We shaped our course accordingly for
Staten Land, intending to pass through the Straits of Le Maire and hug
the Horn, as close as possible, in doubling it. We made the Falkland
Islands, or West Falkland rather, just as the sun rose, one morning,
bearing a little on our weather-quarter, with the wind blowing heavily
at the eastward. The weather was thick, and, what was still worse,
there was so little day, and no moon, that it was getting to be
ticklish work to be standing for a passage as narrow as that we aimed
at. Marble and I talked the matter over, between ourselves, and wished
the captain could be persuaded to haul up, and try to go to the
eastward of the island, as was still possible, with the wind where it
was. Still, neither of us dared propose it; I, on account of my youth,
and the chief-mate, as he said, on account of "the old fellow's
obstinacy." "He likes to be poking about in such places," Marble
added, "and is never so happy as when he is running round the ocean in
places where it is full of unknown islands, looking for sandal wood,
and beche-la-mar! I'll warrant you, he'll give us a famous time of it,
if he ever get us up on the North-West Coast." Here the consultation
terminated, we mates believing it wiser to let things take their
course.
I confess to having seen the mountains on our weather-quarter
disappear, with melancholy forebodings.
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