The Wreck of the South Pole and Other Strange Tales — page 19: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

12 The Wreck of the South Pole. with steady sweep. But here and there I could detect openings which had all the appearance of bays, or inlets, into a continent of ice. I managed to row into one of these, and found that the ice sloped gradually down to the level of the water as on a beach. I landed, and drawing my boat up, fastened it to a jagged piece of ice, and started out upon an explor- ing expedition. Climbing to the highest elevation, I found in front of me a long, level plain of ice, extending as far as the eye could reach, and I determined upon exploring it. So, re- turning to my boat, I managed by pushing and hauling, to draw it far enough up the sloping ice to be above the tide, and there left it in a sort of cove, which was so shaped as to block it from slipping back into the ocean and becom- ing lost. For I never dreamed but that I would soon re- turn to the boat, possibly for the purpose of rowing out to some whaler which might drift into this latitude. And yet I knew ours was the only ship which ever had come that far south, and it was driven there by the storm. However, living is hope in the human breast! There was I, a thousand miles from any known land! Out of the track of vessels. All alone on a great conti- nent of ice, with scarcely provision to last a week, and yet making fast my boat for a return to an unknown ship which common sense should have told me would never come. Having then made my boat safe, I tied together a cask of water and some provisions and started on my explora- EORNICLOOOLS (E@)