birds, and the whole country resounded with the wild notes of the feathered songsters. As soon as we anchored we caught great numbers of fish, which took the bait eagerly; and our first meal upon fish here was esteemed the most delightful of the kind we had ever made. Our situation was admirable for wood and water. Our yards were locked in the branches of trees, and near our stern ran a delightful stream of fresh water. On the 6th April we made up a shooting party, and found a capacious cove, where we shot several ducks, on which account we called it Duck Cove. As we returned in the evening we had an interview with one man and two women, who were natives, and the first that we had met with, whom we should have passed without seeing had not the man hallooed to us. The man stood upon the point of a rock, with a club in his hand, and the women were behind him with spears. As we approached, the man betrayed great signs of fear, but stood firm; nor would he move to take up some things that were thrown to him. His fears were all dissipated by Captain Cook's going up to embrace him, and then giving him such things as he had about him. The officers and seamen followed the captain, and talked some time with them, though we could not understand a word they spoke to us. In this conversation the youngest of the women bore the greatest share. A droll fellow of a sailor remarked that womankind did not want tongue in any part of the world. We were obliged to leave them on the approach of night; but before we parted, the youngest woman, whose volubility of tongue exceeded everything we had ever met with, gave us a dance. On the 9th we paid the natives another visit, and signified our approach by hallooing to them; but they neither came to meet us on shore, nor answered us as usual-the reason was, they needed all the time they had to dress themselves to receive us. They had their hair combed and oiled, stuck with white feathers, and tied upon the crowns of their heads; and they had bunches of feathers stuck in their ears. We were received by them with great courtesy, and the man was so well pleased with the present we made him of a cloak, that he took his patu-patu from his side and gave it to Captain Cook. We continued here a little time, and spent the rest of the day in surveying the bay. On Saturday the 24th, Captain Cook took five geese and a gander, which were all that remained of those we had brought from the Cape of Good Hope, and carried them to a cove, which on this account he called Goose Cove. This was a convenient place, for it was one where they were not likely to be disturbed by the inhabitants; and as there was plenty of food for them, they were likely to breed and add their species to the waterfowl of the country. On Tuesday, May 11th, we again made sail, but met with more obstruction than on our arrival. We observed on a sudden a whitish spot on the sea, out of which a column arose which looked like a glass tube. It appeared that another of the same sort came down from the clouds to meet this, when the two made a coalition and formed what is called a waterspout, several others forming elsewhere in the neighbourhood in the same manner soon after. As we were not very well acquainted with the nature and causes of these spouts, we were very curious in examining them. At their base was a broad spot, which looked bright and yellowish when the sun shone upon it; it appeared when the sea was violently agitated, and vapours rose in a spiral form. The columns were like cylinders, and moved forward on the surface of the sea, and frequently appeared to cross each other. At last they broke one after another, owing to the clouds not following them with equal rapidity. The sea appeared more and more covered with short broken waves as the clouds came nearer to us. The wind veered continually about, and did not fix in any point. Within two hundred fathoms of us we saw a spot in the sea in violent agitation, the water ascending in a spiral form towards the clouds. The clouds looked black, and lowering, and some hailstones fell on board. A cloud gradually tapered into a long slender tube directly over the agitated spot, and seemed descending to meet the rising spiral, and soon united with it. This last waterspout broke like the others; no explosion was heard, but a flash of lightning attended its dissolution. The oldest mariners on board had never been so near waterspouts before, and were therefore very much alarmed. Had we been drawn into the vortex, it was generally believed that our masts and yards must have gone to wreck. From the appearance of the first to the disappearance of the last was three-quarters of an hour. CAPTAIN COOK'S THIRD VISIT TO WE sailed from Plymouth Sound, July 11, 1776, visited Teneriffe, Cape of Good Hope, Kerguelen's Land, and Van Diemen's Land, and reached Sheep Cove, in Queen Charlotte's Sound, on the 12th February 1777. During his stay at this place Captain Cook was desirous of ascertaining the particulars of the massacre of a boat's crew belonging to the ship Adventure, the consort of Captain Cook's vessel on his second voyage. Of this massacre the following narrative had been supplied by Captain Furneaux :— "Friday, 17th December, 1773, at which time we were preparing for our departure, we sent out our large cutter, manned with seven seamen, under the command of Mr John Rowe, the first mate, accompanied by Mr Woodhouse, midshipman, and James Tobias Swilley, the carpenter's servant. They were to proceed up the sound to Grass Cove, to gather greens and celery for the ship's company, with orders to return that evening. Night coming on, and no cutter appearing, the captain and others began to express great uneasiness. They sat up all night in expectation of their return, but to no purpose. At daybreak, therefore, the captain ordered the launch to be hoisted out. She was double manned, and under the command of our second lieutenant, Mr Burney. Mr Burney returned about eleven o'clock the same night, and gave us the following pointed description of a most horrible. scene indeed : 666 'At about five o'clock in the afternoon,' he says, 'we opened a small bay adjoining Grass Cove; and here we saw a large double canoe, just hauled upon the beach, and beside it two men and a dog. The two natives, on seeing us approach, instantly fled, which made us suspect that we should here have some tidings of the cutter. On landing and examining the canoe, the first things we saw in it were one of our cutter's rowlock ports, and some shoes, one of which was known to belong to Mr Woodhouse; and farther on the beach we saw about twenty baskets tied up, and a dog eating a piece of broiled flesh, which, upon examining, we suspected to be human. We cut open the baskets and found more shoes, and a man's hand, which was immediately recognised as Thomas Hill's, one of our forecastle men, it having been tatooed with the initials of his name. 666 At half-past six we reached Grass Cove, and here we saw one single and three double canoes, and a great many natives assembled on the beach, who at sight of us retreated to a small hill. On the top of the high land, beyond the woods, was a large fire, from which, all the way down the hill, the place was thronged like a fair. "The natives on the little hill kept their ground, and at these we now took aim, resolving to kill as many of them as our bullets would reach; yet it was some time before we could dislodge them. We then searched all along the back of the beach for any trace of the cutter; but instead of her, the most horrible scene was presented to our view that was ever beheld by any European; for here lay the hearts, heads, and lungs of several of our people, with hands and limbs in a mangled condition. We observed a large body of the natives collected together on a hill about two miles off; but as night drew on apace, we could not advance to such a distance, neither did we think it safe to attack them, or even to quit the shore, our troop being a very small one, while the savages were both numerous and fierce, as well as highly irritated."" When on his third visit to New Zealand, Captain Cook made inquiries concerning this massacre. The natives who were present-and none of whom had been concerned in this unfortunate affair-answered every question without reserve. Their account was, that while our people were at dinner, some of the natives stole or snatched from them G |