156 HUNTING THE SEA OTTER. 



control had long ago endeared them to us all. Behind 

 the merry faces lay a fund of dogged determination and 

 absence of fear or panic ; no wonder they make the best 

 and pluckiest pearl-divers in the world. What men for a 

 navy ! And what a supply, when half the population on 

 the great coast line spend their lives as fishermen upon the 

 great waters. Kind and gentle to women and children, 

 rarely quarrelling amongst themselves we ourselves never 

 had a sign of a row during our cruise where every coolie 

 is a gentleman in his manners, and yet a sturdy, warlike 

 race surely they will go far in this Britain of the East. 



Both the Flying Mist and Otsego had been hunting off 

 the Island of Urup for a short time, but without much 

 success, having only got twenty-six pelts between them. 

 Dense fog and fierce wind storms, worse even than we had 

 experienced, were of almost daily occurrence. They had 

 also noticed, like ourselves, in the difficulty in attempting 

 to land for shelter during those fierce and sudden blasts, 

 that woolly down gorge and mountain sides, the curiously 

 unsheltering nature of the coast. 



The storm-tossed coaster, with every stitch he can carry, 

 does his best to work up under the shelter of some 

 embattled cliff, knowing well that under its protecting lee 

 lies quiet water and a tempered gale. But in these seas 

 his efforts would have been valueless, for he might as 

 easily have had his sails split within biscuit-throw of the 

 land as if he had encountered the full fury of the storm in 

 more open water. 



When the crew of the little Geordie brig, consisting of 

 skipper, mate, and boy, were drinking the usual Saturday 

 night's toast of "Wives and sweethearts," in much per- 

 turbation of mind (for they had temporarily lost sight of 

 land), the mate remarked, sadly, 



" I wonder if they know where we are to-night ? " 



The skipper replied, tersely, 



" I wish to God we knew ourselves, Bill." 



It is probable that the north-country skipper, in our 



