26 January 1770

James Cook's Journal: Daily Entries

Table of Contents On this day ... 26 January 1770 Endeavour Voyage Maps James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia Joseph Banks's Journal Sydney Parkinson's Journal The authorised published account of Cook's Voyage by John Hawkesworth 1770 Index Search Contact us Search for Nautical Term in Falconer's Dictionary of the Marine...

26 January 1770 Friday 26th Gentle breezes and pleasent weather. In the PM I made a little excursion in the Pinnace along shore towards the mouth of the inlet, accompanied by Mr Banks and Dr Solander; we found in a small cove several of the Natives of whome we purchas'd a quantity of fresh fish, and upon our return to the Ship found that the Saine had been equally as successfull. which we generally haul mornings & evenings, and seldom fail of geting fish sufficient to serve all hands. In the AM I made an excursion into one of the Bays which lie on the East side of the ^Inlet accompanied by Mr Banks and Dr Solander     upon our landing we ascended a very high hill from which we had a full View of the passage I had before descover'd and the land on the opposite shore which appear'd to be about 4 Leagues from us, but as it was hazey near the horizon we could not see far to the SE. However I had now seen enough of this passage to convence me that there was the greatest probabillty in the world of its runing into the Eastern Sea as the distance from one of that Sea to the other at ^from this place cannot exceed 20 Leagues ^ even to where we were, upon this I resolv'd after puting to sea and therefore after leaving the place we are in I intend to search this passage with the Ship. We found on the top of the hill a parcel of loose Stones of which we built a Pyrmid and left in it some Musquet balls, small ^Shott Beeds and what ever we had about us that was likely to stand the test of time: after this we descen descended the hill and found along with Tobia Tupia and the boats crew several of the natives, seting in the most free and friendly manner imaginable. Tobupia always accompanies ^us in every excursion we make and proves of infinate service to us. In our return to the ship we Visited the Hippa we had seen on Tuesday last which is situated on a small Island or rather a Rock, the Inhabitants of this place invited us a shore with their usual marks of friendship and shew'd us all over the place which indeed was soon done, for it was very small yet it contain'd a good number of people and they had in it ^split & hanging up to dry a prodigious quantity of various sorts of small fish a part of which they sold to us for such trifles as we had about us — Voyaging Accounts © Transcription by Paul Turnbull of National Library of Australia, Manuscript 1 page 179, 2004 Published by kind permission of the Library To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/cook/17700126.html