I 



HERDS OF WALRUSES. 555 



and Trent — sailed in April, 1818, and made their way towards 

 Magdalena Bay, in Spitzbergen. In latitude 74° north, near an 

 island frequented by herds of walruses, a boat's crew was 

 attacked by a number of these animals, and only escaped 

 destruction by the presence of mind of the purser. He seized 

 a loaded musket, and, plunging the muzzle into the throat of the 

 leader of the school, discharged its contents into his bowels. 

 As the walrus sinks as soon as he is dead, the mortally-wounded 

 animal at once began to disappear beneath the water. His 



ATTACKED BY WALRUSES. 



companions abandoned the combat to support their chief with 

 their tusks, whom they hastily bore away from the scene of 

 action. 



The climate here was mild, the atmosphere pure and brilliant, 

 and the blue of the sky as intense as that of Naples. Alpine 

 plants, grasses, moss, and lichens, flourished in abundance, and 

 afforded browsing pasturage to reindeer at the height of fifteen 

 hundred feet above the sea. The shores were alive with awks, 

 clivers, cormorants, gulls, walruses, and seals. Eider-ducks,- 



