FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 159 
the bush are more interesting than in the Cape. He 
looks back with longing to sheep-shearing time, to the 
riding across country from station to station, working like 
blazes amongst crowds of shearers one day, riding through 
the silent bush the next, with a chum, a swag, and a billie, 
to the lonely still nights under the stars after a fill of 
mutton chops and tea, with no man to call master. Ah 
me, would that I too were lying under the stars, far from 
here, perhaps amongst grey stones and warm heather, 
listening to the grass growing, waiting in the grey of 
the morning for the trail of the otter as he steals across 
the quiet water from the islands to his secret chamber in 
the cairn. 
But I am wandering, whilst Charlie is giving his opinion 
of New Zealand craft, telling of white squalls and high 
wages. These are subjects with which several of us are 
familiar, so there is all round discussion, and many inci- 
dents are quoted. Now he is off to Frisco, and gets 
wrecked off the Horn, and spends two weeks in the boats ; 
but this part of his experiences I have heard of already ; it 
is a gruesorne matter to write about. At Frisco he gets 
into boarders' hands, and is Shanghaied onto an American 
whaler, then sails from Frisco 'ome, but where 'ome is, I 
have never found out. I had thought it was Australia some 
time ago ; this time it is apparently in the British Isles, 
where he acts as artillery officer's yachtsman. Then he 
sails from Dundee on a whaler to the Arctic regions. Last 
June he was in 82 north, and is now on the road to the 
Antarctic. Poor old Charlie ! I 'm afraid, as you say, * you 
ain't been brort up as you orter ! a been,' and how much 
