Evening bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1895-1912, 1898-02-22
Joaquin Miller Gives Weird impress
SiOnS Of Yukon Winter.
The Sun Sulks Behind the Steps he
Wouldn't Stay Another Winter for
All Of KlOndikeS Gold.

and sudden death OF Mr.. Miles, |
the trusted and greatly beloved
bookkeeper of the Alaska Com
mercial Company. He had gone
on one of the little stampedes near
Dawson, six miles below, and, sep.
aratiDg from his companions, was
soon after found dead in the trail.
Heart failure, it is said. He was
from Michigan, later of Seattle,
where he was grain broker of
some fortune and great enterprise.
He leaves widow here. And
only short time before one of
party on a stampede to IDdian
gulch suddenly collapsed, and
would have died had he been
alone.
A little time ago, when telling
of three men being found dead in
and about Dawson, L took occa-
sion to say that a man not
well assured of his vital forces
might best serve himself and
those dear to him by staying
at home and attending to his
affairs at his own Preside, for the
strain here is terrible, terrible;
and not entirely on the body, but
the mind as we'll. 1 don't like to
alarm anybody; and you will bear
notice you who have followed me
in these letters that 1 have always
taken the brightest view of all sit
uations; but it is a duty to say
that L know some few men who
will leave here wrscks, both in
body and mind.
The days here have now dwind-
led to dim little ray of light; the
sun is sulking away back yonder
somewhere behind the broken
Klondike sleeps, and the huge,
bare white back of Quartz noun.
tain. We have not seen his CHEEKY
face for days and days, and do
not hope to see it again for weeks
to come. But the moon, the greet
white melancholy moon, lorn and
large and cold, walks in solemn wild.
owhood right up overhead, and ar
ound and around; we see her all the
vast night long and nearly all the
narrow strip of day. She is so
cold and white and solemn that
she is literally blue, and looks in
her desolate widowhood as il she
had Just buried her lordly spouse,
the sun, out of sight forever. l
see so much of her and so CON
tinuously that l have learned to
dread the sight of her solemn blue
white face, and try to forget to
look up at the great cathedral of
stars of gold-to get away from
the sight of her death like visage.
Oh ! but to sit on my little door.
step in the warm night weather,
above San Francisco bay, and see
the twin horned lamp Of new
born baby moon light up the
Golden Gate and then go timidly
and restfully to bed, in the warm,
wide billow! Let me but live to
see this again and L will not go
far away-at least, not in this
desolate neighborhood of the
North Pole. For I was
born to roses, snnlands, song
birds, modest moon and
warm south weather. Let me not
be caught here again, for caught l
am like wary old rat in a trap.
The wilderness and silence are of
a kind that l abhor, and the
thought of my warm Contra Costa
steps and my little familiar moon,
lighting up the Golden Gate,
make me homesick. l would not
be tied up in this lorn, large,
desolate largeness another winter
for all the Klondike gold you
could point to me with dozen
North poles in a thousand years.
True, the summers are superb
as glorious in colors and sweet
odors as they are brief; alive with
water fowl, fishes and insect life.
And these mighty winters, too,
are thrilling and inspiring in
their terrible glory for time; but
when you have lived down three
months of this vast white silence.
as if all earth lay still and stark
dead in her white shroud, waiting
the judgment day, and then find
five mnnfha still frnntinn won