RIGHT AND LEFT SHOT. 191 



terly anathematized my own impatient folly in fir- 

 ing when it was not the least necessary. 



We next found in succession three large seals, 

 and I killed them all. We secured two, but lost 

 the third from the edge of the ice giving way be- 

 neath him in his dying convulsion, precisely in the 

 same way as with the last walrus. 



After rowing for an hour or two more, we found 

 two lots of walruses on ice about an English mile 

 apart. One lot consisted of four and the other of 

 five, and all were bulls of the first magnitude. We 

 took the former first, and, by taking advantage of a 

 sort of screen of ice, we got within six yards of the 

 partie carree without their perceiving us. They 

 lay very favorably for us, two being close together 

 to the right, and the other two about five yards to 

 the left. I silently motioned to Christian to take 

 the right-hand ones, and, like lightning, he darted 

 one harpoon and thrust the other. At the sound 

 of the harpoons, my two particular friends to the 

 left raised themselves on the ice to see what was 

 going on, and, the instant they did so, I took them 

 quickly right and left on the sides of their heads, 

 and they tumbled lifeless on the ice, one falling 

 across the body of the other. " Hurrah !" thought 

 I, "here is luck at last; four of the biggest bulls 

 in Spitzbergen all secured at one stalk." Nothing 

 could have been more complete and more beautiful 

 than it looked. My exultation was, however, a lit- 

 tle premature, for one of the harpooned walruses 



