FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 5 
Aren't you glad you didn't go? and Don't you think 
you are much better where you are ? It would be better, 
I thought, to sign before the mast than undergo this 
torture. 
The Balsena was to sail in about a week from the day 
on which I received the agent's letter, so there was little 
time to try and put matters right. However, I wrote 
immediately to some friends who took a keen interest in 
the scientific prospects of the venture, and who were also 
good enough to believe that my drawings in the southern 
latitudes would be of value to science, and prayed them 
to exert their influence in my behalf, and next morning 
went through to Dundee to try and alter the agents 
decision. 
Once at Dundee, there is no difficulty in finding the 
whalers. All Dundonians, from the small boys to the big 
shareholders, take a proud interest in them. I asked a 
policeman to direct % me to the whaling Company's office ; 
fortunately he could speak pure Scotch — the natives use 
a patois of their own — 'Ower yonder, East Whale Lane/ 
he said, lifting a leg-of-mutton fist in the direction of a 
blank wall, 'jist gang straicht forrart.' So I went 
( straicht forrart/ meditating as I went on the melodious 
tones of my native Doric. It was a very narrow lane 
running up from the docks between two high walls, and 
there was no mistake about its being Whale Lane, the 
very air was greasy, and the kerbstones were black 
and oily. There was but one big doorway in the 
lane : I opened it, and found myself in a yard littered 
with casks and whale-boats and ship's-gear, and beyond 
