Part 22 (1/1)

Of Hurliguerly I cannot speak too highly He proved hi spirits to hear hiht, s up, you will see that we have had ood luck than bad Oh, yes, I know, there was the loss of our schooner! Poor Halbrane, carried up into the air like a balloon, then flung into the deep llke an avalanche! But, on the other hand, there was the iceberg which brought us to the coast, and the Tsalal boat which brought us and Captain Williaet the current and the breeze that have pushed us on up to now, and will keep pushi+ng us on, I'm sure of that With so aet ashore again in Australia or New Zealand, instead of casting anchor at the Kerguelens, near the quay of Christmas Harbour, in front of the Greea Cormorant”

For a e pursued our course without deviation to east or west, and it was not until the 21st of March that the Paracutis lost sight of Halbrane Land, being carried towards the north by the current, while the coast-line of the continent, for such we are convinced it is, trended in a round curve to the north-east

Although the waters of this portion of sea were still open, they carried a flotilla of icebergs or ice-fields Hence arose serious difficulties and also dangers to navigation in the loo e or to prevent our little craft frorain between the er ascertain his position either in latitude or longitude The sun being absent, calculations by the position of the stars was too complicated, it was impossible to take altitudcs, and the Paracuta abandoned herself to the action of the current, which invariably bore us northward, as the co of its medium speed, however, we concluded that on the 27th of March our boat was between the sixty-ninth and the sixty-eighth parallels, that is to say, some seventy miles only from the Antarctic Circle

Ah! if no obstacle to the course of our perilous navigation had existed, if passage between this inner sea of the southern zone and the waters of the Pacific Ocean had been certain, the Paracuta ht have reached the extreme limit of the austral seas in a few days But a few hundred -barrier would confront us with its ie could be found, we should be obliged to go round it either by the east or by the west

Once cleared indeed

Ah! once cleared, we should be in a frail craft upon the terrible Pacific Ocean, at the period of the year when its te shi+ps dread the ht of its waves

We were determined not to think of this Heaven would come to our aid We should be picked up by some shi+p This the boatswain asserted confidently, and ere bound to believe the boatswain

For six entire days, until the and of April, the Paracura held her course a the ice-barrier, whose crest was profiled at an altitude of between seven and eight hundred feet above the level of the sea The extremities were not visible either on the east or the west, and if our boat did not find an open passage, we could not clear it By a e was found on the above-mentioned date, and attempted, amid a thousand risks Yes, we required all the zeal, skill, and courage of our men and their chiefs to accomplish such a task

At last ere in the South Pacific waters, but our boat had suffered severely in getting through, and it had sprungout the water, which also caentle, the sea er did not lie in the risks of navigation No, it arose from the fact that not a shi+p was visible in these waters, not a whaler was to be seen on the fishi+ng-grounds At the beginning of April these places are forsaken, and we arrived some weeks too late

We learned afterwards that had we arrived a little sooner, we should have met the vessels of the American expedition

In fact, on the 1st of February, by 95A 50aE longitude and 64A 17aE latitude, Lieutenant Wilkes was still exploring these seas in one of his shi+ps, the Vincennes, after having discovered a long extent of coast stretching from east to west On the approach of the bad season, he returned to Hobart Town, in Tasmania The same year, the expedition of the French captain Dumont d'Urville, which started in 1838, discovered Adelie Land in 66A 30aE latitude and 38A 21aE east longitude, and Clarie Coast in 64A 30aE and 129A 54aE Their ca ended with these important discoveries, the Astrolabe and the Zelee left the Antarctic Ocean and returned to Hobart Town

None of these shi+ps, then, were in those waters; so that, when our nutshell Paracuta was ”alone on a lone, lone sea” beyond the ice-barrier, ere bound to believe that it was no longer possible we could be saved

We were fifteen hundred miles away frouerly hie the last fortunate chance upon which he had counted failed us

On the 6th of April ere at the end of our resources; the sea began to threaten, the boat seery waves

”A shi+p!” cried the boatswain, and on the instant we made out a vessel about four miles to the north-east, beneath the nals were perceived; the shi+p lowered her largest boat and sent it to our rescue

This shi+p was the Tasman, an American three-er welcoh they had been his own countrymen

The Tasman had come from the Falkland Islands where the captain had learned that seven one to the southern seas in search of the shi+pwrecked people of the Jane But as the season advanced, the schooner not having reappeared, she was given up for lost in the Antarctic regions

Fifteen days after our rescue the Tasman disembarked the survivors of the crew of the two schooners at Melbourne, and it was there that our men were paid the sums they had so hardly earned, and so well deserved

We then learned from maps that the Paracuta had debouched into the Pacific from the land called Clarie by Dumont d'Urville, and the land called Fabricia, which was discovered in 1838 by Bellenny

Thus terminated this adventurous and extraordinary expedition, which cost, alas, too h the chances and the necessities of our voyage carried us farther towards the south pole than hose who preceded us, although we actually did pass beyond the axial point of the terrestrial globe, discoveries of great value still remain to be ar Poe has made so famous, has shown the way It is for others to follow him, and to wrest the last Antarctic Mystery from the Sphinx of the Ice-realm The End