But the crisis was safely passed, and the maelstrom left behind. The gale blew itself out during the forenoon, the sky cleared, the sun shone brightly through the clear frosty atmosphere, and land was visible from the deck.
If you have never been so situated that for many weeks your eyes have not beheld a solitary foot of ground you can hardly appreciate the emotions of all on board the _Sagamore_ as they looked on that bleak and forbidding promontory rising out of the mist—Cape St. John. A few hours later, the ship was opposite the treacherous straits of Lemaire, and very near the shore. The entire length of Staten Land from Cape St. John on the east to Cape St. Bartholomew on the west, was stretched out like a grand panorama; forty miles of low mountains, jagged rocks, and broken valleys, without a sign of animal or vegetable life, and with naught save great patches of snow to relieve its black nakedness. The straits of Lemaire separate this body of land from Tierra del Fuego, and on the latter might now be seen Bell Mountain,—a distant but lofty peak, on whose snow-capped summit the sun shone in wintry splendor.
Hundreds of large sailing vessels pass Cape St. John every year on their long voyages from New York, the British Isles and Continental Europe to our Pacific coast. It is a great rendezvous, and the _Sagamore_ presently found herself in the midst of an imposing fleet of merchantmen of all nations. Here, at the southern extremity of the American continent, were ten ships and three barks, carrying the world’s products to San Francisco. Scores of eager faces lined the bulwarks, while on the poop of the nearest craft stood a woman—the first representative of the fair sex that anyone on the _Sagamore_ had seen for three months. As the large vessels, with all their canvas set, slowly mounted the regular swell, a murmur of admiration burst from the passengers, who longed for a far-reaching camera to preserve the beautiful picture through years to come. Those ships had completed the first half of their long journeys, and now sailed in company for a few hours, soon to be scattered far and wide upon the mighty Pacific, to meet again at the Golden Gate, thousands of miles away. It was a sight to make the pulses thrill.