FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
wind on our fore-quarter, making five knots an hour, — no 
great speed, but enough to keep our hearts up in the fond 
belief that we would get out of the Western Ocean some 
day. But, alas! at 7.30 the engines stopped, the wind 
began to rise again, and in my bunk I could hear the 
orders shouted to shorten sail, and in a few moments we 
began the old motion again : a slow climbing up watery 
hills, with a throw on the crest enough to twisUour masts 
out ; a nightmare-sinking as the billow passed beneath us 
with a thump and a crash and we reached the bottom of 
the valley and plunged into the next hillside, to rise slowly 
again, with the white sea surging, tumbling madly on our 
decks, swishing from bulwark to bulwark, surging against 
the cabin door, till it escaped at the scupper or over the 
bulwarks as if thrown 
from a full cup — just 
to come thundering on 
deck again. 
Oh, the weariness of 
that wind's song in the 
rigging, that persistent 
humming as we sink 
into the trough, rising 
and howling as we 
mount the angry grey 
ridge. What does it 
mean, that dreary 
booming everlastingly 
passing us under the hard grey sky, driving the Lord 
knows where ? Is it a great tune with great words that 
