218 FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
arctic summer! I think the climate here is probably 
worse than farther south, where the temperature may 
be lower but less changeable. In the afternoon the 
sun shone out clearly, and we went on our course again. 
A great swell was running from the N.W., and the sea 
was bright blue and littered all over with small fragments 
of white snow and ice, through which we ploughed our 
way. This small ice was perhaps the cause of the great 
length of the swell, which was not deep, but from top to 
top of each low hill was so long, that any guess I could 
make would scarcely sound credible to one who had not 
seen such a swell on the ice edge. A berg to the south of 
us, about three miles long, seemed to extend over only 
five or six of these low hills. When they rose and burst 
out of the caves the towers of spray were magnificent, and 
must have risen three hundred feet in the air. I give a 
drawing of this berg. It was apparently breaking up. 
Large portions seemed as if they had been undermined, 
and had fallen into the sea. The ship, which I have in- 
serted, had to be made many times too large to be visible. 
It was only for a few hours we enjoyed the sunshine. 
The mist came down again in the afternoon ; it was so 
thick and heavy that even the Cape pigeons seemed to lose 
their way, and fluttered quite close to us for company's sake. 
The engine-room on such an evening is the most com- 
fortable place in the ship. After the snow and cold mist 
on deck it is pleasant to sit down there in the warm gloom 
and watch the gleam of the yellow firelight on the oily 
pistons as they slowly rise and fall. It is but a small 
engine, and one engineer and a fireman can meet all its 
