WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 285 



round easily enough done and by one means or another 

 get him to take to the water, also easily done. Then follow 

 him in two boats, each would throw a lasso over his head, 

 when the interest would begin. Whilst number one boat 

 hauled taut he would probably roll over and thrash with 

 his paws, then number two boat, with loop still fast to his 

 neck, would throw a hitch over a foot, and so haul the foot 

 to his neck, and so on with the other fore foot and hind feet ; 

 his head would then sink and hitches could be cast all over 

 him, till, like a fly in spider's web, he would be helpless. Then 

 the big strop round him and a strong winch chain, a hold 

 lined with iron plates and you would have such a bear 

 as has never been seen in captivity, a floe-bred bear, say 

 twenty years old, of huge dimensions. Gisbert, who knows 

 all about bears as well as about bulls, backs the bear in the 

 ring ; so do I. Its four enormous limbs, each with a hand 

 and claws on them, a neck and head and teeth of enormous 

 power, all told three times the weight of a bull, and com- 

 bined with cat-like activity and quickness of eye. Possibly 

 next year this may come off and Hamilton and I will go down 

 to Madrid and make a book, for all Spain would give any 

 odds on their bull. In Madrid an elephant was pitted 

 against a heroic bull ; the bull at once charged and prodded 

 the elephant, which annoyed it so that it swung round and 

 broke the bull's back with a swipe of its trunk. But a lion 

 or black bear and a tiger the bull has easily mastered. A 

 lion stood the charge and was lifted clean into the air and 

 came down and bolted inside out with its tail between its 

 legs. A tiger ignominiously fled, chivied by the bull all 

 round the ring. So Madrid people are prepared to lay their 

 shirts against any polar bears, or anything under the sun ; 

 they are in honour bound to do so. 



The bears they have seen in European zoological gardens 

 have been brought as cubs, or at oldest were two years old, 

 when they left their native floes, and are narrow chested and 

 have narrow hips. Wait till they see the enormous pro- 

 portions of chest and hind-quarters of a full-grown fellow 

 that has lived, say, twenty to forty years, up north, with 

 boundless liberty, on full rations ! 



