the sea-leopard, ranging wide and preying on the penguins and even
on the young of its less powerful brethren. It is curious to observe
that both seals and penguins regard themselves as safe when out of
the water. In the sea they are running risks all the time, and in
that element Nature has made them swift to prey or to avoid being
preyed upon. But once on ice or land they have known no enemy,
and cannot therefore conceive one. The seal merely raises its head
when anyone approaches, and then with but little fear; whereas it
is often difficult to drive the penguin into the water, for he
is firmly convinced that the sea is the sole source of danger.
Several seals were killed for food, and from the first seal-meat
was found palatable, if not altogether the form of diet to recommend
to an epicure. The great drawback to the seal is that there is no
fat except blubber,
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and blubber has a very strong taste and most penetrating smell.
At this time blubber was an abomination to everyone both in taste
and smell, and if the smallest scrap happened to have been cooked
with the meat, dinner was a wasted meal. Later on, however, this
smell lost most of its terrors, while seal-steaks and seal-liver
and kidneys were treated almost as luxuries.

On the morning of January 8 a strong water sky could be seen, and
soon afterwards the officer of the watch hailed from aloft the glad
tidings of an open sea to the south. Presently the ship entered
a belt where the ice lay in comparatively small pieces, and after
pushing her way through this for over a mile, she reached the hard
line where the ice abruptly ended, and to the south nothing but
a clear sky could be seen. At 10.30 P.M. on the same evening the
joy of being again in the open sea was intensified by a shout of