FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 57 
steamer's motion to the quiet gliding of the sailing ship 
is very pleasant. The sound of the lip-lapping of the sea 
against the ship's side just reaches us in our bunks 
through the thick wooden sides. 
Tuesday, 27///. — Lat. 42.24 ; long. 14.25. A Danish 
ship passed us to-day ; she came up from leeward, 
passed under our stern, and faded out of sight in a 
veil of mist ahead of us and to windward. She was 
sailing quite two points closer than we could. She had 
a windmill working her pump, an arrangement much 
despised by our sailors — without reason, I think, as it 
saves an immense amount of work. We have to pump 
ship every four hours, and it takes about ten minutes each 
time. After heavy weather and the ship has been 
straining we have to pump her for about half an hour out 
of each watch. The pump stands at the foot of the main- 
mast inside the fife-mil, and has a handle on either side ; 
some of the watch turn the hands and the rest stand in a 
line along the deck and haul on a rope attached to the 
pump handle each time it comes up. As we pump, the 
chantie (pronounced shanty) man trolls out some old sea 
song, and after each line all hands join in the refrain. 
Some of our men have a large stock of these songs. 
Most of them are sung to sad, minor tunes, with some- 
times almost meaningless, but time-honoured words. The 
airs have much of the dignity of early Norse and Gaelic 
tunes, quite unlike any modern music ; when and where 
they originated I should like well to know. Here is one 
of them that the men sung frequently. It refers to some 
