The World: Return to Tahiti

EXPLORATIONS

After six months of refitting and provisioning, the two 100-foot barks moored in England’s Plymouth Harbor are now so crowded with cows, horses, sheep, goats and geese (also one peacock and one peahen) that Captain James Cook says he would need only “a few females of our own species” to turn the ships into replicas of Noah’s ark. Tall, wind-weathered Captain Cook expects to sail this week on the third and probably the last of his trips around the world. His four-year mission: to discover a northwest passage around Canada. If he finds it, he will win the Admiralty’s standing reward of .£20,000.

The original reason for Cook’s voyage is less grandiose. It derives from his last trip (1772-75), when one of his officers insisted on bringing a native Tahitian back to England as a souvenir (and promised that he would eventually be returned home). The Tahitian, a youth named Omai, soon became the pet of London Society. Dressed up in an elaborate frogged coat and sword, he was honored by budding Novelist Fanny Burney, who praised him as a “lyon of lyons.” Sir Joshua Reynolds painted a portrait of him in a turban. He was even introduced to King George, whose name he mispronounced as he greeted him: “How do, King Tosh?”

Delighted with London’s attentions, Omai began to doubt whether he really wanted to return home, but the Admiralty considered a promise a promise and King George agreed. Cook’s vessel, the Resolution, and a companion ship, the Discovery, were assigned to the expensive task of taking Omai back to Tahiti. At the same time, the Admiralty wanted to revive that other project, the search for a northwest passage as a trade route to the Orient. The new approach: searching along the Pacific Coast rather than in Hudson Bay.

That was a natural assignment for Cook, since he was the first to chart large areas of the Pacific (among his discoveries: New Zealand, the New Hebrides, New Caledonia, Easter Island). Trouble was that the Navy had retired Cook from sea duty last year and made him a captain of the Greenwich Hospital for pensioned sailors, a sinecure that pays £230 a year, as well as a free suite of rooms, firewood and candles. But Cook, still only 47, was restless. To a friend he confided: “A few months ago, the whole southern hemisphere was hardly big enough for me, and now I am going to be confined within the limits of Greenwich Hospital.”

The Earl of Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty,* decided to test Cook by inviting him to dinner and describing the Resolution’s new assignment. Despite the fact that his wife Elizabeth was pregnant with their third child. Cook immediately volunteered. Since then, he has been gathering adventurous young crewmen like Astronomer James King, former Dartmouth Student John Ledyard, and Sailing Master William Bligh. Says Cook: “I embark on as fair a prospect as I can wish.”

Cook’s voyages are not devoted only to exploring. He has demonstrated on his previous trips that fruits and vegetables are the best weapons against scurvy, which sometimes kills as many as half the crewmen on long voyages. He also plans to distribute English animals among Pacific islands to see how they will fare in different climates (hence his arkful of livestock). As for Omai, he too has loaded the Resolution with unusual cargo to carry back from England to Tahiti: a portable organ, a suit of armor—and something that his people consider sacred, a large bundle of red feathers.

*The earl, a passionate gambler, dislikes rising from the gaming table for the sake of a meal, so he has devised the practice of placing a slice of meat between two pieces of bread, a dish sometimes known as a “sandwich.”