THE OCEAN VOYAGE 127 



till the following forenoon. On Tuesday, the sixteenth, 

 the wind turned again to Southwest. We had bright 

 weather, though it was icy cold and the deck remained 

 thickly glazed with ice all day long. During the night 

 we reefed the big topsail, gaff top, etc., and steered West- 

 Northwest. 



On Monday, the 17th of September, we again had a 

 change of wind after a calm of short duration. Ve had 

 the great satisfaction of finding the air mild and agree- 

 able, and by six o'clock in the morning the snow and ice, 

 which had covered our ship for days, began to thaw and 

 soon disappeared from the deck as well as from the rig- 

 ging. The dark green coloring of the ocean and the calm 

 of the waves announced again the close vicinity of land. 

 We kept Southwest by South, and made a very satisfac- 

 tory run. 



Toward eight o'clock we caught sight of a little island 

 rock, Cape Deceit, which is about two German miles from 

 Cape Horn, and in our estimation we must have seen it 

 at a distance of eleven miles. Hardly a quarter of an 

 hour had passed when we beheld the insurmountable peak 

 of the celebrated and much feared Cape itself. YVe kept 

 Cape Horn in view till about four o'clock in the after- 

 noon, after which the thickening air commenced to hin- 

 der observation. "When we had approached the Cape 

 within eight Gorman miles, its immense mass of rocks 

 was plainly outlined on the darkening horizon. At the 

 same time and distance there came a number of promi- 

 nently projecting points of the Hermites Islands plainly 

 within our view. The wind was rather refreshing during 

 the day and turned gradually toward North. We soon 

 shortened sails and about four o'clock we came within 

 a short distance of the Diego Ramirez Islands, a little 

 archipelago consisting of thirty-six large and small 

 islands, which are close together and look like black per- 

 pendicular rocks in the unfathomable sea. The highest 

 points of these islands roughly estimated may be a thou- 

 sand feet above the ocean level; they show clearly the 

 volcano type, are completely barren and covered with 



