the head,
whereupon they hurriedly retreated, and further attempts at communication
were abandoned. From this place the course was laid to the south to
strike the much-talked-of Southern Continent. The weather rapidly got
colder, and the pigs and fowls began to sicken and die. On 26th August
they celebrated the anniversary of leaving England by cutting a Cheshire
cheese and tapping a cask of porter, which proved excellent.

On the 28th an unfortunate death occurred; the boatswain's mate, John
Reading, was given some rum by his chief, and it is supposed drunk it off
at once, for he was shortly afterwards found to be very drunk, and was
taken to his berth, but next morning was past recovery.

On 2nd September, in latitude 40 degrees 22 minutes South, the weather
was very bad, and "having not the least visible signs of land," Cook
again turned northwards, in order to get better weather and then to push
west. The continuous swell convinced him there was no large body of land
to the south for many leagues. Towards the end of September frequent
signs were noted of being near land, floating seaweed, wood, the
difference in the birds, etc., so a gallon of rum was offered to the
first to sight land, and on 7th October the North Island of New Zealand,
never before approached from the east by Europeans, was seen by a boy
named Nicholas Young, the servant of Mr. Perry, surgeon's mate. The boy's
name is omitted from the early muster sheets of the ship, but appears on
18th April 1769, entered as A.B. in the place of Peter Flower, drowned.
Cook named the point seen, the south-west point of Poverty Bay, Young
Nick's Head.

Tasman had discovered the west coast in 1642, and had given it the name
of Staten Land, but he never set foot on shore. He was driven away by the
natives, who killed four of his men, and naming the place Massacre (now
Golden) Bay, he sailed along the north-west coast, giving the headlands
the names they still bear. Dalrymple held that this land discovered by
Tasman was the west coast of the looked-for Terra Australis Incognita,
and his theory was now shattered.

LAND IN NEW ZEALAND.

Nearing the coast a bay was discovered into which the ship sailed, and
let go her anchor near the mouth of a small river, not far from where the
town of Guisborne now stands. Plenty of smoke was seen, showing the
country was inhabited, and the pinnace and yawl were manned and armed,
and Cook landed on the east side of the river. Som