FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 127 
are beginning to wonder if he is quite such a fool as 
he looks. 
Saturday. — Did nothing all day but try to catch the 
albatross that scratched its eye ; another one has joined 
it — a younger bird with some dark feathers about its neck 
and head. Cold S.W. wind and no rest. Shipped a lot of 
water to-day J ; going three and a half knots. Now we are 
accustomed to the heaving and the pitching, and under- 
stand the motions of this particular vessel, and feel as 
secure as if we were sailing a small boat. But you can't 
sleep much when each roll throws you from your back into 
a praying position on the side of your bunk, let alone 
the water gurgling and flopping about the floor. 
Our jib blew away this morning — sails, reefed topsails, 
courses and staysails. A stormy sunset to-night ; a 
ragged band of yellow sky between two banks of hard- 
edged purple cloud , a sombre blue-black sea with 
bursting grey sea-horses tipped with yellow sunlight ; a 
dreary tract of storm-tossed ocean waves. 
I nearly lost my Ossian to-day — my much-thumbed, 
travelled, weather-worn, dog-eared Ossian. I was making 
pencil notes for illustrations against the day I meet a 
Gaelic Rothschild or a publisher of my mind, when a 
lump of green sea came aboard and turned my notes into 
water colours. It is a unique sensation getting solid 
water on your back — a very depressing sensation. 
Ossian, to my mind, is the only poet you can listen to 
in the open air. In this fine wild weather, when the wind 
rises and sings, you cannot hear other poets at all. He 
