drifted clear of the iceberg; wishing to use it as a breakwater, an attempt was then made to steam up under its lee, but with close-reefed after sails and full speed the wind proved too strong to allow the ship to face it. After drifting half a mile from the berg another large one was seen during a clearance of the squall half a mile ahead. I accordingly allowed the ship to drift towards it, and shortly after passing to leeward, the wind lulling a little enabled us to get the ship's head round, and by the assistance of steam and sails to retrace our steps. Having proved the road to be clear of dangers, we spent the anxious night going backwards and forwards between the two icebergs.

And of the gale on the 26th: " During the afternoon the wind freshened from the north, and by 8 P.M. it was blowing a strong gale, with a heavy fall of wet snow hiding everything from our sight more than one-eighth of a mile distant. Fortunately just before dark a large iceberg was seen which enabled me to heave the ship to to leeward of it, under a closereefed spanker with full steam up. The gale never blew too hard to prevent the ship steaming very slowly head to wind, but had we drifted away from under the lee of the friendly breakwater the heavy sea would have prevented her doing so. It was fortunate that this gale shifted to the westward instead of to the southward, as the former one did, otherwise, commencing as it did with a heavy fall of wet snow, there would not have been a serviceable block or rope in the rigging with the upper deck covered with ice.

"After experiencing two heavy gales whilst surrounded by icebergs we can readily realise the great dangers which a sailing vessel must encounter in navigating these seas."

On the 11th "The same night we passed a great number (of icebergs), and during a fog, with a light breeze, ran into the edge of the open pack in lat. 65° 30' S.; luckily the ship answered her helm before her way was completely stopped, and feeling the wind more as it came abeam soon bored her way out into the open water again."

On the 16th :-"As we ran to the northward, with a falling barometer, the number of icebergs in sight quickly decreased, which was fortunate, as by midnight the weather was very misty, with heavy squalls from the S. E., accompanied by thick snow. The ship was hove to under treblereefed topsails."

"Whilst south of 60° south latitude we were obliged to heave to every night on account of the darkness; it so happened that there was no moon above the horizon during this period."

Hardly halcyon seas in Antarctic regions, you see!

CHAPTER III.

MELBOURNE TO CAPE YORK.

THERE was joy among us on arriving at Melbourne. Of gales, snow, icebergs, and discomfort generally, we had had enough, and the memory of a dinner I ate at the club the first evening, followed by the opera, yet lingers in my memory as one of the pleasantest experiences of a poorly paid and laborious career! And yet that Southern cruise was well worth the discomfort; the islands were delightful, the weather was, on the whole, very fine, while there are few people now alive who have seen such superb Antarctic iceberg scenery as we have.

One afternoon particularly is in my mind's eye at this moment. We are steaming towards the supposed position of land, only some thirty miles distant, over a glass-like sea, unruffled by breath of wind; past great masses of ice, grouped so close together in some cases as to form an unbroken wall of cliff several miles in length. Then, as we pass within a few hundred yards the chain breaks up into two or three separate bergs, and one sees-and beautifully from the masthead-the blue sea and distant. horizon between perpendicular walls of glistening alabaster white, against which the long swell dashes, rearing up in great blue-green heaps, falling back in a torrent of rainbowflashing spray, or goes roaring into the azure caverns, followed immediately by a thundering thud, as the compressed air within buffets it back again in a torrent of seething white foam. We are all on deck, looking out for

the American's land, about which we are now getting extremely sceptical. At six o'clock the pack-ice is sighted ahead, stretching away to right and left, and to the South Pole, too, as far as we can see or know. Abaft us the sun -near his setting is glowing out from among light golden clouds, the only ones in an almost cloudless skybathing sea and ice, both bergs and pack, and ship, all in a flood of soft yellow light. Ahead of the ship the pack is sparkling and shimmering, the sky pale blue, cold, and clear, revealing beneath it as far as the mast-head look-out can see, pack-ice and icebergs--a world of ice, but still no sign of land. So then we gave up " Termination Land" as being an optical delusion.

The ship stayed at Melbourne two weeks; M. and I stayed another week, and rejoined the ship at Sydney. Melbourne I liked very much; its demerits to a sailor being a disagreeable anchorage, a heavy swell setting into the bay-a veritable inland sea-on the slightest provocation, and, also, that the town of Melbourne was distant a quarter of an hour by rail from where we landed. It would be a fine town anywhere; but looking at its youth -only thirty-five years old one may call it a very fine town, made so by broad streets, fine public buildings, banks, churches, &c. In the town, or adjoining it, are pretty, though stiffly laid-out gardens and parks: while suburbs, largely composed of villas, stretch away to the south and east for a long distance, made accessible by constantly running trains.

The town is built in Yankee plan, rigidly right-angular; along both sides of those streets which look one way, streams of running water flow beside the kerbs; these, in rainy weather, become raging turbid torrents, so much so that horses drawing cabs-hansoms and otherwisefrequently refuse to cross them where they run past cross streets. In former days, before little iron bridges were put up, "another child drowned" used to be a common occurrence; and while we were there we read in the

morning paper about a woman who, tumbling in, was swept under a bridge, and there was drowned before she could be rescued! They give a peculiar and pleasant look to the streets (not the drowned people, but the streams), and cool the air in hot weather.

There is a most admirable club, the best out of England that I know, having the advantage of a great number of bedrooms, which honorary members can make use of-a civilized institution for strangers in the land, unknown, I'm afraid, but necessarily so, in our clubs at home. We lived at this club for more than a week, and, excepting to go in and see what they were like, we had no need to enter a hotel the whole time. The members are a pleasant, hospitable set of men, the mere fact that we were R.N.'s being sufficient to ensure us invitations up country from squatters. Men-of-war do not often come here, so when they do the Melbournites show their appreciation in all kinds of welcome ways, present us with free railway passes, the Mayor receives us in the Town Hall, the members of the club give us a dinner, and great numbers of people come on board.

I met our Argyllshire neighbours, who invited us to go and see their property inland, so away we went, and here follows a brief account of our cruise:-Two hours by evening train brought us to Geelong, a town built on the shores of a small inner bay, and which once thought it was going to be what Melbourne has become; so to take away from Melbourne at one fell swoop its trade, Geelong built thereto a railway. But, alas for Geelong! 'twas all the other way, for the trade departed from Geelong by Geelong's own paid-for railway! So Geelong is rather a " mean town still, has tweed manufactories, and ships a little wool; Melbourne papers occasionally and sarcastically informing one that "there is life in Geelong yet," à propos of a new something or other. But a "high tea" at a good hotel caused us to bless Geelong, and we bear it heartfelt sympathy.

At 10 P.M. we got into a coach-of omnibus form inside -with one other passenger, and a cargo of mail-bags on which we lay and slept. Four horses, fast going, capital road, lovely but chilly night, chequered oblivion, altering pillows, mail-bags very hard and angular, savage thoughts as to whether people in Australia ever wrote soft letters, attempts to get some (if so) under me, hoping M. was not more comfortable than I was, passenger vanished, and frequent change of horses, is all I can vaguely remember, till a hot sun and bright blue sky awoke me to find the coach rumbling and slashing at a gallop through yellow grassed flat country, sprinkled with gum-trees, sheep, and cattle. Sunshine sparkling everywhere on dew-covered grass and foliage; loud flute-like bubblings from piebald "piping crows;" harsh screams from great flocks of snowyplumaged, yellow-crested cockatoos; prolonged sarcastic haa, haa, haa's from "laughing jackasses;" and soon we gallop into a neat little wooden village, draw up at an inn, wash, breakfast, smoke, and feel generally very much alive and ready to enjoy life.

We

Here also we find F.'s buggy, which takes us on. presently leave the high road, passing first a salt lake among low hills, ninety miles from the sea, and strike off on to a grass "bush" road. These bush roads, from two to four chains wide, go straight as an arrow all over the country, through anybody's property, "anybody" having to fence them off. They are the public highways for vast herds of sheep and cattle travelling to market.

During the first hour's drive, every mile is a repetition of the last, perfectly flat country fenced off into immense fields called paddocks, long coarse-looking grass, and dead gum-trees-bleached and white-the ugly and prevailing features. Endless lines of post-and-rail fences, an occasional sheep only in the paddocks, though many thousands are probably close by somewhere, and in short, the landscape wants, what indeed we had, a brilliant sun and bluest of skies to make it cheerful. We saw a few