twelve and twenty feet in length, and from eight to fifteen feet in circumference.  They are extremely fat, so that, below the skin, which is an inch thick, there is at least a foot deep of fat, before coming to the lean or bones, and we experienced more than once, that the fat of some of the largest afforded us a butt of oil.  They are also very full of blood; for, if deeply wounded in a dozen places, 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 from any we had before observed; but on a nearer approach, they proved to be two sea-lions, which had been goring each other with their teeth, and were all covered over with blood.  The bashaw, formerly mentioned, who generally lay surrounded by a seraglio of females, to which no other male dared approach, had not acquired that envied pre-eminence without many bloody contests, of which the marks remained in numerous scars in every part of his body.