166 ALASKA INDUSTRIES. 



cMldren. I recall the visit which I made to these settlements in 

 August, 1874, with sadness, in this unfortunate connection, l)ecause 

 they impressed me with their manifest superiority over the savages oi 

 the northwest coast. They seemed then to be living during nine 

 months of the year almost wholly upon the flesh and oil of the walrus. 

 Clean limbed, bright eyed, and jovial, they profoundly impressed me 

 ^ith their happy reliance and subsistence upon the walrus herds of 

 Bering Sea. I could not help remarking then that these people had 

 never been subjected to the temptations and subsequent sorrow of 

 putting their trust in princes, hence their independence and good 

 heart. But now it appears that it will not do to put your trust in 

 walruses, either. 



I know that it is said by Parry, by Hall, and lately by others, that 

 the flesh of the Atlantic walrus is palatable. Perhaps the nature of 

 food supplj^ is the cause. We all recognize the wide difi'erence in 

 pork from hogs fed on corn and those fed on beech mast and oak 

 acorns, and those which have lived upon the offal of the slaughtering 

 houses or have gathered the decayed castings of the seashore. The 

 walrus of Bering Sea lives upon that which does not give pleasant 

 flavor to its flesh. 



Imperfection op walrus ivory. — Touching the ivory, I was 

 struck, in looking over the tusks as they protruded from the live 

 animals' mouths, by the fact that onlj^ rare examples of perfect teeth 

 could be found; they were broken off irregularly, some quite close to 

 the socket, hardlj^ a single animal having a sound and uniform pair of 

 tusks. Most of the walrus ivory taken is ot very poor quality; it has 

 a deep core, or yellow, suspended pith, and is frequently so cracked 

 where the ivory is the whitest and the firmest as to be of mere nomi- 

 nal value. But exceptional teeth now and then occur of prodigious 

 size and superior texture ; these are carefully treasured and sold to 

 great advantage. 



The antiquity of walrus hunting. — Generally, wlien we look for 

 the earliest records of this or that action or occupation, we are treated 

 to a vast store of indeterminate material, upon which any theory or 

 conjecture may be raised. But touching the case of the hunting of 

 the fur seal and the walrus, in northern waters, we have exact data 

 as to records of the earliest chase and capture of these animals by our 

 own people. The history of walrus hunting comes down to us from 

 rare old antiquity in this Avay : Shortlj^ after 868 A. D., King Alfred of 

 England gave a translation of the Spanish Orraestra, or "Di miserere 

 mundi," of Paul Orosius in his mother tongue, the Anglo-Saxon. Into 

 this complete and only geographical review of the earth's form, as 

 known at that time, he interwove the relations of Othere and the 

 Dane Wulf stan. The former was a great man from Norway ; he under- 

 took a voyage of discovery beyond the north cape of his native land, 

 and to the then unknown eastward as far as our modern Finland, 

 which he indicated as the "couutrj^of the Beormas." He shaped his 

 course to this region "on account of the horse whales, inasmuch as 

 they have very good bone in their teeth;" also, "this sort of whale is 

 much less than the other kind, it being not larger commonly than 

 seven ells;" and states further on that he, Othere, "had killed fifty- 

 six in two days." 



Deschnev the first to see the walrus of Bering Sea. — 

 The earliest personal record made of the walrus of Bering Sea was the 

 discovery of these animals by Simeon Deschnev, that Cossack who, 

 first of all civilized men, sailed through Bering Straits, October, 1648, 



