84 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
Atlantic also was an error; and so he wiped that too 
from the map, leaving the far south of the globe a clean 
slate for the insertion of real discoveries. 
At last, his labours over and well done, Cook bore up 
for Cape Town. On March 18th and 19th, when be- 
calmed off the coast, he met a Dutch and a British ship, 
which supplied him with fresh provisions and the almost 
forgotten luxuries, tea and sugar. Old newspapers also, 
which were new to men three years away from civilisa- 
tion, and the news that the Adventure had returned to 
the Cape a year before, having come round the Horn 
and crossed both Pacific and Atlantic nearly in 6o° S., 
well to the south of the track of the Resolution. Cape 
Town was reached on March 22nd; there Cook met 
Crozet, of Marion's expedition and learnt from him of 
the discoveries of Marion and Kerguelen in detail. On 
July 30th, 1775, the Resolution dropped anchor at 
Spithead, and the most adventurous voyage since that of 
Magellan came to an end. The expedition returned after 
an absence of three years in good health, having lost only 
four men, three by accident and one from a disease 
which would probably have killed him sooner if he had 
stayed ashore. This record was unique and inaugurated 
a new era in long voyages, for thanks to the unceasing 
vigilance of Cook and the insistence with which he ad- 
ministered preventatives and enforced cleanliness, scurvy 
was shown to be no necessary accompaniment of life 
at sea. 
Cook returned, not as the discoverer of a new conti- 
nent, but as one who had achieved the far more difficult 
task of proving a negative beyond the cavil of his bit- 
terest critic. “ Had we found out a continent there/' he 
said, “ we might have been better enabled to gratify curi- 
