Well, if you guessed any or all those things you must guess again. None of 'em happened. Of course the winds blew fiercely at times, but they do that every day in the year in the Magellans. Of course the tide rips caught the ships at certain critical places and twisted and turned them somewhat. Of course the rain fell occasionally and now and then shut out from view a most beautiful glacier or snow field just when you wanted to see it most. Of course the clouds obscured the mountain tops from time to time. Of course the currents and tides swept through the various reaches like mill races. Of course a willywaw or two came out and smote us, and of course there was fog. But if you want to know how easily the passage was made let it be said the last thirty miles of it was in a mist that thickened into a dense fog, obscuring the land on both sides completely for hours and only now and then lifting for a moment's revelation of some rock or headland. Yes, the American fleet not only went through the dangerous passage, but it actually sailed through miles and miles of fog in doing so, and it was done in as smart a fashion as if the ships were on the high seas and not in the most fearsome strait in the world, intervals and speed being kept perfectly. After all, even if the men on the fleet pretended to make light of it, the performance was a fine piece of navigation. Admiral Evans has just reason to be proud of it and so have the American people. It couldn't have been done better. There was reason for dread. Hadn't all the timid folk spoken of the terrible risks to be run? Hadn't the superstitious lifted up their voices and pointed out that in the fifty-two wrecks that had occurred in the strait in, say, the last twenty years, exactly twenty-six had been of vessels beginning with the letter C? Didn't we have the Connecticut to lead us? And worse than that, wasn't it the Chilean cruiser Chacabuco which had been sent to Punta Arenas as a national compliment and to act as escort about half a mile in front of the Connecticut? One ship beginning with C was enough, but here were two. That surely was wilful defiance of all the high signs and deep portents. And, then, didn't we start out from Punta Arenas on Friday night at the eleventh hour? Hadn't the moon just gone down, and who knows but that a darky had failed to catch a rabbit over in the graveyard on the beach yonder and so had missed having his left hind leg in his pocket (or whatever the details of that superstition are)? And so there was no adequate guarantee from escaping death and destruction. Certainly it was ticklish business, a task for the ignorant or the foolhardy.