294 
IN FORBIDDEN SEAS 
1874 whilst on their way to the hunting-ground— 
the Undine at sea, with all hands ; the Kaisho on 
Yetorup; and the sloop Snowflake on Yezo, her 
master being drowned. In December of this same 
year the schooner Snowdrop , owned by me, was lost 
on Yetorup, having returned to try and hunt through 
the winter months after a fairly successful summer’s 
hunting season. Large icefields set in on the north¬ 
west Yetorup coast in February, 1875. After these 
icefields passed through the straits into the Pacific, 
south to easterly winds drove them in on to the 
south-east shores of the island, compelling the otters, 
which the drifting ice drove before it, to take to the 
ice. Taking advantage of this, the Japanese suc¬ 
ceeded in killing nearly 300 by clubbing them on 
the ice. The Japanese official return, as given by 
Mr. Hall, is 250 skins for 1875, but I myself inspected 
292 in May, 1875, in Hakodate, which were mostly 
captured at the time the ice set in. These skins were 
brought down by the Capron Maru , on which vessel 
I returned to Hakodate from Yetorup, having spent 
six months there after being wrecked in the Snow¬ 
drop in December, 1874. No more attempts were 
made after this by foreign hunting-parties to winter 
on Yetorup. The Japanese, after the dismasting 
of the Osaka Kan in August, 1874, and the loss 
of the gunboat Tabo Kan in the following season 
on the south-western end of Yetorup, practically 
gave up the idea of trying to drive away the foreign 
hunting-vessels, which thereafter hunted without 
interference. 
The revised record of the number of skins taken 
from 1872 to 1881 would therefore appear to be as 
follows : 
