VOYAGE 



TO THE 



SOUTH SEAS AND PACIFIC OCEAN. 



CHAPTER I. 



Thoughts on a Polar Expedition — Objects of the present Voyage — Departure from 

 New-York — Fourth of July — Crossing the Equator — Visit from Father Nep- 

 tune — Arrival at St. Ann's Islands — Village of St. Joao de Macae — Cape 

 Frio — Arrival at Rio Janeiro — Directions for Entering the Harbour — De- 

 scription of St. Sebastian's — Its Trade and Commerce — Beauty of the sur- 

 rounding Country — Natural Productions — Character of the Inhabitants. 



Notwithstanding the length of time which has elapsed since the 

 discovery of the western continent, and the consequent impulse given 

 to the spirit of discovery, it is a remarkable fact that the most in- 

 teresting section of this terraqueous globe still remains unexplored, and 

 almost totally unknown. It is a reproach to every civilized country, 

 that the people of this enlightened age possess so little accurate know- 

 ledge of the seas, islands, and perhaps continents which exist in the 

 polar regions of the southern hemisphere. 



Many enterprising navigators of the last and present centuries 

 have made highly laudable, and some of them partially successful, 

 attempts to penetrate the cloud of mystery which still hangs over the 

 Antarctic Seas. But every one has stopped at a certain point, timidly 

 shrinking from the farther prosecution of what they deemed an im- 

 practicable project. Some, it is said, have even been deterred by a 

 superstitious notion that an attempt to reach the South Pole was a 

 presumptuous intrusion on the awful confines of nature, — an unlawful 

 and sacrilegious prying into the secrets of the great Creator ; who, they 

 contend, has guarded the " ends of the earth" with an impassable 

 bulwark of indissoluble ice ; on which is written, " Thus far shalt thou 

 come, but no farther ; and here shall thy proud course be stayed." 

 Such an idea would have become the inquisitors of Spain in the days 

 of Columbus. 



Admitting for a moment, however, that such is the fact, and that 

 nothing less than a miracle could open the passage through this for- 

 midable barrier, I contend that genius, science, and energy com- 

 bined can work miracles, and even remove mountains ; for what is a 

 miracle but the power of spirit over matter — the triumph of mind over 



