122 
FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
masts, an angry, impatient sound, and the clewed-up 
sails away above us in the darkness, sopped with rain 
and hard as wood, banging monotonously, angrily, 
threatening to burst unless made fast immediately — 
thump, thump, thump, what a pandemonium of noise and 
blackness and quivering lightning! At each flash the 
black straining shrouds cut sharp against the livid clouds, 
and the men's wet faces looked ghastly in thd cool, electric 
light. Then came a crash and a questioning silence, and 
the shouting of the men hauling on the main topsail reefing 
halyards stopped suddenly, and some one started up the 
weather shrouds to see or feel what was wrong. Jock 
Harvey's voice came down from aloft shouting against 
the wind, ' topsail sheet carried away ! 5 Then the main 
topsail burst with a grand report, and the main topgallant 
stopped thumping, blown clean out of the bolt ropes. 
Lights were brought aft, and by the time some of the sails 
were stowed and the sheet made fast, we were lifting 
along with a light breeze. It was a powerful picture 
while it lasted. The darkness and lightning, the wind and 
hissing sea, with the jolly reckless shouting of the men, 
made it intensely dramatic. But to have nothing to do 
on such an occasion but sit tight in a stuffy little 
cabin, with a smoking lamp, chewing your pipe stem, is 
trying to say the least. 
Wednesday, gth November. — Lat. 25.7 ; long. 37.10. 
This morning there is a crispness in the air that we have 
not felt since we left the North Temperate zone, a dry, 
crackling heat that makes us feel brimful of superfluous 
