3 16 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
ship sailed on September 4th for a short exploring cruise 
in search of a protected harbour in the immediate neigh- 
bourhood of Cape Horn. It was put under the charge of 
Lieutenant Sibbald, senior lieutenant of the Terror in 
succession to Lieutenant McMurdo whose health had 
broken down under the strain and who was now in- 
valided home. He was a remarkably efficient officer, 
after Ross the best executive in either ship, and to judge 
from the regretful comparison with the senior lieutenant 
of the Erebus which McCormick was never tired of mak- 
ing, he was less out of sympathy with natural science 
than most naval officers of his generation. 
Cape Horn was passed on the 19th on a fine day at the 
distance of a mile and a half, and Ross acknowledged 
that he was disappointed with the appearance of a cape 
which had won for itself so abominable a notoriety. At 
St. Martin s Cove in Hermite Island immediately to the 
northwest of the Horn, the ships anchored and a mag- 
netic observatory was landed on September 21st. Sir 
Joseph Hooker recalls how on term days when all the ex- 
ecutive officers were on shore with the magnetic instru- 
ments he was left on watch on board with hourly read- 
ings of the barometer to make for the twenty-four hours, 
and he has never forgotten the hideous “ Willie waws ” 
or squalls that swept down the valleys and smote the 
water of the cove with such violence that the ships were 
in danger of being torn from their anchors and driven to 
destruction on the Horn island. The mean level of the 
sea was ascertained at this station, as at other anchorages, 
by numerous observations and a permanent mark cut in 
the rock to record it. The long stay at this anchorage 
was enlivened to some extent by visits from the native 
Fuegians; but it musi. have been a dull time at best for 
