these animals had young ones, which, when assaulted, they either took
between their fore-flippers to carry off, or bore away on their backs.
Both of those killed by the Fury's boats were females, and the weight of
the largest was fifteen hundred and two quarters nearly; but it was by
no means remarkable for the largeness of its dimensions. The peculiar
barking noise made by the walrus when irritated, may be heard, on a calm
day, with great distinctness at the distance of two miles at least. We
found musket-balls the most certain and expeditious way of despatching
them after they had been once struck with the harpoon, the thickness of
their skin being such that whale-lances generally bend without
penetrating it. One of these creatures being accidentally touched by one
of the oars in Lieutenant Nias's boat, took hold of it between its
flippers, and, forcibly twisting it out of the man's hand, snapped it in
two. They produced us very little oil, the blubber being thin and poor
at this season, but were welcomed in a way that had not been
anticipated; for some quarters of this "marine beef," as Captain Cook
has called it, being hung up for steaks, the meat was not only eaten,
but eagerly sought after on this and every other occasion throughout the
voyage, by all those among us who could overcome the prejudice arising
chiefly from the dark colour of the flesh. In no other respect that I
could ever discover, is the meat of the walrus, when fresh-killed, in
the slightest degree unpalatable. The heart and liver are indeed
excellent.

After an unobstructed night's run, during which we met with no ice
except in some loose "streams," the water became so much shoaler as to
make it necessary to proceed with greater caution. About this time,
also, a great deal of high land came in sight to the northward and
eastward, which, on the first inspection of the Esquimaux charts, we
took to be the large portion of land called _Ke=iyuk-tar-ruoke_,[001]