ness. I saw breakers ahead before long. At this
I wore ship and stood offshore, but was immediately startled by the
tremendous roaring of breakers again ahead and on the lee bow. This
puzzled me, for there should have been no broken water where I
supposed myself to be. I kept off a good bit, then wore round, but
finding broken water also there, threw her head again offshore. In
this way, among dangers, I spent the rest of the night. Hail and sleet
in the fierce squalls cut my flesh till the blood trickled over my
face; but what of that? It was daylight, and the sloop was in the
midst of the Milky Way of the sea, which is northwest of Cape Horn,
and it was the white breakers of a huge sea over sunken rocks which
had threatened to engulf her through the night. It was Fury Island I
had sighted and steered for, and what a panorama was before me now and
all around! It was not the time to complain of a broken skin. What
could I do but fill away among the breakers and find a channel between
them, now that it was day? Since she had escaped the rocks through the
night, surely she would find her way by daylight. This was the
greatest sea adventure of my life. God knows how my vessel escaped.

The sloop at last reached inside of small islands that sheltered her
in smooth water. Then I climbed the mast to survey the wild scene
astern. The great naturalist Darwin looked over this seascape from the
deck of the _Beagle,_ and wrote in his journal, "Any landsman seeing
the Milky Way would have nightmare for a week." He might have added,
"or seaman" as well.

The _Spray's_ good luck followed fast. I discovered, as she sailed
along through a labyrinth of islands, that she was in the Cockburn
Channel, which leads into the Strait of Magellan at a point opposite
Cape Froward, and that she was already passing Thieves' Bay,
suggestively named. And at night, March 8, behold, she was at anchor
in a snug cove at the Turn! Every heart-beat on the _Spray_ now
counted thanks.

Here I pondered on the events of the last few days, and, strangely
enough, instead of feeling rested from sitting or lying down, I now
began to feel jaded and worn; but a hot meal of venison stew soon put
me right, so that I could sleep. As drowsiness came on I sprinkled the
deck with tacks, and then I turned in, bearing in mind the advice of
my old friend Samblich that I was not to step on them myself. I saw to
it that not a few of them stood "business end" up; for when th