He rose with difficulty, and we carried him to the tent and examined his side. No bones were broken, but from the armpit to the waist was a terrible bruise upon which we rubbed a good coat of the bear’s fat, on the principle that like cures like. Fearing that he would be an incumbrance to us, he determined to start back to the “Swan’s Nest” alone, as he could not pull on the sledge-ropes; so shouldering his rifle the plucky fellow returned across the icy wilderness, and reached our quarters safely (as we afterwards found), tired and sore in every limb, after a tramp and clamber of twelve hours. We skinned the bear, rolling up the robe and placing it in the boat, and then commenced our tour of the island. We had made the island on the north shore, and gradually worked round along the east coast, till we arrived at the south, where we discovered a nearly land-locked harbour of considerable extent, which we entered, finding it covered with quite smooth ice, smooth enough, in fact, for skating, which is a somewhat rare occurrence in these regions. The Ancient Mariner had “water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink,” while in the far north we have ice and snow everywhere, but not a place to skate. The harbour was surrounded by steep cliffs of great height and snow-clad, but still a cosy-looking place for winter quarters for a whaler. As we looked around these wall-like cliffs, we were startled by the sight of what appeared to be a solid-looking hut, built in a hollow, over which the great brown cliffs lowered as if they would fall and crush it. A steep, pathless, snowy slope led up to this strange dwelling, which no sooner caught sight of than, like a lot of boys just let out of school, we, with one accord, dropped our sledge-tugs and bounded up the craggy acclivity to see what it contained. Sure enough it _was_ a hut, and of fair size too, built with its rear supported by the rocky cliffs, which had been hollowed out to receive it. Two windows, heavily barred, looked out over the frozen sea below, and between them was the heavy door, from a hole in which depended a thin metal chain. I seized the chain and gave it a pull, which raised a bar of wood within, causing the door to swing open of its own accord.