ASPECT OP THE EIELD OF BATTLE. 189 



ice, which haffled all their attempts to get at 

 their walruses ! 



In their hurry they had not even extracted 

 all the tusks, which thenceforth became any- 

 body's property; and Daniel Danielsen told 

 me he happened to be one of the first to 

 revisit the island the ensuing season, and that 

 he cut out about a hundred pairs of tusks. 

 The skins and blubber of course were quite 

 useless by that time, and thus six or seven 

 hundred walruses were destroyed without bene- 

 fit to anybody. 



When I visited this island six years after- 

 wards, there still remained abundant testimony 

 to corroborate the entire truth of the story. 

 The smell of the island was perceptible at 

 several miles distance, and on landing we 

 found the carcases lying as I have described 

 them, and in one place two and three deep. 

 The skin and flesh of many remained tolerably 

 entire, notwithstanding the ravages of bears, 

 foxes, and gulls. So many walruses have been 

 killed on this island at different times, that a 

 ship might easily load with bones there, and it 

 grieved me, as an agriculturist, to see the mate- 

 rials of so much excellent bone-dust lying 

 unappropriated. 



