FAR AND NEAR 



caught during the summer out of the surroun(h*ng 

 waters. Each island contained several hundred 

 acres, mostly covered with spruce. Upon the subject 

 of profits he could not yet speak, as the enterprise 

 was new. We here saw our first Eskimo. He came 

 paddling toward our ship in a double kyak, and as 

 our naphtha launch circled about him, he had an 

 amused, childish look. 



We put a party ashore to spend a couple of days 

 hunting and collecting. After the Sunday evening 

 service, the sun was still glowing upon the distant 

 white peaks, and a dozen or more of us seized the 

 occasion to go ashore and walk in the long twilight 

 upon the strange land. How novel and bewitching it 

 all was! The open meadow-like expanse near the 

 beach proved to be tundra, — wet, spongy, mossy, 

 grassy, and full of wild flowers, the most conspicu- 

 ously beautiful of which was the shooting-star or 

 dodecatheon. Our collectors had pitched their tents 

 near the log cabin of two prospectors, on a point of 

 land at the mouth of a clear, rapid stream. The her- 

 mit thrush sang in the forest close by ; the stream 

 sang, and the air under the shadow of the mountain 

 was pervaded with a strange peace and charm. The 

 only singing that was not so agreeable was that of the 

 mosquitoes, but amid such scenes petty annoyances 

 are soon forgotten. One of the prospectors, a brisk 

 little man, whose clean, snug cabin we \asited, was 

 born near North Cape in Norway. He had been 



72 



