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diff --git a/40565-0.txt b/40565-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ec493e5 --- /dev/null +++ b/40565-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5506 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40565 *** + +Transcriber's Note: + + Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have + been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. + + On page 128, the sentence starting "I did not," may be missing words. + + Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. + + + + + A YANKEE + IN + THE FAR EAST + + + + + A YANKEE + IN + THE FAR EAST + + BY + GEORGE HOYT ALLEN + + _Author of "It Tickled Him"_ + + WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY + H. S. WELLER + + CLINTON, N. Y. + TRAVELOGUE-ART ASSOCIATION + INCORPORATED + 1916 + + + _Copyright, 1914_ + BY TRAVELOGUE-ART ASSOCIATION, INC. + + _Copyright, 1915_ + BY TRAVELOGUE-ART ASSOCIATION, INC. + + _All rights reserved_ + SECOND EDITION + + + + + To my Friend + J. WHITFIELD HIRST + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + + Author's Preface 1 + + I. War Hell and Bull Fights 7 + + II. "Missouri" and His False Teeth 17 + + III. Wong Lee--The Human Bellows 28 + + IV. Hawaii--and the Fisherman Who'd Sign the Pledge 33 + + V. The Umpire Who Got a Job 44 + + VI. The Japs' Five-Story Skyscraper _and_ a Basement 53 + + VII. Japanese Girls in American Clothes--They Mar the + Landscape 59 + + VIII. Ceremonious Grandmother--"Missouri" a "Heavenly Twin" 64 + + IX. Ushi the Rikisha Man 79 + + X. Missionaries, Tracts, and a Job Worth While 91 + + XI. Yamamoto and High Cost of Living 99 + + XII. The Soldier Said Something in Chinese 103 + + XIII. Ten Thousand Tons on a Wheelbarrow and the Ananias + Club 114 + + XIV. "Missouri" Meets a Missionary 120 + + XV. A Sto-o-rm at Sea 133 + + XVI. The Islands "Discovered" by Dewey 138 + + XVII. White Filipinos, Aguinaldo, and the Busy Moth 147 + + XVIII. Singapore--The Humorist's Close Call 156 + + XIX. The Hindu Guide a Saint Would Be 168 + + XX. Penang--A Bird, the Female of Its Species, and the + Mangosteen 172 + + XXI. Burma and Buddha 176 + + XXII. Baptists and Buddhism 181 + + XXIII. The Rangoon Business Man Who Drove His Sermon Home 185 + + XXIV. The Glass of Ice-Water That Jarred Rangoon 188 + + XXV. The Calcutta Sacred Bull and His Twisted Tail 194 + + XXVI. The Guide Who Wouldn't Sit in "Master's" Presence 201 + + XXVII. Royalty vs. "Two Clucks and a Grunt" 206 + + XXVIII. One Wink, Sixteen Cents, and Royalty 210 + + XXIX. The Englishman and Mark Twain's Joke, "That's How + They Wash in India" 215 + + XXX. English as "She Is Spoke" in India 223 + + XXXI. Five Days' Sail and a Measly Poem 225 + + XXXII. Beating the Game With One Shirt 240 + + XXXIII. Through Hell Gate Steerage 257 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + I found myself jammed in with the cruelest, most + blood-thirsty, cut-throat gang I've ever seen 11 + + They tortured three yesterday, but I was more than satisfied + with one, when I left them to their sport 15 + + "You see, Mr. Allen, I got those teeth to please my wife" 20 + + "When I didn't have them in my wife was giving me Hail + Columbia" 24 + + "With a mouthful of victuals I'd find myself chewing those + false teeth with my other teeth" 26 + + "Wong," I said, "how fashion you talkee so? + "No can slmoke stlate loom! + "No tlouble slmoke stlate loom. Can slmoke stlate loom easy, + see?" 29 + + My great fear was that before we landed at Yokohama Wong + would surely burst in his efforts to keep the smoke in my + state room blown out of the porthole 31 + + I snitched it from a folder put out by the Hawaiian + Promotion Society 37 + + A fellow tied up that way can't come to the Hawaiian Islands + to live 39 + + Just one look at that fish and he'd yell and drop fish, line + and pole right back in the pond 41 + + You wouldn't expect to find any kickers in the Islands 43 + + But I'll bet it would make it shy 47 + + I won't say it would scare a locomotive off the tracks 48 + + Author's illustration 49 + + Believe me, that umpire could make anyone see 51 + + They have the taxicab, but someone else had it during my + three days' stay 55 + + While you're working out the problem your car passes 57 + + She is a part of the landscape that way. She fits in and + makes me glad 62 + + Pained! Grieved! Shocked! were too mild words. I was + disappointed in "Missouri" 65 + + "Lord, Mr. Allen, I'm glad to see you," he said, as the + machine stopped 67 + + We S. O. S.'d Yokohama for four hours with that saki house + telephone 73 + + That surely was some bow 76 + + But Ushi's card had pulled a customer 81 + + "Ushi, what for you mope? Didn't I make a deal with you last + night to be my rikisha boy today? Hitch on behind and push, + Ushi" 87 + + With reckless abandon I had decided to blow myself for a + whole dollar, and twenty-five cents for ten hours' horse and + carriage hire 88 + + That missionary seemed to exude tracts--I didn't know one + missionary could hold so many 93 + + Except potato bugs, I always want to poison them 97 + + He said to have a foreigner as a guest at his humble home + would bring around his house such a crowd of curious + neighbors 100 + + I felt a good deal better after what I'd said, and I think + what the soldier said made a hit with him 110 + + With a mighty bound I landed in that man's arms 112 + + "Dr. 'Blank'," I said, "you're the one man in China I'm + looking for. I have a warrant for your arrest" 113 + + The chance acquaintances would cast significant glances and + cough 115 + + There _are_ some Americans whom even a Shanghai wheelbarrow + don't particularly interest 121 + + "Women who are interested in foreign missions and preachers + in our town set quite a store by me" 123 + + "For about a minute, as I looked at what was in front of me, + I couldn't think of anything but the two of diamonds" 126 + + "Humph!" snorted "Missouri," "he said, 'You've probably + gathered your information of the missionary work in the Far + East from your bar-room associates'" 129 + + As we jounced along over the bridge in front of our hotel on + a Shanghai wheelbarrow 131 + + Word has come to me that some of my readers are disappointed + that I shied at a description of seasickness, but instead + went off on a tangent about false teeth 134 + + Astride the bowsprit, pen in hand, writing a sto-o-rm at sea 137 + + Admiral George Dewey of the American Navy discovered these + islands May 1st, 1898 140 + + I hit a prominent official in Washington for a free pass on + a transport to the Philippines 144 + + You cannot starve these people; they live in a land of + perpetual summer 148 + + There is not another city in Japan, China, or India that can + equal it in cleanliness 150 + + The chief industry of the owners of the shacks is to roost + in them out of the sun and rain 152 + + Ye gods! Tell a Singapore official to his face that you are + going to shake the town! 159 + + I swelled out my chest and swaggered away and thought I was + _funny_ 161 + + The "funny man" gently lifted the derby from the dozing + passenger's head and set his own sombrero in its place 163 + + "And dommed if I didn't thank him twice when I should 'ave + punched his 'ead" 166 + + No matter what the hole you're in, there is a deeper one 167 + + And now there _is_ something to write about--the mangosteen 174 + + Would be like going to Venice and not having your picture + taken with the doves roosting all over you 189 + + The only thing of note in the whole transaction is the boy's + self-satisfied air of having done his whole duty 192 + + She said: "I wish I were a flying fish, o'er ocean's + sparkling waves to sail" 195 + + "Twist his tail," I said, "that will start him" 197 + + "You stay where you belong. I'll do the sacred bull business + around this neck of the woods" 199 + + Get that? Royalty, don't you know 203 + + It's hard lines to pour out money in this way on Lal--but + Royalty is expensive anyway 205 + + "Of course I don't," I came back at him. "You stung me the + last trip across India" 208 + + Lal tells the string of porters to put "Master's" baggage + into the compartment--no matter how much, put it all in, + boxes, bags, bedding, and trunks 212 + + The town turned out _en masse_ to hear me talk 216 + + The coffee began to boil in the church kitchen, the aroma + floated through the auditorium 218 + + That old joke about the English being slow is no joke--it's + a sad fact 220 + + And every time the Englishman has explained to me that he + wasn't trying to break the stone 221 + + Home loomed large in my mind--I wanted to go home 226 + + Just like committing suicide 229 + + He had been filled as full, if not fuller, than myself 230 + + To write that invoice all over again * * * to get out of + that was the determining factor 233 + + With my teeth chattering with valor 235 + + Anxiously watching specks in the horizon 238 + + We do, on occasions, don it 241 + + I've attended twenty-two "he" tea parties on this voyage 245 + + No hope of being sunk before dinner 247 + + I turned that shirt around 248 + + I felt like a thief in that shirt 251 + + With my jack-knife to rip and some puckering strings I went + at it 253 + + I turned that shirt upside down 254 + + Also, _I_ finally accepted his apology 255 + + "You're a third-class passenger on this ship"--and further + conversation with me seemed to give him a pain 264 + + He swore like a pirate 271 + + "It _is_ hard when they loiter, isn't it?" 274 + + And "Beef" came in 279 + + And those pants did look bad. There was no doubt about that 281 + + "If Mr. Allen says I have insulted women, he's a liar" 284 + + + + +AUTHOR'S PREFACE + + +There are so many ways suggested these days by the various periodicals +on how to make money at home, it would seem that all ingenuity in that +direction must be exhausted; but how to make money abroad seems to me +to be almost a virgin field. + +New pastures have always interested me, and if I can add to the sum of +human happiness by a wise suggestion, and point the way to satisfy an +almost universal longing to see the world,--for instance, if I can +show how one can make a luxurious world tour and come out ahead of the +game while doing it,--I shall be only too glad. + +It's no new trick to _beat_ one's way around the world with the +hardships attending such an enterprise, but to tell how to do it in +ease and luxury surely ought to earn me the gratitude of my +fellow-men. + +Get a bunch of pencils and some pads of paper and announce to a +waiting editorial world that you are about to take a trip around the +globe, and that you propose to write some letters of travel and +syndicate them. That, for a consideration, you'll let some good papers +print 'em. + +Don't be modest about naming a good round price for the consideration +of letting your papers in. Because you'll need the money. + +All editors you'll find are hankering for letters of travel. + +Letters of travel are a novelty. The first editor you call on early in +the morning, say about ten o'clock (that's early enough to get to work +in this new enterprise I'm tipping you off to--gone is grinding toil +and worry--let others moil), this first editor of some big daily (big +dailies are the easiest)--don't be timid--brace right up to him, and +give him your proposition in a nutshell--easy-like--right off the bat. + +It will be a pleasure to you to watch him brighten up at your offer. + +Managing editors of big dailies are hard-worked men. + +Atlas' job (merely physical) is easy compared with the mental strain +and worry the managing editor of a big daily paper is subjected to +these days. + +You'll find him feeling the need of something--it's travel dope. + +Don't be too arbitrary with him when he inquires in a tentative, +anxious way, as he is about to affix his signature on the dotted line +in your contract: "Of course no other paper in our town gets these +letters?" + +Assure him he will have exclusive use in his town. One paper in a town +is enough, if you select the biggest and best one. + +If (an almost impossible contingency) there should be any hesitancy on +the part of the editor in grabbing your offer, if it seems to you that +the price may be giving him pause, don't make the mistake of cutting +the price. Tell him you may (don't promise for sure,--it won't be +necessary,--a hint will be enough), tell him you may run a little +poetry into your letters--that poetry comes easy for you to write--a +sort of a fambly gift. + +Don't stall, for fear you can't write poetry. You can do it if you +think you can. It's dead easy. + +Newspapers are just crazy for poetry--so crazy for it that lots of +them will buy it when every line don't begin with a capital--where the +poet ends a sentence right in the middle of a line, puts a period +there, and just to beat the compositor out of a little fat starts a +new verse after that period. + +Why, they will buy poetry where the reader will get half through the +piece before he discovers that it _is_ poetry, and after he has caught +the swing he will start at the top and begin over, and go clear to the +end every time, and feel good over it. + +This is where this kind of poetry differs from patent medicine +advertisements. + +In the latter, when the poet begins to advise the use of a new brand +of pills, when the poet's ulterior motive begins to crop out, you stop +reading, get mad, and want to swat the poet. + +The paper gets paid for printing the pill poem. It is in cahoots with +the poet to put one over on the public, but it pays money for the kind +of poetry I have described. + +I'm glad I thought to post you about the poetry, because it's just +barely possible that the editor may be contemplating a trip himself, +in which case his paper won't want your stuff,--_he_ will send in some +articles; or that his brother, or his sister, or his cousin, or his +aunt, all of them gifted writers, are now on the bounding billows, en +route for foreign parts, armed with pencils and pads; or that even now +one of the paper's big advertisers is in Europe, and some travel stuff +he is writing is just beginning to arrive and space must be found for +it somewhere (it's just barely possible, I say barely, that that is +one of the editor's problems as you drop in on him at 10 A. M.), so +don't forget about the poetry. + +This is important, because if you do, in all probability the next issue +of that paper will have a scoop in a news story headed:--"Mysterious +and Brutal Murder! Unknown Man Found Mutilated Beyond All Possibility +of Identification! No Clue to the Perpetrators!" + +So, after you've made your offer, and before the editor has time to +draw his gun or grab an axe, tell him you can write poetry, which, +when set in his paper, will at first sight look just like Johnnie's +composition on Spring. + +In addition to saving your local paper from publishing a harrowing +tale of a mysterious disappearance, you'll land your contract with +that hint of some possible poetry. When, I started out to do what I am +advising you to do, I made nine towns before I signed up a paper. + +There was considerable iron in my soul when I tackled the tenth town, +and I had to do something,--so I dropped a hint that I might possibly +run in a little poetry. After that it came easy. + +With this kindly hint on "How to Make Money Abroad," herein is +presented the letters I wrote on my 1914 world tour for a syndicate of +papers. + +With the kindly aid of the artist to help you over the hard places, "A +YANKEE IN THE FAR EAST" for a title (a book must have a title), and +good, plain print, the publishers launch this little book. + + + + +A YANKEE + +IN + +THE FAR EAST + + + + +I + +WAR HELL AND BULL FIGHTS + + +Up in the interior of our country we don't look upon the Mexican +situation with the same passionate interest that they do down here on +the border--in El Paso, for instance. + +Here is a town of sixty thousand. A magnificent city, with everything +that goes to make our modern civilization desirable. A city of +sky-scrapers, a million-dollar hotel (the one I'm stopping at), with +still others that would do credit to a city twice its size. Splendid +stores, residences, and railway station, and forty-five miles of fine +macadam streets--a city of gimp, go, and bang--a city to make an +American citizen proud of his country. + +It costs five cents and ten minutes' time to go from the center of El +Paso over to Mexico across the Rio Grande--a muddy, dirty stream that +one could wade across--into the city of Juarez--a town of about ten +thousand--the quickest change from everything desirable to everything +undesirable that I have ever experienced. A fit title to the story +would be "From Heaven to Hell." I went to see a bull fight in Juarez, +the first and last bull fight I shall ever witness. + +I wonder if Sherman ever saw a bull fight; I don't believe he did, or +he would have said, "War is the vestibule--the real thing is what is +called a bull fight." In my humble opinion the Almighty allowed the +devil to institute war among men to give us a warning foretaste of +hell. The devil, ambitious to outdo himself, made one more try and +invented the bull fight (which is a misnomer--it is not a "fight"), +and then the devil said: "I'm through, beat it if you can." + +War is a fight--men against men, intellect against intellect. A cock +fight is a fight--cock against cock. A dog fight is a fight--dog +against dog. A prize fight is a fight--bruiser against bruiser, go to +it, and may the best side win. + +The devil invented all these, but there was an element of fairness in +them. The devil looked upon them and saw the element of fairness. It +girded him. He tried once more, invented bull torturing, baited his +hook by naming it bull "fighting," and fished for a nation to adopt +it. Spain bit, and she and her offspring deserve all they've reaped in +consequence--and then some. + +For a hellish, damnable, brutalizing institution, I place the +torturing of bulls for amusement at the head of the class for the +double-distilled quintessence of his Satanic Majesty's final and last +effort to put one over on the Angel of Light. The horrors and +cruelties practiced since time began have back of them ambition, hate, +bigotry, ignorance, or supposed justice; but the bull fight has none +of these back of it for an excuse. It's done in the name of sport! for +pastime! + +Ambition?--"It's a glorious cheat," but posterity may reap the +benefit. Hate?--It burns itself out. Bigotry?--Darkness, preceding +dawn. Ignorance?--It can be cured. Justice?--Blind but sometimes hits +the mark. But the bull fight! Invented for sport, pastime--that which +is as necessary to man's development as food. A country that lets its +children have the bull fight to play with is on the toboggan slide. + +I've seen them chop off human being's heads in China, in the name of +justice. It jarred me some. I've seen the awful condition of human +life in India. That jarred me more. But yesterday I saw five thousand +men, women and children gathered to witness bulls tortured for "fun"! + +I found myself jammed in with the cruelest, most blood-thirsty, +cut-throat gang I've ever seen--and the fact that human beings could +be brought to look upon that thing as "sport," "pastime," "pleasure," +jarred me most of all--and Juarez is only a little more than a stone's +throw from El Paso! El Paso has poignant feelings on the Mexican +situation--the nuisance is at her door. + +Twenty-five years ago El Paso was a cluster of mud huts. Juarez was a +town five hundred years ago, and it's little more than a cluster of +mud huts now. Some fair-size two-story brick buildings, but a sorry +makeshift of a city, the chief thing in evidence being poverty, vice, +and dirt. Its chief pride, and by all odds largest building, is its +bull ring--an amphitheater that will seat 10,000, built around an +arena. This arena, about 100 feet in diameter, is fenced in with a +high-board fence. A gate opens out of the arena, through which first +come six gaily-dressed bull baiters on foot, followed by three more +riding blindfolded, scarecrow horses, sorry, poor, limping old beasts, +which, in man's service have earned a merciful death--their value in +the open market would not exceed $2.00 each. Their riders are armed +with long-handled spears. They all, on foot and horseback, have +official names. I don't know, nor want to know, what their titles are. +They are men!--not brutes. It would be an insult to the brutes that go +to make up the sketch to call them that. They doff their hats and +salaam to the throng, who answer back with lusty cheers. + + [Illustration: I found myself jammed in with the cruelest, most + blood-thirsty, cut-throat gang I've ever seen] + +And now the bull comes from the darkened pen, where he has been kept +for twenty-four hours,--a walk of thirty feet through a fenced-in +lane. His bovine majesty, a splendid bull, comes walking leisurely +along, rejoicing to get into God's sunlight, no thought of malice in +his heart. He seems to nod a kindly good-afternoon to the attendants, +who drive him towards the gate that opens into the arena. As he is +passing through the gate a man perched up out of harm's way jabs a +cruel harpoon on the end of a handle decked with gaily colored ribbons +between the bull's shoulders. + +There is no maddened rush of an angry bull. He stops for an instant +with a startled look--surprise, and hurt wonderment, and "what for?" +written on his face as plain as man can talk. A baiter inside the ring +with a blanket shook out at his side stands just ahead of him. The +bull charges the blanket--no danger to the man--the gate is shut, and +the baiters with their blankets held out at their sides get the bull +more and more into fighting trim. + +But the crowd wants blood. So a baiter on a horse, rides up and jabs +the bull's shoulder with his spear, and another rider jabs him on the +other side. The bull wheels to catch his tormentor, who is out of +harm's way on his horse. The bull charges back and forth, from rider +to rider, until one of them deliberately reins his blinded horse +directly in range of the bull, who rips its entrails out. The rider +deftly and easily dismounts; the blinded horse is down, and the bull +finishes him with a thrust or two, and the crowd goes mad with +"delight." The remaining two riders have played their part, and +withdrawn from the ring, and six baiters on foot take up the "sport," +and with their blankets draw the bull from the now dead horse. He +charges from one to the other, with no more danger to the trained +athletes on foot than there would be to a hound after a rabbit. + + * * * * * + +But the rabbit has a chance for its life--the bull none. + + * * * * * + +And now another baiter comes with two harpoon spears on handles two +feet long decked with ribbons, and tempts the bull to charge him. The +bull accepts the challenge, and as he charges the trained baiter +side-steps, and, as the bull passes, plants his harpoons in the bull's +sides. + +Good act! The crowd goes wild again. This sport is kept up for half an +hour, till the poor beast's sides are full of barbed spears, and the +crowd cries out for blood, more blood, when the lord high executioner +steps up with a long, murderous, stiff-bladed sword, about four feet +long, and with his blanket tempts the tired bull to lower his head, +then he drives the sword to its hilt between the bull's shoulders. + +The bull does not drop dead. The matador missed his heart; but with +that blade thrust through his body, the bull staggers--braces himself +on his four feet. The matador vainly tempts the bull to charge the +blanket. The look in the dying bull's eyes would move a heart of stone +to pity--he trembles, falls to his knees, drops in a convulsive heap, +and dies. + +The matador salaams low as he receives the plaudits of the crowd. A +team of fine horses, decked in red blankets, is driven on a gallop to +the dead bull, a rope is attached to his legs, and the horses gallop +out of the arena, snaking the bull in their wake. + + [Illustration: They tortured three yesterday, but I was more than + satisfied with one, when I left them to their sport] + +The team comes back, and in like theatrical manner the dead horse is +snaked off, and the crowd sets up a howl to bring on another bull. +Three to five bulls are tortured for an afternoon's "entertainment." +They tortured three yesterday, but I was more than satisfied with one, +when I left them to their "sport." Carranza's headquarters are at +Juarez. He "graced" the bull fight with his presence, and if Huerta +had been in Juarez he would probably have been there too. + + + + +II + +"MISSOURI" AND HIS FALSE TEETH + + +I labor under a great disadvantage in writing this ship-board letter, +en route from San Francisco to Yokohama. + +My contract reads that these letters shall tell of personal +experiences, and when I discover a new, fresh theme that I am not +qualified to tackle, I naturally feel that fate has been unkind to me. + +There has recently been discovered a strange malady which attacks +travelers at sea. I find competitors in writing travel stuff have me +on the hip in this regard. This new malady, in which I know the public +must have a breathless interest, is so replete with possibilities from +a pencil pusher's standpoint, I more than half suspect that some +writers aren't playing fair. + +I fear some of them are no more qualified from personal experience to +write about it than I am, but they are banging ahead and writing about +it anyway, just because it is a new, fresh subject, full of thrilling +possibilities for the pen artist, and as for the artist who can draw +pictures to illustrate it--honest you'd die laughing, there's so many +funny things about it. + +The ship's doctor, whom I've interviewed for data, advised me to cut +it out; that, like everything new, the writers have already overworked +it. + +He told me they called it seasickness in the steerage, and _mal de +mer_ in first cabin, and that it hits first cabin harder than it does +steerage. + +I never was strong on fads. The beaten path for me! + +I am also under contract to write about the folks I meet. Now there's +a subject worth while,--folks. You'll strike them on shipboard. I'm +pretty close to one chap so soon. He is on a business trip to China. +He is from some place in Missouri--he's from Missouri all right. + +I understand he has dealt largely in horses. It's his first trip to +Japan and China, and he seems to cling to me, and I have much of his +life's history. The first thing I noticed about him was his beautiful +teeth--as fine a set of teeth as I ever saw in a man's mouth. The +first meal after sailing he got up and left the table abruptly, and I +missed him till the next meal, when again he left the table--seemed to +be in trouble. + +The next time I saw him was at dinner, and I was shocked! He had lost +two teeth on one side and three on the other--upper teeth. It made a +great difference in his personal appearance--but he seemed to enjoy +that meal without any break. + +After dinner, on deck, away from anyone else, I commiserated him on +the loss of those teeth--felt well enough acquainted--you can make +better time getting acquainted on shipboard than anywhere else. + +I asked him why he had to sacrifice those teeth; that they looked like +fine teeth. Was it really necessary to have them out? Hadn't he taken +a chance in having the ship's doctor play dentist? And then he poured +out his whole soul to me about those teeth. + + [Illustration: "You see, Mr. Allen, I got those teeth to please my + wife"] + +"Mr. Allen," he said, "the ship's doctor didn't take them out. I +haven't lost them. I'm wearing them in my coat pocket. Those teeth +were artificial, Mr. Allen." + +"You see," he continued,--it seemed as if he just wanted to talk about +those teeth, now that he was started,--"You see, Mr. Allen, I got +those teeth to please my wife. I didn't really need them, only for +looks. I've got all the rest of my teeth, except those side ones. + +"Wife said it was all right while I was home where my friends all knew +me--were used to me; but in taking this trip among strangers, I +really ought to have those gaps filled in. So I went to a +toothsmith, and he shod me up with some new teeth. He talked about +bridges, and scaffolding, and roofing, and one thing and another, and +owing to the situation he found in his explorations, 'a partial +plate,' as he called it, he thought was the best way out. + +"When he connected me with those teeth, it felt just like it looks to +nail a shoe on a horse. I felt as a colt must feel when it's first +hitched up with bit and bridle. + +"'Do you mean to tell me,' I asked that dentist, 'that I've got to go +through life with that in my mouth?' + +"'Oh, no,' he said, 'this is only a partial plate. Some day you'll +lose all your teeth and will have to have a double set, upper and +lower. Then you _will_ feel as if you were somebody else--this is only +a little trouble. You'll get used to this partial plate and not mind +it a bit. They look dandy. Just take a peek at yourself. You look ten +years younger. You just stick to them for a couple of days and you'll +be all right.' + +"I went home feeling that the bloom of youth was all rubbed off--felt +as if I had a billiard ball in my mouth. + +"My wife was delighted, and gave me that same josh the dentist handed +me--said I looked ten years younger. + +"I felt forty years older, and told her so--and when it came to +eating, everything tasted just alike--and all bad. + +"I stood it for six hours, and gave up. I went to take them out and +got scared. I couldn't get them out. Then I was sure the dentist had +nailed them in. + +"I called him up and asked him would he go to his office? Told him I +was in trouble. When I got there I found him waiting for me. + +"He wanted to know where they hurt. + +"I told him, 'All over.' That the joy and jounce and bounce of life +had all left me. He had filled me full of woe and sadness. That my +shoes pinched, my hair pulled, and my collar choked me. + +"'Take 'em out, doctor, take 'em out,' I sobbed. 'I don't believe they +were made for me. I think you've made a mistake and got some other +fellow's teeth in my mouth. I think these teeth were made for a very +large man with a very large mouth,' I said. + +"He pried me loose from the work of his hands, and took the artificial +part of me into his den, put it on his anvil, and ran it over his buzz +saw and through his planer, and brought it back to me, and said, +'Open up,' just as if I were a horse; and he bitted and bridled me for +another race. + +"I wrestled with those teeth for a week before I left for this trip. I +kept them in different places--in the bathroom, on top of my +chiffonier, and in my pocket. Not all the while, you understand. I got +so I could take them out myself, and I alternated them between the +place where they made me look ten years younger, and those places I've +mentioned; and when I didn't have them in, my wife was giving me Hail +Columbia. Said I didn't have as much sand as a Chippy bird; acted as +if I were the only person who had ever had to learn to wear false +teeth. + +"I made a few more trips to the dentist, to ask him if he was dead +sure he hadn't got me breaking in some other fellow's teeth; and if he +would plane them down a little here and there. + +"He growled considerable. Said he'd get them too loose, and then I'd +be having trouble the other way. + + [Illustration: "When I didn't have them in my wife was giving me + Hail Columbia"] + +"Well, I got so I could wear those teeth and think of something else +at the same time; and then I started for San Francisco to catch this +ship. I can't understand it at all; but somehow or other, those teeth +have shrunk. They began to shrink as soon as I struck the Pullman, and +when I got aboard this ship the blamed things had shrunk some more. +They got so they would drop on me while eating. I'd be going along all +right, when all of a sudden, with a mouth-full of victuals, I'd find +myself chewing those false teeth with my other teeth. I felt like a +cannibal chewing a corpse. I felt like a ghoul robbing a graveyard. It +was worse than the neck of a chicken, that any man who has kept house +for twenty years or so, knows all about. After you've helped all the +rest, all that's left for you is the neck, don't you know?" + +"Missouri" had me crying; but I gave three emphatic and sympathetic +nods. I've kept house for more than twenty years, and I'm a +connoisseur myself on that part of the fowl--and the gizzard. + +"Well," "Missouri" continued, "I felt like a Fiji Islander before the +missionaries taught them to love their enemies, but not to eat them. +So I'm wearing those teeth in my coat pocket. + +"I may not look so young, but I don't feel so like a blithering +savage. I hate to go home without a full set of teeth, though. + +"How are the Japanese on dentistry, Mr. Allen? Do you suppose I could +get fixed up over there?" + + [Illustration: "With a mouthful of victuals, I'd find myself chewing + those false teeth with my other teeth"] + +I told him I didn't know about their dentistry, but that they were +clever little beggars. That they were strong on tea and tooth +brushes. + +"Tea, teeth, and tooth brushes," "Missouri" said, in a speculative and +hopeful tone. "Now maybe so, maybe so," and we parted for the night. + +"Missouri" is not a half bad sort, and, anyway, his teeth story is +different than a yarn on seasickness. + + + + +III + +WONG LEE--THE HUMAN BELLOWS + + +This is a fine, large ship--Japanese line. + +I don't call to mind any line of ships I have not sailed on prior to +this voyage in my chasing up and down the world in search of a "meal +ticket," and pleasure; but this is my first voyage on a Japanese +liner, and I'm simply delighted with it. + +It contrasts delightfully with a ship I sailed on, on one of my former +trips across the Pacific. + +That boat was all right, too. Good ship, good service--particularly +good service--Chinese help; and anyone who has ever sailed with +Chinese crews, waiters and room boys, knows what that means--nothing +better in that line. I had a fine stateroom and a good room boy--that +boy was a treasure. + +I cottoned to that boy the minute he grabbed my baggage at the wharf, +and blandly said, "You blong my," as he led me to my stateroom. + +There was an obnoxious sign in that stateroom which read: "No Smoking +in Staterooms." I settled for the long voyage, hung a coat over that +sign, and lit up. + + [Illustration: "Wong," I said, "how fashion you talkee so? + "No can slmoke stlate loom! + "No tlouble slmoke stlate loom. Can slmoke stlate loom easy, see?"] + +Wong Lee flagged me with a word of warning: "No can slmoke stlate +room. Slmoke loom, can do." + +"Wong," I said, "how fashion you talkee so? 'No can slmoke stlate +loom!' No tlouble slmoke stlate loom. Can slmoke stlate loom easy, +see?" + +If anyone tells you the Chinese can't see a joke, tell them to guess +again. Wong saw that little one--saw it through a cloud of smoke, at +that. Wong shut my stateroom door, like a boy in the buttery stealing +jam, and said: "Lofficers findee out. They flobid." + +"All right, Wong, I won't tell them if you don't," I said. And Wong +didn't--Wong certainly didn't betray me. + +The further we sailed the more I became attached to the boy--he took +such excellent care of me--I got so I really loved that boy. + +All Wong's other duties seemed easy compared to his efforts, in my +behalf, to see that my slight and harmless infraction of the ship's +rules should not be discovered. If I dropped a little ash, Wong was on +hand to brush it up. A tell-tale cigar stub, carelessly left--Wong was +there to whisk it out of sight with: "Lofficers may come insplection +any time. No can tell when." + + [Illustration: My great fear was that before we landed at Yokohama + Wong would surely burst in his efforts to keep the smoke in my + stateroom blown out of the porthole] + +It wasn't my uneasiness at fear of being found out that robbed me of +some of the pleasures of the trip, but an anxious fear that Wong, +'round whom the tendrils of my heart's affections were gaining +strength each day as we neared the mystic land of the rising sun--my +great fear was that before we landed at Yokohama, Wong would surely +burst in his efforts to keep the smoke in my stateroom blown out of +the port-hole. + +Now this ship is different. No silly rules that drive a man out of his +room onto the deck, or the smoking room, when he feels like drawing a +little inspiration from the weed that cheers but don't inebriate--I +like this ship. + +"Land ho!" Hawaii in the distance. + + + + +IV + +HAWAII--AND THE FISHERMAN WHO'D SIGN THE PLEDGE + + +"Under the setting sun, in the Mid-Pacific, lie the Islands of the +Hawaiian group, which present to the traveler or home-seeker more +alluring features than are combined in any other country in the world. +Nowhere else are such pictures of sea and sky and plain and mountain, +such magnificence of landscape, such bright sunshine and tempering +breeze, such fragrant foliage, such brilliant colorings in bush and +tree, such dazzling moonlight. + +"With a climate world-excelling for its equableness, these happy +islands afford a refuge for those who would escape the rigors of cold +or heat encountered in the temperate zones; an entertaining resort for +the pleasure-seeker, an almost virgin field of research for the +scientist, a sanitarium for the ill, weary or overwrought. For the man +who would build a home where conditions of life are most nearly ideal, +and where nature works with man and not against him, Hawaii smiles a +radiant welcome. + +"It is withal an entrancing land, these mid-sea dots, for the +combination of tropical sunshine and sea breeze produces a climate +which can be compared to nothing on any mainland, and by reason of +peculiar situation, to that of no other island group. Hawaii has a +temperature which varies not more than 10 degrees through the day, and +which has an utmost range during the year from 85 degrees to 55 +degrees. Sweltering heat or biting cold are unknown, sunstroke is a +mythical name for an unthought thing, a frost-bite is heard of no more +than a polar bear. + +"Conjure up a memory of the most perfect May day, when sunshine, soft +airs and fragrance of buds and smiling Nature combine to make the +heart glad, multiply it by 365, and the result is the climate of +Hawaii. The sky, with the blue of the Riviera and the brilliance of a +sea-shell, is seldom perfectly clear. Ever the fleecy white clouds +blowing over the sea form masses of lace-like broidery across the blue +vault, adding to the natural beauty, and when gilded or rouged by +sunrise or sunset make the heavens a miracle of color. + +"And, as in Nature's bounty the climate was made close to perfection, +so the good dame continued her work and gave to the land such features +as would make not alone a happy home for man, but as well a pleasure +ground: for there are mountains and valleys, bays and cataracts, +cliffs and beaches in varied form and peculiar beauty, foliage rich +in color and rare in fragrance, flowers of unusual form and hue, and +all without a poisonous herb or vine, or a dangerous reptile or +animal. To fit the paradise was sent a race of people stalwart in +size, hospitable, merry, and music-loving. The door is always open and +over its lintel is '_Aloha_,' which means 'Welcome.' All are given +cordial greeting on the summer shores of the Evening Isles, and +nowhere else may be found so many joys and such new lease of life as +under Hawaii's smiling skies. + +"More prominent than any other cause for this condition of affairs is +the fact that Hawaii is windswept throughout the year. The northeast +trades bring with them new vitality, and make of Hawaii a paradise +where life is pleasure all the year round. From out of the frozen +north, picking from the blossoming whitecaps the fragrant and +sustaining ozone, sweeping across the breakers to caress the land, +comes the constant northeast trade-wind. It is not a strong, harsh +blow at all, rather a fanning breeze--Nature's punkah. The average +velocity for the year is but eight miles per hour. The mission of the +trade-wind is a beneficent one always. Cyclones or hurricanes in +Hawaii are unknown." + + * * * * * + +I didn't write the above. That is a piece of pure plagiarism on my +part. I snitched it from a folder put out by the Hawaiian Promotion +Society. + +The first time I saw that folder I got hold of it on shipboard a few +hours before reaching Honolulu the first time I came here, years ago. +I read it through and smiled like Noah's neighbors when he allowed +there was going to be a wet spell--and got off the ship and "did" +Honolulu. + +I kept on smiling, albeit not cynically. + +No living man can adequately describe the beauties of these islands. I +just wandered around in a daze until I found myself on top of one of +their mountains, and when I took it all in I felt as if I'd burst if I +didn't say something, and I began apostrophizing Hawaii in a rapturous +rhapsody. + +I felt a good deal better after that, but as I was pressed for time I +had to leave the islands and hike along; or I thought I had to. I did, +at least. + +But that rhapsody stands. The islands are still here, and as lovely as +ever. + + [Illustration: I snitched it from a folder put out by the Hawaiian + Promotion Society] + +What I can't understand is, that there are only 191,000 inhabitants on +these islands, with room for several times that many; and something +over a billion in the rest of the world. I don't know why I'm not +living here myself, and for the life of me I don't know why I leave +them--my ultimate aim has been to get to Heaven. + +I can only account for it on one theory: I own a house and lot and +some land in Central New York, and I'm so busy shoveling snow outdoors +and coal indoors from some time in November to some time in April, and +during May and June getting some stuff started, hoping it won't get +nipped by the late frosts, and working it along before September frost +gets it--in the meantime saving it from more bugs than a fellow, if he +saves his crop, can take time to learn the names of--what with +hustling that stuff through between frosts and saving it from pests, +and planning the while to be in shape to get some coal to keep from +freezing to death the coming winter--a fellow tied up like that can't +come to Hawaii to live. I suppose that billion or so who are not +living in the Hawaiian Islands are all fixed in some such a way. + + [Illustration: A fellow tied up that way can't come to the Hawaiian + Islands to live] + +But I feel a little sore at that Hawaiian booster. He didn't tell +about the fish they have here. There is an aquarium in Naples, Italy, +said to be the finest in the world. I've been through that Naples +aquarium several times, and it is a drab affair compared with the +aquarium here at Honolulu. In the Honolulu aquarium may be seen fish +of odd shapes and so brilliantly and beautifully colored that no +artist could show these colors with paint and brush. There is the +Humuhumu for instance. A fish six or seven inches long. It has bright +green fins, and a stripe of jet black starting in a narrow band at the +top of its back, broadening out diagonally around its body. On its +side, set in the band of black, is a bright red spot. Rearwards of the +black band its body is a bright red, and forward of the band the body +is bright red shading off to white. Its tail is striped, red, yellow +and black. Somewhat bass-shaped, its eyes are not in its head, but set +on top of its back. + +A man not knowing such a fish existed, if he were fishing in one of +our ponds in New York State, if he should pull up a Humuhumu, he would +stop fishing. He certainly would. And he wouldn't stop to land it, +either. Just one look at that fish and he'd yell and drop fish, line +and pole right back in the pond, and hunt up the chairman of the +temperance movement in his town and sign the pledge. + +Then there is the Lae-Nihi. A fish about eight inches long, all blue. +You can't know how bright and beautiful blue can be until you see a +Lae-Nihi swimming in the water. Dozens of other odd-shaped fish, +wonderfully marked in brilliant variegated patterns, are in the +aquarium. + + [Illustration: Just one look at that fish and he'd yell and drop + fish, line and pole right back in the pond] + +The government at Washington has made colored plates showing the +shapes, markings, and giving the names of these fish, and attempting +to show the colorings. Anyone looking at the colored prints and not +knowing of these wonderful fish would say, "Preposterous! No such +colored fish exist!" But the cold fact is, those colored prints but +faintly portray the brilliant colors of the fish as they are seen in +life. + +With all this, you'd think they ought not to be anything but happy in +Hawaii. You wouldn't expect to find kickers on the islands. + +But the truth is, they are in a blue funk. They think that the islands +are going to the bow-wows financially, because of the tariff +legislation on sugar. I tell them to brace up and advertise the +islands as more than the biggest show on earth; and, in place of +begging for settlers, to pass out the word that the truly good may +come, for a satisfactory consideration; and that the chances are they +will have standing room only, and won't know what to do with their +money. + + [Illustration: You wouldn't expect to find any kickers in the + islands] + + + + +V + +THE UMPIRE WHO GOT A JOB + + +More and more I am convinced of the cleverness of the Japanese after a +voyage across the Pacific in one of their magnificent ocean liners--a +22,000-ton ship, built at their yards at Nagasaki, Japan--built, +owned, and operated by the Japanese. The officers are Americans, with +the exception of the chief engineer, who is Japanese. The crew is +Japanese. Dining room waiters, Chinese and Japanese; and room boys are +Japanese. + +The cuisine more thoroughly conforms to American tastes than that +found on any other ocean liners I am acquainted with, and nothing left +to be desired in quality, variety, and way of serving. All the +appointments of the ship for luxurious and comfortable travel are as +nearly perfect as anything can be, with absolute cleanliness +emphasized at every point--a trip through the culinary department +prior to sitting down to a meal adding zest to one's appetite--and +that's some test. The management does everything possible for the +passenger's enjoyment. Nearly every evening a moving picture +entertainment is given on one of the spacious decks. The ship carries +films to the Orient as an item of freight, and has the use of them en +route. + +A seventeen days' voyage from San Francisco to Yokohama is not long +enough to exhaust the supply if an hour's exhibition were to be given +every evening. The event of the voyage is the theatricals given by the +ship's crew, the common sailors, who do the work of running the ship. +I was not surprised to see Japanese sailors in an exhibition of ship +games for the passengers' entertainment one forenoon, carrying them +off creditably--games indulged in by sailors the world around: the +tug-of-war, chair race, potato race, cock-fighting, etc.; but to see +them put on an elaborate theatrical for an evening's entertainment +filled me with wonder and admiration. + +The first act on the program was a "Union Dance." In this all leading +nations were represented. And next was "The Lion Dance." They say the +Japanese are imitative. I would like to know which nation they +imitated in producing that beast! It was an animal about fifteen feet +long. It had a bushy tail that stood in the air three feet and waved +continuously. Along its back was a series of short, stubby wings; and +its head! Fearfully and wonderfully made was that head, which was +mounted on a serpentine neck. The genius who created that head must +have searched the earth, sea, and air for inspiration in his work. + +And it danced! + +Oh, that beast danced! + +The power that moved the thing was two sailors inside, but how under +the heavens they kept that tail waving, those wings working, and the +eyes, ears, and tremendous jaws of that combination of earth, air, and +sea monster all going at one and the same time, the while it danced, +and reared, and crawled, and writhed, and gamboled, and all but +flew--I would like to know how they did it. If anyone will tell me +which nation they imitated to put that number on, I'll make a trip to +that country--I want to see those folks. I've seen something on this +order, large animals, elephants, bears, cows, etc., impersonated with +man power inside, in New York, London, and Paris. They were good, too. +A lot of fun. Amuse the children. But here was something good enough +to--to--well, I won't say to scare a locomotive off the track, but +I'll bet it would make it shy. + + [Illustration: But I'll bet it would make it shy] + + [Illustration: I won't say it would scare a locomotive off the track] + +The next number was "Wrestling and Fencing." A half dozen pairs of +contestants. Japanese wrestling is always good and needs no comment, +but the actor who announced the bouts, and the umpire who started +them and announced decisions, would have made a whole evening's +entertainment in themselves. Adverse comments on some of that umpire's +decisions, by certain Japanese passengers, brought him to the front of +the stage with a little preachment. It all being in Japanese, of +course I couldn't understand what he said, but there seemed to be fire +and tow and ginger in that umpire's words; indeed, everything that he +did savored of fire and tow and ginger. + + [Illustration: The artist hasn't quite the right idea of that beast, + so I'll draw a picture of it myself, and then you can see just how + it looked, only it was fiercer, you understand. + + --_The Author._] + +I asked a Japanese passenger who sat next to me and who was not one of +the dissenters: "What did the umpire say?" Turned into English the +umpire said: "Go chase yourselves, you lobsters who are finding fault +with my decisions. I'm umpiring these bouts, and my decisions go, +see?" And they saw. Believe me, that umpire could make anyone see. + +The commander of the ship told me that that umpire finally made _him_ +"see." + + [Illustration: Believe me, that umpire could make anyone see] + +He (the umpire) is 62 years old. He asked the commander for a job, and +failing to get it, he rode as a stowaway on the ship across the +Pacific. He made the trip three times in that way, until finally he +wore the commander out, and got his job. He is a good sailor, a star +actor, and somewhat of a privileged character. I could see from the +way the commander told me the story of how he got his job that he +considered the umpire a good sort. + +But the climax of surprises--of common sailors holding for over two +hours a most critical audience, and delighting them to the last drop +of the curtain--was "_Cushingura_," one of Japan's classical dramas. +It took a dozen or so actors to produce it. The crew, from money +raised by delighted auditors, had provided splendid and appropriate +costumes to dress the parts. + +That play was presented magnificently. + +It smacked nowhere of amateur theatricals. It moved off from the +opening to the closing act without a hitch. So vivid and admirable was +the acting, although spoken in Japanese, even those of us who could +not understand the words were charmed, delighted. + + * * * * * + +Last night a royal shogun, dressed in regal robes, treading the boards +with tremendously dramatic effect; today, washing down the decks or +polishing up the brass trimmings of the ship, that Japanese sailor man +is an object for contemplation. + +But again: "Land ho." Japan is sighted, and all interest centers at +the ship's rail as we steam towards Yokohama. + + + + +VI + +THE JAPS' FIVE-STORY SKYSCRAPER AND A BASEMENT + + +I believe I ended my last letter by ho-ing the land, and hanging a +shipload of passengers over the rail, sailing into Yokohama harbor. + +When a shipload of passengers get off at Yokohama, there is joy among +the rikisha boys, and the passengers who are getting their first ride +in a rikisha have an experience they will never forget. The first ride +in a jinrikisha in Japan is an experience to lay away among one's +choice collection of experiences. + +A first ride in a rikisha has been fully described by myself and +published, and to go into it in these letters would be to plagiarize +myself: so, on to Tokio, the capital and largest city in Japan--the +same old tremendous town, only more so--Greater Tokio has three +million souls today. Compared to one of our great cities Tokio has the +appearance of an overgrown village. + +Many wide thoroughfares and narrow streets lined with low one- and +two-story buildings--a clean city, covering a tremendous area. + +You occasionally see a three-story building and they have one +"skyscraper" that towers up into the air five stories--a landmark. + +The _Mitsukoshi_, Japan's one great department store, is now housed in +a modest three-story building, but they are building a new store. + +The general factotum of the store who can speak English showed me a +drawing of the new store. I exclaimed with admiration: "And she is +going to be five stories high, isn't she?" "Yes," he said, proudly, +"and a basement." + +The government buildings are not so imposing as in many other of the +world's capitals, and there is no single business center. The business +of the city is widely scattered. Rapid transit in Tokio is in a state +of transition. The trolley has come, but not sufficiently strong to be +adequate for the traffic, but enough to discourage the rikisha +boys--the rikisha boy has run his legs off in Tokio. He is still here, +but in decreasing numbers, and what there is left of him is the +beginning of the end, so far as Tokio is concerned. + +He is an expensive proposition. He wants ten cents to take one any +distance at all, and that is equivalent to a ten-cent car ride at +home; and to take one any considerable distance is twenty-five cents. + + [Illustration: They have the taxicab, but someone else had it during + my three days' stay] + +They have the taxicab, but someone else had it during my three days' +stay. They have automobiles, but not to such an extent that one has to +do much dodging. In an hour's ride across the city I counted six--and +it was a fine day for automobile riding, too. + +To get around in Tokio is a problem. Like Washington, it is a city of +magnificent distances. The street cars go where you want to go, but +they don't come where you are. The charge is only two and one-half +cents for a ride, but it costs ten cents for a rikisha boy to take you +to the car. The boy will land you where you want to go for twenty-five +cents, but there is a two and one-half cent street car fare against a +twenty-five cent rikisha ride; so you tell your boy to take you to the +car. Then it percolates into your mind that you have ten cents +invested in that ride. But there is still a fifteen cent salvage if +you take the car, less the two and one-half cents the car will +cost--twelve and one-half cents net. While you are working out the +problem your car passes, and you tell your boy to go on and take you +there--you'd only save twelve and one-half cents anyway. + +But that's another ride--twenty-five cents--new deal--and you sigh for +the days of your old Tokio, before the street cars came to fuss you +up. + + [Illustration: While you are working out the problem your car passes] + +Also, they have raised the price of laundry in Tokio--yes, sir, the +price of laundry has gone up. They now have the effrontery to charge +you two and one-half cents to wash a handkerchief or a pair of socks. +Of course it's two and one-half cents for a shirt, a white coat, or a +pair of pants--flat rate, two and one-half cents, "Big or little +piecee all samee." But it used to be one and one-half cents. + +Those were the days when you didn't have to hold a shirt in one hand +while you speculated with the other as to whether it would go one more +time--under that old scale you just put it in the wash. + + + + +VII + +JAPANESE GIRLS IN AMERICAN COSTUMES--THEY MAR THE LANDSCAPE + + +I noticed the following account of the death of the Empress Dowager in +the _Japan_, a magazine printed in English in Tokio: + +"Whilst as yet the earth mound set up over the august remains of the +late lamented Emperor Meiji at Momoyama, Fushimi, is fresh and damp, +the Japanese have been stricken with a renewed sorrow and bereavement, +none the less profound, at the demise of their cherished, beloved +Empress Dowager, the First Lady of the Land, who graciously shared the +glorious throne of Japan with her lord and sovereign, the late +illustrious Emperor Meiji, for forty-five long years of brilliant +progress, splendid achievement, and the 'Reign of Enlightened +Government.' As the beautiful, fragrant blooms of the cherry fall, ere +the dawn comes when the stern, pitiless tempest ravages the tree in +the evening, so the exalted person has sunk to rise no more at the +inevitable, nay, unexpected, touch of the death's cold fingers. + +"Although her recovery from the illness had been ardently prayed and +hoped for by all her devout subjects, and although the medical +attentions, the best the modern sciences can procure, having been +concentrated upon the noble patient, the rays of hope for her recovery +seemed to beam, the fatal crisis came suddenly and unexpectedly. + +"Her Majesty had been suffering from chronic bronchial catarrh and +nephritis, which became complicated by angina pectris on March 29, +followed by a urine poisoning toward the end of that month. She seemed +to be recovering from the urine-poisoning and the heart trouble due to +angina pectris, until April 9, when at about 1:30 A. M. the second +attack of angina pectris came, followed by the failure of the heart. +The latter proved fatal; and the exalted patient in this critical +condition returned to the capital from the imperial villa at Numazu, +where she had been laying ill. The sad event was officially announced +two hours after Her Majesty's arrival at the imperial detached palace +at Aoyama, Tokio, the demise having been recorded as taking place +April 11 at two A. M." + + * * * * * + +I was moved over that account more than I was over the fact that the +Empress Dowager had passed away. I was not acquainted with the +Empress Dowager, and therefore only felt that general interest one +naturally feels in an event of the kind; but over that account I had +emotions. + +I had still more acute emotions when I saw a Japanese girl dressed in +American girls' clothes. The Japanese girl in her own clothes is an +old friend of mine. + +I have known her for forty years--in her clothes--on lacquer boxes, +screens, and fans; and for fifteen of those forty years, on periodical +visits to Japan, she has danced and sung for me, and bowed and smiled +to me, most bewitchingly--"belitchingly" in her native garb. But to +see her tog herself out in high-heeled shoes, a basque, and a +polonaise, and a hat with heaven knows what and then some on it! The +editor of the _Japan_ in his account moved me some, but that girl gets +me going good. + +I hope she will get well, and go back to her kimono, with her cute +little feet encased in white mittens, pigeon-toeing along on her +wooden sandals, held on with thongs between her toes, and her bustle +on outside of her dress. She is part of the landscape that way. She +fits in, and makes me glad. + + [Illustration: She is a part of the landscape that way. She fits in + and makes me glad] + +There is only now and then one of her stricken, but if it spreads, +becomes universal in Japan, that editor will be called upon to tell +us: "The Japanese girl has had a fatal attack of heart failure--and +from this she did not recover." + + + + +VIII + +CEREMONIOUS GRANDMOTHER--"MISSOURI" A HEAVENLY TWIN + + +Returning from a trip to Tokio on a Monday forenoon I found at my +hotel in Yokohama the following letter from my shipboard friend +"Missouri": + + _Dear Mr. Allen_: + + You'll be surprised to learn that I am in jail. I started out + this morning at 8 o'clock to go to church. At 8:30 I stopped at a + saloon and met a delightful bunch and didn't get away from that + saloon till 5 o'clock this evening. At 5:30 I was pinched and put + in jail on a charge of assault with attempt to kill. + + If the victim dies, please find out for me whether they behead, + hang, or electrocute in Japan for capital punishment. + + I've learned the Japanese language today, but don't want to talk + to the jailer, as it might prejudice my case. For heaven's sake + come and see me and I'll explain it all. + + Hastily yours, + + "MISSOURI." + +On his own statement it looked bad for "Missouri." I had left him at +Yokohama, where he had some business to look up, while I went to +Tokio. + + [Illustration: Pained! Grieved! Shocked! were too mild words. I was + disappointed in "Missouri"] + +I had expected to find "Missouri" on my return to Yokohama that Monday +forenoon, and instead of him I found his letter. + +Pained! Grieved! Shocked! were too mild words. I was disappointed in +"Missouri." A countryman in trouble under circumstances like these, +however, called for prompt action, and I started off post-haste in a +rikisha to see what could be done about it. + +I conjured up a picture of "Missouri," the erstwhile prepossessing +chap (even minus those side teeth "Missouri" was a fine-looking man), +now battered, bruised and blear-eyed, disheveled and disreputable; +probably he had been on a long toot--a relapse from rectitude, I +surmised. + +He had been entirely abstemious on the voyage, but there may have been +chapters in his past life o'er which he'd drawn a veil in our +shipboard confidences--anyway, it looked bad for "Missouri." His +reference to starting out to church was probably only a vagary of a +befogged brain. + +These thoughts were mine as I was being rikishaed along to +"Missouri's" rescue, when, whom should I see coming toward me in an +automobile but "Missouri," the same "Missouri," in company with +another just as smooth-looking individual, who was driving the +machine. + + [Illustration: "Lord, Mr. Allen, I'm glad to see you" he said, as + the machine stopped] + +"Missouri's" mouth was stretched from ear to ear in a joyous greeting +as he caught sight of me. Those "gaps" showed tremendously--one +couldn't blame his wife for wanting them "filled in." + +"Lord! Mr. Allen, I'm glad to see you," he said, as the machine +stopped. "Meet my friend here, 'Pennsylvania.' 'Pennsylvania' and I +have had an experience. Too long a story to tell you here. Come on +back to the hotel and I'll tell you all about it." + +"That's all right, 'Missouri'," I said, "but," waving his letter at +him, "what the devil do you mean by handing me such a story as this?" + +"That letter is all right, Mr. Allen; come on back to the hotel and +I'll give you the details." + +The man "Missouri" had introduced to me as "Pennsylvania," who was +apparently owner of the machine, advised me to let my rikisha boy go +and come back to the hotel in the car with them; and in a couple of +minutes we drew up to the hotel entrance and I invited them to my +room, where I asked "Missouri" to square himself. + +"Missouri" did the talking while "Pennsylvania" nodded assent at +points where the story would seem to need a girder under it. + +"This is how it happened, Mr. Allen," "Missouri" started in. "There's +a missionary over in Tokio in whom the folks back in my town are +interested, and they wanted me to look him up if I had time when I +got to Japan. I dropped him a line upon my arrival, and told him where +I was from, and that I was stopping in Yokohama at this hotel, and +that I proposed to call on him the following Sunday. You know we +landed on Monday. Wednesday of last week my missionary dropped over +from Tokio and called on me and told me he'd be glad to see me in +Tokio on the coming Sunday, to see the missionary work in that +particular corner of the Lord's vineyard. We parted, and I assured him +I would look him up in Tokio on Sunday--and that was yesterday. + +"I met 'Pennsylvania' here the latter part of the week and we got +acquainted. 'Pennsylvania' doesn't look like a disreputable character, +and he isn't--ordinarily. Fact is, he's a most reputable manufacturer +from Pennsylvania, doing Japan with his touring car. + +"Saturday evening I told him of my program for Sunday, and he +suggested we do the missionary field in Tokio the next day in his car. + +"He told me Tokio was sprawled out over a good part of Japan, that +rapid transit was in a chaotic state over there, and his car would be +convenient. Furthermore, he said he had been chipping pennies, dimes +and dollars into Foreign Missions ever since he could remember, and +that he'd like to look into the missionary's game on his own account. + +"I told him the plan looked seraphic to me; we'd be just like a pair +of 'Heavenly Twins' the next day. I knew that you were stopping at the +Imperial over there, and I suggested we look in at the hotel and take +you along if you were loose for the day and wanted to go. + +"I told 'Pennsylvania' you were sort of a solemn cuss and that I +thought the day's program would appeal to you, and 'Pennsylvania' +said, 'Certainly, heavenly triplets.' + +"We got started at eight yesterday morning. Figured on reaching Tokio +by nine, easy enough, but the machine went dead at eight-thirty, nine +miles out of Yokohama, square in front of a saki house--steering gear +busted. + +"'Pennsylvania' investigated, and said, 'Bad break, got to get help +from Yokohama.' + +"Now that Japanese saloon was the missing link--it was a good +place--for us. Not that either of us are patrons of saloons. + +"Why, I learn that 'Pennsylvania' is one of the great exponents of +temperance in his State, the deadly foe of the American saloon--since +yesterday morning 'Pennsylvania' and I have formed a David and +Jonathan Club--we are like brothers--our souls are knit together +since what we have gone through in the past twenty four hours--and as +for me, you never saw me touch a drop. + +"I tell you I'm a disciple of Sam Blythe's in beating the old game +with water. Sam says you couldn't get a drink into him without an +anæsthetic and a funnel, and I'm just as pronounced against the drink +habit as that. Furthermore," "Missouri" continued plaintively, "if you +want to get further lines on me, Mr. Allen, just write the Epworth +League or the Young People's Society of Christian Endeavor or the +Y. M. C. A., Bradstreet or Dun's, or the Horse and Mule Traders' Union, +of my home town. + +"I tell you, Mr. Allen, I'm counted quite a desirable citizen back +home in Missouri, where they know me, but we were 'two orphans' with a +stranded automobile in Japan, and we needed friends. + +"All the Japanese we knew between us was '_dozo_,' '_aringetta_,' +'_soduska_,' and '_ohio_' and none of these words fitted the case. + +"'Pennsylvania' went at his auto with all the tools he carried. We +were blocking trade for the saki house, but they didn't kick. While +'Pennsylvania' was monkeying with the machine, I took a +Japanese-English dictionary we had with us, and found out that they +had a telephone in the house, and they invited me in to use it. +Sounds easy, and as if we ought to have gotten a relief corps out from +Yokohama and be on our way in an hour. + +"We S. O. S.'d Yokohama for four hours with that saki house telephone, +that dictionary, and with the help of the proprietor's son, and it was +noon before we got a message through. + +"In the meantime the saki house people were making us at home. We +pulled off our shoes and lived in the house while working their +'phone, and they treated us as honored guests. We thought a saki house +ought to be a legitimate place to get a meal of victuals, so, pending +the arrival of the mechanics from the Yokohama garage, who, after +getting our message might be along in an hour, or a day, being mighty +hungry about noon, we worked with our dictionary and the proprietor's +son (a young fellow twenty-six years old) to order a meal of victuals. +At the end of half an hour we got the request home, and understood, +and the answer back that that was a private home and that they didn't +sell food, only sold saki. + + [Illustration: We S. O. S.'d Yokohama for four hours with that saki + house telephone] + +"But the son's wife, a most comely little woman, caught the drift of +our request, and by one o'clock had prepared us a dainty Japanese +lunch, and invited us to it. We both agreed that we'd never had a +better time in our lives, getting away with a meal and affording +amusement to our hosts as we labored, first with chop-sticks and +finally fell back to fingers. We knew we'd be in bad if we offered to +pay for that meal, and still we had ordered it. We'd be cheap skates +not to offer to pay for what we had ordered, and we'd be barbarians if +we offered to pay. We compromised by asking how much we owed, and got +the answer we expected, 'No charge.' + +"By two o'clock an automobile from Yokohama garage hove in sight with +a load of mechanics, and by five o'clock our machine was in +commission. + +"After we had finished that meal, about two o'clock, the proprietor of +the establishment showed up. He had been absent from home up to that +time. He was a high-class individual. He added his welcome to that of +the rest of the family's to the foreigners within his gates--he also +made us feel as if the home was ours. While the work of repair to the +damaged car was progressing we worked that dictionary to the limit. We +learned the Japanese language and got the household proficient in +English. + +"During the afternoon the proprietor's mother came in for a call, and +it was worth a trip across the Pacific to watch the greeting between +the grandmother and her grandson, the twenty-six-year-old chap. The +old lady was beautifully dressed. She got down on her hands and knees, +her palms flat on the matted floor. Grandson did the same. For about a +minute they posed like two fighting cocks ready for a bout. + +"Then grandma's forehead went down on the matting, so did grandson's. + +"They stayed in that position so long I was afraid the old lady had +fainted and was for picking her up, but just then she raised her head, +peeked out of the tail of her eye at grandson, whose head raised a +little, then down to the matting went her head again, followed by +grandson. Up with their heads and down to the matting again, playing +peek-a-boo to catch each other at it; several times they went through +those motions, until justice, or something else, was satisfied; then +the old lady got up and shuffled away, and grandson got up and told us +that she was his grandmother, and eighty-two years old. + +"That surely was some bow. + +"The house was as clean as a hound's tooth, and they showed us through +kitchen, bedrooms, and living rooms, and the little garden in the +rear. + + [Illustration: That surely was some bow] + +"There were no screens up before the doors of that Japanese saloon. +The saloon, the front room of the house, was fifteen feet wide, so +was the door--that was an open-faced saloon, opening onto the street +the width of the room. + +"And customers came and went, working in around the automobile. A +husband and wife came in and sat down on a matted platform. Hubby +ordered one big tumbler of saki--the kind they had the biggest run on +was as thick as buttermilk, looked just like buttermilk, and was +ladled out of a big crock by a little Japanese barmaid. + +"She'd fill the glasses so full that they would heap up at the +brim--hubby carried the glass carefully to his mouth so's not to spill +any, drank off a swallow, and handed it to his wife, who hit it for +another swallow, and back and forth they passed that glass, taking a +swallow a trip until they had finished it, and they walked away, to +make an afternoon call, perhaps. + +"Everyone paid for his own drink--there was no treating and no +drunkenness. + +"Everything that went on in that saloon was as open to the public gaze +as the sun, and 'Pennsylvania' and I decided that the saloon business +in the United States was one thing, and the way we were seeing it +conducted in Japan an entirely different thing. + +"At five o'clock our machine was ready for us and we left our saki +house friends. + +"We invited them to come to America. There are two front yards in +America in which those folks are welcome to camp, if they ever come. +One in Missouri and one in Pennsylvania. We both told them so, and +that the freedom of two homes and the best those homes afforded would +be theirs." + +"Missouri" paused in his story, and "Pennsylvania" nodded twice and +said, "You bet." + +"Well," "Missouri" continued, "it was too late to take in Tokio, so we +headed back for Yokohama. + +"At five-thirty we were bowling along at a pretty good clip--we didn't +kill that Jap, we only wrecked his cart and jounced him up a bit--we +were going less than forty miles an hour, but a scrappy little cuss in +brass buttons pinched us for exceeding the speed limit, and locked us +up on a charge of assault with attempt to kill, pending the outcome of +our victim's injuries. + +"He came to, all right, this A. M. Ten yen and a new cart fixed the +Jap--he needed a new cart, all right--and you met us on our way from +jail. We may do the missionary stunt some other day," "Missouri" said, +but I didn't notice "Pennsylvania" nod. + + + + +IX + +USHI, THE RIKISHA MAN + + +I started out of a Saturday evening in Kioto, which is one of the best +cities in Japan--_the_ best, I think--the old capital of the Empire, +to take a walk on Theater Street, which is the Great White Way of +Kioto, and one of the best spots in Japan to study Japanese life and +character. + +I hadn't more than stepped outside the walled-in yard of my hotel, +having declined the offers of the favored rikisha men within the +enclosure to take me for a ride, than a rikisha man outside the gate +accosted me and pressed the card shown below into my hand. + + [Illustration: AN HOUR 20 SEN + HALF A DAY 70 SEN + A DAY 1 YEN + POLICE-STATION NO 379 + NAME USHI + + I am a rIkIsHa man wHo + iS Living near a HoTeL] + +At the same time he assured me that to ride was far better for a +foreign gentleman than to walk. As I perused the card by a street +light I probably detected more than you will, kind reader, for whom +these lines are written on the other side of the world, as you hastily +skim it and only catch its grotesque, misspelled and labored English. +Its humble effort at enterprise impressed me. + +Ushi mistook my mental attitude for one of indecision, and +supplemented the appeal on the card with the added information that he +was considerable of a linguist--that he spoke English pretty well. +Also that he knew all the points of interest in Kioto, and that not to +engage him for the evening was to miss a great opportunity--but Ushi's +card had pulled a customer. + +I stepped into his little carriage and said: "Ged app, Ushi, show me +Kioto. For the evening you may be my horse and guide." + +No need to crack a whip to start your Oriental human horse. Up one +street and down another Ushi whirled me and drew up in a narrow alley +leading into Theater Street, and invited me to alight. "We will have +to walk through Theater Street. All must walk, no can ride in Theater +Street," Ushi announced. + + [Illustration: But Ushi's card had pulled a customer] + +He took from under the seat of his rikisha a green bag, such as +lawyers in the United States used to carry. + +No, he didn't have his jewels in that bag. + +Through Theater Street, we walked, Ushi at my side, with his bag, the +street brilliantly lighted and seething with Japanese life. + +Both sides were lined with theaters big and little, shooting +galleries, sideshows, fakirs' stands--a bit of Coney Island life with +Japanese coloring and settings. High and low of Kioto's populace, a +city of half a million, surged through Theater Street. A mother with a +baby on her back; couples and trios of little girls with their arms +around each other's waists; and girls in bevies. Swains and +sweethearts. Big boys and little ones. Kids just able to walk, all +sorts, all conditions. Theater Street in Kioto of an evening is worth +seeing. + +Ushi took me to the leading theater, up to the ticket window, and told +me it was on the evening's program to go to that show. + +Ushi was boss. + +I bought a ticket for ten cents and Ushi led me to the entrance and +bade me halt and hoist. At the side of the entrance was a great stack +of Japanese wooden street shoes, the owners of which were in the +theater. + +I would not be allowed in that theater without removing my shoes if it +were not for Ushi with his bag. Hence Ushi's command to halt and +hoist. + +Down on his knees at my feet went Ushi, opened his bag, and selected +from it a pair of cloth footgear to slip on over my shoes. An +assortment of these things he carried, small, medium and large. +Fortunate for me, he had an assortment--he found some big enough to go +over my shoes, tied them around my ankles, and I was shod with the +preparation necessary to take in a Japanese theater. + +Twenty minutes of the show sufficed, and I came out and found Ushi +waiting for me. He took off those cloth over-shoes, put them in his +bag, and led me to his rikisha. + +For two hours Ushi showed me Kioto by electric light, taking me +rapidly through thoroughfare after thoroughfare, pointing out and +explaining points of interest as we passed, always on a rapid trot. +Now a leading business house, here a temple, there a leading Japanese +hotel--down through the underworld, threading narrow streets and dark +alleys, over a famous bridge, across, and through, and back again, +always on his rapid trot, an eight or nine miles' run, at last to drop +the shafts of his rikisha at the entrance to my hotel. + +Ushi wiped the sweat from his beetling brow and demanded twenty cents +for that evening's service. Yes, sir, Ushi thought he was entitled to +twenty cents! + +"Ushi," I said, "tomorrow, Sunday, I'll hire you for the day," and +Ushi said, "Good-night," well pleased. + +I went into my hotel, showed Ushi's card to mine host, the Japanese +proprietor, and said: "Ushi is quite a character." + +"Beware of him," mine host replied, "he is not reliable. He used to +work for us, but we had to dismiss him, and now he has gone and got +those cards printed, and has stationed himself just outside our gate. +He has cut under the regular prices (a yen and a half a day is our +regular rikisha men's charge), and he seeks to capture trade with that +card." + +"So?" I replied. + +I read the card again, and thought, "Ushi, you clever rascal. Somehow +my heart warms up to you. Competition's fierce, Ushi, and it's war, +alias 'hell,' to make a livin'"--and I went to sleep that night with +designs on Ushi's time for the morrow. + +Bright and early next morning, after breakfast, I stepped outside the +gate, and Ushi, the "rascal," who was doing business "near a HoTeL," +greeted me with a smile, briskly arranged the seat to his rikisha and +stepped aside for me to take my place. + +I didn't get in. I said, "Ushi, you got a family?" + +"No," Ushi said. + +"What? No wife, no children?" + +"No," Ushi said, "my wife, she die. Very sorry." + +"Tough luck, Ushi," I said. + +"Lost your wife, lost your job. Life's made up of lights and shadows. +You don't fit into the color scheme for my day's program, Ushi. I must +have a rikisha man with a wife and children," and I walked away, +leaving Ushi standing there, sadly watching an all day's job go +glimmering. + +I stepped back into the yard, looked over the semi-circle of rikisha +boys, accredited, guaranteed, within the pale rikisha boys, boys of +reputation, standing and character. No "rascals" who had to resort to +the "nefarious" expedient of issuing cards like Ushi's, and standing +"outside the gate" to secure trade at a cut price. + +I stepped up to one who looked the best to me and said: "What is your +name?" + +"Yamamoto. You want rikisha?" + +"Yamamoto, you got wife and children?" + +"Yes," wonderingly. + +"How many children, Yamamoto?" + +"Three, two girls and a boy." + +"Yamamoto, I'll hire you for the day," and Yamamoto fixed the seat and +asked: "Where go?" + +"Take me out first to where Ushi stands." + +Ushi wasn't standing. He was sitting, dejectedly, on the dashboard of +his rikisha, waiting for someone to come along on whom he could spring +his card--that "nefarious" card that cut the rates, and as he saw me +draw up seated in Yamamoto's rikisha--Yamamoto, favored of fortune, +taking off his fare, Ushi cast a reproachful glance on me. + +"Ushi, what for you mope? Didn't I make a deal with you last night to +be my rikisha boy today? Hitch on behind and push, Ushi--what +difference if you pull or push? That yen is yours when night shall +come." + +Ushi caught on--behind. He left his rikisha standing by the wall. +There's some class to serve a man who'll hire a rikisha boy to push as +well as one to pull in Kioto, and with reckless abandon I had decided +to blow myself for a whole dollar and twenty-five cents for ten hours' +horse and carriage hire that day, just because Ushi didn't have a +family. + +If Ushi hadn't lost his wife, and if he had had a pickaninny or two, +I'd got off for fifty cents and could have given my story the twist +I'd planned for it. + + [Illustration: "Ushi, what for you mope? Didn't I make a deal with you + last night to be my rikisha boy today? Hitch on behind and push, + Ushi"] + + [Illustration: With reckless abandon I had decided to blow myself for + a whole dollar and twenty-five cents for ten hours' horse and + carriage hire] + +But East or West or North or South the picking is always good for a +story in Japan, and while to tell it as it is may not be so +spectacular, at least it's safe. + +My old grandfather, who was somewhat of a sage, once said to me (and +his words of wisdom have survived the years), "George, a man must have +an excellent memory to be a successful liar." I have a wretched +memory, so the beaten, conservative, humdrum path of narrative for me. + +With Ushi duly coupled on behind--"Where go?" Yamamoto asked. The +pride of a double team was noticeable. + +Now "Missouri's" hard luck in his missionary hunt with an automobile +had inspired me to do a little investigating of this world's work on +my own account, but in a more humble way. So I gave Yamamoto the +address of a leading missionary, which I had easily secured from mine +host, the hotel man. + +"I know," Yamamoto said, "other side Emperor's palace, thirty +minutes." + +With Ushi on behind the ground fairly flew under us and Yamamoto and +Ushi vied with each other to tell about the points of interest that we +passed. + +In less than thirty minutes I was landed at the missionary's gate. + +"Man, man," I said, waving my hand to my coolies as I alighted. Say +"man, man" to your rikisha coolie when you leave him and you'll find +him right there waiting for you when you come back. It's an imaginary +hitching strap I've never known to break. + + + + +X + +MISSIONARIES, TRACTS, AND A JOB WORTH WHILE + + +The missionary met me at the door and I told him who I was--a +wayfaring man in Japan, and would he show me somewhat of his work? + +He would, and gladly. If I had been a long lost brother or a wealthy +uncle with a will to make, he couldn't have been more cordial--a keen +young man of thirty-six or thirty-eight I found this missionary. + +"Do you mind walking?" he asked. + +"I have a team of rikisha coolies at your gate," I said. + +"Well," he replied, "our work is scattered over Kioto. We can reach it +by trolleys and walking, with an occasional rikisha ride between +trolley lines, better than to try to do it all by rikisha from here. +Better pay off your coolies and dismiss them." + +"I've chartered them for the day," I said. + +We started out to see the missionary work in Kioto, that young +missionary and I. + +At the gate I told my boys to loaf, or play, or fish, or pick up fares +which they might pocket for themselves--they were on my payroll for +the day--but to report for duty there at the gate at 1 P. M. + +The missionary and I walked a mile and passed two of his mission +churches on the way, where services were being held, and which through +the week were used for schools and meetings; the missionary dispensing +tracts as we walked along. That young missionary seemed to exude +tracts--I didn't know one missionary could hold so many. + +We boarded a trolley, and all the passengers got a tract. We +dismounted at a corner to look over another mission church where the +natives were holding a meeting; a little walk and we boarded another +trolley and the missionary started in to give the passengers tracts. + +"Here, dominie," I said, "give me some of those tracts and I'll help +you to push God's word along"--I rather surmised by then that he was +out of tracts and had a momentary--just a teenty, decent little +momentary pang of shame that I hadn't offered sooner. + +But the missionary wasn't out of tracts. His clothes were full of +pockets and they all held tracts. He dug up a pack and handed them to +me. + + [Illustration: That missionary seemed to exude tracts--I didn't know + one missionary could hold so many] + +I started at one end of the car and he at the other, and every Jap in +that car had a tract when we met midway. + +We must have boarded six more trolley cars and still the tracts held +out, and I had a few left in my pocket after the last car was served. + +No tract was thrown away. They were read on the spot and then safely +tucked away in the folds of kimonos, or respectfully received and +tucked away to be carried home and read. + +Every tract would serve five readers, on an average, the missionary +told me. + +We looked in on little mission churches scattered over Kioto, all +under the jurisdiction of that one missionary. He told me how, through +himself, his board had bought land and built the little missions, or +were renting places for their work. + +We worked our way across that tremendous town and at the end of a +rikisha ride he showed me his chief pride--a plot of several lots he'd +bought, and on them erected a splendid church at the very gates of one +of Japan's chief universities of learning. + +Ten thousand dollars had been donated toward the work by an American +soap manufacturer who had visited Kioto and seen his work, and placed +the cash in the young man's hands to build that church. + +"Dominie," I asked, as we worked our way back to his home, via +rikisha, trolleys and on foot, "what is your yearly budget for all +this work you are carrying on here in Kioto?" + +"Twenty-five hundred gold dollars," he told me. His and his wife's +salary (he married a missionary) was $750.00 each. + +Only one thousand dollars for the annual expense, outside their +salaries, to pay for tracts and current expenses for the work--native +preachers and teachers to keep the enterprise going--twenty-five +hundred dollars came from the homeland to push the gospel in Kioto +under his charge. + +I mentally took this missionary's measure as he told me his story. He +was more than preacher, as we know the ordinary type at home. Of +necessity his was a wider range of activities; a business man, a man +of affairs, keen, alert, his eye on the gun. + +His heart was in his work, to hold up his end in bringing over to +Christianity a constituency of half a million souls--a young man +putting in ability which, if as intelligently and earnestly directed +in a business career in America, should win him ten, twenty--who +knows how many thousand dollars per year reward? + +I doubt if a guarantee of that difference in pay would tempt the young +man from his chosen work--at least that was the impression I got as he +unburdened his heart to me. + +The young man had a vision of things worth more to him than money. + +We wound up the forenoon tour at one o'clock at a union meeting of +missionaries--got in as the meeting was drawing to an end. + +He introduced me to these missionaries as they passed out at the +close. I told each one whose hand I shook that the meeting gave me +pleasure, and handed out a tract. + +One or two of the bunch without the saving sense of humor the Lord +meant all should have, didn't receive them as gratefully as the +Japanese I passed them to--it takes all kinds of folks to make a +world, I find, and most all of them are good, I think--but some are +better than others. + + * * * * * + +The best thing in Japan I missed this trip--a kindergarten of Japanese +children. + +This missionary's wife had, among other things, this work in hand. I +saw the room and the little empty chairs where fifty Japanese +children, of from three to five years, were taught. + + [Illustration: Except potato bugs, I always want to poison them] + +Babies are always a lot of fun. The young of the animal kingdom are +always interesting--a baby colt, a baby calf, or pig, or dog, or +cat--I can't think of the young of anything that don't appeal to me +(except potato bugs--I always want to poison them), and most of all +human babies. I'd turn aside from any task to see a lot of babies in a +bunch. + +But fifty Japanese babies in their fantastic clothes doing +kindergarten stunts--my eye! a show to please the gods! + +The obsequies of the Empress Dowager had closed the kindergarten +school for days, and I missed the best show in Japan. + +The missionary and his wife insisted that I take lunch with them. My +team of coolies were champing at their bits--my lunch was ready at my +hotel--I told them so. They told me that the hotel would excuse me and +they would not. + + + + +XI + +YAMAMOTO AND HIGH COST OF LIVING + + +After lunch at the missionary's I found my team at the gate spoiling +for a run. + +"Yamamoto, take me to your home," I said; "I want to meet your family. +I want to see how a rikisha man lives. And, Yamamoto, I'll give you a +yen if you'll invite me to supper at your home tonight." + +The yen looked tempting, but Yamamoto wouldn't play the game. + +He said to have a foreigner as a guest at his humble home would bring +around his house such a crowd of curious neighbors that all pleasure +in the repast would be spoiled--or words to that effect; but he would +take me to his home. Off we started, a three-mile run; Ushi pushed and +Yamamoto pulled, and I was soon a self-invited guest in Yamamoto's +home; and, if to break bread or chopstick rice in Yamamoto's home +would have brought a greater horde of curious neighbors than gathered +to witness a foreigner's call at that home, then Yamamoto's head was +level--Yamamoto's head was level anyway. + + [Illustration: He said to have a foreigner as a guest at his humble + home would bring around his house such a crowd of curious neighbors] + +A little house 8 x 16, two rooms 8 x 8, the front opening on a street +about eight feet wide; a yard in the rear 6 x 8, was Yamamoto's home. + +It was as neat as wax and furnished with an _hibachi_ on which to +cook, a _tanstu_ in which to store their clothes. No chairs--they sit +on the floor; no beds, save _futons_, to lay on the floor; and an +_okimono dai_, a sort of what-not stand, on which a few ornaments and +articles of household use were placed. + +The wife was gone for the day, but his children were at home, and a +more interesting trio of children one wouldn't ask to meet. + +My team took me back to the hotel. I dismissed them for the day at +five o'clock. I paid off Ushi, and made a deal with Yamamoto to go +home and write me the story of his life. I told him I'd pay him a yen +to tell me all about himself, his family, how they lived, and what it +cost. To bring me the letter written the next morning and get one yen +fifty for the day and an extra yen for the letter. Two yen fifty I +would hand him in the morning when he handed me the letter; and +Yamamoto said he would, and Yamamoto did--I imagine one of his +daughters did the writing. + +Here is an exact translation of Yamamoto's letter as he handed it to +me the next morning--and Yamamoto has his stand within the wall, but +Ushi does business without the gate: + + The present living condition of Tokichi Yamamoto. He was born in + the 12st May 2nd year Meiji 1869. I was born and bred in the city + of Kioto, and have been engaging in the job of Rikisha for these + twenty years, and my family is consisting of my wife and three + children. Elder and younger girls who have had finished the whole + course of the Primary school (4 years), and they are now working + in the factory of the Tobacco Monopoly Buelow, and the young son + is attending the Primary school. + + I am somewhat puzzling with the expense of living. My estimated + income is 30 yen each month in the months of April, May, October + and November and the rest of is about 18 yen per month, + therefore, I make it average, it becomes about 22 yen per month, + and two girls get 16 yen, so all the income of my house is + reckoned 38 yen per month. + + The elder sister has just abandoned her work in the factory, and + she attends a house for learning of sewing. The list of paying + out a month: + + House rent 3.00 yen + City tax and town expense .50 + The expense of education 1.10 + The rice charge 12.00 + Wood, charcoal and oil 1.30 + Vegetable and fish 7.00 + Dressing charges 3.00 + Miscellaneous expense 5.00 + ----- + Total 32.90[A] + + [Footnote A: $16.45 American money.] + + Fortunately I am in robust health. Though I am not educated + myself, I am thinking that the dutifulness and truthfulness are + the most important to intercourse with people, and as I am + truthful and dutiful to my friends, I am rather welcomed by them. + + + + +XII + +THE SOLDIER SAID SOMETHING IN CHINESE + + +Before starting on this around-the-world trip a friend of mine in the +United States said to me: "When you get to Shanghai look up my friend, +Dr. "John Blank." He has been in China over thirty years. He is the +biggest individual intellectual asset in China today--the founder and +moving spirit of an International Institute which recognizes the good +in all religions and gives them all a hearing. + +"He is a graduate of Hamilton College in your town of Clinton. He is a +strong, a busy man, and true. Please look him up and arrest his +attention long enough to give him my regards"--and I promised this +enthusiastic friend of "John Blank's" I would do this thing. + +"Missouri" had, by rare good luck, driven his business in Japan ahead +of him to such purpose that he was ready to sail on the same ship that +brought me from Nagasaki to Shanghai. He had, in his peregrinations +through Japan, run his intense Americanism plumb against an English +tea. Somehow, when "Missouri" and an English tea collided the tea got +spilt--as "Missouri" told me the tale en route from Nagasaki to +Shanghai the tea took second honors. + +Arriving in Shanghai, "Missouri" went his way on business bent, while +I looked up Dr. "John Blank," only to find that this busy man was out +of town, and I regretted that I should have to disappoint our mutual +friend and not be able to deliver his regards to Dr. "Blank." And I +took a railroad trip to Pekin. + +While I have come to China several times, until this trip I had never +ridden a mile on a railroad in China, nor had I been north of +Shanghai, and I was full of curiosity to see what I should see on a +thousand-mile ride through China with its teeming millions. + +At eleven P. M. of a sweltering night I found myself ensconced in a +very comfortable sleeping car, composed of commodious staterooms of +four berths each, two upper and two lower, and as the only traveling +companion to share my stateroom, a young German of twenty-six years. + +He was a keen young chap who had right ideas of life. Dropped in +Shanghai four years ago, with an expired term in the German navy and +fifty Mexican dollars in his pocket, bare-handed and alone, he had +hit the Orient with such sturdy resolution and solid German sense that +he had, in four short years, added to the fifty Mex. a young Urasian +wife, half German and half Chinese (he assured me she was the dearest, +sweetest little thing), a baby, and nine thousand good hard Mexican +dollars in the bank. + +A feat like that is worth mentioning--when you know the Orient--they +don't all do so well, even with pull and influence to help. + +It's good to have a chap like that, a right-principled, wholesome +chap, who can speak your tongue and Chinese as well, in the berth +across from you on a lonesome thousand-mile trip through China. A +night's run and Nankin is reached at seven A. M. with a three hours' +wait for breakfast, and to ferry across the Yangtze to Pukow to +connect, at ten A. M., with the Pukow-Tientsin road--then settling +down in a comfortable train, carrying a good restaurant car, for a +ride of thirty hours without change of cars until we should reach +Tientsin. + +For an hour we followed up the delta of the Yangtze, low, level land +devoted to rice culture, splendidly tilled. The only remarkable thing +about the landscape was dearth of population. + +We passed no towns of any size. A lonesome railroad station, now and +then some little mud-walled, straw-thatched hamlets. A like ride over +such agricultural land in any of our Middle States at home would show +much greater evidence of population. + +Then for another hour a poor strip of territory, a hilly, semi-barren +country, then we rolled out onto level plains which stayed with us +until darkness shut out the scene. + +From a little after noon till dark on a day in early June we passed +through Illinois and Iowa land, prairies bounded by the horizon, with +fields of waving wheat and barley just coming into harvest, and fields +of corn and beans six inches high. And in all that seven or eight +hours of travel, at an average speed of twenty-five miles an hour, we +passed no city of any size. + +Lonesome, solidly well-built brick railroad stations, at long +intervals villages and hamlets, set back from the railroad, of the +same one-story, mud-walled, thatched construction. + +The wonder to me was: Where did the population live to till the land +so thoroughly?--for it was all tilled like a well-kept garden. Where +the early wheat and barley was harvested it was threshed on threshing +floors, even as Boaz threshed his grain, and all of those millions of +acres of grain we passed was cut either with a crude cradle or sickle, +or pulled up by the roots; and the farm animals used were the +caribou, the ox, and ass. + +No fences, no wagon roads. Where one man's land ended and another +man's began you'd never guess, viewed from the car windows. + +And all that plain defaced with graves! Out in the fields, +helter-skelter, here and there. Here a single grave, there two or +three, again six in a row. Pa, and ma, and brother John, sister Ann, +and Will, and baby Tim, were buried there. Pa had a big grave. Ma's +not so large, and tapering down in size to a small one for baby Tim, +all of the same pattern; a haycock-shaped mound of earth topped with a +wad of mud. + +I had it in for the geography I studied as a boy that told me of +China's teeming population. That geography told me that China was so +full of folks that to support the congested population they loaded +dirt onto flat boats and moored those boats in rivers and utilized the +ground thus made for gardens--and in that same geography lesson I +learned that these boats were called flower boats. + +The erudite writer of that geography got mixed in his metaphors. The +flower boats of China have been pointed out to me in the rivers of +China. They are places where "gilded youth" resort, and it is not +garden truck they raise on them, but Sherman's definition of war--but +let it pass. + +Night shut out the scene, and morning dawned and found us at a city. I +was glad to find a city in China, and here I lost my German friend. I +regretted the parting, for I could talk to him. We were in a +mountainous country now with some vegetation snatched in spots. Not +much, but some, and through this strip of meagre land they had good +stone houses and wagon roads--and it looked more prosperous and more +like folks back home. + +For a couple of hours we passed through that kind of country, then +came out onto prairies, and as far as the eye could reach the same +sparse population, mud huts, and ugly graves, but all tilled like a +well-kept garden. I'd lost my German friend for six hours now--and +from morning until noon, having had no one to talk to, there had +accumulated in me a considerable store of oratory. + +We had stopped at a splendid brick station--perhaps some day a town +will grow around that spot--and I got out to stretch my legs. A row of +Chinese soldiers stood on guard; and in good old United States, the +only tongue I speak, I broke loose on one of them: "China is a fine +country, sir," I said; "a fine country, sir. The agricultural +possibilities of China, sir, are great! Your boundless plains and +mighty rivers are grand, sir; grand! Unshackled from your past, you've +burst the bands of superstition, lethargy, inertia. You've climbed out +of your rut. Unleashed from all your past, you've grasped the pregnant +present, and now, with your eyes turned to the mighty achievements yet +to come--with this glorious new Republic you've achieved, what the +future holds for China is impressive, sir; impressive." + +The soldier said something in Chinese. + +"This railroad over which I've ridden, sir, is an earnest of greater +things in store for China. The rolling stock is fine, the road well +built, and wonderfully well ballasted. + +"There is little left to be desired in the service on your trains. +With the architectural taste displayed in this splendid station house, +none but a carping critic could find fault. I'm pleased with what I've +seen, sir; pleased--delighted, sir." + +The soldier said something in Chinese. + +I felt a good deal better after what I'd said, and I think what the +soldier said made a hit with him, but we weren't getting anywhere, +when, at that moment, there came along a foreigner to board the train. +He'd overheard part of my talk. He looked at me and said: "You're from +the United States, aren't you?" + + [Illustration: I felt a good deal better after what I'd said, and I + think what the soldier said made a hit with him] + +"Pretty near," I said. + +"Oh, from Canada?" he asked. + +"No," I said, "I'm from New York State." + +"Why," he said, "I was educated in Oneida County, your State." + +"Indeed!" I said. "What institution?" + +"Hamilton College," he said. + +"And your name is?" + +"'John Blank'," said he. With a mighty bound I landed in that man's +arms. I fell on his neck and wept. + +"Dr. 'Blank'," I said, "you're the one man in China I'm looking for. I +have a warrant for your arrest." + +We got into the dining car, and dined and talked, and talked and +dined, and talked, until we reached Tientsin, four hours later. + +We changed cars there and rode into Pekin. All the way it was the same +level country, well-tilled fields, mud huts, and ugly graves. From +Tientsin, a city of 1,000,000, to Pekin, a city of 1,300,000, is +ninety miles, and not one-tenth the population in evidence that you'll +find on that ninety-mile ride between New York and Philadelphia. + + [Illustration: With a mighty bound I landed in that man's arms] + + [Illustration: "Dr. 'Blank'," I said, "you're the one man in China I'm + looking for. I have a warrant for your arrest"] + + + + +XIII + +TEN THOUSAND TONS ON A WHEELBARROW AND THE ANANIAS CLUB + + +I was glad of the opportunity to come to Pekin, where I might see with +my own eyes a Pekin cart. + +Modes of travel and transportation have always had a fascination for +me. + +For instance, I was so captivated with the Shanghai wheelbarrows, that +the first thing I did after arriving in Shanghai on my first trip to +China was to tackle the first Chinaman I saw in the street pushing one +of those empty barrows, dicker with him, and then and there buy that +wheelbarrow. + +Three dollars was the consideration, but, with first cost, boxing, +freight, and duty it cost me $29.05 landed in Clinton--and I've never +regretted the purchase. + +When telling circles of chance acquaintances and friends at home that +a Chinaman would carry a mixed cargo of from five to ten thousand tons +on one of those barrows, the chance acquaintances would cast +significant glances and cough, while my dear friends would hand me +life membership cards in the Ananias Club. + + [Illustration: The chance acquaintances would cast significant + glances and cough] + +My only regret in the matter is, that in telling about the Shanghai +wheelbarrow I was not acquainted with all its possibilities. When a +chance acquaintance doubts my word it's immaterial to me whether he is +caught with a nasty little hacking cough, or contracts a violent and +fatal congestive chill, and as for those dear doubting Thomas friends +of mine who, from me, might have stood for a load of, say from three +to five thousand tons--for their benefit I want to chronicle here that +as you travel north from Shanghai they put _bigger_ loads on that same +pattern of wheelbarrow and rig them up with mules or sails, and I have +photographs to prove it; and apologies will be accepted. + +Now as to the Pekin cart: + +We have all read of it and seen pictures of it, and travelers, +irresponsible travelers of no reputation, or travelers without a +sensitive and jealous regard for their veracity, have so misled me +about that vehicle that what I expected to see was two wheels sawed +off the end of a log, set on an axletree, a hood covering, and two +stiff saplings for shafts. And, as I shut my eyes to let the picture +sink in and tried to recall the motive power, I couldn't recall that +there was any motive power. The cart was stuck in an awful rut in the +streets of Pekin, and even though motionless, I could hear it squeak. +A dead dog was lying to the right of the cart, the carcasses of a +couple of cats to the left, and in the cart a load of human +corpses--the life having been joggled out of them by being jounced +over the awful ruts in the Pekin streets. + +But now I find the Pekin cart with a well-tired wheel, having a felloe +six inches wide, and for ornamentation studded thickly with +wrought-iron headed nails the size of boiler rivets. The wheel is +thickly set with spokes centering in a splendid hub set on a +well-oiled axletree. The hood, however, is true to the picture, but +the whole affair is varnished and shines like an undertaker's cart; +and hitched to it is the most splendid mule I have ever seen in all my +wanderings. + +That mule would redeem any kind of a vehicle he might be hitched +to--such a large, fat, well-groomed, glossy mule. + +His ears are several sizes shorter than those of the mule of story and +of song--an urbane, genial, gentle, loving-looking mule--I don't +believe the Pekin mule would kick. Judged from the obvious care that's +bestowed on him, the Pekin mule has no kick coming. + +And the ruts in the streets of Pekin?--there are no ruts. Wide +thoroughfares, well paved. + +And the rubbish in the streets? Not there. It's a fairly clean city; a +city of many modern and splendid buildings. A city of many legations +set in ample grounds, with beautiful and imposing entrances bordered +with trees, shrubbery and flowers. A city of ancient Chinese temples; +a city set in a fertile plain and walled about--Pekin is a +different-looking city than I expected to see. + +Martial law prevails--the country is under martial law. + +China a republic? A joke! + +No more absolute monarchy could be imagined than Yuan Shih-Kai's China +today. + +An upper and lower house of his own choosing, an autocrat, a dictator, +wishing for the old order, and himself the emperor. These are pretty +generally the opinions you'll hear expressed. He seems to be the one +statesman in a country of 400,000,000 whom foreigners and Chinese +generally center on as the only man to hold the reins. Hated by many, +feared by more, plots and counterplots against his life--all agree +that chaos would result were he taken away. + +China today, some say, is a smoldering volcano, but more will not +venture an opinion as to what the future holds for her. + +With her centuries of conservatism drilled into a population which has +submitted to official greed and graft, and accepted it as a matter of +course, China has few statesmen, none on the horizon to contest the +supremacy of Yuan Shih-Kai, who has seized the reins of power. That +China has not fallen to pieces long before is the wonder of students +who have spent their lives in China, and the most profound opinion +hazarded is--she has lumbered along because she has; and because she +has, the chances are she will continue to lumber along. What seems to +be her weakness is her strength--400,000,000 patient endurers, with +power to endure and not ask too much for the privilege to exist. There +are no other people with their peculiar temperament. With a nervous +organization that don't give way to trifles, a people who can grin and +bear it--this seems to be the opinion of those who are in best +position to render judgment. + +Greedy nations have stood by and waited for her to fall to pieces, and +are even now waiting. China has fooled them right along, and she may +fool them yet a spell--so keep your eye on China, but keep on winking. + + + + +XIV + +"MISSOURI" MEETS A MISSIONARY + + +I found "Missouri" in Shanghai on my return from Pekin, and he seemed +to be in a dejected mood. Something had evidently gone wrong with him. + +"How do you like Shanghai, 'Missouri'?" I asked. + +"Fine," "Missouri" said. "Good town--lot of go." + +"Had any rides on these Shanghai wheelbarrows?" + +"Missouri" only grinned and didn't go off into wild, exuberant +enthusiasm, by which token I knew there must be something the matter +with "Missouri." + + [Illustration: There _are_ some Americans whom even a Shanghai + wheelbarrow don't particularly interest] + +There _are_ some Americans whom even a Shanghai wheelbarrow don't +particularly interest. But there are some Americans who can't see +anything particularly interesting in lots of things; who go mooning +along through life; who, if you told them the moon was made of green +cheese, would get into an argument with you on the subject and tell +you there must be some mistake about it. But from what I'd seen of +"Missouri" I didn't put him down for that kind of an American; and I +knew there must have something gone wrong with him or else he'd have +warmed up over the wheelbarrows in Shanghai. + +"Business bum, 'Missouri'?" I asked. + +"Nope," said "Missouri." "Done better than I expected to." + +"What's the matter, 'Missouri'?" I asked. "Your false teeth aren't +aching are they? You seem to lack enthusiasm. Anything gone wrong +since I saw you last? Bad news from home? Long on mules and the bottom +dropped out of the market? Has the treasurer of the Epworth League at +home run off with the funds, or has your bank cashier run off with +your safe?" + +"Say, Mr. Allen, the bank's all right. Mules and horses are O. K. +Everything is lovely so far as the outcome of my trip is concerned in +a business way. + +"But that Epworth League is no joke. You see, my town is looking for +me to bring home a report on the missionary game out here in the Far +East. + +"As I've told you, I'm a fairly good proposition where I live--an easy +mark when it comes to digging down and boosting anything worth +boosting. + + [Illustration: "Women who are interested in foreign missions and + preachers in our town set quite a store by me"] + +"Women who are interested in foreign missions and the preachers in our +town set quite a store by me, and I was given that commission to +look up the missionary in Tokio and report on his work, and you know +all about how I came out on that enterprise. + +"I got tied up in Japan, so I didn't go to look his field +over--thought I wouldn't have any trouble to get next to missionaries +out here, and when you told me how you came out with that missionary +in Kioto, I thought it would be a cinch to take back a report from +some of these posts. + +"Say, Mr. Allen, I'm never going to get funny again as long as I live, +if I ever have anything more to do with the 'cloth.' + +"After you left me to run up to Pekin I got things shaped around here +in Shanghai where I could spare a day, so I looked up the missionaries +in the city directory, and by a little inquiry, located one who was +said to be a hot tomolie in his line. Didn't have a letter of +introduction to him, but banked on my general appearance to carry me +through. + +"I found my man and told him where I was from. I noticed he was a +solemn-looking individual. I lit into him in a more or less +free-and-easy way, and that's where I got in bad with that particular +dispenser of the gospel to the heathen. + +"I told him that I was a business man and that I wanted to learn +something of the missionary work to tell about it when I got home. + +"From what you'd told me of your experience in Kioto, I rather +expected he would enthuse somewhat. + +"But he didn't enthuse. + +"He made a diamond of the index fingers and thumbs of his hands, held +them in front of him, and waited for me to proceed. I looked at him--I +looked at him twice. And then I told him of my effort in Tokio. + +"I said: 'I started out to do this thing in Tokio; started one Sunday +morning, but got tied up in a saki house, where I met a delightful +bunch, and didn't get away from that saloon till five o'clock in the +afternoon, and I have yet to come in personal contact with the +missionary work in the Far East.' + +"I meant to say something that would jar his hands out of the position +they were in, but it didn't work that way. + +"He kept them held just so, and his mouth took on something of the +same shape. For about a minute as I looked at what was in front of me +I couldn't think of anything but the two of diamonds. Between you and +me, that missionary is a two-spot, all right. + + [Illustration: "For about a minute, as I looked at what was in front + of me, I couldn't think of anything but the two of diamonds"] + +"Then I elaborately explained about the automobile breaking down in +front of the saki house, and how the keepers of the saki house had +befriended us, but the whole story didn't warm him up. + +"I discoursed along and tried to overcome the bad impression I had +made. I did my level best to make that chap see that while I didn't +have any letter of introduction, that it might be well to consider +strangers, because we've Holy Writ for it that by so doing a good many +have caught angels unawares. + +"But that fellow couldn't see any angel in me. He acted as if I had +hoofs and horns. + +"I was having the time of my life to get through that missionary's +crust. I did enough mental and 'charming personality' work to sell a +trainload of mules to a business man. + +"It was a one-sided confab, but I didn't propose to give it up. I said +to myself: 'I've pulled over harder deals in my life than mellowing up +and bringing this missionary around.' I went along careful like, +discoursing and discussing (if one man doing all the talking could be +called discussing)--I'd cash a stranger's check at our bank on half as +good a showing as I was making--and I rather thought I was getting +by. + +"He had shut his mouth, and while he held his hands in that same +position, with his mouth shut, he didn't remind me so much of a +two-spot. He looked more like an ace, and I thought I was winning. + +"And then I let go one that gave him the opening he'd evidently been +waiting for. I told him that I hadn't found the cordial relations +existing between the business men of the Orient and the missionary +cause I had expected I would find--and then he said something. What do +you think that missionary said to me, Mr. Allen?" + +"I haven't an idea, 'Missouri'. What did he say?" + +"Humph!" snorted 'Missouri'. "He said: 'You have probably gathered +your information of the missionary work in the Far East from your +bar-room associates'." + +I laughed. "Hard luck, 'Missouri'. Did you tell him about the funnel +and anæsthetic?" + +"I did not," disgustedly. "I left him encased in his armor plate of +self-righteousness." + + [Illustration: "Humph!" snorted "Missouri," "he said, 'You've + probably gathered your information of the missionary work in the + Far East from your bar-room associates'"] + +"Oh, forget it, 'Missouri'," I said. "The missionary work is a +tremendous undertaking. There are thousands of missionaries scattered +over the world. You can't pick out thousands of men for any great +work, in religion, business, politics, or war, without occasionally +drafting one whom the French so graphically describe as '_damphol_.' +That particular missionary has evidently missed his calling." + +"Um," "Missouri" pondered meditatively. "Just what sort of a calling +would fit that kind of a man? I wouldn't undertake to make a banker of +him. I wouldn't trust him with a big mule deal. He'd scare trade away +from a country store"-- + +"Forget it, 'Missouri.' Let's take a wheelbarrow ride and you can use +my Kioto experience when you get home--just tell it to your good +people as if it had happened to you. Or, if you have time when you get +to Canton, go and call on my friend S----. + +"He is a missionary. I won't let him know that you are coming to see +him, and I won't give you a letter of introduction to him--you won't +need a letter. + +"Go at him just as you did at your 'two-spot'--you won't fool +him--he'll see back of it. You wouldn't have fooled me in Yokohama if +you'd declaimed it instead of writing it to me. You're something of a +josher, 'Missouri,' but you don't exactly impress even the ordinary +run as a gleaner of your views from bar-room associates. + + [Illustration: As we jounced along over the bridge in front of our + hotel on a Shanghai wheelbarrow] + +"S---- would have made a whale of a business man if he hadn't given +his life to missions. He's a whale of a business man as it is. I +misjudge him, and I misjudge you, if he don't work you for a +contribution to foreign missions that will make the Board in New York +throw up their hats when they hear of it, and show you a story to take +back home that will make the tight-wads in your community loosen up +when the hat is passed around for foreign missions." + +As we jounced along over the bridge in front of our hotel and along +the bund on a Shanghai wheelbarrow, passing mixed cargoes of +merchandise and passengers on those same homely vehicles, and as I +explained to "Missouri" how those were only _little_ loads, how up +north they piled on more and more and then rigged them up with sails, +the absolute ludicrousness of it all made "Missouri" forget his +grouch, and he promised me that he'd try to look up S---- in +Canton--and I thought I saw where Missouri mules might be hitched to +Foreign Missions--and that's some motive power. + + + + +XV + +A STO-O-RM AT SEA + + +Since starting my series of travel letters, word has come to me that +some of my readers are disappointed that I shied at a description of +seasickness--an eminently looked-for and expected dissertation--and +instead went off on a tangent about false teeth, which was not in the +regular line of letters of travel; and I also learn that the hope is +entertained that I will not close this series without describing a +storm at sea, the which is a regular, fit, and greatly-to-be-desired +adjunct to such a series of letters as I am writing. + +I have written on former occasions a description of St. Peter's Church +at Rome, taken a running jump at the Pyramids, and once, just once, I +wrote a rhapsody--about the Hawaiian Islands--most beautiful spot on +earth. But I've always promised myself that I'd leave a sto-o-rm at +sea alone. + +But when an exacting public drives, a hack must needs travel, and if I +must come through with a storm at sea, right here and now is the time +and place to do it, as we are in the midst of a typhoon. + + [Illustration: Word has come to me that some of my readers are + disappointed that I shied at a description of sea sickness, but + instead went off on a tangent about false teeth] + +Now a typhoon is conceded to be the most colossal kind of a storm, and +right here in the China Sea, between Hong Kong and Manila, is the +place where they grow the biggest typhoons--this is headquarters for +typhoons--and we are now in the midst of the biggest of its kind. So +while I have the data right at hand where I can pick it fresh from the +hat--get all the local coloring--I'll do the regular and conventional +thing, albeit under protest. Ah me! ah my! ah mo! ah me! I say, and +then some more. I wish you might be with me now and hear the billows +roar. A storm has struck this good old ship, the waves are mountain +high, the billows rise, and rise, and rise, and mount up to the sky, +while gullies in the vasty deep the valiant ship must try. Down, down +she goes, and still down, down, into the depths of hell, and then she +strives to rise again on ocean's mighty swell. She climbs, and climbs, +and climbs, and climbs--almost she makes the top--the billow +breaks--comes crashing down--the ship is in the sop. Ten thousand tons +of briny sea come crashing on her deck; another blow like that I fear +the gallant ship will wreck. Forked lightning splits the inky sky, +with blinding flash on flash, while thunder-bolts shoot up the ship +with awful deafening crash. Up through the billows, up she comes, she +whoofs, and groans, and creaks--a mightier billow still in store the +ship's destruction seeks. She rides the crest, then plunges down to +greater depths below; the greedy sea laughs in its glee, then +thunderous billows throw o'er bow and poop of fated sloop--they stab +her through and through, they wash the captain overboard, likewise his +mate and crew. The bos'n and the cook are gone, also the nine-lived +cat--on all the ship no soul is spared, no, not one lonesome rat. The +ship is lost! Where is the scribe--the boy, oh where is he? Astride +the bowsprit, pen in hand, writing a sto-o-rm at sea. + +MORAL: Genius should be coaxed, not driven. + + [Illustration] + + [Illustration: Astride the bowsprit, pen in hand, writing a sto-o-rm + at sea] + + + + +XVI + +THE ISLANDS "DISCOVERED" BY DEWEY + + +I arrived in Manila--not seasick--I never was seasick in my life (I've +mentioned that before, haven't I?)--but anyone who read my last letter +with that degree of attention necessary to get the meat out of letters +of travel will have gathered that there was a bit of a blow coming +over from Hong Kong, and that it was a rough crossing. + +Those of my readers who regret that the bowsprit and I reached Manila +are no friends of mine, and any invidious remarks they may make about +my last letter are of no consequence to me. + +The Philippine Islands are a tropical group. There are about 3,000 of +them. They lie between five degrees and twenty degrees north latitude, +and one hundred and seventeen degrees and one hundred and twenty-seven +degrees east longitude, and they contain 120,000 square miles of land. + +The Pacific Ocean washes their eastern boundaries and the China sea +the western. The largest islands are Luzon and Mindano--Luzon with +about 40,000 square miles and Mindano with 36,000. About 400 of the +islands are inhabited. + +They are quite a big chunk of land, as big as New England, New York, +and New Jersey. Winter never comes; three crops of corn can be raised +on the same piece of ground in a year, and six crops of corn fodder. + +While they are mountainous, they are not so mountainous as Japan, and +have broader valleys of rich, fertile land. They are pretty nearly as +large as Japan, without its new possessions of Formosa and Korea, the +difference in area being about 170,000 square miles in Japan against +120,000 in the Philippines. They are just a little shy of having +9,000,000 inhabitants, who are chocolate brown in color, have straight +hair, and in stature are about the size of the Japanese. + +Admiral George Dewey of the American navy discovered these islands May +1, 1898. No one except the natives knew anything about them until that +momentous date in history. + +We were at that time at war with Spain, a decrepit old nation which +hadn't progressed beyond torturing bulls for pastime, when Admiral +George, walking his fleet out for a constitutional one morning before +breakfast, out here in the China Sea, saw something flying the Spanish +flag. + + [Illustration: Admiral George Dewey of the American Navy discovered + these islands May 1st, 1898] + +George had got word that we were at war with Spain, and anything +flying the Spanish flag was fair game for the doughty George, so he +shot it up. + +He lowered a boat and rowed off to pick up his game, and found the +Philippine Islands. + +None of my readers who were old enough at the time to remember +anything will fail to recall how the United States went mad with joy +over the discovery. + +Here this old earth had plugged along until A. D. 1898 and it was +supposed that all lands had been discovered except the North and South +Poles, and it was pretty well believed if they were ever discovered it +wouldn't go very far toward reducing the high cost of living--it was +pretty thoroughly believed that it wasn't a good farming country +around either of those poles--but to discover, dropped right out of +the blue, a veritable Garden of Eden, a land flowing with milk and +honey, as big as New England, New York, and New Jersey--our nation +went mad, delirious with joy. You all recall it. + +When George came sailing home from that wonderful cruise we were for +making him President of the United States, and I guess we might have +done it if he had known whether he was a Democrat or Republican. + +As soon as his flagship was seen in the offing on his return, we went +off in a small boat to meet him, clambered on deck, and the first +question we popped at him was, "George, are you a Democrat or a +Republican?" + +George said he didn't know--he thought he was a Democrat. Then on +second thought he said he _was_ a Democrat. + +But things were in such shape at that time that the slightest +suspicion of doubt in a candidate's mind as to whether he was a +Democrat or Republican spoiled his chances for the Presidency. + +Well, I guess! + +Why, a fellow out for the Presidency in those times would wear a great +big feather plume stuck in his hat and you could hardly see the plume +for the prominent words, "I Am a Democrat," displayed on it. + +He might buy a new hat, but the same plume would be stuck in it. And +_vice versa_ some other chap seeking the Presidency--while he couldn't +wear a plume in his hat saying "I Am a Republican" (the fellow with +the plume had that device copyrighted), he would have something else +just as effective--a newspaper, or a tariff bill, or a sombrero, or +something with which he would proclaim from shore to shore, "I Am a +Republican." + +While it was tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum which you were, a term of +years of that blatant, persistent advertising declaration was +necessary to cop out the Presidency. + +George had been so busy discovering new lands that he wasn't hep to +this, so when we shot that question at him, he said he didn't know. He +knew he was a patriot, and all coons looked alike to George, so that +was what he said. + +Shucks! With that answer George didn't have any more show for the +Presidency than a rabbit. + +While we couldn't give him the Presidency, we gave him the most +popular outburst of a country's gratitude--the most hilarious, +spontaneous, delirious paean of praise ever awarded any discoverer of +new lands--Christopher Columbus was a piker. + +We bought George a house--he shook the sea, married a wife and settled +down and lived happily ever after. + +We were so grateful to Spain for locating the islands for George that +we paid her $20,000,000, because she needed the money. + + [Illustration: I hit a prominent official in Washington for a free + pass on a transport to the Philippines] + +I got so excited over the new find that I packed my grip, hit a +prominent official in Washington for a free pass on a transport to the +Philippines--on the grounds of my being an ultra patriotic +American--and made a bee line for the Pacific coast. When I got to +San Francisco I learned that the next transport for the Philippines +wouldn't leave for a week. There was a liner leaving for the Orient +that day, so I forfeited my pass and bought a ticket on the liner--I +was in a hurry to see these islands. When I got here, shortly after +George had discovered them, the Filipinos tried to stuff me with a +story about a fellow by the name of Magellan having discovered the +islands way back in 1521--blamed if they didn't try to knock out +George's patent with a claim of priority. + +I looked the islands over from Luzon to Mindano--had a "lovely" time. + +I told the Filipinos I didn't take any stock in that alleged Magellan +discovery. On their own story about it that discovery was nearly four +hundred years old, and, even if it were true, it was moth-eaten, +rust-worn, and had no cutting edge. + +If they had been discovered nearly four hundred years ago it was high +time that there should be some evidence of that discovery to prove +it--they hadn't made any use of the discovery. + +Manila was the toughest city in the Orient. Dirty, cholera and +plague-ridden, out at the elbows and down at the heel, and that +general description would apply all over the islands. + +But the Filipinos set some store by that Magellan myth. The shock of a +real discovery set them off and stirred them up, and they set up a +republic, alla samee melican man, and proclaimed Aguinaldo President. + +Aguinaldo was running around in the woods somewhere, current +historians didn't seem to know just where, and wasn't having any +marked success with his Presidency; and, after some argument, was +persuaded to quit the Presidency and go to farming. + + + + +XVII + +WHITE FILIPINOS, AGUINALDO, AND THE BUSY MOTH + + +In my last letter I believe I changed my style somewhat and became an +historian. I realize I'm serving up several different styles of +narrative in these letters, and know it's taking a chance to adopt the +historical. History is dry stuff, but another chapter of it seems +necessary to clear the situation at this mile-post I'm passing--the +Philippine Islands. + +You can't get the President of a republic running around in the woods, +and as goodly a land as the Philippines in chaos, and then go off and +leave it without some further word of explanation than I gave in my +last letter, in which I left the President safely anchored on a farm. + +The Philippine Islands at this time were in a fearful mess. The +natives were half child, half savage. Dirt, vice, degradation, war, +pestilence, everything but famine, were the rule--you cannot starve +these people; they live in a land of perpetual summer: clothing not a +necessity; and they can pick their living off the trees. + + [Illustration: You cannot starve these people; they live in a land of + perpetual summer] + +Under the stimulus of being named "Little Brown Brothers" to the +nation which had discovered them, they bucked up and went to it; and +they have made the most wonderful progress in the past sixteen years! + +From the worst city they have made Manila the best city in the Orient. +There is not another city in Japan, China, or India that can equal it +in cleanliness and healthfulness, with well-paved roads running +through it, and leading out from it in all directions. One of these +roads they have made, a hard macadam, none better anywhere, reaches +clear across the Island of Luzon, from Manila Bay to the Pacific +Ocean, 110 miles. They have actually eclipsed their big white brothers +in respect to roads. + +We wait until population and improvements in the way of well-tilled +farms strike us, and then, after a great while, in rare instances, +after enough wagons and horse flesh have been worn out hauling produce +over muddy soft dirt roads to build a good road several times, we get +wise and build a good road. Not so our progressive Filipinos. They put +the road through first. Then, when the country settles up, and the +natives decide to come down out of the trees and till the land, there +will be a good hard road to haul their produce over. + + [Illustration: There is not another city in Japan, China, or India + that can equal it in cleanliness] + +_We_ ought to be jarred out of our rut--get discovered. + +That 110 miles of road runs largely through rich bottom land, the +major part of which is as innocent of cultivation as Adam and Eve were +of clothing before the Lord caught them stealing apples. + +Occasional villages of nipa palm shacks, stuck up on bamboo poles, are +passed, the chief industry of the owners of the shacks being to roost +in them out of the sun and rain, when they are not out gathering +something to eat that Nature provides without labor. But they have +made good roads. + +There is not another city in the Orient that equals Manila in hotel +accommodations; in an up-to-date telephone system; in electricity and +ice; in rapid transit by trolley, carriages, and automobiles; in a +fire department, and a live and enterprising press. + +These Filipinos are truly a wonderful and progressive people! + +I've been so busy stepping over the ground in seven-league boots, +jumping from premise to conclusion, that I haven't, perhaps, dwelt +enough on details. + + [Illustration: The chief industry of the owners of the shacks is to + roost in them out of the sun and rain] + +The inhabitants of the islands are not all of the same color. There +are two colors--white and chocolate brown. The latter is the popular +shade--you might say they are the style. The whites are the most +dejected, forlorn bunch I've ever seen. They give me the jimjams, the +willies, and I want to get away. The Filipinos' wonderful progress +dates back sixteen years, from the time the white population began to +make its appearance here, and the casual observer might draw +conclusions. + +But conclusions are the last thing in the world an historian should +tamper with. He should confine himself to reciting facts, and let +statesmen and politicians draw conclusions--and their pay. + +The white population is leaving the islands--those who can get away. +Those who can't, whose fortunes are tied up in the islands, put one in +mind of a lot of ship-wrecked voyagers, who, with all hope of succor +abandoned, are waiting for their ship to sink. + +They have expatriated themselves (it amounts to that), and for sixteen +years have become acclimated--invested their lives and fortunes in the +islands. But they are not the right color--their color is against +them. + +Back in the old district school days in one of McGuffey's readers (was +it the Fifth?) there was a very eloquent speech by some statesman +(name has slipped my memory), entitled: "Whither Are the Cherokees to +Go?" + +It was an impassioned appeal. The reading of that speech used to swell +my little chest till the buttons on the little bob-tailed jacket we +used to wear in those days, called "a round-about," gave way. Won't +someone make a speech for these white Filipinos? They ought to have an +advocate somewhere, even though they _are_ white. They aren't to blame +for that. The Lord made them that way. + + * * * * * + +I've been to see Aguinaldo at Cavete, about twenty-five miles from +Manila, over a good automobile road. I went in company with Dr. +Fitzsimmons, of the Manila Municipal Commission, and Mr. Watson, of +the Manila Cable News. Mr. Watson acted as interpreter, as Aguinaldo +does not speak English. + +We found Aguinaldo at a neighboring village, where he had just been +initiated into the order of Masons. + +He invited us to go to his home, where we paid him a short visit. I +found Aguinaldo a very courteous and genial gentleman, and when I told +him that he was spoken of as the George Washington of the Philippines, +he modestly protested at the honor of such a comparison. + +When I reminded him that he, like Washington, had retired to the farm, +he reminded me that Washington took up agriculture after his people +had secured their independence, while the Filipinos were still looking +for theirs. + +I asked him if he thought it for the best interests of the Filipinos +to have the islands turned over to them at this time, and he thought +it was. I told him it was a great object lesson to the Filipinos to +see their foremost countryman turning his attention to the soil, the +islands' chief source of wealth, and he told me that many of them were +doing the same thing. + +After some general remarks we left Aguinaldo on the piazza of his +home, which, in comparison with the average Filipino's residence, was +commodious and palatial. + +He is very much in earnest in tilling his 3,000 acres; and we gave +hearty assurance of our most earnest wish that he would come out +victorious in the battle he was waging against a pest of moth which +was disputing with him the title to his crops. + + + + +XVIII + +SINGAPORE--THE HUMORIST'S CLOSE CALL + + +There are more different ways of getting in bad than there are to keep +out of trouble--a lot more. Indeed, straight and narrow is the road. +But there are lots of by-ways leading off from the safe and beaten +path, from which one's feet should never stray. In going around the +world one can't keep too sharp a lookout for the prescribed highway. + +This homely, safe and sane reasoning comes to me with force as I sadly +pen these lines here in Singapore, having turned off on a side street +that _looked_ all right when I swerved--_i. e._, I knew it wasn't +exactly the middle of the road, but I took a chance, because it looked +inviting and I felt sure I could see my way back to the main line. + +Leaving the Philippine Islands for Hong Kong, and taking a ship from +there to Singapore is only a detail of my present perturbation. + +That Hong Kong was an infected port, Black Plague being prevalent, is +largely to blame. + +I'd be easy in my mind this minute if Hong Kong had not been an +infected port. Anyway, if my feet had slipped it would have been on a +different orange peel or banana skin. + +Singapore has very stringent health regulations against passengers +arriving from Hong Kong. + +To get into Singapore, to land at the port, one must sign what is +called an "Undertaking"; the same being an agreement that if you stay +in the town over twenty-four hours you agree to report at the health +office in Singapore at 3 P. M. every day. Failing to do this, the +penalty is arrest and a fine of $500.00. + +The exact minute at which you must report is prescribed--3 P. M. There +is no leeway given, as, between the hours of two and three, or three +and four. + +If you hail from Hong Kong you may land at Singapore, and stay there +more than twenty-four hours if you sign an agreement that you will +report at the health office at 3 P. M. sharp, daily. Failing this, to +the dungeon and $500.00, please. + +My only object in coming to Singapore is to tranship for Rangoon; and, +as we sailed up to quarantine at 8 this morning, we passed my ship +laying at anchor, scheduled to sail for Rangoon at 5 P. M. today. + +A row of "undesirables" from Hong Kong for Singapore ranged up in the +dining saloon before an austere and awful health official, and were +put through the thirty-second degree--it was a meek and patient lot of +lambs that passed before the throne of his majesty. + +When it came my turn, with my eye on the ship that was going to bear +me hence from Singapore, as the gruelling questions were put to me, I +told the official I was going to shake Singapore at 5 P. M. today. + +Now it will be necessary for you to know the English better than +perhaps you do, indeed, even with this increased knowledge you'll +still be short unless you know the Singapore English, and, even with +that knowledge, you won't be fully enlightened unless you've come in +contact with the Singapore English official, to realize what a regular +Daniel in the lion's den I was to tell that being that I proposed to +"shake" Singapore. + +Shake Singapore! + +Ye gods! + +Tell a Singapore official to his face that you are going to shake the +town! A Yankee at that, and from Hong Kong to boot! + + [Illustration: Ye gods! Tell a Singapore official to his face that + you are going to shake the town!] + +A Singapore Englishman feels about Hong Kong, even when not infected, +as a St. Paul man used to feel about Minneapolis before Minneapolis +put it out of the running. + +That Rangoon steamer was due to sail at 5 P. M. this very day, or I +wouldn't have dared. + +A laugh went down the line of crushed candidates for landing at the +heavenly port of Singapore, which helped me to bear the jove-like +frown of the official--it helped a lot. It egged me on to further +deeds of daring; for when he handed me a duplicate of the undertaking +I had signed, to remind me of what I was up against if I didn't report +to him at 3 sharp the following day, if I was still in town, with the +remark: "Right-o, see that you report at the health office daily at +3 P. M. every day you're in town after today"--with my eye on that ship +for Rangoon I came back with: "Right-o, if I don't shake Singapore +today you'll find me on the stoop of your office daily at 2:59, so you +can feel my pulse and look at my tongue. But, oh man, my only object +in coming to Singapore at all is to get out of it. Wouldn't have come +to Singapore if there had been a way around it. I don't like +Singapore. I think it a measly town. I like Hong Kong. Hong Kong is a +nice town. It's got Singapore beaten forty ways"--and it made a hit +with the crowd, and I swelled out my chest and swaggered away, and +thought I was _funny_. + + [Illustration: I swelled out my chest and swaggered away and thought + I was _funny_] + +Now word has just come to me that my ship won't sail today. Owing to +unforeseen delays, she won't sail till tomorrow at 5 P. M., and it's +the ship's delay, and "the haughtiness of office" for me. I feel just +like the melancholy Dane in his famous soliloquy. + +I'm in the same fix another fellow was, who thought _he_ would be +funny. He was standing on the rear platform of a train that was just +pulling out from a town in Illinois, noted for its blood-thirsty, +scrappy natives. The train was getting under good headway when this +"humorist" thought it would be funny to shake his fist at one of the +natives standing along the line, a great big especially +vicious-looking citizen, and to promise him one good thrashing the +next time he (the humorist) came that way. + +Just then the train stopped and backed down to the station onto a +siding. + +With a blood-curdling whoop that native jumped aboard the train. + + [Illustration: The "funny man" gently lifted the derby from the dozing + passenger's head and set his own sombrero in its place] + +The humorist, who was wearing a wide-brimmed, conspicuous sombrero, +ducked into the car, and espying an English tourist dozing and wearing +a modest little derby, the "funny man" gently lifted the derby from +the dozing passenger's head and set his own sombrero in its place, and +sat down two seats back and was nonchalantly looking out of the +window as the native raged into the car looking for blood and that +fellow with a hat. + +There was no mistaking the hat; he spotted his man and was going to +eat him alive. + +The poor bewildered English tourist didn't know what it was all about. +But that didn't go--nothing but blood would answer. It was looking +dark for the bewildered Englishman when the rear platform orator +stepped up and pacified the native by telling him that the gentleman +didn't mean anything--that he wasn't quite right in his _head_, and in +that way blood was averted. + +The native got off; the train pulled out, this time for good. After it +was fully forty miles from that station, and going sixty miles an +hour, the owner of the sombrero stepped across the aisle, and, +addressing the bewildered passenger, said: "Excuse me, sir, but I +believe you are wearing my hat." B. p. reached for the hat on his +head, saw it wasn't his (it was an afternoon of surprises), and handed +it to the rightful owner, and, as he was a perfect gentleman, he +thanked the man again for his presence of mind in saving him from a +beating up. The rear platform humorist, orator, funny man, begged him +not to mention it, and the incident was closed. + +The funny man left the train at Milwaukee at supper time. The +bewildered passenger stayed on and sat all night in a brown +study--seemed to be trying to solve something. He reached St. Paul in +the morning at sun-up, and with the coming of a new day, light dawned +and he jumped up, shook his fist in the direction of Milwaukee, and +said: "And domned if I didn't thank him twice, when I should 'ave +punched his 'ead!" + +Well, it's 7 P. M. I should have been two hours on my way to Rangoon. +I'll drop this letter in the mail to catch the P. & O. going west, eat +my dinner, and retire and get a good night's sleep; and after +breakfast tomorrow I'll think till 2:59 P. M. There's no use worrying, +for if worry gets you going it will keep you on the run. No matter +what the hole you're in, there is a deeper one. I'll get up in the +morning and I'll think, and think, and think how I can put that dread +official on the blink, blink, blink. But a Singapore official, oh, +he's a mighty gun, and this Singapore official he weighs about a +ton--I guess. Still, I will not worry, but then, for all of that, I +wish that _I'd_ been wearing a great big sombrero hat. + + [Illustration: "And domned if I didn't thank him twice when I should + 'ave punched his 'ead"] + + [Illustration: No matter what the hole you're in, there is a deeper + one] + + + + +XIX + +THE HINDU GUIDE A SAINT WOULD BE + + +Last evening I wrote you about my perturbed state of mind regarding +quarantine here in Singapore. + +After _chota hazri_ this morning I thought for a couple of hours, then +ate breakfast, after which I met a Hindu in my hotel (there are thirty +thousand Indians in Singapore), who looked at me as if he were +desirous of opening a conversation. + +I stopped, saluted, and said to him: "Did you wish to speak to me?" + +"Only to ask you if you wanted a guide for Singapore today. I can show +you all the sights of Singapore and explain them to you in +understandable English." + +"By jove!" I exclaimed. "I believe you can. You speak English like an +educated Englishman. What do you want for your day's services? You +look like ---- ----." I named an eminent American statesman, and he +did look like him, too, except for color. I asked the guide if he knew +of this statesman of whom he reminded me. + +He said he didn't. + +"Well," I said, "he is one of the most brilliant men on earth today." + +The fellow smiled and showed a splendid set of teeth--a Hindu guide is +susceptible to compliments. + +"How much do you want for your day's services?" I again asked him. + +"Three dollars." + +"I'll give you a dollar and a half," I said. + +"Pay me anything you like and then you'll pay me more than I am worthy +of," he said. + +We started off in a gharry, and he surely was a character. + +Keen, bright, the most interesting guide I've ever struck--a Hindu. + +We talked Hinduism till twelve o'clock, riding around Singapore; and +if you think foreign missionaries aren't up against it in their job of +converting India from Hinduism, or Brähmanism, you can think again. + +He was a great solace to me. + +"There are," he told me, "four great tenets to Hinduism: + +"First--Don't question the mysteries. No one can solve them. + +"Second--Don't worry about the future. No one knows what it has in +store." + +He frankly told me that the other two had slipped his memory, but he +had cinched those two. + +With me, number two was enough for today, with my job of thinking on +hand. + +That guide was a wonder. He was intelligent. There is not one +Christian in ten thousand who could give a better argument for his +faith than that guide gave me for his faith. He was about as +refreshing a character as I have ever met. + +He took me through a Hindu temple and laughed at Christians' +"ignorance" in condemning the Hindus' idols. Hindus didn't worship the +idols; but the Great Being the idols were to remind the worshiper of; +they were only links between the worshipers and the Great Being. + +He expects to be born over again and to answer in his new existence +for the sins he has committed in this life; and the great end to be +striven for, is to fly off into nothing and nobody. + +"Why," I said, "that's Buddhism." + +"Buddhism," he scoffed, "Buddhism is only an offshoot from Hinduism, +borrowed from Hinduism." There were saints and sages among Hindus, he +told me. Saints could die, sages never. He had tried to be a saint, +but gave it up. No one was worthy of what they got, he the least of +all. Here he was getting $1.50 a day. If I had offered him anything +he would have taken it--10c, 20c, and even then he wouldn't be worthy +of it. + +"Why in blazes didn't you tell me that before we closed for $1.50?" I +asked him. + +"I told you my price was $3.00, but that I would take anything you +offered me. My offer stands," he said; "you offered me $1.50. At $1.50 +I am riding around on a cushioned seat with a gentleman for four +hours, as a day's work. Out there, digging in the street, in the hot +sun, dressed only in a loin cloth, is a sweating, toiling brother +Hindu, putting in ten hours a day for thirty cents. He is entitled to +$1.50 for his day's work, more than I am entitled to thirty cents for +my day's work." + +He was a sinner and admitted it. A most unworthy sinner, and expected +to get what was coming to him. + +I dismissed him at lunch time to eat my lunch and prepare myself for +three o'clock. + + + + +XX + +PENANG--A BIRD, THE FEMALE OF ITS SPECIES, AND THE MANGOSTEEN + + +I want to draw a veil over my exit from Singapore on this trip. + +There are some things that are too painful to talk about. What I think +of the quarantine arrangements of that sun-blistered port, and what +the health officials think of me will form no part of these notes of +travel--suffice it to say that I got by the Singapore health +officials. I escaped! I got away! Our expressions of endearment would +be a new brand of travel stuff, and there are enough different kinds +in these letters now. + +After Singapore is Penang; and as I sit in my steamer chair, in my +pajamas, in the grey of the dawning of a new day, on the freshly +washed teak-deck of the steamer, as it sails through the peaceful +strait nearing Penang, I can't see as there is a blessed thing to +write about--not a blessed thing. A couple of junks float across the +peaceful strait, the soft tropical breeze bellying their sails. One +solitary bird, not a seagull, much bigger than a gull, lazily wings +its way across the peaceful strait, aiming for the opposite shore. I +think it's the female of its species, because when it gets nearly over +it changes its mind, turns around, and flies back again across the +peaceful strait. + +The junks--the bird--the ship with its teak-decks freshly washed--the +grey of the morning--the soft tropical breeze--the peaceful strait--me +in my pajamas in a steamer chair--the low fringe of hills with +cocoanut groves to the east--Penang rising out of the peaceful +strait--not a blessed thing to write about. + +The east reddens, the sun is going to rise over the peaceful strait. +It's a peaceful scene. I've mentioned that the straits are peaceful, +haven't I? That feature of the scene especially appeals to me after my +exit from Singapore. + +But the sun is rising! While this is not an exciting or unusual +thing--while one doesn't have to come to Penang to see the sun +rise--while I feel safe in boldly asserting that this is a matter of +daily occurrence both here and at home, the chances are, kind reader, +that you have never seen the sun rise. First you see a bright red +convex streak, then the slice of a sphere, then more, and more, and +more, and more, and more, and then the sun is up to meet the lark. + + [Illustration: And now there _is_ something to write about--the + mangosteen] + +A Hindu comes with a cup of coffee, some toast, and six mangosteens on +a tray, and asks: "Will master have his _chota hazri_ here?" And now +there _is_ something to write about--the mangosteen! + +The most unprepossessing fruit to look at, the size of a black walnut +in its husk; an unlovely dark brown color on the outside. If you +didn't know the mangosteen; if a plateful were brought to you for +breakfast you'd eye the things askance, and say, "Take 'em away, +please; take 'em away." But cut around its circumference through the +husk, a quarter of an inch thick, and lift it apart. One of the halves +makes a little bowl, its inside the most lovely old rose color, the +other half holding a beautiful white pulp. The rich old rose edge of +the husk hugs the mound of pulp, the combination making a color scheme +to delight an artist's soul. + +Insert a fork in the edge of the pulp, lift it out bodily, open your +mouth, and--oh, say, after all the other delicious fruits on earth +were made and pronounced good by the beneficent Creator, it would seem +as if He had said: "Go to, now, let one more fruit be made for man, +more delicate in flavor, more delicious than all the rest"--so He made +the mangosteen. + + + + +XXI + +BURMA AND BUDDHA + + +And Rangoon is in Burma, a city of some three hundred thousand, the +chief commercial city of Burma. + +It is located in the south of that country, on one of the numerous +mouths of the Irawadi River. Burma forms a part of the narrow Malay +Peninsula, broadening out after Rangoon is reached, coming north from +Penang, into a country as large as Texas, bounded on the west by +India, on the north by Thibet, on the east by Siam, Laos and China, +with the Bay of Bengal washing its southern coast. + +Burma is the most thoroughly Buddhistic country in the world. + +Now Buddha was not a god, never claimed to be, and is not worshiped as +one. + +But he was a tremendous personage. + +He was born in India 2500 years ago, and after that lapse of time his +image and teachings live in the hearts of every third man on earth +today. + +That fact puts Buddha in a class with such personages as Moses and +Confucius. + +These men are three of a kind and hard to beat when it comes to +putting one's name over into the minds of men and making it stick. A +score or so of other mere men since Adam's time, whose names loom +large today, are mere pikers in comparison, and need not be considered +in this short sketch. + +The exact date of Buddha's birth seems shrouded in mystery, but it is +placed during the sixth century, B. C. + +He was born in the town of Kapila-Vastu. Since that time the town has +changed its name to Kohana, and is located northeast of Benares. + +Buddha spent his early boyhood in that region. His father's name was +Suddodana, which same is a long, hard name to pronounce, but his +mother's name was Maya, and she died when Buddha was seven days old, +and his aunt brought him up. Her name was Maha-Prajapati. + +There is not much known about his youth and early education, except +that he was a promising boy and put over everything he undertook. + +He was supposed to be a prince of the Royal blood. He was a Hindu, and +was faithful to the demands of that faith. + +He was married, and when he was thirty years old there was born to him +a son named Rahlu. + +No one knows how well his family did for him in picking out a wife, +but it is of record that he left wife and son and home shortly after +the boy was born. + +He just left home one day, and when next heard from was at Rajagriha +and was leading the life of an ascetic. + +Buddha never did things by halves. He was out seeking the way of +salvation in rigorous and excessive asceticism, and he went at it with +such intense earnestness that he nearly lost his life--he overworked +it, and was all played out when he came to the conclusion that he was +on the wrong track. + +Abandoning asceticism, he gave himself up to a life of thought and +meditation, and as a result he gradually evolved his religious and +philosophic theory of the general existence of evil, its origin, and +its eradication. + +He was sitting under a pipal tree in a little village named +Buddh-gaya, southeast of Benares, when light dawned upon his soul. As +the result of his emancipation of spirit he became a poet. + +He became thoroughly convinced that the great end and aim of existence +was to attain non-existence: and that the cause of all evil was +wanting things. We were here through no fault of our own; that we +would continue to be born over and over; and that the next state into +which we were born would depend upon how we used our present life. + +To illustrate the idea: A tramp or hobo, if he tried to be as good a +tramp or hobo as he could, would be born next time to be a roustabout, +deck hand, or day laborer. + +Continuing to be as good as possible in those callings, the next birth +would be a step up, to, say, a bookkeeper, clerk, or possibly a +commercial traveler. + +The next birth, continuing meritorious in these last named capacities, +would be a more desirable existence, and on up, passing the stage of a +successful politician with a pull, to still higher and higher +existence, until finally, getting out of the trouble and vexation of +being any of them, one's individuality would be lost entirely in the +great spirit of Nirvana--rest--peace--out of it--finished. + +On the other hand, the politician with a pull if he didn't keep his +eyes set toward righteousness, would slip down the scale in a future +birth, and, continuing bad behavior in new births, run clear down past +the hobo to be nothing more than a potato-bug, to end that existence +for one even lower than that; unless, perchance, he decided to be an +exemplary potato-bug and climb back up again. + +After Buddha had thoroughly worked out his solution of life's +problems, he settled in Benares, gathered five choice spirits who had +been companions in his life as an ascetic, imparted to them his +discovery of what he believed to be the path of truth, and spent the +rest of a long life developing truth as he believed it. + +He had to compete with Hinduism in India, and was only measurably +successful there, but his theories captured Burma, and overspread +Ceylon, China, and Japan, and, judging by results, anyone making a +tour of China and Japan must take off their hats to Buddha. His long +ministry was marked with a life of purity, gentleness, earnestness, +and firm convictions. + +He preached his doctrines for forty years and lived to be eighty years +of age. + + + + +XXII + +BAPTISTS AND BUDDHISM + + +There are twelve million Burmese here in Burma. I told you in my last +letter how thoroughly Buddha had, 2500 years ago, captured the Burmese +with his doctrines. + +For 2400 years Buddha practically had it all his own way. If in that +time any other competing religions sought a foothold in Burma, they +became discouraged and moved out. + +Burma was solid for Buddha. + +Buddha had a monopoly and held it against all comers for 2400 years. +One hundred and one years ago the Baptists came to contest the field. + +They didn't come with a blare of trumpets. One man, a Rev. Adoniram +Judson, and his wife started out from Salem, Massachusetts, came to +Burma and settled here in Rangoon, to wrest from Buddha his adherents, +and add them to the Baptist Church. They worked six years without +winning a convert. After one hundred and one years the results are: + + Baptists 66,000 + Buddhists 10,000,000 + +from which figures one must agree with me that Buddha ploughed deep +and planted thoroughly. The other Christian denominations have about +66,000 members between them. + +There are of baptized Baptists in Burma 66,000, all other Christians +about the same number. The Christians claim an adherent, or nominal +Christian, for every church member; so baptized and nominal Christians +in Burma number 264,000. + +This makes 10,264,000 Buddhists and Christians. The balance of the +12,000,000 in Burma are non-Christians or non-Buddhists, and are +composed of various peoples, and tribes: the Karens, Chins, Kachins, +Musos, etc. + +But the Baptists admit that the great majority of their converts were +not made from Buddhists, but from the Karens, Chins, Kachins, and +Musos, chiefly from the Karens. + +To quote from the minutes of the Judson Centennial held here in +Rangoon in 1913: + + "But what of the Buddhist population, which is so greatly in the + majority that out of a total of 12,115,217 dwellers in the land, + 10,384,579 are returned as Buddhists? From among the Buddhists + only 3,197 are members of our own Baptist churches, and a + correspondingly small number are members of other communions. It + is thus readily seen that, while the success of our missions in + Burma has been very great, those who have professed belief in + Christ have come very largely from the non-Buddhist population. + + "Of the ten million Buddhists, eight million are Burmans, and of + Burman Baptist Christians we find but 2,700. Please bear that + fact in mind--2,700 Burmans in our churches and eight million + Buddhist Burmans. To each Burman Baptist church member there are + 3,000 Burman Buddhists looking us in the face as we turn to our + task for the coming century." + +The Baptists here are hotly contesting the field; bombarding it with a +thoroughly up-to-date publishing plant; with a college, schools, and +missionaries. For the first twenty years of work we find them with +2,000 converts to their credit. + +After half a century of labor we find them with 12,000 converts, while +for the full century we find them with 66,000. + +A significant fact stands out clear and forceful: They gained in the +last decade of work 20,000 converts, nearly one-third as many as they +won in ninety years of struggle. + +But still Buddhism stands, and Buddha, its founder, after 2500 years, +looks with peaceful, quiet eyes from innumerable images set in +temples throughout the land--to me more impressive than the Sphinx +with the secrets of the centuries locked in its impassive gaze. + +Buddha held back no secrets--with burning zeal he preached what he +believed was truth. Today one image of the Sphinx, with its +riddle--but countless images of Buddha, many of heroic size. + +The most impressive one I've ever seen is the Daibutsu in Kamakura in +Japan. A temple built in the form of Buddha of solid bronze and +silver, with eyes of gold. + +This temple was built centuries ago, to keep alive the name and +teachings of a man who taught and wrought a score of centuries before +this wonderful temple was built--the mystic past steals over you as +you look, and you turn and walk away--wondering, wondering, wondering. + + + + +XXIII + +THE RANGOON BUSINESS MAN WHO DROVE HIS SERMON HOME + + +There is a business man here in Rangoon who, to my mind, has put one +over on the missionaries, by seeing their game and beating them at it +with a sermon--a sermon with more ring and go to it than anything of +that kind I've struck in the Orient--or out of it. + +They are really a godless lot out here in the Orient, as we look at +godliness; or, at least, profess to. + +They haven't any more respect for the Sabbath day on this side of the +world (except in a few spots where the missionaries have made a dent +in the situation) than a lot of crows have for a farmer's rights in a +field of growing corn. + +Now, this business man I am writing about was born and brought up in +England. He had it drilled into him when he was a boy that we should +remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy; and the teaching stuck. + +He is a character. + +Between the ages of seventeen and fifty-six he got started in life; +got rich; retired; and lost his fortune; and when he was fifty-six +years old he was broke--down and out. + +He came to Burma, prospected for gold until he was sixty-six years +old, and the net result of that ten years of gold prospecting +was--still broke. + +As he had a character just like Gibraltar, he was able to borrow a few +pounds sterling, and with it started life all over again in business +here in Rangoon. + +He got to going to the good; and at the end of five years, when he was +seventy-one years old, he had a name and some fame in his line of +trade. + +At that time the heir apparent to a mighty throne came through +Rangoon, touring Burma with his staff. + +He heard of this man, and wanted to buy some of his goods. He decided +on a Saturday afternoon, that the next day at eleven o'clock he would +call at this man's store and inspect his stock with a view to +purchasing. + +As this potentate was a mighty gun--none bigger--he prepared the way +to his proposed visit by sending one of his numerous staff to this +man's store Saturday evening, to inform him that at eleven o'clock of +the next day his Royal Highness would be around to buy some goods. + +It's right at this point in the narrative that this man got there with +his sermon. He said: "Present my compliments to his Royal Highness, +but tell him I wouldn't open my store on Sunday to do business even +with the King of England." + +Get that? + +Ever been in London, dear old "Lunnun"? They set great store by +selling royalty in England. There's a fellow over there in London +doing a smashing business in oysters just because he can put up over +his door "Purveyor of Oysters to His Royal Highness, the Prince of +Wales." + +Well, this little-big sermon got back to England, and the result was +that in the next five years this man sold goods to royalty pretty well +over the world, and got rich. And he is here today; and he tells me +that while he has played the game of business for the love of it, he +is eighty years old now and is going to wind up. Being without wife or +children, he is going to leave his wealth to orphan asylums. + + + + +XXIV + +THE GLASS OF ICE WATER THAT JARRED RANGOON + + +To come to Rangoon and not go to see the elephants work the teak +timber that comes down the Irawadi River would be like going to Venice +and not have your picture taken in St. Mark's Square with the doves +roosting all over you; or to leave the pyramids without a photograph +of yourself with the great pyramid of Cheops for a background. + +I plead guilty to the dove picture--it's on our mantle at home--had it +taken to please my wife, who was with me on that trip. + +The great satisfaction I take in that picture is its proof of my +self-sacrificing nature. + +Having visited Venice several times before I took my wife there, I +knew all about that "picture-with-the-doves" game. + +Just before the photograph fiend in Venice, who will photograph an +American with the doves for $2.00, an Englishman for $1.00, and a +German for 20 cents, made his exposure, I bought my wife a cornucopia +of corn that venders sell for a cent, with which to feed the doves. + + [Illustration: Would be like going to Venice and not having your + picture taken with the doves roosting all over you] + +The woman in the picture behind the cloud of doves is my wife. The man +at her side, minus any doves on him to mar his seraphic smile, is +myself. + +The photograph of me at the pyramids, taken on a former trip, would be +a pretty good picture of me, too, if my natural modesty hadn't got the +better of me, which modesty prompted me to get behind the pyramid when +the photographer made his exposure. + +This photographer is on the ground and does a rushing business +photographing globe trotters at the pyramids. The pyramid being +betwixt me and the camera made a failure of the picture so far as +being a good one of me is concerned; but I'm ready to bet good money +that I'm the only world tourist who can show a photograph of Cheops +without a globe-trotter in the foreground. It's a good photograph of +the pyramid. + +But really one shouldn't leave Rangoon without seeing the elephants +work the teak logs. + +The human intelligence of the animals, coupled with their great +strength as they push the logs into place, accurately measure +distances, walk back and forth to study the problem of how best to +place a log, and then roll and put it into place, is one of the sights +worth seeing in Rangoon; which, in itself, is a town worth seeing. + +A city well laid out with wide streets running at right angles, +extending several miles along the river front, and a mile inland. + +Many beautiful lakes are in the suburbs, and tropical parks abound: +and it is the third city in British India. + +It's an old, old town. Its chief attraction to draw visitors from the +ends of the earth is the great Shwe Dagon Pagoda, the oldest Buddhist +temple in the world, the foundation of which was laid 588 B. C. + +And Rangoon has trolley cars and water-works, and electric lights, and +an ice plant. + +And ice is a precious commodity in Rangoon. In fact, ice is a precious +commodity in any Oriental city excepting Manila. + +In Manila they have caught onto the idea that ice is not a deadly +poison or precious stones. + +I attribute it to the influence of the white Filipinos living there, +who are wonderfully like Americans in taste, habits and general +all-around desirableness. + +Ask for a glass of ice-water at a hotel in Rangoon, or Hong Kong, or +Pekin, or Yokohama, or Calcutta, or Bombay and watch what happens. + + [Illustration: The only thing of note in the whole transaction is the + boy's self-satisfied air of having done his whole duty] + +Your table boy will bring you a high glass of tepid water and drop a +piece of ice in it as big as a hickory-nut, and the only thing in the +whole transaction worthy of note is the boy's self-satisfied air of +having done his whole duty. + +I have demoralized the whole running-gear of the best hotel in +Rangoon--I'll be known among the hotel fraternity of Rangoon in future +as the "ice man" who visited the town in 1914. + +Becoming weary of watching that little nugget of ice in a large glass +of tepid water, doing its best to chill the water as it rapidly +diminished to the size of a two-carat diamond, finally to dissolve +entirely in an heroic effort to make good, I called the table boy to +me and ordered him to empty the glass and bring me the several +receptacles in the dining room that held ice for all the guests. +Fishing enough nuggets from the lot to pack the glass full of ice, I +ordered it filled with water--looked up at the boy and said: "Savvy? +Ice-water!" + +I leave town today for Calcutta--that glass of ice water has jarred +Rangoon. + + + + +XXV + +THE CALCUTTA SACRED BULL AND HIS TWISTED TAIL + + +Did one of your old readers, kind friend (I think it was McGuffy's +Second) way back in childhood days have a little poem in it all about +a lot of little girls playing a wishing game? It's over forty years +ago that I read that little poem, and I can only remember one little +girl's wish. + +She said: "I wish I were a flying fish, o'er ocean's sparkling waves +to sail, a flying fish, that's what I wish, 'mid Neptune's blue to +lave my tail." + +Not having read that little poem for over forty years, and not having +the book with me out here in Calcutta, I may not have quoted the lines +verbatim, but as near as I can recall it, that's what she said. + +That little girl didn't know what she was wishing for or she'd sooner +have wished to be a devil bug. + +The flying fish has got that old saying, "Between the devil and the +deep sea," beaten to a frazzle. + +The life of a flying fish may look all right to the unsophisticated, +but things are rarely what they seem, and a flying fish's life is a +hard lot. + + [Illustration: She said: "I wish I were a flying fish, o'er ocean's + sparkling waves to sail"] + +Chased up out of the water to escape the jaws of some horrid sea +monster seeking to make a meal off it, it spreads its silvery wings +o'er "ocean's sparkling waves," when a seagull comes along, +and--good-bye little flying fish. + +Now if I'd been one of those little girls playing that wishing game +and had known as much as I know now, I'd have wished to be a sacred +bull here in Calcutta. + +That's one fine job--the life of a Calcutta sacred bull. + +I stepped out of my hotel today onto one of Calcutta's best streets, +with a pavement twenty feet wide, filled with pedestrians, lined with +splendid shops. + +Calcutta is a town of one million inhabitants and is the second city +in size in the British Empire. + +Just at the side of the entrance to a fine jewelry store lay a great +big fat and glossy sacred bull, with a garland of roses round his +neck, placed there by some devout Hindu. + + [Illustration: "Twist his tail," I said, "that will start him"] + +The natives would stop and fondle and brush the flies off him. +Stopping to look at the novel sight, and giving the fine old fellow a +few gentle strokes, I turned to my guide and asked him to tell the +natives who had stopped to witness the foreigner's interest, to make +the bull get up. I wanted to see what he would do. + +A native pushed him in the flank and ribs, but Mr. Bull only smiled, +and as plain as words his actions said, "No, thanks, I'm perfectly +comfortable here." + +"Twist his tail," I said; "that will start him." + +The native gave his tail one twist. The bull looked around with a +surprised air and anyone could see that he said, "That's a new kind of +a caress," but he didn't get up. + +"Twist it harder," I said. + +Three turns of the tail brought him to his feet, and he walked +leisurely along the crowded thoroughfare, perfectly at home, wearing +his garland of roses as naturally as a girl would wear a string of +beads, receiving a gentle pat from the native passersby--even an +English girl put out her hand and gave him a stroke in passing. + +He was a great big, glossy, docile pet, expecting and getting a wealth +of love. + +I am told that when he is hungry he goes to a green grocer's store and +makes a meal off the grocer's cabbage, with no protest from the +grocer, after which he goes to a confectioner's shop for a +dessert--and gets it. + + [Illustration: "You stay where you belong. I'll do the sacred bull + business around this neck of the woods"] + +There are scores of sacred bulls in Calcutta. They have their special +stamping ground. Let one bull poach on another one's preserve and +there is a bullfight then and there. Not a Spanish "bullfight"--seven +or eight trained athletes against one bull, with death for the bull a +foregone conclusion--but a real, genuine, interesting bullfight, with +the victor's tail in the air. + +And it's a dull person who can't understand that that bull is saying +to the vanquished one: "You stay where you belong. I'll do the sacred +bull business around this neck of the woods." + + + + +XXVI + +THE GUIDE WHO WOULDN'T SIT IN "MASTER'S" PRESENCE + + +I call him Lal. + +The rest of his name is too long for week-day use. He is my +interpreter, my guide, my servant, my counselor, and my friend. + +I have hired him for a two weeks' trip across India. He is +considerable of an erudite gentleman--speaks several languages. + +I speak only one, and I do queer things to that one lots of times. + +But Lal doesn't try to impress me with his superiority just because he +knows a lot more than I do--quite the reverse. + +His wages are a rupee a day, out of which he feeds himself. That was +his own price. I'm paying him all he asks. I've been told that I'm +paying him too much, that he has stung me. A rupee is thirty-two +cents! + +But he is a superior guide. He admits it himself. To prove it he +showed me a sheaf of recommendations from American globe-trotters whom +he has guided across India in days gone by. + +A good many of those recommendations are frayed at the edges through +much showing, but I wouldn't mind having some of those names on a +blank check, with privilege to write the rest of the check myself. + +Lal tells me he is the "Professor" of the guides. + +I hired him yesterday. He calls me "Master." That's regular. All +servants and guides in India call their employers "Master." + +With a two weeks' trip to plan across India, with a map of India, +hotel guides and railroad time-tables, pencil and paper spread out +before me in my room this afternoon, I said: "Draw up a chair, Lal, +and sit down. Here is a two hours' job before us." + +"Excuse me, 'Master'," Lal said, "but if 'Master' will excuse me I +will not sit in 'Master's' presence." + +Get that? + +Royalty, don't you know? + +Lal got "Master" in only three times in that sentence. I've known him +to bring it in four times in a shorter one. + + [Illustration: Get that? Royalty, don't you know] + +In addition to Lal's numerous duties--standing between me and the +natives, brushing my clothes, looking after my laundry, making my bed +in sleeping cars, and watching my goods and chattels while I take my +meals in the dining car, and a score of other such duties, Lal was +looking after "Master's" dignity. + +Lal, old boy, after that gentle reminder, I'll know my place. + +If there's nothing else to do, I'll let Lal fan me. I believe it's one +of the prerogatives of Royalty to be fanned by vassals. + +These Indian guides are a class by themselves. Many of them have +traveled far. + +Picked up by travelers for a tour across India, they are frequently +taken to England and through Europe. For instance, Lal has been to +England and Boston. In speaking of India he says: "My India," "my +Calcutta," "my Bombay," and there isn't much about India he doesn't +know. + +They travel third-class, which is ridiculously cheap in India. The +tourist, of course, pays his servant's railroad fare and must land him +back to point of hiring him. + +Lal's home is in Calcutta. I will have finished with him at Bombay and +will have to send him back to Calcutta, across India, fifteen hundred +miles, and that item of expense will be sixteen rupees six annas--all +of five dollars and twenty cents. + +It's hard lines to pour out money in this way on Lal--but Royalty is +expensive anyway. + + [Illustration: It's hard lines to pour out money in this way on + Lal--but Royalty is expensive anyway] + + + + +XXVII + +ROYALTY VS. "TWO CLUCKS AND A GRUNT" + + +To go across India from Calcutta one of the necessary things to +consider is a railroad ticket. + +After my vassal and I had planned an itinerary we called a victoria, +or rather Lal flagged a Hindu driving a team hitched to one. + +It was rigged for a footman at the rear. The footman was there, too, +ready to open the door for "Master" when he wished to enter or alight. + +This truly regal, royal outfit cost twelve annas for an hour's drive, +and that's twenty-four cents. + +You can work the Royalty racket in Calcutta cheaper than you can hang +over a lunch counter and eat baked beans in America. + +Now Cook's tourist agency has booked me from Hong Kong to New York via +steamer, first-class, over the Peninsular and Oriental line, P. & O., +for short. + +That means steamer from Hong Kong to Calcutta via Singapore, Penang +and Rangoon. + +I have to pay my railroad fare across India to Bombay, and from that +port privilege of P. & O. direct to London, via Aden, Port Said, +Gibraltar and Marseilles, and home from London via any American or +British line I choose from London. + +Cook's take care of a traveler they book in this way, and their +representatives look out for you on arrival and departure from ports. + +In my role of Royalty I bade my vassal, Lal, to hoist himself up on +the driver's seat, and to tell the driver to go to Cook's. + +Laying my itinerary before a booking clerk at Cook's I said: "Please +book me to Bombay over this route." + +As I was traveling first-class by water, which they knew all about, +and as I preserved my regal tread from my carriage door right up to +Cook's counter, the clerk said: "Of course you want first-class, Mr. +Allen?" + +"Of course I don't," I came back at him; "you stung me last trip +across India for first-class, and you know the only difference between +first and second here in India is the price, just double second, and +the number on the door of the compartment. You'll book me second, +please." + +This Royalty act is all right here in India, but you want to know +where to draw the line when it affects your pocketbook with nothing to +show for it. + + [Illustration: "Of course I don't," I came back at him. "You stung me + the last trip across India"] + +The man saw I was wise, grinned, and issued me a second-class ticket, +and third-class for my servant; and the evening of that same day saw +me starting for the railroad station in another victoria, Lal and the +driver up front, footman on behind, the lord my duke (meaning me) in +the "tonneau" with bedding, grips, steamer trunk, camera, coats, etc., +etc., all royally placed in the same vehicle. + +When a traveler starts out from Calcutta to take the train for a +night's journey, if it don't look as if he was breaking up +housekeeping and going somewhere, I've never asked for bacon and eggs +in the woolly West and heard the shirt-sleeved waiter yell: "Two +clucks and a grunt," and then collect more for the viands than it +costs to be moved across the second city in the British Empire in +royal entourage. + + + + +XXVIII + +ONE WINK, SIXTEEN CENTS, AND ROYALTY + + +The seasoned traveler in India, planning a night's journey, don't +arrive at a station a minute or two before his train leaves, as we do +in plebeian America. Rush and hurry should form no part of Royal +journeys. + +It isn't dignified. + +You should get there at least half an hour before the train starts, +especially if you are playing Royalty on a second-class ticket. + +As your equipage draws up to the station your footman alights and +swings open the carriage door, your guide descends from the driver's +seat and summons low-caste vassals who load your impedimenta on their +heads. + +The cavalcade starts with you bringing up the rear. + +You find the station-master, the string of your menials now following +on behind. + +Locate your station-master, or at least an official who will answer +the same purpose, and tip him a wink, not forgetting to accompany it +with half a rupee, and tell him you want a car for Benares. + +This man is a Hindu who can write but can't read--I am quite certain +he can't read. + +He leads "Master" with his string of retainers to a car of four +compartments, four berths in each compartment, the berths running with +the train, with a toilet room for each compartment. He opens a door. +Lal tells the string of porters to put "Master's" baggage into the +compartment--no matter how much, put it all in, boxes, bags, bedding +and trunks. + +Then this functionary who has been the recipient of a wink _and_ half a +rupee (don't forget the coin when working the combination), who can +write but who cannot read, fills in a placard which is hanging outside +the compartment. This placard, before the recipient of the wink and +half rupee begins to toy with it, is a blank which reads: + + Lower Right Berth reserved for ---- + Upper Right Berth reserved for ---- + Lower Left Berth reserved for ---- + Upper Left Berth reserved for ---- + + [Illustration: Lal tells the string of porters to put "Master's" + baggage into the compartment--no matter how much, put it all in, + boxes, bags, bedding, and trunks] + +This official who has received a wink _and_ half a rupee--never, never +forget the half rupee, because half a rupee is sixteen cents--fills in +the blanks on the placard which now, in its completed state, reads: + + Lower Right Berth reserved for Mr. Allen. + Upper Right Berth reserved for Mr. Jones. + Lower Left Berth reserved for Mr. White. + Upper Left Berth reserved for Mr. Brown. + +He hangs up the placard outside of the compartment, wishes "Master" a +pleasant journey up to Benares, and closes the door. + +Lal starts the electric fan, makes "Master's" bed, lays out "Master's" +pajamas, and arranges "Master's" belongings promiscuously over Jones', +White's and Brown's berths--Lal, a seasoned guide, is onto his job. + +These last-named gentlemen get left--yes, sir, they get left. The +train pulls out before they get around, and I am deprived of the +pleasure of their company. + +But if there is one place where a fellow can dispense with company +it's on a hot night's run in a railroad carriage through India. + +It's when I step out of the car at Benares the next morning that I +learned that the fellow back in Calcutta couldn't read, for, blessed +if the outside of that compartment I have occupied all night isn't +labeled No. 1 instead of No. 2. + +But that really makes no difference. + +The compartment labeled No. 2, when you get inside, is just like +compartment labeled No. 1, on the other side of the partition in the +same car. + +I conscientiously told that fellow I held a second-class ticket, and +if he _could_ read, Royalty is so cheap in Calcutta that you can buy a +whole night of it with sixteen cents, and the number on the outside of +the car, and the price charged for it, is all the difference between +Royalty and Plebeian in India--and Plebeians have the laugh on +Royalty--they have always had it on them for that matter. + + + + +XXIX + +THE ENGLISHMAN AND MARK TWAIN'S JOKE, "THAT'S HOW THEY WASH IN INDIA" + + +In my home town I was once asked to give a travel talk in a large +stone church, the occasion being a rally for the Christian Endeavor +Society. + +It had been announced that there would be no charge for admission; +furthermore, it had been thoroughly advertised that the young ladies +of the church would furnish a delectable spread to the audience in the +church parlors just as soon as I got through talking. + +The town turned out _en masse_. + +As the parson was leading me to the rostrum, the lights went out and +there was Egyptian darkness. + +After an anxious wait of five minutes, it being a hard stunt to get +such a fine audience together in the classic, intellectual center in +which I live, even with a chromo offer, the parson, fearing it would +leave, made a little speech in the direction where he hoped the +audience was--he couldn't see it--it was an act of faith. + + [Illustration: The town turned out _en masse_ to hear me talk] + +He begged our good people to be patient under the trying +circumstances, explained that the burned-out fuse would soon be +replaced, that an electrician was even now on his way to the church, +and told them that a good thing was in store for them--he assured +them, "Mr. Allen is still with us." + +Five more minutes passed and darkness still brooded. + +Again the parson gave the audience, which he hoped was still there, +the same little speech, assuring them again, "Mr. Allen is still with +us--there's a good thing coming." + +At the end of fifteen minutes he repeated it again, assuring them a +good thing was coming--the coffee began to boil in the church kitchen, +the aroma floating through the auditorium--the lights came on and +there hadn't one guilty man escaped. The audience was still there. + +Kind reader, you'd never guess what _I_ was thinking about during that +trying fifteen minutes. + +Well, I was trying to think of an appropriate story to open my speech +with, to illustrate the situation--something about where the lights +went out. + +I thought, and _thought_, and THOUGHT, but could not fetch it, but the +next morning I thought of a corker--I am descended from the English. + + [Illustration: The coffee began to boil in the church kitchen, the + aroma floated through the auditorium] + +All my ancestors came from England and settled in New England. New +England was chiefly inhabited by Indians at the time, but, I suppose, +there still lurks a trace of English in me. + +That old joke about the English being slow is no joke--it's a sad +fact. + +If further proof than my inability to corral that illustration inside +of fifteen minutes were necessary, I've demonstrated it coming through +India this trip. + +The universal way of washing clothes in India is for a native, they +call him a dobe, to take his clothes to the bank of a stream, +conveniently near a large stone. + +The larger the stone the better. One weighing from one to three tons +is an ideal size. + +The dobe picks up a garment, souses it in the water, and flails the +stone with it. + +The dobe is a particularly vigorous man. The average Indian is of a +lymphatic nature, excepting the dobe. He is animated with a +strenuousness entirely lacking in all other callings. + +Mark Twain, passing through India some fifteen years ago, noting the +strange sights, remarked that all over India he had seen the natives +trying to break huge stones with a shirt; but, he added, he hadn't, in +a single instance, seen one succeed. + + [Illustration: That old joke about the English being slow is no + joke--it's a sad fact] + + [Illustration: And every time the Englishman has explained to me that + he wasn't trying to break the stone] + +Just to see whether our English cousins over here in India had caught +that joke yet, when our train crossed a stream I would draw a chance +English traveler's attention to the ubiquitous dobe flailing a stone, +and wonderingly ask: "Why does the man try to break the stone that +way?"--and every time the Englishman has explained to me that he +wasn't trying to break the stone; and he would further kindly explain, +"That's the way the Indians do their washing," and he would invariably +add: "Beastly stupid, don't you know, isn't it?" + +And every time I've sadly admitted that it was. + + + + +XXX + +ENGLISH AS "SHE IS SPOKE" IN INDIA + + +Benares is located on the Ganges River and is right in the center of +things for devout Hindus--Benares bearing the same relation to +Hinduism that Jerusalem does to Christianity. + +Benares is the Hindus' sacred city, and the sacred Ganges River is +lined with temples and bathing and burning ghats. + +Hindus come from afar to die at Benares, where their bodies may be +burned and their ashes consigned to the sacred waters of the Ganges. +And after Benares, by easy stages, Lal and I reached Delhi, the old +capital of India, until the seat of government was shifted to +Calcutta, to be again brought back to Delhi three years ago. And here +is some English "as she is spoke" in Delhi, handed out by an +enterprising shopkeeper to both Royalty and Plebeian: + + "Useful value, Save Your Money + (Defy Competition) + +"We have much pleasure to inform the Ladies and Gentlemen, Officers +and visitors and prince and the public in general who have always +been our customers or who wished to make the shopping they must not use +the Hotel and traveling guides and Hotel Carriages at the purchasing +time because they always Carried the visitors to those places where +they getting 25 per cent Commission, now it is a great point to think +that when they will get so High Commission from the shop keepers then +the visitors cannot get the things worth of a rupee only they will be +extorted and will get the things 4 ans. worth in a rupee, now it is +useful advice for them that the visitors should not make any purchases +without having inspected our prices and charges, as we are not going +to any Hotel to distribute our cards and never use to give them any +Commission that is why we are ready to sell our articles at +comparatively prices, our firm oldest and reliable has been +established in 1860 in Chandni Chowk now we have shifted our shop from +there to here near the Jama Masjid No. 1 for the convenience of our +customers. + +"No use to get the money from your pocket and to give these guides and +Ghari-walas." + + + + +XXXI + +A FIVE DAYS' SAIL AND A MEASLY POEM + + +We are nearing Aden in Arabia, en route from Bombay. + +Bombay was all stirred up over the war and my itinerary is knocked +into a cocked hat. + +I had planned to go through Palestine to Constantinople and cross +Europe to London, but I can't get my passport viseed--I'm no war +correspondent, anyway. I'm strictly a man of peace. + +When Lal and I reached Bombay war was on, and Bombay was about +two-thirds of my way around the world, and home loomed large in my +mind--I wanted to get home. This English P. & O. mail liner was ready +to sail direct for London--and this was my ship. + +For a strictly peaceful man this was not a good boat to sail on, I was +advised, numerously, and from many sources. + +All banks in India since war was declared had shut down paying out +gold. This ship was going to carry four million pounds sterling to +London, which, in round numbers, is twenty million dollars. + + [Illustration: Home loomed large in my mind--I wanted to go home] + +She would be a prize for the German gunboats in the Arabian Sea. Aden +would be her first stop, a five days' sail from Bombay. The Germans +knew her schedule and her route and knew she would carry Indian gold +to London. She would have no chance at all to make Aden with all that +gold on board. The Germans would get her. + +Then, from there up through the Red Sea to Suez she wouldn't be out of +danger--there were German gunboats in the Red Sea. She might get +through the Suez Canal all right, if she ever got so far as Suez. The +trip through the canal might possibly be a peaceful one, but, ye gods! +look out when she strikes Port Said at the other end of the canal, if +she ever gets that far, was the word passed out. + +Port Said would be a hot point. Nothing but submarines would be safe +around Port Said about her due date there, it would be such a seething +hot-bed of naval engagements. + +From there her course through the Mediterranean to Gibraltar would be +one trying ordeal for a man of peace, not used to, looking for, nor +wanting war's alarms. Italy was hanging in the balance as a neutral +power. She would probably be in it before the ship could reach the +Mediterranean at Port Said--if she ever reached Port Said. + +To sail on this ship through the Mediterranean under present +conditions would be, for a rank civilian, just like committing +suicide. Of course for a soldier, whose job is war, it would be all +right--all in the day's business--justifiable. + +Then after she reached Gibraltar (of course this was supposing the +improbable chance of her ever getting so far as Gibraltar) she would +have to sail out into the Atlantic through the Bay of Biscay, and up +the Thames, and the telegraph said the Germans had slipped over and +mined the mouth of the Thames--for a man anxious to get home this was +a bad ship to sail on. That was the encouragement held out to book for +passage on this ship. + +I met a man at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay (I'd met this man two +weeks previously at Calcutta)--an American, a machinery salesman from +the United States. + +He told me he was on his way home, had crossed India to Bombay to +connect with this P. & O. liner, but none of this ship for him. + +He had been filled as full, if not fuller, than myself of the dire +disasters that would, in all probability, overtake this ship. + + [Illustration: Just like committing suicide] + +"Why, Mr. Allen," he said, "that ship will have about as much chance +to get to London as a celluloid dog would have to catch an asbestos +cat racing through----" "Oh, say, my friend," I said, "don't say +it. + +"Aside from that illustration having gray whiskers, it makes me +nervous and discourages me, because I want to get home, and that is +the ship I ought to sail on. But let's go and see our Consul; he may +be able to throw a little optimism on the situation." + + [Illustration: He had been filled as full, if not fuller, than myself] + +The Consul took an even more gloomy view of it than my friend from +Calcutta. Aside from the above cheerful opinions, all of which he +shared, he had the air of a man who knew something worse but was not +at liberty to tell. + +That settled my friend from Calcutta. + +He wanted to get home as bad as any man could, but he was going to +retrace his steps and go home via Japan. + +Our Consul advised me if I really wanted to get home that I had better +go that way too. On the other hand, he advised, if I really enjoyed +the sensation of momentarily living in expectation of being sunk, shot +to pieces, or blown up, that this P. & O. liner was an ideal ship to +sail on. + +As I had just come from Japan, as my contract is to write travel stuff +around the world--not two-thirds around and back over the same +ground--and as I had picked up numerous cases of stuff coming across +India, all of which were under consular invoice, said invoice reciting +the fact that the goods it described were to leave India on this same +ship, for entry at New York (it being a requirement of our tariff laws +to name the ship, port of departure, and port of arrival of goods for +entry into United States), I told our Consul and my Calcutta friend +that I was going to take a chance and sail on this ship. + +To write that invoice all over again for another ship, for entry into +San Francisco en route from Japan--to get out of that was the +determining factor. + +Anyone who knows anything about the details of a consular invoice will +understand. + +So I boarded this ship with a handful of passengers booked for London. +The tender steamed away and left us in Bombay Harbor, ready to weigh +anchor and sail at 3 P. M. Saturday, the advertised hour for sailing. + +But we didn't weigh--not at 3 P. M. that day, or the next. The next +day, Sunday, all first and second-cabin passengers--the P. & O. carry +no steerage--were shoved up forward, and British troops, homeward +bound, were taken on aft--and I wondered if the Consul knew. + +This changed the situation. + + [Illustration: To write that invoice all over again * * * to get out + of that was the determining factor] + +Sailing on a British ship with British troops, to say nothing of +twenty million dollars in gold, with England and Germany at War, was +no good place for a man of my peaceful proclivities. + +I wasn't alone in these sentiments. + +The purser, on that peaceful Sabbath day, put this question to the +passengers: "Do you want to sail on this ship or go ashore?" + +We might sail at our own risk. Anyone sailing was a belligerent. That +question thinned the passenger list down to about a score. The most +timid ones stampeded to leave the ship. I won first place at the +ladder, but remembered that consular invoice and turned back, and one +of our preacher passengers beat me to it and was the first one down +the ladder. + +He had spent his life preaching that Heaven was a desirable place, but +he proposed to go there in God's good time. The purser, thinking he +had missed me, put the question to me the second time. + +With my teeth chattering with valor and my face blanched with the war +spirit, to hide my real feelings I made reply: "P-p-please start your +tank. I want to go home--I want to get there as soon as possible--I +want to go home, I tell you." + + [Illustration: With my teeth chattering with valor] + +But I don't like this war game, and I decided right then and there if +they sprung another one, if they added another war risk to the ship +for this voyage, I _would_ shake it and go home via Japan. + +We stayed in Bombay Harbor until next day at noon, to throw the +Germans off her schedule, and she sailed out of her regular course to +throw them off her route. + +Nights we sail in darkness--her lights out and her wireless out of +commission; sailing phantom-like, with no lights to betray her to +lurking German cruisers, and by the same token, no lights to warn a +ship sailing north and south from ramming her. + +I had fully intended to write some travel stuff coming across from +Bombay, but shucks! I haven't felt like writing travel stuff--couldn't +seem to get down to it. + +A speck on the horizon would knock any travel stuff out of my +mind--that speck might grow into a German cruiser, and England at war +with Germany, and no guns aboard to shoot with! Just a merchant mail +ship with twenty million dollars in gold and British troops aboard. + +From all the accounts we had been getting of German atrocities, if a +German gunboat met with us, she would snitch that twenty million +first, help herself to our coal second, and, third, sink us. + +That was the consensus of opinion of the handful of English and French +passengers aboard. The Arabian Sea is full of sharks, terrible, +ferocious, man-eating sharks; and what with anxiously watching specks +on the horizon, speculating as to whether those specks would develop +into German cruisers, and wondering how salt water tasted, and whether +a shark would get me on the way down, with these pleasant thoughts a +man of my peculiar temperament couldn't write travel stuff. + +I tried, I honestly tried, but only one measly little poem was all I +could accomplish on this five days' passage coming across from Bombay +to Aden. + +I never attempt poetry unless my soul is stirred with deep emotions. + +Eight verses were wrenched out of me, when a smudge of smoke was +visible on the horizon, and the bets were ninety to one that a German +cruiser had sighted us. + +The first two verses of that poem went: + + Your scribe he is a soldier nit, + Nor used to war's alarms; + He never died, or bled, or fit, + Save bugs upon his farms. + + And when at last he went to war + On a big P. & O., + He went to war, just only for + To get home quick, you know. + + [Illustration: Anxiously watching specks on the horizon] + +And the next six verses were even worse than those two. + +The smudge turned out to be an English merchantman, eastbound, as +scared of the Germans as we were. There isn't a speck on the horizon +in any direction, and with Aden almost in sight, in exuberance of +spirit I wrote one more verse: + + So whoop, hurrah, don't look askance, + He's sailing o'er the sea; + Doggone a man who'll take no chance, + "A chance for me," quoth he. + + + + +XXXII + +BEATING THE GAME WITH ONE SHIRT + + +We will land at Tilbury (London) in an hour, and I have beaten the +game with one shirt. + +The English are great in many respects, but in nothing do they excel +more thoroughly than in dressing for dinner. Now we, of the great +American "proletariat," are not strangers to the dress-suit. We do, on +occasions, don it. + +At evening weddings we put it on. + +When a town magnate gives an evening reception, those of us who are +counted among the elect and get an invitation, put on a dress-suit. + +Occasions of this kind may happen three or four times a year, and, to +make sure that everything is in order, after the invitations are out +and we have received ours, our wives, who are more solicitous about +this thing than we men, dig up hubby's dress suit and give it an +airing. + + [Illustration: We do, on occasions, don it] + +Our dress shirt is sent to the laundry so as to have it fresh for the +occasion, and a day or two before the event hubby gets into the spirit +of the game, and at the earnest solicitation of the female portion of +the house, submits to a dress rehearsal to make sure that shirt, +studs, special collar, tie and all the toggery appertaining to the +deal will be in order at the last moment prior to the final plunge. + +Now our English cousin's familiarity with the dress-suit breeds +contempt--that is, contempt for any exhilaration incident to getting +into the thing on state occasions. + +While it is not a criminal offense not to dress for dinner, it is +something in the nature of a misdemeanor, and a rigid rule prescribes +the dress-suit for dinner. + +Nowhere on earth is this rigid rule more thoroughly observed than on +the P. & O. + +I was not a stranger to this rule--the P. & O. and I are not +strangers. Nor am I a stranger to the customs of the Far East. + +As the years have gone by I have added to the dress shirt a sufficient +number to take care of the situations one meets with on world tours. + +When I got to Bombay I found that the strenuous dobes had practically +annihilated all but one of my dress shirts, so I presented those +wrecked shirts to Lal, along with my bedding purchased in Calcutta, +for which I had no further use, to take back to Calcutta with him. + +If Mark Twain were alive today I'd be willing to bet him dollars to +doughnuts that the dobes had succeeded in breaking stones clear +across India with my dress shirts. + +I had many things to do to get ready to sail on this ship, and one +would have been enough--that consular invoice. + +To lay in a bale of dress shirts was one of the items that should have +been attended to, as I knew I was in for a twenty-two days' sail on a +P. & O. to London; if all went well after boarding her. + +But somehow, other things pressed more heavily. + +I thought of the dress shirts several times, but I seemed to have a +vague sort of an idea that dress-suits wouldn't cut much ice this +trip, so I dismissed dress shirts with the idea that I had one, and +the gloomy outlook was such that I must have decided that one shirt +would last two days--three on a pinch--and that we were due to be sunk +by that time, and if we were, a dress-suit would be of secondary +importance to me--anyway I got aboard with only one dress shirt. + +After clearing from Bombay for Aden, along about ten o'clock in the +forenoon, the day slipped by without my realizing that I had started +on a twenty-two days' voyage on a crack P. & O. liner with only one +dress shirt. + +The careful reader who has followed me in these travel letters will +have gathered in my last that dress shirts were not weighing as +heavily on my mind as some other things. + +It was a doughty lot of Englishmen, with a sprinkling of Frenchmen, +that made up the passenger list, about a score of men. You might say +it was a picked lot--sifted, as it were--English colonials going home +to England for a holiday. Judges seemed to predominate--an especially +good lot of fellows--and brave. + +After tea that day (by the way, I've attended twenty-two "he" tea +parties on this voyage, the Englishman's tea and his dress-suit are +twin brothers), shortly after tea the bell rang to dress for dinner. + +I had a hazy idea that the ceremony might be waived on this voyage. + +I couldn't see any occasion to put on the glad rags--a handful of men, +probably sailing to their doom--to get into gala attire seemed almost +sacrilegious. + +But every last man ducked for his cabin to get into his dress-suit. + +Under the circumstances the Frenchmen wouldn't kick, no matter how +they felt about it--they all ducked too. + +I had no enthusiasm to dress for dinner. + +Couldn't see the use. + + [Illustration: I've attended twenty-two "he" tea parties on this + voyage] + +I felt, unless we were sunk, I couldn't play the game right more than +three or four days with one shirt. + +But I decided to be game and not cross a bridge till I came to it. I +could hold out with my one shirt for three or four days and not be +thrown overboard, and by that time we would all go down together. + +After four days that shirt looked _passe_, not to say soiled. + +No German gunboat had come to the rescue up to the time of the gong +sounding to dress for dinner on the fifth day. + +When the bell rang to dress that day I ducked with the rest of the +boys. + +I sadly looked at that dress shirt, shook my head, and took a turn up +and down the deck. + +No use, there wasn't a speck on the horizon; no hope of being sunk +before dinner. + +I went back to my cabin and turned that shirt around, and blossomed +out with it hind side fore. + +I was a little nervous at first, until after soup, but it went. Didn't +occasion any remark or flutter, and I felt that I was good for four +days more. + +At the end of the second four days, eight days out from Bombay, we had +passed Aden. + + [Illustration: No hope of being sunk before dinner] + + [Illustration: I turned that shirt around] + +We stopped there a few hours of a Saturday afternoon. + +Everything was shut up--couldn't buy a shirt for love or money. + +We were now in the Red Sea and no German gunboats had found us, as +yet. By this time it wasn't the fear of German gunboats that was +causing me anxiety. To dress for dinner with that bunch of Englishmen +had gotten to be a mania with me, and there were five days more to +Port Said before I could buy some dress shirts. My shirt would go one +more time hind side to, but after that something would have to be +done. + +On the ninth day for dinner I turned that shirt inside out--and got +by. + +A mighty load was lifted from my soul. On a pinch she would last eight +more days that way, four days inside out front to, four days inside +out back to. + +Safe for eight days more and we'd make Port Said in five! + +We made Port Said all right--slipped past in the night; not so much as +a fire-cracker to wake me up. + +We were now in the Mediterranean, and Gibraltar our next stop--six +days away. + +Italy was still neutral. But I had got where I didn't give a tinker's +dam about the neutrality of Italy--what I wanted was some clean dress +shirts. + +I'm ashamed to chronicle it, but all interest in the war seemed to +dwindle with me. I was obsessed with one idea, one ambition--to make +that shirt stand me until we could make Gibraltar. + +Eighteen days from Bombay to Gibraltar, and I'd got by with sixteen of +them. Two days more and we would be at Gibraltar, where I could get +some dress shirts. There was no hope of being sunk, and getting out of +it that way. The Mediterranean was as quiet as a duck pond. + +I had found out by this time that the English would stand for anything +in the shirt front, if the conventional dress-suit was on for dinner. +So I contemplated that shirt fore and aft, inside and out, and used +the best sides. + +I was a good fellow and one of the boys. I had managed to dress every +day for dinner, and while I felt like a thief in that shirt, it went, +and I was accepted, and we got to Gibraltar. + +But just before we anchored in the harbor at Gibraltar this notice was +posted: "Only British subjects allowed ashore," and there were four +more days to London! + + [Illustration: I felt like a thief in that shirt] + +I entreated the commander, I entreated the purser to give me a pass to +go ashore. + +They were adamant. The rules of war couldn't be broken. Only British +subjects would be allowed ashore at Gibraltar. + +I didn't wait for the gong to sound for dinner after leaving Gibraltar +that day. Immediately after lunch I repaired to my cabin to consider +my dress shirt. + +Positively I didn't dare to risk it again. I was absolutely certain it +wouldn't go another time on any of the four sides, and I was also just +as absolutely certain that I was going to play the game right up to +London. + +Not dress for dinner the next four days on the P. & O. with my English +friends? The spirit of Bunker Hill, Lexington, Cambridge, Ticonderoga, +and the battle of the Oriskany fired my soul. With my jack-knife to +rip, and some puckering strings, I went at it, right after lunch. I +turned that shirt upside down--don't ask me how I managed. You can't +stump a resolute man. I worked it--I won out. + +We got up the Thames without striking a mine--I had no thought of +mines. + +I "dressed" for dinner the last day on board! + + [Illustration: With my jack-knife to rip and some puckering strings I + went at it] + + [Illustration: I turned that shirt upside down] + + [Illustration: Also, _I_ finally accepted his apology] + +A judge, an elderly Englishman who had sat opposite me all the way +from Bombay, and who wasn't in rugged health, neglected to dress for +that last dinner. He apologized profusely for coming to dinner "not +dressed." Owing to it being the last day, his age and indisposition, +his apology was accepted by the Englishmen at table. + +Also _I_ finally accepted his apology, but _I_ never want to have an +apology accepted in just quite the frigid manner in which I overlooked +the judge's lapse. + + + + +XXXIII + +THROUGH HELL GATE STEERAGE + + +Here, then, is the final travel letter I shall write on this +world-girdling tour. + +It is a woeful ending for the "sparkling gems" of travel stuff which +have gone before. + +It will record the sad contrast between my start from my native land, +gaily sailing out of the Golden Gate, a _de luxe_ first-class +passenger, and winding up my joy-ride around the world by coming +through Hell Gate steerage, barely escaping being condemned as a +criminal and executed on the high seas, chucked overboard and fed to +the sharks. + +The lights and shadows of this wicked world are something fierce. + +I am glad I made good my promise to try to write a little poetry +before I came to this letter. I would surely never try to put it over +in this one--it would be too great a strain. + +Coming through Hell Gate steerage-- + +The next line might have to end with "peerage," and steerage and +peerage don't mix worth a cent. + +My first errand upon arrival in London was to lay in a stock of dress +shirts. + +But I didn't need any dress shirts coming across the Atlantic. + +Indeed I didn't. What I needed was a good stout hickory shirt--a pair +of overalls and double-bitted axe. + +I don't suppose a writer of travel stuff on a _debonair_ trip around +the world ever had so much trouble as I have had the last eight days. + +As I have already explained in letter XXVII, I held an order for a +first-class passage on any American or British ship I might choose +from England to New York. + +With two dozen dress shirts, latest approved "Lunnon" style, safely +cinched--I didn't propose to take any chances the balance of my trip, +so I bought two dozen--I went to get that order changed for passage +home. + +"Why," the man told me, "we can't book you first cabin on anything +sailing for America for six weeks. We can send you to New York +steerage, on a ship sailing the day after tomorrow, if you speak +quick. There are a couple of vacancies left. But you need not be +afraid of steerage at this time. Owing to the war, the flower of +America are going home steerage. The truly refined, the +got-rich-quick, high-brows of the deepest dye, prize-fighters, +captains of industry, and card-sharps are all traveling steerage +these days. + +"Why, Mr. Allen," he said, "traveling steerage is a picnic now. Owing +to the class of people who are patronizing it, everything is done by +the ship's management to make the steerage journey home a pleasurable +experience." + +As I have never been able to get enough picnics--I am a fiend for +picnics--I spoke quick. I said: "Book me now." + +"And," the man told me, "there will be a rebate coming to you. The +fare, steerage, is only seven pounds. You hold a twenty pound order." + +"Sure," I said, "thirteen pounds coming my way." + +"Oh, no, not thirteen pounds; but there will be something. Come around +this evening and I will tell you how much of a rebate you will be +allowed." + +"Why not thirteen pounds?" I asked. "Over on our side the difference +between seven and twenty is thirteen." + +"Oh, yes," he said, "but the P. & O. won't stand for such an +adjustment; but I'll do the best I can for you." + +When I went to get my rebate I was offered one pound eleven shillings. + +I told them to keep it; that nothing but a rebate of thirteen pounds +looked good to me. "Furthermore," I said, "if the line slips a cog +this trip across and forgets to make steerage passage home one +continual round of pleasure, if, perchance, I should feel like shaking +steerage before we get across, I'll try to work the purser to let me +eat first and sleep in the steerage. Coming home from Naples in the +rush season, holding a first cabin ticket, I once had to accept second +cabin berth, but was allowed to eat in first cabin." + +I was willing to shake steerage at Liverpool before ever boarding the +ship. A madder lot of Americans I never met, of whom there were about +seven hundred, mixed in with about three hundred immigrants. Hours +were consumed to get that thousand steerage passengers aboard the +tender. No effort was made to separate them. The great majority being +Americans with passports to be examined, immigrants and Americans were +all held standing for hours in a hot, broiling sun, a congested herd +of humanity, while the tedious task of examining the passports was +carried on at the gang-plank--a task that could have been done in +comfort in a large and commodious room on the wharf, where there were +the accommodations for at least our women and children to be seated +while immigrants and Americans were separated; after which both bodies +could have passed on board in comfort and with dispatch. + +But when we reached the ship, wow! a howl went up. We had consumed the +biggest part of the day in getting from the wharf to the ship via +tender, and we struck it at supper-time. Seven hundred Americans who +had been told that steerage home would be a picnic! + +Gur-r-r--"_picnic!_" + +Filth! Stench! Vermin! Our illusion was dispelled. + +Now there is a streak of yellow in almost everyone. Once in a while a +noble, self-sacrificing character is born who had rather suffer with +his kind than be delivered, like Daniel, and Joseph, and Moses, and +who, by persistently sticking to exalted ideals, win out, so that all +ages ring with extolling their characters. + +But most of that kind die young. + +There are moments when _I_ feel that I'd like to be grand, and good, +and noble, like Daniel, and Joseph, and Moses. Then the temptations of +the world, the flesh, and the devil get in between and I slip back. +Every time after slipping back from those noble aspirations and high +aims a particular and special brand of hard luck strikes me. My heart +beat in sympathy with that crowd of seven hundred Americans traveling +steerage with whom I had cast my lot; but after the first meal I +decided that I'd try to shake them. So I went up first to ask the +purser to let me at least eat first cabin. + +"Purser," I said, "I am booked to travel home steerage--"--that +haughty individual interrupted me with: "You're a third-class +passenger, then, on this ship," and he looked at me as if I were an +angleworm. + +"Even so," I said; "but----" and I was reaching into my pocket to get +at the document to prove to him that I had paid for a first-class +passage. + +He evidently thought that I was reaching to get my card, because he +snapped out, "I don't care who you are, you're a third-class passenger +on this ship." + +"Yes, purser," I said, "but this"--handing him my document--"will show +you that while I am booked steerage, I paid for first; and couldn't +arrangements be made for me to sleep in the steerage and eat at the +first table? You know, purser, it's just a little rocky back there in +the steerage--and you see I paid for first-cabin passage." + +There is no doubt but what that fellow could read, but he seemed so +horrified at a steerage passenger invading the holy precincts of first +cabin that he wouldn't attempt to read anything that had been +contaminated by being in the possession of a steerage passenger. + +Anyway, he handed it back to me without reading it, with the remark: +"I've only got your word for that." + +"Um huh, purser," I said, "and when it comes to a plain statement of +facts, my word is good for even more than that." + +"You're a third-class passenger on this ship, and you'll have to eat +third-class where you belong," and further conversation with me seemed +to give him a pain. + +After that unsatisfactory interview with the purser, the high and holy +self-sacrificing sentiments that I had had just prior to my desire to +try and shake that bunch of steerage passengers--that part of my +better nature that made me feel for the misfortunes of my kind +returned, and I went back to the steerage, "where I belonged," to +share their lot--it was either that or jump overboard. + +There was just one topic of conversation back in steerage--the rotten +treatment we were getting; and it was the voice of our little +democracy that we ought to try and do something. I told you in letter +II that one can make better time getting acquainted on shipboard than +anywhere else, but you may have missed that wheat grain of information +in the surrounding chaff. But it is there, and already there were +those aboard who had learned that I was doing newspaper work, so +they wished the job of trying onto me. + + [Illustration: "You're a third-class passenger on this ship"--and + further conversation with me seemed to give him a pain] + +If a protest and a petition for an effort to try and make things +better, signed by a goodly number of us from the underworld who were +American citizens, were sent up to the captain, it might mend matters, +and wouldn't I draft it? + +After my encounter with that purser--the purser standing high in the +management of a passenger ship at sea--I had a fear that any petition +we might make wouldn't be received with favor by the management, but +my election for the job was so unanimous, spontaneous and hearty that +I buckled to it and wrote a petition, in which I told the management +what we American steerage passengers thought of what was being handed +to us on our passage home. I told them we were steerage passengers not +from choice, but owing to the fortunes of war, and instead of trying +to emphasize the fact that we were steerage passengers, wouldn't they +see what they could do to make us forget it? Furthermore, I asked in +the petition if they wouldn't at least see that the stewards who +served us our food put on clean clothes: that the white suits they +wore were filthy when we left Liverpool, and that they were still +wearing the same filthy suits. And also wouldn't they see that the +dishes were given an occasional bath--that the knives and forks they +were handing us turned our stomachs. And couldn't we have ice water to +drink? Even had the temerity to suggest that they give us +napkins--qualified the suggestion of napkins by telling them paper +ones would be counted a boon. + +I read my petition to the crowd and it was loudly acclaimed a choice +bit of literature, right to the point, and exactly fitted the case; +and they crowded around to sign it, and wanted me to get it into the +captain's hands as quick as I could. I went up to first cabin to hunt +for the captain and ran into the purser. When he saw me coming he +looked even more aggrieved than when he told me to stay where I +belonged. But I told him this time I came with a petition, signed by +several hundred American citizens, and that I wanted to give it to the +captain. + +"We're in a fog now and captain is on the bridge; I'll give your +petition to him when he comes off the bridge," the purser said. + +"All right, purser," I said; "and you needn't return the petition to +me. I've got a copy of it and a copy of all the names of the signers." +And I went back to steerage, from choice now. I fear that I've always +set too great a store on ease and luxury--asceticism has never +appealed to me as a personal practice; but it would have taken a roll +of money to have hired me to shake steerage now. My better nature, or +something, had triumphed, and my lot was cast with that down-trodden, +forsaken, and hopeless crowd of steerage travelers. A revulsion of +feeling for first-class on that ship had filled my soul. They couldn't +have hired me to travel first-class now. When I got back "amongst my +own people" I was the recipient of so many tales of woe--I was so +filled up with steerage passengers' grievances, that if my interior +had been analyzed it would have looked just like the bureau for the +amelioration of troubles at San Francisco after the earthquake. + +Shake that bunch? Nay, nay. In my contrition of spirit I concluded +that what I was getting was just retribution for ever trying to do +such a thing; and I feared if I should let go and make another attempt +to do it, something worse might come to me--although I couldn't figure +out just what it could be. Besides, after that petition reached the +throne, I'd be in bad with the ship's management, and another attempt +to get away from steerage would be futile. + +My-o! but that was a forlorn lot of passengers traveling steerage. + +Our chief aversion was "Beef," chief steward of steerage (he was +dubbed "Beef" by the sufferers an hour after we got aboard). He was +big, beefy, brass-buttoned and shoulder-strapped, evidently hired by +the line for his ability to drive over-worked stewards and handle +immigrant passengers. + +Almost immediately after boarding the ship he had earned the +indignation of the Americans by insulting one of our country-women, a +woman of refinement and culture, who was traveling alone--the wife of +a banker. When she protested at the deplorable condition of the +dishes, he stormed up to her and asked her what was wrong. "Why," she +said, "you don't expect us to eat our meals off such dirty dishes, do +you?" + +"You're no better than immigrants, and you'll be handled as such," +"Beef" said. And when she told him she would report him to the captain +he bellowed out most insultingly: "Go ahead and report; we aren't +afraid." + +Subsequent events proved that "Beef" had no cause to fear the captain. + +It was not a nice way for a servant of a transportation line to talk +to any patron, immigrant or otherwise, voicing a just protest, and +especially not to an unprotected lady traveling alone, subject to the +care and courtesy of the transportation company she was traveling +with. + +Indignant? Oh my! I should say so. + +If indignation could sink a ship, we'd never have got across. + +As Chairman of the Protest and Indignation Committee, all that +indignation was poured into me. I didn't know I could hold so much. +And still it came. One woman wanted to sue the company when she got +home for a million dollars, and she came and asked my advice about it. +I told her I wasn't a lawyer, but being Chairman of the Committee on +Protest and Indignation, I told her to state her case. She said she +was going down a darkened stairway to the noisome, filthy quarters +where they had to sleep; the stairway wasn't lighted and in +consequence she fell down stairs and was picked up for dead, jarred, +bruised, broken and bleeding profusely. The ship's doctor attended her +injuries and charged her two dollars, and she wanted her two dollars +back and a million on top of it. + +Speaking from underneath the load of other people's woes I had aboard, +to say nothing of those of my own, I told her she had, in my opinion, +a just claim. To sue the company when she got home--this last advice I +threw over my shoulder at her, as another woman was dragging me off to +investigate the "awful condition" below deck where they were herded to +spend the nights. + +And still the indignation grew and grew. Our petition hadn't bettered +matters. + +We were steerage passengers--just that and nothing more, and if there +wasn't some new, fresh, sensational bit of steerage news to tell there +was always "Beef" and his insults to discuss. + +One evening as curfew rule was being enforced (it seems there is a law +that demands that female immigrants en route to the United States +shall be ordered below deck at 9 o'clock), as this rule was being +applied to our steerage passengers, both Americans and immigrants, and +as they were being driven to the filth and stench and vermin below, +indignation boiled over again. + +One young fellow whose wife was driven from his side, swore like a +pirate, but had to submit--we were steerage passengers. + +"Beef" was boss of the steerage, and as he was standing near, to voice +our indignation, I said to the men who were allowed to stay on deck: +"Men, if any of us catch an officer on this ship insulting a woman, +whether she is American or an immigrant, no matter how many shoulder +straps or brass buttons he wears, I propose we knock him down, and if +he is too big to handle with our fists, take a club." That little +speech was for "Beef's" benefit--but things didn't mend. + + [Illustration: He swore like a pirate] + +The well deck was the outdoor privilege for steerage passengers, set +nine feet down in the hull of the ship, forward the poop deck and aft +second cabin promenade deck, with a railing across the latter to +prevent cabin passengers falling off into the well deck. All view +available for steerage passengers on the well deck was up into the +sky--whence we might look and pray for deliverance. We could sit on +the bulkheads that formed a part of the floor and lean our backs +against the wall, which our women folk did. + +Cabin passengers up top side would lean on that rail and _spit on us_! +And they complained to _me_ about it--of course they did--to whom else +should they tell their troubles?--wasn't I Chairman of Committee on +Complaints? I was, and it was another case of "Let George do it." +There was no one to appeal to but "Beef." Captain and purser held +aloof and wouldn't answer our petition. + +I didn't have much hope in approaching "Beef" after my proposition of +the night before at curfew--"Beef" knew I was driving at him--but I +thought of Moses and how he had to appeal to Pharaoh, of the stony +heart--what little I knew of the career of Moses was especially +comforting to me--but since I'd been purged of the streak of yellow in +me that prompted me to try and shake my steerage friends I was +willing to do anything; so I went to "Beef" and said: "Say, those +low-brow cabin passengers along the rail up top side are _spittin'_ on +the ladies and gentlemen down here in the steerage!" + +The enormity of the outrage didn't faze "Beef." Cabin passengers had +the privilege to spit on steerage. He wouldn't do anything. All the +attention he paid to the complaint was to look at me and say: "I don't +consider _you're_ a gentleman." + +And I told him if in _his_ opinion I was a gentleman I'd go and hang +myself. + +And the indignation grew and grew. + +All the comfort there was on hand was to lodge complaints with me and +to express the hope that I'd do justice to the situation when I got +home. + +"Don't forget to tell about the rats, Allen," a man from Maryland +piped up. + +"Yes, touch up the rats," a man from Iowa admonished me, while a man +from Kentucky said he had become so innured to hardship he didn't mind +the rats so much, he could stand their running over his face nights, +if they would only hurry across. + +"Yes," a man from Massachusetts plaintively wailed, "it _is_ hard when +they loiter, isn't it?" While a man from Florida said that he didn't +mind their feet so much--it was the dragging their tails across his +face that got onto _his_ nerves. + + [Illustration: "It _is_ hard when they loiter, isn't it?"] + +"And don't forget to tell how they served us those little, pithy +oranges that day, Allen," a man from California broke in. + +This was hardly worthy. The man who lodged that complaint ought to +have been ashamed of himself, and his ingenuity for finding things to +kick about was of a low order--he was straining at a gnat and +swallowing camels. + +It's true the stewards brought them on in their dirty aprons and +pitched them at us--not the stewards' fault, they were doing the best +they could with the tools furnished them--but steerage passengers +ought to be grateful for any kind of oranges, served in any shape. +While it's quite true, in my adolescent years, as a boy on the farm I +have fed apples to hogs with the same courtesy, the complaint was too +trivial to be spread on the minutes of the meeting. But it was voted +to spread it, hence the mention. + +Before the meeting adjourned, under the head of "New Business," a +portly judge advised that the petition sent to the captain be +rewritten and signed again with the home addresses of all signers +opposite their names, and that I take the resigned petition home with +me. Some of the ship's letterheads were pasted together until we had a +sheet nearly five feet long on which to rewrite the petition, and on +both sides of the paper there was not enough space to hold the +signers' names, and an overflow sheet had to be supplied. + +The next day all steerage passengers were subjected to a medical +examination. Americans examined on deck--immigrants in the dining +saloon. + +A brother-in-tribulation, "New York," and I, after we were released +from the examination, started down a noisome alleyway to go to our +cabins, and we had to pass through the dining-room, where immigrants +were being examined. We were in "New York's" cabin when a dining-room +steward came to us and told us he had been sent to tell us to go on +deck; that we were holding up the medical examination. No steerage +passengers were allowed in the cabins until medical examinations were +completed, he told us, and that he was ordered to tell us to go on +deck. + +We had gotten so used to being ordered up and down and in and out that +we obeyed like dumb driven cattle. As we were about to pass through a +companionway to get on deck, dining-room stewards guarded it and told +us we couldn't go on deck. "New York" was ahead, and paid no attention +to the contradictory order. They let him pass, but when I followed, +one of the guards took hold of my arm to stop me, and I brushed past +him. He fell down and began to howl before he struck the deck. I +joined "New York" on deck and told him I suspected a frame-up, and +that I would hear of it later. + +Sure enough, in about half an hour "Beef" hove in sight and told me +the captain wanted to see me in the purser's room. + +"Glory be, 'New York'," I said, "let's shake the nether regions and go +up first and see the captain. I've an invitation to meet him in the +purser's room. We've been wanting to see that fellow ever since we +left Liverpool, and I invite you to go with me as my guest." + +"Only Mr. Allen is wanted," "Beef" vouchsafed, but "New York" didn't +pay any more attention to him than if he'd been a toadstool--I was +going to say mushroom, but I like mushrooms--and together we went to +pay our respects to his nibs, the captain, "Beef" following on behind. + +As we neared the purser's room we passed the entrance to first-cabin +dining-saloon, and as we saw the luscious fruits and viands prepared, +and took in the luxurious surroundings, we clasped our hands and +simultaneously exclaimed: "Is this heaven?" + +I was ushered into the purser's room, "New York" sticking to me closer +than a brother. There sat his nibs, the captain, togged out with +enough gold braid to scare a horse. The purser stood at his side, and +"Beef" came in. There were some chairs in the room. + +My! but those chairs did look good to "New York" and me. Neither of us +had sat on anything soft for nearly a week. + +An irresistible impulse to sit down on something soft seized us, and, +unabashed in the presence of all that gold braid confronting us, we +were about to sink into their luxurious depths when his royal gazooks, +with an imperious wave of his hand, bade us remain standing in his +presence. It was really an awful break on our part--we should have +waited for him to have invited his guests to take a seat, but we were +so dazzled and dazed by the sudden transition from steerage to first +that we were momentarily shy a few buttons on the niceties--and +besides, we wanted to sit on a cushioned chair--we _ached_ to sit on a +cushioned chair, I'm telling you, but we didn't--I thought of Lal and +stood. + +It was up to _me_ to stand--I was up for trial before the most +absolute monarch in the world, the commander of a ship at sea. + +He asked me my name, and I told him. + +"You are charged with assaulting an officer in the discharge of his +duty," he said. "What have you to say for yourself?" + + [Illustration: And "Beef" came in] + +I told him the circumstances, "And, captain," I said, "that chap fell +down mighty easy, and began to howl before he struck the deck." + +The captain ordered the damaged steward to be produced. + +The purser and "Beef" had him on tap, around the corner somewhere, and +"Beef" led him in limping and sniveling. + +"Did this man assault you?" the captain asked, pointing to me. + +"Yes, sir, captain, 'e did, sir, thank you, sir. Hi was guardin' a +door accordin' to horders, sir, and 'e pushed me over and I got an +awful bruise, sir, thank you, sir." + +According to the evidence, I was the one to thank, but I guess he got +his thanks bestowed where they belonged, all right. + +"Beef" explained that the man was badly hurt and under the doctor's +care, and he turned him tenderly around so the captain could see where +his pants had come in contact with the deck. + +And those pants did look bad, there was no doubt about that. + +"Yes, yes," the captain said, in a commiserating tone, "the man is +undoubtedly severely injured." + + [Illustration: And those pants did look bad. There was no doubt about + that] + +"Yes, captain," "Beef" said, "and the other night at curfew, out on +the well deck, Mr. Allen made a speech and advised a lot of steerage +passengers to knock down officers on the ship, no matter how many +shoulder straps they wore." + +This was a serious charge--mutiny on shipboard--and punishable, I am +informed, with instant death. + +With a shuddering gasp at the enormity of my crime--or was it ghoulish +glee at having sufficient evidence to have me drawn and quartered--I +credit him with the latter sentiment--a human being who would keep two +free-born American citizens standing in his presence--men whom he knew +had been living steerage on his ship for nearly a week--with those +chairs standing tantalizingly, invitingly empty--the wearer of all +that gold braid, lolling luxuriously in an easy chair, filled with +such viands as "New York" and I had seen coming through--I'll never +believe that man would shudder at crime. Rather, I think he was +gloating over my ignoble end, and devising ways of still more horrible +torture--that's the kind of a man I think that captain was, and I'll +bet on it. + +But according to the rules he didn't dare pass sentence without giving +me a hearing. While he was judge, jury and prosecuting attorney, he +had to give me a chance to clear myself, so he asked me what answer I +had to make to the charge. + +"Well, captain," I said, "'Bee--'--I mean your chief of steerage, +hasn't got the story straight. At an indignation meeting out on the +well deck the other night, as he has insulted women on this voyage, +after he had ordered the women below decks at what you call your +curfew time, I voiced the sentiments of the male portion of your +steerage passengers by advising that if any of them caught an officer +of the ship insulting a woman, whether she was an immigrant or an +American, no matter how many brass buttons or shoulder straps he wore, +to knock him down; and if he was too big to handle with the fist, to +use a club." + +"Beef" jumped up and shook his fist at me and bellowed: "If Mr. Allen +says I've insulted women, he's a liar." + +Right here is where "New York" shone. + +"I would like a word here, captain," he said. "Mr. Allen is stating +facts. Your chief of steerage _has_ insulted women on this voyage." + +That "impartial" judge, that embellished emblem of authority, said he +had known "Beef" for a good many years, and he knew he wouldn't do +such a thing, so, according to "Beef" and the captain, "New York" and +I were both liars. + + [Illustration: "If Mr. Allen says I have insulted women, he's a + liar"] + +Then that bedizened judge turned on "New York" and said: "You look +like a clean-cut, up-standing man" (this last was the unkindest cut +of all; it's a compliment to have some men call you a liar, but he +needn't have used that word "up-standing"; Lord knows, "New York" +didn't _want_ to stand up)--"how do you explain your associating with +such a person as this man Allen?" + +And then "New York" shone some more. He told the captain that he had +found Mr. Allen a most agreeable and congenial companion on this +voyage. + +Oh, my! How this story does string out. I suppose "New York" saved my +life. With "New York's" testimony the captain didn't pass the death +sentence--he dismissed us with a magnificent wave of his embroidered +coat-sleeve--the steward didn't die, but peeled potatoes, and I'm in +New York, and Clinton only five hours away. + + +THE END + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's A Yankee in the Far East, by George Hoyt Allen + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40565 *** |