N., the
passenger, who had kept in his shell for nearly a month, and hardly
been seen by anybody, and who we had almost forgotten was on board,
came out like a butterfly, and was hopping round as bright as a bird.
The land was the island of Staten Land, and, just to the eastward of
Cape Horn; and a more desolate-looking spot I never wish to set eyes
upon;- bare, broken, and girt with rocks and ice, with here and
there, between the rocks and broken hillocks, a little stunted
vegetation of shrubs. It was a place well suited to stand at the
junction of the two oceans, beyond the reach of human cultivation, and
encounter the blasts and snows of a perpetual winter. Yet, dismal as
it was, it was a pleasant sight to us; not only as being the first
land we had seen, but because it told us that we had passed the
Cape,- were in the Atlantic,- and that, with twenty-four hours of this
breeze, might bid defiance to the Southern Ocean. It told us, too, our
latitude and longitude better than any observation; and the captain
now knew where we were, as well as if we were off the end of Long
wharf.
In the general joy, Mr.
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