continual head-wind. Tacking hither and thither, in the language of
sailors they _polish_ the Cape by beating about its edges so long.

Le Mair and Schouten, two Dutchmen, were the first navigators who
weathered Cape Born. Previous to this, passages had been made to the
Pacific by the Straits of Magellan; nor, indeed, at that period, was it
known to a certainty that there was any other route, or that the land
now called Terra del Fuego was an island. A few leagues southward from
Terra del Fuego is a cluster of small islands, the Diegoes; between
which and the former island are the Straits of Le Mair, so called in
honour of their discoverer, who first sailed through them into the
Pacific. Le Mair and Schouten, in their small, clumsy vessels,
encountered a series of tremendous gales, the prelude to the long train
of similar hardships which most of their followers have experienced. It
is a significant fact, that Schouten's vessel, the _Horne_, which gave
its name to the Cape, was almost lost in weathering it.

The next navigator round the Cape was Sir Francis Drake, who, on
Raleigh's Expedition, beholding for the first time, from the Isthmus of
Darien, the "goodlie South Sea," like a true-born Englishman, vowed,
please God, to sail an English ship thereon; which the gallant sailor
did, to the sore discomfiture of the Spaniards on the coasts of Chili
and Peru.

But perhaps the greatest hardships on record, in making this celebrated
passage, were those experienced by Lord Anson's squadron in 1736. Three
remarkable and most interesting narratives record their disasters and
sufferings. The first, jointly written by the carpenter and gunner of
the Wager; the second by young Byron, a midshipman in the same ship;
the third, by the chaplain of the Centurion. White-Jacket has them all;
and they are fine reading of a boisterous March night, with the
casement rattling in your ear, and the chimney-stacks blowing down upon
the pavement, bubbling with rain-drops.

But if you want the best idea of Cape Horn, get my friend Dana's
unmatchable "Two Years Before the Mast." But you can read, and so you
must have read it. His chapters describing Cape Horn must have been
written with an icicle.

At the present day the horrors of the Cape have somewhat abated. This
is owing to a growing familiarity with it; but, more than all, to the
improved condition of ships in all respects, and the means now
generally in use of preserving the health of