WALRUSES. 139 



About eight in the evening we came up 

 within two or three miles of a small schooner, 

 and observing one of her boats to be "fast" 

 to a walrus and her signal flag flying to 

 indicate to their shipmates that more boats 

 were wanted, we took the hint (although 

 far from being intended for our benefit), 

 and pushed off immediately in both boats. 

 When we reached the opposition boat we 

 found them still in tow of their walrus, and 

 many scores of others plunging in the water 

 around. They had kept hold of their victim 

 so long in the hope that he would attract some 

 of his friends to come within reach of their 

 harpoons also, but as none of them appeared 

 to care about sharing his fate, they killed him 

 just as we came up. 



"We had hitherto lost so many walruses by 

 abstaining from firing and always trying to 

 harpoon them, that of late we had adopted the 

 plan of firing whenever we got a fair chance, 

 and we found that by using double charges of 

 powder and by hardening the lead for the 

 bullets by an admixture of zinc, that we could 

 penetrate the hard crania of the walruses easily 

 enough when struck in the right place. It 

 was a beautiful sunny night, and we had a 



