Joseph Banks. Patrick O’Brian

interest, something of a botanist (they named Heberdenia excelsa after him). They only had five days, and one of these was largely wasted, to their fury, by a courtesy-visit from the Governor, but even so they collected 18 fishes and 246 plants (including cryptogams), in spite of the fact that in September nearly everything but the vines had died down. Banks also had time to make some remarks about the people (exceedingly idle, exceedingly conservative), the wine (ill made, ill cultivated, and carried on men’s heads in goatskins), the friars and their admirable hospital, and the nuns (civil, but wonderfully talkative); yet although he sounds a little censorious and No-Popery, it is clear that he enjoyed himself very much indeed, as well he might, having seen the banana in great abundance, the guava, the pineapple, the cinnamon tree and the mango.

      On 18 September they sailed away, the light airs carrying them south and presently allowing them to catch “a most beautifull species of Medusa, of a colour equaling if not exceeding the finest ultramarine; it was described and call’d Medusa azurea.” Then in 30°7’N, 15°55’W they saw the Dry Salvages; and two days later they were called up very early in the morning to be shown Tenerife a great way off. “While we were engagd in looking at the hill a fish was taken which was describd and called Scomber serpens; the seamen said they had never seen such a one before except the first lieutenant, who remembered to have taken one before just about these Islands; Sr Hans Sloane in his Passage out to Jamaica also took one of these fish which he gives a picture of, Vol I, T.1.f.2.”

      Off the Canaries they picked up the north-east trade wind, and on 25 September Banks wrote in his journal:

      Wind continued to blow much as it had done so we were sure we were well in the trade; now for the first time we saw plenty of flying fish, whose beauty especialy when seen from the cabbin windows is beyond imagination, their sides shining like burnished silver; when seen from the Deck they do not appear to such advantage as their backs are then presented to the view, which are dark colourd.

      26 Went as usual and as we expect to go these next two months; flying fish are in great plenty about the ship. About one today we crossed the tropic, the night most intolerably hot, the Thermometer standing all night at 78 in the cabbin tho every window was open.

      Their expectations were justified; the trade wind bowled the Endeavour along towards Brazil at seven knots, a very fine pace for her, and although this put an end to Banks’s boating, there were often birds in the rigging and there were always, of course, the traditional sharks. The first of a long series was taken on 29 September:

      About noon a young shark was seen from the Cabbin windows following the ship, who immediately took a bait and was caught on board: he proved to be the Squalus Charcharias of Linn and assisted us in clearing up much confusion which almost all authors had made about that species; with him came on board 4 sucking fish, echineis remora Linn. who were preserved in spirit. Notwithstanding it was twelve O’Clock before the shark was taken, we made shift to have part of him stewd for dinner, and very good meat he was, at least in the opinion of Dr Solander and myself, tho some of the Seamen did not seem to be fond of him, probably from some prejudice founded on the species sometimes feeding on human flesh.

      Day after day the north-east trade carried them southwards, not leaving them until 3 October, when the Endeavour reached latitude 12^°14’ and the northern edge of the doldrums, the uncomfortable, oppressive zone of calms and squalls between the north-east and the south-east trades. The zone varies in position and width, and sometimes it was so broad and so windless that ships spent weeks or even months in getting across; this year however it was comparatively narrow – too narrow for Banks’s liking, for the doldrums provided him with wonderful opportunities for fishing, collecting and bathing – and they picked up the south-east trade well north of the equator on 17 October. A fine brisk breeze, but it brought a certain amount of unhappiness: in the first place Banks “trying as I have often (foolishly no doubt) done to exercise myself by playing tricks with two ropes in the Cabbin I got a fall which hurt me a good deal and alarmed me more, as the blow was on my head, and two hours after it I was taken with sickness at my stomach which made me fear some ill consequence.” He survived however and on 20 October he could write “Quite well today, employd in describing and attending the Draughtsmen.” But only the next day “the cat killed our bird M.Avida [a wagtail that had been captured in the rigging] who had lived with us ever since the 29th of Septr intirely on the flies which he caught for himself; he was hearty and in high health so that probably he might have livd a great while longer had fate been more kind.” And then the day after that “Trade had got more to the Southward than it usually has been, which was unlucky for me as I proposed to the Captain to touch for part of a day at least at the Island of Ferdinand Norronha, which he had no objection to if we could fetch it: that however seemd very uncertain.” Uncertain it was, alas, and the island had to wait for Darwin sixty-four years later; but there were whales, and there was the equator, which they cut on 25 October, with the usual ceremonies. Those who had not crossed before were required either to submit to being ducked three times from the yardarm or to pay a forfeit in rum or wine; Cook, Banks and Solander paid up, but a score of men and boys were dipped. All this was very cheerful and in the purest tradition, but what was a little unusual was that the names of the dogs and cat were down in the list. Banks may have compounded for his dogs, a greyhound and a nondescript bitch, but whether the cat paid or submitted does not appear.

      South of the equator they sailed into a wonderfully luminous sea, luminous in itself and luminous in its inhabitants – luminous jellyfish, luminous crabs, luminous barnacles, several of which they caught, finding them to their delight to be new species and even new genera. Southward still day after day, and Cook knew very well that the coast of Brazil lay no great way to the westward; he had no chronometer to fix his longitude, but in Dr Maskelyne’s recently completed lunar tables he had the next best thing, and he was one of the earliest scientific navigators to sail with them. Indeed, as Banks recorded on 8 November:

      At day break today we made the Land which Provd to be the Continent of S. America in Lat. 21.16; about ten we saw a fishing boat who told us that the country we saw belonged to the Captainship of Espirito Santo.

      Dr Solander and myself went on board this boat in which were 11 men (9 of whom were blacks) who all fished with lines. We bought of them the cheif part of their cargo consisting of Dolphins, two kinds of large Pelagick Scombers, Sea Bream and the fish calld in the West Indies Welshman, for which they made us pay 19 shillings and Sixpence. [It was enough for the whole ship’s company.]

      Soon after we came on board [Endeavour] a Sphynx^* was taken which proved to be quite a new one, and a small bird also who was the Tanagra Jacarini of Linn; it seemd however from Linnaeus’s description as well as Edwards’s and Brisson’s that neither of them had seen the Bird which was in reality a Loxia nitens.

      Now with varying breezes Cook took the Endeavour down the coast until 13 November, when “This Morn the Harbour of Rio Janeiro was right ahead about 2 leagues off.”

      As Banks said in a letter he wrote to Lord Morton, the President of the Royal Society, “On the 13th of this Month we arrivd here having saild up the river with a very light breeze and amusd ourselves with observing the shore on each side coverd with Palm trees a production which neither Dr Solander or myself had before seen and from which as well as every thing else which we saw promis’d ourselves the highest satisfaction.” But their promises were fallacious; with all the delights of a new flora and a new fauna within their reach they met with little but the bitterest frustration. It has been said that the Portuguese viceroy did not believe the Endeavour was a king’s ship, and that he supposed she was some kind of a pirate or smuggler; at all events he forbade anyone but the captain and the hands needed for watering and victualling to go ashore. Cook told him that the bark had to be given a heel to clean her sides and that it would be very unpleasant for people to live aboard in such conditions, and he reminded him of his predecessor’s traditionally kind and helpful reception of Byron in the Dolphin only a few years before; but neither this nor the repeated memorials that Cook and Banks sent his Excellency had any effect. The ship might victual and water, but her people were not to go ashore; and guards were placed to enforce the order.

      “Your lordship”, said Banks