arrow-head of the harpoon, projecting from the muzzle of the gun, was within five yards of the beast. Then, with the flash, the steel buries itself deep in his side, a stream of blood spurts on the snow, and all three walrus start up and heave themselves upright before plunging into the water, looking as formidable game as any post-diluvian sportsman could desire, but evidently too much frightened to attack. A well-aimed bullet struck our victim’s throat and shortened his death-struggle. Ere long the drag on the harpoon line slackened, and the huge carcase was drawn to the surface and towed slowly to the ship. It measured twelve and a-half feet from nose to tail, eleven and a-half in girth. The tusks, eighteen inches from gum to point, gave the creature a savage appearance, but their use was to dig up the molluscs on which he fed, or to hook himself up on to the ice floes. The dogs were not alone in their appreciation of fresh meat. We ourselves found some steaks by no means unpalatable though desperately tough, and for some days walrus liver figured upon our breakfast-table. [Illustration: WALRUS.++] CHAPTER III. A Haul of the Dredge—Norman Lockyer Island—Traces of an Eskimo Exodus—Midnight on 12th August—Mysterious Cairns—Forcing the Tidal Barrier—“Kane’s Open Polar Sea”—Hannah Island—Grant Land Reached—Musk Oxen—“Discovery’s” Winter Quarters. An anxious watch was always kept for any favourable movement of the ice. But, meanwhile, the broad smooth floe alongside afforded a tempting exercising ground, whereon, after working hours, some played football and others took their first lessons in dog-driving. The ships happened to be secured in a sort of basin fifteen fathoms deep, but with shallower water all round, so that the bottom was protected from the scrapings of icebergs. It was evidently a favourable spot for a haul of the dredge. Our expectations were more than realised. The net came up full of strange creatures. Here a fish with a sucker under his chin; there a brittle feather star with long branched arms. He has to be extracted most carefully from the bag, and supplied with some cotton to grasp before being consigned to our naturalist’s ever-ready bottle. Next comes a _Terebratula_, or lamp shell, anchored by a strange chance to a fossil _Terebratula_ drifted from some neighbouring rock. Here are pale vermilion-coloured antlers of _Escharella_, and delicate lacework of _Retepore Polyzoa_, and here, perhaps greatest prize of all, a little calcareous sponge with a double frill glistening like spun glass. The dredging operations were continued far into the nominal night, and, after a little necessary rest, we started to explore the island. A steep wall of ice-foot encircling the land disputed our inroad. Clambering up over it, we were at once struck with the terraced condition of the shores. On the north side of the island especially, the ridges rose one over the