FAR AND NEAR 



mer it is nearly always draped in fog. Our host was 

 a man not easy to turn back, and in five minutes he 

 was romping with his children again as if nothing 

 had happened. The ship's course was changed to 

 southeast, around Walrus Island ; and it did, indeed, 

 look for a while as if we had more than half a mind 

 to turn back ; but in a couple of hours we were 

 headed toward Siberia again, and went plunging 

 through the fog and obscurity with our "ferocious 

 whistle," as Professor Emerson characterized it, 

 tearing the silence and our sleep alike to tatters. 

 The next day, the 10th, we hoped to touch at the 

 Island of St. Matthew, but we missed it in the thick 

 obscurity and searching for it was hazardous, so we 

 went again northward. 



The fog continued on the 11th till nearly noon, 

 when we ran into clear air and finally into sunshine, 

 and in the early afternoon the coast of Siberia lay 

 before us like a cloud upon the horizon, — Asia at 

 last, crushed down there on the rim of the world as 

 though with the weight of her centuries and her cruel 

 Czar's iniquities. As we drew near, her gray, crum- 

 bling, decrepit granite bluffs and mountains, streaked 

 with snow, helped the illusion. This was the Old 

 World indeed. Our destination w^as Plover Bay, 

 where at six in the afternoon w^e dropped anchor 

 behind a long, crescent-shaped sandspit that put 

 out from the eastern shore. On this sandspit was an 

 Eskimo encampment of skin-covered huts, which 



108 



