into a river;" but Cook came to a contrary conclusion; it was not until 1823 that the navigable River Brisbane, which gives access to a fine pastoral country, was discovered.
Leaving Moreton Bay, Cook ran down the coast as far as Cape York, taking possession in the usual form wherever he landed. Afterwards passing between New Guinea and Australia, he proved, as Torres had before him, that they were distinct islands.
Cook landed altogether five times on this coast—first at Botany Bay, on the 28th of April, 1770; secondly on the 22nd of May, when he shot a kind of bustard weighing 17 lbs., and named the landing-place Bustard Bay; the third time on the 30th of May, at a spot which, from the absence of water, he named Thirsty Sound. The fourth time was on the 18th of June, 1770 (seven days after his vessel, the Endeavour, had struck upon a coral rock), at Endeavour River, where they refitted. It was during his stay at Endeavour River that one of his crew came running to the boat declaring that he had seen the devil, "as large as a one-gallon keg, with horns and wings, yet he crept so slowly I might have touched him if I had not been afeared." This "devil" was a grey-headed vampyre. (See Engraving on next page.)
On the 21st of August of the same year, having passed and named a point on the mainland "Cape York," Cook anchored, landed for the fifth time on an island which lies in lat. 10° 30′ S., and having ascertained that he had discovered, by ascending a hill from whence he had a clear view of forty miles, an open passage to the Indian Seas, before re-embarking took possession in the following words:—
"As I am now about to quit the eastern coast of New Holland, which I have coasted from lat. 38° to this place, and which I am confident no European has ever seen before, I once more hoist English colours; and, though I have already taken possession of several parts, I now take possession of the whole of the eastern coast, by the name of New South Wales (from its great similarity to that part of the principality), in the right of my sovereign, George the Third, King of Great Britain."
His men fired three volleys of firearms, which were answered by the same number from the guns of the ship, and by three cheers from the main shrouds, and, then re-embarking, he named the spot Possession Island.
These explorations of Cook completed the circuit of the island commenced and prosecuted from the beginning of the seventeenth century by the Spanish and Dutch, with the exception of the coast
