e
arduous task was now assigned to Captain Cook of attempting it by
reaching the high northern latitudes between Asia and America. He was
then ordered to proceed to Otaheite, or the Society Islands, and then,
having crossed the Equator into the northern tropics, to hold such a
course as might best probably give success to the attempt of finding out
a northern passage.

On the afternoon of July 11, 1776, Captain Cook set sail from Plymouth
in the Resolution, giving orders to Captain Clerke to follow in the
Discovery. After a short stay at Santa Cruz, in the island of Teneriffe,
we were joined by the Discovery at Cape Town.

Leaving the Cape, we passed some islands, which Captain Cook named
Princes Islands, and made for the land discovered by M. de Kerguelen.
Here, in a bay, we celebrated Christmas rejoicings amid desolate
surroundings. The captain named it Christmas Harbour, and wrote on the
other side of a piece of parchment, found in a bottle, these words:
_Naves Resolution et Discovery de Rege Magnae Britanniae Decembris 1776_,
and buried the same beneath a pile of stones, waving above it the
British flag.

Having failed to see a human being on shore, he sailed to Van Diemen's
Land, and took the ships into Adventure Bay for water and wood. The
natives, with whom we were conversant, seemed mild and cheerful, with
little of that savage appearance common to people in their situation,
nor did they discover the least reserve or jealousy in their intercourse
with strangers.

On our landing at Annamooka, in the Friendly Islands, we were
entertained with great civility by Toobou, the chief, who gave us much
amusement by a sort of pantomime, in which some prizefighters
displayed their feats of arms, and this part of the drama concluded with
the presentation of some laughable story which produced among the chiefs
and their attendants the most immoderate mirth. This friendly reception
was also repeated in the island of Hapaee, where Captain Cook ordered an
exhibition of fireworks, and in return the king, Feenou, gave us an
exhibition of dances in which twenty women entered a circle, whose hands
were adorned with garlands of crimson flowers, and many of their persons
were decorated with leaves of trees, curiously scalloped, and ornamented
at the edges. In the island of Matavai it is impossible to give an
adequate idea of the joy of the natives on our arrival. The shores
everywhere resounded with the name of Cook; not a child