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My mother used to say she thought they would never get round the Cape of Good Hope. My father had done the voyage once in sixty-two days, almost a record; but this time everything went dead wrong. They were driven as far as the Crozets, somewhere down near the South Pole, I believe. The grub gave out, and even my mother had to eat bread from corn that was ground in the coffee mill.
"It's probably Kerguelen Land," observed Mr Meldrum, "for you couldn't see the Crozets nearly so far off; but I hope there's not going to be another change of the weather. It seems clouding over again." "Not before we get an observation, I trust," replied the captain; "I don't like knocking about any longer without knowing where I am." "Nor I, sorr," put in the first mate heartily.
Cochon is so called because of the number of wild pigs on the island. The largest, Possession Island, gave refuge to the shipwrecked crew of a whaler for about two years, when they were at length picked off by a passing ship. The Crozets are of volcanic origin, and some of them present a curious, conical, and sometimes fantastic appearance, more particularly Les Apôtres.
Shortly afterwards a solid pack was encountered, and Cook was forced to return to the north. A course was laid for the newly discovered islands Kerguelen, Marion, and the Crozets and it was proved that they had nothing to do with the great southern land.
It is on the south end of the great island of New Ireland, and with, perhaps, the exception of the Falkland Islands, or the Crozets, or London in the month of November, the most sodden, dank, squashy and appalling place on the globe.
"Tell me," said Lagross, "that three-master we saw just now, would she be making for Kerguelen?" "Oh, no, she must be out of her course and beating up north. She's not a whaler, and ships like that would keep north of the Crozets. Probably she was driven down by that big storm we had a week ago. We wouldn't be where we are only that I took those soundings south of Marion Island."
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