124 FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
are brisker, and there seems to be more food about for 
them. In the hot, calm days they seem tired, and wheel 
about languidly, close to the surface. 
St. Petrous is the name the Germans give them ; but 
they paddle along the surface of the water so neatly, and 
they are so gentle and such faithful followers, that the 
name does not suit them ; and though they are fishermen, 
they are most gentlemanly little fellows, and are always 
neatly dressed ; their manners are polished, and they 
never quarrel, and speak to each other with gentle voices, 
a soft twitter like the tweet of sand-martins. 
. . . For several mornings past the doctor has been read- 
ing on the port quarter-boat after breakfast. It annoyed 
me to see him getting through so much work whilst I did 
nothing but feed petrels. Sir Joshua Reynolds' favourite 
quotation, ' Nulla dies sine linea', came back to my mind, 
motto for a mere craftsman, I know ; still I acted on it and 
drew the doctor working. I could 6nly see the top of his 
straw hat, his knees on either side and the book between, 
but they gave the effect of intense mental action and phy- 
sical repose which is characteristic of so many really great 
works of art. When the line was drawn I took it round 
for scientific criticism, and lo ! the doctor was sleeping. — 
(This drawing has not survived the voyage.) A most 
mistaken idea this that we artists have, never to let a 
day go by without destroying a plain surface. I know 
this, that our greatest poet-painter, all the time he was 
sailing amongst the islands in the blue seas of Greece, 
never touched pencil but once, and his artist companion 
scribbled all the time, and is only known to the General 
