FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
vessel labouring heavily and shipping quantities of water. 
12, fresh gale with heavy sea. 
September wth. — Very heavy squalls, with much rain. 
Close-reefed topsail ; strong gale and heavy sea. Lat. 
59.13 ; long. . Strong wind S.W. ; very heavy sea ; out 
first reef topsail ; wore ship. Strong wind and squally 
weather. w 
\2th- — 6 A.M., very heavy squalls; close-reefed topsail, 
io, strong gale; high sea. 12, no alteration wind or 
weather. 
So the log continues. We lay in the hollow of the 
grey valleys day after day, night after night, pitching, 
tossing, rolling, down to our chain-plates with our deck 
load of coal, — there is no Plimsoll line on a whaler — the 
deck all awash with foam, every second wave thundering 
on board. The black and yellow oilskins of the men at 
the pumps now glistening in a gleam of sunlight, and 
again sombre and pouring wet as they plunged knee-deep 
through the sea in our waist, and hauled on the braces 
and halyards. But thanks to the immensely strong 
timbers and bulwarks, the heavy seas have done us no 
great harm, though a vessel of ordinary build would 
have left her bulwarks scattered over the ocean. 
One gleam of hope we had on the nth — the barometer 
went up a little and the wind moderated. The monoton- 
ous insistent humming in the rigging ceased, the splashing 
and the thumping and the noise of the storm stopped for 
a while. Then we breathed again, and stretched our limbs, 
