The Sir Joseph Banks Memorial
The Endeavour Journal
of Joseph Banks
in Two Volumes
Volume I
Joseph Banks
from the painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds
The
of
Joseph Banks
1768–1771
EndeavourJournalof
Joseph Banks
1768–1771
Edited by
J. C. Beaglehole
Volume I
The Trustees of
the Public Library of New South Wales
in Association with Angus and Robertson
the Public Library of New South Wales
in Association with Angus and Robertson
First published in 1962
Angus & Robertson Ltd
89 Castlereagh Street, Sydney
54–58 Bartholomew Close, London
66 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne
168 Willis Street, Wellington
Copyright
Set in Monotype Baskerville 11 point
Text printed on Burnie Mill Antique Wove
Illustrations printed by
L. Van Leer and Co., N.V., Amsterdam
Text printed on Burnie Mill Antique Wove
Illustrations printed by
L. Van Leer and Co., N.V., Amsterdam
Printed in Australia by Halstead Press, Sydney
Foreword
The Sir Joseph Banks Memorial
The Sir Joseph Banks Memorial
This book is published by the Trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales as the first part of the State's memorial to Sir Joseph Banks. It contains the journal of the voyage with Captain James Cook in the Endeavour, which in April 1770 brought Banks to the eastern shores of Australia.
The Sir Joseph Banks Memorial had its origin in a public meeting held in Sydney on 25th May 1905, under the inspiration of J. H. Maiden, F.R.S. (1859–1925), one of Australia's foremost botanists. The appointment of an executive committee of ten with Sir Francis Suitor as president and Maiden as honorary secretary followed. A fund was subsequently raised, partly by public subscription but mainly by the sale of Maiden's book, Sir Joseph Banks: The “Father of Australia”, which was published in 1909.
The executive committee generally favoured a memorial in the form of a statue and in addition, if funds were sufficient, a university scholarship. However, in 1937 upon the death of Sir Daniel Levy, its last surviving member, the committee ceased to exist. Six years later, when the fund had increased to £1,089 1,089 15s 9d, the Parliament of New South Wales passed the Sir Joseph Banks Memorial Fund Act, 1943, which established a Trust to ‘consider how the fund may be utilized for the purpose of providing a suitable and fitting memorial to perpetuate the memory and services of Sir Joseph Banks’. K. R. Cramp, O.B.E., was chairman of the Trust.
Upon the presentation of the Trust's report, including a minority report, a further Act was passed, the Sir Joseph Banks Memorial Act, 1945, which repealed the Act of 1943 and vested the fund in the Trustees of the Public Library of New South Wales, upon trust, ‘to apply the same in or towards defraying the cost of editing, publishing and distributing the Banks Papers in a manner and form suitable and fitting to the memory and services of Sir Joseph Banks’. On 8th March, 1946, when the fund was transferred to the Trustees, it amounted to £3,941 14s 3d, including a Government grant of £2,000 and a gift of £500 by Mr E. J. L. (now Sir Edward) Hallstrom.
The Trustees immediately began their primary task of finding an editor with the necessary high qualifications. After a comprehensive survey of the relevant field of scholarship they invited
Arrangements were then made through the Prime Minister of New Zealand with the result that Victoria University College (now Victoria University of Wellington), generously permitted Dr Beaglehole, as Senior Research Fellow, to undertake the work as part of his normal duties. The Trustees here record their warm thanks to the Government of New Zealand, to the Council of Victoria University College, and to its Principal at that time, the late Sir Thomas Hunter, for their part in enabling Dr Beaglehole thus to act; and they particularly express their appreciation to Dr Beaglehole himself for his determination to make the memorial a worthy one.
The Trustees propose, as time and funds permit, to add to the Sir Joseph Banks Memorial by the publication of further volumes of the Banks Papers, many of which, like his original journal here reproduced, are in their possession.
H. V. Evatt
President of the Trustees
G. D. Richardson
Principal Librarian and Secretary
Preface
The aim of this volume is, primarily, to print the text of Banks's Endeavour journal as carefully edited and annotated as seems adequate to its importance. There is, however, supplementary material. From the great mass of Banks papers that exists in the Mitchell Library and other depositories in Australia and England, a number intimately connected with Banks's part in the voyage are important enough, it is thought, for inclusion as appendices. To these have been added certain other papers, relevant to Banks's refusal to sail on Cook's second voyage. Between about half and three quarters only of the journal has been printed before, and only a very few pages of the appendices; and what has been printed has appeared with various degrees of inaccuracy, whether of deliberate purpose or through carelessness.
An introduction, of some sort, to the journal seemed necessary, to give the reader his bearings. The precise form to be taken by it was not, however, immediately apparent; for the present editor had already dealt at length with the voyage of the Endeavour in an introduction to Cook's own journal;The Journals of Captain James Cook, Vol. I, Cambridge University Press for the Hakluyt Society, 1955.
The draft of such an essay, based on the usual secondary sources, although supplemented by the Mitchell Library papers, showed only too clearly the lacunae, the dubieties, and the lack of documentation in the brief biographies that are all that have been vouchsafed to Banks; and much work on manuscript and other material previously used, as well as on the unused, was necessary before any satisfactory story could be told. It is hoped that the essay now printed, tied down as firmly as possible to verifiable references, will not merely do what was first planned for it, but will provide the beginnings of a much-needed new approach to a biographical subject as complex as it is rich. The reader will find a good deal of quotation incorporated, both in the text and in the footnotes. If he
The papers to which I have had access, apart from the great collection in the Mitchell Library, are widely scattered. By gracious permission of Her Majesty the Queen, I have been enabled to use, and to quote from, the Georgian Papers preserved in the Royal Library at Windsor. I am deeply indebted to the owners of other collections, who so immediately and so generously gave me the freedom of them. For such freedom my thanks go to Viscount Hinchingbrooke, M.P.; Lord Brabourne; Sir David Hawley and Dr J. W. F. Hill of Lincoln;
In the work of annotation I owe further debts. The principal of these, in fields quite beyond my competence—those of natural history—are due to Endeavour voyage, the proper presentation of the journal would have been out of the question. So far as this work is one of scientific interpretation, it is also one of large collaboration, and I am happy to make the fact clear. Dr Lysaght has also been good enough to co-ordinate a great number of suggestions from zoological specialists at the British
In the fields of linguistics, ethnology and history I have received assistance from Sir Richard Winstedt, F.B.A., Professor C. R. Boxer, of King's College, London, the late
The attention I have paid to the English sources—both in the
Finally I must thank my own University. New Zealand universities are not so well-endowed financially that one of them can easily support a member of its staff whose time is almost entirely devoted to research and publication. I am very conscious of the episode in university history that led to this result in my case, and of my good fortune in my College—as it was for the greater part of the time I have worked on these volumes—and my colleagues. To say more could lead only to cumbrous explanation; to say less would be to do less than justice both to my academic home and to my sense of gratitude.
J. C. Beaglehole
Victoria University of Wellington
October 1959
Contents
The Journal
List of Illustrations
Volume I
Volume I
Note
All the illustrations of the journal are taken from drawings—water colour, wash, pen or pencil—by Sydney Parkinson, unless otherwise specified. Most of the originals, when unsigned, can be attributed with a fair amount of confidence.
The topographical and ethnographical drawings are preserved in the
The botanical and zoological drawings are in the British Museum (Natural History), South Kensington, bound up in volumes, 18 in the Botanical Library, 3 in the Zoological Library. Of the botanical volumes there are the following: Madeira 1, Brazil 1, Tierra del Fuego 1, Mammalia. Aves. Amphibia, 2 Pisces, 3 Insecta, Vermes. But there are fish in the first volume. The birds have been fully described in Some Eighteenth Century Bird Paintings in the Library of Sir Joseph Banks (British Museum [Natural History] Bulletin, Hist. Series, Vol. I, No. 6, London 1959).
During the earlier part of the voyage Parkinson, by working extremely hard, was able to finish his coloured drawings of plants, though not of zoological subjects; and some of both sorts are quite exquisite. By the time the New Zealand collections came on board, however, he could not keep up, and on the Australian coast he was overwhelmed. He was, it must be remembered, acting also as topographical draughtsman, mainly in wash, and doing the best he could for the figure. Some of his figure drawings, of course, are appallingly amateurish, though they have considerable value outside the artistic; but he could also rise to his Maori heads. The plan he adopted with the plants was to make pencil outlines, add a little colour to indicate the key, and make notes on the back for his guidance in finishing the work later. An example of this is Pl. 16a in Vol. II, Crepis novae-zelandiae. He sometimes was able to make a second, finished drawing himself, but not often. In the end it was Banks's other botanical draughtsmen,
Captions to the plates, where the subjects are botanical or zoological, give the accepted modern scientific names, with the popular or native ones, when known. The other captions follow those of the originals; if it has been necessary to supply one, it has been placed within square brackets. The notes give the source of the individual plate, and whatever information about it seems useful or relevant. Apart from Parkinson and Banks, it is not always easy to identify the writers of notes on the back or the mounts of drawings, though with the differing botanical names one may certainly suspect both
The plates are arranged in roughly chronological order, except for the botanical ones, which form a sort of unity. Departures from either rule are made to avoid oddities in presentation.
The small drawings reproduced in the text, but not listed here, are from Banks's own illustrations in the manuscript.
The sketch-maps have been drawn by Miss Valerie Scott and Mr Bruce Irwin. By kind permission of the President and Council of the Journals of Captain James Cook.
Colour Plates
Illustrations to the Introduction
Plates at the end of the Volume
Abbreviations Used in Notes to the Introduction
Introduction
The Young Banks
The Young Banks
What shall we call the eighteenth century? How often, and how vainly, has it been summarized in a phrase! — stuffed into a single garment, as it were, from which it bursts at every seam, its uncontrollable, magnificent, startling life forcing itself upon the eye of the beholder in lavish and indecent contradiction. It was an Age, there seems no doubt of that — the Age of the Despots, of Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, of Oratory, of Gin, the Mercantilist Age, the Age of the Augustans, the Age of Rococo, the Age of Johnson. There can be no harm, thinking of England, to which Johnson so immediately and forthrightly brings us, in conferring another name, no more nor less adequate: let us call those busy decades — or a sufficient selection of them — the Age of the Gentleman Amateur. For the century was, in so much of its activity, pre-professional. One must not say merely dilettante: that would be unjust. In the first place, the word has subtly changed its meaning; in the second, though the dilettante throve, never did he have a choicer field for his activity; never did dilettantism become, as with
Science, above all, apart from politics, it is that comes to the aid of a generalization that may often seem to totter dangerously: there is so much that rushes forth as contrary evidence in literature and art and architecture, in theology and even in prize-fighting. Science had not been organized, Science was not at all professional and most imperfectly academic; Science, as we know it today, was almost at the beginning of things; and yet Science was popular. The educated classes of England, as of France, made it a cult; that most unscientific figure Dr Johnson was throughout his life given to ‘chemical experiments’. True, in the mid-century it was long since Principia had begun to send its ceaseless eddies through the European mind; true, by 1760 the
So, on the scene of our scrutiny, into this busy age, steps the figure of
Joseph Banks came from that enviable class the landed gentry; close enough to the land to draw common sense from it, and with enough of it to draw from it also a handsome revenue; with brains enough, indeed, unlike some country gentry, to repay education, and with wealth more than enough to allow of a town as well as country existence, and of a standing in society which no mere rural squire could claim. The family was a Lincolnshire one; its seat was Revesby Abbey, not far from Boston; as the fens were drained its wealth increased, and intelligent management made its standing still greater. For the outline of Banks's ancestry here given, I have relied on his own notes, now in the possession of There has been a little confusion, to which Banks himself unwittingly contributed, over the date of his birth. In the latest life, Letters and Pabers of the Banks Family of Revesby Abbey 1704–1760, Lincoln Record Society, Vol. 45 (Lincoln 1952).Sir Joseph Banks (London 1952), p. I, n., the date is given as ‘February 2nd, 1743 O.S.’ and Cameron adds, ‘Lord Brougham, in giving the correct date and place, tells us that he has it “from a note in his own hand which lies before me”. This note may possibly be one of the memoranda now in the possession of
We know little enough of the earliest years of Joseph. Presumably they were largely spent at Revesby, where fresh air, the open fields, and plentiful play laid the foundations of a remarkably tough constitution, and private tutoring gave him sufficient educational grounding to take him to Harrow, in April 1752, at the age of nine. Thence, either to get the best of both worlds, or because of invincible opposition to learning in the Harrovian atmosphere — for, to quote his later friend, Henry Brougham, ‘Joe cared mighty little for his book’ — he was in September 1756 removed to Eton. A pleasant good-tempered boy he continued to be, but it was with extreme satisfaction that his tutor found him one day, at the age of fourteen, reading and not sporting in his hours of leisure. He was not, however, we may judge, reading in the classics; Joseph always trod a perilous path in the learned languages — if in a rash moment he ventured into that country at all. Something more important had happened: he had undergone a sort of conversion. He gave his own account of this, late in his life, to Sir Everard Home the surgeon, who transmitted it to posterity. In his Hunterian oration, 1822; reprinted by Cameron, Appendix D, particularly pp. 297–8. Brougham, hortus siccus of the one, and forming a cabinet of the other. As often as Banks could induce [my father] to quit his task in reading or in verse-making, he would take him on his long rambles; and I suppose it was from this early taste that we had at Brougham so many butterflies, beetles, and other insects, as well as a cabinet of shells and fossils’.Lives of Men of Letters and Science in the Reign of George III, II (London 1846), p. 340.
In 1760 he went home from school to be inoculated against smallpox. The time taken by this was so great that when he had recovered it was thought his next step might well be not back to Eton but forward to Oxford — which, though not, quite obviously, his spiritual home, was at least a home for gentlemen; and he was accordingly at the end of the year entered at Christ Church as a gentleman commoner. He matriculated 16 December 1760. ibid., p. 341.
Meanwhile — the Banksian chronology in these early years is not very distinct, but here at least we have another certain date — William Banks died unexpectedly, of ‘the breaking of an Imposthume in his Breast’, and was buried at Revesby on 1 October 1761. Dawson MS 47, f.51. Brougham, II, p. 342 This story appears in the General Evening Post, 7 January 1772, in a rather different form, wherein the incident is said to have happened ‘Iately’—Banks having become a subject for gossip.
Banks entered into his inheritance in February 1764. To the expansion of mind consequent on that event we may perhaps attribute his summary way of reorganizing university teaching, for it was in July of that year that Lyons gave his Oxford course of lectures. According to the Christ Church battel books Banks was in regular residence from his matriculation data until the end of the Michaelmas quarter 1763; he then became irregular, but was still in residence, though with some breaks, for 21 weeks in 1764. He was charged for the last week of the term beginning Lady Day 1765—perhaps merely for college dues—and for four weeks of the Midsummer term 1765. His name remained on the battel books until 1766 but with no evidence that he was in residence after the single month in 1765. He never troubled to take a degree.—I am indebted for these particulars to the Deputy Librarian of Christ Church, Mr W. G. Hiscock. The dates cast a little light on the year of In a letter first published in Swedish (Literary Anecdotes, II (1812), p. 328, says he was brought to Oxford by Banks ‘about 1762 or 1763, to read lectures, which he did with great applause, to at least sixty pupils’, but in giving July 1764. I follow the definite statement of Cooper, Annals of Cambridge, iv (Cambridge 1852), p. 381. Banks was then a senior man and his own master.British Zoology of 1766); and with Upfostrings-Salskapets Tidningar, No. 14 [21 February 1785], pp. 105–10), and later in German (‘Ueber Solander’, Berlinische Monats-schrift, 6 [1785], pp. 240–9). This letter gave Banks's recollections of Solander. I owe my knowledge of it to
Even while it elected him, Joseph was at sea. Other men might cross the Channel, and take by coach the well-worn road to Paris, Lyons, Venice, Rome; other men might call on The original manuscript of the journal that Banks kept on this voyage is now in Adelaide, in the possession of the South Australian branch of the Royal Geographical Society. I have used a careful copy made by virtuosi. But Banks was an original. He would go to NigerEndeavour sailed from Plymouth (his grandson kept the dining table as a relic), but neither of them mentions such a meeting. Solander wrote to Ellis, 25 August 1768, ‘When you see Dr. A Selection of the Correspondence of Linnaeus, and other Naturalists, from the Original Manuscripts (London 1821), II, p. 11. I hereafter cite this work as J. E. S. For Cookworthy see D.N.B. and Relics of William Cookworthy (London 1853).
The Journal, 16 June. Marginal note by S. S. B., Journal, p. 42, ‘believe ‘when mere accident preserved my Life’, he wrote. Niger sailed from
Dear Sister I received yours two days ago with newspapers &c: &c: which I must thank you all for as I can assure you they were the greatest Comfort you can Conceive — we all sat round the Fire & hunted out all the deaths marriages &c: &c: as eagerly as a schoolboy does Plumbs out of a Pudding
How do you think I have spent my Leisure Time since I have been here Very Musically I can assure you I have learnt to Play upon a new Instrument as I have Forswore the Flute I have tried my hand upon strings what do you think it is now not a fiddle I can assure you but a Poor innocent Guittar which Lay in the Cabbin on which I can play Lady Coventries minuet & in Infancy &c: with Great success
Pray My Love to Coz Bate & tell her that she & I differ a little in opinion about Stamford races as I had rather be here Than at all the races in Europe — not but what I beleive she was at Least as happy there as I am here
I hope M
rLee has been Very Civil & Given you Nosegays as often as you have been to him if not tell him he shall not have one of my Insects when I come home give my Comptsto him also & tell him that if I did not think it might Endanger Cracking some of Your Ladyships teeth I would Let him know by you some of the Hard names of the things I have gotSo Miss Frederick is going to be married to our countryman a dangerous Experiment I think he killed his Last wife in a hurry I hope he may keep her alive a little Longer but maybe she intends to Revenge Miss Pit & kill him I know you women are Sad Husband killers in your hearts
I do not know what Else to say I am almost Exhausted thank you however for your ague receipt it has one merit however I think for if it would not Cure an ague I am sure it would kill a horse
We are here in daily Expectation of the Eskimaux Ladies here I wish with all my heart they were Come as I might have sent you a sealskin gown & Petticoat Perfumd with train oil which to them is as Sweet as Lavander water but more of them when I know them better at Present adieu only Beleive
Me Your very affectionate Brother J P: S: Pray My CompBankststo all Freinds at Chelsea especialy our neighbours at the Garden I mean our Garden-ing uncle & aunt adieuML, Banks Papers, XVI, pp. 3ff. Some of the personal allusions in this letter escape me—‘Miss Frederick’, ‘Miss Pit’ and ‘our countryman’. No doubt ‘Coz Bate’ was a relative on Banks's mother's side, and ‘Mr Lee’ was James Lee, the Hammersmith nurseryman.
This letter does not indicate very much of the adventures of a naturalist across the Atlantic; it is not very witty; but it does indicate the easy good humour of its writer's mind — when things were going well — and his excellent relations with this admiring and admirable sister.
He did not, alas, see the Eskimaux Ladies; and on 3 October the ship returned to Croque to fill water and pick up what vegetables and poultry had survived. Banks collected a few more plants, and gives us an account of the seal-fishery. On 10 October the ship sailed for St John's, the rendezvous for the whole Newfoundland squadron, where he notes his approval of a person who was later to receive in very full measure his disapproval: the commodore was ‘Mr Palliser’ of the Journal, pp. 105–6.Guernsey, ‘whose civilities we ought to acknowledge, as he shewed us all we could expect’. And St John's?
Guernsey was dressed for the occasion: ‘after this we were all invited to a Ball, given by Mr Governor, where the want of Ladies was so great, that my Washerwoman and her Sister were there by formal Invitation; but what surprized me the most was, that after dancing we were conducted to a really elegant Supper, set out with all kinds of wine, and Italian Liqueurs, to the great emolument of the Ladies, who eat and drank to some purpose; dancing it seems agreed with them, by its getting them such excellent Stomachs’.
But the summer had come to an end, autumn drew on, fishing was over and the fishing-boats departed, the year was too far advanced for success in further plant-hunting; nevertheless, said the hunter, ‘I have vanity enough to believe, that to the northward not many will be found to have escaped my observation’. Journal, p. 113. It speaks highly of Banks's generosity that he was prepared to lend his herbarium to his friend There are, for instance, in Kew B. C. I, several letters from There is a marginal note to this effect at the beginning of the description of Lisbon in the second copy of the journal by S. S. B. The Niger left St John's for Lisbon, there to spend part of the winter. The Atlantic provided the gale that first impressed Banks with his very lively sense of the precautions necessary in the ocean carriage of plants — precautions which are underlined with more and more elaboration in his later correspondence; for on 5 November, off the Western Islands, the vessel shipped a sea which stove in the quarter, flooded the cabin, broke all its furniture in pieces and entirely demolished his collection of seeds and growing specimens. But the dried specimens survived, the larger number of his trophies, and into safe keeping they went at New Burlington Street: the foundation, on the foreign side, of the great Herbarium that was to be the pride of British botany and a
Endeavour voyage. See Sneyd to Banks, Kew B.C. I, 31, n.d., requesting the loan, and asking him also to buy textiles for Sneyd's wife in China and Japan if he should visit those countries; and ibid., 30, 9 January 1773, thanking him for the loan.Niger duly returned to England, and Banks with her. He arrived in Niger arrived at Plymouth on 20 January 1767.
Meanwhile there were things to do in the metropolis, and beyond it. There was so much to raise the interest of an intelligent man. He went down into Kent on a little tour of universal enquiry — plants, shells, fossils, fortifications, the manufacture of vitriol, beer, and flints, dockyards, a fire ship and a court martial all claimed his attention — and then was again involved in London. Journal of an Excursion to Chatham, Rochester, Sheerness, Sheppey, &c. began Feb Alexander Turnbull Library (hereafter referred to as ATL), ALS 269.ry 21st 1767 Ended March 4th 1767.—S.S.B. 1772.
I am ashamed I have not Long before wrote to you to tell you the truth
my Idleness is only to be excusd by alledging a still greater as a palliative Circumstance which is that I have not yet got your Beaver [i.e. a print of the animal] Colourd to tell you the truth I have been so hurried Ever since you left town by furnishing my house that I have scarcely had time to think of anything Else. M
rWhite called upon me today in your name & left some Specimens of Birds …. I intend tomorrow to call upon him at Horaces head and hold Ornithological Converse tho I can assure you it does not go on with the spirit it used to do when you was with us.[A paragraph follows on the colouring of plates.] I want you of all things to visit a new Branch of trade I have lately discoverd which I think may be of Service to us the Horners a set of people who live by selling the Horns of all sorts of animals unworked up to those who work them into Knife Hafts &c. the People sell what they Call Buffaloes horns every day & must Certainly have many of animals unknown to us.
adieu Floreat Res Zoologica says
Your affectionate JBanks
Another to the same correspondent, of 14 May, ibid.
I am Just upon the wing setting out for Dorsetshire … I mean to be out about a fortnight in which time I shall visit Bristol & the other side of the Channell I am much obligd to you (for an obligation you are not perhaps at present apprizd of) I mean an acquaintance with MrWhite who mentiond your name & promises to send divers & various discoveries to town……. Instead of remaining Idle as I intended till I should set out for Flint I find I am to be well employd for I must set out for Lincolnshire as soon as I return from my present expedition….
The ‘Dorsetshire’ visit was more in the line of the ordinary cultivated county tour of the day than was that sudden leap across the Atlantic, and it lasted longer than a fortnight. It was in fact a leisurely progress from 15 May, on which day Banks descended upon his aunt Mrs Grenville at Eastbury, to 20 June, when returned to New Burlington Street. Between those dates he went through Dorset and Somerset to Bristol, Chepstow — so that he did, as he planned, get across to ‘the other side of the Channell’ — Wells, Glastonbury and Taunton. There were country houses to inspect, starting with his aunt's — ‘exceedingly large and possibly one of the heaviest piles of stone S ‘Grey Wethers’—not ‘weathers’, as spelt by Banks—from their resemblance at a distance to a flock of sheep. The stone circle at Avebury, a mile and a half away, is believed to have been built with sarsens from this site, which was declared a nature reserve in 1956. His little journal of this tour exists in a copy by S.S.B., Hawley coll. It was admirably edited by Spencer George Perceval, and printed in the r Jno Vanbrugh ever erected’; Pearcefield, ‘the finest place I ever saw’; Burton Pynsent, where Lord Chatham had in two years done a great deal to the house:
Proceedings of the Bristol Naturalists Society, New Series IX, 1899, pp. 6–37.
Presumably this tour was followed by the visit to Lincolnshire, for Banks kept a close eye on his estate. There was also the anticipated journey to Flintshire and his friend Pennant. But was not something possible of nobler note ?
I am Just Returnd to London From my Excursion [he wrote to Pennant] & as I prophesied in my Last found two of yours which your kindness had sent to me in my absence
What will you say to me if I should be prevented from paying my respects to you & N: Wales this year tho I so fully intended it nothing but your Looking upon it with the Eye of an unprejudiced nat: Historiancan bring any excuse to be heard with Patience Look then with Zoologick Eyes & tell me if you could Blame me if I Sacraficed every Consideration to an opportunity of Paying a visit to our Master Linnaeus & Profiting by his Lectures before he dies who is now so old that he cannot Long Last
I know you cannot Blame me & you will not when I tell you that nothing shall hinder my attendance in Flintshire but such an expedition. …This letter has no date or address, but it is with other letters addressed to Pennant, ATL, ALS 269. It must be after 20 June; though Kew B.C. I, 7, a letter from Pennant, 10 June 1767, at first sight appears to be an answer to it: ‘I sincerely wish y
rtour may answer; but, not being greatly smitten with the charms of Linnaeus, must be doubtfull till I hear from you’. Banks may have mentioned his plan to Pennant earlier. Pennant thought Linnaeus was deficient in ornithology, ‘madripology’, and fossils: ‘his fort is Botany’. By ‘madripology’, a word not in the dictionaries, I take it he meant the study of corals—from ‘madrepore’, generally applied in his day to any perforate coral. Again, ibid., 8, 3 July 1767, ‘I have no very high opinion of Linnaeus's zoologick merits’. In another letter, 26 July 1767, D.T.C. I, p.13, he wishes Banks luck on the journey.
An expedition to Uppsala would certainly not have been an impossible one, and it could hardly have failed to have been beneficial to Banks — if his capacity to assimilate lectures in Latin were sufficient — as well as gratifying to Linnaeus, who loved his foreign pupils, though he could speak no language of theirs. There would have been distinction, too, in such close contact with the Master. Nor was his demise so imminent at this time as Banks seems to have thought: he had just passed his sixtieth year, and though, his most energetic days of open-air teaching were gone, he was still a vigorous and lively presence, in lecture room or botanic garden. Banks did inevitably come under his notice, in due course, but only at second hand. For to Flintshire, not to Sweden, in this late summer of 1767 did our young man go, with companions of whom the most eminent, botanically, was the sociable apothecary 13 August 1767–29 January 1768. Banks kept a journal on this tour, the copy of which by S.S.B. runs to 159 pp., illustrated with sketches and diagrams. It is now in the National Library of Wales, MS 147. He kept also a memorandum book of very characteristic ‘Observations & facts relating to Nat. Hist. Commerce &c. Learnt from different people’; Dawson MS 44. Pennant to Banks, 15 January 1768; D.T.C. I, p. 16. ‘I am extremely glad to find you are projecting a Northern Journey this summer for the benefit of Natural History. You intend, I hear, to visit if possible the great Lapland fair….’—15 February 1768; Kew B.C. I, 17. Falconer, a generous recluse, was called by the enthusiastic Miss Seward ‘the Maecenas of Chester’. Pennant was his kinsman by marriage. His letters to Banks are always very long, deferential, and full of advice on matters which call for scientific investigation.Flora Anglica, with its Linnaean classification, had been the fundamental work on its subject since its first publication in 1762. It was a journey not only to Flintshire, but through Wales from south to north, on to Cheshire and Derbyshire, and south home again through Warwickshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It was the longest of all Banks's British journeys, and it lasted from the middle of August 1767 to the end of January 1768.
Among the branches of science in which Banks was not interested, two, astronomy and geography, ranked pre-eminent. Yet the voyage on which he had fastened his mind was a voyage which had for its objects the increase of knowledge of precisely these two; and it was the result of impulses, from the Royal Society and the British Government, with which he had had nothing to do. It was a voyage, in short, for the observation of the transit of the planet Venus across the disc of the sun, and for the investigation of the great continent which was alleged by a number of theoretical geographers to exist in the more southern and western parts of the Pacific, and probably in high latitudes of the Atlantic as well — the Terra australis incognita of long tradition. The two men who in the eighteenth century most enthusiastically elaborated upon this theory were the French geographer Considérations géographiques et physiques sur les nouvelles découvertes de la grande mer (Paris, 1753) were what the author regarded as ‘hypothéses déraisonnables’ on the outlines and formation of the continent; and the Scotsman Account of the Discoveries made in the South Pacifick Ocean, Previous to 1764 (London, 1769), displayed an immense and dogmatic confidence in its existence — founded, like the theories of Buache, on arguments both physical and historico-geographical. But indeed,
The Transit of Venus was a different matter. There could be no argument about it whatever. It was not a phenomenon that could be inspected every day. It had been first observed by the young, brilliant, and short-lived I am writing of the eighteenth century, and I here deliberately use this word with its eighteenth century meaning of ‘science’. Physics in some universities is still ‘natural philosophy’. Johnson's Dictionary defines ‘Philosopher’ as ‘A man deep in knowledge, either moral or natural’—we should say for the latter ‘scientist’; and ‘Philosophy’ as (1) ‘Knowledge natural or moral’; (2) ‘Hypothesis or system upon which natural effects are explained’; (4) ‘The course of sciences read in the schools’. At the same time I admit that I am not consistent in this usage, and that ‘philosopher’ and ‘philosophize’ occur below in much more modern connotations—my hope being that the reader will be neither confused nor irritated.Earl of Pembroke, soon to be given the more famous name Endeavour, had been brought into the navy.
Meanwhile there had been discussion of the command of the vessel. The Admiralty, quite unmoved by the claims of Mr Dalrymple, settled on Mr James Cook. This was somewhat surprising, because Mr Cook was not even a commissioned officer, and he did not have that ‘interest’ with government that was so useful as a means to promotion. He had, however, made his own interest by solid merit, more particularly by his distinguished career as a marine surveyor in Newfoundland, where, at the time of Banks's visit, he had been working on the south coast and had observed an eclipse of the sun from the Burgeo islands. It was in the Newfoundland and not Pacific context that Banks first heard of Cook. Captain Wilkinson of the Niger, 18 December 1767 (Kew B. C. I, 15) writes to him, ‘Sir, As my meeting with the Indians was very uncertain, The Cask of things you left on board of the Niger for Truck with 'em Mr r Cook to ask him about it, nor I am afraid shan't as I am going into the Country but if you'll please to send to him he will let you know whether there are any hopes of getting it by Advertising which I thought off as it was drove ashore on the Essex coast I believe…. Mr Cook lives I am told some where about Mile end, but the Vessel I believe is got up to Deptford [so] that I fancy it will be best to send to enquire on board her’.—The Grenville was Cook's surveying schooner; in heavy weather off the Nore, 11 November 1767, she dragged her anchor and went on shore, but was refloated next day with very little damage.Dolphin,
Joseph Banks EsqrFellow of this Society, [wrote the secretary] a Gentleman of large fortune, who is well versed in natural history, being Desirous of undertaking the same voyage the Council very earnestly request their Lordships, that in regard to MrBanks's great personal merit, and for the Advancement of useful knowledge, He also, together with his Suite, being seven persons more, that is, eight persons in all, together with their baggage, be received on board of the Ship, under the Command of Captain Cook.I quote from the letter as it is entered in the Minutes of the Council of the Royal Society, 9 June 1768.
This was something new, however, only in the formal correspondence; for though we do not know, unfortunately, when Banks first had his brilliant idea, the time was certainly long before, and there had certainly been a great deal of talk — and, quite obviously, of preparation, because we have the suite already precisely numbered. The Council of the Royal Society had directed the sending of its letter last quoted on 9 June; and 9 June was the date on which Banks himself received a farewell letter from a
Richard Kaye to Banks, 26 June 1768; Kew B.C. I, 27. Pennant to Banks, 10 April 1768; Kew B.C. I, 21.Life of Sir Joseph Banks (London 1911), pp. 15–16.
Now on 10 April, when Pennant was writing about umbrellas, the ship had been bought, and the mode of her fitting-out determined, and it seems clear that her master had been selected. But it does not seem likely that the Admiralty had by then agreed to accommodate Mr Banks, or even been asked to do so. Mr Banks, however, had had his idea, and clearly assumed that it would be acceptable to all others concerned. His assumption is characteristic: it is characteristic both of the young Banks and of the eighteenth century. A gentleman of large fortune who had had his own way since early youth, who had chosen his own subjects of study and provided the means himself, who went where he wished and took his place in any society he wished, whose friends were scientific, and naval, and ministerial — we must not forget the Earl of Sandwich — hardly needed to hesitate. What he was proposing to do was to plant himself, a train of dependants and a mass of impedimenta on a small and already overcrowded vessel, commanded by a man he did not know, for purposes not at all envisaged by government, in a fashion that would undoubtedly entail further expense on government and inconvenience on other people; and he was proposing it in the sure, certain, and unhesitating conviction that he had a right to be obliged, and would be made welcome. This it was that was so highly characteristic of the English gentleman of fortune of that age, so effortlessly superior, so candidly appropriative of privilege, upon his Grand Tour; this it was that was so completely the Banksian attitude to life. The extraordinary thing is, to a later age, that he brought it off. There were no
Cook 1, p. 620.Endeavour, elbowed her officers out of the way, and was made welcome. The touring Englishman expected a welcome, and generally got one, at his inn; but it was a professional welcome, he paid for it. There was no doubt about the welcome that met Banks; for there was no doubt about the Banksian charm. It was not a deliberate or calculated charm. Banks was not, like so many of his contemporaries on their travels, the grand seigneur. Indeed the grand seigneur could not by any stretch of the imagination have chosen the mode of travel that Mr Banks chose. There were times when Banks could act the spoilt child, and other times when he could put on style; but ordinarily it was the directness of the child, or the youth, that he displayed, mingled with his belief in his own privilege. As things turned out on this voyage, there were no seriously unpleasant consequences; and there were, in the presence and talents of Mr Banks, certain positive advantages. For once he had had his great idea, nothing, as we have seen, could stop him, and on 22 July Cook was directed by the Admiralty secretary to receive not only ‘Mr Charles Green and his Servant and Baggage’, but also ‘
Who were these eight persons that Banks so blithely added to the eighty-six others already thrust on board the small ship under the newly created Lieutenant Cook's command? Their number, it will be noted, had risen by one since the Cf. the letter from Linnaeus to Ellis, 6 November 1759, J.E.S. I, p. 125. Linnaeus had already written with undue optimism to Ellis as early as 30 May 1759, ‘No doubt my much-loved pupil Solander has, ere this, found a tranquil asylum in your friendship. I have recommended him to your protection, as I would my own son….’—ibid., pp. 123–4. J.E.S. I, p. 502. He heard some surprising things at the Royal Society; e.g. his letter to Ellis, 5 March 1762 (J.E.S. II, p. 8). ‘Last night I was at the Royal Society. It was a long meeting, but very few things of consequence. One Rev. Dr. Foster had sent two letters; in one he will prove, against Mr. Collinson, that swallows really, during winter, immerse themselves in water…. likewise mention is made of frogs in winter, during a hard frost, being found frozen, apparently dead, being hard and brittle like flint, so that they break with a blow. But if taken into a warm room, they come to life again.’—Linnaeus seems to have believed the story about the swallows.—Collinson to Linnaeus, 15 September 1763 (a rather sceptical letter, suggesting some practical experiments), J.E.S. I, pp. 59–62. J.E.S. I, pp. 56–7. Collinson to Linnaeus, 16 November 1762; ibid., pp. 57–8. Ellis to Linnaeus, 21 December 1762; ibid., p. 160. Collinson to Linnaeus, 1 May 1765; J.E.S. I, p. 65. This was the greatest private collection of the time. It was dispersed in 1786. ‘Ueber Solander’, pp. 244–5.iota of Natural History’ — a naturalist friend of Ellis, Dr Letters (ed. Toynbee), XIII, p. 376.
Of Spöring we know a great deal less. His father was a professor of medicine at the University of Åbo in Finland, and, like so many of the learned, a correspondent of Linnaeus. The son was born about 1730: he was a student at Åbo from 1748 to 1753, going afterwards to Stockholm for a course in surgery. He must have sought his fortune in London and become known there, and he must have become an able naturalist, as did other men trained in medicine. Banks seems to have engaged him as a sort of secretary. ‘our Freind Governor V [?] Loten is fixd in N Burlington Street so we shall with ease get the Rest of his Drawin[g]s’.—Banks to Pennant, 14 May 1767.—He has got hold of Governor Loten's drawings and is getting them copied as fast as possible—he will not let Parkinson do anything else.—To Pennant, n.d. ATL, MS Folder 269. Cf. Pennant to Banks, 27 June 1767: ‘My dear fellow Labourer, avoid procrastination: we may lose our opportunity: Loten is old and his wife is young; and the odds are against his life’.— D.T.C. I, p. 10. ‘I am extremely glad you take Parkinson with you & doubt not you will gain treasures from the several collections of drawings you will find.’—Pennant to Banks, 4 August 1767; Kew B.C. I, 12. I regret that the journals written by Roberts and Briscoe escaped listing with the other civilian journals in Cook I, pp. ccxxxix-xlii. Roberts's is now in the Mitchell Library; Briscoe's in the Dixson Library. They have however no particular value as journals, their first few entries being copied from the ship's log—perhaps at some removes—and the rest from Pickersgill. They do, however, include useful lists of the ship's company, with the ‘qualities’ in which individuals sailed: the ‘quality’ of Roberts and Briscoe being ‘Footman’. The Briscoe volume has the unusual and pious title-page, ‘A Journal of His Majesties Bark Endeavour By Gods Permishon Bound to the South Seas….’sic] Sporing, clerk to Mr. Banks’.Endeavour, the set of watchmaker's tools was taken by him. Sydney Parkinson, the botanical or natural history draughtsman, was born about 1745, the younger son of a Quaker brewer,
So much for the companions and adherents of our adventurer, as he prepared to set out on a very remarkable voyage. We may note something else that he had with him. This was a copy of Dalrymple's pamphlet on Pacific discoveries, with its interesting and inaccurate map, which the author had given him. The map
For its significance see Cook I, pp. clvii-xiv. See p. 287, n. 6 below. Endeavour's departure making his painful way towards the Moluccas, after an able passage of the Pacific by way of Tahiti, the New Hebrides and the Solomon Islands. The achievement of French men of science was thereafter very great. Nor must we forget what we have noted already, the travels of the pupils of Linnaeus. But these devoted men had no official standing, they picked up a passage where they could, and, wherever their wanderings by land took them, by sea they followed a conventional trade route. Banks created the habit of officially recognized and supported science on the British voyages, simply by breaking in at his own expense. What this voyage cost him it is impossible to say. The well-known estimate given by Solander seems to mean merely that the gentleman of fortune was free with his wealth; and after all, Banks did not buy the ship. The estimate comes in a letter from Ellis to Linnaeus of 19 August 1768, a week before the Endeavour sailed from Plymouth — a letter that contains more than one inaccuracy:
I must now inform you, that Joseph Banks, Esq. a gentleman of £6000 per annum estate, has prevailed on your pupil, Dr. Solander, to accompany him in the ship that carries the english astronomers to the new discovered country in the South sea, Lat. about 20° South, and Long. between 130° and 150° West from London, where they are to collect all the natural curiosities of the place, and, after the astronomers have finished their observations on the transit of Venus, they are to proceed under the direction of Mr. Banks, by order of the Lords of the Admiralty, on further discoveries of the great Southern continent, and from thence proceed to England by the Cape of good Hope…. No people ever went to sea better fitted out for the purpose of Natural History, nor more elegantly. They have got a fine library of Natural History; they have all sorts of machines for catching and preserving insects; all kinds of nets, trawls, drags and hooks for coral fishing; they have even a curious contrivance of a telescope, by which, put into the water, you can see the bottom to a great depth, where it is clear. They have many cases of bottles with ground stoppers, of several sizes, to preserve animals in spirits. They have the several sorts of salts to surround the seeds; and wax, both beeswax and that of theMyrica; besides there are many people whose sole business it is to attend them for this very purpose. They have two painters and draughtsmen, several volunteers who have a tolerable notion of Natural History; in short Solander assured me this expedition would cost Mr. Banks ten thousand pounds. All this is owing to you and your writings.
About three days ago I took my leave of Solander, when he assured me he would write to you and to all his family, and acquaint them with the particulars of this expedition. I must observe to you, that his places are secured to him, and he has promises from persons in power of much better preferment on his return.
Everybody here parted from him with reluctance; for no man was ever more beloved, and in so great esteem with the public from his affable and polite behaviour.J.E.S. I, pp. 230–2.
And Banks had fallen in love. He was twenty-five, and his journal indicates that the flame was easily kindled in him. Unfortunately the circumstances of this particular kindling, like so much other detail of his earlier life, are unknown to us; but for the fact we have excellent testimony. In 1768 This was an La Buona Figliuola.opera buffa by Nicola Piccini (1728–1800), its text arranged by Goldoni from Richardson's Pamela. It was so popular that it ran in Rome two years without interruption, and in London, says Letters (ed. Toynbee), VII, p. 77.
Saw for the first time [he writes] Life of Horace Benedict de Saussure (London 1920), pp. 105–6. I have tried in vain to discover the origin of the family that de Saussure found so interesting. There appear to have been Blossets about this period both in
Thus this very agreeable supper. Banks must already have bade farewell to his mother and sister, and next day he was gone. M. de Saussure however continued to see something of the interesting family while he remained in London; for on that next day he dined on a fine piece of venison sent by Mrs Blosset, and afterwards accompanied Miss Blosset to Ranelagh; on the following day again called on the Misses Blosset, ‘arranged for the theatre and ball, dined with Turton and the Misses Blosset and left my wife to dine alone and dress her hair at our lodgings…. Fine theatre. Thence to supper with Mrs Blosset and to the ball at the Redout with the eldest Miss Blosset….’ ibid., pp. 106–7. Presumably ‘Lee's’. Freshfield, p. 108.dévot. On 19 August the de Saussures and their friend Turton went once again to breakfast with the charming ladies. Afterwards the Swiss gentleman took Miss Harriet in his carriage ‘to see the garden and the rosaries of Lyse,
The betrothed young gentleman joined his ship, was sea-sick and recovered, looked overboad at the denizens of the deep, and began to write his journal. It was a journal that was to assume large proportions, and to be composed with unflagging interest, and often excitement, but it exhibits one regrettable defect. Banks's eye was always outward — always, except for one brief glimpse of the great cabin See p. 396 below.Endeavour journals were not exactly private documents. None the less there are ways round such embarrassments, and as posterity we mourn the missed chance.
In any case it seems clear that Banks and his philosophical companions fitted well enough, not only into the narrow physical space provided for them but into the psychological environment. The eighteenth century sailor was used to narrow quarters; the eighteenth century gentleman simply had to knuckle down to them. Banks knew what to expect after his Newfoundland journey, and no doubt Solander had been warned. Solander's status seems to have been that of a guest and co-scholar; it was those two who were referred to in the other journals as ‘the gentlemen’, in distinction from those who were technically ‘the officers’ and ‘the people’ — i.e. these last, the crew. Parkinson, Buchan and Spöring were employees, and having accepted engagement, could nourish no legitimate feelings about physical conditions. The servants were servants, and while on shipboard the indications are that they were mustered into the watches with the crew, and took up what space and hammocks they could. With all Banks's virtues, however — his tolerance and high spirits and sense of adventure — one three years’ voyage on a ship of this type was enough for him; the gentleman and philosopher revolted against narrow quarters, pined after the greater elegance due to six thousand a year, and, as we shall see, made his later desires known with some force. Solander's feelings are unknown to us: we are perhaps not wrong in fancying that he liked the creature comforts, but he was an uncommonly eventempered man, and committed no opinions of any sort, as he committed nothing else, to a journal. He was otherwise employed. Banks later testified to his industry and astuteness. There were differences enough between them, but no heat and no bitterness. At sea they were to develop a sort of regimen: ‘We had a suitable stock of books relating to the natural history of the Indies with us; and seldom was there a storm strong enough to break up our normal study time, which lasted daily from nearly 8 o'clock in the morning till 2 in the afternoon. From 4 or 5, when the cabin had lost the odour of food [dinner was at midday], we sat till dark by the great table with our draughtsman opposite and showed him in what way to make his
‘Ueber Solander’, pp. 245–6; and see also p. 396 below. It may be pointed out here that the rank of Cook, always referred to on the ship as ‘Captain Cook’ or ‘the Captain’, was that of first lieutenant. He was ‘captain’ conventionally, like other persons in charge of a ship. The second lieutenant was Zachary or Zachariah
The relation could hardly have been better between the seaman, at the beginning of the voyage nearing forty, the child of rural poverty and the professional product of native genius and a determined self-education, and the young gentleman, six months past twenty-five, the child of fortune whose inheritance was the land and not service to the land. Nothing could have been more violently disparate than their upbringing, yet they had this in common, that Banks, though by no means a genius, was yet strongly an individual, and — in all that counted for him — also self-educated. They were both used to the exercise of authority — Cook, the disciplined authority of experience, as one who had himself been, and was even now, under orders; Banks, the authority of his birth and breeding, as one who by nature gave, and did not take, orders. They both had a full measure of common sense — in Cook perhaps rather austere, a part of his genius for planning a campaign of discovery, but also a fundamental in that elasticity of mind that made him always equal to the unexpected; in Banks an endowment that gave him some appreciation at least of the extraordinary quality of the man he had to deal with, and that kept him—almost invariably—in his place as a passenger. Almost invariably!—we know that once, off the New Zealand coast, Banks was extremely anxious for a landing to be made, in blithe disregard of the prevailing wind and of the responsibilities of a captain, and we know that he could never really forgive Cook's refusal to oblige him; but what is once in three years ? We know of criticisms made, or implied, of ‘the
I have printed parallel passages from both journals in Cook I, pp. ccv-viii; cf. pp. ccxiii-iv.Endeavour's voyage, but he never met a greater man than Cook. Cook himself learnt things more easily discernible. He learnt a little bit of grammar. Each man's journal was open to the other, and while Banks found it worth while to make an abstract of Cook's, with all the names that had been conferred on geographical features and the coordinates of latitude and longitude — things that hardly entered into his own composition at all — Cook learnt from Banks how to describe people and things. He unashamedly cribbed on a large scale,
It is time to return to our philosopher as, ‘in excellent health and spirits perfectly prepard … to undergo with chearfullness any fatigues or dangers’ he might encounter, he was borne with no great speed southwards upon the Atlantic bosom. In excellent spirits he was; the deep was full of wonder; other men might be irritated at a calm, but he and Solander had ‘easy contented countenances’ as they fished away and referred their catch to the Linnaean pages. They were honeymoon weeks, those early ones; the sailors too began to be interested; and when an African latitude was reached, and leave was taken of Europe, ‘perhaps for ever’, it was possible to spare one sigh but not two, for friends left behind — ‘friends’, it is to be assumed, including both sexes, il Doctore docto, philosophy in a wilderness of ignorance; there were the plants to be collected, the scenery and the people to be observed, the Franciscan monastery to be visited, and the convent where the sisters were so naively and delightfully confident in the visitors’ mastery of the secrets of nature; the governor to be shocked with the electrical machine. (Meanwhile the captain was acquiring wine and fresh water and onions.) Banks was far too busy to write letters home, but Solander got one away to
Cook called at Rio after due thought. He did not, strictly speaking, need to, though his instructions allowed him to do so if he wished, as they allowed him to call at Port Egmont in the Falkland Islands.
Solander
He was well enough provided to make Port Egmont quite easily. But he was a careful man, and thus early he had developed his passion for getting fresh water and fresh food on every possible occasion — the onions at Madeira were another example, which had later to be explained to the accountants — and for seeing that they were consumed in place of stale water and salt meat. Also he wanted to heel his ship and look at the sides. The Portuguese had been spoken of very highly as hosts by See Cook I, Appendix I, pp. 481 ff. See below, II, pp. 315–20.Endeavour was the reverse of excellent. The reasons that he made explicit seemed to Cook totally inadequate. They may be summarized as his orders from the Portuguese court for dealing with foreign vessels in general, his difficulty in believing that the Endeavour belonged to His Britannic Majesty's navy (she certainly did not look as if she did), and his suspicion that her real errand was not the observation of the Transit of Venus — a matter which he did not understand — but smuggling. There may have been complications in Portuguese foreign policy that he was not at liberty to explain. Nothing Cook could say or do could alter the determination of the Conde de Azambuja to take no risks. Cook said a good deal, and he adopted a high tone, and his paper war with the viceroy is one of the curiosities of the voyage;
Your lordship Can more easily imagine our Situation than I can describe it all that we so ardently wishd to examine was in our sight we could almost but not quite touch them never before had I an adequate Idea of Tantalus's punishment but I have sufferd it with all possible aggravations three weeks have I staid aboard the ship regardless of every inconvenience of her being heeld down &c &c. which on any other occasion would have been no Small hardship but small evils are totaly swallowd up in the Larger bodily pain bears no comparison to pure in short the torments of the Damnd must be very severe indeed as doubtless my present ones Cannot nearly Equal them.See Appendix, II, pp. 313–5 below.
Solander was more moderate, writing to Ellis: at Madeira, he recalled, they had met with a very good reception, ‘which is more than I can say of this place, where the viceroy has been so infernally cross and ill-natured, as to forbid us to set our feet upon dry land. How mortifying that must be to me and Mr. Banks, you best can feel…. We have, nevertheless, by fair means and foul, got about 300 species of plants, among them several new, and an infinite number of new fish…’ For the full text of this letter, see II, pp. 308–10 below. See Lieutenant Forster's letter to Banks, 5 November 1771, II, pp. 321–3 below.
The Cook I, p. 44.Endeavour got away from ‘these illiterate impolite gentry’ on 2 December, and stood south. With all inconveniences, Cook had got a sufficient refreshment for his men at Rio, and decided not to call at Port Egmont — a disappointment for Banks, who
Beagle and the young Erebus in after years followed Banks and his party up the Tierra del Fuegian hills, and experienced some of the same embarrassments underfoot; but they were luckier with the weather, and did not have to stay out all night — nor did they expend a great deal of their energy walking round in a circle. Banks was probably not in such danger as he apprehended, and he certainly made too much of the deprivation of food for some hours, and of the low temperature itself. The real cause of the party's unhappiness was, it seems likely, too much exertion too lightly undertaken after being cooped up on shipboard for four months, so that the effect of snow and cold was greater than it would otherwise have been. Buchan complicated the whole matter by his epileptic fit, and the two unfortunate negroes had paralysed their powers of resistance by the rum they had drunk. Banks's greyhound lay out with them in the snow without ill effect. And though the members of the party after regaining the ship were put into warm beds Banks was excepted: he went at once in a boat to haul the seine. We may conclude that the adventure, though unpleasant, and though it saw the end of poor Richmond and Dorlton, does not rank amongst the great crises of the voyage.
On 21 January 1769 the ship sailed from the Bay of Good Success and out of the Strait of le Maire to make the Horn passage, and then north-west. On 4 April Peter Briscoe, in the second watch, snatched from the sailors the honour of first sighting land — it was Lagoon Island, or Vahitahi, one of the Tuamotus — and on 13 April they were at anchor in
It was at Tahiti that Banks's contribution to the success of the voyage was greatest. Telescopes and drying-books were important, it was immensely important that So, at least, I gather from a letter from Considering this episode (see p. 279 below), the later intimate linking of Banks's name with that of Purea (p. 101) has its light irony.grand seigneur. There was the question of Tupaia the priest and expert navigator: should he be taken on the Endeavour or not ? The captain thought not, the captain was not a romantic, he knew something of officialdom; ‘I therefore’, announces Banks to his journal, ‘have resolvd to take him. Thank heaven I have a sufficiency and I do not know why I may not keep him as a curiosity, as well as some of my neighbours do lions and tygers at a larger expence than he will ever probably put me to; the amusement I shall have in his future conversation and the benefit he will be of to this ship, as well as what he may be if another should be sent into these seas, will I think fully repay me’. It was the age of private zoos; but Tupaia would be better than a zoo. If Banks had only known it, a Tahitian was already the rage in Paris, with abbés writing poetry about him and fashionable ladies gazing at him desperately at the opera.
There were the toùr de force of navigation and survey which left very little to the fancy of speculative geographers. Banks had accepted the speculations — had, it appears, like most other people, taken a southern continent for granted — and he hung on to his belief that New Zealand must be a part of it with a comic persistence which he annotates very well himself, until the ship turned the southern point ‘to the total demolition of our aerial fabrick calld continent’. He was not, that is, as experimental, as sceptical, in his geographical approach as was Cook. His general reasonings on the subject, entered in his journal after the decision was taken to make for the east coast of ‘Endeavour: here, we may be pretty certain, the plan for another and conclusive voyage
our first great object, the Southern Continent: this for my own part I confess I could not do without much regret. — That a Southern Continent really exists, I firmly beleive; but if ask'd why I beleive so, I confess my reasons are weak; yet I have a preposession in favour of the fact which I find it dificult to account for…. it must be prodigiously smaller in extent than the theoretical continent makers have supposd it to be…. we have taken from them their firmest Ground work, in Proving New Zealand to be an Island, which I beleive was lookd upon even by the most thinking people, to be in all probability at least a part of some Vast Countrey…. As for their reasoning about the Balancing of the two poles, which always appeard to me to be a most childish argument, we have already shorn off so much of their supposd counterbalancing land that by their own account the South pole would already be too light, unless what we have left should be made of very ponderous materials. As much fault as I find with these gentlemen will however probably recoil on myself, when I on so slight grounds as those I have mentiond again declare it to be my opinion that a Southern Continent exists, an opinion in favour of which I am strongly preposesd; but foolish and weak as all prepossesions must be thought I would not but declare myself so, least I might be supposd to have stronger reasons which I conceald.II, pp. 38–40 below.
Perhaps we may regard this as in fact highly judicious; for there was, surely enough, a southern continent — though what we know as Antarctica, all that remained after a great deal more had been shorn off than was the result of the Endeavour's operations, proved to be violently different from the construction of the theoretical continent makers.
We are departing, however, from Banks's real rôle as that of an observer of natural phenomena; and in both New Zealand and Australia we find him at his best. New Zealand may in one way be judged his real triumph; for at no place there did he have a long stay, such as in Tahiti or even during the enforced weeks at the Endeavour river — weeks which were so fruitful in collecting and then became so dull. On the botanical side, the brief days in New Zealand harbours were highly productive; the description Banks gives of the people is — to speak moderately — extremely good. He even noticed dialectal differences in the pronunciation of the
See, e.g. See Cook I, clii-iii.Historical Records of New Zealand, II (Wellington 1914), pp. 230 ff.
There was indeed a passage, and with the ship safely through it the exploratory part of the voyage may be said to have ended, whatever Cook found out about the sandbanks of Musa, the banana, noblest of plants, to flower and fruit in the
Meanwhile, of course, the most dreadful part of the whole great three years’ voyage had come to pass, the onset of malaria, and fearfully worse, dysentery, at Batavia and on the passage between Prince's Island and the Cape. The achievement had been masterly; the luck, after coming off the reef with a paper-thin bottom and a hole plugged with coral, stupendous: and there is something cruelly gratuitous in the fatal sickness that then struck practically the entire ship's company, and that neither Cook, nor Banks, nor anyone else could avert by whatever thought beforehand, or action in its presence. The Batavian sailors, noted Banks, ‘were almost as spectres’; so that the Endeavour's people, ‘who truly might be calld rosy and plump’ — after all those months! — ‘Jeerd and flouted much at their brother sea men's white faces’. It was too soon to jeer and flout. Too many men were to die; and Banks's own physical agonies were of a sort he had not taken into account when writing so glibly from Rio to Morton of the comparison between the pains of the body and of the mind. Of Banks's own people Solander narrowly escaped with his life, to gossip as cheerily as ever to a sympathetic and wondering London; but poor Tupaia (if we may make him belong to Banks, like a lion or tiger) and his
The question arises for general consideration, as he steps on shore, how really good is this journal? Various portions of it have been praised in the foregoing pages, but can one summarize simply, by rendering additional praise, and leaving it at that? Or must one make modifications? Does Banks give us an adequate account of the voyage ? Is he invariably accurate ? In particular — though we have called him a good observer — was he a really good observer?
We may answer, first of all, by stressing again some of the journal's virtues. It is full, it contains a large amount of invaluable detail, it has unending vivacity, it is obviously the work of an exceedingly quick and lively mind. The mind is that of a young man. To read the original, with its quite astounding lack of punctuation, is to get the feeling of almost breathless excitement, as the impressions crowded and the words tumbled on to the paper. That in itself is good, in a record of discovery, as long as the record remains coherent, and we cannot say that Banks lacks coherency. We may say certainly that his journal is essential to an understanding of the voyage and its results: without it we should be disastrously worse off in our knowledge. When Cook's journal was turned over to Dr So I infer from Hawkesworth, I, pp. xiii-xv. ‘But in the papers which were communicated to me by Mr. Banks, I found a great variety of incidents which had not come under the notice of Captain Cook, with descriptions of countries and people, their productions, manners, customs, religion, policy, and language, much more full and particular than were expected from a Gentleman whose station and office naturally turned his principal attention to other objects; for these particulars, therefore, besides many practical observations, the Public is indebted to Mr. Banks. To Mr. Banks also the Public is indebted for the designs of the engravings which illustrate and adorn the account of this voyage….’—Hawkesworth. II, p. xiv.r Banks for the use of his Journall. I flatter myself that I shall be able to prevent ill humour, and satisfy the utmost Delicacy of a Gentleman to whom I shall be so much obliged’.—Hawkesworth to Sandwich, 19 November 1771; Sandwich Papers, Hinchingbrooke.
But this is, strictly speaking, irrelevant. Banks kept a journal, not ‘of’ the voyage, but ‘on’ the voyage. We may be surprised at some of his omissions. It would have been interesting to get his view of the situation surrounding the cropping of Mr Cook II, p.662. Cf. Cook I, pp. ccxlv-lvii. See also II, p.267, n. below. ‘… built of very thin planks sewd together’.—See II, p. 22 below. It had been irregular before, at Batavia, but certainly no blame attaches for that, or for the absence of any specific entry at all between 14 and 24 November 1770.teuteu, the hereditary retainers of the chiefly class or arii; the teuteu, concluded Banks, were ‘upon almost the same footing as the Slaves in the East India Islands’. They were not slaves, and he had no direct knowledge of slaves anywhere; but class-structure is a difficult thing to gauge, even in three months, and the mistake was pardonable. In New Zealand, with preconceived notions in his head about ‘kings’, and inadequate acquaintance with the
Thirsty Sound where we could find no fresh water’. ‘Indifferently’ means moderately, tolerably; Banks, we may take it, wanted a large river. If he had been Dampier (to whom he refers more than once in other connections), digging unsuccessfully in the sand, he might have had more reason for his remark. Off the east coast of Africa he registers a much greater alarm at what he regards as the ship's dangerous predicament than does anyone else. Is this to be taken as an error, merely a landsman's excited judgment, or the Voice of Truth which the seamen were willing to smother? Between Batavia and the Cape, he is more than once demonstrably wrong over his dates; he is wrong again at the Cape, for which indeed he refers to ‘my irregular journal’,
He stepped ashore into an agreeable aura of public attention. Cook reported to the Admiralty, and went home to Mrs Cook and his modest house in the unfashionable village of Mile End. But above New Burlington Street, we may assume, the sky was radiant with glory, as Mr Banks gazed once more on papered walls and curtained windows, and S.S.B. to Pennant, 6 October 1770; ATL, ALS 269.tapa cloth and New Zealand cloaks, the fisgigs
The muse It was a Quaker muse. The lines quoted are from an effusion by For these quotations in their contexts see Cook I, pp. 642 ff., except that on the ‘coronet of gold’, which I take from the One person who got no satisfaction from the conversation, though we do not know when it took place (perhaps it was on Banks's passage through Scotland late in 1772), was Lord Monboddo. ‘We travelled towards Aberdeen, another University, and in the way dined at Lord Monbodo's, the Scotch Judge who has lately written a strange book about the origin of Language, in which he traces Monkeys up to Men, and says that in some countries the human species have tails like other beasts. He enquired for these longtailed Men of Banks, and was not well pleased, that they had not been found in all his peregrination’.—Johnson to Mrs Thrale, 25 August 1773, Johnson to Banks, 27 February 1772, They were both created D.C.L. on 21 November 1771.—Foster, Journal. See Cook I, p. 627.Letters and Journals of Lady Mary Coke, III (Edinburgh 1892), p. 44.3Annual Register, 1771, Chronicle p. 150, for 23 September.Gent. Mag., XLI (1771), p. 567.Letters and Journals, III, p. 435.Letters (ed. R. W. Chapman, Oxford 1952), I, p. 321.Letters, I, p. 272. Boswell himself did not run down the gentlemen till later, as we learn from his London Journal, 22 March 1772. On that date he visited Private Papers of James Boswell, 9 (New Haven 1930), p. 28. Much (in fact years) later, Johnson remarked to Mrs Thrale, ‘You may remember, I thought Banks had not gained much by circumnavigating the world’; but what precisely he meant by this, or when he first said it, or how he could judge, we do not know. He wrote on 16 October 1780, Letters, II, p. 406Alumni Oxonienses, I (London 1887), p. 57. This was the only academic degree Banks ever attained.
Sydney Parkinson
Sandwich, who had become First Lord of the Admiralty, at Hin-chingbrooke. When the Royal Society measured the height of St Paul's, in its researches into atmospheric weight at different elevations, the names of Dr Solander and Mr Banks were particularly noticed.Annual Register, 1771, Chronicle, p. 154, for 12 November.
Of course Ellis wrote to Linnaeus very early, indeed first on 10 May the day after the newspapers heard from the India House the definite news of the ship's arrival at Batavia; the learned and curious in England felt universal joy. Solander would be introduced to the Royal Family as soon as he was returned, and then probably his merits would be rewarded. The travellers did return; they were ‘laden with spoils, particularly of the vegetable world, some few rare ones of the animal kingdom; but I do not hear much of the mineral kingdom…. Dr. Solander has been very ill, but is now very well…. They have sufficient for one thousand folio plates…. They are so very busy getting their things on shore, and seeing their friends, after an absence of three years, that they have scarce time to tell us of any thing but the many narrow escapes they have had from imminent danger. … Be so good to inform Dr. Solander's friends of the success he has had in returning safe after so many perils, laden with the greatest treasure of Natural History that ever was brought into any country at one time by two persons. … I hope Dr. Solander will write to you soon himself; I shall beg of him not to defer it’. Ellis to Linnaeus, 10 May, 16 July 1771; J.E.S. I, pp. 259–60, 263–4. The phrase is in a later letter from Linnaeus to Ellis, 20 December 1771; ibid., p. 123. 8 August 1771; B. M. Add. MS 8094.33. The letter is in Latin. Ellis to Linnaeus, 19 November 1771; J.E.S.I, pp. 271–2. Linnaeus to Ellis, 22 October 1771; ibid., I, p. 267. See p. 70–1 below.Banksia, or Terra australis’,
The hurry of company might deter Banks from writing to the man whose correspondence, three years before, he would have regarded as a sublime honour; but it could not save him from
Both in ATL, ALS 269. They appear to have come to the library with other fragments of Pennant's papers, some already quoted. The second is merely the portion of a letter, with no date or address, but in the same writing as the first, to which it almost certainly refers.Endeavour, did not hurry up at once to town, but, with proper delicacy, waited a few days in the country for her impassioned lover to make some advance to her. Now Banks may well be pardoned if, during an absence of three years, of much stimulation to his mind and some to his heart, the vision of Miss Blosset grew dim. What home thoughts from abroad he entrusted to his journal do not embrace that young woman, and one of his remarks upon the Cape would have been singularly discouraging to her, could she have read it. He admired the Cape ladies: ‘In general they are handsome with clear skins and high Complexions and when married (no reflextions upon my country women) are the best housekeepers imaginable and great childbearers; had I been inclind for a wife I think this is the place of all others I have seen where I could best have suited myself. One would guess at this stage that not merely had the vision of Miss Blosset grown dim; she must have been entirely blotted from his mind. Return, however, revived the awkward memory; our young man found he had not the slightest interest in Miss Blosset, but what was he to do? He shelved the problem in the hurry of company; he did nothing. His friends, whose memories had been more lively, were distressed; in the end they were appalled. It became plain that Mr Banks was not acting like a gentleman. Gossip was lively: we have Lady Mary Coke again, as early as 14 August. ‘I saw Mr. Morrice this morning…. He was excessively drole according to custom, and said he hoped Mr Banks, who since his return has desired Miss Blosset will excuse his marrying her, will pay her for the materials of all the work'd waistcoats She made for him during the time he was sailing round the World. Everybody agrees that She passed those three years in retirement, but whether She imploy'd herself in working waistcoats for Mr Banks I can't tell you, but if She loved him I pity her disappointment’.Letters and Journals, III, p, 437.
(i) Carnarvon Aug t24 1771Dear S rThe account I have receivd of M
rBanks's infidelity is the following & I believe you may depend upon every circumstance of it.Upon his arrival in England he took no sort of notice of Miss Blosset for the first week or nearly so at the same time that he went about London & visited other friends & acquaintance.
On this Miss Blosset set out for London & wrote him a letter desiring an interview of explanation.
To this M
rBankes answer'd by a letter of 2 or 3 sheets professing love &c but that he found he was of too volatile a temper to marry.The answer as you may suppose rather astonished & some how or other after this there was an interview when Miss Bl: swoon'd &c & M
rBankes was so affected that Marriage was again concluded upon. Notwithstanding this however a short time afterwards he writes a second letter to the same purport with the former, & leaves poor Miss Bl: in the most distressing as well as ridiculous situation imaginable.Mr Bankes's behaviour seems therefore to me to be totally without excuse as he admits he gave Miss Bl: the strongest reason to expect he would return her husband.
Supposing him however to have discovere'd in a three year voyage (during which by the way he would scarcely have seen any other woman) that he should not prove a good husband.
Should he not have immediately dispatch'd a Messenger on his landing with the best reasons he could muster for declining what he had so thoroughly settled? Should he not also have immediately plac'd in the Stocks & in Miss Blossets name a most noble satisfaction (as far as money could repair it) for this injury. And when he had done both these things could the satisfaction be otherwise than highly inadequate?
To prove however beyond a doubt how very shamefull his behaviour hath been to this poor girl M
rsBankes his mother who always disapprov'd of the match blames him as much as anyone.The Blossets also as you may imagine resent the injury to such a degree that upon some ones intimating that M
rBanks could not do otherwise than make a most large pecuniary satisfaction they declare that the offer of his whole estate would be consider'd as the highest insult & that the only consolation they can ever receive is that Miss Blosset will not now become the wife of a man who hath behav'd so infamously.I find this account runs to such a length that I must deferr my Welsh Anecdotes to the next place — Dolgelly.
Ever Yrs D:B: P: S: The Blossets complain of Solander as I am told but I have not heard any particulars of what they lay to his charge.
(ii) I have receiv'd at this place a most particular account from a Lady of what hath pass'd between M
rBanks & Miss Blosset who strongly confirms that the former made the most explicit declaration.What think you of the following facts?
M
rBanks had an interview with her in London which lasted from ten O'clock at Night to ten the next Morning during which he said he was ready to marry her immediately.Miss Blosset however would not catch at this proposal but told him if he was of the same mind a fortnight hence, she would gladly attend him to church Three or four days after which he wrote her a letter desiring to be off.
M
rTunstall writes me word that MrBanks and DrSolander mean to fall plump from theCape of Good Hope upon 70 Degsof Southern LatitudeEver Yrs D:B: P.S. MrBanks in this conversation said he had acted bythe advice of a friend& hence the Blossets blame Solander as I before inform'd you.The other side of the page on which the foregoing is written has for some reason been crossed through, but contains,
inter alia, the following remarks which probably refer to Bougainville's account of his voyage, published in 1771: ‘I do not conceive that Bougainville or Commercons observations will be as accurate as Solanders, however I think you must allow that the Voyage is very entertaining & interesting. I wish the French would learn of the Northern Naturalists todescribe& that the Swedes would learn of them to think’.
Whether Solander's common sense made him urge Banks to get out of the false situation at any cost to his dignity, or whether Banks's imagination conjured up the advice of a friend’ to help him out, we do not know. Solander himself was a confirmed bachelor, and knowing Banks by this time pretty well, he may have judged that the young man was no husband for Miss Blosset. There, it seems, the afflicting matter must be left.
Miss Blosset was not the only embarrassment that afflicted the returned traveller in the midst of his glory. There was also Stanfield Parkinson. From the difficulties hereby created we see Banks emerge with more credit. These difficulties lasted some months, and involved a number of people, but it is convenient to deal with the whole rather tangled story here. After the death of the unfortunate
He had worked exceedingly hard at his drawings, Cf. Banks's entry for 12 May 1770, II, p. 62 below: ‘In 14 days just, one draughtsman has made 94. sketch drawings, so quick a hand has he acquird by use’. This could be no one but Sydney.
When the ship arrived in England, Banks wrote to Stanfield, who immediately called on him, to receive an assurance of Banks's interest, and his intention of rendering an account of all Sydney's belongings. Banks also immediately gave him work, and continued to do so throughout the misunderstandings that now followed. Stanfield's receipts, preserved in the ‘Voluntiers’ volume cited below, p. 68, n. 2, are for goods supplied or work done for Banks, sometimes at New Burlington Street, from 20 July 1771 to 24 February 1772, a total of £89 8s 6d.
Shortly afterwards Stanfield was told by somebody else (hearsay begins to play its part) that James Lee had been informed by Banks that Sydney had bequeathed his journal to Lee, together with other papers that had been lost. This at once put him on fire; he questioned Banks, who confirmed the information, but said he could not find the journal: as soon as his goods arrived from the ship, he added, Stanfield would receive Sydney's, among which there were some curiosities he would like to buy. Several weeks passed during which Banks made no sign, and the fire continued to burn. Stanfield then called on Banks, who arranged to send him some, at least, of Sydney's property. This came; it did not correspond with the inventory, said Stanfield; people talked to him again, and he began to ask further questions. Five weeks later Banks sent for him, to complain about these enquiries; in answer to which Stanfield complained that Banks was wrongfully keeping Sydney's journal and drawings. At these two last meetings, it seems, one or the other, or both, men had difficulty in preserving moderation of speech. Banks, referring the question to Solander, found that he had been mistaken over the alleged bequest to Lee; Stanfield saw a small bundle of papers in Sydney's handwriting. He went away to brood for another considerable time, hearing no more from Banks; and then began to call for assistance on John Fothergill M.D., F.R.S. (1712–80), was eminent also as a botanist. He had a fine botanical garden at Upton, near Stratford, and, like Banks later, employed a number of draughtsmen. Banks greatly admired his collections. His At least, Fothergill himself says (Parkinson's Works were published by Journal, ‘Explanatory Remarks’, p. 3), ‘I wrote to J. Banks, to whom I was then personally a stranger’. But then how do we account for the present of ‘the North American apples which Dr Fothergill gave me’, made into a pie on 23 September 1769 (p. 393 below)? Perhaps they came through an intermediary.
On leaving England, I agreed to give eighty pounds a year toS. Parkinson , besides his living of all kinds, as my draughtsman, to make drawings for me: of this agreement, £151. 8s. id is now due to his executors, besides some small sum for such cloths, &c. of his, as I could dispose of, or make use of in the ship, which I chose rather to do, than bring them home liable to be damaged, as those which came home were in some degree.
Curiosities of all kinds I gave up to them, and such of his papers as I had, excepting only some loose sheets of a journal, which seemed to be only foul copies of a fair journal that I never found, and which is now the chief object of their enquiry; these foul papers, as all the journal I had, was to be given to Mr. Lee, for his reading, by S. Parkinson's own desire, expressed to Dr. Solander just before he died: the curiosities I offered to purchase at the time I delivered them, at such price as the executors should put upon them, but was refused.
Now as S. Parkinson certainly behaved to me, during the whole of his long voyage, uncommonly well, and with unbounded industry made for me a much larger number of drawings than I ever expected, I always did and still do intend to shew to his relations the same gratitude for his good services as I should have done to himself; the execution of this my intention was only delayed by the fear of being involved in a vexatious law-suit after all.
Now you, sir, in conversation with Dr. Solander, have been so good as to suggest a mode of pleasing all parties, which I confess I very much approve of; the only thing that now remains is, that, as a friend to both, you think of a certain sum to be paid by me to them, as an acknowledgement of S, Parkinson's good services, taking or not the cuiosities, &c. just as may seem to you most proper: in this, if you are good enough to undertake it, I beg leave to hint, that I do not at all mean to be sparing in my acknowledgment; but to err rather on the other side, that any one who may hear the transaction may rather say I have been generous than otherwise.Parkinson's
Journal, ‘Explanatory Remarks’, pp. 4–5
The worthy Fothergill therefore took into consideration the whole circumstances, and thought of £500. ‘J. Banks’, he says, ‘Very readily fell in with the proposal, and settled at the same time a pension upon a black woman, the wife of a faithful black servant who went out with him, and perished by the cold of Terra del Fuego’. The Parkinsons also agreed; Stanfield and Britannia met Banks (it was now the end of January 1772), and, with Fothergill as witness, signed a receipt.
But the tedious business was not yet over. Fothergill had not
This was the Louis Léon Félicité Lauraguais, Comte de Lauraguais and later Due de Brancas (1733–1824), was interested in letters and science, a member of the Parkinson's Stanfield Parkinson's affairs, as well as his mind, were disordered; his wife died shortly before he became quite insane, and the Friends undertook the maintenance of his children. Fothergill, their friend as he had been their father's and grandfather's, bought up the unsold remainder of Sydney's Journal of a Voyage round the World published by T. Becket and P. A. de Hondt, London 1771; see Cook I, pp. cclvi ff; Holmes, Captain Cook: A Bibliographical Excursion (London 1952), pp. 20–1. Cf. a letter from Banks's naval friend Captain Bentinck of the Centaur, Spithead, 10 October 1771: ‘As to Mr Becket, and his Catch-penny, the subject is so interesting that there is no putting the book down, at the same time that the inaccuracy with which it is wrote makes it most tiresome and indeed the most provoking reading I ever met with’.—D.T.C. I, p. 27, There is further reference, not highly accurate, to the subject by Mrs Delany, writing to Mrs Port of IIam, 19 November 1771: ‘I believe I wrote you word that the book published of George's Land (or Otahitee) was not by Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander's direction, but they are preparing an account of their voyage; but the Natural History will be a work by itself, entirely at the expense of Mr. Banks, for which he has laid by ten thousand pound. He has already the drawings of everything (birds, beasts, plants, and views) that were remarkable; the work to be set in order, that is, the history written, by Mr. Hawkesworth, under the inspection of Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander; it will hardly come out in my time, as it will consist of at least fourteen volumes in folio. As this was private talk, perhaps it should not be mentioned in general’.—Autobiography and Correspondence of… Mrs Delany (2nd series, 1862), I, pp. 371–2.Académic des Sciences, a liberal in politics and social life, a supporter of inoculation, and a wit whose life was said to combine ‘bons mots et bonnes actions’. He had been prepared to print together Banks's letter to him and a letter of his own to D'Alembert enlarging on the subject. He argued that all the facts were already public property, and that he little deserved reproaches; but he had had some difficulties, ‘For the Printer (whom I do not know) is so eager to sell them that he does little care for correction’, as he naively told Banks in a letter headed Brompton 17th [February?] 1772.—D.T.C. I, p. 31.Journal, ‘Explanatory Remarks’, p. 16.Journal, about four hundred copies. This was reissued in 1784, with eighteen pages of ‘Explanatory Remarks’ by Fothergill on Kenrick's preface. The foregoing account is founded on these remarks and on what seems credible in the preface. No fair copy of Sydney's journal was ever found.
We may at this point with some profit scrutinize the portraits of Banks. We may omit the early one, the charming boy with the long hair and the lace and the book of botanical pictures. The artist is unknown. The picture is reproduced in Cameron, pl.1. This is not, it may be said, a characteristic that has struck previous critics, who have been writing about Reynolds and not Banks. The portrait is certainly one of Reynolds's best, and has called forth great enthusiasm from the artist's [biographers. ‘Sir Joshua's portrait of Banks, painted at this time, is an excellent illustration of the importance of intelligent and intimate relations between painter and sitter. The painter has thoroughly understood his subject…. The burning eyes are focussed by the will that knits the brow, and gives their tension to the hands…. The energy of the man seems to be lifting him out of the seat by an irrepressible force. The globe at his side, the wide stretch of sea visible from the window, are significant of voyages past and to come. No painter could have so expressed the “hungry heart” of a man smitten with the passion of exploring and inquiring, unless he had felt a deep and intelligent sympathy with his sitter.’—Life and Times of Sir Joshua Reynolds (London 1865), I, pp. 428–9. This seems to the present writer somewhat overdone.taiaha, or carved fighting-staff, a canoe paddle, and other ethnographical specimens; before him, on the other side, is a large Polynesian adze and some rather crumpled folio pages — this time not a journal but, one guesses, a section of a book for pressing plants. And the head? Though the hair, or wig, is severer than that of Sir Joshua's painting, the face has a softer curve; the large eyes, the distinct eyebrows, nose and mouth are there, but compared with Reynolds, they have lost in character; it is altogether a more feminine face — could this be, the sudden absurd fancy strikes one,
The two portraits, so dissimilar, thus unite in giving us a Banks who is not quite all gallant adventurer, not quite all modesty, not quite necessarily all generous charm. We have presented, in fact, the wherewithal of a less admirable Banks, a Banks who in conceivable circumstances might be a very great fool. The difficulty with Miss Blosset may have been inevitable. The trouble with Stanfield Parkinson could very likely have been avoided, if Banks had acted sooner, and kept his temper even if he had to give away a little dignity; but once the trouble had come to a head he acted like a man of honour and reputation. In the matter that now arose he acted not like a man of honour but like a man of consequence, and of consequence that had gone to his brain. ‘Joseph Banks Esquire, a Gentleman possessed of considerable landed property in Lincolnshire’, had ceased to be a simple gentleman; Joseph Banks the student of natural history, who would have knelt before
Cras ingens iterabimus aequor — ‘Tomorrow we set out once more upon the boundless main’. Mr Banks had no doubt of his destiny.
Another adventure there certainly had to be. Cook, in a postscript to his journal, had laid down its essential lines; and doubtless it had been discussed on board the Banks to Lauraguais, December 1771. ML MSS.Endeavour, for Banks adumbrates its course in his own pages. The Admiralty, agreeing with Cook over its necessity, and properly appreciative of his merit, had no doubt who should conduct it. Sandwich asked Banks if he too would care to make a second voyage. It was to be a voyage far to the south. Banks did not hesitate: both he and Solander would go. ‘O how Glorious would it be to set my heel upon the Pole! and turn myself round 360 degrees in a second’, he wrote to his French friend Lauraguais.characteristick of Particular Climates?’ What Globe or Map of the Earth did Mr Banks think best, and where was it to be got? Should not Mr Banks apply to the courts of Madrid and Lisbon, that instructions might be sent to their governors abroad to render the expedition all possible assistance? Should not every ship carry a small vessel which would take to pieces, strong enough to bear a sea in a good gale of wind? Dr Watson of Trinity College, who wanted a quart or two of sea water corked up for him in different latitudes, and a few short vocabularies, is ‘sorry to be so troublesome, but he hath a particular conjecture to be established or destroyed’. Dr Priestley would be pleased at any time to explain his method of sweetening water by fixed air. ‘Worthy Cosmopolites and My dear Freinds Mr Bancke and Dr Solander, exclaimed one gentleman with an indecipherable signature, and went on to describe at intolerable length the workings of his newly invented cooking-stove. ‘You will undoubtedly discover the great Southern continent, the existence of which I think admits of no dispute’, another gentleman assured them, dilating on how to find islands, and the advisability of leaving animals and birds to breed on islands when found.
But the greater number of correspondents were those who — to put it briefly — wanted to go too. More at length, William Cawthorne suggests that the ‘national and general Advantage’ of the voyage would be more fully served ‘by including in your Suite a person appointed by the Board of Trade under the Character of Commercial Intelligencer, whose province should be (leaving you to pursue your philosophical Disquisitions) to consider and digest the Errors and Deficiencies in the System of Commerce now subsisting between this Country and the various places and Nations you will necessarily visit…. To Gentlemen of your exalted understandings, the Wisdom and Utility of this appointment will instantly appear’ — an appointment for which, granting the remarkable
e Service of Spain’. Joseph Scothern and William Wortley, joint applicants, understand navigation, can play a large variety of musical instruments, and are prepared to learn themselves the French horn. Matthew Rouviere, an usher, ‘being informd by a Gentleman that you want several
d in Arts and Sciences’, provides ten lines ot accomplishments, from languages to fortification. William Pearce can spell with justice and accuracy. John Frazier has great usefulness in going under water. One Prescott, who is ‘extreamly anxious of seeing more of the World, than has hitherto fallen to my lot’, adds with unusual reserve, ‘Perhaps it may be pertinent to remark, that I am no Seaman’. Signor Pilati is suspected by the Pope and clergy of having written certain books: he did write them; and as he understands and speaks Portuguese, and admires a grandeur of soul such as Mr Banks's, offers his services. Fathers write on behalf of sons, the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford on behalf of a young graduate who has ‘a very curious Turn’. Mr John Smith, an unsuccessful wholesale hosier of the Isle of Wight, understands Dr Solander to be the principal manager in an enterprise to settle the Falkland Islands; if Dr Solander will take Mr Smith, his wife, three small children, and sister, ‘in all probability you will save a sinking Family from ruin’. With a great excess of optimism Mr Smith informs Dr Solander that an immediate answer will be esteemed, and is under the consequent necessity of writing two further letters before he gives up. Dr Solander and Mr Banks have indeed a great responsibility upon them: for Edward Williams, a youth well brought up, of a liberal education, ‘if not soon protected by some kind hand, ruin must ensue, and even non existance follow….’
It is curious that not merely do such persons ‘have the notion of going abroad’, and ‘pant’ to go with Banks, but even seamen in the royal navy apply to him as a patron. Edward Turrell of the Barfleur, on ‘January ye 8’ pens a cry from the heart:
sir I shall be very Glad if your honnour Will be Pleasd to grant me this small Request and I hope your honnour will Exques me for making so bold as to wri[t]e to your Honnor but that I hear your honnour and mr sillander is a going out upon Descovers and shold be very glad of having the Pleasure of going with your honnour for I am on Board of the Barfleur. I was a going out In the Endeavour But was taken sick and was sent on shore to the hospitall But thank the almighty god I heave got the Better of my Eleness sir I shall Take it as great favour and shall be Bound to Pray for your honnour all the Days of my life so No More at Present from your humble servent to Command.
Endeavour: ‘I ham now Emboldend to solicit Your Goodness to have me appointed Supernumery Midshipman in one of the Ships newly Commissioned for the South Seas’. Henry Walker, who had been in the Niger
Dolphin under Wallis, on the voyage that discovered Tahiti; for Robertson was a man of ability, and must have known very well to whom the success of the Endeavour's voyage was due.
At present [he writes] I am on half pay, but Lord Sandwich has promised me the Commdof the first Cutter that becomes Vacent, but if you are going another Voyage on Descoverys as the publick peapers Informs us I should much rather take the Command of a small Vessel on that Expedition, as my Curiosity is not yet fully satisfied. If it be true that you are going on that Voyage, as I cannot rely on the publick peapers, I shall take it as a Singular favour if you will advise me in Course, that I may apply in time…. Were my Circumstances as good as they have been, I could willingly come and see you without any other errand, as I am certain your descoverys must have been very great, as I well know one of your Noble turn of mind would not stick at every trifleing Danger, where there was the least probability of making any kind of Descoverys, that could be of the least use to your King and Country, or to Mankind in General, you Appear to me to be a Gentleman born to Serve Mankind in General and this Nation in Particular, and I am tould kind providence has blest you with the means to cary on your Plan, I sincearly wish you Success in all your publick and privet undertakings, and may your Name be handed down in the Brittish Annals, with the greatest Honour, is the Earnest wishes of him who thinks near as you do, but wants the means….Possibly Banks, in due course, was able to do something for Robertson. A paragraph in a letter from Solander to Banks, three years later, runs, ‘M
rRobertson (now Lieuttof the Phoenix, formerly Master of the Dolphin under Wallis) desires his best Compltsto You—He supposes You have spoke in his behalf to LdSandwich, and is much obliged to You’.—22 August 1775; Webster coll.
On that latest theme of the Brittish Annals, we may return to a civilian voice, the voice of Mr Sheffield, a natural historian who was soon to become keeper of the university museum at Oxford: ‘Yr first Voyage and Discoveries will transmit yr Fames to posterity, a second, attended with equal, and perhaps greater Success, will render you Immortal!’ I make all these quotations from the correspondence in the volume of Banks's papers in ML, lettered ‘Voluntiers, Instructions, Provision for 2d. Voyage’.
Banks thought all these letters, and more, worth keeping, though their writers, with uniform consistency, failed to attain the object of their desire. There was a single exception, that of the young Dutchman Sigismund BacStrom (‘Backstrom’ was good enough for Banks). He was a person of unexceptionably elevated sentiments,
See again the MS volume ‘Voluntiers’. Banks to Falconer, 7 January 1772, Hawley coll.Mr. Joseph Banks
from the mezzotint after the portrait by Benjamin WestTristram Shandy, a large quantity of black and red feathers, forty iron ‘Patapatoes for New Zealand in imitation of their stone weapons’, coloured silk handkerchiefs, ‘A travelling kist with drawers and petitions’, a large collection of sea charts, Dutch almanacs, artist's colours, ‘i Equatorial Instrument Complete’, a magic lantern, 2000 ‘platina’ or brass medals (with two of gold and 142 of silver), sextants, two French horns, ‘2 rods to try the Electricity of ye foggs’, and (thoroughly baffling) ‘i Grean God’ — the list might go on indefinitely; and the barrels, the boxes, the casks, the kegs, the bundles, were a formidable quantity to go on any ship. There was no fancy, it seems, that did not take concrete form — even down to the barrels of dried hips and cherries, the
Endeavour's voyage as well.
Meanwhile the world of natural history was impatiently awaiting accurate information on the collections brought back by the Johnson again: Boswell had brought up the subject of ‘Hawkesworth's Book’. Linnaeus to Ellis, 22 October 1771; J.E.S. I, pp. 267–70 Ellis to Linnaeus, 19 November 1771; ibid., p. 272.Endeavour. The insects, it is true, had been handed over to the young Fabricius — still another pupil of Linnaeus — for description.Systema Entomologiae (Leipzig 1775) was a considerable advance on Linnaeus.‘Johnson. “Sir, if you talk of it as a subject of commerce, 'twill be gainful. If as a Book, that is to increase human knowledge, not much of that, Hawkesworth can tell only what Banks tells him, and he has not found much. But one Animal.” Boswell. “Many insects.” Johnson. “Ray reckons of british Insects 20,000 species. Banks might have staid at home and discovered enough in that way”.’—Boswell, Private Papers, 6, p. 133.Systema Entomologiae of 1775. That, for the Banksian collections, was quick work. But when was Banks going to publish his account? Was Solander at work on a catalogue? The news of an immediate second voyage was bound to cause consternation. Poor Linnaeus, longing in vain for a letter from Solander, was driven nearly frantic. ‘I have just read, in some foreign newspapers’. he wrote to Ellis in a remarkable letter of excitement and anxiety, ‘that our friend Solander intends to revisit those new countries, discovered by Mr. Banks and himself, in the ensuing spring. This report has affected me so much as almost entirely to deprive me of sleep. How vain are the hopes of man! Whilst the whole botanical world, like myself, has been looking for the most transcendent benefits to our science, from the unrivalled exertions of your countrymen, all their matchless and astonishing collection, such as has never been seen before, nor may ever be seen again, is to be put aside untouched, to be
Before the end of 1771 the Admiralty had bought two further ships into the navy for the new expedition, both Whitby-built like the Endeavour, and of the same type. Cook chose them himself, and the larger of them, the Resolution, was to prove perhaps the most wonderful vessel ever engaged on an exploratory purpose. There was the usual official reticence, to which Banks paid a little tribute in a letter to Falconer:
The A[d]miralty have thought fit to be Mysterious about us so that I myself cannot Positively say where we are going and when I tell you that it is my opinion we are for the South Seas I must beg the favour of you not to mention it again for those parts however we are pretty certainly design'd and if we proceed to make discoveries on the Terra Australia Incognita I shall probably have a finer opportunity for the Excercise of my Poor Abilities than ever man before had as there seems to be a strong Probability from the Scarce Intelligible accounts of Travelers That almost every Production of Nature is here very different from what we see at this end of the Globe.Undated, probably late January 1772. This was all the more ridiculous as Banks had already told Falconer the plan of the voyage in his letter of 7 January 1772 quoted above, and even asked him for ‘hints relative to Observations which you might wish me to make’. Falconer's letter of 4 February 1772, ‘Voluntiers’, seems to be in answer to both these letters. On the destination of the voyage, of.
Daines Barrington 's letter to Pennant of late August or early September 1771, ‘MrTunstall writes me word’ etc., p. 56 above.
This was concealment so obvious that it was never noticed, and the fitting out of the ships was carried briskly and lavishly forward. On 2 May Banks gave an entertainment on board the B.M. Add. MS 27888, f. 4,4v. Priestley's letter to Banks will bear quoting: ‘You now tell me that, as the different professors of Oxford and Cambridge will have the naming of the person, and they are all clergymen, they may possibly have some scruples on the head of religion, and that on this account, you do not think you could get me nominated at any rate, much less on the terms which were first mentioned to me. Now what I am, and what they are, with respect to religion, might easily have been known before the thing was proposed to me at all. Besides, I thought that this had been a business of B.M. Add. MS 27888, f. 3. Lind was elsewhere highly thought of, however. Hume wrote to A note in Banks's hand in ‘Voluntiers’, p. 431, specifies the names and wages of these persons: Though he seems to have been hopeful at first. Cf. Sandwich, II, p. 350 below: ‘Captain Cooke (who had so high an idea of the ship that he thought she could bear all this super structure) gave it as his opinion that it would not be too much…’. 15 May 1772, ML Banks Papers, II (1), 28. ‘MResolution to Sandwich, the French Ambassador, and ‘several other persons of distinction’. Sandwich came more than once to inspect the work, ‘not’, as Cook wrote, ‘out of Idle curiosity as many of all ranks did, Ladies as well as gentlemen, for scarce a day past on which she was not crowded with strangers who came on board for no other purpose but to see the Ship in which Mr Banks was to sail round the world’.Philosophy, not of Divinity. If, however, this be the case, I shall hold the board of longitude in extreme contempt, and make no scruple of speaking of them accordingly; taking it for granted, that you have just ground for your suspicions’.—1 December 1771, ‘Voluntiers’, pp. 597–8. See also Priestley's Memoirs (Birmingham 1810), p. 50, where he remarks, ‘I was much better employed at home, even with respect to my philosophical pursuits.’ The professors were no doubt the professors of astronomy and geometry at Oxford, and astronomy and mathematics at Cambridge, all ex officio members of the Board. But they did not by themselves have the nomination. See Cook II, Appendix III, pp. 719 ff. Banks in any case was taking too much on himself.New Letters of David Hume (Oxford 1954), pp. 193–4. Resolution; two, a draughtsman and the ardent Bacstrom, in the other ship, the ‘Resolution: Zoffany, J. F. Miller and James Miller (draughtsmen) £100 a year each; Walden (secretary) £100; Adventure: Resolution, on her purchase, he did not approve of her. He did not regard her as roomy enough, because he had already determined to take more people with him than he had taken in the Endeavour (whether he had by then determined to take a private band we do not know). Sandwich was First Lord, and the Admiralty was prepared to make alterations, even if in doing so it had to override the opinion of the Navy Board and Captain Palliser, the Comptroller. These alterations entailed raising the ship's upper works about a foot and laying a new deck from the quarter-deck to the forecastle, and — as Cook was to be turned out of the great cabin to leave it for Banks — building a ‘round house’ for the captain on top. Banks did not like the alterations. Nor did Cook;Resolution unsafe, so that they would have to be undone, and the work of himself and his party would be impossible. He would not tolerate such conditions, they were quite beyond bearing; his rage burst all bounds;r Banks came to Sheerness and when he saw the Ship, He swore &. stamp'd upon the Warfe, like a Mad Man.’—Resolution, who later wrote his memoirs.—B.M. Add. MS 42714, f.iov. Probably Elliott gave the ship's opinion generally, when he wrote, ‘a more proud, haught[y] man could not be, and all his plans seem'd directed to show his own greatness’.—ibid., f.ii.
He drafted long memoranda to Sandwich, hitherto his close friend. One, dated 30 May, he unfortunately sent. It is a very revealing document; and it is — to use an adjective quite inescapable — a very foolish document. To present the First Lord with a lecture on naval construction was bad enough; to provide such witness to his own unbounded conceit was unwise in the extreme. For the Admiralty was still strongly under the impression that the expedition it was fitting out was an expedition of geographical discovery, and that the commander it had appointed was Cook. There is the melancholy duty of quoting Banks. He had made pledges, he said, to Sandwich and to all Europe: ‘The navy Board was in consequence order'd to purchase two ships and to fit them up in a proper manner for our reception that we might be enabled
In an earlier paragraph he has remarked that when Sandwich first asked him to go, ‘I Joyfully embracd a proposal of all others the best suited to my disposition and pursuits’. This £5000’ has been repeated a good deal, and J. H. Maiden, in his There are a number of copies of this letter: in the ‘Voluntiers’ volume; in S.S.B.'s copy of the Iceland journal; among Sandwich's papers at Hinchingbrooke (endorsed No. 93); among George III's papers at Windsor Georgian Papers, No. 1322. It was first printed by Fortescue, Sir Joseph Banks (Sydney 1909), p. 45, actually says he has seen ‘receipts for money paid by Banks, amounting to over £5000, for scientific stores and appliances, presents for the natives, and so forth, for this voyage. These documents are now in the Mitchell Library’. Now the only documents of this sort in the Mitchell Library are in the ‘Voluntiers’ volume already referred to. A careful addition of all the sums receipted in this volume comes to a great deal less than £5000. Some of them have nothing to do with the Resolution expenses at all—for example, the costs of chartering the ship for Banks's Iceland voyage are included, and a payment of £89 8s 6d to Stanfield Parkinson for miscellaneous work at New Burlington Street: ‘To Makin a sett of Gurtians of blew Check for the Garret bed Head a Sett of Lathes with hooks and spicks and putin up’, £3 3s; ‘Menden two Mohogney french Chairs’, 3s 6d, and so on; there is ‘Od Jobes in the House & Door Way in the Londerrey’, £5 3s 7d, with other similar items. Whether ‘a Globular Silver Punch Bowl’, £24 18s, was for use on die ship or at home we need not enquire; but ‘an Enamelled Gold Watch’, 35 guineas, does not seem to have any necessary nautical significance. Nor does the item ‘To lighting the Lamp from 25 March 1772 to ist June 1772’, 7s 4d. But ‘A Poket Time Keeper’, £100, bought like the gold watch of History of the Royal Society, II, p. 116, gives it later as above £30,000 a year, so he was in no danger of reducing himself to beggary in the cause of science.Endeavour, was possibly the least generous remark Banks uttered in his life. Give him the ship he wanted, he said, and he would gladly embark; for he well knew ‘that there are many commanders in his majesties service of undoubted abilities and experience who would willingly undertake to proceed with her on the intended expedition ambitious of shewing the world that the success of such an undertaking depends more upon the Prudence and Perseverance of the Commander than upon any particular built of the ship that may be employd’.Correspondence of King George the Third, II (1927), pp. 343–7. I have used the autograph draft of the ‘Voluntiers’ volume.
To all this the Navy Board — when Sandwich, according to what Banks called scornfully ‘Forms of office’, referred it for comment — made the obvious, the simple, the crushing reply; after which it was hard for Mr Banks to rise again. ‘As to the proper kind of Ship and her fitness and sufficiency for the Voyage, his opinion was never asked nor could have been asked with propriety, he being in no degree qualified to form a right Judgement in such a matter; and for the same reason his opinion now thereon is not to be attended to…. Mr Banks seems throughout to consider the Ships as fitted out wholly for his use; the whole undertaking to depend on him and his People; and himself as the Director and Conductor of the whole….’ Even now matters had been so contrived as to take away from him only six feet of the length of the great cabin (presumably to give Cook somewhere to sleep), and from his attendants only one small cabin. For a man who had begun by saying nothing but that the fore part of the cabin was an inch or two too low, and then had kept on adding to his ‘suite’ and his demands in complete disregard of the ship, the Board thought it had not done badly. 3 June 1772; Sandwich papers, Hinchingbrooke (endorsed No. 95); Georgian Papers, Windsor, No. 1323*; Fortescue II, pp. 350–2.
I am sorry that the alteration you proposed to make in the said letter has not taken place, as it will probably make it necessary that some answer should be given if your letter is made public; for it is a heavy charge against this Board to suppose that they mean to send a number of men to sea in an unhealthy ship. In this point, and in most of the reasoning of the above-mentioned letter, I differ greatly with you in opinion, and shall therefore be sorry if anything is printed on either side; but I am sure if you will give yourself time to think coolly, you will at once see the impropriety of publishing to the world an opinion of your own, that one of the King's ships is unfit for a voyage she is going to be employed in, and that her crew will be in danger of losing their lives if they go to sea in her… I am positive…. we shall be able to bring the fullest proof to the contrary; that paragraph being in your letter should in my humble opinion induce you not to print it.Sandwich to Banks, 2 June 1772; Sandwich Papers, Hinchingbrooke. This is a modern copy of the letter.
But the possibility had to be met; and if we examine the papers at Hinchingbrooke, we find the rod in pickle, the highly destructive countermine. We find also a revealing backward light. The Forms of Office had brought Sandwich the Navy Board's comments upon Banks's letter, and from Palliser himself a very moderately phrased paper entitled ‘Thoughts upon the Kind of Ships proper to be employed on Discoveries in distant Parts of the Globe’; Sandwich Papers, Hinchingbrooke; n.d.; endorsed No. 98. Georgian Papers, Windsor, No. 1342; Fortescue II, p. 361. There is no doubt of the king's deep interest in the voyages, though the lavishness of Hawkesworth's dedication of his volumes brought some public criticism: “it exceeds the licence of dedicatory compliment’, held the It is in Sandwich's handwriting, undated, and is endorsed No. 94.r Banks, which may possibly be proper to be printed in case the other is made publick. Your Majesty will observe that it is under a fictitious name, which for many reasons is most adviseable’.Annual Register for 1773 in its review of the volumes after the writer's death, pp. 266–73. Hawkesworth's principle seems to have been that if you are using butter, you may as well use plenty of it.
‘As it is very possible that his Lordship may not have leisure or inclination to enter into a paper war upon this occasion’, remarked Sandwich at the beginning of his twenty folio pages, and as his fictitious other self had ‘had opportunities of knowing allmost every circumstance that passed relative to the equipment of the Resolution Sloop of War, on board of which you was to have been recieved as a passenger’, he would deal with the charges made. Banks had never complained about want of room on the Endeavour. When the time came to select a new ship, it was ‘agreed on all hands, that the opinion of the very great and able Sea officer who lately presided at the admiraltyResolution, and now showed discontent: ‘she was not fit for a gentleman to embark in’; if considerable alterations were not made ‘you would not proceed upon the voyage’. (Alas! Banks had begun to make his threat too soon, and he made it too often.) There was a clash of opinion. Cook thought the ship would bear the alterations — a bad misjudgment, though Sandwich did not say this; the Navy Board and the shipwrights did not, and Sandwich overruled them; and then ‘several other demands were made by you in which the constant burthen of your song was, that their being complied with or not, should be the decision whither you should or should not proceed on the voyage’. These demands about the ship had been followed by demands about the conduct of the voyage, which if complied with would have been tantamount to ‘giving you the absolute command of the expedition’: Cook was to be ordered to follow Banks's directions; the officers were to be ordered to look to Banks for promotion. Banks had worried about the health of the crew: which showed his humanity
There is no reason to doubt the underlying goodwill of this last broadside. Whatever Banks's aberrations, and however exasperating he might be, Sandwich, and others, still had a sincere regard for his welfare and his preservation. In the cause of human friendship, we may be glad there was no public paper war; Banks knew Sandwich well enough not to be deceived about his castigator, and the breach between the two, which could not but be inevitable, might have been deep and lasting. In the meanwhile there was nothing useful to be done to mend a breach. A brief passage in Parliament was met by the usual ministerial silence; There was evidently a little campaign. The Sandwich to North, 8 June 1772; Sandwich Papers, Hinchingbrooke. ‘MGeneral Evening Post, 4 June 1772, reports, ‘Yesterday Mr D-mpst-r moved for an inquiry into the motives for laying aside the prosecution of our discoveries towards the South Pole. The speakers referred him to the Treasury Bench, but Lord N—th and all his colleagues were as still as night, and there the affair dropped.’ The paper recurred to the subject on 6 June.r Banks presents his Compts to Mr Burke & heartily thanks him for the Interest he has been so kind as to take in his business throughout the whole prosecution of it. Several of Mr Banks's freinds met this morn at the Speakers where on finding that the present Equipment had proceeded too far to be either alterd or stoppd they resolvd to put off meeting on tuesday & hope that some other expedition might be set on foot which they conceived great hopes might be effected in a much more agreable way than this ever was in. Mr Banks returns a thousand thanks for Mr Burkes Caveat which he understands has in Conjunction with the Speak[e]r stoppd totaly what Mr Banks so much dreaded that he should be lookd upon as usefull to the voyage only in catching butterflies & the publick be contented if that matter was done by any one else whether well or ill.’—This undated note is among the Wentworth Woodhouse papers in the Sheffield Public Library, Bk 2/219, and I am grateful to Earl Fitzwilliam and the Trustees of the Fitzwilliam Settled Estates for allowing me to print it.Resolution sailed from Plymouth on 13 July it carried not the fifteen scientific gentlemen, artists, and servants, collected by Banks, but simply one astronomer — and the disastrous
So far was Banks from any suspicion that his suite might be too large, that there is evidence that he contemplated enlarging it still further. When Cook got to Madeira he met with an odd story, which is reported by more than one member of his company. His own account has come to rest among the papers of George III, though it could hardly have been addressed to that august personage. Cook to—, 1 August 1772; Windsor Castle, Georgian Papers, No. 1359. The letter, which is a copy, simply begins ‘Sir’, and does not have the addressee's name subscribed. It was very probably sent to Resolution, and goes on, ‘Three days before we arrived a person left the Island who went by the name of Burnett he had been waiting for Mr Banks arrival about three months, at first he said he came here for the recovery of his health, but afterwards said his intention was to go out with Mr Banks, to some he said he was unknown to this Gentleman, to others he said it was by his appointment he came here as he could not be receiv'd on board in England, at last when he heard that Mr Banks did not go, he took the very first opportunity to get of the Island, he was about 30 Years of age and rather ordinary than otherwise and employ'd his time in Botanizing &ca — Every part of Mr Burnetts behaviour and every action tended to prove that he was a Woman, I have not met with a person that entertains a doubt of a contrary nature, he brought letters of recommendation to an English House where he was accomodated during his stay, It must be observed that Mrs Burnett must have left London about the time we were first ready to sail’. Now there is nothing inherently improbable about this story, fantastic as it may appear. We have seen that Banks was susceptible to women, and not entirely master of his mind where they were concerned. Had he taken a hint from the tale of that other naturalist, Commerson, and his valet, who on Bougainville's voyage so remarkably concealed her sex till
Endeavour had carried hands beyond those on the muster-roll, so why not the Resolution? ‘The time we were first ready to sail’ was the time immediately before it was found the ship could not sail. Mrs, or Miss, Burnett, a victim of circumstance, left London just too soon. Even if the scheme broke down, nothing much would have been lost; the lady, obviously, was used to looking after herself. It did break down, though for a more remote cause; and the lady did look after herself.
To moralize further on any part of the whole unhappy matter is hardly necessary. There was a little coolness between Banks and Cook, whose sentiments on the ship were perfectly well known, but no real estrangement; and Cook wrote from Sheerness, immediately after the break, ‘I Pray my best respects to the D 2 June 1772, ML MS. ML Banks Papers, II, f. 3. ‘Voluntiers’, p. 23 ff. Banks was stimulated by a letter in the Copies of these two letters are in ‘Voluntiers’, pp. 391–3. That to D'Alembert is dated 12 July 1772. Banks had apparently himself composed a letter to D'Alembert in a French over which Lauraguais shakes his head. The letter to Buffon has no date in the copy, but must have been sent at the same time. In the letter to Falconer already quoted from (p. 71 above) he remarks, ‘The Very Intelligent observations which I meet with in your last about the Northern Countreys make me almost regret the having given up my Northern plan in which they would have been so usefull I shall however lay it by as a treasure I may sometime make use of…’. Lind to Maskelyne, 30 January 1775; D.T.C. I, pp. 82–3. Presumably Maskelyne passed on to the Admiralty this letter, so much more complimentary to Banks than to the British government. Maskelyne had been sounding Lind on his willingness to go on a northern Pacific voyage. Walpole to Iceland Journal, p.6. Here another letter to Banks, not in the Voluntiers volume, may be quoted. It seems to indicate that he had already, early in June, announced publicly his intention of going on a voyage of his own. The writer, r & sence I am not to have your Company in the Resolution I most sin[c]erely wish you success in all your exploring undertakens’.General Evening Post, 27 June 1772.Gazetteer, signed with the pseudonym ‘Antarcticus’. Luckily he thought better of sending it in. He still, he announced, in this abortive effusion, ‘keeps his companions together at a large expence, and labours earnestly to prevail upon the publick to put it in his power to make the same voyage as he has been disapointed of; declaring to all his freinds that when disapointed of every hope from the publick, he will undertake at his own expence, such a voyage as his Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, 11 June 1772, signed by ‘A Briton’, which said, inter alia, ‘From what I can see, Mr. Banks, Dr. Solander, Dr. Lind, and Mr. Zoffani, are likely to be excluded from a voyage which, from their sharing it, did honour to the nation; and in all probability, the noblest expedition ever fitted out will dwindle to nothing, and disgrace this country’. A gentleman without a signature answered this on 16 June: ‘The whole of the matter is, Mr. B. did not chuse to go the voyage, unless he could ride the waves triumphantly, in all the pomp and splendour of an Eastern Monarch’. There were other letters, on 17 June from ‘An Englishman’ (anti-Banks), and on 23 June from ‘Detector’ (pro-Banks).Gazetteer. Banks and Bougainville (who also wanted to go on another voyage, to the Letters (ed. Toynbee), VIII, p. 207.Resolution, or to Cook.— ‘Resolution Sheerness June 9th 1772. Most Honoured Sir—I not having an oppertunity of waiting on you in person have made bold to make this Letter the Messinger of my Nessessitys, Which is to do me the Honour of a birth in your Service, in the Capacity of Mastr Sail maker, Which I now am On board the Resolution I am very desirous to proceed on the Voyage, but in the ship with Which you & Dr Solander goes, I should have gone with the Adventure, if you had not been going in the Resolution when I first shipd myself.—It is the Desire of my friends, I should go this voyage, which If I Do not, the Disadvantage will be very great to me as it Lyes in there power to do very genteel for me at My Return, Which I must & will suffer Reather than go in this Ship, altho I am so Desirous of Proceeding the Voyage, therefore I hope you'll be pleas'd to Favour me with my Desire which will make me Intirely happy, & till such time as I Know your pleasure Remain your Honours most Obedient & Most Devoted Servt Richd Rollett— I hope you please to let me know your pleasure Which I Impatiently wait for & hope it will be a profound Secret to Captn Cook for if it Dont sute you & he heres of it my time will be Very Miserible to me’.—ATL, Miscellaneous material relating to Cook's voyages. Rollett however duly sailed on the Resolution.
Why Iceland? Iceland was coming into fashion, but it was a literary fashion, the fashion of Runic inscriptions, of the sagas that were so engaging to scholars of philology and the Northern past, of an epic that could hardly fail to impinge upon the mind cultivated in romance. Iceland had its antiquities. It could not rival Greece and Rome, nor did it shine with the imperial visions of the South Sea; but it was in the air. Dr Johnson, who dealt so summarily with Boswell's circumnavigatory leaning, himself idly thought of a voyage to Iceland. The age was fond of volcanoes, and Iceland had a volcano. For Banks indeed the suggestion may have come from Solander, indirectly inspired by that other Linnaean pupil Iceland Journal, pp. 6–7. The brig was in the end under charter for five months, from 11 July to 4 December, as we see from the account in the ‘Voluntiers’ papersSir Lawrence, Captain Hunter and a crew of twelve, ‘to proceed according to my directions at the Rate of 100 pounds a month for four Months Certain’.
It is a journal interesting, like nearly everything Banks wrote, but as an Iceland journal not wholly satisfactory, for it breaks off soon after the writer reached Iceland; and what other information we have on the visit is satisfactory only to the extent that it mentions a date or two, a few places, some isolated incidents. A biographer is too much tantalized. The first eight pages of the journal are indeed spent on an obsessional reworking of Banks's case against the Admiralty, pages which could well have been given to his travels; while the Banks's MS does not seem to have been previously utilized by any student. It is now in the McGill University Library, and I am greatly indebted to the generosity of the Librarian of McGill in providing me with a microfilm copy. The MS has 8 pp. of introduction, followed by 88 pp. of journal, 12 July–6 September 1772, and an appendix giving the text of the passport. Of the 88 journal pages, 60 are devoted to the Scottish islands, and 14 to Iceland. In the introduction Banks says he will include his long letter to Sandwich of 30 May in an appendix, but does not do so. It is possible that he wrote more journal than is extant, but if so, why has the passport appendix survived and not the rest of the journal? A copy of the journal by S.S.B. survives (Hawley coll.); this breaks off at 5 September, but does include the letter to Sandwich. Banks did write more, though it may not have been in journal form, because he lent some notes to W. J. Hooker to aid the latter in his own tour of Iceland in 1809, and Hooker quotes Banks's account of the ascent of Mount Hecla (see p. 92 below). Lord Brabourne, also, has a small notebook with a few details attributable to September and October (I have not seen this and owe my knowledge of it to Miss Janet D. Hine). And there are two long and interesting letters to Falconer, quoted below. This is presumably the person of whom Hume wrote (to Lind?), 24 February 1772: ‘There is a young Gentleman of the Name of Riddal, Grandson of Sir Walter Riddal, who goes with you in your nautical & philosophical Expedition in the Station of a Midshipman: I am much connected with his Friends who desire to have him recommended to you’.—Klibanksy and Mossner, Letters on Iceland which von Troil published at
Banks and Solander
from ‘shadows’ by James LindLetters on Iceland, made during a Voyage undertaken in the year 1772, By Joseph Banks Esq., F.R.S. and Dr. Solander, F.R.S., Dr. Lind, F.R.S., Dr. Uno von Troil, D.D., and several other Literary and ingenious Gentlemen—to give the gist of its intolerably verbose title-page.— All the evidence available a generation ago on the visit, from Icelandic as well as English sources, was brought together in the valuable monograph by Halldór Hermannsson, Sir Joseph Banks and Iceland (Ithaca, N.Y., 1928), pp. 4–20. Hermannsson unfortunately did not have the journal or the Falconer letters. He reproduced 24 of the 75 drawings made by the Millers and Cleveley, now in the Resolution, Banks had been offered by the Admiralty ‘the alternative to go or let it alone, with a great deal of Coolness however, for I now had inadvertently opend to them Every Idea of discovery which my last voyage had suggested to me and these they thought themselves able to follow without my assistance now they had once got possession of them’. But for his ‘people’ he maintained his charm, as well as his importance as a source of livelihood. He took with him, independent of the captain and crew of the Sir Lawrence, twenty-one persons in all: he had added a cook and a gardener to the original company, and there were three more newcomers — von Troil, who wished to make observations upon the Icelandic language; ‘Mr Riddel, a young gentleman intended for the Sea’, who wanted also to go south with Banks if the East India Company provided a ship;New Letters of David Hume, p. 195. Young Riddell may have been ‘intended for the Sea’, but he does not appear to have been appointed to either of Cook's ships. He was a relative of the wife of Hume's elder brother John, a niece of Sir Walter Riddell of Riddell, who was the head of ‘an ancient and honourable family’ in Roxburghshire. His presence, like Lind's, illustrates how Banks's relations were extending over the kingdom.Endeavour,
The adventurers sailed from Gravesend on the night of 12 July, carrying Count Lauraguais as far as Dover, and arranging there for the transport to Calais of a bird that Banks was sending to Buffon. There was a historic brass cannon to inspect at the castle, and a little botanizing to do. The wind turned contrary and blew fresh, and for several days Banks was too sick to write. By 20 July they were at the Isle of Wight — ‘a little paradise’, thought von Troil, though Banks was more measured in his description. Going ashore early at Cowes to buy butter and eggs, they had to walk about till the shops opened. Cowes was a pleasant town; the small and ill-built Yarmouth, where they ‘landed with French Horns to the no small surprise of the people who little expected to see such a motley crew issue from so small a vessel’, less so, its people ‘much less humanisd’ than those of Cowes, less used to strangers: ‘the children followd us about the streets begging for halfpence’. It was not quite like landing on a South Sea island, but at least the French horns had had their effect. Three more days brought them to Plymouth, to find that Arnold, the instrument-maker, had carried Banks's chronometer back to London. Once more Mount Edgcumbe was inspected, with regrets that its noble owner was not more a man of refined taste, who could have added some touches of art to the magnificent inadequacies of nature; but the docks called forth unqualified enthusiasm. Then by ship again, with the wind still west, and more and worse sea-sickness from day to day. A bout of fishing yielded only four dogfish, ‘in whose fins were however a new species of Oniscus’; and when, a few miles off the Cornish coast, a flag was hoisted to attract fishing-vessels, a legion of small boats shot out to see what smuggled goods the Sir Lawrence had on board. Such was the eighteenth century. At last, on 28 August, near Land's End, with a south-west sea growing, it was decided to sail up the Irish Channel; the wind turned favourable, and the morning of the 31st showed the Mull of Kintyre.
There followed a fortnight among the Hebridean islands — a longer time than Banks had meant to spend, but a fortnight that gave full scope to his romantic, sporting, observing mind, and to his recording pen. Neither rain, nor fog, nor foul winds blurred his enthusiasm. On Saturday, 1 August, the ship anchored in Lochindale, to find an immense crowd gathered together for the single communion of the year next day. Banks had to have tents pitched for shelter, while the Sunday was deemed so sacred by the inhabitants that he could not even walk out botanizing — though certainly that pleasure would have been marred by the immoderate rain. On Monday he could at least go for a walk, to Killam, a small town at the head of the bay, where he found the ruins of a religious foundation, and set his artists to drawing tombstones; there were lead-mines also, originally worked by the Danes. On Tuesday more rain, and another walk to see a cave of which he had received ‘a very pompous account’, but it turned out to be ‘a dirty nasty hollow in a rock’ on Wednesday still more rain, and the decision to move to the other side of the island. Banks rode overland, with an eye on the country and its farms. On 6 August the rain broke; the travellers crossed to the isle of Jura with a barometer to measure the height of the stony hills; the following day they fixed the latitude of Freeport, and the day after that arrived dripping wet on Oronsay to inspect its ancient monastic remains. Once again the artists were set to work. On the 9th they left the Sound of Islay: Banks wanted to sail straight to ‘Y Columb Kill’ — Icolmkill or the isle of Iona, but his pilot insisted on going through the Sound of Mull. (Cook was not the only sailor to prefer his own professional judgment to Banks's.) At least this gave him some fishing and shooting; he shot gulls, ‘as all our gentlemen think these excellent meat’, including the first Arctic Gull he had ever seen. There was an old fort, miserably broken down but picturesque, for the artists. And there was full liberty to the soul. It was 11 August; the ship was passing between Mull and Morven when Mr Banks's emotions, in the literary way, came to the top: he gazed on the fabulous shore entranced.
Morven the Land of Heroes once the seat of the Exploits of Fingal the mother of romantick scenery of Ossian I could not even sail past it without a touch of Enthusiasm sweet affection of the mind which can gather pleasures from the Empty Elements and realise substantial pleasure which three fourths of mankind are ignorant of I lamented the busy bustle of the ship and had I dard to venture the Censure of my Companions would certainly have brought her to an anchor to have read ten pagesof Ossian under the shades of those woods would have been Luxury above the reach of Kings. Iceland Journal, pp. 34–5. The contrast between the emotions of Banks in the Hebrides in 1772, and of Johnson in 1773, is really comic.
Soon after came the anti-climax; for passing the mouth of a beautiful inlet ‘the cruel pilot’ would not let the enthusiast land, declaring it a bar harbour. They had to anchor, ‘as fate directed in as ugly a spot as we could have chose along the whole coast, sufficiently so I think to have destroyed the enthusiasm of even an Ossian’. Yet even here, once ashore, the enquiring mind found food: he could observe the burning of kelp, of which we get a full description.
More was at hand than kelp-burners. Banks met an English gentleman, a Mr Leach, who told him that on an island about nine leagues off were pillars like those of the Giants’ Causeway. The Giants’ Causeway was a phenomenon that only lack of time had kept him from visiting earlier. Here was a chance to make up for the omission. He had two days’ provision and his tent loaded into a boat, sent the ship round to wait in Tobermory harbour, took eight of his people and was rowed over to Staffa — a tedious eight hours’ passage without a breath of wind. It was night when they landed; the tent was too small, so four volunteers, led by Solander, braved the smoke and suspected lice of a nearby fisherman's hut. In the morning — it was 13 August and a great day in Banks's life — enthusiasm once more rushed to the surface. On the south-west side of the island ‘we were struck with a scene which exceeded our Expectations’. This was the great range of natural pillars for which Staffa has since then been pre-eminently known. Banks made a rhetorical flight which perhaps compensates for his discontent with the unaided nature of Mount Edgcumbe.
Compard to this what are the Cathedrals or the palaces built by man mere models or playthings imitations as diminutive as his works will always be when compard to those of nature where is now the boast of the architect regularity the only part in which he fancied himself to exceed his mistress nature is here found in her possession & here it has been for ages uncounted, is not this the school where the art was originaly studied & what had been added to this by the whole grecian school a Capital to ornament the Column of nature of which they could execute only a model & for that very capital they were obligd to a bush of acanthus.
how amply does nature repay those who study her wonderfull works.
With his mind full of such reflections was Mr Banks guided over the new giants’ causeway. But there was still more to come —
The gentlemen crossed over to the sacred ground of Iona, where for the first time in the Highlands they were asked how much they would give for their board and lodging. Nevertheless board and lodging they soon got — an empty house, clean straw, sour curds and cream, and a fire they had to put out for lack of a chimney — preparation for another day of rain and ruins, with a good deal of unlikely story thrown in by their guide. Banks elsewhere tells a pleasant story about the visit to Iona: ‘in each of the 4 sides of this Island which answer the 4 Cardinal points is a stone in which seamen place great faith beleiving that if they cleen carefully any one of them a wind will arise from its respective quarter. When we were there the Stone on the North side was nicely swept & a northerly wind arising fannd us gently away to our ship where we arrivd at night’.— Banks to Falconer, 12 January 1773, Hawley coll.
It took three days to come in with the land, and by the time the flat shore and scattered houses were visible, long ridges of hills behind, there were fishing-boats all round. The fishermen were unexpectedly shy; as Banks learnt later, some dispute was in train between Denmark and England, and they suspected the ship to be the forerunner of a conquering fleet. Von Troil, on the other hand, merely says there was a severe penalty for piloting a strange ship into harbour without official permission, as a measure against smugglers— which does not contradict Banks, any more than Banks contradicts him. Shyness of smugglers would argue a radical difference between the Icelanders and the Cornishmen. Foreign trade with Iceland was in fact forbidden. It is said also that the Icelanders remembered an Algerian pirate-raid in the previous century, and feared another.— Hermannsson, p. 9. Cf.pp. 158, II, 276–9 below. This use of the ‘electrical machine’, for purposes of amusement, is very typical of the age. Unhappily there were no ‘humorous effects’: of the poor Icelanders, thus surprised in the clinical routine, ‘every one looked as a fool who had received an unexpected slap on the face nothing lively appeared no good prognostick of Bright parts in our new freinds’.—Iceland Journal, 3 September. Iceland Journal, 6 September.
We are compelled to fall back upon our other sources. There must have been a week more of local exploration of the volcanic, treeless country, with its vast lava-beds, its small farms and vegetable gardens, till the party set out on the grand expedition, to climb Mount Hecla: this was a twelve days’ journey, and they climbed to the top, von Troil tells us, on 24 September. We have an itinerary noted down by Solander. Von Troil, p. 10.Plantae Islandicae et Notulae itinerariae; B.M.(N.H.), Botany Library.
They scrambled up — for they had to leave their horses — in intense cold, with a violent wind blowing against them — so violent that sometimes they were forced to lie down to save themselves
Banks, as quoted by W. J. Hooker, ibid.Journal of a Tour in Iceland (London 1813), II, pp. 116–7.
Where else Banks went in Iceland we cannot say with precision. The names given by von Troil argue another tour of hot springs, westwards and north-west to the North Cape, and then perhaps east and south round the island; and we may infer the inspection of ‘Remains of Antiquity’, or, as our age has it, ancient monuments, from his mention of their existence. We judge that there was a lively British-Icelandic social life: there was for example the country parson who was entertained with singing and the music of some unknown instrument; An occasion described in the One of the Iceland drawings is dated 15 October; so, as Hermannsson points out, the ship must have left Iceland after that date. The note-book in Lord Brabourne's possession has the final entries, ‘21 [October?] Idle, 22 Idle too resolve to go away fair or foul’. If October is the month referred to then the departure could not have been earlier than the 23rd. In a letter to Falconer of 12 January 1773, Banks remarks, ‘the course I steerd was through the western Islands to Iceland from whence after having remaind 8 weeks I returnd by the orkneys to Edinburgh & from thence by land to London’; but in another, 2 April 1773, he says ‘we were only 6 weeks ashore on it’— i.e. Iceland.—Hawley coll. Smith, p. 34, apparently following Autobiography of Jon Steingrimsson, quoted by Hermannsson, p. 10.Gent. Mag. xlii, p. 540, says Banks left Edinburgh on 19 November, after spending some time there and in the Highlands, but gives no authority for the statement. Gent. Mag. merely gives the date. The General Evening Post, 24 November 1772, announces that ‘r Solander and Dr Lind, are on their return to London from Scotland…’.Tour in Scotland that Thomas Pennant published in 1774.Tour in Scotland and Voyage to the Hebrides. Banks's description, which appeared in Vol. I (Chester, 1774), pp. 261–9, stuck closely to the words of his journal. Vol. II was published in London, 1776. The work was dedicated to Banks.—’… Staffa, so lately raised to renown by Mr Banks.’—Johnson, Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775). Banks's connection with Staffa could have been even closer: Lind suggested he should buy it. ‘Talking of the Highlands I beg to acquaint you, that the Island of Staffa is to be sold this Spring; the annual rent of it is about £10, and it is supposed £200 will buy it. If you choose to purchas it, you'll please to let me know, and I shall get some friend to bid for it at the Sale, as it will not be proper for you or any of your friends to appear in it, lest it should enhance it[s] value.’—Lind to Banks, 2 March 1775, Webster coll.Flora Islandica and the greater
But he still felt restless. It is plain — we have touched on the point already — that, though Joseph Banks might be called a philosopher in the eighteenth century sense, without placing any strain at all on the word, in the sense of the twentieth century no man was less a philosopher than he. Nor was it that, like Dr Johnson's friend, he tried to be a philosopher but cheerfulness kept breaking in. He would have seen no conflict between philosophy and cheerfulness, and he was generally cheerful. He knew there was an Order of Nature, and as a general idea, a rational explanation of the universe, that was enough for him. On the ‘Chain of Creation’, or the ‘Chain of Being’, and Banks's references to it in his Journal, see II, p. 20, n. 1 below. ML Banks Papers, XVI, 9–10. Journal, p. 8 (18 February); cf. following note. ‘Journal of a trip to Holland beginning with the time of leaving London (Feb Letter of 24. February 1773, ML Banks Papers, XVI, pp. 5–8. Journal, pp. 69–70. Cf. the postscript of his letter to Falconer, 2 April 1773: ‘we are employd in fitting out an expedition in order to penetrate as near to the n.d. ML Banks Papers, XVI, p. 11.savio, as ry 12. 1773) & ending with the day of returning thence again (March 22. 1773)’.—S.S.B. 1773.tn Phipps's plan of sailing towards the Pole’Racehorse and Carcass were then being prepared. Banks himself nourished some hopes of going on this voyage,tn Phipps your opinion of the Frigid Zone cannot but be useful to him & very agreable to me at this Juncture’. Banks's known interest in this voyage and his meeting with the men of learning at Rotterdam, confused with his ‘Levee of Greenland Captains’ at the Hague, was perhaps the basis of the report in the Annual Register, 1773, p. 82, that he and Greville assisted at a session of the Batavian Society at Rotterdam, whereat he communicated his design of undertaking the voyage, asked for information of Dutch discoveries up to 84o north latitude, and promised in return to report all the discoveries he might make. Banks's journal mentions no such meeting.Resolution? The Low Countries were very well, but they were not adventure; the Hague, though agreeable, was not Tahiti. He passed again through Rotterdam to Helvoetsluys, to embark in the tedious and ‘stinking Pacquet’; before the end of March he was home in New Burlington Street; and Cook, after the gales and ice-fields of the far south, was in
Of friends and admirers there was no lack. It was in 1773 that See F. W. Hilles, Robertson to Banks, 18 February 1773; D.T.C. I, pp. 47–8. He was ‘nommé correspondant de La Lande, le 11 mars 1772’.— Falconer to Banks, undated, but with a pencil note at the top, ‘May 17, 1773’; D.T.C. I, p. 52. The memoir of Sandby by his son remarks, ‘He also travelled with Sir Joseph Banks, the late Dr Solander, and Mr Lightfoot, upon a tour of the Principality’—a journey he remembered with delight.— What we know of this journey comes from a ‘Journal of a Botanical Excursion in Wales’, kept by Lightfoot, and letters from him to Banks, edited by the Rev. H. J. Riddelsdell, and printed in the 21 September 1773, ML Banks Papers, XVI, p. 21.The Literary Career of Sir Joshua Reynolds (1936), bibliographical appendix.Index Biographique des membres et correspondants de l’ Académie des Sciences de 1666 à 1939 (Paris 1939). Banks had further steps in the hierarchy of French honour in 1787 and 1801.Annual Register, 1773, p. 106.Monthly Magazine, 1 June 1811, p. 437; the memoir was reprinted by A. P. Oppé in the Burlington Magazine, LXXX (1946), pp. 143–7. The 1773 tour seems to be the only one that fits. I owe my references in this matter to Dr Bernard Smith.Journal of Botany, 43 (1905), pp. 290–307. I do not know of any journal by Banks. Lightfoot afterwards wrote to Banks, ‘I never became a Party in any Scheme which afforded me more Satisfaction or sincere Delight…. I believe it may without vanity be said, that few, if any Botanical Excursions in Great Britain have exceeded our Collection, either in Number or Rarity of Plants or Places’.—24 August 1773, loc. cit., p. 292.
But the year 1773 was remarkable not so much for travels — travels which had now become no more than excursions — as for Banks's inauguration as an Adviser. The capital letter is justified.
On his early life, as he advanced into his thirties, a career was being superimposed that was to make him one of the most considerable figures in English life, outside politics and mere society. Obviously he had regained firm ground, after his sudden ballooning into the air of self-consequence: ‘the inhabitants … have been civiler to me than I deservd’, though a sentence of rather conventional sentiment, is not quite conventional when addressed to a sister who knew him. Its moderation is very different from the high tone he had adopted about the ‘I long for the month of April when we are to be entertained and instructed’, wrote Robertson, in the letter already quoted, no doubt in anticipation of the appearance of the Banks to S.S.B.: ‘My Dear Sister, I send you MVoyages and his relations to Stanfield Parkinson.Voyages.rs Boones paper relative to the bringing vegetable [s] to Antigua [from the East Indies]….’ n.d. Endorsed by S.S.B. ‘26 April sent to Mrs. Boone 27. 1773’. ML Banks Papers, XVI, pp. 13–14, with the directions carefully copied out by Sophia, pp. 15–18.
For a hundred years already the gardens at Kew had had an honourable history, and they became royal when in 1730 Frederick Prince of Wales got a long lease of Kew House from the family
The precise date when Banks began to advise on Kew is obscure. It may possibly have been towards the end of 1772, after his return from Scotland, but 1773 seems the safer guess.Hortus Kewensis as his literary monument. His monument otherwise Banks helped to raise; it was the gardens. Both men owed something to another great gardener, Philip Miller of the Apothecaries’ Garden at Chelsea. Aiton had been his pupil; the youthful Banks had haunted the Chelsea walks, made a friend of the old man, and after his death bought his herbarium. Miller had gathered in rare plants from all over the world; Bute had directed Aiton to lay out a ‘physic garden’ at Kew on the Chelsea model; and when the Princess Dowager died in 1772 and Bute departed from the royal scene, the way was open to another man, animated by the same passion but with rather different ideas, to take command. The destiny that brought Banks and George III together therefore was important. The king was only five years older than Banks; as a country gentleman devoted to farming and gardening he could have lived a very successful life — he was not called ‘Farmer George’ for nothing — and when he came to town he could have had his fill of concerts; Banks, introduced to him so soon after the return of the Endeavour, could talk about a subject and show him things that roused his lively interest; Banks was quite non-political; Banks, while full of information and devoted to a Cause, nourished no sentiment whatsoever that could possibly disturb the Established Order. The Cause of the botanical exploration of the world, the experimental cultivation of the world's plants in one great centre, the extension of horticultural curiosity into scientific study, was a Cause the king could make his own. Once Banks had been in the royal presence, he was asked to come again; it is clear that the friendship between the two men rapidly ripened; and clear that there was only one candidate for the unofficial directorship of what Banks was to call His Majesty's Botanic Garden. The king
As the months moved on into 1774 the social web became more complex. There were new friends— Walpole to He was proposed by ‘Athenian’ Stuart, who comes into the Banks-Cook story otherwise in one or two minor ways.—Cook II, pp. xli and 609, n. 3. He was certainly among friends. It is recorded that on 6 December 1778—he had just become President of the Royal Society—‘L The precise date was 21 October 1761 (the Curator-Librarian of the Royal Society of Arts, Mr D. G. C. Allan, has kindly informed me), three weeks after the death of his father. His application to this Society may therefore have been one of his first serious independent acts. There is a quite minor—a minimal—bibliographical point to be raised here. The dates of the squibs quoted below are all given on the title-pages as 1774, and Sylva. If social lustre were to be acquired competitively, Banks would have lost that year and Bruce would have won. Africa, wrote Letters (ed. Toynbee), IX, p. 16. Banks's first introduction to Bruce may have come through a letter from the African traveller (11 January 1774, D.T.C. I., pp. 67–8), forwarded by Zoffany in Florence, seeking his help in getting Bruce's drawings through the Customs. Zoffany adds, ‘Your book of the last voyage [i.e. Hawkesworth] goes off here amazingly, and I hear it is to be translated’.—Artists and their Friends in England, 1700–1799 (London 1928), I, p. 296.d Sandwich & Mr Banks having called this respectable Society by the disrespectful name of Club were fined a bumper each which they drank with all proper humility. Lord Mulgrave do. do.’—Cust, History of the Society of Dilettanti (London 1898), p. 35.Epistle from Oberea, the first of them, in the ATL has on the title-page also the inscription ‘Spilsby Society, Decr 29th 73’ (Spilsby is a village in the eastern part of Lincolnshire). The Introduction is dated Sept. 20th, 1773, and the Introduction to the Epistle from Mr. Banks, which followed it, ‘Dec. 20, 1773; so it is possible that in printing they were post-dated.Epistle from Oberea, Queen of Otaheite to Joseph Banks, Esq. Translated by T.Q.Z. Esq. Professor of the Otaheite Language in Dublin, and of all the Languages of the undiscovered Islands in the South Sea; And enriched with Historical & Explanatory Notes. It was announced in the introduction that to facilitate the labours of those curious to study the Tahitian language, the professor would shortly be publishing a complete grammar and dictionary, which would ‘be printed on the same Paper, and with the same Letter as Doctor Hawkesworth's celebrated Voyages, and will be ready to be delivered next Spring for the moderate Price of Three Guineas’. So much for Hawkesworth. Banks was taken at more length. It was the sort of thing that might be expected — even as fugitive verse not of a very high standard, though aimed accurately enough at the public taste:
Opano, and engage his care?
Oberea, from the southern main
* * *
There was a large mass of footnotes, mainly from Hawkesworth and Ovid. Ovid was still fashionable, and the Amores seemed à propos. Carried away by his own wit, or in response to an irresistible
An Epistle from Mr. Banks, Voyager, Monster-Hunter, & Amoroso:
And followed that still with A Second Letter from Oberea:
* * *
Otaheite'sthrone.
The samples are enough. Delicacy was not the Major's strong point, and if he had read Banks's journal he would not have been misled on the relations between his hero and heroine: that did not matter, but he became very repetitive and excessively tedious. He does not figure in the grand procession of English poetry; he does nevertheless witness to the fact that Banks was a prominent enough figure to take rewarding liberties with.
Then came the Event, the vast excitement, of 1774. In July (to offset Abyssinian Bruce) returned from the South Sea Captain To an unnamed correspondent, 19 August 1774, ATL Adventure, with news from Tahiti — everybody had been enquiring after Banks — and with that best ethnological specimen of all, a veritable Tahitian, the simple and sweet-tempered r Banks who happen'd to have no powdre in his hair he knew him instantly…. It has been very pleasing to us, to him and many others, that both Mr Banks, myself, and Mr Banks's servant James have not forgot our South Sea Language. So we all can keep up a Conversation with him…. Omai is [a] sensible communicative Man, so he is a valuable acquisition…. Omai don't yet speak any english, but I think he will soon learn it, as he has got several words and begins to pronounce S tolerably well…. He is well behaved, easy in his Manners, and remarkably complaisant to the Ladies’.Holograph Letters and Documents of and relative to Captain James Cook.Thraliana, Cowper put him into The Task; Reynolds painted his portrait; the muse descended upon Major Scott again, with quite colossally tedious results. Omai in fact was to London all that Bougainville's Ahutoru had been to Paris five years before. Perhaps the Romantic Movement got more from Ahutoru than from Omai; the ‘noble savage’ was, after all, more diligently cultivated in France than in England.
Kew, the library and herbarium at New Burlington Street, the meetings of the Or possibly late spring. Colman says midsummer, but Banks spent June and July on two (so it would appear) yachting parties with Sandwich. See the following pages. Colman, Near Skelton Castle was the village of Kirkleathem, where Colman mentions that the party met a venerable old man of distinguished deportment, the father of Captain Cook. It is doubtful whether James Cook the elder ever lived at Kirkleathem, but the village was not far from Redcar, where it is understood he did live, with his married daughter Margaret Fleck. He died in 1778, at the age of 84.safety-chain, — a drag chain upon a newly constructed principle, to obviate the possibility of danger in going down a hill; — it snapp'd short, however, in our very first descent; whereby the carriage ran over the post-boy, who drove the wheelers, and the chain of safety very nearly crush'd him to death. — It boasted, also, an internal piece of machinery with a hard name — a hippopedometer, or some such Greek coinage, — by which a traveller might ascertain the precise rate at which he was going, in the moment of his consulting it: this also broke, in the first ten miles of our journey; whereat the philosopher to whom it belong'd was the only person who lost his philosophy…. Our progress, under all its cumbrous circumstances, was still further retarded by Sir Joseph's indefatigable botany: — we never saw a tree with an unusual branch, or a strange weed, or anything singular in the vegetable world, but a halt was immediately order'd; — out jump'd Sir Joseph; out jump'd the two boys, (Augustus and myself,) after him; and out jump'd Omai, after us all’.Random Records (London 1830), I, pp. 157–9.
Banks was in London again only a few days before going off on two further expeditions. The first was a six weeks’ trip, in June and July, from Deptford to Plymouth and back with Sandwich in the Admiralty yacht Banks kept a semi-facetious journal of this trip, 2 June-14 July 1775, now at Hinchingbrooke among the Sandwich papers.Augusta, on the First Lord's visitation of the royal dockyards.Resolution, letters sent from the Cape. Solander wrote to his friend:
…. As a Copy of Capt Cooks Letter was sent down to LdSandwich, I take it for granted you know all concerning his Voyage…. MrPenneck has sent MrForsters Letter to MrDrBarrington and made the following Abstract: 260 new Plants, 200 new animals — 71° 10’ farthest Sth— no continent — Many Islands, some 80 Leagues long — The Bola Bola savage an [in] corrigible Blockhead — Glorious Voyage — No man lost by sickness.Solander to Banks, 28 June 1775; ML Banks Papers, J 1–4. This has a pencilled endorsement in a hand unknown to me, ‘Sir J B on road from Portsmouth to Plymouth?’, which does not fit the known chronology.
Glorious voyage indeed! — for those who had made it, and for those who could think of it with an unentangled mind. How long would it be till the ship herself reached home? The waiting time was filled by a second yachting trip down Channel, with Sandwich, his virtual wife the beautiful and charming Martha Ray, Phipps, Augustus Phipps and Omai — a trip broken up by the tremendous news. Cook was back. Solander again sent the unofficial tidings.
Two oClock Monday — This Moment Capt Cook is arrived. I have not yet had an opertunity of conversing with him, as he is still in the board-room [i.e. of the Admiralty] — giving an account of himself &co. He looks as well as ever. By and by, I shall be able to say a little more — Give my Compltsto Miss Ray and tell her I have made a Visitation to her Birds and found them all well.
CaptnCook desires his best Compltsto You, he expressed himself in the most friendly manner towards you, that could be; he said: nothing could have added to the satisfaction he has had, in making this tour but having had your company. He has some Birds, in Sp.[irits of] V. [inum] for you &c &c that he would have wrote to you himself about,if he had not been kept too long at the Admiralty and at the same time wishing to see his wife. He rather looks better than when he left England. M rHodges came up in his chaise, I saw him and his Drawings. He has great many portraits — some very good — He has two of my friend Tayoa. Otu is well looking man — Orithi whom they call Ohiriri was really a handsome man according to his pictures.
Fo[r]ster Senrand Junrare also come up, but I have not seen them, they did not call at the Admiralty.
Hodges says the Ladies of Otaheite & Society Isldsare the more hansomer they have seen. But the Man of the Marquesas seem[s] to carry the prize. Hodges seems to be a very well behaved young man. All our friends are well
Inclosed You will find a Letter from Ch’ Clark….ML Banks Papers, L 1–4. The letter is undated, but the Monday on which it was written must have been 1 August.
He added a few remarks on Cook's maps, which he had seen, and on some of the islands he had heard about.
Then there was Clerke's letter, written on board the Resolution, ‘Sunday Morn: 5 o'clock’:
We're now past Portland, with a fine fresh NW Gale and a young flood Tide, so that in a very few Hours we shall anchor at Spithead from our Continent hunting expedition. I will not now set about relating any of the particulars of our Voyage, as I hope very soon to have the Honour and happiness of paying my personal respects, when I can give you a much clearer idea of any matters you think worth inquiring after, than its possible to do at this distance.
I hope I need not assure you that it is utterly out of the power of length of time, or distance of space, to eradicate or in the least alleviate the gratitude your friendly offices to me has created. I assure you I've devoted some days to your service in very distant parts of the Globe; the result of which I hope will give you some satisfaction; at least it will convince you of my intentions and endeavours in that particular. I shall send this away by our civil Gentry, who will fly to Town with all the sail they can possibly make. God bless you send me one Line just to tell me you're alive and well, if that is the case, for I'm as great a stranger to all matters in England as tho’ I had been these 3 Years underground — so if I recieve no intelligence from you I shall draw bad conclusions and clap on my suit of black; but you know I never despair, but always look for the best, therefore hope and flatter myself this will find you alive and happy, which that it may, is the sincerest Hope and Wish of, Dear Sir, Your Gratefully Oblig'd & most H'ble ServtChasClerke.
Excuse the Paper, its gilt I assure you, but the Cockroaches have piss'd upon it. — We're terribly busy — you know a Man of War. My respects and every social wish to the good Doctor. I'll write him as soonas possible — here's too much damning of Eyes & Limbs to do any thing now. ML Banks Papers, II, f.4. The Sunday of Clerke's writing was 31 July.
These were greetings such as any man might have been proud and glad to have. His friends nourished none but the warmest thoughts of him: Cook wished he had been on the voyage. Sandwich and Miss Ray hurried up to London; Banks, with every inducement of friendship and curiosity, remained where he was, and remained for a month. Unless the yachting was continued with Phipps and Omai. But he certainly remained away from London: Solander's next letter is dated 14 August, and endorsed by Banks as received on the 20th and answered on the 25th. One would give much for his answers. A third letter from Solander, 22 August, includes the greeting, ‘My best Complts to Capt Phipps, Mr Augustus, Mr Omai….’—Webster coll.
Our Expedition down to the Resolution, made yesterday quite a feast to all who were concerned. We set out early from the Tower, review'd some of the Transports; Visited Deptford yard; went on board the Experiment, afterwards to Wolwich, where we took on board Miss Ray &co, and then proceeded to the Galleon's where we were wellcomed on board of the Resolution — and Lord Sandwich made many of them quite happy.
Providentially old CaptnClements died 2 or 3 days ago, by which a Captain's place of Greenwich was made Vacant. This was given to Capt Cook, and a promise of Employ whenever he should ask for it. MrCooperwas made Master and Commander. M First lieutenant of the
Resolution.rClerke was promised the command of the Resolution to carry MrOmai home….
All our friends look as well as if they had been all the while in clover. All inquired after You. In fact we had a glorious day and long'd for nothing but You & MrOmai. MrEdgcomb & his Marines made a fine appearance. — LdSandwich asked the Officers afterwards to dine with us at Woolwich.
Most of our time, yesterday on board, was taken up in ceremonies, so I had not much time to see their curious collections. MrClerke shew'd me some drawings of Birds, made by a Midshipman, not bad, which Ibelieve he intends for you. I was told that M rAnderson one of the Surgeons Mates, has made a good Botanical Collection, but I did not see him. There were on board 3 live Otaheite Dogs, the ugliest & most stupid of all the Canine tribe. Forster had on board the following Live Stock: a Springe Bock from the Cape, a Surikate, two Eagles, & several small Birds, all from the Cape. I believe he intends these for the Queen. If I except Cooper & 2 of the new made Lieutenants I believe the whole Ship's Company will go out again. Pickersgill made the Ladies sick by shewing them the New Zealand head of which 2 or 3 slices were broiled and eat on board of the Ship. It is preserved in Spirit and I propose to get it for Hunter, who goes down with me to morrow on purpose, when we expect the Ship will be at Deptford….London, 14 August 1775. ML Banks Papers, M 1–4. ‘Hunter’ was the famous surgeon and anatomist. Cf. another letter from Solander, 22 August 1775: ‘… Several of the Resolutions Men have called at Your house, to offer you their curiosities:—Tyrrell was here this Morning…. Capt Cook has sent all his curiosities to my apartments at the Museum—All his Shells is to go to Lord Bristol—4 Casks have your name on them and I understand they contain Birds & fish, &c the Box D° with Plants from the Cape….’ —Webster coll.
Apart from all the enticements touched on by Solander, Banks could not stay away forever. People wanted to see him; he had duties. If he felt foolish, he simply had to master the feeling, and it is clear that the friendliest and most unforced relations were immediately re-established on both sides between himself and his old shipmates. Cook went at his invitation more than once to dine with the Royal Society Club. And the position of authority he had by now come to occupy was important. It was real authority; he could now be as tactful in London as he had been in Tahiti; and he was consulted accordingly. He began to assume — it is a curious development — the functions of a sort of superintending elder brother in relation to some of the concerns of Cook. He became, as it were, a point of reference, a master of the disinterested judgment. This involved him in the awkwardness over the publication of the history of the voyage, which arose from the character of the elder Forster, and in even worse later irritations over this man. Forster was a person of total incapacity in money matters, and of no great scrupulousness either in money matters or in others. He was also a master of the unjustified assumption, the wielder in writing of a fluent but overblown English style, and a harbourer of grudges. He suffered under a continual and plaintive sense of injustice, and did not hesitate to make a tool, in either unscrupulousness or complaint, of his rather more attractive son George. Undoubtedly he had a good deal of learning, unmixed with any sense of proportion whatever. He had been a difficult companion on shipboard,
Solander probably had the matter right, so far as Sandwich was concerned, when he wrote to Banks, 5 September 1775, ‘Lord Sandwich has desired him to, by way of specimen, send in some Sheets, containing an account of what happened in The letter from which these last words are taken is very typical of Forster, and may be here given in full: ‘Dear Sir, Your unexpected absence out of town threw my Son and me into the disagreeable circumstance to sell for 350£ what even to booksellers would have been worth £750. Thus at the loss of £400 I have extricated myself out of the most pressing difficulties. But necessity has no Law. Since You decline, for good reasons to intercede in my favour, I shall be obliged to appeal to the public & lay before this impartial Judge, an infamous Transaction of a Man, who has endeavoured to ruin me by the weight of His power & opulence & I hope 5000 Copies shall inform all England of this dark iniquitous transaction & perhaps do more, than all my hitherto passive conduct could operate: for not one of the circumstances shall be omitted in it which have served to bring about such a consummate Scheme of bad actions. My son is gone for a few weeks to Paris, on some private business; as soon as he comes back, he shall wait on You with my whole Collection, which is not yet searched, & You may have whatever You shall want of it. Being convinced of YLetter to the … Earl of Sandwich referred to below.t Cooke the poor man having now transferr'd his jealousy to Mr Banks, who he conceives to have done him ill offices with your Lordship….’—Sandwich Papers, Hinchingbrooke.r friendship and generosity I shall never forget Yr benevolence, and ever shall be Yr most obliged affectionate humble Servt J. R. Forster’.—Endorsed by Banks as received 7 October 1777. ML Banks Papers, R 1–3.
To Sandwich himself A Letter to the right honourable the Earl of Sandwich, First Lord Commissioner of the Board of Admiralty, &c. From George Forster, F.R.S. London 1778.
For this fury and this insolence both Banks and Sandwich, it seems, were willing to make allowances. Forster was a foreigner and a natural historian, and his threats were empty enough. Within the community of science Banks was bound to act as his patron, so far as that was possible. He was allowed the rights to German and French translations of Cook's book and to use a number of the engravings; and, to aid him in the compilation of his own scientific Forster to Banks, 7 February 1778, ML Banks Papers, S 1–2. 26 September 1778; endorsed by Banks ‘saw him’. ML Banks Papers, T 1–4. This £250 had a later history. Banks did not expect to get it back, but when he found that the Duke of Brunswick had been induced to come to Forster's rescue, and that Forster had omitted it from his list of debts, he thought it was time to demand some security, both from the father and the son. His letter to Forster on the subject, 20 May 1782 (ML Banks Papers, A 1–2) is a model of moderation and good-humoured expostulation. George wrote a long letter from Vilna to Pennant in 1787, explaining with absurd indignation that he ‘declined entering into this obligation, which, as it would have put me entirely in his power, might have ruined me, without satisfying him, and for ever rendered me incapable of acquiring the means of acquitting my father's debt, which my inclination, more strongly sollicits me to do, than any bond or paper security’. (To Pennant, 5 March 1787, ibid., Z 1–11). Banks's annoyance was added to by Forster's allegations in the George Forster 10 Pennant, 5 March 1787; ML Banks Papers, Z 1–11.ObservationsObservations made during a Voyage Round the World, on Physical Geography, Natural History, and Ethic Philosophy. London, 1778.The Botany of Cook's Voyages (Waltham,Mass. 1954),pp. 186,201ff.r friendly assistance. My affairs are at this moment in a Situation that makes me shudder, for it is only the distress of the moment; could I but gain time, I should certainly be able to extricate myself. My litterary productions and the sale of my artificial and natural Curiosities, for which I am entered into a negotiation with a powerful Sovereign abroad, are more than sufficient to give me relief. Be therefore exorable Dear Sir and lend me a helping hand, and You shall experience not to have bestowed Your friendly assistance to an ungrateful man’.d North will not be long at the head of the Treasury and I shall reserve my plan for his Successor. To whom I can likewise offer 10,000 from a foreign Prince…. I could serve the Public, if Ld Sandwich had not given me a bad character, which prevents me from being employed in the Service of this Kingdom’.)Göttingen Magazin that he and not Cook deserved the credit for the prevention of scurvy on the Resolution, and that he should have had the Copley Medal that the
The trouble caused by Forster, tedious, preposterous, exasperating, was still in its early stages when Cook left England for his third voyage, on 11 July 1776. With Banks the personal situation was
Cook to Banks, 10 July 1776. ML MSS. 12. July 1776, ATL 10 August 1779, dictated to King but signed by Clerke; ML Banks Papers, II, f.11. Though it was Sandwich who made the first move before going out of office: ‘Your advice will be of great use to me in the conduct of this matter’.—Sandwich to Banks, 10 October 1780; D.T.C. I, p. 300. King to Banks, ‘Thursday Evening’ [late 1780], D.T.C. I, p. 304.r Jno Pringle writes me that the Council of the Royal Society have decreed me the Prize Medal of this year. I am obliged to you and my other good friends for this unmerited honour’.r Firebrass of Braintree In Essex, him I have refer'd to you. Inclosed you have my will, and that with a Good will’.Miscellaneous material relating to Cook's voyages.
But these, in 1776, were things for the future. Meanwhile we are not to consider Mr Banks as exclusively occupied in advising George III on gardening, or sighing over the correspondence of the deplorable Forster. The moments of relaxation were still not few. We come upon our man unexpectedly, as we peruse the memoirs and letters of the time: the dying Hume to Carl van Doren, Letters (ed. J. Y. T. Greig, Oxford 1932), II, pp. 318–19. Lord Mulgrave was Benjamin Franklin (London 1939), pp. 434–5, 719. It is perhaps surprising that one comes on no trace in Banks's papers of Jefferson, whose Notes on Virginia would have been the ideal book to him. Apart from politics, there was probably no one on the other side of the Atlantic more akin to Banks in range of interest. But Jefferson never lived in England, nor even visited it.
Neglecting events of glory, or their reverse, passing beyond the joys of the trouting party, and Ladies of Pleasure, and the farewell to friends bound for the arctic ice-fields, we may choose, as undoubtedly the most important event for Banks of the year 1776, his move from New Burlington Street to No. 32 Soho Square. This was a large house, at the south-west corner of the square, its back extending to Dean Street. The last few sad remains of eighteenth century Soho Square have still some dignity; in Banks's day, though not indeed the most fashionable part of the town, it was airy and sweet with gardens, and fashionable enough for him and a Venetian Resident; the house itself took after Adam, its elegant drawing-room designed by the remarkable Its demolition in 1937, says She died at Soho Square, however, on 27 August 1804.—B.M. Add. MS 33982, f. 111; also Add. MS 6673, p. 107. She was 84 when she died.(Georgian London, 1945, p. 127), was a national scandal.The Torringlon Diaries (1935), II, p. 376. He went on to aim some other ill-natured remarks at people of learning, which illuminate his own character more than Banks's. None the less, ‘We left our cards for Sr J.B.’.—Soho Square, it may be remarked, was a good enough address for all but the most particular, though its supremely aristocratic days, when it was much patronised by ambassadors and the nobility, were rather earlier. Members of the nobility, and persons otherwise distinguished, continued to live there in Banks's time- See, e.g., John Thomas Smith, Nollekens and his Times (ed. W. Whitten, London 1920) I, pp. 37–8.Diary and Letters of Madame d'Arblay, I (1904), p. 318. It is from 1796, long after Solander's death, that we get a curious note on Banks's social abilities. He was by then unquestioned master of the scientific scene; and Farington wrote, ‘Malone observed how difficult it would be to establish a plan for collecting select Society in the way Farington Diary, I (London 1922), p. 136.
So, very agreeably for those who did not worry about the crash of empires, life proceeded. No doubt there was occasional speculation about Cook, no doubt the conversation, or the gossip, reverted
Whitley, Solander to Banks, 1 August 1777, ML Banks Papers, O1. This must have been one of the innumerable dining clubs of London. He was elected High Steward, or treasurer, on 1 February 1778, and secretary in March of that year. He remained treasurer till 1794, and secretary till February 1797.—Cust, George III ardently supported knobs on top of lightning conductors, against points as invented by the American Benjamin Franklin, and requested Pringle to do the same.— Weld, 11 August [1778]; D.T.C. I, p. 198. 17 August [1778]; ibid., p. 199. ML Banks Correspondence, C 181, pp. 5–7. It appears from Banks's letter that he was anxious to get on to his side those gentlemen, like Astle, who were both F.S.A. and F.R.S. ‘Sir Jo The quotations are from a letter of Banks's friend Endeavour, when a botanist drew out a dried specimen from the herbarium, or a lady exclaimed over a Tahitian fly-whisk or some carved curio from New Zealand. Beyond the walls of Soho Square the town, as well as the country, had its diversions, and these too were agreeable. Banks and Solander went together to a popular haunt for the unbuttoned hours of science and art, Young Slaughter's Coffee House in St Martin's Lane;Artists and their Friends, I, p. 296.History, pp. 28–9, 114. As secretary, he kept the Society's marbles in his house till 1784, when some of them, if not all, were presented to the The Royal Society (Cambridge 1944), p. 197.History of the Royal Society (1848), II, pp. 92–102.r John Pringle has certainly can-
Omai, Banks and Solander
from the painting by William Parryr Aubert, at which every one who I have seen is displeased… If you cannot find out a man of high Rank who will accept of the Chair, you must listen to the voice of the People. All talk of you’.d Hillsborough has been wrote by a few Members but as the letter has now been absent a long while and as the people who wrote it were but few and had not a very great Weight in the Soc I am inclind to think his Lordship will decline. I shall attempt to see our Freind Sr Jos today whose decision in my Favor would be indeed very flattering and surely very decisive — Your very affect Servant Jos: Banks’.B’, in the last sentence of this letter, is I think
Banks was about to receive another signal honour: to be deemed worthy to sit with Burke and Reynolds and Johnson, and to be elected to the Literary Club. ‘The Club is to meet with the Parliament;’ wrote Johnson to Boswell, ‘we talk of electing Banks, the traveller; he will be a reputable member’. 21 November 1778; Reynolds to Banks, 11 December 1778. The owner of this letter, Mr Richard Border of Pulborough, Sussex, has kindly allowed me to use it. It has been printed, though not from the original, by Leslie and Taylor, The phrase quoted is Letters of Samuel Johnson (ed. Chapman), II, p. 272. An earlier letter from Johnson to Bennet Langton, 31 October, had already mentioned the new candidature: ‘Mr Banks desires to be admitted; he will be a very honourable accession’.— ibid., p. 264. Banks's qualifications were certainly not literary. We know very little of his intellectual tastes, if he had any, outside science and light music and plays. Boswell gives us one gleam of light, discussing Johnson's famous passage on lona (‘That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of lona’, etc.)—‘Sir Joseph Banks, the present respectable President of the Royal Society, told me, he was so much struck on reading it, that he clasped his hands together, and remained for some time in an attitude of silent admiration’.—Tour to the Hebrides, 19 October 1773. As for art, ‘Accuracy of drawing seems to be a principal recommendation to Sir Joseph’.—Farington Diary, I, p. 27. This is not surprising in the patron of Sydney Parkinson and the other botanical draughtsmen. Cf. the following passage: ‘Indeed Sir Joseph Banks used to say that Mrs. Delany's representations of flowers “were the only imitations of nature that he had ever seen, from which he could venture to describe botanically any plant without the least fear of committing an error”’.—Autobiography and Correspondence of…. Mrs Delany, (2nd series, 1862), III, p. 95. Again, some lines from the journal of the tour in Holland, 18 February 1773, describing how he went to see ‘the Princes Cabinet, where were several Pictures, which the Connoisseurs seemed to admire: one of Oxen & a Shepherd painted by Potter, pleased me much: immensely high finished, but absolute nature’. Banks's patronage of that charming topographical draughtsman The Drawings of Paul and Thomas Sandby … at Windsor Castle (London and Oxford 1947), passim.this Evening elected a member of the Club at the Turks head Gerard Street’;Letters of Sir Joshua Reynolds (Cambridge 1929), p. 67.Reynolds, II, p. 268.
It had been a youth fortunate, interesting, exciting; crowned, one supposes, in a social way, with success. Banks had done whatever he really wanted to do, with one notable exception. He had not gone on Cook's second voyage. But, we are compelled to ask, if he wanted to go only with that large entourage of his own, did he really want to go? Was his refusal a tribute paid to science, or a tribute paid to Joseph Banks? He had had plenty of time to think over his decision. Psychological springs go deep, and one hesitates to give an assured answer, a hundred and eighty years later, to such a query. There must have been times when he was bitten by regret, when he made hypothetical statements to himself as well as to his friends, but to say that is not to answer yes or no. To the end of his life, through all the multifarious and distracting and benevolent activities in which he was engaged, he maintained his position; we have the absurd statement passed on to Of this statement Dr Cameron says Banks to (Sir Joseph Banks, p. 51), ‘In Banks's old age, at the request of his friend Robert Brown, the botanist, he dictated his recollections of his disappointment and the dispute’; and Dr Cameron prints it in his Appendix C, pp. 294–6. The statement is certainly in Brown's handwriting, and is bound up with his manuscript correspondence in the Botanical Library of the British Museum (Natural History), I, 17. It is undated, but probably was written in the last decade of Banks's life, as Brown did not succeed Dryander as his librarian till 1810. There is nothing to show that Banks dictated it to Brown, or that Brown asked for it: it is in fact a copy of the introduction to Banks's Iceland journal (see p. 84 above). Possibly, even, it was copied after Banks's death, as he willed all his books and papers to Brown for the latter's life; but with this reserve I let my statement in the text stand.Lives of Men of Letters and Science, II, pp. 360–1.Endeavour, remained also one of the things that gave his life a value to himself. It was a positive good; it was his, but he could contemplate it almost with a disinterested satisfaction, as a service rendered to mankind. ‘I may flatter myself’, he wrote in 1782, ‘that being the first man of scientific education who undertook a voyage of discovery and that voyage of discovery being the first which turned out satisfactorily in this enlightened age, I was in some measure the first who gave that turn to such voyages’.1 He ignores the element of luck, he might have remembered that Bougainville had been accompanied by Commer-son, but he does not much overpraise himself. If the remembrance were to be forced upon him, he would no doubt have argued that Commerson's collections lay unpublished and neglected, and that he might just as well never have made the voyage. The answer to that no doubt would be that nothing scientific that Banks did was published either.
To that he would have a rejoinder: at least he would have a rejoinder in 1782. He gave it in the letter just quoted, shortly before Solander's death: ‘Botany has been my favourite Science since my childhood; and the reason I have not published the account of my travels is that the first, from want of time necessarily brought on by the many preparations to be made for my second voyage, was intrusted to the care of D ibid., p. 99r Hawkesworth; and since that I have been engag'd in a Botanical work which I hope soon to publish, as I have now near 700 folio plates prepar'd: it is to give an account of all the new plants discovered in my voyage round the world, somewhat above 800’.
The botanical work with which I am at present occupied is nearing its conclusion. Solander's name will appear next to mine on thebecause everything has been brought together through our common industry. There is hardly a single clause written in it, while he lived, in which he did not have a part. Since all the descriptions were made while the plants were fresh there is nothing left to do beyond completing those drawings which are not yet finished, and entering the synonyms in the books which we did not have with us or have just come out. All that remains to do is so little that it can be completed in two months if only the engraver can be brought to put the finishing touches to it. title- page titlepage ‘Ueber Solander’, pp. 247–8.
Yet the great work was never published. It is ridiculous to blame Solander — as he has often been blamed — for sloth. His part was done. If Banks lacked time himself, there were men perfectly capable of seeing a large folio through the press. Cameron, p. 74, and note from the Banks to Banks to Falconer, 2 April 1773, Hawley coll. Pennant, in his dedicatory epistle to Banks, was equally polite: ‘You took from me all temptation of envying your superior good fortune, by the liberal declaration you made that the Hebrides were my ground, and yourself, as you pleasantly expressed it, but an interloper. May I meet with such, in all my adventures!’ After such courtesies, the modern student derives a minor but undeniable pleasure from the use, in the Farington Diary, I, p. 61: ‘Some think Sir Joseph does not choose to encounter the opinion of the world on the merits of [his work], and, indeed, it is probable ill disposed criticks wd. not be wanting’. But this refers to the botanical work from the Endeavour voyage, Solander's work as well as Banks's, on which Banks could well snap his fingers at the criticks, however ill disposed.Endeavour manuscript entire to Hawkesworth, who was getting £6000 out of his editing of sailors'journals; he communicated his observations on the island of Staffa to Pennant to incorporate in the Tour in Scotland. He did give a reason for that. Pennant, he argued to Falconer, the friend of both, had as a traveller a prior right to the Western Islands: ‘I while in that Countrey Lookd for him with assiduity conceiving myself as no more than a poacher who might get leave of the Lord to shoot upon the mannor but in return owd at least the offer of whatever he might Kill’.Transactions of the Linnean Society and the Horticultural Society.
The question still remains why the scientific work of the great voyage was not completed; for completion meant publication. Banks might possibly have another answer: that he did not need to publish, because anyone competent to profit from the collections or from Solander's work could come and use the herbarium and the library. What serious student had he ever turned away? Was not 32 Soho Square a sort of Mecca to which every pilgrim was welcomed — and where, on Thursdays, he would get breakfast as well? This would have been an inadequate answer, because it is only the minority of men who can go on pilgrimages, and there were a great many natural historians all over Europe to whom Soho Square was as unattainable as Mecca itself. One is compelled, rather to one's surprise, rather against one's will, to the conviction
We get a hitherto unnoted illustration of this, just as Banks was moving into his maturity, in a letter from Why, then, the great Banks library, Dryander's catalogue alone of which ran to five octavo volumes and 2464 pages? Simply because it was a scientific library exclusively, a Davy's remarks are in the Johann Georg Forsters Briefwechsel… (Leipzig 1829), II, p. 705.Bibliotheca historico-naturalis. The catalogue appeared between 1796 and 1800.—Banks had certainly read Ossian, as we have seen, and Johnson's Tour to the Hebrides.Memoirs of the Life of Sir Humphry Davy, Bart., by his brother, Sketches of the Royal Society and the Royal Society Club (1849), p. 40. No one can go through the Banks correspondence without seeing that he was subjected to gross flattery, and apparently had no difficulty in swallowing it; but whether it made any difference to his constitution, in his later life, is a different matter. He certainly preferred to be addressed with due respect and could adopt a lofty tone, but with certain of his difficult and complaining correspondents—e.g. Caley—he exhibited a remarkable forbearance. He was never affected again, so far as one can see, as he had been after the return of the Endeavour. Illustrations of the Botany of Captain Cook's Voyage round the World, Part III, 1904, last page (this introduction is unpaginated).
Banks, we may conclude, had not the instinct of thoroughness. It was one matter to keep a journal, and to dash down in it at high speed the glowing, the exciting, the intoxicating things that happened. To punctuate it was another matter. It would have been another thing altogether to brood over the shape of sentences and the sound of words, to make them answer exactly to the least nuance of experience and thought. But, one might plead, on board the Endeavour, or on the beach at
For Banks, indeed, there was so much that he could do, so much that he wanted to do. We may study his later life in the light of his early life, but the reverse process is also useful. He was able, he was interested, he was active, he was not introspective; he was cheerful, he was generous; his activities are so very difficult to summarize, his life so difficult to write, simply because of the extraordinary number of things he found to do, or that were found for him to do. There were the botanical tours, the objects of archaeological curiosity, the fishing-parties with the Ladies of Pleasure. There were the ‘Plays, Operas, Concerts, masquerades &c’. to which he was so ardently devoted, ‘till prevented by infirmities’; The quoted phrases are from Banks's letter to Joseph Gradock, Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs (1828), I, p. 117.
Textual Introduction
In the brief history of the Banks papers that follows, I owe a good deal to a typescript memorandum on the ‘History of the Papers of Sir Joseph Banks’ prepared by P.C.C. 510 Kent.The editor of Banks's Endeavour journal is confronted with few textual problems. The history of the original manuscript,Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, II, pt. 6 (1950), pp. 218–22; and to an interchange of information and opinions with Mr Dawson, most valuable to me. The preface to Sir
I also give to the said Robert Brown the use and enjoyment during his life of my library herbarium manuscripts drawings copperplates engraved and every thing else that is contained in my collections usually kept in the back buildings of my house in … Soho Square … and after his decease then I give and bequeath the same to the Trustees for the time being of theBritish Museum ;
but if the Trustees wished and Brown consented these collections might be removed to the Museum during Brown's life-time, satisfactory access to them being allowed for him and his friends. Certain agreeable duties were laid down for Brown in return, entailing the continuance of his life of scientific scholarship. The Soho Square house itself was left to Lady Banks for life or as long as she required it, with provision for Brown's residence, and thereafter to Brown under the same conditions of duty fulfilled. Lady Banks preferred to reside in Portland Place, where she died in 1828. Brown, therefore, a bachelor, had the whole of No. 32, Soho Square to himself: a problem which he solved by letting the front portion to the
In 1827 Brown became the first keeper of the Botanical Department of the British Museum, officially entitled Keeper of the Banksian Botanical Collections. This was possible because he and the Trustees had agreed on the application of the alternative clause of the codicil to Banks's will, whereby the library, the herbarium, the drawings, the copperplates, and certain manuscripts — those manuscripts actually in the library — went to the Museum during Brown's life-time. This was admirable. Did it ensure the safety of the Endeavour journal? No; because the Endeavour journal, like the bulk of the MSS in Banks's possession when he died, was not actually in the library, and did not come directly under the provisions of that part of the will at all. It would have been a great deal better if they had done so; but Banks, with the best intentions in the world, had taken a false step. His papers were multifarious, and he had concluded that further provision was necessary for them; but he had made a ruinously bad choice of a person to execute his wishes. Attempts to understand the history of the journal, among other MSS, in the light of the codicil of 21 January, have been baffled because it can be understood only in the light of the second codicil, of 7 March 1820. This second, and vital, codicil began by bequeathing the botanical drawings of Banks's draughtsman
And it is my will and desire that my dear relative Sir Edward Knatchbull Baronet be requested to look over all my boxes of papers and otherthings deposited in my room and the passage room next to it in my house in Soho Square and that he do burn all papers in my hand writing except such as have reference to any part of my estate or to the County of Lincoln and that he do deliver all such other written or printed papers as shall be found in any of them to the persons to whom he thinks they will be most acceptable the papers respecting the Royal Society and the affairs thereof to the Royal Society those respecting the Mint or Coinage to the Mint and that all papers and letters relative to the County of Lincoln be sent to Revesby Abbey and be deposited in the evidence room there my foreign correspondence bound and unbound to be sent to theBritish Museum and all the other things in the said rooms to be disposed of as the saidSir Edward Knatchbull shall think best.
Now Codicil I had made over to His portrait by Lawrence still hangs in the Trustees’ Room, the only portrait of a Trustee which does.
Sir Edward Knatchbull, so far as this second codicil was concerned, was not a good executor. He was a ruinously bad choice because he was negligent; and not negligent in any ordinary degree, but to the point of complete irresponsibility. What he burnt we do not know; perhaps we should be thankful that he did not burn much. Perhaps he burnt nothing; for large items, as well as very many inconsiderable scraps in Banks's handwriting, have by devious routes come down to us, and now lie in widely disparate repositories.
e.g., in the unnamed newspaper a cutting from which is included in B.M. Add. MS 6673 (Derbyshire Collections), p. 106a.
Where then was the Endeavour journal ? Let us repeat: if it had been in the library it must surely have come to the British Museum with the library in 1827. The library came under Codicil I. But, it has already been said, the Endeavour journal did not come under that codicil: the hypothesis, that is, is irresistible that it was in one of the boxes in Banks's room or ‘the passage room next to it’. As it was in Banks's handwriting, should it then have been burnt? Apparently so — absurd as the conclusion may seem; but like so much else, it survived. We know it was in Knatchbull's possession, together with a copy of it made by Sarah Sophia Banks, which is still in the possession of Knatchbull's family; because when it first comes into our view, after its use by
It had been hoped that Robert Brown would write Banks's life. Brown, however, was a scientific man, without the slightest interest in the writing of biographies; nor, even had he been interested, would he have been particularly fitted for the task. In 1830 Brown himself proposed to
After Knatchbull's death the commonly recognized owner of the papers was Lady Knatchbull, his widow. There were still hopes
B.M. Dept. of MSS, Miscellaneous Letters and Papers. Joseph Ball, F.R.S. and Thomas Bell, F.R.S. were both looked on as possible biographers. Carruthers's statements, some of them highly inaccurate, were made to Sir Joseph Hooker, in a letter of 14 July 1893, printed in Hooker's edition of the Journal, pp. x-xi.r late President of the Linnean Society who had received them from the Dowager Lady Knatchbull. It is her wish that after the papers and correspondence of Sir Joseph Banks leave my hands they should be deposited in the British Museum’.
Lady Knatchbull died, in her ninetieth year, at the end of 1882, and it might seem that the safety of the papers would now be assured, in an agreed and permanent resting-place. This was not so, because by 1882 they were not in the Museum at all, but at Lord Brabourne's house in Queen Anne's Gate. How did Brabourne come to have them? It has been freely stated e.g., by Carruthers, ibid., p. xi. Carruthers, writing in 1893, puts the incidents ‘Some seven or eight years ago’. Knatchbull-Hugessen to Maunde Thompson, 21 May 1880; Dept. of MSS. Misc. Letters and Papers. ibid. Stanhope to Maunde Thompson, 12 July [1880], ibid.The first page of the Journal
There for eighteen months the matter rested, Though Brabourne had a sale of books, drawings, and MSS relating to Lincolnshire at Sotheby's as early as 15 June 1880. Brabourne to Maunde Thompson, 22 February 1884, ibid. Brabourne to Maunde Thompson, 10 March 1884; Papers Relating to the Purchase and Acquisition of Manuscripts. Brabourne to Maunde Thompson, 14 March 1884, ibid. Todd to Maunde Thompson, 24 March 1884, ibid. Todd to Maunde Thompson, 18 April 1884; Papers Relating to the Purchase and Acquisition of Manuscripts.some of them which would fetch money at Sotheby's or elsewhere as Mss of Sir J. Banks, and some which might be acceptable perhaps to certain colonies or to India. There are I think several volumes of the Journal….’ Perhaps indeed Brabourne's friend Mr A. H. Todd of the Temple could go through the papers with the Keeper, and either settle the matter or ‘put it in a train of speedy settlement’.
The plundering process now began. It was ‘the colonies’ that were to have first turn. Before the fatal year 1884 was out Samuel to Sir Joseph Hooker, n.d., published by Hooker in the Canterbury province in New Zealand, where Enys was a well-known sheep-farmer. He retired in 1890 to the family seat in Cornwall, whence other Banks papers have lately come. Cf. p. 145 below. ‘In 1891 I presented to the I do not go into detail on the dispersal of the Banks papers, apart from the Athenaeum 24 April 1897, pp. 547–8.Endeavour journal was not included in the purchase, which did at least put a great number of important papers into responsible ownership (they are now in the Mitchell Library, bound in twenty-two volumes as the ‘Brabourne Papers’). Encouraged, Brabourne proceeded to put up a further section of the papers for auction at Sotheby's on 11 March 1886, and then a very large collection on the following 14 April. Samuel was sent a catalogue of this last sale — ‘amongst which’, he continued in his letter to Hooker, ‘were papers relating to New South Wales, which I considered were
nine hundred and sixty eight letters, a portion only of a large mass of the Banks Correspondence which I purchased of Endeavour journal. The interested person may turn to The Banks Letters, published by the
Among the few lots at the Brabourne sale which fetched a sum reckoned in pounds and not shillings was Lot 176. This was described as ‘Banks's (Sir Joseph) Journal of a Voyage to the Sandwich Islands and New Zealand from March 1769 to July 1771, in the autograph of Banks’. Waller gave £7 2s 6d for it. The description was a fantastic one, whatever the journal was. The dates do not correspond with those of any MS of Banks we now have, or that ever, so far as we know, existed. The original journal runs from 25 August 1768 to 12 July 1771. A fragmentary ‘journal’ in Banks's handwriting (Grey MSS 51–2: see below p. 146) runs from 7 October 1769 to 10 October 1770, and from 26 October 1770 to 9 July 1771. Carruthers told Hooker that Waller did not specially remember the purchase. If Waller had bought the two bound volumes of the original he could not but remember it: they were a solid fact which would stick in a dealer's memory even if he had sold them next day. Let us assume, however, that part of the Grey MSS, the so-called ‘journal’, was correctly described so far as its beginning date was concerned (for the gap between 10 October and 26 October
What then of the original? We know that Mitchell MS 1808.Endeavour. It is in the handwriting of Banks as a young man, and every page bears the idiosyncrasies of his written expression. The deletions and substitutions, the characteristic and consistent misspellings, the experiments with the renderings of Polynesian names, the alteration of present tenses to past, the mis-numbering of pages, the incorporation of separate lists and memoranda, not always as a part of the composition, but bound into the volumes at a convenient place — all these are obvious and overwhelming arguments, if
The journal is contained in two leather-bound quarto volumes, of page-size 9⅛ × 7¼ in. (23.2 × 18 cm.). Apparently Banks made up the pages himself by taking larger sheets, folding them in half, and then folding them again transversely, so producing a set of four leaves. He then sometimes placed other leaves inside these, giving himself sections of from four to sixteen leaves. So at least the volumes as bound seem to imply, with watermarks often occurring on four or more consecutive leaves, or with a succession of leaves lacking any watermark at all. He then gave himself a guide to both inner and outer margins by further folding. I owe these details to
Volume II comprises the period 15 August 1769–12 July 1771 The pages are numbered 1–603, which latter figure should be 703, as p. 301 is followed by 202. In the second series of 200's p. 243 is followed immediately by 246 on the verso side of the same leaf; pp. 10, 568, and 574 are blanks. Banks follows the same plan of writing as in his first volume. Whether he thought in terms of volumes is uncertain: the blank leaves at the end of Volume I may perhaps argue that he did, though it is much more likely that they are accounted for by the fact that while he was writing
The early part of the journal, for something like 150 pages, is written in a big rather untidy hand, as if the journal-keeper is hastening on in breakneck excitement; the writing then becomes smaller, with more lines to the page, perhaps from some prudential motive of ensuring a sufficient supply of paper; then towards the end of Volume II it becomes bigger again, as if a new excitement, that of being turned homewards, had asserted itself. Excitement cannot be the cause of Banks's lack of punctuation, because it was his nature not to punctuate, as is clear not merely from this journal but from his MSS in general. If, now and again, he is visited by a conviction that he ought to punctuate, whether because of a feeling that he is advancing on some grand set piece or for some other reason, he is likely to carry the eighteenth century conventions to so absurd a point that one can hardly get on for the commas. Fortunately these schoolboyish outbursts are very rare, and one can make one's way without deliberate obstruction from the writer. Like many of his contemporaries, in cursive writing he was prone to begin a sentence, or even a paragraph, without a capital letter; but he makes up for this by overdoing capitals elsewhere — particularly E G L J K S M. On the other hand, not all these may be capitals to Banks: he appears, for example, to have known only one form of K; his S's and C's come in all sizes; he uses a Greek E in all varieties of size, as well as the ordinary written e, for adjectives, adverbs and verbs as well as for nouns; his L is sometimes clearly an intended capital, sometimes emerges merely as a sort of habitual slip of the pen equivalent to 1; capital J seems to be used at random, like C and S — but not for the reason that, like them, it frequently falls from the pen, in rapid writing, in a size larger
Banks's manuscript text has a few peculiarities in spelling. He is not good on final th — he always writes, e.g. lengh, strengh, for length, strength. He generally, but not always, writes his past participle -ed without either an e or an apostrophe — e.g. inclind, lookd, seemd — unless the previous syllable contained a t or d — e.g. existed, provided. It is frequently impossible to tell whether he is spelling with a c or an s — e.g. immence or immense. With the possessive case he rarely uses an apostrophe before his s. With the word notwithstanding he seems to have peculiar trouble, as if its succession of letters were altogether too long and too complicated to get right, except by extreme chance. Of generally represents off. He rarely writes out and in full, preferring the ampersand, and preferring &c to etc. With underlinings of personal or scientific names he is inconsistent. Occasionally a word necessary to the sense is omitted, and he makes the small slips common to everybody in short words — ad for as, if for is; but here we move away from peculiarities. It does not seem necessary to provide further detail.
The Transcripts
The five MS copies of the journals are two of them contemporary, one was made in the early nineteenth century, one in the mid-1830's, and one towards the end of that century. The first two are useful in annotating the original.
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(1) A careful copy made by Sarah Sophia Banks, in the possession of the present Lord Brabourne; referred to in footnotes as S. Two volumes quarto, pp.435, 703. The copying took a long time, as it must have been begun soon after the return of the ship, and went on into 1775. In 1772
Sarah Sophia was busy also copying Banks's other journals, long and short — so that as a sister she was more than dutiful. Different sections have different title pages, as follows: (i) ‘Copy of Journal from Plymouth to Terra del Fuego. Including an Account of Terra del Fuego’. Signed at the top, ‘S:S:Banks 1771’; pp. 1–177. (ii) ‘Copy of Journal fromCape Horn to theIslands in The Pacifick Ocean. Including an Account of the Islands in the Pacifick Ocean’. Signed at the top, ‘S:S:Banks 1771 to page 217. From thence (beginning with page 217. and ending with page 435.) 1772’. (iii) ‘Copy of Journal from the Islands in the Pacifick Ocean to New Zealand. Including an Account of New Zealand’. Signed at the top ‘S S Banks 1772 to page 49. From thence (beginning with page 49, & ending with page 228.) 1773’. (iv) ‘Copy of Journal from New Zealand to the Islands of Savu. Including an Account of Savu’. Signed at top, ‘S:S:Banks 1773’. This part finishes on p. 486. (v) ‘Copy of Journal from Savu to the Cape of Good Hope. Including an account of the Cape of Good Hope ’. Signed at the top, ‘S:S:Banks 1773 to page 501. From thence (beginning with page 501, & ending with page 666.) 1774. From thence (beginning with page 667, and ending with page 674.) January 4th1775’. (vi) ‘Copy of Journal from the Cape of Good Hope Home’. Signed at top, ‘S:S:Banks 1775. Began this part in January. Finished February ye13. 1775’. The last page has again a note of the date when it was finished.
This copy is important because of a number of additional notes, referred to on the title page of (iv): ‘mem: the loose bits of paper pasted in different places are not copied from the Journal, but are only occasional memorandums & observations’. These memo randums & observations’ are in the main obviously supplied by Banks himself, it would appear in answer to questions from Sarah Sophia, but at least in one place to add a further observation of his own on ‘betel-chewing’ (see II, p. 166, n. below). A few others seem to be notes by Sarah Sophia, commenting on statements made: e.g. the arithmetical correction on II, p. 238, n. Sarah Sophia, even less of a classical scholar than her brother, declined transcribing a large amount of scientific terminology, and very soon has her own note, frequently repeated, ‘For the future shall omit copying the Latin names & instead of them only put a serpentine dash — to avoid numberless mistakes’; and omits the catalogues of plants altogether. Her copy therefore is of only secondary use to the natural historian. On the other hand it re-spells and punctuates, its readings are welcome in some cases of dubious legibility in the original; while it supplies several words omitted in Banks's MS, and thus does away with the need for conjectural emendation. The delicacy of Sarah Sophia's mind is witnessed by her inability to bring herself to copy out certain words in full, and by the dashes (not serpentine) she accordingly adopts: ‘the detestable vice of S — y’ (p. 461 below); ‘the B — ks which in the Islands was the
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(2) A copy made for Banks's friend
Constantine Phipps (1744–92), in the hand of a professional clerk, and now in the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington; referred to in footnotes as P. It is entitled ‘Journal kept byJoseph Banks Esq rFrom August 25th1768 To July 12th1771’; two volumes quarto, pp. 375, 593. The second volume begins with 15 August 1769. Both volumes bear the book-plate of the ‘HonbleConstantine John Phipps ’; and as Phipps succeeded to his Irish peerage as the 2nd Baron Mulgrave in 1775, the assumption is that the copy was made before that date. Not merely was Phipps a close friend of Banks, but he collected ‘a library the most perfect in England as to all works of naval science, with many unpublished charts and notes of soundings’,Gent. Mag., lxii, p. 965.Alexander Horsburgh Turnbull in 1892 from Henry Sotheran and Co.A. H. Turnbull toWilliam Carruthers , 26 May 1898—a letter preserved inside the front cover of theDawson Turner copy in the Botanical Library of the British Museum (Natural History). -
(3) A copy belonging to Lord Stanley of Alderley, now on loan to the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. It seems likely that this copy was made for
Sir John Stanley (1766–1850) of Alderley Park in Cheshire, F.R.S. 1790, Baron Stanley of Alderley 1839, who had followed Banks's example in visiting Iceland, and had published anAccount of the Hot Springat Edinburgh in 1791. Unlike the copies previously described, this was written in uniform large quarto blank volumes, already bound: Vol. I runs from 25 August 1768 to 31 July 1770, 494 pp.; Vol. II from 1 August 1770 to 12 July 1771, 237 pp., the remainder blank. The date of the copy is uncertain, but the paper of the first volume is watermarked 1804, that of the second 1807,The information given to me, and printed in Cook I, pp. ccxxxix, that the watermark of the whole MS is Whatman 1809, is erroneous.
have taken any interest in it. It is done in a rather ungainly hand, with not a few misreadings: e.g. 3 June 1769, ‘Pandenus Lectinus’ for Pandanus Tectorius; 6 June 1769, ‘Oritta’ for Orette; among other proper names, ‘Terutu’ for Teratu; in the discussion of the New Zealand language, the particle ‘the’, writes Banks, ‘was generaly He, or Ko’ — which becomes ‘was generally He, or She’; and so on. This copy, therefore, while it has the interest of relative antiquity, has not much other interest, and is of no importance textually. -
(4) The copy made for Dawson Turner, c. 1834–5; two volumes fol., pp. 351 (+ 8 on electrical experiments), 461; now in the Botanical Library of the British Museum (Natural History), South Kensington, with the other Dawson Turner transcripts. It was carefully done.
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(5) A copy in the library of the Herbarium, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; three volumes fol. About 1893 Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker turned his attention towards editing and publishing the journal, for which purpose he was anxious to borrow the original from the then owner, Henniker Heaton.
Letter from
Francis Edwards to Alfred Lee, 16 November 1894; Mitchell MS 1808.Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, Bart, K.B., P.R.S. during Captain Cook's first voyage in H.M.S. Endeavourin 1768–71 … (London 1896). Nothing can dim the botanical fame of Hooker, but at this time he was in his late seventies (he was born in 1817 and died in 1911) and his long and remarkable scientific career had never embraced any training in the treatment of historical documents. He was at a stage indeed when an eminent Victorian acted with vigour and entire lack of remorse. It is consequently difficult to forgive him for what he did. In his preface he remarks, ‘I have largely exercised my duties as editor in respect of curtailments’.p. xii. ‘The omitted portions are chiefly observations on the wind and weather; extracts from the ship's log, which find their proper place in Cook's Journal; innumerable notices of birds and marine animals that were of constant recurrence; and lists of plants and animals, many with MS. names that have been since superseded.’—Banks never, so far as I can tell, makes ‘extracts from the ship's log’: it is hard to understand why a scientist should be so summary with the other matters Hooker mentions.
massacre, are forced beneath the triumphant general's yoke. Whole paragraphs, whole pages are scored through: what was left, Hooker did not hesitate to rewrite. It was an editor's duty to secure proper grammatical observance, proper spelling, ‘… the grammar and orthography are in the original very loose, and I have therefore corrected the language to accord with modern requirements….’—ibid.
Supplementary Papers
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(I)
The Grey MSS.In the Auckland City Public Library is a small group of MSS in Banks's hand, relating to Captain Cook, known asGrey MSS47–75 — part of the miscellaneous and valuable collection bequeathed to the Library bySir George Grey . Grey had acquired them about 1888, as already remarked, fromJ. D. Enys , a settler in the New Zealand province of Canterbury, who later retired to his native Cornwall; and Enys, writing to Grey, 7 April 1888, in a letter preserved with the collection, had informed him that they ‘were bought and sent to me from the sale of the MSS. of Sir Joseph Banks sold by his great nephew Lord Brabourne’. As we can see from the enumeration of the leaves, most of them were from Banks's bound volumes of papers. Those bearing on theEndeavourvoyage are the following:-
(i)
Grey MS48. Four pp. folio, of which the last page contains only one line; this is a description of Tahiti, possibly a draft outline produced while Banks was still making up his mind what form his journal entries should take, or perhaps a supplementary note. -
(ii)
Grey MS49. Three ff. small quarto: notes on the position and size of theSociety Islands and a number of the Tuamotu islands that had been sighted, with some other unimportantparticulars. On Tahiti there is a reference, ‘see the account on a full sheet’, which may refer to No. 48. -
(iii)
Grey MS51. Forty ff. small quarto, portion of a journal, running from 9 October 1769 to 10 October 1770. It has been thought that this, and not the Mitchell Library original, may have been the Lot 176 sold at Sotheby's for £7 2s 6d; but this, no more than the original, answers the description given in the catalogue of the sale — whatever that fact may be worth. This ‘journal’, though it was written out by Banks, is in no real sense a journal at all; it is simply an abstract of parts of Cook's journal, made as a summary of the ship's movements and of the geographical features encountered — details which Banks almost entirely excluded from his own journal as mere matters of latitude and longitude. Shore happenings are, correspondingly, excluded from this version, and thus for many days there are no entries at all. The language is all Cook's, except that for Cook's first person Banks substitutes ‘the Capt’, and makes a number of other adaptations. There is also evidence of individual curiosity in the addition to the geographical names conferred by Cook of a number of native names collected by Banks himself, and of blank spaces left for other native names in Queen Charlotte Sound. Very oddly, where Cook had given the Maori names for the main islands of New Zealand, Banks omits these, and writes in pencil (the hand seems to be his) ‘the Northern Island’ and ‘the Southern Island’. The abstracting from Cook seems to have been done before Cook made his own corrections and redrafts: see Cook I, p. ccxli. -
(iv)
Grey MS52. Six ff. small quarto; apparently a continuation of No. 51, 26 December 1770 to 9 July 1771; it is a bare record of the daily positions of the ship, with a few notes on landfalls and other observations.
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(2) ‘Mr B's Circuit round Otaheite June 1769’. This is a fragment of 8 pp. quarto in the Alexander Turnbull Library, in a folder entitled ‘Miscellaneous material relating to Cook's voyages’. It is in a quite small and very neat hand, to which can be attributed an even smaller fragment of a journal (possibly the midshipman
Jonathan Monkhouse 's?), also in the Alexander Turnbull Library in the same folder, and the surviving portion of that ofWilliam Brougham Monkhouse , the surgeon, now in theBritish Museum (seeCook I, pp. ccxxxi-ii, ccxxxvii, 549–51, 564–87). It has one or two corrections by Banks himself. In spite of its character it did not come from Banks's collection, but from a source closely connected with Cook, and it was sold with Cook's own journal and other important Cook material at auction by Messrs Puttick and Simpson on 11 March 1868; it was bought by the dealer Waller who acquired so many of Banks's papers at Sotheby's in 1886. What happened to it between 1868 and its purchase by Mr Turnbull, and when he purchased it, is unknown, owing to the loss of a large portion of Turnbull's correspondence. Precisely how to account for its existence, or for its provenance with the Cook MSS, is difficult: I have suggested in the Textual Introduction to Cook I, p. ccxxxix, that it is a fair copy of an earlier form of Banks's account of his expedition with Cook round the island. This suggestion was a tentative one, founded on the feeling that Banks may have made other drafts of the nature of Grey MS 48. Closer study leaves little doubt: and a comparison with Cook's account of the expedition (Cook I, pp. 105–14) shows that it was after reading this that Cook discarded his own earlier version (ibid., pp. 531–4) for a new one founded closely on Banks, just as he utilized other portions of Banks's Tahitian descriptions. But in this case Banks himself wrote a new version; preserving the first, which must then have been transcribed for some special purpose. In the absence of evidence fruitful speculation is impossible on the relation of these few pages with the other MSS in the same hand. These ones are printed as Appendix II, Vol. II, pp. 302–7 below.
Printing and Annotation
If Banks is to be read with any comfort, then something must be done to his text in printing it. On the other hand, not too much must be done, or something of the flavour of his rapid-running mind and pen departs. Something — though it may be merely superficial—is bound to depart in print anyhow: the problem is to conserve all that can be conserved. I have therefore adopted the following rules. (1) I have maintained Banks's own spelling and abbreviations; the exception here is his ampersand, which so often repeated would have been a needless offence to the eye, and is therefore consistently expanded. (2) Obvious slips and repetitions of small words have been silently corrected, but where it has seemed necessary letters or words supplied have been enclosed
To give the reader who may be interested a certain number of specimens of Banks unadulterated, I have, however, in the introduction, printed quotations from his letters and other journals as nearly as possible as he wrote them.
In so long a text the question of division inevitably arises. I have retained Banks's paragraphing, but that does not answer the question. When faced by this mass of words, the reader may legitimately demand some relief for the eye. I have therefore divided the text, not into ‘chapters’, which might give a fundamentally false idea of what is, after all, one continuous piece of description, but into six parts, corresponding with the main divisions of the voyage: the passage to Tahiti; the sojourn there and the period in the
The annotation has presented a number of general problems, as well as innumerable particular ones. The aim has been, first, to make the journal intelligible in relation to the voyage as a whole, and secondly, to make the references in it intelligible in themselves.
In the botanical notes, for instance, the reader will find more than one reference to the ‘Pocket Book’. This is a name bestowed by Dr Ramsbottom, late of the British Museum (Natural History) on a bound elephant folio of 147 ff. of which 146 bear small mounted vouchers of the larger specimens from the voyage, prepared for Banks's herbarium and now incorporated in the BMNH Herbarium. This bound series begins with Madeira and includes New Zealand, and there are a very few specimens which may represent Australia. These vouchers assume critical importance for certain monocotyledons where the principal specimen was damaged or lost during World War II.
Banks's birds and fishes have not hitherto been adequately treated: with these, precise references are made to the sources and means of identification. When the location of an MS source is not given it is to be taken as belonging to the British Museum (Natural
It consists of 512 pp. folio of descriptions in Latin of animals, vertebrate and invertebrate, collected on the voyage. It is carefully compiled, with notes on localities, some vernacular names, references to earlier descriptions, etc. The whole is a fair copy, not in Solander's hand; the original has disappeared.—Solander Z1 is an MS in Solander's hand: it consists of five sections now bound in one volume but paginated separately and irregularly. The sections are Pisces Australiae; Pisces etc. Novae Hollandiae; Pisces etc. Anim. caetera Oceani Pacifici; Animalia Javanensia &capensia; Pisces Islandici.—Solander Z2 is a fair copy, not quite complete, of Z1.
For the general human background in the Pacific, I may perhaps refer the reader to the ‘Note on Polynesian History’, printed in The Journals of Captain James Cook, I, pp. clxxii-cxcii. One particular problem which arose in connection with the ethnological side of the voyage was how to treat the vocabularies and the comparative philological data upon which Banks was so fond of dilating. After considerable thought and experiment I concluded that what was really called for was some general notes on the processes by which Banks arrived at his lists, and that no particular end would be served by giving equivalents in present-day conventional orthography. The non-philologist would be no further forward, and the philologist, having the primary material put before him, would prefer to make his own deductions in a field which is still open to scrutiny and discussion. With individual names and expressions, on the other hand, wherever there is little possibility of error — where, indeed, the point is really one of historical fact — I have given transliterations.
A small number of notes will be found repeated, where Banks repeats statements already made. This repetition is not consistent, and is aimed mainly at refreshing the reader's mind without too much recourse to cross-reference. A little cross-reference seems essential.
‘Cook I’, frequently cited, refers to The Journals of Captain James Cook, Volume I, The Voyage of the Endeavour (Cambridge University Press for the Hakluyt Society, 1955); ‘Cook II’ to the second volume of that edition, The Voyage of the Resolution and Adventure (1961). Where no number is given, the first volume is to be understood.
The
EndeavourJournal of Joseph BanksThe Endeavour Journal of Joseph Banks
I
August1768
25. After having waited in this place ten days, the ship, and every thing belonging to me, being all that time in perfect readyness to sail at a moments warning, Banks begins with a rather extravagant statement. The Endeavour had been at Plymouth since 14 August, on which day Cook ‘Dispatched an express to London for Mr Banks and Dr Solander to join the ship, their Servants and baggage being already on board’; but on the night of the 15th Banks was at the opera with
26. Wind still fair, but very light breezes; saw this Even a shoal of those fish which are particularly calld Porpoises by the seamen, probably the Delphinus Phocana of Linnæus,Phocaena phocaena (Linn.), the Common Porpoise.
27. Wind fair and a fine Breeze; found the ship to be but a heavy sailer, indeed we could not Expect her to be any other from her built, so are obligd to set down with this Inconvenience, as a nescessary consequence of her form; which is much more calculated for stowage, than for sailing.
28. Little wind today; in some sea water, which was taken on board to season a cask, observed a very minute sea Insect, which D A species of Possibly ‘r Solander describd by the name of Podura marina.Podura is an insect genus: Solander (MS Z4, p. 279) described a tiny shrimp which has not been identified.Medusa Pelagica,Pelagia of which Parkinson made five charming paintings, III, pl. 54, and which was described in detail by Solander, p. 471.oniscus.O. Macropthalmos’, or ‘Onidium’ of 7 Sept. (p. 158); Parkinson's drawing of Onidium quadricorne (III, pl. 18) dated 28 Aug. 1768 was identified by Stebbing in 1888 as the amphipod Hyperia medusarum (O. F. Müller). Challenger Repts., Zoology, xxix, 1617.
Four of these, the whole number that we took, adherd together when taken by their sides; so that at first we imagind them to be one animal, but upon being put into a glass of water they very soon separated and swam briskly about the water. The cluster (angular figure), was the aggregate form of Pegea confoederata Forskål, a salp. Solander described it as Dagysa saccata, p. 489; Parkinson III, pl. 27, lower figs.
29. Wind foul: Morning employd in finishing the Drawings of the animals taken yesterday till the ship got so much motion that Mr Parkinson could not set to his Pencil; in the Evening wind still Fresher so much as to make the night very uncomfortable.
30. Wind still Foul, ship in violent motion, but towards Evening much more quiet: Now for the first time my Sea sickness left me, and I was sufficiently well to write.
31. Wind Freshend again this morn; observ'd about the Ship several of the Birds calld by the seamen Mother Careys chickens, Mother Carey's Chickens: either the Common Storm Petrel The lowest sails on the fore and main masts—i.e. the foresail and the mainsail. Cook, who was not concerned with his passengers’ sea-sickness, records that the gale ‘Washed over board a small boat belonging to the Boatswain and drown'd between 3 and 4 DozProcellaria Pelagica Linn.Hydrobates pelagicus or the Madeiran Storm Petrel Oceanodroma castro (Harcourt); they are not easily distinguished in flight.—Mother Carey: a name derived from Madre Caria; sailors believed that the Virgin Mary sent the storm petrels to warn them of approaching tempests. S, at a later stage (after copying Banks's description of Tierra del Fuego, pp. 224–9 below) includes a separate page on this subject: ‘Mother Careys Chickens [footnote: ‘The right Mother Careys Chicken, is much like a Blackbird’] or other Birds called Mother Careys: are those that live 8 or 10 Months at Sea, without going upon Land: therefore when Seamen see them, they are not sure of being near Land, as they are when they see other Birds. The Tradition of their being called by that name, was, that some years ago one Mother Carey lived in New York, and was reputed by the Sailors a Witch: and they were afraid of her. The Family of the Careys (are said) now to live at New York. Mother Careys Successors’.n of our Poultry which was worst of all’.
September1768
1. Still Blew, Mother Careys chickens had not yet left us, but towards night wind slackened so that we were again tolerably easy; by our reckoning we must make some part of the coast of Spain before Morning.
2. This Morn about 7 saw the coast of Gallicia between. Cape Ortegal and Finisterre; weather tolerably fine, so that we could use the casting net, which brought up two kinds of Animals, different from any before taken; they came up in Clusters, both sorts indifferen[t]ly in each Cluster, tho much fewer of the Horned ones than of the others. They seem to [be] two species of one genus, but are not at all reducible to any genus hitherto describd.
3. Blew fresh this morn. We were employd all day in describing the animals taken yesterday; found them to be of a new genus and of the same with that taken on the 28 of August Calld the genus A salp, Dagysa from the likeness of one Species to a Gem.Thalia democratica Forskål. Dagysa is Greek for a gem. The aggregate form was described by Solander both as Dagysa gemma and D. serena, and the solitary one as D. cornuta (pp. 485, 507 and 497). Parkinson's drawings are in III, pls. 27 (upper figure), 35, and 31 (upper figure), respectively.
4. Calm today; we were employd in fishing with the casting net and were fortunate in taking several specimens of Now known as Dagysa saccataPegea confoederata Forskål. See 28 August above.opalinum shone in the water with all the splendor and variety of colours that we observe in a real opal; he livd in the Glass of salt water in which he was put for examination several hours; darting about with great agility, and at every motion shewing an almost infinite variety of changeable colours.Carcinium opalinum, a copepod belonging to the genus Sapphirina: Parkinson III, pl. 21, top figure, and Solander, p. 353.Cancer depurator of Linnæus,Polybius henslowi (Leach). See Parkinson III, pl. 8, and Solander, p. 327. The unsigned painting of this little crab is bound with Parkinson's work but is in fact by Buchan; this is confirmed in Dryander's MS catalogue of the zoological drawings in Banks's library.
5. I Forgot to mention yesterday that two birds were caught in the rigging, who probably had come from Spain, as we were not then distant above 5 or 6 Leagues, At noon, says Cook, Cape Finisterre was south by east distant 4 leagues. These were A salp, Motacilla velificans, as they must be sailors who would venture themselves aboard a ship which is going round the world.Oenanthe oenanthe, European Wheatears, on migration to their winter quarters in Africa. There is a signed and dated drawing of one of them by Parkinson, I, pl. 38b.Lobata.Cyclosalpa pinnata Forskál. Parkinson III, pl. 30, and Solander p. 495.
6. Fine and calm this morn, immence numbers of i.e. ‘buds’.Dagysa Lobata floated by, and were taken by our new contrivance, some of them in clusters as many as 14 together, united by a Lobe on the underside. Towards the Middle of the day the sea was almost coverd with dagysa's of different kinds among which two intirely new ones were taken, rostrata and strumosaDagysa rostrata was the MS name given by Solander, p. 503, to the aggregate form of the salp Thetys vagina Tilesius; his Dagysa strumosa, p. 505, is the solitary form of the same species. Both were painted by Parkinson, III, pls. 33, 34.rostrata and two of strumosa were taken.
gemmacornuta, from which circamstance we may Judge that they are very nearly allied.
It seems singular that no naturalist before this time should have taken notice of thise animals as they abound so much where the ship now is, not twenty Leagues from the coast of r Solander and my self shall have probably greater opportunity in the course of this voyage than any one has had before us, it is a very incouraging circumstance to hope that so large a feild of natural history has remaind almost untrod, even till this time, and that we may be able from this circumstance alone (almost unthought of when we embarkd in the undertaking) to add considerable Light to the science which we so eagerly Pursue.
This Evening a large quantity of the ‘Line’ as a unit of measurement, one-twelfth of an inch. The axiom that twelve lines make one inch is still proclaimed in Australian school-tables.Carcinium opalinum which may be calld opal insect came under the ships stern, making the very sea appear with uncommon bea[u]ty, their colours appearing with vast brightness even at the depth of two or three fathoms, tho they are not more than three lines
7. On examining the Dagysa's which were taken yesterday, several small animals were found Lodgd in the hollow parts of their bodys, and some in the very substance of the flesh, which seems to be their food, as many of the dagysas were full of scars which had undoubtedly been the Lodgment of these animals some time before; upon a minute inspection they provd to be animals not to be class'd under any of Linnæus's genera tho nearly related to These small crustacean parasites were hyperiid amphipods. Parkinson's drawings of them (III, pl. 18) were discussed by Stebbing (Amphipoda, No description of Oniscus, from which Circumstance the name of Onidium was given to the new genus,Challenger Repts., 1888, Zoology, xxix, p. 1617). He did not know of Solander's MS notes, pp. 357–68, on them.th of
Oniscus Macropthalmos.O. macropthalmus is known; it may be Parkinson's Onidium quadricorne (p. 154, n. 2). Amphipods have a pair of compound eyes but in most copepods there is a single median eye. See also October 7 with reference to Cystisoma spinosum in which the very large compound eyes are separated only by a thin membrane which is very difficult to detect. The ‘second Page’ is of course the second page of his journal.
In one circumstance these insects differ from any hitherto describd, and in that they all three agree, viz the having two Eyes joind together under one common membrane, without the least distinction or division between them, which circumstance alone seems a sufficient reason for constituting a new genus.
The wind was now fair and we went very pleasantly on towards our destind port, tho rather too fast for any natural Enquiries, for my own part I could well dispence withdispence with in its now obsolete sense of ‘put up with’.r Solander excepted, are of the same opinion, tho I beleive Every body envyed our easy contented countenances during the last Calm, which brought so much food to our pursuits.
8. Blew fresh today, but the wind was very fair so nobody complaind, nor would they was the wind much stronger, so impatient has the Calms and foul wind made every body; by the reckoning we were off Cape St Vincent so shall soon bid adieu to Europe for some time.
10. Since the northerly wind began to blow it has not varied a point, the Sea is now down and we go pleasantly on at the rate of about 6 Knotts; could any contrivance be found by the help of which new subjects of natural history could be taken Dr Solander and myself would be Quite happy, we are forc'd to be content; three days are now passd since any thing has been taken or indeed seen, except a stray turtle who swam by the ship about noon, but was left far behind before any instrument by which he might have been taken could possibly have been got to hand.
Today for the first time we dind in Africa, He appears to mean they were in an African latitude: Cook gives the noon position as lat. 35° 20'N. long. 13° 28'W.
11. Wind fair but rather slackend upon us, nothing however was observ'd, we expected to have made Porto Santo The small island north-east of Madeira.
12. This morn Porto Santo and Madeira were in full veiw, they were seen at day break, indeed we had a little overshot them; as the wind was rather scanty we had however no doubt of fetching in at night. Accordingly at ten tonight came to an anchor in Fonchiale i.e. Funchal.
13. This morn about 11 the product ‘Pratique’.r Cheap, one of the first merchants in the place, where we were receivd with uncommon marks of civility; he insisted upon our taking possession of his house and living intirely with him during our stay which we did and were by him furnishd with every accomodation that we could wish. Leave was procurd by him for us to search the Island for whatever natural productions we might find worth taking notice of, people were also employd to procure for us fish and shells which we could not have spard time to have collected ourselves, horses and Guides were also got for Dr Solander and myself to carry us to any part of the Island which we might chuse to visit. But our very short stay which was only five Days inclusive made it impossible to go to any distance, so we contented ourselves with collecting as much as we could in the neighbourhood of the town, never going above three miles from it during our whole stay.
The season of the year was undoubtedly the worst for both plants and insects, being the hight of the vintage, when nothing is green in the countrey but just on the verge of small brooks, by which these vines are waterd; we made shift however to collect specimens of several plants, &c: of which a catalogue follows See Appendix I, Vol. II, pp. 281–9 below.
The five days which we remained upon the Island were spent so exactly in the same manner, that it is by no means nescessary to divide them, I shall therefore only say, that in general we got up in the Morn, went out on our researches, retur[n]d to dine, and went out again in the Evening; one day however we had a visit from the Governor, of which we had notice before and were obligd to stay at home, so that unsought honour lost us very near the whole day, a very material part of the short time we were allowd to stay upon the Island: we however contrivd to revenge ourselves upon his excellency, by an Electrical machine which we had on board; upon his expressing a desire to see it we sent for it ashore, and shockd him full as much as he chose. The particulars Banks gives of his electrical machine, ‘made by Ramsden’ (see Appendix 1,), inform us that he was quite up-to-date with his apparatus. It was in this same year 1768 that
While at this place we were much indebted to Dr Heberden, the cheif Physitian of the Island, and brother to the Physitian of that name at London; he had for many years been an inhabitant of the Canaries and this Island, and had made several observations cheifly philosophical, some however were Botanical, describing the trees of the Island: of these he immediately gave us a copy, together with such specimens as he had in his possession, and indeed spard no pains to get for us such living specimens of such as could be procurd in flower.Philosophical Transactions a number of papers on his observations in Madeira, mainly geological and meteorological—Banks's ‘chiefly philosophical’; he was the first of a number of Heberdens who distinguished themselves in meteorology. His description of trees does not seem to have been a Heberdenia, now a synonym of Ardisia. His London brother was
We tryed here to learn what Species of wood it is which has been imported into England, and is now known to Cabinet makers by the name of Madeira mahogeny, but without much success, as we could not learn that any wood had been exported out of the Island by that name; the wood however of the tree calld here Vigniatico, Laurus indicus Linn.Persea indica (L.) Spr. ‘Vinhatico’.r Heberdens house where in a bookcase vigniatico and mahogeny were placd close by each other, and were only to be known asunder by the first being not quite so dark colourd as the other.
As much of the Island as we saw shewd evidently the signs of a volcano having some time or other possibly produced the whole; as we saw no one peice of stone which did not evidently shew signs of having been burnt, some very much, especialy the sand which was absolutely cinders. Indeed we did not see much of the countrey, but we were told that the whole was like the specimen we saw of it.
When you first aproach it from seaward it has a very beautifull appearance, the sides of the hills being intirely coverd with vineyards almost as high as the eye can distinguish, which make a constant appearance of verdure tho at this time nothing but the vines remaind green, the grass and herbs being intirely burnt up except near the sides of the rills of water by which the vines are waterd, and under the shade of the vines themselves; tho these very few Species of plants were in perfection the greater part being burnt up.
The people here in general seem to be as idle, or rather unin-formd a set as I ever yet saw; all their instruments, even those with which their wine, the only article of trade in the Island is made, are perfectly simple and unimprovd. Their method is this: the Grapes are put into a square wooden vessel, of dimensions according to the size of the vineyard to which it belongs, into which the servants get (having taken off their stockins and Jackets) and with their feet and Elbows squeeze out as much of the Juice as they can; the stalks &c are then collected, tyed together with a rope and put under a square peice of wood which is pressd down by a Leaver, to the other end of which is fastned a stone that may be raisd up at pleasure by a screw; by this way and this only they make their wine, and by this way probably Noah made his when he had newly planted the first vineyard after the general destruction of mankind and their arts; tho it is not impossible that he might have used a better, if he rememberd the ways he had seen us'd before the flood.
It was with great dificulty that some (and not as yet all) of them were persuaded not long ago to graft their vines and by this means bring all the fruit of a vineyard to be of one sort, tho before the vine which it producd had been spoild by different sorts of bad ones which were nevertheless sufferd to grow, and taken as much
Wheel carriages I saw none in the Island of any sort or kind, indeed their roads are so intolerably bad that if they had them they could scarcely make use of them: they have however some horses and mules, wonderfully clever in traveling upon them, notwithstanding which they bring to town every drop of wine they make upon mens heads, in vessells made of goat skins. The only imitation of a carriage they have, is a board a little hollowd out in the middle, to one end of which a pole is tyed by a strap of whitleather, ‘Leather of a white or light colour and soft pliant consistence, prepared by dressing with alum and salt, so as to retain the natural colour.’—O.E.D.
A speech of their late governeur is recorded here, which shews in what light they are lookd upon even by the Portugese, (themselves I beleive far behind all the rest of Europe, except possibly the Spaniards): it was very fortunate said he that this Island was not Eden in which Adam and Eve dwelt before the fall, for had it been so the inhabitants here would never have been induc'd to put on Cloaths; so much are they resolvd in every particular to follow exactly the paths of their forefathers.
Indeed were the people here only tolerably industrious, there is scarcely any Luxury which might [not] be produc'd that either Europe or the Indies afford, owing to the great difference of Climate observable in ascending the hills; this we experien[c]d in a visit to D Now known as r Heberden, who lives about two miles from the town, we left the Thermometer when we set out at 74 and found it there at 66. Indeed the hills produce almost spontaneously vast plenty of Wall-nutts, chestnutts, and apples, but in the town you find some few plants natives of both the Indies, whose flourishing state put it out of all doubt that were they taken any care of they might have any quantity of them. Of these I mention some: the Banana tree, (Musa sapientum Linn.) in great abundance; the guava (Psidium
pyriferum Linn.)Psidium guajava L., probably introduced from Brazil by the Portuguese.Bromelia ananas Linn.Ananas comosus (L.) Merr.Provadore or provedore, provedor, purveyor or contractor; probably he means the agent who supplied the ship.Mangifera indica Linn. one plant also of this in the same garden Bearing fruit every year; Cinnamon, Laurus cinnamomum Linn. very healthy plants of this I saw on the top of Dr Heberdens house at Fonchiale, which had stood there through the winter without any kind of Care having been taken of them. These without mentioning any more seem very sufficient to shew that the tenderest plants might be cultivated here without any trouble; yet the indolence of the inhabitants is so great, that even that is too much for them; indeed the policy of the English here is to hinder them as much as possible from growing any thing themselves except what they find their account in taking in exchange for Corn, tho the people might with much Less trouble and expence grow the corn themselves. What corn grows here, which indeed is not much, is of a most excellent quality, Large graind, and very fine; their meat also is very good, mutton, pork, and beef more especialy, of which what we had on board the ship was agreed by all of us to be very little inferior to our own; tho we Englishmen value ourselves not a little on our peculiar excellence in that production. The fat of this was white like the fat of mutton, yet the meat Brown, and coarse graind as ours, tho much smaller.
The town of Fonchiale is situated at the Bottom of the Bay, very ill Built, tho larger than the size of the Island seems to deserve. The houses of the bettermost people are in general large but those of the poorer sort very small, and the streets very narrow and uncommonly ill pavd. The Churches here have abundance of ornaments, cheifly bad pictures and figures of their favourite saints in lac'd cloaths; the Convent of the Franciscans indeed which we went to See had very little ornament; but the neatness with which those fathers kept everything was well worthy of commendation, especialy their infirmary, the contrivance of which deserves to be taken particular notice of; it was a long room, on one side of which were windows, and an altar for the convenience of administering the sacrament to the sick; on the other were the wards, each just capable of containing a bed, and lind with white duch i.e. Dutch.
In this Convent was a curiosity of a very singular nature; a small chapel whose whole lining, wainscote, and ceiling, was intirely compos'd of human bones, two large thigh bones across, and a
I must not leave these good fathers without mentioning a thing which does great credit to their civility, and at the same time shews that they are not bigots to their religion: we visited them on Thursday Even just before their supper time; they made many apologies that they could not ask us to sup, not being prepard; but said they, if you will come tomorrow, notwishstanding it is fast with us, we will have a turkey roasted for you.
There are here, beside friarys, 3 or 4 houses of nunns. To one of these (Sa'nta Clara) we went, and indeed the ladies did us the honour to express great pleasure in seeing us there; they had heard that we were great Philosophers, and expected much from us, one of the first questions that they askd was, when it would thunder; they then desird to know if we could put them in a way of finding water in their convent, which it seems they were in want of; but notwishstanding our answers to these questions were not quite so much to the purpose as they expected, they did not at all cease their civilities, for while we stayd, which was about half an hour, I am sure there was not the fraction of a second in which their tongues did not go at an uncommonly nimble rate.
It remains now that I should say something of the Island in general, and then take my leave of Madeira till some other opportunity offers of visiting it again, for the climate is so fine that any man might wish it was in his power to live here under the benefits of English laws and liberty.
The hills here are very high, much higher than any one would imagine, The height of tMirmulanoApollonias canariensis Nees.Pao branco,Oreodaphne foeteus (Ait.) Nees <JDH>; now Ocotea foeteus (Ait.) Webb and Berthel. Specimens of both this and Apollonias canariensis survive from the voyage. Here and elsewhere <JDH> signifies an identification made by Hooker in his edition of Banks's journal.
The inhabitants here are supposd to be about 80,000; and from the town of Fonchiale (its custom house I mean) the King of Portugal receives 20000 pounds a year, after having paid the Governor and all expences of every kind, which may serve to shew in some degree the consequence which this little Island is of to the crown of Portugal; was it in the hands of any other people in the world its value might easily be doubled, from the excellence of its climate capable of bearing any kind of crop, a circumstance which the Portugese do not make the least advantage of.
The Coin current here is intirely Spanish, for the Balance of trade with Lisbon being in disfavour of this Island all the Portugese money naturaly goes there, to prevent which Spanish money is allowd to pass: it is of three denominations, Pistereens, Bitts, and £½ bitts; the first worth about I shilling, the 2nd 6 pence, the third 3 pence; they have also Portugese money of Copper, but so scarce that I did not in my stay there see a single peice.
18. This Evening every thing being ready for sea, we went on board, and at 8 o'Clock got under way with a very light breeze.
19. Light Breezes all day, without any event worth writing about.
20. Still almost calm, which gave us an opportunity of taking with the casting nett a most beautifull species of Medusa, of a colour equaling if not exceeding the finest ultramarine; it was describd and calld Medusa azurea.Porpita porpita. There are two sets of paintings of this animal by Parkinson, III, pls. 44, 45, and a description by Solander, pp. 447–8, who assigned it to the correct Linnean species.
21. This morn wind foul, saw however some rocks call'd in the old charts Salvages A small group of islets and rocks south of Madeira, and just north of the 30th parallel.
22. No land in sight this morn, towards noon almost calm, many fish were about the ship, but our fishermen could not contrive to catch any of them.
23. This morn we were calld up very early to see the pike of Teneriffe, which now for the first time appeard at a vast distance much above the clouds (I mean those which form a bank near the Horizon); the hill itself was so faint, that no man who was not used to the appearance of land at a great distance could tell it from a cloud, it soon however appeard something clearer and a sketch was made of it.
While we were engagd in looking at the hill a fish was taken which was describ'd and called Sir Hans Sloane (1660–1753) the physician, naturalist and collector. Banks's reference is to his Scomber serpens;Gempylus serpens Cuv. The first of these rather rare oceanic fishes known to science was the specimen belonging to Discovery. Another of these fishes was taken by the Kon-Tiki.—S gives the name of the fish as ‘Hember Serpens’, and appends a note, ‘For the future shall omit copying the Latin names and instead of them only put a serpentine dash [an illustrative wavy line follows] to avoid numberless mistakes’. This note is repeated from time to time in her manuscript, but will not be repeated in the following pages.r Hans Sloane in his Passage out to Jamaica also took one of these fish which he gives a figure of, Vol.1, T.1, f.2.Voyage to the Islands Madera, Barbadoes, Nieves, St Christopher's and Jamaica, with the Natural History…. of the last… (2 vols. folio, London 1707, 1725). Sloane, an Irishman, studied medicine at Paris and Montpellier, and botany at the latter, and became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1685. In 1687 he went to the West Indies as physician to the Duke of Albemarle, the governor of Jamaica, and for fifteen months made observations and collections of natural history. He brought 800 specimens of plants back to London, the foundation of his Catalogus Plantarum quae in Insula Jamaica sponte proveniunt, vel vulgo coluntur (1696). He was secretary of the Voyage brought him European fame as a scientist, while his eminence in medicine gave him a large practice, which included the persons of Queen Anne and George II. Generous throughout his life, he bequeathed his noble collections of natural history, manuscripts and books, which had cost him £50,000, to the nation, on condition that £20,000 was paid to his family. This was done, and Sloane thus became virtually the founder of the British Museum.—‘T.1, f.2’: Tabula 1, figura 2.
The Pike continued in sight almost all day, tho sometimes obscurd by the clouds; at sunset however its appearance was most truely elegant, the rays of the sun remaining upon it sometime after it was set and the other land quite Black, and giving it a warmth of colour not to be express'd by painting.
24. This Morn the Pike appeard very plain and immensely above the clouds, as may well be imagin'd by its hight which D Its highest point is 12,200 feet. The sulphur is understandable, but not the other substance, under Heberden's denomination. Natron is an obsolete word for saltpetre or potassium nitrate; this is a salt which would dissolve in rain on top of the mountain. My colleague r Heberden of Madeira who has been himself upon it communicated to us, 15,396 feet.r also says that tho there is no eruption of visible fire from it, yet heat issues from the chinks near the top so strongly that a person who putts his hand upon these is scalded; from him we receivd among many other favours some salt which he supposes to be the true natron or nitrum of the ancients, and some native sulphur exceedingly pure, both which he collected himself on the top of the mountain, where large quantities, especialy of the salt, are found on the surface of the Earth.
25. Wind continued to blow much as it had done so we were sure we were well in the trade; now for the first time we saw plenty of flying fish, whose bea[u]ty especialy when seen from the cabbin windows is beyond imagination, their sides shining like burnishd silver; when seen from the Deck they do not appear to such advantage as their backs are then presented to the view, which are dark colourd.
26. Went as usual and as we expect to go these next two months; flying fish are in great plenty about the ship. About one today we crossd the tropick, i.e. the Tropic of Cancer. Cook gives the noon position for September 26 as lat. 23° 43’ N, long. 19° 23’ W.
27. About one this morn a flying fish was brought into the cabbin, the first that had been taken; it flew aboard, I suppose chasd by some other fish, or maybe merely because he did not see the ship; at breakfast another was brought, which had flown into Mr Green the Astronomers Cabbin. This whole day we saild at the rate of 7 knotts, sometimes a fathom or two more the wind being rather stronger than it usualy is in the trade.
28. Wind rather slackend; three birds were today about the ship, a swallow, Probably the common swallow on migration.
29. This morn calm; employd in drawing and describing the bird taken yesterday, calld it A young Yellow Wagtail; Parkinson I, pl. 38a; Solander p. 121. See Pl. 2.Motacilla avida;
About noon a young shark was seen from the Cabbin windows following the ship, who immediately took a bait and was caught on board; he provd to be the Probably Squalus Charcharias of Linn[aeus]Carcharodon carcharias, the Great White Shark; this is one of the largest of all sharks and is found throughout temperate and tropical seas. There are two drawings from this voyage labelled Squalus carcharias, both ascribed by Dryander to Parkinson, though only one is signed, I, pls. 51, 54.echineis remora Linn.Remora remora, Sucking-fish.r Solander and myself, tho some of the Seamen did not seem to be fond of him, probably from some prejudice founded on the species sometimes feeding on human flesh.
30. This Morn at day break made the Island of Bonavista, one of the r Buchan employd in taking views of the land; Mr Parkinson busy in finishing the sketches made of the shark yesterday.
This Evening the other Wagtails are parasitized by several kinds of ticks; from Solander's notes, p. 289, it appears that this one was an Motacilla avida was brought to us, it differd scarce at all from the first taken, except that it was something larger; his head however gave us some good, by supplying us with near twenty specimens of ticks, which differd but little from the acarus vicinus Linn; it was however described and calld Motacilla.Ixodes, but the description is not sufficiently detailed to allow of specific identification. S, substituting a ‘serpentine dash’ for the name of the bird, adds the note, ‘those referred to was what became so familiar ye 29th while drawing and describing. page 38’.
October1768
1. This Morn Bonetos were in great plenty about the ship, we were calld up early to see one that had been struck, found it to be the The Bonito, Scomber Pelamys Linn.,Euthynnus pelamis. See Parkinson II, pl. 92; this is an unfinished and unsigned painting and may not be Parkinson's work.
After having examind and drawn the animal we proceeded to disect him, and in the course of the operation were much pleasd by the infinite strenght we observd in every part of him, specialy the stomack, the coats of which were uncommonly strong especialy about the sp[h]incter, or extremity by which the digested meat is discharged; this I suppose is intended to crush and render usefull the scales and bones of fishes which this animal must continualy swalow without seperating them from the flesh.
From the inside of its scales we took a small animal who seemd to be a louse (if I may so call it) as it certainly stuck to him and preyd upon the Juices which it extra[c]ted by sucktion, probably much to his disquiet; it provd to be Job Baster (1711–75), a Dutch physician, who published many works on natural history. The one Banks refers to is the monoculus piscinus Linn.Caligulus sp., a parasitic copepod. See Parkinson III, pl. 17, and Solander, pp. 347–9.Opera subcessive,Opuscula subseciva, a series of miscellaneous observations on animals and plants—to give its more extended title, observations miscellaneœ, de animalculis et plantis quibusdam marinis, eorumque ovariis et seminibus, continentia (Haarlem, 2 vols., 1759–65).
In the inside of the fish were also found two animals which preyd upon him, one in his very flesh tho near the membrane which covers the intestines, A larval tetrarhynchid, one of the tapeworms. See Solander, p. 421. Mss: manuscript, i.e. no description had been published. In his botanical and zoological lists Banks uses similarly the abbreviation Mscr. A trematode, probably Fasciola Pelamines Mss,sipunculus piscium Mss.Hirundinella clavata (Menzies). See Solander, p. 419.
2. This morn two swallows were about the ship, tho we must now be 60 Leagues at least from any land, at night one of them is taken and proved to be Hirundo domestica Linn.Hirundo rustica was the name given by Linnæus to the European Swallow.
3. This morn the other swallow was found dead upon the deck; now for the first time we have lost the trade, and expected calm and squally weather till we shall cross the line.
The trade had now lasted us pretty free from squalls or calms these days it has been in general between Cook records a fresh’ or ‘steady’ breeze from 24 September, when he remarks, ‘I take this to be the NE Trade we have now got into’. There was a switch to variable winds with calms on his 3 October, and then to southerlies for some time.
4. Today quite calm, I went out in a boat and took Solitary form of dagysastrumosa’Thetys vagina; cf. 6 September above.medusa porpita,Porpita porpita; cf. 30 September above.mimus volutatorf and cimexCimex was a name used by Linnaeus for a number of hemipterous insects, but now marks the genus to which the common European bedbug belongs. Banks was probably referring to the British Pond Skaters which belong to the same order; Halobates and its allies are related apterous forms which occur far out to sea in the tropical and sub-tropical oceans.C. Lacustris does on our ponds in England. Towards even two small fish were taken under the stern, they were following a shirt which was towing and showd not the least signs of fear, so that they were taken with a landing net without the least difficulty. Balistes monoceros Linn.Monacanthus sp. Parkinson I, pl. 64; Solander, p. 191.
5. Weather pretty good, at night a squall with Lightning and rain, another swallow came to the ship today and was taken with the snippers as soon as he went to roost.
6. Blew fresh this morn with heavy rain; towards noon five swallows came on board and were taken at roosting time, and provd like all we have taken before to be H. domestica Linn.
7. This morn calm; went out in the boat and took what is calld by the Seamen a Portugese man of war, A nectophore of Wilson's Petrel, Holothuria Physalis Linn;Physalia physalis. There are five plates (37–41) of this siphonophore in Parkinson III; two are signed and finished while the others are in various stages of completion. Solander described them under three specific names, Holothuria physalis, H. obtusata and H. angustata (PP. 393–7).Medusa velella L. Mss,Velella velella. There is a series of paintings signed by Parkinson, III, pl. 56, of this siphonophore which was described by Solander who, as was his usual practice, listed the various localities where it was taken, p. 475.Cystisoma spinosum (Fabr.). There are several pencil and pen and ink studies of this hyperiid amphipod by Parkinson, III, pls, 19, 20, and a long description by Solander, pp. 365–6. It is an interesting animal, generally considered to be a deep-sea form, but since it was captured in excellent condition—this is clear from the drawings—it would appear that it sometimes comes into the upper oceanic layers.Diodon Erinaceus Mss,Diodon sp. Parkinson made two paintings of this curious little fish, I, pl. 68, which was also described by Solander, p. 193.dagysa vitrea Mss,Diphyes dispar Chamisso and Eysenhardt. Very little was known in the eighteenth century about the complex structure of the Siphonophora, a group to which the Portuguese Man-of-war also belongs, and it is not surprising that Solander confused this nectophore with the much more highly organized salps, to which it has some slight superficial resemblance. Parkinson III, pls. 31 (lower figure) and 32; Solander p. 501.Helix Janthina Linn,Janthina janthina. There is a painting of these marine snails by Buchan (see Parkinson, III, pl. 72). The colouring of Janthina shells is very variable. See also Solander p. 417.violacea MssHelix violacea; Janthina globosa Swainson. See Buchan's painting in Parkinson III, pl. 71.procellaria Oceanica Mss.Oceanites oceanicus (Kuhl). Solander gave an MS description of this bird, p. 55, but Parkinson did not draw a specimen until 22 December; on that occasion Banks did not record the specimen.
The floating shells H. Janthina and violacea from their particularity deserve also to be mentiond, they are found floating on the top of the water by means of a small cluster of Bubbles filld with air, which are composd of a tenacious slimey substance, not easily parting with its contents; these keep him suspended on the surface of the water and serve as a hiding for his Eggs, and it is probable that he never goes down to the bottom, or willingly comes near any shore, as his shell is of so brittle a construction that few fresh water snails are so thin.
Every shell contains within it about a teaspoonfull of Liquid, which it easily discharges on being touched, this is of a most beautifull red purple colour and easily dies linnen clothes; it may be well worth inquiry whether or not this is the The usual source of the famous Tyrian purple was purpura of the ancients as the shell is certainly found in the Mediterranean. We have not yet taken a sufficient quantity of the shells to try the experiment, probably we shall do soon.Murex trunculus, an abundant littoral species in the Mediterranean. It is unlikely that Janthina was used for this purpose, since its appearance in that sea is only sporadic.
See 31 August above.Procellaria oceanica differs very little from P. pelagica Linn,
8. A fine Breze today; employd in figuring &c. what was taken yesterday.
9. This morn a shark calld us out of our bedds, and was soon hookd, but as soon broke his hold and went off: at noon went out in the boat but found nothing on the surface of the water; on returning home however found on the stern of the ship two new species of Lepas vittata and midas,Lepas vittata: the Striped Stalked Barnacle, Conchoderma virgatum Spengler. See the drawing by Buchan, Parkinson III, pl. 68, and notes by Solander, p. 385. Lepas midas: the Eared Stalked Barnacle, Conchoderma auritum. Parkinson signed his painting of this animal, III, pl. 67; see also Solander, p. 387.anatifera,Lepas anatifera, the Goose Barnacle, so-called on account of the mediaeval belief that Barnacle Geese did not procreate in the usual way but sprang from these organisms. For this reason these birds were regarded as a class apart from other animals, and could be eaten on fast days.
10. Went out in the boat today, took plenty of Helix Janthina and some few of violacea, shot the black toed gull of Penn. Zool.The British Zoology (1766) of Thomas Pennant (1726–98). Pennant, a landed gentle man of Flintshire, a naturalist and antiquary, and a correspondent of both Linnaeus and Banks, was best known at this time for this book, though later on for the journals of his travels in England, Scotland and Wales. He was a most voluminous author. Johnson thought him a Whig and a sad dog, adding (of his Tour in Scotland, 1771) ‘But he's the best traveller I ever read’. White's Selborne was written in the form of letters to Pennant and to passim).Larus crepidatus; its food here seems to be cheifly Helixes which appeard probable at least, on account of its dung being of a lively red colour, much like that which was procurd from the shells.Stercorarius parasiticus, the Arctic Skua. This seems to have been the immature bird described by Solander, p. 39, as although his account is not dated he refers to its feeding on Janthina janthina.
I was drove home from this excursion by a very heavy squall of rain, which intirely wetted me through long before it was possible to return to the ship, however I receivd no other harm from the ducking than the present inconvenience of being so thoroughly wet. The remainder of today was very squally, with much rain; indeed it has been so ever since we lost the trade, and the people who have been here before say that it is generaly so in these latitudes; I can liken it to nothing so much as April in England, when it is very showery, the weather is never certain for two hours, or indeed
‘Spend’ in the obsolete eighteenth century sense of ‘waste’.
11. Today much like yesterday, very squally; saw a dolphin, and admired the infinite beauty of his colour as he swam in the water, but in vain, he would not give us even a chance of taking him.
12. A shark, squalus carcharias Linn.Squalus carcharias, probably Carcharodon carcharias; cf. 29 September above.Gasterosteus ductor Linn.Naucrates ductor, the Pilot-fish. See Parkinson II, pl. 86. ‘Naucrates’ is derived from a Greek word meaning ‘ruler of the ships’. There is an interesting discussion of the relationship between the Pilot-fish and their sharks in J. R. Norman and F. C. Fraser's Giant Fishes, Whales and Dolphins (1948).
The blubbers Blubbers was a name commonly applied by sailors to jellyfish and some other transparent pelagic animals. A ctenophore belonging to the group Lobatae, possibly a species of Beroe LabiataBeroe labiata: there are eight small paintings of this unidentified ctenophore by Parkinson III, pl. 58, lower series, and a description by Solander, p. 431, who however used the MS name of bilabiata for it.Marsupialis Mss,Beroe marsupialis: this too is an unidentified ctenophore; Solander thought that it was perhaps only a variety of his B. bilabiata (p. 435); Parkinson's painting, III, pl. 58, upper figure, suggests that it was a paler specimen. Both he and Solander used the MS name of marsupium, not marsupialis, for it.Callirhoe bivia Mss,Deiopeia. See Parkinson's painting, III, pl. 42, and Solander, p. 401.
13. Calm this Morn; a shark was taken, but not one pilot fish attended him, which is rather uncommon as they seldom are without a shoal of from ten to twenty. At noon I went in the boat, and took the Sallee man If the fish sheltering under the tentacula of the Portuguese Man-of-war were Phyllodoce velella Linn.Velella velella; cf. 7 October above. ‘Sallee-man originally a Moorish pirate vessel from the port of Sallee.Nomeus gronovii (Gm.), as seems most probable, this was the first time that their commensalism with the siphonophore was noted; an account of this now well-known relationship was first published by G. C. Wallich in 1863. Young Pilot-fishes also behave like this.
14. Calm today but so squally and rainy that I dar'd not venture out with the boat.
15. Ventur'd out today, but found the surface of the water so ruffled that nothing at all floated upon it, I had the good fortune however to see a bird of the shearwater kind which I shot, and it provd to be not describd; it was about as large as the common but differd from it in being whiter, especialy about the face: calld it Procellaria crepidata as its feet were like the gulls shot last week, black without but white near the leggs.Pterodroma mollis feae (Salvadori), the Soft-plumaged Petrel. In his Hand List of 1871, (pt. III, p, 107), Gray considered that Solander's Procellaria crepidata (p. 87, undated) was probably equivalent to Gould's mollis. Solander also calls it Mother Carey's Pullet and refers to a figure by Parkinson, long mislaid—since for some inexplicable reason it was not bound with the other plates from Cook's voyages but is in the Print Room,
A large shoal of fish were all this day under the shipp's stern, playing about, but refusing to take bait; we however contrivd to take one of them with a fish gigg, which provd not describd; it was in make and appearance like a Carp, weighing near two pounds, its sides were ornamented with narrow yellow lines and its finns almost intirely coverd with scales: calld it Chætodon cyprinaceus.Kyphosus sectalrix. Parkinson II, pl. 32.
16. A fine breeze of wind started up last night which held us all day, so I found it impossible to go out in the boat; tonight however to make these 24 hours not intirely unprofitable I had the opportunity of seeing a Phenomenon I had never before met with, a lunar rainbow which appeard about ten O'Clock very faint and almost or quite without colour, so that it could be tracd by little More than an appearance which lookd like shade on a cloud.
17. This morn went out in the boat but caught no one thing, I had never been before so unfortunate. In the Evening a breeze of wind sprung up from SE by S which makes us hope we had got the S.E. trade.
18. Wind continued to blow fresh so we had little doubt of the reality of yesterdays hopes. This evening trying as I have often (foolishly no doubt) done to exercise myself by playing tricks with two ropes in the Cabbin I got a fall which hurt me a good deal and alarmd me more, as the blow was on my head, and two hours after it I was taken with sickness at my stomack which made me fear some ill consequence. One would like to know what exercises Banks was able to improvise with two ropes in a cabin 6’ × 6’ × 7’.
19. Today thank God I was much better and easd of all apprehensions, the wind continuing fair and I had given over all thoughts of boat expeditions for some time at least.
20. Quite well today, employd in describing i.e. writing descriptions of his zoological specimens.
21. Trade continues. Today the cat killd our bird M. Avida who had lived with us ever since the 29th of Septr intirely on the flies which he caught for himself; he was hearty and in high health so that probably he might have livd a great while longer had fate been more kind.
22. Trade had got more to the Southward that it usualy had been, which was unlucky for me as I proposd to the Captain to touch for part of a day at least at the Island of Ferdinand Norronha, which he had no objection to if we could fetch it: that however seemd very uncertain. This Evening we saw 6 or 7 large fish of the whale kind which the Seamen calld Grampuses tho I think they were very different from the fish commonly so calld; they were however Certainly of the whale kind and blew throug[h] two? pipes on the top of their heads. They had heads smaller and rounder than those fish in general have and very low back finns and very small tails; thus much was all that I could see as they never came within two cables lengh of the ship. These were possibly Pilot Whales (Globicephala sp.) which have rounded heads and low dorsal fins in comparison with those of the Killer.
23. Trade today was still more to the Southward, almost due South, so that we tackd and stood to the eastward lest we should fall in with the coast of Brazil to the Northward of Cape Frio.
24. Wind today as fair as we could wish, ship layd up so well ‘Layd up so well’: she sailed into the prevailing south-easterly winds so satisfactorily….
About noon today we experiencd what the Seamen call a white squall, that is a gust of wind which came upon us quite unawares, unattended with a cloud as squalls in general are and therefore took us quite unprepard; it was however very slight so no ill consequence ensued except M i.e. his paint pots.r Parkinson and his potts
25. This morn about 8 O'Clock crossed the Équinoctial line in about 33 degrees West Longitude from Greenwich, at the rate of four knotts which our seamen said was an uncommonly good breeze, the Thermometer standing at 29. (The Thermometers used in this voyage are two of Mr Birds making
About dinner time a list was brought into the cabbin containing the names of every body and thing aboard the ship, in which the dogs and catts were not forgot; to this was affixd a petition, sign'd ‘the ships company,’ desiring leave to examine every body in that List that it might be know[n] whether or not they had crossd the line before. This was immediately granted; every body was then calld upon the quarter deck and examind by one of the lieutenants who had crossd, Probably Gore, who had been round the world twice already, with Byron and with Wallis on the Dolphin.n Cooke and Doctor Solander were on the Black list, as were my self my servants and doggs, which I was oblig'd to compound for by giving the Duckers a certain quantity of Brandy for which they willingly excusd us the ceremony.
Many of the Men however chose to be duckd rather than give up 4 days allowance of wine which was the price fixd upon, and
A block was made fast to the end of the Main Yard and a long line reved through it, to which three Cross peices of wood were fastned, one of which was put between the leggs of the man who was to be duckd and to this he was tyed very fast, another was for him to hold in his hands and the third was over his head least the rope should be hoisted too near the block and by that means the man be hurt. When he was fas[t]ned upon this machine the Boatswain gave the command by his whistle and the man was hoisted up as high as the cross peice over his head would allow, when another signal was made and immediately the rope was let go and his own weight carried him down, he was then immediately hoisted up again and three times served in this manner which was every mans allowance. Thus ended the diversion of the day, for the ducking lasted till almost night, and sufficiently diverting it certainly was to see the different faces that were made on this occasion, some grinning and exulting in their hardiness whilst others were almost suffocated and came up ready enough to have compounded after the first or second duck, had such proceeding been allowable. This is one of the best accounts we have of the (or of one) method by which this ‘Ancient Custom of the Sea’ was carried out—‘the Ceremony … practised by all Nations’, to quote Cook's words. In essentials it was a sort of ‘baptism, combining propitiation of the sea-god with present benefit (in the form of strong drink) shared out among the old hands. The ceremony varied according to the nationality of the actors: the English seem to have copied the Dutch, to judge from an account given in the first chapter of Esquemeling's Buccaneers of America (Amsterdam 1678, English translation 1684). Esquemeling writes, ‘He, therefore, that is to be baptized is fastened, and hoisted up three times at the mainyard's end, as if he were a criminal. If he be hoisted the fourth time, in the name of the Prince of Orange or of the captain of the vessel, his honour is more than ordinary. Thus they are dipped, every one, several times into the main ocean. But he that is the first dipped has the honour of being saluted with a gun. Such as are not willing to fall are bound to pay twelve pence for their ransom; if he be an officer in the ship, two shillings; and, if a passenger, according to his pleasure…. All the profit which accrues by this ceremony is kept by the master's mate, who, after reaching their port, doth usually lay it out in wine, which is drunk amongst the ancient seamen. Some will say this ceremony was instituted by the Emperor Charles the Fifth; howsoever, it is not found amongst his Laws’. Mr G. P. B. Naish writes that the same ceremony was frequently performed at the entrance to the Baltic, the Straits of Gibraltar, and crossing the Tropics; and that Neptune started coming on board English ships just before 1790.
It is now time that I should say something of the climate and degree of heat since crossing the tropick, as we have been for some time within the bounds which were supposd by the ancients to be uninhabitable on account of their heat.
Almost immediately on crossing the tropick the air became sensibly much damper than usual, tho not materialy hotter, the
There is a marginal note here, ‘Piso p. 5’, and the reader will find further references to Piso below. Willem Piso, a Dutch naturalist and doctor of the early seventeenth century, went as physician to Prince Maurice of Nassau on a voyage to Brazil in 1636, when part of the country was occupied by the Dutch. He took with him a young German physician and scholar, Historia naturalis Brasiliae (1648). Piso's part of this was the De Medcina Brasliensi libri quatuor, the first of which treats of the climate and the nature of the country in general, while the others deal with endemic diseases, poisons, and the virtues of plants. Piso was a rather diffuse writer, given to taking over popular stories: he himself admitted that he had done his work somewhat precipitately, but revised it with care for a subsequent volume De Indiae utriusque re naturali et medica (Amsterdam 1658). In spite of its defects the joint work of Piso and Marcgrav remained for a long time the most complete thing available on the country of their exploration. Their other gift to Europe was the drug ipecacuanha.
This continued till we got the S.E. trade, when or a little before the glass fell to 88 and soon to 78 and 79, but the dampness continued yet; to that I cheifly attribute the ill success of the Electrical experiments of which I have wrote an account on separate papers that the different experiments may appear at one view. See Appendix I.
The air during the whole time sin[c]e we crossed the tropick and indeed sometime before has been nearly of the same temperature throughout the 24 hours, the Thermometer seldom rising above a degree during the time the sun is above the horizon. The windows of the cabbin have been open without once being shut ever since we left Madeira.
26. Last night and today the weather has been squally, wind rather fresh but keeping very much to the Southward; great plenty of flying fish have been about the ship few or none of which have been seen since we left the N.E. trade.
27. Fine weather but Wind rather too much to the Southward.
The ship was now approaching the coast of Brazil. Cook writes (October 28), ‘This day at Noon being nearly in the Latd of the Island Ferdinand Noronha to the westward of it by some charts and to the Eastward by others, was in expectation of seeing it or some of those shoals that are laid down in most charts between in and the main, but we saw neither one nor a nother. We certainly pass'd to the Eastward of the Island, and as to the shoals I do not think they exhist grounding this my opinion on the Journal of some East India Ships I have seen, who were detained some days by contrary winds between this Island and the main and being 5 or Six Ships in compney, doubtless must have seen some of them did they lay as marked in the charts’. This indicates both the current state of hydrographical knowledge and Cook's wide-ranging mind where hydrography was concerned. A dangerous reef, the As Rocas, does in fact lie 80 miles west of Endeavour passed 60 miles east of the island.
28. Fine breeze today, our hopes of seeing the Island were again renewd but without success, so at night we judge ourselves to be past it and that the longitude is wrong laid down.
29. Wind East very pleasant, we now gave up all thoughts of the Island. This Evening the sea appeard uncommonly bea[u]tifull, flashes of light coming from it perfectly resembling small flashes of lightning, and these so frequent that sometimes 8 or ten were visible at the same moment; the seamen were divided in their acco[u]nts some assuring us that it proceeded from fish who made the light by agitating the salt water, as they calld it, in their darting at their prey, while others said that they had often seen them and knew them to be nothing but blubbers This, odd as it may seem, is what Banks wrote, over something else, smudged, which appears to have been 2/10ths; and I think that ‘nine-tenths was probably what he meant, though his symbol is unknown to mathematicians.(Medusas). This made us very Eager to procure some of them, which at last we did one by the help of the landing net. They prov'd to be a species of Medusa which when brought on board appeard like metal violently heated, emitting a white light; on the surface of this animal a small Lepas was fixd exactly the colour of it, which was almost transparent not unlike thin starch in which a small quantity of blue is disolv'd. In taking these animals three or 4 species of Crabbs were taken also but very small, one of which gave light full as much as a glow-worm in England tho the Creature was not so large by £10/9ths
30. This Morn employd in Examining the things caught lastnight, which being taken by the light of our lamps (for the wind which blows in at the windows always open will not suffer us to burn candles) we could hardly then distinguish into genera, much less into species, had the good fortune to find that they were allquite new. Calld them This barnacle has not been identified; Parkinson's figures are small, III, pl. 68, upper figure. Solander, p. 383, compared its structure with that of There is a blank here in the MS never filled in by Banks. This may have been one of the pteropods of the genus Medusa pellucens,Phacellophora sp. There is a signed sepia painting of this animal by Parkinson, III, pl. 53; see also Solander p. 467.Conchoderma virgatum (see 9 October above).Clio described by Linnaeus-There appears to be no drawing or description of it.Cancer fulgens and Cancer amplectens,Cancer fulgens and C. ampledens; the first of these may have been a young euphausiid, the second is a larval form with some likeness to that of the hermit crabs. There is not sufficient detail for identification in Parkinson's drawings, III, pls. 13, 10, or in Solander's descriptions, pp. 309–13.
In the Evening the Sea was lighted in the same manner as it was last night only not near so strongly; we renewd however our endeavours to take some of the light carriers, not without success as two new species of Crabbs were taken one of which was very singular.
31. Nothing to be done today, found however that the crabbs taken yesterday were both new, calld them A stomatopod larva, Alima stage, Parkinson III, pls. 15, 16; Solander, pp. 337–9. An amphipod, vitreusCrassicornis.Scina sp. Parkinson III, pl. 14, and Solander, pp. 317–20.
November1768
1. A shoal of small fish were today under our stern who attended the ship for some time; she had however too much way through the water for our instruments so we could not take any of them.
2. This day was quite void of Events, the wind however was very fair and we now approachd the place where we were next to refresh ourselves apace.
3. This morn the sun was immediately over our heads notwith-s[t]anding which the Thermometer was no higher than 77. Since we left the calms under the line the weather has grown cooler by gradual degrees, now we reckon it quite moderate after having felt the heat of 83 so lately.
This Even I for the first time (for other people had seen them much before) observd two Light spots in the heavens apearing much like the milky way, one the largest and brightest Bore S. by E. the other about South. These must have been the Magellanic Clouds, two cloud-like condensations of stars in the southern constellation of Mensa, with a remarkable resemblance to the stars of the Milky Way, though entirely detached from it. They would be visible from the ship's latitude (15*–16* S) in clear weather.
4. Still as we got more to the westward the wind became more favourable, today it was almost aft and has been all along creeping to the northward.
5. The thermometer kept still gradualy falling as the wind got more to the northward, which appears odd as the North wind should now be the warm wind; we were not yet however enough to the Southward to find much alteration. Wind this morn was North-east, at noon North by west, between this place and mid channel it has changd from South by East. The Trade being to the Northward upon this coast has been observd long ago, tho I question whether our navigators are sufficiently apprisd of it. See p. 178, n. 1 above. In his Piso in his Natural history of the BrasilsDiscourse of Winds (1700), Chapter III, ‘Of the Coasting Trade-Winds that shift’.—Dampier's Voyages, ed. Masefield (London 1906), II, pp. 243 ff.
6. Today light winds and very pleasant weather, the Thermometer was never above 76. Towards evening the colour of the water was observd to change upon which we sounded and found ground at 32 fathom; the lead was cast three times between 6 and 10 without finding a foot difference in the depth or quality of the bottom, which was incrusted with coral; we supposd this to be the tail of a great shoal laid down in all our charts by the name of Albrolhos, on which L Cook spells the name of the shoal ‘Abrollos’: more properly ‘Abrolhos’, from the Portuguese d Anson struck soundings in his outward bound passage.abre os olhos, literally ‘open your eyes’, hence ‘look out, take care’. The Dutch conferred the same name on a reef on the western coast of Australia, ‘Houtman's Abrolhos’. The reference to Anson is to his famous voyage round the world, 1741–4. The account of the voyage by his chaplain, Richard Walter (1748) was evidently on board the Endeavour, as Cook also refers to it. Anson struck soundings in lat. 20* S, long. 36* 30’ W; Cook in lat. 19* 46’ S, long. 36* 54’ W. This is in a region of coral banks, the nearest of which, in modern reckonings, are the Montague Bank and the Sylvia Bank.
7. This morn at four no ground with 100 Fathoms of Line. About noon long ranges of a yellowish colour appeard upon the sea, many of them very large, one (the largest) might be a mile in lengh and 3 or 400 yards wide. The seamen in general affirmd roundly that they were the spawn of fishes and that they had often seen the same appearance before; upon taking up some of the water so coloured we found it to be causd by innumerable small atoms, each pointed at the end and of a yellowish colour, none of them above a quarter of a line in lengh; in the microscope they appeard to be fasciculi of small fibres interwove one within the other, not unlike the nidi of some Phryganeas which we call caddices. What they were or for what purposes designd we could not even guess, nor so much as distinguish whether their substance was animal or vegetable. Dr W. R. Taylor writes, ‘the reference here is almost certainly to Trichodesmium thiebautii Gomont’. Banks refers to these ‘small particles’ again off Rio de Janeiro, 9–10 December 1768, pp. 205–6 below.
8. At day break today we made the Land which Provd to be the Continent of S. America in Lat. 21.16; about ten we saw a fishing boat who told us that the countrey we saw belongd to the Captain ship of Espirito Santo.
Doctor Solander and myself went on board this boat in which were 11 men (9 of whom were blacks) who all fishd with lines. We bought of them the cheif part of their cargo consisting of Dolphins, In the eighteenth century and earlier the term dolphin usually denoted a small cetacean, but it was also applied, as here (p. 183 below), to the fish See below, p. 183, n. 6. Probably Banks's Coryphaena hippuris, identified by Solander, p. 209.Sparus pagrus, see below, p. 183, n. 8.Holacentrus ascensionis (Osbeck); cf. p. 183, n. 9.
Their provision for the Sea consisted of a cask of water and a bag of the flour of Cassada Cassada or Cassava, or Manioc (Manihot utilissima); from its fleshy tuberous roots was obtained the flour, a sort of nutritious starch. There is another species, M. aipi, the sweet cassava.
Their method of drinking out of their cask of water was truely primitive and pleasd me much. The cask was large, as broad as the boat and exactly fitted a place in the Ballast made for it, they consequently could not get at the bottom of it to put in a tap by which the water might be drawn out. To remedy this dificulty they made use of a cane about three feet long hollow and open at each end; this the man who wanted to drink desired his neighbour to fill for him, which he did by putting it into the cask, and laying the palm of his hand over the uppermost hole hinderd the water from running out of the other, to which the drinker applyd his mouth and the other taking off his hand lett the liquor run into the drinkers mouth till he was satisfied.
Soon after we came on board a Sphynx A Hawkmoth, one of the Sphingidae. Mathurin Jacques Brisson (1723–1806), French naturalist and physicist, and in his day an extremely eminent scholar. In his youth he was attached to Réaumur, ‘the Pliny of the eighteenth century’. whose collection was the basis of his great Tanagra Jacarini of Linn; it seemd however from Linnés description as well as Edwards'sA Natural History of Birds (4 vols., 1743–51), which brought him the gold medal of the Ornithologie, ou Méthods contenant la division des oiseaux en ordres, sections, genres, espèces, et leur variétés (6 vols., Paris 1760). It is to this book (III, p. 28), the major work on birds before Buffon's Histoire naturelle des oiseaux, that Banks refers. Brisson wrote other works on zoology, and on physics and chemistry.Loxia nitens.Volatinia jacarina: Parkinson I, pl. 37b; Solander, p. 119.
The fish Brought on board provd to be See p. 182, n. 2 above. Now Now Scomber anxia and FalcatusScomber amia: now Seriola lalandi Cuv. and Val., Amber Jack. Parkinson II, pl. 99; Solander, p. 275. Scomber falcatus now Caranx amblyrhynchus Cuv. and Val. Parkinson II, pl. 94; Solander, pp. 271–2.Sparus pagrusPagrus pagrus; reported by Solander, p. 231, right across the Atlantic.Sciéna rubens;Holocentrus ascensionis (Osbeck), known both as the Welshman and Squirrel-fish. Parkinson II, pl. 63, upper figure; Solander, pp. 249–50.
Afternoon the wind came about South and South by East and it soon came on to blow fresh which we were not at all accustomd to, so we Boarded it ‘Boarded it’: tacked off and on.
9. This morn wind continued South and South by west but is more moderate, but still more sea than we should chuse were we directors of the winds and waves.
We however stood in with the land till we found ourselves in a large bay the shores of which were very flat; in the middle of this bay were some large hills which lay far inland and made the prospect very remarkable, as expressd in the view. Views or ‘coastal profiles’ were drawn in abundance on the voyage, by Buchan and others—Cook did a great many—but this particular one, if it has survived, seems unidentifiable.
10. Wind more moderate this morn; we stood in with the land and made it nearly in the same place as we left it last night, our soundings being from 15 to 10 fathoms.
After dinner the wind came more to the Eastward and freshend, and little peices of Seaweed now came floating by the ship which we took and it provd to be Sargaso Genus Possibly a fucus natans,Sargassum (from Spanish sargazo, seaweed, a name given by mariners to floating seaweeds). The botanist Kjellman recognized about 150 spp.Lemna does on fresh water without having any root; this however plainly shewd that it had been rooted in the Coral rock on the bottom, as two specimens particularly had large lumps of the coral still adhering to their bottoms. Among the weed we got were some few animals but scarcely worth mentioning, one BalistesMonacanthus sp.Neireis pelagica.Nereis pelagicai a Linnean species of polychaete worm which still bears that name.
In the course of this night we ran over a small bank on which the water suddenly shoald to 7 fathom and kept thereabouts for some time, it however deepend gradualy.
11. Light breezes to day, the wind much more fair than it has been so that we began to get to the Southward. The Thermometer today
Just before dark the Land was seen ahead which we supposed to be an Island off
12. This morn we were abreast of the land which proved as we thought last night to be the Island just without Cape Frio, which is calld in some maps the Isle of Frio; If one goes by modern nomenclature, one may feel a little confusion here. Cape Frio (lat. 23* oi’ S, long. 42* 00'W) is itself the south-east extremity both of Cape Frio Island and of the coast of Brazil, where it turns west to Rio de Janeiro. But a mile north-east of the Cape there is a small islet close to the shore. This perhaps is the island referred to at the end of Banks's previous entry, and was what was ‘called in some maps the Isle of Frio’, In modern nomenclature Pào de Aguçar, 1294 feet.
The shore from Cape Frio to this place has been one uninterruptd beach of the whitest Colour I ever saw which they tell me is a white sand.
This Evening wind still continued fair but very little, we now saw the Sugar Loaf very plain but could not tonight reach it, so shortend sail; we had seen for some time a small vessel under the land which seemd to steer into the harbour as well as we.
The Land all along this Coast has been exceedingly high inland except in the bay mentiond on the 7th:sic, but he means the 9th.
In the Course of this Evening we aproachd very near the Land and found it very cold, to our feelings at least; the Thermometer at ten O'Clock stood at 68½ which gave us hopes that the countrey would be cooler than we should expect from the accounts of travellers, especially M The reference is to C. Biron, r BironCuriositez de la nature et de I'art, aportées dans deux voyages, Pun aux Indes d'Occident en 1698 & 1699, et Pautre awe Indes d'Orient en 1701 & 1702. Avec une relation abregée de ces deux voyages. Paris 1703, Biron is an obscure figure, who comes into none of the biographical dictionaries; even his Christian name seems to be unknown.
13. This Morn the Harbour of Rio Janeiro was right ahead about 2 leagues off but it being quite Calm we made our aproaches very slowly. The sea was inconceveably full of small vermes Vermes, a term applied to many invertebrates besides worms from the time of Aristotle until the nineteenth century. See p. 173, n. 5 above. Perhaps a variety of This is perhaps the Beroe labiata,Medusa radiata,Aequorea forskalia Péron and Lesueur. Parkinson III pl. 48, and Solander, p.455.fimbriataA. forskalia? Parkinson III, pl. 49; Solander, p. 459.ChrystallinaLiriope sp. Parkinson III, pl. 50, and Solander, p. 461.Dagysa,‘Dagysa costata’ of Parkinson III, pl. 36 lower fig., as this is marked ‘Rio Janeiro: it has not been possible to identify it.Salmoneius;Pomatomus saltatrix, Bluefish or Skipjack. Parkinson III, pl. 90; Solander, p. 277.Clupea ChinensisClupea sinensis Linn, has not been identified by later workers.
As soon as we came well into the River the Capt There is no precise equivalent in English for the word I have discussed the episode of the n sent Mr Hicks his first Leutenant with a midshipman to get a pilot and stood up the river expecting him down very soon. He did not nor did the boat till we were on the point of dropping an anchor just under the town; the boat then came without either of our officers, in exchange for whom came a Subaltern Portugese who seemd to have no kind of Business with us; the Cockswain brought word from the Leutenant that he was detaind on shore till the Captain should go off. Soon after we came to an anchor a ten Oard boat came alongside the ship with 12 or 14 soldiers in it who rowed round us without taking any notice of us or saying a word; a quarter of an hour after came a boat in which was a DisembargadorDesembargador, and older English writers at various times used ‘judge’, ‘magistrate’, ‘overseer’ and ‘assessor’. The desembargador was a crown lawyer whose legal functions included both judicial and administrative work; and the desembargadores of the council or tribunal da Fazenda acted as overseers of customs houses. Though they were not primarily customs officials, it was no doubt in his customs capacity that Banks's desembargador rowed round the ship.—I am indebted to Professor C. R. Boxer for generous instruction on this point.Endeavour at Rio de Janeiro in the Introduction to Cook I, pp. cxxxviii-xl, and in notes to the text of Cook's Journal, and have given the epistolary exchange between Cook and the Viceroy in Appendix I to that volume. There is no essential difference between Cook's account and Banks's, though Banks adds one or two details, in particular on his own movements. The Viceroy, Endeavour looked most unlike a naval vessel, and the English had a bad reputation both as smugglers on the South American coast and as forgers of documents—though, as Cook pointed out, in one of his exchanges with the Viceroy, it would have been difficult to forge officers’ and marines’ uniforms. Gore reports in his journal (18 November) that ‘one suspicion of us among many Others is that our Ship is a Trading Spy and that Mr Banks and the Doctor are both Supercargoes and Engineers and not naturalists for the Business of such being so very abstruse and unprofitable That They cannot believe Gentlemen would come so far as Brazil on that Account only’.
14. This morn Captn Cooke went ashore, Dr Solander and myself impatiently waiting for his return which he promisd should be the moment he had spoke with the viceroy, who would no doubt tell him that the practica paper had been deliverd and we were all at liberty to come ashore when we pleasd. About twelve he came on board with a Portugese officer in his boat who had been put there by order of the viceroy, out of a compliment as he termd it, and an English gentleman Mr Forster by name a Leutenant in the Portugese service. The Captn told us that we could not be allowd to have a house or sleep ashore, so the Viceroy had told him, but Mr Forster told us that he had given orders that no person but the Captn and such common sailors as were requird to be upon duty should be permitted to go ashore, and that we the passengers were probably particularly objected to. We however in the Evening dress'd ourselves and attempted to go ashore under pretence of a visit to the Viceroy, but were stopd by the Guard boat whose officer told us that he had particular orders, which he could not transgress, to Lett no officer or Passenger except the Captain pass the boat; after much conversation to no purpose we were obligd to return on board and the Captn went ashore to remonstrate to the viceroy about it, but could get no answer but that it was the King of Portugals orders and consequently must be.
15. This morn the Captn went again ashore and told the viceroy that it was nescessary to give the ship a heel, in which case it would be almost impossible for the gentlemen who were passengers to
16. The Captn went ashore again and remonstrated particularly against the Centinel that was put in his boat whenever he landed or came aboard, which he was told was a compliment but now found to be a guard. He received no satisfactory answers or rather none at all but that it is the King of Portugals orders.
17. Tird with waiting and remonstrating only in words, both the Cap Banks's memorials are not with his journal, but they are extant both in his drafts now in the Commonwealth National Library, Canberra, and with the copy of his letter to the Earl of Morton, 1 December 1768, B.M., Add. MS 34744 (West Papers, XVIII). See Appendix III, Vol. II, pp. 315–20 below. The original letter has been separated from the copies sent with it: the letter is now in the tn and myself sent ashore written memorials (of which mine is subjoind as well as another with the answers)
18. Answers to our memorials came on board in which the Captn is told that he has no reason to complain, as such usage as he has receivd has been constantly the custom of the Ports of Brasil and that the Viceroy himself servd an English ship just in the same manner at Bahia; as for me I am told that as I have not brought proper credentials from the Court of Lisbon it is impossible that I can be permitted to land.
19. Both the Captn and myself sent answers to his excellencys memorials this morn by the Leutenant, who had orders not to suffer a guard to be put into his boat but if the Guard boat insisted upon it to return on board. The boat let him pass, but the viceroy as soon as he heard that he had come ashore without a guard orderd Centinels to be put into the boat, and on the Leutenant refusing to go on board unless the Centinels are taken out, orderd the boats crew to be taken into custody, the boat detaind and the leutenant to be sent on board in a guard boat under care of an officer. When he came on board he reported what he has seen, that the men in our pinnace made not the least resistance,
This Evening it blew very hard at about South, Puffs coming off about three minutes distant from each other, which seldom lasted above half a minute but in that time were as violent as I ever saw.
At this time Our long boat came on board with 4 cask of rum in her, she with difficulty fetchd the ship and soon after by some mismanagemen[t] which I cannot account for Cook mentions no mismanagement. This is not the last time that Banks the landsman casts a sharp critical eye on the sailors.
I should have mentiond that on the detainder of our boats crew a petty officer was sent ashore with the memorials and a letter from the Captn demanding the Boat and men, who was sufferd quietly to go ashore on taking a soldier out of the guard boat; the only answer he got was verbal that the affair could not be settled as yet.
20. This morn the yawl, now the only boat we had, was sent ashore to ask assistance: they returnd about nine and brought with her our boat and crew that had been detaind, as well as another of the Viceroys which had orders to assist us in searching for our boats.
The people who came in the Pinnace declard that they never made the least resistance but said that the soldiers struck them
Our situation this whole day was better imagind than describd: the Shore boat came onboard at noon that the people might have their victuals but brought no news of the Longboat. Tird with expectation I confess I had almost given over all hopes of ever seeing her again, when Just at dark night the pinnace came bringing with her both the boats and all their contents: we now immediately passd from our disagreable though[t]s to a situation as truly happy, and concluded with defying the Viceroy and all that he could do to us.
21. Letters came from the Viceroy to both the Captn and myself, in which he told me very politely that it is not in his power to permit to go ashore; in the captns he raises some doubts of our ship being a Kings ship, so I who could ground my pretensions to going ashore on no other Foundation thought it best to drop them, hoping that by and by when things were more quiet I might have an opportunity of smugling myself ashore.
22. This morn I sent my servants ashore at day break who stayd till dark night and brought off many plants and insects.
23. The viceroys answer to the Captns last memorial came on board in which the Captn is accusd of smugling, which made us all angry but our venting our spleen against the Viceroy will be of very little service to us.
24. My servants went ashore again and brought off many plants &c.
25. This morn D Solander does not mention this episode in his letter to Ellis, but gives a rather different account of his day as ‘surgeon's mate’. See below, II, pp. 308–9. Monkhouse, the surgeon, was on shore every day to buy provisions.r Solander went into the town as surgeon of the Ship, to visit a friar who had desird that the surgeon might be sent to him; he receivd civilities from the people rather more than he could expect.
26. I myself went ashore this morn before day break and stayd till dark night; while I was ashore I met several of the inhabitants who were very civil to me, taking me to their houses where I bought of them stock for the ship tolerably cheap, a porker midlingly fat for 11 shill, a muscovy duck something under two shils &c.
The countrey where I saw it abounded with vast variety of Plants and animals, mostly such as have not been describd by our naturalists as so few have had an opportunity of coming here; The Pocket Book contains 245 specimens collected on this brief encounter with the Brazilian flora. ‘Histaria Naturalis Brasiliae (1648) as Georgii Marggravii historiae rerum naturalium Brasilae libri octo. The first three books are devoted to plants, the others to fish, birds, quadrupeds and serpents, insects, and an imperfect sketch of the country and its inhabitants.
To give a Cataloge of what I found would be a trouble very little to the purpose, as every particular is mentiond in the general catalogues of this place. See Appendix I, Vol. II, pp. 289–96 below. Dr L. B. Smith suggests these were Both ‘epidendron’ and ‘Bromelia’ are here used in the general sense, as the terms orchids and bromeliads are today. Banks here writes ‘Rizophane’ or ‘Rizophanes’, but deletes the word without substitution. A general term for several species of sensitive-leaved Possibly the plant they called Tillandsia recuroata and T. usneoides, formerly classified as Renealmiae.B. Karratas I saw here growing on the decayd trunk of a tree 50 feet high at least, which it had so intirely coverd that the whole seemd to be a tree of Karratas.Neoregelia, most likely N. cruenta (Graham) L. B. Smith, would probably be the first bromeliads encountered on making a beachhead (teste L. B, Smith).Herbarium Amboinense (7 vols, folio, Amsterdam 1741–55); this, together with its supplement or Auctuarium, presented students with a Dutch and Latin text and 695 plates (before his blindness Rumphius was a fine draughtsman). A less important work is the D'Amboinsche Rariteitkamer (1705), a folio volume mainly devoted to shells and crustaceans. Banks, it will be seen, refers to Rumphius more than once.Herb: Amboin. Tab: Add to these the whole Contrey Coverd with the Beatifull blossom of Malpigias, Bannis-terias, Pasifloras, not to Forget PoncianaPoinciana pulcherrima, as shown by the existing herbarium collection.Mimosa sensitivaAcacias and related genera.ClutiaClusia dodecapetala (Pereskia sp.), but the pertinent coll. has not been located—none was preserved in the Pocket Book. See pl. 25.
The birds of many species especialy the smaller ones sat in great abundance on the bough's, many of them coverd with most Elegant plumage. I shot Possibly Loxia BrasiliensisRamphocoelus brasilius (Linn.); see pl. 36a of Parkinson I, on the front of which is written in Banks's hand Loxia mexicana’.
The banks of the Sea and more remarkably all the Edges of small brooks were coverd with innumerable quantities of small Crabbs, cancer vocans Linn,Uca vocans, one of the fiddler crabs in which the sexes differ as Banks describes. They are noted for the briefly resplendent colours assumed during courtship by the male, who then uses his greatly enlarged claw for beckoning to the female.vocans I cannot determine on so short an acquaintance.
I saw but little cu[l]tivation and that seemd to be taken but little pains with; grass land was the cheif on which were many Lean cattle feeding and lean they might well be, for almost all the species of grass which I observd here were creepers, and consequently so close to the ground that tho there might be upon them a sufficient bite for horses or sheep yet how horned cattle could live at all was all that appeard extraordinary to me.
I also saw their gardens or small patches in which they cultivate many sorts of European garden stuff as Cabbage, peas, beans,
In these gardens grow also Yamms and Mandihoca or Cassada which supplys the place of Bread here, for as our Européan bread corn will not grow here all the Flour they have is brought from Portugal at a large expence, too great for even the midling people to purchase much more the inferior ones.
27. This morn when the Boats returnd from watering they brought word that they heard it said in the town that people were sent out in search of some of our people who were ashore without leave: this we concluded meant either Dr Solander or myself which made it nescessary for us to go no more ashore while we stayd.
28. These three days nothing material hapned, Every thing went
29. on as usual only we if possible increasd our haste to be gone
30. from this place.
December1768
1. This Morn our boat returning from shore brought us the very disagreable news that M For further information about the unfortunate r Forster, who I before mentiond, was taken into custody chargd with having smuggled things ashore from our ship: this charge tho totaly without foundation was lookd upon as a sufficient reason for his being put into prison, but we beleive the real cause to be his having shewn some countenance to his Countrey men, as we heard at the same time that five or six Englishmen residing in the town and a poor Portugese who used to assist our people in buying things were all put into prison also without any reason being given.
2. This Morn thank god we have got all we want from these illiterate impolite gentry, so we got up our anchor and saild to the point of Ilhoa dos cobras, where we were to lay and wait for a fair wind which shoud come every night from the Land. We were fortunate in the arrival of a Spanish Brig comeing from Buenos
These letters included a very full and indignant report by Cook to the Admiralty on his controversy with the Viceroy, and a letter from Banks to the President of the Royal Society.—See II pp. 313 ff- below. Cook also left a packet of his correspondence with the Viceroy with that official for forwarding to Lisbon, and thence to London.n
3. 4.} We remaind without any Sea breeze.
5. This Morn early a dead calm, we attemptd to tow down with our boats and came near abreast of Sta Cruz their cheif Forti fication, when to our great surprize the Fort fird two shot at us one of which went just over our Mast: we immediately brought to and sent ashore to enquire the reason, were told that no order had come down to allow us to pass without which no ship was ever sufferd to go below that fort. We were now obligd to send to town to know the reason of such extraordinary behavior, the Answer came back about 11 that it was a mistake, for the Brigadier had forgot to send the letter which had been wrote some days: it was however sent by the boat and we had leave to proceed. We now began to weigh our anchor which had been droppd in foul ground when we were fird at, but it was hung so fast in a rock that it could not be got out while the Land breeze blew, which today continued almost till four in the Even; as soon as the Sea breeze came we filld our sails and carrying the ship over the anchor tripd it but were obligd to sail back almost as far as we had towd the ship in the Morn.
This day and yesterday the air was crowded in an uncommon manner with Butterflies cheifly of one sort, of which we took as many as we pleasd on board the ship, their quantity was so large that at some times I may say many thousands were in view at once in almost any direction you could look, the greatest part of them much above our mast heads.
6. No land breeze today so we are confind in our disagreable situation without a possibility of moving: many curses were this day expended on his excellence.
7. This morn weighd and stood out to sea. As soon as we came to S ’… sent a Boat to one of the Islands laying before the Bay to cut Brooms a thing we were not permitted to do while we lay in the Harbour’.—Cook I, p. 29. Probably ta Cruz the pilot desired to be dischargd and with him our enemy
Alstromeria salsillaBomarea edulis Herb., but the Banks and Solander specimen is immature and identification uncertain. All the Brazilian specimens collected have tickets with two slits for supping over the stem; those from Madeira lack this feature.Amarillis mexicana,Hippeastrum reginae Herb.—Amaryllis reginae of the Banks-Solander MS. Catalogue, p. 12—but the pertinent coll. has not been located. According to Spix and Martius, Banks on this occasion secured one very lovely prize, the irid Neomarica northiana, referred to by them under a different name: ‘it was upon an island … which lies before the mouth of the bay, and is called Ilha raza, that Sir Joseph Banks, when he touched at Rio de Janeiro in the company of Captain Cook, discovered the beautiful Moraea northiana, which has since then become the ornament of European gardens’. Travels in Brazil, in the years 1817–1820 (London 1824); I, p. 226. If this is so, it is curious that Banks does not mention collecting the very distinctive plant; nor can any name used by him for it be perceived in the Catalogue. We may note another very beautiful plant that he did collect, Bougainvillea spectabilis, Willd.—the Calyxis ternaria Mscr. of the Pocket Book, p. 21.Specious: used apparently in its obsolete sense of beautiful, pleasing to the sight.
Now we are got fairly to Sea and have intirely got rid of these troublesome people I cannot help spending some time in describing thern tho I was not myself once in their town, yet my intelligence coming from Dr Solander who was, and our Surgeon Mr
The town of Rio de Janiero the capital of the Portugese dominions in America situate on the banks of the River of that name, both are call'd I apprehend from the Roman saint Januarius accord[in]g to the Spanish and Portugese custom of naming their discoveries from the Saint on whose feast they are made. Banks's apprehension was wrong. Rio de Janeiro is not situated on a river but on a bay, the discovery of which is generally attributed by Portuguese historians to Andrè Gonçalves, on 1 January 1502. Gonçalves however thought he had found the mouth of a great river—hence its name, the River of January.
It is regular and well built after the fashion of Portugal, every house having before its windows a Lattice of wood behind which is a little balcony. For size it is much larger than I could have thought, probably little inferior to any of our Countrey towns
Cook: ‘This City and adjacent parts about the Bay are said to contain one hundred thousand Souls, but not much above a twentieth part are Whites the rest are blacks many of whom are free and seem to live in tolerable circumstances’.—I, p. 33.t Sebastian which is situate on the top of a hill over looking the town.
It is supplyd with water by an aqueduct which brings it from the neighbouring hills upon two stories of arches, said in some places to be very high; the water that this brings is conveyd into a fountain in the great square immediately opposite the Governors palace, which i.e. the fountain, not the palace. This is a revealing comment; for it summarizes one of the great problems of nautical administration at the time, and explains Cook's determination to lose no opportunity of supplying his ships with fresh water. If Cook could not keep water sweet, who could ? There was no solution to the problem till the discovery in the nineteenth century that wooden casks were unsuitable containers, and the substitution of metal.
The Churches here are very fine dressd out with more ornaments even than those in Europe, and all parts of their religion is carried on with more shew; their processions in particular are very extrordinary, every day one or other of the parishes go in solemn order with all the insignia of their church, altar, host &c through their parish, begging for what they can get and praying in all form at every Corner of a street.
While we were there one of the largest churches in the town was rebuilding and for that reason the parish belonging to it had leave to walk through the whole City, which they did once a week and collected much money for the carrying on of their Edifice: at this ceremony all boys under a certain age were obligd to attend nor were the gentlemens sons ever excusd. Each of these were dressd in a Black cassock with a short red Cloak reaching half way down their shoulders, and carried in his hand a Lanthorn hung on the End of a pole about 6 or 7 feet long, the light caused by this (for there were always at least 200 Lights) is greater than can be imagind; I myself who saw it out of the cabbin windows
Pl. II.
Bougainvillea spectabilis
Brazil
Besides this travelingtraveling substituted for the more accurate walking, no doubt because of the phrase who walks immediately after.
The Goverment of this place Seems to me to be much more despotick even than that of Portugal tho many precautions have been taken to render it otherwise. The Cheif Magistrates are the Viceroy, the Governour of the town and a Council whose number I could not Learn, but only that the Viceroy had in this the casting vote: without the consent of this Council nothing material should be done, yet every day shews that the Viceroy and Governour at least if not all the rest do the most unjust things without consulting any one. Puting a man into prison without giving him a hearing and keeping him there till he is glad at any rate to get out without asking why he was put in, or at best sending him to Lisbon to be tried there without letting his family here know where he is gone to, is very common. This we experien[c]d while here, for every one who had interpreted for our people, and some who had only assisted in buying provisions for them, were put into Jail merely I suppose to shew us their power. I should however except from this one Burrish does not come into either Cook's Journal or his account of the Rio de Janeiro affair written to the Admiralty, but in his draft of that account, now in the Mitchell Library, is a passage omitted from his final version: [referring to his memorial to the Viceroy of 17 November] ‘a Copy of which to gether with the answer I the next day receved I have here inclosed, with his Excellencys answer came on board Mn of beer 10 galls of Brandy 10 peices of ships beef and as many of Pork: this was what he himself askd for, and sent on board the Cagg for the spirit and with this he was more than satisfied.r Burrish an English Gentlemen who resides here, to translate it, this gentlemen offer'd to accommodate me with directions for sailing in to the southern parts on this coast and in some measure advised me to gon [sic] on shore and by force oppose a Soldier being put into my Boat, this advice of his surprised me as he had upon all occation before been very shy of giving his advice, but when he did it, it was to bear patiently any restrictions they laid upon me’. Burrish's signature to a receipt for an account paid by Cook, transmitted to the Victualling Board, 30 November, appears on the documents now in the Public Library. Auckland. No douot as an agent the man was in a difficult position—particularly if, as Banks says, he was a customs officer.
They have a very extrordinary method of keeping people from traveling — to hinder them I suppose from going into any districk where gold or diamonds may be found, as there are more of such than they can possibly guard, which is this: there are certain bounds beyond which no man must go, these vary every month at the discretion of the Vic[e]roy, sometimes they are a few sometimes many Leagues Round the City: Every man must in consequence of this come to town to know where the Bounds are, for if he is taken by the guards who constantly patrole on their edges he is infallibly put in prison, even if he is within them, unless he can tell where they are.
The inhabitants here are very numerous, they consist of Portugese, negroes, and Indians aborigines of the countrey. The township of Rio, whose extent I could not learn but was only told that it was but a small part of the Capitanea or province, is said to contain 37,000 whites and about 17 negroes to each white, which makes their numbers 629,000 and the number of inhabitants in all 666,000. As for the Indians they do not live in this neighbourhood tho many of them are always here doing the Kings work, which they are obligd to do by turns. for small pay for which purpose they come from their habitations at a distance. I saw many of them as the guard boat was constantly rowd by them, they are of a light copper colour with long lank black hair; as to their policy or manner of living when at home I could not learn any thing about it.
The military here consist of 12 regiments of Regulars, 6 Portugese and 6 Creolians and as many of Provincial militia who may be assembled upon occasion. To the regulars the inhabitants shew great deference, for as Mr Forster an English Gentleman in their service told me, if any of the people were not to pull off their hatts when they meet an officer he would immediately knock them down, which custom renders the people remarkably Civil to strangers who have at all a gentlemanlike appearance. All the officers of these regiments are expected three times a day to attend at the
This town as well as all others in South America belonging either to Spanyards or Portugese has long been infamous for the un-chastity of its women; the people who we talkd with here confirmd the accounts declaring, especialy Mr Forster, that he did not beleive there was one modest woman in the township, which I must own appeard to me a most wonderfull assertion but I must take it for granted as I had not even the least opportunity to go among them. Dr Solander who was ashore declares however that as soon as it was night the windows were every one furnishd with one or more women, who as he walkd along with two more gentlemen gave nosegays to which ever of them each preferrd, which Complement the gentlemen returnd in kind, notwithstanding which each of them threw away whole hatfulls of flowers in their walk tho it was not a long one.
Assassinations are I fancy more frequent here than in Lisbon as the churches still take upon them to give protection to criminals: one accident of the kind happned in the sight of
Thus much for the town and its inhabitants. I shall now speak of the countrey which I know rather more of than of the other as I was ashore one whole day: in that time I saw much Cleard ground but cheifly of an indifferent quality, tho doubtless there is such as is very good as the sugar and tobacco which is sent to Europe from hence plainly testifies; but all that I saw was employd in Breeding cattle of which they have great plenty, tho their pastures are the worst I ever saw on account of the shortness of the grass, and consequently the beef sold in the market tho it is tolerably cheap is so lean that an Englishman can hardly Eat it. Cook: ‘Fresh Beef (tho bad) is to be had in plenty, at about 2¼ Banks seems to write ‘manikot’ rather than ‘manihot’, perhaps with ‘manioc’, the alternative name for cassava, in his mind. See p. 183, n. 1 above.d a pound and Jerke'd [dried] Beef about the same price’.—Cook I, p. 33.Iatropha manikot
The Countrey produces many more articles but as I did not see them or hear them mentiond I shall not set them down, tho doubtless it is capable of bringing Apparently in the obsolete sense of ‘bringing forth’.
Their fruits however I must not pass over in Silence, they have several I shall particularly mention those that were in season while we were there, which were Pine apples, Melons, water melons, oranges, Limes, Lemons, sweet Lemons, citrons, Plantanes, Bananes, Mangos, Mamme apples, The Mamey, or Mammee Apple, Jambosa, Jaboticaba, He seems here to be referring to the fruit of the pandanus. ‘Palm berries’: the allusion is doubtless to soft-fruited palms such as genus Cashew nuts contain a poisonous juice in the shell which is driven off by roasting. The kernel contains an irritant oil painful to the lips and tongue when eaten raw. Fleshy fruit of the cactus Mammea americana L., has a large fruit with a yellow pulp of taste generally esteemed pleasant; but for Banks's opinion see p. 201 below.Anacardium occidentale L.; acajou generally corrupted in English to ‘cashew’. The ‘apple’ is a fleshy pear-shaped receptacle—not the fruit—which bears the nut on its end. As will be seen, Banks ate the wrong thing, and formed an unfavourable opinion.Eugenia jambos L. The early spread of Eugenias is indicated by Philip Miller's account (Gard, Diet. ed. 8, 1768), where there is mention of Dr Heberden's sending him plants of E. malaccensis received from Brazil.Myrciaria caudiflora, which Banks probably saw detached, otherwise he would surely have remarked on the cauliflorous habit.Butia.r Solander and myself tasted we agreed were much inferior to those we had eat in England; tho in general they were more Juicy and sweet yet they had no flavour but were like sugar melted in water. Their Melins are still worse from the Specimen we had, for we got but one, which was perfectly mealy and insipid; their water melons
Bactris minor,Bactris minor is of difficult identity. Perhaps Banks refers to Jacquin's B. minor. Gaertner based his name on a Banks collection but not of Banks's own gathering; it was evidently of Jamaican origin. Index Kewensis identifies this as Acrocomia lasiospatha?; Dahlgren (1936), as A. aculeata.Opuntia ficus-indica, a cultigen of ancient and uncertain derivation. Though the genus is most probably of American origin, Theophrastus asserted that it grew about Opuntium, hence the generic name. Cf. Philip Miller (Gard. Dict. ed. 8, 1768) for early notes.
Tho this Countrey should produce many and very valuable druggs we could not find any in the apothecarys shops but Pareira Brava and Balsam Copivi,Pareira brava in Linnaeus's time referred to Cissampelos pareira, ‘Velvet-leaf’; but the name was later given to the related plants, Chondrodendron tomentosum R. and P. or C. ovatum—the former Peruvian, the latter Brazilian. The root was much esteemed for urinary complaints, and seems to have been an important export from Brazil in the late eighteenth century and through most of the nineteenth. ‘Balsam Copivi’ is a seldom used name for the drug extracted from the widely known Copaiba or Copaiva, Copaifera lansdorfii Desv. (properly langsdorfii)—‘Copaiva Balsam’. Burton has an interesting note on the tree, to which he refers as a ‘leguminous celebrity’, and calls Pau de Oleo, ‘Oil-wood’: he describes the Indian mode of gathering the oil and its uses.—Explorations of the Highlands of the Brazil (London 1869), II, p. 84.
For manufactures I know of none carried on here except that of Cotton hammocks, which are usd for people to be carried about in as we do Sedan chairs, these are made cheifly by the Indians. But the cheif riches of the countrey comes from the mines, which are situated far up in the countrey, indeed no one could tell me how far, for even the situation of them is as carefully as possible conceald and Troops are continualy employd in guarding the Roads that lead to them, so that it is next to impossible for any man to get a sight of them except those who are employd there; at least no man would attempt it from mere curiosity for every body who is found on the road without being able to give a good account of himself is hangd immediately.
From these mines a great quantity of gold certainly comes but it is purchasd at a vast expence of lives; 40,000 negroes are annualy imported on the Kings accompt for this purpose, and notwithstanding that the year before last they dyed so fast that 20,000 more were obligd to be draughted from the town of Rio.
Pretious stones are also found here in very large quantities, so large that they do not allow more than a certain quantity to be collected in a year, which is done thus: a troop of people are sent into the Countrey where they are found and orderd to return when they have collected a certain quantity, which they sometimes do in a month more or less, then they return and after that it is
Diamonds Topazes of several different qualities and amethysts are the stones that are cheifly found. Of the first I did not see any but was told that the viceroy had by him large quantities and would sell them on the King of Portugals account, but in that case they would not be at all cheaper than those in Europe. Topazes and amethysts I bought a few of for specimens; the former were divided into three sorts of very different value, Calld here pinga dogua Qualidade premeiro and segondo, and chrystallos ormerilles; they were sold large and small good and bad together by octavos or the eighth part of an ounce, the first sort 4sh:9d; 2[nd sort] 4:0; 3 [rd sort]. Amethysts. But it was smugling in the highest degree to have any thing to do with them formerly there were Jewelers here who wo[r]kd stones, but about 14 months ago orders came from the Court of Portugal that no more stones should be wrought here except on his account; the Jewellers were immediately orderd to bring all their tools to the Viceroy which they were obligd to do, and from that time to this have not been sufferd to do any thing for their support. Here are however a number of slaves who work stones for the King of Portugal.
The Coin current here is either that of Portugal especialy 36 shill peices, or Coin made here which is much debasd, especialy the silver which are calld petacks, of which there are two sorts one of less value than the other, easily distinguishable by the number of rees markd on the outside, but they are little used; they also have Copper coin like that in Portugal, 5 and 10 rey peices, two of the latter are worth 3 halfpence, 40 petacks are worth 36 shillings.
The harbour of Rio de Janeiro is certainly a very good one: the Entrance is not wide but the Sea breeze which blows every morning makes it easy for any ship to go in before the wind, and when you get abreast the town it increases in breadth prodigiously so that almost any number of ships might lay in 5 or 6 fathom water oozey bottom. It is defended by many works, especialy the entrance where it is narrow, there is their strongest fortification calld Sta Cruz and another opposite it; there is also a platform mounting about 22 gunns without that just under the Sugar Loaf on the sea side, but that seems intirely calculated to hinder the Landing of an Enemy in a sandy bay from whence there is a passage to the back part of the town, which is intirely void of Defence except that the whole town is open to the Gunns of the Citadel St Sebastian as I said before. Between Sta Cruz and the town are
ta Cruz, their cheif fortification on which they most rely seems very incaple of making any great resistance if smartly attackd by shipping: it is a stone fort which mounts many gunns indeed, but they lie tier above tier and are consequently very open to the atack of a ship which may come within 2 cable lengh's or less of them. Besides they have no supply of water there but what they have from a cistern in which they catch rain, or in times of Drouth are supplyd from the adjacent countrey; this they have been obligd to build above ground Least the water should taint by the heat of the climate, which a free access of air prevents; a shot consequently which fortunately should break that cistern would reduce the defenders to the utmost nescessity.
I was told by a person who certainly knew and I beleive meant to inform me right, that a little to the southward just without the South head of the harbour was a bay in which boats might land with all facility without an obstruction, as there is no kind of work there, and from this bay it is not above three hours march to the town, which you aproach on the Back part where it is as defenceless as the Landing place; but this seems incredible yet I am inclind to beleive it of these people whose cheif policy consists in hindering people from looking about them as much as possible. It may therefore be as my informer said that the existence of such a bay is but lately found out, indeed was it not for that policy I could beleive any thing of their stupidity and ignorance, when the Governor of the town Brigadier General Don Pedro de Mendoza y Furtado ask'd the Captain of our ship whether the transit of Venus which we were going to observe was not the passing of the North star to the South pole, which he said he always understood it to be. Banks has the name of the governor wrong: it should be (in full)
The river and indeed the whole coast abounds with greater variety of Fish than I have ever seen; There are twenty-two paintings and drawings of Brazilian fishes in the Parkinson collection; a list of these will be published in the fourth volume of the edition of Cook's voyages now in preparation by the
The Climate here is I fancy very good, the Countrey certainly is very wholesome, during our whole stay the Thermometer was never above 83. We had however a good deal of Rain and once it blew very hard. I am rather inclind to think that this countrey has rather more rain than those in the same northern Latitude are observd to have, not only from what happend during our short stay but from Marcgrave who gives us metereological observations on this Climate for 3 years: you may observe that it raind here in those years almost every other Day throughout the year, but more especialy in May and June in which months it raind along without Ceasing.
8. This morn at day break a dolphin was taken and soon after a shark appeard who took the bait very readily, and during the time that we were playing him under the cabbin window it cast something out of his mouth that either was or appeard very like its stomack, this it threw out and drew in again many times. I have often heard from seamen that they can do it but never before saw anything like it before.th).
9. A very heavy swell last night and this morn: we Judge that it has blown very hard to the Southward and in this particular think ourselves obligd to the viceroy of The MS reads infine, in which it is followed by P and S, but the emendation seems necessary.r 7th and laying like them in broad streaks.
10. Today also we see large quantities of the same small particles.
11. This morn took a shark who cast up his stomack when hookd or at least appears so to do, it proves to be a female and on being opend 6 young ones were taken out of her, five of which were alive and swam briskly in a tub of water, the 6th was dead and seemd to have been so for some time.
12. Wind fair today, no events.
13. Fair wind today likewise, at night a squall with thunder and lightning which made us hoist the Lightning chain.
14. Wind Foul, blew fresh all day, in the evening saw a sail standing to the northward.
15. Less wind but a great swell.
16. Wind fair.
17. Wind foul, blew rather fresh, so the ship heeld much which made our affairs go on rather uncomfortably.
18. Calm at night, wind to the northward; we began to feel ourselves rather cool tho the thermometer was at 76 and shut two of the Cabbin windows, all which have been open ever since we left Madeira.
19. Charming fair wind and fine weather; the people were employd in preparing a new suit of sails for the bad weather we are to expect. Therm 70.
20. Fair wind today and rather warmer than it has been. During the course of last night we had a very heavy squall which tho it did not last above 10 minutes yet in that time blew as hard as it has done since we have been on board the ship.
21. Foul wind and little of it.
22. This morn quite calm. A very large shoal of Porpoises came close to the ship, they were of a kind different from any I have seen but so large that I dared not throw the gig into any of them, some were 4 yards long, their heads quite round but their hinder parts compressd, they had one fin upon their backs like a porpoise and white lines over their eyes also a spot of white behind the fin; These were The White-bellied Storm Petrel, Globicepala edwardii (Smith), the Southern Pilot Whale.r Solander and myself went out in the boat and shot one species of Mother Careys chickens and two shearwaters, both provd new, Procellaria Gigantea and sandaliata.Procellaria gigantea, now the Giant Petrel, Macronectes giganteus (Gm.). Parkinson I, pls. 17, 18; Solander, pp. 73, 75. Procellaria sandaliata: currently Pterodroma incerta (Schlegel), Schlegel's Petrel. Parkinson I, pI. 20, Solander, p. 89.Procellaria fregata.Fregetta grallaria (Vieill.). Parkinson I, pl. 14. Only the first part of Solander's note (p. 51) on P. fregata applies to F. grallaria; the rest concerns Fregetta tropica (Gould), the Black-bellied Storm Petrel.
23. This morn calm again: went out shooting, killd another new procellaria, The White-faced Storm Petrel, The Portuguese Man-of-war. Cf. 7 October 1768. This particular specimen was the subject of several pencil studies by Parkinson, and one painting, III, pls. 39, 40. This helix is unidentifiable. The Wandering Albatross. Parkinson's dated painting (I, pl, 25) shows that this bird was apparently in second-year plumage; this is confirmed by Solander's account, p. 3. (Cf. Fleming's fig. 2, D, C, There is a description by Solander, p. 127, and dated drawings by Parkinson, I, pls. 41–3, of this loggerhead. These suggest that it was probably not æquorea,Pelagodroma marina (Lath.). Latham actually described the species from Parkinson's drawing, I, pl. 13, which is therefore the type (General Synopsis of Birds 1785, p. 410, Index Ornithologicus 1790, p. 826). See also Solander, p. 57. Wilson's Petrel was also taken on this day.Holothuria angustata,Phyllodoce velella very small, sometimes not so large as a silver penny ye. I beleive the common species;Velella velella. See 7 October above.Diomedéa exulans, who measurd 9 ft I inch between the tipps of his wings,Emu, 49, 1950, p. 174).testudo caretta.Caretta caretta (Linn.) but more probably Lepidochelys kempi (Garman). The figures show four infra-marginal plates, a number which is normal in Lepidochelys but unusual in the other loggerhead genus Caretta; the description of the colour, ‘Testa nigrofusca, absque ullis maculis…’ is also more compatible with the former, which is dark grey to olive green, whereas Caretta is reddish brown.
24. Fair wind and steady tho but little of it.
25. Christmas day; all good Christians that is to say all hands get abominably drunk so that at night there was scarce a sober man in the ship, wind thank god very moderate or the lord knows what would have become of us. Cook puts it more mildly: ‘Yesterday being Christmas day the People, [i.e. the crew] were none of the Soberest’. Cook I, p. 37.
26. Blows fresh today. A vast many birds are about the ship cheifly procellarias, all that we shot last week and one more who is quite
Either the Cape Hen, Procellaria aequinoctialis, or the Sooty Shearwater, Puffinus griseus (Gm.). The former species constantly follows ships in the southern hemisphere, but Sooty Shearwaters are indifferent to them. The Cape Hen is particularly abundant in the vicinity of the
27. Blows strong this evning, at night came to under a balancd mizzen A balanced mixen was a mixen sail reduced to as small an area as possible by a reefband that crossed it diagonally, so that the ship was put under the minimum sail to hold her steady when brought to. But Banks may have been too technical: Cook merely says ‘At 8 pm it blew a Storm of wind with rain which brought us under our Main sail with her head to the westward’.—Cook I, p. 37.
During the whole of this gale we had many procellarias about the ship, at some times immense numbers, who seemd perfectly unconcernd at the badness of the weather or the hight of the sea but continued often flapping near the surface of the water as if fishing.
28. Less wind, the sea soon falls; the water both yesterday and today has been a good deal discolourd. Sound and find 48 fathom.
29. Fair wind, water very white, sounded 46 fathom, about 4 in the Even 44. We observd now some feathers and peices of reed to float by the hip which made us get up the hoave net to see what they were; soon after some drowned CarabiCarabus, a genus of beetles.Phalaena: a name used by Linnaeus to include many different kinds of moths.
30. This morn fine weather, water whiter than ever almost of a clay colour; sounded 47 fathom. Plenty of insects passd by this morn, many especialy of the carabi, alive, some grylli Linnaeus used Linnaeus placed all the butterflies known to him in the genus These ichneumons do not appear to have been sketched by Parkinson, nor does there appear to be any specific reference to them in Morley's paper on the Banksian Ichneumonidae ( Cook: ‘yet at this time we could not be less than 30 Leagues from land’.—p. 38. His position for November 30 puts him roughly 150 miles east of the Valdés Peninsula, the nearest landGryllus for a variety of orthopterous insects.Papilio.The Entomologist, 42, 1909, pp. 131–7).—‘For several evenings, swarms of butterflies, moths, and other insects, flew about the rigging, which we apprehended had been blown to us from the shore. Thousands of them settled upon the vessel; Mr. Banks ordered the men to gather them up; and, after selecting such as he thought proper, the rest were thrown overboard; and he gave the men some bottles of rum for their trouble.’—Parkinson, Journal, p. 6.
This whole day the evening especialy has been a series of calms and squalls, towards night a thunderstorm in which the lightning was remarkably bright, and rangd in long streaks sometimes horizontal and sometimes perpendicular, the thunder was not loud but continued an immence while with a noise in some claps so like the flapping of sails that had I not been upon dcek I should not have beleivd it to be thunder. Just before the storm we had an appearance of land to the westward which all who had not been in these latitudes before imagind to be real; it made like a long extent of lowish land and two Islands to the Northward of it, the South end was buried in the clouds; this lasted about £½ an hour and then rose gradualy up and disapeard.
Lat. 42:31. A sea lion was enterd in the log book of today as being seen but I did not see him. Probably the Southern Sea Lion, The whale is unidentifiable: its red colour would be caused not by barnacles but by lice, Otaria byronia (Blainville).Cyamidae.
31. No insects seen today; the water changd to a little better colour. On looking over those taken yesterday find 31 species of land insects all so like in size and shape to those of England &c. that they are scarcely distinguishable, probably some will turn out identicaly the same. We ran among them 160 miles by the log without reckoning any part of last night, tho they were seen till dark, and most of this southing. Our latitude made us nearly opposite Baye Sans Fond near which place Mr Dalrymple supposes
The bay seems to be the ‘Baye Sinfondo’ of the French charts, on the South Atlantic coast of America, c. 42° S. The name A spider; no painting or description of it is known.baia sin fondo was given to the Gulf of San Mathias either by Magellan or Loaysa, but whether because it could not be sounded or because its limits could not be seen we do not know. Dalrymple, both on his ‘Chart of the South Pacifick Ocean’ (1767) and his ‘Chart of the Ocean between S. America and Africa’ (1769) simply continued the bay through America as a strait emerging on the Pacific ocean opposite Chiloe island. I know of no printed reference by him apart from this.
I lament much not having tasted the water at the time which never occurrd to me, but probably the difference of saltness would have been hardly perceptible to the taste and my Hydrostatick balance being broke I had no other method of trying it.
January1769
1. New years day today made us pass many Compts and talk much of our hopes for success in the year 69. Many whales were about the ship today and much sea weed in large lumps but none near enough to be caught.
In the Evening rather squally; the true sea green colour upon the surface of the water was often to be seen now between the squalls, or rather under the black clouds when they were about half a mile from the ship. I had often heard of it before but never seen it in any such perfection, indeed most of the seamen said the same, it was very bright and perfectly like the stone calld aquamarine.
2. Fresh breezes today. In the Evening, Lat. about 45:30, met with some small shoals of the red lobsters which have been seen by almost every one who has pass'd these seas. They were however so far from couloring the sea red as Dampier and Cowley say that I may affirm that we never saw more than a few hundreds of them at a time, we took however several in the Casting and hoave netts and describd them by the name of They were Lobster Krill, Cancer Gregarius.Munida gregaria (Fabr.). Parkinson has a drawing, III, pl. 9. There is some conflict of testimony as to how many were seen. Wilkinson the master's mate says ‘a great Quantity’. Bootie the midshipman, perhaps talking in the tradition, says ‘a great Quantity of red shrimps insomuch that you could not tell the Colour of the water they was so thick’. Hicks refers to shoals. Cook merely says ‘saw some Whales and Porposes, and small red Crawfish some of which we caught’. Dampler's reference is in his New Voyage round the World (Voyages, ed. Masefield, I, p. 109): ‘great shoals of small Lobsters, which coloured the Sea red in spots, for a mile in compass….’ A Collection of Original Voyages (1699), p. 5, writes, ‘steer'd away [from the coast of Brazil] S.W. finding the Sea as red as Blood about the lat. of 40 deg. South, which was occasioned by great Shoals of Shrimps, which lay upon the water in great patches for many Leagues together’. See pl. 1a.
3. Lat: 47:17, all hands looking out for Pepys's Island; Pepys Island was the name given by i.e. noon, the time for determining by observation the position of the ship.
This Evening many large bunches of sea weed came by the ship; we caught some of it with hooks, it was of an immense size every leaf 4 feet long and the stalk about twelve, the footstalk of each leaf was swelld into a long air vessel. M Probably some kind of prion, r Gore tells me that he has seen this weed grow quite to the top of the water in 12 fathom, if so the swelld footstalks are probably the trumpet grass or weed of the Focus Giganteus.Macrocystis pyrifera (L.) Ag. <JDH> or less likely, Lessonia flavicans Bory.Pachyptila sp.
4. Blew fresh today and night: the officer of the watch told me that in the night the sea was very much illuminated in patches of many Yards wide which appeard of a pale light colour.
5. Fair wind: the sea very light at night more so than ever I had seen it, so that the ships course and every curl of a wave was of a light colour, but none of the light patches seen last night were now observd, which were cheifly remarkable as the animals there must have shone without being agitated. In some of the water taken up observd a small insect of a conical figure, very nimble, who movd himself with a kind of whorl of legs or tentacula round
Banks's description could apply to Noctiluca, one of the largest of the Protozoa, which occurs at times in countless numbers and is the cause of many of the startling displays of phosphorescence familiar to voyagers. Nereides: polychaete worms.
6. Blew fresh foul wind, forcd to throw away the insects taken last night from the ship having so much motion. The Southeast wind now became very cold, to us at least so lately come from the Torrid Zone. Therm at noon 48. All hands bend their Magellan Jackets (made of a thick woolen stuff allowd them by the goverment calld fearnought) and myself put on flannel Jacket and waistcoat and thick trousers. In the Evening blew strong, at night a hard gale, ship brought too under a mainsail; during the course of this my Bureau was overset and most of the books were about the Cabbin floor, so that with the noise of the ship working, the books &c. running about, and the strokes our cotts or swinging beds gave against the top and sides of the Cabbin we spent a very disagreable night. We this morn expected to have made Cook does not mention this intention, and he passed well to the west of the Falklands. His instructions had left him free to call at Port Egmont, the English settlement in these islands, or somewhere on the coast of Brazil, or at both places, for refreshment, but, as he records, he had chosen Rio de Janeiro because of the certainty of finding supplies there, and had abandoned thoughts of Port Egmont. If he had wished to call at the Falklands he would have had no difficulty in finding them. We shall more than once see evidence of a conflict in purpose between Cook, who naturally put first his instructions as commander of a voyage with a specific scientific purpose, and afterwards of geographical discovery, and Banks, who would have liked to get off the ship everywhere in pursuit of objects of natural history.
7. Blew strong, yet the ship still Laying too, now for the first time saw some of the Birds calld Penguins by the southern navigators; they seem much of the size and not unlike A synonym for the Razorbill, A number of penguins have ‘streaks upon their faces’. The most likely candidate in these seas would be They were probably the Southern Fur Seal, alca picaAlca torda.Spheniscus magellanicus, with the broad white semicircular stripe upon the side of its head and its bray like that of a ‘ackass; but identification cannot safely be made.Arctocephalus australis (Zimmermann).
About noon weather much more moderate; set the lower sails; before night sea quite down tho the wind still stood at south east. The sea rises and falls quicker in these latitudes than it does about England, which we have observd Ever since we came into variable winds way to the South of the tropicks. During this whole gale we observed vast plenty of birds about us, Procellarias of all the kinds we have before mentiond, the grey ones of the 3d of this month and a kind? all black, procell. aquinoctialis? Linn.Procellaria aequinoctialis was the Cape Hen. See 26 December 1768. These might equally well have been Sooty Shearwaters, Puffinus griseus (Gm.).
The ship during this gale has shewn her excellence in laying too remarkably well, shipping scarce any water tho it blew at times vastly strong; the seamen in general say that they never knew a ship lay too so well as this does, so lively and at the same time so easy.
8. Smooth water and fair wind: many Seals and Penguins about the ship, the latter leaping out of the water and diving instantly so that a person unusd to them might easily be deceivd and take them for fish; plenty also of Albatrosses and whales blowing very near the ship. We were now too sure that we had missd
The ship has been observd to go much better since her shaking in the last gale of wind, the seamen say that it is a general observation that ships go better for being what they call Loosnen in their Joints, so much so that in chase it is often customary to knock down Stantions &c. and make the ship as loose as possible.
9. Clouds to the westward appear so like land this morn that even our first Lieutenant who prided himself on His judgement in this particular was deceivd. Wind vereable and calmer, many seals and some Albatrosses but none of those whitish birds which we saw in the gale of wind.
10. Fine weather: Seals plentifully today and a kind of birds different from any we have before seen, they were black and a
Diving Petrels, which have a rapid flight. Two species occur here, Probably Commerson's Dolphin, Pelecanoides magellani (Matthew) and P. urinatrix (Gm.).Cephalorhynchus commersoni (Lacépède). It has the alternative common names of Piebald Porpoise and Le Jacobite, which last was Commerson's own name for it.
11. This morn at day break saw the land of d Ansons voyage has represented it, the weather exceedingly moderate so we stood along shore about 2 Leagues off, we could see trees distinctly through our glasses and observe several smokes made probably by the natives as a signal to us. The captain now resolved to put in here if he can find a conv[en]ient harbour and give us an opportunity of searching a countrey so intirely new.
The hills within land seemd to be high and on them were many patches of snow, but the sea coast appeard fertile especialy the trees of a bright verdure, except in places exposd to SW wind which were distinguishable by their brown appearance; the shore itself sometimes beach and sometimes rock. At 4 in the evening wind came on shore so stood off.
12. This morn make the land again soon after which it dropd calm, in which time we took Possibly an The ship was near the entrance to the Strait of le Maire, through which Cook intended to pass.Beroe incrassata,Beroe incrassata: Parkinson's plate, III, 59, of this date, bears this name and appears to represent Beroe ovata Chamisso and Eysenhardt. Solander, p. 437, noted its occurrence in October 1769, when they were approaching New Zealand from the east.Medusa limpidissimaAglaura sp. See Parkinson III, pl. 51; Solander, p. 463.plicataMedusa plicata: the animal with this name in Parkinson III, pl. 47, is too worn to be identifiable, and Solander's description, p. 453, is of the same specimen.obliquata,Medusa obliquata: unidentifiable; Parkinson III, p. 52, Solander, p. 465.Alcyonium anguillare, probably the thing that Shelvocke mentions in his Voyage round the world page 60, Alcyonium frustrum.Alcyonium: neither of the species mentioned can be identified either from the drawing by Parkinson, III, pl. 74, of A. anguillare, or from the descriptions by Solander, pp. 477, 479. A Voyage round the World, by the Way of the Great South Sea, performed in the years 1719, 20, 21, 22. … (London 1726). The book enjoyed some fame, and not only Banks, but Coleridge, found it useful: Shelvocke's account of the killing of an albatross provided the seed of the Ancient Mariner. The thing that he mentions on page 60, he mentions thus: sailing south beyond the River Plate, 'we had on the surface of the water abundance of things appearing like white snakes. We took some of them up, but cou'd not perceive there was any life in them, nor were they form'd into any shape resembling any kind of animal, they being only a long cylinder of a white sort of a jelly, and may probably be the spawn of some of the larger sort of fish’.
When we were nearest in we could plainly discover with our glasses spots in which the colour of white and yellow were predominant which we judg'd to be flowers, the white were in large clusters almost every where, the yellow in small spots or patches on the side of a hill coverd with a beautifull verdure; ‘The trees all belong to one kind, the Fagus betuloides; for the number of the other species of Fagus and of the Winter's Bark, is quite inconsiderable. This beech keeps its leaves throughout the year; but its foliage is of a peculiar brownish-green colour, with a tinge of yellow. As the whole landscape is thus coloured, it has a sombre, dull appearance; nor is it often enlivened by the rays of the sun.’—Darwin, Naturalist's Voyage round the World (ed. 1888), p. 210. It is possible that Banks's yellow colour was thus accounted for. But see also p. 226, n. 2 below, on the fungus of Nothofagus antarctica.
Among the things taken today observd This name may refer to Prominent landscape features on the coast of Tierra del Fuego. The Three Brothers have still the same name—Tres Hermanos; the Sugar Loaf seems to have been the remarkable table-topped hill called Meseta de Orozco.ulva intestinalisEnteromorpha intestinalis (L.), ‘since it is more or less cosmopolitan in temperate and cold seas’ (W. R. Taylor).corrallina officin[alis].Corallina officinalis (L.) may be accepted with a query. Both Corallina officinalis and C. chilensis occur in the area, and though abundantly distinct, early travellers would not distinguish between them; cf. L. Gain, La Flore algologique … Deux. Expid. Antarct. Francaise (1908–1910) commandoes par le Dr. Jean Charcot (Paris, 1912).
About 6 this even the gentlemen upon deck observd the Sugar Loaf coverd with a cloud for a short time which left it intirely white, they judgd it to have been a fall of snow upon the hill but as I did not myself see it I cannot give my opinion.
13. This morn at day break we were at the streights mouth and stood in a little way, but the tide turning against us soon set us out again; at ½ past 8 tide again turnd in our favour but soon after wind came foul so were forcd to turn to windward; the wind soon
The netting stretched as a safety measure under the jib-boom, the spar run out from the bowsprit, to which the lower corner, or foot, of the jib was secured.d Ansons Voyage is exaggerated. About 4 it blew very hard and the tide turning against us quickly drove us out of the streights the second time. At night less wind tho still South West, stood into the Streights the third time and had another violent pitching bout, the tide turnd against us before we are half through so in the morning
14. we found ourselves the third time drove out, wind SSW, Short sea and ship pitching most violently. The Capt Which he called Vincent's Bay; now Thetis Bay. The bottom extremity.n stood into a bay just without Cape St Vincentr Solander and myself went ashore in the boat and found many plants, about 100, tho we were not ashore above 4 hours; of these I may say every one was new and intirely different from what either of us had before seen. The countrey about this bay was in general flat, here is however good wood and water and vast plenty of fowl and in the cod
Among other things the bay affords there is plenty of winters bark,Drimys winteri Forst., named for Captain John Winter, who was with Drake in the Straits of Magellan in 1578, and there successfully used it to combat scurvy. The bark was first described by de l'Ecluse in 1582, and later by Dalechamps (1586) and Clusius (1605), etc., under the name Winteranus cortex. It was much valued as an antiscorbutic. Although extensively used in Europe for over two centuries it finds a place today only in local domestic medicine. Drimys is a primitive bihemispheric and presumably paleoantarctic genus, ‘only very remotely related to the Magnoliaceae proper’ (cf. Jour. Arnold Arbor. 26: 48–59. 1945). See Pl. 27b.apium antescorbuticum,Apium prostratum Thouin <JDH>, as validated by a specimen bearing Solander's MS name. See pl. 27a.cardamine antescorbutica,Cardamine glacialis DC. ‘Scurvy grass’ was a loose term applied to many unrelated plants sharing antiscorbutic properties: Cardamine nasturtioides, as well as C. glacialis; Oxalis enneaphylla of the Falkland Islands; Amaranthus spp. Brassica juncea, Portulaca oleracea, Sesuvium portulacastrum, collectively called ‘verdura’ by the Spanish navigators, were all used in the Pacific Islands.
The trees here are cheifly of one sort, a Kind of Birch Banks's ‘birch’, as determined by an examination of his coll., was Betula antarcticaNothofagus antarctica (Forst.) Oerst., a southern hemisphere counterpart of the beech.Arbutus rigida.Pernettya mucronata Gaud. <JDH> validated by a Banks collection. Pernety's original specimen, the basis of the illustration in his account of his voyage with Bougainville, Histoire d'un Voyage aux ties Malouines fait en 1763 & 1764 (Berlin 1770), was collected in the Falklands. Skottsberg, Wilds of Patagonia (London 1911), p. 56, remarks on the use of chaura (the native name) berries as emergency rations.
15. Stopd tide this morn in a bay on the Terra del Fuego side of the water, probably Prince Maurice's Bay, which servd our purpose very well; at 10 tide turnd and we stood out and by dinner came to an anchor in the Bay of Good Success. Several Indians were in sight near the Shore.
After dinner went ashore on the starboard side of the bay near some rocks which make smooth water and good landing. Before we had walkd 100 yards many Indians made their appearance on the other side of the bay, at the End of a sandy beach which makes the bottom of the bay, but on seeing our numbers to be ten or twelve they retreated. Dr Solander and myself then walkd forward 100 yards before the rest and two of the Indians advanc'd also and set themselves down about 50 yards from their companions. As soon as we came up they rose and each of them threw a stick he had in his hand away from him and us, a token no doubt of peace, they then walkd briskly towards the other party and wavd to us to follow, which we did and were receivd with many uncouth
They eat bread and beef which we gave them tho not heartily but carried the largest part away with them, they would not drink either wine or spirits but returnd the glass, tho not before they had put it to their mouths and tasted a drop; we conducted them through the greatest part of the ship and they lookd at every thing without any marks of extrordinary admiration, unless the noise which our conjurer did not fail to repeat at every new thing he saw might be reckond as such.
After having been aboard about 2 hours they expressd a desire of going ashore and a boat was orderd to carry them. I went with them and landed them among their countreymen, but I can not say that I observd either the one party curious to ask questions or the other to relate what they had seen or what usage they had met with, so after having stayd ashore about ½ an hour I returnd to the ship and the Indians immediately marchd off from the shore.
16. This morn very early D The next naturalist to come to the Bay of Good Success was r Solander and myself with our servants and two Seamen to assist in carrying baggage, accompanied by M8rs Monkhouse and Green, set out from the ship to try to penetrate into the countrey as far as we could, and if possible gain the tops of the hills where alone we saw places not overgrown with trees.Beagle, in December 1832. ‘One side of the harbour’, he writes, ‘is formed by a hill about 1500 feet high, which Naturalist's Voyage, pp. 210–11. See also Charles Darwin's Diary of the Voyage of H. M.S. ‘Beagle’ (Cambridge, 1933), pp. 122–3.
Soon after we saw the plains we arrivd at them, but found to our great disapointment that what we took for swathe Banks is here using a bit of Lincolnshire dialect; ‘swathe’ in his native tongue meant to him a measure of grass-land in open pasture; or in this case it might have been his spelling of ‘swarth’—sward, the surface of the ground.—Wright's Cf. Darwin again: ‘We followed the same watercourse as on the previous day, till it dwindled away, and we were then compelled to crawl blindly among the trees. These, from the effects of the elevation and of the impetuous winds, were low, thick, and crooked. At length we reached that which from a distance appeared like a carpet of fine green turf, but which, to our vexation, turned out to be a compact mass of little beech-trees about four or five feet high. They were as thick together as box in the border of a garden, and we were obliged to struggle over the flat but treacherous surface’.—English Dialect Dictionary.Naturalist's Voyage, p. 210.
We proceeded two thirds of the way without the least difficulty and I confess I thought for my own part that all difficulties were surmounted when M Buchan was unfortunately for the expedition an epileptic.r Buchan fell into a fit.r Solander Mr Green Mr Monkhouse and myself advancd for the alp which we reachd almost immediately, and found according to expectation plants which answerd to those we had found before as alpine ones in Europe do to those which we find in the plains.
The air was here very cold and we had frequent snow blasts. I had now intirely given over all thoughts of reaching the ship that night and though[t] of nothing but getting into the thick of the wood and making a fire, which as our road lay all down hill seemd very easy to accomplish, so Msrs Green and Monkhouse
r Buchan was stronger than we could have expected. I undertook to bring up the rear and se[e] that no one was left behind. We passd about half way very well when the cold seemd to have at once an effect infinitely beyond what I have ever experiencd. Dr Solander was the first who felt it, he said he could not go any fa[r]ther but must lay down, tho the ground was coverd with snow, and down he laid notwisthstanding all I could say to the contrary. Richmond a black Servant now began also to lag and was much in the same way as the dr: at this Juncture I dispatchd 5 forwards of whom Mr Buchan was one to make ready a fire at the very first convenient place they could find, while myself with 4 more staid behind to persuade if possible the dr and Richmond to come on. With much persuasion and intreaty we got through much the largest part of the Birch when they both gave out; Richmond said that he could not go any further and when told that if he did not he must be Froze to death only answerd that there he would lay and dye; the Dr on the contrary said that he must sleep a little before he could go on and actualy did full a quarter of an hour, at which time we had the welcome news of a fire being lit about a quarter of a mile ahead. I then undertook to make the Dr Proceed to it; finding it impossible to make Richmond stir left two hands with him who seemd the least affected with Cold, promising to send two to releive them as soon as I should reach the fire. With much difficulty I got the Dr to it and as soon as two people were sufficiently warmd sent them out in hopes that they would bring Richmond and the rest; after staying about half an hour they returnd bringing word that they had been all round the place shouting and hallowing but could not get any answer. We now guess'd the cause of the mischeif, a bottle of rum the whole of our stock was missing, and we soon concluded that it was in one of their Knapsacks and that the two who were left in health had drank immoderately of it and had slept like the other.
For two hours now it had snowd almost incessantly so we had little hopes of seeing any of the three alive: about 12 however to our great Joy we heard a shouting, on which myself and 4 more went out immediately and found it to be the Seaman who had
In these employments we had spent an hour and a half expos'd to the most penetrating cold I ever felt as well as continual snow. Peter Briscoe, another servant of mine, began now to complain and before we came to the fire became very ill but got there at last almost dead with cold.
Now might our situation truely be calld terrible: of twelve our original number 2 were already past all hopes, one more was so ill that tho he was with us I had little hopes of his being able to walk in the morning, and another very likely to relapse into his fitts either before we set out or in the course of our journey: we were distant from the ship we did not know how far, we knew only that we had been the greatest part of a day in walking it through pathless woods: provision we had none but one vulture which had been shot while we were out, and at the shortest allowance could not furnish half a meal: and to compleat our misfortunes we were caught in a snow storm in a climate we were utterly unaquainted with but which we had reason to beleive was as inhospitable as any in the world, not only from all the accounts we had heard or read but from the Quantity of snow which we saw falling, tho it was very little after midsummer: a circumstance unheard of in Europe for even in Norway or Lapland snow is never known to fall in the summer.
17. The Morning now dawnd and shewd us the earth coverd with snow as well as all the tops of the trees, nor were the snow squalls
About 6 O'Clock the sun came out a little and we immediately thought of sending to see whether the poor wretches we had been so anzious about last night were yet alive, three of our people went but soon returnd with the melancholy news of their being both dead. The snow continued to fall tho not quite so thick as it had done; about 8 a small breeze of wind sprung up and with the additional power of the sun began (to our great Joy) to clear the air, and soon after we saw the snow begin to fall from the tops of the trees, a sure sign of an aproaching thaw. Peter continued very ill but said he thought himself able to walk. Mr Buchan thank god was much better than I could have expected, so we agreed to dress our vulture and prepare ourselves to set out for the ship as soon as the snow should be a little more gone off: so he was skinnd and cut into ten equal shares, every man cooking his own share which furnishd about 3 mouthfulls of hot meat, all the refreshment we had had since our cold dinner yesterday and all we were to expect till we should come to the ship.
About ten we set out and after a march of about 3 hours arrivd at the beach, fortunate in having met with much better roads in our return than we did in going out, as well as in being nearer to the ship than we had any reason to hope; for on reviewing our track as well as we could from the ship we found that we had made a half circle round the hills, instead of penetrating as we thought we had done into the inner part of the cuntrey. With what pleasure then did we congratulate each other on our safety no one can tell who has not been in such circumstances. We owe to the journal of Molyneux the master a side-light upon the quenchless enthusiasm of Banks. As soon, he says, as the travellers ‘came on Board & Refresh'd they were put into warm Beds, Mr Banks excepted who considering our short Stay & the Uncertainty of the weather, Apply'd for a Boat to Haul the Sane which was done without Success the foul Ground & depth of water rendering the Sane useless. However he had the Satisfaction in his late Excursion to make a Valuable Collection of Alpine & other Plants Hitherto unknown in Natural History’. Banks apparently, though he had not expected to be out all night, had relied too much on the fact of summer. Sir Joseph Hooker, who, when a young man, went with Ross to the Antarctic in the Erebus (1839–43) made some relevant comments. He and his companions, he said, had frequently been overtaken by heavy snowstorms on their expeditions on the Tierra del Fuegan hills. ‘Nothing, however, but personal weakness, or too sudden a change, would have made Sir J. Banks feel their effects so much, for we thought nothing of it, and were it necessary, even without a fire, a shelter might be made which with the warmth of two or three persons close together, might have defied death by cold’.—Hooker to his Mother, 6 December 1842, quoted in Life and Letters of Sir J. D. Hooker, I, p. 138. Again, ‘This part of the world (Fuegia) has always borne the character of being eminently rigorous and inhospitable,—very much because poor Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Solander, after being accustomed to tropical heat and that hottest of harbours, Rio Janeiro, were rather suddenly cooled down here in the height of summer. The climate in winter is, however, as mild in proportion as the summers are chilly; the annual temperature is assuredly low, but the averages of that of each season are remarkably close’.—To Mrs Boott, 28 November 1842, ibid., pp. 138–9. Hooker overdoes the element of sudden change, for Banks and the others had had plenty of time to get used to lower temperatures than that of the tropics. Richmond and Dorlton would have survived if it had not been for the rum. It was not the snowstorm, or lack of food for a few hours, that was the danger, but for Buchan his epilepsy, and for Solander—one guesses—the effect of too much exercise after too little. Naturally Banks could not help painting the most horrific picture in his journal.
18. Peter was very ill today and Mr Buchan not at all well, the rest of us thank god in good health tho not yet recoverd from our fatigue.
It blew fresh without and made such a heaving swell in the bay that no one could go ashore and even the ship was very uncumfortable, rolling so much that one could scarcely stand without holding.
19. The swell still continued and we were again hinderd from going ashore tho the loss of two days out of the short time we had to stay here made the Dr and myself ready to venture any risk. The officer who was sent to attempt landing returnd bringing word that it was absolutely impossible without great danger of staving the boat, if even that would do. Both yesterday and today a good deal of snow fell in squalls.
20. Last night the weather began to moderate And this morn was very fine, so much so that we landed without any difficulty in the bottom of the bay and spent our time very much to our satisfaction in collecting shells and plants. Of the former we found some very scarce and fine particularly limpits of several species: of these we observd as well as the shortness of our time would permit that the limpit with a longish hole at the top of his shell is inhabited by an animal very different from those which have no such holes.Fissurella picta Lamarck. One of Banks's specimens of this shell is still at the Acanthina calcar (Martyn). One of these too is in the Banksian collection at the British Museum. Other molluses collected at that time are listed by Wilkins in his Catalogue account of Banks's shell collection published in 1955 (Bull, B.M. (N.H.) Historical Series, I, No. 3).Lepades, Sertularias, OnisciLepades, Sertularias, Onisci; there are no dated descriptions or drawings by which these animals (barnacles, hydroids, crustaceans) can be identified.
We returnd on board to dinner and afterwards went into the Countrey about two miles to see an Indian town which some of our people had given us intelligence of; we arrivd at it in about an hour walking through a path which I suppose was their common road tho it was sometimes up to our knees in mud. The town itself was situate upon a dry Knowl among the trees, which were not at all cleard away, it consisted of not more than twelve or fourteen huts or wigwams of the most unartificial construction imaginable, indeed no thing bearing the name of a hut could possibly be built with less trouble. They consisted of a few poles set up and meeting together at the top in a conical figure, these were coverd on the weather side with a few boughs and a little grass, on the lee side about one eighth part of the circle was left open and against this opening was a fire made. Furniture I may justly say they had none: a little, very little, dry grass laid round the edges of the circle furnishd both beds and chairs, and for dressing their shell Fish (the only provision I saw them make use of) they had no one contrivance but broiling them upon the Coals. For drinking indeed I saw in a corner of one of their hutts a bladder of some beast full of water: in one side of this near the top was a hole through which they drank by elevating a little the bottom which made the water spring up into their mouths.
In these few hutts and with this small share or rather none at all of what we call the nescessaries and conveniences of life livd about 50 men women and children, to all appearance contented with what they had nor wishing for any thing we could give them except beads; of these they were very fond preferring ornamental things to those which might be of real use and giving more in exchange for a string of Beids than they would for a knife or a hatchet. Cook does not mention the visit to this ‘town’, but other traces of it, and of the ‘Indians’ of the vicinity, are found in Buchan's drawings, four in number, in B.M. Add. MS 23920, ff. 11 (?), 12, 16, 17, and in one by Parkinson, f. 13. Buchan, much ‘improved’ by Cipriani, will be found as pl. I in the second volume of Hawkesworth. See Pl. 5.
As this is to be the last time of our going ashore on this Island I take this opportunity to give an account of such things the shortness of my stay allowd me to observe.
Notwithstanding almost all writers who have mentiond this Island have imputed to it a want of wood, soon after we first saw it even at the distance of some leagues, we plainly distinguish'd that the largest part of the countrey particularly near the sea coast was coverd with wood, which observation was verified in both the bays we put into, in either of which firing might have been
The hills are high tho not to be calld mountains, the tops of these however are quite bare and on them frequent patches of snow were to be seen, tho the time of the year when we were there answerd to the beginning of July in England. In the valleys between these the Soil has much the appearance of Fruitfullness and is in some places of a considerable depth; at the bottom of almost every one of these runs a brook the water of which in general has a reddish Cast like that which runs through turf bogs in England but is very well tasted.
Quadrupeds I saw none in the Island, except the Seals and Sea lions The Southern Sea Lion, The beast was no doubt the Guanaco, Otaria byronia, and the Southern Fur Seal, Arctocephalus australis.r Solander and myself when we were on the top of the highest hill we were upon observ'd the footsteps of a large beast imprinted on the surface of a bog, but could not with any probability guess of what kind it might be.Auchenia huanaco, one of the two species of South American llamas, the other being the Vicuña, which is sometimes used as a beast of burden. Cf. p. 227 below.
Land birds there are very Few. I saw none larger than an English blackbird except hawks and a vulture, The only bird of prey from Tierra del Fuego figured on this voyage was the Chimango Caracara, Milvago chimango (Vieill.); Parkinson I, pl. 7.
Fish we saw few nor could with our hooks take any fit to eat. Shell fish however are in the greatest abundance, limpits, muscles, Clams &c. none of them delicate yet such as they were we did not despise them. These are discussed by Wilkins (op. cit.), who shows that one of the principal clams they used was the large Marcia exalbida (Dillwyn). See 20 January 1769.
Insects there are very few and not one species either hurtfull or troublesome; all the time we have been here we have seen neither gnat nor musqueto a circumstance which few if any uncleard countrey but this can boast of.
Of Plants here are many species and those truly the most extrordinary I can imagine, in stature and appearance they agree
r Solander and myself among these plants; we have not yet examind many of them, but what we have have turnd out in general so intirely different from any before describd that we are never tird with wondering at the infinite variety of Creation, and admiring the infinite care with which providence has multiplied his productions suiting them no doubt to the various climates for which they were designd. Trees here are very Few, Birch Betula antarctica,Nothofagus betuloides, the Guindo, whose more accessible stands are now nearing extinction, though some timber is sawed at local mills.Fagus antarcticus,Nothofagus antarctica, known as Mire, is host to an orange-yellow fungus (Cyttaria), as is also N. cunninghami of Tasmania. ‘The fact that species of Nothofagus, widely separated geographically, have unusual similarities extending even to the parasites, lends support to the theory of the former continuity of the antarctic continents.’ (Record and Hess).Winterana aromatica,Drimys winteri; cf. 216, n. 4 above.Cardamine antescorbutica and wild Celery Apium antarcticum may easily be known to contain antescorbutick virtues capable of being of great service to ships who may in futurity touch here. Of these two therefore I shall give a short description. Scurvy grass is found plentifully in damp places near springs, in general every where near the beach especialy at the watering place in the Bay of Good Success; when young and in its greatest perfection it lays flat on the ground, having many bright green leaves standing in pairs opposite each other with an odd one at the end which makes in general the 5th on a footstalk; after this it shoots up in stalks sometimes 2 feet high at the top of which are small white blosoms which are succeeded by long podds. The whole plant much resembles that that is calld Ladys Smock or Cuckold flower in England only that the flowers are much smaller. Wild Celery resembles much the Celery in our gardens only that the leaves are of a deeper green, the flowers like it stand in small tufts at the tops of the Branches and are white; it grows plentifully near the Beach, generaly in the first soil which is above spring tides, and is not easily mistaken as the taste resembles Celery or parsley or rather is between. Both these herbs we us'd plentifully while we stayd here putting them in our soup &c, and found the benefit from them which
The inhabitants we saw here seemd to be one small tribe of Indians consisting of not more than 50 of all ages and sexes. They are of a reddish Colour nearly resembling that of rusty iron mixd with oil: the men large built but very clumsey, their hight from 5 f Guanaco, t 8 to 5 ft 10 nearly and all very much of the same size, the women much less seldom exceeding 5 ft Their Cloaths are no more than a kind of cloak of GuanicoeAuchenia huanaco, one of the two South American Bamas; cf. p. 225, n. 2.
Their ornaments of which they are extreemly fond consist of necklaces or rather Solitaires of shells and braceletts which the women wear both on their wrists and legs, the men only on their wrists, but to compensate for the want of the other they have a kind of wreath of brown worsted which they wear over their Foreheads so that in reality they are more ornamented than the women.
They paint their faces generaly in horizontal lines just under their eyes and sometimes make the whole region of their eyes white, but these marks are so much varied that no two we saw were alike: whether as marks of distinction or mere ornaments I could not at all make out.
They seem also to paint themselves with something like a mixture of grease and soot for particular occasions, as when we went to their town there came two out to meet us who were dawb'd with black lines all manner of ways so as to form the most diabolical countenance imaginable, and these two seemd to exorcise us or at least made a loud and long harangue which did not seem to be address'd either to us or any of their countreymen.
Their language is guttural especialy in some particular words which they seem to express much as an Englishman when he hawks
Nalleca which signified beads, at least so they always said when they wanted them instead of the ribbands or other trifles which I offerd them, and oouda which signified water, or so they said when we took them ashore from the ship and by signs ask'd where water was: oouda was their answer, making the sign of drinking and pointing to our casks as well as to the place where we put them ashore and found plenty of water.
Of Civil goverment I saw no signs, no one seemd to be more respected than another nor did I ever see the least appearance of Quarreling or words between any two of them. Religion also they seemd to be without, unless those people who made strange noises that I have mentiond before were preists or exorcisers which opinion is merely conjectural.
Their food at least what we saw them make use of was either Seals or shell fish. How they took the former we never saw but the latter were collected by the women, whose business it seemd to be to attend at low water with a basket in one hand, a stick with a point and barb in the other, and a satchel on their backs which they filld with shell fish, loosning the limpits with the stick and putting them into the basket which when full was emty'd into the satchel.
Their arms consisted of Bows and arrows, the former neatly enough made the latter neater than any I have seen, polishd to the highest degree and headed either with glass or flint very neatly; but this was the only neat thing they had and the only thing they seemd to take any pains about. Their houses which I have describd before are the most miserable ones imaginable and furniture they have none.
That these people have before had intercourse with Européans was very plain from many instances: first from the Européan Commodities of which we saw Sail Cloth, Brown woolen Cloth, Beads, nails, Glass &c, and of them especialy the last (which they used for pointing their arrows) a considerable quantity; from the confidence they immediately put in us at our first meeting tho well acquainted with our superiority; and from the knowledge they had of the use of our guns which they very soon shewd, making signs to me to shoot a seal who was following us in the boat which carried them ashore from the ship. They probably travel and stay but a short time at a place, so at least it should seem from the badness of their houses which seem intirely built to stand but for a short
Boats they had none with them but as they were not sea sick or particularly affected when they came onboard our ship, possibly they might be left at some bay or inlet which passes partly but not all the way through this Island from the Streights of Magellan, from which place I should be much inclind to beleive these people have come as so few ships before us have anchord upon any part of Terra del Fuego.
Their dogs which I forgot to mention before seem also to indicate a commerce had some time or other with Européans, they being all of the kind that bark, contrary to what has been observd of (I beleive) all dogs natives of America. Banks gives us here the best early description of the Ona people of the main island of Tierra del Fuego, a people of obscure origin who were, as he rightly surmised, nomadic hunters, living in small groups bound together by family ties, and without ‘civil government’. They were remarkable as an insular people who did not use boats. Their diet, besides the seals and shell fish that Banks saw them use, was guanaco, and tussock roots and wild celery; their distaste for strong drink was noticed by more than one journal-keeper on English ships. Their numbers have declined, E. Lucas Bridges, in his Uttermost Part of the Earth (London 1948), has some interesting remarks.
The weather here has been very uncertain tho in general extreemly bad: every day since the first more or less snow has fallen and yet the glass has never been below 38: unseasonable as this weather seems to be in the middle of summer I am inclind to think it is generaly so here, for none of the plants appear at all affected by it, and the insects who hide themselves during the time a snow blast lasts are the instant it is fair again as lively and nimble as the finest weather could make them.
21. Saild this morn, the wind Foul, but our keeping boxes being full of new plants we little regarded any wind provided it was but moderate enough to let the draughtsmen work, who to do them justice are now so used to the sea that it must blow a gale of wind before they leave off.
22. Weather pleasant but a little cold wind came to the Northward and we get a little westing.
23. At day break this morn there was land almost all round us,
24. Many Islands about us today: weather very moderate: one of the Islands was surrounded by small pointed rocks standing out of the water like the Needles. Cook: ‘this I take to be the Island of Evouts, it is about one League in circuit and of a moderate height and lies 4 League from the Main, near the south point of it are some peeked Rocks pretty high above water’.—I, p. 48.
Ever since we left the streights the albatrosses that have flown about the ship have either been or appeard much larger than those seen before we enterd them, but the weather has never been moderate enough to give us an opportunity of getting out a boat to shoot any of them.
25. Wind today Northwest: stood in with some Islands which were large, we could not tell for certain whether we saw any part of the main. The little Island mentiond yesterday was in view, and beyond that the land made in a bluf head, within which another appeard tho but faintly which was farther to the Southward; possibly that might be See Cook's discussion of Cape Horn, I, p. 49. The French volumes were those of de Brosses, Navigat aux terres australes tom 1. pag. 356.Navigations aux terres australes (1756). Charles de Brosses (1709–77), lawyer and magistrate, classical scholar, philosophe, was the author of the first published account of the excavations at Herculaneum (1750), which was translated into Italian and English, of a great edition of Sallust (1777), and of works on fetish-worship, etymology and grammar, musical theory, etc. A number of his MSS were destroyed in the Revolution. He had a considerable correspondence with savants and men of letters, but had the misfortune to make an enemy of Portraits in Miniature). For the story of Cook and Banks, de Brosses's two volumes on South Sea discoveries, imperfectly arranged and discursive as they are, are his important work. I have touched on his place in eighteenth century geographical thought in my Introduction to Cook I, pp. Ixxviii ff. See also Le Continent Austral (Paris 1893), pp. 413–22; and Le Président de Brosses et l'Australie (Paris 1938).
26. Weather vastly moderate today, wind foul so we were sorry that we had ran away from the land last night.
27. Wind came to the northward and we got some little westing, possibly today we were to the westward of the cape, at least a great swell from the NWt makes it certain that we were to the Southward of it. Many large albatrosses These were possibly not the Wandering but the Royal Albatross, A shag, Diego Ramirez, lat. 56° 30’ S, long. 68° 43’ W. It is really a small group of islets and rocks stretching about 5 miles north and south, the northernmost rock 56 miles south-east of d. exulans were about the ship whose backs were very white;Diomedea epomophora Lesson. Murphy considers it probable that many of the sight records of large white albatrosses in the southern waters of South America refer to the latter species (Oceanic Birds of South America, 1936, p. 577).Pelecanus antarcticusPhalacrocorax albiventer (Lesson). Solander, p. 15; Parkinson I, pl. 29. Dr Falla has identified this pencil sketch as one of a sub-mature individual of the species.
28. Pleasant breezes but a heavy swell from NNW continued and made it likely that we were past the Cape, tho we had made but little westing.
29. Wind still Foul and swell continued; today at noon lat. 59.00.
30. At noon today Lat 60.04: near calm: almost all navigators have met with Easterly winds in this Lat. so we were in hopes to do the same: towards Even wind got to the Southward.
31. Wind SE: stood to the westward with very fine weather.
February1769
1. Calm this morn: went out in the boat and Killd The Light-mantled Sooty Albatross, This MS name of Banks's appears to have been used for the bird he referred to also as Parkinson's unfinished, dated drawing (I, pl. 15) of this specimen probably represents the Slender-billed Whale bird, Diomedea antarcticaPhoebetria palpebrata (Forst.). Parkinson's drawing of this bird was made on this date (I, pl. 26).Procellaria antarcticaP. lugens, which we have identified as Pterodroma inexpectata (Forster). Parkinson's drawing, dated 1 February 1769, (I, pl. 21), of what is probably this species, has Procellaria antarctica written on the back, but antarctica is crossed through and lugens written above it. Banks's actual note on P. lugens is doubtfully applicable to P. inexpectata, inasmuch as that species does not fly heavily; on the other hand Murphy has shown (American Museum Novitates, 1580, 1952, p. 6) that the underwing pattern of the species could be interpreted in the way Banks described.turtur.Pachyptila belcheri (Mathews). Flocks of countless thousands of these and other whale birds are one of the most remarkable sights to be seen in those areas of the southern occans that are rich in the plankton on which the birds feed. In this group of petrels there is a series of lamellae within the bill which acts in rather the same way as the baleen within the mouth of a whale and enables them to skin the organisms on which they live from the surface layers of the sea—hence their popular name.Diomedœa antarctica the Black billd albatross is much like the common but differs from him in being scarce half as large and having a bill intirely black. Procellaria lugens the Southern shear water differs from the common one in being less and darker colourd on the back, but is easily
Procellaria turtur Mother Careys dove is of the peteril kind about the size of a barbary dove, of a light silvery blue upon the back which shines beautifully as he flies which he does very swiftly keeping generaly near the surface of the water; more or less of these birds have been seen very often since we left the lat. of
2. This morn calm and Foggy much like the weather on the Banks of Newfoundland; after dinner went in the boat and shot This would have been a diving-petrel; cf. 10 January 1769.Procellaria fuliginosa,Procellaria aequinoctialis Linn., the Cape Hen; Solander's description (p. 77) and Parkinson's drawing (I, pl. 19) of this species bear this date. Cf. 26 December 1768.Turtur, giganteaMacronectes gigantea (Gm.), the Giant Petrel; cf. 22 December 1768.Fregata.Fregetta grallaria (Vieill.), the White-bellied Storm Petrel; cf. 22 December 1768.alca tribe.
3. Calm again: went out and shoot This Wandering Albatross was described by Solander, p. 5, and although its wing-span was 10 ft 1 in. he shows clearly that it was an immature bird; Banks's remark about there being larger and whiter specimens here seems to be a generalization. The Light-mantled Sooty Albatross; cf. 27 January 1769. The White-headed Petrel, Diomedœa Exulans Albatross or Alcatrace, differing from those seen to the Northward of Streights of La Maire in being much larger and often quite white on the back between the wings, tho certainly the same species;Diomedœa antarctica Lesser black billd Albatross;diomedœa profuga Lesser Albatross with a party colourd bill, differing from the last in few things except the bill the upper and under sides of which were yellow and between them black;Diomedea chrysostoma Forster, the Grey-headed Albatross. The details of Parkinson's sketch of this bird (I, pl. 27) and of Solander's account (pp. 11–12) suggest that this was an immature bird: it was identified by Sharpe (History of the Collections, II, p. 176, 1906) as D. chlororhynchos, but that species has not been recorded from the west coast of South America nor from the Eastern Pacific. Banks's MS is not quite clear here: it seems that his remark about a ‘Lesser Albatross differing from the last in but few things except the bill’, may concern a second specimen which, according to his note on the colour of the bill, was a mature bird. Solander, however, described only immature specimens, including one captured twelve days later which Banks does not record.Procellaria vagabunda.Pterodroma lessonii (Garnot). Solander, p. 95.
4. Blew brisk today, made some northing and westing; we now began to account ourselves certainly past the cape and the Captain (as in his orders was recommended) resolvd to stand as far to the westward as the winds will allow him to do. Two crabs were taken today in the cloaths that hang overboard to tow. These crabs are unidentifiable; no drawings or descriptions seem to relate to them.
I had been unwell these three or four days and today was obligd to keep the Cabbin with a bilious attack, which tho quite slight alarmd me a good deal, as Captn Wallis had in the Streights of Magellan such an attack which he never got the better of throughout the whole voyage.
5. All but calm today: myself a little better than yesterday, well enough to eat part of the Albatrosses shot on the third, which were so good that every body commended and Eat heartily of them tho there was fresh pork upon the table. The way of dressing them is thus: Skin them over night and soak their carcases in Salt water till morn, then parboil them and throw away the water, then stew them well with very little water and when sufficiently tender serve them up with Savoury sauce.
6. Foul wind, myself something better.
7. Myself better again, in the evening ship made a little westing.
8. Fair wind, blew fresh.
9. Blew fresh all last night which has given us a good deal of westing. This morn some sea weed floated past the ship and my servant declares that he saw a large beetle fly over her: I do not beleive he would deceive me and he certainly knows what a beetle is, as he has these 3 years been often employd in taking them for me. Presumably Banks here refers to
10. During all last night the ship has pitchd very much so that there has been no sleeping for land men. Today misty with little wind.
11. Fair wind, stand to the westward.
12. Foul wind, but prodigious fine weather and smooth water makes amends to us at least.
13. Wind still Foul and blew fresh, at night a little mended.
14. Wind South, water soon became smooth, at night little wind.
15. Calm this morn: went in the boat and killd One of the small grey and white gadfly petrels of the subgenus Procellaria veloxCookilaria (cf. Falla, Emu, 1942, p. 111) since this is the only group of the genus Plerodroma (Bulweria) characterized by the blue feet mentioned as a diagnostic character by Solander. His notes suggest (p. 68) that he may have examined and classified together under this name specimens of up to eight of the members of this group, but the specimen under consideration, which was figured by Parkinson, I, pl. 16, must belong to one of the two species exploiting this zone of surface water, Plerodroma cookii or P. longirostris, and very probably to one of the two races nesting nearby at P. cookii defilippiana (Gigl. and Salvad.) or P. longirostris longirostris (Stejneger). The drawing shows the short bill typical of longirostris so that the name Procellaria velox, which was restricted by Mathews to this specimen (Birds of Australia, 1912, p. 170) must be regarded as a synonym of Aestralata longirostris, Stejneger 1893. (Dr W. R. P. Bourne, personal communication.)Nectris mundaPuffinus assimilis (Gould), the Little or Allied Shearwater. Parkinson I, pl. 24, Solander, pp. 115–16. This bird has been much discussed and notes on variation in the southern races are given by Bourne, Emu, 1959, p. 212.fuliginosa,Puffinus griseus (Gm.), the Sooty Shearwater or New Zealand Mutton-bird. Parkinson I, pl. 23, Solander, pp. 111–12. Both these drawings of ‘Nectris’ spp. are dated. Solander was the first to recognize the distinctive character of the shearwater bill, which for long was used to separate these birds from the other petrels.
16. All last night and this morn it has blown very fresh, wind South, so that we have 3 reefs in the topsails for the first time since we left the streights of La Maire.
17. Blew fresh yet and wind stood, so we went well to the westward. In the evening more moderate; I ventur'd upon deck for the first time and saw several porpoises without any pinna dorsalis, black on the backs, under the belly and on the noses white; The Right Whale Dolphin, Perhaps the Giant Petrel, Lissodelphis peroni (Lacépéde).Macronectes giganteus, in which there are various colour phases. The Galapagos Albatross, Diomedea irrorata Salvin, has a whitish head and is otherwise dusky but it is unlikely to have been so far south.
18. Fair weather, ship stood NW.
19. Went very slowly through the water tho pleasan[t]ly for the ship had scarcely any motion.
20. Wind still foul but very moderate and the ship almost without motion.
21. Still no swell from the west tho the ship had fresh way through the water. A bird not seen before attended the ship about the size of a pidgeon, black above and light colourd underneath, darting swiftly along the surface of the water in the same manner as I have observd the Nectris to do of which genus he is probably a species. A number of small petrels occur hereabouts; this note is not sufficient to identify the one Banks observed.
22. This morn settled rain and scarce any wind, the whole evening small puffs of wind and rain and calms succeeded each other.
23. Calm: went out in the boat, shott Dr W. R. P. Bourne in a personal communication has pointed out that Solander's description (pp. 93–4) of Procellaria velox,Pterodroma sp., one of the gadfly petrels. See 15 February 1769.Procellaria aequinoctialis, the Cape Hen. Solander, p. 77. See also 2 February 1769.velificans.P. velificans agrees well with Pterodroma externa externa (Salvin), the White-necked Petrel, and that his suggestion that his specimen was like a large Procellaria mollis (from which it differs in the white underwing noted by him) is clearly diagnostic.st of Janry.
24. At 12 last night the wind settled at NE; this morn found studding Sails set and the ship going at the rate of 7 knotts, no very usual thing with Mrs Endeavour.
25. Almost calm so that we trembled for the continuance of our east wind and soon after noon it left us; at night Rain and dirty weather wind N.
26. Blew fresh, before dinner handed Furled. Cook is rather stronger in his language than Banks: ‘very strong gales and Squally with Showers of rain which at length brought us under our two courses and close reef'd Main topsail’.—I, p. 61.
27. Moderate and fine, the weather began to feel soft and comfortable like the spring in England.
28. Weather fine with a pleasant breeze. In the evening a great many Porpoises of a very large size came about the ship; they differ'd from any I have seen before in being very much larger, in having their back fins a great deall higher in proportion, and in every one having a white spot on each side of his face as large as the crown of a hat but of an oval shape.Orcinus orca, the Killer Whale.
March1769
1. Fine weather and very pleasant, began the new month by pulling off an under waistcoat.
2. Rather squally this morn and had been so all night: it did not however blow up to a gale tho the ship had a good deal of motion, indeed I began to hope that we were now so near the peacefull part of the Pacifick ocean that we may almost cease to fear any more gales. This remark may have some connection with Banks's entry for 11 March, pp. 237–8 below, on which see the note. Cook records for the morning ‘a strong fresh gale and pretty clear weather’; his definition of a gale was probably more technical than Banks's. His noon position for this day was lat. 37° 19’ S, long. 112° 5’ W.
3. Calm: went in the boat and killd An immature Wandering Albatross. A small specimen of the Portuguese Man-of-war of which there is an unfinished dated sketch (III, p. 41) by Parkinson. Parkinson's labelled drawings (III, pls. 31, 32) of this animal show a nectophore of the siphonophore Procellaria velox, 2 velificans, 3
sordida,P. sordida: ? the Kermadec Petrel, Plerodroma neglecta neglecta (Schlegel). According to Solander, p. 83, another specimen was taken on the 21st of this month; although his account of the dorsal plumage is not altogether satisfactory for P. neglecta, his notes on the undersurface of the wing agree closely with the description and figure of this species given by Murphy and Pennoyer, Amer. Mus. Novil. 1580, 1952, and it seems probable that he had some light phase birds of this polymorphic species.melanopus,P. melanopus: another Kermadec Petrel, Pterodroma neglecta (Schl.). Solander's description, p. 85, is quite close to that given by Murphy and Pennoyer (op. cit.) for birds in the dark phase of this species, and he placed sordida next to melanopus both in MS Z4 and in his interleaved edition of the Systema Naturae. Gould states that he examined a drawing in Banks's collection with melanopus written on it in Solander's hand (Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. 13, p. 363, 1844) but unfortunately no trace of it can be found now. P. melanopus Gm. was a different bird, taken from Latham's account, and only 13 inches long. Solander's birds were 15 inches long with a wing span of 39 inches; they weighed 14 oz.lugens,P. lugens: Peale's Petrel, Pterodroma inexpectata Forster. See 1 February above.agilisP. agilis: the Sunday Island Petrel, Pterodroma externa cervicalis (Salvin). Solander's careful description, p. 69, giving details of the head, neck and back as well as the underwing pattern, clearly points to this identification.Diomedœa exulansHolothuria obtusata,Phillodoce velellaVelella velella (Linn.).Dogysa vitrea the same as that taken off Rio de Janeiro; now however we had an opportunity of seeing its ext[r]ordinary manner of breeding which is better to be understood from the drawing than any description I can give; suffice it therefore to say that the whole progeny 15 or 20 in number hung in a chain from one end of the mother, the oldest only or the largest adhering to her and the rest to each other.Diphyes dispar, but Banks's account of the reproductive chain refers to a salp.
While in the boat among a large quantity of birds I had killd, 69 in all, caught 2 Unidentifiable in the absence of a description or drawing. One of the Onychoteuthidae, a family of cephalopods, with retractile claws.Hippoboscas forest flies, both of one species different from any described.Sepia cuttle fish laying on the water just dead but so pulld to peices by the birds that his Species could not be determind; only this I know that of him was made one of the best soups I ever eat. He was very large, differd from the Europæans in that his arms instead of being (like them) furnished with suckers were armd with a double row of very sharp talons, resembling in shape those of a cat and like them retractable into a sheath of skin from whence they might be thrust at pleasure.
The weather is now become pleasan[t]ly warm and the Barnacles upon the ships bottom seemd to be regenerate, very few only of the old ones remaining alive but young ones without number scarce bigger than Lentils.
4. Fine weather, the ship goes 5 knotts without rowling or pitching which she has not done this great while; this we attribute to the empty water cask[s] in the fore hold having been filld with salt water yesterday.
There were several bonitos about the ship or at least fish something like them. Possibly Euthynnus pelamis.
5. Fine weather but foul wind, it now begins to be very hot. Therm. 70 and damp, with prodigious dews at night greater than any I have felt, this renews our uncomfortably damp situation, every thing beginning to mould as it did about the æquinoctial line in the Atlantick.
6. Weather wind and heat continued, dew to night as strong as ever.
7. Wind weather heat and dew as yesterday. No Albatrosses have been seen since the 4 The albatrosses of the southern oceans are commonly found between latitudes 30° and 60° S, but sometimes further north when there are currents of cool water. There is one species, th, and for some days before that we had only now and then a single one in sight so conclude we have parted with them for good and all.Diomedea irrorata Salvin, which breeds in the Galapagos islands. Three other species are confined to the north Pacific. It would seem that albatrosses in general keep to cooler waters on account of the richer food supply there.
8. Rains today with uncommonly large and heavy drops, accompanied with calms and small puffs of wind all round the Compass; in the Evening a SE wind took the ship aback and before night blew brisk.
9. Fine weather wind right aft. A tropick bird Tropic birds are widely distributed in low latitudes. Races of both the Red-tailed Tropic Bird, Phaethon rubricauda Boddaert, and the White-tailed, P. lepturus Daudin, occur almost throughout the south-west Pacific (for distribution map of tropic birds and albatrosses in the south Pacific see Fleming, Emu, 49, 1950, p. 183).
10. Fine weather continued, wind aft and very pleasant.
11. Wind and weather much the same as yesterday. Tho it had blown a steady breeze of wind these three days no sea at all was up, from whence we began to conclude that we had pass'd the Line drawn between the Great South Sea and the Pacifick ocean by
I am quite at a loss to explain when or where this line was drawn. By courtesy of the President, Council and Fellows of the Royal Society, I was enabled to consult the Council Minutes, but have found no reference to the matter in the eighteenth century up to 1768. When Balboa first named the sea he saw in 1513, looking south from the Gulf of San Miguel, he called it the Mar del Zur, the South Sea. It was Magellan who conferred the name Pacific. Dampier, writing of his passage from New Voyage (Voyages, ed. Masefield, I. pp. 120–1). The eighteenth century cartographers seem to have placed the names according to individual fancy.
12. Wind continued fair but in the even flaggd a little; we began to imagine that it must be the trade, at least if it continues we resolv'd [to] call it so.
13. Almost calm to day tho not quite enough for going out in the boat. I saw a tropick bird for the first time hovering over the ship but flying very high; if my eyes did not deceive me it differd from that describd by Linnæus, Phaeton æthereus, in having the long feathers of his tail red and his crissum black.Phaethon rubricauda, the Red-tailed Tropic Bird. The crissum, i.e. the feathers immediately posterior to the vent, is not black: see Banks's note for 21 March. See Pl. 6.
Towards even set the servants to work with a dipping net who took A nudibranch, Mimus volutatorGlaucus atlanticus; see 4 October 1768.Phyllodoce velella, both exactly the same as those we have seen in the Atlantick ocean. Lat. 30.45, Long. 126.23.45.
14. Very light winds today shifting from South to East: at noon an alarm of Land being seen which proved at night to be no more than a fog bank tho it certainly remaind many hours without any change in its appearance.
The tropick birds this Evening made a noise as they flew over the ship not unlike some gulls.
15. All but calm all this day: many tropick birds were about the ship. The sea today was remarkably quiet so that the ship had little or no motion.
This night happend an occultation of Saturn by the moon, which M Cook mentions the observation, but leaves blank the times of immersion and emersion; so evidently Banks was right, and the details were not worth noting.r Green observ'd but was unlucky in having the weather so cloudy that the observation was good for little or nothing.
16. Calm almost, but the ship stole through this remarkably smooth water so that I do not think it worth while to have a boat hoisted out; by observation to day they find that she has gone these two days much faster than the log which they tell me is very often the case in light winds when the ship goes before them.
Our water which was taken aboard at Terra del Fuego has remaind till this time perfectly good without the least change, an instance which I am told is very rare, especialy as in our case when water is brought from a cold climate into a hot one. This however has stood it without any damage and now drinks as brisk and pleasant as when first taken on board, or better, for the red colour it had at first is subsided and it is now as clear as any English spring water.
17. Most of this day as yesterday almost calm, at night a small breeze came on from ENE so that the ship went 4 knotts.
18. Squally weather all night with heavy rain: this morn much the same, the rain so heavy that the Cabbin was twice baild of more than a bucket full at a time, all which came in at the crevises of the weather quarter window, The ‘quarter window’ was one of the windows next the ship's stern, the ‘weather quarter window’ that one exposed to the wind. The winds this day as noted by Cook were north-east and north, and the ship's course was N 60° 45’ W, so it was the window on the starboard side that took in the rain.
19. Pleasant breeze, ship went N by W. Some flying fish were seen this morn and several procellarias cheifly of the brown sorts as sordida.
20. Very fine as yesterday: many tropick birds were about the ship, as indeed there has been every day since I first mentiond them but still more of them as the weather was finer. Lat. today. Long. In Cook, lat. 25° 44’ S, long. 129° 28’ W. The ship was now approaching the Tuamotus, within which is would in a fortnight make its first landfall, but the closest land was Pitcairn, a little farther north and west—lat. 25° 04’ S, long. 130° 05’ W. i.e. the Southern Continent. The Nassau fleet, so called after its patron the Prince of Nassau, was the Dutch fleet that set out in 1623 under Jacob le Hermite and In the chart included in his Orange Tree one of the Nassau fleet who being separated from her Companions and drove to the westward reported on her joining them again that she had twice seen the Southern continent;Orange, separated from the fleet by bad weather, rejoined it at r DalrympleAccount of the Discoveries made in the South Pacifick Ocean, Previous to 1764 (London 1769). It will be remembered that Dalrymple presented Banks with a copy of this pamphlet, previous to the Endeavour's departure. On the chart the Dutch ‘discoveries’ of 1624 are indicated about 91° W, so that on this reckoning the Endeavour had already sailed more than 38 degrees of longitude into the continent.
To streng[t]hen these weak arguments another Theory has been started which says that it is Nescessary that so much of the South sea as the authors of it call land should be so, otherwise this wor[l]d would not be properly bal[a]nc'd as the quantity of Earth known to be situated in the Northern hemisphere would not have a counterpoise in this. The number of square degrees of their land which we have already chang'd into water sufficiently disproves this, and teaches me at least that till we know how this globe is fixd in that place which has been since its creation assignd to it in the general system, we need not be anxious to give reasons how any one part of it counterbalances the rest.
21. Calm this morn: went out in the boat and shot Tropick bird The Red-tailed Tropic Bird. There is a painting by Parkinson, I, pl. 31, of one of these birds in flight, dated 1769. Solander's description bears this date but he does not refer to a painting. see pl. 6. Perhaps one of the Herald Petrels, One of the gadfly petrels recorded by Solander; cf.15 February above. ? Probably Phaeton erubescens,Procellaria atrata,Pterodroma arminjoniana heraldica (Salvin); Solander's description, p. 81, is suggestive of one of these birds in the dark phase.veloxsordida. Took Turbo fluitansJanthina sp. There seem to be no drawings or descriptions of this gastropod, which can only doubtfully be assigned to this genus.Helix Janthina, Medusa Porpita exactly like those taken on the other side of the continent,Porpita porpita. See 20 September 1768.Cimex? which also was taken before
Halobates sp. Cf. 7 October 1768.acarus Phaetintissic; Sol. MS Phaetontis. Alloptes phaetontis (Fabr.), a mite. See Parkinson III, pl. 3, and Solander, p. 291.
Besides what was shot today there were seen Man of war birds Man-of-war or Frigate Birds belong to the genus The terns may have been the Roseate Tern, Quiros came on these islands when outward bound in January 1606. His La Encarnacion, now called Ducie island, lies in lat. 24° 40’ S, long. 124° 48’ W; his San Juan Batista, or Henderson, in lat. 24° 22’ S, long. 128° 18’ W—about 190 miles westward of Ducie. Dalrymple, from whom Banks probably worked, in his pelecanus aquilus,Fregata, and have distinctive forked tails.sterna hirundo.Sterna dougalli Montagu, which is said to occur in this region. Egg Bird is a name generally applied by sailors to terns, and particularly to the Wideawake or Sooty Tern, Sterna fuscata.t Jno Baptist.Account of the Discoveries, pp. 20–1, gives the position of La Encarnacion as 25° S, 146° 9’ W, and of San Juan Batista as two days’ sail to the westward of it. Cook's position for this day was lat. 25° 21’ S, long. 129° 28’ W.
22. Fresh breeze of wind today, the ship layd no better than west so we were forcd to give over our hopes on the NNW point. i.e. of sighting the land which the flight of birds the previous evening had indicated. The birds were no doubt flying to one of the eastern Tuamotus.
23. Most troublesome weather, calms and squalls with very heavy rain but the wind will not stirr. Many Egg birds seen today and some few Tropick.
24. Blew fresh still, wind as foul as ever. The officer of the watch reported that in the middle watch the water from being roughish became on a sudden as smooth as a mill pond, so that the ship from going only 4 knotts at once increasd to six, tho there was little or no more wind than before this, and a log of wood which
Cook notes his feelings at this indication of land, which he did not see himself (it passed, or was thought to pass, the ship, about 3 AM) in his own journal for 24 March: he did not think himself at liberty to search for land he was not sure to find. On this point, and Dalrymple's criticism, see my note, Cook I, p. 66, n. 3.
At 8 when I came on deck the signs were all gone, I saw however two birds which seemed to be of the sterna? kind both very small, one quite white and another quite black The former was possibly the White Tern, Gygis alba Sparrman, or perhaps the Marquesan White Tern, a small race of the same species. There are no very small black terns; the White-capped Noddy, Anous minutus (Boie) is 13–14 inches long and breeds in the Tuamotus. See also Banks's note about terns on 4 April 1769.
Today by our reckoning we crossed the tropick. The Tropic of Capricorn. Cook gives his latitude for March 24 as 23° 23’ S, and for March 25 as 22° 11’ S.
25. Wind continued much the same but more moderate, few or no birds were about the ship but some sea weed was seen by some of the people, only one bed.
This even one of our marines threw himself overboard and was not miss'd till it was much too late even to attempt to recover him. He was a very young man scarce 21 years of age, remarkably quiet and industrious, and to make his exit the more melancholy was drove to the rash resolution by an accident so trifling that it must appear incredible to every body who is not well accquainted with the powerfull effects that shame can work upon young minds.
This day at noon he was sentry at the Cabbin door and while he was on that duty one of the Capt8 servants being calld away in a hurry left a peice of seal skin in his charge, which it seems he was going to cut up to make tobacco pouches some of which he had promisd to several of the men; the poor young fellow it seems had several times askd him for one, and when refus'd had told him that since he refusd him so trifling a thing he would if he could steal one from him, this he put in practise as soon as the skin was given into his charge and was of course found out immediately as the other returnd, who was angry and took the peice he had cut off from him but declard he would not complain to the officers for so trifling a cause.
In the mean time the fact came to the ears of his fellow soldiers, who stood up for the honour of their Core 13 in number so highly that before night, for this hapned at noon, they drove the young fellow almost mad by representing his crime in the blackest coulours as a breach of trust of the worst consequence: a theft committed
This unfortunate young man was William Greenslade.
26. This whole day calms succeeded by hard squalls with much rain, which weather the seamen call trolly lollys; the wind went more than once round the Compass which made us hope that we were near the trade at least. Few or no birds and no tropick birds.
27. Weather much like yesterday, no birds, at night a little more setled.
28. Calm today: one tropick bird was seen this morn. After dinner a Shark came the first we had seen in these seas, he greedily took the bait but the line being old broke, very soon he however returnd with the hook and chain hanging out of his mouth but would not take the second bait.
29. Calm again. Bent a new shark line in the even a shark alongside took the bait but broke the new line just as we were going to hoist him in, I am told by the people that common fishing line will never last above a year if ever so much care is taken of it.
30. Some birds and bonitos seen this morn but none after I came upon deck.
31. Pleasant breeze of wind which is the trade: some few tropick birds seen this morn. Myself not quite well a little inflammation in my throat and swelling of the glands.
April1769
1. Something better today. As my complaint has something in it that at least putts me in mind of the scurvy I took up the lemon Juice put up by D See Hulme's letter to Banks, Appendix, II, p. 301 below. r Hulmes directionDe Scorbuto. He expanded this in a Latin essay of 1768 on scurvy, which had an appendix in English on the benefits of lime—i.e. lemon—juice on long voyages, showing that this had been familiar to the English since the sixteenth century. Nevertheless lime juice proper, as later used, did not become a common precaution on ships till the nineteenth century. Cook set more store on wort of malt and on fresh food generally. Hulme held important medical posts and was elected F.R.S. in 1794.s into less than 2 has kept well as any thing could do. The small Cagg in which was lemon juice with one fifth of brandy was also very good tho large part of it had leak'd out by some fault in the Cagg; this therefore I began to make use of immediately drinking very weak punch made with it for my common liquor.
2. Many birds today about noon passd by the ship making a noise something like gulls, they were black upon the back and white under the belly probably of the sterna kind; Probably a flock of Wideawake or Sooty Terns, Sterna fuscata. This is confirmed by Cook's remarks on these birds ‘—a large flock of Birds, they had brown backs and white bellies they fly and make a noise like Stearings [an old name for the Arctic Tern] and are shaped like them only something larger’.—Cook I, p. 68.
3. Several of the same kinds of birds seen today as were seen yesterday, also many Egg-birds; the trade continued to blow fresh with very pleasant weather.
4. At 10 this morn my servant The ship was passing through the Tuamotus. The land bore south, says Cook, distant three or four leagues; its native name is Vahitahi.
The Island was coverd with trees of many very different verdures; the Palms or Cocoa nut trees we could plainly distinguish particularly two that were amazingly taller than their fellows and at a distance bore a great resemblance to a flag. The land seemd all very low
Pl. III.
Berberis ilicifolia
Tierra del Fuego
After dinner land was again seen which we came up with at sunset; it provd a small Island not more than £¾ of a mile in lengh but almost round, Banks notes the name in his margin, ‘Thrum cap’. It was Aki Aki. The name Thrum Cap was conferred by Cook because of its shape and the shaggy appearance it was given by palms and bushes. Thrums were the end-pieces sticking out in rough weaving; to thrum, in nautical speech, was to fasten bunches of rope yarn over a sail or mat, for the purpose, e.g., of stopping a leak.
In the neighbourhood of both this and the other Island were many birds, man of war birds and a small black sort of The White-capped Noddy, sterna? with a white spot on his head which the seamen calld NoddiesAnous minutus.
While we were near the Island a large fish was taken with a towing line baited with a peice of Pork rind cut like a swallows tail
Scomber lanceolatus.Acanthocybium solandri (Cuv. and Val.). Cuvier and Valenciennes in their Hist. Nat. Poiss. 8, p. 192, founded the species on the description of this fish by Solander, pp. 267–8; they make no reference to Parkinson's painting of it (II, pl. 87).
5. Less wind this morn than yesterday with some showers of rain. While we were at dinner word was brought down that there was land in sight from the mast head, and found it a low Island but of much greater extent than either of those seen yesterday being from 10 to 15 leagues in circumference. Myself remaind at the mast head the whole evening admiring its extrordinary structure: in shape it appeard to be like a bow the wood and string of which was land Marginal note ‘Bow Island’; Hao. It was seen first by Bougainville, who called it The conjecture that there was an opening through the northern reef was right: it is the Kaki pass, very narrow, and certainly hardly to be seen distinctly from the ship.La Harpe.
Along the low beach or bowstring we saild within less than a league of the shore till sunsett when we judg'd ourselves about half way between the two horns, we then brought too and sounded, 130 fathom of line out and no ground; night which came on here almost instantly after sunset made us lose sight of the land before the line was well hauld in. We then steerd by the sound of the breakers which were very distinctly heard in the ship till we were clear of all.
That this land was inhabited appeard clearly by three smoaks in different parts of the Island which we saw repeated several different times, probably as signals from one to the other of our aproach. Our 2nd Lieutenant affirmed that he saw from the deck many inhabitants in the first clump of Trees, that they were walking to and fro as if on their ordinary business without taking the least notice of the ship, he saw also many houses and Canoes hauld up under the trees. To this I only say that I did not see them or know that any one else had till the ship had passd the place £½ an hour.
6. Pleasant breeze, at £½ past 11 land in sight again, at 3 came up with it, proved to be two distinct Islands with many small ones near them Joining by reefs under water. Marginal note, ‘the groups’. Called by Cook the Two Groups: Marokau to the north, Ravahere to the south. Banks's description which follows is much longer and more circumstantial than Cook's.
The Islands themselves were long thin strips of land ranging in all directions sometime ten or more miles in lengh but never more than a quarter of a mile broad; upon them were many Cocoa nut and other trees and many inhabitants several of whoom came out in Canoes as far as the reefs but would not come without them; 6 particularly who for some time walkd along shore abreast of the ship, on our passing the end of the Island launchd two Canoes with great quickness and dexterity and 3 getting into each the[y] put off as we thought intending to come to us. The ship was brought
The people seemd as well as we could judge (who were a good £½ mile from the shore) to be about our size and well made, of a dark brown complexion, stark naked, wearing their hair tied back with a fillet which passd round their head and kept it sticking out behind like a bush. The greatest number of them carried in their hands two weapons, one a slender pole from 10 to 14 feet in lengh at one end of which was a small knob or point not unlike the point of a spear, the other not above 4 feet long made much like a paddle as possibly it was intended, for their canoes were very different in size. The two which we saw them launch seemd not intended to carry more than barely the 3 men who got into each of them, others there were which had 6 and some 7 men; one of these hoisted a sail which did not seem to reach above 6 feet high above the boat, this (as soon as they came to the reef and stoppd their boat) they took down and converted into a shed to shelter them from a small shower of rain which then fell. The Canoe which followd us to sea hoisted a sail not unlike an English lugsail and near as lofty as an English boat of the same size would have carried.
The people on the shore made many signals but whether they meant to frighten us away or invite us ashore is dificult to tell: they wavd with their hands and seemd to beckon us to them but they were assembld together with clubs and staves as they would have done had they meant to oppose us. Their signs we answerd by waving our hats and shouting which they answerd by shouting again. Our situation made it very improper to try them farther, we wanted nothing, the Island was too trifling to be an object worth taking possession of; had we therefore out of mere curiosity hoisted out a boat and the natives by attacking us oblige us to destroy some of them the only reason we could give for it would be the desire of satisfying a useless curiosity. We shall soon by our connections with the inhabitants of Georges Island (who already know our strengh and if they do not love at least fear us) gain some knowledge of the customs of these savages; or possibly persuade one of them to come with us who may serve as an interpreter,
7. This morn at day break Land in sight again, by 8 O'Clock came up with an Island made up like the last of narrow slips of land and reefs of rocks, the greatest part of the land lookd green and pleasant but it was without cocoa nut trees or any sign of inhabitants. Marginal note, ‘Bird Island’. Cook notes, ‘there is some wood upon it but no Inhabitants but birds and for this reason is call'd Bird Island’.—I, p. 72. It was Reitoru.
I purposely omit to mention the size of these Islands as it is almost impossible to guess at, and very dificult to give an idea of the contents of narrow strips of land which run one within another as a ribband thrown carelessly down would do. If you measure the lengh of it, it 4 or 5 times exceeds the space of sea that it occupies, if the circumference, such land of 100 Leagues in circumference would scarce contain 100 square miles; if the Space of sea that they occupy you err as much, for of that 20, 40, nay sometimes 100 parts are sea for one of land, tho that sea is so shut in by banks and reefs that no ship can get into it.
8. Pleasant breeze but we have as yet found the trade hardly so strong as it was in the Atlantick. At 2 O'Clock Land was seen from the masthead, the ship stands for it and about sunset came abreast of it distant 2 leagues. It prove'd an Island larger than any we had seen as it extended 6 or 7 leagues, it was every where coverd with plenty of large trees probably Cocoa nuts and it is also inhabited as I substitute this Marginal note, ‘Chain Island’. Anaa.as for Banks's &. SP read &.
9. Fine weather and pleasant breeze. It is now almost night and time for me to wind up the clue i.e. clew, a ball of thread or yarn. This pickled cabbage is not to be confused with the sic; perhaps a slip for to. S at P at.sauerkraut on which Cook set such store as a preservative of health.
Take a strong Iron bound cask for no weak or wooden bound one should ever be trusted in a long voyage, take out the head and when the whole is well cleand cover the bottom with salt. Then take the Cabbage and stripping off the outside leaves take the rest leaf by leaf till you come to the heart which cut into four; these leaves and heart lay upon the Salt about 2 or 3 inches thick and sprinkle Salt pretty thick over them and lay cabbage upon the salt stratum super thick till the cask is full. Then lay on the head of the cask with a weight which in 5 or 6 days will have pressd the cabbage into a much smaller compass. After this fill up the cask with more cabbage as before directed and Head it up. N.B. the Cabbage should be gatherd in dry weather some time after sun rise that the dew may not be upon it. Halves of cabbages are better for keeping than single leaves.
10. Last night a halo was observ'd round the moon which was followd by a very disagreable night, the wind being all round the compass and sometimes blowing very fresh with severe thunder and lightning and very heavy rain.
This morning the wind from N to NW, the weather very hazey and thick. About 9 it cleard up a little and showd us Osnabrug Island Spelt Osnabrugh in the margin, and by Cook Osnaburg. The name was given by Wallis, who discovered it in 1767; Bougainville called it Le Boudoir. Mehetia or Maitea.
At this time it remaind in dispute whether what had been so long seen to the Westward was realy land or only vapours; myself
As soon as I came down a shark att the stern attackd the net in which tomorrows dinner was towing to freshen, we hookd and took him just as it became dark.
11. Up at 5 this morn to examine the shark who proves to be A blew Shark Now Squalus glaucusPrionace glauca. There are two signed and dated paintings by Parkinson, I, pls. 49, 50, of this fish.Squalus Carcharias,Carcharodon carcharias. This species had been taken in the Atlantic; cf. September 29, 1768.Echinus remora.Remora remora.
Little wind and variable with Squalls from all points of the Compass bringing heavy rain. Georges Island in sight appearing very high in the same direction as the land was seen last night, so I found the fault was in our eyes yesterday tho the non-seers were much more numerous in the ship than the seers.
Today and yesterday many birds were about the ship among which a bird which I took to be the common tropick bird The White-tailed Tropic Bird; when immature these birds have crescentic black bars on their upper parts. The MS is a mixture of Phaeton æthereus was one, he was about the size of our tropick bird but differd from him in having black barrs upon his back and the long feathers in his tail white,saw and say. S say, P say.
Calm this even, at sunset Georges Land appeard plain tho we had not neard it much: since the clouds went from the tops of the hills it appeard less high than it did tho it certainly is very high.
As I am now on the brink of going ashore after a long passage thank god in as good health as man can be I shall fill a little paper in describing the means which I have taken to prevent the scurvy in particular.
The ship was supplyd by the Admiralty with Sower crout which I eat of constantly till our salted Cabbage was opend which I preferd as a pleasant substitute. Wort This was a decoction of malt, used as a standard remedy for scurvy: ‘the Sanguine and well-grounded expectations of the certain efficacy the Wort possesses to cure the Sea-scurvy and the very great probability of that distemper raging at some time or other in the course of a long voyage induced, I apprehend, the R Banks had Hulme's letter bound up in his journal at this point: see p. 243, n. 2 above, and Appendix, II, p. 301.t Honourb10 the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty to send out a quantity of Malt in the Endeavour …’.— r Hulmes method describd in his book and in his letter which is inserted here:
12. Very nearly calm all last night, Georges Land was now but little nearer to us than last night, the tops of the hills were wrap'd in clouds. About 7 a small breze sprung up and we saw some Canoes coming off to us, by ten or eleven they were up with us. I forbear to say any thing about either people or canoes as I shall have so many better opportunities of observing them: we however bought their cargoes consisting of fruits and cocoa nuts which were very acceptable to us after our long passage.
13. This morn early came to an anchor in Port Royal bay Matavai Bay. A plantain or banana frond.
Our pleasure in seeing this was however not a little allayd by finding in all our walk only 2 hogs and not one fowl. The Dolphins
The ‘Queen's palace’ was evidently the guest-house or ‘arioi-house’, of the Haapape district, the place of general entertainment, to which Wallis was taken on his visit to Purea on 12 July 1767. It was of course not a palace, nor did it belong to Purea, nor was she the ‘Queen’. ‘Blackguards’ in the old sense of servants, camp-followers, the lower classes or ‘common sort’ generally.
14. This morn several Canoas came on board among which were two in which were people who by their dress and appearance seemd to be of a rank superior to those who we had seen yesterday. These we invited to come on board and on coming into the Cabbin each singled out his freind, Friend, i.e. taio, a word used to signify an attachment formal as well as warm—almost a ‘blood-brother’ though without the ceremony of blood.tn and the other me, they took off a large part of their cloaths and each dress'd his freind with them he took off: in return for this we presented them with each a hatchet and some beads. They made many signs to us desiring us to go the place where they livd to the SW of where we lay; the boats were hoisted out and we took them with us and immediately proceeded according to their directions.
After rowing about a league they beckon'd us in shore and shewd us a long house where they gave us to understand that they livd; here we landed and were met by some hundreds of inhabitants who conducted us into the long house. This seems to have been the Marginal note to these words, ‘Dootahah’. This note, like others, was obviously written in later, because it is not till 28 April that Banks registers the discovery of Tuteha's correct name.arioi-house at Point Utuhaihai (the site of the tomb of marae.tn Cook and me, we accepted of the present. Then a peice of Cloth was presented to each of us perfumd after their manner not disagreably which they took great pains to make us understand. My peice of Cloth was 11 yards long and 2 wide: for this I made return by presenting him with a large lacd silk neckcloth I had on and a linnen pocket handkercheif, these he immediately put on him and seemd to be much pleasd with.
After this ceremony was over we walkd freely about several large houses attended by the ladies who shewd us all kind of civilities our situation could admit of, but as there were no places of retirement, the houses being intirely without walls, we had not an opportunity of putting their politeness to every test that maybe some of us would not have faild to have done had circumstances been more favourable; indeed we had no reason to doubt any part of their politeness, as by their frequently pointing to the matts on the ground and sometimes by force seating themselves and us upon them they plainly shewd that they were much less jealous of observation than we were.
We now took our leave of our freindly cheif and proceeded along shore for about a mile when we were met by a throng of people at the head of whoom appeard another cheif. Marginal note, ‘Tubourai Tamaide’. Sec p. 265, n. 2 below.
Our cheifs own wife Marginal note, ‘Tomio’. Cook says this other gentleman was Monkhouse, the surgeon. Cook says a spy glass, which seems more in keeping.r Solander and another gentlemanr
15. This morn we landed at the watering place This was on the bank of the Vaipopoo river, close to the end of Point Venus; the river ran parallel with the beach from about half-way along the bay. Banks has not previously mentioned this old man. Cook gives his name as Owhaa (? Faa, but he is often referred to as Hau); he appears to have been some sort of subchief, who was useful as an intermediary both to the In a marginal note Banks gives the man's name as ‘Outou’. This may conceivably be correct; but he is rather more likely to have picked up the word Dolphin's people and in the first days of the Endeavour's visit.utu, a price paid, reward, penalty—i.e. the man had paid with his life for the musket.
16. No canoes about the ship this morning, indeed we could not expect any as it is probable that the news of our behaviour yesterday was now known every where, a circumstance which will doubtless not increase the confidence of our freinds the Indians. We were rather surprizd that the Dolphins old man who seemd yesterday so desirous of making peace was not come on board today; some few people were upon the beach but very few in proportion to what we saw yesterday. At noon went ashore the people rather shy of us as we must expect them to be till by good usage we can gain anew their confidence.
Poor Mr Buchan the young man who I brought out as lanscape and figure painter was yesterday attackd by an epileptick fit, he was today quite insensible, our surgeon gives me very little hopes of him.
17. At two this morn M It is curious that Banks does not mention the very sensible precaution he himself suggested: Cook writes, ‘Mr Buchan died, about nine every thing was ready for his interment he being already so much changd
r Solander Mr Sporing Mr Parkinson and some of the officers of the ship attended his funeral.r Banks thought it not so adviseable to Enterr the Body a shore in a place where we was utter strangers to the Customs of the Natives on such Occations, it was therefore se[n]t out to Sea and commited to that Element with all the decencey the circumstance of the place would admit of’.—I, p. 81.
Our two freinds the cheifs of the west came this morn to see us. One I shall for the future call Lycurgus from the justice he executed on his offending subjects on the 14 See below, p. 266.th, the other from the large size of his body I shall call Hercules.
In the afternoon we all went ashore to measure out the ground for the tents, which done Cap Cooke and Mr Green slept ashore in a tent erected for that purpose after having observd an eclipse of one of the satellites of Jupiter.
18. This morn at day break all hands were ashore and employd in getting up the tents and making a defence round them. The ground we have pitchd upon is very sandy which makes it nescessary to support it with wood, for the doing of this our people cut the boughs of trees and the Indians very readily assisted them in bringing them down to the place. Three sides of our fort are to be thus guarded the other is bounded by a river on the banks of which water cask[s] are to be placd.
The Indians brought down so much provision of Cocoa nuts and bread fruit today that before night we were obligd to leave off buying and acquaint them by signs that we should not want any more for 2 days; every thing was bought for beads, a bead about as large as a pea purchasing 4 or 6 breadfruits and a like number of Cocoa nutts.
My tents were got up before night and I slept ashore in them for the first time. The lines were guarded round by many Sentries but no Indian atempted to come near them during the whole night.
19. This morn Lycurgus and his wife come to see us and bring with them all their household furniture and even houses to be erected in our neighbourhood, a circumstance which gave me great pleasure as I had spard no pains to gain the freindship of this man who seemd more sensible than any of his fellow cheifs we have seen. His behavior in this Instance makes us not doubt of having gaind his confidence at least.
Soon after his arrival he took me by the hand and led me out of the lines, signing that I should accompany him into the woods, this I made no dificulty of dooing as I was desirous of knowing how near us he realy intended to settle. I followd him about a quarter of a mile when we arrivd at a small house or rather the awning of a canoe set upon the shore, which seemd to be his occasional habitation; here he unfolded a bundle of their cloaths and cloth'd me in two garments, one red cloth The cloth made of the bark of trees, called tapa.
About dinner time Lycurgus's wife brought a hansome young man about 22 to the tents whoom they both seemd to acknowledge as their son. At night he and another chief who had also visited us went away to the westward, but Lycurgus and his wife went towards the place I was at in the morning which makes us not doubt of their staying with us for the future.
Mr Monkhouse our surgeon walkd this evening into the woods and brought back an account of having seen the body of the man who was shot on the 15th. It was placd on a kind of Bier supported by stakes and coverd by a small hut which seemd to have been built for the purpose; the body was wrappd up in cloth and near it were plac'd war instruments a hatchet some hair a cocoa nut and a cup of water. Farther he did not examine on account of the stench of the body which was intolerable. They also [saw] two more huts of the same kind in one of which they saw the bones of the person who had lain there quite dry. A custom so new as this appears to be surprized us all very much, but whether all who die are thus disposd of or it is a peculiar honour shewn to those who dye in war is to be cleard up by future observation.
20. Raind hard all this day at intervals, so much so that we could not stir at all, the people however went on briskly with the
21. Several of our freinds at the tents this morn, one whoom from his grim countenance we have calld Ajax It does not seem possible to identify this person clearly. No doubt he was an arii; he may have been the huge chief later well known as Potatau, of Punaauia, though Potatau was generally regarded as affable rather than grim.
22. Pleasant weather, our freinds as usual come early to visit us, Hercules with two piggs and a Dolphins ax The Dolphin disposed of a number of axes in trade.
The flies have been so troublesome ever since we have been ashore that we can scarce get any business done for them; they eat the painters colours off the paper as fast as they can be laid on, and if a fish is to be drawn there is more trouble in keeping them off it than in the drawing itself.
Many expedients have been thought of, none succeed better than a mosquito net which covers table chair painter and drawings, but even that is not sufficent, a fly trap was nesscessary to set within this to atract the vermin from eating the colours. For that purpose yesterday tarr and molasses was mixt together but did not succeed. The plate smeard with it was left on the outside of the tent to clean: one of the Indians observing this took an opportunity when he thought that no one observd him to take some of this mixture up
PI. IV.
Hibiscus abelmoschus
Tahiti
Hercules gave us today a specimen of the musick of this countrey: 4 people performd upon flutes which they sounded with one nostril while they stopd the other with their thumbs, to these 4 more sang keeping very good time but during ½ an hour which we stayd with them they playd only one tune consisting of not more than 5 or 6 notes. More I am inclind to think they have not upon their instruments which have only two stops.
23. Mr Green and myself went today a little way upon the hills in order to see how the roads were. Lycurgus went with us but complaind much in the ascent saying that it would kill him. We found as far as we went, possibly 3 miles, exceeding good paths and at the farthest part of our walk boys bringing wood from the mountans, which we look upon to be a sure proof that journey will be easy whenever we atempt to go higher.
In our return I visited the Tomb or Bier in which was deposited the body of the man who was shot. I lifted up the cloth and saw part of the body already dropping to peices with putrefaction about him and indeed within all parts of his flesh were abundance of maggots of a species of Beetle very common here Fabricius worked on Banks's insect collection but he does not, in his Species Insectorum (1781), describe any beetle which can be identified with this reference. Different kinds of maggots live in succession on decaying flesh as it ripens and alters.
We had this evening some conversation about an ax which was brought in the morning by Hercules, it wanting grinding. Its make was very different from that of our English ones, several gentlemen were of opinion that it was a French one, some went so far as to give it as their opinion that some other ship had been here since the Dolphin. The difficulty however appeard to me at least easily solvd by supposing axes to have been taken in the Dolphin as trade, in which case old ones might have been bought of the make of any countrey, for many such I suppose there are in every old iron shop in London. The axe under discussion must have been one of those traded by
24. D This was the Vaituoru river, flowing down the Haapaianoo (Whapaiano on Cook's chart) valley. Both the river and the valley, now known as Papenoo, were the largest on the island. This seems to have been a case of island albinoism, but the scurfy skin suggests that perhaps over-indulgence in the drink called [r Solander and myself went along shore to the eastward in hopes of finding something worth observation by inlarging our ground. For about 2 miles the countrey within us was flat and fertile, the hills then came very near the waters edge and soon after quite into the sea so that we were obligd to climb over them. This barren countrey continued for about 3 miles more when we came to a large flat full of good houses and wealthy looking people; here was a river much more considerable than our own, it came out of a very deep and beautifull valley and was where we crossd it near 100 yards wide tho not quite at the sea.k]ava had something to do with it. Or it may have been what was called ‘chief's leprosy’, o'ovi arii.
25. I do not know by what accident I have so long omitted to mention how much these people are given to theiving. I will make up for my neglect however today by saying that great and small cheifs and common men all are firmly of opinion that if they can once get possession of any thing it immediately becomes their own. This we were convincd of the very second day we were here, the cheifs were employd in stealing what they could in the Cabbin while their dependants took every thing that was loose about the ship, even the glass ports not escaping them of which they got off with 2. Lycurgus and Hercules were the only two who had not yet been found guilty, but they stood in our opinion but upon tickilish ground as we could not well suppose them intirely free from a vice their countrey men were so much given up to.
Last night Dr Solander lent his knife to one of Lycurgus's women who forgot to return it, this morn mine was missing. I could give no account of it so resolvd to go to Lycurgus and ask him whether or not he had stole it trusting that if he had he would return it.
I went and taxd him with it. He denyd knowing any thing concerning it, I told him I was resolvd to have it returnd. On this a man present produc'd a rag in which was tied up 3 knives, one was Dr Solanders the other a table knife the other no one laid claim to. With these he marchd to the tents to make restitution while I remaind with the women who much feard that he would be hurt; when come there he restord the two knives to their proper owners and began immediately to search for mine in all the places where he had ever seen it lay. One of my servants seeing what he was about brought it to him, he had it seems laid it by the day before and did not know of my missing it. Lycurgus then burst into tears making signs with my knife that if he was ever guilty of such an action he would submit to have his throat cut. He returnd immediately to me with a countenance sufficiently upbraiding me for my suspicions; the scene was immediately changd, I became the guilty and he the innocent person, his looks affected me much. A few presents and staying a little with him reconcild him intirely; his behavior has however given me an opinion of him much superior to any of his countreymen.
26. Plenty of trade this morn indeed we have always had enough of bread fruit and cocoa nuts, refreshments maybe more nescessary for the people than pork tho they certainly do not like them so well.
Our freinds as usual at the tents today but do nothing worthy record.
27. The day passd as usual. Lycurgus and a freind of his (who eats most monstrously) dind with us, we christend him Epicurus. This person seems to be unidentifiable. The butcher was
This day we found that our freinds had names and they were not a little pleasd to discover that we had them likewise; for the future Lycurgus will be calld Tubourai tamaide: Tepau i Ahurai Tamaiti. Tubourai tamaide and his wife Tomío and the three women who commonly come with him Tėrapo,Tėraru and Omíė.Tamaiti, the son. He was the eldest son of the arii Vaetua i Ahurai, chief of Faaa, and brother of Purea—an important chief. Molyneux gives his name as Tuburi, so he was probably habitually addressed by some shortened form. Cook Toobouratomita. Tomio, probably Tamaio; Banks later changes his spelling to Tamio. Terapo and Teraro are probably correct. Omie, Omae?
28. Many of our freinds were with us very early even before day, some strangers with them. Terapo was observd to be among the women on the outside of the gate, I went out to her and brought her in, tears stood in her eyes which the moment she enterd the tent began to flow plentifully. I began to enquire the cause; she instead of answering me took from under her garment a sharks tooth and struck it into her head with great force 6 or 7 times. a profusion of Blood followd these strokes and alarmd me not a little; for two or 3 minutes she bled freely more than a pint in quantity, during that time she talkd loud in a most melancholy tone. I was not a little movd at so singular a spectacle and holding her in my arms did not cease to enquire what might be the cause of so strange an action, she took no notice of me till the bleeding ceas'd nor did any Indian in the tent take any of her, all talkd and laugh'd as if nothing melancholy was going forward; but what surpriz'd me most of all was that as soon as the bleeding ceas'd she lookd up smiling and immediately began to collect peices of cloth which during her bleeding she had thrown down to catch the blood. These she carried away out of the tents and threw into the sea, carefully dispersing them abroad as if desirous that no one should
This was undoubtedly a mourning ceremony, which might be indulged in at any time. Blood was a potent medium of psychic influence, therefore tapu, and must be safely disposed of.
After breakfast M This was of course Purea, Wallis's Oborea.r Molineux came ashore and the moment he enterd the tent fixing his eyes upon a woman who was setting there declard her to be the Dolphins Queen, she also instantly acknowledg'd him to be a person who she had before seen.
As soon as her majesties quality was known to us she was invited to go on board the ship, where no presents were spard that were thought to be agreable to her in consideration of the service she had been of to the Dolphin. Among other things a childs dol was given to her of which she seemd very fond. On her landing she met Hercules who for the future I shall call by his real name S has a note: 'Tootahah, spelt here; but in many other places Dootahah; both which mean the same Person. Indeed Tootahah is rather the properest manner of spelling it, as the sound of the t is more generally expressed in their language than the d’. Tuteha. Cook gives a very amusing account of this incident in his log—though not in his journal—which perhaps casts some light on the relations between these two important Tootahah.arii, as well as on a not to be suspected side of the character of Cook. See I, pp. 525–6.
The men who visited us constantly eat with us of our provisions, but the women never had been prevaild on to taste a morsel; today however they retird sometime after dinner into the servants apartment and eat there a large quantity of plantains, tho they could not be persuaded to eat with us, a mystery we find it very dificult to account for. Eating tapu was stringent, and the sexes never ate together, or shared the same food. But it is plain that the women of a lower social class who came on board the ship found it convenient to eat whatever they could get in the 'servants’ apartment’, as long as they were not seen, or the adventure known, by their countrymen. After all, infringement of tapu did not necessarily have the same result in a European environment as in a Tahitian.
29. My first business this morning was to see the promise I had made to Tubourai and Tomio of the butchers being punishd This is a good example of Cook's even-handed justice. Cf. Molyneux: ‘All hands being called, and the Prisoner being brought aft, the Captain explained the nature of his Crime in the most lively manner, and made a very Pathetick speech to the Ship's Company during his punishment. The woman was in the greatest agonies, and strongly interceded for him…’—Cook I, p. 554.t Cooke immediately orderd the offender to be punishd; they stood quietly and saw him stripd and fastned to the rigging but as soon as the first blow was given interfered with many tears, begging the punishment might cease a request which the Captn would not comply with.
On my return ashore I proceeded to pay a visit to her majesty ? Pati. The marriage connection between Purea and Amo was by this time purely a matter of form, and both as an important Breeches, one supposes, in a metaphorical sense. He probably refers to the Oborea [as] I shall for the future call her. She I was told was still asleep in her Canoe-awning, where I went intending to call up her majesty but was surprizd to find her in bed with a hansome lusty young man of about 25 whose name was Obadée.arii and as an arioi large liberties were in order for her without any loss of respectability. They did not necessarily make her, as Remarks on Mr. Forster's Account of Captain Cook's last Voyage round the World, 1778, p. 52 n.)pareu, the skirt worn by both sexes, coming rather below the knees.
At night I visited Tubourai as I often did by candle light and found him and all his family in a most melancholy mood: most of them shed tears so that I soon left them without being at all able to find out the cause of their greif. Ouwhá the Dolphins old man and another who we did not know had prophesied to some of our people that in 4 days we should fire our guns: this was the 4th night and the circumstance of Tubourai crying over me as it was interpreted alarmd our officers a good deal. The sentrys are therefore doubled and we sleep tonight under arms.
30. A very strict watch was kept last night as intended, at 2 in the morn myself went round the point, found every thing so quiet that I had no kind of doubts.
Our little fortification is now compleat, it consists of high breastworks at each end, the front palisades and the rear guarded by the river on the bank of which are placd full Water cask[s], at every
About 10 Tomio came running to the tents, she seizd my hand and told me that Tubourai was dying and I must go instantly with her to his house. I went and Found him leaning his head against a post. He had vomited they said and he told me he should certainly dye in consequence of something our people had given him to eat, the remains of which were shewn me carefully wrapd up in a leaf. This upon examination I found to be a Chew of tobacco which he had begg'd of some of our people, and trying to imitate them in keeping it in his mouth as he saw them do had chewd it almost to powder swallowing his spittle. I was now master of his disease for which I prescribd cocoa nut milk which soon restor'd him to health.
May1769
1. This morn in walking round the point I saw a canoe which I suppose to have come from a distance by her having a quantity of fresh water in her in Bamboes; in every other respect she is quite like those we have seen, her people however are absolute strangers to us. Before noon our freinds visit us as usual and the day passed without any events.
2. About 10 this morn the astronomical quadrant which had been brought ashore yesterday was miss'd, a circumstance which alarmd us all very much. It had been laid in Captn Cook's birth where no one slept, the telescopes were in my tent safe. Every place was searchd aboard and ashore but no such thing to be found. It appeard very improbable that the Indians could have carried so large a thing out of the tents without being observd by the sentries, our people might have stole [it] as it was packd up in a deal case and might by them be suppos'd to contain nails or some kind of traffick; a large reward was therefore offerd to any one who could find it and all hands sent out to search round the fort, upon a supposition that the Indians would immediately quit a prize that could be of so little use to them. In about an hour all returnd, no news of the Quadrant. I now went into the woods to get intelligence no longer doubting but that it was in the hands of the Indians. Tubourai met me crossing the river and immediately made with 3 straws in his hand the figure of a triangle: the Indians had opend the cases. No time was now to be lost; I made signs to
r Green, we went to the Eastward. At every house we went past Tubourai enquird after the theif by name, the people readily told him which way he had gone and how long ago it was since he pass'd by, a circumstance which gave great hopes of coming up with him. The weather was excessive hot, the Thermometer before we left the tents up at 91 made our journey very tiresome. Sometimes we walk'd sometimes we ran when we imagind (which we sometimes did) that the chase was just before us till we arrivd at the top of a hill about 4 miles from the tents: from this place Tubourai shew'd us a point about 3 miles off and made us understand that we were not to expect the instrument till we got there. We now considerd our situation, no arms among us but a pair of pocket pistols which I always carried, going at least 7 miles from our fort where the Indians might not be quite so submissive as at home, going also to take from them a prize for which they had venturd their lives. All this considerd we thought it proper that while Mr Green and myself proceeded the midshipman should return and desire captn Cooke to send a party of men after us, telling him at the same time that it was impossible we could return till dark night. This done we proceeded and in the very spot Tubourai had mentiond were met by one of his own people bringing part of the Quadrant in his hand. We now stop'd and many Indians gatherd about us rather rudely, the sight of one of my pistols however instantly checkd them and they behav'd with all the order imaginable, tho we quickly had some hundreds surrounding a ring we had markd out on the grass. The box was now brought to us and some of the small matters such as reading glasses &c. which in their hurry they had put into a pistol case, this I knew belongd to me, it had been stole out of the tents with a horse pistol in it which I immediately demanded and had immediately restord. Mr Green began to overlook the Instrument to see if any part or parts were wanting, several small things were, and people were sent out in search of them some of which returnd and others did not; the stand was not there but that we were informd had been left behind by the theif and we should have it on our return, an answer which coming from Tubourai satisfied us very well; nothing else was wanting but what could easily be repaird so we pack'd all up in grass as well as we could and proceeded homewards. After walking about 2 miles we met Captn Cooke with a party of marines coming after us, all were you may imagine not a little pleasd at the event of our excursion.
The Captn on leaving the Tents left orders both for the ship and shore, which were that no canoes should be suffer'd to go out of the bay but that nobodys person should be seizd or detaind, as we rightly guessd that none of our freinds had any hand in the theft. These orders were obeyd by the 1st Lieutenant who was ashore, but the second aboard seeing some canoes going along shore sent a boat to fetch them back; the boatswain commander did so and with them brought Dootahah, the rest of their crews leap'd overboard, he was sent ashore prisoner. The 1st Lieutenant of course could not do less than confine him which he did to the infinite dissatisfaction of all the Indians, this we heard from them 2 miles before we reachd the tents on our return. Tubourai, Tomaio and every Indian that we let in Joind in lamenting over Dootahah with many tears. I arrivd about a quarter of an Hour before the Captn during which time this scene lasted; as soon as he came he orderd him to be instantly set at liberty which done he walkd off sulky enough tho at his departure he presented us with a pig.
3. Dr Solander and myself who have all along acted in the capacity of market men attended this morn but no kind of provisions were brought, indeed few Indians appeard except the servants of Dootahah who very early took away his Canoe. Soon after Tubiaarii and priest of Raiatea, who, when driven from his possessions by invaders from Borabora, had arrived in Tahiti and become very influential with Purea—apparently her chief priest. He had survived the great defeat, and Tuteha, against whom he had actively plotted, let him alone. He was both able and knowledgeable.
In the course of the day I went into the woods. The Indians were civil but every where complaind of the ill usage Dootahah had met with, they said that he had been beat and pulld by the hair; I endeavour'd all I could to convince them that no violence had been offerd to them but without success, I fear the Boatswain
4. No trade this morn but a little fish so we are for the first time in distress for nescessaries. I went into the woods to Tubourai and perswauded him to give me 5 long baskets of bread fruit, a very seasonable supply as they contain above 120 fruits. A very few Indians appear today before the fort, fewer than yesterday. After dinner came a messenger from Dootahah requesting a shirt and a hatchet (he had been here yesterday with the same demand) I suppose in return for the hog he gave us on his release; the Captn sent him back telling him that he would tomorrow visit him and bring the things himself. In the Evening I went into the woods, found the Indians as usual civil but complaining much of the treatment Dootahah had met with on the 2nd.
5. This morn Cook writes it in his journal as Apparra. Pare was meant, more particularly the Obadée (her majesties bedfellow) came pretty early to visit us or rather himself to take a view of her canoe. He carefully overhauld every thing in it and complaind of the Loss of some trifling thing I could not understand what; after this he brought every thing out of it and deliverd them into my charge desiring that they might be taken care of, after which he left us. A very small quantity of Bread fruit brought this morn. At breakfast time came two messengers from Dootahah to put the captn in mind of his promise of Visiting him. Accordingly at 9 the boat set out carrying the Captn Dr Solander and myself. We arrivd in about an hour, Eparremarae at Point Utuhaihai. Both Cook and Banks thus rendered wrongly the Tahitian o, an article prefixed to proper names (and also pronouns) when in the nominative case; cf. O Tahiti, whence the early European form of the name, Otaheite. But 'O’ might be an integral part of a name.
The diversion began by the combatants some of them at least walking round the yard with a slow and grave pace every now and then striking their left arms very hard, by which they causd a deep and very loud noise, which it seems was a challenge to each other or any one of the company who chose to engage in the exercise. Within the house stood the old men ready to give applause to the victor and some few women who seem'd to be here out of compliment to us, as much the larger number absented themselves upon the occasion.
The general challenge was given as I before said, the particular one soon followd it by which any man singled out his antagonist, it was done by joining the finger ends of both hands even with the breast and then moving the Elbows up and down. If this was accepted the challenged immediately returnd the signal and instantly both put themselves in an attitude to engage, which they very soon did striving to seize each other by the hands hair or the cloth they had round their middles, for they had no other dress. This done they attempted to seize each other by the thigh which commonly decided the contest in the fall of him who was thus taken at disadvantage; if this was not soon done they always parted either by consent or their freinds interferd in less than a minute, in which case both began to clap their arms and seek anew for an antagonist either in each other or some one else.
When any one fell the whole amusement ceasd for a few moments, in which time the old men in the house gave their aplause in a few words which they repeated together in a kind of tune.
This lasted about 2 hours, all which time the man who we observd at our first Landing continued to beat the people who did not keep at a proper distance most unmercifully. We understood that he was some officer belonging to Dootahah and was calld his Tomítė. ? Tamaiti, son. From the context it seems that this person was probably the official called the taumihau, the chief's administrator—who might very well be a member of his family.
The wrestling over the gentlemen informd me that they understood that 2 hoggs and a large quantity of Bread fruit &c. was cooking for our dinners, news which pleasd me very well as my stomach was by this time sufficiently prepard for the repast. I went out and saw the ovens in which they were now buried, these the Indians readily shewd me telling me at the same time that they would soon be ready and how good a dinner we should have. In about half an hour all was taken up but now Dootahah began to repent of his intended generosity; he thought I suppose that a hog would be lookd upon as no more than a dinner and consequently no present made in return, he therefore changd his mind and ordering one of the pigs into the boat sent for us who soon collected together and getting our Knives prepard to fall too, saying that it was civil of the old gentleman to bring the provisions into the boat where we could with ease keep the people at a proper distance, who in the house would have crouded us almost to death. His intention was however very different from ours for instead of asking us to eat he ask'd to go on board of the ship, a measure we were forcd to comply with and row 4 miles with the pig growing cold under our noses before he would give it to us. Aboard however we dind upon this same pig and his majesty eat very heartily with us. After dinner we went ashore, the sight of Dootahah reconcild to us acted like a charm upon the people and before night bread fruit and cocoa nuts were brought to sell in tolerable plenty.
6. Plenty of bread-fruit at market this morn but few cocoa nuts. After dinner Dootahah visited the tents bringing 5 baskets of bread-fruit and some cocoa nuts; he went to the eastward and slept tonight at the long house. Trade rather slack this morn, but we have so much bread-fruit before hand from the trade and presents of yesterday that [it] is immaterial whether we buy any or not today.
7. After dinner Dootahah came in a double canoe, after him came another bringing 4 hogs and one of these he orderd out of the boat with some bread fruit. I undertook to coax him out of the rest but had not the success I could have wishd, he would part with only one more and for that both the Capth and myself were obligd to go aboard with him and give him a broad ax.
8. M Since a tree circumference of 60 yards is incredible any identification here can only be conjectural. srs Molineux and Green went to the eastward today in the pinnace intending to purchase hoggs. They went 20 miles, saw many hogs and one turtle but the people would part with neither one nor the other, they belongd they said to Dootahah and without his leave they could not sell them. We now begin to think that
r Green measurd today a tree which he saw, it provd to be 60 yards in circumference. He brought home some boughs of it but they were thrown overboard before I could see them so the species of this monstrous tree remains a doubt with us.Ficus prolixa Forst.— if the combination of a mass of closely grown aerial roots together with the main trunk be admitted.
This morn I fix'd my little boat before the door of the Fort, it serves very well for a place to trade in. Trade is not now as it has been, formerly we usd to buy enough for all hands between sunrise and 8 O'Clock now attendance must be given all day or little can be done.
9. Cocoa nuts have been for some days rather scarce, we are therefore obligd for the first time to bring out our nails. Last night our smallest size about 4 inches long was offerd for 20 Cocoa nutts, accordingly this morn several came with that number so that we had plenty of them. Smaller lots as well as bread fruit sold as usual for beads.
Soon after breakfast Came Oborea, Obadee and Tupia bringing a hog and some breadfruit; they stayd with us till night then took away their canoe and promisd to return in 3 days. We had to day 350 Cocoa nuts and more bread fruit than we would buy so that we aproach our former plenty.
10. This morn Captn Cooke planted divers seeds which he had brought with him in a spot of ground turnd up for the purpose. They were all bought of Gordon at Mile End and sent in bottles seald up, whether or no that method will succeed the event of this plantation will shew. Plenty of Bread fruit and cocoanuts again today. Towards evening Tubourai and Tomio returnd from the west and seemd extreemly glad to see all of us.
We have now got the Indian name of the Island, O Tahiti: Otahite,O as the nominative article. Cf. p. 271, n. 1 above. Banks's phonetic rendering (his i would be long, as in ‘time’) differs rather on paper, but perhaps not in intention, from the ‘Otaheite’ used by Cook and others, and perhaps no more from the classical pronunciation of the name than does the present version. There was in this older pronunciation a ‘forced diphthong’ or ‘vowel glide’ that tended to play down the intermediate h and assimilate somewhat the a of the first syllable and the i of the second.tn Cooke Toolė, Dr Solander Torano, Mr Hicks Hėtė, Mr Gore Toárro, Mr Molineux Boba from his Christian name Robert, Mr Monkhouse Mato, and myself Tapanė. In this manner they have names for almost every man in the ship.
11. Cocoa nuts were brought down so plentifully this morn that by ½ past 6 I had bought 350: this made it nescessary to drop the price of them least so many being brought at once we should exhaust the countrey and want hereafter; notwistanding I had before night bought more than a thousand at the rates of 6 for an amber coulourd bead, 10 for a white one, and 20 for a fortypenny nail. A ‘fortypenny nail’ was a nail 4½ inches long, sold at forty pence for a hundred.
12. Cocoa nuts very plentifull this morning. About breakfast time Dootahah visits us. Immediately after while I sat trading in the boat at the door of the fort a double Canoe came with several women and one man under the awning. The Indians round me made signs that I should go out and meet them, by the time I had got out of the boat they were within ten yards of me. The people made a lane from them to me. They stopd and made signs for me to do the same. The man in company with them had in his hand a large bunch of boughs; he advancd towards me bringing two, one a young plantain the other. The MS has a space here for the name of the tree from which the second bough came, which with Banks's lack of punctuation has led to corruption in P—i.e. ‘he advanced towards me bringing to one a young plantain the other’ etc. S has the blank, and punctuates ‘two; one a young plantain, the other’ etc. A marginal note gives her name as Ourattooa: Uratua or Ura-atua? The precise meaning of this pleasant ceremony is not easy to disentangle. The formal presentation of cloth by stripping off large quantities of it from the body until the officiating young woman was almost naked was common enough practice, and the ceremony was called ? O Tahiatahia (the taurua. But this one has points of difference: it may have been merely an elaboration, or as the plantain had phallic significance it may (the suggestion has been made) have symbolized the generous feelings entertained by the female population of the district towards the young and attractive Banks. No such ceremony appears to have been performed for Cook or any other of the English identifiable as arii; and yet Cook was clearly the greatest chief of all.Othéothéatah sound often came to the European ear as th); or possibly Tiatia. Parkinson writes the name Otea Tea.
13. Our Freinds with us this morn in very good time as they generaly are, very shortly after sunrise plenty of cocoa nuts &c. at the market. After it was over, about 10 O'Clock, I walkd into the woods with my gun, as I generaly did to spend the heat of the day in the Indian houses where I could be cool from the shade of the trees which every where grow about them. In my return I met Tubourai near his house; I stopd with him, he took my gun out of my hand, cockd it and holding it up in the air drew the trigger, fortunately for him it flashd in the pan. Where he had got so much knowledge of the use of a gun I could not conceive but was sufficiently angry that he should attempt to exersise it upon mine, as I had upon all occasions taught him and the rest of the Indians that they could not offend me so much as even to touch it. I scolded him severely and even threatned to shoot him. He bore all patiently but the moment I had crossd the river he and his family bag and baggage movd of to their other house at Eparre. This step was no sooner taken than I was informd of it by the Indians about the fort. Not willing to lose the assistance of a man who had upon all occasions been particularly usefull to us I resolv'd to go this evening and bring him back, acordingly as soon as dinner was over I set out acompanied by Mr Molineux. We found him setting in the middle of a large circle of people, himself and many of the rest with most melancholy countenances some in tears; one old woman on our coming into the circle struck a sharks tooth into her head many times till it foamd with blood but her head seemd to have been so often excersisd with this expression of greif that it was become quite callous, for tho the crown of it was coverd with blood enough did not issue
About 11 one of the natives atempted to scale our walls intending no doubt to steal whatever he could find, but seeing himself observd he made off much faster than any of our people could follow him.
14. Our freinds Dootahah, Oborea, Otheothea &c. at the tents this morn as usual. It being Sunday Cap Cook had been both recommended by Lord Morton and enjoined by the Articles of War to give frequent performance to Divine Worship; he, like Banks, mentions it for this day, but from neither would one gather that it was a constant practice. Nor does Cook appear to have read the service, while Banks clearly was more interested in Polynesian theology. Other logs and journals however mention a Sunday service more frequently, and whatever part of the ship's company was not indispensably employed got a half-day off ‘at their own Leisure’.tn Cooke proposd that divine service should be celebrated
15. In the course of last night one of the Indians was clever enough to steal an Iron bound cask; it was indeed without the fort but so immediately under the eye of the Sentry that we could hardly beleive the possibility of such a thing having [happened] MS sic; a slip for hapning? S writes having, and adds happened interlineally. P having, which does not make sense, though Banks may have intended having been done.
16. The morning wet and disagreable. We hauld the Seine in several parts of the bay without the least success; the Indians are so fond of fish and so expert in catching it, using almost every method we do in Europe, that our want of success is not at all to be wonderd at. Tonight Tubourai, Tamio, Oborea, Obadee and Otheothea slept in my tent. At midnight the water casks were again atempted and two shot fird at the theif which alarmd my bedfellows not a little, they were however soon quieted by my going out and bringing back word of the reason of the firing.
17. Fine weather. Oborea and her freinds went early to Eparre as the rest of our cheifs did yesterday in 18 double canoes, so that we are quite dull for want of company in the tents. Tubourai and Tamio slept with me as usual.
18. Fine weather and good market, the apples This may be either the fruit of the Vi or yellow apple, Spondias dulcis, also called the Brazilian plum (Parkinson says it was the size of a middling apple); or the Ahia, Eugenia malaccensis, the East Indian jambo, commonly called in Tahiti (apart from its native name) the rose-apple or mountain apple, which however has a pear-shaped fruit— I think more likely the former; cf. pp. 342–3 below, and PL. VI.
19. This morning Tubourai who had slept [with] me as usual was observd by my servant to have an uncommonly large nail under his Cloaths, this I was informd of and knowing that no such had been either given or dispos'd of in trade was obligd to suspect my freind of theft. I therefore went instantly to his house and chargd him with it, he immediately confessd but atempted to keep his booty by telling me that the nail was gone to Eparre. I became much in earnest and a few threats soon produc'd the stolen goods. I was more hurt at the discovery than he was, I firmly beleive he was the only Indian I trusted and in him I had placd a most unbounded confidence, this event shews more than he could
20. Rain and very disagreeable weather so that we had but little trade. About 10 Oborea came to the fort and brough[t] a large present of bread fruit, she had with her Otheothea and her other maids of honour as we call them but Obadee her gentleman attendant was absent. We enquird the reason, she told us that she had dismiss'd him; about 8 however he came by torch light and going to the house in the woods where she slept slept with her.
21. Sunday, Divine service performd, at which was present Oborea, Otheothea, Obadee, &c. all behav'd very decently. After dinner Obadee who had been for some time absent returnd to the fort. Oborea desird he might not be let in, his countenance was however so melancholy that we could not but admit him. He lookd most piteously at Oborea, she most disdainfully at him; she seems to us to act in the character of a Ninon d'Enclos Banks's scholarship had lapses. Ninon de l'Enclos (1620–1705), the free and dazzling mistress of the most celebrated of seventeenth century salons. The passage which follows, that Banks was ‘at present otherwise engag'd’, does not seem to refer to Miss Blosset.
22. This morning showery and cool, seemingly a good opportunity of going upon the hills. I went accompanied only by Indians, indeed all of them but one soon left me, he however accompanied me during my whole walk. The paths were very open and clear till I came to the woods but afterwards very bad, so much so that I could not reach the top of the lowest of the two high hills seen from the fort, which was all I intended. It is difficult to know what Banks meant by ‘the lowest of the two high hills seen from the fort’. There were a number of high hills visible: if he meant the highest, Aorai or one of the peaks of Orofena, he was making a serious miscalculation of distance and accessibility.
23. Trade very slack today, so much so that we have only Cocoa nuts for the sick, and the people are obligd to have bread servd them at dinner.
24. We had receivd repeated messages from Dootahah signifying that if we would go and visit him we should have 4 hogs for our pains; in consequence of this our first Lieutenant was sent today with orders to go to him and try if by any civilities he could shew him he could procure them. He found him removd from his old residence at Eparre to a place calld Tettaháh Tataa, an old name for the district of Faaa, adjoining Pare. Point Tataa on the modern map is the seaward limit of the line separating Faaa from the Punaauia district. The harbour of the district was the present Papeete harbour.
MSRS Monkhouse and Green atempted this day to climb the same hill that I attempted on the 22nd, with much the same success; they got however higher than I did but could not reach the summit.
25. Tubourai and Tamio made their appearance at the fort for the first time since the breach of the 19th, he in particular seemd much frightned nor did my behavior to him give him much comfort. I had resolvd not to restore him either to my freindship or confidence unless he restord the nails which he seemd to have no intention of dooing; after staying a little time he went home sulky as he came.
26. Mr Monkhouse who I think is rather too partial to Tubourai went this morn to his house intending to persuade him to come to the tents. He made many excuses, he was hungry, he must sleep, his head achd, in short he would not nor did not come. Tamio however did but took alarm at my being absent who was aboard of the ship and soon departed.
27. This day M The wood-boring shipworm, r Monkhouse went to Eparre with Tubourai and Tamio. Market tolerable. Mr Hicks in his return from Dootahah brought word that if the Captn would go over the 4 piggs would
th that the longboat being very leaky was hauld dry and her bottom found to be eat intirely through by the worm,Teredo sp.
28. This morn the pinnace set out for the Eastward A slip for This may have been at Point Punaauia, where there was a great Parkinson (p. 31) tells us that ‘Mr. Banks lost his white jacket and waistcoat, with silver frogs’. The contrast between Banks the elegant spark and Banks the anthropological researcher will later become apparent. Cook does not refer to these ‘two young gentlemen’; I take it they were two of the midshipmen.Westward.tn Dr Solander and myself. Dootahah was removd from Tettahah where Mr Hicks saw him on the 24th to Atahourou, about 6 miles farther, a place to which the boat could not go.marae; but it may also have been at Tuteha's marae of Maraetaata, about two miles farther on. We do not know where the party started walking; for Tettaha as a place name is almost as vague as Atahourou. Why the boat could not go farther is unclear, unless Cook feared difficulty with the reef. He himself merely says, ‘as we had left the Boat about half way behind us we were oblige'd to take up our quarters with him for the night’.receivd, and a hog, P received with a hog; S received, & a hog immediately brought [brought added interlineally].n Cooke or Dr Solander had disposd of themselves, consequently could not call upon them for assistance; Tupia stood near me awakd by the Hubbub that had been raisd on account of my Loss; to him I gave my Musquet charging him to take care that the theif did not get it from him, and betook myself again to rest, telling my companions in the boat that I was well satisfied with the pains that Oborea and Dootahah had taken for the recovery of my things. Soon after I heard their musick and saw lights near me; I got up and went towards them, it was a heiva or assembly according to their custom. Here I saw Captn Cooke and told my melancholy story, he was my fellow sufferer, he had lost his stockins and two young gentlemenr Solander was away we neither of us knew where: we talkd over our losses and agreed that nothing could be done toward recovering them till the morning, after which we parted and went to our respective sleeping places.
29. At day break we rose according to the custom of our companions. Tupia was the first man I saw, atending with my Musquet and the remainder of my cloaths, his faith had often been tried, on this occasion it shone very much. Oborea took care to provide me with cloth to supply the place of my lost Jacket so that I made a motley apearance, my dress being half English and half Indian. Dootahah soon after made his apearance; I pressd him to recover my Jacket but neither he nor Oborea would take the least step towards it so that I am almost inclind to beleive that they acted principals in the theft. Indeed if they did it may be said in their excuse that they knew I had in my pockets a pair of pistols, weopons to them more dreadfull than a cannon to a man marching up to its mouth: could they get possession of them they thought no doubt that they would be as usefull to them as to us; self defence and preservation therefore in this case came in opposition to the laws of hospitality, duties to which mankind usualy give the preference in all cases.
About 8 Dr Solander returnd from a house about a mile off where he had slept: he had met with more honest companions
In our return to the boat we saw the Indians amuse or excersise themselves in a manner truly surprizing. It was in a place where the shore was not guarded by a reef as is usualy the case, consequently a high surf fell upon the shore, a more dreadfull one I have not often seen: no European boat could have landed in it and I think no European who had by any means got into [it] could possibly have saved his life, as the shore was coverd with pebbles and large stones. In the midst of these breakers 10 or 12 Indians were swimming who whenever a surf broke near them divd under it with infinite ease, rising up on the other side; but their cheif amusement was carried on by the stern of an old canoe, with this before them they swam out as far as the outermost breach, then one or two would get into it and opposing the blunt end to the breaking wave were hurried in with incredible swiftness. Sometimes they were carried almost ashore but generaly the wave broke over them before they were half way, in which case the[y] divd and quickly rose on the other side with the canoe in their hands, which was towd out again and the same method repeated. We stood admiring this very wonderfull scene for full half an hour, in which time no one of the actors atempted to come ashore but all seemd most highly entertaind with their strange diversion.
30. Carpenters employd today in repairing the long boat which is eat in a most wonderfull manner, every part of her bottom is like a honeycomb and some of the holes £⅛th of an inch in diameter, such a progress has this destructive insect made in six weeks.
31. The day of Observation now aproaches. The weather has been for some days fine, tho in general since we have been upon the Island we have had as much cloudy as clear weather, which makes us all not a little anxious for success. In consequence of hints from Lord Morton the Cap Cook and others generally spelt the name of the island Eimeo; it was Aimeo or Aimeho, clearly visible from Point Venus; now called Moorea.tn resolves to send a party to the eastward, and another to Imáo, an Island in sight of us,
June1769
1. The boat could not be got ready till after dinner when we set out; we rowd most of the night and came to a grapling just under the land of Imáo.
2. Soon after day break we saw an Indian canoe and upon hailing her she shewed us an inlet through the reef, into [which] we pulld and soon fixd upon a Coral rock about 150 yards from the shore as a very proper situation for our Observatory; This was the islet of Irioa, just inside the reef beyond the Taotoi pass, almost at the north-west point of Moorea.nd Lieutent and people therefore immediately set about it while I went upon the main Island to trade with the inhabitants for provisions, of which I soon bought a sufficient supply. Before night our observatory was in order, telescopes all set up and tried &c. and we went to rest anxious for the events of tomorrow; the evening having been very fine gave us however great hopes of success.
3. Various were the Changes observd in the weather during the course of last night, some one or other of us was up every half hour who constantly informd the rest that it was either clear or Hazey, at day break we rose and soon after had the satisfaction of seeing the sun rise as clear and bright as we could wish him. I then wishd success to the observers M Ta'aroa. This may be the correct form of the name. There are many varieties of Fara or pandanus, growing both on high and on low ground; Banks is probably referring to the common Fara-iri, much used in the islands for mats.SRS Gore and Monkhouse and repaird to the Island, where I could do the double service of examining the natural produce and buying provisions for my companions who were engagd in so usefull a work. About eight a large quantity of provisions were procurd when I saw two boats coming towards the place where I traded; these I was told belongd to TarróaNunaPandanus tectoriusLepidium bidentatum Montin (L. piscidium Forst. <JDH>). Parkinson's drawing is labelled ‘Ulhietea [i.e. Raiatea] 1769’. Thellung refers this sp. to L. hyssopifolium.r Gore tells me is the plant calld by the voyagers scurvy grass which grows plentifully upon all the low Islands.
At sunset I came off having purchasd another hog from the King. Soon after my arrival at the tent 3 hansome girls came off in a canoe to see us, they had been at the tent in the morning with Tarroa, they chatted with us very freely and with very little perswasion agreed to send away their carriage and sleep in [the] tent, a proof of confidence which I have not before met with upon so short an acquaintance.
4. We prepard ourselves to depart, in spite of the intreaties of our fair companions who persuaded us much to stay. What with presents and trade our stock of Provisions was so large that we were obligd to give away a large quantity. This done we put off and before night arrivd at the tents, where we had the great satisfaction that the observation there had been attended with as much success as Mr Green and the Captn could wish, the day having been
t and he bore his punishment without impeaching any of his acomplices. This loss is of a very serious nature as these nails if circulated by the people among the Indians will much lessen the value of Iron, our staple commodity.
5. During our absence at Imao an old woman of some consequence, a relation of Tamio, was dead and was plac'd not far from the fort to rot above ground as is the custom of the Island. I went this morn to see her. A small square was neatly raild in with Bamboe and in the midst of it a Canoe awning set up upon two posts, in this the body was laid coverd with fine cloth. Near this was laid fish &c. meat for the gods not for the deceasd, but to satisfie the hunger of the deitys least they shoud eat the body, which Tubourai told us they would certainly do if this ceremony was neglected. In the front of the square was a kind of stile or place lower than the rest, where the relations of the deceasd stood when they cry'd or bled themselves, and under the awning were numberless rags containing the blood and tears they had shed. Within a few yards were two occasional houses; in one of them some of the relations constantly remaind generaly a good many; in the other the cheif male mourner resided and kept a very remarkable Dress in which he performd a ceremony, both which I shall describe when. I have an opportunity of seeing it in perfection which Tubourai promises me I shall soon have.
This day we kept the Kings birthday which had been delayd on account of the absence of the two observing parties; several of the Indians dind with us and drank his majesties health by the name of Kihiargo, for we could not teach them to pronounce a word more like King George. Tupia however to shew his Loyalty got most enormously drunk.
6. In walking into the woods yesterday I saw in the hands of an Indian an Iron tool made in the shape of the Indian adzes, very different I was sure from any thing that had been carried out or made either by the Dolphin or this ship. This excited my curiosity, much the more so when I was told that it did not come out of either of those ships but from two others which came here together. This was a discovery not to be neglected. With much dificulty and labour
The lunar month This name is generally given as Toottera, as in Cook. It may be a rendering of Duclos, Bougainville's second in command; he himself was known as Putaveri. Hitiaa was the district, but Haitaa is in the immediate vicinity of Bougainville's anchorage, and Hidea may signify this latter name. Reti, Ereti, Oreti—there is some slight doubt about the chief's name. The name Outorrou is given marginally: Ahutoru. This was true—and a fact which astonished the French themselves. It was Jeanne Bare or Baret, whom, dressed as a man, the naturalist Bougainville disclaimed ever having flown the Spanish ensign.Pėpėrė which answers to our January 1768Pipiri, generally taken to include parts of February and March. The MS is amended; Banks first had February 1767, then changed the year to 1768 and the month (apparently) to May, and finally deletes all this for January 1768. But it was in the first half of April 1768 that Bougainville paid his visit.To Otterah;Hidea,Matavie where the ship now lies; that during their stay they sent tents ashore and some slept in them; that they were cheifly connected with a cheif whose name was Orėttė,Mercure de France, November 1769.
7. We were this morn visited by several of Dootahahs relations women especialy, probably to sound us upon the score of our usage at Atahourou. We had resolvd at that place rather to put up with our losses than to mattowmatau, to fear; to frighten would be faa-matau. There is a note here in S: ‘Mattow in their Language signifies to frighten, or affront. Indeed the general consequence of frightening them, was their being affronted’.
8. Fresh proofs of the Spanish ships every day in thing[s] of theirs which have been left here, among the rest a course shirt and a woolen jacket both of manufacture different from any English.
9. Yesterday and today the Heiva no MeduahHeiva no metua; metua, a parent, of either sex. As we see from the next entry and that for 26 June below, it was a ceremony of mourning for the mother of a young woman called Hoona or Huna.Mahiemahi, the ‘sour-paste’ made from breadfruit. See pp. 344–5 below.
10. This evening according to my yesterdays engagement I went to the place where the Huna ? S footnotes this as follows: ‘Alluding to a drawing of the Heiva note tatta Matte Dress [‘tatta Matte’ is presumably medua lay, where I found Tubourai, Tamio, HoonaMeduas daughter and a young Indian prepard to receve me. Tubourai was the Heiva, the three others and myself were to Ninėvėh.neneva means fool or foolish, giddy; and nevaneva, mad, distracted (Davies, 1851). Some confusion of words is not unlikely. Cf. Journal of James Morrison, p. 233: ‘This Ceremony is also Calld Tyehaa [taihaa; tai, to weep or grieve] or Mourning, the Performers are Called Naynevva, Madmen Hevva tyehaa—Mourning Spirits, Gosts, or Spectres’. It is clear from Banks's description, the earliest we have, as well as from later ones, that the near-naked assistants were to act in as thoroughly terrifying a manner as possible, as if they were violently out of their minds with grief. There is no figure annexed in the MS to explain the dress of the Heiva (which was properly the ceremony itself, not the principal figure in it); but there is a drawing in B.M. Add. MS 15508, f. 9, entitled ‘Chief Mourner’, on which is founded the presentment in Plate V in Hawkesworth, II. There is also a pencil drawing by Spöring, entitled ‘Dress of the Chief Mourner’, B.M. Add. MS 23921.32. Henry (Ancient Tahiti, p. 293) says the ceremony was called hevatupapau, mourning for the corpse; the principal, a priest, seems to have represented the ghost of the deceased. See pl. 15.taata mate, dead man]. Besides the Nineveh going before, by way of giving notice of the approach of the Heiva; he (the Heiva) carries in one hand Shells of Mother of Pearl; which by his knoucking together, gives farther notice of his approach: and, should any Indian not get out of his way, he would beat him unmercifully with a Staff he carries: the top of which has many small, jagged points’. The British Museum has in its ethnological collection a specimen of the ‘Heiva's’ dress, together with the shell ‘clackers’ and a very dangerous-looking staff.Heiva like sheep before a wolf. We soon left it and proceeded along shore towards a place where above 100 Indians were collected together. We the Ninevehs had orders from the Heiva to disperse them, we ran towards them but before we cam[e] within 100 yards of them they dispers'd every way, running to the first shelter, hiding themselves under grass or whatever else would conceal them. We now crossd the river into the woods and passd several houses, all were deserted, not another Indian did we see for about £½ an hour that we spent in walking about. We the Ninevehs then came to the Heiva and said imatata,aima taata.Heiva undressd and we went into the river and scrubbd one another till it was dark before the blacking would come off.
11. This Evening Tubourai came to the tents bringing a bow and arrows, in consequence of a challenge M Archery was an aristocratic sport in Tahiti, confined to the r Gore had given him sometime ago to shoot. This challenge was however misunderstood, Tubourai meant to try who could shoot the farthest,arii and generally held with great ceremony from sacred platforms; shooting was always for distance. The best description is in Ellis, Polynesian Researches, I, pp. 217–19.r Gore to shoot at a mark and neither was at all practisd in what the other valued himself upon. Tubourai to please us shot in his
12. In my mornings walk today I met a company of traveling musicians; A company of arioi
13. M By ‘burying-ground’ Banks means a r Monkhouse our surgeon met to day with an insult from an Indian, the first that has been met with by any of us. He was pulling a flower from a tree which grew on a burying ground and consequently was I suppose sacred,marae, which would certainly be tapu.
14. I lay in the woods last night as I very often did. At day break I was calld up by M The atoll Tetiaroa, a group of five small islets within one reef, about 26 miles northwest of Moorca; it belonged to the r Gore and went with him shooting, from which party we did not return till night when we saw a large number of Canoes in the river behind the tents, of which we had this account. Last night an Indian was clever enough to steal a Coal rake out of the fort without being perceivd. In the Morning it was missing and Captn Cooke being resolvd to recover it, as also to discourage such atempts for the future, went out with a party of men and seizd 25 of their large sailing Canoes which were just come in from Tethuroa,arii of Pare, to whom it served as a sort of countryseat. Teturoa was an older name.tn Cooke thought he had now in his hands an opportunity of recovering all the things which had been stolen: he therefore
15. Some few presents today but no trade at all. We found ourselves today involvd in an unexpected dificulty with regard to the boats: they were loaded with provisions which their owners must live upon or starve, in consequence of which they ask leave to go and take them out and are allowd to do so as much as they can eat. We are not able however to distinguish the true owners, so many avail themselves of this indulgence by stealing their neighbours which we cannot prevent, indeed in a few days more the whole consisting cheifly of fish (curd to keep about that time) will be spoild.
16. Some presents today but no trade. Several petitions for canoes backd by our principal freinds but none complied with. In the afternoon the body of the old woman which lay near us was removd, but to what place or on what account we could not learn.
17. This morn M Pare; Banks has merely prefixed O instead of his earlier E, perhaps showing his increasing acquaintance with the language. It seems probable that these were the common duck of the South Sea islands, the Australian Gray Duck, r Gore and myself went to OparreAnas superciliosa Gm.
18. This morn the boat was sent to get Ballast for the ship; the officer sent in her not finding stones convenient began to pull down a burying ground. A ‘burying ground’ undoubtedly here means a marae. If men serving under Cook could be so almost criminally thoughtless, one can hardly be surprised that the history of race-contacts in the Pacific includes more than one incident of bloodshed.nd Lieutenant to the place. They had desird them to desist from destroying the burying ground they had began upon, but shewd them another. The officer however though[t] it best not to molest any thing of the kind and sent the people to the river where they gatherd stones very Easily without a possibility of offending anybody.
19. The fish in the Canoes stink most immoderately so as in some winds to render our situation in the tents rather disagreable. This evening Oborea, Otheothea and Tuarua ‘Tuarua’ has not previously come into the journal; the name as it stands may be correct. There seems to have been more behind this brief account than meets the eye. Cook is also brief, expressing surprise that Purea should appear without restoring stolen property, and noting her excuse that ‘her gallant’ was responsible and that ‘she had beat him and turn'd him away’; but Parkinson (p. 32) tells a story which is inherently far from improbable. According to him, two of the girls ‘were very assiduous in getting themselves husbands’; Monkhouse the surgeon took one, and one of the lieutenants the other; all went well ‘till bed-time, and then they determined to lie in Mr. Banks's tent, which they did accordingly; but one of the engaged coming out, the surgeon insisted that she should not sleep there, and thrust her out, and the rest followed her, except Otea Tea, who whined and cried for a considerable time, till Mr. Banks led her out also. Mr. Monkhouse and Mr. Banks came to an eclaircissement some time after; had very high words, and I expected they would have decided it by a duel, which, however, they prudently avoided’.—Clearly Mr Banks experienced the penalties as well as the delights of popularity. It was very agreeable to have the charming Tiatia in his tent—‘my flame’—when she did not whine and cry; but it was difficult when everybody wanted to sleep there.
20. This morn early Oborea and Co came to the tents bringing a large quantity of provisions as a present, among the rest a very fat dog. We had lately learnt that these animals were eat by the Indians and esteemd more delicate food than Pork, now therefore was our oportunity of trying the experiment. He was immediately given over to Tupia who finding that it was a food that we were not acustomd to undertook to stand butcher and cook both. He killd him by stopping his breath, holding his hands fast over his mouth and nose, an operation which took up above a quarter of an hour; he then proceeded to dress him much in the same manner as we
Pl. V.
Barringtonia speciosa
Tahiti
21. This Morning came Amo. This was the famous appearance of Temarii or Teriirere, the Oámo,r Solander met him by accident close by the gate and laying hold of his hand he followd him in before the people were aware; those in the tents however very soon sent him out again. Upon inquiry we find that this boy is son to Oamo and Oborea who are husband and wife, but have long ago been parted by a mutual consent which gives both leave to enjoy the pleasures of this life without controul from their former engagements. The girl about 16 is intended for his wife but he being not more than 8 years old they have not yet cohabited together.arii rahi or arii nui of Teva-i-uta, who had his great marae in the Papara district. His person was sacred, hence the removal of the upper garments. The young woman was Te arii na vaho roa, the sister of Tu of Pare. Both being of such exalted rank, their presence in the tents would under Tahitian custom have made them tapu, and hence unusable by commoners. Cook notes that Teriirere was carried on a man's back—which was again due to his sacredness, lest his feet should render the ground he trod on tapu. Cook thought the boy was about 7 and the young woman 18 or 20 and that she was his sister, but this last assumption was a natural consequence of the Tahitian language. She was duly married to Teriirere, but died childless.
22. Our visiters returnd early this morn, Oborea, Otheothea,
tn Cooke is now tird of keeping them as he finds that not the least motion is made towards returning any of the stol'n goods; four of them are therefore set at liberty.
23. Our Freinds with us as usual. One of our seamen a Portugesetn Cooke therefore offerd a hatchet to any man who would bring him back, one soon offerd and returnd with him at night. He said that two Indians seizd him and stopping his mouth forcd him away, but as he was out of the fort after a woman this account apeard improbable, the man was however not punishd.
24. Our freinds all went to the westward last night; nothing material happend during our solitude. The market has been totaly stoppd ever since the boats were seizd, nothing being offerd to sale but a few apples; our freinds however are liberal in presents so that we make a shift to live without expending our bread, which and spirits are the most valuable articles to us. Late in the evening Tubourai and Tamio returnd from Eparre bringing with them several presents, among the rest a large peice of thick cloth This was evidently Sophia.tapa of the very best quality, such as was appropriated to chiefly wear.Opia,
25. Prayers today it being sunday, soon after Potatau, an Atehuru Potattow and Polothearaarii, and Poro-tahiara. Corney, III, p. 266 gives her name as Purutifara. They have not been previously mentioned, though they appear to have been prominent people, who made their presence felt both at this time and later. tuaheine no Toote;) and one day, being denied admittance into the fort on Point Venus, had knocked down the sentry who opposed her, and complained to her adopted brother of the indignity which had been offered to her’.—Voyage round the World (1777), I, p. 361. It is odd that the story is not otherwise known, but it is not impossibly true.
26. At 3 O'clock this morn Cap Haapaianoo, which Banks had before reached on his walk with Solander on 24 April. Ahaio. ?Te aitu-poaro. This, it will be remembered, was the young woman who was Banks's fellow ‘nineveh’ on 10 June. Haitaa, or Hitiaa. One is not always finally certain what sounds Banks's vowels are intended to carry. Cf. p. 274, n. 2 above. Puaru or Puuru. Taaupiri.tn Cooke and myself set out to the
OhíanaAhío,TituboaloHoona,th. This it seems was the estate which descended to Hoona by inheritance from her and it was on that account nescessary that she should be brought here. From hence we proceeded on foot, the boat atending within call, till we came to AhideaOutorrou went with them. Our inquiries here were very particular and we had the account I have before given confirmd; they shewd us also the place where the ships lay, which is situate on the west side of the great bay under the shelter of a small Island calld BoooúrouTaawirry.Turu turu which in their language signifies the knees.Turi is the word for knee. Turu or turuturu means side-posts of a house, and the late turi was the word they used, possibly they simply meant that the ‘Spaniards’ had fallen on their knees before a cross similar to the one Banks made.
Soon after this we took boat and askd Tituboaro to go with us. He refusd and advisd us not to go: on the other side of the bay he said livd people who were not subjects to Dootahah and who would kill him and us. It is difficult to know what is meant by this. The other side of the bay was the northern coast of Taiarapu, and its people were certainly not subject to Tuteha (nor were the people of Hitiaa); but we have no record of enmity at this time. Indeed Tuteha and the high chief of Taiarapu had recently been allies against Purea and Amo. Certainly a few years later, 1772–3, Tuteha attacked Taiarapu, with disaster to himself.Ourattooa a Lady remarkable among us for the ceremonies she performd on the 12th of May last.
27. At day break we turnd out to see a little of the countrey about us which we did not arrive at last night till dark. We found the traces of Canoes having been hauld inland and the people told us that the Island was in this place very narrow and that they draggd their canoes quite across cheifly over soft boggs. This was the isthmus of Taravao, about 1½ miles across. Taiarapu or Tahiti-iti (Little Tahiti), as a political division called Teva-i-tai or Seaward Teva; its high chief bore the traditional title of Vehiatua. Oboreonoo=Porionuu or Te Porionuu; Cook and Banks, having picked up the name in the country close to Anuhi, the name then used for the present Pueu. Maraetaata; burial place was not necessarily the main significance of ?Pahi-riro; This is the peninsula of Tautira (then called Fatutira) where Vehiatua had his residence; ‘westernmost’ is an obvious slip for ‘easternmost’. The Vaitepiha river. Tautiti. Cf. Corney, i.e. In this description of the Tiarreboo and governd by Waheatua,Oboreonoo and governd by Dootahah.Annuúhé,Maraitátámarae here.Pahairėdopahi, a canoe, riro, lost or missingToottero the Spanish commander.—We now walkd forward on foot till
Toudidde,Quest and Occupation of Tahiti, II, pp. xxiv-xxv.TearreTe arii, the chief; Banks spells the name Tearee below, which looks like Terii, short for Te arii (cf. Teriirere, the son of Purea and Amo). His more personal name was Taata-uraura.morai or burying place and many within land. They were like those of Oboreonoo raisd into the form of the roof of a house, but these were cleaner and better kept and also ornamented with many carvd boards set upright, on the tops of which were various figures of birds and men; on one particularly a figure of a cock painted red and yellow in imitation of the feathers of that bird. In some of them were figures of men standing on each others heads which they told me was the particular ornament of Burying grounds.marae Banks describes a part as the whole. It was the ahu, the principal feature of the marae, a stone platform at the end of the marae court, that was ‘raisd into the form of the roof of a house’. The ‘carvd boards set upright’ were called unu; they were erected in honour of departed chiefs whose bones were deposited at the marae. The figures of men, carved in flat relief, were called tii; they were symbolical and not representational, and in no sense ‘idols’. Birds were believed to be ‘shadows’, or symbols, or temporary dwelling-places, of the gods. What Banks took to be a cock was perhaps the manu ura or sacred bird; red and yellow were sacred colours (cf. the maro-ura and maro-tea, the sacred red and yellow feather girdles with which arii rahi were invested); but it may also possibly have been a cock, sacred to Ruaifaatoa, a god of warriors and strength whose diversion was cock-fighting.Ahee Fagiferaihi, the fruit of the mape or Tahitian chestnut (Inocarpus edulis). ‘Fagifera’ is added in pencil in a blank left for the purpose.
After tiring ourselves with walking we calld up the boat but both our Indians were missing, they had it seems staid behind at Waheatuas, depending upon a promise we had made to the old man of returning and sleeping with him (a promise we were often forcd to make without any intention of performing it). Tearee and another went with us. We rowd till we came abreast a small Island calld Cook spells this name on his chart Otooareite. It is probably the islet now called Tiere, one of a cluster of three; its former name was Tiare-iti, and from the spellings given perhaps also Tuarae-iti. Probably Probably the Bristle-thighed Curlew, Tuarriteahees, with which and a duckAnas superciliosa Gm., the Australian Gray Duck.Numenius tahitiensis (Gm.). Non-breeding birds of this species sometimes winter in Polynesia.
28. This morn at day break we rose and agreed to stay here an hour or two in hopes to get some provision: salt beef we had with us but nothing of the bread kind, for that we depended on the natives who had on all former occasions been both able and willing to supply us with any quantity of Breadfruit. I went out meaning to go among the houses; in my way I went through several burying grounds ( ?Tohaia. Roudero Tuahou or Tuahau.Marai) on the pavements of which I saw several vertebræ and sculls of men laying about as if no care was taken to bury them, in every thing else they were quite like what we had seen before. In my excursion I could not procure the least supply of provision so we were forcd to set out in hopes of meeting some countrey where provision was less scarce. We walkd and the boat followd
TowiaTowdidde, Roudėrosic.Tuahów
The reef here was irregular and the ground very foul so that the boat was continualy surroundd with breakers. We followd a canoe which led us to a passage where by waiting for a slatch A nautical term for a brief spell or interval. This was Pari ( Fei, mountain plantains. Ahui, the old name for a sub-district called Vai-ao-tea, now included in the district of Teahupoo. It is not to be confused with another sub-district of the same name on the northern coast of Tahiti-iti. Matahiapo—i.e. the ‘first-born’ of a great These were trophies of war; they had come from Matavai Bay to Papara, and been snatched away with other trophies when Amo and Purea were defeated. These were also trophies of war; they were the jawbones of the Papara men. Corney, Vaiuru, the old name for the district of Vairaao.pari=the cliffs).Faé.fenua.Ahowe:Mathíaboarii family.WivėrouDiscovery of Tahiti, III, Descriptive Index, gives his name as Tuivirau or Tuivivirau—which last he says is incorrect; but it tallies better with the name picked up by Banks and Cook.Owiouroutn Cooke and myself agreed that he had behavd so well to us that there was not the least doubt of his honesty. We laid down, Mathiabo did not come, I imagin'd that he was gone to wash as the Indians always do in the evening. I was almost asleep when an Indian who was a stranger to me came and told me that he was gone off with the Cloak, I did not beleive him but laid down again. Tuahow our Indian then came and confirmd the report; I then found it was high time to give chase so I leapd up and declard my case to the company, shewing one of my pocket pistols which I always kept with me. They took the alarm and began to walk of, I seizd however the best looking man I could see and told him that if he did not find out where Mathiabo was I would shoot him in his stead. The threat had the desird effect: he offerd to accompany me in the chase: the Captn myself and him set out as hard as we could run and in about ten minutes met a man bringing back the cloak; but our freind Mathiabo was fled and by that means escapd a severe thrashing which we had decreed to be a proper reward for his breach of trust. When we returnd every body was gone from the house; we quickly however made them sensible that our anger was intirely confind to Mathiabo and they all returnd, Wiverou and his wife taking up their lodging within 10 feet of us.
29. About 5 O'Clock our sentry awakd us with the alarming intelligence of the boat being missing, he had he said seen her about £½ an hour before at her grapling which was about 50 yards from the shore, but that on hearing the noise of Oars he lookd out again and could see nothing of her. We started up and made all possible haste to the waterside, the morn was fine and starlight but no boat in sight. Our situation was now sufficiently disagreable: the Indians had probably attackd her first and finding the people asleep easily carried her, in which case they would not fail to attack
As soon as the boat returnd we got our breakfast and set out. The first district on which we landed was the last in Tiarreboo, it was governd by Moe. Cook writes Omae. ?Fanau-tua (cf. p. 328, n. 2 below).Omóė.Whannoouda
At this place we saw a singular curiosity, a figure of a man made of Basket work, roughly but not ill designd; it was 7 feet high and two bulky in proportion to its hight; the whole was neatly coverd with feathers, white to represent skin and black to represent hair and This is rather mysterious. The image apparently represented the great Polynesian culture-hero Maui; but I do not know of any other reference to it, besides that in Cook on this same occasion, nor what the three The two names in square brackets have been added in pencil, to supply blanks in the text, apparently in the hand of Papara. Toa or Aito, ironwood, tattow;tatau, the tattooing of the skin.tata etetaata iti.Maúwė; they said it was the only one of the kind in Otahite and readily atempted to explain its use, but their language was totaly unintelligible and seemed to referr to some customs to which we are perfect strangers.taata iti—‘little men’—were. Cook writes (pp. 111–12) that it was ‘said by the Natives to be used in their Heiva's or publick entertainments, probably as punch is in a Puppet Show’; he says there were ‘four nobs resembling stumps of horns’, three in front and one behind. This was at what Cook calls ‘the first Whennua in Opooreonoo’—Vaiari, now PapeariPandanus [tectorius] and Cratæva [gynandra].Pandanus odorus, without indicating in any way what he had done. This is only one of many instances of ‘mutilation’ perpetrated by Hooker (cf. Warren Dawson, Jour. Soc. Bibliog. Nat. Hist. 2 : 218–22). No Crataeva coll. has been located but Parkinson's coloured drawing of ‘Crataeva frondosa mscr.’ dated 1769 and Solander's usual full description are preserved. Britten identifies this as C. uliginosa L. It is C. religiosa Forst. f. See Pl. 29.Papárra,Casuarina equisetifolia. The scientific name has not changed. As Banks had noticed, it was a characteristic tree about marae.Casuarina equisetifolia, from whence we judgd that thereabouts would be some marai; nor were we disapointed for we no sooner arrivd there than we were struck with the sight of a most enormous pile, certainly the masterpeice of Indian architecture in this Island so all the inhabitants allowd. Its size and workmanship almost exceeds beleif, I shall set it down exactly. Its form was like that of Marais in general, resembling the roof of a house, not smooth at the sides but formd into 11 steps, each of these 4 feet in hight making in all 44 feet, its length 267 its breadth 71. Every one of these steps were formd of one course of white coral stones most neatly squard and polishd, the rest were round pebbles, but these seemd to have been workd from their uniformity of size and roundness. Some of the coral stones were very large, on