LEAD BULLETS FLATTEN ON HIS SKULL. 211 



By firing at an old bull directly facing 

 you, it is almost impossible to kill him, but 

 if half-front to you, a shot just above the eye 

 may prove fatal. If sideways, he can only 

 be killed by aiming about six inches behind 

 the eye, and about one-fourth of the apparent 

 depth of his head from the top ; but the eye, 

 of course, cannot be seen unless the animal is 

 very close to you, and the difficulty is enor 

 mously increased by the back of the head 

 being so embedded in fat, as to appear as if 

 it were part of the neck. 



If you hit him much below a certain part 

 of the head you strike the jaw-joint, which is 

 about the strongest part of the whole cranium. 

 A leaden bullet striking there, or on the front 

 of the head, is flattened like a piece of putty, 

 without doing much injury to the walrus ; and 

 we sometimes found that even our hardened 

 bullets, propelled by five drachms of powder, 

 were broken into little pieces, against the rocky 

 crania of these animals. 



On the 19th we had a storm from the south 

 west, and lay-to all day; as it increased to 

 wards the evening, and the motion aggravated 

 the smell from the hold to an intolerable 

 extent, we took shelter to the leeward of 



P 2 



