88 DE VEER'S DESCRIPTION OF 



suit of them. We had already been engaged 

 in several encounters with these animals, but 

 the incidents were of too trifling a nature to 

 allow of their being introduced. 



As these encounters, however, afforded traits 

 of sagacity, and frequently of extraordinary affec- 

 tion towards their own species, I shall relate 

 a few facts in this place for the entertainment 

 of the reader, while the vessels are detained 

 inactively at the margin of the ice. 



The walrus has been very accurately and 

 amusingly described by De Veer, an early writer 

 of northern voyages : 



"The sea-horse," he says, "is a wonderful 

 strong monster of the sea, much bigger than 

 an oxe, which keeps continually in the seas, 

 having a skin like a sea calfe, or seale, with 

 very short hayre, mouthed like a lion; and 

 many times they lye upon the ice ; they are 

 hardly killed, unlesse you strike them just upon 

 the forehead; it hath four feete, but no eares, and 

 commonly it hath two young ones at a time. 

 And when the fishermen chance to finde them 

 upon a flake of ice with their young ones, shee 

 casteth her young ones before her into the 

 water, and then takes them in her arms, and 

 so plungeth up and downe with them ; and 



