ii4 TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 



the schooner did not answer to her helm at all. As 

 it was not the moment to try conclusions, we got out 

 a dory and towed. Hard work and slow, but effective 

 enough, and by nightfall we had run the gauntlet of 

 the fog, and made the looked-for creek set in a waste 

 of tundra. 



On the greater part of the Bering Sea the low- 

 lying tundra rises from the beaches or coast line like 

 vast, rolling prairie meadows. So smooth and invit- 

 ing it looks, and yet appearances are deceptive in 

 tundras as in so many other things, and the whole 

 place is more often than not a quagmire and morass. 

 In places the marshes are really deep, in others just 

 wet and spongy. Beneath the tundra the ground is 

 for ever frozen, and only the surface thaws out each 

 year. The grassy plains in summer are gardens full 

 of blazing flowers lupines, yellow anemones, calypso 

 orchids a scheme of tints impossible to any master 

 mind save that of nature. With the dull brown for 

 background, the wonderful colours spread with lavish 

 hand in labyrinthine splendour look like a matchless 

 carpet of fairy weaving. 



Here on the tundras countless birds build their 

 nests black and red throated divers, geese, terns, 

 scoters and all the air vibrates with the numerous 

 calls. Again and again ring out the newly-acquired 

 love-notes of the golden plover, his shrill whistle 

 changed to a tender cry, alluring and joyous. In 

 solitary pairs, with chequered wings, the golden 

 plovers lighted on the grassy expanse and sang " their 

 wild notes to the listening waste." As our home 



