Description
Rare c.18th engraving of a Maori pā from the official British Admiralty sanctioned edition of the accounts of Cook’s third and final voyage and the first and most superior issue, without folds, of this engraving.
The pā shown is probably the fortified village on the island of Motuara, at the north eastern tip of New Zealand’s south island which Cook visited on 15 February and by Anderson on 20 February, 1777. The view is taken looking north with Motuara in the background. It was visited by Cook on his first voyage, then Furneaux on the second voyage where he established his winter quarters and William Bayly’s his observatory. Between the second and third voyage, the pā had been rebuilt but was again deserted. This gave Webber an opportunity to also sketch it from the inside.
‘I made an excursion in my boat to look for grass, and visited the Hippah or fortified Village at the SW point of Motuara, and the places w[h]ere our Gardens were on that island. There were no people at the former but the houses and pallisades were rebuilt and in good order and had been inhabited not long before.’ Cook Journals III, I, 62.
From Cook & King, A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean Undertaken by the Command of His Majesty, for Making Discoveries in the Northern Hemisphere….
