31
VOYAGE TO THE
be correctly placed in the charts. The position I have assigned to it
will he seen in the table at the end of the work.
From the Falkland Islands we stood to the southward ; and after
two short giiles from the westward, made Cape Horn on the l6th,
heaving 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 observation,
that a current had drifted the ship fifty miles to the northward in
the twenty-four hours, a circumstance wluch 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 he on their guard against
a like 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 L e g o , 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 Ramirez were seen on the
weather bow; and nothing remained but to pursue 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 Ildcfonzo Islands was distant
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.
PACIFIC AND BE ERING’S STRAIT. 11
The cape mistaken for Cape Horn by Lord Anson bore N. 49' E., and CHAP.
the promontory designated York Minster by Captain Cook, W. by N.
The coast was bold, rocky, and much broken, and every here and there
deeply indented, as if purposely to afford a refuge from the pitiless gales
which occasionally beat upon it. The general appearance of the landscape
was any thing but exhilarating to persons recently removed from
the delightful scenery of Rio Janeiro ; and we were particularly struck
with the contrast between the romantic and luxurious scenery of that
place and the bleak coast before us, where the snow, filling the valleys
and fissures, gave the barren projections a darker hue and a more rugged
outline than they in reality possessed.
As we drew in with the land, the water became discoloured, and
specifically lighter than that in the offing, whence it was concluded that
some rivers emptied themselves into the sea in the vicinity. In the evening
it became necessary to stand off the coast ; and we experienced the
disadvantages of the offing, by getting into the stream of the easterly
current, and by the increase of both wind and sea*. Y e stood to the
westward again as soon as it could be done ; and on the 26th were fifty-
leagues due west of Cape Pillar, a situation from which there is no difficulty
in making the remainder of the passage.
We now, for a time at least, bade adieu to the shores of Tierra del
Fuego, whose coast and climate we quitted with far more favourable impressions
than those under which they were approached. This, I tliink,
will be the case with every man-of-war that passes it, excepting the
few that may be particularly unfortunate in their weather; for early
navigation has stamped it with a character which wiU ever be coupled
with its name, notwithstanding its terrors are gradually disappearing
before the progressive improvement in navigation. It must be admitted
we were much favoured ; few persons, probably, who effect the passage,
will have it in their power to say they were only a week from the
♦ I t is a carious fact, that on this day, at a distance of only fifty leagues from where we
were, it Mew a strong gale of wind, with a high sea, which washed away the bulivaik of a fine
brig, the Hellespont, commanded by Lieutenant Charles Parker, R. N., to whom I am m-
debted for this and other interesting information on the winds and cinrcnts encountered
by him in liis passage.
c 2
Sept.
1825.
£I