Page:Monthly scrap book, for January.pdf/4

 turned their backs, and fled precipitately to the ship. On arriving there they began to look at each other, unable to feel much satisfaction with their own prowess. Three then stood forth, undertaking to avenge the fate of their countrymen, and secure to them the rites of burial. They advanced, and fired at first from so respectable a distance, that all missed. The purser then courageously proceeded in front of his companions, and, taking a close aim, pierced the monster’s skull immediately below the eye. The bear, however, merely lifted his head, and advanced upon them, holding still in his mouth the victim whom he was devouring; but seeing him soon stagger, the three rushed on with sabre and bayonet, and soon dispatched him. They collected and bestowed decent sepulture on the mangled limbs of their comrades, while the skin of the animal, thirteen feet long, became the prize of the sailor who had fired the successful shot.

The history of the whale-fishery records a number of remarkable escapes from the bear. A Dutch captain, Jonge Kees, in 1668, undertook, with two canoes, to attack one, and with a lance gave him so dreadful a wound in the belly, that his immediate death seemed inevitable. Anxious, therefore, not to injure the skin, Kees merely followed the animal close, till he should drop down dead. The bear, however, having climbed a little rock, made a spring from the distance of twenty-four feet upon the captain, who, taken completely by surprise, lost hold of