The rapid current which comes through the Strait gives a horrid look to the water, and I have never seen the sea look so vicious. The natives of the small Soya village told me that it is impossible to cross over to Sakhalin, the high mountains of which, covered with snow and glaciers, I could see distinctly. The distance from land to land is about twenty-eight miles, but no small boat can get across without being swamped. They told me also that often dead bodies of Russians are washed on shore, probably unfortunate convicts who found their death in attempting to obtain liberty. H.M.S. "Rattler" was wrecked in 1868 on one of the numerous reefs near this Cape, so the record of Soya could hardly be more mournful.
After the Cape has been well rounded one finds oneself in a bay opening due north. In the winter time this bay is completely blocked with ice, but the Strait itself is never entirely frozen, owing to the strong warm current from the Chinese Sea, which the Japanese call by the name of Kuroshiwo.
Soya village is a wretched place of thirty or forty sheds. A few planks, badly joined together, and with a kind of a roof over them, made my shelter for the night. Soya Cape is the most northern point of the north-east coast, and before we abandon it to move towards the south, along the west coast, it is important to mention the peculiar and conspicuous characteristic of the marked bending of watercourses in a south or south-easterly direction. They are forced that way by the drift-sand travelling along the coast from north-west to south-east with the Kuroshiwo current, which drift-sand is in such quantities as often to block altogether the mouths of some rivers, and form the large lagoons so common along this coast. The lack of harbours or sheltered anchorages, the inhospitable and unfertile shores, the quicksands, and the severe climate, besides the danger of being swamped and carried away by the overflow of a lagoon or lake, make this coast of little attraction for intending settlers or for pleasure-seekers.
Herrings are plentiful all along the coast, but fishing stations could not possibly pay, even if any were established, owing to the difficulty and expense of carriage and freight, and the risk that ships would run in calling at such exposed and unprotected shores.
AINU VILLAGE ON THE EAST COAST OF YEZO.
MASHIKE MOUNTAIN.