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The rain and fog continued for several days more. The blurred coastline of Kamchatka stretched out like a twisting eel. The Hakko Mara dropped anchor four miles out at sea—up to three miles were Russian waters, and so it was forbidden to go within those limits.

When the nets had been untangled, all necessary preparations were made for fishing for crabs. In Kamchatka the sun rose about two o’clock and so the fishermen, all ready dressed, even to long gumboots, reaching up to their thighs, sat themselves in the cases for the crabs and dropped off to sleep.

Deluded by the agent and brought here all the way from Tokyo, the party of students grumbled among themselves that they hadn’t expected it would be like this.

“A nice tale he spun us, that we’d all sleep separately.”

There were seventeen or eighteen students. It had been settled that they receive sixty yen each in advance, but out of that came train fare, lodging on the way, blankets and bedding and the agent’s commission, so that finally when they arrived at