Cook's adventures and those of his officers, after reaching northern latitudes such as the Hawaii archipelago, can scarcely be brought within the limits of Australasia, so that Cook now passes from our narrative. But he remains the most remarkable figure in the past history of Australasia. He was perhaps the greatest of British navigators, for he made not only all the most remarkable discoveries of the Pacific Ocean between the ice fringe of the Southern Continent and the Bering Straits; but he did so with singularly little hardship to his men, whose health he studied with the utmost care, while in his contact with the natives he has left behind him an admirable reputation for kindliness and sympathy. From the point of view of science he fully deserved the Fellowship of the Royal Society. The books composed from his journals read like those of modern travellers of the best type, so shrewd are his observations and so accurate his descriptions. He stands in the first rank of the world's heroes, and it is interesting to remember that, though there are not many greater Englishmen in our national records, he rose from being the son of a Yorkshire farm labourer, a boy serving out groceries in a little shop, an apprentice on board a collier, to command, as an officer in the king's navy, vessels which performed voyages far more wonderful than that of Columbus, and which revealed to the knowledge of science the coasts of the Arctic and Antarctic Oceans, the Continent of Australia, the Dominion of New Zealand, and most of the islands and archipelagos of the Pacific Ocean. CHAPTER IX Bligh and the "Bounty"