FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 85 
fear of storm or gale. But the gales do come at times, 
with such a vengeance, and with so little warning, that the 
name bears out the gallant Spaniard's simile but too well. 
I have heard people say the enforced idleness on 
board ship is unbearable ; these people who cannot ap- 
preciate their mercies are much to be pitied. To my 
mind idleness, enforced or otherwise, is infinitely prefer- 
able to enforced labour. One has only too little time to 
have the 'butter and honey' of existence. For an artist 
there can be nothing better than many months spent on a 
sailing ship, by reason of the absence of all necessity for 
working. It gives him time to rest and think out his 
artistic creeds. The leisurely progress, the quietness, and 
the endless effects of sea and air ought to lift him into 
that world of thought and fancy that we all forget in the 
noise and hurry of the life at home on shore. If he is 
realistically inclined, there is wealth of subject, and models 
are constantly grouping and posing in endless effects of 
