688 
LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS- 
enormous bear, who had selected him as the victim to be 
hugged to death, within his shaggy paws. Deliberation were 
now tantamount to a certain death, and not one by any means, 
which an officer of his Britannic Majesty’s navy much less Capt. 
Ross would wish to die. With a noble presence of mind, cha- 
acteristic of the genuine hero in the hour of danger, Cant. Ross 
seized a loaded musket, which a kind and providential destiny had 
just placed within his reach, and levelling it at the monster, lodged 
the bullet in some part of his ursinine carcass. It was a reception, 
which the animal had not been accustomed to meet with in his 
native country, and not wishing for a repetition of it, he betook 
himself off, as fast as his wound would allow him. 
The historian of the Life of Nelson dwells with compatriot 
pride on the battles of the Nile and of Trafalgar, and we, as the 
historian of the most memorable years of the life of Capt. Ross, 
are, on the same principle, animated by the desire to delineate, 
in the most glowing colours, those events which may be consi¬ 
dered as the greatest of his achievements, and on which he 
founds his claim to the respect and gratitude of an admiring 
posterity. 
Many days, however, had not elapsed before, perhaps, this 
very bruin paid the forfeit of his audacious attack on the person 
of Capt. Ross, for not only himself, but another of his tribe, fell 
victims to the unerring shots of the steward and Abernethy. 
One of the bears was skinned and quartered, and his flesh hung 
up on a triangle, as a decoy for other bears; the other bear was 
also skinned, whilst he was yet warm, and the sailors hit upon 
the stratagem of taking the carcass down to the beach, and there 
placing him on his all-fours, which was easily accomplished, as, in 
half an hour, he was as hard as marble. A piece of iron hoop 
was stuck into him for a tail, and at a distance he appeared 
exactly as when he was alive. The carcass was not long there, 
before it was visited by another of the same species, who began 
immediately to gratify his appetite with the flesh of his former 
companion. In his eagerness, however, to gorge himself with 
the abundant meal, that was before him, he capsized the frozen 
mass, when a volley from the sailors, who were lying in wait 
