A HUNTER'S CAMP FIRES 



they cut the walruses into slabs and stowed them away in the 

 hold of the vessel. Blood ran steadily from the scuppers of 

 the ship; the combined odors of Eskimo, walrus, and offal 

 arose in harmonious unity, while a cloud of steam from open- 

 ing warm carcases in the Arctic air hung like a white pall over 

 the Diana. The fifteen walruses killed in this hunt were a 

 small portion of the number secured in the two weeks the 

 Diana spent cruising through the various sounds in this locality. 

 All the meat was frozen and landed at Peary's headquarters at 

 Etah, to be used during the coming winter as food for the 

 numerous dogs he was to drive in his sledge trips toward the 

 North Pole. 



That walrus exist in such countless numbers along the north- 

 western coast of Greenland is due partly to the fact that the 

 Eskimos do not relish the flesh of this animal, and partly to the 

 fact that the walrus inhabit too inaccessible a portion of the 

 coast to be hunted successfully by w^hite men for commercial 

 purposes. Although the Eskimos eat walrus meat when there 

 is nothing more palatable at hand, it is riot only very coarse- 

 grained but almost black in color, on account of the very 

 venous and sluggish circulation due to the animals living under 

 water a large portion of the time. 



Hunting in pairs in their light kayaks, the Eskimos occa- 

 sionally kill walrus, mostly for dog food, using the harpoon and 

 lance. They make a cautious approach to the sleeping animal, 

 and one or both harpoons are buried in its side. The w^ooden 

 shaft of the harpoon, tipped with ivory to keep it afloat, be- 

 comes detached when the point is buried in the thick hide, and 

 leaves the wounded walrus attached by fifty feet of rawhide 

 line to a drag, consisting of an inflated sealskin. When this 

 marker appears on the surface of the water after the first mad- 

 dened plunge of the animal, the kayakers paddle toward it and 

 lance the walrus every time it exposes itself, until it succumbs 

 from loss of blood. Then they either tow the carcase to some 



44 



