On the sixteenth day the weather cleared up a little and the sun came out, and an observation was got, which showed that the ship had been carried into the vicinity before described. For once the sturdy old whale-killer had got drifted away from his course. But he declared it was all owing to the sea getting tipsy, the compasses getting tipsy, the chronometers getting tipsy, and the sun keeping himself rolled up in a blanket. You could'nt, he said, get a ship to look the wind in the eye when all the elements were tipsy. He was a lucky mariner who could get round Cape Horn without being tossed off his feet for a month--everything seemed to stagger so. The wind now changed suddenly and blew as fiercely from the opposite direction, and the cold increased. The ship was at once got on her course for the straits, her reefs were shook out, and she bowled over the sea at the rate of nine knots. Still the sky continued black and cloudy, and the horizon misty and dim. The sea ran high, and broke and surged, filling the air with a cold, cutting spray, while the ship labored and strained in every timber. Have you, my gentle reader, ever seen the broad ocean in an angry mood on a cold, pitiless winter day, when the horizon was hung with cold, penetrating mist, when all overhead was black with fleeting clouds, when the seas broke in their fury and threatened to destroy the frail bark under your feet, and when rain, hail, and snow alternately swept through the atmosphere, like showers of keen-pointed arrows--have you, I say, ever contemplated this sublime and impressive scene without acknowledging within yourself how omnipotent was God, and how feeble and insignificant a thing was man? There is, perhaps, no other place in the world where Nature so combines all her elements to give an emphatic expression to the power and reality of the Divinity, as in the vicinity of this famous old Cape. The bold, rugged headlands of Patagonia were sighted on the morning of the 4th of December. The wind had subsided a little, but a strong current was setting through the straits, and short, sharp seas, such as are experienced in the Bay of Fundy, indicated the ship's position as clearly as if a good observation had been got. Snow and ice nearly covered the ship, and the men continued to suffer from the cold. There was a feeling of encouragement now that the ship would round the Cape without any further trouble. But before noon a violent snow storm set in, and the bold, bleak hills of Patagonia disappeared from sight. The wind, too, veered ahead again and increased, and the ship had to be headed for the coast of Terra del Fuego, on the other tack.