Part 3

October 27.--The birth-day of Captain Cook. James Cook was born in 1728 at the village of Marton in the North Riding of Yorkshire. His parents were of the class of labourers. All the education he received amounted only to English reading, writing and the elements of arithmetic. He was then, at the age of thirteen, bound apprentice to a small shopkeeper in the neighbouring town of Snaith, which is on the sea-coast. Here he became so smitten with the love of a sea-life that he could not rest till his wish was gratified; and his master was at last induced to let him off, when he entered himself as one of the crew of a vessel engaged in the coal trade. In this humble and laborious line of life he continued till the breaking out of the war of 1755. He then entered the navy, as a common seaman, of course. But now the native superiority of the man began to assert itself; and in four years he rose to be Master of the Mercury, one of the ships belonging to an expedition sent against Quebec. Thus by far the most formidable of the difficulties were overcome which he had to encounter in emerging from obscurity; he was now on the direct road to preferment, and in a position in which his good conduct and perseverance were sure to meet with their reward. While stationed in this command on the coast of North America, he greatly distinguished himself both by his skill and intrepidity as a seaman; and he also made use of his leisure to rectify the defects of his original education by studying mathematics and astronomy. He eventually made himself in this way one of the most scientific naval officers of that time. His reputation rose accordingly; and in 1768, when Government resolved to send out the Endeavour to the South Sea to obtain an observation of the approaching transit of Venus, Cook was selected to command the ship. He conducted this expedition with admirable ability, and so entirely to the public satisfaction, that, having returned home in 1771, he was the following year appointed to proceed again to the same regions with two ships, the Resolution and the Adventure, with the object of endeavouring to settle the long-disputed question as to the existence of a southern polar continent. On this voyage, in which he circumnavigated the world, he was absent nearly three years; and notwithstanding all the vicissitudes of climate and weather, and the other dangers which he had encountered, he brought home, with the exception of one, every man of the crew he had taken out with him. He communicated to the Royal Society an account of the methods he had adopted on this occasion for preserving the health of his men; and that body in return elected him into their number, and voted him the Copley gold medal as a testimony of their sense of his merits. To crown his achievement, Captain Cook wrote the history of this expedition himself, and wrote it admirably. In little more than a year after his return, he sailed on his third and last voyage of discovery; the principal object of which was to ascertain the practicability of a passage between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans along the northern coast of America. After having been out on this expedition nearly three years, and having explored a vast extent of sea and coast, the great circumnavigator put in at the island of Owhyhee on his return home; and he was there killed in a sudden and accidental rencontre with some of the natives on the 14th of February, 1779. The late Admiral Burney, who was present on this occasion, mentions, in a note to his History of Discoveries in the South Sea, an anecdote which deserves to be remembered. Of the party of marines, by whom Captain Cook was accompanied when he met his death, four were killed along with him; “and in the hasty retreat made,” says Burney, “after the boats had put off, one man still remained on shore, who could not swim. His officer, Lieutenant (now Colonel) Molesworth Phillips, of the Marines, though himself wounded at the time, seeing his situation, jumped out of the boat, swam back to the shore, and brought him off safe.” The author proceeds to compare this conduct of Lieutenant Phillips with a similar act performed in 1624 by a Dutch Captain, Cornelys de Witte, who, when a boat’s crew which he commanded was surprised in a port on the coast of America by an ambuscade of Spaniards, and driven to sea after four of them had been killed, seeing one of his men left behind on the beach, boldly returned to the shore in the face of the enemy, and took him into his boat. “This was an act of generosity,” observes the French translator of the account of the Dutch voyage, “worth a wound which he received in his side, and of which he was afterwards cured.” The news of the death of Cook was received by his countrymen, and it may be said by the world, with the feeling that one of the great men of the age was lost; and both in his own and in foreign nations public honours were liberally paid to his memory. In the half century of busy and enterprising exertion in every field of activity which has elapsed since his death, no newer name in the same department has yet eclipsed the lustre of his, and with reference to the peculiar character of his fame, as contrasted with that of our other renowned seamen, it has been well and justly remarked that, “while numberless have been our naval heroes who have sought and gained reputation at the cannon’s mouth, and amidst the din of war, it has been the lot of Cook to derive celebrity from less imposing, but not less important exploits, as they tended to promote the intercourse of distant nations, and increase the stock of useful science.”[1]

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Footnote 1:

Gorton’s Biographical Dictionary.

[Illustration: Portrait of Captain Cook.]

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DOMESTIC PEACE.

Tell me on what holy ground May domestic peace be found? Halcyon-daughter of the skies! Far on fearful wings she flies From the tyrant’s scepter’d state, From the rebel’s noisy hate. In a cottag’d vale she dwells, List’ning to the sabbath bells, While all around her steps are seen Spotless Honour’s meeker mien. Love, the sire of pleasing fears, Sorrow smiling through her tears; And, mindful of the past employ, Memory, bosom spring of joy!--COLERIDGE.

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_Ants of Brazil._--So numerous were the ants, and so great was the mischief which they committed, that the Portugueze called this insect the _King of Brazil_; but it is said by Piso, that an active husbandman easily drove them away, either by means of fire or of water; and the evil which they did was more than counterbalanced by the incessant war which they waged against all other vermin. In some parts of South America they march periodically in armies, such myriads together, that the sound of their coming over the fallen leaves may be heard at some distance. The inhabitants, knowing the season, are on the watch, and quit their houses, which these tremendous, but welcome visitors clear of centipedes, forty-legs, scorpion, snake, every living thing; and having done their work, proceed upon their way.--_Southey’s Brazil._

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_Singular Customs._--There is a custom, proper to Sicily, which I must not forget to mention. This is a right of purchase of a singular kind. If any man buy an estate, be it house, land, or vineyard, the neighbour of the purchaser, for the space of an entire year afterward, may eject him by an advance of price. In vain would the first purchaser give more to the original owner. This singular law is generally evaded by a falsehood. The purchase-money is stated, in the articles of agreement, at a higher sum than has been agreed upon in the presence of four witnesses. There is another no less singular law in Sicily, according to which any man can oblige his neighbour to sell his house, if he will pay him three times its value. The intention of this law was, the improvement of the towns. It was to encourage the possessors of large houses to purchase the humble abodes of the poor.--_Count Stolberg’s Travels._

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_Volcano in Iceland._--The Oræfa mountain is not only the loftiest in Iceland, but has been rendered remarkable by the great devastation made by its eruption about a century ago. Nothing can be more striking than the account of this calamity given by Jon Thorlakson, the aged minister of a neighbouring parish. He was in the midst of his service on the Sabbath, when the agitation of the earth gave warning that some alarming event was to follow. Rushing from the church, he saw a peak of the neighbouring mountain alternately heaved up and sinking; the next day, this portion of the mountain ran down into the plain, like melted metal from a crucible, filling it to such a height, that, as he says, no more of a mountain which formerly towered above it could be seen, than about the size of a bird; volumes of water being in the mean time thrown forth in a deluge from the crater, sweeping away whatever they encountered in their course. The Oræfa itself then broke forth, hurling large masses of ice to a great distance; fire burst out in every direction from its sides; the sky was darkened by the smoke and ashes, so that the day could hardly be distinguished from the night. This scene of horror continued for more than three days, during which the whole region was converted into utter desolation.--_North American Review for July_, 1832.

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_Farming in Iceland._--The most important branch of rural labour in Iceland, is the hay-making. About the middle of July, the peasant begins to cut down the grass of the tûn (the green around his house,) which is immediately gathered to a convenient place, in order to dry, and, after having been turned once or twice, is conveyed home on horseback to the yard, where it is made up into stacks. At the poorer farms, both men and women handle the scythe; but in general, the women only assist in making the hay after it is cut. In many parts of the island, where there is much hay, the peasants hire men from the fishing plains, who are paid for their labour at the rate of thirty pounds of butter a week. They cut by measurement; the daily task being about thirty square fathoms. Hay-harvest being over, the sheep and cattle that had been out all summer on the mountains are collected; the houses are put into a state of repair for the winter; the wood needed for domestic purposes is brought home to each farm; the turf is also taken in. During the winter, the care of the cattle and the sheep devolves entirely on the men; and consists chiefly in feeding and watering the former, which are kept in the house, while the latter are turned out in the day-time to seek their food through the snow. When the snow happens to be so deep that they cannot scrape it away themselves, the boys do it for them; and as the sustenance thus procured is exceedingly scanty, they generally get a little of the meadow hay about this time. The farm hay is given to the cows alone. All the horses, excepting perhaps a favourite riding horse, are left to shift for themselves the whole winter, during which season they never lie down, but rest themselves by standing in some place of shelter.--_Henderson’s Iceland._

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Transcriber’s Notes

This file uses _underscores_ to indicate italic text. New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain. Itemized changes from the original text:

• p. 282: Replaced “n” with “in” in phrase “the war in which the human race engages.” • p. 282: Replaced “endered” with “rendered” in phrase “is rendered absolutely necessary by the wants of navigators.” • p. 282: Replaced “s” with “as” in phrase “as they come from the sea.” • p. 283: Supplied partially misprinted words “which” and “actually” in phrase “from which it must not be concluded that such an event actually will take place.” • p. 284: Added closing double quotation mark after phrase “many thousands of years must elapse before the event can be _really_ expected.” • p. 285: Changed “as we must first” with “we must first” in phrase “As we cannot measure anything exactly, we must first decide what degree of accuracy is necessary.” • p. 286: Replaced “4/12” with “8/12” in phrase “Thus, ⅔, 4/6, 6/9, 8/12, &c. are all of the same value.” • p. 287: Replaced “ast” with “last” in phrase “his master was at last induced to let him off.” • p. 287: Added comma after phrase “the Resolution and the Adventure.” • p. 287: Added comma after phrase “after four of them had been killed.”