HUNTING THE SEA OTTER. 39 



more than a Japanese lantern, or a " Chochin," such as may 

 be seen at home suspended from trees at an illumination or 

 fete, a collapsible paper affair with a snuffy candle inside. 

 Perhaps the flickering of the latter produced the flash, which 

 really only existed in the imagination of the hydrographer . 

 The latest chart, with corrections and additions to 1883, 

 extends the illuminating power of this miserable speck to ten 

 miles, but it is very doubtful whether any improved apparatus 

 has been substituted. Near this spot a small sloop called the 

 Kanki, while on her voyage to the otter ground, lost her 

 skipper and had to return. It was reported that he had 

 been knocked overboard by the boom during a squall ; this 

 was the account given by the crew, a couple of Japanese, 

 though there was reason to doubt whether this was the fact. 

 Without boats or even a small dinghy it was the greatest 

 folly to have made the attempt, and it is possible that the 

 native seamen may have got rid of their quixotic captain so 

 as to have an excuse for giving up the adventure. 



Extending from Cape Noshap in a nor' east by east course, 

 and parallel with the Kurile Chain, lie a number of low flat 

 islands and rocks, terminating in the larger island of 

 Shikotan, about forty miles distant. Judging by the 

 formation, there is little doubt that at one time these islets 

 were connected with the coast, forming a long narrow 

 peninsula enclosing an inland sea from thirty to forty miles 

 across. The largest of these islands are Shibobzu, Suisho, 

 Taraku, and Yuru, varying in area from seventeen to two 

 and a half square miles. They are all uninhabited, being 

 only visited in the summer for the sake of the seaweed to 

 be gathered there, and, dried on the beach, is put up in 

 bales, and shipped by junk to China. Four miles to the 

 south-east of Taraku are three or four clusters of rocks 

 called Todo-shima, a favourite resort of the sea lion 

 (Eumetopias stellari}. Two of these, low, flat, and tree- 

 less, each with its girdle of pure white sand, shining in the 

 distance like snow, looked like gems in a silver setting as they 

 lay bathed in the bright moonlight on our starboard bow. 



