232 OVER ON THE ISLAND

last calling cards of the walrus or seacows of the early days. Hundreds of these animals were killed along the coast by the early inhabitants——

These animals were accustomed to resort to one or two particular spots near the North Cape, and several hundreds would sometimes go on shore at once; they were left undisturbed until the wind blew off the land, when the people got between them and the sea, and probed those that were next to them with sticks, whose points were brought nearly to the same degree of sharpness as the large tusks of these animals, this set them in motion toward the woods, and they probed on those that were before them, and the whole flock, said sometimes to exceed three hundred, were soon in motion and proceeded into the woods, where they were easily killed with long spears. It sometimes happened that without any apparent reason they would turn back toward the sea, before they got so far from it as to render the attempt to begin the slaughter safe, and if still in sight of the sea, on their return they kept in a body to which nothing could be opposed with any effect; but when they got a considerable way into the woods they appeared to lose their sagacity, and scattered in difl‘erent directions, seeming at the same time insensible of danger, though the slaughter of their fellows was going on close to them. I have been informed that some of them would weigh four thousand pounds; their oil is said to be the purest of all animal oil, and the French inhabitants of the island eat it very readily; some parts of the skin are an inch and a half in thickness, and prodigiously strong and valuable for making many useful articles, which, if kept dry, are very durable, even without tanning or dressing of any kind; the large tusks produce a species of ivory closer grained than the common ivory. These teeth are evidently given them by nature to enable them to dig the shellfish out of the bottom of the sea, on which they appear to live, no other substance being ever found in their stomachs. They are not found on any