Voyage through the Kara Sea. 159 



headway against it. Seals were diving round us, white 

 whales coming and going, but we had no eyes for them 

 now. Suddenly Henriksen called out that there was a 

 bear on the point in front. I turned round, and there 

 stood a beautiful white fellow rummao-mo- amonaf the 



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flotsam on the beach. As we had no time to shoot it, we 

 rowed on, and it went slowly in front of us northwards 

 along the shore. At last, with great exertions \ve reached 

 the bay where we were to put in for the reindeer. The 

 bear was there before us. It had not seen the boat 

 hitherto ; but now it got scent of us, and came nearer. 

 It was a tempting shot. I had my finger on the trigger 

 several times, but did not draw it. After all we had no 

 use for the animal ; it was quite as much as we could 

 do to stow away what we had already. It made a 

 beautiful target of itself by getting up on a stone to 

 have a better scent and looked about, and after a careful 

 survey it turned round and set off inland at an easy trot. 

 The surf w r as by this time still heavier. It was a flat, 

 shallow shore, and the waves broke a good way out from 

 land. We rowed in till the boat touched ground and the 

 breakers began to wash over us. The only way of 

 getting ashore was to jump into the sea and wade. But 

 getting the reindeer on board was another matter. 

 There was no better landing-place farther north, and 

 hard as it w r as to give up the excellent meat after all our 

 trouble, it seemed to me there was nothing else for it 



o 



and we rowed off towards our ship. 



