400 The Hunting Grounds 



ously. As I got out of the bush he caught sight of 

 me, and made another headlong charge, reeling from 

 side to side as he came ; but I stopped him with 

 another bullet in the head, which made him bite the 

 dust. He rose again, and got up on his hind legs 

 as if to look round, and whilst in this position he 

 looked a fearful object, standing, as he did, with his 

 fore-paws raised about seven feet high and the blood 

 pouring in torrents out of his mouth. I now had a 

 fair shot at his chest, and inflicted a mortal wound, for 

 he rolled over and over, making his teeth meet in the 

 root of a tree with his last dying effort. 



He proved to be the largest bear I ever met 

 with, standing over four feet high at the shoulder, 

 and, from the number of men it took to lift him, I 

 should think he could not have weighed less than 

 eight hundred pounds. He appeared to be of the 

 same species as the hill-bear of Circassia and the 

 Himalayas, being covered with long whitey-brown 

 hair. He had received eleven wounds, six of which 

 were in the head ; but I found that the round leaden 

 balls from my smooth-bore had flattened on the skull 

 without penetrating, whilst the conical projectile from 

 my rifle splintered the bone. By the time the skin 

 was taken off, the carcass cut up, and the flesh 

 divided among the people, the sun had sunk low in 

 the west, and we had to beat a hasty retreat in order 

 to reach our bivouac (the cattle-shed) before nightfall. 



