uncertain. This
last circumstance we experienced most remarkably; for after we had
unexpectedly fallen in with the land at Cape Noir, we stood away
southward to get clear of it; and were no sooner advanced into the
lat. of 60 deg. S. or upwards, than we met with much better weather and
smoother water than in any other part of this whole passage. The air
indeed was very sharp and cold, and we had strong gales, but they were
steady and uniform, and we had at the same time sunshine and a clear
sky: whereas in the lower latitudes, the wind every now and then
intermitted, as it were, to recover new strength, and then returned
suddenly in the most violent gusts, threatening at every blast to blow
away our masts, which must have proved our inevitable destruction.

Also, that the currents in this high latitude would be of much
less efficacy than nearer the land, seems to be evinced by these
considerations: That all currents run with greater violence near the
shore than out at sea, and that at great distances from the land
they are scarcely perceptible. The reason of this seems sufficiently
obvious, if we consider that constant currents, in all probability,
are produced by constant winds; the wind, though with a slow and
imperceptible motion, driving a large body of water continually before
it, which, being accumulated on any coast that it meets with in its
course, must escape along the shore by the endeavours of the surface
to reduce itself to the level of the rest of the ocean. It is likewise
reasonable to suppose, that those violent gusts of wind which we
experienced near the shore, so very different from what we found in
the lat. of 60 deg. S. and upwards, may be owing to a similar cause; for a
westerly wind almost perpetually prevails in the southern part of
the Pacific Ocean, and this current of air being interrupted by the
enormously high range of the Andes, and by the mountains on Terra del
Fuego, which together bar up the whole country as far south as Cape
Horn, a part only of the wind can force its way over the top of
these prodigious precipices, while the rest must naturally follow the
direction of the coast, and must range down the land to the southward,
and sweep with an impetuous and irregular blast round Cape Horn, and
the southermost part of Terra del Fuego. Without placing too
much reliance on these speculations, we may assume, I believe, as
incontestable facts, that both the rapidity of the currents, and the
v