[A view of a perforated rock in Tolaga Bay in New Zealand].

Description

Rare engraving of Arched Rock, Tolaga Bay, on New Zealand’s north-east coast of the North Island. Cook visited the area in 1769.  The view shows a Maori man in a cloak, holding a long spear in the centre foreground, and two Europeans with another cloaked Maori at the left. The view is from Cook’s Cove looking through to Tolaga Bay. Through the arched hole in the rock, a stretch of water (Tolaga Bay), with a two-sailed waka is visible.

From the official British Admiralty sanctioned edition of the accounts of Cook’s first voyage and the first and most superior issue of this engraving.

Sporing, the artist, has depicted the Endeavours’ pinnance, which was moving about the bay on the same day in the process of wooding and watering the ship. The discovery of the view was recorded; ‘We saw an extraordinary natural curiosity. In pursuing a valley bounded on each side by steep hills we on a sudden saw a most noble arch or Cavern through the face of a rock leading directly to the sea, so that through it we had not only a view of the bay and hills on the other side but an opportunity of imagining a ship or any other grand object opposite it. It was certainly the most magnificent surprize. I have ever met with so much is pure nature superior to art in these cases‘ Banks, Jornal I, 419, 419, 24 October 1769

From Hawkesworth, An Account of the Voyages Undertaken by the Order of His Present Majesty for Making Discoveries in the Southern Hemisphere,… London 1773.