WIND AND FOG IN BERING SEA 53 



about ten miles to the entrance of Providence Bay, 

 keeping a mile off the end of Bald Head to avoid the reefs 

 there. 



Once inside the jaws, a splendid fiord opened ahead. 

 The rough, rocky sides of the hills appeared to have been 

 cleared of earth, except where delicate yellow-green grass 

 tinted the soil, filling the lower parts of many ravines. 

 Here and there snow patches persisted, even close down 

 to the water. Not a stick of timber or brush was to be 

 seen in any direction either on mountain or valley. The 

 grayish-brown mountains, flecked with ochre-colored 

 earth and dirty snow, were inhospitable and dreary in 

 their majesty. 



A few miles within the entrance we made out a half 

 dozen huts and fish-drying stands on a low sandspit to 

 starboard. This was Plover Bay; a safe anchorage except 

 in northerly gales. On we went, however, as the sun 

 dipped below the western hills, and where the fiord bent 

 to the west entered the better mooring ground of Emma 

 Harbor. 



A black steamer lay ahead. To our glasses she gave 

 no token of nationality or piu-pose, but hardly had we 

 sounded the bottom and let go a mud hook when a boat 

 put off from her and came toward us. Meanwhile a few 

 glances took in all there was to see of the tiny settlement 

 on the eastern beach. A substantial and even pretentious 

 house of squared logs, with scroll-work eaves jigged from 

 planks, sat between two other outbuildings, and was the 

 residence of Baron von Kleist, Governor of the province 

 northward to East Cape and under the Kamchatka 

 Governor. A few other hght spots indicated tents, 

 occupied by the native inhabitants. Save where the 

 harbor entrance gave a vista to the west side of Provi- 



