present in each captain's mind was the dread of
the terrible scourge, scurvy. Every expedition suffered from it. Each
hoped they would be exempt, and each in turn was reduced to impotence
from its effects.

It was the great consideration for every leader of a protracted
expedition, How can I obviate this paralyzing influence? And one after
another had to confess his failure.

It is yearly becoming more difficult for us to realise these obstacles.

The prevailing winds and currents in each part of the ocean are well
known to us: the exact distance and bearing from one point to another are
laid down in the chart; steam bridges over calm areas, and in many cases
conducts us on our entire journey at a speed but little inferior to that
of land travelling by railroad; modern science preserves fresh and
palatable food for an indefinite period; and, in a word, all the
difficulties and most of the dangers of long voyages have disappeared.

Take one element alone in long voyages--the time required. The average
progress of a ship in the eighteenth century was not more than fifty
miles a day. Nowadays we may expect as much as four hundred miles in a
full powered steamer, and not less than one hundred and fifty in a
well-fitted sailing ship.

But navigation, and more especially the navigation of the unknown
Pacific, was very different in Cook's days, when all the obstacles above
mentioned impeded the explorers, and impelled them to follow a common
track.

There were a few who had deviated from the common track.

The Spaniards, Mendana, Quiros, Torres, in the latter part of the
sixteenth century, starting first from their colonies in Peru, had
ventured along the central line of the Pacific, discovering the
Marquesas, certain small coral islands, the Northern New Hebrides, and
the Solomon Islands; but their voyages, mainly for fear of Drake and his
successors, were kept so secret that no one quite knew where these
islands lay.

Abel Tasman, in 1642, coming across the Indian Ocean from the westward,
had touched at Tasmania, or, as he called it, Van Diemen's Land, had
skirted the western coast of the north island of New Zealand without
landing, and had stretched away to the north-east, and found the Tonga
Group.

The English Buccaneers were not among these discoverers; Dampier, Woods
Rogers, and others, all went from Acapulco to the Ladrones, looking out
for the valuable Spanish galleons from
Manila, and they added little or