Lillelara

Within days, the strait´s gloomy enchantment impressed itself on the crew. As they negotiated its frigid waters, they observed thickly vegetated, forbidding shores sliding past, cloaked in eerie shadows. Late one night, during the few hours of darkness at that time of year, they caught glimpses of what they believed were signs of human settlements; distant fires with an indistinct source burst forth, their ruby flames glimmering like spectral apparitions in front of the dark green cypresses, vines and ferns. The fires sent plumes of smoke into the hazy sky, and fouled the air with an acrid odor.

This book and Lansings "Endurance" give a pretty clear-cut impression of the fact, that the area around the southern most tip of South America and the passage between South America and Antartica are the most vicious and inhospitable places on earth.