48 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 



"large as a weaver's beam," but as neither I my- 

 self, nor probably my readers, have any notion of 

 what a "weaver's beam" may be like, I will ex- 

 plain that the shaft is a white pine pole nine feet 

 long and one and a half inch thick at the handle, 

 increasing upward to two and a half inches thick 

 where it goes into the socket of the iron. Formi- 

 dable as this weapon is, the iron shank is very fre- 

 quently bent double, or the stout shaft snapped 

 like a twig by the furious struggles of an impaled 

 walrus ; so, to prevent the head being lost, it is at- 

 tached to the shaft by a stout double thong of raw 

 seal-skin, tied round the shank and nailed to the 

 shaft for about three feet up. The reason for hav- 

 ing the shaft so disproportionately large is, that 

 there may be buoyancy enough to float the heavy 

 iron spear if it should happen to fall into the wa- 

 ter, or if a walrus, as often happens, should succeed 

 in wrenching it out of the operator's hands by the 

 violence of his contortions. I have once or twice 

 had a boat's whole complement of lances rendered 

 for the time unserviceable in the dispatching of a 

 single walrus. The lances lie on the thwarts, with 

 the blades protected in a box which is attached to 

 the starboard end of tne harpooner's, or foremost 

 one. 



The lance is not used for seals, as it is unneces- 

 sary, and spoils the skins, so that the coup de grace 

 is administered to them by the "haak-pick" being 

 struck into the brain. Each boat should have five 



