by Graeme Lay
Endeavour’s bow was turned into the breeze and she was rolling gently, the most peaceful she had been for days. The air was warm and there was a light haze upon the sea. The four stern windows were wide open. James had ordered a double ration of rum for the lower mess deck where the crew were already tucking into their Yuletide dinner, and Green had broached a jeroboam of claret.
Banks filled their glasses, then raised his to the others. ‘Gentlemen, the King!’
‘The King.’ ‘The King.’ ‘The King.’
All except Tupaia drank, then they began their meal. The gannet is a fair substitute for goose, James thought. A little stringy, but tasty. And the New Zealand sweet potatoes are excellent.
‘I must say,’ ventured Parkinson, setting down his knife and fork, ‘that I could never get used to having a hot Christmas. Back in Edinburgh this time always brings snow.’
‘And in Stockholm,’ said Solander.
The others all murmured agreement, remembering their various homes, Christmases past, and absent loved ones. James wondered if Elizabeth and the children would already be at her parents’ house, and whether his father was staying with Christiana or Margaret. This last he felt with his usual pangs of guilt. Perhaps his father was no longer alive. He tried to banish this thought, only too aware that he had not been a dutiful son.
Banks swallowed his claret. ‘Have you ever before experienced such gales as we have had these past days, Cook?’
‘Not often, I confess. Even Cape Horn was but mild compared with North Cape.’
The others looked blank. ‘North Cape?’ asked Green. ‘Where is that?’
‘The cape we doubled two days ago. This country’s northernmost point. I have named it North Cape.’ James spoke matter-of-factly.
Banks refilled his glass. Then, tilting his head to one side, he said reflectively, ‘East Cape, the Bay of Islands, North Cape. Not very original names.’
James took a sip of wine, then replied calmly, ‘It’s my belief, Banks, that a place should be named after an event, for its geographical significance, or after a person who merits the honour.’
Banks’s face was becoming flushed. He swallowed another mouthful of claret, then said challengingly, ‘And which of the gentlemen at this table merits the honour?’
Aware that the botanist was trying to provoke him, James said thoughtfully, ‘Well, Herman has his island at Uawa. Sporing’s Island. Zachary has his bay, Hicks’ Bay.’ He smiled, then said with deliberate mischievousness, ‘Your turn may come, Banks. Would you prefer to be commemorated by a bay, a cape or an island?’ He paused. ‘Or some sand banks perhaps?’
The others dissolved into good-natured laughter. Then the botanist rose to the challenge. ‘I think nothing less than a mountain would do justice to my notable self.’ He looked up and closed his eyes. ‘Yes, Mount Banks. That will do very nicely.’
Green, who had said little until now, concentrating instead on quaffing the claret, said quietly, ‘Mount Banks? That is just a syllable away from “mountebank”. You may need to think again, Banks.’
All except Tupaia laughed. Puzzled, he said to Green, ‘What is this word, mount-a —, mount-a — What does it mean?’
Banks leaned forward. ‘A mountebank, my taio, is a fraud.’ At Tupaia’s still-confused expression, he added, ‘A cheat, a dishonest person.’
Tupaia nodded, understanding. Then he shook his head and said, ‘That is not you, taio.’
Banks leapt to his feet. ‘Thank you, my good fellow.’ Turning to James, he declared, ‘I have a far better suggestion.’ Swaying slightly, holding up his glass, he said, ‘Terra Australis Incognita, when we at last come upon it, shall from that day forth be known as Terra Australis Banksia!’
Sailing south down the western coast of New Zealand, they kept Endeavour well off from the lee shore. The westerly winds persisted, the skies were mostly overcast and what they could see of the land appeared inhospitable. Powerful swells beat relentlessly against the coast. And with the advent of the New Year, James’s concerns grew. The ship had taken a battering these past weeks, repairs to her hull and sails were badly needed, and provisions were running low. Murderers Bay, where Tasman had attempted a landing in 1642, appeared physically suitable, but the Dutchman’s fatal altercation with the Maoris there did not bode well. Still, James told himself, they had the Otaheitian with them to act as a go-between. This gave him reassurance.
On 13 January they were still making their way south. At first light they saw that the coastline was now bearing away to the east. Two hours later the clouds lifted, and the Endeavours saw a sight which captivated them. To the south, seeming to rise directly from the sea, was a conic mountain. Symmetrical, but with gullied, purplish slopes, its peak glowed with midsummer snow. Towering over the surrounding land like a gigantic pyramid, it brought all the crew to the larboard railings.
‘What a beautiful sight,’ Solander remarked to James. ‘What height do you estimate it to be?’
‘Somewhat lower than the Pike of Tenerife, I would say,’ said James, scope still to his eye. ‘And it is surrounded by a plain, which accentuates its elevation. Perhaps nine thousand feet.’
Tupaia and his boy joined them on the afterdeck. ‘What is that whiteness at the top of the mountain?’ Tupaia asked, baffled. ‘Bird shit?’
‘No,’ said James, chuckling. ‘It’s snow.’ Then, realizing that the Otaheitians would never have seen such a thing, he added, ‘Frozen water. Caused by the mountain’s height.’
Tupaia looked on in wonderment. ‘Snow. Snow.’
Later that day, moving to within four leagues of the shore, they saw a densely forested plain and, just off the coast, several tall, sheer-sided islands. As he sketched them, Parkinson remarked to James, ‘They resemble loaves of sugar, sir.’
James nodded. ‘They do indeed.’ Then he resumed his charting.
The next day, on a draft of his chart, James considered a name for the dominating mountain. He hadn’t honoured anyone in the Admiralty since Lord Hawke, months earlier. Out of consideration for his own future prospects, it was time he did so again. On the draft he wrote carefully, ‘Mount Egmont’, to honour Sir John Perceval, Earl of Egmont, a recent First Lord of the Admiralty and another of those who had farewelled Endeavour at Plymouth. Then, admiring Parkinson’s allusion, across the tall islands he wrote ‘Sugar Loaves’.
The following day, still on a southerly course, they doubled a rocky cape, the extremity of the bulge in the coastline. After observing its latitude and its longitude, James declared this to be Cape Egmont. And as he made note of the coordinates, he wondered whether this mark could be the western most point of New Zealand. As the coastline was now trending more to the south-west than the south-east, he ordered an eight-point turn to starboard. With the snowy peak of Mount Egmont still visible aft they sighted more high land on the horizon ahead, this time a mountain range, and bore south towards it.
As soon as he saw the sound, he knew it would provide them with what they sought. Guarded at its entrance by several islands, it nevertheless offered a broad channel which Endeavour passed through on 15 January 1770. The airs were light, the sky clear, and just past one of the islands James eyed a cove on the sound’s north-western shore, overlooked by forested, undulating hills. He ordered the anchor lowered just off the cove. It had barely settled on the bottom when four canoes came out from one of the neighbouring islands.
The usual charade unfolded. The occupants threw stones at the ship, then Tupaia explained what they required and invited the unarmed natives aboard. These men were darker and looked less well-nourished than the other Maoris they had dealt with, James observed. They told the Endeavours that the sound was called Totaranui, after the large totara trees which grew in the area, the cove was called Meretoto and the island off the cove where their pa was located was called Motuara. The men then roamed the decks briefly, looking about incuriously, then got back into their canoes and paddled back to the island.
‘These o
nes will cause us no trouble,’ Tupaia said to James as they watched them go. ‘They are teuteu. Lower-class people.’
James felt irritated by this precipitate judgment. The Otaheitian could be such a swankpot. He turned to Banks. ‘We will go ashore.’
21 JANUARY 1770
My dear Beth,
The first month of not just a New Year but a new decade. What an age it has been since I last saw you and the children. At times I wonder if the boys remember their father at all! Although it is my sworn duty to carry out the Admiralty’s instructions, I am aware, too, that I have other, more personal, obligations to my dear family. Be assured that the most abiding memories I carry with me here on the far side of the world are not of England and its Navy but of you and our children.
Here, at a place I have called Ship Cove, we have found a safe haven, as fine a bay as one could wish for. It lies on the north-western shore of a long sound which I intend honouring with the name of our sovereign’s consort, Queen Charlotte. The sound is bounded on both sides by high hills covered in dense forest. At our cove there are abundant wild greens and fresh water from two streams to replenish our butts (and a nearby waterfall makes this task more straightforward). There are tall, sturdy trees which the carpenters make good use of to repair the ship’s timbers, and by trawling our seine net we obtain more fish than we can eat. Mussels and rock oysters, too. During the day the air chimes melodiously with beautiful birdsong, although at dusk tiny biting insects swarm and plague us.
Banks, Solander and Sporing botanize doggedly. Yesterday I climbed with them up a steep native trail through the forest to a saddle high above the cove. Along the trail were many large tree ferns, entanglements of tough vines and towering trees whose trunks are covered with a black fungal growth. Beneath this dark coating is a sweet, sticky substance which Banks speculates is secreted by some sort of insect. I was far more interested in the commanding outlook from the saddle, a view of our cove on one side and another equally tranquil bay on the other. Both offer fine anchorages.
Endeavour has been careened on the cove’s shingly beach and her hull scraped, tarred and oiled in preparation for the next stage of our exploration. Her sails are having much-needed repairs, too. The ship, now refloated, is once more in prime condition.
The natives of this region are poorer than others we have encountered. Their canoes and houses are unadorned with carving, and the people themselves not as handsome as those in the north. However, although they are at war with other tribes not far away, they pose little threat to us. I did fire at one man who was attempting to steal some of our equipment, but merely with pellets, and only wounding him slightly in the leg. One old chief has become our particular friend. Called Topaa, he has been obliging and has formed a good friendship with our Otaheitian. They discuss their ancestors and their common traditions and deities for hours on end.
I anticipate that we will be ready to leave this agreeable place within the next fortnight for further charting of the New Zealand coast. Thereafter, who knows? But it is of some encouragement that during this year we will assuredly be turning north on the first stage of our voyage home. That prospect is one which will delight us all, including me, as it will mean that I will be one ocean closer to you, my beloved wife, and our children.
Your loving husband,
James
At first they thought it was a dead porpoise. Then, as the pinnace drew nearer, they realized it was the half-submerged corpse of a human. Rowing closer, they saw it was a young woman, dressed in a cloak and with long hair trailing. The face was bloated and pale, and there were holes where the gulls had pecked out her eyes. Averting their gaze from the hideous sight, they rowed on and entered the bay which lay a little to the north of where Endeavour had been refloated.
This cove too was overlooked by forested hills. Just above the shoreline a group of men, women and children were attending an earth oven. When they saw the boat and the three men in it, they sprang up and fled into the forest. After beaching the pinnace, James, Banks and Tupaia saw that beside the open oven were flax baskets containing the remains of cooked meat. Banks poked at one of the baskets with a stick. ‘Dog bones,’ he pronounced. ‘A rib cage and leg bones. Freshly consumed.’ James peered into another basket. It held much larger bones, with scraps of cooked flesh still clinging to them. He picked one up and examined it curiously. ‘That must have been a very large dog,’ he said to the others. ‘A Great Dane perhaps.’ He frowned. ‘Yet we have seen no large dogs here.’
At that moment the family emerged from the nearby trees and approached the visitors cautiously. There was a skinny, dark-skinned man in a grass skirt with a large bone pendant around his neck, a short plump woman wearing a cloak, and two small, naked boys. The adults looked at the newcomers in a nervous but not unfriendly way. The boys clung to their mother’s legs, regarding the visitors with looks of incredulity.
‘Ia orana,’ said Tupaia. The man looked confused for a moment, then replied, ‘Kia ora.’ He and Tupaia pressed noses, James and Banks did likewise, while the woman and the boys hung back. James then picked up one of the large bones from the basket and said to Tupaia, ‘Ask him what kind of animal this was.’
In response the man guffawed and the woman giggled. Then the man took the woman’s left arm, held it to his mouth and pretended to eat it, making greedy, gnawing motions. Tupaia’s mouth fell open. He asked him another question, and the man answered at length, frowning and pointing out to sea. Screwing up his face, Tupaia turned away.
‘What did he say?’ demanded Banks.
Tupaia put one hand to his face in disgust and, half-choking, said: ‘The bones are the remains of their enemies. A war party tried to invade this bay a few days ago. This family’s warriors killed seven of them and shared the body parts among the victors. His family was awarded the arms. They cooked them overnight and ate them this morning.’ Turning away, he closed his eyes. ‘Aaaaah. To eat another person. These people, they are themselves like dogs!’
James said, ‘What about the body of the woman in the water?’
She was not one of the enemy, the man said, but a family member who had died of illness. The body had been buried at sea, weighted down with a stone, but had evidently come adrift. He reported this without a flicker of emotion.
The incident sparked a lively discussion that evening in the Great Cabin. Banks had already christened the bay Cannibal Cove and had related their find in gruesome detail down to every last sinew on the bones. Parkinson had put his hands over his ears. Minutes earlier he had been showing the others his paintings of two local plants, a honeysuckle and one that Solander had named Veronica floribunda, and a pen-and-wash drawing of a group of Maoris dressed in feather hats, fishing from canoes. All had agreed Parkinson’s renderings were exquisite. But now that the conversation had turned to cannibalism the young artist looked ill. Tupaia was merely disgusted. He said that although his people sacrificed humans to their gods, they never ate them. On some distant islands — he named these as Te Hunua Enata — cannibalism was practised, but never on Otaheite, Eimayo, Huahine or Raiatea.
James listened to the others’ views, which were unanimously of revulsion, then said, ‘I take it, Tupaia, that the New Zealanders eat only the bodies of their slain enemies?’
‘Yes. They believe that by eating them they absorb their spirit, and thus they become stronger.’
‘So their motive for cannibalism is not appetite.’
‘No. The man told me that they only eat their defeated enemies.’
‘That then is not a necessity but a custom. An unpleasant one to us, but part of their culture.’
The others at the table looked perturbed. Frowning, Banks said, ‘Do you mean to say you approve of this tradition, Cook?’
‘I make no judgment either way. It is merely a fact of their lives. You defeat your enemy so you are entitled to eat him. As your foes would eat you, if they were the victors.’
Leaning back in his chair, Monkhouse said aus
terely, ‘It is surely a characteristic of the very lowest order of humanity that they should eat their fellow human beings. It is barbarism.’
‘To us, yes,’ James said. ‘Even to Tupaia. But to them, no. It is an accepted custom.’
Banks considered this for a moment, then said slowly, ‘So, Cook, if you were to defeat the French in battle — as I know you have done — you would find it acceptable to bake and eat one of the casualties afterwards?’
James looked at him irritably. ‘You twist my argument, Banks. I did not say that I would do so, I merely said that this is the accepted ritual in this land.’ He turned away. ‘Besides, the taste of Frenchman would be far too disagreeable.’
The others laughed. ‘All that garlic,’ Monkhouse chortled into his port.
‘Mind you,’ said Banks, serious once more, ‘I have tasted a Frenchwoman, and that was far from unpleasant.’
‘But presumably,’ put in Monkhouse, ‘she was alive.’
‘Very much so,’ mused the naturalist. ‘A very lively young Parisienne.’
Tupaia leaned forward. ‘The people here collect human heads, Topaa told me.’
There was another silence. Banks said, ‘Of their enemies?’
‘Not only enemies. Family, too. They never eat the heads, they preserve them. “Mokomokai”, they are called.’ He hesitated. ‘The head to these people is the most sacred part of the body. Tapu. So the heads are kept. Those of family, to be loved; those of enemies, to be hated.’
Banks brightened at this news. ‘Can we see some of these heads?’
The Otaheitian looked doubtful. ‘Perhaps. I will ask Topaa.’
James watched from the quarter deck as the old man was paddled out to the ship and carried a flax basket up the hull steps and onto the deck. He opened the basket and set four heads down at the base of the mainmast. These were from enemies killed recently, and had been dried over a fire, Topaa said with obvious pride. The crew clustered around the objects, simultaneously repelled and fascinated by the heads’ yellowing, shrunken skin, the lank black hair, the blank eyes, the grimacing teeth. Two had tattoos, one had no bottom front teeth, the fourth was a little smaller than the rest and had a wispy moustache.