318 THE FUR SEALS OV THE PRIBILOF ISLANDS. 



ST. PAUL AND AMSTERDAM ISLANDS. 



These isiauds are situated in the southern Indian Ocean (about latitude 38'^ south, 

 longitude 77'^ 35' east) midway between the Cape of Good Hope and Australia; were 

 first visited by Oapt. Henry Cox in May, 1789. He says : 



On lirst landinit wo found tlie shores covered witli such a multitude of seals that we were obliged 

 to disperse them before wc got out of the boat. * * * We procured here a thousand skins of 

 very superior quality, while we remained on the island of Amsterdam, besidt^s several casks of good 

 oil for our binnacles and other purjjoses.' 



Lord Macartney, who touched at Amsterdam in 1773, found five men here col- 

 lecting seal skins for the Canton market. He says of the seals: 



In the summer mouths they come ashore, sometimes in droves of 800 or 1,000 at a time, out of 

 which 100 are destroyed, that uumbor being as many as five men can skin and peg down to dry in the 

 course of a day. * * * Most of those which come ashore are females, on the jjroportion of more 

 than thirty to one male.- 



I find no definite reference to sealing at these islands in later years, but it is jirob- 

 able they were not overlooked by the enterprising sealers who, during the next fifty 

 years, explored every nook and corner of the southern seas in search of prey. Scores 

 of voyages are simply credited, in Mr. A. Howard Clarke's statistical history of fur 

 sealing (already cited), however, simply to the " Southern Seas." M. Charles Velain, 

 who visited these islands in 1874 with the French Transit of Venus Expedition, 

 reports that they were at that date still visited by considerable herds of fur seals. ■ 



WEST COAST OF SOUTU AFRICA AND AD.IACENT ISLANDS. 



As early as the year 1790 sealing voyages were made to the west coast of South 

 Africa, and a greater or less number of fur seals appear to have been taken there at 

 intervals from that time till the present. In October and November, 1828, Cajit. Ben- 

 jamin Morrell cruised along the west coast from Cape of Good Hope to Walfish Bay, 

 in about -3° south, searching for seals. From his narrative it aj^pears that he first 

 met with them at a small island in latitude 31° 31!' south, about half a mile off the 

 coast.^ 



At Ichaboe Island, 8 leagues north of Angra Pe<iuena, he found great numbers 

 of fur seals, and "took about a thousand of their skins in a few days." He speaks of 

 the island as the resort of "multitudes of fur seals;'' as many fur-seal skins here as 

 was practicable." He passed on a few leagues farther to Mercury Island ( latitude 

 25° 42' south, longitude 14° 58' east), where he took about a thousand fur-seal skins. 

 At Bird Island, about 1 degree farther north, he obtained "the skins of 1,400 fur seals 

 at one time, although the landing was very bad."'' "As the season (November) was 

 not sufficiently advanced for the seals to come up in their usual numbers on the islands 

 and rocks" south of Walfish Bay, he made an excursion into the interior and again vis- 

 ited these islands about the end of December. He then took a few seals from Bird 



'Co.K Voy. to Teneriffe, Amsterdam, etc., p. 10. 



■^ Sir G. Staunton, Account of an Embassy from the King of Groat Britain to the Emperor of China, 

 I, p. 210. 



•' Cf. .1. W. Clark, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1875, p. ()53. Ibid., p. 294. 



' Morrell, Voyages. '■ Uml., pp. 295, 296. 



