Tobias Furneaux

Captain Tobias Furneaux (21 August 1735 – 18 September 1781) was a British navigator and Royal Navy officer, who accompanied James Cook on his second voyage of exploration. He was one of the first men to circumnavigate the world in both directions, and later commanded a British vessel during the American War of Independence.

Quotes

• While we lay here, we saw several smokes and large fires, about eight or ten miles in shore to the northward, but did not see any of the natives; though they frequently come into this bay [Adventure Bay], as there were several wigwams or huts, where we found some bags and nets made of grass, . . . . In one of them there was the stone they strike fire with, and tinder made of bark, . . . . We found in one of their huts, one of their spears, which was made sharp at one end, I suppose, with a shell or stone. Those things we brought away, leaving in the room of them medals, gun-flints, a few nails, and an old empty barrel with the iron hoops on it. They seem to be quite ignorant of every fort of metal. . . . They lie on the ground, on dried grass, round the fire; and, I believe, they have no settled place of habitation (as their houses seemed built only for a few days), but wander about in small parties from place to place in search of food, and are actuated by no other motive. We never found more than three or four huts in a place, capable of containing three or four persons each only; and what is remarkable, we never saw the least marks either of canoe or boat, and it is generally thought they have none; being altogether, from what we could judge, a very ignorant and wretched set of people, though natives of a country capable of producing every necessary of life, and a climate the finest in the world.
  • Journal entry (15 March 1773); in A Voyage Towards the South Pole, and Round the World (1779), Vol. 1, Ch. VII: "Captain Furneaux's Narrative, from the Time the two Ships were separated, to their joining again in Queen Charlotte's Sound, with some Account of Van Diemen's Land" (pp. 113–114)

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Tobias Furneaux on Wikipedia