A WALRUS HUNT. 405 



some fresh part of their unwieldy bodies to the 

 warmth, — great, ugly, wallowing sea-hogs, they were 

 evidently enjoying themselves, and were without ap- 

 prehension of approaching danger. We neared them 

 slowly, with muffled oars. 



As the distance between us and the game steadily 

 narrowed, we began to realize that we were likely to 

 meet with rather formidable antagonists. Their as- 

 pect was forbidding in the extreme, and our sensa- 

 tions were perhaps not unlike those which the young 

 soldier experiences who hears for the first time the 

 order to charge the enemy. We should all, very pos- 

 sibly, have been quite willing to retreat had we dared 

 own it. Their tough, nearly hairless hides, which are 

 about an inch thick, had a singularly iron-plated look 

 about them, peculiarly suggestive of defense ; while 

 their huge tusks, which they brandished with an ap- 

 pearance of strength that their awkwardness did not 

 diminish, looked like very formidable weapons of 

 offense if applied to a boat's planking or to the hu- 

 man ribs, if one should happen to find himself floun- 

 dering in the sea among the thick-skinned brutes. 

 To complete the hideousness of a facial expression 

 which the tusks rendered formidable enough in ap- 

 pearance, Nature had endowed them with broad flat 

 noses, which were covered all over with stiff whiskers, 

 looking much like porcupine quills, and extending up 

 to the edge of a pair of gaping nostrils. The use of 

 these whiskers is as obscure as that of the tusks ; 

 though it is probable that the latter may be as well 

 weapons of offense and defense as for the more useful 

 purpose of grubbing up from the bottom of the sea 

 the mollusks which constitute their principal food. 

 There were two old bulls in the herd who appeared 



