Likely drawn in Tolaga Bay, New Zealand by either Herman Diedrich Sporing or Sydney Parkinson in October 1769. Sydney Parkinson (a Scottish landscape artist on Captain James Cook's first Endeavor voyage from 1768-1771) made field studies of plants and animal species that were then engraved to be included in John Hawkesworth's Voyages (an account of the journeys by Captain James Cook, Vice Admiral John Byron, and Joseph Banks published on behalf of the Admirality in 1773). Captain Cook (1728-1779) made three separate voyages to the Pacific (with the ships Endeavour, Resolution, Adventure, and Discovery) and did more than any other voyager to explore the Pacific and Southern Ocean. Cook not only encountered Pacific cultures for the first time, but also assembled the first large-scale collections of Pacific objects to be brought back to Europe. He was killed in Hawaii in 1779.

This image is described by Joseph Banks in Hawkesworth’s journal: “After breakfast we all went ashore to see an Indian Fort or Eppah . . . We went to a bay where there were two, we landed near a small one the most beautifuly romantick thing I ever saw. It was built on a small rock detached from the main and surroundd at high water, the top of this was fencd round with rails after their manner but was not large enough to contain above 5 or 6 houses; the whole appeard totally inaccessible to any animal who was not furnishd with wings, indeed it was only approachable by one very narrow and steep path, but what made it most truly romantick was that much the largest part of it was hollowd out into an arch which penetrated quite through it and was in hight not less than 20 yards perpendicular above the water which ran through it.” November 1769

This is the first of two such engravings.
Mounted in album with PAI3938-PAI3977, PAI3979-PAI4076.; Page 37.