352 
THE BEAR. 
He was unable to retreat — stood at bay ; and the fools 
were so scared at his ' growlings' and his ' bloody 
tongue/ that they returned without daring to attack 
him. 
April 21, Monday. I have more than common 
cause for thankfulness. A mere accident kept me 
from starting last night to secure our bear. Had I 
done so, I would probably have' spared you reading 
more of my journal. The ice over which we traveled 
so carelessly on Saturday has become, by a sudden 
movement, a mass of floating rubbish. An open river, 
broader than the Delaware, is now between the old ice 
and the nearest part of the new, over which I walked 
on the 19th more than three miles. 
" In the walk of this morning, which startled me 
jvith the change, I saw for the first time a seal upon 
the ice. This looks very summer-like. He was not 
accessible to our guns. To-day, for the first time too, 
the gulls were flying over the renovated water. Com- 
ing back we saw fresh bear tracks. How wonderful 
is the adaptation which enables a quadruped, to us 
associated inseparably with a land existence, thus to 
inhabit an ice-covered ocean. We are at least eighty 
miles from the nearest land. Cape Kater ; and chan- 
nels innumerable must intervene between us and terra 
firma. Yet this majestic animal, dependent upon his 
own predatory resources alone, and, defying cold as 
well as hunger, guided by a superb instinct, confides 
himself to these solitary, unstable ice-fields. 
" Parry, in his adventurous Polar efibrt, found these 
animals at the most northern limit of recorded observ- 
ation. Wrangell had them as companions on his first 
Asiatic journey over the Polar ocean. Navigators 
have found them also floating upon berg and floe far 
