soon as possible, so little agreeable were those rocks to the view, even
in the case of people who had been some months at sea! And by the help
of a land breeze we succeeded in gaining an offing. While becalmed here,
we measured the velocity of the current setting east, which we found to
be about three miles an hour.

The wind soon changed again to the S.S.W., and blew a gale. We had to
beat. We passed in sight of the islands of Diego Ramirez, and saw a
large schooner under their lee. The distance that we had run from New
York, was about 9,165 miles. We had frightful weather till the 24th,
when we found ourselves in 58° 16' of south latitude. Although it was
the height of summer in that hemisphere, and the days as long as they
are at Quebec on the 21st of June (we could read on deck at midnight
without artificial light), the cold was nevertheless very great and the
air very humid: the mercury for several days was but fourteen degrees
above freezing point, by Fahrenheit's thermometer. If such is the
temperature in these latitudes at the end of December, corresponding to
our June, what must it be in the shortest days of the year, and where
can the Patagonians then take refuge, and the inhabitants of the islands
so improperly named the Land of Fire!

The wind, which till the 24th had been contrary, hauled round to the
south, and we ran westward. The next day being Christmas, we had the
satisfaction to learn by our noon-day observation that we had weathered
the cape, and were, consequently, now in the Pacific ocean. Up to that
date we had but one man attacked with scurvy, a malady to which those
who make long voyages are subject, and which is occasioned by the
constant use of salt provisions, by the humidity of the vessel, and the
inaction.