WEDDELL’S FARTLIEST 
133 
The two little craft left the Downs on September 17th, 
1822, touched at Madeira on October 4th, at Bonavista 
in the Cape Verde group on the 14th, to take in a stock 
of salt, and crossed the equator on November 7th. A 
week later Weddell spoke and boarded a Portuguese 
slaver carrying 250 slaves and bitterly regretted that he 
had no legal right to make a prize of her and liberate 
her wretched cargo. His ship appears to have been 
armed, for he says he had force enough to take the slaver, 
and his officers urged him strongly to do so, but he felt 
he could not lay himself open to a charge of piracy, so 
the slavers escaped and the slaves remained captive. 
Several stoppages were made on the Patagonian coast for 
the purpose of getting water, shooting guanacos for meat, 
repairing damage to the Jane, and making surveys of 
some harbours, and on the 12th of January, 1823, the 
South Orkneys were sighted, and some time was spent in 
surveying them. The centre of Saddle Island was fixed as 
in 6o° 38' S. and 44 0 53' W. Here Weddell captured 
some sea-leopards, one of the skins of which presented 
by him to the Edinburgh Museum was examined and 
described by Professor Jamieson and was the first speci- 
men to be studied scientifically in Europe. Though gro- 
tesquely stuffed, and still more grotesquely figured in 
Weddell’s book it remains as the type specimen in the 
Museum at Edinburgh to this day. 
The South Orkneys are described as even more rugged 
and dreary than the South Shetlands. A few patches of 
coarse grass formed the only vegetation visible, and the 
fogs which usually hung over the land did not make it 
more attractive. On January 22nd the vessels sailed 
for the south, keeping close together, the cutter on the 
windward quarter of the brig, to avoid separation in 
