IN SEARCH OF A SIBERIAN KLONDIKE AS NARRATED BY WASHINGTON B. VANDERLIP THE CHIEF ACTOR and HEREIN SET FORTH BY HOMER B. HULBERT ILLUSTRATED WITH MANY PHOTOGRAPHS [Illustration: Publisher's Mark] NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1903 Copyright, 1903, by THE CENTURY CO. _Published, October, 1903_ THE DE VINNE PRESS TO "THE LITTLE MOTHER" CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. OUTFIT AND SUPPLIES Rumor of gold in northeastern Asia--Plan to prospect through Kamchatka and north to Bering Strait--Steamer _Cosmopolite_--Russian law in the matter of liquor traffic--I make up my party and buy supplies--Korean habits of dress--Linguistic difficulties 3 II. SAGHALIEN AND THE CONVICT STATION AT KORSAKOVSK Departure of the expedition--Arrival at Korsakovsk--Condition of convict station--Freedom allowed prisoners, most of whom are murderers--Wreck of the steamer and loss of outfit--Gold lace and life-preservers--Return to Korsakovsk--Russian table manners--The Russian's naïve attitude toward bathing--Some results of the intermarriage of criminals--How Yankee shrewdness saved some confiscated photographs--Pleasant sensations on being shaved by a murderer--Predominance of American goods 20 III. PETROPAULOVSK AND SOUTHERN KAMCHATKA Volcanoes of Kamchatka and the superstitious natives--The first prospecting trip--Copper found, but no gold--Mosquitos cause an evacuation of the land--The typical Chinese peddler 43 IV. SALMON-FISHING IN THE FAR NORTH Tide that rises twenty-five feet--Wholesale suicide of salmon-- Fish-eyes as a delicacy for sea-gulls--How the natives store fish for the sledge-dogs--The three varieties of salmon--An Arcadian land for the birds 51 V. THE TOWN OF GHIJIGA The sacred icon and the sewing-machine both in evidence--The native "process of getting married"--Mrs. Braggin's piano--American pack-saddles and Russian obstinacy--Theodosia Chrisoffsky and his sixty descendants 64 VI. OFF FOR THE TUNDRA--A NATIVE FAMILY Hard traveling--The native women--A mongrel race--Chrisoffsky's home and family and their ideas of domestic economy--Boiled fish-eyes a native delicacy--Prospecting along the Ghijiga 79 VII. TUNGUSE AND KORAK HOSPITALITY My Korak host--"Bear!"--I shoot my first arctic fox--My Tunguse guide--Twenty-two persons sleep in a twelve-foot tent--Tunguse family prayers--The advent of Howka--Chrisoffsky once more 92 VIII. DOG-SLEDGING AND THE FUR TRADE