Every year a troop of Aleuts land on the northern coast of the peninsula of Aliaska, where the young walruses assemble in great numbers during the summer, having most likely been driven away by the older males from their more northern haunts. The walruses herd on the lowest edge of the coast which is within reach of the high spring-tides. When the Aleuts prepare to attack the animals, they take leave of each other as if they were going to face death, being no less afraid of the mighty tusks of the walruses than of the awkwardness of their own companions. Armed with lances and heavy axes, they stealthily approach the walruses, and having disposed their ranks, suddenly fall upon them with loud shouts, and endeavour to drive them from the sea, taking care that none of them escape into the water, as in this case the rest would irresistibly follow and precipitate the huntsmen along with them. As soon as the walruses have been driven far enough up the strand, the Aleuts attack them with their lances, endeavouring to strike at them in places where the hide is not so thick, and then pressing with all their might against the spear, to render the wound deep and deadly. The slaughtered animals fall one over the other and form large heaps, while the huntsmen, uttering furious shouts and intoxicated with carnage, wade through the bloody mire. They then cleave the jaws and take out the tusks, which are the chief objects of the slaughter of several thousands of walruses, since neither their flesh nor their fat is made use of in the colony. Sir George Simpson, in his "Overland Journey Round the World," relates that the bales of fur sent to Kjachta are covered with walrus hide; then it is made to protect the tea chests, which find their way to Moscow; and after all these wanderings, the far-travelled skin returns again to its native seas, when, cut into small pieces and stamped with a mark, it serves as a medium of exchange. The carcases of the wholesale slaughter are left on the shore to be washed away by the spring-tides, which soon erase every vestige of the bloody scene, and in the following year the inexhaustible north sends new victims to the coast.