X 
CAPE HORN 
223 
licence, well becoming Tierra del Fuego. There was a degree 
of mysterious grandeur in mountain behind mountain, with the 
deep intervening valleys, all covered by one thick, dusky mass 
of forest. The atmosphere, likewise, in this climate, where 
gale succeeds gale, with rain, hail, and sleet, seems blacker 
than anywhere else. In the Strait of Magellan, looking due 
southward from Port Famine, the distant channels between the 
mountains appeared from their gloominess to lead beyond the 
confines of this world. 
December 2 1 st .-—-The Beagle got under way: and on the 
succeeding day, favoured to an uncommon degree by a fine 
easterly breeze, we closed in with the Barnevelts, and running 
CAPE HORN (ANOTHER VIEW). 
past Cape Deceit with its stony peaks, about three o’clock 
doubled the weatherbeaten Cape Horn. The evening was 
calm and bright, and we enjoyed a fine view of the surrounding 
isles. Cape Horn, however, demanded his tribute, and before 
night sent us a gale of wind directly in our teeth. We stood 
out to sea, and on the second day again made the land, when 
we saw on our weather-bow this notorious promontory in its 
proper form—veiled in a mist, and its dim outline surrounded 
by a storm of wind and water. Great black clouds were rolling 
across the heavens, and squalls of rain, with hail, swept by us 
with such extreme violence, that the Captain determined to 
run into Wigwam Cove. This is a snug little harbour, not far 
from Cape Horn ; and here, at Christmas-eve, we anchored in 
