I5 8 HUNTING THE SEA OTTER. 



deal of the feather-bed business ; but sheltering in a bed of 

 kelp, and fastened to the long frond-like leaves, which 

 floated for a hundred feet over the surface, where they 

 acted like oil upon the waters, breaking up the waves and 

 preventing our being swamped, was a different sort of 

 rocking altogether. Crouching behind the low gunwales of 

 the boats, to seek what shelter we could from the driving 

 mist and icy rain, we sought to learn during the long watches 

 of the night the great virtue of patience. Beetle-browed 

 cliffs might rear their black crests inviting us to shelter 

 and security, but their allurements had too often been tried 

 and found wanting, even if we could have effected a 

 landing. 



Sometimes, when the weather was fine and only fog or 

 distance prevented our finding the schooner, we sampled 

 beds scooped out of the sand for a change. Dry sand feels 

 .soft and yielding to the foot, but as a mattress it will be 

 found to differ very little from cast-iron. 



Two consecutive days of warmth and brightness was too 

 much to expect in this place of fog and storm, so that 

 little surprise was felt when we turned up next morning to 

 find ourselves blanketed in the usual fashion. Before we 

 had finished our early breakfast, however, the fog began 

 to lift in places, as a gentle air, stealing up from the 

 southward, wove it into strange and fantastic shapes, only 

 to be swallowed up and obliterated by cloudlike masses of 

 descending vapour. 



We got off in the boats by five o'clock, finding it clearer 

 near the water than it appeared from the deck. As the 

 day advanced, the fog lifted more frequently, disclosing 

 lanes and patches of light, which looked like widening and 

 extending into larger areas. About nine o'clock we were 

 cheered by seeing an elevated paddle in the leading boat, 

 showing that an otter had been sighted. Then began a 

 long and exciting chase, rendered more so by the attenuated 

 banks of fog which still clung to the water in smoke-like 

 Avreaths ; and these the otter seemed to seek, as if knowing 



