SLAIN IN DEFENSE OF HER YOUNG.
The mother bear's affection for her little ones is so strong that she will lose her life defending them. Two arctic huntsmen once saw a bear taking a promenade on an ice island with two little cubs. Chase was given at once, but the bear did not perceive the hunters until they were within five hundred yards of her. She then stood up on her hind-legs like a dancing bear, gave one good look at her pursuers, and started to run at full speed over the smooth ice, her cubs close at her heels. She had the advantage of the hunters, as the feet of the polar bear are thickly covered with long hair—nature's wise provision to keep the animal from slipping; but the ice soon broke up into a vast expanse of slush, and here the little cubs stuck fast. The faithful mother seized first one and then the other, but proceeded with so much difficulty that the hunters were soon near enough to fire at her. The little ones clung to their mother's dead body, and it was with great difficulty that the hunters succeeded in dragging them to the camp, where they stoutly resisted all friendly advances, and bit and struggled, and roared as loud as they could.
Bears often annoy arctic travellers by breaking open the caches, or store-houses, left along the line of march for return supplies. Dr. Kane relates that he found one of his caches, which had been built with heavy rocks laid together with extreme care, entirely destroyed, the bears apparently having had a grand frolic, rolling about the bread barrels, playing foot-ball with the heavy iron cases of pemmican, and even gnawing to shreds the American flag which surmounted the cache.
Roast bear meat is very palatable and welcome food to travellers in the dreary frozen arctic regions, and at the cry of "Nannook! nannook!" ("A bear! a bear!") from the Esquimaux guides, both men and dogs start in eager pursuit. The bear being white like the snow, it often escapes detection, and Dr. Kane mentions approaching what he thought was a heap of somewhat dingy snow, when he was startled by a "menagerie roar," which sent him running toward the ship, throwing back his mittens, one at a time, to divert the bear's attention.
Polar bears are sometimes found upon floating ice-cakes a hundred miles from land, having been caught during some sudden break up of the vast ice-fields of arctic seas, and every year a dozen or more come drifting down to the northern shores of Iceland, where, ravenous after their long voyage, they fall furiously upon the herds. Their life on shore, however, is very brief, as the inhabitants rise in arms and speedily dispatch them.
A NORSK STORY.
On one of the fjords, or bays, which so deeply indent the coast of Norway lived two lads, sons of well-to-do farmers, who, besides their fields of rye and wheat, their marks, or pasture fields, and their säters, or hay-making fields, farther away, had also an interest in the fisheries for which Norway is so famous. The salmon, the herring, and the cod are all caught in great numbers; so also is the shark, and used for its oil, which passes for cod-liver oil.
The fathers of Lars and Klaus were, however, peasants. They worked on their farms, and above their green pastures rose lofty mountains clad in fir-trees, dusky pines, mottled beeches, and silver birches. Klaus and Lars explored together the recesses of these mountains; together they hunted for bears; together they sailed over the blue waters of the fjord, in and out of the swift currents, and on and up into the streams fed by the great ice fjelds. They were always together. If any one wanted Klaus, he asked where Lars had gone; and if one had seen Lars, he knew Klaus would soon follow. It was their delight to see which could excel the other in the management of their fishing jagts, those square-sailed slow craft, and for days they would cruise about the haunts of the eider-duck—not to kill it, for that is forbidden, the bird being too valuable, but to filch from the sides of its nest the lovely down which the birds pluck from their own breasts.
They went to school, too, in the winter, and both were confirmed by the village pastor as soon as they had been well prepared for that solemn rite, which is of so much social as well as religious importance in their country.