376 NANSEN AS A MIGHTY NIMROD 



ENORMOUS MASSES OF FLESH. 



"Body to body they lay close — packed on a small floe, old and young ones 

 mixed. Enormous masses of flesh they were! Now and again one of the 

 ladies fanned herself by moving one of her flappers backward and forward 

 over her body; then she lay quiet again on her back or side. 'Good gracious! 

 what a lot of meat !' said Juell, who was cook. More and more cautiously we 

 drew near. While I sat ready with the gun, Henriksen took a good grip 

 of the harpoon shaft, and as the boat touched the floe he rose, and off flew 

 the harpoon. But it struck too high, glanced off the tough hide, and skipped 

 over the backs of the animals. Now there was a pretty to do! Ten or 

 twelve great weird faces glared upon us at once ; the colossal creatures twisted 

 themselves round with incredible celerity, and came waddling with lifted 

 heads and hollow bellowings to the edge of the ice where we lay. It was 

 undeniably an imposing sight; but I laid my gun to my shoulder and fired 

 at one of the biggest heads. The animal staggered, and then fell head fore- 

 most into the water. Now a ball into another head; this creature fell too, 

 but was able to fling itself into the sea. And now the whole herd dashed in, 

 and we as well as they were hidden in spray. It had all happened in a few 

 seconds. But up they came again immediately round the boat, the one head 

 bigger and uglier than the other, their young ones close beside them. They 

 stood up in the water, bellowed and roared till the air trembled, threw them- 

 selves forward towards us, then rose up again, and new bellowings filled 

 the air. Then they rolled over and disappeared with a splash, then bobbed 

 up again. The water foamed and boiled for yards around — the ice-world 

 that had been so still before seemed in a moment to have been transformed 

 into a raging bedlam. Any moment we might expect to have a walrus tusk 

 of two through the boat, or to be heaved up and capsized. Something of this 

 kind was the very least that could happen after such a terrible commotion. 

 But the hurly-burly went on and nothing came of it. I again picked out my 

 victims. They went on bellowing and grunting like the others, but with 

 blood streaming from their mouths and noses. Another ball, and one tumbled 

 over and floated on the water ; now a ball to the second, and it did the same. 

 Henriksen was ready with the harpoons, and secured them both. One more 

 was shot ; but we had no more harpoons, and had to strike a seal-hook into 

 it to hold it up. The hook slipped, however, and the animal sank before we 

 could save it. While we were towing our booty to an ice-floe we were still, 

 for part of the time at least, surrounded by walruses; but there was no use 



