210 THE VOYAGE OF THE 'DISCOVERY' [April 



on the ice close to the ship to-night ; we have very rarely seen 

 these seals since our arrival in winter quarters ; they seem to 

 live mostly in the open sea. These animals must have come 

 up through one of the holes, and then, possibly attracted by 

 the ship, they appeared to have lost their bearings, as they 

 crawled in any direction rather than towards an opening in 

 the ice. 



' We were still desirous of increasing our stock of seal-meat, 

 but had we killed these animals at once we should have had 

 great difficulty in skinning them in the dark, and by morning 

 we knew the carcases would be hard frozen. In this dilemma 

 orders were given to tie them up, and this resulted in quite an 

 amusing scene. This species of seal is much more lithe and 

 agile than the Weddell, and no sooner had a noose been 

 cunningly drawn around the neck of one of these animals than 

 he whipped round with such a ferocious snapping of the jaws 

 that the holder of the rope incontinently fled ; at length double 

 nooses were drawn tight under the flippers of each animal, and 

 with a precautionary extra rope around the tail we had them, 

 as we thought, securely tied to the ship's chain cables ; but ten 

 minutes later we heard that both had freed themselves by 

 slipping through their lashings. By this time everyone was 

 turning in, but the matter was now growing into a serious 

 reflection on our ability ; that a party of sailors should confess 

 themselves unable to tie any animal up securely was not to be 

 thought of, so out we all sallied again. This time, after much 

 struggling, each seal was lashed up like a hammock with 

 frequent turns of rope round the body from the nose to the 

 tail and finally they were once more secured to the cable.' 

 In spite of all our efforts, however, in the morning we found 

 that one of these animals had slipped through everything and 

 disappeared. 



i April 7. — To-day we found the sea open northward of a 

 line from Hut Point, evidently the result of the late gale. The 

 temperature to-day has risen to +io°, and, possibly in conse- 

 quence, to-night furious squalls come from the E.S.E. towards 

 the open water. I think our bay-ice is safe enough, but one 



