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 violence of the western gales, are less sensible in lat. 61 deg. or 62 deg.  S. than nearer the coasts of Terra del Fuego.

Though satisfied, both from our own experience and the relations of other navigators, of the importance of the precept here insisted on, of proceeding to lat. 61 deg. or 62 deg.  S. before any endeavours are made to stand to the westwards, yet I would also advise all ships hereafter not to trust so far to this management as to neglect another most essential maxim:  Which is, to make this passage in the height of the antarctic summer, or, in other words, in the months of December and January, which correspond exactly to the months of June and July in our northern