CHAPTEK IV 



THE VOYAGE OF THE EREBUS AND TERROR I 

 PASSING IMPRESSIONS 



FOR reconstructing the history of the four years' voyage, 

 abundant materials exist. The official account is Boss's 

 book in two volumes, * A Voyage of Discovery and Eesearch 

 in the Southern and Antarctic Eegions, during the Years 

 1889-43 ' (John Murray, 1847). 1 



This abounds in good matter ; not even the full-dress style 

 of the period, very conscious of its epaulets, can mask the 

 essential interest of these visits to the young colonies of the 

 South, to the solitary fastnesses of oceanic life, and the unima- 

 gined wonders of an ice-world in a ' furthest south ' four degrees 

 beyond any previous record. 



Next comes Hooker's MS. Journal, upon which he drew for 

 some of the material of his letters home. These letters, or 



1 To this Hooker contributed (from his Flora Antarctica) botanical accounts 

 of Kerguelen's Land, I. iv. pp. 83-7 ; Auckland Island, I. vi. pp. 144-8 ; 

 Campbell Island, I. vi. pp. 158-63 ; the Falklands, II. ix. pp. 261-77, 

 including an account of the Tussac Grass, p. 261 ; Hermite Island (Fuegia), 

 ' the great botanical centre of the Antarctic Ocean,' II. x. pp. 288-302 ; 

 and Cockburn Island (in the South Shetlands), II. xii. pp. 335-42, together 

 with a description of the Fossil wood in Van Diemen's Land, II. i. 

 pp. 5-11, and of hunting wild cattle in the Falklands, II. ix. pp. 

 245-53. 



Most of the illustrations are by J. E. Davis, Second Master of the Terror ; 

 nine are from Hooker's drawings, some signed, some marked in his own hand in 

 the copy of the book given him by Ross : these are Mount Minto and Mount 

 Adam, I. chap. vi. ; Cape Grazier and Mount Terror I. viii. (unsigned); Panorama 

 of the Great Barrier,!. Appendix (unsigned) ; Seal Hunting on the lee, II. ii. (the 

 engravedsignature is queried in pencil) ; Catching the Great Penguins, II. iv. (the 

 central figure in the black hat is pencilled Bates) ; Mode of Pushing through the 

 Pack during a Fog, II. iv. (unsigned); Tussac Grass of Falkland Islands, II. viii. ; 

 Hunting Wild Cattle in the Falkland Islands, II. ix. ; ' Balsam- Bog ' Plant 

 (Bolax Glebctria}, Falkland Islands, II. xi. 



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