A SAILOR'S TALE OF WONDERS 115 



effective descriptions of moving incidents come from simple, 

 unlettered souls. They do not reflect upon the nice choice of 

 words. The occasion makes the artist. They feel strongly 

 if they feel at all, and their feeling bursts out in the first natural 

 expressions of a forcible if limited and ungrammatical voca- 

 bulary. Such an * inglorious Milton ' was the blacksmith of 

 the Erehus, a lively Irishman named Cornelius Sullivan. He 

 first wrote down an account of their joint adventures on the 

 second voyage from the dictation of his friend, James Savage, 

 a seaman who had joined the ship at Tasmania. But this half 

 story was obviously inadequate. He was moved to add the 

 wonders of the first voyage. 



My friend James [his exordium runs], before i begin to 

 give you anything Like a correct acct. of our dangers and 

 discoveries, it is but justice to this My first voyage to the 

 South, to give you an acct. of our Discoveries, before you 

 joined the Expedition — ^this is the most Sublime but not 

 the most dangerous. 



With a sailor's eye on the weather and a poet's eye on its 

 pictorial effects he tells us : 



Janry the 11th at two oclock on Monday Morning, we 

 discoverd Victoria Land the Morning was beautiful and 

 clear, at 7 oclock in the afternoon we were under the Lee of 

 the land, sounded in 250 fathoms of water — not a cloud to 

 be seen in the firmament, but what lingered on the mountains 

 — Large floating Islands of ice in all directions. Hills vallies 

 and Low Land all covered with snow. The snow topd. 

 mountains Majestically Rising above the Clouds. The 

 pinguins Gamboling in the water the reflection of the Sun 

 and the BriUiancy of the firmament Made the Rare Sight 

 an interesting view. 



That night we Stood out from the land, we did not Loose 

 sight of it for the Sun was high above the Horizon at mid- 

 night as it would be in England on a Christmas day. '^ 



While we were in these distant Regions we had no night 

 I mean dark. 



12th Do. Captn. Ross went on Shore he took possession 

 of j^the r Land without opposition In the name of Queen 



