AiiguHt, IS69.] Adventure with a Polar. 429 



hunters, the total weight of meat placed on board the ship for their 

 crew fell but little short of 3,000 pounds, the result of nine days' work. 

 The story of a hazardous adventure with the Polar on the 2Gth is thus 

 told : 



Having made some astronomical observations, I commenced computing 

 them, and bad not been long occupied before Joe cried out '■'■J^i-noo! Ni-noo '.'''' 

 when at once I dropped pen and journal and jumped out of tent, and took a look 

 in the direction Joe pointed, wbich was to Whale Point; and surely there was 

 the "JVl-woo." We watched it for a moment, and saw it walk about, make a 

 plunge into the sea, and then return to the laud, when it walked up on the hill- 

 side of Whale Point and then lay down. 



We were not long getting ready for the prospective adventurous bear-hunt. 

 I say advefiturous, for in truth we knew it to be so. We had no dog and no spears 

 with which to defend ourselves in case onr fire-arms failed to kill outright on the 

 first shot; and then, to make matters more uncertain, our percussion-caps could 

 not be depended on ; quite a proportion of them fiiil to take fire. If we should 

 happen simply to wound the bear, that would make it furious, and there was no 

 telling the end of its human slaying. It might, as we all thought, make its way 

 to the tent during the absence of myself and Joe, and before we could come to 

 the rescue of Hannah and little Pun-na they might be killed by the wounded and 

 enraged monster beast. With all this no very flattering view of the case we con- 

 cluded, however, to go for the hunt. As Joe and myself got about half-way to 

 Whale Point we began to think that the large dirty white mass we saw on 

 Whale Point and took to be the recumbent ni-noo, was a large rock; but we kept 

 on our windings and let the ridges of rock-land hide ns from view as much as 

 possible. At length we came within a hundred yards of the sleeping big lion of 

 the North, and then behind a gentle sloping hill we watched him. At the same 

 time we were busy putting our fire-arms in complete order for the forthcoming 

 fray. I had buck-shot in the left.of my double-barrel ; so this charge I drew fortli 

 and replaced it with an ounce ball, and then I was ready for a double shot if the 

 case needed it. Our huge rock proved to be the bear after all, as we readily i)er- 

 ceived on arriving at the place where we stopped to get our arms ready. As 

 we watched ni-noo, we noticed that every few minutes he would raise his long- 

 necked head, turn it this way and that,— look all around, snift" the air,— and then 

 replace it flat down on the smooth rock-bed on which he was then napping. 



A fresh breeze was blowing from the southwest, and every now and then 

 my Joe kept plucking out little tufts of deer-hair from his dress, lifting them up, 



