hunter without fear. He is most dreaded in the night: for it
is during the darkness he generally makes his plundering expeditions.
Both shepherds and hunters have been killed by him--proving that he
still retains the savage character given to him in the Scriptures; where
several of his kind--she-bears they were--are represented as having torn
"forty and two of the mockers of Elisha."

He appears to have been equally characterised by a ferocity of
disposition in the crusading ages--since it is related that the great
leader Godfrey slew one of these bears, whom he found assaulting a poor
woodcutter of Antioch; and the affair was considered a feat of great
prowess, by those eccentric champions of the Cross.

That the Syrian bear is still as ferocious and savage, as he ever could
have been, our hunters proved by their own experience: for although they
did not get into the power of one, they would certainly have done so--
some one of them at least--had they not been fortunate enough to kill
the bear before he could lay his claws upon them. But we shall briefly
describe the adventure; which was the last our hunters were engaged in--
at least, the last we find recorded in the journal of Alexis.

Bischerre, a little mountain village, situated near the snow-line on
Mount Makmel, had become their temporary headquarters. Its
neighbourhood was celebrated for the great number of bears that frequent
it. These animals descending from the higher ridges surrounding it,
frequently enter the gardens of the villagers, and rob them of their
vegetables and chick peas (_cicer arietinus_)--the latter being a
favourite food of the Syrian bear.

From Bischerre the hunters extended their excursions on foot: since the
nature of the ground would not admit of their using horses; and they had
succeeded in getting several good "bear-chases," and in killing a brace
of these animals. Both, however, were very young ones--cubs, in fact--
and their skins would not do. A better specimen must be procured.

This came into their hands in the following manner:--

They had succeeded in tracing a bear up into a rocky ravine--the
entrance into which was not over ten or twelve feet in width. The
ravine itself was a steep descent leading up to the mountains; and its
bottom, or bed, was covered with a conglomeration of large rounded
boulders, that looked as if they had been rolled into this shape by
water. They resembled the round stones sometimes seen