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 third day out, the wind hauled, and it blew heavily from the
north-east. This gave the adventurers a great run. The 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