FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 343 
mountains watching the ship sail past. Every year ships 
are wrecked or disabled going round the Horn, and their 
wreck or boats might very possibly have drifted on to these 
unvisited islands. Only last year two large ships were 
lost. They were last spoken south of the Horn, and it is 
supposed they struck ice and foundered, or were disabled 
and drifted south-east in a north-west gale. It would 
be a humane plan for our Government to send a vessel 
to look up these islands occasionally, on the chance of 
picking up castaways. We could see other islands of the 
group stretching to the westward. Clarence Island appears 
to be the highest ; the view we had reminded me of the 
peaks of Arran, only they were as high again and covered 
with snow, except where black rocks showed through long, 
steep slopes of snow. It would be a lovely country for 
Alpine club men, or for tobogganing — splendid slopes at 
an angle of 45 0 , two or three thousand feet high, with 
a clear jump at the bottom of, say, five hundred feet into 
^^J^ie soft sea. 
We have the molly mawks with us again, and Mother 
Carey's chickens in considerable numbers. A few of these 
last have white breasts. 
Monday. — Sun and breeze. We feel completely out of 
the Polar world. The albatross have joined us again. 
On our way out, those we saw were old white birds in full 
plumage, and the rest were in the stage immediately pre- 
ceding full plumage. Now we see pairs of old birds taking 
charge of young birds whose plumage is entirely brown. 
Saturday. — A bad sea. Wind, N.W. to W. We are 
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