During all this arduous experience of seamanship, sometimes involved in
sheets of snow, and in mists so dark that a man on the forecastle could
not be seen from the quarter-deck, it was astonishing that the crew of
the Resolution should continue in perfect health. Nothing can redound
more to the honour of Captain Cook than his paying particular attention
to the preservation of health among his company. By observing the
strictest discipline from the highest to the lowest, his commands were
duly observed and punctually executed.

After a lengthened stay with the New Zealanders, and all hopes of
discovering a continent having now vanished, we were induced to believe
that there is no southern continent between New Zealand and America,
and, steering clear the island, we made our way to Otaheite, where the
Resolution lost her lower anchor in the bay. Excursions were made
inland, and King Otoo, a personable man, six feet in height, and about
thirty years of age, treated the party with great entertainment.

On January 30, 1774, we sailed from New Zealand, and reaching latitude
67 deg. 5' S., we found an immense field of ice with ninety-seven ice-hills
glistening white in the distance. Captain Cook says: "I will not say it
was impossible anywhere to get further to the south, but the attempting
it would have been a dangerous and rash enterprise, and what I believe
no man in any situation would have thought of."

We therefore sailed northward again, meeting with heavy storms, and the
captain, being taken ill with a colic, and in the extremity of the case,
the doctor fed him with the flesh of a favourite dog.

On the discovery of Palmerston Island--named after one of the Lords of
the Admiralty--and Savage Island, as appropriate to the character of the
natives, we had some adventures with the Mallicos, who express their
admiration by hissing like a goose.

We stayed some time in Tanna, with its volcano furiously burning, and
then steering south-west, we discovered an uninhabited island, which
Captain Cook named Norfolk Island, in honour of the noble family of
Howard. We reached the Straits of Magalhaes, and, going north, the
captain gave the names of Cumberland Bay and the Isle of Georgia, and
then we found a land ice-bound and inhospitable. At last we reached
home, landing at Portsmouth on July 30, 1775.

_III.--The Pacific Isles and the Arctic Circle_

Former navigators had returned to Europe by the Cape of Good Hope; th