Its sterility and bleak and forbidding appearance, from all the
accounts published respecting it, are scarcely equalled, certainly are not
surpassed, in the most inhospitable countries near the North Pole; while
ships are suddenly exposed to most violent storms, from which there is
little chance of escaping, and in which, during one of the seal-catching
seasons, a great number were lost.
There are, however, counterbalancing advantages: the seals were, at least
during the first seasons, uncommonly numerous, and taken with very little
trouble or difficulty, so that a ship could obtain a full cargo in a very
short time; but, in consequence of a very great number of vessels which
frequented the coasts for the purpose of taking these animals, they became
soon less numerous, and were captured with less ease. The skins of these
seals fetched a very high price in the China market; the Chinese,
especially in the more northern parts of that vast and populous empire, use
these skins for various articles of their dress; and the seal skins of New
South Shetland being much finer and softer than those which were obtained
in any other part of the world, bore a proportionably higher price in the
China market. But the English could not compete with the Americans in this
lucrative trade; for in consequence of the charter of the East India
Company, the English ships were obliged to bring their cargoes of skins to
England; here they were sold, and as none but the East India Company could
export them to China, and consequently none except the Company would
purchase; they in fact had the monopoly of them, and obtained them at their
own price.
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