66 TERRA DEL FUEGO TO OTAHITE CHAP, iv 



having the weather so cloudy that the observation was good 

 for little or nothing. 



IQth. Our water which had been taken on board at 

 Terra del Fuego has remained until this time perfectly good 

 without the least change, which I am told is very rare, 

 especially when, as in our case, water is brought from a cold 

 climate into a hot one ; ours, however, has stood it without 

 any damage, and drinks as brisk and pleasant as when first 

 taken on board, or better, for the red colour it had at first 

 has subsided, and it is now as clear as any English spring 

 water. 



20th. When I look on the charts of these seas, and 

 mark our course, which has been nearly straight at N.W. 

 since we left Cape Horn, I cannot help wondering that we 

 have not yet seen land. It is, however, some pleasure to 

 be able to disprove that which only exists in the opinions 

 of theoretical writers, as are most of those who have written 

 anything about these seas without having themselves been 

 in them. They have generally supposed that every foot of 

 sea over which they believed no ship to have passed to be 

 land, although they had little or nothing to support that 

 opinion, except vague reports, many of them mentioned only 

 as such by the authors who first published them. For 

 instance, the Orange Tree, one of the Nassau fleet, having 

 been separated from her companions, and driven to the 

 westward, reported on her joining them again that she had 

 twice seen the Southern continent; both these places are 

 laid down by Mr. Dalrymple many degrees to the eastward 

 of our track, yet it is probable that he put them down as 

 far to the westward as he thought it possible that the 

 Orange Tree could have gone. 



To strengthen these weak arguments another theory has 

 been started, according to which as much of the South Sea 

 as its authors call land must necessarily be so, for otherwise 

 this world would not be properly balanced, since the quantity 

 of earth known to be situated in the northern hemisphere 

 would not have a counterpoise in this. The number of square 

 degrees of their land which we have already changed into 





