DUTIES AND COMPANIONS 67 
Such pictures once visualised "were ineffaceable. It was the 
same elsewhere. In his letters he repeatedly brings a view 
home to his father by recalling an illustration or description 
in some famihar book of travels — as in Madeira and at Teneriffe, 
Webb and Berthelot, or at the Cape, Burchell's Travels. In 
describing a plant fresh from its native ground, his strong 
visual memory is ready to prompt some detailed comparison 
with a dried specimen once studied in his father's herbarium. 
As to his duties on the Erehus, he gives a detailed descrip- 
tion in his letters to his grandfather. There was little sickness 
on board : on his professional visits each morning to the sick 
bay, he seldom found much to do : indeed, as has been noted 
already, during his stay at Chatham before the ship sailed he 
remarked the superiority in conduct and health on the Erehus s 
crew over the Terror's, albeit during the voyage the Terror's 
officers prided themselves on keeping the stricter discipline 
on board. 
He was fortunate in his captain and fellow officers. Eoss 
was a friend of his father, and respected by him both for his 
religious feeling and for his scientific aptitudes. Sir William, 
it will be remembered (II. 12), coming down to visit his son 
at Chatham, found the junior officers, in the role of Jack ashore, 
lacking in scientific seriousness of conversation, and — w^hat 
was worse in his eyes — respect for the Sabbath. Neverthe- 
less, they were good fellows ; and interested in science when 
not, like the surgeon and those trained in magnetic work, 
professionally concerned. The Erehus was, and they were 
proud of it, a discovery ship, not a surveying vessel ; and 
they had been chosen as suitable for a voyage of this kind, 
although it came to be generally recognised that Eoss chose 
for his executive officers men who were never likely to rival 
the brilliancy of his own career. They were not, like the 
lieutenants of the Battlesnake, hostile to use of the tow-net as 
* messing the decks ' : on the contrary, scientific observations 
went on every day ; and every day if possible soundings were 
taken to test the ocean temperature at various depths, and the 
tow-net used. 
Hooker was imcertain at first with regard to McCormick; 
