If however, any one of them should be so far open as to invite a ship into it, she would run the risk of being fixed there for ever, or of coming out in an ice island.

To this it may be added, that the islands and floats on the coast, the great falls from the ice cliffs in the port, or a heavy snow storm, attended with a sharp frost, might be equally fatal.
Nothing could exceed the inclination of Captain Cook, if it had been practicable, to penetrate farther to the south: but difficulties like these were not to be surmounted.

If he had risked all that had been done during the voyage, for the sake of discovering and exploring a coast, which, when discovered and explored, would have answered no end whatever, or have been of the least use either to navigation or geography, or indeed to any other science, he would justly have been charged with inexcusable temerity.

He determined, therefore, to alter his course to the east, and to sail in quest of Bouvet's Land, the existence of which was yet to be settled.

Accordingly, this was the principal object of his pursuit, from the 6th to the 22nd of the month.