132 
IN FORBIDDEN SEAS 
otter into the boat. More shouting from the other 
boat caused me to pull up to it, when I found one of 
the boat-pullers looking very pale, with his trousers 
off, and examining his thigh. My bullet, after pass¬ 
ing through the otter’s head, had struck the water, 
ricochetted, passed through the side of the boat, 
ploughed along the front of the thigh of one of the 
boat-pullers, and struck the handle of his oar, before 
dropping. The wound was not serious, being only 
about ^ inch deep and 2 or 3 inches long. 
Of course it might have been worse. No doubt 
anyone but an otter-hunter would say it was a piece 
of gross carelessness, but I am afraid if hunters never 
took any risks of that kind their catches would not 
be very fat ones. All otter-hunters are used to 
bullets flying about close to them, and they have 
a saying, that “ there is no danger in a bullet you 
can hear.” The danger has passed when the sound 
reaches your ears. 
It set in foggy on the 12th, when we were out 
hunting, and owing to the tide having changed we 
lost track of our vessel, and pulled for hours away 
from her instead of towards her. We landed about 
midnight through the surf amongst some rotten 
seaweed, “ Old Joe’s ” boat being capsized, though, 
fortunately, nothing was lost. A thick wet fog con¬ 
cealed everything. We did not know where we 
were. It was miserably cold, and we tried to light 
a fire with driftwood, making shavings of it to start 
it burning. It was damp, and would not burn. 
Then our matches gave out. Then we tried to light 
up by firing a piece of rag out of a rifle (we were 
using muzzle-loaders as well as breach-loaders), 
which only smouldered. Thinking a little powder 
