erous islands clustering together,
of various sizes, with deep channels between them, most of them
consisting of rocky mountains, often rising in perpendicular precipices
from the ocean, and shooting upwards to a vast height in towering peaks
and rugged crags, untrod by the feet of man or beast. Along the shores
of these numerous isles and islets are gulfs and bays, and coves and
creeks without number, often with level ground in their neighbourhood
producing a somewhat rich vegetation, and forming a great contrast to
the terrifically wild and barren tracts which are the chief
characteristics of the region. Bold, precipitous headlands, with dark
barren elevations behind them, appeared on our right as we skirted the
northern shores of the straits. We made Cape Good Success, and a little
way beyond it, crossed abreast of the mouth of Spaniards' Harbour, into
which rolls the whole set of the South Atlantic. Then standing on till
near the entrance of the Beagle Channel, up which a little way lies
Picton Island, we stood away towards Cape Horn, so as to steer close
round it into the Pacific. Captain Frankland had often been here, and
had once brought up in a harbour for many days from bad weather, when he
had surveyed many of the passages in his boats. I was below; Gerard
rushed into the cabin.

"We are off the Cape! we are off the Cape!" he exclaimed; "it is a sight
worth seeing." I hurried on deck, and thence I beheld rising not a mile
from us, in all its solitary grandeur, that far-famed promontory Cape
Horn,--a lofty pyramid frowning bold defiance towards the storm-tossed
confines of those two mighty oceans which circle the earth. Dark clouds
rested on its summit, foam-crested waves with ceaseless roar dashed
furiously at its base, the sea-fowl flew shrieking round it; and as I
gazed at it, I could not help thinking how an old heathen would have
believed it the very throne of the god of storms. Well has it earned
its fame. Scarcely were we round the Cape, when the wind, which had
hitherto been favourable, shifted suddenly to the westward and
southward, and dark clouds came rushing up from that quarter in hot
haste, like a stampede of wild animals on the prairies of America. The
long swell which had been rolling up from the east was met by a
succession of heavy waves torn up by the fierce gale blowing along the
whole course of the Southern Pacific, creating the wildest confusion on
the world of waters. A few mi