The Landing at Tanna one of the New Hebrides.

Rare engraving from the official British Admiralty
sanctioned edition of the accounts of Cook’s second voyage. All other later
copies made of this image by other publishers were unauthorised, usually
smaller and inferior in quality.

The view depicts Cook landing on the island of Tana, where he remained between 6 to 20 August 1774.

Cook’s landing party is approaching the beach, showing Cook holding the fronds of a palm in his right hand and the holding the barrel of his musket in his left. At the extreme left is a party of Tanan men brandishing clubs and spears, and another similar party at centre. Between the two parties are three older men, without weapons, who gesture with their open hands. They each stand in front of a separate pile of ‘a few bunches of plantains, a yam and two Tara roots’ and before each of them a small reed stuck ‘at right angles to the sea shore’. Cooks Journal II, 484-5.

References; Beddie 1381-59, p.269. Joppien 2.134A, ill.p.234

From Cook’s, A Voyage Towards the South Pole, and Round the World, performed in His Majesty’s Ships the ‘Resolution’ and ‘Adventure’, In the Years 1772, 1773, 1774, and 1775.