134 SOUTH AGAIN : NEW ZEALAND AND THE CAPE 



climates, where vegetation itself is scarce, I find that every- 

 thing, in however bad a state, must be taken at once and 

 looked for, in fruit or flower, afterwards. Indeed I often 

 wonder what can be done with the barren specimens I am 

 forced to be content with. [From a letter to his Father, 

 August 25, 1842.] 



To Ms Mother 



December 6, 1842. 



September 8th we weighed and made sail down the Sound 

 as I was writing a letter to Bessy. On the following day 

 we were greeted as we expected by a stout S.W. gale, which 

 blew almost without intermission until the 16th, during all 

 of which time we were hove to and battened down, most 

 delightful as you may suppose after four months in harbor. 

 On the 16th we were eighty miles to leeward of the Falk- 



: lands ! when, after a short calm, Easterly wind sprang up, 

 and as the sea went down, we ran on rapidly to the Horn. 

 Fair winds took us on to the land ; on the 19th we made it 

 early in the morning, consisting of ranges of snowy peaks, 

 and soon after saw the far-famed Horn. The day was 

 beautiful and so we passed in the afternoon right under the 

 cliff, which is quite a fine one, very steep and precipitous 

 to the Southward. Jagged and peaked at the top, covered 

 with very stunted brushwood of the crumpled or deciduous 

 leaved beech, which was brown as the leaves were not ex- 

 panded yet. The cliff is of a black color and about 600 ft. 



. high with plenty of Albatross, Cape pigeons, and other sea 

 birds wheeling about it, indeed we were so close that we 

 could see them sitting on the face of it. A little cairn of 

 stones raised by the officers of the Beagle is on the top of all. 

 After rounding (or doubling) the Cape, the Bay of St. 

 Francis opens out and the view is very fine. This bay was 

 supposed to be in Hermite Island until that Island was 

 found to be made up of many enclosing this sheet of water. 

 Horn Island is the most Westerly and, as its name owns, 

 boasts of the Cape. Hermite Island is the Easternmost 

 and Cape Spencer, its most Southern point, is very similar 

 to and abreast of Cape Horn (some two or three miles further 

 North). We beat up the Bay and at night anchored in very 

 deep water under a bluff precipice off the mouth of the 

 Cove. When it came on dark, it was a very curious place, 



