Part 6 (2/2)
”What is your name?”
”Hunt”
”And you are--?”
”An American”
This Hunt was a man of short stature, his weather beaten face was brick red, his skin of a yellowish-brown like an Indian's, his body clus were bowed, his whole frath, especially the arrizzled hair rese but prepossessing character was inomy of this individual by the extraordinary keenness of his small eyes, his almost liplessteeth, which were dazzlingly white; their ena intact, for he had never been attacked by scurvy, the coh latitudes
Hunt had been living in the Falklands for three years; he lived alone on a pension, no one knew froularly unco, by which he ht have lived, not only as a matter of sustenance, but as an article of coained by Captain Len Guy was necessarily inco his residence at Port Egivenhis past nothing was known, but undoubtedly he had been a sailor He had said more to Len Guy than he had ever said to anybody; but he kept silence respecting the faed, and the place of his birth This was of no iood sailor was all we had to think about Hunt obtained a favourable reply, and ca
On the 27th, in the o, the Halbrane's anchor was lifted, the last good wishes and the final adieus were exchanged, and the schooner took the sea The sa Capes Dolphin and Pean the astonishi+ng adventure undertaken by these brave men, ere driven by a sentiions of the Antarctic realm
Chapter X
The Outset of the Enterprise
Here was I, then, launched into an adventure which seemed likely to surpass allof me But I was under a spell which drew me towards the unknown, that unknown of the polar world whose secrets sopioneers had in vain essayed to penetrate And this tiions would speak for the first time to human ears!
The ne had firstly to apply the their several duties, and the old--all fine fellows--aided theh Captain Len Guy had not had much choice, he seemed to have been in luck These sailors, of various nationalities, displayed zeal and good will They were aware, also, that the uerly had given them to understand that West would break any ht His chief allowed him full latitude in this respect
”A latitude,” he added, ”which is obtained by taking the altitude of the eye with a shut fist”
I recognizedto all whoht concern
The new hands took the admonition seriously, and there was no occasion to punish any of thetn As for Hunt, while he observed the docility of a true sailor in all his duties, he always kept hi to none, and even slept on the deck, in a corner, rather than occupy a bunk in the forecastle witti the others
Captain Len Guy's intention was to take the Sandwich Isles for his point of departure towards the south, after having ht hundred itude on the route of the Jane
On the 2nd of Noves which certain navigators have assigned to the Aurora Islands, 30A 15aE of latitude and 47A 33aE of east longitude
Well, then, notwithstanding the affirarded with suspicion--of the captains of the Aurora in 1762, of the Saint Miguel, in 1769, of the Pearl, in 1779, of the Prinicus and the Dolores, in 1790, of the Atrevida, in 1794, which gave the bearings of the three islands of the group, we did not perceive a single indication of land in the whole of the space traversed by us It was the saed islands of the conceited Glass Not a single little islet was to be seen in the position he had indicated, although the look-out was most carefully kept It is to be feared that his Excellency the Governor of Tristan d'Acunha will never see his naraphical noe promised to be shorter than that of the Jane We had no need to hurry, however Our schooner would arrive before the gates of the iceberg ould be open For three days the weather caused the working of the shi+p to be unusually laborious, and the ne behaved very well; thereupon the boatswain congratulated theuerly bore witness that Hunt, for all his aard and clumsy build, was in himself worth three men
”A faained just at the last ! But what a face and head he has, that Hunt!”
”I have often ions of the Far West,” I answered, ”and I should not be surprised if this man had Indian blood in his veins Do you ever talk with Hunt?”
”Very seldo He keeps himself to himself, and away from everybody And yet, it is not for want oflike his! And his hands! Have you seen his hands? Be on your guard, Mr Jeorling, if ever he wants to shake hands with you”
”Fortunately, boatswain, Hunt does not seem to be quarrelsoth”
”No--except when he is setting a halyard Then I am always afraid the pulley will come down and the yard with it”
Hunt certainly was a strange being, and I could not resist observing hiarded me at times with a curious intentness
On the 10th of November, at about two in the afternoon, the look-out shouted,-- ”Land ahead, starboard!”
An observation had just given 55A 7aE latitude and 41A 13aE longitude This land could only be the Isle de Saint Pierre--its British nae's Island--and it belongs to the circuions
It was discovered by the Frenchh he caave it the series of names which it still bears
The schooner took the direction of this island, whose snow-clad heights--formidable h the yellow fogs of the surrounding space
New Georgia, situated within five hundred leagues of Magellan Straits, belongs to the administrative domain of the Falklands The British administration is not represented there by anyone, the island is not inhabited, although it is habitable, at least in the suone in search of water, I walked about in the vicinity of the bay The place was an utter desert, for the period at which sealing is pursued there had not arrived New Georgia, being exposed to the direct action of the Antarctic polar current, is freely frequented by marine mammals I saw several droves of these creatures on the rocks, the strand, and within the rock grottoes of the coast Whole ”s ainst the invasion of an intruder--I allude to myself
Innumerable larks flew over the surface of the waters and the sands; their song awoke my memory of lands more favoured by nature It is fortunate that these birds do not want branches to perch on; for there does not exist a tree in New Georgia Here and there I found a few phanerogarass in such abundance that nuht be fed upon the island
On the 12th Nove doubled Charlotte Point at the extremity of Royal Bay, she headed in the direction of the Sandwich Islands, four hundred miles fro ice The reason was that the sus or the southern lands Later on, the current would draw theht of the fiftieth parallel, which, in the southern hemisphere, is that of Paris or Quebec But erewhich frequently shut out the horizon Nevertheless, as these waters presented no danger, and there was nothing to fear fros, the Halbrane was able to pursue her route towards the Sandwich Islands co the wind and hardly s, petrels, divers, halcyons, and albatross, bound landwards, as though to show ua the way
Owing, no doubt, to these mists, ere unable to discern Traversey Island Captain Len Guy, however, thought soht which were perceived in the night, between the 14th and 15th, probably proceeded froht be that of Traversey, as the crater frequently emits flames
On the 17th Noveave the name of Southern Thule in the first instance, as it was the most southern land that had been discovered at that period He afterwards baptized it Sandwich Isles
Jae boat, in order to explore the approachable points, while Captain Len Guy and I descended on the Bristol strand
We found absolutely desolate country; the only inhabitants were melancholy birds of Antarctic species Mosses and lichens cover the nakedness of an unproductive soil Behind the beach a few firs rise to a considerable height on the bare hill-sides, fro doith a thundering sound Awful solitude reigns everywhere There was nothing to attest the passage of any hu, or the presence ot any shi+pwrecked persons on Bristol Island
West's exploration at Thule produced a precisely similar result A few shots fired from our schooner had no effect but to drive away the crowd of petrels and divers, and to startle the rows of stupid penguins on the beach
While Captain Len Guy and I alking, I said to him,-- ”You know, of course, what Cook's opinion on the subject of the Sandwich group hen he discovered it At first he believed he had set foot upon a continent According to him, the mountains of ice carried out of the Antarctic Sea by the drift were detached fronized afterwards that the Sandwiches only foro, but, nevertheless, his belief that a polar continent farther south exists, reed”
”I know that is so, Mr Jeorling,” replied the captain, ”but if such a continent exists, we ap in its coast, and that Weddell and ap at six years' interval That our great navigator had not the luck to discover this passage is easy to explain; he stopped at the seventy-first parallel! But others found it after Captain Cook, and others will find it again”
”And we shall be of the number, captain”
”Yes--with the help of God! Cook did not hesitate to assert that no one would ever venture farther than he had gone, and that the Antarctic lands, if any such existed, would never be seen, but the future will prove that he was ree of latitude--”
”And who knows,” said I, ”perhaps beyond that, by Arthur Py It is true that we have not to trouble ourselves about Arthur Pym, since he, at least, and Dirk Peters also, returned to A he did not return?”
”I consider that we have not to face that eventuality,” replied Captain Len Guy