SOUTH AMERICA. 



S07 



ferent families, which frequently involve the whole 

 tribe. A combat sometimes takes place between two 

 males; the one who is vanquished, is abandoned by all 

 his wives, who join the conquerer. The female is de- 

 licately formed, with a long tapering neck, and beauti- 

 ful silvery skin, which glisten on coming out of the 

 water. The old ones, although very uneasy for the 

 safety of their young, will not venture out of the wa- 

 ter to their assistance. I observed in the fissures of 

 the rock, thousands of a kind of fish about a foot in 

 length, swimming among the smaller seals, probably 

 attracted by them, and fed upon. The skins of this 

 kind is not of much value; but those of the fur kind on 

 the island of Lobos, fifty miles below, are much es- 

 teemed.^ The island is about a mile and a half long; 

 the sea, when much agitated, dashes over it. We 

 supposed there might be about twenty families on the 

 island, of two hundred each. A lion killed by the 

 commodore, measured ten feet six inches from the nose 



* In the Semanario of 1802, there is a notice of the number of 

 skins obtained on the isle of Lobos, by the company authorised by 

 the king. The season is from the middle of May until the 3d of 

 November. A complaint is made that the English and Americans, 

 who pursue the sealing business along the coast of Patagonia, pay 

 no attention to the season, in consequence of which, the seals are 

 exterminated. The produce of the island, which is not more than 

 a league in length, was seventeen thousand skins, and six hundred 

 barrels of oil. 



Our countrymen still pursue the business along the coast. A 

 New England vessel engaged in it, was dashed to pieces by a gale, 

 and the crew arrived at Buenos Ayres about the time of our en- 

 tering the river; they were in a small vessel constructed from the 

 wreck. One of them, with whom I conversed, described the coun- 

 try as very pleasant, and without any inhabitants. 



