Face To Face With Ice-Bears

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Title:     Face To Face With Ice-Bears
Author: Gordon Stables [More Titles by Stables]

"Why, ye tenants of the lake,
For me your wat'ry haunts forsake?
Tell me, fellow-creatures, why
At my presence thus you fly?
Conscious, blushing for our race,
Soon, too soon, your fears I trace;
Man, your proud usurping foe,
Would be lord of all below,
Plumes himself in Freedom's pride,
Tyrant stern to all beside."

Burns.

"If ever a true lover of Nature lived," said Frank one winter's evening, as we all sat round the fire as usual, "it was your Scottish bard, the immortal Burns."

"Yes," I said, "no one was ever more sensible than he that a great gulf is fixed between our lower fellow-creatures and us--a gulf formed and deepened by ages of cruelty towards them. We fain--some of us at least--would cross that gulf and make friends with the denizens of field and forest, but ah! Frank, they will not trust us. I can fancy the gentle Burns walking through the woods, silently, on tiptoe almost, lest he should disturb any portion of the life and love he saw all about him, or cause distress to any one of God's little birds or beasts. See the wounded hare limp past him!--poor wee wanderer of the wood and field-- look at the tears streaming over the ploughman's cheeks as he says:

"'Seek, mangled wretch, some place of wonted rest--
No more of rest, but now thy dying bed!
The sheltering rushes whistling o'er thy head,
The cold earth with thy bleeding body prest.'"

"And what," said Frank, "can equal the pitiful pathos and simplicity of his address to the mouse whose nest in autumn has been turned up by the ploughshare?

"'Thy wee bit housie too in ruin,
It's silly wa's, the winds are strewin',
An' naething, now to big a new ane
O' foggage green,
An bleak December's winds ensuin',
Both snell and keen.'"

[Big means build; snell means keen.]

"Yes, Frank, and he says in that same sweet and tender poem:

"'I'm truly sorry man's dominion,
Has broken Nature's social union,
An' justifies that ill-opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor earth-born companion,
An' fellow-mortal!'"

"Well," replied Frank, "I'm very much of Burns's way of thinking; I would like to be friends with all my fellow-mortals, and have reason to believe it is really man's cruelty that has broken the spell that should bind us.

"Why, away up in the north, the biggest beast in the sea is the simplest and the best-natured. I mean the whale. The birds are so tame you can almost catch them alive, and even bears will pass you by if you do not seek to molest them."

"Tell us some bear stories, Frank."

Frank accordingly cleared his throat.

"What I tell you, then, about Polar bears," he said, "you may believe. My facts are true facts, not ordinary facts, and I gained my experience myself, and neither from books nor from imagination. But talking about books," he continued, pulling one down from the shelf and spreading it open before him, "here is one on natural history, and as there are pictures in it, it will be sure to please you. The book is not an old one, and is a reputed authority. Well, look at that. That is supposed to be a Polar bear just come out of a cave, and having a sniff round. It is more the shape of a dormouse that has lost its tail in a trap.

"Here again is the picture of a dismantled barque, apparently stranded on the top of Mount Ararat, and in the foreground a lot of very ordinary looking men with billycock hats and very ordinary looking axes and spades, making an ice-canal to the water, at the edge of which another bear or dormouse is standing up quietly to be shot.

"One more illustration. Glance at this! three bears close under the bows of a ship among the ice; one lies dead beside a spit-kid; another is sitting thinking; and a third is walking on his hind-legs towards a group of men, who are evidently poised to receive cavalry, with duck-guns and old-fashioned battle-axes.

"The text is quite on a keeping with the illustrations--that is, hardly in accordance with Nature.

"We read in travellers' tales wonderful accounts of the size, strength, cunning, and extreme ferocity of the Polar bear. I used to believe all I read, even Jack the Giant-Killer. But nevertheless, as to ferocity and strength, there is no doubt that our Arctic friend is king of the ursine race. It took me a whole year to settle in my own mind whether this bear was actually a bold, brave beast or the reverse. From all I have seen and heard he undoubtedly possesses bravery, but it is tempered with a deal of discretion. He is not like the old Norse kings; he does not kill men for the mere sake of making a record. He fights for food and not for glory. If a man and seal were both lying asleep on the ice, I believe a hungry bear would prefer his customary diet, and leave the man in peaceful possession of his dreams. But if the man awoke while the bear was having his mouthful or two--he does not eat much of a seal--then I guess the consequences would be rather serious for one of the party. Yet I came upon a bear once behind a hummock of ice that, I am sure, had been fast asleep till I fired my rifle at something else quite close to him. He might have killed me then easily, but I assure you he did not. He emitted a sound as if he had swallowed about three yards of trombone and was trying to cough it up again. Then he ran away.

"But another day I ran away. I was two miles from my ship and burst my gun. I wasn't going to stop and fight that bear with the butt-end-- not likely; but he followed me nearly halfway. Our spectioneer, dear old man, saw the race from the crow's-nest, and sent men out to meet us. He said at dinner that he had saved my life; but according to him, he saved my life more than once and in more ways than one. He must have been always saving my life, I suppose; but then I was young and headstrong. That spectioneer of ours, although he must have been nearly fifty years of age, was a kind of Donald Dinnie in strength. He fought an Arctic bear once single-handed and with no other weapon save a seal-club. The man is still alive; the bear isn't.

"The spectioneer did not force the fighting, remember. He rounded the corner of a large hummock of ice, and came upon the foe quite unexpectedly. One lucky but fearful blow pierced the upper part of the brute's neck close behind the ear, and he fell dead. A seal-club is a terrible weapon in the hands of a strong man. It is in shape somewhat like a pole-axe, only the iron or steel portion is sharp, and not blunt. Our spectioneer was one of the best and bravest seamen ever I sailed with, and one of the most modest of men. I remember laughing once when he told me that he would as soon fight a bear with a seal-club as a bladder-nosed seal. I did not know much about this species of seal then. I believe there is some Irish blood in the brute, for at any time, whether in the water or out of it, he will as soon fight as not, and woe be to you when he cocks his crest if you have only a club, and no rifle wherewith to defend yourself!

"Ever hear tell of the mad surgeon who fought the Polar bear? I'll tell you the story, then, as it was told to me, and I have no reason to doubt its accuracy in the main details.

"Dr C--was a young medical man, just newly passed. He was to have been married very shortly after the capping and gowning ceremony, but had a few hasty words with his affianced, bade her an angry farewell, and took steamer to Lerwick some weeks before the arrival of the Greenland fleet at that ancient place, in the hopes of finding a ship that was in want of a surgeon. He was not disappointed; one of the doctors wished to go back; the voyage from Hull to Lerwick had been quite enough for him, so Dr C--took his place.

"Now Dr C--was reckless; he confessed that he cared very little what he did, or what became of him; he had loved the girl that he had meant to make his wife very dearly, and now that he had lost her he didn't mind, he said, although a whale swallowed him, and he thought he could sleep as comfortably, and far more soundly, in Davy Jones's locker than anywhere else.

"He showed he was reckless even before he left Lerwick. It was usual in those days for the youthful surgeons of the fleet to assemble for the purpose of eating, drinking, and carousing at the only respectable hotel in the town, and having well primed themselves, to march in a body through the narrow streets. This used to lead to cruel fights, in which the medicos were very often worsted. But on this particular year Dr C--went in for organisation, as he called it. He armed and drilled the fleet surgeons, and in person he used to lead them out to fight, and in consequence the riots lasted often long into the night, despite the efforts of the police and military--five men and a sergeant--to quell them.

"After his ship sailed, Dr C--took to vinous imbibition--in plain English, he drank rum to excess. The ship got frozen in about a week after arrival 'in the country,' and by this time the surgeon was so ill that he was confined to bed. Literally speaking, confined to bed, for he had to be strapped to it. One day he heard the captain and first mate talking about the large number of bears that were about, and so quiet did he become after this that restraint was thought no longer necessary. It was early in the season, and the sun still set, and the night, or rather dusk, was of about two hours' duration. When a ship is beset in the ice the commander naturally enough is anxious in mind, and spends a good deal of his time in the crow's-nest with his eye at the glass. The commander of Dr C--'s ship was in the crow's-nest very early one morning, and, somewhat to his surprise, saw what he took to be a seal lying on a hummock about half a mile off. It lay very still and motionless, and was very black. It was not long before he noticed something else--an immense bear coming stalking down towards the dark object on the ice.

"So intently was he watching the movements of the bear that he did not notice the trap-door of the nest move. It was the steward that had run up to tell him that the doctor was not to be found anywhere in the ship.

"In a moment the truth flashed upon the captain's mind. He hailed the deck below, and in less than a minute a party of ten men, rifle-armed, were over the side and away to the surgeon's assistance.

"There was nothing further for the captain to do but watch proceedings through the glass. I was not there, of course, so can only imagine what an exciting scene it must have been, for the captain in his crow's-nest to witness that man and bear fight.

"The doctor it seems was neither tall nor strong--a thin wiry little fellow, more fit to contend with a badger than a bear. He had armed himself with his longest amputating knife, which he had tied to his wrist and hand, in such a way that it could neither slip nor be dropped. The captain saw the bear spring upon the man and rise with him, and fall again and roll with him, and he saw the doctor plunge the knife again and again into the brute's body; then both fell and both lay still. When the men arrived it was to find Bruin dead enough, and the surgeon just breathing. He was fearfully lacerated in the back and legs, but, strange to say, he survived, and before the ship returned to Lerwick he was clothed and in his right mind.

"I have a great respect for my friend the Arctic bear; I cannot help admiring his immensity, his power of endurance, his wonderful swimming capabilities, and his great sagacity, which latter he shows in a hundred different ways, known only to those who have thoroughly studied the tricks and the manners of the monster.

"A Polar bear has all the cunning of a fox, all the agility of an otter, and more than the strength of the largest lion.

"The she-bear is remarkably fond of her young, but not more so, I think, than the seal is of her offspring. A seal, indeed, is at most times one of the most timid and wary animals in creation, but she will, and often does, lay down her life for her young ones. If young seals are on a piece of ice with their dams, the latter will naturally take to the water on the approach of men on the ice or in boats; but if a young one cries, or is made to cry on purpose, the mother will appear again, and, defying all danger, make towards it, paying the penalty of death for this exhibition of her maternal instinct.

"I do not think that bears actually hibernate in a dormant state; but in very bad weather they no doubt take long spells of sleep in holes under the snow, and a capital way of passing the time it must be; if mankind could only do the same, then sleep would be the poor man's best friend. But your Arctic bear is fond of a good nap in the sunshine, even in summer; I was beset for nearly two months once, some little way south and west of the island of Jan Mayen. One day, with Dana's 'Two Years Before the Mast' in my hand, and my binocular slung across my shoulder, I wandered away from the ship. I had neither rifle nor club, not expecting to need either. I found myself at last by the foot of a very tall hummock, composed, I daresay, of bay-ice squeezed up at some time or other and finally snowed over. I like to get on tops of eminences, and this hummock looked like a small tower of Babel in the midst of the flat and wide expanse of snow-clad ice; so up I went, and sat down to read. On looking around me presently, I noticed a yellow mark or spot on the snow some hundred or hundred and fifty yards off. On bringing my glasses to bear on it, I found it was a bear; and he was moving or wriggling. He evidently had not seen me yet, nor scented me. I had no more heart to read Dana just then. I thought the best thing I could do would be to sit still, and keep semaphoring with my right arm and Dana towards the brute; the mate was in the crow's-nest, I thought, and would be sure to notice me soon, and know something was wrong. But the mate did not notice me. The truth is the steward had taken him some coffee, with a dose of rum in it, a drink of which he was inordinately fond, and he was smacking his lips over that. I semaphored with my right hand until it was temporarily paralysed; then I turned quietly round and semaphored with my left. This change of position necessitated my looking over my shoulder to the ship. On again turning round I was horrified to find that Bruin was up, and evidently wondering who or what I was, and what I meant. He came closer, and stood again to look, for bears are inquisitive. I kept up my motions--there was nothing else to be done, and my heart felt as big as a bullock's. Presently the bear commenced gyrating his great head and neck, the better to scent me, I suppose; only it looked as if he was mimicking my actions. So there the pair of us kept it up for what seemed to me about five hours, though it might not have been a minute. Then Bruin quietly turned stern and shambled off.

"An old authority describes the pace of a Polar bear as equal to that of the sharp gallop of a horse. I believe a bear can spring as far as a horse can jump, or nearly, but his pace is not even half as fast, nor anything like it.

"I have eaten a great many strange things in my time, but I should be sorry indeed to have to dine off Arctic bear in the seal season. Everybody is not so particular, however, and the Norwegians make many a hearty meal off bear-beef. I was in the cabin of a Norwegian once when they had bear for dinner. There was the captain and first and second mate at table. In the centre stood a dish with an immense hunk of boiled bear on it; by the side of it was placed a large plate of potatoes, cooked in their skins. Nobody used a fork, only the knife; so on the whole it was a pretty sight to see them. I was asked to partake. I begged to be excused, and to escape from the odour of the fishy-fleshy steam, I ran on deck, and lit a cigar."

[The end]
Gordon Stables's short story: Face To Face With Ice-Bears

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