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° 50' longitude and 64° 17' latitude. Lieutenant Wilkes was still exploring these seas in one of his ships, the Vincennes, after having discovered a long extent of coast stretching from east to west. On the approach of the bad season, he returned to Hobart Town, in Tasmania, The same year, the expedition of the French captain Dumont d'Urville, which started in 1838, discovered Adélie Land in 66° 30' latitude and 38° 21' east longitude, and Clarie Coast in 64° 30' and 129° 54'. Their campaign having ended with these important discoveries, the Astrolabe and the Zélée left the Antarctic Ocean and returned to Hobart Town.
None of these ships, then, were in those waters; so that, when our nutshell Paracuta was "alone on a lone, lone sea" beyond the ice-barrier, we were bound to believe that it was no longer possible we could be saved.
We were fifteen hundred miles away from the nearest land, and winter was a month old!
Hurliguerly himself was obliged to acknowledge that the last fortunate chance upon which he had counted had failed us.
