TWO DIANAS IN ALASKA 149 



bird stood sentinel over an egg. If we made a 

 sudden noise, shouted or dropped anything heavily, 

 many birds took fright and flew into the air. The 

 whole atmosphere was thick with murres, the water 

 'dotted with them, the rocks alive with them. The 

 feeding of such an army would be almost impossible, 

 one would think, to any ocean. And yet they mul- 

 tiply and multiply. Nothing checks the numbers 

 save the inadequate supply of nesting-places, and of 

 that a murre craves but three inched. The torrent 

 of sound from this hatchery waS almost deafening, 

 and every bird seemed to contribute to the general 

 Hin by uttering a weird crooning cry. 



The Bering Sea is not a sea to be trifled with, 

 and he who sails over it should have time unlimited 

 at his disposal, for you may arrange, but thS fog will 

 disarrange, you may sail, but stress of weather forces 

 you to anchor. Our captain appeared quite in- 

 different lo the multitudinous dangers of the coast, 

 and his small craft seemed to him as safe as a 

 Cunar3er. 



Familiarity must kindly breed contempt in sailors 

 more than in any other race of men, I think. Surely 

 it must be habit which permits a sailor to be so 

 absolutely fearless anH disregardless. Captain Clem- 

 sen once told me he would be very much afraid 

 to face an Alaskan bear, and wondered how on earth 

 we did it. He reminded me of a comical drawing I 

 once saw In an American journal, which depicted 

 a workman standing on a steel shaft three hundred 

 feet in the air, over an airy network of scaffolding 



