8 nearly
1,000 in seven hours. The carcases left lying on the beach attracted
bears thither in such numbers that, for instance, in 1609 nearly
fifty of them were killed by the crew of a single vessel. At one
place eighteen bears were seen at once (Purchas, iii. p. 560). A
Norwegian skipper was still able during a wintering in 1824-25 to
kill 677 walruses. But when Tobiesen wintered there in 1865-66 he
killed only a single walrus, and on the two occasions of my landing
there I did not see one. Formerly the hunters almost every year,
during late autumn when the drift-ice had disappeared, found "walrus
on land," _i.e._ herds of several hundred walruses which had crept
up on some low, even, sandy beach, to pass days and weeks there in
an almost motionless state. During this period of rest most of them
appear to be sunk in deep sleep, yet not all, for--according to the
concurrent statements of all the walrus-hunters with whom I have
conversed on this subject--they keep a watch to warn their comrades
when danger is near. If necessary precautions are observed, _i.e._
if the hunters approach the beach where the animals are assembled
when the wind blows from the land, and kill with the lance those
that lie nearest the water, the rest are slaughtered without
difficulty, being prevented by the carcases of their dead comrades
from reaching the sea. Now such an opportunity for the hunter
happens exceedingly seldom; there are famous headlands on which in
former times the walrus was found by hundreds, in whose
neighbourhood now not a single one is to be seen.

In the sea too there are certain places which the walrus principally
haunts, and which are therefore known by the hunters as
walrus-banks. Such a bank is to be found in the neighbourhood of
Muffin Island, situated on the north coast of Spitzbergen in 80 deg.
north latitude, and the animals that have been killed here
must be reckoned by thousands. Another bank of the same kind is to
be met with in 72 deg. 15' north latitude, on the coast of Yalmal.
The reason why the walruses delight to haunt these places is
doubtless that they find there abundant food, which does not
consist, as has often been stated, of seaweed, but of various living
mussels from the bottom of the sea, principally _Mya truncata_ and
_Saxicava rugosa_. Their fleshy parts are freed, before they are
swallowed, so remarkably well from the shells, and cleaned so
thoroughly, that the contents of the stomach have th