As we quickly dropped Diego Ramirez on the quarter, we went below at noon for our dinner. The day was incredibly fine for that season and we made the most of it. We were then tearing past the south point and would soon get some northing into the course. Cape Horn lay far below the horizon to the north, and from the progress we were making we had hopes of establishing a record, for the _Fuller_ at least. We had made the run from Honolulu to Diego Ramirez in forty-five days; as a matter of advance information to the reader, it took us sixty-three days more to sail from Ramirez to the Delaware Capes, our passage as a whole merely proving a very fair one of one hundred and eight days, against one hundred and twenty-one on the passage out. This difference of thirteen days in favor of going east can be attributed to the westerly winds off Cape Horn. From this it will be seen that the ship _A. J. Fuller_ was not the fastest craft afloat, and yet she was far from being the slowest. The sail ahead of us proved to be a Norwegian bark. We came up to her in handsome style, our ensign snapping from the monkey gaff, and as her colors went up, we "dipped" in the long graceful salute of the sea. The bark made her number and asked to be reported. She was droughing along at a slow pace under reefed main upper tops'l, lower tops'ls, and reefed fores'l, showing a leg-o'-mutton sail on the mizzen. We were then under all plain sail to royals, and must have made a glorious picture to the sailors lining the sides of the square-head craft. Moments like that make one tingle with pride at the sight of the colors, a sort of pride that seldom comes to those who sail under the flag in these degenerate days. From Diego Ramirez we shaped a course to take us well clear of Staten Land; the familiar sound of this name was like home, and I found myself talking about it in the dog watch with peculiar relish. Old Smith of starboard joined us, and told of having run through the Strait of Le Maire on the passage to the eastward. This is safe enough, though careful skippers like Captain Nichols prefer the wider reaches of the Atlantic to the Le Maire Strait, dividing Staten Land from the larger island of Terra del Fuego. As we brought the wind about two points abaft the port beam, the sky started to thicken and during the early watches of the night we were again treated to real Cape Horn weather. At midnight we took in the lighter canvas, reefing the main t'gans'l. By eight bells in the midwatch we had her staggering under reefed fore and main upper tops'ls, lower tops'ls and reefed fores'l, fore topmast stays'l, and reefed spanker. We were making heavy weather of it, the seas dashing high over the fo'c'sle head as she buried her nose whenever a big roller tumbled in under the counter.