It seems very odd that we have as yet met no homeward-bounders, as we have been several times right in their track; the skipper says, however, that there are doubtless a dozen vessels within a radius of fifty miles, all bound to the westward. Latitude, 57° 25′ south; longitude, 60° 5′ west. +July 21+ “Land close aboard on the lee-quarter, sir,” was the startling information that the mate called down the companion-way about daylight, as we sat down to breakfast this morning. It didn’t take the captain more than three or four seconds to reach the deck, and we heard him cry savagely, “All hands wear ship; lively now, lively.” And none too soon, for there on the lee beam lay Hermite Island only three or four miles away. This is one of a cluster known as the Hermite Islands, being seven in number altogether; they form the culminating group of the Tierra del Fuegian archipelago, of which Cape Horn is the southernmost. We must have made more westing than the captain had estimated, for he had just remarked that we ought to see the Horn again at nine o’clock. Of course we wore as quickly as the stiffened arms of the men would permit, and for quite a long while, in a dismal rain, we ran down parallel with these dreary shores, on which we would have struck had daylight been a couple of hours later. If our position of yesterday wasn’t a false one, we did phenomenally well during the past twenty-four hours, for the land that we first saw this morning, and which the skipper recognized at once, is eighty miles west of yesterday’s position. But, good gracious! we were at noon to-day within eight miles of where we were last Friday in the heavy gale! The latitude was exactly the same and we were eight miles farther west. Eight miles in five days. How does that sound? And every day of it fight, fight, fight against head-winds varying from a moderate to a whole gale. In truth, the famous Cape weather is being administered in heroic doses. Personally, I don’t mind it in the least; weeks or even months of it, if necessary, would be quite immaterial to me; but the interior of the cabin is so abominably uncomfortable for my wife, bar our own room, that for this reason I want to get out of it as quickly as possible. This gloomy weather, too, is dreadfully trying for her, as it is too dark to read below without a lamp at even the brightest part of the day.