From a northeast 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 only those who have 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.  Beside 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.  For these various reasons the excitement in our little community was running high, and conjectures were made, and everything thought of for which the captain would hail, when the man aloft sung out—­ ``Another sail, large on the weather bow!’’ This was a little odd, but so much the better, and did not shake our faith in their being sails.  At length the man in the top hailed, and said he believed it was land, after all. ``Land in your eye!’’ said the mate, who was looking through the telescope; ``they are ice islands, if I can see a hole through a ladder’’; and a few moments showed the mate to be right; and all our expectations fled; and instead of what we most wished to see we had what we most dreaded, and what we hoped we had seen the last of.  We soon, however, left these astern, having passed within about two miles of them, and at sundown the horizon was clear in all directions.

Having a fine wind, we were soon up with and passed the latitude of the Cape, and, having stood far enough to the southward to give it a wide berth, we began to stand to the eastward, with a good prospect of being round and steering to the northward, on the other side, in a very few days.  But ill luck seemed to have lighted upon us.  Not four hours had we been standing on in this course before it fell dead calm, and in half an hour it clouded up, a few straggling blasts, with spits of snow and sleet, came from the eastward, and in an hour more we lay hove-to under