The heavens were as black as death all around, with no moon. Not a star to be seen; when, all at once, the whole horizon glowed with a living fire, lighting up the ocean in front of us, and reflecting upwards and outwards from the snow-covered peaks on the background of water beyond the beach. The wave-tossed surface of the sea changed to a bright vermilion tint, making it look like a lake of raging flames. Through the crimson sky, streaks of brighter light shot across at intervals from right to left, and back again from left to right, in coruscations of darting sparks that would ever and anon form themselves into crosses and diamonds of different shapes; while, in the middle of this wonderful transformation scene, the wind blew with immense force, howling over sea and land with a wild shriek and deep diapason, accompanied by blinding showers of hail and sleet and snow, that made us all creep under the folds of the canvas of our tent for shelter.
“What is this? What does it mean?” I asked Captain Billings, who seemed the only one of us unmoved by the unwonted sight, that had as much terror as grandeur about it.
“It is what is called an Austral aurora—the aurora Australis, as scientific men term it; though, how it is caused and what it is occasioned by, I’m sure I can’t explain to you, my lad. All I know is this, that it is never seen in the vicinity of Cape Horn without a stiff gale and rough weather following in its track; so we had better all of us look out for squalls!”
Chapter Twenty Three.
“All the Way round.”
The skipper was right in his prognostication about the weather; for, during the next few days, we experienced a terrible gale from the south-west, snow falling without intermission all the time, and making huge drifts to the windward of the island, while even in sheltered places it was over four feet deep, with the pile continually increasing as the flakes drove down in one steady stream.
Of course, it was bitterly cold, but, knowing what sort of climate the vicinity of Cape Horn rejoiced in, Captain Billings, before abandoning the ship, had ordered the men to bring all their warm clothes with them, he himself adding to the stock with all the spare blankets he could find in the cabin; and now, although these things were amongst the stores of the long-boat when she capsized, they fortunately escaped being thrown into the sea and lost on her “turning the turtle,” for they were securely fastened below the thwarts, so when the boat was recovered they were still to the good all right—with the exception of their being thoroughly soaked in sea water, which an exposure before Pat Doolan’s fire, and a hang-out in the fresh breezy air, soon remedied.
It was now the month of August, about the coldest time of the year on the coast of Tierra del Fuego, or “The Land of Fire,” as this portion of the South American Continent was somewhat inappropriately christened by its original discoverer, the veteran navigator Magalhaens. He called it so, when he sailed round it in 1520, from the fact of the natives lighting watch-fires in every direction as soon as his ship was perceived nearing any of the channels transecting the archipelago, as if to give warning of his approach, a practice still pursued by the Tierra del Fuegans up to the time present, as all voyagers round Cape Horn well know.