Moreover, she
had discovered an island. On the charts this one that she had sailed
around was traced as a point of land. I named it Alan Erric Island,
after a worthy literary friend whom I had met in strange by-places,
and I put up a sign, "Keep off the grass," which, as discoverer, was
within my rights.
Now at last the _Spray_ carried me free of Tierra del Fuego. If by a
close shave only, still she carried me clear, though her boom actually
hit the beacon rocks to leeward as she lugged on sail to clear the
point. The thing was done on the 13th of April, 1896. But a close
shave and a narrow escape were nothing new to the _Spray_.
The waves doffed their white caps beautifully to her in the strait
that day before the southeast wind, the first true winter breeze of
the season from that quarter, and here she was out on the first of it,
with every prospect of clearing Cape Pillar before it should shift. So
it turned out; the wind blew hard, as it always blows about Cape Horn,
but she had cleared the great tide-race off Cape Pillar and the
Evangelistas, the outermost rocks of all, before the change came. I
remained at the helm, humoring my vessel in the cross seas, for it was
rough, and I did not dare to let her take a straight course. It was
necessary to change her course in the combing seas, to meet them with
what skill I could when they rolled up ahead, and to keep off when
they came up abeam.
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