FAR AND NEAR 



never felt so much like a goose before in his life. The 

 birds and flowers found were about the same as 

 those we had already seen. 



Not many years ago there were on St. Lawrence 

 Island many encampments of Eskimos, embracing 

 several hundred people. Late one autumn some, 

 whalers turned up there with the worst kind of whis- 

 key, with which they wrought the ruin of the na- 

 tives, persuading them to exchange most of their 

 furs and other valuables for it, and leaving them so 

 debauched and demoralized that nearly all perished 

 of cold and hunger the following winter. Village 

 after village was found quite depopulated, the people 

 lying dead in their houses. 



HALL AND ST. MATTHEW ISLANDS 



From St. Lawrence Island our course was again 

 through fog to St. Matthew Island, which we missed 

 on our way up, and which we now found late in the 

 afternoon of the next day. Our first stop was at Hall 

 Island, which once probably formed a part of St. 

 Matthew, but is now separated from it only by a nar- 

 row strait. This was our first visit to uninhabited 

 land, and to a land of such unique grace and beauty 

 that the impression it made cannot soon be forgotten, 

 — a thick carpet of moss and many-colored flowers 

 covering an open, smooth, undulating country that 

 faced the sea in dark basaltic cliffs, some of them a 

 thousand feet high. The first thing that attracted 

 118 



