FROM SAN FRANCISCO TO ST. LAWRENCE BAY. 101 



was the sum and substance of the information, and al- 

 though I questioned the man carefully and repeatedly 

 I could learn nothing further, while the same story was 

 each time repeated in detail. I can account for our 

 not hearing of the arrival of Noi'denskjold, at some 

 place in civihzation up to our departure from San Fran- 

 cisco, only on the ground of his being obliged to sail 

 the whole distance to Japan, which is a likely enough- 

 supposition. 



I landed and strolled over the sand -spit, dignified 

 with the name of Lutke's Island. 

 Here and there were skeletons 

 of whales' heads, bones of wal- 

 ruses, etc.; and I saw what seemed 



to be a grave, without, how- Bone Harpoon Heads 



ever, any mark beyond nine small stones laid in the 

 sand, in this shape : — 



o o o 



o o o 







When we anchored, large numbers of ducks seemed to 

 make this sand-spit a resting-place, and several of them 

 with their little families swam around us. But the ship 

 and ourselves seemed to frighten them immediately 

 away, for not one duck was to be found on the island, 

 and the mother ducks and their young paddled away 

 incontinently. A small pond in the centre of the spit 

 was resorted to by small birds like snipe, and Mr. New- 

 comb shot several to add to his collection. The natives 



quist specially devoting himself to the study of their language, and that 

 with such zeal and success that in a fortnight he could make himself pretty 

 well understood. The natives stated to De Long, in the autumn of 1879, 

 that a person on the 'man-of-war,' which wintered on the North Coast, 

 spoke Chuckch exceedingly well." — A. E. Nordenskjold's The Voyage 

 of the Vega, p. 369. 



