The Life of Captain James Cook, the CircumnavigatorKitson, Arthur
History
The Life of Captain James Cook, the Circumnavigator
Kitson, Arthur
Cook, James, 1728-1779; Explorers -- Great Britain -- Biography; Geographers -- Great Britain -- Biography
Mr. Polack, a New Zealand resident, gives an account in his New Zealand,
which he gathered from the children of natives who were present at the
landing of Cook. The tribe then living in the neighbourhood were recent
arrivals, their leader being Te Ratu--the first man killed by the
English. The natives were anxious to avenge him, but were afraid of the
"thunderbolts which killed at a long distance," some indeed went so far
as to say they felt ill if an Englishman looked at them. The idea of
revenge was only ended on the vessel leaving. Mr. Polack's chief witness
was the son of a man who was wounded by a ball in the shoulder, but
survived his wound till within a year or two of 1836, the time the
information was obtained. Before the ship left, a sort of peace was
patched up by means of presents, and the dead bodies which had been left
where they fell, apparently as a protest, were removed.
Cook describes the country as a narrow slip of low sand, backed by
well-wooded hills, rising in the interior into high mountains, on which
patches of snow could be seen. That it was fairly populated was evident
from the smoke rising through the trees, more especially in the valleys
leading into Poverty Bay as he named it, because they were unable to get
anything but a small quantity of wood.
At Hawke's Bay, whilst trading was going on, a large war canoe came up,
and the occupants received some presents. Cook noticed a man wearing a
cloak of some black skin, and offered a piece of red cloth for it. The
owner took it off, but would not part with it till he received the cloth,
and then his boat was pushed off from the ship, and Cook lost both his
cloak and his cloth. Soon after a determined attempt was made to steal
Tupia's boy, Tayeto, who was handing some things down to a canoe; the
Maoris had to be fired on, and in the consequent confusion the boy jumped
into the water and swam to the ship. The point off which this occurred
was named Cape Kidnapper. As there was no appearance of a harbour, Cook
altered his course to the north at Cape Turnagain, 40 degrees 34 minutes
South, to see if he could not do better in the other direction.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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