Page:Adrift in the Pacific, Sampson Low, 1889.djvu/53

Rh reach the end? No! to carry out such an expedition with success, it must be put off till the days were long, and the inclemency of winter overpast. And so they would have to content themselves with spending the rainy season at the wreck.

Gordon had meanwhile been trying to find out in what part of the ocean they had been wrecked. His atlas contained a series of maps of the Pacific. In tracing the course from Auckland to the American coast he found that the nearest islands passed to the north were the Society Islands, Easter Island, and the island of Juan Fernandez, on which Selkirk — a real Crusoe — had passed so much of his life. To the south there was not an island up to the boundary of the Antarctic Ocean. To the east there were only the Archipelagoes of the Chiloe Islands and Madre de Dios, along the coast of Patagonia, and lower down were those about the Straits of Magellan and Tierra del Fuego, which are lashed by the terrible sea round Cape Horn.

If the schooner had been cast on one of these uninhabited islands off the Patagonian pampas, there would be hundreds of miles to be traversed to reach Chili or the Argentine Republic. And the boys would have to act with great circumspection if they were not to perish miserably in crossing the unknown.

So thought Gordon. Briant and Baxter looked at the matter in the same way. And doubtless Donagan and the others would, in the end, agree with them.

The scheme of exploring the eastern coast was not given up, but during the next fortnight it was impossible to put it into execution. The weather was abominable, nothing but rain from morning to night, and violent squalls. The way through the forest would have been impracticable ; and the expedition had to be postponed, notwithstanding the keen desire to unravel the mystery of continent or island.

During these stormy days the boys remained at the wreck, but they were not idle. They were constantly at work making good the damage done to the yacht