54 FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
blending and softening the various groups on deck with 
a rich golden light that makes one think of the yellow 
depths of a Titian. 
I would hardly have believed that a Sunday at sea 
could be so different from the other days of the week. 
To-day, on the Balaena, this is the case. The men have 
the whole Sunday given to them for rest to their bodies, 
— when there is no work to be done. At'.d they do 
appreciate it. It is warm to-day, and sunny, and there 
is a peace and quietness that quite passes anything 
we know on shore. No hideous bells clash and bang, 
advertising with vulgar discordancy God knows what 
sort of churches. No heated preachers are for ever telling 
the way to be good, labouring to save sinners. But 
great Nature sits on our stem and soothes our souls, 
and shows how good is The Beautiful, and how beautiful 
is The Good. And the sea and the breeze whisper to 
us sweet secrets of the glorious day to come, when we 
shall resolve into universal life and begin to live again, 
in the wind and the sea and the sunlight. A Sunday at 
sea, under God's sky, is a day from Eternity ; a Sunday in 
town a day from Hell. The crew lie in luxurious repose 
on the focsle-head, curled up in the anchor flukes and 
chains, smoking, or stretched flat on their backs reading 
novels, or old letters. .Some are sewing. One of them 
is sitting on the foot of the bowsprit sewing at a pair 
of canvas trousers, and a boy on the capstan-head 
watches him with lazy interest. Below, on the fore- 
deck, one or two are washing themselves, getting at 
least the rough of the tar off before they put on clean 
