Washington Irving tells of a hunter who accidentally fell into a deep hole, out in the prairies, and he tumbled right on top of a great grizzly bear!  How the bear got down there is not stated, and I don’t suppose the hunter stopped to inquire.  A fight immediately commenced between these two involuntary companions, and after a long struggle, in which the man had an arm and leg broken, and was severely bitten and torn besides, he killed the bear.

The hunter had a very hard time after that, but after passing through adventures of various kinds, he floated down the Mississippi on a log and was taken in at a fort.  He recovered, but was maimed for life.

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I think it is probable that no other man ever killed a grizzly bear in single combat, and I also have my doubts about this one having done so.  It is very likely that his victim was a black bear.

Few men care to hunt the grizzly bear except on horseback, so that if they have to run away, they may have better legs than their own under them.

The other great bear of this continent is the white or Polar bear, of which we have all heard so much.  Up in the regions of ice and snow this bear lives just as comfortably as the tiger in the hot jungles of Asia, and while he is not quite so savage as the tiger, he is almost as hard to kill.  But, in speaking of his disposition, I have no intention whatever to give him a character for amiability.  In fact, he is very ferocious at times.  He has often been known to attack parties of men, and when wounded can make a most soul-stirring defence.

The Polar bear is a big fellow, with long white hair, and he lives on seals and fish, and almost anything he can pick up.  Sometimes he takes a fancy to have a man or two for his supper, as the following story will prove.

A ship, returning from Nova Zembla, anchored near an island in the Arctic Ocean, and two of the sailors went on land.  They were standing on the shore, talking to each other, when one of them cried out, “Stop squeezing me!”

The other one looked around, and there was a white bear, very large but very lean and scraggy, which had sneaked up behind the sailors, and now had clutched one of them, whom he very speedily killed and commenced to eat, while the other sailor ran away.

The whole crew of the ship now landed, and came after the bear, endeavoring to drive him away from the body of their comrade; but as they approached him, he quietly looked at them for a minute, and then jumped right into the middle of the crowd, seized another man, and killed him.  Upon this, the crew ran away as fast as they could, and scuttling into their boats, rowed away to the ship.

There were three of these sailors, however, who were too brave to stay there and see a bear devouring the bodies of their friends, and they returned to the island.

The bear did not move as they approached him, and they fired on him, without seeming to injure him in the least.  At length one of them stepped up quite close to him, and put a ball into his head just above his eye.