CHAPTER XVI 
/^HRISTMAS DAY.— We rose this morning tired as 
dogs. The air is so overpowering here, that if you 
turn in for a pipe and forty winks you may waken a 
day or two later and growl at having to get up so early. 
Like the seals here, or schoolboys anywhere, we have to 
be fairly bullied awake. But though the air makes 
us sleepy, we all agree that it has not so much of the 
tonic effect as the air of the Arctic regions — that atmo- 
spheric champagne on which men can work all day and 
night without fatigue. 
We still lie with our bow over the pack, and a rope 
ladder hangs from the bowsprit, so that we can go ' ashore ' 
whenever we like. Occasionally seals come on to. the ice 
in our neighbourhood, and though the day has been given 
the men as a holiday, a boat's crew generally goes off to 
secure them. A few Emperor penguins arrived, and they 
were also captured and brought to the ship. 
We had an opportunity to-day of meeting our friend 
Dr. Donald of the Active. To put it mildly, we were ex- 
tremely glad to meet another man of our own kidney, 
and wandered away over the snow-field, and held a great 
palaver behind a hummock, stretched on the snow, enjoy- 
ing the blaze of sunlight. 
We had many notes about bird-life to compare, and 
knotty questions in medicine to discuss, to the solving of 
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