CUSTOMS OF LAA EF SILIMOS. 157 
walrus, but when so hampered it is considered well 
secured, and is finally despatched by the long keen lance. 
When, however, the attack is made in the neighbor- 
hood of heavy ice, as it frequently is, the hunt is much 
less likely to result successfully. Because of the floating 
erystal, the hunter often finds it difficult to follow the 
movements of his game, and even if successful in this 
and in placing a harpoon or two, he is often defeated in 
the end by the line being torn from the float, which has 
become fast in the broken ice. Thus once freed, the 
wounded animal usually makes good his escape. 
Occasionally these walrus contests result disastrously 
to the hunter, for the sea-horse is by no means a passive, 
harmless creature, submitting without resistance to the 
attacks of itsenemies. Frequently one—or a number of 
them together—will make a charge upon the assailants, 
attacking them viciously with their huge tusks, which, if 
brought in contact with an Eskimo, are likely to make 
a sorry-looking object of him. Of course, through long 
experience and practice in the chase, the Eskimo hunters 
become very expert in dodging and foiling a charge, but 
sometimes they are caught and roughly handled by these 
uncouth monsters of the sea. | 
Upon one occasion an old hunter whom I knew, 
named Coto, met with a bad accident while hunting 
walruses in his kyack. A number of them charged 
upon him suddenly, and being unable to get out of their 
way quickly enough, his frail craft was broken and torn 
to shreds, and his body was frightfully bruised and 
lacerated. The poor fellow recovered, however, but only 
after months of sore suffering. 
For a short time during the autumn season the sea- 
