This indeed afforded us but a very uncomfortable
prospect, it appearing of a stupendous height, covered everywhere with
snow. As we intended to pass through Straits le Maire next day, we lay to
at night that we might not over shoot them, and took this opportunity to
prepare ourselves for the tempestuous climate we were soon to be engaged
in; with which view we employed ourselves good part of the night in
bending an entire new suit of sails to the yards. At four the next
morning, being the 7th of March, we made sail, and at eight saw the land,
and soon after we began to open the Straits.
THE EVE OF DISASTER.
About ten o'clock, the Pearl and the Trial being ordered to keep ahead of
the squadron, we entered them with fair weather and a brisk gale, and
were hurried through by the rapidity of the tide in about two hours,
though they are between seven and eight leagues in length. As these
Straits are often considered as the boundary between the Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans, and as we presumed we had nothing now before us but an
open sea till we arrived on those opulent coasts where all our hopes and
wishes centred, we could not help flattering ourselves that the greatest
difficulty of our passage was now at an end, and that our most sanguine
dreams were upon the point of being realised, and hence we indulged our
imaginations in those romantic schemes which the fancied possession of
the Chilean gold and Peruvian silver might be conceived to inspire. These
joyous ideas were heightened by the brightness of the sky and the
serenity of the weather, which was indeed most remarkably pleasing; for
though the winter was now advancing apace, yet the morning of this day,
in its brilliancy and mildness, gave place to none we had seen since our
departure from England.
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