James Cook’s Lost World

by Graeme Lay

  Later. As we are now in the Northern Hemisphere, my season and yours are once more aligned. As in England, it is springtime on this coast. London, however, is several degrees further north than we presently are. This morning astronomer Bayly calculated our latitude to be 44° 33' North, compared with London’s 51°.

  Viewed from the sea, New Albion consists of many hills, separated by valleys. I attempted to chart the coast by running survey, but the visibility was so poor that I fear the results will be no more reliable than those attempted by the Spaniard Perez, in 1774. His chart is next to useless.

  After several days of adverse weather the wind became more favourable and we were able to make our way north again. We passed a headland which I named Cape Flattery, then entered a deep sound. The wind promptly dropped, so we hoisted the boats and the sloops were towed into the sound. It affords us a fine sheltered anchorage. Perez discovered the inlet and called it Surgidero de San Lorenzo. I have renamed it St George’s Sound, after England’s patron saint. The surrounding mountains and rainforest remind me of Dusky Sound in New Zealand. Let us hope it is as bountiful as that anchorage proved to be.

  As you know, I am intimate with the eastern coast of North America, Newfoundland in particular, from my time there a decade and a half ago. The charting of that coast, which is about 53° West of Greenwich, is now matched by Bayly’s recording of the longitude of this one, 126° West. A difference of 73 degrees! This means that the continent of North America extends over 4000 miles from west to east.

  I am awed by this figure. What resources, both mineral and human, must lie between those two coasts! And how imperative it is that England retains possession of the continent. I often wonder how the war against the insurgents in our North American colonies is progressing. You have been following the military campaign there in the London news-sheets, I’m sure.

  As far as this part of America is concerned, Spain doubtless believes that it is theirs. Vizcaino first, in 1602-3, then José de Gálvez in 1765 and Perez in 1774, made forays along this coast. Quadra in 1766 extended the exploration as far as 58° North, a considerable achievement.

  I have been reading translations of all their accounts. The Spaniards were undoubtedly courageous. But after their crews became stricken with scurvy, their explorations were crippled. Furthermore, the charts they constructed are, I have already discovered, unreliable. As usual, I am carrying out my own surveys, and furthermore both ships remain scurvy-free, I am again proud to say.

  I must end this entry now and prepare to go ashore. My determination to gain a North-east Passage through to the Atlantic is greater than ever. The knowledge that the passage will also bring me closer to you and our children provides me with an even greater incentive to succeed.

  I am, as always,

  Your loving husband,

  James

  The land surrounding the newly renamed St George’s Sound was densely forested and rose gradually to a range of snow-topped mountains, extending across the horizon. The forest was a species of pine, Anderson suggested. Its trees certainly filled the air with a resinous aroma. The waters of the sound were dotted with small islands covered in the same species of tree. Birds were everywhere. Families of ducks cruised on the water, geese, gulls and shags flew across the sound and hook-beaked eagles glided hundreds of feet above.

  After the ships were anchored the crews stared at the surrounding land, eager to see what type of natives inhabited this place. They could see log huts along the shore and smoke drifting into the air around them. Large canoes were drawn up in front of the huts.

  As the men stared, people emerged from the little settlement and began to push more than two dozen canoes out into the water. They came closer, and hooting and whooping sounds carried across the water to the ship. ‘They are singing for us,’ said King delightedly.

  The flotilla surrounded the ships and the people in the canoes stared up at the crewmen, their expressions unthreatening. ‘Greet them in Otaheitian,’ James ordered Gibson, who called down to the people in the nearest canoe: ‘Ia ora na! Maeva! Maeva! To’u i’oa ’o Samuel Gibson. E aha te huru?’

  Clasping their paddles, the people in the canoes frowned. After Gibson repeated the greeting, some began to chuckle. They did not comprehend. Apparently unconcerned, they set their paddles down and held up large bundles, tied with some sort of cord.

  ‘Animal skins,’ Gore said. ‘It seems they wish to trade them.’

  ‘Good.’ James leaned over the rail and gestured for them to come aboard. A rope was thrown down to the nearest canoe and made fast, and its male and female occupants climbed up to the deck.

  The men were stocky and copper-skinned, with prominent cheekbones and coal-black hair that reached their shoulders. Their faces were smeared with red and black ochre and they wore woven conical hats and cloaks of animal skin. Several men had bows across their shoulders and quivers full of arrows at their sides. The women’s eyes were large and dark, their faces oval, their cheekbones raised. Their faces were smeared with red and white ochre and their hair was plaited with strips of what appeared to be red seaweed. They wore the same raiments as the men, except that their hats were decorated with drawings of fish and birds. Both men and women gave off a seasoned smell of sweat, fish and smoke.

  The ship’s company eyed the women doubtfully. Although they smiled coyly, these were not the lissom, nut-brown beauties of the Society Isles, Kow-ay-ee and Nee-ee-how. Some of the crew screwed up their eyes and held their noses. Webber, ever the eager portraitist, took one of the women aside, sat her down on an upturned bucket and began to draw her.

  The animal skins were laid out on the deck. The pelts were of varying sizes, the curing of high quality. Handling the skins, James and the others speculated as to their original owners. As an American, Gore was able to supply the answers. He identified the skins of wolves, foxes, deer, raccoons, seals and sea otters. Those of the latter were especially soft and pliable. ‘Fine for gloves and hats, I should say,’ Gore mused, rubbing one between his fingers and thumb. ‘These would fetch a fine price in London.’

  In return for the pelts the natives wanted anything of iron, with which they were probably familiar from the Spaniards’ visits, James concluded. The crew presented the Indians with nails and coins in exchange for the skins. The natives accepted these eagerly, but when offered beads they waved them away dismissively.

  James presented the man who appeared to be their leader, a tall, sturdily built man, with a hatchet. He beamed, showing white even teeth, and touched his chest. ‘Maquinna,’ he said. It was deduced from Maquinna, through sign language, that the village of these people was called Yuquot. He referred to his people as Mowachaht, and they were part of a larger tribe, the Nuu Chuh Chah. The sound was called Nootka, he said. King had his notebook in hand and recorded these names. Maquinna’s people lived from fishing, sealing and whaling, he told the visitors through mime. They took their canoes well out to sea to carry out these activities, he said, pointing west towards the entrance to the sound.

  Theft, it soon became obvious, would be a problem. Like the other natives, the Indians assumed that any object not bolted to the deck or battened down would become the possession of the uplifter. Several fish-hooks and lines hanging from the rails, and marlin spikes, were snatched up eagerly by the Mowachaht. The crew quickly disabused them of this quaint notion of ownership, firmly taking back every object that had been picked up then placing it beyond the Indians’ reach. Although they looked disappointed, they did not resist, although they continued to look covetously at the crew’s knives and the marines’ side arms.

  After an hour or so aboard, the Mowachaht left the ship and paddled back to shore, at the same time breaking into their strangely melodic crying sounds. The pelts they had brought aboard had been bought cheaply.

  There was considerable maintenance work to be done on both ships. After they had been moored head and stern to the shore and their anchors raised, it was found that Resolution’s cable h
ad been damaged by the sound’s rocky bottom and needed to be replaced. The decks were re-caulked, the noise of pounding hammers echoing around the sound as the crew worked in more oakum to replug the gaping seams. While this was being done the sailmaker reported to James that some of the bolt-ropes—the roping stitched to the sails’ edges, crucial for keeping them intact—had become frayed. Dismayed at this deterioration, James ordered them to be re-stitched.

  His customary hygiene policies were also implemented. The scuttles were opened wide, the lower decks fumigated with sulphur fires and scrubbed from stem to stern with vinegar. The crew’s clothing was washed and hung out to dry. The weather obliged, the sound being bathed in spring sunshine.

  On their third day at Nootka, Bligh approached James, anxiety written in his expression. ‘I’ve just inspected the yards and masts, sir.’ He winced. ‘The fore and mizzen masts are both sprung.’

  ‘Are you certain?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll show you.’

  Seeing for himself the cracks in both masts, James gave the foremast a vicious backhand swipe with his stick. This was drastic. In view of what undoubtedly lay ahead—gales, snow and ice—it was imperative that the ships were as fit as possible. If the cracks in the masts widened it was likely that they wouldn’t be able to bear the weight of the sails. And a dismasting in Arctic waters would be catastrophic.

  Looking over towards the shore, he said to Bligh, ‘At least there are trees everywhere here. Alert the carpenter and his mates. We’ll go ashore and find replacements.’

  In the pinnace with James were Bligh and Anderson, along with carpenter Cleveley and able seamen Hetherton and Herold, his assistants. The carpenter’s saws, adzes, axes, chisels and planes were in a canvas bag in the bottom of the boat.

  The forest grew right to the water’s edge. They disembarked and walked a little way inland, fallen pine needles forming a springy carpet beneath their feet. The trees all around them looked ideal for masts. Tall and straight, they were over 200 feet tall and five to six feet in diameter. Their trunks were branch-free, their bark thick and corky. James tagged two that were only yards from the shoreline and Cleveley and his mates went to work felling them.

  It took four days to trim the two trees, strip them of their bark and shape them. On the fifth day more crewmen were brought ashore to help drag the shaped masts into the water. There they were floated and towed out to Resolution, whose sails had been removed and were drying out around the decks. Deploying the ship’s scissor-like shears, Cleveley and his mates removed the cracked masts and dropped them into the water. Then they successfully stepped the replacement foremast.

  But when the new mizzenmast was being hoisted into place, Bligh looked at it closely, then held up his hand. ‘Stop!’ he shouted.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Cleveley.

  ‘Look. There.’ Bligh pointed. On the new mast, five feet from the top, was a crack.

  After this was reported to James, he confronted Cleveley. ‘Did you not notice the split?’ he demanded.

  The carpenter stared down at the deck. ‘No, sir,’ he mumbled. Then he looked up, his eyes as soulful as a seal’s. ‘The crack must have happened when the tree was felled,’ he said dismally.

  ‘Yes. But only a brief inspection of the log would have revealed it. This means more time lost. Damn you, man!’

  James considered ordering Cleveley flogged, but relented. The lapse was uncharacteristic of the man; he was usually reliable. Slapping the cracked mast, he said, ‘Put this one overboard, then go ashore and fell another tree. Dress it, shape it, then bring it aboard and step it. But first inspect the entire trunk to ensure there are no defects.’

  Cleveley shuffled his feet. ‘Aye, sir. And beggin’ yer pardon for the error, sir.’

  ‘Just get on with the job,’ James snarled.

  It was another two days before the replacement mast for the replacement mast was cut, transported and stepped. Meanwhile, there were other activities ashore. Bayly and King had set up an observatory on a flat rock on one side of the cove, opposite where the ships were moored. Bayly’s tent had been erected on the rock to protect the instruments, and when the weather permitted, assisted by a Kendall timekeeper, he and King made their astronomic observations (latitude 49° 41' North; longitude 126° West) from the site. A forge was set up nearby for the armourers to fashion new ironwork for the replacement foremast; one of the old foremast’s bibs had also been broken. Wood-gathering parties found supplies easy to procure, since everywhere they looked there were trees. Not all was destined for firewood; the men also felled young trees for spare spars, and lengths of timber which could later be sawed into planking.

  The Mowachaht observed these activities with curiosity and no hostility. They continued to visit the ships, following a certain ritual. Venturing out daily in their canoes, they first paddled around the vessels; their leaders stood up, waving a kind of rattle and calling out loudly. This was followed by a rousing chant from all the canoes’ occupants, a sound that was surprisingly melodious. Then they would come aboard with their fish and skins to trade.

  Their women came too. Although most of the crew thought them unattractive, a few found their own sexual urges too strong to resist. Handing a brass button to the younger women, they took them below and copulated there, taking care to first ascertain that the captain was ashore. Beforehand the men took a bucket of water and a cake of tallow and gave the girls a good wash down, sluicing the grease, ochre and soot from their faces, hair and bodies. Once the grime was removed, the satisfied participants reported to the other crew members, their bodies were as enticing and satisfying as those of the women of Otaheite. ‘Luscious,’ one of the partakers, the perpetually libidinous Samwell told his less bold shipmates. ‘And it only cost me a brass button off my flies.’

  In the meantime, James relished leaving the ship and going into the wilds. As he was rowed towards the head of the sound he stared around at the forests and up at the snowy mountains. He turned his face to the wind blowing down from them, and trailed his scarred right hand in the sound’s satiny water. The air was so fresh here, the sound so serene.

  Lately he had found the Great Cabin a lonely space, inducing melancholia. The colic made matters worse. The constipation came and went, but the cramp in his gut was almost constant. The pain made him angry, mainly because there was nothing he could do to stop it. Anderson’s laudanum left him lethargic, and this was incompatible with command. Anger was preferable to lethargy. The latter just led to negligence and imprecision, which he detested.

  Other feelings invaded his consciousness and lodged there stubbornly. What was that word Banks had used, during the final stage of the Endeavour voyage? Nos … nos … talgia, that was it. Nostalgia, a longing for what had gone before, a yearning for the past. Yes, that feeling often beset him now. A longing for hearth and home. He missed his home, he missed Elizabeth, he missed his children, he missed England. On the previous voyages this nostalgia had not affected him to the same extent, but this time it was becoming undeniable.

  He sat up straight in the launch and told himself, Don’t feel sorry for yourself. You chose to accept this command; it was your duty to do so. Besides, the sooner the North-east Passage is discovered and charted, the sooner you will be reunited with your loved ones.

  But the anger that burned within him like a smouldering volcano could not be extinguished. The most vital components of the ships—decking, sails and masts—had been found deficient, time and time again. The sprung masts and frayed bolt-ropes were further confirmation that inferior materials had been employed in the refit at the Deptford yard. James took his hand from the water and clenched it. Shipwrights? Shipwrongs. Even the tranquil surroundings of Nootka Sound could not overcome his slow-burning rage.

  Leaving the ship and exploring of the upper reaches of the sound did help, though. When he and the officers visited the Indians’ villages, it gave them the maximum opportunity to trade. The Mowachaht continued to seek any object made of meta
l—coins, brass buttons, drawer handles, candlesticks. Brass they prized especially.

  James and the others strolled among the huts, watching the women at their work, drying the sardines and codfish their men had caught, and fashioning skirts and capes from animal skins. Then the men came out, offering bundles of pelts for trade.

  Yet always James was conscious of time slipping away. Spring would soon turn into summer. So as the end of April approached, he ordered the sails bent and the shore facilities dismantled and brought back aboard. In the ships’ food stores were large quantities of dried fish and deer meat, and all the water casks had been filled from the streams that flowed into the sound. On 25 April he announced that the following day they would weigh and put to sea.

  But first they had to farewell the locals. Accompanied by several of his people, Chief Maquinna came aboard wearing an ornate cap and a beautiful beaver-skin cloak. After James presented him with a brass medallion, Maquinna removed his cloak and placed it reverently about James’s shoulders. Embarrassed by the unequal nature of this exchange, James went below, fetched a broad sword with a brass hilt from the armoury and presented it to the chief. Overjoyed, Maquinna thrust the sword through his leather belt, then raised one fist in the air jubilantly. Through gestures, he beseeched James and his men to return, promising that they would receive many more animal skins when they did. Then, accompanied by lamentations, the Yuquots descended to their canoes, waved farewell and paddled away, breaking for a last time into their distinctive song.

  Next morning James ordered the ships unmoored. After Resolution’s noon bell was rung, Bligh approached James on the quarterdeck, again looking worried. ‘The barometer is falling, Captain. There could be gales at sea from the south. I suggest we wait for a few more days before we sail.’