347 



perhaps of some unknown seaman who had seen Tristan 

 d'Acunha or Gough Island. Captain Lozier Bouvet 

 thought that it was in this Longitude but that the Latitude 

 was perhaps 48 . 1 He persuaded the French East India 

 Company that this was the very place they needed for 

 the refreshment of their ships. It would also be a good 

 basis to trade with the Spaniards of La Plata and the 

 Portuguese of Brazil. The affable natives would again 

 receive the French " as angels from Heaven." There 

 would be lucrative commerce, and millions of infidels 

 would be converted to the Christian Faith. Lozier Bouvet 

 was of the school of Quiros. He dreamed a French dream 

 of prosperous discovery in Terra Australis Incognita. Only 

 the French dream was to come tgie in the South Atlantic. 



In July 1738 he sailed with two ships, commissioned Bouvet 

 by the Company to discover "the Austral lands." He Jhe^ape of 

 searched for " the Cape of the Austral lands," that was the Circum- 

 marked in the Charts in Latitude 42. But he found cision< I?39 ' 

 no cape, and thought that perhaps its discoverer had seen 

 an iceberg in the middle of a fog. But on New Year's 

 Day 1739, in Latitude 54,. and in Longitude slightly 

 Westward of the Cape of Good Hope, he saw land, or thought 

 he saw land, high and rugged, covered with snow and 

 almost hidden in fogs, which he called the Cape of the 

 Circumcision, in memory of the Festival of the day. For 

 several weeks he saw what looked like land, but fogs 

 and ice prevented approach. Some thought that " the 

 Cape " was, not the tip of a continent, but a small island ; 

 and apparently v it was in fact the small island which now 

 bears the name of its discoverer. But Bouvet returned 

 to France convinced that he had actually " coasted the 

 Austral continent from Longitude 7 to 5 : I sa Y the 

 Austral continent, for I believe that the ice, the penguins, 

 the sea-wolves, amphibious animals, which we constantly 

 found for the space of 48 of Longitude, can make good 

 this opinion." He admits that this part of the continent 

 "will be of little use to Europeans, if all the years are like 

 the year we experienced." 



1 De Brosses, vol. i. p. 104 ; Rainaud, p. 396. 



