1 62 
FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
that island, which lies about two degrees east of the Falk- 
lands, that he discovered this lost land. 
The Spanish author who gives the abstract from La 
Roche's voyage says that, * after leaving South Georgia, 
and sailing one whole day to the N.W., the wind came so 
violently at south that he stood N. for three days more, till 
they were got into 46 0 south, when, thinking themselves 
then secure, they relate that, directing their course for the 
Bahia de Todos Santos, in Brazil, they found in 45 0 south 
a very large and pleasant island, with a good port towards 
the eastern part ; in which they found wood, water, and 
fish. They saw no people, notwithstanding they stayed 
there six days/ 
Captain Colnett, R.N., in H.M.S. Rattler^ searched for 
the Isle Grand, as La Roche called it, in 1793 ; he 
expected to find it about lat. 45 south, and long. 34.21 
west. ' This/ he says, ' I had often heard my old 
commander, Captain Cook, mention, as the position of the 
Isle of Grand.' But all Captain Colnett saw was a great 
quantity of feathers and birch twigs on the water, which 
was of a greenish hue. His men saw sand-larks, and a 
large species of curlew. Was there another deluge 
thereaway in the eighteenth century, and we in the 
Northern Hemisphere in complete ignorance ? Has the 
Southern Continent, as it was called, gone down with all 
hands ? If it has gone down, it has gone down deep, for 
the Royal Scottish Geographical Society's maps put the 
depth there at 4000 fathoms. 
, . . That mist is long in rising. It is glassy calm, and 
we lie waiting to see where we are before we go on. We 
