ich people had
thrown out of their wagons to lighten the load of their poor weary
beasts, to enable them to reach water and shade. Here and there a rough
mound would mark where some poor soul had been unable to bear the
sufferings and had given up his life.

Thousands died in the awful trip across the continent, and thousands
more, who thought to make an easier journey by sea, died of fevers
contracted in crossing the unhealthy Isthmus of Panama, the strip of
land that divides North and South America, separating the Atlantic from
the Pacific Ocean.

The historian Bancroft says that while between four and five hundred
millions of gold were obtained in the seven years following the find in
'49, the gold cost, in human life and labor, three times what it was
actually worth.

A few of the Forty-niners gained the riches they sought, but the greater
part of the gold-seekers barely made a living by the most exhausting
toil.

[Illustration: FORTY-NINERS CROSSING THE PLAINS.]

As regards the Klondike, all the miners who have returned declare that
the life is so hard that only the very healthy can stand it. In spite of
this warning, weak and delicate men, and men who have lived in luxury
all their lives, are setting their faces toward the north, to undertake
a life of untiring labor and privation, in the intense cold of an Arctic
region in winter, and the most extreme heat in the three short months of
summer.

During this latter season the sun does not set till 10.30, and rises
again at 3 A.M. There is no darkness, midnight being almost as light as
midday. During the hot months all kinds of insects pester the
inhabitants. The horseflies and mosquitoes swarm in such numbers that
the rigors of winter are considered preferable to the warmth of summer.

In addition to the horrors of the climate, there is no real supply of
food obtainable from the Klondike region. There is practically no
farming done, and so no crops to amount to anything are raised.
Practically all the food used at the gold-fields must be carried there
by the miners, and the method of travel is such that it is impossible
for one man to carry all the food he will need until the open season
comes round again, and he can secure fresh provisions.

When the winter once sets in in the Klondike country the people are
completely shut off from the rest of the world, the only way to reach
civilization being by a long and exhausting journey on snowshoes over
mountain