UNDER THE MIDNIGHT SUN. 339 



Now the difficulty arises about insuring the wearing 

 of snow-spectacles. They are inconvenient, and to some 

 unpleasant, but none the less important and necessary. 

 Though they may not entirely prevent snow-blindness, 

 they will guard against it longer than an uncovered 

 eye, and make its effects less painful and lasting. I 

 see that human judgment will lead the average seaman 

 to prefer certain snow-blindness to a probable freedom 

 from it, and hence I shall issue a stringent order on the 

 subject. 



At four o'clock this afternoon a large bear paid us a 

 visit, and but for our haste might now be adorning our 

 rigging. The reporting of a bear sets us all on fire, 

 and away we go. When Ericksen came into the cabin 

 and said " Bear," out jumped the doctor, Newcomb, and 

 myself with rifles and sped over the side. The dogs 

 seeing us rush jumped to their feet, and scenting or see- 

 ing the bear about two hundred yards off made for him. 

 That was enough ; he turned and ran. I fired at him 

 (hitting him, I afterwards learned, in the left fore- 

 shoulder), but on he sped, dogs and all in chase, and 

 though hotly pursued he gained so much that when at 

 three miles he came to a water lane one hundred yards 

 wide, he had time to swim across it, and gain some 

 hummocks on the other side before Alexey got to the 

 edge. Here Alexey fired, and says he hit him, but he 

 went down behind the roug-h ice and was seen no more. 



o 



He says before he fired he saw the blood flowing from 

 the bear's left shoulder, and had seen the bloody trail 

 he left behind. 



A pleasant report came back from the open water 

 that there were " plenty birds,'' and as we are much 

 interested in that fact from love of bird pie as well as 

 for naturalist's reasons, Mr. Newcomb prepares for a 

 battue on the morrow. 



