In the month of June, 1812, a female bear, with two cubs, approached the ship I commanded, and was shot. The cubs, not attempting to escape, were taken alive. These animals, though at first evidently very unhappy, became at length, in some measure, reconciled to their situation, and being tolerably tame, were allowed occasionally to go at large about the deck. While the ship was moored to a floe, a few days after they were taken, one of them, having a rope fastened round its neck, was thrown overboard. It immediately swam to the ice, got upon it, and attempted to escape. Finding itself, however, detained by the rope, it endeavoured to disengage itself in the following ingenious way:—Near the edge of the floe was a crack in the ice, of considerable length, but only eighteen inches or two feet wide, and three or four feet deep. To this spot the bear returned; and when, on crossing the chasm, the bight of the rope fell into it, he placed himself across the opening; then, suspending himself by his hind feet, with a leg on each side, he dropped his head and most of his body into the chasm, and, with a foot applied to each side of the neck, attempted for some minutes to push the rope over his head. Finding this scheme ineffectual, he removed to the main ice, and running with great impetuosity from the ship, gave a remarkable pull on the rope; then, going backward a few steps, he repeated the jerk. At length, after repeated attempts to escape this way, every failure of which he announced by a significant growl, he yielded himself to his hard necessity, and lay down on the ice in angry and sullen silence. Accidents with bears occasionally occur; not so many, however, as the ferocity of these animals, and the temerity of the sailors, might lead one to expect. Some of the early voyagers to the Polar Seas had hard conflicts with them. Barentz’s crew especially were often in danger from them, but always succeeded either in conquering or repelling them. Two, however, of the crew of a vessel which had anchored near Nova Zembla, landed on an island at the mouth of the Weigats, and, impelled by curiosity, wandered some distance from the beach; but, whilst unconscious of danger, one of them was suddenly seized on the back by a bear, and brought to the earth. His companion ran off, and gave the alarm, and a party of his shipmates came to their assistance. The bear stood over its prey during their approach without the least appearance of fear and, on their attack, sprang upon one of their number, and made him also a victim to its ferocity and power. The rest now fled in confusion, and could not be induced to renew the conflict. Three sailors only among the crew had sufficient courage to combat with this formidable animal; they attacked it, and, after a dangerous struggle, killed it, and rescued the mangled bodies of their two unfortunate shipmates.