A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD.
151
1773.
April.
the outermost islands, where they discovered a number of seals on the rocks, shot fourteen of them with ball, which they carried away with them, and might have killed many more, had the surf permitted them to land upon all the rocks in safety. The seals in Dusky Bay are all of the species called sea-bears
[1], which professor
Steller first described on Bering's Island, near Kamtchatka, and which are consequently common to both hemispheres. They are very numerous on the southern extremities of the continents of America and Africa, likewise at New Zeeland, and on Diemen's Land. The only difference we could perceive between these at Dusky Bay, and those described at Kamtchatka, consisted in the size, in respect of which ours were inferior. They found it difficult to kill them, and many, though grievously wounded, escaped into the sea, and tinged the rocks and the water with their blood. Their meat, which is almost black, and their heart and liver were eatable, the former, by the help of a good appetite, and a little imagination, might be eaten for beef, and the last were perfectly similar to a calf's pluck. We were, however, obliged to cut away every bit of fat, before we dressed the meat, which otherwise had an insupportable taste of train-oil. Captain Cook availed himself of this opportunity of laying in a provision of lamp-oil; which was boiled
- ↑ Phoca ursina Linn. Ursine Seal, Pennant. Syn. Quad. 271.
out.
