epth of mud alone
which was to deter one from essaying the White Pass route. Sturdy
pioneers who had toiled long and hard in opening up one or more new
regions had laid emphasis on the stench of decaying horseflesh as a
first consideration in the choice of route. And so far as stench and
decaying horseflesh were concerned they were in strong evidence. The
desert of Sahara with its lines of skeletons, can boast of no such
exhibition of carcasses. Long before Bennett was reached I had taken
count of more than a thousand unfortunates whose bodies now made part of
the trail. Frequently we were obliged to pass directly over these
ghastly figures of hide, and sometimes, indeed, broke into them. Men
whose veracity need not be questioned assured me that what I saw was in
no way the full picture of the 'life' of the trail; the carcasses of
that time were less than one-third the full number which in April and
May gave grim character to the route to the new 'El Dorado.' Equally
spread out this number would mean one dead animal for every sixty feet
of distance! The poor beasts succumbed not so much to the hardships of
the trail as to lack of care and the inhuman treatment which they
received at the hands of their owners. Once out of the line of the mad
rush, perhaps unable to extricate themselves from the holding meshes of
soft snow and of quagmires, they were allowed to remain where they were,
a food-offering to the army of carrion eaters which were hovering about,
only too certain of the meal which was being prepared for them."

It will be seen by the foregoing accounts that only a short time ago the
journey across this coast range was anything but one of unalloyed
enjoyment, and even now, although the White Pass Railway is undoubtedly
a twentieth-century marvel, and every luxury is found on board the
train, from a morning paper to "candies" and cigars, the trip across the
summit is scarcely one which I should recommend to persons afflicted
with nerves. The line is a narrow gauge one about 110 miles in length,
which was completed in 1899 at a cost of about $3,000,000, and trains
leave the termini at Skagway and White Horse simultaneously every day in
the year at 9 A.M., reaching their respective destinations at 4 P.M. For
a couple of hours after leaving White Horse the track skirts the eastern
shores of Lakes Bennett and Lindemann, through wild but picturesque
moorland, carpeted with wild flowers,[87] and strewn with grey rocks an