FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
shape — the steersman stands on this, when it is not run- 
ning out — another is coiled in a box amidships, and the 
third is coiled in the bow. There has been some demur 
about coiling the lines on a Friday ; but so many instances 
are quoted of full ships as the result of lines being coiled 
on a Friday, that the work goes on merrily, and as each 
crew lays down the last fathom they give a cheer, and 
the men in the neighbouring boats growl at each other 
for their slowness. Every one is in a state of great ex- 
pectation : to-morrow we ought to be amongst the ' great 
numbers of the largest-sized black whales' that Ross 
wrote about. 
One of our harpooneers, the slayer of hundreds of 
leviathans — perhaps the oldest and most energetic of our 
crew — has not coiled his lines down yet. He has kept out 
of sight in his bunk, whistling to his dicky-bird, waiting 
till twelve o'clock, the end of the nautical day, when there 
will be time enough, as he says. Nothing will induce^him 
to equip his boat, and nothing will make him confess that 
it is on account of its being Friday. The harpoon-guns 
too are being fixed in the bullet-heads on the boats' bows. 
They are rather like short-barrelled duck-punt guns — 
muzzle-loaders with a pistol stock supported on a crutch 
and a swivel-pin that turns in the bullet-head; a Tew 
inches behind this bullet-head there is a second bullet or 
timber-head, round which the line is hitched as it "runs 
out over the stem. 
Soon after passing Danger Islets we saw the southern 
extremity of Joinville Land, called by Ross Cape Purvis. 
Off this point lay Paulet Island, 750 feet high, as estimated 
P 
