104 
IN FORBIDDEN SEAS 
was greeted with peals of laughter from them all. 
I noticed that the game was not distributed; each one 
appeared to be entitled to all that was taken in her 
own preserves. 
When the harbour froze over, the Ainu women 
made holes through the ice for the purpose of catching 
fish. They used no bait, but a lure made of grass, a 
piece of red rag, and some glittering object, such as 
a piece of shell or glass. This was attached to a 
line, and moved up and down in the water ; the fish 
followed it up to near the surface, and were secured 
by spearing, a barbed fork-headed spear being 
used. Sculpins and a sort of rock-cod were caught, 
but in small numbers. I understood the natives to 
say the fish would not take bait at that time. With 
the wind blowing off shore, the ice would open up, 
leaving lanes of clear water, or if the wind lasted 
long enough it would be blown off out of sight. 
With a shift of wind the ice would be brought in 
again, and pack solidly all along the coast. It was 
all blown off on March 14, and the sea remained 
clear for some time. On April 18 it beset the coast 
again for a week, the last of it for that season in the 
neighbourhood of Furebetsu. 
During the first week of April preparations were 
made for cod-fishing, and on the 11th the first fish 
were taken. We were glad to get some fresh fish, 
as our foreign provisions had practically given out, 
and we were reduced to a diet consisting chiefly of 
salt salmon and rice ; a little flour that was left we 
eked out by mixing it with ground-up barley and rice. 
We converted the barley and rice into flour by 
grinding it in a stone handmill. The bread made 
of this mixture was hard and heavy, but it was a 
