when he spent about five weeks in ranging off and on the coast of New South Wales, a length of about 300 leagues; on the third occasion he passed through Torres Straits as pilot to Captain Woodes Rogers, in 1710, when he explored Sharks' Bay, the coasts of New Guinea, New Britain, and New Zealand.
In July, 1769, Captain James Cook, after having observed the transit of Venus at Otaheite (or Tahiti), and cruised for a month among the other Society Islands, sailed southwards in search of the continent Terra Australia Incognita, which geographers for a preceding century had calculated must exist somewhere thereabouts, as a counterpoise to the great tract of land in the northern hemisphere.
In this search he first visited the Islands of New Zealand, which had been previously discovered by Tasman in 1662; he spent six months in investigating them, and ascertained that they consisted of two large islands.
Leaving New Zealand, and sailing westward, he sighted New Holland on the 11th of April, 1770, and on the 27th anchored in the roadstead to which he afterwards gave the name of Botany Bay. On the following day he landed, with Mr. (afterwards Sir Joseph) Banks, President of the Royal Society, Dr. Solander, and a party of seamen. They were all charmed with the bright verdure of the scene, in which all natural objects—the kangaroo bounding through the open forest, the evergreen eucalypti, the grass-trees, the birds—were unlike anything they had ever seen before in the course of their voyages in various quarters of the globe.
After exploring the country for several days, during which a favourable estimate was formed of the capabilities of the district for supporting a colony,[1] and vainly endeavouring to open a communication with natives, through Tupia, a South-sea Islander, Cook sailed to the northward, passing without visiting the opening into Port Jackson: taking it for a mere boat harbour, he gave it the name of the look-out seamen who announced the indentation in the dark, lofty, basaltic cliffs which open a passage into that noble harbour.
On the 17th of May, Cook anchored in a bay to which he "gave the name of Moreton Bay; and, at a place where the land was not at that time visible, some on board, having observed that the sea looked paler than usual, were of opinion that the bottom of the bay opened
- ↑ The author of the narrative of Cook's first voyage says:—"It was on account of the great quantity of plants which Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander collected in this place that Lieutenant Cook was induced to give it the name of Botany Bay. In cultivating the ground there would e no obstacle from the trees, which are tall, straight, and without underwood, and stand a sufficient distance from each other."
