REPORT OF BRITISH COMMISSIONERS. 207 



842. The conditions in tlio Sontli Seas (lifCered eategorically from 

 those MOW prevailing in the North racjlie. Th(^ various islands resorted, 

 to as bre(!(ling places by the fur-seal were not only absohitely uninhab- 

 ited by man. but were also at the time in the ])olitieal category of " no- 

 man's land." As a (jonsequence there was no possibility of instituting 

 any regulation of methods of slaugliter, restrictionsof numbers or kinds 

 taken, or any limitation of place or season. 



84.'i. Thertt were practically no natives (as on the west coast of North 

 America) to h'ad tlui way in pelagic sealing. The method of slaughter 

 universally adoi)t<;d was precisely that of the White raiders of the 

 North Paci He. No labour or effort was wasted in any endeavours to cap- 

 ture or kill the seal at sea. The simple method was invariably adoi)ted 

 of establisliing i)aities of men on all likely beaclies, camped in wooden 

 huts or under canvas, and engaged in slaughtering and skinning all the 

 seals that landed, without (listiiiction of age, size, or sex. (Japtain 

 Weddel pithily writes of the killing in the South Shetlands in J8L'l-22: 

 " Whenever a seal reaches the beach, of whatever denomination, he 

 was immediately killed and his skin taken; and by this means, at the 

 end of the sec-ond year, the animals became nearly extinct. A vessel 

 of fr<mi 2()() to 400 tons brought out from the liome X)<>i"t the men and 

 camping erpiiinnejit. She would land parties on vaiious beaches, and 

 then would be herself safely moored in some handy harbour. Jioats, 

 and even tenders of 30 and 40 tons, would travel between this vessel and 

 thevarious islandsuntil the season's hshery wasover. ()c(!asionally the 

 work of destruction was more expeditiously i)erfornied when the barge 

 or brig carrying such landing parties came ui)on a large rookery already 

 well tilled out with seals, for then the whole woik of the cruize would 

 be acciomplished in a few days." Such sealing ])arties were found at 

 work l)y several ex]>loring expeditious, as, for instance, by Her Majes- 

 ty's ships " Erebus" and " Teri'or." 



844. The mcn-e detailed records of these South Sea adventurers yield 

 nuiny i)oints of interest, and it may be well to cpiote from the earlier 

 descrii)tions of the fur-seal as indi<;ating how rapidly so valuable a fur 

 secured the notice of the early a<lventurers, and how speedily their suc- 

 cessors brought about the commercial extermination of the seal. 

 142 845. In the sixteenth century. Sir Francis JJrake, the first 



Englishnuui who penetiat(;d to the South Seas, frequently reports 

 the presence and connneiits on the peculiarities of seals. These tbrmed 

 indeed a chief source for the su|)i)ly of Iresh meat. On his great voyage 

 of circumnavigation in 1.577-78, seals were taken in tlie itiode la Plata, 

 and again in latitude 47° 30', at an an(;horage eventually named Seal 

 Bay; about the middle of the month of May seals were found so i)len- 

 tiful that 200 were slaughtered in one hour.* In the same neighbour- 

 hood some years latci-, in December 1.58(J, Cavendish reports in detail 

 on the seals found in a bay he named Port Desire.f 



840. In the observations of Sir Pichard Hawkins on his "Voyage 

 into th<; South Sea" in 1503, we read, in his noti^s made in the Straits 

 of Magellan: "Of Seals or Sea- Wolves — One day, having ended our 

 hunting of penguins, one of our mariners, walking about the island, 

 discovered a great company of scales or sea-wolves (so called for that 

 they are in the sea as the wolves on the land), advising us that he left 

 them slee])ing with their bellies tosting against the sunne. Wee pro- 

 vided ourselves with staves and other weapons and sought to steal 

 upon them at unawares to surprise some of them, and coming down the 



• ''Hakluyt," volTiii, p. 733. t Ibid., p. 804-5. 



