148 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 



pelled by a small charge of indifferent powder, do 

 little or no harm to a walrus, unless they hit him 

 on the back of the head, just as the occiput is ex- 

 posed at the moment the animal is commencing to 

 dive. I have found many of their bullets imbed- 

 ded in the heads of walruses, and flattened out like 

 bits of putty, without having even reached the bone. 



A walrus swimming in the water is not unlike a 

 hippopotamus;* but he dives in the manner of a 

 whale, turning up first his back, in a sort of fat 

 brown hemisphere, and then giving a final flourish 

 with his hind flippers as he disappears. 



It is almost impossible to shoot a walrus (with 

 any gun) in any of those positions, except, as I have 

 stated, at the moment when he is beginning to dive, 

 and exposes the back of his head ; but when they 

 are alarmed or excited by a boat, they sometimes 

 rear their whole heads and necks above water, and 

 give a fair opportunity for a quick shot. 



The great Arctic seal dives in exactly the same 

 manner as the walrus — I mean, by making a semi- 

 revolution, whale -fashion, as he goes down ; but, 

 singularly enough, the small seal of Spitzbergen 



* The Kaffirs in some parts of tropical South Africa have a 

 mode of hunting the hippopotamus with harpoons, very much 

 in the same way as the walrus-hunting is now conducted ; and 

 this practice in Africa is evidently of vast antiquity, as on the 

 walls of the tombs in the bowels of the silent limestone hills 

 of the Thebaid I have seen drawings descriptive of hunting the 

 hippopotamus with harpoon and line, as practiced by the an- 

 cient Egyptians thousands of years ago. 



