complicated for some of us by sea-sickness. I have lively recollections
of being aloft for two hours in the morning watch on Friday and being
sick at intervals all the time. For sheer downright misery give me a
hurricane, not too warm, the yard of a sailing ship, a wet sail and a
bout of sea-sickness.

It must have been about this time that orders were given to clew up the
jib and then to furl it. Bowers and four others went out on the bowsprit,
being buried deep in the enormous seas every time the ship plunged her
nose into them with great force. It was an education to see him lead
those men out into that roaring inferno. He has left his own vivid
impression of this gale in a letter home. His tendency was always to
underestimate difficulties, whether the force of wind in a blizzard, or
the troubles of a polar traveller. This should be remembered when reading
the vivid accounts which his mother has so kindly given me permission to
use:

"We got through the forties with splendid speed and were just over the
fifties when one of those tremendous gales got us. Our Lat. was about 52°
S., a part of the world absolutely unfrequented by shipping of any sort,
and as we had already been blown off Campbell Island we had nothing but
a clear sweep to Cape Horn to leeward. One realized then how in the
Nimrod--in spite of the weather--they always had the security of a big
steamer to look to if things came to the worst. We were indeed alone, by
many hundreds of miles, and never having felt anxious about a ship
before, the old whaler was to give me a new experience.

"In the afternoon of the beginning of the gale I helped make fast the
T.G. sails, upper topsails and foresail, and was horrified on arrival on
deck to find that the heavy water we continued to ship, was starting the