FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
155 
last wills and testaments, 1 billy-doos,' and letters to the 
auld folks at hame. I have lettered some bags and chests 
lately, so Jack believes that I can write, and in con- 
sequence I am asked to address a number of these letters, 
but I think of the shock there would be at home when my 
writing appeared instead of the well-known, long-ex- 
pected, familiar fist, and sternly refuse. However, I supply 
Indian ink and a quill, and look on with admiration at 
the bold Runic inscriptions that fill the envelopes from 
sidetto side. 
. . . Every day the air grows keener and more bracing, 
and after the heat of the tropics we feel it just a trifle too 
cold now ; there is no more comfortable napping on deck 
in the hot nights, and the men have to march up and 
down in pea-jackets and mufflers to keep warm. When 
there is a chance they steal down the fore-hatch and brew 
coffee on the embers of the galley fire, and smoke their 
pipes, and tell yarns ill low voices, so as not to disturb the 
slumbers of the watch below, who lie in the dark shelves on 
either side of them. I went to the galley to-night to get 
hot water to make cocoa in the doctor's bunk. The talk 
there was about the grog the men intend to have when 
they go ashore at the Falklands — an interesting subject, 
judging from the way they linger over it. Charlie L 
gave his mind on it. He is a soldierly-looking fellow, 
and sat bolt upright on his sea-chest with his arms 
crossed, his cap over his right eye, and his sunburned, 
lined face half lit by the light of a smoking flare lamp. 
He has not told us that he has been in the ranks, but we 
have our suspicions. His half Cockney, half colonial 
