CHAPTER XXXIV 



F* "^HERE being still mist this morning our budget of 

 news can only be described as strictly Local, for we 



A can only see over a few yards of floe and rippling 

 sea. Three hooded-seals appeared astern just now, as I 

 went out for a breath after completing the aforesaid master- 

 piece of the floe-edge scene. They went off with a splash, as 

 if alarmed at finding themselves near us, and then they came 

 up again and took stock of us at about two hundred yards. 

 We could not see them well, so we did not shoot. What we 

 may call Home news, is of our cubs forward. William the 

 (comparatively) Silent worked through his floor, and it had 

 to be renewed. We call his sister Christabel, for she bit her 

 brother's face without any reason ; but it is rather unfair 

 calling her so, for he certainly threatened her thought she 

 caused all the troubles he had had in his short life. She 

 refuses to have water. Even when we pull out her water- 

 trough she violently draws it in again and upsets the water. 

 She has strength ! I think she will be a great catch in a 

 zoo, where her pretty ways could be studied behind bars 

 with safety. The old Starboard bear is now mastering the 

 material iron ; teeth, he has learned, are no use, so he is 

 applying brain. He eats sugar from our fingers, and would 

 eat hand and arm with half a chance. I begin to sympathise 

 with him in regard to confined quarters ; even the wide space 

 we have of about three square yards of deck, in which to 

 have our exercise, feels confined after about five weeks' time. 



I forget what we did or did not do in the morning of 

 Sunday, 3rd August. I expect, the same as usual. There is 

 thin mist, with sun shining through, an unhealthy mouldy 

 morning, and we have a feeling as if we had had bad cham- 

 pagne the night before a slight nasal catarrh, and a little 

 sneezing going on amongst your neighbours and several 

 complaints of rheumatism, cuts, and boils. 

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