10 
VOYAGE TO THE 
CHAP, be correctly placed in the charts. The position I have assigned to it 
will be seen in the table at the end of the work. 
Sept. r rom the F alkland Islands we stood to the southward ; and after 
two short gales from the westward, made Cape Horn on the l6th, 
bearing N. 40° W. six or seven leagues. This was quite an unexpected 
event, as a course had been shaped the day before to pass it at a 
distance of seventy miles. It appeared, however, by the noon observa- 
tion, that a current had drifted the ship fifty miles to the northward in 
the twenty-four hours, a circumstance which might have been attended 
with very serious consequences had the weather been thick ; and ships 
in passing the Strait le Maire will do well to be on their guard against 
a hke occurrence*. The view of this celebrated promontory, which has 
cost navigators, from the earliest period of its discovery to the present 
time, so much difficulty to double, was highly gratifying to all on board, 
and especially so to those who had never seen it before ; yet it was a 
pleasure we would all willingly have exchanged for the advantage of 
being able to pursue an uninterrupted course along the shore of Tierra 
del F uego, which the flattering prospect of the preceding day led us to 
expect, and which, had it not been for the northerly current, would 
have been effected with ease. The disappointment was of course very 
great, particularly as the wind at the moment was more favourable for 
rounding the cape than it usually is. 
In the evening, the Islands of Diego Eamirez were seen on the 
weather bow ; and nothing remained but to })ursue the inner route, at 
the risk of being caught upon a lee-shore with a gale of wind, or stand 
back to the south-eastward, and lose in one day what it would require 
perhaps a week to recover. We adopted the former alternative, and 
passed the Islands as close as it was prudent in a dark night, striking 
soundings in deep water upon an uneven bottom. 
The next morning, the small groupe of Ildefonzo Islands was dis- 
tant six miles on the lee-beam, and the mainland of Tierra del Fuego 
appeared behind it, in lofty ranges of mountains streaked with snow. 
* For remarks on the currents, and observations on the winds, in the vicinity of Cape 
Horn, the reader is referred to the Nautical Remarks. 
