It may be taken for
granted that beyond such books as Dampier's _Voyage,_ De Brosses' volumes,
and such charts as the library of the _Endeavour_ furnished, old maps
afforded no help to Cook in his survey of New Holland. Of the charts Cook
says something in his journal. In September, 1770, he writes:--
"The charts with which I compared such parts of this coast as I
visited are bound up with a French work entitled _Histoire des
Navigations aux Terres Australes_, which was published in 1756,
and I found them tolerably exact."
As to what Cook did in the matter of dry geographical details, if the
reader wants them he must go to one or other of the hundred or more books
on the subject. In a few words, he sailed between the two main islands of
New Zealand, discovering for himself the existence of the straits
separating them. He first saw the south-east coast of New Holland at Point
Hicks, named by him after his first lieutenant, and now called Cape
Everard, in the colony of Victoria; from here he ran north to Botany Bay,
where he anchored, took in water and wood, and buried a sailor named Forby
Sutherland, who died of consumption and whose name was given to the
southern headland of the bay. It is worth noting that in every original
document relating to this voyage, save one chart, this bay is called
Stingray Bay, after, as Cook himself says, the great number of stingrays
caught in it.
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