94 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



bide, a skin covered with a multitude of pustular looking warts and large boils or pimples, without hair or fur, 

 save scattered and almost invisible hairs; the skin wrinkled in deep, flabby seam-folds, and marked by dark-red 

 venous liues, which showed out in strong contrast through the thicker and tliiuuer 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 Rosmarus struck my eye 

 at first in the most unpleasant manner, and the longer I looked at them the more heightened was my disgust ; 

 for they resembled distorted, mortified, shapeless masses of flesh; the clusters of swollen watery pimples, which 

 were of yellow parboiled flesh-color, and principally located over the shoulders, and around the necks, painfully 

 suggested uuwholesomeness. 



On examining the herd individually, 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 before they landed, that they were clumsy in the water, not being able to 

 swim at all like the Phoddw and the Otaridce; but their progress in the sea was wonderfully alert when brought 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 impotent when hauled out of the water, and on the low rocky beaches or 

 shelves npou 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 village of St. Paul and looking seaward ; on one cool, quiet morning in May especially, I followed with my eye a 

 herd of walrus, tracing its progress some distance off and up along the east coast of the island very easily by the 

 tiny jets of moisture or vapor from the confined breath, which the animals blew off as they rose to respire.* 



METHODS of landing : Clumsy efforts. — In landing and climbing over the low, rocky shores at Morserovia,t 

 this animal is fairly as clumsy and almost as indolent as the sloth. A herd crowds up from the water, one after 

 the other, in the most ungainly manner, accompanying their movements with low grunts and bellowiugs; the 



'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, th< se 

 uncouth monitors to this indistinct danger rise and bob under and around a vessel like so many gnomes or demons of fairy romance ; ami 

 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 centuries; hut when we find Albert Magnus, and Gesner the sage, talking in the following extraordinary manner of 

 the capture of Sosmarus, 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 he the sea-otter. 



Says Gesner in 1558: "Therefore these tish called Iiosmarii or Morsii, 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 teeth, ashy ladders, to the very 

 tops of locks that they may feed npon the dewie grasse, or fresh water, and role themselves in it, and then go to the sea again, unless in the 

 mean time they fall very fast asleep, and rest upon the rocks, tor 'hen the fishermen make all the baste 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; ami then they throw stones at his head, out of a sling, to raise him, aud they compel him to descend spoiled of the greatest 

 part of his skin which is fastened to the ropes; he being thereby debilitated, fearful and half dead, he is made a rich prey, especially for 

 his teeth, that are very pxetious amongst the Scythians, the Muscovites, Russians ami Tartars (as ivory amongst the Indians) by reason of 

 its hardness, whiteness and pondcronsnesse". 



In spite- of the many remarkable and well authenticated stories printed as to the ferocity of the Atlantic walrus when hunted, it can 

 be safely said that no boat has ever been assailed by the Alaskan species, which is as large if not larger, and in every respect quite as able- 

 bodied ; the Eskimo capture them without danger or difficulty — mere child's play or woman's work — spearing and lancing. By spearing, 

 a line of walrus hide is made fast to the plethoric body of Rosmarus, and when it has expended its surplus vitality by towing the natives a 

 few miles in a mad frenzied burst of swimming, the bidarrah is quietly drawn up to its puffing form, close enough to permit the coup of 

 an ivory-headed lance, then towed to the beach at high water; when the ebb is well out, the huge can ass is skinned by its dusky 

 butchers, who cut it, up into large square chunks of flesh and blubber, which aie deposited in the little "Dutch-oven" caches of each 

 family that are waiting for its reception. 



Dressing the walrus hides is the only serious hard labor which the Alaskan Innuit subjects himself to; he cannot lay it entirely upon 

 the .women, as do the Sioux when they spread buffalo bodies all over the plains; it is too much for female, strength alone, and so the 

 men bear a hand right lustily in the business. It takes from four to six stout natives, when a green walrus hide is removed, to carry it to 

 the sweating hole where it is speedily unhaired; then stretched alternately upon air-frames and pinned over the earth, it is gradually 

 scraped down to the requisite thinness for use in covering the bidarrah skeletons, etc. 



There are probably six or seven thousand human beings in Alaska who live alone by virtue of the existence of Rosmarus ; and, every 

 year, when the season opens, they gather together by settlements, as they are contiguous, and discuss the walrus chances for the coming 

 year as earnestly and as wisely as our farmers do, for instance, regarding the prospects for corn and potatoes. But the Eskimo hunter is 

 a sadly improvident mortal, though he is not wasteful of morse life ; while we are provident, and yet wasteful of our resources. 



If the north pole is ever reached by our people, they will do so only when they can eat walrus meat, and get plenty of it ; at least that 

 is my belief; and knowing now what the diet is, I think the journey to the hyperborean ultima is a long one, though there is plenty of 

 meat, and many men who want to try it. 



\Morserovia, the Russian name for Walrus island; the natives also call Otter island by the Russian title of Bobroria. 



