It against a wall; but it answered Friday's end, for the rogue was so void of fear that he did it purely to make the bear follow him, and show us some laugh as he called it. As soon as the bear felt the blow, and saw him, he turns about and comes after him, taking devilish long strides, and shuffling on at a strange rate, so as' would have put a horse to a middling gallop; away runs Friday, and takes his course as if he run towards us for help; so we all resolved to fire at once upon the bear, and deliver my man; Though I was angry at him heartily for bringing the bear back upon us, when he was going about his own business another way; ard especially I was angry that he had turned the bear upon us, and then run away; and I called out, "You dog, is this your making us laugh? Come away, and take your horse, that we may shoot the creature.' He heard me, and cried out, "No shoot, no shoot; stand still, and you get much laugh;" and as the nimble creature ran two feet for the bear's one, he turned on a sudden, on one side of us, and seeing a great oak tree fit for his purpose, he beckoned to us to follow and doubling his pace, he gets nimbly up the tree, laying his gun down upon the ground, at about five or six yards from the bottom of the tree. The bear soon came to the tree, and we followed at a distance; the first thing he did, he stopped at the gun, smelt to it, but let it lie, and up he scrambles into the tree, climbing like a cat, though so monstrous heavy. I was amazed at the folly, as I thought it, of my man, and could not for my life see any thing to laugh at yet, till secing the bear get up the tree, we all rode near to him.

When we came to the tree, there was Friday got out to the small end of a large branch, and the bear got about half way to him. As soon as the bear got out to that part where the limb of the tree was weaker,"Ha!" says he to us, now you see me teachee the bear dance; so he falls a jumping and shaking the bough, at which the bear began to totter, but stood still, and began to look behind him, to see how he should get back; then, indeed, we did laugh heartily. But Friday had not done with him by a great deal; when, seeing him stand still, he calls out to him again, as if he had supposed the bear could speak English, "What, you come no farther? pray vou come farther: 99 so he left jumping and shaking the tree; and the bear, just as if he understood what he said, did come a little farther; then he fell a jumping again, and the bear stopped again. We thought now was a good time to knock him in the head, and called to Friday to stand still, and we would shoot the bear: but he cried out earnestly, "O pray! O pray! no shoot; me shoot by and then;" he would have said by and by. However, to shorten the story, Friday danced so much, and the bear stood so ticklish, that we had

laughing enough, but still could not imagine what the fellow would do; for first we thought he depended upon shaking the bear off; and we found the bear was too cunning for that too; for he would not go out far enough to be thrown down, but clings fast with his great broad claws and feet, so that we could not imagine what would be the end of it, and what the jest would be at last. But Friday put us out of doubt quickly; for seeing the bear cling fast to the bough, and that he would not be persuaded to come any farther, "Well, well, says Friday, "you no come farther, me go; you no come to me, me come to you; and upon upon this he goes out to the smaller end of the bough, where it would bend with his weight. and gently lets himself down by it, sliding down the bough, till he came near enough to jump down on his feet, and away he runs to his gun, takes it up, and stands still. Well," said I to him, "Friday, what will you do now? Why don't you shoot him?". "No shoot," says Friday, "no yet; me shoot now, me no kill; me stay, give you one more laugh:" and, indeed, so he did, as you will see presently; for when the bear saw his enemy gone, he comes back from the bough where he stood, but did it mighty cautiously, looking behind him every. step, and coming backward till he got into the body of the tree; then, with the same hinder end foremost, he came down he tree, grasping it with his claws, and moving one foot at a

time, very leisurely. At this juncture, and just before he could set his hind foot on the ground, Friday stepped up close to him, clapped the muzzle of his piece into his ear, and shot him dead. Then the rogue turned about to see if we did not laugh; and when he saw we were pleased, by our looks, he falls a laughing himself very loud. "So we kill bear in my country," says Friday, "So you kill them?" says I: "why, you have no guns. No," says he, "no gun, but shoot great much long arrow." This was a good diversion to us; but we were still in a wild place, and our guide very much hurt, and what to do we hardly knew: the howling of wolves ran much in my head; and, indeed, except the noise I once heard on the shore of Africa, of which I have said something already, I never heard any thing that filled me with so much horror.

These things, and the approach of night, called us off, or else, as Friday would have had us, we should certainly have taken the skin of this monstrous creature off, which was worth saving; but we had near three leagues to go, and our guide hastened us; so we left him, and went forward on our journey.

The ground was still covered with snow, though not so deep and dangerous as on the mountains; and the ravenous creatures, as we heard afterwards, were come down into the forest and plain country, pressed by hunger, to seek for food, and had done a great deal of mischief in the villages, where they surprised the country people, killed a great many of their sheep and horses, and some people too. We had one dangerous place to pass, which our guide told us, if there were more wolves in the country, we should find them there; and this was a small plain, surrounded with woods on every side, and a long, narrow defile, or lane, which we were to pass to get through the wood, and then we should come to the village where we were to lodge. It was within half an hour of sunset when we entered the first wood, and a little after sunset when we came into the plain: we met with nothing in the first wood, except that, in a little plain within the wood, which was not above two furlongs over, we saw five great wolves cross the road, full speel, one after another, as if they had been in chase of some prey, and had it in view; they took no notice of us, and were gone out of sight in a few moments. Upon this, our guide, who, by the way, was but a faint-hearted "fellow, bade us keep in a ready posture, for he believed there were more wolves a coming. We kept our arms ready, and our eyes about us; but we saw no more wolves till we came through that wood, which was near half a league, and entered the plain. As soon as we came into the plain, we had occasion enough to look about us; the first object we met with was a dead horse, that

is to say, a poor horse which the wolves had killed, and at least a dozen of them at work, we could not say eating of him, but picking of his bones, rather; for they had eaten up all the flesh before. We did not think fit to disturb them at their feast, neither did they take much notice of us. Friday would have let fly at them, but I would not suffer him by any means; for I found we were like to have more business upon our hand han we were aware of. We were not gone half over the plain when we began to hear the wolves howl in the wood on our lef n a frightful manner, and presently after we saw about a bun dred coming on directly towards us, all in a body, and most of them in a line, as regularly as an army drawn up by expe rienced officers. I scarce knew in what manner to receive them, but found to draw ourselves in a close line was the only way; so we formed in a moment; but that we might not have too much interval, I ordered that only every other man should fire, and that the others who had not fired should stand ready to give them a second volley immediately, if they continued to advance upon us; and then that those who had fired at first should not pretend to load their fusees again, but stand ready every one with a pistol, for we were all armed with a fusee and a pair of pistols each man; so we were, by this method, able to fire six volleys, half of us at a time: however, at present we had no necessity; for upon firing the first volley, the enemy made a full stop, being terrified as well with the noise as with the fire; four of them, being shot in the head, dropped; several others were wounded, and went bleeding off, as we could see by the snow. I found they stopped, but did not immediately retreat; whereupon, remembering that I had been told that he fiercest creatures were terrified at the voice of a man, I caused all the company to halloo as loud as we could; and I found the notion not altogether mistaken; for upon our shout they began to retire, and turn about. I then ordered a second volley to be fired in their rear, which put them to the gallop, and away they went to the woods. This gave us leisure to charge our pieces again; and that we might lose no time, we kept going but we had but little more than loaded our fusees, nd put ourselves in readiness, when we heard a terrible noise n the same wood, on our left, only that it was farther onward he same way we were to go.

The night was coming on, and the light began to be dusky vhich made it worse on our side; but the noise increasing, w could easily perceive that it was the howling and yelling of those hellish creatures; and, on a sudden, we perceived tw? or three troops of wolves, one on our left, one behind us, and one in our front, so that we seemed to be surrounded with them however, as they did not fall upon us, we kept our way forward, as fast as we could make our horses go, which, the

In this

way being very rough, was only a good hard trot. manner we came in view of the entrance of a wood, through which we were to pass, at the farther side of the plain; but we were greatly surprised, when, coming nearer the lane or pass, we saw a confused number of wolves standing just at the entrance. On a sudden, at another opening of the wood, we neard the noise of a gun, and looking that way, out rushed a horse, with a saddle and a bridle on him, flying like the wind, and sixteen or seventeen wolves after him, full speed; indeed the horse had the heels of them, but as we supposed that he could not hold it at that rate, we doubted not but they would get up with him at last; no question but they did.

But here we had a most horrible sight; for riding up to the entrance where the horse came out, we found the carcasses of another horse and of two men, devoured by the ravenous creatures; and one of the men was no doubt the same whom we heard fire the gun, for there lay a gun just by him fired off; but as to the man, his head and the upper part of his body were eaten up. This filled us with horror, and we knew not what course to take; but the creatures resolved us soon, for they gathered about us presently, in hopes of prey; and I verily believe there were three hundred of them. It happened very much to our advantage, that at the entrance into the wood, but a little way from it, there lay some large timbertrees, which had been cut down the summer before, and 1 suppose lay there for carriage. I drew my little troop in among those trees, and placing ourselves in a line behind one long tree, I advised them all to alight, and keeping that tree before us for a breastwork, to stand in a triangle, or three fronts, inclosing our horses in the centre. We did so, and it was well we did; for never was a more furious charge than the creatures made upon us in this place. They came on with a growling kind of noise, and mounted the piece of timber, which, as I said, was our breastwork, as if they were only rushing upon their prey; and this fury of theirs, it seems, was principally occasioned by their seeing our horses behind us I ordered our men to fire as before, every other man; and they took their aim so sure, that they killed several of the wolves at the first volley; but there was a necessity to keep a continual firing, for they came on like devils, those behind pushing on those before.

When we had fired a second volley of our fusees, we thought they stopped a little, and I hoped they would have gone off but it was but a moment, for others came forward again; so we fired two volleys of our pistols; and I believe in these four firings we had killed seventeen or eighteen of them, and lamed twice as many, yet they came on again. I was loath to spend our shot too hastily; so I called my servant (not my man