Captain Talbot took specimens not only of the flora--if so I may call the scanty vegetation of this island--but of its rocks as well, and the height of its chief hills, with many soundings around it, to say nothing of collecting marine algæ.
All the way southwards, as far as the great ice-barrier to the eastward of the land wherein was Mount Terror, he was at the pains of surveying and charting out for the benefit of future generations, for as laid down in the charts that he possessed the coast was very indolently described indeed.
————
He was a very ambitious mariner, this skipper of the Flora M'Vayne, and at the same time a bold, daring, true-blue sailor.
Now would be the time, therefore, to make his great aërial journey still farther to the southward. But could such a thing be successfully accomplished? That was the question that he and he alone had to answer for himself. There was no one to consult.
And he took a whole long day to consider it, keeping himself very much alone in his state-room that he might come quietly to a correct conclusion.
Thus far to the south had he come with the intention of penetrating still farther by balloon. But he had calculated on getting here much sooner.
He had no intention of doing anything foolishly rash. Had he reached 75° south latitude when the summer was still in its prime he might have reckoned on perpetual sunshine and constant shifting of wind, but now the breeze blew mostly from the south, and although by rising into the higher regions he might get a fair wind if he descended one hundred miles nearer to the Antarctic Pole, was there any certainty that he should ever return? Indeed, it was the reverse. It seemed as though there was not the ghost of a chance of his ever seeing his ship again.
Life is sweet, and so at long last he gave up all thoughts of his aërial voyage for the present season.
He communicated this resolve to his mates and youngsters that day at dinner.