The journey of the German expedition to observe the transit of Venus on December 9, 1874 at the Kerguelen Islands and its sojourn there

Astronomers are the surveyors of the sky. They have always dedicated much time and resources to determining the scale of distances in the universe. Today, the Hubble constant; yesterday, the solar parallar. The following account, attributed to Ladislas Weinek, a modest actor of this scientific epic, describes one of its numerous chapters.