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Captain Cook.

As for his personal appearance, several portraits remain of him…. He was, to begin with, over 6ft. high, thin and spare; his head was small; his forehead was broad; his hair was a dark brown, rolled back and tied behind in the fashion of the time; his nose was long and straight; his nostrils clear and finely cut; his cheek-bones were high—a feature which illustrated his Scotch descent; his eyes were brown and small, but well set, quick, and piercing; his eyebrows were large and bushy; his chin was round and full; his mouth firmly set; his face long. It is an austere face, but striking. One thinks, perhaps wrongly, that, without having been told whose face this is in the portrait, we might know it as the face of a man remarkable for patience, resolution, perseverance, and indomitable courage. The portraits of naval worthies are sometimes disappointing—the faces of some gallant admirals have even, if one may respectfully use the word, a fatuous expression, no doubt the fault of the rascal painter. That of James Cook satisfies. It is a face worthy of the navigator. Such was the appearance of the man—tall, thin, grave, even austere. As for his personal habits, he was, as all agree, of robust constitution, inured to labour, and capable of undergoing the severest hardships. Every north-easterly gale that buffeted the collier's boy in the German Ocean, every night spent in battling with the winter gales between Newcastle and the Port of London, helped to build this strength and endurance. He was able to eat without difficulty the coarsest and the most ungrateful food—on what luxuries are even the mates of a collier nourished? "Great was the indifference with which he submitted to every kind of self-denial." A man who felt no hardships, who desired no better fare than was served out to his men, who looked on rough weather as the chief part of life, who was never sick, and never tired—where was there his like?

And a man who never rested, he was always at work. "During his long and tedious voyages," writes Captain King after his death, "his eagerness and activity were never in the least degree abated. No incidental temptation would detain him for a moment…."

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He was strong to endure, true to carry out his mission, perfectly loyal and single-minded, he was fearless, he was hot-tempered and impatient, he was self-reliant; he asked none of his subordinates for help or for advice; he was temperate, strong, and of simple tastes; he was born to a hard life, and he never murmured however hard things proved. And, like all men born to be great, when he began to rise, with each step he assumed, as if it belonged to him, the dignity of his new rank. A plain man, those who knew him say, but of good manners…. Such as his achievements required, such he was.

Let us, however, once more repeat briefly what those achievements were, because they were so great and splendid, and because no other sailor has ever so greatly enlarged the borders of the earth. He discovered the Society Islands; he proved New Zealand to be two islands, and he surveyed its coast; he followed the unknown coast of New Holland for 2,000 miles, and proved that it was separated from New Guinea. He traversed the Antarctic Ocean on three successive voyages, sailing completely round the globe in its high latitudes, and proving that the dream of the great southern continent had no foundation, unless it was close around the Pole, and so beyond the reach of ships; he discovered and explored a great part of the coast of New Caledonia; the largest island in the South Pacific next to New Zealand; he found the desolate Island of Georgia, and Sandwichland, the southernmost land yet known; he discovered the fair and fertile archipelago called the Sandwich Islands; he explored 3,500 miles of the North American coast, and he traversed the icy seas of the North Pacific, as he had done in the south, in search of the passage which he failed to discover. All this, without counting the small islands which he found scattered about the Pacific.

Again, he not only proved the existence of these islands, but he was in advance of his age in the observations and the minute examination which he made into the religion, manners, customs, arts, and language of the Natives wherever he went. It was he who directed these inquiries, and he was himself the principal observer. When astronomical observations had to be made, it was he who acted as principal astronomer. He was as much awake to the importance of botany, especially of medicinal plants, as he was to the page 26laying-down of a correct chart. It is certain that there was not in the whole of the King's navy any officer who could compare with Cook in breadth and depth of knowledge, in forethought, in the power of conceiving great designs, and in courage and pertinacity in carrying them through. Let us always think of the captain growing only more cheerful as his ship forced her way southwards, though his men lay half-starved and half-poisoned on the deck.

His voyages would have been impossible, his discoveries could not have been made, but for that invaluable discovery of his whereby scurvy was kept off, and the men enabled to remain at sea long months without a change. I have called attention to the brief mention he makes of privation and hardships. He barely notes the accident by which half his company were poisoned by fish. He says nothing about the men's discomforts when their biscuits were rotten. These things, you see, are not scurvy. One may go hungry for a while, but recover when food is found, and is none the worse. One gets sick of salt-junk, but, if scurvy is averted, mere disgust is not worth observation. To drive off scurvy—to keep it off—was the greatest boon that any man could confer upon sailors. Cook has the honour and glory of finding out the way to avert this scourge. Those who have read of this horrible disease, the tortures it entailed, the terror it was on all long voyages, will understand how great should be the gratitude of the country to this man. Since the disease fell chiefly upon the men before the mast, it was fitting that one who had also in his youth run up the rigging to the music of the boatswain's-pipe should discover that way and confer that boon.

Walter Besani

("Captain Cook.")