First Voyage Round the World | Page 6

most only one assistant, their accuracy is truly astonishing. The
originals of these surveys form part of the most precious possessions of
the Hydrographic Office of the Admiralty.
We now approach the crowning achievements of Cook's life.
After many years' neglect the exploration of the Pacific was awaking
interest. This great ocean, which very few, even to this day, realise
occupies nearly one half of the surface of the globe, had been, since the
first voyage of Magellan, crossed by many a vessel.
Notwithstanding, very little was known of the islands occupying its
central portion.
For this there were two reasons. First, the comparatively small area
covered by islands; secondly, the fact that nearly all who traversed it
had followed Magellan's track, or, if they started, as many did, from
Central America, they made straight for Magellan's discovery, the
Ladrone Islands. For this, again, there was a reason.
Few sailed for the purpose of exploration pure and simple; and even
those who started with that view found, when embarked on that vast
expanse, that prudence dictated that they should have a moderate
certainty of, by a certain time, falling in with a place of sure
refreshment. The provisions they carried were bad at starting, and by
the time they had fought their way through the Straits of Magellan were
already worse; water was limited, and would not hold out more than a
given number of days. Every voyage that is pursued tells the same
story--short of water, and eagerly looking out for an opportunity of
replenishing it. The winds were found to blow in fixed directions, and
each voyager was fearful of deviating from the track on which it was
known they would be fair, for fear of delays. And ever present in each
captain's mind was the dread of the terrible scourge, scurvy. Every
expedition suffered from it. Each hoped they would be exempt, and
each in turn was reduced to impotence from its effects.
It was the great consideration for every leader of a protracted
expedition, How can I obviate this paralyzing influence? And one after
another had to confess his failure.
It is yearly becoming more difficult for us to realise these obstacles.

The prevailing winds and currents in each part of the ocean are well
known to us: the exact distance and bearing from one point to another
are laid down in the chart; steam bridges over calm areas, and in many
cases conducts us on our entire journey at a speed but little inferior to
that of land travelling by railroad; modern science preserves fresh and
palatable food for an indefinite period; and, in a word, all the
difficulties and most of the dangers of long voyages have disappeared.
Take one element alone in long voyages--the time required. The
average progress of a ship in the eighteenth century was not more than
fifty miles a day. Nowadays we may expect as much as four hundred
miles in a full powered steamer, and not less than one hundred and fifty
in a well-fitted sailing ship.
But navigation, and more especially the navigation of the unknown
Pacific, was very different in Cook's days, when all the obstacles above
mentioned impeded the explorers, and impelled them to follow a
common track.
There were a few who had deviated from the common track.
The Spaniards, Mendana, Quiros, Torres, in the latter part of the
sixteenth century, starting first from their colonies in Peru, had
ventured along the central line of the Pacific, discovering the
Marquesas, certain small coral islands, the Northern New Hebrides, and
the Solomon Islands; but their voyages, mainly for fear of Drake and
his successors, were kept so secret that no one quite knew where these
islands lay.
Abel Tasman, in 1642, coming across the Indian Ocean from the
westward, had touched at Tasmania, or, as he called it, Van Diemen's
Land, had skirted the western coast of the north island of New Zealand
without landing, and had stretched away to the north-east, and found
the Tonga Group.
The English Buccaneers were not among these discoverers; Dampier,
Woods Rogers, and others, all went from Acapulco to the Ladrones,
looking out for the valuable Spanish galleons from Manila, and they
added little or nothing to the knowledge of the Pacific and what it
contained.
It was not therefore strange that the imagination of geographers ran riot
amongst the great unknown areas. They were impressed, as they looked
at the globes of the day, with the fact that, while the northern

hemisphere contained much land, the southern showed either water or
blank spaces; and starting with the ill-founded idea that the solid land
in either hemisphere should balance, they conceived that there must be
a great unknown continent in the southern part of the Pacific to make
up the deficiency.