FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
hull is distinctly Norwegian, spars and sails are British, 
and our buff-coloured funnel suggests a man-of-war. 
When the red ensign of the mercantile marine flies out 
at our peak they must be fairly dazed. To add to our 
other peculiarities, the two whale-boats hanging at our 
quarter-deck have their lugsails and jibs set, working 
their passage, as it were. 
We reply to these salutations, 4 Balsena »of Dundee, 
bound for the Antarctic/ and with that, all the informa- 
tion we can give them, they go on their road, and leave 
us plodding behind. 
The doctor and I have arranged our laboratory, studio, 
and living and sleeping quarters under one of the two 
waist-boats, that are turned keel-up on the skids amid- 
ships. The hammocks are swung fore and aft from the 
stems and sterns and within arm's-length of the thwarts of 
the boats, — these make shelves for our sketch-books, pipes, 
etc. What ideal swinging studios thty are ; no matter how 
the ship rolls, they keep so steady that we could draw hair 
strokes with a camel's hair brush ; and w r hat studio could 
have a better light than the space of blue waves and sky 
that we see between the edge of the hammock and the 
boat above us ? When the wind is on our starboard beam, 
and the Balsena lies over to port, our hammocks hang almost 
above the creaming surge that rushes past us. We look 
over and watch the frightened flying-fish springing from 
the blue waves, making but short flights to leeward ; for 
they must go against the wind to fly far. In colouring 
and shape they remind me of our blue dragon-flies : their 
bodies are deep blue with silver sides, and their gossamer 
