When we had hoisted it on board, a proceeding that required pretty strong
tackle and several hands, it was flayed, yielding a hide of extraordinary
thickness, lined on the inside with blubber, and scantily covered
externally with short reddish brown hair, the greatest part of its skin
appearing to have been denuded of this clothing by eruptive blotches, such
as I presume disfigure a measly hog. Although incomparably larger, the
general contour of its body resembled the figure of a seal; its frame being
of the same description, though differently moulded. It was considerably
more bulky in proportion to its length, its chest and back more elevated,
its fore flippers thicker and more rounded, and its hind quarters less
tapering to the tail. Altogether, it impressed upon the mind a strong idea
of a formidable monster, in spite of its relatively diminutive head; for
its fearful tusks, and thick-set projecting whiskers, gave its visage a
most truculent expression; and with its grotesquely fashioned ponderous
carcass, provided with fin feet of strange formation, seemed to mark it as
a personification of one of the fabulous conceptions of mythology.
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