We passed through this channel at equal distance from both islands; and could not discover, with the assistance of our best glasses, either tree or shrub on either of them.  They seemed to have a rocky and bold shore; and, excepting the S.E. parts, where the land is rather low and flat, a surface composed of barren mountains, which rise to a considerable height, and whose summits and sides were covered with snow, which in many places seemed to be of a considerable depth.  The S.E. parts had a much greater quantity on them than the rest, owing, probably, to the sun acting for a less space of time on these than on the N. and N.W. parts.  The ground, where it was not hid by the snow, from the various shades it exhibited, may be supposed to be covered with moss, or perhaps such a coarse grass as is found in some parts of Falkland’s Islands.  On the N. side of each of the islands is a detached rock; that near the S. island is shaped like a tower, and seemed to be at some distance from the shore.  As we passed along, a quantity of seaweed was seen, and the colour of the water indicated soundings.  But there was no appearance of an inlet, unless near the rock just mentioned; and that, from its smallness, did not promise a good anchoring-place.

These two islands, as also four others which lie from nine to twelve degrees of longitude more to the E. and nearly in the same latitude, were discovered, as I have mentioned in my late voyage,[94] by Captains Marion du Fresne and Crozet, French navigators, in January, 1772, on their passage in two ships from the Cape of Good Hope to the Philippine Islands.  As they have no names in the French chart of the southern hemisphere, which Captain Grozet communicated to me in 1775,[95] I shall distinguish the two we now saw by calling them Prince Edward’s Islands, after his majesty’s fourth son; and the other four, by the name of Marion’s and Crozet’s Islands, to commemorate their discoverers.

[Footnote 94:  Captain Cook’s second voyage.  These islands are said to be in the latitude of 48 deg.  S.; that is, 2 deg. farther S. than what here appears to be their real position.—­D.]

[Footnote 95:  See Cook’s voyage, as above.  Dr. Forster, in his Observations made during that Voyage, p. 30, gives us this description of the chart then communicated by Monsieur Crozet; that it was “published under the patronage of the Duke de Croye, by Robert de Vaugondy.”  Captain Cook tells us, lower in this chapter, that it was published in 1773.—­D.]

We had now, for the most part, strong gales between the N. and W., and but very indifferent weather; not better, indeed, than we generally have in England in the very depth of winter, though it was now the middle of summer in this hemisphere.  Not discouraged, however, by this, after leaving Prince Edward’s Islands, I shaped our course to pass to the southward of the others, that I might get into the latitude of the land discovered by Monsieur de Kerguelen.