BERING SEA— THE ALEUTS. 



271 



line ft-om the promontory of Aliaska to Kamchatka, are situated the Pribilow 

 Islands, St. George and 6t. Paul, which are celebrated in the history of the fur- 

 trade, the former as the chief breeding-place of the sea-bear, the latter as that 

 of the sea-lion. Chamisso was struck with their wintry aspect, for here no 

 sheltered valleys and lowlands promote, as at Unalaska, a more vigorous veg- 

 etation. The rounded backs of the hills and the scattered rocks are covered 

 with black and gray lichens ; and where the melting snows alford a sufficient 

 moisture, sphagnum, mosses, and a few weeds occupy the marshy ground. The 

 frozen earth has no springs, and yet these desolate islands have a more south- 

 erly situation than the Orkneys, where barley grows to ripeness. Before 

 these islands were discovered by the Russians they had been for ages the un- 

 disturbed home of the sea-birds and the large cetacean seals. Under Russian 

 superintendence, some Aleuts have now been settled on both of them. The 

 innumerable herds of sea-lions, which cover the naked shores of St. George 

 as far as the eye can reach, present a strange sight. The guillemots have 

 taken possession of the places unoccupied by their families and fly fearlessly 

 among them, or nestle in the crevices of the wave-worn rock-walls, or between 

 the large boulders which form a bank along the strand. 



Still farther to the north lies the uninhabited island of St. Matthew (62° 

 N. lat.). A settlement was once attempted ; but as the animals which had 

 been reckoned upon for the winter supply of food departed, the unfortunate 

 colonists all died of hunger. 



Fogs are so frequent about the island of St. Laurence that navigators have 

 often passed close by it (65° N". lat.) without seeing it, Chamisso was sur- 

 prised at the beauty and the numbers of its dwarfish flowering herbs, which 

 reminded him of the highlands of Switzerland, while the neighboring St. 

 Laurence Bay, in the land of the Tchuktchi, was the image of wintry desola- 

 tion. In July the lowlands were covered wdth snow-fields, and the few plants 

 bore the Alpine character in the most marked degree. Under this inclement 

 sky, the mountains, unprotected by vegetation, rapidly fall into decay. Every 

 winter splits the rocks, and the summer torrents carry the fragments down to 

 their feet. The ground is everywhere covered with blocks of stone, unless 

 where the sphagnum, by the accumulation of its decomposed remains, has 

 formed masses of peat in the swampy lowlands. 



On sailing through Bering's Straits, the traveller may see, in clear weather, 

 both the Old and the N^ew World. On both sides rise high mountains, pre- 

 cipitously from the water's edge in Asia, but separated from the sea by a 

 broad alluvial belt on the American side. The sea is deepest on the Asiatic 

 border, where the current, flowing from the south with considerable rapidity, 

 has also the greatest force. Here also whales may be often seen, and large 

 herds of walruses. 



In former times the baidar of the Esquimaux was the only boat ever seen 

 in the straits, and since Semen Deshnew, who first sailed round the eastern 

 point of Asia, European navigators had but rarely passed them to explore the 

 seas beyond ; but recently this remotest part of the world has become the 

 scene of an active whale-fishery. 



