86 
VOYAGE TO GREENLAND. 
proach, looked at us in tbe manner here represented 
and plunged into the water ; I fired, and though at 
too great a distance to kill, yet the shot certainly 
hit it, for it went bleeding to the edge of the water, 
as we saw by the blood which it left on the snow. 
The walrus has been known to attain the length 
of eighteen feet, and the girth of twelve or thirteen. 
The head of this hideous animal is small, and so 
connected to the neck, that it appears to be a con- 
tinuation of it; the eyes are small, and sunk into 
the head ; the lips fat, and beset with long stout 
bristles ; the skin, which is about an inch thick, 
hangs in folds or wrinkles, particularly about the 
neck, and is covered with short bristly hair, of a 
dirty yellow or greenish colour ; the legs are shorty 
and the feet are like those of a seal. Walruses 
are very numerous about Spitzbergen, and are some- 
times seen collected in groups, on pieces of floating 
ice, where they lie huddled together grunting like 
swine, or rolling about; the whole group sometimes 
