t sort of animal it was--a bear beyond
the probability of a doubt--and yet it was of a species that Karl had
never before seen. But there is such a similitude between the members
of the Bruin tribe, that he who has ever seen one--and who has not?--
will easily recognise all the rest of the family.

The one which now presented itself to the observation of our
plant-hunter, was of medium size--that is, less than the great polar
bear, or the "grizzly" of the Rocky Mountains, but larger than the
Bornean species, or the sun-bear of the Malays. It was scarce so large
as the singular sloth-bear, which they had encountered near the foot of
the mountains, and with which they had had such a ludicrous adventure.
It was but little less, however, than the "sloth," and, like it, was of
a deep black colour, though its hair was neither so long nor shaggy.
Like the latter, too, its under lip was whitish, with a white mark on
its throat resembling a Y--the stem of the letter being placed upon the
middle of its breast, and the fork passing up in front of the
shoulders--for this is a mark which belongs to several species of
Southern Asiatic bears. In other respects the bear in question was
peculiar. It had a neck remarkably thick; a flattened head, with the
forehead and muzzle forming almost a straight line--and on this account
distinguishing it from the sloth-bear, in which the forehead rises
almost abruptly from the line of the muzzle. Its ears were of large
size--its body compact, supported on stout but clumsy limbs--and its
feet armed with claws of moderate dimensions, and blunted at their
points. Such were the markings of the bear now before the eyes of Karl;
and although he had never seen one of the kind before, he had read of
one; and by these peculiarities he was able to recognise the species.
It was the Tibet bear (_Ursus Tibetanus_)--more commonly styled by
closet-naturalists _Helarctos Tibetanus_--one of the bears that inhabit
the high table-lands of Tibet, and is supposed to range through the
whole of the Upper Himalayas, since it has been found in Nepaul and
elsewhere.

I have said that Karl was badly frightened with this black apparition.
This was at the first sight of it, as it came out of the bushes; and,
indeed, it is not at all surprising that he was so. There is no one,--
not even a bear-hunter himself,--who can encounter a bear upon the
bear's own ground without feeling a little trembling of the nerves; but
whe