newspapers, and no sooner was the Expedition comfortably installed in
the "Golden Gate Hotel" than it was besieged by the usual reporters. The
rapidity with which the interviews were published would have done credit
to a London evening paper, and I could only admire the versatility of
the gentleman who, only four hours after our arrival, brought out a
special edition of the _Nome Nugget_, containing a portrait of His Royal
Highness the Duke of the Abruzzi in full naval uniform, which was
described as his humble servant: the writer! The jealousy amongst these
Arctic editors is as keen and bitter as it ever was in Eatanswill, and
the next day the following paragraph appeared in the _News_, a rival
publication:

"One of our contemporaries has celebrated the rescue of some explorers
from starvation by publishing the picture of Prince Louis of Savoy under
the caption 'Harry de Windt.' But the Italian prince is also an
explorer, and probably all explorers look alike to the _Nugget_!"

Nome City impressed me at first as being a kind of squalid Monte Carlo.
There is the same unrest, the same feverish quest for gold, and the same
extravagance of life as in the devil's garden on the blue Mediterranean.
On landing, I was struck with the number of well-dressed men and women
who rub shoulders in the street with the dilapidated-looking mining
element. In the same way palatial banks and prim business houses are
incongruously scattered amongst saloons and drinking bars. Front Street,
facing the sea, is the principal thoroughfare, so crowded at midday that
you can scarcely get along. It is paved with wood, imported here at
enormous expense, and a pavement of the same material is raised about
two feet above the roadway. Here are good shops where everything is
cheap, for during the great gold-rush Nome was over-stocked. Wearing
apparel may be purchased here even cheaper than in San Francisco, and
everything is on the same scale; oranges, for instance, which two years
ago cost one dollar apiece and which are now sold in the streets for
five cents. Luxurious shaving saloons abound, also restaurants--one kept
by a Frenchman who is deservedly reaping a golden harvest.

In summer there is no rest here throughout the twenty-four hours. People
wander aimlessly about the streets, eternally discussing quartz and
placer-claims, and recent strikes, which here form the sole topic of
conversation, like a run on zero or the cards at Monaco. Port Said