138 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
everywhere along the north coast of Asia and America, 
apparently in greater numbers the farther north we go. 
Sometimes too, first on ice and then swimming, he has 
reached the north coast of Norway, for instance, in March 
1853, when, according to a statement in Tromsoe Stiftstidende 
(No. 4 for 1869), a Polar bear was killed in Kjoellefjord in East 
Finmark. 
The bear is not difficult to kill. When he observes a man he 
commonly approaches in hope of prey, with supple movements, 
and in a hundred zigzag bends, in order to conceal the direction 
he intends to take, and thus keep his prey from being frightened. 
During his approach he often climbs up on blocks of ice, or 
raises himself on his hind legs, in order to get a more extensive 
view, or else stands snuffing up the air with evident care in all 
directions, in order, by the aid of smell, which he seems to rely 
upon more than sight, to ascertain the true kind and nature of 
the surrounding objects. If he thinks he has to do with a seal, 
he creeps or trails himself forward along the ice, and is said 
then to conceal with the fore-paws the only part of his body that 
contrasts with the white colour of the snow—his large black 
nose. If one keeps quite still, the bear comes in this way so 
near that one can shoot him at the distance of two gun-lengths, 
or, what the hunters consider safer, kill him with the lance. 
If an unarmed man falls in with a Polar bear, some rapid 
movements and loud cries are generally sufficient to put him to 
flight, but if the man himself flies, he is certain to have the 
bear after him at full speed. If the bear is wounded, he 
always takes to flight. He often lays snow upon the wound 
with his fore-paws ; sometimes in his death struggles he scrapes 
with his fore-feet a hole in the snow, in which he buries his head. 
When a vessel lies at anchor, the bear sometimes swims out 
to it, and if one encamps in distant regions one often finds on 
getting up in the morning a Polar bear in the neighbourhood, 
who during the night has gone and nosed round the tent, 
