Had the government of Buenos Ayres been able to exercise any efficient superintendence over the adjoining coast, the fishery of seals, and seal elephants, might have become of importance; but in the absence of all control, the unrestrained and indiscriminate slaughter of the young as well as of the old animals has driven them from their former haunts further south, where they are still found by the English and North American fishermen, who know their _rookeries_, as they are called; and in the proper season, take them in great numbers. The Governor of Carmen is an officer appointed from Buenos Ayres, to the Junta of which province the inhabitants name a representative. FOOTNOTES: [19] In a subsequent report of Viedma's, he says that, when the first accounts of San Joseph's were brought to Monte Video, a merchant of that place, Don Francisco de Medina, fitted out a vessel to go a whaling there, the crew of which, in the first month, harpooned no less than fifty fish within the port. [20] Their day's journey is usually about four leagues when on a long march. [21] Captain FitzRoy followed it for nearly 200 miles, and found it a very considerable river the whole way,--never fordable, according to the accounts he received. He must have been very near the lake when he found himself obliged to turn back. [22] In 1670 Sir John Narborough passed six months at San Julian's; he also visited Port Desire, and took possession of it, with all due form, for his master, Charles II.--Anson was also at both places in 1741, and the account of his voyage contains views of that part of the coast, and of the harbour of San Julian's. Narborough, who is very precise in his description of the country, gives an account of a geological fact, which is of some interest now-a-days. He says, "Going on shore on the north-west side of the harbour of San Julian's with thirty men, I travelled seven or eight miles over the hills, &c. On the tops of the hills and in the ground are very large oyster-shells; they lie in veins in the earth and in the firm rocks, and on the sides of the hills in the country; they are the biggest oyster-shells that ever I saw, some six, some seven inches broad, yet not one oyster is to be found in the harbour." [23] The Choleechel is not now a single island, but is divided into two or three, by branches of the river which intersect it. These channels may have been formed since Vallarino's voyage. [24] Fort Villariño in the map. [25] The river was probably unusually low even for the season; for Villariño observes in this part of his journal, that it was nearly five months since they had had a rainy day. [26] Nahuel-huapi signifies the Island of Tigers according to Falkner. CHAPTER VIII. SURVEYS AND DISCOVERIES IN THE INTERIOR.