100 THE FISHERIES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



not have the luxurious spread of sea-lion steak and fur-seal hams, regard it as highly and feed upon it as steadily 

 as we do our own best corn-fed beef. Iudeed, the walrus to the Eskimo answers just as the cocoa-palm does to 

 the South Sea islauder ; it feeds him, it clothes him, it heats and illuminates his "igloo"; and it arms him for the 

 chase, while he builds his summer shelter and rides upon the sea by virtue of its hide. Naturally, however, it is not 

 much account to the seal-hunters on the Pribylov islands ; they still find, by stirring up the sand-dunes and digging 

 about them at Northeast point, all the ivory that they require for their domestic use on the islands, nothing else 

 about the walrus being of the slightest economic value to them. Some authorities have spoken well of walrus 

 meat as an article of diet; either they had that sauce for it born of inordinate hunger, or else the cooks deceived 

 them. Starving explorers in the arctic regions could relish it — they would thankfully and gladly eat anything 

 that was juicy, and sustained life, with zest and gastronomic fervor. The Eskimo naturally like it; it is a 

 necessity to their existence, and thus a relish for it is acquired. I can readily understand, by personal experience, 

 how a great many, perhaps a majority of our own people, could speak well, were they north, of seal meat, of whale 

 "rind", and of polar bear steaks, but I know that a mouthful of fresh or "cured" walrus flesh would make their 

 "gorges rise". The St. Paul natives refuse to touch it as an article of diet in any shape or manner. I saw them 

 removing the enormous testicles of one of the old bull walrus which was shut, lor my purposes, on Walrus islai d; 

 they told me that they did so in obedience to the wish of the widow doctress of the village, Maria Seedova, who 

 desired a pair for her incantations. 



Curiosity, mingled with a desire to really understand, alone tempted me to taste the walrus meat which was 

 placed before me at Poonook, on St. Lawrence island; and candor compels me to say that it was worse than the old 

 beaver's tail which I had been victimized with in British Columbia; worse than the tough brown-bear steak of Bristol 

 bay — in fact, it is the worst of all fresh flesh of which I know; it has a strong flavor of an indefinite acrid nature, 

 which turned my palate and my stomach instantaneously and simultaneously, while the surprised natives stared 

 in bewildered silence at their astonished and disgusted guest. They, however, greedily put chunks, two inches 

 square and even larger, of this flesh and blubber into their mouths as rapidly as the storage room there would 

 permit; and, with what grimy gusto ! the corners of their large lips dripping with the fatness of their feeding. How 

 little they thought then, that in a few short seasons they would die of starvation sitting in these same igloos — their 

 caches empty and nothing but endless fields of barren ice where the life-giving sea should be. The winter of 1879-'80 

 was one of exceptional rigor in the Arctic, although in the United States it was unusually mild and open. The ice 

 closed in solid around St. Lawrence island — so firm and unshaken by the giant leverage of wind and tide, that the 

 walrus were driven far to the southward and eastward beyond the reach of the unhappy inhabitants of that island, 

 who, thus unexpectedly deprived of their mainstay and support, seem to have miserably starved to death, with the 

 exception of one small village on the north shore. The residents of the Poonook, Poogovellyak, and Kagallegak 

 settlements perished, to a soul, from hunger; nearly three hundred men, women, and children. 1 recall the. visit 

 which I made to these settlements, in August, 1871:, with sadness, in this unfortunate connection, because they 

 impressed me with their manifest superiority over the savages of 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 with their happy reliance and subsistence upon the walrus 

 herds of Bering sea. I could not help remarkiug 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 walrus, 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-supply is the cause. We all recognize the wide difference 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 sea shore ; the walrus of Bering sea lives upon that which does not 

 give pleasant flavor to its flesh. 



Imperfection of 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 only rare examples of perfect teeth conld be found ; they were 

 broken off irregularly, some quite close to the socket, hardly a single animal having a sound and uniform pair of 

 tusks. Most of the walrus ivory taken is of 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 nominal 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, when 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 way: Shortly after 8(58 A. D., King 

 Alfred, of England, gave a translation of the Spanish Ormestra, or u I)l 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 



