But, speaking seriously, what the maritime world thinks of this region is revealed best probably by the nomenclature of the various headlands, islands, bays and capes. A study of the charts presents such names as these: Desolation Island, Point Famine, Famine Reach, Point Mercy, Delusion Bay, Dislocation Harbor, Useless Bay, Disappointment Bay, Spider Island, Corkscrew Bay and Cormorant Island, to say nothing of Snow Sound and Snowy Inlet. Why, the very contemplation of the chart was sufficient to give a landsman the shiverees! The Strait of Magellan is 360 miles long and the width varies from about a mile and a half in the narrowest part to twenty-five miles. The strait is in the form of a letter V with the right part curved down a little at the top and the left part extended above what would be the correct proportion of a well-shaped letter. The short end reaches out into the Atlantic and the long end into the Pacific. The short right end is barren of fine scenery, the grandeur of the hills being reserved for the long or western end. Down at the point of the latter is Cape Froward. Coming from the eastern end there is about fifteen miles of rugged scenery before you make the turn to the northwest. Punta Arenas, or Sandy Point, as the English call this hustling, modern city, is about two-thirds down the eastern side on a broad stretch of water known as Broad Reach. Opposite is Useless Bay, probably so called because it is useless to go over there to find an exit from the strait. It is desirable, almost necessary in fact, to make the run through the strait in daylight. To do this you enter, say, from the east as early in the morning as possible so as to make Punta Arenas by night. Leaving that port you start at night, about midnight. You have about forty-five miles of broad deep water with no difficulties in navigation to Cape Froward, which you reach by daybreak. After that you can go through the western end of the strait by daylight and reach the Pacific about nightfall. The strait has half a dozen lights in it, but in time of fog or fierce snowsqualls these are of little value unless by accident you happen to pick them up. Again the tide races through the strait at the rate of never less than three miles an hour and in some of the narrow places it has a speed of from five to six miles. Where the tides of the Atlantic and Pacific meet there are cross currents and disturbances that catch even the most high-powered ship and swing it here and there, despite careful work of the helmsman. Still hundreds of steamships go through safely every year and a close study of the chart revealed only three places which occasioned anxiety to the fleet officers.