12 
VOYAGE TO THE 
CHAP. 
I. 
Sept. 
1825. 
meridian of Cape Horn to a station fifty leagues due west of Cape Pillar, 
and that during that time there was more reason to complain of light 
winds and calms, than the heavy gales which proverbially visit these 
shores. 
Navigators distinguish the passages round Cape Horn by the 
outer and inner; some recommending one, some the other ; and doubt- 
less both have their advantages and disadvantages. It would be very 
uninteresting here to discuss the merits of either, as the question has 
been sufficiently considered elsewhere ; and it would, in my opinion, 
be equally useless, as very few persons follow the advice of their pre- 
decessors in a matter of this nature, but pursue that course which from 
circumstances may seem most advantageous at the moment; and this 
will ever be the case where such a difference of opinion exists. I 
shall therefore reserve what 1 have to say on this subject for its ap- 
propriate place in the Appendix. 
In describing the passage round Cape Horn, I have omitted to men- 
tion some particulars on the days on which they occurred, in order that 
they might not interrupt the narrative. As we approached the Falk- 
land Islands from Kio Janeiro, some penguins were seen upon the water 
in latitude 47° S., at a distance of three hundred and forty miles from the 
nearest land ; a fact which either proves the common opinion, that this 
species never stray far from land, to be an error, or that some unknown 
land exists in the vicinity. As their situation was not far from the pa- 
rallel in which the long-sought He Grande of La Roche was said to have 
been seen, those who are wedded to the common opinion above alluded 
to, may yet fancy such an island has existence ; although it is highly im- 
probable that it should have escaped the observation, not only of those 
who purposely went in search of it, but of the numerous ships also 
which have of late made the passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. 
Another opinion, not quite so general, (but which I have heard re- 
peatedly expressed with reference to the coast of California), is, that of 
aquatic birds confining their flight within certain limits, so that a person 
who has paid attention to the subject will know by the birds that are 
about him, without seeing the land, what part of the coast he is off. 
My own experience does not enable me to offer any remarks on the sub- 
