IV.

Second Pacific Voyage

Cook’s second and most ambitious voyage began in 1772 and lasted until 1775. Its aim was to settle once and for all the question of the existence of a southern continent by sailing around the globe at the farthest south latitudes possible. To avoid harsh weather conditions in the extreme southern latitudes, Cook charted a zigzag course, sailing far south in the summers and retreating north to more temperate waters during the winters. He made good use of the experience he had gained on his first voyage, using Tahiti and New Zealand as winter ports.

Cook set out with two ships, the Resolution (commanded by Cook) and the Adventure, and another strong scientific team, including father and son naturalists Johann and George Forster. The expedition sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and then southward toward the Antarctic Ocean, making the first recorded crossing of the Antarctic Circle in January 1773. The two ships then sailed across the southern Indian Ocean to New Zealand and on to Tahiti. Not content to just relax in port, Cook spent the remaining winter months searching for islands that other explorers had encountered more than a century earlier but then “lost” due to primitive navigation techniques. Heading west from Tahiti, he became the first European to sight the island group that was subsequently known as the Cook Islands. He also reached the islands of present-day Tonga, which he called the Friendly Islands because of the welcome he received. The expedition returned to New Zealand to stock up on fresh food before embarking on the long, cold voyage across the southern latitudes. Cook’s determination kept the crew pushing farther south at every opportunity, eventually reaching the southernmost point attained at that time.

In early 1774 Cook and his crew returned to the tropics, where they searched for other islands that earlier explorers had vaguely described. First, they located Easter Island, where Cook was shocked to find people speaking a language similar to that of the Tahitians, Tongans, and New Zealanders. Discovering linguistic similarities among inhabitants of widely scattered islands led Cook to speculate about the history of these Pacific peoples, who are known today as Polynesians (see Polynesia). Speculation continued as the crew sailed west to find a group of islands far west of Tahiti and Tonga. Cook named the islands the New Hebrides (now Vanuatu), after an island group off the coast of Scotland. The inhabitants of the New Hebrides differed physically from the Polynesians and spoke very different languages. These islands are part of what is known today as Melanesia. Among the other islands that Cook relocated and charted were the Marquesas and New Caledonia.

Cook spent the next summer crossing both the Pacific and the South Atlantic to Cape Town. This crossing completed Cook’s circumnavigation of the globe at extreme southern latitudes, proving conclusively that no large, habitable continent existed in this area. After returning to England in 1775, he was made a fellow of the Royal Society. Just months after his return, Cook proposed a third voyage, to tackle another great, unresolved geographical mystery: the supposed Northwest Passage across North America.