king crew would have been hard to find. We spent our fine
days killing, cutting up and carrying in seal when we could find them, or
climbing the various interesting hills and craters which abound here, and
our evenings in long discussions which seldom settled anything. Some
looked after dogs, and others after ponies; some made geological
collections; others sketched the wonderful sunsets; but before and above
all we ate and slept. We must have spent a good twelve hours asleep in
our bags every day after our six weeks' sledging. And we rested. Perhaps
this is not everybody's notion of a very good time, but it was good
enough for us.

The Weddell seal which frequents the seas which fringe the Antarctic
continent was a standby for most of our wants; for he can at a pinch
provide not only meat to eat, fuel for your fire and oil for your lamp,
but also leather for your finnesko and an antidote to scurvy. As he lies
out on the sea-ice, a great ungainly shape, nothing short of an actual
prod will persuade him to take much notice of an Antarctic explorer. Even
then he is as likely as not to yawn in your face and go to sleep again.
His instincts are all to avoid the water when alarmed, for he knows his
enemies the killer whales live there: but if you drive him into the water
he is transformed in the twinkling of an eye into a thing of beauty and
grace, which can travel and turn with extreme celerity and which can
successfully chase the fish on which he feeds.

We were lucky now in that a small bay of sea-ice, about an acre in
extent, still remained within two miles of us at a corner where Barrier,
sea, and land meet, called Pram Point by Scott in the Discovery days.

Now Pram Point during the summer months is one of the most populous seal
nurseries in McMurdo Sound. In this neighbourhood the Barrier, moving
slowly towards the Peninsula, buckles the sea-ice into pressure ridges.
As the trough of each ridge is forced downwards, so in summer pools of
sea water are formed in which the seal make their holes and among these
ridges they lie and bask in the sun: the males fight their battles, the
females bring forth their young: the children play and chase their tails
just like kittens. Now that the sea-ice had broken up, many seal were to
be found in this sheltered corner under the green and blue ice-cliffs of
Crater Hill.

If you go seal killing you want a big stick, a bayonet, a flensing knife
and a steel. Any big stick will do, s