ncluded 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_ might
have reached the extreme limit of the austral seas in a few days.
But a few hundred miles more to sail, and the iceberg-barrier would
confront us with its immovable rampart, and unless a passage 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 tempests rage with
redoubled fury and strong ships dread the might of its waves.

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

For six entire days, until the and of April, the Paracura held her
course among 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 most fortunate chance a passage 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 we were in the South Pacific waters, but our boat had
suffered severely in getting through, and it had sprung more than
one leak. We were kept busy in baling out the water, which also came
in from above.

The breeze was gentle, the sea more calm than we could have hoped,
and the real danger did not lie in the risks of navigation. No, it
arose from the fact that not a ship was visible in these waters, not
a whaler was to be seen on the fishing-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 95 deg. 50' longitude and 64 deg.
17' latitude, Lieutenant Wilkes was still exploring these seas in
one of his