.

life at sea, the dinners he and his shipmates must have shared, and giving us something of their conversations, characters and amusements.

      The journal itself, the original version written by Banks, is in the Mitchell Library in New South Wales, and in 1962 it was edited with the most scrupulous scholarship and copious notes by Dr J. C. Beaglehole of the Victoria University of Wellington, the same gentleman who edited Cook’s journals in four volumes and a portfolio, published by the Hakluyt Society in 1955, upon which I have also drawn. The Endeavour journal was handsomely brought out in two illustrated volumes by the Public Library of New South Wales in association with Angus and Robertson as the first part of the State’s memorial to Sir Joseph Banks, and it is with their permission that I make the following extracts.

      My plan is to give the entries just as Banks wrote them, leaving his scientific nomenclature and his rendering of Polynesian words as they stand, keeping notes to the minimum. Obviously some connecting material must be supplied – much more than in the case of the Newfoundland journal – and from time to time it may be as well to quote from Cook’s own account to show particular incidents from another point of view, but otherwise the essence of the two following chapters is pure Banks.

      August 1768 Plymouth

      25 After having waited in this place ten days, the ship, and everything belonging to me, being all that time in perfect readyness to sail at a moments warning, we at last got a fair wind, and this day at 3 O’Clock in the even weigd anchor, and set sail, all in excellent health and spirits perfectly prepard (in Mind at least) to undergo with Cheerfullness any fatigues or dangers that may occur in our intended Voyage.

      26 Wind still fair, but very light breezes; saw this Even a shoal of those fish which are particularly calld Porpoises by the seamen, probably the Delphinus Phocaena of Linnaeus, as their noses are very blunt.

      27 Wind fair and a fine Breeze; found the ship to be but a heavy sailer, indeed we could not Expect her to be any other from her built, so are obligd to set down with this Inconvenience, as a necessary consequence of her form; which is more calculated for stowage, than for sailing.

      28 Little wind today; in some sea water, which was taken on board to season a cask, observed a very minute sea Insect, which Dr Solander describd by the name of Podura marina. In the Evening very calm; with the small casting net took several specimens of Medusa Pelagica, whose different motions in swimming amus’d us very much: among the appendages to this animal we found also a new species of oniscus. We also took another animal, quite different from any we have Ever seen; it was of an angular figure, about 3 inches long and one thick, with a hollow passing quite through it. On one end was a Brown spot, which might be the stomach of the animal.

      Four of these, the whole number that we took, adherd together when taken by their sides; so that at first we imagind them to be one animal, but upon being put into a glass of water they very soon separated and swam briskly about the water.

      29 Wind foul: Morning employd in finishing the Drawings of the animals taken yesterday till the ship got so much motion that Mr Parkinson could not set to his pencil; in the Evening wind still Fresher so much as to make the night very uncomfortable.

      30 Wind still foul, ship in violent motion, but towards Evening much more quiet: Now for the first time my Sea sickness left me, and I was sufficiently well to write.

      31 Wind Freshend again this morn; observ’d about the Ship several of the Birds calld by the seamen Mother Careys chickens, Procellaria Pelagica Linn. which were thought by them to be a sure presage of a storm, as indeed it provd, for before night it blew so hard as to bring us under our Courses,^* and make me very sea sick again.

      But this was not to last; they had almost crossed the Bay of Biscay, and early in September they passed Cape Finisterre, sailing into calm seas that among many other things provided a salp, a creature not unlike a mollusc, which “was possest of more beautiful Colouring than any thing in nature I have ever seen, hardly excepting gemms. He is of a new genus and calld of which we took another species who had no beauty to boast, but this which we called opalinum shone in the water with all the splendor and variety of colours that we observe in a real opal; he livd in the Glass of salt water in which he was put for examination several hours; darting about with great agility, and at every motion shewing an almost infinite variety of changeable colours. Towards the evening of this day a new phaenomenon appeard, the sea was almost coverd with a small species of Crabbs Cancer depurator of Linnaeus, floating upon the surface of the water, and moving themselves with tolerable agility, as if the surface of the water and not the bottom was their Proper station.”

      By this time the bark had settled down into the routine of a long voyage, the Royal Navy’s routine; for although the Endeavour might not look much like a king’s ship she was run in strict man-of-war fashion, as precise in the little bark of which Cook was the commander as ever it had been in sixty-gun line-of-battle ships in which he had been the master, the unchanging pattern of her days and nights punctuated by bells and and bosun’s pipes, her upper decks scrubbed and swabbed at dawn, her hammocks piped up at seven bells in the morning watch, hands piped to breakfast at eight bells, lower decks cleaned, and then at midday the ceremony at which all the officers and midshipmen took the sun’s altitude and the master reported noon and the latitude to the officer of the watch, whereupon the officer of the watch, stepping across the quarterdeck and taking off his hat, reported it to the captain, who would reply “Make it twelve, Mr —”, thus formally and legally beginning the nautical day. Immediately after this eight bells was struck and the hands were piped to dinner, just as they would be piped to supper in the evening and then to quarters; while a little later still hammocks would be piped down, the watch set, and the order of the night would begin. And this very long-established form of communal life was repeated indefinitely: except in times of extreme crisis its groundwork never varied: and it is this continual near-repetition, day after day, more than a thousand entries in the log as the degrees crept by, that gives a sense of the immense length of the Endeavour’s voyage – a sense that no abridged account, with its merely factual statement of weeks, months, and years, can give with anything like the same force.

      Banks and Solander lived on the periphery of this well-knit traditional community, and they might have had a sad time of it; but sailors are friendly creatures upon the whole, and although Cook was a firm disciplinarian he never made any difficulty about unimportant things: the Endeavour carried a longboat, pinnace and yawl, but Banks also had a lighterman’s skiff of his own, and he could have it hoisted out whenever the operation did not hold up the ship’s progress, and this he did with great profit during the calms that followed until 7 September, when

      The wind was now fair and we went very pleasantly on towards our destined port, tho rather too fast for any natural Enquiries, for my own part I could well dispence^* with a much slower pace, but I fancy few in the ship, Dr Solander excepted, are of the same opinion, tho I believe Every body envyed our easy contented countenances during the last Calm, which brought so much food to our pursuits.

      8 Blew fresh today, but the wind was very fair so nobody complaind, nor would they was the wind much stronger, so impatient has the Calms and foul wind made every body; by the reckoning we were off Cape St Vincent so shall soon bid adieu to Europe for some time.

      10 Since the northerly wind began to blow it has not varied a point, the Sea is now down and we go on pleasantly at the rate of about 6 Knotts; could any contrivance be found by the help of which new subjects of natural history could be taken Dr Solander and myself would be Quite happy, we are forc’d to be content; three days are now passd since any thing has been taken or indeed seen, except a stray turtle who swam by the ship about noon, but was left far behind before any instrument could possibly have been got to hand.

      On 12 September Madeira came in sight and that night the Endeavour anchored in Funchal Bay. As soon as the ship had been given pratique the next morning, Cook, with his usual kindness, sent Banks and Solander ashore; here they were received with equal kindness by the English consul, who provided them with beds, permits, guides, horses and everything necessary for a rapid and determined exploration of the island, an exploration very much helped by the presence of Dr Thomas Heberden, a resident physician,