We looked in vain with the glasses for the little steamer which makes regular, monthly trips to the Falkland Islands and at times even to Montevideo; but she was not visible, and was no doubt away on one of her voyages. A truly turbulent life in one sense this one on the little vessel, but hardly so dreary as the lives of the seal-fishers who winter at St. John, which is, I believe, the southernmost permanent settlement on the globe, and from October to April penetrate deep into the Southern Ocean in pursuit of their livelihood. Two strange, natural formations attract the attention far out on Cape St. John. The first is a mass of gray rock perched upon the very brim of a vertical cliff, almost overhanging the surf that boils furiously around it, bearing a striking resemblance to an ancient feudal castle; and one can see, as it were, the high walls with heavy battlements, and the lofty crenellated towers of the massive edifice. The second object is another monolith so closely resembling the Sphinx that one starts on first catching sight of it, for it seems impossible that mere chance could produce so accurate a counterpart of the famous Egyptian monument. Well, we have seen Staten Land almost in its entirety; and if we didn’t have the satisfaction of passing through the Le Maire Straits, we went a third of the distance in last Sunday morning; and we have beheld the cape and settlement of St. John, where the scenery is, if possible, even grander and more desolate than at the western end. How odd it is, by the way, if Cape St. Anthony, near the straits, should have been so called from the temptation that possesses mariners to pass through instead of going around the island, thereby often incurring great risk! On issuing into the open sea we fell into a tide-rip caused by the swift currents meeting at the point of the land, this rip being at times so heavy as to fill the decks of large ships. A number of hail-squalls descended upon us here, and as the land at noontime had grown very dim, at that hour we had what I fear was our last glimpse of the sorrowful hills of Staten Land.