From A North-East Course We Gradually Hauled To The Eastward, And
After Sailing About Two Hundred Miles, Which Brought
Us as near to
the western coast of Terra del Fuego as was safe, and having lost
sight of the
Ice altogether, - for the third time we put the ship's
head to the southward, to try the passage of the Cape. The weather
continued clear and cold, with a strong gale from the westward,
and we were fast getting up with the latitude of the Cape, with a
prospect of soon being round. One fine afternoon, a man who had
gone into the fore-top to shift the rolling tackles, sung out, at
the top of his voice, and with evident glee, - "Sail ho!" Neither
land nor sail had we seen since leaving San Diego; and any one who
has traversed the length of a whole ocean alone, can imagine what
an excitement such an announcement produced on board. "Sail ho!"
shouted the cook, jumping out of his galley; "Sail ho!" shouted
a man, throwing back the slide of the scuttle, to the watch below,
who were soon out of their berths and on deck; and "Sail ho!"
shouted the captain down the companion-way to the passenger in
the cabin. Besides the pleasure of seeing a ship and human beings
in so desolate a place, it was important for us to speak a vessel,
to learn whether there was ice to the eastward, and to ascertain the
longitude; for we had no chronometer, and had been drifting about
so long that we had nearly lost our reckoning, and opportunities
for lunar observations are not frequent or sure in such a place as
Cape Horn.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 476 of 618
Words from 130670 to 130954
of 170236
