Though we had seen no land since leaving Callao, Cape Horn was said to be somewhere to the west of us; and though there was no positive evidence of the fact, the weather encountered might be accounted pretty good presumptive proof.
The land near Cape Horn, however, is well worth seeing, especially Staten Land.

Upon one occasion, the ship in which I then happened to be sailing drew near this place from the northward, with a fair, free wind, blowing steadily, through a bright translucent clay, whose air was almost musical with the clear, glittering cold.

On our starboard beam, like a pile of glaciers in Switzerland, lay this Staten Land, gleaming in snow-white barrenness and solitude.

Unnumbered white albatross were skimming the sea near by, and clouds of smaller white wings fell through the air like snow-flakes.

High, towering in their own turbaned snows, the far-inland pinnacles loomed up, like the border of some other world.