The Beginning of British Honduras


wan" and "rungwaia" the Moskito for "to hurl under water"
or "to submerge." The Snake Cayes were called "pewta,"
"piuta" or "puta" meaning snake in Moskito, and still found
at Caye Piuta or Puta in that area.
 Were the maps of Newfoundland and British Honduras
published according to Act of Parliament 10th May 1775 by
Thomas Jefferys made by the same men? Captain James
Cook, circumnavigator of the globe and explorer of the Pa-
cific Ocean entered the navy from the Grimsby coasting trade
in 1755, and served under Captain Palliser of H.M.S. "Eagle"
which was one of a fleet of 12 men of war under Admiral
Boscawen. He took part in the capture of Louisbourg and
the fall of Quebec. On September 22, 1759 Mr. Cook was
appointed master of H.M.S. "Northumberland" by Lord Col-
ville at Halifax, where he first read Euclid and applied him-
self to the study of astronomy. In April 1760 he received a
commission as lieutenant. In September 1762 he was in New-
foundland assisting in the recapture of that island from the
French by the forces under Lieut. Colonel Amherst, and
stayed some days at Plascentia during which time he mani-
fested great diligence in surveying the harbour and heights
of that place.
 In 1763 Sir Hugh Palliser, then governor of Newfound-
land, appointed Lieutenant Cook "Marine Surveyor of the
Coast of Newfoundland and Labrador," and this office he
held until 1767. In 1765 he was with Sir William Burnaby
on the Jamaica Station, and Archibald Gibbs tells us that he
was in Belize. In 1769 Lieutenant Cook published "Remarks
on a Passage from the River Balise, in the Bay of Honduras,
to Merida; the Capital of the Province of Yucatan, in the
Spanish West Indies. By Lieutenant Cook, Ordered by Sir
William Burnaby, Rear Admiral of the Red, in Jamaica, with
Dispatches to the Governor of the Province; relative to the
Logwood Cutters in the Bay of Honduras, in February and
March 1765." The inimitably individualistic style in which
the great navigator wrote in this period of his life is readily