THE FUR-SEAL ISLANDS OF ALASKA. 121 



easy to be distinguished from each other, Inside the males are of a much larger size. The form nn<i the appearance of both the male and 

 the female are very cxacth 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 animals, 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 ludicrously 

 styled the bashaw. These animals divide their time equally between the land and sea, continuing at sea all the summer, and coming 

 on shore at tin- setting in of the 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 out. As they seem to be of a very 

 lethargic disposition, and are not easily awakened, each herd was observed to place some of their males at a distance, iu the nature of 

 sentinels, who never failed to alarm them whenever any one attempted to molest, or even to approach them; and they were very capable 

 of alarming, even at a considerable distance ; for the noise they 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, which 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 generally lay surrounded with a seraglio of females, which 

 no other male dared to approach, had not acquired that envied pre-eminence without many bloody contests, of which the marks still 

 remained in the numerous scars which \\ ere 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 cau be conceived, their blubber, 

 all the time they are moving, being agitated in huge waves under their skins. However, a sailor one day beiug 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 though all possible care was taken 

 of him he died in a few days. 



Few birds. — These are the principal animals which we found upon the island, for we saw but few birds, and those chiefly hawks, 

 blackbirds, owls, and humming-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 iu great numbers, and were very troublesome to us by infesting our tents nightly. 



Abundance op fish. — But that which furnished us with the most delicious repasts at this islaud 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 had been formerly employed in the Newfoundland fishery, not in less plenty than is to be 

 met with on the banks of that island. We caught also cavallies, gropers, large breams, maids, silver fish, congers of a peculiar kind — 

 above all, a black-fish, which we most esteemed, called by some, a chimney-sweeper, in shape resembling a carp. The beach, indeed, is 

 everywhere so full of rocks and loose stones that there is no possibility of hauling the seine; but with hooks and lines we caught what 

 numbers we pleased, so that a boat with two or three lines would return loaded with fish in about two or three hours' time. The only 

 interruption we ever met with arose from the great quantities of dog-fish and large sharks which sometimes attended our boats and prevented 

 our sport. Beside the fish we have already mentioned, we found here one delicacy in greater perfection, both as to size and flavor and 

 quantity, than is, perhaps, to be met with in any other part of the world; this was sea cray-fish; they generally weighed eight or nine 

 pounds apiece, were of a most excellent taste, and lay in such abundance near the water's edge that the boat-hooks often struck into them 

 in putting the boat to and from the shore. 



Strange contrast in sealing-groxjnds. — Thus ends Chaplain Walter's description of the plants, and the 

 animals, and the fish of Juan Fernandez; and I quote him in full, because I wish to emphasize the decided difference 

 in the temperament and constitution of the northern, or Alaskan, far-seal from that of its southern relative, which 

 seems to have repaired to Juan Fernandez and Masafuera in countless thousands, "millions," Dampier said, in 1683, 

 to breed in a tropical climate, on tin island infested by bands of wild dogs, and the waters surrounding alive with 

 '•large sharks"! Then, too, that the good prelate should have found lish so abundant where such multitudes of 

 seals were aggregated, seems strange; and it also occurs rather odd to me that he should have rested content with 

 Dampier's brief description of the fur-seal here, and passed the matter by, iu the abrupt reference which he makes, 

 declaring it superfluous to add more than "other writers" Lave spoken of. 



The rookery of Masafuera: A description of the islet. — The island of Masafuera lies off the coast 

 of Chili, in south latitude 33° 4.7, west longitude 80° 40', just west of Juan Fernandez, 03 miles; the surprising 

 number of over 480,000 fur-seal skins are said to have been taken from it in a single season, some fifty years or so 

 ago. Whether this immense aggregate was slain there or not, it is certain that no one rookery in all the South seas 

 was of more importance. It is a high and mountainous volcanic islet, triangularly formed, and about 7 or 8 leagues 

 in coast circuit. The general character of the island seems to be very much as I have indicated as characteristic of 

 St. George, only that a luxuriant growth of exotic shrubbery is found thereon. On the north side of the island 

 is a low point of land upon which the noted fur-seal rookery used to exist. "The seals," Carteret, iu 1707, 

 says, "were so numerous that I verily think if many thousands of them were killed iu a night, they would rot be 

 missed in the morning; we were obliged to kill a noted number of them, as, when we walked the shore, they were 

 continually running against us, making at the same time a most terrible noise. These animals yield excellent train- 

 oil, and their hearts and plucks were very good eating, being iu taste something like those of a hog, and their skins 

 were covered with the finest fur I ever saw of the kind." 



Anson's visit to MASAFUERA. — Lord Anson sent one of his vessels over to Masafuera for the purpose of 

 surveying it thoroughly, while he was lying at Juan Fernandez, refitting, June to September, 1740. Captain Saunders 

 submitted substantially the following report, which Chaplain Walter indorses as valuable, inasmuch " as upon this 



