SOUTHERN CRUISE. 147 
younger ones, but the adults refused to be taken where the fickleness 
of their climate might subject them to be blown off. We found them 
also extremely imitative, repeating over our words and mimicking 
our motions. They were all quite naked. 
I have seldom seen so happy a group. They were extremely lively 
and cheerful, and any thing but miserable, if we could have avoided 
contrasting their condition with our own. 
The colour of the young men was a pale, and of the old a dark 
copper colour. Their heads were covered with ashes, but their ex- 
terior left a pleasing impression. Contentment was pictured in their 
countenances and actions, and produced a moral effect that will long 
be remembered. 
On the 30th we reached Orange Harbour. While yet off the port, 
we made signal for the boats, and were soon joined by them, and 
learnt with much pleasure that they were all well. The Sea-Gull 
had returned safely. Lieutenant Craven having entertained some 
fears of the safety of the launch, which had been absent on a sur- 
veying excursion, had despatched that vessel in pursuit of her. 
The Sea-Gull returned to Orange Harbour from the southern 
cruise on the 22d of March, having, after parting company, visited as 
directed Deception Island. On the morning after parting company 
(5th March), Lieutenant Johnson gives the following account of the 
situation of the Sea-Gull : " The water was freezing about the decks, 
icicles, forming with the direction of the wind, enveloping every 
thing, shipping seas every five minutes, jib still hanging overboard, it 
was next to impossibility for us to make sail, and we should even 
have found difficulty in waring ship to avoid danger ; our foresheets 
were of the size of a sloop of war's cable, from being so covered with 
ice; there was scarce a sheave that would traverse." After encoun- 
tering thick and foggy weather, they reached Deception Island on the 
10th of March, and anchored in Pendulum Cove. 
The weather was extremely unfavourable during his stay of a 
week, being very boisterous. The plan of this bay by Lieutenant 
Kendall, of the Chanticleer, with which I furnished Lieutenant 
Johnson, was found accurate. On their landing, the bare ground 
that was seen, was a loose black earth. The beds of the ravines and 
the beaches were of a black and reddish gravel, much resembling 
pumice-stone in appearance. Penguins were seen in countless num- 
bers, or, as he expresses it, " covered some hundreds of acres on the 
hill-side." It was then the moulting season, and they were seen 
