Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/313

Rh sails and rigging, with which, the former especially, we were at first but ill provided, were rendered so bad by the blowing weather that we had met with off New Zealand that we were by no means in a condition to weather the hard gales which must be expected in a winter passage through high latitudes. The second was to steer to the southward of Van Diemen's Land and stand away directly for the Cape of Good Hope, but this was likewise immediately rejected. If we were in too bad a condition for the former, we were in too good a one for this; six months' provision was much more than enough to carry us to any port in the East Indies, and the overplus was not to be thrown away in a sea where so few navigators had been before us. The third, therefore, was unanimously agreed to, which was to stand immediately to the westward, fall in with the coast of New Holland as soon as possible, and after following that to the northward as far as seemed proper, to attempt to fall in with the lands seen by Quiros in 1606. In doing this we hoped to make discoveries more interesting to trade at least than any we had yet made. We were obliged certainly to give up our first grand object, the southern continent; this for my own part I confess I could not do without much regret.

That a southern continent really exists I firmly believe; but if asked why I believe so, I confess my reasons are weak: yet I have a prepossession in favour of the fact which I find it difficult to account for. Ice in large bodies has been seen off Cape Horn now and then. Sharp saw it, as did Frézier on his return from the coast of Chili in the month of March 1714: he also mentions that it has been seen by other French ships in the same place. If this ice (as is generally believed) is formed by fresh water only, there must be land to the southward, for the coast of Terra del Fuego is by no means cold enough to produce such an effect. I should be inclined to think also that it lies away to the westward, as the west and south-west winds so generally prevail, that the ice must be supposed to have followed the direction of these winds, and consequently have come from these points. When we sailed to the southward, in August