158 FEROCITY OF YOUNG BEAR. 



come black with dirt, and tar, and grease, so 

 we took them out to-day, and tying the end of 

 a rope round their middles, we gave them each 

 a swim, or, to speak more correctly, a tow 

 behind the vessel, to clean them ; one of them, 

 the female, is quiet and peaceable enough, but 

 the other is the most ferocious and irreclaim 

 able young demon I ever saw in my life. He 

 was so savage and tyrannical towards his 

 sister, that we built a sort of partition in 

 their crib, and since that he has devoted his 

 entire energies, with hardly any intermission, 

 by day or by night, to roaring and growling, 

 while he bites and scratches at the rotten drift 

 wood composing the cage in an equally perse 

 vering manner ; we found to-day that he had 

 very nearly eaten his way out, so we patched up 

 the breaches with the pieces of a stove not at 

 present in use. Although they get as much 

 seal, and walrus-beef, and blubber as they like, 

 they do not eat very much of it, but drink 

 enormous quantities of water. They are visibly 

 getting larger and fatter. 



31st, Sunday. It having been dead calm 

 during the night, we have made little or no 

 progress. Very little ice to the S. and W., 

 and too much to the N. and E., where it is 



