from Dawson to St. Michaels would have been a pleasure trip. It
was far from that with us, owing to the Spanish-American war and
certain other reasons. The commercial company which charged us $300
for transportation had two steamers at Dawson. It held them there
long enough to give us the questionable satisfaction of seeing the
steamer of the rival company, which had been delayed in coming up
the river from its winter quarters, arrive and cut prices before our
steamer, having room for seventy-five passengers, and one hundred and
seventy-five on board, started on ahead of her sister steamer. We were
to act as a reconnoitering force or a buffer, or whatever you choose,
for the sister steamer, which had a dozen lonely, armed passengers and
$2,500,000 in dust on board, with a view to saving her treasure from a
Spanish privateer if one were waiting for us at the mouth of the river,
as rumor from the outside said. Therefore, one hundred passengers had
to sleep on the floor of the dining-room or on the lower deck among the
Indians and the piles of firewood.
[Illustration: A Dawson Good-by.]
Except when we ate, and when the steamer poked its bow into the sand
in front of some piles of fire-wood on the bank, we could be fairly
comfortable lounging on the decks. For the eleven days which the
journey occupied, we had one tablecloth for three sittings at each
meal. As the miners had a general disregard for the utility of
dishes for holding things, the cloth did not preserve its original
color, even in spots, for more than two days. Our food was bad rice,
bad bacon and bread, and old canned roast beef, which, however, did
not count, as we could not eat it. If the company had only allowed
us to use our fingers instead of forks and knives which men who were
“working their fare” out as waiters washed indifferently, I should have
been much happier. By July, moreover, the little mosquitoes were out.
They, and not the big ones which come early in the season, understand
flying straight to the mark with rigid lance. They bit the Indians as
well as the white men, but to no purpose so far as making them hurry
in bringing on the wood. As soon as the steamer was in midstream, the
buzzing mists, which could be resisted only by the finest netting drawn
over the head, disappeared.
Our principal stops in the eighteen hundred miles were at Forty Mile
and Circle City, where the deserted cabins were being once more
occupied and there was a chance that the old claims, which were good
for their day, would be worked again, and of a recrudescence of the
boom; and at Minook, where important discoveries had been made in the
past winter. But we stopped also at every little Indian village--to
please the Indians, one presumed--where the inhabitants came out to
meet us in their light canoes and wanted to sell furs and trinkets. At
many of these villages there were mission houses. We had on board a
Russian priest, who had come up on the steamer from Anvik and was now
returning. He was bold enough to say that he thought he needed this
little recreation after having been two years alone among the Indians.
We had left behind the great mountains below Dawson, we had seen the
midnight sun across the vast stretches of flats below Circle City, and
were just congratulating ourselves that our Indian pilot had led us
through the last of the many shallow channels in the flats, when we
ran on a sandbar. Our mate and his Indian crew labored for twenty-four
hours before we were off. The next day a hog chain broke and our
engines were helpless. For the rest of the distance to St. Michaels we
were towed by the steamer which carried the treasure and had the misery
of seeing the fellows who had started two days after us and paid less
fare pass us on the steamer of the rival company.
At St. Michaels we met three or four thousand pilgrims who were
going into the Klondyke by the all-water route. They had bought
transportation for themselves and outfits of new companies which had
attempted to tow flotillas of river steamers built in Seattle to St.
Michaels. Almost invariably the river steamers had been lost at sea
between Seattle and Unalaska, and those who depended upon them for
transportation to Dawson were only better off than others who had
attempted the journey on decrepit sailing vessels that had gone to
the bottom. It was a little unkind of our passengers, while we waited
for transfer to an ocean steamer, to enjoy setting before them in the
bluntest phrase an exaggerated account of the desperate condition of
all the newcomers in Dawson.
Behring Sea was placid as a lake when we crossed it. After two days
for coaling at Unalaska and after five days on the Pacific, we entered
Puget Sound on the morning of July 19th. Everyone on board was thinking
of the steaks and the fruit that he would eat that evening for dinner.
The old-timers, who had heretofore resented the steward’s requests that
they should not expectorate on the decks, were a little ill at ease
at the prospect of the social restraint of civilization. Civilization
offers many advantages over Dawson or Circle City for spending a
fortune, to be sure, but such of the old-timers as were destined to
become poor again--and the majority were, I think--would no doubt
return to the pick and the pan as a wanderer returns home.
THE END.
_BOOKS ON OUR NEW POSSESSIONS_
COMMERCIAL CUBA
A Book for Business Men
By WILLIAM J. CLARK
With 8 maps, 7 plans of cities, and 40 full-page illustrations, and a
Commercial Directory of Cuba. Large 8vo, $4.00
“A thoroughly good and useful book. We should not know where to
find within another pair of covers so much and so carefully sifted
information bearing on this subject. Mr. Clark’s painstaking account of
the railway and telegraph systems; of highways and harbors; of rivers
and water supplies, and lighthouses; of sugar and tobacco growing; and
his detailed description of each province and of every city of any
size, together with a ‘business directory’ for the whole island, make
his book one of great value for reference as well as for practical
guidance. In the present situation of Cuban affairs it should command
a wide sale. Its accuracy is certainly of a high order.”--New York
_Evening Post_.
YESTERDAYS IN THE PHILIPPINES
By JOSEPH EARLE STEVENS
With 32 full-page illustrations from photographs by the author.
_Seventh thousand._ 12mo, $1.50
“With the observant and indulgent eye of an old traveller, Mr. Stevens
has seen everything in the islands worth seeing, and has described what
he has seen in a most interesting manner.... All is set forth by the
narrator in a breezy, chatty way that would be entertaining under any
circumstances.”
--Philadelphia _Evening Telegraph_.
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, NEW YORK
_THE WAR ON SEA AND LAND_
THE CUBAN AND PORTO RICAN CAMPAIGNS
By RICHARD HARDING DAVIS
With 117 illustrations from photographs and with 4 maps. _Twentieth
thousand._ 12mo, $1.50
“Never has a war been reported as this has been, and never has a
history been written like this, by one who saw it all--while the blood
was hot and the memory vivid.”--New York _World_.
“This is much the most vivid and readable of all the books on the
war that have appeared so far, and it is full of life and color and
incidents that show the sort of stuff of which our soldiers were made.
The book is written with a keenness, a vivacity, a skill and a power
to thrill and to leave an impression which mark a decided advance over
anything that even Mr. Davis has written heretofore.”--Boston _Herald_.
OUR NAVY IN THE WAR WITH SPAIN
By JOHN R. SPEARS
_Author of “The History of Our Navy”_
With 125 illustrations from photographs and with charts and diagrams.
12mo, $2.00
“Mr. Spears has plainly put his best efforts into that mighty combat,
the sea-Gettysburg of the war, the death-grapple of Cervera’s ships
and Sampson’s. His story of the action of July 3d is superb. It is
the most lucid and comprehensive description which has yet been laid
before the American people, and it is made all the more valuable by the
official chart of the ships’ courses which accompanies it. As a whole,
Mr. Spears’s book is not only true to technical details, but it is a
spirited and admirable piece of literary workmanship. It is one of the
few volumes out of the many hurriedly issued in the wake of the war
which will endure the test of time and stand as a faithful, competent
picture to future generations.”--Boston _Journal_.
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS, NEW YORK
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Perceived typographical errors have been changed.