HE DIES. 425 



I was in reality and disabled for that day at least ; so that 

 on my comrades coming up, I forthwith directed Elg to 

 put an end to the wounded bear, whose tracks were deeply 

 marked with blood, which he effected in about ten minutes, 

 and within two to three hundred paces of the spot where 

 the encounter between us had taken place; and a very 

 few minutes afterwards, having in the interval greatly 

 recovered myself, and put my gun which in the melee 

 had been buried in the snow in order, I rejoined him on 

 my Skidor. 



Our prize,* a male, was emaciated, from age as we 

 imagined, and his fangs either broken or greatly blunted. 

 To the latter circumstance my preservation, under God, was 

 probably attributable ; for had his fangs entered my person 

 in every place where they left indentations, I must have been 

 literally torn to pieces. 



As it was, I escaped wonderfully. My body, to be sure, 

 was covered with severe contusions for the skin being 

 only slightly raised, wounds they could hardly be called ; 

 two or three days subsequently, indeed, the whole of my 

 left hip and the adjacent parts were perfectly black. My 

 right hand and wrist were a good deal hurt ; for at the 

 commencement of the affair how, I know not I got my 

 hand into the mouth, and even partially down the very throat 

 of the beast, where it seemed as if embedded in slaver. 

 My skull, for a considerable extent, was laid bare in two 

 places : one wound, by the doctor's account on the follow- 

 ing day, being eight, the other nine inches in length though 

 parts of both were, of course, superficial ; but from my hair 



* Now in the British Museum, to which institution it was presented by the 

 Earl of Selkirk. 



