Art. LXII.—On the Tracks of Captain Cook.

Transactions and Proceedings of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Volume 33, 1900, Page 499

Art. LXII.—On the Tracks of Captain Cook. By Professor E. E. Morris, M.A., Litt.D., Melbourne University. Communicated to the N.Z. Institute by Sir James Hector. In January last it was my good fortune to be able to take a holiday in the North Island of New Zealand. South New Zealand I knew pretty well; but, beside the fact that the ground was new to me, I had another reason for choosing the North Island. For some years, in vacations and at odd times, I have been a close student of the great voyage of Captain Cook in His Majesty's barque “Endeavour.” In the North Island and in one part of the South Island most easily approached from Wellington are the places where Cook landed, where he was compelled to fight the Maori, where later he had peaceful intercourse with them, and received lessons in geography. On the first voyage he circumnavigated the South Island at topmost speed. Perhaps I am strangely constituted, perhaps my education was neglected, but I derive no pleasure from shooting nor from fishing. A hobby makes a holiday pass pleasantly, and I determined to visit places visited by the “Endeavour,” many of them well off the tourist track. Partially I succeeded in my quest for information. Being endowed with a love for history, and living in a land where it is thought nothing truly historical can be found, I have in other vacations sought scenes of Australian history now four generations old; nor has the search been wholly barren. Once I travelled to North Queensland to see the spot where the “Endeavour” was beached, the first kangaroo shot, and the first aboriginal vocabulary obtained. Some way inland from the last stopping-place of the steamer before Cooktown there is a magnificent waterfall to be seen, and the captain thought me strange indeed because I preferred Cooktown with historic memories to the Barron Waterfall. Sydney was still making history when I left it, still splendidly celebrating the inauguration of the Commonwealth. I did not stay to witness the acting of the landing of Cook at Botany Bay. To have remained to see it would have involved me in the loss of a week, and one could not but entertain a doubt whether the acting was quite worthy of the occasion. The place itself I knew, though few Sydney residents visit the south shore, which, indeed, is difficult of access. They are satisfied with La Perouse. I trust it was not conceit

to hold that my own imagination could better supply the scene of the landing than actors reciting blank verse, astonished Queensland blacks, and a crowd somewhat inclined to jeer. Accounts in the newspapers seemed to represent the affair as better than was expected; accounts of private friends varied, some even rising to violent condemnation. Before my luggage had passed through the Wellington Customhouse I was inquiring how to reach Queen Charlotte Sound, and a telegram was sent to a man in the sound, owner of a steam-launch. It is easy to reach Picton, easy to see Ship Cove from the deck of the Nelson steamer, but not so easy to make any closer inspection. Next morning a swift steamer of the Union Company carried me across Cook Strait, up Tory Channel, as to which the geography of some prominent Wellingtonians on board was rather at fault. A shock awaited me at Picton, where the settler with the launch was not, and at his home no telegram could reach him, so that things looked like a stay of three days in Picton. But in a few hours the settler turned up and carried me in his launch down to Dryden Bay, reaching which, shortly ere midnight, I slept at his house, and the next morning the way to Ship Cove was clear. The part of Queen Charlotte Sound connected with the name of Cook is the part nearest to the mouth. Five times Cook visited Ship Cove—once in the first voyage, no fewer than three times in the second, when he made it his point d'appui for attacks on the Antarctic, and once in the third. It may well be considered Cook's special part of New Zealand. He surveyed it carefully in the first voyage. A map of it is given by Hawkesworth. In all the eight volumes labelled “Cook's Voyages” (though one of them is an account of voyages before Cook) there is only this one chart given of Queen Charlotte Sound, at page 374 in Hawkesworth's second volume. On this chart the names given on the western side are “Canibal Cove” (sic), “Ship Cove,” “Shag Cove,” and “West Bay.” Other names in the map are the two islands Motuara and Long Island, and, upon the eastern side, “East Bay,” “Long Point,” “Grass Cove.” All names beside these nine are later than the “Endeavour” voyage. Rumour ran that the name “Cannibal Cove” is not relished by the residents; but it would be a pity now to change a name so historical. Here is what Cook said: “Soon after we landed we met with two or three of the natives, who not long before must have been regaling themselves upon human flesh, for I got from one of them the bone of the forearm of a man or woman which was quite fresh, and the flesh had been but lately picked off, which they told us they had eat. They gave us to understand that but a few

days before they had taken, killed, and eat a boat's crew of their enemies, or strangers, for I believe they look upon all strangers as enemies. [Pleasant for the listening visitors.]… We told one of them that it was not the bone of a man, but that of a dog; but he, with great fervency, took hold of his forearm and told us again that it was that bone, and to convince us that they had eat the flesh he took hold of the flesh of his own arm with his teeth and made signs of eating.”—(Wharton's edition of Cook's Journal, p. 183.) Another log, never yet published, and now in Mr. Alexander Turnbull's library in Wellington, says, “One of them pick'd a man's arm-bone, quite unconcerned, before us.” On the second voyage Cook named Adventure Bay from the second ship of his little squadron, the one commanded by Tobias Furneaux. This is not marked in any of the charts published by him. “What is that cape called?” I asked, as we passed Adventure Bay. “Edgecombe Head,” was the answer. This was the sergeant of marines on the “Endeavour.” Cook described him as “very much of a gentleman”; and on Cook's recommendation, having obtained a commission, he was lieutenant of marines on the “Resolution” in the second voyage. The corresponding point is Marine Head, at the other side of the entrance to Adventure Bay. Adventure Bay was the scene of the slaughter of the boat's crew from the “Adventure” in the second voyage, at a time when Furneaux had been unable to find Cook. The Englishmen had been eaten by the Maoris. Lieutenant James Burney found out the grim truth when he was sent ashore to investigate. The original of Lieutenant Burney's report is in the same valuable library in Wellington. Allusion is made to the story in Gibbon,* “If in the neighbourhood of the commercial and literary Town of Glasgow a race of cannibals has really existed, we may contemplate in the period of the Scottish history the opposite extremes of savage and civilised life. Such reflections tend to enlarge the circle of our ideas, and to encourage the pleasing hope that New Zealand may produce in some future age the Hume of the Southern Hemisphere.”—(Gibbon, “Decline and Fall,” chap. xxv.) and doubtless fear of cannibalism was the reason why New Zealand was not earlier occupied. When the “Endeavour” had been from Cape Turnagain round the north of New Zealand, and had come southward on the western side as far as the strait, Cook desired to find some quiet bay where he could careen her, for her bottom was foul. He anchored in what he calls “a very snug cove” in Queen Charlotte Sound, which on his chart he marked as “Ship Cove.” There he found “excellent water, and, as to wood, the land here is one intire forest.” No less than 300 lb. of different sorts of fish were caught, and all seemed

in clover, so that a stay was made in Ship Cove lasting a little more than three weeks. “The land here” is no longer an entire forest. The traveller cannot but lament the great destruction of trees all along the beautiful shores of Queen Charlotte Sound. Close settlement has made the cutting-down of the trees necessary, and much of the clearing is of very recent date. “You want scenery, we want grass,” was the retort made by a settler to me on pointing out to him the harm that was being done. The Government of New Zealand has very wisely made a reserve of 20,000 acres of land round Ship Cove; but that reserve runs a great risk of destruction by fire. It would probably be judicious if a broad belt were cleared round it, especially at the back, away from the water, so as to prevent mischief from any bush-fire that may break out on neighbouring lands. Ship Cove is, what Cook called it, “a snug cove” indeed, lying not far from the entrance to Queen Charlotte Sound, which runs fully twenty miles to the south, with varied outline and gently swelling hills, once timbered to the shore, and with many inviting coves and bays. Ship Cove is all but land-locked: from the head of it, Cook's landing-place, only a narrow opening is visible to the north-east. The Government has now rightly reserved the land close around the cove, but about a generation ago a few acres (perhaps 30) near the landing-place were partly cleared and cultivated; hence there are a few cherry-trees, and a few garden flowers run wild, together with some other trees that do not belong to the native bush. Nature, with prodigal hand, has repaired the destruction of the timber; and the tree-ferns are abundant and beautiful. At a spring not far from the shore the water is excellent. This is the place where Mr. Banks heard the bell-birds, and Hawkesworth adopted his description (with little changes that are not improvements) in a passage as famous as any in the once well-known account of the voyage. This is how it stands in the manuscript. Even Sir Joseph Hooker, in printing it, has varied the wording: “This morn I was awak'd by the singing of the birds ashore, from whence we are distant not a quarter of a mile. The numbers of them were certainly very great, who seem'd to strain their throats with emulation. Perhaps their voices were the most melodious wild musick I have ever heard, almost imitating small bells, but with the most tuneable silver sound imaginable, to which maybe the distance was no small addition. On inquiring of our people, I was told they had observed them ever since we have been here, and that they begin to sing about one or two in the morn, and continue till sunrise, after which they are silent all day, like our nightingales.”

Alas, there are no bell-birds now! Between 1 and 2 in the morning I was at the neighbouring Dryden Bay, and none woke me, though I hoped they would. So unknown are the birds that the settler who guided me to Ship Cove would have me believe that the tui was the same as the bell-bird, which is not exactly correct; but it seems unfortunately true that by far the larger part of the British population of New Zealand has never heard the birds that charmed the ears of Mr. Banks. Many other New Zealand birds—the kea and the kaka parrot—are disappearing, and the most characteristic trees and flowering-shrubs threaten soon to vanish likewise. While the “Endeavour” lay at Ship Cove Cook made a trip up Queen Charlotte Sound for the purpose, never absent from his mind, of surveying and exploring. With a single seaman (name not recorded) he climbed a hill, and came down radiant. “While Dr. Solander and I were botanising,” wrote Banks, “the captain went to the top of a hill, and in about an hour returned in high spirits, having seen the eastern sea and satisfied himself of the existence of a strait communicating with it, the idea of which has occurred to us all, from Tasman's as well as our own observation.” This account of Cook's “high spirits” by another is perhaps more vivid than his own account of his “abundant recompense for the trouble in ascending the hill.” What a subject for a New Zealand painter or a poet! The noble lines of Keats may suggest the treatment:— Or like stout Cortez, when with eagle eyes He stared at the Pacific, and all his men Looked at each other with a wild surmise, Silent, upon a peak in Darien. Is the glory of these lines diminished by the knowledge that Cortez never had the opportunity of staring at the Pacific from a peak in Darien? The story is true of another—Vasco Nunez de Balboa. The hill that Cook ascended is not yet ascertained, but it must be ascertainable. May I commend the problem to Wellington men as an object for a holiday trip to the sound? A little leisure would be needed, and a disposition to scramble upon hills. My own belief is that the hill must lie between Tory Channel and Picton. Cook says that, making for the head of the sound—that is towards Picton—they had rowed between four and five leagues, and, “finding no probability of reaching it, or even of seeing the end, the wind being against us and the day already half-spent, we landed at noon on the south-east side, in order to try and get upon one of the hills to view the inlet from thence. I took one hand with me and climbed up to the top of one of the hills; but when I came

there I was hindered from seeing up the inlet by higher hills, which I could not come at for impenetrable woods.” All this, and more, is to be found in Wharton at page 185. If I could fire some young men of Wellington to find the exact hill-top, I should be glad to subscribe for a cairn or other monument to mark the spot. It was on Motuara that Cook obtained the lesson in geography from an old man, when he gained the names “Eaheinomauwe” and “Tavai Poenammoo.* Spelling copied from Cook's chart. These names have been explained so often that no further talk about them is needed here. As our launch turned to leave Ship Cove a head wind arose, and it afterwards became a gale. The launch was small, so small that the man managing it could with one hand steer and with the other stoke; but she was an excellent sea-boat. The waves rose high, and things were not exactly comfortable. Sometimes for a quarter of an hour, though with full steam on, the boat made no progress. A special inconvenience introduced me to a new word—viz., the “willy waughs,”† Thus was I instructed to spell. brief gusts of wind that blew across the sound, carrying spindrift with them. Sometimes, crossing the mouth of a bay, we caught these gusts full and were well-nigh drenched. It took nearly eight hours to return to Picton; but luckily the Nelson steamer was delayed loading and I obtained the last berth on board, in the most untoward place, right up in the bows, quite a “fo'c'sle hand,” but, being wet through and having naught but pyjamas to change into, early bed was necessary for me. In the middle of the night the steamer left the mouth of Tory Channel, and within one minute the tossing was such that all pride as to being a good sailor had left me, who yet have been round the world without seasickness. In Wellington I was assured that “willy waugh” was a Scotch word, also that it was a corruption from the Maori “wirriwa,” which I later found did not exist. On my return to my dictionaries in Melbourne I found the word in the Standard as Patagonian. “Willi-wa, a violent wind from mountains in the fiords of Patagonia.” An this be true (and I can find no more about it), by what process, through what book, did the word pass from Patagonia to Queen Charlotte Sound? The “willie-waught” of “Auld Lang Syne” means a draught of liquor, a long drink, not a sprinkling of wet externally. Wellington was most hospitable, but Cook was never there. I found a splendid library in the hands of a private collector (Mr. Alexander Turnbull), and I saw two or three books of Cook literature unknown to me before. From Wellington to

Napier I travelled by rail. May I say here that, if any reader of this has a picture of Cape Palliser or Cape Turnagain, I should esteem it a great favour to be supplied with a copy? At Napier a legend runs that Cook sailed round Scinde Island, a feat which, the legend is good enough to add, could be performed in those days, though now it would be necessary to drag the vessel overland. No foundation for the story can be found in any of the records about Cook, and it does not seem likely that the island was even then more than a nominal island. The most interesting place of Cook memory near Napier is Cape Kidnappers, the place where the “Indians,” as he and his companions called the Maoris, as well as South Sea Islanders, aborigines of Australia, and natives of Tierra del Fuego, tried to kidnap Tayeto, the boy from Tahiti, brought by Tupaia to keep him company. An amateur photographer took for me a splendid picture of this cape. At Napier it was my good fortune to meet the Bishop of Waiapu, who has written, in vol. xxi. of the “Transactions of the New Zealand Institute,” 1888, a topographical paper which is of the greatest value for any one following the footsteps of Cook in New Zealand. If I may venture to say so, that paper should be followed by similar papers by residents at Mercury Bay, at the Bay of Islands, and by some historically minded Wellington member on Queen Charlotte Sound. A short time hence it will not be so easy as now to give full information. The bishop committed his knowledge to paper in the nick of time. Changes were even then beginning, in the nature of wharves and harbour-works, whereby the shape of the mouth of the river where Cook landed has been altered almost beyond posterity's recognition. The only drawback to the value of the paper is that, being published before the appearance of Cook's own journal, edited by Admiral Wharton, and the journal of Mr. Banks, edited by Sir Joseph Hooker, the bishop was compelled to use Hawkesworth as his main authority. For the account of the first landing of Cook in the land of the Maoris the bishop's paper is indispensable. On my leaving Napier an incident occurred which wears a comic aspect. Napier was the home of the late Mr. Colenso, the well-known Maori scholar. Having seen sundry remarks of his about traces of Cook quoted in books, I made inquiry what had become of his papers, and found that the bulk of them had come into the hands of a friend and admirer. A visit to this gentleman won speedily from him a promise that he would look through the papers and send me any printed documents that might be of service. Most kindly he began the search at once. I went on board the steamer at 8 in the evening. There were cricketers returning northward, there was a crowd, there was cheering. After the vessel had cast

off, the gentleman, it seems, came breathless on the scene with a parcel of documents, and consulted the good-natured Irish policeman on the wharf, who promptly volunteered to fling the parcel on board. He flung, and it fell into the sea. “Oh! Mr. Constable,” one is tempted to exclaim, “you little know the mischief you have done”; nor, indeed, do I, for I know not what was in the parcel that wasted its lore upon the waters of “Hawkes Bay.”* Cook spelt this name without the apostrophe. Sir Edward Hawke was First Lord of the Admiralty when the “Endeavour” left England. It is not known whether Cook had ever heard the story about Hawke's emphatic refusal to confirm Alexander Dalrymple in the command of the barque, when he said he would cut off his right hand rather than sign a commission for a civilian. Morning found our steamer in Poverty Bay, Young Nick's Head on our left. It is often said that this was the first land of New Zealand that was seen by the men on the “Endeavour.” It was pointed out to me by the bishop that the land seen must have been the higher mountainous land in the interior. Nor does Cook say that the head was the first seen: “At noon the south-west point of Poverty Bay, which I have named ‘Young Nick's Head’ (after the boy who first saw this land).” It has been noticed more than once that in the list of the “Endeavour's” crew no such name as Nicholas Young is to be found. In the journal kept by Parkinson, the artist to Mr. Banks, published by his brother just before the official publication by Hawkesworth, it is said that Young was the surgeon's boy. In a list of the servants that Mr. Banks intended to take with him on the second voyage, had he made it, the name of Nicholas Young figures; so that it is evident that Banks liked the sharp-sighted lad who first saw the land in New Zealand, and again the land when the ship was nearing England, which proved to be the Lizard. Two lists of the “Endeavour's” crew have been printed—the one in the “Historical Records of New South Wales” (vol. i., part i., page 334), and the other in Admiral Wharton's “Cook”—and there are many discrepancies. Neither has Young's name. Perhaps boys were not among the souls counted on board. From Napier I desired to make a trip to the Wairoa, but found the distance too far and the place too inaccessible. My desire was in honour not of James Cook, but of Robert Browning. “How rolls the Wairoa at your world's far end?” he asked in the “Guardian Angel” of his friend Alfred Domett, poet, Prime Minister, and the lay figure from which Browning painted his “Waring.” This is the highest place in literature attained by the name of a New Zealand river, and I wished to be able to answer the question about the rolling; nor was my

desire diminished by being told in Wellington that it was all a mistake, for Domett never lived near the Wairoa. The best authority to be found in Napier assured me that Domett was well known there in the early days, and that it was he that gave the streets their striking names. At 8 in the morning the coach started from Gisborne for Tolaga Bay. It was a strange drive—for the most part along the shore, and generally in the water. The waves harden the sand, so that it is found more easy to drive the horses through the waves just as they are spent than altogether above their reach; but driving along the water-line produces occasionally shrewd bumps over rocks. Almost all the rest of the road is steeply uphill or steeply downhill, as the road cuts off some rocky bluff which it would not be possible to round. Cook's Gable End Foreland was conspicuous, but deserves the name perhaps better as seen from the sea than from the shore. Here a note may be inserted as to the spelling of the name “Tolaga.” It has locally two variations—“Tolago” and “Tologa”—both wrong. “Tolaga” is the spelling of “Cook's Journal,” of Hawkesworth, and of both Cook's charts—the large map of New Zealand and the small one of the cove with its immediate neighbourhood. “Tolaga” is not a native name, so that the spelling cannot have been corrected by Maori use, for the letter “1” is not used in the Maori language. The best Maori scholar would not venture on a guess what the mistake was; but another gave me “Hautarake,” meaning “the wind is off the land.” The question put to some Maori by Cook or by another was not understood, and a crooked answer was given. This is, however, pure guess. At Tolaga, as at Ship Cove, it was advised that a steam-launch should be hired, and a fine launch was ready for hire. But at 4.30 in the morning I was roused with the news that the sea was too stormy for us to put forth, and arrangements were being made to find horses for a ride of about five miles over (partly) roadless country, when later tidings came that the wind was abating. Forth we went. At the bar of the little River Uawa there was a nasty jobble of the waters, and some heavy rolling just as the launch turned into the cove—naught else to complain of. There are two special sights to visit, “Cook's Well” and what is locally known as the “Hole in the Wall.” The Maoris, as the bishop tells, call the former “Tepaea's Well.” Did Tepaea, as the Maoris call him, or Tupia (with long i) by the English, make out that he was in command of the expedition? He was a Tahitian priest able to interpret Maori. In Hawkesworth there is a map of Tolaga Bay, and it is quite evident that Cook's watering-place was not here. The name “well” is unfortunate. It is not a well at all, but a

hole scooped out, at most 6 in. deep. This may have been made, as the Bishop of Waiapu suggests, by the boys of the “Endeavour,” at a loose end for something to do. It is about 12 yards up a steep hillside. On the rocks around many names have been cut, amongst others the name “Cook.” Not one of the other names can be recognised as that of any one else on board the “Endeavour.” The name of Cook is cut pretty deep. It is hardly probable that the ship's boys would cut the name of their captain in this bold way; but whoever cut the name of Cook cut the date just underneath it, “1778.” Now, it is certain that Cook's only visit took place in 1769, and the mistake of the date settles the question about the cutting of the name, which may, indeed, be some fifty years old, but hardly more. The other names are still more modern. Whilst we were looking at the “well” a Maori shouted to us, and, when his words were interpreted, we understood that higher up the hillside there was something else connected by Maori tradition with the visit of Cook. Perhaps 15 yards higher up the hillside we found an oak cask wholly embedded in the ground to act as a catchment, and filled by a spring, the overflow from it passing down to the “well.” On my return to Gisborne I was amazed to find that the discovery of this cask had been telephoned to the evening paper. On my return to Sydney and to Melbourne I was amazed to find that telegrams had appeared in papers of both of those cities; and now papers are reaching me from England scoffing at the discovery, which I never published at all, as I was sceptical from the first. In one story the cask had become a flask. One paper, very ignorant as to the surroundings, suggested that the cask had been put there in order that it might be found! After my return to Melbourne I received information from one of the party to the effect that the best-informed Maori in Tolaga declared that the cask had been put there by Te Kooti about a hundred years after the visit of the barque “Endeavour.” The connection with the story of the massacre of 1868 makes the cask historically interesting, but not so ancient nor so interesting as a veritable Cook relic. Friends seemed to think that I had unearthed the cask and would bring it home with me. Had it been genuine that would have been wicked; as I thoroughly mistrusted the find it would have been silly. The “Hole in the Wall” is a natural arch, a picture of which, drawn by Sydney Parkinson, appeared in Hawkesworth's book, and was much admired. Banks described it “as a most noble arch or cavern through the face of a rock leading directly to the sea.” As the bishop points out, the measurements of Mr. Banks are not those of to-day. Such

holes and arches are not uncommon along the coast; witness one near Cape Brett, to which Cook gave a name with a play in it not generally perceived. Sir Percy Brett was one of the Lords of the Admiralty. Because of the mistaken story that Percy is “pierce eye,” the name was often then spelt, as by this sailor, “Piercy.” The islet opposite Cape Brett having this curious hole in the rock Cook called “Piercy.” At Tolaga, Banks says, “among other nicknacks Dr. Solander bought a boy's top shap'd like what boys play with in England, which they [the natives] made signs was to be whipped in the same manner.” At Ship Cove, Queen Charlotte Sound, the Government has wisely made a reserve. Would it not be as well to reserve the land round the cove at Tolaga? It cannot now be very valuable, but in time it will be visited more and more, and it would be a shame to permit its appearance to be altered. It is not the plough that is to be feared so much as the cutting-down of timbers, from which a reservation now might save the land. The cove is sheltered on the east by an island. Residents were calling it “the Island,” and “only one knew its name—“Sporing's Island.” Sporing was the secretary of Mr. Joseph Banks, and the reason why Cook named the island after him is given in Banks.* Quoth Mr. Banks: “While Mr. Sporing was drawing on the island he saw a most strange bird fly over his head. He described it as being about as large as a kite, and brown like one. His tail, however, was of so enormous a length that he at first took it for a flock of small birds flying over him. He who is a grave thinking man, and is not at all given to telling wonderful stories, says he judged it to be yards in length.” Before the word “yards” Banks has left a gap, as if intending to go and ask Sporing whether he could not take a yard or two off but the writer never returned to fill the gap with a number. The proximate length of the tail is not known, but it is quite evident that there was much amusement on board about the bird, and so Cook named the island after the secretary, grave and thinking. Poor Mr. Sporing was amongst those who were taken ill at Batavia, and he died at sea a month after the “Endeavour” left that fatal port. From Tolaga I returned to Gisborne, and, with the bishop's maps and paper in my hand, surveyed the scene of the first landing in New Zealand. Nothing can be added to his account. The only addition that can be made to the early history of Poverty Bay is contained in a letter that, after my return to Melbourne I wrote to a Gisborne newspaper. For the sake of record it is worth reprinting:— To the Editor of the Poverty Bay Herald. When I was in Gisborne a few weeks ago I was told that the inhabitants disliked the name of “Poverty Bay,” given by Captain Cook. It is not for me to say a word with respect to the propriety of the change of a name to which history is attached, and not a brief history. But it may interest your readers to know that the great sailor

who, in 1769, landed for the first time in New Zealand at that bay thought at first of bestowing another name. He soon changed his mind, but the name that he first wrote down was “Endeavour Bay.” “Cook's Journal” is preserved in the handwriting of Orton, the ship's clerk, but it was originally written by the captain on loose sheets. Most of these have perished, but a few have been preserved, and are now in the Australian Museum, at Sydney. On the fifth page, or on the front side of the third leaf, will be found the name that Cook first thought of giving, though he changed his mind before he sent on the rough draft to be copied by the clerk. I only found this out a few days ago, and this is first time that I am publishing the fact. At my suggestion the editor of Town and Country reproduced the passage on the 4th May, 1901, Mr. Etheridge, the Curator of the Australian Museum, kindly permitting. From Gisborne I went north and made a visit to Rotorua, but the geysers did not play for me, nor were they soaped. About a fortnight later, however, the papers were full of descriptions of magnificent play. Perhaps I ought not to have yielded to the temptation to visit the hot lakes, but to have spent my time at Mercury Bay, and to have gone northward in the “Clansman.” She starts every Monday, and the only Monday that I could have gone on that expedition to the Bay of Islands proved so stormy that I listened to the advice that urged me to stay in Auckland, nor tempt the stormy waves. I paid a visit to the Firth of Thames, and obtained a general idea of the Coromandel Peninsula, but the Town of Thames is more full of shares and poppet-heads than of memories of Cook. Earlier in these notes it has been suggested that papers, based on local knowledge, should be contributed to the Proceedings of the New Zealand Institute on the history of Cook's visits to Mercury Bay and to the Bay of Islands. Now, it is quite possible that work of this nature has been already done, and published in local newspapers. If any reader of these words can find any such essays, the help will be gratefully received. In connection with Cook's visits to New Zealand hardly anything is of more interest than the accounts preserved of what the Maori thought of their visitors. The difficulty in dealing with the information lies in the careless manner in which those who first met the survivors took down their statements. What the Maori said is often called “evidence.” Now, every one knows that in obtaining evidence much depends on the questions put. Barristers are not allowed to lead a witness—that is, to suggest to him the answer that would be satisfactory. It will be as well to examine one or two cases of this evidence. The most important is that of Taniwha. In the “Long White Cloud,” a book that gives an admirable conspectus of the story of New Zealand, a short account

is set down: “Among the tribe that lived at Mercury Bay when the ‘Endeavour’ put in there was a boy, a little fellow of about eight years old, but possessing the name of Horeta Taniwha (red-smeared dragon)—no less. The child lived through all the changes and chances of Maori life and warfare to more than ninety years of age. In his extreme old age he would still tell of how be saw Kapene Kuku—Captain Cook.* In White's Ancient History of the Maori,” p. 128, it is “Pene Kuku.” Once he told his story to Governor Wynyard, who had it promptly taken down. Another version is also printed in one of Mr. John White's volumes. They do not differ in any important particular.” It is hardly necessary to give further quotation from a book so well known in New Zealand. Mr. Pember Reeves adds, “A more delightful child's narrative it would be hard to find.” It will be noticed that he adduces two authorities. Where is the story as told to Governor Wynyard? A search through the bibliography of New Zealand gives no clue. Questions asked of librarians also drew a blank. Can any reader of this paper furnish the exact reference? It would be instructive to institute a critical comparison between the two accounts. The passages in White's “Ancient History of the Maori”† Mr. Reeves quotes vol. v., p. 128; it should be pages 121 to 131. do not suggest that the author possesses a keenly critical faculty. He gives as two different accounts what is manifestly the same story, nor does he drop the slightest hint that the two are one. It would be certainly passing strange that two little boys should be living at Mercury Bay, one of whom was called Hore-ta-te Taniwha and the other Taniwha-Horeta; that both of them lived to be nearly ninety, and told yarns about Captain Cook closely resembling each other. Each tells the story of the man shot by Lieutenant Gore for cheating, one on page 127 and the other on page 130. If there had been two natives, and not one, it would surely have been noticed by the English who came into contact with them—as, for instance, by Colonel Mundy. Mr. John White brings forward no authority. The whole of his fifth volume is full of stories as if taken down from the lips of Maoris, and yet he never mentions who took them down, whether the Maoris gave them forth as continuous narratives, or whether some Englishman asked questions and afterwards wove the answers into a continuous story. In order to test the value of the evidence we ought to know the questions and who put them. After reading Mr. White with a critical eye a profound mistrust of all the stories came upon me. A child of seven sees a sight, and he

tells about it for seventy-five years at intervals. Will the story come out in its main features the same or altered? Will they be, in Mr. Reeves's phrase, “photographed upon the retina of Taniwha's mind's-eye for three quarters of a century”? Will his proud repetition of the story have been with embellishments or not? I ask the question in all good faith, as I desire that dwellers in New Zealand who know the Maori should weigh the grounds of my scepticism, and, if they can, remove it. Goethe, when old, wrote the story of his youth, and very charming it is; but he knew how deceptive are the mists of memory, and he called it “Dichtung was und Wahrheit.” How much Dichtung was there in the mind of Taniwha. That lively writer Colonel Mundy, in his entertaining book “Our Antipodes,”* In the single volume edition, at page 255. The first edition was published in 1852. talks about the same Maori: “Taniwha, who must be about eighty-five years old, and seems nearly imbecile, is considerably over 6 ft. in height and extremely thin, with a physiognomy strongly Jewish—a type by no means uncommon to his countrymen. This old man describes Captain Cook as he saw him in the year 1769—distant date for a living man to look back upon—and mimics a way he had of waving his right hand to and fro whenever he walked. The veteran, then a child of seven or eight years old, has no conception of the meaning of this strange gesture. It remains for us to guess. Our great navigator was sowing the seeds of Europe in the wilds of Ahina Maui—plucking them from his pockets and casting them on promising soil. The potato has never since failed the Maori—it has succeeded the fern-root as his staple food—the munificent bequest of ‘poor Cooké,’ as the natives call him.” This interesting passage is worth considering in detail. It there any evidence that the barque “Endeavour” was provided with an unlimited supply of the “seeds of Europe.” The sojourn at Tahiti had been long, and, had there been originally a store of miscellaneous seeds, would it have held out until Mercury Bay was reached? Did any of the flowers or grain come up? Cook certainly gave the Maori the potato, and at Mercury Bay, but the stock of potatoes must have been larger than anything else of the kind, for the potato was wanted as a food. Further, it may be noticed that potatoes are not sown, but planted. It cannot be believed that even on the second voyage, made after much talk in England about the duty of communicating the blessings of civilisation to those lacking them, Cook went about throwing seeds promiscuously into unprepared soil. Where Cook sowed

he had the ground dug first, and then he made a speech to the natives explaining the purport of what had been done either in the few words of the Tahitian language that he knew or through some interpreter. In the first voyage Tupaia acted as interpreter of Cook's meaning, as it was found that the Maori understood his language. Several of the officers also picked up much of this lingua franca of the South Seas. If Cook had this peculiar gesture, it is strange that no Englishman has described it. It may be mentioned that by a gun accident in Newfoundland Cook had lost the greater part of the thumb on his right hand. Lastly, why “poor Cook”? Surely not because of his death coming in an inglorious scuffle with the natives of Hawaii. By the whole life is a man judged, not by its chance end. Cook is dear to the hearts of his countrymen that know, and enjoys a magnificent heritage of fame. Nor have we yet done with Taniwha. In a footnote to Brett's “Early History of New Zealand,” a book that furnishes an excellent account of Cook's voyages as far as New Zealand is concerned, as well as of the early history generally, it is written: “Mr. C. O. Davis writes, ‘Taniwha said, “I was as tall as this person” (pointing to a European between fourteen and sixteen years of age) “when I visited the ship of your ancestor Cook. There were several natives in company with myself, and while we were feasting our eyes on the wonderful things we saw for the first time Captain Cook came forward and patted me on the head. We were very friendly with the people of the ship while they remained among us.“'” No clue is given where Mr. Davis wrote this; but, if Mr. Davis be correct, Taniwha must have been about a hundred when Colonel Mundy saw him and thought him senile, though on seeing some English officers engaged in singlestick he challenged one, and, contrary to all the rules of the game, dealt his opponent a doughty lunge instead of a blow. It would be interesting to ascertain the truth about Taniwha, but it is probably now impossible. The carelessness of the recorder is the main difficulty standing in the way. In Brett, at page 19, are two footnotes following each other marking the careless annalist. From the “New Zealand Pilot.” (no other reference): “Several initials are cut on the rock where the artificial well exists, made by his crew.” Never a doubt expressed! In the second note, from Colenso: “Here [at Tolaga], near the south-east headland of the bay, Cook dug a well for the supplying of his ship with water, which well is shown to this day by the natives.” That is not written on knowledge, but is a shot based on the name “well.” “Dug” here is hopeless. This carelessness and the omission of references is most

bewildering to the student, who only desires to reach the truth. Another instance of a Maori's evidence is given in a footnote to Brett at page 28: “Patuone stated that he was at the Bay of Islands when Cook was a visitor. His statement was”—and then it follows; but the author who adduces that statement does not tell us where he found it, when it was made, how old Patuone must have been, whether he was truthful or not. For my part, I have no desire to pose as a Niebuhr destroying the value of the Maori evidence, but the constant carelessness with which it is cited is a drawback to its use. May I finish with a bold suggestion? The Government of New South Wales has been enlightened enough to issue a series of volumes of “Historical Records of Early Australian History,” which will prove invaluable to the future historian. In the case of New Zealand there is so great a gap between the early voyages and the later occupation that a single volume would probably suffice for all the records that can now be secured prior to 1820. But a volume of value could be made, including the parts of Tasman's Voyage, in Dutch and translated; extracts from the various logs and journals of the “Endeavour,” as far as New Zealand is concerned; the same for Cook's two later voyages; the accounts of Marion's voyage, and of De Surville's. A nation should, at national cost, publish its origines; and there are several residents of New Zealand more than competent to edit a volume like vol. i., part i., of the “Historical Records of New South Wales.” Copies of the logs would have to be taken in London, and New Zealand is fortunate in being represented there by a man of letters, who would assuredly help in the matter. In many respects the Government of New Zealand is the most enlightened and progressive in these southern seas, and I feel the impropriety in one not subject to it making suggestions as to what it should or should not do, especially when they imply expenditure. But I have ventured to make suggestions in this paper, and should like now with due respect to recapitulate them. They are three:— (1.) To clear a belt against fire round Ship Cove. (2.) To reserve the land round Cook's Cove, Tolaga Bay. (3.) To publish a volume on the earliest history of New Zealand, with extracts from the logs of the ships that visited it, especially between 1769 and 1780.