CHAPTER III. Becalmed off Cape Horn! This may sound paradoxical, but calms do occur, though they are not common. But for indescribable grandeur, and as a manifestation of the powers of nature, there are few things that will compare with a calm in this region. One degree south of the Horn, on the 57th parallel, there is no land around the whole earth’s surface—not even an island; and this is the primary reason why the largest waves to be found anywhere are met with in this locality. Here, unchecked and unconfined, they sweep entirely around the globe; gathering strength and size as they move on, with nothing to bar their resistless march or to make them swerve aside even a hair’s breadth. Lashed into fury by a gale, these waves are sufficiently remarkable, but they are then in such a state of turmoil as to destroy all regularity, making it impossible to tell where one begins and another ends. So, strangely enough, it is in a dead calm that one is more nearly able to conceive of their vast proportions. These periods generally follow a hard westerly gale, and then it is a sight no words can depict, to stand upon a vessel’s deck and watch the approach of those vast walls of water; each one sharply defined, and wonderfully regular in form. From the base of one to the base of the next following is frequently a space of one thousand feet—a great valley, which, contrasted with the long hills on either side, gives one some idea of the magnitude of these waves. Such a condition of things prevailed on the day after the equinoctial hurricane. The _Sagamore_ had not even steerage way, and lay broadside on to the heavy swell, rolling as only a vessel can roll in a Cape Horn calm. The great blue hills came on slowly but regularly; and each one, as it came beneath the ship, lifted her up on its crest as though she had been a feather, instead of a vessel three hundred feet long, drawing twenty-six feet of water, and with four thousand tons of railroad iron and other heavy stuff in her hold. Then, as it passed on, there was a rattling of blocks and the heavy reports of canvas banged against the rigging, as the _Sagamore_ slid down the side of the hill with her decks at an angle of fifty degrees.