The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-05-07
AT CAPE HORN,
HE TIP OF THE SOUTHERN
 HEMISPHERE.
Land of storms and Darkness-Use-
 full Missionaries.

RAeA~k- !, choose this far-away Fire Land,' be lre to time your arrival in April, May June, the autumn months of this To- ahlity, which, though cold as Green 4nd's icy mountains, are infinitely pre- rable to the slightly warmer but much letter summer time. In fact, there are Asw localities on the face of the earth Rhich have less of summer time than his. August and September are the orst months of the year, sure to be at snded by terrific gales and ceaseless Forms of sleet and snow.
 Though fogs are rare on the Fuegoan Dast, the sun shows himself only at llre intervals, the finest weather being |hat seamen call ''muggy," that is, kercast and cloudy. That is one req bn why, search as you may, scarcely Picture can be found representing any sbrtion of this archipelago because kere is hardly an hour from year to Ear clear enough to make a photo- faph. When Magellan and his men fled through the Straits, nearly four lndred years ago, they named the is- nds on their left T1erra del Fuego- Hand of F'ire'-on account of the in- lmerable little fires that sprang up all bong the coast at nightfall; for, as now, e Indians of those days kept them lives from freezing by huddling over nited brush heaps Had they called le country Tierra del Agua-'Land of (ater," instead, the name would have fen more appropriate, because while les are maintained with difficulty, wa 8r is the bane of the islands, falling % %'Rntinually in rain or snow, rushing twn every declivity, or standing in 2 agnant pools, forming swamps in ev- " level place, making peat bogs of lery hillside and keeping the knee aep moss that covers the rocks satura- Id like sponges. So excessively cold lthe climate that even in midsummer, Scording to the almanac. people hay len lost in the snow and frozen to |ath few hundred feet above sea- vel.
 Sailing down toward Cape Horn in a luth- westerly course, it is difficult to |lieve that the high, rugged, wintry last is not an unbroken continent, in- ead of vast plain of close-lying is- nds. A nearer view discloses inlet af- \ inlet, intersecting the land in every rection, opening into larger gulfs and unds behind the seaward islands. ough Magellan's records show that he speeted some of the inlets might be annels running through to the ocean, did not explore any of them, and for hny years 1t was supposed that the nerican continent was terminated by single great island. It remained for ter surveys to prove that there are ndreds of islands of as many sizes d fantastic shapes, separated from k#e another by deep and dangerous rds and perfect labyrinth of sounds, hts and inlets.
 The one large island which the early rtugese voyagers dubbed Land of te,'' is now known as King Charles uth Land, or Eastern Tierra del Fue-
 and the houndry line between Ar htine's possessions and those of Chili hs straight down through the middle, ls dividing it half and half between bse rival powers. There are half a len other islands of considerable size, eh larger than Cyprus, Crete or any the Philippine group, larger indeed In most of the West Indies; besides umerable smaller ones, some of them ng nothing but great rocks lifting ir bald heads out of the sea. All of i'm are mountains of more or less gnitude, and are evidently a contin- ion of the great Andean chain, their ersecting channels, including the ait itself, being gorges and ravines ich the ocean has overflowed Rwed in this light, the mighty Andes y far the largest chain of mountains the globe-really terminate at Staat- Island, an island lying considerably ther to the southeast than even Cape Tn. By the way, the celebrated aits do not run, as most people sup. Be, in an almost direct line east and st between the two oceans. Entering m the Atlantic the ship first runs re south than west, until about hali NM through the channel, when she { M st head almost at right angle tc M former course, and keep in that di- tion, due northeast, until sht erges into the Pacific. Thus, as vol the Strait forms an angle near tht Idle, Cape Froward being the pro ting point, and the most southerly
 of land on the continent. Below the Fuegoan islands stretch foul hdred miles northwest and south
 t, between Capes Pillar and Horn
 about two hundred and twenty
 es east and west: while southwark Eapers to little more than hundred
 es between the Horn and Staten Is
 d. Most of the islands rise straigh
 out of the water, from one thousand
 live thousand feet toward the lower
 sky, without any intervening foot
 Is, and are covered with eternal snow
 in this far southland, as in coun
 Is an equal distance north of tn,
 uator the line of perpetual winte
 ins not far above sea-level. It il
 Id to believe the statements of tray
 Is that beyond those forbidding hill
 re are rich valleys and grassy plains
 les. rivers and beautiful scenery-il
 rt, that "every prospect pleases ant
 man is vile' in the interior of Kim
 arles' domain. Strange to say, tn