158 
CAPTURE. 
MassaGETE 
CLOATHED IN 
SEAL-SKINS. 
COMMON SEAL. 
Seals {warm on all the coafts of Kamt/chatka, and will go up the 
rivers eighty ver/ts in purfuit of fifth. They couple on the ice in 
April, and fometimes on the rocks, and even in the fea in calm 
weather. The Tungufi give the milk of thefe animals to their chil- 
dren inftead of phyfic. 
The Seals in this country are killed by h-rpooning, by fhooting, by | 
watching the holes in the ice and knocking them on the head as they 
rife; or by placing two or three ftrong nets acrofs one of the 
rivers which thefe animals frequent : fifty or more people affemble - 
in canoes on each fide of the nets, while others row up and down, 
and with great cries frighten the Seals into them. As foon as any 
are entangled, the people kill them with pikes or clubs, and drag 
them on fhore, and divide them equally among the hunters; fome- 
times a hundred are taken at a time in this manner. 
The navigators obferved abundance of Seals about Bering’s ifland, 
but that they decreafed in numbers as they advanced towards the 
ftraits; for where the Walrufes abounded, the Seals grew more and 
more fcarce. 
I did not obferve any Seal-fkin garments among thofe brought 
over by the navigators, fuch as one might have expected among the 
E/quimaux of the high latitudes they vifited, and which are fo much in 
ufe with thofe of Hudfon’s Bay and Labrador. That fpecies of drefs 
doubtlefsly was worn in the earlieft times. Thefe people wanted their 
hiftorians; but we are aflured that the Mafagete * cloathed them- 
felves in the fkins of Seals. They,.according to D’anville, inhabited 
the country to the eaft of the Ca/pian fea, and the lake Aral; both of 
which waters abound with Seals. 
Seals are now become a great article of commerce. The oil from 
the vaft Whales is no longer equal to the demand for fupplying the 
magnificent profufion of lamps in and round our capital. The 
chafe of thefe animals is redoubled for that purpofe; and the fkinsy 
properly tanned, are in confiderable ufe in the manufactory of boots 
and fhoes. 
* Strabo, lib, xi. 78h. 
if 
