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diff --git a/40565-8.txt b/40565-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index ef4bb93..0000000 --- a/40565-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,5893 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Yankee in the Far East, by George Hoyt Allen - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: A Yankee in the Far East - -Author: George Hoyt Allen - -Illustrator: H. S. Weller - -Release Date: August 23, 2012 [EBook #40565] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A YANKEE IN THE FAR EAST *** - - - - -Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - -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 THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A YANKEE IN THE FAR EAST *** - -***** This file should be named 40565-8.txt or 40565-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/5/6/40565/ - -Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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