NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE, 377 



They appeared to have a good stock of food and supplies of all kinds, the ground in the 

 vicinity of their huts being strewn with casks, tanks, sledges, hand-carts, and old pots, 

 and they vary their diet of salt beef, &c, with Penguins, which they look on as excellent 

 food ; for fuel they use the skin and fat of the Penguin. 



The men stationed at the different points of the island have considerable difficulty in 

 keeping up communication with each other, and in transporting their blubber to such 

 parts of the coast as are accessible to the sealing schooners. If they walk along the 

 beach they occasionally have to go under the overhanging ledges of ice from the glacier, 

 which may break off at any time and annihilate them ; in fact, one boat's crew was lost 

 in this way on the south side of Corinthian Bay, and in travelling over the glacier the 

 numerous crevasses obstruct their progress considerably. It is requisite also for them to 

 endeavour to get the Elephant Seals to land on those beaches which can be most readily 

 communicated with, for it is no use their killing the animals and collecting their 

 blubber unless they can transport it to the place of shipment, so they have to watch the 

 coast constantly and try to beat off the Elephant Seals from the least accessible parts in 

 order to get them to land on beaches favourable for transport. The blubber collected 

 at Long Beach is transported over the ice to Spit Bay. 



The Elephant Seals are reported to be nearly as plentiful as ever, and the whalers 

 reason that other islands must therefore exist hereabouts where they keep up the breed, 

 but one would think that had they any other place of resort they would abandon this 

 island, so much are they harassed ; in fact, they are now only to be found on the weather 

 shore, as they seldom attempt to land on the lee side. Their favourite breeding place is 

 Long Beach, on the southwest coast. The males land first, and the females some few 

 days after. The male Elephant Seals, like the males of other Seals, constantly quarrel and 

 fight with each other, the largest full-grown animals beating the smaller, and driving 

 them into the sea ; these large fighting males are called by the sealers " Beach Masters." 



The sealing settlements are visited annually by the barque " Roman " and her two 

 tenders, the schooners "Roswell King" and "Emma Jane." They generally arrive in 

 Corinthian Bay in October, and, naturally, their coming is looked forward to by the meu 

 on shore as the great event of the year ; much rejoicing takes place when they meet their 

 comrades, and a considerable consumption of whisky follows, so that this rendezvous is as 

 frequently called " Whisky" as "Corinthian" Bay. The schooners anchor in Mechanic's Bay, 

 Morgan Bay, and Spit Bay, to collect the blubber, which is rafted off to them, and remain 

 at the island until about the end of December ; but this work is extremely hazardous as 

 east winds are by no means uncommon, and the island, lying in a northwest and south- 

 east direction, does not afford any very great protection against the prevailing westerly 

 swell. 



The weather in the vicinity of Heard Island is foggy and boisterous, and, although 

 the prevailing wind is westerly, gales from the northward and eastward are not at all 



(.NAUIl. CIIALU EXP.— vol. i. — 1884.) 48 



