AN EVENTFUL VOYAGE 
221 
Strait and across the Okotsk Sea, having light fair 
winds all the way. We anchored off the camp on 
the 20th, and took on board all our people and effects. 
During our absence they had only captured five 
otters. During July we killed fifteen more. 
On July 20, when pulling along the west coast 
of Kamchatka, about fifteen miles north of Cape 
Lepatka, we saw five reindeer near the beach. I 
pulled in towards them, and shot one just before 
getting in to the shore. The water being perfectly 
smooth, with no surf, I ran my boat ashore and 
jumped out, firing at another, and hitting him in the 
back of the head as he ran away along the foot of 
the hills. My second boat, pulling in towards the 
land, killed a third, and the other two bolted up the 
side of the hill. Just as one of them was disappear¬ 
ing over a ridge, with only the top of his shoulders 
showing, I fired again, but did not know with what 
result. We then cut open our game, took out the 
entrails, and carried the carcasses to our boats ; the 
animals were fat and in splendid condition. Think¬ 
ing I might have hit the deer I last fired at, I sent a 
man up to the ridge, where he found it lying dead, 
my bullet having severed its backbone just between 
the shoulder-blades. These four deer made a splen¬ 
did addition to our larder, their flesh being delicious. 
We then pulled down the coast to Cape Lepatka, 
seeing on the way several bears—one with a cub—* 
but left them alone, for fear of alarming any otters 
that might be within sound of our rifles. Off the 
cape we killed four otters, and then had a long pull 
of thirteen miles back against a strong current to 
the schooner, which we did not reach until nearly 
ten o’clock p.m. We had turned out at two o’clock 
