HUNTING THE SEA OTTER. 31 



Akkeshi Bay runs inland about five miles, with a nearly 

 corresponding breadth, and it is the only harbour properly 

 so-called on the east coast of Yezo. But though there is 

 plenty of water and the holding good, it is very much 

 exposed, east and south-east winds sending in sometimes 

 a heavy rolling sea. A small colony of Japanese, with 

 about three or four times their number of Einos, live, or 

 rather exist, here by collecting edible seaweed, deer's horns, 

 oil, and fish manure, all of which are sent to the south by 

 native trading junks, and these call every summer. The 

 mountains are here broken up into a succession of low 

 hills and ravines, densely wooded with stunted birch, oak, 

 and alder; at the head of the bay is a large lagoon, which, 

 later on in the season, is covered with swans, geese, and 

 duck, besides large flocks of waders. The Japanese shut 

 themselves up in the winter in these cold regions, to appear 

 in the spring with their faces blanched white with the 

 poisonous fumes of their charcoal fires. 



Feeding almost exclusively on rice, fish, and vegetables, 

 they are ill-adapted to stand cold, and it is surprising what 

 a small amount of blood they have in their bodies. The 

 writer remembers to have seen a native have his foot cut 

 off, from whom scarcely a teaspoonful of blood escaped. 

 On another occasion, when leaving home early one winter 

 morning for a day's shooting, he had stumbled over the 

 body of an unfortunate jinrickshaw coolie, which lay at his 

 threshold, where he had evidently been cut down by his 

 irate and drunken passenger. This man, though killed by 

 a terrible stab in the breast, had scarcely dyed with his 

 blood the snow on which he lay. 



Formerly, the Japanese possessed the island of Saghalien, 

 but the cold was always too great in winter to permit of 

 any successful attempt at colonisation, but a short time 

 before our voyage, being alarmed by Russian claims, they 

 had sent up several families to make another attempt, and 

 Baker had been mate of the steamer that was commissioned 

 to call in the ensuing spring to see how they had fared. 



