Cape Horn

“ Cape Horn stood boldly forth to the S.E., and the surface of the vast ocean was spread out beneath me to the south. Whilst surveying the scene around me, the solitude of which was broken only by the Polyborus or Fuegian Hawk hovering overhead, my eye suddenly rested upon half a score of the dusky forms of the Fuegians, wending along one of their tracks in the valley beneath in single file, in the direction of their wigwam, at Joachim's Cove; returning in all probability from an excursion in search of limpets along the ledges of rocks bounding the coast. ”

“ A voyage round Cape Horn in a passenger-ship is an event of the past. The necessity for performing this perilous voyage has been obviated by the introduction of railroads and steamships. Emigrants and travelers are no longer obliged to risk their lives and waste their time in passing round the Stormy Cape in order to arrive at a point, which may be reached in a week by a pleasant ride across the continent on the railroad; and Cape Horn is destined to become a terra incognita to all but the readers of ancient voyages. ”

“ Cape Horn Island is, in a sense, the south end of the Americas, but the backbone of the hemisphere bends to the east at Mount Sarmiento on Tierra del Fuego, and running along the shore of that great island is broken by the Strait of Le Maire, as it was broken by the Strait of Magellan, only to appear again beyond the narrow water in the cliffs and ridges and gulches of Staten Island. It is not until one has been on or around Cape St. ”

“ Once, in clear weather, we marked a blue ridge of land far to the norrard, and Old Martin and Vootgert nearly came to blows as to whether it was Cape Horn or the False Cape.
Fighting hard for every inch of our laboured progress, doubling back, crossing, recrossing (our track on the old blue-back chart was a maze of lines and figures) we won our way to 70° W., and there, in the hardest gale of the passage, we were called on for tribute, for one more to the toll of sailor lives claimed by the rugged southern gateman. ”

“ Looking at a map of South America, we find that the Horn is situated in 56° south latitude; but from the moment a ship crosses the fiftieth parallel in the South Atlantic until she has passed down around the stormy Cape and up in the Pacific to the fiftieth parallel in that ocean,—a distance approaching a thousand miles, she is said to be “rounding Cape Horn.” Until she is across 50 in the Pacific, the vessel is never safe from being blown clear back to the Cape by the furious western gales and hurricanes that rage almost continuously in this region. ”

“ In time we saw Cape Horn; an island rounded like an oven, after which it takes its name (Ornos) oven. Here we experienced very rough weather, buffeting about under storm stay-sails, and spending nearly a month before the wind favored our passage and enabled the course of the ship to be changed for Valparaiso. One day we sailed parallel with a French sloop-of-war, and it was sublime to watch the two ships rising and falling in those long deep swells of the ocean. All the time we were followed by the usual large flocks of Cape-pigeons and albatrosses of every color. ”

“ On Saturday, the 26th, we were off the island of Cape Horn. This island is said to have received its name from its conical shape. We here saw quite a fleet of merchantmen and whalemen bound round the Horn,68 no less than twenty-two ships being in sight from masthead. About nine o’clock this morning, while sailing along with a fair, pleasant wind, carrying studding-sails, all hands were suddenly called to take in sail, and, before the ship was under snug canvas, the gale broke upon us in all its fury, coming, as seamen say, “butt-end first.” ”

“ The currents between Cape Deseada and Cape Horn set from west to east, that is, in the same direction as the coast; but they are by no means considerable. To the east of the cape their strength is much increased, and their direction is N.E. towards Staten Land. They are rapid in Strait Le Maire and along the south coast of Staten Land, and set like a torrent round Cape St John; where they take a N.W. direction, and continue to run very strong both within and without New Year's Isles. While we lay at anchor within this island, I observed that the current was strongest during the flood ”

“ On the N.W. side of the cape are two peaked rocks, like sugar-loaves: They lie N.W. by N., and S.E. by S., by compass, of each other. Some other straggling low rocks lie west of the cape, and one south of it; but they are all near the shore. From Christmas Sound to Cape Horn the course is E.S.E 1/4 E., distant thirty-one leagues. In the direction of E.N.E., three leagues from Cape Horn, is a rocky point, which I called Mistaken Cape, and is the southern point of the easternmost of Hermite Isles. Between these two capes there seemed to be a passage directly into Nassau Bay ”

“ The violence of the current, which had set us with so much precipitation to the eastward, together with the force and constancy of the westerly winds, soon taught us to consider the doubling of Cape Horn as an enterprise that might prove too mighty for our efforts, though some amongst us had lately treated the difficulties which former voyagers were said to have met with in this undertaking as little better than chimerical, and had supposed them to arise rather from timidity and unskilfulness than from the real embarrassments of the winds and seas. ”

“ We have now weathered Cape Horn. During eight days since we passed through the Strait of Le Maire, we have been struggling against head winds, and have at length accomplished a task, which might have been performed with a fair wind in ten or twelve hours. Our impatience has been great, and we feel much relieved on finding ourselves beyond the stormy barrier, and with a fair prospect of soon being safely delivered from this region of storms and darkness. There is another little circumstance that adds to our cheerfulness. From the second day since we left Rio we have not seen a single sail. ”

“ The foam-covered water washed about the deck as the ship rolled, and a heavy sea tumbling aboard caused the steward to close the door in a hurry. Then the passengers took a gin-fizz as a night-cap, and turned in.
Chapter III.
Becalmed off Cape Horn!
This may sound paradoxical, but calms do occur, though they are not common. But for indescribable grandeur, and as a manifestation of the powers of nature, there are few things that will compare with a calm in this region.
One degree south of the Horn, on the 57th parallel, there is no land around the whole earth’s surface—not even an island ”

“ No vegetation nor living thing of any kind could be discerned. But a young Bostonian, whom we afterwards saw in Valparaiso, told us he passed so near the shore of some of the land lying at the southern extremity of Patagonia, that he could see the natives, who, he said, were a gigantic people, about eight feet high! He also said they ran along on the shore abreast of his vessel, whooping and yelling at him like a set of ferocious savages. On Sunday following we saw Cape Horn, the most notorious of all places upon the high seas for rough weather and contrary winds. ”

“ The prospecting sloop of the Cape Horn region is usually of the model of the little oyster sloops to be found about the harbor of New York. The hold is stowed full of provisions, tools for mining, and lumber for sluices. Naturally these prospectors carry a much [Pg 25] better supply of food than prospectors elsewhere do. The Rocky Mountain prospectors with their burros must needs be content with meal, beans, bacon, and, perhaps, coffee, but in the Cape Horn region they carry a great variety of stuff in tin cans and Chili claret by the half barrel. ”

“ The sun off Cape Horn is a very sleepy fellow, with none of that inconvenient propensity to early rising that elsewhere interferes so much with our arrangements; he rose about eight, attained a meridian altitude of some twelve degrees, and retired at four. The weather was now cold and squally. Spirts of rain or sleet, or what was still worse, the tops of the waves driven in upon us by the winds, made it almost as hard to remain upon deck as if it had been swept by the fire of a battery. ”

“ In addition to this, the climate is, considering the latitude and the proximity to Cape Horn, marvellously good. The reason for this is, of course, found in the height of the mountain chain, and of the mountainous islands west and south. These fence off the storms that cover the mountains about Ushuaia with ice and snow. A snowfall of six inches is counted deep on the prairies, and if it lies forty-eight hours on the ground the circumstance is remarkable. ”

“ FOR some time I had projected, for the spring of 1867, a voyage to San Francisco, via Cape Horn. My friends advised me, if I wanted to go to California, to take a steamer and go by way of the Isthmus; but, for the novelty of the thing, I determined to take passage on a sailing-ship and double Cape Horn, South America, where the Patagonians live, who eat up all the unfortunate sailors driven on their shores. [It’s a pity Cape Horn should ever be doubled, for there is too much of it now.] ”

“ The width of the Strait of Le Maire is about twenty miles. The length of Staten Land is seventy miles.
June 19. We beat against a head wind yesterday, and made but little progress. To-day we had a specimen of Cape Horn weather. A squall arose in the morning, the most violent we have yet encountered; and the sailors were sent in good haste to shorten sail. Assisted by the [Pg 60] passengers, they soon reduced the canvass to the proper quantity, and our vessel rode out the storm in fine style, and without any damage. But the captain and two of the passengers lost each a hat. ”

“ If they should take their route by Cape Horn, as they will no doubt require to refresh somewhere in their voyage home, they may either stop at Santa Catherina or Rio Janeiro, on the Brazil coast, or go to the Cape; in this case I would recommend the Cape, as more convenient, in more respects than one. If they are sickly, there they may get a supply of men, which it is well known they cannot at either of the other places; and in sailing from the Cape homeward they will have the advantage of being to windward ”

“ They are both in Echo Canon, which is a canon that throws the echo back when you speak very loud. Cape Horn is in California, and is a mountain rising up from the American River about 2500 feet, and has a railroad cut around the side of it. I wish all the readers of the Young People could see all the beautiful things I did last summer.
I will exchange some pretty shells, stones, advertising cards, unpressed sea-moss, or a small piece of petrified wood, for fossils, minerals, stalactites, stalagmites, foreign stamps, old coins, or flint. ”

“ As we drew near to the southern extremity of the American continent, however, we met with heavy weather and foul winds. We were now in the month that corresponds to November in the northern hemisphere, and had to double The Horn at that unpropitious season of the year, going westward. There is no part of the world of which navigators have given accounts so conflicting, as of this celebrated passage. Each man appears to have described it as he found it, himself, while no two seem to have found it exactly alike. I do not remember to have ever heard of calms off Cape Horn ”

“ Your ship cannot double Cape Horn by its excellent plans of voting. The ship may vote this and that, above decks and below, in the most harmonious exquisitely constitutional manner: the ship, to get round Cape Horn, will find a set of conditions already voted for, and fixed with adamantine rigor by the ancient Elemental Powers, who are entirely careless how you vote. If you can, by voting or without voting, ascertain these conditions, and valiantly conform to them, you will get round the Cape: if you cannot, the ruffian Winds will blow you ever back again; ”

“ It is hard work climbing up rocky gulches and declivities under the most favorable circumstances, but when one must face fierce gales of wind and at the same time hew his way through a solid mass of brush covering the whole space to be explored, the task becomes too great even for a Yankee prospector. It never has been accomplished, and possibly it never will be accomplished; but, as they say very often down there, who knows?
There is not a mine camp in all the Cape Horn region south of the strait, though Paramo, with its three buildings, [Pg 24] and say thirty men, is known as a camp. ”

“ I came at last to the little wind-swept divide between Table Mountain and the Lion's Head. Here Capetown was lost to me, and I stood among sandy wastes where thin pines and whin-like bushes grow. And further still was the cold grey sea with the waves breaking on a rocky point and a little island all awash with white water.
Though beyond this divide the air was cold as death, the slopes of Table Mountain sweeping to the sea were full of colour; deep, strong, stern colour. When the sun shines and full summer rules upon the Cape Peninsula the place must be glorious. ”

“ Next day, in fact, we were both of us quietly at anchor outside of the shipping in Table Bay; Cape Town glittering along on the green flat amongst the trees to southward, with the hills on each side of it like some big African lion lying on guard close by; while Table Mountain hove up, square-shouldered, blue to the left, four thousand feet high, as bare and steep as a wall, with the rocks and trees creeping up from the foot, and the wreaths of light cloud resting halfway, like nothing else but the very breakwater of the world's end. ”