Dec. 14. At eight and a half o’clock, P. M. it is light enough on
deck to read small print. The day breaks at two, and there is a long
morning twilight; the sun rises at four. We have to-day passed 50° S.
This is the beginning of the Cape Horn region.
To-day we have been running seven knots with a fair wind, and going in
toward the coast, for several nautical reasons. At four P. M. we saw
a dense cloud forming and in half an hour there came a heavy rain and
fresh breeze, the ship going twelve knots, so fast that we shortened
sail lest we should get out of the line of the Straits of Lemaire and
run too near the Falkland Islands. The captain’s plan of steering for
the coast proved as he expected, for now the southwest wind would have
set us too far east.