rrent will bear us on, due south, over the pole,
and then still onward, until at last we shall find ourselves in the
South Pacific Ocean. So cheer up--don't be downhearted; there's still
hope. We have left the ice and snow behind, and already the air is
warmer. Cheer up; we may find our luck turn at any moment."

To this I had no reply to make. Agnew's confidence seemed to me to be
assumed, and certainly did not alleviate my own deep gloom, nor was
the scene around calculated to rouse me in the slightest degree out of
my despair. The channel had now lessened to a width of not more than
two miles; the shores on either side were precipitous cliffs, broken
by occasional declivities, but all of solid rock, so dark as to be
almost black, and evidently of volcanic origin. At times there arose
rugged eminences, scarred and riven, indescribably dismal and
appalling. There was not only an utter absence of life here in these
abhorrent regions, but an actual impossibility of life which was
enough to make the stoutest heart quail. The rocks looked like iron.
It seemed a land of iron penetrated by this ocean stream which had
made for itself a channel, and now bore us onward to a destination
which was beyond all conjecture.

Through such scenes we drifted all that day. Night came, and in the
skies overhead there arose a brilliant display of the aurora
australis, while toward the north the volcanic fires glowed with
intense lustre. That night we slept. On awakening we noticed a change
in the scene. The shores, though still black and forbidding, were no
longer precipitous, but sloped down gradually to the water; the
climate was sensibly milder, and far away before us there arose a line
of giant mountains, whose summits were covered with ice and snow that
gleamed white and purple in the rays of the sun.

Suddenly Agnew gave a cry, and pointed to the opposite shore.

"Look!" he cried--"do you see? They are men!"

I looked, and there I saw plainly some moving figures that were,
beyond a doubt, human beings.

CHAPTER IV

THE SIGHT OF HUMAN BEINGS

The sight of human beings, thus unexpectedly found, filled us with
strange feelings--feelings which I cannot explain. The country was
still iron-bound and dark and forbidding, and the stream ran on in a
strong current, deep, black as ink, and resistless as fate; the sky
behind was lighted up by the volcanic glare which still shone from
afar; and in front the view was bounded by th