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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 05:26:13 -0700 |
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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/5808-h.zip b/5808-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..437d2e1 --- /dev/null +++ b/5808-h.zip diff --git a/5808-h/5808-h.htm b/5808-h/5808-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c61db5a --- /dev/null +++ b/5808-h/5808-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3166 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<title>FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR, Part 1</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> + + + +<style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {background:#faebd7; margin:10%; text-align:justify} + P { text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; } + H1,H2,H3,H4,H5,H6 { text-align: center; } + HR { width: 33%; text-align: center; } + blockquote {font-size: 97% } + .figleft {float: left;} + .figright {float: right;} + .toc { margin-left: 15%; margin-bottom: 0em;} + CENTER { padding: 10px;} + // --> +</style> + + +</head> +<body> + +<h2>FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR, Part 1</h2> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Following the Equator, Part 1 +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +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: Following the Equator, Part 1 + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: June 23, 2004 [EBook #5808] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR, PART 1 *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + +</pre> + + + + + +<br><hr> +<br><br><br><br><br><br> + + +<center> + + + <h1>FOLLOWING</h1> + <h1>THE EQUATOR</h1> + <br><br><br> + <h3>Part 1.</h3> + <br><br><br> + + <h2>A JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD</h2> + <h2>BY</h2> + <h2>MARK TWAIN</h2> + <br><br><br> + <h3>SAMUEL L. CLEMENS</h3> + <h3>HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT</h3> + + +</center> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="bookcover.jpg (131K)" src="images/bookcover.jpg" height="918" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<center><img alt="bookspine.jpg (70K)" src="images/bookspine.jpg" height="918" width="265"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<center><img alt="booktitle.jpg (53K)" src="images/booktitle.jpg" height="1051" width="619"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<center><img alt="bookfront.jpg (50K)" src="images/bookfront.jpg" height="978" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<center><img alt="bookdedicate.jpg (13K)" src="images/bookdedicate.jpg" height="329" width="575"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<center><img alt="bookmaxim.jpg (16K)" src="images/bookmaxim.jpg" height="367" width="627"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + + + +<br><br><br><br> + + <center><h2>CONTENTS OF VOLUME 1.</h2></center> + + +<blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><blockquote> +<h3><a href="#ch1">CHAPTER I.</a></h3> +<p> +The Party—Across America to Vancouver—On Board the Warrimo—Steamer +Chairs-The Captain-Going Home under a Cloud—A Gritty Purser—The +Brightest Passenger—Remedy for Bad Habits—The Doctor and the +Lumbago—A Moral Pauper—Limited Smoking—Remittance-men. + +<br><br><br> +<h3><a href="#ch2">CHAPTER II.</a></h3> +<p> +Change of Costume—Fish, Snake, and Boomerang Stories—Tests of +Memory—A Brahmin Expert—General Grant's Memory—A Delicately Improper Tale + +<br><br><br> +<h3><a href="#ch3">CHAPTER III.</a></h3> +<p> +Honolulu—Reminiscences of the Sandwich Islands—King Liholiho and His +Royal Equipment—The Tabu—The Population of the Island—A Kanaka +Diver—Cholera at Honolulu—Honolulu; Past and Present—The Leper Colony + +<br><br><br> +<h3><a href="#ch6">CHAPTER IV.</a></h3> +<p> +Leaving Honolulu—Flying-fish—Approaching the Equator—Why the Ship Went +Slow—The Front Yard of the Ship—Crossing the Equator—Horse Billiards +or Shovel Board—The Waterbury Watch—Washing Decks—Ship Painters—The +Great Meridian—The Loss of a Day—A Babe without a Birthday + +<br><br><br> +<h3><a href="#ch5">CHAPTER V.</a></h3> +<p> +A lesson in Pronunciation—Reverence for Robert Burns—The Southern +Cross—Troublesome Constellations—Victoria for a Name—Islands on the +Map—Alofa and Fortuna—Recruiting for the Queensland +Plantations—Captain Warren's NoteBook—Recruiting not thoroughly Popular + +<br><br><br> +<h3><a href="#ch6">CHAPTER VI.</a></h3> +<p> +Missionaries Obstruct Business—The Sugar Planter and the Kanaka—The +Planter's View—Civilizing the Kanaka The Missionary's View—The +Result—Repentant Kanakas—Wrinkles—The Death Rate in Queensland + +<br><br><br> +<h3><a href="#ch7">CHAPTER VII.</a></h3> +<p> +The Fiji Islands—Suva—The Ship from Duluth—Going Ashore—Midwinter in +Fiji—Seeing the Governor—Why Fiji was Ceded to England—Old time +Fijians—Convicts among the Fijians—A Case Where Marriage was a Failure +Immortality with Limitations + +<br><br><br> +<h3><a href="#ch8">CHAPTER VIII.</a></h3> +<p> +A Wilderness of Islands—Two Men without a Country—A Naturalist from New +Zealand—The Fauna of Australasia—Animals, Insects, and Birds—The +Ornithorhynchus—Poetry and Plagiarism + + +</blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote> + +<br><br><br> + + +<br><br><br><br> + + + + <center><h1>FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR</h1></center> + +<br><br> +<center><img alt="p025.jpg (19K)" src="images/p025.jpg" height="359" width="615"> +</center> + +<h2><a name="ch1"></a><br><br>CHAPTER I.</h2> + +<p><i>A man may have no bad habits and have worse.</i> +<center>—Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.</center> +<br> +<p>The starting point of this lecturing-trip around the world was Paris, +where we had been living a year or two. + +<p>We sailed for America, and there made certain preparations. This took +but little time. Two members of my family elected to go with me. Also a +carbuncle. The dictionary says a carbuncle is a kind of jewel. Humor is +out of place in a dictionary. + +<p>We started westward from New York in midsummer, with Major Pond to manage +the platform-business as far as the Pacific. It was warm work, all the +way, and the last fortnight of it was suffocatingly smoky, for in Oregon +and Columbia the forest fires were raging. We had an added week of smoke +at the seaboard, where we were obliged awhile for our ship. She had been +getting herself ashore in the smoke, and she had to be docked and +repaired. + +<p>We sailed at last; and so ended a snail-paced march across the continent, +which had lasted forty days. + +<p>We moved westward about mid-afternoon over a rippled and summer sea; an +enticing sea, a clean and cool sea, and apparently a welcome sea to all +on board; it certainly was to the distressful dustings and smokings and +swelterings of the past weeks. The voyage would furnish a three-weeks +holiday, with hardly a break in it. We had the whole Pacific Ocean in +front of us, with nothing to do but do nothing and be comfortable. The +city of Victoria was twinkling dim in the deep heart of her smoke-cloud, +and getting ready to vanish and now we closed the field-glasses and sat +down on our steamer chairs contented and at peace. But they went to +wreck and ruin under us and brought us to shame before all the +passengers. They had been furnished by the largest furniture-dealing +house in Victoria, and were worth a couple of farthings a dozen, though +they had cost us the price of honest chairs. In the Pacific and Indian +Oceans one must still bring his own deck-chair on board or go without, +just as in the old forgotten Atlantic times—those Dark Ages of sea +travel. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p026.jpg (62K)" src="images/p026.jpg" height="889" width="627"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Ours was a reasonably comfortable ship, with the customary sea-going +fare—plenty of good food furnished by the Deity and cooked by the devil. +The discipline observable on board was perhaps as good as it is anywhere +in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The ship was not very well arranged +for tropical service; but that is nothing, for this is the rule for ships +which ply in the tropics. She had an over-supply of cockroaches, but +this is also the rule with ships doing business in the summer seas—at +least such as have been long in service. Our young captain was a very +handsome man, tall and perfectly formed, the very figure to show up a +smart uniform's best effects. He was a man of the best intentions and +was polite and courteous even to courtliness. There was a soft and +finish about his manners which made whatever place he happened to be in +seem for the moment a drawing room. He avoided the smoking room. He had +no vices. He did not smoke or chew tobacco or take snuff; he did not +swear, or use slang or rude, or coarse, or indelicate language, or make +puns, or tell anecdotes, or laugh intemperately, or raise his voice above +the moderate pitch enjoined by the canons of good form. When he gave an +order, his manner modified it into a request. After dinner he and his +officers joined the ladies and gentlemen in the ladies' saloon, and +shared in the singing and piano playing, and helped turn the music. He +had a sweet and sympathetic tenor voice, and used it with taste and +effect the music he played whist there, always with the same partner and +opponents, until the ladies' bedtime. The electric lights burned there +as late as the ladies and their friends might desire; but they were not +allowed to burn in the smoking-room after eleven. There were many laws +on the ship's statute book of course; but so far as I could see, this and +one other were the only ones that were rigidly enforced. The captain +explained that he enforced this one because his own cabin adjoined the +smoking-room, and the smell of tobacco smoke made him sick. I did not +see how our smoke could reach him, for the smoking-room and his cabin +were on the upper deck, targets for all the winds that blew; and besides +there was no crack of communication between them, no opening of any sort +in the solid intervening bulkhead. Still, to a delicate stomach even +imaginary smoke can convey damage. + +<p>The captain, with his gentle nature, his polish, his sweetness, his moral +and verbal purity, seemed pathetically out of place in his rude and +autocratic vocation. It seemed another instance of the irony of fate. + +<p>He was going home under a cloud. The passengers knew about his trouble, +and were sorry for him. Approaching Vancouver through a narrow and +difficult passage densely befogged with smoke from the forest fires, he +had had the ill-luck to lose his bearings and get his ship on the rocks. +A matter like this would rank merely as an error with you and me; it +ranks as a crime with the directors of steamship companies. The captain +had been tried by the Admiralty Court at Vancouver, and its verdict had +acquitted him of blame. But that was insufficient comfort. A sterner +court would examine the case in Sydney—the Court of Directors, the lords +of a company in whose ships the captain had served as mate a number of +years. This was his first voyage as captain. + +<p>The officers of our ship were hearty and companionable young men, and +they entered into the general amusements and helped the passengers pass +the time. Voyages in the Pacific and Indian Oceans are but pleasure +excursions for all hands. Our purser was a young Scotchman who was +equipped with a grit that was remarkable. He was an invalid, and looked +it, as far as his body was concerned, but illness could not subdue his +spirit. He was full of life, and had a gay and capable tongue. To all +appearances he was a sick man without being aware of it, for he did not +talk about his ailments, and his bearing and conduct were those of a +person in robust health; yet he was the prey, at intervals, of ghastly +sieges of pain in his heart. These lasted many hours, and while the +attack continued he could neither sit nor lie. In one instance he stood +on his feet twenty-four hours fighting for his life with these sharp +agonies, and yet was as full of life and cheer and activity +the next day as if nothing had happened. + +<p>The brightest passenger in the ship, and the most interesting and +felicitous talker, was a young Canadian who was not able to let the +whisky bottle alone. He was of a rich and powerful family, and could have +had a distinguished career and abundance of effective help toward it if +he could have conquered his appetite for drink; but he could not do it, +so his great equipment of talent was of no use to him. He had often taken +the pledge to drink no more, and was a good sample of what that sort of +unwisdom can do for a man—for a man with anything short of an iron will. +The system is wrong in two ways: it does not strike at the root of the +trouble, for one thing, and to make a pledge of any kind is to declare +war against nature; for a pledge is a chain that is always clanking and +reminding the wearer of it that he is not a free man. + +<p>I have said that the system does not strike at the root of the trouble, +and I venture to repeat that. The root is not the drinking, but the +desire to drink. These are very different things. The one merely +requires will—and a great deal of it, both as to bulk and staying +capacity—the other merely requires watchfulness—and for no long time. +The desire of course precedes the act, and should have one's first +attention; it can do but little good to refuse the act over and over +again, always leaving the desire unmolested, unconquered; the desire will +continue to assert itself, and will be almost sure to win in the long +run. When the desire intrudes, it should be at once banished out of the +mind. One should be on the watch for it all the time—otherwise it will +get in. It must be taken in time and not allowed to get a lodgment. A +desire constantly repulsed for a fortnight should die, then. That should +cure the drinking habit. The system of refusing the mere act of +drinking, and leaving the desire in full force, is unintelligent war +tactics, it seems to me. I used to take pledges—and soon violate them. +My will was not strong, and I could not help it. And then, to be tied in +any way naturally irks an otherwise free person and makes him chafe in +his bonds and want to get his liberty. But when I finally ceased from +taking definite pledges, and merely resolved that I would kill an +injurious desire, but leave myself free to resume the desire and the +habit whenever I should choose to do so, I had no more trouble. In five +days I drove out the desire to smoke and was not obliged to keep watch +after that; and I never experienced any strong desire to smoke again. At +the end of a year and a quarter of idleness I began to write a book, and +presently found that the pen was strangely reluctant to go. I tried a +smoke to see if that would help me out of the difficulty. It did. I +smoked eight or ten cigars and as many pipes a day for five months; +finished the book, and did not smoke again until a year had gone by and +another book had to be begun. + +<p>I can quit any of my nineteen injurious habits at any time, and without +discomfort or inconvenience. I think that the Dr. Tanners and those +others who go forty days without eating do it by resolutely keeping out +the desire to eat, in the beginning, and that after a few hours the +desire is discouraged and comes no more. + +<p>Once I tried my scheme in a large medical way. I had been confined to my +bed several days with lumbago. My case refused to improve. Finally the +doctor said,— + +<p>"My remedies have no fair chance. Consider what they have to fight, +besides the lumbago. You smoke extravagantly, don't you?" + +<p>"Yes." + +<p>"You take coffee immoderately?" + +<p>"Yes." + +<p>"And some tea?" + +<p>"Yes." + +<p>"You eat all kinds of things that are dissatisfied with each other's +company?" + +<p>"Yes." + +<p>"You drink two hot Scotches every night?" + +<p>"Yes." + +<p>"Very well, there you see what I have to contend against. We can't make +progress the way the matter stands. You must make a reduction in these +things; you must cut down your consumption of them considerably for some +days." + +<p>"I can't, doctor." + +<p>"Why can't you." + +<p>"I lack the will-power. I can cut them off entirely, but I can't merely +moderate them." + +<p>He said that that would answer, and said he would come around in +twenty-four hours and begin work again. He was taken ill himself and +could not come; but I did not need him. I cut off all those things for +two days and nights; in fact, I cut off all kinds of food, too, and all +drinks except water, and at the end of the forty-eight hours the lumbago +was discouraged and left me. I was a well man; so I gave thanks and took +to those delicacies again. + +<p>It seemed a valuable medical course, and I recommended it to a lady. She +had run down and down and down, and had at last reached a point where +medicines no longer had any helpful effect upon her. I said I knew I +could put her upon her feet in a week. It brightened her up, it filled +her with hope, and she said she would do everything I told her to do. So +I said she must stop swearing and drinking, and smoking and eating for +four days, and then she would be all right again. And it would have +happened just so, I know it; but she said she could not stop swearing, +and smoking, and drinking, because she had never done those things. So +there it was. She had neglected her habits, and hadn't any. Now that +they would have come good, there were none in stock. She had nothing to +fall back on. She was a sinking vessel, with no freight in her to throw +over lighten ship withal. Why, even one or two little bad habits could +have saved her, but she was just a moral pauper. When she could have +acquired them she was dissuaded by her parents, who were ignorant people +though reared in the best society, and it was too late to begin now. It +seemed such a pity; but there was no help for it. These things ought to +be attended to while a person is young; otherwise, when age and disease +come, there is nothing effectual to fight them with. + +<p>When I was a youth I used to take all kinds of pledges, and do my best to +keep them, but I never could, because I didn't strike at the root of the +habit—the desire; I generally broke down within the month. Once I tried +limiting a habit. That worked tolerably well for a while. I pledged +myself to smoke but one cigar a day. I kept the cigar waiting until +bedtime, then I had a luxurious time with it. But desire persecuted me +every day and all day long; so, within the week I found myself hunting +for larger cigars than I had been used to smoke; then larger ones still, +and still larger ones. Within the fortnight I was getting cigars made +for me—on a yet larger pattern. They still grew and grew in size. +Within the month my cigar had grown to such proportions that I could have +used it as a crutch. It now seemed to me that a one-cigar limit was no +real protection to a person, so I knocked my pledge on the head and +resumed my liberty. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p032.jpg (67K)" src="images/p032.jpg" height="1031" width="629"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>To go back to that young Canadian. He was a "remittance man," the first +one I had ever seen or heard of. Passengers explained the term to me. +They said that dissipated ne'er-do-wells belonging to important families +in England and Canada were not cast off by their people while there was +any hope of reforming them, but when that last hope perished at last, the +ne'er-do-well was sent abroad to get him out of the way. He was shipped +off with just enough money in his pocket—no, in the purser's pocket—for +the needs of the voyage—and when he reached his destined port he would +find a remittance awaiting him there. Not a large one, but just enough +to keep him a month. A similar remittance would come monthly thereafter. +It was the remittance-man's custom to pay his month's board and lodging +straightway—a duty which his landlord did not allow him to forget—then +spree away the rest of his money in a single night, then brood and mope +and grieve in idleness till the next remittance came. It is a pathetic +life. + +<p>We had other remittance-men on board, it was said. At least they said +they were R. M.'s. There were two. But they did not resemble the +Canadian; they lacked his tidiness, and his brains, and his gentlemanly +ways, and his resolute spirit, and his humanities and generosities. One +of them was a lad of nineteen or twenty, and he was a good deal of a +ruin, as to clothes, and morals, and general aspect. He said he was a +scion of a ducal house in England, and had been shipped to Canada for the +house's relief, that he had fallen into trouble there, and was now being +shipped to Australia. He said he had no title. Beyond this remark he +was economical of the truth. The first thing he did in Australia was to +get into the lockup, and the next thing he did was to proclaim himself an +earl in the police court in the morning and fail to prove it. + + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p034.jpg (11K)" src="images/p034.jpg" height="411" width="315"> +</center> +<br><br> + + +<br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ch2"></a><br><br>CHAPTER II.</h2> + +<p><i>When in doubt, tell the truth.</i> + <center>—Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.</center> + +<p>About four days out from Victoria we plunged into hot weather, and all +the male passengers put on white linen clothes. One or two days later we +crossed the 25th parallel of north latitude, and then, by order, the +officers of the ship laid away their blue uniforms and came out in white +linen ones. All the ladies were in white by this time. This prevalence +of snowy costumes gave the promenade deck an invitingly cool, and +cheerful and picnicky aspect. + +<p>From my diary: + +<p>There are several sorts of ills in the world from which a person can +never escape altogether, let him journey as far as he will. One escapes +from one breed of an ill only to encounter another breed of it. We have +come far from the snake liar and the fish liar, and there was rest and +peace in the thought; but now we have reached the realm of the boomerang +liar, and sorrow is with us once more. The first officer has seen a man +try to escape from his enemy by getting behind a tree; but the enemy sent +his boomerang sailing into the sky far above and beyond the tree; then it +turned, descended, and killed the man. The Australian passenger has seen +this thing done to two men, behind two trees—and by the one arrow. This +being received with a large silence that suggested doubt, he buttressed +it with the statement that his brother once saw the boomerang kill a bird +away off a hundred yards and bring it to the thrower. But these are ills +which must be borne. There is no other way. + +<p>The talk passed from the boomerang to dreams—usually a fruitful subject, +afloat or ashore—but this time the output was poor. Then it passed to +instances of extraordinary memory—with better results. Blind Tom, the +negro pianist, was spoken of, and it was said that he could accurately +play any piece of music, howsoever long and difficult, after hearing it +once; and that six months later he could accurately play it again, +without having touched it in the interval. One of the most striking of +the stories told was furnished by a gentleman who had served on the staff +of the Viceroy of India. He read the details from his note-book, and +explained that he had written them down, right after the consummation of +the incident which they described, because he thought that if he did not +put them down in black and white he might presently come to think he had +dreamed them or invented them. + +<p>The Viceroy was making a progress, and among the shows offered by the +Maharajah of Mysore for his entertainment was a memory-exhibition. The +Viceroy and thirty gentlemen of his suite sat in a row, and the +memory-expert, a high-caste Brahmin, was brought in and seated on the floor in +front of them. He said he knew but two languages, the English and his +own, but would not exclude any foreign tongue from the tests to be +applied to his memory. Then he laid before the assemblage his +program—a sufficiently extraordinary one. He proposed that one gentleman should +give him one word of a foreign sentence, and tell him its place in the +sentence. He was furnished with the French word 'est', and was told it +was second in a sentence of three words. The next, gentleman gave him +the German word 'verloren' and said it was the third in a sentence of +four words. He asked the next gentleman for one detail in a sum in +addition; another for one detail in a sum of subtraction; others for +single details in mathematical problems of various kinds; he got them. +Intermediates gave him single words from sentences in Greek, Latin, +Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and other languages, and told him their +places in the sentences. When at last everybody had furnished him a +single rag from a foreign sentence or a figure from a problem, he went +over the ground again, and got a second word and a second figure and was +told their places in the sentences and the sums; and so on and so on. He +went over the ground again and again until he had collected all the parts +of the sums and all the parts of the sentences—and all in disorder, of +course, not in their proper rotation. This had occupied two hours. + +<p>The Brahmin now sat silent and thinking, a while, then began and repeated +all the sentences, placing the words in their proper order, and untangled +the disordered arithmetical problems and gave accurate answers to them +all. + +<p>In the beginning he had asked the company to throw almonds at him during +the two hours, he to remember how many each gentleman had thrown; but +none were thrown, for the Viceroy said that the test would be a +sufficiently severe strain without adding that burden to it. + +<p>General Grant had a fine memory for all kinds of things, including even +names and faces, and I could have furnished an instance of it if I had +thought of it. The first time I ever saw him was early in his first term +as President. I had just arrived in Washington from the Pacific coast, a +stranger and wholly unknown to the public, and was passing the White +House one morning when I met a friend, a Senator from Nevada. He asked +me if I would like to see the President. I said I should be very glad; +so we entered. I supposed that the President would be in the midst of a +crowd, and that I could look at him in peace and security from a +distance, as another stray cat might look at another king. But it was in +the morning, and the Senator was using a privilege of his office which I +had not heard of—the privilege of intruding upon the Chief Magistrate's +working hours. Before I knew it, the Senator and I were in the presence, +and there was none there but we three. General Grant got slowly up from +his table, put his pen down, and stood before me with the iron expression +of a man who had not smiled for seven years, and was not intending to +smile for another seven. He looked me steadily in the eyes—mine lost +confidence and fell. I had never confronted a great man before, and was +in a miserable state of funk and inefficiency. The Senator said:— + +<p>"Mr. President, may I have the privilege of introducing Mr. Clemens?" + +<p>The President gave my hand an unsympathetic wag and dropped it. He did +not say a word but just stood. In my trouble I could not think of +anything to say, I merely wanted to resign. There was an awkward pause, +a dreary pause, a horrible pause. Then I thought of something, and +looked up into that unyielding face, and said timidly:— + +<p>"Mr. President, I—I am embarrassed. Are you?" + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p039.jpg (44K)" src="images/p039.jpg" height="923" width="633"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>His face broke—just a little—a wee glimmer, the momentary flicker of a +summer-lightning smile, seven years ahead of time—and I was out and gone +as soon as it was. + +<p>Ten years passed away before I saw him the second time. Meantime I was +become better known; and was one of the people appointed to respond to +toasts at the banquet given to General Grant in Chicago—by the Army of +the Tennessee when he came back from his tour around the world. I +arrived late at night and got up late in the morning. All the corridors +of the hotel were crowded with people waiting to get a glimpse of General +Grant when he should pass to the place whence he was to review the great +procession. I worked my way by the suite of packed drawing-rooms, and at +the corner of the house I found a window open where there was a roomy +platform decorated with flags, and carpeted. I stepped out on it, and +saw below me millions of people blocking all the streets, and other +millions caked together in all the windows and on all the house-tops +around. These masses took me for General Grant, and broke into volcanic +explosions and cheers; but it was a good place to see the procession, and +I stayed. Presently I heard the distant blare of military music, and far +up the street I saw the procession come in sight, cleaving its way +through the huzzaing multitudes, with Sheridan, the most martial figure +of the War, riding at its head in the dress uniform of a +Lieutenant-General. + +<p>And now General Grant, arm-in-arm with Major Carter Harrison, stepped out +on the platform, followed two and two by the badged and uniformed +reception committee. General Grant was looking exactly as he had looked +upon that trying occasion of ten years before—all iron and bronze +self-possession. Mr. Harrison came over and led me to the General and +formally introduced me. Before I could put together the proper remark, +General Grant said— + +<p>"Mr. Clemens, I am not embarrassed. Are you?"—and that little +seven-year smile twinkled across his face again. + +<p>Seventeen years have gone by since then, and to-day, in New York, the +streets are a crush of people who are there to honor the remains of the +great soldier as they pass to their final resting-place under the +monument; and the air is heavy with dirges and the boom of artillery, and +all the millions of America are thinking of the man who restored the +Union and the flag, and gave to democratic government a new lease of +life, and, as we may hope and do believe, a permanent place among the +beneficent institutions of men. + +<p>We had one game in the ship which was a good time-passer—at least it was +at night in the smoking-room when the men were getting freshened up from +the day's monotonies and dullnesses. It was the completing of +non-complete stories. That is to say, a man would tell all of a story except +the finish, then the others would try to supply the ending out of their +own invention. When every one who wanted a chance had had it, the man +who had introduced the story would give it its original ending—then you +could take your choice. Sometimes the new endings turned out to be +better than the old one. But the story which called out the most +persistent and determined and ambitious effort was one which had no +ending, and so there was nothing to compare the new-made endings with. +The man who told it said he could furnish the particulars up to a certain +point only, because that was as much of the tale as he knew. He had read +it in a volume of `sketches twenty-five years ago, and was interrupted +before the end was reached. He would give any one fifty dollars who +would finish the story to the satisfaction of a jury to be appointed by +ourselves. We appointed a jury and wrestled with the tale. We invented +plenty of endings, but the jury voted them all down. The jury was right. +It was a tale which the author of it may possibly have completed +satisfactorily, and if he really had that good fortune I would like to +know what the ending was. Any ordinary man will find that the story's +strength is in its middle, and that there is apparently no way to +transfer it to the close, where of course it ought to be. In substance +the storiette was as follows: + +<p>John Brown, aged thirty-one, good, gentle, bashful, timid, lived in a +quiet village in Missouri. He was superintendent of the Presbyterian +Sunday-school. It was but a humble distinction; still, it was his only +official one, and he was modestly proud of it and was devoted to its work +and its interests. The extreme kindliness of his nature was recognized +by all; in fact, people said that he was made entirely out of good +impulses and bashfulness; that he could always be counted upon for help +when it was needed, and for bashfulness both when it was needed and when +it wasn't. + +<p>Mary Taylor, twenty-three, modest, sweet, winning, and in character and +person beautiful, was all in all to him. And he was very nearly all in +all to her. She was wavering, his hopes were high. Her mother had been +in opposition from the first. But she was wavering, too; he could see +it. She was being touched by his warm interest in her two +charity-proteges and by his contributions toward their support. These were two +forlorn and aged sisters who lived in a log hut in a lonely place up a +cross road four miles from Mrs. Taylor's farm. One of the sisters was +crazy, and sometimes a little violent, but not often. + +<p>At last the time seemed ripe for a final advance, and Brown gathered his +courage together and resolved to make it. He would take along a +contribution of double the usual size, and win the mother over; with her +opposition annulled, the rest of the conquest would be sure and prompt. + +<p>He took to the road in the middle of a placid Sunday afternoon in the +soft Missourian summer, and he was equipped properly for his mission. He +was clothed all in white linen, with a blue ribbon for a necktie, and he +had on dressy tight boots. His horse and buggy were the finest that the +livery stable could furnish. The lap robe was of white linen, it was +new, and it had a hand-worked border that could not be rivaled in that +region for beauty and elaboration. + +<p>When he was four miles out on the lonely road and was walking his horse +over a wooden bridge, his straw hat blew off and fell in the creek, and +floated down and lodged against a bar. He did not quite know what to do. +He must have the hat, that was manifest; but how was he to get it? + +<p>Then he had an idea. The roads were empty, nobody was stirring. Yes, he +would risk it. He led the horse to the roadside and set it to cropping +the grass; then he undressed and put his clothes in the buggy, petted the +horse a moment to secure its compassion and its loyalty, then hurried to +the stream. He swam out and soon had the hat. When he got to the top of +the bank the horse was gone! + +<p>His legs almost gave way under him. The horse was walking leisurely +along the road. Brown trotted after it, saying, "Whoa, whoa, there's a +good fellow;" but whenever he got near enough to chance a jump for the +buggy, the horse quickened its pace a little and defeated him. And so +this went on, the naked man perishing with anxiety, and expecting every +moment to see people come in sight. He tagged on and on, imploring the +horse, beseeching the horse, till he had left a mile behind him, and was +closing up on the Taylor premises; then at last he was successful, and +got into the buggy. He flung on his shirt, his necktie, and his coat; +then reached for—but he was too late; he sat suddenly down and pulled up +the lap-robe, for he saw some one coming out of the gate—a woman; he +thought. He wheeled the horse to the left, and struck briskly up the +cross-road. It was perfectly straight, and exposed on both sides; but +there were woods and a sharp turn three miles ahead, and he was very +grateful when he got there. As he passed around the turn he slowed down +to a walk, and reached for his tr—— too late again. + +<p>He had come upon Mrs. Enderby, Mrs. Glossop, Mrs. Taylor, and Mary. +They were on foot, and seemed tired and excited. They came at once to +the buggy and shook hands, and all spoke at once, and said eagerly and +earnestly, how glad they were that he was come, and how fortunate it was. +And Mrs. Enderby said, impressively: + +<p>"It looks like an accident, his coming at such a time; but let no one +profane it with such a name; he was sent—sent from on high." + +<p>They were all moved, and Mrs. Glossop said in an awed voice: + +<p>"Sarah Enderby, you never said a truer word in your life. This is no +accident, it is a special Providence. He was sent. He is an angel—an +angel as truly as ever angel was—an angel of deliverance. I say angel, +Sarah Enderby, and will have no other word. Don't let any one ever say +to me again, that there's no such thing as special Providences; for if +this isn't one, let them account for it that can." + +<p>"I know it's so," said Mrs. Taylor, fervently. "John Brown, I could +worship you; I could go down on my knees to you. Didn't something tell +you?—didn't you feel that you were sent? I could kiss the hem of your +laprobe." + +<p>He was not able to speak; he was helpless with shame and fright. Mrs. +Taylor went on: + +<p>"Why, just look at it all around, Julia Glossop. Any person can see the +hand of Providence in it. Here at noon what do we see? We see the smoke +rising. I speak up and say, 'That's the Old People's cabin afire.' +Didn't I, Julia Glossop?" + +<p>"The very words you said, Nancy Taylor. I was as close to you as I am +now, and I heard them. You may have said hut instead of cabin, but in +substance it's the same. And you were looking pale, too." + +<p>"Pale? I was that pale that if—why, you just compare it with this +laprobe. Then the next thing I said was, 'Mary Taylor, tell the hired +man to rig up the team-we'll go to the rescue.' And she said, 'Mother, +don't you know you told him he could drive to see his people, and stay +over Sunday?' And it was just so. I declare for it, I had forgotten it. +'Then,' said I, 'we'll go afoot.' And go we did. And found Sarah +Enderby on the road." + +<p>"And we all went together," said Mrs. Enderby. "And found the cabin set +fire to and burnt down by the crazy one, and the poor old things so old +and feeble that they couldn't go afoot. And we got them to a shady place +and made them as comfortable as we could, and began to wonder which way +to turn to find some way to get them conveyed to Nancy Taylor's house. +And I spoke up and said—now what did I say? Didn't I say, 'Providence +will provide'?" + +<p>"Why sure as you live, so you did! I had forgotten it." + +<p>"So had I," said Mrs. Glossop and Mrs. Taylor; "but you certainly said +it. Now wasn't that remarkable?" + +<p>"Yes, I said it. And then we went to Mr. Moseley's, two miles, and all +of them were gone to the camp meeting over on Stony Fork; and then we +came all the way back, two miles, and then here, another mile—and +Providence has provided. You see it yourselves" + +<p>They gazed at each other awe-struck, and lifted their hands and said in +unison: + +<p>"It's per-fectly wonderful." + +<p>"And then," said Mrs. Glossop, "what do you think we had better do let +Mr. Brown drive the Old People to Nancy Taylor's one at a time, or put +both of them in the buggy, and him lead the horse?" + +<p>Brown gasped. + +<p>"Now, then, that's a question," said Mrs. Enderby. "You see, we are all +tired out, and any way we fix it it's going to be difficult. For if Mr. +Brown takes both of them, at least one of us must, go back to help him, +for he can't load them into the buggy by himself, and they so helpless." + +<p>"That is so," said Mrs. Taylor. "It doesn't look-oh, how would this +do?—one of us drive there with Mr. Brown, and the rest of you go along to +my house and get things ready. I'll go with him. He and I together can +lift one of the Old People into the buggy; then drive her to my house +and—— + +<p>"But who will take care of the other one?" said Mrs. Enderby. "We +musn't leave her there in the woods alone, you know—especially the crazy +one. There and back is eight miles, you see." + +<p>They had all been sitting on the grass beside the buggy for a while, now, +trying to rest their weary bodies. They fell silent a moment or two, and +struggled in thought over the baffling situation; then Mrs. Enderby +brightened and said: + +<p>"I think I've got the idea, now. You see, we can't walk any more. Think +what we've done: four miles there, two to Moseley's, is six, then back to +here—nine miles since noon, and not a bite to eat; I declare I don't see +how we've done it; and as for me, I am just famishing. Now, somebody's +got to go back, to help Mr. Brown—there's no getting mound that; but +whoever goes has got to ride, not walk. So my idea is this: one of us to +ride back with Mr. Brown, then ride to Nancy Taylor's house with one of +the Old People, leaving Mr. Brown to keep the other old one company, you +all to go now to Nancy's and rest and wait; then one of you drive back +and get the other one and drive her to Nancy's, and Mr. Brown walk." + +<p>"Splendid!" they all cried. "Oh, that will do—that will answer +perfectly." And they all said that Mrs. Enderby had the best head for +planning, in the company; and they said that they wondered that they +hadn't thought of this simple plan themselves. They hadn't meant to take +back the compliment, good simple souls, and didn't know they had done it. +After a consultation it was decided that Mrs. Enderby should drive back +with Brown, she being entitled to the distinction because she had +invented the plan. Everything now being satisfactorily arranged and +settled, the ladies rose, relieved and happy, and brushed down their +gowns, and three of them started homeward; Mrs. Enderby set her foot on +the buggy-step and was about to climb in, when Brown found a remnant of +his voice and gasped out— + +<p>"Please Mrs. Enderby, call them back—I am very weak; I can't walk, I +can't, indeed." + +<p>"Why, dear Mr. Brown! You do look pale; I am ashamed of myself that I +didn't notice it sooner. Come back-all of you! Mr. Brown is not well. +Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Brown?—I'm real sorry. Are you +in pain?" + +<p>"No, madam, only weak; I am not sick, but only just weak—lately; not +long, but just lately." + +<p>The others came back, and poured out their sympathies and commiserations, +and were full of self-reproaches for not having noticed how pale he was. + +<p>And they at once struck out a new plan, and soon agreed that it was by +far the best of all. They would all go to Nancy Taylor's house and see +to Brown's needs first. He could lie on the sofa in the parlor, and +while Mrs. Taylor and Mary took care of him the other two ladies would +take the buggy and go and get one of the Old People, and leave one of +themselves with the other one, and—— + +<p>By this time, without any solicitation, they were at the horse's head and +were beginning to turn him around. The danger was imminent, but Brown +found his voice again and saved himself. He said— + +<p>"But ladies, you are overlooking something which makes the plan +impracticable. You see, if you bring one of them home, and one remains +behind with the other, there will be three persons there when one of you +comes back for that other, for some one must drive the buggy back, and +three can't come home in it." + +<p>They all exclaimed, "Why, sure-ly, that is so!" and they were, all +perplexed again. + +<p>"Dear, dear, what can we do?" said Mrs. Glossop; "it is the most +mixed-up thing that ever was. The fox and the goose and the corn and +things—oh, dear, they are nothing to it." + +<p>They sat wearily down once more, to further torture their tormented heads +for a plan that would work. Presently Mary offered a plan; it was her +first effort. She said: + +<p>"I am young and strong, and am refreshed, now. Take Mr. Brown to our +house, and give him help—you see how plainly he needs it. I will go +back and take care of the Old People; I can be there in twenty minutes. +You can go on and do what you first started to do—wait on the main road +at our house until somebody comes along with a wagon; then send and bring +away the three of us. You won't have to wait long; the farmers will soon +be coming back from town, now. I will keep old Polly patient and cheered +up—the crazy one doesn't need it." + +<p>This plan was discussed and accepted; it seemed the best that could be +done, in the circumstances, and the Old People must be getting +discouraged by this time. + +<p>Brown felt relieved, and was deeply thankful. Let him once get to the +main road and he would find a way to escape. + +<p>Then Mrs. Taylor said: + +<p>"The evening chill will be coming on, pretty soon, and those poor old +burnt-out things will need some kind of covering. Take the lap-robe with +you, dear." + +<p>"Very well, Mother, I will." + +<p>She stepped to the buggy and put out her hand to take it—— + +<p>That was the end of the tale. The passenger who told it said that when +he read the story twenty-five years ago in a train he was interrupted at +that point—the train jumped off a bridge. + +<p>At first we thought we could finish the story quite easily, and we set to +work with confidence; but it soon began to appear that it was not a +simple thing, but difficult and baffling. This was on account of Brown's +character—great generosity and kindliness, but complicated with unusual +shyness and diffidence, particularly in the presence of ladies. There +was his love for Mary, in a hopeful state but not yet secure—just in a +condition, indeed, where its affair must be handled with great tact, and +no mistakes made, no offense given. And there was the mother wavering, +half willing-by adroit and flawless diplomacy to be won over, now, or +perhaps never at all. Also, there were the helpless Old People yonder in +the woods waiting-their fate and Brown's happiness to be determined by +what Brown should do within the next two seconds. Mary was reaching for +the lap-robe; Brown must decide-there was no time to be lost. + +<p>Of course none but a happy ending of the story would be accepted by the +jury; the finish must find Brown in high credit with the ladies, his +behavior without blemish, his modesty unwounded, his character for self +sacrifice maintained, the Old People rescued through him, their +benefactor, all the party proud of him, happy in him, his praises on all +their tongues. + +<p>We tried to arrange this, but it was beset with persistent and +irreconcilable difficulties. We saw that Brown's shyness would not allow +him to give up the lap-robe. This would offend Mary and her mother; and +it would surprise the other ladies, partly because this stinginess toward +the suffering Old People would be out of character with Brown, and partly +because he was a special Providence and could not properly act so. If +asked to explain his conduct, his shyness would not allow him to tell the +truth, and lack of invention and practice would find him incapable of +contriving a lie that would wash. We worked at the troublesome problem +until three in the morning. + +<p>Meantime Mary was still reaching for the lap-robe. We gave it up, and +decided to let her continue to reach. It is the reader's privilege to +determine for himself how the thing came out. + + +<br><br><br><br> + +<center> +<table summary="STORY"> +<tr> + +<td> +<img alt="p043.jpg (11K)" src="images/p043.jpg" height="413" width="277"> + +</td> + + +<td> +<img alt="p047.jpg (10K)" src="images/p047.jpg" height="290" width="292"> +</td> + +</tr> +</table> +</center> + + + +<br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ch3"></a><br><br>CHAPTER III.</h2> + +<p><i>It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right.</i> + <center>—Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.</center> + +<br><br> +<center><img alt="p049.jpg (41K)" src="images/p049.jpg" height="813" width="553"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>On the seventh day out we saw a dim vast bulk standing up out of the +wastes of the Pacific and knew that that spectral promontory was Diamond +Head, a piece of this world which I had not seen before for twenty-nine +years. So we were nearing Honolulu, the capital city of the Sandwich +Islands—those islands which to me were Paradise; a Paradise which I had +been longing all those years to see again. Not any other thing in the +world could have stirred me as the sight of that great rock did. + +<p>In the night we anchored a mile from shore. Through my port I could see +the twinkling lights of Honolulu and the dark bulk of the mountain-range +that stretched away right and left. I could not make out the beautiful +Nuuana valley, but I knew where it lay, and remembered how it used to +look in the old times. We used to ride up it on horseback in those +days—we young people—and branch off and gather bones in a sandy region +where one of the first Kamehameha's battles was fought. He was a +remarkable man, for a king; and he was also a remarkable man for a +savage. He was a mere kinglet and of little or no consequence at the +time of Captain Cook's arrival in 1788; but about four years afterward he +conceived the idea of enlarging his sphere of influence. That is a +courteous modern phrase which means robbing your neighbor—for your +neighbor's benefit; and the great theater of its benevolences is Africa. +Kamehameha went to war, and in the course of ten years he whipped out all +the other kings and made himself master of every one of the nine or ten +islands that form the group. But he did more than that. He bought +ships, freighted them with sandal wood and other native products, and +sent them as far as South America and China; he sold to his savages the +foreign stuffs and tools and utensils which came back in these ships, and +started the march of civilization. It is doubtful if the match to this +extraordinary thing is to be found in the history of any other savage. +Savages are eager to learn from the white man any new way to kill each +other, but it is not their habit to seize with avidity and apply with +energy the larger and nobler ideas which he offers them. The details of +Kamehameha's history show that he was always hospitably ready to examine +the white man's ideas, and that he exercised a tidy discrimination in +making his selections from the samples placed on view. + +<p>A shrewder discrimination than was exhibited by his son and successor, +Liholiho, I think. Liholiho could have qualified as a reformer, perhaps, +but as a king he was a mistake. A mistake because he tried to be both +king and reformer. This is mixing fire and gunpowder together. A king +has no proper business with reforming. His best policy is to keep things +as they are; and if he can't do that, he ought to try to make them worse +than they are. This is not guesswork; I have thought over this matter a +good deal, so that if I should ever have a chance to become a king I +would know how to conduct the business in the best way. + +<p>When Liholiho succeeded his father he found himself possessed of an +equipment of royal tools and safeguards which a wiser king would have +known how to husband, and judiciously employ, and make profitable. The +entire country was under the one scepter, and his was that scepter. +There was an Established Church, and he was the head of it. There was a +Standing Army, and he was the head of that; an Army of 114 privates under +command of 27 Generals and a Field Marshal. There was a proud and +ancient Hereditary Nobility. There was still one other asset. This was +the tabu—an agent endowed with a mysterious and stupendous power, an +agent not found among the properties of any European monarch, a tool of +inestimable value in the business. Liholiho was headmaster of the tabu. +The tabu was the most ingenious and effective of all the inventions that +has ever been devised for keeping a people's privileges satisfactorily +restricted. + +<p>It required the sexes to live in separate houses. It did not allow +people to eat in either house; they must eat in another place. It did +not allow a man's woman-folk to enter his house. It did not allow the +sexes to eat together; the men must eat first, and the women must wait on +them. Then the women could eat what was left—if anything was left—and +wait on themselves. I mean, if anything of a coarse or unpalatable sort +was left, the women could have it. But not the good things, the fine +things, the choice things, such as pork, poultry, bananas, cocoanuts, the +choicer varieties of fish, and so on. By the tabu, all these were sacred +to the men; the women spent their lives longing for them and wondering +what they might taste like; and they died without finding out. + +<p>These rules, as you see, were quite simple and clear. It was easy to +remember them; and useful. For the penalty for infringing any rule in +the whole list was death. Those women easily learned to put up with +shark and taro and dog for a diet when the other things were so +expensive. + +<p>It was death for any one to walk upon tabu'd ground; or defile a tabu'd +thing with his touch; or fail in due servility to a chief; or step upon +the king's shadow. The nobles and the King and the priests were always +suspending little rags here and there and yonder, to give notice to the +people that the decorated spot or thing was tabu, and death lurking near. +The struggle for life was difficult and chancy in the islands in those +days. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p053.jpg (14K)" src="images/p053.jpg" height="421" width="332"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Thus advantageously was the new king situated. Will it be believed that +the first thing he did was to destroy his Established Church, root and +branch? He did indeed do that. To state the case figuratively, he was a +prosperous sailor who burnt his ship and took to a raft. This Church was +a horrid thing. It heavily oppressed the people; it kept them always +trembling in the gloom of mysterious threatenings; it slaughtered them in +sacrifice before its grotesque idols of wood and stone; it cowed them, it +terrorized them, it made them slaves to its priests, and through the +priests to the king. It was the best friend a king could have, and the +most dependable. To a professional reformer who should annihilate so +frightful and so devastating a power as this Church, reverence and praise +would be due; but to a king who should do it, could properly be due +nothing but reproach; reproach softened by sorrow; sorrow for his +unfitness for his position. + +<p>He destroyed his Established Church, and his kingdom is a republic today, +in consequence of that act. + +<p>When he destroyed the Church and burned the idols he did a mighty thing +for civilization and for his people's weal—but it was not "business." +It was unkingly, it was inartistic. It made trouble for his line. The +American missionaries arrived while the burned idols were still smoking. +They found the nation without a religion, and they repaired the defect. +They offered their own religion and it was gladly received. But it was +no support to arbitrary kingship, and so the kingly power began to weaken +from that day. Forty-seven years later, when I was in the islands, +Kainehameha V. was trying to repair Liholiho's blunder, and not +succeeding. He had set up an Established Church and made himself the +head of it. But it was only a pinchbeck thing, an imitation, a bauble, +an empty show. It had no power, no value for a king. It could not harry +or burn or slay, it in no way resembled the admirable machine which +Liholiho destroyed. It was an Established Church without an +Establishment; all the people were Dissenters. + +<p>Long before that, the kingship had itself become but a name, a show. At +an early day the missionaries had turned it into something very much like +a republic; and here lately the business whites have turned it into +something exactly like it. + +<p>In Captain Cook's time (1778), the native population of the islands was +estimated at 400,000; in 1836 at something short of 200,000, in 1866 at +50,000; it is to-day, per census, 25,000. All intelligent people praise +Kamehameha I. and Liholiho for conferring upon their people the great +boon of civilization. I would do it myself, but my intelligence is out +of repair, now, from over-work. + +<p>When I was in the islands nearly a generation ago, I was acquainted with +a young American couple who had among their belongings an attractive +little son of the age of seven—attractive but not practicably +companionable with me, because he knew no English. He had played from +his birth with the little Kanakas on his father's plantation, and had +preferred their language and would learn no other. The family removed to +America a month after I arrived in the islands, and straightway the boy +began to lose his Kanaka and pick up English. By the time he was twelve +be hadn't a word of Kanaka left; the language had wholly departed from +his tongue and from his comprehension. Nine years later, when he was +twenty-one, I came upon the family in one of the lake towns of New York, +and the mother told me about an adventure which her son had been having. +By trade he was now a professional diver. A passenger boat had been +caught in a storm on the lake, and had gone down, carrying her people +with her. A few days later the young diver descended, with his armor on, +and entered the berth-saloon of the boat, and stood at the foot of the +companionway, with his hand on the rail, peering through the dim water. +Presently something touched him on the shoulder, and he turned and found +a dead man swaying and bobbing about him and seemingly inspecting him +inquiringly. He was paralyzed with fright. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p056.jpg (80K)" src="images/p056.jpg" height="1049" width="611"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>His entry had disturbed the +water, and now he discerned a number of dim corpses making for him and +wagging their heads and swaying their bodies like sleepy people trying to +dance. His senses forsook him, and in that condition he was drawn to the +surface. He was put to bed at home, and was soon very ill. During some +days he had seasons of delirium which lasted several hours at a time; and +while they lasted he talked Kanaka incessantly and glibly; and Kanaka +only. He was still very ill, and he talked to me in that tongue; but I +did not understand it, of course. The doctor-books tell us that cases +like this are not uncommon. Then the doctors ought to study the cases +and find out how to multiply them. Many languages and things get mislaid +in a person's head, and stay mislaid for lack of this remedy. + +<p>Many memories of my former visit to the islands came up in my mind while +we lay at anchor in front of Honolulu that night. And pictures—pictures +pictures—an enchanting procession of them! I was impatient for the +morning to come. + +<p>When it came it brought disappointment, of course. Cholera had broken +out in the town, and we were not allowed to have any communication with +the shore. Thus suddenly did my dream of twenty-nine years go to ruin. +Messages came from friends, but the friends themselves I was not to have +any sight of. My lecture-hall was ready, but I was not to see that, +either. + +<p>Several of our passengers belonged in Honolulu, and these were sent +ashore; but nobody could go ashore and return. There were people on +shore who were booked to go with us to Australia, but we could not +receive them; to do it would cost us a quarantine-term in Sydney. They +could have escaped the day before, by ship to San Francisco; but the bars +had been put up, now, and they might have to wait weeks before any ship +could venture to give them a passage any whither. And there were +hardships for others. An elderly lady and her son, recreation-seekers +from Massachusetts, had wandered westward, further and further from home, +always intending to take the return track, but always concluding to go +still a little further; and now here they were at anchor before Honolulu +positively their last westward-bound indulgence—they had made up their +minds to that—but where is the use in making up your mind in this world? +It is usually a waste of time to do it. These two would have to stay +with us as far as Australia. Then they could go on around the world, or +go back the way they had come; the distance and the accommodations and +outlay of time would be just the same, whichever of the two routes they +might elect to take. Think of it: a projected excursion of five hundred +miles gradually enlarged, without any elaborate degree of intention, to a +possible twenty-four thousand. However, they were used to extensions by +this time, and did not mind this new one much. + +<p>And we had with us a lawyer from Victoria, who had been sent out by the +Government on an international matter, and he had brought his wife with +him and left the children at home with the servants and now what was to +be done? Go ashore amongst the cholera and take the risks? Most +certainly not. They decided to go on, to the Fiji islands, wait there a +fortnight for the next ship, and then sail for home. They couldn't +foresee that they wouldn't see a homeward-bound ship again for six weeks, +and that no word could come to them from the children, and no word go +from them to the children in all that time. It is easy to make plans in +this world; even a cat can do it; and when one is out in those remote +oceans it is noticeable that a cat's plans and a man's are worth about +the same. There is much the same shrinkage in both, in the matter of +values. + +<p>There was nothing for us to do but sit about the decks in the shade of +the awnings and look at the distant shore. We lay in luminous blue +water; shoreward the water was green-green and brilliant; at the shore +itself it broke in a long white ruffle, and with no crash, no sound that +we could hear. The town was buried under a mat of foliage that looked +like a cushion of moss. The silky mountains were clothed in soft, rich +splendors of melting color, and some of the cliffs were veiled in +slanting mists. I recognized it all. It was just as I had seen it long +before, with nothing of its beauty lost, nothing of its charm wanting. + +<p>A change had come, but that was political, and not visible from the ship. +The monarchy of my day was gone, and a republic was sitting in its seat. +It was not a material change. The old imitation pomps, the fuss and +feathers, have departed, and the royal trademark—that is about all that +one could miss, I suppose. That imitation monarchy, was grotesque +enough, in my time; if it had held on another thirty years it would have +been a monarchy without subjects of the king's race. + +<p>We had a sunset of a very fine sort. The vast plain of the sea was +marked off in bands of sharply-contrasted colors: great stretches of dark +blue, others of purple, others of polished bronze; the billowy mountains +showed all sorts of dainty browns and greens, blues and purples and +blacks, and the rounded velvety backs of certain of them made one want to +stroke them, as one would the sleek back of a cat. The long, sloping +promontory projecting into the sea at the west turned dim and leaden and +spectral, then became suffused with pink—dissolved itself in a pink +dream, so to speak, it seemed so airy and unreal. Presently the +cloud-rack was flooded with fiery splendors, and these were copied on the +surface of the sea, and it made one drunk with delight to look upon it. + +<p>From talks with certain of our passengers whose home was Honolulu, and +from a sketch by Mrs. Mary H. Krout, I was able to perceive what the +Honolulu of to-day is, as compared with the Honolulu of my time. In my +time it was a beautiful little town, made up of snow-white wooden +cottages deliciously smothered in tropical vines and flowers and trees +and shrubs; and its coral roads and streets were hard and smooth, and as +white as the houses. The outside aspects of the place suggested the +presence of a modest and comfortable prosperity—a general +prosperity—perhaps one might strengthen the term and say universal. There were no +fine houses, no fine furniture. There were no decorations. Tallow +candles furnished the light for the bedrooms, a whale-oil lamp furnished +it for the parlor. Native matting served as carpeting. In the parlor +one would find two or three lithographs on the walls—portraits as a +rule: Kamehameha IV., Louis Kossuth, Jenny Lind; and may be an engraving +or two: Rebecca at the Well, Moses smiting the rock, Joseph's servants +finding the cup in Benjamin's sack. There would be a center table, with +books of a tranquil sort on it: The Whole Duty of Man, Baxter's Saints' +Rest, Fox's Martyrs, Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy, bound copies of The +Missionary Herald and of Father Damon's Seaman's Friend. A melodeon; a +music stand, with 'Willie, We have Missed You', 'Star of the Evening', +'Roll on Silver Moon', 'Are We Most There', 'I Would not Live Alway', and +other songs of love and sentiment, together with an assortment of hymns. +A what-not with semi-globular glass paperweights, enclosing miniature +pictures of ships, New England rural snowstorms, and the like; sea-shells +with Bible texts carved on them in cameo style; native curios; whale's +tooth with full-rigged ship carved on it. There was nothing reminiscent +of foreign parts, for nobody had been abroad. Trips were made to San +Francisco, but that could not be called going abroad. Comprehensively +speaking, nobody traveled. + +<p>But Honolulu has grown wealthy since then, and of course wealth has +introduced changes; some of the old simplicities have disappeared. Here +is a modern house, as pictured by Mrs. Krout: + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p> "Almost every house is surrounded by extensive lawns and gardens + enclosed by walls of volcanic stone or by thick hedges of the + brilliant hibiscus. + +<p> "The houses are most tastefully and comfortably furnished; the + floors are either of hard wood covered with rugs or with fine Indian + matting, while there is a preference, as in most warm countries, for + rattan or bamboo furniture; there are the usual accessories of + bric-a-brac, pictures, books, and curios from all parts of the world, for + these island dwellers are indefatigable travelers. + +<p> "Nearly every house has what is called a lanai. It is a large + apartment, roofed, floored, open on three sides, with a door or a + draped archway opening into the drawing-room. Frequently the roof + is formed by the thick interlacing boughs of the hou tree, + impervious to the sun and even to the rain, except in violent + storms. Vines are trained about the sides—the stephanotis or some + one of the countless fragrant and blossoming trailers which abound + in the islands. There are also curtains of matting that may be + drawn to exclude the sun or rain. The floor is bare for coolness, + or partially covered with rugs, and the lanai is prettily furnished + with comfortable chairs, sofas, and tables loaded with flowers, or + wonderful ferns in pots. + +<p> "The lanai is the favorite reception room, and here at any social + function the musical program is given and cakes and ices are served; + here morning callers are received, or gay riding parties, the ladies + in pretty divided skirts, worn for convenience in riding + astride,—the universal mode adopted by Europeans and Americans, as well as by + the natives. + +<p> "The comfort and luxury of such an apartment, especially at a + seashore villa, can hardly be imagined. The soft breezes sweep + across it, heavy with the fragrance of jasmine and gardenia, and + through the swaying boughs of palm and mimosa there are glimpses of + rugged mountains, their summits veiled in clouds, of purple sea with + the white surf beating eternally against the reefs, whiter still in + the yellow sunlight or the magical moonlight of the tropics." +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>There: rugs, ices, pictures, lanais, worldly books, sinful bric-a-brac +fetched from everywhere. And the ladies riding astride. These are +changes, indeed. In my time the native women rode astride, but the white +ones lacked the courage to adopt their wise custom. In my time ice was +seldom seen in Honolulu. It sometimes came in sailing vessels from New +England as ballast; and then, if there happened to be a man-of-war in +port and balls and suppers raging by consequence, the ballast was worth +six hundred dollars a ton, as is evidenced by reputable tradition. But +the ice-machine has traveled all over the world, now, and brought ice +within everybody's reach. In Lapland and Spitzbergen no one uses native +ice in our day, except the bears and the walruses. + +<p>The bicycle is not mentioned. It was not necessary. We know that it is +there, without inquiring. It is everywhere. But for it, people could +never have had summer homes on the summit of Mont Blanc; before its day, +property up there had but a nominal value. The ladies of the Hawaiian +capital learned too late the right way to occupy a horse—too late to get +much benefit from it. The riding-horse is retiring from business +everywhere in the world. In Honolulu a few years from now he will be +only a tradition. + +<p>We all know about Father Damien, the French priest who voluntarily +forsook the world and went to the leper island of Molokai to labor among +its population of sorrowful exiles who wait there, in slow-consuming +misery, for death to cone and release them from their troubles; and we +know that the thing which he knew beforehand would happen, did happen: +that he became a leper himself, and died of that horrible disease. There +was still another case of self-sacrifice, it appears. I asked after +"Billy" Ragsdale, interpreter to the Parliament in my time—a half-white. +He was a brilliant young fellow, and very popular. As an interpreter he +would have been hard to match anywhere. He used to stand up in the +Parliament and turn the English speeches into Hawaiian and the Hawaiian +speeches into English with a readiness and a volubility that were +astonishing. I asked after him, and was told that his prosperous career +was cut short in a sudden and unexpected way, just as he was about to +marry a beautiful half-caste girl. He discovered, by some nearly +invisible sign about his skin, that the poison of leprosy was in him. +The secret was his own, and might be kept concealed for years; but he +would not be treacherous to the girl that loved him; he would not marry +her to a doom like his. And so he put his affairs in order, and went +around to all his friends and bade them good-bye, and sailed in the leper +ship to Molokai. There he died the loathsome and lingering death that +all lepers die. + +<p>In this place let me insert a paragraph or two from "The Paradise of +the Pacific" (Rev. H. H. Gowen)— + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p> "Poor lepers! It is easy for those who have no relatives or friends + among them to enforce the decree of segregation to the letter, but + who can write of the terrible, the heart-breaking scenes which that + enforcement has brought about? + +<p> "A man upon Hawaii was suddenly taken away after a summary arrest, + leaving behind him a helpless wife about to give birth to a babe. + The devoted wife with great pain and risk came the whole journey to + Honolulu, and pleaded until the authorities were unable to resist + her entreaty that she might go and live like a leper with her leper + husband. + +<p> "A woman in the prime of life and activity is condemned as an + incipient leper, suddenly removed from her home, and her husband + returns to find his two helpless babes moaning for their lost + mother. + +<p> "Imagine it! The case of the babies is hard, but its bitterness is + a trifle—less than a trifle—less than nothing—compared to what + the mother must suffer; and suffer minute by minute, hour by hour, + day by day, month by month, year by year, without respite, relief, + or any abatement of her pain till she dies. + +<p> "One woman, Luka Kaaukau, has been living with her leper husband in + the settlement for twelve years. The man has scarcely a joint left, + his limbs are only distorted ulcerated stumps, for four years his + wife has put every particle of food into his mouth. He wanted his + wife to abandon his wretched carcass long ago, as she herself was + sound and well, but Luka said that she was content to remain and + wait on the man she loved till the spirit should be freed from its + burden. + +<p> "I myself have known hard cases enough:—of a girl, apparently in + full health, decorating the church with me at Easter, who before + Christmas is taken away as a confirmed leper; of a mother hiding her + child in the mountains for years so that not even her dearest + friends knew that she had a child alive, that he might not be taken + away; of a respectable white man taken away from his wife and + family, and compelled to become a dweller in the Leper Settlement, + where he is counted dead, even by the insurance companies." +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>And one great pity of it all is, that these poor sufferers are innocent. +The leprosy does not come of sins which they committed, but of sins +committed by their ancestors, who escaped the curse of leprosy! + +<p>Mr. Gowan has made record of a certain very striking circumstance. Would +you expect to find in that awful Leper Settlement a custom worthy to be +transplanted to your own country? They have one such, and it is +inexpressibly touching and beautiful. When death sets open the +prison-door of life there, the band salutes the freed soul with a burst of glad +music! + +<br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ch4"></a><br><br>CHAPTER IV.</h2> + +<p><i>A dozen direct censures are easier to bear than one morganatic +compliment.</i> + <center>—Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.</center> + +<p>Sailed from Honolulu.—From diary: + +<p>Sept. 2. Flocks of flying fish-slim, shapely, graceful, and intensely +white. With the sun on them they look like a flight of silver +fruit-knives. They are able to fly a hundred yards. + +<p>Sept. 3. In 9 deg. 50' north latitude, at breakfast. Approaching the +equator on a long slant. Those of us who have never seen the equator are +a good deal excited. I think I would rather see it than any other thing +in the world. We entered the "doldrums" last night—variable winds, +bursts of rain, intervals of calm, with chopping seas and a wobbly and +drunken motion to the ship—a condition of things findable in other +regions sometimes, but present in the doldrums always. The +globe-girdling belt called the doldrums is 20 degrees wide, and the thread +called the equator lies along the middle of it. + +<p>Sept. 4. Total eclipse of the moon last night. At 1.30 it began to go +off. At total—or about that—it was like a rich rosy cloud with a +tumbled surface framed in the circle and projecting from it—a bulge of +strawberry-ice, so to speak. At half-eclipse the moon was like a gilded +acorn in its cup. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p066.jpg (9K)" src="images/p066.jpg" height="325" width="301"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Sept. 5. Closing in on the equator this noon. A sailor explained to a +young girl that the ship's speed is poor because we are climbing up the +bulge toward the center of the globe; but that when we should once get +over, at the equator, and start down-hill, we should fly. When she asked +him the other day what the fore-yard was, he said it was the front yard, +the open area in the front end of the ship. That man has a good deal of +learning stored up, and the girl is likely to get it all. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p067.jpg (64K)" src="images/p067.jpg" height="410" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Afternoon. Crossed the equator. In the distance it looked like a blue +ribbon stretched across the ocean. Several passengers kodak'd it. We +had no fool ceremonies, no fantastics, no horse play. All that sort of +thing has gone out. In old times a sailor, dressed as Neptune, used to +come in over the bows, with his suite, and lather up and shave everybody +who was crossing the equator for the first time, and then cleanse these +unfortunates by swinging them from the yard-arm and ducking them three +times in the sea. This was considered funny. Nobody knows why. No, that +is not true. We do know why. Such a thing could never be funny on land; +no part of the old-time grotesque performances gotten up on shipboard to +celebrate the passage of the line would ever be funny on shore—they +would seem dreary and less to shore people. But the shore people would +change their minds about it at sea, on a long voyage. On such a voyage, +with its eternal monotonies, people's intellects deteriorate; the owners +of the intellects soon reach a point where they almost seem to prefer +childish things to things of a maturer degree. One is often surprised at +the juvenilities which grown people indulge in at sea, and the interest +they take in them, and the consuming enjoyment they get out of them. +This is on long voyages only. The mind gradually becomes inert, dull, +blunted; it loses its accustomed interest in intellectual things; nothing +but horse-play can rouse it, nothing but wild and foolish grotesqueries +can entertain it. On short voyages it makes no such exposure of itself; +it hasn't time to slump down to this sorrowful level. + +<p>The short-voyage passenger gets his chief physical exercise out of +"horse-billiards"—shovel-board. It is a good game. We play it in this +ship. A quartermaster chalks off a diagram like this-on the deck. + +<p>The player uses a cue that is like a broom-handle with a quarter-moon of +wood fastened to the end of it. With this he shoves wooden disks the +size of a saucer—he gives the disk a vigorous shove and sends it fifteen +or twenty feet along the deck and lands it in one of the squares if he +can. If it stays there till the inning is played out, it will count as +many points in the game as the figure in the square it has stopped in +represents. The adversary plays to knock that disk out and leave his own +in its place—particularly if it rests upon the 9 or 10 or some other of +the high numbers; but if it rests in the "10off" he backs it up—lands +his disk behind it a foot or two, to make it difficult for its owner to +knock it out of that damaging place and improve his record. When the +inning is played out it may be found that each adversary has placed his +four disks where they count; it may be found that some of them are +touching chalk lines and not counting; and very often it will be found +that there has been a general wreckage, and that not a disk has been left +within the diagram. Anyway, the result is recorded, whatever it is, and +the game goes on. The game is 100 points, and it takes from twenty +minutes to forty to play it, according to luck and the condition of the +sea. It is an exciting game, and the crowd of spectators furnish +abundance of applause for fortunate shots and plenty of laughter for the +other kind. It is a game of skill, but at the same time the uneasy +motion of the ship is constantly interfering with skill; this makes it a +chancy game, and the element of luck comes largely in. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p068.jpg (37K)" src="images/p068.jpg" height="1061" width="561"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>We had a couple of grand tournaments, to determine who should be +"Champion of the Pacific"; they included among the participants nearly +all the passengers, of both sexes, and the officers of the ship, and they +afforded many days of stupendous interest and excitement, and murderous +exercise—for horse-billiards is a physically violent game. + +<p>The figures in the following record of some of the closing games in the +first tournament will show, better than any description, how very chancy +the game is. The losers here represented had all been winners in the +previous games of the series, some of them by fine majorities: + + + + +<center> +<table summary=""> + +<tr><td>Chase, </td><td>102 </td><td> Mrs. D., </td><td>57 </td><td> Mortimer, </td><td>105 </td><td>The Surgeon, </td><td>92</td></tr> +<tr><td>Miss C.,</td><td>105 </td><td> Mrs. T.,</td><td>9 </td><td>Clemens, </td><td>101 </td><td>Taylor,</td><td>92</td></tr> +<tr><td>Taylor, </td><td>109 </td><td> Davies, </td><td>95 </td><td> Miss C., </td><td>108 </td><td> Mortimer,</td><td>55</td></tr> +<tr><td>Thomas, </td><td>102 </td><td> Roper,</td><td>76 </td><td> Clemens, </td><td>111 </td><td>Miss C.,</td><td>89</td></tr> +<tr><td>Coomber, </td><td>106 </td><td>Chase,</td><td>98</td></tr> + +</table> +</center> + + + + + + +<p>And so on; until but three couples of winners were left. Then I beat my +man, young Smith beat his man, and Thomas beat his. This reduced the +combatants to three. Smith and I took the deck, and I led off. At the +close of the first inning I was 10 worse than nothing and Smith had +scored 7. The luck continued against me. When I was 57, Smith was +97—within 3 of out. The luck changed then. He picked up a 10-off or so, +and couldn't recover. I beat him. + +<p>The next game would end tournament No. 1. + +<p>Mr. Thomas and I were the contestants. He won the lead and went to the +bat—so to speak. And there he stood, with the crotch of his cue resting +against his disk while the ship rose slowly up, sank slowly down, rose +again, sank again. She never seemed to rise to suit him exactly. She +started up once more; and when she was nearly ready for the turn, he let +drive and landed his disk just within the left-hand end of the 10. +(Applause). The umpire proclaimed "a good 10," and the game-keeper set +it down. I played: my disk grazed the edge of Mr. Thomas's disk, and +went out of the diagram. (No applause.) + +<p>Mr. Thomas played again—and landed his second disk alongside of the +first, and almost touching its right-hand side. "Good 10." (Great +applause.) + +<p>I played, and missed both of them. (No applause.) + +<p>Mr. Thomas delivered his third shot and landed his disk just at the right +of the other two. " Good 10." (Immense applause.) + +<p>There they lay, side by side, the three in a row. It did not seem +possible that anybody could miss them. Still I did it. (Immense +silence.) + +<p>Mr. Thomas played his last disk. It seems incredible, but he actually +landed that disk alongside of the others, and just to the right of them-a +straight solid row of 4 disks. (Tumultuous and long-continued applause.) + +<p>Then I played my last disk. Again it did not seem possible that anybody +could miss that row—a row which would have been 14 inches long if the +disks had been clamped together; whereas, with the spaces separating them +they made a longer row than that. But I did it. It may be that I was +getting nervous. + +<p>I think it unlikely that that innings has ever had its parallel in the +history of horse-billiards. To place the four disks side by side in the +10 was an extraordinary feat; indeed, it was a kind of miracle. To miss +them was another miracle. It will take a century to produce another man +who can place the four disks in the 10; and longer than that to find a +man who can't knock them out. I was ashamed of my performance at the +time, but now that I reflect upon it I see that it was rather fine and +difficult. + +<p>Mr. Thomas kept his luck, and won the game, and later the championship. + +<p>In a minor tournament I won the prize, which was a Waterbury watch. I +put it in my trunk. In Pretoria, South Africa, nine months afterward, my +proper watch broke down and I took the Waterbury out, wound it, set it by +the great clock on the Parliament House (8.05), then went back to my room +and went to bed, tired from a long railway journey. The parliamentary +clock had a peculiarity which I was not aware of at the +time—a peculiarity which exists in no other clock, and would not exist in that +one if it had been made by a sane person; on the half-hour it strikes the +succeeding hour, then strikes the hour again, at the proper time. I lay +reading and smoking awhile; then, when I could hold my eyes open no +longer and was about to put out the light, the great clock began to boom, +and I counted ten. I reached for the Waterbury to see how it was getting +along. It was marking 9.30. It seemed rather poor speed for a +three-dollar watch, but I supposed that the climate was affecting it. I shoved +it half an hour ahead; and took to my book and waited to see what would +happen. At 10 the great clock struck ten again. I looked—the Waterbury +was marking half-past 10. This was too much speed for the money, and it +troubled me. I pushed the hands back a half hour, and waited once more; +I had to, for I was vexed and restless now, and my sleepiness was gone. +By and by the great clock struck 11. The Waterbury was marking 10.30. I +pushed it ahead half an hour, with some show of temper. By and by the +great clock struck 11 again. The Waterbury showed up 11.30, now, and I +beat her brains out against the bedstead. I was sorry next day, when I +found out. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p072.jpg (22K)" src="images/p072.jpg" height="393" width="583"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>To return to the ship. + +<p>The average human being is a perverse creature; and when he isn't that, +he is a practical joker. The result to the other person concerned is +about the same: that is, he is made to suffer. The washing down of the +decks begins at a very early hour in all ships; in but few ships are any +measures taken to protect the passengers, either by waking or warning +them, or by sending a steward to close their ports. And so the +deckwashers have their opportunity, and they use it. They send a bucket +of water slashing along the side of the ship and into the ports, +drenching the passenger's clothes, and often the passenger himself. This +good old custom prevailed in this ship, and under unusually favorable +circumstances, for in the blazing tropical regions a removable zinc thing +like a sugarshovel projects from the port to catch the wind and bring it +in; this thing catches the wash-water and brings it in, too—and in +flooding abundance. Mrs. L, an invalid, had to sleep on the locker—sofa +under her port, and every time she over-slept and thus failed to take +care of herself, the deck-washers drowned her out. + +<p>And the painters, what a good time they had! This ship would be going +into dock for a month in Sydney for repairs; but no matter, painting was +going on all the time somewhere or other. The ladies' dresses were +constantly getting ruined, nevertheless protests and supplications went +for nothing. Sometimes a lady, taking an afternoon nap on deck near a +ventilator or some other thing that didn't need painting, would wake up +by and by and find that the humorous painter had been noiselessly daubing +that thing and had splattered her white gown all over with little greasy +yellow spots. + +<p>The blame for this untimely painting did not lie with the ship's +officers, but with custom. As far back as Noah's time it became law that +ships must be constantly painted and fussed at when at sea; custom grew +out of the law, and at sea custom knows no death; this custom will +continue until the sea goes dry. + +<p>Sept. 8.—Sunday. We are moving so nearly south that we cross only about +two meridians of longitude a day. This morning we were in longitude 178 +west from Greenwich, and 57 degrees west from San Francisco. To-morrow +we shall be close to the center of the globe—the 180th degree of west +longitude and 180th degree of east longitude. + +<p>And then we must drop out a day—lose a day out of our lives, a day never +to be found again. We shall all die one day earlier than from the +beginning of time we were foreordained to die. We shall be a day +behindhand all through eternity. We shall always be saying to the other +angels, "Fine day today," and they will be always retorting, "But it +isn't to-day, it's tomorrow." We shall be in a state of confusion all the +time and shall never know what true happiness is. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p074.jpg (21K)" src="images/p074.jpg" height="407" width="619"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Next Day. Sure enough, it has happened. Yesterday it was September 8, +Sunday; to-day, per the bulletin-board at the head of the companionway, +it is September 10, Tuesday. There is something uncanny about it. And +uncomfortable. In fact, nearly unthinkable, and wholly unrealizable, +when one comes to consider it. While we were crossing the 180th meridian +it was Sunday in the stern of the ship where my family were, and Tuesday +in the bow where I was. They were there eating the half of a fresh apple +on the 8th, and I was at the same time eating the other half of it on the +10th—and I could notice how stale it was, already. The family were the +same age that they were when I had left them five minutes before, but I +was a day older now than I was then. The day they were living in +stretched behind them half way round the globe, across the Pacific Ocean +and America and Europe; the day I was living in stretched in front of me +around the other half to meet it. They were stupendous days for bulk and +stretch; apparently much larger days than we had ever been in before. +All previous days had been but shrunk-up little things by comparison. +The difference in temperature between the two days was very marked, their +day being hotter than mine because it was closer to the equator. + +<p>Along about the moment that we were crossing the Great Meridian a child +was born in the steerage, and now there is no way to tell which day it +was born on. The nurse thinks it was Sunday, the surgeon thinks it was +Tuesday. The child will never know its own birthday. It will always be +choosing first one and then the other, and will never be able to make up +its mind permanently. This will breed vacillation and uncertainty in its +opinions about religion, and politics, and business, and sweethearts, and +everything, and will undermine its principles, and rot them away, and +make the poor thing characterless, and its success in life impossible. +Every one in the ship says so. And this is not all—in fact, not the +worst. For there is an enormously rich brewer in the ship who said as +much as ten days ago, that if the child was born on his birthday he would +give it ten thousand dollars to start its little life with. His birthday +was Monday, the 9th of September. + +<p>If the ships all moved in the one direction—westward, I mean—the world +would suffer a prodigious loss—in the matter of valuable time, through +the dumping overboard on the Great Meridian of such multitudes of days by +ships crews and passengers. But fortunately the ships do not all sail +west, half of them sail east. So there is no real loss. These latter +pick up all the discarded days and add them to the world's stock again; +and about as good as new, too; for of course the salt water preserves +them. + +<br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ch5"></a><br><br>CHAPTER V.</h2> + +<p><i>Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as +if she had laid an asteroid.</i> + <center>—Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.</center> + +<p>WEDNESDAY, Sept. 11. In this world we often make mistakes of judgment. +We do not as a rule get out of them sound and whole, but sometimes we do. +At dinner yesterday evening-present, a mixture of Scotch, English, +American, Canadian, and Australasian folk—a discussion broke out about +the pronunciation of certain Scottish words. This was private ground, +and the non-Scotch nationalities, with one exception, discreetly kept +still. But I am not discreet, and I took a hand. I didn't know anything +about the subject, but I took a hand just to have something to do. At +that moment the word in dispute was the word three. One Scotchman was +claiming that the peasantry of Scotland pronounced it three, his +adversaries claimed that they didn't—that they pronounced it 'thraw'. +The solitary Scot was having a sultry time of it, so I thought I would +enrich him with my help. In my position I was necessarily quite +impartial, and was equally as well and as ill equipped to fight on the +one side as on the other. So I spoke up and said the peasantry +pronounced the word three, not thraw. It was an error of judgment. +There was a moment of astonished and ominous silence, then weather +ensued. The storm rose and spread in a surprising way, and I was snowed +under in a very few minutes. It was a bad defeat for me—a kind of +Waterloo. It promised to remain so, and I wished I had had better sense +than to enter upon such a forlorn enterprise. But just then I had a +saving thought—at least a thought that offered a chance. While the +storm was still raging, I made up a Scotch couplet, and then spoke up and +said: + +<p>"Very well, don't say any more. I confess defeat. I thought I knew, but +I see my mistake. I was deceived by one of your Scotch poets." + +<p>"A Scotch poet! O come! Name him." + +<p>"Robert Burns." + +<p>It is wonderful the power of that name. These men looked doubtful—but +paralyzed, all the same. They were quite silent for a moment; then one +of them said—with the reverence in his voice which is always present in +a Scotchman's tone when he utters the name. + +<p>"Does Robbie Burns say—what does he say?" + +<p>"This is what he says: + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + + 'There were nae bairns but only three—<br> + Ane at the breast, twa at the knee.'"<br> + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + +<p>It ended the discussion. There was no man there profane enough, disloyal +enough, to say any word against a thing which Robert Burns had settled. +I shall always honor that great name for the salvation it brought me in +this time of my sore need. + +<p>It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with +confidence, stands a good chance to deceive. There are people who think +that honesty is always the best policy. This is a superstition; there +are times when the appearance of it is worth six of it. + +<p>We are moving steadily southward-getting further and further down under +the projecting paunch of the globe. Yesterday evening we saw the Big +Dipper and the north star sink below the horizon and disappear from our +world. No, not "we," but they. They saw it—somebody saw it—and told +me about it. But it is no matter, I was not caring for those things, I +am tired of them, any way. I think they are well enough, but one doesn't +want them always hanging around. My interest was all in the Southern +Cross. I had never seen that. I had heard about it all my life, and it +was but natural that I should be burning to see it. No other +constellation makes so much talk. I had nothing against the Big +Dipper—and naturally couldn't have anything against it, since it is a citizen of +our own sky, and the property of the United States—but I did want it to +move out of the way and give this foreigner a chance. Judging by the +size of the talk which the Southern Cross had made, I supposed it would +need a sky all to itself. + +<p>But that was a mistake. We saw the Cross to-night, and it is not large. +Not large, and not strikingly bright. But it was low down toward the +horizon, and it may improve when it gets up higher in the sky. It is +ingeniously named, for it looks just as a cross would look if it looked +like something else. But that description does not describe; it is too +vague, too general, too indefinite. It does after a fashion suggest a +cross across that is out of repair—or out of drawing; not correctly +shaped. It is long, with a short cross-bar, and the cross-bar is canted +out of the straight line. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p079.jpg (15K)" src="images/p079.jpg" height="209" width="621"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>It consists of four large stars and one little one. The little one is +out of line and further damages the shape. It should have been placed at +the intersection of the stem and the cross-bar. If you do not draw an +imaginary line from star to star it does not suggest a cross—nor +anything in particular. + +<p>One must ignore the little star, and leave it out of the combination—it +confuses everything. If you leave it out, then you can make out of the +four stars a sort of cross—out of true; or a sort of kite—out of true; +or a sort of coffin-out of true. + +<p>Constellations have always been troublesome things to name. If you give +one of them a fanciful name, it will always refuse to live up to it; it +will always persist in not resembling the thing it has been named for. +Ultimately, to satisfy the public, the fanciful name has to be discarded +for a common-sense one, a manifestly descriptive one. The Great Bear +remained the Great Bear—and unrecognizable as such—for thousands of +years; and people complained about it all the time, and quite properly; +but as soon as it became the property of the United States, Congress +changed it to the Big Dipper, and now every body is satisfied, and there +is no more talk about riots. I would not change the Southern Cross to +the Southern Coffin, I would change it to the Southern Kite; for up there +in the general emptiness is the proper home of a kite, but not for +coffins and crosses and dippers. In a little while, now—I cannot tell +exactly how long it will be—the globe will belong to the +English-speaking race; and of course the skies also. Then the constellations +will be re-organized, and polished up, and re-named—the most of them +"Victoria," I reckon, but this one will sail thereafter as the Southern +Kite, or go out of business. Several towns and things, here and there, +have been named for Her Majesty already. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p080.jpg (11K)" src="images/p080.jpg" height="427" width="311"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>In these past few days we are plowing through a mighty Milky Way of +islands. They are so thick on the map that one would hardly expect to +find room between them for a canoe; yet we seldom glimpse one. Once we +saw the dim bulk of a couple of them, far away, spectral and dreamy +things; members of the Horne-Alofa and Fortuna. On the larger one are +two rival native kings—and they have a time together. They are +Catholics; so are their people. The missionaries there are French +priests. + +<p>From the multitudinous islands in these regions the "recruits" for the +Queensland plantations were formerly drawn; are still drawn from them, I +believe. Vessels fitted up like old-time slavers came here and carried +off the natives to serve as laborers in the great Australian province. +In the beginning it was plain, simple man-stealing, as per testimony of +the missionaries. This has been denied, but not disproven. Afterward it +was forbidden by law to "recruit" a native without his consent, and +governmental agents were sent in all recruiting vessels to see that the +law was obeyed—which they did, according to the recruiting people; and +which they sometimes didn't, according to the missionaries. A man could +be lawfully recruited for a three-years term of service; he could +volunteer for another term if he so chose; when his time was up he could +return to his island. And would also have the means to do it; for the +government required the employer to put money in its hands for this +purpose before the recruit was delivered to him. + +<p>Captain Wawn was a recruiting ship-master during many years. From his +pleasant book one gets the idea that the recruiting business was quite +popular with the islanders, as a rule. And yet that did not make the +business wholly dull and uninteresting; for one finds rather frequent +little breaks in the monotony of it—like this, for instance: + +<p> "The afternoon of our arrival at Leper Island the schooner was lying + almost becalmed under the lee of the lofty central portion of the + island, about three-quarters of a mile from the shore. The boats + were in sight at some distance. The recruiter-boat had run into a + small nook on the rocky coast, under a high bank, above which stood + a solitary hut backed by dense forest. The government agent and + mate in the second boat lay about 400 yards to the westward. + +<p> "Suddenly we heard the sound of firing, followed by yells from the + natives on shore, and then we saw the recruiter-boat push out with a + seemingly diminished crew. The mate's boat pulled quickly up, took + her in tow, and presently brought her alongside, all her own crew + being more or less hurt. It seems the natives had called them into + the place on pretence of friendship. A crowd gathered about the + stern of the boat, and several fellows even got into her. All of a + sudden our men were attacked with clubs and tomahawks. The + recruiter escaped the first blows aimed at him, making play with his + fists until he had an opportunity to draw his revolver. 'Tom + Sayers,' a Mare man, received a tomahawk blow on the head which laid + the scalp open but did not penetrate his skull, fortunately. 'Bobby + Towns,' another Mare boatman, had both his thumbs cut in warding off + blows, one of them being so nearly severed from the hand that the + doctors had to finish the operation. Lihu, a Lifu boy, the + recruiter's special attendant, was cut and pricked in various + places, but nowhere seriously. Jack, an unlucky Tanna recruit, who + had been engaged to act as boatman, received an arrow through his + forearm, the head of which—apiece of bone seven or eight inches + long—was still in the limb, protruding from both sides, when the + boats returned. The recruiter himself would have got off scot-free + had not an arrow pinned one of his fingers to the loom of the + steering-oar just as they were getting off. The fight had been + short but sharp. The enemy lost two men, both shot dead." + +<p>The truth is, Captain Wawn furnishes such a crowd of instances of fatal +encounters between natives and French and English recruiting-crews (for +the French are in the business for the plantations of New Caledonia), +that one is almost persuaded that recruiting is not thoroughly popular +among the islanders; else why this bristling string of attacks and +bloodcurdling slaughter? The captain lays it all to "Exeter Hall +influence." But for the meddling philanthropists, the native fathers and +mothers would be fond of seeing their children carted into exile and now +and then the grave, instead of weeping about it and trying to kill the +kind recruiters. + +<br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ch6"></a><br><br>CHAPTER VI.</h2> + +<p><i>He was as shy as a newspaper is when referring to its own merits.</i> + <center>—Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.</center> + +<p>Captain Wawn is crystal-clear on one point: He does not approve of +missionaries. They obstruct his business. They make "Recruiting," as he +calls it ("Slave-Catching," as they call it in their frank way) a trouble +when it ought to be just a picnic and a pleasure excursion. The +missionaries have their opinion about the manner in which the Labor +Traffic is conducted, and about the recruiter's evasions of the law of +the Traffic, and about the traffic itself—and it is distinctly +uncomplimentary to the Traffic and to everything connected with it, +including the law for its regulation. Captain Wawn's book is of very +recent date; I have by me a pamphlet of still later date—hot from the +press, in fact—by Rev. Wm. Gray, a missionary; and the book and the +pamphlet taken together make exceedingly interesting reading, to my mind. + +<p>Interesting, and easy to understand—except in one detail, which I will +mention presently. It is easy to understand why the Queensland sugar +planter should want the Kanaka recruit: he is cheap. Very cheap, in +fact. These are the figures paid by the planter: L20 to the recruiter +for getting the Kanaka or "catching" him, as the missionary phrase goes; +L3 to the Queensland government for "superintending" the importation; L5 +deposited with the Government for the Kanaka's passage home when his +three years are up, in case he shall live that long; about L25 to the +Kanaka himself for three years' wages and clothing; total payment for the +use of a man three years, L53; or, including diet, L60. Altogether, a +hundred dollars a year. One can understand why the recruiter is fond of +the business; the recruit costs him a few cheap presents (given to the +recruit's relatives, not himself), and the recruit is worth L20 to the +recruiter when delivered in Queensland. All this is clear enough; but +the thing that is not clear is, what there is about it all to persuade +the recruit. He is young and brisk; life at home in his beautiful island +is one lazy, long holiday to him; or if he wants to work he can turn out +a couple of bags of copra per week and sell it for four or five shillings +a bag. In Queensland he must get up at dawn and work from eight to +twelve hours a day in the canefields—in a much hotter climate than he is +used to—and get less than four shillings a week for it. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p084.jpg (20K)" src="images/p084.jpg" height="428" width="416"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>I cannot understand his willingness to go to Queensland. It is a deep +puzzle to me. Here is the explanation, from the planter's point of view; +at least I gather from the missionary's pamphlet that it is the +planter's: + +<p> "When he comes from his home he is a savage, pure and simple. He + feels no shame at his nakedness and want of adornment. When he + returns home he does so well dressed, sporting a Waterbury watch, + collars, cuffs, boots, and jewelry. He takes with him one or more + boxes—["Box" is English for trunk.]—well filled with clothing, a + musical instrument or two, and perfumery and other articles of + luxury he has learned to appreciate." + +<p>For just one moment we have a seeming flash of comprehension of, the +Kanaka's reason for exiling himself: he goes away to acquire +civilization. Yes, he was naked and not ashamed, now he is clothed and +knows how to be ashamed; he was unenlightened; now he has a Waterbury +watch; he was unrefined, now he has jewelry, and something to make him +smell good; he was a nobody, a provincial, now he has been to far +countries and can show off. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p085.jpg (22K)" src="images/p085.jpg" height="456" width="396"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>It all looks plausible—for a moment. Then the missionary takes hold of +this explanation and pulls it to pieces, and dances on it, and damages it +beyond recognition. + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p> "Admitting that the foregoing description is the average one, the + average sequel is this: The cuffs and collars, if used at all, are + carried off by youngsters, who fasten them round the leg, just below + the knee, as ornaments. The Waterbury, broken and dirty, finds its + way to the trader, who gives a trifle for it; or the inside is taken + out, the wheels strung on a thread and hung round the neck. Knives, + axes, calico, and handkerchiefs are divided among friends, and there + is hardly one of these apiece. The boxes, the keys often lost on + the road home, can be bought for 2s. 6d. They are to be seen + rotting outside in almost any shore village on Tanna. (I speak of + what I have seen.) A returned Kanaka has been furiously angry with + me because I would not buy his trousers, which he declared were just + my fit. He sold them afterwards to one of my Aniwan teachers for + 9d. worth of tobacco—a pair of trousers that probably cost him 8s. + or 10s. in Queensland. A coat or shirt is handy for cold weather. + The white handkerchiefs, the 'senet' (perfumery), the umbrella, and + perhaps the hat, are kept. The boots have to take their chance, if + they do not happen to fit the copra trader. 'Senet' on the hair, + streaks of paint on the face, a dirty white handkerchief round the + neck, strips of turtle shell in the ears, a belt, a sheath and + knife, and an umbrella constitute the rig of returned Kanaka at home + the day after landing." +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>A hat, an umbrella, a belt, a neckerchief. Otherwise stark naked. All +in a day the hard-earned "civilization" has melted away to this. And +even these perishable things must presently go. Indeed, there is but a +single detail of his civilization that can be depended on to stay by him: +according to the missionary, he has learned to swear. This is art, and +art is long, as the poet says. + +<p>In all countries the laws throw light upon the past. The Queensland law +for the regulation of the Labor Traffic is a confession. It is a +confession that the evils charged by the missionaries upon the traffic +had existed in the past, and that they still existed when the law was +made. The missionaries make a further charge: that the law is evaded by +the recruiters, and that the Government Agent sometimes helps them to do +it. Regulation 31 reveals two things: that sometimes a young fool of a +recruit gets his senses back, after being persuaded to sign away his +liberty for three years, and dearly wants to get out of the engagement +and stay at home with his own people; and that threats, intimidation, and +force are used to keep him on board the recruiting-ship, and to hold him +to his contract. Regulation 31 forbids these coercions. The law +requires that he shall be allowed to go free; and another clause of it +requires the recruiter to set him ashore—per boat, because of the +prevalence of sharks. Testimony from Rev. Mr. Gray: + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p> "There are 'wrinkles' for taking the penitent Kanaka. My first + experience of the Traffic was a case of this kind in 1884. A vessel + anchored just out of sight of our station, word was brought to me + that some boys were stolen, and the relatives wished me to go and + get them back. The facts were, as I found, that six boys had + recruited, had rushed into the boat, the Government Agent informed + me. They had all 'signed'; and, said the Government Agent, 'on + board they shall remain.' I was assured that the six boys were of + age and willing to go. Yet on getting ready to leave the ship I + found four of the lads ready to come ashore in the boat! This I + forbade. One of them jumped into the water and persisted in coming + ashore in my boat. When appealed to, the Government Agent suggested + that we go and leave him to be picked up by the ship's boat, a + quarter mile distant at the time!" +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>The law and the missionaries feel for the repentant recruit—and +properly, one may be permitted to think, for he is only a youth and +ignorant and persuadable to his hurt—but sympathy for him is not kept in +stock by the recruiter. Rev. Mr. Gray says: + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p> "A captain many years in the traffic explained to me how a penitent + could betaken. 'When a boy jumps overboard we just take a boat and + pull ahead of him, then lie between him and the shore. If he has + not tired himself swimming, and passes the boat, keep on heading him + in this way. The dodge rarely fails. The boy generally tires of + swimming, gets into the boat of his own accord, and goes quietly on + board." +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Yes, exhaustion is likely to make a boy quiet. If the distressed boy had +been the speaker's son, and the captors savages, the speaker would have +been surprised to see how differently the thing looked from the new point +of view; however, it is not our custom to put ourselves in the other +person's place. Somehow there is something pathetic about that +disappointed young savage's resignation. I must explain, here, that in +the traffic dialect, "boy" does not always mean boy; it means a youth +above sixteen years of age. That is by Queensland law the age of +consent, though it is held that recruiters allow themselves some latitude +in guessing at ages. + +<p>Captain Wawn of the free spirit chafes under the annoyance of "cast-iron +regulations." They and the missionaries have poisoned his life. He +grieves for the good old days, vanished to come no more. See him weep; +hear him cuss between the lines! + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p> "For a long time we were allowed to apprehend and detain all + deserters who had signed the agreement on board ship, but the + 'cast-iron' regulations of the Act of 1884 put a stop to that, allowing + the Kanaka to sign the agreement for three years' service, travel + about in the ship in receipt of the regular rations, cadge all he + could, and leave when he thought fit, so long as he did not extend + his pleasure trip to Queensland." +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Rev. Mr. Gray calls this same restrictive cast-iron law a "farce." "There +is as much cruelty and injustice done to natives by acts that are legal +as by deeds unlawful. The regulations that exist are unjust and +inadequate—unjust and inadequate they must ever be." He furnishes his +reasons for his position, but they are too long for reproduction here. + +<p>However, if the most a Kanaka advantages himself by a three-years course +in civilization in Queensland, is a necklace and an umbrella and a showy +imperfection in the art of swearing, it must be that all the profit of +the traffic goes to the white man. This could be twisted into a +plausible argument that the traffic ought to be squarely abolished. + +<p>However, there is reason for hope that that can be left alone to achieve +itself. It is claimed that the traffic will depopulate its sources of +supply within the next twenty or thirty years. Queensland is a very +healthy place for white people—death-rate 12 in 1,000 of the +population—but the Kanaka death-rate is away above that. The vital statistics for +1893 place it at 52; for 1894 (Mackay district), 68. The first six +months of the Kanaka's exile are peculiarly perilous for him because of +the rigors of the new climate. The death-rate among the new men has +reached as high as 180 in the 1,000. In the Kanaka's native home his +death-rate is 12 in time of peace, and 15 in time of war. Thus exile to +Queensland—with the opportunity to acquire civilization, an umbrella, +and a pretty poor quality of profanity—is twelve times as deadly for him +as war. Common Christian charity, common humanity, does seem to require, +not only that these people be returned to their homes, but that war, +pestilence, and famine be introduced among them for their preservation. + +<p>Concerning these Pacific isles and their peoples an eloquent prophet +spoke long years ago—five and fifty years ago. In fact, he spoke a +little too early. Prophecy is a good line of business, but it is full of +risks. This prophet was the Right Rev. M. Russell, LL.D., D.C.L., of +Edinburgh: + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p> "Is the tide of civilization to roll only to the foot of the Rocky + Mountains, and is the sun of knowledge to set at last in the waves + of the Pacific? No; the mighty day of four thousand years is + drawing to its close; the sun of humanity has performed its destined + course; but long ere its setting rays are extinguished in the west, + its ascending beams have glittered on the isles of the eastern seas + . . . . And now we see the race of Japhet setting forth to + people the isles, and the seeds of another Europe and a second + England sown in the regions of the sun. But mark the words of the + prophecy: 'He shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be + his servant.' It is not said Canaan shall be his slave. To the + Anglo-Saxon race is given the scepter of the globe, but there is not + given either the lash of the slave-driver or the rack of the + executioner. The East will not be stained with the same atrocities + as the West; the frightful gangrene of an enthralled race is not to + mar the destinies of the family of Japhet in the Oriental world; + humanizing, not destroying, as they advance; uniting with, not + enslaving, the inhabitants with whom they dwell, the British race + may," etc., etc. +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>And he closes his vision with an invocation from Thomson: + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p> "Come, bright Improvement! on the car of Time, + And rule the spacious world from clime to clime." +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>Very well, Bright Improvement has arrived, you see, with her +civilization, and her Waterbury, and her umbrella, and her third-quality +profanity, and her humanizing-not-destroying machinery, and her +hundred-and-eighty death-rate, and everything is going along just as handsome! + +<p>But the prophet that speaks last has an advantage over the pioneer in the +business. Rev. Mr. Gray says: + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p> "What I am concerned about is that we as a Christian nation should + wipe out these races to enrich ourselves." +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<p>And he closes his pamphlet with a grim Indictment which is as eloquent in +its flowerless straightforward English as is the hand-painted rhapsody of +the early prophet: + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p> "My indictment of the Queensland-Kanaka Labor Traffic is this + +<p> "1. It generally demoralizes and always impoverishes the Kanaka, + deprives him of his citizenship, and depopulates the islands fitted + to his home. + +<p> "2. It is felt to lower the dignity of the white agricultural + laborer in Queensland, and beyond a doubt it lowers his wages there. + +<p> "3. The whole system is fraught with danger to Australia and the + islands on the score of health. + +<p> "4. On social and political grounds the continuance of the + Queensland Kanaka Labor Traffic must be a barrier to the true + federation of the Australian colonies. + +<p> "5. The Regulations under which the Traffic exists in Queensland are + inadequate to prevent abuses, and in the nature of things they must + remain so. + +<p> "6. The whole system is contrary to the spirit and doctrine of the + Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel requires us to help the weak, + but the Kanaka is fleeced and trodden down. + +<p> "7. The bed-rock of this Traffic is that the life and liberty of a + black man are of less value than those of a white man. And a + Traffic that has grown out of 'slave-hunting' will certainly remain + to the end not unlike its origin." +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p090.jpg (11K)" src="images/p090.jpg" height="406" width="303"> +</center> +<br><br> + +<br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ch7"></a><br><br>CHAPTER VII.</h2> + +<p><i>Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.</i> + <center>—Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.</center> + +<p>From Diary:—For a day or two we have been plowing among an invisible +vast wilderness of islands, catching now and then a shadowy glimpse of a +member of it. There does seem to be a prodigious lot of islands this +year; the map of this region is freckled and fly-specked all over with +them. Their number would seem to be uncountable. We are moving among +the Fijis now—224 islands and islets in the group. In front of us, to +the west, the wilderness stretches toward Australia, then curves upward +to New Guinea, and still up and up to Japan; behind us, to the east, the +wilderness stretches sixty degrees across the wastes of the Pacific; +south of us is New Zealand. Somewhere or other among these myriads Samoa +is concealed, and not discoverable on the map. Still, if you wish to go +there, you will have no trouble about finding it if you follow the +directions given by Robert Louis Stevenson to Dr. Conan Doyle and to Mr. +J. M. Barrie. "You go to America, cross the continent to San Francisco, +and then it's the second turning to the left." To get the full flavor of +the joke one must take a glance at the map. + +<p>Wednesday, September 11.—Yesterday we passed close to an island or so, +and recognized the published Fiji characteristics: a broad belt of clean +white coral sand around the island; back of it a graceful fringe of +leaning palms, with native huts nestling cosily among the shrubbery at +their bases; back of these a stretch of level land clothed in tropic +vegetation; back of that, rugged and picturesque mountains. A detail of +the immediate foreground: a mouldering ship perched high up on a +reef-bench. This completes the composition, and makes the picture +artistically perfect. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p092.jpg (16K)" src="images/p092.jpg" height="363" width="619"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>In the afternoon we sighted Suva, the capital of the group, and threaded +our way into the secluded little harbor—a placid basin of brilliant blue +and green water tucked snugly in among the sheltering hills. A few ships +rode at anchor in it—one of them a sailing vessel flying the American +flag; and they said she came from Duluth! There's a journey! Duluth is +several thousand miles from the sea, and yet she is entitled to the proud +name of Mistress of the Commercial Marine of the United States of +America. There is only one free, independent, unsubsidized American ship +sailing the foreign seas, and Duluth owns it. All by itself that ship is +the American fleet. All by itself it causes the American name and power +to be respected in the far regions of the globe. All by itself it +certifies to the world that the most populous civilized nation, in the +earth has a just pride in her stupendous stretch of sea-front, and is +determined to assert and maintain her rightful place as one of the Great +Maritime Powers of the Planet. All by itself it is making foreign eyes +familiar with a Flag which they have not seen before for forty years, +outside of the museum. For what Duluth has done, in building, equipping, +and maintaining at her sole expense the American Foreign Commercial +Fleet, and in thus rescuing the American name from shame and lifting it +high for the homage of the nations, we owe her a debt of gratitude which +our hearts shall confess with quickened beats whenever her name is named +henceforth. Many national toasts will die in the lapse of time, but +while the flag flies and the Republic survives, they who live under their +shelter will still drink this one, standing and uncovered: Health and +prosperity to Thee, O Duluth, American Queen of the Alien Seas! + +<p>Row-boats began to flock from the shore; their crews were the first +natives we had seen. These men carried no overplus of clothing, and this +was wise, for the weather was hot. Handsome, great dusky men they were, +muscular, clean-limbed, and with faces full of character and +intelligence. It would be hard to find their superiors anywhere among +the dark races, I should think. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p093.jpg (17K)" src="images/p093.jpg" height="361" width="481"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Everybody went ashore to look around, and spy out the land, and have that +luxury of luxuries to sea-voyagers—a land-dinner. And there we saw more +natives: Wrinkled old women, with their flat mammals flung over their +shoulders, or hanging down in front like the cold-weather drip from the +molasses-faucet; plump and smily young girls, blithe and content, easy +and graceful, a pleasure to look at; young matrons, tall, straight, +comely, nobly built, sweeping by with chin up, and a gait incomparable +for unconscious stateliness and dignity; majestic young men athletes for +build and muscle clothed in a loose arrangement of dazzling white, with +bronze breast and bronze legs naked, and the head a cannon-swab of solid +hair combed straight out from the skull and dyed a rich brick-red. Only +sixty years ago they were sunk in darkness; now they have the bicycle. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p094.jpg (82K)" src="images/p094.jpg" height="1094" width="650"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>We strolled about the streets of the white folks' little town, and around +over the hills by paths and roads among European dwellings and gardens +and plantations, and past clumps of hibiscus that made a body blink, the +great blossoms were so intensely red; and by and by we stopped to ask an +elderly English colonist a question or two, and to sympathize with him +concerning the torrid weather; but he was surprised, and said: + +<p>"This? This is not hot. You ought to be here in the summer time once." + +<p>"We supposed that this was summer; it has the ear-marks of it. You could +take it to almost any country and deceive people with it. But if it +isn't summer, what does it lack?" + +<p>"It lacks half a year. This is mid-winter." + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p095.jpg (19K)" src="images/p095.jpg" height="397" width="313"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>I had been suffering from colds for several months, and a sudden change +of season, like this, could hardly fail to do me hurt. It brought on +another cold. It is odd, these sudden jumps from season to season. A +fortnight ago we left America in mid-summer, now it is midwinter; about a +week hence we shall arrive in Australia in the spring. + +<p>After dinner I found in the billiard-room a resident whom I had known +somewhere else in the world, and presently made, some new friends and +drove with them out into the country to visit his Excellency the head of +the State, who was occupying his country residence, to escape the rigors +of the winter weather, I suppose, for it was on breezy high ground and +much more comfortable than the lower regions, where the town is, and +where the winter has full swing, and often sets a person's hair afire +when he takes off his hat to bow. There is a noble and beautiful view of +ocean and islands and castellated peaks from the governor's high-placed +house, and its immediate surroundings lie drowsing in that dreamy repose +and serenity which are the charm of life in the Pacific Islands. + +<p>One of the new friends who went out there with me was a large man, and I +had been admiring his size all the way. I was still admiring it as he +stood by the governor on the veranda, talking; then the Fijian butler +stepped out there to announce tea, and dwarfed him. Maybe he did not +quite dwarf him, but at any rate the contrast was quite striking. +Perhaps that dark giant was a king in a condition of political +suspension. I think that in the talk there on the veranda it was said +that in Fiji, as in the Sandwich Islands, native kings and chiefs are of +much grander size and build than the commoners. This man was clothed in +flowing white vestments, and they were just the thing for him; they +comported well with his great stature and his kingly port and dignity. +European clothes would have degraded him and made him commonplace. I +know that, because they do that with everybody that wears them. + +<p>It was said that the old-time devotion to chiefs and reverence for their +persons still survive in the native commoner, and in great force. The +educated young gentleman who is chief of the tribe that live in the +region about the capital dresses in the fashion of high-class European +gentlemen, but even his clothes cannot damn him in the reverence of his +people. Their pride in his lofty rank and ancient lineage lives on, in +spite of his lost authority and the evil magic of his tailor. He has no +need to defile himself with work, or trouble his heart with the sordid +cares of life; the tribe will see to it that he shall not want, and that +he shall hold up his head and live like a gentleman. I had a glimpse of +him down in the town. Perhaps he is a descendant of the last king—the +king with the difficult name whose memory is preserved by a notable +monument of cut-stone which one sees in the enclosure in the middle of +the town. Thakombau—I remember, now; that is the name. It is easier to +preserve it on a granite block than in your head. + +<p>Fiji was ceded to England by this king in 1858. One of the gentlemen +present at the governor's quoted a remark made by the king at the time of +the session—a neat retort, and with a touch of pathos in it, too. The +English Commissioner had offered a crumb of comfort to Thakombau by +saying that the transfer of the kingdom to Great Britain was merely "a +sort of hermit-crab formality, you know." "Yes," said poor Thakombau, +"but with this difference—the crab moves into an unoccupied shell, but +mine isn't." + +<p>However, as far as I can make out from the books, the King was between +the devil and the deep sea at the time, and hadn't much choice. He owed +the United States a large debt—a debt which he could pay if allowed +time, but time was denied him. He must pay up right away or the warships +would be upon him. To protect his people from this disaster he ceded his +country to Britain, with a clause in the contract providing for the +ultimate payment of the American debt. + +<p>In old times the Fijians were fierce fighters; they were very religious, +and worshiped idols; the big chiefs were proud and haughty, and they were +men of great style in many ways; all chiefs had several wives, the +biggest chiefs sometimes had as many as fifty; when a chief was dead and +ready for burial, four or five of his wives were strangled and put into +the grave with him. In 1804 twenty-seven British convicts escaped from +Australia to Fiji, and brought guns and ammunition with them. Consider +what a power they were, armed like that, and what an opportunity they +had. If they had been energetic men and sober, and had had brains and +known how to use them, they could have achieved the sovereignty of the +archipelago twenty-seven kings and each with eight or nine islands under +his scepter. But nothing came of this chance. They lived worthless +lives of sin and luxury, and died without honor—in most cases by +violence. Only one of them had any ambition; he was an Irishman named +Connor. He tried to raise a family of fifty children, and scored +forty-eight. He died lamenting his failure. It was a foolish sort of avarice. +Many a father would have been rich enough with forty. + +<p>It is a fine race, the Fijians, with brains in their heads, and an +inquiring turn of mind. It appears that their savage ancestors had a +doctrine of immortality in their scheme of religion—with limitations. +That is to say, their dead friend would go to a happy hereafter if he +could be accumulated, but not otherwise. They drew the line; they +thought that the missionary's doctrine was too sweeping, too +comprehensive. They called his attention to certain facts. For +instance, many of their friends had been devoured by sharks; the sharks, +in their turn, were caught and eaten by other men; later, these men were +captured in war, and eaten by the enemy. The original persons had +entered into the composition of the sharks; next, they and the sharks had +become part of the flesh and blood and bone of the cannibals. How, then, +could the particles of the original men be searched out from the final +conglomerate and put together again? The inquirers were full of doubts, +and considered that the missionary had not examined the matter with—the +gravity and attention which so serious a thing deserved. + +<p>The missionary taught these exacting savages many valuable things, and +got from them one—a very dainty and poetical idea: Those wild and +ignorant poor children of Nature believed that the flowers, after they +perish, rise on the winds and float away to the fair fields of heaven, +and flourish there forever in immortal beauty! + + +<br><br><br><br> +<h2><a name="ch8"></a><br><br>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> + +<p><i>It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no +distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.</i> + <center>—Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.</center> + +<p>When one glances at the map the members of the stupendous island +wilderness of the Pacific seem to crowd upon each other; but no, there is +no crowding, even in the center of a group; and between groups there are +lonely wide deserts of sea. Not everything is known about the islands, +their peoples and their languages. A startling reminder of this is +furnished by the fact that in Fiji, twenty years ago, were living two +strange and solitary beings who came from an unknown country and spoke an +unknown language. "They were picked up by a passing vessel many hundreds +of miles from any known land, floating in the same tiny canoe in which +they had been blown out to sea. When found they were but skin and bone. +No one could understand what they said, and they have never named their +country; or, if they have, the name does not correspond with that of any +island on any chart. They are now fat and sleek, and as happy as the day +is long. In the ship's log there is an entry of the latitude and +longitude in which they were found, and this is probably all the clue +they will ever have to their lost homes."—[Forbes's "Two Years in +Fiji."] + +<p>What a strange and romantic episode it is; and how one is tortured with +curiosity to know whence those mysterious creatures came, those Men +Without a Country, errant waifs who cannot name their lost home, +wandering Children of Nowhere. + +<p>Indeed, the Island Wilderness is the very home of romance and dreams and +mystery. The loneliness, the solemnity, the beauty, and the deep repose +of this wilderness have a charm which is all their own for the bruised +spirit of men who have fought and failed in the struggle for life in the +great world; and for men who have been hunted out of the great world for +crime; and for other men who love an easy and indolent existence; and for +others who love a roving free life, and stir and change and adventure; +and for yet others who love an easy and comfortable career of trading and +money-getting, mixed with plenty of loose matrimony by purchase, divorce +without trial or expense, and limitless spreeing thrown in to make life +ideally perfect. + +<p>We sailed again, refreshed. + +<p>The most cultivated person in the ship was a young English, man whose +home was in New Zealand. He was a naturalist. His learning in his +specialty was deep and thorough, his interest in his subject amounted to +a passion, he had an easy gift of speech; and so, when he talked about +animals it was a pleasure to listen to him. And profitable, too, though +he was sometimes difficult to understand because now and then he used +scientific technicalities which were above the reach of some of us. They +were pretty sure to be above my reach, but as he was quite willing to +explain them I always made it a point to get him to do it. I had a fair +knowledge of his subject—layman's knowledge—to begin with, but it was +his teachings which crystalized it into scientific form and clarity—in a +word, gave it value. + +<p>His special interest was the fauna of Australasia, and his knowledge of +the matter was as exhaustive as it was accurate. I already knew a good +deal about the rabbits in Australasia and their marvelous fecundity, but +in my talks with him I found that my estimate of the great hindrance and +obstruction inflicted by the rabbit pest upon traffic and travel was far +short of the facts. He told me that the first pair of rabbits imported +into Australasia bred so wonderfully that within six months rabbits were +so thick in the land that people had to dig trenches through them to get +from town to town. + +<p>He told me a great deal about worms, and the kangaroo, and other +coleoptera, and said he knew the history and ways of all such +pachydermata. He said the kangaroo had pockets, and carried its young in +them when it couldn't get apples. And he said that the emu was as big as +an ostrich, and looked like one, and had an amorphous appetite and would +eat bricks. Also, that the dingo was not a dingo at all, but just a wild +dog; and that the only difference between a dingo and a dodo was that +neither of them barked; otherwise they were just the same. He said that +the only game-bird in Australia was the wombat, and the only song-bird +the larrikin, and that both were protected by government. The most +beautiful of the native birds was the bird of Paradise. Next came the +two kinds of lyres; not spelt the same. He said the one kind was dying +out, the other thickening up. He explained that the "Sundowner" was not +a bird it was a man; sundowner was merely the Australian equivalent of +our word, tramp. He is a loafer, a hard drinker, and a sponge. He +tramps across the country in the sheep-shearing season, pretending to +look for work; but he always times himself to arrive at a sheep-run just +at sundown, when the day's labor ends; all he wants is whisky and supper +and bed and breakfast; he gets them and then disappears. The naturalist +spoke of the bell bird, the creature that at short intervals all day +rings out its mellow and exquisite peal from the deeps of the forest. It +is the favorite and best friend of the weary and thirsty sundowner; for +he knows that wherever the bell bird is, there is water; and he goes +somewhere else. The naturalist said that the oddest bird in Australasia +was the, Laughing Jackass, and the biggest the now extinct Great Moa. + +<p>The Moa stood thirteen feet high, and could step over an ordinary man's +head or kick his hat off; and his head, too, for that matter. He said it +was wingless, but a swift runner. The natives used to ride it. It could +make forty miles an hour, and keep it up for four hundred miles and come +out reasonably fresh. It was still in existence when the railway was +introduced into New Zealand; still in existence, and carrying the mails. +The railroad began with the same schedule it has now: two expresses a +week-time, twenty miles an hour. The company exterminated the moa to get +the mails. + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p103.jpg (46K)" src="images/p103.jpg" height="917" width="543"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>Speaking of the indigenous coneys and bactrian camels, the naturalist +said that the coniferous and bacteriological output of Australasia was +remarkable for its many and curious departures from the accepted laws +governing these species of tubercles, but that in his opinion Nature's +fondness for dabbling in the erratic was most notably exhibited in that +curious combination of bird, fish, amphibian, burrower, crawler, +quadruped, and Christian called the Ornithorhynchus—grotesquest of +animals, king of the animalculae of the world for versatility of +character and make-up. Said he: + +<blockquote><blockquote> +<p> "You can call it anything you want to, and be right. It is a fish, + for it lives in the river half the time; it is a land animal, for it + resides on the land half the time; it is an amphibian, since it + likes both and does not know which it prefers; it is a hybernian, + for when times are dull and nothing much going on it buries itself + under the mud at the bottom of a puddle and hybernates there a + couple of weeks at a time; it is a kind of duck, for it has a + duck-bill and four webbed paddles; it is a fish and quadruped together, + for in the water it swims with the paddles and on shore it paws + itself across country with them; it is a kind of seal, for it has a + seal's fur; it is carnivorous, herbivorous, insectivorous, and + vermifuginous, for it eats fish and grass and butterflies, and in + the season digs worms out of the mud and devours them; it is clearly + a bird, for it lays eggs, and hatches them; it is clearly a mammal, + for it nurses its young; and it is manifestly a kind of Christian, + for it keeps the Sabbath when there is anybody around, and when + there isn't, doesn't. It has all the tastes there are except + refined ones, it has all the habits there are except good ones. + +<p> "It is a survival—a survival of the fittest. Mr. Darwin invented + the theory that goes by that name, but the Ornithorhynchus was the + first to put it to actual experiment and prove that it could be + done. Hence it should have as much of the credit as Mr. Darwin. + It was never in the Ark; you will find no mention of it there; it + nobly stayed out and worked the theory. Of all creatures in the + world it was the only one properly equipped for the test. The Ark + was thirteen months afloat, and all the globe submerged; no land + visible above the flood, no vegetation, no food for a mammal to eat, + nor water for a mammal to drink; for all mammal food was destroyed, + and when the pure floods from heaven and the salt oceans of the + earth mingled their waters and rose above the mountain tops, the + result was a drink which no bird or beast of ordinary construction + could use and live. But this combination was nuts for the + Ornithorhynchus, if I may use a term like that without offense. + Its river home had always been salted by the flood-tides of the sea. + On the face of the Noachian deluge innumerable forest trees were + floating. Upon these the Ornithorhynchus voyaged in peace; voyaged + from clime to clime, from hemisphere to hemisphere, in contentment + and comfort, in virile interest in the constant change Of scene, in + humble thankfulness for its privileges, in ever-increasing + enthusiasm in the development of the great theory upon whose + validity it had staked its life, its fortunes, and its sacred honor, + if I may use such expressions without impropriety in connection with + an episode of this nature. + +<p> "It lived the tranquil and luxurious life of a creature of + independent means. Of things actually necessary to its existence + and its happiness not a detail was wanting. When it wished to walk, + it scrambled along the tree-trunk; it mused in the shade of the + leaves by day, it slept in their shelter by night; when it wanted + the refreshment of a swim, it had it; it ate leaves when it wanted a + vegetable diet, it dug under the bark for worms and grubs; when it + wanted fish it caught them, when it wanted eggs it laid them. If + the grubs gave out in one tree it swam to another; and as for fish, + the very opulence of the supply was an embarrassment. And finally, + when it was thirsty it smacked its chops in gratitude over a blend + that would have slain a crocodile. + +<p> "When at last, after thirteen months of travel and research in all + the Zones it went aground on a mountain-summit, it strode ashore, + saying in its heart, 'Let them that come after me invent theories + and dream dreams about the Survival of the Fittest if they like, but + I am the first that has done it! + +<p> "This wonderful creature dates back like the kangaroo and many other + Australian hydrocephalous invertebrates, to an age long anterior to + the advent of man upon the earth; they date back, indeed, to a time + when a causeway hundreds of miles wide, and thousands of miles long, + joined Australia to Africa, and the animals of the two countries + were alike, and all belonged to that remote geological epoch known + to science as the Old Red Grindstone Post-Pleosaurian. Later the + causeway sank under the sea; subterranean convulsions lifted the + African continent a thousand feet higher than it was before, but + Australia kept her old level. In Africa's new climate the animals + necessarily began to develop and shade off into new forms and + families and species, but the animals of Australia as necessarily + remained stationary, and have so remained until this day. In the + course of some millions of years the African Ornithorhynchus + developed and developed and developed, and sluffed off detail after + detail of its make-up until at last the creature became wholly + disintegrated and scattered. Whenever you see a bird or a beast or + a seal or an otter in Africa you know that he is merely a sorry + surviving fragment of that sublime original of whom I have been + speaking—that creature which was everything in general and nothing + in particular—the opulently endowed 'e pluribus unum' of the animal + world. + +<p> "Such is the history of the most hoary, the most ancient, the most + venerable creature that exists in the earth today—Ornithorhynchus + Platypus Extraordinariensis—whom God preserve!" +</blockquote></blockquote> + +<br><br><br><br> +<center><img alt="p105.jpg (38K)" src="images/p105.jpg" height="991" width="407"> +</center> +<br><br><br><br> + +<p>When he was strongly moved he could rise and soar like that with ease. +And not only in the prose form, but in the poetical as well. He had +written many pieces of poetry in his time, and these manuscripts he lent +around among the passengers, and was willing to let them be copied. It +seemed to me that the least technical one in the series, and the one +which reached the loftiest note, perhaps, was his— + + + <h3>INVOCATION.</h3> + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + + <br> + "Come forth from thy oozy couch,<br> + O Ornithorhynchus dear!<br> + And greet with a cordial claw<br> + The stranger that longs to hear<br> +<br> + "From thy own own lips the tale<br> + Of thy origin all unknown:<br> + Thy misplaced bone where flesh should be<br> + And flesh where should be bone;<br> +<br> + "And fishy fin where should be paw,<br> + And beaver-trowel tail,<br> + And snout of beast equip'd with teeth<br> + Where gills ought to prevail.<br> +<br> + "Come, Kangaroo, the good and true<br> + Foreshortened as to legs,<br> + And body tapered like a churn,<br> + And sack marsupial, i' fegs,<br> +<br> + "And tells us why you linger here,<br> + Thou relic of a vanished time,<br> + When all your friends as fossils sleep,<br> + Immortalized in lime!"<br> +<br> + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + +<p> +Perhaps no poet is a conscious plagiarist; but there seems to be warrant +for suspecting that there is no poet who is not at one time or another an +unconscious one. The above verses are indeed beautiful, and, in a way, +touching; but there is a haunting something about them which unavoidably +suggests the Sweet Singer of Michigan. It can hardly be doubted that the +author had read the works of that poet and been impressed by them. It is +not apparent that he has borrowed from them any word or yet any phrase, +but the style and swing and mastery and melody of the Sweet Singer all +are there. Compare this Invocation with "Frank Dutton"—particularly +stanzas first and seventeenth—and I think the reader will feel convinced +that he who wrote the one had read the other: + +<center> +<table summary=""> +<tr><td> + + + + I.<br> +<br> + "Frank Dutton was as fine a lad<br> + As ever you wish to see,<br> + And he was drowned in Pine Island Lake<br> + On earth no more will he be,<br> + His age was near fifteen years,<br> + And he was a motherless boy,<br> + He was living with his grandmother<br> + When he was drowned, poor boy."<br> +<br> +<br> + XVII.<br> +<br> + "He was drowned on Tuesday afternoon,<br> + On Sunday he was found,<br> + And the tidings of that drowned boy<br> + Was heard for miles around.<br> + His form was laid by his mother's side,<br> + Beneath the cold, cold ground,<br> + His friends for him will drop a tear<br> + When they view his little mound."<br> +<br> + + + +<i>The Sentimental Song Book. <br>By Mrs. Julia Moore, p. 36.</i> + +</td></tr> +</table> +</center> + + +<br><br> +<hr> +<br><br> + + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Following the Equator, Part 1 +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR, PART 1 *** + +***** This file should be named 5808-h.htm or 5808-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/5/8/0/5808/ + +Produced by David Widger + +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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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: Following the Equator, Part 1 + +Author: Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +Release Date: June 23, 2004 [EBook #5808] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR, PART 1 *** + + + + +Produced by David Widger + + + + + + FOLLOWING + THE EQUATOR + A JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD + BY + MARK TWAIN + SAMUEL L. CLEMENS + HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT + + + + + THIS BOOK + Is affectionately inscribed to + MY YOUNG FRIEND + HARRY ROGERS + WITH RECOGNITION + OF WHAT HE IS, AND APPREHENSION OF WHAT HE MAY BECOME + UNLESS HE FORM HIMSELF A LITTLE MORE CLOSELY + UPON THE MODEL OF + THE AUTHOR. + + + + + + THE PUDD'NHEAD MAXIMS. + THESE WISDOMS ARE FOR THE LURING OF YOUTH TOWARD + HIGH MORAL ALTITUDES. THE AUTHOR DID NOT + GATHER THEM FROM PRACTICE, BUT FROM + OBSERVATION. TO BE GOOD IS NOBLE; + BUT TO SHOW OTHERS HOW + TO BE GOOD IS NOBLER + AND NO TROUBLE. + + + PART 1 + + + CONTENTS + +CHAPTER I. +The Party--Across America to Vancouver--On Board the Warrimo--Steamer +Chairs-The Captain-Going Home under a Cloud--A Gritty Purser--The +Brightest Passenger--Remedy for Bad Habits--The Doctor and the Lumbago +--A Moral Pauper--Limited Smoking--Remittance-men. + + +CHAPTER II. +Change of Costume--Fish, Snake, and Boomerang Stories--Tests of Memory +--A Brahmin Expert--General Grant's Memory--A Delicately Improper Tale + + +CHAPTER III. +Honolulu--Reminiscences of the Sandwich Islands--King Liholiho and His +Royal Equipment--The Tabu--The Population of the Island--A Kanaka Diver +--Cholera at Honolulu--Honolulu; Past and Present--The Leper Colony + + +CHAPTER IV. +Leaving Honolulu--Flying-fish--Approaching the Equator--Why the Ship Went +Slow--The Front Yard of the Ship--Crossing the Equator--Horse Billiards +or Shovel Board--The Waterbury Watch--Washing Decks--Ship Painters--The +Great Meridian--The Loss of a Day--A Babe without a Birthday + + +CHAPTER V. +A lesson in Pronunciation--Reverence for Robert Burns--The Southern +Cross--Troublesome Constellations--Victoria for a Name--Islands on the +Map--Alofa and Fortuna--Recruiting for the Queensland Plantations +--Captain Warren's NoteBook--Recruiting not thoroughly Popular + + +CHAPTER VI. +Missionaries Obstruct Business--The Sugar Planter and the Kanaka--The +Planter's View--Civilizing the Kanaka The Missionary's View--The Result +--Repentant Kanakas--Wrinkles--The Death Rate in Queensland + + +CHAPTER VII. +The Fiji Islands--Suva--The Ship from Duluth--Going Ashore--Midwinter in +Fiji--Seeing the Governor--Why Fiji was Ceded to England--Old time +Fijians--Convicts among the Fijians--A Case Where Marriage was a Failure +Immortality with Limitations + + +CHAPTER VIII. +A Wilderness of Islands--Two Men without a Country--A Naturalist from New +Zealand--The Fauna of Australasia--Animals, Insects, and Birds--The +Ornithorhynchus--Poetry and Plagiarism + + +CHAPTER IX. + +Close to Australia--Porpoises at Night--Entrance to Sydney Harbor--The +Loss of the Duncan Dunbar--The Harbor--The City of Sydney--Spring-time in +Australia--The Climate--Information for Travelers--The Size of Australia +--A Dust-Storm and Hot Wind + + +CHAPTER X. +The Discovery of Australia--Transportation of Convicts--Discipline +--English Laws, Ancient and Modern--Flogging Prisoners to Death--Arrival of +Settlers--New South Wales Corps--Rum Currency--Intemperance Everywhere +$100,000 for One Gallon of Rum--Development of the Country--Immense +Resources + + +CHAPTER XI. +Hospitality of English-speaking People--Writers and their Gratitude--Mr. +Gane and the Panegyrics--Population of Sydney An English City with +American Trimming--"Squatters"--Palaces and Sheep Kingdoms--Wool and +Mutton--Australians and Americans--Costermonger Pronunciation--England is +"Home"--Table Talk--English and Colonial Audiences 124 + + +CHAPTER XII. +Mr. X., a Missionary--Why Christianity Makes Slow Progress in India--A +Large Dream--Hindoo Miracles and Legends--Sampson and Hanuman--The +Sandstone Ridge--Where are the Gates? + + +CHAPTER XIII. +Public Works in Australasia--Botanical Garden of Sydney--Four Special +Socialties--The Government House--A Governor and His Functions--The +Admiralty House--The Tour of the Harbor--Shark Fishing--Cecil Rhodes' +Shark and his First Fortune--Free Board for Sharks. + + +CHAPTER XIV. +Bad Health--To Melbourne by Rail--Maps Defective--The Colony of Victoria +--A Round-trip Ticket from Sydney--Change Cars, from Wide to Narrow +Gauge, a Peculiarity at Albury--Customs-fences--"My Word"--The Blue +Mountains--Rabbit Piles--Government R. R. Restaurants--Duchesses for +Waiters--"Sheep-dip"--Railroad Coffee--Things Seen and Not Seen + + +CHAPTER XV. +Wagga-Wagga--The Tichborne Claimant--A Stock Mystery--The Plan of the +Romance--The Realization--The Henry Bascom Mystery--Bascom Hall--The +Author's Death and Funeral + + +CHAPTER XVI. +Melbourne and its Attractions--The Melbourne Cup Races--Cup Day--Great +Crowds--Clothes Regardless of Cost--The Australian Larrikin--Is He Dead? +Australian Hospitality--Melbourne Wool-brokers--The Museums--The Palaces +--The Origin of Melbourne + + +CHAPTER XVII. +The British Empire--Its Exports and Imports--The Trade of Australia--To +Adelaide--Broken Hill Silver Mine--A Roundabout road--The Scrub and its +Possibilities for the Novelist--The Aboriginal Tracker--A Test Case--How +Does One Cow-Track Differ from Another? + + +CHAPTER XVIII. +Gum Trees--Unsociable Trees--Gorse and Broom--A universal Defect--An +Adventurer--Wanted L200, got L20,000,000--A Vast Land Scheme--The +Smash-up--The Corpse Got Up and Danced--A Unique Business by One Man +--Buying the Kangaroo Skin--The Approach to Adelaide--Everything Comes to +Him who Waits--A Healthy Religious sphere--What is the Matter with the +Specter? + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +The Botanical Gardens--Contributions from all Countries--The +Zoological Gardens of Adelaide--The Laughing Jackass--The Dingo--A +Misnamed Province--Telegraphing from Melbourne to San Francisco--A Mania +for Holidays--The Temperature--The Death Rate--Celebration of the +Reading of the Proclamation of 1836--Some old Settlers at the +Commemoration--Their Staying Powers--The Intelligence of the Aboriginal +--The Antiquity of the Boomerang + + +CHAPTER XX. +A Caller--A Talk about Old Times--The Fox Hunt--An Accurate Judgment of +an Idiot--How We Passed the Custom Officers in Italy + + +CHAPTER XXI. +The "Weet-Weet"--Keeping down the Population--Victoria--Killing the +Aboriginals--Pioneer Days in Queensland--Material for a Drama--The Bush +--Pudding with Arsenic Revenge--A Right Spirit but a Wrong Method--Death of +Donga Billy + + +CHAPTER XXII. +Continued Description of Aboriginals--Manly Qualities--Dodging Balls +--Feats of Spring--Jumping--Where the Kangaroo Learned its Art 'Well +Digging--Endurance--Surgery--Artistic Abilities--Fennimore Cooper's Last +Chance--Australian Slang + + +CHAPTER XXIII. +To Horsham (Colony of Victoria)--Description of Horsham--At the Hotel +--Pepper Tree-The Agricultural College, Forty Pupils--High Temperature +--Width of Road in Chains, Perches, etc.--The Bird with a Forgettable +Name--The Magpie and the Lady--Fruit Trees--Soils--Sheep Shearing--To Stawell +--Gold Mining Country--$75,000 per Month Income and able to Keep House +--Fine Grapes and Wine--The Dryest Community on Earth--The Three Sisters +--Gum Trees and Water + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +Road to Ballarat--The City--Great Gold Strike, 1851--Rush for Australia +--"Great Nuggets"--Taxation--Revolt and Victory--Peter Lalor and the +Eureka Stockade--"Pencil Mark"--Fine Statuary at Ballarat--Population +--Ballarat English + + +CHAPTER XXV. +Bound for Bendigo--The Priest at Castlemaine--Time Saved by Walking +--Description of Bendigo--A Valuable Nugget--Perseverence and Success +--Mr. Blank and His Influence--Conveyance of an Idea--I Had to Like the +Irishman--Corrigan Castle, and the Mark Twain Club--My Bascom Mystery +Solved + + +CHAPTER XXVI. +Where New Zealand Is--But Few Know--Things People Think They Know--The +Yale Professor and His Visitor from N. Z. + + +CHAPTER XXVII. +The South Pole Swell--Tasmania--Extermination of the Natives--The Picture +Proclamation--The Conciliator--The Formidable Sixteen + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. +When the Moment Comes the Man Appears--Why Ed. Jackson called on +Commodore Vanderbilt--Their Interview--Welcome to the Child of His Friend +--A Big Time but under Inspection--Sent on Important Business--A Visit to +the Boys on the Boat + + +CHAPTER XXIX: +Tasmania, Early Days--Description of the Town of Hobart--An Englishman's +Love of Home Surroundings--Neatest City on Earth--The Museum--A Parrot +with an Acquired Taste--Glass Arrow Beads--Refuge for the Indigent too +healthy + + +CHAPTER XXX. +Arrival at Bluff, N. Z.--Where the Rabbit Plague Began--The Natural Enemy +of the Rabbit--Dunedin--A Lovely Town--Visit to Dr. Hockin--His Museum +--A Liquified Caterpillar--The Unperfected Tape Worm--The Public Museum and +Picture + + +CHAPTER XXXI. The Express Train--"A Hell of a Hotel at Maryborough" +--Clocks and Bells--Railroad Service. + + +CHAPTER XXXII. +Description of the Town of Christ Church--A Fine Museum--Jade-stone +Trinkets--The Great Man--The First Maori in New Zealand--Women Voters +--"Person" in New Zealand Law Includes Woman--Taming an Ornithorhynchus +--A Voyage in the 'Flora' from Lyttelton--Cattle Stalls for Everybody +--A Wonderful Time. + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. +The Town of Nelson--"The Mongatapu Murders," the Great Event of the Town +--Burgess' Confession--Summit of Mount Eden--Rotorua and the Hot Lakes +and Geysers--Thermal Springs District--Kauri Gum--Tangariwa Mountains + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. +The Bay of Gisborne--Taking in Passengers by the Yard Arm--The Green +Ballarat Fly--False Teeth--From Napier to Hastings by the Ballarat Fly +Train--Kauri Trees--A Case of Mental Telegraphy + + +CHAPTER XXXV. +Fifty Miles in Four Hours--Comfortable Cars--Town of Wauganui--Plenty of +Maoris--On the Increase--Compliments to the Maoris--The Missionary Ways +all Wrong--The Tabu among the Maoris--A Mysterious Sign--Curious +War-monuments--Wellington + + +CHAPTER XXXVI. +The Poems of Mrs. Moore--The Sad Fate of William Upson--A Fellow Traveler +Imitating the Prince of Wales--A Would-be Dude--Arrival at Sydney +--Curious Town Names with Poem + + +CHAPTER XXXVII. +From Sydney for Ceylon--A Lascar Crew--A Fine Ship--Three Cats and a +Basket of Kittens--Dinner Conversations--Veuve Cliquot Wine--At Anchor in +King George's Sound Albany Harbor--More Cats--A Vulture on Board--Nearing +the Equator again--Dressing for Dinner--Ceylon, Hotel Bristol--Servant +Brampy--A Feminine Man--Japanese Jinriksha or Cart--Scenes in Ceylon--A +Missionary School--Insincerity of Clothes + + +CHAPTER XXXVIII. +Steamer Rosettes to Bombay--Limes 14 cents a Barrel--Bombay, a Bewitching +City--Descriptions of People and Dress--Woman as a Road Decoration +--India, the Land of Dreams and Romance--Fourteen Porters to Carry Baggage +--Correcting a Servant--Killing a Slave--Arranging a Bedroom--Three Hours' +Work and a Terrible Racket--The Bird of Birds, the Indian Crow + + +CHAPTER XXXIX. +God Vishnu, 108 Names--Change of Titles or Hunting for an Heir--Bombay as +a Kaleidoscope--The Native's Man Servant--Servants' Recommendations--How +Manuel got his Name and his English--Satan--A Visit from God + + +CHAPTER XL. +The Government House at Malabar Point--Mansion of Kumar Shri Samatsin Hji +Bahadur--The Indian Princess--A Difficult Game--Wardrobe and Jewels +--Ceremonials--Decorations when Leaving--The Towers of Silence--A Funeral + + +CHAPTER XLI. +Jain Temple--Mr. Roychand's Bungalow--A Decorated Six-Gun Prince--Human +Fireworks--European Dress, Past and Present--Complexions--Advantages with +the Zulu--Festivities at the Bungalow-Nautch Dancers--Entrance of the +Prince--Address to the Prince + + +CHAPTER XLII. +A Hindoo Betrothal, midnight, Sleepers on the ground, Home of the Bride +of Twelve Years Dressed as a Boy--Illumination Nautch Girls--Imitating +Snakes--Later--Illuminated Porch Filled with Sleepers--The Plague + + +CHAPTER XLIII +Murder Trial in Bombay--Confidence Swindlers--Some Specialities of India +--The Plague, Juggernaut, Suttee, etc.--Everything on Gigantic Scale +--India First in Everything--80 States, more Custom Houses than Cats--Rich +Ground for Thug Society + + +CHAPTER XLIV. +Thug Book--Supplies for Traveling, Bedding, and other Freight--Scene at +Railway Station--Making Way for White Man--Waiting Passengers, High and +Low Caste, Touch in the cars--Our Car--Beds made up--Dreaming of Thugs +--Baroda--Meet Friends--Indian Well--The Old Town--Narrow Streets--A Mad +Elephant + +CHAPTER XLV. + +Elephant Riding--Howdahs--The New Palace--The Prince's Excursion--Gold +and Silver Artillery--A Vice-royal Visit--Remarkable Dog--The Bench Show +--Augustin Daly's Back Door--Fakeer + + +CHAPTER XLVI. +The Thugs--Government Efforts to Exterminate them--Choking a Victim A +Fakeer Spared--Thief Strangled + + +CHAPTER XLVII. +Thugs, Continued--Record of Murders--A Joy of Hunting and Killing Men +--Gordon Gumming--Killing an Elephant--Family Affection among Thugs +--Burial Places + + +CHAPTER XLVIII. +Starting for Allahabad--Lower Berths in Sleepers--Elderly Ladies have +Preference of Berths--An American Lady Takes One Anyhow--How Smythe Lost +his Berth--How He Got Even--The Suttee + + +CHAPTER XLIX. +Pyjamas--Day Scene in India--Clothed in a Turban and a Pocket +Handkerchief--Land Parceled Out--Established Village Servants--Witches in +Families--Hereditary Midwifery--Destruction of Girl Babies--Wedding +Display--Tiger-Persuader--Hailstorm Discourages--The Tyranny of the +Sweeper--Elephant Driver--Water Carrier--Curious Rivers--Arrival at +Allahabad--English Quarter--Lecture Hall Like a Snowstorm--Private +Carriages--A Milliner--Early Morning--The Squatting Servant--A Religious +Fair + + +CHAPTER L. +On the Road to Benares--Dust and Waiting--The Bejeweled Crowd--A Native +Prince and his Guard--Zenana Lady--The Extremes of Fashion--The Hotel at +Benares--An Annex a Mile Away--Doors in India--The Peepul Tree--Warning +against Cold Baths--A Strange Fruit--Description of Benares--The +Beginning of Creation--Pilgrims to Benares--A Priest with a Good Business +Stand--Protestant Missionary--The Trinity Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu +--Religion the Business at Benares + + +CHAPTER LI. +Benares a Religious Temple--A Guide for Pilgrims to Save Time in Securing +Salvation + + +CHAPTER LII. +A Curious Way to Secure Salvation--The Banks of the Ganges--Architecture +Represents Piety--A Trip on the River--Bathers and their Costumes +--Drinking the Water--A Scientific Test of the Nasty Purifier--Hindoo Faith +in the Ganges--A Cremation--Remembrances of the Suttee--All Life Sacred +Except Human Life--The Goddess Bhowanee, and the Sacrificers--Sacred +Monkeys--Ugly Idols Everywhere--Two White Minarets--A Great View with a +Monkey in it--A Picture on the Water + + +CHAPTER LIII. +Still in Benares--Another Living God--Why Things are Wonderful--Sri 108 +Utterly Perfect--How He Came so--Our Visit to Sri--A Friendly Deity +Exchanging Autographs and Books--Sri's Pupil--An Interesting Man +--Reverence and Irreverence--Dancing in a Sepulchre + + +CHAPTER LIV. +Rail to Calcutta--Population--The "City of Palaces"--A Fluted +Candle-stick--Ochterlony--Newspaper Correspondence--Average Knowledge of +Countries--A Wrong Idea of Chicago--Calcutta and the Black Hole +--Description of the Horrors--Those Who Lived--The Botanical Gardens--The +Afternoon Turnout--Grand Review--Military Tournament--Excursion on the +Hoogly--The Museum--What Winter Means Calcutta + + +CHAPTER LV +On the Road Again--Flannels in Order--Across Country--From Greenland's +Icy Mountain--Swapping Civilization--No Field women in India--How it is +in Other Countries--Canvas-covered Cars--The Tiger Country--My First Hunt +Some Elephants Get Away--The Plains of India--The Ghurkas--Women for +Pack-Horses--A Substitute for a Cab--Darjeeling--The Hotel--The Highest +Thing in the Himalayas--The Club--Kinchinjunga and Mt. Everest +--Thibetans--The Prayer Wheel--People Going to the Bazar + + +CHAPTER LVI. +On the Road Again--The Hand-Car--A Thirty-five-mile Slide--The Banyan +Tree--A Dramatic Performance--The Railroad--The Half-way House--The Brain +Fever Bird--The Coppersmith Bird--Nightingales and Cue Owls + + +CHAPTER LVII. +India the Most Extraordinary Country on Earth--Nothing Forgotten--The +Land of Wonders--Annual Statistics Everywhere about Violence--Tiger vs. +Man--A Handsome Fight--Annual Man Killing and Tiger Killing--Other +Animals--Snakes--Insurance and Snake Tables--The Cobra Bite--Muzaffurpore +--Dinapore--A Train that Stopped for Gossip--Six Hours for Thirty-five +Miles--A Rupee to the Engineer--Ninety Miles an Hour--Again to Benares, +the Piety Hive To Lucknow + + +CHAPTER LVIII. +The Great Mutiny--The Massacre in Cawnpore--Terrible Scenes in Lucknow +--The Residency--The Siege + + +CHAPTER LIX. +A Visit to the Residency--Cawnpore--The Adjutant Bird and the Hindoo +Corpse--The Tai Mahal--The True Conception--The Ice Storm--True Gems +--Syrian Fountains--An Exaggerated Niagara + + +CHAPTER LX. +To Lahore--The Governor's Elephant--Taking a Ride-No Danger from +Collision--Rawal Pindi--Back to Delhi--An Orientalized Englishman +--Monkeys and the Paint-pot--Monkey Crying over my Note-book--Arrival at +Jeypore--In Rajputana--Watching Servants--The Jeypore Hotel--Our Old and +New Satan--Satan as a Liar--The Museum--A Street Show--Blocks of Houses +--A Religious Procession + + +CHAPTER LXI. +Methods in American Deaf and Dumb Asylums--Methods in the Public Schools +--A Letter from a youth in Punjab--Highly Educated Service--A Damage to +the Country--A Little Book from Calcutta--Writing Poor English +--Embarrassed by a Beggar Girl--A Specimen Letter--An Application for +Employment--A Calcutta School Examination--Two Samples of +Literature + + +CHAPTER LXII. +Sail from Calcutta to Madras--Thence to Ceylon--Thence for Mauritius +--The Indian Ocean--Our Captain's Peculiarity The Scot Has one too--The +Flying-fish that Went Hunting in the Field--Fined for Smuggling--Lots of +pets on Board--The Color of the Sea--The Most Important Member of +Nature's Family--The Captain's Story of Cold Weather--Omissions in the +Ship's Library--Washing Decks--Pyjamas on Deck--The Cat's Toilet--No +Interest in the Bulletin--Perfect Rest--The Milky Way and the Magellan +Clouds--Mauritius--Port Louis--A Hot Country--Under French Control +--A Variety of People and Complexions--Train to Curepipe--A Wonderful +Office-holder--The Wooden Peg Ornament--The Prominent Historical Event of +Mauritius--"Paul and Virginia"--One of Virginia's Wedding Gifts--Heaven +Copied after Mauritius--Early History of Mauritius--Quarantines +--Population of all Kinds--What the World Consists of--Where Russia and +Germany are--A Picture of Milan Cathedral--Newspapers--The Language--Best +Sugar in the World--Literature of Mauritius + + +CHAPTER LXIII. +Port Louis--Matches no Good--Good Roads--Death Notices--Why European +Nations Rob Each Other--What Immigrants to Mauritius Do--Population +--Labor Wages--The Camaron--The Palmiste and other Eatables--Monkeys--The +Cyclone of 1892--Mauritius a Sunday Landscape + + +CHAPTER LXIV. +The Steamer "Arundel Castle"--Poor Beds in Ships--The Beds in Noah's Ark +--Getting a Rest in Europe--Ship in Sight--Mozambique Channel--The +Engineer and the Band--Thackeray's "Madagascar"--Africanders Going Home +--Singing on the After Deck--An Out-of-Place Story--Dynamite Explosion in +Johannesburg--Entering Delagoa Bay--Ashore--A Hot Winter--Small Town--No +Sights--No Carriages--Working Women--Barnum's Purchase of Shakespeare's +Birthplace, Jumbo, and the Nelson Monument--Arrival at Durban + + +CHAPTER LXV. +Royal Hotel Durban--Bells that Did not Ring--Early Inquiries for Comforts +--Change of Temperature after Sunset-Rickhaws--The Hotel Chameleon +--Natives not out after the Bell--Preponderance of Blacks in Natal--Hair +Fashions in Natal--Zulus for Police--A Drive round the Berea--The Cactus +and other Trees--Religion a Vital Matter--Peculiar Views about Babies +--Zulu Kings--A Trappist Monastery--Transvaal Politics--Reasons why the +Trouble came About + + +CHAPTER LXVI. +Jameson over the Border--His Defeat and Capture--Sent to England for +Trial--Arrest of Citizens by the Boers--Commuted sentences--Final Release +of all but Two--Interesting Days for a Stranger--Hard to Understand +Either Side--What the Reformers Expected to Accomplish--How They Proposed +to do it--Testimonies a Year Later--A "Woman's Part"--The Truth of the +South African Situation--"Jameson's Ride"--A Poem + + +CHAPTER LXVIL +Jameson's Raid--The Reform Committee's Difficult Task--Possible Plans +--Advice that Jameson Ought to Have--The War of 1881 and its Lessons +--Statistics of Losses of the Combatants--Jameson's Battles--Losses on Both +Sides--The Military Errors--How the Warfare Should Have Been Carried on +to Be Successful + + +CHAPTER LXVIII. +Judicious Mr. Rhodes--What South Africa Consists of--Johannesburg--The +Gold Mines--The Heaven of American Engineers--What the Author Knows about +Mining--Description of the Boer--What Should be Expected of Him--What Was +A Dizzy Jump for Rhodes--Taxes--Rhodesian Method of Reducing Native +Population--Journeying in Cape Colony--The Cars--The Country--The +Weather--Tamed Blacks--Familiar Figures in King William's Town--Boer +Dress--Boer Country Life--Sleeping Accommodations--The Reformers in Boer +Prison--Torturing a Black Prisoner + + +CHAPTER LXIX. +An Absorbing Novelty--The Kimberley Diamond Mines--Discovery of Diamonds +--The Wronged Stranger--Where the Gems Are--A Judicious Change of +Boundary--Modern Machinery and Appliances--Thrilling Excitement in +Finding a Diamond--Testing a Diamond--Fences--Deep Mining by Natives in +the Compound--Stealing--Reward for the Biggest Diamond--A Fortune in +Wine--The Great Diamond--Office of the De Beer Co.--Sorting the Gems +--Cape Town--The Most Imposing Man in British Provinces--Various Reasons +for his Supremacy--How He Makes Friends + + +CONCLUSION. +Table Rock--Table Bay--The Castle--Government and Parliament--The Club +--Dutch Mansions and their Hospitality--Dr. John Barry and his Doings--On +the Ship Norman--Madeira--Arrived in Southampton + + + + + + FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR + + +CHAPTER I. + +A man may have no bad habits and have worse. + --Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar. + +The starting point of this lecturing-trip around the world was Paris, +where we had been living a year or two. + +We sailed for America, and there made certain preparations. This took +but little time. Two members of my family elected to go with me. Also a +carbuncle. The dictionary says a carbuncle is a kind of jewel. Humor is +out of place in a dictionary. + +We started westward from New York in midsummer, with Major Pond to manage +the platform-business as far as the Pacific. It was warm work, all the +way, and the last fortnight of it was suffocatingly smoky, for in Oregon +and Columbia the forest fires were raging. We had an added week of smoke +at the seaboard, where we were obliged awhile for our ship. She had been +getting herself ashore in the smoke, and she had to be docked and +repaired. + +We sailed at last; and so ended a snail-paced march across the continent, +which had lasted forty days. + +We moved westward about mid-afternoon over a rippled and summer sea; an +enticing sea, a clean and cool sea, and apparently a welcome sea to all +on board; it certainly was to the distressful dustings and smokings and +swelterings of the past weeks. The voyage would furnish a three-weeks +holiday, with hardly a break in it. We had the whole Pacific Ocean in +front of us, with nothing to do but do nothing and be comfortable. The +city of Victoria was twinkling dim in the deep heart of her smoke-cloud, +and getting ready to vanish and now we closed the field-glasses and sat +down on our steamer chairs contented and at peace. But they went to +wreck and ruin under us and brought us to shame before all the +passengers. They had been furnished by the largest furniture-dealing +house in Victoria, and were worth a couple of farthings a dozen, though +they had cost us the price of honest chairs. In the Pacific and Indian +Oceans one must still bring his own deck-chair on board or go without, +just as in the old forgotten Atlantic times--those Dark Ages of sea +travel. + +Ours was a reasonably comfortable ship, with the customary sea-going fare +--plenty of good food furnished by the Deity and cooked by the devil. +The discipline observable on board was perhaps as good as it is anywhere +in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The ship was not very well arranged +for tropical service; but that is nothing, for this is the rule for ships +which ply in the tropics. She had an over-supply of cockroaches, but +this is also the rule with ships doing business in the summer seas--at +least such as have been long in service. Our young captain was a very +handsome man, tall and perfectly formed, the very figure to show up a +smart uniform's best effects. He was a man of the best intentions and +was polite and courteous even to courtliness. There was a soft and +finish about his manners which made whatever place he happened to be in +seem for the moment a drawing room. He avoided the smoking room. He had +no vices. He did not smoke or chew tobacco or take snuff; he did not +swear, or use slang or rude, or coarse, or indelicate language, or make +puns, or tell anecdotes, or laugh intemperately, or raise his voice above +the moderate pitch enjoined by the canons of good form. When he gave an +order, his manner modified it into a request. After dinner he and his +officers joined the ladies and gentlemen in the ladies' saloon, and +shared in the singing and piano playing, and helped turn the music. He +had a sweet and sympathetic tenor voice, and used it with taste and +effect the music he played whist there, always with the same partner and +opponents, until the ladies' bedtime. The electric lights burned there +as late as the ladies and their friends might desire; but they were not +allowed to burn in the smoking-room after eleven. There were many laws +on the ship's statute book of course; but so far as I could see, this and +one other were the only ones that were rigidly enforced. The captain +explained that he enforced this one because his own cabin adjoined the +smoking-room, and the smell of tobacco smoke made him sick. I did not +see how our smoke could reach him, for the smoking-room and his cabin +were on the upper deck, targets for all the winds that blew; and besides +there was no crack of communication between them, no opening of any sort +in the solid intervening bulkhead. Still, to a delicate stomach even +imaginary smoke can convey damage. + +The captain, with his gentle nature, his polish, his sweetness, his moral +and verbal purity, seemed pathetically out of place in his rude and +autocratic vocation. It seemed another instance of the irony of fate. + +He was going home under a cloud. The passengers knew about his trouble, +and were sorry for him. Approaching Vancouver through a narrow and +difficult passage densely befogged with smoke from the forest fires, he +had had the ill-luck to lose his bearings and get his ship on the rocks. +A matter like this would rank merely as an error with you and me; it +ranks as a crime with the directors of steamship companies. The captain +had been tried by the Admiralty Court at Vancouver, and its verdict had +acquitted him of blame. But that was insufficient comfort. A sterner +court would examine the case in Sydney--the Court of Directors, the lords +of a company in whose ships the captain had served as mate a number of +years. This was his first voyage as captain. + +The officers of our ship were hearty and companionable young men, and +they entered into the general amusements and helped the passengers pass +the time. Voyages in the Pacific and Indian Oceans are but pleasure +excursions for all hands. Our purser was a young Scotchman who was +equipped with a grit that was remarkable. He was an invalid, and looked +it, as far as his body was concerned, but illness could not subdue his +spirit. He was full of life, and had a gay and capable tongue. To all +appearances he was a sick man without being aware of it, for he did not +talk about his ailments, and his bearing and conduct were those of a +person in robust health; yet he was the prey, at intervals, of ghastly +sieges of pain in his heart. These lasted many hours, and while the +attack continued he could neither sit nor lie. In one instance he stood +on his feet twenty-four hours fighting for his life with these sharp +agonies, and yet was as full of life and cheer and activity +the next day as if nothing had happened. + +The brightest passenger in the ship, and the most interesting and +felicitous talker, was a young Canadian who was not able to let the +whisky bottle alone. He was of a rich and powerful family, and could have +had a distinguished career and abundance of effective help toward it if +he could have conquered his appetite for drink; but he could not do it, +so his great equipment of talent was of no use to him. He had often taken +the pledge to drink no more, and was a good sample of what that sort of +unwisdom can do for a man--for a man with anything short of an iron will. +The system is wrong in two ways: it does not strike at the root of the +trouble, for one thing, and to make a pledge of any kind is to declare +war against nature; for a pledge is a chain that is always clanking and +reminding the wearer of it that he is not a free man. + +I have said that the system does not strike at the root of the trouble, +and I venture to repeat that. The root is not the drinking, but the +desire to drink. These are very different things. The one merely +requires will--and a great deal of it, both as to bulk and staying +capacity--the other merely requires watchfulness--and for no long time. +The desire of course precedes the act, and should have one's first +attention; it can do but little good to refuse the act over and over +again, always leaving the desire unmolested, unconquered; the desire will +continue to assert itself, and will be almost sure to win in the long +run. When the desire intrudes, it should be at once banished out of the +mind. One should be on the watch for it all the time--otherwise it will +get in. It must be taken in time and not allowed to get a lodgment. A +desire constantly repulsed for a fortnight should die, then. That should +cure the drinking habit. The system of refusing the mere act of +drinking, and leaving the desire in full force, is unintelligent war +tactics, it seems to me. I used to take pledges--and soon violate them. +My will was not strong, and I could not help it. And then, to be tied in +any way naturally irks an otherwise free person and makes him chafe in +his bonds and want to get his liberty. But when I finally ceased from +taking definite pledges, and merely resolved that I would kill an +injurious desire, but leave myself free to resume the desire and the +habit whenever I should choose to do so, I had no more trouble. In five +days I drove out the desire to smoke and was not obliged to keep watch +after that; and I never experienced any strong desire to smoke again. At +the end of a year and a quarter of idleness I began to write a book, and +presently found that the pen was strangely reluctant to go. I tried a +smoke to see if that would help me out of the difficulty. It did. I +smoked eight or ten cigars and as many pipes a day for five months; +finished the book, and did not smoke again until a year had gone by and +another book had to be begun. + +I can quit any of my nineteen injurious habits at any time, and without +discomfort or inconvenience. I think that the Dr. Tanners and those +others who go forty days without eating do it by resolutely keeping out +the desire to eat, in the beginning, and that after a few hours the +desire is discouraged and comes no more. + +Once I tried my scheme in a large medical way. I had been confined to my +bed several days with lumbago. My case refused to improve. Finally the +doctor said,-- + +"My remedies have no fair chance. Consider what they have to fight, +besides the lumbago. You smoke extravagantly, don't you?" + +"Yes." + +"You take coffee immoderately?" + +"Yes." + +"And some tea?" + +"Yes." + +"You eat all kinds of things that are dissatisfied with each other's +company?" + +"Yes." + +"You drink two hot Scotches every night?" + +"Yes." + +"Very well, there you see what I have to contend against. We can't make +progress the way the matter stands. You must make a reduction in these +things; you must cut down your consumption of them considerably for some +days." + +"I can't, doctor." + +"Why can't you." + +"I lack the will-power. I can cut them off entirely, but I can't merely +moderate them." + +He said that that would answer, and said he would come around in +twenty-four hours and begin work again. He was taken ill himself and +could not come; but I did not need him. I cut off all those things for +two days and nights; in fact, I cut off all kinds of food, too, and all +drinks except water, and at the end of the forty-eight hours the lumbago +was discouraged and left me. I was a well man; so I gave thanks and took +to those delicacies again. + +It seemed a valuable medical course, and I recommended it to a lady. She +had run down and down and down, and had at last reached a point where +medicines no longer had any helpful effect upon her. I said I knew I +could put her upon her feet in a week. It brightened her up, it filled +her with hope, and she said she would do everything I told her to do. So +I said she must stop swearing and drinking, and smoking and eating for +four days, and then she would be all right again. And it would have +happened just so, I know it; but she said she could not stop swearing, +and smoking, and drinking, because she had never done those things. So +there it was. She had neglected her habits, and hadn't any. Now that +they would have come good, there were none in stock. She had nothing to +fall back on. She was a sinking vessel, with no freight in her to throw +over lighten ship withal. Why, even one or two little bad habits could +have saved her, but she was just a moral pauper. When she could have +acquired them she was dissuaded by her parents, who were ignorant people +though reared in the best society, and it was too late to begin now. It +seemed such a pity; but there was no help for it. These things ought to +be attended to while a person is young; otherwise, when age and disease +come, there is nothing effectual to fight them with. + +When I was a youth I used to take all kinds of pledges, and do my best to +keep them, but I never could, because I didn't strike at the root of the +habit--the desire; I generally broke down within the month. Once I tried +limiting a habit. That worked tolerably well for a while. I pledged +myself to smoke but one cigar a day. I kept the cigar waiting until +bedtime, then I had a luxurious time with it. But desire persecuted me +every day and all day long; so, within the week I found myself hunting +for larger cigars than I had been used to smoke; then larger ones still, +and still larger ones. Within the fortnight I was getting cigars made +for me--on a yet larger pattern. They still grew and grew in size. +Within the month my cigar had grown to such proportions that I could have +used it as a crutch. It now seemed to me that a one-cigar limit was no +real protection to a person, so I knocked my pledge on the head and +resumed my liberty. + +To go back to that young Canadian. He was a "remittance man," the first +one I had ever seen or heard of. Passengers explained the term to me. +They said that dissipated ne'er-do-wells belonging to important families +in England and Canada were not cast off by their people while there was +any hope of reforming them, but when that last hope perished at last, the +ne'er-do-well was sent abroad to get him out of the way. He was shipped +off with just enough money in his pocket--no, in the purser's pocket--for +the needs of the voyage--and when he reached his destined port he would +find a remittance awaiting him there. Not a large one, but just enough +to keep him a month. A similar remittance would come monthly thereafter. +It was the remittance-man's custom to pay his month's board and lodging +straightway--a duty which his landlord did not allow him to forget--then +spree away the rest of his money in a single night, then brood and mope +and grieve in idleness till the next remittance came. It is a pathetic +life. + +We had other remittance-men on board, it was said. At least they said +they were R. M.'s. There were two. But they did not resemble the +Canadian; they lacked his tidiness, and his brains, and his gentlemanly +ways, and his resolute spirit, and his humanities and generosities. One +of them was a lad of nineteen or twenty, and he was a good deal of a +ruin, as to clothes, and morals, and general aspect. He said he was a +scion of a ducal house in England, and had been shipped to Canada for the +house's relief, that he had fallen into trouble there, and was now being +shipped to Australia. He said he had no title. Beyond this remark he +was economical of the truth. The first thing he did in Australia was to +get into the lockup, and the next thing he did was to proclaim himself an +earl in the police court in the morning and fail to prove it. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +When in doubt, tell the truth. + --Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar. + +About four days out from Victoria we plunged into hot weather, and all +the male passengers put on white linen clothes. One or two days later we +crossed the 25th parallel of north latitude, and then, by order, the +officers of the ship laid away their blue uniforms and came out in white +linen ones. All the ladies were in white by this time. This prevalence +of snowy costumes gave the promenade deck an invitingly cool, and +cheerful and picnicky aspect. + +From my diary: + +There are several sorts of ills in the world from which a person can +never escape altogether, let him journey as far as he will. One escapes +from one breed of an ill only to encounter another breed of it. We have +come far from the snake liar and the fish liar, and there was rest and +peace in the thought; but now we have reached the realm of the boomerang +liar, and sorrow is with us once more. The first officer has seen a man +try to escape from his enemy by getting behind a tree; but the enemy sent +his boomerang sailing into the sky far above and beyond the tree; then it +turned, descended, and killed the man. The Australian passenger has seen +this thing done to two men, behind two trees--and by the one arrow. This +being received with a large silence that suggested doubt, he buttressed +it with the statement that his brother once saw the boomerang kill a bird +away off a hundred yards and bring it to the thrower. But these are ills +which must be borne. There is no other way. + +The talk passed from the boomerang to dreams--usually a fruitful subject, +afloat or ashore--but this time the output was poor. Then it passed to +instances of extraordinary memory--with better results. Blind Tom, the +negro pianist, was spoken of, and it was said that he could accurately +play any piece of music, howsoever long and difficult, after hearing it +once; and that six months later he could accurately play it again, +without having touched it in the interval. One of the most striking of +the stories told was furnished by a gentleman who had served on the staff +of the Viceroy of India. He read the details from his note-book, and +explained that he had written them down, right after the consummation of +the incident which they described, because he thought that if he did not +put them down in black and white he might presently come to think he had +dreamed them or invented them. + +The Viceroy was making a progress, and among the shows offered by the +Maharajah of Mysore for his entertainment was a memory-exhibition. +The Viceroy and thirty gentlemen of his suite sat in a row, and the +memory-expert, a high-caste Brahmin, was brought in and seated on the +floor in front of them. He said he knew but two languages, the English +and his own, but would not exclude any foreign tongue from the tests to +be applied to his memory. Then he laid before the assemblage his program +--a sufficiently extraordinary one. He proposed that one gentleman +should give him one word of a foreign sentence, and tell him its place in +the sentence. He was furnished with the French word 'est', and was told +it was second in a sentence of three words. The next, gentleman gave him +the German word 'verloren' and said it was the third in a sentence of +four words. He asked the next gentleman for one detail in a sum in +addition; another for one detail in a sum of subtraction; others for +single details in mathematical problems of various kinds; he got them. +Intermediates gave him single words from sentences in Greek, Latin, +Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and other languages, and told him their +places in the sentences. When at last everybody had furnished him a +single rag from a foreign sentence or a figure from a problem, he went +over the ground again, and got a second word and a second figure and was +told their places in the sentences and the sums; and so on and so on. He +went over the ground again and again until he had collected all the parts +of the sums and all the parts of the sentences--and all in disorder, of +course, not in their proper rotation. This had occupied two hours. + +The Brahmin now sat silent and thinking, a while, then began and repeated +all the sentences, placing the words in their proper order, and untangled +the disordered arithmetical problems and gave accurate answers to them +all. + +In the beginning he had asked the company to throw almonds at him during +the two hours, he to remember how many each gentleman had thrown; but +none were thrown, for the Viceroy said that the test would be a +sufficiently severe strain without adding that burden to it. + +General Grant had a fine memory for all kinds of things, including even +names and faces, and I could have furnished an instance of it if I had +thought of it. The first time I ever saw him was early in his first term +as President. I had just arrived in Washington from the Pacific coast, a +stranger and wholly unknown to the public, and was passing the White +House one morning when I met a friend, a Senator from Nevada. He asked +me if I would like to see the President. I said I should be very glad; +so we entered. I supposed that the President would be in the midst of a +crowd, and that I could look at him in peace and security from a +distance, as another stray cat might look at another king. But it was in +the morning, and the Senator was using a privilege of his office which I +had not heard of--the privilege of intruding upon the Chief Magistrate's +working hours. Before I knew it, the Senator and I were in the presence, +and there was none there but we three. General Grant got slowly up from +his table, put his pen down, and stood before me with the iron expression +of a man who had not smiled for seven years, and was not intending to +smile for another seven. He looked me steadily in the eyes--mine lost +confidence and fell. I had never confronted a great man before, and was +in a miserable state of funk and inefficiency. The Senator said:-- + +"Mr. President, may I have the privilege of introducing Mr. Clemens?" + +The President gave my hand an unsympathetic wag and dropped it. He did +not say a word but just stood. In my trouble I could not think of +anything to say, I merely wanted to resign. There was an awkward pause, +a dreary pause, a horrible pause. Then I thought of something, and +looked up into that unyielding face, and said timidly:-- + +"Mr. President, I--I am embarrassed. Are you?" + +His face broke--just a little--a wee glimmer, the momentary flicker of a +summer-lightning smile, seven years ahead of time--and I was out and gone +as soon as it was. + +Ten years passed away before I saw him the second time. Meantime I was +become better known; and was one of the people appointed to respond to +toasts at the banquet given to General Grant in Chicago--by the Army of +the Tennessee when he came back from his tour around the world. I +arrived late at night and got up late in the morning. All the corridors +of the hotel were crowded with people waiting to get a glimpse of General +Grant when he should pass to the place whence he was to review the great +procession. I worked my way by the suite of packed drawing-rooms, and at +the corner of the house I found a window open where there was a roomy +platform decorated with flags, and carpeted. I stepped out on it, and +saw below me millions of people blocking all the streets, and other +millions caked together in all the windows and on all the house-tops +around. These masses took me for General Grant, and broke into volcanic +explosions and cheers; but it was a good place to see the procession, and +I stayed. Presently I heard the distant blare of military music, and far +up the street I saw the procession come in sight, cleaving its way +through the huzzaing multitudes, with Sheridan, the most martial +figure of the War, riding at its head in the dress uniform of a +Lieutenant-General. + +And now General Grant, arm-in-arm with Major Carter Harrison, stepped out +on the platform, followed two and two by the badged and uniformed +reception committee. General Grant was looking exactly as he had looked +upon that trying occasion of ten years before--all iron and bronze +self-possession. Mr. Harrison came over and led me to the General and +formally introduced me. Before I could put together the proper remark, +General Grant said-- + +"Mr. Clemens, I am not embarrassed. Are you?"--and that little +seven-year smile twinkled across his face again. + +Seventeen years have gone by since then, and to-day, in New York, the +streets are a crush of people who are there to honor the remains of the +great soldier as they pass to their final resting-place under the +monument; and the air is heavy with dirges and the boom of artillery, and +all the millions of America are thinking of the man who restored the +Union and the flag, and gave to democratic government a new lease of +life, and, as we may hope and do believe, a permanent place among the +beneficent institutions of men. + +We had one game in the ship which was a good time-passer--at least it was +at night in the smoking-room when the men were getting freshened up from +the day's monotonies and dullnesses. It was the completing of +non-complete stories. That is to say, a man would tell all of a story +except the finish, then the others would try to supply the ending out of +their own invention. When every one who wanted a chance had had it, the +man who had introduced the story would give it its original ending--then +you could take your choice. Sometimes the new endings turned out to be +better than the old one. But the story which called out the most +persistent and determined and ambitious effort was one which had no +ending, and so there was nothing to compare the new-made endings with. +The man who told it said he could furnish the particulars up to a certain +point only, because that was as much of the tale as he knew. He had read +it in a volume of `sketches twenty-five years ago, and was interrupted +before the end was reached. He would give any one fifty dollars who +would finish the story to the satisfaction of a jury to be appointed by +ourselves. We appointed a jury and wrestled with the tale. We invented +plenty of endings, but the jury voted them all down. The jury was right. +It was a tale which the author of it may possibly have completed +satisfactorily, and if he really had that good fortune I would like to +know what the ending was. Any ordinary man will find that the story's +strength is in its middle, and that there is apparently no way to +transfer it to the close, where of course it ought to be. In substance +the storiette was as follows: + +John Brown, aged thirty-one, good, gentle, bashful, timid, lived in a +quiet village in Missouri. He was superintendent of the Presbyterian +Sunday-school. It was but a humble distinction; still, it was his only +official one, and he was modestly proud of it and was devoted to its work +and its interests. The extreme kindliness of his nature was recognized +by all; in fact, people said that he was made entirely out of good +impulses and bashfulness; that he could always be counted upon for help +when it was needed, and for bashfulness both when it was needed and when +it wasn't. + +Mary Taylor, twenty-three, modest, sweet, winning, and in character and +person beautiful, was all in all to him. And he was very nearly all in +all to her. She was wavering, his hopes were high. Her mother had been +in opposition from the first. But she was wavering, too; he could +see it. She was being touched by his warm interest in her two +charity-proteges and by his contributions toward their support. These +were two forlorn and aged sisters who lived in a log hut in a lonely +place up a cross road four miles from Mrs. Taylor's farm. One of the +sisters was crazy, and sometimes a little violent, but not often. + +At last the time seemed ripe for a final advance, and Brown gathered his +courage together and resolved to make it. He would take along a +contribution of double the usual size, and win the mother over; with her +opposition annulled, the rest of the conquest would be sure and prompt. + +He took to the road in the middle of a placid Sunday afternoon in the +soft Missourian summer, and he was equipped properly for his mission. He +was clothed all in white linen, with a blue ribbon for a necktie, and he +had on dressy tight boots. His horse and buggy were the finest that the +livery stable could furnish. The lap robe was of white linen, it was +new, and it had a hand-worked border that could not be rivaled in that +region for beauty and elaboration. + +When he was four miles out on the lonely road and was walking his horse +over a wooden bridge, his straw hat blew off and fell in the creek, and +floated down and lodged against a bar. He did not quite know what to do. +He must have the hat, that was manifest; but how was he to get it? + +Then he had an idea. The roads were empty, nobody was stirring. Yes, he +would risk it. He led the horse to the roadside and set it to cropping +the grass; then he undressed and put his clothes in the buggy, petted the +horse a moment to secure its compassion and its loyalty, then hurried to +the stream. He swam out and soon had the hat. When he got to the top of +the bank the horse was gone! + +His legs almost gave way under him. The horse was walking leisurely +along the road. Brown trotted after it, saying, "Whoa, whoa, there's a +good fellow;" but whenever he got near enough to chance a jump for the +buggy, the horse quickened its pace a little and defeated him. And so +this went on, the naked man perishing with anxiety, and expecting every +moment to see people come in sight. He tagged on and on, imploring the +horse, beseeching the horse, till he had left a mile behind him, and was +closing up on the Taylor premises; then at last he was successful, and +got into the buggy. He flung on his shirt, his necktie, and his coat; +then reached for--but he was too late; he sat suddenly down and pulled up +the lap-robe, for he saw some one coming out of the gate--a woman; he +thought. He wheeled the horse to the left, and struck briskly up the +cross-road. It was perfectly straight, and exposed on both sides; but +there were woods and a sharp turn three miles ahead, and he was very +grateful when he got there. As he passed around the turn he slowed down +to a walk, and reached for his tr---- too late again. + +He had come upon Mrs. Enderby, Mrs. Glossop, Mrs. Taylor, and Mary. +They were on foot, and seemed tired and excited. They came at once to +the buggy and shook hands, and all spoke at once, and said eagerly and +earnestly, how glad they were that he was come, and how fortunate it was. +And Mrs. Enderby said, impressively: + +"It looks like an accident, his coming at such a time; but let no one +profane it with such a name; he was sent--sent from on high." + +They were all moved, and Mrs. Glossop said in an awed voice: + +"Sarah Enderby, you never said a truer word in your life. This is no +accident, it is a special Providence. He was sent. He is an angel--an +angel as truly as ever angel was--an angel of deliverance. I say angel, +Sarah Enderby, and will have no other word. Don't let any one ever say +to me again, that there's no such thing as special Providences; for if +this isn't one, let them account for it that can." + +"I know it's so," said Mrs. Taylor, fervently. "John Brown, I could +worship you; I could go down on my knees to you. Didn't something tell +you?--didn't you feel that you were sent? I could kiss the hem of your +laprobe." + +He was not able to speak; he was helpless with shame and fright. Mrs. +Taylor went on: + +"Why, just look at it all around, Julia Glossop. Any person can see the +hand of Providence in it. Here at noon what do we see? We see the smoke +rising. I speak up and say, 'That's the Old People's cabin afire.' +Didn't I, Julia Glossop?" + +"The very words you said, Nancy Taylor. I was as close to you as I am +now, and I heard them. You may have said hut instead of cabin, but in +substance it's the same. And you were looking pale, too." + +"Pale? I was that pale that if--why, you just compare it with this +laprobe. Then the next thing I said was, 'Mary Taylor, tell the hired +man to rig up the team-we'll go to the rescue.' And she said, 'Mother, +don't you know you told him he could drive to see his people, and stay +over Sunday?' And it was just so. I declare for it, I had forgotten it. +'Then,' said I, 'we'll go afoot.' And go we did. And found Sarah +Enderby on the road." + +"And we all went together," said Mrs. Enderby. "And found the cabin set +fire to and burnt down by the crazy one, and the poor old things so old +and feeble that they couldn't go afoot. And we got them to a shady place +and made them as comfortable as we could, and began to wonder which way +to turn to find some way to get them conveyed to Nancy Taylor's house. +And I spoke up and said--now what did I say? Didn't I say, 'Providence +will provide'?" + +"Why sure as you live, so you did! I had forgotten it." + +"So had I," said Mrs. Glossop and Mrs. Taylor; "but you certainly said +it. Now wasn't that remarkable?" + +"Yes, I said it. And then we went to Mr. Moseley's, two miles, and all +of them were gone to the camp meeting over on Stony Fork; and then we +came all the way back, two miles, and then here, another mile--and +Providence has provided. You see it yourselves" + +They gazed at each other awe-struck, and lifted their hands and said in +unison: + +"It's per-fectly wonderful." + +"And then," said Mrs. Glossop, "what do you think we had better do let +Mr. Brown drive the Old People to Nancy Taylor's one at a time, or put +both of them in the buggy, and him lead the horse?" + +Brown gasped. + +"Now, then, that's a question," said Mrs. Enderby. "You see, we are all +tired out, and any way we fix it it's going to be difficult. For if Mr. +Brown takes both of them, at least one of us must, go back to help him, +for he can't load them into the buggy by himself, and they so helpless." + +"That is so," said Mrs. Taylor. "It doesn't look-oh, how would this do? +--one of us drive there with Mr. Brown, and the rest of you go along to +my house and get things ready. I'll go with him. He and I together can +lift one of the Old People into the buggy; then drive her to my house +and---- + +"But who will take care of the other one?" said Mrs. Enderby. "We +musn't leave her there in the woods alone, you know--especially the crazy +one. There and back is eight miles, you see." + +They had all been sitting on the grass beside the buggy for a while, now, +trying to rest their weary bodies. They fell silent a moment or two, and +struggled in thought over the baffling situation; then Mrs. Enderby +brightened and said: + +"I think I've got the idea, now. You see, we can't walk any more. Think +what we've done: four miles there, two to Moseley's, is six, then back to +here--nine miles since noon, and not a bite to eat; I declare I don't see +how we've done it; and as for me, I am just famishing. Now, somebody's +got to go back, to help Mr. Brown--there's no getting mound that; but +whoever goes has got to ride, not walk. So my idea is this: one of us to +ride back with Mr. Brown, then ride to Nancy Taylor's house with one of +the Old People, leaving Mr. Brown to keep the other old one company, you +all to go now to Nancy's and rest and wait; then one of you drive back +and get the other one and drive her to Nancy's, and Mr. Brown walk." + +"Splendid!" they all cried. "Oh, that will do--that will answer +perfectly." And they all said that Mrs. Enderby had the best head for +planning, in the company; and they said that they wondered that they +hadn't thought of this simple plan themselves. They hadn't meant to take +back the compliment, good simple souls, and didn't know they had done it. +After a consultation it was decided that Mrs. Enderby should drive back +with Brown, she being entitled to the distinction because she had +invented the plan. Everything now being satisfactorily arranged and +settled, the ladies rose, relieved and happy, and brushed down their +gowns, and three of them started homeward; Mrs. Enderby set her foot on +the buggy-step and was about to climb in, when Brown found a remnant of +his voice and gasped out-- + +"Please Mrs. Enderby, call them back--I am very weak; I can't walk, I +can't, indeed." + +"Why, dear Mr. Brown! You do look pale; I am ashamed of myself that I +didn't notice it sooner. Come back-all of you! Mr. Brown is not well. +Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Brown?--I'm real sorry. Are you +in pain?" + +"No, madam, only weak; I am not sick, but only just weak--lately; not +long, but just lately." + +The others came back, and poured out their sympathies and commiserations, +and were full of self-reproaches for not having noticed how pale he was. + +And they at once struck out a new plan, and soon agreed that it was by +far the best of all. They would all go to Nancy Taylor's house and see +to Brown's needs first. He could lie on the sofa in the parlor, and +while Mrs. Taylor and Mary took care of him the other two ladies would +take the buggy and go and get one of the Old People, and leave one of +themselves with the other one, and---- + +By this time, without any solicitation, they were at the horse's head and +were beginning to turn him around. The danger was imminent, but Brown +found his voice again and saved himself. He said-- + +"But ladies, you are overlooking something which makes the plan +impracticable. You see, if you bring one of them home, and one remains +behind with the other, there will be three persons there when one of you +comes back for that other, for some one must drive the buggy back, and +three can't come home in it." + +They all exclaimed, "Why, sure-ly, that is so!" and they were, all +perplexed again. + +"Dear, dear, what can we do?" said Mrs. Glossop; "it is the most +mixed-up thing that ever was. The fox and the goose and the corn and +things-- Oh, dear, they are nothing to it." + +They sat wearily down once more, to further torture their tormented heads +for a plan that would work. Presently Mary offered a plan; it was her +first effort. She said: + +"I am young and strong, and am refreshed, now. Take Mr. Brown to our +house, and give him help--you see how plainly he needs it. I will go +back and take care of the Old People; I can be there in twenty minutes. +You can go on and do what you first started to do--wait on the main road +at our house until somebody comes along with a wagon; then send and bring +away the three of us. You won't have to wait long; the farmers will soon +be coming back from town, now. I will keep old Polly patient and cheered +up--the crazy one doesn't need it." + +This plan was discussed and accepted; it seemed the best that could be +done, in the circumstances, and the Old People must be getting +discouraged by this time. + +Brown felt relieved, and was deeply thankful. Let him once get to the +main road and he would find a way to escape. + +Then Mrs. Taylor said: + +"The evening chill will be coming on, pretty soon, and those poor old +burnt-out things will need some kind of covering. Take the lap-robe with +you, dear." + +"Very well, Mother, I will." + +She stepped to the buggy and put out her hand to take it---- + +That was the end of the tale. The passenger who told it said that when +he read the story twenty-five years ago in a train he was interrupted at +that point--the train jumped off a bridge. + +At first we thought we could finish the story quite easily, and we set to +work with confidence; but it soon began to appear that it was not a +simple thing, but difficult and baffling. This was on account of Brown's +character--great generosity and kindliness, but complicated with unusual +shyness and diffidence, particularly in the presence of ladies. There +was his love for Mary, in a hopeful state but not yet secure--just in a +condition, indeed, where its affair must be handled with great tact, and +no mistakes made, no offense given. And there was the mother wavering, +half willing-by adroit and flawless diplomacy to be won over, now, or +perhaps never at all. Also, there were the helpless Old People yonder in +the woods waiting-their fate and Brown's happiness to be determined by +what Brown should do within the next two seconds. Mary was reaching for +the lap-robe; Brown must decide-there was no time to be lost. + +Of course none but a happy ending of the story would be accepted by the +jury; the finish must find Brown in high credit with the ladies, his +behavior without blemish, his modesty unwounded, his character for self +sacrifice maintained, the Old People rescued through him, their +benefactor, all the party proud of him, happy in him, his praises on all +their tongues. + +We tried to arrange this, but it was beset with persistent and +irreconcilable difficulties. We saw that Brown's shyness would not allow +him to give up the lap-robe. This would offend Mary and her mother; and +it would surprise the other ladies, partly because this stinginess toward +the suffering Old People would be out of character with Brown, and partly +because he was a special Providence and could not properly act so. If +asked to explain his conduct, his shyness would not allow him to tell the +truth, and lack of invention and practice would find him incapable of +contriving a lie that would wash. We worked at the troublesome problem +until three in the morning. + +Meantime Mary was still reaching for the lap-robe. We gave it up, and +decided to let her continue to reach. It is the reader's privilege to +determine for himself how the thing came out. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right. + --Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar. + +On the seventh day out we saw a dim vast bulk standing up out of the +wastes of the Pacific and knew that that spectral promontory was Diamond +Head, a piece of this world which I had not seen before for twenty-nine +years. So we were nearing Honolulu, the capital city of the Sandwich +Islands--those islands which to me were Paradise; a Paradise which I had +been longing all those years to see again. Not any other thing in the +world could have stirred me as the sight of that great rock did. + +In the night we anchored a mile from shore. Through my port I could see +the twinkling lights of Honolulu and the dark bulk of the mountain-range +that stretched away right and left. I could not make out the beautiful +Nuuana valley, but I knew where it lay, and remembered how it used to +look in the old times. We used to ride up it on horseback in those days +--we young people--and branch off and gather bones in a sandy region +where one of the first Kamehameha's battles was fought. He was a +remarkable man, for a king; and he was also a remarkable man for a +savage. He was a mere kinglet and of little or no consequence at the +time of Captain Cook's arrival in 1788; but about four years afterward he +conceived the idea of enlarging his sphere of influence. That is a +courteous modern phrase which means robbing your neighbor--for your +neighbor's benefit; and the great theater of its benevolences is Africa. +Kamehameha went to war, and in the course of ten years he whipped out all +the other kings and made himself master of every one of the nine or ten +islands that form the group. But he did more than that. He bought +ships, freighted them with sandal wood and other native products, and +sent them as far as South America and China; he sold to his savages the +foreign stuffs and tools and utensils which came back in these ships, and +started the march of civilization. It is doubtful if the match to this +extraordinary thing is to be found in the history of any other savage. +Savages are eager to learn from the white man any new way to kill each +other, but it is not their habit to seize with avidity and apply with +energy the larger and nobler ideas which he offers them. The details of +Kamehameha's history show that he was always hospitably ready to examine +the white man's ideas, and that he exercised a tidy discrimination in +making his selections from the samples placed on view. + +A shrewder discrimination than was exhibited by his son and successor, +Liholiho, I think. Liholiho could have qualified as a reformer, perhaps, +but as a king he was a mistake. A mistake because he tried to be both +king and reformer. This is mixing fire and gunpowder together. A king +has no proper business with reforming. His best policy is to keep things +as they are; and if he can't do that, he ought to try to make them worse +than they are. This is not guesswork; I have thought over this matter a +good deal, so that if I should ever have a chance to become a king I +would know how to conduct the business in the best way. + +When Liholiho succeeded his father he found himself possessed of an +equipment of royal tools and safeguards which a wiser king would have +known how to husband, and judiciously employ, and make profitable. The +entire country was under the one scepter, and his was that scepter. +There was an Established Church, and he was the head of it. There was a +Standing Army, and he was the head of that; an Army of 114 privates under +command of 27 Generals and a Field Marshal. There was a proud and +ancient Hereditary Nobility. There was still one other asset. This was +the tabu--an agent endowed with a mysterious and stupendous power, an +agent not found among the properties of any European monarch, a tool of +inestimable value in the business. Liholiho was headmaster of the tabu. +The tabu was the most ingenious and effective of all the inventions that +has ever been devised for keeping a people's privileges satisfactorily +restricted. + +It required the sexes to live in separate houses. It did not allow +people to eat in either house; they must eat in another place. It did +not allow a man's woman-folk to enter his house. It did not allow the +sexes to eat together; the men must eat first, and the women must wait on +them. Then the women could eat what was left--if anything was left--and +wait on themselves. I mean, if anything of a coarse or unpalatable sort +was left, the women could have it. But not the good things, the fine +things, the choice things, such as pork, poultry, bananas, cocoanuts, the +choicer varieties of fish, and so on. By the tabu, all these were sacred +to the men; the women spent their lives longing for them and wondering +what they might taste like; and they died without finding out. + +These rules, as you see, were quite simple and clear. It was easy to +remember them; and useful. For the penalty for infringing any rule in +the whole list was death. Those women easily learned to put up with +shark and taro and dog for a diet when the other things were so +expensive. + +It was death for any one to walk upon tabu'd ground; or defile a tabu'd +thing with his touch; or fail in due servility to a chief; or step upon +the king's shadow. The nobles and the King and the priests were always +suspending little rags here and there and yonder, to give notice to the +people that the decorated spot or thing was tabu, and death lurking near. +The struggle for life was difficult and chancy in the islands in those +days. + +Thus advantageously was the new king situated. Will it be believed that +the first thing he did was to destroy his Established Church, root and +branch? He did indeed do that. To state the case figuratively, he was a +prosperous sailor who burnt his ship and took to a raft. This Church was +a horrid thing. It heavily oppressed the people; it kept them always +trembling in the gloom of mysterious threatenings; it slaughtered them in +sacrifice before its grotesque idols of wood and stone; it cowed them, it +terrorized them, it made them slaves to its priests, and through the +priests to the king. It was the best friend a king could have, and the +most dependable. To a professional reformer who should annihilate so +frightful and so devastating a power as this Church, reverence and praise +would be due; but to a king who should do it, could properly be due +nothing but reproach; reproach softened by sorrow; sorrow for his +unfitness for his position. + +He destroyed his Established Church, and his kingdom is a republic today, +in consequence of that act. + +When he destroyed the Church and burned the idols he did a mighty thing +for civilization and for his people's weal--but it was not "business." +It was unkingly, it was inartistic. It made trouble for his line. The +American missionaries arrived while the burned idols were still smoking. +They found the nation without a religion, and they repaired the defect. +They offered their own religion and it was gladly received. But it was +no support to arbitrary kingship, and so the kingly power began to weaken +from that day. Forty-seven years later, when I was in the islands, +Kainehameha V. was trying to repair Liholiho's blunder, and not +succeeding. He had set up an Established Church and made himself the +head of it. But it was only a pinchbeck thing, an imitation, a bauble, +an empty show. It had no power, no value for a king. It could not harry +or burn or slay, it in no way resembled the admirable machine which +Liholiho destroyed. It was an Established Church without an +Establishment; all the people were Dissenters. + +Long before that, the kingship had itself become but a name, a show. At +an early day the missionaries had turned it into something very much like +a republic; and here lately the business whites have turned it into +something exactly like it. + +In Captain Cook's time (1778), the native population of the islands was +estimated at 400,000; in 1836 at something short of 200,000, in 1866 at +50,000; it is to-day, per census, 25,000. All intelligent people praise +Kamehameha I. and Liholiho for conferring upon their people the great +boon of civilization. I would do it myself, but my intelligence is out +of repair, now, from over-work. + +When I was in the islands nearly a generation ago, I was acquainted with +a young American couple who had among their belongings an attractive +little son of the age of seven--attractive but not practicably +companionable with me, because he knew no English. He had played from +his birth with the little Kanakas on his father's plantation, and had +preferred their language and would learn no other. The family removed to +America a month after I arrived in the islands, and straightway the boy +began to lose his Kanaka and pick up English. By the time he was twelve +be hadn't a word of Kanaka left; the language had wholly departed from +his tongue and from his comprehension. Nine years later, when he was +twenty-one, I came upon the family in one of the lake towns of New York, +and the mother told me about an adventure which her son had been having. +By trade he was now a professional diver. A passenger boat had been +caught in a storm on the lake, and had gone down, carrying her people +with her. A few days later the young diver descended, with his armor on, +and entered the berth-saloon of the boat, and stood at the foot of the +companionway, with his hand on the rail, peering through the dim water. +Presently something touched him on the shoulder, and he turned and found +a dead man swaying and bobbing about him and seemingly inspecting him +inquiringly. He was paralyzed with fright. His entry had disturbed the +water, and now he discerned a number of dim corpses making for him and +wagging their heads and swaying their bodies like sleepy people trying to +dance. His senses forsook him, and in that condition he was drawn to the +surface. He was put to bed at home, and was soon very ill. During some +days he had seasons of delirium which lasted several hours at a time; and +while they lasted he talked Kanaka incessantly and glibly; and Kanaka +only. He was still very ill, and he talked to me in that tongue; but I +did not understand it, of course. The doctor-books tell us that cases +like this are not uncommon. Then the doctors ought to study the cases +and find out how to multiply them. Many languages and things get mislaid +in a person's head, and stay mislaid for lack of this remedy. + +Many memories of my former visit to the islands came up in my mind while +we lay at anchor in front of Honolulu that night. And pictures--pictures +pictures--an enchanting procession of them! I was impatient for the +morning to come. + +When it came it brought disappointment, of course. Cholera had broken +out in the town, and we were not allowed to have any communication with +the shore. Thus suddenly did my dream of twenty-nine years go to ruin. +Messages came from friends, but the friends themselves I was not to have +any sight of. My lecture-hall was ready, but I was not to see that, +either. + +Several of our passengers belonged in Honolulu, and these were sent +ashore; but nobody could go ashore and return. There were people on +shore who were booked to go with us to Australia, but we could not +receive them; to do it would cost us a quarantine-term in Sydney. They +could have escaped the day before, by ship to San Francisco; but the bars +had been put up, now, and they might have to wait weeks before any ship +could venture to give them a passage any whither. And there were +hardships for others. An elderly lady and her son, recreation-seekers +from Massachusetts, had wandered westward, further and further from home, +always intending to take the return track, but always concluding to go +still a little further; and now here they were at anchor before Honolulu +positively their last westward-bound indulgence--they had made up their +minds to that--but where is the use in making up your mind in this world? +It is usually a waste of time to do it. These two would have to stay +with us as far as Australia. Then they could go on around the world, or +go back the way they had come; the distance and the accommodations and +outlay of time would be just the same, whichever of the two routes they +might elect to take. Think of it: a projected excursion of five hundred +miles gradually enlarged, without any elaborate degree of intention, to a +possible twenty-four thousand. However, they were used to extensions by +this time, and did not mind this new one much. + +And we had with us a lawyer from Victoria, who had been sent out by the +Government on an international matter, and he had brought his wife with +him and left the children at home with the servants and now what was to +be done? Go ashore amongst the cholera and take the risks? Most +certainly not. They decided to go on, to the Fiji islands, wait there a +fortnight for the next ship, and then sail for home. They couldn't +foresee that they wouldn't see a homeward-bound ship again for six weeks, +and that no word could come to them from the children, and no word go +from them to the children in all that time. It is easy to make plans in +this world; even a cat can do it; and when one is out in those remote +oceans it is noticeable that a cat's plans and a man's are worth about +the same. There is much the same shrinkage in both, in the matter of +values. + +There was nothing for us to do but sit about the decks in the shade of +the awnings and look at the distant shore. We lay in luminous blue +water; shoreward the water was green-green and brilliant; at the shore +itself it broke in a long white ruffle, and with no crash, no sound that +we could hear. The town was buried under a mat of foliage that looked +like a cushion of moss. The silky mountains were clothed in soft, rich +splendors of melting color, and some of the cliffs were veiled in +slanting mists. I recognized it all. It was just as I had seen it long +before, with nothing of its beauty lost, nothing of its charm wanting. + +A change had come, but that was political, and not visible from the ship. +The monarchy of my day was gone, and a republic was sitting in its seat. +It was not a material change. The old imitation pomps, the fuss and +feathers, have departed, and the royal trademark--that is about all that +one could miss, I suppose. That imitation monarchy, was grotesque +enough, in my time; if it had held on another thirty years it would have +been a monarchy without subjects of the king's race. + +We had a sunset of a very fine sort. The vast plain of the sea was +marked off in bands of sharply-contrasted colors: great stretches of dark +blue, others of purple, others of polished bronze; the billowy mountains +showed all sorts of dainty browns and greens, blues and purples and +blacks, and the rounded velvety backs of certain of them made one want to +stroke them, as one would the sleek back of a cat. The long, sloping +promontory projecting into the sea at the west turned dim and leaden and +spectral, then became suffused with pink--dissolved itself in a pink +dream, so to speak, it seemed so airy and unreal. Presently the +cloud-rack was flooded with fiery splendors, and these were copied on the +surface of the sea, and it made one drunk with delight to look upon it. + +From talks with certain of our passengers whose home was Honolulu, and +from a sketch by Mrs. Mary H. Krout, I was able to perceive what the +Honolulu of to-day is, as compared with the Honolulu of my time. In my +time it was a beautiful little town, made up of snow-white wooden +cottages deliciously smothered in tropical vines and flowers and trees +and shrubs; and its coral roads and streets were hard and smooth, and as +white as the houses. The outside aspects of the place suggested the +presence of a modest and comfortable prosperity--a general prosperity +--perhaps one might strengthen the term and say universal. There were no +fine houses, no fine furniture. There were no decorations. Tallow +candles furnished the light for the bedrooms, a whale-oil lamp furnished +it for the parlor. Native matting served as carpeting. In the parlor +one would find two or three lithographs on the walls--portraits as a +rule: Kamehameha IV., Louis Kossuth, Jenny Lind; and may be an engraving +or two: Rebecca at the Well, Moses smiting the rock, Joseph's servants +finding the cup in Benjamin's sack. There would be a center table, with +books of a tranquil sort on it: The Whole Duty of Man, Baxter's Saints' +Rest, Fox's Martyrs, Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy, bound copies of The +Missionary Herald and of Father Damon's Seaman's Friend. A melodeon; a +music stand, with 'Willie, We have Missed You', 'Star of the Evening', +'Roll on Silver Moon', 'Are We Most There', 'I Would not Live Alway', and +other songs of love and sentiment, together with an assortment of hymns. +A what-not with semi-globular glass paperweights, enclosing miniature +pictures of ships, New England rural snowstorms, and the like; sea-shells +with Bible texts carved on them in cameo style; native curios; whale's +tooth with full-rigged ship carved on it. There was nothing reminiscent +of foreign parts, for nobody had been abroad. Trips were made to San +Francisco, but that could not be called going abroad. Comprehensively +speaking, nobody traveled. + +But Honolulu has grown wealthy since then, and of course wealth has +introduced changes; some of the old simplicities have disappeared. Here +is a modern house, as pictured by Mrs. Krout: + + "Almost every house is surrounded by extensive lawns and gardens + enclosed by walls of volcanic stone or by thick hedges of the + brilliant hibiscus. + + "The houses are most tastefully and comfortably furnished; the + floors are either of hard wood covered with rugs or with fine Indian + matting, while there is a preference, as in most warm countries, for + rattan or bamboo furniture; there are the usual accessories of + bric-a-brac, pictures, books, and curios from all parts of the world, + for these island dwellers are indefatigable travelers. + + "Nearly every house has what is called a lanai. It is a large + apartment, roofed, floored, open on three sides, with a door or a + draped archway opening into the drawing-room. Frequently the roof + is formed by the thick interlacing boughs of the hou tree, + impervious to the sun and even to the rain, except in violent + storms. Vines are trained about the sides--the stephanotis or some + one of the countless fragrant and blossoming trailers which abound + in the islands. There are also curtains of matting that may be + drawn to exclude the sun or rain. The floor is bare for coolness, + or partially covered with rugs, and the lanai is prettily furnished + with comfortable chairs, sofas, and tables loaded with flowers, or + wonderful ferns in pots. + + "The lanai is the favorite reception room, and here at any social + function the musical program is given and cakes and ices are served; + here morning callers are received, or gay riding parties, the ladies + in pretty divided skirts, worn for convenience in riding astride, + --the universal mode adopted by Europeans and Americans, as well as + by the natives. + + "The comfort and luxury of such an apartment, especially at a + seashore villa, can hardly be imagined. The soft breezes sweep + across it, heavy with the fragrance of jasmine and gardenia, and + through the swaying boughs of palm and mimosa there are glimpses of + rugged mountains, their summits veiled in clouds, of purple sea with + the white surf beating eternally against the reefs, whiter still in + the yellow sunlight or the magical moonlight of the tropics." + +There: rugs, ices, pictures, lanais, worldly books, sinful bric-a-brac +fetched from everywhere. And the ladies riding astride. These are +changes, indeed. In my time the native women rode astride, but the white +ones lacked the courage to adopt their wise custom. In my time ice was +seldom seen in Honolulu. It sometimes came in sailing vessels from New +England as ballast; and then, if there happened to be a man-of-war in +port and balls and suppers raging by consequence, the ballast was worth +six hundred dollars a ton, as is evidenced by reputable tradition. But +the ice-machine has traveled all over the world, now, and brought ice +within everybody's reach. In Lapland and Spitzbergen no one uses native +ice in our day, except the bears and the walruses. + +The bicycle is not mentioned. It was not necessary. We know that it is +there, without inquiring. It is everywhere. But for it, people could +never have had summer homes on the summit of Mont Blanc; before its day, +property up there had but a nominal value. The ladies of the Hawaiian +capital learned too late the right way to occupy a horse--too late to get +much benefit from it. The riding-horse is retiring from business +everywhere in the world. In Honolulu a few years from now he will be +only a tradition. + +We all know about Father Damien, the French priest who voluntarily +forsook the world and went to the leper island of Molokai to labor among +its population of sorrowful exiles who wait there, in slow-consuming +misery, for death to cone and release them from their troubles; and we +know that the thing which he knew beforehand would happen, did happen: +that he became a leper himself, and died of that horrible disease. There +was still another case of self-sacrifice, it appears. I asked after +"Billy" Ragsdale, interpreter to the Parliament in my time--a half-white. +He was a brilliant young fellow, and very popular. As an interpreter he +would have been hard to match anywhere. He used to stand up in the +Parliament and turn the English speeches into Hawaiian and the Hawaiian +speeches into English with a readiness and a volubility that were +astonishing. I asked after him, and was told that his prosperous career +was cut short in a sudden and unexpected way, just as he was about to +marry a beautiful half-caste girl. He discovered, by some nearly +invisible sign about his skin, that the poison of leprosy was in him. +The secret was his own, and might be kept concealed for years; but he +would not be treacherous to the girl that loved him; he would not marry +her to a doom like his. And so he put his affairs in order, and went +around to all his friends and bade them good-bye, and sailed in the leper +ship to Molokai. There he died the loathsome and lingering death that +all lepers die. + +In this place let me insert a paragraph or two from "The Paradise of +the Pacific" (Rev. H. H. Gowen)-- + + "Poor lepers! It is easy for those who have no relatives or friends + among them to enforce the decree of segregation to the letter, but + who can write of the terrible, the heart-breaking scenes which that + enforcement has brought about? + + "A man upon Hawaii was suddenly taken away after a summary arrest, + leaving behind him a helpless wife about to give birth to a babe. + The devoted wife with great pain and risk came the whole journey to + Honolulu, and pleaded until the authorities were unable to resist + her entreaty that she might go and live like a leper with her leper + husband. + + "A woman in the prime of life and activity is condemned as an + incipient leper, suddenly removed from her home, and her husband + returns to find his two helpless babes moaning for their lost + mother. + + "Imagine it! The case of the babies is hard, but its bitterness is + a trifle--less than a trifle--less than nothing--compared to what + the mother must suffer; and suffer minute by minute, hour by hour, + day by day, month by month, year by year, without respite, relief, + or any abatement of her pain till she dies. + + "One woman, Luka Kaaukau, has been living with her leper husband in + the settlement for twelve years. The man has scarcely a joint left, + his limbs are only distorted ulcerated stumps, for four years his + wife has put every particle of food into his mouth. He wanted his + wife to abandon his wretched carcass long ago, as she herself was + sound and well, but Luka said that she was content to remain and + wait on the man she loved till the spirit should be freed from its + burden. + + "I myself have known hard cases enough:--of a girl, apparently in + full health, decorating the church with me at Easter, who before + Christmas is taken away as a confirmed leper; of a mother hiding her + child in the mountains for years so that not even her dearest + friends knew that she had a child alive, that he might not be taken + away; of a respectable white man taken away from his wife and + family, and compelled to become a dweller in the Leper Settlement, + where he is counted dead, even by the insurance companies." + +And one great pity of it all is, that these poor sufferers are innocent. +The leprosy does not come of sins which they committed, but of sins +committed by their ancestors, who escaped the curse of leprosy! + +Mr. Gowan has made record of a certain very striking circumstance. Would +you expect to find in that awful Leper Settlement a custom worthy to be +transplanted to your own country? They have one such, and it is +inexpressibly touching and beautiful. When death sets open the +prison-door of life there, the band salutes the freed soul with a burst +of glad music! + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +A dozen direct censures are easier to bear than one morganatic +compliment. + --Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar. + +Sailed from Honolulu.--From diary: + +Sept. 2. Flocks of flying fish-slim, shapely, graceful, and intensely +white. With the sun on them they look like a flight of silver +fruit-knives. They are able to fly a hundred yards. + +Sept. 3. In 9 deg. 50' north latitude, at breakfast. Approaching the +equator on a long slant. Those of us who have never seen the equator are +a good deal excited. I think I would rather see it than any other thing +in the world. We entered the "doldrums" last night--variable winds, +bursts of rain, intervals of calm, with chopping seas and a wobbly and +drunken motion to the ship--a condition of things findable in +other regions sometimes, but present in the doldrums always. The +globe-girdling belt called the doldrums is 20 degrees wide, and the +thread called the equator lies along the middle of it. + +Sept. 4. Total eclipse of the moon last night. At 1.30 it began to go +off. At total--or about that--it was like a rich rosy cloud with a +tumbled surface framed in the circle and projecting from it--a bulge of +strawberry-ice, so to speak. At half-eclipse the moon was like a gilded +acorn in its cup. + +Sept. 5. Closing in on the equator this noon. A sailor explained to a +young girl that the ship's speed is poor because we are climbing up the +bulge toward the center of the globe; but that when we should once get +over, at the equator, and start down-hill, we should fly. When she asked +him the other day what the fore-yard was, he said it was the front yard, +the open area in the front end of the ship. That man has a good deal of +learning stored up, and the girl is likely to get it all. + +Afternoon. Crossed the equator. In the distance it looked like a blue +ribbon stretched across the ocean. Several passengers kodak'd it. We +had no fool ceremonies, no fantastics, no horse play. All that sort of +thing has gone out. In old times a sailor, dressed as Neptune, used to +come in over the bows, with his suite, and lather up and shave everybody +who was crossing the equator for the first time, and then cleanse these +unfortunates by swinging them from the yard-arm and ducking them three +times in the sea. This was considered funny. Nobody knows why. No, that +is not true. We do know why. Such a thing could never be funny on land; +no part of the old-time grotesque performances gotten up on shipboard to +celebrate the passage of the line would ever be funny on shore--they +would seem dreary and less to shore people. But the shore people would +change their minds about it at sea, on a long voyage. On such a voyage, +with its eternal monotonies, people's intellects deteriorate; the owners +of the intellects soon reach a point where they almost seem to prefer +childish things to things of a maturer degree. One is often surprised at +the juvenilities which grown people indulge in at sea, and the interest +they take in them, and the consuming enjoyment they get out of them. +This is on long voyages only. The mind gradually becomes inert, dull, +blunted; it loses its accustomed interest in intellectual things; nothing +but horse-play can rouse it, nothing but wild and foolish grotesqueries +can entertain it. On short voyages it makes no such exposure of itself; +it hasn't time to slump down to this sorrowful level. + +The short-voyage passenger gets his chief physical exercise out of +"horse-billiards"--shovel-board. It is a good game. We play it in this +ship. A quartermaster chalks off a diagram like this-on the deck. + +The player uses a cue that is like a broom-handle with a quarter-moon of +wood fastened to the end of it. With this he shoves wooden disks the +size of a saucer--he gives the disk a vigorous shove and sends it fifteen +or twenty feet along the deck and lands it in one of the squares if he +can. If it stays there till the inning is played out, it will count as +many points in the game as the figure in the square it has stopped in +represents. The adversary plays to knock that disk out and leave his own +in its place--particularly if it rests upon the 9 or 10 or some other of +the high numbers; but if it rests in the "10off" he backs it up--lands +his disk behind it a foot or two, to make it difficult for its owner to +knock it out of that damaging place and improve his record. When the +inning is played out it may be found that each adversary has placed his +four disks where they count; it may be found that some of them are +touching chalk lines and not counting; and very often it will be found +that there has been a general wreckage, and that not a disk has been left +within the diagram. Anyway, the result is recorded, whatever it is, and +the game goes on. The game is 100 points, and it takes from twenty +minutes to forty to play it, according to luck and the condition of the +sea. It is an exciting game, and the crowd of spectators furnish +abundance of applause for fortunate shots and plenty of laughter for the +other kind. It is a game of skill, but at the same time the uneasy +motion of the ship is constantly interfering with skill; this makes it a +chancy game, and the element of luck comes largely in. + +We had a couple of grand tournaments, to determine who should be +"Champion of the Pacific"; they included among the participants nearly +all the passengers, of both sexes, and the officers of the ship, and they +afforded many days of stupendous interest and excitement, and murderous +exercise--for horse-billiards is a physically violent game. + +The figures in the following record of some of the closing games in the +first tournament will show, better than any description, how very chancy +the game is. The losers here represented had all been winners in the +previous games of the series, some of them by fine majorities: + +Chase,102 Mrs. D.,57 Mortimer, 105 The Surgeon, 92 +Miss C.,105 Mrs. T.,9 Clemens, 101 Taylor,92 +Taylor,109 Davies,95 Miss C., 108 Mortimer,55 +Thomas,102 Roper,76 Clemens, 111 Miss C.,89 +Coomber, 106 Chase,98 + +And so on; until but three couples of winners were left. Then I beat my +man, young Smith beat his man, and Thomas beat his. This reduced the +combatants to three. Smith and I took the deck, and I led off. At the +close of the first inning I was 10 worse than nothing and Smith had +scored 7. The luck continued against me. When I was 57, Smith was 97 +--within 3 of out. The luck changed then. He picked up a 10-off or so, +and couldn't recover. I beat him. + +The next game would end tournament No. 1. + +Mr. Thomas and I were the contestants. He won the lead and went to the +bat--so to speak. And there he stood, with the crotch of his cue resting +against his disk while the ship rose slowly up, sank slowly down, rose +again, sank again. She never seemed to rise to suit him exactly. She +started up once more; and when she was nearly ready for the turn, he let +drive and landed his disk just within the left-hand end of the 10. +(Applause). The umpire proclaimed "a good 10," and the game-keeper set +it down. I played: my disk grazed the edge of Mr. Thomas's disk, and +went out of the diagram. (No applause.) + +Mr. Thomas played again--and landed his second disk alongside of the +first, and almost touching its right-hand side. "Good 10." (Great +applause.) + +I played, and missed both of them. (No applause.) + +Mr. Thomas delivered his third shot and landed his disk just at the right +of the other two. "Good 10." (Immense applause.) + +There they lay, side by side, the three in a row. It did not seem +possible that anybody could miss them. Still I did it. (Immense +silence.) + +Mr. Thomas played his last disk. It seems incredible, but he actually +landed that disk alongside of the others, and just to the right of them-a +straight solid row of 4 disks. (Tumultuous and long-continued applause.) + +Then I played my last disk. Again it did not seem possible that anybody +could miss that row--a row which would have been 14 inches long if the +disks had been clamped together; whereas, with the spaces separating them +they made a longer row than that. But I did it. It may be that I was +getting nervous. + +I think it unlikely that that innings has ever had its parallel in the +history of horse-billiards. To place the four disks side by side in the +10 was an extraordinary feat; indeed, it was a kind of miracle. To miss +them was another miracle. It will take a century to produce another man +who can place the four disks in the 10; and longer than that to find a +man who can't knock them out. I was ashamed of my performance at the +time, but now that I reflect upon it I see that it was rather fine and +difficult. + +Mr. Thomas kept his luck, and won the game, and later the championship. + +In a minor tournament I won the prize, which was a Waterbury watch. I +put it in my trunk. In Pretoria, South Africa, nine months afterward, my +proper watch broke down and I took the Waterbury out, wound it, set it by +the great clock on the Parliament House (8.05), then went back to my room +and went to bed, tired from a long railway journey. The parliamentary +clock had a peculiarity which I was not aware of at the time +--a peculiarity which exists in no other clock, and would not exist in that +one if it had been made by a sane person; on the half-hour it strikes the +succeeding hour, then strikes the hour again, at the proper time. I lay +reading and smoking awhile; then, when I could hold my eyes open no +longer and was about to put out the light, the great clock began to boom, +and I counted ten. I reached for the Waterbury to see how it was getting +along. It was marking 9.30. It seemed rather poor speed for a +three-dollar watch, but I supposed that the climate was affecting it. I +shoved it half an hour ahead; and took to my book and waited to see what +would happen. At 10 the great clock struck ten again. I looked--the +Waterbury was marking half-past 10. This was too much speed for the +money, and it troubled me. I pushed the hands back a half hour, and +waited once more; I had to, for I was vexed and restless now, and my +sleepiness was gone. By and by the great clock struck 11. The Waterbury +was marking 10.30. I pushed it ahead half an hour, with some show of +temper. By and by the great clock struck 11 again. The Waterbury showed +up 11.30, now, and I beat her brains out against the bedstead. I was +sorry next day, when I found out. + +To return to the ship. + +The average human being is a perverse creature; and when he isn't that, +he is a practical joker. The result to the other person concerned is +about the same: that is, he is made to suffer. The washing down of the +decks begins at a very early hour in all ships; in but few ships are any +measures taken to protect the passengers, either by waking or warning +them, or by sending a steward to close their ports. And so the +deckwashers have their opportunity, and they use it. They send a bucket +of water slashing along the side of the ship and into the ports, +drenching the passenger's clothes, and often the passenger himself. This +good old custom prevailed in this ship, and under unusually favorable +circumstances, for in the blazing tropical regions a removable zinc thing +like a sugarshovel projects from the port to catch the wind and bring it +in; this thing catches the wash-water and brings it in, too--and in +flooding abundance. Mrs. L, an invalid, had to sleep on the locker--sofa +under her port, and every time she over-slept and thus failed to take +care of herself, the deck-washers drowned her out. + +And the painters, what a good time they had! This ship would be going +into dock for a month in Sydney for repairs; but no matter, painting was +going on all the time somewhere or other. The ladies' dresses were +constantly getting ruined, nevertheless protests and supplications went +for nothing. Sometimes a lady, taking an afternoon nap on deck near a +ventilator or some other thing that didn't need painting, would wake up +by and by and find that the humorous painter had been noiselessly daubing +that thing and had splattered her white gown all over with little greasy +yellow spots. + +The blame for this untimely painting did not lie with the ship's +officers, but with custom. As far back as Noah's time it became law that +ships must be constantly painted and fussed at when at sea; custom grew +out of the law, and at sea custom knows no death; this custom will +continue until the sea goes dry. + +Sept. 8.--Sunday. We are moving so nearly south that we cross only about +two meridians of longitude a day. This morning we were in longitude 178 +west from Greenwich, and 57 degrees west from San Francisco. To-morrow +we shall be close to the center of the globe--the 180th degree of west +longitude and 180th degree of east longitude. + +And then we must drop out a day-lose a day out of our lives, a day never +to be found again. We shall all die one day earlier than from the +beginning of time we were foreordained to die. We shall be a day +behindhand all through eternity. We shall always be saying to the other +angels, "Fine day today," and they will be always retorting, "But it +isn't to-day, it's tomorrow." We shall be in a state of confusion all the +time and shall never know what true happiness is. + +Next Day. Sure enough, it has happened. Yesterday it was September 8, +Sunday; to-day, per the bulletin-board at the head of the companionway, +it is September 10, Tuesday. There is something uncanny about it. And +uncomfortable. In fact, nearly unthinkable, and wholly unrealizable, +when one comes to consider it. While we were crossing the 180th meridian +it was Sunday in the stern of the ship where my family were, and Tuesday +in the bow where I was. They were there eating the half of a fresh apple +on the 8th, and I was at the same time eating the other half of it on the +10th--and I could notice how stale it was, already. The family were the +same age that they were when I had left them five minutes before, but I +was a day older now than I was then. The day they were living in +stretched behind them half way round the globe, across the Pacific Ocean +and America and Europe; the day I was living in stretched in front of me +around the other half to meet it. They were stupendous days for bulk and +stretch; apparently much larger days than we had ever been in before. +All previous days had been but shrunk-up little things by comparison. +The difference in temperature between the two days was very marked, their +day being hotter than mine because it was closer to the equator. + +Along about the moment that we were crossing the Great Meridian a child +was born in the steerage, and now there is no way to tell which day it +was born on. The nurse thinks it was Sunday, the surgeon thinks it was +Tuesday. The child will never know its own birthday. It will always be +choosing first one and then the other, and will never be able to make up +its mind permanently. This will breed vacillation and uncertainty in its +opinions about religion, and politics, and business, and sweethearts, and +everything, and will undermine its principles, and rot them away, and +make the poor thing characterless, and its success in life impossible. +Every one in the ship says so. And this is not all--in fact, not the +worst. For there is an enormously rich brewer in the ship who said as +much as ten days ago, that if the child was born on his birthday he would +give it ten thousand dollars to start its little life with. His birthday +was Monday, the 9th of September. + +If the ships all moved in the one direction--westward, I mean--the world +would suffer a prodigious loss--in the matter of valuable time, through +the dumping overboard on the Great Meridian of such multitudes of days by +ships crews and passengers. But fortunately the ships do not all sail +west, half of them sail east. So there is no real loss. These latter +pick up all the discarded days and add them to the world's stock again; +and about as good as new, too; for of course the salt water preserves +them. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as +if she had laid an asteroid. + --Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar. + +WEDNESDAY, Sept. 11. In this world we often make mistakes of judgment. +We do not as a rule get out of them sound and whole, but sometimes we do. +At dinner yesterday evening-present, a mixture of Scotch, English, +American, Canadian, and Australasian folk--a discussion broke out about +the pronunciation of certain Scottish words. This was private ground, +and the non-Scotch nationalities, with one exception, discreetly kept +still. But I am not discreet, and I took a hand. I didn't know anything +about the subject, but I took a hand just to have something to do. At +that moment the word in dispute was the word three. One Scotchman was +claiming that the peasantry of Scotland pronounced it three, his +adversaries claimed that they didn't--that they pronounced it 'thraw'. +The solitary Scot was having a sultry time of it, so I thought I would +enrich him with my help. In my position I was necessarily quite +impartial, and was equally as well and as ill equipped to fight on the +one side as on the other. So I spoke up and said the peasantry +pronounced the word three, not thraw. It was an error of judgment. +There was a moment of astonished and ominous silence, then weather +ensued. The storm rose and spread in a surprising way, and I was snowed +under in a very few minutes. It was a bad defeat for me--a kind of +Waterloo. It promised to remain so, and I wished I had had better sense +than to enter upon such a forlorn enterprise. But just then I had a +saving thought--at least a thought that offered a chance. While the +storm was still raging, I made up a Scotch couplet, and then spoke up and +said: + +"Very well, don't say any more. I confess defeat. I thought I knew, but +I see my mistake. I was deceived by one of your Scotch poets." + +"A Scotch poet! O come! Name him." + +"Robert Burns." + +It is wonderful the power of that name. These men looked doubtful--but +paralyzed, all the same. They were quite silent for a moment; then one +of them said--with the reverence in his voice which is always present in +a Scotchman's tone when he utters the name. + +"Does Robbie Burns say--what does he say?" + +"This is what he says: + + 'There were nae bairns but only three + --Ane at the breast, twa at the knee.'" + +It ended the discussion. There was no man there profane enough, disloyal +enough, to say any word against a thing which Robert Burns had settled. +I shall always honor that great name for the salvation it brought me in +this time of my sore need. + +It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with +confidence, stands a good chance to deceive. There are people who think +that honesty is always the best policy. This is a superstition; there +are times when the appearance of it is worth six of it. + +We are moving steadily southward-getting further and further down under +the projecting paunch of the globe. Yesterday evening we saw the Big +Dipper and the north star sink below the horizon and disappear from our +world. No, not "we," but they. They saw it--somebody saw it--and told +me about it. But it is no matter, I was not caring for those things, I +am tired of them, any way. I think they are well enough, but one doesn't +want them always hanging around. My interest was all in the Southern +Cross. I had never seen that. I had heard about it all my life, and it +was but natural that I should be burning to see it. No other +constellation makes so much talk. I had nothing against the Big Dipper +--and naturally couldn't have anything against it, since it is a citizen of +our own sky, and the property of the United States--but I did want it to +move out of the way and give this foreigner a chance. Judging by the +size of the talk which the Southern Cross had made, I supposed it would +need a sky all to itself. + +But that was a mistake. We saw the Cross to-night, and it is not large. +Not large, and not strikingly bright. But it was low down toward the +horizon, and it may improve when it gets up higher in the sky. It is +ingeniously named, for it looks just as a cross would look if it looked +like something else. But that description does not describe; it is too +vague, too general, too indefinite. It does after a fashion suggest a +cross across that is out of repair--or out of drawing; not correctly +shaped. It is long, with a short cross-bar, and the cross-bar is canted +out of the straight line. + +It consists of four large stars and one little one. The little one is +out of line and further damages the shape. It should have been placed at +the intersection of the stem and the cross-bar. If you do not draw an +imaginary line from star to star it does not suggest a cross--nor +anything in particular. + +One must ignore the little star, and leave it out of the combination--it +confuses everything. If you leave it out, then you can make out of the +four stars a sort of cross--out of true; or a sort of kite--out of true; +or a sort of coffin-out of true. + +Constellations have always been troublesome things to name. If you give +one of them a fanciful name, it will always refuse to live up to it; it +will always persist in not resembling the thing it has been named for. +Ultimately, to satisfy the public, the fanciful name has to be discarded +for a common-sense one, a manifestly descriptive one. The Great Bear +remained the Great Bear--and unrecognizable as such--for thousands of +years; and people complained about it all the time, and quite properly; +but as soon as it became the property of the United States, Congress +changed it to the Big Dipper, and now every body is satisfied, and there +is no more talk about riots. I would not change the Southern Cross to +the Southern Coffin, I would change it to the Southern Kite; for up there +in the general emptiness is the proper home of a kite, but not for +coffins and crosses and dippers. In a little while, now--I cannot +tell exactly how long it will be--the globe will belong to the +English-speaking race; and of course the skies also. Then the +constellations will be re-organized, and polished up, and re-named--the +most of them "Victoria," I reckon, but this one will sail thereafter as +the Southern Kite, or go out of business. Several towns and things, here +and there, have been named for Her Majesty already. + +In these past few days we are plowing through a mighty Milky Way of +islands. They are so thick on the map that one would hardly expect to +find room between them for a canoe; yet we seldom glimpse one. Once we +saw the dim bulk of a couple of them, far away, spectral and dreamy +things; members of the Horne-Alofa and Fortuna. On the larger one are +two rival native kings--and they have a time together. They are +Catholics; so are their people. The missionaries there are French +priests. + +From the multitudinous islands in these regions the "recruits" for the +Queensland plantations were formerly drawn; are still drawn from them, I +believe. Vessels fitted up like old-time slavers came here and carried +off the natives to serve as laborers in the great Australian province. +In the beginning it was plain, simple man-stealing, as per testimony of +the missionaries. This has been denied, but not disproven. Afterward it +was forbidden by law to "recruit" a native without his consent, and +governmental agents were sent in all recruiting vessels to see that the +law was obeyed--which they did, according to the recruiting people; and +which they sometimes didn't, according to the missionaries. A man could +be lawfully recruited for a three-years term of service; he could +volunteer for another term if he so chose; when his time was up he could +return to his island. And would also have the means to do it; for the +government required the employer to put money in its hands for this +purpose before the recruit was delivered to him. + +Captain Wawn was a recruiting ship-master during many years. From his +pleasant book one gets the idea that the recruiting business was quite +popular with the islanders, as a rule. And yet that did not make the +business wholly dull and uninteresting; for one finds rather frequent +little breaks in the monotony of it--like this, for instance: + + "The afternoon of our arrival at Leper Island the schooner was lying + almost becalmed under the lee of the lofty central portion of the + island, about three-quarters of a mile from the shore. The boats + were in sight at some distance. The recruiter-boat had run into a + small nook on the rocky coast, under a high bank, above which stood + a solitary hut backed by dense forest. The government agent and + mate in the second boat lay about 400 yards to the westward. + + "Suddenly we heard the sound of firing, followed by yells from the + natives on shore, and then we saw the recruiter-boat push out with a + seemingly diminished crew. The mate's boat pulled quickly up, took + her in tow, and presently brought her alongside, all her own crew + being more or less hurt. It seems the natives had called them into + the place on pretence of friendship. A crowd gathered about the + stern of the boat, and several fellows even got into her. All of a + sudden our men were attacked with clubs and tomahawks. The + recruiter escaped the first blows aimed at him, making play with his + fists until he had an opportunity to draw his revolver. 'Tom + Sayers,' a Mare man, received a tomahawk blow on the head which laid + the scalp open but did not penetrate his skull, fortunately. 'Bobby + Towns,' another Mare boatman, had both his thumbs cut in warding off + blows, one of them being so nearly severed from the hand that the + doctors had to finish the operation. Lihu, a Lifu boy, the + recruiter's special attendant, was cut and pricked in various + places, but nowhere seriously. Jack, an unlucky Tanna recruit, who + had been engaged to act as boatman, received an arrow through his + forearm, the head of which--apiece of bone seven or eight inches + long--was still in the limb, protruding from both sides, when the + boats returned. The recruiter himself would have got off scot-free + had not an arrow pinned one of his fingers to the loom of the + steering-oar just as they were getting off. The fight had been + short but sharp. The enemy lost two men, both shot dead." + +The truth is, Captain Wawn furnishes such a crowd of instances of fatal +encounters between natives and French and English recruiting-crews (for +the French are in the business for the plantations of New Caledonia), +that one is almost persuaded that recruiting is not thoroughly popular +among the islanders; else why this bristling string of attacks and +bloodcurdling slaughter? The captain lays it all to "Exeter Hall +influence." But for the meddling philanthropists, the native fathers and +mothers would be fond of seeing their children carted into exile and now +and then the grave, instead of weeping about it and trying to kill the +kind recruiters. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +He was as shy as a newspaper is when referring to its own merits. + --Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar. + +Captain Wawn is crystal-clear on one point: He does not approve of +missionaries. They obstruct his business. They make "Recruiting," as he +calls it ("Slave-Catching," as they call it in their frank way) a trouble +when it ought to be just a picnic and a pleasure excursion. The +missionaries have their opinion about the manner in which the Labor +Traffic is conducted, and about the recruiter's evasions of the law of +the Traffic, and about the traffic itself--and it is distinctly +uncomplimentary to the Traffic and to everything connected with it, +including the law for its regulation. Captain Wawn's book is of very +recent date; I have by me a pamphlet of still later date--hot from the +press, in fact--by Rev. Wm. Gray, a missionary; and the book and the +pamphlet taken together make exceedingly interesting reading, to my mind. + +Interesting, and easy to understand--except in one detail, which I will +mention presently. It is easy to understand why the Queensland sugar +planter should want the Kanaka recruit: he is cheap. Very cheap, in +fact. These are the figures paid by the planter: L20 to the recruiter +for getting the Kanaka or "catching" him, as the missionary phrase goes; +L3 to the Queensland government for "superintending" the importation; L5 +deposited with the Government for the Kanaka's passage home when his +three years are up, in case he shall live that long; about L25 to the +Kanaka himself for three years' wages and clothing; total payment for the +use of a man three years, L53; or, including diet, L60. Altogether, a +hundred dollars a year. One can understand why the recruiter is fond of +the business; the recruit costs him a few cheap presents (given to the +recruit's relatives, not himself), and the recruit is worth L20 to the +recruiter when delivered in Queensland. All this is clear enough; but +the thing that is not clear is, what there is about it all to persuade +the recruit. He is young and brisk; life at home in his beautiful island +is one lazy, long holiday to him; or if he wants to work he can turn out +a couple of bags of copra per week and sell it for four or five shillings +a bag. In Queensland he must get up at dawn and work from eight to +twelve hours a day in the canefields--in a much hotter climate than he is +used to--and get less than four shillings a week for it. + +I cannot understand his willingness to go to Queensland. It is a deep +puzzle to me. Here is the explanation, from the planter's point of view; +at least I gather from the missionary's pamphlet that it is the +planter's: + + "When he comes from his home he is a savage, pure and simple. He + feels no shame at his nakedness and want of adornment. When he + returns home he does so well dressed, sporting a Waterbury watch, + collars, cuffs, boots, and jewelry. He takes with him one or more + boxes--["Box" is English for trunk.]--well filled with clothing, a + musical instrument or two, and perfumery and other articles of + luxury he has learned to appreciate." + +For just one moment we have a seeming flash of comprehension of, the +Kanaka's reason for exiling himself: he goes away to acquire +civilization. Yes, he was naked and not ashamed, now he is clothed and +knows how to be ashamed; he was unenlightened; now he has a Waterbury +watch; he was unrefined, now he has jewelry, and something to make him +smell good; he was a nobody, a provincial, now he has been to far +countries and can show off. + +It all looks plausible--for a moment. Then the missionary takes hold of +this explanation and pulls it to pieces, and dances on it, and damages it +beyond recognition. + + "Admitting that the foregoing description is the average one, the + average sequel is this: The cuffs and collars, if used at all, are + carried off by youngsters, who fasten them round the leg, just below + the knee, as ornaments. The Waterbury, broken and dirty, finds its + way to the trader, who gives a trifle for it; or the inside is taken + out, the wheels strung on a thread and hung round the neck. Knives, + axes, calico, and handkerchiefs are divided among friends, and there + is hardly one of these apiece. The boxes, the keys often lost on + the road home, can be bought for 2s. 6d. They are to be seen + rotting outside in almost any shore village on Tanna. (I speak of + what I have seen.) A returned Kanaka has been furiously angry with + me because I would not buy his trousers, which he declared were just + my fit. He sold them afterwards to one of my Aniwan teachers for + 9d. worth of tobacco--a pair of trousers that probably cost him 8s. + or 10s. in Queensland. A coat or shirt is handy for cold weather. + The white handkerchiefs, the 'senet' (perfumery), the umbrella, and + perhaps the hat, are kept. The boots have to take their chance, if + they do not happen to fit the copra trader. 'Senet' on the hair, + streaks of paint on the face, a dirty white handkerchief round the + neck, strips of turtle shell in the ears, a belt, a sheath and + knife, and an umbrella constitute the rig of returned Kanaka at home + the day after landing." + +A hat, an umbrella, a belt, a neckerchief. Otherwise stark naked. All +in a day the hard-earned "civilization" has melted away to this. And +even these perishable things must presently go. Indeed, there is but a +single detail of his civilization that can be depended on to stay by him: +according to the missionary, he has learned to swear. This is art, and +art is long, as the poet says. + +In all countries the laws throw light upon the past. The Queensland law +for the regulation of the Labor Traffic is a confession. It is a +confession that the evils charged by the missionaries upon the traffic +had existed in the past, and that they still existed when the law was +made. The missionaries make a further charge: that the law is evaded by +the recruiters, and that the Government Agent sometimes helps them to do +it. Regulation 31 reveals two things: that sometimes a young fool of a +recruit gets his senses back, after being persuaded to sign away his +liberty for three years, and dearly wants to get out of the engagement +and stay at home with his own people; and that threats, intimidation, and +force are used to keep him on board the recruiting-ship, and to hold him +to his contract. Regulation 31 forbids these coercions. The law +requires that he shall be allowed to go free; and another clause of it +requires the recruiter to set him ashore--per boat, because of the +prevalence of sharks. Testimony from Rev. Mr. Gray: + + "There are 'wrinkles' for taking the penitent Kanaka. My first + experience of the Traffic was a case of this kind in 1884. A vessel + anchored just out of sight of our station, word was brought to me + that some boys were stolen, and the relatives wished me to go and + get them back. The facts were, as I found, that six boys had + recruited, had rushed into the boat, the Government Agent informed + me. They had all 'signed'; and, said the Government Agent, 'on + board they shall remain.' I was assured that the six boys were of + age and willing to go. Yet on getting ready to leave the ship I + found four of the lads ready to come ashore in the boat! This I + forbade. One of them jumped into the water and persisted in coming + ashore in my boat. When appealed to, the Government Agent suggested + that we go and leave him to be picked up by the ship's boat, a + quarter mile distant at the time!" + +The law and the missionaries feel for the repentant recruit--and +properly, one may be permitted to think, for he is only a youth and +ignorant and persuadable to his hurt--but sympathy for him is not kept in +stock by the recruiter. Rev. Mr. Gray says: + + "A captain many years in the traffic explained to me how a penitent + could betaken. 'When a boy jumps overboard we just take a boat and + pull ahead of him, then lie between him and the shore. If he has + not tired himself swimming, and passes the boat, keep on heading him + in this way. The dodge rarely fails. The boy generally tires of + swimming, gets into the boat of his own accord, and goes quietly on + board." + +Yes, exhaustion is likely to make a boy quiet. If the distressed boy had +been the speaker's son, and the captors savages, the speaker would have +been surprised to see how differently the thing looked from the new point +of view; however, it is not our custom to put ourselves in the other +person's place. Somehow there is something pathetic about that +disappointed young savage's resignation. I must explain, here, that in +the traffic dialect, "boy" does not always mean boy; it means a youth +above sixteen years of age. That is by Queensland law the age of +consent, though it is held that recruiters allow themselves some latitude +in guessing at ages. + +Captain Wawn of the free spirit chafes under the annoyance of "cast-iron +regulations." They and the missionaries have poisoned his life. He +grieves for the good old days, vanished to come no more. See him weep; +hear him cuss between the lines! + + "For a long time we were allowed to apprehend and detain all + deserters who had signed the agreement on board ship, but the + 'cast-iron' regulations of the Act of 1884 put a stop to that, + allowing the Kanaka to sign the agreement for three years' service, + travel about in the ship in receipt of the regular rations, cadge + all he could, and leave when he thought fit, so long as he did not + extend his pleasure trip to Queensland." + +Rev. Mr. Gray calls this same restrictive cast-iron law a "farce." "There +is as much cruelty and injustice done to natives by acts that are legal +as by deeds unlawful. The regulations that exist are unjust and +inadequate--unjust and inadequate they must ever be." He furnishes his +reasons for his position, but they are too long for reproduction here. + +However, if the most a Kanaka advantages himself by a three-years course +in civilization in Queensland, is a necklace and an umbrella and a showy +imperfection in the art of swearing, it must be that all the profit of +the traffic goes to the white man. This could be twisted into a +plausible argument that the traffic ought to be squarely abolished. + +However, there is reason for hope that that can be left alone to achieve +itself. It is claimed that the traffic will depopulate its sources of +supply within the next twenty or thirty years. Queensland is a very +healthy place for white people--death-rate 12 in 1,000 of the population +--but the Kanaka death-rate is away above that. The vital statistics for +1893 place it at 52; for 1894 (Mackay district), 68. The first six +months of the Kanaka's exile are peculiarly perilous for him because of +the rigors of the new climate. The death-rate among the new men has +reached as high as 180 in the 1,000. In the Kanaka's native home his +death-rate is 12 in time of peace, and 15 in time of war. Thus exile to +Queensland--with the opportunity to acquire civilization, an umbrella, +and a pretty poor quality of profanity--is twelve times as deadly for him +as war. Common Christian charity, common humanity, does seem to require, +not only that these people be returned to their homes, but that war, +pestilence, and famine be introduced among them for their preservation. + +Concerning these Pacific isles and their peoples an eloquent prophet +spoke long years ago--five and fifty years ago. In fact, he spoke a +little too early. Prophecy is a good line of business, but it is full of +risks. This prophet was the Right Rev. M. Russell, LL.D., D.C.L., of +Edinburgh: + + "Is the tide of civilization to roll only to the foot of the Rocky + Mountains, and is the sun of knowledge to set at last in the waves + of the Pacific? No; the mighty day of four thousand years is + drawing to its close; the sun of humanity has performed its destined + course; but long ere its setting rays are extinguished in the west, + its ascending beams have glittered on the isles of the eastern seas + . . . . And now we see the race of Japhet setting forth to + people the isles, and the seeds of another Europe and a second + England sown in the regions of the sun. But mark the words of the + prophecy: 'He shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be + his servant.' It is not said Canaan shall be his slave. To the + Anglo-Saxon race is given the scepter of the globe, but there is not + given either the lash of the slave-driver or the rack of the + executioner. The East will not be stained with the same atrocities + as the West; the frightful gangrene of an enthralled race is not to + mar the destinies of the family of Japhet in the Oriental world; + humanizing, not destroying, as they advance; uniting with, not + enslaving, the inhabitants with whom they dwell, the British race + may," etc., etc. + +And he closes his vision with an invocation from Thomson: + + "Come, bright Improvement! on the car of Time, + And rule the spacious world from clime to clime." + +Very well, Bright Improvement has arrived, you see, with her +civilization, and her Waterbury, and her umbrella, and her third-quality +profanity, and her humanizing-not-destroying machinery, and her +hundred-and-eighty death-rate, and everything is going along just as +handsome! + +But the prophet that speaks last has an advantage over the pioneer in the +business. Rev. Mr. Gray says: + + "What I am concerned about is that we as a Christian nation should + wipe out these races to enrich ourselves." + +And he closes his pamphlet with a grim Indictment which is as eloquent in +its flowerless straightforward English as is the hand-painted rhapsody of +the early prophet: + + "My indictment of the Queensland-Kanaka Labor Traffic is this + + "1. It generally demoralizes and always impoverishes the Kanaka, + deprives him of his citizenship, and depopulates the islands fitted + to his home. + + "2. It is felt to lower the dignity of the white agricultural + laborer in Queensland, and beyond a doubt it lowers his wages there. + + "3. The whole system is fraught with danger to Australia and the + islands on the score of health. + + "4. On social and political grounds the continuance of the + Queensland Kanaka Labor Traffic must be a barrier to the true + federation of the Australian colonies. + + "5. The Regulations under which the Traffic exists in Queensland are + inadequate to prevent abuses, and in the nature of things they must + remain so. + + "6. The whole system is contrary to the spirit and doctrine of the + Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel requires us to help the weak, + but the Kanaka is fleeced and trodden down. + + "7. The bed-rock of this Traffic is that the life and liberty of a + black man are of less value than those of a white man. And a + Traffic that has grown out of 'slave-hunting' will certainly remain + to the end not unlike its origin." + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it. + --Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar. + +From Diary:--For a day or two we have been plowing among an invisible +vast wilderness of islands, catching now and then a shadowy glimpse of a +member of it. There does seem to be a prodigious lot of islands this +year; the map of this region is freckled and fly-specked all over with +them. Their number would seem to be uncountable. We are moving among +the Fijis now--224 islands and islets in the group. In front of us, to +the west, the wilderness stretches toward Australia, then curves upward +to New Guinea, and still up and up to Japan; behind us, to the east, the +wilderness stretches sixty degrees across the wastes of the Pacific; +south of us is New Zealand. Somewhere or other among these myriads Samoa +is concealed, and not discoverable on the map. Still, if you wish to go +there, you will have no trouble about finding it if you follow the +directions given by Robert Louis Stevenson to Dr. Conan Doyle and to Mr. +J. M. Barrie. "You go to America, cross the continent to San Francisco, +and then it's the second turning to the left." To get the full flavor of +the joke one must take a glance at the map. + +Wednesday, September 11.--Yesterday we passed close to an island or so, +and recognized the published Fiji characteristics: a broad belt of clean +white coral sand around the island; back of it a graceful fringe of +leaning palms, with native huts nestling cosily among the shrubbery at +their bases; back of these a stretch of level land clothed in tropic +vegetation; back of that, rugged and picturesque mountains. A detail +of the immediate foreground: a mouldering ship perched high up on a +reef-bench. This completes the composition, and makes the picture +artistically perfect. + +In the afternoon we sighted Suva, the capital of the group, and threaded +our way into the secluded little harbor--a placid basin of brilliant blue +and green water tucked snugly in among the sheltering hills. A few ships +rode at anchor in it--one of them a sailing vessel flying the American +flag; and they said she came from Duluth! There's a journey! Duluth is +several thousand miles from the sea, and yet she is entitled to the proud +name of Mistress of the Commercial Marine of the United States of +America. There is only one free, independent, unsubsidized American ship +sailing the foreign seas, and Duluth owns it. All by itself that ship is +the American fleet. All by itself it causes the American name and power +to be respected in the far regions of the globe. All by itself it +certifies to the world that the most populous civilized nation, in the +earth has a just pride in her stupendous stretch of sea-front, and is +determined to assert and maintain her rightful place as one of the Great +Maritime Powers of the Planet. All by itself it is making foreign eyes +familiar with a Flag which they have not seen before for forty years, +outside of the museum. For what Duluth has done, in building, equipping, +and maintaining at her sole expense the American Foreign Commercial +Fleet, and in thus rescuing the American name from shame and lifting it +high for the homage of the nations, we owe her a debt of gratitude which +our hearts shall confess with quickened beats whenever her name is named +henceforth. Many national toasts will die in the lapse of time, but +while the flag flies and the Republic survives, they who live under their +shelter will still drink this one, standing and uncovered: Health and +prosperity to Thee, O Duluth, American Queen of the Alien Seas! + +Row-boats began to flock from the shore; their crews were the first +natives we had seen. These men carried no overplus of clothing, and this +was wise, for the weather was hot. Handsome, great dusky men they were, +muscular, clean-limbed, and with faces full of character and +intelligence. It would be hard to find their superiors anywhere among +the dark races, I should think. + +Everybody went ashore to look around, and spy out the land, and have that +luxury of luxuries to sea-voyagers--a land-dinner. And there we saw more +natives: Wrinkled old women, with their flat mammals flung over their +shoulders, or hanging down in front like the cold-weather drip from the +molasses-faucet; plump and smily young girls, blithe and content, easy +and graceful, a pleasure to look at; young matrons, tall, straight, +comely, nobly built, sweeping by with chin up, and a gait incomparable +for unconscious stateliness and dignity; majestic young men athletes for +build and muscle clothed in a loose arrangement of dazzling white, with +bronze breast and bronze legs naked, and the head a cannon-swab of solid +hair combed straight out from the skull and dyed a rich brick-red. Only +sixty years ago they were sunk in darkness; now they have the bicycle. +We strolled about the streets of the white folks' little town, and around +over the hills by paths and roads among European dwellings and gardens +and plantations, and past clumps of hibiscus that made a body blink, the +great blossoms were so intensely red; and by and by we stopped to ask an +elderly English colonist a question or two, and to sympathize with him +concerning the torrid weather; but he was surprised, and said: + +"This? This is not hot. You ought to be here in the summer time once." + +"We supposed that this was summer; it has the ear-marks of it. You could +take it to almost any country and deceive people with it. But if it +isn't summer, what does it lack?" + +"It lacks half a year. This is mid-winter." + +I had been suffering from colds for several months, and a sudden change +of season, like this, could hardly fail to do me hurt. It brought on +another cold. It is odd, these sudden jumps from season to season. A +fortnight ago we left America in mid-summer, now it is midwinter; about a +week hence we shall arrive in Australia in the spring. + +After dinner I found in the billiard-room a resident whom I had known +somewhere else in the world, and presently made, some new friends and +drove with them out into the country to visit his Excellency the head of +the State, who was occupying his country residence, to escape the rigors +of the winter weather, I suppose, for it was on breezy high ground and +much more comfortable than the lower regions, where the town is, and +where the winter has full swing, and often sets a person's hair afire +when he takes off his hat to bow. There is a noble and beautiful view of +ocean and islands and castellated peaks from the governor's high-placed +house, and its immediate surroundings lie drowsing in that dreamy repose +and serenity which are the charm of life in the Pacific Islands. + +One of the new friends who went out there with me was a large man, and I +had been admiring his size all the way. I was still admiring it as he +stood by the governor on the veranda, talking; then the Fijian butler +stepped out there to announce tea, and dwarfed him. Maybe he did not +quite dwarf him, but at any rate the contrast was quite striking. +Perhaps that dark giant was a king in a condition of political +suspension. I think that in the talk there on the veranda it was said +that in Fiji, as in the Sandwich Islands, native kings and chiefs are of +much grander size and build than the commoners. This man was clothed in +flowing white vestments, and they were just the thing for him; they +comported well with his great stature and his kingly port and dignity. +European clothes would have degraded him and made him commonplace. I +know that, because they do that with everybody that wears them. + +It was said that the old-time devotion to chiefs and reverence for their +persons still survive in the native commoner, and in great force. The +educated young gentleman who is chief of the tribe that live in the +region about the capital dresses in the fashion of high-class European +gentlemen, but even his clothes cannot damn him in the reverence of his +people. Their pride in his lofty rank and ancient lineage lives on, in +spite of his lost authority and the evil magic of his tailor. He has no +need to defile himself with work, or trouble his heart with the sordid +cares of life; the tribe will see to it that he shall not want, and that +he shall hold up his head and live like a gentleman. I had a glimpse of +him down in the town. Perhaps he is a descendant of the last king--the +king with the difficult name whose memory is preserved by a notable +monument of cut-stone which one sees in the enclosure in the middle of +the town. Thakombau--I remember, now; that is the name. It is easier to +preserve it on a granite block than in your head. + +Fiji was ceded to England by this king in 1858. One of the gentlemen +present at the governor's quoted a remark made by the king at the time of +the session--a neat retort, and with a touch of pathos in it, too. The +English Commissioner had offered a crumb of comfort to Thakombau by +saying that the transfer of the kingdom to Great Britain was merely "a +sort of hermit-crab formality, you know." "Yes," said poor Thakombau, +"but with this difference--the crab moves into an unoccupied shell, but +mine isn't." + +However, as far as I can make out from the books, the King was between +the devil and the deep sea at the time, and hadn't much choice. He owed +the United States a large debt--a debt which he could pay if allowed +time, but time was denied him. He must pay up right away or the warships +would be upon him. To protect his people from this disaster he ceded his +country to Britain, with a clause in the contract providing for the +ultimate payment of the American debt. + +In old times the Fijians were fierce fighters; they were very religious, +and worshiped idols; the big chiefs were proud and haughty, and they were +men of great style in many ways; all chiefs had several wives, the +biggest chiefs sometimes had as many as fifty; when a chief was dead and +ready for burial, four or five of his wives were strangled and put into +the grave with him. In 1804 twenty-seven British convicts escaped from +Australia to Fiji, and brought guns and ammunition with them. Consider +what a power they were, armed like that, and what an opportunity they +had. If they had been energetic men and sober, and had had brains and +known how to use them, they could have achieved the sovereignty of the +archipelago twenty-seven kings and each with eight or nine islands under +his scepter. But nothing came of this chance. They lived worthless +lives of sin and luxury, and died without honor--in most cases by +violence. Only one of them had any ambition; he was an Irishman named +Connor. He tried to raise a family of fifty children, and scored +forty-eight. He died lamenting his failure. It was a foolish sort +of avarice. Many a father would have been rich enough with forty. + +It is a fine race, the Fijians, with brains in their heads, and an +inquiring turn of mind. It appears that their savage ancestors had a +doctrine of immortality in their scheme of religion--with limitations. +That is to say, their dead friend would go to a happy hereafter if he +could be accumulated, but not otherwise. They drew the line; they +thought that the missionary's doctrine was too sweeping, too +comprehensive. They called his attention to certain facts. For +instance, many of their friends had been devoured by sharks; the sharks, +in their turn, were caught and eaten by other men; later, these men were +captured in war, and eaten by the enemy. The original persons had +entered into the composition of the sharks; next, they and the sharks had +become part of the flesh and blood and bone of the cannibals. How, then, +could the particles of the original men be searched out from the final +conglomerate and put together again? The inquirers were full of doubts, +and considered that the missionary had not examined the matter with--the +gravity and attention which so serious a thing deserved. + +The missionary taught these exacting savages many valuable things, and +got from them one--a very dainty and poetical idea: Those wild and +ignorant poor children of Nature believed that the flowers, after they +perish, rise on the winds and float away to the fair fields of heaven, +and flourish there forever in immortal beauty! + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no +distinctly native American criminal class except Congress. + --Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar. + +When one glances at the map the members of the stupendous island +wilderness of the Pacific seem to crowd upon each other; but no, there is +no crowding, even in the center of a group; and between groups there are +lonely wide deserts of sea. Not everything is known about the islands, +their peoples and their languages. A startling reminder of this is +furnished by the fact that in Fiji, twenty years ago, were living two +strange and solitary beings who came from an unknown country and spoke an +unknown language. "They were picked up by a passing vessel many hundreds +of miles from any known land, floating in the same tiny canoe in which +they had been blown out to sea. When found they were but skin and bone. +No one could understand what they said, and they have never named their +country; or, if they have, the name does not correspond with that of any +island on any chart. They are now fat and sleek, and as happy as the day +is long. In the ship's log there is an entry of the latitude and +longitude in which they were found, and this is probably all the clue +they will ever have to their lost homes."--[Forbes's "Two Years in +Fiji."] + +What a strange and romantic episode it is; and how one is tortured with +curiosity to know whence those mysterious creatures came, those Men +Without a Country, errant waifs who cannot name their lost home, +wandering Children of Nowhere. + +Indeed, the Island Wilderness is the very home of romance and dreams and +mystery. The loneliness, the solemnity, the beauty, and the deep repose +of this wilderness have a charm which is all their own for the bruised +spirit of men who have fought and failed in the struggle for life in the +great world; and for men who have been hunted out of the great world for +crime; and for other men who love an easy and indolent existence; and for +others who love a roving free life, and stir and change and adventure; +and for yet others who love an easy and comfortable career of trading and +money-getting, mixed with plenty of loose matrimony by purchase, divorce +without trial or expense, and limitless spreeing thrown in to make life +ideally perfect. + +We sailed again, refreshed. + +The most cultivated person in the ship was a young English, man whose +home was in New Zealand. He was a naturalist. His learning in his +specialty was deep and thorough, his interest in his subject amounted to +a passion, he had an easy gift of speech; and so, when he talked about +animals it was a pleasure to listen to him. And profitable, too, though +he was sometimes difficult to understand because now and then he used +scientific technicalities which were above the reach of some of us. They +were pretty sure to be above my reach, but as he was quite willing to +explain them I always made it a point to get him to do it. I had a fair +knowledge of his subject--layman's knowledge--to begin with, but it was +his teachings which crystalized it into scientific form and clarity--in a +word, gave it value. + +His special interest was the fauna of Australasia, and his knowledge of +the matter was as exhaustive as it was accurate. I already knew a good +deal about the rabbits in Australasia and their marvelous fecundity, but +in my talks with him I found that my estimate of the great hindrance and +obstruction inflicted by the rabbit pest upon traffic and travel was far +short of the facts. He told me that the first pair of rabbits imported +into Australasia bred so wonderfully that within six months rabbits were +so thick in the land that people had to dig trenches through them to get +from town to town. + +He told me a great deal about worms, and the kangaroo, and other +coleoptera, and said he knew the history and ways of all such +pachydermata. He said the kangaroo had pockets, and carried its young in +them when it couldn't get apples. And he said that the emu was as big as +an ostrich, and looked like one, and had an amorphous appetite and would +eat bricks. Also, that the dingo was not a dingo at all, but just a wild +dog; and that the only difference between a dingo and a dodo was that +neither of them barked; otherwise they were just the same. He said that +the only game-bird in Australia was the wombat, and the only song-bird +the larrikin, and that both were protected by government. The most +beautiful of the native birds was the bird of Paradise. Next came the +two kinds of lyres; not spelt the same. He said the one kind was dying +out, the other thickening up. He explained that the "Sundowner" was not +a bird it was a man; sundowner was merely the Australian equivalent of +our word, tramp. He is a loafer, a hard drinker, and a sponge. He +tramps across the country in the sheep-shearing season, pretending to +look for work; but he always times himself to arrive at a sheep-run just +at sundown, when the day's labor ends; all he wants is whisky and supper +and bed and breakfast; he gets them and then disappears. The naturalist +spoke of the bell bird, the creature that at short intervals all day +rings out its mellow and exquisite peal from the deeps of the forest. It +is the favorite and best friend of the weary and thirsty sundowner; for +he knows that wherever the bell bird is, there is water; and he goes +somewhere else. The naturalist said that the oddest bird in Australasia +was the, Laughing Jackass, and the biggest the now extinct Great Moa. + +The Moa stood thirteen feet high, and could step over an ordinary man's +head or kick his hat off; and his head, too, for that matter. He said it +was wingless, but a swift runner. The natives used to ride it. It could +make forty miles an hour, and keep it up for four hundred miles and come +out reasonably fresh. It was still in existence when the railway was +introduced into New Zealand; still in existence, and carrying the mails. +The railroad began with the same schedule it has now: two expresses a +week-time, twenty miles an hour. The company exterminated the moa to get +the mails. + +Speaking of the indigenous coneys and bactrian camels, the naturalist +said that the coniferous and bacteriological output of Australasia was +remarkable for its many and curious departures from the accepted laws +governing these species of tubercles, but that in his opinion Nature's +fondness for dabbling in the erratic was most notably exhibited in that +curious combination of bird, fish, amphibian, burrower, crawler, +quadruped, and Christian called the Ornithorhynchus--grotesquest of +animals, king of the animalculae of the world for versatility of +character and make-up. Said he: + + "You can call it anything you want to, and be right. It is a fish, + for it lives in the river half the time; it is a land animal, for it + resides on the land half the time; it is an amphibian, since it + likes both and does not know which it prefers; it is a hybernian, + for when times are dull and nothing much going on it buries itself + under the mud at the bottom of a puddle and hybernates there a + couple of weeks at a time; it is a kind of duck, for it has a + duck-bill and four webbed paddles; it is a fish and quadruped + together, for in the water it swims with the paddles and on shore it + paws itself across country with them; it is a kind of seal, for it + has a seal's fur; it is carnivorous, herbivorous, insectivorous, and + vermifuginous, for it eats fish and grass and butterflies, and in + the season digs worms out of the mud and devours them; it is clearly + a bird, for it lays eggs, and hatches them; it is clearly a mammal, + for it nurses its young; and it is manifestly a kind of Christian, + for it keeps the Sabbath when there is anybody around, and when + there isn't, doesn't. It has all the tastes there are except + refined ones, it has all the habits there are except good ones. + + "It is a survival--a survival of the fittest. Mr. Darwin invented + the theory that goes by that name, but the Ornithorhynchus was the + first to put it to actual experiment and prove that it could be + done. Hence it should have as much of the credit as Mr. Darwin. + It was never in the Ark; you will find no mention of it there; it + nobly stayed out and worked the theory. Of all creatures in the + world it was the only one properly equipped for the test. The Ark + was thirteen months afloat, and all the globe submerged; no land + visible above the flood, no vegetation, no food for a mammal to eat, + nor water for a mammal to drink; for all mammal food was destroyed, + and when the pure floods from heaven and the salt oceans of the + earth mingled their waters and rose above the mountain tops, the + result was a drink which no bird or beast of ordinary construction + could use and live. But this combination was nuts for the + Ornithorhynchus, if I may use a term like that without offense. + Its river home had always been salted by the flood-tides of the sea. + On the face of the Noachian deluge innumerable forest trees were + floating. Upon these the Ornithorhynchus voyaged in peace; voyaged + from clime to clime, from hemisphere to hemisphere, in contentment + and comfort, in virile interest in the constant change Of scene, in + humble thankfulness for its privileges, in ever-increasing + enthusiasm in the development of the great theory upon whose + validity it had staked its life, its fortunes, and its sacred honor, + if I may use such expressions without impropriety in connection with + an episode of this nature. + + "It lived the tranquil and luxurious life of a creature of + independent means. Of things actually necessary to its existence + and its happiness not a detail was wanting. When it wished to walk, + it scrambled along the tree-trunk; it mused in the shade of the + leaves by day, it slept in their shelter by night; when it wanted + the refreshment of a swim, it had it; it ate leaves when it wanted a + vegetable diet, it dug under the bark for worms and grubs; when it + wanted fish it caught them, when it wanted eggs it laid them. If + the grubs gave out in one tree it swam to another; and as for fish, + the very opulence of the supply was an embarrassment. And finally, + when it was thirsty it smacked its chops in gratitude over a blend + that would have slain a crocodile. + + "When at last, after thirteen months of travel and research in all + the Zones it went aground on a mountain-summit, it strode ashore, + saying in its heart, 'Let them that come after me invent theories + and dream dreams about the Survival of the Fittest if they like, but + I am the first that has done it! + + "This wonderful creature dates back like the kangaroo and many other + Australian hydrocephalous invertebrates, to an age long anterior to + the advent of man upon the earth; they date back, indeed, to a time + when a causeway hundreds of miles wide, and thousands of miles long, + joined Australia to Africa, and the animals of the two countries + were alike, and all belonged to that remote geological epoch known + to science as the Old Red Grindstone Post-Pleosaurian. Later the + causeway sank under the sea; subterranean convulsions lifted the + African continent a thousand feet higher than it was before, but + Australia kept her old level. In Africa's new climate the animals + necessarily began to develop and shade off into new forms and + families and species, but the animals of Australia as necessarily + remained stationary, and have so remained until this day. In the + course of some millions of years the African Ornithorhynchus + developed and developed and developed, and sluffed off detail after + detail of its make-up until at last the creature became wholly + disintegrated and scattered. Whenever you see a bird or a beast or + a seal or an otter in Africa you know that he is merely a sorry + surviving fragment of that sublime original of whom I have been + speaking--that creature which was everything in general and nothing + in particular--the opulently endowed 'e pluribus unum' of the animal + world. + + "Such is the history of the most hoary, the most ancient, the most + venerable creature that exists in the earth today--Ornithorhynchus + Platypus Extraordinariensis--whom God preserve!" + +When he was strongly moved he could rise and soar like that with ease. +And not only in the prose form, but in the poetical as well. He had +written many pieces of poetry in his time, and these manuscripts he lent +around among the passengers, and was willing to let them be copied. It +seemed to me that the least technical one in the series, and the one +which reached the loftiest note, perhaps, was his: + + INVOCATION. + + "Come forth from thy oozy couch, + O Ornithorhynchus dear! + And greet with a cordial claw + The stranger that longs to hear + + "From thy own own lips the tale + Of thy origin all unknown: + Thy misplaced bone where flesh should be + And flesh where should be bone; + + "And fishy fin where should be paw, + And beaver-trowel tail, + And snout of beast equip'd with teeth + Where gills ought to prevail. + + "Come, Kangaroo, the good and true + Foreshortened as to legs, + And body tapered like a churn, + And sack marsupial, i' fegs, + + "And tells us why you linger here, + Thou relic of a vanished time, + When all your friends as fossils sleep, + Immortalized in lime!" + + +Perhaps no poet is a conscious plagiarist; but there seems to be warrant +for suspecting that there is no poet who is not at one time or another an +unconscious one. The above verses are indeed beautiful, and, in a way, +touching; but there is a haunting something about them which unavoidably +suggests the Sweet Singer of Michigan. It can hardly be doubted that the +author had read the works of that poet and been impressed by them. It is +not apparent that he has borrowed from them any word or yet any phrase, +but the style and swing and mastery and melody of the Sweet Singer all +are there. Compare this Invocation with "Frank Dutton"--particularly +stanzas first and seventeenth--and I think the reader will feel convinced +that he who wrote the one had read the other: + + I. + + "Frank Dutton was as fine a lad + As ever you wish to see, + And he was drowned in Pine Island Lake + On earth no more will he be, + His age was near fifteen years, + And he was a motherless boy, + He was living with his grandmother + When he was drowned, poor boy." + + + XVII. + + "He was drowned on Tuesday afternoon, + On Sunday he was found, + And the tidings of that drowned boy + Was heard for miles around. + His form was laid by his mother's side, + Beneath the cold, cold ground, + His friends for him will drop a tear + When they view his little mound." + + The Sentimental Song Book. By Mrs. Julia Moore, p. 36. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Following the Equator, Part 1 +by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR, PART 1 *** + +***** This file should be named 5808.txt or 5808.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/5/8/0/5808/ + +Produced by David Widger + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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