142 TRAVEL, ADVENTURE, AND SPORT. 



pleted for sea, and lay in the West India Docks, 

 taking in her two years' stores and engaging her 

 crew, where she excited no little interest from the 

 peculiarity of her appearance the crow's nest at the 

 maintop-gallant masthead being a novel feature in the 

 low latitude of London. 



All being at length ready, articles were signed and 

 the blue ensign and burgee of the j^ew Thames Yacht 

 Club (the same to which the Eira belonged) hoisted 

 on June 1 9th ; and on the following day the relief 

 ship steamed out of the docks and down to Graves- 

 end. Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess 

 of Wales evinced a lively and kindly interest in the 

 enterprise, and sent as a present to the officers' mess a 

 handsome silver inkstand and a silver bell for sum- 

 moning the waiter. On Saturday, June 24th, the 

 Hope finally left the shores of Old* England, passing 

 Flamborough Head towards evening, and thence steer- 

 ing due north on the meridian of Greenwich. On 

 the following morning England had sunk below the 

 horizon, and we continued our course towards the icy 

 regions over the solitudes of the ocean. The paucity 

 of bird-life in the K"orth Seas is very marked, as com- 

 pared with the great number and variety of sea-fowl 

 in the Antarctic regions, where the great wandering 

 albatross is a never - failing object of interest and 

 admiration, and petrels of smaller size, down to the 

 little "Mother Carey's chicken," are never absent 

 from the neighbourhood of the ship. At a point 



