e shot while lying on a piece of
ice, but without being killed so instantaneously that he cannot cast
himself into the water in his death struggles. He is killed accordingly
almost exclusively with the harpoon or lance.

[Illustration: WALRUS TUSKS. A. Tusk of male, outside. B. Tusk of
male, inside C. Tusks of female. One-tenth of natural size. ]

The harpoon consists of a large and strong iron hook, very sharp on
the outer edge, and provided with a barb. The hook is loosely fixed
to the shaft, but securely fastened to the end of a slender line ten
fathoms long, generally made of walrus hide. The line is fastened at
its other end to the boat, in the forepart of which it lies in a
carefully arranged coil. There are from five to ten such harpoon
lines in every hunting boat. When the hunters see a herd of walrus,
either on a piece of drift-ice or in the water, they endeavour
silently and against the wind to approach sufficiently near to one
of the animals to be able to harpoon it. If this is managed, the
walrus first dives and then endeavours to swim under water all he
can. But he is fixed with the line to the boat, and must draw it
along with him. His comrades swim towards the boat, curious to
ascertain the cause of the alarm. A new walrus is fixed with another
harpoon, and so it goes on, one after another, until all the
harpoons are in use. The boat is now drawn forward at a whizzing
speed, although the rowers hold back with the oars; but there is no
actual danger as long as all the animals draw in the same direction.
If one of them seeks to take a different course from that of his
comrades in misfortune, his line must be cut off, otherwise the boat
capsizes. When the walruses get exhausted by their exertions and by
loss of blood, the hunters begin to haul in the lines. One animal
after the other is drawn to the stem of the boat, and there they
commonly first get a blow on the head with the flat of a lance, and
when they turn to guard against it, a lance is thrust into the
heart. Since breechloaders have begun to be used by the
walrus-hunters, they often prefer to kill the harpooned walruses
with a ball instead of "lancing" them. To shoot an unharpooned
walrus, on the other hand, the walrus hunters formerly considered an
unpardonable piece of thoughtlessness, because the animal was in
this way generally wounded or killed without any advantage accruing.
They therefore expressed themselves with great irritation against