WALRUS, OR SEA-HORSE. 119 



great price and excellencie, whereof he brought 

 some at his return to the king." The capture is 

 undertaken both by sea and land, the former for evi- 

 dent reasons being the more hazardous enterprise. 

 A Greenlander will never venture on the encounter 

 alone, nor without the assistance of three or four 

 expert comrades. They employ a harpoon, which, 

 however, from the toughness of the skin, is fixed 

 with difficulty, and hence it is not so easy an ope- 

 ration as the striking of a whale. When the instru- 

 ment holds, the animal is allowed to swim about till 

 it is wearied, they then try to secure it, and kill it 

 with lances. But even under these circumstances, 

 the process is not an easy one, the animal, as we 

 have stated, getting roused, and fighting a hard 

 battle. " It is necessary," says Zorgdrager, " to 

 make a selection. Accordingly, the fishers aim at 

 the eyes, which obliges the animal to turn his head, 

 and then the fatal blow is aimed at the breast." " In 

 this crisis," says Scoresby, " the best defence against 

 these enraged animals is sea-sand, which being 

 thrown into their eyes, occasions partial blindness, 

 and obliges them to disperse. Then the captured 

 one becomes a more easy prey." 



The following is Lord Shuldham's account of the 

 capture on land : " When the herd had made some 

 little advance from the sea, the hunters, armed with 

 a sharp spear, under cover of night, and with the 

 assistance of good dogs trained for the purpose, 

 endeavour to disperse them. This attack, in the 

 Gulf of St Lawrence, is called < making a cut/ and 



