t to
attack, lance in hand, a large number of bears. They have sometimes
in this way killed as many as twelve within a short time. They
depend less on the gun. During the expedition of 1861 Carl Chydenius
shot three in a few minutes, close to his tent-covered boat.

I do not know a single case in which any Norwegian walrus-hunter has
been seriously wounded by a bear. It appears, however, as if this
animal were bolder and more dangerous in regions where he has not
made acquaintance with man's dangerous hunting implements. During
the first English and Dutch voyages to Novaya Zemlya, bears were met
with at nearly every place where a landing was effected, in regions
where the Polar bear is now wholly absent, and the travellers were
compelled to undertake actual combats--combats which cost several
human lives. During Barents' second voyage some men on the 26th/16th
September, 1593, landed on the mainland near the eastern mouth of
Yugor Schar, in order to collect "a sort of diamonds occurring
there" (valueless rock crystals), when a large white bear, according
to De Veer, rushed forward and caught one of the stone collectors by
the neck. On the man screaming "Who seizes me by the neck?" a
comrade standing beside answered, "A bear," and ran off. The bear
immediately bit asunder the head of his prey, and sucked the blood.
The rest of the men who were on land now came to his relief,
attacking the bear with levelled guns and lances. But the bear was
not frightened, but rushed forward and laid hold of a man in the
rank of the attacking party, and killed him too, whereupon all the
rest took to flight. Assistance now came from the vessel, and the
bear was surrounded by thirty men, but against their will, because
they had to do with a "grim, undaunted, and greedy beast." Of these
thirty men only three ventured to attack the bear, whom these
"courageous" men finally killed, after a rather severe struggle.

A large number of occurrences of a similar nature, though commonly
attended with fortunate results, are to be found recorded in most of
the narratives of Arctic travel. Thus a sailor was once carried off
from a whaler caught in the ice in Davis' Straits, and in 1820,
among the drift-ice in the sea between Greenland and Spitzbergen,
the same fate was like to befall one of the crew of a Hull whaler;
but he succeeded in effecting his escape by taking to flight, and
throwing to the bear, first his only weapon of defence, a lance, and