On this day ...
9 - 13 November 1770
Endeavour Voyage Maps
James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia
Transcript of Cook's Journal
Joseph Banks's Journal
Other Accounts ...
• Sydney Parkinson's Journal
Savu to Batavia
Index
Search
Contact us
In the mean time, the bottom of the ship being examined, was found to be in a worse condition than we apprehended: the false keel was all gone to within twenty feet of the stern post; the main keel was considerably injured in many places; a great quantity of the sheathing was torn off, and several planks were much damaged; two of them, and the half of a third, under the main channel near the keel, were, for the length of six feet, so worn, that they were not above an eighth part of an inch thick, and here the worms had made their way quite into the timbers; yet in this condition she had sailed many hundred leagues, where navigation is as dangerous as in any part of the world: how much misery did we escape, by being ignorant that so considerable a part of the bottom of the vessel was thinner than the sole of a shoe, and that every life on board depended upon so flight and fragile a barrier between us and the unfathomable ocean! It seemed, however, that we had been preserved only to perish here; Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander were so bad that the physician declared they had no chance for recovery but by removing into the country; a house was therefore hired for them, at the distance of about two miles from the town, which belonged to the master of the hotel, who engaged to furnish them with provisions, and the use of slaves. As they had already experienced their want of influence over slaves that had other masters, and the unfeeling inattention of these fellows to the sick, they bought each of them a Mallay woman, which removed both the causes of their being so ill served; the women were their own property, and the tenderness of the sex, even here, made them good nurses. While these preparations were making, they received an account of the death of Tupia, who sunk at once after the loss of the boy, whom he loved with the tenderness of a parent.
 |
Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from Vols. II-III of the London 1773 edition: National Library of Australia call no. FERG 7243, pages 718 - 719, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/hv23/718.html