“But if there be only one hunter, he does not hesitate. Grasping the lance firmly in his hands, he provokes the animal to pursue him by moving rapidly across its path, and then running as if to escape. But hardly is its long unwieldy body extended for the solicited chase, before, with a rapid jump, the hunter doubles on his track and runs back toward his first position. The Bear is in the act of turning after him again, when the lance is plunged into the left side, below the shoulder. So dexterously has this thrust to be made, that an unpractised hunter has often to leave his spear in the side of his prey and run for his life. But even then, if well aided by the Dogs, a cool skilful man seldom fails to kill his adversary.”[153] With regard to the value of the skins, Dr. R. Brown informs us that “The Royal Board of Trade in Greenland give the natives about five rigsdaler (11s. 3d.) for a skin. Occasionally, there are a number killed near Cape Farewell, which have come round on the Spitzbergen ice-stream. Here a curious custom prevails, viz., that whoever sights the Bear first--man, woman, or child--is entitled to the skin, and the person who has shot it only to the blubber and flesh.” There are some dreadful tales prevalent as to the ferocity of the Polar Bear; but these, according to the same excellent observer, approach a good deal the nature of “yarns.” After having lived for some time in the Arctic regions, and hunted Bears again and again, he considers that “a great deal of the impressions which we have imbibed regarding its ferocity are more due to old notions of _what it ought to be_ rather than _what it is_, and that the tales related by Barentz, Edward Pelham, and other old navigators, regarding its bloodthirstiness during the time they wintered in Spitzbergen, were a good deal exaggerated. When enraged, or emboldened by hunger, I can, however, quite well understand that, like all wild and even domesticated animals, it may be dangerous to man. On the East Coast of Greenland, where they know little of man, they are very bold. The members of the German Expedition, when making out-door observations, had to be continually on their guard against them. I have chased it over the floes of Pond’s Bay, and the Bear’s only thought seemed to be how best to escape from its pursuers. I should have hesitated a good deal before making so free with the Grizzly Bear of the Californian wilds (_Ursus ferox_), which is, perhaps, the most ferocious animal on the American continent. Though seemingly so unwieldy, the _nennok_ runs with great speed, and being almost marine in its habits, it swims well. I have chased it with a picked crew of eight whalemen, and yet the Bear has managed to distance us in the race for the ice-fields. It would every now and again, when its two cubs were getting left in the rear, stop and (literally) push them up behind; and on reaching the steep edge of the ice-floe, finding that we were fast reaching them, it lifted each of