made. Two localities, for reasons which will be obvious, were called Oyster Bay and Mangrove River. Before leaving Mercury Bay, Cook caused to be cut upon one of the trees near the watering-place the ship's name and his own, with the date of arrival there, and, after displaying the English colours, took formal possession of it in the name of His Britannic Majesty King George the Third. It is noteworthy that Cook always managed to obtain wood and water wherever wood and water were to be had, no matter whether his intercourse with the natives were friendly or otherwise. He also contrived to carry on his surveys in spite of all opposition with such accuracy and deliberation that they remained the standard authority on the outlines of the islands for some seventy years or more. He was, moreover, a benefactor in no mean degree to the natives, who seldom knew the meaning of meat, save at a cannibal feast after a tribal victory. He not only improved their vegetables by giving them seed potatoes, but he turned loose fowls and pigs to supply their flesh larder. To the time of writing, the wild pigs which haunt the forests and the mountain gorges are called after Captain Cook, and they furnish many a solitary shepherd, miner, farmer, and gum-digger with excellent meat. Cook was, perhaps, either more prudent, or more successful than Captain Tobias Furneaux, of the consort "Adventure," who, in a subsequent voyage to New Zealand, lost an entire boat's crew of nine men, who were captured or killed, and duly cooked and eaten by the Maoris.

On the 17th December, the "Endeavour" doubled North Cape, which is the northern extremity of North Island, and began the descent of its western side. The weather now become stormy, and with a repetition of Tasman's experience from an opposite course on the same coast, very dangerous. Often was the vessel compelled to stand off in great distress, and intercourse with the natives was considerably interrupted. At one point, however, the English mariners satisfied themselves that the inhabitants ate human flesh-the flesh, at least, of enemies who had been killed in battle. On January 30th, 1770, Cook erected a flagpost on the summit of a hill in Queen Charlotte's Sound, where he again hoisted the Union Jack, and, after naming the bay where the ship was at anchor after the Queen, took formal possession of the South Island in the name of His Majesty King George the Third.

Cook crossed the waters of Doubtless Bay on the same day that the French Captain, De Surville, in the "St. Jean Baptiste," was approaching the land at Mangonui. A few hours afterwards, and totally ignorant of Cook's presence in New Zealand waters, the Frenchman anchored in this very inlet and named it Lauriston Bay. This navigator was sent out by his Government, who believed that the English had found "an island of gold" in the South Seas, and sailed post haste from India to see if he could not participate in the exploitation of the precious metal. He was received by the natives with great hospitality; but, finding nothing more valuable than spars for his ship, he proceeded to South America, carrying away in irons the Rarawa chief, Ngakinui,

who had entertained him and his sick seamen with great hospitality while on shore. Ngakinui pined on ship-board for his native food, and died some eighty days after his seizure. De Surville, only eleven days after the death of this unfortunate Maori chief, was drowned in the surf at Callao.

After voyaging westward for nearly three weeks Cook, on the 19th April, 1770, sighted the eastern coast of Australia at a point which he named after his lieutenant, who discovered it, Point Hicks, and which modern geographers identify with Cape Everard.

The "Endeavour" then coasted northward, and after passing and naming Mount Dromedary, the Pigeon House, Point Upright, Cape St. George, and Red Point, Botany Bay was discovered on the 28th April, 1770, and as it appeared to offer a suitable anchorage, the "Endeavour' entered the bay and dropped anchor. The ship brought-to opposite a group of natives, who were cooking over a fire. The great navigator and his crew, unacquainted with the character of the Australian aborigines, were not a little astonished that these natives took no notice of them or their proceedings. Even the splash of the anchor in the water, and the noise of the cable running out through the hawse hole, in no way disturbed them at their occupation, or caused them to evince the slightest curiosity. But as the captain of the "Endeavour" ordered out the pinnace and prepared to land, the natives threw off their nonchalance; for on the boat approaching the shore, two men, each armed with a bundle of spears, presented themselves on a projecting rock and made threatening signs to the strangers. It is interesting to note that the ingenious "wommera," or throwing-stick, which is peculiar to Australia, was first observed on this occasion. As the men were evidently determined to oppose any attempt at landing, a musket was discharged between them, in the hope that they would be frightened by the noise, but it produced no effect beyond causing one of them to drop his bundle of spears, of which, however, he immediately repossessed himself, and with his comrade resumed the same menacing attitude. At last one cast a stone towards the boat, which earned him a charge of small shot in the leg. Nothing daunted, the two ran back into the bush, and presently returned furnished with shields made of bark, with which to protect themselves from the firearms of the crew. Such intrepidity is certainly worthy of passing notice. Unlike the American Indians, who supposed Columbus and his crew to be supernatural beings, and their ships in some way endowed with life, and who were thrown into convulsions of terror by the first discharge of firearms which they witnessed, these Australians were neither excited to wonder by the ship, nor overawed by the superior number and unknown weapons of the strangers. Cook examined the bay in the pinnace, and landed several times; but by no endeavour could he induce the natives to hold any friendly communication with him. The wellknown circumstance of the great variety of new plants here obtained, from which Botany Bay derives its name, should not be passed over.

Before quitting the bay the ceremony was performed of hoisting the Union Jack, first on the south shore, and then near the north head, formal possession of the territory being thus taken for the British Crown. During the sojourn in Botany Bay the crew had to perform the painful duty of burying a comrade- -a seaman named Forby Sutherland, who was in all probability the first British subject whose body was committed to Australian soil.

After leaving Botany Bay, Cook sailed northward. He saw and named Port Jackson, but forebore to enter the finest natural harbour in Australia. Broken Bay and other inlets, and several headlands, were also seen and named, but the vessel did not come to an anchor till Moreton Bay was reached, although the wind prevented Cook from entering this harbour. Still sailing northward, taking notes as he proceeded for a rough chart of the coast, and landing at Bustard and Keppel Bays and the Bay of Inlets, Cook passed over 1,300 miles without the occurrence of any event worthy of being chronicled, till suddenly one night at 10 o'clock the water was found to shoal, without any sign of breakers or land. While Cook was speculating on the cause of this phenomenon, and was in the act of ordering out the boats to take soundings, the "Endeavour" struck heavily, and fell over so much that the guns, spare cables, and other heavy gear had at once to be thrown overboard to lighten the ship. As day broke, attempts were made to float the vessel off with the morning tide; but these were unsuccessful. The water was rising so rapidly in the hold that with four pumps constantly going the crew could hardly keep it in check. At length one of the midshipmen suggested the device of "fothering," which he had seen practised in the West Indies. This consists in passing a sail, attached to cords, and charged with oakum, wool, and other materials, under the vessel's keel, in such a manner that the suction of the leak may draw the canvas into the aperture, and thus partially stop the vent. This was performed with great success, and the vessel was floated off with the evening tide. The land was soon after made near the mouth of a small stream, which Cook called, after the ship, the Endeavour River. A headland close by he named Cape Tribulation. The ship was steered into the river, and there careened and thoroughly repaired. Cook having completed the survey of the east coast, to which he gave the name of New South Wales, sighted and named Cape York, the northernmost point of Australia, and took final possession of his discoveries northward from latitude 38° south to latitude 101 south, on a spot which he named Possession Island, thence returning to England by way of Torres Straits and the Indian Ocean.

The great navigator's second voyage, undertaken in 1772, with the "Resolution" and the "Adventure" is of less importance. The vessels became separated, and both at different times visited New Zealand. Captain Tobias Furneaux, in the "Adventure," also found his way to Storm Bay in Tasmania. In 1777, while on his way to search for a north-east passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Cook again touched at the coast of Tasmania and New Zealand.

On his return to England, Cook gave a most graphic description of New Zealand and its people. Men engaged in commerce became impressed with the value of the various articles which New Zealand produced, and hence of its importance as a market for manufactured goods; while the savant and the scientist regarded with great interest the information recently published respecting a race of people who, while having a real though hitherto undescribed form of civilisation, were yet greedy eaters of human flesh. Cook's report of the genial climate, the fertile soil, and the evergreen forests of the new archipelago, not only excited considerable interest in England, but so captivated the eminently practical mind of Benjamin Franklin that the American philosopher published a proposal for its immediate colonisation. Meanwhile, in 1772, Captain Marion du Fresne anchored his two ships, the "Marquis de Castries" and the "Mascarin," in the Bay of Islands. These vessels formed a French expedition of discovery. Sailing from Nantes, on the Loire, Lieutenant Crozet, in command of the King's sloop "Mascarin," had lost his masts, and the two ships put into the Bay of Islands to refit. Du Fresne was frequently on shore during his stay, and habits of intimacy begat in the mind of the French Commander confidence in the friendship of the natives. Both races lived in harmony for several weeks. "They treated us," says Crozet, "with every show of friendship for thirty-three days, with the intention of eating us on the thirty-fourth." The Maori version, given by Dr. Thompson, is: "We treated Marion's party with every kindness for thirty days, and on the thirty-first they put two of our chiefs in irons, and burned our sacred places." It matters little whether the Maoris had any valid excuse for eating their guests or not, the fact remains that an attack was made on the French, when twenty-eight of their party and the commander were killed and eaten. Crozet, who had a party of men engaged in getting spars on the Kawakawa River, was also in danger of being trapped by the treacherous savages; but being forewarned, he was enabled to punish those who had killed his comrades and sought his own destruction. Before leaving the river he refitted the two vessels, and, after a stay of sixty-four days in the Bay of Islands, continued his voyage.

On his first voyage, in 1770, Cook had some grounds for the belief that Van Diemen's Land, as Tasmania was then called, was a separate island. The observations of Captain Furneaux, however, did not strengthen this belief, and when making his final voyage, the great navigator appears to have definitely concluded that it was part of the mainland of Australia. This continued to be the opinion of geographers until 1798, when Bass discovered the strait which bears his name. The next recorded expedition is a memorable one in the annals of Australian History-the despatch of a British colony to the shores of Botany Bay. Further information respecting the discovery and history of the various states of the Commonwealth will be found in subsequent chapters.

9

NEW SOUTH WALES.

THE 'HE favourable reports brought to England by Captain Cook on his return from the voyage in the "Endeavour," directed the attention of the British Government towards the possibility of founding a settlement in Australia. The loss of the North American colonies by their successful rebellion made it an imperative necessity that some fresh outlet should be found for the disposal of the criminal population; but, besides this, there seems ample proof that the idea of colonial expansion was at that time strong in the minds of the British people.

In 1787 Viscount Sydney, then Secretary of State for the Colonies, resolved on the foundation of a colony in that portion of the Great Southern Continent which Cook had rather inaptly termed New South Wales. In virtue of the sovereignty established by Captain Cook, the islands of New Zealand were included as part of the British dominions, in the Royal Commission appointing the Governor of the new colony. There is no doubt that the selection of Botany Bay as a place of penal settlement was largely due to Cook's official report as to the suitability of the locality; but it was keenly debated in the House of Commons whether Cook's New Zealand or Cook's Botany Bay should be the site of the first experiment in penal colonisation. "New Zealand," says an early historian, "escaped the perilous distinction, possibly on account of fears entertained that the existence of her ferocious cannibal population might prove incompatible with the safe keeping and probationary discipline of the prisoners, and that in some fatal outburst of the cannibal passion, convict, governor, and guard might undergo the common lot, prematurely, in the native oven." This, possibly, may have been the reason; indeed, the early authorities of New South Wales had a thorough dread of the old-time Maori.

In May the "First Fleet," which was to convey the expedition, was got together. It comprised the 20-gun frigate "Sirius," with its tender the "Supply"; the storeships "Golden Grove," "Fishburn," and "Borradale"; and six transports-the "Alexander," "Scarborough," "Lady Penrhyn," "Prince of Wales," "Friendship," and "Charlotte." The largest of these vessels measured not more than 450 tons, whilst the smallest was not more than 270 tons. The six transports had on board 564 male and 192 female convicts; 178 marines, officers and men ; 5 medical men, a few mechanics, 40 women, wives of the marines; and 13 children. The command of the expedition was entrusted to Captain