“All these preparations were, however, but introductory to another, which we found a most difficult problem indeed—namely, to contrive how we were all to pass the night in the single little tent we had brought with us. We all got in, certainly, and got the kettle in the middle; but as for lying down to sleep it was utterly out of the question. A London omnibus on a racing day after five o’clock, was the only parallel I could think of to our attempt to stow thirteen men, including our colossal carpenter, into a tent intended for six. At last, after some deliberation, it was arranged that we should sit down six in a row, on each side, which would leave us about three feet clear to stretch our legs. Mr. Bellot, who formed the thirteenth, being the most compact and stowable of the party, agreed to squeeze in underneath them, stipulating only for a clear foot square for his head alongside the tea-kettle. Being unprovided with a candlestick, even if there had been room to place one anywhere, it was arranged that each of us should hold the candle in his hand for a quarter of an hour, and then pass it to his neighbor, and thus by the aid of our flickering taper, through the thick steam of the boiling kettle, we had just enough light to prevent us putting our tea into our neighbor’s mouth, instead of our own. “‘Well, boys,’ suggests our ever jovial first mate, Henry Anderson, ‘now we are fairly seated, I’m thinking, as we can do nothing else, we had best make a night of it again. What say you to a song, Dick?’ Whereupon, nothing loath, Mr. Richard Webb strikes up, in the first style of forecastle execution, ‘Susannah, don’t you cry for me,’ which is, of course, received by the company with the utmost enthusiasm, ‘Mr. Webb, your health and song,’ and general applause, and emptying of tea-cans, which Mr. John Smith, pleading inability to sing, undertakes to replenish for the night. “‘Irvine, my lad, pass the candle, and give us the “Tailor.”’ Mr. Irvine, you must understand, gentle reader, has distinguished himself by some extraordinary performances on the blanket-bags, during our late detention at Whaler Point, in virtue of which he has been formally installed ‘Tailor of the Expedition.’