HAYES' EXPEDITION (1861) 71 



" Hurrying from the hill, I called for volunteers, and 

 quickly had a boat's crew ready for some sport. Putting 

 three rifles, a harpoon, and a line into one of the whale- 

 boats, we dragged it over the ice to the open water, into 

 which it was speedily launched. 



" We had about c 2 miles to pull before the margin of 

 the pack was reached. On the cake of ice to which we 

 first came, there were perched about two dozen animals ; 

 and these we selected for the attack. They covered the 

 raft almost completely, lying huddled together, lounging 

 in the sun or lazily rolling and twisting themselves about, 

 as if to expose some fresh part of their unwieldy bodies 

 to the warmth, — great, ugly, wallowing sea-hogs, they 

 were evidently enjoying themselves, and were without 

 apprehension of approaching danger. We neared them 

 slowly, with muffled oars. 



"As the distance between us and the game steadily 

 narrowed, we began to realise that we were likely to meet 

 with rather formidable antagonists. Their aspect was 

 forbidding in the extreme, and our sensations were 

 perhaps not unlike those which the young soldier experi- 

 ences who hears for the first time the order to charge the 

 enemy. We should all, very possibly, have been quite 

 willing to retreat had we dared own it. Their tough, 

 nearly hairless hides, which are about an inch thick, had 

 a singularly iron-plated look about them, peculiarly 

 suggestive of defence ; while their huge tusks, which they 

 brandished with an appearance of strength that their 

 awkwardness did not diminish, looked like very formidable 

 weapons of offence if applied to a boat's planking or to 

 the human ribs, if one should happen to find himself 

 floundering in the sea among the thick-skinned brutes. 

 To complete the hideousness of a facial expression which 

 the tusks rendered formidable enough in appearance, 

 Nature had endowed them with broad flat noses, which 



