Page:The American encyclopedia of history, biography and travel (IA americanencyclop00blak).pdf/852

 ceeded to explore three or four islands in that locality, giving names to capes, headlands, rocks, etc. But this was not accomplished without considerable peril, on account of the strength of the currents. To one place he gave the name of Admiralty Bay, where he took in wood and filled his water-casks, and sailed again on the 31st March, intending to return home by way of the East Indies. On the 19th April they came in sight of New Holland (or New South Wales, as it is now called), and anchored in Botany Bay on the 28th, where they landed; but contrary to the will of two or three Indians, who attacked the English with their lances, but on the firing of muskets, fled. The voyagers left beads and trinkets in the huts of the natives, and during the time they remained at that place they were untouched. The inhabitants seemed utterly regardless of the ship, though they could never have seen such a spectacle before. Here they caught a fish called a string-ray, which, after the entrails were taken out, weighed 336 pounds.

Mr. Cook prosecuted his discoveries in New South Wales with zeal and energy over a tract of 1300 miles; but on the 10th June, near Trinity Bay, the Endeavour struck on a reef of coral rocks, and was compelled to start her water, throw her guns overboard, and use every mode to lighten the vessel; but with four pumps at work, they could not keep her free; and every soul, though struggling hard for life, yet prepared for that death which now appeared to be inevitable. Upon these rocks the ship remained for nearly forty-eight hours, her sheathing ripped off, and the very timbers nearly rubbed through: by great exertion, however, she was got afloat at high tide, and it was found that she made no more water than when aground; and the men, by working incessantly at the pumps, kept her afloat. At the suggestion of Mr. Monkhouse, a sail was fothered (that is, pieces of oakum and other light materials were slightly stitched to it), and being hauled under the ship's bottom, the loose pieces were sucked into the leaks, and in a great measure stopped the holes, so that they were enabled to keep the water in the hold under with only one pump. On the morning of the 17th, after running aground twice, they got into a convenient harbor for repairing their damages; and here, when the vessel was hove down, they found a large piece of rock in the ship's bottom, firmly jammed in the hole it had made, so as to exclude the sea, and which, if it had fallen out, must have proved fatal to all.

About this time the scurvy broke out amongst them, and attacked indiscriminately both officers and men; but the quantity of fish that was caught, allowing each man two pounds and a-half per day, together with turtle and herbs, somewhat checked its progress. Three of the turtle caught weighed together 791 pounds. The natives took but little notice of the voyagers at first, but afterwards became familiar; and on one occasion, when refused something which they wanted, one of them seized a fire-*brand, and going to windward of the place where the armorer was at work, set fire to the high grass, so that every part of the smith's forge that would burn was destroyed. A musket ball was fired at them, and they ran away. The fire was repeated in the woods shortly afterwards, but without injury, as the stores and powder that had been landed were already on board. The hills all round burned fiercely for several nights.

It must here be mentioned, that the injuries sustained by the vessel proved destructive to many valuable specimens that had been collected by