196 SOME BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA 



large black rocks connected by a low riclge, while over 

 this ridge the sea was breaking" and boiling in masses 

 of white surf. The rocks were thickly tenanted by the 

 sea-lions, the biggest of which certainly must have been 

 as large as the body of a medium-sized mule. We 

 huno- off within about thirty yards of the rocks, and the 

 creatures that were lying nearest the water flopped 

 about in a most ungainly way until they slid into the 

 sea, often to reappear, head and shoulders, in the midst 

 of the white surf ; those on the top of the rock raised 

 themselves up and looked about them. Perhaps the 

 most strange effect of any was the continuous roar that 

 they kept up all the time ; the sound reminded me of 

 a drove of cattle. I asked the skipper whether it would 

 be possible to land, but he said that the boat would be 

 stove in against the rocks, and as it was the men had 

 hard work to keep her anything like stationary. He 

 wanted me to take some photographs from the boat, 

 and if I had had a hand-camera with me I could have 

 obtained some good ones ; those that I took were 

 useless, as I knew would be the case, being taken 

 with a twenty-inch-focus lens from an unsteady boat. 

 When specimens of these sea-lions are required for any 

 museum, the creatures are generally clubbed on the head 

 by one of the sailors ; if shot, they will nearly always 

 succeed in escaping- into the water. 



The tug, which had been longer than we expected 

 in putting in an appearance, now came into view, so 

 rowing out to meet it, we were soon on our way home. 



The group of islands treated of in the foregoing 

 pages is not the only one in Algoa Bay, for, starting 

 from Port P^lizabeth in a north-easterly direction, and 



