278 
FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 
rheumatism, and most have festering hands, and many 
have scanty clothing. 
Each group of lads tries to make ready more skins than 
the neighbouring group, and the man at the board vies 
with the man next him in the number of skins he makes 
off. It is tedious, back-breaking, profitless work all this, 
and it astonishes me to see men take it all so easily. Is 
it not a fortunate thing for society that so much content- 
ment comes with hard work? 
To-night Mr. Adams and I went off with a crew in a 
four-oar Norwegian boat, belonging to the Jason, that was 
hanging astern, and picked up an unusually large white 
seal, one of the kind that we have killed so many of lately. 
There was something especially grand about this particular 
seal. He lay resting on a bank of low-toned snow, and 
behind him a purple black cloud formed a background, 
dark and soft as a velvet curtain. When we were within 
twenty yards he raised his head and shoulders above the 
snow-bank and looked down on us with calm wonder in 
his courageous black eyes. Near him was a family of 
penguins, with their backs toward us, taking not the least 
notice of our approach. The black lips, eyes, and nostrils 
of the seal, and the blue-black of the penguins' backs, were 
the black touches in this perfect picture of primeval peace. 
. . . Up went the rifle — crack — and the bullet entered the 
beautiful dog-like face, and the picture was ripped up. 
How mean and ugly we of the world of people feel in this 
lovely world of white beauty, making bullets sing through 
the cold, silent air, fouling the snow with blood and soot. 
. . . All the majesty and beauty of the seal has gone ; it 
