FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 93 
wind is heading us again E.S.E., and it is hot,- — something 
— well, very warm indeed, calculated at the least to raise 
a pleasing thirst ; but there is nothing to quench it with. 
We have Rose lime-juice — an A-i foundation for a tipple — 
and two mixtures we call coffee and tea ; but all there is 
to dilute these with is warm rain-water collected off the 
poop. Such water! a spoon will stand up in it, and the 
taste is horrid. It is considered of great value, so great, 
that water colours are out of the question just now, and if 
the doctor abstracts a wine-glassful from the filter for any 
of the crew that require medicine, there is a racket! We 
have a condenser, but the coals are of value. I begin to 
realise what thirst really means, and find myself making 
mental pictures of a brawling burn far away in the north, 
that comes leaping down the hillside over the grey stones. 
What would I not give just for one plunge in that black 
pool, where the big golden trout lies ; for one deep drink 
of its sparkling water, flavoured with the dew that drops 
in the cool cave of Ranald of the Still ? Here the sea- 
water is so warm that all pleasure has gone from our 
tubbing — that, of course, is the only way we can bathe. 
There is no fun going over the side with a hoary old 
shark lying under the keel. 
igt/i Oct. — Lat. 9.36; long. 26.13. These wretched 
bonita have been aggravating us again. For a whole 
forenoon we lay out on the jibboom and tried to 
make them take, offered them flies from Namsen, Tay, 
Shannon, and Matapedia, but they wouldn't look at them. 
They are more capricious than salmon ! One day they 
