Leaving this land behind us we steamed southward during the day, pressing as closely to the land in that direction as the pack-ice, which was held close to the shore, would permit. We decided, at this time, that the land before us was Alexanderland, and behind us, probably, that which is charted as Adelaide Island; but there is nothing about this latter land, as we view it over the stern, which indicates that it is an island. If an island, which Lecointe doubts, it must be a very large one, with the eastern termination beyond our horizon. On the whole, it seems to us like a very large country, ridged by at least two high mountain chains, which are covered with ice to their peaks. We have formed the impression that it is a part of the mainland, and conclude that a strait probably separates Grahamland from the farther antarctic. But this is merely an impression; the facts are that the land, though agreeing in position with the assigned location of Adelaide Island, does not bear any resemblance to the discoverer’s meagre description. As to the land before us, there seems to be no doubt among the officers but that it is the country charted Alexander I. Land, by the Russian explorer, Bellingshausen, seventy-six years ago. He saw it only from a great distance and it has not been seen by human eyes before or since. Now the _Belgica_ is heading for it; but there is so much heavy pack-ice, which appears to embrace the shores, that we do not entertain any hopes of effecting a landing. At noon our latitude was 67° 58′ south, the longitude, 69° 53′ west of Greenwich. We hauled a little westward of the outer drift of the pack, and Alexanderland rose up over our port bow still forty or fifty miles away. There are scattered in the waters westward, and in the pack eastward, forty-four icebergs of moderate size. About half of these are tabular in form; the other half are of the pinnacled and sea-washed, or weather-worn variety. A few small black-billed penguins are in the water, darting over the surface and again into the deep, with electric swiftness. Close to the pack-ice, there rises from the black surface of the sea, a number of columns of vapour-like jets. Through our glasses we see under these the black backs of whales with large dorsal fins, and occasionally a ponderous tail whips the water into a foamy whirlpool. On some of the pans of ice are seals basking in the sun, and over the ship, apparently touching the masts and the ropes as the bark rocks to and fro, are giant petrels, Cape pigeons, gulls, white, brown, and blue petrels, all pointing their bills and stretching their necks to examine, perhaps for the first time, human beings and their crafts.