WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 193 



streams, the second coloured by sea algae. You swing your 

 glass round and round the horizon, with nothing to mark 

 your direction on some days, when the sun is behind clouds, 

 and keep time, and mark your place, by a yellow or brown 

 patch. Therefore for a bear to resemble either is to court 

 observation. 



The next most interesting thing to stalking a bear, or 

 being stalked by one, is to watch and criticise a stalk from 

 the superior position of looker-on. It was the greatest fun 

 imaginable to watch with the glass the little dots of figures, 

 mere black specks, wandering over the distant floe. Of 

 course, from your position on the bridge you can watch both 

 the movements of the bear and the hunters, and sometimes 

 their cross purposes make you laugh at the poor human 

 mistakes. In this case the hunters came off best, but without 

 the vessel the bear would have had the best of the com- 

 petition. He got down wind of the group of hunters, Don 

 Luis Velasquez, De Gisbert, and two men sniffed the air and 

 came hurtling along in the opposite direction and took to sea, 

 half-a-mile from the Fonix, which we had anchored to the 

 floe, and off it swam to a neighbouring island of ice, about 

 half-a-mile away, so we up-sticked and headed it round till 

 the hunters came off the floe in the boat, and the poor yellow 

 fellow got first a bullet in the neck, which enraged it and 

 changed the colour of the sea, then, after several more shots, 

 a lucky one in the brain ended its charmed life. He may have 

 left no friends, but he died without enemies to be afraid of, 

 bar man and we did not even find a flea on it ; which was 

 disappointing, but what was to be expected. 



We think the Eskimos have met the bears here, owing 

 to the bears' retiring manners, which are not characteristics 

 of these polar bears in less populous parts of the polar 

 basin. It is not a fortunate ending to a stalk to have to 

 shoot your game in the water. Still our friend fired several 

 shots before he got the deadly one into the brain, but there 

 is some excuse a heavy tramp over snow-fields after a beast 

 that, say what you will, takes a little nerve to approach for 

 the first time, and then the bobbing boat might upset even 

 a very experienced shot. 



