EARLY VOYAGERS IN THE PACIFIC

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21034, 9 December 1933, Page 17

EARLY VOYAGERS IN THE PACIFIC

♦ A GREAT QUARTET The Discoverers of the Fiji Islands. By G. C. Henderson, M.A. John Murray. 324 pp. (18s net.) j-fiGut. James Cook and his Voyages 1?. b ar k Endeavour. By Frederick Watson. Angus and Robertson. S7 pp. (2s 6d.) Professor Henderson has striven to attain exact knowledge on the basis of clear, ample,, and trustworthy evidence confirmed by investigation on the spot. For six years, in a variety of craft, he retraced exactly the courses of his discoverers, sailing into dangerous waters and inspiring with his own painstaking enthusiasm the seacaptains who supplied the nautical knowledge that was needed to supplement his own accurate historical knowledge. His conclusions are unshakably sound, for in his desire to do justice he has cautiously refused to accept evidence tempting enough to seduce most scholars. He speaks passionately about his heroes. And indeed he has reason. The sailors whose voyages he is examining were beset with difficulties and dangers: isolated reefs in open waters ; sheltered reefs ; submarine plateaus ; hurricane winds ; capricious currents and tidal streams; unreliable charts, and equipment that prevented thtm from correctly ascertaining their position. Cook spoke for them all: Such are the vicissitudes attending this kind of service, and must always attend an unknown navigation, was it not for the pleasure which naturally results to a man from being the first discoverer. Even was it nothing more than sand or shoals, this service would be insupportable, especially in far distant parts like this, short of provisions and almost every other necessity. Cook carried to sea the spirit of the eighteenth century Romantic Revival. Of all the interesting charts reproduced by Professor Henderson, the two most significant are Hessel Gerritsz's chart of the South-West Pacific, and Franchoys Visscher's chart of the West Coast of New Zealand. The first, far better than his journal, explains the workings of Tasman's mind in dangerous days, and should forever acquit him of the charge of timidity and lack of resolution. The second is a document which has few superiors in importance to the history of the country. The text of the book is drawn from the navigators' journals and the editor reserves for footnotes the results of his own researches, which explain inaccuracies and justify inconsistencies. (These footnotes arc written in a clear style which is succinct but never dry.) Most care and risk were involved in reconstructing the relevant parts of William Bligh's 3600 mile journey in an open boat. No one has denied to Bligh courage and resource. Professor Henderson has set his face against most of Bligh's biographers and shown him to be in emergency human, unselfish, and inflexible. When achievements are measured Bligh deserves most credit as a discoverer of Fiji. With worse equipment and in dire misery, he observed and recorded a greater number of islands, and those the largest, than any other explorer. James Wilson of the Duff began the history of Protestant Missions in the South Seas. His voyage lasted two years, 1796-1793, and called for the enterprise and discretion that his predecessors required. He was a good navigator, swift in decision in the instant of peril. His swiftness saved his ship when she ran upon a reef. Of the fourth of the discoverers, Fabian Von Bellingshausen, too little is known except as an Antarctic explorer. Bellingshausen was a German, but sailed from Cronstadt in 1819 in command of two ships sent out by the Russian Government. His outward voyage was by way of Cape Horn, Sydney and New Zealand to Tahiti. In the Pacific Islands he secured sounder information and made wider ethnological observations than his predecessors, though his work of discovery was less considerable. It would be difficult to praise too highly the success with which Professor Henderson has made real, by his personal observation of sea and reef and island, the perilous voyages of Cook and Tasman. Mr Watson's essay gives the results of his collation and critical examination of the six journals and fourteen logbooks that recorded the observations made during the voyage of the Endeavour, 1768-1771. He had been struck by an element of mystery in the accepted story of the voyage on the eastern coast of Australia. The strangest inconsistency was the change in Banks's attitude when he recommended Botany Bay as the site of a convict settlement. The mystery and inconsistency appear to have arisen from the secrecy imposed on Cook and his men by the Admiralty, which was still afraid of rival colonising nations. Mr Watson is satisfied that no day-to-day journal of the voyage exists, that many names, including New South Wales and Botany Bay, were given in London, and not by Cook, and that the extract portion of the journals was written in England under official instruction and censorship. The journals were written for publication to claim possession by prior right of discovery under the belief that some other nation had already made the. discovery.