Page:Captain Cook's Journal during His First Voyage Round the World.djvu/17

Rh the insertion of the daily record of wind, weather, and position of the ship. These in the original are on the left hand page in log form. To save space they have been placed at the end of every day's transactions.

The eccentricities in the spelling have been preserved. A good many of these would seem to be due to Mr. Orton, the transcriber, as Cook's own letters are generally correct in their orthography. The use of the capital letter was usual at the time.

References will be found to sketches and plans which have not been reproduced.

Cook's knack of finding names for localities was peculiarly happy. Those who have had to do this, know the difficulty. Wherever he was able to ascertain the native name, he adopts it; but in the many cases where this was impossible, he manages to find a descriptive and distinctive appellation for each point, bay, or island.

He seems to have kept these names very much to himself, as it is seldom the officers' logs know anything of them; and original plans, still in existence, in many cases bear different names to those finally pitched upon.

Cook's names have rarely been altered, and New Zealand and Australian places will probably for all time bear those which he bestowed.

In the orthography of his native names he was not so successful. The constant addition of a redundant "o" has altered many native sounds, such as Otaheite for Tahiti, Ohwhyhee for Hawaii; while his spelling generally has been superseded by more simple forms. This is a matter, however, in which great difficulties are found to the present day by Englishmen, whose language presents no certain laws for rendering any given sound into a fixed combination of letters.

Cook's language is unvarnished and plain, as a sailor's should be. His incidents, though often related with circumstance, are without exaggeration; indeed if any fault is