130 HUNTING IN THE ARCTIC 



on the ice. In their persistence they frequently went 

 round the herd several times before giving it up to join 

 the other disappointed fellows at a little distance. 



No attempt to picture the walrus herd would be 

 faithful did it not attempt to show the uncanny impres- 

 sion which such a sky-hne made upon the eye. Out of a 

 tangled darkness of bodies, projected here and there a 

 vast bulk tapering to a relatively small head, which, 

 stretched upward in the same line, waved its two teeth 

 aloft for a moment and then fell back again into the 

 mass. The fat lips were wider than the head at the eyes, 

 and, as the back of the skull merged into the trunk, 

 increasing in diameter to the middle of the body, the out- 

 line looked more than anything else like a giant worm 

 with huge antennse. At other spots a pair of points 

 marked where one lay on the fiat of his back. 



They were grotesque caricatures of human beings 

 with big toothpicks in their mouths; hulking idiots 

 quarreling all the time and yet unwilling to live alone. 



We were drifting on our small floe faster than the 

 walrus and widening the distance. Lovering had found 

 the front sight broken off his rifle, but he fired, neverthe- 

 less, and naturally missed. 



At that the walrus rose and tumbled into the water. 

 A twist of the body rolled off those at the edge of the 

 pan, two rolls saved the next, and those caught inside 

 hobbled on their flippers as fast as they could and 

 plunged in. The whole party then stood up in the sea, 

 milling till the air was full of spray, facing the bare, 

 dirty ice floe and showing every sign of anger and wonder 

 at their disturbance. They spouted, grunted and blew, 

 rising and falling like the valves of a compound engine, 

 trying to find out what had happened to them. Some 



