27 
before, been fatal to bruin's race in the Island of Spitzbergen. On my rising 
the ridge, bruin turned his head inland, when, after firing both barrels, the ball 
from the second one brought him on his haunches, at the distance of sixty yards 
from me. It was only for an instant, however, for he gathered himself up 
again, and retreated towards the beach, evidently mortally wounded ; and after 
running the gauntlet of a whole volley of balls from the rifles and muskets of the 
boat's crew, who, being too eager and excited, I suppose, fired so hurriedly that 
not a ball took effect ; and under their fire he took to the water, swimming out 
into the bay for the distance of two or three hundred yards, when he wore 
round with his head in shore, unable any longer to make head against the wind, 
which was blowing dead on shore. His last efforts to struggle against it must 
have been desperate, for he had no sooner bore up than his huge form floated 
on the water a lifeless mass, just as I was about launching the boat to go in 
pursuit of him. After a short interval the wind drifted him on shore about two 
hundred yards from our encampment, to which we bore him on the sledge ; and, 
cold as it was, set about skinning him immediately ; when, strange enough, we 
found on examination that my second ball was the only one that had struck 
him, entering about a foot above the insertion of the tail, and an inch on the 
left side of the spine, literally drilling him through, and making its exit by the 
mouth, splintering two of the canine teeth as it passed out. As a proof of the 
extreme tenacity of life in these hardy creatures, this animal had one of the 
largest internal arteries divided by the ball in its course, which poured out so 
much blood that it was streaming from his mouth and nostrils in such a torrent 
as to dye the surf around him of a deep crimson colour as we hauled him up 
on the beach, and on opening the body a deluge of the crimson fluid flowf^d 
out. Yet with this deadly wound he managed to run at his usual speed about 
two hundred yards to the beach, and then swim against a head sea for at the 
least as great a distance further, making fearful struggles until the moment 
of his last gasp for breath. 
He measured seven and a half feet in length, was finely moulded, and in 
excellent condition. We had a rump steak off him, as an addition to our pem- 
mican dinner, and found it infinitely better eating than some of the beef I have 
tasted which had been supplied the ship. At midnight the wind veered round 
more to the north, with a dark horizon in that quarter. Thermometer 26°. Fahr. 
Sunday, 5th. — No change in the weather, boisterous as ever, and thermometer 
at 26°. — Had bear steaks for breakfast. Read part of the Morning Service to my 
party in the tent. Saw several seals swimming about the bay, and another bear 
on the floe at its upper end, but not within our reach : I could just make him 
out with the aid of my telescope. An ivory gull (Larus ehurneus), showing 
great confidence, hovered about the remains of bruin during the greater part 
of the day, aiDparently enjoying a most sumptuous feast. Several glaucus 
gulls shyly hovered over in passing by, but did not venture to ahght : saw also 
a solitary snow bunting. 
Night threatening, with a black and lurid sky, still blowing hard, with much 
surf in the bay. Wind shifted round to its old quarter in the N.W. again, with 
the thermometer down to 24°, and bitterly cold. 
Monday, 6th. — Rose at 6 a.m. Wind more off the land and somewhat moderated, 
with less sea on outside ; the young ice at the upper inlet of the bay which had 
been broken up by the swell setting on it during the gale, was drifting out past 
us in considerable quantity, forming a belt along shore. 
Commenced preparations for shifting our encampment into the next bay, as 
soon as the swell along shore subsided sufficiently to enable us to get the 
boat afloat, and round the headland, the vicinity of which, and summit of Cape 
Bowden, I was anxiously desirous of more thoroughly examining than my time 
permitted of when outward bound. Erected a cairn upon the ridge where we 
had encamped, and deposited beneath it a cylinder containing a record of our 
proceedings. 
At 10.30 A.M., on the wind and sea going down, we launched the boat, and 
had to row through sludge and brash, intermixed with hard floe pieces of the 
bay or young ice, which so impeded the progress of the boat that the crew had 
a most laborious hour's pull in getting through little more than a mile of it. 
We landed at our old place of encampment en-passant to look for the nuisk-ox 
skull which we had accidentally left there. But the change which the place had 
D 2 
