Captain Cook was naturally annoyed at and perplexed by these occurrences. In the course of the next night a boat was stolen from the Discovery, and Cook at once ordered a body of marines ashore, going with them himself, and taking a double-barrelled gun, one barrel loaded with small shot, and the other with a bullet. The other boats were ordered out to prevent any canoe from leaving the bay until the matter was settled. Arrived ashore, he marched up to the old king, who to every appearance had had no hand in the theft, nor had connived at it, for he promised to go on board with the captain, the latter intending to keep him as a hostage. The chief’s two sons were already in the pinnace, when his wife entreated him with tears not to go off to the ship. Two chiefs also, at this juncture, forcibly laid hold of the old man, and made him sit down on the beach. Cook [pg 319]saw from the general aspect of affairs, and the gathering thousands on the beach, that he must give up his idea, and proceeded slowly to the place of embarkation.
It appears that, while this was going on, some of the men on the boats stationed around the bay had fired on some escaping canoes, and worse, had killed a chief. The news arrived ashore just as Cook was leaving, and the natives immediately began to put on their war-mats, and arm themselves. One of them, carrying an iron dagger, which he brandished wildly, threatened Cook with a large stone, and the captain at last could stand his insolence no longer, and gave him a volley of small shot. This against the native’s thick war-mat was about as effective as shooting peas against a rhinoceros. Next came a volley of stones in return, while an attempt was made to stab a marine officer, who returned a heavy blow from the butt-end of his musket. A native crawled behind a canoe, and then aimed a spear at Cook, who soon gave them the contents of his other barrel, killing one of the assailants. In quick succession, volleys of stones were answered by a volley of musketry; four marines fell, and were speedily despatched. Cook now stood by the water’s edge, signalling the men to stop firing and get on board; but in the scuffle and confusion his orders were not understood. A lieutenant commanding one of the boats blundered, or worse, to the extent of taking his boat further off, so that the picking up of the wounded marines was thrown entirely on the pinnace, which had been brought in as near the shore as the master was able to come. Poor Cook was left alone on a rock, where he was seen trying to shield his head from the shower of stones with the one hand, while he still grasped his musket in the other. So soon as his back was turned, the natives attacked him, one clubbing him down, and another stabbing him in the neck. Again he dropped in the water knee-deep, looking earnestly out for help from the pinnace, not more than a few yards off. But the end was near. The savages got him under in deeper water. In his death-struggle he broke from them, and clung to the rock. In a second there was another blow, and the end had come. His body was dragged ashore and mutilated. After the fall of their commander, the survivors of the men escaped under cover of a fire kept up from the boats. But for Cook himself, one of the most humane of commanders, nothing seems to have been attempted in the hurry and excitement of the scuffle.
Cook’s body—or as much as remained of it—was subsequently recovered, and committed to the deep, the guns booming solemnly over the watery grave of one of England’s greatest explorers. While the rites were being performed, absolute unbroken silence was enjoined upon the natives ashore and afloat, nor was the water disturbed by the dip of a single paddle. Thus perished, at the early age of fifty-one, in a miserable scuffle with semi-savages, Captain James Cook, a navigator whose fame was and still remains world-wide.
Our space will only permit us to refer, briefly, to one other notable voyage, namely, that of Vancouver, whose first experiences were gained with Cook. The fame of this explorer rests very much upon his circumnavigation, towards the end of the eighteenth century, of the island which now bears his name. The actual discovery of the entrance to the straits between the island and mainland dates from the time of De Fuca; while Vancouver himself, in the following passage, admits a prior claim to its partial investigation. He says—“At four o’clock a sail was discovered to the westward standing in shore. This was [pg 320]a very great novelty, not having seen any vessel but our consort during the last eight months. She soon hoisted American colours, and fired a gun to leeward. At six we spoke her. She proved to be the ship Columbia, commanded by Mr. Robert Gray, belonging to Boston, from which port she had been absent nineteen months. Having little doubt of his being the same person who had formerly commanded the sloop Washington, I desired he would bring to, and sent Mr. Puget and Mr. Menzies on board to acquire such information as might be serviceable in our future operations.”
On the return of the boat, Vancouver found that his conjectures had not been ungrounded, and that Mr. Gray was the same gentleman who had commanded the sloop Washington at the time she had made a voyage behind the island. It was a little remarkable that on his approach to the entrance of this inland sea or strait, he should fall in with the identical person who, it had been stated, had sailed through it. Mr. Gray assured the officers, however, that he had penetrated only fifty miles into the straits in question in an ESE. direction; that he found the passage five leagues wide; and that he understood from the natives that the opening extended a considerable distance to the northward. He then returned to the ocean the same way he had entered it. This inlet he supposed to be the same De Fuca had discovered. The fact, however, remains that Vancouver most thoroughly explored the coasts of the island, and the inlets and shores of Puget Sound, Washington Territory, and British Columbia—countries which are slowly but surely taking their proper place in the world’s estimation.
END OF VOLUME III.
Footnotes
[1.] “The History of the Bucaniers of America.” This once celebrated work contains a number of the most reliable histories of the pirates and freebooters of the seventeenth century. [2.] The “piece of eight” means in value, as nearly as possible, the American dollar of to-day. [3.] This is the chronicler’s statement. He meant the cacao-nut. [4.] i.e., “Spiked,” as we say now-a-days. [5.] Wherever “religious men and women” are mentioned in these old records, the meaning is priests or monks, and nuns. [6.] The city site was almost immediately afterwards moved to a spot, four miles off, where the present Panama stands to-day. [7.] The account is derived from a French source, and although in all probability veracious in most points, cannot be implicitly believed. For this reason the author has not gone further into the most romantic story of this high-principled pirate. Misson is said to have later gone down with his vessel, while Caraccioli was killed in an affray with natives. [8.] The best known of which is “The Pilot,” in which he is the prominent character. [9.] Few readers will need reminding that the same Dr. Franklin was the celebrated philosopher. [10.] The narrative is derived from one of two most graphic letters by the author of “The Military Sketch-book.” [11.] “Heroes of the Arctic.” Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. [12.] These papers, with others, were published in a small work bearing the title, “The Possibility of Approaching the North Pole Asserted, &c.” [13.] De-lighted—i.e., deprived of light. [14.] “Under the Northern Lights.” By J. A. MacGahan. [15.] The entertainments were, we are informed by Captain Markham, termed the Thursday “Pops,” and popular they most undoubtedly were. [16.] Few readers will need to be reminded that on the Fahrenheit thermometer commonly used in England zero is expressed by 0, and that the freezing point of water is plus (+) 32°, or 32° above zero. The above temperatures are all minus (-), or below zero. Without remembering these facts, one can hardly appreciate the intense and almost unparalleled cold experienced by the late expedition. [17.] “Journals and Proceedings of the Arctic Expedition, 1875-6,” &c. (printed as a Parliamentary Blue-book). [18.] Mercury frequently froze during the writer’s stay on the Yukon, and other parts of Northern Alaska, in the winter of 1866-7. On one occasion the thermometer registered 58° below zero (90° below the freezing point of water). [19.] The recently-reported exploit of Professor Nordenskjold, of which we have at present the barest outlines, does not properly come under this category. It was in reality a successful voyage by the north-west passage, and must eventually find its place in these pages. [20.] Sir John Barrow: “Chronological History of Voyages into the Arctic Regions.” [21.] The full name of this navigator is Willem zoon Barents, or Barentz, i.e., William, the son of Barents. The abbreviated form, however, has always been adopted of late. [22.] Introduction to the Hakluyt Society’s edition of these voyages. [23.] A Dutch proverb, used when an undertaking turns out badly. The dog stole a sausage, and got well whipped for his pains. [24.] “Discoveries East of Spitzbergen,” &c. Paper read before the Royal Geographical Society by C. R. Markham, Esq., C.B., F.R.S., February 10th, 1873. [25.] A cubical or rectangular mass of ice will, floating in the sea, have about six times the depth under water that it has height above. But it will be evident that this will not apply to irregular-shaped masses, which may have very solid bases, rising above in lighter pinnacles or other fantastic forms. The brother of the writer has seen on the Greenland coast icebergs 90 to 100 feet out of the water, grounded at 100 fathoms (600 feet). [26.] “Journey from Prince of Wales’s Fort in Hudson’s Bay to the Northern Ocean.” [27.] In several of the older Arctic works glaciers and icebergs are confounded. The fact is that the latter, or at all events the larger number of the latter, are born of the former. They are masses of ice which have become detached at the sea end and have floated away. [28.] The writer has visited many parts of Russian-America, or, as it is now called, Alaska, a little south of the above point. The natives as a rule live underground in winter, but they have for summer use board and log houses on the surface, and stages above and around them of all kinds, some for drying fish, others for raising sledges or canoes above the surface of the ground, &c. [29.] There is none growing, but a wreck or piece of drift-wood occasionally supplies their need. The writer was in Behring Sea in the autumn of the year 1865, when the famed and dreaded privateer Shenandoah burned thirty American whale-ships, and the natives had then a considerable amount of wreckage, including complete boats, which had come ashore. Vide the author’s work, “Travel and Adventure in the Territory of Alaska,” &c. [30.] In the summer of 1843 Middendorf explored the coasts and neighbourhood of Cape Taimyr, and looking seawards to the Polar Ocean, saw open water. [31.] The writer has spelt the word phonetically. It is impossible to render more than the sound of a Russian word in English, and any attempt to Anglicise the Russian spelling must end in failure, as there are thirty-six letters in that language. But from intercourse with educated Russians in Kamchatka during two visits in 1865 and 1866, he knows that his mode more nearly represents the sound than the versions commonly adopted, one of which may be noted above in the quotation from Müller, where the English translator has made the word Kamtschatka. [32.] We read little of these animals afterwards in Parry’s narrative, and they were not, and could not be, of service in the perilous and harassing journey, over broken and detached sea ice, about to be described. [33.] “Phipps’s Voyage towards the North Pole.” [34.] Sir John Franklin’s first wife died on the day after the departure of the expedition from England. [35.] It is not desirable here to enter into the detailed consideration of who first discovered the North-west Passage. When Franklin sailed in 1845 there was but a comparatively small gap between Parry’s furthest western point (Melville Island) and Back’s Great Fish River, unexplored, and Franklin did undoubtedly complete this missing link. M’Clure, as we shall afterwards see, made the passage successfully and independently, and his discoveries were published long before the world knew anything of Franklin’s fate or the extent of his last voyage. The late Sir Roderick Murchison considered Franklin “the first real discoverer of the North-west Passage,” and the inscription on his monument bears witness to the same effect. [36.] It will have been observed that Captain Collinson, who was to have accompanied M’Clure, was never able to communicate with him. This vessel, however, passed some time in the Arctic waters, and some pieces of wreck purchased by him from the Esquimaux, and supposed to have been parts of Franklin’s vessels, the Erebus and Terror, were the only relics which were ever obtained by any naval commander acting under Government orders. Captain Parry’s discoveries, however interesting in regard to the early progress of the expedition, threw no light on its fate. [37.] Although there is some variation in the mode of preparing this comestible, it is essentially always the same: lean meat, dried and cut into shreds, which is then pounded up and mixed with melted beef fat, and pressed into cases. Among the Indians, who have not this latter resource of civilisation, gut and skins are employed, and their pemmican is not, therefore, unlike a rather substantial and solid sausage. [38.] Conjecture is perhaps wrong at this point, but the painful thought has often occurred to the writer that the Esquimaux, not always quite so innocent as some writers would have us believe, were the murderers of some at least of the enfeebled party. Broken down by starvation, and exhausted by painful travel, they would be an easy prey to the hardy natives, whose cupidity might be excited by the many useful articles they possessed. We have before seen how Franklin was nearly involved in a serious fracas with those people, and in later days it is on record that Dr. Hayes, the American explorer, discovered a plot for the destruction of his party. [39.] There are slight discrepancies in the above records, which, however, can be readily understood were made in the hurry and excitement of the moment. [40.] No part of the skull of either skeleton was found, with the exception only of the lower jaw of each. [41.] “Arctic Explorations in the Years 1853, ’54, ’55,” by Elisha Kent Kane, M.D., U.S.N. [42.] “Summer in the Antarctic Regions.” [43.] The word Arctic is derived from the Greek, and signifies of, or belonging to the bear. [44.] Captain Dumont D’Urville commanded an expedition dispatched by France in 1837 for the express purpose of exploring the Antarctic, and Lieutenant Wilkes, U.S.N. had a similar commission the same year. Wilkes and D’Urville sighted each other’s vessels on one occasion, but through a mistake did not communicate. [45.] Don Cristoval Colon. The port now generally termed Aspinwall, on the Atlantic side of the Isthmus of Panama, was long, and is sometimes nowadays known as Colon. [46.] Translation of the history by Don Ferdinand Columbus in Churchill’s Collection of Voyages and Travels. [47.] They had been seventy days on the passage from Spain. [48.] “Land-lubber” about expresses this term. [49.] “History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.” [50.] It must be remembered that it was the received opinion of the good Roman Catholics of the period, that heathen nations were outside the pale of spiritual and civil rights, and that their bodies were the property of their conquerors. Even Columbus recommended an exchange of native slaves for the commodities required in the colony; representing, moreover, that their conversion would be the more surely effected in slavery! Vide Prescott’s “History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.” [51.] Calicut, in the district of Malabar, must not be confounded with Calcutta. Calico derives its name from Calicut, once a famous manufacturing city. [52.] “The Voyages and Discoveries of the Companions of Columbus.” [53.] The Straits of Magellan are nearly 300 miles in length, and vary in breadth from one and a half to thirty-three miles. The rocky cliffs and mountains which bound it are in some places 3,000 to 4,000 feet in height. The passage has only been used extensively since the steamship era. Now it is a common highway for steamships and some sailing vessels, the latter being often towed through by steam tugs. [54.] First discovered by Tasman in 1642.