II. Read the text, translate it and do the exercises given below. James Cook

James Cook was born in Yorkshire on October 27, 1728. At the age of eighteen he took his first voyage as an apprentice on board a ship. In 1755 he enlisted in the Royal Navy as an able seaman and was sent to the American coast. While charting the coast of Newfoundland, Cook mastered the skills of a mapmaker.

Cook’s first round-the-world voyage took place in 1768-1771. On board the Endeavour he sailed round Cape Horn and explored the South Pacific. He discovered several islands in the South Pacific, sailed around both islands of New Zealand and explored the eastern coast of Australia.

The second voyage was undertaken in search of the Southern Continent. There were two ships: the Resolution commanded by James Cook, and the Adventure commanded by Tobias Furneaux. The second voyage demonstrated the outstanding skills and experience of Cook as a seaman and a captain. Cook did more than any other man of his time to promote the health of his crew. In those times lots of sailors on long voyages died of scurvy because of the lack of vitamins in food and bad hygiene. Cook made his men wash every day and air their beds; he tried to get as much fresh food as he could; he made his men eat sauerkraut. His second voyage lasted three years and eighteen days, they sailed into the stormiest seas on earth, through uncharted southern seas filled with ice. Out of 112 men Cook lost four, among whom only one died of an illness.

The purpose of Cook’s third voyage was to look for the Northwest Passage (between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans) from the Pacific side.

Cook set out from England on the Resolution, in company with Captain Clerke on the Discovery. They sailed around Africa and across the Indian Ocean into the Pacific, then turned north to find the passage. They sailed round the tip of the Alaska Peninsula, through the Bering Strait and into the Arctic Ocean, where they were stopped by thick ice. After spending there as much time as he could, Cook turned south to reload and repair the ships for the next year.

But he never returned to the Bering Strait. Captain Cook met his death on the Hawaiian Islands where he and his crew were attacked by the natives on February 14, 1779.

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