12 Porter's Voyage 



with deep bays, which, from the accounts of farmer navigators, T 

 have no doubt," are well calculated to aftbrd shelter to vessels 

 navigating those seas, and engaged in the whale fishery. Indeed, 

 it was the source of much regret to me, and to all on board, that 

 tke state of the weather prevented our having a better view of a 

 coist that has excited so much of the attention of mankind, from the 

 description given by the most celebrated navigators. Had cir- 

 cumstances permitted, I should have anchored in the bay of 

 Good Success, so minutely described by Captain Cook. 



The land we first made and attempted to weather, was Cape 

 San Diego, on the coast of Staten Land, and the appearance was 

 dreary beyond description. Perhaps, however, the critical situa- 

 tion of the ship, the foaming of the breakers, the violence of the 

 wind, and the extreme haziness of the weather, may, all com- 

 bined, have served to render the appearance more dreadful. But 

 from the impression made by its appearance then, and from the 

 description given by others, I am induced to believe, that no part 

 of the world presents a more horrible aspect than Staten Land. 



On the meridian of the 14th, the horizon was somewhat clear ; 

 the wind moderate from the westward ; the sun shining out 

 bright ; and, with the exception of some dark and lowering clouds 

 to the northward, we had every prospect of pleasant weather. 

 The Cape was now in sight, bearing north, and Diego Ramirez 

 bearing northwest ; and the black clouds before mentioned, 

 served well to give additional horror to their dreary and in- 

 hospitable aspect. But so different was the temperature of the 

 air, the appearance of the heavens, and the smoothness of the sea, 

 to every thing we had expected and pictured to ourselves, that 

 we could not but smile at our own credulity and folly, in giving 

 credit to (what we supposed) the exaggerated and miraculous ac- 

 counts of former voyagers; and even when we admitted, for a 

 moment, the correctness of their statements, we could not help 

 attributing their disasters and misfortunes chiefly to their own 

 imprudencles and mismanagement. As we had endeavoured to 

 guard against every accident that we had to apprehend, we flat- 

 tered ourselves with the belief, that fortune would be more 

 favourable to our enterprize than she had been to theirs. But, 

 while we were indulging ourselves in these pleasing speculations, 

 the black clouds, hanging over Cape Horn, burst upon us with a 

 fury we little expected, and reduced us in a few minutes to a 

 reefed foresail, and close-reefed main-topsail, and in a few hours 

 afterwards to our storm-staysails. Nor was the violence of the 

 winds the only danger we had to encounter ; for it produced an 

 irregular and dangerous sea, that threatened to jerk away our 

 masts at every roll of the ship. With this wind we steered to the 

 southward, with a view of getting an offing from the land, in ex-. 



