crowd testified to their keen appreciation of the joke. In January, 1870, I saw that same bear in the Plaza de Toros, in the city of Vera Cruz, Mexico, dig a hole large enough to hold an elephant, take a bull which had been set to fight him in his paws as if he were an infant, carry him to the pit, hurl him into it head foremost, slap him on the side with his tremendous paws until his breath was half knocked out of his body, and then hold him down with one paw while he deliberately buried him alive by raking the earth down upon him with the other. Samson had not a tooth to bite with at that time, they having been in the course of years and many fights worn down to the gums; but his strength was that of an elephant, and his claws, eight inches in length, curved like a rainbow and sharp as a knife would enable him to tear open anything made of flesh and blood as you or I would tear open a banana.
I am satisfied that an average grizzly could at any time whip the strongest African lion in a fair stand-up fight, while a full-grown bull is no more to him than a rat is to the largest house-cat.
The grizzly is becoming scarce in some parts of the State, but he is still found in great numbers in the Coast Range Mountains, from San Diego to Del Norte.
The Mexican or native Californian vaqueros in Santa Barbara and neighboring counties, riding out three or four together on their fleet, well-trained caballos, will without fear attack a grizzly, lasso him from different directions, and not only conquer him,
