A shooting trip to Kamchatka . and that fish had replaced bread. On the i8th of June we were steadily advancing overa smooth sea, some sixty miles east of the first we were supposed to be in the warm Kuro-sivo current, the temperature was cold, and there wasno land in sight. On the rippling surface of the oceangreat numbers of whales spouted around us. One ofthe mates related his six years experiences on a whalerin the Sea of Okhotsk, For years these seas had beenscoured by American whalers, and entirely monopo-lised by them, when an enterprising Russian navalofficer. Count Ka
A shooting trip to Kamchatka . and that fish had replaced bread. On the i8th of June we were steadily advancing overa smooth sea, some sixty miles east of the first we were supposed to be in the warm Kuro-sivo current, the temperature was cold, and there wasno land in sight. On the rippling surface of the oceangreat numbers of whales spouted around us. One ofthe mates related his six years experiences on a whalerin the Sea of Okhotsk, For years these seas had beenscoured by American whalers, and entirely monopo-lised by them, when an enterprising Russian navalofficer. Count Kaiserling, succeeded in obtaining thisimportant monopoly from his Government, togetherwith a concurrent prohibition for foreigners. He had 82 A SHOOTING TRIP TO KAMCHATKA fitted out several ships, one of which had been en-trusted to the first mate of the Baikal. But such werethe hardships and dangers encountered from frequentstorms during- the winter months, that my informanthad given up the tasls: for a more comfortable A WHALER. Nevertheless, he said, whaling was a fine sport, andmany a whale had been harpooned by him and towedalongside his ship. The harpoon which he used wasfired from a gun, with a dynamite shell attached to it,which exploded in the whales body. Sperm whaleswere very uncommon, most of those met with beingof a smaller kind. A NORTH PACIFIC FOG 83 The following day we entered a dense fog, andalthough a fresh southerly breeze blew steadily, ithardly ever lifted for three days till we were withina few miles of Avatcha Bay. Now and then it wouldcreep away stealthily, allowing us a few hundredyards view ; at other times it would hang around theship and prevent us from recognising each other onboard. Our captain told us that these fogs are charac-teristic of the Northern Pacific and Okhotsk seas, andsometimes last a fortnio^ht or more durino- the summermonths. Besides endangering navigation, it rendersthe journey monotonous and uninteresting. No obser-vation
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