An Exciting Polar Bear Hunt. 167 



The first, after growling for a few seconds, scaled two or three 

 more ledges, reaching an altitude of about sixty feet, when she 

 received a bullet in the head from the rifle in the hands of Mr. 

 Laperriere, and fell backwards. Her descent was one of the most 

 thrilling spectacles that the eye of any hunter has ever been 

 favoured to behold. Her well-formed, beautiful white body, not less 

 than eight hundred pounds in weight, came tumbling down from 

 terrace to shelf, and from shelf to ledge, and from ledge to sharp, 

 craggy, projecting rocks, striking them with a dull, sickening thud, 

 falling ten or fifteen feet at a stretch, until, rolling over and over, 

 her lifeless carcase came to our very feet on the snow beneath. 



No sooner had the dead bear come to rest on the snow, than a 

 bullet from Mr. Fox's rifle entered the side of the huge brute at the 

 very summit of the cliffs, exploding in its passage through his body, 

 and causing the blood to burst out in a torrent upon the naked 

 rocks. Falling over, lifeless, his immense body rolled from the 

 shelf upon which he met his death, and fell to the snow beneath, 

 a distance of some seventy or eighty feet, striking against the 

 rugged spurs along the face of the dizzy precipice, and causing 

 the blood to gush out in spurts, sometimes in streams, leaping up 

 three and four feet above the falling body, and painting the rocks 

 in crimson. 



The third bear had also reached to within a few feet of the top 

 of the cliffs without receiving more than slight injuries. I had 

 given him my best attention, had hit him twice, but had not put an 

 end to his energies to escape. At length I was lucky enough to 

 strike him in the shoulder, and he fell backwards, descending to the 

 snow as had the other two before him. 



The whole performance occupied a little less than ninety seconds, 

 and was one of the most exciting situations of sport that one could 

 possibly look upon. Leaving their dead bodies, we hurried on up 

 the narrow opening between the high ranges of rocks, hoping to 

 overtake the other two, but they had fyd themselves or departed 

 out of our reach. 



Evening was now upon us, but we skinned the three bears and 

 carried their heavy pelts, together with two quarters of the meat, to 



