Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.1): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

PASSAGE EASTWARD THROUGH THE STRAIT. 471 evening. Fish may also be obtained with the seine at any other place where there are rivers. Freshwater Bay and Port Gallant are equally productive. On the outer coast of Tierra del Fuego an excellent fish may be caught in the kelp. The advantage which a ship will derive from passing through the Strait, from the Pacific to the Atlantic is very great ; and it ought to be great to induce the seaman to en- tangle his ship with the land when fair winds and an open sea are before him. After passing through the Strait, the prevailing winds being westerly, and more frequently from the northward than from the southward of west, they are fair for his running up the coast ; or if not, the ship is not liable to receive much injury from the sea, which is comparatively smooth ; whereas, to a ship passing round the Horn, if the wind be north-west she must go to the eastward of the Falk- land Islands, and be exposed to strong gales and a heavy beam sea, and hug the wind to make her northing. To a , small vessel the advantage is incalculable ; for, besides filling her hold with wood and water, she is enabled to escape the severe weather that so constantly reigns in the higher latitudes of the South Atlantic Ocean. Coming from the northward, it will be advisable to keep an offing until the western entrance of the Strait is well under the lee, to avoid being thrown upon the coast to the northward of Cape Victory, which is rugged and inhospitable, and, forming as it were a breakwater to the deep rolling swell of the ocean, is for some miles off fringed by a cross hollow sea almost amounting to breakers. The land of Cape Victory is high and rugged, and much broken ; and if the weather be not very thick, will be seen long before the Evangelists, which are not visible above the horizon, from a ship's deck, for more than four or five leagues.* Pass to the southward of them, and steer for Cape Pillar, * From the Adventure's deck, the eye being thirteen feet above the water, they were seen on the horizon at the distanoe of fourteen miles.