craft is a-sealin' in a high latitude. The ice makes such ticklish times, that, for me, I'm always glad to know there is such chance for taking a fellow off, should there happen to be a

wrack."

"All that is very true, but there are reasons which may tell against it. I have heard of some islands where seals abound, and a consort is not quite so necessary to take them, as when one is wrecked."

"That alters the case, Captain Gar'ner. Nobody is obliged to tell of his sealing station. I was aboard one of the very first craft that found out that the South Shetlands was a famous place for seals, and no one among us thought it necessary to tell it to all the world. Some men are weak enough to put sich discoveries in the newspapers; but, for my part, I think it quite enough to put them in the log."

"That schooner must have the current with her, she comes down so fast. She'll be abreast of the Horn in half an hour longer, Stephen. We will wait, and see what she would be at."

Gardiner's prediction was true. In half an hour the Sea Lion of Holmes' Hole glided past the_rocky pyramid of the Horn, distant from it less than a mile. Had it been the object of her commander to pass into the Pacific, he might have done so with great apparent ease. Even with a south-west wind, that which blows fully half the time in those seas, it would have been in his power to lay past the islands, and soon get before it. A northeast course, with a little offing, will clear the islands, and when a vessel gets as far north as the main land, it would take her off the coast.

But Daggett had no intention of doing anything of the sort. He was looking for his consort, which he had hoped to find somewhere near the cape. Disappointed in this expectation, after standing far enough west to make certain nothing was in sight in that quarter, he hauled up on an easy bowline, and stood to the southward. Roswell was right glad to see this, inasmuch as it denoted ignorance of the position of the islands he sought. They lay much farther to the westward; and no sooner was he sure of the course steered by the other schooner, than he hastened down to the boat, in order to get his own vessel under way, to profit by the breeze.

Two hours later, the Sea Lion of Oyster Pond glanced through the passage which led into the ocean, on an ebb-tide. By that time the other vessel had disappeared in the southern board: and Gardiner came out upon the open waters again, boldly, and certain of his course. All sail was set, and the little craft slipped away from the land with the ease of an aquatic bird, that is plying its web-feet. Studding-sails were set, and the pyramid of the

Horn soon began to lower in the distance, as the schooner receded. When night closed over the rolling waters it was no longer visible, the vessel having fairly entered the Antarctic Ocean, if anything north of the circle can properly so be termed.

CHAPTER XIV.

"All gone! 'tis ours the goodly land-
Look round-the heritage behold.
Go forth-upon the mountain stand;
Then, if you can, be cold."

SPRAGUE.

Ir was an enterprising and manly thing for a little vessel like the Sea Lion to steer with an undeviating course into the mysterious depths of the antarctic circle-mysterious, far more in that day, than at the present hour. But the American sealer rarely hesitates. He has very little science, few charts, and those oftener old than new, knows little of what is going on among the savans of the earth, though his ear is ever open to the lore of men like himself, and he has his mind stored with pictures of islands and continents that would seem to have been formed for no other purpose than to meet the wants of the race of animals it is his business to pursue and to capture. Cape Horn and its vicinity have so long been frequented by this class of men, that they are at home among their islands, rocks, currents, and sterility; but to the southward of the Horn itself, all seemed a waste. At the time of which we are writing, much less was known of the antarctic regions than is known to-day; and even now our knowledge is limited to a few dreary outlines, in which barrenness and ice compete for the mastery. Wilkes and his competitors have told us that a vast frozen continent exists in that quarter of the globe; but even their daring and perseverance have not been able to determine more than the general fact.

We should be giving an exaggerated and false idea of Roswell Gardiner's character, did we say that he steered into that great void of the southern ocean in a total indifference to his destination and objects. Very much the reverse was his state of mind, as he saw the high land of the cape sink, as it might be foot by foot, into the ocean, and then lost sight of it altogether. Although the weather was fine for the region, it was dark and menacing. Such, indeed, is usually the case in that portion of this globe, which appears to be the favourite region of the storms. Although the wind was no more than a good breeze, and the ocean was but little disturbed, there were those symptoms in the atmosphere

and in the long ground-swells that came rolling in from the southwest, that taught the mariner the cold lessons of caution. We believe that heavier gales of wind at sea are encountered in the warm than in the cold months; but there is something so genial in the air of the ocean during summer, and something so chilling and repulsive in the rival season, that most of us fancy that the currents of air correspond in strength with the fall of the mercury. Roswell knew better than this, it is true; but he also fully understood where he was, and what he was about. As a sealer, he had several times penetrated as far south as the ne plus ultra of Cook; but it had ever before been in subordinate situations. This was the first time in which he had the responsibility of command thrown on himself, and it was no more than natural that he should feel the weight of this new burthen. So long as the Sea Lion of the Vineyard was in sight, she had presented a centre of interest and concern. To get rid of her had been his first care, and almost absorbing object; but, now that she seemed to be finally thrown out of his wake, there remained the momentous and closely approaching difficulties of the main adventure directly before his eyes. Roswell, therefore, was thoughtful and grave, his countenance offering no bad reflection of the sober features of the atmosphere and the ocean.

Although the season was that of summer, and the weather was such as is deemed propitious in the neighbourhood of Cape Horn, a feeling of uncertainty prevailed over every other sensation. To the southward a cold mistiness veiled the view, and every mile the schooner advanced appeared like penetrating deeper and deeper into regions that nature had hitherto withheld from the investigation of the mariner. Ice, and its dangers, were known to exist a few degrees farther in that direction; but islands also had been discovered, and turned to good account by the enterprise of the sealers.

It was truly a great thing for the Sea Lion of Oyster Pond to have thrown off her namesake of the Vineyard. It is true both vessels were still in the same sea, with a possibility of again meeting; but Roswell Gardiner was steering onward towards a haven designated in degrees and minutes, while the other craft was most probably left to wander in uncertainty in that remote and stormy ocean. Our hero thought there was now very little likelihood of his again falling in with his late consort, and this so much the more, because the islands he sought were not laid down in the vicinity of any other known land, and were consequently out of the usual track of the sealers. This last circumstance was fully appreciated by our young navigator, and gave him confi dence of possessing its treasures to himself, could he only find the place where nature had hid them.

When the sun went down in that vast waste of water which lies to the southward of this continent, the little Sea Lion had fairly lost sight of land, and was riding over the long southwestern ground-swell like a gull that holds its way steadily towards its nest. For many hours her course had not varied half a point, being as near as possible to south-south-west, which kept her a little off the wind. No sooner, however, did night come to shut in the view, than Roswell Gardiner went aft to the man at the helm, and ordered him to steer to the southward, as near as the breeze would conveniently allow. This was a material change in the direction of the vessel, and should the present breeze stand, would probably place her, by the return of light, a good distance to the eastward of the point she would otherwise have reached. Hitherto, it had been Roswell's aim to drop his consort; but, now it was dark, so much time had already passed and been improved since the other schooner was last seen, he believed he might venture to steer in the precise direction he desired to go. The season is so short in those seas, that every hour is precious, and no more variation from a real object could be permitted than circumstances imperiously required. It was now generally understood that the craft was making the best of her way towards her destined sealing-ground.

Independently of the discoveries of the regular explorers, a great deal of information has been obtained from the sealers themselves within the present century, touching the antarctic seas. It is thought that many a headland, and various islands, that have contributed their shares in procuring the accolades for different European navigators, were known to the adventurers from Stonington and other by-ports of this country, long before science ever laid its eyes upon them, or monarchs their swords on the shoulders of their secondary discoverers.

That divers islands existed in this quarter of the ocean, was a fact recognised in geography long before the Sea Lion was thought of; probably before her young master was actually born; but the knowledge generally possessed on the subject was meagre and unsatisfactory. In particular cases, nevertheless, this remark would not apply, there being at that moment on board our little schooner several mariners who had often visited the South Shetlands, New Georgia, Palmer's Land, and other known places in those seas. Not one of them all, however, had ever heard of any island directly south of the present position of the schooner. No material change occurred during the night, or in the course of the succeeding day, the little Sea Lion industriously holding her way toward the south pole; making very regularly her six knots each hour. By the time she was thirty-six hours from the Horn, Gardiner believed himself to be fully three degrees to the

southward of it, and consequently some distance within the parallel of sixty degrees south. Palmer's Land, with its neighbouring islands, would have been near, had not the original course carried the schooner so far to the westward. As it was, no one could say what lay before them.

The

The third day out, the wind hauled, and it blew heavily from the north-east. This gave the adventurers a great run. blink of ice was shortly seen, and soon after ice itself, drifting about in bergs. The floating hills were grand objects to the eye, rolling and wallowing in the seas; but they were much worn and melted by the wash of the ocean, and comparatively of greatly diminished size. It was now absolutely necessary to lose most of the hours of darkness, it being much too dangerous to run in the night. The great barrier of ice was known to be close at hand; and Cook's "Ne Plus Ultra," at that time the great boundary of antarctic navigation, was near the parallel of latitude to which the schooner had reached. The weather, however, continued very favourable, and after the blow from the north-east, the wind came from the south, chill, and attended with flurries of snow, but sufficiently steady and not so fresh as to compel our adventurers to carry very short sail. The smoothness of the water would of itself have announced the vicinity of ice: not only did Gardiner's calculations tell him as much as this, but his eyes confirmed their results. In the course of the fifth day out, on several occasions when the weather cleared a little, glimpses were had of the ice in long mountainous walls, resembling many of the ridges of the Alps, though moving heavily under the heaving and setting of the restless waters. Dense fogs, from time to time, clouded the whole view, and the schooner was compelled, more than once that day, to heave to, in order to avoid running on the sunken masses of ice, or fields, of which many of vast size now began to make their appearance.

Notwithstanding the dangers that surrounded our adventurers, they were none of them so insensible to the sublime powers of nature as to withhold their admiration from the many glorious objects which that lone and wild scene presented. The icebergs were of all the hues of the rainbow, as the sunlight gilded their summits or sides, or they were left shaded by the interposition of dark and murky clouds. There were instances when certain of the huge frozen masses appeared to be quite black, in particular positions and under peculiar lights; while others, at the same instant, were gorgeous in their gleams of emerald and gold!

The aquatic birds, also, had now become numerous again. Penguins were swimming about, filling the air with their discordant cries, while there was literally no end of the cape-pigeons