An Adventure with a Bear.BBearsare very funny fellows, sometimes, particularly the “Brown Bears.” All Black Bears are savage; the White Bears are melancholy and spiteful, but the Brown Bears give, at times, the oddest sport, and make us laugh the most. I remember well, upon my travelling from Moscow to St. Petersburgh, seeing some fun with one, and I can’t help telling it to my young readers.The road from Moscow to St. Petersburg is dreary enough; long wastes of ground stretching far away—straight roads without hedges or ditches—clumps of trees here and there—savage-looking dens, and as savage-looking men—rude hovels not fit for pigs to stop in—women not half so clean as the pigs in Mr. Bendall’s styes—and rough old chaps, with beards so rough, hard, and bristly, that you might make shoe-brushes of them. These are the characteristics of the Russian peasantry, and when, therefore, we talk of bears, wetalk of gentlemen—polite, generous but determined, and not very ceremonious gentlemen; of one of these it is my object to speak.a bearI was, as I said, travelling from Moscow to St. Petersburgh. I had with me my friend Bendall, as good a shot asever hit a rabbit in a sley, and as good a hunter as ever hunted a donkey on a cross-road. We had travelled many miles over morass and heath, and through the ugliest roads in Christendom. Sometimes we travelled for a whole day without meeting with a house or hovel of any kind, and on the day that the adventure took place I am about to describe, we had travelled till night-fall without any probability of shelter for the night; so, at last, thinking that we could do no better, we crept into a cave, with the intention of passing the night there. We were rather surprised, when we had stricken a light, to find a great lot of bones strewn about, all of them picked very clean, and some of them very old; and, as Bendall remarked, “we were in a Bear’s den”—his own parlor, drawing room, kitchen, and cookery, and a very warm snug place it seemed, not over nice as to smell, but quite sheltered from wind and tempest. So we struck a light, lit a fire, and prepared to make ourselves comfortable with one “sausage,” the only thing we had to munch that night. We put it on the fire, and it had not long begun to grill and grizzle, before something dark moved before the entrance of the cave. Bendall was after it directly, with his gun cocked; and I held up a lighted brand to see what would come next. It was a rough old Brown Bear, of very large size, who seemed by no means pleased at our invasion of his domestic hearth. He stood, with his nose poked out, savagely looking at us, as much as to say: “what do you here, you blackguards?” Bendall seeing this insolent speech in the bear’s eyes, pulled the trigger—flash—but no bang—the gun missed fire! and, in a moment, the old brute, as if he knew that he was likely to have all his own way, made a leap at me with the agility of a young rabbit.I had only just time to pop the fire-brand in his mouth—which made him howl for a moment—and then, with redoubled savageness, he flew upon me, and embraced me with such a hug, that I seemed to feel my ribs cracking, and all the breath squeezing out of my body. I laid hold of the bear’s throat, and tried to squeeze him and stop his breath; but his hair was so thick and shaggy I could make but little impression upon him; and so he squeezed, and I squeezed; now we rolled—now we tumbled—sometimes Parley was up—sometimes Bear; and then we rolled over and over again. Poor Bendall looked on with consternation; he had again primed his piece, but was afraid to fire lest he should hit and settle me. At last we tumbled and tumbled, till we both rolled into the fire. Upon this Bruin let go of me, and leaped to a great distance, and began capering about in fine style; the pain of the burnings being, no doubt, very teasing—I know mine were. “Now is your time, Bendall,” said I. So Bendall would have fired, but his gun again missed; upon which the old bear made towards me again, pawing outwith his fore feet, and standing on his hind ones, while I, in the same attitude, waited his approach. But Bendall, finding his gun of no use one way, determined to try its service in another; and advancing boldly in front of me, dealt Bruin such a blow with the butt-end, that he rolled him over like a Dutch-cheese. At the same moment I whipped out my knife, and made a hole in the Bear’s body; while Bendall gave him another topper “for luck”—and Bruin was done for. The whole affair was most ludicrous, but almost too serious a joke. It however ended by our having some of the bear’s haunch for our supper. And I can tell you, my young friends, that bear’s haunch is most delicious eating.hunters and bearhunter and dog
B
Bearsare very funny fellows, sometimes, particularly the “Brown Bears.” All Black Bears are savage; the White Bears are melancholy and spiteful, but the Brown Bears give, at times, the oddest sport, and make us laugh the most. I remember well, upon my travelling from Moscow to St. Petersburgh, seeing some fun with one, and I can’t help telling it to my young readers.
The road from Moscow to St. Petersburg is dreary enough; long wastes of ground stretching far away—straight roads without hedges or ditches—clumps of trees here and there—savage-looking dens, and as savage-looking men—rude hovels not fit for pigs to stop in—women not half so clean as the pigs in Mr. Bendall’s styes—and rough old chaps, with beards so rough, hard, and bristly, that you might make shoe-brushes of them. These are the characteristics of the Russian peasantry, and when, therefore, we talk of bears, wetalk of gentlemen—polite, generous but determined, and not very ceremonious gentlemen; of one of these it is my object to speak.
a bear
I was, as I said, travelling from Moscow to St. Petersburgh. I had with me my friend Bendall, as good a shot asever hit a rabbit in a sley, and as good a hunter as ever hunted a donkey on a cross-road. We had travelled many miles over morass and heath, and through the ugliest roads in Christendom. Sometimes we travelled for a whole day without meeting with a house or hovel of any kind, and on the day that the adventure took place I am about to describe, we had travelled till night-fall without any probability of shelter for the night; so, at last, thinking that we could do no better, we crept into a cave, with the intention of passing the night there. We were rather surprised, when we had stricken a light, to find a great lot of bones strewn about, all of them picked very clean, and some of them very old; and, as Bendall remarked, “we were in a Bear’s den”—his own parlor, drawing room, kitchen, and cookery, and a very warm snug place it seemed, not over nice as to smell, but quite sheltered from wind and tempest. So we struck a light, lit a fire, and prepared to make ourselves comfortable with one “sausage,” the only thing we had to munch that night. We put it on the fire, and it had not long begun to grill and grizzle, before something dark moved before the entrance of the cave. Bendall was after it directly, with his gun cocked; and I held up a lighted brand to see what would come next. It was a rough old Brown Bear, of very large size, who seemed by no means pleased at our invasion of his domestic hearth. He stood, with his nose poked out, savagely looking at us, as much as to say: “what do you here, you blackguards?” Bendall seeing this insolent speech in the bear’s eyes, pulled the trigger—flash—but no bang—the gun missed fire! and, in a moment, the old brute, as if he knew that he was likely to have all his own way, made a leap at me with the agility of a young rabbit.I had only just time to pop the fire-brand in his mouth—which made him howl for a moment—and then, with redoubled savageness, he flew upon me, and embraced me with such a hug, that I seemed to feel my ribs cracking, and all the breath squeezing out of my body. I laid hold of the bear’s throat, and tried to squeeze him and stop his breath; but his hair was so thick and shaggy I could make but little impression upon him; and so he squeezed, and I squeezed; now we rolled—now we tumbled—sometimes Parley was up—sometimes Bear; and then we rolled over and over again. Poor Bendall looked on with consternation; he had again primed his piece, but was afraid to fire lest he should hit and settle me. At last we tumbled and tumbled, till we both rolled into the fire. Upon this Bruin let go of me, and leaped to a great distance, and began capering about in fine style; the pain of the burnings being, no doubt, very teasing—I know mine were. “Now is your time, Bendall,” said I. So Bendall would have fired, but his gun again missed; upon which the old bear made towards me again, pawing outwith his fore feet, and standing on his hind ones, while I, in the same attitude, waited his approach. But Bendall, finding his gun of no use one way, determined to try its service in another; and advancing boldly in front of me, dealt Bruin such a blow with the butt-end, that he rolled him over like a Dutch-cheese. At the same moment I whipped out my knife, and made a hole in the Bear’s body; while Bendall gave him another topper “for luck”—and Bruin was done for. The whole affair was most ludicrous, but almost too serious a joke. It however ended by our having some of the bear’s haunch for our supper. And I can tell you, my young friends, that bear’s haunch is most delicious eating.
hunters and bear
hunter and dog