d more and more. The frightful heat caused the torture of
thirst to reach the extreme limit of human endurance, and on the 1st
of August, Augustus Barnard died. On the 3rd, the brig foundered in
the night, and Arthur Pym and the half-breed, crouching upon the
upturned keel, were reduced to feed upon the barnacles with which
the bottom was covered, in the midst of a crowd of waiting, watching
sharks. Finally, after the shipwrecked mariners of the _Grampus_ had
drifted no less than twenty-five degrees towards the south, they
were picked up by the schooner _Jane_, of Liverpool, Captain William
Guy.

Evidently, reason is not outraged by an admission of the reality of
these facts, although the situations are strained to the utmost
limits of possibility; but that does not surprise us, for the writer
is the American magician-poet, Edgar Poe. But from this moment
onwards we shall see that no semblance of reality exists in the
succession of incidents.

Arthur Pym and Dirk Peters were well treated on board the English
schooner _Jane_. In a fortnight, having recovered from the effects of
their sufferings, they remembered them no more. With alternations of
fine and bad weather the _Jane_ sighted Prince Edward's Island on
the 13th of October, then the Crozet Islands, and afterwards the
Kerguelens, which I had left eleven days ago.

Three weeks were employed in chasing sea-calves; these furnished the
_Jane_ with a goodly cargo. It was during this time that the captain
of the _Jane_ buried the bottle in which his namesake of the _Halbrane_
claimed to have found a letter containing William Guy's
announcement of his intention to visit the austral seas.

On the 12th of November, the schooner left the Kerguelens, and after
a brief stay at Tristan d'Acunha she sailed to reconnoitre the
Auroras in 35 deg. 15' of south latitude, and 37 deg. 38' of west
longitude. But these islands were not to be found, and she did not
find them.

On the 12th of December the _Jane_ headed towards the Antarctic pole.
On the 26th, the first icebergs came in sight beyond the
seventy-third degree.

From the 1st to the 14th of January, 1828, the movements were
difficult, the polar circle was passed in the midst of ice-floes,
the icebergs' point was doubled and the ship sailed on the surface
of an open sea--the famous open sea where the temperature is 47 deg.
Fahrenheit, and the water is 34 deg.

Edgar Poe, every one will allow, gives free rein to his fan