[1] See Note B, Appendix. Sailors since Magellan, by Joe, have talked about the storms around Cape Horn. Sea stories usually have something about the tough times rounding the Cape. I had seen those storms myself when I had sailed in the forecastle, and as a naval officer I had many a time told tales to my brother officers of gales and tempests I had witnessed in an old windjammer rounding Horn. But our trip this voyage was to be the most unusual of all. If the storms held us back, the cruisers would be almost certain to catch us. We had sailed south in fine time, and if we made a quick passage round that boisterous tip of South America, we might slip into the wide Pacific and continue our raids. Well, we ran into the dirtiest weather off the Horn, gales and hurricanes. Why, there were days when even with our motor running we could make no headway at all. It took us three weeks to beat our way through the gales and around the point. By that time, the cruisers lay there in wait for us, not just one or two, but a whole half dozen of them. Ordinarily, a sailing ship tries to hug Cape Horn as closely as it can, keeping quite near land. If you veer too far to the south, you run into icebergs. Navigating among icebergs with the wind whistling through your rigging is enough to give any skipper the chills. So the storms had held us up, and now our best chance probably would be to steer as wide a course to the south as possible, whether safe or not. The mountains of ice were there, and a hurricane was blowing. But we considered the ice the lesser of two evils. The British watch to the far south was bound to be less vigilant than up nearer the Cape. We must try to sail around them. So, ho for the Antarctic! On our way through the blockade, we had steered into the Arctic. Now here we were heading into the Antarctic. To make it pleasant, by Joe, the weather, which had been quite decent to us on the way south, changed in order to give us a regular Cape Horn welcome. It turned into a veritable hurricane. Nevertheless, we were determined to carry as much sail as possible. Risky, but we had to take chances in the hope of getting through. As the tempest increased, not even the _Seeadler_ dared carry more than a rag or two of lower sail. With this we tried to hold our way. Through the mist we saw a great wall. It came moving toward us. A vast wall of white, an iceberg. The wind was driving this white spectre through the water, and we had to veer off in order to avoid collision. To the north were the cruisers, and here, but a few hundred yards away, an equally relentless enemy bearing down upon us, as though determined to turn us into the arms of our pursuers. A shout to the helmsman. Determined as we were to go no farther north, we knew we could do no more than hug the Antarctic ice field.