130 WINTER VOYAGE THROUGH STRAITS OF MAGELLAN 



see it under most favorable circumstances of Avind and weather, 

 I incline to the belief that the popular idea in regard to the 

 dreariness and forbidding character of the shores of Patagonia 

 is a delusion which the commerce of the future will dispel. The 

 dav after we made Mount Wood the weather became thick and 

 the wind squally, and, not being able to see tlie land, we ran by 

 the lead. When near Cape Virgins by our reckoning the barom- 

 eter commenced to rise. Now a rise inHhe glass in this lati- 

 tude (50° south), the barometer having pVeviously stood low, is 

 an almost certain indication of a change of wind, if not bad 

 weather; so all hands were called to reef topsails. Scarcely 

 had the second reef been taken in when the wind shifted in a 

 moment from the north landward (N.N.E. to W.S.W.) and blew 

 in furious gusts, the horizon suddenly cleared, the mists were 

 dispelled, the air became cold and raw, and by the rays of the 

 setting sun (it was now 3 o'clock of a June day) we saw in the 

 distance Cape Virgins, with its abrupt, clift-like shore, 16 miles 

 dead to windward of us. Thus far we had made the voyage 

 from New York entirely under sail, ships of war not being ex- 

 pected to steam unless necessary. We managed, with the aid 

 of fore-and-aft canvas, to crawl slowly to windward, and, there 

 being a bright, full moon, crossed the great Sarmiento bank, 

 south of Cape Virgins, where the rise of the tide is 43 feet, and 

 by 11 o'clock that night were safely at anchor in the straits, 

 some four miles west of Magellan's landfall. 



To make our voyage intelligible it will here be necessar}^ to 

 describe the general character of the strait. It is safe to say that 

 there is no other part of the Avorld where, as a rule, tlie weather 

 is so tempestuous and dangerous as it is off Cape Horn. There 

 old Ocean exerts his full sovereignt3^ and the winds and the 

 waves are almost ceaselessly raging and surging in wild tumult 

 against a bleak, forbidding, iron-bound coast. The climate of 

 Cape Horn is the most wretched on earth. Fierce storms of rain, 

 hail, and snow drift in from the Atlantic, Antarctic, and Pacific 

 oceans in everlasting succession, broken only by the furious willi- 

 waws or Cape Horn squalls. 



The real difficulties of the voyage commence at Cape Froward, 

 the southern extremit}^ of our continent, which is 175 miles from 

 Cape Virgins. Here the weather undergoes an entire change, and 

 no matter how pleasant it has been before, the mariner may ex- 

 pect to don his " sou'wester " the moment he doubles this pre- 

 cipitous headland, worthy of terminating so grand a continent. 



