VEGETABLE SHEEP.

On 2nd January 1770 Cook fixed the position of Cape Maria van Diemen, giving it as 34 degrees 30 minutes South, 187 degrees 18 minutes West of Greenwich. Admiral Wharton remarks that this is extraordinarily correct, seeing that the ship was never close to the Cape, and the observations were all taken in very bad weather. The latitude is exact, and the longitude only three miles out. He missed seeing Kaipara Harbour, one of the few good ones on the west coast, and describes the land as having a most desolate and inhospitable appearance, nothing but sandhills with hardly a sign of vegetation on them, and says: "If we was once clear of it, I am determined not to come so near again if I can avoid it, unless we have a very favourable wind indeed." On the 11th, a high mountain, its summit covered with snow, was seen, and named Mount Egmont; Wharton gives its height as 8,300 feet, and describes it as a magnificent conical mountain surrounded on three sides by the sea. Banks notes on the sides of the hill "many white lumps in companies which bore much resemblance to flocks of sheep." These were a peculiar plant, Raoulia mammillaris (Hooker), known in New Zealand as vegetable sheep. Fires were seen, the first sign of inhabitants on the west coast.

On the 14th, thinking he was in the entrance of a large bay, Cook ran in under the southern coast, and finding it broken into promising-looking bays, determined to run into one and careen the ship, as she was very foul; it is now called Ship Cove, in Queen Charlotte's Sound. Here they were at once visited by canoes, whose fully armed occupants commenced acquaintance by "heaving a few stones against the ship." Tupia opened a conversation, and a few ventured on board, but did not make a long stay. Cook then landed to look for water, and soon found an excellent supply, and "as to wood the land is here an entire forest." Whilst he was away, the crew got out the nets, and caught about 300 pounds of fish. Some natives also came off with fish, and though it was not good, Cook ordered it to be bought, in order to open up trade with them. However, they soon found these people were inclined to be quarrelsome and threatening, and as the ship was in an awkward position, being already hove down for cleaning, a charge of small shot was fired at the worst offender, which quickly taught them to behave better in future.

They had long suspected the natives were addicted to cannibalism, and now they proved it, as they purchased the bone of a forearm of a man, from which the flesh had been recently picked, and were given to understand that a few days before a strange canoe had arrived, and its occupants had been killed and eaten. They only ate their enemies, but held all strangers to be such. The place where the ship was careened was, according to Wharton, about 70 miles from Massacre Bay, where Tasman's men were killed, and Cook endeavoured to find out if there were any traditions of visits from ships to the neighbourhood, but could gain no information. The natives became friendly as time went on, and brought good fish which they sold for nails, cloth, paper (a great favourite at first, but when they found it would not stand water, worthless), and Cook says: "In this Traffic they never once attempted to defraud us of any one thing, but dealt as fair as people could do."

The surrounding country was too thickly timbered for them to see much, but one day, being out in a boat trying to find the end of the inlet, Cook took the opportunity of climbing a thickly timbered hill, and from there saw, far away to the eastward, that the seas which washed both west and eastern coasts were united, and that one part of New Zealand, at any rate, was an island, and he had thus solved one of the problems he had given him in England. They also saw that much of their immediate neighbourhood was not mainland as they had thought, but consisted of a number of small islands.