When we left Pitlekaj, vegetation there was still far from having reached its full development, but at Nunamo the strand-bank was gay with an exceedingly rich magnificence of colour. On an area of a few acres Dr. Kjellman collected here more than a hundred species of flowering plants, among which were a considerable number that he had not before seen on the Chukch Peninsula. Space does not permit me to give another list of plants, but in order that the reader may have an idea of the great difference in the mode of growth which the same species may exhibit under the influence of different climatal conditions, I give here a drawing of the Alpine whitlow grass (Draba alpina, L.) from St. Lawrence Bay. It would not, perhaps, be easy to recognise in this drawing the species delineated on page 341 of vol. i,; the globular form which the plant assumed on the shore of Cape Chelyuskin exposed to the winds of the Polar Sea, has here, in a region protected from them, completely disappeared.
At the rocky headlands there were still, however, considerable snowdrifts, and from the heights we could see that considerable masses of ice were still drifting along the Asiatic side of Behring's Straits. During an excursion to the top of one of the neighbouring mountains, Dr. Stuxberg found the corpse of a native laid out on a stone-setting of the form common among the Chukches. Alongside the dead man lay a broken percussion gun, spear, arrows, tinder-box, pipe, snow-shade, ice-sieve, and various other things which the departed was considered to be in want of in the part of the Elysian fields set apart for Chukches. The corpse had lain on the place at least since the preceding summer, but the pipe was one of the clay pipes that I had caused to be distributed among the natives. It had thus been placed there long after the proper burial.
Anxious as I was to send off soon from a telegraph station some re-assuring lines to the home-land, because I feared that a general uneasiness had already begun to be felt for the fate of the Vega, I would willingly have remained at this place, so important and interesting in a scientific point of view, at least for some days, had not the ice-belts and ice-fields drifting about in the offing been so considerable that if a wind blowing on land had risen unexpectedly, they might readily have been dangerous to our vessel, which even now was anchored in a completely open road, for the splendid haven situated farther in in St. Lawrence Bay was still covered with ice, and consequently inaccessible. On the afternoon of 21st July, accordingly, when all were assembled on board pleased and delighted with the results of the morning visit to land, I ordered the anchor to be weighed that the Vega might steam across to the American side of Behring's Straits. As in all the Polar seas of the northern hemisphere, so also here, the eastern side of the Straits was ice-bestrewn, the western, on the other hand, clear of ice. The passage was at all events a rapid one, so that by the afternoon of the 21st July we were able to anchor in Port Clarence, an excellent haven south of the westernmost promontory of Asia, Cape Prince of Wales. It was the first time the Vega anchored in a proper haven, since on the 18th August 1878 she left Actinia, Haven on Taimur Island. During the intermediate time she had been constantly anchored or moored in open roads without the least land shelter from sea, wind, and drift-ice. The vessel was, however, thanks to Captain Palander's judgment and thoughtfulness, and the ability of the officers and crew, still not only quite free from damage, but even as seaworthy as when she left the dock at Karlskrona, and we had still on board provisions for nearly a year, and about 4,000 cubic feet of coal.
Towards the sea Port Clarence is protected by a long low sandy reef, between the north end of which and the land there is a convenient and deep entrance. There a considerable river falls into the interior of the harbour, the mouth of which widens to a lake, which is separated from the outer harbour by a sandy neck of land. This lake also forms a good and spacious harbour, but its entrance is too shallow for vessels of any considerable draught. The river itself, on the contrary, is deep, and about eighteen kilometres from its mouth flows through another lake, from the eastern shore of which rugged and shattered mountains rise to a height which I estimate at 800 to 1000 metres; but it is quite possible that their height is twice as great, for in making such estimates one is liable to fall into error. South of the river and the harbour the land rises abruptly from the river bank, which is from ten to twenty metres high. On the north side, on the other hand, the bank is for the most part low, but farther into the interior the ground rises rapidly to rounded hills from 300 to 400 metres high. Only in the valleys and at other places where very large masses of snow had collected during the winter, were snow-drifts still to be seen. On the other hand, we saw no glaciers, though we might have expected to find them on the sides of the high mountains which bound the inner lake on the east. It was also clear that during the recent ages no widely extended ice-sheet was to be found here, for in the many excursions we made in different directions, among others up the river to the lake just mentioned, we saw nowhere any moraines, erratic blocks, striated rock-surfaces, or other traces of a past ice-age. Many signs, on the other hand, indicate that during a not very remote geological period glaciers covered considerable areas of the opposite Asiatic shore, and contributed to excavate the fjords there—Kolyutschin Bay, St. Lawrence Bay, Metschigme Bay, Konyam Bay, &c.
When we approached the American side we could see that the shore cliffs were formed of stratified rocks. I therefore hoped to be able, at last, to make a rich collection of fossils, something that I had no opportunity of doing during the preceding part of the voyage. But I found, on reaching them, that the stratified rocks only consisted of crystalline schists without any traces of animal or vegetable remains. Nor did we find on the shore any whale-bones or any of the remarkable mammoth-bearing ice-strata which were discovered in the bay situated immediately north of Behring's Straits, which was named after Dr. Eschscholz, medical officer during Kotzebue's famous voyage.[346]
Immediately after the anchor fell we were visited by several very large skin boats and a large number of kayaks. The latter were larger than the Greenlanders', being commonly intended for two persons, who sat back to back in the middle of the craft. We even saw boats from which, when the two rowers had stepped out, a third person crept who had lain almost hermetically sealed in the interior of the kayak, stretched on the bottom without the possibility of moving his limbs, or saving himself if any accident should happen. It appeared to be specially common for children to accompany their elders in kayak voyages in this inconvenient way.
After the natives came on board a lively traffic commenced, whereby I acquired some arrow-points and stone fishing-hooks. Anxious to procure as abundant material as possible for
