Text Introduction

Welcome to the Endeavour Project's prototype hypermedia edition of the Journals of James Cook's first Pacific voyage. This brief guide explains how to use the edition and associated resources. You might like to download and print this introduction to help you navigate the site, or obtain a copy of this file in Adobe *.pdf format:

You've accessed this page through our homepage:

On the left hand side of the home and other pages are icons which provide links to the Journals, our archives of historical documents, our collections of maps and images, and a fairly lengthy description of the project of which this trial edition of the Journals of Cook's first Pacific Voyage forms a small part.

The Homepage also contains a main link to the Journals, a link to a short video introduction, and of course one to this text introduction.

The Journals

The site currently offers the texts of the original manuscript journals in which James Cook and Joseph Banks recorded their observations and experiences amongst the peoples of Tahiti, between 13 April and 6 July 1769. It is interesting and historically valuable to be able to compare and contrast these two journals.

Importantly, the Tahiti sections of Cook's and Bank's journals are offered together with the account of events on the island written by John Hawkesworth, a well-known London man of letters, who was given the task of preparing an account of Cook's expedition for publication.

In writing his account, IHawkesworth wrote in the first person - as if Cook was the narrator. However, he drew not only Cook's journal, but also that kept by Banks, as well as other documents. He also made many changes to what Cook and Banks originally wrote, and gave his own interpretations of certain events. Given that what Cook's contemporaries knew about his time in Tahiti they learnt from reading Hawkesworth, and not Cook or Bank's original journals, it is also very important to compare and contrast the texts of all three documents.

To read the journals, click on the Journals icon on the homepage. It will bring up the following screen:

There is a lot of information on this screen, but you will find it easy to understand if you read these notes.

Firstly, at the bottom of the screen, you will find the following navigation panel:

This may take a little time to load into your browser. If you get a message informing you that you need a plug-in for your browser, please following the instructions that appear on your screen.

By placing your mouse either side of the heading 'Endeavour Voyage Stages' you will find that the voyage stages move backwards and forwards. You will find that you can vary the speed with which the different stages of the voyage move before you by moving your mouse along the blue lines either side of the words 'Endeavour Voyage Stages'. Please note that only the stages for the Tahiti section of the Endeavour voyage are currently available. If you click on other stages, a message will appear saying you can go straight to the Tahiti stages by depressing the space bar on your keyboard.

By clicking your mouse on a particular stage, it will bring up a calendar of the days that fell within the stage in the centre of the screen. For example, clicking on the stage headed 'Tahiti: Arrival and Erection of Fort Venus' will call up this calendar:

You can use this calendar to read what Cook and Banks thought worthy of noting in their journals about a particular day, or how Hawkesworth presented their observations or experiences of that day. Let's take, for example, the 14th of April 1769, the day on which Tahitian chiefs and priests, came aboard the Endeavour:

You will notice that on the right hand side of the entry there are three small icons: 'C', 'B' and 'H'. They stand for Cook, Banks and Hawkesworth. Click on 'C' and you will call up Cook's journal entry for that day:

Note that the same icons 'C', 'H' and 'B' appear above the text of Cook's journal entry. They allow you to move between Cook's and Bank's entries, and to read what appeared in Hawkesworth's account of the day.

There are also two green arrows allowing you to move on to the next daily entry, or to that of the previous day. Using these green arrows and the 'C', 'B' and 'H' icons you can navigate eaily between the three documents.

If want to return to the calendar by using the back button of your browser. Back at the calendar screen you can use the stage navigation panel to call up a different calendar, and then call up other parts of the three documents.

Also, you will find that many entries in Cook's journal, such as that for the 14th of April 1769, contain links to notes. Simply click on the number in the text, and the note will replace the text of the entry. For example, if you click on the number '5', the following note will appear:

In time many of these notes will contain hypermedia elements. In this note, for example, there is a map of Tahiti which you increase in size and move, using the right button on your mouse.

To return to the text, click once on the back button of your browser. Please note that we are still developing this feature of the site, and clicking on other icons while a note is open can have unpredictable results.

Other Pages

To access other pages in the journal, simply use the navigation icons on the left hand of the page. Because this is merely a prototype of the final edition of the journals, there are currently only a limited number of resources to be found through each page. For example, through the 'Archives' page you can read several documents:

These include Hawkesworth's 'Particular Description of the Island (of Tahiti)', together with what Cook and Banks descriptions in their journals of the Island and the culture of its people. Also, you will find a copy of the 'Astronomical Observations' recorded by members of the Endeavour expedition. Recording the transit of Venus was one of the major goals of Cook's voyage.

If you have any further queries or comments about the site, please do not hesitate to contact the project team by email at plan-cook@h-net.msu.edu

We are very interested to know how this site might be improved.