These, with new braces and
clew-lines, fore and aft, gave us a good suit of running rigging.
The wind continued westerly, and the weather and sea less rough
since the day on which we shipped the heavy sea, and we were making
great progress under studding-sails, with our light sails all set,
keeping a little to the eastward of south; for the captain,
depending upon westerly winds off the Cape, had kept so far to the
westward, that though we were within about five hundred miles of the
latitude of Cape Horn, we were nearly seventeen hundred miles to the
westward of it. Through the rest of the week, we continued on with a
fair wind, gradually, as we got more to the southward, keeping a
more easterly course, and bringing the wind on our larboard quarter,
until--
Sunday, June 26th, when, having a fine, clear day, the captain got a
lunar observation, as well as his meridian altitude, which made us
in lat. 47 deg. 50' S., long. 113 deg. 49' W.; Cape Horn bearing,
according to my calculation, E. S. E. 1/2 E., and distant eighteen
hundred miles.
Monday, June 27th. During the first part of this day, the wind
continued fair, and, as we were going before it, it did not feel
very cold, so that we kept at work on deck, in our common clothes
and round jackets.
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