FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
exactly, nobody knew, for the sun only winked at us once 
or twice. 
At one time we drove north almost on to St. Kilda ; 
at another we were nearly as far west as Rockall, a 
most objectionable rock rising out in the N.W. Atlantic. 
The reader perhaps has never heard of it : I certainly 
never had, and do not wish ever to be near it again. 
Some of our crew had made its acquaintapce before, 
and survived. They still spoke of it with hushed voices, 
and open, fearful eyes. On a black winter night they 
had driven on to It. All hands were saved ; but the 
only passenger, an elderly spinster, was drowned in her 
cabin ! She was said to be coming home with a fortune 
in specie — the skipper, they told me, never went to sea 
again, but lived on shore and built himself a splendid 
house. 
But these evil days are past now : we are well into the 
warm weather, and the N.E. trades send us steadily 
southwards. Porpoises plunge round our bows, and blue 
flying-fish with gossamer, dragon-fly wings skip over the 
sunny waves. If the old pessimist who discoursed so 
wisely of the vanities were swinging alongside here in the 
hammock, he would agree that a bundle of cigarettes 
would make life perfect. ...... 
Here it occurs to me that I have begun this log, or 
narrative, or whatever it may be called, in an un- 
orthodox manner. From a number of volumes I have 
with me, it appears that the way to begin a book of 
travel is to give first the reasons that induced the 
author to leave his native shores, then detailed accounts 
