FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 247 
packed ice to the east and south of us. We are waiting 
for the whales to turn up ; the water is just the kind they 
like — brown, the colour of a peat stream, thick with diatoms 
that tinge the water-worn tongues and roots of the ice 
islands with the colour of weak tea — a pleasant contrast 
this yellow to the blue and green of the undercut snow 
ledges. This morning we made out a sail to the S.E., and 
had great hopes that it might be our little friend the Polar 
Star. It however proved to be the Jason, the Norwegian 
barque that has come out to keep us company in the 
search for whales. They met the ice some time before us, 
and have been sealing between this and in the ice south 
of the Orkneys for about twenty days. They have had 
splendid weather, and have collected some 500 seals, but 
they have not seen the right whale. 
In the afternoon I went out with a crew and had two 
hours' pulling, which is about equal to six with decent 
oars. We have a few fairly good American ash oars on 
board, but the others are merely Norwegian fir poles, 
flattened at one end, with as much resemblance to a pro- 
perly-balanced oar as a Castle Connel has to a Norse 
fishing-pole. 
The first seal we came across was a very large one. He 
was lying on the snow on his back and would not budge, but 
turned on us, snarling, showing his formidable teeth and 
red throat George stood for me for a few seconds whilst I 
elaborated some instantaneous eye exposures with pencil 
and paper, which you have here reproduced. The figure on 
the right tried to kill him with his pick, and gave a welt 
or two at his head that would have killed an ox, but only 
