* 
214 THE GUARDIAN WALRUS. 
month’s imprisonment, living as only these iron men 
could live, that they found the berg had grounded. 
They liberated their dogs as soon as the young ice 
would bear their weight, and, attaching long lines to 
them, which they cut from the hide of the dead 
walrus, they succeeded in hauling themselves through 
the water-space which always surrounds an iceberg, 
and reaching safe ice. They returned to their village 
like men raised from the dead, to meet a welcome, but 
to meet famine along with it. 
I believe the explanation was never given to me in 
detail, or, if it was, I have forgotten it; but the whole 
misadventure was referred to an infringement of some 
canonical ritual in their conduct of the hunt. The 
walrus, and perhaps the seal also, is under the protective 
guardianship of a special representative or prototype, 
who takes care that he shall have fair play. They all 
believe that in the recesses of Force Bay, near a conical 
peak which has often served me as a landmark on my 
sledge-journeys, a great walrus lives in the hills, and 
crawls out, when there is no moon, to the edge of a 
ravine, where he bellows with a voice far more powerful 
than his fellows out to sea. Ootuniah had often heard 
this walrus, and once, when I was crossing Beu. died 
Beach, he stopped me to listen to his dismal tones. 1 
certainly heard them, and Ootuniah said that a good 
hunt would come of it. I tried to talk to him about 
echoes; but, as neither of us could understand the 
other, I listened quietly at last to the Big Walrus,’ and 
went my way. 
