190 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 



ness with his life, when suddenly a bull with much 

 better tusks lifted his head above the sentinel's 

 back ; so, quickly changing my aim, I shot this oth- 

 er bull through the head, and he tumbled forward 

 on the ice, so dead that he lay with his head doub- 

 led under him and the points of his tusks thrust 

 into his stomach ; the rest then escaped. We found 

 that the bull I had shot had given up the ghost in 

 that peculiar state described by the historian Gib- 

 bon (in a Latin note) as having been the last dy- 

 ing position of the prophet Mohammed. To make 

 room in the boat for his skin and blubber, we threw 

 out a proportionate quantity of the fire-wood. 



In about another hour we found a solitary old 

 bull asleep on a very small piece of ice. He lay 

 on his side, with his back to leeward, which is the 

 very best possible position for either shooting or 

 harpooning a walrus. I felt perfectly certain of 

 this one, and I resolved not to fire, but to allow the 

 harpoon to do the business. When we got to ten 

 or twelve yards' distance, however, the brain of the 

 walrus was so beautifully developed that I could 

 not resist the temptation of firing, and I according- 

 ly shot him through the back of the head ; but, to 

 my unspeakable vexation and disgust, in the act of 

 dying he gave a convulsive half turn backward, and 

 the edge of the ice giving way underneath him, he 

 sank like a shot, only, as it were, a quarter of a sec- 

 ond before the harpoon swished into the water aft- 

 er him. This mishap was my own fault, and I bit- 



