The Castillos Rocks are very difficult of access on account of the heavy swell breaking on them. The Polonio group consists of three small islands lying directly off the cape of same name, and are called Raza, Encantado, and De Marco.
The sealers' huts and boiling-house are on the mainland in a small bay to the north-east of the lighthouse. The seals when killed on these islands are skinned with the inside lining of fat attached and are brought on shore, when the inside lining of fat is taken off and boiled down. The dead carcasses are left on the island, and in my opinion the presence of so many dead seals destroyed by human agency must have some effect upon those animals frequenting these islands, making them wary and cautious in returning again to a place where the remains of their companions are so visible.
Coronilla Islands consist of two large islands, covered with herbage, and one small "islote," or reef, generally awash with the sea.
On the largest of these islands the sealers live during the season for the purpose of salting the skins and boiling down the carcass of the seals for oil. At the end of the season the skins and oil are brought into Montevideo by tug-boats.
On Lobos Islands the killing is carried out in a different manner. A large corral is erected on the middle of the island, and, when seals are plentiful and the wind and weather are specially favourable, a drive is made by about fifty men with clubs, who, getting between the seals and the sea, drive them gently towards the corral. This is done without much difficulty, and perhaps two thousand may be enclosed in one day. Once enclosed they are allowed to wait until all preparations for killing are complete. They are then driven out in batches of twenty or thirty to the skinning-shed and boiler-house, where they are dispatched at leisure.
By this mode of killing I am inclined to think that there must be a great waste of seal life from an absence of a proper knowledge as regards the animal killed. No selection is made from those driven down, and every animal is killed even if the skin is worthless or mangy. The majority of the animals slaughtered are females, consequently the stock of production is gradually lessened. Were a skilled sealer employed for the proper classification of the animals before killing, it would do away to some extent with the extermination of seals whose skins at that season were practically worthless.
On the Paloma Islands very few seals are killed.
The seizure of the Canadian schooner Agnes G. Donohoe in the year 1905 on the alleged grounds of sealing in jurisdictional waters—that is, within the three miles limit—caused the intervention of the British Government. The master and men were under arrest for a period of ten months, but the case, diplomatically handled at that time by her Majesty's Representative, Mr. Walter Baring (Minister), and Mr. Robert Peel (Chargé d'Affaires), was finally settled with satisfaction to both Governments by the tactful procedure of his Majesty's present Representative, Mr. Robert J. Kennedy, Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary.