Il8 FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
into a china mug, and get Peter to give us some boiling 
water in the galley, then we stew the mixture on 
the galley stove, skim it, and drink it without any 
lingering ; Peter meanwhile entertains us with quick 
steps on the tin whistle, or tells us tales of the Arctic. 
He has been wrecked up there several times, and 
gives us grisly adventures and bars of strathspeys alter- 
nately. 
At 5 P.M. comes the regular sit-down tea — a square 
meal of salt beef and birch infusion, margarine, and that 
godsend, Keiller's marmalade. Sometimes Peter makes 
us soft tack, i.e. white bread, and on rare occasions 
scones, these most skilfully made. 
After tea, Bruce and I go up into a high place (one of 
the quarter-boats) and there read Darwin's Voyage, or 
H. R. Mill's Realm of Nature, and £ the seas that mourn in 
flowing purple for their lord forlorn' seem to rise and fall 
in tune with one grand purpose, * and we read Arthur 
Thomson's Animal Life, that poetry book with the dry 
name, and we feel as we read that we need no other than 
these two books, for they put our hands in the palm of 
Nature, and the long voyage loses its monotony, the 
ocean veil lifts, and we grope for beautiful shells in 
its silent depths ; above and below new worlds open to 
our eyes, and each wave, as it bursts against our bow 
a shower of gold in the evening light, or surges past, 
darkly, in the shadow of the bulwarks, seems to pulsate 
with infinite, lovely life. 
As the darkness falls we get down on deck and perhaps 
chat with the watch. What an interesting library these 
