The new order of progress was now inaugurated, and we were having our long spell in port at the New Zealand end. In all we had six weeks there, but we left for home in the middle of February, and then I had to face the music. I knew the _Doric_ was to sail the day after us, therefore I was loth to lose the time involved by the passage of the Straits, for the _Doric_ and _Kaikoura_ always ran very jealously of one another, and I was confident our rival would stick to the great circle. I also knew that if she once caught sight of us we should never hear the last of it, for Captain Jennings, who was my very great friend, never lost an opportunity of impressing upon me the immense superiority of the _Doric_ and White Star fashions generally. With this I naturally disagreed, although Jennings himself was one of the finest specimens of an old seaman it was possible to come across. As we drew down towards the Horn the questions with which I was plied concerning the Straits and my intentions grew more and more pointed. We had a fine fair wind, and I was loth to lose its benefit, but as it became eventually a personal matter I shifted my helm for the Straits and was fortunate enough to make them at daybreak, so that I had a really long day’s run in front of me. Needless to say, my passengers were delighted, for the scenery, if wild, was very magnificent, and to tell the truth I enjoyed the trip myself, now that I had had a reasonable excuse for losing time. There was no difficulty in navigating so long as one could see, but in that locality the weather changes with great suddenness and one watches it carefully from hour to hour. We passed the remains of more than one big steamer, stranded and deserted. Some speculation took place as to what the fate of their crews had been, for at that time the natives of Tierra del Fuego were cannibals. We were fortunate, and anchored at Sandy Point about nine in the evening, just after dark. We started at daybreak again, and carried a fair tide through the narrows, and that being so we raced past the land at the speed of a railway train, the current running perhaps nine knots, and the water one mass of boiling impetuosity. When we were past Cape Virgins that afternoon I sat down to play a rubber of whist with very great equanimity. We reached Rio in due course one morning, but coaling was very slow and detained us until late in the afternoon of the next day, by which time, as I anticipated, our friend the _Doric_ had made her appearance, and I knew that for all eternity Jennings and his crowd would relate how they caught up the _Kaikoura_.