KLONDIKE AND THE SIBERIAN SAVAGES.* No other white men have
had quite the experience which Mr. de Windt and George Harding underwent in the Tclinktai village of Orunwaidjik. That awful sojourn in perhaps the worst of all climates, and with certainly the dirtiest race on the face of the earth, points the moral to the tale of an
* Through the Gold Fields of Alaska to Bering Straits. By Harry de Windt. P.11.0.8. With a Map and Illostrations. London : Chad° and Windue. 110.• I
ambitious scheme. Any one can be wise after the event ; still it seems as if Nature in proving that the Bering Straits remained open exacted a punishment for the presumption of supposing that the Straits could remain frozen when the currents and tides of two oceans converge into its channel. Some one had to ascertain the fact, and no whaler ever stayed to make certain of it of his own free will, or if he did he kept the secret only too well. What stopped Mr. de Windt was not the crossing of the Bering Straits, for he had already crossed them by steamer, but the fact that the journey to Anadyrsk, the nearest Russian post, was, humanly speaking, impossible.
We certainly agree with the author that his journey, as it introduces us to the Tchnktchis, cannot be described as a complete failure. One realised the straggle for existence in the Arctic regions from the accounts of Esquimaux life brought back to us by navigators. Infanticide was common, and old people disappeared, just as in the migrations of the American Indians the old are left behind with a little food when they cannot keep up with the tribe. The Australian makes a regular practice of infanticide, and decides directly after birth what is to be done. All this the Tchuktchi does; but he is not a cannibal, and so they cannot tell of him the story told of the Australian mother. She, poor thing, was found in tears, not because her child had been killed, but because her parents had eaten the tit-bits. The Tchnktchis are a byword even among the Esquimaux for filth, and really one has no right to mention the Esquimaux in the same sentence. Some habits of the Siberian savage are inde- scribable.
But to return to the Tchuktchi's view of the survival of the fittest. He is the most matter-of-fact individual known to us. No such thing as suicide is known, nor does it exist where life is a real struggle and the conditions of existence almost insupportable. The Tchuktchi is denied even that luxury, but his family perform for him the " Kamitok," a sort of happy despatch, with pleasure when it becomes obvious that he is not worth his food. A family conclave is held, and on the day appointed a funeral feast is held before the event. The whole village assembles round the immediate circle of relations to do honour to the ceremony, and the individual whose presence has become a burden to the com- munity takes the greatest interest in the preparations. When the moment arrives, the nearest relative, placing his foot on the victim's back, strangles him with a thong. The custom is dreadful and revolting, yet deaths from starvation and other causes, Mr. de Windt says, were many during their stay ; on the average every third day. It is no wonder, then, that these savages are careless of life and have a reputation for treachery and cruelty completely foreign to the Esquimaux character. In spite of the fact that the Esquimaux have committed murders, they must be allowed to be the mildest of aborigines, for their vices are few and their charity and good nature proverbial. These qualities should be indispensable to existence in the Arctic Circle, but the Tchnktchis have proved that they are not necessary. Physically, these Siberians are superior to any other Arctic races. Mr. de Windt speaks as if their average height was 2 in. more than that of the Esquimaux, and several of them were 6 ft. They are slim, wiry, and strong, and capable of carrying very heavy weights, though scarcely so powerful as the Thliukit Indians, who act as carriers over the dreaded Chilcoot Pass. For the rest, the Tchuktchis resemble the Esquimaux in habits, and, like them, are expert sailors, mighty hunters, and expert with the rifle. They fight fair amongst themselves,using their fists and seldom their knives, to which Esquimaux, we believe, are rather partial. They have the old Norseman's horror of dying in bed, and believe that a violent death insures future happiness, while to die in one's bed means lingering torments. The Shamans have great powers, more so than the Greenlander's " Augekok," especially as the Tchuktchis have a dread of sickness. Their dress is much the same, deerskin "parka," with sealskin boots and trousers. Their huts have hide stretched across circular frames of whalebone, as Cooke described them. Their character only and disposition, as we have said, are absolutely different from those of the Esquimaux. Before leaving this portion of Mr. de Windt's book, we must refer to Captain Whiteside's rescue of the travellers from their Arctic imprisonment. As a forlorn hope, Harding flew a Union Jack from an old piece of whalebone, to attract some belated whaler. Fortunately, there was a belated whaler, and her captain, after a tremendous struggle, got near enough for the two men to be taken off to them in a akinboat.
That portion of Mr. de Windt's book which refers to the Yukon goldfields will attract most attention. He went by the Chilcoot Pass route, and gives a graphic account of the crossing of the pass, and the dangerous voyages down the storm-tossed lakes, and through the Grand Cation, and White Horse Rapids, otherwise known as the Miner's Grave, to the junction of the Lewes and Klondike Rivers, where Dawson City now stands. Throu-Duick, the Indian village opposite the mining settlement, is associated by the author with clean Indians and a square meal. There are dangers all the way down these rivers, shallow as they are, from sunken rocks, and the ice-cold water paralyses strong men. The climbing of the Chilcoot Pass, Mr. de Windt says, was the severest physical labour he ever had in his life, and in the Alps the summit of the Chilcoot would be negotiated with ropes, ice-axes, and all the precautions and paraphernalia of a member of the Alpine Club. The White Pass, an alternative close to the Chilcoot Pass, is even worse, and seems a veritable grave for pack-horses. Yet as these are the gates of a short cut to the Yukon, many will make it their route. The Stikine River will be a favourite route, as the writer happens to know, and there is the Daulton Trail. Much that the author tells us in the chapter devoted to Klondike has happened since his journey down the Yukon to St. Michael's. The mining settlements of Forty-Mile City and Dawson City, and the more advanced Circle City, were in their infancy then, and many men whom Mr. de Windt saw living from hand to mouth, or at most very poor, at Lippy and Ladue, are now millionaires. The magnetism of gold-hunting is forcibly illustrated by an incident that occurred on the author's voyage down the Yukon. The down-river steamer passing the up-river one, both moored alongside each other to exchange news, while men who a few hours or days before had left Forty-Mile City and Circle City returned to the diggings. These sub-Arctic cities have some features peculiar to them. We may talk of the hanging gardens of Forty-Mile and the dogs of Circle City. Moss and then earth are useful ingredients in the making of a roof in the Canadian town, while in the American town the dogs outnumber the men and steal their boots. Food has to be stored in sheds built on piles, just as the Ainu of Yezo build storehouses on piles for a similar reason. The Canadian mining settlements are most orderly, as Mr. Haynes, one of the Canadian Mounted Police, has testified in his excellent little book, Pioneers of the "Vandyke. Mr. de Windt quotes some of the finds, and relates some in- teresting particulars about individual diggers, But for these the reader should consult Mr. Haynes's book, which relates the hardships of a winter residence and facts of everyday life. Mr. de Windt, as an experienced traveller, has some valuable advice to give, and his passage of the Chilcoot Pass should act as a warning. He tells us that a theatrical party at Circle City of six men and five women had struggled over the pass—and a determined woman can do wonders —but it does not follow that the average man can do this. The more roundabout and tedious route by sea to the mouth of the Yukon, and then up to the goldfields, is the safest. Impatient men will attempt the short cuts, and will run the risk of making the whole journey down the Yukon to the Arctic Ocean as a corpse, or resting in an icy grave near some sunken rock. Those who are belated, and attempt to travel on the river-ice, are doomed to an awful experience, for men sleighing in a wind of very low temperature are liable to be frozen in a few yards. The cold in the Yukon is not exceptionally severe, certainly not worse than the cold snaps of Minnesota, North Dakota, and Montana. Nevertheless, the winter is a long, hard one, and the days short, and the depression caused by an Arctic winter, with its almost interminable night, tells even more than cold on men not gifted with sanguine temperaments. Having corrected a prevailing impression as to the cold in the Yukon Valley, it only remains to add that though the Klondike River itself has not produced much gold, its creeks have, but then they are shallow and the river is deep. It is remarkable that, hard as are the conditions of life on the Yukon, it is, as a rule, the " tender-foot " who has struck the richest pockets. Digging stubbornly on through the bed-rook below the alluvial deposit, he proves that bed-rock to be false by finding the richest streak of all below it. Let us add that Mr. de Windt is to be regarded as an authority on two routes to the goldfields and also on Tchuktchi manners, having qualified by residence for the latter distinction. He has much valuable advice and useful hints for gold-seekers, who should read his book.
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