FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 135 
extracted her head, and bolted up the fore-hatch woo- 
hooing. It is a hard life at sea, but it has its pleasures. 
Wednesday, i%rd— Lafc 41.13; long. 49.9. It is blow- 
ing a living gale this morning, S. by W., and we 
are lying close-hauled under a scrap of main-topsail and 
fore and main-staysail. It is a wonder they hold in the 
bolt ropes with such a strain. It is a nasty place to meet 
with a gale, one has heard so often of vessels hammering 
for months against head-winds down this road that we 
fear lest we have the same fate. Miles and miles of white- 
capped rollers come charging down on us. What dreary 
wide valleys lie between them ! As each huge crest 
rushes past us the Balsena shakes herself as if with relief 
at danger past, pulls herself together, and sinks down into 
the long valley before her and steadily rises again to the 
top of the next hill of water, now and then the crest of 
a sea comes thunde/ing on to our fore decks, throwing 
the hard white foam high over our foretop. Cold, clear 
patches of blue show at times through the grey sky, and 
transient gleams of faint sunlight fall on our foaming 
decks, and cheer our spirits for a moment, then pass 
away to leeward, lighting up endless ranks of angry 
white-headed seas. . . . Now the sky has darkened, and 
the rain has come up with the wind. It makes the seas 
easier. We can only see the first three ranks of the waves 
rising and falling, their white heads threatening us like 
ghosts out of the gloom of mist and spray to windward. 
The Balsena is light now, as we have burnt a good deal 
of our coal, and she rises to the sea almost as easily as 
