Defence, not Defiance 8 1 



lor it, watches over it, defends it with her own body, 

 and, one is tempted to say, loves her burden so much 

 that she is grieved when she must lay it down. 



However that may be, it is certain that the Walrus 

 for all their uncouth appearance, and extraordinary 

 method of living (so totally different from all other 

 sea mammals whatever), enjoy their lives to the full 

 in the best sense of the term. In one respect, indeed, 

 they are extremely fortunate : with the exception of 

 man, they have no enemies. The great Polar bear 

 does not lightly engage in a combat with ' Awuk,' 

 since he knows that in those formidable tusks he has 

 opposing weapons that are quite a match for even his 

 tremendous claws and teeth, while the hide of the 

 Walrus is so tough and thick as to be almost impene- 

 trable to even the onslaught of the great white terror 

 of the Arctic seas. Consequently, the Walrus lives 

 a fairly peaceful life among his fellows. He does not 

 prey upon them, and Nature has so equipped him that 

 they cannot prey upon him. 



But man has wrought terrible havoc among the 

 Walrus. Even as far back as 1327, it is recorded in a 

 receipt preserved at Bergen that the Greenlanders 

 paid their tribute to the Crusades in Walrus tusks. 

 And all along the Labrador coast as well as the Gulf 

 of St. Lawrence, where a Walrus now would be almost 

 as great a curiosity as a seal on the English coasts, 

 they were a century ago so numerous that hundreds 

 were slaughtered in a day. Various causes have, 

 however, reduced the hunting of the Walrus to an 

 insignificant matter chiefly confined to the Eskimo, 

 who are entitled fairly to the produce of their hunting, 

 since they are sportsmen in the best sense of the term. 

 They do not kill for the sake of killing, but for their 

 very life, and the Walrus is one of their chosen objects 



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