HUNTING OF SEALS. 35 



remains this last sad tribute of respect. The caves to which 

 the Great Seal resorted, are arched perforations in the pre- 

 cipices open to the sea, and extending inwards sometimes 

 upwards of 100 fathoms, terminating in pebbly beaches, on 

 which the young were born and nursed. Some of these 

 caves can only be entered under water, like the one in the 

 Friendly Islands, described by Mariner and immortalized 

 by Byron ; and others are too winding and narrow to admit 

 of access. When the entrance was sufficiently capacious, 

 the sea smooth, and the seals were known to have brought 

 forth, two boats proceeded to the cave ; the one lay at the 

 mouth ; the other, attached to its second by a line suffi- 

 ciently long to reach to the extremity of the tunnel, pushed 

 inwards. On reaching the beach, some of the crew leaped 

 out and knocked on the head as many of the old ones as they 

 could, the rest escaping to the sea, without attempting to de- 

 fend their young ones, who were then dispatched at leisure. 

 When these dark deeds of butchery were over, the men 

 were anxious to be quickly gone, for they observed that 

 the blood of the seals raised the surf, and very little of this 

 was to them a question of life and death. This effect they 

 superstitiously ascribed to some supernatural peculiarity in 

 the blood, resenting, as it were, the injuries inflicted on the 

 animal ; the result is, however, a real one, and arises from 

 a quantity of oil, mixed with the blood, poured on the water 

 in so contracted a situation. On these occasions, from ten 

 to twenty young ones were sometimes taken from one cave ; 

 the booty belonged to the owners of the property in which 

 the caves were situated, and a portion of it was assigned as 

 a reward to the captors. These caves, or Hdlyers as they 

 are here termed, were held in strict property, and highly 

 valued ; and formal Deeds of conveyance of them, as well 

 as of fowlings, were occasionally made, one of which I have 



