In the afternoon—now he is almost quiet, for when he tries to claw at the wood through the cast-iron bars they fall back into place again, and he cannot eat iron! So he is thinking now which is the weak point; in a day or two he will attack it. I am very sorry for him, now he is quiet and a little red shows where he has been scratched. I can imagine, like the old Scottish fighting Admiral Barton, that he murmurs:
“A little I’m hurt but not yet slain,
I’ll but lie down and bluid a while
And then I’ll rise and ficht again.”
A mist came over the scene this afternoon, with light shining through, but enough to stop us making progress, even should the ice-pack allow us. So we moor fore and aft alongside a small floe and set to work with pails to fill our fresh-water tanks from the three blue pools on it, pale blue flushed with lilac, cobalt round the rim of each. We stroll on the hard snow, stuff like coarse salt laid down on a blue translucent carpet, and play the pipes, and play with Chee Chee, the ship’s pet. The only game she does not like is being lassoed. Finding a mit hidden in the snow suits her, and a great many other games taught by various instructors.
Our youngest Spanish señor ventured to row away from the ship a little this morning, and this the youngest Don Luis Herrero told me a fine yarn about how he had come on a splendid saddle-seal unexpectedly—that is a dappled brown and white kind we have not got as yet; he described it vividly as seen from five yards. Gisbert at lunch told me it was a make-up, therefore the writer tried to pull his leg in return by illustrating his pretended encounter with the famous seal as per marginal notes. ([See p. 272-273.])