advanced season of the year, quite discouraged me from putting in execution
a resolution I had taken of crossing the Antarctic Circle once more.
Accordingly, at four o'clock in the morning, we stood to the north, with a
very hard gale at E.S.E., accompanied with snow and sleet, and a very high
sea from the same point, which made great destruction among the ice
islands. This circumstance, far from being of any advantage to us, greatly
increased the number of pieces we had to avoid. The large pieces which
break from the ice islands, are much more dangerous than the islands
themselves. The latter are so high out of water, that we can generally see
them, unless the weather be very thick and dark, before we are very near
them. Whereas the others cannot be seen in the night, till they are under
the ship's bows. These dangers were, however, now become so familiar to us,
that the apprehensions they caused were never of long duration; and were,
in some measure, compensated both by the seasonable supplies of fresh water
these ice islands afforded us, (without which we must have been greatly
distressed,) and also by their very romantic appearance, greatly heightened
by the foaming and dashing of the waves into the curious holes and caverns
which are formed in many of them; the whole exhibiting a view which at once
filled the mind with admiration and horror, and can only be described by
the hand of an able painter.

Towards the evening the gale abated, and in the night we had two or three
hours calm. This was succeeded by a light breeze at west, with which we
steered east, under all the sail we could set, meeting with many ice
islands.

This night we saw a Port Egmont hen; and next morning, being the 25th,
another. We had lately seen but few birds; and those were albatrosses,
sheer-waters, and blue peterels. It is remarkable that we did not see one
of either the white or Antarctic peterels, since we came last amongst the