FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 213 
that the thought of attempting to reproduce the tints at 
the time is crowded out of mind. 
All the effects that I can hope to give here as illustra- 
tions are merely the most evident— those that may be ex- 
pressed in grim black and white — but any delicacy of light 
and shade and tint that I attempt to reproduce in colour, 
is certainly beyond the reproductive powers of our patent 
photographic engraving processes. 
To-night Nick laid out five tumblers, five spoons, and 
the sugar-bowl on the cabin table, with a considerable 
amount of solemnity, and the master brought out his rum, 
and we in the cabin were invited to celebrate the occasion 
of our reaching the ice with a modest glass of rum hot ! 
Taking the total distance N.S.E. and W., we have sailed 
about 9000 miles, and come through much bad weather, 
with no loss but a few sails and one spar. So the occasion 
quite well warranted the excuse for a glass. 
Sunday \ i8tk Dec. — The mist came down over us again 
this morning, and hid the bergs — -which are now very 
numerous, from our view. A few Cape pigeons are flying 
round us ; they show their black-and-white chequered 
backs as they fly under our stern, and fade away in the 
mist, where they seem as much at home as we feel strange. 
When there is a lift in the mist we take advantage of it, 
and steer south by west, making a course along the ice 
edge for Erebus and Terror Gulf, in Louis Philippe Land, 
where Sir James Ross saw the right whales in 1842, and 
where we expect to meet our consorts. We expected to see 
Clarence Island, the eastmost of the South Shetlands, but 
