214 DOUBLING CAPE HORN. 



north a swampy moorland extended, but to the south we 

 had a scpne of savage magnificence, well becoming Tierra 

 del Fuego. There was a degree of mysterious grandeur in 

 mountain behind mountain, with the deep intervening 

 valleys, all covered by one thick, dusky mass of forest. 

 The atmosphere, likewise, in this climate, where gale 

 succeeds gale, with rain, hail, and sleet, seems blacker than 

 anywhere else. In the Strait of Magellan, looking due 

 southward from Port Famine, the distant channels between 

 the mountains appeared from their gloominess to lead 

 beyond the confines of this world. 



December 21st. — The Beagle got under way ; and on the 

 succeeding day, favoured to an uncommon degree by a 

 fine easterly breeze, we closed in with the Barnevelts, and 

 running past Cape Deceit with its stony peaks, about three 

 o'clock doubled the weather-beaten Cape Horn. The 

 evening was calm and bright, and we enjoyed a fine view 

 of the surrounding isles. Cape Horn, however, demanded 

 his tribute, and before night sent us a gale of wind directly 

 in our teeth. We stood out to sea, and on the second day 

 again made the land, when we saw on our weather-bow 

 this notorious promontory in its proper form — veiled in a 

 mist, and its dim outline surrounded by a storm of wind and 

 water. Great black clouds were rolling across the heavens, 

 and squalls of rain, with hail, swept by us with such extreme 

 violence that the captain determined to run into Wigwam 

 Cove. This is a snug little harbour, not far from Cape 

 Horn ; and here, at Christmas Eve, we anchored in smooth 

 water. The only thing which reminded us *of the gale 

 outside was every now and then a puff from the mountains, 

 which made the ship surge at her anchors. 



December 25^^.— Close by the cove, a pointed hill, called 

 Kater's Peak, rises to the height of 1700 feet. The 

 surrounding islands all consist of conical masses of green- 

 stone, associated sometimes with less regular hills of baked 

 and altered clay-slate. This part of Tierra del Fuego may 

 be considered as the extremity of the submerged chain of 

 mountains already alluded to. The cove takes its name of 

 ** Wigwam" from some of the Fuegian habitations; but 

 every bay in the neighbourhood might be so called with 

 equal propriety. The inhabitants, living chiefly upon shell- 

 fish, are obliged constantly to change their place of 

 residence ; but they return at intervals to the same spots, 

 as is evident from the piles of old shells, which must often 



