122 FARTHEST NORTH 



the middle of the channel I was startled by all at once 

 seeing the bottom grow light under us, and had nearly 

 run the boat on a shoal of which no one knew anything. 

 There was scarcely more than two or three feet of water, 

 and the current ran over it like a rapid river. Shoals and 

 sunken rocks abound there on every hand, especially on 

 the south side of the strait, and it required great care to 

 navifrate a vessel throu2:h it. Near the eastern mouth of 

 the strait we put into a little creek, dragged the boat up 

 on the beach, and then, taking our guns, made for some 

 high-lying land we had noticed. We tramped along over 

 the same undulating plain-land with low ridges, as we had 

 seen everywhere round the Yugor Strait. A brownish- 

 green carpet of moss and grass spread over the plain, be- 

 strewn with flowers of rare beauty. During the long, cold 

 Siberian winter the snow lies in a thick mass over the 

 tundra ; but no sooner does the sun get the better of it 

 than hosts of tiny northern flowers burst their way up 

 tlirough the fast-disappearing coating of snow and open 

 their modest calices, blushing in the radiant summer day 

 that bathes the plain in its splendor. Saxifrages with 

 large blooms, pale -yellow mountain poppies {Papavcr 

 inuiicaitlc) stand in bright clusters, and here and there 

 with bluish forget-me-nots and white cloud-berry flowers ; 

 in some boggy hollows the cotton-grass spreads its wavy 

 down carpet, while in other spots small forests of blue- 

 bells softly tingle in the wind on their upright stalks. 

 These flowers are not at all brilliant specimens, being in 



