On 24th December they succeeded in getting to windward of the island, but the signal to the Discovery to tack having been omitted she stood on, and it was some days before she rejoined company.  January 1779 was ushered in with heavy rain, but clearing away before noon they were able to approach to about five miles from the shore, where they lay to and traded with the natives.  The next three days were spent working slowly down the coast and keeping a good look-out for their consort, occasionally stopping to do a little trading with the islanders, some of whom came as much as fifteen miles out to them.  The chief article of commerce was salt, which was of very good quality.  On the 5th January the southern point of Owhyhee was rounded, and they lay off a large village, where they were quickly surrounded by canoes laden “with hogs and women”:  the latter are not held up as patterns of all the virtues.  Vegetables seemed to be scarce, and Cook concluded that either the land could not produce them, or the crops had been destroyed by volcanic action, very recent traces of which were to be seen.

“Wednesday 6th January 1779.  The next morning the people visited us again, bringing with them the same articles as before.  Being near the shore I sent Mr. Bligh, the Master, in a boat to sound the coast, with orders to land and look for fresh water.  On his return he reported that at two cable lengths from the shore he had no soundings with a 160 fathoms of line; that when he landed he found no fresh water, but rain water lying in holes in the rocks, and that brackish with the spray of the sea, and that the surface of the country was wholly composed of large slags and ashes, here and there partly covered with plants.  Between 10 and 11 o’clock we saw the Discovery coming round the south point of the Island and at 1 P.M. she joined us, when Captain Clerke came on board and informed me that he had cruised four or five days where we were separated and then plyed round the last part of the Island, but meeting with unfavourable winds, was carried some distance from the coast.  He had one of the islanders on board all the time; it was his own choice, nor did not leave them the first opportunity that offered.”

This is the last entry made by Cook in the Journal he was preparing for publication, and is a fair sample of the manner in which the entire Journal was written, and certainly does not justify the sneers that have been uttered about bad grammar and spelling, the double negative notwithstanding.  In handwriting, spelling, and grammar he can compare well with his press either in the Navy or civil life; and many of the examples of bad spelling given have been abbreviations common in the Navy, which his critics did not understand.

Karakakoa bay.