Time was very precious to our sealers, the season being so short in the high latitudes. Still, they were a little in advance of their calculations, having got off the Horn fully ten days sooner than they had hoped to be there. Nearly the whole summer was before them, and there was the possibility of their even being too soon for the loosening of the ice further south. The wind was the strongest inducement to go out, for the point to which our adventurers were bound lay a considerable distance to the westward, and fair breezes were not to be neglected. Under all the circumstances, however, it was decided to remain within the passage one day longer, and this so much the more, because Hazard had discovered some signs of sea-elephants frequenting an island at no great distance. The boats were lowered accordingly, and the mate went in one direction, while the master pulled up to the rocks, and landed on the Hermit, or the island which should bear that name, _par excellence,_ being that in which the group terminates. Taking Stimson with him, to carry a glass, and armed with an old lance as a pike-pole, to aid his efforts, Roswell Gardiner now commenced the ascent of the pyramid already mentioned. It was ragged, and offered a thousand obstacles, but none that vigour and resolution could not overcome After a few minutes of violent exertion, and by helping each other in difficult places, both Roswell and Stimson succeeded in placing themselves on the summit of the elevation, which was an irregular peak. The height was considerable, and gave an extended view of the adjacent islands, as well as of the gloomy and menacing ocean to the southward. The earth, probably, does not contain a more remarkable sentinel than this pyramid on which our hero had now taken his station. There it stood, actually the Ultima Thule of this vast continent, or, what was much the same, so closely united to it as to seem a part of our own moiety of the globe, looking out on the broad expanse of waters. The eye saw, to the right, the Pacific; in front was the Southern, or Antarctic Ocean; and to the left was the great Atlantic. For several minutes, both Roswell and Stephen sat mute, gazing on this grand spectacle. By turning their faces north, they beheld the high lands of Terra del Fuego, of which many of the highest peaks were covered with snow. The pyramid on which they were, however, was no longer white with the congealed rain, but stood, stern and imposing, in its native brown. The outlines of all the rocks, and the shores of the different islands, had an appearance of volcanic origin, though the rocks themselves told a somewhat different story. The last was principally of trap formation. Cape pigeons, gulls, petrels, and albatross were wheeling about in the air, while the rollers that still came in on this noble sea-wall were really terrific. Distant thunder wants the hollow, bellowing sound that these waves made when brought in contact with the shores.