HUNTING THE SEA OTTER. 105 



be mistaken for mountains. Curious as this appeared, the 

 coast-line, as we advanced, was equally noteworthy ; one 

 cliff would be of bright red sandstone, the next a dark 

 plutonic rock, a third of basaltic columns ; some of these 

 last, scooped out by the action of weather above and wave 

 below, resembled enormous shells, and yet, in spite of the 

 accessories of light and warmth, all looked cold and 

 desolate as the dead embers of a fire ; it is doubtful if even 

 the vegetation which they lacked would have hidden the 

 many evidences of their volcanic origin. 



After lunch, while we were having a smoke before 

 turning back to the ship, the boats about two yards apart, 

 Snow proposed a swim. Sharks of a very large size being 

 fairly numerous, the rest preferred to smoke, but Snow 

 stripped, and was swimming lazily about, when I called out 

 that I saw an otter ; but before the former could regain his 

 boat it had disappeared. As the otter was quite close, the 

 boats separated somewhat, and we were all (Snow in puris 

 naturalibus) waiting, rifle in hand, for its reappearance, 

 when to our horror the back fin of a huge shark appeared 

 above the water where our friend a minute before had been 

 swimming. True the shark might not have touched him, 

 but then it might. That the monster could pouch an otter 

 with greatest ease goes without saying. The shark fin 

 most probably had been mistaken for an otter, the dorsal 

 fin bearing a strong resemblance to an otter floating on its 

 back with only part of its head above water. When we 

 left the ship early in the day an otter had been seen and 

 chased till its dives became shorter and shorter, and the 

 Cheats, not a hundred yards apart, were closing in to 

 dminister the coup de grace when it completely dis- 

 fppeared, and although the boats widened out again and 

 che sea was calm and bright as a mirror, our eager scanning 

 in all directions failed to see another trace of it ; but instead 

 there rose from the spot where it disappeared the back fin of 

 a shark. It may be a libel, but that shark was always 

 credited with having taken a meal at our cost. As the 



