214 ADVENTURES IN THE NORTHERN SEAS. 



istering one of these to the walrus u in his loins,'" 

 that naturally suggesting itself to them as being the 

 most vulnerable part of the animaL It "seemed 

 to go right through the walrus and disabled him, 

 as he did not leave the ice, but merely raised his 

 head and looked at them ; upon which they gave 

 him another bullet — in the head this time." I fan- 

 cy this bullet must have struck the animal on the 

 nostrils, as, upon receiving it, "he scuffled into the 

 water, but could not remain underneath;" so they 

 rowed after him, and continued firing repeated doses 

 of small shot into his face whenever he appeared, 

 until the persecuted amphibian went ashore, and, 

 in the desperation of his heart, "walked back and 

 forward" on the beach. There they thought they 

 were sure of him ; but he contrived to get past them, 

 and finally sunk in deeper water. They then 

 " swept" for him nearly a whole day with a weight- 

 ed rope, but could not recover him. 



An affair which might have had a termination 

 any thing but comical, however, was, that they had 

 burst the gun I had bought at Hammerfest for them 

 to shoot fowls with. They seemed to attribute this 

 catastrophe to the low price (four and a half dol- 

 lars) which I had given for that weapon ; but as a 

 gentleman who accompanied me last summer had 

 burst a seventy-guinea London rifle near the very 

 same spot, a friend of mine burst a four-barrel the 

 year before in Norway, and my present compagnon 

 de voyage, Lord David Kennedy, burst another ex- 



