FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
bear-like teeth do not look pleasant at close quarters. 1 
But the poor beasts only acted on the defensive ; if they 
had had the good sense to attack us or take to the water 
instead of taking to the centre of the ice-cakes, there 
would have been trouble. They evidently consider the 
centre of the snow pieces their refuge from danger ; pro- 
bably the Orca or Grampus treats them here as it does 
the seals in the north. 1 We found some of the seals very 
much scarred with long parallel wounds almost encircling 
their bodies. I think these were marks left by the 
grampus; the smaller cuts about their necks and shoulders 
were signs of domestic worries. 
In the evening we steamed gently up against the edge 
of a large pack some miles long, which bounded the 
comparatively open water of the gulf to the south-east. 
Our bows struck softly against its edge, and the screw 
went on revolving, while some men dropped from the 
martingale and made two wire hawsers fast to spikes 
driven deep into the snow. This position was within 
a mile of the spot where Sir James Ross brought in the 
New Year of 1843. 
The Diana and Active followed, running their black 
bows over the snow-edge, one on each side of us, and 
distant a few hundred yards. Some of the boats were 
lowered, and the masters of the ships met and had one of 
their i mollies/ and the men of the three vessels had an 
opportunity of speaking to each other on the snow. It 
1 An Orca or Grampus, twenty feet long, was found on the Danish coast 
with the remains of fourteen seals and two porpoise inside it. See Rae 
Society. 
