"It agrees with the charts and our reckoning, and I may say it agrees with our eyes also. Here is the Pacific Ocean, plain enough, Mr. Hazard." "So I think, sir, We are at the end of Ameriky, if it _has_ an end anywhere. This heavy long swell is an old acquaintance, though I never was in close enough to see the land, hereabouts, before." "It is fortunate we have one trusty hand on board who can stand pilot. Stimson, I intend to go in and anchor, and I shall trust to you to carry me into a snug berth." "I'll do it, Captain Gar'ner, if the weather will permit it," returned the seaman, with an unpretending sort of confidence that spoke well for his ability. Preparations were now commenced in earnest, to come to. It was time that some steady course should be adopted, as the wind was getting up, and the schooner was rapidly approaching the land. In half an hour the Sea Lion was bending to a little gale, with her canvass reduced to close-reefed mainsail and foresail, and the bonnet off her jib. The sea was fast getting up, though it came in long, and mountain-like. Roswell dreaded the mist. Could he pass through the narrow channels that Stimson had described to him, with a clear sky, one half of his causes of anxiety would be removed. But the wind was not a clear one, and he felt that no time was to be lost. It required great nerve to approach a coast like that of Cape Horn in such weather. As the schooner got nearer to the real cape, the sight of the seas tumbling in and breaking on its ragged rock, and the hollow roaring sound they made, actually became terrific. To add to the awe inspired in the breast of even the most callous-minded man on board, came a doubt whether the schooner could weather a certain point of rock, the western extremity of the island, after she had got so far into a bight as to render waring questionable, if not impossible. Every one now looked grave and anxious. Should the schooner go ashore in such a place, a single minute would suffice to break her to pieces, and riot a soul could expect to be saved. Roswell was exceedingly anxious, though he remained cool. "The tides and eddies about these rocks, and in so high a latitude, sweep a vessel like chips," he said to his chief mate. "We have been set in here by an eddy, and a terrible place it is." "All depends on our gears holding on, sir," was the answer, "with a little on Providence. Just watch the point ahead, Captain Gar'ner; though we are not actually to leeward of it, see with what a drift we have drawn upon it! The manner in which these seas roll in from the sow-west is terrific! No craft can go to windward against them."