r which
it settled in the northwest, with thick weather for several hours.

In the course of this day the walruses became more and more numerous
every hour, lying in large herds upon the loose pieces of drift-ice; and
it having fallen calm at one P.M., we despatched our boats to kill some
for the sake of the oil which they afford. On approaching the ice, our
people found them huddled close to, and even lying upon, one another, in
separate droves of from twelve to thirty, the whole number near the
boats being perhaps about two hundred..Most of them waited quietly to be
fired at: and even after one or two discharges did not seem to be
greatly disturbed, but allowed the people to land on the ice near them,
and, when approached, showed an evident disposition to give battle.
After they had got into the water, three were struck with harpoons and
killed from the boats. When first wounded they became quite furious, and
one, which had been struck from Captain Lyon's boat, made a resolute
attack upon her and injured several of the planks with its enormous
tusks. A number of the others came round them, also repeatedly striking
the wounded animals with their tusks, with the intention either of
getting them away, or else of joining in the attack upon them. Many of
these animals had young ones, which, when assaulted, they either took
between their fore-flippers to carry off, or bore away on their backs.
Both of those killed by the Fury's boats were females, and the weight of
the largest was fifteen hundred and two quarters nearly; but it was by
no means remarkable for the largeness of its dimensions. The peculiar
barking noise made by the walrus when irritated, may be heard, on a calm
day, with great distinctness at the distance of two miles at least. We
found musket-balls the most certain and expeditious way of despatching
them after they had been once struck with the harpoon, the thickness of
their skin being such that whale-lances generally bend without
penetrating it. One of these creatures being accidentally touched by one
of the oars in Lieutenant Nias's boat, took hold of it between its
flippers, and, forcibly twisting it out of the man's hand, snapped it in
two. They produced us very little oil, the blubber being thin and poor
at this season, but were welcomed in a way that had not been
anticipated; for some quarters of this "marine beef," as Captain Cook
has called it, being hung up for steaks, the meat was not only eaten,
b