220 
FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
it is equally satisfactory to see them here, in a tight place, 
using the scientists' inventions for the sake of dear life. 
There is much ice round us to-night, and every now 
and then, as I draw in my bunk, comes a crash and a 
shuddering, tearing sound, as if our thirty-two inches of 
timber were being crushed like a straw hat ; it is a bad 
place, this, for weak nerves. In the silence that follows 
we cannot but wonder whether the next rasping will be 
the edge of a growler rubbing off the barnacles, or the 
first touch of the green ice-cliff that lay to leeward when 
we turned in. 
Wednesday, 2\st Dec— Ho change in the weather. The 
sun shines feebly through the mist. There is nothing to be 
seen from deck, and we lie idly rolling, waiting for a lift. 
A seal appeared under our stern and the mate shot it, 
but the bullet went a trifle behind its skull and it sank. 
Apparently it was the same as the last we saw. Later, 
some penguins jumped on to an ice island and we shot 
three of them. We are to have them for Christmas 
dinner, but sincerely trust there may be something besides. 
These were the first we had seen close at hand, and our 
astonishment at their appearance was great. 
At 4 o'clock it cleared up, and we had at last an open 
view. Sailing round a long point of bergs and pack ice 
we headed S.W. with a light breeze in the N.E. The 
colour of the water has changed to the colour whalers like 
— a raw umber tint, caused by minute colourless jellies, 
the size of small shot, each speckled with brown spots. 
The grey, streaky sky has opened in the N.E., leaving a 
