FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 151 
gaed maybe a thocht faster, hirplin ower the snaw, 
leuching whiles till hersel'. She wad be guid twa hunnert 
yairds awa' when Wull pit the last caertritch intill his gun 
and let awa' — the solid yin, ye ken — and jist turned the auld 
besom tapsie-turvie in the snaw, as deid as Julius Caesar. 
' Na, na, nane o* your fusionless toom tappit splattering 
bullits for me. Gie me the auld-fashioned yins for bears, 
solid yins wi' a guid pickle o' diamond poother ahint 
them'. 
Once we begin bear stories there is no end, and before 
we finished our beef I had heard some half dozen un- 
published adventures, all of them founded on fact, and 
my respect and fear for the great Polar Bear had nearly 
vanished. There was the funny tale of the bear and the 
football. How W. T. was saved by a speaking-trumpet. 
How one Waddell killed eight bears in a cave, and the 
story of the bear that raised 'cain' in Dundee. The ship 
is full of these yarns, *fore and aft ; some few are very old 
junk, but others are of incidents in the last few years. 
George, our second mate, has the reputation of being a 
great bear-slayer. When he and the second engineer 
came in to the second tea, I asked him if it was true that, 
last year, he had driven two wounded bears over a floe to 
the boats to save the crew the trouble of dragging them. 
George is a big man, tremendously energetic, and yet 
very gentle ; he has light hair, and a yellow beard, with a 
suggestion of the berserker about him. He smiled with 
pleasure at the recollection, showing a set of ivories that 
would make a wise bear thoughtful ; but he was too busy 
with tea to go into details, and not a good yarner at best, 
