Two Women in the Klondyke. By Mary E. Hitchcock. (G.
P. Putnam's Sons. 12s. 6d.) —Two ladies of good position in the United States, Mrs. Hitchcock, who writes the story, and Miss Van Buren, great-niece of the President of that name (1837-1841), started on a trip to the Klondike in Jane, 1898, and reached Seattle (in Washington) in October. They had had some very uncommon experiences meanwhile. They found the Klondike people very hospitable and kindly, so far belying many of the reports of them which have reached the outside world, but the place scarcely invited a second visit. It was not a country, to borrow the expression of a famous lady traveller, that "one would like to take a man to." As for comfort, if not unattainable, it was exceedingly costly. Mrs. Hitchcock does not give us a balance- sheet ; but we gather that the trip was about as expensive as could well have been made. Prices are a perpetual surprise as one reads. They are subject, indeed, to considerable fluctuation. And payments for service are correspondingly large. A doctor, for instance, usually receives $17 for a visit. (Our travellers had the imprudence to take out an exceptionally big tent. It served for a church, but then it raised all prices for them, for it seemed to testify of exceptional wealth.) Mrs. Hitchcock paid $43 for one visit, and her companion $53 for two. They took out with them a bowling alley and an animatoscope. Of these speculations we hear pretty often, but we are left in provoking uncertainty as to the result of the enterprise. As for the bowling alley, the difficulty was to hire land for laying it down at a reasonable price, for of all costly things in Dawson City land is the costliest. Readers will find in this volume abundance of entertainment.
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