We had all the wind that we wanted yesterday afternoon, though from the westward. It began to blow hard at three o’clock, and at 4.30 the upper fore- and mizzen-top-sails were clewed up; the main-topsail was double-reefed at five; the main-sail was furled at six; at seven the foresail was hauled up, and it was blowing a furious gale. So violent was the wind that all hands were more than an hour and a half making fast the foresail alone. At midnight there wasn’t a breath of wind, and we have ever since floundered about in a heavy swell from several simultaneous directions, and we presented the singular appearance of a ship becalmed under a double-reefed maintop-sail. Of such is the weather in the heart of the Southern Ocean. We have crossed the sixtieth parallel, and at noon we were two hundred and forty miles farther south than Cape Horn; and so silent and desolate is this vast ocean that, like Nansen in the “Fram,” we pursue our journey in deepest solitude, a molecule in this, the largest body of water on the globe. There is no alteration in the dark weather, save that at one this afternoon the sun showed himself for a moment, and I tried to get an ex-meridian, but failed because of the poor horizon. It has now been almost a fortnight since we have had either a chronometer or a meridian sight, and our reckoning is probably far from true. There is always something adverse in taking sights down here; for, if the sun isn’t obscured, a bad horizon makes the correct altitude impossible; and if the sea-rim is well marked, there is sure to be a gale of wind blowing to drench the sextant with spray. Happy is the mariner who can get an accurate observation once every ten days south of Cape Horn, and ships often reach 30° south in the Pacific without a glimpse of the sun. At four yesterday afternoon the heaviness and the oppressiveness and foreboding look of the atmosphere were almost terrible; while the disk of the sun, weak and pale through the mist-squalls, glared down upon the wild scene with sickly eye. Hope has arisen within our breasts, though, with the present southeasterly airs, and perhaps it will not be long now until we are in bright sunshine again, which will dry out everything below. The stove seems powerless to reduce the humidity of the cabin, and the condition of the dining-room is absolutely outrageous. At supper last evening we had a pleasant little diversion. An unexpectedly heavy sea had come up from the northwest, which, catching the ship on the quarter, would heave her over to leeward in tremendous rolls. The supper-bell had rung, and my wife and I had seated ourselves at the table on the weather-side, the cat perching itself between us upon the bench; the skipper and mate had not yet come in.