FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 331 
scientific tastes, both understand what the doctor was 
taking this cold water all the way home for ; but the crew 
did not. They believe firmly that it is for some patent 
medicines or a hair-wash that he intends to advertise 
at home as The Great Antarctic Hair-restorer. In this 
particular line the doctor has very justly earned great 
repute on board by inventing a mixture which, I believe, 
with proper application, would raise down on a billiard- 
ball. 
There is a certain seaman forward, a regular old 
weather-beaten salt, with a face wrinkled up like a peach- 
stone with fever and frost. Of all the complaints this 
elderly man of the sea had picked up in the odd corners 
of the world, what he suffered from most was his bald- 
ness. So he came aft and asked the doctor if he could do 
anything, and the doctor said f Yes,' with perfect confidence; 
for a young practitioner, our doctor has a fair amount of 
nerve, I consider. But in practice at sea ' you soon gain 
confidence,' as he has often told me, referring, of course, to 
surgeons at sea, not their patients. 
"You see, doctor/ said the man, * I ain't got werry much 
'air on the top of my 'ead.' There was none at all on the top, 
and only a little round the sides. 'And before I left my 
'ome I married a werry prutty young wife, and it wouldn't 
be werry nice to go 'ome without any 'air on my 7 ead. J 
The doctor said nothing, but he took a phial and poured 
something into it from another bottle, and poured into 
that some oil of penguins, and added some other ingredi- 
ents, the names and proportions of which I may not here 
divulge ; then he shook the liquid and gave it to the man 
