122 GOLOV1NSKY. 



much exultation, and brought home his head, tired 

 but rejoicing. 



It was still early when we got back to our hut, 

 not more than mid-day, in fact ; but the weather 

 was of the roughest, and our uprising had been an 

 early one, so that we were not sorry to pass the 

 rest of the day in cleaning our bear's skin and pre- 

 paring his flesh for our evening meal. And fresh- 

 killed bear's meat takes a considerable time in 

 preparation, and when the animal happens to be as 

 old and wiry as the beast killed to-day, not forty 

 cooks with forty rolling-pins could ever beat his 

 flesh into a reasonable degree of tenderness. 



The Cossacks on the station won't eat bear's 

 flesh, though they only get meat once a week here ; 

 and partly for that reason, and partly because with 

 their single-barrelled rifles they consider the risk 

 too great, they never molest the bears. So little 

 in fact do they know of their comparative harm- 

 lessness, that they gave me quite an ovation when 

 I came back loaded with spoils to-day, and for the 

 moment I figured as quite a Nimrod to an ad- 

 miring audience of eleven semi-savages. 



I had heard a great deal in time past about the 

 excellence of bear's hams, and the delicacy of bear's 

 paws stewed, but 1 felt that another of the plea- 

 sant illusions of my youth had been destroyed 

 when I encountered to-night the mass of boiled 

 black whipcord, which, in spite of its unpleasant 



