Chapter 14

"All gone! 'tis ours the goodly land----
Look round--the heritage behold;
Go forth--upon the mountain stand;
Then, if you can, be cold."

Sprague.

It was an enterprising and manly thing for a little vessel like the Sea
Lion to steer with an undeviating course into the mysterious depths of the
antarctic circle--mysterious, far more in that day, than at the present
hour. But the American sealer rarely hesitates. He has very little
science, few charts, and those oftener old than new, knows little of what
is going on among the savans of the earth, though his ear is ever open to
the lore of men like himself, and he has his mind stored with pictures of
islands and continents that would seem to have been formed for no other
purpose than to meet the wants of the race of animals it is his business
to pursue and to capture. Cape Horn and its vicinity have so long been
frequented by this class of men, that they are at home among their
islands, rocks, currents and sterility; but, to the southward of the Horn
itself, all seemed a waste. At the time of which we are writing, much less
was known of the antarctic regions than is known to-day; and even now our
knowledge is limited to a few dreary outlines, in which barrenness and ice
compete for the mastery. Wilkes, and his competitors, have told us that a
vast frozen continent exists in that quarter of the globe; but even their
daring and perseverance have not been able to determine more than the
general fact.

We should be giving an exaggerated and false idea of Roswell Gardiner's
character, did we say that he steered into that great void of the southern
ocean in a total indifference to his destination and objects. Very much
the reverse was his state of mind, as he saw the high land of the cape
sink, as it might be foot by foot, into the ocean, and then lost sight of
it altogether. Although the weather was fine for the region, it was dark
and menacing. Such, indeed, is usually the case in that portion of this
globe, which appears to be the favourite region of the storms. Although
the wind was no more than a good breeze, and the ocean was but little
disturbed, there were those symptoms in the atmosphere and in the long
ground-swells that came rolling in from the southwest, that taught the
mariner the cold lessons of caution. We believe that heavier gales of wind
at sea are encountered in the warm than in the cold months; but there is
something so genial in the air of the ocean during summer, and something
so chilling and repulsive in the rival season, that most of us fancy that
the currents of air correspond in strength with the fall of the mercury.
Roswell knew better than this, it is true; but he also fully understood
where he was, and what he