A so-called prospectus issued by a syndicate, inviting the public to subscribe for a "preliminary survey" for a Franco-American line, came under my notice the other day. Here is an extract:

"Ten years ago the name Siberia called up a picture of wastes of snow and ice. To-day the same Siberia is a land filled with thriving villages, producing grain and various vegetables; that great compeller of civilisation, the railway, has broken down the bars between the world and Siberia. Besides its countless resources of the soil, besides its rivers filled with valuable fish, and its forests inhabited by fur-bearing animals, Siberia is now beginning to show to the world its resources of gold, iron, copper, manganese, quicksilver, platinum, and coal, the yearly output of which is but a feeble index of what it will be when the deposits are developed."

All this is very true regarding certain portions of Siberia. The Amur, Altai, Yenesei, and even Yakutsk provinces. But although the writer goes on to enlarge upon the boundless possibilities which would be opened up by the construction of a railway from Europe to America, he fails to mention that it would have to traverse an Arctic and unproductive Sahara thousands of miles in extent.

Some enthusiastic visionaries mentioned in an earlier portion of this chapter have laid stress on the fact that the pa.s.senger traffic over this portion of the line would be enormous, that surging crowds of sea-sick victims would gladly endure even three weeks in a train in preference to a stormy pa.s.sage across the Atlantic, and so forth. But I fancy a moment's serious thought will show the absurdity of this theory.

In the first place a journey by rail from Paris to New York would certainly occupy over a month under the most favourable conditions, for while in summer time all might be comparatively plain sailing, gales, snow-drifts, and blizzards would surely, judging from our own experiences, seriously hamper the winter traffic, especially along the coast. If this leviathan railway is ever constructed it must, in the opinion of the ablest Russian engineers, depend solely upon (1) the transport of merchandise, and (2) the development of the now ice-locked regions it will traverse. The scheme has never been, as many people seem to imagine, simply to convey pa.s.sengers and their belongings from one terminus to the other, for even Jules Verne would probably hesitate to predict the existence of this line as one of restaurants and sleeping-cars.

But let us a.s.sume that the railway has actually reached East Cape at a cost of, say, fifty millions sterling from Irkutsk, which is probably a low estimate. Here we are confronted by another colossal difficulty, the pa.s.sage of Bering Straits, which (at the narrowest part) are forty miles across. Here my friends the theorists have again been very busy, and all kinds of schemes have been suggested for the negotiation of this stumbling-block, from a bridge to balloons. Both are equally wild and impracticable, although the former has been warmly advocated by a Parisian gentleman, who never having been nearer even Berlin than the Gare du Nord, can scarcely be expected to know much about the climatic conditions of North-Eastern Siberia. As a matter of fact, the mightiest stone and iron structure ever built would not stand the break-up of the ice here in the spring time for one week. A tunnel could no doubt be made, for the depth of the Straits nowhere exceeds twenty-seven fathoms, and the Diomede Islands could be conveniently utilised for purposes of ventilation. But what would such a subway cost? And above all, where is the money coming from to repay its construction?

In Northern Alaska almost the same difficulties would be met with as in Arctic Siberia, for here also spongy tundra covers enormous tracts of country. A company has, however, been formed for the purpose of laying a line between Iliamna on Cook's Inlet and Nome City which will, when completed, be really useful and profitable. Cook's Inlet is navigable throughout the year, and it is proposed to run a line of steamers from Seattle on Puget Sound to this port, where pa.s.sengers will be able to embark on a comfortable train for Nome instead of facing a long and painful journey by dog-sled. I understand that this work has actually been commenced by the "Trans-Alaskan Railway Company," but not with any idea of connection with a possible Siberian system. This will be merely a local railway, which, judging from the increasing prosperity of Nome, and the fact that the line will pa.s.s through the rich Copper River country, should certainly repay its shareholders with interest. The extension of the White Pa.s.s Railway as far as Dawson City is only a question of time, but the idea of prolonging it to Bering Straits was not even hinted at when I was in Alaska.

All things considered I cannot see what object would be gained by the construction (at present) of a Franco-American railway. That the latter will one day connect Paris and New York I have little doubt, for where gold exists the rail must surely follow, and there can be no reasonable doubt regarding the boundless wealth and ultimate prosperity of those great countries of the future; Siberia and Alaska. But it is probably safe to predict that the work will not be accomplished in the lifetime of the present generation, or even commenced during the existence of the next. When, at the conclusion of the journey, I arrived at New York, I was asked by reporters whether I considered it possible to connect the latter city by rail with Paris. Most certainly it would be possible with unlimited capital, for this stupendous engineering feat would a.s.suredly entail an expenditure (on the Siberian side alone and not including a Bering Straits tunnel), of fifty to sixty millions sterling. It seems to me that the question is not so much, "Can the line be laid?" as "Would it pay?" In the distant future this question may perhaps be answered in the affirmative, but at present nothing whatever is known of the mineral resources of Arctic Siberia, a practical survey of which must take at least fifteen to twenty years. If reports are then favourable, Russia may begin to consider the advisability of a line to America, but, notwithstanding the fact that an attempt has been made in certain quarters to obtain money from the public for this now extremely shadowy scheme, I can only say that all the prominent Russian officials whom I have met simply ridicule the project.

Skagway is pleasantly situated on the sh.o.r.es of the Lynn Ca.n.a.l, in an amphitheatre formed by precipitous cliffs, the granite peaks of which almost overhang the little town. A curious effect is produced here by rudely coloured advertis.e.m.e.nts of some one's chewing gum, or somebody's else cigars with which the rocky sides of the nearest hills are defaced.

But there is nothing new in this, for, as far back as 1887, the name of a well-known American pill and ointment vendor met my astonished gaze on the Great Wall of China. The North Pole will soon be the only virgin field left open to the up-to-date advertiser. Skagway is now a quiet, orderly township, and a favourite resort of tourists, but shortly after it was founded, in 1898, a band of swindlers and cut-throats arrived on the scene, and practically held the place at their mercy for several weeks. The leader of this gang was one "Soapy Smith," a noted "confidence man," whose deeds of violence are still spoken of here with bated breath. This impudent scoundrel (said to have been a gentleman by birth) was clever enough to become mayor of the town, and was thus enabled to commit robberies with impunity. Many a poor miner leaving the country with a hardly earned pile has been completely fleeced, and sometimes murdered, by the iniquitous and ubiquitous "Soapy," who is said to have slain, directly or indirectly, over twenty men. Finally, however, a ma.s.s meeting was held, where Smith was shot dead, not before he had also taken the life of his slayer.

Southern Alaska is the Switzerland of America, and every summer its sh.o.r.es are invaded by hordes of tourists. There was, therefore, little room to spare in the steamer in which we travelled down the Lynn Ca.n.a.l, one of the grandest fjords on the coast, which meanders through an archipelago of beautiful islands, and past a coast-line of snowy peaks and glaciers of clear, blue crystal washed by the waves of the sea. Its glaciers are one of the wonders of Alaska, for nowhere in the world can they be witnessed in such perfection. According to a talented American auth.o.r.ess, "In Switzerland a glacier is a vast bed of dirty, air-holed ice, that has fastened itself like a cold, porous plaster to the side of an alp. Distance alone lends enchantment to the view. In Alaska a glacier is a wonderful torrent that seems to have been suddenly frozen when about to plunge into the sea," and the comparison, although far-fetched, is not wholly devoid of truth.

Nearing Juneau we pa.s.sed the Davidson glacier sufficiently near to distinguish the strange and beautiful effects produced upon its white and glittering surface by cloud and sunshine. This is the second largest ice-field in Alaska, the finest being its immediate neighbour, the Muir glacier, which drains an area of 800 square miles.[90] The actual ice surface covers about 350 square miles, the ma.s.s of it, thirty-five miles long and ten to fifteen miles wide, while surrounding it on three sides are mountains averaging 4000 to 6000 ft. in height. Vessels dare not approach the ice wall, about 250 ft. high, nearer than a quarter of a mile, as ma.s.ses of ice continually fall from its surface, and submarine bergs, becoming detached from its sunken fore-foot rise to the surface with tremendous force. The colour of the ice on the Muir glacier is as curious as it is beautiful, varying from the lightest blue to dark sapphire, and from a dark olive to the tenderest shades of green.

Although the feat has been often attempted no one has yet succeeded in crossing the Muir from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e.[91]

[Footnote 90: The Jostedalbrae in Norway, the largest glacier in Europe, only covers 470 square miles.]

[Footnote 91: See "Studies of Muir Glacier, in Alaska," by Harry Fielding Reid, _National Geographic Magazine_, March 1892.]

The captain of the _Topeka_ informed me that glaciers and canneries are the chief attractions of this coast. I a.s.sumed that it could not be the climate, for rain drizzled persistently from a grey and woolly sky nearly all the way from Skagway to Port Townsend, and this was regarded as "seasonable summer weather." With bright sunshine this journey through a calm inland sea, gliding smoothly through fjords of incomparable beauty, surrounded by every luxury, would be idyllic. As it is, cold, rain and mist generally render this so-called pleasure trip one of monotony and discomfort, where pa.s.sengers are often compelled to seek shelter throughout the day in smoke-room or saloon. Swathed in oil-skins, however, I braved the downpour, and visited one of the numerous canneries to which the _Topeka_ tied up for a few minutes, and here I was surprised to find that Chinese labour is almost exclusively employed. And the ease and celerity with which a fish was received, so to speak, fresh from the sea, cleaned, steamed, and securely soldered in a smartly labelled tin, all by machinery, within the s.p.a.ce of a few minutes, was marvellous to behold. Before the days of Klondike, the fisheries of this coast were the chief source of wealth in Alaska, where sea-board, lakes, and rivers teem with fish, the wholesale netting of which seem in no way to diminish the number. The yearly output of these coast canneries is something stupendous, and they are, undoubtedly, a far better investment than many a claim of fabulous (prospective) wealth in the gold-fields of the interior. For the establishment of a cannery is not costly, labour and taxes are low, and fish of every description, from salmon and trout to cod and halibut, can be caught without difficulty in their millions. Codfish which abound in Chatham Creek are the most profitable, also herrings, of which six hundred barrels were once caught in a single haul, off Killisnoo. But the number of canneries on this coast is increasing at a rapid rate, and five or six years hence large fortunes will be a thing of the past. The now priceless sea-otter was once abundant along the south-eastern coast of Alaska, the value of skins taken up to 1890 being thirty-six million dollars, but the wholesale slaughter of this valuable animal by the Russians, and later on by the Americans, has driven it away, and almost the only grounds where it is now found are among the Aleutian Islands and near the mouth of the Copper River. A good sea-otter skin now costs something like 200 in the European market.

Juneau and Port Wrangell were the only towns of any size touched at during the two days' trip from Skagway to Port Townsend. The former was once the fitting-out place for miners bound for the Yukon, but Skagway has now ruined its commercial prosperity, and it is now a sleepy, miserable settlement which appeared doubly unattractive viewed through a curtain of mist. The rain poured down here in such sheets that Douglas Island, only a couple of miles away, was invisible. Here is the famous Treadwell mine, where the largest quartz mill in the world crushes six hundred tons in the twenty-four hours. This mine has already yielded more gold than was paid for the whole of Alaska.

Fort Wrangell is more picturesque than Juneau, although perhaps this was partly due to the cessation (for exactly half an hour) of the rain, which enabled our hitherto cooped-up tourists to enjoy a stroll, and a breath of fresh air ash.o.r.e. Wrangell was once, like Juneau, a thriving town, when the Ca.s.siar mines in British Columbia were a centre of attraction. Between four and five thousand miners pa.s.sed through every spring and autumn, travelling to and from the diggings, and the usual hotels, saloons, and stores sprang up on all sides. Then came a period of stagnation, till the last gold rush to Klondike, when it seemed as though Wrangell would rise from its ashes. But the proposed route into the country by way of the Stikine River was finally abandoned for the White Pa.s.s, and dealt the final _coup de grace_ to the little town, which is now merely a decaying collection of wooden shanties and ruined log huts, tenanted chiefly by Indians, of whom we met more here than at any other point throughout the Alaskan journey. The natives of this part of the coast are called Thlinkits, a race numbering about 7000, and once numerous and powerful. But the Siwashes of Wrangell were a miserable-looking lot, the men apparently physically inferior to the women, some of whom would not have been ill-favoured, had it not been for the disgusting habit of daubing their faces with a mixture of soot and grease, which is supposed to keep off mosquitoes, and which gives them the grotesque appearance of Christy Minstrels. Tattooing no longer prevails amongst the Thlinkits, but the men still paint their faces and discard ragged tweeds and bowlers for the picturesque native dress on the occasion of a dance, or the feast known as a "Potlatch." The Thlinkits are not hardy, nor, as a rule, long-lived, and diseases due to drink and dissipation are rapidly thinning them out. Shamanism exists here, but not to such an extent as amongst the Siberian races, and the totem poles, which are met with at every turn in Wrangell, are not objects of worship, but are used apparently for a heraldic purpose. Some of the ancient war canoes of this tribe are still in existence, but they are only brought out on the occasion of a feast, when a chief and his crew appear in the gaudy panoply of war-paint and feathers.

On July 28, Seattle was reached, and here we met with a reception worthy of far doughtier deeds than we had accomplished. In 1896, Seattle was a country town of some 30,000 inhabitants, and I could scarcely recognise this fine modern city of over 100,000 souls which may shortly rival San Francisco as a commercial and social centre. This wonderful change is partly due to discoveries in the Klondike, but chiefly perhaps to the increasing trade of Puget Sound with the East. Fine j.a.panese liners now run direct every fortnight from Seattle to j.a.pan, and on one of these a pa.s.sage was obtained for my faithful friend and comrade, Stepan Rastorguyeff, whose invaluable services I can never repay, and to whom I bade farewell with sincere regret. I am glad to add that the plucky Cossack eventually reached his home in safety (_via_ Yokohama and Vladivostok) arriving in Yakutsk by way of Irkutsk and the Lena River early in the new year of 1902. Vicomte de Clinchamp also left me here, to return direct to France _via_ New York and Le Havre.

There is little more to tell. Travelling leisurely in glorious weather through the garden-girt towns and smiling villages of the "Rouge-River"

Valley, perhaps the most picturesque and fertile in the world, a day was pa.s.sed at Shasta Springs, the summer resort of fashionable Californians, where the sun-baked traveller may rest awhile in a little oasis of coolness and gaiety, cascades and flowers, set in a desert of dark pines. A week with old friends in cosmopolitan, ever delightful San Francisco, a rapid and luxurious journey across the American continent, land on August 25, 1902, New York was reached, and the long land journey of 18,494 miles from Paris, which had taken us two-thirds of a year to accomplish, was at an end.

THE END.