DISINTERESTED ADVICE. 153 



would be killed on the lohole if nobody were 

 to fire. 



This may be all very true in theory, but 

 practically I find that everybody shoots when- 

 ever they find that they cannot get within 

 harpooning distance, although they all strenu- 

 ously exhort us not to do it, and seem very 

 jealous of our doing so, which I attribute to 

 the fact of our being much more successful with 

 the rifle than any of these regular professionals. 

 This is easily accounted for, as our rifles, 

 charged with five drachms of powder, and a bul- 

 let hardened by an admixture of tin, generally 

 smash the walruses' skulls to pieces ; whereas 

 the rifles these men use, being mostly light, 

 old-fashioned ones, on the polygrooved prin- 

 ciple, charged with a spherical bullet of soft 

 lead, propelled by a small charge of indifferent 

 powder, do little or no harm to a walrus, un- 

 less they hit him on the back of the head, 

 just as the occiput is exposed at the moment 

 the animal is commencing to dive. I have 

 found many of their bullets embedded in the 

 heads of walruses, and flattened out like bits 

 of putty, without having even reached the 

 bone. 



A walrus swimming in the water is not 



