It was in the month of April--and that is to say in the fall of the year--that I started on my voyage in the wake of the old-time explorers Magellan, Wallis, Cook, Bougainville, and the others whose names are associated with the Cape Horn region. I had passed the previous summer in the fever-laden atmosphere of Rio Janeiro--had sweltered and fumed under torrid heats and breathed the odors from the streets that are too vile for description until the thoughts of ice floes and of the sweet breath of a gale from off the snow-capped ranges of the far south were like dreams of heaven. But just where I was to go--what points in the Patagonia coast and southward I was to visit--and how I was to make the journey, I did not know. Indeed, when I reached Buenos Ayres, I was half ashamed to make the inquiries which the lack of a guide book made necessary. However, I made bold to confess my ignorance, and eventually learned that the Argentine Government kept three naval transports regularly employed in voyages along the coast to the south, and that one was loading for the voyage. Four days later I piled my baggage into a carriage and drove to the ship. I found the deck thronged with people and littered with baggage. The officers were about in gold-laced uniforms. The people were in holiday attire. A gang of 'longshoremen gathered about the carriage to get at my baggage, but the ship's steward came to my rescue before I had ceased wondering how I could escape, and in a trice everything was on deck and under the eyes of policemen in sailor uniform who guard the docks there. Then I had leisure to look the steamer over in a cursory fashion. Here is what I learned: The name of the ship was that of the capital of Argentine Tierra del Fuego--_Ushuaia_. She had been built in Stockholm as a River Platte lighter, but after some years of service in this humble capacity had been purchased by the Argentine Government and made over for use in carrying troops, supplies, passengers, and freight to and from the various settlements established on the southern coasts in 1884. When the transformation was complete there was a saloon 14x7 feet large and 6 feet high between beams. On each side of the saloon were two state-rooms, of which the forward ones were fitted with four bunks and the others with two bunks. The larger state-rooms had the bunks lying athwartships and the floor space between the bunks was 20 inches wide. In the state-rooms aft the bunks lay fore and aft, and because of the curve in the side of the ship, were narrower at the after end than the forward. There was a little more spare space in these rooms than in the rooms designed for four passengers, however, and so they were to be preferred.