funeral marches to the grave."

A fortnight flew quickly by, the good ship going at as lively a pace. We
passed the wide mouth of La Plata, buttoned our jackets, and slept under
blankets. As the weather became colder, mammy Carey and her broods, with
goneys, albatrosses, boobies and cape pigeons, swarmed around the wake,
to pick up the stray crumbs. Divers hooks and lines were thrown out to
entice them aboard, but for a long interval all efforts proved
fruitless, until one morning, an albatross abstractedly swallowed the
bait, and much to his surprise was pulled on board, like to a boy's
kite. He measured eleven feet four inches, with enormous quills and
feathers, and such a bed of down the monster had concealed about his
oily person, was never known nearer than an eider duck. He had large,
fierce, black eyes, too, with a beak sharp, and hard enough to have
nipped a silver dollar into bits. Whales favored us occasionally with an
inspection--rolled their round snouts out of water--tossed a few tons of
foam in the air--threw up their enormous flukes--struck the waves one
splashing blow, and then went down to examine the soundings. Thus we
sailed along the dull shores of Patagonia, with the long taper top
gallant masts replaced by stumps to stand up more obstinately against
the furious tempests of the "still vexed Bermoothes" of Cape Horn, the
bugbear of all landsmen, and the place of all others, where more yarns
are spun, wove, and wondered at, than from China to Peru. He was a bold
sailor any way, who first doubled the Cape, whatever others may be who
follow. At last came our turn, and on the afternoon of the sixteenth day
from Rio, the clouds lifting, we saw the dark, jagged, rugged bluffs and
steeps of Staten and Terra del Fuego. The next morning we rounded Cape
St. John, and were received by the long swelling waves of the sister
ocean. If the great Balboa when standing on the mountains of Panama,
regarding the placid waves of the equatorial ocean, could have known the
tempestuous gales and giant seas of the polar regions, sporting around
this snowy cape, he might possibly have been less overjoyed at his grand
discovery. Our pleasant weather and smooth seas clung to us, to the
last, and, as if loth to leave, gave one unclouded view of Staten Land,
like a casting in bronze, with the bleak, snow-capped heights, tinged
by the rising sun. An hour after the bright sky was veiled by mist, the
rising gale, from the west, bro