The Three Voyages of Captain Cook Round the World. Vol. I. Being the First of the First Voyage.Cook, James
History
The Three Voyages of Captain Cook Round the World. Vol. I. Being the First of the First Voyage.
Cook, James
Cook, James, 1728-1779 -- Travel; Explorers -- Great Britain -- Biography; Voyages around the world -- History -- 18th century
On the 17th, early in the morning, we had the misfortune to lose Mr.
Buchan, the person whom Mr. Banks had brought out as a painter of
landscapes and figures. He was a sober, diligent, and ingenious young
man, and greatly regretted by Mr. Banks; who hoped, by his means, to
have gratified his friends in England with representations of this
country and its inhabitants, which no other person on board could
delineate with the same accuracy and elegance. He had always been
subject to epileptic fits, one of which seized him on the mountains of
Terra del Fuego, and this disorder being aggravated by a bilious
complaint which he contracted on board the ship, at length put an end to
his life. It was at first proposed to bury him on shore, but Mr. Banks
thinking that it might perhaps give offence to the natives, with whose
customs we were then wholly unacquainted, we committed his body to the
sea, with as much decency and solemnity as our circumstances and
situation would admit.
In the forenoon of this day we received a visit from Tubourai Tamaide
and Tootahah, our chiefs, from the west: they brought with them, as
emblems of peace, not branches of plantain, but two young trees, and
would not venture on board till these had been received, having probably
been alarmed by the mischief which had been done at the tent. Each of
them also brought, as propitiatory gifts, some bread-fruit, and a hog
ready dressed: this was a most acceptable present, as we perceived that
hogs were not always to be got; and in return we gave to each of our
noble benefactors a hatchet and a nail. In the evening we went on shore
and set up a tent, in which Mr. Green and myself spent the night, in
order to observe an eclipse of the first satellite of Jupiter; but the
weather becoming cloudy, we were disappointed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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