the
suzerainty of Great Britain, but this was not so in 1839. My
personal observation at that date convinced me that the possession
of Tristan d'Acunha was not worth disputing. In the sixteenth
century the islands were called the Land of Life.

On the 5th of September, in the morning, the towering volcano of the
chief island was signalled; a huge snow-covered mass, whose crater
formed the basin of a small lake. Next day, on our approach, we
could distinguish a vast heaped-up lava field. At this distance the
surface of the water was striped with gigantic seaweeds, vegetable
ropes, varying in length from six hundred to twelve hundred feet,
and as thick as a wine barrel.

Here I should mention that for three days subsequent to the finding
of the fragment of ice, Captain Len Guy came on deck for strictly
nautical purposes only, and I had no opportunities of seeing him
except at meals, when he maintained silence, that not even James
West could have enticed him to break. I made no attempt to do this,
being convinced that the hour would come when Len Guy would again
speak to me of his brother, and of the efforts which he intended to
make to save him and his companions. Now, I repeat, the season being
considered, that hour had not come, when the schooner cast anchor on
the 6th of September at Ansiedling, in Falmouth Bay, precisely in
the place indicated in Arthur Pym's narrative as the moorings of
the _Jane_.

At the period of the arrival of the _Jane_, an ex-corporal of the
English artillery, named Glass, reigned over a little colony of
twenty-six individuals, who traded with the Cape, and whose only
vessel was a small schooner. At our arrival this Glass had more than
fifty subjects, and was, as Arthur Pym remarked, quite independent
of the British Government. Relations with the ex-corporal were
established on the arrival of the _Halbrane_, and he proved very
friendly and obliging. West, to whom the captain left the business
of refilling the water tanks and taking in supplies of fresh meat
and vegetables, had every reason to be satisfied with Glass, who, no
doubt, expected to be paid, and was paid, handsomely.

The day after our arrival I met ex-corporal Glass, a vigorous,
well-preserved man, whose sixty years had not impaired his
intelligent vivacity. Independently of his trade with the Cape and
the Falklands, he did an important business in seal-skins and the
oil of marine animals, and his affairs were prosperous. As