On this day ...
21 August 1770
Endeavour Voyage Maps
James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia
Transcript of Cook's Journal
Joseph Banks's Journal
Sydney Parkinson's Journal
Endeavour River to the Northern Extremity of the Country
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At four o’clock in the afternoon, we anchored, being about a mile and a half, or two miles, within the entrance, in six fathom and a half, with clear ground: the channel here had begun to widen, and the islands on each side of us were distant about a mile: the main land stretched away to the S.W. the farthest point in view bore S. 48 W. and the southermost point of the islands, on the north west side of the passage, bore S. 76 W. Between these two points we could see no land, so that we conceived hopes of having, at last, found a passage into the Indian sea; however, that I might be able to determine with more certainty, I resolved to land upon the island which lies at the south east point of the passage. Upon this island we had seen many of the inhabitants when we first came to an anchor, and when I went into the boat, with a party of men, accompanied by Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander, in order to go ashore, we saw ten of them upon a hill: nine of them were armed with such lances as we had been used to see, and the tenth had a bow, and a bundle of arrows, which we had never seen in the possession of the natives of this country before: we also observed, that two of them had large ornaments of mother of pearl hanging round their necks. Three of these, one of whom was the bowman, placed themselves upon the beach abreast of us, and we expected that they would have opposed our landing, but when we came within about a musket’s shot of the beach, they walked leisurely away. We immediately climbed the highest hill, which was not more than three times as high as the mast-head, and the most barren of any we had seen. From this hill, no land could be seen between the S.W. and W.S.W. so that I had no doubt of finding a channel through. The land to the north west of it consisted of a great number of islands of various extent, and different heights, ranged one behind another, as far to the northward and westward as I could see, which could not be less than thirteen leagues. As I was now about to quit the eastern coast of New Holland, which I had coasted from latitude 38 to this place, and which I am confident no European had ever seen before, I once more hoisted English colours, and though I had already taken possession of several particular parts, I now took possession of the whole eastern coast, from latitude 38° to this place, latitude 10 ½ S. in right of his Majesty King George the Third, by the name of NEW SOUTH WALES, with all the bays, harbours, rivers, and islands situated upon it: we then fired three vollies of small arms, which were answered by the same number from the ship. Having performed this ceremony upon the island, which we called POSSESSION ISLAND, we reimbarked in our boat, but a rapid ebb tide setting N.E. made our return to the vessel very difficult and tedious. From the time of our last coming among the shoals, we constantly found a moderate tide, the flood setting to the N.W. and the ebb to the S.E. At this place, it is high water at the full and change of the moon, about one or two o’clock, and the water rises and falls perpendicularly about twelve feet. We saw smoke rising in many places from the adjacent lands and islands, as we had done upon every part of the coast, after our last return to it through the reef.
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© Derived from Vols. II-III of the London 1773 edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, pages 615 - 616, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv23/615.html