world wherever books are read. He was born in the lowest condition of
life, and raised himself to the highest point of fame. He was a
self-taught man too. No large sums of money or long years of time were
spent upon his schooling. No college education made him what he was.
An old woman taught him his letters, but he was not sent to school till
he was thirteen years of age. He remained only four years at the
village school, where he learned a little writing and a little figuring.
This was all he had to start with. The knowledge which he afterwards
acquired, the great deeds that he performed, and the wonderful
discoveries that he made, were all owing to the sound brain, the patient
persevering spirit, the modest practical nature, and the good stout arm
with which the Almighty had blessed him. It is the glory of England
that many of her greatest men have risen from the ranks of those sons of
toil who earn their daily bread in the sweat of their brow. Among all
who have thus risen, few stand so high as Captain Cook.

Many bold things he did, many strange regions he visited, in his voyages
round the world, the records of which fill bulky volumes. In this
little book we shall confine our attention to some of the interesting
discoveries that were made by him among the romantic islands of the
South Pacific--islands which are so beautiful that they have been aptly
styled "gems of ocean," but which, nevertheless, are inhabited by savage
races so thoroughly addicted to the terrible practice of eating human
flesh, that we have thought fit to adopt the other, and not less
appropriate, name of the Cannibal Islands.

Before proceeding with the narrative, let us glance briefly at the early
career of Captain James Cook. He was born in 1728. After receiving the
very slight education already referred to, he was bound apprentice to a
shopkeeper. But the roving spirit within him soon caused him to break
away from an occupation so uncongenial. He passed little more than a
year behind the counter, and then, in 1746, went to sea.

Young Cook's first voyages were in connection with the coasting trade.
He began his career in a collier trading between London and Newcastle.
In a very short time it became evident that he would soon be a rising
man. Promotion came rapidly. Little more than three years after the
expiry of his apprenticeship he became mate of the _Friendship_, but, a
few years later, he turned a longing eye on the na