r and indisputable proof of the cannibalistic
tendencies of the Maoris, some of the natives eating human flesh before
them. Cook has been much blamed for permitting this scene, which took
place on board; but there had been so much disputing in England as to the
possibility of the fact, that he could not resist the opportunity of
putting it beyond a doubt.

It was, however, to be shortly proved in a much more horrible manner, for
the Adventure, which only arrived at Queen Charlotte's Sound after the
Resolution left, had a boat's crew attacked, overpowered, and eaten by
the natives. The circumstances were never wholly known, as not a man
escaped; but the cooked remains were found, the natives decamping as the
search-party approached.

Cook sailed south on November 25th, 1773, and was soon again battling
with the ice, into which he pushed as far as was safe with as much
hardihood as if he had still had the second ship with him. He gained the
latitude of 67 degrees south, and worked eastward, searching religiously
for land--which, needless to say, he never found--his ropes frozen, and
sails like, as he says, plates of metal. Whatever the feelings of others
on board were, Cook never flinched from every effort to get south,
penetrating in one place to 71 degrees south, where he was stopped by
dense pack, until he found himself nearly in the longitude of Tierra del
Fuego, when, satisfied that no Southern Continent existed in the Pacific,
he, on February 6th, steered north, to continue exploration in more
genial weather and more profitable latitudes. All this time there was no
scurvy, and very little sickness of any kind; an indisputable proof of
the untiring supervision Cook exercised over the health of his men. The
object of his voyage, so far as the Southern Pacific was concerned, was
now accomplished, and Cook might have rounded Cape Horn, and made for the
Cape of Good Hope, completing his tour of the world in southern
latitudes; but such was not his idea of his duty. His own nervous words
will explain his feelings best:--

"We undoubtedly might have reached the Cape of Good Hope in April, and so
have put an end to the expedition so far as related to the finding of a
continent, which indeed was the first object of the voyage; but for me at
this time to have quitted this Southern Pacific Ocean with a good ship
expressly sent out on discoveries, a healthy crew, and not in want either
of stores or provisions, would have betr