as it was settled, and the lot had fallen
to me to go with the boat, I would have given up my turn to one of
the others. After all, there is something in feeling dry ground
under our feet. I don't wish the death of anybody, but if Hearne
and his friends do not succeed in clearing the iceberg barrier--if
they are doomed to pass the winter on the ice, reduced for food to a
supply that will only last a few weeks, you know the fate that
awaits them?"

"Yes, a fate worse than ours!"

"And besides," said the boatswain, "even supposing they do
reach the Antarctic Circle. If the whalers have already left the
fishing-grounds, it is not a laden and overladen craft that will
keep the sea until the Australian coasts are in sight."

This was my own opinion, and also that of the captain and West.

During the following four days, we completed the storage of the
whole of our belongings, and made some excursions into the interior
of the country, finding "all barren," and not a trace that any
landing had ever been made there.

One day, Captain Len Guy proposed that we should give a geographical
name to the region whither the iceberg had carried us. It was named
Halbrane Land, in memory of our schooner, and we called the strait
that separated the two parts of the polar continent the _Jane_ Sound.

Then we took to shooting the penguins which swarmed upon the rocks,
and to capturing some of the amphibious animals which frequented the
beach. We began to feel the want of fresh meat, and Endicott's
cooking rendered seal and walrus flesh quite palatable. Besides, the
fat of these creatures would serve, at need, to warm the cavern and
feed the cooking-stove. Our most formidable enemy would be the cold,
and we must fight it by every means within our power. It remained
to be seen whether the amphibia would not forsake Halbrane Land at
the approach of winter, and seek a less rigorous climate in lower
latitudes. Fortunately there were hundreds of other animals to
secure our little company from hunger, and even from thirst, at
need. The beach was the home of numbers of galapagos--a kind of
turtle so called from an archipelago in the equinoctial sea, where
also they abound, and mentioned by Arthur Pym as supplying food to
the islanders, It will be remembered that Pym and Peters found three
of these galapagos in the native boat which carried them away from
Tsalal Island.

The movement of these huge creatures is slow, heavy, and waddling;
the