The day after she had entered the Nordenskiöld Sea came a walrus-hunt, so graphically described by Nansen that we must find room for an extract. "It was," he says, "a lovely morning—fine, still weather; the walruses' guffaw sounded over to us along the clear ice surface. They were lying crowded together on a floe a little to landward of us, blue mountains glittering behind them in the sun. At last the harpoons were sharpened, guns and cartridges ready, and Henriksen, Juell, and I set off. There seemed to be a slight breeze from the south, so we rowed to the north side of the floe, to get to leeward of the animals. From time to time their sentry raised his head, but apparently did not see us. We advanced slowly, and soon were so near that we had to row very cautiously. Juell kept us going, while Henriksen was ready in the bow with a harpoon, and I behind him with a gun. The moment the sentry raised his head the oars stopped, and we stood motionless; when he sank it again, a few more strokes brought us nearer. Body to body they lay, close-packed on a small floe, old and young ones mixed. Enormous masses of flesh they were. Now and again one of the ladies fanned herself by moving one of her flippers backwards and forwards over her body; then she lay quiet again on her back or side. More and more cautiously we drew near. Whilst I sat ready with the gun, Henriksen took a good grip of the harpoon shaft, and as the boat touched the floe he rose, and off flew the harpoon. But it struck too high, glanced off the tough hide, and skipped over the backs of the animals. Now there was a pretty to do! Ten or twelve great weird faces glared upon us at once; the colossal creatures twisted themselves round with incredible celerity, and came waddling with lifted heads and hollow bellowings to the edge of the ice where we lay. It was undeniably an imposing sight; but I laid my gun to my shoulder and fired at one of the biggest heads. The animal staggered and then fell head foremost into the water. Now a ball into another head; this creature fell, too, but was able to fling itself into the sea. And now the whole flock dashed in, and we, as well as they, were hidden in the spray. It had all happened in a few seconds. But up they came again immediately round the boat, the one head bigger and uglier than the other—their young ones close beside them. They stood up in the water, bellowed and roared till the air trembled, threw themselves forward towards us, then rose up again, and new bellowings filled the air. Then they rolled over and disappeared with a splash, then bobbed up again. The water foamed and boiled for yards around—the ice-world that had been so still before seemed in a moment to have been transformed into a raging Bedlam. Any moment we might expect to have a walrus tusk or two through the boat or to be heaved up or capsized. Something of this kind was the very least that could happen after such a terrible commotion.