmas Sound, for here 
on Christmas eve a lucky shooting expedition brought 
home a great bag of geese. No man probably ever cared 
less for the pleasures of the table than James Cook; but 
even he confessed that he had grown sick of the ancient 
salt beef and pork that remained of their stores. Fresh 
food of any kind was welcomed, the puppy-seals were 
tried and found palatable, the meat of the females was 
not much amiss, but the old bulls were voted abominable. 
