Title: View of Christmas Harbour
Description: View of Christmas Harbour, Kerguelen Island. Resolution and Discovery at anchor.
In the foreground, penguins in groups, and a sea-lion. Two ships’ boats landing crew on the shore.
Cook wrote of Christmas Harbour, Kerguelen Island: “I found the shore in a manner covered with Penguins and other birds and Seals…so fearless that we killed as ma(n)y as we chose for the sake of their fat or blubber to make Oil for our lamps and other uses… Here I display’d the British flag and named the harbour Christmas harbour as we entered it on that Festival”
(Journals III, i, 29-32)
Date: 25-30December 1776
Pen, wash and water-colour
Author: John Webber
Dimensions: 492 x 657
Collection: British Library
Reference no: Add.Ms 15513 f.3
Record no.: 8350