These human inhabitants of the northern ice land have a companion in their desolate haunts, who does not build himself a hut after their fashion, but who has instead a somewhat similar protection against the severe cold of the long northern winter, provided by nature. This creature goes upon four legs, sometimes swimming in the water, and sometimes stalking along upon the ice. He is very powerful and fierce, is armed with sharp claws two inches long, and has teeth which can bite through thick and hard metal. He is able to tear iron and tin to pieces as if they were merely paper or pasteboard, and he feeds upon seals, birds, foxes and deer, which he manages to catch by his cunning and address. This savage creature is often killed by the rude natives, who hunt him with dogs and spears, but in the absence of man he is the fell tyrant of the domain. He prowls about on the snow-wastes, destroying every living body which comes within his reach; and he remains exposed to the severest cold of the long dark winter, lying upon the ice and snow, without having his life-blood frozen by its chill power. The reason of his safety is that he wears a nature-provided great coat of very warm fur. His skin is every where covered by long shaggy hair of a yellowish-white color, which has a thick down-like under-growth closely packed beneath. This coat of soft fur is so long and thick, that it prevents the heat produced in the slow furnace of his body from escaping into the cold air. It answers the same purpose to him, that the snow-covered hut does to his human neighbors.
Men have no warm shaggy coats of this kind furnished for their use by nature, but they are enabled to supply the deficiency through the exertion of their own intelligence and ingenuity. They borrow warm covering from other creatures whenever they stand in need of such aid. Thus the rude human inhabitant of the ice land hunts and kills the bear and then before he feasts upon its flesh, he strips the fur robe from the carcass, and adapts it to his own naked body. So soon as the northern ice-people come out from their huts into the cold air, they put on coats and trousers of bear-skin, with the long sharp claws pointing out as toes to their boots. These odd savages look almost like small bears themselves when their white fur hoods are drawn over their heads, and their limbs are compactly muffled up in the claw-tipped robes which they have taken from the bodies of their prey.