A SAILOE'S TALE OF WONDEKS 115 
effective descriptions of moving incidents come from simple, 
unlettered souls. They do not reflect upon the nice choice of 
words. The occasion makes the artist. They feel strongly 
if they feel at all, and their feeling bursts out in the first natural 
expressions of a forcible if limited and ungrammatical voca- 
bulary. Such an ' inglorious Milton ' was the blacksmith of 
the Erehus, a lively Irishman named Cornelius Sullivan. He 
first wrote down an account of their joint adventures on the 
second voyage from the dictation of his friend, James Savage, 
a seaman who had joined the ship at Tasmania. But this half 
story was obviously inadequate. He was moved to add the 
wonders of the first voyage. 
My friend James [his exordium runs], before i begin to 
give you anything Like a correct acct. of our dangers and 
discoveries, it is but justice to this My first voyage to the 
South, to give you an acct. of our Discoveries, before you 
joined the Expedition— this is the most SubHme but not 
the most dangerous. 
With a sailor's eye on the weather and a poet's eye on its 
pictorial effects he tells us : 
Janry the 11th at two oclock on Monday Morning, we 
discoverd Victoria Land the Morning was beautiful and 
, clear, at 7 oclock in the afternoon we were under the Lee of 
the land, sounded in 250 fathoms of water — not a cloud to 
be seen in the firmament, but what lingered on the mountains 
— Large floating Islands of ice in all directions. Hills vallies 
. and Low Land all covered with snow. The snow topd. 
;. mountains Majestically Eising above the Clouds. The 
pinguins Gambohng in the water the reflection of the Sun 
and the Brilhancy of the firmament Made the Eare Sight 
an interesting view. 
That night we Stood out from the land, we did not Loose 
sight of it for the Sun was high above the Horizon at mid- 
night as it would be in England on a Christmas day. 
While we were in these distant Eegions we had no night 
I mean dark. 
12th Do. Captn. Eoss went on Shore he took possession 
of. the: Land without opposition In the name of Queen 
