the crests that one is conscious of the height of the seas. From existing indications we are going to make quite a good bit of easting during the next twenty-four hours, for our course now is south-southeast, and as there is a strong easterly current running ceaselessly here, southeast will be nearer the true course. At noon we were thirteen miles north of Cape Horn, but still considerably to the eastward of it. Latitude, 55° 46′ south; longitude, 65° 48′ west. +July 15+ Last evening we prepared for a dirty night, and we got it. As the captain and I were pacing the poop after supper, the moon then shining brightly in a clear sky, suddenly, from a bank in the southwest, so low and thin as to be almost invisible, there appeared a streak of light. “Wasn’t that a flash of lightning?” asked the captain. “I think it was,” said I; “it certainly looked like it.” “H’m,” said the skipper. Closely we watched the southern horizon, and within ten minutes perceived two more brilliant flashes. A more uncanny effect it would be difficult to imagine; for, except the insignificant stratum near the sea-line, no other cloud was visible in the heavens, and the vivid streaks produced a startling effect in the white moonlight. After a look at the glass, which stood at 29.15, the captain called the second mate, who was on watch, and ordered the upper foretop-sail clewed up and a reef tied in the foresail; the upper mizzentop-sail hasn’t been set for some time, as it generally comes in when the cross-jack is hauled up. The wind at the moment was from the west, force 6, a strong breeze, with that deep swell that seems to be as eternal in the Southern Ocean as the snows of Mount Everest. Quickly, though strangely imperceptibly, some small, windy-looking clouds grew and expanded over the heavens; and from eight last evening until daylight this morning it was a night of furious squalls, thick snow and hail, and high seas. Throughout the twelve hours we were under a single-reefed maintop-sail, ditto foresail and main-sail and the spencer. During the fifteen or twenty minutes that the squalls lasted the wind blew with terrific force and shrieked like a thousand steam sirens in the rigging, and then would follow a light spell, in which we might have carried everything.