BEARS ON THE ICE.

_From the Tales of a Voyager._

With two boats, we assailed six of these animals, who had collected
round the "crang," or carcass of a whale. After lying at the bottom
of the sea for some time, the body of the whale rises to the surface,
probably buoyed up by gas generated by putrefaction in its entrails.
This circumstance is by no means uncommon, especially late in the
summer, when time has been allowed for fermentation; but it seems to
point out that the depths of the Arctic Ocean contain few or no animals
to prey upon the numerous carcasses which are let sink after flinching,
since, otherwise, the mass would become pierced and unable to float,
if not wholly devoured. We slew five of the six bears, and brought a
half-grown cub on board alive. This poor harmless beast was wounded in
two or three places superficially with a boat hook, but its disposition
seemed scarcely to have warranted these trifling blows. I was moved to
compassion as it sat upon the jaw-bone of a whale, which projected
beneath the tafrail, at one moment devouring pieces of its mother and
sister with avidity, and at the next stretching its throat and blaring
out mournfully, when a fragment of ice met its view, passing astern as
we sailed on our course. It was about the size of a sheep, and after
their tea the sailors got it down below, and turned it loose betwixt
decks, from whence it sent up all hands with precipitation, some of them
quitting their berths half-naked, as if a fall had been called. After
a sufficient allowance of frolic had gratified the crew, a daring
Shetlander collared the bear as if it had been a dog, and fastened a
fresh rope round its neck, and having forced it to leap overboard, the
rope's end was thrown to the boat's crew of a visiter, at that moment