HUNTING THE SEA OTTER. 89 



could only result in making the captors ridiculous, though 

 it might be attended with inconvenience and loss to our- 

 selves. Besides, we were not likely to be troubled for some 

 little time to come, as the coal-carrying capacity of the 

 Capron Maru we knew to be quite inadequate to admit 

 of any long cruising at any great distance from her source 

 of supply, which in this case could not be nearer than 

 Hakodate. Accordingly we determined in future to keep 

 a sharp look-out and trust to fortune ; so we turned in for 

 a long rest to make up for our watch of the night before, 

 leaving Baker to work back to the coast and anchor there. 

 But this was to be no easy task, for, long before daybreak, 

 even the light breeze dropped completely, and was suc- 

 ceeded by a dense, wet fog, chilly and depressing ; and for 

 the next four days nothing was to be seen beyond a radius 

 of twenty or thirty yards from the vessel. The profound 

 stillness of the air was soon broken by the roar of a tide- 

 rip, into which we gradually drifted, to be tossed and 

 tumbled during the period mentioned without intermission, 

 for, having once secured a victim, it seemed loath to give 

 him up. This tide-rip is evidently formed by the pent-up 

 waters of the Sea of Okhotsk rushing through a narrow 

 strait separating Kunashir from Yetorup, and, bending in a 

 north-easterly direction, sweeps the eastern coast of the 

 islands. Its greatest force, exerted a few miles from the 

 shore, overcomes, and doubtless deflects, the course of the 

 Arctic current flowing southwards from Behring's Straits, 

 and it is the meeting of these two currents that causes such 

 a commotion in the waters extending from the south of 

 Roku Bay to the extreme north of the island. Of the 

 former portion we had some experience on our first day's 

 hunting, as has been already narrated, the latter we had yet 

 to encounter. The frequency of fogs is easily accounted 

 for when it is remembered that the difference of the 

 temperature of the two currents is considerable ; that 

 of the Okhotsk being warmer, the superincumbent air is 

 soon saturated with moisture, caused by the constant 



