CHAPTER VII 



BLACK BEARS 



But you've no remorseful qualms or pangs 



When you kneel by the grizzly's lair : 

 On that conical bullet your sole chance hangs, 



Tis the weak one's advantage fair, 

 And the shaggy giant's terrific fangs 



Are ready to crush and tear; 

 Should you miss, one vision of home and friends, 



Five words of unfinished prayer, 

 Three savage knife stabs; so your sport ends 

 In the worrying grapple that chokes and rends : 



Rare sport, at least, for the bear. 



LINDSEY GORDON. 



THE next day was spent in marching to Key poor, 

 still down in the Valley of the Pohru ; and 

 we had a restful afternoon wandering about its banks. 

 Our tents were again put up in a grassy orchard ; 

 and towards evening a whole troop of monkeys 

 came out of the forest, walked across the shallow 

 river, picking their way over the stones, and invaded 

 our orchard. They swarmed up the apple- and mul- 

 berry-trees not far from us, shaking the boughs 

 and tumbling down fruit into the arms of the leery 

 old ones waiting underneath. 



Khubr was brought us that evening, and very 



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