laces, there will instantly gush out as
many fountains of blood, spouting to a considerable distance. To try
what quantity of blood one of them might contain, we shot one first,
and then cut its throat, measuring the blood which flowed, and found
that we got at least two hogsheads, besides a considerable quantity
remaining in the vessels of the animal.

Their skins are covered with short hair of a light dun colour; but
their tails and fins, which serve them for feet on shore, are almost
black. These fore-feet, or fins, are divided at the ends like fingers,
the web which joins them not reaching to the extremities, and each
of these fingers is furnished with a nail. They have a distant
resemblance to an overgrown seal; though in some particulars there
are manifest differences between these two animals, besides the vast
disproportion in size. The males especially are remarkably dissimilar,
having a large snout, or trunk, hanging down five or six inches beyond
the extremity of the upper jaw, which renders the countenances of the
male and female easily distinguishable from each other. One of the
largest of these males, who was master of a large flock of females,
and drove off all the other males, got from our sailors the name of
the bashaw, from that circumstance. These animals divide their time
between the sea and the land, continuing at sea all summer, and coming
on shore at the setting in of winter, during all which season they
reside on the land. In this interval they engender and bring forth
their young, having generally two at a birth, which are suckled by the
dams, the young at first being as large as a full-grown seal.

During the time they continue on shore, they feed on the grass and
other plants which grow near the banks of fresh-water streams; and,
when not employed in feeding, sleep in herds in the most miry places
they can find. As they seem of a very lethargic disposition, and are
not easily awakened, each herd was observed to place some of their
males at a distance, in the nature of centinels, who never failed to
alarm them when any one attempted to molest, or even to approach them.
The noise they make is very loud, and of different kinds; sometimes
grunting like hogs, and at other times snorting like horses in full
vigour. Especially the males have often furious battles, principally
about their females; and we were one day extremely surprised at seeing
two animals, which at first appeared quite different fr