Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Captain Cook - Shaw Savill & Albion Line - Travel Poster, circa 1931

Shaw Savill & Albion Line Travel Poster, circa 1931

Poster depicting Captain James Cook with  Mt Egmont/Taranaki in background. The caption reads "Mt Egmont sighted by Captain Cook in 1770" (click on image for larger view).

Of course, local Maori had sighted Taranaki, their name for the mountain, quite some time before, thank you very much!

Presumably the shipping line was playing to the British pride in their explorers like Cook having sailed the deep blue seas and painted the map red with territory for the British Empire. Now (in 1931), the upwardly mobile - those still standing after two years of the Great Depression - could go see for themselves what Cook wrote about in his superb journals.

Personal note: Kuaka slogged his way to the top of Taranaki some years ago, got a mild case of altitude sickness - mild headache - for his troubles, and some great photos of the Shark's tooth & the crater - which have been "misplaced", naturally, in the intervening years.

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