FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
229 
was altogether a novel sensation to me this running a ship 
intentionally against what appeared to be solid ice islands. 
Sometimes an island would not break or shove aside, then 
we backed, and steamed against it again full tilt, and the 
sensation we felt in the Bakena was as if we were inside 
a hamper and some one had jumped on it. As we jammed 
slowly through between the pieces they tore along our 
sides, and took off something more than the barnacles we 
brought from the tropics. 
It seems strange that the penguins should jump out of 
the water on to the snow at our approach, instead of into 
the water off the snow. They scurry over the snow in an 
upright position, like little fat men in black coats and 
white silk waistcoats. Their bare pink feet show just 
beneath their waistcoats, but for all that they look as 
respectable as can be. When they reach the middle of 
the ice islands they toddle up some mound of snow and 
wave their flippers to us with most ridiculous empresse- 
ment. I am sure they discuss the new arrivals in their 
country; though * quangk-quangk/ is the only word 
I distinguish, their attitudes are as expressive as a 
Shakespearian vocabulary. When they are not engaged 
making a living below water they come up and play 
games on the snow — have little debating societies, and 
King of the Castle and other games, and sometimes when 
they are in great numbers they have military manceuvres. 
The men say they are the only things worth coming to 
