ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 155 



marked by dark-red venous lines, which showed out in stroufj^ con- 

 trast through the tliicker and tliinner yellowish brown cuticle, that in 

 turn seemed to be scaling off in places as if with leprosy. Indeed, a 

 fair expression of this walrus-hide complexion, if I may use the term, 

 can be understood by the inspection of those human countenances in 

 the streets and on the highways of our cities which are designated as 

 the faces of "bloats." The forms of Rosmiarus struck mj^eye at first 

 in the most unpleasant manner, and the longer I looked at them the 

 more heightened Avas my disgust, for they resembled distorted, morti- 

 fied, shapeless masses of flesh. The clusters of swollen, watery pim- 

 ples, which were of yellow parboiled flesh color and priucipall}^ located 

 over the shoulders and around the necks, painfully suggested unwhole- 

 someness. 



On examining the herd individuallj^, and looking over perhaps 150 

 specimens directly beneath and within the purview of my observation, 

 I noticed that there were no females among them. They were all 

 males, and some of the younger ones had considerable hair, or enough 

 of that close, short, brown coat to give a hairy tone to their bodies — 

 hence I believe that it is only the old, wholly matured males which 

 offered to my eyes their bare and loathsome nakedness. 



I observed, as they swam around and l^efore they landed, that they 

 were clumsy in the water, not being able to swim at all like the 

 Phocidm and the Otaridce; but their progress in the sea was wonder- 

 fully alert when l)rought into comparison with that terrestrial action 

 of theirs. The immense bulk and weight of this walrus, contrasted 

 with the size and strength of its limbs, renders it simply imi3otent 

 when hauled out of the water, and on the low rocky beaches or shelves 

 upon which it rests. Like the seal, however, it swims entirely under 

 water when traveling, but it does not rise, in my opinion, so frequently 

 to take breath; when it»does, it blows or snorts not unlike a whale. 

 Often I have noticed this puffing snort of these animals, since the date 

 of these observations on Walrus Islet, when standing on the bluffs near 

 the vilhxge of St. Paul and looking seaward. On one cool, quiet morn- 

 ing in May, especially, I followed with my eye a herd of walrus, trac- 

 ing its progress some distance off and up along the east coast of the 

 island very easilj^ by the tiny jets of moisture or vapor from the con- 

 fined breath which the animals blew off as they rose to respire.^ 



' Mariners, while coasting in the Arctic, have often been put on timely footing 

 by the walrus fog horn snorting and blowing when a ship dangerously sails silently 

 in through dense fog toward land or ice floes, upon which these animals may be 

 resting; indeed, these uncouth.monitors to this indistinct danger rise and bob under 

 and around a vessel like so many gnomes or demons of fau-y romance; and the 

 sailors may well be pardoned for much of the strange yarning which they have 

 given to the reading world respecting the sea horse during the last three centu- 

 ries; but when we hud Albert Magnus, and Gesner the sage, talking in the follow- 

 ing extraordinary manner of the capture of Rosmarus, we are constrained to laugh 

 heartily; especially do we so, because a more shy, timid brute than the walrus of 

 Bering Sea never existed when he is hunted by man, unless it be the sea otter. 



Says Gesner in 1558: " Therefore these fish called i^o.s-Hiarn or Ifonsw, have heads 

 fashioned like to an oxe, and a hairy skin, and hair growing as thick as straw or 

 corn-reeds, that lie loose very largely. They will raise themselves with their teetb, 

 as by ladders, to the very tops of rocks that they may feed upon the dewie grasse. 

 or fresh water, and role themselves in it, and then go to the sea again, unless in 

 the meantime they fall very fast asleep, and rest upon the rocks, for tlien the fish- 

 ermen make all the haste they can and begin at the tail, and part the skin from 

 the fat; and into this that is parted they put most strong cords, and fasten them 

 on the rugged rocks or trees that are near; and then they throw stones at his head, 

 out of a sling, to raise him, and they compel him to descend spoiled of the greatest 

 part of his skin which is fastened to the ropes; he being thereby debilitated, fear- 



