Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/123

] who might have been in much want of them. We therefore continued beating to windward all night, and at daylight, the fog having cleared away, we had a good view of this perfect mountain mass of volcanic land; its shores bold and precipitous with many projecting rocks, which seem to have been formed by the unceasing action of the waves cutting away the softer parts, and with the exception of a single beach of some extent, on the north-east part of the island, affording no place where either a habitation could be built, or a boat land.

This beach appearing to us the only favourable spot for the sealing party, we fired several guns as we stood close in to the shore, and by these means attracted their notice, for we soon afterwards observed with our glasses a large fire on the east side of the bay, which the people had made to point out to us their location. We were still too far to leeward for them to venture off to us, and after beating to windward until 2, when just as we could have fetched into the bay, the wind suddenly increased to a strong gale, and the violent gusts that rushed along the almost perpendicular coast line, raising the spoondrift in clouds over us, reduced us to a close-reefed main-topsail and storm staysails, under which, when within half a mile of the shore, we wore and stood off again, seeing the utter hopelessness of communicating with the party until the return of more moderate weather.

We were greatly disappointed at being thus defeated; but these frequent repulses only made us