16 VOYAGE TO THE 



chap, their power to say they were only a week from the 



^-^y-^ meridian of Cape Horn to a station fifty leagues due 



faS*. wes t °f Cape Pillar, and that during that time there 



was more reason to complain of light winds and 



calms, than the heavy gales which proverbially visit 



these shores. 



Navigators distinguish the passages round Cape 

 Horn by the outer and inner ; some recommending 

 one, some the other ; and doubtless both have their 

 advantages and disadvantages. It would be very 

 uninteresting here to discuss the merits of either, as 

 the question has been sufficiently considered else- 

 where ; and it would, in my opinion, be equally 

 useless, as very few persons follow the advice of 

 their predecessors in a matter of this nature, but 

 pursue that course which from circumstances may 

 seem most advantageous at the moment ; and this 

 will ever be the case where such a difference of 

 opinion exists. What I had to say on this subject 

 has been published in the Nautical Remarks to the 

 quarto edition. 



In describing the passage round Cape Horn, I 

 have omitted to mention some particulars on the 

 days on which they occurred, in order that they 

 might not interrupt the narrative. As we ap- 

 proached the Falkland Islands from Rio Janeiro, 

 some penguins were seen upon the water in latitude 

 47° S., at a distance of three hundred and forty 

 miles from the nearest land ; a fact which either 

 proves the common opinion, that this species never 

 stray far from land, to be in error, or that some un- 

 known land exists in the vicinity. As their situa- 

 tion was not far from the parallel in which the long- 

 sought lie Grande of La Roche was said to have 



