Scented Isles and Coral Gardens: Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies/China and Japan
IV
CHINA AND JAPAN
Hong-Kong,
22nd January 1901.
I certainly was very reluctant to leave Singapore, but, after all, I was on my way home, if in somewhat leisurely fashion, and I had to move on; so, on the evening of Saturday, 5th January, I boarded the Hamburg, a large, high, gorgeously decorated N.G.L. boat. We did not, however, sail till 1 p.m. on the next day.
Captain Dunbar came on board to say “Goodbye,” and made a point of presenting me to the Captain—a big, burly, gruff German—and also to two German naval men, Captain Gadeke of S.M.S. Irene, and Captain Gildermeister.
Being a newcomer on this ship I was placed at a side-table at dinner, where the chief engineer, the doctor, a young German, and two Dutchmen had places, and I presumed I was breaking into a friendly little party. The Dutchmen, however, I soon discovered, never opened their lips to any one.
It happens that on all these big German liners in the East it is announced everywhere that English is spoken, and it is even printed across your ticket. I was placed between the chief engineer and the young German, the doctor occupying the end of the table. To be polite, I commenced speaking to the engineer in English, but got nothing but Yes and No from him, and after a time gave it up. At breakfast in the morning it was the same, and no conversation of any sort took place, they all ignoring my presence.
But at last I heard the doctor say to his neighbour, in German, that he ought to speak to me, and in English. The other said he did not see why he should. The doctor then said they were supposed to speak English to any passengers, as, of course, English people never knew German.
“It is a German boat,” said the other; “let him speak German.”
I was secretly amused, and took no notice, but presently, more by accident than intending it, asked the steward for something in German —and ignored the little flutter that went round the table.
When I went on deck after breakfast I was joined by the two German naval men, and the Captain came up to do the civil. Then a man spoke to me and said he remembered meeting me in Hanover at the famous Reitschule there— the Military Riding School, where so many cavalry officers are trained—and introduced himself as Major Count Franz Anton Magnis of the 2nd Guard Uhlan Regiment. I could not recall him, but surprised him by saying I had known very well his brother, Count Wilhelm Magnis of the Bonn Hussars, and had met his cousin, Count Deym, son of a former Austro-Hungarian Ambassador in London, and of course we had other mutual acquaintances in officer circles in Germany. This Count Magnis was on his way to Pekin to join Count Waldersee’s staff.
My table companions thus beheld me seated in “the highest circles” of the ship, and probably made inquiries about me, for lo and behold! when I went down to lunch I was received with most edifying politeness, and gushed over in English by every one save the two Dutchmen. Nothin was good enough for me then, and the doctor sai that a mistake had been made, and I ought to have been placed beside the Captain! I said I was all right where I was; but, strange to say, and I am sure to their great wonderment, I devoted all my conversation to the two Dutchmen opposite, who gradually thawed, and afterwards confided to me that they had been so ignored by their table companions that they had ceased to speak at all. As I am sometimes amiable, but not very often, I at the next meal had them all talking and arguing as if they were bosom friends—but not one word of German would I understand! There was mean spite, wasn’t it?
It was quite late in the evening of Thursday the roth when we entered the harbour of Hong-Kong—but what a magnificent sight! All the shipping in the harbour and the town right up to the Peak blazing with electric lights—it was like a fairy illumination! In the morning we moved into the dock at Kowloon. Many warships of various nations lay in the harbour, and it was crowded with other craft, including Chinese junks and sampans. Fine houses cluster above the town right up to the Peak, 1000 feet high above it, and the effect is very fine.
It was only last year that Kowloon Peninsula with its Hinterland became British, but there is quite a town at Kowloon, with forts, barracks, an hotel, and wharfs. Now good roads run inland on the mainland for six miles, and the mountains which dominated Hong-Kong are ours, and not the source of danger they were. Ferry-boats ply across the harbour to Victoria, the town, though I cannot say I ever heard it called Victoria, as people merely speak of Hong-Kong.
How proud one feels when one remembers that this was once merely a barren, fever-stricken rock; and behold what the British have made of it— a healthy, very beautiful, and most imposing place! I had not realised that it was really as beautiful as I found it to be.
I was soon installed in a large room in that well-known huge caravanseri, the Hong-Kong Hotel, with three sprightly Chinese "boys" in attendance. One "boy" was about sixty, the others not quite so ancient. The town was full of animation, people in "chairs" and rickshaws trotting about in every direction, crowds of blue jackets and our Indian soldiers—there was no end to the variety of costumes or the play of light and colour. There are very handsome buildings and private houses. There is a railway up to the Peak, but I liked toiling up the steep, winding ways, watching the people and the lines of coolies carrying up bricks on slings across their shoulders. What loads they carry, men and women, and how ceaseless the movement. I amused myself very well, and explored as much of Hong-Kong and the Kowloon mainland as I had time for. When out in the country I once met a Chinaman tearing along with a rickshaw in which lolled a dead - drunk and sleeping bluejacket, whose face and clothes gave evidence of a battle. As I could not see where the Chinaman could be taking him in such a condition out of Kowloon, I stopped him, woke up the bluejacket, who was quite incapable of understanding anything, and insisted on their returning to the town, and had the satisfaction later of seeing the sailor being safely convoyed by some of his own comrades. A pretty little garden is perched above the town at Hong-Kong, and I often sat there and watched the things that went on round me.
There was a little smoking-room in the hotel, upstairs, dedicated to the use of people staying in the hotel, the public smoking, bar, and billiard rooms being below. I usually had this room to myself; but one evening an officer in naval uniform came in, and we remained talking till the place was closed and he had to leave to go up to the Peak where he was living—but a more entertaining man I had not met for long, and we had a charming evening. He told me some interesting things about the operations at Tientsin and elsewhere, and on my complaining that one never saw our flag anywhere almost, even here in our own possession, whilst the flags of other nations were fluttering wherever they could hoist them, and that surely it was a great mistake, he quite agreed with me, and told me that when the allied forces were engaged in operations and hoisting their flags everywhere, even on mud-banks on the river, actually our men had not sufficient flags to hoist where needful. He had, he said, been very severe with the officers on his ship over this.
But the smoking-room brought me other acquaintances who afforded me great amusement. On Sunday evening two small boys came in and sat down at the other side of the table. Said one to the other—
"Have a drink, old chap?"
"Don't mind if I do."
"What will you have—the usual?"
The bell was rung and the waiter loftily ordered to bring "two lemonades"!
But when the lemonades came, alas! they had not between them sufficient money to pay for them! So I asked if they would have a drink with me. “You're very kind—don’t mind if we do. But you must have a drink with us some other time.” “All right;” and so over the lemonades we became good friends, and I learnt they were the two principal actors in the Children’s Opera Company then performing in the town, and which was the rage, with good reason, as this Children’s Company in the Geisha and The Belle of New York were really wonderful — in fact, quite fascinating. They gave two perform- ances a day, both to huge audiences, the gallery being packed with enthusiastic bluejackets. The company, numbering somewhere about fifty, all lived in the hotel, and were soon informed “He’s all right,” and adopted me as one of themselves. They were extremely well cared for and looked after; and the larger and older girls were most important damsels. The golden youth of Hong- Kong vowed these bigger girls were not really only thirteen or fourteen years old, but much older, but they were all genuine children despite their coquettish grown-up airs, as I had plenty of opportunity of learning, for they took possession of me in a body and seemed to consider me to be there for their benefit.
It was very hot, and I had found a long cane chair in a cool corner of a balcony and appropriated it, and there they knew they could always find me.
But, however charming and clever were these children, what is one to say of that fairy little dot of a thing who played The Belle of New York —a tiny, charming, fascinating person? She was a lovely child, and a real child, and on the stage was too delightful for words. I lost my heart completely, and worshipped her.
They had two performances a day, and a rehearsal—in that heat—so she was always tired and often had a headache. Whilst the others flooded the staircases and rooms, always full of boisterous spirits, she loved to come and sit on the foot of my long chair, and she liked, too, to take my hand and press it hard against her aching brow, always declaring it sent the headache away.
“It is so quiet round you,” she often said.
Once in a London drawing-room a lady astonished every one by suddenly rising and coming towards me.
“Do you know,” she said, “that you are simply full of magnetism— that you have a great gift, and could even cure people by laying hands on them?”
“I have never been aware of it,” I answered, laughing, and of course surprised.
“Yes, indeed you have. But you have never studied it or cultivated it, and, therefore, you have misused a wonderful gift God has given you!”
“But what am I to do?” I asked helplessly, believing the lady, whom I did not know, to be—well—odd!
“You must study the subject, and learn how to cultivate this great gift. I felt it the minute you came into the room. You extract the vitality from other people.”
“Do you mean I bore and tirethem?—if so—”
“Oh no! but people like you can, if they will, draw vitality from others. You could live to be a hundred. You are a most magnetic person.”
The lady talked a lot more of this sort of thing, and quite alarmed me, but stirred my curiosity, so after this I was often to be seen in the Row or at parties, sitting very close to healthy, rotund old ladies endeavouring to will their exuberant health out of them, but I cannot say I ever felt successful; and when it came to my hunting out all the pretty girls I knew and saying, “Please, may I lay hands on you?” they only replied indignantly (you see I am not young and attractive!), “Most certainly not!” and when I attempted to explain, they would say, “What impudence!—don't you dare! Try it on somebody else!”
So how am I to experiment with this great gift? I never thought it a bit nice of those pretty girls, and no one wants to lay hands on an ugly one.
But here was the little Belle of New York who proved there was some truth in it, for whenever her head ached she loved to take my hand and press her brow hard against it.
Now the young ladies of the troupe were greatly run after by all the midshipmen of the fleet, and the whole company was frequently invited to tea on this or that warship. The midshipmen came in bands to the hotel, laden with offerings, and what flirtations went on! My cool corner was a favourite resort, and they treated me as if I did not exist. The airs and graces of those young ladies afforded me unending diversion. I believe pretty and popular actresses receive many offerings in the shape of jewels, fans, flowers, gloves, and even silk stockings! So I am told—and, indeed, I have seen it. But these very youthful ones cared nothing for such things, and the offerings brought them were bonbons and chocolates. The staircases and corridors of the hotel were daily strewn with empty chocolate boxes and silver paper!
As a friend I came in for some of this, as now and again some girl, bethinking herself of my lonely state, would descend on me and try to force a chocolate into my mouth; but frequently the delicacy looked as if it had been tried and rejected, so I was always " so unselfish" and refused to deprive them of one.
There was quite jealousy between the different ships over these young ladies.
One day, however, they had been invited on board a certain ship—the whole company. They always had to be fetched by the middies and brought safely back. This day the gallant sailors did not arrive at the proper time, and when half an hour had gone by, a whole shoal of indignant and offended damsels descended on me, voicing loud complaints. How dared the middies keep them waiting! No, they would not go at all—no, not they!
I pleaded the cause of the absent, endeavoured to reason—to reason with women, and these creatures were little women!—talked of duty and how " England expected," and all the rest. But when a full hour had gone, feeling rose to tragic heights. I was urged, entreated, threatened, cajoled, and I know not what, to go to the ship and find out the reason of this shocking desertion. Only the Belle of New York, sitting quietly on the foot of my long chair, was silent.
"But," said I, "if I went to the ship they might be angry and hit me with a marline-spike."
"What was a marline-spike?"
I had no idea.
"Oh! one of those things sailors hit people on the head with."
"Oh, do go!" they screamed in chorus, and they were wildly excited over this, and the ungrateful little hussies nearly pulled me out of my chair, imploring me to go and be marline-spiked! They urged and entreated and said, "But you are a man, and won't mind it."
Only the Belle of New York made dissenting gestures, and threw me entreating looks which I did not understand. But I was thereby encouraged to resist going to be marline-spiked.
The midshipmen came at last—hot, breathless, flustered, laden with chocolates and apologies— but they were not listened to, were most haughtily repulsed; there were tossing heads and disdainful pouts—but sidelong glances at the chocolates—and the most emphatic "Noes," which were meant to be "Yes-es" in the end. Real women these.
The midshipmen appealed to me, and after a time I succeeded in making peace, and, by representing that unless they went at once it would be too late, got rid of them all. Not all, though—for the Belle of New York was tired—would not go whispered, "I want to stay with you!"
So, when all was quiet, she smiled an ineffable smile on me; I moved to one side, and she crept up, turned round and nestled into a corner of the chair, placed my hand on her forehead, gave a big sigh of relief and was sound asleep in a minute! Poor, tired little creature; her head rested on my outstretched arm, which grew perfectly numb and stiff, but it might have dropped off ere I would have moved it.I do not believe there is anything so beautiful in life as a little child asleep—and I just loved this one.
It is the thing to go from Hong-Kong to Macao, the Portuguese place, for week-ends; but I went on a Tuesday. I left my room and all my belongings in charge of my three Chinese boys. The steamboat took three hours to reach Macao, was clean and good, and Captain Clarke was most entertaining. There were two English ladies on board an elderly one and a young and pretty one. In the dining-saloon hung cutlasses and loaded guns for the use of the passengers should the Chinese attempt anything, and Chinese sailors, armed with sword, pistol, and gun, stood on guard over the hatchways leading to the lower deck, where hundreds of Chinese were padlocked down—for some of these might be pirates. This has been the custom since an affair that occurred on this or one of the other boats.
It happened that on one occasion the Captain and passengers being at lunch, and only one seasick passenger left on deck, a crowd of Chinese pirates, disguised as passengers, rushed the deck, shot the sea-sick passenger ere he could give the alarm, and killed and wounded the Captain and others as they rushed up, then imprisoned the survivors and looted the ship. It was an arranged thing, and they had junks in waiting, so they escaped. Some were afterwards caught and beheaded and some imprisoned.
Captain Clarke kept a sharp look-out on all junks which came near us.
The harbour of Macao looked very pretty as we entered it—the sweep of it is supposed to resemble a miniature Bay of Naples. As a harbour it is now no use, as it is silting up. Macao is a small, rocky peninsula connected by a sandy causeway with the Island of Heung Shan, and is on the west shore of the entrance of the estuary of the Chu-kiang or Pearl River, which again is joined farther north by the Si-kiang or West River, which rises in Yunnan, flows east for 600 miles through Kwangsi province, and at Wuchan Fu enters Kwantung, and then after 200 miles forms the Chu-kiang. Now you know all about it, and that "Kiang" means "river," so, like me, you can speak a little Chinese.
Portuguese traders founded Macao in 1557; the Dutch under Admiral Rezersy van Derzton attacked it in 1622, but were repulsed. The Portuguese paid the Chinese an annual rent of 500 taels up to 1848, but in that year Governor 
SINGAPORE.
At present it seems half moribund; there is no life in the streets, and it has a distinct air of having seen better days. The Boa Vista Hotel is quite a good building and has prettily laid out terraces descending to the sea. Captain Clarke, of the boat I came over in, owns and runs it, and he and his wife seem to manage well—though in truth it seemed really to be managed by Chinese "boys." My bedroom window had a pleasant outlook over the town and harbour.
I referred to two English ladies who came over in the same boat. They were the guests in Macao of an English naval officer, who had with him a junior officer, and they greeted the ladies on arrival. Jinrickshas from the hotel were in waiting, and I, entering one, was hauled to the hotel with these other people. Chinese waiters received us, we all registered our names at the same time, and we and our baggage were carted upstairs together. Arrived on the landing, the Chinese boy turned to me and said—
"Which lady belong you, sir?"
"Neither!" I gasped.
"What! That man he got two ladies!"
I fled into my room, the ladies into theirs, and I heard stifled peals of laughter from the ladies' room, and had a suspicion that the old one was putting a pillow on the head of the younger!
But to return to Macao itself. The only vehicles in the streets were rickshaws and chairs. There were some quaint old houses, forts crowning every eminence, and bits of picturesque walls here and there.
The Praya Granda is the esplanade facing the sea, and here is the Government House, a pale blue house with white pillars, the Consulates, and some handsome private houses, some of which are painted in pale pink, blue, and green. It is certainly a pretty place, but seemed asleep.
After dinner that evening I did what is the usual thing, and went to the Chinese fantan or gambling-house. I walked down alone through a street crowded with Chinese, lined with Chinese shops, open to the street. Seeing some little bits of porcelain I liked, I went in and bought them, but in pretending to give me back my change the Chinaman in the shop kept back most of it. On my naturally objecting, he became most insolent and called out things in Chinese to the others, and instantly the shop filled and they began to hustle me. I only realised then that I had done a silly thing coming out at night alone into this Chinese part. An old Chinaman, however, rushed in, harangued the others, pulled me out, and simply bundled me into the gambling-house, which was opposite, warning me to be careful what I did, and not to come out alone like that at night.
The fantan house was a dirty place, open in the roof to a room above, a rail running round this opening, and there above were the naval officers and the ladies letting down their money in a basket. I sat at the table amidst a mob of Chinese, with other excited half-naked Chinese sprawling over my back. The game was simple enough. I loathe gambling, do not like winning money (strange as it may seem!), and it does not amuse me in the least. I was doing it this night merely to see what the place was like and study the gambling Chinese. Yet, strange to say, whenever I put my money down I won, and so I scraped in quite a pile of dollars—I found afterwards I had enough to pay my total expenses in Macao! When tired of it, the heat, and the Chinese perfume, I departed, and was quite surprised that my former enemies in the street did not see that that was the time to molest me, overflowing with ill-gotten wealth as I was. Every one comes from Hong-Kong for the week-end or a few days to indulge in this pastime, but, according to my old-fashioned ideas, it is a strange taste that brings ladies into such a place.
The following morning I hired a rickshaw and two Chinese boys and explored Macao. The streets of the town are narrow and often steep. I dislike a rickshaw very much, and still more do I dislike being drawn about by a panting and perspiring runner; but, of course, here it is the usual thing.
I went first to the ruins of the church of San Paulo, the façade of which is alone remaining, and it is a conspicuous object from every quarter. It was destroyed by fire in 1835. It is approached by long, steep flights of steps under which is said to be a vault containing treasure, and subterranean passages, leading to Guia fort, and under the sea for a mile to Green Island.
I was not a bit impressed by this tale of treasure. If it was there no one would have allowed me to dig it up, and what is the good of treasure in a vault anyway?
I inspected a silk factory in a dirty Chinese village, where numbers of women were spinning—a curious sight; then to Porta di Cerco—the barrier on the causeway which joins Macao and the island. Near this part are mud-flats in the seashallows where oysters, are cultivated. The men go over the mud on planks with great ease and at some pace. "Flora," the country residence of the Governor, is also near—a villa with a very charming Chinese garden laid out in terraces with balustrades of turquoise blue and green porcelain. There are also public gardens, the paths and grass bordered with miniature white railings a few inches high, which had a quaint and pleasing effect.
I had made a long tour of the island and was trundling along peacefully by the edge of the sea when my coolies suddenly stopped, exchanged remarks, and one said to me, " You killee me."
" Well, you silly old thing," I replied, " why do you let yourself be killed? "
So I alighted, gave them cigarettes, and we all sat on the shore to rest. When we resumed our return journey I told them to go quietly, and the consequence was they walked all the way! A rickshaw when the coolie walks is a foolish business. We stopped near the town to watch the funniest football match I had seen for long. Portuguese, English, and a Chinaman were playing. The latter, in his wide flapping trousers and his pigtail flying, was very comical.
Then, as usual with me, I discarded the rickshaw and walked everywhere—I always thought it was what legs were for. When strolling under the banyan trees on the Praya Granda—where, by the by, there is a Military club and a Union club—one of my coolies in attendance, a band of three Portuguese police with a Chinese prisoner caught up to us. The four of them and my coolie entering into an animated conversation, I asked what it was about, and learnt that the Chinese prisoner was being taken there and then to execution—to be beheaded. We accompanied them part of the way, whilst I asked questions, I bestowing cigarettes on them all, including the condemned man—who was perfectly at ease and quite cheerful, and smiled upon me in the most friendly way in thanking me for the cigarettes. They were most anxious I should go with them—I believe even the prisoner wanted it—but I was horrified when I realised the thing, and that the smiling, cigarette-smoking wretch was going to his death! To the great disappointment of my coolie I turned back ere we reached the place. There was something so careless and callous about it all—on this lovely, bright, sunshiny day, too. But it is a fact that death has little terror for a Chinaman, and this one did not seem to realise what it meant.
On the Leal Senado (Municipal Chambers) is an inscription—" Cidade do nome de Deos näo ha ontra mats leal," which is, "City of the name of God, there is none more loyal." This inscription was placed there by command of King Dom Joäo IV., at the time of the restoration of the Portuguese Monarchy, as a recognition of the loyalty of the Macaenses in giving their allegiance to Portugal instead of to Spain.
Mr. Chun Fong, a Chinese millionaire, has a fine house on the Praya Granda and a country house at the village of Wong Mo-Tsai, which was his native place. His history shows how much the world is alike everywhere.
As a poor country lad he went to California, and from there to the Sandwich Islands, where he amassed a fortune, becoming, according to the tale, the wealthiest man there. After forty years' absence he returned to his native place, purchased land, and built himself a beautiful house surrounded by fine gardens, and no doubt was ambitious of founding a family and becoming a personage.
But the great attraction for me, and what really had brought me to Macao, was Camoëns' garden and grotto. Here I spent many pleasant hours with his great poem in my hand. The gardens are quaint in themselves, with great masses of granite boulders, and they were given to the town by Lourenço Marques.
Luis de Camoëns was born in Lisbon in 1524. In 1545 he fell in love with Senhora Donna Catherina de Athayde, one of Queen Catherine's ladies of honour, and for that was banished by King John II. to Santarem, on the Tagus, and later was sent to Ceuta, in Africa, to serve as a soldier. He lost his right eye in a fight with pirates in Morocco. He went to the East in 1550, and at Goa received news of the death of his beloved Donna Catherina. He then became an ardent patriot and commenced writing his famous epic Os Lusiadis. He wrote a satire on the Portuguese Government at Goa, was banished to the Moluccas for a year, and was then made Administrator of Estates of Absentees and Dead at Macao; but on his voyage there he was wrecked off the coast of Cambodia, near the mouth of the Wukong, and lost everything save the MS. of his poem.
It was in the Holy City—that is, Macao—he spent many hours in these gardens finishing the Lusiad. The grotto—where he wrote and thought—is formed of natural granite boulders, amongst which is placed his bust. Sir John Davis, Sir John Bowring, Rienzi, and others of various nationalities have written poems in his honour, and these, inscribed on tablets, are affixed to the rocks.
He died at Lisbon, and is it necessary to say, in great distress and poverty?
I do not think his immortal work is much read now in England—or perhaps in Europe. But when I first entered Camoëns' garden I felt I had won another great goal in my pilgrimage, and my face was hot and my heart fluttering at the thought of it.
That being so, it can be guessed what it meant to me to saunter through those shady paths or sit in that grotto, and read what he had written on that spot. The scene I looked on he had looked on, the very fragrance that was in the air he too had inhaled, and there were his words composed and written on the spot! No wonder he is a very real person to me, and that the music of his words raises pictures for me others may not perhaps see.
When he sailed for the East his last words of reproach to Portugal were—
"Ungrateful country! thou shalt not even possess my bones." But even in that he was defeated. I believe it was an Englishman, Mr. Fitz-Hugh, who at Macao did so much to make these gardens a monument to the poet.
But his real monument is his undying poem, and where his enemies have passed into oblivion Camoens lives—or, as he says himself in the charming lines of the epic—
"The King or hero to the muse unjust
Sinks as the nameless slave, extinct in dust."
When I departed from Macao at eight o'clock one morning, it was to enter into a dense fog, in which the steamboat lay at rest for nearly two hours, the Captain keeping a sharp look-out on the junks, whose sails now and then loomed near us through the grey blanket. It was a strange experience lying motionless there in that grey world, with hundreds of incessantly talking Chinese padlocked down on the deck below us. Suppose, in the fog, a swarm of yellow-faced figures had suddenly boarded and overpowered us, and liberated those hundreds below us?—it might easily have been. And though I like the Chinese, I have always said that I should have a horror of being put to death by them. I do not know why, but the repulsion at the idea is there.
When I reached the hotel at Hong-Kong I was welcomed by my three Chinese boys, conducted to my room, and there was surprised to find that, quite unasked for, all my belongings had been overhauled, my clothes washed and mended, and everything arranged in perfect order!
How delighted the good creatures were that I was pleased! And not a thing would they let me do for myself after that.
The day following my return, when walking in the street, I saw a familiar face being trundled past in a rickshaw, and on overhauling it was amused and pleased to find it was Father M'Clymont.
Before I had left England I had seen him, and neither he nor I had had any idea of being in China. Now I found he was R.C. Chaplain to the Fleet. Having lunched together, I accompanied him to the Naval Hospital and through its wards. There were some wounded officers, midshipmen, and bluejackets there. One of the midshipmen showed me some of the Pekin loot which he had purchased. One article was an elaborate diamond encrusted watch. Dr. Keoch showed me everywished to see.
We then went up to the Peak, where it was a little cold and foggy; but a magnificent scene lay spread out below us.
It was the two hundredth anniversary of the Prussian kingdom, and all the warships in the harbour fired twenty-one guns in honour of the event. The noise was terrific and it looked as if a battle was going on.
With Father M'Clymont I went on board the commodore's ship, the Tamar, to tea and met many naval men. The commodore lived on board with his family: the ship was a permanent institution and was roofed in. Then to the club, a handsome and comfortable building, with a good library, and had a game of billiards. From the club balcony, too, I watched various cricket matches.
Another day we inspected the prison, which was a clean, bright, airy place, cells and all being very well kept. A little garden of palms in tubs decorated the site of the scaffold, standing on the trap-door, which opened, when there was an execution, to allow of the drop to the cavity below. There were many prisoners, mostly Chinese, some of whom were there for life, and many for nine or seven years. Some of them were pirates, supposed to be of those who had looted the Macao boat, as I have related. Looking through the little window in a cell door I was startled to recognise in the European prisoner within—who was unconscious of my scrutiny—a young Englishman who had been on the Hamburg with me. It seems he had embezzled money in the Malay States and had run away, being, of course, at once arrested on arriving at Hong-Kong. He was awaiting trial, and looked despairingly miserable, poor youth. Naturally, there had been no escape for him, as the people in the Malay States simply wired to Hong-Kong to have him arrested.
What I did not like in this prison was to see numbers of bluejackets there for trivial offences—such as breaches of discipline and the like—mingled with the Chinese thieves and murderers, surely an unnecessary degradation for the sailors, and in many ways a great mistake.
Canton has always been noted as being a turbulent place, and just at this time, with all the trouble in Pekin going on, it was not an abode of roses. When the Chaplain and I proposed going, the naval people made many objections. It was not safe, they said; we would probably (especially His Reverence) be stoned and have mud thrown at us, if nothing worse, and that would mean trouble; and the worst was that our Government (so like it!) would permit no retaliation for insults or attacks. Some naval men had been attacked, but had just to put up with it, and no strangers had gone up for some time.
Scottish and Irish blood is not damped by tales of that sort, so we left at 5.30 one afternoon for Canton, but such a thick fog came on that we were anchored all night in the river, and only reached our destination at eleven the next morning, seeing very little on the way owing to the fog. We went to the hotel on Shameen, and at once engaged Ah Cum John, the third son of Ah Cum, the famous guide, that family having the privilege of acting as guides to strangers. Ah Cum John was very intelligent and amusing, and looked after us very well. Hearing that lunch had to be provided from the hotel, I ordered two pint bottles of champagne to be taken with it.
Shameen, the foreign settlement, is an island in the river, formed out of a mud-flat, and is laid out with handsome houses, trees, and promenades—the consulates and the hotel being there. The bridges joining it to the city of Canton have gates, and are guarded by Chinese soldiers. No Chinaman, save the servants of the foreigners, is ever allowed on the island. The gunboats of the different Powers lie in the river on the other side, with their guns trained across Shameen, on the city of Canton, ready to fire if necessary.
But an enormous floating population lives entirely on the river; it is one mass of junks, sampans, and boats of all descriptions, so that, in the event of trouble, the Chinese need only step across this mass of craft and on to the island. Here, too, are the " flower-boats," where gay, painted Chinese ladies dispense tea, give concerts, and otherwise provide all the pleasures dear to Chinese or Europeans.
Preceded by Ah Cum John in a closed chair, we set out in open ones, each borne by two coolies, into the Chinese city. The streets are about six feet wide, having a ditch in the centre, the shops lining them are open to the street in front; banners of all sorts and colours hang from above, completely shutting out what little air could in any case penetrate into these dirty, unsavoury little streets which "smell to heaven"!
Indeed, the smell of China—which Captain Niedermayer of the Stettin used to say you could hear miles out at sea—is an all-pervading thing, which never leaves you, and which you seem to carry away with you and even taste at all times.
Borne along thus in chairs through these streets our brains became dizzy with the heat, smell, and the phantasmagoria of the endless yellow faces passing on either side without a break.
I had no idea what we were to do or see, and was resigned to following our leader. We went to see the rice-paper painting shop—the paper being really made from the pith of a tree—then to see the kingfisher feather workers. The feathers of the blue major are cemented into gold and silver filigree jewellery, giving the appearance of delicate enamel. The designs are small and intricate and the general effect very beautiful. It is most delicate and trying work, done by boys, and the result to them is often blindness. It is said it is to be abolished; if so, the articles which exist will become of very great value. I have always had the greatest admiration for this beautiful work.
The temple of the five hundred genii has rows of Buddhas, including Marco Polo, the famous Italian traveller. It is said to have been founded 500 A.D., and the temple and courts are large. Amongst its " treasures " are a white marble pagoda given by the Emperor Kien Lung, and an ordinary-looking blue and white porcelain jar of priceless worth, given by " a rich man."
We had our kodaks, entered the temples with our hats on and smoking cigarettes, as both Ah Cum John and the interested crowd accompanying us insisted we should do so. Naturally we would never have done so otherwise. It was a friendly, amused, and interested crowd. What was most curious was that, when we entered a shop to buy things, strong bars were placed across the entrance to keep the crowd out. But the cameras and our purchases were left lying in our chairs outside, for no one would touch them! I should have said that we had no money with us. Ah Cum John paid everything, and we settled with him on our return to the hotel.
Chinamen, like most Eastern races, enjoy a joke, and I had entirely got the right side of my two coolies by proposing, when we once stopped for a rest, they should get inside the chair and that I should carry them. This seemed to them too funny for words, and they kept relating it to bystanders, who also seemed to think it excruciatingly funny. Get people amused and they are very ready to do anything for you.
We bargained for embroideries in a shop, and had a most animated time with a very portly old Chinaman who evidently enjoyed the bargaining; and soon he was in high good humour too. I insisted I must take his photograph; he was immensely pleased and equally amused over the posing. He shook all over with laughter when I said he was a very fine-looking man, and, stretching out one finger, touched his waistcoat button and added, "And so much of you! " This he considered a compliment.
But soon my brain was in a whirl with the unending sea of faces, the heat, and closeness, and I wanted to see no more. Men sitting in their shops called out " Pekin! Pekin! " and made the action of cutting off their heads. I always responded, " Pekin you!—cut your head off," which again they thought quite funny.
At last we arrived at the walls of the city, where were here and there a few friendly soldiers in their quaint garb. We went along the walk on top of the wall, which is decorated here and there with obsolete old cannon. Looking beyond the walls was a sea of graves, and here and there a mound surmounted by a more imposing tomb. At last we came to the foot of the seven-storied pagoda which crowns a high point of the wall, and here I went on strike and refused to leave the chair, expressing myself indifferent to the view said to be obtained from the top of the pagoda. When Ah Cum John and my coolies entreated, I proposed the latter should go up and see the view for me—a proposition that simply convulsed them with mirth. They offered to carry me up to the first storey, but at last I gave way and consented to carry myself so far. Arrived there, amidst shouts of laughter they began to cajole and urge me on to the next floor, and in this manner they badgered me, more to please them than myself, to do the seven storeys. Arrived on top, Ah Cum John, who was in high spirits, conducted me to the balcony, and lo and behold! there was a neatly-set-out luncheon-table, tablecloth, napkins, and all, not forgetting the two most welcome little gold-necked bottles! I had forgotten lunch altogether—and proud and delighted were our attendants at the effect produced by this welcome sight.
This pagoda on the wall is at the extreme north of the city, and was erected over five hundred years ago. The view was extensive, the White Cloud Mountains and the river visible. The town was just a sea of roofs with the R.C. Cathedral and the towers of the pawnshops rising above it.
By the" Tartar General's Yamen " is the Flowery Pagoda, nine-storied, 300 feet high, a little off the perpendicular, and founded fourteen hundred years ago! China is no parvenu empire.
The north portion of this Yamen was formerly the British Consulate, and is surrounded by high walls. In 1859 it was used as a hospital for sick members of the British contingent. Through disuse it became the home of quantities of bats, which were destroyed by the allied Commissioners. The bat being of good omen, the Chinese regarded this as sacrilege, and when later it was destroyed by fire, they were sure it was a judgment.
We went to the temple of Confucius. He was born 550 B.C., and was descended from the Imperial house of Shang, which once ruled over China. He selected seventy-two disciples, whom he divided into four bodies: the first to study morals; the second reasoning; the third jurisprudence and government; and the fourth teaching and preaching his doctrines.
Another temple is dedicated to the five genii who, mounted on rams, visited Canton two thousand years ago, and must have been worth seeing. As they passed through the market they said, "May famine never visit this place," and then vanished. So Canton is called the " City of the Genii," or the "City of Rams." The great bell, weighing 5 tons, and cast five hundred and fifty years ago, is the largest in China. When this bell strikes of its own accord a calamity befalls the city.
A strange place was the Examination Hall [no longer existing], where the triennial examinations for the degree of "Bachelor of Arts" takes place. It is entered by the Dragon gate, covers 20 acres, and consists of rows upon rows of stone or brick cells each 5 feet 6 inches long, 3 x 8feet broad, and 6 feet high, all open in front. Every male of any position, from the age of eighteen to eighty, may compete for the examination. They must spend two whole days and nights shut into these cells, by a wooden grating placed in front, preparing their essays or poems, all their doings watched from a tower. At the far end are apartments for the Viceroy and Governor, and the two chief and ten junior examiners, who come from Pekin, and whose arrival is met with much noise, state ceremonies, and great fêtes. It was a most interesting place, and the idea is curious. Our next halt was in a small open space about 25 yards long by 10 broad, ending in a point at one end, whence it is called the Ma'Pan, or Horse's Head, from a fancied resemblance in form to the latter. This turned out to be the execution ground, one of the sights for tourists, used as a pottery-drying ground when not otherwise in use. I was half injured, half relieved, to find no execution was in progress. Except some skulls under a heap of rubbish, and some signs of the execution of two victims the previous day, nothing was to be seen. Other strangers have often been more "lucky."
The prisoner is brought suddenly in a basket carried by coolies. The magistrate sits at a red-covered table. The victim kneels down, and his head is cut off with a sword. Sometimes there are rows of them to be executed, and it has been described to me how the front row, kneeling and smoking cigarettes, turns round and watches with interest the heads of the other rows coming off. Another form of execution is the Ling-chi, when they are hacked to pieces alive.
Li Hung Chang, as a result of his European tour, introduced another form by strangling, after which the bodies are hung up in cages which stand there. Not one of these " tourist sights " did we see.
The Clepsydra, or Water Clock, we did see. Three copper vessels are placed on platforms one over the other. In the bottom one is an indicator scale which rises as the water fills it, and shows the time, which is exhibited on a board outside. It has been destroyed and repaired, and has been in use over five hundred years.
A place that was curious,but not unpleasant—indeed, I liked it—was the "City of the Dead." There are small rooms, arranged and decorated like chapels, in which rest the coffins of those who die far from home, or whose families rent a room till they decide where to bury them. The outside coffin is of fine black lacquer. Tea and rice are placed every day on the "altar" for the refreshment of the corpse. There was something attractive about the place; it was carefully laid out and tended, and seemed to me an excellent idea. Some tortured-feet Tartar ladies were walking painfully about, with flowers in their hands. I am so sympathetic that to my companion's surprise I quite unconsciously went walking painfully too!
As we sat outside the hotel in the evening, a Chinese boy came and asked if we were not going to the Flower Boats, and thinking we did not understand, ere he could be stopped, and regardless of my companion's cloth, proceeded to explain in singularly plain language what the Flower Boats were, much to my secret amusement, and the chaplain's shocked indignation!
Not having been able to see the river on our way up, we left in the Honam at 8 a.m., arriving at Hong-Kong at 4 p.m. There are various more or less picturesque villages with high towers—which are pawnshops—on the banks. There are forts, some armed with modern guns, and opposite to them the river is barred with iron and wooden piles and chains, leaving two passages for vessels to go through. Junks are sunk in these openings in time of war. The water life on the river is interesting, there being all sorts of quaint craft. The large junks are all armed with small cannon, and of course all Chinese boats have the two eyes in the bows, to " look-see "where they are going. We passed one junk filled with children who had been kidnapped by pirates, recaptured, and were being returned to their homes. They were a curious spectacle.
The river abounds with creeks which are the refuges of the numerous pirates, who sally forth on plunder bent. We no doubt carried many on the Honam, as thousands of Chinese pour in and out of Hong-Kong every day, and most look the same to us. There were also one or two Chinese gentlemen's country seats on the banks of the river—one looked a very desirable place.
Captain Jones of the Honam, a very pleasant, polite, and hospitable man, entertained us in his cabin and showed us some of his valuable pieces of Chinese porcelain of which he was a collector. At my request he took us down to the lower deck to see the live fish which were being brought to the Hong-Kong market. There were ten large tanks on either side of the ship each holding half a ton of live fish— Canton river salmon, a sort of lamprey, and others; water is always being pumped in.
On arrival at Hong-Kong the sides of thetanks, which are the side the ship, are thrown open, and out pours a silver flood of live fish into the waiting boats, which race each other to market, as the first boatload fetches a higher price than the others. It was a wonderful sight to see this silver flood issuing from the ship's side. Another wonderful sight on this lower deck was to see the seven hundred Chinese passengers, packed there like sardines with all their goods and gear. They sprawled about in every attitude, and we had to step over them and almost on them to see the tanks. They were, many of them, smoking opium. Of course, all these were kept padlocked down under heavy gratings, above which stood heavily armed Chinese guards; and in the dining-saloon, as on the Macao boat, were cutlasses and loaded guns for the use of the passengers in case of emergency.
If they had wanted to they could easily have "done for" the captain and us two whilst amongst them. It is a curious state of affairs.
The naval people in Hong-Kong were at this time all down on an indiscreetly tongued young officer. At meals they are all waited on by their Chinese "boys," and this youth one day remarked that he wondered the Chinese boys did not at a given signal fall upon them and cut their throats, much to the edification of the said Chinese boys, who might thereby have been prompted to do it.
On 23rd January I was standing in the hall of the Hong-Kong hotel when an American, with his hat in his hand, came up to me in a grave manner and startled me by saying, "I am very sorry that I have some very bad news to tell you—Queen Victoria is dead!"
So it was I heard of the passing of the great Queen.
The news spread like wildfire through Hong-Kong; excited groups were everywhere discussing it, and the Chinese were rushing about excitedly, telling each other "Queenie Wicketoria is dead!"
That day no official notice was taken of the event, though flags were all at half-mast, but quite suddenly a wonderful hush fell upon that busy town, and its noisy teeming streets were deserted and empty. The Chinese of their own accord had closed every shop, and by nighttime were draping them in crape. It was quite curious to see the empty, quiet streets—as I said, a sudden hush fell on that town, and, indeed, on the whole East.
Out in the East and through many far-away lands and seas Queen Victoria was regarded as almost a divine being she was the Queen of all the white people, not merely of the British; and will rank through all ages in Oriental legends and tales as a sort of half-mythical being, not as mere woman and ruler.
There was another great name that loomed over the whole East in a curious way. It was a name spoken with respect and bated breath by every one, and one felt instinctively that here must be real greatness, or how would one man's name and personality so tower above all others? I was unable to reach Pekin, and so had no chance of meeting the great Sir Robert Hart—a disappointment, as I had known his family for years. But the way he was always spoken of, and the universal agreement as to his strong personality and the value of his wonderful work, would have impressed any one out there. [Since those days I have often met and talked with Sir Robert Hart, and learnt to understand wherein his strong personality lay. But now the day is done, the great battle fought and won; and the great man of the East—so gentle, simple, and unaffected in manner—spent his last days in quiet seclusion in England. Lady Hart, it may be noted, is a relative of the famous Elizabeth Patterson, who was wife of Jerome Bonaparte, King of Westphalia. Sir Robert's name will for ever loom large in the annals and legends of all Eastern peoples, in a way given to few.]
The following day I went on board the German mail-boat Sachsen, which left at 8.30 in the morning. From the heat of Hong-Kong we soon passed into a quite cold evening. There were not many passengers, but I found on board the Dallas Theatrical Company, this being the third time I had travelled on a boat with them. Mr. Dallas and his wife and the two Misses de Worms and some others were, therefore, quite old acquaintances.
We had a cold,stormy passage along the Chinese coast; saw many islands and more junks. The sea was a dirty tinted yellow—the colour, no doubt, washed off Chinese far inland—and even the bath was so yellow and muddy one could not use the water.
We had left Hong-Kong on the morning of a Tuesday and anchored at Woosung on the Yangtzekiang about eleven on the following Sunday morning. The only Chinese thing visible here was a village and gateway. All the German ships were beflagged for their Emperor's birthday; all ours had flags at half-mast. There is a railway from this place to Shanghai, but I went up the river in a steam-launch. It was not interesting, as there were only shipbuilding yards, docks, and factories along its banks.
Shanghai presented the appearance of a very large, handsome town, with fine buildings along the Bund. I went to the Astor House Hotel. There were cabs, chairs, and rickshaws plying the streets. I explored many Chinese streets and the British Concession where are the best buildings, and which is the best-laid-out part of the town. As in Hong-Kong there are three classes of police—the familiar British "Bobby," the Sikh, and the Chinese. As you drive along the Bund in the British part you come to a bridge, get out, walk across it, and find yourself in the French Concession, and take another rickshaw, and there are their houses, badly paved streets, and their police. I visited, of course, the Chinese tea-house, which is after the pattern of those you see pictured on a "willow-pattern" plate. The carriages have Chinese servants in smart liveries. It was very cold and snowed in the evening.
In the morning the town was white with snow, the rickshaws and their coolies looking so odd; but soon the snow under foot was churned into disgusting mud. Shanghai did not impress me favourably at all but, of course, I only had a glimpse of it under unfavourable aspects, and know I little about it.
I left about 1 p.m. on the steam-launch to rejoin the Sachsen.
A rather noted man was a passenger, in the person of Colonel Olcott, of Theosophist and Madame Blavatsky fame; and with this personage I had a long talk. He had white hair and a long, flowing white beard and piercing eyes—very sharp and very clever, and we had an interesting enough conversation. [Alas! for Tibet and all its mysteries and mahatmas and hidden wonders—our British soldiers and explorers have knocked all that on the head.]
Colonel Olcott remembered very well Count Carl Leiningen, now passed away, who had been a Theosophist, and had himself told me that he had entered the supposed mysterious Tibet, and had been “beyond the portals” into the Unknown, where I could not follow because I had not knowledge or faith enough. Colonel Olcott was much interested in all I told him about that strange, ghost-haunted, one-time monastery, Billigheim, the home of the Leiningens (the head of which family was Queen Victoria’s half-brother), and how the Erbgraf Carl had, I supposed, projected his astral body over 11 miles into Schloss Neuburg on the Neckar, where I was living. It took my memory back to far other scenes—to strange days and people long passed away. [Billigheim, with its gay old Count—so fat he could scarcely get through the doors—its ghost-haunted rooms, and its more interesting, amiable young Theosophist hereditary Count, are all gone—wiped out as if they had never been! So strange is life! So kaleidoscopic!]
After a night and two days—all cold and wet and dull—we arrived late at Nagasaki, and I had my first glimpse of Japan, which was looking its worst, everything sodden with wet, and mud a foot deep in the streets. It was from this place Jimmu Tenno set out on his career of conquest, and from here the expedition of the Empress Jingo Kogo against Corea started.
Here, too, Mendez Pinto and the Portuguese landed, and the still-powerful Satsuma Clan and their Prince, before the new régime in 1868, held sway. After the expulsion of the Portuguese and Spaniards in 1637 only the Dutch and the Chinese were allowed to trade here, until it was opened for foreign trade in 1859. There are large British and Russian colonies here. The three-mile-long narrow harbour is a good one and also very pretty.
The famous Jimmu Tenno was the first Mikado and was born 660 b.c.
Before 7 a.m. we were aroused by the Japanese Health Officers for inspection, and the ship-coaling operations began. All the coaling was done by men and young girls by passing quite small baskets with great rapidity over their heads. A C.P.R. boat had 1360 tons of coal put on board by these girls in four hours! They were ugly, thick-set creatures, but very wonderful. They all wore round their heads those cheap but wonderfully artistic towels, which you buy in rolls, and cut off a bit as you want it, and which are fascinating things.
A girl and man rowed me ashore in a sampan, and I floundered about the streets in the detestable mud. The inscriptions on the shops were in English and Russian. I had no opportunity of trying the kin-gyoku-to—the famous jelly made out of seaweed.
Many of the men in Japan at the first glimpse give one a shock, dressed as they are—or were on this day—in long ulsters, and fearful pot-hats of German origin!
A Scottish girl who had been a fellow-passenger landed here to be married. The Captain went with her to be a witness to the ceremony.
The picturesque islets which dot the harbour, and that group of three islands outside it, are known to the whole world by Japanese prints and drawings, and struck one as being so like those Japanese drawings, though one ought to put it the other way. One of these, a pinnacle of rock with an arched opening through it, is ideal in beauty and form.
That night on the boat I found two new arrivals placed beside me at table. One was Lieutenant Dzjobek of the German Marines, who had been wounded in a reconnaissance near Kiaochou, where there is always a guerrilla warfare going on. His account of the incident was rather comical. He is near-sighted and wears glasses. Seeing something which he could not quite make out, he went right up to it, and too late discovered it to be an ancient Chinese gun, loaded with bullets. There were Chinese at the other end of it, and as he peered at it, they naturally let it off, and he received eight bullets in his body, some of which were still there. A few extracted he had in a little box, and I suggested that when all were recovered they would make a nice bead chain for some young lady, with a pearl between each.
He described a Chinaman coming at him with a long lance, giving him no time to think, so he could only shoot the man in the forehead, and he tumbled dead at his feet. The Chinese fought naked, their “buff” being an admirable colour for khaki, as they were invisible against the background. The other new arrival was Captain-Lieutenant Heinrich of the German Navy, who had been four months on a hospital ship, and was bound for the hotel in Japan, where his Government had hired rooms for the officers to recruit. We rose from dinner friends.
So it was that Paul Heinrich came into my life.
We had beautiful views of the famous Inland Sea. The coast and islands were very picturesque in outline, the colours of the landscape very soft; and the beautiful, blue-green of the sea was dotted with white-sailed vessels and fishing boats. But it was both cold and wet when we arrived at Kobe in the evening. We stayed there all night, and left early in the morning. Kobe seems well situated at the foot of a range of hills—one peak having still snow on it. There was at Kobe a rumour of the death of Li Hung Chang, but it was incorrect. This personage was constantly dying and always being dug up again. But I wonder if Chinese ever die?
I had left Shanghai at about midday on a Monday, and on Saturday evening was installed at the Grand Hotel in Yokohama, which town at first view presents no interesting features. But that day I had my first view of the world-famous Fujiyama, or “Fuji,” as every one calls it, and its fame is well deserved.
As we approached Yokohama Pier I heard two fellow-passengers, old Jews, talking. One pointed out a female figure on the distant pier, and said, “There is my wife.”
“Oh no,” said the other, “that is not your wife; it is mine.”
They argued, each persisting he recognised his wife, so I interfered.
“I have heard a great deal about marriages in Japan,” I said, “but if men cannot recognise their own wives, things must really be very odd. Suppose I take the lady, and that will settle it!”
They rolled about with laughter at this suggestion, declaring I might have her! But on reaching the pier I changed my mind, and generously gave her up to her real owner.
Captain Heinrich and Lieutenant Dzjobek were my frequent companions in Yokohama, and they introduced me to other German officers. One of these latter, Lieutenant Kw from Kiaochou, was very amusing and fond of relating wonderful experiences. He described to me his first fight with the Chinese. He and the other officers had been fond of theorising as to how they would proceed, and were agreed that in a hand-to-hand fight they would strike off the heads of the Chinese with their swords. But when the time came, and Lieutenant K. was scaling a ladder at the head of his men, revolver in one hand and sword in the other, with a Chinese lance coming at him over the top, there was no time to put theories into practice, and he could only lunge at his enemy with his sword and he described it as a most beautiful sensation as the sword went right through, and “it was just like putting your knife into butter”! So he managed to kill about twenty-five that way. I went out sometimes to the German hospital at Honemaku. The ground was granted by a Japanese gentleman for two years, he receiving a decoration from the German Emperor. The hospital was built in Japanese style—very cool, clean, simple, and pleasant—and would revert to the owner of the land, who would find it a nice country house. It was beautifully situated on top of a high perpendicular cliff, with a fine outlook over the sea, and, what the Japanese had overlooked, with a good view of the Japanese naval harbour. There were about twenty-five patients in the hospital, wounded or fever-stricken, from Pekin. Dr. Priesuhn, in charge, always had cool beer for his visitors.
I also inspected the British Naval Hospital, which occupies extensive gounds and an important position on the Bluff. The doctor in charge was very cordial and showed me everything. There were only three patients, one of whom was a midshipman who had been wounded several times and had had various operations, but remained extremely cheerful and happy under it all. He will take a lot of killing, that youth. They had there loot from the Imperial Palace at Pekin, in the form of a tame deer, given by H.M.S. Endymion. It used to follow the doctor through the wards, but ate up all the flowers everywhere and did constant mischief, so it had been relegated to an enclosure, where it seemed very happy in the company of some turkeys, with which it seemed great friends. This naval hospital—its grounds overlooking the sea and its inhabitants all seemed to me to be particularly bright and cheerful!
With the two German officers I made my first visit to a tea-house—that of the hundred and one steps, so widely known. As we arrived at the top of these steps the two little tea-house girls ran out to greet us and put coverings over our boots. As one of them—I forget her name, but she is a famous personage, known for years to people of all nations—stooped over my feet she exclaimed, “Oh, you are English”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“I know by your shape,” she replied; but whether she meant the shape of my feet or my figure I don't know.
When we got inside and were sitting on the floor, as is the custom, I told her I was not English, and as she could not guess what I was, I said I was a Scotsman.
“Oh, I can sing you a Scottish song,” she said; and then she sang “Auld Lang Syne,” and “Coming thro' the Rye,” and then German, French, and English songs! This is the oldest tea-house in Yokohama, and the albums kept are full of signatures or visiting cards pasted in, and this amusing young lady had something to say about most of the people.
Of course there were the names of hundreds of naval men of all nations, and it was curious to come across here and there familiar names which brought back old memories. There was the Grand Duke Alexander Michaelovitch of Russia, with Prince Nicholas Poutiatine and other officers and old friends of the Russian corvette Rhynda— like a little friendly greeting looking out of those pages. There was the Prince of Wales [late King Edward] and two sons, Prince Edward and Prince George [King George V.], and far too many other names to mention. [During the Russo-Japanese war this little tea-house girl was able to give much information concerning the numerous Russian officers she had known.
I could not comfortably manage sitting on the floor, much to her amusement. She trotted out of the room and returned with a little stool with a cushion on top of it, so I thanked her, took from it her, and sat down on it, whereupon she and the two officers simply rolled about with laughter, the cause of which I could not guess; but feeling myself getting hotter and hotter, and smoke arising on either side, I suddenly discovered my seat was the little charcoal stove for tea, the teapot being meant to rest on the cushion on top!
As we sprawled on the ground this young person came and sat on me, and, like a child, began" examining my scarf-pin, etc. At last she said," Oh, you are married!"
" How do you know? "
"Because you are so quiet!"
Here was a revelation. Ladies may be consoled to think that when their husbands visit tea-houses in Japan they are nice and quiet. Because I was quiet she was sure I was married. When I informed her I was still a lone, lorn bachelor, she was undisturbed, and said she liked me better than Dzjobek, who she said was “a rough-house man”; but we were to remember she was no “rough-house girl,” and she proceeded to give us a dissertation on things Japanese. She was " middle class," she said, and the middle class were thoroughly respectable, but not ih the least nobility. She described the geisha girl, who is trained up from a youthful age in all the arts and graces to be a conversationalist and entertainer. The geisha girls go out to Japanese dinners to sit behind or beside the guests to entertain them. Then there is the other nameless class of girl, who plays such a part in Japan and need not be further described, as all the world knows how the Japanese have solved that question, and the strange position occupied by the frail ones of their land. But it was amusing to hear this young person describing all these differences with the utmost sang-froid, intent only on making us realise that tea-house girls were thoroughly respectable and " middle class." How she libelled herself! That such a gay and joyous, such a bright and clever little person should be labelled with such terrible epithets as “respectable” and “middle class is” monstrous.
Nothing used to amuse me so much in Yokohama as the constant fires which always seemed to take place at night. The little wooden houses burnt like matchboxes; but they are all insured, their whole contents can be removed in a few minutes, and then the house can be easily rebuilt. So one saw the burnt-out owners sitting on their belongings at ease and appearing to enjoy the spectacle! The burning houses reflected in the canals the chattering crowd all carrying lighted paper lanterns and trotting in long lines over the bridges really forms a wonderful picture. One of these fires took place beside and partly in the Yoshiwara, that part of the town containing the best houses, wherein dwell apart the frail ladies, and it was a curious sight to see these painted little personages pouring out. But it was a painful sight to behold amongst them, and towering high above them, a tall, slim, fairheaded American girl—for, strange to say, it is not unusual in such places to find educated American girls lost to all sense of shame and everything else.
Every one is now familiar with Japanese house—so often seen in "Japanese Villages" in exhibitions. But these houses in Japan were a source of unfailing delight to me, so wonderfully exact and beautiful is their workmanship every sliding panel or window fitting to perfection, everything perfect in its utter simplicity. Yet en masse they are tiresome to behold, especially as the wood, being all unpainted and unvarnished, soon becomes grey and gives them a dilapidated look. The general effect, then, of a Japanese town is monotonous.
Everything is so perfectly clean. How charming that is! Even the coolies who run before your rickshaw have their daily hot bath—nay, are boiled daily! Probably the Japanese are the cleanest people existing. Bath-houses are everywhere, and the blind people act as shampooers, go about the street making a noise with their wooden stave, and can be called in as they pass any house.
Shopping! Need I tell any one what shopping means in Japan—what an irresistible occupation it is, and what wonders even modern Japan can display before you?
But the children's streets whole streets given up to nothing but shops full of children's toys! And such toys! They fascinated me—each tiny cheap—very cheap—little object was as perfectly made as if it had been a priceless cabinet. Tiny models of almost everything in Japan are to be found in the toy-shops. I spent days amongst these things, and if I had given way to my inclination would have had to carry home a whole shopful of things. Equally interesting were the other shops, with people at work in them on this or that, sitting or squatting beside a brazier with a bit of charcoal in it—the only way they had of warming themselves. But the brazier was often desirable in itself. Then always, in the poorest shop, the one perfect vase with its one beautiful flower or plant—there to satisfy the inborn artistic soul of its owner!
The floor of the shop is a couple of feet or so above the level of the street outside—that is of the real Japanese shop, not the up-to-date, Europeanised ones. The floor, of course, covered with the beautiful matting, cannot be walked on by our clumsy boots, as it is sat on by every one, and is even their dining-table. But I used to sit on the edge of the floor with my feet in the street outside and chat to the inmates for hours. In Yokohama almost every one knew a little English, and many knew it well. But essays at each other's languages and funny mistakes always produced delighted laughter. These people were so perfectly courteous, so cheery and cordial that I never could go by, and hour after hour would find me sitting here or there. People say the Japanese are not sincere, that all this is merely manner. It is certainly very charming manner. Why should it not be sincere? You are asking nothing of them, and they nothing of you—they are cheery, sociable, and charmingly mannered, seem to enjoy friendly chatting. I think them the most perfect-mannered people in the world. If you are interested in them and their ways, they are interested in you and yours, and they loved to compare notes and laugh over our different views.
Who ever went to Japan that did not speak of its great glory—its women! They are often quite ugly or commonplace in feature, though sometimes, especially in the higher classes (the difference being marked), very delicately featured. It is their irresistible charm, their delicate, refined ways, and their beautiful, soft, low-toned voices which so fascinate. A pretty, graceful, European girl looks quite an awkward monster beside them. I do not believe there is anything more charming in the world than the “Saronaya!”—the farewell of the Japanese women, with the dear little “Please come again,” in English at the end of it. What matters if it be but a polite, unmeaning phrase?—it is music to hear and makes you want to come again.
Quite insensibly you grow to adapt your manner to theirs, speak gently, feel inclined to be polite, and could not think of being loud-voiced or boisterous. Even when full of romping and high spirits it is in their own way.
Once, in a quiet street, I came across some Japanese girls learning to ride a bicycle—it is at any time a rather amusing sight—but those quaint little figures careering wildly, bicycle and all, into the arms of every passer-by, their peals of soft laughter and little cries—the gaiety of the thing was so infectious that you felt it quite natural to be as one of them and assist in the lesson, just as you would with children; and to them it seemed quite natural too.
I loved also to go to the railway station, watch a train come in and the people alight, and listen to the musical clatter and clang of their little wooden shoes.I can understand some people not liking the Japanese—especially their men—but all were to me so charming in every way I never felt inclined to do anything but respond, though I was not blind to defects.
For instance, nothing was more disagreeable and objectionable than the universal custom of clearing their throats loudly and expectorating.
I shall never forget a charming little lady in a first-class saloon in the train coming from Tokio. Everything about her was so dainty, delicate, and fascinating. Every single man—all Europeans—in that long carriage was bending forward watching her; lost to everything but her charm. She smoked her tiny cigarette out of her tiny case—the little demure witch perfectly conscious of the interest she excited—but all of a sudden she leant forward and spat the whole length of the carriage into the spittoon at the end! Tableau! But I believe she did it on purpose, out of pure mischief.
Once I was buying photographs, and wanted some coloured ones they did not have, so the girl said they would colour them at once if I did not mind waiting. I never did mind waiting in Japan. She came to entertain me meanwhile, and, with perfect taste, considered the best way would be to tell me all about herself and her family. They were Christians—there are quite old Christian families in Japan—but yes, they went to the temples to amuse themselves. She had a sister studying at college in America. She herself longed for the day when they had such colleges in Japan for girls; but they would some day, as all Japanese wanted to improve themselves and learn. She told me all about her family and friends and their doings in the most simple and natural way—and on departure must pop in some tiny trifle with the photographs as a souvenir, must shake hands and say, “Please come again and talk more.”
Japanese all study, learn, and want to improve themselves that alone in itself is a wonderful thing. Most Europeans are entirely satisfied with themselves, don't want to learn anything, and have no idea they could be improved. Think over it, and you will understand many things.
But I spoke of the children's streets. What am I to say of the children? In those streets they swarm, all at play; so many you can scarce get through them. But, if a little one is flying a kite and the string accidentally comes across you, the quaint little bow and apology delights you. The stupidest man steps aside so as not to interfere with them, or stands smiling to watch them. As for me!— well, children anywhere know me instantly as one of themselves, and one that can be taken possession of at once. I love their queer little minds, all their quibs and pranks, their love of little secrets and mysteries, and their unbounded imaginations. They see through me, though—and I am always a victim. So in Japan I could never keep away from the children, and might have been seen sitting for hours on the ledge of a shop watching them.
Japan has many newspapers — some in Japanese, some in English and Japanese. These are well known.
But there are others, sometimes tiny leaflets only, also partly in English and partly in Japanese, which circulate only amongst themselves. I got them to collect a number of these for me, and wonderful they were. They discuss their own manners, defects, faults, ask questions on etiquette, ask to have this or that quotation from an author or poet explained or verified—all in such a naive way, and the editor answers everything. These are the little shop-keeping people, mind. Could you imagine one of this class here, writing to ask the meaning of some very involved lines from Chaucer? and from Browning also—yet those are the questions. There was even a discussion on the expectorating habit—the Europeans said it was disgusting, unhealthy, and so on—should they not abandon it if it was unpleasing to others?
Somehow all these little papers drew me very closely to the Japanese—revealed traits I might not have known otherwise. There were, however, many other things which gave me an insight into the ideals some Japanese set before themselves. I will here, too, quote some lines from a poem by the Emperor of Japan—
“The thing we want
Is hearts that rise above life's worries like
The sun at morn, rising above the clouds,
Splendid and strong.”
Of course I went to Kawasaki and saw Kobo Daishi's image—carved by himself when in China, thrown into the sea, drifted to Japan and caught in a fisherman's net, and which then performed miracles—and the village fairs round the temples under the trees formed like junks; was constantly on the Noge-yama full of its Shintu and Buddhist shrines, and its gaily clothed girls sauntering amidst the cherry trees just coming into blossom; went walks and drives everywhere—often with Captain Heinrich and Lieutenant Dzjobek.
I went up and down to Tokio—admired the Mikado's fortress palace, and the beautiful masonry of what remains of the Yasiki or mansions of the great Daimyos; went to this and that temple; disliked the unbuilt spaces here and there in the town and the hideous public buildings in the worst German taste; marvelled at the odd costumes of the men and their penchant for impossible European hats and caps—but it is useless to attempt to describe the things scores of books have been written about, and which have been pictured thousands of times.
Shiba Park, with its temples and tombs, is by now quite a familiar name in England. Strange it is to think that Kei Ki, the last of the Tokugawa Shoguns, still lives in retirement at Tokio. That marvellous page of Japanese history has no equal in any other land.
As I examined the Kamo-asi, the three-leaved Asarum, which is the crest of the Shoguns, I was rejoiced to think that I had acquired things that bore that mark—and there in the place of honour in the great temple is a beautiful silken cover with the Tokugawa crest, presented by the Emperor—and I have its counterpart. The crest of the Mikado is, of course, the sixteen-leaved chrysanthemum. Shiba, Ueno, Asakusa, Kwannon—who does not know them now? Ueno—called Kimon, or “the Devil’s Gate,” so famous for its cherry blossom, is regarded as the most unlucky of the whole world. Here it was that a son of the Mikado was kept in seclusion by the Shoguns in case they should want him to reign.
In the museum the Christian relics are interesting—the rosaries and the medals of Christ and the Virgin set in blocks of wood, on which suspected Christian had to stand and deny their faith—or be killed! They say the Dutch frequently stood on them and swore they were not Christians.
I never cared for the saké in the tea-houses, and disliked the tea; but swallowed gallons of both for the sake of the beaux yeux and the silver speech of the women of Japan—and showed very good taste in doing it!When the Germans were first established at Kiaochou, and in the full flush of their pride in the achievement, they sent an order to Japan for three hundred Japanese girls for the use of the soldiers! The answer they got surprised them!
The Japanese were furious; told them the Japanese women were not commodities to bought and sold—a mere article of export—but were the honour and the glory of their land.
But about Japan I shall write no more. The books about it are legion. I would only urge others to go, look and learn for themselves ere all the charm is gone; for some of the modern “improvements” are very conspicuous and not at all artistic. The telegraph wires and poles, for instance, are more than evident, and disfigure many places, some of which seem all poles and wires.
Sufficient to say that I revelled in Japan, the little I saw of it. It was very cold at times, and Japanese inns inland were unbearably so at the time. The heat of a charcoal brazier was never sufficient for me, and I have always particularly disliked charcoal fumes. All the trivialities that amused me would be tedious to read—and more, Japan is not a country to read about; it is a country to see. Each one must see and judge for himself.
Europeans resident in Japan make many complaints about the Japanese—I dare say they have cause. But the passer-by is not so affected, and, if a mere pleasure-pilgrim like me, may as well give himself or herself up to the charm and ignore all else.
The hotel at Yokohama being rather full, a young Scotsman was placed at my table one night, who introduced himself, saying he had known me by name and sight for years, had seen me at German watering-places, in Scotland, in London, more lately in Ceylon, and Hong-Kong, and now found himself at my table in Yokohama! So goes the world! I had no recollection of seeing him anywhere, but he knew all about me.
Again I had to move onwards, and to say good-bye with regret to places and people. There was dear Paul Heinrich remaining out in the East as flag-lieutenant to the German Admiral in those seas; when he came to say farewell as I embarked we wondered when and where we were to meet again, or if ever.
[Many have been the meetings since—in Berlin, on his ship at Kiel, on his ship at Corfu—dinners and suppers here and there drives through the old olive woods and orange groves of the fair Ionian Isle, watching the peasants dance the slow, rhythmical dance they danced in Old Greece thousands of years ago and but the other day when he was here with his Imperial master, saunters in Piccadilly, dining at the Ritz—supping at the Royal Automobile Club—what different scenes and memories!]
I was returning to England by America and Canada. My intention was to go from Japan to San Francisco. At the last moment I felt quite impelled to change my mind, and despite remonstrances from every one, determined to go by Vancouver, and could have given no reason. Every time I thought of San Francisco something within me said, " Don't go '" and I let myself be guided by this feeling, this instinct—what was it?
The boat I was to have taken to San Francisco was wrecked at the Golden Horn and most of her passengers drowned!
Indeed, people at home, knowing I proposed going by her, for a time thought I was one off the victims. When I returned I told them I thought them all looking very well in spite of their great loss So it was Saronaya to Japan—and the last words were, "Please come back again"— who cares if they were meant, they were pleasant to hear, pleasant to remember, and made me want to go again.
Auf Wiedersehen you pleasant, kindly land of gentle manners, of cherry blossoms, of quaint little children—you land of smiling, soft-voiced women! I liked you all—I bear you in faithful remembrance, and for your sake I am ever a friend to Da Nippon. Saronaya!
On the 22nd of February I left for Vancouver by the Empress of India. Usually the ship at this date encountered a blizzard and was coated with ice. This did not happen, so it was said to be a wonderful trip—but it was continually wet, and icy winds blew down on us from Arctic latitudes, and it was dull. Passengers were not numerous some pleasant enough, and some I had known before.
For hours I used to pace the wet deck with a couple of Japanese gentlemen, Messrs. Sugawa and Nishimura—wonderfully clever, well-informed men, knowing a great deal more about every subject than I did about one. You could not mention a country, a place, or a thing, but they knew all about it. They talked to me even about queer old feudal land laws and customs in the Scottish Highlands which one would have imagined that no one but the unhappy lairds who suffer under them would know.
Whilst I was in Japan and all the East was full of the passing away of Queen Victoria, a question was raised in the Japanese parliament as to whether the Court and people should go into complimentary mourning. It seems, when the Emperor's mother died, no notice was taken of it by our Court or people— Japan was hurt. But the people had settled the question of mourning for Queen Victoria themselves, and all Japan was in mourning. The shops .were hung with black, purple, and mauve crêpe, and Queen Victoria's portrait also so adorned, and with often a green wreath laid across it, was in every window. The sympathy, good feeling, and taste the Japanese showed should not be forgotten.
There is another thing to remember. During the long period during which the Boer War was waged, Japan and her people took our side, stuck to us through thick and thin, lauded our successes, and minimised our mistakes.. No nation ever showed to another such loyal faith. We had not many such friends. Why forget it? Japan simply stood for us and by us through it all.
There was an American, Mr. Duncan, on the Empress of India, bound for San Francisco. Why did he come by Vancouver? I asked. Whilst he could sail on a British ship with a British captain there was no chance of his going with any other, was his answer. He had crossed the Atlantic sixty times without mishap.
There was also an American millionaire on board, the Mr. Collbrand who played such a part in Korea for a time. He was fully conscious of the important part he had taken in things there, or perhaps it was his millions he was conscious of.
It was spring almost when, on the 6th March, we touched the shores of Canada in that part they call British Columbia, of which the capital is Victoria, with 25,000 inhabitants—situated on the southern extremity of Vancouver Island. Esquimault Harbour in the vicinity is our naval station on the North Pacific.
At a quarantine station all the Chinese on board were landed, turned into a building, stripped, fumigated, and their clothes were piled up out side and fumigated also. We passengers were all leaning over the taffrail watching this, when suddenly the doors of the fumigation room were opened and out poured all the Chinese in their natural khaki, much to our amusement.
Vancouver city, the terminus of the C.P.R., on the mainland, has 25,000 inhabitants (1901). Until May 1886 its site was covered by a dense forest. In two months it had grown quite a town, then a fire destroyed every house save one. It lies on the fine Coal Harbour, a widening of Burrard Inlet. It is easy to see what a fine city is to be here one day.
I found the Vancouver hotel large, comfortable enough, but ordinary. Stanley Park is the Government reservation, and contains very old and gigantic trees— what a magnificent land, another of the heritages of the British race. Wonderful people!—how they attack every remote wilderness and in no time make it theirs. No wonder they are proud of their new land and their work—it makes the spectator proud to belong to such a race. Only the fittest of a nation could do what these people do.
Ere I left the ship I was summoned to the baggage-room and pointed out all my numerous trunks and cases; shuddering at the thought of what I should have to undergo in the Custom House. But having done that, and every one being busy, I was handed a check for the things, told it was all right, and bundled out.
When I boarded the famous trans-continental railway on yth March, bound for Montreal, every one seemed surprised to find me wandering about with that check asking for my baggage, and I was told it was "all right"—so I worried no more, had nothing to do with any custom-house, and embarked, wondering whether I was not leaving my luggage behind. I had two companions on the journey—a Mr. Aitken and Captain Farquhar, who had been A.D.C. to Lord Lamington in Queensland. A fellow-passenger,, who had something to do with the railway, came and ordered the negro car-attendants, very brusque personages, to look after us well, and I, particularly, was entrusted to their care. In fact, I was so looked after at Vancouver that I was perfectly confused as to where I was had not had time to even plan out what I wanted to do, but somehow found myself bound for Montreal. I really had had ideas of staying at Vancouver for a time, but just submitted to the attentions of others and allowed myself to be taken about and eventually put on the train, all my "Buts" being interrupted with "That's all right—you come along!"
So at 1 p.m. we started. I soon had a view of Mt. Baker, 14,000 feet high, and we were winding about through tunnels and round spurs, always ascending amidst rivers, forests of magnificent trees, and wild scenery. At North Bend (425 feet) we dined at 5.50 p.m. in the refreshment-room—turkey being the fare. It was very cold outside and the train very warm inside. Till bedtime we climbed about amidst forests and mountains. It was when bedtime came that I first realised that I really knew nothing about this famous C.P.R. line or its ways. I had meant to make myself acquainted with everything in Vancouver. There was a little smoking-room. There were also state rooms, for which you had to pay very large sums, and my companions remonstrated with me when I wanted to hire one of these so I did as they did, and most reluctantly consented to occupy one of the rows of berths in the long cars formed by turning up the seats. Like berths on a ship, there is one above the other, and I took a top one. Curtains hung in front. You had to get into this berth, undress and dress in it in the most uncomfortable way; and all along the car legs and arms every now and then protruded out of the bulging curtains. The coloured attendants would not permit us to undress outside these curtains, though there were few people in the long car. Of course, I could not sleep never can under such circumstances.
How I hated that car and that weary journey! At 7.25 in the morning we were at Glacier House (4122 feet up), with the pyramidal peak named "Sir Donald" after Lord Strathcona, rising above the hotel, and the glacier near by. A little later Rogers' (4275 feet), discovered by Major A. Rogers in 1883, before which time no human foot is supposed to have penetrated to the summit of the Selkirks. It is all very fine, but dreadfully monotonous—the spruce, Douglas firs, and cedars grow to great heights—it is grand, silent, still, almost no sign of life. I called the car attendant up and, much to his amusement, demanded why stuffed Indians, grizzly bears and things were not posed about to give local colour, and let us photograph them from the train? They would make striking pictures; you would not have time to see they were not alive, and think how interesting for the passengers! I am astonished the C.P.R. does not attend to this—especially at Six-Mile-Creek and Bear Creek and such places. We lunched at Field, crossed the Great Divide where a stream trickles down on one side to the Pacific and on the other to Hudson's Bay, and at 1.15 were at Stephen (5296 feet), the summit station of the Rockies. Then at Laggan you become an hour older or younger, according to which way you are going, though I cannot say I felt any different, and Captain Farquhar and Aitken looked just the same—so did the scenery everywhere as we went on descending, and the monotony was most boring.
Do not let it be supposed I did not realise the grandeur of this human work and all it means, but scenery viewed from an incessantly moving train—scenery advancing on you and then receding—leaves no clear impression on the mind, I was very tired of it, and there were few passengers to vary the monotony. When we got to Brandon (1150 feet) at 8 a.m. on the morning of the 1oth, and I learnt we had done 1349 miles of the journey, I rejoiced so much at least was over.
At Winnipeg we made a stop of some time. The minute I alighted from the train I was greeted by name by a stranger, who handed me an envelope with a ticket, informed me my berth on the Majestic, leaving New York on such a date, was No. So-and-so, that I would find my baggage there "all right," and vanished at once. I had not asked any one to get a berth on the Majestic, and was perfectly blank as to what unseen person or persons were doing everything for me. Then a newspaper interviewer addressed me as Captain Farquhar, I referred him to that gentleman's valet, who was standing by, and he gave the interview!
It was Sunday. Snow and slush were every where as I walked the melancholy-looking streets: the church bells ringing and crowds of Scottish people in their Sunday best going to church with just the same dismal Sabbath face they assume in Scotland. I was depressed to the ground. I have not the slightest idea what Winnipeg is really like— I saw only snow, slush, and dismal Sabbath faces, so boarded the train and looked no more. As it has 50,000 people, is the capital of Manitoba, a chief port of the Hudson's Bay Company, and is at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine rivers, both navigable for steamboats, it an be imagined my fleeting impression of Winnipeg does it in justice—but that is all I saw of it. On IIth March we were passing along Lake Superior, and the following day arrived at Montreal, I exceedingly thankful those dreary six days in that train were over! As we passed through the great plains—impressive in their immensity one heard at every station strong Scottish accents and saw Scottish faces. It is surely the Scot who has made Canada what she is.
Montreal was so deep in snow, houses covered, great mounds of it piled high on either side of the streets, which were so slippery one could scarce keep one's feet, that I formed no definite idea of this handsome city. The cold was terrific, and really, after my 2906 miles of train, I could not rise to any enthusiasm over the place. The people tobogganing did not, however, seem to mind the frigid atmosphere.
The hotel was large, overheated, and contained a strange collection of beings, who afforded some speculation and interest. The people in the shops would not or could not speak English, and as I declined to speak French in a British city I only made one purchase, and was sorry afterwards I made that. It had been my intention to visit the "City of Mackellar," but learning it had only 500 inhabitants, and being pressed for time, I decided to let it grow a little first.
So one night I left Montreal at 8 p.m., spent an uncomfortable night in the train, and arrived at New York at 8.55 in the morning.
I did not like New York, and merely remained a week there till the Majestic sailed for England.
The passengers and the voyage were devoid of interest; and Liverpool, on arrival, was in the throes of a blizzard, so that my home-coming was not particularly cheerful.