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night, and had eaten up their own mother's stomach, 

 which had contained some pieces of blubber. In the 

 afternoon they returned once more ; and again we 

 attempted, but in vain, to get a shot at them. Next 

 morning (Saturday, September 28th), when we crawled 

 out, we caught sight of a large bear lying asleep on our 

 blubber-heap. Johansen crept up close to it under cover 

 of some stones. The bear heard something moving, 

 raised its head, and looked round. At the same instant 

 Johansen fired, and the bullet went right through the 

 bear's throat, just below the cranium. It got slowly up, 

 looked contemptuously at Johansen, considered a little, 

 and then walked quietly away with long, measured steps, 

 as if nothing had happened. It soon had a couple of 

 bullets from each of us in its body, and fell out on the 

 thin ice. It was so full of food that, as it lay there, blub- 

 ber and oil and water ran out of its mouth on to the 

 ice, W'hich beoan o;raduallv to sink under its weight, un- 

 til it lay in a large pool, and we hastily dragged it in to 

 the shore, before the ice gave way beneath it. It was 

 one of the largest bears I have ever seen, but also one 

 of the leanest ; for there was not a trace of fat upon it, 

 neither underneath the skin nor among the entrails. 

 It must have been fastimr for a longf time and been 

 uncommonly hungry ; for it had consumed an incredible 

 quantity of our blubber. And how it had pulled it about! 

 First it had thrown one kayak off, then it had scat- 

 tered the blubber about in all directions, scraping off 



