17 July 1769

Joseph Banks's Journal: Daily Entries

Table of Contents On this day ... 17 July 1769 Endeavour Voyage Maps James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia Transcript of Cook's Journal Sydney Parkinson's Journal The authorised published account of Cook's Voyage by John Hawkesworth 1769 Annotations Index Search Contact us Search for in Falconer's Dictionary of the Marine

17 July 1769 17. Went ashore this morn and walkd up the hills; found the productions here almost exactly similar to those of Otahite; upon the hills the rocks and clay were burnt if any thing more than they were in that Island. The people also were almost exactly like our late [friends] but rather more stupid and lazy, in proof of which I need only say that we should have gone much higher up the hills than we did if we could have perswauded them to accompany us, whose only excuse was the fear of being killd by the fatigue. Their houses are very neat and their boathouses particularly very large, one of those I measurd 50 long paces in lengh 10 broad and 24 ft high: the Gothick arch of which it consisted was supported on one side by 26, on the other by 30 pillars or rather clumsey thick posts of about 2 ft high and one thick. Most of these were carvd with heads of men, boys or other devices, as the rough fancy and more rough workmanship of these stone hatchet furnishd gentrey suggested and executed. The flats were filld with very fine breadfruit trees and an infinite number of Cocoa nuts, upon which latter the inhabitants seemd to depend much more than those of Otahite; we saw however large spaces occupied by lagoons and salt swamps upon which neither breadfruit nor Cocoa nuts would thrive. Voyaging Accounts © Derived from State Library of NSW 1998 Transcription of Banks's Endeavour Journal page (vol.1) 303, 2004 Published by kind permission of the Library https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/banks/17690717.html