138 FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
There was a -pretty girl on board the Guy Mannering. 
This was perhaps why the doctor took such trouble. 
We saw her with 
the glasses, a 
wicked thing in 
blue fishing alba- 
tross, on Sunday. 1 
We could hardly 
see her face but 
she was pretty — 
we were all quite 
sure of that, pos- 
sibly because she 
was the first of her 
kind we had seen 
for months. 
The Guy Man- 
nering was showing us a bird's-eye view of her white 
decks and brasswork alternately with the barnacles on her 
lowest plates, and as we were rolling heavily too, it was just 
a trifle risky getting the boat away. When everything was 
ready in. the boat, the men in their seats, the oars looked 
to, the doctor seated on a stretcher, and George standing 
with his long steering oar shipped, she was lowered from 
the davits a few feet, then as we rose from a roll to 
windward the falls were let go and the boat and crew 
dropped on to the swell with a slight splash and immedi- 
1 I have since heard the Guy Mannering was wrecked about a fort- 
night later in the Magellan Straits. All hands got ashore in the boats. Poor 
thing, I do hope she was not frightened. 
