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Updated: June 14, 2025
The latter, of which Lizzie is a specimen, have flat front flippers, without hair and triangular in shape. They use their flippers almost as well as we do our hands, and you can see what an aid they are in swimming. The sea-lions have long necks, and carry their heads well up. There are nine species of them, and the so-called 'fur seal' is one.
The eye looks less baleful, and even joyous; every movement discloses conscious power; the excitement of the sport sheds from him somewhat of the brutality which re-appears the moment he lands or seeks his food. So far as I could learn, the Farallon sea-lions are seldom disturbed by men seeking profit from them.
At the seal rocks we tarried long; for there are few spots within the reach of the usual sight-seer where an enormous family of sea-lions can be seen at home, sporting in their native element, and at liberty to come and go in the wide Pacific at their own sweet wills. There they had lived for numberless generations unmolested; there they still live, for they are under the protection of the law.
Not long after doubling the Cape, the bottle sailed slowly past the Falkland Islands, whose rugged cliffs and sterile aspect seemed in accordance with their character of penal settlement. Sea-lions, penguins, and seals were more numerous than ever here, as if they were the guardians of the place, ready to devour all hapless criminals who should recklessly attempt to swim away from "durance vile."
Stretching to Japan, the Pacific is the mysterious World's End. Along the brown coast, the sea otter, clad in kingly robes, sports shyly in the kelp fields. The fur seals stream by unchased to their misty home in the Pribyloffs. Barking sea-lions clamber around the jutting rocks. Lazy whales roll on the quiet waters of the bay, their track an oily wake.
The bay was full of whales and seals; indeed, great numbers had been seen in the straits. At last, the Resolution came to an anchor near an island, on which seals had been observed. After dinner three boats were hoisted out and landed with a large party of men, some to kill seals or sea-lions, and others to kill or catch birds, fish, or whatever came in their way.
Ammunition was distributed to the fifty castaways; salmon bought from the Indians, whom Baranof's fair treatment won from the first; once a week, rye meal was given out for soup; and for the rest, the men had to depend on the eggs of sea-birds, that flocked over the precipitous shores in myriads, or on the sea-lions roaring till the surf shook on the rocky islets along the shore.
Instead, walking stiff-legged and circumspectly, but smelling with all his nose the strange scent of the creatures, he followed at the end of his chain his own captor god. Continually a multitude of strange scents invaded his nostrils. Although he could not see through walls, he got the smells he was later to identify of lions, leopards, monkeys, baboons, and seals and sea-lions.
It seemed as if they had entered into a league not to disturb each other's tranquillity. The greater part of the sea-coast is occupied by the sea-lions; the sea-bears take up their abode in the isle; the shags are posted in the highest cliffs; the penguins fix their quarters where there is the most easy communication to and from the sea; and the rest of the birds choose more retired places.
He could not understand that to the outside world the city was worth a great deal less than the man. I never intended to curse the people with a provincialism so vast as this. But let us return to our sheep which means the sea-lions of the Cliff House. They are the great show of San Francisco.
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