As soon as the Resolution put to sea, Cook found she leaked like a sieve; her refit was appalling. Throughout this expedition Cook and his crew suffered from this negligence, and ultimately, it was to be fatal. At Cape Town, Cook had almost every seam recaulked as well as replacing some masts.
The Resolution and the Discovery departed Cape Town in November 1776, sailing southeast to explore, survey, and chart the subantarctic Marion, Crozet, and Kerguelen Islands. There were further problems with the Resolution’s masts, and Cook anchored at Adventure Bay in Van Diemen’s Land for repairs. He met the Australian Aborigines a second time but made little progress with them. When he stopped at Queen Charlotte Sound for yet more repairs, the Maoris were surprised to find that the great Cook intended no punishment for the murder and eating of the Adventure’s boat crew three years before. Cook understood that it was a collision of cultures and that retribution would gain nothing. Instead, he tried to explain the concept of mercy and forgiveness. The Maoris were puzzled and Omai was scornful.
Cook sailed the Resolution and the Discovery on a new route to the northeast, another of his Pacific wanderings in which he was destined to discover unknown islands and peoples, including another Polynesian community in what he named the Hervey Islands (Cook Islands). The two vessels nudged the occasional unknown reef and sandbank—immediately charted—then sailed west to the Friendly Islands. Cook and Bligh landed on Tofua, and King George’s gifts—sheep, goats, pigs, and rabbits—were distributed to the island chiefs, while one of the horses was presented to the Tongan king. Cook sailed through the Society Islands to Otaheite, his Pacific home, and returned Omai to his people after several years away. He presented the remaining gifts: two horses, sheep, cattle, geese, a cock, and a hen. Two Discovery crew deserted—desertions occurred on every visit—but the Tahitians located the sailors on another island and returned them to be flogged.
It was during this visit that Cook’s rheumatism, the sailor’s curse, was relieved with massage by a dozen strong women using the a’pi plant. After two treatments, it never returned. One of the Tahitians massaging Captain James Cook was Isabella, who later married a master’s mate named Fletcher Christian, the notorious Bounty mutineer.
In November 1777 the two ships departed Otaheite and Cook directed them north. On Christmas Eve he made yet another discovery, at the equator. He named them the Line Islands and the first land sighted Christmas Island (Kiritimati). Sixteen days later Cook discovered the last great island group of the Pacific Ocean, the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii), first reaching Atui (Kauai) Island. There were more Polynesians, and Cook wondered again at these island seamen who had sailed the Pacific in their simple outrigger canoes, from Hawaii to New Zealand, from Easter Island to the Friendly Islands.
When Cook landed on Atui on January 20, 1778, the islanders lay flat on their faces. This had never happened before, and, embarrassed, Cook waved them up. It was explained that this was how these Polynesians greeted their chiefs. It was actually how they greeted their gods, but Cook was not told this. He made friends with the Polynesians in his usual way, bartering for fresh vegetables, meat, and water before setting off to the east.
The Resolution and the Discovery sailed to a February landfall in North America at Drake’s New Albion, north of San Francisco. The weather was cold and the seas lively, but Cook wanted to be far north by the beginning of summer for his exploration into the Arctic. The two Whitby colliers coasted northward along what are now the states of Oregon and Washington, passing Drake’s farthest point north, charting and naming as they went. Vancouver Island was named after the Resolution’s midshipman, Cape Suckling after Nelson’s uncle, Bligh Island after the Resolution’s master, and so on. Cook anchored for further repairs to the Resolution at Prince William Sound, where the Discovery’s crew beat off an attack by knife-wielding Eskimos. Cook ordered the men not to use firearms.
The ships were forced south again by the long Alaska Peninsula. Cook Inlet was thought to be a possible passage east or north, but when Bligh explored he found it to be only a river mouth. The two ships reached the bottom of the peninsula at Ounalashka (Unalaska), where they passed between the Aleutian Islands and sailed northward again through the cold Bering Sea. Cook noted the estuary of the great Yukon River and, finally, passed between the continents of America and Asia to enter the Arctic.
In the charts drawn in the great cabin of the Resolution, Captain James Cook had mapped the last, major unknown coastline of the world. The Resolution and Cook also became the first ship and man to cross both polar circles, 66° 33.5? south and north of the equator—and thus the first to reach both the Antarctic and the Arctic.
Northward, Cook navigated the little ships into the bitter polar weather. Once again, ice coated the Resolution’s rigging until the latitude measured was almost 71° north, as before it measured 71° south. Once again, it was ice that stopped Cook, sea ice piled twelve feet high and impassable. Cook had indeed reached the Pacific end of the elusive Northwest Passage, only to find it choked with ice. He tacked and wore his ships along the edge of the frozen sea, searching for a channel through, but there was none. He turned west for the Northeast Passage.
He beat along the edge of the ice from 164° west across the international date line to 176° east. The pack ice was solid from the North Pole to the coast of Siberia. Cook had reached the Pacific end of the Northeast Passage, and it, too, was choked with ice. It was evident that both passages were unsuitable for commercial navigation.
By then it was September and the pack ice was beginning to reform. Cook turned his ships back along the Siberian coast—he was charting the coast of Siberia in two Whitby colliers!—and south into the Bering Sea. The Resolution was in a poor state once more and needed rerigging. Cook required a warm winter anchorage, and he chose the Sandwich Islands, where they’d been welcomed earlier.
For two months Cook searched the islands for a suitable anchorage, surveying and charting as he went. On January 17, 1779, he found Karakakooa (Kealakekua) Bay on the west coast of Owhyhee (Hawaii) itself, the largest island. He sent William Bligh in a boat to sound the bay. The bay was open only to the southwest, and the holding ground was good. It would do.
His reception was overwhelming. Thousands of islanders canoed or swam out to the ships, climbing aboard in their feathers and flowers even while the sailors were anchoring. When Cook stepped ashore with gifts of pigs, goats, and iron tools, the islanders again prostrated themselves before him. Elaborate ceremonies were performed and he was accompanied by priests wherever he went. In awe, the Polynesian king Kalaniopu’u visited Cook’s ships. They called Cook “Orono,” “Lono” or “Rono.” No one aboard the two ships understood what was happening. It wasn’t until many years later, after interviews with the islanders involved, that the truth was uncovered.
Orono was a Hawaiian god who’d been exiled. The legend was that one day he would return, bearing gifts of swine and dogs. Who else but Orono could the tall, noble Captain Cook be?
Cook stayed only three weeks. With the Resolution’s rigging repaired and the ships provisioned and watered, he set sail to complete his survey of the Sandwich Islands, explore the northwest Pacific, and return to the Arctic. He wrote that Owhyhee had “enriched our voyage with a discovery which, though the last, seemed in many respects to be the most important that had hitherto been made throughout the extent of the Pacific Ocean.” Those were the final words in his journal. That he wrote “the last” discovery is intriguing.
The Resolution’s log records that a strong blow caught the ship and the morning inspection revealed severe damage to the foremast and fore-topmast, one more relic of the poor refit. Repairs required a safe anchorage, for the masts had to be removed. Cook did not want to return to Owhyhee, but there was nowhere else. He put about and anchored again in Karakakooa Bay on February 10.
This time, the welcome for “Orono” was somewhat thin. Cook went ashore to explain to King Kalaniopu’u and his chiefs the reason for his return�
�only to repair the masts. He believed they’d understood him, but what the priests said when he’d gone was another matter. Working as quickly as they could, the British seamen “fished” the masts and floated them ashore for repair. It was complicated, skilled work. As it progressed, stones were thrown at them and there were minor assaults. Thefts increased dramatically until the islanders actually swam under the ships to pull out the nails holding the copper sheathing to the hulls. Cook had an islander flogged as a deterrent.
On the night of the thirteenth, the Discovery’s cutter was stolen from her mooring. This was extremely serious. In the morning Cook went ashore in the Resolution’s pinnace with ten marines in the launch to carry out his usual bloodless punishment. He would take a chief hostage until the cutter was returned. It had always worked before. Four more boats cordoned the bay to stop islanders from rowing their canoes or the cutter away. Cook’s reluctant orders were to fire if necessary and unusually, he carried a shotgun himself.
Cook reported the theft to Kalaniopu’u, who agreed to go with him to the Resolution until the cutter was returned. The king’s young sons asked to go as well and, with their father’s agreement, ran ahead. On the beach they heard gunfire along the bay. Cook’s men had fired to stop a canoe from leaving.
One of the king’s wives wailed and begged him not to go. Two young chiefs took hold of the king’s arms and sat him on the beach, while other islanders collected stones, spears, and clubs. The lieutenant of marines lined his men along the water’s edge, their muskets loaded and ready. From the crowd someone cried that a chief had been killed in the firing along the bay. Cook understood what had been said and left the king sitting on the beach. He ordered the marines to return to the ships to avoid bloodshed and walked down the beach.
A warrior rushed at him wielding a stone and a dagger. Cook turned and in Polynesian ordered: “Put those things down!” but the man drew back his arm to throw the stone.
Cook fired his shotgun, using the barrel containing round shot, which would sting but not kill. The shot hit the warrior’s coconut breastplate. He laughed and came on with his dagger raised. Cook fired the second barrel, containing ball, and the warrior fell to the beach.
There was a roar and the islanders attacked with stones and spears. The marines fired. Undeterred, the islanders killed four marines before they could reload. The seamen in the boat came in to help, telling the king’s sons to run for it before they were hurt. The boys ran away through the shallows.
Copyright © 2009 by Graeme Neil Reid
Cook stood at the water’s edge, a tall, commanding figure in navy-blue tailcoat and white breeches, facing the islanders. They paused. He turned to his seamen and marines with his hand held palm up to command a ceasefire. It was then, with his back to the islanders, that he was clubbed, stabbed, and killed. The marines and seamen fired their muskets into the mob and retreated to the boat. From the Discovery, the watching Clerke fired two ship’s cannon overhead into the trees. Cook’s body and the bodies of the four marines were torn apart as the boats rowed into deep water. It was over.
The next day, parts of Cook’s body were returned to the Resolution by a sorrowful chief. Those remnants—missing his head—were given a naval funeral to a captain’s salute of ten guns.
Lieutenant Clerke took command of the Resolution and promoted Gore to command of the Discovery. The masts were repaired, and on a gray February day the two ships departed Owhyhee. Clerke continued as Cook had planned, exploring northwestward across the Pacific, but discovered nothing. The two ships sailed the cold northern sea into the Arctic, where Clerke found the ice farther south than the year before. There was no way through. Neither the Northwest nor the Northeast were viable passages. They are not still.
In the Arctic, Clerke died of tuberculosis. It was the worst weather for him, but he’d insisted on completing Cook’s plans. Gore took command and turned south for the small Russian port of Petropavlovsk. There, Clerke was buried. The Resolution and the Discovery were repaired and departed for Britain. The passage home took a year. They arrived at London in October 1780, completing a voyage of four and a quarter years. Not one man in either ship had died of disease.
The chronometer in the Resolution was removed and supplied later to another ship bound for the South Seas named Bounty. It was removed from the Bounty at Pitcairn Island and is now in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich.
Mrs. Cook received a royal pension from King George, her husband’s share of the royalties of his published journals, and a specially struck gold medal from the Royal Society. She lived mostly alone until she died at age ninety-three. All six of their children died without heirs, the two eldest sons in service with the navy.
In Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United States, and throughout the Pacific Islands there are memorials to Captain James Cook. In the United Kingdom there is a statue in the Mall near the Admiralty and one on the cliffs near Whitby. It’s late, but not too late, for a significant memorial in London’s Westminster Abbey or Saint Paul’s to the greatest cartographer, surveyor, seaman, and navigator in history.
Recommended
Captain Cook: The Seaman’s Seaman by Alan Villiers
The Journals of Captain Cook, edited by J. C. Beaglehole
The Life of Captain James Cook by J. C. Beaglehole
The Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth, Hampshire, U.K.
The National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
The Whitby Museum, Whitby, Yorkshire, U.K.
The Mitchell Library, Sydney, Australia
Endeavour replica, Whitby, Yorkshire, U.K.
Endeavour replica, Sydney, Australia
Captain Cook’s Cottage, Melbourne, Australia
Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay
If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself, upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy.
—George Mallory
We look up. For weeks, for months, that is all we have done. Look up. And there it is—the top of Everest. Only it is different now: so near, so close, only a little more than a thousand feet above us. It is no longer just a dream, a high dream in the sky, but a real and solid thing, a thing of rock and snow, that men can climb. We make ready. We will climb it. This time, with God’s help, we will climb on to the end.
—Tenzing Norgay
Less than sixty years ago, no one in the history of the world had conquered Everest. It is possible that George Mallory and Andrew Irvine made it in 1924, but they died in the attempt and there is no way to know if they were still climbing or coming down. Mallory’s body was not even found until 1999.
The highest mountain in the world is still incredibly dangerous, and climbers die in the attempt every year. More than forty bodies remain frozen on the north side of the mountain, and others have been lost in avalanches, their whereabouts unknown.
Everest is part of the Himalayan range, on the border between Tibet and Nepal. In Tibet it is known as Chomolungma, or “Saint Mother,” while the Nepalese call it Sagarmatha, meaning “Goddess of the Sky.” Everest is named after George Everest, a British surveyor in nineteenth-century India. Before World War II, ascents began in Tibet, but when China occupied and closed that country to foreigners, future attempts had to come from the Nepalese side.
Everest stands 29,035 feet high—a fraction under five and a half miles from sea level. For those who are interested in such things, the highest mountain from foot to tip is actually a Hawaiian island, though obviously, almost all of that is underwater.
Above 27,000 feet, the air is too thin to breathe without severe training and months of acclimatization. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay used bottled oxygen to make their ascent. Bad weather can make climbing impossible, which leaves only a small window each year when summit attempts can take place.
The Bri
tish Everest expedition of 1953 came after years of expeditions to survey the approaches from Nepal. In 1951 a potential route to the top was noted, and in 1952 two Swiss attempts on the summit were made. The British team was in the Himalayas, training at high altitude and ready to climb if the Swiss failed. A French team was ready to go after them. At that time, nine of the eleven major attempts on the mountain had been British-sponsored. Such energy and risk is either impossible to explain or very simple. As George Mallory said when he was asked why he wanted to climb Everest: “Because it’s there.”
The 1953 British expedition was led by John Hunt. It was a massive undertaking just to reach the area. More than three hundred porters were employed to bring ten thousand pounds of supplies and equipment. Twenty native Nepalese guides were engaged for the task, some of whom, like Tenzing Norgay, had climbed to 28,000 feet with the Swiss the previous year. As the expedition unpacked on the lawns of the British High Commission in Kathmandu, they discovered that they had forgotten the British flag to fly on the summit of Everest. Rather than go without it, the high commissioner gave them one from his official Rolls-Royce.
More than one climb had come within a thousand feet of the summit but then been overwhelmed by exhaustion or blizzards. At that height, the mountain has already taken a fierce toll. All equipment, including oxygen bottles, has to be carried up, and progress is bitterly slow as the last reserves of strength and fitness dwindle away. As with breaking the four-minute mile, that last stretch seemed an impossible obstacle.
Copyright © 2009 by Graeme Neil Reid
By May 1953, the British team had crossed crevasses and climbed sheer ice and rock to set up Advance Base Camp at 21,000 feet. The region above that height is known as the “death zone,” as climbers can endure only a few days in some of the most hostile conditions on earth.
The Dangerous Book of Heroes Page 13
