After a further visit to New Zealand, and a long stay in the Friendly Islands (the Tonga archipelago) and the Society Islands, Cook turned the course of his expedition northwards, discovered Christmas Island, and sailed across a stretch of open ocean till at last, in January, 1778, he sighted a wonderful new land in the archipelago of Hawaii. To this he gave the name by which they were long afterwards known--the Sandwich Islands. After a stay in this region of eight principal islands and many islets, with its wonderful volcanoes (the highest of which is snow-crowned and 13,823 feet in altitude), its peculiar vegetation, and its Polynesian people, he passed on to the exploring of the western and north-western coasts of North America, with the results which have been described in my book on the _Pioneers in Canada_. Returning again southwards to continue the explorations of the Pacific archipelagos, he met his fate in a miserable skirmish on the west coast of the large island of Hawaii, the easternmost of the Hawaii group.[106] [106] The Hawaiians, though very friendly, were very thievish, and their robberies on the _Resolution_ and _Discovery_ and attempts to take away boats became so serious that Cook landed with a party of marines and attempted to secure the person of a king or chief as a hostage. In the struggle that followed he and four marines were killed. The flesh from Cook's body was afterwards sent back to the ship, but his bones were preserved by the priests as relics.