404 TKAVEL, ADVENTUKE, AND SPORT. 



knives, a clank for beams, &c. By the time a vessel 

 gets here, I shall be able to supply a considerable part 

 of their daily food from my pigs, potatoes, and other 

 vegetables, besides fish, &c. A cistern, 40 feet long, 

 15 feet wide, and 10 feet deep, would contain from 

 1000 to 1100 barrels, which may be made in fifteen 

 months, if the boilers are kept properly going. And 

 as the elephant in general makes about a barrel of oil, 

 though some of the males will produce 100 gallons; 

 of course there would be as many skins as barrels of 

 oil, besides, at least, 1000 pup-skins, which are very 

 fine and pretty, and would, no doubt, average a dollar 

 each. The oil in the cistern would require barrels to 

 carry it to market, but if it remained for some time it 

 would be always safe, and growing better for stand- 

 ing to settle ; and, as the cistern would last many 

 years, the expense once defrayed, either by oil, skins, 

 &c., it may be always kept full at very little expense, 

 and ready to ship whenever a market was to be found 

 for it. If the proposal should be relished, I should 

 like to be jointly concerned in it, but, as I have no 

 money to advance, I could only, at the first, lend my 

 assistance towards completing the business, while it 

 would be your part to furnish the means to get it 

 once under way. 



11 1 do not in the above estimates include the seal- 

 skins, but there are many about these islands ; and 

 perhaps 1000 or 1200 might be taken in fifteen or 

 eighteen months, without neglecting any other part 



