, after having pursued me for a few yards, turned
and went on his way, but had I not been nimble--in other words, had I been
completely invested by the bear and thrown down--he might, as the natives
would phrase it, have made my wife a widow. It is commonly supposed that,
when making an attack, the bear stands on its hind legs, and thus gives
the sportsman a good chance of killing him with a shot in the chest, but
this is not my experience, and, though instances of the kind may have
occurred, I should not advise the sportsman to count on any such delay in
the proceedings of an attacking bear.

The preceding illustration, I may point out, affords a useful lesson. If
so suddenly attacked by a wild animal that you have no time to fire,
always rush towards it, and to one side, so that you may, as it were,
dodge past it. This will enable you to gain ground on it, and room to turn
round and fire.

I may observe that Mr. Ball, in his "Jungle Life in India," gives several
instances of natives being wantonly attacked by bears, and Colonel
Campbell[22] gives one remarkable instance of two bears attacking a party
of his people, who were on the march through the jungle in Belgaum in
charge of his horses, one of which was so severely wounded by one of the
bears that the life of the horse was despaired of for some days. The
Colonel was determined to be avenged on the bears, had them marked down,
and, with the aid of his friends, bagged them both, but not before one of
the bears had thrown down one of the party, who ran a great risk of being
killed. The determination of the bear in following up his assailant was
in this instance very great.

I may here observe that some little caution is required in approaching,
and looking into caves, and examining the entrances for tracks of bears,
and the person doing so should be fully prepared for a sudden charge out
of the cave, and be ready to jump on one side. No cave should be
approached with the assumption that it is not at all likely that a bear
will be at home, and especial care should be taken in the case of a cave
with a drop in front of it over which a person might be hurled by a bear
charging suddenly out. To get a bear out of a cave is often no easy
matter, and different caves require, of course, different treatment. In
some cases the bear may be poked out with the aid of a long pole, and when
this is done the operation is both interesting and amusing, but care must
be taken to see