CAPE HORN AND HEEMITE ISLAND 135 
for we were under high black-looking mountains rising at 
once from the water, and we could just see their white tops 
gHmmering through the darkness. 
When the moon got up the view was beautiful, and a 
more extraordinary anchorage for wildness and sublimity 
we never lay at. In the morning the quietness of the spot 
and the green woods, which we had not cast eyes upon for 
twelve good months, was most refreshing. The httle cove 
was so foreshortened lying amongst hills so high all round 
that we could hardly suppose it would afford shelter, which 
it did however, when we were warped about If miles up 
towards its head, opposite a few wigwams of the natives. 
The island is so narrow that we could always hear the hollow 
roar of the surf on its weather shores, and after one of the 
hard gales which were common there would be a slight swell 
in the cove, whose beaches were so steep as sometimes 
to prevent landing. All along the N. side of the Bay the 
Mts. are quite precipitous, with a great deal of snow on their 
ridges. On the South side they rise at an angle of 45 degrees 
up from the water, with a few cliffs here and there so straight 
that though the cove is very narrow the top of Kater's Peak, 
1700 ft. high, is seen from the ships when in the centre. The 
head of the cove runs up in a broad densely wooded valley 
to another ridge of hills which complete the amphitheatre of 
mountains. Altogether the place reminded me very much of 
the Trossachs or the head of Loch Long contracted.^ 
The foliage being much hke that of the Birch, and the 
steep mountain torrents keeping up a continual roar which 
often put me in mind of many a night spent in the Highlands. 
Nothing is so soothing as the sound of rushing water, and 
it was very delightful to lie at night in bed with the door 
and hatch open and hear the httle cataracts roaring, how- 
ever, I soon found sleep much more delightful and forgot the 
romance, —finally its effects were quite mesmeric (Is that 
the new name ?). The weather for the first few days was 
most beautiful, and we began to think the Horn a sadly 
abused and traduced place. Spring came on rapidly, the 
1 * In grandeur, perhaps, St. Martin's Cove was little behind that favourite 
spot. Many things were, however, wanted to complete the picture as Scotch ; 
perhaps, like Glen Croe, it was wild without being really beautiful, and only 
assumed the latter appearance to us because for eleven months we had not seen 
a tree.' (To Rev. Jaracs Hamilton, November 28, 1842.) 
