40 
IN FORBIDDEN SEAS 
I claim to have considerable knowledge of the 
subject, having taken over a thousand pelts in the 
course of more than twenty years’ hunting in the 
vicinity of the Kuril Islands and Kamchatka. 
Nearly all accounts of sea-otter hunting and hunters 
hitherto published have dealt more particularly with 
the methods adopted by the Aleuts, “ the spearing 
surround,” and clubbing on the rocks in winter 
^during stormy weather, when, owing to the large 
beds of kelp (in which the heaviest seas never break), 
where he usually takes refuge in boisterous weather 
during summer and autumn, having rotted off near 
the bottom and disappeared, the otter “ hauls out ” 
to get some rest elsewhere. Now and then mention 
is made of other modes of taking the sea-otter, such 
as by setting strongly-made nets in places frequented 
by them, and by what is described as “ surf-hunting,” 
which means that the hunter watches for a chance to 
shoot the otter with a rifle from the shore when the 
wind is blowing and the sea running dead on to the 
land, trusting, if he kills his quarry, to have it washed 
ashore by the surf. 
No one that I am aware of except myself, in the 
“ Notes on the Kuril Islands ” published by the 
Royal Geographical Society, has written a descrip¬ 
tion of the methods of hunting the sea-otter as 
practised from a schooner fitted out for the special 
purpose. In the following pages I propose to 
describe in greater detail this manner of hunting 
the sea-otter, so that the reader may have some 
idea of the general nature of the work when I come 
to describe my own personal adventures. 
Each vessel carried as a rule three hunting-boats. 
In the early days, when the otters were compara- 
