He now sailed to the west, and anchored, on the 8th of October, at Batavia, in Java. Here he laid up the ship for repairs. "What anxieties we had escaped," he writes, "in our ignorance that a large portion of the keel had been diminished to the thickness of the under leather of a shoe!" But the ship's company, which had been so wonderfully preserved from the perils of the sea, were destined to undergo the rude attacks of disease upon land. Markhouse, the surgeon, Tupia and Tayeto, the Tahitians, and four sailors, were rapidly carried off by fever. On the 27th of December, the ship weighed anchor, the sick-list including forty names. Before doubling the Cape of Good Hope, she lost Sporing, one of the assistant naturalists, Parkinson, the artist, Green, the astronomer, Molineux, the master, besides the second lieutenant, four carpenters, and ten sailors. Cook was forced to wait a month at the Cape; and on the 12th of July, 1771, he cast anchor in the Downs, after a cruise of three eventful years. His crew was decimated and his ship no longer sea-worthy. The skill and enterprise displayed by Cook, and the important results attained by the voyage, induced the Government to raise him to the rank of commander. We shall follow him upon his second voyage, in the next chapter.
CAPE PIGEON.
COOK'S SHIP BESET BY WATER-SPOUTS.
CHAPTER XLIV.
COOK'S SECOND VOYAGE—A STORM—SEPARATION OF THE SHIPS—AURORA AUSTRALIS—NEW ZEALAND—SIX WATER-SPOUTS AT ONCE—TAHITI AGAIN—PETTY THEFTS OF THE NATIVES—COOK VISITS THE TAHITIAN THEATRE—OMAI—ARRIVAL AT THE FRIENDLY ISLANDS—THE FLEET WITNESS A FEAST OF HUMAN FLESH—THE NEW HEBRIDES—NEW CALEDONIA—RETURN HOME—HONORS BESTOWED UPON COOK.
The English Government now determined to despatch an expedition in search of the supposed Southern or Austral continent. A Frenchman, by the name of Benoit, had seen in 1709, to the south of the Cape of Good Hope, in latitude 54° and in longitude 11° East, what he believed to be land, naming it Cape Circumcision. Cook was placed in command of the Resolution and Adventure, and instructed to endeavor to find this cape and satisfy himself whether it formed part of the great continent in question. He left Plymouth on the 13th of July, 1772, and the Cape of Good Hope on the 22d of November.