1 68 HUNTING THE SEA OTTER. 



We were glad to row round the bluff and obtain such 

 shelter as was possible from the violence of the wind. 



With the boats lashed together and anchored to some 

 kelp leaves, we had our lunch and waited, with such patience 

 as we could command, the abatement of the gale. But the 

 afternoon was well advanced ere we could venture to 

 return. To keep a grip of the shore, our only guide, yet 

 avoid being swamped by the great rollers that we could 

 hear breaking unexpectedly into masses of seething foam 

 and water long before they reached us, and through which 

 no ship much less our frail boats could live, kept eyes 

 and nerves upon the stretch. And rowing and paddling 

 with all our strength in the face of the wind, with the ever- 

 present pall of fog now grown less dense, fortunately 

 hanging over us, it took us four hours of incessant labour 

 and battling before the schooner loomed out of the mist, 

 much to our satisfaction. 



Just as we had hauled the boats on deck and made 

 everything snug for the night a necessary precaution which 

 we always observed, however late we might return we 

 noticed a large three-masted steamer bring up at our usual 

 anchorage on the other side of the bay. This had for us 

 rather an ominous appearance, suggesting further develop- 

 ments between Russia and Japan probably an answer to 

 some aggressive movement on the part of the former, whom 

 we already knew had made something in the shape of a 

 claim to the Kuriles. And although our sympathies were 

 altogether with the Japanese, considering as we did that 

 these islands were indubitably part of the Japanese chain, 

 as far at least as Saghalien, the fact remained that, in any 

 diplomatic affair, small people like ourselves were apt to 

 find themselves between the proverbial millstones, with a 

 good prospect of pulverisation. Moreover, we had already 

 been warned that if we were again discovered within the 

 three-mile limit, except through stress of weather or for the 

 purpose of obtaining water, we should be taken prisoners, 

 and our vessel confiscated. 



