68 
SPENCER’S JOURNAL 
started off again. Now with 130 ‘Cape Horn Otter’ skins 
(Sp. Lutria ) is on way back to Magallanes. The shooter was 
a big bearded man who never missed a shot. They had one 
small dog belonging to the captain which was a marvel with 
the otters, hunting them out of their holes and caves among 
the rocks, and never letting go of them. He is now almost 
toothless, or teeth worn down, but still as keen as ever, and 
no price would part him from his owner. The crew of three 
must have had a wild, dreary and rough time, tossing about 
and sheltering at nights in any handy cove, but seem quite 
satisfied with their haul of 130 skins. These were all of the 
smaller but better variety, real ‘Cape Horn Lutria’, which is 
getting very rare. The skins in the rough have the coarser 
upper, and finer under fur. The men say that when ‘pre¬ 
pared’, the larger, coarser ‘fur-hairs’ come away with a lower 
layer of the skin in which their roots lie, the finer fur remain¬ 
ing with the upper layer. At least they say that they peel off 
a layer of skin, and the larger hairs with it, which remark can 
only be explained on the above theory. 
May 25 , Saturday . Bought 14 skins, 6 for Jean, 8 for self, 
from Captain Ramon for (ji each (363 dollars Argentine). 
Dressed Captain’s hand. He had cut his thumb, then got 
hand very cold at sea, and after warming fingers at fire, too 
hot (frostbitten ?). Had plunged fingers into cold water, and 
they swelled up, also ‘palm’ of thumb and wrist, [so that 
hand] curled over. 
May 26 , Sunday . Ken and Alfredo Grandi left in Ken’s 
cutter, the ‘Orompello’, for Ushuaia at 9 a.m., towing the 
‘Venea’ through the Murray Channel. The ‘Venea’ to go 
straight through to Magallanes. Ken and Grandi will turn 
off to St. Rosa, where they must call on their way to Ushuaia 
Arm, and so into Three Arms Bay on North of Gordon Island, where got suitable 
beech tree for mast. Then on, and turned south through Murray Channel into open 
South Atlantic, and spent three months round the Cape Horn Islands.—Note in 
margin of A. 
