n the forenoon, we anchored in the bay, (which is
called by the natives _Karakakooa_,) in thirteen fathoms water, over
a sandy bottom, and about a quarter of a mile from the N.E. shore.
In this situation, the S. point of the bay bore S. by W., and the
N. point W. 1/2 N. We moored with the stream-anchor and cable to the
northward, unbent the sails, and struck yards and top-masts. The ships
continued to be much crowded with natives, and were surrounded by a
multitude of canoes. I had no where, in the course of my voyage, seen
so numerous a body of people assembled at one place. For, besides
those who had come off to us in canoes, all the shore of the bay was
covered with spectators, and many hundreds were swimming round
the ships like shoals of fish. We could not but be struck with the
singularity of this scene; and perhaps there were few on board who
now lamented our having failed in our endeavours to find a northern
passage homeward last summer. To this disappointment we owed our
having it in our power to revisit the _Sandwich Islands_, and to
enrich our voyage with a discovery which, though the last, seemed, in
many respects, to be the most important that had hitherto been made by
Europeans, throughout the extent of the Pacific Ocean.[6]

[Footnote 6: Thus ends Captain Cook's journal of his proceedings, and
the visible satisfaction which pervades the concluding sentences, as
is noticed in the Biog. Brit., must strike the mind of every reader.
They indicate the high value which our navigator attached to this last
discovery, now so irrevocably, but so painfully, associated with the
honours of his name; whilst, in his unapprehending confidence, and the
wonted calmness of his style, we see the agency of that beneficent law
in our system, by which we are preserved ignorant of the evils that
every hour and moment of our time may bring over us. Nor ought we
to omit remarking as something peculiar, that Cook's allusion to the
present comfortable opinion and feelings of his associates on the
failure of their labours in the northern hemisphere, founded, no
doubt, on the general expression of satisfaction, serves as a material
aggravation, in the way of contrast, to our conceptions of their
subsequent distress and grief, under the calamity of his most
afflicting death.--E.]

CHAPTER V.

CAPTAIN KING'S JOURNAL OF THE TRANSACTIONS ON RETURNING TO THE
SANDWICH ISLANDS.[1]

SECTION I.

_Description of Karakakooa Bay.--