At ten we opened out Cape Spencer, a magnificent headland at the southern end of Hermite Island, and an hour later sighted Horn Island for the second time, bearing northeast true, distant eighteen miles. It was the first really good look we had had at the Horn, and the world-famous rock presented quite a formidable appearance, being five hundred feet in height, though lacking the majestic dignity of Cape Spencer, which lies twenty-five miles west-northwest of it. Indeed, there is no particular landmark about it to cause Horn Island to stand forth from the surrounding crags. Many people imagine that the Cape was so called from its resemblance to a horn, but this is a mistake. The proper name is Cape Hoorn, which was given it in 1616 by the Dutch navigator Schouten, in honor of his native town in Flanders. On the other hand, False Cape Horn, about fifty miles northwest of the true cape, at the extremity of Hardy Peninsula, bears a remarkable likeness to an inverted curved cornucopia, and also a resemblance to the fantastic Cape Split in the Bay of Fundy, at the entrance to the Minas Basin. It was our cherished desire to photograph Horn Island, but we were prevented by the disadvantageous conditions; so far as known, it has been photographed but once, and that by Captain Rivers of the American ship “A. G. Ropes,” who, a short time since, when bound to the westward, sailed boldly in to within a few miles and, during a bright spell of weather, was enabled to obtain a photograph of the great Cape. This is the second time that we have been west of the Horn, if only a few miles, and here we go back again to the eastward on the starboard tack, with the wind a strong breeze from southwest by south. We are steering about south-southeast and the variation makes it south, which would be passable were it not for the leeway and current, so that, in spite of the variation, south-southeast is our actual course. Good-by for a few days, friend Horn; perhaps we’ll pay you another visit in a week or so. Indeed, the most satisfactory manner of ascertaining one’s exact position down here after a week or two of gales and dark weather is to set out and look for Cape Horn, which will no doubt be found in two or three days, take a fresh departure from it, and then away south again. This is actually what we have been doing, only we missed the Cape this last time, but found an equally satisfactory landmark in Spencer; if a ship-master can calculate his longitude to within a degree (about thirty-five miles) in the midst of all these currents, he is a shrewd navigator. By the way, what appropriate names have been given to various portions of wild and comfortless Tierra del Fuego; on the chart now before me appear such appellations peculiarly distinctive of this region: Last Hope Inlet, Desolation Island, Dislocation Harbor, Obstruction Sound, Famine Reach, Deceit Rocks.