midnight sun
Often we saw bears swimming far ahead , but none of them came near our boat . `` One night when the others were sleeping I strayed away over the marshy _ tundra _ , plunging through the hundred yards of black mud and moss where the willow-grouse and the little stint were feeding . I came upon a nest or two of the latter , and paused to suck some of the eggs , one of the birds meanwhile coming quite close , putting its head quaintly to the side as though to watch where its property was going , with a view to future recovery . A little farther along I got on the real _ tundra _ , and wandered on in the full light of a midnight sun , which coloured all the flat surface of the marshy moorland a deep crimson , and laid deep shadows of purple mist in the great hollow of the Lena river . `` In a little I sat down , and , putting up the collar of my coat -- for the air was beginning to bite sharply -- I meditated on the chances of our life . It did not seem that we had much more than one chance in a hundred , yet the hundredth chance was indubitably worth the risk -- better than inaction , and better than the suicide which would inevitably come with the weakening brain , after another winter such as that we had just passed through . `` Meditating so , I heard a noise behind me , and , turning , found myself almost face to face with a great she-bear , with two cubs of the year running gambolling about her .