These anomalies--for they were such when considered in regard to the latitude--induced Captain Guy to wish for a thorough investigation of the country, in the hope of making a profitable speculation in his discovery.

For my own part, anxious as I was to know something more of these islands, I was still more earnestly bent on prosecuting the voyage to the southward without delay.

We had now fine weather, but there was no telling how long it would last; and being already in the eighty-fourth parallel, with an open sea before us, a current setting strongly to the southward, and the wind fair, I could not listen with any patience to a proposition of stopping longer than was absolutely necessary for the health of the crew and the taking on board a proper supply of fuel and fresh provisions.

I represented to the captain that we might easily make this group on our return, and winter here in the event of being blocked up by the ice.

He at length came into my views (for in some way, hardly known to myself, I had acquired much influence over him), and it was finally resolved that, even in the event of our finding biche de mer, we should only stay here a week to recruit, and then push on to the southward while we might.