The heavens on this side of the Cape seem to be always clear with a westerly wind, even when blowing a gale; and as the twilights are exceedingly long, the days so far are anything but disagreeable. The dismal, rainy weather will come when we get over beyond the longitude of the Horn. Gradually the sun is getting lower at noon, the altitude to-day being but 14°, while the orb rises at a point about northeast by north and sets in the west-northwest. It is a significant fact that at twelve o’clock to-day we were exactly abreast of the southernmost extremity of the mainland of the world. Cape Horn is generally regarded as this point, but the Horn itself is naught but an island, the farthest south of the great archipelago of Tierra del Fuego; the culminating promontory of South America being Cape Froward in the middle of the Straits of Magellan, one hundred and twenty-two miles north of the Horn. Latitude, 53° 54′ south; longitude, 66° 6′ west. +July 10+ All night we have been lying off and on under shelter of the coast, waiting for a favorable slant. Under easy sail, the lower topsails and foresail, we approach to within six or eight miles of the land; and then wearing round, stand to the northward for twenty miles or so, repeating the manœuvre slowly, never making more than two miles an hour. The wind still holds to the westward, blowing a moderate gale, but with perfectly smooth water here where we are. On the other hand, outside it is doubtless blowing a hard gale with a heavy sea; as the skipper put it, “Outside it’s a regular Cape Horn snorter. I lay in here six days with a westerly gale three years ago. All ships, you know, lie in here when the wind is like this till they get a slant. You see, if we went outside now, while we could get to the s’uth’ard all right, to-morrow at noon we’d likely be a hundred miles to the east’ard of where we are now. As for goin’ through Le Mar, I wouldn’t try it with the wind to the north’ard of nor’west.”