AMONG THE WALRUS HERDS 145 



the lusks was thirty-four inches, girth eleven and one- 

 eighth inches, weight twenty-four pounds the pair, 

 as measured six months after the killing. These were 

 the biggest specimens secured on our voyage. The 

 second was a good trophy, but the third and fourth 

 were rather small. 



Both Collins and Elting had fired from the umiak and 

 missed, so they now took the kayaks while we were skin- 

 ning our trophies and dyeing the ice a deep red for yards. 

 They got back while we were at supper and guided the 

 "Abler" to the cake where Collins had killed a very 

 light-colored walrus. We had seven whole carcasses on 

 board and they filled the port side of the deck with a 

 flabby mass of flesh which we sensed would soon waft an 

 evil odor through the ship. 



In view of our finding walrus numerous at this local- 

 ity it is interesting to compare the following notes of 

 Nordenskjold, writing his diary in 1878, of this same 

 portion of the coast. "The walrus now appears to be 

 very rare in the sea north of Bering's Straits, but for- 

 merly it must have been found there in large numbers 

 and made the region a veritable paradise for every hunt- 

 ing tribe. While we, during our long stay there, saw 

 only a few walrus. Cook, in 1778, saw an enormous num- 

 ber." While in winter quarters at Kolyuchin Bay, near 

 here, he wrote: "Only two sea mammals have been seen 

 in this region in the course of the winter, viz : the rough 

 or bristled seal and the polar bear." 



At noon we had drifted in a northwest direction 

 twenty miles from our position of two days before, and 

 the ice had come with us. We tied up for the night to a 

 big berg grounded in seventeen fathoms that sheered off 

 the many smaller pieces of drift ice. These scraped the 



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