We were just assembling for lunch to the call of 'Lunch O!' and I was serving out the soup, which was particularly good that day, consisting of boiled seal's backbone, limpets, and seaweed, when there was another hail from Marston of 'Ship O!' Some of the men thought it was 'Lunch O!' over again, but when there was another yell from Marston lunch had no further attractions.

The ship was about a mile and a half away and steaming past us.

A smoke-signal was the agreed sign from the shore, and, catching up somebody's coat that was lying about, I struck a pick into a tin of kerosene kept for the purpose, poured it over the coat, and set it alight.

It flared instead of smoking; but that didn't matter, for you had already recognized the spot where you had left us and the 'Yelcho' was turning in." We encountered bad weather on the way back to Punta Arenas, and the little 'Yelcho' laboured heavily; but she had light hearts aboard.

We entered the Straits of Magellan on September 3 and reached Rio Secco at 8 a.m.