WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 197 



wind of the guns and went off pretty fast for a mile or so, 

 occasionally stopping to sniff the breeze. At his easy rate 

 of motion he quickly left Don Jose and his contingent 

 behind little black spots in the world of white plains and 

 hummocks. Did the reader ever see a bear fairly out for a 

 walk, and notice the extraordinary resemblance there is 

 between the movements of a bear in the open and those of a 

 ferret shorten the ferret's body and its tail and you have 

 something very like a microscopic bear, the long back, the 

 way they each wave their snouts and stand up on their 

 hind-quarters to sniff the breeze beyond doubt, it is funny. 

 I do not think it is really undignified, but when someone 

 says that its movements suggest its having received a violent 

 kick on its hind- quarters, you cannot get the idea out of your 

 mind ; and whatever its sex, or however big and powerful 

 he may be, you must smile at the way he carries his tail down. 

 Is their strength not marvellous ? A large fellow here 

 was waiting for a seal at a hole in the ice, and a blue seal 

 (Phoca Barbata) just showed itself, and apparently to take the 

 chance, with one swoop of his forearm and claws, the bear 

 threw the great six-hundred-pound seal well on to the ice, 

 and with a forefoot on its back, broke the head off at one 

 bite and drank the blood and wolfed up every bit of skin and 

 blubber ; for the meat or cran, and bones, the bear, like the 

 human, has no use, unless he is hard pressed. 



Of course it is a big old bear which can do such a feat, 

 possibly twenty years old and much bigger and broader in the 

 quarter and shoulder than you can expect to find in Europe 

 in confinement. Archie Hamilton got such a veteran this 

 morning, quite comfortably, after twelve-o'clock breakfast. 

 With De Gisbert and some men they sallied forth over the 

 floe we were up against to deprive two bears thereon of their 

 skins and lives that is, if the bears did not in the first 

 instance deprive them of theirs. 



It was fascinating watching the little figures growing 

 smaller and smaller in the distance, and to watch the soft, 

 pale yellow heap that represented the ice-bear. I have a 

 splendid glass, and at half-a-mile can distinguish the gloriously 

 uxurious rolls and movements of the great fellow and note 



