4o FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
and the continued storm has been trying to us all ; but 
this last accident, which he has so wonderfully succeeded 
in averting for such a long time, has almost broken him up. 
Sunday has passed soft and grey, a long day of 
perfect rest and contentment. The sea has gone down, 
and we are slipping quietly along before a light N.E. 
wind. All day we have been lying about the deck enjoy- 
ing absolute idleness and dry clothes, and the $oreness is 
going out of our limbs. We are too tired to read, just 
alive enough to enjoy the gentle roll, and to watch the sea- 
birds and listen to the man at the wheel yarning to us. 
He ought not to speak ; but the ways of a whaler are not 
those of other ships. This man was well worth listening 
to ; he was one of the Ezra men who spent the winter 
with Mr. Leigh Smith in Franz-Joseph Land, so his 
experiences were somewhat out of the common. Most 
people interested in matters Arctic have heard how the 
Eira went down off Franz-Joseph Land, and how the 
crew lived on walrus' and bears 5 flesh all winter, and 
sailed in their boats in the spring for forty-one days 
through the ice-floes, and arrived in Scotland none the 
worse. Such tales are interesting, even to read of; but 
when told by one of the actors, they are doubly so. Mason 
looked back to that long dark winter with feelings of 
nothing but regret and longing, for the fastings and great 
feeds of walrus flesh. He recalled the handful of broken 
biscuits they had served out to them on Christmas evening 
as one of the most pleasant recollections of his life. 
A blue shark paid us a call this morning. Being Sunday, 
however, we did not introduce the subject of sport; but we 
