54 On the Navigation of Cape Horn. 



Art. V, — On the Navigation of Cape Horn ; by M. F. Maury, 



Passed Midshipman, U. S. Navy. 



A variety of causes combine to render the navigation, from the 

 Atlantic around Cape Horn to the Pacific, dangerous. 



From the time Sir Francis Drake was driven off Cape Horn, till 

 the present day, the boldest navigators have approached it with cau- 

 tion. They never venture in the latitude of it, until each has pre- 

 pared his vessel for the rough weather to be expected in rounding 

 it ; for this, no precaution is omitted. Men of war strike part of their 

 armament into the hold ; get their anchors between decks ; send up 

 stump masts; bend the storm sails; and secure their spars with pre- 

 venter rigging, as they get near the tempestuous regions. In the 

 roughness of the passage, the crew is liable to much exposure. 



There the tempest, the sea, and the iceberg assume their most 

 terrible character, each presenting dangers almost new in their kind 

 and peculiar to the region. 



The ice, from its beds of a thousand years, is detached in islands 

 like masses by the gale and the shock of the sea ; it is swept to the 

 north by the winds and currents, and carries in its silent course, all 

 the dangers of the hidden rock, until it gradually melts away under 

 the influence of more genial climates. 



The gales, frequently accompanied trith hail and sleet, are pro- 

 verbial among seamen for their unremitting severity, and the length 

 of their duration. Occurrences of vessels " lying to" in gales of 

 wind, for many days, off Cape Horn, are frequent. I have seen 

 them arrive in Valparaiso and Callao, after having been detained 

 eighty and even one hundred and twenty days in gales and head winds 

 off the Cape. The case of a ship's " lying to" there, in one contin- 

 ued gale, for seventy days, is of recent occurrence. It is not unfre- 

 quent that vessels even of war, put into the ports of Chili crippled 

 in the rough weather at the South. The most robust constitutions 

 overcome by long exposure to it, succumb to its severity ; they may 

 bear up against it for many days, but the hardiest crew, exhausted 

 at last by incessant toil, are forced in despair to give up the ship, 

 clogged with ice and snow, to the mercies of the contending cli- 

 mates. 



The waves run to a height, which, in other seas, they seldom at- 

 tain. In the calm they cause no less damage than in the gale, by 



