WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 225 



I would know that long cunning female again, I believe, 

 were I to meet her, from the odd movements, from her " out- 

 stretched neck and ever watchful eye." The cubs should be 

 grateful for such a mother ; without her skill in character- 

 reading, they would both be in little cages on board here ! 

 Does it not make the reader comfortable to know that they 

 are at liberty, free to enjoy seal-killing and fat galore, and 

 pure snow and air and the Arctic world to roam in ? When 

 they would not follow fast enough Mother Bear turned and 

 spoke angrily, then finally went and spanked them. A bear 

 and a monkey are the only animals, ex- 

 cepting man, who spank their young. So 

 up here you see little domestic touches in 

 bear life, which, so far, you cannot get in 

 a zoo. It is worth coming north to see 

 such a matron tending her young, to see 

 the jolly round yellow cubs full of fun, 

 gambolling over the fine old mother, 

 playing with her ears and head and teeth 

 that at half-a-bite could take a man's 

 head off like asparagus. Here is a picture 

 of such a group. "Rest after Play," it 

 should perhaps be called. "True till 

 Death " might be too harrowing. 



Sometimes fatal accidents occur in bear-hunting. I have 

 heard of several, but they are small in number compared to 

 the number of bears shot. A few years ago Gisbert witnessed 

 one. Two Norwegian sealers came on an ice-floe after two 

 bears somewhere east of Spitzbergen, and they killed one 

 and set to work skinning it. The second bear was holding 

 towards Gisbert 's vessel, so one of the Norwegians hurried off 

 to annex it by himself, which is not a very safe thing to do. 

 He pursued it some time and wounded it, and the bear went 

 for him, and his rifle jammed, and when De Gisbert's party 

 came up a little while afterwards the man was in ribbons. 



Now I hope we may stop writing about bears and soon 

 come in touch with our older friends, the whales, of one kind 

 or another. We are prepared for Balean whales, or Nord 

 Cappers, " the old kind," I call them. But for the big 



