SECOND VOYAGE 201 



Cape Saunders. Beyond this cape is a pretty large bay, 

 which was named Cumberland Bay. 



On the 20th, they fell in with an island, which they named 

 the Isle of Georgia, in honour of His Majesty. It extends 

 thirty-one leagues in length, and its greatest breadth is 

 about ten leagues. It seems to abound with bays and 

 harbours, the N. E. coast especially ; but the vast quantity 

 of ice coast renders them inaccessible the greatest part of 

 the year. 



From the 20th, to the 27th, they had a continuation of 

 foggy weather. They, now growing almost tired of high 

 southern latitudes, where nothing was to be found but ice 

 and thick fogs, stood to the east, when they soon fell in, 

 all at once, with a vast number of large ice islands, and a 

 sea strewed with loose ice. For this reason they tacked 

 and stood to the west, with the wind at N. The ice islands 

 which at this time surrounded them, were nearly all of 

 equal height and shewed a flat even surface. 



On the 1st of February they got sight of a new coast. It 

 proved a high promontory ,which was named Cape Montague 

 but prudence would not permit them to venture near the 

 shore, where there was no anchorage, and where every port 

 was blocked or filled up with ice, and the whole country, 

 from the summits of the mountains down to the very brink 

 of the cliffs which terminate the coast, covered many 

 fathoms thick with everlasting snow. 



It was now necessary to take a view of the land to the 

 north, before they proceeded any farther to the east. 



On the 3rd, they saw two isles. The day on which they 

 were discovered was the occasion of calling them Candlemas 

 Isles. They were of no great extent, but of considerable 

 height, and were covered with snow. On the 4th, they 

 resumed their course to the east. About noon they met 

 with several ice islands and some loose ice, the weather 

 continuing hazy, with snow and rain. 



The risk run in exploring a coast, in these unknown and 

 icy seas, is so very great, that no man, Captain Cook says, 

 will ever venture farther than he has done :* and therefore 

 the lands which may lie to the south will never be explored. 

 ' Thick fogs, snowstorms, intense cold, and every other 

 thing," as Captain Cook says, " that can render navigation 

 dangerous, must be encountered ; and these difficulties are 



* Here, however, he was wrong ; for a century afterwards, 

 Captain, now Admiral Sir James Clark Ross performed his marvel- 

 lous voyage, already alluded to, in the Antarctic Sea, and pene- 

 trated, as stated, to lat. 78 4', discovering a large continent, and 

 Mount Erebus and Terror, two active volcanoes, emitting fire and 

 smoke amidst eternal ice and snow. 



