146 HUNTERS AND HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 



back must have been obtained in the same 

 way. 



Having photographed it, I had it skinned, 

 not after the Norwegian fashion, but in my own 

 way, as I desired to have it stuffed. The 

 Norwegian fashion is to cut the skin in two and 

 strip the hind and forequarters separately. 

 This renders the operation both easy and 

 expeditious, but it also renders the preservation 

 of the skin in its natural form quite impossible. 

 The skinning recalled to my mind the cutting 

 up of some huge African pachyderm, for it was 

 as large as a hippopotamus, which, indeed, a 

 swimming walrus resembles to a great degree. 

 I left the men working happily amid the blood 

 and grease, and returned aboard to resume my 

 interrupted sleep. 



On August 17 in that same year a wish 

 I had long nursed to visit a walrus island was 

 satisfied. Franz Joseph Land had afforded 

 me a splendid day's sport, interesting from 

 every standpoint, and had rewarded us for the 

 dangers and the difficulties we had overcome 

 in penetrating the ice-field which guards that 

 inhospitable shore. Our arrival was not a 

 happy one. A dense fog enveloped us, which 

 had not lifted a moment for fifteen days. 

 Thick, dangerous-looking ice had threatened to 



