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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 the 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.

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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 speed, 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. this our guide, who, by the way, was but a fainthearted fellow, bid 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 on our hands than we were aware of.

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