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.
However, in spite of the inclemency of the season, we made ourselves pretty comfortable.

We had lost the greater portion of the three months' stock of provisions we had taken with us; but still we had enough to last for three or four weeks, and Captain Billings hoped to spin out our store by the aid of the different species of wild fowl which frequented the islands, in addition to the abundant supply of fish that the southern waters contain--that is, until, as we hoped, some passing ship should pick us up and convey our little party to more civilised regions.
But, while the snowstorm lasted, we all suffered more or less from the severity of the weather, many of the men having their feet and hands frostbitten, and poor Mr Macdougall almost losing his nose! "I say," said Sails to Pat Doolan, on seeing that worthy shivering while trying to re-light the fire--which an avalanche of snow, descending from a precipitous rise above the site of our tent, had suddenly buried, along with the cook's pots and pans, just as he was preparing our morning meal, on the fourth day of the storm--"how about that Manilla guernsey o' yourn now, old flick?
Guess it would come in handy, eh!" "Be jabers, an' it would that," replied the Irishman, with much heartiness; "I only wish I had it across me back now, and I was aboard that schooner ag'in; an' faix, I'd die happy!" Pat's fire was soon lighted again; but the fall of snow from above, without any previous warning, might have caused serious injury to some of us if it had come down in the night.

It quite broke down our tent, and it took us some hours' hard work, using broken oar-blades for shovels, to dig away the immense heap of frozen debris that the unexpected slip of the accumulation on the top of the cliff had caused.
Really, if the avalanche had fallen when we were all inside and asleep, perhaps not one of us would have escaped alive, as it must have been many tons in weight! We thought, from the continuation of the snowstorm, that we would have to endure all the miseries of an antarctic winter; but, towards the evening of the fourth day, the south-westerly gale gradually lost its force, shifting round a bit more to the northwards.

Strange to say, although the wind now came from what, in our northern latitudes, we esteem a colder quarter, it was ever so much warmer here, on account of its passing over the warm pampas of the Plate before reaching us, the effect of which soon became apparent in the melting of the snow on the ground as rapidly as when a thaw takes place at home.