FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
fight for the fly, and the next won't look at it, though it 
is dangled right in front of them. 
20th Oct. — Lat. 8.47 ; long. 26.29. We have had thirteen 
heavy squalls since yesterday at noon. Our running 
rigging must be nearly worn through with shortening 
sail. The trade-winds were long in coming, and they 
stopped far too accurately to please us ; just as we 
reached their southern limit for this time of the year they 
left us, giving us enough way to cross the line marked 
Doldrums. We have lain for twenty-four hours wallowing 
in the hot windless sea, stewing under the grey clouds as 
if in an oven. Rain-clouds with heavy purple skirts 
sweep slowly round the horizon ; sometimes they pass 
over us and fill our sails with a short-lived squall, and 
leave us with streaming scuppers and steaming decks. 
How we pity these poor sailing ships here without any 
means of moving ! They lie for weeks and weeks in these 
hot calms, the decks roasting hot, tar oozing from the 
seams, hauling their yards round and shifting tacks for 
the faintest air. I have known a barque lie for six weeks 
on a spot of calm a little to the south of where we are now, 
whilst more fortunate vessels went past daily and nightly. 
No wonder sailors believe in phantom ships and the like. 
About 9 P.M. we gave up waiting for more trade-winds, 
lit the fires, hauled in all sails but the fore-and-afters, 
hoisted a white light on the fore-top, and now we are 
plodding along steamship-wise, at the magnificent speed 
of five knots an hour. As the doctor and I have returned 
to our bunks by reason of these late squalls, and the bunks 
