FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC i8r 
Burns was in the chair, and the English clergyman and 
Peter White, cook of the Balaena, were croupiers. . . . 
It was after midnight, not to be too accurate, when we 
turned in. On the way to the beds the Chaplins had 
provided for us, we looked stealthily into a half lamp-lit 
room, and saw a glimpse of the child life of the island. 
Asleep in a row, on the same bed on the floor, their heads 
resting softly on the same pillow, bathed in rosy sleep, 
four little golden-haired angels lay, with rosy lips and 
dark eyelashes closed on warm cheeks, — sound asleep, — 
* full of sweet dreams and health and quiet breathing.' 
They had been turned out of their own beds to make 
room for us seafarers. 
In the morning the four fair-haired ones would have 
me pipe to them endless tunes. They made a pretty 
audience ; the eighteen-month cherub sat half-dressed in 
his small sister's arms, with a blue-eyed fairy on each side. 
With what rapt attention they listened to the tunes of the 
olden times! It is strange how Highland children love 
the pipes. I have seen a small child when it heard the 
pipes stop crying and forget all the pains of teething, and 
listen motionless with wide eyes till it dropped asleep ; 
an English child would have run to its mother's arms 
crying. Is it not strange, this hereditary * association of 
ideas'? I wonder what vague associations are stirred 
in the child's mind by our ancient tunes. Does the 
new memory go back to the old past, and listen again 
to the piping on the galley of Pytheas as he came 
sailing up the firth on his Government's Scientific Ex- 
pedition, or does it see the people stringing across the 
