DUTIES AND COMPANIONS 67 



Such pictures once visualised were ineffaceable. It was the 

 same elsewhere. In his letters he repeatedly brings a view 

 home to his father by recalling an illustration or description 

 in some familiar book of travels as in Madeira and at Teneriffe, 

 Webb and Berthelot, or at the Cape, Burchell's Travels. In 

 describing a plant fresh from its native ground, his strong 

 visual memory is ready to prompt some detailed comparison 

 with a dried specimen once studied in his father's herbarium. 



As to his duties on the Erebus, he gives a detailed descrip- 

 tion in his letters to his grandfather. There was little sickness 

 on board : on his professional visits each morning to the sick 

 bay, he seldom found much to do : indeed, as has been noted 

 already, during his stay at Chatham before the ship sailed he 

 remarked the superiority in conduct and health on the Erebus' s 

 crew over the Tenor's, albeit during the voyage the Terror's 

 officers prided themselves on keeping the stricter discipline 

 on board. 



He was fortunate in his captain and fellow officers. Eoss 

 was a friend of his father, and respected by him both for his 

 religious feeling and for his scientific aptitudes. Sir William, 

 it will be remembered (II. 12), coming down to visit his son 

 at Chatham, found the junior officers, in the r61e of Jack ashore, 

 lacking in scientific seriousness of conversation, and what 

 was worse in his eyes respect for the Sabbath. Neverthe- 

 less, they were good fellows ; and interested in science when 

 not, like the surgeon and those trained in magnetic work, 

 professionally concerned. The Erebus was, and they were 

 proud of it, a discovery ship, not a surveying vessel ; and 

 they had been chosen as suitable for a voyage of this kind, 

 although it came to be generally recognised that Eoss chose 

 for his executive officers men who were never likely to rival 

 the brilliancy of his own career. They were not, like the 

 lieutenants of the Eattlesnake, hostile to use of the tow-net as 

 * messing the decks ' : on the contrary, scientific observations 

 went on' every day ; and every day if possible soundings were 

 taken to test the ocean temperature at various depths, and the 

 tow-net used. 



Hooker was uncertain at first with regard to McCormick, 



