Chapter 28 - Page 2

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. Flashing walls and crystal battlements, like the diamond
watch-towers along heaven's furthest frontier.

After leaving the latitude of the Cape, we had several storms of
snow; one night a considerable quantity laid upon the decks, and
some of the sailors enjoyed the juvenile diversion of snow-balling.
Woe unto the "middy" who that night went forward of the booms. Such
a target for snow-balls! The throwers could never be known. By some
curious sleight in hurling the missiles, they seemed to be thrown on
board by some hoydenish sea-nymphs outside the frigate.

At daybreak Midshipman Pert went below to the surgeon with an
alarming wound, gallantly received in discharging his perilous
duty on the forecastle. The officer of the deck had sent him on
an errand, to tell the boatswain that he was wanted in the
captain's cabin. While in the very act of performing the exploit
of delivering the message, Mr. Pert was struck on the nose with a
snow-ball of wondrous compactness. Upon being informed of the
disaster, the rogues expressed the liveliest sympathy. Pert was
no favourite.

After one of these storms, it was a curious sight to see the men
relieving the uppermost deck of its load of snow. It became the
duty of the captain of each gun to keep his own station clean;
accordingly, with an old broom, or "squilgee," he proceeded to
business, often quarrelling with his next-door neighbours about
their scraping their snow on his premises. It was like Broadway
in winter, the morning after a storm, when rival shop-boys are at
work cleaning the sidewalk.

Now and then, by way of variety, we had a fall of hailstones, so
big that sometimes we found ourselves dodging them.

The Commodore had a Polynesian servant on board, whose services
he had engaged at the Society Islands. Unlike his countrymen,
Wooloo was of a sedate, earnest, and philosophic temperament.
Having never been outside of the tropics before, he found many
phenomena off Cape Horn, which absorbed his attention, and set