WALRUS-SHOOTING IN WHALE SOUND 



shelving beach, or warp it up on an ice-pan by means of a very 

 clever series of blocks and pulleys improvised from walrus- 

 hide, bone, and ivory. 



The Eskimos are quite fearless in their kayaks, hunting and 

 killing mammals as large as the narwhal, and going out to sea 

 in very rough weather. Occasionally a hunter dies a wretched 

 death by drowning, head downward, in an overturned kayak, 

 as there is no means of righting the craft or cutting one's self 

 loose underneath the water without outside assistance if once 

 the light skin-boat is capsized. While the hide of the walrus 

 is quite thick and valuable, the ivory worth considerable, and 

 the animals comparatively easy to kill, these herds are likely 

 to remain undisturbed, as the waters they inhabit are not 

 accessible every year on account of the ice, and are dangerous 

 and uncharted. On this account the project of systematically 

 slaughtering them for commercial reasons is too expensive and 

 uncertain to be a profitable enterprise, and the only decrease 

 in their numbers for years should be the few killed by the 

 members of polar expeditions and the Eskimo hunters. 



