CURIOUS CREATURES. 237 



compel him to descend, spoiled of the greatest part of 

 his Skin, which is fastned to the Ropes : he being 

 thereby debilitated, fearful, and half dead, he is made 

 a rich prey, especially for his Teeth, that are very 

 pretious amongst the Scythians, the Muscovites, Russians, 

 and Tartars, (as Ivory amongst the Indians,) by reason 

 of its hardness, whiteness, and ponderousnesse. For 

 which Cause, by excellent industry of Artificers they 

 are made fit for handles for Javelins : And this is also 

 testified by Mechovita, an historian of Poland, in his 

 double Sarmatia, and Paulus Jovius after him, relates it 

 by the Relation of one Demetrius, that was sent from the 

 great Duke of Muscovy to Pope Clement the 7th." 



Although Olaus Magnus is very circumstantial in his 

 detail as to the intense somnolence, and brutal flaying 

 alive of the " thereby debilitated " Walrus, I can find no 

 confirmation of either, in any other account on the 

 contrary, in "A Briefe Note of the Morse and the use 

 thereof," published in Hakluyt, it is described as very 

 wakeful and vigilant, and certainly not an animal likely 

 to have salt put on its tail after Magnus's manner : 



" In the voyage of Jacques Carthier, wherein he dis- 

 covered the Gulfe of S. Laurance, and the said Isle of 

 Ramea in the yeere 1534, he met with these beastes, 

 as he witnesseth in these words : About the said island 

 are very great beasts as great as oxen, which have two 

 great teeth in their mouthes like unto elephant's teeth, 

 and live in the Sea. Wee sawe one of them sleeping 

 upon the banks of the water, and, thinking to take it, 

 we went to it with our boates, but so soon as he heard 

 us, he cast himselfe into the sea. Touching these 

 beasts which Jacques Carthier saith to be as big as 

 oxen, and to have teeth in their mouthes like elephants 



