78 The Walrus, Morse, or Sea^Horsc 



hide, scantily clothed with coarse brown hair, very 

 patchy, in fact not at all unlike one of those old hair 

 trunks we used to see occasionally. The fore flippers 

 are very short, and the hand-Hke members are planted 

 flat at almost right angles to the body, while the hind 

 flippers have no legs to them, being apparently just 

 an ornamental appendage to the body in lieu of a tail. 

 Consequently he who can watch the progress of a 

 Walrus over land or ice and not laugh must be quite 

 devoid of humour or any sense thereof, for it is certainly 

 one of the most droll-looking methods of progression 

 conceivable. 



But, as Dr. Johnson is reported to have said of the 

 dancing dog, the wonder is not that he should perform 

 so strangely, but that he should perform at all. For 

 the body in an adult will weigh about a ton, and the 

 road over which the creature ordinarily travels is one 

 of the most rugged or slippery imaginable : a floe with 

 a surface like a mirror, or a mass of rough hummocks 

 where the ice has been broken up by the sea, and, coming 

 together again, has conglomerated and congealed in the 

 most fantastic shapes. At the upper extremity of this 

 oblong mass of flesh is the head, ludicrously small as 

 compared with the body. It looks almost as if the 

 body had suddenly tapered to a slightly elongated 

 point. And where one naturally looks for the brain, 

 at the top of the skull, there is apparently no room for 

 one, only a flat solid-looking mass of bone. The skull, 

 however, is abnormally powerful, as it need be, for 

 depending from it at right angles are the characteristic 

 tusks, like a pair of pickaxes. With these the Walrus, 

 suddenly rising from the bottom, hooks on to an ice-floe, 

 and with an almost incredible exhibition of strength 

 hauls himself up out of the water and into the berth he 

 has selected for his sun-bath or doze. With the same 



