THE SEA ELEPHANT. 123 
the temporary habitation. Here the banished hunter or hunters rest at night, 
after the fatigues of ranging along the shores, killing and flaying the animals met 
with, and transporting the blubber to a place of deposit, where it is buried, to pre- 
vent the gulls from devouring it, until taken aboard. As the season returns at 
Herd's Island, the vessels are usually "on the ground;" the treacherous surf is again 
passed and repassed in the light, frail whale-boats, landing the fresh crew from 
home, who relieve those who have thus literally "seen the elephant." The time 
passes quickly away, in the toil and excitement of killing and flensing ; and again 
the floating fragment of the world departs for the land of civilization, leaving her 
last crew from home to pass an Antarctic winter, amid the solitudes of icebergs 
and the snow- covered peaks of the mountain land. No passing sail is seen to 
break the monotony of their voluntary exile; even many varieties of sea-birds 
found at Desolation Island do not deign to visit them. Multitudes of penguins, 
however, periodically resort to the island, and their eggs, together with the tongues 
of the Sea Elephants, and one or two kinds of fish, furnish a welcome repast for all 
hands, by way of change from that substantial fare called "salt-horse" and "hard- 
tack." Beside the close stoves in their apartments, which are heated with coal from 
the ship, or the fat of the Elephant pups, and the flickerings of a murky oil -lamp, 
the long winter evenings are passed in smoking and playing amusing games — "old 
sledge" and "seven-up" being favorites — and the reckless joking that circulates 
among adventurers who make light of ill-luck, and turn reverses into ridicule. 
The extent and value of the Sea Elephant fishery, from its commencement up 
to the present date, is not definitely known, as the ships engaged in the enterprise, 
when whaling and sealing was at its height in the southern ocean, were also in 
pursuit of the valuable fur -bearing animals, as well as the Cachalot and the ba- 
loena ; hence their cargoes were often made up of a variety of the oils of com- 
merce. We have reliable accounts, however, of the Sea Elephant being taken for 
its oil as early as the beginning of the present century. At those islands, or upon 
the coasts on the main, where vessels could find secure shelter from all winds, the 
animals have long since been virtually annihilated ; and now they are only sought 
after in the remote places we have mentioned, and these points are only accessible 
under the great difficulties that beset the mariner when sailing near the polar re- 
gions of the globe. Enough data are at hand, nevertheless, to show that hundreds 
of thousands of the animals, yielding as many barrels of oil, have been taken from 
Desolation and Herd's Islands, by American ships, which for many years have main- 
tained a monopoly of the business. 
