Page:Rambles in Australia (IA ramblesinaustral00grewiala).pdf/316

 water with a pair of field-glasses, and shouting to all, who were interested, to come and see what he had found. It was he who taught us how and where to look for, and what to call, the unfamiliar birds and sea beasts that we saw.

On the June days two hundred years ago on which Captain Cook cautiously essayed his dangerous journey in a rickety boat on uncharted seas, he often named the islands and headlands after days of the week or month. So it happens that one of the loveliest points on the voyage is known as "Whit-Sunday Passage," because it was on that day that Captain Cook navigated it.

Our fourth day out we reached Townsville early in the morning. Its absurd name is said to be due to the fact that the inhabitants wished to commemorate the benefactions of a fellow-citizen called Town, and did not know how to achieve their end less tautologically. We woke early to find ourselves in a beautiful land-locked bay, called Cleveland Bay by Captain Cook, who recorded that "the east point I named Cape Cleveland, and the west, which had the appearance of an island, Magnetical Isle, as we perceived that the compass did not traverse well when we were near it." "They are both high, and so is the mainland within them, the whole forming a surface the most rugged, rocky, and barren of