HUNTING THE SEA OTTER. 185 



The inbred stoicism of these people, who have within 

 them so much that is great and enduring, only served to 

 darken the picture. Little blanched faces, a very few tears, 

 a little wondering at the strange decrees of Fate, and a 

 quiet acceptance of destiny at the hands of the gods. 



All that day and night the wind blew fitfully, with 

 sometimes a stiff breeze, but never for long; and morning 

 found us little more advanced than the entrance of the 

 strait. 



As the sun mounted higher in the heavens it glanced 

 and glittered on innumerable logs and timbers that 

 literally lined the tideway on either side. They were all 

 that remained of hundreds of junks and sampans that but 

 a few hours before had danced so merrily upon the 

 treacherous waters. It was impossible to witness more 

 terrible evidences of the destruction wrought upon the 

 native shipping during one of these devasting storms than 

 those which met our eyes on either side of the current way 

 as, packed in long lines within the shelter of the eddies, 

 they lay like long strings of rafts moored beyond the 

 influence of the current. Gathered by the strong stream 

 from the surrounding coast, they sheltered for a time, until 

 varying winds and restless waters should make their final 

 distribution. 



We passed another huge junk, or rather its skeleton, that 

 floated past us as we barely held our own against the tide. 

 The high prow and a few ribs was all that remained of 

 what was in all probability the second of the two large 

 passenger junks that we had sailed by before the coming of 

 the typhoon. 



Amidst light airs, stiffening occasionally into a breeze 

 that urged us onward towards our destination, and inter- 

 mittent calms that left us at the mercy of the strong 

 Tsugaru current, we barely held our own. 



But we welcomed the coming night that would shroud in 

 more becoming gloom the sunlit waters that could flash and 

 glitter in such jaunty derision upon its own handiwork of 



O 



