SEATTLE, WASH., Sept. 13. - Two hundred and twenty-five people, passengers on the steamship Humboldt, which sailed for the Yukon August 18 last, are stranded on the salt, marshy beach at St. Michael Island, where they are subject to the terrific gaies that blow across the icy Bering Sea all winter.
In the passenger list appears the names of many well-to-do Easterners who were lured to make a foolhardy attempt to reach Dawson by the tales of the marvelous richness of the Klondike, spread broadcast over the country by the newspapers. Among the passengers are Mrs. Ely Gage, wile of the son of Secretary Gage, and W. H. Hubbard, William Weare and A. H. Ulrich, all of Chicago and all interested in the North American Transportation and Trading Company.
A letter received here-to-day states Mrs. Healy and party took the river steamer Healy, sailing August 30, for Dawson City. As the passage up the river takes three
weeks their chances of escaping a long stay at some of the trading posts below Dawson are dubious and depend entirely on the season. The river is reported by all the passengers on the Humboldt, which arrived to-day, as being very low. If an early freeze comes, as was the case last year, Mrs. Gage will very probably get no farther than Forty-mile or Circle City.
For the other passengers on the Humboldt a very different fate is in store. They were dumped on St. Michael Island in the teeth of a bleak wind from the
north pole with only their tents and thin sheet-iron stoves to keep them from freezing. There is no fuel at the place. All have ample supplies, but in spite of this their predicament is serious in the extreme, as thereare not half enough houses to shelter the hundreds of miners tnat are coming down the Yukon to spend the winter, being driven out of the country by the food famine.
Dr. A. C. Posey of Los Angeles, who went north on the Humboldt and returned to-day, says there is no snow whatever for the Humboldt's passengers to get to Dawson, although they had paid $400 each fare throuch to the Klondike and freight on their provisions. To THE CALL correspondent to-night he said:
"It will take the Humboldt people, at the least, three weeks to put their river steamer together. The engineer admitted this to me. This will mean that they will
not get started on the long voyage to Dawson before September 20. They cannot possibly get to the Klondike this winter. They may be able to reach Munook Creek, where rich placers have been found this summer. The others will doubtless remain at St. Michael. The place where we were landed was frightful in its possibilities for sickness and death. The island
of St. Michael is a huge salt marsh, and the wind has a sweep from Bering Sea, chilling one to the marrow. Death is sure to follow in the wake of the Humboldt's passengers. I saw it staring me in the face and left.
"The Humboldt's passengers combined together and resolved to hold the steamer there till the river steamer was built so they would have a refuge from the Arctic winter. Their plans were well laid, but the revenue cutter Bear was in port and they were afraid to do anything. They will most assuredly attach the river steamer, which, by the way, draws four feet of water, while there is but three on the river bars."
The Humboldt, which returned here this morning, brought ten men from the
Klondike and $20,000. Their accounts of the shortage of food confirms all that has been said in these dispatches. The Humboldt was eleven days from St. Michael.
The steamer Eliza Anderson is anchored in Dutcn Harbor, where she arrived on the 4th inst, and where she is now detained by the revenue officers. Her passengers have by this time entered Bering Sea on a schooner chartered for that purpose. Two of the passengers on the Anderson were so frightened that they gave up their search for sgold and returned south on the steamer Humboldt.
