CAPTAIN COOK'S LETTERS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XLVIII, Issue XLVIII, 30 May 1914, Page 5

CAPTAIN COOK'S LETTERS

SEW ZEAiAND VISITS. SYDNEY, May 22. The announcement was made by cable a few days ago that the originals of Tour •of Captam Cook's letters were shortly to ■fee offered at auction in London, and alTeadv representations have been madte to the Commonwealth 'Government that the letters should 'be bought for Australia. There are already of thes letters in Melbourne in the private collection of Mr E. A. Petherick, and extracts from these have 'been printed in. the Melbourne "Argus." They were 'written to Captain JohnWalker, of Whitby, in whose employ •Cook began his seafaring life, and there are many interesting references in them to the great navigator's visits to New New Zealand. The first of the letters is dated from Mile End. London, on 18th September, 1771, after his return from •the first of his three voyages of disco very In this he says that in the beginning of August. 1769, he quitted the "tropical regions" and steered to the southward. This brought Mm to New Zealand;, whicli was thought uo till then to be a southern continent, "but I," writes the explorer, "found it to ibe two large islands, both of which I' circumnavigated in the space of six months." The inhabitants he sooke of as fearless, brave, and Warlike, "with sentiments void of treachery," the tribute of brave to brave. Cook's men "had frequent skirmishes with them, always when, we were not known; our firearms gave us the superiority; at first some of them were killed, but we at last learnt how to Vnanase them without taking away their lives." The ,'Maoris lived- upon fish, fernroot, potatoes,, and "yamms." They were also not above dog. • Cook mentions the New Zealand flax. It was, he says, "of a quality like hemp or flax, but superior to ■either." Then the voyagers co on to New Holland:. \'We fei.v in with the Land in the latitude C-f 38 deg. south. I explored the coast of this country (which I oalled : New South Wales) Wo sailed the coast for 400 leagues bv the lead, without ever having a leadsman out of the chain*?. .... We at last .surmounted all difficulties, and cot into the India Sea by a oassage entirely new. The third letter is dated Se-ptem.ber, 1775, and contains a brief resume of his second voyage. He takes his friend through the "vast field-s of floating ice arid much foggy weather, and large isles of floating mountains of Ice," in. the roaring forties and fifties. Somehow or other he misses Australia and brings up at New Zealand, and, leaving this land, proceeds to Otaheite. Then :baek to New Zealand and again further into the Antarctic, where "heating a.bout between' the latitude of 48deg. and 68deg., and once I go as high as 71.10deg., and farther it was not possible to go, for Ice which lay as firm as land ; here we saw Ice mountains, whose lofty summits were lost- in clouds. I was now fully satisfied that there was no Southern Continent." - He stood; away north and brought up at Easter Island, where he describes the extraordinary and myster,- • ous statues for which this place is famous. iHe visited many islandls, and finally "discovered a large Island which I have called- Nova Caledonia." The people he describes as friendly, "stout and well-made people of a dark colour, with long frizzled hair and 1 little clothing." Then 'back to New Zealand once more, where he found that- some of the .Adventurer's crew had been killed and eaten 'by Maoris. "That the New Zealanders are cannibals," he savs, "will no longer be disputed, not only from the melancholy fate of the Adventurer's people, and Captain Marion and his fel-low-sufferers, but from what I and my whole crew have seen with our eyes. Nevertheless, I think them a good sort of people, at. least T have alays found good treatment amongst them. a