Seven previous trips into the Arctic had taught me that its climate could be treacherous as well as friendly. If I have seemed to expatiate on the tropical warmth of an exceptional summer, the hottest on record in the meteorological archives of Iceland (which are the oldest in the world), rest assured that it is with no wish to encourage ill-equipped pleasure-parties to venture forth into these icy solitudes. I have been warned by an eminent polar authority that it would be dangerous and wrong to instill this idea. I thoroughly agree with him. Woe betide the week-end tripper or basket-picnicker who fares beyond eighty-six with no protection other than a warm sweater and a quart thermos of coffee! He is doomed before he starts or immediately thereafter. When the short summer wanes the thermometer plunges without warning to incredible depths and almost certain disaster results. A NIMROD OF THE NORTH A large volume might be written about this illustration alone. Big game hunting, in the last analysis, is usually a feeble sort of sport. The stalking of itself is a beneficial form of exercise but when at last the two strong brutes, human and animal, stand face to face it is an odds-on bet on the human. An express-bullet takes little account of hide or hair. Compared with this form of target-practice, fly-swatting and mosquito-slapping are gallantry itself. We may learn something from Makuik, the Kryptok huntsman who is seen _en face_ in the act of capturing part of his winter's meat-supply in the person of a magnificent specimen of the _ursus polaris_. The method universally employed by the Eskimo is that of the surprise-onslaught. Polar bears, for some reason, do not expect to be attacked by men from the air. Perched on a rocky eyrie the native huntsman warily scans the floe for his victim. The path beneath the precipice is baited with small cubes of seal and pemmican meat along which the prey is led by appetite just as children at birthday parties are led through the mazes of a peanut-hunt. When the bear is directly below him, the hunter springs silently into the air and descends like a falling archangel on the creature's back. A hunter's prowess is measured by the height from which he dares to jump. Makuik holds the Kryptok record in this event is 40 Kyaks (approximately 520 ft.). At the termination of a successful jump the bear breaks the fall and the fall not infrequently breaks the bear. But the risk is great and in case of a miss the Nimrod becomes forthwith data for the actuaries and food for the bear. As in all aerial feats the important part is the landing.