HUNTING THE SEA OTTER. 167 



In such tempestuous waters, subject to almost continuous 

 storms, as sudden as they are violent, with even the 

 calmest sea quickly lashed to fury by the strife of con- 

 flicting tides and currents, not even the sea otter, in his 

 native home and element, could struggle for any length of 

 time without exhaustion against the flying foam and 

 buffeting waves incidental to such surroundings. 



With a fathomless sea behind, a surf-beaten coast in 

 front, where was shelter or rest to be obtained ? 



Even if the structure of this curious animal had 

 assimilated more to that of the land or river otter, from 

 which it is as structurally different as it is from the seal, 

 the protection of the land was impossible, if only on 

 account of its inaccessibility. A fathom of green water 

 fretted itself into foam against the base of grey-black cliffs 

 that towered sullen and majestic above its petty strife, or 

 broke in derisive showers of spray over such outlying 

 boulders as were yet unconquered. Here and there some 

 stretch of sandy beach broke the stern grandeur of the 

 coast, appealing with strange wistful restfulness to the tired 

 eye. But over this the great Pacific rollers, after a 

 hundred miles of placid travel, were concentrating all 

 reserve of weight and fury to dash themselves, reckless 

 and impotent, upon the yielding sand. 



But here, amidst the ocean forest of kelp that threw up 

 its long elastic stems through thirty fathoms of blue water 

 and floated its long narrow leaves hundreds of feet in length 

 upon the surface, the sea that raged around was subdued 

 and restful the foaming crests subdued into an oily roll. 

 Every now and again some keener gust lifted the edges of 

 the great brown fronds, showing dark and solid like some 

 submerged rock against the white background. It was to 

 such oases as these, the only refuge from storm-swept sea or 

 wave-girt coast that Nature could provide in such a tem- 

 pestuous region for the hunted or the hunter. Here, singly, 

 or in twos and threes, came the sea otter when driven from 

 his feeding grounds by the inclemency of the weather. 



