Celebrated Travels and Travellers Vol 2 First part chapter V - Captain Cook’s third voyage part 1a

Piotr Nater (0:00)

Section 20 of Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Volume 2 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit librivox.org. Recording by Piotr Nater. Celebrated Travels and Travellers, Volume 2 Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century. By Jules Verne. First Part. Chapter 5 Part 1 Captain Cook's Third Voyage. 1a.

Search for the lands discovered by the French. Kerguland Islands. Stay at Van Diemen's Land. Queen's Charlotte Strait. Palmerston Island. Great rejoicings in the Tonga Islands.

At this date, the idea which had sent so many explorers to Greenland was in full force. The question of the existence of a northern passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific, by way of the Asiatic or American coasts, was eagerly discussed. And should such a passage exist, was it practicable for ships?

The attempt had quite lately been made to discover this outlet in Hudson or Buffin Bays, and it was now determined to seek it in the Pacific. The task was an arduous one. The lords of the Admiralty felt that it was essential to send out a navigator who had experience of the dangers of the polar seas, and one who had shown presence of mind in the face of danger, one moreover whose talents, experience, and scientific knowledge might be of use in the powerful equipment then in course of preparation.

In Captain Cook alone were all the requisite qualities to be found. The command was offered to him, and although he might have passed the reminder of his days in peace at his post in the Greenwich Observatory, in the full enjoyment of the honor and glory he had gained by his two voyages round the world, he did not hesitate for a moment.

Two ships, the Resolution and the Discovery, were placed under his command. The latter was under the orders of Captain Clerk, and the equipment of both was similar to that of the last expedition. The instructions given to the commander of the expedition enjoined his reaching the Cape of Good Hope and steering south in search of the islands recently discovered by the French in forty-eight degrees of latitude towards the meridian of the island of Mauritius. He was then to touch at New Zealand, if he thought well, to take in refreshments at the Society Islands and to land the Tahitán Maí there, then to proceed to New Albion, to avoid landing in any of the Spanish possessions in America, and from thence to make his way by the Arctic Ocean to Hudson and Baffin Bays. In other words, he was to look in an easterly direction for the Northwest Passage. This once effected, after a stay at Kamchatka, he was to make another attempt to reach England by the route he might judge most productive of good results for geography and navigation. The two vessels did not start together. The resolution set sail from Plymouth on the 12th of July 1776, and was rejoined at the Cape of Good Hope by the Discovery on the 10th of the following November, she having left England only on the 1st of August.

The two ships were detained at the Cape until the 30th of November by the repairs needed by the Discovery. Much damaged by tempest, she required cocking. The captain profited by this long delay to buy livestock, which he intended to land at Tahiti and New Zealand, and also to stock his vessels with the necessary stores for a two-year voyage.

After steering southwards for 20 days, two islands were discovered, in 46 degrees 53 minutes south latitude, and 37 degrees 46 minutes east longitude. The strait which separates them was crossed, and it was found that their steep sterile coasts were uninhabited.

They had been discovered with four others, from 9 to 12 degrees further east, by the French captains Marion du Fresne and Crozet, in 1772 On the 24th of December, Cook found the islands which M de Kergulen had surveyed in his two voyages of 1772 and 1773 We will not here relate the observations made by Cook upon this group. As they agree in every particular with those of M de Kergulen, we can reserve them until we relate the adventures of that navigator, and content ourselves with remarking that Cook surveyed the coast carefully and left them on the 33rd of December.

The vessels were enveloped in a thick fog, which accompanied them for more than 300 leagues. Anchor was cast in Adventure Bay, in Van Diemen's Land, on the 26th of January. It was the same spot at which Captain Furnow had touched four years later. The English were visited by a few natives who received the presents offered to them without showing any satisfaction. The Narrative says, They were of ordinary height, but rather slightly built. Their skin was black and their hair of the same color, and as woolly as that of the Negroes of New Guinea, but they had not the thick lips or flat noses of African Negroes. There was nothing disagreeable in their features, and their eyes struck us as beautiful. So did their teeth, but they were very dirty. Most of them anointed their hair and beards with a yellow ointment, and some even rubbed their faces with the same stuff. Concise as this account is, it is not the less valuable. The race of Tasmanians is extinct, the last of them died a few years ago.