puzzled by incompletely understood accounts of white men having been
killed. As far as could be gathered a ship had been lost on the coast,
and Cook was led to believe that this disaster had no reference to the
Adventure.

It was found that pigs and fowls left here on the former visit were still
in existence, and presumably thriving. It may here be mentioned, that
wherever Cook touched he invariably, so far as his stock allowed, left
animals to stock the country, and that New Zealand was, when the settlers
eventually came, found to be well supplied with pigs.

After a stay of three weeks the Resolution sailed, on November 10th, for
Cape Horn. She kept farther north than on the last occasion, the object
being to pass over new ground, and more completely disprove the existence
of any land.

The western part of Tierra del Fuego being reached, Cook followed the
shore to the south-east, mapping the outside of this dangerous and
inhospitable archipelago. On December 20th he put in to what he
afterwards called Christmas Sound, where large numbers of kelp geese were
obtained, giving the crew what Cook describes as a dainty Christmas
feast, though the flesh of these birds is as tough, fishy, and
unpalatable as can well be imagined; on this occasion, however, the
seamen seemed to have concurred in the verdict of their omnivorous
commander, to whom nothing ever came amiss. Be it remembered, however,
how long they had been on salt provisions, and that the South Sea
Islands, though pleasant in many respects, produced but little solid
food--no beef, mutton, or flesh of any quadruped but pigs, and those in
not very great plenty--while New Zealand gave them nothing but fish.