116 
IN FORBIDDEN SEAS 
crawl along the slippery, frozen rocks, sometimes 
on hands and knees, until we got up to the object 
of our visit, when the struggle would be hard but 
brief, as a few blows with the butt of the rifle would 
be sufficient to end the combat. But sometimes the 
otters would resist with teeth and claws, and our 
boots would suffer proportionately. Nov/ and then 
one would escape us altogether by making a dive 
into the water. Some mornings we got as many as 
ten otters, and other mornings nothing. Back to 
camp, where we always skinned the otters as soon as 
possible, before the heat had left their bodies. Then 
breakfast, and, if the day was fine, out with the boats 
hunting round Otter Island, and sometimes as far up 
as Pinnacle Rocks; but, as we had but a very limited 
number of fine days, our hunting with the boats 
did not amount to much. We spent the evenings 
scraping skins, cleaning rifles, and spinning yarns. 
We were all in good spirits, as our expedition 
promised to be a lucrative one, and everything we 
made belonged to ourselves. 
“ So stood affairs on this memorable December 24. 
The morning had been calm and cloudy, no sun to 
be seen, and in the afternoon a steady downpour of 
snow set in, coming in heavy flakes, but, as there 
was no wind, falling vertically to the earth. We 
had clubbed one otter in the morning—five had got 
away from us—and this one we had duly skinned 
and staked out. We had arranged to celebrate 
Christmas in good style by a dinner on Christmas 
Eve, with rum punch and beer ad libitum . I must 
say that we were an abstemious crowd, as we had 
all kinds of liquor with us, but nobody ever took 
any advantage of that circumstance. We were all 
