initial commit of ebook 27260HEAD main

author: Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> 2025-10-15 02:34:21 -0700
committer: Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> 2025-10-15 02:34:21 -0700
commit: cf39676f0697c263ee9b6c5cdb86b6ef751f56d3 (patch)
tree: e4c9150b211a97baebe1befa4ce0f3091ee35df1
67 files changed, 21592 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6833f05
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.gitattributes
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+* text=auto
+*.txt text
+*.md text
diff --git a/27260-8.txt b/27260-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..e423f82
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6960 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of East of Suez, by Frederic Courtland Penfield
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: East of Suez
+       Ceylon, India, China and Japan
+
+Author: Frederic Courtland Penfield
+
+Release Date: November 14, 2008 [EBook #27260]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST OF SUEZ ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+EAST OF SUEZ
+
+
+
+
+  PRESENT-DAY EGYPT
+
+  By Frederic Courtland Penfield, Former American Diplomatic
+  Agent and Consul-General to Egypt.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  _Secretariat
+  du
+  Kh�dive_
+
+  RAS-EL-TEEN PALACE,
+  ALEXANDRIA, 4th November, 1899
+
+  FREDERIC C. PENFIELD, ESQUIRE,
+  Manhattan Club, New York.
+
+
+  My dear Sir:
+
+  I am commanded by H. H. The Khedive to
+  acknowledge the receipt of the copy of your
+  book "Present-Day Egypt," which you have
+  so kindly forwarded for his acceptance.
+
+  I am to say that His Highness has read it
+  with much pleasure and interest, as it is the
+  only book published on Egypt of to-day by
+  an author thoroughly acquainted with the
+  subject through long residence and official
+  position in the country.
+
+  I have the honor to be, Sir,
+  Your obedient servant,
+  (Signed) ALFRED B. BREWSTER,
+  Private Secretary to H. H. the Khedive.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Revised and Enlarged Edition. Fully illustrated.
+  Uniform with "East of Suez." 8vo. 396 pages. $2.50
+
+  The Century Co.,
+  Union Square New York
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: GULF OF MANAR PEARLING BOAT, AND DIVERS RESTING IN
+THE WATER]
+
+
+
+
+  EAST OF SUEZ
+  CEYLON, INDIA, CHINA AND JAPAN
+
+
+  By
+  Frederic Courtland Penfield
+  Author of "Present-Day Egypt," etc.
+
+
+  Illustrated from Drawings and Photographs
+
+
+  "East is East, and West is West, and
+                  never the twain shall meet,
+  Till Earth and Sky stand presently at
+                  God's great Judgment Seat."
+                                        _Kipling._
+
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+  NEW YORK
+  THE CENTURY CO.
+  1907
+
+
+
+
+  Copyright, 1906, 1907, by
+  THE CENTURY CO.
+
+  _Published, February, 1907_
+
+
+  THE DE VINNE PRESS
+
+
+
+
+  TO THE MEMORY OF
+  KATHARINE
+
+
+
+
+Introductory
+
+
+If books of travel were not written the stay-at-home millions would know
+little of the strange or interesting sights of this beautiful world of
+ours; and it surely is better to have a vicarious knowledge of what is
+beyond the vision than dwell in ignorance of the ways and places of men
+and women included in the universal human family.
+
+The Great East is a fascinating theme to most readers, and every
+traveler, from Marco Polo to the tourist of the present time, taking the
+trouble to record what he saw, has placed every fireside reader under
+distinct obligation.
+
+So thorough was my mental acquaintance with India through years of
+sympathetic study of Kipling that a leisurely survey of Hind simply
+confirmed my impressions. Other generous writers had as faithfully
+taught what China in reality was, and Mortimer Menpes, Basil Hall
+Chamberlain, and Miss Scidmore had as conscientiously depicted to my
+understanding the ante-war Japan. Grateful am I, as well, to the legion
+of tireless writers attracted to the East by recent strife and conquest,
+who have made Fuji more familiar to average readers than any mountain
+peak in the United States; who have made the biographies of favorite
+geishas known even in our hamlets and mining camps, and whose agreeable
+iteration of scenes on Manila's lunetta compel our Malaysian capital to
+be known as well as Coney Island and Atlantic City--they have so
+graphically portrayed and described interesting features that of them
+nothing remains to be told. But to know Eastern lands and peoples
+without an intermediary is keenly delightful and compensating.
+
+The travel impulse and longing for first-hand knowledge, native with
+most mortals, is yearly finding readier expression. Our grandparents
+earned a renown more than local by crossing the Atlantic to view England
+and the Continent, while our fathers and mothers exploring distant
+Russia and the Nile were accorded marked consideration. The wandering
+habit is as progressive as catching, and what sufficed our ancestors
+satisfies only in minor degree the longing of the present generation for
+roving. Hence the grand tour, the circuit of the earth, is becoming an
+ordinary achievement. And while hundreds of Americans are compassing the
+earth this year, thousands will place the globe under tribute in seasons
+not remote.
+
+For many years to come India and Ceylon will practically be what they
+are to-day, and sluggish China will require much rousing before her
+national characteristics differ from what they are now; but of Japan it
+is different, for, having made up their minds to remodel the empire, the
+sons of Nippon are not doing things by halves, and the old is being
+supplanted by the new with amazing rapidity.
+
+Possibly it is a misfortune to find oneself incapable of preparing a
+volume of travel without inflicting a sermon upon kindly disposed
+persons, but a book of journeyings loaded with gentle preachment must at
+least be a novelty. Travel books imparting no patriotic lesson may well
+be left to authors and readers of older and self-sufficient nations. A
+work appealing on common lines to a New World audience would be worse
+than banal, and a conscientious American writer is compelled to describe
+not alone what he saw, but in clarion notes tell of some things he
+failed of seeing for our country, emerging but now from the formative
+period, and destined to permanently lead the universe in material
+affairs, is entitled to be better known in the East by its manufactures.
+
+Every piece of money expended in travel is but the concrete form of
+somebody's toil, or the equivalent of a marketed product: and
+consequently it is almost unnecessary to remind that industry and thrift
+must precede expenditure, or to assert that toil and travel bear
+inseparable relationship. What the American, zigzagging up and down and
+across that boundless region spoken of as East of Suez, fails to see is
+the product of Uncle Sam's mills, workshops, mines and farms. From the
+moment he passes the Suez Canal to his arrival at Hong Kong or Yokohama,
+the Stars and Stripes are discovered in no harbor nor upon any sea; and
+maybe he sees the emblem of the great republic not once in the transit
+of the Pacific. And the products of our marvelous country are met but
+seldom, if at all, where the American wanders in the East. He is
+rewarded by finding that the Light of Asia is American petroleum, but
+that is about the only Western commodity he is sure of encountering in
+months of travel.
+
+This state of things is grievously wrong, for it should be as easy for
+us to secure trade in the Orient as for any European nation, and
+assuredly easier than for Germany. We have had such years of material
+prosperity and progress as were never known in the history of any
+people, it is true; but every cycle of prosperity has been succeeded by
+lean years, and ever will be. When the inevitable over-production and
+lessened home consumption come, Eastern markets, though supplied at
+moderate profit, will be invaluable. We are building the Panama Canal,
+whose corollary _must_ be a mercantile fleet of our own upon the seas,
+distributing the products of our soil and manufactories throughout the
+world, and Secretary of State Root has made it easy for a better
+understanding and augmented trade with the republics to the south of us.
+But America's real opportunity is in Asia, where dwell more than half
+the people of the earth, for the possibilities of commerce with the rich
+East exceed those of South America tenfold. Uncle Sam merits a goodly
+share of the trade of both these divisions of the globe.
+
+The people of the United States must cut loose from the idea that has
+lost its logic in recent years, that the Pacific Ocean _separates_
+America from the lands and islands of Asia, and look upon it as a body
+of water _connecting_ us with the bountiful East. The old theory was
+good enough for our home-building fathers, but is blighting to a
+generation aspiring to Americanize the globe. The genius of our nation
+should cause our ploughs and harrows to prepare the valley and delta of
+the Nile for tillage; be responsible for the whir of more of our
+agricultural machinery in the fields of India; locate our lathes and
+planers and drilling machines in Eastern shops, in substitution for
+those made in England or Germany; be responsible for American
+locomotives drawing American cars in Manchuria and Korea over rails
+rolled in Pittsburgh, and induce half the inhabitants of southern Asia
+to dress in fabrics woven in the United States, millions of the people
+of Cathay to tread the earth in shoes produced in New England, and all
+swayed to an appreciation of our flour as a substitute for rice--yes,
+make it easy to obtain pure canned foods everywhere in China and Japan,
+even to hear the merry click of the typewriter in Delhi, Bangkok and
+Pekin.
+
+Do we not already lead in foreign trade? We do, I gratefully admit; but
+it is because we sell to less favored peoples our grains and fiber in a
+raw state. Confessedly, these are self-sellers, for not a bushel of
+wheat or ounce of cotton is sold because of any enterprise on our
+part--the buyer must have them, and the initiative of the transaction is
+his.
+
+What economists regard as 'trade' in its most advantageous form, is the
+selling to foreigners of something combining the natural products and
+the handiwork of a nation--this is the trade that America should look
+for in the East, and seek it now. It is not wild prophecy that within
+five years a considerable number of the sovereign people of the country
+controlling its growth will feel that it is carrying international
+comity to the point of philanthropy to export cotton to England and
+Japan to be there fabricated for the wear of every race of Asia, and
+sold in successful competition with American textiles. In the pending
+battle for the world's markets Uncle Sam should win trade by every
+proper means, and not by methods most easily invoked; and let it ever be
+remembered that shortsightedness is plainly distinct from altruism.
+
+
+  FREDERIC C. PENFIELD.
+
+  AUTHORS CLUB, NEW YORK CITY,
+  January 26, 1907.
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                            PAGE
+
+     I  THE WORLD'S TURNSTILE AT SUEZ                   3
+
+    II  COLOMBO, CEYLON'S COSMOPOLITAN SEA-PORT        30
+
+   III  THE LURE OF THE PEARL                          50
+
+    IV  UPWARD TO THE SHRINE OF BUDDHA                 92
+
+     V  IN CEYLON'S HILL COUNTRY                      108
+
+    VI  BOMBAY AND ITS PARSEE "JEES" AND "BHOYS"      126
+
+   VII  THE VICARIOUS MAHARAJAH OF JEYPORE.           149
+
+  VIII  THE WORLD'S MOST EXQUISITE BUILDING           168
+
+    IX  BENARES, SACRED CITY OF THE HINDUS            185
+
+     X  INDIA'S MODERN CAPITAL                        205
+
+    XI  ISLAND LINKS IN BRITAIN'S CHAIN OF EMPIRE     226
+
+   XII  CANTON, UNIQUE CITY OF CHINA 244
+
+  XIII  MACAO, THE MONTE CARLO OF THE FAR EAST        267
+
+   XIV  THE KAISER'S PLAY FOR CHINESE TRADE           290
+
+    XV  JAPAN'S COMMERCIAL FUTURE                     315
+
+        INDEX                                         345
+
+
+
+
+  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                            PAGE
+
+  GULF OF MANAR PEARLING BOAT, AND DIVERS RESTING
+  IN THE WATER                                      Frontispiece
+    From drawing by Corwin K. Linson.
+
+  PORT SAID ENTRANCE TO SUEZ CANAL, SHOWING DE
+  LESSEPS'S STATUE                                             8
+    From photograph by Georgilada Kip.
+
+  ITALIAN WARSHIP STEAMING THROUGH CANAL                      13
+
+  CARGO STEAMER IN THE CANAL AT KILOMETER 133                 25
+    From photograph by Georgilada Kip.
+
+  THE JETTY AT COLOMBO                                        32
+
+  HINDU SILVERSMITHS, COLOMBO                                 38
+    From photograph by Skeen & Co.
+
+  A HIGH PRIEST OF BUDDHA 42
+    From photograph by Colombo Apothecaries Co., Ltd.
+
+  REPRESENTATION OF BUDDHA'S TOOTH, COLOMBO MUSEUM            46
+
+  MAP OF THE GULF OF MANAR, "THE SEA ABOUNDING IN PEARLS"     53
+
+  COOLIES CARRYING PEARL OYSTERS FROM THE BOATS TO THE
+  GOVERNMENT "KOTTU"                                          60
+    From drawing by Corwin K. Linson.
+
+  THE LATE RANA OF DHOLPUR IN HIS PEARL REGALIA               67
+    From photograph by Johnston & Hoffmann.
+
+  INDIAN PEARL MERCHANTS READY FOR BUSINESS, MARICHCHIKKADDI  74
+    From drawing by Corwin K. Linson.
+
+  THE LATE MAHARAJAH OF PATIALA IN HIS PEARL REGALIA          83
+    From photograph by Johnston & Hoffmann.
+
+  A LADY OF KANDY                                             94
+    From photograph by Skeen & Co.
+
+  TEMPLE OF THE TOOTH, KANDY                                  99
+    From photograph by Colombo Apothecaries Co., Ltd.
+
+  CREMATION OF A BUDDHIST PRIEST                             105
+    From photograph by Plat� & Co.
+
+  TREES IN PERADENIYA GARDEN, KANDY                          111
+    From photographs by Frederic C. Penfield.
+
+  TAMIL COOLIE SETTING OUT TEA PLANTS                        115
+
+  TAMIL GIRL PLUCKING TEA                                    119
+
+  A KANDYAN CHIEFTAIN                                        124
+
+  PARSEE TOWER OF SILENCE, BOMBAY                            129
+
+  A BOMBAY RAILWAY STATION                                   136
+
+  A BOMBAY POLICEMAN                                         141
+
+  HIS HIGHNESS THE MAHARAJAH OF JEYPORE                      148
+
+  A MATCHED PAIR OF BULLOCKS, JEYPORE                        153
+
+  STREET SCENE, JEYPORE, SHOWING PALACE OF THE WINDS         157
+
+  COURT DANCERS AND MUSICIANS, JEYPORE                       162
+
+  THE TAJ MAHAL, AGRA                                        169
+
+  ALABASTER SCREEN ENCLOSING ARJAMAND'S TOMB, TAJ MAHAL      175
+
+  INLAID WORK IN MAUSOLEUM OP ITIMAD-UD-DAULAH, AGRA         182
+
+  SCENE ON THE GANGES, BENARES                               188
+
+  BENARES BURNING GHAT, WITH CORPSES BEING PURIFIED IN
+  THE GANGES                                                 191
+
+  BENARES HOLY' MEN                                          198
+
+  A BRAHMIN PRIEST                                           203
+
+  A CALCUTTA NAUTCH DANCER                                   207
+
+  GENERAL POST-OFFICE, CALCUTTA                              212
+
+  SHIPPING ON THE HOOGHLY, CALCUTTA                          215
+
+  CALCUTTA COOLIES                                           222
+
+  HONG KONG HARBOR                                           229
+
+  HONG KONG'S MOUNTAINSIDE                                   233
+
+  A FORMER "HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR" OF HONG KONG        240
+
+  TEMPLE OF THE FIVE HUNDRED GENII, CANTON                   247
+    From photograph by A-Chan.
+
+  CITY OF BOATS, CANTON, WHERE GENERATIONS ARE BORN
+  AND DIE                                                    254
+
+  EXAMINATION BOOTHS, CANTON                                 261
+    From photograph by A-Chan.
+
+  PRINCIPAL SECTION OF MACAO                                 270
+
+  FRONTIER GATE BETWEEN CHINA PROPER AND THE
+  PORTUGUESE COLONY                                          275
+
+  MONUMENT AND BUST OF CAMOENS, MACAO                        279
+
+  IN A FAN-TAN GAMBLING HOUSE, MACAO                         288
+
+  TYPICAL BUSINESS STREET IN A CHINESE CITY                  293
+    From photograph by A-Chan.
+
+  EXHIBITION OF BODIES OF CHINESE MALEFACTORS WHO
+  HAVE BEEN STRANGLED                                        300
+
+  SIMPLE PUNISHMENT OF A CHINESE MENDICANT                   305
+
+  CHINESE BUDDHIST PRIESTS                                   311
+
+  BRONZE DAIBUTSU AT KAMAKURA, JAPAN                         319
+    From photograph by Frederic C. Penfield.
+
+  A GARDEN VIEW OF THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, TOKYO               328
+    From photograph by Frederic C. Penfield.
+
+  JAPANESE JUNK, OR CARGO BOAT                               337
+
+
+
+
+EAST OF SUEZ
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE WORLD'S TURNSTILE AT SUEZ
+
+
+When historical novels and "purpose" books dealing with great industries
+and commodities cease to sell, the vagrant atoms and shadings of history
+ending with the opening of the two world-important canals might be
+employed by writers seeking incidents as entrancing as romances and
+which are capable of being woven into narrative sufficiently interesting
+to compel a host of readers. The person fortunate enough to blaze the
+trail in this literary departure will have a superabundance of material
+at command, if he know where and how to seek it.
+
+The paramount fact-story of all utilitarian works of importance is
+unquestionably that surrounding the great portal connecting Europe with
+Asia. As romances are plants of slow growth in lands of the Eastern
+hemisphere, compared with the New World, the fascinating tale of Suez
+required two or three thousand years for its development, while that of
+Panama had its beginning less than four hundred years ago. In both cases
+the possession of a canal site demanded by commerce brought loss of
+territory and prestige to the government actually owning it. The
+Egyptians were shorn of the privilege of governing Egypt through the
+reckless pledging of credit to raise funds for the completion of the
+waterway connecting Port Sa�d and Suez, and the South American republic
+of Colombia saw a goodly slice of territory pass forever from her rule,
+with the Panama site, when the republic on the isthmus came suddenly
+into being.
+
+Vexatious and humiliating as the incidents must have been to the
+Egyptians and the Colombians, the world at large, broadly considering
+the situations, pretends to see no misfortune in the conversion of
+trifling areas to the control of abler administrators, comparing each
+action to the condemning of a piece of private property to the use of
+the universe. When the canal connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific
+shall be completed, no more waterways uniting oceans will be necessary
+or possible. But, did a weak people possess a site that might be
+utilized by the ebbing and flowing of the globe's shipping, when a canal
+had been made, they would obviously hesitate a long time before
+voluntarily parading its advantages.
+
+The uniting of the Mediterranean and Red seas was considered long before
+the birth of Christ, and many wise men and potentates toyed with the
+project in the hoary ages. The Persian king, Necho, was dissuaded
+sixteen hundred years before the dawn of Christianity from embarking in
+the enterprise, through the warning of his favorite oracle, who insisted
+that the completion of the work would bring a foreign invasion,
+resulting in the loss of canal and country as well. The great Rameses
+was not the only ruler of the country of the Nile who coquetted with the
+project. In 1800 the engineers of Napoleon studied the scheme, but their
+error in estimating the Red Sea to be thirty feet below the
+Mediterranean kept the Corsican from undertaking the cutting of a canal.
+Mehemet Ali, whose energies for improving the welfare of his Egyptian
+people were almost boundless, never yielded to the blandishment of
+engineers scheming to pierce the isthmus; he may have known of the
+prognostication of Necho's oracle.
+
+Greater than any royal actor in the Suez enterprise, however, was
+Ferdinand de Lesseps, the Frenchman whom history persists in calling an
+engineer. By training and occupation he was a diplomatist, probably
+knowing no more of engineering than of astronomy or therapeutics.
+Possessing limitless ambition, he longed to be conspicuously in the
+public gaze, to be great. He excelled as a negotiator, and knew this;
+and it came easy to him to organize and direct. In his day the
+designation "Captain of Industry" had not been devised. In the project
+of canalizing the Suez isthmus--perennial theme of Cairo bazaar and
+coffee-house--he recognized his opportunity, and severed his connection
+with the French Consulate-General in Egypt to promote the alluring
+scheme, under a concession readily procured from Viceroy Sa�d. This was
+in 1856.
+
+Egypt had no debt whatever when Sa�d Pasha signed the document. But when
+the work was completed, in 1869, the government of the ancient land of
+the Pharaohs was fairly tottering under its avalanche of obligations to
+European creditors, for every wile of the plausible De Lesseps had been
+employed to get money from simple Sa�d, and later from Ismail Pasha, who
+succeeded him in the khedivate. For fully a decade the raising of money
+for the project was the momentous work of the rulers of Egypt; but more
+than half the cash borrowed at usurious rates stuck to the hands of the
+money brokers in Europe, let it be known, while the obligation of Sa�d
+or Ismail was in every instance for the full amount.
+
+Incidentally, a condition of the concession was that Egypt need
+subscribe nothing, and as a consideration for the concession it was
+solemnly stipulated that for ninety-nine years--the period for which the
+concession was given--fifteen per cent, of the gross takings of the
+enterprise would be paid to the Egyptian treasury.
+
+[Illustration: PORT SAID ENTRANCE TO SUEZ CANAL, SHOWING DE LESSEP'S
+STATUE]
+
+Learning the borrowing habit from his relations with plausible De
+Lesseps, the magnificent Ismail borrowed in such a wholesale manner, for
+the Egyptian people and himself, that in time both were hopelessly in
+default to stony-hearted European creditors. Egyptian bonds were then
+quoted in London at about half their face value, and Britons held a
+major part of them.
+
+England had originally fought the canal project, opposing it in every
+way open to her power and influence at Continental capitals. The belief
+in time dawning upon the judgment of Britain that the canal would be
+finished and would succeed, her statesmen turned their energies to
+checkmating and minimizing the influence of De Lesseps and his dupe
+Ismail. The screws were consequently put on the Sultan of Turkey--whose
+vassal Ismail was--resulting in that Merry Monarch of the Nile being
+deposed and sent into exile, and the national cash-box at Cairo was at
+the same time turned over to a commission of European
+administrators--and is yet in their keeping.
+
+But the miserable people of Egypt, the burdened fellaheen, resented the
+interference of Christian money-lenders, demanding more than their pound
+of flesh. The Arabi rebellion resulted, when British regiments and
+warships were sent to quell the uprising and restore the authority of
+the Khedive. That was nearly a quarter of a century ago; but since the
+revolution the soldiers and civil servants of England have remained in
+Egypt, and to all intents and purposes the country has become a colony
+of England. The defaulted debts of the canal-building period were
+responsible for these happenings, be it said.
+
+Verily, the fulfilment of Necho's oracle came with terrible force, and
+generations of Nile husbandmen must toil early and late to pay the
+interest on the public debt incurred through Ismail's prodigality. This
+degraded man in his exile persistently maintained that he believed he
+was doing right when borrowing for the canal, for it was to elevate
+Egypt to a position of honor and prominence in the list of nations. And
+it is the irony of fate, surely, that Ismail's personal holding in the
+canal company was sacrificed to the British government for half its
+actual value, on the eve of his dethronement, and that every tittle of
+interest in the enterprise held by the Egyptian government--including
+the right to fifteen per cent, of the receipts--was lost or abrogated.
+Owning not a share of stock in the undertaking, and having no merchant
+shipping to be benefited, Egypt derives no more advantage from the great
+Suez Canal than an imaginary kingdom existing in an Anthony Hope novel.
+
+The canal has prospered beyond the dreams of its author; but this means
+no more to the country through which it runs than the success of the
+canals of Mars. De Lesseps died in a madhouse and practically a pauper,
+while Ismail spent his last years a prisoner in a gilded palace on the
+Bosporus, and was permitted to return to his beloved country only after
+death. These are but some of the tragic side-lights of the great story
+of the Suez Canal.
+
+A few years since there was a movement in France to perpetuate De
+Lesseps's name by officially calling the waterway the Canal de Lesseps.
+But England withheld its approval, while other interests having a right
+to be heard believed that the stigma of culpability over the Panama
+swindles was fastened upon De Lesseps too positively to merit the
+tribute desired by his relatives and friends. As a modified measure,
+however, the canal administration was willing to appropriate a modest
+sum to provide a statue of the once honored man to be placed at the
+Mediterranean entrance of the canal.
+
+There stands to-day on the jetty at Port Sa�d, consequently, a bronze
+effigy of the man for a few years known as "_Le grand Fran�ais_," visage
+directed toward Constantinople (where once he had been potent in
+intrigue), the left hand holding a map of the canal, while the right is
+raised in graceful invitation to the maritime world to enter. This piece
+of sculpture is the only material evidence that such a person as
+Ferdinand de Lesseps ever lived. The legacy to his family was that of a
+man outliving his importance and fair name.
+
+The name Port Sa�d commemorates the viceroy granting the concession,
+while Ismail the Splendid has his name affixed to the midway station on
+the canal, Ismailia, where tourists scramble aboard the train bound for
+Cairo and the Nile. The actual terminus at the Suez end is called Port
+Tewfik, after Ismail's son and successor in the khedivate. This
+convenient mode of perpetuating the names of mighty actors in the Suez
+drama suggests a certain sentimentality, but the present generation
+cares as little for the subject as for a moldy play-bill hanging in a
+dark corner of a club-house.
+
+As an engineering feat the construction of the canal was nothing
+remarkable. Any youth knowing the principles of running lines and
+following the course of least resistance might have planned it. In Cairo
+and Alexandria it is flippantly said that De Lesseps traced with his
+gold-headed walking-stick the course of the canal in the sand, while
+hundreds of thousands of unpaid natives scooped the soil out with their
+hands. The work was completed with dredges and labor-saving machinery,
+as a fact. The enterprise cost practically $100,000,000--a million
+dollars a mile; and half this was employed in greasing the wheels at
+Constantinople and Paris, Probably the work could to-day be duplicated,
+by using machinery similar to that employed on the Chicago Drainage
+Canal, for $25,000,000. The task would be a digging proposition, pure
+and simple.
+
+A cardinal article of faith of the legal status of the canal is its
+absolute internationality. By its constitution no government can employ
+it in war time to the exclusion or disadvantage of another nation. By a
+convention becoming operative in 1888 the canal is exempt from blockade,
+and vessels of all nations, whether armed or not, are forever to be
+allowed to pass through it in peace or time of war.
+
+[Illustration: ITALIAN WARSHIP STEAMING THROUGH CANAL]
+
+Critics of Britain's paramount interest in India and her aspirations in
+the Far East, nevertheless, pretend to see a decided advantage accruing
+from England's control of things Egyptian. They claim that Britain's
+position is immensely strengthened by the presence in Cairo and
+Alexandria, within a few hours' journey of the canal, of a half-dozen
+regiments of redcoats ready for any emergency. Another proof of
+England's interest in the great universal artery of travel is the
+maintaining of guard-ships at either terminus, which incidentally keep
+watchful eyes on the coal-bins of Suez and Port Sa�d, A vessel
+unofficially sunk in an awkward position in the canal might delay for
+weeks the arrival of an unfriendly fleet in Asiatic waters.
+
+The British government and British trade have fattened tremendously from
+the canal. Being the short-cut to England's treasure-house in the East,
+it is more or less equitable that Britain's flag flies over sixty per
+cent, of the canal traffic; and, fully as important, is the tremendous
+increase in value of the shares in the company held by the British
+government. It was in 1875 that Disraeli secured to his countrymen the
+permanent control of the canal through the purchase from embarrassed
+Ismail of that potentate's personal holding in the undertaking. This
+midnight negotiation, conducted over the cable, was Disraeli's most
+material triumph as a statesman. For $20,000,000 he purchased shares
+having now a market value of $135,000,000. A few hours after the
+consummation of this negotiation a group of French bankers, then in
+Cairo, seeking to acquire the shares, were amazed to learn that they had
+been outwitted. A well-posted newspaper correspondent at the French
+capital had informed Britain's ambassador of the purpose of the
+bankers' visit to Egypt--and astute Disraeli did the rest.
+
+This transferred from France to her rival across the channel the right
+to direct the policy of De Lesseps's creation. But French
+susceptibilities have always been considered in matters connected with
+the conduct of the enterprise--it is still "La Compagnie Universelle du
+Canal Maritime de Suez," the tariff is based on French currency, the
+principal office is in Paris, and the official language of the company
+is French.
+
+The world knows the Suez marine highway only in its utilitarian aspect,
+and America's interest therein is that attaching to it as an enterprise
+forerunning Uncle Sam's route at Panama. Before many years have passed
+the two canals will to some extent be rivals. The Suez cutting is
+practically ninety-nine miles in length, and at present 121 feet wide,
+with a depth accommodating craft drawing twenty-six feet and three
+inches. To handle modern battleships and the increasing size of cargo
+steamers, both depth and width are to be increased. Having no sharp
+curvatures, and excavated at a level from sea to sea, ships proceed by
+night assisted by electric lights with the same facility as by day. The
+time consumed in transit is from fourteen to eighteen hours. Not for a
+decade has a sailing vessel used the canal, and the widest craft ever
+traversing the canal was the dry-dock _Dewey_, sent under tow by the
+government from the United States to the Philippines. The tariff is now
+reduced to $1.70 per ton register, and $2 for every passenger. A ship's
+crew pay nothing. The toll for a steamer of average size, like a
+Peninsular and Orient liner, is about $10,000. I first passed the canal
+in a yacht of the New York Yacht Club, for which the tax was $400, and
+the last time I made the transit was in a German-Lloyd mail steamer
+which paid $7,000 for tonnage and passengers.
+
+The canal's value to the commerce of the world is sufficiently proved by
+the saving of distance effected by it, as compared with the route around
+the Cape of Good Hope. By the latter the distance between England and
+Bombay is 10,860 miles, by the canal 4,620 miles, and from New York to
+the leading ports of India the Cape route is about 11,500 miles, while
+by the canal the journey is shortened to 7,900 miles. How rapidly the
+traffic attracted by the economy in distance thus effected has
+developed, is best illustrated by the following statement, taken
+quinquennially from the company's returns:
+
+  Year  Steamers  Net Tonnage  Receipts in Francs
+
+  1871      765      761,467       7,595,385
+
+  1876    1,457    2,069,771      27,631,455
+
+  1881    2,727    4,136,779      47,193,880
+
+  1886    3,100    5,767,655      54,771,075
+
+  1891    4,206    8,699,020      83,421,500
+
+  1896    3,407    8,594,307      79,652,175
+
+  1901    3,699   10,823,840     100,386,397
+
+  1906    3,780   11,750,000     103,700,000
+
+The Suez company pays enormously, and more than half the current
+earnings go to the possessors of the several grades of bonds and
+shares. Great Britain is the preponderating user of the canal, with
+Germany a poor second. Holland, due to proprietorship of Dutch India, is
+third in the list, and the nation of De Lesseps is fourth. The United
+States stands near the foot of the roll of patrons, being only
+represented by an occasional warship, transport going to or coming from
+the Philippines, or a touring yacht. It is a pathetic fact that our
+country, paramount producer of the world, has not been represented for
+nearly a decade by the Stars and Stripes over a commercial craft in the
+Suez canal. Cargoes go or come between American ports and those of the
+Orient, of course, but they are borne in British bottoms or those having
+register in other foreign nations. Fifteen or sixteen years ago England
+was represented in Suez statistics by seventy-five per cent. of the
+total traffic; but her proportion has decreased until it is now under
+sixty per cent. Kaiser William making a systematic fight for new markets
+in China and throughout Australasia, the statistics of Germany in canal
+traffic are slowly advancing.
+
+At present, with the Suez enterprise in operation thirty-eight years,
+the average number of ships using the waterway is approximately ten each
+day. This is one vessel every two hours and thirty-five minutes during
+the twenty-four hours--meaning an eastbound craft every five hours and
+ten minutes, and a westbound every five hours and ten minutes.
+
+The idea of wedding the Atlantic and the Pacific must have been original
+with the first observant and intelligent person viewing the two oceans
+from the hills of the Central-American isthmus. Presumably he was a
+Spanish adventurer, and the time practically four hundred years ago. A
+century before the landing on American soil of the Pilgrim Fathers,
+explorers were informing Charles V of Spain of the opportunity supplied
+by nature to connect the waters of the two oceans. In 1550, one Galvao,
+a Portuguese navigator, wrote a book to prove the feasibility of an
+artificial connection between the Atlantic and the Pacific; and in 1780
+a scientific commission from Spain studied the three Central-American
+routes--Panama, San Blas, and Nicaragua. These are simple facts to be
+pondered over by busy people who may possibly be in doubt as to whether
+the "father" of the isthmian enterprise was De Lesseps, Theodore
+Roosevelt, or Admiral Walker.
+
+But it required a knowledge of practical geography to learn that from
+Colon to Panama by sea is eight thousand miles, instead of forty-seven
+across country--and it took a dauntless American President to demand
+that his government construct a national water route across the isthmus
+at Panama, and to point the way to that end; and this was done against
+potent opposition to any canal, and expressed preference of powerful
+statesmen for the unfeasible Nicaraguan project.
+
+It may be profitable for enthusiasts jumping at the conclusion that the
+American canal will pay from its opening, to study the returns of the
+Suez enterprise, the first full year of whose operation (1870) showed
+gross takings of only $1,031,365 from tolls levied upon 486 vessels.
+Speaking generally, a shipper sends his cargo by way of Suez only when
+3,000 miles at least of ocean steaming may be saved--this is the
+approximate economy effected by the great turnstile between West and
+East, counting time, fuel, wages and other expenses. It may be accepted
+as a concrete fact that the employment of any canal by commerce must
+ever depend upon economic considerations.
+
+Already acknowledging our commercial predominance, Europeans are not
+blind to the real purpose of the Panama Canal. But it should be borne in
+mind that whenever it is an open choice between the canal toll and the
+equivalent of time at sea, the Briton will be slow to decide in favor of
+contributing to the resources of a nation rising in brief time to
+commercial premiership; and Frenchmen, economists by nature, will take a
+similar view, as will Germans, and shippers of other nations. Expressed
+in the fewest words, the employment of the Panama route will be governed
+exclusively by self-interest, computed from the standpoint of material
+economy; sentimentality will bring not one ship to Uncle Sam as a
+patron--unless it be an American ship.
+
+Suez will always be favored by European shipmasters determining routes
+for cargoes in which Panama and Suez present advantages practically
+equal; probably the expense of a few hundred miles additional travel
+would not cause them to break from the old route, by which there is no
+risk of accident or delay from canal-locks. A considerable percentage of
+the oversea carrying trade controlled by British bottoms is
+geographically independent of canals, and will always be. For example,
+the bulk of traffic to and from the west coast of South America--the
+rich nitrate trade of Iquique and Valparaiso--will not ordinarily be
+altered by the Panama Canal. The economy of distance from the latter
+port to England and the Continent by the canal being only about 1,500
+miles, this traffic, except under unusual circumstances, will continue
+as long as it goes in British vessels to round the extremity of South
+America.
+
+Singapore will be the Asiatic port differentiating the attracting power
+of the Panama and Suez canals, speaking from the basis of Atlantic and
+Gulf ports as points of origin or destination. Cargoes for places west
+of the 105th degree of east longitude will logically be sent through the
+Mediterranean and the Suez Canal. But the area east of the Singapore
+degree of longitude is teeming with opportunity for Panama cargoes. The
+isthmian short cut to Oceanica and Asia, comprising the coastal section
+of China's vast empire, enterprising Japan, the East Indies, Australia,
+New Zealand, and our own Philippine archipelago, is the world's most
+potential area. The awakened Orient can use American products to
+practically limitless extent. One third of the trade of these lands
+would make America great as a world-provider, and could be secured if we
+embarked seriously in an effort to obtain it. Students of economics have
+never admitted the logic of America's sending cotton to England to be
+there converted into fabrics clothing half the people of the East.
+
+Let the reader, content in belief that our manufactures have an
+extensive use in the outer world, because America heads the list of
+exporting nations, investigate the subject, and his reward will be to
+learn that _we export only a trifle more than six per cent. of what we
+manufacture_. Let him also study the statistics of our commerce with
+South America, natural products and manufactures of every sort--they are
+replete with astonishing facts. To discover that our exports to the
+southern continent do not equal $2 per capita of South America's
+population will surprise the investigator, doubtless; and that the
+volume of trade is overwhelmingly with England and Germany will likewise
+be disconcerting. South America has 40,000,000 people; but Mexico's
+13,500,000 inhabitants buy nearly as much from Uncle Sam as the South
+Americans. We now sell Canadians products averaging $30 per capita
+annually.
+
+The reason for the startling disparity in the statistics of trade
+intercourse with our adjoining neighbors, Canada and Mexico, and oversea
+South America, is obviously the lack of transportation facilities under
+the American flag; and the adage that "trade follows the flag" has
+earned more significance than attaches to a mere figure of speech. We
+pay South America yearly, let it be known, about $120,000,000 for
+coffee, wool, hides and other raw products; and the major share of this
+money is expended in Europe for the necessities and luxuries of life.
+This is inequitable, to say the least, and should be remedied. Uncle Sam
+must look to the Orient, as well, and seek to make China his best
+customer. Every nation in Europe whose foreign trade is worth
+considering exploits foreign countries in the thorough manner of a great
+commercial house--getting business by the most productive, not the
+easiest, methods. In frequent magazine articles I have insisted that the
+isthmian canal, "destined to make the United States the trade arbiter of
+the world," could never be expected to "pay" directly. The artificial
+waterway is to cost a vast deal of money; with the payments to the
+French company and to the republic of Panama, added to the sum necessary
+to the completion of the work. Uncle Sam's expenditure cannot be less
+than $225,000,000! It will probably be more. A private incorporation
+embarked in the enterprise would hold that the investment was entitled
+to five per cent. interest, say, and in time be funded. The money of the
+nation, embarked in a project distinctly commercial, merits a reasonable
+rate of income or benefit--four per cent. certainly. To operate the
+canal with the expensive up-keep essential to a region of torrential
+rains, cannot be less than $4,000,000 annually; if the Chagres River
+refuses to be confined in bounds, the cost will be greater. The items
+of yearly expense figured here total $13,000,000--a sum to be regarded
+as the very minimum of the cost of maintaining and operating the canal.
+
+[Illustration: CARGO STEAMER IN THE CANAL AT KILOMETER 133]
+
+Optimistic students of ocean transportation statistics say the canal
+will draw 10,000,000 tons of shipping a year; others, conservative of
+opinion, say half this volume. Taking the mean of these estimates, I
+hazard the statement that six years after the canal is opened, the
+tonnage will be 7,500,000. The Suez Canal was operated more than thirty
+years before its business aggregated 10,000,000 tons; and to attract
+this volume, several reductions in tolls were necessary. The American
+government cannot properly levy a heavier tribute at Panama than is
+demanded at Suez, for the fact is, our canal will not be as essential as
+that uniting Europe and the East. A like tariff would produce for Uncle
+Sam, on the hypothesis of a business of 7,500,000 tons, only $12,750,000
+a year; a higher tariff would probably produce less. And here is an
+unpalatable truthlet--Panama's earnings from passengers can never be
+considerable, compared with that constant ebbing and flowing of humanity
+between the home countries of Europe and their dependencies in Asia,
+Africa and Australasia. As a highway of travel, Panama can never have a
+quarter of the income from passengers as that yearly accruing to the
+Suez company. It may be unpopular to here record the opinion that the
+_direct_ increment of the American canal cannot for many years yield
+what in a commercial enterprise could be called a profit.
+
+The way to compel the canal to pay _indirectly_ is to make it incidental
+to the development of a mighty commercial marine, that will carry
+American products to present foreign markets, and to new markets, under
+the Stars and Stripes. This accomplished, the United States will
+indisputably be the trade arbiter of the universe. With operations under
+way on the isthmus, is not the time propitious for popular discussion
+throughout the nation, and in official Washington, how best to _create_
+the commerce that will make the Panama Canal a success from its opening?
+
+We have populated the country, developed resources of field, forest and
+mine, and devised matchless ways of translating natural products into
+finished articles appealing to all mankind. Now, let us cease sending
+these products of soil and workshop to market in British ships; let us
+forward them in vessels constructed in American shipyards, thereby
+making the transaction independently American. Already have we produced
+ocean carriers equal to the best; while American war-ships, native from
+keel to topmast truck, are the envy of the world.
+
+Not for a decade has a commercial vessel under the American flag passed
+the Suez Canal, I have stated. But the time was when Uncle Sam's ensign
+was the emblem oftenest seen in foreign harbors.
+
+In but one department of natural growth is the United States
+backward--shipping, in its broad and commercial acceptance. To promote
+it should now be the plan of both political parties.
+
+Our canal can never pay until we enter as ship-owners into competition
+with Europe's trading nations, and these possess a material interest in
+the Suez undertaking, be it remembered. The commercial fleet at present
+under the American flag could not pay a tenth of Panama's operating
+expenses. When we seriously embark upon the work of creating a great
+merchant marine, we are going to rouse spirited opposition. Englishmen,
+Germans, and Frenchmen will not like it; and Europeans cannot be
+expected to take any interest in the welfare of our national canal, and
+all may object to fattening the treasury of a country that is their
+trade competitor. These facts, insignificant as they may seem, prove in
+reality the need for supplying hundreds of ocean carriers under the same
+flag as that flying over the canal zone.
+
+By the time the canal is opened, the United States will have 100,000,000
+inhabitants; and agriculture, assisted by ordinary methods and by
+irrigation, will have developed to an extent making our commodities
+dictators of supply and price. By that time, sea transportation cannot
+be regarded as a competitor of transcontinental railway systems that
+have done much toward making the country what it is: water
+transportation will be found a necessary adjunct to rail facilities,
+relieving the roads of a fraction of their through traffic.
+
+To restore the Stars and Stripes to the seas will require years of
+earnest effort, much debating in the halls of Congress, a drastic
+liberalizing of marine laws, and much prodding of human energies by
+editorial writers.
+
+Suez shareholders, when asked by Americans if they fear any rivalry from
+Panama, reply: "None at all; unless"--and here is the kernel of the
+matter--"your countrypeople find a way of creating a mercantile marine
+coincidently with the building of the canal."
+
+With unlimited financial resources to promote the most gigantic of
+modern enterprises, with inexhaustible raw and cultivated products, with
+labor to produce any conceivable commodity, the humiliating fact
+confronted the people of the United States a few months since of seeing
+its official delegates to the Pan-American Congress at Rio de Janeiro
+set forth in a steamship flying the red flag of Great Britain.
+
+The most remarkable accomplishment in the material history of the world
+is that the United States secured her commercial supremacy without
+possessing a merchant marine. It is one of the marvels of modern times,
+surely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+COLOMBO, CEYLON'S COSMOPOLITAN SEAPORT
+
+
+A modern man of business might believe that Bishop Heber of Calcutta
+wove into irresistible verse a tremendous advertisement for Ceylon real
+estate, but repelled investors by a sweeping castigation of mankind,
+when he wrote:
+
+    What though the spicy breezes
+     Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle;
+    Though every prospect pleases,
+     And only man is vile.
+
+In tens of thousands of Christian churches the praises of Ceylon are
+thus sung every Sunday, and will be as long as the inhabitants of
+America and Great Britain speak the English language. Some of the
+divine's statements, to be acceptable as impartial testimony, require
+modification; for the natural charms of the island are not so sweepingly
+perfect, and there man is far above the Asian average. Hymnists, it may
+be inferred, write with some of the license of poets. No part of
+England's great realm, nevertheless, is more beautiful than the crown
+colony of Ceylon in the Indian Ocean.
+
+[Illustration: THE JETTY AT COLOMBO]
+
+An Eastbound traveler during the long run from Aden hears much of the
+incomparable island of palms, pearls, and elephants; and every waggish
+shipmate haunts smoke room and ladies' saloon waiting for the
+opportunity to point out the lighthouse on Minecoy Island in the
+Maldives as "the Light of Asia." Four hundred miles further and your
+good ship approaches Colombo. The great breakwater, whose first stone
+was laid by Albert Edward, is penetrated at last, and the polyglot and
+universal harbor of call unfolds like a fan.
+
+There's music within; the breezes bring proof of this. Surely, it is
+Bishop Heber's trite stanzas repeated in unison by the forgiving
+populace--they are sung everywhere, and why not in Ceylon's great
+seaport? The ship churns forward to her moorings. It is singing; there
+is no mistaking it. But the air! Does it deal with "spicy breezes," and
+"pleasing prospects?" No; it is a sort of chant. Listen again. Ah, it is
+Lottie Collins's masterpiece, not Bishop Heber's: it is "Ta-ra-ra boom
+de-ay." And the chanters are dozens of Britain's loyal subjects, youths
+naked and black, lying in wait to induce passengers to shower coins into
+the sea in recompense of a display of diving from catamarans constructed
+from trunks of palm-trees.
+
+If asked what place in all the world can in a day show the greatest
+medley of humanity, I should pronounce in favor of the landing-jetty at
+Colombo. Scurrying ashore from ocean steamers in launches, in
+jolly-boats pulled by oars fashioned like huge mustard-spoons, or in
+outrigger canoes that glide rapidly, are representatives of every nation
+of the West, of China, of Japan--in fact, of every division of God's
+footstool having place in the list of nations. Being the great port of
+call and coaling station linking Occident, Orient and Australasia, a
+traveler naturally wants to inspect the place and stretch his legs on
+shore, while his ship is stocking with fuel to carry it to Aden,
+Singapore or to an antipodean port. Tiffin or dinner on _terra firma_ is
+likewise coveted by the traveler with appetite jaded by weeks of
+sea-cooking. Ceylon's capital teems consequently with people hungry for
+a _table d'hote_ meal, a 'rickshaw ride, and the indiscriminate purchase
+of rubbishing cats-eye and sapphire jewelry.
+
+The conglomeration of people on the promenade floor of the jetty,
+watching voyagers come and go, would tend to make a student of
+anthropology lose his mind. Every variety of man of Ceylon, practically
+of every creed and caste of India, even of all Asia, is there, and a
+liberal admixture of Europeans as well.
+
+Leaning over the hand-rail all humanity appears equal--for sight-seeing
+purposes, certainly. There are gentle Cingalese men with hair twisted
+into a knot on the back of the head and large shell comb on the crown,
+Tamil coolies and Hindus in profusion, of course. There are fat Parsees
+from Bombay, and Buddhist priests and monks in yellow togas, each armed
+with palm-leaf fan and umbrella, precisely as Gautama Buddha left his
+father's mansion to sow the religion worshiped by nearly a third of the
+people of the earth. A group of lascars, on leave from a P. & O. liner,
+look depreciatingly on nautical brethren from colder climes. There are
+Malays, as well, obsequious Moormen merchants, and haughty Afghans from
+beyond the "Roof of the World," as scholars call the Himalayas. Here and
+there are broad-chested Arabs from Aden way and the Persian Gulf, taking
+chances on the announcement of a pearl "fishery" by the
+government--divers, who may secure a gem of price in an hour's work, or
+may return home empty-handed. Their neighbors on the platform are
+seafarers coming with the embassy from the Sultan of the Maldive
+Islands, bringing to the governor of Ceylon the annual tribute
+sanctioned by custom, and the renewed assurances of loyalty to Edward
+VII. Close by them, and taking a profound interest in a group of
+European ladies stepping from a launch below, are three black girls in
+the garb of Catholic Sisters of Charity, whose chains and crucifixes are
+of unusual size.
+
+With a conscious air of proprietorship of the British Empire, khaki-clad
+Tommy Atkins comes down the pier, attended by the inevitable fox
+terrier. Following close on his heels is a towering man of ebon
+complexion, with three stripes of ashes and the wafer of humility on his
+forehead. He is barefooted, and his solitary garment is a piece of
+cotton with which he has girded his loins; he is abundantly lacquered
+with cocoanut oil, to protect him from contracting a cold from the too
+rigorous "spicy breezes" of Lanka's isle. A stranger would say he was a
+penitent wayfarer of God, not worth the smallest coin of the East. In
+one hand he carries an overfilled valise, and in the other a sunshade of
+immaculate white: the initiated recognize him to be a chettie, easily
+worth lakhs of rupees, who is presumably embarking for Rangoon, and
+there to purchase a cargo of rice.
+
+Hark! There is commotion and much noise at the jetty entrance. Can it be
+an alarm of fire, or have the customs officials at the gates apprehended
+a flagrant smuggler? Oh, no; it is merely Great Britain arriving on the
+scene in the person of a smart-looking tea-planter who has honked down
+in his motor-car to see a comrade off on the mail steamer; incidentally,
+some of the noise proceeds from a group of sailors on leave from a
+battleship who are wrangling with 'rickshaw men as to proper payment for
+having been hauled about the city on a sight-seeing tour. And so it goes
+in Colombo. Each day presents a picture not to be adequately described
+by a less gifted writer than Kipling.
+
+[Illustration: HINDU SILVERSMITHS. COLOMBO]
+
+Colombo is the westermost town of that great division of Asia wherein
+subject races--black, brown and yellow--haul the white man in
+jinrickshaws. No institution of the East stamps the superiority of the
+European more than this menial office of the native. Probably every
+American when brought face to face with the matter says manfully that he
+will never descend to employing a fellow creature to run between shafts
+like an animal, that he (visitor from a land where rights of mankind
+are equal and constitutional) may be spared from footweariness under a
+tropic sun. It is a noble impulse--but weak man is easily tempted.
+Hence, you decide to try the 'rickshaw just once.
+
+The sensation is found to be agreeable, surprisingly so. Your fellow
+mortal, you perceive, is dripping with perspiration under the awful heat
+of the sun, while beneath the hood of the vehicle you are cool and
+comfortable. Then you yield to the savage defects of your moral
+make-up--and decide never to walk another yard in the East, not when a
+'rickshaw is to be had. The habit comes as easily as drinking, or
+anything that your conscience and bringing-up tell you is not quite
+right, although enjoyable.
+
+The 'rickshaw in Colombo is a splendid convenience. The runner's rights
+are as loyally protected as those of his employer, and he readily covers
+six miles an hour at a swinging gait. If his vehicle has rubber tires
+and ball-bearings the labor is not severe. The man might have a harder
+vocation with smaller pay.
+
+Colombo has hotels that would satisfy in Europe or America--one, the
+Grand Oriental, is spoken of as the most comfortable hostelry between
+Cairo and San Francisco. To refer to it by its full name stamps the
+newcomer and novice at traveling--throughout half the world it is known
+familiarly as the "G. O. H." Two miles from Colombo, gloriously situated
+on the sea-front, the Galle Face Hotel is fashionable, cool and quiet,
+but lacking in the characteristic of being an international
+casino--which assuredly the "G. O. H." is. Tiffin or dinner is an
+interesting function at a Colombo hotel, for one never knows who or what
+his table mates may be. In the East every man who travels is assumed to
+be somebody. Hence you suspect your _vis-a-vis_ at dinner to be the
+governor of a colony somewhere in the immeasurable Orient, or a new
+commander for Saigon, or perhaps a Frankfort banker going to China to
+conclude the terms of a new loan. If your neighbor at table is specially
+reserved, and gives his orders like one accustomed to being obeyed, you
+fancy him to be an accomplished diplomatist, very likely having in his
+pocket the draft of a treaty affecting half the people of the Far East.
+No one seems ever to suspect his confr�res of being mere business men.
+And the ladies--well, they may be duchesses or dressmakers no longer
+content with traveling "on the Continong"; nobody cares which. If they
+are very well gowned, probably they are the latter.
+
+An army of waiters clad in spotless and snowy uniforms with red facings
+and shining buttons set before you dishes you never heard of. Some are
+satisfying in the extreme; but these waiters, can they be described as
+in uniform? True, their garments are alike, but the head-gear is of
+infinite variety. According to caste or nationality each proclaims
+himself. But look once more; there _is_ uniformity, for all are
+barefooted.
+
+[Illustration: A HIGH PRIEST OF BUDDHA]
+
+Wonderful fellows these Easterns. The native hotel band, led by a
+wandering European, plays Sousa's marches and "Hiawatha," yes, even
+"Tammany," with accuracy; and the cooks prepare dishes with French
+names, make _vin blanc_ and _Hollandaise_ sauces worthy of Delmonico or
+Ritz, and this without permitting the palate to guide them. If they
+tasted food concocted for Christians a million kinds of perdition might
+be their punishment. Music may be mechanical, as it is claimed to be,
+but not cooking. How do the gastronomic experts of pagan Asia acquire
+their skill?
+
+Considering that the Ceylon capital is only four hundred miles north of
+the equator, the heat is never extremely oppressive. One's energies
+there, nevertheless, are not what they are farther north or at higher
+elevations. Kandy, the ancient up-country capital, is cooler, and Nuwara
+Eliya, in the mountains, is actually cold at night. When white people do
+anything in Colombo--work, attend church, play bridge, or billiards--a
+native keeps them moderately comfortable with swinging _punkahs_. Some
+hotels and residential bungalows have discarded punkahs for mechanical
+fans; but the complaint is that the electricity costs more than the
+_punkah-wallah_--the fan-boy of the East. "Ah, yes; but your wallah
+frequently falls asleep at his work," you remark to the resident. "True,
+and your electricity frequently fails us," is the reply.
+
+Pear-shaped Ceylon, separated from India by only fifty miles of water,
+is three fourths the size of Ireland, and its population 3,600,000.
+Seventy-five per cent. of the people are Cingalese, and their language
+a dialect harking back to Sanskrit. The Cingalese are mostly Buddhists,
+with a sprinkling of Roman Catholics, the latter religion having been
+left in the land by its one-time Portuguese rulers. The Tamils,
+numbering a million, are not native to the island, like the Cingalese,
+but have come from southern India as laborers on coffee and tea estates;
+they are chiefly Hindus, although thousands have been converted to the
+Christian faith. The Mohammedan Moormen, living on the coast,
+approximate a quarter of a million in number. Europeans of all
+nationalities, not including the British troops, total only 6,500, a
+percentage of the island's human family to be computed in fractions.
+
+The Cingalese seen chiefly in the towns wear their long hair arranged
+like a woman's, and around their heads a large, semicircular comb of
+shell, as has been said. The comb has nothing to do with religion or
+caste--contrary to what a visitor is usually told; it merely announces
+the wearer to be not of the coolie class, who carry sacks of rice and
+cases of merchandise on their heads. Half the people of Ceylon wear no
+head-gear, and not two per cent. know what it is to wear shoes.
+
+[Illustration: REPRESENTATION OF BUDDHA'S TOOTH, COLOMBO MUSEUM]
+
+Colombo's population is about 160,000. The capital is a handsome city,
+with communities on seafront, on the shores of a sinuous lake, and
+ranging inland for miles through cinnamon gardens and groves of
+cocoanut-palms. Queen's House, where the governor resides, is a
+rambling pile. The general post-office is the best building in the
+capital, and the museum and Prince's club, close by, are entitled to
+notice. The hard red-soil roads of the city extend for miles into the
+palm forests, and are equal to any in the world. Government officials
+and European commercial people live in handsome suburban bungalows
+smothered amid superb foliage trees and flowering shrubs and vines.
+
+What were called the maritime provinces of Ceylon were ruled by the
+Dutch until 1796. But in that year England supplanted Holland, and in
+1815 she secured control of the entire island by overthrowing the
+Kandyan kingdom, for a long time confining European invasion to the
+island's seaboard. Ceylon costs Britain little worry and practically no
+expenditure. Strategically the island is valueless, save the benefit
+accruing to England in controlling if need be the enormous coal heaps of
+Colombo, and the maintenance there of a graving dock capable of handling
+the biggest battleship. Four hundred miles of government railways earn a
+tremendous profit, and moderate import and export duties on commodities
+keep the colonial cash-box well lined.
+
+As in other Asiatic countries, the staple food is rice. Strange to say,
+Ceylon produces of this only half what is demanded by the people. Hence,
+it is necessary to import eight million bushels from India and Malay
+regions, costing approximately $5,000,000. On the other hand, the island
+sends to Europe and America annually $21,000,000 worth of tea, besides
+considerable quantities of rubber, cocoanut-oil, cacao, and plumbago.
+Ceylon's crude rubber commands the highest price, and is a crop growing
+by leaps and bounds. It is estimated that eight hundred million
+cocoanuts are grown yearly in Ceylon. An item in the list of exports is
+elephants. These go to India as beasts of burden and pleasure, and the
+government collects two hundred rupees for every elephant sent from the
+island.
+
+There is a possibility of two great events any springtime in Ceylon, and
+the prospect of either occurring is a theme of endless small talk in the
+offices and bungalow homes of everybody connected with "Government." One
+is the elephant kraal, planned for the edification of His Excellency the
+Governor and a few officials and visitors of distinction, who, from
+cages in trees at elevated points insuring safety, look down upon the
+driving in of converging herds of elephants. When an earth-strewn
+flooring of bamboo gives way and the monarchs of the jungle are cast
+into a stockaded pit, the kraal is complete. Then, ordinarily, the
+Ceylon treasury undergoes drafts for forage, until an authorized
+functionary negotiates the sale of the animals to maharajahs and lesser
+worthies up in India.
+
+A kraal occurs every four or five years, or when a British royalty
+happens in Ceylon. Each governor is entitled by custom to the semi-royal
+honor at least once during his incumbency. The kraal is an enterprise
+usually paying for itself, unless there be a glut in the elephant
+market. The last kraal failed dismally, nevertheless, but for a very
+different reason. The drive had been so successful that the stockade was
+full to overflowing with leviathan beasts trumpeting their displeasure
+and wrath. While the dicker for their sale in India was proceeding, they
+became boisterously unruly, and, breaking down their prison of palm-tree
+trunks, scampered away to forest and jungle, without so much as saying
+"thank you" for weeks of gorging on rations paid for out of the public
+cash-box. And this was the reason why the kraal arranged for last year
+was abandoned, after hundreds of natives had been busy for weeks in
+"driving in" from every up-country district--to jeopardize good money
+was deemed not in keeping with the principles of good finance by certain
+material Britons responsible for the insular exchequer.
+
+The popular event, coming as often as twice every three years, is the
+pearl-fishery. It interests everybody not living in mountain fastnesses,
+and appeals irresistibly to the hearts of the proletariat. Tricking
+elephants into captivity may be the sport of grandees, but the chance to
+gamble over the contents of the humble oyster of the Eastern seas
+invites participation from the meekest plucker of tea-buds on Ceylon's
+hill-slopes to the lowliest coolie in Colombo. Verily, the pearl-fishery
+is the sensational event of that land sung of by Bishop Heber.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE LURE OF THE PEARL
+
+
+The bed of the Gulf of Manar, the arm of the Indian Ocean that separates
+Ceylon from India, has given the world more pearls than all other
+fisheries combined, for it has been prolific as a pearling-ground for
+thousands of years. Pearling in the gulf was an occupation hoary with
+age before the dawn of Christianity, for history tells us that Mardis,
+admiral of Alexander the Great, when returning from a voyage having to
+do with the Indian invasion, traversed the strait separating Ceylon from
+the continent, and was informed of the importance of the pearl-banks
+over which his fleet was passing. The great sailor was specially
+interested in the manner of drilling the holes in pearls for stringing,
+which was probably the same that it is to-day.
+
+In the exuberant phraseology of the Orient, Ceylon is "the pearl-drop on
+India's brow," and the Gulf of Manar is "the sea abounding in pearls"
+and "the sea of gain." Ceylon appeals irresistibly to any possessor of
+the wandering foot, for it is an island paradise. It is well governed,
+of course, for its administration is that of a seasoned colony of
+Edward VII's realm, and the guidance of austere, dignified Britain
+countenances nothing like gambling in any of its lands--oh, dear, no!
+State lotteries are pretty well relegated in these times to Latin
+countries, everybody knows.
+
+Yet the world's most gigantic gamble, pregnantly fruitful with chance in
+all variations and shadings, is unquestionably the Ceylon pearl-fishery;
+compared with it, any state lottery pales to insignificance. From the
+taking of the first oyster to the draining of the last vatful of
+"matter," every step is attended by fickle fortune; and never is the
+interest of the people of Portugal or of Mexico keener over a drawing of
+a lottery, the tickets of which may have been sold at the very
+thresholds of the cathedrals, than is that of the natives of Ceylon and
+southern India over the daily results of a Manar fishery.
+
+Each bivalve is a lottery ticket; it may contain a gem worthy of place
+in a monarch's crown, or be a seed pearl with a mercantile value of only
+a few rupees. Perhaps one oyster in a hundred contains a pearl, and not
+more than one pearl in a hundred, be it known, has a value of
+importance. Nature furnishes the sea, pearling-banks, oysters, and all
+therein contained; the Ceylon administration conducts the undertaking,
+and for its trouble and trifling outlay exacts a "rake-off" of two
+thirds of all that may be won from the deep. And mere man, the brown or
+black diver, receives for his daring and enterprise one oyster in every
+three that he brings from the ocean's depths--and his earnings must be
+shared with boat-owner, sailors, attendants, and assistants almost
+without number.
+
+For size of "rake-off," there is no game of hazard in the world offering
+a parallel. The Ceylon government used to exact three out of every four
+oysters brought in, the current tribute of two out of three having
+become operative only a few years since.
+
+It should be known that the pearl-bearing oyster of the Indian Ocean is
+only remotely related to the edible variety of America and Europe. It is
+the _Margaritifera vulgaris_, claimed to belong to the animal kingdom,
+and not to the fish family, and is never eaten. The eminent marine
+biologist in the service of the Ceylon government, Professor Hornell, F.
+L. S., who intimately knows the habits of the pearl-oyster of the East,
+advances two interesting if not startling premises. One is that the
+pearl is produced as a consequence of the presence of dead bodies of a
+diminutive parasitical tapeworm which commonly affects the Ceylon
+bivalve. The living tapeworm does not induce pearl formation. The
+popular belief has been that the pearl was formed by secretions of nacre
+deposited upon a grain of sand or other foreign particle drawn within
+the oyster through its contact with the sea's bottom. The other Hornell
+assertion is that the oyster goeth and cometh at its pleasure; that it
+is mobile and competent to travel miles in a few weeks.
+
+[Illustration: MAP OF THE GULF OF MANAR, "THE SEA ABOUNDING IN PEARLS"]
+
+Scientists have long been aware that the pearl shell-fish possesses
+locomotive powers, which it uses when in quest of food or protection,
+and to escape impure localities. During the Dutch occupation of Ceylon,
+for example, there was a period of several years when the oysters'
+boycott of the Manar banks was virtually unanimous.
+
+It is an accepted fact that pearls are excretions of superimposed
+concentric _lamin�_ of a peculiarly fine and dense substance, consisting
+in major part of carbonate of lime. Linn�us, believing in the
+possibility of producing pearls by artifice, suggested the collecting of
+mussels, piercing holes in their shells to produce a wound, and bedding
+them for five or six years to give pearls time to grow. The Swedish
+government succeeded in producing pearls of a sort by this process; but
+as they were of trifling value, the experiments were discontinued.
+
+Cunning Chinese and Japanese have sought of late years to assist or
+improve on nature's pearl-making methods by inserting tiny shot or
+grains of sand between the mantle and the shell, which in time become
+coated with nacre. Not long since there was a movement in Japan to
+embark in pearl production upon a basis wholly commercial, and its
+promoters discussed it as they might a project for supplying a city with
+vegetables. One of the claims of those exploiting the venture was that
+they could keep pace with fashion's changes by supplying pearls of any
+shape, pear, oval, or spherical. This has been accomplished in other
+countries, and European and American dealers have had years of
+acquaintance with the "assisted" pearl, a showy and inexpensive
+counterfeit, but one attaining to no position in the realm of true gems.
+The distinction between fine pearls and these intrusive nacre-coated
+baubles, alluringly advertised as "synthetic pearls," has been
+demonstrated by more than one devotee of science.
+
+There are definite rules for determining when a Ceylon fishery will be
+held, for twice a year the banks are systematically examined by the
+marine biologist, and estimates made of the number of oysters present on
+each bank. Whenever their age and size appear to warrant the step, a
+sample catch of twenty thousand oysters is made by divers employed by
+the government, and a valuation is formed of the pearls they produce. If
+found to average ten or twelve rupees[1] to a thousand oysters, the
+government is advised to proclaim a fishery. Advertisements are then
+published throughout the East, especially in vernacular papers reaching
+the Persian Gulf and the two coasts of southern India, at the instance
+of the colonial secretary's office at Colombo. These detail the
+valuation of the sample pearls, area of beds to be fished, and the
+estimated number of oysters likely to be available upon each. The
+advertisements are printed in Cingalese, Tamil, and English. As rapidly
+as information can spread, it becomes known from Karachi to Rangoon, and
+along the chain of seaports of the Malay states, that a fishery is to
+be held. Divers, gem-buyers, speculators, money-lenders, petty
+merchants, and persons of devious occupations, make speedy arrangements
+for attending. Indian and Ceylon coolies flock by the thousand to the
+coast of the Northern province, longing to play even humble r�les in the
+great game of chance. The "tindals" and divers provide boats and all
+essential gear for the work afloat; while ashore the government supplies
+buildings and various forms of labor for dealing with the curious
+industry.
+
+    [Footnote 1: The rupee of India and Ceylon is equal to 32 cents
+    U. S. A lakh is 100,000.]
+
+It is during the calm period of the northeast monsoon,--February, March
+and April,--when the sea is flat and the sky is bright and unflecked,
+that the fishery is carried on. The line of banks--they are "paars," in
+the languages of Ceylon--cover an extensive submarine plateau off the
+island's northwest coast, from ancient Hippuros southward to Negombo.
+This is of flat-surface rock, irregularly carpeted with coarse sand, and
+dotted with colonies of millions of oysters. Dead coral and other
+products of the sea are scattered everywhere on this plateau, and it is
+a theory that these surface interruptions prevent overcrowding of the
+oysters, and consequently assist in the bivalve's reaching the
+pearl-producing stage. It is claimed that a crowded paar contributes to
+a stunting of growth, bringing disease and premature death to the
+oyster, and consequently no pearls of account.
+
+The estimate of the experts upon which it was decided to announce a
+fishery last year was that there were on the Southwest Cheval paar
+3,500,000 oysters which might be gathered, on the Mideast Cheval paar
+13,750,000 oysters, on the North and South Moderagam 25,750,000, and on
+the South Cheval 40,220,000.
+
+The announcement of this total of 83,000,000 bivalves produced an
+electrical effect, and an unprecedented attendance, for it was equal to
+announcing a lottery with that many tickets, and who knows how few
+prizes!
+
+The student seeking to determine the eighth wonder of the world should
+not overlook the city of Marichchikkaddi. Stories of towns rising
+overnight wherever gold is found, or diamonds discovered, or oil struck,
+have become common to the point of triteness. Tales of the uprising of
+Klondike and South African cities, once amazing, fade to paltriness in
+the opinion of one who has seen the teeming city of Marichchikkaddi. In
+a sense it is a capital, yet it is found in no geography; no railway
+connects it with the world, yet a dozen languages are spoken in its
+streets. Marichchikkaddi's population numbers no young children, no
+persons too aged to toil, and the four or five hundred women sojourners
+merit the right of being present through serving as water-carriers to
+camp and fishing fleet.
+
+[Illustration: COOLIES CARRYING PEARL OYSTERS FROM THE BOATS TO THE
+"KOTTU," OR GOVERNMENT STOCKADE]
+
+This place with double-mouthful name, almost defying pronunciation, is
+the pearl metropolis of the universe. Probably there is not a stocked
+jewel-case that does not contain gems that have been filtered through
+this unique city by the sea. For a dozen reasons it is a wonderful town,
+and the foremost of these is that it is the only city of size that comes
+and goes like the tide's ebbing and flowing.
+
+When a fishery is proclaimed, Marichchikkaddi is only a name--a
+sand-drifted waste lying between the jungle of the hinterland and the
+ocean. Yet nine months before forty thousand people dwelt here under
+shelter of roofs, and here the struggle for gain had been prosecuted
+with an earnestness that would have borne golden fruit in any city in
+the Western world. There, where lies the skeleton of a jackal
+half-buried in sand, an Indian banker had his habitat and office only a
+few months before, with a lakh of rupees stacked in a conspicuous place
+as glittering earnest of his ability to pay well for anything remarkable
+in the way of a pearl. And beyond, where occurs the rift in the sand,
+stood the shanty in which venturesome divers whiled away time and money
+in trying to pitch rings upon the ends of walking-sticks, as do farmers'
+boys at New England county fairs.
+
+With the license permitting the calling of a pile of buildings formed of
+stucco a "White City," this metropolis might with propriety be named the
+"City of Brown," or, better, the "Cadjan City." For inaccessibility, it
+is in a class by itself.
+
+Colombo is facetiously spoken of by Englishmen as the Clapham Junction
+of the East, for the reason that one can there change to a steamer
+carrying him virtually to any place on the globe.
+
+But it is simpler for a white man to get to Melbourne, or Penang, or New
+York, from Colombo, than to obtain passage to Marichchikkaddi, only a
+hundred and fifteen miles up the coast. If he can wait long enough,
+passage may be found, of course; but otherwise all the official and
+editorial persuasion of Colombo--and the subsidized influence of the
+head porter of the "G. O. H.," availeth nothing. Now and then he may
+hear of a speculative Parsee's dhow that may be going to Manar for a
+cargo of shell-cased lottery tickets, or of a native-owned launch that
+will carry a limited number of passengers at an unlimited fare. A
+fast-sailing outrigger canoe may always be chartered. Another
+opportunity is to travel two days by post-cart to a village one never
+heard of, transferring there to a bullock hackery that may take him
+through jungle roads to the cadjan metropolis--provided he is able to
+give instructions in Tamil, or a college-bred coolie can be found who
+knows English. Still another way is to take the semi-weekly steamer from
+Colombo to Tuticorin, in southern India, then zigzag about the continent
+of Asia until he makes Paumben. Then it is a matter of only a few days
+when there will be a boat crossing to the pearl-camp. This is the surest
+way of getting to Marichchikkaddi; but it is like making the journey
+from New York to Boston by way of Bermuda.
+
+Ceylon's substitute for virtually everything elsewhere used in the
+construction of buildings is the cadjan: it is at once board, clapboard,
+shingle, and lath. Cadjans are plaited from the leaf of the cocoanut- or
+date-palm, and are usually five or six feet long and about ten inches
+wide; the center rib of the leaf imparts reasonable rigidity and
+strength. Half the shelters for man and beast throughout the island are
+formed of cadjans, costing nothing but the making, and giving protection
+from the sun and a fair amount of security from the elements. The frame
+of a house is made of stakes planted in the ground, with rafters and
+beams resting in crotches conveniently left by the wood-cutter. This
+slender frame is covered with cadjans, arranged systematically, and sewn
+together with cocoanut-leaf strands or tender rattans. Not a nail is
+used, and cadjan flaps that may be raised or lowered from within the
+building take the place of glazed windows. A dwelling of this character,
+carpeted with palm-mats, and flanked with verandas, brings a flowing
+measure of comfort to the dweller in the tropics; but the gales of the
+annual southwest monsoon play havoc with cadjan roofs and walls.
+
+It being known that a fishery will bring together at least forty
+thousand souls, a small army of coolies hastens to Marichchikkaddi a few
+weeks prior to the announced date for opening the fishery, to prepare
+the buildings necessary to house all and sundry, and to erect bungalows
+for the British functionaries having the enterprise in charge. Public
+buildings almost pretentious in size and design rise from the earth in a
+few days, including a residence for the governor of Ceylon, who is
+expected to grace the fishery by a visit; one for the government agent
+of the province in which the interesting industry is carried on; and
+another for the delegate of the Colonial Office. There rise,
+mushroom-like, as well, a court-house, treasury, hospital, prison,
+telegraph-office and post-office, and a fair example of that blessing of
+the East known as a rest-house, each reflecting surprising good taste,
+and being adequate to its purpose, and presumably completed at a cost
+well within the appropriation. Jerry-builders and grafters have yet to
+be discovered in Ceylon.
+
+Marichchikkaddi parades structures dedicated neither to religion nor
+dissipation. But the bazaar-like alleys branching from the thoroughfares
+of the Cadjan City purvey many things not obtrusively obvious to the
+British official. Whatever his faith, the disciple of the pearl may
+solitarily prostrate himself beneath a convenient palm-tree, with face
+turned toward Mecca, or on the sea-front indulge the devotions stamping
+him a Hindu of merit.
+
+In an administrative sense the important building is the
+"Kachcherie"--mayor's office and superintendent's headquarters in one;
+but the structure of material interest is the "kottu," wherein every
+sackful of oysters taken from the boats is counted and apportioned
+between the government and the divers. It is a parallelogram enclosure
+of two or three acres in area, fenced with bamboo palings, and roofed
+here and there to protect the coolies from the sun. For convenience, one
+end is as near the sea as prudence will admit; and the other, the
+official end, where accountants and armed guards are in command, is not
+far from the governmental offices. A system perfected by years of
+experience makes thieving within the kottu virtually impossible, and the
+clerks who record the count of oysters, and issue them upon official
+order, might safely conduct a bankers' clearinghouse. On occasions they
+handle without error more than three million oysters in a day.
+
+A quarter of a mile from the official section of the city is the great
+human warren and business region, where black men and brown--Hindus,
+Mohammedans, Buddhists, and the East's flotsam of religions--dwell and
+traffic in peaceful communion. A broad thoroughfare, starting from the
+edge of the plateau overlooking the sea and extending inland until the
+settlement yields to the open country, is the "Main street"; and here,
+for ten or twelve weeks, is one of Asia's busiest marts. This part of
+Marichchikkaddi is planned with careful regard for sanitary needs and
+hygiene. Streets cross at right angles, and at every corner stands a
+lamp-post rudely made from jungle wood, from which suspends a lantern
+ingeniously fashioned from an American petroleum tin. Sites on the
+principal streets are leased for the period of the fishery to persons
+proving their purposes to be legitimate. For a good corner lot perhaps
+twenty feet square the government receives as much as a thousand rupees;
+and a few hours after the lease is signed up goes a cadjan
+structure--and a day later pearls worth a king's ransom may there be
+dealt in with an absence of concern astounding to a visitor.
+
+Can these Easterners, squatting on mats like fakirs in open-front
+stalls, judge the merits of a pearl? Yes, decidedly. In the twinkling of
+an eye one of them estimates the worth of a gem with a precision that
+would take a Bond Street dealer hours to determine. The Indian or
+Cingalese capitalist who goes with his cash to Marichchikkaddi to buy
+pearls is not given to taking chances; usually he has learned by long
+experience every "point" that a pearl can possess, knows whether it be
+precisely spherical, has a good "skin," and a luster appealing to
+connoisseurs. A metal colander or simple scale enables him to know to
+the fraction of a grain the weight of a pearl, and experience and the
+trader's instinct tell him everything further that may possibly be known
+of a gem. It would be as profitless to assume to instruct an Egyptian
+desert sheikh upon the merits of a horse as to try to contribute
+information to the pearl-dealer of the East.
+
+The calm period of the northeast monsoon is gentleness itself by the
+middle of February, and the Gulf of Manar is seldom more than rippled by
+its zephyrs. The fishery begins then. For weeks the divers have been
+arriving by craft of every conceivable type and rig. They are the
+aristocrats of the camp, and as they roam bazaars and streets or
+promenade the sea-front they are admired by coolies and peons as
+bull-fighters would be in Spain.
+
+[Illustration: THE LATE RANA OF DHOLPUR IN HIS PEARL REGALIA
+
+This Indian prince is said to have owned pearls valued at seven and a
+half millions of dollars, the accumulation, perhaps, of his ancestors
+during several centuries]
+
+Sturdy fellows they are, lithe of limb and broad of chest. Each brings a
+tangle of pots and kettles, bags and bales, but wears nothing throughout
+the fishery save a loin-cloth and now and then a turban denoting
+nationality or caste. There were forty-five hundred of them in 1905, and
+those from the Madras Presidency were the backbone of the enterprise.
+Nearly half the divers were registered from Kilakari, and hundreds came
+from the tip end of India. The men from Tuticorin were of the Parawa
+caste, and those hailing from Paumben were Moormen. The only Ceylon city
+contributing divers was Jaffna, whose men were of the fisher caste, said
+to be descendants of Arabs who settled sixty years ago at Jaffna. The
+divers coming the greatest distance were the negroes and Arabs from Aden
+and the Persian Gulf, most of whom landed at Colombo from trading
+steamers, and made their way by small boat or bullock hackery to the
+Cadjan City. These fellows have few equals as divers, but the
+administrative officers of the camp always fear that they will come into
+conflict with the police or launch a war in the name of Mohammed against
+the Hindus or Cingalese. Consequently, only a limited number are allowed
+to take part in the fishery.
+
+An amusing incident was furnished last season by the arrival of a diver
+of some renown in India, who had participated profitably in several
+fisheries. Accompanied by his "manduck," the fellow had crossed from
+Paumben as a deck passenger on a British India steamer. When the vessel
+was anchored, the diver summoned a rowboat to take himself and traps
+ashore. Wearing nothing but loin-cloth and turban, the man descended the
+side-steps an example of physical perfection, and so thoroughly smeared
+with cocoanut butter that he shone like a stove-polish advertisement.
+The boat grounding on the shelving bottom a hundred feet from shore,
+this precious Indian, who was to pass a good share of the ensuing ten
+weeks in the water, even at the bottom of the sea, deliberately seated
+himself astride the shoulders of his manduck, and was borne to dry land
+with the care of one whose religion might forbid contact with water. He
+carried beneath one arm throughout the trip from the small boat a
+gingham umbrella, and under the other an Indian railway guide.
+
+There are neither wharves nor landing-stages at Marichchikkaddi. Even
+His Excellency the Governor must lay aside his dignity in going from his
+boat to the shore. The horde of people working about the pearling fleet,
+amphibious by nature, have little need for those accommodations and
+necessities which the commercial world call "landing facilities."
+
+The world over, gambling and speculation are joined in many ways to
+superstition; and the Eastern diver is superstitious to the hour of his
+death. At Marichchikkaddi he devotedly resorts to the mystic ceremony of
+the shark-charmer, whose exorcism for generations has been an
+indispensable preliminary to the opening of a fishery. The
+shark-charmer's power is believed to be hereditary. If one of them can
+be enlisted on a diver's boat, success is assured to all connected with
+the craft. The common form of fortune-tempting nowadays is for a diver
+to break a cocoanut on his sinking-weight just before embarking. If it
+be a clean and perfect break, success is assured; if irregular and
+jagged, only ordinary luck may be anticipated; and if the shell be
+broken in without separating into halves, it spells disaster, and the
+alarmed fisher probably refuses to go with the boat.
+
+Last year's fleet was the largest ever participating in a Ceylon
+fishery, three hundred and twenty boats being enrolled. The largest
+boats came from Tuticorin, and carried thirty-four divers each. The
+smallest boat had a complement of seven divers. Each diver was
+faithfully attended by a manduck, who ran his tackle and watched over
+his interests with jealous care both in and out of the water. Besides
+the manducks, every boat had numerous sailors, food- and water-servers,
+and a riffraff of hangers-on. It was estimated that divers and manducks
+aggregated nine thousand souls. A system of apportionment gives every
+man in a boat an interest in the take, the divers generally retaining
+two thirds of the bivalves granted them by the government rule
+controlling the fishery. The Kilakari divers observe a time-honored
+custom of giving to their home mosque the proceeds of one plunge each
+day.
+
+Nature obligingly assists the workers on the banks by supplying a gentle
+off-shore breeze at daybreak, which sends the fleet to the fishing
+ground, six or eight miles from the shore. By two o'clock in the
+afternoon a gun from a government vessel directs the boats to set sail
+for the return. By this hour the breeze is accommodatingly from the sea,
+and the fleet runs home with flowing sheets. Navigation, it will be
+seen, plays a very subordinate part in Marichchikkaddi's marine
+enterprise.
+
+[Illustration: INDIAN PEARL MERCHANTS READY FOR BUSINESS]
+
+With the exception of the divers from the Malabar coast, who plunge head
+foremost from a spring-board, the men go into the water in an upright
+position, and are hurried in their journey to the bottom by a stone
+weighing from forty to fifty pounds. Each diver's attendant has charge
+of two ropes slung over a railing above the side of the boat: one
+suspends the diving-stone, and the other a wide-mouthed basket of
+network. The nude diver, already in the sea, places the basket on the
+stone and inserts one foot in a loop attached to the stone. He draws a
+long breath, closes his nostrils with the fingers of one hand, raises
+his body as high as possible above water, to give force to his descent,
+and, loosening the rope supporting the weight, is carried quickly to the
+bottom. An Arab diver closes the nostrils with a tortoise-shell clip,
+and occasionally a diver is seen whose ears are stopped with
+oil-saturated cotton. The manduck hoists the weight from the bottom and
+adjusts it for the next descent. Meanwhile, the diver, working face
+downward, is filling the basket with oysters with speed. When the basket
+is filled or breath exhausted, the diver signals, and is drawn up as
+rapidly as possible by the rope attached to the basket, and a specially
+agile diver facilitates the ascent by climbing hand over hand on the
+line When a man has been in the water half an hour, and made perhaps
+seven or eight descents, he clambers aboard the boat for a rest and a
+sunbath, and in a few minutes is taking part in the interminable chatter
+of the Orient.
+
+A diver coming up with basket filled wears a face of benign contentment;
+but when the oysters are few and far between, as they are oftentimes,
+and the man has prolonged his stay below to the limit of his air supply,
+his head is out of water not many seconds before he is volubly
+denouncing the official control forcing him to work on a "paar" where
+little but sand exists, and his confr�res on the boat hurl savage
+invective at any government functionary within earshot.
+
+The powerful Eastern sun illumines the bottom sufficiently for a diver
+to plan his operations before going down, and nine days out of ten the
+overhead sun renders the sea sufficiently transparent to guide a boat's
+crew to promising anchorages. Pearling economists insist that dredging
+by machinery or the use of diving-suits can never compete with the
+simple and inexpensive method in vogue on the Manar banks. At
+Marichchikkaddi one hears frequent discussion of the time a diver may
+stay under water, and many improbable accounts of what has been done are
+told a visitor. An average Tamil or Moorman stays down not longer than
+forty-five seconds, while the broad-chested Arab thinks nothing of
+being under water from sixty to eighty seconds.
+
+Depth has much to do with the time, and it is admitted that divers do
+not suffer unduly from the trying nature of their calling except when
+forced to work in unusually deep water. Seven or eight fathoms--about
+the average on the Ceylon banks--produces no injurious effect, but nine
+fathoms tell on all but men of sturdy build. Occasionally a declivity
+perhaps ten fathoms below the surface has to be fished, and this demands
+the service of picked men, divers possessing the highest vitality.
+Several divers collapse every season through toiling at unusual depths,
+and two or three pay the penalty of death. Most divers, however, live to
+as full a span as men pursuing other humble callings.
+
+When a fishery is at its height, the scene on the banks is one of
+extreme animation, and a picture full of strangeness to New World eyes.
+Each craft is a floating hive of competitive noise and activity, and the
+center of a cordon of disappearing and reappearing seal-like heads, with
+baskets splashing in the water or being hauled by excited hands. In the
+distance floats the majestic barque _Rengasamy Puravey_, an old-timer,
+with stately spars, a quarter-deck, and painted port-holes that might
+cause a landsman to believe her a war-ship. For half the year the barque
+is the home of the government's marine biologist, and his office and
+laboratory, wherein scientific investigation and experimentation are in
+constant progress, are in houses built on the quarter-deck. Small
+steamers, having an official cut, move here and there among the fishing
+boats, doing patrol duty and carrying instructions when necessary from
+the _Rengasamy Puravey_.
+
+"Would you like to go down in a diving-costume from a boat alongside the
+barque?" asks the biologist; "it's perfectly safe, and I have a dress
+that will fit you. Frequently I go to the bottom to study the curious
+growths there, and last season the colonial secretary did the thing two
+or three times."
+
+With a readiness of speech rivaling gunfire in promptness I nipped in
+the bud the preparations for carrying out the proffered courtesy,
+explaining that I was glad to accept a vicarious description of things
+at the ocean's bottom.
+
+The dingy fleet blossoms into a cloud of canvas, with every boat headed
+for Marichchikkaddi, the instant the "cease work" gun is fired. The
+scene suggests a regatta on a gigantic scale, and from a distance the
+leaning lug and lateen sails of the East give the idea of craft
+traveling at terrific speed. It is a regatta, a free-for-all,
+devil-take-the-hindmost affair. The prizes are choice berths on the
+beach as near as possible to the kottu, and the coolies who must carry
+the sacks of oysters see to it that the "tindal" and his sailors make no
+retarding error.
+
+The camp had been peaceful and somnolent while the boats were out; but
+the word that the fleet was coming in had roused every laborer, every
+petty dealer, speculator, and harpy to nervous activity. Everybody goes
+to the sea-front to witness the beaching of the boats and to watch the
+unloading. An hour probably elapses between the coming of the leader of
+the fleet and the arrival of the slowest boat. During this period the
+important functionary is the beach-master, who shouts his commands to
+boats seeking to crowd into positions not rightly theirs. When a boat is
+securely drawn upon the strand, there is no waste of time in getting the
+cargo started for the government storehouse. Muscular porters,
+glistening in their perspiring nudeness, go in single file between boat
+and kottu like ants executing a transportation feat. In a very few
+minutes the oysters are being counted by nimble-handed coolies.
+Important gamblers in oysters, men with sharp eyes and speculative
+instincts, have only to note the number of sacks delivered from one or
+two boats--and secure a hint from an obliging diver as to whether the
+bivalves are "thin" or "thick"--to arrive at a safe hypothesis of what
+the day's take has been, and also whether the oysters promise to be
+fairly pearliferous. The opinions of two or three of these experts make
+a basis for starting the prices at the auction in the evening, and these
+"sharps" are seldom wrong in their estimate of what would be a safe
+offer for a thousand chances in the great lottery of Asia.
+
+The count in the kottu is soon completed, and each boat's catch is
+divided into three piles, when an official selects two for the
+government, and the third is so expeditiously removed that a quarter of
+an hour later the share of the divers is being huckstered throughout the
+camp to small speculators.
+
+Upon each craft throughout the day has been a native watchman of
+supposed honesty, in the government's employ, whose duty has been to see
+that no oysters were surreptitiously opened on the banks or during the
+run home. Suspicion of the extraction of pearls on the part of any
+member of the crew leads to the police being informed, and an arrest
+follows. A favorite way of hiding pearls is to tie the gems in a rag
+attached to the anchor that is thrown overboard when the boat lands.
+Another is to fasten a packet to a piece of rigging adroitly run to the
+masthead, there to remain until opportunity permits the dishonest
+schemer to remove it unobserved.
+
+On their way to their sleeping quarters it is interesting to observe
+divers stopping at boutiques and tea saloons for refreshments, paying
+their score with oysters, extremely acceptable to the shopkeeper itching
+to test his luck. In a small way, oysters pass current in the Cadjan
+City as the equivalent of coins. Probably the variations in value lead
+to fluctuations in exchange, but these are so keenly understood that the
+quotations are apparently adjusted automatically, like exchange between
+nations.
+
+The sale is held in the building where the camp magistrate all the
+afternoon has been dispensing justice in breaches of Marichchikkaddi's
+morals--simple assaults, thieving, and other petty misdemeanors usual
+to police courts. Punctually at sunset the auction begins. If the
+universe offers a stranger gathering for which commerce is responsible,
+it would be difficult to give it location. The gentle government agent
+sits on the platform, and in front of the rostrum is the splendidly
+appareled chief mudiliyar, to interpret between auctioneer and buyers.
+The bidders-to-be number half a hundred, and their eager faces are
+directed toward the august official of the government, each probably
+praying secretly to his god that undue competition be not inspired to
+the extent of excluding bargains. In the throng are chetties. Moor
+merchants, and local hawkers, hoping to get a few thousand bivalves at a
+price assuring a profit when peddled through the coastwise villages.
+
+"Do these men represent actual capital!" you ask the agent. "They do,
+indeed," is the reply, "and collectively they are backed by cash in hand
+and satisfactory credits in Ceylon banks of at least a hundred lakhs of
+rupees." Forced as you are to accept the statement, you inwardly confess
+that they don't look it, for $3,200,000 is a goodly credit anywhere.
+
+In the fading light of day the agent announces that approximately two
+million oysters are to be sold, and he invites offers for them by the
+thousand--the highest bidder to take as many as he chooses, the
+quotation to be effective and apply to others until it is raised by some
+one fearing there will not be oysters enough to satisfy the demands of
+everybody. It is the principle of supply and demand reduced to
+simplicity. The competition to fix the price of the first lot consumes
+perhaps a minute. The initial bid was thirty rupees; this was elevated
+to thirty-two, and so on until thirty-six was the maximum that could be
+induced from the motley assemblage. With his pencil the agent taps the
+table, and the mudiliyar says something in Hindustani meaning "sold."
+The buyer was an Arab from Bombay, operating for a syndicate of rich
+Indians taking a flier in lottery tickets. In a manner almost, lordly he
+announces that he will take four hundred thousand oysters. Then a sale
+of two thousand follows at an advanced price to a nondescript said to
+have come all the way from Mecca; a towering Sikh from the Punjab
+secures twenty thousand at a reduced rate, and so on. In ten or twelve
+minutes the day's product is disposed of to greedy buyers for the sum of
+62,134 good and lawful rupees. A clerk records names of buyers with
+expedition, glancing now and then at a document proving their credit,
+and in a few minutes issues the requisitions upon the kottu for the
+actual oysters that will be honored in the early morning.
+
+The primitive process by which the pearls are extracted from the oysters
+is tedious, offensive to the senses, and of a character much too
+disagreeable to be associated with the jewel symbolizing purity. A few
+million oysters are shipped to southern India, and some go to Jaffna and
+Colombo; but the preponderating bulk is dealt with in the private
+kottus in the outskirts of the camp belonging to the men who crowd the
+auction room. To open fresh from the sea and scrutinize every part of
+the oyster would be too slow a method to be applied to the business of
+pearl-getting. The native who obtains a few dozen seeks shelter under
+the first mustard-tree, and with dull-edged knife, dissects each bivalve
+with a thoroughness permitting nothing to escape his eye.
+
+The burning sun, bringing putrefaction and decay to the oyster, is the
+operator's agency for securing what pearls his purchase may contain. For
+a week or ten days the oysters are stacked in his private kottu, and the
+process of disintegration is facilitated by swarms of flies and millions
+of maggots. When the tropical sun can do no more, the contents of the
+shells--putrid, filthy, and overpoweringly odoriferous--are gathered in
+troughs and other receptacles to be put through a process of cleansing
+by washing with water frequently drawn away. The residue, carefully
+preserved, is picked over when dry by experts, working under the
+watchfulness of owner or his deputy--and in this manner the pearls of my
+lady's dainty necklace and the engagement ring are wrested from nature.
+
+[Illustration: THE LATE MAHARAJAH OF PATIALA IN HIS PEARL REGALIA]
+
+Sometimes an impatient speculator is seen with his coolies on the beach
+carefully washing vatfuls of "matter," perhaps employing a dugout canoe
+as a washing trough. Wherever the work is done the stench is almost
+overpowering, and the odors defy neutralization. The wonder is that some
+dread disease of the Orient does not make a clean sweep of the city's
+population. The medical officers claim that the malodorous fumes are not
+dangerous, and experience has taught these officials to locate the
+compounds, wherein millions of oysters are to decompose, in positions
+where the trade winds waft the smells seaward or inland, without greatly
+affecting the camp's health. The British official whose olfactory organ
+survives a season at the pearl camp deserves from his home government at
+least the honor of knighthood.
+
+Interesting as Marichchikkaddi is to the person making a study of the
+conduct of unusual industries and the government of Eastern people, the
+medical officer looms important as the functionary shouldering a greater
+responsibility than any other officer of the camp. To draw forty
+thousand people from tropical lands, grouping them on a sand plain only
+a few hundred miles above the equator, is an undertaking pregnant with
+danger, when considered from the standpoint of hygiene. Strange to say,
+Marichchikkaddi's health is always satisfactory; but tons of
+disinfectants have to be used. Malarial fever is ever present, but is of
+a mild type. The outdoor dispensary does a rushing business, but only
+seventy-five cases were sufficiently serious last season to be sent to
+hospital, and only ten of these were fatal. The divers are prone to
+pneumonia and pleurisy, and these diseases carried off five. The deaths
+out of hospital totaled twenty-two.
+
+In the hospital I saw a man with grizzled beard whose escape from death
+bordered upon the marvelous. His head had been jammed four days before
+between colliding boats, cracking his skull to the extent of letting the
+brain protrude. He was rushed to the hospital to die, but had no
+intention of passing to another world, the doctors learned. Sitting
+upright on his cot-bed, the poor fellow said to me with an earnestness
+almost compelling tears: "Help me to get out of this place, please. I
+want to be with my boat, for there is no better diver than I am, and I
+can earn a hundred rupees a day as easily as any man in
+Marichchikkaddi."
+
+As an illustration of the white man's supremacy, in dealing with black
+and brown peoples, Marichchikkaddi probably has no equal. Here, in an
+isolated spot on the coast of Ceylon, hours from anywhere by sea, and
+shut off from the large towns of the island by jungle and forest wherein
+elephants, leopards, and other wild animals roam, twelve or fifteen
+Britishers rule, with an authority never challenged, more than forty
+thousand adventurous Asiatics--men whose vocation is largely based on
+their daring, and whose competing religions and castes possess the germ
+of fanaticism that might be roused to bloodshed. The white man's control
+is supported by the presence of two hundred policemen, it is true, but
+these are natives. The keynote of this exposition of a multitude ruled
+by a handful of Europeans is the absolute fairness of their control, of
+course. Were justice non-existent, it would be inviting disaster for
+the white official to apprehend a wrong-doer, place him on trial, and
+personally administer with lash or birch the corporal punishment to be
+witnessed any morning in front of the camp lockup.
+
+And what might happen if the divers, through their ringleaders, objected
+to surrendering to the Ceylon government the demanded "rake-off" of two
+thirds the oysters rescued from the sea by their efforts, in the event
+of these courageous fellows being assured that all the law in the world
+on the subject says that all the sea and all therein contained, beyond
+the distance of three nautical miles from shore, belongs to the
+universe! But the Manar diver knows naught of the three-mile law,
+presumably.
+
+Does the fishery pay? Tremendously, so far as facts upon which to base
+an answer are obtainable. The government treasury is sometimes
+enormously expanded as a result of the enterprise. In 1905, the most
+prosperous of all Manar fisheries, the government sold its fifty million
+oysters for two and one half million rupees, and at least $600,000 of
+this was profit. Years ago, it is true, there were several fisheries
+producing for the treasury nothing but deficits. Nobody ever knows what
+reward visits the purchasers of oysters, for it is their habit to spread
+the report of non-success and disappointment. But the buyers and
+speculators come each year in larger numbers, with augmented credits,
+and they pay in competition with their kind a larger price for the
+oysters. The conclusion is, therefore, that they find the business
+profitable.
+
+Even rumors of luck and profit would bring more speculators and rising
+prices at the auction sales, manifestly. Reports of fortunate strikes at
+Marichchikkaddi may more frequently be heard in India than in Ceylon,
+let it be said; and it is the gilded grandees of Hind--princes,
+maharajahs and rajahs--rather than the queens of Western society, who
+become possessors of the trove of Manar.
+
+No Colombo merchant or magnate, or man or woman of the official set, is
+superior to tempting fortune by buying a few thousand oysters freshly
+landed from Marichchikkaddi. And the interminable question of caste,
+banning many things to Cingalese and Tamil, inhibits not the right to
+gamble upon the contents of a sackful of bivalves. If the fishery be
+successful, all Ceylon teems with stories of lucky finds, and
+habitations ranging from the roadside hut to the aristocratic bungalow
+in the Cinnamon Gardens are pointed to as having been gained by a
+productive deal in oysters. A favorite tale is that of the poor
+horse-tender, who, buying a few cents' worth of oysters, found the
+record pearl of the year; another is of the 'rickshawman suspected of
+having money in the bank as a result of a lucky find on the seafront of
+Colombo of three or four oysters dropped from a discharging boat--in a
+shaded alley between buildings he forced the bivalves to disgorge a
+pearl worth hundreds of pounds sterling. Most stories of this character
+are as untrue as the reports of soubrettes and telephone boys winning
+fortunes in Wall Street.
+
+Did I try my luck? Of course I did. Who could resist the temptation? I
+purchased two great sackfuls of oysters, a thousand in number, which
+were brought off to the government tug _Active_ by salaaming peons from
+the government agent's office. At five o'clock the tug was ready to
+start Colomboward the instant the "despatches" I was to deliver came on
+board. At last the precious package, with a parade of red tape and
+impressive wax seals, was handed over the side. It may have contained
+something as priceless as a last year's directory; I never knew. It was
+my deep-seated suspicion, however, that the packet was somebody's excuse
+for letting the public treasury expend a few hundred rupees in carrying
+one in private life back to Colombo to catch his steamer for China the
+next evening.
+
+Confident was I that the bags on the stern grating that had been freshly
+soused with seawater as the _Active_ steamed away from Marichchikkaddi
+contained a wealth of pearls. In the cool of the early morning I would
+subsidize the eight native sailors, getting them to open the shelled
+treasures, while I garnered the pearls. With this thought uppermost, I
+turned in on a cushionless bench to snatch a few hours' sleep. But
+slumber was out of the question; my brain was planning what might be
+done with the pearls I was soon to possess. Yes, there surely would be
+plenty for a pearl-studded tiara for the loved one awaiting me; and any
+superfluity might be made into ropes and collars for admiring relatives
+at home. Cousin Jessie had always coveted a necklace of pearls with a
+diamond clasp. The dainty baubles were in those sacks; there was no
+question about that. Yes, my luck at pearl-getting would compensate for
+missing Sir Thomas Lipton's dinner in Colombo. Sleep always comes in
+time, and at last I was dreaming of the cargo of priceless gems with me
+on the boat.
+
+How extremely uncomfortable the bench was! What was that! I was not
+asleep, but very wide-awake--and such pains! In an instant I was rolling
+on the deck and shrieking from the terribleness of my suffering. Could
+it be cholera, the plague, or simply appendicitis with which I was
+stricken? The sailors held me down, but not a soul on board knew a word
+of English. I was positive that my end had come, and the thought of
+expiring away from friends and with a pocketful of prepaid
+around-the-world tickets was not agreeable. In an hour the pain was
+excruciating, and it continued for ten long hours with varying severity.
+Morning came, and the Indian skipper was plying his furnace with
+lubricating oil and turpentine--with anything that would help him get me
+to Colombo and medical skill. At last, eighteen hours out from
+Marichchikkaddi, the _Active_ was in the harbor and I was being carried
+to the Grand Oriental Hotel.
+
+"What about the two bags of oysters, the captain wishes to know!" the
+hotel interpreter asked.
+
+"Oh, give them to the men," was the answer; "I have ceased to care for
+pearl-studded tiaras and collars. I'm glad to get away alive from the
+decaying millions of oysters at the fishery. Even God's free air there
+is poisoned by them. What I want most is a doctor."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+UPWARD TO THE SHRINE OF BUDDHA
+
+
+From Colombo it is but seventy-five miles to Ceylon's ancient capital,
+and the journey thither is picturesque almost beyond description. For
+fifty miles the railway leads through the rich vegetation of the
+lowlands, with groves of cocoanut palms seemingly as boundless as the
+sea. In a suburb of Colombo the sacred Kelani River is crossed, at a
+point not remote from the Buddhist temple claimed to be contemporary
+with Gautama himself. The valley of the Kelani is vivid with rice-fields
+of green. The line then pushes its way through a bewildering medley of
+tropical vegetation--there are miles of cashew and breadfruit trees, of
+frangipani and jaks, and more than once a stately talipot-palm is
+discerned in full blossom--for half a century the tree has stored its
+vitality for this one effort; and the burst of splendor spent, its
+career on earth is ended. For twenty-five miles the train zigzags up
+hills, running now and then on the edge of a shelf from whence the
+traveler looks down hundreds of feet sheer upon foam-crested rapids. The
+journey from Colombo to Kandy affords one of the memorable experiences
+of Ceylon.
+
+[Illustration: A LADY OF KANDY]
+
+England has held the interior region of the island, controlled for
+centuries by the Kandyan kings, for but ninety odd years, and it is
+curious to observe wings of palaces at Kandy, where a semi-barbaric rule
+long held sway, employed now as British administrative offices. Little
+antiquity is discernible in the old hill capital, due to former rival
+interests of the Portuguese and Dutch. When one nation had control of
+the picturesque town, it was customary to efface or demolish everything
+that the other had done.
+
+Kandy is the city of Buddha's tooth, and as such is the object of
+unbounded reverence with more than four hundred million inhabitants of
+the earth. Oudh, where Gautama Buddha died, lacks the sacred importance
+of Kandy; and the sepulcher at Jerusalem means no more to Christians,
+nor Mecca and Medina to followers of Mahomet.
+
+Kandy was but a mountain village when the holy molar was brought here in
+the sixteenth century for safe-keeping. The small temple wherein it was
+deposited was beautified and enlarged, and finally the priesthood made
+the place their principal seat, and the Kandyan kings later made the
+city their stronghold and capital of the country.
+
+Thousands of pilgrims come yearly to offer to the Temple of the Tooth
+their gifts of gold and silver ornaments, coins, jewels, vestments for
+the priests, even fruits and flowers--and these devotees have traveled
+from every hamlet of Ceylon and from every land where Buddha has
+believers--from Nepaul, the Malay Peninsula, China, Japan, even from
+Siberia and Swedish Lapland. The kings of Burmah and Siam, in compliance
+with the wish of their subjects, send annual contributions toward the
+support of the temple enshrining the tooth; and Buddhist priests in
+far-away Japan correspond with the hierarchy of the temple of Kandy. No
+other tooth has the drawing power of this one, certainly.
+
+Strange to say. Buddhism has been cast out from India, where it
+originated, by the Hindu faith, which it was meant to reform. In India's
+enormous population scarce seven millions to-day worship at Buddha's
+shrine. Christianity, as well, is a stranger to the land where it was
+born. It appears the irony of fate that these great religions, glorious
+in principle, have abiding places without number, save in the countries
+where they originated. But such is the fact.
+
+Few scholars can study the tenets of Buddhism without the conviction
+that it is a religion of striking merit--that is, as form and dogma are
+described by writers and commentators; but as practised by races not far
+removed from pagan illiteracy, with whom idolatry and superstition are
+inherent, it may no longer be the perfection of doctrine that was
+espoused by Prince Gautama.
+
+Sir Edwin Arnold, who thoroughly knew most Eastern religions, admired
+enthusiastically the precepts of Buddha, and no one can read his
+writings without experiencing some regard for the Buddhism of
+literature. In "The Light of Asia" the five commandments of the great
+religion of the Orient are thus poetically recited:
+
+    Kill not--for Pity's sake--and lest ye slay
+    The meanest thing upon its upward way.
+
+    Give freely and receive, but take from none
+    By greed, or force or fraud, what is his own.
+
+    Bear not false witness, slander not, nor lie;
+    Truth is the speech of inward purity.
+
+    Shun drugs and drinks which work the wit abuse;
+    Clear minds, clean bodies, need no Soma juice.
+
+    Touch not thy neighbor's wife, neither commit
+    Sins of the flesh unlawful and unfit.
+
+Whether present-day Buddhism is the exact religion taught by the
+princely priest, and gracefully described by the English poet, matters
+little--its fountainhead is Kandy, and temple and dependencies of the
+sacred bone form the Vatican of the faith. This miraculous tooth,
+alleged to be the left eye-tooth of Gautama Buddha, and taken from the
+ashes of his funeral pyre twenty-five hundred years ago, has played a
+mighty part in Eastern intrigue, and wars between nations have been
+fought over it. For centuries it was the priceless marriage dower going
+with certain favored princesses of royal blood. It was brought from
+India to Ceylon in the fourth century after Christ. The Malabars
+secured it by conquest more than once, the Portuguese had it for a time
+at Goa, and for safety it was brought to Kandy in the sixteenth century,
+and it has there since been cared for with scrupulous fidelity.
+
+A relic supported by so much history should at least be genuine--the
+history may be all right, but the tooth is a shambling hoax, at best a
+crude proxy for the molar of Gautama. Intelligent priests of Buddhism
+must know this, but the millions of common people finding solace in the
+faith have never heard the truth--and wouldn't believe it if they did.
+No more amazing display of faith over a reputed sacred relic is known
+than is associated with this bogus tooth of Kandy.
+
+Reference to any library of unimpeachable works on the world's religions
+proves conclusively that the actual tooth was burned by the Catholic
+archbishop of Goa in 1560, in the presence of the viceroy of India and
+his suite--this is authentic history. Six years after the event at Goa a
+spurious tooth had to be provided to effect an international marriage
+long under contract, and the molar of a wild boar or of an ape was used.
+This tooth eventually was brought to the town nestling in the hills of
+Ceylon, and surrounding it grew the capital of the proud kingdom of the
+Kandyans. In the year of Waterloo, the British overthrew the reigning
+sovereign, and the bogus tooth and its temple have since had the
+protection of English rule.
+
+[Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF THE TOOTH, KANDY]
+
+The dimensions of the tooth are fatal to its pretended genuineness,
+for it is a discolored ivory two inches in length and one in diameter.
+No human mouth ever gave shelter to such a tooth. To view it would be a
+test of credulity too trying even for fanaticism to stand. The hoax,
+consequently, is concealed from sight. On important occasions it is
+displayed--at a distance. When the Duke and Duchess of York visited
+Kandy the high priests of the temple exhibited the tooth; and on
+occasions it is supposed to be carried in processions through the
+streets on the back of an elephant--but deception and trickery in
+connection with the tooth come easy.
+
+The enshrined humbug reposes on a massive silver table, encrusted with
+gems and festooned with jeweled chains. The chamber in which it is kept
+in the temple is stiflingly hot, with atmosphere heavy from the perfume
+of flowers. Within six or eight bell-shaped metal covers the tooth is
+held by a standard as if emerging from the petals of a lotus flower of
+gold. Visitors to the museum at Colombo may see a replica of the relic
+and its setting: it is a tawdry, unimpressive object.
+
+Glance where you will in Kandy, drive in any direction, penetrate any
+avenue or footpath, and priestly disciples of Buddha, of every age from
+the novice to the patriarch of exalted rank, accost the vision. Pilgrims
+appear to be constantly arriving. They are present from Jaffna in the
+north, from Galle in the south, from Nuara Eliya in the mountains, from
+everywhere--some come on foot, some by curious carts drawn by buffaloes
+or bullocks, some by railroad train. All are unshod, and the head of
+each is bare and shaven. Each wears the robe of eternal yellow, with an
+arm and shoulder bare, and the sunshade and palm fan have been the
+adjuncts of the brotherhood since Gautama left his royal parents' house
+to teach the word of Buddha.
+
+Celibacy is the rule of the priesthood. Nothing can be less obtrusive
+than the demeanor of the brethren. Visitors to their temples are
+welcomed, and courteous replies are always made to inquiries.
+
+Cremation is general in the priesthood, but apparently optional with
+others of the faith. When a dignitary of the priesthood passes away his
+confr�res assemble from far and near at the funeral pyre to do him
+honor. The incineration usually takes place in a palm grove. The corpse
+is surrounded with dried wood, made additionally inflammable with oils.
+The rites of the pyre include nothing of a sensational character; the
+assemblage chants for a time, then a priest of high rank applies the
+torch, and in an hour nothing remains but a mound of embers and ashes. A
+cremation may be readily witnessed at Kandy or Colombo, or other place
+possessing a considerable population.
+
+The peoples of low caste of the East are too numerous to be catalogued.
+India teems with them, of course, and the paradise island of Ceylon has
+a considerable percentage of human beings denied by their betters of
+almost every privilege save breathing the free air of heaven. The
+lowlands and coastal regions have been so commercialized that human
+pariahs are there almost overlooked--but they are at every turning of
+the road in every hamlet, everywhere. Kandy, once royal city, knows the
+abhorred low caste to-day as it did five hundred years ago, for in plain
+view of the capital in the hills there are settlements of men and women
+still excluded from communion with the world by reason of a royal curse
+pronounced centuries ago--and it is a condition worse than death itself.
+
+Representatives of the Rodiya caste may be seen any day by pedestrians
+in the city's outskirts. There are not many of them,
+fortunately--perhaps a thousand all told. Tradition has it that hundreds
+of years ago a vengeful monarch condemned their race to never-ending
+degradation for having supplied the royal table with human flesh instead
+of venison. Custom forces these poor mortals to ford or swim a stream,
+instead of using a ferry; and forbids their drawing water at public
+wells. They must not live in houses like other people, but in hovels
+constructed usually by leaning a hurdle against a rock, and their men
+and women must never clothe their bodies above the waist. Until recent
+years courts of justice have been closed to them, and if overtaken on
+their travels by darkness they must find shelter in caves or abandoned
+hovels. They recognize their degradation by falling on their knees when
+addressing even toilers on the highway, and shout a warning on the
+approach of a traveler, that he may halt long enough for them to get off
+the road to secure his passing without possibility of defilement.
+
+These groveling worms of the earth are nominally Buddhists, but are
+forbidden to enter a temple. Hence they pray "standing afar off." Demon
+worship is accredited to them. Their headman can officiate only when he
+has obtained the sanction of the common jailor of the district. Even to
+ask alms they must not enter a fenced property, and it is said at Kandy
+that water over which their shadows have fallen is held to be so defiled
+that other natives will not use it until purified by the sun's rays. And
+thus it is; their race is penalized in every manner, and the ban goes
+unchallenged by the miserable beings.
+
+Their denial by mankind of ordinary fellowship has driven them to filthy
+and beastly habits. They devour the flesh of monkeys and tortoises, even
+carrion, it is claimed; and of late years they haunt feasts and
+ceremonials hoping to obtain fragments of food thrown from the tables of
+their betters. Now and then they are paid something for watching fields,
+and for burying carcasses of dead cattle. It is not known that they are
+thieves, but they are shunned as if they were. In emergencies, when
+there is a scarcity of labor, they are induced to work on tea estates,
+or at road mending; but the habits of vagabondage are too rooted to
+allow their remaining long in useful employment.
+
+[Illustration: CREMATION OF A BUDDHIST PRIEST]
+
+Superior in every way to their men, the Rodiya women are the most
+beautiful in all Ceylon. Their scantiness of raiment, it is pleaded
+in their behalf, is due in no sense to immodesty. Rodiya girls wander
+the country as dancers and jugglers, and their erect figures, elastic
+step, and regalness of carriage, would be envied by the proudest woman
+promenading Vanity Fair; some of them have faces so perfect in a classic
+way that a sculptor or painter might make himself famous by reproducing
+them.
+
+Believe not that these miserable people represent the lowest grade of
+degradation in Lanka's isle, for there are two outcast races so far
+beneath them in the social scale as to be avoided by Rodiyas as if they
+reeked with a pestilential disease. These castes are hopelessly beyond
+the pale.
+
+British rule in Asia recognizes no caste distinctions, but it has been a
+humane work of the wives of several English governors of Ceylon to seek
+to improve the position of the women of the Rodiya caste, especially of
+the young girls. Some benefit is claimed as a result of the efforts of
+the English women--but the majesty and power of Great Britain are puny
+institutions compared with the force of caste among native races. To
+keep down the Rodiya population a certain Kandyan king, it is stated on
+good authority, used to have a goodly number of them shot each year.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+IN CEYLON'S HILL COUNTRY
+
+
+When good Kandyans discourse in flowery vein, they say Kandy is only
+forty miles from heaven. Visitors who have fallen under the charm of the
+place are more likely to wonder at their moderation than question their
+ability to measure celestial distances. If Gautama Buddha's "eternal
+rest" were to be had on earth, Kandy would surely be the reward of
+Nirvana promised those who have acquired merit.
+
+The beauty of Kandy is based upon naturalness; it is not grand like
+Taormina in Sicily, nor produced by nature and art in combination like
+Monte Carlo. Everything connected with the spot is fascinating, even the
+jungle that by day harbors the jackals which sometimes make night
+hideous to sojourners. Everybody appears happy; even elephants hauling
+timber in the suburbs toil cheerfully.
+
+This inland province that formed the kingdom of Kandy preserved its
+integrity throughout the Portuguese and Dutch invasions of the island;
+and the English were in possession of the coast section full nineteen
+years before the Kandyan monarchy succumbed to their power.
+
+This beautiful city was a different place under the native kings. They
+loved grandeur, apparently, but it was the grandeur of selfish
+surroundings and luxury. The lake now the center of the city was
+constructed by the last king, it is true; but its shore witnessed
+atrocities never surpassed in savage excess. Near the spot where stands
+a monastery of yellow robed monks of Buddha, the last king assembled his
+people in 1814 to witness the punishment of the innocent wife and
+children of a fleeing official accused of treason. By the blow of a
+sword the head of each child was severed from its body in the mother's
+presence, even that of the babe wrenched from her breast. The heads were
+placed in a mortar, and the woman forced under threat of disgraceful
+torture to pound them with a huge pestle.
+
+When news of this reached the coast the English determined to intervene
+in the interests of humanity. While the horror was yet fresh in the
+public mind, a party of native merchants of Colombo came to Kandy to
+trade. The fiendish king ordered them seized and horribly mutilated.
+When, a few weeks later, the survivors returned to the sea-coast
+deprived of ears, noses and hands--with the severed members tied to
+their necks--the English decided to act immediately. Three months later
+Kandy was in their possession, and the king an exile in southern India.
+
+From that time, with the exception of a few years when the hereditary
+Kandyan chiefs were troublesome through finding their privileges
+circumscribed, the progress of Ceylon as a whole has been remarkable.
+Perhaps the finest example of benefits coming with England's colonial
+rule is this "Eden of the Eastern Wave." Slavery and forced labor on
+public works have been abolished, fine roads constructed everywhere, and
+adequate educational facilities placed within easy reach.
+
+A visitor perceives no squalor, few beggars, and apparently no genuine
+poverty. All these advantages have been secured practically without
+taxing the natives in any manner. Uniform contentment, consequently, is
+everywhere visible. The naked babies, looking like india-rubber dolls,
+have apparently never learned to cry.
+
+Oddly enough, the English made Kandy the Saint Helena of Arabi Pasha's
+exile, until the broken and aged man was permitted a few years since to
+return to his beloved Egypt.
+
+[Illustration: TREES IN PERADENIYA GARDEN, KANDY]
+
+Itself beautiful with poinsettia, bougainvillea, crotons, hibiscus and
+palms, a botanical garden in Kandy would seem to have no proper place.
+But the city possesses one that is almost unique among tropical gardens.
+It is in the suburb of Peradeniya, four miles out, and it is embraced on
+three sides by Ceylon's principal stream, the Mahavaliganga. For eighty
+years the Ceylon government has treated the Peradeniya garden and its
+associated experimental stations as an investment--and it has paid well,
+for through its agency the cultivation of cinchona, cacao, rubber and
+other economic crops has been introduced to the people. Throughout
+Asia the Peradeniya garden is famous. Whether the claim that it is the
+finest in the world be correct would require an expert to determine. The
+botanical garden at Demerara may be as good, if not larger and better.
+
+A layman visiting Peradeniya returns to Kandy in a state of
+bewilderment. He has seen so many attractive and strange manifestations
+of nature that lucid description is beyond his power. He is aware,
+nevertheless, that he has viewed nearly every tree, shrub, plant and
+vine known to tropical and subtropical climes; shrubs that produce every
+spice, perfume and flavoring he ever heard of, or that contribute to
+medicine, as well.
+
+At Peradeniya the palm family has nearly a hundred representatives,
+including the areca, palmyra, talipot, royal, fan, traveler's, date and
+cocoanut. The forty or more varieties of crotons include the curious
+corkscrew of the West Indies, and range extravagantly in colors and
+markings. Huge Assam rubber-trees have exposed roots suggesting a tangle
+of octopi. A tree noticeable for its perfect foliage is the breadfruit;
+and there are sensitive plants that shrink from intimate attention, and
+water-plants whose roots need not come into contact with the earth.
+
+Here and there are kola trees, cardamom bushes, aloe plants from which
+sisal is drawn, camphor and cinnamon shrubs, and probably every species
+of the parasitical family, depending like many human beings upon
+stronger relatives or neighbors for support. The orchid enclosure would
+arouse any collector's covetousness. There are foliage plants producing
+leaves counterfeiting elephant ears, and others that look like full
+spread peacock tails. A small leaf which the official guide of the
+gardens is obviously partial to is deep green when held to the light,
+purple when slightly turned, and deep red if looked at from another
+angle. The visitor moves swiftly into the sunlight when told that he is
+standing in the shade of the deadly upas.
+
+A traveler approaching the island of Ceylon hears constantly of the
+wonders of Peradeniya; and some statements in praise of the garden are
+taken usually with reserve, especially that asserting there are trees
+there which develop so rapidly that the spectator can actually see them
+grow. This seems incredible, but there is ample basis for the statement.
+After a rain the fronds of the giant bamboo frequently grow a foot in
+the course of a day. At the office of the director of the garden are
+records of many measurements proving that fronds have lengthened a half
+inch in an hour. A tree growing a half inch in sixty minutes is a Ceylon
+fact. The first time I went to Peradeniya, thousands of flying-foxes,
+suspended bat-like from the giant bamboos a hundred feet from the earth,
+were sleeping away the day, while soaring above the trees were hundreds
+of these queer objects, scolding like disturbed crows.
+
+[Illustration: TAMIL COOLIE SETTING OUT TEA PLANTS]
+
+Peradeniya's visitors come from every land in the world, some traveling
+great distances to see the wonders of the garden. One has not to be
+arboriculturist or botanist to appreciate the establishment; it is
+always entertaining, sometimes amusing, and appeals variously to the
+tastes of visitors. For example, the Mexican goes involuntarily to the
+aloe from which his beloved pulque is made, the Egyptian to the
+date-palm, the Connecticut man to the nutmeg grove, and the New Yorker
+to the tree under which handfuls of cloves may be scooped up without
+charge, whereas at home they are acquired one at a time at considerable
+expense.
+
+Explore the highways and byways of Kandy keenly as one may, nothing is
+in evidence explaining its manifest prosperity--the place has no
+distinctive product or business. It is the seat of management, however,
+of the island's greatest industry--tea raising.
+
+In Ceylon tea is "king." This being the fact, no visitor to the town
+where the Planters' Association has its administrative machinery can
+close his ears to tea talk. Elsewhere people talk over their tea-cups;
+in Kandy, they talk tea over every other kind of cup. Kandy's big hotel
+bristles with planters in overspreading sun hats, as do club and
+friendly bungalow verandas. Some are "down" for a day (and a night) from
+up-country estates, while others are "up" from smallish properties at
+levels below Kandy. Nearly all have to purchase supplies and draw a few
+sacks of rupees from the bank with which to pay off their coolies. But
+some have come to discuss market conditions and prospects with their
+agents. A few, not yet wholly emancipated from the social side of life
+in which they were reared, have journeyed to Kandy to rub shoulders for
+a few days with civilization.
+
+The orbit of each and every one of these transplanted Britons is tea,
+and this in its primal form. They can have no concern with Steel common.
+Amalgamated copper or Erie 4's, and to them the jargon of stock
+exchanges would be as meaningless as Sanskrit platitudes. Their
+speculative medium is tea--tea in bulk, and pretty large bulk at that.
+
+The daily cable from London summarizing the tea market interests each of
+these men as vitally as the tale of the ticker interests the American
+taking a flier in stocks. The story is told in two or three lines, and
+by a presentation of numerals appearing exceedingly unimportant to the
+sojourner whose operations in tea never exceeded the purchase of a pound
+package.
+
+[Illustration: TAMIL GIRL PLUCKING TEA]
+
+Yes, the figures tell the story--a tale of occasional success, but often
+of failure and woe. A bracketed set of fractions explains the range of
+prices for broken pekoes, another set deals with common pekoes, another
+with orange pekoes, and still another with common souchongs. Then follow
+such words as "steady," "generally firm," and "somewhat lower"--each a
+phrase with potential significance. The crux of the communication, like
+that of a school-girl's letter, comes last. If it reads "general market
+closed 1-8th penny up," the planter has visions of happiness and
+affluence, and forthwith orders a "peg." But if the postscript says
+"1-8th down," the young planter foresees nothing but disaster, and may
+consider levanting with the bags of rupees by the next steamer from
+Colombo. A planter is always a bull on prices, while the important buyer
+in Europe is chronically bearish.
+
+The yearly tea product of Ceylon is aggregating 155,000,000 pounds, and
+of this Uncle Sam purchases 12,000,000 pounds, while 98,000,000 go to
+Great Britain. The value of the annual output varies little from
+$21,000,000--and from this Ceylon supports itself so comfortably that
+the tea-plant seems to merit adoption as the emblem of the colony.
+
+The rise of the industry affords one of the most remarkable instances of
+rapid development of an agricultural pursuit. Coffee used to be the
+dominating crop in the island, until "coffee blight" ruined the
+industry. Tea was then experimented with. In 1875 barely a thousand
+acres were under tea; now the acreage is 385,000. A journey from Kandy
+to Nuwara Eliya, in the mountains, is through an interminable
+tea-garden, and on every hand is proof of substantial investment of
+capital. The choicest crops are raised between five and six thousand
+feet above sea-level, and lands in this zone are worth as much as $500
+an acre. The scientific cultivation of tea paid its pioneers handsomely,
+but the current opinion is that overproduction is killing prices, and
+that a new crop must be sought--probably rubber.
+
+Ceylon's important tea estates are the property of companies, whose
+shares are dealt in on the London and Colombo stock exchanges. Small
+plantations are owned by individuals, usually the persons conducting
+them. One or two thousand Europeans, mainly Englishmen and Scotchmen,
+are employed on the important estates as managers, assistants and
+accountants. Hosts of young Britons work a year or two without
+compensation for the experience. They are called "creepers," and some of
+them eventually obtain salaried offices, or embark in the industry on
+their own account. The laboring force on an estate is provided chiefly
+by Tamil coolies from southern India, and numbers from one to two
+thousand. Both men and women contrive to lay by a competence at a wage
+rate of from eight to fifteen cents a day.
+
+If let alone, the tea-plant would grow to be a tree eighteen or twenty
+feet high, but by generous top pruning it is kept down to three feet,
+thus becoming a squat bush possessing a biggish leafing area. Every
+eight or twelve days the shoots and young leaves are plucked--when
+treated these become the tea of commerce. Tea-plants are alike, speaking
+generally, grades being effected by the discrimination of picker and
+sorter. Fresh buds and tender young leaves make the pekoes, older ones
+the souchongs. Tea gathered exclusively from buds and tips is called
+"flowery;" if the first young leaf be included, it is "orange pekoe."
+In order of quality the Ceylon grades are: orange pekoe, pekoe,
+pekoe-souchong, souchong, congou, and dust.
+
+[Illustration: A KANDYAN CHIEFTAIN]
+
+Tea-plants are perennial, and are set about four feet apart on
+hillsides. At three years of age they become productive. Familiar sights
+in the hills are the coolies with baskets of slips setting out plants
+wherever unemployed spaces may be found, and groups of Tamil girls
+plucking buds and young leaves from mature bushes. These girls are happy
+countenanced, some slender and graceful in carriage and movement, and
+none express objection to being snapshotted by travelers. The girls'
+baskets are emptied and contents systematically sorted at convenient
+places in the field, or at the factory. Essential to every important
+estate is the factory, for there the leaves are withered, broken by
+rolling, fermented, fired, and finally sifted into grades preparatory to
+packing in lead-lined boxes ready to be despatched to the markets of the
+universe.
+
+It is reassuring to witness the system and scrupulous cleanliness of
+every step employed in producing Ceylon tea. Anybody who has spent a day
+on an up-country estate is fairly certain to be friendly to Ceylon tea
+the rest of his life, for modern machinery does much of the work which
+in China and Japan is performed by hands none too clean and amid
+surroundings none too healthful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+BOMBAY AND ITS PARSEE "JEES" AND "BHOYS"
+
+
+The Parsee is the only sect holding religious tenets strange enough to
+stamp them as "peculiar people" who amount to much in the material
+affairs of life. Every country possesses groups of people having
+religious beliefs and practices which attract to them a curious
+interest; but Bombay's Parsee colony is the only illustration of a
+brotherhood following strange lives who shine resplendently in the
+financial and social worlds.
+
+Everything in Bombay is dominated by the Parsee element, and every
+public hospital and other charitable institution, public statue, or
+drinking fountain, is the benefaction of a Parsee. The mansions and
+finest villas are Parsee homes, the leaders of club life are Parsees,
+and almost every bank and influential commercial house bears a Parsee
+name on its door. Bombay's population is not far from nine hundred
+thousand, of which the Parsees number only sixty thousand--but this
+minority impresses its importance on the majority and gives a character
+of unique interest to the city.
+
+These dominating people are Indians only by adoption. Twelve hundred
+years ago the Mohammedan conquerors of Persia persecuted the disciples
+of Zoroaster to an extent that many of the strongest men and women of
+the faith fled to India for safety, and the Parsees of to-day are the
+descendants of these refugees. For generations they have made education
+a feature, have always helped each other, and been extremely clannish,
+although preserving toward people of other religions a respectful
+attitude. Their creed, claimed to have descended from the Hebrew prophet
+Daniel, is expressed in three precepts of two words each: Good thoughts,
+good words, good deeds. Orthodox Parsees wear a white girdle of three
+coils as reminder of these principles; but present-day Parsee men have
+discarded all evidences of their creed save the designating vizorless
+cap, and dress in garments of European pattern, and their women are
+garbed in robes of delicately-shaded and clinging silks, and wear
+embroidered mantillas on their heads.
+
+Most Parsees are superbly educated, variously accomplished, and speak
+English fluently. Their equipages are the smartest in Bombay, and every
+walk of life is led by them. The great fortunes of this part of India
+are theirs, and Parsee names are identified with everything contributing
+to Bombay's importance. These names are strikingly peculiar, are usually
+of from four to six syllables, the last being usually "jee" or "bhoy."
+The Jeejeebhoy family is intensely Parsee, of course, and important
+enough to possess an English baronetcy. The city's principal hospital
+was the gift of Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy. Other families of renown in the
+financial world are the Readymoneys, Jehangirs and Sassoons.
+
+Turn where you may the eye meets something donated to the public by
+generous Parsees. These people have long been loyal supporters of
+British rule in India, and frequently able to neutralize Hindu or
+Mohammedan opposition to a public measure. Baronetcies and knighthoods
+have consequently been showered upon them from London. Incidentally, a
+good deal of the money with which hospitals and libraries were given by
+great Parsees of a former generation came as reward for running a
+successful "corner" in Indian cotton at the time of America's civil war.
+Lancashire mills could get no staple from the Southern states, and
+astute Bombay capitalists, securing control of the native crop, held the
+same until the price advanced from ten or twelve cents to a dollar a
+pound. The fruits of this _coup_., some of them at least, dotted Bombay
+with noble buildings and statues.
+
+Some Parsees drive public street vehicles, work on tramways and
+railways, and pursue humbler vocations, it is true; but most Parsees
+dwell in princely homes and go to their offices and clubs in splendidly
+appointed broughams and victorias. Success in life even in Parseedom is
+based upon the principle of survival of the fittest--or astutest.
+
+[Illustration: PARSEE TOWER OF SILENCE, BOMBAY]
+
+The Parsees stoutly deny that they are fire worshippers. The sacred
+flame perpetually burning in their houses of worship, brought by
+their ancestors from Persia, is but a symbol, they insist. God,
+according to their faith, is the emblem of glory, refulgence, and
+spiritual life; therefore they face the holy flame when praying as the
+most fitting symbol of the Deity. In the open air they prostrate
+themselves when praying to the setting sun. Parsee temples are plain to
+severity, with walls bare and floors uncovered and empty; but there is
+always the recess wherein burns the sacred fire of incense and
+sandalwood.
+
+The method of dealing with the Parsee dead is startlingly original, and
+said to be in strict keeping with the teaching of Zoroaster. According
+to Parsee tenets fire is too highly venerated to be polluted by burning
+the dead, while water is equally respected, and Mother Earth as well.
+Hence the Parsees offer their dead to the elements and the birds of the
+air, and the bones of rich and poor, high and low, even of the
+malefactor and suicide, are consigned to eternity in crumbled state in a
+common pit.
+
+The Towers of Silence occupy the finest site on Malabar Hill,
+overlooking beautiful Bombay, and high above the Arabian Sea--it is
+Nature's beauty spot, embowered in graceful shrubbery and palms, with
+fragrant flowers everywhere. The governor of Bombay Presidency resides
+at Malabar Point, further along, and the homes of men high in
+officialdom or commerce occupy every available site in the neighborhood.
+The Towers, five in number, are of whitewashed stone and cement, 275
+feet in circumference, and perhaps twenty-five feet high. An iron door
+admits the corpse of the Parsee, and once within the strange building it
+is proffered to the birds of the air--gloating vultures, coarse and
+repugnant in every aspect.
+
+Four carriers of the dead are seen approaching the beautiful garden with
+a bier on their shoulders. Two bearded men, the only living persons
+permitted to enter a Tower, come next. Then follow from fifty to a
+hundred mourners and friends in pure white robes, walking two and two,
+each couple holding a handkerchief between them in token of a united
+grief. The apex of the hill reached, the mourners turn into the house of
+prayer, wherein the eternal fire is burning, or take position beneath
+spreading palms for solitary meditation. The bearers deliver the corpse
+to the bearded functionaries at the entrance to the Tower, and these
+carry it within. The floor of the Tower is of iron grating with three
+circles whereon the corpses are placed. The inner circle is for
+children, the next for women, and the outer for men.
+
+The bearded men are lost to view for a minute or two only, and their
+concluding office within is to remove the shroud, leaving the body
+wholly bare. The iron door clangs as they emerge, there is a mighty whir
+of wings, and in a twinkling the corpse is in possession of hundreds of
+greedy, competing vultures. In twenty minutes not a vestige of flesh
+remains on the bones, and the loathsome birds resume their watch from
+the edge of the Tower for the next comer. Their experienced gaze
+perceives a funeral procession a mile away in the direction of the city,
+and a signal cry is so readily understood by vultures resting on trees
+in the neighborhood that a unanimous attendance is assured long before
+the corpse passes the portal of the grounds.
+
+The human skeletons are left within the Tower to disintegrate by action
+of sun and wind, heat and cold. In time the bearded men, gloved and with
+tongs, remove them to a vast well in the middle of the enclosure, where
+with lapse of time they turn to dust.
+
+Corpses being considered unclean by Parsee standards, carriers of the
+dead, as well as those who enter the Towers, are assigned to a class by
+themselves, and forbidden to mix with others of their strange religion.
+There is a superstition that an awful curse would be visited upon an
+unauthorized person whose gaze fell upon a body or skeleton inside a
+Tower of Silence. The habiliments of those whose duty takes them within
+are always destroyed before they leave the grounds.
+
+Whatever may be claimed in defense of the Parsee method of dealing with
+their dead, from a sanitary standpoint, the custom possesses an aspect
+gruesome in the extreme. The Hindus' system of burning on the river bank
+is even less repulsive.
+
+If any city in the East is sport-mad it is Bombay. Men work there
+mornings and engage in something of a sportive character afternoons. The
+school-boy, even, slings his books from a hockey stick, and the
+departmental clerk sets out for an afternoon's sociability accompanied
+by his faithful tennis racquet. Nowhere can better polo be seen than on
+the Marine Lines Maidan; as for cricket, there probably are more players
+in Bombay, British and native, than in any town of its population in
+England--and Bombay's cricket is of the best. More than once have crack
+teams out from England been heartlessly beaten by local Parsee players.
+Golf is considered too slow. The next best thing to being a member of
+the nobility is for a Briton to belong to the Royal Bombay Yacht Club,
+for it gives him the _cachet_ to everything Asiatic. The club-house on
+the Apollo Bunder possesses the best situation on the water front, and
+from its verandas fashionables watch matches that are sailed with
+consummate skill. During winter months foot-ball appeals strongly to the
+soldier class, while motor-car races and trials appear to be daily
+events.
+
+[Illustration: A BOMBAY RAILWAY STATION]
+
+It is the horse that is king, however, in Bombay's pastimes. The Hunt
+Club sends the smart set to the suburbs now and then, and tent-pegging
+and pig-sticking draw biggish audiences from the military class whenever
+contests are announced. But the paramount sport of the masses is
+horse-racing, pure and simple. The course is on the plains a few miles
+out of town, close to a suburb given over to cotton-mills, where nearly
+as many spindles fly as at Fall River. All Bombay seems to be at the
+races, irrespective of religious or social distinctions--everyone
+present loves the horse and appears possessed of a goodly supply of
+rupees with which to back his selections.
+
+The Jockey Club has its own lawn and private enclosure on the stand, and
+there is a box for the governor and anybody coming from Government
+House. The grand-stand bears a minor importance to the betting ring, for
+the latter holds a surging, throbbing medley of humanity--society folk
+from India's innermost official set, sleek Parsees wearing gold rimmed
+eye-glasses, rajahs from all parts, wealthy merchants and bankers,
+fez-wearing Mohammedans from the world of Islam, men from the Persian
+Gulf in astrachan head-gear, Pathans from beyond the Himalayas, Sikhs
+from the Punjab--as can be gathered in great India, the museum of the
+human race.
+
+Three score book-makers howl their bargains in raucous tones, and a
+whirlwind of rupee paper passes to the strong boxes. The crowd is
+backing the favorites. Even the Arab horse dealers from the Bhendi
+bazaar, manly fellows in the garb of desert sheikhs, whose pockets bulge
+with rolls of notes, comprehend the book-makers' jargon of English that
+might be incomprehensible to an Oxford don. A prince who is heir to the
+rulership of one of the greatest states in India has no scruples against
+inviting an expression of opinion as to so-and-so's bay filly of a
+native sportsman with beard dyed red with henna, in keeping with the
+fashion of his kind. Escorted ladies of position, and unescorted women
+in pairs from Grant Road, are present before the betting booths. Fair
+Parsee ladies, wearing clinging robes of delicate shades, wait patiently
+while their swains place their money on the impending event.
+
+A bell rings loudly--the horses are at the post. The mob rushes from the
+betting ring to the lawn; only few take the trouble to climb to their
+seats. It is a quick race. The crowd of standees in the inner field see
+it best, and down this mighty nondescript body is echoed the cry "Kedge
+Anchor!" Sure enough, "Kedge Anchor," an unknown from Australia, ridden
+by a jockey of obscure past, wins the great race. Three favorites are
+ingloriously beaten. Up go the numbers. All is over in less than two
+minutes--and the crowd goes pell-mell back to the book-makers'
+enclosure, hoping for better luck over the next race on the card. If
+rupees were dollars, the financial aspect of a Bombay racing day would
+be important.
+
+Kipling wrote true when he called Bombay "India's Queen City." It lacks
+the depressing influences of Calcutta, as well as the odors. Indeed, it
+is one of the handsomest cities of the whole British Empire, and has
+more notable buildings than Manchester or Edinburgh. True, its stately
+piles blend the Gothic and Indian schools of architecture, but otherwise
+there is nothing Eastern about Bombay--save its people. A man awakening
+from long slumber on a ship anchored off the Apollo Bunder would
+willingly swear he beheld a European town. Eight tenths of India's
+visitors arrive and depart from Bombay.
+
+The opening of the Suez Canal made certain the importance of Bombay as
+a trade center. It is now the largest cotton port in the world next to
+New Orleans, and if plague and smallpox might be controlled for five
+years it would have a population of a million. Bombay is a comparatively
+modern city, as cities count in immemorial India. England secured Bombay
+in 1661, not by conquest, but as a portion of the marriage dowry of
+Catharine of Braganza of Portugal, when she became the queen of Charles
+II.
+
+The world's most artistic railway station--not the largest, nor
+costliest--is in Bombay, and the best marble statue in existence of
+Queen Victoria was presented to the Bombay municipality by His Highness
+the Gaekwar of Baroda. Another notable gift is the bronze statue of
+Edward VII, donated by Sir Albert Sassoon, son of a public-spirited
+banker from Baghdad, who took up his residence in Bombay. A newcomer
+among the city's office buildings is "Roosevelt House," advantageously
+situated near the Apollo Bunder.
+
+The eyes of the person recently arrived from Europe or America behold
+many strange and amusing sights in the streets of Bombay, and for days
+your local guide and the obliging porter at the hotel is kept busy the
+livelong day answering questions. The native policeman is a human
+institution who explains himself. It is averred that he is loyal and
+efficient, but with his calfless legs bared to the knee and feet shod in
+sandals, he looks a queer cousin of Fifth Avenue's "Finest" and of the
+"Bobby" of London. A person unaccustomed to the habits of subject races
+gets the idea that the Bombay constable's first duty is the touching of
+his cap to white men, all and sundry; but it is said to his credit that
+in a street brawl or a water front quarrel among drunken lascars he
+fights like a wildcat. He is extremely proud of his truncheon, for it is
+a badge of office tremendously respected in the city's labyrinths where
+India's heterogeneous peoples dwell a dozen or more in a room. During
+the wet monsoon the policeman of Bombay carries an umbrella supplied by
+the municipality, which heightens his comical aspect--but it keeps him
+dry.
+
+[Illustration: BOMBAY POLICEMAN]
+
+The markings and badges of caste observed in Bombay streets lead you to
+a constant interrogation of your sources of information. At the outset
+you determine to obtain an understanding of the institution of Indian
+caste, but a fortnight after your arrival in Bombay you conclude that
+the task is too great for anybody having other things to do, and give it
+up in despair. A few facts connected with this supreme and dominating
+characteristic take root in your memory, however, and you have learned
+that the customs and rites of caste could not be strengthened even by
+legal enactments, or by the massed strength of all the armies on earth.
+The word is derived from the Latin word _castus_, implying purity of
+blood, and whose essential principle is marriage. India's population
+groups forty-seven nationalities, divided into 2,378 recognized castes
+and tribes. Accident of birth determines irrevocably a native's
+social and domestic relationship, prescribing even what he may eat
+and drink throughout life, how he must dress, and whom he may marry.
+There are four fundamental divisions of caste--the priestly or Brahmin
+(which has close upon fifteen million devotees), the warrior, the
+trading, and the laboring; and these have interminable subdivisions.
+Below the laboring caste there is a substratum which is termed pariah or
+outcast, and these degraded specimens of humanity are not better than
+animated machines performing the functions of public scavengers.
+
+Throughout India caste is hereditary. The son of a priest becomes a
+priest, a warrior's son becomes a soldier, and a carpenter's boy a
+carpenter, and so on. For a father to start a son in any calling but his
+own, or a vocation that is similar, would be "against his caste." Caste
+is social as well as religious, and includes the occupation as well as
+the creed. For a Hindu to rise from his inherited caste is next to
+impossible, and this tends to make the Hindus an ambitionless race. The
+infusion of new blood is likewise not tolerated, and in India "caste"
+and "custom" are perfect synonyms--and each a national curse.
+
+A major part of the people of India are agriculturists, men and women
+who are dependent upon what they can wrest from the soil for their
+existence. Their plough, an heirloom from remote antiquity, merely
+scratches the earth. The use of superior implements would result in
+superior tillage and augmented crops; but it would be as simple to
+induce the peasant to change his religion as to get him to forsake the
+plough used by his ancestors. The implements of daily life mostly belong
+to the barbarous ages. Attempt to introduce any other and you are
+rebuked by the reply: "It is not the custom; my father used this
+article, and therefore it is my duty to use it. Would you have me set
+myself up for a wiser person than my revered parent?" The toiling
+masses, consequently, are poor--and seem destined to remain poor until
+the close of the chapter.
+
+I heard of a contractor engaged in building a railway who objected to
+the physical toil and slowness of having a bank of earth removed by
+baskets on the heads of coolies. So he invested in a number of
+wheelbarrows and explained their use to the natives, and went back to
+his Bombay office flattering himself that he was a reformer. The next
+week when he visited the scene of operations he found the barrows in
+use, but the coolies were filling them with dirt and carrying them up
+the bank on their heads as they had always carried their baskets. The
+coolie of Hind is not to be beguiled by any demonstration intended to
+lighten his task, for he is crusted with conservatism and prejudice.
+
+In Bombay I engaged a man-servant to accompany me on a trip to the
+Punjab. It being a winter of unusual severity, and the journey involving
+much night travel, the agent from whom I hired the servant advised me
+that it would be a beneficial as well as a humane act were I to give the
+man ten rupees with which to procure an "outfit" suitable for one going
+to the north. "It's sometimes done, but not often enough to make it a
+custom," explained the agent; "but it would be the right thing--and
+because voluntary, the poor fellow should serve you all the better for
+your generosity. Give him but ten rupees, and see that he spends it all
+for heavy undergarments and serviceable shoes."
+
+Experiencing some haziness as to how any tittle of reputation for
+generosity was going to be reared on an expenditure aggregating just
+$3.20 in American money, I communicated my determination to the man who
+perforce was to be my constant companion for a month, and who had it in
+his power to make me love or hate the country. As was to be expected, I
+was many kinds of a sahib for my munificent benefaction, and Torab Jan
+salaamed almost to the floor when promising to return from the bazaars
+in good time to strap my mattress and pack my trunk in readiness to go
+to the station directly dinner was over.
+
+Hours later, but in time to throw my clothes and books into trunk and
+bags, Torab stalked into the apartment, and close upon his heels was
+another native carrying a not overlarge parcel. Torab was frank in
+stating that he had purchased precisely what he needed, and proffered a
+snip of paper covered with characters in Hindustani to prove he had
+expended precisely ten rupees, which made it necessary to have another
+benefaction--two annas this time.
+
+"What are the two annas for, and who is this man?" I asked.
+
+"He's the coolie bearing my parcel from the bazaar, master," was the
+response; "you must know that my caste makes it impossible for me to
+carry parcels."
+
+"See here, you drooling idiot; what do you think I have hired you for?
+Why, you've got to carry parcels, lots of them, and big ones at that;
+and you'll have to carry that bed there and my trunk half over India,
+likely as not. Don't talk to me about caste."
+
+"Pray, master, don't be angry with me. I know I'm to carry _your_
+things--that's what I'm for. I forgot to explain that my caste forbids
+only the carrying of my own parcels," the poor fellow whined.
+
+And so it was. In places where there were no carriages Torab seemed to
+delight in loading himself dawn with my paraphernalia, but his
+belongings had always to be carried religiously by a native of a breed
+earning its living by acting as human drays.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: HIS HIGHNESS THE MAHARAJAH OF JEYPORE]
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE VICARIOUS MAHARAJAH OF JEYPORE
+
+
+Thousands of travelers make the pilgrimage to India, a land hoary with
+age, and when weary of overwrought temples and tombs, when arid plains
+and malodorous towns lose their power to interest, they journey north to
+Rajputana to revel in Jeypore, the unique--at least, lovers of Kipling
+do. And the effect on jaded senses is like a cooling draught after a
+parching thirst. Kipling called Jeypore "A pink city, to see and puzzle
+over," It surely is pink, all of it that is not sky-blue, and for
+various reasons it is more satisfying than any other town in India.
+
+For a land where time is calculated by century units, Jeypore is almost
+as recent as a "boom" city on an American prairie. As a fact, its first
+building was reared only a hundred and seventy-eight years ago; and this
+modernity explains thoroughfares of remarkable breadth that cross each
+other at right angles. Generations the senior of Jeypore, New York is no
+better exponent of the checker-board idea. Jeypore is but the setting of
+a scene harking back to medieval days, however, and is the capital of an
+independent state greater in area than Belgium, and from its palace and
+judicial chambers nearly three million souls are governed. Nowhere in
+India, outside the great Rajputana province, is it possible to view a
+picture of happy and contented life, and in the city of Jeypore this is
+seen in its perfection.
+
+This ornate capital on the plains, hemmed in by fortress-crowned hills,
+is a veritable stronghold of feudal barons and armed retainers, of
+hermits and monasteries, and is dotted with palaces and public buildings
+pertaining to the Maharajah's rule. Many of the structures are new
+enough to suggest what Americans love to call "modern conveniences." The
+principal streets are broader than Broadway, as well paved, and
+illuminated by gas systematically enough installed to indicate the
+presence behind the scenes of European engineers. Strange to say,
+Jeypore is an Indian city wherein the lordly Briton in khaki is never
+seen: if the English functionary be here, his master is none other than
+the Maharajah. Through its streets surge a people almost childish in
+their happiness, some in ekkas drawn by matched pairs of bullocks,
+others mounted high on the backs of trotting camels, while bands of
+chattering Rajputs on foot are omnipresent--every grouping reminds of
+something witnessed on the stage, and the _tout ensemble_ might be the
+great scene of a realistic opera intended to glorify the people and the
+institutions of India.
+
+Feminine adornment is carried in Jeypore to its extreme. The bright-hued
+skirts of the women are flare-fashioned and "fuller," in dressmakers'
+parlance, than anything dared by Fay Templeton. But the Jeypore beauty's
+real passion is for gold and silver jewelry, and she carries this to a
+degree unrivaled by the women of any other section of India. It is not
+trifling with fact to say that the average Rajput woman wears from eight
+to ten pounds in silver on ankles and toes, and bracelets enough to
+sheath arms from wrist to elbow. Every feminine Jeypore nose bears some
+metal ornamentation--gold studs through the nostrils, and generally a
+hoop of gold depending a full inch below the point of the chin. Their
+ears are deformed by the wealth of metal hanging from lobe or strung on
+the upper rim of that organ. It can be said of Jeypore's fair sex that
+they are bimetallists in the strictest sense. The argument of the
+savings-bank has probably never been brought to their attention, for
+when one of them has a little money ahead she purchases a silver
+ornament for her person; and if a windfall come to her by legacy or
+otherwise, she buys something of gold, most likely a necklace of
+barbaric design. When one of these women goes to the market-place or the
+public well, she wears everything of value she possesses, and for the
+best of reasons her home is never pilfered.
+
+Rajput men and women look a visitor in the face, and by their smiling
+countenances seem to welcome you to their country. They lack the
+broken-spirited look and sullen servility of Indian peoples overlorded
+by Thomas Atkins. In Jeypore there are grandees and warriors, painted
+dogs, hunting leopards, bedecked horses, and hulking elephants in every
+street picture--and these pictures change with the facility of groupings
+of the kaleidoscope.
+
+The open-air shops of the metal workers and enamelers, and of the dyers,
+whose favorite colors are magenta and yellow, are interesting. There, on
+the left, is the imposing fa�ade of the Palace of the Winds, extolled by
+Sir Edwin Arnold as "a vision of daring and dainty loveliness," but
+which in reality is scarcely more than a mask of stucco erected to make
+a show from the street. The Maharajah's palace and grounds cover a
+seventh of the area of this finest of modern Hindu cities. A stone's
+throw from the palace portal is a temple wherein Jeypore women beseech
+the image of Siva to bless them with children: and elsewhere are a Gate
+of Rubies, and a Temple of the Sun. At scores of wayside shops tiny
+idols of the Hindu hierarchy, and silver bracelets and gewgaws, are sold
+to people almost infantile in their cheerfulness. Wedding processions
+pass and repass with a frequency proving an active matrimonial market,
+each led by joyous singers and drum-beaters.
+
+[Illustration: A MATCHED PAIR OF BULLOCKS, JEYPORE]
+
+An entrancing place is this seat of His Highness of Jeypore, and
+compensating for the tedious railway journey from Delhi landing one at
+the city's gates in the inky darkness of 4:30 in the morning. At his
+hotel a visitor learns that a formal request must be made for permission
+to inspect the Maharajah's palace and stables, and to go to the
+abandoned capital of the state, Ambir, five miles away. You make
+application through a deputy, usually the man-servant traveling with
+you, and an hour later comes formal notification that His Highness
+welcomes you to his capital, and that a state carriage will be sent for
+your use, as well as a state elephant to carry you up the hills to
+Ambir. This outburst of hospitality comes with a surprise and force that
+almost sweeps one off his feet, and you have instant misgivings for
+having troubled the august potentate at such an unreasonable morning
+hour. Then your brain almost reels as you recall books that had dwelt
+upon the limitless hospitality of Eastern princes, and you hope that His
+Highness will not insist upon your dining with him--with your evening
+dress and high hat awaiting you at a Bombay hotel a command to the
+palace would, to say the least, be awkward.
+
+But you are spared this inconvenience, probably because the Maharajah is
+as familiar with deputed affairs as you are. Two gaudy chaprassis who
+have brought the desired permits are His Highness's deputies, and from
+them you learn that their master has been for a fortnight at Calcutta,
+but is expected to return in a day or two. They come into your room and
+assure you in fair English that they are detailed for your use as long
+as you honor Jeypore with your benevolent presence. They wear curious
+swords high under the left arm, and beautifully inlaid shields are
+belted to their right arms--these trappings are badges of office, but
+you wonder if they would sell them to be taken to America to become
+conspicuous adornments of somebody's cosy corner.
+
+A person with a fondness for simplicity, or possessing scruples against
+kingly institutions, may escape the state carriage by despatching a firm
+and prompt declination of the honor. But the chaprassis remain; and the
+elephant, already trudging to the base of the Ambir hills to await your
+coming, cannot be countermanded or headed off. In this charming manner
+the great Maharajah entertains daily the handful of strangers within his
+gates--it is India's remaining relic of the hospitality of long ago. A
+distinction inordinately prized by native princes is the number of guns
+prescribed by the Indian government as their salutes. The Gaekwar of
+Baroda and two other feudatory rulers are entitled to twenty-one guns,
+while the hereditary right of the Maharajah of Jeypore is only
+seventeen. But the present Maharajah, as a reward for his enlightened
+administration, is made happy by having four additional guns--and no
+king or emperor can have higher acclaim from the cannon's mouth.
+
+[Illustration: STREET SCENE, JEYPORE, SHOWING PALACE OF THE WINDS]
+
+One cannot tarry a day in Jeypore without hearing redundant testimony
+that His Highness Sir Sewai Madho Singh is a fine man, devoted to his
+people and unswervingly loyal to his religion. His visitors are often
+lords and ladies of England, who find his hospitality as interesting as
+it is boundless. To the tips of his fingers he is a Hindu devotee with
+all that the term can mean. When he attended the coronation of Edward
+VII, in London, the preparations for his sea-voyage were unprecedented
+in orthodoxy. An ocean liner was specially chartered for him and his
+suite; in all one hundred and twenty-five people formed the escort. Six
+special kitchens were fitted up on the ship, including one to prepare
+food exclusively for His Highness. There was, as well, a special temple,
+paved with marble, for the family idol, before which the Maharajah
+prostrated himself many times daily. Drinking water from the sacred
+Ganges, and every article of food--enough to sustain the entire party
+for six months--were carried from India. So rigidly was the orthodoxy
+observed that even the sand for cleaning cooking utensils was placed on
+board at Bombay; and washermen, carpenters, blacksmiths, and others
+accompanied the party, that there be no necessity for purchasing
+anything in England, or having work done by persons not of the Hindu
+faith. That the august traveler's caste be untainted, extra tanks of
+water from Benares were subsequently sent to England by frequent
+steamers.
+
+The Maharajah maintains a military force of nearly 4,000 cavalry and
+16,000 infantrymen. Besides these soldiers, his retainers number
+thousands, and their right to wear a sword is a coveted distinction
+throughout Jeypore state.
+
+The palace stables contain three hundred horses, but the equipages and
+trappings are more interesting than the animals. There are some superb
+Arab steeds, however. A visitor noting the army of grooms wonders that
+the management is not better systematized; but a word from your
+traveling companion, who knows the ways of maharajahs, is to the effect
+that an Indian nabob is forced by custom to support thousands whether
+there be work for them or not. His Highness's stables and
+carriage-houses somehow suggest a circus in winter quarters. The fact is
+that Jeypore's ruler takes little interest in horseflesh and
+carriagemakers' creations. His preference is for elephants--animals
+befitting a dynasty descended from the sun and moon.
+
+"Will the sahibs visit the elephant stable!" The sahibs communicate
+their desire to do so. Mahouts with pikestaffs lead the way, and a
+myriad of hangers-on swarm in the train of the visitors. The
+accoutrements seen en route to the stable are interesting, surely,
+especially the howdahs. Some of these are of silver. One was used by the
+Prince of Wales; another was fashioned for the Maharajah's use at the
+Delhi durbar, and a gorgeous one is reserved for the viceroy whenever
+that mighty personage pays a state visit to Jeypore. A half-dozen
+howdahs are specially fitted for the Maharajah's favorite sport,
+tiger-hunting. Some of the howdah cloths represent a fortune in gold and
+silver bullion, while a few are saved from tawdriness by the skill of
+the embroiderer in silk.
+
+[Illustration: COURT DANCERS AND MUSICIANS, JEYPORE]
+
+The elephants are now trumpeting impatiently for inspection. Their
+compound is a series of roofless walled enclosures, and a visitor notes
+with grateful appreciation the strength of the chains anchoring the
+beasts to mother earth. A leviathan is straining at his tether in a mad
+effort to reach a vagabond who is tantalizing him with a pike, and your
+guide--one of the official messengers with sword and shield--says: "He
+no like Hindu people; last week he kill two." Beasts as docile as
+kittens take nuts from your hand, and evince disappointment when more
+are not forthcoming. Five magnificent tuskers, that promptly obey their
+keeper's command, are used by His Highness for tiger-hunting; and a bevy
+of complaisant elephants, quartered in a single stable, have grown old
+in carrying tourists up the Ambir hills, it is explained.
+
+From the elephant stables the chaprassis scurry the visitors through
+fragrant gardens and under bizarre arches to the crocodile department,
+where a score of saurians are pastured in an enclosure that is half
+swamp and half lake and is acres in extent. Visitors are placed at the
+top of a staircase of masonry descending to the water, while two
+wild-eyed Hindus seek to rouse the crocodiles from their siesta on a
+grassy islet a hundred yards away by a series of shrieks that would
+disgust self-respecting animals and reptiles. In a leisurely manner the
+crocodiles seem to recognize the signal to mean that a new lot of
+tourists desire to see them fed. It requires a good quarter of an hour
+for the Indians to lure them to the foot of the staircase, and from the
+first it is plain that the crocodiles view with indifference your visit
+to Jeypore. The lower step is finally fringed with opened mouths which
+in a moment engulf a mass of slaughter-house refuse almost thrust down
+their throats by the wild-eyed showmen, whom you reward with a shower of
+rupees which they believe marks your appreciation of their efforts.
+
+As you are whisked through the palace yard, on the way to the carriage,
+you espy through an open door a splendid room fitted with paraphernalia
+not associated with medieval pastimes. It is the Maharajah's
+billiard-room, sumptuously furnished, and filled with tables of the
+latest English make.
+
+Probably because they are proud of the fact that a former ruler of
+Jeypore was a generous patron of science, the chaprassis pilot you to
+the park given over to the apparatus of the celebrated Hindu astronomer
+and mathematician, Jai Singh. It contains dials, azimuth masonry,
+altitude pillars, astrolabe, and a double mural quadrant of enormous
+size and height, on which the gradations have been marked. In a way this
+exhibit of obsolete paraphernalia refutes the idea that Jeypore's
+maharajahs have lived solely for the gratification of the senses by
+amusements. A few minutes later you are at the public tiger-cages, where
+a dozen bona fide "man-eaters" are lazily stretched in shaded corners of
+their prison cages. Thirty odd years ago the present King of England
+killed his first tiger near Jeypore, and the animal ever since has
+played an important part in the city's pleasures. One inmate of the
+cages has an authenticated record of ten Indians killed, before His
+Highness's retainers lured him into ambush and made him a prisoner. "Two
+days from now," explains one of the men carrying sword and shield, "that
+tiger there,"--indicating a sullen beast,--"is to fight a wild elephant
+for the Maharajah's entertainment. Would the sahibs care to witness the
+combat?" The visitors promptly regret that they have unbreakable
+engagements in another part of India. Cheetahs are then led forth for
+admiration. Zoos and menageries know them as leopards--in India they are
+cheetahs, and are trained to course deer and antelope. A huntsman
+releases a cheetah, whose gaze has been directed to a fleeing deer on
+the plain, and in a few minutes the deer is a captive.
+
+So much for the diversions of Jeypore's autocrat.
+
+A distinct touch of beauty is imparted to his capital by the peacocks of
+imperial strut and plumage. They are everywhere--on the crenelated city
+wall, in the hurly-burly of the streets and bazaars, even on the steps
+leading to temples and mosques. The peacock is sacred to Jeypore; it
+crowns in miniature the street lamps, and is sculptured in hundreds of
+places. Chattering parrots by the roadside may arrest attention, but are
+forgotten in a moment--a strutting peacock is beautiful enough to place
+the parrot family in eclipse. When blue-rock pigeons descend by
+thousands in the market-place to profit by an over-turned sack of grain,
+visitors marvel at their irridescent necks and breasts--but a beauteous
+peacock appearing on the scene attracts an admiration amounting to
+monopoly.
+
+But the appointment with the state elephant--what of that?
+
+Surely, Ambir must be seen. There it was that all the ancient splendor
+originated and dwelt for centuries, and until a practical maharajah
+decided that a mountain retreat was ill-suited to the needs of a
+capital. The possessor of this astute mind moved himself and his
+machinery of government to the plain below--and all his people followed.
+This explains why Ambir is now deserted, and why a court steeped in
+medievalism has a setting bristling with newness.
+
+Every adjunct of a fortified residence is there in the hills. Miles of
+battlemented masonry, pierced every few feet for bowmen, surrounds the
+straggling mass of buildings. Terraces are set upon the mountainside
+like a gigantic staircase, and fringed with railings of stone so
+artistically wrought as to suggest the grill-work of the matchless Taj
+Mahal. Great gray monkeys descend from the mountain slope to feed from
+the hands of your guides; and they are not of the moth-eaten variety
+seen in captivity, but are freeborn denizens of the forest, whose coats
+glisten and whose curly tails are of unusual length.
+
+Some of the apartments in the old palace rival anything to be seen at
+Lucknow, Agra or Delhi. A gem of a temple, adjoining a public audience
+hall of marvelous richness in finish, is dedicated to the awful goddess
+Kali, and each morning a goat is sacrificed to this deity, ever craving
+blood, by Hindu priests attached to the Maharajah's court. This is a
+revolting blot on a series of majestic buildings that unite to make one
+of India's greatest sights.
+
+"How blessed would it be," you meditate, "if the betel-chewing priest
+might be sacrificed in place of the innocent and helpless animal." But
+no, human sacrifices are no longer permitted in India; England stopped
+them years ago.
+
+Oh, yes; the state elephant. Well, it was extremely useful, for it
+rescued four stalwart native servants, laden with tiffin basket and a
+dozen bottles of mineral water, from toiling up the hills on foot.
+Perched on his back like nabobs, they probably indulged in remarks
+disparaging of their masters, electing to walk, and mused maybe upon the
+theory that now and then man meets his deserts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE WORLD'S MOST EXQUISITE BUILDING
+
+
+A Mogul ruler who did things was Shah Jahan, and he came of a race not
+content with ordinary achievements. His grandfather, Akbar, was probably
+the greatest personage ever born in India. He it was "whose saddle was
+his throne, the canopy of which was the vaulted dome of heaven." Akbar
+made Eastern history, made it fast, blazoning it with proud records of
+conquest and empire extension. Akbar was the grandest man who ever ruled
+Central India, and it was he who developed the Mogul Empire to the
+loftiest importance it attained.
+
+Shah Jahan embellished the empire with noble structures, and his impulse
+for building amounted to mania. Time annulled Akbar's achievements, but
+those of his grandson stand to-day, and the structures of his era are
+beautiful enough to attract admirers from every corner of the earth. A
+famous critic once said that Shah Jahan built like a giant and finished
+like a jeweler. His works have made Agra, of all cities in India, the
+place of unrivaled interest.
+
+[Illustration: THE TAJ MAHAL, AGRA]
+
+Agra's Taj Mahal is the most exquisite building ever erected by the
+hands of man, and is a romance as deftly wrought in marble as any writer
+ever fashioned in words. It marks a great man's love for a
+woman--Arjamand Banu Begum, his wife. Shah Jahan was a Mohammedan despot
+who led a magnificent life, and had other wives; but in his eyes the
+peer of her sex was Arjamand. When she died in giving birth to a child,
+he declared he would rear to her memory a mausoleum so perfect that it
+would make men marvel for all time. And this he accomplished. More
+poetry and prose have been written about the Taj, with more allusions to
+it as a symbol of love, than of any other creation marking human
+affection--and the secret probably lies in the fact that all the world
+loves a lover.
+
+Arjamand had many titles of rank and endearment, but poets like Sir
+Edwin Arnold preferred to speak of her as Mumtaz-i-Mahal, meaning the
+"Exalted of the Palace," when extolling the charms of this splendid
+niece of Nur-Mahal, who likewise had been famed for beauty and charity.
+
+Shah Jahan ruled from 1628 to 1658, and had been on the throne only two
+years when death took from him his adored Arjamand. Then came the
+resolve to erect to her memory a monument that might measure his love
+and grief. Since Akbar's time, the best architects, artists, and skilled
+workmen of India, Persia, and Arabia had been attracted to Agra and
+neighboring Delhi. All were summoned to Shah Jahan's court, and the
+resources of his empire placed at their disposal. The Taj,
+consequently, was not the creation of a single master mind, but the
+consummation of a great art epoch. Its construction was commenced four
+years after Arjamand's demise.
+
+The bereft emperor had appointed a council of great architects of India
+to guide the work. Drawings of celebrated structures of the world,
+especially those in Moslem lands, were studied. More than one European
+was attracted to the Mogul court, and it is believed that Geronimo
+Verroneo, who had journeyed from Italy, laid several plans before Shah
+Jahan. There are records at Agra showing that certain suggestions of the
+Italian were adopted, but it is common belief that the general design
+was the recommendation of a Turkish or Persian architect named Ustad
+Isa.
+
+In keeping with an old Tartar custom, a garden was chosen as the site of
+the tomb--a garden planted with flowers and fragrant shrubs, emblems of
+life, and solemn cypresses, emblems of death and eternity. In Mogul days
+such a garden was maintained as a pleasure ground during the owner's
+lifetime, and used for his interment when dead.
+
+    "And she who loved her garden, lieth now
+    Lapped in a garden.
+                       And all this for Love!"
+
+The laborers came from many parts of the world--the chief masons from
+Northern India and Bagdad, the dome builders from Asiatic Turkey, and
+the mosaic artists from Persia and probably Italy. Every section of
+India and Central Asia was drawn upon for materials. The marble,
+spotless in purity, was brought from Jeypore, 300 miles away, on the
+backs of elephants and camels or by bullock carts. The red sandstone was
+contributed by Fathpu Sikrij, the jasper by the Punjab, the crystal and
+jade by China. The turquoises came from Tibet and the Red Sea, the
+sapphires and lapis lazuli from Ceylon, coral and cornelian from Arabia,
+onyx and amethysts from Persia, and the diamonds from Bundelkund.
+
+It engaged the unceasing labor of 20,000 men for seventeen years to
+complete the Taj; and like that other great tomb, the Cheops Pyramid in
+Egypt, it was reared chiefly by forced labor, unpaid and uncared for,
+and thereby produced great suffering and mortality. This is the chief
+blemish attaching to the project that gave to art the mausoleum
+overlooking the Jumna.
+
+According to native accounts the cost of the Taj was lakhs of rupees
+having to-day a value of $20,000,000; and local tradition affirms that
+not half this sum was ever paid by the emperor--this is a blot upon the
+sincerity and strict uprightness of the magnificent grandson of Akbar.
+
+The Taj garden is perhaps a half mile square, and is surrounded by a
+strikingly beautiful wall of masonry. It is an orderly wilderness of
+rich vegetations, to be found only in Asia, and the deep greens and rich
+browns of the avenues of foliage unquestionably accentuate the whiteness
+of the Temple of Death. As the garden helps the tomb, so the tomb gives
+expression to the garden.
+
+The great gateway of red sandstone, whose roof is adorned by Moorish
+arches and pavilions, is in itself one of India's most perfect
+buildings. From its summit a perfect view of the Taj is had, with the
+Jumna flowing sluggishly beneath its marble platform; and from there the
+grounds are spread before the visitor in a perfect panorama. The paved
+avenues, all leading to the magnificent pile, miles of marble acqueducts
+filled with ornamental fish, playing fountains--all breathe the
+superlative of art, every fluttering leaf whispers of the East.
+
+Not by its size is Arjamand's tomb commanding, for its dimensions are
+very moderate. Imagine a plinth of flawless marble, 313 feet square, and
+rising eighteen feet from the ground--that is the foundation of the
+wondrous structure. The Taj is 186 feet square, with dome rising to an
+extreme height of 220 feet; that is all. At each corner of the plinth
+stands a tapering minaret rearing its crown 137 feet;
+
+    "--four tall court ladies
+    tending their princess."
+
+[Illustration: ALABASTER SCREEN ENCLOSING ARJAMAND'S TOMB, TAJ MAHAL]
+
+No building carries the idea of personality further than the Taj, a
+feminine personality, as it should be, for it contains no suggestion of
+the rugged grandeur of a tomb for a great man. The Taj is the antithesis
+of Akbar's mausoleum, of the Parthenon, of Napoleon's resting-place,
+of Grant's robust mausoleum on the Hudson. A sepulcher fashioned after
+ordinary architectural canons can only be conventional: the Taj is
+different from all other buildings in the world; it is symbolical of
+womanly grace and purity--is the jewel, the ideal itself; is India's
+noble tribute to the grace of Indian womanhood, a tribute perhaps to the
+Venus de Milo of the East.
+
+The grace of the Taj, as do the achievements of every form of perfect
+art, rests in its simplicity. A spectator marvels that so much beauty
+can come from so little apparent effort. Yet nothing is wanting, there
+is nothing in excess; we cannot alter a single stone and claim that the
+result would be better. And Oriental designers, working for an Eastern
+despot, might easily have struck a jarring note and rendered the Taj
+garish--the wonder is that they did not. The Taj consequently is the
+objective of most travelers making the pilgrimage to India.
+
+It is easier to tell what the Taj is than to speculate upon the ideals
+and motives of its builders, and it should be a brave writer who
+attempts to describe it. Kipling, who saw the structure first from the
+window of a train nearing Agra, called it "an opal tinted cloud on the
+horizon"; and after studying the building at close range he wrote, "Let
+those who scoff at overmuch enthusiasm look at the Taj and thenceforward
+be dumb; ... each must view it for himself with his own eyes, working
+out his own interpretation of the sight." Another great English writer
+has said, "Words are worthless in describing a building which is
+absolutely faultless." And it taxed the talents of Sir Edwin Arnold,
+critic and poet, to frame in language an adequate picture of Arjamand's
+death couch.
+
+If a man possesses the sentiment of form and proportion, the Taj will
+satisfy him. The stately portal seems to harmonize with the grandeur of
+an Eastern queen; and the aerial dome, higher than its breadth, rests
+upon its base as if possessing no weight, yet is of solid marble. Heroic
+in treatment are the quotations from the Koran framing every doorway and
+aperture, wrought in inlay or sculptured in relief--and these modify the
+pearly monotony of the marble.
+
+One enters reverently the burial-place of Shah Jahan's queen, whose
+cenotaph is of the whitest marble, placed in the precise center of the
+building, and surrounded by an octagonal screen of alabaster that is
+pierced and interwoven like lace. Every foot of the walls, every column
+and panel, is elaborately embellished with flowers, leaves, scrolls, and
+sentences, and these are inlaid in jasper, bloodstone, jade, onyx, and
+precious stones. Arjamand's tomb blossoms with never-fading Persian
+flowers and Arabic sentences extolling her character, and is as
+marvelous in workmanship as if produced by Florentine inlayers of the
+present time. The sarcophagus was originally inclosed by a fence of
+gold, studded with gems; but this was early replaced by the screen of
+marble, local history asserts.
+
+The supposition is that one Austin de Bordeaux, a French goldsmith, who
+had been summoned to Agra by Shah Jahan to construct the celebrated
+Peacock throne, had much to do with the treatment of the Taj's interior.
+The building originally possessed two wonderful silver doors, of his
+designing, but these were looted by Jat invaders in 1764 and melted
+down. It is said that eight years were consumed by the artists intrusted
+with the making and beautifying of Arjamand's cenotaph; and further,
+that the Koran's every line and every word is reproduced by inlay or
+relief carving on the interior and exterior of the Taj.
+
+To the left of Arjamand's tomb is that of her lord and lover, its
+location proving that it was placed there obviously from necessity and
+as an afterthought. It is a span larger than his consort's stone, and
+occupies nearly all the space allowed by the position of the grilled
+inclosure--but is a sentimentally fitting intruder upon the general
+design.
+
+It is a curious bit of history that Shah Jahan, conscious of triumph as
+the author of the Taj, long contemplated constructing a similar shrine
+on the opposite bank of the Jumna, wherein his own body was to be
+placed. It was to be constructed of dark-colored marble, but otherwise
+to be a counterpart of Arjamand's tomb. The foundations were placed, and
+the arangements for supplying labor and materials well advanced, when a
+son of Jahan--Aurangzeb--who had long plotted for the Mogul throne,
+secured control of the military forces, and overthrew his father's
+rule.
+
+Aurangzeb promptly adopted Delhi as his capital, leaving his parent to
+languish as a political prisoner in the palace within the fort of Agra.
+In a suite of very small rooms, and attended by a devoted daughter, the
+great Shah Jahan there dreamed away the last seven years of his
+life--but these apartments overlooked the Taj Mahal, two miles away, let
+it be known. The heartbroken Jahan outlived his splendid wife by
+thirty-seven years.
+
+In this manner destiny willed that two great personages forever lie side
+by side in death; and consequently the Taj is enriched as a temple of
+sentiment; but--they do not sleep within the marble caskets the traveler
+beholds. There is a vault deep underneath the floor, and there, in
+positions agreeing with the monuments above, are the royal remains
+enclosed in unornamented masonry.
+
+In Jahan's plan for a somber reproduction of the Taj, a monumental
+bridge was to span the Jumna and link the shrines of emperor and
+empress. Instead of this fair dream, there is now only a flat,
+sandcovered shore, upon which lazy tortoises range themselves under the
+warming sun, and long-legged water fowl indulge in peaceful meditation
+and slumber.
+
+[Illustration: INLAID WORK IN MAUSOLEUM OF ITIMAD-UD-DAULAH, AGRA]
+
+The curious acoustics of the Taj are observable to the visitor going
+often to Arjamand's shrine. A harsh voice is echoed harshly back and
+ceases quickly; but a woman's tones raised gently in song are echoed
+many times, diversified and amplified in strange combinations of melody.
+Such a voice reverberates from every side, seemingly ascends, and its
+force finally dies away to silence like the notes of a flying wood-dove
+in a forest.
+
+This gem of Agra is worshiped as fervently by Hindus as by those of the
+Moslem faith, and Indian artists in a few years almost destroy their
+eyesight trying to portray in miniature upon ivory the architectural
+perfection and delicacy of this marvel of the world.
+
+When invading hordes have swept Central India, or alien garrisons been
+quartered in Agra fort, the Taj has always suffered mutilation. The
+Mahrattas looted it of everything movable and systematically wrenched
+precious stones from their places in the design ornamenting the fabric
+of the interior. After the Mutiny came the red-coated soldier, who
+relieved the tedium of garrison duty by appropriating any attractive
+piece of inlay overlooked by the Mahrattas--these pretty bits made
+interesting souvenirs of India for sending home to the British Isles.
+
+For twenty years the British government has been repairing this
+desecration, under guidance of its viceroys. The great chamber of the
+Taj now seems perfect in its embellishment--but there are no diamonds,
+no rubies, and no emeralds, as of old. Bits of colored glass fill their
+places.
+
+But the Taj's exterior is to-day as perfect as it could have been two
+centuries ago; and the dignity and sovereign chastity of its marble
+surfaces--spoiled by no misplaced ornamentation, and unsullied by
+vandal--make of this poetic shrine an offering to love surpassed in
+beauty by nothing in all the world fashioned or reared by man.
+
+Nowheres on God's footstool has any queen such a monument, and it is
+even more beautiful in the silver dress of moonlight than in the golden
+robes of the midday sun. By day or night alike it makes an impression on
+the mind that time can never obliterate. Shah Jahan erected the Jami
+Masjid mosque at Delhi, and the costly Muti Masjid mosque in Agra Fort,
+as well as the splendid Khas Mahal, the Diwan-i-ain, and the
+Diwan-i-khas, likewise in the fort--but more satisfying art is
+represented in the Taj than in all the other structures of his reign.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+BENARES, SACRED CITY OF THE HINDUS
+
+
+Unique among Indian cities is Benares, and for the Hindu the sacred
+capital on the Ganges has a significance similar to that of Mecca for
+the Mohammedan, and a greater attracting power than Jerusalem has for
+the Christian. Benares is the home and shrine of the complex religion
+that binds the Hindu nations, and is the very soul and heart of
+Hinduism.
+
+No other place where men congregate can compete with deified Benares in
+the matter of divine merit that may be conferred on the pilgrim entering
+its gates and threading its narrow and filth-smeared streets. There two
+hundred thousand people live and fatten upon the half million devotees
+coming annually to the idolatrous fountainhead. The sacred city attracts
+this tide of pious humanity from all the tribes and nations of
+many-peopled India: they journey to Benares brimming with love and
+trustfulness, and after a season spent in her temples, at her shrines,
+and by her sacred stream, she sends them forth overflowing with merit
+and zeal, to carry her fame to the outposts of the faith, even to
+Afghanistan and Baluchistan, and to the nomadic tribes peopling Tibet
+and other lands beyond the mighty Himalayas.
+
+[Illustration: SCENE ON THE GANGES, BENARES]
+
+Somebody with a gift for nebulous mathematics has stated that more than
+two hundred thousand gods of the Hindu religion are represented at
+Benares. Whether the count be valid matters little, for the city is
+pre-eminent as the special domain of the fundamental god of India's
+slavish religion, Siva, whose ensign--a gilt trident and perforated
+disk--flashes from the pinnacles of hundreds of temples and palaces.
+This uncanny city on the Ganges is naturally the Brahmins' paradise, for
+these devotees constitute a governing force in the city's control, and
+from this fountainhead spread their influence throughout the land of
+Hind. These insinuating men of religion line the river bank, and infest
+the temples, sitting like spiders waiting for their prey. Their
+emissaries are everywhere in India, promoting pilgrimages, or hovering
+about the entrances to the city to make certain of the arrival of the
+unwary enthusiast with well lined purse. Rich and poor, high caste and
+low, all come to the sacred city. Some travel in state by lordly
+elephant or camel caravan, others by railway; but none follow a surer
+avenue to eternal grace than those who plod on foot over the Great Trunk
+highway, sweeping diagonally across India, after the manner of Kipling's
+holy man from Thibet whose footsteps were watched over by _Kim_. The
+"business" of Benares being the bestowal of holiness, the manufacture of
+brass goods appealing to tourists is incidental in importance and
+revenue. No other city of its population can have a more insignificant
+trade measureable by statistics.
+
+For three miles the religious section of Benares runs along the brow of
+the plateau overlooking the chocolate-hued stream, and every foot of
+this distance is curious and interesting. Falling below the disgusting
+temple resorted to by pilgrims from Nepal, the Hindu region beyond
+India's frontier and "the snows," is the ghat (a ghat is a large stone
+stairway descending to the river), where the good Hindu gives his dead
+to the flames, and the muddy inlet from the Ganges where this occurs is
+dedicated to Vishnu, "the sleeper on the waters," a name singularly
+appropriate to a place where the ashes of the dead are consigned to the
+bosom of "Mother Ganga."
+
+A visitor observes a number of platform-like structures of masonry that
+are decorated with roughly carved figures of men and women standing hand
+in hand. Upon these, until British rule put a stop to the custom,
+thousands of fanatical wives underwent suttee and were burned alive with
+their dead husbands. It is but seldom that a cremation is not in
+progress at the burning ghat. From the deck of a native boat moored not
+forty feet away I saw in a single hour eight corpses in varying stages
+of consumption by fire. The traveler hardened to gruesome spectacles by
+much journeying in Africa and Asia experiences but little of the
+sickening sensation through witnessing a primitive incineration at
+Benares that is caused by a visit to the Parsee towers at Bombay. The
+Benares operation is sanitary and practical, and something may be said
+on the side of sentimental appropriateness in having a corpse borne to
+the riverside by one's relatives and friends, and there consumed by the
+burning of a pyre constructed by the hands of these. The dramatic
+entities become apparent to every thoughtful spectator, probably.
+
+A clatter of brass cymbals reaches the ear, and a cortege appears at the
+top of the ghat, while desultory cries of "_Rama, nama, satya
+hai_"--"the name of Rama is true"--are heard. The corpse, fastened upon
+a simple bier of bamboo sticks and carried on the shoulders of four
+relatives, is swathed in white if a male, or in red if a female. The
+bearers hasten almost frantically down the decline and clumsily drop
+their burden in the water, feet foremost, and make certain that the
+current will have undisturbed play upon the corpse without sweeping it
+away. The mourners repair to the place where dry wood is sold and enter
+upon spirited bargaining for fuel sufficient to consume their relative,
+whose body is being laved and cleansed of spiritual imperfections not a
+few rods away by the sacred Ganges. Only six or eight logs are required.
+The dealer demands three rupees for them--and the grief-stricken Hindus
+offer one. A bargain is finally struck at two rupees, with a stick of
+sandal-wood for the head of the pyre thrown in.
+
+[Illustration: BENARES BURNING GHAT, WITH CORPSES BEING PURIFIED IN THE
+GANGES]
+
+The logs are quickly conveyed to the burning-ground, a satisfactory
+site for the sad office is expeditiously chosen, and the mourners with
+their own hands construct the pile. Now sanctified by Mother Ganga, the
+corpse is fetched from the strand and placed on the structure, feet ever
+directed toward the precious river. The pyre is soon ready for the
+torch, and here occurs a curious incident, one that illustrates the
+monopolistic importance of a man wearing only a loin-cloth, who has been
+taking an indifferent interest in the proceedings from an elevation
+close by. He is a Dom, of a caste so degraded that should he
+inadvertently touch a corpse it would be contaminated beyond remedy. But
+immemorial custom requires that the fire be obtained from him, and he
+may demand payment therefor in keeping with his estimate of the worldly
+position of the applicants. Ordinarily a rupee is sufficient, although
+for a grandee's cremation a fee of a thousand rupees has sometimes been
+demanded and paid.
+
+The dicker with the Dom being concluded, the chief mourner lights a
+handful of dried reeds at his fire, hurries to the waiting pyre, walks
+seven times around it, and with the blazing reeds held in the right hand
+lights the mass at head and foot. The mourners then withdraw to a shaded
+spot beside a suttee structure, and silently watch the conflagration. In
+an hour all is over, and the ashes then are strewn far out on the
+surface of the Ganges and are borne from sight by the current.
+
+From ten to fifteen corpses are disposed of at the burning-ghat daily,
+and several cremations are usually simultaneously in process. Now and
+then there is some demonstration of grief, but not often. I saw two men
+wade to a body in the river, when they pulled away the covering from the
+face and bathed it with handfuls of water scooped from beloved Ganga,
+and their every movement denoted affection. Again, I witnessed a
+tottering and sobbing old man place with every expression of tenderness
+a garland of yellow and white flowers about the neck of a corpse swathed
+in red, and imagined it the last office of love to an idolized daughter.
+I also observed the bare corpse of a man who an hour before had died of
+plague brought to the ghat by two public scavengers, and committed to
+the flames of a few logs much too short, until the slender legs had been
+doubled beneath the body. No sandal-wood perfumed this pauper's pyre,
+and no interment in potter's field was ever more perfunctory than his
+burning.
+
+Social distinctions are as marked at the Benares burning-ghat as in the
+modern American cemetery. An hour spent on the Ganges bank supplies
+sufficient food to the mind for weeks of serious reflection.
+
+One of the greatest spectacles of India is that of pilgrims bathing in
+the Ganges. From several ghats devoted to sacred ablutions numerous
+wooden piers extend into the worshiped stream, and these teem with
+pilgrims from every section of Hindustan, in every variety of costume,
+every stage of dress and undress, there to purge themselves of unclean
+thoughts and wicked deeds, and to wash away bodily impurities.
+Preaching canopies, shrines for rich and powerful rajahs, and stone
+recesses for those demanding solitary meditation, make of the river
+front a place literally teeming with humanity. Devotees are everywhere.
+Here a pundit is reading the holy law to a half hundred approving
+Hindus; there a stately chieftain from remote Kashmir ceaselessly
+mutters prayers beneath a huge spreading umbrella of thatched straw,
+hired from a Brahmin for an hour; and ten feet away a holy ascetic,
+naked in the scorching sun, smears his skin with the gray ashes of
+penitence.
+
+Below this grotesque medley is the multitude of men, women and children,
+breast deep in the sanctifying Ganges. Thousands have come on foot from
+far-away villages of this boundless land of paganism; and from all goes
+up a continuous murmur of prayer and adoration, like a moaning wind
+emerging from a distant forest. Eye and ear alike are flooded with an
+indescribable rush of sensations, and the heart is oppressed with the
+august meanings which lie behind the awe-inspiring sight. All the
+Hindu-cults are here--the Ganges welds them in her holy embrace. But
+conspicuous above all others is the Brahmin priest, attracting annas and
+rupees in devious ways from enthusiasts dazed by the realization that
+they have bathed in Mother Ganga--some want a certificate of purity,
+others want seals placed on vessels of water to be carried to loved ones
+suffering from infirmities. The Brahmin gives certificate, places seals,
+and performs other acts enabling him to garner a harvest of silver and
+gold.
+
+Now and again a moribund believer, whose friends seek for him something
+that may be construed as a last blessing, is hurried to the river's
+edge. It is a sacrament that cannot be delayed many minutes--and the
+Brahmin fortunate enough to be appealed to charges at emergency rates.
+When business slackens this harpy composes his nearly-naked body on a
+plank overlapping the river, and executes with studied deliberation a
+program of purification marvelous in detail. Receptacles of brass and
+silver are brought him, and for an hour or longer he rubs his handsome
+frame with unguents and perfumes, slowly stripes forehead, biceps and
+breast with the ash-marks of sanctity, and places a wafer of his caste
+on his forehead. Later he climbs the ghat to his favorite temple,
+probably content with the emoluments thrust upon him at the water side,
+or may be he goes to the bazaar to learn the latest gossip of religious
+and political India. It is in no sense a losing game to be a member of
+the Brahministic ring controlling things in Benares, for the flow of
+coin from the two hundred million Hindus is ceaseless.
+
+[Illustration: BENARES HOLY MEN]
+
+A curious sight in Benares is the Monkey Temple, a pretentious and not
+inartistic structure of carved red sandstone dedicated to Kali, the
+goddess wife of Siva. The image of Kali within the temple is a black
+fury of hideous countenance, whose red tongue droops to the waist. She
+is dripping with blood, and crowned with snakes, while hanging from
+her neck is a garland of human skulls. Kali wants blood, and if not
+propitiated daily therewith something horrible is expected to happen.
+Every Indian town has a temple to this monster; and everywhere
+throughout what Kipling calls "the great, gray, formless India,"
+sacrifices are made each morning to this ogress with insatiable appetite
+for blood.
+
+The entrance to the Monkey Temple is slime-covered and the air heavy
+with sickening odors. Through a stone doorway the goddess may be seen
+enshrined, grinning demoniacally. Twenty horrible men, harmonizing in
+appearance to a reader's conception of thugs, gather in the court, to
+give each batch of visitors the performance that most have come to
+witness. The frontal region of their heads is shaven smooth, and each
+loathsome Indian drools betel-nut saliva that looks like blood. A goat
+is led into the enclosure and tied to a stone post, and the evil-looking
+men form a circle about the helpless animal. One of them holds the rear
+legs of the beast clear of the ground. A chant issues from the
+betel-stained mouths, and a human fiend forces through the circle,
+brandishing a straight-bladed sword, heavy and keen-edged, that has just
+been blessed before the altar of Kali. He is the official executioner.
+
+This functionary makes a sign of readiness, swings the blade at arm's
+length for a moment--and lands a blow on the underside of the animal's
+throat that severs the head from the body. The gushing blood is directed
+to the Siva emblem close by, the head is borne triumphantly to the feet
+of Kali, and each thug-looking man smears his face with blood taken from
+the Siva symbol, and then dances madly around the carcass. Assuming that
+the spectacle has favorably impressed the visitor, the high executioner
+begs a donation with which to purchase a goat for a second sacrifice.
+You decline, probably feeling that you would subscribe bountifully if a
+priest might be substituted for the helpless beast.
+
+On important days in the Hindu calendar many goats and sheep are
+sacrificed, and sometimes buffaloes as well. In time of pestilence or
+famine it is not unusual to find a child's head deposited in the early
+morn at Kali's feet, it is claimed.
+
+The inner court of the Monkey Temple, like the ceremony of the
+slaughter, is open to the heavens, and is surrounded by a cloister lined
+with cell-like niches for solitary meditation and introspection. On the
+terrace, on every protruding bit of architecture, on every window
+ledge--wherever foothold may be gained--are monkeys, loathsomely fat,
+and made more disgusting from years of pampering than are the human
+freaks on the pavement. Great tamarind trees overhanging the temple are
+alive with monkeys. They drop to the ground, run between your legs, and
+dash before you at every turning. You are entreated to pay for basins of
+parched corn thrown to the revolting creatures by your priestly guide,
+and do so, but are glad when the monkeys show their appreciation from a
+distance. From three to four hundred of these mangy animals belong to
+the temple, and are held to be sacred. At Benares everything specially
+nasty or repulsive is protected by the cloak of sanctity.
+
+You are glad to get back to your carriage, so thankful that you throw a
+couple of rupees to the mob of appealing "priests," in your heart
+possibly wishing that the money might be invested in soap and scrubbing
+brushes--and in poison for the monkeys. Urging the coachman to drive
+speedily for the open space and pure air of Benares cantonments, you
+wonder as you proceed what place in religion can reasonably be occupied
+by the revolting customs and beings to be witnessed at the Monkey
+Temple, and it is with no regret that you learn from eminent authority
+that in less than a hundred years every temple and shrine perched on the
+brink of the plateau crowning the Ganges will be undermined and its
+descent not arrested until the structure reaches the river's bed. Those
+responsible for locating Benares on the outer periphery of a great bend
+in the Ganges proved themselves to possess no engineering foresight. But
+India's controlling religion can receive no setback by the destruction
+of a few score tawdry buildings consecrated to its gods, for they will
+be replaced by better shrines and temples, rising from places beyond
+even the iconoclasm of the sacred Ganges.
+
+Investigation reveals sufficient merit in the religio-philosophies of
+Mohammedanism and Buddhism to explain their adoption by teeming
+millions. Each faith offers admirable precepts and teachings, and
+prolonged study of them produces a feeling of respect for all true
+believers. But a season of travel in India, entered upon with the desire
+to dispassionately study the Hindu religion in the land of its
+overweening strength, produces only bewilderment and mental nausea. The
+more determined one may be to lay bare the gems of this faith and its
+administration by the Brahmins, the keener will be his disappointment,
+for not a redeeming feature will he find, and he may quit India smarting
+with regret over wasted time. To such an investigator Hinduism must
+forever be remembered as paganism steeped in idolatry. More, its
+gruesome sacrifices will provoke only disgust, perhaps equaled by that
+called forth by the unspeakably coarse temple carvings and ornamentation
+of the cars of juggernaut. I have been acquainted with Indian gentlemen
+proud to be known as Hindus, and have been amazed to hear them avow
+devotion to the hideous idolatry that absorbs a great part of the time
+of two hundred million people in India alone. If the strong arm of
+England were not raised over the great empire of the East the suttee
+rite and child sacrifice would unquestionably prevail to-day. To a
+westerner Hinduism seems the greatest abomination of the earth.
+
+[Illustration: A BRAHMIN PRIEST]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+INDIA'S MODERN CAPITAL
+
+
+Kipling, who has gracefully lured roamers to India by saying, "It is
+good for every man to see some little of the great Indian Empire and the
+strange folk who move about it," obligingly prepares those entering by
+the gateway of Calcutta for an olfactory affront. The stenches of
+Calcutta are numerous and pervading, surely; but the tourist who has
+crawled up the Bay of Bengal in a caravel of the Peninsular & Oriental
+Company cheerfully accepts them. The "P. & O." line is one of Britain's
+venerated institutions; consequently English people would as soon commit
+a felony as criticize this antiquated concern. In these times ten-knot
+passenger steamers are hard to find outside the Calcutta service of the
+"P. & O." Company and in marine junk yards.
+
+As a great commercial port, Calcutta is unfortunately located. It is on
+the Hooghly river, one of the outlets of the sacred Ganges, and ninety
+miles from its mouth. The Hooghly is a tortuous stream of mud that can
+be navigated by large vessels only by daylight and with favoring
+conditions of tide, for its channel is seldom two days alike. This
+demands expert piloting, and explains why Hooghly pilots are selected
+with great caution. A Hooghly pilot is the very maximum of a nautical
+swell, and one's boarding of a ship attended by man-servant and a mass
+of belongings partakes somewhat of the character of a function.
+
+This Calcutta pilot is a fine fellow--well-bred, educated, and entitled
+to the splendid compensation and social position which he enjoys. Since
+the days of the East India Company, the forerunner of British rule in
+India, the pilots of the Hooghly have been esteemed as personages and
+they have taken rank but slightly lower than officers of the navy, and
+much ahead of ordinary commercial people and mariners. When off duty in
+Calcutta the pilot goes to his club and drives on the Maidan with other
+Anglo-Indians of quality, and never is seen about hotel bars and caf�s
+like the ruck of seafaring men having a spare day on shore.
+
+[Illustration: A CALCUTTA NAUTCH DANCER]
+
+The Hooghly is charted practically every twenty-four hours, and on his
+way upstream the pilot gets his information pertaining to depths and
+bars by signals from stations on shore. The river presents nothing of
+interest to the traveler until a point twenty miles from Calcutta is
+reached; thereafter it is a stream of many attractions. Fortifications
+with visible native troops and an occasional red-coated English soldier
+occur frequently; then come scores of enormous cotton and jute mills,
+attended by strange-looking stern-wheel steamboats, most of them with
+huge cargo barges on either side. At last Calcutta is in sight. Tall
+factory chimneys and domed public buildings pronounce it a city of size
+and importance. The last two miles of the journey are made through a
+flotilla of shipping, a bewildering medley of sailing vessels and
+steamers, flying the flags of all the maritime nations of the earth--all
+but the Stars and Stripes of Uncle Sam.
+
+Bombay, on the other side of India, and immediately on the sea, would
+make a better capital than Calcutta. But the malodorous city of the
+Hooghly will probably ever be the seat of Britain's rule.
+
+While the names of Warren Hastings and Clive dominate the printed page
+dealing with modern India, Calcutta fairly throbs with recollections of
+Job Charnock, the audacious Englishman who raised the red flag of
+Britain just two hundred and seventeen years ago over a collection of
+mud hovels and straw huts on the site of what to-day is the capital of
+the Indian Empire.
+
+Charnock, perhaps the founder of England's rule in the East, was the
+agent of the old East Indian Company. Having been granted permission by
+the Mogul rulers to establish a post on the Hooghly convenient for
+trading purposes, he chose a spot having the advantage of a generous
+shade tree. The spot and neighborhood now is Calcutta, the chief city of
+India, with over a million inhabitants. A Hindu village in the vicinity
+of the place where Charnock established his trading post was called
+Khali-ghat--these words, corrupted by use, have come to mean
+"Calcutta." The quaint pioneer obviously had no realization of the part
+he was playing in empire-making, and Great Britain has never made
+adequate acknowledgment of the gratitude clearly this man's due.
+Calcutta residents delight to recount Charnock's exploits, and they take
+visitors to St. John's churchyard to view the substantial monument
+beneath which rest his bones. The inscription states that he died
+January 10, 1693.
+
+A single story proves Charnock's independence of character. He went with
+his ordinary guard of soldiers to witness the burning of the body of a
+Hindu grandee, whose wife was reputed more than passing fair. It was
+known that the rite of the suttee was to be performed--the widow was to
+sacrifice herself upon the blazing pyre of the deceased, in keeping with
+Hindu custom. Charnock was so impressed by the young widow's charms that
+he ordered his soldiers to rescue her and by force take her to his home.
+They were speedily married, had several children and lived happily for
+many years. Instead of converting her to Christianity, she made him a
+proselyte to paganism, and the only shred of Christianity thereafter
+remarkable in him was the burying of her decently when she was removed
+by death; but Charnock is said to have observed in true pagan manner
+each anniversary of her demise, even to making animal sacrifices before
+the image of the goddess Khali.
+
+[Illustration: GENERAL POST-OFFICE, CALCUTTA]
+
+Calcutta has improved greatly since Kipling wrote of it as the "City of
+Dreadful Night"; but it is yet a place of striking contrasts, of
+official splendor and native squalor, of garish palaces abutting in rear
+allies upon filthy hovels. The good is extremely good--that is for the
+British official; the bad is worse than awful--and that is for the
+native.
+
+Viewed superficially, Calcutta looks like a prosperous city in Europe,
+perhaps in England; but rear streets and suburbs are as filthy and
+congested as any town in vast India. What the average tourist beholds is
+spick and span in a modern sense; and what he doesn't see is intensely
+Asiatic, with all that the word can mean. Being a city of extremes, the
+visitor may be brought to his front windows by the warning cries of the
+footmen of a sojourning maharajah driving in state to a function, while
+through the rear windows float the plaintive notes of the muezzin
+calling the faithful to prayers from the minaret of a Mohammedan mosque
+close by.
+
+The Indian metropolis presents an array of fine homes, bungalows and
+stucco villas, put up when the rupee was worth two shillings and a
+penny, wherein unhappiness may now dwell, because the rupee has
+depreciated to a shilling and fourpence. The parade of fashion on the
+Maidan late in the afternoon presents every variety of equipage and
+livery known to the East, The horse-flesh of Calcutta is uniformly fine.
+Better animals than are daily grouped around the band stand, or along
+the rail of the race-course, cannot be found short of Europe. The
+viceroy is often seen driving a mail phaeton, preceded by two native
+lancers and followed by four others. The automobile has many devotees in
+Calcutta, and bicycle-riding natives are everywhere. The babu is
+exceedingly fond of wheeling on the Maidan whenever he can escape from
+his account books. Nearly every carriage on the Maidan in the afternoon
+has two men on the box and two footmen behind, all gorgeously
+dressed--servants are cheap in India. At sundown nowadays half the
+pianos in Chowringee--where Calcutta's officials and prosperous
+commercial people reside--seem to be playing airs from American light
+operas, and not infrequently a regimental band compliments the United
+States by playing "Hiawatha" or one of Sousa's compositions.
+
+It is compensating to a person burdened with the habit of wondering
+where words come from, to discover that Dum-dum is a suburb of Calcutta,
+and is important as a military post and as the seat of an ammunition
+factory and arsenal.
+
+[Illustration: SHIPPING ON THE HOOGHLY, CALCUTTA]
+
+The sights of Calcutta are unimportant. The general post-office occupies
+the site of the native prison whose horrors of the Black Hole stain
+chapters of Indian history; and a description of the burning of human
+bodies on the bank of the Hooghly, and of the animal sacrifices at the
+old Hindu temple at Khali-ghat, would be disagreeably gruesome. The
+gaudy Jain temple interests for a few minutes, and the exterior of Fort
+William impresses the casual spectator. The zo�logical garden is
+conventional, and the feature of the botanical garden is probably the
+largest banyan tree in the world. Calcutta hotels, deplorably poor, have
+been fitly described as of two kinds--bad and adjectively bad. All that
+interests the visitor within the modern capital of ancient India is the
+movement of official and social life, and the parade of races forming
+the population of the marvelous, mysterious country.
+
+There, across the esplanade, with imposing gates and approaches, is
+Government House, winter seat of the Viceroy of India--whose most
+distinguished incumbent in recent years was His Excellency the Right
+Honorable the Baron Curzon of Kedleston, P. C., G. M. S. I., G. M. I.
+E., etc., etc. Few traveling Americans had the time to speak of him in a
+manner honoring all these designations. Visitors from Chicago used to
+refer to him, it was claimed, with na�ve simplicity as "Mary Leiter's
+husband," and let it go at that. A person of extraordinary ability was
+this husband of an American queen, and it is generally believed that he
+may some day be prime minister of England. The viceroyship is the
+highest appointive office in the world. Its compensation is the
+equivalent of $80,000 per annum, but the allowances for entertaining
+European functionaries, an army of native servants, and a stableful of
+horses and elephants for State ceremonials, swells the amount two or
+threefold. Both at Government House in Calcutta and at the summer home
+in Simla the viceroy is surrounded by a court equalled in splendor by
+few royalties in Europe. Compared with the increment and disbursements
+of India's viceroy, those of the President of the United States appear
+insignificant. But oriental show and parade are expensive, so expensive
+in fact, that a viceroy is forced to make liberal drafts upon his
+private purse.
+
+India may have had as capable rulers in the past as Lord Curzon, but
+rarely one more tactful or courageous, and never one having the
+assistance of a vicereine possessing the charm and lovable qualities of
+the late Lady Curzon. Her splendid work in behalf of the natives,
+especially the women, endeared her to all Indians. The Delhi durbar in
+1903 honored Edward VII in a degree unsurpassed, but was a greater
+personal triumph for Viceroy Curzon and his accomplished consort from
+Chicago. His administration had many perplexing situations to deal with
+and one of them forced his resignation. The constant nightmare of a
+viceroy of India is famine, and twice Lord Curzon had to deal with
+this--one visitation alone cost the Indian Government fifty million
+pounds sterling. His understanding of frontier technicalities, and the
+ways and wiles of native rulers--none too loyal to British rule,
+assisted mightily in the successful administration of his high office.
+Under the Curzons' r�gime Government House balls and garden parties were
+counted the most brilliant occurring in the East.
+
+A mighty personage in present-day Calcutta is General Viscount
+Kitchener, commander-in-chief of the Indian army. In Egypt he reformed
+the nature of the Nile peasant to the extent of making good fighters of
+the sons of the cravens of Tel-el-Kebir; good enough, when led by
+British officers, to annihilate the army of the Khalifa; and in South
+Africa Kitchener wound up with success a war that had been horribly
+bungled by others. Military critics had long been aware that the army of
+India was antiquated, honeycombed with dry-rot, and largely ruled by
+favorites sitting in high places at Whitehall. Consequently, Kitchener
+was sent to India with instructions conferring almost plenary power to
+reorganize the forces, British as well as native. He prefers work to
+participating in the social game.
+
+In England there is a growing desire that finds expression frequently in
+the newspapers for Kitchener's translation from Calcutta to the War
+Office in London, from whence the British army as a whole might profit
+by the trenchant efforts of the Irish soldier who has seldom blundered.
+As commander in India Lord Kitchener is paid a lakh of rupees a
+year--$32,000, and heads an army of 242,000 men--77,000 British and
+165,000 native troops.
+
+The lieutenant-governor of Bengal, always spoken of as the "L. G."
+resides in Calcutta and works in close relationship with the viceroy.
+This British functionary administers the affairs of a territory but one
+twentieth the area of the United States, but which possesses 75,000,000
+people.
+
+And what is this India, governed by Great Britain through its delegated
+officials? It is a country greater than all Europe, omitting Russia, and
+fully half as large as the United States. Its population numbers
+300,000,000, and is the most heterogeneous of any land in the
+world--were there homogeneity, or anything approaching it, a mere
+handful of Britons could not hope to control a fifth part of the people
+of the earth. India is made up of a multiplicity of races and tribes,
+professing every religion of paganism; and these are separated by
+thousands upon thousands of castes each going its own distinct and
+peculiar way. Great Britain's control of these teeming millions is
+unique in the history of oversea rule. India is almost exclusively
+agricultural, and in sections of Bengal averages 900 people to the
+square mile. At the beginning of 1906 the government had brought
+14,000,000 acres of waste land under cultivation by irrigation upon an
+expenditure of $135,000,000. India now has 215 cotton mills, which
+employ a capital of $70,000,000, and last year's jute product of Bengal
+alone was valued at $70,000,000. The Indian Empire is ponderous and
+complex from any point of view. Possessing but half the area of the
+United States, it represents one seventh of the British Empire, and more
+than seven times the combined population of Great Britain and Ireland.
+It should not be assumed that the whole of India is under British rule,
+for practically a third of the country is still governed by independent
+native princes. With almost four times the population of the United
+States, India supports less than 29,000 miles of railway, as against
+215,000 miles in the great republic--and this difference makes the
+contrast between Asiatic conservatism and New World progress.
+
+[Illustration: CALCUTTA COOLIES]
+
+The person demanding physical statistics gets enough pabulum in a day's
+search to keep the machinery of the mind going for months, and must be
+amazed when learning that there are seven hundred and twenty-one
+distinct languages and dialects spoken in India; that the population has
+trebled with the British occupation; that for every insane person in
+India there are thirteen in Europe,--the words "placid East" purveying
+the explanation. Taking the country by and large it is claimed that only
+one male in ten and only one female out of a hundred and forty-four, can
+read and write; and it is said by British residents in the land that the
+native knows no such thing as scholarship--he learns everything by rote,
+even to the extent of perfect recitation, without comprehending the
+meaning of the wards he is uttering. It is the nature of illiterate
+Hindus to resort to the extremest extravagance in nearly every
+statement, and it is not uncommon for report to have it that an
+Englishman has spoken abusively of a hundred thousand good Hindus, when
+that individual has merely intimated to a native servant that he would
+like his morning meal served with more punctuality. The illiterate
+Hindu, it is interesting to know, believes that the human soul passes
+through eight million reincarnations. When this child of the East deals
+with numbers his tongue runs into meaningless extravagance, and there
+appears to be no communion between his intellect and speech.
+
+While marriage is universal in India, if not obligatory, the custom
+forbidding the remarriage of widows works an injustice to the sex
+amounting to national disgrace. A Hindu maiden who at twelve or thirteen
+is unmarried brings social obloquy on her family and entails
+retrospective damnation on three generations of ancestors. A Hindu man
+must marry and beget children to make certain of his funeral rites, lest
+his spirit wander uneasily in the waste places of the earth or be
+precipitated into the temporary hell called _Put_. The last available
+census discloses the astonishing fact that there are twenty-six million
+widows in India, meaning that out of every hundred women at least
+fourteen have been bereft of their husbands, and consequently are no
+better than human derelicts upon the earth. It is a teaching of the
+abominable Hindu faith that the bridegroom cometh but once. A pundit of
+the belief will argue that the practical reason for prohibiting
+remarriage is to prevent the crowding of the marriage market--and this
+is the only "reason" that can be extracted from one claiming to speak
+with knowledge on the unfortunate subject. The enlightened Gaekwar of
+Baroda, devoting influence and fortune to the moral uplifting of the
+people of his land, pronounces the custom forbidding the remarriage of
+widows to be a national curse exceeded only by that compassed by the
+word "caste."
+
+A statistical paper on India issued recently by the British Government
+shows that there were killed in that country last year by snakes and
+wild beasts 24,034 persons--21,880 by snake bites, 796 by tigers, 399 by
+leopards, and the rest by other animals. The number of cattle destroyed
+by snakes and wild beasts was 98,582.
+
+The other side of the account shows that 65,146 snakes and 16,121 wild
+animals were killed, for which rewards aggregating $37,000 were paid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+ISLAND LINKS IN BRITAIN'S CHAIN OF EMPIRE
+
+
+If one be a sufferer from anglophobia, a tour of the globe by
+conventional paths may produce rather more irritation than is good for
+man--to such a traveler the British Empire is a chronic nightmare, for
+the red flag is everywhere. Every harbor seems choked with English
+shipping, if not guarded by a British warship; and Tommy Atkins is the
+first man met ashore. If your prejudice against Great Britain be
+unjustly conceived, you will probably revise your judgment before the
+earth is half circled; at least you must confess that Britain is great
+from the standpoint of area.
+
+A globe-trotter who has had "Britannia Rules the Wave" ringing in his
+ears from Gibraltar to Ceylon, connects again with the "thin red line"
+the moment his ship emerges from the Bay of Bengal. Penang then is the
+link in the interminable chain of colonies upon which the sun never
+sets. "Well, this is but an island, and a small one at that;
+consequently I won't let it worry me," soliloquizes the anglophobe.
+
+Penang is doubly remarkable. Firstly, the tourist is there made to
+understand that he has finished with that great division of the earth
+known as "the East," and is at the portal of the Far East, the realm
+wherein the Chinaman, Malay and Japanese teem in uncounted millions.
+Besides, Penang is the premier tin port of the universe. Seven tenths of
+this metal used by the world starts for market from Penang and its
+neighboring ports in the Malacca Straits.
+
+"Rule Britannia" is played next at Singapore, likewise an island, and,
+as is Penang, a place almost wholly given over to Chinese and their
+shops. Few coastal towns in China possess a greater percentage of
+Celestials than England's city at the tip end of the Malay peninsula and
+abutting on the equator. Sir Stamford Raffles placed Englishmen--and
+Chinamen--under everlasting obligation when he brought Singapore into
+being. Raffles possessed the empire-building instinct, surely, and
+earned the honor of interment in Westminster Abbey.
+
+Singapore harbor commands one of the greatest natural turnstiles of
+commerce. Shipping has no other option than to use it. While Englishmen
+have administered the port and city since Raffles's time, thousands of
+Chinamen have there waxed extremely fat. The 'rickshaw coolie of
+Singapore, even, is physically perfect, and consequently in agreeable
+contrast to the Indian of calfless legs, and his Cingalese colleague of
+weak lungs. The Chinese 'rickshawman whisks a visitor about Singapore
+with the stride of a race-horse. For a city only a degree north of the
+equator, Singapore offers creature comforts in sufficient number to make
+human existence there extremely attractive.
+
+[Illustration: HONG KONG HARBOR]
+
+Nabobs and well-conditioned humanity of Polynesia esteem Singapore much
+as Europeans and Americans regard Paris--an estimable place of consort,
+and scores of these men there lead a life not based on the simple ideas
+of Charles Wagner. Island sultans are usually as numerous in Singapore
+as princes in Cairo; and European adepts in equatorial government find
+frequent need of repairing to the gay metropolis of the Straits. An
+interesting potentate frequently seen is Rajah Brooke, a cultivated
+Englishman who is philanthropic despot over a slice of Borneo twice the
+area of England and Wales. Sarawak, his country, has been called the
+best governed tropical land in the world. Another English celebrity
+affecting Singapore is Governor Gueritz, administrator of the North
+Borneo Company, destined, maybe, to become as profitable as the East
+India Company of old. The Sultan of Sulu (not the hero of George Ade's
+comic opera) enjoys a sojourn in Singapore. He is young, wears the garb
+of a Mohammedan who has been to Mecca, and is not displeased by the
+stare of tourists. The Sultan of Johore, in the hands of money-lenders
+through unfortunate turf ventures, spends as much time in the city as in
+his Malay sultanate. A prince of the Siamese king's ministry, in
+Singapore to bestow orders for bridges and river steamers, goes nightly
+to witness a feeble production of "The Girl from Kays," and whistles
+"Sammy" as he promenades hotel verandas.
+
+Down at the quays great steamships are fed with coal by Chinese coolies
+who toil silently and expeditiously. A Chinese swell is on the pier
+superintending the lading of queer-looking cases containing birds'
+nests, consigned to epicures in Hong Kong and Canton. The Chinaman's
+greatest dainty is soup made from glutinous birds' nests found in Borneo
+caves. A single case of moderate dimensions contains nests to the value
+of twelve hundred Mexican dollars--at least, it is insured for that
+amount.
+
+Great Britain's next station in the Far East is Hong Kong, likewise an
+island, and one that might claim the long distance championship as a
+rain-center. Next to hills, the characterizing feature of Hong Kong is
+moisture--represented either by rain or humidity. The Briton professes
+that the climate of this crown colony is good; but for months at a
+stretch his clothing has to be hung daily in the open air to keep it
+from becoming water-logged, and everything of leather has to be denuded
+each morning of green mold. At the hotels one's apparel is kept in a
+drying-room, and issued costume at a time for use.
+
+The globe-trotter reaching Hong Kong in March risks irreparable injury
+to his temper, unless he prefers dripping clouds and wet feet to warmth
+and sunshine. Out of a fortnight there may be a day when the elements
+will be accommodating enough to allow the glories of the harbor to be
+seen from the Peak, and two pleasant days in the fortnight would be
+remarkable. Official figures show that the average March has but
+twenty-nine and a fraction hours of sunshine. Complain of the rains and
+the patriotic resident will probably remark: "Rains! These are not
+rains--they only begin in June." Your book of local information
+corroborates the resident's statement, for you may read that March
+ordinarily has a rainfall of but three and a half inches, while June
+shows twenty, and August twenty-eight. On the 25th of August in 1905 the
+downpour registered eleven and one-quarter inches--this almost turned
+Hong Kong into an eastern Venice. November, December, January and
+February are the pleasant months, statistically, in Hong Kong.
+
+[Illustration: HONG KONG'S MOUNTAINSIDE]
+
+The Briton has displayed his sturdiness of character by forcing a home
+in Hong Kong, for nature fashioned the north shore of this island to be
+an abiding-place for birds and animals. Adventurers from the British
+Isles have won a plateau from the sea by piling and filling in, and by
+executing engineering feats that have converted a precipitous mountain
+side to blossom with villa sites and roads and foot-paths leading to
+them. A railway scaling the mountain height at a topsy-turvy angle did
+the rest. Hong Kong is a splendid example of what determined men
+possessed of the colonizing spirit may accomplish. The founders of
+Venice did no more in the lagoons of the Adriatic. A man responsible for
+much of Hong Kong's filling in and excavation is Sir Paul Chator, a
+British subject of Armenian birth, gifted to an unusual degree with
+foresight. He has done more for the colony than any other person--and
+Hong Kong has made him a millionaire.
+
+The legal name of the city is Victoria, but this fact apparently is
+known only to the postmaster and at Government House. Were a visitor to
+speak of Victoria, the dweller would believe that something back in
+England, or in Australia, was meant. When China ceded the rocky isle of
+Hong Kong to Great Britain in 1842 it was the haunt of fisherfolk and
+pirates prosecuting their callings in the estuary of the Canton River.
+The acquisition of Hong Kong was due to the refusal of the Chinese to
+allow British traders to live peaceably at Canton. Driven out of the
+city, they took temporary refuge in the Portuguese settlement of Macao;
+but, being pursued by Chinese hostility, the official trade
+superintendent transferred the English depot to Hong Kong, which was
+forthwith occupied by a British expeditionary force, and, at the end of
+the Opium War, finally ceded to Great Britain by the treaty of Nankin.
+The name "Hong Kong" is variously interpreted, but the generally
+accepted meaning is "Fragrant Streams."
+
+Just as Singapore guards the south entrance into the China Sea, so does
+Hong Kong, fifteen hundred miles away, guard the north. On the south the
+entrance is through the Straits of Malacca, on the north through the
+Straits of Formosa. Had Great Britain, according to the usual custom of
+war, retained possession of Manila, which she had conquered in 1762,
+instead of giving it back to Spain at the end of the Seven Years' War,
+her hold of the China Sea would have been as firm to-day as is her hold
+of the Mediterranean. As the situation now stands, the acquisition of
+the Philippine Islands gives Uncle Sam a fortified naval base on the
+flank of the British line of communications between Singapore and Hong
+Kong. Based on Manila, and given the possession of sufficient naval
+force, an American admiral can strike right or left, compelling his
+opponents to fight where it best suits his own purposes. England and
+America are fortunate in being on terms of complete international amity,
+but none the less has the conquest of the Philippines by the United
+States profoundly modified the strategical conditions as they existed in
+the Pacific when the islands belonged to a weak naval power like Spain.
+
+Hong Kong's population and traffic double every ten years, and no harbor
+has a greater tonnage. Were Hong Kong a port of origin, instead of a
+port of call, its commercial importance would be greater than that of
+London. A few years ago the British Government induced China to lease a
+slice of the mainland of goodly dimensions, to accommodate Hong Kong's
+swelling trade. There, a mile and a half across the harbor, to-day stand
+miles of modern docks and warehouses, and shipyards and engine-building
+works, that would do credit to Tyne or Clyde. This addition to Hong Kong
+is called Kowloon, and it has residential districts that range well into
+the hinterland.
+
+Hong Kong's streets are among the most interesting in the great East,
+for they strike the key of true cosmopolitanism. Along them 'rickshaws
+pass in endless procession, electric cars roar, and sedan-chairs swing.
+The chair borne by four bearers provides the acme of transportation in
+fine weather. Eighty per cent, of Hong Kong's people are Chinese, and to
+this multitude the human contributions of Europe and America form
+necessarily a thin relief. Extremely picturesque are the compradore and
+taipan in costumes of the richest of silks, more so than is the poor
+coolie in dirty short trousers and jacket, pigtail coiled for
+convenience about the head, whose face is none too familiar with soap
+and water. In and out of the ever-moving multitude glide the tall,
+bright-eyed sons of India, the Sikhs, who are everywhere in the East.
+Soldiers in regimentals; jack tars of many nations; policemen, white,
+yellow, and black, are included in the picture. Here is the somber
+Britisher with confident stride and air of proprietorship, there the
+unromantic German slowly but surely capturing Oriental trade. Frenchmen
+and Scandinavians rub shoulders along the Queen's Road with the matter
+of fact American and the dark man from Italy; whilst now and then a
+peculiar gait or unusual costume distinguishes a South American or a son
+of the Philippines. Here, in short, within this congested square mile of
+the European quarter are daily to be picked representatives of the
+world's nations. A study of the crowd is an education in itself.
+
+The splendid buildings speak of commercial prosperity--banks, shops,
+offices and clubs. Nearly every structure is the seat of prosperous
+commercial ventures in Hong Kong and China proper; and tiers of
+water-front warehouses locally called "godowns," are filled with
+foodstuffs and manufactures that in time will be distributed through
+every town of importance in the Flowery Kingdom. Hong Kong boasts that
+her docks can accommodate the largest ships afloat (a fact until the
+_Minnesota_ and _Dakota_, loaded with American flour, vainly sought
+wharfage), and that she possesses the largest sugar refinery in the
+world. But these circumstances are subordinate to the British
+government's real interest in Hong Kong--to make it the base of naval
+power in Asia, with dockyards and repair-shops equal to any demand, and
+with coal-bins stacked with the prerequisite to sea-power.
+
+[Illustration: A FORMER "HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR" OF HONG KONG]
+
+The horse is included in no grouping in Hong Kong, where coolie takes
+its place as bearer of burdens and hauler of vehicles. The sights of the
+place are so strange and interesting that a traveler is sometimes there
+for days before the fact dawns upon his vision that it is a city
+innocent of horse-flesh. True, there are the runners and polo ponies at
+Happy Valley race-course. Wherever the Briton plants his abiding-place,
+there the horse and dog are brought--but in Hong Kong the former
+requires a deal of attention, for it is only used in making a Briton's
+holiday. The race-course is set in an intervale, and has cemeteries
+overlooking grand-stand and entrances. A transplanted sportsman whose
+every effort to name a winning steed at a Happy Valley meeting has
+failed signally, finds superabundance of food for introspection as he
+runs the gauntlet of cemetery portals on the way back to the city, and
+very likely indulges in mental speculation as to the purpose in giving
+the name of Happy Valley to a race-track whose betting ring is
+overshadowed by burial grounds.
+
+The "chit" as a moral pitfall is more potent in Hong Kong than in India
+or other Eastern lands possessing a sprinkling of Europeans. A
+newcomer's ears hear little but "chit." Every sentence uttered by
+friends, every proposal of obsequious native merchant, is freighted with
+the little word. You decide at last to cast off your ignorance and be of
+the elect--to know what chit means and if possible become a chitter.
+Very disappointed are you when told that chit is simply Asian for
+memorandum, in popular phrase, an "I. O. U.," hurriedly penciled and
+given in lieu of cash.
+
+Its purpose? Merely to pander to the European's convenience; to
+differentiate the white man from brown or yellow, by placing him on the
+unassailable pedestal of a person of honor.
+
+"This chit idea is great," says the newcomer. "I don't load my pockets
+down with money any more. When I buy a cigar or drink I give a chit, and
+that's all there is to it. These Eastern people are away ahead of us in
+more ways than one." And he hourly signs innocent memoranda, because of
+the convenience. At hotel and club a chit brings what he wants, it sends
+a basket of flowers to a charming woman, produces suits of clothing that
+he doesn't need, even pays 'rickshaw and chair coolies.
+
+But alas; pay-day comes at the end of the month! And scheme as he may,
+the newcomer cannot solve the fiscal problem of making a hundred dollars
+settle three hundred dollars of debts. He then comprehends that the
+insidious chit is loaded; is pregnant with the disgrace germ, if he
+cannot raise the wherewithal to redeem the sheafs of them reposing in a
+dozen tills--so many notes going to protest with every tick of the
+clock. "I'll write home for funds," he decides; "but how am I to live
+while awaiting the remittance?" By giving more chits, only. He does this
+with a bold front for another month or so, and is doubly insolvent when
+the remittance finally comes to hand. Then he gives still more chits,
+and awaits another money supply.
+
+Hong Kong is filled with unfortunate "remittance men," good fellows at
+heart, whose downfall dates from their introduction to the chit. A
+visitor can read no announcement more pathetic than that conspicuously
+displayed in the waiting-rooms of the Kowloon ferry, saying "Positively
+no chits received"--and this ruthless pronouncement in connection with a
+trip costing but the equivalent of three American cents!
+
+There is commendable practicability in the method employed by large
+hotels in the East for placing patrons in a position to connect with
+dishes on the bill of fare appealing to their appetites. In Hong Kong
+hotels, where young Chinamen knowing practically no English are employed
+as waiters, and where elaborate lists of dishes are the order, the plan
+is indispensable. It is this: Every dish is indicated on the margin of
+the card by a number, and instead of saying to the waiter, "Bring me
+some roast beef, mashed potatoes and a cup of tea," you give the numbers
+of these several articles, or point to them,--and they are fetched. It
+is easy enough to get a second helping, but if you desire your meat
+rare, or well done, or your eggs fried on both sides, then you have good
+cause for cursing the confounding of tongues at the Tower of Babel. A
+Hong Kong hotel is not a place for a person predisposed to irritability.
+
+For keen realization of the Far East, Hong Kong, with its streets of
+Chinese shops, and water front massed with sampans, affords a full and
+most satisfying opportunity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CANTON, UNIQUE CITY OF CHINA
+
+
+It is a steamboat journey of but ninety miles up the estuary of the
+Pearl River from Hong Kong to wonderful Canton, and a traveler in Asia
+who fails to see the city that is the commercial capital of China misses
+something that he may think and talk of the remainder of his life.
+Historians profess to trace the origin of Canton to a period antedating
+the Christian era, when, it is somewhere recorded, the thirty-fourth
+sovereign of the Chan dynasty, by name Nan Wong, who ruled for nearly
+sixty years, was on the Chinese throne. In those days the city bore the
+name of Nan-Woo-Ching, meaning "The Martial City of the South," and was
+encircled by a stockade formed of bamboos and river mud, tradition has
+it. Tradition additionally tells us that in the shadowy past Canton used
+to be known as the "City of the Rams," inasmuch as once upon a time five
+genii, each mounted on a ram carrying ears of grain in the mouth, rode
+into the market-place and said to the wondering people, "May famine and
+dearth never visit your city." This benevolent sentiment uttered, the
+genii are said to have instantly vanished, leaving their steeds in the
+market-place, and forthwith these were turned into stone. There is
+to-day a Temple of the Five Genii, where five clumsily sculptured rams
+are pointed out as the identical animals that once were flesh and blood.
+
+Passing over twenty centuries we find the metropolis of the present
+time, with its two million people, the most satisfying, fascinating, and
+puzzling city in the Orient, if not in the whole world. Canton with its
+agglomeration of a primitive existence, is surely distinct and different
+from any other city. Its dazzling color effect, its pile of massive
+gilding in grotesque ornamentation, its wonderful sign-boards in
+bewildering hieroglyphics, and its host of odd-looking humanity--all is
+at variance with anything the traveler has before seen. To successfully
+view Canton requires some urbanity, a wealth of patience, and a stomach
+not readily overthrown by gruesome and unusual sights. And, further, the
+visitor must never forget that his vision is looking back from one to
+two thousand years, and that the hordes of human beings congesting the
+labyrinth of streets not seven feet wide, speak of a great nation as it
+was, which to-day is the oldest living nation on earth. You, of the
+fast-marching West, are viewing at its fountainhead a race for which the
+word "conservative" was most likely first called into use. It was the
+great Li Hung Chang who stingingly rebuked some patronizing Englishmen
+who were urging the astute old statesman to advocate certain social
+reforms in China, by saying: "Why, we Chinese look upon England merely
+as an interesting experiment in civilization, wondering where you'll be
+five hundred years hence."
+
+The only impress that Europe and Christianity have visibly made upon
+Canton is the French cathedral of the twin spires that you see near the
+place where your steamer lands. In all Canton there is not a wheeled
+vehicle, street-car, hotel, or mouthful of food appealing to the
+convenience or appetite of the visitor from the West; and apart from
+your own coterie of sight-seers, you may for days be about the streets
+of the vast city without seeing a person wearing the habiliments of
+Europe. That section of Canton known as Shameen, in reality an island
+suburb, is set apart under concessions to the United States and certain
+European powers, and the consuls, missionaries and foreign merchants
+there dwell surrounded by many of the comforts of home.
+
+[Illustration: TEMPLE OF THE FIVE HUNDRED GENII, CANTON]
+
+Few venture upon leaving Hong Kong for Canton until satisfying reports
+are received assuring that no immediate outbreak is apprehended of the
+known Cantonese hatred for foreigners, nor until a vast amount of
+letter-writing and telegraphing for guide and chair-bearers has been
+gone through with, and the steamboat company has placed the craft of
+their line at your command, to be used as hotels, restaurants, and
+otherwise as bases of supplies. Confident that you would be met at the
+landing by the guide of whom you had reassuring reports, and with whom
+you believed you had been in correspondence, a gorgeously-clad,
+good-looking fellow greets you at your state-room door on the boat
+before your ablutions have been completed, and tells you politely but
+firmly that he is to be your guide. His card says he is "Ah Cum John,"
+which is not that of the guide you had expected to meet you, and you
+meekly remonstrate, until the potentate tells you through the
+half-opened door that you will see Canton under his auspices or not at
+all. "Why?" "Because I am proprietor of all the sedan-chairs worth
+riding in, and employ every good coolie; and, besides, Ah Cum, my
+father, showed Canton to Rudyard Kipling twenty-five years ago. I'm the
+third son of Ah Cum, and my family does all the guiding that is done in
+Canton--nobody else speaks any English."
+
+Whatever your degree of objection to monopolies, a single reason
+enumerated by the autocrat seeking to enter your employ is sufficient to
+swing you into a feeble acquiescence, for, to tell the truth, you are
+not impressed favorably by the mob of jostling, shoving yellow humanity
+on shore, naked to the waist, who seem to be accentuating with menacing
+gestures their demands upon your patronage. You wonder how long a white
+man can be on shore without having his throat cut, and reason that if Ah
+Cum John can bully a sovereign-born American into accepting him as
+guide, when you had wanted somebody else, why is he not the very man to
+control the passions of a fanatical Chinese mob? His administrative
+ability impresses by the manner in which he directs affairs from the
+instant his control is confessed by your party of seven native
+Americans, and after breakfast this born leader sets forth at the head
+of the timid pleiad longing to explore the great human warren of
+China--the thugs of the river bank are now your bearers and devoted
+subjects, four to a chair, and countless assistants and relatives trail
+at the end of the procession.
+
+The cavalcade attracts good-natured attention from shopkeepers drawn to
+the fronts of their stalls by the yelping of forty lusty Mongol throats,
+commanding all and sundry wayfarers to allow honorable visitors to pass.
+So narrow are the filth-smeared streets that a sight-seer might help
+himself at will from shops on either side of the way. Hundreds of messes
+stewing over braziers in the thoroughfare have to be moved, and now and
+then the bearers of a native dignitary slide into a conveniently wide
+place that the procession of "foreign devils" may not be inconvenienced.
+But a mandarin, in his palanquin and preceded by an orderly mounted on a
+short-legged pony, and guarded front and rear by forty wicked-looking
+soldiers armed with carbines, has precedence so instantly accorded him
+that the clients of Ah Cum's third son are almost precipitated sideways
+into a row of shops. The mighty official passes without so much as
+casting a glance of compliment at the women of the party, thereby making
+it evident that Canton mandarins have a code of deportment peculiarly
+their own.
+
+The products of every section of Asia are said Canton, Unique City of
+China to be heaped high in the warehouses of this great mart of Southern
+China; but the tourist sees naught of these. What he views from his
+sedan-chair is thousands of shops but little larger than catacomb cells,
+wherein everything from straw sandals for street coolies to jade
+bracelets for the richly endowed is offered for sale. Preserved from
+theft and fire in Canton's godowns and pawnshops are stored enough
+fabrics of silk, art-embroideries, and carvings in ivory and teakwood,
+to cause a person of average taste to lose his mind, could they be
+paraded for his benefit; and a collector would find it difficult to
+preserve solvency, were the treasures of the shabby-looking warehouses
+proffered for sale. Unusually repugnant are the stalls where food is
+vended, for their wares are prepared in a manner making it easy for the
+visitor to forget that he ever possessed an appetite. A hundred times as
+you are borne through Canton's streets your chair escapes by only a few
+feet or inches rows of cooked ducks and pigs that seem to have been
+finally varnished to make them appeal to the native epicure. Here and
+there you observe strange hunks of meat held together by a wisp of straw
+that your guide tells you with immobile countenance are rat hams, and in
+sundry shops your ready eye thereafter detects tiny dried carcasses that
+can only be rats. Let it be said in fairness to the sights of Canton
+that the display of vegetables is attractive enough to turn your
+thoughts to the dietary benefits of vegetarianism.
+
+You early perceive that Ah Cum John is many kinds of a "boss" by the way
+he takes command of the shops at which he deigns to halt his caravan.
+All are charmed with the jewelry fabricated by the workers in
+kingfishers' feathers, and make liberal selections. But you are not
+permitted to pay the merchant with whom you have made a bargain, for
+John says, "You pay him nothing, you pay me to-night for
+everything"--and the purchases are carried away in his sumptuous
+palanquin. Pictures executed on rice-paper are next acquired on the same
+terms; then a cargo of daggers and swords with handles and scabbards
+covered with shark skin is secured after a brief dicker. When you buy a
+carved ivory ball representing years of labor by a genius, or a dozen
+bolts of Chee-fu silk, the price of which may be several hundred Mexican
+dollars, John insists that you are entitled to a _cumsha_ of value. The
+merchant makes obeisance and proffers you a paper-cutter or a box of
+candied ginger. John resents this parsimony and says "Not good enough."
+He goes then behind the counter and pulls down a mandarin coat weighted
+with embroidery, or maybe an intricately carved puff-box, saying "The
+merchant gives you this with his compliments." Everything is dumped in
+the gorgeous palanquin, and your spoliation dash through commercial
+Canton is resumed.
+
+[Illustration: CITY OF BOATS, CANTON, WHERE GENERATIONS ARE BORN AND
+DIE]
+
+Between purchases, you are taken to see innumerable temples and other
+objects of interest, as they fall in your path. The Temple of the Five
+Hundred Genii is made amusing by the scion of the house of Ah Cum
+explaining that a figure sculptured with hat of European pattern is
+"Joss Pau Low." As a reader you are aware that it is the effigy of Marco
+Polo, the intrepid Italian traveler supposed to have been the first
+European to have penetrated ancient China. The water-clock, elsewhere,
+is found to be out of order and not running, and you assume that the
+water of the Pearl River is too muddy for delicate mechanisms. The
+execution ground is found to be merely a quadrilateral of vacant land,
+employed by native potters when not required by the State when a group
+of criminals is to be officially put to death.
+
+The guide is regretful that your visit is a few days too late for you to
+see five men beheaded in as many minutes. Employing a chair-coolie as a
+lay figure, John manages to give a satisfactory description of the
+_modus operandi_ of a decapitation, and you let it go at that. A
+stalwart native is then introduced as the official headsman, and this
+functionary promptly tries to sell the heavy-bladed sword with which he
+says he struck off five heads earlier in the week. Probably three
+hundred malefactors are annually put to death on this spot, and it is
+said that the public executioner has been known to sell twice that
+number of swords in a year. Now and again a loaferish policeman is seen,
+nearly always leaning against a building or finding support from the
+angle of a deep-set door. Most of the police wear sandals and straw
+hats, and carry long batons and revolvers; but there is no sameness of
+apparel or armament among these guardians of the peace, attested by
+their wearing only a portion of their uniform at a time. The Cantonese
+believe their police are equipped and dressed in strict accord with the
+"finest" of a great city in America.
+
+On the way to that section of the city where Cantonese of high and low
+degree are laid away after death, we encounter a returning funeral party
+that made a curious procession, and one stretching to inordinate length.
+In front was a ragamuffin corps of drummers and men extracting
+ear-racking noises from metal instruments that looked like flageolets,
+but were not. Twenty or thirty bedraggled Buddhist priests in pairs
+trotted behind, proving by their individual gaits that in China there is
+no union of religion and music. Interspersed in the marching medley were
+a dozen or more gaudily painted platforms with pole handles, carried by
+coolies in the way that chairs are borne. Each platform displayed a
+layout of varnished pigs with immovably staring eyes, plates of uncooked
+strips of fish, and decorative objects suggesting place in a well-to-do
+Chinese home. Every fifty yards or so a mustached official of uncertain
+rank was mounted on a Tartary pony, and at the end of the column a
+coolie loped along bearing across his naked shoulders the deceased's
+Yankee-made bicycle. No student of foreign conditions could ask more
+striking evidence that China was at last "waking up," was heeding the
+influences of Western civilization, surely. The funeral party suggested
+perfunctory pomp and display, and gave not a suggestion of
+bereavement--and that it was, for every person in the cortege was hired
+for the occasion. Half the food had been left at the tomb for the
+departed in his spirit form; the remainder was to be devoured by the
+mercenary mourners when the procession broke up at the door of the home
+from which the corpse had been carried.
+
+Ah Cum John's clients lunch in the renowned Five-Story Pagoda, rising
+from the city wall to an elevation that spreads Canton at its feet; but
+by the time one reaches the building he is satiated with views and wants
+nothing but food. The Chicago "air-tights" and bottled beers and
+table-waters fetched from the steamer are relished to the full by
+appetites not always satisfied by the culinary achievements of a
+Delmonico.
+
+Travelers insist that Canton is more essentially Chinese in an
+educational sense than any other city in China. Public speech in Hong
+Kong reflects the control of Britain, and in Shanghai popular opinion is
+held to be tainted with German or British opinion. At Pekin the game of
+diplomacy is played too consummately to allow an expressed utterance to
+have any national significance, for the capital is looked upon as a city
+eddying with cross currents and rival influences. Consequently, the
+pulse of the great Flowery Kingdom, with its more than four hundred
+million people, can best be taken at Canton, for the native press and
+native scholars there say frankly what they believe.
+
+Cantonese opinion is potential because the capital city of the great
+Kwang-tung province is recognized as the center of national learning,
+where scholarship is prized above riches. No Canton youth who aims at
+the first social order thinks of setting himself to make money; to enter
+the service of the government is his object, and to achieve this he
+studies literature. There is practically no barrier in China to becoming
+a "literate," and the classification means all that the word "gentleman"
+can in Europe. For this and other reasons thousands of men in Canton
+wear horn-rimmed spectacles, look wise, and discuss mundane affairs in a
+manner brooking no contention. The literary bureaucracy of Canton wields
+a mighty influence in the affairs of the nation, it is insisted. A
+member of this class may not be able to do the simplest sum in
+arithmetic without the assistance of his counting-machine, but he may be
+able to write an essay on the meanings of ideographs, reproduce a
+trimetrical classic, or quote the philosophic works of Confucius and the
+Book of Mencius until you grow faint from listening.
+
+Once every three years Canton teems with men, young and old, who have
+gathered to compete for academic degrees. Any one save the son of a
+barber, an actor, or the keeper of a brothel, may enter the list,
+provided he possesses the certificate of a high school. A certain part
+of the city not demanded by business or residential purposes is
+designated as the Examination Hall, where 10,616 cells or compartments
+are built of brick and wood. These cubicles, six by eight feet square,
+are arranged in rows, like cattle-pens at an American agricultural
+fair. Placed side by side they would extend eight miles. These cells
+have no furnishing whatever, save a plank to serve as desk and bed. The
+night before the examination is to begin the student is searched, and
+with writing materials and provisions sufficient for three days, is shut
+in his cell. This is repeated three times, making the examination extend
+to nine days. From sunrise to sunset no candidate is permitted to rise
+from his seat, and if one be taken ill and carried out, he cannot return
+for that contest. It is said that a few of the old men succumb to the
+strain at each examination.
+
+The theses or essays of but eighty-three of the competitors can be
+accepted, and the fortunate ones are rewarded by the Bachelor of Arts
+degree. In time these compete near Pekin for a "Doctor" degree--and if
+abundantly rich, the successful scholar may bribe his way to official
+employment, say persons intimately knowing the customs of China. Those
+who pass the final degree become members of what is termed the Hon Lum
+College, and this furnishes China with her councilors, district rulers,
+and examiners of scholarships in all the provinces--at least in theory.
+The fortunate man standing at the head of the list in the great
+examination near Pekin receives the title of Chong Yuen, and is termed
+"the greatest scholar in the world." The entire empire reveres him, and,
+taking into consideration the number of the examinations he has stood,
+he should be respected, if not for erudition, for his tenacity of
+purpose and the possession of a marvelous constitution. But it is
+asserted that this "greatest scholar" is invariably a millionaire and a
+Manchu.
+
+[Illustration: EXAMINATION BOOTHS, CANTON]
+
+Even the "literate" failing to secure appointment to public office has
+certain valued exemptions and prerogatives. When he fulminates against
+the Pekin government or against the acts of an overbearing viceroy, his
+words are attentively listened to and carry weight. Besides, the
+horn-rimmed spectacles give him a local standing envied by every man who
+toils or has to do with business. In Canton and other cities of China,
+standing before many of the larger and pretentious houses, are
+ornamental "literary poles," and these are always in pairs and generally
+show respectable decay. When newly erected they are painted in colors
+according to the rank of the family--white for a private citizen, red
+for a civil functionary, and blue for the army. A mast having a single
+row of brackets a few feet from the top means the degree of Ku Yan,
+equivalent to our M. A., and called in China the degree of Promoted Men;
+the degree of Entered Scholar, nearly equivalent to our LL.D., called
+Tsun Sze, is represented by two rows of brackets; and the highest degree
+attainable, Hon Lum, is announced by three rows of brackets, locally
+termed the "Forest of Pencils." The projecting brackets make admirable
+perches for pigeons and other domesticated birds. As the family and not
+the individual is the basis of the custom, the masts are always erected
+in front of the ancestral home, although the distinguished scholar
+may live miles away. The poles are never repaired or replaced unless
+some other member of the family acquires academic honors. China has no
+custom more poetic than the indicating of an abode from which a scholar
+has emerged.
+
+While it is easy to admit the erudition of the Chinese in their own
+language, the tourist swung through Canton's streets perceives from his
+sedan-chair many signs displayed to catch the eye of the foreigner that
+prove the English schoolmaster to be absent. To read such announcements
+as "Chinese and Japanese Curious," "Blackwood Furnitures," "Meals at All
+Day and Night," and "Steam Laundry & Co." provoke a titter in a city
+where you believe yourself to be an unwelcome visitor. It is obvious
+that the scholars of China are not reduced to the straits of becoming
+sign-painters.
+
+The greatest of all Canton sights is undeniably that of life on the
+boats along the river front, penetrating every creek, and extending
+along the paddy fields above and below the great city. There has never
+been a census of this "floating population," but it is estimated that
+more than three hundred thousand Cantonese have no other homes but the
+junks, sampans, "flower boats" and "snake boats," upon which they are
+literally born, reared, married, and die. Lining both sides of the
+river, extending into Shameen Creek, the sampans are everywhere. They
+ferry people across the stream or convey them wherever they wish to go
+in the neighborhood, carry light cargoes of fuel, food, or merchandise,
+deliver packages, and do a thousand and one services of the "odd-job"
+order. A sampan nearly always houses an entire family, and is rowed by
+the father and mother. Beneath the round covering amidships the woman
+conducts the domestic affairs of the family with a cleverness that is
+remarkable, and for cleanliness it may be said that the Canton sampan is
+equal to any abiding-place on shore. The cooking is done forwards over a
+"fire-box," flowering plants frequently are placed in the boat's stern,
+and within the cabin incense sticks may nearly always be seen burning
+before the family idol. A mother ties very young children to the deck by
+a long cord, while older children romp at large with a bamboo float
+fastened about their bodies, which serves at once for clothing and
+life-preserver. It is a common sight to see sampans propelled up and
+down stream by women, each rower having an infant strapped to her back.
+The good behavior of the babies of the sampan flotilla is always
+appreciated by visiting mothers whose nurse-maids at home have
+difficulty in keeping their young from crying their lungs out.
+
+The "flower boats," moored a mile or two below the business part of
+Canton's foreshore, are the antithesis of the sampans, for they cater to
+a pleasure-loving class, to men and women possessing wobbly morals, who
+love good dinners and suppers and a game of fan-tan without too much
+publicity, with singing and dancing as adjuncts. In build these craft
+are like the house-boats of the Thames, and the custom of tricking them
+out with flowering plants suggests the scene at Henley during regatta
+week. Practically all the vice that a traveler learns of during a visit
+to Canton is confined to the flower boats, and their floral appellation
+comes from the reputed attractiveness of the sirens dwelling upon them.
+The boats are moored side by side in long rows, with planks leading from
+one to another. Prices on the boats are always high, and the native
+voluptuary pays extravagantly and the foreigner ruinously whenever he
+devotes an evening to the floral fleet. By night the boats are gorgeous
+with their mirrors and myriad lamps alight, and blackwood tables and
+stools inlaid with mother-of-pearl; but by the light of day they look
+tawdry to the point of shabbiness.
+
+To a person interested in marine construction, especially one hailing
+from a land where steam has supplanted sail-power, and where gasolene
+and other inexpensive motors have made rowing almost obsolete, the Pearl
+River "hot-foot" boats, so called by Europeans, are intensely
+interesting. These craft connect Whampoa and other out-lying towns with
+Canton, run in and out of rivers, and carry passengers, freight, and
+sometimes the mails. They are of fairly good lines, but are propelled by
+huge stern-wheels, and the motive power is contributed by from ten to
+twenty barebacked and perspiring coolies running up a treadmill that
+occupies as much room amidships as boiler and engine might. When the
+taskmaster urges the coolies to do their best, one of these "hot-foot"
+boats chugs along in calm water at a five-knot gait, but ordinarily
+three knots an hour is the normal speed.
+
+On the left bank of the river and close to Canton is a large leper
+village, where all native craft approaching the city have to pay a
+"Leper toll." If this is done as soon as the vessel reaches the suburb
+the head leper gives a pass which franks the ship through; without this,
+any of the numerous lepers are able to demand a fee, which has to be
+paid, otherwise the junk would be surrounded by these people and all
+work brought to a standstill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+MACAO, THE MONTE CARLO OF THE FAR EAST
+
+
+A prettier marine journey than from Canton to Macao, is not possible in
+the Orient, and it is of only eighty miles and accomplished by daylight
+with convenient hours of departure and arrival.
+
+As on all passenger-carrying craft plying the great estuary having Hong
+Kong and Macao for its base and Canton its apex, you find the native
+passengers on your boat confined below the deck whereon the state-rooms
+and dining saloon of European travelers are located, and you perceive
+racks of Mausers and cutlasses at convenient points of this upper deck.
+To American eyes it is novel to see every stairway closed by a grated
+iron door, and a man armed with a carbine on your side of each of these
+barriers. You perceive on the main deck three or four hundred Chinamen
+of the coolie class, some playing card games, others Smoking metal pipes
+with diminutive bowls, but most of them slumbering in a variety of
+grotesque attitudes. None of these Mongols who observe your curiosity
+seems to hold any feeling of resentment for the effective separation of
+the races, which places him, the native of the land, in a position that
+might be called equivocal.
+
+The English skipper and his Scotch engineer, who take the seats of honor
+when tiffin is served, respond willingly to your appeal for an
+explanation of the doors of bar-iron and the display of weapons--every
+first-class passenger always asks the question, and on every trip the
+British seafarers tell the story of Chinese piracy as practised up to
+comparatively recent times in the great estuary having a dozen or more
+names.
+
+And an interesting tale it is, for it recounts deeds of the sea quite as
+audacious and high-handed as anything performed on land by Jesse James
+and his stage-coach bandits. Up to fifteen or eighteen years ago the
+estuary bristled with Chinese pirates, and wherever native fishermen and
+sailors foregathered, at Hong Kong, Canton or Macao, schemes for
+holding-up and sacking steamers carrying bullion and valuable
+merchandise were hatched with a frequency that gave a phase to local
+commerce that was anything but comforting, and more than one brave
+Yankee or British sailor went to his death fighting yellow thugs against
+overwhelming odds. The public decapitation of a handful of these
+murderers appeared to place no check on the outlawry.
+
+[Illustration: PRINCIPAL SECTION OF MACAO]
+
+Once a Canton-bound steamer, carrying the mails and a considerable
+amount of specie, had her progress obstructed by two junks that wilfully
+forced her into shoal water. In the confusion that followed the
+grounding, a score of coolies, who up to that moment had been regarded
+as honest deck passengers, rushed to the pilot-house and engine-room and
+murdered every white man on board. Practically everything of value was
+then transferred to the junks, now conveniently alongside, and the spoil
+was landed at such points in the estuary that made official detection
+well-nigh impossible. This is but a sample of the stories you may hear
+while yellow-faced Chinamen are serving your food, and it must be
+confessed that it affords a sense of confidence to know that the grates
+of the stairways are actually locked, and that the rifles of the guards
+are loaded with ball ammunition. As he sips his black coffee at the
+termination of luncheon, the captain assures you that until within a few
+years a skipper was suspicious alike of every native deck passenger and
+every fishing junk indicating a disposition to claim more than its share
+of the channel; "but the old days in China," he concludes, "have
+disappeared forever, and piracy as an occupation has passed with them."
+
+Getting back to the forepart of the ship, the views on land and sea are
+engrossingly interesting. On the shores of the mainland and on an
+occasional island are ancient forts which revive memories of interesting
+experiences of the white man's invasion of the Celestial kingdom, and
+the foreground of rice-fields is backed by interminable groves of
+mulberry-trees explaining China's preeminence as a silk producer.
+Numerous villages are passed, and from them the traveler obtains a fair
+idea of the rustic life of China. Now and again a pagoda is visible,
+crowning an elevation, and recalling childhood's school-book
+illustrations. You jump at the convenient conclusion that these
+structures of from six to ten stories had to do with the religion of the
+country, which surmise is erroneous, for the towers were reared to guard
+the geomantic properties of their respective neighborhoods, and in
+reality are relics of a bygone age of superstition.
+
+The pioneer European settlement of the Far East--Macao--is at last in
+sight, and it presents immediately a visual contrast to Canton, by
+reason of its picturesque situation. There is something about the
+promontory that takes you back to Southern Europe, to the summer sea and
+the shores of the Mediterranean, perhaps to a brightly situated fishing
+port of the littoral of the Riviera. As the vessel rounds the cape and
+comes to anchor in the pretty crescent formed by the Praia Grande,
+flanked by terraced houses colored with minor tints of blue and yellow,
+you know instantly that this stranded Eastern rainbow is Monte
+Carlo--no, the Oriental equivalent of the beauty-spot of Latin Europe.
+
+Macao is a little place large with history, in fact is an atom of Europe
+almost lost to public gaze by the vastness of Asia, and as much a part
+of the kingdom of Portugal as Lisbon itself. As the most enterprising
+maritime and trading nation of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese
+were the first to sail the Eastern seas, the first to open up
+commercial relations between Europe and the great empire of China, and
+holding the monopoly of all Oriental trade until the end of the
+eighteenth century. Owing to the prospect of increased gain, following
+on this European invasion, the waters of the Pearl River estuary soon
+became infested with pirates, which the Portuguese magnanimously
+assisted the Chinese government to subdue, and, in return, it is
+recorded, received in 1557 the cession of the rocky peninsula on which
+the Portuguese colony now stands. More than once Portugal had to
+maintain her rights by recourse to arms, but the colony has remained
+Portuguese without interruption for more than three hundred and fifty
+years, and is a hoary patriarch beside infantile British Hong Kong and
+German Tsing-tau. The oldest lighthouse on the coast of China is that of
+Guia, standing sentinel on the highest point of the Portuguese colony.
+
+The colony has a population of perhaps eighty thousand persons, and
+practically all these are Chinese. There are, of course, a few score of
+civil and judicial functionaries springing from the mother-country; and,
+as in all places where Europeans have long lived in friendly association
+with Orientals, the Eurasian class is strikingly numerous. In no court
+on the Tagus are the laws of Portugal construed with more tenacity and
+precision than in Macao's chambers of justice; and the flag of Portugal
+floats over the homes of hundreds of loyal subjects who know only in a
+hazy manner where Portugal really is--they are rich Chinese and others
+evading the Chinese tax collector, or escaping burdensome laws, and for
+many years these crafty Mongols have made a sort of political Gretna
+Green of Macao. Certain influential Chinamen carrying on business in
+Canton or other southern communities live in almost regal splendor in
+Macao, and when the minions of the Chinese government attempt to hale
+them before a tribunal of law, or compel them to share the expense of
+carrying on the administration of a province, they exclaim in Chinese,
+"Oh, no; I'm a subject of the King of Portugal"--and prove it. The great
+sugar planter of the Hawaiian Islands, Ah Fong, whose Eurasian daughters
+were beautiful and accomplished enough to find splendid American and
+European husbands, was a subject of the Portuguese crown, strange to
+say. His domicile on the Praia Grande is one of Macao's proudest
+mansions.
+
+[Illustration: FRONTIER GATE BETWEEN CHINA PROPER AND THE PORTUGUESE
+COLONY]
+
+The colony of Macao is scarcely more important than one of Anthony
+Hope's imaginary kingdoms, but for the fact that it is on the map, for
+the area of Portugal's foothold is not more than two or three miles in
+length, and a half-mile to a mile in width; it is merely the rocky
+promontory of the tip end of the island of Heung Shan. A wall of masonry
+with artistic gateway separates the dominion of Portugal from the great
+Chinese empire--on one side of the portal the law of the Emperor of
+China is absolute, and on the other the rule of the monarch of Portugal
+is sacred. In various ways the place and its people remind strongly
+of a comic-opera setting--but the officer there serving his far-away
+sovereign discourses with serious countenance of Goa, and Delagoa Bay
+and Macao as important colonial possessions. Until Hong Kong under the
+British began to rise as a port and base of commercial distribution,
+Macao had a considerable trade; but with the decline of business the
+harbor has silted up until now an oversea ship could not find anchorage.
+A few industries, like cement making and silk winding, are carried on in
+the outskirts of the colony, and a suspiciously large amount of prepared
+opium is shipped, although the closest observer can detect not a poppy
+under cultivation anywhere on the rocky promontory.
+
+The old Protestant cemetery contains many graves of good men and true,
+such as naval officers and seamen, who have died on Eastern seas, and
+whose comrades preferred to leave them interred in Christian soil rather
+than intrust their cherished remains to cemeteries in pagan lands. The
+headstones of Macao's God's-acre bear name after name once carried with
+pride on the rolls of the American, British or French naval and
+merchantman services, and diplomatic and consular titles are recorded on
+more than one headstone. It is interesting to scale the steps to inspect
+closely the fa�ade of the Jesuit church of San Paulo, erected some three
+hundred years ago. Nothing remains but the towering fa�ade, as erect as
+if reared yesterday, and bearing silent testimony to the courage of the
+pioneers in the Far East of the Catholic faith. A 'rickshaw journey
+through every important street, from the center where are the hotel and
+government buildings to the remotest patches of farming land near the
+"frontier," consumes scarcely two hours. In the public park you come not
+infrequently upon statues with tablets informing all observers of the
+importance and majesty of the home country welded to the peninsula of
+Europe, once famed for the intrepidity of its navigators and
+adventurers. If Macao move the visitor to voice an opinion, it is that
+under certain conditions which you might name the place could be a
+veritable paradise, but that benevolent Portugal is there conducting an
+earthly Nirvana for all and sundry of China's affluent sons mustering
+the ingenuity and influence to gain shelter beneath the flag of dear old
+Portugal.
+
+Macao's claim to renown rests chiefly upon the fact that Portugal's
+greatest bard, Camoens, there wrote in part or its entirety the immortal
+"Lusiad," which in epic form details the prowess of the sons of ancient
+Lusitania in Eastern discovery and oversea feats of daring, and in which
+work the voyages and discoveries of Vasco da Gama are recorded with the
+fidelity of a history prepared by a sympathetic admirer. As scholars
+know, the "Lusiad" was first published in 1572, is in ten cantos and
+1102 stanzas, and is translated into most modern languages. Important
+American and English libraries possess it by at least four translators,
+each being more or less a standard.
+
+[Illustration: BUST OF CAMOENS, MACAO]
+
+The life of the great poet is underlaid with romance and sadness. Born
+at Lisbon about 1524, he was given an education fitting him for a
+courtier's life, and it was an unfortunate affection for a high-born
+donna in attendance upon the queen that caused him to be banished from
+the land of his birth. After a roystering career as a soldier in Africa,
+he sought shelter at Goa, in India. There he wrote a volume severely
+castigating the home government for its official abuses in the East, and
+this led to his being treated by his countrymen as a traitor and
+outcast. Now in a Goa prison, now at liberty, he at last went to Macao,
+and it was there that by his pen he redeemed to some extent his good
+name, to the extent certainly of being permitted to return to Lisbon,
+and there he died about 1580, poor and neglected. It is insisted that
+Camoens's influence and efforts preserved the Portuguese language from
+destruction during the Spanish occupation of the neighboring country,
+and it is a fact that before 1770 no less than thirty-eight editions of
+the "Lusiad" were published in Portugal.
+
+To commemorate the eight or ten years he passed in Macao, a public
+garden is named for him, and there, in a grotto of impressive grandeur,
+is a bust of the man singing the praises of his natal country as no
+other writer in verse or prose has ever succeeded in doing. The bronze
+effigy rests on a plinth upon which is engraved in three languages these
+lines from the pen of a pilgrim to the Eastern shrine once hallowed by
+the presence of the bard of a nation:
+
+    Gem of the Orient earth and open sea
+    Macao! that in thy lap and on thy breast
+    Hast gathered beauties all the loveliest
+    O'er which the sun smiles in his majesty.
+
+    The very clouds that top the mountain crest
+    Seem to repose there lingering lovingly.
+    How full of grace the green Cathyan tree
+    Bends to the breeze and how thy sands are prest
+    With gentlest waves which ever and anon
+    Break their awakened furies on thy shore.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Were these the scenes that poet looked upon,
+    Whose lyre though known to fame knew misery more?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    They have their glories and earth's diadems
+    Have nought so bright as genius' gilded gems.
+
+The lines were written by Sir John Bowring, English scholar and
+traveler, who visited Macao in the latter half of the last century, and
+the expense of the memorial and its grounds was borne by a patriotic
+Portuguese, Loren�o Marques, whose name has been preserved by being
+given to the seaport on Delagoa Bay in Portuguese East Africa.
+
+For a place whose commerce is notoriously in eclipse, you are curious to
+learn whence springs the golden shower giving the appearance of
+prosperity to Macao, for the general air of the colony suggests an easy
+affluence. To keep the governor's palace and the judiciary buildings
+covered with paint costs something, you know, while the paved streets
+and bridges and viaducts give support to the surmise of an exchequer not
+permanently depleted. Portugal, nowadays almost robbing Peter to pay
+Paul, is in no condition to succor an impecunious colony situated in
+another hemisphere, you are aware, and you appeal for elucidation of the
+fiscal problem. "Very easy, dear sir," your cicerone promptly rejoins,
+"this is the Monte Carlo of the Far East. Gambling is here a
+business--all the business there is, and the concessions for the fan-tan
+and lottery monopolies pay for everything, practically making taxation
+unnecessary."
+
+The statement would cause something of a shock to a guileless stranger,
+especially to one who had believed he had perceived a natural likeness
+between the little principality on the Mediterranean and this beauty
+spot of the Orient. But China is rather too far to the eastward of Suez
+for simon-pure guile, and the globe-trotter decides to thoroughly
+explore local conditions by way of adding to his worldly knowledge. If
+you go to the post-office to mail a letter, you recognize perforce how
+backward a colony of Portugal may be in supplying the trifling
+requirements of life, for you stand minutes in a nondescript line before
+your stamp is sheared from a sheet by a functionary having a capacity
+for activity possibly rivaled by an Alpine glacier--then you wait at the
+communal mucilage pot to secure in turn the required adhesive substance.
+A good correspondent in Macao would pass half his time at the
+post-office, you conclude.
+
+But there is nothing backward, nothing harking back to the middle ages,
+in the plan by which the public cash-box is filled, you learn after
+plodding investigation. The merits of direct and indirect taxation, even
+of the Henry George program for raising the public wind, have never been
+seriously considered by Portugal's administrators in the East, nor has
+municipal ownership of utilities been discussed, you discover. The
+official bigwigs who administer Macao know that it is as necessary for
+the Chinaman to gamble as to have food--and the colony accordingly
+legalizes fan-tan and semi-daily lotteries, supplies the requisite
+machinery for carrying on the games, and reaps a _benefice_ for its
+enterprise that runs the community without further ado. That is all
+there is to Macao's fiscal policy. Hong Kong, only forty miles across
+the estuary, bristles with commercial prosperity. The British government
+permits Hong Kongers to bet on horse-races, buy and sell stocks, and
+promote devious companies, but forbids fan-tan and lotteries. There is,
+consequently, a daily flow of men, women, and dollars between Hong Kong
+and Macao. Besides, no traveler not actively engaged in uplifting his
+fellow-man, feels that he has seen the Orient unless he passes a few
+hours or days in endeavoring to lure fortune at the gambling tables.
+
+The colonial lottery is no more dignified or important than a policy
+game in an American town, and seems to be but the Western idea clouded
+by its adaptation to Asiatic uses, tourists affirm.
+
+Macao licenses twenty fan-tan places, and these run all day and all
+night, and are graded in their patrons from tourists and natives of
+fortune and position down to joints admitting 'rickshaw coolies,
+sailors, and harbor riffraff. The gilded establishment claiming
+attention from travelers is conducted by a couple of Chinese worthies,
+by name Ung Hang and Hung Vo, according to the business card
+deferentially handed you at your hotel, and the signs in front of it and
+the legends painted on great lanterns proclaim it as a first-chop _Casa
+de Jogo_, and a gambling-house that is "No. 1" in all respects. The
+gamesters whose garments proclaim them to be middle-class Chinamen pack
+themselves like sardines into the room where the table is situated, for
+they obviously believe in watching their interests at close hand. The
+floor above, by reason of the rail-protected opening in the center, is
+little more than a spacious gallery; but it is there that the big
+gamblers congregate, natives in costly fabrics, and whose rotund bodies
+tell of lives not spent in toil. They loll on blackwood divans and smoke
+opium and send their bank-notes and commands to the gambling table by
+servants, until yielding to the exalted dreams induced by the poppy
+fumes. They are polite fellows, every man of them, and make it apparent
+that they would like to do something for the entertainment of each man
+and woman tourist in the room.
+
+In this strange establishment globe-trotting novices sit around the
+railed opening and make their bets on the game below through an
+interpreter attendant. This obliging man lowers your coins to the
+croupier in a basket, and draws up any "bet" you may have had the luck
+to win. And what a medley of coins you are paid in! There are coins of
+China and Japan obsolete years ago in those countries, money of the
+Philippine Islands, even nickles and dimes whose worth has been stamped
+by Uncle Sam. It is said that half the pocket-pieces of Asia find their
+way onto the gambling boards of Macao, and that a thrifty croupier seeks
+to pay them out to the tourist who will remove them from local
+circulation. The linguistic representative of the management endeavors
+to play the bountiful host to most visitors. He takes one through the
+building, permits you to peep within a chamber filled with oleaginous
+Chinamen in brocade petticoats, sleeping off the effects of the opium
+pipe, explains painted fans and other attempts at decoration on the
+walls, and indicates a retiring room where you may rest or even pass the
+night, all without charge.
+
+[Illustration: IN A FAN-TAN GAMBLING HOUSE, MACAO]
+
+Then he orders refreshments brought, and with the manner of a veteran
+courtier proffers a tray heaped with oranges, an egg-shell cup filled
+with tea that is almost without color, and dried watermelon seeds that
+you might munch after the manner of the neck-or-nothing gamblers on the
+lower floor. When you politely decline these, the courtly one most
+likely says, "You no likee tea and seeds--then have whiskysoda." Chinese
+courtezans, with feet bound to a smallness making locomotion difficult
+and obviously painful, wearing what in the Western World would be called
+"trousers," and invariably bedecked with earrings or bracelets of
+exquisite jade, edge their way to the gambling table, and put their
+money down in handfuls as long as it lasts. To spend an evening in the
+liberally-conducted establishment of Messrs. Ung Hang and Hung Vo is
+enlightening in various ways.
+
+Because fan-tan is the passion of Asiatics, the popular idea is that it
+must be the wickedest of all games, if not the most complicated. Fan-tan
+as a fact is simplicity itself, being no more than the counting off into
+units of four several quarts of little metal discs called "cash," until
+there remain one, two, three or four discs. The result determines what
+bets, laid about a four-sided space on the table, win--a single
+remaining "cash" makes the 1-side win, two the 2-side, and so on. Each
+hazard is a one-to-three wager, and the bank pays on this basis after
+deducting the recognized percentage supporting the establishment.
+Spinning a top with four numbered sides would accomplish in a minute the
+same result as the tedious counting of a heap of discs, varying with
+every "deal" according to the whim or superstition of the players, who
+may add to or take from the pile prior to the beginning of the count. It
+is fortunate for the millions of the conservative Far East that their
+principal gambling game is not a quick one, like roulette, for the
+player of fan-tan gets "action" only about once in every ten minutes. At
+roulette and most other games favored by white men a gambler knows his
+fate in a minute.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE KAISER'S PLAY FOR CHINESE TRADE
+
+
+Having no voice in the controversy leading to the war, Germany should
+have remained neutral throughout the bitter Russo-Japanese conflict.
+Germany was neutral so far as official proprieties went; but in sympathy
+and numberless unofficial acts she aided and abetted Russia to a degree
+unsurpassed by the Bear's plighted ally, France. It is a fact
+incontrovertible that from the commencement of hostilities the German
+Emperor was as pro-Russian as any wearer of the Czar's uniform, and most
+German bankers and ship-owners found it easy to take the cue from Berlin
+and view situations of international procedure in a manner permitting
+them to reap golden benefits. Teuton bankers took the lead in financing
+the Russian cause, and whenever Russia was forced to purchase ships to
+augment her fleet, these were always found in Germany. When the Czar
+despatched his squadrons to the Far East, they were coaled practically
+throughout the long journey from German colliers. And in other helpful
+ways Germany officiated as the handmaiden of Russia.
+
+The Kaiser's favoritism was infectious throughout his empire, and had
+the contending armies and fleets in the Far East been equally matched,
+with the outcome hanging in the balance, the influence of William II
+could have swayed the continent of Europe in Russia's favor, and a great
+moral advantage would thereby have accrued to Russia that would have
+been difficult to overcome. Why? Because the Kaiser is the strongest,
+most influential, and cleverest potentate in Europe. Splendid exemplar
+of the war-lord idea, he is really the peer of diplomatists, a ruler
+whose utterances are to-day weighed and discussed as are those of none
+other. Understanding the value of words, and a coiner of subtle phrases,
+an epigram from the Kaiser contrasting the destiny and rights of the
+"white man" and the "yellow man" would probably have isolated the
+British as Japan's only sympathizers in the Old World, had it been made
+at an opportune time.
+
+But the psychological moment never came--there was a hitch somewhere in
+Asia, and Kuropatkin's genius was expended in masterly retreats; all the
+triumphs on land and sea were those of the little men under the sun
+flag. Finally came a mighty engagement, and William hastened to decorate
+the Russian loser and the Japanese victor. But the point was strained;
+the public perceived this. As a result, the incident fell flatter than
+the anticlimax of a melodrama played to empty seats.
+
+The Kaiser's chagrin was great. But it need not have been, for the march
+of events in the East was proving him simply to be mortal--he had
+failed to pick the winner, and was gradually becoming aware of it. A
+plunger in a sporting event perceives an error of judgment in a few
+minutes, usually. With the War-Lord of Germany it required the lapse of
+months to convince him of the sad fact that Japan would win in the great
+struggle.
+
+Why War-Lord, as an appellation for the august William? Adept in the art
+of warfare he surely is; but have not the Fatherland's victories under
+his rule been those of peace, and those only? Has Germany been involved
+in strife possessing the dignity of war since he came to the throne? Has
+she not, on the other hand, made headway in trade and sea transportation
+under his guidance that has no parallel in the history of a European
+state? Yes, emphatically. And are not the words "Made in Germany" so
+painfully familiar throughout two thirds of the globe, especially in
+Great Britain and her possessions, that they strike terror to Britons
+who study with apprehension the statistics of England's waning trade?
+This is true, also. And Suez Canal returns prove that the users of the
+waterway under Britain's red flag are yearly less numerous, while the
+number of German ships is steadily growing.
+
+[Illustration: TYPICAL BUSINESS STREET IN A CHINESE CITY]
+
+Then why not Trade-Lord, for this is what the German Emperor is? It is
+the better appellation, and more truthfully descriptive. It surely is
+creditable to the German people that their national progress is due to
+habits of industry and thrift, rather than to military display: the
+artisan, not the drill-master, is making Germany great.
+
+And could Trade-Lord William be honestly called "astute" if he
+overlooked the fact, obvious as a mountain, that one of the stakes in
+the Russo-Japanese conflict would be the privilege amounting almost to
+right, to commercially exploit the most populous country on God's
+footstool--China? More than one fourth of the people of the earth are
+Chinese, and their country at the present time is more primitive, in the
+scarcity of railways, telegraphs, public utilities, and every provision
+conducing to comfort and common-sense living, than any other land
+pretending to civilization. It is a fact that outside of Shanghai,
+Canton, Pekin and Tientsin, the people do not want many of the products
+of the outer world; but it is a truism that much profit accrues from
+teaching Asiatics to "want" modern products.
+
+The German Emperor foresaw that China could not much longer resist the
+invasion of outside enterprise and trade; and to his mind there could
+have been no suspicion of doubt that the victor in the awful contest
+could and would dictate trade terms and privileges everywhere in the
+Celestial Empire. If Japan won, the Japanese would surely exploit
+commercially their great neighbor, whose written language is nearly
+identical with their own--this would be but natural to the Mikado's
+people, teeming with aptitude as manufacturers and traders, and
+recognizing the necessity for recouping outlay in the war.
+
+If Russia were successful, her reward would be the validating of her
+hold upon Manchuria, the bundling of the Japs out of Korea, and the
+attainment to a position of controlling influence in China's political
+affairs. The supplying of articles of general manufacture and commerce
+to the 400,000,000 people of China could have been no part of Russia's
+aspiration, for the reason that Russia is not a manufacturing country
+and has but little to sell. Her enormous tea bill to China is paid
+yearly in money, even. A nation seeking in time to control the whole of
+Asia couldn't bother with commercial matters, certainly not. Yet, one of
+the fruits of victory in the war would have been the splendid
+opportunity to exploit trade everywhere in China--a privilege of
+priceless value.
+
+What country was to benefit through this, with Russia's moral support
+and permission, had the Czar's legions been successful?
+
+France? Hardly; for the French were bound by hard and fast alliance, and
+it had never been the policy at St. Petersburg to give anything material
+to France. Uncle Sam, whose people had financed half the war loans of
+Japan, could scarcely hope to extend his business in China with Russia's
+cooperation; nor could Japan's ally and moral supporter, John Bull.
+
+Who, then, could stand in a likelier position to become legatee of this
+valued privilege than the Trade-Lord of Germany? The Emperor William had
+been Russia's "best friend" from the inception of the war, and was
+admittedly an adept in promoting trade, for his people had attained in
+a few years to an envied position in the commerce of the world. A
+quarter of the trade of "awakened" China would make Germany a vast
+workshop, a hive of industry. And this was precisely what the astute
+Hohenzollern saw through the smoke of battle in far-away Manchuria. He
+saw a prosperous Germany if the Slav crushed the yellow man. To say he
+did not would be a libel upon a giant intellect.
+
+Any one disposed to review practically certain incidents in the recent
+history of Germany may develop a dozen reasons why the Emperor should
+seek to make his country all important through trade conquest. Let it be
+remembered that the Kaiser chafes at barriers of every kind, and that
+there is a boundlessness in his nature at times trying to his patience.
+He looks at the map of the German Empire and painfully admits that the
+present frontiers and area are practically those bequeathed by the great
+William. To a divine-right monarch this is exasperating. The loftiest
+ambition of a sovereign is to have the national area expand under his
+rule.
+
+William's medieval temperament shudders at the crowded condition of the
+earth in this twentieth century, when all frontiers appear immovable.
+Had he lived in the days of the Crusaders his valiant sword would
+probably have brought all Palestine under German control; and had he
+been a free agent when Bonapartism collapsed he most likely would have
+carried the German standard to the Mediterranean, perhaps to Stamboul.
+The ironical fact is that the German Emperor has had rebuffs and
+disappointments in his efforts to expand his realm. The Monroe Doctrine,
+excluding his empire from even a coaling station in this hemisphere, is
+to the Kaiser a perpetual nightmare. Sturdy sons of the Fatherland
+control the trade of more than one republic in South and Central
+America, but nowhere is it possible to unfurl the standard of Germany
+over "colony" or "sphere of influence." To forcibly back up his
+subjects' pecuniary rights in the American hemisphere, even, the
+approval of the government at Washington has first to be obtained. In
+his heart the Kaiser loathes the doctrine of Monroe; that is obvious.
+
+It is twenty years since Germany began to build up a colonial empire in
+Africa, and the net result is that, after spending some hundred million
+dollars, she has acquired over a hundred million square miles of
+territory, with a sparsely scattered German population of between five
+and six thousand souls. A third of the adult white population is
+represented by officials and soldiers. Militarism is rampant everywhere,
+with the result that the white settler shuns German colonies as he would
+the plague. The keen-witted Kaiser long ago saw that empire-building in
+the Dark Continent could produce nothing but expense during his
+lifetime.
+
+[Illustration: EXHIBITION OF BODIES OF CHINESE MALEFACTORS WHO HAVE BEEN
+STRANGLED]
+
+"To perdition with the Monroe Doctrine, and with African tribes blind to
+the excellence of German-made wares," the Kaiser might have said ten
+years ago: "I'll have sweet revenge upon all and sundry by capturing
+trade everywhere--I'll make Germany the workshop of the universe. Keep
+your territory, if you like; I'll get the trade! Bah, Monroe Doctrine!
+Bah, grinning Senegambians!"
+
+The resolute Trade-Lord then turned his face to the bountiful Orient,
+pregnant with resource beyond the dreams of avarice, teeming with
+hundreds of millions of people. The East had made England dominant in
+the world's affairs. Keeping his soldiers at home, the Kaiser hurled a
+legion of trade-getters into the Far East, planting commercial outposts
+in Ceylon, sending a flying column of bagmen and negotiators to India
+and the Straits Settlements, and distributing a numerical division of
+business agents throughout China. The Empire of the Celestials was made
+the focal point of a great propaganda, openly espoused by the Emperor.
+
+It was readily demonstrated that Great Britain had no permanent control
+of commerce in the East, not even in her own possessions. The Teuton,
+for a time content with trifling profit, underbid all rivals--and orders
+and contracts poured into Germany. Belgian products competed only in
+price; and American manufacturers seemed too busy in providing goods for
+home use to seriously try for business in Asia--they booked orders
+coming practically unsought, that was about all. The Chino-Japanese
+conflict of a dozen years ago, although disastrous to China's army,
+stimulated the absorbing power of the Chinese for goods of western
+manufacture, and Germany sold her wares right and left.
+
+Important steamship lines were then subsidized by the German government
+to maintain regular services between Germany and the Far East, carrying
+goods and passengers at reasonable charges: and it was known that in his
+personal capacity the Emperor had become a large shareholder in one of
+them. Germany was prospering, and the Trade-Lord and his lieutenants
+were happy. All recognized the possibilities of Oriental business. China
+was preparing to throw off the conservatism and lethargy of centuries,
+and trade was the key-note of everything pertaining to Germany's
+relations with the Pekin government. German diplomatists on service in
+China were instructed to employ every good office to induce German
+business, and the Kaiser himself selected and instructed consular
+officials going to the Flowery Kingdom. Able commercial attaches, with
+capacity for describing trade conditions, were maintained there, and
+required to be as industrious as beavers. For trade-promoting capacity
+German consuls in China have no equal--and they all know that the
+Kaiser's interest in Chinese trade amounts to mania.
+
+The assassination in the streets of Pekin, in 1900, of Minister von
+Kettler, Germany's envoy, and the subsequent sending of an imperial
+prince of China to Berlin to express the regrets of the Chinese
+government, strengthened materially the Kaiser's hold upon Chinese
+affairs. Reiteration from Washington of the "open door" in China struck
+no terror to the Kaiser, justified in believing he could hold his
+position against all comers. As proof of this belief he might point to
+German steamers in Hong Kong and Shanghai literally vomiting forth each
+week thousands of tons of goods "Made in Germany," penetrating every
+section of China even to the upper waters of the Yang-tse. A few years
+ago nearly all this trade was exclusively British.
+
+The question of Chinese exclusion and the threatened boycott of American
+goods by China was the occasion of anxiety in this country--but none in
+Germany. It is well appreciated that the spread of the sentiment in the
+East that the United States is unjust to Chinamen of the better class
+might undo the splendid work of Secretary Hay in cultivating the
+friendship of the Celestial Empire by standing fast for China's
+administrative entity and insisting on the "open door" policy.
+
+Knowing that the "awakening" of China would be one of the results of the
+war, the Master Mind in Berlin had not long to consider where the
+interest of Germany lay, for he well knew that if they conquered, the
+Japs might in a few years supply the kindred Chinese with practically
+every article needed from abroad.
+
+If Russia won, then "Best Friend" William of Germany, one of the most
+irresistible forces in the world, would have a freer hand in China than
+ever--and this would mean a prosperous Germany for years to come.
+
+By directing the sympathies of the German people to the Russian side,
+the Kaiser played a trump card in statecraft, certainly. As a soldier,
+William II must have known the fighting ability and prowess of the
+little men of Japan, for German officers had for years been the
+instructors of the Mikado's army--but the public attitude of the head of
+a government must ever be that which best serves the State. Whatever the
+chagrin at Berlin over Russia's defeat, a battle royal will be needed
+for Japan to overcome Germany's lead in Chinese trade; but in time Japan
+will have this, provided she is well advised and has the tact to play
+fair with Uncle Sam and his commercial rights.
+
+What of the German colony in China--Kiau-chau, on the east coast of the
+Shan-tung peninsula, whose forts frown upon the Yellow Sea? Is there
+anything like it, strategically and trade wise, in the East? When the
+Kaiser's glance falls upon the map of Kiau-chau, and he recalls the ease
+with which he segregated from Pekin's rule a goodly piece of old China,
+he may be irreverently moved to the extent of again snapping his fingers
+at the Monroe Doctrine, and at millions of simple Africans who refuse to
+eat German foods and wear not a stitch of German fabrics. Kiau-chau
+represents the cleverest feat of colony-building the world has seen
+since the great powers declared a closure to land-grabbing in the East.
+
+[Illustration: SIMPLE PUNISHMENT OF A CHINESE MENDICANT]
+
+When some German missionaries were murdered a few years since in China,
+the Kaiser, ever an opportunist, was justly angry, and Pekin shuddered
+at the possibility of national castigation. "Could the Mighty One at
+Berlin condone the offense if China gave Germany a harbor to be used as
+coaling station and naval headquarters?" "Possibly; but how can China
+bestow territory, in view of the American government's certainty to
+insist that there be no parceling of China, none whatever!"
+
+"Easily managed," was the reply. "It need not be a transfer of
+territory, but a 'lease,' say for ninety-nine years. This would save
+China's 'face,' and not disturb the powers."
+
+Hence a "lease" was prepared for all the territory bounded in a
+semi-circle drawn fifteen miles from Kiau-chau bay--a goodly piece in
+all conscience. Then came _pourparlers_ for greater German authority,
+and more territory. As a consequence, in a supplementary document signed
+at Pekin, it was additionally agreed that "in a further zone thirty
+miles from all points of the leased territory the Chinese government
+shall no longer for a space of ninety-nine years be entitled to take any
+step without previous authorization from the German government."
+
+This amounted in substance to saying farewell on China's part to a slice
+of domain in all more than twice the size of the state of Rhode Island.
+The "sphere of influence," so-called, measures 2,750 square miles.
+Germany was given as well the equivalent of sovereignty over the harbor
+of Kiau-chau, no end of mining and railway rights, and other privileges.
+The lease dates from March 6th, 1898. England was to give Wei-haiwei
+back to China should Russia retire or be driven from Port Arthur, but
+has not done so. In all probability Germany, as well as Great Britain,
+is located on the Yellow Sea under a tenure that will be found to be
+permanent.
+
+Kiau-chau harbor is one of the most spacious and best protected on the
+coast of China. The small native town of Tsing-tau, admirably situated
+on the harbor, was adopted by Germany as the seat of government, and all
+the appurtenances of a military and naval station have there been
+erected. A look of permanency characterizes every structure. The house
+of the naval governor is even pretentious. The capital is laid out with
+generous regard to broad streets, designated on name-plates as
+"strasses." A bank and hotels await the coming of business. The harbor
+has been dredged, and two miles of the best wharves in Asia constructed
+of masonry. Warehouses, barracks, hospitals, administrative buildings
+and coal sheds are there, all in German style, and intended to last
+hundreds of years.
+
+Tsing-tau as a seat of deputed government may not have found its way
+into school-books--but the inquisitive traveler in Northeast China
+readily learns of its existence. Perhaps it is meant to be complimentary
+to China to retain the name Tsing-tau--but that is all about the place
+that is Chinese, save the coolies executing the white man's behest.
+There are 3,000 Europeans, almost exclusively Germans, in William II's
+capital on Kiau-chau Bay. Soldiers and officials predominate, of course,
+but merchant and industrial experts are in the pioneer band in
+conspicuous number.
+
+And what of the "hinterland," compassed by the 45-mile semicircle,
+dotted with thirty odd native towns, the whole having a population of
+1,200,000? This patch of China is surely in process of being awakened:
+there are numerous schools wherein European missionaries are teaching
+the German language, and enterprise greets the eye everywhere.
+Locomotives "Made in Germany" screech warnings to Chinese yokels to
+clear the way for trains heavy with merchandise of German origin--and
+this is but an incident in the great scheme of Germanizing the Chinese
+Empire. Incidentally, it is provided by the agreement between the Pekin
+and Berlin governments that a native land-owner in the leased section
+can sell only to the German authorities. This ruling conveys a meaning
+perfectly clear.
+
+Less than a hundred miles up-country are the enormous coal fields of
+Weihsien and Poshan, by agreement worked with German capital, and
+connected with the harbor by railways built with German money and so
+devoted to Teutonic interests that the name of the company is spread on
+the cars in the language of the dear old Fatherland. The whole is a
+magnificent piece of propagandism, surely.
+
+And what is back of it? What is the purpose of the appropriation of
+14,000,000 marks for Kiau-chau in last year's official budget of the
+German government? Trade, little else; and Trade spelled best with a
+large T. Kiau-chau is a free port, like Hamburg. Why not make it the
+Hamburg of the East? is the question asked wherever German merchants
+foregather and affairs of the nation are discussed. From the standpoint
+of German trade, an Eastern Hamburg is alluring and laudatory--but few
+American manufactures, let it be plainly stated, will penetrate China
+through a gateway so controlled.
+
+America's seeming indifference to Chinese trade, let it plainly be
+stated, is the only solace that commercial Europe is finding in our
+wonderful national growth. The subject is almost never referred to in
+the columns of British journals, nor in those of Germany, France, or
+Belgium. But manufacturers and exporters of these countries need no spur
+from their newspapers--without the accompaniment of beating drums all
+are seeking to make the Chinese their permanent customers. And,
+buttressed by undeniable advantages, Japan takes up the quest and means
+to spread her goods, largely fabricated from Uncle Sam's raw products,
+wherever the tenant of the earth be a Mongol.
+
+[Illustration: CHINESE BUDDHIST PRIESTS]
+
+Could a human being be more complaisant, more materially philanthropic,
+than the United States manufacturer or other producer? He surely cannot
+be blind to the undebatable fact that America cannot always wax
+opulent on home trade alone; he must know that in time we are certain to
+reach a period of overproduction, when it will aid the nation to have
+alien peoples for customers of our mills and workshops. Every land in
+Asia east of Singapore can be commercially exploited by the United
+States more easily, and with greater success, than by any other people,
+if the task be gone about systematically and practically.
+
+The Chinese envoy of a few years ago to Washington, Minister Wu, said
+many wise things, and no epigram fell from his lips containing a
+profounder sermon for the American people than when he remarked that two
+inches added to the length of the skirts of every Chinese would double
+the market value of every pound of cotton.
+
+Small as it was, our commerce in China was severely lessened last year,
+not alone by the boycott, but through the enterprise shown by other
+nations having a share in Celestial trade. The cotton cloth exports of
+the United States to China and Manchuria for the nine months ending
+September 30 fell off by over ten million dollars as compared with the
+same period of 1905. The respective amounts were $15,416,152 and
+$25,566,286. The Chinese buyers gave preference to the British, taking
+$34,245,129 worth of cotton fabrics from the United Kingdom for the
+first nine months of 1906, a decrease of $3,770,584 from last year. The
+British loss on bleached and gray goods was about half that of America's
+total loss, but the English exporters made up a large part of the
+shortage by much larger sales of printed and dyed goods. But while
+America remained almost stationary last year in selling cotton
+manufactures to the world, Great Britain made a tremendous stride. Her
+cotton fabric exports for the first nine months of 1906 were valued at a
+little more than two hundred and seventy-six million dollars, an
+increase of about twenty million dollars over the same period of 1905,
+and of nearly fifty million dollars over the first nine months of 1904.
+This was accomplished almost wholly by marketing wares wrought from
+fiber grown in our Southern States, let it be remembered.
+
+And what would happen to British trade, let us inquire, were America to
+cease exporting raw cotton, to permit our staple to emerge from our land
+in a manufactured state, only?
+
+The mere suggestion of the thing is sufficient to cause a cold shudder
+to play down the spinal column of John Bull. But the American people
+will never play the game of commerce in that way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+JAPAN'S COMMERCIAL FUTURE
+
+
+A nation has risen in the Far East that is earning high place among
+enlightened governments, and in all probability the new-comer may
+already be entitled to permanently rank with the first-class powers of
+the earth. Japan is day by day a growing surprise to the world.
+
+That the diminutive Island Empire should have been able to humble the
+Muscovite pride was no greater marvel than that she should in a brief
+half-century advance from the position of a weak and unknown country to
+the station of a highly civilized nation. The government of the Mikado
+is to-day the best exponent of Asiatic progressiveness. And of a people
+with a capacity to perform in two generations such amazing things who
+shall dare say what to them is impossible?
+
+Europe has never been in joyful mood over the rise in Japanese prestige,
+and she was more than reluctant to recognize the New Japan as the
+dominant force in the East. That a yellow people should claim fellowship
+with European countries guided by houses of lofty lineage was never
+believed to be possible. Continental Europe was unprepared to admit
+that Japan's triumph proved anything beyond a genius in the art of war
+that was nothing short of a menace to the rest of mankind, and that luck
+and geographical position helped the Mikado's legions in all ways. The
+great Hohenzollern spoke of the Japanese as the "scourge of God"; in
+France the "yellow peril"--a phrase really made in Germany--was
+seriously debated; while Russia many times sought sympathy from the
+Christian world on the ground that she was fighting the white man's
+battle against paganism. Solitary in her preference for the Japanese,
+expressed in the form of an astute and fortunate alliance, England
+gloried when her Oriental ally revealed the weakness of the vaunted
+power of the north that had dared to cast covetous eyes at India. All
+these nations hold Asiatic possessions, each has aspired to have a say
+in Chinese affairs, and each confesses to having a panacea for the
+innumerable ills of the Celestial Empire--each is hungry, likewise, to
+extend her trade with the awakening Orient.
+
+Japan intruded, and deranged the plans of all and sundry for rousing
+China to a realization of her greatness; and in all human probability
+Japan will do for herself what several European powers wanted to do for
+Asia. Japan can always justify her claim that she was driven to war to
+preserve her national existence, by pointing to her rapidly-increasing
+population, existing in an archipelago incapable of producing food for
+even two thirds of her people, since every possibility of obtaining a
+foothold on the adjacent continent had been cut off by self-imposed
+Russian rule. There was no room for expansion, that was clear.
+
+When Japan shattered the strength of Russia she gained many coveted
+advantages. One of these was the opportunity to commercialize
+neighboring Korea, a goodly section of Manchuria, and practically the
+whole of China--enough to recoup the war's outlay; and once entered
+upon, why not perfect and extend the enterprise wherever she might,
+thereby providing occupation for her increasing millions of people?
+
+For a long time to come Japan will remain conspicuously in the public
+eye, but her achievements and victories hereafter are to be those of
+peace. Her scheme for national betterment, already well under way, is as
+thoughtfully prepared as was her war program. The Mikado's people
+emerged from the Russian conflict with energies enormously aroused, and
+a few months later every condition was favorable to a realization of the
+dream of empire giving to Japan an importance amounting almost to
+sovereignty over a vast section of the Far East. The new treaty with
+Great Britain, which Germans claimed to be anything but altruistic, is
+having a steadying influence on the policy of the Tokyo government.
+
+With the conversion of Japan from war to peace, the process of fiscal
+recuperation and industrial development has been observed by students of
+Eastern affairs with the keenest interest. The debt of the nation at the
+close of the war in 1905 was approximately $870,000,000, which sum,
+apportioned among Nippon's 47,000,000 inhabitants, was $18.71 per
+capita. The amount properly chargeable to the campaign was $600,000,000,
+or thereabouts. A characteristic of the war commanding widespread
+attention was that the Japanese side was conducted from start to finish
+on the soundest financial principles, with her credit abroad scarcely
+lessened by successive bond issues. It was the criticism of students of
+finance that Japan conducted her campaign throughout on a gold basis, as
+if exploiting a vast commercial program, without subjecting herself to
+usurious commissions, and without resorting to the issuance of fiat or
+negligible currency. The financing of the Asiatic side of the great
+Russo-Japanese conflict was certainly as businesslike as anything ever
+done by a European power compelled to raise funds by foreign bond sales.
+
+[Illustration: BRONZE DAIBUTSU AT KAMAKURA, JAPAN]
+
+When a candid history of the war is penned, the writer must perforce
+acknowledge the "luck" attaching to Japan when Russia expelled the Jews,
+and when thousands of that faith were ruthlessly slaughtered at
+Kishineff. Whether the purse-strings of the world are controlled by
+Hebrew bankers may be a moot question, but it was a fact distinctly
+clear that Japan could place her bonds in any money-lending country in
+the world, while Russia could scarcely raise a rouble upon her foreign
+credit. Even Germany, the sentimental ally of Russia, almost begged for
+the privilege of lending to Japan. There was no disputing that the great
+Hebraic banking houses of London, New York and Frankfort found it an
+easy task to supply the Mikado's country with every needed sinew of war,
+and the massacres of Kishineff may have been avenged in a measure at
+Port Arthur and Mukden.
+
+The ambitious and sturdy people of Japan are indisposed to regard the
+war debt as an excessive burden, and it is their determination to treat
+their bonded obligations as a spur to active industry. It must be
+confessed that Japan's debt is but a trifle less than that of the United
+States, and is carried at double the interest rates of the American
+debt; and further, that Japan's total area is smaller than that of our
+state of California. The portentous aspect of the national obligation of
+Japan is that it must absorb in interest charges fully a third of the
+empire's income for many years of peace and prosperity to come.
+
+A large part of the debt incurred before the war was for public works,
+most of which are productive. Funds realized from early loans, both
+foreign and domestic, as well as a portion of the income from the
+indemnity earned by the war with China, were invested in commercial
+enterprises owned or fostered by the empire, and the government receives
+a considerable benefit from the public railways, tobacco monopoly,
+woolen mills, and a few other industrial ventures. The railways are
+extremely profitable, and the large sums spent in the creation of
+post-offices, telephone and telegraph lines, port facilities, etc., have
+proved wise investments.
+
+Observers of national statistics have long known that a country without
+heavy indebtedness amounts to little in a worldly and industrial sense.
+Abundantly solvent, France has a debt averaging $151.70 per person, and
+the United Kingdom (Great Britain and Ireland), a pro rata debt of
+$91.80. Portugal owes $143.82 per subject, Holland $90.74, and Belgium
+$75.63. The heaviest governmental obligation is that of Australia,
+averaging $263.90 per inhabitant; and the lightest responsibility among
+important nations is that of the United States, gradually lessening, now
+standing at but $10.93. Our Cuban neighbors, owing $21.88 per capita,
+make little complaint of fiscal burden. Whether a debt be burdensome or
+otherwise depends as much upon the character of the people as upon
+natural resources. Decaying Portugal could not by industry liberate
+herself from pecuniary thraldom in a century, while the Japanese
+probably could liquidate every obligation in fifteen years, were they
+pressed to do so.
+
+No country can present a better foundation for industrial and commercial
+development at this time than Japan, and the signing at Portsmouth of
+the peace agreement marked the beginning of an era of national growth
+that may challenge the admiration of the world as did the feats of arms
+of Oyama and Togo. The war cemented classes in Japan almost to a
+condition of homogeneity--practically every subject of the Mikado
+believed in the necessity for the conflict, and made sacrifices to
+contribute to the cost thereof. Distinctions of class are now seldom
+thought of, and it contributes mightily to the material improvement of
+a nation to have a single language. The descendants of the samurai class
+acknowledge now the need for trade on a grand scale, and they are only
+too ready to embark in manufacturing and trading enterprises. There are
+scarcely ten great fortunes in the realm, and the number of subjects
+removed from activity by even moderate affluence is remarkably small.
+Likewise, the number of persons reckoned in the non-producing class,
+through dissipation or infirmity, is insignificant. And, more potent
+than all these reasons uniting to assist in the expansion of Japanese
+industry and thrift, is the intense patriotism of the people, stimulated
+by glorious success in two wars against foreign nations of overwhelming
+populations, as well as the recognition from high and low that Japan's
+golden opportunity has arrived. Almost to a man the Japanese want to
+employ their sinews and intellect in elevating the Land of the Rising
+Sun to an honored place among progressive nations.
+
+The Japanese exchequer is at present a long way from depletion, by
+reason of the $150,000,000 loan secured in America, England and Germany.
+Probably two thirds of this remained unexpended. Many Tokyo bankers
+believed the loan unnecessary, inasmuch as there were funds in hand
+sufficient to finance the war well into 1906, had peace not been agreed
+upon. But the flotation was deemed wise, not alone because of prevailing
+ease in the money market, but for the effect that an oversubscribed loan
+in America and Europe would have upon the Czar's government. The
+portion of the loan remaining unused for war was employed for giving
+effect to Japan's industrial propaganda, and presumably has been spent
+for the endless machinery demanded by the factories and shipyards that
+are transforming Japan into a vast workshop, for structural metal, and
+for steel rails, cars and locomotives for railways in Manchuria and
+Korea; and generally for the hundred and one purposes playing a part in
+the development of lands hitherto out of step in the march of
+enterprise, and where strife has until recently stifled the usual
+manifestations of man's desire to improve his surroundings. The Japanese
+government in 1906 purchased six railways, which were profit earners,
+paying for them $125,000,000 in five per cent. bonds that may be
+redeemed in five years. There is no likelihood of a reduction in Japan's
+debt for a long time, but its weight upon the people may be reduced by
+conversions. As the national credit strengthens, the interest on
+borrowings may be correspondingly decreased. Consequently, there may be
+frequent funding operations and new issues, until seven and six per
+cent. bonds have given place to obligations bearing five per cent.
+interest or less. To provide funds for early railway building,
+considerable capital was borrowed at as high a rate as ten per cent.
+When these obligations expire all necessary money can be found in the
+country at less than half the original rate. Japan is fortunate in
+having many sound financiers to invite to her official councils, and it
+is helpful to the country that Tokyo and Yokohama bankers are competent
+and progressive. These men pronounce Japan's present financial position
+sound, and claim that the country can easily carry the existing debt.
+
+In natural resources Japan is not well to do, it must be frankly said.
+Examine the country in as friendly a spirit as one may, little is
+developed to support any statement that the country may become
+prosperous from the products of her own soil. In truth Japan is nearly
+as unproductive as Greece and Norway, for only sixteen per cent. of her
+soil is arable. The mountain ranges and peaks and terraced hills that
+make the country scenically attractive to the tourist come near to
+prohibiting agriculture. The lowlands, separating seacoast from the
+foothills, and the valleys generally, are given over to rice culture,
+and these contribute largely towards sustaining the people. Where
+valleys are narrow, and on hillside patches, cultivation is carried on
+wholly by hand. In recent years phosphates and artificial fertilizers
+have been encouraged by the government, and with the educational work
+now in hand science may give an increase of crops from the circumscribed
+tillable area. The country's forests cannot be sacrificed, and grazing
+lands for flocks and herds scarcely exist.
+
+A recent magazine writer, holding a doleful view of Japan's agricultural
+condition, wholly overlooked the silk and tea crops in his search for
+native products, an error obviously fallen into through the fact that
+these are not raised on what governmental reports call "tillable
+ground,"--meaning that they are produced outside the sixteen per cent.
+arable area. Silk is Japan's important salable crop, two thirds of which
+is exported in its raw state. In the past few years the silk exports
+have averaged $55,000,000. Japan grows the tea consumed in the country,
+and sends annually $6,500,000 worth to market.
+
+If the rice crop might be exported it would realize $200,000,000 each
+year. But no food may be sent abroad, for it is a sad fact that Japan is
+capable of feeding only two thirds of her own people. It is necessary to
+import foodstuffs to the extent of about $47,000,000 a year. The
+Japanese benefit by the compensating supply of fish secured from the
+seas washing the shores of the Island Empire. When it is realized that
+Japan's rapidly-growing population cannot be sustained by her soil and
+fisheries, the real reason for battling against Russia's aggression on
+the mainland is understood, for ten years hence, Japan's crowding
+millions, confined to her own islands, would experience the pangs of
+hunger. The Mikado and his councilors foresaw this.
+
+[Illustration: A GARDEN VIEW OF THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, TOKYO]
+
+"Having deposits of coal and iron, why may not Japan be developed into
+the Eastern equivalent of England?" ask stay-at-home admirers of the
+Japanese, who believe that to them nothing is impossible. The Mikado's
+territory has coal, iron and copper, it is true; but in no instance is
+the mineral present to an extent making it a national asset of
+importance. Bituminous coal of good quality is mined at several points
+which is used by Japanese commercial and naval vessels; but elsewhere in
+the East it has to compete with Chinese and Indian coals. It is said in
+Nagasaki that her coal will last another two centuries, but were it
+mined on the scale of American and British coal it would be exhausted in
+a generation. The greatest efforts have been made to produce iron ore in
+paying quantities. In several instances public assistance has been lent
+to the industry, but seldom has a ton of ore been raised that has not
+cost twice its market value. Japan is determined to become a producer of
+iron, and to this end a long lease had been secured on an important
+mineral tract in China, whose ore blends advantageously with Mexican and
+Californian hematite, while it is asserted that the government has
+secured in Manchuria a seam of coal fifty feet in thickness, covered by
+a few feet of soil, that is contiguous to transportation, and which
+cannot be exhausted in hundreds of years. A valuable acquisition in
+conquered Saghalien--not noted by the newspapers--is beds of coal and
+iron of vast area. These may enable Japan, in her determination to
+become a manufacturing nation, to be eventually independent of other
+countries for basic supplies. But success in this direction is
+problematical, to say the least.
+
+For two thousand years Japan has mined copper in a limited way, but the
+production of the metal is carried on at present without much profit.
+When the Chinese government requires a vast quantity of copper the
+order is sent to the United States. Japan cannot be considered as a
+producer of minerals of sufficient importance to aspire to a profitable
+career through them, for the yearly aggregate value of all minerals,
+including gold from the Formosa mines, is not more than $20,000,000.
+
+The inevitable query in the reader's mind is, How is the Jap, knowing it
+is now or never with him--and cognizant that he is poor in all save
+ambition and enterprise--going to create for his beloved Nippon a
+position of prominence and security in the fast-rushing, selfish world?
+Every intelligent Japanese is aware of the slenderness of his country's
+resources, and yet every son of the Chrysanthemum Realm throbs with
+desire to see Japan a first-class and self-supporting power, honored and
+respected throughout the universe.
+
+The Japanese possess some quality of golden value, otherwise cautious
+capitalists in America and Europe would never have lent them
+$360,000,000. What is it?
+
+Japan's asset of importance is the awakened energy of her people--this
+was the soundest security back of the bond issues. It won the war over
+Russia, and persons familiar with the Japanese character believe it is
+now going to win commercially and industrially. Better proof of this is
+not wanted than the fact that Japanese bonds stood as firm as the rock
+of Gibraltar on the world's exchanges when it became known that Russia
+was to pay no indemnity. The information provoked street riots in Tokyo,
+but Japanese securities moved only fractionally in New York and London.
+
+Two countries have long been keenly observed by enlightened Japanese.
+They study America as a model industrial land, and get manufacturing
+ideas from us; but they look to Great Britain for everything having to
+do with empire, with aggrandizement, and with diplomacy. To them England
+is a glittering object lesson of a nation existing in overcrowded
+islands extending its rule to other lands and other continents,
+producing endless articles needed by mankind, and carrying these to the
+ends of the earth in their own ships. These Japanese have perceived that
+the interchange of commodities between most countries of the globe is
+preponderatingly in the hands of the British--in fact, that the
+enterprise of British merchant or British ship-owner has placed
+practically the universe under tribute.
+
+May not insular Japan become in time the Asiatic equivalent of Great
+Britain? Japan is advantageously located, and by common consent is now
+dominant in the Far East. Years ago England ceased to be an agricultural
+country, and the products of British workshops now buy food from other
+nations and allow for the keeping of a money balance at home. Nature has
+decreed that Japan can never be an agricultural land. Why, then, may she
+not do what England has done? England has her India, pregnant with the
+earth's bounty, and her Australia, yet awaiting completer development
+Kingdom become the handmaiden of Japan, without disturbing dynastic
+affairs, and primitive Korea be a fair equivalent of the Antipodean
+continent? It is known to be Japan's plan to permanently colonize Korea
+and Manchuria, teeming in agricultural and mineral riches, with her
+surplus population.
+
+"Prestige and opportunity make this attainable," insist the ambitious
+sons of Japan; "and while it is probably too late to expand the
+political boundaries of our empire, we surely may make Nippon the seat
+of a mighty commercial control, including in its sphere all of China
+proper, Manchuria and Korea--welding them into 'commercial colonies' of
+Japan." This is precisely what the modern Japanese wants his country to
+do, and this Japanization of the Far East is an alluring project,
+certainly.
+
+"But are not these 'open-door' countries, stipulated and guaranteed by
+the powers--meaning that your people can enjoy no special trade
+advantage in them?" the American asks the man of Japan.
+
+"Emphatically are they open to the trade and enterprise of all comers:
+but there are four potential advantages that accrue to the benefit of
+the Japanese at this time--geographical position, necessity for
+recouping the cost of the war, an identical written language, and
+superabundance of capable and inexpensive labor. With these advantages
+and practical kinship we fear no rivalry in the creation of business
+among the Mongol races," adds the man speaking for the New Japan.
+
+It calls for little prescience to picture a mighty Japanese tonnage on
+the seas in the near future. Next to industrial development, the
+controlling article of faith of the awakened Japan is the creation of an
+ocean commerce great enough to make the Japanese the carriers of the
+Orient. There can be nothing visionary in this, for bountiful Asia is
+almost without facilities for conveying her products to the world's
+markets. Indeed, were present-day Japan eliminated from consideration,
+it would be precise to say that Asia possessed no oversea transportation
+facilities.
+
+The merchant steamship is intended to play an important r�le in Japan's
+elevation. Shipping is to be fostered by the nation until it becomes a
+great industry, and it is the aim of the Mikado's government to provide
+for constructing ships for the public defence up to 20,000 tons burden,
+and making the country independent of foreign yards through being able
+to produce advantageously commercial vessels for any requirement. Japan
+is blind neither to the costliness of American-built ships nor to the
+remoteness of European yards. The war with Russia was not half over when
+it was apparent that Japan would not longer be dependent upon the outer
+world for vessels of war or of commerce. In the closing weeks of 1906
+there was completed and launched in Japan the biggest battleship in the
+world, the _Satsuma_, constructed exclusively by native labor. She is of
+about the dimensions of the _Dreadnaught_, of the British navy, but
+claimed to be her superior as a fighting force. The launching of the
+_Satsuma_, witnessed by the Emperor, was regarded as a great national
+event.
+
+In the war with China, twelve or thirteen years ago, Japan had
+insufficient vessels to transport her troops. The astute statesmen at
+Tokyo, recognizing the error of basing the transportation requirements
+of an insular nation upon ships controlled by foreigners, speedily
+drafted laws looking to the creation of a native marine which might be
+claimed in war time for governmental purposes. The bestowal of liberal
+bounties transformed Japan in a few short years from owning craft of the
+junk class to a proprietorship of modern iron-built vessels of both home
+construction and foreign purchase. In the late campaign there was no
+comparison in the seamanship of the agile son of Nippon and that of the
+hulking peasant of interior Russia. The Jap was proven time and again to
+be the equal of any mariner. Native adaptability and willingness to
+conform to strict discipline, unite in making the Japanese a seaman
+whose qualities will be telling in times of peace.
+
+Of late years hundreds of clever young Japanese have served
+apprenticeships in important shipyards in America, England, Germany and
+France, with the result that there are to-day scores of naval architects
+and constructors in Japan the equals of any in the world. Whether as
+designers, yard managers or directors of construction, the Japs, with
+their special schooling, have nothing to learn now from foreign
+countries. The genius of some of these men played a part in Togo's
+great victory.
+
+Japanese men of affairs pretend to see little difficulty in the way of
+their nation controlling the building of ships for use throughout the
+East. Local yards are already constructing river gunboats and torpedo
+craft for the Chinese government, and it is reasonable to believe that a
+year or two hence their hold upon the business will amount practically
+to a monopoly. British firms with yards at Singapore, Hong Kong and
+Shanghai are not rejoiced at the prospect of Japanese rivalry. It is
+possible that, the Japanese may become shipbuilders for our own
+Philippine archipelago.
+
+Already the shipyards of Nippon are ringing with the sound of Japan's
+upbuilding; and the plant of the Mitsubishi company, at Nagasaki--among
+the largest in the world,--has been enlarged to accommodate increasing
+demands. The enormous _Minnesota_, of the Great Northern Steamship
+Company, was not so long ago repaired at Nagasaki in a dry-dock having
+eighty feet in length to spare.
+
+Japanese steamship lines already extend to Europe, Australia, Bombay,
+Eastern Siberia, China, Korea and Saghalien, and to San Francisco and
+Puget Sound ports. A company has been formed to develop a service
+between Panama, the Philippines and Japanese ports, in anticipation of
+the completion of the Panama Canal: and, further perceiving the
+opportunity rapping at her door, Japan is preparing to place a line on
+the ocean that will bring the wool, hides and grain of the River Plate
+region to Japanese markets at the minimum of expense. The undisguised
+purpose of this South-American venture is to get cheap wheat from
+Argentina. Rice eating in Japan is giving way to bread made from wheat,
+or from a mixture of wheat and rice and other cereals. It is further
+known that Japan is casting covetous eyes on the trade of Brazil, and
+the line to the Plate may be extended to Brazilian ports.
+
+In 1894 Japan had only 657,269 tons of merchant shipping; she has now
+upwards of a million tons, represented by 5,200 registered vessels.
+Almost half the steamers entering Japanese ports fly the flag of the
+Rising Sun, and Japan's tonnage at this time is greater than that of
+Russia, Austria, Sweden, Spain, Denmark or Holland. In the matter of
+oversea tonnage, Japan is far ahead of the United States. One fleet of
+Japanese mail steamers, the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, whose president, Rempei
+Kondo, is one of Japan's most progressive men, is numerically and in
+tonnage larger than any ocean line under the Stars and Stripes. It has
+seventy ships, aggregating 236,000 tons. A dozen of its vessels, making
+the service between Yokohama and London, are fourteen-knot ships.
+
+[Illustration: JAPANESE JUNK, OR CARGO BOAT]
+
+These facts should be considered by every American complacently
+believing that the traffic of the countries and islands washed by the
+Pacific is open to American enterprise whenever we bid for it. When
+Eastern trade develops in magnitude, it may be found that the
+Japanese have laid permanent hold upon its carriage and interchange.
+John Bull, be it remembered, drove the American merchantman from the
+Atlantic; and likewise Japan may capture the carrying business of the
+Pacific. It must be obvious that the nation controlling the
+transportation of the Far East will seek to control its trade: and it is
+sounding no false alarm to cite facts and conditions showing that the
+awakening lands of Eastern Asia have more in store for energetic Japan
+than for the United States, now fattening inordinately on home
+trade--when overproduction comes, as it surely will, it then may be
+found difficult to supplant another people in the occupation of
+conveying American commodities to Eastern markets. There are persons in
+the Orient, none too friendly to America, who expect to see the
+commercial flag of Japan paramount on the Pacific eight or ten years
+hence.
+
+If it be conceded that Japan will absorb the bulk of the shipping of the
+Pacific as it develops, valid reasons for fearing Japan as the trade
+competitor of the United States do not exist. Unquestionably Japan is to
+exploit the industry of her people; but the same poverty of resources
+making this imperative insures for Uncle Sam a valuable partnership in
+the program. Japan is bristling with workshops and mills in which a
+hundred forms of handiwork will be developed--and in a majority of these
+the adaptive labor of the empire will fabricate, from materials drawn
+from America, scores of forms of merchandise, which the Japanese
+propaganda will distribute throughout China, Manchuria, Korea and
+Japan--the "Great Japan," British publicists are calling it. Methods,
+materials, machinery, tools--all will be American.
+
+Having made no systematic appeal for the trade of the Far East in its
+broadest sense, America enjoys but small share of it. In the past few
+years our exports to Japan, however, have grown rapidly--chiefly in raw
+cotton and other unmanufactured materials. With Japanese selling agents
+canvassing lands inhabited by a half billion people, the products of
+America are to have enhanced consumption. This trade in Mongol
+countries, although vicarious, may run to large dimensions.
+
+The leading item of Japan's industrial promotion program is to become
+manufacturer of a goodly portion of the textiles worn in her vast
+"sphere of commerce." The Japanese have seen that the British Isles,
+growing not a pound of cotton, spin and weave the staple for half the
+people of the earth, and wish to profit by the example of their
+prosperous ally. To this end, cotton mills have sprung into being
+throughout Japan, in which American-grown fiber is transformed by the
+cheapest competent labor in the world into fabrics sold to China's and
+Japan's millions. It is certain that the controlling manufacture of
+Japan will be cotton, and the production of woolen cloths may come next.
+It is interesting to know that Japan increased the value of her exports
+of cotton manufactures to China from $251,363 in 1894 to $16,126,054 in
+1904.
+
+"Why not fabricate her own raw silk, and send it to market ready for
+wear?" asks the foreigner reluctant to believe that Japan can hope to
+compete with Lancashire in the spinning of cotton. The answer is
+simple--it is because America is the principal purchaser of the raw
+article. Were it brought across the Pacific in manufactured form, the
+duty on it would be almost prohibitive; in its unwrought state it enters
+the country free.
+
+Great progress must be made before Japanese business may be considered a
+"menace" to any nation enjoying Eastern trade, for the yearly value of
+Japan's manufactures is now only about $150,000,000, an average of about
+$3 per capita of the population. America has single cities that produce
+more. The combined capital of all organized industrial, mining,
+shipping, banking and agricultural undertakings in Japan is
+$475,000,000, or less than half the capital of the United States Steel
+Corporation. The Mikado's empire is bound to Great Britain by a
+political alliance of unusual force, but industrial Japan must of
+necessity be linked to the United States by commercial ties even
+stronger. Distance between Europe and Japan, and excessive Suez Canal
+tolls, give unassailable advantage to the United States as purveyor of
+unwrought materials to the budding New England of the Far East.
+
+The custom of speaking of our friends of the Island Empire as "the
+little Japanese," is a fault that should be promptly mended. Japan is
+small, it is true, but the people are numerous to the point of
+wonderment. Consequently, it can do no harm to memorize these facts:
+That Japan has an area actually 27,000 square miles greater than the
+British Isles, and 5,000,000 more inhabitants; in other words, the
+population of Japan is 47,000,000, while that of Great Britain and
+Ireland is but 42,000,000. That Japan's population exceeds that of
+France by 8,000,000, of Italy by 14,000,000, and of Austro-Hungary by
+nearly 2,000,000. That outside of Asia there are but three countries in
+all the world with greater populations than Japan--Russia, the United
+States, and Germany. There was reason for calling the Jap the "Yankee of
+the East," or the "Englishman of the Orient," for otherwise the phrases
+could not have been forced into popular use.
+
+It is the judgment of many who have studied the Japanese at close range
+that they are endowed with attributes of mind and body which make them
+equal, man for man, with the people of America and Great Britain.
+Asiatic though they are, it will be unwise to permit the brain to become
+clogged with the idea that they are "Asiatics" in the popular acceptance
+of the word. The Japan of the present is the antithesis of "Asiatic,"
+and the Japan of the near future promises to be a country best measured
+by Western standards.
+
+The Japanese are athirst for knowledge, and impatient for the time to
+arrive when the world will estimate them at their intellectual value,
+and forget to speak of them as the little "yellow" men of the East. This
+is manifested to a visitor many times every day. Their greatest craving
+is to know English, not merely well enough to carry on trade
+advantageously, but to read understandingly books that deal with the
+moderate sciences, and other works generally benefiting. Yokohama and
+Tokyo possess a score of establishments where practically every
+important volume of instruction, whether it be English or American, is
+reproduced in inexpensive form, and widely sold. For many years English
+has been taught in Japan's schools, but thousands of boys and men in
+cities and towns are each year acquiring the language by study in odd
+hours.
+
+Examine the dog-eared pamphlet in the hands of the lad assisting in the
+shop where you are purchasing something, and you are almost certain to
+find it an elementary English book. Merchants know English well, as a
+rule; but with many of them the desire for knowledge is not satisfied
+with the acquisition of English--they desire to know other languages. In
+Yokohama I know a merchant of importance whose English is so good that
+one is drawn to inquire where he learned it. The answer will be that he
+studied odd hours at home and when not serving customers. And the
+visitor may further be informed by this man that he is also studying
+German and French. A teacher of German goes to his house at six o'clock
+each morning and for two hours drills him in the language. Then, in the
+evening, after a long day spent at business, a French teacher instructs
+him in the graceful language of France. And this merchant is but a type
+of thousands of Japanese who are daily garnering knowledge.
+
+It is a pleasing incident for the visitor from America to read of a
+meeting in the Japanese capital of the local Yale Alumni
+Association--quite as pleasing as to see base-ball played in every
+vacant field convenient to a large town. Returning schoolboys have
+carried the game home to their companions, and in the voyage across the
+Pacific it has lost none of its fine points. For thirty years and longer
+the Japs have been learning English with the industry of beavers. And
+ambition has been responsible for this, the dogged determination to be
+somebody, and the patriotic wish to see Japan stand with the progressive
+nations of the earth. The power to keep such a people down does not
+exist. Preparation is a subject never absent from the thoughts of the
+Japanese. It was preparation that gave them victory after victory over
+the creatures of the Czar. Now they are fairly launched upon a brilliant
+career in trade and commerce. But Japan can merely fabricate our raw
+materials, thereby occupying a field in Asia that up to now Uncle Sam
+has made no determined effort to secure.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Agra, Indian city of unrivaled interest, 168;
+  its Taj Mahal, 168-184
+
+Ambir, old capital of Jeypore state, 166
+
+America, interest in Suez canal as forerunner of Panama, 16;
+  flag not represented by commercial vessel at Suez in generation, 18;
+  President Roosevelt's insistence for Panama canal, 19;
+  value of Oriental trade, 21, 22;
+  cotton of wrought in England, 22;
+  trifling exports of manufactured articles, 22;
+  diminutive trade with South America, 22;
+  desirability of trade extension in East, 23;
+  government's tariff at Panama, 24;
+  how to make Panama canal pay indirectly, 27;
+  demand for creation of merchant marine, 27;
+  to have 100,000,000 inhabitants when canal is completed, 28;
+  commercial supremacy without merchant marine, 29;
+  government's insistence on "open door" in China, 303;
+  seeming indifference to Chinese trade, 310;
+  waning cotton exports to China, 313, 314
+
+Arabi, rebellion of, resulting in control of Egypt by Great Britain, 9;
+  Kandy, place of his exile, 110
+
+Arjamand, consort of Shah Jahan, for whom Taj Mahal was erected, 171
+
+Benares, headquarters of Hindu religion, 185-202;
+  burning ghat and cremations, 189-194;
+  Monkey Temple, 196-200
+
+Bombay, headquarters of Parsees, 126;
+  a city gone sport-mad, 133, 134;
+  race meeting at, 137, 138
+  important cotton port, 139
+  superb railway station, 139
+
+Buddhism, Kandy the Mecca of the faith, 95;
+  tenets of faith, 96, 97;
+  reputed tooth of Buddha, 97, 98, 101;
+  pilgrims to Kandy, 101, 102;
+  cremation, 102
+
+Calcutta, 205-219;
+  Hooghly pilots, 206;
+  Job Charnock, founder of, 209, 210;
+  under Lord Curzon's viceroyship, 217, 218
+
+Canals, no more inter-ocean canals possible, 4
+
+Canton, unique and important commercial city, 244-266;
+  strenuous and monopolistic guide, 249;
+  street scenes and experiences, 250, 251;
+  executions, 255;
+  funeral procession, 256, 257;
+  educational center, 257;
+  educational examinations, 258, 259;
+  "literary poles," 260, 263;
+  boat-life on river front, 263, 264;
+  leper village and boat toll, 266
+
+Caste, Rodiya people of Ceylon, 103, 104, 107;
+  British rule recognizes no distinctions of, 107;
+  as seen in Bombay, 140;
+  hereditary throughout India, 143;
+  man servant who could not carry his own packages, 144, 145, 146
+
+Ceylon, where "only man is vile," 30
+  Cingalese, 34, 44;
+  area, population, and races, 44;
+  England's conquest of, 47;
+  railways, 47;
+  exports, 48;
+  elephant kraal, 48, 49;
+  an island paradise, 50;
+  the cadjan, 62, 63;
+  tea as "king crop," 117;
+  when coffee was chief crop, 121;
+  details of tea cultivation, 122, 125
+
+China, Singapore and Hong Kong as places of residence for
+      Chinese, 227, 237;
+  cession of Hong Kong to British, 235;
+  Canton, unique city, 244-266;
+  Macao, Monte Carlo of East, 267-289;
+  love of fan-tan by Chinese, 284;
+  Germany's play for trade prestige, 290-310;
+  land of meager commodities, 295;
+  what her "awakened" trade would mean, 297;
+  Germany's colony of Kiau-chau, 304-309;
+  America and Chinese trade, 310-314;
+  plans for rousing country, 316
+
+Colombia, loss of Isthmian territory, through Panama canal scheme, 4
+
+Colombo, approach to harbor, 33;
+  landing jetty, 33;
+  port of call between Occident, Orient and Australasia, 34;
+  medley of races, 35;
+  westernmost limit of 'rickshaws, 36;
+  hotels, 39, 40;
+  population, 44;
+  Clapham Junction of East, 61;
+  route to Kandy, 92
+
+Cotton, Bombay as port, 139;
+  Great Britain and America as manufacturers, 313-314;
+  expansion of fabrication in Japan, 340
+
+Curzon, former viceroy of India, 217, 218;
+  Splendor of rule at Calcutta, 217
+
+De Lessep's craving for greatness, 5;
+  obtains concession for constructing Suez canal, 6;
+  raising money for canal scheme, 6;
+  death of, in madhouse, 10;
+  monument at Port Said, 11
+
+Egypt, loss of self-rule through Suez canal construction, 4;
+  date of Suez canal concession, 6;
+  no debt when concession given, 6;
+  to subscribe nothing for construction of Suez canal, 6;
+  Arabi rebellion, resulting in British control of Egypt, 9;
+  deriving no advantage through canal, 10
+
+France, how bankers of, lost controlling Suez shares, 15, 16;
+  susceptibilities of, how preserved in Suez management, 16;
+  ally of Russia, 296
+
+Germany, second in list of Suez patrons, 18;
+  Kaiser's fight for new markets, 18;
+  friendship for Russia in war, 290-297;
+  Kaiser's play for Chinese trade, 290-310;
+  Emperor as Trade Lord, 292, 295;
+  Kaiser's disapproval of Monroe Doctrine, 298;
+  plans for capturing Oriental business, 301;
+  subsidized steamship service with East, 302;
+  "leased" colony of Kiau-chau, 304
+
+Great Britain, benefits accruing from Suez canal, 15;
+  how control was secured, 15;
+  preponderance of flag over Suez traffic, 18;
+  control of interior of Ceylon, 95;
+  rule in, Asia recognizing no caste distinctions, 107;
+  restoration of Taj Mahal by government of, 183;
+  Job Charnock, founder of Calcutta, and pioneer
+        empire-builder, 209, 210;
+  great work in India. 220;
+  Penang, 227;
+  Singapore, universal sea-port brought to Empire by Sir Stamford
+        Raffles, 227;
+  Hong Kong, important port and naval base, 231-238;
+  no permanent control of Eastern business, 301;
+  tenure of Wei-hai-wei, 308
+
+Hinduism, orthodoxy of Maharajah of Jeypore, 156, 159;
+  animal sacrifices to goddess Kali, 167, 199-202;
+  Benares, head of religion, 185-202;
+  scenes on banks of sacred Ganges. 193-196;
+  cremation of dead, 190-194;
+  incomprehensibleness of merits of, 201, 202;
+  habits of speech of illiterate, 223;
+  curse of widowhood in India, 224
+
+Hong Kong, island link in Britain's chain, 231;
+  rains, 231, 232;
+  city wrested from mountain side, 232;
+  cession from China, 235;
+  guarding northern entrance to China Sea, 235, 236;
+  population and traffic, 236;
+  Happy Valley race-course, 238, 241;
+  benefits and pitfalls of the chit, 241, 242;
+  convenience of bills of fare, 243
+
+India, Bombay and its Parsees, 126-133;
+  scenes at Bombay race meeting, 137, 138;
+  caste, 140, 143;
+  people not readily convinced of advantage of modern
+        implements, 143, 144;
+  Jeypore, 149-167;
+  Ambir, old capital of Jeypore, 166;
+  Agra and Taj Mahal, 168-184;
+  Benares, fountainhead of Hindu religion, 185-202;
+  Calcutta, capital of British India, 205-219;
+  viceroyship of Lord Curzon, 217, 218;
+  Viscount Kitchener, head of army, 218, 219;
+  facts and figures of, 220, 223, 225;
+  the "L. G." of Bengal, 219
+
+Ismail, Khedive, lured into assisting Suez scheme, 6;
+  prodigality of, 10;
+  personal holding of Suez securities, 10
+
+Jahan, Shah, builder of Taj Mahal, 168, 171;
+  interment beside wife's grave, 179
+
+Japan, commercial future, 315-344;
+  best exponent of Asiatic progress, 315;
+  "scourge of God" and "yellow peril" of German origin, 316;
+  advantages secured by defeating Russia, 317;
+  process of industrial development, 317;
+  national debt, 318, 321, 324;
+  homogeneity of people, 322;
+  resources, 325-330;
+  desire to emulate England, 331;
+  why country can exploit near-by lands advantageously, 332;
+  mighty tonnage on Pacific, 333, 334;
+  shipbuilding, 334, 335;
+  no real "menace" to American trade, 341;
+  athirst for knowledge, 342-344
+
+Jeypore, capital of Maharajah of, 149-165;
+  fondness of women for jewelry, 151;
+  benevolent ruler of, 156, 159;
+  astronomical apparatus of Jai Singh, 164
+
+Kandy, ancient capital of Ceylon, 43;
+  journey from Colombo, 92;
+  city of Buddha's tooth, 95;
+  Buddhist pilgrims to, 95, 96;
+  natural beauty of, 108;
+  atrocities of a king of, 109;
+  British rule of, 110;
+  Peradeniya tropical garden, 110, 113, 114, 117;
+  executive seat of Ceylon's tea industry, 117, 118, 121
+
+Kitchener, Viscount, commander-in-chief of Indian army, 218, 219
+
+Macao, journey to Portuguese colony from Canton, 267;
+  pioneer European settlement in East, 272;
+  Eastern Monte Carlo, 272, 283-289;
+  political refuge, 274;
+  Camoens, 278-282
+
+Manar, pearling-ground of Gulf of, 50;
+  advertisements announcing a fishery, 56, 57;
+  period of, 66;
+  scene on banks during a fishery, 76, 77;
+  profit of fishery, 87
+
+Marichchikkaddi, pearl metropolis of, 58, 61, 62, 64, 65;
+  how reached from Colombo, 62;
+  population, 63;
+  fishing fleet, 71, 72;
+  scenes in camp and at kottu, 77, 78;
+  where oysters pass current as money, 79;
+  selling the oysters at auction, 79, 80, 81;
+  health of camp, 85;
+  illustration of white man's rule, 86, 87
+
+Merchant Marine, necessity for creation of, 27;
+  American commercial supremacy without help of, 29
+
+Panama Canal, antiquity of project, 4;
+  President Roosevelt's insistence for, 19;
+  use of, by South American shipping, 21;
+  drawing traffic from east of Singapore, 21;
+  vast Eastern area to be served by, 21;
+  destined to make America trade-arbiter of world, 23;
+  prediction of cost of construction and maintenance, 23;
+  question of annual tonnage, 24
+
+Parsees, their home in Bombay, 126;
+  followers of Zoroaster, 127;
+  Towers of Silence and method of disposing of dead, 131, 132, 133
+
+Pearls, Swedish, Chinese and Japanese methods of inducing pearl
+      formation, 55;
+  Indian and Cingalese expert dealers, 66;
+  Indian grandees chief buyers of, 88
+
+Pearl-fishing, scene of, in Gulf of Manar, 50;
+  description of, 51, 56, 57;
+  Professor Hornell's theories, 52;
+  divers, 66, 69;
+  the shark-charmer, 70, 71, 72;
+  time of divers under water, 75, 76
+  scene on Manar banks, 76, 77
+  devices for stealing pearls, 79
+  process by which pearls are extracted from oysters, 81, 82
+
+Penang, leading tin port of world, 227
+
+Raffles, Sir Stamford, pioneer of Singapore, 227
+
+Russia, friendship of Germany during war, 290-304;
+  benefit to have accompanied victory over Japan, 296
+
+Sa�d, viceroy, date of giving Suez concession, 6
+
+Singapore, a turnstile of commerce, 227;
+  universal character of, 228
+
+South America, use of Panama by carrying trade of, 21;
+  trifling imports from United States, 22;
+  importance of exports to United States, 23
+
+Suez Canal, antiquity of project, 3, 4;
+  Persian oracle's warning against, 5;
+  personages who had considered, 5;
+  to pay Egyptian treasury part of proceeds, 6, 15;
+  Ismail's interest in scheme, 10;
+  perpetuation of names of Egyptian rulers, 11;
+  simplicity of construction and cost of, 12;
+  international character of, 12;
+  Disraeli's purchase of control for Great Britain, 15;
+  physical statistics of, 16;
+  tariff of, 16, 17;
+  value to world's commerce, 17;
+  statistics of tonnage and income, 17;
+  average daily use of, 18;
+  European shippers' choice of canals, 20;
+  shareholders in no fear of Panama competition, 29
+
+Taj Mahal, tomb of Arjamand, wife of Shah Jahan, and world's
+      most exquisite building, 168-184;
+  cost of, 173;
+  burial-place of Shah Jahan, 179;
+  restorations by British government, 183
+
+Tea, cultivation in Ceylon, 122, 125
+
+Widowhood, curse of Indian, 224
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
+
+In the original text, contractions had a space at the word break, e.g.
+"would n't, does n't, I 'm". In this ebook, such spaces have been
+removed.
+
+Pg. 70, added missing period (a stove-polish advertisement.)
+
+Pg. 315, inserted missing period. (growing surprise to the world.)
+
+Index entry "America, interest in Panama....", stated page number was
+"14" which is a blank page. Page number changed to "16" where content
+appears to match.
+
+Index entry "China, America and Chinese trade", stated page numbers were
+"312-314" but "312" is a blank page. Page number "312" changed to "310"
+where content appears to match.
+
+Index entry "France, Ally of Russia", stated page numbers were "2, 96".
+Changed to "296" where content appears to match.
+
+Index entry "Hong Kong, Happy Valley racecourse", stated page numbers
+were "238" and "239", but "239" is a blank page. Page number "239"
+changed to "241" where content appears to match.
+
+Index entry "Japan, homogeneity of people", stated page is "323" but
+content begins on "322". Page number changed to "322".
+
+Index entry "Kandy, Peradeniya tropical garden", last of the page
+numbers was "115" which is an unrelated illustration. The age number
+"315" changed to "117" where content appears to match.
+
+Index entry "Kandy, executive seat of Ceylon's tea industry", last of
+the page numbers is "127" which has no relevant content. Page number
+"127" changed to "121" where content appears to match.
+
+Index entry "Suez canal, Disraeli's purchase of control for Great
+Britain", stated page number was "13" which is an unrelated
+illustration. Page number "13" changed to "15" where content appears to
+match.
+
+Index entry "Suez canal, physical statistics of", stated page number is
+"14" which is a blank page. Page number "14" changed to "16" where
+content appears to match.
+
+Index entry "Suez canal, tariff of", first of stated page numbers is
+"14" which is a blank page. age number "14" changed to "16" where
+content appears to match.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's East of Suez, by Frederic Courtland Penfield
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST OF SUEZ ***
+
+***** This file should be named 27260-8.txt or 27260-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/2/6/27260/
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/27260-8.zip b/27260-8.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9696a91
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-8.zip
diff --git a/27260-h.zip b/27260-h.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d4dc94f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h.zip
diff --git a/27260-h/27260-h.htm b/27260-h/27260-h.htm
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fd68f45
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/27260-h.htm
@@ -0,0 +1,7656 @@
+<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
+    "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd">
+
+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of EAST OF SUEZ, by Frederic Courtland Penfield.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
+<!--
+    p {  margin-top: .75em;
+         text-align: justify;
+         margin-bottom: .75em;
+         }
+    h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
+         text-align: center; /* all headings centered */
+         clear: both;
+         }
+
+    h1 {
+         text-align: center;
+         clear: both;
+         font-size: 220%;
+         line-height: 1.0;
+	 margin-top: 1em;
+	 margin-bottom: 1em;
+         }
+
+    h2 {
+         text-align: center;
+         clear: both;
+         font-size: 150%;
+         line-height: 2.0;
+	 margin-top: 1em;
+	 margin-bottom: 1em;
+         }
+
+    hr { width: 65%;
+	 margin-top: 3em;
+	 margin-bottom: 3em;
+         margin-left: auto;
+         margin-right: auto;
+         clear: both;
+       }
+
+    hr.hr1 { width: 2.5em;
+	 margin-top: 0em;
+	 margin-bottom: 0em;
+         margin-left: auto;
+         margin-right: auto;
+         clear: both;
+       }
+
+    table {margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;}
+
+    body{margin-left: 10%;
+         margin-right: 10%;
+        }
+
+    .tb {
+           margin-left: 1em;
+           font-size: 120%;
+           letter-spacing: 0.75em;
+          }
+
+    .pagenum  { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */
+            /*  visibility: hidden;  */
+                position: absolute;
+                left: 92%;
+                right: 2%;
+                font-size: 80%;
+                text-align: right;
+              } /* page numbers */
+
+    div.cap { margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;
+              margin-top: 0.5em;
+              width: 600px; text-align: center; }
+
+    .caption  { margin-top: 0.5em;
+                text-align: center;
+                margin-bottom: 0.75em;
+                font-size: 80%;
+                font-weight: bold;
+              }
+
+    .captionblockquot{ margin-top: 0.5em;
+                       font-size: 80%;
+                       text-indent:  0em;
+                       padding-left: 0em;
+                     }
+
+    .p2 { margin-top: 2.25em; /* double the normal space */}
+
+    .advert {
+            margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;
+            text-align: center;
+            border: solid 1px;
+            padding-bottom: 0em; padding-top: 1em;
+            padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em;
+            width: 450px;
+            }
+
+    .floatleft { float: left; clear: both;}
+
+    .floatright { float: right; clear: both; }
+
+    .tnote {border: dashed 1px; margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; padding-bottom: .5em; padding-top: .5em;
+            padding-left: .5em; padding-right: .5em;}
+
+    .toc {
+           vertical-align: top;
+           text-indent: -1.2em;
+           padding-left: 2.2em;
+           margin-right: 10%;
+           padding-right: 2em;
+           text-align: left;
+           padding-top: 1.4em;
+           }
+
+    .tocpg    {text-align: right;
+               vertical-align: bottom;
+               }
+
+    .illo2 {
+           vertical-align: top;
+           text-indent: -1.2em;
+           padding-left: 4.8em;
+           margin-right: 10%;
+           padding-right: 2em;
+           text-align: left;
+           padding-top: 0em;
+           }
+
+   .tdc  {text-align: center; vertical-align: bottom;}
+
+   .tdrt  {text-align: right; vertical-align: top; padding-top: 1em;}
+
+   .tdr  {text-align: right;}
+
+    .tdstanza { text-align: left; vertical-align: top; padding-top: 1.5em; }
+
+    .padr { padding-right: 2em; }
+
+    .padlr { padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; }
+
+    .center   {text-align: center;}
+    .smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
+
+    big   { font-size:140%; }
+    small { font-size: 80%;  }
+    .tiny { font-size: 50%; }
+
+    .sigblock { margin-top: 1.5em;
+                margin-right: 10%;
+                text-align: right;
+              }
+
+    .figcenter   {margin-top: 3em; margin-bottom: 3em; clear: both; text-align: center;}
+
+    .imgborder { border-style: solid; border-width:2px; border-color:#000000; }
+
+    p.index {text-indent: -6em; padding-left: 6em; /* index main item */
+             margin-top: 1.5em;
+             margin-bottom: 0em;
+            }
+
+    p.index0 {text-indent: -6em; padding-left: 6em; /* new letter index main item */
+             margin-top: 3em;
+             margin-bottom: 0em;
+            }
+
+    p.index2 {text-indent: -6em; padding-left: 8em; /* index sub item */
+             margin-top: 0em;
+             margin-bottom: 0em;
+            }
+
+    .indexlink        {font-size: 100%; text-decoration: none;}
+
+    .footnotes        {border: dashed 1px;}
+    .footnote         {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;}
+    .footnote .label  {position: absolute; right: 84%; text-align: right;}
+    .fnanchor         {vertical-align: super; font-size: .8em; text-decoration: none;}
+
+    .poem             {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; text-align: left;}
+    .poem br          {display: none;}
+    .poem .stanza     {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;}
+    .poem span.i0     {display: block; margin-left: 0em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i6     {display: block; margin-left: 6em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i7     {display: block; margin-left: 7em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i15     {display: block; margin-left: 15em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    .poem span.i1     {display: block; margin-left: 1em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;}
+    // -->
+    /* XML end  ]]>*/
+    </style>
+  </head>
+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of East of Suez, by Frederic Courtland Penfield
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: East of Suez
+       Ceylon, India, China and Japan
+
+Author: Frederic Courtland Penfield
+
+Release Date: November 14, 2008 [EBook #27260]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST OF SUEZ ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+
+
+<h1>EAST OF SUEZ</h1>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><big><b>PRESENT-DAY EGYPT</b></big></p>
+
+<p class="center">By Frederic Courtland Penfield, Former American Diplomatic<br />
+Agent and Consul-General to Egypt.</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="advert">
+
+<div class="floatleft">
+<p class="center"><i>Secretariat<br />
+du<br />
+Kh&eacute;dive</i></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="floatright">
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Ras-el-Teen Palace</span>,<br />
+<span class="smcap">Alexandria</span>, 4th November, 1899</p>
+</div>
+
+<div style="clear: both;">
+<p><br />
+<span class="smcap">Frederic C. Penfield, Esquire</span>,<br />
+Manhattan Club, New York.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2">My dear Sir:</p>
+
+<p>I am commanded by H. H. The Khedive to
+acknowledge the receipt of the copy of your
+book "Present-Day Egypt," which you have
+so kindly forwarded for his acceptance.</p>
+
+<p>I am to say that His Highness has read it
+with much pleasure and interest, as it is the
+only book published on Egypt of to-day by
+an author thoroughly acquainted with the
+subject through long residence and official
+position in the country.</p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="floatright">
+<p class="center">I have the honor to be, Sir,<br />
+Your obedient servant,<br />
+(Signed)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<span class="smcap">Alfred B. Brewster</span>,<br />
+<small>Private Secretary to H. H. the Khedive.</small></p>
+
+
+</div>
+<p style="clear: right;">&nbsp;</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center">Revised and Enlarged Edition.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Fully illustrated.<br />
+Uniform with "East of Suez." 8vo. 396 pages. $2.50</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">The Century Co.,</span><br />
+Union Square&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;New York</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="frontis" id="frontis"></a></p>
+<img src="images/frontis.jpg" width="600" height="401" alt="PEARLING BOAT" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">GULF OF MANAR PEARLING BOAT, AND DIVERS RESTING IN THE WATER</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+<h1>EAST OF SUEZ<br />
+<span style="font-weight: normal;" class="tiny">CEYLON, INDIA, CHINA AND JAPAN</span></h1>
+
+<p class="center">By</p>
+
+<p class="center"><big><b>Frederic Courtland Penfield</b></big><br />
+<small>Author of "Present-Day Egypt," etc.</small></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="p2 center">Illustrated from Drawings and Photographs</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="Kipling">
+<tr><td class="tdstanza">
+<span class="i0">"East is East, and West is West, and<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">never the twain shall meet,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Till Earth and Sky stand presently at<br /></span>
+<span class="i6">God's great Judgment Seat."<br /></span>
+<span class="i15"><i>Kipling.</i><br /></span>
+</td></tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img src="images/logo.png" width="99" height="95" alt="logo of publisher" />
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><small>NEW YORK</small><br />
+THE CENTURY CO.<br />
+<small>1907</small></p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center">Copyright, 1906, 1907, by<br />
+<span class="smcap">The Century Co.</span></p>
+
+<hr class="hr1" />
+<p class="center"><small><i>Published, February, 1907</i></small></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><small>THE DE VINNE PRESS</small></p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="center"><small>TO THE MEMORY OF</small><br />
+KATHARINE</p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p>
+<h2>Introductory</h2>
+
+
+<p>If books of travel were not written the stay-at-home millions would know
+little of the strange or interesting sights of this beautiful world of
+ours; and it surely is better to have a vicarious knowledge of what is
+beyond the vision than dwell in ignorance of the ways and places of men
+and women included in the universal human family.</p>
+
+<p>The Great East is a fascinating theme to most readers, and every
+traveler, from Marco Polo to the tourist of the present time, taking the
+trouble to record what he saw, has placed every fireside reader under
+distinct obligation.</p>
+
+<p>So thorough was my mental acquaintance with India through years of
+sympathetic study of Kipling that a leisurely survey of Hind simply
+confirmed my impressions. Other generous writers had as faithfully
+taught what China in reality was, and Mortimer Menpes, Basil Hall
+Chamberlain, and Miss Scidmore had as conscientiously depicted to my
+understanding the ante-war Japan. Grateful am I, as well, to the legion
+of tireless writers attracted to the East by recent strife and conquest,
+who have made Fuji more familiar to average readers than any mountain
+peak in the United States; who have made the biographies of favorite
+geishas known even in our hamlets and mining <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span>camps, and whose agreeable
+iteration of scenes on Manila's lunetta compel our Malaysian capital to
+be known as well as Coney Island and Atlantic City&mdash;they have so
+graphically portrayed and described interesting features that of them
+nothing remains to be told. But to know Eastern lands and peoples
+without an intermediary is keenly delightful and compensating.</p>
+
+<p>The travel impulse and longing for first-hand knowledge, native with
+most mortals, is yearly finding readier expression. Our grandparents
+earned a renown more than local by crossing the Atlantic to view England
+and the Continent, while our fathers and mothers exploring distant
+Russia and the Nile were accorded marked consideration. The wandering
+habit is as progressive as catching, and what sufficed our ancestors
+satisfies only in minor degree the longing of the present generation for
+roving. Hence the grand tour, the circuit of the earth, is becoming an
+ordinary achievement. And while hundreds of Americans are compassing the
+earth this year, thousands will place the globe under tribute in seasons
+not remote.</p>
+
+<p>For many years to come India and Ceylon will practically be what they
+are to-day, and sluggish China will require much rousing before her
+national characteristics differ from what they are now; but of Japan it
+is different, for, having made up their minds to remodel the empire, the
+sons of Nippon are not doing things by halves, and the old is being
+supplanted by the new with amazing rapidity.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span>Possibly it is a misfortune to find oneself incapable of preparing a
+volume of travel without inflicting a sermon upon kindly disposed
+persons, but a book of journeyings loaded with gentle preachment must at
+least be a novelty. Travel books imparting no patriotic lesson may well
+be left to authors and readers of older and self-sufficient nations. A
+work appealing on common lines to a New World audience would be worse
+than banal, and a conscientious American writer is compelled to describe
+not alone what he saw, but in clarion notes tell of some things he
+failed of seeing for our country, emerging but now from the formative
+period, and destined to permanently lead the universe in material
+affairs, is entitled to be better known in the East by its manufactures.</p>
+
+<p>Every piece of money expended in travel is but the concrete form of
+somebody's toil, or the equivalent of a marketed product: and
+consequently it is almost unnecessary to remind that industry and thrift
+must precede expenditure, or to assert that toil and travel bear
+inseparable relationship. What the American, zigzagging up and down and
+across that boundless region spoken of as East of Suez, fails to see is
+the product of Uncle Sam's mills, workshops, mines and farms. From the
+moment he passes the Suez Canal to his arrival at Hong Kong or Yokohama,
+the Stars and Stripes are discovered in no harbor nor upon any sea; and
+maybe he sees the emblem of the great republic not once in the transit
+of the Pacific. And the products of our marvelous country are met but
+seldom, if at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[x]</a></span>all, where the American wanders in the East. He is
+rewarded by finding that the Light of Asia is American petroleum, but
+that is about the only Western commodity he is sure of encountering in
+months of travel.</p>
+
+<p>This state of things is grievously wrong, for it should be as easy for
+us to secure trade in the Orient as for any European nation, and
+assuredly easier than for Germany. We have had such years of material
+prosperity and progress as were never known in the history of any
+people, it is true; but every cycle of prosperity has been succeeded by
+lean years, and ever will be. When the inevitable over-production and
+lessened home consumption come, Eastern markets, though supplied at
+moderate profit, will be invaluable. We are building the Panama Canal,
+whose corollary <i>must</i> be a mercantile fleet of our own upon the seas,
+distributing the products of our soil and manufactories throughout the
+world, and Secretary of State Root has made it easy for a better
+understanding and augmented trade with the republics to the south of us.
+But America's real opportunity is in Asia, where dwell more than half
+the people of the earth, for the possibilities of commerce with the rich
+East exceed those of South America tenfold. Uncle Sam merits a goodly
+share of the trade of both these divisions of the globe.</p>
+
+<p>The people of the United States must cut loose from the idea that has
+lost its logic in recent years, that the Pacific Ocean <i>separates</i>
+America from the lands and islands of Asia, and look upon it as a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span>body
+of water <i>connecting</i> us with the bountiful East. The old theory was
+good enough for our home-building fathers, but is blighting to a
+generation aspiring to Americanize the globe. The genius of our nation
+should cause our ploughs and harrows to prepare the valley and delta of
+the Nile for tillage; be responsible for the whir of more of our
+agricultural machinery in the fields of India; locate our lathes and
+planers and drilling machines in Eastern shops, in substitution for
+those made in England or Germany; be responsible for American
+locomotives drawing American cars in Manchuria and Korea over rails
+rolled in Pittsburgh, and induce half the inhabitants of southern Asia
+to dress in fabrics woven in the United States, millions of the people
+of Cathay to tread the earth in shoes produced in New England, and all
+swayed to an appreciation of our flour as a substitute for rice&mdash;yes,
+make it easy to obtain pure canned foods everywhere in China and Japan,
+even to hear the merry click of the typewriter in Delhi, Bangkok and
+Pekin.</p>
+
+<p>Do we not already lead in foreign trade? We do, I gratefully admit; but
+it is because we sell to less favored peoples our grains and fiber in a
+raw state. Confessedly, these are self-sellers, for not a bushel of
+wheat or ounce of cotton is sold because of any enterprise on our
+part&mdash;the buyer must have them, and the initiative of the transaction is
+his.</p>
+
+<p>What economists regard as 'trade' in its most advantageous form, is the
+selling to foreigners of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[xii]</a></span>something combining the natural products and
+the handiwork of a nation&mdash;this is the trade that America should look
+for in the East, and seek it now. It is not wild prophecy that within
+five years a considerable number of the sovereign people of the country
+controlling its growth will feel that it is carrying international
+comity to the point of philanthropy to export cotton to England and
+Japan to be there fabricated for the wear of every race of Asia, and
+sold in successful competition with American textiles. In the pending
+battle for the world's markets Uncle Sam should win trade by every
+proper means, and not by methods most easily invoked; and let it ever be
+remembered that shortsightedness is plainly distinct from altruism.</p>
+
+<p class="sigblock"><span class="smcap">Frederic C. Penfield.</span></p>
+
+<div class="floatleft">
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Authors Club, New York City</span>,<br />
+January 26, 1907.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="70%" summary="Table of contents">
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt" style="padding-top: 0em; padding-bottom: 0em;"><small>CHAPTER</small></td><td></td><td class="tocpg"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt padr">I</td><td class="toc">THE WORLD'S TURNSTILE AT SUEZ</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_3">3</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt padr">II</td><td class="toc">COLOMBO, CEYLON'S COSMOPOLITAN SEA-PORT</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_30">30</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt padr">III</td><td class="toc">THE LURE OF THE PEARL</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_50">50</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt padr">IV</td><td class="toc">UPWARD TO THE SHRINE OF BUDDHA</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_92">92</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt padr">V</td><td class="toc">IN CEYLON'S HILL COUNTRY</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_108">108</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt padr">VI</td><td class="toc">BOMBAY AND ITS PARSEE "JEES" AND "BHOYS"</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_126">126</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt padr">VII</td><td class="toc">THE VICARIOUS MAHARAJAH OF JEYPORE.</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_149">149</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt padr">VIII</td><td class="toc">THE WORLD'S MOST EXQUISITE BUILDING</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_168">168</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt padr">IX</td><td class="toc">BENARES, SACRED CITY OF THE HINDUS</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_185">185</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt padr">X</td><td class="toc">INDIA'S MODERN CAPITAL</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_205">205</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt padr">XI</td><td class="toc">ISLAND LINKS IN BRITAIN'S CHAIN OF EMPIRE</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_226">226</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt padr">XII</td><td class="toc">CANTON, UNIQUE CITY OF CHINA</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_244">244</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt padr">XIII</td><td class="toc">MACAO, THE MONTE CARLO OF THE FAR EAST</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_267">267</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt padr">XIV</td><td class="toc">THE KAISER'S PLAY FOR CHINESE TRADE</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_290">290</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdrt padr">XV</td><td class="toc">JAPAN'S COMMERCIAL FUTURE</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_315">315</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td></td><td class="toc">INDEX</td><td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_345">345</a></td></tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xv" id="Page_xv">[xv]</a></span></p>
+<h2>LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="70%" summary="List of Illustrations">
+
+<tr><td></td><td class="tocpg"><small>PAGE</small></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">GULF OF MANAR PEARLING BOAT, AND DIVERS RESTING IN THE WATER</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#frontis">Frontispiece</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="illo2">From drawing by Corwin K. Linson.</td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">PORT SAID ENTRANCE TO SUEZ CANAL, SHOWING DE LESSEPS'S STATUE</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_8">8</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="illo2">From photograph by Georgilada Kip.</td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">ITALIAN WARSHIP STEAMING THROUGH CANAL</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_13">13</a></td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">CARGO STEAMER IN THE CANAL AT KILOMETER 133</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_25">25</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="illo2">From photograph by Georgilada Kip.</td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">THE JETTY AT COLOMBO</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_32">32</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">HINDU SILVERSMITHS, COLOMBO</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_38">38</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="illo2">From photograph by Skeen &amp; Co.</td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">A HIGH PRIEST OF BUDDHA</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_42">42</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="illo2">From photograph by Colombo Apothecaries Co., Ltd.</td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">REPRESENTATION OF BUDDHA'S TOOTH, COLOMBO MUSEUM</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_46">46</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">MAP OF THE GULF OF MANAR, "THE SEA ABOUNDING IN PEARLS"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">COOLIES CARRYING PEARL OYSTERS FROM THE BOATS TO THE GOVERNMENT "KOTTU"</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_60">60</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="illo2">From drawing by Corwin K. Linson.</td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">THE LATE RANA OF DHOLPUR IN HIS PEARL REGALIA</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_67">67</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="illo2">From photograph by Johnston &amp; Hoffmann.</td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">INDIAN PEARL MERCHANTS READY FOR BUSINESS, MARICHCHIKKADDI</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_74">74</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="illo2">From drawing by Corwin K. Linson.</td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">THE LATE MAHARAJAH OF PATIALA IN HIS PEARL REGALIA</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_83">83</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="illo2">From photograph by Johnston &amp; Hoffmann.</td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">A LADY OF KANDY</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_94">94</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="illo2">From photograph by Skeen &amp; Co.</td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">TEMPLE OF THE TOOTH, KANDY</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_99">99</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="illo2">From photograph by Colombo Apothecaries Co., Ltd.</td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvi" id="Page_xvi">[xvi]</a></span>CREMATION OF A BUDDHIST PRIEST</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_105">105</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="illo2">From photograph by Plat&eacute; &amp; Co.</td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">TREES IN PERADENIYA GARDEN, KANDY</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_111">111</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="illo2">From photographs by Frederic C. Penfield.</td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">TAMIL COOLIE SETTING OUT TEA PLANTS</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_115">115</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">TAMIL GIRL PLUCKING TEA</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_119">119</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">A KANDYAN CHIEFTAIN</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_124">124</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">PARSEE TOWER OF SILENCE, BOMBAY</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_129">129</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">A BOMBAY RAILWAY STATION</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">A BOMBAY POLICEMAN</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_141">141</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">HIS HIGHNESS THE MAHARAJAH OF JEYPORE</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_148">148</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">A MATCHED PAIR OF BULLOCKS, JEYPORE</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">STREET SCENE, JEYPORE, SHOWING PALACE OF THE WINDS</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_157">157</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">COURT DANCERS AND MUSICIANS, JEYPORE</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_162">162</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">THE TAJ MAHAL, AGRA</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_169">169</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">ALABASTER SCREEN ENCLOSING ARJAMAND'S TOMB, TAJ MAHAL</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_175">175</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">INLAID WORK IN MAUSOLEUM OP ITIMAD-UD-DAULAH, AGRA</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_182">182</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">SCENE ON THE GANGES, BENARES</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_188">188</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">BENARES BURNING GHAT, WITH CORPSES BEING PURIFIED IN THE GANGES</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_191">191</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">BENARES HOLY' MEN</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_198">198</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">A BRAHMIN PRIEST</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_203">203</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">A CALCUTTA NAUTCH DANCER</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_207">207</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">GENERAL POST-OFFICE, CALCUTTA</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_212">212</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">SHIPPING ON THE HOOGHLY, CALCUTTA</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_215">215</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xvii" id="Page_xvii">[xvii]</a></span>
+CALCUTTA COOLIES</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_222">222</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">HONG KONG HARBOR</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_229">229</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">HONG KONG'S MOUNTAINSIDE</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_233">233</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">A FORMER "HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR" OF HONG KONG</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_240">240</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">TEMPLE OF THE FIVE HUNDRED GENII, CANTON</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_247">247</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="illo2">From photograph by A-Chan.</td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">CITY OF BOATS, CANTON, WHERE GENERATIONS ARE BORN AND DIE</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_254">254</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">EXAMINATION BOOTHS, CANTON</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_261">261</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="illo2">From photograph by A-Chan.</td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">PRINCIPAL SECTION OF MACAO</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_270">270</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">FRONTIER GATE BETWEEN CHINA PROPER AND THE PORTUGUESE COLONY</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_275">275</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">MONUMENT AND BUST OF CAMOENS, MACAO</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_279">279</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">IN A FAN-TAN GAMBLING HOUSE, MACAO</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_288">288</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">TYPICAL BUSINESS STREET IN A CHINESE CITY</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_293">293</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="illo2">From photograph by A-Chan.</td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">EXHIBITION OF BODIES OF CHINESE MALEFACTORS WHO HAVE BEEN STRANGLED</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_300">300</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">SIMPLE PUNISHMENT OF A CHINESE MENDICANT</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_305">305</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">CHINESE BUDDHIST PRIESTS</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_311">311</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">BRONZE DAIBUTSU AT KAMAKURA, JAPAN</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_319">319</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="illo2">From photograph by Frederic C. Penfield.</td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">A GARDEN VIEW OF THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, TOKYO</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_328">328</a></td></tr>
+<tr><td class="illo2">From photograph by Frederic C. Penfield.</td><td></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="toc">JAPANESE JUNK, OR CARGO BOAT</td>
+<td class="tocpg"><a href="#Page_337">337</a></td></tr>
+
+</table>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[1]</a></span></p>
+<h1><small>EAST OF SUEZ</small></h1>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[3]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER I<br />
+<small>THE WORLD'S TURNSTILE AT SUEZ</small></h2>
+
+
+<p>When historical novels and "purpose" books dealing with great industries
+and commodities cease to sell, the vagrant atoms and shadings of history
+ending with the opening of the two world-important canals might be
+employed by writers seeking incidents as entrancing as romances and
+which are capable of being woven into narrative sufficiently interesting
+to compel a host of readers. The person fortunate enough to blaze the
+trail in this literary departure will have a superabundance of material
+at command, if he know where and how to seek it.</p>
+
+<p>The paramount fact-story of all utilitarian works of importance is
+unquestionably that surrounding the great portal connecting Europe with
+Asia. As romances are plants of slow growth in lands of the Eastern
+hemisphere, compared with the New World, the fascinating tale of Suez
+re<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[4]</a></span>quired two or three thousand years for its development, while that of
+Panama had its beginning less than four hundred years ago. In both cases
+the possession of a canal site demanded by commerce brought loss of
+territory and prestige to the government actually owning it. The
+Egyptians were shorn of the privilege of governing Egypt through the
+reckless pledging of credit to raise funds for the completion of the
+waterway connecting Port Sa&iuml;d and Suez, and the South American republic
+of Colombia saw a goodly slice of territory pass forever from her rule,
+with the Panama site, when the republic on the isthmus came suddenly
+into being.</p>
+
+<p>Vexatious and humiliating as the incidents must have been to the
+Egyptians and the Colombians, the world at large, broadly considering
+the situations, pretends to see no misfortune in the conversion of
+trifling areas to the control of abler administrators, comparing each
+action to the condemning of a piece of private property to the use of
+the universe. When the canal connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific
+shall be completed, no more waterways uniting oceans will be necessary
+or possible. But, did a weak people possess a site that might be
+utilized by the ebbing and flowing of the globe's shipping, when a canal
+had been made, they would obviously hesitate a long time before
+voluntarily parading its advantages.</p>
+
+<p>The uniting of the Mediterranean and Red seas was considered long before
+the birth of Christ, and many wise men and potentates toyed with the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[5]</a></span>project in the hoary ages. The Persian king, Necho, was dissuaded
+sixteen hundred years before the dawn of Christianity from embarking in
+the enterprise, through the warning of his favorite oracle, who insisted
+that the completion of the work would bring a foreign invasion,
+resulting in the loss of canal and country as well. The great Rameses
+was not the only ruler of the country of the Nile who coquetted with the
+project. In 1800 the engineers of Napoleon studied the scheme, but their
+error in estimating the Red Sea to be thirty feet below the
+Mediterranean kept the Corsican from undertaking the cutting of a canal.
+Mehemet Ali, whose energies for improving the welfare of his Egyptian
+people were almost boundless, never yielded to the blandishment of
+engineers scheming to pierce the isthmus; he may have known of the
+prognostication of Necho's oracle.</p>
+
+<p>Greater than any royal actor in the Suez enterprise, however, was
+Ferdinand de Lesseps, the Frenchman whom history persists in calling an
+engineer. By training and occupation he was a diplomatist, probably
+knowing no more of engineering than of astronomy or therapeutics.
+Possessing limitless ambition, he longed to be conspicuously in the
+public gaze, to be great. He excelled as a negotiator, and knew this;
+and it came easy to him to organize and direct. In his day the
+designation "Captain of Industry" had not been devised. In the project
+of canalizing the Suez isthmus&mdash;perennial theme of Cairo bazaar and
+coffee-house&mdash;he recognized his opportunity, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[6]</a></span>severed his connection
+with the French Consulate-General in Egypt to promote the alluring
+scheme, under a concession readily procured from Viceroy Sa&iuml;d. This was
+in 1856.</p>
+
+<p>Egypt had no debt whatever when Sa&iuml;d Pasha signed the document. But when
+the work was completed, in 1869, the government of the ancient land of
+the Pharaohs was fairly tottering under its avalanche of obligations to
+European creditors, for every wile of the plausible De Lesseps had been
+employed to get money from simple Sa&iuml;d, and later from Ismail Pasha, who
+succeeded him in the khedivate. For fully a decade the raising of money
+for the project was the momentous work of the rulers of Egypt; but more
+than half the cash borrowed at usurious rates stuck to the hands of the
+money brokers in Europe, let it be known, while the obligation of Sa&iuml;d
+or Ismail was in every instance for the full amount.</p>
+
+<p>Incidentally, a condition of the concession was that Egypt need
+subscribe nothing, and as a consideration for the concession it was
+solemnly stipulated that for ninety-nine years&mdash;the period for which the
+concession was given&mdash;fifteen per cent, of the gross takings of the
+enterprise would be paid to the Egyptian treasury.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8"></a></p>
+<img src="images/008.jpg" width="600" height="421" alt="DE LESSEP'S STATUE" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">PORT SAID ENTRANCE TO SUEZ CANAL, SHOWING DE LESSEP'S
+STATUE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Learning the borrowing habit from his relations with plausible De
+Lesseps, the magnificent Ismail borrowed in such a wholesale manner, for
+the Egyptian people and himself, that in time both were hopelessly in
+default to stony-hearted European creditors. Egyptian bonds were then
+quoted <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[9]</a></span>in London at about half their face value, and Britons held a
+major part of them.</p>
+
+<p>England had originally fought the canal project, opposing it in every
+way open to her power and influence at Continental capitals. The belief
+in time dawning upon the judgment of Britain that the canal would be
+finished and would succeed, her statesmen turned their energies to
+checkmating and minimizing the influence of De Lesseps and his dupe
+Ismail. The screws were consequently put on the Sultan of Turkey&mdash;whose
+vassal Ismail was&mdash;resulting in that Merry Monarch of the Nile being
+deposed and sent into exile, and the national cash-box at Cairo was at
+the same time turned over to a commission of European
+administrators&mdash;and is yet in their keeping.</p>
+
+<p>But the miserable people of Egypt, the burdened fellaheen, resented the
+interference of Christian money-lenders, demanding more than their pound
+of flesh. The Arabi rebellion resulted, when British regiments and
+warships were sent to quell the uprising and restore the authority of
+the Khedive. That was nearly a quarter of a century ago; but since the
+revolution the soldiers and civil servants of England have remained in
+Egypt, and to all intents and purposes the country has become a colony
+of England. The defaulted debts of the canal-building period were
+responsible for these happenings, be it said.</p>
+
+<p>Verily, the fulfilment of Necho's oracle came with terrible force, and
+generations of Nile husbandmen must toil early and late to pay the
+in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[10]</a></span>terest on the public debt incurred through Ismail's prodigality. This
+degraded man in his exile persistently maintained that he believed he
+was doing right when borrowing for the canal, for it was to elevate
+Egypt to a position of honor and prominence in the list of nations. And
+it is the irony of fate, surely, that Ismail's personal holding in the
+canal company was sacrificed to the British government for half its
+actual value, on the eve of his dethronement, and that every tittle of
+interest in the enterprise held by the Egyptian government&mdash;including
+the right to fifteen per cent, of the receipts&mdash;was lost or abrogated.
+Owning not a share of stock in the undertaking, and having no merchant
+shipping to be benefited, Egypt derives no more advantage from the great
+Suez Canal than an imaginary kingdom existing in an Anthony Hope novel.</p>
+
+<p>The canal has prospered beyond the dreams of its author; but this means
+no more to the country through which it runs than the success of the
+canals of Mars. De Lesseps died in a madhouse and practically a pauper,
+while Ismail spent his last years a prisoner in a gilded palace on the
+Bosporus, and was permitted to return to his beloved country only after
+death. These are but some of the tragic side-lights of the great story
+of the Suez Canal.</p>
+
+<p>A few years since there was a movement in France to perpetuate De
+Lesseps's name by officially calling the waterway the Canal de Lesseps.
+But England withheld its approval, while other in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[11]</a></span>terests having a right
+to be heard believed that the stigma of culpability over the Panama
+swindles was fastened upon De Lesseps too positively to merit the
+tribute desired by his relatives and friends. As a modified measure,
+however, the canal administration was willing to appropriate a modest
+sum to provide a statue of the once honored man to be placed at the
+Mediterranean entrance of the canal.</p>
+
+<p>There stands to-day on the jetty at Port Sa&iuml;d, consequently, a bronze
+effigy of the man for a few years known as "<i>Le grand Fran&ccedil;ais</i>," visage
+directed toward Constantinople (where once he had been potent in
+intrigue), the left hand holding a map of the canal, while the right is
+raised in graceful invitation to the maritime world to enter. This piece
+of sculpture is the only material evidence that such a person as
+Ferdinand de Lesseps ever lived. The legacy to his family was that of a
+man outliving his importance and fair name.</p>
+
+<p>The name Port Sa&iuml;d commemorates the viceroy granting the concession,
+while Ismail the Splendid has his name affixed to the midway station on
+the canal, Ismailia, where tourists scramble aboard the train bound for
+Cairo and the Nile. The actual terminus at the Suez end is called Port
+Tewfik, after Ismail's son and successor in the khedivate. This
+convenient mode of perpetuating the names of mighty actors in the Suez
+drama suggests a certain sentimentality, but the present generation
+cares as little for the subject as for a moldy play-bill hanging in a
+dark corner of a club-house.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[12]</a></span>As an engineering feat the construction of the canal was nothing
+remarkable. Any youth knowing the principles of running lines and
+following the course of least resistance might have planned it. In Cairo
+and Alexandria it is flippantly said that De Lesseps traced with his
+gold-headed walking-stick the course of the canal in the sand, while
+hundreds of thousands of unpaid natives scooped the soil out with their
+hands. The work was completed with dredges and labor-saving machinery,
+as a fact. The enterprise cost practically $100,000,000&mdash;a million
+dollars a mile; and half this was employed in greasing the wheels at
+Constantinople and Paris, Probably the work could to-day be duplicated,
+by using machinery similar to that employed on the Chicago Drainage
+Canal, for $25,000,000. The task would be a digging proposition, pure
+and simple.</p>
+
+<p>A cardinal article of faith of the legal status of the canal is its
+absolute internationality. By its constitution no government can employ
+it in war time to the exclusion or disadvantage of another nation. By a
+convention becoming operative in 1888 the canal is exempt from blockade,
+and vessels of all nations, whether armed or not, are forever to be
+allowed to pass through it in peace or time of war.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13"></a></p>
+<img src="images/013.jpg" width="600" height="444" alt="ITALIAN WARSHIP" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">ITALIAN WARSHIP STEAMING THROUGH CANAL</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Critics of Britain's paramount interest in India and her aspirations in
+the Far East, nevertheless, pretend to see a decided advantage accruing
+from England's control of things Egyptian. They claim that Britain's
+position is immensely <!-- text to here was originally part of page 12. Pages 13-14 was a full page illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span>strengthened by the presence in Cairo and
+Alexandria, within a few hours' journey of the canal, of a half-dozen
+regiments of redcoats ready for any emergency. Another proof of
+England's interest in the great universal artery of travel is the
+maintaining of guard-ships at either terminus, which incidentally keep
+watchful eyes on the coal-bins of Suez and Port Sa&iuml;d, A vessel
+unofficially sunk in an awkward position in the canal might delay for
+weeks the arrival of an unfriendly fleet in Asiatic waters.</p>
+
+<p>The British government and British trade have fattened tremendously from
+the canal. Being the short-cut to England's treasure-house in the East,
+it is more or less equitable that Britain's flag flies over sixty per
+cent, of the canal traffic; and, fully as important, is the tremendous
+increase in value of the shares in the company held by the British
+government. It was in 1875 that Disraeli secured to his countrymen the
+permanent control of the canal through the purchase from embarrassed
+Ismail of that potentate's personal holding in the undertaking. This
+midnight negotiation, conducted over the cable, was Disraeli's most
+material triumph as a statesman. For $20,000,000 he purchased shares
+having now a market value of $135,000,000. A few hours after the
+consummation of this negotiation a group of French bankers, then in
+Cairo, seeking to acquire the shares, were amazed to learn that they had
+been outwitted. A well-posted newspaper correspondent at the French
+capital had informed Britain's ambassa<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>dor of the purpose of the
+bankers' visit to Egypt&mdash;and astute Disraeli did the rest.</p>
+
+<p>This transferred from France to her rival across the channel the right
+to direct the policy of De Lesseps's creation. But French
+susceptibilities have always been considered in matters connected with
+the conduct of the enterprise&mdash;it is still "La Compagnie Universelle du
+Canal Maritime de Suez," the tariff is based on French currency, the
+principal office is in Paris, and the official language of the company
+is French.</p>
+
+<p>The world knows the Suez marine highway only in its utilitarian aspect,
+and America's interest therein is that attaching to it as an enterprise
+forerunning Uncle Sam's route at Panama. Before many years have passed
+the two canals will to some extent be rivals. The Suez cutting is
+practically ninety-nine miles in length, and at present 121 feet wide,
+with a depth accommodating craft drawing twenty-six feet and three
+inches. To handle modern battleships and the increasing size of cargo
+steamers, both depth and width are to be increased. Having no sharp
+curvatures, and excavated at a level from sea to sea, ships proceed by
+night assisted by electric lights with the same facility as by day. The
+time consumed in transit is from fourteen to eighteen hours. Not for a
+decade has a sailing vessel used the canal, and the widest craft ever
+traversing the canal was the dry-dock <i>Dewey</i>, sent under tow by the
+government from the United States to the Philippines. The tariff is now
+reduced to $1.70 per ton register, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span>$2 for every passenger. A ship's
+crew pay nothing. The toll for a steamer of average size, like a
+Peninsular and Orient liner, is about $10,000. I first passed the canal
+in a yacht of the New York Yacht Club, for which the tax was $400, and
+the last time I made the transit was in a German-Lloyd mail steamer
+which paid $7,000 for tonnage and passengers.</p>
+
+<p>The canal's value to the commerce of the world is sufficiently proved by
+the saving of distance effected by it, as compared with the route around
+the Cape of Good Hope. By the latter the distance between England and
+Bombay is 10,860 miles, by the canal 4,620 miles, and from New York to
+the leading ports of India the Cape route is about 11,500 miles, while
+by the canal the journey is shortened to 7,900 miles. How rapidly the
+traffic attracted by the economy in distance thus effected has
+developed, is best illustrated by the following statement, taken
+quinquennially from the company's returns:</p>
+
+<table border="0" cellpadding="8" cellspacing="0" summary="Tonnage and Revenue of Suez Canal">
+
+<tr><td class="padr tdc">Year</td><td class="padr tdc">Steamers</td><td class="padr tdc">Net Tonnage</td><td class="padr tdc">Receipts in Francs</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="padr tdc">1871</td><td class="padr tdr">765</td><td class="padr tdr">761,467</td><td class="padr tdr">7,595,385</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="padr tdc">1876</td><td class="padr tdr">1,457</td><td class="padr tdr">2,069,771</td><td class="padr tdr">27,631,455</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="padr tdc">1881</td><td class="padr tdr">2,727</td><td class="padr tdr">4,136,779</td><td class="padr tdr">47,193,880</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="padr tdc">1886</td><td class="padr tdr">3,100</td><td class="padr tdr">5,767,655</td><td class="padr tdr">54,771,075</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="padr tdc">1891</td><td class="padr tdr">4,206</td><td class="padr tdr">8,699,020</td><td class="padr tdr">83,421,500</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="padr tdc">1896</td><td class="padr tdr">3,407</td><td class="padr tdr">8,594,307</td><td class="padr tdr">79,652,175</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="padr tdc">1901</td><td class="padr tdr">3,699</td><td class="padr tdr">10,823,840</td><td class="padr tdr">100,386,397</td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="padr tdc">1906</td><td class="padr tdr">3,780</td><td class="padr tdr">11,750,000</td><td class="padr tdr">103,700,000</td></tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<p>The Suez company pays enormously, and more than half the current
+earnings go to the posses<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span>sors of the several grades of bonds and
+shares. Great Britain is the preponderating user of the canal, with
+Germany a poor second. Holland, due to proprietorship of Dutch India, is
+third in the list, and the nation of De Lesseps is fourth. The United
+States stands near the foot of the roll of patrons, being only
+represented by an occasional warship, transport going to or coming from
+the Philippines, or a touring yacht. It is a pathetic fact that our
+country, paramount producer of the world, has not been represented for
+nearly a decade by the Stars and Stripes over a commercial craft in the
+Suez canal. Cargoes go or come between American ports and those of the
+Orient, of course, but they are borne in British bottoms or those having
+register in other foreign nations. Fifteen or sixteen years ago England
+was represented in Suez statistics by seventy-five per cent. of the
+total traffic; but her proportion has decreased until it is now under
+sixty per cent. Kaiser William making a systematic fight for new markets
+in China and throughout Australasia, the statistics of Germany in canal
+traffic are slowly advancing.</p>
+
+<p>At present, with the Suez enterprise in operation thirty-eight years,
+the average number of ships using the waterway is approximately ten each
+day. This is one vessel every two hours and thirty-five minutes during
+the twenty-four hours&mdash;meaning an eastbound craft every five hours and
+ten minutes, and a westbound every five hours and ten minutes.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span>The idea of wedding the Atlantic and the Pacific must have been original
+with the first observant and intelligent person viewing the two oceans
+from the hills of the Central-American isthmus. Presumably he was a
+Spanish adventurer, and the time practically four hundred years ago. A
+century before the landing on American soil of the Pilgrim Fathers,
+explorers were informing Charles V of Spain of the opportunity supplied
+by nature to connect the waters of the two oceans. In 1550, one Galvao,
+a Portuguese navigator, wrote a book to prove the feasibility of an
+artificial connection between the Atlantic and the Pacific; and in 1780
+a scientific commission from Spain studied the three Central-American
+routes&mdash;Panama, San Blas, and Nicaragua. These are simple facts to be
+pondered over by busy people who may possibly be in doubt as to whether
+the "father" of the isthmian enterprise was De Lesseps, Theodore
+Roosevelt, or Admiral Walker.</p>
+
+<p>But it required a knowledge of practical geography to learn that from
+Colon to Panama by sea is eight thousand miles, instead of forty-seven
+across country&mdash;and it took a dauntless American President to demand
+that his government construct a national water route across the isthmus
+at Panama, and to point the way to that end; and this was done against
+potent opposition to any canal, and expressed preference of powerful
+statesmen for the unfeasible Nicaraguan project.</p>
+
+<p>It may be profitable for enthusiasts jumping at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span>the conclusion that the
+American canal will pay from its opening, to study the returns of the
+Suez enterprise, the first full year of whose operation (1870) showed
+gross takings of only $1,031,365 from tolls levied upon 486 vessels.
+Speaking generally, a shipper sends his cargo by way of Suez only when
+3,000 miles at least of ocean steaming may be saved&mdash;this is the
+approximate economy effected by the great turnstile between West and
+East, counting time, fuel, wages and other expenses. It may be accepted
+as a concrete fact that the employment of any canal by commerce must
+ever depend upon economic considerations.</p>
+
+<p>Already acknowledging our commercial predominance, Europeans are not
+blind to the real purpose of the Panama Canal. But it should be borne in
+mind that whenever it is an open choice between the canal toll and the
+equivalent of time at sea, the Briton will be slow to decide in favor of
+contributing to the resources of a nation rising in brief time to
+commercial premiership; and Frenchmen, economists by nature, will take a
+similar view, as will Germans, and shippers of other nations. Expressed
+in the fewest words, the employment of the Panama route will be governed
+exclusively by self-interest, computed from the standpoint of material
+economy; sentimentality will bring not one ship to Uncle Sam as a
+patron&mdash;unless it be an American ship.</p>
+
+<p>Suez will always be favored by European shipmasters determining routes
+for cargoes in which Panama and Suez present advantages practically
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span>equal; probably the expense of a few hundred miles additional travel
+would not cause them to break from the old route, by which there is no
+risk of accident or delay from canal-locks. A considerable percentage of
+the oversea carrying trade controlled by British bottoms is
+geographically independent of canals, and will always be. For example,
+the bulk of traffic to and from the west coast of South America&mdash;the
+rich nitrate trade of Iquique and Valparaiso&mdash;will not ordinarily be
+altered by the Panama Canal. The economy of distance from the latter
+port to England and the Continent by the canal being only about 1,500
+miles, this traffic, except under unusual circumstances, will continue
+as long as it goes in British vessels to round the extremity of South
+America.</p>
+
+<p>Singapore will be the Asiatic port differentiating the attracting power
+of the Panama and Suez canals, speaking from the basis of Atlantic and
+Gulf ports as points of origin or destination. Cargoes for places west
+of the 105th degree of east longitude will logically be sent through the
+Mediterranean and the Suez Canal. But the area east of the Singapore
+degree of longitude is teeming with opportunity for Panama cargoes. The
+isthmian short cut to Oceanica and Asia, comprising the coastal section
+of China's vast empire, enterprising Japan, the East Indies, Australia,
+New Zealand, and our own Philippine archipelago, is the world's most
+potential area. The awakened Orient can use American products to
+practically <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span>limitless extent. One third of the trade of these lands
+would make America great as a world-provider, and could be secured if we
+embarked seriously in an effort to obtain it. Students of economics have
+never admitted the logic of America's sending cotton to England to be
+there converted into fabrics clothing half the people of the East.</p>
+
+<p>Let the reader, content in belief that our manufactures have an
+extensive use in the outer world, because America heads the list of
+exporting nations, investigate the subject, and his reward will be to
+learn that <i>we export only a trifle more than six per cent. of what we
+manufacture</i>. Let him also study the statistics of our commerce with
+South America, natural products and manufactures of every sort&mdash;they are
+replete with astonishing facts. To discover that our exports to the
+southern continent do not equal $2 per capita of South America's
+population will surprise the investigator, doubtless; and that the
+volume of trade is overwhelmingly with England and Germany will likewise
+be disconcerting. South America has 40,000,000 people; but Mexico's
+13,500,000 inhabitants buy nearly as much from Uncle Sam as the South
+Americans. We now sell Canadians products averaging $30 per capita
+annually.</p>
+
+<p>The reason for the startling disparity in the statistics of trade
+intercourse with our adjoining neighbors, Canada and Mexico, and oversea
+South America, is obviously the lack of transportation facilities under
+the American flag; and the adage that "trade follows the flag" has
+earned more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>significance than attaches to a mere figure of speech. We
+pay South America yearly, let it be known, about $120,000,000 for
+coffee, wool, hides and other raw products; and the major share of this
+money is expended in Europe for the necessities and luxuries of life.
+This is inequitable, to say the least, and should be remedied. Uncle Sam
+must look to the Orient, as well, and seek to make China his best
+customer. Every nation in Europe whose foreign trade is worth
+considering exploits foreign countries in the thorough manner of a great
+commercial house&mdash;getting business by the most productive, not the
+easiest, methods. In frequent magazine articles I have insisted that the
+isthmian canal, "destined to make the United States the trade arbiter of
+the world," could never be expected to "pay" directly. The artificial
+waterway is to cost a vast deal of money; with the payments to the
+French company and to the republic of Panama, added to the sum necessary
+to the completion of the work. Uncle Sam's expenditure cannot be less
+than $225,000,000! It will probably be more. A private incorporation
+embarked in the enterprise would hold that the investment was entitled
+to five per cent. interest, say, and in time be funded. The money of the
+nation, embarked in a project distinctly commercial, merits a reasonable
+rate of income or benefit&mdash;four per cent. certainly. To operate the
+canal with the expensive up-keep essential to a region of torrential
+rains, cannot be less than $4,000,000 annually; if the Chagres River
+refuses to be confined <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span>in bounds, the cost will be greater. The items
+of yearly expense figured here total $13,000,000&mdash;a sum to be regarded
+as the very minimum of the cost of maintaining and operating the canal.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25"></a></p>
+<img src="images/025.jpg" width="600" height="441" alt="CARGO STEAMER IN THE CANAL" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">CARGO STEAMER IN THE CANAL AT KILOMETER 133</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="tonnage" id="tonnage"></a>Optimistic students of ocean transportation statistics say the canal
+will draw 10,000,000 tons of shipping a year; others, conservative of
+opinion, say half this volume. Taking the mean of these estimates, I
+hazard the statement that six years after the canal is opened, the
+tonnage will be 7,500,000. The Suez Canal was operated more than thirty
+years before its business aggregated 10,000,000 tons; and to attract
+this volume, several reductions in tolls were necessary. The American
+government cannot properly levy a heavier tribute at Panama than is
+demanded at Suez, for the fact is, our canal will not be as essential as
+that uniting Europe and the East. A like tariff would produce for Uncle
+Sam, on the hypothesis of a business of 7,500,000 tons, only $12,750,000
+a year; a higher tariff would probably produce less. And here is an
+unpalatable truthlet&mdash;Panama's earnings from passengers can never be
+considerable, compared with that constant ebbing and flowing of humanity
+between the home countries of Europe and their dependencies in Asia,
+Africa and Australasia. As a highway of travel, Panama can never have a
+quarter of the income from passengers as that yearly accruing to the
+Suez company. It may be unpopular to here record the opinion that the
+<i>direct</i> increment of the American canal cannot for many years yield<!-- text to here was originally part of page 24. Pages 25-26 was a full page illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span>
+what in a commercial enterprise could be called a profit.</p>
+
+<p>The way to compel the canal to pay <i>indirectly</i> is to make it incidental
+to the development of a mighty commercial marine, that will carry
+American products to present foreign markets, and to new markets, under
+the Stars and Stripes. This accomplished, the United States will
+indisputably be the trade arbiter of the universe. With operations under
+way on the isthmus, is not the time propitious for popular discussion
+throughout the nation, and in official Washington, how best to <i>create</i>
+the commerce that will make the Panama Canal a success from its opening?</p>
+
+<p>We have populated the country, developed resources of field, forest and
+mine, and devised matchless ways of translating natural products into
+finished articles appealing to all mankind. Now, let us cease sending
+these products of soil and workshop to market in British ships; let us
+forward them in vessels constructed in American shipyards, thereby
+making the transaction independently American. Already have we produced
+ocean carriers equal to the best; while American war-ships, native from
+keel to topmast truck, are the envy of the world.</p>
+
+<p>Not for a decade has a commercial vessel under the American flag passed
+the Suez Canal, I have stated. But the time was when Uncle Sam's ensign
+was the emblem oftenest seen in foreign harbors.</p>
+
+<p>In but one department of natural growth is the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span>United States
+backward&mdash;shipping, in its broad and commercial acceptance. To promote
+it should now be the plan of both political parties.</p>
+
+<p>Our canal can never pay until we enter as ship-owners into competition
+with Europe's trading nations, and these possess a material interest in
+the Suez undertaking, be it remembered. The commercial fleet at present
+under the American flag could not pay a tenth of Panama's operating
+expenses. When we seriously embark upon the work of creating a great
+merchant marine, we are going to rouse spirited opposition. Englishmen,
+Germans, and Frenchmen will not like it; and Europeans cannot be
+expected to take any interest in the welfare of our national canal, and
+all may object to fattening the treasury of a country that is their
+trade competitor. These facts, insignificant as they may seem, prove in
+reality the need for supplying hundreds of ocean carriers under the same
+flag as that flying over the canal zone.</p>
+
+<p>By the time the canal is opened, the United States will have 100,000,000
+inhabitants; and agriculture, assisted by ordinary methods and by
+irrigation, will have developed to an extent making our commodities
+dictators of supply and price. By that time, sea transportation cannot
+be regarded as a competitor of transcontinental railway systems that
+have done much toward making the country what it is: water
+transportation will be found a necessary adjunct to rail facilities,
+relieving the roads of a fraction of their through traffic.</p>
+
+<p>To restore the Stars and Stripes to the seas will<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> require years of
+earnest effort, much debating in the halls of Congress, a drastic
+liberalizing of marine laws, and much prodding of human energies by
+editorial writers.</p>
+
+<p>Suez shareholders, when asked by Americans if they fear any rivalry from
+Panama, reply: "None at all; unless"&mdash;and here is the kernel of the
+matter&mdash;"your countrypeople find a way of creating a mercantile marine
+coincidently with the building of the canal."</p>
+
+<p>With unlimited financial resources to promote the most gigantic of
+modern enterprises, with inexhaustible raw and cultivated products, with
+labor to produce any conceivable commodity, the humiliating fact
+confronted the people of the United States a few months since of seeing
+its official delegates to the Pan-American Congress at Rio de Janeiro
+set forth in a steamship flying the red flag of Great Britain.</p>
+
+<p>The most remarkable accomplishment in the material history of the world
+is that the United States secured her commercial supremacy without
+possessing a merchant marine. It is one of the marvels of modern times,
+surely.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER II<br />
+<small>COLOMBO, CEYLON'S COSMOPOLITAN SEAPORT</small></h2>
+
+
+<p>A modern man of business might believe that Bishop Heber of Calcutta
+wove into irresistible verse a tremendous advertisement for Ceylon real
+estate, but repelled investors by a sweeping castigation of mankind,
+when he wrote:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">What though the spicy breezes<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Though every prospect pleases,<br /></span>
+<span class="i1">And only man is vile.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>In tens of thousands of Christian churches the praises of Ceylon are
+thus sung every Sunday, and will be as long as the inhabitants of
+America and Great Britain speak the English language. Some of the
+divine's statements, to be acceptable as impartial testimony, require
+modification; for the natural charms of the island are not so sweepingly
+perfect, and there man is far above the Asian average. Hymnists, it may
+be inferred, write with some of the license of poets. No part of
+England's great realm, nevertheless, is more beautiful than the crown
+colony of Ceylon in the Indian Ocean.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32"></a></p>
+<img src="images/032.jpg" width="600" height="457" alt="THE JETTY AT COLOMBO" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">THE JETTY AT COLOMBO</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><!-- Pages 31-32 was a blank page and a fullpage illustration--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span>An Eastbound traveler during the long run from Aden hears much of the
+incomparable island of palms, pearls, and elephants; and every waggish
+shipmate haunts smoke room and ladies' saloon waiting for the
+opportunity to point out the lighthouse on Minecoy Island in the
+Maldives as "the Light of Asia." Four hundred miles further and your
+good ship approaches Colombo. The great breakwater, whose first stone
+was laid by Albert Edward, is penetrated at last, and the polyglot and
+universal harbor of call unfolds like a fan.</p>
+
+<p>There's music within; the breezes bring proof of this. Surely, it is
+Bishop Heber's trite stanzas repeated in unison by the forgiving
+populace&mdash;they are sung everywhere, and why not in Ceylon's great
+seaport? The ship churns forward to her moorings. It is singing; there
+is no mistaking it. But the air! Does it deal with "spicy breezes," and
+"pleasing prospects?" No; it is a sort of chant. Listen again. Ah, it is
+Lottie Collins's masterpiece, not Bishop Heber's: it is "Ta-ra-ra boom
+de-ay." And the chanters are dozens of Britain's loyal subjects, youths
+naked and black, lying in wait to induce passengers to shower coins into
+the sea in recompense of a display of diving from catamarans constructed
+from trunks of palm-trees.</p>
+
+<p>If asked what place in all the world can in a day show the greatest
+medley of humanity, I should pronounce in favor of the landing-jetty at
+Colombo. Scurrying ashore from ocean steamers in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span>launches, in
+jolly-boats pulled by oars fashioned like huge mustard-spoons, or in
+outrigger canoes that glide rapidly, are representatives of every nation
+of the West, of China, of Japan&mdash;in fact, of every division of God's
+footstool having place in the list of nations. Being the great port of
+call and coaling station linking Occident, Orient and Australasia, a
+traveler naturally wants to inspect the place and stretch his legs on
+shore, while his ship is stocking with fuel to carry it to Aden,
+Singapore or to an antipodean port. Tiffin or dinner on <i>terra firma</i> is
+likewise coveted by the traveler with appetite jaded by weeks of
+sea-cooking. Ceylon's capital teems consequently with people hungry for
+a <i>table d'hote</i> meal, a 'rickshaw ride, and the indiscriminate purchase
+of rubbishing cats-eye and sapphire jewelry.</p>
+
+<p>The conglomeration of people on the promenade floor of the jetty,
+watching voyagers come and go, would tend to make a student of
+anthropology lose his mind. Every variety of man of Ceylon, practically
+of every creed and caste of India, even of all Asia, is there, and a
+liberal admixture of Europeans as well.</p>
+
+<p>Leaning over the hand-rail all humanity appears equal&mdash;for sight-seeing
+purposes, certainly. There are gentle Cingalese men with hair twisted
+into a knot on the back of the head and large shell comb on the crown,
+Tamil coolies and Hindus in profusion, of course. There are fat Parsees
+from Bombay, and Buddhist priests and monks in yellow togas, each armed
+with palm-leaf fan and um<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>brella, precisely as Gautama Buddha left his
+father's mansion to sow the religion worshiped by nearly a third of the
+people of the earth. A group of lascars, on leave from a P. &amp; O. liner,
+look depreciatingly on nautical brethren from colder climes. There are
+Malays, as well, obsequious Moormen merchants, and haughty Afghans from
+beyond the "Roof of the World," as scholars call the Himalayas. Here and
+there are broad-chested Arabs from Aden way and the Persian Gulf, taking
+chances on the announcement of a pearl "fishery" by the
+government&mdash;divers, who may secure a gem of price in an hour's work, or
+may return home empty-handed. Their neighbors on the platform are
+seafarers coming with the embassy from the Sultan of the Maldive
+Islands, bringing to the governor of Ceylon the annual tribute
+sanctioned by custom, and the renewed assurances of loyalty to Edward
+VII. Close by them, and taking a profound interest in a group of
+European ladies stepping from a launch below, are three black girls in
+the garb of Catholic Sisters of Charity, whose chains and crucifixes are
+of unusual size.</p>
+
+<p>With a conscious air of proprietorship of the British Empire, khaki-clad
+Tommy Atkins comes down the pier, attended by the inevitable fox
+terrier. Following close on his heels is a towering man of ebon
+complexion, with three stripes of ashes and the wafer of humility on his
+forehead. He is barefooted, and his solitary garment is a piece of
+cotton with which he has girded his loins; he is abundantly lacquered
+with cocoanut oil, to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>protect him from contracting a cold from the too
+rigorous "spicy breezes" of Lanka's isle. A stranger would say he was a
+penitent wayfarer of God, not worth the smallest coin of the East. In
+one hand he carries an overfilled valise, and in the other a sunshade of
+immaculate white: the initiated recognize him to be a chettie, easily
+worth lakhs of rupees, who is presumably embarking for Rangoon, and
+there to purchase a cargo of rice.</p>
+
+<p>Hark! There is commotion and much noise at the jetty entrance. Can it be
+an alarm of fire, or have the customs officials at the gates apprehended
+a flagrant smuggler? Oh, no; it is merely Great Britain arriving on the
+scene in the person of a smart-looking tea-planter who has honked down
+in his motor-car to see a comrade off on the mail steamer; incidentally,
+some of the noise proceeds from a group of sailors on leave from a
+battleship who are wrangling with 'rickshaw men as to proper payment for
+having been hauled about the city on a sight-seeing tour. And so it goes
+in Colombo. Each day presents a picture not to be adequately described
+by a less gifted writer than Kipling.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38"></a></p>
+<img src="images/038.jpg" width="600" height="461" alt="HINDU SILVERSMITHS, COLOMBO" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">HINDU SILVERSMITHS, COLOMBO</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="rickshaw" id="rickshaw"></a>Colombo is the westermost town of that great division of Asia wherein
+subject races&mdash;black, brown and yellow&mdash;haul the white man in
+jinrickshaws. No institution of the East stamps the superiority of the
+European more than this menial office of the native. Probably every
+American when brought face to face with the matter says manfully that he
+will never descend to employing a fellow creature to run between shafts
+like an animal, that he <!-- text to here was originally part of page 36. Pages 37-38 was a blank page and a full page illustration-->
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span>(visitor from a land where rights of mankind
+are equal and constitutional) may be spared from footweariness under a
+tropic sun. It is a noble impulse&mdash;but weak man is easily tempted.
+Hence, you decide to try the 'rickshaw just once.</p>
+
+<p>The sensation is found to be agreeable, surprisingly so. Your fellow
+mortal, you perceive, is dripping with perspiration under the awful heat
+of the sun, while beneath the hood of the vehicle you are cool and
+comfortable. Then you yield to the savage defects of your moral
+make-up&mdash;and decide never to walk another yard in the East, not when a
+'rickshaw is to be had. The habit comes as easily as drinking, or
+anything that your conscience and bringing-up tell you is not quite
+right, although enjoyable.</p>
+
+<p>The 'rickshaw in Colombo is a splendid convenience. The runner's rights
+are as loyally protected as those of his employer, and he readily covers
+six miles an hour at a swinging gait. If his vehicle has rubber tires
+and ball-bearings the labor is not severe. The man might have a harder
+vocation with smaller pay.</p>
+
+<p>Colombo has hotels that would satisfy in Europe or America&mdash;one, the
+Grand Oriental, is spoken of as the most comfortable hostelry between
+Cairo and San Francisco. To refer to it by its full name stamps the
+newcomer and novice at traveling&mdash;throughout half the world it is known
+familiarly as the "G. O. H." Two miles from Colombo, gloriously situated
+on the sea-front, the Galle Face Hotel is fashionable, cool and quiet,
+but lack<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>ing in the characteristic of being an international
+casino&mdash;which assuredly the "G. O. H." is. Tiffin or dinner is an
+interesting function at a Colombo hotel, for one never knows who or what
+his table mates may be. In the East every man who travels is assumed to
+be somebody. Hence you suspect your <i>vis-a-vis</i> at dinner to be the
+governor of a colony somewhere in the immeasurable Orient, or a new
+commander for Saigon, or perhaps a Frankfort banker going to China to
+conclude the terms of a new loan. If your neighbor at table is specially
+reserved, and gives his orders like one accustomed to being obeyed, you
+fancy him to be an accomplished diplomatist, very likely having in his
+pocket the draft of a treaty affecting half the people of the Far East.
+No one seems ever to suspect his confr&egrave;res of being mere business men.
+And the ladies&mdash;well, they may be duchesses or dressmakers no longer
+content with traveling "on the Continong"; nobody cares which. If they
+are very well gowned, probably they are the latter.</p>
+
+<p>An army of waiters clad in spotless and snowy uniforms with red facings
+and shining buttons set before you dishes you never heard of. Some are
+satisfying in the extreme; but these waiters, can they be described as
+in uniform? True, their garments are alike, but the head-gear is of
+infinite variety. According to caste or nationality each proclaims
+himself. But look once more; there <i>is</i> uniformity, for all are
+barefooted.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42"></a></p>
+<img src="images/042.jpg" width="373" height="550" alt="A HIGH PRIEST OF BUDDHA" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 373px;">
+<p class="caption">A HIGH PRIEST OF BUDDHA</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Wonderful fellows these Easterns. The native hotel band, led by a
+wandering European, plays <!-- text to here was originally part of page 40. Pages 41-42 was a blank page and a full page illustration--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span>Sousa's marches and "Hiawatha," yes, even
+"Tammany," with accuracy; and the cooks prepare dishes with French
+names, make <i>vin blanc</i> and <i>Hollandaise</i> sauces worthy of Delmonico or
+Ritz, and this without permitting the palate to guide them. If they
+tasted food concocted for Christians a million kinds of perdition might
+be their punishment. Music may be mechanical, as it is claimed to be,
+but not cooking. How do the gastronomic experts of pagan Asia acquire
+their skill?</p>
+
+<p>Considering that the Ceylon capital is only four hundred miles north of
+the equator, the heat is never extremely oppressive. One's energies
+there, nevertheless, are not what they are farther north or at higher
+elevations. Kandy, the ancient up-country capital, is cooler, and Nuwara
+Eliya, in the mountains, is actually cold at night. When white people do
+anything in Colombo&mdash;work, attend church, play bridge, or billiards&mdash;a
+native keeps them moderately comfortable with swinging <i>punkahs</i>. Some
+hotels and residential bungalows have discarded punkahs for mechanical
+fans; but the complaint is that the electricity costs more than the
+<i>punkah-wallah</i>&mdash;the fan-boy of the East. "Ah, yes; but your wallah
+frequently falls asleep at his work," you remark to the resident. "True,
+and your electricity frequently fails us," is the reply.</p>
+
+<p>Pear-shaped Ceylon, separated from India by only fifty miles of water,
+is three fourths the size of Ireland, and its population 3,600,000.
+Seventy-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span>five per cent. of the people are Cingalese, and their language
+a dialect harking back to Sanskrit. The Cingalese are mostly Buddhists,
+with a sprinkling of Roman Catholics, the latter religion having been
+left in the land by its one-time Portuguese rulers. The Tamils,
+numbering a million, are not native to the island, like the Cingalese,
+but have come from southern India as laborers on coffee and tea estates;
+they are chiefly Hindus, although thousands have been converted to the
+Christian faith. The Mohammedan Moormen, living on the coast,
+approximate a quarter of a million in number. Europeans of all
+nationalities, not including the British troops, total only 6,500, a
+percentage of the island's human family to be computed in fractions.</p>
+
+<p>The Cingalese seen chiefly in the towns wear their long hair arranged
+like a woman's, and around their heads a large, semicircular comb of
+shell, as has been said. The comb has nothing to do with religion or
+caste&mdash;contrary to what a visitor is usually told; it merely announces
+the wearer to be not of the coolie class, who carry sacks of rice and
+cases of merchandise on their heads. Half the people of Ceylon wear no
+head-gear, and not two per cent. know what it is to wear shoes.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46"></a></p>
+<img src="images/046.jpg" width="369" height="550" alt="REPRESENTATION OF BUDDHA'S TOOTH" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 373px;">
+<p class="caption">REPRESENTATION OF BUDDHA'S TOOTH, COLOMBO MUSEUM</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Colombo's population is about 160,000. The capital is a handsome city,
+with communities on seafront, on the shores of a sinuous lake, and
+ranging inland for miles through cinnamon gardens and groves of
+cocoanut-palms. Queen's <!-- text to here was originally part of page 44. Pages 45-46 was a blank page and a full page illustration--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span>House, where the governor resides, is a
+rambling pile. The general post-office is the best building in the
+capital, and the museum and Prince's club, close by, are entitled to
+notice. The hard red-soil roads of the city extend for miles into the
+palm forests, and are equal to any in the world. Government officials
+and European commercial people live in handsome suburban bungalows
+smothered amid superb foliage trees and flowering shrubs and vines.</p>
+
+<p>What were called the maritime provinces of Ceylon were ruled by the
+Dutch until 1796. But in that year England supplanted Holland, and in
+1815 she secured control of the entire island by overthrowing the
+Kandyan kingdom, for a long time confining European invasion to the
+island's seaboard. Ceylon costs Britain little worry and practically no
+expenditure. Strategically the island is valueless, save the benefit
+accruing to England in controlling if need be the enormous coal heaps of
+Colombo, and the maintenance there of a graving dock capable of handling
+the biggest battleship. Four hundred miles of government railways earn a
+tremendous profit, and moderate import and export duties on commodities
+keep the colonial cash-box well lined.</p>
+
+<p>As in other Asiatic countries, the staple food is rice. Strange to say,
+Ceylon produces of this only half what is demanded by the people. Hence,
+it is necessary to import eight million bushels from India and Malay
+regions, costing approximately $5,000,000. On the other hand, the island
+sends to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span>Europe and America annually $21,000,000 worth of tea, besides
+considerable quantities of rubber, cocoanut-oil, cacao, and plumbago.
+Ceylon's crude rubber commands the highest price, and is a crop growing
+by leaps and bounds. It is estimated that eight hundred million
+cocoanuts are grown yearly in Ceylon. An item in the list of exports is
+elephants. These go to India as beasts of burden and pleasure, and the
+government collects two hundred rupees for every elephant sent from the
+island.</p>
+
+<p>There is a possibility of two great events any springtime in Ceylon, and
+the prospect of either occurring is a theme of endless small talk in the
+offices and bungalow homes of everybody connected with "Government." One
+is the elephant kraal, planned for the edification of His Excellency the
+Governor and a few officials and visitors of distinction, who, from
+cages in trees at elevated points insuring safety, look down upon the
+driving in of converging herds of elephants. When an earth-strewn
+flooring of bamboo gives way and the monarchs of the jungle are cast
+into a stockaded pit, the kraal is complete. Then, ordinarily, the
+Ceylon treasury undergoes drafts for forage, until an authorized
+functionary negotiates the sale of the animals to maharajahs and lesser
+worthies up in India.</p>
+
+<p>A kraal occurs every four or five years, or when a British royalty
+happens in Ceylon. Each governor is entitled by custom to the semi-royal
+honor at least once during his incumbency. The kraal is an enterprise
+usually paying for itself, unless <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span>there be a glut in the elephant
+market. The last kraal failed dismally, nevertheless, but for a very
+different reason. The drive had been so successful that the stockade was
+full to overflowing with leviathan beasts trumpeting their displeasure
+and wrath. While the dicker for their sale in India was proceeding, they
+became boisterously unruly, and, breaking down their prison of palm-tree
+trunks, scampered away to forest and jungle, without so much as saying
+"thank you" for weeks of gorging on rations paid for out of the public
+cash-box. And this was the reason why the kraal arranged for last year
+was abandoned, after hundreds of natives had been busy for weeks in
+"driving in" from every up-country district&mdash;to jeopardize good money
+was deemed not in keeping with the principles of good finance by certain
+material Britons responsible for the insular exchequer.</p>
+
+<p>The popular event, coming as often as twice every three years, is the
+pearl-fishery. It interests everybody not living in mountain fastnesses,
+and appeals irresistibly to the hearts of the proletariat. Tricking
+elephants into captivity may be the sport of grandees, but the chance to
+gamble over the contents of the humble oyster of the Eastern seas
+invites participation from the meekest plucker of tea-buds on Ceylon's
+hill-slopes to the lowliest coolie in Colombo. Verily, the pearl-fishery
+is the sensational event of that land sung of by Bishop Heber.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER III<br />
+<small>THE LURE OF THE PEARL</small></h2>
+
+
+<p>The bed of the Gulf of Manar, the arm of the Indian Ocean that separates
+Ceylon from India, has given the world more pearls than all other
+fisheries combined, for it has been prolific as a pearling-ground for
+thousands of years. Pearling in the gulf was an occupation hoary with
+age before the dawn of Christianity, for history tells us that Mardis,
+admiral of Alexander the Great, when returning from a voyage having to
+do with the Indian invasion, traversed the strait separating Ceylon from
+the continent, and was informed of the importance of the pearl-banks
+over which his fleet was passing. The great sailor was specially
+interested in the manner of drilling the holes in pearls for stringing,
+which was probably the same that it is to-day.</p>
+
+<p>In the exuberant phraseology of the Orient, Ceylon is "the pearl-drop on
+India's brow," and the Gulf of Manar is "the sea abounding in pearls"
+and "the sea of gain." Ceylon appeals irresistibly to any possessor of
+the wandering foot, for it is an island paradise. It is well governed,
+of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span>course, for its administration is that of a seasoned colony of
+Edward VII's realm, and the guidance of austere, dignified Britain
+countenances nothing like gambling in any of its lands&mdash;oh, dear, no!
+State lotteries are pretty well relegated in these times to Latin
+countries, everybody knows.</p>
+
+<p>Yet the world's most gigantic gamble, pregnantly fruitful with chance in
+all variations and shadings, is unquestionably the Ceylon pearl-fishery;
+compared with it, any state lottery pales to insignificance. From the
+taking of the first oyster to the draining of the last vatful of
+"matter," every step is attended by fickle fortune; and never is the
+interest of the people of Portugal or of Mexico keener over a drawing of
+a lottery, the tickets of which may have been sold at the very
+thresholds of the cathedrals, than is that of the natives of Ceylon and
+southern India over the daily results of a Manar fishery.</p>
+
+<p>Each bivalve is a lottery ticket; it may contain a gem worthy of place
+in a monarch's crown, or be a seed pearl with a mercantile value of only
+a few rupees. Perhaps one oyster in a hundred contains a pearl, and not
+more than one pearl in a hundred, be it known, has a value of
+importance. Nature furnishes the sea, pearling-banks, oysters, and all
+therein contained; the Ceylon administration conducts the undertaking,
+and for its trouble and trifling outlay exacts a "rake-off" of two
+thirds of all that may be won from the deep. And mere man, the brown or
+black diver, receives for his daring and enterprise one oyster in every
+three that he <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span>brings from the ocean's depths&mdash;and his earnings must be
+shared with boat-owner, sailors, attendants, and assistants almost
+without number.</p>
+
+<p>For size of "rake-off," there is no game of hazard in the world offering
+a parallel. The Ceylon government used to exact three out of every four
+oysters brought in, the current tribute of two out of three having
+become operative only a few years since.</p>
+
+<p>It should be known that the pearl-bearing oyster of the Indian Ocean is
+only remotely related to the edible variety of America and Europe. It is
+the <i>Margaritifera vulgaris</i>, claimed to belong to the animal kingdom,
+and not to the fish family, and is never eaten. The eminent marine
+biologist in the service of the Ceylon government, Professor Hornell, F.
+L. S., who intimately knows the habits of the pearl-oyster of the East,
+advances two interesting if not startling premises. One is that the
+pearl is produced as a consequence of the presence of dead bodies of a
+diminutive parasitical tapeworm which commonly affects the Ceylon
+bivalve. The living tapeworm does not induce pearl formation. The
+popular belief has been that the pearl was formed by secretions of nacre
+deposited upon a grain of sand or other foreign particle drawn within
+the oyster through its contact with the sea's bottom. The other Hornell
+assertion is that the oyster goeth and cometh at its pleasure; that it
+is mobile and competent to travel miles in a few weeks.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53"></a></p>
+<p class="center"><small><a href="images/053-big.jpg">View larger image</a></small></p>
+<img src="images/053-th.jpg" width="600" height="467" alt="MAP OF THE GULF OF MANAR" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">MAP OF THE GULF OF MANAR, "THE SEA ABOUNDING IN PEARLS"</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Scientists have long been aware that the pearl <!-- text to here was originally part of page 52. Pages 53-54 was a map and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span>shell-fish possesses
+locomotive powers, which it uses when in quest of food or protection,
+and to escape impure localities. During the Dutch occupation of Ceylon,
+for example, there was a period of several years when the oysters'
+boycott of the Manar banks was virtually unanimous.</p>
+
+<p>It is an accepted fact that pearls are excretions of superimposed
+concentric <i>lamin&aelig;</i> of a peculiarly fine and dense substance, consisting
+in major part of carbonate of lime. Linn&aelig;us, believing in the
+possibility of producing pearls by artifice, suggested the collecting of
+mussels, piercing holes in their shells to produce a wound, and bedding
+them for five or six years to give pearls time to grow. The Swedish
+government succeeded in producing pearls of a sort by this process; but
+as they were of trifling value, the experiments were discontinued.</p>
+
+<p>Cunning Chinese and Japanese have sought of late years to assist or
+improve on nature's pearl-making methods by inserting tiny shot or
+grains of sand between the mantle and the shell, which in time become
+coated with nacre. Not long since there was a movement in Japan to
+embark in pearl production upon a basis wholly commercial, and its
+promoters discussed it as they might a project for supplying a city with
+vegetables. One of the claims of those exploiting the venture was that
+they could keep pace with fashion's changes by supplying pearls of any
+shape, pear, oval, or spherical. This has been accomplished in other
+countries, and European and American dealers <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>have had years of
+acquaintance with the "assisted" pearl, a showy and inexpensive
+counterfeit, but one attaining to no position in the realm of true gems.
+The distinction between fine pearls and these intrusive nacre-coated
+baubles, alluringly advertised as "synthetic pearls," has been
+demonstrated by more than one devotee of science.</p>
+
+<p>There are definite rules for determining when a Ceylon fishery will be
+held, for twice a year the banks are systematically examined by the
+marine biologist, and estimates made of the number of oysters present on
+each bank. Whenever their age and size appear to warrant the step, a
+sample catch of twenty thousand oysters is made by divers employed by
+the government, and a valuation is formed of the pearls they produce. If
+found to average ten or twelve rupees<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> to a thousand oysters, the
+government is advised to proclaim a fishery. Advertisements are then
+published throughout the East, especially in vernacular papers reaching
+the Persian Gulf and the two coasts of southern India, at the instance
+of the colonial secretary's office at Colombo. These detail the
+valuation of the sample pearls, area of beds to be fished, and the
+estimated number of oysters likely to be available upon each. The
+advertisements are printed in Cingalese, Tamil, and English. As rapidly
+as information can spread, it becomes known from Karachi to Rangoon, and
+along the chain of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span>seaports of the Malay states, that a fishery is to
+be held. Divers, gem-buyers, speculators, money-lenders, petty
+merchants, and persons of devious occupations, make speedy arrangements
+for attending. Indian and Ceylon coolies flock by the thousand to the
+coast of the Northern province, longing to play even humble r�les in the
+great game of chance. The "tindals" and divers provide boats and all
+essential gear for the work afloat; while ashore the government supplies
+buildings and various forms of labor for dealing with the curious
+industry.</p>
+
+<p>It is during the calm period of the northeast monsoon,&mdash;February, March
+and April,&mdash;when the sea is flat and the sky is bright and unflecked,
+that the fishery is carried on. The line of banks&mdash;they are "paars," in
+the languages of Ceylon&mdash;cover an extensive submarine plateau off the
+island's northwest coast, from ancient Hippuros southward to Negombo.
+This is of flat-surface rock, irregularly carpeted with coarse sand, and
+dotted with colonies of millions of oysters. Dead coral and other
+products of the sea are scattered everywhere on this plateau, and it is
+a theory that these surface interruptions prevent overcrowding of the
+oysters, and consequently assist in the bivalve's reaching the
+pearl-producing stage. It is claimed that a crowded paar contributes to
+a stunting of growth, bringing disease and premature death to the
+oyster, and consequently no pearls of account.</p>
+
+<p>The estimate of the experts upon which it was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span>decided to announce a
+fishery last year was that there were on the Southwest Cheval paar
+3,500,000 oysters which might be gathered, on the Mideast Cheval paar
+13,750,000 oysters, on the North and South Moderagam 25,750,000, and on
+the South Cheval 40,220,000.</p>
+
+<p>The announcement of this total of 83,000,000 bivalves produced an
+electrical effect, and an unprecedented attendance, for it was equal to
+announcing a lottery with that many tickets, and who knows how few
+prizes!</p>
+
+<p>The student seeking to determine the eighth wonder of the world should
+not overlook the city of Marichchikkaddi. Stories of towns rising
+overnight wherever gold is found, or diamonds discovered, or oil struck,
+have become common to the point of triteness. Tales of the uprising of
+Klondike and South African cities, once amazing, fade to paltriness in
+the opinion of one who has seen the teeming city of Marichchikkaddi. In
+a sense it is a capital, yet it is found in no geography; no railway
+connects it with the world, yet a dozen languages are spoken in its
+streets. Marichchikkaddi's population numbers no young children, no
+persons too aged to toil, and the four or five hundred women sojourners
+merit the right of being present through serving as water-carriers to
+camp and fishing fleet.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60"></a></p>
+<img class="imgborder" src="images/060.jpg" width="600" height="486" alt="COOLIES CARRYING PEARL OYSTERS" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">COOLIES CARRYING PEARL OYSTERS FROM THE BOATS TO THE
+"KOTTU," OR GOVERNMENT STOCKADE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>This place with double-mouthful name, almost defying pronunciation, is
+the pearl metropolis of the universe. Probably there is not a stocked
+jewel-case that does not contain gems that have <!-- text to here was originally part of page 58. Pages 59-60 was a blank page and a full page illustration--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span>been filtered through
+this unique city by the sea. For a dozen reasons it is a wonderful town,
+and the foremost of these is that it is the only city of size that comes
+and goes like the tide's ebbing and flowing.</p>
+
+<p>When a fishery is proclaimed, Marichchikkaddi is only a name&mdash;a
+sand-drifted waste lying between the jungle of the hinterland and the
+ocean. Yet nine months before forty thousand people dwelt here under
+shelter of roofs, and here the struggle for gain had been prosecuted
+with an earnestness that would have borne golden fruit in any city in
+the Western world. There, where lies the skeleton of a jackal
+half-buried in sand, an Indian banker had his habitat and office only a
+few months before, with a lakh of rupees stacked in a conspicuous place
+as glittering earnest of his ability to pay well for anything remarkable
+in the way of a pearl. And beyond, where occurs the rift in the sand,
+stood the shanty in which venturesome divers whiled away time and money
+in trying to pitch rings upon the ends of walking-sticks, as do farmers'
+boys at New England county fairs.</p>
+
+<p>With the license permitting the calling of a pile of buildings formed of
+stucco a "White City," this metropolis might with propriety be named the
+"City of Brown," or, better, the "Cadjan City." For inaccessibility, it
+is in a class by itself.</p>
+
+<p>Colombo is facetiously spoken of by Englishmen as the Clapham Junction
+of the East, for the reason that one can there change to a steamer
+carrying him virtually to any place on the globe.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span>But it is simpler for a white man to get to Melbourne, or Penang, or New
+York, from Colombo, than to obtain passage to Marichchikkaddi, only a
+hundred and fifteen miles up the coast. If he can wait long enough,
+passage may be found, of course; but otherwise all the official and
+editorial persuasion of Colombo&mdash;and the subsidized influence of the
+head porter of the "G. O. H.," availeth nothing. Now and then he may
+hear of a speculative Parsee's dhow that may be going to Manar for a
+cargo of shell-cased lottery tickets, or of a native-owned launch that
+will carry a limited number of passengers at an unlimited fare. A
+fast-sailing outrigger canoe may always be chartered. Another
+opportunity is to travel two days by post-cart to a village one never
+heard of, transferring there to a bullock hackery that may take him
+through jungle roads to the cadjan metropolis&mdash;provided he is able to
+give instructions in Tamil, or a college-bred coolie can be found who
+knows English. Still another way is to take the semi-weekly steamer from
+Colombo to Tuticorin, in southern India, then zigzag about the continent
+of Asia until he makes Paumben. Then it is a matter of only a few days
+when there will be a boat crossing to the pearl-camp. This is the surest
+way of getting to Marichchikkaddi; but it is like making the journey
+from New York to Boston by way of Bermuda.</p>
+
+<p>Ceylon's substitute for virtually everything elsewhere used in the
+construction of buildings is the cadjan: it is at once board, clapboard,
+shingle, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span>and lath. Cadjans are plaited from the leaf of the cocoanut- or
+date-palm, and are usually five or six feet long and about ten inches
+wide; the center rib of the leaf imparts reasonable rigidity and
+strength. Half the shelters for man and beast throughout the island are
+formed of cadjans, costing nothing but the making, and giving protection
+from the sun and a fair amount of security from the elements. The frame
+of a house is made of stakes planted in the ground, with rafters and
+beams resting in crotches conveniently left by the wood-cutter. This
+slender frame is covered with cadjans, arranged systematically, and sewn
+together with cocoanut-leaf strands or tender rattans. Not a nail is
+used, and cadjan flaps that may be raised or lowered from within the
+building take the place of glazed windows. A dwelling of this character,
+carpeted with palm-mats, and flanked with verandas, brings a flowing
+measure of comfort to the dweller in the tropics; but the gales of the
+annual southwest monsoon play havoc with cadjan roofs and walls.</p>
+
+<p>It being known that a fishery will bring together at least forty
+thousand souls, a small army of coolies hastens to Marichchikkaddi a few
+weeks prior to the announced date for opening the fishery, to prepare
+the buildings necessary to house all and sundry, and to erect bungalows
+for the British functionaries having the enterprise in charge. Public
+buildings almost pretentious in size and design rise from the earth in a
+few days, including a residence for the governor of Ceylon,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> who is
+expected to grace the fishery by a visit; one for the government agent
+of the province in which the interesting industry is carried on; and
+another for the delegate of the Colonial Office. There rise,
+mushroom-like, as well, a court-house, treasury, hospital, prison,
+telegraph-office and post-office, and a fair example of that blessing of
+the East known as a rest-house, each reflecting surprising good taste,
+and being adequate to its purpose, and presumably completed at a cost
+well within the appropriation. Jerry-builders and grafters have yet to
+be discovered in Ceylon.</p>
+
+<p>Marichchikkaddi parades structures dedicated neither to religion nor
+dissipation. But the bazaar-like alleys branching from the thoroughfares
+of the Cadjan City purvey many things not obtrusively obvious to the
+British official. Whatever his faith, the disciple of the pearl may
+solitarily prostrate himself beneath a convenient palm-tree, with face
+turned toward Mecca, or on the sea-front indulge the devotions stamping
+him a Hindu of merit.</p>
+
+<p>In an administrative sense the important building is the
+"Kachcherie"&mdash;mayor's office and superintendent's headquarters in one;
+but the structure of material interest is the "kottu," wherein every
+sackful of oysters taken from the boats is counted and apportioned
+between the government and the divers. It is a parallelogram enclosure
+of two or three acres in area, fenced with bamboo palings, and roofed
+here and there to protect the coolies from the sun. For convenience, one
+end <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span>is as near the sea as prudence will admit; and the other, the
+official end, where accountants and armed guards are in command, is not
+far from the governmental offices. A system perfected by years of
+experience makes thieving within the kottu virtually impossible, and the
+clerks who record the count of oysters, and issue them upon official
+order, might safely conduct a bankers' clearinghouse. On occasions they
+handle without error more than three million oysters in a day.</p>
+
+<p>A quarter of a mile from the official section of the city is the great
+human warren and business region, where black men and brown&mdash;Hindus,
+Mohammedans, Buddhists, and the East's flotsam of religions&mdash;dwell and
+traffic in peaceful communion. A broad thoroughfare, starting from the
+edge of the plateau overlooking the sea and extending inland until the
+settlement yields to the open country, is the "Main street"; and here,
+for ten or twelve weeks, is one of Asia's busiest marts. This part of
+Marichchikkaddi is planned with careful regard for sanitary needs and
+hygiene. Streets cross at right angles, and at every corner stands a
+lamp-post rudely made from jungle wood, from which suspends a lantern
+ingeniously fashioned from an American petroleum tin. Sites on the
+principal streets are leased for the period of the fishery to persons
+proving their purposes to be legitimate. For a good corner lot perhaps
+twenty feet square the government receives as much as a thousand rupees;
+and a few hours after the lease is signed up goes a cadjan
+structure<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span>&mdash;and a day later pearls worth a king's ransom may there be
+dealt in with an absence of concern astounding to a visitor.</p>
+
+<p>Can these Easterners, squatting on mats like fakirs in open-front
+stalls, judge the merits of a pearl? Yes, decidedly. In the twinkling of
+an eye one of them estimates the worth of a gem with a precision that
+would take a Bond Street dealer hours to determine. The Indian or
+Cingalese capitalist who goes with his cash to Marichchikkaddi to buy
+pearls is not given to taking chances; usually he has learned by long
+experience every "point" that a pearl can possess, knows whether it be
+precisely spherical, has a good "skin," and a luster appealing to
+connoisseurs. A metal colander or simple scale enables him to know to
+the fraction of a grain the weight of a pearl, and experience and the
+trader's instinct tell him everything further that may possibly be known
+of a gem. It would be as profitless to assume to instruct an Egyptian
+desert sheikh upon the merits of a horse as to try to contribute
+information to the pearl-dealer of the East.</p>
+
+<p>The calm period of the northeast monsoon is gentleness itself by the
+middle of February, and the Gulf of Manar is seldom more than rippled by
+its zephyrs. The fishery begins then. For weeks the divers have been
+arriving by craft of every conceivable type and rig. They are the
+aristocrats of the camp, and as they roam bazaars and streets or
+promenade the sea-front they are admired by coolies and peons as
+bull-fighters would be in Spain.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67"></a></p>
+<img src="images/067.jpg" width="393" height="550" alt="THE LATE RANA OF DHOLPUR" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 393px;">
+<p class="caption">THE LATE RANA OF DHOLPUR IN HIS PEARL REGALIA</p>
+
+<p class="captionblockquot">This Indian prince is said to have owned pearls valued at seven and a
+half millions of dollars, the accumulation, perhaps, of his ancestors
+during several centuries</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>Sturdy fellows they are, lithe of limb and broad of chest. Each brings a
+tangle of pots and kettles, bags and bales, but wears nothing throughout
+the fishery save a loin-cloth and now and then a turban denoting
+nationality or caste. There were forty-five hundred of them in 1905, and
+those from the Madras Presidency were the backbone of the enterprise.
+Nearly half the divers were registered from Kilakari, and hundreds came
+from the tip end of India. The men from Tuticorin were of the Parawa
+caste, and those hailing from Paumben were Moormen. The only Ceylon city
+contributing divers was Jaffna, whose men were of the fisher caste, said
+to be descendants of Arabs who settled sixty years ago at Jaffna. The
+divers coming the greatest distance were the negroes and Arabs from Aden
+and the Persian Gulf, most of whom landed at Colombo from trading
+steamers, and made their way by small boat or bullock hackery to the
+Cadjan City. These fellows have few equals as divers, but the
+administrative officers of the camp always fear that they will come into
+conflict with the police or launch a war in the name of Mohammed against
+the Hindus or Cingalese. Consequently, only a limited number are allowed
+to take part in the fishery.</p>
+
+<p>An amusing incident was furnished last season by the arrival of a diver
+of some renown in India, who had participated profitably in several
+fisheries. Accompanied by his "manduck," the fellow had crossed from
+Paumben as a deck passenger on a British India steamer. When the vessel
+was anchored, the diver summoned a rowboat to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span>take himself and traps
+ashore. Wearing nothing but loin-cloth and turban, the man descended the
+side-steps an example of physical perfection, and so thoroughly smeared
+with cocoanut butter that he shone like a stove-polish advertisement.
+The boat grounding on the shelving bottom a hundred feet from shore,
+this precious Indian, who was to pass a good share of the ensuing ten
+weeks in the water, even at the bottom of the sea, deliberately seated
+himself astride the shoulders of his manduck, and was borne to dry land
+with the care of one whose religion might forbid contact with water. He
+carried beneath one arm throughout the trip from the small boat a
+gingham umbrella, and under the other an Indian railway guide.</p>
+
+<p>There are neither wharves nor landing-stages at Marichchikkaddi. Even
+His Excellency the Governor must lay aside his dignity in going from his
+boat to the shore. The horde of people working about the pearling fleet,
+amphibious by nature, have little need for those accommodations and
+necessities which the commercial world call "landing facilities."</p>
+
+<p>The world over, gambling and speculation are joined in many ways to
+superstition; and the Eastern diver is superstitious to the hour of his
+death. At Marichchikkaddi he devotedly resorts to the mystic ceremony of
+the shark-charmer, whose exorcism for generations has been an
+indispensable preliminary to the opening of a fishery. The
+shark-charmer's power is believed to be hereditary. If one of them can
+be enlisted on a diver's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span>boat, success is assured to all connected with
+the craft. The common form of fortune-tempting nowadays is for a diver
+to break a cocoanut on his sinking-weight just before embarking. If it
+be a clean and perfect break, success is assured; if irregular and
+jagged, only ordinary luck may be anticipated; and if the shell be
+broken in without separating into halves, it spells disaster, and the
+alarmed fisher probably refuses to go with the boat.</p>
+
+<p>Last year's fleet was the largest ever participating in a Ceylon
+fishery, three hundred and twenty boats being enrolled. The largest
+boats came from Tuticorin, and carried thirty-four divers each. The
+smallest boat had a complement of seven divers. Each diver was
+faithfully attended by a manduck, who ran his tackle and watched over
+his interests with jealous care both in and out of the water. Besides
+the manducks, every boat had numerous sailors, food- and water-servers,
+and a riffraff of hangers-on. It was estimated that divers and manducks
+aggregated nine thousand souls. A system of apportionment gives every
+man in a boat an interest in the take, the divers generally retaining
+two thirds of the bivalves granted them by the government rule
+controlling the fishery. The Kilakari divers observe a time-honored
+custom of giving to their home mosque the proceeds of one plunge each
+day.</p>
+
+<p>Nature obligingly assists the workers on the banks by supplying a gentle
+off-shore breeze at daybreak, which sends the fleet to the fishing
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span>ground, six or eight miles from the shore. By two o'clock in the
+afternoon a gun from a government vessel directs the boats to set sail
+for the return. By this hour the breeze is accommodatingly from the sea,
+and the fleet runs home with flowing sheets. Navigation, it will be
+seen, plays a very subordinate part in Marichchikkaddi's marine
+enterprise.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74"></a></p>
+<img src="images/074.jpg" width="600" height="480" alt="INDIAN PEARL MERCHANTS" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">INDIAN PEARL MERCHANTS READY FOR BUSINESS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>With the exception of the divers from the Malabar coast, who plunge head
+foremost from a spring-board, the men go into the water in an upright
+position, and are hurried in their journey to the bottom by a stone
+weighing from forty to fifty pounds. Each diver's attendant has charge
+of two ropes slung over a railing above the side of the boat: one
+suspends the diving-stone, and the other a wide-mouthed basket of
+network. The nude diver, already in the sea, places the basket on the
+stone and inserts one foot in a loop attached to the stone. He draws a
+long breath, closes his nostrils with the fingers of one hand, raises
+his body as high as possible above water, to give force to his descent,
+and, loosening the rope supporting the weight, is carried quickly to the
+bottom. An Arab diver closes the nostrils with a tortoise-shell clip,
+and occasionally a diver is seen whose ears are stopped with
+oil-saturated cotton. The manduck hoists the weight from the bottom and
+adjusts it for the next descent. Meanwhile, the diver, working face
+downward, is filling the basket with oysters with speed. When the basket
+is filled or breath exhausted, the diver signals, and is drawn <!-- text to here was originally part of page 72. Pages 73-74 was a blank page and a full page illustration--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span>up as
+rapidly as possible by the rope attached to the basket, and a specially
+agile diver facilitates the ascent by climbing hand over hand on the
+line When a man has been in the water half an hour, and made perhaps
+seven or eight descents, he clambers aboard the boat for a rest and a
+sunbath, and in a few minutes is taking part in the interminable chatter
+of the Orient.</p>
+
+<p>A diver coming up with basket filled wears a face of benign contentment;
+but when the oysters are few and far between, as they are oftentimes,
+and the man has prolonged his stay below to the limit of his air supply,
+his head is out of water not many seconds before he is volubly
+denouncing the official control forcing him to work on a "paar" where
+little but sand exists, and his confr&egrave;res on the boat hurl savage
+invective at any government functionary within earshot.</p>
+
+<p>The powerful Eastern sun illumines the bottom sufficiently for a diver
+to plan his operations before going down, and nine days out of ten the
+overhead sun renders the sea sufficiently transparent to guide a boat's
+crew to promising anchorages. Pearling economists insist that dredging
+by machinery or the use of diving-suits can never compete with the
+simple and inexpensive method in vogue on the Manar banks. At
+Marichchikkaddi one hears frequent discussion of the time a diver may
+stay under water, and many improbable accounts of what has been done are
+told a visitor. An average Tamil or Moorman stays down not longer than
+forty-five seconds, while the broad-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span>chested Arab thinks nothing of
+being under water from sixty to eighty seconds.</p>
+
+<p>Depth has much to do with the time, and it is admitted that divers do
+not suffer unduly from the trying nature of their calling except when
+forced to work in unusually deep water. Seven or eight fathoms&mdash;about
+the average on the Ceylon banks&mdash;produces no injurious effect, but nine
+fathoms tell on all but men of sturdy build. Occasionally a declivity
+perhaps ten fathoms below the surface has to be fished, and this demands
+the service of picked men, divers possessing the highest vitality.
+Several divers collapse every season through toiling at unusual depths,
+and two or three pay the penalty of death. Most divers, however, live to
+as full a span as men pursuing other humble callings.</p>
+
+<p>When a fishery is at its height, the scene on the banks is one of
+extreme animation, and a picture full of strangeness to New World eyes.
+Each craft is a floating hive of competitive noise and activity, and the
+center of a cordon of disappearing and reappearing seal-like heads, with
+baskets splashing in the water or being hauled by excited hands. In the
+distance floats the majestic barque <i>Rengasamy Puravey</i>, an old-timer,
+with stately spars, a quarter-deck, and painted port-holes that might
+cause a landsman to believe her a war-ship. For half the year the barque
+is the home of the government's marine biologist, and his office and
+laboratory, wherein scientific investigation and experimentation are in
+constant progress, are in houses built on the quarter-deck. Small
+steamers, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span>having an official cut, move here and there among the fishing
+boats, doing patrol duty and carrying instructions when necessary from
+the <i>Rengasamy Puravey</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like to go down in a diving-costume from a boat alongside the
+barque?" asks the biologist; "it's perfectly safe, and I have a dress
+that will fit you. Frequently I go to the bottom to study the curious
+growths there, and last season the colonial secretary did the thing two
+or three times."</p>
+
+<p>With a readiness of speech rivaling gunfire in promptness I nipped in
+the bud the preparations for carrying out the proffered courtesy,
+explaining that I was glad to accept a vicarious description of things
+at the ocean's bottom.</p>
+
+<p>The dingy fleet blossoms into a cloud of canvas, with every boat headed
+for Marichchikkaddi, the instant the "cease work" gun is fired. The
+scene suggests a regatta on a gigantic scale, and from a distance the
+leaning lug and lateen sails of the East give the idea of craft
+traveling at terrific speed. It is a regatta, a free-for-all,
+devil-take-the-hindmost affair. The prizes are choice berths on the
+beach as near as possible to the kottu, and the coolies who must carry
+the sacks of oysters see to it that the "tindal" and his sailors make no
+retarding error.</p>
+
+<p>The camp had been peaceful and somnolent while the boats were out; but
+the word that the fleet was coming in had roused every laborer, every
+petty dealer, speculator, and harpy to ner<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span>vous activity. Everybody goes
+to the sea-front to witness the beaching of the boats and to watch the
+unloading. An hour probably elapses between the coming of the leader of
+the fleet and the arrival of the slowest boat. During this period the
+important functionary is the beach-master, who shouts his commands to
+boats seeking to crowd into positions not rightly theirs. When a boat is
+securely drawn upon the strand, there is no waste of time in getting the
+cargo started for the government storehouse. Muscular porters,
+glistening in their perspiring nudeness, go in single file between boat
+and kottu like ants executing a transportation feat. In a very few
+minutes the oysters are being counted by nimble-handed coolies.
+Important gamblers in oysters, men with sharp eyes and speculative
+instincts, have only to note the number of sacks delivered from one or
+two boats&mdash;and secure a hint from an obliging diver as to whether the
+bivalves are "thin" or "thick"&mdash;to arrive at a safe hypothesis of what
+the day's take has been, and also whether the oysters promise to be
+fairly pearliferous. The opinions of two or three of these experts make
+a basis for starting the prices at the auction in the evening, and these
+"sharps" are seldom wrong in their estimate of what would be a safe
+offer for a thousand chances in the great lottery of Asia.</p>
+
+<p>The count in the kottu is soon completed, and each boat's catch is
+divided into three piles, when an official selects two for the
+government, and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span>third is so expeditiously removed that a quarter of
+an hour later the share of the divers is being huckstered throughout the
+camp to small speculators.</p>
+
+<p>Upon each craft throughout the day has been a native watchman of
+supposed honesty, in the government's employ, whose duty has been to see
+that no oysters were surreptitiously opened on the banks or during the
+run home. Suspicion of the extraction of pearls on the part of any
+member of the crew leads to the police being informed, and an arrest
+follows. A favorite way of hiding pearls is to tie the gems in a rag
+attached to the anchor that is thrown overboard when the boat lands.
+Another is to fasten a packet to a piece of rigging adroitly run to the
+masthead, there to remain until opportunity permits the dishonest
+schemer to remove it unobserved.</p>
+
+<p>On their way to their sleeping quarters it is interesting to observe
+divers stopping at boutiques and tea saloons for refreshments, paying
+their score with oysters, extremely acceptable to the shopkeeper itching
+to test his luck. In a small way, oysters pass current in the Cadjan
+City as the equivalent of coins. Probably the variations in value lead
+to fluctuations in exchange, but these are so keenly understood that the
+quotations are apparently adjusted automatically, like exchange between
+nations.</p>
+
+<p>The sale is held in the building where the camp magistrate all the
+afternoon has been dispensing justice in breaches of Marichchikkaddi's
+morals<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span>&mdash;simple assaults, thieving, and other petty misdemeanors usual
+to police courts. Punctually at sunset the auction begins. If the
+universe offers a stranger gathering for which commerce is responsible,
+it would be difficult to give it location. The gentle government agent
+sits on the platform, and in front of the rostrum is the splendidly
+appareled chief mudiliyar, to interpret between auctioneer and buyers.
+The bidders-to-be number half a hundred, and their eager faces are
+directed toward the august official of the government, each probably
+praying secretly to his god that undue competition be not inspired to
+the extent of excluding bargains. In the throng are chetties. Moor
+merchants, and local hawkers, hoping to get a few thousand bivalves at a
+price assuring a profit when peddled through the coastwise villages.</p>
+
+<p>"Do these men represent actual capital!" you ask the agent. "They do,
+indeed," is the reply, "and collectively they are backed by cash in hand
+and satisfactory credits in Ceylon banks of at least a hundred lakhs of
+rupees." Forced as you are to accept the statement, you inwardly confess
+that they don't look it, for $3,200,000 is a goodly credit anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>In the fading light of day the agent announces that approximately two
+million oysters are to be sold, and he invites offers for them by the
+thousand&mdash;the highest bidder to take as many as he chooses, the
+quotation to be effective and apply to others until it is raised by some
+one fearing there will not be oysters enough to satisfy the demands <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>of
+everybody. It is the principle of supply and demand reduced to
+simplicity. The competition to fix the price of the first lot consumes
+perhaps a minute. The initial bid was thirty rupees; this was elevated
+to thirty-two, and so on until thirty-six was the maximum that could be
+induced from the motley assemblage. With his pencil the agent taps the
+table, and the mudiliyar says something in Hindustani meaning "sold."
+The buyer was an Arab from Bombay, operating for a syndicate of rich
+Indians taking a flier in lottery tickets. In a manner almost, lordly he
+announces that he will take four hundred thousand oysters. Then a sale
+of two thousand follows at an advanced price to a nondescript said to
+have come all the way from Mecca; a towering Sikh from the Punjab
+secures twenty thousand at a reduced rate, and so on. In ten or twelve
+minutes the day's product is disposed of to greedy buyers for the sum of
+62,134 good and lawful rupees. A clerk records names of buyers with
+expedition, glancing now and then at a document proving their credit,
+and in a few minutes issues the requisitions upon the kottu for the
+actual oysters that will be honored in the early morning.</p>
+
+<p>The primitive process by which the pearls are extracted from the oysters
+is tedious, offensive to the senses, and of a character much too
+disagreeable to be associated with the jewel symbolizing purity. A few
+million oysters are shipped to southern India, and some go to Jaffna and
+Colombo; but the preponderating bulk is dealt with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span>in the private
+kottus in the outskirts of the camp belonging to the men who crowd the
+auction room. To open fresh from the sea and scrutinize every part of
+the oyster would be too slow a method to be applied to the business of
+pearl-getting. The native who obtains a few dozen seeks shelter under
+the first mustard-tree, and with dull-edged knife, dissects each bivalve
+with a thoroughness permitting nothing to escape his eye.</p>
+
+<p>The burning sun, bringing putrefaction and decay to the oyster, is the
+operator's agency for securing what pearls his purchase may contain. For
+a week or ten days the oysters are stacked in his private kottu, and the
+process of disintegration is facilitated by swarms of flies and millions
+of maggots. When the tropical sun can do no more, the contents of the
+shells&mdash;putrid, filthy, and overpoweringly odoriferous&mdash;are gathered in
+troughs and other receptacles to be put through a process of cleansing
+by washing with water frequently drawn away. The residue, carefully
+preserved, is picked over when dry by experts, working under the
+watchfulness of owner or his deputy&mdash;and in this manner the pearls of my
+lady's dainty necklace and the engagement ring are wrested from nature.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83"></a></p>
+<img src="images/083.jpg" width="396" height="550" alt="THE LATE MAHARAJAH OF PATIALA" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 396px;">
+<p class="caption">THE LATE MAHARAJAH OF PATIALA IN HIS PEARL REGALIA</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Sometimes an impatient speculator is seen with his coolies on the beach
+carefully washing vatfuls of "matter," perhaps employing a dugout canoe
+as a washing trough. Wherever the work is done the stench is almost
+overpowering, and the odors defy neutralization. The wonder is that some
+<!-- text to here was originally part of page 82. Pages 83-84 was a full page illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span>dread disease of the Orient does not make a clean sweep of the city's
+population. The medical officers claim that the malodorous fumes are not
+dangerous, and experience has taught these officials to locate the
+compounds, wherein millions of oysters are to decompose, in positions
+where the trade winds waft the smells seaward or inland, without greatly
+affecting the camp's health. The British official whose olfactory organ
+survives a season at the pearl camp deserves from his home government at
+least the honor of knighthood.</p>
+
+<p>Interesting as Marichchikkaddi is to the person making a study of the
+conduct of unusual industries and the government of Eastern people, the
+medical officer looms important as the functionary shouldering a greater
+responsibility than any other officer of the camp. To draw forty
+thousand people from tropical lands, grouping them on a sand plain only
+a few hundred miles above the equator, is an undertaking pregnant with
+danger, when considered from the standpoint of hygiene. Strange to say,
+Marichchikkaddi's health is always satisfactory; but tons of
+disinfectants have to be used. Malarial fever is ever present, but is of
+a mild type. The outdoor dispensary does a rushing business, but only
+seventy-five cases were sufficiently serious last season to be sent to
+hospital, and only ten of these were fatal. The divers are prone to
+pneumonia and pleurisy, and these diseases carried off five. The deaths
+out of hospital totaled twenty-two.</p>
+
+<p>In the hospital I saw a man with grizzled beard <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span>whose escape from death
+bordered upon the marvelous. His head had been jammed four days before
+between colliding boats, cracking his skull to the extent of letting the
+brain protrude. He was rushed to the hospital to die, but had no
+intention of passing to another world, the doctors learned. Sitting
+upright on his cot-bed, the poor fellow said to me with an earnestness
+almost compelling tears: "Help me to get out of this place, please. I
+want to be with my boat, for there is no better diver than I am, and I
+can earn a hundred rupees a day as easily as any man in
+Marichchikkaddi."</p>
+
+<p>As an illustration of the white man's supremacy, in dealing with black
+and brown peoples, Marichchikkaddi probably has no equal. Here, in an
+isolated spot on the coast of Ceylon, hours from anywhere by sea, and
+shut off from the large towns of the island by jungle and forest wherein
+elephants, leopards, and other wild animals roam, twelve or fifteen
+Britishers rule, with an authority never challenged, more than forty
+thousand adventurous Asiatics&mdash;men whose vocation is largely based on
+their daring, and whose competing religions and castes possess the germ
+of fanaticism that might be roused to bloodshed. The white man's control
+is supported by the presence of two hundred policemen, it is true, but
+these are natives. The keynote of this exposition of a multitude ruled
+by a handful of Europeans is the absolute fairness of their control, of
+course. Were justice non-existent, it would be inviting <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span>disaster for
+the white official to apprehend a wrong-doer, place him on trial, and
+personally administer with lash or birch the corporal punishment to be
+witnessed any morning in front of the camp lockup.</p>
+
+<p>And what might happen if the divers, through their ringleaders, objected
+to surrendering to the Ceylon government the demanded "rake-off" of two
+thirds the oysters rescued from the sea by their efforts, in the event
+of these courageous fellows being assured that all the law in the world
+on the subject says that all the sea and all therein contained, beyond
+the distance of three nautical miles from shore, belongs to the
+universe! But the Manar diver knows naught of the three-mile law,
+presumably.</p>
+
+<p>Does the fishery pay? Tremendously, so far as facts upon which to base
+an answer are obtainable. The government treasury is sometimes
+enormously expanded as a result of the enterprise. In 1905, the most
+prosperous of all Manar fisheries, the government sold its fifty million
+oysters for two and one half million rupees, and at least $600,000 of
+this was profit. Years ago, it is true, there were several fisheries
+producing for the treasury nothing but deficits. Nobody ever knows what
+reward visits the purchasers of oysters, for it is their habit to spread
+the report of non-success and disappointment. But the buyers and
+speculators come each year in larger numbers, with augmented credits,
+and they pay in competition with their kind a larger price for the
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span>oysters. The conclusion is, therefore, that they find the business
+profitable.</p>
+
+<p>Even rumors of luck and profit would bring more speculators and rising
+prices at the auction sales, manifestly. Reports of fortunate strikes at
+Marichchikkaddi may more frequently be heard in India than in Ceylon,
+let it be said; and it is the gilded grandees of Hind&mdash;princes,
+maharajahs and rajahs&mdash;rather than the queens of Western society, who
+become possessors of the trove of Manar.</p>
+
+<p>No Colombo merchant or magnate, or man or woman of the official set, is
+superior to tempting fortune by buying a few thousand oysters freshly
+landed from Marichchikkaddi. And the interminable question of caste,
+banning many things to Cingalese and Tamil, inhibits not the right to
+gamble upon the contents of a sackful of bivalves. If the fishery be
+successful, all Ceylon teems with stories of lucky finds, and
+habitations ranging from the roadside hut to the aristocratic bungalow
+in the Cinnamon Gardens are pointed to as having been gained by a
+productive deal in oysters. A favorite tale is that of the poor
+horse-tender, who, buying a few cents' worth of oysters, found the
+record pearl of the year; another is of the 'rickshawman suspected of
+having money in the bank as a result of a lucky find on the seafront of
+Colombo of three or four oysters dropped from a discharging boat&mdash;in a
+shaded alley between buildings he forced the bivalves to disgorge a
+pearl worth hundreds of pounds sterling. Most <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span>stories of this character
+are as untrue as the reports of soubrettes and telephone boys winning
+fortunes in Wall Street.</p>
+
+<p>Did I try my luck? Of course I did. Who could resist the temptation? I
+purchased two great sackfuls of oysters, a thousand in number, which
+were brought off to the government tug <i>Active</i> by salaaming peons from
+the government agent's office. At five o'clock the tug was ready to
+start Colomboward the instant the "despatches" I was to deliver came on
+board. At last the precious package, with a parade of red tape and
+impressive wax seals, was handed over the side. It may have contained
+something as priceless as a last year's directory; I never knew. It was
+my deep-seated suspicion, however, that the packet was somebody's excuse
+for letting the public treasury expend a few hundred rupees in carrying
+one in private life back to Colombo to catch his steamer for China the
+next evening.</p>
+
+<p>Confident was I that the bags on the stern grating that had been freshly
+soused with seawater as the <i>Active</i> steamed away from Marichchikkaddi
+contained a wealth of pearls. In the cool of the early morning I would
+subsidize the eight native sailors, getting them to open the shelled
+treasures, while I garnered the pearls. With this thought uppermost, I
+turned in on a cushionless bench to snatch a few hours' sleep. But
+slumber was out of the question; my brain was planning what might be
+done with the pearls I was soon to possess. Yes, there surely would be
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span>plenty for a pearl-studded tiara for the loved one awaiting me; and any
+superfluity might be made into ropes and collars for admiring relatives
+at home. Cousin Jessie had always coveted a necklace of pearls with a
+diamond clasp. The dainty baubles were in those sacks; there was no
+question about that. Yes, my luck at pearl-getting would compensate for
+missing Sir Thomas Lipton's dinner in Colombo. Sleep always comes in
+time, and at last I was dreaming of the cargo of priceless gems with me
+on the boat.</p>
+
+<p>How extremely uncomfortable the bench was! What was that! I was not
+asleep, but very wide-awake&mdash;and such pains! In an instant I was rolling
+on the deck and shrieking from the terribleness of my suffering. Could
+it be cholera, the plague, or simply appendicitis with which I was
+stricken? The sailors held me down, but not a soul on board knew a word
+of English. I was positive that my end had come, and the thought of
+expiring away from friends and with a pocketful of prepaid
+around-the-world tickets was not agreeable. In an hour the pain was
+excruciating, and it continued for ten long hours with varying severity.
+Morning came, and the Indian skipper was plying his furnace with
+lubricating oil and turpentine&mdash;with anything that would help him get me
+to Colombo and medical skill. At last, eighteen hours out from
+Marichchikkaddi, the <i>Active</i> was in the harbor and I was being carried
+to the Grand Oriental Hotel.</p>
+
+<p>"What about the two bags of oysters, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span>captain wishes to know!" the
+hotel interpreter asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, give them to the men," was the answer; "I have ceased to care for
+pearl-studded tiaras and collars. I'm glad to get away alive from the
+decaying millions of oysters at the fishery. Even God's free air there
+is poisoned by them. What I want most is a doctor."</p>
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+<p class="center"><b>Footnotes:</b></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> The rupee of India and Ceylon is equal to 32 cents U. S. A
+lakh is 100,000.</p></div>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IV<br />
+<small>UPWARD TO THE SHRINE OF BUDDHA</small></h2>
+
+
+<p>From Colombo it is but seventy-five miles to Ceylon's ancient capital,
+and the journey thither is picturesque almost beyond description. For
+fifty miles the railway leads through the rich vegetation of the
+lowlands, with groves of cocoanut palms seemingly as boundless as the
+sea. In a suburb of Colombo the sacred Kelani River is crossed, at a
+point not remote from the Buddhist temple claimed to be contemporary
+with Gautama himself. The valley of the Kelani is vivid with rice-fields
+of green. The line then pushes its way through a bewildering medley of
+tropical vegetation&mdash;there are miles of cashew and breadfruit trees, of
+frangipani and jaks, and more than once a stately talipot-palm is
+discerned in full blossom&mdash;for half a century the tree has stored its
+vitality for this one effort; and the burst of splendor spent, its
+career on earth is ended. For twenty-five miles the train zigzags up
+hills, running now and then on the edge of a shelf from whence the
+traveler looks down hundreds of feet sheer upon foam-crested rapids. The
+journey from Colombo <!-- originally part of page 95 began here, with pages 93
+and 94 comprising a blank page and full page illustration just before it-->
+to Kandy affords one of the memorable experiences
+of Ceylon.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94"></a></p>
+<img src="images/094.jpg" width="432" height="550" alt="A LADY OF KANDY" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 432px;">
+<p class="caption">A LADY OF KANDY</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><!--see note above for original position of the Page 95 page break--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>England has held the interior region of the island, controlled for
+centuries by the Kandyan kings, for but ninety odd years, and it is
+curious to observe wings of palaces at Kandy, where a semi-barbaric rule
+long held sway, employed now as British administrative offices. Little
+antiquity is discernible in the old hill capital, due to former rival
+interests of the Portuguese and Dutch. When one nation had control of
+the picturesque town, it was customary to efface or demolish everything
+that the other had done.</p>
+
+<p>Kandy is the city of Buddha's tooth, and as such is the object of
+unbounded reverence with more than four hundred million inhabitants of
+the earth. Oudh, where Gautama Buddha died, lacks the sacred importance
+of Kandy; and the sepulcher at Jerusalem means no more to Christians,
+nor Mecca and Medina to followers of Mahomet.</p>
+
+<p>Kandy was but a mountain village when the holy molar was brought here in
+the sixteenth century for safe-keeping. The small temple wherein it was
+deposited was beautified and enlarged, and finally the priesthood made
+the place their principal seat, and the Kandyan kings later made the
+city their stronghold and capital of the country.</p>
+
+<p>Thousands of pilgrims come yearly to offer to the Temple of the Tooth
+their gifts of gold and silver ornaments, coins, jewels, vestments for
+the priests, even fruits and flowers&mdash;and these devotees have traveled
+from every hamlet of Ceylon <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span>and from every land where Buddha has
+believers&mdash;from Nepaul, the Malay Peninsula, China, Japan, even from
+Siberia and Swedish Lapland. The kings of Burmah and Siam, in compliance
+with the wish of their subjects, send annual contributions toward the
+support of the temple enshrining the tooth; and Buddhist priests in
+far-away Japan correspond with the hierarchy of the temple of Kandy. No
+other tooth has the drawing power of this one, certainly.</p>
+
+<p>Strange to say. Buddhism has been cast out from India, where it
+originated, by the Hindu faith, which it was meant to reform. In India's
+enormous population scarce seven millions to-day worship at Buddha's
+shrine. Christianity, as well, is a stranger to the land where it was
+born. It appears the irony of fate that these great religions, glorious
+in principle, have abiding places without number, save in the countries
+where they originated. But such is the fact.</p>
+
+<p>Few scholars can study the tenets of Buddhism without the conviction
+that it is a religion of striking merit&mdash;that is, as form and dogma are
+described by writers and commentators; but as practised by races not far
+removed from pagan illiteracy, with whom idolatry and superstition are
+inherent, it may no longer be the perfection of doctrine that was
+espoused by Prince Gautama.</p>
+
+<p>Sir Edwin Arnold, who thoroughly knew most Eastern religions, admired
+enthusiastically the precepts of Buddha, and no one can read his
+writings without experiencing some regard for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> Buddhism of
+literature. In "The Light of Asia" the five commandments of the great
+religion of the Orient are thus poetically recited:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Kill not&mdash;for Pity's sake&mdash;and lest ye slay<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">The meanest thing upon its upward way.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Give freely and receive, but take from none<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">By greed, or force or fraud, what is his own.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Bear not false witness, slander not, nor lie;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Truth is the speech of inward purity.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Shun drugs and drinks which work the wit abuse;<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Clear minds, clean bodies, need no Soma juice.<br /></span>
+</div><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Touch not thy neighbor's wife, neither commit<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Sins of the flesh unlawful and unfit.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Whether present-day Buddhism is the exact religion taught by the
+princely priest, and gracefully described by the English poet, matters
+little&mdash;its fountainhead is Kandy, and temple and dependencies of the
+sacred bone form the Vatican of the faith. This miraculous tooth,
+alleged to be the left eye-tooth of Gautama Buddha, and taken from the
+ashes of his funeral pyre twenty-five hundred years ago, has played a
+mighty part in Eastern intrigue, and wars between nations have been
+fought over it. For centuries it was the priceless marriage dower going
+with certain favored princesses of royal blood. It was brought from
+India to Ceylon in the fourth century after <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span>Christ. The Malabars
+secured it by conquest more than once, the Portuguese had it for a time
+at Goa, and for safety it was brought to Kandy in the sixteenth century,
+and it has there since been cared for with scrupulous fidelity.</p>
+
+<p>A relic supported by so much history should at least be genuine&mdash;the
+history may be all right, but the tooth is a shambling hoax, at best a
+crude proxy for the molar of Gautama. Intelligent priests of Buddhism
+must know this, but the millions of common people finding solace in the
+faith have never heard the truth&mdash;and wouldn't believe it if they did.
+No more amazing display of faith over a reputed sacred relic is known
+than is associated with this bogus tooth of Kandy.</p>
+
+<p>Reference to any library of unimpeachable works on the world's religions
+proves conclusively that the actual tooth was burned by the Catholic
+archbishop of Goa in 1560, in the presence of the viceroy of India and
+his suite&mdash;this is authentic history. Six years after the event at Goa a
+spurious tooth had to be provided to effect an international marriage
+long under contract, and the molar of a wild boar or of an ape was used.
+This tooth eventually was brought to the town nestling in the hills of
+Ceylon, and surrounding it grew the capital of the proud kingdom of the
+Kandyans. In the year of Waterloo, the British overthrew the reigning
+sovereign, and the bogus tooth and its temple have since had the
+protection of English rule.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99"></a></p>
+<img src="images/099.jpg" width="600" height="450" alt="THE TEMPLE OF THE TOOTH, KANDY" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">THE TEMPLE OF THE TOOTH, KANDY</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The dimensions of the tooth are fatal to its <!-- text to here was originally part of page 98. Pages 99-100 was a full page illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span>pretended genuineness,
+for it is a discolored ivory two inches in length and one in diameter.
+No human mouth ever gave shelter to such a tooth. To view it would be a
+test of credulity too trying even for fanaticism to stand. The hoax,
+consequently, is concealed from sight. On important occasions it is
+displayed&mdash;at a distance. When the Duke and Duchess of York visited
+Kandy the high priests of the temple exhibited the tooth; and on
+occasions it is supposed to be carried in processions through the
+streets on the back of an elephant&mdash;but deception and trickery in
+connection with the tooth come easy.</p>
+
+<p>The enshrined humbug reposes on a massive silver table, encrusted with
+gems and festooned with jeweled chains. The chamber in which it is kept
+in the temple is stiflingly hot, with atmosphere heavy from the perfume
+of flowers. Within six or eight bell-shaped metal covers the tooth is
+held by a standard as if emerging from the petals of a lotus flower of
+gold. Visitors to the museum at Colombo may see a replica of the relic
+and its setting: it is a tawdry, unimpressive object.</p>
+
+<p>Glance where you will in Kandy, drive in any direction, penetrate any
+avenue or footpath, and priestly disciples of Buddha, of every age from
+the novice to the patriarch of exalted rank, accost the vision. Pilgrims
+appear to be constantly arriving. They are present from Jaffna in the
+north, from Galle in the south, from Nuara Eliya in the mountains, from
+everywhere&mdash;some come on foot, some by curious carts drawn by buffaloes
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>or bullocks, some by railroad train. All are unshod, and the head of
+each is bare and shaven. Each wears the robe of eternal yellow, with an
+arm and shoulder bare, and the sunshade and palm fan have been the
+adjuncts of the brotherhood since Gautama left his royal parents' house
+to teach the word of Buddha.</p>
+
+<p>Celibacy is the rule of the priesthood. Nothing can be less obtrusive
+than the demeanor of the brethren. Visitors to their temples are
+welcomed, and courteous replies are always made to inquiries.</p>
+
+<p>Cremation is general in the priesthood, but apparently optional with
+others of the faith. When a dignitary of the priesthood passes away his
+confr&egrave;res assemble from far and near at the funeral pyre to do him
+honor. The incineration usually takes place in a palm grove. The corpse
+is surrounded with dried wood, made additionally inflammable with oils.
+The rites of the pyre include nothing of a sensational character; the
+assemblage chants for a time, then a priest of high rank applies the
+torch, and in an hour nothing remains but a mound of embers and ashes. A
+cremation may be readily witnessed at Kandy or Colombo, or other place
+possessing a considerable population.</p>
+
+<p>The peoples of low caste of the East are too numerous to be catalogued.
+India teems with them, of course, and the paradise island of Ceylon has
+a considerable percentage of human beings denied by their betters of
+almost every privilege <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>save breathing the free air of heaven. The
+lowlands and coastal regions have been so commercialized that human
+pariahs are there almost overlooked&mdash;but they are at every turning of
+the road in every hamlet, everywhere. Kandy, once royal city, knows the
+abhorred low caste to-day as it did five hundred years ago, for in plain
+view of the capital in the hills there are settlements of men and women
+still excluded from communion with the world by reason of a royal curse
+pronounced centuries ago&mdash;and it is a condition worse than death itself.</p>
+
+<p>Representatives of the Rodiya caste may be seen any day by pedestrians
+in the city's outskirts. There are not many of them,
+fortunately&mdash;perhaps a thousand all told. Tradition has it that hundreds
+of years ago a vengeful monarch condemned their race to never-ending
+degradation for having supplied the royal table with human flesh instead
+of venison. Custom forces these poor mortals to ford or swim a stream,
+instead of using a ferry; and forbids their drawing water at public
+wells. They must not live in houses like other people, but in hovels
+constructed usually by leaning a hurdle against a rock, and their men
+and women must never clothe their bodies above the waist. Until recent
+years courts of justice have been closed to them, and if overtaken on
+their travels by darkness they must find shelter in caves or abandoned
+hovels. They recognize their degradation by falling on their knees when
+addressing even toilers on the highway, and shout a warning <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>on the
+approach of a traveler, that he may halt long enough for them to get off
+the road to secure his passing without possibility of defilement.</p>
+
+<p>These groveling worms of the earth are nominally Buddhists, but are
+forbidden to enter a temple. Hence they pray "standing afar off." Demon
+worship is accredited to them. Their headman can officiate only when he
+has obtained the sanction of the common jailor of the district. Even to
+ask alms they must not enter a fenced property, and it is said at Kandy
+that water over which their shadows have fallen is held to be so defiled
+that other natives will not use it until purified by the sun's rays. And
+thus it is; their race is penalized in every manner, and the ban goes
+unchallenged by the miserable beings.</p>
+
+<p>Their denial by mankind of ordinary fellowship has driven them to filthy
+and beastly habits. They devour the flesh of monkeys and tortoises, even
+carrion, it is claimed; and of late years they haunt feasts and
+ceremonials hoping to obtain fragments of food thrown from the tables of
+their betters. Now and then they are paid something for watching fields,
+and for burying carcasses of dead cattle. It is not known that they are
+thieves, but they are shunned as if they were. In emergencies, when
+there is a scarcity of labor, they are induced to work on tea estates,
+or at road mending; but the habits of vagabondage are too rooted to
+allow their remaining long in useful employment.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105"></a></p>
+<img src="images/105.jpg" width="600" height="445" alt="CREMATION OF A BUDDHIST PRIEST" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">CREMATION OF A BUDDHIST PRIEST</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Superior in every way to their men, the Rodiya women are the most
+beautiful in all Ceylon. <!-- text to here was originally part of page 104. Pages 105-106 was a full page illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span>Their scantiness of raiment, it is pleaded
+in their behalf, is due in no sense to immodesty. Rodiya girls wander
+the country as dancers and jugglers, and their erect figures, elastic
+step, and regalness of carriage, would be envied by the proudest woman
+promenading Vanity Fair; some of them have faces so perfect in a classic
+way that a sculptor or painter might make himself famous by reproducing
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Believe not that these miserable people represent the lowest grade of
+degradation in Lanka's isle, for there are two outcast races so far
+beneath them in the social scale as to be avoided by Rodiyas as if they
+reeked with a pestilential disease. These castes are hopelessly beyond
+the pale.</p>
+
+<p>British rule in Asia recognizes no caste distinctions, but it has been a
+humane work of the wives of several English governors of Ceylon to seek
+to improve the position of the women of the Rodiya caste, especially of
+the young girls. Some benefit is claimed as a result of the efforts of
+the English women&mdash;but the majesty and power of Great Britain are puny
+institutions compared with the force of caste among native races. To
+keep down the Rodiya population a certain Kandyan king, it is stated on
+good authority, used to have a goodly number of them shot each year.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER V<br />
+<small>IN CEYLON'S HILL COUNTRY</small></h2>
+
+
+<p>When good Kandyans discourse in flowery vein, they say Kandy is only
+forty miles from heaven. Visitors who have fallen under the charm of the
+place are more likely to wonder at their moderation than question their
+ability to measure celestial distances. If Gautama Buddha's "eternal
+rest" were to be had on earth, Kandy would surely be the reward of
+Nirvana promised those who have acquired merit.</p>
+
+<p>The beauty of Kandy is based upon naturalness; it is not grand like
+Taormina in Sicily, nor produced by nature and art in combination like
+Monte Carlo. Everything connected with the spot is fascinating, even the
+jungle that by day harbors the jackals which sometimes make night
+hideous to sojourners. Everybody appears happy; even elephants hauling
+timber in the suburbs toil cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>This inland province that formed the kingdom of Kandy preserved its
+integrity throughout the Portuguese and Dutch invasions of the island;
+and the English were in possession of the coast section full nineteen
+years before the Kandyan monarchy succumbed to their power.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span>This beautiful city was a different place under the native kings. They
+loved grandeur, apparently, but it was the grandeur of selfish
+surroundings and luxury. The lake now the center of the city was
+constructed by the last king, it is true; but its shore witnessed
+atrocities never surpassed in savage excess. Near the spot where stands
+a monastery of yellow robed monks of Buddha, the last king assembled his
+people in 1814 to witness the punishment of the innocent wife and
+children of a fleeing official accused of treason. By the blow of a
+sword the head of each child was severed from its body in the mother's
+presence, even that of the babe wrenched from her breast. The heads were
+placed in a mortar, and the woman forced under threat of disgraceful
+torture to pound them with a huge pestle.</p>
+
+<p>When news of this reached the coast the English determined to intervene
+in the interests of humanity. While the horror was yet fresh in the
+public mind, a party of native merchants of Colombo came to Kandy to
+trade. The fiendish king ordered them seized and horribly mutilated.
+When, a few weeks later, the survivors returned to the sea-coast
+deprived of ears, noses and hands&mdash;with the severed members tied to
+their necks&mdash;the English decided to act immediately. Three months later
+Kandy was in their possession, and the king an exile in southern India.</p>
+
+<p>From that time, with the exception of a few years when the hereditary
+Kandyan chiefs were troublesome through finding their privileges
+cir<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>cumscribed, the progress of Ceylon as a whole has been remarkable.
+Perhaps the finest example of benefits coming with England's colonial
+rule is this "Eden of the Eastern Wave." Slavery and forced labor on
+public works have been abolished, fine roads constructed everywhere, and
+adequate educational facilities placed within easy reach.</p>
+
+<p>A visitor perceives no squalor, few beggars, and apparently no genuine
+poverty. All these advantages have been secured practically without
+taxing the natives in any manner. Uniform contentment, consequently, is
+everywhere visible. The naked babies, looking like india-rubber dolls,
+have apparently never learned to cry.</p>
+
+<p>Oddly enough, the English made Kandy the Saint Helena of Arabi Pasha's
+exile, until the broken and aged man was permitted a few years since to
+return to his beloved Egypt.</p>
+
+<p><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111"></a></p>
+<table style="margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1.5em;" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="TREES IN PERADENIYA GARDEN, KANDY.">
+<tr>
+  <td class="tdc"><p style="margin-top: 0.5em;" class="caption">SCREW PINE</p></td>
+  <td class="tdc"><p style="margin-top: 0.5em;" class="caption">ASSAM RUBBER TREE</p></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+<td class="padr"><img src="images/111a.jpg" width="260" height="324" alt="Screw Pine" /></td>
+<td class="padl"><img src="images/111b.jpg" width="261" height="324" alt="Assam Rubber Tree" /></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr><td colspan="2" class="tdc"><p class="caption">TREES IN PERADENIYA GARDEN, KANDY</p></td></tr>
+</table>
+
+<p>Itself beautiful with poinsettia, bougainvillea, crotons, hibiscus and
+palms, a botanical garden in Kandy would seem to have no proper place.
+But the city possesses one that is almost unique among tropical gardens.
+It is in the suburb of Peradeniya, four miles out, and it is embraced on
+three sides by Ceylon's principal stream, the Mahavaliganga. For eighty
+years the Ceylon government has treated the Peradeniya garden and its
+associated experimental stations as an investment&mdash;and it has paid well,
+for through its agency the cultivation of cinchona, cacao, rubber and
+other economic crops has been introduced to the people. <!-- text to here was originally part of page 110. Pages 111-112 was a full page illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span>Throughout
+Asia the Peradeniya garden is famous. Whether the claim that it is the
+finest in the world be correct would require an expert to determine. The
+botanical garden at Demerara may be as good, if not larger and better.</p>
+
+<p>A layman visiting Peradeniya returns to Kandy in a state of
+bewilderment. He has seen so many attractive and strange manifestations
+of nature that lucid description is beyond his power. He is aware,
+nevertheless, that he has viewed nearly every tree, shrub, plant and
+vine known to tropical and subtropical climes; shrubs that produce every
+spice, perfume and flavoring he ever heard of, or that contribute to
+medicine, as well.</p>
+
+<p>At Peradeniya the palm family has nearly a hundred representatives,
+including the areca, palmyra, talipot, royal, fan, traveler's, date and
+cocoanut. The forty or more varieties of crotons include the curious
+corkscrew of the West Indies, and range extravagantly in colors and
+markings. Huge Assam rubber-trees have exposed roots suggesting a tangle
+of octopi. A tree noticeable for its perfect foliage is the breadfruit;
+and there are sensitive plants that shrink from intimate attention, and
+water-plants whose roots need not come into contact with the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Here and there are kola trees, cardamom bushes, aloe plants from which
+sisal is drawn, camphor and cinnamon shrubs, and probably every species
+of the parasitical family, depending like many human beings upon
+stronger relatives or neighbors for support. The orchid enclosure <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span>would
+arouse any collector's covetousness. There are foliage plants producing
+leaves counterfeiting elephant ears, and others that look like full
+spread peacock tails. A small leaf which the official guide of the
+gardens is obviously partial to is deep green when held to the light,
+purple when slightly turned, and deep red if looked at from another
+angle. The visitor moves swiftly into the sunlight when told that he is
+standing in the shade of the deadly upas.</p>
+
+<p>A traveler approaching the island of Ceylon hears constantly of the
+wonders of Peradeniya; and some statements in praise of the garden are
+taken usually with reserve, especially that asserting there are trees
+there which develop so rapidly that the spectator can actually see them
+grow. This seems incredible, but there is ample basis for the statement.
+After a rain the fronds of the giant bamboo frequently grow a foot in
+the course of a day. At the office of the director of the garden are
+records of many measurements proving that fronds have lengthened a half
+inch in an hour. A tree growing a half inch in sixty minutes is a Ceylon
+fact. The first time I went to Peradeniya, thousands of flying-foxes,
+suspended bat-like from the giant bamboos a hundred feet from the earth,
+were sleeping away the day, while soaring above the trees were hundreds
+of these queer objects, scolding like disturbed crows.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115"></a></p>
+<img src="images/115.jpg" width="600" height="385" alt="TAMIL COOLIE SETTING OUT TEA PLANTS" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">TAMIL COOLIE SETTING OUT TEA PLANTS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Peradeniya's visitors come from every land in the world, some traveling
+great distances to see the wonders of the garden. One has not to be
+<!-- text to here was originally part of page 114. Pages 115-116 was a full page illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span>arboriculturist or botanist to appreciate the establishment; it is
+always entertaining, sometimes amusing, and appeals variously to the
+tastes of visitors. For example, the Mexican goes involuntarily to the
+aloe from which his beloved pulque is made, the Egyptian to the
+date-palm, the Connecticut man to the nutmeg grove, and the New Yorker
+to the tree under which handfuls of cloves may be scooped up without
+charge, whereas at home they are acquired one at a time at considerable
+expense.</p>
+
+<p>Explore the highways and byways of Kandy keenly as one may, nothing is
+in evidence explaining its manifest prosperity&mdash;the place has no
+distinctive product or business. It is the seat of management, however,
+of the island's greatest industry&mdash;tea raising.</p>
+
+<p>In Ceylon tea is "king." This being the fact, no visitor to the town
+where the Planters' Association has its administrative machinery can
+close his ears to tea talk. Elsewhere people talk over their tea-cups;
+in Kandy, they talk tea over every other kind of cup. Kandy's big hotel
+bristles with planters in overspreading sun hats, as do club and
+friendly bungalow verandas. Some are "down" for a day (and a night) from
+up-country estates, while others are "up" from smallish properties at
+levels below Kandy. Nearly all have to purchase supplies and draw a few
+sacks of rupees from the bank with which to pay off their coolies. But
+some have come to discuss market conditions and prospects with their
+agents. A few, not yet <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span>wholly emancipated from the social side of life
+in which they were reared, have journeyed to Kandy to rub shoulders for
+a few days with civilization.</p>
+
+<p>The orbit of each and every one of these transplanted Britons is tea,
+and this in its primal form. They can have no concern with Steel common.
+Amalgamated copper or Erie 4's, and to them the jargon of stock
+exchanges would be as meaningless as Sanskrit platitudes. Their
+speculative medium is tea&mdash;tea in bulk, and pretty large bulk at that.</p>
+
+<p>The daily cable from London summarizing the tea market interests each of
+these men as vitally as the tale of the ticker interests the American
+taking a flier in stocks. The story is told in two or three lines, and
+by a presentation of numerals appearing exceedingly unimportant to the
+sojourner whose operations in tea never exceeded the purchase of a pound
+package.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119"></a></p>
+<img src="images/119.jpg" width="433" height="550" alt="TAMIL GIRL PLUCKING TEA" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 433px;">
+<p class="caption">TAMIL GIRL PLUCKING TEA</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Yes, the figures tell the story&mdash;a tale of occasional success, but often
+of failure and woe. A bracketed set of fractions explains the range of
+prices for broken pekoes, another set deals with common pekoes, another
+with orange pekoes, and still another with common souchongs. Then follow
+such words as "steady," "generally firm," and "somewhat lower"&mdash;each a
+phrase with potential significance. The crux of the communication, like
+that of a school-girl's letter, comes last. If it reads "general market
+closed 1-8th penny up," the planter has visions of happiness and
+affluence, and forthwith orders a "peg." But <!-- text to here was originally part of page 118. Pages 119-120 was a full page illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>if the postscript says "1-8th
+down," the young planter foresees nothing but disaster, and may
+consider levanting with the bags of rupees by the next steamer from
+Colombo. A planter is always a bull on prices, while the important buyer
+in Europe is chronically bearish.</p>
+
+<p>The yearly tea product of Ceylon is aggregating 155,000,000 pounds, and
+of this Uncle Sam purchases 12,000,000 pounds, while 98,000,000 go to
+Great Britain. The value of the annual output varies little from
+$21,000,000&mdash;and from this Ceylon supports itself so comfortably that
+the tea-plant seems to merit adoption as the emblem of the colony.</p>
+
+<p>The rise of the industry affords one of the most remarkable instances of
+rapid development of an agricultural pursuit. Coffee used to be the
+dominating crop in the island, until "coffee blight" ruined the
+industry. Tea was then experimented with. In 1875 barely a thousand
+acres were under tea; now the acreage is 385,000. A journey from Kandy
+to Nuwara Eliya, in the mountains, is through an interminable
+tea-garden, and on every hand is proof of substantial investment of
+capital. The choicest crops are raised between five and six thousand
+feet above sea-level, and lands in this zone are worth as much as $500
+an acre. The scientific cultivation of tea paid its pioneers handsomely,
+but the current opinion is that overproduction is killing prices, and
+that a new crop must be sought&mdash;probably rubber.</p>
+
+<p>Ceylon's important tea estates are the property <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span>of companies, whose
+shares are dealt in on the London and Colombo stock exchanges. Small
+plantations are owned by individuals, usually the persons conducting
+them. One or two thousand Europeans, mainly Englishmen and Scotchmen,
+are employed on the important estates as managers, assistants and
+accountants. Hosts of young Britons work a year or two without
+compensation for the experience. They are called "creepers," and some of
+them eventually obtain salaried offices, or embark in the industry on
+their own account. The laboring force on an estate is provided chiefly
+by Tamil coolies from southern India, and numbers from one to two
+thousand. Both men and women contrive to lay by a competence at a wage
+rate of from eight to fifteen cents a day.</p>
+
+<p>If let alone, the tea-plant would grow to be a tree eighteen or twenty
+feet high, but by generous top pruning it is kept down to three feet,
+thus becoming a squat bush possessing a biggish leafing area. Every
+eight or twelve days the shoots and young leaves are plucked&mdash;when
+treated these become the tea of commerce. Tea-plants are alike, speaking
+generally, grades being effected by the discrimination of picker and
+sorter. Fresh buds and tender young leaves make the pekoes, older ones
+the souchongs. Tea gathered exclusively from buds and tips is called
+"flowery;" if the first young leaf be included, it is "orange pekoe."
+In order of quality the Ceylon grades are: orange pekoe, pekoe,
+pekoe-souchong, souchong, congou, and dust.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124"></a></p>
+<img src="images/124.jpg" width="425" height="550" alt="A KANDYAN CHIEFTAIN" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 425px;">
+<p class="caption">A KANDYAN CHIEFTAIN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span>Tea-plants are perennial, and are set about four feet apart on
+hillsides. At three years of age they become productive. Familiar sights
+in the hills are the coolies with baskets of slips setting out plants
+wherever unemployed spaces may be found, and groups of Tamil girls
+plucking buds and young leaves from mature bushes. These girls are happy
+countenanced, some slender and graceful in carriage and movement, and
+none express objection to being snapshotted by travelers. The girls'
+baskets are emptied and contents systematically sorted at convenient
+places in the field, or at the factory. Essential to every important
+estate is the factory, for there the leaves are withered, broken by
+rolling, fermented, fired, and finally sifted into grades preparatory to
+packing in lead-lined boxes ready to be despatched to the markets of the
+universe.</p>
+
+<p>It is reassuring to witness the system and scrupulous cleanliness of
+every step employed in producing Ceylon tea. Anybody who has spent a day
+on an up-country estate is fairly certain to be friendly to Ceylon tea
+the rest of his life, for modern machinery does much of the work which
+in China and Japan is performed by hands none too clean and amid
+surroundings none too healthful.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VI<br />
+<small>BOMBAY AND ITS PARSEE "JEES" AND "BHOYS"</small></h2>
+
+
+<p>The Parsee is the only sect holding religious tenets strange enough to
+stamp them as "peculiar people" who amount to much in the material
+affairs of life. Every country possesses groups of people having
+religious beliefs and practices which attract to them a curious
+interest; but Bombay's Parsee colony is the only illustration of a
+brotherhood following strange lives who shine resplendently in the
+financial and social worlds.</p>
+
+<p>Everything in Bombay is dominated by the Parsee element, and every
+public hospital and other charitable institution, public statue, or
+drinking fountain, is the benefaction of a Parsee. The mansions and
+finest villas are Parsee homes, the leaders of club life are Parsees,
+and almost every bank and influential commercial house bears a Parsee
+name on its door. Bombay's population is not far from nine hundred
+thousand, of which the Parsees number only sixty thousand&mdash;but this
+minority impresses its importance on the majority and gives a character
+of unique interest to the city.</p>
+
+<p>These dominating people are Indians only by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span>adoption. Twelve hundred
+years ago the Mohammedan conquerors of Persia persecuted the disciples
+of Zoroaster to an extent that many of the strongest men and women of
+the faith fled to India for safety, and the Parsees of to-day are the
+descendants of these refugees. For generations they have made education
+a feature, have always helped each other, and been extremely clannish,
+although preserving toward people of other religions a respectful
+attitude. Their creed, claimed to have descended from the Hebrew prophet
+Daniel, is expressed in three precepts of two words each: Good thoughts,
+good words, good deeds. Orthodox Parsees wear a white girdle of three
+coils as reminder of these principles; but present-day Parsee men have
+discarded all evidences of their creed save the designating vizorless
+cap, and dress in garments of European pattern, and their women are
+garbed in robes of delicately-shaded and clinging silks, and wear
+embroidered mantillas on their heads.</p>
+
+<p>Most Parsees are superbly educated, variously accomplished, and speak
+English fluently. Their equipages are the smartest in Bombay, and every
+walk of life is led by them. The great fortunes of this part of India
+are theirs, and Parsee names are identified with everything contributing
+to Bombay's importance. These names are strikingly peculiar, are usually
+of from four to six syllables, the last being usually "jee" or "bhoy."
+The Jeejeebhoy family is intensely Parsee, of course, and important
+enough to possess an Eng<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span>lish baronetcy. The city's principal hospital
+was the gift of Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy. Other families of renown in the
+financial world are the Readymoneys, Jehangirs and Sassoons.</p>
+
+<p>Turn where you may the eye meets something donated to the public by
+generous Parsees. These people have long been loyal supporters of
+British rule in India, and frequently able to neutralize Hindu or
+Mohammedan opposition to a public measure. Baronetcies and knighthoods
+have consequently been showered upon them from London. Incidentally, a
+good deal of the money with which hospitals and libraries were given by
+great Parsees of a former generation came as reward for running a
+successful "corner" in Indian cotton at the time of America's civil war.
+Lancashire mills could get no staple from the Southern states, and
+astute Bombay capitalists, securing control of the native crop, held the
+same until the price advanced from ten or twelve cents to a dollar a
+pound. The fruits of this <i>coup</i>., some of them at least, dotted Bombay
+with noble buildings and statues.</p>
+
+<p>Some Parsees drive public street vehicles, work on tramways and
+railways, and pursue humbler vocations, it is true; but most Parsees
+dwell in princely homes and go to their offices and clubs in splendidly
+appointed broughams and victorias. Success in life even in Parseedom is
+based upon the principle of survival of the fittest&mdash;or astutest.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129"></a></p>
+<img src="images/129.jpg" width="600" height="388" alt="PARSEE TOWER OF SILENCE, BOMBAY" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">PARSEE TOWER OF SILENCE, BOMBAY</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Parsees stoutly deny that they are fire worshippers. The sacred
+flame perpetually burning <!-- text to here was originally part of page 128. Pages 129-130 was a full page illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span>in their houses of worship, brought by
+their ancestors from Persia, is but a symbol, they insist. God,
+according to their faith, is the emblem of glory, refulgence, and
+spiritual life; therefore they face the holy flame when praying as the
+most fitting symbol of the Deity. In the open air they prostrate
+themselves when praying to the setting sun. Parsee temples are plain to
+severity, with walls bare and floors uncovered and empty; but there is
+always the recess wherein burns the sacred fire of incense and
+sandalwood.</p>
+
+<p>The method of dealing with the Parsee dead is startlingly original, and
+said to be in strict keeping with the teaching of Zoroaster. According
+to Parsee tenets fire is too highly venerated to be polluted by burning
+the dead, while water is equally respected, and Mother Earth as well.
+Hence the Parsees offer their dead to the elements and the birds of the
+air, and the bones of rich and poor, high and low, even of the
+malefactor and suicide, are consigned to eternity in crumbled state in a
+common pit.</p>
+
+<p>The Towers of Silence occupy the finest site on Malabar Hill,
+overlooking beautiful Bombay, and high above the Arabian Sea&mdash;it is
+Nature's beauty spot, embowered in graceful shrubbery and palms, with
+fragrant flowers everywhere. The governor of Bombay Presidency resides
+at Malabar Point, further along, and the homes of men high in
+officialdom or commerce occupy every available site in the neighborhood.
+The Towers, five in number, are of whitewashed stone and cement, 275
+feet in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>circumference, and perhaps twenty-five feet high. An iron door
+admits the corpse of the Parsee, and once within the strange building it
+is proffered to the birds of the air&mdash;gloating vultures, coarse and
+repugnant in every aspect.</p>
+
+<p>Four carriers of the dead are seen approaching the beautiful garden with
+a bier on their shoulders. Two bearded men, the only living persons
+permitted to enter a Tower, come next. Then follow from fifty to a
+hundred mourners and friends in pure white robes, walking two and two,
+each couple holding a handkerchief between them in token of a united
+grief. The apex of the hill reached, the mourners turn into the house of
+prayer, wherein the eternal fire is burning, or take position beneath
+spreading palms for solitary meditation. The bearers deliver the corpse
+to the bearded functionaries at the entrance to the Tower, and these
+carry it within. The floor of the Tower is of iron grating with three
+circles whereon the corpses are placed. The inner circle is for
+children, the next for women, and the outer for men.</p>
+
+<p>The bearded men are lost to view for a minute or two only, and their
+concluding office within is to remove the shroud, leaving the body
+wholly bare. The iron door clangs as they emerge, there is a mighty whir
+of wings, and in a twinkling the corpse is in possession of hundreds of
+greedy, competing vultures. In twenty minutes not a vestige of flesh
+remains on the bones, and the loathsome birds resume their watch from
+the edge of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span>the Tower for the next comer. Their experienced gaze
+perceives a funeral procession a mile away in the direction of the city,
+and a signal cry is so readily understood by vultures resting on trees
+in the neighborhood that a unanimous attendance is assured long before
+the corpse passes the portal of the grounds.</p>
+
+<p>The human skeletons are left within the Tower to disintegrate by action
+of sun and wind, heat and cold. In time the bearded men, gloved and with
+tongs, remove them to a vast well in the middle of the enclosure, where
+with lapse of time they turn to dust.</p>
+
+<p>Corpses being considered unclean by Parsee standards, carriers of the
+dead, as well as those who enter the Towers, are assigned to a class by
+themselves, and forbidden to mix with others of their strange religion.
+There is a superstition that an awful curse would be visited upon an
+unauthorized person whose gaze fell upon a body or skeleton inside a
+Tower of Silence. The habiliments of those whose duty takes them within
+are always destroyed before they leave the grounds.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever may be claimed in defense of the Parsee method of dealing with
+their dead, from a sanitary standpoint, the custom possesses an aspect
+gruesome in the extreme. The Hindus' system of burning on the river bank
+is even less repulsive.</p>
+
+<p>If any city in the East is sport-mad it is Bombay. Men work there
+mornings and engage in something of a sportive character afternoons. The
+school-boy, even, slings his books from a hockey <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span>stick, and the
+departmental clerk sets out for an afternoon's sociability accompanied
+by his faithful tennis racquet. Nowhere can better polo be seen than on
+the Marine Lines Maidan; as for cricket, there probably are more players
+in Bombay, British and native, than in any town of its population in
+England&mdash;and Bombay's cricket is of the best. More than once have crack
+teams out from England been heartlessly beaten by local Parsee players.
+Golf is considered too slow. The next best thing to being a member of
+the nobility is for a Briton to belong to the Royal Bombay Yacht Club,
+for it gives him the <i>cachet</i> to everything Asiatic. The club-house on
+the Apollo Bunder possesses the best situation on the water front, and
+from its verandas fashionables watch matches that are sailed with
+consummate skill. During winter months foot-ball appeals strongly to the
+soldier class, while motor-car races and trials appear to be daily
+events.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136"></a></p>
+<img src="images/136.jpg" width="600" height="387" alt="A BOMBAY RAILWAY STATION" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">A BOMBAY RAILWAY STATION</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is the horse that is king, however, in Bombay's pastimes. The Hunt
+Club sends the smart set to the suburbs now and then, and tent-pegging
+and pig-sticking draw biggish audiences from the military class whenever
+contests are announced. But the paramount sport of the masses is
+horse-racing, pure and simple. The course is on the plains a few miles
+out of town, close to a suburb given over to cotton-mills, where nearly
+as many spindles fly as at Fall River. All Bombay seems to be at the
+races, irrespective of religious or social distinctions&mdash;everyone
+present loves the <!-- text to here was originally part of page 134. Pages 135-136 was a blank page and a full page illustration--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span>horse and appears possessed of a goodly supply of
+rupees with which to back his selections.</p>
+
+<p>The Jockey Club has its own lawn and private enclosure on the stand, and
+there is a box for the governor and anybody coming from Government
+House. The grand-stand bears a minor importance to the betting ring, for
+the latter holds a surging, throbbing medley of humanity&mdash;society folk
+from India's innermost official set, sleek Parsees wearing gold rimmed
+eye-glasses, rajahs from all parts, wealthy merchants and bankers,
+fez-wearing Mohammedans from the world of Islam, men from the Persian
+Gulf in astrachan head-gear, Pathans from beyond the Himalayas, Sikhs
+from the Punjab&mdash;as can be gathered in great India, the museum of the
+human race.</p>
+
+<p>Three score book-makers howl their bargains in raucous tones, and a
+whirlwind of rupee paper passes to the strong boxes. The crowd is
+backing the favorites. Even the Arab horse dealers from the Bhendi
+bazaar, manly fellows in the garb of desert sheikhs, whose pockets bulge
+with rolls of notes, comprehend the book-makers' jargon of English that
+might be incomprehensible to an Oxford don. A prince who is heir to the
+rulership of one of the greatest states in India has no scruples against
+inviting an expression of opinion as to so-and-so's bay filly of a
+native sportsman with beard dyed red with henna, in keeping with the
+fashion of his kind. Escorted ladies of position, and unescorted women
+in pairs from Grant Road, are present before the betting booths. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span>Fair
+Parsee ladies, wearing clinging robes of delicate shades, wait patiently
+while their swains place their money on the impending event.</p>
+
+<p>A bell rings loudly&mdash;the horses are at the post. The mob rushes from the
+betting ring to the lawn; only few take the trouble to climb to their
+seats. It is a quick race. The crowd of standees in the inner field see
+it best, and down this mighty nondescript body is echoed the cry "Kedge
+Anchor!" Sure enough, "Kedge Anchor," an unknown from Australia, ridden
+by a jockey of obscure past, wins the great race. Three favorites are
+ingloriously beaten. Up go the numbers. All is over in less than two
+minutes&mdash;and the crowd goes pell-mell back to the book-makers'
+enclosure, hoping for better luck over the next race on the card. If
+rupees were dollars, the financial aspect of a Bombay racing day would
+be important.</p>
+
+<p>Kipling wrote true when he called Bombay "India's Queen City." It lacks
+the depressing influences of Calcutta, as well as the odors. Indeed, it
+is one of the handsomest cities of the whole British Empire, and has
+more notable buildings than Manchester or Edinburgh. True, its stately
+piles blend the Gothic and Indian schools of architecture, but otherwise
+there is nothing Eastern about Bombay&mdash;save its people. A man awakening
+from long slumber on a ship anchored off the Apollo Bunder would
+willingly swear he beheld a European town. Eight tenths of India's
+visitors arrive and depart from Bombay.</p>
+
+<p>The opening of the Suez Canal made certain the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span>importance of Bombay as
+a trade center. It is now the largest cotton port in the world next to
+New Orleans, and if plague and smallpox might be controlled for five
+years it would have a population of a million. Bombay is a comparatively
+modern city, as cities count in immemorial India. England secured Bombay
+in 1661, not by conquest, but as a portion of the marriage dowry of
+Catharine of Braganza of Portugal, when she became the queen of Charles
+II.</p>
+
+<p>The world's most artistic railway station&mdash;not the largest, nor
+costliest&mdash;is in Bombay, and the best marble statue in existence of
+Queen Victoria was presented to the Bombay municipality by His Highness
+the Gaekwar of Baroda. Another notable gift is the bronze statue of
+Edward VII, donated by Sir Albert Sassoon, son of a public-spirited
+banker from Baghdad, who took up his residence in Bombay. A newcomer
+among the city's office buildings is "Roosevelt House," advantageously
+situated near the Apollo Bunder.</p>
+
+<p>The eyes of the person recently arrived from Europe or America behold
+many strange and amusing sights in the streets of Bombay, and for days
+your local guide and the obliging porter at the hotel is kept busy the
+livelong day answering questions. The native policeman is a human
+institution who explains himself. It is averred that he is loyal and
+efficient, but with his calfless legs bared to the knee and feet shod in
+sandals, he looks a queer cousin of Fifth Avenue's "Finest" and of the
+"Bobby" of London. A person unac<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span>customed to the habits of subject races
+gets the idea that the Bombay constable's first duty is the touching of
+his cap to white men, all and sundry; but it is said to his credit that
+in a street brawl or a water front quarrel among drunken lascars he
+fights like a wildcat. He is extremely proud of his truncheon, for it is
+a badge of office tremendously respected in the city's labyrinths where
+India's heterogeneous peoples dwell a dozen or more in a room. During
+the wet monsoon the policeman of Bombay carries an umbrella supplied by
+the municipality, which heightens his comical aspect&mdash;but it keeps him
+dry.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141"></a></p>
+<img src="images/141.jpg" width="427" height="550" alt="BOMBAY POLICEMAN" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 427px;">
+<p class="caption">BOMBAY POLICEMAN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="caste" id="caste"></a>The markings and badges of caste observed in Bombay streets lead you to
+a constant interrogation of your sources of information. At the outset
+you determine to obtain an understanding of the institution of Indian
+caste, but a fortnight after your arrival in Bombay you conclude that
+the task is too great for anybody having other things to do, and give it
+up in despair. A few facts connected with this supreme and dominating
+characteristic take root in your memory, however, and you have learned
+that the customs and rites of caste could not be strengthened even by
+legal enactments, or by the massed strength of all the armies on earth.
+The word is derived from the Latin word <i>castus</i>, implying purity of
+blood, and whose essential principle is marriage. India's population
+groups forty-seven nationalities, divided into 2,378 recognized castes
+and tribes. Accident of birth determines irrevocably a native's
+<!-- text to here was originally part of page 140. Pages 141-142 was a full page illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span>social and domestic relationship, prescribing even what he may eat
+and drink throughout life, how he must dress, and whom he may marry.
+There are four fundamental divisions of caste&mdash;the priestly or Brahmin
+(which has close upon fifteen million devotees), the warrior, the
+trading, and the laboring; and these have interminable subdivisions.
+Below the laboring caste there is a substratum which is termed pariah or
+outcast, and these degraded specimens of humanity are not better than
+animated machines performing the functions of public scavengers.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout India caste is hereditary. The son of a priest becomes a
+priest, a warrior's son becomes a soldier, and a carpenter's boy a
+carpenter, and so on. For a father to start a son in any calling but his
+own, or a vocation that is similar, would be "against his caste." Caste
+is social as well as religious, and includes the occupation as well as
+the creed. For a Hindu to rise from his inherited caste is next to
+impossible, and this tends to make the Hindus an ambitionless race. The
+infusion of new blood is likewise not tolerated, and in India "caste"
+and "custom" are perfect synonyms&mdash;and each a national curse.</p>
+
+<p>A major part of the people of India are agriculturists, men and women
+who are dependent upon what they can wrest from the soil for their
+existence. Their plough, an heirloom from remote antiquity, merely
+scratches the earth. The use of superior implements would result in
+superior tillage and augmented crops; but it would be as sim<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span>ple to
+induce the peasant to change his religion as to get him to forsake the
+plough used by his ancestors. The implements of daily life mostly belong
+to the barbarous ages. Attempt to introduce any other and you are
+rebuked by the reply: "It is not the custom; my father used this
+article, and therefore it is my duty to use it. Would you have me set
+myself up for a wiser person than my revered parent?" The toiling
+masses, consequently, are poor&mdash;and seem destined to remain poor until
+the close of the chapter.</p>
+
+<p>I heard of a contractor engaged in building a railway who objected to
+the physical toil and slowness of having a bank of earth removed by
+baskets on the heads of coolies. So he invested in a number of
+wheelbarrows and explained their use to the natives, and went back to
+his Bombay office flattering himself that he was a reformer. The next
+week when he visited the scene of operations he found the barrows in
+use, but the coolies were filling them with dirt and carrying them up
+the bank on their heads as they had always carried their baskets. The
+coolie of Hind is not to be beguiled by any demonstration intended to
+lighten his task, for he is crusted with conservatism and prejudice.</p>
+
+<p>In Bombay I engaged a man-servant to accompany me on a trip to the
+Punjab. It being a winter of unusual severity, and the journey involving
+much night travel, the agent from whom I hired the servant advised me
+that it would be a beneficial as well as a humane act were I to give the
+man <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span>ten rupees with which to procure an "outfit" suitable for one going
+to the north. "It's sometimes done, but not often enough to make it a
+custom," explained the agent; "but it would be the right thing&mdash;and
+because voluntary, the poor fellow should serve you all the better for
+your generosity. Give him but ten rupees, and see that he spends it all
+for heavy undergarments and serviceable shoes."</p>
+
+<p>Experiencing some haziness as to how any tittle of reputation for
+generosity was going to be reared on an expenditure aggregating just
+$3.20 in American money, I communicated my determination to the man who
+perforce was to be my constant companion for a month, and who had it in
+his power to make me love or hate the country. As was to be expected, I
+was many kinds of a sahib for my munificent benefaction, and Torab Jan
+salaamed almost to the floor when promising to return from the bazaars
+in good time to strap my mattress and pack my trunk in readiness to go
+to the station directly dinner was over.</p>
+
+<p>Hours later, but in time to throw my clothes and books into trunk and
+bags, Torab stalked into the apartment, and close upon his heels was
+another native carrying a not overlarge parcel. Torab was frank in
+stating that he had purchased precisely what he needed, and proffered a
+snip of paper covered with characters in Hindustani to prove he had
+expended precisely ten rupees, which made it necessary to have another
+benefaction&mdash;two annas this time.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span>"What are the two annas for, and who is this man?" I asked.</p>
+
+<p>"He's the coolie bearing my parcel from the bazaar, master," was the
+response; "you must know that my caste makes it impossible for me to
+carry parcels."</p>
+
+<p>"See here, you drooling idiot; what do you think I have hired you for?
+Why, you've got to carry parcels, lots of them, and big ones at that;
+and you'll have to carry that bed there and my trunk half over India,
+likely as not. Don't talk to me about caste."</p>
+
+<p>"Pray, master, don't be angry with me. I know I'm to carry <i>your</i>
+things&mdash;that's what I'm for. I forgot to explain that my caste forbids
+only the carrying of my own parcels," the poor fellow whined.</p>
+
+<p>And so it was. In places where there were no carriages Torab seemed to
+delight in loading himself dawn with my paraphernalia, but his
+belongings had always to be carried religiously by a native of a breed
+earning its living by acting as human drays.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148"></a></p>
+<img src="images/148.jpg" width="421" height="550" alt="HIS HIGHNESS THE MAHARAJAH OF JEYPORE" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 421px;">
+<p class="caption">HIS HIGHNESS THE MAHARAJAH OF JEYPORE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VII<br />
+<small>THE VICARIOUS MAHARAJAH OF JEYPORE</small></h2>
+
+
+<p>Thousands of travelers make the pilgrimage to India, a land hoary with
+age, and when weary of overwrought temples and tombs, when arid plains
+and malodorous towns lose their power to interest, they journey north to
+Rajputana to revel in Jeypore, the unique&mdash;at least, lovers of Kipling
+do. And the effect on jaded senses is like a cooling draught after a
+parching thirst. Kipling called Jeypore "A pink city, to see and puzzle
+over," It surely is pink, all of it that is not sky-blue, and for
+various reasons it is more satisfying than any other town in India.</p>
+
+<p>For a land where time is calculated by century units, Jeypore is almost
+as recent as a "boom" city on an American prairie. As a fact, its first
+building was reared only a hundred and seventy-eight years ago; and this
+modernity explains thoroughfares of remarkable breadth that cross each
+other at right angles. Generations the senior of Jeypore, New York is no
+better exponent of the checker-board idea. Jeypore is but the setting of
+a scene harking back to medieval days, however, and is the capital of an
+independent state greater <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span>in area than Belgium, and from its palace and
+judicial chambers nearly three million souls are governed. Nowhere in
+India, outside the great Rajputana province, is it possible to view a
+picture of happy and contented life, and in the city of Jeypore this is
+seen in its perfection.</p>
+
+<p>This ornate capital on the plains, hemmed in by fortress-crowned hills,
+is a veritable stronghold of feudal barons and armed retainers, of
+hermits and monasteries, and is dotted with palaces and public buildings
+pertaining to the Maharajah's rule. Many of the structures are new
+enough to suggest what Americans love to call "modern conveniences." The
+principal streets are broader than Broadway, as well paved, and
+illuminated by gas systematically enough installed to indicate the
+presence behind the scenes of European engineers. Strange to say,
+Jeypore is an Indian city wherein the lordly Briton in khaki is never
+seen: if the English functionary be here, his master is none other than
+the Maharajah. Through its streets surge a people almost childish in
+their happiness, some in ekkas drawn by matched pairs of bullocks,
+others mounted high on the backs of trotting camels, while bands of
+chattering Rajputs on foot are omnipresent&mdash;every grouping reminds of
+something witnessed on the stage, and the <i>tout ensemble</i> might be the
+great scene of a realistic opera intended to glorify the people and the
+institutions of India.</p>
+
+<p>Feminine adornment is carried in Jeypore to its extreme. The bright-hued
+skirts of the women <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span>are flare-fashioned and "fuller," in dressmakers'
+parlance, than anything dared by Fay Templeton. But the Jeypore beauty's
+real passion is for gold and silver jewelry, and she carries this to a
+degree unrivaled by the women of any other section of India. It is not
+trifling with fact to say that the average Rajput woman wears from eight
+to ten pounds in silver on ankles and toes, and bracelets enough to
+sheath arms from wrist to elbow. Every feminine Jeypore nose bears some
+metal ornamentation&mdash;gold studs through the nostrils, and generally a
+hoop of gold depending a full inch below the point of the chin. Their
+ears are deformed by the wealth of metal hanging from lobe or strung on
+the upper rim of that organ. It can be said of Jeypore's fair sex that
+they are bimetallists in the strictest sense. The argument of the
+savings-bank has probably never been brought to their attention, for
+when one of them has a little money ahead she purchases a silver
+ornament for her person; and if a windfall come to her by legacy or
+otherwise, she buys something of gold, most likely a necklace of
+barbaric design. When one of these women goes to the market-place or the
+public well, she wears everything of value she possesses, and for the
+best of reasons her home is never pilfered.</p>
+
+<p>Rajput men and women look a visitor in the face, and by their smiling
+countenances seem to welcome you to their country. They lack the
+broken-spirited look and sullen servility of Indian peoples overlorded
+by Thomas Atkins. In Jey<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span>pore there are grandees and warriors, painted
+dogs, hunting leopards, bedecked horses, and hulking elephants in every
+street picture&mdash;and these pictures change with the facility of groupings
+of the kaleidoscope.</p>
+
+<p>The open-air shops of the metal workers and enamelers, and of the dyers,
+whose favorite colors are magenta and yellow, are interesting. There, on
+the left, is the imposing fa&ccedil;ade of the Palace of the Winds, extolled by
+Sir Edwin Arnold as "a vision of daring and dainty loveliness," but
+which in reality is scarcely more than a mask of stucco erected to make
+a show from the street. The Maharajah's palace and grounds cover a
+seventh of the area of this finest of modern Hindu cities. A stone's
+throw from the palace portal is a temple wherein Jeypore women beseech
+the image of Siva to bless them with children: and elsewhere are a Gate
+of Rubies, and a Temple of the Sun. At scores of wayside shops tiny
+idols of the Hindu hierarchy, and silver bracelets and gewgaws, are sold
+to people almost infantile in their cheerfulness. Wedding processions
+pass and repass with a frequency proving an active matrimonial market,
+each led by joyous singers and drum-beaters.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153"></a></p>
+<img src="images/153.jpg" width="600" height="408" alt="A MATCHED PAIR OF BULLOCKS, JEYPORE" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">A MATCHED PAIR OF BULLOCKS, JEYPORE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>An entrancing place is this seat of His Highness of Jeypore, and
+compensating for the tedious railway journey from Delhi landing one at
+the city's gates in the inky darkness of 4:30 in the morning. At his
+hotel a visitor learns that a formal request must be made for permission
+to inspect the Maharajah's palace and stables, and to
+<!-- text to here was originally part of page 152. Pages 153-154 was a full page illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> go to the
+abandoned capital of the state, Ambir, five miles away. You make
+application through a deputy, usually the man-servant traveling with
+you, and an hour later comes formal notification that His Highness
+welcomes you to his capital, and that a state carriage will be sent for
+your use, as well as a state elephant to carry you up the hills to
+Ambir. This outburst of hospitality comes with a surprise and force that
+almost sweeps one off his feet, and you have instant misgivings for
+having troubled the august potentate at such an unreasonable morning
+hour. Then your brain almost reels as you recall books that had dwelt
+upon the limitless hospitality of Eastern princes, and you hope that His
+Highness will not insist upon your dining with him&mdash;with your evening
+dress and high hat awaiting you at a Bombay hotel a command to the
+palace would, to say the least, be awkward.</p>
+
+<p>But you are spared this inconvenience, probably because the Maharajah is
+as familiar with deputed affairs as you are. Two gaudy chaprassis who
+have brought the desired permits are His Highness's deputies, and from
+them you learn that their master has been for a fortnight at Calcutta,
+but is expected to return in a day or two. They come into your room and
+assure you in fair English that they are detailed for your use as long
+as you honor Jeypore with your benevolent presence. They wear curious
+swords high under the left arm, and beautifully inlaid shields are
+belted to their right arms&mdash;these trappings are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span>badges of office, but
+you wonder if they would sell them to be taken to America to become
+conspicuous adornments of somebody's cosy corner.</p>
+
+<p>A person with a fondness for simplicity, or possessing scruples against
+kingly institutions, may escape the state carriage by despatching a firm
+and prompt declination of the honor. But the chaprassis remain; and the
+elephant, already trudging to the base of the Ambir hills to await your
+coming, cannot be countermanded or headed off. In this charming manner
+the great Maharajah entertains daily the handful of strangers within his
+gates&mdash;it is India's remaining relic of the hospitality of long ago. A
+distinction inordinately prized by native princes is the number of guns
+prescribed by the Indian government as their salutes. The Gaekwar of
+Baroda and two other feudatory rulers are entitled to twenty-one guns,
+while the hereditary right of the Maharajah of Jeypore is only
+seventeen. But the present Maharajah, as a reward for his enlightened
+administration, is made happy by having four additional guns&mdash;and no
+king or emperor can have higher acclaim from the cannon's mouth.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157"></a></p>
+<img src="images/157.jpg" width="600" height="424" alt="STREET SCENE, JEYPORE, SHOWING PALACE OF THE WINDS" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">STREET SCENE, JEYPORE, SHOWING PALACE OF THE WINDS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="jeypore" id="jeypore"></a>One cannot tarry a day in Jeypore without hearing redundant testimony
+that His Highness Sir Sewai Madho Singh is a fine man, devoted to his
+people and unswervingly loyal to his religion. His visitors are often
+lords and ladies of England, who find his hospitality as interesting as
+it is boundless. To the tips of his fingers he is a Hindu devotee with
+all that the term can mean. When he <!-- text to here was originally part of page 156. Pages 157-158 was a full page illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span>attended the coronation of Edward
+VII, in London, the preparations for his sea-voyage were unprecedented
+in orthodoxy. An ocean liner was specially chartered for him and his
+suite; in all one hundred and twenty-five people formed the escort. Six
+special kitchens were fitted up on the ship, including one to prepare
+food exclusively for His Highness. There was, as well, a special temple,
+paved with marble, for the family idol, before which the Maharajah
+prostrated himself many times daily. Drinking water from the sacred
+Ganges, and every article of food&mdash;enough to sustain the entire party
+for six months&mdash;were carried from India. So rigidly was the orthodoxy
+observed that even the sand for cleaning cooking utensils was placed on
+board at Bombay; and washermen, carpenters, blacksmiths, and others
+accompanied the party, that there be no necessity for purchasing
+anything in England, or having work done by persons not of the Hindu
+faith. That the august traveler's caste be untainted, extra tanks of
+water from Benares were subsequently sent to England by frequent
+steamers.</p>
+
+<p>The Maharajah maintains a military force of nearly 4,000 cavalry and
+16,000 infantrymen. Besides these soldiers, his retainers number
+thousands, and their right to wear a sword is a coveted distinction
+throughout Jeypore state.</p>
+
+<p>The palace stables contain three hundred horses, but the equipages and
+trappings are more interesting than the animals. There are some superb
+Arab steeds, however. A visitor noting the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>army of grooms wonders that
+the management is not better systematized; but a word from your
+traveling companion, who knows the ways of maharajahs, is to the effect
+that an Indian nabob is forced by custom to support thousands whether
+there be work for them or not. His Highness's stables and
+carriage-houses somehow suggest a circus in winter quarters. The fact is
+that Jeypore's ruler takes little interest in horseflesh and
+carriagemakers' creations. His preference is for elephants&mdash;animals
+befitting a dynasty descended from the sun and moon.</p>
+
+<p>"Will the sahibs visit the elephant stable!" The sahibs communicate
+their desire to do so. Mahouts with pikestaffs lead the way, and a
+myriad of hangers-on swarm in the train of the visitors. The
+accoutrements seen en route to the stable are interesting, surely,
+especially the howdahs. Some of these are of silver. One was used by the
+Prince of Wales; another was fashioned for the Maharajah's use at the
+Delhi durbar, and a gorgeous one is reserved for the viceroy whenever
+that mighty personage pays a state visit to Jeypore. A half-dozen
+howdahs are specially fitted for the Maharajah's favorite sport,
+tiger-hunting. Some of the howdah cloths represent a fortune in gold and
+silver bullion, while a few are saved from tawdriness by the skill of
+the embroiderer in silk.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162"></a></p>
+<img src="images/162.jpg" width="600" height="415" alt="COURT DANCERS AND MUSICIANS, JEYPORE" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">COURT DANCERS AND MUSICIANS, JEYPORE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The elephants are now trumpeting impatiently for inspection. Their
+compound is a series of roofless walled enclosures, and a visitor notes
+with grateful appreciation the strength of the <!-- text to here was originally part of page 160. Pages 161-162 was a blank page and a full page illustration--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span>chains anchoring the
+beasts to mother earth. A leviathan is straining at his tether in a mad
+effort to reach a vagabond who is tantalizing him with a pike, and your
+guide&mdash;one of the official messengers with sword and shield&mdash;says: "He
+no like Hindu people; last week he kill two." Beasts as docile as
+kittens take nuts from your hand, and evince disappointment when more
+are not forthcoming. Five magnificent tuskers, that promptly obey their
+keeper's command, are used by His Highness for tiger-hunting; and a bevy
+of complaisant elephants, quartered in a single stable, have grown old
+in carrying tourists up the Ambir hills, it is explained.</p>
+
+<p>From the elephant stables the chaprassis scurry the visitors through
+fragrant gardens and under bizarre arches to the crocodile department,
+where a score of saurians are pastured in an enclosure that is half
+swamp and half lake and is acres in extent. Visitors are placed at the
+top of a staircase of masonry descending to the water, while two
+wild-eyed Hindus seek to rouse the crocodiles from their siesta on a
+grassy islet a hundred yards away by a series of shrieks that would
+disgust self-respecting animals and reptiles. In a leisurely manner the
+crocodiles seem to recognize the signal to mean that a new lot of
+tourists desire to see them fed. It requires a good quarter of an hour
+for the Indians to lure them to the foot of the staircase, and from the
+first it is plain that the crocodiles view with indifference your visit
+to Jeypore. The lower step is finally fringed with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span>opened mouths which
+in a moment engulf a mass of slaughter-house refuse almost thrust down
+their throats by the wild-eyed showmen, whom you reward with a shower of
+rupees which they believe marks your appreciation of their efforts.</p>
+
+<p>As you are whisked through the palace yard, on the way to the carriage,
+you espy through an open door a splendid room fitted with paraphernalia
+not associated with medieval pastimes. It is the Maharajah's
+billiard-room, sumptuously furnished, and filled with tables of the
+latest English make.</p>
+
+<p>Probably because they are proud of the fact that a former ruler of
+Jeypore was a generous patron of science, the chaprassis pilot you to
+the park given over to the apparatus of the celebrated Hindu astronomer
+and mathematician, Jai Singh. It contains dials, azimuth masonry,
+altitude pillars, astrolabe, and a double mural quadrant of enormous
+size and height, on which the gradations have been marked. In a way this
+exhibit of obsolete paraphernalia refutes the idea that Jeypore's
+maharajahs have lived solely for the gratification of the senses by
+amusements. A few minutes later you are at the public tiger-cages, where
+a dozen bona fide "man-eaters" are lazily stretched in shaded corners of
+their prison cages. Thirty odd years ago the present King of England
+killed his first tiger near Jeypore, and the animal ever since has
+played an important part in the city's pleasures. One inmate of the
+cages has an authenticated record of ten Indians killed, be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span>fore His
+Highness's retainers lured him into ambush and made him a prisoner. "Two
+days from now," explains one of the men carrying sword and shield, "that
+tiger there,"&mdash;indicating a sullen beast,&mdash;"is to fight a wild elephant
+for the Maharajah's entertainment. Would the sahibs care to witness the
+combat?" The visitors promptly regret that they have unbreakable
+engagements in another part of India. Cheetahs are then led forth for
+admiration. Zoos and menageries know them as leopards&mdash;in India they are
+cheetahs, and are trained to course deer and antelope. A huntsman
+releases a cheetah, whose gaze has been directed to a fleeing deer on
+the plain, and in a few minutes the deer is a captive.</p>
+
+<p>So much for the diversions of Jeypore's autocrat.</p>
+
+<p>A distinct touch of beauty is imparted to his capital by the peacocks of
+imperial strut and plumage. They are everywhere&mdash;on the crenelated city
+wall, in the hurly-burly of the streets and bazaars, even on the steps
+leading to temples and mosques. The peacock is sacred to Jeypore; it
+crowns in miniature the street lamps, and is sculptured in hundreds of
+places. Chattering parrots by the roadside may arrest attention, but are
+forgotten in a moment&mdash;a strutting peacock is beautiful enough to place
+the parrot family in eclipse. When blue-rock pigeons descend by
+thousands in the market-place to profit by an over-turned sack of grain,
+visitors marvel at their irridescent necks and breasts&mdash;but a beauteous
+peacock appearing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span>on the scene attracts an admiration amounting to
+monopoly.</p>
+
+<p>But the appointment with the state elephant&mdash;what of that?</p>
+
+<p>Surely, Ambir must be seen. There it was that all the ancient splendor
+originated and dwelt for centuries, and until a practical maharajah
+decided that a mountain retreat was ill-suited to the needs of a
+capital. The possessor of this astute mind moved himself and his
+machinery of government to the plain below&mdash;and all his people followed.
+This explains why Ambir is now deserted, and why a court steeped in
+medievalism has a setting bristling with newness.</p>
+
+<p>Every adjunct of a fortified residence is there in the hills. Miles of
+battlemented masonry, pierced every few feet for bowmen, surrounds the
+straggling mass of buildings. Terraces are set upon the mountainside
+like a gigantic staircase, and fringed with railings of stone so
+artistically wrought as to suggest the grill-work of the matchless Taj
+Mahal. Great gray monkeys descend from the mountain slope to feed from
+the hands of your guides; and they are not of the moth-eaten variety
+seen in captivity, but are freeborn denizens of the forest, whose coats
+glisten and whose curly tails are of unusual length.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the apartments in the old palace rival anything to be seen at
+Lucknow, Agra or Delhi. A gem of a temple, adjoining a public audience
+hall of marvelous richness in finish, is dedicated to the awful goddess
+Kali, and each morning a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span>goat is sacrificed to this deity, ever craving
+blood, by Hindu priests attached to the Maharajah's court. This is a
+revolting blot on a series of majestic buildings that unite to make one
+of India's greatest sights.</p>
+
+<p>"How blessed would it be," you meditate, "if the betel-chewing priest
+might be sacrificed in place of the innocent and helpless animal." But
+no, human sacrifices are no longer permitted in India; England stopped
+them years ago.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, yes; the state elephant. Well, it was extremely useful, for it
+rescued four stalwart native servants, laden with tiffin basket and a
+dozen bottles of mineral water, from toiling up the hills on foot.
+Perched on his back like nabobs, they probably indulged in remarks
+disparaging of their masters, electing to walk, and mused maybe upon the
+theory that now and then man meets his deserts.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII<br />
+<small>THE WORLD'S MOST EXQUISITE BUILDING</small></h2>
+
+
+<p>A Mogul ruler who did things was Shah Jahan, and he came of a race not
+content with ordinary achievements. His grandfather, Akbar, was probably
+the greatest personage ever born in India. He it was "whose saddle was
+his throne, the canopy of which was the vaulted dome of heaven." Akbar
+made Eastern history, made it fast, blazoning it with proud records of
+conquest and empire extension. Akbar was the grandest man who ever ruled
+Central India, and it was he who developed the Mogul Empire to the
+loftiest importance it attained.</p>
+
+<p>Shah Jahan embellished the empire with noble structures, and his impulse
+for building amounted to mania. Time annulled Akbar's achievements, but
+those of his grandson stand to-day, and the structures of his era are
+beautiful enough to attract admirers from every corner of the earth. A
+famous critic once said that Shah Jahan built like a giant and finished
+like a jeweler. His works have made Agra, of all cities in India, the
+place of unrivaled interest.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169"></a></p>
+<img src="images/169.jpg" width="600" height="383" alt="THE TAJ MAHAL, AGRA" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">THE TAJ MAHAL, AGRA</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Agra's Taj Mahal is the most exquisite building <!-- text to here was originally part of page 168. Pages 169-170 was a full page illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>ever erected by the
+hands of man, and is a romance as deftly wrought in marble as any writer
+ever fashioned in words. It marks a great man's love for a
+woman&mdash;Arjamand Banu Begum, his wife. Shah Jahan was a Mohammedan despot
+who led a magnificent life, and had other wives; but in his eyes the
+peer of her sex was Arjamand. When she died in giving birth to a child,
+he declared he would rear to her memory a mausoleum so perfect that it
+would make men marvel for all time. And this he accomplished. More
+poetry and prose have been written about the Taj, with more allusions to
+it as a symbol of love, than of any other creation marking human
+affection&mdash;and the secret probably lies in the fact that all the world
+loves a lover.</p>
+
+<p>Arjamand had many titles of rank and endearment, but poets like Sir
+Edwin Arnold preferred to speak of her as Mumtaz-i-Mahal, meaning the
+"Exalted of the Palace," when extolling the charms of this splendid
+niece of Nur-Mahal, who likewise had been famed for beauty and charity.</p>
+
+<p>Shah Jahan ruled from 1628 to 1658, and had been on the throne only two
+years when death took from him his adored Arjamand. Then came the
+resolve to erect to her memory a monument that might measure his love
+and grief. Since Akbar's time, the best architects, artists, and skilled
+workmen of India, Persia, and Arabia had been attracted to Agra and
+neighboring Delhi. All were summoned to Shah Jahan's court, and the
+resources of his empire placed at their disposal. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span>Taj,
+consequently, was not the creation of a single master mind, but the
+consummation of a great art epoch. Its construction was commenced four
+years after Arjamand's demise.</p>
+
+<p>The bereft emperor had appointed a council of great architects of India
+to guide the work. Drawings of celebrated structures of the world,
+especially those in Moslem lands, were studied. More than one European
+was attracted to the Mogul court, and it is believed that Geronimo
+Verroneo, who had journeyed from Italy, laid several plans before Shah
+Jahan. There are records at Agra showing that certain suggestions of the
+Italian were adopted, but it is common belief that the general design
+was the recommendation of a Turkish or Persian architect named Ustad
+Isa.</p>
+
+<p>In keeping with an old Tartar custom, a garden was chosen as the site of
+the tomb&mdash;a garden planted with flowers and fragrant shrubs, emblems of
+life, and solemn cypresses, emblems of death and eternity. In Mogul days
+such a garden was maintained as a pleasure ground during the owner's
+lifetime, and used for his interment when dead.</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"And she who loved her garden, lieth now<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Lapped in a garden.<br /></span>
+<span class="i7">And all this for Love!"<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The laborers came from many parts of the world&mdash;the chief masons from
+Northern India and Bagdad, the dome builders from Asiatic Tur<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>key, and
+the mosaic artists from Persia and probably Italy. Every section of
+India and Central Asia was drawn upon for materials. The marble,
+spotless in purity, was brought from Jeypore, 300 miles away, on the
+backs of elephants and camels or by bullock carts. The red sandstone was
+contributed by Fathpu Sikrij, the jasper by the Punjab, the crystal and
+jade by China. The turquoises came from Tibet and the Red Sea, the
+sapphires and lapis lazuli from Ceylon, coral and cornelian from Arabia,
+onyx and amethysts from Persia, and the diamonds from Bundelkund.</p>
+
+<p>It engaged the unceasing labor of 20,000 men for seventeen years to
+complete the Taj; and like that other great tomb, the Cheops Pyramid in
+Egypt, it was reared chiefly by forced labor, unpaid and uncared for,
+and thereby produced great suffering and mortality. This is the chief
+blemish attaching to the project that gave to art the mausoleum
+overlooking the Jumna.</p>
+
+<p>According to native accounts the cost of the Taj was lakhs of rupees
+having to-day a value of $20,000,000; and local tradition affirms that
+not half this sum was ever paid by the emperor&mdash;this is a blot upon the
+sincerity and strict uprightness of the magnificent grandson of Akbar.</p>
+
+<p>The Taj garden is perhaps a half mile square, and is surrounded by a
+strikingly beautiful wall of masonry. It is an orderly wilderness of
+rich vegetations, to be found only in Asia, and the deep greens and rich
+browns of the avenues of foliage unquestionably accentuate the whiteness
+of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span>Temple of Death. As the garden helps the tomb, so the tomb gives
+expression to the garden.</p>
+
+<p>The great gateway of red sandstone, whose roof is adorned by Moorish
+arches and pavilions, is in itself one of India's most perfect
+buildings. From its summit a perfect view of the Taj is had, with the
+Jumna flowing sluggishly beneath its marble platform; and from there the
+grounds are spread before the visitor in a perfect panorama. The paved
+avenues, all leading to the magnificent pile, miles of marble acqueducts
+filled with ornamental fish, playing fountains&mdash;all breathe the
+superlative of art, every fluttering leaf whispers of the East.</p>
+
+<p>Not by its size is Arjamand's tomb commanding, for its dimensions are
+very moderate. Imagine a plinth of flawless marble, 313 feet square, and
+rising eighteen feet from the ground&mdash;that is the foundation of the
+wondrous structure. The Taj is 186 feet square, with dome rising to an
+extreme height of 220 feet; that is all. At each corner of the plinth
+stands a tapering minaret rearing its crown 137 feet;</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">"&mdash;four tall court ladies<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">tending their princess."<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175"></a></p>
+<img src="images/175.jpg" width="600" height="463" alt="ALABASTER SCREEN ENCLOSING ARJAMAND'S TOMB, TAJ MAHAL" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">ALABASTER SCREEN ENCLOSING ARJAMAND'S TOMB, TAJ MAHAL</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>No building carries the idea of personality further than the Taj, a
+feminine personality, as it should be, for it contains no suggestion of
+the rugged grandeur of a tomb for a great man. The Taj is the antithesis
+of Akbar's mausoleum, of the <!-- text to here was originally part of page 174. Pages 175-176 was a full page illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span>Parthenon, of Napoleon's resting-place,
+of Grant's robust mausoleum on the Hudson. A sepulcher fashioned after
+ordinary architectural canons can only be conventional: the Taj is
+different from all other buildings in the world; it is symbolical of
+womanly grace and purity&mdash;is the jewel, the ideal itself; is India's
+noble tribute to the grace of Indian womanhood, a tribute perhaps to the
+Venus de Milo of the East.</p>
+
+<p>The grace of the Taj, as do the achievements of every form of perfect
+art, rests in its simplicity. A spectator marvels that so much beauty
+can come from so little apparent effort. Yet nothing is wanting, there
+is nothing in excess; we cannot alter a single stone and claim that the
+result would be better. And Oriental designers, working for an Eastern
+despot, might easily have struck a jarring note and rendered the Taj
+garish&mdash;the wonder is that they did not. The Taj consequently is the
+objective of most travelers making the pilgrimage to India.</p>
+
+<p>It is easier to tell what the Taj is than to speculate upon the ideals
+and motives of its builders, and it should be a brave writer who
+attempts to describe it. Kipling, who saw the structure first from the
+window of a train nearing Agra, called it "an opal tinted cloud on the
+horizon"; and after studying the building at close range he wrote, "Let
+those who scoff at overmuch enthusiasm look at the Taj and thenceforward
+be dumb;&nbsp;...&nbsp;each must view it for himself with his own eyes, working out
+his own interpretation of the sight." An<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span>other great English writer has
+said, "Words are worthless in describing a building which is absolutely
+faultless." And it taxed the talents of Sir Edwin Arnold, critic and
+poet, to frame in language an adequate picture of Arjamand's death
+couch.</p>
+
+<p>If a man possesses the sentiment of form and proportion, the Taj will
+satisfy him. The stately portal seems to harmonize with the grandeur of
+an Eastern queen; and the aerial dome, higher than its breadth, rests
+upon its base as if possessing no weight, yet is of solid marble. Heroic
+in treatment are the quotations from the Koran framing every doorway and
+aperture, wrought in inlay or sculptured in relief&mdash;and these modify the
+pearly monotony of the marble.</p>
+
+<p>One enters reverently the burial-place of Shah Jahan's queen, whose
+cenotaph is of the whitest marble, placed in the precise center of the
+building, and surrounded by an octagonal screen of alabaster that is
+pierced and interwoven like lace. Every foot of the walls, every column
+and panel, is elaborately embellished with flowers, leaves, scrolls, and
+sentences, and these are inlaid in jasper, bloodstone, jade, onyx, and
+precious stones. Arjamand's tomb blossoms with never-fading Persian
+flowers and Arabic sentences extolling her character, and is as
+marvelous in workmanship as if produced by Florentine inlayers of the
+present time. The sarcophagus was originally inclosed by a fence of
+gold, studded with gems; but this was early replaced by the screen of
+marble, local history asserts.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span>The supposition is that one Austin de Bordeaux, a French goldsmith, who
+had been summoned to Agra by Shah Jahan to construct the celebrated
+Peacock throne, had much to do with the treatment of the Taj's interior.
+The building originally possessed two wonderful silver doors, of his
+designing, but these were looted by Jat invaders in 1764 and melted
+down. It is said that eight years were consumed by the artists intrusted
+with the making and beautifying of Arjamand's cenotaph; and further,
+that the Koran's every line and every word is reproduced by inlay or
+relief carving on the interior and exterior of the Taj.</p>
+
+<p>To the left of Arjamand's tomb is that of her lord and lover, its
+location proving that it was placed there obviously from necessity and
+as an afterthought. It is a span larger than his consort's stone, and
+occupies nearly all the space allowed by the position of the grilled
+inclosure&mdash;but is a sentimentally fitting intruder upon the general
+design.</p>
+
+<p>It is a curious bit of history that Shah Jahan, conscious of triumph as
+the author of the Taj, long contemplated constructing a similar shrine
+on the opposite bank of the Jumna, wherein his own body was to be
+placed. It was to be constructed of dark-colored marble, but otherwise
+to be a counterpart of Arjamand's tomb. The foundations were placed, and
+the arangements for supplying labor and materials well advanced, when a
+son of Jahan&mdash;Aurangzeb&mdash;who had long plotted for the Mogul throne,
+secured control of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>the military forces, and overthrew his father's
+rule.</p>
+
+<p>Aurangzeb promptly adopted Delhi as his capital, leaving his parent to
+languish as a political prisoner in the palace within the fort of Agra.
+In a suite of very small rooms, and attended by a devoted daughter, the
+great Shah Jahan there dreamed away the last seven years of his
+life&mdash;but these apartments overlooked the Taj Mahal, two miles away, let
+it be known. The heartbroken Jahan outlived his splendid wife by
+thirty-seven years.</p>
+
+<p>In this manner destiny willed that two great personages forever lie side
+by side in death; and consequently the Taj is enriched as a temple of
+sentiment; but&mdash;they do not sleep within the marble caskets the traveler
+beholds. There is a vault deep underneath the floor, and there, in
+positions agreeing with the monuments above, are the royal remains
+enclosed in unornamented masonry.</p>
+
+<p>In Jahan's plan for a somber reproduction of the Taj, a monumental
+bridge was to span the Jumna and link the shrines of emperor and
+empress. Instead of this fair dream, there is now only a flat,
+sandcovered shore, upon which lazy tortoises range themselves under the
+warming sun, and long-legged water fowl indulge in peaceful meditation
+and slumber.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182"></a></p>
+<img src="images/182.jpg" width="600" height="457" alt="INLAID WORK IN MAUSOLEUM OF ITIMAD-UD-DAULAH, AGRA" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">INLAID WORK IN MAUSOLEUM OF ITIMAD-UD-DAULAH, AGRA</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The curious acoustics of the Taj are observable to the visitor going
+often to Arjamand's shrine. A harsh voice is echoed harshly back and
+ceases quickly; but a woman's tones raised gently <!-- text to here was originally part of page 180. Pages 181-182 was a blank page and a full page illustration--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span>in song are echoed
+many times, diversified and amplified in strange combinations of melody.
+Such a voice reverberates from every side, seemingly ascends, and its
+force finally dies away to silence like the notes of a flying wood-dove
+in a forest.</p>
+
+<p>This gem of Agra is worshiped as fervently by Hindus as by those of the
+Moslem faith, and Indian artists in a few years almost destroy their
+eyesight trying to portray in miniature upon ivory the architectural
+perfection and delicacy of this marvel of the world.</p>
+
+<p>When invading hordes have swept Central India, or alien garrisons been
+quartered in Agra fort, the Taj has always suffered mutilation. The
+Mahrattas looted it of everything movable and systematically wrenched
+precious stones from their places in the design ornamenting the fabric
+of the interior. After the Mutiny came the red-coated soldier, who
+relieved the tedium of garrison duty by appropriating any attractive
+piece of inlay overlooked by the Mahrattas&mdash;these pretty bits made
+interesting souvenirs of India for sending home to the British Isles.</p>
+
+<p>For twenty years the British government has been repairing this
+desecration, under guidance of its viceroys. The great chamber of the
+Taj now seems perfect in its embellishment&mdash;but there are no diamonds,
+no rubies, and no emeralds, as of old. Bits of colored glass fill their
+places.</p>
+
+<p>But the Taj's exterior is to-day as perfect as it could have been two
+centuries ago; and the dig<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span>nity and sovereign chastity of its marble
+surfaces&mdash;spoiled by no misplaced ornamentation, and unsullied by
+vandal&mdash;make of this poetic shrine an offering to love surpassed in
+beauty by nothing in all the world fashioned or reared by man.</p>
+
+<p>Nowheres on God's footstool has any queen such a monument, and it is
+even more beautiful in the silver dress of moonlight than in the golden
+robes of the midday sun. By day or night alike it makes an impression on
+the mind that time can never obliterate. Shah Jahan erected the Jami
+Masjid mosque at Delhi, and the costly Muti Masjid mosque in Agra Fort,
+as well as the splendid Khas Mahal, the Diwan-i-ain, and the
+Diwan-i-khas, likewise in the fort&mdash;but more satisfying art is
+represented in the Taj than in all the other structures of his reign.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER IX<br />
+<small>BENARES, SACRED CITY OF THE HINDUS</small></h2>
+
+
+<p>Unique among Indian cities is Benares, and for the Hindu the sacred
+capital on the Ganges has a significance similar to that of Mecca for
+the Mohammedan, and a greater attracting power than Jerusalem has for
+the Christian. Benares is the home and shrine of the complex religion
+that binds the Hindu nations, and is the very soul and heart of
+Hinduism.</p>
+
+<p>No other place where men congregate can compete with deified Benares in
+the matter of divine merit that may be conferred on the pilgrim entering
+its gates and threading its narrow and filth-smeared streets. There two
+hundred thousand people live and fatten upon the half million devotees
+coming annually to the idolatrous fountainhead. The sacred city attracts
+this tide of pious humanity from all the tribes and nations of
+many-peopled India: they journey to Benares brimming with love and
+trustfulness, and after a season spent in her temples, at her shrines,
+and by her sacred stream, she sends them forth overflowing with merit
+and zeal, to carry her fame to the outposts of the faith, even to
+Afghanistan and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>Baluchistan, and to the nomadic tribes peopling Tibet
+and other lands beyond the mighty Himalayas.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188"></a></p>
+<img src="images/188.jpg" width="600" height="365" alt="SCENE ON THE GANGES, BENARES" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">SCENE ON THE GANGES, BENARES</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Somebody with a gift for nebulous mathematics has stated that more than
+two hundred thousand gods of the Hindu religion are represented at
+Benares. Whether the count be valid matters little, for the city is
+pre-eminent as the special domain of the fundamental god of India's
+slavish religion, Siva, whose ensign&mdash;a gilt trident and perforated
+disk&mdash;flashes from the pinnacles of hundreds of temples and palaces.
+This uncanny city on the Ganges is naturally the Brahmins' paradise, for
+these devotees constitute a governing force in the city's control, and
+from this fountainhead spread their influence throughout the land of
+Hind. These insinuating men of religion line the river bank, and infest
+the temples, sitting like spiders waiting for their prey. Their
+emissaries are everywhere in India, promoting pilgrimages, or hovering
+about the entrances to the city to make certain of the arrival of the
+unwary enthusiast with well lined purse. Rich and poor, high caste and
+low, all come to the sacred city. Some travel in state by lordly
+elephant or camel caravan, others by railway; but none follow a surer
+avenue to eternal grace than those who plod on foot over the Great Trunk
+highway, sweeping diagonally across India, after the manner of Kipling's
+holy man from Thibet whose footsteps were watched over by <i>Kim</i>. The
+"business" of Benares being the bestowal of holiness, the manufacture of
+brass <!-- text to here was originally part of page 186. Pages 187-188 was a blank page and a full page illustration--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>goods appealing to tourists is incidental in importance and
+revenue. No other city of its population can have a more insignificant
+trade measureable by statistics.</p>
+
+<p>For three miles the religious section of Benares runs along the brow of
+the plateau overlooking the chocolate-hued stream, and every foot of
+this distance is curious and interesting. Falling below the disgusting
+temple resorted to by pilgrims from Nepal, the Hindu region beyond
+India's frontier and "the snows," is the ghat (a ghat is a large stone
+stairway descending to the river), where the good Hindu gives his dead
+to the flames, and the muddy inlet from the Ganges where this occurs is
+dedicated to Vishnu, "the sleeper on the waters," a name singularly
+appropriate to a place where the ashes of the dead are consigned to the
+bosom of "Mother Ganga."</p>
+
+<p>A visitor observes a number of platform-like structures of masonry that
+are decorated with roughly carved figures of men and women standing hand
+in hand. Upon these, until British rule put a stop to the custom,
+thousands of fanatical wives underwent suttee and were burned alive with
+their dead husbands. It is but seldom that a cremation is not in
+progress at the burning ghat. From the deck of a native boat moored not
+forty feet away I saw in a single hour eight corpses in varying stages
+of consumption by fire. The traveler hardened to gruesome spectacles by
+much journeying in Africa and Asia experiences but little of the
+sickening sensation through witnessing <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span>a primitive incineration at
+Benares that is caused by a visit to the Parsee towers at Bombay. The
+Benares operation is sanitary and practical, and something may be said
+on the side of sentimental appropriateness in having a corpse borne to
+the riverside by one's relatives and friends, and there consumed by the
+burning of a pyre constructed by the hands of these. The dramatic
+entities become apparent to every thoughtful spectator, probably.</p>
+
+<p>A clatter of brass cymbals reaches the ear, and a cortege appears at the
+top of the ghat, while desultory cries of "<i>Rama, nama, satya
+hai</i>"&mdash;"the name of Rama is true"&mdash;are heard. The corpse, fastened upon
+a simple bier of bamboo sticks and carried on the shoulders of four
+relatives, is swathed in white if a male, or in red if a female. The
+bearers hasten almost frantically down the decline and clumsily drop
+their burden in the water, feet foremost, and make certain that the
+current will have undisturbed play upon the corpse without sweeping it
+away. The mourners repair to the place where dry wood is sold and enter
+upon spirited bargaining for fuel sufficient to consume their relative,
+whose body is being laved and cleansed of spiritual imperfections not a
+few rods away by the sacred Ganges. Only six or eight logs are required.
+The dealer demands three rupees for them&mdash;and the grief-stricken Hindus
+offer one. A bargain is finally struck at two rupees, with a stick of
+sandal-wood for the head of the pyre thrown in.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191"></a></p>
+<img src="images/191.jpg" width="600" height="544" alt="BENARES BURNING GHAT" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">BENARES BURNING GHAT, WITH CORPSES BEING PURIFIED IN THE
+GANGES</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The logs are quickly conveyed to the <!-- text to here was originally part of page 190. Pages 191-192 was a full page illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>burning-ground, a satisfactory
+site for the sad office is expeditiously chosen, and the mourners with
+their own hands construct the pile. Now sanctified by Mother Ganga, the
+corpse is fetched from the strand and placed on the structure, feet ever
+directed toward the precious river. The pyre is soon ready for the
+torch, and here occurs a curious incident, one that illustrates the
+monopolistic importance of a man wearing only a loin-cloth, who has been
+taking an indifferent interest in the proceedings from an elevation
+close by. He is a Dom, of a caste so degraded that should he
+inadvertently touch a corpse it would be contaminated beyond remedy. But
+immemorial custom requires that the fire be obtained from him, and he
+may demand payment therefor in keeping with his estimate of the worldly
+position of the applicants. Ordinarily a rupee is sufficient, although
+for a grandee's cremation a fee of a thousand rupees has sometimes been
+demanded and paid.</p>
+
+<p>The dicker with the Dom being concluded, the chief mourner lights a
+handful of dried reeds at his fire, hurries to the waiting pyre, walks
+seven times around it, and with the blazing reeds held in the right hand
+lights the mass at head and foot. The mourners then withdraw to a shaded
+spot beside a suttee structure, and silently watch the conflagration. In
+an hour all is over, and the ashes then are strewn far out on the
+surface of the Ganges and are borne from sight by the current.</p>
+
+<p>From ten to fifteen corpses are disposed of at the burning-ghat daily,
+and several cremations are <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span>usually simultaneously in process. Now and
+then there is some demonstration of grief, but not often. I saw two men
+wade to a body in the river, when they pulled away the covering from the
+face and bathed it with handfuls of water scooped from beloved Ganga,
+and their every movement denoted affection. Again, I witnessed a
+tottering and sobbing old man place with every expression of tenderness
+a garland of yellow and white flowers about the neck of a corpse swathed
+in red, and imagined it the last office of love to an idolized daughter.
+I also observed the bare corpse of a man who an hour before had died of
+plague brought to the ghat by two public scavengers, and committed to
+the flames of a few logs much too short, until the slender legs had been
+doubled beneath the body. No sandal-wood perfumed this pauper's pyre,
+and no interment in potter's field was ever more perfunctory than his
+burning.</p>
+
+<p>Social distinctions are as marked at the Benares burning-ghat as in the
+modern American cemetery. An hour spent on the Ganges bank supplies
+sufficient food to the mind for weeks of serious reflection.</p>
+
+<p>One of the greatest spectacles of India is that of pilgrims bathing in
+the Ganges. From several ghats devoted to sacred ablutions numerous
+wooden piers extend into the worshiped stream, and these teem with
+pilgrims from every section of Hindustan, in every variety of costume,
+every stage of dress and undress, there to purge themselves of unclean
+thoughts and wicked deeds, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>to wash away bodily impurities.
+Preaching canopies, shrines for rich and powerful rajahs, and stone
+recesses for those demanding solitary meditation, make of the river
+front a place literally teeming with humanity. Devotees are everywhere.
+Here a pundit is reading the holy law to a half hundred approving
+Hindus; there a stately chieftain from remote Kashmir ceaselessly
+mutters prayers beneath a huge spreading umbrella of thatched straw,
+hired from a Brahmin for an hour; and ten feet away a holy ascetic,
+naked in the scorching sun, smears his skin with the gray ashes of
+penitence.</p>
+
+<p>Below this grotesque medley is the multitude of men, women and children,
+breast deep in the sanctifying Ganges. Thousands have come on foot from
+far-away villages of this boundless land of paganism; and from all goes
+up a continuous murmur of prayer and adoration, like a moaning wind
+emerging from a distant forest. Eye and ear alike are flooded with an
+indescribable rush of sensations, and the heart is oppressed with the
+august meanings which lie behind the awe-inspiring sight. All the
+Hindu-cults are here&mdash;the Ganges welds them in her holy embrace. But
+conspicuous above all others is the Brahmin priest, attracting annas and
+rupees in devious ways from enthusiasts dazed by the realization that
+they have bathed in Mother Ganga&mdash;some want a certificate of purity,
+others want seals placed on vessels of water to be carried to loved ones
+suffering from infirmities. The Brahmin gives certificate, places seals,
+and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span>performs other acts enabling him to garner a harvest of silver and
+gold.</p>
+
+<p>Now and again a moribund believer, whose friends seek for him something
+that may be construed as a last blessing, is hurried to the river's
+edge. It is a sacrament that cannot be delayed many minutes&mdash;and the
+Brahmin fortunate enough to be appealed to charges at emergency rates.
+When business slackens this harpy composes his nearly-naked body on a
+plank overlapping the river, and executes with studied deliberation a
+program of purification marvelous in detail. Receptacles of brass and
+silver are brought him, and for an hour or longer he rubs his handsome
+frame with unguents and perfumes, slowly stripes forehead, biceps and
+breast with the ash-marks of sanctity, and places a wafer of his caste
+on his forehead. Later he climbs the ghat to his favorite temple,
+probably content with the emoluments thrust upon him at the water side,
+or may be he goes to the bazaar to learn the latest gossip of religious
+and political India. It is in no sense a losing game to be a member of
+the Brahministic ring controlling things in Benares, for the flow of
+coin from the two hundred million Hindus is ceaseless.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198"></a></p>
+<img src="images/198.jpg" width="600" height="414" alt="BENARES HOLY MEN" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">BENARES HOLY MEN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="monkey" id="monkey"></a>A curious sight in Benares is the Monkey Temple, a pretentious and not
+inartistic structure of carved red sandstone dedicated to Kali, the
+goddess wife of Siva. The image of Kali within the temple is a black
+fury of hideous countenance, whose red tongue droops to the waist. She
+is dripping with blood, and crowned with snakes, while <!-- text to here was originally part of page 196. Pages 197-198 was a blank page and a full page illustration--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span>hanging from
+her neck is a garland of human skulls. Kali wants blood, and if not
+propitiated daily therewith something horrible is expected to happen.
+Every Indian town has a temple to this monster; and everywhere
+throughout what Kipling calls "the great, gray, formless India,"
+sacrifices are made each morning to this ogress with insatiable appetite
+for blood.</p>
+
+<p>The entrance to the Monkey Temple is slime-covered and the air heavy
+with sickening odors. Through a stone doorway the goddess may be seen
+enshrined, grinning demoniacally. Twenty horrible men, harmonizing in
+appearance to a reader's conception of thugs, gather in the court, to
+give each batch of visitors the performance that most have come to
+witness. The frontal region of their heads is shaven smooth, and each
+loathsome Indian drools betel-nut saliva that looks like blood. A goat
+is led into the enclosure and tied to a stone post, and the evil-looking
+men form a circle about the helpless animal. One of them holds the rear
+legs of the beast clear of the ground. A chant issues from the
+betel-stained mouths, and a human fiend forces through the circle,
+brandishing a straight-bladed sword, heavy and keen-edged, that has just
+been blessed before the altar of Kali. He is the official executioner.</p>
+
+<p>This functionary makes a sign of readiness, swings the blade at arm's
+length for a moment&mdash;and lands a blow on the underside of the animal's
+throat that severs the head from the body. The gushing blood is directed
+to the Siva emblem close <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span>by, the head is borne triumphantly to the feet
+of Kali, and each thug-looking man smears his face with blood taken from
+the Siva symbol, and then dances madly around the carcass. Assuming that
+the spectacle has favorably impressed the visitor, the high executioner
+begs a donation with which to purchase a goat for a second sacrifice.
+You decline, probably feeling that you would subscribe bountifully if a
+priest might be substituted for the helpless beast.</p>
+
+<p>On important days in the Hindu calendar many goats and sheep are
+sacrificed, and sometimes buffaloes as well. In time of pestilence or
+famine it is not unusual to find a child's head deposited in the early
+morn at Kali's feet, it is claimed.</p>
+
+<p>The inner court of the Monkey Temple, like the ceremony of the
+slaughter, is open to the heavens, and is surrounded by a cloister lined
+with cell-like niches for solitary meditation and introspection. On the
+terrace, on every protruding bit of architecture, on every window
+ledge&mdash;wherever foothold may be gained&mdash;are monkeys, loathsomely fat,
+and made more disgusting from years of pampering than are the human
+freaks on the pavement. Great tamarind trees overhanging the temple are
+alive with monkeys. They drop to the ground, run between your legs, and
+dash before you at every turning. You are entreated to pay for basins of
+parched corn thrown to the revolting creatures by your priestly guide,
+and do so, but are glad when the monkeys show their appreciation from a
+distance. From three to four hundred <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span>of these mangy animals belong to
+the temple, and are held to be sacred. At Benares everything specially
+nasty or repulsive is protected by the cloak of sanctity.</p>
+
+<p>You are glad to get back to your carriage, so thankful that you throw a
+couple of rupees to the mob of appealing "priests," in your heart
+possibly wishing that the money might be invested in soap and scrubbing
+brushes&mdash;and in poison for the monkeys. Urging the coachman to drive
+speedily for the open space and pure air of Benares cantonments, you
+wonder as you proceed what place in religion can reasonably be occupied
+by the revolting customs and beings to be witnessed at the Monkey
+Temple, and it is with no regret that you learn from eminent authority
+that in less than a hundred years every temple and shrine perched on the
+brink of the plateau crowning the Ganges will be undermined and its
+descent not arrested until the structure reaches the river's bed. Those
+responsible for locating Benares on the outer periphery of a great bend
+in the Ganges proved themselves to possess no engineering foresight. But
+India's controlling religion can receive no setback by the destruction
+of a few score tawdry buildings consecrated to its gods, for they will
+be replaced by better shrines and temples, rising from places beyond
+even the iconoclasm of the sacred Ganges.</p>
+
+<p>Investigation reveals sufficient merit in the religio-philosophies of
+Mohammedanism and Buddhism to explain their adoption by teeming
+mil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>lions. Each faith offers admirable precepts and teachings, and
+prolonged study of them produces a feeling of respect for all true
+believers. But a season of travel in India, entered upon with the desire
+to dispassionately study the Hindu religion in the land of its
+overweening strength, produces only bewilderment and mental nausea. The
+more determined one may be to lay bare the gems of this faith and its
+administration by the Brahmins, the keener will be his disappointment,
+for not a redeeming feature will he find, and he may quit India smarting
+with regret over wasted time. To such an investigator Hinduism must
+forever be remembered as paganism steeped in idolatry. More, its
+gruesome sacrifices will provoke only disgust, perhaps equaled by that
+called forth by the unspeakably coarse temple carvings and ornamentation
+of the cars of juggernaut. I have been acquainted with Indian gentlemen
+proud to be known as Hindus, and have been amazed to hear them avow
+devotion to the hideous idolatry that absorbs a great part of the time
+of two hundred million people in India alone. If the strong arm of
+England were not raised over the great empire of the East the suttee
+rite and child sacrifice would unquestionably prevail to-day. To a
+westerner Hinduism seems the greatest abomination of the earth.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203"></a></p>
+<img src="images/203.jpg" width="600" height="464" alt="A BRAHMIN PRIEST" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">A BRAHMIN PRIEST</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER X<br />
+<small>INDIA'S MODERN CAPITAL</small></h2>
+
+
+<p>Kipling, who has gracefully lured roamers to India by saying, "It is
+good for every man to see some little of the great Indian Empire and the
+strange folk who move about it," obligingly prepares those entering by
+the gateway of Calcutta for an olfactory affront. The stenches of
+Calcutta are numerous and pervading, surely; but the tourist who has
+crawled up the Bay of Bengal in a caravel of the Peninsular &amp; Oriental
+Company cheerfully accepts them. The "P. &amp; O." line is one of Britain's
+venerated institutions; consequently English people would as soon commit
+a felony as criticize this antiquated concern. In these times ten-knot
+passenger steamers are hard to find outside the Calcutta service of the
+"P. &amp; O." Company and in marine junk yards.</p>
+
+<p>As a great commercial port, Calcutta is unfortunately located. It is on
+the Hooghly river, one of the outlets of the sacred Ganges, and ninety
+miles from its mouth. The Hooghly is a tortuous stream of mud that can
+be navigated by large vessels only by daylight and with favoring
+conditions of tide, for its channel is seldom two days alike. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span>This
+demands expert piloting, and explains why Hooghly pilots are selected
+with great caution. A Hooghly pilot is the very maximum of a nautical
+swell, and one's boarding of a ship attended by man-servant and a mass
+of belongings partakes somewhat of the character of a function.</p>
+
+<p>This Calcutta pilot is a fine fellow&mdash;well-bred, educated, and entitled
+to the splendid compensation and social position which he enjoys. Since
+the days of the East India Company, the forerunner of British rule in
+India, the pilots of the Hooghly have been esteemed as personages and
+they have taken rank but slightly lower than officers of the navy, and
+much ahead of ordinary commercial people and mariners. When off duty in
+Calcutta the pilot goes to his club and drives on the Maidan with other
+Anglo-Indians of quality, and never is seen about hotel bars and caf&eacute;s
+like the ruck of seafaring men having a spare day on shore.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207"></a></p>
+<img src="images/207.jpg" width="600" height="441" alt="A CALCUTTA NAUTCH DANCER" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">A CALCUTTA NAUTCH DANCER</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Hooghly is charted practically every twenty-four hours, and on his
+way upstream the pilot gets his information pertaining to depths and
+bars by signals from stations on shore. The river presents nothing of
+interest to the traveler until a point twenty miles from Calcutta is
+reached; thereafter it is a stream of many attractions. Fortifications
+with visible native troops and an occasional red-coated English soldier
+occur frequently; then come scores of enormous cotton and jute mills,
+attended by strange-looking stern-wheel steamboats, most of them with
+huge cargo barges <!-- text to here was originally part of page 206. Pages 207-208 was a full page illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span>on either side. At last Calcutta is in sight. Tall
+factory chimneys and domed public buildings pronounce it a city of size
+and importance. The last two miles of the journey are made through a
+flotilla of shipping, a bewildering medley of sailing vessels and
+steamers, flying the flags of all the maritime nations of the earth&mdash;all
+but the Stars and Stripes of Uncle Sam.</p>
+
+<p>Bombay, on the other side of India, and immediately on the sea, would
+make a better capital than Calcutta. But the malodorous city of the
+Hooghly will probably ever be the seat of Britain's rule.</p>
+
+<p>While the names of Warren Hastings and Clive dominate the printed page
+dealing with modern India, Calcutta fairly throbs with recollections of
+Job Charnock, the audacious Englishman who raised the red flag of
+Britain just two hundred and seventeen years ago over a collection of
+mud hovels and straw huts on the site of what to-day is the capital of
+the Indian Empire.</p>
+
+<p>Charnock, perhaps the founder of England's rule in the East, was the
+agent of the old East Indian Company. Having been granted permission by
+the Mogul rulers to establish a post on the Hooghly convenient for
+trading purposes, he chose a spot having the advantage of a generous
+shade tree. The spot and neighborhood now is Calcutta, the chief city of
+India, with over a million inhabitants. A Hindu village in the vicinity
+of the place where Charnock established his trading post was called
+Khali-ghat&mdash;these words, cor<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span>rupted by use, have come to mean
+"Calcutta." The quaint pioneer obviously had no realization of the part
+he was playing in empire-making, and Great Britain has never made
+adequate acknowledgment of the gratitude clearly this man's due.
+Calcutta residents delight to recount Charnock's exploits, and they take
+visitors to St. John's churchyard to view the substantial monument
+beneath which rest his bones. The inscription states that he died
+January 10, 1693.</p>
+
+<p>A single story proves Charnock's independence of character. He went with
+his ordinary guard of soldiers to witness the burning of the body of a
+Hindu grandee, whose wife was reputed more than passing fair. It was
+known that the rite of the suttee was to be performed&mdash;the widow was to
+sacrifice herself upon the blazing pyre of the deceased, in keeping with
+Hindu custom. Charnock was so impressed by the young widow's charms that
+he ordered his soldiers to rescue her and by force take her to his home.
+They were speedily married, had several children and lived happily for
+many years. Instead of converting her to Christianity, she made him a
+proselyte to paganism, and the only shred of Christianity thereafter
+remarkable in him was the burying of her decently when she was removed
+by death; but Charnock is said to have observed in true pagan manner
+each anniversary of her demise, even to making animal sacrifices before
+the image of the goddess Khali.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212"></a></p>
+<img src="images/212.jpg" width="413" height="550" alt="GENERAL POST-OFFICE, CALCUTTA" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 413px;">
+<p class="caption">GENERAL POST-OFFICE, CALCUTTA</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Calcutta has improved greatly since Kipling <!-- text to here was originally part of page 210. Pages 211-212 was a blank page and a full page illustration--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span>wrote of it as the "City of
+Dreadful Night"; but it is yet a place of striking contrasts, of
+official splendor and native squalor, of garish palaces abutting in rear
+allies upon filthy hovels. The good is extremely good&mdash;that is for the
+British official; the bad is worse than awful&mdash;and that is for the
+native.</p>
+
+<p>Viewed superficially, Calcutta looks like a prosperous city in Europe,
+perhaps in England; but rear streets and suburbs are as filthy and
+congested as any town in vast India. What the average tourist beholds is
+spick and span in a modern sense; and what he doesn't see is intensely
+Asiatic, with all that the word can mean. Being a city of extremes, the
+visitor may be brought to his front windows by the warning cries of the
+footmen of a sojourning maharajah driving in state to a function, while
+through the rear windows float the plaintive notes of the muezzin
+calling the faithful to prayers from the minaret of a Mohammedan mosque
+close by.</p>
+
+<p>The Indian metropolis presents an array of fine homes, bungalows and
+stucco villas, put up when the rupee was worth two shillings and a
+penny, wherein unhappiness may now dwell, because the rupee has
+depreciated to a shilling and fourpence. The parade of fashion on the
+Maidan late in the afternoon presents every variety of equipage and
+livery known to the East, The horse-flesh of Calcutta is uniformly fine.
+Better animals than are daily grouped around the band stand, or along
+the rail of the race-course, cannot be found short of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span>Europe. The
+viceroy is often seen driving a mail phaeton, preceded by two native
+lancers and followed by four others. The automobile has many devotees in
+Calcutta, and bicycle-riding natives are everywhere. The babu is
+exceedingly fond of wheeling on the Maidan whenever he can escape from
+his account books. Nearly every carriage on the Maidan in the afternoon
+has two men on the box and two footmen behind, all gorgeously
+dressed&mdash;servants are cheap in India. At sundown nowadays half the
+pianos in Chowringee&mdash;where Calcutta's officials and prosperous
+commercial people reside&mdash;seem to be playing airs from American light
+operas, and not infrequently a regimental band compliments the United
+States by playing "Hiawatha" or one of Sousa's compositions.</p>
+
+<p>It is compensating to a person burdened with the habit of wondering
+where words come from, to discover that Dum-dum is a suburb of Calcutta,
+and is important as a military post and as the seat of an ammunition
+factory and arsenal.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215"></a></p>
+<img src="images/215.jpg" width="600" height="452" alt="SHIPPING ON THE HOOGHLY, CALCUTTA" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">SHIPPING ON THE HOOGHLY, CALCUTTA</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The sights of Calcutta are unimportant. The general post-office occupies
+the site of the native prison whose horrors of the Black Hole stain
+chapters of Indian history; and a description of the burning of human
+bodies on the bank of the Hooghly, and of the animal sacrifices at the
+old Hindu temple at Khali-ghat, would be disagreeably gruesome. The
+gaudy Jain temple interests for a few minutes, and the exterior of Fort
+William impresses the casual spectator. The zo&ouml;logical <!-- text to here was originally part of page 214. Pages 215-216 was a full page illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span>garden is
+conventional, and the feature of the botanical garden is probably the
+largest banyan tree in the world. Calcutta hotels, deplorably poor, have
+been fitly described as of two kinds&mdash;bad and adjectively bad. All that
+interests the visitor within the modern capital of ancient India is the
+movement of official and social life, and the parade of races forming
+the population of the marvelous, mysterious country.</p>
+
+<p>There, across the esplanade, with imposing gates and approaches, is
+Government House, winter seat of the Viceroy of India&mdash;whose most
+distinguished incumbent in recent years was His Excellency the Right
+Honorable the Baron Curzon of Kedleston, P. C., G. M. S. I., G. M. I.
+E., etc., etc. Few traveling Americans had the time to speak of him in a
+manner honoring all these designations. Visitors from Chicago used to
+refer to him, it was claimed, with na&iuml;ve simplicity as "Mary Leiter's
+husband," and let it go at that. A person of extraordinary ability was
+this husband of an American queen, and it is generally believed that he
+may some day be prime minister of England. The viceroyship is the
+highest appointive office in the world. Its compensation is the
+equivalent of $80,000 per annum, but the allowances for entertaining
+European functionaries, an army of native servants, and a stableful of
+horses and elephants for State ceremonials, swells the amount two or
+threefold. Both at Government House in Calcutta and at the summer home
+in Simla the viceroy is surrounded by a court equalled in splen<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span>dor by
+few royalties in Europe. Compared with the increment and disbursements
+of India's viceroy, those of the President of the United States appear
+insignificant. But oriental show and parade are expensive, so expensive
+in fact, that a viceroy is forced to make liberal drafts upon his
+private purse.</p>
+
+<p>India may have had as capable rulers in the past as Lord Curzon, but
+rarely one more tactful or courageous, and never one having the
+assistance of a vicereine possessing the charm and lovable qualities of
+the late Lady Curzon. Her splendid work in behalf of the natives,
+especially the women, endeared her to all Indians. The Delhi durbar in
+1903 honored Edward VII in a degree unsurpassed, but was a greater
+personal triumph for Viceroy Curzon and his accomplished consort from
+Chicago. His administration had many perplexing situations to deal with
+and one of them forced his resignation. The constant nightmare of a
+viceroy of India is famine, and twice Lord Curzon had to deal with
+this&mdash;one visitation alone cost the Indian Government fifty million
+pounds sterling. His understanding of frontier technicalities, and the
+ways and wiles of native rulers&mdash;none too loyal to British rule,
+assisted mightily in the successful administration of his high office.
+Under the Curzons' r&eacute;gime Government House balls and garden parties were
+counted the most brilliant occurring in the East.</p>
+
+<p>A mighty personage in present-day Calcutta is General Viscount
+Kitchener, commander-in-chief <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span>of the Indian army. In Egypt he reformed
+the nature of the Nile peasant to the extent of making good fighters of
+the sons of the cravens of Tel-el-Kebir; good enough, when led by
+British officers, to annihilate the army of the Khalifa; and in South
+Africa Kitchener wound up with success a war that had been horribly
+bungled by others. Military critics had long been aware that the army of
+India was antiquated, honeycombed with dry-rot, and largely ruled by
+favorites sitting in high places at Whitehall. Consequently, Kitchener
+was sent to India with instructions conferring almost plenary power to
+reorganize the forces, British as well as native. He prefers work to
+participating in the social game.</p>
+
+<p>In England there is a growing desire that finds expression frequently in
+the newspapers for Kitchener's translation from Calcutta to the War
+Office in London, from whence the British army as a whole might profit
+by the trenchant efforts of the Irish soldier who has seldom blundered.
+As commander in India Lord Kitchener is paid a lakh of rupees a
+year&mdash;$32,000, and heads an army of 242,000 men&mdash;77,000 British and
+165,000 native troops.</p>
+
+<p>The lieutenant-governor of Bengal, always spoken of as the "L. G."
+resides in Calcutta and works in close relationship with the viceroy.
+This British functionary administers the affairs of a territory but one
+twentieth the area of the United States, but which possesses 75,000,000
+people.</p>
+
+<p>And what is this India, governed by Great Bri<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span>tain through its delegated
+officials? It is a country greater than all Europe, omitting Russia, and
+fully half as large as the United States. Its population numbers
+300,000,000, and is the most heterogeneous of any land in the
+world&mdash;were there homogeneity, or anything approaching it, a mere
+handful of Britons could not hope to control a fifth part of the people
+of the earth. India is made up of a multiplicity of races and tribes,
+professing every religion of paganism; and these are separated by
+thousands upon thousands of castes each going its own distinct and
+peculiar way. Great Britain's control of these teeming millions is
+unique in the history of oversea rule. India is almost exclusively
+agricultural, and in sections of Bengal averages 900 people to the
+square mile. At the beginning of 1906 the government had brought
+14,000,000 acres of waste land under cultivation by irrigation upon an
+expenditure of $135,000,000. India now has 215 cotton mills, which
+employ a capital of $70,000,000, and last year's jute product of Bengal
+alone was valued at $70,000,000. The Indian Empire is ponderous and
+complex from any point of view. Possessing but half the area of the
+United States, it represents one seventh of the British Empire, and more
+than seven times the combined population of Great Britain and Ireland.
+It should not be assumed that the whole of India is under British rule,
+for practically a third of the country is still governed by independent
+native princes. With almost four times the population of the United
+<!-- This was the original page break for Page 223. Text up to here was part of Page 220-->States, India supports less than 29,000 miles of railway, as against
+215,000 miles in the great republic&mdash;and this difference makes the
+contrast between Asiatic conservatism and New World progress.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222"></a></p>
+<img src="images/222.jpg" width="600" height="441" alt="CALCUTTA COOLIES" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">CALCUTTA COOLIES</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><!-- Anchor for Page 223 moved here to keep illustration on Page 222 in sequence--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span>The person demanding physical statistics gets enough pabulum in a day's
+search to keep the machinery of the mind going for months, and must be
+amazed when learning that there are seven hundred and twenty-one
+distinct languages and dialects spoken in India; that the population has
+trebled with the British occupation; that for every insane person in
+India there are thirteen in Europe,&mdash;the words "placid East" purveying
+the explanation. Taking the country by and large it is claimed that only
+one male in ten and only one female out of a hundred and forty-four, can
+read and write; and it is said by British residents in the land that the
+native knows no such thing as scholarship&mdash;he learns everything by rote,
+even to the extent of perfect recitation, without comprehending the
+meaning of the wards he is uttering. It is the nature of illiterate
+Hindus to resort to the extremest extravagance in nearly every
+statement, and it is not uncommon for report to have it that an
+Englishman has spoken abusively of a hundred thousand good Hindus, when
+that individual has merely intimated to a native servant that he would
+like his morning meal served with more punctuality. The illiterate
+Hindu, it is interesting to know, believes that the human soul passes
+through eight million reincarnations. When this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span> child of the East deals
+with numbers his tongue runs into meaningless extravagance, and there
+appears to be no communion between his intellect and speech.</p>
+
+<p>While marriage is universal in India, if not obligatory, the custom
+forbidding the remarriage of widows works an injustice to the sex
+amounting to national disgrace. A Hindu maiden who at twelve or thirteen
+is unmarried brings social obloquy on her family and entails
+retrospective damnation on three generations of ancestors. A Hindu man
+must marry and beget children to make certain of his funeral rites, lest
+his spirit wander uneasily in the waste places of the earth or be
+precipitated into the temporary hell called <i>Put</i>. The last available
+census discloses the astonishing fact that there are twenty-six million
+widows in India, meaning that out of every hundred women at least
+fourteen have been bereft of their husbands, and consequently are no
+better than human derelicts upon the earth. It is a teaching of the
+abominable Hindu faith that the bridegroom cometh but once. A pundit of
+the belief will argue that the practical reason for prohibiting
+remarriage is to prevent the crowding of the marriage market&mdash;and this
+is the only "reason" that can be extracted from one claiming to speak
+with knowledge on the unfortunate subject. The enlightened Gaekwar of
+Baroda, devoting influence and fortune to the moral uplifting of the
+people of his land, pronounces the custom forbidding the remarriage of
+widows to be a national <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span>curse exceeded only by that compassed by the
+word "caste."</p>
+
+<p>A statistical paper on India issued recently by the British Government
+shows that there were killed in that country last year by snakes and
+wild beasts 24,034 persons&mdash;21,880 by snake bites, 796 by tigers, 399 by
+leopards, and the rest by other animals. The number of cattle destroyed
+by snakes and wild beasts was 98,582.</p>
+
+<p>The other side of the account shows that 65,146 snakes and 16,121 wild
+animals were killed, for which rewards aggregating $37,000 were paid.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XI<br />
+<small>ISLAND LINKS IN BRITAIN'S CHAIN OF EMPIRE</small></h2>
+
+
+<p>If one be a sufferer from anglophobia, a tour of the globe by
+conventional paths may produce rather more irritation than is good for
+man&mdash;to such a traveler the British Empire is a chronic nightmare, for
+the red flag is everywhere. Every harbor seems choked with English
+shipping, if not guarded by a British warship; and Tommy Atkins is the
+first man met ashore. If your prejudice against Great Britain be
+unjustly conceived, you will probably revise your judgment before the
+earth is half circled; at least you must confess that Britain is great
+from the standpoint of area.</p>
+
+<p>A globe-trotter who has had "Britannia Rules the Wave" ringing in his
+ears from Gibraltar to Ceylon, connects again with the "thin red line"
+the moment his ship emerges from the Bay of Bengal. Penang then is the
+link in the interminable chain of colonies upon which the sun never
+sets. "Well, this is but an island, and a small one at that;
+consequently I won't let it worry me," soliloquizes the anglophobe.</p>
+
+<p>Penang is doubly remarkable. Firstly, the tour<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span>ist is there made to
+understand that he has finished with that great division of the earth
+known as "the East," and is at the portal of the Far East, the realm
+wherein the Chinaman, Malay and Japanese teem in uncounted millions.
+Besides, Penang is the premier tin port of the universe. Seven tenths of
+this metal used by the world starts for market from Penang and its
+neighboring ports in the Malacca Straits.</p>
+
+<p>"Rule Britannia" is played next at Singapore, likewise an island, and,
+as is Penang, a place almost wholly given over to Chinese and their
+shops. Few coastal towns in China possess a greater percentage of
+Celestials than England's city at the tip end of the Malay peninsula and
+abutting on the equator. Sir Stamford Raffles placed Englishmen&mdash;and
+Chinamen&mdash;under everlasting obligation when he brought Singapore into
+being. Raffles possessed the empire-building instinct, surely, and
+earned the honor of interment in Westminster Abbey.</p>
+
+<p>Singapore harbor commands one of the greatest natural turnstiles of
+commerce. Shipping has no other option than to use it. While Englishmen
+have administered the port and city since Raffles's time, thousands of
+Chinamen have there waxed extremely fat. The 'rickshaw coolie of
+Singapore, even, is physically perfect, and consequently in agreeable
+contrast to the Indian of calfless legs, and his Cingalese colleague of
+weak lungs. The Chinese 'rickshawman whisks a visitor about Singapore
+with the stride of a race-horse. For a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span>city only a degree north of the
+equator, Singapore offers creature comforts in sufficient number to make
+human existence there extremely attractive.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229"></a></p>
+<img src="images/229.jpg" width="600" height="389" alt="HONG KONG HARBOR" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">HONG KONG HARBOR</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Nabobs and well-conditioned humanity of Polynesia esteem Singapore much
+as Europeans and Americans regard Paris&mdash;an estimable place of
+consort, and scores of these men there lead a life not based on the
+simple ideas of Charles Wagner. Island sultans are usually as numerous
+in Singapore as princes in Cairo; and European adepts in equatorial
+government find frequent need of repairing to the gay metropolis of the
+Straits. An interesting potentate frequently seen is Rajah Brooke, a
+cultivated Englishman who is philanthropic despot over a slice of Borneo
+twice the area of England and Wales. Sarawak, his country, has been
+called the best governed tropical land in the world. Another English
+celebrity affecting Singapore is Governor Gueritz, administrator of the
+North Borneo Company, destined, maybe, to become as profitable as the
+East India Company of old. The Sultan of Sulu (not the hero of George
+Ade's comic opera) enjoys a sojourn in Singapore. He is young, wears the
+garb of a Mohammedan who has been to Mecca, and is not displeased by the
+stare of tourists. The Sultan of Johore, in the hands of money-lenders
+through unfortunate turf ventures, spends as much time in the city as in
+his Malay sultanate. A prince of the Siamese king's ministry, in
+Singapore to bestow orders for bridges and river steamers, goes nightly
+to witness a feeble production of<!-- text to here was originally part of page 228. Pages 229-230 was a fullpage illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> "The Girl from Kays," and whistles "Sammy" as
+he promenades hotel verandas.</p>
+
+<p>Down at the quays great steamships are fed with coal by Chinese coolies
+who toil silently and expeditiously. A Chinese swell is on the pier
+superintending the lading of queer-looking cases containing birds'
+nests, consigned to epicures in Hong Kong and Canton. The Chinaman's
+greatest dainty is soup made from glutinous birds' nests found in Borneo
+caves. A single case of moderate dimensions contains nests to the value
+of twelve hundred Mexican dollars&mdash;at least, it is insured for that
+amount.</p>
+
+<p>Great Britain's next station in the Far East is Hong Kong, likewise an
+island, and one that might claim the long distance championship as a
+rain-center. Next to hills, the characterizing feature of Hong Kong is
+moisture&mdash;represented either by rain or humidity. The Briton professes
+that the climate of this crown colony is good; but for months at a
+stretch his clothing has to be hung daily in the open air to keep it
+from becoming water-logged, and everything of leather has to be denuded
+each morning of green mold. At the hotels one's apparel is kept in a
+drying-room, and issued costume at a time for use.</p>
+
+<p>The globe-trotter reaching Hong Kong in March risks irreparable injury
+to his temper, unless he prefers dripping clouds and wet feet to warmth
+and sunshine. Out of a fortnight there may be a day when the elements
+will be accommodating enough to allow the glories of the harbor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span>to be
+seen from the Peak, and two pleasant days in the fortnight would be
+remarkable. Official figures show that the average March has but
+twenty-nine and a fraction hours of sunshine. Complain of the rains and
+the patriotic resident will probably remark: "Rains! These are not
+rains&mdash;they only begin in June." Your book of local information
+corroborates the resident's statement, for you may read that March
+ordinarily has a rainfall of but three and a half inches, while June
+shows twenty, and August twenty-eight. On the 25th of August in 1905 the
+downpour registered eleven and one-quarter inches&mdash;this almost turned
+Hong Kong into an eastern Venice. November, December, January and
+February are the pleasant months, statistically, in Hong Kong.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233"></a></p>
+<img src="images/233.jpg" width="600" height="379" alt="HONG KONG'S MOUNTAINSIDE" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">HONG KONG'S MOUNTAINSIDE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="mountain" id="mountain"></a>The Briton has displayed his sturdiness of character by forcing a home
+in Hong Kong, for nature fashioned the north shore of this island to be
+an abiding-place for birds and animals. Adventurers from the British
+Isles have won a plateau from the sea by piling and filling in, and by
+executing engineering feats that have converted a precipitous mountain
+side to blossom with villa sites and roads and foot-paths leading to
+them. A railway scaling the mountain height at a topsy-turvy angle did
+the rest. Hong Kong is a splendid example of what determined men
+possessed of the colonizing spirit may accomplish. The founders of
+Venice did no more in the lagoons of the Adriatic. A man responsible for
+much of Hong Kong's filling in and excavation is Sir Paul Chator, a
+British <!-- text to here was originally part of page 232. Pages 233-234 was a fullpage illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span>subject of Armenian birth, gifted to an unusual degree with
+foresight. He has done more for the colony than any other person&mdash;and
+Hong Kong has made him a millionaire.</p>
+
+<p>The legal name of the city is Victoria, but this fact apparently is
+known only to the postmaster and at Government House. Were a visitor to
+speak of Victoria, the dweller would believe that something back in
+England, or in Australia, was meant. When China ceded the rocky isle of
+Hong Kong to Great Britain in 1842 it was the haunt of fisherfolk and
+pirates prosecuting their callings in the estuary of the Canton River.
+The acquisition of Hong Kong was due to the refusal of the Chinese to
+allow British traders to live peaceably at Canton. Driven out of the
+city, they took temporary refuge in the Portuguese settlement of Macao;
+but, being pursued by Chinese hostility, the official trade
+superintendent transferred the English depot to Hong Kong, which was
+forthwith occupied by a British expeditionary force, and, at the end of
+the Opium War, finally ceded to Great Britain by the treaty of Nankin.
+The name "Hong Kong" is variously interpreted, but the generally
+accepted meaning is "Fragrant Streams."</p>
+
+<p>Just as Singapore guards the south entrance into the China Sea, so does
+Hong Kong, fifteen hundred miles away, guard the north. On the south the
+entrance is through the Straits of Malacca, on the north through the
+Straits of Formosa. Had Great Britain, according to the usual custom of
+war, retained possession of Manila, which she <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span>had conquered in 1762,
+instead of giving it back to Spain at the end of the Seven Years' War,
+her hold of the China Sea would have been as firm to-day as is her hold
+of the Mediterranean. As the situation now stands, the acquisition of
+the Philippine Islands gives Uncle Sam a fortified naval base on the
+flank of the British line of communications between Singapore and Hong
+Kong. Based on Manila, and given the possession of sufficient naval
+force, an American admiral can strike right or left, compelling his
+opponents to fight where it best suits his own purposes. England and
+America are fortunate in being on terms of complete international amity,
+but none the less has the conquest of the Philippines by the United
+States profoundly modified the strategical conditions as they existed in
+the Pacific when the islands belonged to a weak naval power like Spain.</p>
+
+<p>Hong Kong's population and traffic double every ten years, and no harbor
+has a greater tonnage. Were Hong Kong a port of origin, instead of a
+port of call, its commercial importance would be greater than that of
+London. A few years ago the British Government induced China to lease a
+slice of the mainland of goodly dimensions, to accommodate Hong Kong's
+swelling trade. There, a mile and a half across the harbor, to-day stand
+miles of modern docks and warehouses, and shipyards and engine-building
+works, that would do credit to Tyne or Clyde. This addition to Hong Kong
+is called Kowloon, and it has residential districts that range well into
+the hinterland.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span>Hong Kong's streets are among the most interesting in the great East,
+for they strike the key of true cosmopolitanism. Along them 'rickshaws
+pass in endless procession, electric cars roar, and sedan-chairs swing.
+The chair borne by four bearers provides the acme of transportation in
+fine weather. Eighty per cent, of Hong Kong's people are Chinese, and to
+this multitude the human contributions of Europe and America form
+necessarily a thin relief. Extremely picturesque are the compradore and
+taipan in costumes of the richest of silks, more so than is the poor
+coolie in dirty short trousers and jacket, pigtail coiled for
+convenience about the head, whose face is none too familiar with soap
+and water. In and out of the ever-moving multitude glide the tall,
+bright-eyed sons of India, the Sikhs, who are everywhere in the East.
+Soldiers in regimentals; jack tars of many nations; policemen, white,
+yellow, and black, are included in the picture. Here is the somber
+Britisher with confident stride and air of proprietorship, there the
+unromantic German slowly but surely capturing Oriental trade. Frenchmen
+and Scandinavians rub shoulders along the Queen's Road with the matter
+of fact American and the dark man from Italy; whilst now and then a
+peculiar gait or unusual costume distinguishes a South American or a son
+of the Philippines. Here, in short, within this congested square mile of
+the European quarter are daily to be picked representatives of the
+world's nations. A study of the crowd is an education in itself.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span>The splendid buildings speak of commercial prosperity&mdash;banks, shops,
+offices and clubs. Nearly every structure is the seat of prosperous
+commercial ventures in Hong Kong and China proper; and tiers of
+water-front warehouses locally called "godowns," are filled with
+foodstuffs and manufactures that in time will be distributed through
+every town of importance in the Flowery Kingdom. Hong Kong boasts that
+her docks can accommodate the largest ships afloat (a fact until the
+<i>Minnesota</i> and <i>Dakota</i>, loaded with American flour, vainly sought
+wharfage), and that she possesses the largest sugar refinery in the
+world. But these circumstances are subordinate to the British
+government's real interest in Hong Kong&mdash;to make it the base of naval
+power in Asia, with dockyards and repair-shops equal to any demand, and
+with coal-bins stacked with the prerequisite to sea-power.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240"></a></p>
+<img src="images/240.jpg" width="600" height="382" alt="A FORMER &quot;HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR&quot; OF HONG KONG" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">A FORMER "HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR" OF HONG KONG</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="racecourse" id="racecourse"></a>The horse is included in no grouping in Hong Kong, where coolie takes
+its place as bearer of burdens and hauler of vehicles. The sights of the
+place are so strange and interesting that a traveler is sometimes there
+for days before the fact dawns upon his vision that it is a city
+innocent of horse-flesh. True, there are the runners and polo ponies at
+Happy Valley race-course. Wherever the Briton plants his abiding-place,
+there the horse and dog are brought&mdash;but in Hong Kong the former
+requires a deal of attention, for it is only used in making a Briton's
+holiday. The race-course is set in an intervale, and has cemeteries
+overlooking<!-- text to here was originally part of page 238. Pages 239-240 was a blank page and a fullpage illustration--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> grand-stand and entrances. A transplanted sportsman whose
+every effort to name a winning steed at a Happy Valley meeting has
+failed signally, finds superabundance of food for introspection as he
+runs the gauntlet of cemetery portals on the way back to the city, and
+very likely indulges in mental speculation as to the purpose in giving
+the name of Happy Valley to a race-track whose betting ring is
+overshadowed by burial grounds.</p>
+
+<p>The "chit" as a moral pitfall is more potent in Hong Kong than in India
+or other Eastern lands possessing a sprinkling of Europeans. A
+newcomer's ears hear little but "chit." Every sentence uttered by
+friends, every proposal of obsequious native merchant, is freighted with
+the little word. You decide at last to cast off your ignorance and be of
+the elect&mdash;to know what chit means and if possible become a chitter.
+Very disappointed are you when told that chit is simply Asian for
+memorandum, in popular phrase, an "I. O. U.," hurriedly penciled and
+given in lieu of cash.</p>
+
+<p>Its purpose? Merely to pander to the European's convenience; to
+differentiate the white man from brown or yellow, by placing him on the
+unassailable pedestal of a person of honor.</p>
+
+<p>"This chit idea is great," says the newcomer. "I don't load my pockets
+down with money any more. When I buy a cigar or drink I give a chit, and
+that's all there is to it. These Eastern people are away ahead of us in
+more ways than one." And he hourly signs innocent memoranda, be<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span>cause of
+the convenience. At hotel and club a chit brings what he wants, it sends
+a basket of flowers to a charming woman, produces suits of clothing that
+he doesn't need, even pays 'rickshaw and chair coolies.</p>
+
+<p>But alas; pay-day comes at the end of the month! And scheme as he may,
+the newcomer cannot solve the fiscal problem of making a hundred dollars
+settle three hundred dollars of debts. He then comprehends that the
+insidious chit is loaded; is pregnant with the disgrace germ, if he
+cannot raise the wherewithal to redeem the sheafs of them reposing in a
+dozen tills&mdash;so many notes going to protest with every tick of the
+clock. "I'll write home for funds," he decides; "but how am I to live
+while awaiting the remittance?" By giving more chits, only. He does this
+with a bold front for another month or so, and is doubly insolvent when
+the remittance finally comes to hand. Then he gives still more chits,
+and awaits another money supply.</p>
+
+<p>Hong Kong is filled with unfortunate "remittance men," good fellows at
+heart, whose downfall dates from their introduction to the chit. A
+visitor can read no announcement more pathetic than that conspicuously
+displayed in the waiting-rooms of the Kowloon ferry, saying "Positively
+no chits received"&mdash;and this ruthless pronouncement in connection with a
+trip costing but the equivalent of three American cents!</p>
+
+<p>There is commendable practicability in the method employed by large
+hotels in the East for <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span>placing patrons in a position to connect with
+dishes on the bill of fare appealing to their appetites. In Hong Kong
+hotels, where young Chinamen knowing practically no English are employed
+as waiters, and where elaborate lists of dishes are the order, the plan
+is indispensable. It is this: Every dish is indicated on the margin of
+the card by a number, and instead of saying to the waiter, "Bring me
+some roast beef, mashed potatoes and a cup of tea," you give the numbers
+of these several articles, or point to them,&mdash;and they are fetched. It
+is easy enough to get a second helping, but if you desire your meat
+rare, or well done, or your eggs fried on both sides, then you have good
+cause for cursing the confounding of tongues at the Tower of Babel. A
+Hong Kong hotel is not a place for a person predisposed to irritability.</p>
+
+<p>For keen realization of the Far East, Hong Kong, with its streets of
+Chinese shops, and water front massed with sampans, affords a full and
+most satisfying opportunity.</p>
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XII<br />
+<small>CANTON, UNIQUE CITY OF CHINA</small></h2>
+
+
+<p>It is a steamboat journey of but ninety miles up the estuary of the
+Pearl River from Hong Kong to wonderful Canton, and a traveler in Asia
+who fails to see the city that is the commercial capital of China misses
+something that he may think and talk of the remainder of his life.
+Historians profess to trace the origin of Canton to a period antedating
+the Christian era, when, it is somewhere recorded, the thirty-fourth
+sovereign of the Chan dynasty, by name Nan Wong, who ruled for nearly
+sixty years, was on the Chinese throne. In those days the city bore the
+name of Nan-Woo-Ching, meaning "The Martial City of the South," and was
+encircled by a stockade formed of bamboos and river mud, tradition has
+it. Tradition additionally tells us that in the shadowy past Canton used
+to be known as the "City of the Rams," inasmuch as once upon a time five
+genii, each mounted on a ram carrying ears of grain in the mouth, rode
+into the market-place and said to the wondering people, "May famine and
+dearth never visit your city." This benevolent sentiment uttered, the
+genii are said to have instantly van<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span>ished, leaving their steeds in the
+market-place, and forthwith these were turned into stone. There is
+to-day a Temple of the Five Genii, where five clumsily sculptured rams
+are pointed out as the identical animals that once were flesh and blood.</p>
+
+<p>Passing over twenty centuries we find the metropolis of the present
+time, with its two million people, the most satisfying, fascinating, and
+puzzling city in the Orient, if not in the whole world. Canton with its
+agglomeration of a primitive existence, is surely distinct and different
+from any other city. Its dazzling color effect, its pile of massive
+gilding in grotesque ornamentation, its wonderful sign-boards in
+bewildering hieroglyphics, and its host of odd-looking humanity&mdash;all is
+at variance with anything the traveler has before seen. To successfully
+view Canton requires some urbanity, a wealth of patience, and a stomach
+not readily overthrown by gruesome and unusual sights. And, further, the
+visitor must never forget that his vision is looking back from one to
+two thousand years, and that the hordes of human beings congesting the
+labyrinth of streets not seven feet wide, speak of a great nation as it
+was, which to-day is the oldest living nation on earth. You, of the
+fast-marching West, are viewing at its fountainhead a race for which the
+word "conservative" was most likely first called into use. It was the
+great Li Hung Chang who stingingly rebuked some patronizing Englishmen
+who were urging the astute old statesman to advocate certain social
+reforms in China, by saying: "Why, we Chinese <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span>look upon England merely
+as an interesting experiment in civilization, wondering where you'll be
+five hundred years hence."</p>
+
+<p>The only impress that Europe and Christianity have visibly made upon
+Canton is the French cathedral of the twin spires that you see near the
+place where your steamer lands. In all Canton there is not a wheeled
+vehicle, street-car, hotel, or mouthful of food appealing to the
+convenience or appetite of the visitor from the West; and apart from
+your own coterie of sight-seers, you may for days be about the streets
+of the vast city without seeing a person wearing the habiliments of
+Europe. That section of Canton known as Shameen, in reality an island
+suburb, is set apart under concessions to the United States and certain
+European powers, and the consuls, missionaries and foreign merchants
+there dwell surrounded by many of the comforts of home.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247"></a></p>
+<img src="images/247.jpg" width="600" height="422" alt="TEMPLE OF THE FIVE HUNDRED GENII, CANTON" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">TEMPLE OF THE FIVE HUNDRED GENII, CANTON</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Few venture upon leaving Hong Kong for Canton until satisfying reports
+are received assuring that no immediate outbreak is apprehended of the
+known Cantonese hatred for foreigners, nor until a vast amount of
+letter-writing and telegraphing for guide and chair-bearers has been
+gone through with, and the steamboat company has placed the craft of
+their line at your command, to be used as hotels, restaurants, and
+otherwise as bases of supplies. Confident that you would be met at the
+landing by the guide of whom you had reassuring reports, and with whom
+you believed you had been in correspondence, a gorgeously-clad,
+good-looking<!-- text to here was originally part of page 246. Pages 247-248 was a fullpage illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span> fellow greets you at your state-room door on the boat
+before your ablutions have been completed, and tells you politely but
+firmly that he is to be your guide. His card says he is "Ah Cum John,"
+which is not that of the guide you had expected to meet you, and you
+meekly remonstrate, until the potentate tells you through the
+half-opened door that you will see Canton under his auspices or not at
+all. "Why?" "Because I am proprietor of all the sedan-chairs worth
+riding in, and employ every good coolie; and, besides, Ah Cum, my
+father, showed Canton to Rudyard Kipling twenty-five years ago. I'm the
+third son of Ah Cum, and my family does all the guiding that is done in
+Canton&mdash;nobody else speaks any English."</p>
+
+<p>Whatever your degree of objection to monopolies, a single reason
+enumerated by the autocrat seeking to enter your employ is sufficient to
+swing you into a feeble acquiescence, for, to tell the truth, you are
+not impressed favorably by the mob of jostling, shoving yellow humanity
+on shore, naked to the waist, who seem to be accentuating with menacing
+gestures their demands upon your patronage. You wonder how long a white
+man can be on shore without having his throat cut, and reason that if Ah
+Cum John can bully a sovereign-born American into accepting him as
+guide, when you had wanted somebody else, why is he not the very man to
+control the passions of a fanatical Chinese mob? His administrative
+ability impresses by the manner in which he directs affairs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span>from the
+instant his control is confessed by your party of seven native
+Americans, and after breakfast this born leader sets forth at the head
+of the timid pleiad longing to explore the great human warren of
+China&mdash;the thugs of the river bank are now your bearers and devoted
+subjects, four to a chair, and countless assistants and relatives trail
+at the end of the procession.</p>
+
+<p>The cavalcade attracts good-natured attention from shopkeepers drawn to
+the fronts of their stalls by the yelping of forty lusty Mongol throats,
+commanding all and sundry wayfarers to allow honorable visitors to pass.
+So narrow are the filth-smeared streets that a sight-seer might help
+himself at will from shops on either side of the way. Hundreds of messes
+stewing over braziers in the thoroughfare have to be moved, and now and
+then the bearers of a native dignitary slide into a conveniently wide
+place that the procession of "foreign devils" may not be inconvenienced.
+But a mandarin, in his palanquin and preceded by an orderly mounted on a
+short-legged pony, and guarded front and rear by forty wicked-looking
+soldiers armed with carbines, has precedence so instantly accorded him
+that the clients of Ah Cum's third son are almost precipitated sideways
+into a row of shops. The mighty official passes without so much as
+casting a glance of compliment at the women of the party, thereby making
+it evident that Canton mandarins have a code of deportment peculiarly
+their own.</p>
+
+<p>The products of every section of Asia are said <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span>Canton, Unique City of
+China to be heaped high in the warehouses of this great mart of Southern
+China; but the tourist sees naught of these. What he views from his
+sedan-chair is thousands of shops but little larger than catacomb cells,
+wherein everything from straw sandals for street coolies to jade
+bracelets for the richly endowed is offered for sale. Preserved from
+theft and fire in Canton's godowns and pawnshops are stored enough
+fabrics of silk, art-embroideries, and carvings in ivory and teakwood,
+to cause a person of average taste to lose his mind, could they be
+paraded for his benefit; and a collector would find it difficult to
+preserve solvency, were the treasures of the shabby-looking warehouses
+proffered for sale. Unusually repugnant are the stalls where food is
+vended, for their wares are prepared in a manner making it easy for the
+visitor to forget that he ever possessed an appetite. A hundred times as
+you are borne through Canton's streets your chair escapes by only a few
+feet or inches rows of cooked ducks and pigs that seem to have been
+finally varnished to make them appeal to the native epicure. Here and
+there you observe strange hunks of meat held together by a wisp of straw
+that your guide tells you with immobile countenance are rat hams, and in
+sundry shops your ready eye thereafter detects tiny dried carcasses that
+can only be rats. Let it be said in fairness to the sights of Canton
+that the display of vegetables is attractive enough to turn your
+thoughts to the dietary benefits of vegetarianism.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span>You early perceive that Ah Cum John is many kinds of a "boss" by the way
+he takes command of the shops at which he deigns to halt his caravan.
+All are charmed with the jewelry fabricated by the workers in
+kingfishers' feathers, and make liberal selections. But you are not
+permitted to pay the merchant with whom you have made a bargain, for
+John says, "You pay him nothing, you pay me to-night for
+everything"&mdash;and the purchases are carried away in his sumptuous
+palanquin. Pictures executed on rice-paper are next acquired on the same
+terms; then a cargo of daggers and swords with handles and scabbards
+covered with shark skin is secured after a brief dicker. When you buy a
+carved ivory ball representing years of labor by a genius, or a dozen
+bolts of Chee-fu silk, the price of which may be several hundred Mexican
+dollars, John insists that you are entitled to a <i>cumsha</i> of value. The
+merchant makes obeisance and proffers you a paper-cutter or a box of
+candied ginger. John resents this parsimony and says "Not good enough."
+He goes then behind the counter and pulls down a mandarin coat weighted
+with embroidery, or maybe an intricately carved puff-box, saying "The
+merchant gives you this with his compliments." Everything is dumped in
+the gorgeous palanquin, and your spoliation dash through commercial
+Canton is resumed.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254"></a></p>
+<img src="images/254.jpg" width="600" height="384" alt="CITY OF BOATS, CANTON" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">CITY OF BOATS, CANTON, WHERE GENERATIONS ARE BORN AND
+DIE</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Between purchases, you are taken to see innumerable temples and other
+objects of interest, as they fall in your path. The Temple of the Five
+Hundred Genii is made amusing by the scion of <!-- text to here was originally part of page 252. Pages 253-254 was a blank page and a fullpage illustration--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span>the house of Ah Cum
+explaining that a figure sculptured with hat of European pattern is
+"Joss Pau Low." As a reader you are aware that it is the effigy of Marco
+Polo, the intrepid Italian traveler supposed to have been the first
+European to have penetrated ancient China. The water-clock, elsewhere,
+is found to be out of order and not running, and you assume that the
+water of the Pearl River is too muddy for delicate mechanisms. The
+execution ground is found to be merely a quadrilateral of vacant land,
+employed by native potters when not required by the State when a group
+of criminals is to be officially put to death.</p>
+
+<p>The guide is regretful that your visit is a few days too late for you to
+see five men beheaded in as many minutes. Employing a chair-coolie as a
+lay figure, John manages to give a satisfactory description of the
+<i>modus operandi</i> of a decapitation, and you let it go at that. A
+stalwart native is then introduced as the official headsman, and this
+functionary promptly tries to sell the heavy-bladed sword with which he
+says he struck off five heads earlier in the week. Probably three
+hundred malefactors are annually put to death on this spot, and it is
+said that the public executioner has been known to sell twice that
+number of swords in a year. Now and again a loaferish policeman is seen,
+nearly always leaning against a building or finding support from the
+angle of a deep-set door. Most of the police wear sandals and straw
+hats, and carry long batons and revolvers; but there is no sameness of
+apparel or armament among <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span>these guardians of the peace, attested by
+their wearing only a portion of their uniform at a time. The Cantonese
+believe their police are equipped and dressed in strict accord with the
+"finest" of a great city in America.</p>
+
+<p>On the way to that section of the city where Cantonese of high and low
+degree are laid away after death, we encounter a returning funeral party
+that made a curious procession, and one stretching to inordinate length.
+In front was a ragamuffin corps of drummers and men extracting
+ear-racking noises from metal instruments that looked like flageolets,
+but were not. Twenty or thirty bedraggled Buddhist priests in pairs
+trotted behind, proving by their individual gaits that in China there is
+no union of religion and music. Interspersed in the marching medley were
+a dozen or more gaudily painted platforms with pole handles, carried by
+coolies in the way that chairs are borne. Each platform displayed a
+layout of varnished pigs with immovably staring eyes, plates of uncooked
+strips of fish, and decorative objects suggesting place in a well-to-do
+Chinese home. Every fifty yards or so a mustached official of uncertain
+rank was mounted on a Tartary pony, and at the end of the column a
+coolie loped along bearing across his naked shoulders the deceased's
+Yankee-made bicycle. No student of foreign conditions could ask more
+striking evidence that China was at last "waking up," was heeding the
+influences of Western civilization, surely. The funeral party suggested
+perfunctory pomp and display, and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>gave not a suggestion of
+bereavement&mdash;and that it was, for every person in the cortege was hired
+for the occasion. Half the food had been left at the tomb for the
+departed in his spirit form; the remainder was to be devoured by the
+mercenary mourners when the procession broke up at the door of the home
+from which the corpse had been carried.</p>
+
+<p>Ah Cum John's clients lunch in the renowned Five-Story Pagoda, rising
+from the city wall to an elevation that spreads Canton at its feet; but
+by the time one reaches the building he is satiated with views and wants
+nothing but food. The Chicago "air-tights" and bottled beers and
+table-waters fetched from the steamer are relished to the full by
+appetites not always satisfied by the culinary achievements of a
+Delmonico.</p>
+
+<p>Travelers insist that Canton is more essentially Chinese in an
+educational sense than any other city in China. Public speech in Hong
+Kong reflects the control of Britain, and in Shanghai popular opinion is
+held to be tainted with German or British opinion. At Pekin the game of
+diplomacy is played too consummately to allow an expressed utterance to
+have any national significance, for the capital is looked upon as a city
+eddying with cross currents and rival influences. Consequently, the
+pulse of the great Flowery Kingdom, with its more than four hundred
+million people, can best be taken at Canton, for the native press and
+native scholars there say frankly what they believe.</p>
+
+<p>Cantonese opinion is potential because the capi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span>tal city of the great
+Kwang-tung province is recognized as the center of national learning,
+where scholarship is prized above riches. No Canton youth who aims at
+the first social order thinks of setting himself to make money; to enter
+the service of the government is his object, and to achieve this he
+studies literature. There is practically no barrier in China to becoming
+a "literate," and the classification means all that the word "gentleman"
+can in Europe. For this and other reasons thousands of men in Canton
+wear horn-rimmed spectacles, look wise, and discuss mundane affairs in a
+manner brooking no contention. The literary bureaucracy of Canton wields
+a mighty influence in the affairs of the nation, it is insisted. A
+member of this class may not be able to do the simplest sum in
+arithmetic without the assistance of his counting-machine, but he may be
+able to write an essay on the meanings of ideographs, reproduce a
+trimetrical classic, or quote the philosophic works of Confucius and the
+Book of Mencius until you grow faint from listening.</p>
+
+<p>Once every three years Canton teems with men, young and old, who have
+gathered to compete for academic degrees. Any one save the son of a
+barber, an actor, or the keeper of a brothel, may enter the list,
+provided he possesses the certificate of a high school. A certain part
+of the city not demanded by business or residential purposes is
+designated as the Examination Hall, where 10,616 cells or compartments
+are built of brick and wood. These cubicles, six by eight feet square,
+are ar<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span>ranged in rows, like cattle-pens at an American agricultural
+fair. Placed side by side they would extend eight miles. These cells
+have no furnishing whatever, save a plank to serve as desk and bed. The
+night before the examination is to begin the student is searched, and
+with writing materials and provisions sufficient for three days, is shut
+in his cell. This is repeated three times, making the examination extend
+to nine days. From sunrise to sunset no candidate is permitted to rise
+from his seat, and if one be taken ill and carried out, he cannot return
+for that contest. It is said that a few of the old men succumb to the
+strain at each examination.</p>
+
+<p>The theses or essays of but eighty-three of the competitors can be
+accepted, and the fortunate ones are rewarded by the Bachelor of Arts
+degree. In time these compete near Pekin for a "Doctor" degree&mdash;and if
+abundantly rich, the successful scholar may bribe his way to official
+employment, say persons intimately knowing the customs of China. Those
+who pass the final degree become members of what is termed the Hon Lum
+College, and this furnishes China with her councilors, district rulers,
+and examiners of scholarships in all the provinces&mdash;at least in theory.
+The fortunate man standing at the head of the list in the great
+examination near Pekin receives the title of Chong Yuen, and is termed
+"the greatest scholar in the world." The entire empire reveres him, and,
+taking into consideration the number of the examinations he has stood,
+he should be respected, if not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span>for erudition, for his tenacity of
+purpose and the possession of a marvelous constitution. But it is
+asserted that this "greatest scholar" is invariably a millionaire and a
+Manchu.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261"></a></p>
+<img src="images/261.jpg" width="600" height="384" alt="EXAMINATION BOOTHS, CANTON" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">EXAMINATION BOOTHS, CANTON</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><a name="poles" id="poles"></a>Even the "literate" failing to secure appointment to public office has
+certain valued exemptions and prerogatives. When he fulminates against
+the Pekin government or against the acts of an overbearing viceroy, his
+words are attentively listened to and carry weight. Besides, the
+horn-rimmed spectacles give him a local standing envied by every man who
+toils or has to do with business. In Canton and other cities of China,
+standing before many of the larger and pretentious houses, are
+ornamental "literary poles," and these are always in pairs and generally
+show respectable decay. When newly erected they are painted in colors
+according to the rank of the family&mdash;white for a private citizen, red
+for a civil functionary, and blue for the army. A mast having a single
+row of brackets a few feet from the top means the degree of Ku Yan,
+equivalent to our M. A., and called in China the degree of Promoted Men;
+the degree of Entered Scholar, nearly equivalent to our LL.D., called
+Tsun Sze, is represented by two rows of brackets; and the highest degree
+attainable, Hon Lum, is announced by three rows of brackets, locally
+termed the "Forest of Pencils." The projecting brackets make admirable
+perches for pigeons and other domesticated birds. As the family and not
+the individual is the basis of the custom, the masts are always erected
+in front of the <!-- text to here was originally part of page 260. Pages 261-262 was a fullpage illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span>ancestral home, although the distinguished scholar
+may live miles away. The poles are never repaired or replaced unless
+some other member of the family acquires academic honors. China has no
+custom more poetic than the indicating of an abode from which a scholar
+has emerged.</p>
+
+<p>While it is easy to admit the erudition of the Chinese in their own
+language, the tourist swung through Canton's streets perceives from his
+sedan-chair many signs displayed to catch the eye of the foreigner that
+prove the English schoolmaster to be absent. To read such announcements
+as "Chinese and Japanese Curious," "Blackwood Furnitures," "Meals at All
+Day and Night," and "Steam Laundry &amp; Co." provoke a titter in a city
+where you believe yourself to be an unwelcome visitor. It is obvious
+that the scholars of China are not reduced to the straits of becoming
+sign-painters.</p>
+
+<p>The greatest of all Canton sights is undeniably that of life on the
+boats along the river front, penetrating every creek, and extending
+along the paddy fields above and below the great city. There has never
+been a census of this "floating population," but it is estimated that
+more than three hundred thousand Cantonese have no other homes but the
+junks, sampans, "flower boats" and "snake boats," upon which they are
+literally born, reared, married, and die. Lining both sides of the
+river, extending into Shameen Creek, the sampans are everywhere. They
+ferry people across the stream or convey them wherever they wish to go
+in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span>neighborhood, carry light cargoes of fuel, food, or merchandise,
+deliver packages, and do a thousand and one services of the "odd-job"
+order. A sampan nearly always houses an entire family, and is rowed by
+the father and mother. Beneath the round covering amidships the woman
+conducts the domestic affairs of the family with a cleverness that is
+remarkable, and for cleanliness it may be said that the Canton sampan is
+equal to any abiding-place on shore. The cooking is done forwards over a
+"fire-box," flowering plants frequently are placed in the boat's stern,
+and within the cabin incense sticks may nearly always be seen burning
+before the family idol. A mother ties very young children to the deck by
+a long cord, while older children romp at large with a bamboo float
+fastened about their bodies, which serves at once for clothing and
+life-preserver. It is a common sight to see sampans propelled up and
+down stream by women, each rower having an infant strapped to her back.
+The good behavior of the babies of the sampan flotilla is always
+appreciated by visiting mothers whose nurse-maids at home have
+difficulty in keeping their young from crying their lungs out.</p>
+
+<p>The "flower boats," moored a mile or two below the business part of
+Canton's foreshore, are the antithesis of the sampans, for they cater to
+a pleasure-loving class, to men and women possessing wobbly morals, who
+love good dinners and suppers and a game of fan-tan without too much
+publicity, with singing and dancing as adjuncts. In build <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span>these craft
+are like the house-boats of the Thames, and the custom of tricking them
+out with flowering plants suggests the scene at Henley during regatta
+week. Practically all the vice that a traveler learns of during a visit
+to Canton is confined to the flower boats, and their floral appellation
+comes from the reputed attractiveness of the sirens dwelling upon them.
+The boats are moored side by side in long rows, with planks leading from
+one to another. Prices on the boats are always high, and the native
+voluptuary pays extravagantly and the foreigner ruinously whenever he
+devotes an evening to the floral fleet. By night the boats are gorgeous
+with their mirrors and myriad lamps alight, and blackwood tables and
+stools inlaid with mother-of-pearl; but by the light of day they look
+tawdry to the point of shabbiness.</p>
+
+<p>To a person interested in marine construction, especially one hailing
+from a land where steam has supplanted sail-power, and where gasolene
+and other inexpensive motors have made rowing almost obsolete, the Pearl
+River "hot-foot" boats, so called by Europeans, are intensely
+interesting. These craft connect Whampoa and other out-lying towns with
+Canton, run in and out of rivers, and carry passengers, freight, and
+sometimes the mails. They are of fairly good lines, but are propelled by
+huge stern-wheels, and the motive power is contributed by from ten to
+twenty barebacked and perspiring coolies running up a treadmill that
+occupies as much room amidships as boiler and engine might. When the
+taskmaster urges the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span>coolies to do their best, one of these "hot-foot"
+boats chugs along in calm water at a five-knot gait, but ordinarily
+three knots an hour is the normal speed.</p>
+
+<p>On the left bank of the river and close to Canton is a large leper
+village, where all native craft approaching the city have to pay a
+"Leper toll." If this is done as soon as the vessel reaches the suburb
+the head leper gives a pass which franks the ship through; without this,
+any of the numerous lepers are able to demand a fee, which has to be
+paid, otherwise the junk would be surrounded by these people and all
+work brought to a standstill.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII<br />
+<small>MACAO, THE MONTE CARLO OF THE FAR EAST</small></h2>
+
+
+<p>A prettier marine journey than from Canton to Macao, is not possible in
+the Orient, and it is of only eighty miles and accomplished by daylight
+with convenient hours of departure and arrival.</p>
+
+<p>As on all passenger-carrying craft plying the great estuary having Hong
+Kong and Macao for its base and Canton its apex, you find the native
+passengers on your boat confined below the deck whereon the state-rooms
+and dining saloon of European travelers are located, and you perceive
+racks of Mausers and cutlasses at convenient points of this upper deck.
+To American eyes it is novel to see every stairway closed by a grated
+iron door, and a man armed with a carbine on your side of each of these
+barriers. You perceive on the main deck three or four hundred Chinamen
+of the coolie class, some playing card games, others Smoking metal pipes
+with diminutive bowls, but most of them slumbering in a variety of
+grotesque attitudes. None of these Mongols who observe your curiosity
+seems to hold any feeling of resentment for the effective separation of
+the races, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span>which places him, the native of the land, in a position that
+might be called equivocal.</p>
+
+<p>The English skipper and his Scotch engineer, who take the seats of honor
+when tiffin is served, respond willingly to your appeal for an
+explanation of the doors of bar-iron and the display of weapons&mdash;every
+first-class passenger always asks the question, and on every trip the
+British seafarers tell the story of Chinese piracy as practised up to
+comparatively recent times in the great estuary having a dozen or more
+names.</p>
+
+<p>And an interesting tale it is, for it recounts deeds of the sea quite as
+audacious and high-handed as anything performed on land by Jesse James
+and his stage-coach bandits. Up to fifteen or eighteen years ago the
+estuary bristled with Chinese pirates, and wherever native fishermen and
+sailors foregathered, at Hong Kong, Canton or Macao, schemes for
+holding-up and sacking steamers carrying bullion and valuable
+merchandise were hatched with a frequency that gave a phase to local
+commerce that was anything but comforting, and more than one brave
+Yankee or British sailor went to his death fighting yellow thugs against
+overwhelming odds. The public decapitation of a handful of these
+murderers appeared to place no check on the outlawry.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270"></a></p>
+<img src="images/270.jpg" width="600" height="382" alt="PRINCIPAL SECTION OF MACAO" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">PRINCIPAL SECTION OF MACAO</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Once a Canton-bound steamer, carrying the mails and a considerable
+amount of specie, had her progress obstructed by two junks that wilfully
+forced her into shoal water. In the confusion that followed the
+grounding, a score of coolies,<!-- text to here was originally part of page 268. Pages 269-270 was a blank page and a fullpage illustration--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> who up to that moment had been regarded
+as honest deck passengers, rushed to the pilot-house and engine-room and
+murdered every white man on board. Practically everything of value was
+then transferred to the junks, now conveniently alongside, and the spoil
+was landed at such points in the estuary that made official detection
+well-nigh impossible. This is but a sample of the stories you may hear
+while yellow-faced Chinamen are serving your food, and it must be
+confessed that it affords a sense of confidence to know that the grates
+of the stairways are actually locked, and that the rifles of the guards
+are loaded with ball ammunition. As he sips his black coffee at the
+termination of luncheon, the captain assures you that until within a few
+years a skipper was suspicious alike of every native deck passenger and
+every fishing junk indicating a disposition to claim more than its share
+of the channel; "but the old days in China," he concludes, "have
+disappeared forever, and piracy as an occupation has passed with them."</p>
+
+<p>Getting back to the forepart of the ship, the views on land and sea are
+engrossingly interesting. On the shores of the mainland and on an
+occasional island are ancient forts which revive memories of interesting
+experiences of the white man's invasion of the Celestial kingdom, and
+the foreground of rice-fields is backed by interminable groves of
+mulberry-trees explaining China's preeminence as a silk producer.
+Numerous villages are passed, and from them the traveler ob<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span>tains a fair
+idea of the rustic life of China. Now and again a pagoda is visible,
+crowning an elevation, and recalling childhood's school-book
+illustrations. You jump at the convenient conclusion that these
+structures of from six to ten stories had to do with the religion of the
+country, which surmise is erroneous, for the towers were reared to guard
+the geomantic properties of their respective neighborhoods, and in
+reality are relics of a bygone age of superstition.</p>
+
+<p>The pioneer European settlement of the Far East&mdash;Macao&mdash;is at last in
+sight, and it presents immediately a visual contrast to Canton, by
+reason of its picturesque situation. There is something about the
+promontory that takes you back to Southern Europe, to the summer sea and
+the shores of the Mediterranean, perhaps to a brightly situated fishing
+port of the littoral of the Riviera. As the vessel rounds the cape and
+comes to anchor in the pretty crescent formed by the Praia Grande,
+flanked by terraced houses colored with minor tints of blue and yellow,
+you know instantly that this stranded Eastern rainbow is Monte
+Carlo&mdash;no, the Oriental equivalent of the beauty-spot of Latin Europe.</p>
+
+<p>Macao is a little place large with history, in fact is an atom of Europe
+almost lost to public gaze by the vastness of Asia, and as much a part
+of the kingdom of Portugal as Lisbon itself. As the most enterprising
+maritime and trading nation of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese
+were the first to sail the Eastern seas, the first to open up
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span>commercial relations between Europe and the great empire of China, and
+holding the monopoly of all Oriental trade until the end of the
+eighteenth century. Owing to the prospect of increased gain, following
+on this European invasion, the waters of the Pearl River estuary soon
+became infested with pirates, which the Portuguese magnanimously
+assisted the Chinese government to subdue, and, in return, it is
+recorded, received in 1557 the cession of the rocky peninsula on which
+the Portuguese colony now stands. More than once Portugal had to
+maintain her rights by recourse to arms, but the colony has remained
+Portuguese without interruption for more than three hundred and fifty
+years, and is a hoary patriarch beside infantile British Hong Kong and
+German Tsing-tau. The oldest lighthouse on the coast of China is that of
+Guia, standing sentinel on the highest point of the Portuguese colony.</p>
+
+<p>The colony has a population of perhaps eighty thousand persons, and
+practically all these are Chinese. There are, of course, a few score of
+civil and judicial functionaries springing from the mother-country; and,
+as in all places where Europeans have long lived in friendly association
+with Orientals, the Eurasian class is strikingly numerous. In no court
+on the Tagus are the laws of Portugal construed with more tenacity and
+precision than in Macao's chambers of justice; and the flag of Portugal
+floats over the homes of hundreds of loyal subjects who know only in a
+hazy manner where Portugal really is&mdash;they are rich Chinese <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span>and others
+evading the Chinese tax collector, or escaping burdensome laws, and for
+many years these crafty Mongols have made a sort of political Gretna
+Green of Macao. Certain influential Chinamen carrying on business in
+Canton or other southern communities live in almost regal splendor in
+Macao, and when the minions of the Chinese government attempt to hale
+them before a tribunal of law, or compel them to share the expense of
+carrying on the administration of a province, they exclaim in Chinese,
+"Oh, no; I'm a subject of the King of Portugal"&mdash;and prove it. The great
+sugar planter of the Hawaiian Islands, Ah Fong, whose Eurasian daughters
+were beautiful and accomplished enough to find splendid American and
+European husbands, was a subject of the Portuguese crown, strange to
+say. His domicile on the Praia Grande is one of Macao's proudest
+mansions.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275"></a></p>
+<img src="images/275.jpg" width="600" height="415" alt="FRONTIER GATE BETWEEN CHINA PROPER AND THE PORTUGUESE
+COLONY" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">FRONTIER GATE BETWEEN CHINA PROPER AND THE PORTUGUESE
+COLONY</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The colony of Macao is scarcely more important than one of Anthony
+Hope's imaginary kingdoms, but for the fact that it is on the map, for
+the area of Portugal's foothold is not more than two or three miles in
+length, and a half-mile to a mile in width; it is merely the rocky
+promontory of the tip end of the island of Heung Shan. A wall of masonry
+with artistic gateway separates the dominion of Portugal from the great
+Chinese empire&mdash;on one side of the portal the law of the Emperor of
+China is absolute, and on the other the rule of the monarch of Portugal
+is sacred. In various ways the <!-- text to here was originally part of page 274. Pages 275-276 was a fullpage illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span>place and its people remind strongly
+of a comic-opera setting&mdash;but the officer there serving his far-away
+sovereign discourses with serious countenance of Goa, and Delagoa Bay
+and Macao as important colonial possessions. Until Hong Kong under the
+British began to rise as a port and base of commercial distribution,
+Macao had a considerable trade; but with the decline of business the
+harbor has silted up until now an oversea ship could not find anchorage.
+A few industries, like cement making and silk winding, are carried on in
+the outskirts of the colony, and a suspiciously large amount of prepared
+opium is shipped, although the closest observer can detect not a poppy
+under cultivation anywhere on the rocky promontory.</p>
+
+<p>The old Protestant cemetery contains many graves of good men and true,
+such as naval officers and seamen, who have died on Eastern seas, and
+whose comrades preferred to leave them interred in Christian soil rather
+than intrust their cherished remains to cemeteries in pagan lands. The
+headstones of Macao's God's-acre bear name after name once carried with
+pride on the rolls of the American, British or French naval and
+merchantman services, and diplomatic and consular titles are recorded on
+more than one headstone. It is interesting to scale the steps to inspect
+closely the fa&ccedil;ade of the Jesuit church of San Paulo, erected some three
+hundred years ago. Nothing remains but the towering fa&ccedil;ade, as erect as
+if reared yesterday, and bearing silent testimony to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span>the courage of the
+pioneers in the Far East of the Catholic faith. A 'rickshaw journey
+through every important street, from the center where are the hotel and
+government buildings to the remotest patches of farming land near the
+"frontier," consumes scarcely two hours. In the public park you come not
+infrequently upon statues with tablets informing all observers of the
+importance and majesty of the home country welded to the peninsula of
+Europe, once famed for the intrepidity of its navigators and
+adventurers. If Macao move the visitor to voice an opinion, it is that
+under certain conditions which you might name the place could be a
+veritable paradise, but that benevolent Portugal is there conducting an
+earthly Nirvana for all and sundry of China's affluent sons mustering
+the ingenuity and influence to gain shelter beneath the flag of dear old
+Portugal.</p>
+
+<p>Macao's claim to renown rests chiefly upon the fact that Portugal's
+greatest bard, Camoens, there wrote in part or its entirety the immortal
+"Lusiad," which in epic form details the prowess of the sons of ancient
+Lusitania in Eastern discovery and oversea feats of daring, and in which
+work the voyages and discoveries of Vasco da Gama are recorded with the
+fidelity of a history prepared by a sympathetic admirer. As scholars
+know, the "Lusiad" was first published in 1572, is in ten cantos and
+1102 stanzas, and is translated into most modern languages. Important
+American and English libraries possess it by at least four translators,
+each being more or less a standard.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279"></a></p>
+<img src="images/279.jpg" width="379" height="550" alt="BUST OF CAMOENS, MACAO" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 379px;">
+<p class="caption">BUST OF CAMOENS, MACAO</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span>The life of the great poet is underlaid with romance and sadness. Born
+at Lisbon about 1524, he was given an education fitting him for a
+courtier's life, and it was an unfortunate affection for a high-born
+donna in attendance upon the queen that caused him to be banished from
+the land of his birth. After a roystering career as a soldier in Africa,
+he sought shelter at Goa, in India. There he wrote a volume severely
+castigating the home government for its official abuses in the East, and
+this led to his being treated by his countrymen as a traitor and
+outcast. Now in a Goa prison, now at liberty, he at last went to Macao,
+and it was there that by his pen he redeemed to some extent his good
+name, to the extent certainly of being permitted to return to Lisbon,
+and there he died about 1580, poor and neglected. It is insisted that
+Camoens's influence and efforts preserved the Portuguese language from
+destruction during the Spanish occupation of the neighboring country,
+and it is a fact that before 1770 no less than thirty-eight editions of
+the "Lusiad" were published in Portugal.</p>
+
+<p>To commemorate the eight or ten years he passed in Macao, a public
+garden is named for him, and there, in a grotto of impressive grandeur,
+is a bust of the man singing the praises of his natal country as no
+other writer in verse or prose has ever succeeded in doing. The bronze
+effigy rests on a plinth upon which is engraved in three languages these
+lines from the pen of a pilgrim to the Eastern shrine once hallowed by
+the presence of the bard of a nation:</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Gem of the Orient earth and open sea<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Macao! that in thy lap and on thy breast<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Hast gathered beauties all the loveliest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">O'er which the sun smiles in his majesty.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">The very clouds that top the mountain crest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Seem to repose there lingering lovingly.<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">How full of grace the green Cathyan tree<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Bends to the breeze and how thy sands are prest<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">With gentlest waves which ever and anon<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Break their awakened furies on thy shore.<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="tb">* * * * * *</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">Were these the scenes that poet looked upon,<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Whose lyre though known to fame knew misery more?<br /></span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="tb">* * * * * *</span>
+</div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<span class="i0">They have their glories and earth's diadems<br /></span>
+<span class="i0">Have nought so bright as genius' gilded gems.<br /></span>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>The lines were written by Sir John Bowring, English scholar and
+traveler, who visited Macao in the latter half of the last century, and
+the expense of the memorial and its grounds was borne by a patriotic
+Portuguese, Loren&ccedil;o Marques, whose name has been preserved by being
+given to the seaport on Delagoa Bay in Portuguese East Africa.</p>
+
+<p>For a place whose commerce is notoriously in eclipse, you are curious to
+learn whence springs the golden shower giving the appearance of
+prosperity to Macao, for the general air of the colony suggests an easy
+affluence. To keep the governor's palace and the judiciary buildings
+covered with paint costs something, you know, while the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span>paved streets
+and bridges and viaducts give support to the surmise of an exchequer not
+permanently depleted. Portugal, nowadays almost robbing Peter to pay
+Paul, is in no condition to succor an impecunious colony situated in
+another hemisphere, you are aware, and you appeal for elucidation of the
+fiscal problem. "Very easy, dear sir," your cicerone promptly rejoins,
+"this is the Monte Carlo of the Far East. Gambling is here a
+business&mdash;all the business there is, and the concessions for the fan-tan
+and lottery monopolies pay for everything, practically making taxation
+unnecessary."</p>
+
+<p>The statement would cause something of a shock to a guileless stranger,
+especially to one who had believed he had perceived a natural likeness
+between the little principality on the Mediterranean and this beauty
+spot of the Orient. But China is rather too far to the eastward of Suez
+for simon-pure guile, and the globe-trotter decides to thoroughly
+explore local conditions by way of adding to his worldly knowledge. If
+you go to the post-office to mail a letter, you recognize perforce how
+backward a colony of Portugal may be in supplying the trifling
+requirements of life, for you stand minutes in a nondescript line before
+your stamp is sheared from a sheet by a functionary having a capacity
+for activity possibly rivaled by an Alpine glacier&mdash;then you wait at the
+communal mucilage pot to secure in turn the required adhesive substance.
+A good correspondent in Macao would pass half his time at the
+post-office, you conclude.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span>But there is nothing backward, nothing harking back to the middle ages,
+in the plan by which the public cash-box is filled, you learn after
+plodding investigation. The merits of direct and indirect taxation, even
+of the Henry George program for raising the public wind, have never been
+seriously considered by Portugal's administrators in the East, nor has
+municipal ownership of utilities been discussed, you discover. The
+official bigwigs who administer Macao know that it is as necessary for
+the Chinaman to gamble as to have food&mdash;and the colony accordingly
+legalizes fan-tan and semi-daily lotteries, supplies the requisite
+machinery for carrying on the games, and reaps a <i>benefice</i> for its
+enterprise that runs the community without further ado. That is all
+there is to Macao's fiscal policy. Hong Kong, only forty miles across
+the estuary, bristles with commercial prosperity. The British government
+permits Hong Kongers to bet on horse-races, buy and sell stocks, and
+promote devious companies, but forbids fan-tan and lotteries. There is,
+consequently, a daily flow of men, women, and dollars between Hong Kong
+and Macao. Besides, no traveler not actively engaged in uplifting his
+fellow-man, feels that he has seen the Orient unless he passes a few
+hours or days in endeavoring to lure fortune at the gambling tables.</p>
+
+<p>The colonial lottery is no more dignified or important than a policy
+game in an American town, and seems to be but the Western idea clouded
+by its adaptation to Asiatic uses, tourists affirm.</p>
+
+<p>Macao licenses twenty fan-tan places, and these <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span>run all day and all
+night, and are graded in their patrons from tourists and natives of
+fortune and position down to joints admitting 'rickshaw coolies,
+sailors, and harbor riffraff. The gilded establishment claiming
+attention from travelers is conducted by a couple of Chinese worthies,
+by name Ung Hang and Hung Vo, according to the business card
+deferentially handed you at your hotel, and the signs in front of it and
+the legends painted on great lanterns proclaim it as a first-chop <i>Casa
+de Jogo</i>, and a gambling-house that is "No. 1" in all respects. The
+gamesters whose garments proclaim them to be middle-class Chinamen pack
+themselves like sardines into the room where the table is situated, for
+they obviously believe in watching their interests at close hand. The
+floor above, by reason of the rail-protected opening in the center, is
+little more than a spacious gallery; but it is there that the big
+gamblers congregate, natives in costly fabrics, and whose rotund bodies
+tell of lives not spent in toil. They loll on blackwood divans and smoke
+opium and send their bank-notes and commands to the gambling table by
+servants, until yielding to the exalted dreams induced by the poppy
+fumes. They are polite fellows, every man of them, and make it apparent
+that they would like to do something for the entertainment of each man
+and woman tourist in the room.</p>
+
+<p>In this strange establishment globe-trotting novices sit around the
+railed opening and make their bets on the game below through an
+inter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span>preter attendant. This obliging man lowers your coins to the
+croupier in a basket, and draws up any "bet" you may have had the luck
+to win. And what a medley of coins you are paid in! There are coins of
+China and Japan obsolete years ago in those countries, money of the
+Philippine Islands, even nickles and dimes whose worth has been stamped
+by Uncle Sam. It is said that half the pocket-pieces of Asia find their
+way onto the gambling boards of Macao, and that a thrifty croupier seeks
+to pay them out to the tourist who will remove them from local
+circulation. The linguistic representative of the management endeavors
+to play the bountiful host to most visitors. He takes one through the
+building, permits you to peep within a chamber filled with oleaginous
+Chinamen in brocade petticoats, sleeping off the effects of the opium
+pipe, explains painted fans and other attempts at decoration on the
+walls, and indicates a retiring room where you may rest or even pass the
+night, all without charge.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288"></a></p>
+<img src="images/288.jpg" width="600" height="424" alt="IN A FAN-TAN GAMBLING HOUSE, MACAO" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">IN A FAN-TAN GAMBLING HOUSE, MACAO</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then he orders refreshments brought, and with the manner of a veteran
+courtier proffers a tray heaped with oranges, an egg-shell cup filled
+with tea that is almost without color, and dried watermelon seeds that
+you might munch after the manner of the neck-or-nothing gamblers on the
+lower floor. When you politely decline these, the courtly one most
+likely says, "You no likee tea and seeds&mdash;then have whiskysoda." Chinese
+courtezans, with feet bound to a smallness making locomotion difficult
+and obviously painful, wearing what in the Western World would be called
+<!-- text to here was originally part of page 286. Pages 287-288 was a blank page and a fullpage illustration--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>"trousers," and invariably bedecked with earrings or bracelets of
+exquisite jade, edge their way to the gambling table, and put their
+money down in handfuls as long as it lasts. To spend an evening in the
+liberally-conducted establishment of Messrs. Ung Hang and Hung Vo is
+enlightening in various ways.</p>
+
+<p>Because fan-tan is the passion of Asiatics, the popular idea is that it
+must be the wickedest of all games, if not the most complicated. Fan-tan
+as a fact is simplicity itself, being no more than the counting off into
+units of four several quarts of little metal discs called "cash," until
+there remain one, two, three or four discs. The result determines what
+bets, laid about a four-sided space on the table, win&mdash;a single
+remaining "cash" makes the 1-side win, two the 2-side, and so on. Each
+hazard is a one-to-three wager, and the bank pays on this basis after
+deducting the recognized percentage supporting the establishment.
+Spinning a top with four numbered sides would accomplish in a minute the
+same result as the tedious counting of a heap of discs, varying with
+every "deal" according to the whim or superstition of the players, who
+may add to or take from the pile prior to the beginning of the count. It
+is fortunate for the millions of the conservative Far East that their
+principal gambling game is not a quick one, like roulette, for the
+player of fan-tan gets "action" only about once in every ten minutes. At
+roulette and most other games favored by white men a gambler knows his
+fate in a minute.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV<br />
+<small>THE KAISER'S PLAY FOR CHINESE TRADE</small></h2>
+
+
+<p>Having no voice in the controversy leading to the war, Germany should
+have remained neutral throughout the bitter Russo-Japanese conflict.
+Germany was neutral so far as official proprieties went; but in sympathy
+and numberless unofficial acts she aided and abetted Russia to a degree
+unsurpassed by the Bear's plighted ally, France. It is a fact
+incontrovertible that from the commencement of hostilities the German
+Emperor was as pro-Russian as any wearer of the Czar's uniform, and most
+German bankers and ship-owners found it easy to take the cue from Berlin
+and view situations of international procedure in a manner permitting
+them to reap golden benefits. Teuton bankers took the lead in financing
+the Russian cause, and whenever Russia was forced to purchase ships to
+augment her fleet, these were always found in Germany. When the Czar
+despatched his squadrons to the Far East, they were coaled practically
+throughout the long journey from German colliers. And in other helpful
+ways Germany officiated as the handmaiden of Russia.</p>
+
+<p>The Kaiser's favoritism was infectious through<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span>out his empire, and had
+the contending armies and fleets in the Far East been equally matched,
+with the outcome hanging in the balance, the influence of William II
+could have swayed the continent of Europe in Russia's favor, and a great
+moral advantage would thereby have accrued to Russia that would have
+been difficult to overcome. Why? Because the Kaiser is the strongest,
+most influential, and cleverest potentate in Europe. Splendid exemplar
+of the war-lord idea, he is really the peer of diplomatists, a ruler
+whose utterances are to-day weighed and discussed as are those of none
+other. Understanding the value of words, and a coiner of subtle phrases,
+an epigram from the Kaiser contrasting the destiny and rights of the
+"white man" and the "yellow man" would probably have isolated the
+British as Japan's only sympathizers in the Old World, had it been made
+at an opportune time.</p>
+
+<p>But the psychological moment never came&mdash;there was a hitch somewhere in
+Asia, and Kuropatkin's genius was expended in masterly retreats; all the
+triumphs on land and sea were those of the little men under the sun
+flag. Finally came a mighty engagement, and William hastened to decorate
+the Russian loser and the Japanese victor. But the point was strained;
+the public perceived this. As a result, the incident fell flatter than
+the anticlimax of a melodrama played to empty seats.</p>
+
+<p>The Kaiser's chagrin was great. But it need not have been, for the march
+of events in the East <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span>was proving him simply to be mortal&mdash;he had
+failed to pick the winner, and was gradually becoming aware of it. A
+plunger in a sporting event perceives an error of judgment in a few
+minutes, usually. With the War-Lord of Germany it required the lapse of
+months to convince him of the sad fact that Japan would win in the great
+struggle.</p>
+
+<p>Why War-Lord, as an appellation for the august William? Adept in the art
+of warfare he surely is; but have not the Fatherland's victories under
+his rule been those of peace, and those only? Has Germany been involved
+in strife possessing the dignity of war since he came to the throne? Has
+she not, on the other hand, made headway in trade and sea transportation
+under his guidance that has no parallel in the history of a European
+state? Yes, emphatically. And are not the words "Made in Germany" so
+painfully familiar throughout two thirds of the globe, especially in
+Great Britain and her possessions, that they strike terror to Britons
+who study with apprehension the statistics of England's waning trade?
+This is true, also. And Suez Canal returns prove that the users of the
+waterway under Britain's red flag are yearly less numerous, while the
+number of German ships is steadily growing.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293"></a></p>
+<img src="images/293.jpg" width="417" height="550" alt="TYPICAL BUSINESS STREET IN A CHINESE CITY" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 417px;" >
+<p class="caption">TYPICAL BUSINESS STREET IN A CHINESE CITY</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then why not Trade-Lord, for this is what the German Emperor is? It is
+the better appellation, and more truthfully descriptive. It surely is
+creditable to the German people that their national progress is due to
+habits of industry and thrift, <!-- text to here was originally part of page 292. Pages 293-294 was a fullpage illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>rather than to military display: the
+artisan, not the drill-master, is making Germany great.</p>
+
+<p>And could Trade-Lord William be honestly called "astute" if he
+overlooked the fact, obvious as a mountain, that one of the stakes in
+the Russo-Japanese conflict would be the privilege amounting almost to
+right, to commercially exploit the most populous country on God's
+footstool&mdash;China? More than one fourth of the people of the earth are
+Chinese, and their country at the present time is more primitive, in the
+scarcity of railways, telegraphs, public utilities, and every provision
+conducing to comfort and common-sense living, than any other land
+pretending to civilization. It is a fact that outside of Shanghai,
+Canton, Pekin and Tientsin, the people do not want many of the products
+of the outer world; but it is a truism that much profit accrues from
+teaching Asiatics to "want" modern products.</p>
+
+<p>The German Emperor foresaw that China could not much longer resist the
+invasion of outside enterprise and trade; and to his mind there could
+have been no suspicion of doubt that the victor in the awful contest
+could and would dictate trade terms and privileges everywhere in the
+Celestial Empire. If Japan won, the Japanese would surely exploit
+commercially their great neighbor, whose written language is nearly
+identical with their own&mdash;this would be but natural to the Mikado's
+people, teeming with aptitude as manufacturers and traders, and
+recognizing the necessity for recouping outlay in the war.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span></p><p>If Russia were successful, her reward would be the validating of her
+hold upon Manchuria, the bundling of the Japs out of Korea, and the
+attainment to a position of controlling influence in China's political
+affairs. The supplying of articles of general manufacture and commerce
+to the 400,000,000 people of China could have been no part of Russia's
+aspiration, for the reason that Russia is not a manufacturing country
+and has but little to sell. Her enormous tea bill to China is paid
+yearly in money, even. A nation seeking in time to control the whole of
+Asia couldn't bother with commercial matters, certainly not. Yet, one of
+the fruits of victory in the war would have been the splendid
+opportunity to exploit trade everywhere in China&mdash;a privilege of
+priceless value.</p>
+
+<p>What country was to benefit through this, with Russia's moral support
+and permission, had the Czar's legions been successful?</p>
+
+<p>France? Hardly; for the French were bound by hard and fast alliance, and
+it had never been the policy at St. Petersburg to give anything material
+to France. Uncle Sam, whose people had financed half the war loans of
+Japan, could scarcely hope to extend his business in China with Russia's
+cooperation; nor could Japan's ally and moral supporter, John Bull.</p>
+
+<p>Who, then, could stand in a likelier position to become legatee of this
+valued privilege than the Trade-Lord of Germany? The Emperor William had
+been Russia's "best friend" from the inception of the war, and was
+admittedly an adept in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span>promoting trade, for his people had attained in
+a few years to an envied position in the commerce of the world. A
+quarter of the trade of "awakened" China would make Germany a vast
+workshop, a hive of industry. And this was precisely what the astute
+Hohenzollern saw through the smoke of battle in far-away Manchuria. He
+saw a prosperous Germany if the Slav crushed the yellow man. To say he
+did not would be a libel upon a giant intellect.</p>
+
+<p>Any one disposed to review practically certain incidents in the recent
+history of Germany may develop a dozen reasons why the Emperor should
+seek to make his country all important through trade conquest. Let it be
+remembered that the Kaiser chafes at barriers of every kind, and that
+there is a boundlessness in his nature at times trying to his patience.
+He looks at the map of the German Empire and painfully admits that the
+present frontiers and area are practically those bequeathed by the great
+William. To a divine-right monarch this is exasperating. The loftiest
+ambition of a sovereign is to have the national area expand under his
+rule.</p>
+
+<p>William's medieval temperament shudders at the crowded condition of the
+earth in this twentieth century, when all frontiers appear immovable.
+Had he lived in the days of the Crusaders his valiant sword would
+probably have brought all Palestine under German control; and had he
+been a free agent when Bonapartism collapsed he most likely would have
+carried the German standard to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> the Mediterranean, perhaps to Stamboul.
+The ironical fact is that the German Emperor has had rebuffs and
+disappointments in his efforts to expand his realm. The Monroe Doctrine,
+excluding his empire from even a coaling station in this hemisphere, is
+to the Kaiser a perpetual nightmare. Sturdy sons of the Fatherland
+control the trade of more than one republic in South and Central
+America, but nowhere is it possible to unfurl the standard of Germany
+over "colony" or "sphere of influence." To forcibly back up his
+subjects' pecuniary rights in the American hemisphere, even, the
+approval of the government at Washington has first to be obtained. In
+his heart the Kaiser loathes the doctrine of Monroe; that is obvious.</p>
+
+<p>It is twenty years since Germany began to build up a colonial empire in
+Africa, and the net result is that, after spending some hundred million
+dollars, she has acquired over a hundred million square miles of
+territory, with a sparsely scattered German population of between five
+and six thousand souls. A third of the adult white population is
+represented by officials and soldiers. Militarism is rampant everywhere,
+with the result that the white settler shuns German colonies as he would
+the plague. The keen-witted Kaiser long ago saw that empire-building in
+the Dark Continent could produce nothing but expense during his
+lifetime.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300"></a></p>
+<img src="images/300.jpg" width="600" height="427" alt="EXHIBITION OF BODIES OF CHINESE MALEFACTORS WHO HAVE BEEN
+STRANGLED" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">EXHIBITION OF BODIES OF CHINESE MALEFACTORS WHO HAVE BEEN
+STRANGLED</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"To perdition with the Monroe Doctrine, and with African tribes blind to
+the excellence of German-made <!-- text to here was originally part of page 298. Pages 299-300 was a blank page and a fullpage illustration--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span>wares," the Kaiser might have said ten
+years ago: "I'll have sweet revenge upon all and sundry by capturing
+trade everywhere&mdash;I'll make Germany the workshop of the universe. Keep
+your territory, if you like; I'll get the trade! Bah, Monroe Doctrine!
+Bah, grinning Senegambians!"</p>
+
+<p>The resolute Trade-Lord then turned his face to the bountiful Orient,
+pregnant with resource beyond the dreams of avarice, teeming with
+hundreds of millions of people. The East had made England dominant in
+the world's affairs. Keeping his soldiers at home, the Kaiser hurled a
+legion of trade-getters into the Far East, planting commercial outposts
+in Ceylon, sending a flying column of bagmen and negotiators to India
+and the Straits Settlements, and distributing a numerical division of
+business agents throughout China. The Empire of the Celestials was made
+the focal point of a great propaganda, openly espoused by the Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>It was readily demonstrated that Great Britain had no permanent control
+of commerce in the East, not even in her own possessions. The Teuton,
+for a time content with trifling profit, underbid all rivals&mdash;and orders
+and contracts poured into Germany. Belgian products competed only in
+price; and American manufacturers seemed too busy in providing goods for
+home use to seriously try for business in Asia&mdash;they booked orders
+coming practically unsought, that was about all. The Chino-Japanese
+conflict of a dozen years ago, al<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span>though disastrous to China's army,
+stimulated the absorbing power of the Chinese for goods of western
+manufacture, and Germany sold her wares right and left.</p>
+
+<p>Important steamship lines were then subsidized by the German government
+to maintain regular services between Germany and the Far East, carrying
+goods and passengers at reasonable charges: and it was known that in his
+personal capacity the Emperor had become a large shareholder in one of
+them. Germany was prospering, and the Trade-Lord and his lieutenants
+were happy. All recognized the possibilities of Oriental business. China
+was preparing to throw off the conservatism and lethargy of centuries,
+and trade was the key-note of everything pertaining to Germany's
+relations with the Pekin government. German diplomatists on service in
+China were instructed to employ every good office to induce German
+business, and the Kaiser himself selected and instructed consular
+officials going to the Flowery Kingdom. Able commercial attaches, with
+capacity for describing trade conditions, were maintained there, and
+required to be as industrious as beavers. For trade-promoting capacity
+German consuls in China have no equal&mdash;and they all know that the
+Kaiser's interest in Chinese trade amounts to mania.</p>
+
+<p>The assassination in the streets of Pekin, in 1900, of Minister von
+Kettler, Germany's envoy, and the subsequent sending of an imperial
+prince of China to Berlin to express the regrets of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span>Chinese
+government, strengthened materially the Kaiser's hold upon Chinese
+affairs. Reiteration from Washington of the "open door" in China struck
+no terror to the Kaiser, justified in believing he could hold his
+position against all comers. As proof of this belief he might point to
+German steamers in Hong Kong and Shanghai literally vomiting forth each
+week thousands of tons of goods "Made in Germany," penetrating every
+section of China even to the upper waters of the Yang-tse. A few years
+ago nearly all this trade was exclusively British.</p>
+
+<p>The question of Chinese exclusion and the threatened boycott of American
+goods by China was the occasion of anxiety in this country&mdash;but none in
+Germany. It is well appreciated that the spread of the sentiment in the
+East that the United States is unjust to Chinamen of the better class
+might undo the splendid work of Secretary Hay in cultivating the
+friendship of the Celestial Empire by standing fast for China's
+administrative entity and insisting on the "open door" policy.</p>
+
+<p>Knowing that the "awakening" of China would be one of the results of the
+war, the Master Mind in Berlin had not long to consider where the
+interest of Germany lay, for he well knew that if they conquered, the
+Japs might in a few years supply the kindred Chinese with practically
+every article needed from abroad.</p>
+
+<p>If Russia won, then "Best Friend" William of Germany, one of the most
+irresistible forces in the world, would have a freer hand in China than
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span>ever&mdash;and this would mean a prosperous Germany for years to come.</p>
+
+<p>By directing the sympathies of the German people to the Russian side,
+the Kaiser played a trump card in statecraft, certainly. As a soldier,
+William II must have known the fighting ability and prowess of the
+little men of Japan, for German officers had for years been the
+instructors of the Mikado's army&mdash;but the public attitude of the head of
+a government must ever be that which best serves the State. Whatever the
+chagrin at Berlin over Russia's defeat, a battle royal will be needed
+for Japan to overcome Germany's lead in Chinese trade; but in time Japan
+will have this, provided she is well advised and has the tact to play
+fair with Uncle Sam and his commercial rights.</p>
+
+<p>What of the German colony in China&mdash;Kiau-chau, on the east coast of the
+Shan-tung peninsula, whose forts frown upon the Yellow Sea? Is there
+anything like it, strategically and trade wise, in the East? When the
+Kaiser's glance falls upon the map of Kiau-chau, and he recalls the ease
+with which he segregated from Pekin's rule a goodly piece of old China,
+he may be irreverently moved to the extent of again snapping his fingers
+at the Monroe Doctrine, and at millions of simple Africans who refuse to
+eat German foods and wear not a stitch of German fabrics. Kiau-chau
+represents the cleverest feat of colony-building the world has seen
+since the great powers declared a closure to land-grabbing in the East.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305"></a></p>
+<img src="images/305.jpg" width="388" height="550" alt="SIMPLE PUNISHMENT OF A CHINESE MENDICANT" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 388px;">
+<p class="caption">SIMPLE PUNISHMENT OF A CHINESE MENDICANT</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span>When some German missionaries were murdered a few years since in China,
+the Kaiser, ever an opportunist, was justly angry, and Pekin shuddered
+at the possibility of national castigation. "Could the Mighty One at
+Berlin condone the offense if China gave Germany a harbor to be used as
+coaling station and naval headquarters?" "Possibly; but how can China
+bestow territory, in view of the American government's certainty to
+insist that there be no parceling of China, none whatever!"</p>
+
+<p>"Easily managed," was the reply. "It need not be a transfer of
+territory, but a 'lease,' say for ninety-nine years. This would save
+China's 'face,' and not disturb the powers."</p>
+
+<p>Hence a "lease" was prepared for all the territory bounded in a
+semi-circle drawn fifteen miles from Kiau-chau bay&mdash;a goodly piece in
+all conscience. Then came <i>pourparlers</i> for greater German authority,
+and more territory. As a consequence, in a supplementary document signed
+at Pekin, it was additionally agreed that "in a further zone thirty
+miles from all points of the leased territory the Chinese government
+shall no longer for a space of ninety-nine years be entitled to take any
+step without previous authorization from the German government."</p>
+
+<p>This amounted in substance to saying farewell on China's part to a slice
+of domain in all more than twice the size of the state of Rhode Island.
+The "sphere of influence," so-called, measures 2,750 square miles.
+Germany was given as well <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span>the equivalent of sovereignty over the harbor
+of Kiau-chau, no end of mining and railway rights, and other privileges.
+The lease dates from March 6th, 1898. England was to give Wei-haiwei
+back to China should Russia retire or be driven from Port Arthur, but
+has not done so. In all probability Germany, as well as Great Britain,
+is located on the Yellow Sea under a tenure that will be found to be
+permanent.</p>
+
+<p>Kiau-chau harbor is one of the most spacious and best protected on the
+coast of China. The small native town of Tsing-tau, admirably situated
+on the harbor, was adopted by Germany as the seat of government, and all
+the appurtenances of a military and naval station have there been
+erected. A look of permanency characterizes every structure. The house
+of the naval governor is even pretentious. The capital is laid out with
+generous regard to broad streets, designated on name-plates as
+"strasses." A bank and hotels await the coming of business. The harbor
+has been dredged, and two miles of the best wharves in Asia constructed
+of masonry. Warehouses, barracks, hospitals, administrative buildings
+and coal sheds are there, all in German style, and intended to last
+hundreds of years.</p>
+
+<p>Tsing-tau as a seat of deputed government may not have found its way
+into school-books&mdash;but the inquisitive traveler in Northeast China
+readily learns of its existence. Perhaps it is meant to be complimentary
+to China to retain the name Tsing-tau&mdash;but that is all about the place
+that is Chinese, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span>save the coolies executing the white man's behest.
+There are 3,000 Europeans, almost exclusively Germans, in William II's
+capital on Kiau-chau Bay. Soldiers and officials predominate, of course,
+but merchant and industrial experts are in the pioneer band in
+conspicuous number.</p>
+
+<p>And what of the "hinterland," compassed by the 45-mile semicircle,
+dotted with thirty odd native towns, the whole having a population of
+1,200,000? This patch of China is surely in process of being awakened:
+there are numerous schools wherein European missionaries are teaching
+the German language, and enterprise greets the eye everywhere.
+Locomotives "Made in Germany" screech warnings to Chinese yokels to
+clear the way for trains heavy with merchandise of German origin&mdash;and
+this is but an incident in the great scheme of Germanizing the Chinese
+Empire. Incidentally, it is provided by the agreement between the Pekin
+and Berlin governments that a native land-owner in the leased section
+can sell only to the German authorities. This ruling conveys a meaning
+perfectly clear.</p>
+
+<p>Less than a hundred miles up-country are the enormous coal fields of
+Weihsien and Poshan, by agreement worked with German capital, and
+connected with the harbor by railways built with German money and so
+devoted to Teutonic interests that the name of the company is spread on
+the cars in the language of the dear old Fatherland. The whole is a
+magnificent piece of propagandism, surely.</p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span></p>
+<p>And what is back of it? What is the purpose of the appropriation of
+14,000,000 marks for Kiau-chau in last year's official budget of the
+German government? Trade, little else; and Trade spelled best with a
+large T. Kiau-chau is a free port, like Hamburg. Why not make it the
+Hamburg of the East? is the question asked wherever German merchants
+foregather and affairs of the nation are discussed. From the standpoint
+of German trade, an Eastern Hamburg is alluring and laudatory&mdash;but few
+American manufactures, let it be plainly stated, will penetrate China
+through a gateway so controlled.</p>
+
+<p>America's seeming indifference to Chinese trade, let it plainly be
+stated, is the only solace that commercial Europe is finding in our
+wonderful national growth. The subject is almost never referred to in
+the columns of British journals, nor in those of Germany, France, or
+Belgium. But manufacturers and exporters of these countries need no spur
+from their newspapers&mdash;without the accompaniment of beating drums all
+are seeking to make the Chinese their permanent customers. And,
+buttressed by undeniable advantages, Japan takes up the quest and means
+to spread her goods, largely fabricated from Uncle Sam's raw products,
+wherever the tenant of the earth be a Mongol.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311"></a></p>
+<img src="images/311.jpg" width="600" height="376" alt="CHINESE BUDDHIST PRIESTS" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">CHINESE BUDDHIST PRIESTS</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Could a human being be more complaisant, more materially philanthropic,
+than the United States manufacturer or other producer? He surely cannot
+be blind to the undebatable fact that America <!-- text to here was originally part of page 310. Pages 311-312 was a fullpage illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span>cannot always wax
+opulent on home trade alone; he must know that in time we are certain to
+reach a period of overproduction, when it will aid the nation to have
+alien peoples for customers of our mills and workshops. Every land in
+Asia east of Singapore can be commercially exploited by the United
+States more easily, and with greater success, than by any other people,
+if the task be gone about systematically and practically.</p>
+
+<p>The Chinese envoy of a few years ago to Washington, Minister Wu, said
+many wise things, and no epigram fell from his lips containing a
+profounder sermon for the American people than when he remarked that two
+inches added to the length of the skirts of every Chinese would double
+the market value of every pound of cotton.</p>
+
+<p>Small as it was, our commerce in China was severely lessened last year,
+not alone by the boycott, but through the enterprise shown by other
+nations having a share in Celestial trade. The cotton cloth exports of
+the United States to China and Manchuria for the nine months ending
+September 30 fell off by over ten million dollars as compared with the
+same period of 1905. The respective amounts were $15,416,152 and
+$25,566,286. The Chinese buyers gave preference to the British, taking
+$34,245,129 worth of cotton fabrics from the United Kingdom for the
+first nine months of 1906, a decrease of $3,770,584 from last year. The
+British loss on bleached and gray goods was about half that of America's
+total loss, but the English exporters made up a large part of the
+shortage by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span>much larger sales of printed and dyed goods. But while
+America remained almost stationary last year in selling cotton
+manufactures to the world, Great Britain made a tremendous stride. Her
+cotton fabric exports for the first nine months of 1906 were valued at a
+little more than two hundred and seventy-six million dollars, an
+increase of about twenty million dollars over the same period of 1905,
+and of nearly fifty million dollars over the first nine months of 1904.
+This was accomplished almost wholly by marketing wares wrought from
+fiber grown in our Southern States, let it be remembered.</p>
+
+<p>And what would happen to British trade, let us inquire, were America to
+cease exporting raw cotton, to permit our staple to emerge from our land
+in a manufactured state, only?</p>
+
+<p>The mere suggestion of the thing is sufficient to cause a cold shudder
+to play down the spinal column of John Bull. But the American people
+will never play the game of commerce in that way.</p>
+
+
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CHAPTER XV<br />
+<small>JAPAN'S COMMERCIAL FUTURE</small></h2>
+
+
+<p>A nation has risen in the Far East that is earning high place among
+enlightened governments, and in all probability the new-comer may
+already be entitled to permanently rank with the first-class powers of
+the earth. Japan is day by day a growing surprise to the world.</p>
+
+<p>That the diminutive Island Empire should have been able to humble the
+Muscovite pride was no greater marvel than that she should in a brief
+half-century advance from the position of a weak and unknown country to
+the station of a highly civilized nation. The government of the Mikado
+is to-day the best exponent of Asiatic progressiveness. And of a people
+with a capacity to perform in two generations such amazing things who
+shall dare say what to them is impossible?</p>
+
+<p>Europe has never been in joyful mood over the rise in Japanese prestige,
+and she was more than reluctant to recognize the New Japan as the
+dominant force in the East. That a yellow people should claim fellowship
+with European countries guided by houses of lofty lineage was never
+believed to be possible. Continental Europe was un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span>prepared to admit
+that Japan's triumph proved anything beyond a genius in the art of war
+that was nothing short of a menace to the rest of mankind, and that luck
+and geographical position helped the Mikado's legions in all ways. The
+great Hohenzollern spoke of the Japanese as the "scourge of God"; in
+France the "yellow peril"&mdash;a phrase really made in Germany&mdash;was
+seriously debated; while Russia many times sought sympathy from the
+Christian world on the ground that she was fighting the white man's
+battle against paganism. Solitary in her preference for the Japanese,
+expressed in the form of an astute and fortunate alliance, England
+gloried when her Oriental ally revealed the weakness of the vaunted
+power of the north that had dared to cast covetous eyes at India. All
+these nations hold Asiatic possessions, each has aspired to have a say
+in Chinese affairs, and each confesses to having a panacea for the
+innumerable ills of the Celestial Empire&mdash;each is hungry, likewise, to
+extend her trade with the awakening Orient.</p>
+
+<p>Japan intruded, and deranged the plans of all and sundry for rousing
+China to a realization of her greatness; and in all human probability
+Japan will do for herself what several European powers wanted to do for
+Asia. Japan can always justify her claim that she was driven to war to
+preserve her national existence, by pointing to her rapidly-increasing
+population, existing in an archipelago incapable of producing food for
+even two thirds of her people, since every possibility of ob<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span>taining a
+foothold on the adjacent continent had been cut off by self-imposed
+Russian rule. There was no room for expansion, that was clear.</p>
+
+<p>When Japan shattered the strength of Russia she gained many coveted
+advantages. One of these was the opportunity to commercialize
+neighboring Korea, a goodly section of Manchuria, and practically the
+whole of China&mdash;enough to recoup the war's outlay; and once entered
+upon, why not perfect and extend the enterprise wherever she might,
+thereby providing occupation for her increasing millions of people?</p>
+
+<p>For a long time to come Japan will remain conspicuously in the public
+eye, but her achievements and victories hereafter are to be those of
+peace. Her scheme for national betterment, already well under way, is as
+thoughtfully prepared as was her war program. The Mikado's people
+emerged from the Russian conflict with energies enormously aroused, and
+a few months later every condition was favorable to a realization of the
+dream of empire giving to Japan an importance amounting almost to
+sovereignty over a vast section of the Far East. The new treaty with
+Great Britain, which Germans claimed to be anything but altruistic, is
+having a steadying influence on the policy of the Tokyo government.</p>
+
+<p>With the conversion of Japan from war to peace, the process of fiscal
+recuperation and industrial development has been observed by students of
+Eastern affairs with the keenest interest. The debt of the nation at the
+close of the war in 1905 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span>was approximately $870,000,000, which sum,
+apportioned among Nippon's 47,000,000 inhabitants, was $18.71 per
+capita. The amount properly chargeable to the campaign was $600,000,000,
+or thereabouts. A characteristic of the war commanding widespread
+attention was that the Japanese side was conducted from start to finish
+on the soundest financial principles, with her credit abroad scarcely
+lessened by successive bond issues. It was the criticism of students of
+finance that Japan conducted her campaign throughout on a gold basis, as
+if exploiting a vast commercial program, without subjecting herself to
+usurious commissions, and without resorting to the issuance of fiat or
+negligible currency. The financing of the Asiatic side of the great
+Russo-Japanese conflict was certainly as businesslike as anything ever
+done by a European power compelled to raise funds by foreign bond sales.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319"></a></p>
+<img src="images/319.jpg" width="433" height="550" alt="BRONZE DAIBUTSU AT KAMAKURA, JAPAN" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 433px;">
+<p class="caption">BRONZE DAIBUTSU AT KAMAKURA, JAPAN</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>When a candid history of the war is penned, the writer must perforce
+acknowledge the "luck" attaching to Japan when Russia expelled the Jews,
+and when thousands of that faith were ruthlessly slaughtered at
+Kishineff. Whether the purse-strings of the world are controlled by
+Hebrew bankers may be a moot question, but it was a fact distinctly
+clear that Japan could place her bonds in any money-lending country in
+the world, while Russia could scarcely raise a rouble upon her foreign
+credit. Even Germany, the sentimental ally of Russia, almost begged for
+the privilege of lending to Japan. There was no disputing that the great
+Hebraic banking houses of London, New <!-- text to here was originally part of page 318. Pages 319-320 was a fullpage illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span>York and Frankfort found it an
+easy task to supply the Mikado's country with every needed sinew of war,
+and the massacres of Kishineff may have been avenged in a measure at
+Port Arthur and Mukden.</p>
+
+<p>The ambitious and sturdy people of Japan are indisposed to regard the
+war debt as an excessive burden, and it is their determination to treat
+their bonded obligations as a spur to active industry. It must be
+confessed that Japan's debt is but a trifle less than that of the United
+States, and is carried at double the interest rates of the American
+debt; and further, that Japan's total area is smaller than that of our
+state of California. The portentous aspect of the national obligation of
+Japan is that it must absorb in interest charges fully a third of the
+empire's income for many years of peace and prosperity to come.</p>
+
+<p>A large part of the debt incurred before the war was for public works,
+most of which are productive. Funds realized from early loans, both
+foreign and domestic, as well as a portion of the income from the
+indemnity earned by the war with China, were invested in commercial
+enterprises owned or fostered by the empire, and the government receives
+a considerable benefit from the public railways, tobacco monopoly,
+woolen mills, and a few other industrial ventures. The railways are
+extremely profitable, and the large sums spent in the creation of
+post-offices, telephone and telegraph lines, port facilities, etc., have
+proved wise investments.</p>
+
+<p>Observers of national statistics have long known <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span>that a country without
+heavy indebtedness amounts to little in a worldly and industrial sense.
+Abundantly solvent, France has a debt averaging $151.70 per person, and
+the United Kingdom (Great Britain and Ireland), a pro rata debt of
+$91.80. Portugal owes $143.82 per subject, Holland $90.74, and Belgium
+$75.63. The heaviest governmental obligation is that of Australia,
+averaging $263.90 per inhabitant; and the lightest responsibility among
+important nations is that of the United States, gradually lessening, now
+standing at but $10.93. Our Cuban neighbors, owing $21.88 per capita,
+make little complaint of fiscal burden. Whether a debt be burdensome or
+otherwise depends as much upon the character of the people as upon
+natural resources. Decaying Portugal could not by industry liberate
+herself from pecuniary thraldom in a century, while the Japanese
+probably could liquidate every obligation in fifteen years, were they
+pressed to do so.</p>
+
+<p>No country can present a better foundation for industrial and commercial
+development at this time than Japan, and the signing at Portsmouth of
+the peace agreement marked the beginning of an era of national growth
+that may challenge the admiration of the world as did the feats of arms
+of Oyama and Togo. The war cemented classes in Japan almost to a
+condition of homogeneity&mdash;practically every subject of the Mikado
+believed in the necessity for the conflict, and made sacrifices to
+contribute to the cost thereof. Distinctions of class are now seldom
+thought of, and it contrib<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span>utes mightily to the material improvement of
+a nation to have a single language. The descendants of the samurai class
+acknowledge now the need for trade on a grand scale, and they are only
+too ready to embark in manufacturing and trading enterprises. There are
+scarcely ten great fortunes in the realm, and the number of subjects
+removed from activity by even moderate affluence is remarkably small.
+Likewise, the number of persons reckoned in the non-producing class,
+through dissipation or infirmity, is insignificant. And, more potent
+than all these reasons uniting to assist in the expansion of Japanese
+industry and thrift, is the intense patriotism of the people, stimulated
+by glorious success in two wars against foreign nations of overwhelming
+populations, as well as the recognition from high and low that Japan's
+golden opportunity has arrived. Almost to a man the Japanese want to
+employ their sinews and intellect in elevating the Land of the Rising
+Sun to an honored place among progressive nations.</p>
+
+<p>The Japanese exchequer is at present a long way from depletion, by
+reason of the $150,000,000 loan secured in America, England and Germany.
+Probably two thirds of this remained unexpended. Many Tokyo bankers
+believed the loan unnecessary, inasmuch as there were funds in hand
+sufficient to finance the war well into 1906, had peace not been agreed
+upon. But the flotation was deemed wise, not alone because of prevailing
+ease in the money market, but for the effect that an oversubscribed loan
+in America and Europe would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span>have upon the Czar's government. The
+portion of the loan remaining unused for war was employed for giving
+effect to Japan's industrial propaganda, and presumably has been spent
+for the endless machinery demanded by the factories and shipyards that
+are transforming Japan into a vast workshop, for structural metal, and
+for steel rails, cars and locomotives for railways in Manchuria and
+Korea; and generally for the hundred and one purposes playing a part in
+the development of lands hitherto out of step in the march of
+enterprise, and where strife has until recently stifled the usual
+manifestations of man's desire to improve his surroundings. The Japanese
+government in 1906 purchased six railways, which were profit earners,
+paying for them $125,000,000 in five per cent. bonds that may be
+redeemed in five years. There is no likelihood of a reduction in Japan's
+debt for a long time, but its weight upon the people may be reduced by
+conversions. As the national credit strengthens, the interest on
+borrowings may be correspondingly decreased. Consequently, there may be
+frequent funding operations and new issues, until seven and six per
+cent. bonds have given place to obligations bearing five per cent.
+interest or less. To provide funds for early railway building,
+considerable capital was borrowed at as high a rate as ten per cent.
+When these obligations expire all necessary money can be found in the
+country at less than half the original rate. Japan is fortunate in
+having many sound financiers to invite to her official councils, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span>and it
+is helpful to the country that Tokyo and Yokohama bankers are competent
+and progressive. These men pronounce Japan's present financial position
+sound, and claim that the country can easily carry the existing debt.</p>
+
+<p>In natural resources Japan is not well to do, it must be frankly said.
+Examine the country in as friendly a spirit as one may, little is
+developed to support any statement that the country may become
+prosperous from the products of her own soil. In truth Japan is nearly
+as unproductive as Greece and Norway, for only sixteen per cent. of her
+soil is arable. The mountain ranges and peaks and terraced hills that
+make the country scenically attractive to the tourist come near to
+prohibiting agriculture. The lowlands, separating seacoast from the
+foothills, and the valleys generally, are given over to rice culture,
+and these contribute largely towards sustaining the people. Where
+valleys are narrow, and on hillside patches, cultivation is carried on
+wholly by hand. In recent years phosphates and artificial fertilizers
+have been encouraged by the government, and with the educational work
+now in hand science may give an increase of crops from the circumscribed
+tillable area. The country's forests cannot be sacrificed, and grazing
+lands for flocks and herds scarcely exist.</p>
+
+<p>A recent magazine writer, holding a doleful view of Japan's agricultural
+condition, wholly overlooked the silk and tea crops in his search for
+native products, an error obviously fallen into <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span>through the fact that
+these are not raised on what governmental reports call "tillable
+ground,"&mdash;meaning that they are produced outside the sixteen per cent.
+arable area. Silk is Japan's important salable crop, two thirds of which
+is exported in its raw state. In the past few years the silk exports
+have averaged $55,000,000. Japan grows the tea consumed in the country,
+and sends annually $6,500,000 worth to market.</p>
+
+<p>If the rice crop might be exported it would realize $200,000,000 each
+year. But no food may be sent abroad, for it is a sad fact that Japan is
+capable of feeding only two thirds of her own people. It is necessary to
+import foodstuffs to the extent of about $47,000,000 a year. The
+Japanese benefit by the compensating supply of fish secured from the
+seas washing the shores of the Island Empire. When it is realized that
+Japan's rapidly-growing population cannot be sustained by her soil and
+fisheries, the real reason for battling against Russia's aggression on
+the mainland is understood, for ten years hence, Japan's crowding
+millions, confined to her own islands, would experience the pangs of
+hunger. The Mikado and his councilors foresaw this.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328"></a></p>
+<img src="images/328.jpg" width="426" height="550" alt="A GARDEN VIEW OF THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, TOKYO" />
+<div class="cap" style="width: 426px;">
+<p class="caption">A GARDEN VIEW OF THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, TOKYO</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Having deposits of coal and iron, why may not Japan be developed into
+the Eastern equivalent of England?" ask stay-at-home admirers of the
+Japanese, who believe that to them nothing is impossible. The Mikado's
+territory has coal, iron and copper, it is true; but in no instance is
+the mineral present to an extent making it a national <!-- text to here was originally part of page 326. Pages 327-328 was a blank page and a fullpage illustration--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span>asset of
+importance. Bituminous coal of good quality is mined at several points
+which is used by Japanese commercial and naval vessels; but elsewhere in
+the East it has to compete with Chinese and Indian coals. It is said in
+Nagasaki that her coal will last another two centuries, but were it
+mined on the scale of American and British coal it would be exhausted in
+a generation. The greatest efforts have been made to produce iron ore in
+paying quantities. In several instances public assistance has been lent
+to the industry, but seldom has a ton of ore been raised that has not
+cost twice its market value. Japan is determined to become a producer of
+iron, and to this end a long lease had been secured on an important
+mineral tract in China, whose ore blends advantageously with Mexican and
+Californian hematite, while it is asserted that the government has
+secured in Manchuria a seam of coal fifty feet in thickness, covered by
+a few feet of soil, that is contiguous to transportation, and which
+cannot be exhausted in hundreds of years. A valuable acquisition in
+conquered Saghalien&mdash;not noted by the newspapers&mdash;is beds of coal and
+iron of vast area. These may enable Japan, in her determination to
+become a manufacturing nation, to be eventually independent of other
+countries for basic supplies. But success in this direction is
+problematical, to say the least.</p>
+
+<p>For two thousand years Japan has mined copper in a limited way, but the
+production of the metal is carried on at present without much profit.
+When the Chinese government requires a vast <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span>quantity of copper the
+order is sent to the United States. Japan cannot be considered as a
+producer of minerals of sufficient importance to aspire to a profitable
+career through them, for the yearly aggregate value of all minerals,
+including gold from the Formosa mines, is not more than $20,000,000.</p>
+
+<p>The inevitable query in the reader's mind is, How is the Jap, knowing it
+is now or never with him&mdash;and cognizant that he is poor in all save
+ambition and enterprise&mdash;going to create for his beloved Nippon a
+position of prominence and security in the fast-rushing, selfish world?
+Every intelligent Japanese is aware of the slenderness of his country's
+resources, and yet every son of the Chrysanthemum Realm throbs with
+desire to see Japan a first-class and self-supporting power, honored and
+respected throughout the universe.</p>
+
+<p>The Japanese possess some quality of golden value, otherwise cautious
+capitalists in America and Europe would never have lent them
+$360,000,000. What is it?</p>
+
+<p>Japan's asset of importance is the awakened energy of her people&mdash;this
+was the soundest security back of the bond issues. It won the war over
+Russia, and persons familiar with the Japanese character believe it is
+now going to win commercially and industrially. Better proof of this is
+not wanted than the fact that Japanese bonds stood as firm as the rock
+of Gibraltar on the world's exchanges when it became known that Russia
+was to pay no indemnity. The information provoked street riots in Tokyo,
+but Japanese securities <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span>moved only fractionally in New York and London.</p>
+
+<p>Two countries have long been keenly observed by enlightened Japanese.
+They study America as a model industrial land, and get manufacturing
+ideas from us; but they look to Great Britain for everything having to
+do with empire, with aggrandizement, and with diplomacy. To them England
+is a glittering object lesson of a nation existing in overcrowded
+islands extending its rule to other lands and other continents,
+producing endless articles needed by mankind, and carrying these to the
+ends of the earth in their own ships. These Japanese have perceived that
+the interchange of commodities between most countries of the globe is
+preponderatingly in the hands of the British&mdash;in fact, that the
+enterprise of British merchant or British ship-owner has placed
+practically the universe under tribute.</p>
+
+<p>May not insular Japan become in time the Asiatic equivalent of Great
+Britain? Japan is advantageously located, and by common consent is now
+dominant in the Far East. Years ago England ceased to be an agricultural
+country, and the products of British workshops now buy food from other
+nations and allow for the keeping of a money balance at home. Nature has
+decreed that Japan can never be an agricultural land. Why, then, may she
+not do what England has done? England has her India, pregnant with the
+earth's bounty, and her Australia, yet awaiting completer development
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span>Kingdom become the handmaiden of Japan, without disturbing dynastic
+affairs, and primitive Korea be a fair equivalent of the Antipodean
+continent? It is known to be Japan's plan to permanently colonize Korea
+and Manchuria, teeming in agricultural and mineral riches, with her
+surplus population.</p>
+
+<p>"Prestige and opportunity make this attainable," insist the ambitious
+sons of Japan; "and while it is probably too late to expand the
+political boundaries of our empire, we surely may make Nippon the seat
+of a mighty commercial control, including in its sphere all of China
+proper, Manchuria and Korea&mdash;welding them into 'commercial colonies' of
+Japan." This is precisely what the modern Japanese wants his country to
+do, and this Japanization of the Far East is an alluring project,
+certainly.</p>
+
+<p>"But are not these 'open-door' countries, stipulated and guaranteed by
+the powers&mdash;meaning that your people can enjoy no special trade
+advantage in them?" the American asks the man of Japan.</p>
+
+<p>"Emphatically are they open to the trade and enterprise of all comers:
+but there are four potential advantages that accrue to the benefit of
+the Japanese at this time&mdash;geographical position, necessity for
+recouping the cost of the war, an identical written language, and
+superabundance of capable and inexpensive labor. With these advantages
+and practical kinship we fear no rivalry in the creation of business
+among the Mongol races," adds the man speaking for the New Japan.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span>It calls for little prescience to picture a mighty Japanese tonnage on
+the seas in the near future. Next to industrial development, the
+controlling article of faith of the awakened Japan is the creation of an
+ocean commerce great enough to make the Japanese the carriers of the
+Orient. There can be nothing visionary in this, for bountiful Asia is
+almost without facilities for conveying her products to the world's
+markets. Indeed, were present-day Japan eliminated from consideration,
+it would be precise to say that Asia possessed no oversea transportation
+facilities.</p>
+
+<p>The merchant steamship is intended to play an important r�le in Japan's
+elevation. Shipping is to be fostered by the nation until it becomes a
+great industry, and it is the aim of the Mikado's government to provide
+for constructing ships for the public defence up to 20,000 tons burden,
+and making the country independent of foreign yards through being able
+to produce advantageously commercial vessels for any requirement. Japan
+is blind neither to the costliness of American-built ships nor to the
+remoteness of European yards. The war with Russia was not half over when
+it was apparent that Japan would not longer be dependent upon the outer
+world for vessels of war or of commerce. In the closing weeks of 1906
+there was completed and launched in Japan the biggest battleship in the
+world, the <i>Satsuma</i>, constructed exclusively by native labor. She is of
+about the dimensions of the <i>Dreadnaught</i>, of the British navy, but
+claimed to be her superior as a fighting force. The launching of the
+<i>Satsuma</i>, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span>witnessed by the Emperor, was regarded as a great national
+event.</p>
+
+<p>In the war with China, twelve or thirteen years ago, Japan had
+insufficient vessels to transport her troops. The astute statesmen at
+Tokyo, recognizing the error of basing the transportation requirements
+of an insular nation upon ships controlled by foreigners, speedily
+drafted laws looking to the creation of a native marine which might be
+claimed in war time for governmental purposes. The bestowal of liberal
+bounties transformed Japan in a few short years from owning craft of the
+junk class to a proprietorship of modern iron-built vessels of both home
+construction and foreign purchase. In the late campaign there was no
+comparison in the seamanship of the agile son of Nippon and that of the
+hulking peasant of interior Russia. The Jap was proven time and again to
+be the equal of any mariner. Native adaptability and willingness to
+conform to strict discipline, unite in making the Japanese a seaman
+whose qualities will be telling in times of peace.</p>
+
+<p>Of late years hundreds of clever young Japanese have served
+apprenticeships in important shipyards in America, England, Germany and
+France, with the result that there are to-day scores of naval architects
+and constructors in Japan the equals of any in the world. Whether as
+designers, yard managers or directors of construction, the Japs, with
+their special schooling, have nothing to learn now from foreign
+countries. The genius <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span>of some of these men played a part in Togo's
+great victory.</p>
+
+<p>Japanese men of affairs pretend to see little difficulty in the way of
+their nation controlling the building of ships for use throughout the
+East. Local yards are already constructing river gunboats and torpedo
+craft for the Chinese government, and it is reasonable to believe that a
+year or two hence their hold upon the business will amount practically
+to a monopoly. British firms with yards at Singapore, Hong Kong and
+Shanghai are not rejoiced at the prospect of Japanese rivalry. It is
+possible that, the Japanese may become shipbuilders for our own
+Philippine archipelago.</p>
+
+<p>Already the shipyards of Nippon are ringing with the sound of Japan's
+upbuilding; and the plant of the Mitsubishi company, at Nagasaki&mdash;among
+the largest in the world,&mdash;has been enlarged to accommodate increasing
+demands. The enormous <i>Minnesota</i>, of the Great Northern Steamship
+Company, was not so long ago repaired at Nagasaki in a dry-dock having
+eighty feet in length to spare.</p>
+
+<p>Japanese steamship lines already extend to Europe, Australia, Bombay,
+Eastern Siberia, China, Korea and Saghalien, and to San Francisco and
+Puget Sound ports. A company has been formed to develop a service
+between Panama, the Philippines and Japanese ports, in anticipation of
+the completion of the Panama Canal: and, further perceiving the
+opportunity rapping at her door, Japan is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span>preparing to place a line on
+the ocean that will bring the wool, hides and grain of the River Plate
+region to Japanese markets at the minimum of expense. The undisguised
+purpose of this South-American venture is to get cheap wheat from
+Argentina. Rice eating in Japan is giving way to bread made from wheat,
+or from a mixture of wheat and rice and other cereals. It is further
+known that Japan is casting covetous eyes on the trade of Brazil, and
+the line to the Plate may be extended to Brazilian ports.</p>
+
+<p>In 1894 Japan had only 657,269 tons of merchant shipping; she has now
+upwards of a million tons, represented by 5,200 registered vessels.
+Almost half the steamers entering Japanese ports fly the flag of the
+Rising Sun, and Japan's tonnage at this time is greater than that of
+Russia, Austria, Sweden, Spain, Denmark or Holland. In the matter of
+oversea tonnage, Japan is far ahead of the United States. One fleet of
+Japanese mail steamers, the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, whose president, Rempei
+Kondo, is one of Japan's most progressive men, is numerically and in
+tonnage larger than any ocean line under the Stars and Stripes. It has
+seventy ships, aggregating 236,000 tons. A dozen of its vessels, making
+the service between Yokohama and London, are fourteen-knot ships.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<p><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337"></a></p>
+<img src="images/337.jpg" width="600" height="411" alt="JAPANESE JUNK, OR CARGO BOAT" />
+<div class="cap">
+<p class="caption">JAPANESE JUNK, OR CARGO BOAT</p>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>These facts should be considered by every American complacently
+believing that the traffic of the countries and islands washed by the
+Pacific is open to American enterprise whenever we bid for it. When
+Eastern trade develops in magni<!-- text to here was originally part of page 336. Pages 337-338 was a fullpage illustration and a blank page--><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span>magnitude, it may be found that the
+Japanese have laid permanent hold upon its carriage and interchange.
+John Bull, be it remembered, drove the American merchantman from the
+Atlantic; and likewise Japan may capture the carrying business of the
+Pacific. It must be obvious that the nation controlling the
+transportation of the Far East will seek to control its trade: and it is
+sounding no false alarm to cite facts and conditions showing that the
+awakening lands of Eastern Asia have more in store for energetic Japan
+than for the United States, now fattening inordinately on home
+trade&mdash;when overproduction comes, as it surely will, it then may be
+found difficult to supplant another people in the occupation of
+conveying American commodities to Eastern markets. There are persons in
+the Orient, none too friendly to America, who expect to see the
+commercial flag of Japan paramount on the Pacific eight or ten years
+hence.</p>
+
+<p>If it be conceded that Japan will absorb the bulk of the shipping of the
+Pacific as it develops, valid reasons for fearing Japan as the trade
+competitor of the United States do not exist. Unquestionably Japan is to
+exploit the industry of her people; but the same poverty of resources
+making this imperative insures for Uncle Sam a valuable partnership in
+the program. Japan is bristling with workshops and mills in which a
+hundred forms of handiwork will be developed&mdash;and in a majority of these
+the adaptive labor of the empire will fabricate, from materials drawn
+from America, scores of forms of merchandise, which the Japanese
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span>propaganda will distribute throughout China, Manchuria, Korea and
+Japan&mdash;the "Great Japan," British publicists are calling it. Methods,
+materials, machinery, tools&mdash;all will be American.</p>
+
+<p>Having made no systematic appeal for the trade of the Far East in its
+broadest sense, America enjoys but small share of it. In the past few
+years our exports to Japan, however, have grown rapidly&mdash;chiefly in raw
+cotton and other unmanufactured materials. With Japanese selling agents
+canvassing lands inhabited by a half billion people, the products of
+America are to have enhanced consumption. This trade in Mongol
+countries, although vicarious, may run to large dimensions.</p>
+
+<p>The leading item of Japan's industrial promotion program is to become
+manufacturer of a goodly portion of the textiles worn in her vast
+"sphere of commerce." The Japanese have seen that the British Isles,
+growing not a pound of cotton, spin and weave the staple for half the
+people of the earth, and wish to profit by the example of their
+prosperous ally. To this end, cotton mills have sprung into being
+throughout Japan, in which American-grown fiber is transformed by the
+cheapest competent labor in the world into fabrics sold to China's and
+Japan's millions. It is certain that the controlling manufacture of
+Japan will be cotton, and the production of woolen cloths may come next.
+It is interesting to know that Japan increased the value of her exports
+of cotton manufactures to China from $251,363 in 1894 to $16,126,054 in
+1904.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span>"Why not fabricate her own raw silk, and send it to market ready for
+wear?" asks the foreigner reluctant to believe that Japan can hope to
+compete with Lancashire in the spinning of cotton. The answer is
+simple&mdash;it is because America is the principal purchaser of the raw
+article. Were it brought across the Pacific in manufactured form, the
+duty on it would be almost prohibitive; in its unwrought state it enters
+the country free.</p>
+
+<p>Great progress must be made before Japanese business may be considered a
+"menace" to any nation enjoying Eastern trade, for the yearly value of
+Japan's manufactures is now only about $150,000,000, an average of about
+$3 per capita of the population. America has single cities that produce
+more. The combined capital of all organized industrial, mining,
+shipping, banking and agricultural undertakings in Japan is
+$475,000,000, or less than half the capital of the United States Steel
+Corporation. The Mikado's empire is bound to Great Britain by a
+political alliance of unusual force, but industrial Japan must of
+necessity be linked to the United States by commercial ties even
+stronger. Distance between Europe and Japan, and excessive Suez Canal
+tolls, give unassailable advantage to the United States as purveyor of
+unwrought materials to the budding New England of the Far East.</p>
+
+<p>The custom of speaking of our friends of the Island Empire as "the
+little Japanese," is a fault that should be promptly mended. Japan is
+small, it is true, but the people are numerous to the point <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span>of
+wonderment. Consequently, it can do no harm to memorize these facts:
+That Japan has an area actually 27,000 square miles greater than the
+British Isles, and 5,000,000 more inhabitants; in other words, the
+population of Japan is 47,000,000, while that of Great Britain and
+Ireland is but 42,000,000. That Japan's population exceeds that of
+France by 8,000,000, of Italy by 14,000,000, and of Austro-Hungary by
+nearly 2,000,000. That outside of Asia there are but three countries in
+all the world with greater populations than Japan&mdash;Russia, the United
+States, and Germany. There was reason for calling the Jap the "Yankee of
+the East," or the "Englishman of the Orient," for otherwise the phrases
+could not have been forced into popular use.</p>
+
+<p>It is the judgment of many who have studied the Japanese at close range
+that they are endowed with attributes of mind and body which make them
+equal, man for man, with the people of America and Great Britain.
+Asiatic though they are, it will be unwise to permit the brain to become
+clogged with the idea that they are "Asiatics" in the popular acceptance
+of the word. The Japan of the present is the antithesis of "Asiatic,"
+and the Japan of the near future promises to be a country best measured
+by Western standards.</p>
+
+<p>The Japanese are athirst for knowledge, and impatient for the time to
+arrive when the world will estimate them at their intellectual value,
+and forget to speak of them as the little "yellow" men of the East. This
+is manifested to a visitor many <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span>times every day. Their greatest craving
+is to know English, not merely well enough to carry on trade
+advantageously, but to read understandingly books that deal with the
+moderate sciences, and other works generally benefiting. Yokohama and
+Tokyo possess a score of establishments where practically every
+important volume of instruction, whether it be English or American, is
+reproduced in inexpensive form, and widely sold. For many years English
+has been taught in Japan's schools, but thousands of boys and men in
+cities and towns are each year acquiring the language by study in odd
+hours.</p>
+
+<p>Examine the dog-eared pamphlet in the hands of the lad assisting in the
+shop where you are purchasing something, and you are almost certain to
+find it an elementary English book. Merchants know English well, as a
+rule; but with many of them the desire for knowledge is not satisfied
+with the acquisition of English&mdash;they desire to know other languages. In
+Yokohama I know a merchant of importance whose English is so good that
+one is drawn to inquire where he learned it. The answer will be that he
+studied odd hours at home and when not serving customers. And the
+visitor may further be informed by this man that he is also studying
+German and French. A teacher of German goes to his house at six o'clock
+each morning and for two hours drills him in the language. Then, in the
+evening, after a long day spent at business, a French teacher instructs
+him in the graceful language of France. And this <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span>merchant is but a type
+of thousands of Japanese who are daily garnering knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>It is a pleasing incident for the visitor from America to read of a
+meeting in the Japanese capital of the local Yale Alumni
+Association&mdash;quite as pleasing as to see base-ball played in every
+vacant field convenient to a large town. Returning schoolboys have
+carried the game home to their companions, and in the voyage across the
+Pacific it has lost none of its fine points. For thirty years and longer
+the Japs have been learning English with the industry of beavers. And
+ambition has been responsible for this, the dogged determination to be
+somebody, and the patriotic wish to see Japan stand with the progressive
+nations of the earth. The power to keep such a people down does not
+exist. Preparation is a subject never absent from the thoughts of the
+Japanese. It was preparation that gave them victory after victory over
+the creatures of the Czar. Now they are fairly launched upon a brilliant
+career in trade and commerce. But Japan can merely fabricate our raw
+materials, thereby occupying a field in Asia that up to now Uncle Sam
+has made no determined effort to secure.</p>
+
+<hr />
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span></p>
+<h2>INDEX</h2>
+
+<p class="index"><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span>Agra, Indian city of unrivaled interest, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_168">[168]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">its Taj Mahal, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_168">[168-184]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Ambir, old capital of Jeypore state, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_166">[166]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">America, interest in Suez canal as forerunner of Panama, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_16">[16]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">flag not represented by commercial vessel at Suez in generation, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_18">[18]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">President Roosevelt's insistence for Panama canal, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_19">[19]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">value of Oriental trade, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_21">[21]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_22">[22]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">cotton of wrought in England, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_22">[22]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">trifling exports of manufactured articles, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_22">[22]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">diminutive trade with South America, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_22">[22]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">desirability of trade extension in East, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_23">[23]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">government's tariff at Panama, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_24">[24]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">how to make Panama canal pay indirectly, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_27">[27]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">demand for creation of merchant marine, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_27">[27]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">to have 100,000,000 inhabitants when canal is completed, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_28">[28]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">commercial supremacy without merchant marine, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_29">[29]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">government's insistence on "open door" in China, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_303">[303]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">seeming indifference to Chinese trade, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_310">[310]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">waning cotton exports to China, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_313">[313]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_314">[314]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Arabi, rebellion of, resulting in control of Egypt by Great Britain, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_9">[9]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Kandy, place of his exile, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_110">[110]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Arjamand, consort of Shah Jahan, for whom Taj Mahal was erected, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_171">[171]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index0">Benares, headquarters of Hindu religion, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_185">[185-202]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">burning ghat and cremations, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_189">[189-194]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Monkey Temple, <a class="indexlink" href="#monkey">[196-200]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Bombay, headquarters of Parsees, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_126">[126]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">a city gone sport-mad, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_133">[133]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_134">[134]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">race meeting at, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_137">[137]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_138">[138]</a></p>
+<p class="index2">important cotton port, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_139">[139]</a></p>
+<p class="index2">superb railway station, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_139">[139]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Buddhism, Kandy the Mecca of the faith, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_95">[95]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">tenets of faith, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_96">[96]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_97">[97]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">reputed tooth of Buddha, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_97">[97]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_98">[98]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_101">[101]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">pilgrims to Kandy, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_101">[101]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_102">[102]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">cremation, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_102">[102]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index0">Calcutta, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_205">[205-219]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Hooghly pilots, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_206">[206]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Job Charnock, founder of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_209">[209]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_210">[210]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">under Lord Curzon's viceroyship, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_217">[217]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_218">[218]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Canals, no more inter-ocean canals possible, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_4">[4]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Canton, unique and important commercial city, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_244">[244-266]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">strenuous and monopolistic guide, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_249">[249]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">street scenes and experiences, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_250">[250]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_251">[251]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">executions, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_255">[255]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">funeral procession, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_256">[256]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_257">[257]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">educational center, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_257">[257]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">educational examinations, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_258">[258]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_259">[259]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">"literary poles," <a class="indexlink" href="#poles">[260]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_263">[263]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">boat-life on river front, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_263">[263]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_264">[264]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">leper village and boat toll, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_266">[266]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Caste, Rodiya people of Ceylon, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_103">[103]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_104">[104]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_107">[107]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">British rule recognizes no distinctions of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_107">[107]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">as seen in Bombay, <a class="indexlink" href="#caste">[140]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">hereditary throughout India, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_143">[143]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">man servant who could not carry his own packages, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_144">[144]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_145">[145]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_146">[146]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Ceylon, where "only man is vile," <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_30">[30]</a></p>
+<p class="index2">Cingalese, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_34">[34]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_44">[44]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">area, population, and races, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_44">[44]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">England's conquest of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_47">[47]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">railways, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_47">[47]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">exports, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_48">[48]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">elephant kraal, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_48">[48]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_49">[49]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">an island paradise, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_50">[50]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">the cadjan, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_62">[62]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_63">[63]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">tea as "king crop," <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_117">[117]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">when coffee was chief crop, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_121">[121]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">details of tea cultivation, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_122">[122]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_125">[125]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">China, Singapore and Hong Kong as places of residence for Chinese, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_227">[227]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_237">[237]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">cession of Hong Kong to British, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_235">[235]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Canton, unique city, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_244">[244-266]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Macao, Monte Carlo of East, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_267">[267-289]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">love of fan-tan by Chinese, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_284">[284]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Germany's play for trade prestige, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_290">[290-310]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">land of meager commodities, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_295">[295]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">what her "awakened" trade would mean, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_297">[297]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Germany's colony of Kiau-chau, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_304">[304-309]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">America and Chinese trade, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_310">[310-314]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">plans for rousing country, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_316">[316]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Colombia, loss of Isthmian territory, through Panama canal scheme, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_4">[4]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Colombo, approach to harbor, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_33">[33]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">landing jetty, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_33">[33]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">port of call between Occident, Orient and Australasia, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_34">[34]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">medley of races, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_35">[35]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">westernmost limit of 'rickshaws, <a class="indexlink" href="#rickshaw">[36]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">hotels, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_39">[39]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_40">[40]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">population, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_44">[44]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Clapham Junction of East, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_61">[61]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">route to Kandy, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_92">[92]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Cotton, Bombay as port, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_139">[139]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Great Britain and America as manufacturers, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_313">[313-314]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">expansion of fabrication in Japan, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_340">[340]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="index">Curzon, former viceroy of India, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_217">[217]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_218">[218]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Splendor of rule at Calcutta, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_217">[217]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index0">De Lessep's craving for greatness, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_5">[5]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">obtains concession for constructing Suez canal, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_6">[6]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">raising money for canal scheme, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_6">[6]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">death of, in madhouse, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_10">[10]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">monument at Port Said, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_11">[11]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index0">Egypt, loss of self-rule through Suez canal construction, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_4">[4]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">date of Suez canal concession, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_6">[6]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">no debt when concession given, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_6">[6]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">to subscribe nothing for construction of Suez canal, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_6">[6]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Arabi rebellion, resulting in British control of Egypt, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_9">[9]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">deriving no advantage through canal, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_10">[10]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index0">France, how bankers of, lost controlling Suez shares, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_15">[15]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_16">[16]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">susceptibilities of, how preserved in Suez management, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_16">[16]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">ally of Russia, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_296">[296]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index0">Germany, second in list of Suez patrons, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_18">[18]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Kaiser's fight for new markets, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_18">[18]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">friendship for Russia in war, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_290">[290-297]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Kaiser's play for Chinese trade, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_290">[290-310]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Emperor as Trade Lord, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_292">[292]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_295">[295]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Kaiser's disapproval of Monroe Doctrine, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_298">[298]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">plans for capturing Oriental business, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_301">[301]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">subsidized steamship service with East, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_302">[302]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">"leased" colony of Kiau-chau, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_304">[304]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Great Britain, benefits accruing from Suez canal, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_15">[15]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">how control was secured, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_15">[15]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">preponderance of flag over Suez traffic, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_18">[18]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">control of interior of Ceylon, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_95">[95]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">rule in, Asia recognizing no caste distinctions, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_107">[107]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">restoration of Taj Mahal by government of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_183">[183]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Job Charnock, founder of Calcutta, and pioneer empire-builder, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_209">[209]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_210">[210]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">great work in India. <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_220">[220]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Penang, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_227">[227]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Singapore, universal sea-port brought to Empire by Sir Stamford Raffles, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_227">[227]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Hong Kong, important port and naval base, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_231">[231-238]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">no permanent control of Eastern business, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_301">[301]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">tenure of Wei-hai-wei, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_308">[308]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index0">Hinduism, orthodoxy of Maharajah of Jeypore, <a class="indexlink" href="#jeypore">[156]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_159">[159]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">animal sacrifices to goddess Kali, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_167">[167]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_199">[199-202]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Benares, head of religion, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_185">[185-202]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">scenes on banks of sacred Ganges. <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_193">[193-196]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">cremation of dead, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_190">[190-194]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">incomprehensibleness of merits of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_201">[201]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_202">[202]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">habits of speech of illiterate, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_223">[223]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">curse of widowhood in India, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_224">[224]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Hong Kong, island link in Britain's chain, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_231">[231]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">rains, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_231">[231]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_232">[232]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">city wrested from mountain side, <a class="indexlink" href="#mountain">[232]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">cession from China, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_235">[235]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">guarding northern entrance to China Sea, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_235">[235]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_236">[236]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">population and traffic, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_236">[236]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Happy Valley race-course, <a class="indexlink" href="#racecourse">[238]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_241">[241]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">benefits and pitfalls of the chit, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_241">[241]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_242">[242]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">convenience of bills of fare, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_243">[243]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index0">India, Bombay and its Parsees, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_126">[126-133]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">scenes at Bombay race meeting, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_137">[137]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_138">[138]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">caste, <a class="indexlink" href="#caste">[140]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_143">[143]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">people not readily convinced of advantage of modern implements, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_143">[143]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_144">[144]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Jeypore, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_149">[149-167]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Ambir, old capital of Jeypore, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_166">[166]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Agra and Taj Mahal, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_168">[168-184]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Benares, fountainhead of Hindu religion, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_185">[185-202]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Calcutta, capital of British India, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_205">[205-219]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">viceroyship of Lord Curzon, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_217">[217]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_218">[218]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Viscount Kitchener, head of army, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_218">[218]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_219">[219]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">facts and figures of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_220">[220]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_223">[223]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_225">[225]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">the "L. G." of Bengal, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_219">[219]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Ismail, Khedive, lured into assisting Suez scheme, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_6">[6]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">prodigality of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_10">[10]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">personal holding of Suez securities, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_10">[10]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index0">Jahan, Shah, builder of Taj Mahal, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_168">[168]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_171">[171]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">interment beside wife's grave, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_179">[179]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Japan, commercial future, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_315">[315-344]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">best exponent of Asiatic progress, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_315">[315]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">"scourge of God" and "yellow peril" of German origin, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_316">[316]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">advantages secured by defeating Russia, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_317">[317]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">process of industrial development, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_317">[317]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">national debt, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_318">[318]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_321">[321]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_324">[324]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">homogeneity of people, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_322">[322]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">resources, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_325">[325-330]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">desire to emulate England, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_331">[331]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">why country can exploit near-by lands advantageously, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_332">[332]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">mighty tonnage on Pacific, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_333">[333]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_334">[334]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">shipbuilding, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_334">[334]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_335">[335]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">no real "menace" to American trade, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_341">[341]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">athirst for knowledge, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_342">[342-344]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Jeypore, capital of Maharajah of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_149">[149-165]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">fondness of women for jewelry, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_151">[151]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">benevolent ruler of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_156">[156]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_159">[159]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">astronomical apparatus of Jai Singh, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_164">[164]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index0">Kandy, ancient capital of Ceylon, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_43">[43]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">journey from Colombo, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_92">[92]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">city of Buddha's tooth, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_95">[95]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Buddhist pilgrims to, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_95">[95]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_96">[96]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">natural beauty of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_108">[108]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">atrocities of a king of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_109">[109]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">British rule of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_110">[110]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Peradeniya tropical garden, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_110">[110]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_113">[113]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_114">[114]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_117">[117]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">executive seat of Ceylon's tea industry, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_117">[117]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_118">[118]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_121">[121]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span></p>
+
+<p class="index">Kitchener, Viscount, commander-in-chief of Indian army, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_218">[218]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_219">[219]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index0">Macao, journey to Portuguese colony from Canton, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_267">[267]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">pioneer European settlement in East, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_272">[272]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Eastern Monte Carlo, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_272">[272]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_283">[283-289]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">political refuge, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_274">[274]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Camoens, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_278">[278-282]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Manar, pearling-ground of Gulf of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_50">[50]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">advertisements announcing a fishery, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_56">[56]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_57">[57]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">period of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_66">[66]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">scene on banks during a fishery, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_76">[76]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_77">[77]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">profit of fishery, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_87">[87]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Marichchikkaddi, pearl metropolis of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_58">[58]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_61">[61]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_62">[62]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_64">[64]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_65">[65]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">how reached from Colombo, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_62">[62]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">population, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_63">[63]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">fishing fleet, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_71">[71]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_72">[72]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">scenes in camp and at kottu, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_77">[77]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_78">[78]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">where oysters pass current as money, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_79">[79]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">selling the oysters at auction, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_79">[79]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_80">[80]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_81">[81]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">health of camp, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_85">[85]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">illustration of white man's rule, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_86">[86]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_87">[87]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Merchant Marine, necessity for creation of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_27">[27]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">American commercial supremacy without help of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_29">[29]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index0">Panama Canal, antiquity of project, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_4">[4]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">President Roosevelt's insistence for, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_19">[19]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">use of, by South American shipping, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_21">[21]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">drawing traffic from east of Singapore, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_21">[21]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">vast Eastern area to be served by, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_21">[21]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">destined to make America trade-arbiter of world, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_23">[23]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">prediction of cost of construction and maintenance, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_23">[23]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">question of annual tonnage, <a class="indexlink" href="#tonnage">[24]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Parsees, their home in Bombay, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_126">[126]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">followers of Zoroaster, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_127">[127]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Towers of Silence and method of disposing of dead, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_131">[131]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_132">[132]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_133">[133]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Pearls, Swedish, Chinese and Japanese methods of inducing pearl formation, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_55">[55]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Indian and Cingalese expert dealers, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_66">[66]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Indian grandees chief buyers of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_88">[88]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Pearl-fishing, scene of, in Gulf of Manar, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_50">[50]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">description of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_51">[51]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_56">[56]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_57">[57]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Professor Hornell's theories, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_52">[52]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">divers, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_66">[66]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_69">[69]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">the shark-charmer, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_70">[70]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_71">[71]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_72">[72]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">time of divers under water, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_75">[75]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_76">[76]</a></p>
+<p class="index2">scene on Manar banks, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_76">[76]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_77">[77]</a></p>
+<p class="index2">devices for stealing pearls, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_79">[79]</a></p>
+<p class="index2">process by which pearls are extracted from oysters, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_81">[81]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_82">[82]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Penang, leading tin port of world, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_227">[227]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index0">Raffles, Sir Stamford, pioneer of Singapore, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_227">[227]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Russia, friendship of Germany during war, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_290">[290-304]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">benefit to have accompanied victory over Japan, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_296">[296]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index0">Sa&iuml;d, viceroy, date of giving Suez concession, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_6">[6]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Singapore, a turnstile of commerce, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_227">[227]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">universal character of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_228">[228]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">South America, use of Panama by carrying trade of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_21">[21]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">trifling imports from United States, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_22">[22]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">importance of exports to United States, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_23">[23]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Suez Canal, antiquity of project, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_3">[3]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_4">[4]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Persian oracle's warning against, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_5">[5]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">personages who had considered, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_5">[5]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">to pay Egyptian treasury part of proceeds, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_6">[6]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_15">[15]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Ismail's interest in scheme, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_10">[10]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">perpetuation of names of Egyptian rulers, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_11">[11]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">simplicity of construction and cost of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_12">[12]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">international character of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_12">[12]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">Disraeli's purchase of control for Great Britain, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_15">[15]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">physical statistics of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_16">[16]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">tariff of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_16">[16]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_17">[17]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">value to world's commerce, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_17">[17]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">statistics of tonnage and income, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_17">[17]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">average daily use of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_18">[18]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">European shippers' choice of canals, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_20">[20]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">shareholders in no fear of Panama competition, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_29">[29]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index0">Taj Mahal, tomb of Arjamand, wife of Shah Jahan, and world's most exquisite building, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_168">[168-184]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">cost of, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_173">[173]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">burial-place of Shah Jahan, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_179">[179]</a>;</p>
+<p class="index2">restorations by British government, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_183">[183]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index">Tea, cultivation in Ceylon, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_122">[122]</a>, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_125">[125]</a></p>
+
+<p class="index0">Widowhood, curse of Indian, <a class="indexlink" href="#Page_224">[224]</a></p>
+
+<p>&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="tnote">
+<p class="center"><b>Transcriber's Notes:</b></p>
+
+<p>In the original text, contractions had a space at the word break, e.g.
+"would n't, does n't, I 'm". In this ebook, such spaces have been
+removed.</p>
+
+<p>Blank pages, Illustration pages (and their blank versos) were included
+in the page number sequence but did not have printed page numbers. Page
+numbers have not been inserted for them, except for Page 345. Page 345
+is the Index title page and is referred to in the Table of Contents.</p>
+
+<p>Illustrations have been moved, where necessary, to a suitable paragraph
+break on the preceding page. This may cause some text of the preceding page
+to be displaced. Where such displaced text is referenced by the index, a
+special anchor is placed so that clicking on the link in the index navigates
+directly to the displaced text, rather than to the page number anchor of the
+page the text was originally on.</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 70, added missing period (a stove-polish advertisement.)</p>
+
+<p>Pg. 315, inserted missing period. (growing surprise to the world.)</p>
+
+<p>Index entry "America, interest in Panama....", stated page number was
+"14" which is a blank page. Page number changed to "16" where content
+appears to match.</p>
+
+<p>Index entry "China, America and Chinese trade", stated page numbers were
+"312-314" but "312" is a blank page. Page number "312" changed to "310"
+where content appears to match.</p>
+
+<p>Index entry "France, Ally of Russia", stated page numbers were "2, 96".
+Changed to "296" where content appears to match.</p>
+
+<p>Index entry "Hong Kong, Happy Valley racecourse", stated page numbers
+were "238" and "239", but "239" is a blank page. Page number "239"
+changed to "241" where content appears to match.</p>
+
+<p>Index entry "Japan, homogeneity of people", stated page is "323" but
+content begins on "322". Page number changed to "322".</p>
+
+<p>Index entry "Kandy, Peradeniya tropical garden", last of the page
+numbers was "115" which is an unrelated illustration. The age number
+"315" changed to "117" where content appears to match.</p>
+
+<p>Index entry "Kandy, executive seat of Ceylon's tea industry", last of
+the page numbers is "127" which has no relevant content. Page number
+"127" changed to "121" where content appears to match.</p>
+
+<p>Index entry "Suez canal, Disraeli's purchase of control for Great
+Britain", stated page number was "13" which is an unrelated
+illustration. Page number "13" changed to "15" where content appears to
+match.</p>
+
+<p>Index entry "Suez canal, physical statistics of", stated page number is
+"14" which is a blank page. Page number "14" changed to "16" where
+content appears to match.</p>
+
+<p>Index entry "Suez canal, tariff of", first of stated page numbers is
+"14" which is a blank page. age number "14" changed to "16" where
+content appears to match.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's East of Suez, by Frederic Courtland Penfield
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST OF SUEZ ***
+
+***** This file should be named 27260-h.htm or 27260-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/2/6/27260/
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+
+
+</pre>
+
+</body>
+</html>
diff --git a/27260-h/images/008.jpg b/27260-h/images/008.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..44c8831
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/008.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/013.jpg b/27260-h/images/013.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..625119a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/013.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/025.jpg b/27260-h/images/025.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f267b38
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/025.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/032.jpg b/27260-h/images/032.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2687af6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/032.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/038.jpg b/27260-h/images/038.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f97a414
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/038.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/042.jpg b/27260-h/images/042.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..18d9d67
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/042.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/046.jpg b/27260-h/images/046.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0dcfdff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/046.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/053-big.jpg b/27260-h/images/053-big.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..df2e786
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/053-big.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/053-th.jpg b/27260-h/images/053-th.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1b35d61
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/053-th.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/060.jpg b/27260-h/images/060.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..90cf37f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/060.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/067.jpg b/27260-h/images/067.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..703f061
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/067.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/074.jpg b/27260-h/images/074.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6d61a17
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/074.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/083.jpg b/27260-h/images/083.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..dc9f2f6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/083.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/094.jpg b/27260-h/images/094.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..07150bb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/094.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/099.jpg b/27260-h/images/099.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1e7b552
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/099.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/105.jpg b/27260-h/images/105.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..140d1c6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/105.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/111a.jpg b/27260-h/images/111a.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7620e3b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/111a.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/111b.jpg b/27260-h/images/111b.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1fe2a89
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/111b.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/115.jpg b/27260-h/images/115.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a132bd1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/115.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/119.jpg b/27260-h/images/119.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2d0a9cb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/119.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/124.jpg b/27260-h/images/124.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c57a5ab
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/124.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/129.jpg b/27260-h/images/129.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2c4e174
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/129.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/136.jpg b/27260-h/images/136.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..035e5f0
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/136.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/141.jpg b/27260-h/images/141.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..090843b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/141.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/148.jpg b/27260-h/images/148.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c9bd355
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/148.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/153.jpg b/27260-h/images/153.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..a4c1347
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/153.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/157.jpg b/27260-h/images/157.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..b4030d5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/157.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/162.jpg b/27260-h/images/162.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..64b873d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/162.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/169.jpg b/27260-h/images/169.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4e6f40a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/169.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/175.jpg b/27260-h/images/175.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9a6f25b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/175.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/182.jpg b/27260-h/images/182.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..4f32a84
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/182.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/188.jpg b/27260-h/images/188.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ca271a6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/188.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/191.jpg b/27260-h/images/191.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6a6b114
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/191.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/198.jpg b/27260-h/images/198.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7f6e91c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/198.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/203.jpg b/27260-h/images/203.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8a97720
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/203.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/207.jpg b/27260-h/images/207.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7e4b466
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/207.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/212.jpg b/27260-h/images/212.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9d80ca8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/212.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/215.jpg b/27260-h/images/215.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ceb775a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/215.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/222.jpg b/27260-h/images/222.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eed6b03
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/222.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/229.jpg b/27260-h/images/229.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2f7dbc2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/229.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/233.jpg b/27260-h/images/233.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..30d010c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/233.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/240.jpg b/27260-h/images/240.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..eac2efb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/240.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/247.jpg b/27260-h/images/247.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0095783
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/247.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/254.jpg b/27260-h/images/254.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8b81552
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/254.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/261.jpg b/27260-h/images/261.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ec6cb4e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/261.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/270.jpg b/27260-h/images/270.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..beaa286
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/270.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/275.jpg b/27260-h/images/275.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0da435a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/275.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/279.jpg b/27260-h/images/279.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d375fb3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/279.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/288.jpg b/27260-h/images/288.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..525f85f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/288.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/293.jpg b/27260-h/images/293.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d26beee
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/293.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/300.jpg b/27260-h/images/300.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c02d30d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/300.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/305.jpg b/27260-h/images/305.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3189ec7
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/305.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/311.jpg b/27260-h/images/311.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6ddf3f3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/311.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/319.jpg b/27260-h/images/319.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6cd7a78
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/319.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/328.jpg b/27260-h/images/328.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2fcb3b5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/328.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/337.jpg b/27260-h/images/337.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fe11c4d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/337.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/frontis.jpg b/27260-h/images/frontis.jpg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fa643ec
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/frontis.jpg
diff --git a/27260-h/images/logo.png b/27260-h/images/logo.png
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7534ffc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260-h/images/logo.png
diff --git a/27260.txt b/27260.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2deb63d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,6960 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of East of Suez, by Frederic Courtland Penfield
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: East of Suez
+       Ceylon, India, China and Japan
+
+Author: Frederic Courtland Penfield
+
+Release Date: November 14, 2008 [EBook #27260]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST OF SUEZ ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+EAST OF SUEZ
+
+
+
+
+  PRESENT-DAY EGYPT
+
+  By Frederic Courtland Penfield, Former American Diplomatic
+  Agent and Consul-General to Egypt.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  _Secretariat
+  du
+  Khedive_
+
+  RAS-EL-TEEN PALACE,
+  ALEXANDRIA, 4th November, 1899
+
+  FREDERIC C. PENFIELD, ESQUIRE,
+  Manhattan Club, New York.
+
+
+  My dear Sir:
+
+  I am commanded by H. H. The Khedive to
+  acknowledge the receipt of the copy of your
+  book "Present-Day Egypt," which you have
+  so kindly forwarded for his acceptance.
+
+  I am to say that His Highness has read it
+  with much pleasure and interest, as it is the
+  only book published on Egypt of to-day by
+  an author thoroughly acquainted with the
+  subject through long residence and official
+  position in the country.
+
+  I have the honor to be, Sir,
+  Your obedient servant,
+  (Signed) ALFRED B. BREWSTER,
+  Private Secretary to H. H. the Khedive.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Revised and Enlarged Edition. Fully illustrated.
+  Uniform with "East of Suez." 8vo. 396 pages. $2.50
+
+  The Century Co.,
+  Union Square New York
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: GULF OF MANAR PEARLING BOAT, AND DIVERS RESTING IN
+THE WATER]
+
+
+
+
+  EAST OF SUEZ
+  CEYLON, INDIA, CHINA AND JAPAN
+
+
+  By
+  Frederic Courtland Penfield
+  Author of "Present-Day Egypt," etc.
+
+
+  Illustrated from Drawings and Photographs
+
+
+  "East is East, and West is West, and
+                  never the twain shall meet,
+  Till Earth and Sky stand presently at
+                  God's great Judgment Seat."
+                                        _Kipling._
+
+
+  [Illustration]
+
+
+  NEW YORK
+  THE CENTURY CO.
+  1907
+
+
+
+
+  Copyright, 1906, 1907, by
+  THE CENTURY CO.
+
+  _Published, February, 1907_
+
+
+  THE DE VINNE PRESS
+
+
+
+
+  TO THE MEMORY OF
+  KATHARINE
+
+
+
+
+Introductory
+
+
+If books of travel were not written the stay-at-home millions would know
+little of the strange or interesting sights of this beautiful world of
+ours; and it surely is better to have a vicarious knowledge of what is
+beyond the vision than dwell in ignorance of the ways and places of men
+and women included in the universal human family.
+
+The Great East is a fascinating theme to most readers, and every
+traveler, from Marco Polo to the tourist of the present time, taking the
+trouble to record what he saw, has placed every fireside reader under
+distinct obligation.
+
+So thorough was my mental acquaintance with India through years of
+sympathetic study of Kipling that a leisurely survey of Hind simply
+confirmed my impressions. Other generous writers had as faithfully
+taught what China in reality was, and Mortimer Menpes, Basil Hall
+Chamberlain, and Miss Scidmore had as conscientiously depicted to my
+understanding the ante-war Japan. Grateful am I, as well, to the legion
+of tireless writers attracted to the East by recent strife and conquest,
+who have made Fuji more familiar to average readers than any mountain
+peak in the United States; who have made the biographies of favorite
+geishas known even in our hamlets and mining camps, and whose agreeable
+iteration of scenes on Manila's lunetta compel our Malaysian capital to
+be known as well as Coney Island and Atlantic City--they have so
+graphically portrayed and described interesting features that of them
+nothing remains to be told. But to know Eastern lands and peoples
+without an intermediary is keenly delightful and compensating.
+
+The travel impulse and longing for first-hand knowledge, native with
+most mortals, is yearly finding readier expression. Our grandparents
+earned a renown more than local by crossing the Atlantic to view England
+and the Continent, while our fathers and mothers exploring distant
+Russia and the Nile were accorded marked consideration. The wandering
+habit is as progressive as catching, and what sufficed our ancestors
+satisfies only in minor degree the longing of the present generation for
+roving. Hence the grand tour, the circuit of the earth, is becoming an
+ordinary achievement. And while hundreds of Americans are compassing the
+earth this year, thousands will place the globe under tribute in seasons
+not remote.
+
+For many years to come India and Ceylon will practically be what they
+are to-day, and sluggish China will require much rousing before her
+national characteristics differ from what they are now; but of Japan it
+is different, for, having made up their minds to remodel the empire, the
+sons of Nippon are not doing things by halves, and the old is being
+supplanted by the new with amazing rapidity.
+
+Possibly it is a misfortune to find oneself incapable of preparing a
+volume of travel without inflicting a sermon upon kindly disposed
+persons, but a book of journeyings loaded with gentle preachment must at
+least be a novelty. Travel books imparting no patriotic lesson may well
+be left to authors and readers of older and self-sufficient nations. A
+work appealing on common lines to a New World audience would be worse
+than banal, and a conscientious American writer is compelled to describe
+not alone what he saw, but in clarion notes tell of some things he
+failed of seeing for our country, emerging but now from the formative
+period, and destined to permanently lead the universe in material
+affairs, is entitled to be better known in the East by its manufactures.
+
+Every piece of money expended in travel is but the concrete form of
+somebody's toil, or the equivalent of a marketed product: and
+consequently it is almost unnecessary to remind that industry and thrift
+must precede expenditure, or to assert that toil and travel bear
+inseparable relationship. What the American, zigzagging up and down and
+across that boundless region spoken of as East of Suez, fails to see is
+the product of Uncle Sam's mills, workshops, mines and farms. From the
+moment he passes the Suez Canal to his arrival at Hong Kong or Yokohama,
+the Stars and Stripes are discovered in no harbor nor upon any sea; and
+maybe he sees the emblem of the great republic not once in the transit
+of the Pacific. And the products of our marvelous country are met but
+seldom, if at all, where the American wanders in the East. He is
+rewarded by finding that the Light of Asia is American petroleum, but
+that is about the only Western commodity he is sure of encountering in
+months of travel.
+
+This state of things is grievously wrong, for it should be as easy for
+us to secure trade in the Orient as for any European nation, and
+assuredly easier than for Germany. We have had such years of material
+prosperity and progress as were never known in the history of any
+people, it is true; but every cycle of prosperity has been succeeded by
+lean years, and ever will be. When the inevitable over-production and
+lessened home consumption come, Eastern markets, though supplied at
+moderate profit, will be invaluable. We are building the Panama Canal,
+whose corollary _must_ be a mercantile fleet of our own upon the seas,
+distributing the products of our soil and manufactories throughout the
+world, and Secretary of State Root has made it easy for a better
+understanding and augmented trade with the republics to the south of us.
+But America's real opportunity is in Asia, where dwell more than half
+the people of the earth, for the possibilities of commerce with the rich
+East exceed those of South America tenfold. Uncle Sam merits a goodly
+share of the trade of both these divisions of the globe.
+
+The people of the United States must cut loose from the idea that has
+lost its logic in recent years, that the Pacific Ocean _separates_
+America from the lands and islands of Asia, and look upon it as a body
+of water _connecting_ us with the bountiful East. The old theory was
+good enough for our home-building fathers, but is blighting to a
+generation aspiring to Americanize the globe. The genius of our nation
+should cause our ploughs and harrows to prepare the valley and delta of
+the Nile for tillage; be responsible for the whir of more of our
+agricultural machinery in the fields of India; locate our lathes and
+planers and drilling machines in Eastern shops, in substitution for
+those made in England or Germany; be responsible for American
+locomotives drawing American cars in Manchuria and Korea over rails
+rolled in Pittsburgh, and induce half the inhabitants of southern Asia
+to dress in fabrics woven in the United States, millions of the people
+of Cathay to tread the earth in shoes produced in New England, and all
+swayed to an appreciation of our flour as a substitute for rice--yes,
+make it easy to obtain pure canned foods everywhere in China and Japan,
+even to hear the merry click of the typewriter in Delhi, Bangkok and
+Pekin.
+
+Do we not already lead in foreign trade? We do, I gratefully admit; but
+it is because we sell to less favored peoples our grains and fiber in a
+raw state. Confessedly, these are self-sellers, for not a bushel of
+wheat or ounce of cotton is sold because of any enterprise on our
+part--the buyer must have them, and the initiative of the transaction is
+his.
+
+What economists regard as 'trade' in its most advantageous form, is the
+selling to foreigners of something combining the natural products and
+the handiwork of a nation--this is the trade that America should look
+for in the East, and seek it now. It is not wild prophecy that within
+five years a considerable number of the sovereign people of the country
+controlling its growth will feel that it is carrying international
+comity to the point of philanthropy to export cotton to England and
+Japan to be there fabricated for the wear of every race of Asia, and
+sold in successful competition with American textiles. In the pending
+battle for the world's markets Uncle Sam should win trade by every
+proper means, and not by methods most easily invoked; and let it ever be
+remembered that shortsightedness is plainly distinct from altruism.
+
+
+  FREDERIC C. PENFIELD.
+
+  AUTHORS CLUB, NEW YORK CITY,
+  January 26, 1907.
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+
+
+  CHAPTER                                            PAGE
+
+     I  THE WORLD'S TURNSTILE AT SUEZ                   3
+
+    II  COLOMBO, CEYLON'S COSMOPOLITAN SEA-PORT        30
+
+   III  THE LURE OF THE PEARL                          50
+
+    IV  UPWARD TO THE SHRINE OF BUDDHA                 92
+
+     V  IN CEYLON'S HILL COUNTRY                      108
+
+    VI  BOMBAY AND ITS PARSEE "JEES" AND "BHOYS"      126
+
+   VII  THE VICARIOUS MAHARAJAH OF JEYPORE.           149
+
+  VIII  THE WORLD'S MOST EXQUISITE BUILDING           168
+
+    IX  BENARES, SACRED CITY OF THE HINDUS            185
+
+     X  INDIA'S MODERN CAPITAL                        205
+
+    XI  ISLAND LINKS IN BRITAIN'S CHAIN OF EMPIRE     226
+
+   XII  CANTON, UNIQUE CITY OF CHINA 244
+
+  XIII  MACAO, THE MONTE CARLO OF THE FAR EAST        267
+
+   XIV  THE KAISER'S PLAY FOR CHINESE TRADE           290
+
+    XV  JAPAN'S COMMERCIAL FUTURE                     315
+
+        INDEX                                         345
+
+
+
+
+  LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                            PAGE
+
+  GULF OF MANAR PEARLING BOAT, AND DIVERS RESTING
+  IN THE WATER                                      Frontispiece
+    From drawing by Corwin K. Linson.
+
+  PORT SAID ENTRANCE TO SUEZ CANAL, SHOWING DE
+  LESSEPS'S STATUE                                             8
+    From photograph by Georgilada Kip.
+
+  ITALIAN WARSHIP STEAMING THROUGH CANAL                      13
+
+  CARGO STEAMER IN THE CANAL AT KILOMETER 133                 25
+    From photograph by Georgilada Kip.
+
+  THE JETTY AT COLOMBO                                        32
+
+  HINDU SILVERSMITHS, COLOMBO                                 38
+    From photograph by Skeen & Co.
+
+  A HIGH PRIEST OF BUDDHA 42
+    From photograph by Colombo Apothecaries Co., Ltd.
+
+  REPRESENTATION OF BUDDHA'S TOOTH, COLOMBO MUSEUM            46
+
+  MAP OF THE GULF OF MANAR, "THE SEA ABOUNDING IN PEARLS"     53
+
+  COOLIES CARRYING PEARL OYSTERS FROM THE BOATS TO THE
+  GOVERNMENT "KOTTU"                                          60
+    From drawing by Corwin K. Linson.
+
+  THE LATE RANA OF DHOLPUR IN HIS PEARL REGALIA               67
+    From photograph by Johnston & Hoffmann.
+
+  INDIAN PEARL MERCHANTS READY FOR BUSINESS, MARICHCHIKKADDI  74
+    From drawing by Corwin K. Linson.
+
+  THE LATE MAHARAJAH OF PATIALA IN HIS PEARL REGALIA          83
+    From photograph by Johnston & Hoffmann.
+
+  A LADY OF KANDY                                             94
+    From photograph by Skeen & Co.
+
+  TEMPLE OF THE TOOTH, KANDY                                  99
+    From photograph by Colombo Apothecaries Co., Ltd.
+
+  CREMATION OF A BUDDHIST PRIEST                             105
+    From photograph by Plate & Co.
+
+  TREES IN PERADENIYA GARDEN, KANDY                          111
+    From photographs by Frederic C. Penfield.
+
+  TAMIL COOLIE SETTING OUT TEA PLANTS                        115
+
+  TAMIL GIRL PLUCKING TEA                                    119
+
+  A KANDYAN CHIEFTAIN                                        124
+
+  PARSEE TOWER OF SILENCE, BOMBAY                            129
+
+  A BOMBAY RAILWAY STATION                                   136
+
+  A BOMBAY POLICEMAN                                         141
+
+  HIS HIGHNESS THE MAHARAJAH OF JEYPORE                      148
+
+  A MATCHED PAIR OF BULLOCKS, JEYPORE                        153
+
+  STREET SCENE, JEYPORE, SHOWING PALACE OF THE WINDS         157
+
+  COURT DANCERS AND MUSICIANS, JEYPORE                       162
+
+  THE TAJ MAHAL, AGRA                                        169
+
+  ALABASTER SCREEN ENCLOSING ARJAMAND'S TOMB, TAJ MAHAL      175
+
+  INLAID WORK IN MAUSOLEUM OP ITIMAD-UD-DAULAH, AGRA         182
+
+  SCENE ON THE GANGES, BENARES                               188
+
+  BENARES BURNING GHAT, WITH CORPSES BEING PURIFIED IN
+  THE GANGES                                                 191
+
+  BENARES HOLY' MEN                                          198
+
+  A BRAHMIN PRIEST                                           203
+
+  A CALCUTTA NAUTCH DANCER                                   207
+
+  GENERAL POST-OFFICE, CALCUTTA                              212
+
+  SHIPPING ON THE HOOGHLY, CALCUTTA                          215
+
+  CALCUTTA COOLIES                                           222
+
+  HONG KONG HARBOR                                           229
+
+  HONG KONG'S MOUNTAINSIDE                                   233
+
+  A FORMER "HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR" OF HONG KONG        240
+
+  TEMPLE OF THE FIVE HUNDRED GENII, CANTON                   247
+    From photograph by A-Chan.
+
+  CITY OF BOATS, CANTON, WHERE GENERATIONS ARE BORN
+  AND DIE                                                    254
+
+  EXAMINATION BOOTHS, CANTON                                 261
+    From photograph by A-Chan.
+
+  PRINCIPAL SECTION OF MACAO                                 270
+
+  FRONTIER GATE BETWEEN CHINA PROPER AND THE
+  PORTUGUESE COLONY                                          275
+
+  MONUMENT AND BUST OF CAMOENS, MACAO                        279
+
+  IN A FAN-TAN GAMBLING HOUSE, MACAO                         288
+
+  TYPICAL BUSINESS STREET IN A CHINESE CITY                  293
+    From photograph by A-Chan.
+
+  EXHIBITION OF BODIES OF CHINESE MALEFACTORS WHO
+  HAVE BEEN STRANGLED                                        300
+
+  SIMPLE PUNISHMENT OF A CHINESE MENDICANT                   305
+
+  CHINESE BUDDHIST PRIESTS                                   311
+
+  BRONZE DAIBUTSU AT KAMAKURA, JAPAN                         319
+    From photograph by Frederic C. Penfield.
+
+  A GARDEN VIEW OF THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, TOKYO               328
+    From photograph by Frederic C. Penfield.
+
+  JAPANESE JUNK, OR CARGO BOAT                               337
+
+
+
+
+EAST OF SUEZ
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+THE WORLD'S TURNSTILE AT SUEZ
+
+
+When historical novels and "purpose" books dealing with great industries
+and commodities cease to sell, the vagrant atoms and shadings of history
+ending with the opening of the two world-important canals might be
+employed by writers seeking incidents as entrancing as romances and
+which are capable of being woven into narrative sufficiently interesting
+to compel a host of readers. The person fortunate enough to blaze the
+trail in this literary departure will have a superabundance of material
+at command, if he know where and how to seek it.
+
+The paramount fact-story of all utilitarian works of importance is
+unquestionably that surrounding the great portal connecting Europe with
+Asia. As romances are plants of slow growth in lands of the Eastern
+hemisphere, compared with the New World, the fascinating tale of Suez
+required two or three thousand years for its development, while that of
+Panama had its beginning less than four hundred years ago. In both cases
+the possession of a canal site demanded by commerce brought loss of
+territory and prestige to the government actually owning it. The
+Egyptians were shorn of the privilege of governing Egypt through the
+reckless pledging of credit to raise funds for the completion of the
+waterway connecting Port Said and Suez, and the South American republic
+of Colombia saw a goodly slice of territory pass forever from her rule,
+with the Panama site, when the republic on the isthmus came suddenly
+into being.
+
+Vexatious and humiliating as the incidents must have been to the
+Egyptians and the Colombians, the world at large, broadly considering
+the situations, pretends to see no misfortune in the conversion of
+trifling areas to the control of abler administrators, comparing each
+action to the condemning of a piece of private property to the use of
+the universe. When the canal connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific
+shall be completed, no more waterways uniting oceans will be necessary
+or possible. But, did a weak people possess a site that might be
+utilized by the ebbing and flowing of the globe's shipping, when a canal
+had been made, they would obviously hesitate a long time before
+voluntarily parading its advantages.
+
+The uniting of the Mediterranean and Red seas was considered long before
+the birth of Christ, and many wise men and potentates toyed with the
+project in the hoary ages. The Persian king, Necho, was dissuaded
+sixteen hundred years before the dawn of Christianity from embarking in
+the enterprise, through the warning of his favorite oracle, who insisted
+that the completion of the work would bring a foreign invasion,
+resulting in the loss of canal and country as well. The great Rameses
+was not the only ruler of the country of the Nile who coquetted with the
+project. In 1800 the engineers of Napoleon studied the scheme, but their
+error in estimating the Red Sea to be thirty feet below the
+Mediterranean kept the Corsican from undertaking the cutting of a canal.
+Mehemet Ali, whose energies for improving the welfare of his Egyptian
+people were almost boundless, never yielded to the blandishment of
+engineers scheming to pierce the isthmus; he may have known of the
+prognostication of Necho's oracle.
+
+Greater than any royal actor in the Suez enterprise, however, was
+Ferdinand de Lesseps, the Frenchman whom history persists in calling an
+engineer. By training and occupation he was a diplomatist, probably
+knowing no more of engineering than of astronomy or therapeutics.
+Possessing limitless ambition, he longed to be conspicuously in the
+public gaze, to be great. He excelled as a negotiator, and knew this;
+and it came easy to him to organize and direct. In his day the
+designation "Captain of Industry" had not been devised. In the project
+of canalizing the Suez isthmus--perennial theme of Cairo bazaar and
+coffee-house--he recognized his opportunity, and severed his connection
+with the French Consulate-General in Egypt to promote the alluring
+scheme, under a concession readily procured from Viceroy Said. This was
+in 1856.
+
+Egypt had no debt whatever when Said Pasha signed the document. But when
+the work was completed, in 1869, the government of the ancient land of
+the Pharaohs was fairly tottering under its avalanche of obligations to
+European creditors, for every wile of the plausible De Lesseps had been
+employed to get money from simple Said, and later from Ismail Pasha, who
+succeeded him in the khedivate. For fully a decade the raising of money
+for the project was the momentous work of the rulers of Egypt; but more
+than half the cash borrowed at usurious rates stuck to the hands of the
+money brokers in Europe, let it be known, while the obligation of Said
+or Ismail was in every instance for the full amount.
+
+Incidentally, a condition of the concession was that Egypt need
+subscribe nothing, and as a consideration for the concession it was
+solemnly stipulated that for ninety-nine years--the period for which the
+concession was given--fifteen per cent, of the gross takings of the
+enterprise would be paid to the Egyptian treasury.
+
+[Illustration: PORT SAID ENTRANCE TO SUEZ CANAL, SHOWING DE LESSEP'S
+STATUE]
+
+Learning the borrowing habit from his relations with plausible De
+Lesseps, the magnificent Ismail borrowed in such a wholesale manner, for
+the Egyptian people and himself, that in time both were hopelessly in
+default to stony-hearted European creditors. Egyptian bonds were then
+quoted in London at about half their face value, and Britons held a
+major part of them.
+
+England had originally fought the canal project, opposing it in every
+way open to her power and influence at Continental capitals. The belief
+in time dawning upon the judgment of Britain that the canal would be
+finished and would succeed, her statesmen turned their energies to
+checkmating and minimizing the influence of De Lesseps and his dupe
+Ismail. The screws were consequently put on the Sultan of Turkey--whose
+vassal Ismail was--resulting in that Merry Monarch of the Nile being
+deposed and sent into exile, and the national cash-box at Cairo was at
+the same time turned over to a commission of European
+administrators--and is yet in their keeping.
+
+But the miserable people of Egypt, the burdened fellaheen, resented the
+interference of Christian money-lenders, demanding more than their pound
+of flesh. The Arabi rebellion resulted, when British regiments and
+warships were sent to quell the uprising and restore the authority of
+the Khedive. That was nearly a quarter of a century ago; but since the
+revolution the soldiers and civil servants of England have remained in
+Egypt, and to all intents and purposes the country has become a colony
+of England. The defaulted debts of the canal-building period were
+responsible for these happenings, be it said.
+
+Verily, the fulfilment of Necho's oracle came with terrible force, and
+generations of Nile husbandmen must toil early and late to pay the
+interest on the public debt incurred through Ismail's prodigality. This
+degraded man in his exile persistently maintained that he believed he
+was doing right when borrowing for the canal, for it was to elevate
+Egypt to a position of honor and prominence in the list of nations. And
+it is the irony of fate, surely, that Ismail's personal holding in the
+canal company was sacrificed to the British government for half its
+actual value, on the eve of his dethronement, and that every tittle of
+interest in the enterprise held by the Egyptian government--including
+the right to fifteen per cent, of the receipts--was lost or abrogated.
+Owning not a share of stock in the undertaking, and having no merchant
+shipping to be benefited, Egypt derives no more advantage from the great
+Suez Canal than an imaginary kingdom existing in an Anthony Hope novel.
+
+The canal has prospered beyond the dreams of its author; but this means
+no more to the country through which it runs than the success of the
+canals of Mars. De Lesseps died in a madhouse and practically a pauper,
+while Ismail spent his last years a prisoner in a gilded palace on the
+Bosporus, and was permitted to return to his beloved country only after
+death. These are but some of the tragic side-lights of the great story
+of the Suez Canal.
+
+A few years since there was a movement in France to perpetuate De
+Lesseps's name by officially calling the waterway the Canal de Lesseps.
+But England withheld its approval, while other interests having a right
+to be heard believed that the stigma of culpability over the Panama
+swindles was fastened upon De Lesseps too positively to merit the
+tribute desired by his relatives and friends. As a modified measure,
+however, the canal administration was willing to appropriate a modest
+sum to provide a statue of the once honored man to be placed at the
+Mediterranean entrance of the canal.
+
+There stands to-day on the jetty at Port Said, consequently, a bronze
+effigy of the man for a few years known as "_Le grand Francais_," visage
+directed toward Constantinople (where once he had been potent in
+intrigue), the left hand holding a map of the canal, while the right is
+raised in graceful invitation to the maritime world to enter. This piece
+of sculpture is the only material evidence that such a person as
+Ferdinand de Lesseps ever lived. The legacy to his family was that of a
+man outliving his importance and fair name.
+
+The name Port Said commemorates the viceroy granting the concession,
+while Ismail the Splendid has his name affixed to the midway station on
+the canal, Ismailia, where tourists scramble aboard the train bound for
+Cairo and the Nile. The actual terminus at the Suez end is called Port
+Tewfik, after Ismail's son and successor in the khedivate. This
+convenient mode of perpetuating the names of mighty actors in the Suez
+drama suggests a certain sentimentality, but the present generation
+cares as little for the subject as for a moldy play-bill hanging in a
+dark corner of a club-house.
+
+As an engineering feat the construction of the canal was nothing
+remarkable. Any youth knowing the principles of running lines and
+following the course of least resistance might have planned it. In Cairo
+and Alexandria it is flippantly said that De Lesseps traced with his
+gold-headed walking-stick the course of the canal in the sand, while
+hundreds of thousands of unpaid natives scooped the soil out with their
+hands. The work was completed with dredges and labor-saving machinery,
+as a fact. The enterprise cost practically $100,000,000--a million
+dollars a mile; and half this was employed in greasing the wheels at
+Constantinople and Paris, Probably the work could to-day be duplicated,
+by using machinery similar to that employed on the Chicago Drainage
+Canal, for $25,000,000. The task would be a digging proposition, pure
+and simple.
+
+A cardinal article of faith of the legal status of the canal is its
+absolute internationality. By its constitution no government can employ
+it in war time to the exclusion or disadvantage of another nation. By a
+convention becoming operative in 1888 the canal is exempt from blockade,
+and vessels of all nations, whether armed or not, are forever to be
+allowed to pass through it in peace or time of war.
+
+[Illustration: ITALIAN WARSHIP STEAMING THROUGH CANAL]
+
+Critics of Britain's paramount interest in India and her aspirations in
+the Far East, nevertheless, pretend to see a decided advantage accruing
+from England's control of things Egyptian. They claim that Britain's
+position is immensely strengthened by the presence in Cairo and
+Alexandria, within a few hours' journey of the canal, of a half-dozen
+regiments of redcoats ready for any emergency. Another proof of
+England's interest in the great universal artery of travel is the
+maintaining of guard-ships at either terminus, which incidentally keep
+watchful eyes on the coal-bins of Suez and Port Said, A vessel
+unofficially sunk in an awkward position in the canal might delay for
+weeks the arrival of an unfriendly fleet in Asiatic waters.
+
+The British government and British trade have fattened tremendously from
+the canal. Being the short-cut to England's treasure-house in the East,
+it is more or less equitable that Britain's flag flies over sixty per
+cent, of the canal traffic; and, fully as important, is the tremendous
+increase in value of the shares in the company held by the British
+government. It was in 1875 that Disraeli secured to his countrymen the
+permanent control of the canal through the purchase from embarrassed
+Ismail of that potentate's personal holding in the undertaking. This
+midnight negotiation, conducted over the cable, was Disraeli's most
+material triumph as a statesman. For $20,000,000 he purchased shares
+having now a market value of $135,000,000. A few hours after the
+consummation of this negotiation a group of French bankers, then in
+Cairo, seeking to acquire the shares, were amazed to learn that they had
+been outwitted. A well-posted newspaper correspondent at the French
+capital had informed Britain's ambassador of the purpose of the
+bankers' visit to Egypt--and astute Disraeli did the rest.
+
+This transferred from France to her rival across the channel the right
+to direct the policy of De Lesseps's creation. But French
+susceptibilities have always been considered in matters connected with
+the conduct of the enterprise--it is still "La Compagnie Universelle du
+Canal Maritime de Suez," the tariff is based on French currency, the
+principal office is in Paris, and the official language of the company
+is French.
+
+The world knows the Suez marine highway only in its utilitarian aspect,
+and America's interest therein is that attaching to it as an enterprise
+forerunning Uncle Sam's route at Panama. Before many years have passed
+the two canals will to some extent be rivals. The Suez cutting is
+practically ninety-nine miles in length, and at present 121 feet wide,
+with a depth accommodating craft drawing twenty-six feet and three
+inches. To handle modern battleships and the increasing size of cargo
+steamers, both depth and width are to be increased. Having no sharp
+curvatures, and excavated at a level from sea to sea, ships proceed by
+night assisted by electric lights with the same facility as by day. The
+time consumed in transit is from fourteen to eighteen hours. Not for a
+decade has a sailing vessel used the canal, and the widest craft ever
+traversing the canal was the dry-dock _Dewey_, sent under tow by the
+government from the United States to the Philippines. The tariff is now
+reduced to $1.70 per ton register, and $2 for every passenger. A ship's
+crew pay nothing. The toll for a steamer of average size, like a
+Peninsular and Orient liner, is about $10,000. I first passed the canal
+in a yacht of the New York Yacht Club, for which the tax was $400, and
+the last time I made the transit was in a German-Lloyd mail steamer
+which paid $7,000 for tonnage and passengers.
+
+The canal's value to the commerce of the world is sufficiently proved by
+the saving of distance effected by it, as compared with the route around
+the Cape of Good Hope. By the latter the distance between England and
+Bombay is 10,860 miles, by the canal 4,620 miles, and from New York to
+the leading ports of India the Cape route is about 11,500 miles, while
+by the canal the journey is shortened to 7,900 miles. How rapidly the
+traffic attracted by the economy in distance thus effected has
+developed, is best illustrated by the following statement, taken
+quinquennially from the company's returns:
+
+  Year  Steamers  Net Tonnage  Receipts in Francs
+
+  1871      765      761,467       7,595,385
+
+  1876    1,457    2,069,771      27,631,455
+
+  1881    2,727    4,136,779      47,193,880
+
+  1886    3,100    5,767,655      54,771,075
+
+  1891    4,206    8,699,020      83,421,500
+
+  1896    3,407    8,594,307      79,652,175
+
+  1901    3,699   10,823,840     100,386,397
+
+  1906    3,780   11,750,000     103,700,000
+
+The Suez company pays enormously, and more than half the current
+earnings go to the possessors of the several grades of bonds and
+shares. Great Britain is the preponderating user of the canal, with
+Germany a poor second. Holland, due to proprietorship of Dutch India, is
+third in the list, and the nation of De Lesseps is fourth. The United
+States stands near the foot of the roll of patrons, being only
+represented by an occasional warship, transport going to or coming from
+the Philippines, or a touring yacht. It is a pathetic fact that our
+country, paramount producer of the world, has not been represented for
+nearly a decade by the Stars and Stripes over a commercial craft in the
+Suez canal. Cargoes go or come between American ports and those of the
+Orient, of course, but they are borne in British bottoms or those having
+register in other foreign nations. Fifteen or sixteen years ago England
+was represented in Suez statistics by seventy-five per cent. of the
+total traffic; but her proportion has decreased until it is now under
+sixty per cent. Kaiser William making a systematic fight for new markets
+in China and throughout Australasia, the statistics of Germany in canal
+traffic are slowly advancing.
+
+At present, with the Suez enterprise in operation thirty-eight years,
+the average number of ships using the waterway is approximately ten each
+day. This is one vessel every two hours and thirty-five minutes during
+the twenty-four hours--meaning an eastbound craft every five hours and
+ten minutes, and a westbound every five hours and ten minutes.
+
+The idea of wedding the Atlantic and the Pacific must have been original
+with the first observant and intelligent person viewing the two oceans
+from the hills of the Central-American isthmus. Presumably he was a
+Spanish adventurer, and the time practically four hundred years ago. A
+century before the landing on American soil of the Pilgrim Fathers,
+explorers were informing Charles V of Spain of the opportunity supplied
+by nature to connect the waters of the two oceans. In 1550, one Galvao,
+a Portuguese navigator, wrote a book to prove the feasibility of an
+artificial connection between the Atlantic and the Pacific; and in 1780
+a scientific commission from Spain studied the three Central-American
+routes--Panama, San Blas, and Nicaragua. These are simple facts to be
+pondered over by busy people who may possibly be in doubt as to whether
+the "father" of the isthmian enterprise was De Lesseps, Theodore
+Roosevelt, or Admiral Walker.
+
+But it required a knowledge of practical geography to learn that from
+Colon to Panama by sea is eight thousand miles, instead of forty-seven
+across country--and it took a dauntless American President to demand
+that his government construct a national water route across the isthmus
+at Panama, and to point the way to that end; and this was done against
+potent opposition to any canal, and expressed preference of powerful
+statesmen for the unfeasible Nicaraguan project.
+
+It may be profitable for enthusiasts jumping at the conclusion that the
+American canal will pay from its opening, to study the returns of the
+Suez enterprise, the first full year of whose operation (1870) showed
+gross takings of only $1,031,365 from tolls levied upon 486 vessels.
+Speaking generally, a shipper sends his cargo by way of Suez only when
+3,000 miles at least of ocean steaming may be saved--this is the
+approximate economy effected by the great turnstile between West and
+East, counting time, fuel, wages and other expenses. It may be accepted
+as a concrete fact that the employment of any canal by commerce must
+ever depend upon economic considerations.
+
+Already acknowledging our commercial predominance, Europeans are not
+blind to the real purpose of the Panama Canal. But it should be borne in
+mind that whenever it is an open choice between the canal toll and the
+equivalent of time at sea, the Briton will be slow to decide in favor of
+contributing to the resources of a nation rising in brief time to
+commercial premiership; and Frenchmen, economists by nature, will take a
+similar view, as will Germans, and shippers of other nations. Expressed
+in the fewest words, the employment of the Panama route will be governed
+exclusively by self-interest, computed from the standpoint of material
+economy; sentimentality will bring not one ship to Uncle Sam as a
+patron--unless it be an American ship.
+
+Suez will always be favored by European shipmasters determining routes
+for cargoes in which Panama and Suez present advantages practically
+equal; probably the expense of a few hundred miles additional travel
+would not cause them to break from the old route, by which there is no
+risk of accident or delay from canal-locks. A considerable percentage of
+the oversea carrying trade controlled by British bottoms is
+geographically independent of canals, and will always be. For example,
+the bulk of traffic to and from the west coast of South America--the
+rich nitrate trade of Iquique and Valparaiso--will not ordinarily be
+altered by the Panama Canal. The economy of distance from the latter
+port to England and the Continent by the canal being only about 1,500
+miles, this traffic, except under unusual circumstances, will continue
+as long as it goes in British vessels to round the extremity of South
+America.
+
+Singapore will be the Asiatic port differentiating the attracting power
+of the Panama and Suez canals, speaking from the basis of Atlantic and
+Gulf ports as points of origin or destination. Cargoes for places west
+of the 105th degree of east longitude will logically be sent through the
+Mediterranean and the Suez Canal. But the area east of the Singapore
+degree of longitude is teeming with opportunity for Panama cargoes. The
+isthmian short cut to Oceanica and Asia, comprising the coastal section
+of China's vast empire, enterprising Japan, the East Indies, Australia,
+New Zealand, and our own Philippine archipelago, is the world's most
+potential area. The awakened Orient can use American products to
+practically limitless extent. One third of the trade of these lands
+would make America great as a world-provider, and could be secured if we
+embarked seriously in an effort to obtain it. Students of economics have
+never admitted the logic of America's sending cotton to England to be
+there converted into fabrics clothing half the people of the East.
+
+Let the reader, content in belief that our manufactures have an
+extensive use in the outer world, because America heads the list of
+exporting nations, investigate the subject, and his reward will be to
+learn that _we export only a trifle more than six per cent. of what we
+manufacture_. Let him also study the statistics of our commerce with
+South America, natural products and manufactures of every sort--they are
+replete with astonishing facts. To discover that our exports to the
+southern continent do not equal $2 per capita of South America's
+population will surprise the investigator, doubtless; and that the
+volume of trade is overwhelmingly with England and Germany will likewise
+be disconcerting. South America has 40,000,000 people; but Mexico's
+13,500,000 inhabitants buy nearly as much from Uncle Sam as the South
+Americans. We now sell Canadians products averaging $30 per capita
+annually.
+
+The reason for the startling disparity in the statistics of trade
+intercourse with our adjoining neighbors, Canada and Mexico, and oversea
+South America, is obviously the lack of transportation facilities under
+the American flag; and the adage that "trade follows the flag" has
+earned more significance than attaches to a mere figure of speech. We
+pay South America yearly, let it be known, about $120,000,000 for
+coffee, wool, hides and other raw products; and the major share of this
+money is expended in Europe for the necessities and luxuries of life.
+This is inequitable, to say the least, and should be remedied. Uncle Sam
+must look to the Orient, as well, and seek to make China his best
+customer. Every nation in Europe whose foreign trade is worth
+considering exploits foreign countries in the thorough manner of a great
+commercial house--getting business by the most productive, not the
+easiest, methods. In frequent magazine articles I have insisted that the
+isthmian canal, "destined to make the United States the trade arbiter of
+the world," could never be expected to "pay" directly. The artificial
+waterway is to cost a vast deal of money; with the payments to the
+French company and to the republic of Panama, added to the sum necessary
+to the completion of the work. Uncle Sam's expenditure cannot be less
+than $225,000,000! It will probably be more. A private incorporation
+embarked in the enterprise would hold that the investment was entitled
+to five per cent. interest, say, and in time be funded. The money of the
+nation, embarked in a project distinctly commercial, merits a reasonable
+rate of income or benefit--four per cent. certainly. To operate the
+canal with the expensive up-keep essential to a region of torrential
+rains, cannot be less than $4,000,000 annually; if the Chagres River
+refuses to be confined in bounds, the cost will be greater. The items
+of yearly expense figured here total $13,000,000--a sum to be regarded
+as the very minimum of the cost of maintaining and operating the canal.
+
+[Illustration: CARGO STEAMER IN THE CANAL AT KILOMETER 133]
+
+Optimistic students of ocean transportation statistics say the canal
+will draw 10,000,000 tons of shipping a year; others, conservative of
+opinion, say half this volume. Taking the mean of these estimates, I
+hazard the statement that six years after the canal is opened, the
+tonnage will be 7,500,000. The Suez Canal was operated more than thirty
+years before its business aggregated 10,000,000 tons; and to attract
+this volume, several reductions in tolls were necessary. The American
+government cannot properly levy a heavier tribute at Panama than is
+demanded at Suez, for the fact is, our canal will not be as essential as
+that uniting Europe and the East. A like tariff would produce for Uncle
+Sam, on the hypothesis of a business of 7,500,000 tons, only $12,750,000
+a year; a higher tariff would probably produce less. And here is an
+unpalatable truthlet--Panama's earnings from passengers can never be
+considerable, compared with that constant ebbing and flowing of humanity
+between the home countries of Europe and their dependencies in Asia,
+Africa and Australasia. As a highway of travel, Panama can never have a
+quarter of the income from passengers as that yearly accruing to the
+Suez company. It may be unpopular to here record the opinion that the
+_direct_ increment of the American canal cannot for many years yield
+what in a commercial enterprise could be called a profit.
+
+The way to compel the canal to pay _indirectly_ is to make it incidental
+to the development of a mighty commercial marine, that will carry
+American products to present foreign markets, and to new markets, under
+the Stars and Stripes. This accomplished, the United States will
+indisputably be the trade arbiter of the universe. With operations under
+way on the isthmus, is not the time propitious for popular discussion
+throughout the nation, and in official Washington, how best to _create_
+the commerce that will make the Panama Canal a success from its opening?
+
+We have populated the country, developed resources of field, forest and
+mine, and devised matchless ways of translating natural products into
+finished articles appealing to all mankind. Now, let us cease sending
+these products of soil and workshop to market in British ships; let us
+forward them in vessels constructed in American shipyards, thereby
+making the transaction independently American. Already have we produced
+ocean carriers equal to the best; while American war-ships, native from
+keel to topmast truck, are the envy of the world.
+
+Not for a decade has a commercial vessel under the American flag passed
+the Suez Canal, I have stated. But the time was when Uncle Sam's ensign
+was the emblem oftenest seen in foreign harbors.
+
+In but one department of natural growth is the United States
+backward--shipping, in its broad and commercial acceptance. To promote
+it should now be the plan of both political parties.
+
+Our canal can never pay until we enter as ship-owners into competition
+with Europe's trading nations, and these possess a material interest in
+the Suez undertaking, be it remembered. The commercial fleet at present
+under the American flag could not pay a tenth of Panama's operating
+expenses. When we seriously embark upon the work of creating a great
+merchant marine, we are going to rouse spirited opposition. Englishmen,
+Germans, and Frenchmen will not like it; and Europeans cannot be
+expected to take any interest in the welfare of our national canal, and
+all may object to fattening the treasury of a country that is their
+trade competitor. These facts, insignificant as they may seem, prove in
+reality the need for supplying hundreds of ocean carriers under the same
+flag as that flying over the canal zone.
+
+By the time the canal is opened, the United States will have 100,000,000
+inhabitants; and agriculture, assisted by ordinary methods and by
+irrigation, will have developed to an extent making our commodities
+dictators of supply and price. By that time, sea transportation cannot
+be regarded as a competitor of transcontinental railway systems that
+have done much toward making the country what it is: water
+transportation will be found a necessary adjunct to rail facilities,
+relieving the roads of a fraction of their through traffic.
+
+To restore the Stars and Stripes to the seas will require years of
+earnest effort, much debating in the halls of Congress, a drastic
+liberalizing of marine laws, and much prodding of human energies by
+editorial writers.
+
+Suez shareholders, when asked by Americans if they fear any rivalry from
+Panama, reply: "None at all; unless"--and here is the kernel of the
+matter--"your countrypeople find a way of creating a mercantile marine
+coincidently with the building of the canal."
+
+With unlimited financial resources to promote the most gigantic of
+modern enterprises, with inexhaustible raw and cultivated products, with
+labor to produce any conceivable commodity, the humiliating fact
+confronted the people of the United States a few months since of seeing
+its official delegates to the Pan-American Congress at Rio de Janeiro
+set forth in a steamship flying the red flag of Great Britain.
+
+The most remarkable accomplishment in the material history of the world
+is that the United States secured her commercial supremacy without
+possessing a merchant marine. It is one of the marvels of modern times,
+surely.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+COLOMBO, CEYLON'S COSMOPOLITAN SEAPORT
+
+
+A modern man of business might believe that Bishop Heber of Calcutta
+wove into irresistible verse a tremendous advertisement for Ceylon real
+estate, but repelled investors by a sweeping castigation of mankind,
+when he wrote:
+
+    What though the spicy breezes
+     Blow soft o'er Ceylon's isle;
+    Though every prospect pleases,
+     And only man is vile.
+
+In tens of thousands of Christian churches the praises of Ceylon are
+thus sung every Sunday, and will be as long as the inhabitants of
+America and Great Britain speak the English language. Some of the
+divine's statements, to be acceptable as impartial testimony, require
+modification; for the natural charms of the island are not so sweepingly
+perfect, and there man is far above the Asian average. Hymnists, it may
+be inferred, write with some of the license of poets. No part of
+England's great realm, nevertheless, is more beautiful than the crown
+colony of Ceylon in the Indian Ocean.
+
+[Illustration: THE JETTY AT COLOMBO]
+
+An Eastbound traveler during the long run from Aden hears much of the
+incomparable island of palms, pearls, and elephants; and every waggish
+shipmate haunts smoke room and ladies' saloon waiting for the
+opportunity to point out the lighthouse on Minecoy Island in the
+Maldives as "the Light of Asia." Four hundred miles further and your
+good ship approaches Colombo. The great breakwater, whose first stone
+was laid by Albert Edward, is penetrated at last, and the polyglot and
+universal harbor of call unfolds like a fan.
+
+There's music within; the breezes bring proof of this. Surely, it is
+Bishop Heber's trite stanzas repeated in unison by the forgiving
+populace--they are sung everywhere, and why not in Ceylon's great
+seaport? The ship churns forward to her moorings. It is singing; there
+is no mistaking it. But the air! Does it deal with "spicy breezes," and
+"pleasing prospects?" No; it is a sort of chant. Listen again. Ah, it is
+Lottie Collins's masterpiece, not Bishop Heber's: it is "Ta-ra-ra boom
+de-ay." And the chanters are dozens of Britain's loyal subjects, youths
+naked and black, lying in wait to induce passengers to shower coins into
+the sea in recompense of a display of diving from catamarans constructed
+from trunks of palm-trees.
+
+If asked what place in all the world can in a day show the greatest
+medley of humanity, I should pronounce in favor of the landing-jetty at
+Colombo. Scurrying ashore from ocean steamers in launches, in
+jolly-boats pulled by oars fashioned like huge mustard-spoons, or in
+outrigger canoes that glide rapidly, are representatives of every nation
+of the West, of China, of Japan--in fact, of every division of God's
+footstool having place in the list of nations. Being the great port of
+call and coaling station linking Occident, Orient and Australasia, a
+traveler naturally wants to inspect the place and stretch his legs on
+shore, while his ship is stocking with fuel to carry it to Aden,
+Singapore or to an antipodean port. Tiffin or dinner on _terra firma_ is
+likewise coveted by the traveler with appetite jaded by weeks of
+sea-cooking. Ceylon's capital teems consequently with people hungry for
+a _table d'hote_ meal, a 'rickshaw ride, and the indiscriminate purchase
+of rubbishing cats-eye and sapphire jewelry.
+
+The conglomeration of people on the promenade floor of the jetty,
+watching voyagers come and go, would tend to make a student of
+anthropology lose his mind. Every variety of man of Ceylon, practically
+of every creed and caste of India, even of all Asia, is there, and a
+liberal admixture of Europeans as well.
+
+Leaning over the hand-rail all humanity appears equal--for sight-seeing
+purposes, certainly. There are gentle Cingalese men with hair twisted
+into a knot on the back of the head and large shell comb on the crown,
+Tamil coolies and Hindus in profusion, of course. There are fat Parsees
+from Bombay, and Buddhist priests and monks in yellow togas, each armed
+with palm-leaf fan and umbrella, precisely as Gautama Buddha left his
+father's mansion to sow the religion worshiped by nearly a third of the
+people of the earth. A group of lascars, on leave from a P. & O. liner,
+look depreciatingly on nautical brethren from colder climes. There are
+Malays, as well, obsequious Moormen merchants, and haughty Afghans from
+beyond the "Roof of the World," as scholars call the Himalayas. Here and
+there are broad-chested Arabs from Aden way and the Persian Gulf, taking
+chances on the announcement of a pearl "fishery" by the
+government--divers, who may secure a gem of price in an hour's work, or
+may return home empty-handed. Their neighbors on the platform are
+seafarers coming with the embassy from the Sultan of the Maldive
+Islands, bringing to the governor of Ceylon the annual tribute
+sanctioned by custom, and the renewed assurances of loyalty to Edward
+VII. Close by them, and taking a profound interest in a group of
+European ladies stepping from a launch below, are three black girls in
+the garb of Catholic Sisters of Charity, whose chains and crucifixes are
+of unusual size.
+
+With a conscious air of proprietorship of the British Empire, khaki-clad
+Tommy Atkins comes down the pier, attended by the inevitable fox
+terrier. Following close on his heels is a towering man of ebon
+complexion, with three stripes of ashes and the wafer of humility on his
+forehead. He is barefooted, and his solitary garment is a piece of
+cotton with which he has girded his loins; he is abundantly lacquered
+with cocoanut oil, to protect him from contracting a cold from the too
+rigorous "spicy breezes" of Lanka's isle. A stranger would say he was a
+penitent wayfarer of God, not worth the smallest coin of the East. In
+one hand he carries an overfilled valise, and in the other a sunshade of
+immaculate white: the initiated recognize him to be a chettie, easily
+worth lakhs of rupees, who is presumably embarking for Rangoon, and
+there to purchase a cargo of rice.
+
+Hark! There is commotion and much noise at the jetty entrance. Can it be
+an alarm of fire, or have the customs officials at the gates apprehended
+a flagrant smuggler? Oh, no; it is merely Great Britain arriving on the
+scene in the person of a smart-looking tea-planter who has honked down
+in his motor-car to see a comrade off on the mail steamer; incidentally,
+some of the noise proceeds from a group of sailors on leave from a
+battleship who are wrangling with 'rickshaw men as to proper payment for
+having been hauled about the city on a sight-seeing tour. And so it goes
+in Colombo. Each day presents a picture not to be adequately described
+by a less gifted writer than Kipling.
+
+[Illustration: HINDU SILVERSMITHS. COLOMBO]
+
+Colombo is the westermost town of that great division of Asia wherein
+subject races--black, brown and yellow--haul the white man in
+jinrickshaws. No institution of the East stamps the superiority of the
+European more than this menial office of the native. Probably every
+American when brought face to face with the matter says manfully that he
+will never descend to employing a fellow creature to run between shafts
+like an animal, that he (visitor from a land where rights of mankind
+are equal and constitutional) may be spared from footweariness under a
+tropic sun. It is a noble impulse--but weak man is easily tempted.
+Hence, you decide to try the 'rickshaw just once.
+
+The sensation is found to be agreeable, surprisingly so. Your fellow
+mortal, you perceive, is dripping with perspiration under the awful heat
+of the sun, while beneath the hood of the vehicle you are cool and
+comfortable. Then you yield to the savage defects of your moral
+make-up--and decide never to walk another yard in the East, not when a
+'rickshaw is to be had. The habit comes as easily as drinking, or
+anything that your conscience and bringing-up tell you is not quite
+right, although enjoyable.
+
+The 'rickshaw in Colombo is a splendid convenience. The runner's rights
+are as loyally protected as those of his employer, and he readily covers
+six miles an hour at a swinging gait. If his vehicle has rubber tires
+and ball-bearings the labor is not severe. The man might have a harder
+vocation with smaller pay.
+
+Colombo has hotels that would satisfy in Europe or America--one, the
+Grand Oriental, is spoken of as the most comfortable hostelry between
+Cairo and San Francisco. To refer to it by its full name stamps the
+newcomer and novice at traveling--throughout half the world it is known
+familiarly as the "G. O. H." Two miles from Colombo, gloriously situated
+on the sea-front, the Galle Face Hotel is fashionable, cool and quiet,
+but lacking in the characteristic of being an international
+casino--which assuredly the "G. O. H." is. Tiffin or dinner is an
+interesting function at a Colombo hotel, for one never knows who or what
+his table mates may be. In the East every man who travels is assumed to
+be somebody. Hence you suspect your _vis-a-vis_ at dinner to be the
+governor of a colony somewhere in the immeasurable Orient, or a new
+commander for Saigon, or perhaps a Frankfort banker going to China to
+conclude the terms of a new loan. If your neighbor at table is specially
+reserved, and gives his orders like one accustomed to being obeyed, you
+fancy him to be an accomplished diplomatist, very likely having in his
+pocket the draft of a treaty affecting half the people of the Far East.
+No one seems ever to suspect his confreres of being mere business men.
+And the ladies--well, they may be duchesses or dressmakers no longer
+content with traveling "on the Continong"; nobody cares which. If they
+are very well gowned, probably they are the latter.
+
+An army of waiters clad in spotless and snowy uniforms with red facings
+and shining buttons set before you dishes you never heard of. Some are
+satisfying in the extreme; but these waiters, can they be described as
+in uniform? True, their garments are alike, but the head-gear is of
+infinite variety. According to caste or nationality each proclaims
+himself. But look once more; there _is_ uniformity, for all are
+barefooted.
+
+[Illustration: A HIGH PRIEST OF BUDDHA]
+
+Wonderful fellows these Easterns. The native hotel band, led by a
+wandering European, plays Sousa's marches and "Hiawatha," yes, even
+"Tammany," with accuracy; and the cooks prepare dishes with French
+names, make _vin blanc_ and _Hollandaise_ sauces worthy of Delmonico or
+Ritz, and this without permitting the palate to guide them. If they
+tasted food concocted for Christians a million kinds of perdition might
+be their punishment. Music may be mechanical, as it is claimed to be,
+but not cooking. How do the gastronomic experts of pagan Asia acquire
+their skill?
+
+Considering that the Ceylon capital is only four hundred miles north of
+the equator, the heat is never extremely oppressive. One's energies
+there, nevertheless, are not what they are farther north or at higher
+elevations. Kandy, the ancient up-country capital, is cooler, and Nuwara
+Eliya, in the mountains, is actually cold at night. When white people do
+anything in Colombo--work, attend church, play bridge, or billiards--a
+native keeps them moderately comfortable with swinging _punkahs_. Some
+hotels and residential bungalows have discarded punkahs for mechanical
+fans; but the complaint is that the electricity costs more than the
+_punkah-wallah_--the fan-boy of the East. "Ah, yes; but your wallah
+frequently falls asleep at his work," you remark to the resident. "True,
+and your electricity frequently fails us," is the reply.
+
+Pear-shaped Ceylon, separated from India by only fifty miles of water,
+is three fourths the size of Ireland, and its population 3,600,000.
+Seventy-five per cent. of the people are Cingalese, and their language
+a dialect harking back to Sanskrit. The Cingalese are mostly Buddhists,
+with a sprinkling of Roman Catholics, the latter religion having been
+left in the land by its one-time Portuguese rulers. The Tamils,
+numbering a million, are not native to the island, like the Cingalese,
+but have come from southern India as laborers on coffee and tea estates;
+they are chiefly Hindus, although thousands have been converted to the
+Christian faith. The Mohammedan Moormen, living on the coast,
+approximate a quarter of a million in number. Europeans of all
+nationalities, not including the British troops, total only 6,500, a
+percentage of the island's human family to be computed in fractions.
+
+The Cingalese seen chiefly in the towns wear their long hair arranged
+like a woman's, and around their heads a large, semicircular comb of
+shell, as has been said. The comb has nothing to do with religion or
+caste--contrary to what a visitor is usually told; it merely announces
+the wearer to be not of the coolie class, who carry sacks of rice and
+cases of merchandise on their heads. Half the people of Ceylon wear no
+head-gear, and not two per cent. know what it is to wear shoes.
+
+[Illustration: REPRESENTATION OF BUDDHA'S TOOTH, COLOMBO MUSEUM]
+
+Colombo's population is about 160,000. The capital is a handsome city,
+with communities on seafront, on the shores of a sinuous lake, and
+ranging inland for miles through cinnamon gardens and groves of
+cocoanut-palms. Queen's House, where the governor resides, is a
+rambling pile. The general post-office is the best building in the
+capital, and the museum and Prince's club, close by, are entitled to
+notice. The hard red-soil roads of the city extend for miles into the
+palm forests, and are equal to any in the world. Government officials
+and European commercial people live in handsome suburban bungalows
+smothered amid superb foliage trees and flowering shrubs and vines.
+
+What were called the maritime provinces of Ceylon were ruled by the
+Dutch until 1796. But in that year England supplanted Holland, and in
+1815 she secured control of the entire island by overthrowing the
+Kandyan kingdom, for a long time confining European invasion to the
+island's seaboard. Ceylon costs Britain little worry and practically no
+expenditure. Strategically the island is valueless, save the benefit
+accruing to England in controlling if need be the enormous coal heaps of
+Colombo, and the maintenance there of a graving dock capable of handling
+the biggest battleship. Four hundred miles of government railways earn a
+tremendous profit, and moderate import and export duties on commodities
+keep the colonial cash-box well lined.
+
+As in other Asiatic countries, the staple food is rice. Strange to say,
+Ceylon produces of this only half what is demanded by the people. Hence,
+it is necessary to import eight million bushels from India and Malay
+regions, costing approximately $5,000,000. On the other hand, the island
+sends to Europe and America annually $21,000,000 worth of tea, besides
+considerable quantities of rubber, cocoanut-oil, cacao, and plumbago.
+Ceylon's crude rubber commands the highest price, and is a crop growing
+by leaps and bounds. It is estimated that eight hundred million
+cocoanuts are grown yearly in Ceylon. An item in the list of exports is
+elephants. These go to India as beasts of burden and pleasure, and the
+government collects two hundred rupees for every elephant sent from the
+island.
+
+There is a possibility of two great events any springtime in Ceylon, and
+the prospect of either occurring is a theme of endless small talk in the
+offices and bungalow homes of everybody connected with "Government." One
+is the elephant kraal, planned for the edification of His Excellency the
+Governor and a few officials and visitors of distinction, who, from
+cages in trees at elevated points insuring safety, look down upon the
+driving in of converging herds of elephants. When an earth-strewn
+flooring of bamboo gives way and the monarchs of the jungle are cast
+into a stockaded pit, the kraal is complete. Then, ordinarily, the
+Ceylon treasury undergoes drafts for forage, until an authorized
+functionary negotiates the sale of the animals to maharajahs and lesser
+worthies up in India.
+
+A kraal occurs every four or five years, or when a British royalty
+happens in Ceylon. Each governor is entitled by custom to the semi-royal
+honor at least once during his incumbency. The kraal is an enterprise
+usually paying for itself, unless there be a glut in the elephant
+market. The last kraal failed dismally, nevertheless, but for a very
+different reason. The drive had been so successful that the stockade was
+full to overflowing with leviathan beasts trumpeting their displeasure
+and wrath. While the dicker for their sale in India was proceeding, they
+became boisterously unruly, and, breaking down their prison of palm-tree
+trunks, scampered away to forest and jungle, without so much as saying
+"thank you" for weeks of gorging on rations paid for out of the public
+cash-box. And this was the reason why the kraal arranged for last year
+was abandoned, after hundreds of natives had been busy for weeks in
+"driving in" from every up-country district--to jeopardize good money
+was deemed not in keeping with the principles of good finance by certain
+material Britons responsible for the insular exchequer.
+
+The popular event, coming as often as twice every three years, is the
+pearl-fishery. It interests everybody not living in mountain fastnesses,
+and appeals irresistibly to the hearts of the proletariat. Tricking
+elephants into captivity may be the sport of grandees, but the chance to
+gamble over the contents of the humble oyster of the Eastern seas
+invites participation from the meekest plucker of tea-buds on Ceylon's
+hill-slopes to the lowliest coolie in Colombo. Verily, the pearl-fishery
+is the sensational event of that land sung of by Bishop Heber.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+THE LURE OF THE PEARL
+
+
+The bed of the Gulf of Manar, the arm of the Indian Ocean that separates
+Ceylon from India, has given the world more pearls than all other
+fisheries combined, for it has been prolific as a pearling-ground for
+thousands of years. Pearling in the gulf was an occupation hoary with
+age before the dawn of Christianity, for history tells us that Mardis,
+admiral of Alexander the Great, when returning from a voyage having to
+do with the Indian invasion, traversed the strait separating Ceylon from
+the continent, and was informed of the importance of the pearl-banks
+over which his fleet was passing. The great sailor was specially
+interested in the manner of drilling the holes in pearls for stringing,
+which was probably the same that it is to-day.
+
+In the exuberant phraseology of the Orient, Ceylon is "the pearl-drop on
+India's brow," and the Gulf of Manar is "the sea abounding in pearls"
+and "the sea of gain." Ceylon appeals irresistibly to any possessor of
+the wandering foot, for it is an island paradise. It is well governed,
+of course, for its administration is that of a seasoned colony of
+Edward VII's realm, and the guidance of austere, dignified Britain
+countenances nothing like gambling in any of its lands--oh, dear, no!
+State lotteries are pretty well relegated in these times to Latin
+countries, everybody knows.
+
+Yet the world's most gigantic gamble, pregnantly fruitful with chance in
+all variations and shadings, is unquestionably the Ceylon pearl-fishery;
+compared with it, any state lottery pales to insignificance. From the
+taking of the first oyster to the draining of the last vatful of
+"matter," every step is attended by fickle fortune; and never is the
+interest of the people of Portugal or of Mexico keener over a drawing of
+a lottery, the tickets of which may have been sold at the very
+thresholds of the cathedrals, than is that of the natives of Ceylon and
+southern India over the daily results of a Manar fishery.
+
+Each bivalve is a lottery ticket; it may contain a gem worthy of place
+in a monarch's crown, or be a seed pearl with a mercantile value of only
+a few rupees. Perhaps one oyster in a hundred contains a pearl, and not
+more than one pearl in a hundred, be it known, has a value of
+importance. Nature furnishes the sea, pearling-banks, oysters, and all
+therein contained; the Ceylon administration conducts the undertaking,
+and for its trouble and trifling outlay exacts a "rake-off" of two
+thirds of all that may be won from the deep. And mere man, the brown or
+black diver, receives for his daring and enterprise one oyster in every
+three that he brings from the ocean's depths--and his earnings must be
+shared with boat-owner, sailors, attendants, and assistants almost
+without number.
+
+For size of "rake-off," there is no game of hazard in the world offering
+a parallel. The Ceylon government used to exact three out of every four
+oysters brought in, the current tribute of two out of three having
+become operative only a few years since.
+
+It should be known that the pearl-bearing oyster of the Indian Ocean is
+only remotely related to the edible variety of America and Europe. It is
+the _Margaritifera vulgaris_, claimed to belong to the animal kingdom,
+and not to the fish family, and is never eaten. The eminent marine
+biologist in the service of the Ceylon government, Professor Hornell, F.
+L. S., who intimately knows the habits of the pearl-oyster of the East,
+advances two interesting if not startling premises. One is that the
+pearl is produced as a consequence of the presence of dead bodies of a
+diminutive parasitical tapeworm which commonly affects the Ceylon
+bivalve. The living tapeworm does not induce pearl formation. The
+popular belief has been that the pearl was formed by secretions of nacre
+deposited upon a grain of sand or other foreign particle drawn within
+the oyster through its contact with the sea's bottom. The other Hornell
+assertion is that the oyster goeth and cometh at its pleasure; that it
+is mobile and competent to travel miles in a few weeks.
+
+[Illustration: MAP OF THE GULF OF MANAR, "THE SEA ABOUNDING IN PEARLS"]
+
+Scientists have long been aware that the pearl shell-fish possesses
+locomotive powers, which it uses when in quest of food or protection,
+and to escape impure localities. During the Dutch occupation of Ceylon,
+for example, there was a period of several years when the oysters'
+boycott of the Manar banks was virtually unanimous.
+
+It is an accepted fact that pearls are excretions of superimposed
+concentric _laminae_ of a peculiarly fine and dense substance, consisting
+in major part of carbonate of lime. Linnaeus, believing in the
+possibility of producing pearls by artifice, suggested the collecting of
+mussels, piercing holes in their shells to produce a wound, and bedding
+them for five or six years to give pearls time to grow. The Swedish
+government succeeded in producing pearls of a sort by this process; but
+as they were of trifling value, the experiments were discontinued.
+
+Cunning Chinese and Japanese have sought of late years to assist or
+improve on nature's pearl-making methods by inserting tiny shot or
+grains of sand between the mantle and the shell, which in time become
+coated with nacre. Not long since there was a movement in Japan to
+embark in pearl production upon a basis wholly commercial, and its
+promoters discussed it as they might a project for supplying a city with
+vegetables. One of the claims of those exploiting the venture was that
+they could keep pace with fashion's changes by supplying pearls of any
+shape, pear, oval, or spherical. This has been accomplished in other
+countries, and European and American dealers have had years of
+acquaintance with the "assisted" pearl, a showy and inexpensive
+counterfeit, but one attaining to no position in the realm of true gems.
+The distinction between fine pearls and these intrusive nacre-coated
+baubles, alluringly advertised as "synthetic pearls," has been
+demonstrated by more than one devotee of science.
+
+There are definite rules for determining when a Ceylon fishery will be
+held, for twice a year the banks are systematically examined by the
+marine biologist, and estimates made of the number of oysters present on
+each bank. Whenever their age and size appear to warrant the step, a
+sample catch of twenty thousand oysters is made by divers employed by
+the government, and a valuation is formed of the pearls they produce. If
+found to average ten or twelve rupees[1] to a thousand oysters, the
+government is advised to proclaim a fishery. Advertisements are then
+published throughout the East, especially in vernacular papers reaching
+the Persian Gulf and the two coasts of southern India, at the instance
+of the colonial secretary's office at Colombo. These detail the
+valuation of the sample pearls, area of beds to be fished, and the
+estimated number of oysters likely to be available upon each. The
+advertisements are printed in Cingalese, Tamil, and English. As rapidly
+as information can spread, it becomes known from Karachi to Rangoon, and
+along the chain of seaports of the Malay states, that a fishery is to
+be held. Divers, gem-buyers, speculators, money-lenders, petty
+merchants, and persons of devious occupations, make speedy arrangements
+for attending. Indian and Ceylon coolies flock by the thousand to the
+coast of the Northern province, longing to play even humble roles in the
+great game of chance. The "tindals" and divers provide boats and all
+essential gear for the work afloat; while ashore the government supplies
+buildings and various forms of labor for dealing with the curious
+industry.
+
+    [Footnote 1: The rupee of India and Ceylon is equal to 32 cents
+    U. S. A lakh is 100,000.]
+
+It is during the calm period of the northeast monsoon,--February, March
+and April,--when the sea is flat and the sky is bright and unflecked,
+that the fishery is carried on. The line of banks--they are "paars," in
+the languages of Ceylon--cover an extensive submarine plateau off the
+island's northwest coast, from ancient Hippuros southward to Negombo.
+This is of flat-surface rock, irregularly carpeted with coarse sand, and
+dotted with colonies of millions of oysters. Dead coral and other
+products of the sea are scattered everywhere on this plateau, and it is
+a theory that these surface interruptions prevent overcrowding of the
+oysters, and consequently assist in the bivalve's reaching the
+pearl-producing stage. It is claimed that a crowded paar contributes to
+a stunting of growth, bringing disease and premature death to the
+oyster, and consequently no pearls of account.
+
+The estimate of the experts upon which it was decided to announce a
+fishery last year was that there were on the Southwest Cheval paar
+3,500,000 oysters which might be gathered, on the Mideast Cheval paar
+13,750,000 oysters, on the North and South Moderagam 25,750,000, and on
+the South Cheval 40,220,000.
+
+The announcement of this total of 83,000,000 bivalves produced an
+electrical effect, and an unprecedented attendance, for it was equal to
+announcing a lottery with that many tickets, and who knows how few
+prizes!
+
+The student seeking to determine the eighth wonder of the world should
+not overlook the city of Marichchikkaddi. Stories of towns rising
+overnight wherever gold is found, or diamonds discovered, or oil struck,
+have become common to the point of triteness. Tales of the uprising of
+Klondike and South African cities, once amazing, fade to paltriness in
+the opinion of one who has seen the teeming city of Marichchikkaddi. In
+a sense it is a capital, yet it is found in no geography; no railway
+connects it with the world, yet a dozen languages are spoken in its
+streets. Marichchikkaddi's population numbers no young children, no
+persons too aged to toil, and the four or five hundred women sojourners
+merit the right of being present through serving as water-carriers to
+camp and fishing fleet.
+
+[Illustration: COOLIES CARRYING PEARL OYSTERS FROM THE BOATS TO THE
+"KOTTU," OR GOVERNMENT STOCKADE]
+
+This place with double-mouthful name, almost defying pronunciation, is
+the pearl metropolis of the universe. Probably there is not a stocked
+jewel-case that does not contain gems that have been filtered through
+this unique city by the sea. For a dozen reasons it is a wonderful town,
+and the foremost of these is that it is the only city of size that comes
+and goes like the tide's ebbing and flowing.
+
+When a fishery is proclaimed, Marichchikkaddi is only a name--a
+sand-drifted waste lying between the jungle of the hinterland and the
+ocean. Yet nine months before forty thousand people dwelt here under
+shelter of roofs, and here the struggle for gain had been prosecuted
+with an earnestness that would have borne golden fruit in any city in
+the Western world. There, where lies the skeleton of a jackal
+half-buried in sand, an Indian banker had his habitat and office only a
+few months before, with a lakh of rupees stacked in a conspicuous place
+as glittering earnest of his ability to pay well for anything remarkable
+in the way of a pearl. And beyond, where occurs the rift in the sand,
+stood the shanty in which venturesome divers whiled away time and money
+in trying to pitch rings upon the ends of walking-sticks, as do farmers'
+boys at New England county fairs.
+
+With the license permitting the calling of a pile of buildings formed of
+stucco a "White City," this metropolis might with propriety be named the
+"City of Brown," or, better, the "Cadjan City." For inaccessibility, it
+is in a class by itself.
+
+Colombo is facetiously spoken of by Englishmen as the Clapham Junction
+of the East, for the reason that one can there change to a steamer
+carrying him virtually to any place on the globe.
+
+But it is simpler for a white man to get to Melbourne, or Penang, or New
+York, from Colombo, than to obtain passage to Marichchikkaddi, only a
+hundred and fifteen miles up the coast. If he can wait long enough,
+passage may be found, of course; but otherwise all the official and
+editorial persuasion of Colombo--and the subsidized influence of the
+head porter of the "G. O. H.," availeth nothing. Now and then he may
+hear of a speculative Parsee's dhow that may be going to Manar for a
+cargo of shell-cased lottery tickets, or of a native-owned launch that
+will carry a limited number of passengers at an unlimited fare. A
+fast-sailing outrigger canoe may always be chartered. Another
+opportunity is to travel two days by post-cart to a village one never
+heard of, transferring there to a bullock hackery that may take him
+through jungle roads to the cadjan metropolis--provided he is able to
+give instructions in Tamil, or a college-bred coolie can be found who
+knows English. Still another way is to take the semi-weekly steamer from
+Colombo to Tuticorin, in southern India, then zigzag about the continent
+of Asia until he makes Paumben. Then it is a matter of only a few days
+when there will be a boat crossing to the pearl-camp. This is the surest
+way of getting to Marichchikkaddi; but it is like making the journey
+from New York to Boston by way of Bermuda.
+
+Ceylon's substitute for virtually everything elsewhere used in the
+construction of buildings is the cadjan: it is at once board, clapboard,
+shingle, and lath. Cadjans are plaited from the leaf of the cocoanut- or
+date-palm, and are usually five or six feet long and about ten inches
+wide; the center rib of the leaf imparts reasonable rigidity and
+strength. Half the shelters for man and beast throughout the island are
+formed of cadjans, costing nothing but the making, and giving protection
+from the sun and a fair amount of security from the elements. The frame
+of a house is made of stakes planted in the ground, with rafters and
+beams resting in crotches conveniently left by the wood-cutter. This
+slender frame is covered with cadjans, arranged systematically, and sewn
+together with cocoanut-leaf strands or tender rattans. Not a nail is
+used, and cadjan flaps that may be raised or lowered from within the
+building take the place of glazed windows. A dwelling of this character,
+carpeted with palm-mats, and flanked with verandas, brings a flowing
+measure of comfort to the dweller in the tropics; but the gales of the
+annual southwest monsoon play havoc with cadjan roofs and walls.
+
+It being known that a fishery will bring together at least forty
+thousand souls, a small army of coolies hastens to Marichchikkaddi a few
+weeks prior to the announced date for opening the fishery, to prepare
+the buildings necessary to house all and sundry, and to erect bungalows
+for the British functionaries having the enterprise in charge. Public
+buildings almost pretentious in size and design rise from the earth in a
+few days, including a residence for the governor of Ceylon, who is
+expected to grace the fishery by a visit; one for the government agent
+of the province in which the interesting industry is carried on; and
+another for the delegate of the Colonial Office. There rise,
+mushroom-like, as well, a court-house, treasury, hospital, prison,
+telegraph-office and post-office, and a fair example of that blessing of
+the East known as a rest-house, each reflecting surprising good taste,
+and being adequate to its purpose, and presumably completed at a cost
+well within the appropriation. Jerry-builders and grafters have yet to
+be discovered in Ceylon.
+
+Marichchikkaddi parades structures dedicated neither to religion nor
+dissipation. But the bazaar-like alleys branching from the thoroughfares
+of the Cadjan City purvey many things not obtrusively obvious to the
+British official. Whatever his faith, the disciple of the pearl may
+solitarily prostrate himself beneath a convenient palm-tree, with face
+turned toward Mecca, or on the sea-front indulge the devotions stamping
+him a Hindu of merit.
+
+In an administrative sense the important building is the
+"Kachcherie"--mayor's office and superintendent's headquarters in one;
+but the structure of material interest is the "kottu," wherein every
+sackful of oysters taken from the boats is counted and apportioned
+between the government and the divers. It is a parallelogram enclosure
+of two or three acres in area, fenced with bamboo palings, and roofed
+here and there to protect the coolies from the sun. For convenience, one
+end is as near the sea as prudence will admit; and the other, the
+official end, where accountants and armed guards are in command, is not
+far from the governmental offices. A system perfected by years of
+experience makes thieving within the kottu virtually impossible, and the
+clerks who record the count of oysters, and issue them upon official
+order, might safely conduct a bankers' clearinghouse. On occasions they
+handle without error more than three million oysters in a day.
+
+A quarter of a mile from the official section of the city is the great
+human warren and business region, where black men and brown--Hindus,
+Mohammedans, Buddhists, and the East's flotsam of religions--dwell and
+traffic in peaceful communion. A broad thoroughfare, starting from the
+edge of the plateau overlooking the sea and extending inland until the
+settlement yields to the open country, is the "Main street"; and here,
+for ten or twelve weeks, is one of Asia's busiest marts. This part of
+Marichchikkaddi is planned with careful regard for sanitary needs and
+hygiene. Streets cross at right angles, and at every corner stands a
+lamp-post rudely made from jungle wood, from which suspends a lantern
+ingeniously fashioned from an American petroleum tin. Sites on the
+principal streets are leased for the period of the fishery to persons
+proving their purposes to be legitimate. For a good corner lot perhaps
+twenty feet square the government receives as much as a thousand rupees;
+and a few hours after the lease is signed up goes a cadjan
+structure--and a day later pearls worth a king's ransom may there be
+dealt in with an absence of concern astounding to a visitor.
+
+Can these Easterners, squatting on mats like fakirs in open-front
+stalls, judge the merits of a pearl? Yes, decidedly. In the twinkling of
+an eye one of them estimates the worth of a gem with a precision that
+would take a Bond Street dealer hours to determine. The Indian or
+Cingalese capitalist who goes with his cash to Marichchikkaddi to buy
+pearls is not given to taking chances; usually he has learned by long
+experience every "point" that a pearl can possess, knows whether it be
+precisely spherical, has a good "skin," and a luster appealing to
+connoisseurs. A metal colander or simple scale enables him to know to
+the fraction of a grain the weight of a pearl, and experience and the
+trader's instinct tell him everything further that may possibly be known
+of a gem. It would be as profitless to assume to instruct an Egyptian
+desert sheikh upon the merits of a horse as to try to contribute
+information to the pearl-dealer of the East.
+
+The calm period of the northeast monsoon is gentleness itself by the
+middle of February, and the Gulf of Manar is seldom more than rippled by
+its zephyrs. The fishery begins then. For weeks the divers have been
+arriving by craft of every conceivable type and rig. They are the
+aristocrats of the camp, and as they roam bazaars and streets or
+promenade the sea-front they are admired by coolies and peons as
+bull-fighters would be in Spain.
+
+[Illustration: THE LATE RANA OF DHOLPUR IN HIS PEARL REGALIA
+
+This Indian prince is said to have owned pearls valued at seven and a
+half millions of dollars, the accumulation, perhaps, of his ancestors
+during several centuries]
+
+Sturdy fellows they are, lithe of limb and broad of chest. Each brings a
+tangle of pots and kettles, bags and bales, but wears nothing throughout
+the fishery save a loin-cloth and now and then a turban denoting
+nationality or caste. There were forty-five hundred of them in 1905, and
+those from the Madras Presidency were the backbone of the enterprise.
+Nearly half the divers were registered from Kilakari, and hundreds came
+from the tip end of India. The men from Tuticorin were of the Parawa
+caste, and those hailing from Paumben were Moormen. The only Ceylon city
+contributing divers was Jaffna, whose men were of the fisher caste, said
+to be descendants of Arabs who settled sixty years ago at Jaffna. The
+divers coming the greatest distance were the negroes and Arabs from Aden
+and the Persian Gulf, most of whom landed at Colombo from trading
+steamers, and made their way by small boat or bullock hackery to the
+Cadjan City. These fellows have few equals as divers, but the
+administrative officers of the camp always fear that they will come into
+conflict with the police or launch a war in the name of Mohammed against
+the Hindus or Cingalese. Consequently, only a limited number are allowed
+to take part in the fishery.
+
+An amusing incident was furnished last season by the arrival of a diver
+of some renown in India, who had participated profitably in several
+fisheries. Accompanied by his "manduck," the fellow had crossed from
+Paumben as a deck passenger on a British India steamer. When the vessel
+was anchored, the diver summoned a rowboat to take himself and traps
+ashore. Wearing nothing but loin-cloth and turban, the man descended the
+side-steps an example of physical perfection, and so thoroughly smeared
+with cocoanut butter that he shone like a stove-polish advertisement.
+The boat grounding on the shelving bottom a hundred feet from shore,
+this precious Indian, who was to pass a good share of the ensuing ten
+weeks in the water, even at the bottom of the sea, deliberately seated
+himself astride the shoulders of his manduck, and was borne to dry land
+with the care of one whose religion might forbid contact with water. He
+carried beneath one arm throughout the trip from the small boat a
+gingham umbrella, and under the other an Indian railway guide.
+
+There are neither wharves nor landing-stages at Marichchikkaddi. Even
+His Excellency the Governor must lay aside his dignity in going from his
+boat to the shore. The horde of people working about the pearling fleet,
+amphibious by nature, have little need for those accommodations and
+necessities which the commercial world call "landing facilities."
+
+The world over, gambling and speculation are joined in many ways to
+superstition; and the Eastern diver is superstitious to the hour of his
+death. At Marichchikkaddi he devotedly resorts to the mystic ceremony of
+the shark-charmer, whose exorcism for generations has been an
+indispensable preliminary to the opening of a fishery. The
+shark-charmer's power is believed to be hereditary. If one of them can
+be enlisted on a diver's boat, success is assured to all connected with
+the craft. The common form of fortune-tempting nowadays is for a diver
+to break a cocoanut on his sinking-weight just before embarking. If it
+be a clean and perfect break, success is assured; if irregular and
+jagged, only ordinary luck may be anticipated; and if the shell be
+broken in without separating into halves, it spells disaster, and the
+alarmed fisher probably refuses to go with the boat.
+
+Last year's fleet was the largest ever participating in a Ceylon
+fishery, three hundred and twenty boats being enrolled. The largest
+boats came from Tuticorin, and carried thirty-four divers each. The
+smallest boat had a complement of seven divers. Each diver was
+faithfully attended by a manduck, who ran his tackle and watched over
+his interests with jealous care both in and out of the water. Besides
+the manducks, every boat had numerous sailors, food- and water-servers,
+and a riffraff of hangers-on. It was estimated that divers and manducks
+aggregated nine thousand souls. A system of apportionment gives every
+man in a boat an interest in the take, the divers generally retaining
+two thirds of the bivalves granted them by the government rule
+controlling the fishery. The Kilakari divers observe a time-honored
+custom of giving to their home mosque the proceeds of one plunge each
+day.
+
+Nature obligingly assists the workers on the banks by supplying a gentle
+off-shore breeze at daybreak, which sends the fleet to the fishing
+ground, six or eight miles from the shore. By two o'clock in the
+afternoon a gun from a government vessel directs the boats to set sail
+for the return. By this hour the breeze is accommodatingly from the sea,
+and the fleet runs home with flowing sheets. Navigation, it will be
+seen, plays a very subordinate part in Marichchikkaddi's marine
+enterprise.
+
+[Illustration: INDIAN PEARL MERCHANTS READY FOR BUSINESS]
+
+With the exception of the divers from the Malabar coast, who plunge head
+foremost from a spring-board, the men go into the water in an upright
+position, and are hurried in their journey to the bottom by a stone
+weighing from forty to fifty pounds. Each diver's attendant has charge
+of two ropes slung over a railing above the side of the boat: one
+suspends the diving-stone, and the other a wide-mouthed basket of
+network. The nude diver, already in the sea, places the basket on the
+stone and inserts one foot in a loop attached to the stone. He draws a
+long breath, closes his nostrils with the fingers of one hand, raises
+his body as high as possible above water, to give force to his descent,
+and, loosening the rope supporting the weight, is carried quickly to the
+bottom. An Arab diver closes the nostrils with a tortoise-shell clip,
+and occasionally a diver is seen whose ears are stopped with
+oil-saturated cotton. The manduck hoists the weight from the bottom and
+adjusts it for the next descent. Meanwhile, the diver, working face
+downward, is filling the basket with oysters with speed. When the basket
+is filled or breath exhausted, the diver signals, and is drawn up as
+rapidly as possible by the rope attached to the basket, and a specially
+agile diver facilitates the ascent by climbing hand over hand on the
+line When a man has been in the water half an hour, and made perhaps
+seven or eight descents, he clambers aboard the boat for a rest and a
+sunbath, and in a few minutes is taking part in the interminable chatter
+of the Orient.
+
+A diver coming up with basket filled wears a face of benign contentment;
+but when the oysters are few and far between, as they are oftentimes,
+and the man has prolonged his stay below to the limit of his air supply,
+his head is out of water not many seconds before he is volubly
+denouncing the official control forcing him to work on a "paar" where
+little but sand exists, and his confreres on the boat hurl savage
+invective at any government functionary within earshot.
+
+The powerful Eastern sun illumines the bottom sufficiently for a diver
+to plan his operations before going down, and nine days out of ten the
+overhead sun renders the sea sufficiently transparent to guide a boat's
+crew to promising anchorages. Pearling economists insist that dredging
+by machinery or the use of diving-suits can never compete with the
+simple and inexpensive method in vogue on the Manar banks. At
+Marichchikkaddi one hears frequent discussion of the time a diver may
+stay under water, and many improbable accounts of what has been done are
+told a visitor. An average Tamil or Moorman stays down not longer than
+forty-five seconds, while the broad-chested Arab thinks nothing of
+being under water from sixty to eighty seconds.
+
+Depth has much to do with the time, and it is admitted that divers do
+not suffer unduly from the trying nature of their calling except when
+forced to work in unusually deep water. Seven or eight fathoms--about
+the average on the Ceylon banks--produces no injurious effect, but nine
+fathoms tell on all but men of sturdy build. Occasionally a declivity
+perhaps ten fathoms below the surface has to be fished, and this demands
+the service of picked men, divers possessing the highest vitality.
+Several divers collapse every season through toiling at unusual depths,
+and two or three pay the penalty of death. Most divers, however, live to
+as full a span as men pursuing other humble callings.
+
+When a fishery is at its height, the scene on the banks is one of
+extreme animation, and a picture full of strangeness to New World eyes.
+Each craft is a floating hive of competitive noise and activity, and the
+center of a cordon of disappearing and reappearing seal-like heads, with
+baskets splashing in the water or being hauled by excited hands. In the
+distance floats the majestic barque _Rengasamy Puravey_, an old-timer,
+with stately spars, a quarter-deck, and painted port-holes that might
+cause a landsman to believe her a war-ship. For half the year the barque
+is the home of the government's marine biologist, and his office and
+laboratory, wherein scientific investigation and experimentation are in
+constant progress, are in houses built on the quarter-deck. Small
+steamers, having an official cut, move here and there among the fishing
+boats, doing patrol duty and carrying instructions when necessary from
+the _Rengasamy Puravey_.
+
+"Would you like to go down in a diving-costume from a boat alongside the
+barque?" asks the biologist; "it's perfectly safe, and I have a dress
+that will fit you. Frequently I go to the bottom to study the curious
+growths there, and last season the colonial secretary did the thing two
+or three times."
+
+With a readiness of speech rivaling gunfire in promptness I nipped in
+the bud the preparations for carrying out the proffered courtesy,
+explaining that I was glad to accept a vicarious description of things
+at the ocean's bottom.
+
+The dingy fleet blossoms into a cloud of canvas, with every boat headed
+for Marichchikkaddi, the instant the "cease work" gun is fired. The
+scene suggests a regatta on a gigantic scale, and from a distance the
+leaning lug and lateen sails of the East give the idea of craft
+traveling at terrific speed. It is a regatta, a free-for-all,
+devil-take-the-hindmost affair. The prizes are choice berths on the
+beach as near as possible to the kottu, and the coolies who must carry
+the sacks of oysters see to it that the "tindal" and his sailors make no
+retarding error.
+
+The camp had been peaceful and somnolent while the boats were out; but
+the word that the fleet was coming in had roused every laborer, every
+petty dealer, speculator, and harpy to nervous activity. Everybody goes
+to the sea-front to witness the beaching of the boats and to watch the
+unloading. An hour probably elapses between the coming of the leader of
+the fleet and the arrival of the slowest boat. During this period the
+important functionary is the beach-master, who shouts his commands to
+boats seeking to crowd into positions not rightly theirs. When a boat is
+securely drawn upon the strand, there is no waste of time in getting the
+cargo started for the government storehouse. Muscular porters,
+glistening in their perspiring nudeness, go in single file between boat
+and kottu like ants executing a transportation feat. In a very few
+minutes the oysters are being counted by nimble-handed coolies.
+Important gamblers in oysters, men with sharp eyes and speculative
+instincts, have only to note the number of sacks delivered from one or
+two boats--and secure a hint from an obliging diver as to whether the
+bivalves are "thin" or "thick"--to arrive at a safe hypothesis of what
+the day's take has been, and also whether the oysters promise to be
+fairly pearliferous. The opinions of two or three of these experts make
+a basis for starting the prices at the auction in the evening, and these
+"sharps" are seldom wrong in their estimate of what would be a safe
+offer for a thousand chances in the great lottery of Asia.
+
+The count in the kottu is soon completed, and each boat's catch is
+divided into three piles, when an official selects two for the
+government, and the third is so expeditiously removed that a quarter of
+an hour later the share of the divers is being huckstered throughout the
+camp to small speculators.
+
+Upon each craft throughout the day has been a native watchman of
+supposed honesty, in the government's employ, whose duty has been to see
+that no oysters were surreptitiously opened on the banks or during the
+run home. Suspicion of the extraction of pearls on the part of any
+member of the crew leads to the police being informed, and an arrest
+follows. A favorite way of hiding pearls is to tie the gems in a rag
+attached to the anchor that is thrown overboard when the boat lands.
+Another is to fasten a packet to a piece of rigging adroitly run to the
+masthead, there to remain until opportunity permits the dishonest
+schemer to remove it unobserved.
+
+On their way to their sleeping quarters it is interesting to observe
+divers stopping at boutiques and tea saloons for refreshments, paying
+their score with oysters, extremely acceptable to the shopkeeper itching
+to test his luck. In a small way, oysters pass current in the Cadjan
+City as the equivalent of coins. Probably the variations in value lead
+to fluctuations in exchange, but these are so keenly understood that the
+quotations are apparently adjusted automatically, like exchange between
+nations.
+
+The sale is held in the building where the camp magistrate all the
+afternoon has been dispensing justice in breaches of Marichchikkaddi's
+morals--simple assaults, thieving, and other petty misdemeanors usual
+to police courts. Punctually at sunset the auction begins. If the
+universe offers a stranger gathering for which commerce is responsible,
+it would be difficult to give it location. The gentle government agent
+sits on the platform, and in front of the rostrum is the splendidly
+appareled chief mudiliyar, to interpret between auctioneer and buyers.
+The bidders-to-be number half a hundred, and their eager faces are
+directed toward the august official of the government, each probably
+praying secretly to his god that undue competition be not inspired to
+the extent of excluding bargains. In the throng are chetties. Moor
+merchants, and local hawkers, hoping to get a few thousand bivalves at a
+price assuring a profit when peddled through the coastwise villages.
+
+"Do these men represent actual capital!" you ask the agent. "They do,
+indeed," is the reply, "and collectively they are backed by cash in hand
+and satisfactory credits in Ceylon banks of at least a hundred lakhs of
+rupees." Forced as you are to accept the statement, you inwardly confess
+that they don't look it, for $3,200,000 is a goodly credit anywhere.
+
+In the fading light of day the agent announces that approximately two
+million oysters are to be sold, and he invites offers for them by the
+thousand--the highest bidder to take as many as he chooses, the
+quotation to be effective and apply to others until it is raised by some
+one fearing there will not be oysters enough to satisfy the demands of
+everybody. It is the principle of supply and demand reduced to
+simplicity. The competition to fix the price of the first lot consumes
+perhaps a minute. The initial bid was thirty rupees; this was elevated
+to thirty-two, and so on until thirty-six was the maximum that could be
+induced from the motley assemblage. With his pencil the agent taps the
+table, and the mudiliyar says something in Hindustani meaning "sold."
+The buyer was an Arab from Bombay, operating for a syndicate of rich
+Indians taking a flier in lottery tickets. In a manner almost, lordly he
+announces that he will take four hundred thousand oysters. Then a sale
+of two thousand follows at an advanced price to a nondescript said to
+have come all the way from Mecca; a towering Sikh from the Punjab
+secures twenty thousand at a reduced rate, and so on. In ten or twelve
+minutes the day's product is disposed of to greedy buyers for the sum of
+62,134 good and lawful rupees. A clerk records names of buyers with
+expedition, glancing now and then at a document proving their credit,
+and in a few minutes issues the requisitions upon the kottu for the
+actual oysters that will be honored in the early morning.
+
+The primitive process by which the pearls are extracted from the oysters
+is tedious, offensive to the senses, and of a character much too
+disagreeable to be associated with the jewel symbolizing purity. A few
+million oysters are shipped to southern India, and some go to Jaffna and
+Colombo; but the preponderating bulk is dealt with in the private
+kottus in the outskirts of the camp belonging to the men who crowd the
+auction room. To open fresh from the sea and scrutinize every part of
+the oyster would be too slow a method to be applied to the business of
+pearl-getting. The native who obtains a few dozen seeks shelter under
+the first mustard-tree, and with dull-edged knife, dissects each bivalve
+with a thoroughness permitting nothing to escape his eye.
+
+The burning sun, bringing putrefaction and decay to the oyster, is the
+operator's agency for securing what pearls his purchase may contain. For
+a week or ten days the oysters are stacked in his private kottu, and the
+process of disintegration is facilitated by swarms of flies and millions
+of maggots. When the tropical sun can do no more, the contents of the
+shells--putrid, filthy, and overpoweringly odoriferous--are gathered in
+troughs and other receptacles to be put through a process of cleansing
+by washing with water frequently drawn away. The residue, carefully
+preserved, is picked over when dry by experts, working under the
+watchfulness of owner or his deputy--and in this manner the pearls of my
+lady's dainty necklace and the engagement ring are wrested from nature.
+
+[Illustration: THE LATE MAHARAJAH OF PATIALA IN HIS PEARL REGALIA]
+
+Sometimes an impatient speculator is seen with his coolies on the beach
+carefully washing vatfuls of "matter," perhaps employing a dugout canoe
+as a washing trough. Wherever the work is done the stench is almost
+overpowering, and the odors defy neutralization. The wonder is that some
+dread disease of the Orient does not make a clean sweep of the city's
+population. The medical officers claim that the malodorous fumes are not
+dangerous, and experience has taught these officials to locate the
+compounds, wherein millions of oysters are to decompose, in positions
+where the trade winds waft the smells seaward or inland, without greatly
+affecting the camp's health. The British official whose olfactory organ
+survives a season at the pearl camp deserves from his home government at
+least the honor of knighthood.
+
+Interesting as Marichchikkaddi is to the person making a study of the
+conduct of unusual industries and the government of Eastern people, the
+medical officer looms important as the functionary shouldering a greater
+responsibility than any other officer of the camp. To draw forty
+thousand people from tropical lands, grouping them on a sand plain only
+a few hundred miles above the equator, is an undertaking pregnant with
+danger, when considered from the standpoint of hygiene. Strange to say,
+Marichchikkaddi's health is always satisfactory; but tons of
+disinfectants have to be used. Malarial fever is ever present, but is of
+a mild type. The outdoor dispensary does a rushing business, but only
+seventy-five cases were sufficiently serious last season to be sent to
+hospital, and only ten of these were fatal. The divers are prone to
+pneumonia and pleurisy, and these diseases carried off five. The deaths
+out of hospital totaled twenty-two.
+
+In the hospital I saw a man with grizzled beard whose escape from death
+bordered upon the marvelous. His head had been jammed four days before
+between colliding boats, cracking his skull to the extent of letting the
+brain protrude. He was rushed to the hospital to die, but had no
+intention of passing to another world, the doctors learned. Sitting
+upright on his cot-bed, the poor fellow said to me with an earnestness
+almost compelling tears: "Help me to get out of this place, please. I
+want to be with my boat, for there is no better diver than I am, and I
+can earn a hundred rupees a day as easily as any man in
+Marichchikkaddi."
+
+As an illustration of the white man's supremacy, in dealing with black
+and brown peoples, Marichchikkaddi probably has no equal. Here, in an
+isolated spot on the coast of Ceylon, hours from anywhere by sea, and
+shut off from the large towns of the island by jungle and forest wherein
+elephants, leopards, and other wild animals roam, twelve or fifteen
+Britishers rule, with an authority never challenged, more than forty
+thousand adventurous Asiatics--men whose vocation is largely based on
+their daring, and whose competing religions and castes possess the germ
+of fanaticism that might be roused to bloodshed. The white man's control
+is supported by the presence of two hundred policemen, it is true, but
+these are natives. The keynote of this exposition of a multitude ruled
+by a handful of Europeans is the absolute fairness of their control, of
+course. Were justice non-existent, it would be inviting disaster for
+the white official to apprehend a wrong-doer, place him on trial, and
+personally administer with lash or birch the corporal punishment to be
+witnessed any morning in front of the camp lockup.
+
+And what might happen if the divers, through their ringleaders, objected
+to surrendering to the Ceylon government the demanded "rake-off" of two
+thirds the oysters rescued from the sea by their efforts, in the event
+of these courageous fellows being assured that all the law in the world
+on the subject says that all the sea and all therein contained, beyond
+the distance of three nautical miles from shore, belongs to the
+universe! But the Manar diver knows naught of the three-mile law,
+presumably.
+
+Does the fishery pay? Tremendously, so far as facts upon which to base
+an answer are obtainable. The government treasury is sometimes
+enormously expanded as a result of the enterprise. In 1905, the most
+prosperous of all Manar fisheries, the government sold its fifty million
+oysters for two and one half million rupees, and at least $600,000 of
+this was profit. Years ago, it is true, there were several fisheries
+producing for the treasury nothing but deficits. Nobody ever knows what
+reward visits the purchasers of oysters, for it is their habit to spread
+the report of non-success and disappointment. But the buyers and
+speculators come each year in larger numbers, with augmented credits,
+and they pay in competition with their kind a larger price for the
+oysters. The conclusion is, therefore, that they find the business
+profitable.
+
+Even rumors of luck and profit would bring more speculators and rising
+prices at the auction sales, manifestly. Reports of fortunate strikes at
+Marichchikkaddi may more frequently be heard in India than in Ceylon,
+let it be said; and it is the gilded grandees of Hind--princes,
+maharajahs and rajahs--rather than the queens of Western society, who
+become possessors of the trove of Manar.
+
+No Colombo merchant or magnate, or man or woman of the official set, is
+superior to tempting fortune by buying a few thousand oysters freshly
+landed from Marichchikkaddi. And the interminable question of caste,
+banning many things to Cingalese and Tamil, inhibits not the right to
+gamble upon the contents of a sackful of bivalves. If the fishery be
+successful, all Ceylon teems with stories of lucky finds, and
+habitations ranging from the roadside hut to the aristocratic bungalow
+in the Cinnamon Gardens are pointed to as having been gained by a
+productive deal in oysters. A favorite tale is that of the poor
+horse-tender, who, buying a few cents' worth of oysters, found the
+record pearl of the year; another is of the 'rickshawman suspected of
+having money in the bank as a result of a lucky find on the seafront of
+Colombo of three or four oysters dropped from a discharging boat--in a
+shaded alley between buildings he forced the bivalves to disgorge a
+pearl worth hundreds of pounds sterling. Most stories of this character
+are as untrue as the reports of soubrettes and telephone boys winning
+fortunes in Wall Street.
+
+Did I try my luck? Of course I did. Who could resist the temptation? I
+purchased two great sackfuls of oysters, a thousand in number, which
+were brought off to the government tug _Active_ by salaaming peons from
+the government agent's office. At five o'clock the tug was ready to
+start Colomboward the instant the "despatches" I was to deliver came on
+board. At last the precious package, with a parade of red tape and
+impressive wax seals, was handed over the side. It may have contained
+something as priceless as a last year's directory; I never knew. It was
+my deep-seated suspicion, however, that the packet was somebody's excuse
+for letting the public treasury expend a few hundred rupees in carrying
+one in private life back to Colombo to catch his steamer for China the
+next evening.
+
+Confident was I that the bags on the stern grating that had been freshly
+soused with seawater as the _Active_ steamed away from Marichchikkaddi
+contained a wealth of pearls. In the cool of the early morning I would
+subsidize the eight native sailors, getting them to open the shelled
+treasures, while I garnered the pearls. With this thought uppermost, I
+turned in on a cushionless bench to snatch a few hours' sleep. But
+slumber was out of the question; my brain was planning what might be
+done with the pearls I was soon to possess. Yes, there surely would be
+plenty for a pearl-studded tiara for the loved one awaiting me; and any
+superfluity might be made into ropes and collars for admiring relatives
+at home. Cousin Jessie had always coveted a necklace of pearls with a
+diamond clasp. The dainty baubles were in those sacks; there was no
+question about that. Yes, my luck at pearl-getting would compensate for
+missing Sir Thomas Lipton's dinner in Colombo. Sleep always comes in
+time, and at last I was dreaming of the cargo of priceless gems with me
+on the boat.
+
+How extremely uncomfortable the bench was! What was that! I was not
+asleep, but very wide-awake--and such pains! In an instant I was rolling
+on the deck and shrieking from the terribleness of my suffering. Could
+it be cholera, the plague, or simply appendicitis with which I was
+stricken? The sailors held me down, but not a soul on board knew a word
+of English. I was positive that my end had come, and the thought of
+expiring away from friends and with a pocketful of prepaid
+around-the-world tickets was not agreeable. In an hour the pain was
+excruciating, and it continued for ten long hours with varying severity.
+Morning came, and the Indian skipper was plying his furnace with
+lubricating oil and turpentine--with anything that would help him get me
+to Colombo and medical skill. At last, eighteen hours out from
+Marichchikkaddi, the _Active_ was in the harbor and I was being carried
+to the Grand Oriental Hotel.
+
+"What about the two bags of oysters, the captain wishes to know!" the
+hotel interpreter asked.
+
+"Oh, give them to the men," was the answer; "I have ceased to care for
+pearl-studded tiaras and collars. I'm glad to get away alive from the
+decaying millions of oysters at the fishery. Even God's free air there
+is poisoned by them. What I want most is a doctor."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+UPWARD TO THE SHRINE OF BUDDHA
+
+
+From Colombo it is but seventy-five miles to Ceylon's ancient capital,
+and the journey thither is picturesque almost beyond description. For
+fifty miles the railway leads through the rich vegetation of the
+lowlands, with groves of cocoanut palms seemingly as boundless as the
+sea. In a suburb of Colombo the sacred Kelani River is crossed, at a
+point not remote from the Buddhist temple claimed to be contemporary
+with Gautama himself. The valley of the Kelani is vivid with rice-fields
+of green. The line then pushes its way through a bewildering medley of
+tropical vegetation--there are miles of cashew and breadfruit trees, of
+frangipani and jaks, and more than once a stately talipot-palm is
+discerned in full blossom--for half a century the tree has stored its
+vitality for this one effort; and the burst of splendor spent, its
+career on earth is ended. For twenty-five miles the train zigzags up
+hills, running now and then on the edge of a shelf from whence the
+traveler looks down hundreds of feet sheer upon foam-crested rapids. The
+journey from Colombo to Kandy affords one of the memorable experiences
+of Ceylon.
+
+[Illustration: A LADY OF KANDY]
+
+England has held the interior region of the island, controlled for
+centuries by the Kandyan kings, for but ninety odd years, and it is
+curious to observe wings of palaces at Kandy, where a semi-barbaric rule
+long held sway, employed now as British administrative offices. Little
+antiquity is discernible in the old hill capital, due to former rival
+interests of the Portuguese and Dutch. When one nation had control of
+the picturesque town, it was customary to efface or demolish everything
+that the other had done.
+
+Kandy is the city of Buddha's tooth, and as such is the object of
+unbounded reverence with more than four hundred million inhabitants of
+the earth. Oudh, where Gautama Buddha died, lacks the sacred importance
+of Kandy; and the sepulcher at Jerusalem means no more to Christians,
+nor Mecca and Medina to followers of Mahomet.
+
+Kandy was but a mountain village when the holy molar was brought here in
+the sixteenth century for safe-keeping. The small temple wherein it was
+deposited was beautified and enlarged, and finally the priesthood made
+the place their principal seat, and the Kandyan kings later made the
+city their stronghold and capital of the country.
+
+Thousands of pilgrims come yearly to offer to the Temple of the Tooth
+their gifts of gold and silver ornaments, coins, jewels, vestments for
+the priests, even fruits and flowers--and these devotees have traveled
+from every hamlet of Ceylon and from every land where Buddha has
+believers--from Nepaul, the Malay Peninsula, China, Japan, even from
+Siberia and Swedish Lapland. The kings of Burmah and Siam, in compliance
+with the wish of their subjects, send annual contributions toward the
+support of the temple enshrining the tooth; and Buddhist priests in
+far-away Japan correspond with the hierarchy of the temple of Kandy. No
+other tooth has the drawing power of this one, certainly.
+
+Strange to say. Buddhism has been cast out from India, where it
+originated, by the Hindu faith, which it was meant to reform. In India's
+enormous population scarce seven millions to-day worship at Buddha's
+shrine. Christianity, as well, is a stranger to the land where it was
+born. It appears the irony of fate that these great religions, glorious
+in principle, have abiding places without number, save in the countries
+where they originated. But such is the fact.
+
+Few scholars can study the tenets of Buddhism without the conviction
+that it is a religion of striking merit--that is, as form and dogma are
+described by writers and commentators; but as practised by races not far
+removed from pagan illiteracy, with whom idolatry and superstition are
+inherent, it may no longer be the perfection of doctrine that was
+espoused by Prince Gautama.
+
+Sir Edwin Arnold, who thoroughly knew most Eastern religions, admired
+enthusiastically the precepts of Buddha, and no one can read his
+writings without experiencing some regard for the Buddhism of
+literature. In "The Light of Asia" the five commandments of the great
+religion of the Orient are thus poetically recited:
+
+    Kill not--for Pity's sake--and lest ye slay
+    The meanest thing upon its upward way.
+
+    Give freely and receive, but take from none
+    By greed, or force or fraud, what is his own.
+
+    Bear not false witness, slander not, nor lie;
+    Truth is the speech of inward purity.
+
+    Shun drugs and drinks which work the wit abuse;
+    Clear minds, clean bodies, need no Soma juice.
+
+    Touch not thy neighbor's wife, neither commit
+    Sins of the flesh unlawful and unfit.
+
+Whether present-day Buddhism is the exact religion taught by the
+princely priest, and gracefully described by the English poet, matters
+little--its fountainhead is Kandy, and temple and dependencies of the
+sacred bone form the Vatican of the faith. This miraculous tooth,
+alleged to be the left eye-tooth of Gautama Buddha, and taken from the
+ashes of his funeral pyre twenty-five hundred years ago, has played a
+mighty part in Eastern intrigue, and wars between nations have been
+fought over it. For centuries it was the priceless marriage dower going
+with certain favored princesses of royal blood. It was brought from
+India to Ceylon in the fourth century after Christ. The Malabars
+secured it by conquest more than once, the Portuguese had it for a time
+at Goa, and for safety it was brought to Kandy in the sixteenth century,
+and it has there since been cared for with scrupulous fidelity.
+
+A relic supported by so much history should at least be genuine--the
+history may be all right, but the tooth is a shambling hoax, at best a
+crude proxy for the molar of Gautama. Intelligent priests of Buddhism
+must know this, but the millions of common people finding solace in the
+faith have never heard the truth--and wouldn't believe it if they did.
+No more amazing display of faith over a reputed sacred relic is known
+than is associated with this bogus tooth of Kandy.
+
+Reference to any library of unimpeachable works on the world's religions
+proves conclusively that the actual tooth was burned by the Catholic
+archbishop of Goa in 1560, in the presence of the viceroy of India and
+his suite--this is authentic history. Six years after the event at Goa a
+spurious tooth had to be provided to effect an international marriage
+long under contract, and the molar of a wild boar or of an ape was used.
+This tooth eventually was brought to the town nestling in the hills of
+Ceylon, and surrounding it grew the capital of the proud kingdom of the
+Kandyans. In the year of Waterloo, the British overthrew the reigning
+sovereign, and the bogus tooth and its temple have since had the
+protection of English rule.
+
+[Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF THE TOOTH, KANDY]
+
+The dimensions of the tooth are fatal to its pretended genuineness,
+for it is a discolored ivory two inches in length and one in diameter.
+No human mouth ever gave shelter to such a tooth. To view it would be a
+test of credulity too trying even for fanaticism to stand. The hoax,
+consequently, is concealed from sight. On important occasions it is
+displayed--at a distance. When the Duke and Duchess of York visited
+Kandy the high priests of the temple exhibited the tooth; and on
+occasions it is supposed to be carried in processions through the
+streets on the back of an elephant--but deception and trickery in
+connection with the tooth come easy.
+
+The enshrined humbug reposes on a massive silver table, encrusted with
+gems and festooned with jeweled chains. The chamber in which it is kept
+in the temple is stiflingly hot, with atmosphere heavy from the perfume
+of flowers. Within six or eight bell-shaped metal covers the tooth is
+held by a standard as if emerging from the petals of a lotus flower of
+gold. Visitors to the museum at Colombo may see a replica of the relic
+and its setting: it is a tawdry, unimpressive object.
+
+Glance where you will in Kandy, drive in any direction, penetrate any
+avenue or footpath, and priestly disciples of Buddha, of every age from
+the novice to the patriarch of exalted rank, accost the vision. Pilgrims
+appear to be constantly arriving. They are present from Jaffna in the
+north, from Galle in the south, from Nuara Eliya in the mountains, from
+everywhere--some come on foot, some by curious carts drawn by buffaloes
+or bullocks, some by railroad train. All are unshod, and the head of
+each is bare and shaven. Each wears the robe of eternal yellow, with an
+arm and shoulder bare, and the sunshade and palm fan have been the
+adjuncts of the brotherhood since Gautama left his royal parents' house
+to teach the word of Buddha.
+
+Celibacy is the rule of the priesthood. Nothing can be less obtrusive
+than the demeanor of the brethren. Visitors to their temples are
+welcomed, and courteous replies are always made to inquiries.
+
+Cremation is general in the priesthood, but apparently optional with
+others of the faith. When a dignitary of the priesthood passes away his
+confreres assemble from far and near at the funeral pyre to do him
+honor. The incineration usually takes place in a palm grove. The corpse
+is surrounded with dried wood, made additionally inflammable with oils.
+The rites of the pyre include nothing of a sensational character; the
+assemblage chants for a time, then a priest of high rank applies the
+torch, and in an hour nothing remains but a mound of embers and ashes. A
+cremation may be readily witnessed at Kandy or Colombo, or other place
+possessing a considerable population.
+
+The peoples of low caste of the East are too numerous to be catalogued.
+India teems with them, of course, and the paradise island of Ceylon has
+a considerable percentage of human beings denied by their betters of
+almost every privilege save breathing the free air of heaven. The
+lowlands and coastal regions have been so commercialized that human
+pariahs are there almost overlooked--but they are at every turning of
+the road in every hamlet, everywhere. Kandy, once royal city, knows the
+abhorred low caste to-day as it did five hundred years ago, for in plain
+view of the capital in the hills there are settlements of men and women
+still excluded from communion with the world by reason of a royal curse
+pronounced centuries ago--and it is a condition worse than death itself.
+
+Representatives of the Rodiya caste may be seen any day by pedestrians
+in the city's outskirts. There are not many of them,
+fortunately--perhaps a thousand all told. Tradition has it that hundreds
+of years ago a vengeful monarch condemned their race to never-ending
+degradation for having supplied the royal table with human flesh instead
+of venison. Custom forces these poor mortals to ford or swim a stream,
+instead of using a ferry; and forbids their drawing water at public
+wells. They must not live in houses like other people, but in hovels
+constructed usually by leaning a hurdle against a rock, and their men
+and women must never clothe their bodies above the waist. Until recent
+years courts of justice have been closed to them, and if overtaken on
+their travels by darkness they must find shelter in caves or abandoned
+hovels. They recognize their degradation by falling on their knees when
+addressing even toilers on the highway, and shout a warning on the
+approach of a traveler, that he may halt long enough for them to get off
+the road to secure his passing without possibility of defilement.
+
+These groveling worms of the earth are nominally Buddhists, but are
+forbidden to enter a temple. Hence they pray "standing afar off." Demon
+worship is accredited to them. Their headman can officiate only when he
+has obtained the sanction of the common jailor of the district. Even to
+ask alms they must not enter a fenced property, and it is said at Kandy
+that water over which their shadows have fallen is held to be so defiled
+that other natives will not use it until purified by the sun's rays. And
+thus it is; their race is penalized in every manner, and the ban goes
+unchallenged by the miserable beings.
+
+Their denial by mankind of ordinary fellowship has driven them to filthy
+and beastly habits. They devour the flesh of monkeys and tortoises, even
+carrion, it is claimed; and of late years they haunt feasts and
+ceremonials hoping to obtain fragments of food thrown from the tables of
+their betters. Now and then they are paid something for watching fields,
+and for burying carcasses of dead cattle. It is not known that they are
+thieves, but they are shunned as if they were. In emergencies, when
+there is a scarcity of labor, they are induced to work on tea estates,
+or at road mending; but the habits of vagabondage are too rooted to
+allow their remaining long in useful employment.
+
+[Illustration: CREMATION OF A BUDDHIST PRIEST]
+
+Superior in every way to their men, the Rodiya women are the most
+beautiful in all Ceylon. Their scantiness of raiment, it is pleaded
+in their behalf, is due in no sense to immodesty. Rodiya girls wander
+the country as dancers and jugglers, and their erect figures, elastic
+step, and regalness of carriage, would be envied by the proudest woman
+promenading Vanity Fair; some of them have faces so perfect in a classic
+way that a sculptor or painter might make himself famous by reproducing
+them.
+
+Believe not that these miserable people represent the lowest grade of
+degradation in Lanka's isle, for there are two outcast races so far
+beneath them in the social scale as to be avoided by Rodiyas as if they
+reeked with a pestilential disease. These castes are hopelessly beyond
+the pale.
+
+British rule in Asia recognizes no caste distinctions, but it has been a
+humane work of the wives of several English governors of Ceylon to seek
+to improve the position of the women of the Rodiya caste, especially of
+the young girls. Some benefit is claimed as a result of the efforts of
+the English women--but the majesty and power of Great Britain are puny
+institutions compared with the force of caste among native races. To
+keep down the Rodiya population a certain Kandyan king, it is stated on
+good authority, used to have a goodly number of them shot each year.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+IN CEYLON'S HILL COUNTRY
+
+
+When good Kandyans discourse in flowery vein, they say Kandy is only
+forty miles from heaven. Visitors who have fallen under the charm of the
+place are more likely to wonder at their moderation than question their
+ability to measure celestial distances. If Gautama Buddha's "eternal
+rest" were to be had on earth, Kandy would surely be the reward of
+Nirvana promised those who have acquired merit.
+
+The beauty of Kandy is based upon naturalness; it is not grand like
+Taormina in Sicily, nor produced by nature and art in combination like
+Monte Carlo. Everything connected with the spot is fascinating, even the
+jungle that by day harbors the jackals which sometimes make night
+hideous to sojourners. Everybody appears happy; even elephants hauling
+timber in the suburbs toil cheerfully.
+
+This inland province that formed the kingdom of Kandy preserved its
+integrity throughout the Portuguese and Dutch invasions of the island;
+and the English were in possession of the coast section full nineteen
+years before the Kandyan monarchy succumbed to their power.
+
+This beautiful city was a different place under the native kings. They
+loved grandeur, apparently, but it was the grandeur of selfish
+surroundings and luxury. The lake now the center of the city was
+constructed by the last king, it is true; but its shore witnessed
+atrocities never surpassed in savage excess. Near the spot where stands
+a monastery of yellow robed monks of Buddha, the last king assembled his
+people in 1814 to witness the punishment of the innocent wife and
+children of a fleeing official accused of treason. By the blow of a
+sword the head of each child was severed from its body in the mother's
+presence, even that of the babe wrenched from her breast. The heads were
+placed in a mortar, and the woman forced under threat of disgraceful
+torture to pound them with a huge pestle.
+
+When news of this reached the coast the English determined to intervene
+in the interests of humanity. While the horror was yet fresh in the
+public mind, a party of native merchants of Colombo came to Kandy to
+trade. The fiendish king ordered them seized and horribly mutilated.
+When, a few weeks later, the survivors returned to the sea-coast
+deprived of ears, noses and hands--with the severed members tied to
+their necks--the English decided to act immediately. Three months later
+Kandy was in their possession, and the king an exile in southern India.
+
+From that time, with the exception of a few years when the hereditary
+Kandyan chiefs were troublesome through finding their privileges
+circumscribed, the progress of Ceylon as a whole has been remarkable.
+Perhaps the finest example of benefits coming with England's colonial
+rule is this "Eden of the Eastern Wave." Slavery and forced labor on
+public works have been abolished, fine roads constructed everywhere, and
+adequate educational facilities placed within easy reach.
+
+A visitor perceives no squalor, few beggars, and apparently no genuine
+poverty. All these advantages have been secured practically without
+taxing the natives in any manner. Uniform contentment, consequently, is
+everywhere visible. The naked babies, looking like india-rubber dolls,
+have apparently never learned to cry.
+
+Oddly enough, the English made Kandy the Saint Helena of Arabi Pasha's
+exile, until the broken and aged man was permitted a few years since to
+return to his beloved Egypt.
+
+[Illustration: TREES IN PERADENIYA GARDEN, KANDY]
+
+Itself beautiful with poinsettia, bougainvillea, crotons, hibiscus and
+palms, a botanical garden in Kandy would seem to have no proper place.
+But the city possesses one that is almost unique among tropical gardens.
+It is in the suburb of Peradeniya, four miles out, and it is embraced on
+three sides by Ceylon's principal stream, the Mahavaliganga. For eighty
+years the Ceylon government has treated the Peradeniya garden and its
+associated experimental stations as an investment--and it has paid well,
+for through its agency the cultivation of cinchona, cacao, rubber and
+other economic crops has been introduced to the people. Throughout
+Asia the Peradeniya garden is famous. Whether the claim that it is the
+finest in the world be correct would require an expert to determine. The
+botanical garden at Demerara may be as good, if not larger and better.
+
+A layman visiting Peradeniya returns to Kandy in a state of
+bewilderment. He has seen so many attractive and strange manifestations
+of nature that lucid description is beyond his power. He is aware,
+nevertheless, that he has viewed nearly every tree, shrub, plant and
+vine known to tropical and subtropical climes; shrubs that produce every
+spice, perfume and flavoring he ever heard of, or that contribute to
+medicine, as well.
+
+At Peradeniya the palm family has nearly a hundred representatives,
+including the areca, palmyra, talipot, royal, fan, traveler's, date and
+cocoanut. The forty or more varieties of crotons include the curious
+corkscrew of the West Indies, and range extravagantly in colors and
+markings. Huge Assam rubber-trees have exposed roots suggesting a tangle
+of octopi. A tree noticeable for its perfect foliage is the breadfruit;
+and there are sensitive plants that shrink from intimate attention, and
+water-plants whose roots need not come into contact with the earth.
+
+Here and there are kola trees, cardamom bushes, aloe plants from which
+sisal is drawn, camphor and cinnamon shrubs, and probably every species
+of the parasitical family, depending like many human beings upon
+stronger relatives or neighbors for support. The orchid enclosure would
+arouse any collector's covetousness. There are foliage plants producing
+leaves counterfeiting elephant ears, and others that look like full
+spread peacock tails. A small leaf which the official guide of the
+gardens is obviously partial to is deep green when held to the light,
+purple when slightly turned, and deep red if looked at from another
+angle. The visitor moves swiftly into the sunlight when told that he is
+standing in the shade of the deadly upas.
+
+A traveler approaching the island of Ceylon hears constantly of the
+wonders of Peradeniya; and some statements in praise of the garden are
+taken usually with reserve, especially that asserting there are trees
+there which develop so rapidly that the spectator can actually see them
+grow. This seems incredible, but there is ample basis for the statement.
+After a rain the fronds of the giant bamboo frequently grow a foot in
+the course of a day. At the office of the director of the garden are
+records of many measurements proving that fronds have lengthened a half
+inch in an hour. A tree growing a half inch in sixty minutes is a Ceylon
+fact. The first time I went to Peradeniya, thousands of flying-foxes,
+suspended bat-like from the giant bamboos a hundred feet from the earth,
+were sleeping away the day, while soaring above the trees were hundreds
+of these queer objects, scolding like disturbed crows.
+
+[Illustration: TAMIL COOLIE SETTING OUT TEA PLANTS]
+
+Peradeniya's visitors come from every land in the world, some traveling
+great distances to see the wonders of the garden. One has not to be
+arboriculturist or botanist to appreciate the establishment; it is
+always entertaining, sometimes amusing, and appeals variously to the
+tastes of visitors. For example, the Mexican goes involuntarily to the
+aloe from which his beloved pulque is made, the Egyptian to the
+date-palm, the Connecticut man to the nutmeg grove, and the New Yorker
+to the tree under which handfuls of cloves may be scooped up without
+charge, whereas at home they are acquired one at a time at considerable
+expense.
+
+Explore the highways and byways of Kandy keenly as one may, nothing is
+in evidence explaining its manifest prosperity--the place has no
+distinctive product or business. It is the seat of management, however,
+of the island's greatest industry--tea raising.
+
+In Ceylon tea is "king." This being the fact, no visitor to the town
+where the Planters' Association has its administrative machinery can
+close his ears to tea talk. Elsewhere people talk over their tea-cups;
+in Kandy, they talk tea over every other kind of cup. Kandy's big hotel
+bristles with planters in overspreading sun hats, as do club and
+friendly bungalow verandas. Some are "down" for a day (and a night) from
+up-country estates, while others are "up" from smallish properties at
+levels below Kandy. Nearly all have to purchase supplies and draw a few
+sacks of rupees from the bank with which to pay off their coolies. But
+some have come to discuss market conditions and prospects with their
+agents. A few, not yet wholly emancipated from the social side of life
+in which they were reared, have journeyed to Kandy to rub shoulders for
+a few days with civilization.
+
+The orbit of each and every one of these transplanted Britons is tea,
+and this in its primal form. They can have no concern with Steel common.
+Amalgamated copper or Erie 4's, and to them the jargon of stock
+exchanges would be as meaningless as Sanskrit platitudes. Their
+speculative medium is tea--tea in bulk, and pretty large bulk at that.
+
+The daily cable from London summarizing the tea market interests each of
+these men as vitally as the tale of the ticker interests the American
+taking a flier in stocks. The story is told in two or three lines, and
+by a presentation of numerals appearing exceedingly unimportant to the
+sojourner whose operations in tea never exceeded the purchase of a pound
+package.
+
+[Illustration: TAMIL GIRL PLUCKING TEA]
+
+Yes, the figures tell the story--a tale of occasional success, but often
+of failure and woe. A bracketed set of fractions explains the range of
+prices for broken pekoes, another set deals with common pekoes, another
+with orange pekoes, and still another with common souchongs. Then follow
+such words as "steady," "generally firm," and "somewhat lower"--each a
+phrase with potential significance. The crux of the communication, like
+that of a school-girl's letter, comes last. If it reads "general market
+closed 1-8th penny up," the planter has visions of happiness and
+affluence, and forthwith orders a "peg." But if the postscript says
+"1-8th down," the young planter foresees nothing but disaster, and may
+consider levanting with the bags of rupees by the next steamer from
+Colombo. A planter is always a bull on prices, while the important buyer
+in Europe is chronically bearish.
+
+The yearly tea product of Ceylon is aggregating 155,000,000 pounds, and
+of this Uncle Sam purchases 12,000,000 pounds, while 98,000,000 go to
+Great Britain. The value of the annual output varies little from
+$21,000,000--and from this Ceylon supports itself so comfortably that
+the tea-plant seems to merit adoption as the emblem of the colony.
+
+The rise of the industry affords one of the most remarkable instances of
+rapid development of an agricultural pursuit. Coffee used to be the
+dominating crop in the island, until "coffee blight" ruined the
+industry. Tea was then experimented with. In 1875 barely a thousand
+acres were under tea; now the acreage is 385,000. A journey from Kandy
+to Nuwara Eliya, in the mountains, is through an interminable
+tea-garden, and on every hand is proof of substantial investment of
+capital. The choicest crops are raised between five and six thousand
+feet above sea-level, and lands in this zone are worth as much as $500
+an acre. The scientific cultivation of tea paid its pioneers handsomely,
+but the current opinion is that overproduction is killing prices, and
+that a new crop must be sought--probably rubber.
+
+Ceylon's important tea estates are the property of companies, whose
+shares are dealt in on the London and Colombo stock exchanges. Small
+plantations are owned by individuals, usually the persons conducting
+them. One or two thousand Europeans, mainly Englishmen and Scotchmen,
+are employed on the important estates as managers, assistants and
+accountants. Hosts of young Britons work a year or two without
+compensation for the experience. They are called "creepers," and some of
+them eventually obtain salaried offices, or embark in the industry on
+their own account. The laboring force on an estate is provided chiefly
+by Tamil coolies from southern India, and numbers from one to two
+thousand. Both men and women contrive to lay by a competence at a wage
+rate of from eight to fifteen cents a day.
+
+If let alone, the tea-plant would grow to be a tree eighteen or twenty
+feet high, but by generous top pruning it is kept down to three feet,
+thus becoming a squat bush possessing a biggish leafing area. Every
+eight or twelve days the shoots and young leaves are plucked--when
+treated these become the tea of commerce. Tea-plants are alike, speaking
+generally, grades being effected by the discrimination of picker and
+sorter. Fresh buds and tender young leaves make the pekoes, older ones
+the souchongs. Tea gathered exclusively from buds and tips is called
+"flowery;" if the first young leaf be included, it is "orange pekoe."
+In order of quality the Ceylon grades are: orange pekoe, pekoe,
+pekoe-souchong, souchong, congou, and dust.
+
+[Illustration: A KANDYAN CHIEFTAIN]
+
+Tea-plants are perennial, and are set about four feet apart on
+hillsides. At three years of age they become productive. Familiar sights
+in the hills are the coolies with baskets of slips setting out plants
+wherever unemployed spaces may be found, and groups of Tamil girls
+plucking buds and young leaves from mature bushes. These girls are happy
+countenanced, some slender and graceful in carriage and movement, and
+none express objection to being snapshotted by travelers. The girls'
+baskets are emptied and contents systematically sorted at convenient
+places in the field, or at the factory. Essential to every important
+estate is the factory, for there the leaves are withered, broken by
+rolling, fermented, fired, and finally sifted into grades preparatory to
+packing in lead-lined boxes ready to be despatched to the markets of the
+universe.
+
+It is reassuring to witness the system and scrupulous cleanliness of
+every step employed in producing Ceylon tea. Anybody who has spent a day
+on an up-country estate is fairly certain to be friendly to Ceylon tea
+the rest of his life, for modern machinery does much of the work which
+in China and Japan is performed by hands none too clean and amid
+surroundings none too healthful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+BOMBAY AND ITS PARSEE "JEES" AND "BHOYS"
+
+
+The Parsee is the only sect holding religious tenets strange enough to
+stamp them as "peculiar people" who amount to much in the material
+affairs of life. Every country possesses groups of people having
+religious beliefs and practices which attract to them a curious
+interest; but Bombay's Parsee colony is the only illustration of a
+brotherhood following strange lives who shine resplendently in the
+financial and social worlds.
+
+Everything in Bombay is dominated by the Parsee element, and every
+public hospital and other charitable institution, public statue, or
+drinking fountain, is the benefaction of a Parsee. The mansions and
+finest villas are Parsee homes, the leaders of club life are Parsees,
+and almost every bank and influential commercial house bears a Parsee
+name on its door. Bombay's population is not far from nine hundred
+thousand, of which the Parsees number only sixty thousand--but this
+minority impresses its importance on the majority and gives a character
+of unique interest to the city.
+
+These dominating people are Indians only by adoption. Twelve hundred
+years ago the Mohammedan conquerors of Persia persecuted the disciples
+of Zoroaster to an extent that many of the strongest men and women of
+the faith fled to India for safety, and the Parsees of to-day are the
+descendants of these refugees. For generations they have made education
+a feature, have always helped each other, and been extremely clannish,
+although preserving toward people of other religions a respectful
+attitude. Their creed, claimed to have descended from the Hebrew prophet
+Daniel, is expressed in three precepts of two words each: Good thoughts,
+good words, good deeds. Orthodox Parsees wear a white girdle of three
+coils as reminder of these principles; but present-day Parsee men have
+discarded all evidences of their creed save the designating vizorless
+cap, and dress in garments of European pattern, and their women are
+garbed in robes of delicately-shaded and clinging silks, and wear
+embroidered mantillas on their heads.
+
+Most Parsees are superbly educated, variously accomplished, and speak
+English fluently. Their equipages are the smartest in Bombay, and every
+walk of life is led by them. The great fortunes of this part of India
+are theirs, and Parsee names are identified with everything contributing
+to Bombay's importance. These names are strikingly peculiar, are usually
+of from four to six syllables, the last being usually "jee" or "bhoy."
+The Jeejeebhoy family is intensely Parsee, of course, and important
+enough to possess an English baronetcy. The city's principal hospital
+was the gift of Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy. Other families of renown in the
+financial world are the Readymoneys, Jehangirs and Sassoons.
+
+Turn where you may the eye meets something donated to the public by
+generous Parsees. These people have long been loyal supporters of
+British rule in India, and frequently able to neutralize Hindu or
+Mohammedan opposition to a public measure. Baronetcies and knighthoods
+have consequently been showered upon them from London. Incidentally, a
+good deal of the money with which hospitals and libraries were given by
+great Parsees of a former generation came as reward for running a
+successful "corner" in Indian cotton at the time of America's civil war.
+Lancashire mills could get no staple from the Southern states, and
+astute Bombay capitalists, securing control of the native crop, held the
+same until the price advanced from ten or twelve cents to a dollar a
+pound. The fruits of this _coup_., some of them at least, dotted Bombay
+with noble buildings and statues.
+
+Some Parsees drive public street vehicles, work on tramways and
+railways, and pursue humbler vocations, it is true; but most Parsees
+dwell in princely homes and go to their offices and clubs in splendidly
+appointed broughams and victorias. Success in life even in Parseedom is
+based upon the principle of survival of the fittest--or astutest.
+
+[Illustration: PARSEE TOWER OF SILENCE, BOMBAY]
+
+The Parsees stoutly deny that they are fire worshippers. The sacred
+flame perpetually burning in their houses of worship, brought by
+their ancestors from Persia, is but a symbol, they insist. God,
+according to their faith, is the emblem of glory, refulgence, and
+spiritual life; therefore they face the holy flame when praying as the
+most fitting symbol of the Deity. In the open air they prostrate
+themselves when praying to the setting sun. Parsee temples are plain to
+severity, with walls bare and floors uncovered and empty; but there is
+always the recess wherein burns the sacred fire of incense and
+sandalwood.
+
+The method of dealing with the Parsee dead is startlingly original, and
+said to be in strict keeping with the teaching of Zoroaster. According
+to Parsee tenets fire is too highly venerated to be polluted by burning
+the dead, while water is equally respected, and Mother Earth as well.
+Hence the Parsees offer their dead to the elements and the birds of the
+air, and the bones of rich and poor, high and low, even of the
+malefactor and suicide, are consigned to eternity in crumbled state in a
+common pit.
+
+The Towers of Silence occupy the finest site on Malabar Hill,
+overlooking beautiful Bombay, and high above the Arabian Sea--it is
+Nature's beauty spot, embowered in graceful shrubbery and palms, with
+fragrant flowers everywhere. The governor of Bombay Presidency resides
+at Malabar Point, further along, and the homes of men high in
+officialdom or commerce occupy every available site in the neighborhood.
+The Towers, five in number, are of whitewashed stone and cement, 275
+feet in circumference, and perhaps twenty-five feet high. An iron door
+admits the corpse of the Parsee, and once within the strange building it
+is proffered to the birds of the air--gloating vultures, coarse and
+repugnant in every aspect.
+
+Four carriers of the dead are seen approaching the beautiful garden with
+a bier on their shoulders. Two bearded men, the only living persons
+permitted to enter a Tower, come next. Then follow from fifty to a
+hundred mourners and friends in pure white robes, walking two and two,
+each couple holding a handkerchief between them in token of a united
+grief. The apex of the hill reached, the mourners turn into the house of
+prayer, wherein the eternal fire is burning, or take position beneath
+spreading palms for solitary meditation. The bearers deliver the corpse
+to the bearded functionaries at the entrance to the Tower, and these
+carry it within. The floor of the Tower is of iron grating with three
+circles whereon the corpses are placed. The inner circle is for
+children, the next for women, and the outer for men.
+
+The bearded men are lost to view for a minute or two only, and their
+concluding office within is to remove the shroud, leaving the body
+wholly bare. The iron door clangs as they emerge, there is a mighty whir
+of wings, and in a twinkling the corpse is in possession of hundreds of
+greedy, competing vultures. In twenty minutes not a vestige of flesh
+remains on the bones, and the loathsome birds resume their watch from
+the edge of the Tower for the next comer. Their experienced gaze
+perceives a funeral procession a mile away in the direction of the city,
+and a signal cry is so readily understood by vultures resting on trees
+in the neighborhood that a unanimous attendance is assured long before
+the corpse passes the portal of the grounds.
+
+The human skeletons are left within the Tower to disintegrate by action
+of sun and wind, heat and cold. In time the bearded men, gloved and with
+tongs, remove them to a vast well in the middle of the enclosure, where
+with lapse of time they turn to dust.
+
+Corpses being considered unclean by Parsee standards, carriers of the
+dead, as well as those who enter the Towers, are assigned to a class by
+themselves, and forbidden to mix with others of their strange religion.
+There is a superstition that an awful curse would be visited upon an
+unauthorized person whose gaze fell upon a body or skeleton inside a
+Tower of Silence. The habiliments of those whose duty takes them within
+are always destroyed before they leave the grounds.
+
+Whatever may be claimed in defense of the Parsee method of dealing with
+their dead, from a sanitary standpoint, the custom possesses an aspect
+gruesome in the extreme. The Hindus' system of burning on the river bank
+is even less repulsive.
+
+If any city in the East is sport-mad it is Bombay. Men work there
+mornings and engage in something of a sportive character afternoons. The
+school-boy, even, slings his books from a hockey stick, and the
+departmental clerk sets out for an afternoon's sociability accompanied
+by his faithful tennis racquet. Nowhere can better polo be seen than on
+the Marine Lines Maidan; as for cricket, there probably are more players
+in Bombay, British and native, than in any town of its population in
+England--and Bombay's cricket is of the best. More than once have crack
+teams out from England been heartlessly beaten by local Parsee players.
+Golf is considered too slow. The next best thing to being a member of
+the nobility is for a Briton to belong to the Royal Bombay Yacht Club,
+for it gives him the _cachet_ to everything Asiatic. The club-house on
+the Apollo Bunder possesses the best situation on the water front, and
+from its verandas fashionables watch matches that are sailed with
+consummate skill. During winter months foot-ball appeals strongly to the
+soldier class, while motor-car races and trials appear to be daily
+events.
+
+[Illustration: A BOMBAY RAILWAY STATION]
+
+It is the horse that is king, however, in Bombay's pastimes. The Hunt
+Club sends the smart set to the suburbs now and then, and tent-pegging
+and pig-sticking draw biggish audiences from the military class whenever
+contests are announced. But the paramount sport of the masses is
+horse-racing, pure and simple. The course is on the plains a few miles
+out of town, close to a suburb given over to cotton-mills, where nearly
+as many spindles fly as at Fall River. All Bombay seems to be at the
+races, irrespective of religious or social distinctions--everyone
+present loves the horse and appears possessed of a goodly supply of
+rupees with which to back his selections.
+
+The Jockey Club has its own lawn and private enclosure on the stand, and
+there is a box for the governor and anybody coming from Government
+House. The grand-stand bears a minor importance to the betting ring, for
+the latter holds a surging, throbbing medley of humanity--society folk
+from India's innermost official set, sleek Parsees wearing gold rimmed
+eye-glasses, rajahs from all parts, wealthy merchants and bankers,
+fez-wearing Mohammedans from the world of Islam, men from the Persian
+Gulf in astrachan head-gear, Pathans from beyond the Himalayas, Sikhs
+from the Punjab--as can be gathered in great India, the museum of the
+human race.
+
+Three score book-makers howl their bargains in raucous tones, and a
+whirlwind of rupee paper passes to the strong boxes. The crowd is
+backing the favorites. Even the Arab horse dealers from the Bhendi
+bazaar, manly fellows in the garb of desert sheikhs, whose pockets bulge
+with rolls of notes, comprehend the book-makers' jargon of English that
+might be incomprehensible to an Oxford don. A prince who is heir to the
+rulership of one of the greatest states in India has no scruples against
+inviting an expression of opinion as to so-and-so's bay filly of a
+native sportsman with beard dyed red with henna, in keeping with the
+fashion of his kind. Escorted ladies of position, and unescorted women
+in pairs from Grant Road, are present before the betting booths. Fair
+Parsee ladies, wearing clinging robes of delicate shades, wait patiently
+while their swains place their money on the impending event.
+
+A bell rings loudly--the horses are at the post. The mob rushes from the
+betting ring to the lawn; only few take the trouble to climb to their
+seats. It is a quick race. The crowd of standees in the inner field see
+it best, and down this mighty nondescript body is echoed the cry "Kedge
+Anchor!" Sure enough, "Kedge Anchor," an unknown from Australia, ridden
+by a jockey of obscure past, wins the great race. Three favorites are
+ingloriously beaten. Up go the numbers. All is over in less than two
+minutes--and the crowd goes pell-mell back to the book-makers'
+enclosure, hoping for better luck over the next race on the card. If
+rupees were dollars, the financial aspect of a Bombay racing day would
+be important.
+
+Kipling wrote true when he called Bombay "India's Queen City." It lacks
+the depressing influences of Calcutta, as well as the odors. Indeed, it
+is one of the handsomest cities of the whole British Empire, and has
+more notable buildings than Manchester or Edinburgh. True, its stately
+piles blend the Gothic and Indian schools of architecture, but otherwise
+there is nothing Eastern about Bombay--save its people. A man awakening
+from long slumber on a ship anchored off the Apollo Bunder would
+willingly swear he beheld a European town. Eight tenths of India's
+visitors arrive and depart from Bombay.
+
+The opening of the Suez Canal made certain the importance of Bombay as
+a trade center. It is now the largest cotton port in the world next to
+New Orleans, and if plague and smallpox might be controlled for five
+years it would have a population of a million. Bombay is a comparatively
+modern city, as cities count in immemorial India. England secured Bombay
+in 1661, not by conquest, but as a portion of the marriage dowry of
+Catharine of Braganza of Portugal, when she became the queen of Charles
+II.
+
+The world's most artistic railway station--not the largest, nor
+costliest--is in Bombay, and the best marble statue in existence of
+Queen Victoria was presented to the Bombay municipality by His Highness
+the Gaekwar of Baroda. Another notable gift is the bronze statue of
+Edward VII, donated by Sir Albert Sassoon, son of a public-spirited
+banker from Baghdad, who took up his residence in Bombay. A newcomer
+among the city's office buildings is "Roosevelt House," advantageously
+situated near the Apollo Bunder.
+
+The eyes of the person recently arrived from Europe or America behold
+many strange and amusing sights in the streets of Bombay, and for days
+your local guide and the obliging porter at the hotel is kept busy the
+livelong day answering questions. The native policeman is a human
+institution who explains himself. It is averred that he is loyal and
+efficient, but with his calfless legs bared to the knee and feet shod in
+sandals, he looks a queer cousin of Fifth Avenue's "Finest" and of the
+"Bobby" of London. A person unaccustomed to the habits of subject races
+gets the idea that the Bombay constable's first duty is the touching of
+his cap to white men, all and sundry; but it is said to his credit that
+in a street brawl or a water front quarrel among drunken lascars he
+fights like a wildcat. He is extremely proud of his truncheon, for it is
+a badge of office tremendously respected in the city's labyrinths where
+India's heterogeneous peoples dwell a dozen or more in a room. During
+the wet monsoon the policeman of Bombay carries an umbrella supplied by
+the municipality, which heightens his comical aspect--but it keeps him
+dry.
+
+[Illustration: BOMBAY POLICEMAN]
+
+The markings and badges of caste observed in Bombay streets lead you to
+a constant interrogation of your sources of information. At the outset
+you determine to obtain an understanding of the institution of Indian
+caste, but a fortnight after your arrival in Bombay you conclude that
+the task is too great for anybody having other things to do, and give it
+up in despair. A few facts connected with this supreme and dominating
+characteristic take root in your memory, however, and you have learned
+that the customs and rites of caste could not be strengthened even by
+legal enactments, or by the massed strength of all the armies on earth.
+The word is derived from the Latin word _castus_, implying purity of
+blood, and whose essential principle is marriage. India's population
+groups forty-seven nationalities, divided into 2,378 recognized castes
+and tribes. Accident of birth determines irrevocably a native's
+social and domestic relationship, prescribing even what he may eat
+and drink throughout life, how he must dress, and whom he may marry.
+There are four fundamental divisions of caste--the priestly or Brahmin
+(which has close upon fifteen million devotees), the warrior, the
+trading, and the laboring; and these have interminable subdivisions.
+Below the laboring caste there is a substratum which is termed pariah or
+outcast, and these degraded specimens of humanity are not better than
+animated machines performing the functions of public scavengers.
+
+Throughout India caste is hereditary. The son of a priest becomes a
+priest, a warrior's son becomes a soldier, and a carpenter's boy a
+carpenter, and so on. For a father to start a son in any calling but his
+own, or a vocation that is similar, would be "against his caste." Caste
+is social as well as religious, and includes the occupation as well as
+the creed. For a Hindu to rise from his inherited caste is next to
+impossible, and this tends to make the Hindus an ambitionless race. The
+infusion of new blood is likewise not tolerated, and in India "caste"
+and "custom" are perfect synonyms--and each a national curse.
+
+A major part of the people of India are agriculturists, men and women
+who are dependent upon what they can wrest from the soil for their
+existence. Their plough, an heirloom from remote antiquity, merely
+scratches the earth. The use of superior implements would result in
+superior tillage and augmented crops; but it would be as simple to
+induce the peasant to change his religion as to get him to forsake the
+plough used by his ancestors. The implements of daily life mostly belong
+to the barbarous ages. Attempt to introduce any other and you are
+rebuked by the reply: "It is not the custom; my father used this
+article, and therefore it is my duty to use it. Would you have me set
+myself up for a wiser person than my revered parent?" The toiling
+masses, consequently, are poor--and seem destined to remain poor until
+the close of the chapter.
+
+I heard of a contractor engaged in building a railway who objected to
+the physical toil and slowness of having a bank of earth removed by
+baskets on the heads of coolies. So he invested in a number of
+wheelbarrows and explained their use to the natives, and went back to
+his Bombay office flattering himself that he was a reformer. The next
+week when he visited the scene of operations he found the barrows in
+use, but the coolies were filling them with dirt and carrying them up
+the bank on their heads as they had always carried their baskets. The
+coolie of Hind is not to be beguiled by any demonstration intended to
+lighten his task, for he is crusted with conservatism and prejudice.
+
+In Bombay I engaged a man-servant to accompany me on a trip to the
+Punjab. It being a winter of unusual severity, and the journey involving
+much night travel, the agent from whom I hired the servant advised me
+that it would be a beneficial as well as a humane act were I to give the
+man ten rupees with which to procure an "outfit" suitable for one going
+to the north. "It's sometimes done, but not often enough to make it a
+custom," explained the agent; "but it would be the right thing--and
+because voluntary, the poor fellow should serve you all the better for
+your generosity. Give him but ten rupees, and see that he spends it all
+for heavy undergarments and serviceable shoes."
+
+Experiencing some haziness as to how any tittle of reputation for
+generosity was going to be reared on an expenditure aggregating just
+$3.20 in American money, I communicated my determination to the man who
+perforce was to be my constant companion for a month, and who had it in
+his power to make me love or hate the country. As was to be expected, I
+was many kinds of a sahib for my munificent benefaction, and Torab Jan
+salaamed almost to the floor when promising to return from the bazaars
+in good time to strap my mattress and pack my trunk in readiness to go
+to the station directly dinner was over.
+
+Hours later, but in time to throw my clothes and books into trunk and
+bags, Torab stalked into the apartment, and close upon his heels was
+another native carrying a not overlarge parcel. Torab was frank in
+stating that he had purchased precisely what he needed, and proffered a
+snip of paper covered with characters in Hindustani to prove he had
+expended precisely ten rupees, which made it necessary to have another
+benefaction--two annas this time.
+
+"What are the two annas for, and who is this man?" I asked.
+
+"He's the coolie bearing my parcel from the bazaar, master," was the
+response; "you must know that my caste makes it impossible for me to
+carry parcels."
+
+"See here, you drooling idiot; what do you think I have hired you for?
+Why, you've got to carry parcels, lots of them, and big ones at that;
+and you'll have to carry that bed there and my trunk half over India,
+likely as not. Don't talk to me about caste."
+
+"Pray, master, don't be angry with me. I know I'm to carry _your_
+things--that's what I'm for. I forgot to explain that my caste forbids
+only the carrying of my own parcels," the poor fellow whined.
+
+And so it was. In places where there were no carriages Torab seemed to
+delight in loading himself dawn with my paraphernalia, but his
+belongings had always to be carried religiously by a native of a breed
+earning its living by acting as human drays.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: HIS HIGHNESS THE MAHARAJAH OF JEYPORE]
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE VICARIOUS MAHARAJAH OF JEYPORE
+
+
+Thousands of travelers make the pilgrimage to India, a land hoary with
+age, and when weary of overwrought temples and tombs, when arid plains
+and malodorous towns lose their power to interest, they journey north to
+Rajputana to revel in Jeypore, the unique--at least, lovers of Kipling
+do. And the effect on jaded senses is like a cooling draught after a
+parching thirst. Kipling called Jeypore "A pink city, to see and puzzle
+over," It surely is pink, all of it that is not sky-blue, and for
+various reasons it is more satisfying than any other town in India.
+
+For a land where time is calculated by century units, Jeypore is almost
+as recent as a "boom" city on an American prairie. As a fact, its first
+building was reared only a hundred and seventy-eight years ago; and this
+modernity explains thoroughfares of remarkable breadth that cross each
+other at right angles. Generations the senior of Jeypore, New York is no
+better exponent of the checker-board idea. Jeypore is but the setting of
+a scene harking back to medieval days, however, and is the capital of an
+independent state greater in area than Belgium, and from its palace and
+judicial chambers nearly three million souls are governed. Nowhere in
+India, outside the great Rajputana province, is it possible to view a
+picture of happy and contented life, and in the city of Jeypore this is
+seen in its perfection.
+
+This ornate capital on the plains, hemmed in by fortress-crowned hills,
+is a veritable stronghold of feudal barons and armed retainers, of
+hermits and monasteries, and is dotted with palaces and public buildings
+pertaining to the Maharajah's rule. Many of the structures are new
+enough to suggest what Americans love to call "modern conveniences." The
+principal streets are broader than Broadway, as well paved, and
+illuminated by gas systematically enough installed to indicate the
+presence behind the scenes of European engineers. Strange to say,
+Jeypore is an Indian city wherein the lordly Briton in khaki is never
+seen: if the English functionary be here, his master is none other than
+the Maharajah. Through its streets surge a people almost childish in
+their happiness, some in ekkas drawn by matched pairs of bullocks,
+others mounted high on the backs of trotting camels, while bands of
+chattering Rajputs on foot are omnipresent--every grouping reminds of
+something witnessed on the stage, and the _tout ensemble_ might be the
+great scene of a realistic opera intended to glorify the people and the
+institutions of India.
+
+Feminine adornment is carried in Jeypore to its extreme. The bright-hued
+skirts of the women are flare-fashioned and "fuller," in dressmakers'
+parlance, than anything dared by Fay Templeton. But the Jeypore beauty's
+real passion is for gold and silver jewelry, and she carries this to a
+degree unrivaled by the women of any other section of India. It is not
+trifling with fact to say that the average Rajput woman wears from eight
+to ten pounds in silver on ankles and toes, and bracelets enough to
+sheath arms from wrist to elbow. Every feminine Jeypore nose bears some
+metal ornamentation--gold studs through the nostrils, and generally a
+hoop of gold depending a full inch below the point of the chin. Their
+ears are deformed by the wealth of metal hanging from lobe or strung on
+the upper rim of that organ. It can be said of Jeypore's fair sex that
+they are bimetallists in the strictest sense. The argument of the
+savings-bank has probably never been brought to their attention, for
+when one of them has a little money ahead she purchases a silver
+ornament for her person; and if a windfall come to her by legacy or
+otherwise, she buys something of gold, most likely a necklace of
+barbaric design. When one of these women goes to the market-place or the
+public well, she wears everything of value she possesses, and for the
+best of reasons her home is never pilfered.
+
+Rajput men and women look a visitor in the face, and by their smiling
+countenances seem to welcome you to their country. They lack the
+broken-spirited look and sullen servility of Indian peoples overlorded
+by Thomas Atkins. In Jeypore there are grandees and warriors, painted
+dogs, hunting leopards, bedecked horses, and hulking elephants in every
+street picture--and these pictures change with the facility of groupings
+of the kaleidoscope.
+
+The open-air shops of the metal workers and enamelers, and of the dyers,
+whose favorite colors are magenta and yellow, are interesting. There, on
+the left, is the imposing facade of the Palace of the Winds, extolled by
+Sir Edwin Arnold as "a vision of daring and dainty loveliness," but
+which in reality is scarcely more than a mask of stucco erected to make
+a show from the street. The Maharajah's palace and grounds cover a
+seventh of the area of this finest of modern Hindu cities. A stone's
+throw from the palace portal is a temple wherein Jeypore women beseech
+the image of Siva to bless them with children: and elsewhere are a Gate
+of Rubies, and a Temple of the Sun. At scores of wayside shops tiny
+idols of the Hindu hierarchy, and silver bracelets and gewgaws, are sold
+to people almost infantile in their cheerfulness. Wedding processions
+pass and repass with a frequency proving an active matrimonial market,
+each led by joyous singers and drum-beaters.
+
+[Illustration: A MATCHED PAIR OF BULLOCKS, JEYPORE]
+
+An entrancing place is this seat of His Highness of Jeypore, and
+compensating for the tedious railway journey from Delhi landing one at
+the city's gates in the inky darkness of 4:30 in the morning. At his
+hotel a visitor learns that a formal request must be made for permission
+to inspect the Maharajah's palace and stables, and to go to the
+abandoned capital of the state, Ambir, five miles away. You make
+application through a deputy, usually the man-servant traveling with
+you, and an hour later comes formal notification that His Highness
+welcomes you to his capital, and that a state carriage will be sent for
+your use, as well as a state elephant to carry you up the hills to
+Ambir. This outburst of hospitality comes with a surprise and force that
+almost sweeps one off his feet, and you have instant misgivings for
+having troubled the august potentate at such an unreasonable morning
+hour. Then your brain almost reels as you recall books that had dwelt
+upon the limitless hospitality of Eastern princes, and you hope that His
+Highness will not insist upon your dining with him--with your evening
+dress and high hat awaiting you at a Bombay hotel a command to the
+palace would, to say the least, be awkward.
+
+But you are spared this inconvenience, probably because the Maharajah is
+as familiar with deputed affairs as you are. Two gaudy chaprassis who
+have brought the desired permits are His Highness's deputies, and from
+them you learn that their master has been for a fortnight at Calcutta,
+but is expected to return in a day or two. They come into your room and
+assure you in fair English that they are detailed for your use as long
+as you honor Jeypore with your benevolent presence. They wear curious
+swords high under the left arm, and beautifully inlaid shields are
+belted to their right arms--these trappings are badges of office, but
+you wonder if they would sell them to be taken to America to become
+conspicuous adornments of somebody's cosy corner.
+
+A person with a fondness for simplicity, or possessing scruples against
+kingly institutions, may escape the state carriage by despatching a firm
+and prompt declination of the honor. But the chaprassis remain; and the
+elephant, already trudging to the base of the Ambir hills to await your
+coming, cannot be countermanded or headed off. In this charming manner
+the great Maharajah entertains daily the handful of strangers within his
+gates--it is India's remaining relic of the hospitality of long ago. A
+distinction inordinately prized by native princes is the number of guns
+prescribed by the Indian government as their salutes. The Gaekwar of
+Baroda and two other feudatory rulers are entitled to twenty-one guns,
+while the hereditary right of the Maharajah of Jeypore is only
+seventeen. But the present Maharajah, as a reward for his enlightened
+administration, is made happy by having four additional guns--and no
+king or emperor can have higher acclaim from the cannon's mouth.
+
+[Illustration: STREET SCENE, JEYPORE, SHOWING PALACE OF THE WINDS]
+
+One cannot tarry a day in Jeypore without hearing redundant testimony
+that His Highness Sir Sewai Madho Singh is a fine man, devoted to his
+people and unswervingly loyal to his religion. His visitors are often
+lords and ladies of England, who find his hospitality as interesting as
+it is boundless. To the tips of his fingers he is a Hindu devotee with
+all that the term can mean. When he attended the coronation of Edward
+VII, in London, the preparations for his sea-voyage were unprecedented
+in orthodoxy. An ocean liner was specially chartered for him and his
+suite; in all one hundred and twenty-five people formed the escort. Six
+special kitchens were fitted up on the ship, including one to prepare
+food exclusively for His Highness. There was, as well, a special temple,
+paved with marble, for the family idol, before which the Maharajah
+prostrated himself many times daily. Drinking water from the sacred
+Ganges, and every article of food--enough to sustain the entire party
+for six months--were carried from India. So rigidly was the orthodoxy
+observed that even the sand for cleaning cooking utensils was placed on
+board at Bombay; and washermen, carpenters, blacksmiths, and others
+accompanied the party, that there be no necessity for purchasing
+anything in England, or having work done by persons not of the Hindu
+faith. That the august traveler's caste be untainted, extra tanks of
+water from Benares were subsequently sent to England by frequent
+steamers.
+
+The Maharajah maintains a military force of nearly 4,000 cavalry and
+16,000 infantrymen. Besides these soldiers, his retainers number
+thousands, and their right to wear a sword is a coveted distinction
+throughout Jeypore state.
+
+The palace stables contain three hundred horses, but the equipages and
+trappings are more interesting than the animals. There are some superb
+Arab steeds, however. A visitor noting the army of grooms wonders that
+the management is not better systematized; but a word from your
+traveling companion, who knows the ways of maharajahs, is to the effect
+that an Indian nabob is forced by custom to support thousands whether
+there be work for them or not. His Highness's stables and
+carriage-houses somehow suggest a circus in winter quarters. The fact is
+that Jeypore's ruler takes little interest in horseflesh and
+carriagemakers' creations. His preference is for elephants--animals
+befitting a dynasty descended from the sun and moon.
+
+"Will the sahibs visit the elephant stable!" The sahibs communicate
+their desire to do so. Mahouts with pikestaffs lead the way, and a
+myriad of hangers-on swarm in the train of the visitors. The
+accoutrements seen en route to the stable are interesting, surely,
+especially the howdahs. Some of these are of silver. One was used by the
+Prince of Wales; another was fashioned for the Maharajah's use at the
+Delhi durbar, and a gorgeous one is reserved for the viceroy whenever
+that mighty personage pays a state visit to Jeypore. A half-dozen
+howdahs are specially fitted for the Maharajah's favorite sport,
+tiger-hunting. Some of the howdah cloths represent a fortune in gold and
+silver bullion, while a few are saved from tawdriness by the skill of
+the embroiderer in silk.
+
+[Illustration: COURT DANCERS AND MUSICIANS, JEYPORE]
+
+The elephants are now trumpeting impatiently for inspection. Their
+compound is a series of roofless walled enclosures, and a visitor notes
+with grateful appreciation the strength of the chains anchoring the
+beasts to mother earth. A leviathan is straining at his tether in a mad
+effort to reach a vagabond who is tantalizing him with a pike, and your
+guide--one of the official messengers with sword and shield--says: "He
+no like Hindu people; last week he kill two." Beasts as docile as
+kittens take nuts from your hand, and evince disappointment when more
+are not forthcoming. Five magnificent tuskers, that promptly obey their
+keeper's command, are used by His Highness for tiger-hunting; and a bevy
+of complaisant elephants, quartered in a single stable, have grown old
+in carrying tourists up the Ambir hills, it is explained.
+
+From the elephant stables the chaprassis scurry the visitors through
+fragrant gardens and under bizarre arches to the crocodile department,
+where a score of saurians are pastured in an enclosure that is half
+swamp and half lake and is acres in extent. Visitors are placed at the
+top of a staircase of masonry descending to the water, while two
+wild-eyed Hindus seek to rouse the crocodiles from their siesta on a
+grassy islet a hundred yards away by a series of shrieks that would
+disgust self-respecting animals and reptiles. In a leisurely manner the
+crocodiles seem to recognize the signal to mean that a new lot of
+tourists desire to see them fed. It requires a good quarter of an hour
+for the Indians to lure them to the foot of the staircase, and from the
+first it is plain that the crocodiles view with indifference your visit
+to Jeypore. The lower step is finally fringed with opened mouths which
+in a moment engulf a mass of slaughter-house refuse almost thrust down
+their throats by the wild-eyed showmen, whom you reward with a shower of
+rupees which they believe marks your appreciation of their efforts.
+
+As you are whisked through the palace yard, on the way to the carriage,
+you espy through an open door a splendid room fitted with paraphernalia
+not associated with medieval pastimes. It is the Maharajah's
+billiard-room, sumptuously furnished, and filled with tables of the
+latest English make.
+
+Probably because they are proud of the fact that a former ruler of
+Jeypore was a generous patron of science, the chaprassis pilot you to
+the park given over to the apparatus of the celebrated Hindu astronomer
+and mathematician, Jai Singh. It contains dials, azimuth masonry,
+altitude pillars, astrolabe, and a double mural quadrant of enormous
+size and height, on which the gradations have been marked. In a way this
+exhibit of obsolete paraphernalia refutes the idea that Jeypore's
+maharajahs have lived solely for the gratification of the senses by
+amusements. A few minutes later you are at the public tiger-cages, where
+a dozen bona fide "man-eaters" are lazily stretched in shaded corners of
+their prison cages. Thirty odd years ago the present King of England
+killed his first tiger near Jeypore, and the animal ever since has
+played an important part in the city's pleasures. One inmate of the
+cages has an authenticated record of ten Indians killed, before His
+Highness's retainers lured him into ambush and made him a prisoner. "Two
+days from now," explains one of the men carrying sword and shield, "that
+tiger there,"--indicating a sullen beast,--"is to fight a wild elephant
+for the Maharajah's entertainment. Would the sahibs care to witness the
+combat?" The visitors promptly regret that they have unbreakable
+engagements in another part of India. Cheetahs are then led forth for
+admiration. Zoos and menageries know them as leopards--in India they are
+cheetahs, and are trained to course deer and antelope. A huntsman
+releases a cheetah, whose gaze has been directed to a fleeing deer on
+the plain, and in a few minutes the deer is a captive.
+
+So much for the diversions of Jeypore's autocrat.
+
+A distinct touch of beauty is imparted to his capital by the peacocks of
+imperial strut and plumage. They are everywhere--on the crenelated city
+wall, in the hurly-burly of the streets and bazaars, even on the steps
+leading to temples and mosques. The peacock is sacred to Jeypore; it
+crowns in miniature the street lamps, and is sculptured in hundreds of
+places. Chattering parrots by the roadside may arrest attention, but are
+forgotten in a moment--a strutting peacock is beautiful enough to place
+the parrot family in eclipse. When blue-rock pigeons descend by
+thousands in the market-place to profit by an over-turned sack of grain,
+visitors marvel at their irridescent necks and breasts--but a beauteous
+peacock appearing on the scene attracts an admiration amounting to
+monopoly.
+
+But the appointment with the state elephant--what of that?
+
+Surely, Ambir must be seen. There it was that all the ancient splendor
+originated and dwelt for centuries, and until a practical maharajah
+decided that a mountain retreat was ill-suited to the needs of a
+capital. The possessor of this astute mind moved himself and his
+machinery of government to the plain below--and all his people followed.
+This explains why Ambir is now deserted, and why a court steeped in
+medievalism has a setting bristling with newness.
+
+Every adjunct of a fortified residence is there in the hills. Miles of
+battlemented masonry, pierced every few feet for bowmen, surrounds the
+straggling mass of buildings. Terraces are set upon the mountainside
+like a gigantic staircase, and fringed with railings of stone so
+artistically wrought as to suggest the grill-work of the matchless Taj
+Mahal. Great gray monkeys descend from the mountain slope to feed from
+the hands of your guides; and they are not of the moth-eaten variety
+seen in captivity, but are freeborn denizens of the forest, whose coats
+glisten and whose curly tails are of unusual length.
+
+Some of the apartments in the old palace rival anything to be seen at
+Lucknow, Agra or Delhi. A gem of a temple, adjoining a public audience
+hall of marvelous richness in finish, is dedicated to the awful goddess
+Kali, and each morning a goat is sacrificed to this deity, ever craving
+blood, by Hindu priests attached to the Maharajah's court. This is a
+revolting blot on a series of majestic buildings that unite to make one
+of India's greatest sights.
+
+"How blessed would it be," you meditate, "if the betel-chewing priest
+might be sacrificed in place of the innocent and helpless animal." But
+no, human sacrifices are no longer permitted in India; England stopped
+them years ago.
+
+Oh, yes; the state elephant. Well, it was extremely useful, for it
+rescued four stalwart native servants, laden with tiffin basket and a
+dozen bottles of mineral water, from toiling up the hills on foot.
+Perched on his back like nabobs, they probably indulged in remarks
+disparaging of their masters, electing to walk, and mused maybe upon the
+theory that now and then man meets his deserts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE WORLD'S MOST EXQUISITE BUILDING
+
+
+A Mogul ruler who did things was Shah Jahan, and he came of a race not
+content with ordinary achievements. His grandfather, Akbar, was probably
+the greatest personage ever born in India. He it was "whose saddle was
+his throne, the canopy of which was the vaulted dome of heaven." Akbar
+made Eastern history, made it fast, blazoning it with proud records of
+conquest and empire extension. Akbar was the grandest man who ever ruled
+Central India, and it was he who developed the Mogul Empire to the
+loftiest importance it attained.
+
+Shah Jahan embellished the empire with noble structures, and his impulse
+for building amounted to mania. Time annulled Akbar's achievements, but
+those of his grandson stand to-day, and the structures of his era are
+beautiful enough to attract admirers from every corner of the earth. A
+famous critic once said that Shah Jahan built like a giant and finished
+like a jeweler. His works have made Agra, of all cities in India, the
+place of unrivaled interest.
+
+[Illustration: THE TAJ MAHAL, AGRA]
+
+Agra's Taj Mahal is the most exquisite building ever erected by the
+hands of man, and is a romance as deftly wrought in marble as any writer
+ever fashioned in words. It marks a great man's love for a
+woman--Arjamand Banu Begum, his wife. Shah Jahan was a Mohammedan despot
+who led a magnificent life, and had other wives; but in his eyes the
+peer of her sex was Arjamand. When she died in giving birth to a child,
+he declared he would rear to her memory a mausoleum so perfect that it
+would make men marvel for all time. And this he accomplished. More
+poetry and prose have been written about the Taj, with more allusions to
+it as a symbol of love, than of any other creation marking human
+affection--and the secret probably lies in the fact that all the world
+loves a lover.
+
+Arjamand had many titles of rank and endearment, but poets like Sir
+Edwin Arnold preferred to speak of her as Mumtaz-i-Mahal, meaning the
+"Exalted of the Palace," when extolling the charms of this splendid
+niece of Nur-Mahal, who likewise had been famed for beauty and charity.
+
+Shah Jahan ruled from 1628 to 1658, and had been on the throne only two
+years when death took from him his adored Arjamand. Then came the
+resolve to erect to her memory a monument that might measure his love
+and grief. Since Akbar's time, the best architects, artists, and skilled
+workmen of India, Persia, and Arabia had been attracted to Agra and
+neighboring Delhi. All were summoned to Shah Jahan's court, and the
+resources of his empire placed at their disposal. The Taj,
+consequently, was not the creation of a single master mind, but the
+consummation of a great art epoch. Its construction was commenced four
+years after Arjamand's demise.
+
+The bereft emperor had appointed a council of great architects of India
+to guide the work. Drawings of celebrated structures of the world,
+especially those in Moslem lands, were studied. More than one European
+was attracted to the Mogul court, and it is believed that Geronimo
+Verroneo, who had journeyed from Italy, laid several plans before Shah
+Jahan. There are records at Agra showing that certain suggestions of the
+Italian were adopted, but it is common belief that the general design
+was the recommendation of a Turkish or Persian architect named Ustad
+Isa.
+
+In keeping with an old Tartar custom, a garden was chosen as the site of
+the tomb--a garden planted with flowers and fragrant shrubs, emblems of
+life, and solemn cypresses, emblems of death and eternity. In Mogul days
+such a garden was maintained as a pleasure ground during the owner's
+lifetime, and used for his interment when dead.
+
+    "And she who loved her garden, lieth now
+    Lapped in a garden.
+                       And all this for Love!"
+
+The laborers came from many parts of the world--the chief masons from
+Northern India and Bagdad, the dome builders from Asiatic Turkey, and
+the mosaic artists from Persia and probably Italy. Every section of
+India and Central Asia was drawn upon for materials. The marble,
+spotless in purity, was brought from Jeypore, 300 miles away, on the
+backs of elephants and camels or by bullock carts. The red sandstone was
+contributed by Fathpu Sikrij, the jasper by the Punjab, the crystal and
+jade by China. The turquoises came from Tibet and the Red Sea, the
+sapphires and lapis lazuli from Ceylon, coral and cornelian from Arabia,
+onyx and amethysts from Persia, and the diamonds from Bundelkund.
+
+It engaged the unceasing labor of 20,000 men for seventeen years to
+complete the Taj; and like that other great tomb, the Cheops Pyramid in
+Egypt, it was reared chiefly by forced labor, unpaid and uncared for,
+and thereby produced great suffering and mortality. This is the chief
+blemish attaching to the project that gave to art the mausoleum
+overlooking the Jumna.
+
+According to native accounts the cost of the Taj was lakhs of rupees
+having to-day a value of $20,000,000; and local tradition affirms that
+not half this sum was ever paid by the emperor--this is a blot upon the
+sincerity and strict uprightness of the magnificent grandson of Akbar.
+
+The Taj garden is perhaps a half mile square, and is surrounded by a
+strikingly beautiful wall of masonry. It is an orderly wilderness of
+rich vegetations, to be found only in Asia, and the deep greens and rich
+browns of the avenues of foliage unquestionably accentuate the whiteness
+of the Temple of Death. As the garden helps the tomb, so the tomb gives
+expression to the garden.
+
+The great gateway of red sandstone, whose roof is adorned by Moorish
+arches and pavilions, is in itself one of India's most perfect
+buildings. From its summit a perfect view of the Taj is had, with the
+Jumna flowing sluggishly beneath its marble platform; and from there the
+grounds are spread before the visitor in a perfect panorama. The paved
+avenues, all leading to the magnificent pile, miles of marble acqueducts
+filled with ornamental fish, playing fountains--all breathe the
+superlative of art, every fluttering leaf whispers of the East.
+
+Not by its size is Arjamand's tomb commanding, for its dimensions are
+very moderate. Imagine a plinth of flawless marble, 313 feet square, and
+rising eighteen feet from the ground--that is the foundation of the
+wondrous structure. The Taj is 186 feet square, with dome rising to an
+extreme height of 220 feet; that is all. At each corner of the plinth
+stands a tapering minaret rearing its crown 137 feet;
+
+    "--four tall court ladies
+    tending their princess."
+
+[Illustration: ALABASTER SCREEN ENCLOSING ARJAMAND'S TOMB, TAJ MAHAL]
+
+No building carries the idea of personality further than the Taj, a
+feminine personality, as it should be, for it contains no suggestion of
+the rugged grandeur of a tomb for a great man. The Taj is the antithesis
+of Akbar's mausoleum, of the Parthenon, of Napoleon's resting-place,
+of Grant's robust mausoleum on the Hudson. A sepulcher fashioned after
+ordinary architectural canons can only be conventional: the Taj is
+different from all other buildings in the world; it is symbolical of
+womanly grace and purity--is the jewel, the ideal itself; is India's
+noble tribute to the grace of Indian womanhood, a tribute perhaps to the
+Venus de Milo of the East.
+
+The grace of the Taj, as do the achievements of every form of perfect
+art, rests in its simplicity. A spectator marvels that so much beauty
+can come from so little apparent effort. Yet nothing is wanting, there
+is nothing in excess; we cannot alter a single stone and claim that the
+result would be better. And Oriental designers, working for an Eastern
+despot, might easily have struck a jarring note and rendered the Taj
+garish--the wonder is that they did not. The Taj consequently is the
+objective of most travelers making the pilgrimage to India.
+
+It is easier to tell what the Taj is than to speculate upon the ideals
+and motives of its builders, and it should be a brave writer who
+attempts to describe it. Kipling, who saw the structure first from the
+window of a train nearing Agra, called it "an opal tinted cloud on the
+horizon"; and after studying the building at close range he wrote, "Let
+those who scoff at overmuch enthusiasm look at the Taj and thenceforward
+be dumb; ... each must view it for himself with his own eyes, working
+out his own interpretation of the sight." Another great English writer
+has said, "Words are worthless in describing a building which is
+absolutely faultless." And it taxed the talents of Sir Edwin Arnold,
+critic and poet, to frame in language an adequate picture of Arjamand's
+death couch.
+
+If a man possesses the sentiment of form and proportion, the Taj will
+satisfy him. The stately portal seems to harmonize with the grandeur of
+an Eastern queen; and the aerial dome, higher than its breadth, rests
+upon its base as if possessing no weight, yet is of solid marble. Heroic
+in treatment are the quotations from the Koran framing every doorway and
+aperture, wrought in inlay or sculptured in relief--and these modify the
+pearly monotony of the marble.
+
+One enters reverently the burial-place of Shah Jahan's queen, whose
+cenotaph is of the whitest marble, placed in the precise center of the
+building, and surrounded by an octagonal screen of alabaster that is
+pierced and interwoven like lace. Every foot of the walls, every column
+and panel, is elaborately embellished with flowers, leaves, scrolls, and
+sentences, and these are inlaid in jasper, bloodstone, jade, onyx, and
+precious stones. Arjamand's tomb blossoms with never-fading Persian
+flowers and Arabic sentences extolling her character, and is as
+marvelous in workmanship as if produced by Florentine inlayers of the
+present time. The sarcophagus was originally inclosed by a fence of
+gold, studded with gems; but this was early replaced by the screen of
+marble, local history asserts.
+
+The supposition is that one Austin de Bordeaux, a French goldsmith, who
+had been summoned to Agra by Shah Jahan to construct the celebrated
+Peacock throne, had much to do with the treatment of the Taj's interior.
+The building originally possessed two wonderful silver doors, of his
+designing, but these were looted by Jat invaders in 1764 and melted
+down. It is said that eight years were consumed by the artists intrusted
+with the making and beautifying of Arjamand's cenotaph; and further,
+that the Koran's every line and every word is reproduced by inlay or
+relief carving on the interior and exterior of the Taj.
+
+To the left of Arjamand's tomb is that of her lord and lover, its
+location proving that it was placed there obviously from necessity and
+as an afterthought. It is a span larger than his consort's stone, and
+occupies nearly all the space allowed by the position of the grilled
+inclosure--but is a sentimentally fitting intruder upon the general
+design.
+
+It is a curious bit of history that Shah Jahan, conscious of triumph as
+the author of the Taj, long contemplated constructing a similar shrine
+on the opposite bank of the Jumna, wherein his own body was to be
+placed. It was to be constructed of dark-colored marble, but otherwise
+to be a counterpart of Arjamand's tomb. The foundations were placed, and
+the arangements for supplying labor and materials well advanced, when a
+son of Jahan--Aurangzeb--who had long plotted for the Mogul throne,
+secured control of the military forces, and overthrew his father's
+rule.
+
+Aurangzeb promptly adopted Delhi as his capital, leaving his parent to
+languish as a political prisoner in the palace within the fort of Agra.
+In a suite of very small rooms, and attended by a devoted daughter, the
+great Shah Jahan there dreamed away the last seven years of his
+life--but these apartments overlooked the Taj Mahal, two miles away, let
+it be known. The heartbroken Jahan outlived his splendid wife by
+thirty-seven years.
+
+In this manner destiny willed that two great personages forever lie side
+by side in death; and consequently the Taj is enriched as a temple of
+sentiment; but--they do not sleep within the marble caskets the traveler
+beholds. There is a vault deep underneath the floor, and there, in
+positions agreeing with the monuments above, are the royal remains
+enclosed in unornamented masonry.
+
+In Jahan's plan for a somber reproduction of the Taj, a monumental
+bridge was to span the Jumna and link the shrines of emperor and
+empress. Instead of this fair dream, there is now only a flat,
+sandcovered shore, upon which lazy tortoises range themselves under the
+warming sun, and long-legged water fowl indulge in peaceful meditation
+and slumber.
+
+[Illustration: INLAID WORK IN MAUSOLEUM OF ITIMAD-UD-DAULAH, AGRA]
+
+The curious acoustics of the Taj are observable to the visitor going
+often to Arjamand's shrine. A harsh voice is echoed harshly back and
+ceases quickly; but a woman's tones raised gently in song are echoed
+many times, diversified and amplified in strange combinations of melody.
+Such a voice reverberates from every side, seemingly ascends, and its
+force finally dies away to silence like the notes of a flying wood-dove
+in a forest.
+
+This gem of Agra is worshiped as fervently by Hindus as by those of the
+Moslem faith, and Indian artists in a few years almost destroy their
+eyesight trying to portray in miniature upon ivory the architectural
+perfection and delicacy of this marvel of the world.
+
+When invading hordes have swept Central India, or alien garrisons been
+quartered in Agra fort, the Taj has always suffered mutilation. The
+Mahrattas looted it of everything movable and systematically wrenched
+precious stones from their places in the design ornamenting the fabric
+of the interior. After the Mutiny came the red-coated soldier, who
+relieved the tedium of garrison duty by appropriating any attractive
+piece of inlay overlooked by the Mahrattas--these pretty bits made
+interesting souvenirs of India for sending home to the British Isles.
+
+For twenty years the British government has been repairing this
+desecration, under guidance of its viceroys. The great chamber of the
+Taj now seems perfect in its embellishment--but there are no diamonds,
+no rubies, and no emeralds, as of old. Bits of colored glass fill their
+places.
+
+But the Taj's exterior is to-day as perfect as it could have been two
+centuries ago; and the dignity and sovereign chastity of its marble
+surfaces--spoiled by no misplaced ornamentation, and unsullied by
+vandal--make of this poetic shrine an offering to love surpassed in
+beauty by nothing in all the world fashioned or reared by man.
+
+Nowheres on God's footstool has any queen such a monument, and it is
+even more beautiful in the silver dress of moonlight than in the golden
+robes of the midday sun. By day or night alike it makes an impression on
+the mind that time can never obliterate. Shah Jahan erected the Jami
+Masjid mosque at Delhi, and the costly Muti Masjid mosque in Agra Fort,
+as well as the splendid Khas Mahal, the Diwan-i-ain, and the
+Diwan-i-khas, likewise in the fort--but more satisfying art is
+represented in the Taj than in all the other structures of his reign.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+BENARES, SACRED CITY OF THE HINDUS
+
+
+Unique among Indian cities is Benares, and for the Hindu the sacred
+capital on the Ganges has a significance similar to that of Mecca for
+the Mohammedan, and a greater attracting power than Jerusalem has for
+the Christian. Benares is the home and shrine of the complex religion
+that binds the Hindu nations, and is the very soul and heart of
+Hinduism.
+
+No other place where men congregate can compete with deified Benares in
+the matter of divine merit that may be conferred on the pilgrim entering
+its gates and threading its narrow and filth-smeared streets. There two
+hundred thousand people live and fatten upon the half million devotees
+coming annually to the idolatrous fountainhead. The sacred city attracts
+this tide of pious humanity from all the tribes and nations of
+many-peopled India: they journey to Benares brimming with love and
+trustfulness, and after a season spent in her temples, at her shrines,
+and by her sacred stream, she sends them forth overflowing with merit
+and zeal, to carry her fame to the outposts of the faith, even to
+Afghanistan and Baluchistan, and to the nomadic tribes peopling Tibet
+and other lands beyond the mighty Himalayas.
+
+[Illustration: SCENE ON THE GANGES, BENARES]
+
+Somebody with a gift for nebulous mathematics has stated that more than
+two hundred thousand gods of the Hindu religion are represented at
+Benares. Whether the count be valid matters little, for the city is
+pre-eminent as the special domain of the fundamental god of India's
+slavish religion, Siva, whose ensign--a gilt trident and perforated
+disk--flashes from the pinnacles of hundreds of temples and palaces.
+This uncanny city on the Ganges is naturally the Brahmins' paradise, for
+these devotees constitute a governing force in the city's control, and
+from this fountainhead spread their influence throughout the land of
+Hind. These insinuating men of religion line the river bank, and infest
+the temples, sitting like spiders waiting for their prey. Their
+emissaries are everywhere in India, promoting pilgrimages, or hovering
+about the entrances to the city to make certain of the arrival of the
+unwary enthusiast with well lined purse. Rich and poor, high caste and
+low, all come to the sacred city. Some travel in state by lordly
+elephant or camel caravan, others by railway; but none follow a surer
+avenue to eternal grace than those who plod on foot over the Great Trunk
+highway, sweeping diagonally across India, after the manner of Kipling's
+holy man from Thibet whose footsteps were watched over by _Kim_. The
+"business" of Benares being the bestowal of holiness, the manufacture of
+brass goods appealing to tourists is incidental in importance and
+revenue. No other city of its population can have a more insignificant
+trade measureable by statistics.
+
+For three miles the religious section of Benares runs along the brow of
+the plateau overlooking the chocolate-hued stream, and every foot of
+this distance is curious and interesting. Falling below the disgusting
+temple resorted to by pilgrims from Nepal, the Hindu region beyond
+India's frontier and "the snows," is the ghat (a ghat is a large stone
+stairway descending to the river), where the good Hindu gives his dead
+to the flames, and the muddy inlet from the Ganges where this occurs is
+dedicated to Vishnu, "the sleeper on the waters," a name singularly
+appropriate to a place where the ashes of the dead are consigned to the
+bosom of "Mother Ganga."
+
+A visitor observes a number of platform-like structures of masonry that
+are decorated with roughly carved figures of men and women standing hand
+in hand. Upon these, until British rule put a stop to the custom,
+thousands of fanatical wives underwent suttee and were burned alive with
+their dead husbands. It is but seldom that a cremation is not in
+progress at the burning ghat. From the deck of a native boat moored not
+forty feet away I saw in a single hour eight corpses in varying stages
+of consumption by fire. The traveler hardened to gruesome spectacles by
+much journeying in Africa and Asia experiences but little of the
+sickening sensation through witnessing a primitive incineration at
+Benares that is caused by a visit to the Parsee towers at Bombay. The
+Benares operation is sanitary and practical, and something may be said
+on the side of sentimental appropriateness in having a corpse borne to
+the riverside by one's relatives and friends, and there consumed by the
+burning of a pyre constructed by the hands of these. The dramatic
+entities become apparent to every thoughtful spectator, probably.
+
+A clatter of brass cymbals reaches the ear, and a cortege appears at the
+top of the ghat, while desultory cries of "_Rama, nama, satya
+hai_"--"the name of Rama is true"--are heard. The corpse, fastened upon
+a simple bier of bamboo sticks and carried on the shoulders of four
+relatives, is swathed in white if a male, or in red if a female. The
+bearers hasten almost frantically down the decline and clumsily drop
+their burden in the water, feet foremost, and make certain that the
+current will have undisturbed play upon the corpse without sweeping it
+away. The mourners repair to the place where dry wood is sold and enter
+upon spirited bargaining for fuel sufficient to consume their relative,
+whose body is being laved and cleansed of spiritual imperfections not a
+few rods away by the sacred Ganges. Only six or eight logs are required.
+The dealer demands three rupees for them--and the grief-stricken Hindus
+offer one. A bargain is finally struck at two rupees, with a stick of
+sandal-wood for the head of the pyre thrown in.
+
+[Illustration: BENARES BURNING GHAT, WITH CORPSES BEING PURIFIED IN THE
+GANGES]
+
+The logs are quickly conveyed to the burning-ground, a satisfactory
+site for the sad office is expeditiously chosen, and the mourners with
+their own hands construct the pile. Now sanctified by Mother Ganga, the
+corpse is fetched from the strand and placed on the structure, feet ever
+directed toward the precious river. The pyre is soon ready for the
+torch, and here occurs a curious incident, one that illustrates the
+monopolistic importance of a man wearing only a loin-cloth, who has been
+taking an indifferent interest in the proceedings from an elevation
+close by. He is a Dom, of a caste so degraded that should he
+inadvertently touch a corpse it would be contaminated beyond remedy. But
+immemorial custom requires that the fire be obtained from him, and he
+may demand payment therefor in keeping with his estimate of the worldly
+position of the applicants. Ordinarily a rupee is sufficient, although
+for a grandee's cremation a fee of a thousand rupees has sometimes been
+demanded and paid.
+
+The dicker with the Dom being concluded, the chief mourner lights a
+handful of dried reeds at his fire, hurries to the waiting pyre, walks
+seven times around it, and with the blazing reeds held in the right hand
+lights the mass at head and foot. The mourners then withdraw to a shaded
+spot beside a suttee structure, and silently watch the conflagration. In
+an hour all is over, and the ashes then are strewn far out on the
+surface of the Ganges and are borne from sight by the current.
+
+From ten to fifteen corpses are disposed of at the burning-ghat daily,
+and several cremations are usually simultaneously in process. Now and
+then there is some demonstration of grief, but not often. I saw two men
+wade to a body in the river, when they pulled away the covering from the
+face and bathed it with handfuls of water scooped from beloved Ganga,
+and their every movement denoted affection. Again, I witnessed a
+tottering and sobbing old man place with every expression of tenderness
+a garland of yellow and white flowers about the neck of a corpse swathed
+in red, and imagined it the last office of love to an idolized daughter.
+I also observed the bare corpse of a man who an hour before had died of
+plague brought to the ghat by two public scavengers, and committed to
+the flames of a few logs much too short, until the slender legs had been
+doubled beneath the body. No sandal-wood perfumed this pauper's pyre,
+and no interment in potter's field was ever more perfunctory than his
+burning.
+
+Social distinctions are as marked at the Benares burning-ghat as in the
+modern American cemetery. An hour spent on the Ganges bank supplies
+sufficient food to the mind for weeks of serious reflection.
+
+One of the greatest spectacles of India is that of pilgrims bathing in
+the Ganges. From several ghats devoted to sacred ablutions numerous
+wooden piers extend into the worshiped stream, and these teem with
+pilgrims from every section of Hindustan, in every variety of costume,
+every stage of dress and undress, there to purge themselves of unclean
+thoughts and wicked deeds, and to wash away bodily impurities.
+Preaching canopies, shrines for rich and powerful rajahs, and stone
+recesses for those demanding solitary meditation, make of the river
+front a place literally teeming with humanity. Devotees are everywhere.
+Here a pundit is reading the holy law to a half hundred approving
+Hindus; there a stately chieftain from remote Kashmir ceaselessly
+mutters prayers beneath a huge spreading umbrella of thatched straw,
+hired from a Brahmin for an hour; and ten feet away a holy ascetic,
+naked in the scorching sun, smears his skin with the gray ashes of
+penitence.
+
+Below this grotesque medley is the multitude of men, women and children,
+breast deep in the sanctifying Ganges. Thousands have come on foot from
+far-away villages of this boundless land of paganism; and from all goes
+up a continuous murmur of prayer and adoration, like a moaning wind
+emerging from a distant forest. Eye and ear alike are flooded with an
+indescribable rush of sensations, and the heart is oppressed with the
+august meanings which lie behind the awe-inspiring sight. All the
+Hindu-cults are here--the Ganges welds them in her holy embrace. But
+conspicuous above all others is the Brahmin priest, attracting annas and
+rupees in devious ways from enthusiasts dazed by the realization that
+they have bathed in Mother Ganga--some want a certificate of purity,
+others want seals placed on vessels of water to be carried to loved ones
+suffering from infirmities. The Brahmin gives certificate, places seals,
+and performs other acts enabling him to garner a harvest of silver and
+gold.
+
+Now and again a moribund believer, whose friends seek for him something
+that may be construed as a last blessing, is hurried to the river's
+edge. It is a sacrament that cannot be delayed many minutes--and the
+Brahmin fortunate enough to be appealed to charges at emergency rates.
+When business slackens this harpy composes his nearly-naked body on a
+plank overlapping the river, and executes with studied deliberation a
+program of purification marvelous in detail. Receptacles of brass and
+silver are brought him, and for an hour or longer he rubs his handsome
+frame with unguents and perfumes, slowly stripes forehead, biceps and
+breast with the ash-marks of sanctity, and places a wafer of his caste
+on his forehead. Later he climbs the ghat to his favorite temple,
+probably content with the emoluments thrust upon him at the water side,
+or may be he goes to the bazaar to learn the latest gossip of religious
+and political India. It is in no sense a losing game to be a member of
+the Brahministic ring controlling things in Benares, for the flow of
+coin from the two hundred million Hindus is ceaseless.
+
+[Illustration: BENARES HOLY MEN]
+
+A curious sight in Benares is the Monkey Temple, a pretentious and not
+inartistic structure of carved red sandstone dedicated to Kali, the
+goddess wife of Siva. The image of Kali within the temple is a black
+fury of hideous countenance, whose red tongue droops to the waist. She
+is dripping with blood, and crowned with snakes, while hanging from
+her neck is a garland of human skulls. Kali wants blood, and if not
+propitiated daily therewith something horrible is expected to happen.
+Every Indian town has a temple to this monster; and everywhere
+throughout what Kipling calls "the great, gray, formless India,"
+sacrifices are made each morning to this ogress with insatiable appetite
+for blood.
+
+The entrance to the Monkey Temple is slime-covered and the air heavy
+with sickening odors. Through a stone doorway the goddess may be seen
+enshrined, grinning demoniacally. Twenty horrible men, harmonizing in
+appearance to a reader's conception of thugs, gather in the court, to
+give each batch of visitors the performance that most have come to
+witness. The frontal region of their heads is shaven smooth, and each
+loathsome Indian drools betel-nut saliva that looks like blood. A goat
+is led into the enclosure and tied to a stone post, and the evil-looking
+men form a circle about the helpless animal. One of them holds the rear
+legs of the beast clear of the ground. A chant issues from the
+betel-stained mouths, and a human fiend forces through the circle,
+brandishing a straight-bladed sword, heavy and keen-edged, that has just
+been blessed before the altar of Kali. He is the official executioner.
+
+This functionary makes a sign of readiness, swings the blade at arm's
+length for a moment--and lands a blow on the underside of the animal's
+throat that severs the head from the body. The gushing blood is directed
+to the Siva emblem close by, the head is borne triumphantly to the feet
+of Kali, and each thug-looking man smears his face with blood taken from
+the Siva symbol, and then dances madly around the carcass. Assuming that
+the spectacle has favorably impressed the visitor, the high executioner
+begs a donation with which to purchase a goat for a second sacrifice.
+You decline, probably feeling that you would subscribe bountifully if a
+priest might be substituted for the helpless beast.
+
+On important days in the Hindu calendar many goats and sheep are
+sacrificed, and sometimes buffaloes as well. In time of pestilence or
+famine it is not unusual to find a child's head deposited in the early
+morn at Kali's feet, it is claimed.
+
+The inner court of the Monkey Temple, like the ceremony of the
+slaughter, is open to the heavens, and is surrounded by a cloister lined
+with cell-like niches for solitary meditation and introspection. On the
+terrace, on every protruding bit of architecture, on every window
+ledge--wherever foothold may be gained--are monkeys, loathsomely fat,
+and made more disgusting from years of pampering than are the human
+freaks on the pavement. Great tamarind trees overhanging the temple are
+alive with monkeys. They drop to the ground, run between your legs, and
+dash before you at every turning. You are entreated to pay for basins of
+parched corn thrown to the revolting creatures by your priestly guide,
+and do so, but are glad when the monkeys show their appreciation from a
+distance. From three to four hundred of these mangy animals belong to
+the temple, and are held to be sacred. At Benares everything specially
+nasty or repulsive is protected by the cloak of sanctity.
+
+You are glad to get back to your carriage, so thankful that you throw a
+couple of rupees to the mob of appealing "priests," in your heart
+possibly wishing that the money might be invested in soap and scrubbing
+brushes--and in poison for the monkeys. Urging the coachman to drive
+speedily for the open space and pure air of Benares cantonments, you
+wonder as you proceed what place in religion can reasonably be occupied
+by the revolting customs and beings to be witnessed at the Monkey
+Temple, and it is with no regret that you learn from eminent authority
+that in less than a hundred years every temple and shrine perched on the
+brink of the plateau crowning the Ganges will be undermined and its
+descent not arrested until the structure reaches the river's bed. Those
+responsible for locating Benares on the outer periphery of a great bend
+in the Ganges proved themselves to possess no engineering foresight. But
+India's controlling religion can receive no setback by the destruction
+of a few score tawdry buildings consecrated to its gods, for they will
+be replaced by better shrines and temples, rising from places beyond
+even the iconoclasm of the sacred Ganges.
+
+Investigation reveals sufficient merit in the religio-philosophies of
+Mohammedanism and Buddhism to explain their adoption by teeming
+millions. Each faith offers admirable precepts and teachings, and
+prolonged study of them produces a feeling of respect for all true
+believers. But a season of travel in India, entered upon with the desire
+to dispassionately study the Hindu religion in the land of its
+overweening strength, produces only bewilderment and mental nausea. The
+more determined one may be to lay bare the gems of this faith and its
+administration by the Brahmins, the keener will be his disappointment,
+for not a redeeming feature will he find, and he may quit India smarting
+with regret over wasted time. To such an investigator Hinduism must
+forever be remembered as paganism steeped in idolatry. More, its
+gruesome sacrifices will provoke only disgust, perhaps equaled by that
+called forth by the unspeakably coarse temple carvings and ornamentation
+of the cars of juggernaut. I have been acquainted with Indian gentlemen
+proud to be known as Hindus, and have been amazed to hear them avow
+devotion to the hideous idolatry that absorbs a great part of the time
+of two hundred million people in India alone. If the strong arm of
+England were not raised over the great empire of the East the suttee
+rite and child sacrifice would unquestionably prevail to-day. To a
+westerner Hinduism seems the greatest abomination of the earth.
+
+[Illustration: A BRAHMIN PRIEST]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+INDIA'S MODERN CAPITAL
+
+
+Kipling, who has gracefully lured roamers to India by saying, "It is
+good for every man to see some little of the great Indian Empire and the
+strange folk who move about it," obligingly prepares those entering by
+the gateway of Calcutta for an olfactory affront. The stenches of
+Calcutta are numerous and pervading, surely; but the tourist who has
+crawled up the Bay of Bengal in a caravel of the Peninsular & Oriental
+Company cheerfully accepts them. The "P. & O." line is one of Britain's
+venerated institutions; consequently English people would as soon commit
+a felony as criticize this antiquated concern. In these times ten-knot
+passenger steamers are hard to find outside the Calcutta service of the
+"P. & O." Company and in marine junk yards.
+
+As a great commercial port, Calcutta is unfortunately located. It is on
+the Hooghly river, one of the outlets of the sacred Ganges, and ninety
+miles from its mouth. The Hooghly is a tortuous stream of mud that can
+be navigated by large vessels only by daylight and with favoring
+conditions of tide, for its channel is seldom two days alike. This
+demands expert piloting, and explains why Hooghly pilots are selected
+with great caution. A Hooghly pilot is the very maximum of a nautical
+swell, and one's boarding of a ship attended by man-servant and a mass
+of belongings partakes somewhat of the character of a function.
+
+This Calcutta pilot is a fine fellow--well-bred, educated, and entitled
+to the splendid compensation and social position which he enjoys. Since
+the days of the East India Company, the forerunner of British rule in
+India, the pilots of the Hooghly have been esteemed as personages and
+they have taken rank but slightly lower than officers of the navy, and
+much ahead of ordinary commercial people and mariners. When off duty in
+Calcutta the pilot goes to his club and drives on the Maidan with other
+Anglo-Indians of quality, and never is seen about hotel bars and cafes
+like the ruck of seafaring men having a spare day on shore.
+
+[Illustration: A CALCUTTA NAUTCH DANCER]
+
+The Hooghly is charted practically every twenty-four hours, and on his
+way upstream the pilot gets his information pertaining to depths and
+bars by signals from stations on shore. The river presents nothing of
+interest to the traveler until a point twenty miles from Calcutta is
+reached; thereafter it is a stream of many attractions. Fortifications
+with visible native troops and an occasional red-coated English soldier
+occur frequently; then come scores of enormous cotton and jute mills,
+attended by strange-looking stern-wheel steamboats, most of them with
+huge cargo barges on either side. At last Calcutta is in sight. Tall
+factory chimneys and domed public buildings pronounce it a city of size
+and importance. The last two miles of the journey are made through a
+flotilla of shipping, a bewildering medley of sailing vessels and
+steamers, flying the flags of all the maritime nations of the earth--all
+but the Stars and Stripes of Uncle Sam.
+
+Bombay, on the other side of India, and immediately on the sea, would
+make a better capital than Calcutta. But the malodorous city of the
+Hooghly will probably ever be the seat of Britain's rule.
+
+While the names of Warren Hastings and Clive dominate the printed page
+dealing with modern India, Calcutta fairly throbs with recollections of
+Job Charnock, the audacious Englishman who raised the red flag of
+Britain just two hundred and seventeen years ago over a collection of
+mud hovels and straw huts on the site of what to-day is the capital of
+the Indian Empire.
+
+Charnock, perhaps the founder of England's rule in the East, was the
+agent of the old East Indian Company. Having been granted permission by
+the Mogul rulers to establish a post on the Hooghly convenient for
+trading purposes, he chose a spot having the advantage of a generous
+shade tree. The spot and neighborhood now is Calcutta, the chief city of
+India, with over a million inhabitants. A Hindu village in the vicinity
+of the place where Charnock established his trading post was called
+Khali-ghat--these words, corrupted by use, have come to mean
+"Calcutta." The quaint pioneer obviously had no realization of the part
+he was playing in empire-making, and Great Britain has never made
+adequate acknowledgment of the gratitude clearly this man's due.
+Calcutta residents delight to recount Charnock's exploits, and they take
+visitors to St. John's churchyard to view the substantial monument
+beneath which rest his bones. The inscription states that he died
+January 10, 1693.
+
+A single story proves Charnock's independence of character. He went with
+his ordinary guard of soldiers to witness the burning of the body of a
+Hindu grandee, whose wife was reputed more than passing fair. It was
+known that the rite of the suttee was to be performed--the widow was to
+sacrifice herself upon the blazing pyre of the deceased, in keeping with
+Hindu custom. Charnock was so impressed by the young widow's charms that
+he ordered his soldiers to rescue her and by force take her to his home.
+They were speedily married, had several children and lived happily for
+many years. Instead of converting her to Christianity, she made him a
+proselyte to paganism, and the only shred of Christianity thereafter
+remarkable in him was the burying of her decently when she was removed
+by death; but Charnock is said to have observed in true pagan manner
+each anniversary of her demise, even to making animal sacrifices before
+the image of the goddess Khali.
+
+[Illustration: GENERAL POST-OFFICE, CALCUTTA]
+
+Calcutta has improved greatly since Kipling wrote of it as the "City of
+Dreadful Night"; but it is yet a place of striking contrasts, of
+official splendor and native squalor, of garish palaces abutting in rear
+allies upon filthy hovels. The good is extremely good--that is for the
+British official; the bad is worse than awful--and that is for the
+native.
+
+Viewed superficially, Calcutta looks like a prosperous city in Europe,
+perhaps in England; but rear streets and suburbs are as filthy and
+congested as any town in vast India. What the average tourist beholds is
+spick and span in a modern sense; and what he doesn't see is intensely
+Asiatic, with all that the word can mean. Being a city of extremes, the
+visitor may be brought to his front windows by the warning cries of the
+footmen of a sojourning maharajah driving in state to a function, while
+through the rear windows float the plaintive notes of the muezzin
+calling the faithful to prayers from the minaret of a Mohammedan mosque
+close by.
+
+The Indian metropolis presents an array of fine homes, bungalows and
+stucco villas, put up when the rupee was worth two shillings and a
+penny, wherein unhappiness may now dwell, because the rupee has
+depreciated to a shilling and fourpence. The parade of fashion on the
+Maidan late in the afternoon presents every variety of equipage and
+livery known to the East, The horse-flesh of Calcutta is uniformly fine.
+Better animals than are daily grouped around the band stand, or along
+the rail of the race-course, cannot be found short of Europe. The
+viceroy is often seen driving a mail phaeton, preceded by two native
+lancers and followed by four others. The automobile has many devotees in
+Calcutta, and bicycle-riding natives are everywhere. The babu is
+exceedingly fond of wheeling on the Maidan whenever he can escape from
+his account books. Nearly every carriage on the Maidan in the afternoon
+has two men on the box and two footmen behind, all gorgeously
+dressed--servants are cheap in India. At sundown nowadays half the
+pianos in Chowringee--where Calcutta's officials and prosperous
+commercial people reside--seem to be playing airs from American light
+operas, and not infrequently a regimental band compliments the United
+States by playing "Hiawatha" or one of Sousa's compositions.
+
+It is compensating to a person burdened with the habit of wondering
+where words come from, to discover that Dum-dum is a suburb of Calcutta,
+and is important as a military post and as the seat of an ammunition
+factory and arsenal.
+
+[Illustration: SHIPPING ON THE HOOGHLY, CALCUTTA]
+
+The sights of Calcutta are unimportant. The general post-office occupies
+the site of the native prison whose horrors of the Black Hole stain
+chapters of Indian history; and a description of the burning of human
+bodies on the bank of the Hooghly, and of the animal sacrifices at the
+old Hindu temple at Khali-ghat, would be disagreeably gruesome. The
+gaudy Jain temple interests for a few minutes, and the exterior of Fort
+William impresses the casual spectator. The zooelogical garden is
+conventional, and the feature of the botanical garden is probably the
+largest banyan tree in the world. Calcutta hotels, deplorably poor, have
+been fitly described as of two kinds--bad and adjectively bad. All that
+interests the visitor within the modern capital of ancient India is the
+movement of official and social life, and the parade of races forming
+the population of the marvelous, mysterious country.
+
+There, across the esplanade, with imposing gates and approaches, is
+Government House, winter seat of the Viceroy of India--whose most
+distinguished incumbent in recent years was His Excellency the Right
+Honorable the Baron Curzon of Kedleston, P. C., G. M. S. I., G. M. I.
+E., etc., etc. Few traveling Americans had the time to speak of him in a
+manner honoring all these designations. Visitors from Chicago used to
+refer to him, it was claimed, with naive simplicity as "Mary Leiter's
+husband," and let it go at that. A person of extraordinary ability was
+this husband of an American queen, and it is generally believed that he
+may some day be prime minister of England. The viceroyship is the
+highest appointive office in the world. Its compensation is the
+equivalent of $80,000 per annum, but the allowances for entertaining
+European functionaries, an army of native servants, and a stableful of
+horses and elephants for State ceremonials, swells the amount two or
+threefold. Both at Government House in Calcutta and at the summer home
+in Simla the viceroy is surrounded by a court equalled in splendor by
+few royalties in Europe. Compared with the increment and disbursements
+of India's viceroy, those of the President of the United States appear
+insignificant. But oriental show and parade are expensive, so expensive
+in fact, that a viceroy is forced to make liberal drafts upon his
+private purse.
+
+India may have had as capable rulers in the past as Lord Curzon, but
+rarely one more tactful or courageous, and never one having the
+assistance of a vicereine possessing the charm and lovable qualities of
+the late Lady Curzon. Her splendid work in behalf of the natives,
+especially the women, endeared her to all Indians. The Delhi durbar in
+1903 honored Edward VII in a degree unsurpassed, but was a greater
+personal triumph for Viceroy Curzon and his accomplished consort from
+Chicago. His administration had many perplexing situations to deal with
+and one of them forced his resignation. The constant nightmare of a
+viceroy of India is famine, and twice Lord Curzon had to deal with
+this--one visitation alone cost the Indian Government fifty million
+pounds sterling. His understanding of frontier technicalities, and the
+ways and wiles of native rulers--none too loyal to British rule,
+assisted mightily in the successful administration of his high office.
+Under the Curzons' regime Government House balls and garden parties were
+counted the most brilliant occurring in the East.
+
+A mighty personage in present-day Calcutta is General Viscount
+Kitchener, commander-in-chief of the Indian army. In Egypt he reformed
+the nature of the Nile peasant to the extent of making good fighters of
+the sons of the cravens of Tel-el-Kebir; good enough, when led by
+British officers, to annihilate the army of the Khalifa; and in South
+Africa Kitchener wound up with success a war that had been horribly
+bungled by others. Military critics had long been aware that the army of
+India was antiquated, honeycombed with dry-rot, and largely ruled by
+favorites sitting in high places at Whitehall. Consequently, Kitchener
+was sent to India with instructions conferring almost plenary power to
+reorganize the forces, British as well as native. He prefers work to
+participating in the social game.
+
+In England there is a growing desire that finds expression frequently in
+the newspapers for Kitchener's translation from Calcutta to the War
+Office in London, from whence the British army as a whole might profit
+by the trenchant efforts of the Irish soldier who has seldom blundered.
+As commander in India Lord Kitchener is paid a lakh of rupees a
+year--$32,000, and heads an army of 242,000 men--77,000 British and
+165,000 native troops.
+
+The lieutenant-governor of Bengal, always spoken of as the "L. G."
+resides in Calcutta and works in close relationship with the viceroy.
+This British functionary administers the affairs of a territory but one
+twentieth the area of the United States, but which possesses 75,000,000
+people.
+
+And what is this India, governed by Great Britain through its delegated
+officials? It is a country greater than all Europe, omitting Russia, and
+fully half as large as the United States. Its population numbers
+300,000,000, and is the most heterogeneous of any land in the
+world--were there homogeneity, or anything approaching it, a mere
+handful of Britons could not hope to control a fifth part of the people
+of the earth. India is made up of a multiplicity of races and tribes,
+professing every religion of paganism; and these are separated by
+thousands upon thousands of castes each going its own distinct and
+peculiar way. Great Britain's control of these teeming millions is
+unique in the history of oversea rule. India is almost exclusively
+agricultural, and in sections of Bengal averages 900 people to the
+square mile. At the beginning of 1906 the government had brought
+14,000,000 acres of waste land under cultivation by irrigation upon an
+expenditure of $135,000,000. India now has 215 cotton mills, which
+employ a capital of $70,000,000, and last year's jute product of Bengal
+alone was valued at $70,000,000. The Indian Empire is ponderous and
+complex from any point of view. Possessing but half the area of the
+United States, it represents one seventh of the British Empire, and more
+than seven times the combined population of Great Britain and Ireland.
+It should not be assumed that the whole of India is under British rule,
+for practically a third of the country is still governed by independent
+native princes. With almost four times the population of the United
+States, India supports less than 29,000 miles of railway, as against
+215,000 miles in the great republic--and this difference makes the
+contrast between Asiatic conservatism and New World progress.
+
+[Illustration: CALCUTTA COOLIES]
+
+The person demanding physical statistics gets enough pabulum in a day's
+search to keep the machinery of the mind going for months, and must be
+amazed when learning that there are seven hundred and twenty-one
+distinct languages and dialects spoken in India; that the population has
+trebled with the British occupation; that for every insane person in
+India there are thirteen in Europe,--the words "placid East" purveying
+the explanation. Taking the country by and large it is claimed that only
+one male in ten and only one female out of a hundred and forty-four, can
+read and write; and it is said by British residents in the land that the
+native knows no such thing as scholarship--he learns everything by rote,
+even to the extent of perfect recitation, without comprehending the
+meaning of the wards he is uttering. It is the nature of illiterate
+Hindus to resort to the extremest extravagance in nearly every
+statement, and it is not uncommon for report to have it that an
+Englishman has spoken abusively of a hundred thousand good Hindus, when
+that individual has merely intimated to a native servant that he would
+like his morning meal served with more punctuality. The illiterate
+Hindu, it is interesting to know, believes that the human soul passes
+through eight million reincarnations. When this child of the East deals
+with numbers his tongue runs into meaningless extravagance, and there
+appears to be no communion between his intellect and speech.
+
+While marriage is universal in India, if not obligatory, the custom
+forbidding the remarriage of widows works an injustice to the sex
+amounting to national disgrace. A Hindu maiden who at twelve or thirteen
+is unmarried brings social obloquy on her family and entails
+retrospective damnation on three generations of ancestors. A Hindu man
+must marry and beget children to make certain of his funeral rites, lest
+his spirit wander uneasily in the waste places of the earth or be
+precipitated into the temporary hell called _Put_. The last available
+census discloses the astonishing fact that there are twenty-six million
+widows in India, meaning that out of every hundred women at least
+fourteen have been bereft of their husbands, and consequently are no
+better than human derelicts upon the earth. It is a teaching of the
+abominable Hindu faith that the bridegroom cometh but once. A pundit of
+the belief will argue that the practical reason for prohibiting
+remarriage is to prevent the crowding of the marriage market--and this
+is the only "reason" that can be extracted from one claiming to speak
+with knowledge on the unfortunate subject. The enlightened Gaekwar of
+Baroda, devoting influence and fortune to the moral uplifting of the
+people of his land, pronounces the custom forbidding the remarriage of
+widows to be a national curse exceeded only by that compassed by the
+word "caste."
+
+A statistical paper on India issued recently by the British Government
+shows that there were killed in that country last year by snakes and
+wild beasts 24,034 persons--21,880 by snake bites, 796 by tigers, 399 by
+leopards, and the rest by other animals. The number of cattle destroyed
+by snakes and wild beasts was 98,582.
+
+The other side of the account shows that 65,146 snakes and 16,121 wild
+animals were killed, for which rewards aggregating $37,000 were paid.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+ISLAND LINKS IN BRITAIN'S CHAIN OF EMPIRE
+
+
+If one be a sufferer from anglophobia, a tour of the globe by
+conventional paths may produce rather more irritation than is good for
+man--to such a traveler the British Empire is a chronic nightmare, for
+the red flag is everywhere. Every harbor seems choked with English
+shipping, if not guarded by a British warship; and Tommy Atkins is the
+first man met ashore. If your prejudice against Great Britain be
+unjustly conceived, you will probably revise your judgment before the
+earth is half circled; at least you must confess that Britain is great
+from the standpoint of area.
+
+A globe-trotter who has had "Britannia Rules the Wave" ringing in his
+ears from Gibraltar to Ceylon, connects again with the "thin red line"
+the moment his ship emerges from the Bay of Bengal. Penang then is the
+link in the interminable chain of colonies upon which the sun never
+sets. "Well, this is but an island, and a small one at that;
+consequently I won't let it worry me," soliloquizes the anglophobe.
+
+Penang is doubly remarkable. Firstly, the tourist is there made to
+understand that he has finished with that great division of the earth
+known as "the East," and is at the portal of the Far East, the realm
+wherein the Chinaman, Malay and Japanese teem in uncounted millions.
+Besides, Penang is the premier tin port of the universe. Seven tenths of
+this metal used by the world starts for market from Penang and its
+neighboring ports in the Malacca Straits.
+
+"Rule Britannia" is played next at Singapore, likewise an island, and,
+as is Penang, a place almost wholly given over to Chinese and their
+shops. Few coastal towns in China possess a greater percentage of
+Celestials than England's city at the tip end of the Malay peninsula and
+abutting on the equator. Sir Stamford Raffles placed Englishmen--and
+Chinamen--under everlasting obligation when he brought Singapore into
+being. Raffles possessed the empire-building instinct, surely, and
+earned the honor of interment in Westminster Abbey.
+
+Singapore harbor commands one of the greatest natural turnstiles of
+commerce. Shipping has no other option than to use it. While Englishmen
+have administered the port and city since Raffles's time, thousands of
+Chinamen have there waxed extremely fat. The 'rickshaw coolie of
+Singapore, even, is physically perfect, and consequently in agreeable
+contrast to the Indian of calfless legs, and his Cingalese colleague of
+weak lungs. The Chinese 'rickshawman whisks a visitor about Singapore
+with the stride of a race-horse. For a city only a degree north of the
+equator, Singapore offers creature comforts in sufficient number to make
+human existence there extremely attractive.
+
+[Illustration: HONG KONG HARBOR]
+
+Nabobs and well-conditioned humanity of Polynesia esteem Singapore much
+as Europeans and Americans regard Paris--an estimable place of consort,
+and scores of these men there lead a life not based on the simple ideas
+of Charles Wagner. Island sultans are usually as numerous in Singapore
+as princes in Cairo; and European adepts in equatorial government find
+frequent need of repairing to the gay metropolis of the Straits. An
+interesting potentate frequently seen is Rajah Brooke, a cultivated
+Englishman who is philanthropic despot over a slice of Borneo twice the
+area of England and Wales. Sarawak, his country, has been called the
+best governed tropical land in the world. Another English celebrity
+affecting Singapore is Governor Gueritz, administrator of the North
+Borneo Company, destined, maybe, to become as profitable as the East
+India Company of old. The Sultan of Sulu (not the hero of George Ade's
+comic opera) enjoys a sojourn in Singapore. He is young, wears the garb
+of a Mohammedan who has been to Mecca, and is not displeased by the
+stare of tourists. The Sultan of Johore, in the hands of money-lenders
+through unfortunate turf ventures, spends as much time in the city as in
+his Malay sultanate. A prince of the Siamese king's ministry, in
+Singapore to bestow orders for bridges and river steamers, goes nightly
+to witness a feeble production of "The Girl from Kays," and whistles
+"Sammy" as he promenades hotel verandas.
+
+Down at the quays great steamships are fed with coal by Chinese coolies
+who toil silently and expeditiously. A Chinese swell is on the pier
+superintending the lading of queer-looking cases containing birds'
+nests, consigned to epicures in Hong Kong and Canton. The Chinaman's
+greatest dainty is soup made from glutinous birds' nests found in Borneo
+caves. A single case of moderate dimensions contains nests to the value
+of twelve hundred Mexican dollars--at least, it is insured for that
+amount.
+
+Great Britain's next station in the Far East is Hong Kong, likewise an
+island, and one that might claim the long distance championship as a
+rain-center. Next to hills, the characterizing feature of Hong Kong is
+moisture--represented either by rain or humidity. The Briton professes
+that the climate of this crown colony is good; but for months at a
+stretch his clothing has to be hung daily in the open air to keep it
+from becoming water-logged, and everything of leather has to be denuded
+each morning of green mold. At the hotels one's apparel is kept in a
+drying-room, and issued costume at a time for use.
+
+The globe-trotter reaching Hong Kong in March risks irreparable injury
+to his temper, unless he prefers dripping clouds and wet feet to warmth
+and sunshine. Out of a fortnight there may be a day when the elements
+will be accommodating enough to allow the glories of the harbor to be
+seen from the Peak, and two pleasant days in the fortnight would be
+remarkable. Official figures show that the average March has but
+twenty-nine and a fraction hours of sunshine. Complain of the rains and
+the patriotic resident will probably remark: "Rains! These are not
+rains--they only begin in June." Your book of local information
+corroborates the resident's statement, for you may read that March
+ordinarily has a rainfall of but three and a half inches, while June
+shows twenty, and August twenty-eight. On the 25th of August in 1905 the
+downpour registered eleven and one-quarter inches--this almost turned
+Hong Kong into an eastern Venice. November, December, January and
+February are the pleasant months, statistically, in Hong Kong.
+
+[Illustration: HONG KONG'S MOUNTAINSIDE]
+
+The Briton has displayed his sturdiness of character by forcing a home
+in Hong Kong, for nature fashioned the north shore of this island to be
+an abiding-place for birds and animals. Adventurers from the British
+Isles have won a plateau from the sea by piling and filling in, and by
+executing engineering feats that have converted a precipitous mountain
+side to blossom with villa sites and roads and foot-paths leading to
+them. A railway scaling the mountain height at a topsy-turvy angle did
+the rest. Hong Kong is a splendid example of what determined men
+possessed of the colonizing spirit may accomplish. The founders of
+Venice did no more in the lagoons of the Adriatic. A man responsible for
+much of Hong Kong's filling in and excavation is Sir Paul Chator, a
+British subject of Armenian birth, gifted to an unusual degree with
+foresight. He has done more for the colony than any other person--and
+Hong Kong has made him a millionaire.
+
+The legal name of the city is Victoria, but this fact apparently is
+known only to the postmaster and at Government House. Were a visitor to
+speak of Victoria, the dweller would believe that something back in
+England, or in Australia, was meant. When China ceded the rocky isle of
+Hong Kong to Great Britain in 1842 it was the haunt of fisherfolk and
+pirates prosecuting their callings in the estuary of the Canton River.
+The acquisition of Hong Kong was due to the refusal of the Chinese to
+allow British traders to live peaceably at Canton. Driven out of the
+city, they took temporary refuge in the Portuguese settlement of Macao;
+but, being pursued by Chinese hostility, the official trade
+superintendent transferred the English depot to Hong Kong, which was
+forthwith occupied by a British expeditionary force, and, at the end of
+the Opium War, finally ceded to Great Britain by the treaty of Nankin.
+The name "Hong Kong" is variously interpreted, but the generally
+accepted meaning is "Fragrant Streams."
+
+Just as Singapore guards the south entrance into the China Sea, so does
+Hong Kong, fifteen hundred miles away, guard the north. On the south the
+entrance is through the Straits of Malacca, on the north through the
+Straits of Formosa. Had Great Britain, according to the usual custom of
+war, retained possession of Manila, which she had conquered in 1762,
+instead of giving it back to Spain at the end of the Seven Years' War,
+her hold of the China Sea would have been as firm to-day as is her hold
+of the Mediterranean. As the situation now stands, the acquisition of
+the Philippine Islands gives Uncle Sam a fortified naval base on the
+flank of the British line of communications between Singapore and Hong
+Kong. Based on Manila, and given the possession of sufficient naval
+force, an American admiral can strike right or left, compelling his
+opponents to fight where it best suits his own purposes. England and
+America are fortunate in being on terms of complete international amity,
+but none the less has the conquest of the Philippines by the United
+States profoundly modified the strategical conditions as they existed in
+the Pacific when the islands belonged to a weak naval power like Spain.
+
+Hong Kong's population and traffic double every ten years, and no harbor
+has a greater tonnage. Were Hong Kong a port of origin, instead of a
+port of call, its commercial importance would be greater than that of
+London. A few years ago the British Government induced China to lease a
+slice of the mainland of goodly dimensions, to accommodate Hong Kong's
+swelling trade. There, a mile and a half across the harbor, to-day stand
+miles of modern docks and warehouses, and shipyards and engine-building
+works, that would do credit to Tyne or Clyde. This addition to Hong Kong
+is called Kowloon, and it has residential districts that range well into
+the hinterland.
+
+Hong Kong's streets are among the most interesting in the great East,
+for they strike the key of true cosmopolitanism. Along them 'rickshaws
+pass in endless procession, electric cars roar, and sedan-chairs swing.
+The chair borne by four bearers provides the acme of transportation in
+fine weather. Eighty per cent, of Hong Kong's people are Chinese, and to
+this multitude the human contributions of Europe and America form
+necessarily a thin relief. Extremely picturesque are the compradore and
+taipan in costumes of the richest of silks, more so than is the poor
+coolie in dirty short trousers and jacket, pigtail coiled for
+convenience about the head, whose face is none too familiar with soap
+and water. In and out of the ever-moving multitude glide the tall,
+bright-eyed sons of India, the Sikhs, who are everywhere in the East.
+Soldiers in regimentals; jack tars of many nations; policemen, white,
+yellow, and black, are included in the picture. Here is the somber
+Britisher with confident stride and air of proprietorship, there the
+unromantic German slowly but surely capturing Oriental trade. Frenchmen
+and Scandinavians rub shoulders along the Queen's Road with the matter
+of fact American and the dark man from Italy; whilst now and then a
+peculiar gait or unusual costume distinguishes a South American or a son
+of the Philippines. Here, in short, within this congested square mile of
+the European quarter are daily to be picked representatives of the
+world's nations. A study of the crowd is an education in itself.
+
+The splendid buildings speak of commercial prosperity--banks, shops,
+offices and clubs. Nearly every structure is the seat of prosperous
+commercial ventures in Hong Kong and China proper; and tiers of
+water-front warehouses locally called "godowns," are filled with
+foodstuffs and manufactures that in time will be distributed through
+every town of importance in the Flowery Kingdom. Hong Kong boasts that
+her docks can accommodate the largest ships afloat (a fact until the
+_Minnesota_ and _Dakota_, loaded with American flour, vainly sought
+wharfage), and that she possesses the largest sugar refinery in the
+world. But these circumstances are subordinate to the British
+government's real interest in Hong Kong--to make it the base of naval
+power in Asia, with dockyards and repair-shops equal to any demand, and
+with coal-bins stacked with the prerequisite to sea-power.
+
+[Illustration: A FORMER "HIS EXCELLENCY THE GOVERNOR" OF HONG KONG]
+
+The horse is included in no grouping in Hong Kong, where coolie takes
+its place as bearer of burdens and hauler of vehicles. The sights of the
+place are so strange and interesting that a traveler is sometimes there
+for days before the fact dawns upon his vision that it is a city
+innocent of horse-flesh. True, there are the runners and polo ponies at
+Happy Valley race-course. Wherever the Briton plants his abiding-place,
+there the horse and dog are brought--but in Hong Kong the former
+requires a deal of attention, for it is only used in making a Briton's
+holiday. The race-course is set in an intervale, and has cemeteries
+overlooking grand-stand and entrances. A transplanted sportsman whose
+every effort to name a winning steed at a Happy Valley meeting has
+failed signally, finds superabundance of food for introspection as he
+runs the gauntlet of cemetery portals on the way back to the city, and
+very likely indulges in mental speculation as to the purpose in giving
+the name of Happy Valley to a race-track whose betting ring is
+overshadowed by burial grounds.
+
+The "chit" as a moral pitfall is more potent in Hong Kong than in India
+or other Eastern lands possessing a sprinkling of Europeans. A
+newcomer's ears hear little but "chit." Every sentence uttered by
+friends, every proposal of obsequious native merchant, is freighted with
+the little word. You decide at last to cast off your ignorance and be of
+the elect--to know what chit means and if possible become a chitter.
+Very disappointed are you when told that chit is simply Asian for
+memorandum, in popular phrase, an "I. O. U.," hurriedly penciled and
+given in lieu of cash.
+
+Its purpose? Merely to pander to the European's convenience; to
+differentiate the white man from brown or yellow, by placing him on the
+unassailable pedestal of a person of honor.
+
+"This chit idea is great," says the newcomer. "I don't load my pockets
+down with money any more. When I buy a cigar or drink I give a chit, and
+that's all there is to it. These Eastern people are away ahead of us in
+more ways than one." And he hourly signs innocent memoranda, because of
+the convenience. At hotel and club a chit brings what he wants, it sends
+a basket of flowers to a charming woman, produces suits of clothing that
+he doesn't need, even pays 'rickshaw and chair coolies.
+
+But alas; pay-day comes at the end of the month! And scheme as he may,
+the newcomer cannot solve the fiscal problem of making a hundred dollars
+settle three hundred dollars of debts. He then comprehends that the
+insidious chit is loaded; is pregnant with the disgrace germ, if he
+cannot raise the wherewithal to redeem the sheafs of them reposing in a
+dozen tills--so many notes going to protest with every tick of the
+clock. "I'll write home for funds," he decides; "but how am I to live
+while awaiting the remittance?" By giving more chits, only. He does this
+with a bold front for another month or so, and is doubly insolvent when
+the remittance finally comes to hand. Then he gives still more chits,
+and awaits another money supply.
+
+Hong Kong is filled with unfortunate "remittance men," good fellows at
+heart, whose downfall dates from their introduction to the chit. A
+visitor can read no announcement more pathetic than that conspicuously
+displayed in the waiting-rooms of the Kowloon ferry, saying "Positively
+no chits received"--and this ruthless pronouncement in connection with a
+trip costing but the equivalent of three American cents!
+
+There is commendable practicability in the method employed by large
+hotels in the East for placing patrons in a position to connect with
+dishes on the bill of fare appealing to their appetites. In Hong Kong
+hotels, where young Chinamen knowing practically no English are employed
+as waiters, and where elaborate lists of dishes are the order, the plan
+is indispensable. It is this: Every dish is indicated on the margin of
+the card by a number, and instead of saying to the waiter, "Bring me
+some roast beef, mashed potatoes and a cup of tea," you give the numbers
+of these several articles, or point to them,--and they are fetched. It
+is easy enough to get a second helping, but if you desire your meat
+rare, or well done, or your eggs fried on both sides, then you have good
+cause for cursing the confounding of tongues at the Tower of Babel. A
+Hong Kong hotel is not a place for a person predisposed to irritability.
+
+For keen realization of the Far East, Hong Kong, with its streets of
+Chinese shops, and water front massed with sampans, affords a full and
+most satisfying opportunity.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+CANTON, UNIQUE CITY OF CHINA
+
+
+It is a steamboat journey of but ninety miles up the estuary of the
+Pearl River from Hong Kong to wonderful Canton, and a traveler in Asia
+who fails to see the city that is the commercial capital of China misses
+something that he may think and talk of the remainder of his life.
+Historians profess to trace the origin of Canton to a period antedating
+the Christian era, when, it is somewhere recorded, the thirty-fourth
+sovereign of the Chan dynasty, by name Nan Wong, who ruled for nearly
+sixty years, was on the Chinese throne. In those days the city bore the
+name of Nan-Woo-Ching, meaning "The Martial City of the South," and was
+encircled by a stockade formed of bamboos and river mud, tradition has
+it. Tradition additionally tells us that in the shadowy past Canton used
+to be known as the "City of the Rams," inasmuch as once upon a time five
+genii, each mounted on a ram carrying ears of grain in the mouth, rode
+into the market-place and said to the wondering people, "May famine and
+dearth never visit your city." This benevolent sentiment uttered, the
+genii are said to have instantly vanished, leaving their steeds in the
+market-place, and forthwith these were turned into stone. There is
+to-day a Temple of the Five Genii, where five clumsily sculptured rams
+are pointed out as the identical animals that once were flesh and blood.
+
+Passing over twenty centuries we find the metropolis of the present
+time, with its two million people, the most satisfying, fascinating, and
+puzzling city in the Orient, if not in the whole world. Canton with its
+agglomeration of a primitive existence, is surely distinct and different
+from any other city. Its dazzling color effect, its pile of massive
+gilding in grotesque ornamentation, its wonderful sign-boards in
+bewildering hieroglyphics, and its host of odd-looking humanity--all is
+at variance with anything the traveler has before seen. To successfully
+view Canton requires some urbanity, a wealth of patience, and a stomach
+not readily overthrown by gruesome and unusual sights. And, further, the
+visitor must never forget that his vision is looking back from one to
+two thousand years, and that the hordes of human beings congesting the
+labyrinth of streets not seven feet wide, speak of a great nation as it
+was, which to-day is the oldest living nation on earth. You, of the
+fast-marching West, are viewing at its fountainhead a race for which the
+word "conservative" was most likely first called into use. It was the
+great Li Hung Chang who stingingly rebuked some patronizing Englishmen
+who were urging the astute old statesman to advocate certain social
+reforms in China, by saying: "Why, we Chinese look upon England merely
+as an interesting experiment in civilization, wondering where you'll be
+five hundred years hence."
+
+The only impress that Europe and Christianity have visibly made upon
+Canton is the French cathedral of the twin spires that you see near the
+place where your steamer lands. In all Canton there is not a wheeled
+vehicle, street-car, hotel, or mouthful of food appealing to the
+convenience or appetite of the visitor from the West; and apart from
+your own coterie of sight-seers, you may for days be about the streets
+of the vast city without seeing a person wearing the habiliments of
+Europe. That section of Canton known as Shameen, in reality an island
+suburb, is set apart under concessions to the United States and certain
+European powers, and the consuls, missionaries and foreign merchants
+there dwell surrounded by many of the comforts of home.
+
+[Illustration: TEMPLE OF THE FIVE HUNDRED GENII, CANTON]
+
+Few venture upon leaving Hong Kong for Canton until satisfying reports
+are received assuring that no immediate outbreak is apprehended of the
+known Cantonese hatred for foreigners, nor until a vast amount of
+letter-writing and telegraphing for guide and chair-bearers has been
+gone through with, and the steamboat company has placed the craft of
+their line at your command, to be used as hotels, restaurants, and
+otherwise as bases of supplies. Confident that you would be met at the
+landing by the guide of whom you had reassuring reports, and with whom
+you believed you had been in correspondence, a gorgeously-clad,
+good-looking fellow greets you at your state-room door on the boat
+before your ablutions have been completed, and tells you politely but
+firmly that he is to be your guide. His card says he is "Ah Cum John,"
+which is not that of the guide you had expected to meet you, and you
+meekly remonstrate, until the potentate tells you through the
+half-opened door that you will see Canton under his auspices or not at
+all. "Why?" "Because I am proprietor of all the sedan-chairs worth
+riding in, and employ every good coolie; and, besides, Ah Cum, my
+father, showed Canton to Rudyard Kipling twenty-five years ago. I'm the
+third son of Ah Cum, and my family does all the guiding that is done in
+Canton--nobody else speaks any English."
+
+Whatever your degree of objection to monopolies, a single reason
+enumerated by the autocrat seeking to enter your employ is sufficient to
+swing you into a feeble acquiescence, for, to tell the truth, you are
+not impressed favorably by the mob of jostling, shoving yellow humanity
+on shore, naked to the waist, who seem to be accentuating with menacing
+gestures their demands upon your patronage. You wonder how long a white
+man can be on shore without having his throat cut, and reason that if Ah
+Cum John can bully a sovereign-born American into accepting him as
+guide, when you had wanted somebody else, why is he not the very man to
+control the passions of a fanatical Chinese mob? His administrative
+ability impresses by the manner in which he directs affairs from the
+instant his control is confessed by your party of seven native
+Americans, and after breakfast this born leader sets forth at the head
+of the timid pleiad longing to explore the great human warren of
+China--the thugs of the river bank are now your bearers and devoted
+subjects, four to a chair, and countless assistants and relatives trail
+at the end of the procession.
+
+The cavalcade attracts good-natured attention from shopkeepers drawn to
+the fronts of their stalls by the yelping of forty lusty Mongol throats,
+commanding all and sundry wayfarers to allow honorable visitors to pass.
+So narrow are the filth-smeared streets that a sight-seer might help
+himself at will from shops on either side of the way. Hundreds of messes
+stewing over braziers in the thoroughfare have to be moved, and now and
+then the bearers of a native dignitary slide into a conveniently wide
+place that the procession of "foreign devils" may not be inconvenienced.
+But a mandarin, in his palanquin and preceded by an orderly mounted on a
+short-legged pony, and guarded front and rear by forty wicked-looking
+soldiers armed with carbines, has precedence so instantly accorded him
+that the clients of Ah Cum's third son are almost precipitated sideways
+into a row of shops. The mighty official passes without so much as
+casting a glance of compliment at the women of the party, thereby making
+it evident that Canton mandarins have a code of deportment peculiarly
+their own.
+
+The products of every section of Asia are said Canton, Unique City of
+China to be heaped high in the warehouses of this great mart of Southern
+China; but the tourist sees naught of these. What he views from his
+sedan-chair is thousands of shops but little larger than catacomb cells,
+wherein everything from straw sandals for street coolies to jade
+bracelets for the richly endowed is offered for sale. Preserved from
+theft and fire in Canton's godowns and pawnshops are stored enough
+fabrics of silk, art-embroideries, and carvings in ivory and teakwood,
+to cause a person of average taste to lose his mind, could they be
+paraded for his benefit; and a collector would find it difficult to
+preserve solvency, were the treasures of the shabby-looking warehouses
+proffered for sale. Unusually repugnant are the stalls where food is
+vended, for their wares are prepared in a manner making it easy for the
+visitor to forget that he ever possessed an appetite. A hundred times as
+you are borne through Canton's streets your chair escapes by only a few
+feet or inches rows of cooked ducks and pigs that seem to have been
+finally varnished to make them appeal to the native epicure. Here and
+there you observe strange hunks of meat held together by a wisp of straw
+that your guide tells you with immobile countenance are rat hams, and in
+sundry shops your ready eye thereafter detects tiny dried carcasses that
+can only be rats. Let it be said in fairness to the sights of Canton
+that the display of vegetables is attractive enough to turn your
+thoughts to the dietary benefits of vegetarianism.
+
+You early perceive that Ah Cum John is many kinds of a "boss" by the way
+he takes command of the shops at which he deigns to halt his caravan.
+All are charmed with the jewelry fabricated by the workers in
+kingfishers' feathers, and make liberal selections. But you are not
+permitted to pay the merchant with whom you have made a bargain, for
+John says, "You pay him nothing, you pay me to-night for
+everything"--and the purchases are carried away in his sumptuous
+palanquin. Pictures executed on rice-paper are next acquired on the same
+terms; then a cargo of daggers and swords with handles and scabbards
+covered with shark skin is secured after a brief dicker. When you buy a
+carved ivory ball representing years of labor by a genius, or a dozen
+bolts of Chee-fu silk, the price of which may be several hundred Mexican
+dollars, John insists that you are entitled to a _cumsha_ of value. The
+merchant makes obeisance and proffers you a paper-cutter or a box of
+candied ginger. John resents this parsimony and says "Not good enough."
+He goes then behind the counter and pulls down a mandarin coat weighted
+with embroidery, or maybe an intricately carved puff-box, saying "The
+merchant gives you this with his compliments." Everything is dumped in
+the gorgeous palanquin, and your spoliation dash through commercial
+Canton is resumed.
+
+[Illustration: CITY OF BOATS, CANTON, WHERE GENERATIONS ARE BORN AND
+DIE]
+
+Between purchases, you are taken to see innumerable temples and other
+objects of interest, as they fall in your path. The Temple of the Five
+Hundred Genii is made amusing by the scion of the house of Ah Cum
+explaining that a figure sculptured with hat of European pattern is
+"Joss Pau Low." As a reader you are aware that it is the effigy of Marco
+Polo, the intrepid Italian traveler supposed to have been the first
+European to have penetrated ancient China. The water-clock, elsewhere,
+is found to be out of order and not running, and you assume that the
+water of the Pearl River is too muddy for delicate mechanisms. The
+execution ground is found to be merely a quadrilateral of vacant land,
+employed by native potters when not required by the State when a group
+of criminals is to be officially put to death.
+
+The guide is regretful that your visit is a few days too late for you to
+see five men beheaded in as many minutes. Employing a chair-coolie as a
+lay figure, John manages to give a satisfactory description of the
+_modus operandi_ of a decapitation, and you let it go at that. A
+stalwart native is then introduced as the official headsman, and this
+functionary promptly tries to sell the heavy-bladed sword with which he
+says he struck off five heads earlier in the week. Probably three
+hundred malefactors are annually put to death on this spot, and it is
+said that the public executioner has been known to sell twice that
+number of swords in a year. Now and again a loaferish policeman is seen,
+nearly always leaning against a building or finding support from the
+angle of a deep-set door. Most of the police wear sandals and straw
+hats, and carry long batons and revolvers; but there is no sameness of
+apparel or armament among these guardians of the peace, attested by
+their wearing only a portion of their uniform at a time. The Cantonese
+believe their police are equipped and dressed in strict accord with the
+"finest" of a great city in America.
+
+On the way to that section of the city where Cantonese of high and low
+degree are laid away after death, we encounter a returning funeral party
+that made a curious procession, and one stretching to inordinate length.
+In front was a ragamuffin corps of drummers and men extracting
+ear-racking noises from metal instruments that looked like flageolets,
+but were not. Twenty or thirty bedraggled Buddhist priests in pairs
+trotted behind, proving by their individual gaits that in China there is
+no union of religion and music. Interspersed in the marching medley were
+a dozen or more gaudily painted platforms with pole handles, carried by
+coolies in the way that chairs are borne. Each platform displayed a
+layout of varnished pigs with immovably staring eyes, plates of uncooked
+strips of fish, and decorative objects suggesting place in a well-to-do
+Chinese home. Every fifty yards or so a mustached official of uncertain
+rank was mounted on a Tartary pony, and at the end of the column a
+coolie loped along bearing across his naked shoulders the deceased's
+Yankee-made bicycle. No student of foreign conditions could ask more
+striking evidence that China was at last "waking up," was heeding the
+influences of Western civilization, surely. The funeral party suggested
+perfunctory pomp and display, and gave not a suggestion of
+bereavement--and that it was, for every person in the cortege was hired
+for the occasion. Half the food had been left at the tomb for the
+departed in his spirit form; the remainder was to be devoured by the
+mercenary mourners when the procession broke up at the door of the home
+from which the corpse had been carried.
+
+Ah Cum John's clients lunch in the renowned Five-Story Pagoda, rising
+from the city wall to an elevation that spreads Canton at its feet; but
+by the time one reaches the building he is satiated with views and wants
+nothing but food. The Chicago "air-tights" and bottled beers and
+table-waters fetched from the steamer are relished to the full by
+appetites not always satisfied by the culinary achievements of a
+Delmonico.
+
+Travelers insist that Canton is more essentially Chinese in an
+educational sense than any other city in China. Public speech in Hong
+Kong reflects the control of Britain, and in Shanghai popular opinion is
+held to be tainted with German or British opinion. At Pekin the game of
+diplomacy is played too consummately to allow an expressed utterance to
+have any national significance, for the capital is looked upon as a city
+eddying with cross currents and rival influences. Consequently, the
+pulse of the great Flowery Kingdom, with its more than four hundred
+million people, can best be taken at Canton, for the native press and
+native scholars there say frankly what they believe.
+
+Cantonese opinion is potential because the capital city of the great
+Kwang-tung province is recognized as the center of national learning,
+where scholarship is prized above riches. No Canton youth who aims at
+the first social order thinks of setting himself to make money; to enter
+the service of the government is his object, and to achieve this he
+studies literature. There is practically no barrier in China to becoming
+a "literate," and the classification means all that the word "gentleman"
+can in Europe. For this and other reasons thousands of men in Canton
+wear horn-rimmed spectacles, look wise, and discuss mundane affairs in a
+manner brooking no contention. The literary bureaucracy of Canton wields
+a mighty influence in the affairs of the nation, it is insisted. A
+member of this class may not be able to do the simplest sum in
+arithmetic without the assistance of his counting-machine, but he may be
+able to write an essay on the meanings of ideographs, reproduce a
+trimetrical classic, or quote the philosophic works of Confucius and the
+Book of Mencius until you grow faint from listening.
+
+Once every three years Canton teems with men, young and old, who have
+gathered to compete for academic degrees. Any one save the son of a
+barber, an actor, or the keeper of a brothel, may enter the list,
+provided he possesses the certificate of a high school. A certain part
+of the city not demanded by business or residential purposes is
+designated as the Examination Hall, where 10,616 cells or compartments
+are built of brick and wood. These cubicles, six by eight feet square,
+are arranged in rows, like cattle-pens at an American agricultural
+fair. Placed side by side they would extend eight miles. These cells
+have no furnishing whatever, save a plank to serve as desk and bed. The
+night before the examination is to begin the student is searched, and
+with writing materials and provisions sufficient for three days, is shut
+in his cell. This is repeated three times, making the examination extend
+to nine days. From sunrise to sunset no candidate is permitted to rise
+from his seat, and if one be taken ill and carried out, he cannot return
+for that contest. It is said that a few of the old men succumb to the
+strain at each examination.
+
+The theses or essays of but eighty-three of the competitors can be
+accepted, and the fortunate ones are rewarded by the Bachelor of Arts
+degree. In time these compete near Pekin for a "Doctor" degree--and if
+abundantly rich, the successful scholar may bribe his way to official
+employment, say persons intimately knowing the customs of China. Those
+who pass the final degree become members of what is termed the Hon Lum
+College, and this furnishes China with her councilors, district rulers,
+and examiners of scholarships in all the provinces--at least in theory.
+The fortunate man standing at the head of the list in the great
+examination near Pekin receives the title of Chong Yuen, and is termed
+"the greatest scholar in the world." The entire empire reveres him, and,
+taking into consideration the number of the examinations he has stood,
+he should be respected, if not for erudition, for his tenacity of
+purpose and the possession of a marvelous constitution. But it is
+asserted that this "greatest scholar" is invariably a millionaire and a
+Manchu.
+
+[Illustration: EXAMINATION BOOTHS, CANTON]
+
+Even the "literate" failing to secure appointment to public office has
+certain valued exemptions and prerogatives. When he fulminates against
+the Pekin government or against the acts of an overbearing viceroy, his
+words are attentively listened to and carry weight. Besides, the
+horn-rimmed spectacles give him a local standing envied by every man who
+toils or has to do with business. In Canton and other cities of China,
+standing before many of the larger and pretentious houses, are
+ornamental "literary poles," and these are always in pairs and generally
+show respectable decay. When newly erected they are painted in colors
+according to the rank of the family--white for a private citizen, red
+for a civil functionary, and blue for the army. A mast having a single
+row of brackets a few feet from the top means the degree of Ku Yan,
+equivalent to our M. A., and called in China the degree of Promoted Men;
+the degree of Entered Scholar, nearly equivalent to our LL.D., called
+Tsun Sze, is represented by two rows of brackets; and the highest degree
+attainable, Hon Lum, is announced by three rows of brackets, locally
+termed the "Forest of Pencils." The projecting brackets make admirable
+perches for pigeons and other domesticated birds. As the family and not
+the individual is the basis of the custom, the masts are always erected
+in front of the ancestral home, although the distinguished scholar
+may live miles away. The poles are never repaired or replaced unless
+some other member of the family acquires academic honors. China has no
+custom more poetic than the indicating of an abode from which a scholar
+has emerged.
+
+While it is easy to admit the erudition of the Chinese in their own
+language, the tourist swung through Canton's streets perceives from his
+sedan-chair many signs displayed to catch the eye of the foreigner that
+prove the English schoolmaster to be absent. To read such announcements
+as "Chinese and Japanese Curious," "Blackwood Furnitures," "Meals at All
+Day and Night," and "Steam Laundry & Co." provoke a titter in a city
+where you believe yourself to be an unwelcome visitor. It is obvious
+that the scholars of China are not reduced to the straits of becoming
+sign-painters.
+
+The greatest of all Canton sights is undeniably that of life on the
+boats along the river front, penetrating every creek, and extending
+along the paddy fields above and below the great city. There has never
+been a census of this "floating population," but it is estimated that
+more than three hundred thousand Cantonese have no other homes but the
+junks, sampans, "flower boats" and "snake boats," upon which they are
+literally born, reared, married, and die. Lining both sides of the
+river, extending into Shameen Creek, the sampans are everywhere. They
+ferry people across the stream or convey them wherever they wish to go
+in the neighborhood, carry light cargoes of fuel, food, or merchandise,
+deliver packages, and do a thousand and one services of the "odd-job"
+order. A sampan nearly always houses an entire family, and is rowed by
+the father and mother. Beneath the round covering amidships the woman
+conducts the domestic affairs of the family with a cleverness that is
+remarkable, and for cleanliness it may be said that the Canton sampan is
+equal to any abiding-place on shore. The cooking is done forwards over a
+"fire-box," flowering plants frequently are placed in the boat's stern,
+and within the cabin incense sticks may nearly always be seen burning
+before the family idol. A mother ties very young children to the deck by
+a long cord, while older children romp at large with a bamboo float
+fastened about their bodies, which serves at once for clothing and
+life-preserver. It is a common sight to see sampans propelled up and
+down stream by women, each rower having an infant strapped to her back.
+The good behavior of the babies of the sampan flotilla is always
+appreciated by visiting mothers whose nurse-maids at home have
+difficulty in keeping their young from crying their lungs out.
+
+The "flower boats," moored a mile or two below the business part of
+Canton's foreshore, are the antithesis of the sampans, for they cater to
+a pleasure-loving class, to men and women possessing wobbly morals, who
+love good dinners and suppers and a game of fan-tan without too much
+publicity, with singing and dancing as adjuncts. In build these craft
+are like the house-boats of the Thames, and the custom of tricking them
+out with flowering plants suggests the scene at Henley during regatta
+week. Practically all the vice that a traveler learns of during a visit
+to Canton is confined to the flower boats, and their floral appellation
+comes from the reputed attractiveness of the sirens dwelling upon them.
+The boats are moored side by side in long rows, with planks leading from
+one to another. Prices on the boats are always high, and the native
+voluptuary pays extravagantly and the foreigner ruinously whenever he
+devotes an evening to the floral fleet. By night the boats are gorgeous
+with their mirrors and myriad lamps alight, and blackwood tables and
+stools inlaid with mother-of-pearl; but by the light of day they look
+tawdry to the point of shabbiness.
+
+To a person interested in marine construction, especially one hailing
+from a land where steam has supplanted sail-power, and where gasolene
+and other inexpensive motors have made rowing almost obsolete, the Pearl
+River "hot-foot" boats, so called by Europeans, are intensely
+interesting. These craft connect Whampoa and other out-lying towns with
+Canton, run in and out of rivers, and carry passengers, freight, and
+sometimes the mails. They are of fairly good lines, but are propelled by
+huge stern-wheels, and the motive power is contributed by from ten to
+twenty barebacked and perspiring coolies running up a treadmill that
+occupies as much room amidships as boiler and engine might. When the
+taskmaster urges the coolies to do their best, one of these "hot-foot"
+boats chugs along in calm water at a five-knot gait, but ordinarily
+three knots an hour is the normal speed.
+
+On the left bank of the river and close to Canton is a large leper
+village, where all native craft approaching the city have to pay a
+"Leper toll." If this is done as soon as the vessel reaches the suburb
+the head leper gives a pass which franks the ship through; without this,
+any of the numerous lepers are able to demand a fee, which has to be
+paid, otherwise the junk would be surrounded by these people and all
+work brought to a standstill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+MACAO, THE MONTE CARLO OF THE FAR EAST
+
+
+A prettier marine journey than from Canton to Macao, is not possible in
+the Orient, and it is of only eighty miles and accomplished by daylight
+with convenient hours of departure and arrival.
+
+As on all passenger-carrying craft plying the great estuary having Hong
+Kong and Macao for its base and Canton its apex, you find the native
+passengers on your boat confined below the deck whereon the state-rooms
+and dining saloon of European travelers are located, and you perceive
+racks of Mausers and cutlasses at convenient points of this upper deck.
+To American eyes it is novel to see every stairway closed by a grated
+iron door, and a man armed with a carbine on your side of each of these
+barriers. You perceive on the main deck three or four hundred Chinamen
+of the coolie class, some playing card games, others Smoking metal pipes
+with diminutive bowls, but most of them slumbering in a variety of
+grotesque attitudes. None of these Mongols who observe your curiosity
+seems to hold any feeling of resentment for the effective separation of
+the races, which places him, the native of the land, in a position that
+might be called equivocal.
+
+The English skipper and his Scotch engineer, who take the seats of honor
+when tiffin is served, respond willingly to your appeal for an
+explanation of the doors of bar-iron and the display of weapons--every
+first-class passenger always asks the question, and on every trip the
+British seafarers tell the story of Chinese piracy as practised up to
+comparatively recent times in the great estuary having a dozen or more
+names.
+
+And an interesting tale it is, for it recounts deeds of the sea quite as
+audacious and high-handed as anything performed on land by Jesse James
+and his stage-coach bandits. Up to fifteen or eighteen years ago the
+estuary bristled with Chinese pirates, and wherever native fishermen and
+sailors foregathered, at Hong Kong, Canton or Macao, schemes for
+holding-up and sacking steamers carrying bullion and valuable
+merchandise were hatched with a frequency that gave a phase to local
+commerce that was anything but comforting, and more than one brave
+Yankee or British sailor went to his death fighting yellow thugs against
+overwhelming odds. The public decapitation of a handful of these
+murderers appeared to place no check on the outlawry.
+
+[Illustration: PRINCIPAL SECTION OF MACAO]
+
+Once a Canton-bound steamer, carrying the mails and a considerable
+amount of specie, had her progress obstructed by two junks that wilfully
+forced her into shoal water. In the confusion that followed the
+grounding, a score of coolies, who up to that moment had been regarded
+as honest deck passengers, rushed to the pilot-house and engine-room and
+murdered every white man on board. Practically everything of value was
+then transferred to the junks, now conveniently alongside, and the spoil
+was landed at such points in the estuary that made official detection
+well-nigh impossible. This is but a sample of the stories you may hear
+while yellow-faced Chinamen are serving your food, and it must be
+confessed that it affords a sense of confidence to know that the grates
+of the stairways are actually locked, and that the rifles of the guards
+are loaded with ball ammunition. As he sips his black coffee at the
+termination of luncheon, the captain assures you that until within a few
+years a skipper was suspicious alike of every native deck passenger and
+every fishing junk indicating a disposition to claim more than its share
+of the channel; "but the old days in China," he concludes, "have
+disappeared forever, and piracy as an occupation has passed with them."
+
+Getting back to the forepart of the ship, the views on land and sea are
+engrossingly interesting. On the shores of the mainland and on an
+occasional island are ancient forts which revive memories of interesting
+experiences of the white man's invasion of the Celestial kingdom, and
+the foreground of rice-fields is backed by interminable groves of
+mulberry-trees explaining China's preeminence as a silk producer.
+Numerous villages are passed, and from them the traveler obtains a fair
+idea of the rustic life of China. Now and again a pagoda is visible,
+crowning an elevation, and recalling childhood's school-book
+illustrations. You jump at the convenient conclusion that these
+structures of from six to ten stories had to do with the religion of the
+country, which surmise is erroneous, for the towers were reared to guard
+the geomantic properties of their respective neighborhoods, and in
+reality are relics of a bygone age of superstition.
+
+The pioneer European settlement of the Far East--Macao--is at last in
+sight, and it presents immediately a visual contrast to Canton, by
+reason of its picturesque situation. There is something about the
+promontory that takes you back to Southern Europe, to the summer sea and
+the shores of the Mediterranean, perhaps to a brightly situated fishing
+port of the littoral of the Riviera. As the vessel rounds the cape and
+comes to anchor in the pretty crescent formed by the Praia Grande,
+flanked by terraced houses colored with minor tints of blue and yellow,
+you know instantly that this stranded Eastern rainbow is Monte
+Carlo--no, the Oriental equivalent of the beauty-spot of Latin Europe.
+
+Macao is a little place large with history, in fact is an atom of Europe
+almost lost to public gaze by the vastness of Asia, and as much a part
+of the kingdom of Portugal as Lisbon itself. As the most enterprising
+maritime and trading nation of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese
+were the first to sail the Eastern seas, the first to open up
+commercial relations between Europe and the great empire of China, and
+holding the monopoly of all Oriental trade until the end of the
+eighteenth century. Owing to the prospect of increased gain, following
+on this European invasion, the waters of the Pearl River estuary soon
+became infested with pirates, which the Portuguese magnanimously
+assisted the Chinese government to subdue, and, in return, it is
+recorded, received in 1557 the cession of the rocky peninsula on which
+the Portuguese colony now stands. More than once Portugal had to
+maintain her rights by recourse to arms, but the colony has remained
+Portuguese without interruption for more than three hundred and fifty
+years, and is a hoary patriarch beside infantile British Hong Kong and
+German Tsing-tau. The oldest lighthouse on the coast of China is that of
+Guia, standing sentinel on the highest point of the Portuguese colony.
+
+The colony has a population of perhaps eighty thousand persons, and
+practically all these are Chinese. There are, of course, a few score of
+civil and judicial functionaries springing from the mother-country; and,
+as in all places where Europeans have long lived in friendly association
+with Orientals, the Eurasian class is strikingly numerous. In no court
+on the Tagus are the laws of Portugal construed with more tenacity and
+precision than in Macao's chambers of justice; and the flag of Portugal
+floats over the homes of hundreds of loyal subjects who know only in a
+hazy manner where Portugal really is--they are rich Chinese and others
+evading the Chinese tax collector, or escaping burdensome laws, and for
+many years these crafty Mongols have made a sort of political Gretna
+Green of Macao. Certain influential Chinamen carrying on business in
+Canton or other southern communities live in almost regal splendor in
+Macao, and when the minions of the Chinese government attempt to hale
+them before a tribunal of law, or compel them to share the expense of
+carrying on the administration of a province, they exclaim in Chinese,
+"Oh, no; I'm a subject of the King of Portugal"--and prove it. The great
+sugar planter of the Hawaiian Islands, Ah Fong, whose Eurasian daughters
+were beautiful and accomplished enough to find splendid American and
+European husbands, was a subject of the Portuguese crown, strange to
+say. His domicile on the Praia Grande is one of Macao's proudest
+mansions.
+
+[Illustration: FRONTIER GATE BETWEEN CHINA PROPER AND THE PORTUGUESE
+COLONY]
+
+The colony of Macao is scarcely more important than one of Anthony
+Hope's imaginary kingdoms, but for the fact that it is on the map, for
+the area of Portugal's foothold is not more than two or three miles in
+length, and a half-mile to a mile in width; it is merely the rocky
+promontory of the tip end of the island of Heung Shan. A wall of masonry
+with artistic gateway separates the dominion of Portugal from the great
+Chinese empire--on one side of the portal the law of the Emperor of
+China is absolute, and on the other the rule of the monarch of Portugal
+is sacred. In various ways the place and its people remind strongly
+of a comic-opera setting--but the officer there serving his far-away
+sovereign discourses with serious countenance of Goa, and Delagoa Bay
+and Macao as important colonial possessions. Until Hong Kong under the
+British began to rise as a port and base of commercial distribution,
+Macao had a considerable trade; but with the decline of business the
+harbor has silted up until now an oversea ship could not find anchorage.
+A few industries, like cement making and silk winding, are carried on in
+the outskirts of the colony, and a suspiciously large amount of prepared
+opium is shipped, although the closest observer can detect not a poppy
+under cultivation anywhere on the rocky promontory.
+
+The old Protestant cemetery contains many graves of good men and true,
+such as naval officers and seamen, who have died on Eastern seas, and
+whose comrades preferred to leave them interred in Christian soil rather
+than intrust their cherished remains to cemeteries in pagan lands. The
+headstones of Macao's God's-acre bear name after name once carried with
+pride on the rolls of the American, British or French naval and
+merchantman services, and diplomatic and consular titles are recorded on
+more than one headstone. It is interesting to scale the steps to inspect
+closely the facade of the Jesuit church of San Paulo, erected some three
+hundred years ago. Nothing remains but the towering facade, as erect as
+if reared yesterday, and bearing silent testimony to the courage of the
+pioneers in the Far East of the Catholic faith. A 'rickshaw journey
+through every important street, from the center where are the hotel and
+government buildings to the remotest patches of farming land near the
+"frontier," consumes scarcely two hours. In the public park you come not
+infrequently upon statues with tablets informing all observers of the
+importance and majesty of the home country welded to the peninsula of
+Europe, once famed for the intrepidity of its navigators and
+adventurers. If Macao move the visitor to voice an opinion, it is that
+under certain conditions which you might name the place could be a
+veritable paradise, but that benevolent Portugal is there conducting an
+earthly Nirvana for all and sundry of China's affluent sons mustering
+the ingenuity and influence to gain shelter beneath the flag of dear old
+Portugal.
+
+Macao's claim to renown rests chiefly upon the fact that Portugal's
+greatest bard, Camoens, there wrote in part or its entirety the immortal
+"Lusiad," which in epic form details the prowess of the sons of ancient
+Lusitania in Eastern discovery and oversea feats of daring, and in which
+work the voyages and discoveries of Vasco da Gama are recorded with the
+fidelity of a history prepared by a sympathetic admirer. As scholars
+know, the "Lusiad" was first published in 1572, is in ten cantos and
+1102 stanzas, and is translated into most modern languages. Important
+American and English libraries possess it by at least four translators,
+each being more or less a standard.
+
+[Illustration: BUST OF CAMOENS, MACAO]
+
+The life of the great poet is underlaid with romance and sadness. Born
+at Lisbon about 1524, he was given an education fitting him for a
+courtier's life, and it was an unfortunate affection for a high-born
+donna in attendance upon the queen that caused him to be banished from
+the land of his birth. After a roystering career as a soldier in Africa,
+he sought shelter at Goa, in India. There he wrote a volume severely
+castigating the home government for its official abuses in the East, and
+this led to his being treated by his countrymen as a traitor and
+outcast. Now in a Goa prison, now at liberty, he at last went to Macao,
+and it was there that by his pen he redeemed to some extent his good
+name, to the extent certainly of being permitted to return to Lisbon,
+and there he died about 1580, poor and neglected. It is insisted that
+Camoens's influence and efforts preserved the Portuguese language from
+destruction during the Spanish occupation of the neighboring country,
+and it is a fact that before 1770 no less than thirty-eight editions of
+the "Lusiad" were published in Portugal.
+
+To commemorate the eight or ten years he passed in Macao, a public
+garden is named for him, and there, in a grotto of impressive grandeur,
+is a bust of the man singing the praises of his natal country as no
+other writer in verse or prose has ever succeeded in doing. The bronze
+effigy rests on a plinth upon which is engraved in three languages these
+lines from the pen of a pilgrim to the Eastern shrine once hallowed by
+the presence of the bard of a nation:
+
+    Gem of the Orient earth and open sea
+    Macao! that in thy lap and on thy breast
+    Hast gathered beauties all the loveliest
+    O'er which the sun smiles in his majesty.
+
+    The very clouds that top the mountain crest
+    Seem to repose there lingering lovingly.
+    How full of grace the green Cathyan tree
+    Bends to the breeze and how thy sands are prest
+    With gentlest waves which ever and anon
+    Break their awakened furies on thy shore.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    Were these the scenes that poet looked upon,
+    Whose lyre though known to fame knew misery more?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    They have their glories and earth's diadems
+    Have nought so bright as genius' gilded gems.
+
+The lines were written by Sir John Bowring, English scholar and
+traveler, who visited Macao in the latter half of the last century, and
+the expense of the memorial and its grounds was borne by a patriotic
+Portuguese, Lorenco Marques, whose name has been preserved by being
+given to the seaport on Delagoa Bay in Portuguese East Africa.
+
+For a place whose commerce is notoriously in eclipse, you are curious to
+learn whence springs the golden shower giving the appearance of
+prosperity to Macao, for the general air of the colony suggests an easy
+affluence. To keep the governor's palace and the judiciary buildings
+covered with paint costs something, you know, while the paved streets
+and bridges and viaducts give support to the surmise of an exchequer not
+permanently depleted. Portugal, nowadays almost robbing Peter to pay
+Paul, is in no condition to succor an impecunious colony situated in
+another hemisphere, you are aware, and you appeal for elucidation of the
+fiscal problem. "Very easy, dear sir," your cicerone promptly rejoins,
+"this is the Monte Carlo of the Far East. Gambling is here a
+business--all the business there is, and the concessions for the fan-tan
+and lottery monopolies pay for everything, practically making taxation
+unnecessary."
+
+The statement would cause something of a shock to a guileless stranger,
+especially to one who had believed he had perceived a natural likeness
+between the little principality on the Mediterranean and this beauty
+spot of the Orient. But China is rather too far to the eastward of Suez
+for simon-pure guile, and the globe-trotter decides to thoroughly
+explore local conditions by way of adding to his worldly knowledge. If
+you go to the post-office to mail a letter, you recognize perforce how
+backward a colony of Portugal may be in supplying the trifling
+requirements of life, for you stand minutes in a nondescript line before
+your stamp is sheared from a sheet by a functionary having a capacity
+for activity possibly rivaled by an Alpine glacier--then you wait at the
+communal mucilage pot to secure in turn the required adhesive substance.
+A good correspondent in Macao would pass half his time at the
+post-office, you conclude.
+
+But there is nothing backward, nothing harking back to the middle ages,
+in the plan by which the public cash-box is filled, you learn after
+plodding investigation. The merits of direct and indirect taxation, even
+of the Henry George program for raising the public wind, have never been
+seriously considered by Portugal's administrators in the East, nor has
+municipal ownership of utilities been discussed, you discover. The
+official bigwigs who administer Macao know that it is as necessary for
+the Chinaman to gamble as to have food--and the colony accordingly
+legalizes fan-tan and semi-daily lotteries, supplies the requisite
+machinery for carrying on the games, and reaps a _benefice_ for its
+enterprise that runs the community without further ado. That is all
+there is to Macao's fiscal policy. Hong Kong, only forty miles across
+the estuary, bristles with commercial prosperity. The British government
+permits Hong Kongers to bet on horse-races, buy and sell stocks, and
+promote devious companies, but forbids fan-tan and lotteries. There is,
+consequently, a daily flow of men, women, and dollars between Hong Kong
+and Macao. Besides, no traveler not actively engaged in uplifting his
+fellow-man, feels that he has seen the Orient unless he passes a few
+hours or days in endeavoring to lure fortune at the gambling tables.
+
+The colonial lottery is no more dignified or important than a policy
+game in an American town, and seems to be but the Western idea clouded
+by its adaptation to Asiatic uses, tourists affirm.
+
+Macao licenses twenty fan-tan places, and these run all day and all
+night, and are graded in their patrons from tourists and natives of
+fortune and position down to joints admitting 'rickshaw coolies,
+sailors, and harbor riffraff. The gilded establishment claiming
+attention from travelers is conducted by a couple of Chinese worthies,
+by name Ung Hang and Hung Vo, according to the business card
+deferentially handed you at your hotel, and the signs in front of it and
+the legends painted on great lanterns proclaim it as a first-chop _Casa
+de Jogo_, and a gambling-house that is "No. 1" in all respects. The
+gamesters whose garments proclaim them to be middle-class Chinamen pack
+themselves like sardines into the room where the table is situated, for
+they obviously believe in watching their interests at close hand. The
+floor above, by reason of the rail-protected opening in the center, is
+little more than a spacious gallery; but it is there that the big
+gamblers congregate, natives in costly fabrics, and whose rotund bodies
+tell of lives not spent in toil. They loll on blackwood divans and smoke
+opium and send their bank-notes and commands to the gambling table by
+servants, until yielding to the exalted dreams induced by the poppy
+fumes. They are polite fellows, every man of them, and make it apparent
+that they would like to do something for the entertainment of each man
+and woman tourist in the room.
+
+In this strange establishment globe-trotting novices sit around the
+railed opening and make their bets on the game below through an
+interpreter attendant. This obliging man lowers your coins to the
+croupier in a basket, and draws up any "bet" you may have had the luck
+to win. And what a medley of coins you are paid in! There are coins of
+China and Japan obsolete years ago in those countries, money of the
+Philippine Islands, even nickles and dimes whose worth has been stamped
+by Uncle Sam. It is said that half the pocket-pieces of Asia find their
+way onto the gambling boards of Macao, and that a thrifty croupier seeks
+to pay them out to the tourist who will remove them from local
+circulation. The linguistic representative of the management endeavors
+to play the bountiful host to most visitors. He takes one through the
+building, permits you to peep within a chamber filled with oleaginous
+Chinamen in brocade petticoats, sleeping off the effects of the opium
+pipe, explains painted fans and other attempts at decoration on the
+walls, and indicates a retiring room where you may rest or even pass the
+night, all without charge.
+
+[Illustration: IN A FAN-TAN GAMBLING HOUSE, MACAO]
+
+Then he orders refreshments brought, and with the manner of a veteran
+courtier proffers a tray heaped with oranges, an egg-shell cup filled
+with tea that is almost without color, and dried watermelon seeds that
+you might munch after the manner of the neck-or-nothing gamblers on the
+lower floor. When you politely decline these, the courtly one most
+likely says, "You no likee tea and seeds--then have whiskysoda." Chinese
+courtezans, with feet bound to a smallness making locomotion difficult
+and obviously painful, wearing what in the Western World would be called
+"trousers," and invariably bedecked with earrings or bracelets of
+exquisite jade, edge their way to the gambling table, and put their
+money down in handfuls as long as it lasts. To spend an evening in the
+liberally-conducted establishment of Messrs. Ung Hang and Hung Vo is
+enlightening in various ways.
+
+Because fan-tan is the passion of Asiatics, the popular idea is that it
+must be the wickedest of all games, if not the most complicated. Fan-tan
+as a fact is simplicity itself, being no more than the counting off into
+units of four several quarts of little metal discs called "cash," until
+there remain one, two, three or four discs. The result determines what
+bets, laid about a four-sided space on the table, win--a single
+remaining "cash" makes the 1-side win, two the 2-side, and so on. Each
+hazard is a one-to-three wager, and the bank pays on this basis after
+deducting the recognized percentage supporting the establishment.
+Spinning a top with four numbered sides would accomplish in a minute the
+same result as the tedious counting of a heap of discs, varying with
+every "deal" according to the whim or superstition of the players, who
+may add to or take from the pile prior to the beginning of the count. It
+is fortunate for the millions of the conservative Far East that their
+principal gambling game is not a quick one, like roulette, for the
+player of fan-tan gets "action" only about once in every ten minutes. At
+roulette and most other games favored by white men a gambler knows his
+fate in a minute.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE KAISER'S PLAY FOR CHINESE TRADE
+
+
+Having no voice in the controversy leading to the war, Germany should
+have remained neutral throughout the bitter Russo-Japanese conflict.
+Germany was neutral so far as official proprieties went; but in sympathy
+and numberless unofficial acts she aided and abetted Russia to a degree
+unsurpassed by the Bear's plighted ally, France. It is a fact
+incontrovertible that from the commencement of hostilities the German
+Emperor was as pro-Russian as any wearer of the Czar's uniform, and most
+German bankers and ship-owners found it easy to take the cue from Berlin
+and view situations of international procedure in a manner permitting
+them to reap golden benefits. Teuton bankers took the lead in financing
+the Russian cause, and whenever Russia was forced to purchase ships to
+augment her fleet, these were always found in Germany. When the Czar
+despatched his squadrons to the Far East, they were coaled practically
+throughout the long journey from German colliers. And in other helpful
+ways Germany officiated as the handmaiden of Russia.
+
+The Kaiser's favoritism was infectious throughout his empire, and had
+the contending armies and fleets in the Far East been equally matched,
+with the outcome hanging in the balance, the influence of William II
+could have swayed the continent of Europe in Russia's favor, and a great
+moral advantage would thereby have accrued to Russia that would have
+been difficult to overcome. Why? Because the Kaiser is the strongest,
+most influential, and cleverest potentate in Europe. Splendid exemplar
+of the war-lord idea, he is really the peer of diplomatists, a ruler
+whose utterances are to-day weighed and discussed as are those of none
+other. Understanding the value of words, and a coiner of subtle phrases,
+an epigram from the Kaiser contrasting the destiny and rights of the
+"white man" and the "yellow man" would probably have isolated the
+British as Japan's only sympathizers in the Old World, had it been made
+at an opportune time.
+
+But the psychological moment never came--there was a hitch somewhere in
+Asia, and Kuropatkin's genius was expended in masterly retreats; all the
+triumphs on land and sea were those of the little men under the sun
+flag. Finally came a mighty engagement, and William hastened to decorate
+the Russian loser and the Japanese victor. But the point was strained;
+the public perceived this. As a result, the incident fell flatter than
+the anticlimax of a melodrama played to empty seats.
+
+The Kaiser's chagrin was great. But it need not have been, for the march
+of events in the East was proving him simply to be mortal--he had
+failed to pick the winner, and was gradually becoming aware of it. A
+plunger in a sporting event perceives an error of judgment in a few
+minutes, usually. With the War-Lord of Germany it required the lapse of
+months to convince him of the sad fact that Japan would win in the great
+struggle.
+
+Why War-Lord, as an appellation for the august William? Adept in the art
+of warfare he surely is; but have not the Fatherland's victories under
+his rule been those of peace, and those only? Has Germany been involved
+in strife possessing the dignity of war since he came to the throne? Has
+she not, on the other hand, made headway in trade and sea transportation
+under his guidance that has no parallel in the history of a European
+state? Yes, emphatically. And are not the words "Made in Germany" so
+painfully familiar throughout two thirds of the globe, especially in
+Great Britain and her possessions, that they strike terror to Britons
+who study with apprehension the statistics of England's waning trade?
+This is true, also. And Suez Canal returns prove that the users of the
+waterway under Britain's red flag are yearly less numerous, while the
+number of German ships is steadily growing.
+
+[Illustration: TYPICAL BUSINESS STREET IN A CHINESE CITY]
+
+Then why not Trade-Lord, for this is what the German Emperor is? It is
+the better appellation, and more truthfully descriptive. It surely is
+creditable to the German people that their national progress is due to
+habits of industry and thrift, rather than to military display: the
+artisan, not the drill-master, is making Germany great.
+
+And could Trade-Lord William be honestly called "astute" if he
+overlooked the fact, obvious as a mountain, that one of the stakes in
+the Russo-Japanese conflict would be the privilege amounting almost to
+right, to commercially exploit the most populous country on God's
+footstool--China? More than one fourth of the people of the earth are
+Chinese, and their country at the present time is more primitive, in the
+scarcity of railways, telegraphs, public utilities, and every provision
+conducing to comfort and common-sense living, than any other land
+pretending to civilization. It is a fact that outside of Shanghai,
+Canton, Pekin and Tientsin, the people do not want many of the products
+of the outer world; but it is a truism that much profit accrues from
+teaching Asiatics to "want" modern products.
+
+The German Emperor foresaw that China could not much longer resist the
+invasion of outside enterprise and trade; and to his mind there could
+have been no suspicion of doubt that the victor in the awful contest
+could and would dictate trade terms and privileges everywhere in the
+Celestial Empire. If Japan won, the Japanese would surely exploit
+commercially their great neighbor, whose written language is nearly
+identical with their own--this would be but natural to the Mikado's
+people, teeming with aptitude as manufacturers and traders, and
+recognizing the necessity for recouping outlay in the war.
+
+If Russia were successful, her reward would be the validating of her
+hold upon Manchuria, the bundling of the Japs out of Korea, and the
+attainment to a position of controlling influence in China's political
+affairs. The supplying of articles of general manufacture and commerce
+to the 400,000,000 people of China could have been no part of Russia's
+aspiration, for the reason that Russia is not a manufacturing country
+and has but little to sell. Her enormous tea bill to China is paid
+yearly in money, even. A nation seeking in time to control the whole of
+Asia couldn't bother with commercial matters, certainly not. Yet, one of
+the fruits of victory in the war would have been the splendid
+opportunity to exploit trade everywhere in China--a privilege of
+priceless value.
+
+What country was to benefit through this, with Russia's moral support
+and permission, had the Czar's legions been successful?
+
+France? Hardly; for the French were bound by hard and fast alliance, and
+it had never been the policy at St. Petersburg to give anything material
+to France. Uncle Sam, whose people had financed half the war loans of
+Japan, could scarcely hope to extend his business in China with Russia's
+cooperation; nor could Japan's ally and moral supporter, John Bull.
+
+Who, then, could stand in a likelier position to become legatee of this
+valued privilege than the Trade-Lord of Germany? The Emperor William had
+been Russia's "best friend" from the inception of the war, and was
+admittedly an adept in promoting trade, for his people had attained in
+a few years to an envied position in the commerce of the world. A
+quarter of the trade of "awakened" China would make Germany a vast
+workshop, a hive of industry. And this was precisely what the astute
+Hohenzollern saw through the smoke of battle in far-away Manchuria. He
+saw a prosperous Germany if the Slav crushed the yellow man. To say he
+did not would be a libel upon a giant intellect.
+
+Any one disposed to review practically certain incidents in the recent
+history of Germany may develop a dozen reasons why the Emperor should
+seek to make his country all important through trade conquest. Let it be
+remembered that the Kaiser chafes at barriers of every kind, and that
+there is a boundlessness in his nature at times trying to his patience.
+He looks at the map of the German Empire and painfully admits that the
+present frontiers and area are practically those bequeathed by the great
+William. To a divine-right monarch this is exasperating. The loftiest
+ambition of a sovereign is to have the national area expand under his
+rule.
+
+William's medieval temperament shudders at the crowded condition of the
+earth in this twentieth century, when all frontiers appear immovable.
+Had he lived in the days of the Crusaders his valiant sword would
+probably have brought all Palestine under German control; and had he
+been a free agent when Bonapartism collapsed he most likely would have
+carried the German standard to the Mediterranean, perhaps to Stamboul.
+The ironical fact is that the German Emperor has had rebuffs and
+disappointments in his efforts to expand his realm. The Monroe Doctrine,
+excluding his empire from even a coaling station in this hemisphere, is
+to the Kaiser a perpetual nightmare. Sturdy sons of the Fatherland
+control the trade of more than one republic in South and Central
+America, but nowhere is it possible to unfurl the standard of Germany
+over "colony" or "sphere of influence." To forcibly back up his
+subjects' pecuniary rights in the American hemisphere, even, the
+approval of the government at Washington has first to be obtained. In
+his heart the Kaiser loathes the doctrine of Monroe; that is obvious.
+
+It is twenty years since Germany began to build up a colonial empire in
+Africa, and the net result is that, after spending some hundred million
+dollars, she has acquired over a hundred million square miles of
+territory, with a sparsely scattered German population of between five
+and six thousand souls. A third of the adult white population is
+represented by officials and soldiers. Militarism is rampant everywhere,
+with the result that the white settler shuns German colonies as he would
+the plague. The keen-witted Kaiser long ago saw that empire-building in
+the Dark Continent could produce nothing but expense during his
+lifetime.
+
+[Illustration: EXHIBITION OF BODIES OF CHINESE MALEFACTORS WHO HAVE BEEN
+STRANGLED]
+
+"To perdition with the Monroe Doctrine, and with African tribes blind to
+the excellence of German-made wares," the Kaiser might have said ten
+years ago: "I'll have sweet revenge upon all and sundry by capturing
+trade everywhere--I'll make Germany the workshop of the universe. Keep
+your territory, if you like; I'll get the trade! Bah, Monroe Doctrine!
+Bah, grinning Senegambians!"
+
+The resolute Trade-Lord then turned his face to the bountiful Orient,
+pregnant with resource beyond the dreams of avarice, teeming with
+hundreds of millions of people. The East had made England dominant in
+the world's affairs. Keeping his soldiers at home, the Kaiser hurled a
+legion of trade-getters into the Far East, planting commercial outposts
+in Ceylon, sending a flying column of bagmen and negotiators to India
+and the Straits Settlements, and distributing a numerical division of
+business agents throughout China. The Empire of the Celestials was made
+the focal point of a great propaganda, openly espoused by the Emperor.
+
+It was readily demonstrated that Great Britain had no permanent control
+of commerce in the East, not even in her own possessions. The Teuton,
+for a time content with trifling profit, underbid all rivals--and orders
+and contracts poured into Germany. Belgian products competed only in
+price; and American manufacturers seemed too busy in providing goods for
+home use to seriously try for business in Asia--they booked orders
+coming practically unsought, that was about all. The Chino-Japanese
+conflict of a dozen years ago, although disastrous to China's army,
+stimulated the absorbing power of the Chinese for goods of western
+manufacture, and Germany sold her wares right and left.
+
+Important steamship lines were then subsidized by the German government
+to maintain regular services between Germany and the Far East, carrying
+goods and passengers at reasonable charges: and it was known that in his
+personal capacity the Emperor had become a large shareholder in one of
+them. Germany was prospering, and the Trade-Lord and his lieutenants
+were happy. All recognized the possibilities of Oriental business. China
+was preparing to throw off the conservatism and lethargy of centuries,
+and trade was the key-note of everything pertaining to Germany's
+relations with the Pekin government. German diplomatists on service in
+China were instructed to employ every good office to induce German
+business, and the Kaiser himself selected and instructed consular
+officials going to the Flowery Kingdom. Able commercial attaches, with
+capacity for describing trade conditions, were maintained there, and
+required to be as industrious as beavers. For trade-promoting capacity
+German consuls in China have no equal--and they all know that the
+Kaiser's interest in Chinese trade amounts to mania.
+
+The assassination in the streets of Pekin, in 1900, of Minister von
+Kettler, Germany's envoy, and the subsequent sending of an imperial
+prince of China to Berlin to express the regrets of the Chinese
+government, strengthened materially the Kaiser's hold upon Chinese
+affairs. Reiteration from Washington of the "open door" in China struck
+no terror to the Kaiser, justified in believing he could hold his
+position against all comers. As proof of this belief he might point to
+German steamers in Hong Kong and Shanghai literally vomiting forth each
+week thousands of tons of goods "Made in Germany," penetrating every
+section of China even to the upper waters of the Yang-tse. A few years
+ago nearly all this trade was exclusively British.
+
+The question of Chinese exclusion and the threatened boycott of American
+goods by China was the occasion of anxiety in this country--but none in
+Germany. It is well appreciated that the spread of the sentiment in the
+East that the United States is unjust to Chinamen of the better class
+might undo the splendid work of Secretary Hay in cultivating the
+friendship of the Celestial Empire by standing fast for China's
+administrative entity and insisting on the "open door" policy.
+
+Knowing that the "awakening" of China would be one of the results of the
+war, the Master Mind in Berlin had not long to consider where the
+interest of Germany lay, for he well knew that if they conquered, the
+Japs might in a few years supply the kindred Chinese with practically
+every article needed from abroad.
+
+If Russia won, then "Best Friend" William of Germany, one of the most
+irresistible forces in the world, would have a freer hand in China than
+ever--and this would mean a prosperous Germany for years to come.
+
+By directing the sympathies of the German people to the Russian side,
+the Kaiser played a trump card in statecraft, certainly. As a soldier,
+William II must have known the fighting ability and prowess of the
+little men of Japan, for German officers had for years been the
+instructors of the Mikado's army--but the public attitude of the head of
+a government must ever be that which best serves the State. Whatever the
+chagrin at Berlin over Russia's defeat, a battle royal will be needed
+for Japan to overcome Germany's lead in Chinese trade; but in time Japan
+will have this, provided she is well advised and has the tact to play
+fair with Uncle Sam and his commercial rights.
+
+What of the German colony in China--Kiau-chau, on the east coast of the
+Shan-tung peninsula, whose forts frown upon the Yellow Sea? Is there
+anything like it, strategically and trade wise, in the East? When the
+Kaiser's glance falls upon the map of Kiau-chau, and he recalls the ease
+with which he segregated from Pekin's rule a goodly piece of old China,
+he may be irreverently moved to the extent of again snapping his fingers
+at the Monroe Doctrine, and at millions of simple Africans who refuse to
+eat German foods and wear not a stitch of German fabrics. Kiau-chau
+represents the cleverest feat of colony-building the world has seen
+since the great powers declared a closure to land-grabbing in the East.
+
+[Illustration: SIMPLE PUNISHMENT OF A CHINESE MENDICANT]
+
+When some German missionaries were murdered a few years since in China,
+the Kaiser, ever an opportunist, was justly angry, and Pekin shuddered
+at the possibility of national castigation. "Could the Mighty One at
+Berlin condone the offense if China gave Germany a harbor to be used as
+coaling station and naval headquarters?" "Possibly; but how can China
+bestow territory, in view of the American government's certainty to
+insist that there be no parceling of China, none whatever!"
+
+"Easily managed," was the reply. "It need not be a transfer of
+territory, but a 'lease,' say for ninety-nine years. This would save
+China's 'face,' and not disturb the powers."
+
+Hence a "lease" was prepared for all the territory bounded in a
+semi-circle drawn fifteen miles from Kiau-chau bay--a goodly piece in
+all conscience. Then came _pourparlers_ for greater German authority,
+and more territory. As a consequence, in a supplementary document signed
+at Pekin, it was additionally agreed that "in a further zone thirty
+miles from all points of the leased territory the Chinese government
+shall no longer for a space of ninety-nine years be entitled to take any
+step without previous authorization from the German government."
+
+This amounted in substance to saying farewell on China's part to a slice
+of domain in all more than twice the size of the state of Rhode Island.
+The "sphere of influence," so-called, measures 2,750 square miles.
+Germany was given as well the equivalent of sovereignty over the harbor
+of Kiau-chau, no end of mining and railway rights, and other privileges.
+The lease dates from March 6th, 1898. England was to give Wei-haiwei
+back to China should Russia retire or be driven from Port Arthur, but
+has not done so. In all probability Germany, as well as Great Britain,
+is located on the Yellow Sea under a tenure that will be found to be
+permanent.
+
+Kiau-chau harbor is one of the most spacious and best protected on the
+coast of China. The small native town of Tsing-tau, admirably situated
+on the harbor, was adopted by Germany as the seat of government, and all
+the appurtenances of a military and naval station have there been
+erected. A look of permanency characterizes every structure. The house
+of the naval governor is even pretentious. The capital is laid out with
+generous regard to broad streets, designated on name-plates as
+"strasses." A bank and hotels await the coming of business. The harbor
+has been dredged, and two miles of the best wharves in Asia constructed
+of masonry. Warehouses, barracks, hospitals, administrative buildings
+and coal sheds are there, all in German style, and intended to last
+hundreds of years.
+
+Tsing-tau as a seat of deputed government may not have found its way
+into school-books--but the inquisitive traveler in Northeast China
+readily learns of its existence. Perhaps it is meant to be complimentary
+to China to retain the name Tsing-tau--but that is all about the place
+that is Chinese, save the coolies executing the white man's behest.
+There are 3,000 Europeans, almost exclusively Germans, in William II's
+capital on Kiau-chau Bay. Soldiers and officials predominate, of course,
+but merchant and industrial experts are in the pioneer band in
+conspicuous number.
+
+And what of the "hinterland," compassed by the 45-mile semicircle,
+dotted with thirty odd native towns, the whole having a population of
+1,200,000? This patch of China is surely in process of being awakened:
+there are numerous schools wherein European missionaries are teaching
+the German language, and enterprise greets the eye everywhere.
+Locomotives "Made in Germany" screech warnings to Chinese yokels to
+clear the way for trains heavy with merchandise of German origin--and
+this is but an incident in the great scheme of Germanizing the Chinese
+Empire. Incidentally, it is provided by the agreement between the Pekin
+and Berlin governments that a native land-owner in the leased section
+can sell only to the German authorities. This ruling conveys a meaning
+perfectly clear.
+
+Less than a hundred miles up-country are the enormous coal fields of
+Weihsien and Poshan, by agreement worked with German capital, and
+connected with the harbor by railways built with German money and so
+devoted to Teutonic interests that the name of the company is spread on
+the cars in the language of the dear old Fatherland. The whole is a
+magnificent piece of propagandism, surely.
+
+And what is back of it? What is the purpose of the appropriation of
+14,000,000 marks for Kiau-chau in last year's official budget of the
+German government? Trade, little else; and Trade spelled best with a
+large T. Kiau-chau is a free port, like Hamburg. Why not make it the
+Hamburg of the East? is the question asked wherever German merchants
+foregather and affairs of the nation are discussed. From the standpoint
+of German trade, an Eastern Hamburg is alluring and laudatory--but few
+American manufactures, let it be plainly stated, will penetrate China
+through a gateway so controlled.
+
+America's seeming indifference to Chinese trade, let it plainly be
+stated, is the only solace that commercial Europe is finding in our
+wonderful national growth. The subject is almost never referred to in
+the columns of British journals, nor in those of Germany, France, or
+Belgium. But manufacturers and exporters of these countries need no spur
+from their newspapers--without the accompaniment of beating drums all
+are seeking to make the Chinese their permanent customers. And,
+buttressed by undeniable advantages, Japan takes up the quest and means
+to spread her goods, largely fabricated from Uncle Sam's raw products,
+wherever the tenant of the earth be a Mongol.
+
+[Illustration: CHINESE BUDDHIST PRIESTS]
+
+Could a human being be more complaisant, more materially philanthropic,
+than the United States manufacturer or other producer? He surely cannot
+be blind to the undebatable fact that America cannot always wax
+opulent on home trade alone; he must know that in time we are certain to
+reach a period of overproduction, when it will aid the nation to have
+alien peoples for customers of our mills and workshops. Every land in
+Asia east of Singapore can be commercially exploited by the United
+States more easily, and with greater success, than by any other people,
+if the task be gone about systematically and practically.
+
+The Chinese envoy of a few years ago to Washington, Minister Wu, said
+many wise things, and no epigram fell from his lips containing a
+profounder sermon for the American people than when he remarked that two
+inches added to the length of the skirts of every Chinese would double
+the market value of every pound of cotton.
+
+Small as it was, our commerce in China was severely lessened last year,
+not alone by the boycott, but through the enterprise shown by other
+nations having a share in Celestial trade. The cotton cloth exports of
+the United States to China and Manchuria for the nine months ending
+September 30 fell off by over ten million dollars as compared with the
+same period of 1905. The respective amounts were $15,416,152 and
+$25,566,286. The Chinese buyers gave preference to the British, taking
+$34,245,129 worth of cotton fabrics from the United Kingdom for the
+first nine months of 1906, a decrease of $3,770,584 from last year. The
+British loss on bleached and gray goods was about half that of America's
+total loss, but the English exporters made up a large part of the
+shortage by much larger sales of printed and dyed goods. But while
+America remained almost stationary last year in selling cotton
+manufactures to the world, Great Britain made a tremendous stride. Her
+cotton fabric exports for the first nine months of 1906 were valued at a
+little more than two hundred and seventy-six million dollars, an
+increase of about twenty million dollars over the same period of 1905,
+and of nearly fifty million dollars over the first nine months of 1904.
+This was accomplished almost wholly by marketing wares wrought from
+fiber grown in our Southern States, let it be remembered.
+
+And what would happen to British trade, let us inquire, were America to
+cease exporting raw cotton, to permit our staple to emerge from our land
+in a manufactured state, only?
+
+The mere suggestion of the thing is sufficient to cause a cold shudder
+to play down the spinal column of John Bull. But the American people
+will never play the game of commerce in that way.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+JAPAN'S COMMERCIAL FUTURE
+
+
+A nation has risen in the Far East that is earning high place among
+enlightened governments, and in all probability the new-comer may
+already be entitled to permanently rank with the first-class powers of
+the earth. Japan is day by day a growing surprise to the world.
+
+That the diminutive Island Empire should have been able to humble the
+Muscovite pride was no greater marvel than that she should in a brief
+half-century advance from the position of a weak and unknown country to
+the station of a highly civilized nation. The government of the Mikado
+is to-day the best exponent of Asiatic progressiveness. And of a people
+with a capacity to perform in two generations such amazing things who
+shall dare say what to them is impossible?
+
+Europe has never been in joyful mood over the rise in Japanese prestige,
+and she was more than reluctant to recognize the New Japan as the
+dominant force in the East. That a yellow people should claim fellowship
+with European countries guided by houses of lofty lineage was never
+believed to be possible. Continental Europe was unprepared to admit
+that Japan's triumph proved anything beyond a genius in the art of war
+that was nothing short of a menace to the rest of mankind, and that luck
+and geographical position helped the Mikado's legions in all ways. The
+great Hohenzollern spoke of the Japanese as the "scourge of God"; in
+France the "yellow peril"--a phrase really made in Germany--was
+seriously debated; while Russia many times sought sympathy from the
+Christian world on the ground that she was fighting the white man's
+battle against paganism. Solitary in her preference for the Japanese,
+expressed in the form of an astute and fortunate alliance, England
+gloried when her Oriental ally revealed the weakness of the vaunted
+power of the north that had dared to cast covetous eyes at India. All
+these nations hold Asiatic possessions, each has aspired to have a say
+in Chinese affairs, and each confesses to having a panacea for the
+innumerable ills of the Celestial Empire--each is hungry, likewise, to
+extend her trade with the awakening Orient.
+
+Japan intruded, and deranged the plans of all and sundry for rousing
+China to a realization of her greatness; and in all human probability
+Japan will do for herself what several European powers wanted to do for
+Asia. Japan can always justify her claim that she was driven to war to
+preserve her national existence, by pointing to her rapidly-increasing
+population, existing in an archipelago incapable of producing food for
+even two thirds of her people, since every possibility of obtaining a
+foothold on the adjacent continent had been cut off by self-imposed
+Russian rule. There was no room for expansion, that was clear.
+
+When Japan shattered the strength of Russia she gained many coveted
+advantages. One of these was the opportunity to commercialize
+neighboring Korea, a goodly section of Manchuria, and practically the
+whole of China--enough to recoup the war's outlay; and once entered
+upon, why not perfect and extend the enterprise wherever she might,
+thereby providing occupation for her increasing millions of people?
+
+For a long time to come Japan will remain conspicuously in the public
+eye, but her achievements and victories hereafter are to be those of
+peace. Her scheme for national betterment, already well under way, is as
+thoughtfully prepared as was her war program. The Mikado's people
+emerged from the Russian conflict with energies enormously aroused, and
+a few months later every condition was favorable to a realization of the
+dream of empire giving to Japan an importance amounting almost to
+sovereignty over a vast section of the Far East. The new treaty with
+Great Britain, which Germans claimed to be anything but altruistic, is
+having a steadying influence on the policy of the Tokyo government.
+
+With the conversion of Japan from war to peace, the process of fiscal
+recuperation and industrial development has been observed by students of
+Eastern affairs with the keenest interest. The debt of the nation at the
+close of the war in 1905 was approximately $870,000,000, which sum,
+apportioned among Nippon's 47,000,000 inhabitants, was $18.71 per
+capita. The amount properly chargeable to the campaign was $600,000,000,
+or thereabouts. A characteristic of the war commanding widespread
+attention was that the Japanese side was conducted from start to finish
+on the soundest financial principles, with her credit abroad scarcely
+lessened by successive bond issues. It was the criticism of students of
+finance that Japan conducted her campaign throughout on a gold basis, as
+if exploiting a vast commercial program, without subjecting herself to
+usurious commissions, and without resorting to the issuance of fiat or
+negligible currency. The financing of the Asiatic side of the great
+Russo-Japanese conflict was certainly as businesslike as anything ever
+done by a European power compelled to raise funds by foreign bond sales.
+
+[Illustration: BRONZE DAIBUTSU AT KAMAKURA, JAPAN]
+
+When a candid history of the war is penned, the writer must perforce
+acknowledge the "luck" attaching to Japan when Russia expelled the Jews,
+and when thousands of that faith were ruthlessly slaughtered at
+Kishineff. Whether the purse-strings of the world are controlled by
+Hebrew bankers may be a moot question, but it was a fact distinctly
+clear that Japan could place her bonds in any money-lending country in
+the world, while Russia could scarcely raise a rouble upon her foreign
+credit. Even Germany, the sentimental ally of Russia, almost begged for
+the privilege of lending to Japan. There was no disputing that the great
+Hebraic banking houses of London, New York and Frankfort found it an
+easy task to supply the Mikado's country with every needed sinew of war,
+and the massacres of Kishineff may have been avenged in a measure at
+Port Arthur and Mukden.
+
+The ambitious and sturdy people of Japan are indisposed to regard the
+war debt as an excessive burden, and it is their determination to treat
+their bonded obligations as a spur to active industry. It must be
+confessed that Japan's debt is but a trifle less than that of the United
+States, and is carried at double the interest rates of the American
+debt; and further, that Japan's total area is smaller than that of our
+state of California. The portentous aspect of the national obligation of
+Japan is that it must absorb in interest charges fully a third of the
+empire's income for many years of peace and prosperity to come.
+
+A large part of the debt incurred before the war was for public works,
+most of which are productive. Funds realized from early loans, both
+foreign and domestic, as well as a portion of the income from the
+indemnity earned by the war with China, were invested in commercial
+enterprises owned or fostered by the empire, and the government receives
+a considerable benefit from the public railways, tobacco monopoly,
+woolen mills, and a few other industrial ventures. The railways are
+extremely profitable, and the large sums spent in the creation of
+post-offices, telephone and telegraph lines, port facilities, etc., have
+proved wise investments.
+
+Observers of national statistics have long known that a country without
+heavy indebtedness amounts to little in a worldly and industrial sense.
+Abundantly solvent, France has a debt averaging $151.70 per person, and
+the United Kingdom (Great Britain and Ireland), a pro rata debt of
+$91.80. Portugal owes $143.82 per subject, Holland $90.74, and Belgium
+$75.63. The heaviest governmental obligation is that of Australia,
+averaging $263.90 per inhabitant; and the lightest responsibility among
+important nations is that of the United States, gradually lessening, now
+standing at but $10.93. Our Cuban neighbors, owing $21.88 per capita,
+make little complaint of fiscal burden. Whether a debt be burdensome or
+otherwise depends as much upon the character of the people as upon
+natural resources. Decaying Portugal could not by industry liberate
+herself from pecuniary thraldom in a century, while the Japanese
+probably could liquidate every obligation in fifteen years, were they
+pressed to do so.
+
+No country can present a better foundation for industrial and commercial
+development at this time than Japan, and the signing at Portsmouth of
+the peace agreement marked the beginning of an era of national growth
+that may challenge the admiration of the world as did the feats of arms
+of Oyama and Togo. The war cemented classes in Japan almost to a
+condition of homogeneity--practically every subject of the Mikado
+believed in the necessity for the conflict, and made sacrifices to
+contribute to the cost thereof. Distinctions of class are now seldom
+thought of, and it contributes mightily to the material improvement of
+a nation to have a single language. The descendants of the samurai class
+acknowledge now the need for trade on a grand scale, and they are only
+too ready to embark in manufacturing and trading enterprises. There are
+scarcely ten great fortunes in the realm, and the number of subjects
+removed from activity by even moderate affluence is remarkably small.
+Likewise, the number of persons reckoned in the non-producing class,
+through dissipation or infirmity, is insignificant. And, more potent
+than all these reasons uniting to assist in the expansion of Japanese
+industry and thrift, is the intense patriotism of the people, stimulated
+by glorious success in two wars against foreign nations of overwhelming
+populations, as well as the recognition from high and low that Japan's
+golden opportunity has arrived. Almost to a man the Japanese want to
+employ their sinews and intellect in elevating the Land of the Rising
+Sun to an honored place among progressive nations.
+
+The Japanese exchequer is at present a long way from depletion, by
+reason of the $150,000,000 loan secured in America, England and Germany.
+Probably two thirds of this remained unexpended. Many Tokyo bankers
+believed the loan unnecessary, inasmuch as there were funds in hand
+sufficient to finance the war well into 1906, had peace not been agreed
+upon. But the flotation was deemed wise, not alone because of prevailing
+ease in the money market, but for the effect that an oversubscribed loan
+in America and Europe would have upon the Czar's government. The
+portion of the loan remaining unused for war was employed for giving
+effect to Japan's industrial propaganda, and presumably has been spent
+for the endless machinery demanded by the factories and shipyards that
+are transforming Japan into a vast workshop, for structural metal, and
+for steel rails, cars and locomotives for railways in Manchuria and
+Korea; and generally for the hundred and one purposes playing a part in
+the development of lands hitherto out of step in the march of
+enterprise, and where strife has until recently stifled the usual
+manifestations of man's desire to improve his surroundings. The Japanese
+government in 1906 purchased six railways, which were profit earners,
+paying for them $125,000,000 in five per cent. bonds that may be
+redeemed in five years. There is no likelihood of a reduction in Japan's
+debt for a long time, but its weight upon the people may be reduced by
+conversions. As the national credit strengthens, the interest on
+borrowings may be correspondingly decreased. Consequently, there may be
+frequent funding operations and new issues, until seven and six per
+cent. bonds have given place to obligations bearing five per cent.
+interest or less. To provide funds for early railway building,
+considerable capital was borrowed at as high a rate as ten per cent.
+When these obligations expire all necessary money can be found in the
+country at less than half the original rate. Japan is fortunate in
+having many sound financiers to invite to her official councils, and it
+is helpful to the country that Tokyo and Yokohama bankers are competent
+and progressive. These men pronounce Japan's present financial position
+sound, and claim that the country can easily carry the existing debt.
+
+In natural resources Japan is not well to do, it must be frankly said.
+Examine the country in as friendly a spirit as one may, little is
+developed to support any statement that the country may become
+prosperous from the products of her own soil. In truth Japan is nearly
+as unproductive as Greece and Norway, for only sixteen per cent. of her
+soil is arable. The mountain ranges and peaks and terraced hills that
+make the country scenically attractive to the tourist come near to
+prohibiting agriculture. The lowlands, separating seacoast from the
+foothills, and the valleys generally, are given over to rice culture,
+and these contribute largely towards sustaining the people. Where
+valleys are narrow, and on hillside patches, cultivation is carried on
+wholly by hand. In recent years phosphates and artificial fertilizers
+have been encouraged by the government, and with the educational work
+now in hand science may give an increase of crops from the circumscribed
+tillable area. The country's forests cannot be sacrificed, and grazing
+lands for flocks and herds scarcely exist.
+
+A recent magazine writer, holding a doleful view of Japan's agricultural
+condition, wholly overlooked the silk and tea crops in his search for
+native products, an error obviously fallen into through the fact that
+these are not raised on what governmental reports call "tillable
+ground,"--meaning that they are produced outside the sixteen per cent.
+arable area. Silk is Japan's important salable crop, two thirds of which
+is exported in its raw state. In the past few years the silk exports
+have averaged $55,000,000. Japan grows the tea consumed in the country,
+and sends annually $6,500,000 worth to market.
+
+If the rice crop might be exported it would realize $200,000,000 each
+year. But no food may be sent abroad, for it is a sad fact that Japan is
+capable of feeding only two thirds of her own people. It is necessary to
+import foodstuffs to the extent of about $47,000,000 a year. The
+Japanese benefit by the compensating supply of fish secured from the
+seas washing the shores of the Island Empire. When it is realized that
+Japan's rapidly-growing population cannot be sustained by her soil and
+fisheries, the real reason for battling against Russia's aggression on
+the mainland is understood, for ten years hence, Japan's crowding
+millions, confined to her own islands, would experience the pangs of
+hunger. The Mikado and his councilors foresaw this.
+
+[Illustration: A GARDEN VIEW OF THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, TOKYO]
+
+"Having deposits of coal and iron, why may not Japan be developed into
+the Eastern equivalent of England?" ask stay-at-home admirers of the
+Japanese, who believe that to them nothing is impossible. The Mikado's
+territory has coal, iron and copper, it is true; but in no instance is
+the mineral present to an extent making it a national asset of
+importance. Bituminous coal of good quality is mined at several points
+which is used by Japanese commercial and naval vessels; but elsewhere in
+the East it has to compete with Chinese and Indian coals. It is said in
+Nagasaki that her coal will last another two centuries, but were it
+mined on the scale of American and British coal it would be exhausted in
+a generation. The greatest efforts have been made to produce iron ore in
+paying quantities. In several instances public assistance has been lent
+to the industry, but seldom has a ton of ore been raised that has not
+cost twice its market value. Japan is determined to become a producer of
+iron, and to this end a long lease had been secured on an important
+mineral tract in China, whose ore blends advantageously with Mexican and
+Californian hematite, while it is asserted that the government has
+secured in Manchuria a seam of coal fifty feet in thickness, covered by
+a few feet of soil, that is contiguous to transportation, and which
+cannot be exhausted in hundreds of years. A valuable acquisition in
+conquered Saghalien--not noted by the newspapers--is beds of coal and
+iron of vast area. These may enable Japan, in her determination to
+become a manufacturing nation, to be eventually independent of other
+countries for basic supplies. But success in this direction is
+problematical, to say the least.
+
+For two thousand years Japan has mined copper in a limited way, but the
+production of the metal is carried on at present without much profit.
+When the Chinese government requires a vast quantity of copper the
+order is sent to the United States. Japan cannot be considered as a
+producer of minerals of sufficient importance to aspire to a profitable
+career through them, for the yearly aggregate value of all minerals,
+including gold from the Formosa mines, is not more than $20,000,000.
+
+The inevitable query in the reader's mind is, How is the Jap, knowing it
+is now or never with him--and cognizant that he is poor in all save
+ambition and enterprise--going to create for his beloved Nippon a
+position of prominence and security in the fast-rushing, selfish world?
+Every intelligent Japanese is aware of the slenderness of his country's
+resources, and yet every son of the Chrysanthemum Realm throbs with
+desire to see Japan a first-class and self-supporting power, honored and
+respected throughout the universe.
+
+The Japanese possess some quality of golden value, otherwise cautious
+capitalists in America and Europe would never have lent them
+$360,000,000. What is it?
+
+Japan's asset of importance is the awakened energy of her people--this
+was the soundest security back of the bond issues. It won the war over
+Russia, and persons familiar with the Japanese character believe it is
+now going to win commercially and industrially. Better proof of this is
+not wanted than the fact that Japanese bonds stood as firm as the rock
+of Gibraltar on the world's exchanges when it became known that Russia
+was to pay no indemnity. The information provoked street riots in Tokyo,
+but Japanese securities moved only fractionally in New York and London.
+
+Two countries have long been keenly observed by enlightened Japanese.
+They study America as a model industrial land, and get manufacturing
+ideas from us; but they look to Great Britain for everything having to
+do with empire, with aggrandizement, and with diplomacy. To them England
+is a glittering object lesson of a nation existing in overcrowded
+islands extending its rule to other lands and other continents,
+producing endless articles needed by mankind, and carrying these to the
+ends of the earth in their own ships. These Japanese have perceived that
+the interchange of commodities between most countries of the globe is
+preponderatingly in the hands of the British--in fact, that the
+enterprise of British merchant or British ship-owner has placed
+practically the universe under tribute.
+
+May not insular Japan become in time the Asiatic equivalent of Great
+Britain? Japan is advantageously located, and by common consent is now
+dominant in the Far East. Years ago England ceased to be an agricultural
+country, and the products of British workshops now buy food from other
+nations and allow for the keeping of a money balance at home. Nature has
+decreed that Japan can never be an agricultural land. Why, then, may she
+not do what England has done? England has her India, pregnant with the
+earth's bounty, and her Australia, yet awaiting completer development
+Kingdom become the handmaiden of Japan, without disturbing dynastic
+affairs, and primitive Korea be a fair equivalent of the Antipodean
+continent? It is known to be Japan's plan to permanently colonize Korea
+and Manchuria, teeming in agricultural and mineral riches, with her
+surplus population.
+
+"Prestige and opportunity make this attainable," insist the ambitious
+sons of Japan; "and while it is probably too late to expand the
+political boundaries of our empire, we surely may make Nippon the seat
+of a mighty commercial control, including in its sphere all of China
+proper, Manchuria and Korea--welding them into 'commercial colonies' of
+Japan." This is precisely what the modern Japanese wants his country to
+do, and this Japanization of the Far East is an alluring project,
+certainly.
+
+"But are not these 'open-door' countries, stipulated and guaranteed by
+the powers--meaning that your people can enjoy no special trade
+advantage in them?" the American asks the man of Japan.
+
+"Emphatically are they open to the trade and enterprise of all comers:
+but there are four potential advantages that accrue to the benefit of
+the Japanese at this time--geographical position, necessity for
+recouping the cost of the war, an identical written language, and
+superabundance of capable and inexpensive labor. With these advantages
+and practical kinship we fear no rivalry in the creation of business
+among the Mongol races," adds the man speaking for the New Japan.
+
+It calls for little prescience to picture a mighty Japanese tonnage on
+the seas in the near future. Next to industrial development, the
+controlling article of faith of the awakened Japan is the creation of an
+ocean commerce great enough to make the Japanese the carriers of the
+Orient. There can be nothing visionary in this, for bountiful Asia is
+almost without facilities for conveying her products to the world's
+markets. Indeed, were present-day Japan eliminated from consideration,
+it would be precise to say that Asia possessed no oversea transportation
+facilities.
+
+The merchant steamship is intended to play an important role in Japan's
+elevation. Shipping is to be fostered by the nation until it becomes a
+great industry, and it is the aim of the Mikado's government to provide
+for constructing ships for the public defence up to 20,000 tons burden,
+and making the country independent of foreign yards through being able
+to produce advantageously commercial vessels for any requirement. Japan
+is blind neither to the costliness of American-built ships nor to the
+remoteness of European yards. The war with Russia was not half over when
+it was apparent that Japan would not longer be dependent upon the outer
+world for vessels of war or of commerce. In the closing weeks of 1906
+there was completed and launched in Japan the biggest battleship in the
+world, the _Satsuma_, constructed exclusively by native labor. She is of
+about the dimensions of the _Dreadnaught_, of the British navy, but
+claimed to be her superior as a fighting force. The launching of the
+_Satsuma_, witnessed by the Emperor, was regarded as a great national
+event.
+
+In the war with China, twelve or thirteen years ago, Japan had
+insufficient vessels to transport her troops. The astute statesmen at
+Tokyo, recognizing the error of basing the transportation requirements
+of an insular nation upon ships controlled by foreigners, speedily
+drafted laws looking to the creation of a native marine which might be
+claimed in war time for governmental purposes. The bestowal of liberal
+bounties transformed Japan in a few short years from owning craft of the
+junk class to a proprietorship of modern iron-built vessels of both home
+construction and foreign purchase. In the late campaign there was no
+comparison in the seamanship of the agile son of Nippon and that of the
+hulking peasant of interior Russia. The Jap was proven time and again to
+be the equal of any mariner. Native adaptability and willingness to
+conform to strict discipline, unite in making the Japanese a seaman
+whose qualities will be telling in times of peace.
+
+Of late years hundreds of clever young Japanese have served
+apprenticeships in important shipyards in America, England, Germany and
+France, with the result that there are to-day scores of naval architects
+and constructors in Japan the equals of any in the world. Whether as
+designers, yard managers or directors of construction, the Japs, with
+their special schooling, have nothing to learn now from foreign
+countries. The genius of some of these men played a part in Togo's
+great victory.
+
+Japanese men of affairs pretend to see little difficulty in the way of
+their nation controlling the building of ships for use throughout the
+East. Local yards are already constructing river gunboats and torpedo
+craft for the Chinese government, and it is reasonable to believe that a
+year or two hence their hold upon the business will amount practically
+to a monopoly. British firms with yards at Singapore, Hong Kong and
+Shanghai are not rejoiced at the prospect of Japanese rivalry. It is
+possible that, the Japanese may become shipbuilders for our own
+Philippine archipelago.
+
+Already the shipyards of Nippon are ringing with the sound of Japan's
+upbuilding; and the plant of the Mitsubishi company, at Nagasaki--among
+the largest in the world,--has been enlarged to accommodate increasing
+demands. The enormous _Minnesota_, of the Great Northern Steamship
+Company, was not so long ago repaired at Nagasaki in a dry-dock having
+eighty feet in length to spare.
+
+Japanese steamship lines already extend to Europe, Australia, Bombay,
+Eastern Siberia, China, Korea and Saghalien, and to San Francisco and
+Puget Sound ports. A company has been formed to develop a service
+between Panama, the Philippines and Japanese ports, in anticipation of
+the completion of the Panama Canal: and, further perceiving the
+opportunity rapping at her door, Japan is preparing to place a line on
+the ocean that will bring the wool, hides and grain of the River Plate
+region to Japanese markets at the minimum of expense. The undisguised
+purpose of this South-American venture is to get cheap wheat from
+Argentina. Rice eating in Japan is giving way to bread made from wheat,
+or from a mixture of wheat and rice and other cereals. It is further
+known that Japan is casting covetous eyes on the trade of Brazil, and
+the line to the Plate may be extended to Brazilian ports.
+
+In 1894 Japan had only 657,269 tons of merchant shipping; she has now
+upwards of a million tons, represented by 5,200 registered vessels.
+Almost half the steamers entering Japanese ports fly the flag of the
+Rising Sun, and Japan's tonnage at this time is greater than that of
+Russia, Austria, Sweden, Spain, Denmark or Holland. In the matter of
+oversea tonnage, Japan is far ahead of the United States. One fleet of
+Japanese mail steamers, the Nippon Yusen Kaisha, whose president, Rempei
+Kondo, is one of Japan's most progressive men, is numerically and in
+tonnage larger than any ocean line under the Stars and Stripes. It has
+seventy ships, aggregating 236,000 tons. A dozen of its vessels, making
+the service between Yokohama and London, are fourteen-knot ships.
+
+[Illustration: JAPANESE JUNK, OR CARGO BOAT]
+
+These facts should be considered by every American complacently
+believing that the traffic of the countries and islands washed by the
+Pacific is open to American enterprise whenever we bid for it. When
+Eastern trade develops in magnitude, it may be found that the
+Japanese have laid permanent hold upon its carriage and interchange.
+John Bull, be it remembered, drove the American merchantman from the
+Atlantic; and likewise Japan may capture the carrying business of the
+Pacific. It must be obvious that the nation controlling the
+transportation of the Far East will seek to control its trade: and it is
+sounding no false alarm to cite facts and conditions showing that the
+awakening lands of Eastern Asia have more in store for energetic Japan
+than for the United States, now fattening inordinately on home
+trade--when overproduction comes, as it surely will, it then may be
+found difficult to supplant another people in the occupation of
+conveying American commodities to Eastern markets. There are persons in
+the Orient, none too friendly to America, who expect to see the
+commercial flag of Japan paramount on the Pacific eight or ten years
+hence.
+
+If it be conceded that Japan will absorb the bulk of the shipping of the
+Pacific as it develops, valid reasons for fearing Japan as the trade
+competitor of the United States do not exist. Unquestionably Japan is to
+exploit the industry of her people; but the same poverty of resources
+making this imperative insures for Uncle Sam a valuable partnership in
+the program. Japan is bristling with workshops and mills in which a
+hundred forms of handiwork will be developed--and in a majority of these
+the adaptive labor of the empire will fabricate, from materials drawn
+from America, scores of forms of merchandise, which the Japanese
+propaganda will distribute throughout China, Manchuria, Korea and
+Japan--the "Great Japan," British publicists are calling it. Methods,
+materials, machinery, tools--all will be American.
+
+Having made no systematic appeal for the trade of the Far East in its
+broadest sense, America enjoys but small share of it. In the past few
+years our exports to Japan, however, have grown rapidly--chiefly in raw
+cotton and other unmanufactured materials. With Japanese selling agents
+canvassing lands inhabited by a half billion people, the products of
+America are to have enhanced consumption. This trade in Mongol
+countries, although vicarious, may run to large dimensions.
+
+The leading item of Japan's industrial promotion program is to become
+manufacturer of a goodly portion of the textiles worn in her vast
+"sphere of commerce." The Japanese have seen that the British Isles,
+growing not a pound of cotton, spin and weave the staple for half the
+people of the earth, and wish to profit by the example of their
+prosperous ally. To this end, cotton mills have sprung into being
+throughout Japan, in which American-grown fiber is transformed by the
+cheapest competent labor in the world into fabrics sold to China's and
+Japan's millions. It is certain that the controlling manufacture of
+Japan will be cotton, and the production of woolen cloths may come next.
+It is interesting to know that Japan increased the value of her exports
+of cotton manufactures to China from $251,363 in 1894 to $16,126,054 in
+1904.
+
+"Why not fabricate her own raw silk, and send it to market ready for
+wear?" asks the foreigner reluctant to believe that Japan can hope to
+compete with Lancashire in the spinning of cotton. The answer is
+simple--it is because America is the principal purchaser of the raw
+article. Were it brought across the Pacific in manufactured form, the
+duty on it would be almost prohibitive; in its unwrought state it enters
+the country free.
+
+Great progress must be made before Japanese business may be considered a
+"menace" to any nation enjoying Eastern trade, for the yearly value of
+Japan's manufactures is now only about $150,000,000, an average of about
+$3 per capita of the population. America has single cities that produce
+more. The combined capital of all organized industrial, mining,
+shipping, banking and agricultural undertakings in Japan is
+$475,000,000, or less than half the capital of the United States Steel
+Corporation. The Mikado's empire is bound to Great Britain by a
+political alliance of unusual force, but industrial Japan must of
+necessity be linked to the United States by commercial ties even
+stronger. Distance between Europe and Japan, and excessive Suez Canal
+tolls, give unassailable advantage to the United States as purveyor of
+unwrought materials to the budding New England of the Far East.
+
+The custom of speaking of our friends of the Island Empire as "the
+little Japanese," is a fault that should be promptly mended. Japan is
+small, it is true, but the people are numerous to the point of
+wonderment. Consequently, it can do no harm to memorize these facts:
+That Japan has an area actually 27,000 square miles greater than the
+British Isles, and 5,000,000 more inhabitants; in other words, the
+population of Japan is 47,000,000, while that of Great Britain and
+Ireland is but 42,000,000. That Japan's population exceeds that of
+France by 8,000,000, of Italy by 14,000,000, and of Austro-Hungary by
+nearly 2,000,000. That outside of Asia there are but three countries in
+all the world with greater populations than Japan--Russia, the United
+States, and Germany. There was reason for calling the Jap the "Yankee of
+the East," or the "Englishman of the Orient," for otherwise the phrases
+could not have been forced into popular use.
+
+It is the judgment of many who have studied the Japanese at close range
+that they are endowed with attributes of mind and body which make them
+equal, man for man, with the people of America and Great Britain.
+Asiatic though they are, it will be unwise to permit the brain to become
+clogged with the idea that they are "Asiatics" in the popular acceptance
+of the word. The Japan of the present is the antithesis of "Asiatic,"
+and the Japan of the near future promises to be a country best measured
+by Western standards.
+
+The Japanese are athirst for knowledge, and impatient for the time to
+arrive when the world will estimate them at their intellectual value,
+and forget to speak of them as the little "yellow" men of the East. This
+is manifested to a visitor many times every day. Their greatest craving
+is to know English, not merely well enough to carry on trade
+advantageously, but to read understandingly books that deal with the
+moderate sciences, and other works generally benefiting. Yokohama and
+Tokyo possess a score of establishments where practically every
+important volume of instruction, whether it be English or American, is
+reproduced in inexpensive form, and widely sold. For many years English
+has been taught in Japan's schools, but thousands of boys and men in
+cities and towns are each year acquiring the language by study in odd
+hours.
+
+Examine the dog-eared pamphlet in the hands of the lad assisting in the
+shop where you are purchasing something, and you are almost certain to
+find it an elementary English book. Merchants know English well, as a
+rule; but with many of them the desire for knowledge is not satisfied
+with the acquisition of English--they desire to know other languages. In
+Yokohama I know a merchant of importance whose English is so good that
+one is drawn to inquire where he learned it. The answer will be that he
+studied odd hours at home and when not serving customers. And the
+visitor may further be informed by this man that he is also studying
+German and French. A teacher of German goes to his house at six o'clock
+each morning and for two hours drills him in the language. Then, in the
+evening, after a long day spent at business, a French teacher instructs
+him in the graceful language of France. And this merchant is but a type
+of thousands of Japanese who are daily garnering knowledge.
+
+It is a pleasing incident for the visitor from America to read of a
+meeting in the Japanese capital of the local Yale Alumni
+Association--quite as pleasing as to see base-ball played in every
+vacant field convenient to a large town. Returning schoolboys have
+carried the game home to their companions, and in the voyage across the
+Pacific it has lost none of its fine points. For thirty years and longer
+the Japs have been learning English with the industry of beavers. And
+ambition has been responsible for this, the dogged determination to be
+somebody, and the patriotic wish to see Japan stand with the progressive
+nations of the earth. The power to keep such a people down does not
+exist. Preparation is a subject never absent from the thoughts of the
+Japanese. It was preparation that gave them victory after victory over
+the creatures of the Czar. Now they are fairly launched upon a brilliant
+career in trade and commerce. But Japan can merely fabricate our raw
+materials, thereby occupying a field in Asia that up to now Uncle Sam
+has made no determined effort to secure.
+
+
+
+
+INDEX
+
+
+Agra, Indian city of unrivaled interest, 168;
+  its Taj Mahal, 168-184
+
+Ambir, old capital of Jeypore state, 166
+
+America, interest in Suez canal as forerunner of Panama, 16;
+  flag not represented by commercial vessel at Suez in generation, 18;
+  President Roosevelt's insistence for Panama canal, 19;
+  value of Oriental trade, 21, 22;
+  cotton of wrought in England, 22;
+  trifling exports of manufactured articles, 22;
+  diminutive trade with South America, 22;
+  desirability of trade extension in East, 23;
+  government's tariff at Panama, 24;
+  how to make Panama canal pay indirectly, 27;
+  demand for creation of merchant marine, 27;
+  to have 100,000,000 inhabitants when canal is completed, 28;
+  commercial supremacy without merchant marine, 29;
+  government's insistence on "open door" in China, 303;
+  seeming indifference to Chinese trade, 310;
+  waning cotton exports to China, 313, 314
+
+Arabi, rebellion of, resulting in control of Egypt by Great Britain, 9;
+  Kandy, place of his exile, 110
+
+Arjamand, consort of Shah Jahan, for whom Taj Mahal was erected, 171
+
+Benares, headquarters of Hindu religion, 185-202;
+  burning ghat and cremations, 189-194;
+  Monkey Temple, 196-200
+
+Bombay, headquarters of Parsees, 126;
+  a city gone sport-mad, 133, 134;
+  race meeting at, 137, 138
+  important cotton port, 139
+  superb railway station, 139
+
+Buddhism, Kandy the Mecca of the faith, 95;
+  tenets of faith, 96, 97;
+  reputed tooth of Buddha, 97, 98, 101;
+  pilgrims to Kandy, 101, 102;
+  cremation, 102
+
+Calcutta, 205-219;
+  Hooghly pilots, 206;
+  Job Charnock, founder of, 209, 210;
+  under Lord Curzon's viceroyship, 217, 218
+
+Canals, no more inter-ocean canals possible, 4
+
+Canton, unique and important commercial city, 244-266;
+  strenuous and monopolistic guide, 249;
+  street scenes and experiences, 250, 251;
+  executions, 255;
+  funeral procession, 256, 257;
+  educational center, 257;
+  educational examinations, 258, 259;
+  "literary poles," 260, 263;
+  boat-life on river front, 263, 264;
+  leper village and boat toll, 266
+
+Caste, Rodiya people of Ceylon, 103, 104, 107;
+  British rule recognizes no distinctions of, 107;
+  as seen in Bombay, 140;
+  hereditary throughout India, 143;
+  man servant who could not carry his own packages, 144, 145, 146
+
+Ceylon, where "only man is vile," 30
+  Cingalese, 34, 44;
+  area, population, and races, 44;
+  England's conquest of, 47;
+  railways, 47;
+  exports, 48;
+  elephant kraal, 48, 49;
+  an island paradise, 50;
+  the cadjan, 62, 63;
+  tea as "king crop," 117;
+  when coffee was chief crop, 121;
+  details of tea cultivation, 122, 125
+
+China, Singapore and Hong Kong as places of residence for
+      Chinese, 227, 237;
+  cession of Hong Kong to British, 235;
+  Canton, unique city, 244-266;
+  Macao, Monte Carlo of East, 267-289;
+  love of fan-tan by Chinese, 284;
+  Germany's play for trade prestige, 290-310;
+  land of meager commodities, 295;
+  what her "awakened" trade would mean, 297;
+  Germany's colony of Kiau-chau, 304-309;
+  America and Chinese trade, 310-314;
+  plans for rousing country, 316
+
+Colombia, loss of Isthmian territory, through Panama canal scheme, 4
+
+Colombo, approach to harbor, 33;
+  landing jetty, 33;
+  port of call between Occident, Orient and Australasia, 34;
+  medley of races, 35;
+  westernmost limit of 'rickshaws, 36;
+  hotels, 39, 40;
+  population, 44;
+  Clapham Junction of East, 61;
+  route to Kandy, 92
+
+Cotton, Bombay as port, 139;
+  Great Britain and America as manufacturers, 313-314;
+  expansion of fabrication in Japan, 340
+
+Curzon, former viceroy of India, 217, 218;
+  Splendor of rule at Calcutta, 217
+
+De Lessep's craving for greatness, 5;
+  obtains concession for constructing Suez canal, 6;
+  raising money for canal scheme, 6;
+  death of, in madhouse, 10;
+  monument at Port Said, 11
+
+Egypt, loss of self-rule through Suez canal construction, 4;
+  date of Suez canal concession, 6;
+  no debt when concession given, 6;
+  to subscribe nothing for construction of Suez canal, 6;
+  Arabi rebellion, resulting in British control of Egypt, 9;
+  deriving no advantage through canal, 10
+
+France, how bankers of, lost controlling Suez shares, 15, 16;
+  susceptibilities of, how preserved in Suez management, 16;
+  ally of Russia, 296
+
+Germany, second in list of Suez patrons, 18;
+  Kaiser's fight for new markets, 18;
+  friendship for Russia in war, 290-297;
+  Kaiser's play for Chinese trade, 290-310;
+  Emperor as Trade Lord, 292, 295;
+  Kaiser's disapproval of Monroe Doctrine, 298;
+  plans for capturing Oriental business, 301;
+  subsidized steamship service with East, 302;
+  "leased" colony of Kiau-chau, 304
+
+Great Britain, benefits accruing from Suez canal, 15;
+  how control was secured, 15;
+  preponderance of flag over Suez traffic, 18;
+  control of interior of Ceylon, 95;
+  rule in, Asia recognizing no caste distinctions, 107;
+  restoration of Taj Mahal by government of, 183;
+  Job Charnock, founder of Calcutta, and pioneer
+        empire-builder, 209, 210;
+  great work in India. 220;
+  Penang, 227;
+  Singapore, universal sea-port brought to Empire by Sir Stamford
+        Raffles, 227;
+  Hong Kong, important port and naval base, 231-238;
+  no permanent control of Eastern business, 301;
+  tenure of Wei-hai-wei, 308
+
+Hinduism, orthodoxy of Maharajah of Jeypore, 156, 159;
+  animal sacrifices to goddess Kali, 167, 199-202;
+  Benares, head of religion, 185-202;
+  scenes on banks of sacred Ganges. 193-196;
+  cremation of dead, 190-194;
+  incomprehensibleness of merits of, 201, 202;
+  habits of speech of illiterate, 223;
+  curse of widowhood in India, 224
+
+Hong Kong, island link in Britain's chain, 231;
+  rains, 231, 232;
+  city wrested from mountain side, 232;
+  cession from China, 235;
+  guarding northern entrance to China Sea, 235, 236;
+  population and traffic, 236;
+  Happy Valley race-course, 238, 241;
+  benefits and pitfalls of the chit, 241, 242;
+  convenience of bills of fare, 243
+
+India, Bombay and its Parsees, 126-133;
+  scenes at Bombay race meeting, 137, 138;
+  caste, 140, 143;
+  people not readily convinced of advantage of modern
+        implements, 143, 144;
+  Jeypore, 149-167;
+  Ambir, old capital of Jeypore, 166;
+  Agra and Taj Mahal, 168-184;
+  Benares, fountainhead of Hindu religion, 185-202;
+  Calcutta, capital of British India, 205-219;
+  viceroyship of Lord Curzon, 217, 218;
+  Viscount Kitchener, head of army, 218, 219;
+  facts and figures of, 220, 223, 225;
+  the "L. G." of Bengal, 219
+
+Ismail, Khedive, lured into assisting Suez scheme, 6;
+  prodigality of, 10;
+  personal holding of Suez securities, 10
+
+Jahan, Shah, builder of Taj Mahal, 168, 171;
+  interment beside wife's grave, 179
+
+Japan, commercial future, 315-344;
+  best exponent of Asiatic progress, 315;
+  "scourge of God" and "yellow peril" of German origin, 316;
+  advantages secured by defeating Russia, 317;
+  process of industrial development, 317;
+  national debt, 318, 321, 324;
+  homogeneity of people, 322;
+  resources, 325-330;
+  desire to emulate England, 331;
+  why country can exploit near-by lands advantageously, 332;
+  mighty tonnage on Pacific, 333, 334;
+  shipbuilding, 334, 335;
+  no real "menace" to American trade, 341;
+  athirst for knowledge, 342-344
+
+Jeypore, capital of Maharajah of, 149-165;
+  fondness of women for jewelry, 151;
+  benevolent ruler of, 156, 159;
+  astronomical apparatus of Jai Singh, 164
+
+Kandy, ancient capital of Ceylon, 43;
+  journey from Colombo, 92;
+  city of Buddha's tooth, 95;
+  Buddhist pilgrims to, 95, 96;
+  natural beauty of, 108;
+  atrocities of a king of, 109;
+  British rule of, 110;
+  Peradeniya tropical garden, 110, 113, 114, 117;
+  executive seat of Ceylon's tea industry, 117, 118, 121
+
+Kitchener, Viscount, commander-in-chief of Indian army, 218, 219
+
+Macao, journey to Portuguese colony from Canton, 267;
+  pioneer European settlement in East, 272;
+  Eastern Monte Carlo, 272, 283-289;
+  political refuge, 274;
+  Camoens, 278-282
+
+Manar, pearling-ground of Gulf of, 50;
+  advertisements announcing a fishery, 56, 57;
+  period of, 66;
+  scene on banks during a fishery, 76, 77;
+  profit of fishery, 87
+
+Marichchikkaddi, pearl metropolis of, 58, 61, 62, 64, 65;
+  how reached from Colombo, 62;
+  population, 63;
+  fishing fleet, 71, 72;
+  scenes in camp and at kottu, 77, 78;
+  where oysters pass current as money, 79;
+  selling the oysters at auction, 79, 80, 81;
+  health of camp, 85;
+  illustration of white man's rule, 86, 87
+
+Merchant Marine, necessity for creation of, 27;
+  American commercial supremacy without help of, 29
+
+Panama Canal, antiquity of project, 4;
+  President Roosevelt's insistence for, 19;
+  use of, by South American shipping, 21;
+  drawing traffic from east of Singapore, 21;
+  vast Eastern area to be served by, 21;
+  destined to make America trade-arbiter of world, 23;
+  prediction of cost of construction and maintenance, 23;
+  question of annual tonnage, 24
+
+Parsees, their home in Bombay, 126;
+  followers of Zoroaster, 127;
+  Towers of Silence and method of disposing of dead, 131, 132, 133
+
+Pearls, Swedish, Chinese and Japanese methods of inducing pearl
+      formation, 55;
+  Indian and Cingalese expert dealers, 66;
+  Indian grandees chief buyers of, 88
+
+Pearl-fishing, scene of, in Gulf of Manar, 50;
+  description of, 51, 56, 57;
+  Professor Hornell's theories, 52;
+  divers, 66, 69;
+  the shark-charmer, 70, 71, 72;
+  time of divers under water, 75, 76
+  scene on Manar banks, 76, 77
+  devices for stealing pearls, 79
+  process by which pearls are extracted from oysters, 81, 82
+
+Penang, leading tin port of world, 227
+
+Raffles, Sir Stamford, pioneer of Singapore, 227
+
+Russia, friendship of Germany during war, 290-304;
+  benefit to have accompanied victory over Japan, 296
+
+Said, viceroy, date of giving Suez concession, 6
+
+Singapore, a turnstile of commerce, 227;
+  universal character of, 228
+
+South America, use of Panama by carrying trade of, 21;
+  trifling imports from United States, 22;
+  importance of exports to United States, 23
+
+Suez Canal, antiquity of project, 3, 4;
+  Persian oracle's warning against, 5;
+  personages who had considered, 5;
+  to pay Egyptian treasury part of proceeds, 6, 15;
+  Ismail's interest in scheme, 10;
+  perpetuation of names of Egyptian rulers, 11;
+  simplicity of construction and cost of, 12;
+  international character of, 12;
+  Disraeli's purchase of control for Great Britain, 15;
+  physical statistics of, 16;
+  tariff of, 16, 17;
+  value to world's commerce, 17;
+  statistics of tonnage and income, 17;
+  average daily use of, 18;
+  European shippers' choice of canals, 20;
+  shareholders in no fear of Panama competition, 29
+
+Taj Mahal, tomb of Arjamand, wife of Shah Jahan, and world's
+      most exquisite building, 168-184;
+  cost of, 173;
+  burial-place of Shah Jahan, 179;
+  restorations by British government, 183
+
+Tea, cultivation in Ceylon, 122, 125
+
+Widowhood, curse of Indian, 224
+
+
+
+
+TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
+
+In the original text, contractions had a space at the word break, e.g.
+"would n't, does n't, I 'm". In this ebook, such spaces have been
+removed.
+
+Pg. 70, added missing period (a stove-polish advertisement.)
+
+Pg. 315, inserted missing period. (growing surprise to the world.)
+
+Index entry "America, interest in Panama....", stated page number was
+"14" which is a blank page. Page number changed to "16" where content
+appears to match.
+
+Index entry "China, America and Chinese trade", stated page numbers were
+"312-314" but "312" is a blank page. Page number "312" changed to "310"
+where content appears to match.
+
+Index entry "France, Ally of Russia", stated page numbers were "2, 96".
+Changed to "296" where content appears to match.
+
+Index entry "Hong Kong, Happy Valley racecourse", stated page numbers
+were "238" and "239", but "239" is a blank page. Page number "239"
+changed to "241" where content appears to match.
+
+Index entry "Japan, homogeneity of people", stated page is "323" but
+content begins on "322". Page number changed to "322".
+
+Index entry "Kandy, Peradeniya tropical garden", last of the page
+numbers was "115" which is an unrelated illustration. The age number
+"315" changed to "117" where content appears to match.
+
+Index entry "Kandy, executive seat of Ceylon's tea industry", last of
+the page numbers is "127" which has no relevant content. Page number
+"127" changed to "121" where content appears to match.
+
+Index entry "Suez canal, Disraeli's purchase of control for Great
+Britain", stated page number was "13" which is an unrelated
+illustration. Page number "13" changed to "15" where content appears to
+match.
+
+Index entry "Suez canal, physical statistics of", stated page number is
+"14" which is a blank page. Page number "14" changed to "16" where
+content appears to match.
+
+Index entry "Suez canal, tariff of", first of stated page numbers is
+"14" which is a blank page. age number "14" changed to "16" where
+content appears to match.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's East of Suez, by Frederic Courtland Penfield
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EAST OF SUEZ ***
+
+***** This file should be named 27260.txt or 27260.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/2/6/27260/
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
diff --git a/27260.zip b/27260.zip
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cc842a1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/27260.zip
diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..6312041
--- /dev/null
+++ b/LICENSE.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
+the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org.
+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
+jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize
+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..88e396e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+eBook #27260 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/27260)
author	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 02:34:21 -0700
committer	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 02:34:21 -0700
commit	cf39676f0697c263ee9b6c5cdb86b6ef751f56d3 (patch)
tree	e4c9150b211a97baebe1befa4ce0f3091ee35df1