of shipmasters who had made forty voyages around the Horn and had
never once had the luck to win through the straits. The regular
passage is far to the east around Staten Island, which means a loss
of westing, and here, at the tip of the world, where the great west
wind, unobstructed by any land, sweeps round and around the narrow
girth of earth, westing is the thing that has to be fought for mile
by mile and inch by inch. The Sailing Directions advise masters on
the Horn passage: Make Westing. WHATEVER YOU DO, MAKE WESTING.

When we emerged from the straits in the early afternoon the same
steady breeze continued, and in the calm water under the lee of
Tierra del Fuego, which extends south-westerly to the Horn, we
slipped along at an eight-knot clip.

Mr. Pike was beside himself. He could scarcely tear himself from the
deck when it was his watch below. He chuckled, rubbed his hands, and
incessantly hummed snatches from the Twelfth Mass. Also, he was
voluble.

"To-morrow morning we'll be up with the Horn. We'll shave it by a
dozen or fifteen miles. Think of it! We'll just steal around! I
never had such luck, and never expected to. Old girl Elsinore,
you're rotten for'ard, but the hand of God is at your helm."

Once, under the weather cloth, I came upon him talking to himself.
It was more a prayer.

"If only she don't pipe up," he kept repeating. "If only she don't
pipe up."