26 
FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
The report that there was a berth on one of the ships 
for a passenger, though hardly of public interest, gave me 
a lot of trouble, and caused much disappointment to 
several people who applied. 1 
Another unfounded report was that the Royal Geo- 
graphical and Meteorological Societies intended to pay 
^"25,000 of the expenses — an extremely liberal intention, 
which would have left the Company to supply only about 
£3000 more. Then Government was said to have offered 
help. So thoroughly were the papers and people con- 
vinced that no such expedition would be started by 
private enterprise, that some of our crew signed for a less 
proportion of bone and oil money and larger weekly 
wages than they would have done if they had believed 
in the merely commercial basis of the undertaking. 
It is true that these Societies did take a keen interest 
in the scientific prospects of the voyage ; and both the 
Royal and the Meteorological subscribed instruments. 
Some private individuals, also, who arranged that the 
ships' doctors should be men of scientific tastes and 
acquirements, supplied them with necessary material for 
their observations. 
These are all the facts and fictions about the expedition 
that I have heard, and I hope the reader will fully 
appreciate them, as it has been very dry work writing 
them down. Further on in my log I may happen on 
more information that may interest those interested in 
1 One of the applicants, an enthusiastic naturalist, when he heard the ships 
had sailed, even went the length of steaming to the Falklands to secure the 
berth there, when we called on our way south. 
