We saw here some fur seals in the water, and a very few sea-elephants, which had been left behind by the herd in its southward migration a short time before, much as an occasional robin is left in the north, into November or even December. The sea-elephant is a strange beast. It has a snout somewhat prolonged, and as flexible as an elephant’s, but this snout or trunk is short, about the length of a tapir’s, I should guess. I never measured a sea-elephant, but I should think they were from ten to twenty feet long, and that they weighed from one to three tons, the bulls being larger than the cows. They look much like huge leather water-bottles, filled to bursting with water, and dumped on the ground by tired porters. As we saw them there, they were lying on the grass-covered slopes, between the rocks. When we came too near, the beast would raise its head, wrinkle its nose, contract its proboscis until it lay flat on its face, and open its disgusting mouth, emitting what probably passed, among sea-elephants, for a growl or a hiss. As I remember them, the lower lip was very full and split, and they had a way of thrusting it forward, as if pouting. I may be wrong, for it is a long time to remember such details, and I was not engaged in a scientific investigation. I am sure only that the expression of their faces was very disgusting and expressed the most utter disgust. No doubt it represented rage or alarm, perhaps both. When we advanced cautiously nearer still, the beast would bestir itself, rise up on its flippers, and go lumbering off with astonishing speed. {253} After one of these excursions, as Peter and Smith and I were approaching the shore where our boat lay, we saw a party of our men coming out of a ravine loaded to the gunwales with some sort of a plant. “What ’s that they ’ve got?” asked Smith. “It ’s likely to be Kerguelen cabbage,” Peter answered. “I ’ve heard of it,” said Smith. “Sort of medicine, is n’t it?” Peter shook his head. “I ’ve never eaten any. You ’re like to find out. It seems early in the season to pick cabbages.” Smith laughed, and started running to meet the men with the cabbages. He was just the build for a runner, tall and lean, and he ran well and easily. To tell the truth, I admired the man, while I disliked him heartily; admired his physical qualities, which seemed unimpaired by his mode of life, while I disliked his attitude toward everything, and the kind of thoughts which seemed to occupy his mind—his mental attributes, or rather the attributes of the heart, as we are apt to put it.