ant; and to convince Mr Forster, who differed
from Mr Banks and Dr Solander that it was caused by insects, some
buckets of water were drawn up from alongside. On examination he found
that the water was full of globular insects of the size of a pin's head,
and quite transparent.

The next day the ships anchored off Cape Town, where Captain Cook and
his officers were received by the Governor and other authorities with
attention and respect. The Governor informed Captain Cook that a French
ship had discovered land in the meridian of the Mauritius, in latitude
48 degrees South; and also that in the previous March two French ships,
under Monsieur Marion, had touched at the Cape on their way to explore
the South Pacific.

The expedition quitted the Cape of Good Hope on November 22, and steered
a course towards Cape Circumcision, which was the first object for which
they were directed to search. They soon found the weather very cold,
when warm clothing was issued; and having encountered a heavy gale, with
hail and rain, which drove them far to the eastward of their course, all
hope of reaching the looked-for cape was given up. Owing, also, to the
severity of the weather, and the sudden transition from dry heat to
extreme cold and wet, the ships' companies suffered a severe misfortune
in the loss of nearly all the live-stock (consisting of sheep, hogs, and
geese) which they had brought with them from Cape Town. This weather
continued for the greater part of the time the ships remained in that
high latitude. On December 10 an island of ice was seen in latitude 50
degrees 40 minutes South and 2 degrees 0 minutes East of the Cape of
Good Hope. After this thick, hazy weather again came on, with sleet and
snow. The ships continued their course, the Resolution leading, when an
iceberg, directly for which they were steering, was discovered through
the mist not a mile off. It was about fifty feet high, flat at top,
about half a mile in circumference, and its sides, against which the sea
broke furiously, rose perpendicularly from the ocean. Captain Furneaux,
who was astern, took this ice for land, and hauled off from it; and
there is no doubt that many navigators who have reported land in these
latitudes have been deceived in the same way.

Nothing could be more trying to the explorers than the navigation in
which they were now engaged, day after day tacking off and on among
large fields of ice, through which they in vain en