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roving commission, picking up large or small quantities of 

 seals as they may meet with them. It is difficult to 

 imagine a more dreary and monotonous life than that 

 passed by the men on the outlying rock, during three or 

 four months of an almost Antarctic winter, exposed to 

 severe cold, and the deluge of rain which prevails in these 

 latitudes. 



There is one danger to which the Patagonian seal- 

 hunter is always exposed, and that is, from the canoe 

 Indians, a miserable, barbarous race, probably the lowest 

 in the human scale ; these savages are treacherous and 

 cowardly, and when they see their chance, are most dan- 

 gerous enemies, and when in overwhelming numbers do 

 not hesitate to attack and murder the sealing crews, loot- 

 ing the vessels when they have a chance. They have 

 been accused of cannibalism, but of this I have no proof. 

 The canoes are generally manned, and, to be accurate, 

 womaned by an entire family, consisting of grandfather 

 and grandmother, father, mother, and children, two or 

 three dogs of the purest mongrel breed imaginable, and 

 half a dozen sea-gulls. The dogs and the gulls being 

 trained to dive from the canoe and catch fish. On my 

 passage down the western channels, I met several canoes 

 of Indians, whom I supplied with biscuit and tobacco, 

 receiving from them some of their dogs and a couple of 

 the sea-gulls ; one of the latter flew away in a few days, 

 but the second remained with me for a considerable time, 

 and became quite domesticated, fraternising with my collie 

 dog, who was a good deal puzzled by it at first. The 

 maternal instinct of the seal is infinitely superior to that 

 of the average Canoe Indian mother, as shown by the 

 fact that I concluded a treaty with one of the latter for 

 the cession of her infant in exchange for a very battered 



