April.] 



PASSAGE ROUND CAPE HORN. 



i 



77 



is a striking contrast between their clumsy, sluggish motions on land 

 and their agility and sagacity in the water. Unlike the fur-seal, the 

 sea-elephant seldom runs or fights ; but when the club is aimed at his 

 scull, or the lance at his heart, he merely raises a supplicating look to 

 his murderer, while the tears overflow from his eyes, and then awaits 

 the death-stroke with a martyr-like composure. But were he conscious 

 of his own powers, or were his courage equal to them, the assailant 

 would probably get the worst of the bargain. Unwieldly as his form 

 appears, should he rush forward, and compel his enemy to come to 

 close quarters, human skill could avail little against the astonishing 

 power of his jaws, which, in the agonies of death, will literally grind 

 the hardest stones to powder between his teeth. 



It is a remarkable fact that the sea-elephant has never been seen in 

 the water by any navigator more than thirty rods from the shore. I 

 have seen them come up to take breath within half a cable's length 

 of the beach ; but even then they only allowed about half an inch of 

 their nose to come above water. 



As I shall shortly invite the reader's attention to my passage through 

 the Strait of Magellan, it may not be improper in this place to offer a 

 few remarks on the long-agitated subject of a passage round Cape 

 Horn. 



I have already said, that by hugging the western shore, the passage 

 to the Pacific is very much shortened : I would, therefore, earnestly 

 recommend shipmasters who intend to double Cape Horn always to 

 pass to the westward of the Falkland Islands, which will ensure them 

 smoother water and better weather. Experience has convinced me 

 that the coast here, at the proper season of the year, is not more dan- 

 gerous than our own coast in the fall. All navigators would be satis- 

 fied of this fact would they discard from their imaginations the horrible 

 romances they have heard and read about Cape Horn, and judge for 

 themselves with unprejudiced minds, — most of these nautical legends 

 being only fit to class with the fiction of the Flying Dutchman. 



I have wintered and summered off Cape Horn, and in its vicinity, 

 but never witnessed those extraordinary gales which we so often hear 

 spoken of ; I have never encountered worse weather on this coast than 

 is experienced every autumn and spring in a passage from New-York 

 to Liverpool. In doubling Cape Horn, a ship may carry her royal- 

 yards with as much ease as she can along our northern coast in the 

 seasons before mentioned, and in the early part of winter. 



In this opinion, founded on my own experience, I am sustained by 

 the testimony of Cook, Vancouver, La Perouse, and others, including 

 my friend Captain Weddell, whose journals are all before the public. 

 The four gentlemen here named as circumnavigators of the globe 

 occupy the very highest rank in nautical eminence, and require not the 

 homely eulogium of a seaman's pen. But their journals are not 

 "steeped in horrors they found nothing terrible, formidable, or even 

 difficult, in doubling Cape Horn, or in exploring other distant regions, 

 as others of far inferior abilities have done. 



But though these contradictory reports cannot well be reconciled, 

 they may perhaps be accounted for without imputing wilful misrepre- 



