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AN IPAH, OR MAORI FORT, ON THE COAST BETWEEN POVERTY
BAY AND CAPE TURNAGAIN. From an engraving in the Atlas to Cook's first Voyage. |
The New Year of 1770 found Cook off Cape Maria van Diemen, sailing south along the western coast of the North Island, till the Endeavour was anchored in Ship Cove, Queen Charlotte's Sound, only about seventy miles from the spot where Tasman first sighted land.
Here the English explorer landed. The country was thickly wooded, but he climbed a hill, and away to the eastward he saw that the seas washing both east and west coasts of the northern island were united. He had solved one problem. Tasman's Staaten Land was not part of a great southern continent. He now resolved to push through his newly discovered straits between the two islands, and, having done this, he sailed north till he reached Cape Turnagain. And so he proved beyond a doubt that this was an island. The men thought they had done enough. But Cook, with the true instinct of an explorer, turned a deaf ear to the murmurings of his crew for roast beef and Old England, and directed his course again south. From the natives he had learned of the existence of two islands, and he must needs sail round the southern as he had sailed round the northern isle. Storms and gales harassed the navigators through the month of February as they made their way slowly southwards. Indeed, they had a very narrow escape from death towards the end of the month, when in a two days' gale, with heavy squalls of rain, their foresail was split to pieces and they lost sight of land for seven days, nearly running on to submerged rocks which Cook named The Traps.
It was nearly dark on 14th March when they entered a bay which they suitably christened Dusky Bay, from which they sailed to Cascade Point, named from the four streams that fell over its face.
"No country upon earth," remarks Cook, "can appear with a more rugged and barren aspect than this does from the sea, for, as far inland as the eye can reach, nothing is to be seen but the summit of these rocky mountains." At last on 24th March they rounded the north point of the South Island. Before them lay the familiar waters of Massacre Bay, Tasman Bay, and Queen Charlotte Sound.
"As we have now circumnavigated the whole of this country, it is time for me to think of quitting it," Cook remarks simply enough.
Running into Admiralty Bay, the Endeavour was repaired for her coming voyage home. Her sails, "ill-provided from the first," says Banks, "were now worn and damaged by the rough work they had gone through, particularly on the coast of New Zealand, and they gave no little trouble to get into order again."
While Banks searched for insects and plants, Cook sat writing up his Journal of the circumnavigation. He loyally gives Tasman the honour of the first discovery, but clearly shows his error in supposing it to be part of the great southern land.