The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-05-07

farther from the equator one voyages down the western side of the archlpela- go, the less snow he sees, and finally, where the weather ought to be coldest, lit disappears altogether, giving place on the heights fronting the ocean to som- Der forests of evergreens, or rather ever yellows, the livery of antarctic beeches. This lack of snow, where snow is most expected is due to prevailing western winds, which come laden with moisture from over the linitless Pacific, melting the snow as it falls.
 Seen from a distance there is nothing Horn, or Hoorn, whose celebrated cape Iespecially striking about the island or lis nearest to the south pole of any dis covered land, as it is the stormiest and most dreaded by mariners. But inter est increases with nearer view of the high, bleak cliffs that form the soutn- ern promontory, which, towering to a height of fifteen hundred feet, can be distinguished from the decks of vessels fifty miles away. Close by is a little group of islands-Hermito, high and lrugged Wallaston, Herschel and De- ceit, whose mountains rise in sharp lpeaks from one thousand to three thou Isand feet-all composed of green stone 1 in which horneblende, felspar and iron are conspicuous, their lower declivities 1 thickly covered with dark forests It was the Englishman, Drake, 1 believe, who first sighted the cape, about the year 1573; and nearly forty years later came the Dutch navigator, Sthouten, who named it Hoorn from his native town in Holland. Near the Christmas tide of 1774, Captain Cook. while exam ming these coasts, was forced to seek refuge from the storm tossed seas in sheltered spot which he named Christ mas Sound" In this good year 1904, the party which includes your correspond ent, following in the footsteps of Cap itain Cook, passed wretched night roll ing at anchor in the same spot.
 l The notorious promontory still keeps up its ancient reputation and made us pay the usual tribute to the resistless spirit of the place. When approached, the weather-beaten cape hid her face l like bashful maiden, behind veil of mist and spray. while black clouds scudded across the heavens and squalls of rain and hail accompanied by ter rife wind, made it impossible to stand upon the deck that was tconstantly washed by sheets of spray. Ice hung upon the rigging, and huge pillows like moving Alps with deep valleys between, lcame laundering toward us in an un- broken line; while screaming ea-birds tswept round and round in narrowing circles, as those birds will when a se- were gale approaches ne moment we lseemed almost becalmed in the hollow lof the seas, the next we were on their Isummit. caught as by unseen hands lifting the tiny ship in malicious sport to dash it to destruction. And so, dis lcretion being by all odds the better part Iof valor, we turnel our backs on the ca lpricious cape and sought the shelter of IChristmas Sound till calmer weather. Nobody thought of retiring on that ter lrlble night though probably it was no
 worse than hundreds upon hundreds Iother voyagers have experienced in lthese waters. When the mysterious lsea, with it's dark masses and snowy lcrests, yields up it's dead, a greater com lpany will arise from this locality than
 
 Daylight found us in Eyric Sound with
 icebergs jostling one another on either
 hand, all floating outward toward the
 sea.
 Some days afterward we actually did Ireach Hoorn Island, and went ashore, though only for a moment, braving a |drenching in the raging surf for the sat
 isfaction of having it to say that our fleet had touched the southernmost Hands end, the very jumping-off place lof all creation. I am yet too much op- pressed by the horror of it-by feeling akin to what one experiences after a
 nightmare-to give you a lucid descrip- Etion of the scene My mind retains only la confused impression of bare heights,
 desolate beyond the power of imagina- ition to conceive, terminating in awful lprecipices, around whose summits sea- birds shrieked for prey, and at whose fleet restless pillows dashed with deaf
 ening tumult; the whole detached link lof the mighty Andes-the last link, dropped off into an unknown ocean,
 surging toward an undiscovered pole.
 We are now at Ushuwaia (pronounced iOc-hoo-ee-ah), a Protestant mission
 station on the north bank of Beagle Ichannel, which separates King Charles
 South Land from the southernmost is- lands. This channel-which is, perhaps, , better known historically than any oth-
 CT portion of the archipelago, not only from the accounts of Fitzroy and Dar-
 win, but because on all pilots charts il lis marked as the one place of safety which seamen should endeavor to reach |whose ships have been wrecked ir
 rounding the Horn-is only about one ! hundred miles north of the cape, but
 with many small islands intervening | It is a narrow passage, hardly more
 than a mile across the widest part, but very deep, running in nearly a straigh lline east and west one hundred an6 twent..- miles, between magnificent . ranges of snow-capped mountains. Its course Is strewT with outlying rock, ] land tiny islands, making navigation Impossible except for the -ve"~Alest stean \ lcraft, and useless for sailins
 Besides what doubtful good the