home, notwithstanding the desolation of the scene, we struck up ``Cheerly, men!’’ in full chorus.  This pleased the mate, who rubbed his hands and cried out, ``That’s right, my boys; never say die!  That sounds like the old crew!’’ and the captain came up, on hearing the song, and said to the passenger, within hearing of the man at the wheel, ``That sounds like a lively crew.  They’ll have their song so long as there’re enough left for a chorus!’’

This preparation of the cable and anchors was for the passage of the straits; for, as they are very crooked, and with a variety of currents, it is necessary to come frequently to anchor.  This was not, by any means, a pleasant prospect; for, of all the work that a sailor is called upon to do in cold weather, there is none so bad as working the ground-tackle.  The heavy chain cables to be hauled and pulled about decks with bare hands; wet hawsers, slip-ropes, and buoy-ropes to be hauled aboard, dripping in water, which is running up your sleeves, and freezing; clearing hawse under the bows; getting under way and coming-to at all hours of the night and day, and a constant lookout for rocks and sands and turns of tides,—­ these are some of the disagreeables of such a navigation to a common sailor.  Fair or foul, he wants to have nothing to do with the ground-tackle between port and port.  One of our hands, too, had unluckily fallen upon a half of an old newspaper which contained an account of the passage, through the straits, of a Boston brig, called, I think, the Peruvian, in which she lost every cable and anchor she had, got aground twice, and arrived at Valparaiso in distress.  This was set off against the account of the A. J. Donelson, and led us to look forward with less confidence to the passage, especially as no one on board had ever been through, and we heard that the captain had no very satisfactory charts.  However, we were spared any further experience on the point; for the next day, when we must have been near the Cape of Pillars, which is the southwest point of the mouth of the straits, a gale set in from the eastward, with a heavy fog, so that we could not see half the ship’s length ahead.  This, of course, put an end to the project for the present; for a thick fog and a gale blowing dead ahead are not the most favorable circumstances for the passage of difficult and dangerous straits.  This weather, too, seemed likely to last for some time, and we could not think of beating about the mouth of the straits for a week or two, waiting for a favorable opportunity; so we braced up on the larboard tack, put the ship’s head due south, and stuck her off for Cape Horn again.

[1] The cook’s title in all vessels.

[2] The proportions of the ingredients of the tea that was made for us (and ours, as I have before stated, was a favorable specimen of American merchantmen) were a pint of tea and a pint and a half of molasses to about three gallons of water.  These are all boiled down together in the ``coppers,’’ and, before serving it out, the mess is stirred up with a stick, so as to give each man his fair share of sweetening and tea-leaves.  The tea for the cabin is, of course, made in the usual way, in a teapot, and drunk with sugar.