HUNTING THE SEA OTTER. 45 



height of about three hundred feet, were protected from the 

 cold east winds and almost hidden by the dense growth of 

 stunted oak and beech, already beginning to put forth 

 leaves. Vegetation, though late here, is very rapid when 

 once the snow has gone, and now only the mountain range, 

 running to the north-east, retained its wintry aspect. Here 

 and there single trees and small clumps of the Pinus 

 Jessoniensts, the only tree that seems capable of rearing its 

 head above the storm-twisted undergrowth, relieved the 

 monotony of the wooded slopes. The principal occupation 

 of the people was the curing of the hard roe of the 

 herring and boiling down the rest of the fish for manure. 

 In May and June this fish swarms on the coasts in enormous 

 shoals, the bays and creeks are almost choked with 

 them. Immense quantities are literally pushed up on the 

 shore by the sheer weight of those behind ; on every bit of 

 shelving beach they form a silvery belt of food for eagles, 

 gulls, foxes, and bears, which become fat and sleek on this 

 plentiful supply. A net supported on stakes driven into 

 the bottom about a hundred yards from the shore, is spread 

 by the natives, the fish killed by the pressure of the super- 

 incumbent mass sink to the bottom, the rest crowding 

 outwards in incredible numbers into a cul-de-sac at the 

 end ; so great is the weight that it would be impossible to 

 lift the bag, they have, therefore, to be scooped out with 

 long-handled landing nets and emptied into unwieldy 

 barge-like boats alongside. That morning we counted seven 

 boats, capable of holding about twenty tons each, loaded to 

 the gunwale carrying their gleaming green and silver cargo 

 to the shore from one net alone. Removed from the boats 

 in large creels, they are deposited in huge pens and piled 

 up in stacks. Near these pens are cauldrons in which 

 they are boiled, the oil being ladled out or allowed to run 

 off into sunken tubs, or small natural reservoirs. The boiled 

 mass is then transferred to wooden lever presses, roughly 

 about two feet square but somewhat smaller at the bottom 

 than the top, and weighted with stones the more effectually 



