[Footnote 63: A bright red colour is obtained from a rock found in the interior. Green by boiling the fur in the urine of a dog. I was unable to ascertain how dark blue, the only other dye, is made.]

Next to irresponsible and armed drunkards my greatest anxiety at Whalen was caused by the medicine men, of whom there were about a score, and who never lost an opportunity of setting their patients against us. Medicine men are all-powerful here, although their treatment consists solely of spells and incantations. But the unfortunate dupes have a firm belief in these men, who are not only medical advisers, but are consulted on everything pertaining to the affairs of life, from marital differences to the price of whalebone. Billy had at one time aroused the enmity of these impostors, who naturally distrust the influence generally gained by the owner of a modern medicine chest. Our friend had landed in Siberia with a bottle of embrocation and some Cockle's pills, but even this modest pharmacopoeia had aroused the bitterest jealousy amongst the doctors at East Cape. But familiarity breeds contempt, and when Billy had gradually been reduced to the social standing of the humblest Tchuktchi the medicine men simply ignored him, and made no objection to his presence at their seances, which generally took place in the dark. Occasionally, however, the Shamans officiated in the daylight, when their skill as conjurers would, according to Billy, have eclipsed an Egyptian Hall performance. To swallow several pieces of walrus hide, and afterwards vomit forth a pair of miniature moccasins, would seem a trick beyond the powers of the untutored savage, but the whaleman often saw it accomplished. He also assisted to bind a Shaman hand and foot with walrus thongs, and in less than ten seconds the man had freed himself, although secured by knots which Billy himself could not have unravelled in a week.

My friend is probably the only white man who has ever assisted at a whale dance, which took place in a hut, dimly lit by seal oil lamps and crowded with both sexes in a state of nature, with the exception of their sealskin boots. The performance commenced with music in the shape of singing accompanied by walrus-hide drums, after which a long plank was brought in and suspended on the shoulders of four men. Upon this three women were hoisted astride, and commenced a series of wild contortions, back and forth and from side to side, not unlike the "Dance du ventre." Relays of girls continued this exercise for two or three hours, until all were exhausted, and then flesh of the whale, caught the preceding summer, was handed round by children, and washed down by floods of raw whisky, which brought the entertainment to a close for that night. The following day athletic sports were indulged in by those sufficiently sober, the owner of one hut furnishing the prizes and refreshments. This giver of the feast and his family were distinguished by faces plastered with the red paint already mentioned as being obtained from the mountains of the interior. Wrestling and racing were the chief pastimes, the prizes consisting of a cartridge, a piece of calico, or perhaps a fox skin. The women did not join in these contests, but with them a form of "tossing in a blanket" was gone through. A walrus skin perforated around with holes to give a firmer grip was held by seven or eight stalwart men, and at a given signal a girl lying in the centre was sent flying into the air, she who reached the greatest height receiving the appropriate prize of a needle or thimble. At night the dance was continued, and on this occasion a fire was kindled around which the medicine men seated themselves, mumbling incantations and casting small pieces of deer or walrus meat into the flames as a sacrifice to the evil spirits. The whale entertainment lasted for three nights, but the incidents which occurred upon the last evening are not fit for reproduction here. The whaleman, being more or less of a celebrity, had attracted the bright glances of several Tchuktchi maidens. But even when he found his affinity poor Billy's courtship was of short duration, for his ladylove, when embraced for the first time upon the lips, indignantly thrust him away and screamed for help. According to Tchuktchi customs, she had suffered an irreparable insult, the only recognised mode of kissing here being to rub noses while murmuring "Oo" for an indefinite period. This was Billy's first and last experience of love-making here, although Teneskin would gladly have welcomed a white man as a son-in-law, and without the tiresome preliminaries which generally precede a Tchuktchi marriage. For, on ordinary occasions, a man must first obtain the consent of his fiancee, then that of her parents, and when these points are settled he must reside for several months as an inmate of the girl's hut before he becomes her husband. A Tchuktchi may put a wife away on the slightest pretext, but no crime on his part entitles his wife to a divorce. A curious custom here is that of exchanging wives with a friend or acquaintance, who thereupon becomes a brother, even legally, and so far as the disposal of property is concerned.

A Tchuktchi may have as many wives as he pleases or can afford, but married life here is usually a happy one, which is probably due to the fact that a wife is never idle. Not only must she attend to the wants of the household, needlework, cooking, washing, and in winter clearing the roof of the yarat of snow, but there are hides to be tanned and deerskins to be dressed and sewn into clothing. A married woman must also pass cold and weary hours in winter watching for seal and walrus, and in summer probe the depths of boredom by fishing with a line for "Tom cod." And from a feminine point of view, there is no reward for her labours, no balls or parties, nor smart hats or gowns to excite the envy of her neighbours; all the Tchuktchi spouse can hope for being a "quid" of tobacco, so rare a luxury that it only reaches her lips when her husband has extracted most of its flavour. While smoking, the Tchuktchis, like the Yakutes, use tiny pipes; the smoke is not ejected or inhaled, but swallowed, and the rankest tobacco is so precious here that it is usually eked out with seal-hairs.

Tchuktchi-land teems with legends and superstitions of which Whalen had its full share. A rock off the coast hard by was said to sing and talk whenever a chief of the village was about to die, and the following curious legend was gravely related to me by Yemanko. Many years ago there lived at Whalen a chief with a wife so pretty that even fish were attracted to the land by her charms. Amongst the dwellers of the sea was a whale, with whom, unknown to her husband, she contracted a union. Eventually a young whale was born to the amazement of the settlement, which, regarding it as a mysterious gift from the spirits, paid the new arrival great homage. A huge tank was dug and contained the monster until it had attained its full growth, when it was marked and turned loose in the sea to decoy other whales. But the natives of Inchaun, an adjoining village, caught and killed the marked whale, which was scaring away all their fish. The Inchaun people were thereupon attacked by the Whalen men, who slaughtered every soul in their village. There is no doubt that this tribal conflict did take place some time during the eighteenth century, but I cannot say whether the murder of the marked whale was the real cause of the battle.

The Tchuktchis appeared to have no religion, and I never saw any ceremony performed suggestive of a belief in a Supreme Being, although good and evil spirits are believed to exist, and when I was at Oumwaidjik, sacrifices of seal and walrus meat were often thrown into the sea by the medicine men to abate its fury. Three men who died at Whalen during our visit were clad after death in their best deerskins and carried some distance away from the settlement, where I believe they were eventually devoured by the dogs. Several natives told me that a man who dies a violent death ensures eternal happiness, but that an easy dissolution generally means torment in the next world, which shows that the Tchuktchi has some belief in a future state. The theory that a painful death meets with spiritual compensation probably accounts for the fact that loss of life is generally regarded here with utter indifference. A ghastly ceremony I once witnessed at Oumwaidjik is a proof of this. It was called the Kamitok, in other words the sacrifice, with the full consent, of the aged and useless members of the community. When a man's powers have decreased to a depreciable extent from age, accident, or disease, a family council is held and a day and hour is fixed for the victim's departure for another world. The most curious feature of the affair is the indifference shown by the doomed one, who takes a lively interest in the preliminaries of his own execution. The latter is generally preceded by a feast where seal and walrus meat are greedily devoured and whisky is consumed until all are intoxicated. After a while the executioner, usually a near relative of the victim, steps forward, and placing his right foot against the back of the condemned, quickly strangles him with a walrus thong. Or perhaps he is shot with a Winchester rifle, this being the usual mode of despatching a friend who has asked another to put him out of the world on account, perhaps, of some trifling but troublesome ailment such as earache or neuralgia, which the sufferer imagines to be incurable.[64] And a request of this kind must be obeyed, or if not lifelong misfortune will attend the man who has refused to fire the fatal shot. Women, however, are never put to death, nor, so far as I could glean, do they ever want to be. The origin of this custom is probably due to the barren nature of this land where every mouthful of food is precious, and where a man must literally work to live.

[Footnote 64: Mr. Waldemar Bogoras, the Russian naturalist, writes as follows in Harper's Magazine of April 1903: "One of the attendants I had with me for two years while in the Kolyma country belonged to a family with a tradition of this kind. He was a man of fifty, and the father and elder brothers had already followed in the way of their ancestors [by the Kamitok]. One time, while stricken with a violent fever, instead of taking the medicine that I gave him, he inquired anxiously if I were sure that he would recover at all, otherwise he felt bound to send for his son and ask for the last stroke."—"A Strange People of the North," by Waldemar Bogoras, Harper's Magazine, April 1903.]

That the Kamitok also exists amongst the Eskimo of Alaska is shown by the following anecdote. Captain Healy, of the Revenue cutter Thetis, told me that he once inquired of a native near Point Barrow whether one Charlie he had known the previous year was still alive and in good health.

"Oh no," was the reply, "Charlie dead, I shot him."

"Shot him?" said Healy, taken aback. "What did you do that for?"

"Oh, poor Charlie sick, pains all over, he asked me shoot him, so I shot him with his own gun and kept it afterwards!"

The Tchuktchis are by no means an idle race, and whenever I entered a hut I invariably found even the youngest inmates usefully employed; the women busily engaged cooking and sewing, or cleaning and polishing firearms, while the men were away duck-shooting or hunting the seal or walrus. Sometimes we went seal-hunting with our friends, but this is poor sport, especially in damp, chilly weather. The outfit is very simple, consisting of a rifle, snowshoes and spear. A start is made at daylight until a likely-looking hole in the ice is reached, and here you sit down and wait patiently, perhaps for hours, until a seal's head appears above water, which it frequently fails to do. In warm weather this might be an agreeable occupation, but on cold days it seldom induced me to leave even the comfortless shelter of our hut. Most of the seals caught here are hair seals, which must not be confounded with the valuable fur seal, which is used in Europe for wearing apparel, and is seldom found north of the Privilov Islands in Bering Sea. The latter animal is too well known to need description, but the skin of the hair seal is a kind of dirty grey, flecked with dark spots, and is short and bristly. But it is warm and durable and therefore used by the Tchuktchis for breeches and foot wear. Recently, too, it has been introduced into Europe for the use of chauffeurs of automobiles, but ten years ago it was practically worthless; although the flesh is preferable as food to that of the more costly species.

A chase after walrus is far more exciting than either a seal or bear hunt, for their capture involves a certain risk and occasionally actual danger. As soon as one of these beasts is sighted four or five Baidaras are launched and set out at a terrific pace, for the crew of the first boat up gets the lion's share of the spoil. Winchester rifles are now used instead of the old-fashioned harpoon, so that accidents are rarer than they used to be, although boats are often upset. I have only once seen a walrus: a distorted, shapeless mass of discoloured flesh, sparsely covered with coarse bristles. The one I saw measured about ten feet long, had quite that girth, and must have weighed over a ton. Walrus meat as a diet is less repulsive than seal, for it is not so fishy in flavour and has more the consistency of beef.

We had been here about ten days when a native arrived from East Cape and reported a whaler off that headland. At Whalen the ice still presented a hopelessly unbroken appearance, but low, dark clouds to the eastward looked like open water in the direction of the Straits, and I sent Harding and Stepan, with the East Cape man, to verify his report. He was a silent, sulky brute, and I felt some anxiety until the pair returned the next day after a terrible journey, partly by land but principally over the sea ice across which they had to wade knee deep in water. For about six miles crossing the tundra they floundered in soft snow up to the waist, and finally reached their destination, wet through and exhausted, to find that the ship, probably scared by heavy pack ice, had disappeared to the southward. The natives, however, treated them well, and sent a man to accompany them half way back to Whalen, for the thaw had come so suddenly that he could proceed no further, and our companions only just managed to reach home. This was the last journey made by land between the two settlements, for which I was not sorry, as the undesirable community at East Cape were now as completely cut off from us as the pirates of Oumwaidjik. Harding informed me that at East Cape a totally different dialect was spoken to that at Whalen, but this did not surprise me, as I compiled while at Oumwaidjik a small glossary which completely differed from words in use at Whalen. The natives of the Diomede Island have also a distinctive language, of which, however, I was unable to obtain any words. A reference to the Appendix will show the difference existing between the dialects spoken on the mainland of Siberia. East of Tchaun Bay the same language existed in every village as far as Whalen. The languages spoken by the Reindeer Tchuktchis of the interior and the Eskimo of the Alaskan Coast do not in any way resemble the dialects spoken on the Siberian Coast.

By the end of June the snow on land was fast disappearing, and blue lakes began to appear amongst the white plains and hummocks of the sea. But those were weary days of waiting even when warmer weather enabled us to live altogether in our hut without taking shelter in the chief's malodorous yarat. For the former was crowded all day with natives, who used it as a kind of club, and left us souvenirs every night in the shape of a stifling stench and swarms of vermin. As time wore on the heat in our heavy furs became insupportable, but frequent and sudden changes of temperature rendered it impossible to discard them altogether. For often the sun would be blazing at midday with a temperature of 60 deg. in the shade, and a few minutes later we would be cowering over the stove listening to the howling of the wind and the rattle of sleet against the wooden walls. This would last perhaps an hour or two, and then the sky would again become blue and cloudless, the sunshine as powerful as before. One day in early June is thus described in my journal: "Clear, cloudy, warm, cold, windy, calm, sunshine, fog and a little rain!" The wind troubled us most, for here there is no happy medium between a dead calm and a tearing gale, and the latter occurred on an average every second day. Northerly and north-westerly winds prevailed, and we whistled in vain for a southerly buster to clear the coast of ice. And yet notwithstanding our many miseries there were pleasant days, still and sunlit, when I would stroll to the summit of a grassy hill near the settlement, where the sward was carpeted with wild flowers and where the soothing tinkle of many rivulets formed by melting snow were conducive to lazy reverie. From here one could see for a great distance along the coast to the westward, and on bright days the snowy range of cliffs and kaleidoscopic effects of colour cast by cloud and sunshine over the sea ice formed a charming picture. Stepan passed most of his time on these cliffs watching in vain, like a male sister Anne, for ships, for, like most Russians, the Cossack suffered severely from nostalgia.

But the days crawled wearily away, each more dreary than its predecessor, and the eternal vista of ice greeted each morning the anxious gaze of the first man up to survey the ocean. Our Union Jack, now almost torn to shreds by incessant gales, was hoisted on a long stick lent by Teneskin for the purpose, but I began to think that the shred of silk might as well have fluttered at the North Pole for all the attention it was likely to attract from seaward. So passed a month away, and the grey hag Despair was beginning to show her ugly face when one never-to-be-forgotten morning Harding rushed into the hut and awoke me with the joyful news that a thin strip of blue was visible on the horizon. A few hours later waves were seen breaking near the land, for when once ice begins to move it does so quickly. Three days later wavelets were rippling on the beach, and I felt like a man just released from a long term of penal servitude when on the 15th of July the hull of a black and greasy whaler came stealing round the point where Stepan had passed so many anxious hours.

The whaler proved to be the William Bayliss of New Bedford. We boarded her with some difficulty on account of the jagged ice floes on the beach to which she was moored. It was an acrobatic feat to jump from the slippery ice, lay hold of a jibboom towering overhead, and scramble over the bows. But once aboard, Captain Cottle loaded us with good things (including a tin of sorely-needed tobacco), and all would now have seemed couleur-de-rose had Cottle been able to give us news of the Thetis. This, however, he was unable to do, and when that night the whaler had sailed away I almost regretted that I had declined her skipper's offer of a passage across the Straits, which might, however, have been prolonged for an indefinite period as the ship was now bound in an opposite direction. That night was certainly the worst we ever experienced, for even Teneskin was rendered helpless by the pandemonium created by the floods of whisky which had streamed into the settlement from the hold of the William Bayliss. Towards evening things looked so ugly that the chief and his sons, armed with Winchester rifles, took up their quarters for the night in our hut, the door of which was barricaded by means of iron bars. Even Yemanko looked pale and anxious, for every man in the village, he said, was mad with drink. The chief's wife and daughters remained in the yarat, for a Tchuktchi however drunk has never been known to molest a woman. Singing, shouting and deafening yells were heard during the earlier part of the night, as men reeled about the settlement in bands, and occasionally our door would re-echo with crashing blows and demands for admission. This went on for two or three hours, and when things had quieted down and we were thinking of emerging from the stifling hut for fresh air, a shot rang out on the stillness. We seized our rifles, and not a moment too soon, for simultaneously the door flew open with a crash and half a dozen men reeled into the room. One of them brandished a Winchester, but I noticed with relief that the rest of the intruders were unarmed. The face of another whom I recognised as a medicine man, was streaming with blood from a wound across the forehead. Fortunately all were overcome by the fiery poison they had been greedily imbibing and were therefore as weak as children in the hands of seven sober men. In less time than it takes me to write it the invaders were firmly secured with walrus thongs and thrown out of doors to sleep the drink off. A watch was kept throughout the night in case of an attack by reinforcements, but the deadly "Tangle-foot" had done its work, and the village did not awaken until the following day from its drunken slumbers. Unfortunately a native was killed by the shot we heard.

On the morning of the 18th of July Harding and I, while walking on the beach, remarked a white cloud on the horizon, the only blur on a dazzling blue sky. Presently the vapour seemed to solidify, and assume the appearance of a floating berg, until, a few minutes after, we looked again at the object which had attracted our attention, and lo and behold a thin black thread was now ascending from it into the clear still air. "A steamer!" shouted Harding, rushing back to the hut for a field-glass. But before he could return through the deep heavy shingle doubt had become certainty and I had recognised the Revenue cutter Thetis. This is the same vessel, by the way, which rescued Lieutenant Greely and his party on the shores of Smith Sound, but I do not think even they can have been more heartily grateful to see the trim white vessel than we were.

In less than an hour our welcome deliverer had threaded her way through the ice, and we stood on the beach and watched her cast anchor about half a mile off shore. As the chains rattled cheerily through the hawse holes Stepan flew, on the wings of a light heart, to the flagstaff. I am not emotional, but I must confess to feeling a lump in my throat as the Stars and Stripes were slowly dipped in response to a salute from our ragged little Union Jack. For with the meeting of those familiar colours all my troubles seemed to vanish into thin air!

Once aboard the Thetis Harding and I, at any rate, were amongst acquaintances who had previously served on the Revenue cutter Bear. I also found an old friend, Lieutenant Cochrane, once third officer of the Bear, and now second in command of the Thetis, which made this sudden change from a life of mental and physical misery to one of security and well-being the more enjoyable. There was nothing to delay the cutter, save farewells to our kind old host and the repayment for the food with which he had provided us, and by midday we were steaming away from the dreary settlement where I had passed so many anxious hours. And then, for the first time in many weary months, we sat down in the ward-room to a decent and well-served meal and enjoyed it beyond description, for are not all pleasures in this world comparative? Success to the Expedition was drunk in bumpers of champagne, and I then adjourned to Cochrane's room for coffee and liqueurs and a talk over old days on the Bear. And the afternoon in that cosy, sunlit cabin, the blessed sensation of rest after toil combined with a luxurious lounge and delicious cigar, constituted as near an approach to "Nirvana" as the writer is ever likely to attain on this side of the grave!



PART II

AMERICA

CHAPTER XIV

ACROSS BERING STRAITS—CAPE PRINCE OF WALES

The term "cutter" is somewhat of a misnomer, if literally taken, for the Government vessels which patrol these Northern waters. The Bear, for instance, which landed us on the Siberian coast in 1896, was a three-masted screw-steamer of over 600 tons, an old Dundee whaler purchased for the United States for the Greeley Relief Expedition. The Thetis, although somewhat smaller, is practically a sister ship of the Bear, which latter is regarded as the best and stoutest vessel of the Revenue Cutter Service. And her officers and men are well worthy of her. Three or four years ago no less than eight whalers were hopelessly jammed in the ice off Point Barrow in the Arctic Ocean, and their crews were in imminent danger of starvation. The season was too far advanced for a ship to proceed to their rescue, but a party from the Bear managed to carry supplies to the beleaguered ships after a sled journey of almost unparalleled difficulty, and thereby avert a terrible catastrophe. Several of the shipwrecked men had already perished, but the majority were rescued, chiefly through the pluck and perseverance of Lieutenant Jarvis, first lieutenant of the Bear, and leader of the expedition.

The Thetis, when she called for us at Whalen, was bound on a mission of some peril—the search for two large steamers from San Francisco which, while trying to reach Nome City, had been caught in the pack and swept away by drifting ice into the Polar Sea. Both vessels were crowded with passengers, including many women, and the Thetis had already made two unsuccessful attempts to ascertain their whereabouts. Indeed, it was feared that no more would ever be heard of the Portland or Jeannie which had, as usual, been racing to reach Nome City before any rival liner from the Golden Gate.

When, on that sunlit morning, we left Whalen, a cloudless sky and glassy sea unflecked by the tiniest floe led me to hope that our troubles were at an end. Captain Healey of the Thetis had resolved to land us on Cape Prince of Wales, but when, towards evening, that promontory was sighted, my heart sank at the now familiar sight of ice packed heavily around the coast. By nine o'clock we were (to use a whaling term) "up against" the outer edge of the pack, and shortly afterwards the engines of the Thetis were slowed down, for the man in the crow's nest reported trouble ahead. And we found it in plenty, for the stout little vessel, after cleaving and crashing her way through the floes for a couple of hours, was finally brought to a standstill by an impassable barrier. We were now about six miles from the land, but an Eskimo village under the Cape was plainly visible across the swirling masses of ice which were drifting to the northward.

"I can't go in any further," cried Healey, and I now had the choice of two evils—to attempt a landing with the aid of the natives, or remain on board the Thetis perhaps for weeks searching for the Portland and Jeannie.[65] But I quickly decided on the former course, and a signal was run up for assistance from the shore, which was quickly seen by a crowd of natives assembled on the beach. To add to our difficulties a breeze, which had arisen towards evening, was now assuming the proportions of a southerly gale, and Healey impatiently paced the deck, as he watched the Eskimo launch a baidara, and cautiously approach us, now threading narrow leads of water, now hauling their skin-boat across the drifting ice.

[Footnote 65: Both these vessels were eventually rescued without loss of life.]

Finally, after a perilous journey, they reached us, and without a moment's delay the expedition was bundled, bag and baggage, into the baidara, for the position of the Thetis was now not devoid of danger. Amidst hearty cheers from those on board, we pushed off with some misgivings, while the cutter slowly veered away northward on her errand of mercy. I shall never forget that short, but extremely unpleasant journey. At times it seemed as though our frail craft must be overwhelmed and swamped, for it was now blowing a gale. Every moment huge cakes of ice around us were dashed against each other, and splintered into fragments with a report as of a gun. We made way so slowly that the shore seemed to recede instead of to advance, for often boat and baggage had to be hauled across the floes which now travelled so quickly with the wind and tide that it seemed as though we must be carried past our destination and into the Arctic Ocean. Sometimes it looked as though we could never reach the coast, for—

"The ice was here, the ice was there, The ice was all around, It cracked and growled, and roared and howled Like noises in a swound."

At times the ice-islands we were crossing were tossed to and fro by the waves so violently that it became almost impossible to stand, much less walk, on their slippery surface; at others, while all were paddling for dear life, a towering berg would sail down in perilous proximity, for its touch would have sunk our skin boat like a stone. Once I thought it was all over, when a floe we were on became detached from the main pack, and there was barely time to regain the latter by quickly leaping from one cake of ice to the other as the waves and current tore them apart. It took us four hours to reach land, or rather the foot-ice securely attached to it, and here, worn out after the tough struggle against the forces of nature, every man took a much-needed rest. It was not until 7 A.M. on June 19 that our feet actually touched the soil of America, six months to a day after our departure from the Gare du Nord, Paris.

Cape Prince of Wales is a rocky, precipitous promontory about 2000 ft. high, which stands fully exposed to the furious winds, prevalent at all times on this connecting link between Bering Sea and the Arctic Ocean. Why Bering Straits should be so known remains a mystery, for the explorer of that name only sailed through them in the summer of 1728, while Simeon Deschnev, a Cossack, practically discovered them in the middle of the seventeenth century.[66] Captain Cook, of British fame, who passed through the Straits in 1778, is said to be responsible for the nomenclature, which seems rather an unjust one, but perhaps the intrepid English navigator had never heard of Deschnev.

[Footnote 66: "On June 20, 1648, Simeon Deschnev, a Cossack trader, sailed from the River Kolyma for the eastward to trade for ivory with the Tchuktchis. His party sailed in three small shallops drawing but little water. After a while the known waters behind them closed up with floes, rendering a return to the Kolyma impossible, but the unknown wastes ahead were open, and invited exploration. Hugging the coast, Deschnev sailed through the Bering Straits, landing there in September. He called the Siberian shore an isthmus, and described the Diomede Islands, which he plainly saw. Although no mention is made by this party of having seen the American continent, it was probably observed by them, for Cape Prince of Wales can easily be seen on a clear day from the Asiatic side. Deschnev's voyage was quite forgotten until discovered by accident amongst some old records in 1774.

"Only in August, 1728, did Bering sail through here, going a short distance into the Arctic Ocean, but returning without giving any sign of the importance of the pass, or its nature, and believing, most likely, that what land he saw on the eastern side was a mere island, and not the great American continent. Captain Cook, who came third, made no mistake, for he fully realised that the division of the two hemispheres was here affected, and gave to these straits the name of Bering, August 1778."—"An Arctic Province," by H. W. Elliott.]

The Eskimo settlement which nestles at the foot of Cape Prince of Wales is known as Kingigamoot, and contains about 400 souls. The place looked infinitely drearier and more desolate than the filthy Tchuktchi village which had been our home for so many weary weeks, and it seemed to me at first as though we had stepped, like the immortal Mr. Winkle in "Pickwick," "quietly and comfortably out of the frying-pan into the fire." For our welcome on the shores of America was a terrific gale, and driving sleet against which we could scarcely make headway from the spot where a landing was effected to the village, a distance of perhaps a mile, which took us an hour to accomplish. It was barely eight o'clock, and no one was yet stirring in the settlement, which is only visible a short distance away, for the Eskimo, unlike the Tchuktchis, dwell under the ground.

The sight of a wooden house with glass windows considerably enlivened the dismal and storm-swept landscape, and we made our way to this solitary haven, which proved to be the residence of Mr. Lopp, an American missionary. His home, though snug enough, was too small to contain more inmates, being already occupied by its owner's wife and family, but an empty shed adjoining it was placed at our disposal, and our hospitable friend bustled about to make it as cosy as possible for our reception. The place was cold, pitch dark, and draughty, being only used as a store-house, but by mid-day our tent was pitched inside the building, and a fire was burning merrily in a small stove cleverly fixed up by the missionary, whose kindly assistance was very welcome on this bleak and barren shore. Food is scarce enough here, and had it not been for these good friends in need, we should indeed have fared badly, having landed with but few provisions. But although they could ill afford it, the missionary and school teacher, Mrs. Bernardi, gave freely from their scanty store, thereby rendering us a service which I can never adequately repay.

Nome City was now our objective point, but how to reach it by land was a puzzler, the hundred odd miles of country being flooded by melting snow. Two or three wide rivers must also be crossed, which at this season of the year are often swollen and impassable. It was clearly useless to think of walking, so there was nothing for it but to wait for some passing craft to take us down, a rather gloomy prospect, for whalers were now entering the Arctic, and few other vessels get so far north as this. We were lucky to find a white man at Cape Prince of Wales, for the natives would certainly have afforded us no assistance, and might, indeed, have been actually unfriendly without the firm and restraining hand of Mr. Lopp to keep them in order. A wide and varied experience of savage races has seldom shown me a more arrogant, insolent, and generally offensive race than the Alaskan Eskimo, at any rate of this portion of the country. The Tchuktchis were infinitely superior in every respect but perhaps cleanliness, which, after all, matters little in these wilds. With all their faults our Whalen friends were just and generous in their dealings, though occasionally disquieting during their periods of festivity. The Eskimo we found boorish and surly at all times, and the treachery of these people is shown by the fact that a few years previously they had brutally murdered Mr. Lopp's predecessor by shooting him with a whale-gun. A monument on the cliff facing the Straits bears the following inscription:

HARRISON R. THORNTON, born January 5, 1858, died August 19, 1893. A good soldier of Christ Jesus. Erected by friends in Southport, Conn.

It is satisfactory to note that the cowardly assassins met with their deserts, for the usual excuse of intoxication could not be pleaded for this foul and deliberate crime.

Although many of the Prince of Wales natives were fairly well educated, thanks to missionary enterprise, the Tchuktchis could certainly have taught them manners, for the latter is a gentleman by nature, while the Eskimo is a vulgar and aggressive cad. Thanks, however, to the untiring zeal and energy of Mr. Lopp, the younger generation here were a distinct improvement upon their elders, and the small school conducted by Mrs. Bernardi had produced several scholars of really remarkable intelligence. Amongst these were the publisher and printer of the most curious little publication I have ever seen, The Eskimo Bulletin, a tiny newspaper which is annually published here by the aid of a small printing-press belonging to the missionary. The illustrations were engraved solely by the natives, and were, under the circumstances, very creditable productions. The advertisements in this unique little journal are suggestive of a fair sized town, whereas Kingigamoot resembled a collection of sand-hills, the only visible signs of civilisation being the rather dilapidated huts of the mission.

The ten days we remained here seemed fully as long, if not longer, than the five weeks we had passed at Whalen for the sun only made his appearance twice, for a couple of hours each time, during the whole period of our stay. Most of our time was passed in the cold draughty hut, for it was impossible to face the gales and dense fogs which succeeded each other with startling rapidity, while on gusty days clouds of fine gritty sand would fill the eyes, mouth, and nostrils, causing great discomfort. There is probably no place in the world where the weather is so persistently vile as on this cheerless portion of the earth's surface. In winter furious tempests and snow, in summer similar storms, accompanied by rain, sleet, or mist, are experienced here five days out of the seven. If by accident a still, sunlit day does occur, it is called a "weather-breeder," for dirtier weather than before is sure to be lurking behind it. A howling south-wester on the English coast would be looked upon here as a moderate gale. While walking on the beach one day I was lifted clean off my feet by the wind, although the day was locally called rather a pleasant one.

One would think that this storm-swept, grey-skied region would discourage even the natives after a time and make them pine for a more congenial climate. But to the native of even this bleak and desolate coast there is no place like home. Mr. Elliott, a reliable authority on the subject, writes that cases have come under his notice where whalers have carried Eskimo down to the Sandwich Islands (the winter whaling ground) under an idea that these people would be delighted with the warm climate, fruits and flowers, and be grateful for the trip. But in no instance has an individual of this hyperborean race failed to sigh for his Arctic home after landing at Hawaii. Nor is this nostalgia of the frozen north confined to its aboriginal inhabitants, for most explorers who return from its fastnesses experience sooner or later a keen desire to return. And the majority do so, obedient to an invisible influence as unerring as that of a toy magnet over its fish.

I had little opportunity of studying the manners and customs of the natives while at Kingigamoot. Outwardly the Eskimo differs little from the Tchuktchi, that is, so far as costume is concerned, but the physiognomy and languages essentially differ. That the former is fully as filthy even if more civilised in other ways than the latter I can, from personal experience, testify. Also that the introduction of Christianity has failed to eradicate the love for strong drink, which was quite as prevalent here as at Whalen, although more cunningly concealed. An American explorer, Mr. Eugene McElwaine, who recently travelled extensively throughout these regions, gleaned the following facts, which may interest the reader, but which I am unfortunately unable to furnish from my own personal experience. He writes:

"The average Eskimo is very uncleanly in his personal habits and domestic customs, but is always willing to be taught habits of cleanliness, and is even anxious to change his mode of living when brought to realise its inferiority or repulsiveness. He recognises the white man to be his superior, and his inclination is to better his condition.

"The Eskimo's knowledge of the past is vague and indefinite. Their time is computed by the revolutions of the moon, their distances when travelling by 'sleeps,' and they measure a 'yard' by the length between the two hands with arms stretched horizontally. The Eskimo believe in a power that rewards the good and punishes the bad, indicating by gestures that the former go above and the latter below after death. They bury their dead usually on top of the ground in a box made of small timbers or drift-wood, elevating the box four feet from the surface, and resting it on cross poles. Their meagre belongings are generally buried with them. The small bidarka (skin canoe) is not infrequently used for a casket when the head of the household dies.

"Their simple funeral rites are conducted by members of the deceased's own family, no other member of the tribe coming near the house during the time or attending the obsequies at the grave. While the remains are being deposited in the box a member of the family builds a small fire with twigs of willows, and the fire is kept burning until the burial is completed, after which all present march around the fire in single file, chanting a prayer, with bowed heads, and then return to their hut. The household belongings are now removed from the hut and the family move off to build a cabin in another place which the evil spirit will not enter.

"The Eskimo are clever in many ways. Nearly all the men are experts in building canoes, while many are good carvers and draughtsmen. The writer has a map of the Arctic region, drawn by one of the Kowak River natives, which is one of the most complete things of the kind ever made. It shows every river, creek, lake, bay, mountain, village and trail, from the mouth of the Yukon River to Point Hope, and the native drew it in four days.

"A hut here is simply an excavation, about three feet deep, twelve feet long, and sixteen feet wide. Spruce saplings about four feet long and four inches through are set upright side by side around the interior, supported by the beams. Two posts six feet long and one ridge piece support the arched roof, light saplings being used for rafters. An oblique external portal, five feet long, two feet high, and eighteen inches wide is constructed in the same manner as the hut. The opening for the door is about eighteen inches wide by two feet high. This addition has a twofold purpose: it shelters the entrance to the family room of the hut, and the air which passes through the portal into the apartment carries away the smoke and foul air through a hole in the roof. The structure is finally banked and covered with dirt, and more resembles a mound than a human habitation. The interior of these dwellings is not luxurious. The floor is strewn with the pliant branches of the Arctic willow. A few deerskins lie scattered about, and here the men, women, and children of the tribe sit day after day, and month after month, performing their tasks of labour, and it is here when fatigued that they sleep in security and comfort. A miniature camp fire is kept burning day and night during the winter months."

My unfavourable opinion of the specimens of this race whom we met at Cape Prince of Wales is somewhat modified by the following anecdote, also related by Mr. McElwaine:

"An Eskimo lad about sixteen years of age came into my cabin one morning suffering with an acute bowel complaint. I happened to have a preparation for this trouble in my medicine chest, and administered to him a dose according to directions. It relieved him somewhat, and after eating his dinner, he returned home, a distance of some ten miles. In a week or ten days later he came back, bringing with him a number of curios which he had wrapped with care in a piece of deerskin and placed in a small canvas sack. Taking the curios out of the sack one by one, and unwrapping them carefully, he laid them on my table, saying as he did so in his broken English, 'You like 'em?' Receiving an affirmative reply, he said, 'You catch 'em,' at the same time shoving the articles towards me. I thought the young man was bent upon a trade, so, to please him, I laid out upon the table a number of edible articles, together with a red bandana handkerchief (a red handkerchief is prized very highly by all the natives), and awaited his decision. It was soon forthcoming. 'Me no catch 'em,' he said, pointing to the articles which he had placed upon the table; 'me give him you.' He left the trinkets with me, but would not accept a thing in return for them.

"Some four weeks afterwards this Indian boy came to my cabin again. He brought with him on his second visit a pair of small snowshoes and a miniature Eskimo sled. He had been told that I had a little boy at home, and he made me understand that he had made the snowshoes and sled for him, insisting that I should take them, which I did, but he stoutly refused anything in return for them. All this was to show his appreciation of the little act of kindness which I had inadvertently done him."

Mr. McElwaine concludes: "And yet, against the aborigines of Northern Alaska many explorers have charged that they are the most ungrateful wretches in the world."

Personally, I can cordially endorse this statement, but perhaps a very short residence amongst these people has left me ignorant of their real merits, and Mr. McElwaine may be perfectly right when he adds, in connection with the aforesaid explorers: "All such statements are, in my opinion, founded upon a misapprehension of the true character of this peculiar race."

Mr. Henry Elliott thus describes the Eskimo, or Innuit, as he is sometimes called, inhabiting the far northern portions of Alaska: "The average Innuit stands about five feet seven inches in his heelless boots. He is slightly Mongolian in his complexion and facial expression. A broad face, prominent cheek-bones, a large mouth with full lips, small black eyes, prominently set in their sockets, not under a lowering brow, as in the case of true Indian faces. The nose is insignificant, and much depressed, with scarcely any bridge. He has an abundance of coarse black hair, which up to the age of thirty years is cut pretty close; after this period in life it is worn in ragged, unkempt locks. The hands and feet are shapely, the limbs strong and well-formed. An Eskimo woman is proportionately smaller than the man, and when young sometimes good-looking. She has small, tapering hands, and high-instepped feet, and rarely pierces her lips or disfigures her nose. She lavishes upon her child or children a wealth of affection, endowing them with all her ornaments. The hair of the Innuit woman is allowed to grow to its full length and is gathered up behind into thick braids, or else bound up in ropes, lashed by copper wire or sinews. She seldom tattoos herself, but a faint drawing of transverse blue lines upon the chin and cheeks is usually made by her best friend when she is married."

The reader will probably infer, after reading the foregoing notes, that there is really very little difference, broadly speaking, between a Tchuktchi and an Eskimo, and yet the two are as dissimilar in racial characteristics and customs as a Russian and a Turk. Personal experience inclines me to regard the Siberian native as immeasurably superior to his Alaskan neighbours,[67] both from a moral and physical point of view, for the Eskimo is fully as vicious as the Tchuktchi, who frankly boasts of his depravity, while the former cloaks it beneath a mantle of hypocrisy not wholly unconnected with a knowledge of the white man and his methods. But every cloud has its silver lining, and it is comforting to think that even this rapacious and dissipated race can occasionally derive pleasure from the beauties of nature. While strolling round the settlement one day, I gathered a nosegay of wild flowers, including a species of yellow poppy, anent which Kingigamoot cherishes a pretty superstition. This flower blossoms in profusion about mid June around Cape Prince of Wales, and by the end of July has withered away. Simultaneously a tiny golden butterfly makes its appearance for about a fortnight, and also disappears. I was gravely informed by perhaps the greatest inebriate in the village that the poppy and the insect bear a similar name, for when the former has bloomed for a while it develops a pair of wings and flies away to return again the following summer in the guise of a flower.

[Footnote 67: It is only fair to say that the only Eskimo I met were those at Kingigamoot, and the enmity of these particular natives to most white men is by some ascribed to the following incident. Some thirty years ago a small trading-schooner from San Francisco dropped anchor off the village, and was at once boarded and looted by the natives, who killed two of her crew. The remainder of the white men escaped with their vessel, and returned the following year under escort of a revenue cutter. Several natives were induced to visit the latter, and when perhaps a score had been lured on board the Government vessel, she steamed away, intending to carry off the Kingigamoot men and punish them for the outrage committed the preceding year. But a fight at once ensued on the deck of the cutter, and every Eskimo was shot down and killed. Relatives of these men are still living at Kingigamoot, and the generally aggressive demeanour of the natives here is often ascribed to this fact, for the vendetta practised amongst both the Tchuktchis and Eskimo is fully as bitter and relentless as that which exists in Corsica.]

During my rambles I came across some curious stone erections on the summit of the Cape. They were moss-grown, much dilapidated, and apparently of great age. The tomb-like contrivances are said to have been constructed by the Eskimo as a protection against invaders—the pillars of stone, laid loosely one on the other, about ten feet high, to represent men, and thus deceive the enemy. But for the truth of this I cannot vouch.

The ice remained so thickly piled up around the coast for four or five days after our arrival here that no look-out was kept. No vessel would willingly have approached this part of the coast without a special purpose, and Cape Prince of Wales possesses few attractions, commercial or otherwise. On a clear day the Siberian coast was visible, and the Diomede islands appeared so close with the aid of a field-glass that their tiny drab settlements were distinguishable against the dark masses of rock. The big and little Diomedes are about two miles apart, and the line of demarcation between Russia and America strikes the former off its eastern coast. From the most westerly point of Alaska to the most easterly point of the little Diomede (Ratmanoff) the distance is about fifteen miles, and from the most easterly point of Siberia to the most westerly point of the big Diomede (Krusenstern) the distance is about twenty miles. On the southern extremity of the larger island, a small village is situated, containing about a hundred and fifty natives (Russian subjects), and on the smaller one is another small village, with about the same number of American Eskimo. Fairway rock, a little way east of Ratmanoff island, is not inhabited. The comparatively short distance between the two continents and the intermediate islands has suggested the utilisation of the latter as supports for a leviathan railway bridge, a theory which (as Euclid would remark) is obviously "absurd." For no bridge could withstand the force of the spring ice in Bering Straits for one week. On the other hand, the boring of a tunnel from shore to shore is not entirely without the range of possibility, but of this, and of other matters dealing with the construction of a Franco-American railway, I shall deal fully in the concluding chapter of this work.



CHAPTER XV

AN ARCTIC CITY

"You will find a magic city On the shore of Bering Strait, Which shall be for you a station To unload your Arctic freight. Where the gold of Humboldt's vision Has for countless ages lain, Waiting for the hand of labour And the Saxon's tireless brain."

S. DUNHAM.

Billy, the ex-whaleman, accompanied us here on board the Thetis, intending to make his way to Nome City. The commander of the cutter had let him go free, thinking, no doubt, that the poor fellow had been sufficiently punished for his misdeeds by a winter passed amongst the savages of Northern Siberia. One day during our stay here a native set out in a skin boat for Nome, and notwithstanding my warnings and a falling barometer Billy resolved to accompany him. But shortly after leaving us the pair encountered a furious gale, which swept them back to the Cape in an exhausted condition, nearly frozen to death after a terrible night in the ice.

By the end of a week the latter had almost disappeared. A vessel could now anchor with ease off the settlement, but it seemed as though we should have to wait until the autumn for that happy consummation. I had therefore decided, after consultation with the missionary, on risking the journey in a baidara, when, on the evening of the tenth day, our longing eyes were gladdened by the sight of a small steamer approaching the Cape. She proved to be the Sadie, of the "Alaska Commercial Company," returning from her first trip of the year to Candle Creek,[68] a gold-mining settlement on the Arctic Ocean, which had been unapproachable on account of heavy ice. Fortunately for us the Captain had suddenly resolved to call at Kingigamoot in case the missionary needed assistance, and on hearing of our plight at once offered the Expedition a passage to Nome City, whither the Sadie was bound. Bidding farewell to our kind friends at the Mission, without whose assistance we should indeed have fared badly, we soon were aboard the clean and comfortable little steamer. A warm welcome awaited us from her skipper, a jovial Heligolander, who at the same time imparted to us the joyful news that the war in South Africa was at an end. Twenty-four hours later we were once more in civilisation, for during the summer there is frequent steam communication between the remote although up-to-date mining city of Nome and our final destination, New York.

[Footnote 68: In the summer of 1901, $30,000 were taken out of this creek.]

Cape Nome derives its name from the Indian word "No-me," which signifies in English, "I don't know." In former days, when whalers anchored here to trade, the invariable answer given by the natives to all questions put by the white men was "No-me," meaning that they did not understand, and the name of the place was thus derived. On Cape Nome, four years ago an Arctic desert, there now stands a fine and well-built city. In winter the place can only be reached by dog-sled, after a fatiguing, if not perilous, journey across Alaska, but in the open season you may now travel there almost any week in large liners from San Francisco. It seemed like a dream to land suddenly in this modern town, within a day's journey of Whalen with all its savagery and squalor, and it was somewhat trying to have to walk up the crowded main street in our filthy, ragged state. Eventually, however, we were rigged up at a well-stocked clothing establishment in suits of dittos which would hardly have passed muster in Bond Street, but which did very well for our purpose. And that evening, dining at a luxurious hotel, with people in evening dress, palms, and a string band around us, I could scarcely realise that only a few days ago we were practically starving in a filthy Siberian village. Handsome buildings, churches, theatres, electric light and telephones are not usually associated with the ice-bound Arctic, but they are all to be found in Nome City, which is now connected by telegraph with the outside world.

And yet the first log-cabin here was only built in the winter of 1898. This formed the nucleus of a town of about three thousand inhabitants by August of the following year, which by the middle of July 1900 had grown into a colony of more than twenty thousand people. As sometimes happens, the first discoverers of gold were not the ones to profit by their lucky find, for this is what happened. Early in July 1898 three prospectors, one Blake, an American, and his two companions, were sailing up the coast in a small schooner, when, abreast of Cape Nome, a storm struck their tiny craft and cast her up on the beach. The gale lasted for several days, and the men made use of the time prospecting in the vicinity of the Snake River, which now runs through the city. At the mouth of Anvil Creek, good colours were found at a depth of one foot, the dirt averaging from fifty cents to one dollar the pan. Satisfied that they had made an important discovery, the men returned as soon as the weather would permit to their permanent camp in Golovin Bay, down coast, for provisions and mining tools, and thus lost, perhaps, the richest gold-producing property yet discovered in Alaska. How the secret got about was never known (perhaps "tanglefoot" was not unconnected with its disclosure), but three Swedes (one of whom was then a reindeer-herder and is now a millionaire), got wind of the news, and quickly and quietly set out for Cape Nome, which they reached late in September of the same year. Ascending Snake River, they prospected Anvil and other Creeks, and in three days took out $1800 (nearly L400). After staking all the claims of apparent value, the Swedes returned to Golovin Bay, and having staked their ground, were not afraid to communicate the news of their discovery. It was, therefore, only after all the good claims had been appropriated that poor Blake and his associates discovered that their anticipated golden harvest had been reaped by the energetic Scandinavians.

Fresh finds speedily followed, notably of one rich spot about five miles west of Nome, where $9000 was rocked out of a hole twelve foot square and four feet deep in three days. Then gold began to appear on the beach. Small particles of it were found in the very streets, so that this Arctic township may almost be said to have been at one time literally paved with gold. In 1899 the seashore alone produced between $1,750,000 and $2,000,000.

The presence here of a numerous and influential Press astonished me more than anything else. Nome City can boast of no less than three newspapers, and no sooner was the Expedition comfortably installed in the "Golden Gate Hotel" than it was besieged by the usual reporters. The rapidity with which the interviews were published would have done credit to a London evening paper, and I could only admire the versatility of the gentleman who, only four hours after our arrival, brought out a special edition of the Nome Nugget, containing a portrait of His Royal Highness the Duke of the Abruzzi in full naval uniform, which was described as his humble servant: the writer! The jealousy amongst these Arctic editors is as keen and bitter as it ever was in Eatanswill, and the next day the following paragraph appeared in the News, a rival publication:

"One of our contemporaries has celebrated the rescue of some explorers from starvation by publishing the picture of Prince Louis of Savoy under the caption 'Harry de Windt.' But the Italian prince is also an explorer, and probably all explorers look alike to the Nugget!"

Nome City impressed me at first as being a kind of squalid Monte Carlo. There is the same unrest, the same feverish quest for gold, and the same extravagance of life as in the devil's garden on the blue Mediterranean. On landing, I was struck with the number of well-dressed men and women who rub shoulders in the street with the dilapidated-looking mining element. In the same way palatial banks and prim business houses are incongruously scattered amongst saloons and drinking bars. Front Street, facing the sea, is the principal thoroughfare, so crowded at midday that you can scarcely get along. It is paved with wood, imported here at enormous expense, and a pavement of the same material is raised about two feet above the roadway. Here are good shops where everything is cheap, for during the great gold-rush Nome was over-stocked. Wearing apparel may be purchased here even cheaper than in San Francisco, and everything is on the same scale; oranges, for instance, which two years ago cost one dollar apiece and which are now sold in the streets for five cents. Luxurious shaving saloons abound, also restaurants—one kept by a Frenchman who is deservedly reaping a golden harvest.

In summer there is no rest here throughout the twenty-four hours. People wander aimlessly about the streets, eternally discussing quartz and placer-claims, and recent strikes, which here form the sole topic of conversation, like a run on zero or the cards at Monaco. Port Said is suggested by the dusty, flashy streets and cosmopolitan crowd, also by the fact that gambling saloons and even shops remain open all night, or so long as customers are stirring, which is generally from supper until breakfast-time, for at this season of perpetual daylight no one ever seemed to go to bed. The sight of the principal street at four in the morning, with music halls, restaurants, drinking and dancing saloons blazing with electricity in the cold, grey light of a midnight sun was both novel and unique. At this hour the night-houses were always crowded, and you might re-visit them at midday and find the same occupants still out of bed, drinking, smoking, and gambling, yet as quiet and orderly in their demeanour as a company of Quakers. For, notwithstanding its large percentage of the riff-raff element, crime is very rare in Nome. I frequently visited the gambling saloons, where gum-booted, mud-stained prospectors elbowed women in dainty Parisian gowns and men in the conventional swallowtail, but I never once saw a shot fired, nor even a dispute, although champagne flowed like water. These places generally consisted of a spacious and gaudily decorated hall with a drinking bar surrounded by various roulette, crap, and faro tables. The price of a drink admitted you to an adjoining music hall, where I witnessed a variety entertainment that would scarcely have passed the London County Council. But gambling was the chief attraction, and it seemed to be fair, for cheating is clearly superfluous with three zeros! Many of the frequenters of these night-houses appeared to be foreigners, chiefly Swedes and Germans, and a few Frenchmen, and the company was very mixed, Jews, Greeks, and Levantines being numerous amongst the men, whilst the ladies were mostly flashily dressed birds of passage from San Francisco, only here for a brief space before flitting South, like the swallows, at the first fall of snow.

There was a delightfully free-and-easy, laisser-aller air about everybody and everything at Nome City, which would, perhaps, have jarred upon an ultra-respectable mind. Most of the ladies at the Golden Gate Hotel were located there in couples, unattended, permanently at any rate, by male protectors. The bedroom adjoining mine was occupied by two of these Californian houris, whose habits were apparently not framed on Lucretian lines. For the manager appeared at my bedside early one morning with a polite request that I would rise and dress as quietly as possible, as the "ladies" next door had just gone to bed for the first time in three days, and rather needed a rest!

A stroll through the streets of Nome at midday was also amusing, although the sun blazed down with a force which recalled summer-days in Hong-kong or Calcutta. It was then hard to picture these warm and sunlit streets swept by howling blizzards and buried in drifts which frequently rise to the roofs of the houses, until their inmates have to be literally dug out after a night of wind and snow. But when we were at Nome, Cairo in August would have seemed cool by comparison, and I began to doubt whether ice here could ever exist, for nothing around was suggestive of a Northern clime. The open-air life, muslin-clad women, gaily striped awnings, and Neapolitan fruit-sellers seemed to bear one imperceptibly to some sunlit town of Italy or Spain, thousands of miles away from this gloomy world (in winter) of cold and darkness. Only occasionally a skin-clad Eskimo from up coast would slouch shyly through the busy throng, rudely recalling the fact that we were still within the region of raw seal-meat and walrus-hide huts.

Most of the prospectors I met here had no use for the place as a gold-mining centre, but I should add that these grumblers were usually inexperienced men, who had come in with no knowledge whatever of quartz or placer-mining. On the other hand, fortunes have been made with remarkable ease and rapidity, as in the case of one of the first pioneers, Mr. Lindeberg, a young Swede (already mentioned), who arrived here as a reindeer-herder and now owns the largest share of Anvil Creek. From this about $3,000,000 have been taken in two years, and the lucky proprietor has recently laid a line of railway to his claims, about seven miles out of Nome. Anvil Creek has turned out the largest nugget ever found in Alaska.

Generally speaking, however, Nome is no place for a poor man, although when we were there five dollars a day (and all found) could be easily earned on the Creeks. I invariably found men connected with large companies enthusiastic, and grub-stakers down on their luck. Lack of water in this district has proved a stumbling block which will shortly be dispelled by machinery. Anvil Creek will probably yield double the output hitherto extracted when this commodity has been turned on, and this is now being done at an enormous cost by its enterprising proprietors. But the days are past when nuggets were picked up here on the beach, for it now needs costly machinery to find them in the interior. Even during the first mad rush, when Nome was but a town of tents, many who expected to find the country teeming with gold were disappointed. In those days men would often rush ashore, after restless nights passed on board ship in wakeful anticipation, catch up half a dozen handfuls of earth, and finding nothing, cry, "I told you it was all a fake," and re-embark on the first steamer for San Francisco. It therefore came to pass that patient, hard-working men like Lindeberg, inured to hardship and privation, whose primary object in the country was totally unconnected with mining, have made colossal fortunes solely by dogged perseverance and the sweat of their brow. The general opinion here seemed to be that at the present time a man with a capital of, say, L10,000 could succeed here, but even then it was doubtful whether the money could not be more profitably invested in a more temperate clime, and one involving less risk to life and limb.

Although epidemics occasionally occur, Nome cannot be called unhealthy. The greatest variation of temperature is probably from 40 deg. below zero in winter to 90 deg. above in summer, and the dry, intense cold we experienced in Northern Siberia is here unknown. Only a short time ago the sea journey to Nome was no less hazardous than the land trip formerly was over the dreaded Chilkoot Pass and across the treacherous lakes to Dawson City. In those days catastrophes were only too frequent in that graveyard of the Pacific, Bering Sea, and this was chiefly on account of unseaworthy ships patched up for passenger-traffic by unscrupulous owners in San Francisco. Nome City can now be reached by the fine steamships of the "Alaska Commercial Company" as safely and comfortably as New York in an Atlantic liner, but these boats are unfortunately in the minority, and even while we were at Nome, passengers were arriving there almost daily on board veritable coffin-ships, in which I would not willingly navigate the Serpentine. Shipping disasters have been frequent not only at sea, but also while landing here, for Nome has no harbour, but merely an open, shallow roadstead, fully exposed to the billows of the ocean. There is therefore frequently a heavy surf along the beach, and here many a poor miner has been drowned within a few yards of the Eldorado he has risked his all to reach.

Intending prospectors should know that nearly every available mile of country from Norton Sound to the Arctic Ocean has now been staked out, and before claims are now obtained they must be paid for. American missionaries have not been behind-hand in the race for wealth, and in connection with this subject, the following lines by a disappointed Klondiker are not without humour:

"Then we climbed the cold creeks near a mission That is run by the agents of God, Who trade Bibles and Prayer-books to heathen For ivory, sealskins and cod. At last we were sure we had struck it, But alas! for our hope of reward, The landscape from sea-beach to sky-line Was staked in the name of the Lord!"[69]

[Footnote 69: "The Goldsmith of Nome," by Sam Dunham. (Neale Publishing Company, Washington, D.C.)]

That these lines, however, do not apply to all Alaskan missionaries I can testify from a personal knowledge of our good friend Mr. Lopp's comfortless, primitive life, and unselfish devotion to the cause of Christianity.



CHAPTER XVI

A RIVER OF GOLD

The heading of this chapter is not suggested by a flight of fancy, but by solid fact, for there is not a mile along either bank of the Yukon River, over 2000 miles long from the great lakes to Bering Sea, where you cannot dip in a pan and get a colour. Gold may not be found in paying quantities so near the main stream, but it is there.

From Nome to Dawson City is about 1600 miles, the terminus of the Yukon River steamers being St. Michael, on Bering Sea. When I was at this place in 1896, it consisted of two or three small buildings of the "Alaska Commercial Company," a Russian church and ruined stockade, and about a dozen Eskimo wigwams. During my stay there, on that occasion, one small cargo-boat arrived from the South, and a solitary whaler put in for water, their appearance causing wild excitement amongst the few white settlers.

Although the civilisation of Nome City had somewhat prepared me for surprises, I scarcely expected to find St. Michael converted from a squalid settlement into a modern city almost as fine as Nome itself. For here also were a large hotel, good shops, electric light, and a roadstead alive with shipping of every description from the Eskimo kayak to the towering liner from 'Frisco. We arrived at 6 A.M. after a twelve hours' journey from Nome, but even at that early hour the clang of a ship-yard and shriek of steam syrens were awakening the once silent and desolate waters of Norton Sound. St. Michael feeds and clothes the Alaskan miner, despatches goods and stores into the remotest corner of this barren land, and has thus rapidly grown from a dreary little settlement into a centre of mercantile activity. Seven years ago I journeyed down the Yukon towards Siberia and a problematical Paris in a small crowded steamer, built of roughly hewn logs, and propelled by a fussy little engine of mediaeval construction. We then slept on planks, dined in our shirt-sleeves, and scrambled for meals which a respectable dog would have turned from in disgust. On the present occasion we embarked on board a floating palace, a huge stern-wheeler, as large and luxuriously appointed as the most modern Mississippi flyer. The Hannah's airy deck-halls were of dainty white, picked out with gold, some of the well-furnished state-rooms had baths attached, and a perfect cuisine partly atoned for the wearisome monotony of a long river voyage.

A delay here of twenty-four hours enabled me to re-visit the places I had known only too well while wearily awaiting the Bear here for five weeks in 1896. But everything was changed beyond recognition. Only two landmarks remained of the old St. Michael: the agency of the "Alaska Commercial Company," and the wooden church built by the Russians during their occupation of the country.[70] A native hut near the beach, where I was wont to smoke my evening pipe with an old Eskimo fisherman, was now a circulating library; the ramshackle rest-house, once crowded with "Toughs," a fashionable hotel with a verandah and five o'clock tea-tables for the use of the select. And here I may note that tea is, or was, all that the traveller can get here, for St. Michael is now a military reservation, where even the sale of beer or claret is strictly prohibited. My old friend Mikouline would have fared badly throughout this part of the journey, for from here on to Dawson City alcoholic refreshment of any kind was absolutely unprocurable, and although the heat was tropical, iced water, not always of the purest description, was the only cold beverage obtainable at St. Michael or on the river. I was afterwards informed that the initiated always carry their own cellar, and having a rooted antipathy to tea at dinner (especially when served in conjunction with tinned soup), regretted that I had not ascertained this fact before we left Nome.

[Footnote 70: The Russo-Greek religion is still maintained throughout Alaska, and nearly a hundred of its churches and chapels still exist throughout the country and in the Aleutian Islands.]

But although this liquor law was enforced with severity ashore its infringement afloat was openly winked at by the authorities. Soldiers were stationed night and day with loaded rifles on the beach to prevent the importation of spirits, and yet within half a mile of them, anchored in the roadstead, were four or five hulks, floating public-houses, where a man might get as drunk as he pleased with impunity, and often for the last time, especially when a return to the shore had to be made through a nasty sea in a skin kayak. It was even whispered that "Hootch" (a fiery poison akin to "Tanglefoot") was manufactured at the barracks, and retailed by the soldiers to the natives, the very class for whose protection against temptation the prohibitive law was framed.



"All my men are intoxicated," the Commandant at St. Michael was said to have exclaimed. "So I suppose I had better get drunk myself."

But there was little love lost here between the civil and military element, and these were probably libels, for I have seldom seen a better drilled or disciplined set of men, although the hideous uniform of the American linesman is less suggestive of a soldier than of a railway guard.[71]

[Footnote 71: Permanent military posts of the United States have been established as follows, throughout Alaska: Fort Egbert at Circle City, Fort Gibbon on the Tanana River, Fort Valdez on Prince William Sound, Fort Davis at Nome, and Fort St. Michael on the island of that name.]

The heat at St. Michael was even more oppressive than at Nome, and it was impossible to stir out of doors at midday with any comfort. We were therefore not sorry to embark on board the Hannah, of the "Alaska Commercial Company," which contained one hundred state-rooms, of which barely a dozen were occupied, for at this season of the year travellers are mostly outward bound. The White Pass railway has practically killed the Yukon passenger trade, for people now travel to Dawson by rail, and to Nome by sea direct. They used to go by ocean steamer to St. Michael, and thence ascend the river to Dawson, for in those days the perilous Chilkoot Pass was the only direct way from the South into the Klondike region. Our fellow travellers, therefore, lacked in numbers but not in originality, for they included a millionaire in fustian, who preferred to eat with the crew; a young and well-dressed widow from San Francisco, who owned claims on the Tanana and worked them herself; a confidence-man with a gambling outfit, who had struck the wrong crowd; and last, but not least, Mrs. Z., recently a well-known prima donna in the United States, who, although in the zenith of her youthful fame and popularity, had abandoned a brilliant career to share the fortunes of her husband, an official of the "Alaska Commercial Company," in this inartistic land. I found the conditions of travel on the Yukon as completely changed as everything else. Even the technical expressions once used by the gold-mining fraternity were now replaced by others. Thus the "Oldtimer" had become "a Sourdough," and his antithesis, the "Tenderfoot," was now called a "Chechako." A word now frequently heard (and unknown in 1896) was "Musher," signifying a prospector who is not afraid to explore the unknown. This word is of Canadian origin, and probably a corruption of the French "Marcheur." Various passengers on board the Hannah were said to be returning to their homes with "Cold feet," also a new term, defining the disappointed gold-seeker who is leaving the country in disgust.

But a change which excited both my admiration and approval was that in the accommodation provided on board the Hannah and the really excellent dinner to which we sat down every day, although enforced teetotalism was somewhat irritating to those accustomed to wine with their meals. It is no exaggeration to say that an overland journey may now be made from Skagway to Nome City with as little discomfort as a trip across Switzerland, if the tourist keeps to the beaten track by rail and steamer. But the slightest deviation on either side will show him what Alaskan travel really was, and he will then probably curse the country and all that therein lies. The tourist may even experience some trying hours on the river-boat, for although the latter is fitted with cunning contrivances for their exclusion, mosquitoes invariably swarm, and the Yukon specimen is so unequalled for size and ferocity that I once heard an old miner declare that this virulent insect was "as big as a rabbit and bit at both ends." But this is about the only discomfort that travellers by the main route through Alaska need now endure. Otherwise the path of travel has been made almost as smooth as Cook's easiest tours.

As the reader may one day summon the courage to visit this great Northern land, it may not be out of place to give a brief history of Alaska, which, only thirty years ago, was peopled solely by Indians and a few Russian settlers, and was practically unknown to the civilised world.

It has always seemed strange to me that Russia, a country with a world-wide reputation for diplomatic shrewdness, should have made such an egregious error as to part with Alaska at a merely nominal price,[72] the more so that when the transfer took place gold had long been known to exist in this Arctic province. Vitus Bering discovered traces of it as far back as the eighteenth century. William H. Seward, Secretary of State under President Johnson, was mainly responsible for the purchase of this huge territory, which covers an area of about 600,000 square miles, measuring 1000 miles from north to south and 3500 miles from east to west. It is said that the coast line alone, if straightened out, would girdle the globe.

[Footnote 72: The word "Alaska" is derived from the Indian "Al-ay-eksa," which signifies a great country.]

The formal transfer of Alaska to the United States was made on October 18, 1867, and its acquisition was first regarded with great disfavour by the majority of the American public. Although only $7,200,000 was paid for the whole of Russian America,[73] the general opinion in New York and other large cities of the Union was that "Seward's ice-box," as it was then derisively termed, would prove a white elephant, and that the statesman responsible for its purchase had been, plainly speaking, sold. It was only when the marvellous riches of Nome were disclosed that people began to realise what the annexation of the country really meant, although even at this period Alaska had already repaid itself many times over. Klondike had already startled the civilised world, but this is, of course, in British territory. Nevertheless, between the years 1870 and 1900 Secretary Seward's investment had returned nearly $8,000,000, and within the same period fisheries and furs had yielded no less than $100,000,000. Gold and timber had produced $40,000,000 more, making a clear profit of nearly $200,000,000 in thirty years.

[Footnote 73: It is said that most of this was used in Petersburg to satisfy old debts and obligations incurred by Alaskan enterprises, attorneys' fees, &c., so in short Russia really gave her American possessions to the American people, reaping no direct emolument whatsoever from the transfer. ("Our Arctic Province," by Henry W. Elliott.)]

It is sad to think that the once maligned politician who acquired this priceless treasure did not live to see his golden dream realised. A few days before his death the Secretary was asked what he considered the most important measure of his official career.

"The purchase of Alaska," was the reply, "but it will take the people a generation to find it out."

Alaska may be divided into two great south-east and western districts. Mount St. Elias, nearly 20,000 ft. high, marks the dividing line at 141 deg. west long., running north from this point to the Arctic Ocean. The diversity of climate existing throughout this huge province from its southern coast to the shores of the Polar Sea is naturally very great, and the marvellous contrast between an Alaskan June and December has nowhere been more picturesquely and graphically described than by General Sir William Butler in his "Great Lone Land": "In summer a land of sound—a land echoed with the voices of birds, the ripple of running water, the mournful music of the waving pine branch; in winter a land of silence, its great rivers glimmering in the moonlight, wrapped in their shrouds of ice, its still forests rising weird and spectral against the auroral-lighted horizon, its nights so still that the moving streamers across the Northern skies seem to carry to the ear a sense of sound!"

On the North Pacific coast densely wooded islands are so numerous that from Victoria in British Columbia to the town of Skagway at the head of the Lynn Canal there are but a few miles of open sea. Inland, almost as far as the Arctic Circle, mountain ranges, some of great altitude, are everywhere visible. There are also many large lakes, surrounded by the swamps, and impenetrable forests, that formerly rendered Alaska so hard a nut for the explorer to crack. Only a few miles north of the coast range fertile soil and luxurious vegetation are replaced by Arctic deserts. Here, for eight months of the year, plains and rivers are merged into one vast wilderness of ice, save during the short summer when dog-roses bloom and the coarse luxurious grass is plentifully sprinkled with daisies and other wild flowers. In Central Alaska the ground is perpetually frozen to a depth of several inches, and in the North wells have been sunk through forty feet of solid ice.

Alaska is fairly healthy, although the temperature in the interior ranges from 90 deg. in the shade to over 60 deg. below zero Fahr. May, June, and July are the best months for travelling, for the days are then generally bright and pleasant and the heat tempered by a cool breeze. On the coast during the summer rain and fogs prevail, and the sun is only occasionally visible, for there are on an average only sixty-six fine days throughout the year. In 1884, a rainfall of sixty-four inches was registered at Unalaska. The rain seldom pours down here, but falls in a steady drizzle from a hopelessly leaden sky, under which a grey and sodden landscape presents a picture of dreary desolation. But this damp cheerlessness has its advantages, for incessant humidity sheds perpetual verdure over the coast-districts, where the thermometer rarely falls as low as zero Fahr. Winter only sets in here about the 1st of December, and snow has vanished by the end of May, while in the interior lakes and rivers are still in the grip of the ice. Near the sea the soil is rich and root-crops are prolific, while horses and cattle thrive well, also the ports as far north as Cook's Inlet are open to navigation all the year round, so that, taking all these facts into consideration, coast settlements are preferable as a permanent residence to those of the interior, with the exception, perhaps, of Dawson City.

It is said that the mild climate of Southern Alaska is due to the Japan Gulf Stream, which first strikes the North American continent at the Queen Charlotte Island in latitude 50 deg. north. At this point the stream divides, one part going northward and westward along the coast of Alaska, and the other southward along the coast of British Columbia, Washington territory, Oregon, and California. Thus the climate of these states is made mild and pleasant in precisely the same way as the shores of Spain, Portugal and France by the ocean currents of the Atlantic.

Notwithstanding the society of pleasant fellow travellers, life on board the Hannah became intolerably tedious after the first few days. The Lower Yukon is not an attractive river from a picturesque point of view, and only the upper portion of its two thousand odd miles possesses any scenic interest. Grey and monotonous tundra rolling away to the horizon, and melancholy, grey-green shrubs lining the stream formed the daily and dismal landscape during the first week. There is literally nothing of interest to be seen along the banks of the Yukon from its mouth to Dawson City, save perhaps the Catholic mission of the Holy Cross at Koserefski; which is prettily situated within a stone's throw of the river, and consists of several neat wooden buildings comprising a beautiful little chapel and school for native children. The Hannah remained here for some hours, which enabled me to renew my acquaintance with the good nuns, and to visit the schoolhouse, where some Indian children of both sexes were at work. French was the language spoken, and it seemed strange to hear the crisp, clear accent in this deserted corner of civilisation. An old acquaintance of my former voyage, pretty Sister Winifred, showed us around the garden, with its smooth green lawns, bright flower-beds, and white statue of Our Lady in a shrine of pine boughs. All the surroundings wore an air of peace and homeliness suggestive of some quiet country village in far-away France, and I could have lingered here for hours had not large and bloodthirsty mosquitoes swarmed from the woods around and driven me reluctantly back to the steamer.

At Koserefski we bade a final farewell to the "Tundra" and its Eskimo, and from here onwards encountered only dense forests and the unsavoury and generally sulky Alaskan Indian. They are not a pleasing race, for laziness and impudence seemed to be the chief characteristics of those with whom we had to deal throughout the former journey. On this occasion we met with very few natives, who have apparently been driven out of the principal towns by the white man. The Alaskan Indian's once picturesque costume is now discarded for clothes of European cut, which render him even more unattractive than ever. Moccasins and his pretty bark-canoe are now the only distinctive mark of the Siwash, who is as fond of strong drink as the Eskimo, and also resembles the latter in his boundless capacities for lying and theft. But there are probably not more than 1500 natives in all inhabiting the Yukon region, and these are rapidly decreasing. I do not think I saw more than fifty Indians throughout the journey from Cape Nome to Skagway, the terminus of the "White Pass" railway. South of this, along the coast to Vancouver, they were more numerous, and apparently less lazy and degraded than the Indians of the interior.

On board the Hannah the talk was all of gold, and every one, from captain to cook, seemed indirectly interested in the capture of the precious metal. The purser had claims to dispose of, and even your bedroom steward knew of a likely ledge of which he would divulge the position—for a consideration. The Koyukuk and Tanana rivers on this part of the Yukon are new ground, and are said to be promising, but I could hear of no reliable discoveries of any extent on either of these streams.

"Cities" on the American Yukon consist of perhaps a score or more of log huts, which Yankee push and enterprise have invested with the dignity of towns. "Rampart City," for instance, which the Hannah reached on the sixth day in from the coast, consisted of only about thirty one-storied wooden dwellings, the erection of which had been due to the discovery of gold in the vicinity, although during the previous year (1901) the claims around had only produced L40,000. And yet even this tiny township could boast of two hotels, five or six saloons, electric light and two newspapers: the Alaska Forum and Rampart Sun. The circulation of these journals was not disclosed to the writer, who was, however, gravely interviewed by the editors of both publications. Just before leaving Rampart City news of the postponement of the coronation of his Majesty King Edward VII. on account of serious illness, reached us, and it was gratifying to note the respectful sympathy for the Queen of England displayed by the American inhabitants of this remote Alaskan settlement.

Four days after this the hideous Yukon flats were reached, a vast desert of swamp and sand dunes, through which the great river diffuses itself, like a sky-rocket, into hundreds of lesser streams, lakes, and aqueous blind alleys, which severely taxed the skill and patience of our skipper. Here the outlook was even more depressing than on the dreary Lena. Before reaching Circle City the Yukon attains its most northerly point and then descends in a south-easterly direction for the remainder of its course. At the bend it is joined by the Porcupine River; and here is Fort Yukon, once an important trading coast of the Hudson Bay Company, but now an overgrown clearing in the forest, of which a few miserable Indians in grimy tents disputed the possession with dense clouds of mosquitoes. But even the appearance of Circle City,[74] once a prosperous mining town and now a collection of ruined log-huts, was hailed with delight by the hopelessly bored passengers in the Hannah, for it meant the end of another stage in this wearisome journey.

[Footnote 74: In 1901 the diggings around Circle City produced about L30,000.]

There is nothing exciting or even picturesque about a modern Alaskan mining camp. Bowlers and loud checks have superseded the red flannel shirt and sombrero, and while missions and libraries abound, Judge Lynch and the crack of a six-shooter are almost unknown in these townships, the conventional security of which would certainly have amazed and disgusted the late Bret Harte. When last I travelled down the Yukon, Circle City (now called Silent City) was known as the "Paris of Alaska," and there was certainly more gaiety, or rather life, of a tawdry, disreputable kind here than at Forty Mile, the only other settlement of any size on the river, for Klondike was not then in existence. Circle City could then boast of two theatres, a so-called music hall, and several gambling and dancing saloons, which, together with other dens of a worse description, were now silent heaps of grass-grown timber. In those days the dancing rooms were crowded nightly, and I once attended a ball here in a low, stuffy apartment, festooned with flags, with a drinking bar at one end. The orchestra consisted of a violin and guitar, the music being almost drowned by a noisy crowd at the bar, where a wrangle took place on an average every five minutes. One dollar was charged by the saloon-keeper for the privilege of a dance with a gaily painted lady (of a class with which most mining camps are only too familiar), who received twenty-five cents as her share of the transaction. The guests numbered about sixty, and about a third that number of dogs which had strayed in through the open doorway. When an attendant (in shirt-sleeves) proceeded to walk round and sprinkle the rough boards with resin, the dancers fairly yelled with delight, for a hungry cur closely followed him, greedily devouring the stuff as it fell! But although in those days the Yukon gold-digger was as tough a customer as ever rocked a cradle in the wildest days of Colorado, there was a rough and friendly bonhomie amongst the inhabitants of Circle City which is now lacking in the Klondike metropolis.

Between Rampart and Circle Cities we experienced an annoyance almost as great as that caused by the mosquitoes, in the shape of clouds of pungent smoke caused by forest fires. In these densely wooded regions a smouldering match dropped by a careless miner often sets hundreds of square miles of timber ablaze. As the natives are also constantly clearing and burning the woods for cultivation, the air was seldom entirely clear, and often so thick as to cause irritation in the eyes, especially after suffering, as most of us had, from snow blindness and incipient ophthalmia. On still, sultry days the pain resulting from smoke and the glare off the river was almost as severe as that which I had experienced in the Arctic. Mosquitoes now attacked us in myriads, and the heat was insupportable, but the cooler air of the upper deck was rendered unattainable by showers of sparks which constantly issued from the funnels of the hard-driven Hannah.