Christmas Day, for which the men had been saving up their allowances of grog, passed in the usual manner, that is, in considerable over-indulgence. Banks speculates as to what might have happened if they had had bad weather, whilst Cook dismisses the occurrence very shortly: "The people none of the soberest." On the 27th they crossed the mouth of the River Plate, the water being very discoloured, and a good many land insects were found in it. On 2nd January 1769, they saw some of the shoals of red lobsters like those mentioned by Dampier and Cowley, but they were not found in such quantities as those navigators reported.
On the 11th the shores of Tierra del Fuego were sighted, and on working in closer, the country was found to be less desolate in appearance than they had expected from Anson's description. Arriving off the entrance of the Straits of Le Maire, between Staten Island and the mainland, they were driven back by the tide and a strong adverse wind, and trying to shelter under Cape Diego they were carried past, and only after three and a half days' hard work were they able to get through the straits. Cook has left sailing directions for this passage which are followed to the present day. Banks and Solander were ashore for a short time on Staten Island, and returned delighted with the addition of some hundred new plants for their collection. Cook, with an eye to the welfare of his crew, remarks: "They returned on board, bringing with them several plants and flowers, etc., most of them unknown in Europe, and in that consisted their whole value." Cook and Green made a series of observations, "the first ever made so far south in America," and fixed the position of Cape Diego at 66 degrees West, 54 degrees 39 South; Wharton places it at 65 degrees eight minutes West, 54 degrees 40 minutes South.
On the 15th they anchored in the Bay of Success, for wood and water, and met with some of the inhabitants, with whom, by means of gifts of beads and other trifles, they established friendly relations, and three of them were persuaded to go on board the ship. Though by no means a small race of men, they were found to be nothing like the giants reported by the early navigators in this part of the world. They had in their possession buttons, glass, canvas, brown cloth, etc., showing conclusively they had previously some communication with Europeans. Their clothing consisted chiefly of skins, roughly cured, and a plentiful covering of paint and dirt. The only personal property on which they appeared to set any store were their bows and arrows, which were carefully made and always in good order. Their food appeared to consist of seal and shell-fish; their houses, merely shelters of boughs covered with grass and leaves built to windward of a small fire.
A SNOWSTORM.
On 16th January, Banks, Solander, Buchan, Green, Monkhouse, two seamen, and Banks's two coloured servants, tried to get up the hills to see something of the surrounding country, but they found their progress hampered by the dwarf vegetation. To add to their discomfort a heavy snowstorm came on. Several of the party experienced that desire to sleep which is produced by cold, and were warned by Solander of the danger of giving way to it, yet he was almost the first one to give in, and was with great difficulty kept awake. Buchan, most unfortunately, had a fit, so a large fire was made at the first convenient spot, but a sailor and the two coloured men lagged behind. During the night the sailor was heard shouting, and was brought in to the fire, but in the morning the two coloured men were found frozen to death. Cook attributed their death to overindulgence in spirits, the supply for the party being left in their charge. Not intending to remain away the night, supplies ran short, so a vulture was shot and carefully divided amongst them, each man cooking his own, which amounted to about three mouthfuls. At length the weather cleared up and a start back was made, and after three hours they struck the beach, only to find they had never been any great distance away but had been describing a circle and came back almost to the place whence they had started. Banks notes the vegetation as more exuberant than he expected; the dominant colour of the flowers, white; and he collected wild celery and scurvy grass in large quantities, which was mixed with the food on board ship as long as it could be preserved in a wholesome condition. Whilst at the Bay of Success the guns were lowered into the hold so as to allow more room on deck for working the ship in the bad weather they expected to encounter when rounding the Horn.
THE BALANCE OF THE GLOBE.
On 27th January Cape Horn was passed, but owing to fog and contrary wind they did not approach very closely, so they were unable to fix its exact position, but the description they were able to give of its appearance (there is a sketch of it by Mr. Pickersgill, Master's mate, in the Records Office), and twenty-four observations taken in the immediate neighbourhood, settled any doubts they may have had, and Cook puts it at 55 degrees 53 minutes South, 68 degrees 13 minutes West, and Wharton gives the corrected position as 55 degrees 58 minutes South, 67 degrees 16 minutes West. Three days after they reached their furthest south, according to Cook 60 degrees 4 minutes South, 74 degrees 10 West, and the course was then altered to West by North. The continuous and careful observations of the state of the sea, and the absence of currents during the following month, caused Cook to come to the conclusion that the vast southern continent so long supposed to exist somewhere in that part of the globe, and by some people esteemed necessary to preserve its balance, was non-existent. Banks expresses his pleasure in having upset this theory, and observes: "Until we know how the globe is fixed in its position, we need not be anxious about its balance."
The weeks following the change of the course to the north were uneventful, only marked by an occasional success of the naturalists in obtaining a fresh specimen, some of which were experimented on by the cook; an albatross, skinned, soaked all night in salt water, was stewed, served with savoury sauce, and was preferred to salt pork; a cuttle-fish of large size, freshly killed by the birds, and too much damaged for classification, was made into soup, of which Banks says: "Only this I know that, of it was made one of the best soups I ever ate." The water obtained at Tierra del Fuego turned out very good: a great boon, as one of their great troubles and a source of great anxiety to Cook was the bad quality of the water so often obtained.
Towards the end of March a change was noticed in the kinds of birds flying round the ship, some being recognised as ones that were known to stay near land, and consequently a sharp look-out was kept. On the night of the 24th a tree-trunk was reported, but when morning came nothing further was seen. It has since been ascertained they were then a little to the north of Pitcairn Island, afterwards the home of the mutineers of the Bounty; but Cook did not feel himself at liberty to make any deviation from his course "to look for what he was not sure to find," although he thought he was "not far from those islands discovered by Quiros in 1606."
On 26th march one of the marines committed suicide by drowning. It seems he had misappropriated a piece of sealskin, and his fellow-soldiers, indignant that such a thing should have been done by one of the cloth, made his life uncomfortable and threatened that he should be reported for theft. This was the fifth death since leaving England, and none by disease.