252 
IN FORBIDDEN SEAS 
schooner, take her down to South China or the 
Philippine Islands and sell her, and share the booty. 
Six months later, when the mate was released from 
gaol, he informed me I had been lucky, as C. had 
proposed to him to poison myself and the three other 
Europeans on board, and carry off the vessel to the 
South Sea Islands. 
Sea-otter hunting was now practically played out, 
and what schooners were left turned their attention 
to sealing as their main occupation. The Nemo 
being large enough to convert into an auxiliary 
steamer, I resolved to do so, and endeavour to form 
a company and fit out for a whaling and sealing 
cruise. Whalebone at that time was worth about 
£2,000 per ton. The company was formed and a 
voyage made, resulting in a catch of about 1,600 seals, 
which paid the company about 40 per cent, on its 
outlay. Other voyages followed, chiefly sealing, some 
account of which I hope to record in another book. 
I will here relate only a couple of incidents which 
took place a year or two later, when I called in at 
the Kuril Islands to fill up with wood and water, and 
try for a few otters before proceeding to the Bering 
Sea for the second part of the season’s pelagic seal¬ 
hunting. 
We anchored in Ottomai Bay, in Little Kuril 
Strait. On the way in one of my hunters told me 
he had been there the previous autumn, and found 
a Japanese living alone in a yurt , which he had 
built amongst some sand-dunes on the upper part 
of the beach. Before coming to anchor we saw the 
yurt , but no sign of any human being. It was late 
in the afternoon of June 25, too late to start wood 
and watering, so we had an early meal, and then three 
