132 THE INHABITANTS OF THE SEA. 



bent double. The herd was so numerous, and their attacks so 

 incessant, that there was not time to load a musket, which indeed 

 was the only effectual mode of seriously injuring them. The 

 purser fortunately had his gun loaded, and the whole now being 

 nearly exhausted with chopping and striking at their assailants, 

 he snatched it up, and thrusting the muzzle down the throat of 

 the leader, fired into his bowels. The wound proved mortal and 

 the animal fell back amongst his companions, who immediately 

 desisted from the attack, assembled round him, and in a moment 

 quitted the boat, swimming away as hard as they could with 

 their leader, whom they actually bore up with their tusks, and 

 assiduously preserved from sinking. Whether this singular and 

 compassionate conduct, which in all probability was done to 

 prevent suffocation, arose from the sagacity of the animals, it is 

 difficult to say ; but there is every probability of it, and the fact 

 must form an interesting trait in the history of the habits of the 

 species. After the discharge of the purser's gun, there remained 

 of all the herd only one little assailant, which the seamen, out 

 of compassion, were unwilling to molest. This young animal had 

 been observed fighting by the side of the leader, and from the 

 protection which was afforded it by its courageous patron, was 

 imagined to be one of its young. This little animal had no 

 tusks, but it swam violently against the boat, and struck her 

 with its head, and indeed would have stove her, had it not been 

 kept off by whale lances, some of which made deep incisions in 

 its young sides. These, however, had not any immediate effect; 

 the attack was continued, and the enraged little animal, though 

 disfigured with wounds, even crawled upon the ice in pursuit of 

 the seamen, who had relanded there, until one of them, out of 

 compassion, put an end to its sufferings. 



The valuable ivory of its tusks, which is more solid, finer 

 grained, and whiter than that of the elephant, exposes the 

 walrus to the attacks of man, no less than his thick hide, from 

 which a strong elastic leather is made, and his abundance of 

 flesh and blubber. The former are sought by civilised nations, 

 while the latter forms the chief food of the northern Esquimaux 

 and of the Tschutchi on the western shore of Behring's Straits. 



Every yeax a troop of Aleuts land on the northern coast 

 of the peninsula of Aliaska, where the young walruses as- 

 semble in great numbers during the summer, having most 



