Quadrupeds. 3189 



but not possessing any fire-arms, and having a very excusable dread of 

 a hand-to-hand encounter with a bear, did not dare go to the rescue. 

 Such an opportunity for hunting a bear, and at the same time for 

 trying to repay the hospitality of the Preesten by ridding him of his 

 formidable and destructive neighbour, was not to be lost ; so we post- 

 poned our departure till the next day, and resolved to hunt the bear 

 that night. Accordingly the Captain sent off his man, Ole (also an 

 old soldier), to make preparations, and to scour the country for rifles; 

 and I sent off to the glacier, that our companions, who were still lin- 

 gering there, might hasten to rejoin us and partake in the hunt. Then 

 we went up the mountain, to see the scene of the slaughter and the 

 remains of the cow. We found her amongst some thick bushes and 

 underwood : she was a large cow for Norway (where all the animals 

 are very diminutive), and had been dragged some distance from the 

 place where she was killed, as was evident from the blood, the tramp- 

 ling of the grass, and the footmarks all around. The spot, too, where 

 she was first seized was clearly seen, and so was the place of her death 

 and of the bear's repast, from the pools of blood on the grass. The 

 trampling of the ground all about, and the broken branches of the un- 

 derwood, and the spoor (as the South- African hunter would call it) of 

 the bear and of the cow, showed how severe had been the struggle. 

 The bear had eaten a great part of the neck of the cow, and also her 

 udder, and then had dragged the carcass into the bushes where we 

 found it, and which he had constituted as his temporary larder. 



Now began a consultation as to how we should proceed in the hunt. 

 There were two plans before us : one, and that the most certain of 

 success, to lie in ambush not far from the remains of the cow, and to 

 fire upon the bear when he arrived again, which he would most un- 

 doubtedly do for his next meal ; but then, as he had just made so 

 good a supper, we should probably have to wait there two or three 

 nights and days, and that did not at all suit our plans or our inclina- 

 tions : so we resolved on the second course, which, though far more 

 doubtful of success, gave us a good chance, namely, to station our- 

 selves singly at certain places on the edge of a torrent which thundered 

 down the mountain, where lodgments of snow had formed natural 

 bridges across the roaring water, and for one of which the bear would 

 probably make, when the mountain, in which it was agreed he must 

 still be concealed, was driven by the inhabitants of the village. We 

 accordingly proceeded to carry out this plan; and Ole having returned 

 in the course of the afternoon with a couple of very primitive rifles, the 

 stocks of which were painted sky-blue and edged with yellow ; and 



