CAPTAIN COOK LETTERS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16285, 19 January 1915, Page 8

CAPTAIN COOK LETTERS

FIRST AND SECOND VOYAGES TO SOUTH SEAS. Mr J. Marsden, of Stoke, has received particulars of a series of four original autograph letters written by Captain Cook, the famous circumnavigator, to Mr John Walker, a partner in the firm of Whitby, shipowners, to whom Cook was bound apprentice, and in whose service ho hud his first experience of a sailor's life. Concerning the first voyage to tho South Seas it it recorded :— " What I mean by the South Sea Islands, are those that he within and about tho tropics. They are in general small, and George's Maud, which is only about 33 leagues in circuit, is one of tho largest. The inhabitants of this island gave us an account and the names of 130 islands lying in these seas. "These people may be said to be exempted from tho curso of our forefathers. Scarce can it be said that they earn their bread by tho sweat of their brows. Benevolent nature hath r.ot only provided them with necessaries, but many of the luxuries of life. Loaves of bread, or at least what serve* as a most excellent substitute, growhere in a manner spontaneously upon trees besides a great many other fruits and roots, and tho sea coasts are well stored ■with a* vast variety of excellent fish. They have only three species of tame animals, hogs', dogs, and fowls; all of which they oat. Dogs we learnt from them also to eat, and there were but few among us who did not think that a South Sea dog ate as well as an English lamb. . . . " In tho beginning of August, 1796, wo quitted tho tropical region, and steered to tho southward, in the midst of the South Sea to the height of 40dog. without meeting with any land . . - until wo fell m •with tho coast of New Zealand, a very small part of the west coast of which was first discovered by Tasman in 1642, but he never once set foot upon it. This country was thought to be a part of the Southern Continent, but I have found it to be two islands, both of which I circumnavigated in the space of six months. They extend from the latitude of 34deg south to 47£deg south, and are together nearly as big as Great Britain. It is a hilly, mountainous country, but rich and fertile; especially the northern part, where it i 6 also well inhabited. The inhabitants of this country are a strong, well-made, active people, rather above the common size. They are of ' a very dark brown colour, with long black hair. They are also a brave, warlike people, with sentiments void of treachery. Their arms arc spears, clubs, halbe'rts, battleaxes, darts,' and stones. They live in strongholds or fortified towne, built in weli chosen situations and according to •rt. ... "The men very often go _ naked, with only a narrow belt about their waists; the women, on the contrary, never appear naked. Their goverrment. religion, notions of the creation of tie world, mankind, etc., are much the same as those of the natives of the South Sea Islands." Describing his second voyage to the South Seas, it is written: — " We rnchored for a third time in Queen Charlotte Sound in New Zealand, where we remained threo weeks. The inhabitants of this place gave us some account of some strangers having been killed by them, but wo did not understand they were part of our consort's erow till we arrived at the Cape of Good PTone. That tho New Zealanders are cannibals will no longer be disputed, not only from the melancholy fate of the Adventure's people and Captain Morton and his fallow sufferers, but from what I and my.whole crew have coen wiffi our eyes. Nevertheless I think them a good sort of people." A very interesting passage in the letW relating "to these cruises in the Pacific Ocean is that which describes Easter Island :—

"At this isle are stone statues of a vast 6i:o, erected along the sea coast, we saw some 27 fept high, of pronortional thickness r.nd all of one piece. We judged them to be places dedicated to the dead, their shape was a rude resemblance of a man, and crowned with a great stone in the shape of a drum, but vastly larger."