354 JOURNAL. 



though we are now near Cape Horn. My poor invalid is very ill, 

 and confined to his bed. 



Tuesday, February Wth. — This day, we came early in sight of the 

 land about Cape Horn, which we doubled about sunset. There were 

 mists and clouds overhanging the land ; now and then we had fine 

 sunshine, but oftener cold misty breezes. The coast is high and re- 

 markable, especially about False Cape Horn, where there are several 

 large conical hills ; but we were not near enough to distinguish them 

 very clearly. Lord Cochrane had landed here on his passage to 

 Chile ; and tells me he walked some hours in a delightful valley, in 

 the month of November, full of beautiful evergreens and flowers. 

 Very high mountains come near the sea, and even now, in autumn, 

 the highest are covered with snow. The near hills are bold and 

 precipitous : the cliffs of Cape Horn itself are white as chalk, and rise 

 in fantastic spiry points, like the ruins of some old castle ; and as 

 the sun went down through the hazy air, they took fine glowing tints 

 of gold and purple. The light just served us to see the inhospitable 

 naked peaks of Barneveldt's Isles, or rather rocks : beyond which high 

 mountain-tops peeped through heavy clouds. The names of Home 

 and Barneveldt preserve to the Dutch their seniority in the discovery 

 of this easy passage into the Pacific. It was in 1616 that Le Maire, 

 a native of Home in Holland, first doubled this Cape, and by naming 

 it after his birth-place, gave to that little town one of the most re- 

 markable monuments in the known world. I am very well pleased 

 to have seen the Cape ; but I wished rather to have come through 

 the Straights of Magellan, for the sake of the early navigators, Drake, 



