country barren and savage. Yet near every harbor they were enabled to procure fresh-water and fuel; and there were plenty of wild fowl and geese. The inhabitants were wretchedly poor and ignorant.
On the 25th January 1778, having coasted it as far as 60 degrees south, the land presenting the same uncouth appearance, covered with ice and snow, and the ship exposed to numerous storms, and the people to intense cold, the course was altered to look for Bouvet's Land; but though they reached the spot where it was laid down on the charts, and sailed over and over it, yet no such place could be discovered; and after two days' search more to the southward, Cook came to the conclusion that Bouvet had been deceived by the ice, and once more bent his thoughts towards home—especially as the ship stood in need of repairs, and her sails and rigging were nearly worn out—and consequently steered for the Cape of Good Hope, where he heard of the Adventure, and anchored in Table Bay on the 22d of March. From thence he sailed on the 27th of April, touched at St. Helena on the 15th of May, and remained till the 21st, and then got under weigh for Ascension, where he arrived on the 28th; and from thence shaped a course for the remarkable island Fernando de Noronha, which he reached on the 9th of June; and pursuing his way for the western islands, anchored in Fayal Roads on the 14th of July, where Mr. Wales the astronomer determined the position of the Azores by a series of observations. The Resolution ultimately entered Portsmouth on the 30th; and Captain Cook landed after an absence of three years and eighteen days, having sailed 20,000 leagues in various climates—from the extreme of heat to the extreme of cold. But so judicious had been the arrangements for preserving health, and so carefully had Captain Cook attended to the ventilation between decks, and the mode of promoting warmth, as well as the food, etc., of the people, that he lost only one man by sickness. It may naturally be supposed that the wear and tear of the ship was great, her rigging scarcely trustworthy, and her sails unfit to meet a fresh breeze; yet so careful were the officers of the masts and yards, that not a spar of any consequence was carried away during the whole voyage.
The fame of Captain Cook as a navigator, coupled with his marked humanity as a man, now exalted him in public estimation far beyond what he had before experienced; and the utmost anxiety prevailed to obtain intelligence relative to his discoveries, etc. The king, to testify his approbation, made him a post captain nine days subsequent to his arrival; and three days afterwards, a captaincy in Greenwich Hospital was conferred upon him, to afford an honorable and competent retirement from active service. On the 29th of February 1776, he was elected a member of the Royal Society, and in a short time he was honored with the gold medal; Sir John Pringle, in presenting it, uttering a well-merited eulogium on the worthy receiver. The account of his second voyage was written by Captain Cook himself, and manifests a plain manly style, giving facts rather than embellishments.
Cook's Last Voyage. The discovery of a supposed north-west passage
from the North Atlantic to the North Pacific oceans had for many
years been ardently sought for both by the English and the Dutch. Frobisher
in 1576 made the first attempt, and his example was in succeeding
times followed by many others. But though much geographical information
had been gained in the neighborhood of Hudson's Bay, Davies' Straits,
