sketch of all the
misfortunes and calamities which befell the heathen world was long
so highly valued, was spread in many copies and printed in
innumerable editions, the oldest at Vienna in 1471. In the
Anglo-Saxon translation now in question, Othere's account of his
journey is inserted in the first chapter, which properly forms a
geographical introduction to the work written by King Alfred. This
old Anglo-Saxon work is preserved in England in two beautiful
manuscripts from the ninth and tenth centuries. Orosius' history
itself is now forgotten, but King Alfred's introduction, and
especially his account of Othere's and Wulfstan's travels, have
attracted much attention from inquirers, as appears from the list of
translations of this part of King Alfred's Orosius, given by Joseph
Bosworth in his _King Alfred's Anglo-Saxon version of the
Compendious History of the World by Orosius_. London, 1859. ]

[Footnote 23: By Fins are here meant Lapps; by Terfins the
inhabitants of the Tersk coast of Russian Lapland. ]

[Footnote 24: Walruses are still captured yearly on the ice at the
mouth of the White Sea, not very far from the shore (cf. A.E.
Nordenskioeld, _Redogoerelse foer en expedition till mynningen af
Jenisej och Sibirien ar_ 1875, p. 23; _Bihang till Vetenskaps-A kad.
Handl_. B. iv. No. 1). Now they occur there indeed only in small
numbers, and, it appears, not in the immediate neighbourhood of
land; but there is scarcely any doubt that in former days they were
common on the most northerly coasts of Norway. They have evidently
been driven away thence in the same way as they are now being driven
away from Spitzbergen. With what rapidity their numbers at the
latter place are yearly diminished, may be seen from the fact that
during my many Arctic journeys, beginning in 1858, I never saw
walruses on Bear Island or the west coast of Spitzbergen, but have
conversed with hunters who ten years before had seen them in herds
of hundreds and thousands. I have myself seen such herds in
Hinloopen Strait in July 1861, but when during my journeys in 1868
and 1872-3 I again visited the same regions, I saw there not a
single walrus. ]

[Footnote 25: As it appears to be impossible for six men to kill
sixty great whales in two days, this passage has caused the editors
of Othere's narrative much perplexity, which is not wonderful if
great whales, as the _Balaena mysticetus_ are here meant. But if the
narrative relates to the smaller spe