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Updated: June 6, 2025
How it came by its name is not difficult to guess. Probably in ages past some adventurous voyagers, whose names and deeds have not been recorded in history, observing the numbers of walruses which scrambled out of the sea to sun themselves on the cliffs of the said creek, had named it after that animal, and the natives had adopted the name.
On the 18th, almost every man from the huts was out seal-hunting, and three or four, as the women informed us, had gone to a considerable distance "for walruses" and with the intention of remaining out for the night in a snow hut.
The many kinds of seals and walruses and sea elephants form still another group displaying similar bodily characters, but differing more widely from the "cat theme" in these differences. They are all true carnivora, but in the course of their evolution they have progressively changed so as to be adapted to life in the water where they find their prey.
There were, indeed, myriads of wild-fowl flying about the ship, on which the men feasted and grew fat every day; and the muskets of Meetuck and those who accompanied him seldom failed to supply the ship with an abundance of the flesh of seals, walruses, and Polar bears, portions of all of which creatures were considered very good indeed by the men, and particularly by the dogs, which grew so fat that they began to acquire a very disreputable waddle in their gait as they walked the deck for exercise, which they seldom did, by the way, being passionately fond of sleep!
Here they saw an enormous herd of walruses, lying piled up over each other on the loose drift ice. A boat's crew from each ship was sent to attack them, but the animals some with their cubs on their backs, making a most determined resistance, kept their assailants at bay. One of them, rushing forward, tore the planks of a boat in several places, and very nearly sank her. Three only were killed.
In Lapland and Spitzbergen no one uses native ice in our day, except the bears and the walruses. The bicycle is not mentioned. It was not necessary. We know that it is there, without inquiring. It is everywhere. But for it, people could never have had summer homes on the summit of Mont Blanc; before its day, property up there had but a nominal value.
He said that he dwelt "Northmost of all northmen," in Halgoland; and wishing to find out how far the land lay due north, and whether any man dwelt north of him for the sake also of taking the walruses, "which have very good bone in their teeth; of these teeth they brought some to the king; and their hides are very good for ship-ropes" he sailed northward.
The birds, having brought forth and brought up their young, were betaking themselves to more temperate regions, leaving only such creatures as bears, seals, walruses, foxes, wolves, and men, to enjoy, or endure, the regions of the frigid zone. Suddenly there came a day in October when all the elemental fiends and furies of the Arctic circle seemed to be let loose in wildest revelry.
"Here it seemed to be the intention of the savages to remain for some time, as they went regularly to work to prepare for hunting various kinds of game, chiefly walruses and seals, and besides these, among others, an animal I had not seen before, a beautiful rabbit, or hare rather, very large, and pure white.
We must pass it all over, and also the account of the few days that followed, during which sundry walruses were captured, and return to the Dolphin, to which Captain Ellice had been conveyed on the sledge, carefully wrapped up in deer-skins, and tended by Fred.
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