FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 329 
the scientist will not be hindered in making his obser- 
vations, or the artist — I pray I may be he — in making 
drawings. 
The four black barques are here together, collected like 
crows on a field in the evening before taking flight. The 
Polar Star has flown already ; these gales must have 
blown her clean out of the ice and away north, or, as some 
say, sunk her. She was far too small and fragile for this 
work, with engines far too weak to contend with the 
buffeting of the gales and ice, though I am told she can 
«* to $ ' " " 
• 
~" ■ _ . " •' ■ • 
lick us off our feet in the open sea ; but that is no great 
matter to make her owners gay. 
All the boats are being brought inboard and turned 
upside down on the skids, and soon we hope to be swinging 
under them again, in our hammocks, in the heat of the 
tropics. 
We are lying in Bransfield Straits this afternoon between 
Joinville Land to the south, and the South Shetlands on 
the north ; to-morrow we shall see them on our way north. 
Joinville Land lies S. by E., distant about forty 
