FROM EDINBURGH TO THE 
ANTARCTIC 
CHAPTER I 
Barque Balsena, 
Atlantic. 
.f^~\ N.E. Trades. 
VFTER all, life is not 
so bad. I had come 
to the conclusion that 
it is all vanity and 
vexation of spirit; but 
time ago — nearly six weeks now. 
At that time all on board the Balcena, from the 
opinion of life at sea. ' Who would sell a farm and go to 
sea?' was the most poetical rendering of the common 
plaint in the cabin. 'Wish a blasted sea would jolly well 
clear us out,' was what Jack in his wet clothes was growling 
in the flooded focsle. — We were very miserable! We 
ought to have had a little fine weather for a new enterprise 
like ours, but the very worst was served out to us ; and 
when we had made the best of that, and had begun to 
think our troubles were over, down came another gale 
on us, worse, if possible, than the one before. Three 
weeks we lay somewhere off the N.W. of Ireland — where, 
skipper to the stowaway, expressed the same gloomy 
A 
