CHAPTER XIY. 
Passage tliroiigli Bebrlng’s Straits—Arrival at Nunamo—Scarce species of 
seal—Eich vegetation—Passage to America—State of the ice—Port 
Clarence—The Eskimo-—Ketnrn to Asia—Konyam Bay—Natural cmT^ 
ditions there—The ice breaks up in the interior of Konyam Bay—St. 
Lawrence Island—Preceding visits to the Island—Departure to Behring 
Island. 
After we had passed the easternmost promontory of Asia, 
the course was shaped first to St. Lawrence Bay, a not incon¬ 
siderable fjord, which indents the Chukch peninsula a little 
south of the smallest part of Behring’s Straits. It was my 
intention to anchor in this fjord as long as possible, in order 
to give the naturalists of the Vega expedition an opportunity 
of making acquaintance with the natural conditions of a part 
of Chukch Land which is more favoured by nature than the 
bare stretch of coast completely open to the winds of the Polar 
Sea, which we hitherto had visited. I would willingly have 
stayed first for some hours at Diomede Island, the market-place 
famed among the Polar tribes, situated in the narrowest part of 
the Straits, nearly half-way between Asia and America, and 
probably before the time of Columbus a station for traffic be¬ 
tween the Old and the IsTew Worlds. But such a delay would 
have been attended with too great difficulty and loss of time in 
consequence of the dense fog which prevailed here on the 
boundary between the warm sea free from drift-ice and the cold 
sea filled with drift-ice. 
