the world--via Cape
Horn, New Zealand and the Cape of Good Hope. We have had a really good
opportunity now of testing the ship's behaviour, having been becalmed
with a huge beam swell rolling 35 deg. each way, and having stood out a heavy
gale with a high sea. In both she has turned up trumps, and really I
think a better little sea boat never floated. Compared to the Loch
Torridon--which was always awash in bad weather--we are as dry as a cork,
and never once shipped a really heavy sea. Of course a wooden ship has
some buoyancy of herself, and we are no exception. We are certainly an
exception for general seaworthiness--if not for speed--and a safer,
sounder ship there could not be. The weather is now cool too--cold, some
people call it. I am still comfortable in cotton shirts and whites, while
some are wearing Shetland gear. Nearly everybody is provided with
Shetland things. I am glad you have marked mine, as they are all so much
alike. I am certainly as well provided with private gear as anybody, and
far better than most, so, being as well a generator of heat in myself, I
should be O.K. in any temperature. By the bye Evans and Wilson are very
keen on my being in the Western Party, while Campbell wants me with him
in the Eastern Party. I have not asked to go ashore, but am keen on
anything and am ready to do anything. In fact there is so much going on
that I feel I should like to be in all three places at once--East, West
and Ship."

FOOTNOTES:

[34] Ross, _Voyage to the Southern Seas_, vol. i. pp. 22-24.

[35] Bowers' letter.

CHAPTER II

MAKING OUR EASTING DOWN

"Ten minutes to four, sir!"

It is an oilskinned and dripping seaman, and the officer of the watch, or
his so-called snotty, as the case may be, wakes sufficiently to ask:

"What's it like?"

"Two hoops, sir!" answers the seaman, and makes his way out.

The sleepy man who has been wakened wedges himself more securely into his
six foot by two--which is all his private room on the ship--and collects
his thoughts, amid the general hubbub of engines, screw and the roll of
articles which have worked loose, to consider how he will best prevent
being hurled out of his bunk in climbing down, and just where he left his
oilskins and sea-boots.

If, as is possible, he sleeps in the Nursery, his task may not be so
simple as it may seem, for this cabin, which proclaims on one of the
beams that it is designed to accommodate four seamen, will