Scarcely had I set foot on land when I saw a bear a little way up the shore and drew up our kayaks to go and shoot it. In the meantime it came shambling along the shore towards us, so we lay down quietly behind the kayaks and waited. When close up to us it caught sight of our footprints in the snow, and while it was sniffing at them Johansen sent a bullet behind its shoulder. The bear roared and tried to run, but the bullet had gone through the spine, and the hind part of its body was paralyzed and refused to perform its functions. In perplexity the bear sat down, and bit and tore its hind-paws until the blood flowed; it was as if it were chastising them to make them do their duty. Then it tried again to move away, but with the same result; the hind part of its body was no longer amenable to discipline, and dragged behind, so that it could only shuffle along on its fore-legs, going round in a ring. A ball through the skull put an end to its sufferings. When we had skinned it we made an excursion inland to inspect our new domain, and were now not a little surprised to see two walruses lying quietly on the ice close to the spot where I had first caught sight of the bear. This seemed to me to show how little heed walruses pay to bears, who will never attack them if they can help it. I had more decisive proofs of this subsequently. In the sea beyond we also saw a walrus, which kept putting up its head and breathing so hard that it could be heard a long way off. A little later I saw him approach the edge of the ice and disappear, only to appear again in the tidal channel close to the shore, a good way from the edge of the ice. He struck his great tusks into the edge of the ice, while he lay breathing hard, just like an exhausted swimmer. Then he raised himself high up on his tusks, and looked across the ice towards the others lying there, and then dived down again. He soon reappeared, with a great deal of noise, farther in, and the same performance was gone through again. A walrus's head is not a beautiful object as it appears above the ice. With its huge tusks, its coarse whisker bristles, and clumsy shape, there is something wild and goblin-like about it which, I can easily understand, might inspire fear in more superstitious times, and give rise to the idea of fabulous monsters, with which in ancient days these seas were thought to swarm. At last the walrus came up in the hole beside which the others were lying, and raised himself a little way up on to the edge of the ice by his tusks; but upon this the bigger of the two, a huge old bull, suddenly awoke to life. He grunted menacingly, and moved about restlessly. The new-comer bowed his head respectfully down to the ice, but soon pulled himself cautiously up on to the floe, so as to get a hold with his fore-paddle, and then drew himself a little way in. Now the old bull was thoroughly roused. He turned round, bellowed, and floundered up