by Rob Mundle
By 14 March, Cook had rounded and named West Cape and had Endeavour heading north. He was impressed by the fjord lands along this stretch of coastline, with their dramatically spectacular entrances. They invited a visit, but the pressure of time, together with a wealth of knowledge that only a skilled seafarer such as Cook possessed, caused him to resist the temptation and continue on his northerly course. One inlet, which would later be named Doubtful Sound, he found particularly appealing:
The Land on each side of the entrance of this harbour riseth almost perpendicular from the sea to a very considerable height and this was the reason why I did not attempt to go in with the ship because I saw clearly that no winds could blow there … it certainly would have been highly imprudent in me to have put into a place where you could not have got out but with a wind that we have lately found does not blow one day in a month. I mention this because there were some on board who wanted me to harbour at any rate without in the least considering either the present or future consequences.
Once north of this highly indented part of the coastline, the captain found that the land was ‘not distinguished by anything remarkable’, although he did make special mention of the rugged, and often snow-capped, mountain ranges that stood as a backdrop to the coast for much of its length, and the amount of fog that they experienced. He then added: ‘No country upon earth can appear with a more rugged and barren aspect than this doth from the sea for as far inland as the eye can reach nothing is to be seen but the summits of these Rocky mountains which seem to lay so near one another as not to admit any Valleys between them …’
On Tuesday, 27 March 1770, Captain James Cook wrote himself into the history books and made a significant change to the map of the world. He concluded of his circumnavigation of New Zealand: ‘This country, which before now was thought to be a part of the imaginary Southern Continent, consists of 2 large Islands, divided from each other by a Strait or Passage …’
He was, quite rightfully, well pleased when reflecting on his achievement. With the winter months not far away, he had just one further thought: ‘As we have now circumnavigated the whole of this Country it is time for me to think of quitting of it …’
CHAPTER TEN
Bound for Van Diemen’s Land
James Cook wasted no time in sailing from New Zealand. On 31 March 1770, when he was advised that everything on board was stowed and the ship ready to sail, he declared that they would depart as soon as the weather allowed. Prior to this, he had reviewed his orders from the Admiralty relating to the next part of the voyage. They read in part:
… if you shall fail of discovering the Continent beforementioned, you will upon falling in with New Zealand … explore as much of the Coast as the Condition of the Bark, the health of her Crew and the State of your Provisions will admit of having always great Attention to reserve as much of the latter as will enable you to reach some Port where you may procure a Sufficiency to carry You to England either round the Cape of Good Hope, or Cape Horn as from circumstances you may judge the Most Eligible way of returning home.
He would also have consulted Banks and his fellow officers, regarding the options for returning home. Cook explained his decision in the following terms:
To return by the way of Cape Horn was what I most wished, because by this route we should have been able to prove the Existence or Non-Existence of a Southern Continent, which yet remains Doubtful; but in order to Ascertain this we must have kept in a higher Latitude in the very Depth of Winter, but the Condition of the Ship, in every respect, was not thought sufficient for such an undertaking. For the same reason the thoughts of proceeding directly to the Cape of Good Hope was laid aside, especially as no discovery of any Moment could be hoped for in that route. It was therefore resolved to return by way of the East Indies by the following route: upon Leaving this Coast to steer to the Westward until we fall in with the East Coast of New Holland, and then to follow the direction of that Coast to the Northward, or what other direction it might take us, until we arrive at its Northern extremity …
It is interesting to note that there was no specific reference in the Admiralty’s orders for Cook to continue the search for Terra Australis Incognita once his exploration of New Zealand was complete. However, there is no doubt that, with such a large tract of unexplored ocean lying to the west of his current position, this would have appealed to his inquisitive nature.
Cook’s choosing to sail towards Van Diemen’s Land meant that his desired destination was the same position that had served as Abel Tasman’s point of departure from that coastline, before the Dutch navigator headed for New Zealand during his voyage of 1642–43. Cook had applied a similar strategy when using a reference point of Tasman’s to find the coast of New Zealand.
It was not by choice that Tasman had departed the coast of Van Diemen’s Land when he did. He had hoped to continue north, but forces of nature dashed his plans. Powerful headwinds that swept down this exposed coast forced his two ships offshore and into a wide open sea, to the point where the Dutchman had no option but to continue sailing eastwards. However, just before leaving, Tasman had a crewman swim ashore and plant the Dutch flag in the sand, thereby claiming the region in the name of his motherland. The location, on the south-east coast of Tasmania, is close to what is now known as Marion Bay.
Tasman’s mission was not dissimilar to Cook’s, in that he was sailing through that part of the world in the hope of discovering the Great South Land. But incredibly, apart from finding Van Diemen’s Land, Tasman did not sight the coastline again. And this was despite sailing Heemskerck and her support vessel in a large and sweeping anticlockwise loop around the continent in search of it – a loop that took in his discovery of New Zealand.
From Cook’s perspective, knowing that in 1616 another Dutchman, Dirk Hartog, had discovered a 250-nautical-mile stretch of unexplored coastline, part of what is now Western Australia, holding Endeavour on a course towards Van Diemen’s Land would quite possibly lead to something out there being discovered. But would it be large or small?
Another precedent for Cook, although its influence on his voyage appears to have been negligible, concerns the controversial Dieppe maps, and in particular, the so-called Dauphin map. The Dieppe maps have been much debated for centuries. They are a series of maps created between 1536 and 1566 in the town of Dieppe – a major port on France’s northern coast, and the centre of map production in Europe during that era – that purportedly showed the known landmasses of the world. The Dauphin, the first work in the series, was a gift for the Dauphin of France (the heir apparent to the throne, in this case the future King Henry II), and it revealed a stretch of coastline in the Far East not seen on any previous maps, and labelled ‘Java la Grande’. Believers to the modern-day are convinced that this represents the first known outline of the east coast of Australia, even though it is not drawn in the position that we know today. The same advocates claim that Java la Grande came into existence as a result of a voyage led by a Portuguese navy officer, Cristóvão de Mendonça, between 1521 and 1524. His mission was possibly launched with the aim of intercepting Ferdinand Magellan, who, it was feared, was heading towards the Spice Islands from the east, with the intention of plundering their wealth on behalf of the King of Spain. At this time, the waters that Magellan was believed to be sailing were unexplored, so when Mendonça set sail from a Portuguese base in Malacca aboard one of the three caravels prepared for the undertaking, he was heading into unknown territory. Much speculation exists as to what happened during that expedition, right down to the wreck of one of his caravels supposedly being seen by shipwrecked sailors on a beach near Warrnambool, Victoria, in 1836. The ship was almost entirely covered by sand.
It must be said that most of the evidence relating to the Portuguese, via Mendonça’s voyage, being the first known discoverers of Australia’s east coast is purely speculative. According to the true believers, if one takes the drawing of Java la Grande attributed to Mendonça and reconstructs it u
sing modern-day navigation technology, there is a strong argument to suggest it is an outline of the same coast that Cook was destined to explore and chart most accurately.
Although the Lords could well have doubted their accuracy, the Admiralty was well aware of the Dieppe maps. So if Cook had sighted the Dauphin or others in the series, before departing from England, he would have had a sense of what might lie ahead. Interestingly, Banks is known to have owned one of the Dieppe maps, the Harleian, but it seems unlikely that he had it with him when aboard Endeavour. In 1790, Banks donated this map to the British Museum.
There were anxious moments for the captain and his crew as Endeavour was guided towards the west and the open sea that lay beyond Cook Strait. On the morning of 2 April, she was in very deep water and making slow speed when what gentle breeze there was suddenly disappeared. Endeavour was then in danger of being washed onto rocks, which were 3 miles away, until a most fortuitous puff arrived, got the ship moving and eliminated the threat. This would not be the last time that the vagaries of the weather would intervene and save the ship and its men. Later, before actually sailing away from the coast, Endeavour passed the northernmost tip of the South Island, which Cook named, appropriately, Cape Farewell.
For the first sixteen days of this passage, the wind and waves were most docile: it was a pleasant time for all. Banks and his gentlemen observed ‘things we have seen upon the sea [that] are so extraordinary … the Tropic bird, flying fish and Medusa Porpita are animals very seldom seen out of the influence of trade winds’. The crew on watch, who had little to do when it came to tending the sails, filled much of their time creating junk, or oakum, by picking apart old ropes into small pieces so they could be used for caulking or padding. The sound of hammering and sawing came from nearby as the carpenter continued with his nine-day repair of the ship’s yawl, while the sail-maker, sitting on the deck, took the opportunity to apply his craft to the heavy canvas sails, which had become increasingly worn. Such conditions belied the fact that in later years this same stretch of water, the Tasman Sea, would be recognised by mariners as being among the most volatile and storm-lashed in the world.
On 18 April, the calm was broken by a violent mood swing in the weather. In no time, the situation changed from serenity to turmoil as a horrid storm smashed into the ship from the southwest, direct from the Southern Ocean. This system was so powerful that Cook had no choice but to lower the topgallant yards, turn downwind and run with the storm under greatly reduced canvas. ‘Wind southerly,’ he recorded in his log, ‘a hard gale with heavy squalls attended with showers of rain and a great sea from the same quarter … At six o’clock the gale increased to such a height as to Oblige us to take in the Fore topsail and Mainsail and run under the Foresail and Mizzen all night …’
Among Banks’ team, artist Sydney Parkinson was in awe of the magnitude of this storm and its threatening nature to men and ship. He wrote: ‘we had a broken sea that caused the ship to pitch and roll very much at the same time; we shipped a sea fore and aft, which deluged the decks, and [might possibly] have washed several of us overboard …’
This was probably the worst weather that Endeavour had experienced since departing England close to twenty months earlier. It was as if this sea was determined not to give up easily on its secret: the large and unmapped landmass lying to the west. At the same time, though, the forced change of course to the northwest was actually making that discovery more likely … that is, if Endeavour could survive the hammering that nature was hurling at her, where some of the waves would have been near 40 feet high – almost half the height of the mainmast. Apart from the skill being demanded of the helmsman, who was battling to guide the ship through the maelstrom, the leadsman was required to step beyond the bulwark and into the chains every two hours to sound the depth. A shoaling bottom would possibly be an indication that they were closing on land.
Through expeditious seamanship, Endeavour survived the storm virtually unscathed, and when Cook was able to put some relatively accurate navigation plots on the chart, there was an interesting revelation: their position was around 150 nautical miles to the north of Tasman’s plot for the coast of Van Diemen’s Land, yet they had sighted no land. Only a matter of hours later, however, there were some encouraging signs. Seabirds known to exist only in close proximity to a shoreline were sighted, and an obviously exhausted small land bird was seen to take refuge in the rigging for a much-needed rest.
Even so, the mystery regarding the coast of Van Diemen’s Land continued to grow. A later set of plots had Endeavour 60 nautical miles to the west of Tasman’s last known position on the coast – yet the lookouts aloft still could not sight land. Cook did not question the accuracy of Tasman’s plots, so he could only assume that the coast Tasman saw took a dramatic turn to the west somewhere to the south of their current position. There was a real chance, therefore, that Endeavour had missed Van Diemen’s Land altogether and was sailing west into a wide expanse of open ocean. Still, they pressed on.
It was at 6 am on the following day – Thursday, 19 April 1770 – when Endeavour was still sailing in a fresh gale, that history was made. Cook recorded in his journal, somewhat casually: ‘saw land extending from NE to W at the distance of 5 or 6 Leagues.’
Over the next hour or so there was much discussion as the ship closed on the expanse of coast that was increasingly apparent off her starboard bow, particularly about what new course should be adopted so that it could best be explored. For Cook, the priority was to get Endeavour to Batavia (now the Indonesian capital of Jakarta): this was a key part of the plan for returning to England. So, with that destination being to the north of their current position, the captain decided on a change of course to parallel the coast in that direction, back to the north-east. That coastline would prove to be more than 2000 nautical miles in length and one that they would see and sail along for the next four months.
Before making the call to wear ship and steer north-east, Cook declared that the southernmost point of land they could see to the west, which was the first cape they had sighted, would be named Point Hicks in recognition of Lieutenant Zachary Hickes – whose surname Cook continually spelled ‘Hicks’ in his log and journal – he being ‘the first who discovered this land’. It is here also that Cook made some remarkable observations that would be proved correct almost thirty years later. By considering their position relative to Tasman’s, and the circumstance of their surroundings, Cook hypothesised that it was unlikely that the land they were now seeing and Van Diemen’s Land were joined: Van Diemen’s Land was quite probably an island. Sure enough, the waters they were sailing were what is now known as Bass Strait, which separates the Australian mainland from Tasmania; Point Hicks, in the far east of Victoria, is today part of Croajingolong National Park.
The following day, the hazy weather cleared, affording all on board a better opportunity to ‘View the Country which had a very agreeable and promising Aspect’. The observers noted, with considerable interest, that the land was obviously inhabited: smoke from small fires was seen drifting skywards. Just who these people were created absorbing speculation.
Having sailed along the coast for 40 nautical miles towards the north-east, and with darkness approaching, Cook had the majority of sails taken in and the ship brought-to for the night so she could drift slowly offshore. This was the most appropriate safety measure they could take in these foreign waters, while also ensuring that the exploration of the coast could continue the next day from virtually the same point. Before changing course, though, they came upon another cape, one where the land was seen to take a definite turn to the north. Cook subsequently named this place Cape Howe in recognition of Richard, Earl Howe, one of the Lords of the Admiralty when Endeavour sailed from England. The same headland would later be identified as the most south-eastern point of the unexplored landmass that lay beyond it.
Next morning, when eight bells sounded, signalling 4 am for the middle watch, it was considered safe for Endeavour to s
ail back to the coast and resume the exploration. This was the start of a very exciting time for everyone on board, simply because they knew that they were observing a coastline that no European before them had seen. For an explorer like Cook, it was akin to striking gold. By midday, with Cape Howe well in her wake, Endeavour was on a course just east of north. For some hours ‘flying squalls of rain’ had been experienced, but with those having cleared, all on deck were getting their first real appreciation of the form of the land, which was about 3 leagues away to the west. Cook described it as being ‘diversified with hills, ridges, plains, and Valleys, with some few small lawns; but for the most part the whole was covered with wood, the hills and ridges rise with a gentle slope; they are not high, neither are there many of them’. Banks’ description was typically imaginative and detailed:
Large fires were lighted this morn about 10 O’Clock, we supposed that the gentlemen ashore had a plentiful breakfast to prepare. The country tho in general well enough clothed appeared in some places bare; it resembled in my imagination the back of a lean Cow, covered in general with long hair, but nevertheless where her scraggy hip bones have stuck out farther than they ought [whereby] accidental rubs and knocks have entirely bared them of their share of covering.
That same day, there was a sudden scramble to get on deck from below. The reason: to see three waterspouts that had spiralled down from lead-coloured clouds to the surface of the sea, and were now performing cobra-like twists and turns over the ocean. When Cook returned to business, he expressed his surprise at the apparent lack of harbours of any size along the coast so far. Part of the reason for this perception might have been because, for much of this time, Endeavour was up to 6 leagues offshore. Their distance from the coast also contributed to there being few references to specific features – that is, until 75 nautical miles north of Cape Howe, when a 2650-foot peak pierced the distant horizon. Master’s Mate Richard Pickersgill, who had been with Wallis on Dolphin’s previous voyage into the Pacific, recalled of the sighting: ‘Saw a high land [the captain] called the Dromedary from its resemblance to that animal …’ This pinnacle, subsequently renamed Mount Gulaga, would prove to be one of the highest on the east coast.