200 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



wliicli is a,bout an inch in thickness, there is at least a foot of fat Tjefore you can 

 come at either lean or bones, and we experienced more than once that the fat of 

 some of the largest afforded us a butt of oil. They are likewise very full of blood, 

 for if they are deeply wounded in a dozen places there will instantly gush out as 

 many fountains of blood, spouting to a considerable distance: and to try what 

 quantity of blood they contained we shot one first and then cut its throat, and, 

 measuring the blood that came from him, we found that liesides what remained 

 in the vessels, which, to be sure, was considerable, we got at least 2 hogsheads(!). 

 Their skins are covered with a short hair, of a light dun color, but their tails and 

 their fins, which serve them for feet on shore, are almost black. Their fins or feet 

 are divided at the ends like fingers, and the web which joins them not reaching to 

 the extremities, each of these fingers is furnished with a nail. They have a dis- 

 tant resemblance to an overgrown seal, though in some particulars there is a man- 

 ifest difference between them, especially in the males. These have a large trunk or 

 snout hanging down 5 or 6 inches below the end of the upper jaw, which the females 

 have not, and this renders the countenance of the male and the female easy to be dis- 

 tinguished from each other: besides, the males are of a much larger size. The form 

 ancl the appearance of both the male and the female are very exactly represented 

 in the nineteenth plate, only the disproportion of their size is not usually so great 

 as is there exhibited, for the male is drawn from life after the largest of these ani- 

 mals which was found upon the island. He was the master of the flock, and from 

 his driving off the other males and keeping a great number of females to himself, 

 he was by the seamen ludicroiislj' styled the bashaw. These animals divide their 

 time equally between the land and sea. continuing at sea all the summer and com- 

 ing on shore at the setting in of winter, where they reside during that whole season. 

 In this interval they engender and bring forth their young, and have generally two 

 at a birth, which they suckle with their milk, they being at first about the size of 

 a full-grown seal. During the time these sea lions continue on shore they feed 

 upon the grass and verdure which grows near the banks of the fresh-water streams, 

 and when not employed in feeding sleep in herds in the most miry places they 

 can find. As they seem to be of a very lethargic disposition and are not easily 

 awakened, each herd was observed to place some ot their males at a distance, in 

 the nature of sentinels, who never failed to alarm them whenever anj-one attempted 

 to molest or even to approach them, and they were very capable of alarming, even 

 at a considerable distance, for the noise thej' make is very loud and of different 

 kinds, sometimes grunting like hogs and at other times snorting like horses in full 

 vigor. They often, especially the males, have furious battles with each other, 

 principally about their females, and we were one day extremely surprised at the 

 sight of two animals wliich at first appeared different from any of all we had 

 observed, but on a nearer approach they proved to be two sea lions who had been 

 goring each other with their teeth and were covered over with blood, and the 

 bashaw, above mentioned, who generallj' lay surrounded with a seraglio of females, 

 which no other male dared to approach, had not acquired that envied preeminence 

 without many bloody contests, of which the marks still remained in the numerous 

 scars which were visible in every part of his body. We killed many of them for 

 food, especially for their hearts and tongues, which we esteemed good eating, and 

 preferable even to those of bullocks. In general shape there was no difficulty in 

 killing them, for they were incapable either of escaping or of resisting, as their 

 motion is the most unwieldy that can be conceived, their blubber all the time they 

 are moving being agitated in huge waves under their skins. However, a sailor 

 one day being carelessly employed in skinning a young sea lion, the female from 

 whence he had taken it came upon him unperceived, and, getting his head in her 

 mouth, she with her teeth scored his skull in notches in many places, and thereby 

 wounded him so desperately that, thoiigh all possible care was taken of him, he died 

 in a few days. 



Few birds. — These are the principal animals which we foimd upon the island, 

 for we saw but few birds, and those chiefly hawks, blackbirds, owls, and hum- 

 ming birds. We saw not the pendella, which burrows in the ground, and which 

 former writers have mentioned to be found here: but as we often met with their 

 holes we supposed that the dogs had destroyed them, as they have almost done 

 the cats; for these were very numerous in Selkirk's time, but we saw not above 

 one or two during our whole stay. However, the rats still keep their ground, and 

 continue here in great numbers, and were very troublesome to us by infesting our 

 tents nightly. 



Abundance of fish. — But that which fiirnished us with the most delicious 

 repasts at this island remains still to be described. This was the fish, with which 

 the whole bay was most plentifully stored, and with the greatest variety, for we 

 found here cod of a prodigious size, and by the report of some of our crew, who 



