can't see existing directory on remote machine

[ken]

My emacs has a file loaded which resides in a directory on a remote
(Linux) machine.  If from within that file's buffer window I run "C-x
C-d RETURN" (to show the files in that directory, Emacs throws an error:

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (file-missing "Setting current directory"
"No such file or directory" "/remo:~/dir/dir2/")
  call-process("/bin/bash" nil t nil "-c" "\\ls -d -CF -- ")
  #f(compiled-function (arg1 arg2 &optional arg3 arg4) #<bytecode
0x1fe9634981e3>)("/remo:~/dir/dir2/" "-CF" t nil)
  ls-lisp--insert-directory(#f(compiled-function (arg1 arg2 &optional
arg3 arg4) #<bytecode 0x1fe9634981e3>) "/remo:~/dir/dir2/" "-CF" t nil)
  apply(ls-lisp--insert-directory #f(compiled-function (arg1 arg2
&optional arg3 arg4) #<bytecode 0x1fe9634981e3>) ("/remo:~/dir/dir2/"
"-CF" t nil))
  insert-directory("/remo:~/dir/dir2/" "-CF" t nil)
  list-directory("/remo:~/dir/dir2/" nil)
  funcall-interactively(list-directory "/remo:~/dir/dir2/" nil)
  call-interactively(list-directory nil nil)
  command-execute(list-directory)

When logged into that remote machine and cd'd into that same directory,
the bash command in the second line of the debugger output yields this:

$ ls -d -CF --
./

I restarted emacs, but that changed nothing.

When I try to open a new or an existing file in that directory, emacs
prompts, offering to create the directory and its parent. 

The emacs version, the latest available in this distro, is 27.1, release
4.1.