The San Francisco call., 1898-03-18
MAD RUSH TO
 THE KLONDIKE Some Exciting Scenes and In cidents at Seattle and
 Skaguay. Steamship Australia Breaks the Record From Victoria to
 Juneau.

The steamship Australia Is making a fine record in Alaskan waters. From a private letter written by Captain H. C. Houdlette to a weH-known resident ot this city, The Call is permitted to make some extracts. The letter bearing date Seattle, March F, and received in San Francisco last Wednesday, says:
 Here we are back at Seattle after go- ing the rounds-f1rst Seattle, then Taco ma, then Port Townsend, then Victoria Juneau and Skaguay, back to Juneau and Seattle We had 445 passengers, horses cattle and donkeys, and quarters of beet and mutton the whole length of the deck
 'tI think the whole community has gone mad. Men who call themselves gentle men lose all signs of gentility when they start for the mines and act more like beasts than anything else.
 I've went from Victoria out the straits outside of Vancouver Island up to lati- tude 56 degrees 20 minutes north, then in by Cape Ommersey, hence we had only 243 miles of inland steaming. I think by keeping outside all the time we shall come out all right, although we have to pass some pretty bad places and if it should happen to snow or get thick it would make you feel very uncomfortable, for the water is of such great depth that one ca:n-
 "You never saw such mob as there is
 
 fields. There are thirty-five vessels car rying passengers from Portland and Se- attle to Dyea and Skaguay, and all are going full, with more freight than they can carry. Seattle is booming
 Tt is sight worth seeing going up these channels-mOuntainS on both sides from 5000 to 6OO0 feet high, covered with snow and ice. Some of the glaciers are three miles wide and thirty miles long and from 1000 to 5000 feet deep of the blu est ice.
 he ioh% had to keep first to right and then left to keep clear of icebergs. We broke the rec ord from Victoria to Juneau, 58 hours 19 minutes, and hours 53 minutes to Skag- uay. The best trip of the Queen was 60 hours to Juneau. Our time is not bad for the old ship in strange waters.
 The Cottage ..4ty came into Juneau while we were there with ner stern and eorty feet of her keel gone. There were three hundred. passengers on board. She had three feet of water in her engine beach her.
 '7The Whitelaw got ashore before she reached Skaguay, and then burned to the waters edge about five hundred yards
 ''I want to give you little idea about Skaguay. It is built, you might say on a mud fiat, between high mountains. Everything is mountain up here, and not a bit of level land to be seen. The wharf where we lay is half mile long to town, and the rise of the tide is 2S feet. The tide goes nearly to the town; and such a town. It is full of gamblers and gin- mills You will first come to the house of some family, next door a shop. next a hotel and next a gambling den and that is the way all over town. Up the valley toward the White Pass hundreds of dead horses lie, and the water the people use comes down that way. When summer sets in they will die off like sheep.
 I've took forty Indians at Juneau to work cargo, as the gang at Skaguay wants 75 cents and S1 per hour. We had fo get United States troops to patrol the docks to protect the Indians. The night the Indians were paid of they got up courage and went up town. About 3 O clock they came running on board. The gang had fired about dozen shots at them. You never saw such a scared lot of Indians in your life. The head one woke me up, saying that. three of them had been shot, but the alarm proved to he false. as no one was shot. You can form some idea of the tough crowd at Ska guay"