There was now an apparent lull in the gale, but it was not for long. At daylight the _Sagamore_ entered a “tide-rip” whose waters, lashed into fury by the gale, presented an awful spectacle. The ocean resembled a gigantic mill-race; the tide flowing one way, while a swift current set in the opposite direction, forming a whirlpool. Huge waves came from all directions at once, pouring tons of water on the main deck and forecastle. Progress was well-nigh impossible, but the captain kept resolutely on, knowing that the ship’s only salvation lay in running through the tide-rip before she should be hurled upon her side by some sea more mountainous than the rest. This nearly happened once when a towering wave half as high as the fore yard broke on board, staving in the heavy door of the galley and flooding the interior, washing everything movable from the decks; while the ship went over, and over, and over, till her yard-arms almost touched the water, and her decks were like the sloping roof of a house. But the crisis was safely passed, and the maelstrom left behind. The gale blew itself out during the forenoon, the sky cleared, the sun shone brightly through the clear frosty atmosphere, and land was visible from the deck. Land! If you have never been so situated that for many weeks your eyes have not beheld a solitary foot of ground you can hardly appreciate the emotions of all on board the _Sagamore_ as they looked on that bleak and forbidding promontory rising out of the mist—Cape St. John. A few hours later, the ship was opposite the treacherous straits of Lemaire, and very near the shore. The entire length of Staten Land from Cape St. John on the east to Cape St. Bartholomew on the west, was stretched out like a grand panorama; forty miles of low mountains, jagged rocks, and broken valleys, without a sign of animal or vegetable life, and with naught save great patches of snow to relieve its black nakedness. The straits of Lemaire separate this body of land from Tierra del Fuego, and on the latter might now be seen Bell Mountain,—a distant but lofty peak, on whose snow-capped summit the sun shone in wintry splendor.