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 TRAVELS THROUGH 
 ASIA 
 
 WITH THE CHILDREN 
 
 BY 
 
 FRANK G. CARPENTER 
 
 NEW YORK •;• CIXClX.XAri •:• CHICAGO 
 
 AMIErICAN book COMPANY'
 
 Copyright, 1897 and 1898, by 
 FRANK G. CARPENTER
 
 4-/ -^ fj 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 In writing this book, it has been the aim of the author to 
 give a simple description of the peoples and countries of Asia 
 K as they exist to-day. To make this description interesting 
 T* to young readers, he has taken them on an imaginary tour 
 t^ through the countries mentioned, and has presented to their 
 ^ view just those things which would naturally claim the atten- 
 tion of intelligent children. Having in mind both the enter- 
 tainment and the instruction of his audience, he has antici- 
 pated their numerous questions concerning the strange 
 things which they would encounter in their travels, and has 
 ^ endeavored to give them that sort of information which, 
 while affording them pleasure, will at the same time add to 
 their stock of useful knowledge. 
 
 Leaving America by the northern route across the Pacific, 
 
 the children are conducted to Japan, where they make their 
 
 first acquaintance with Asiatic life. Then they sail north- 
 
 ^ ward, visiting Korea and eastern Siberia, and then back 
 
 v5 around the Korean peninsula to the great Empire of China. 
 
 ^ After noticing the strange features of life and work among 
 
 ^> the Chinese, they sail southward from Hongkong to Siam, 
 
 ^^^nd via the Straits of Malacca to Hurma and India, making 
 
 ^^ short visits to Siam, Singapore, and Burma, and a longer 
 
 ^j^i stay in the wonderful country of the Hindus. Tibet and the 
 
 Tibetans form the subject of the next chapter, and then, 
 
 5 
 
 4G2556
 
 6 PREFACE. 
 
 after travels through Persia and Arabia, the children are 
 taken to Palestine and Turkey, and end their tour at the 
 western terminus of the Trans-Siberian railroad, in the Ural 
 Mountains. 
 
 The book, however, is more than an ordinary diary of 
 travel. It pictures the Asiatic peoples as they are found in 
 their homes, on their farms, and in their factories. It also 
 describes in simple language the civilization of the various 
 nations, telling how they are governed, and showing the 
 queer features of their educational systems. The changes 
 now going on in the various countries are pointed out, and 
 also the influence that these changes may have upon the 
 future of Asia in connection with us. 
 
 This book of travels is, to a large extent, the result of the 
 original researches of the author during a two years' stay 
 in different parts of Asia. Many of the descriptions were 
 written on the ground, amid the scenes described, and a 
 large part of the illustrations are from photographs taken 
 by the author. Used as a supplement to the lessons in the 
 text-book on geography, or for reading in connection with 
 them, this book has also a definite and important educational 
 purpose. By presenting to the mind's eye the various places 
 of importance as they actually appear to a traveler, a new 
 interest is imparted to geographical study, and what seemed 
 before to be little more than a mere skeleton of dry facts 
 becomes a living and potent reality. 
 
 To make the text easier to read, the pronunciation of the 
 more difficult geographical names and foreign words is 
 indicated, using Webster's diacritical marks.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. From America to Japan on a Big Ocean Steamer 
 
 II. The Island Empire of Japan — General View 
 
 III. The Wonderful City of Tokyo 
 
 IV. Home Life in Japan ..... 
 V. The Emperor and his Palaces 
 
 VI. Japanese Children at School and at Play 
 
 VII. Japanese Farms and Farmers 
 
 VIII. Commercial and Industrial Japan . 
 
 IX. The Hermit Nation 
 
 X. Travels among the Koreans .... 
 
 XI. Siberia and the Trans-Siberian Railroad 
 
 XII. China — A Trip to Peking .... 
 
 XIII. The Great Capital of China .... 
 
 XIV. The Emperor, and how China is governed . 
 XV. The Great Wall of China .... 
 
 XVI. Chinese Boats and the Boat People 
 
 XVII. Chinese Farms and Farming 
 
 XVIII. Curious Chinese Customs . . . 
 
 XIX. Siam and the Siamese ..... 
 
 XX. The King of Siam and his Royal White Elephants 
 
 XXI. Singapore and the Malays .... 
 
 XXII. Burma and the Burmese .... 
 
 7 
 
 PACE 
 
 9 
 
 15 
 
 24 
 
 33 
 
 43 
 
 5° 
 
 59 
 
 69 
 
 76 
 
 85 
 
 93 
 
 102 
 
 1 1 1 
 
 120 
 
 12S 
 
 134 
 
 •43 
 
 154 
 
 162 
 
 170 
 
 179 
 
 1S5
 
 8 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XXIII. Burmese Farming and the Working Elephants . . 194 
 
 XXIV. General View of India 202 
 
 XXV. Indian Farms and Farmers 209 
 
 XXVI. The Stores and Trades of India .... 217 
 
 XXVII. The Wild Animals of India 225 
 
 XXVIII. Benares, the Holy City of the Hindus . . .234 
 
 XXIX. The Native States of India; or, a Visit to the Rajah 
 
 of Jaipur 241 
 
 XXX. Above the Clouds ; or, Nature and Man in the Heart 
 
 of the Himalaya Mountains 249 
 
 XXXI. Tibet and the Tibetans 257 
 
 XXXII. Persia and the Persians 265 
 
 XXXIII. Arabia, or Life in the Desert 273 
 
 XXXIV. Palestine and its People 282 
 
 XXXV. Travels among the Turks 290 
 
 XXXVI. Russia in West Asia .297 
 
 LIST OF MAPS. 
 
 Asia Frontispiece 
 
 Japan and Korea 15 
 
 Chinese Empire 103 
 
 India and Indo-China 202 
 
 Persia, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan 265 
 
 Arabia and Turkey in Asia 275 
 
 Palestine 286 
 
 Russia in Asia 3°'
 
 ASIA, 
 
 o5*?c 
 
 I. FROM AMERICA TO JAPAN ON A BIG 
 OCEAN STEAMER. 
 
 ASIA is the largest grand division of the globe. It is 
 larger than North and South America, and both 
 Europe and Africa could be spread out upon it and leave 
 room enough around the edges for half the States of the 
 Union. This vast area contains more than half the world's 
 population. 
 
 Let us stop for a moment and think what that means. 
 If all the men, women, and children on this big, round 
 earth could be gathered together in one field, more room 
 would be needed for the people from Asia than for all the 
 rest ; and one third of the great crowd would be of the 
 Mongolian race, having yellow skins, and eyes which are 
 slanting, and which when open are of the shape of an 
 almond. 
 
 More than one fourth of the whole number would be 
 yellow-skinned, slant-eyed Chinese, the boys and men 
 having their heads shaved up to the crown, and long 
 braids of black hair hanging down froni their scalp locks. 
 There would be millions of gayly dressed, almond-eyed 
 
 9
 
 lO PACIFIC OCEAN. 
 
 Chinese women, with small feet so tied up that they could 
 not move without pain. There would be millions of Jap- 
 anese mothers with little yellow babies tied to their backs, 
 and millions of dark-faced men and women from India 
 with features like ours. There would be yellow-skinned, 
 slant-eyed men from Siam and Japan, with short black 
 hair standing out over their heads like the bristles of a 
 shoe brush ; and, moving in and out through the crowd, 
 we should see here and there a yellow-skinned Korean 
 with his long hair done up in a knot on the crown of his 
 head, and with a gown covering his body from his neck 
 to his feet. There would be beautiful maidens from 
 Burma with plugs in their ears as big round as your 
 thumb, and women from India with rings on their fingers 
 and bells on their toes. There would be Persians, Jews, 
 Syrians, Armenians, and Turks, each wearing a different 
 costume, but having many things in common with the re- 
 mainder of the curious people from this Asiatic continent. 
 
 If we watched these people from Asia we should find 
 that they do few things as we do. We should see that 
 the men of some nations squat on their heels instead of 
 sitting upon chairs, and that millions upon millions use 
 wooden pillows and sleep on the floor. 
 
 If we followed them to their homes we should discover 
 mighty cities containing hundreds of thousands of people 
 engaged in all sorts of curious trades. We should find 
 farms by the million, and gardens which blossom like the 
 rose. We might visit temples and schools, and here and 
 there we should see structures that are still the wonder of 
 the world, such as the Great Wall of China, the gigantic 
 bronze Buddha (bood'da) of Japan, and the Taj Mahal 
 (tazh ma-hal') of India, the most beautiful building known 
 to man. We should find, in short, civilizations which
 
 VOYAGE TO JAPAN. II 
 
 have much good in themselves, though they are different 
 from ours, and we should be surprised at the wonderful 
 but comparatively unknown world on the opposite side of 
 the globe. 
 
 It is among these people that we are now to travel 
 together. We shall wear for the time boots more wonder- 
 ful than those of Hop-o'-my-Thumb, which enabled the 
 little fellow to make seven leagues at a step ; and we shall 
 cross oceans and rivers, mountains and plains, stopping 
 only to notice the most interesting sights by the way. 
 The author will be the guide. He has traveled tens of 
 thousands of miles through Asiatic lands, and has lived 
 for many months among these curious peoples. 
 
 Our first trip will be across the Pacific, and we shall 
 sail from America for the land of Japan. The Pacific is 
 the largest of the oceans. From north to south it is more 
 than three times as long as the distance between New 
 York and San Francisco ; and between the Western Con- 
 tinent and Asia, as it goes toward the south, it spreads out 
 in the shape of a gigantic fan, forming, as it were, a great 
 liquid wedge between our world and that on the other side 
 of the globe. The edge of the wedge is driven in between 
 the two great bodies of land at Bering Strait, and at this 
 point it is only forty miles wide, a distance so short that 
 it is said on clear days you might sit in your reindeer 
 sledge in Alaska and see the cold hills of Siberian Russia. 
 The wedge widens rapidly as we go to the south, and if 
 we attempted to cross it from Quito (ke'to) along the line 
 of the equator, we should have to travel ten thousand 
 miles before we came to the Mo-luc'cas, a group of islands 
 on the other side of the Pacific. 
 
 If we sailed from Lower California along the tropic of 
 Cancer, we should have eightv-five hundred miles to go
 
 12 
 
 PACIFIC OCEAN. 
 
 before we reached the Empire of China; and from San 
 Francisco to Yokoha'ma, Japan, a little further north, the 
 distance is about forty-five hundred miles. This is one of 
 the great highroads of the Pacific, but a still shorter route 
 can be found by going to Vancouver and taking a Cana- 
 dian vessel, or by sailing on one of the American ships 
 from Puget Sound to Japan; and this will be the road 
 we shall travel. 
 
 "Our vessel is one of the palaces of the ocean." 
 
 Our vessel is one of the palaces of the ocean. It is 
 propelled by steam, and the distance is now a matter of 
 hours rather than space. It will take us from ten to 
 twelve days to go from one continent to the other, and 
 we feel almost as safe on the boundless Pacific as we did 
 in our own house at home. 
 
 Our ship itself is a wonder. It is made of steel. It is 
 nearly five hundred feet long, or long enough to stretch 
 the whole length of the average city block ; and it is so 
 wide that it would fill a fifty-foot street. It is as high as
 
 VOYAGE TO JAPAN. 1 3 
 
 a six-story house, and it has as many rooms as a hotel. It 
 has its parlors and kitchens, its sleeping rooms and bath- 
 rooms, and it contains a butcher's shop, a bakery, a car- 
 penter's shop, and all sorts of machinery. Its dining room 
 is as large as that of a hotel, and we have as good food as 
 on our tables at home. 
 
 Every bedroom has its electric bell, and the whole ship 
 is lighted by electricity. Its hundreds of rooms run from 
 story to story, from the hurricane deck, which forms its 
 roof, down to the basement just over the keel, where a 
 plate of steel no thicker than your finger is all that keeps 
 out the sea. It is in this great steel shell that we travel 
 over more than four thousand miles of water without com- 
 ing in sight of land. 
 
 When we go through the workshops of the basement, 
 the engineer shows us the great machines which, by means 
 of steam, noiselessly but steadily force the ship on over 
 one of the longest ocean routes in the world. He tells us 
 that his engines are as strong as ten thousand horses, and 
 by supposing a horse to be six feet in length from nose 
 to tail, we find that it would take a compact line of two- 
 horse teams more than five miles long, all pulling at once, 
 to represent the force. 
 
 The engineer shows us the enormous amount of fuel re- 
 quired to feed this power, when he tells us that almost two 
 thousand tons of coal are burned to make the steam for 
 the voyage. It is a large dwelling house that requires ten 
 tons of coal a year. Our steamer, therefore, in a single 
 voyage burns enough coal to supply two hundred such 
 homes with fuel the year round ; and a village of one 
 thousand people does not use more coal in twelve months 
 than we shall consume in two weeks. 
 
 We find that the coal is put into the great furnaces by
 
 14 PACIFIC OCEAN. 
 
 thirty-two Chinamen, who arc divided into gangs of eight. 
 Each gang works for six hours at a stretch, and the 
 shoveling goes on while we sleep ; it never stops from 
 the beginning to the end of the voyage. 
 
 We tremble when we think of the possibility of breaking 
 down in the watery waste of the Pacific, where we might 
 float for days and weeks without meeting another steamer. 
 
 "— the shoveling goes on while we sleep;" 
 
 We feel a little safer when the captain tells us that we 
 are just off the Aleutian Islands, and that here the steamer 
 sometimes sails so near land that travelers can hear the 
 foxes bark as they go by. We feel safer still when we 
 near the Kurile (koo'ril) Islands, and can almost smell the 
 land of Japan. We steam on to the south, out of sight of, 
 but not far from, the island of Yes'so, into warmer seas, 
 and are awakened by our Chinese servant with the news 
 that Japan is in sight, and that we shall soon be on Asiatic 
 soil.
 
 JAPAN— GENERAL VIEW. 
 
 15 
 
 II. THE ISLAND EMPIRE OF JAPAN 
 GENERAL VIEW. 
 
 JAPAN! What a won- 
 derful country it is ! 
 It is the Island Empire 
 of the globe. Lying as 
 it does, surrounded by 
 the deep waters of the 
 western Pacific, it winds 
 in and out like a snake, 
 from southwest to north- 
 east a distance of more 
 than two thousand miles. 
 This Snake is made 
 up of more than thirty- 
 eight hundred moun- 
 tainous islands, and it 
 drags its length through 
 almost every climate 
 known to man. Its 
 tail, which is now the 
 island of Formosa, lies 
 in the warm waters of 
 the semitropics, flap- 
 ping, as it were, upon 
 the tropic of Cancer. 
 Further north, the Snake 
 sinks the lower part of 
 its trunk beneath the 
 waters of the Japanese 
 ocean current, a green 
 
 Japan and Korea.
 
 1 6 JAPAN. 
 
 island speck showing out here and there, and then rears 
 it up for eleven hundred miles in the islands of Kiushu 
 (kyoo-shoo'), Shikoku (she-k5'koo), and Hon'do, through 
 every gradation of the temperate zone. 
 
 Its gigantic head is the island of Yesso, which lies in the 
 cold waters of the northern Pacific, shrouded in snow dur- 
 ing the long winter months, and at times bedded in ice. 
 The main part of the trunk is warmed by the ocean 
 winds to such an extent that these thousands of islands 
 breathe an air full of moisture, and even in winter much 
 of the land is emerald green. Now and then the snow 
 falls on the northern part of the island of Hondo, but the 
 green grass shows out through the white, and in many 
 parts of Japan the plum trees are in blossom in the midst 
 of our winter. 
 
 Japan is a land of forests and flowers. The camellia 
 and magnblia grow wild upon its green hills, and its people 
 call their country the land of the chrysanthemum. They 
 cultivate the cherry tree for its blossoms, and during the 
 season of its bloom they have picnics, when young men 
 and maidens, old ' men and old women, wander about 
 through the trees, and, inspired by the sight, wTite verses 
 of poetry which they tie to the branches. 
 
 There is no land in the world which has a greater variety 
 of beautiful scenery. It is a country of mountains and 
 valleys, which are clothed with verdure to such an extent 
 that you can hardly believe that the whole of Japan was 
 once covered with volcanoes. 
 
 As we float toward the coast on our big ocean steamer, 
 the sight that first meets our eyes is a great white moun- 
 tain cone hanging almost like a silver cloud in the west- 
 ern horizon. As we come nearer, this cone increases in 
 size. A long, hazy blue line of coast shows out below
 
 GENERAL VIEW. 
 
 17 
 
 it through a thin veil of fleecy clouds, and we learn that 
 we are looking at Fusiyama (foo-zi-a'ma), the extinct vol- 
 cano and the famed sacred mountain of Japan. It is the 
 highest mountain of the empire, and its snowy cap kisses 
 the sky more than two miles above us. 
 
 " -- its snowy cap Kisses ine SKy -- " 
 
 As we come nearer still, we see vapor rising from 
 another volcano on an island further off to the south ; 
 and we shall travel in and out among volcanic islands, no 
 matter to what part of the empire we sail. Japan has 
 to-day more than fifty steaming volcanoes, and there are 
 hundreds of others which may at any time burst into 
 eruption, though they now lie entirely quiet, like other 
 mountains.
 
 1 8 JAPAN, 
 
 Japan is also a land of earthquakes, and its capital, 
 To'kyo, is said to feel at least one shock every day of the 
 year. In the past, the Japanese believed that earthquakes 
 were caused by a gigantic fish which lived in the sea off 
 Japan, and now and then bumped its nose or struck its tail 
 against the coast in its anger. This it was, they thought, 
 that shook the earth and made it crack and tremble. 
 
 shook the earth and made it crack — " 
 
 To-day, the scientists of Japan make careful observations 
 of earthquakes. The government has an earthquake pro- 
 fessor in the Imperial University, and we can learn more 
 about them here, perhaps, than anywhere else in the world. 
 
 It will not be strange if we meet with an earthquake 
 during our tour. One happened nearly two centuries ago 
 which destroyed the capital (then called Yeddo), and in
 
 GENERAL VIEW. 1 9 
 
 which two hundred thousand people lost their lives. The 
 same city had another terrible earthquake in 1855, dur- 
 ing which sixteen thousand houses were thrown down and 
 many thousand persons were killed ; and in 1894 the author 
 narrowly escaped death in a great earthquake there. At 
 this time the ground rose and fell like the waves of the 
 sea. Some of the buildings in the palace grounds were 
 thrown down. The home of the United States minister 
 was almost wrecked, and several foreign buildings were 
 entirely destroyed. 
 
 The most of these volcanic islands of Japan are small, 
 some being no larger than a good-sized farm. Taken 
 together, though, they form enough territory for a mighty 
 nation, and some single islands are larger than many of 
 our American States. The total area of Japan is greater 
 than that of Italy, or of Great Britain and Ireland. Three 
 States as large as New York, if they could be cut into 
 patches like a quilt, would not be sufficient to cover it ; and 
 if you could carry the islands to Prussia, they would hide 
 that great German kingdom from the light of the sun. 
 
 The five largest islands make up by far the most of 
 Japan. There is Formosa at the tail of the chain, at the 
 south, just about twice as big as New Jersey, and Yesso 
 at the head, at the north, which is about equal to South 
 Carolina in size. Just south of Yesso is the island of 
 Hondo, which is larger than Kansas, and which, with its 
 two smaller sisters, Kiushu and Shikoku, forms the most 
 important part of Japan, taking up two thirds of its area. 
 
 As to Formosa and Yesso, these are to the rest of the 
 empire as our unsettled territories are to the most popu- 
 lous States of the Union. Formosa, which was gained by 
 war from China, is peopled by savages, some of whom, 
 probably, are cannibals, and of whom little is known.
 
 20 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 Yesso may be called the Alaska of Japan. It is rugged 
 and wild, and, though it contains about one fifth of all the 
 Japanese territory, its people are few and they are hardly 
 more advanced in civilization than the Eskimos. They 
 are known as the Ainos (i'noz), and are supposed by 
 some to have been the first Japanese. They are short in 
 stature, like the men of the other parts of the empire, but 
 
 " The Ainos live in rude huts 
 
 their shoulders are broader. They are governed by the 
 Emperor of Japan, but they have little in common with 
 the people of the great islands to the southward. 
 
 The Ainos live in rude huts, and their bodies are so 
 covered with hair that the people of southern Japan have 
 nicknamed them " the hairy men." They are intemperate 
 and as dirty as the people of the other Japanese islands 
 are clean, and their religion is made up partly of the 
 worship of bears.
 
 GENERAL VIEW. 21 
 
 In Hondo live the great majority of the forty millions 
 who make up Japan's population, and upon it have been 
 located all the great scenes of Japanese history. This is 
 the island of which Marco Polo wrote when he returned 
 from China, bringing his stories of Cipango, the land off 
 the coast of Asia which was loaded with gold ; and it 
 was this island that Christopher Columbus hoped to reach 
 first when he started out on his new route to China and 
 discovered America. We shall look in vain for Japanese 
 gold, though Marco Polo said that the very dogs of the 
 country wore golden collars, and that " the roofs and floors 
 of the ruler's palace were entirely of gold, the latter being 
 made in plates like slabs of stone, a good two-fingers thick." 
 
 Japan has not much gold, but there are vast deposits of 
 copper on the island of Hondo. There are iron mines 
 and silver mines, and vast quantities of coal. We shall 
 find coal mines in the west which run under the sea, and 
 on the island of Takashi'ma, near Nagasa'ki, we may visit 
 a coal mine which is now being worked, containing fifty 
 miles of tunnels, all under the ocean. 
 
 It is on this island of Hondo that we land at the close 
 of our voyage. We float through the picturesque Bay of 
 Yeddo, and on into the beautiful harbor of Yokohama, 
 where we cast our anchor amid boats from all parts of the 
 world. There are steamers from China, and great ships 
 which have made the voyage from London to Japan by 
 way of the Suez Canal. There are Russian and French 
 men-of-war, and queer-looking sailing vessels, called junks, 
 from different parts of Japan. There are curious small 
 boats called sampans darting out and in among the ships, 
 each sculled by means of a paddle at the stern by a half- 
 naked, brown-skinned, slant-eyed man who jabbers and 
 yells as he motions to us to jump in and ride to the shore. 
 
 C.\KP. ASIA — 2
 
 22 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 It is but a few minutes' trip from the ship to the 
 wharves, and we are soon at the customhouse, where 
 Japanese clerks in clothes like ours examine our baggage 
 for opium and goods to be taxed. The Japanese have 
 never allowed opium to come into their country. They 
 have seen how the habits of opium eating and opium smok- 
 ing, which are as bad in their effects as the drinking of 
 
 whisky, have fastened 
 themselves upon the 
 Chinese, and any one 
 who sells this drug in 
 Japan will be dragged 
 off to prison. 
 
 Our first sight after 
 leaving the custom- 
 house is a crowd of jin- 
 rik'isha men w^aiting to 
 be hired. Each wears a 
 stiff round hat covered 
 with blue or white cot- 
 ton, of the size and shape 
 of a butter bowl upside 
 down ; and the remain- 
 der of his costume is a 
 loose-fitting shirt and a 
 pair of tights. Each man stands by his jinrikisha and 
 motions to us to get in, pointing to his legs as he does 
 so, as much as to say that he can go very fast. 
 
 As we look, other jinrikishas dart by us, filled with Japa- 
 nese ladies and gentlemen, and we find that the jinrikisha 
 is the cab of Japan. It is like an old-fashioned baby car- 
 riage, with a pair of shafts just wide enough for a man to 
 stand between them, and with two wheels as large as those 
 
 T^ 
 
 other jinrikishas dart by us
 
 GENERAL VIEW. 23 
 
 at the front end of an American buggy. It is usually 
 pulled by one man, though sometimes by two. Some of the 
 best runners can drag the jinrikisha from five to eight miles 
 an hour, and many travel almost as fast as a horse. We 
 pay only ten cents an hour for our human steeds. 
 
 It is in jinrikishas that we explore Yokohama. This is 
 now a city of one hundred and fifty thousand people, and 
 is the chief seaport of Japan ; but it was only a fishing 
 village when Commodore M. C. Perry landed here in 1854 
 and made the treaty between Japan and the United States 
 which opened this empire to the world. Before that time, 
 the Japanese would not have anything to do with foreign- 
 ers. They knew very little about us and our civilization, 
 and they were much surprised at the presents which Com- 
 modore Perry brought with him from America for the 
 emperor. 
 
 Among these gifts were some telegraphic instruments and 
 a toy railroad train. The Japanese had never seen such 
 things, and when they learned that the telegraph wires 
 could carry messages in Japanese quite as readily as in 
 English, they were greatly surprised. The railroad train 
 had a little steam engine which hauled cars so small that 
 the Japanese could not get inside of them. They were 
 really hardly large enough to have held children of six 
 years. A circular track was put up at Yokohama, and the 
 little train was run around this, many of the dignified Japa- 
 nese crawling on the tops of the cars and holding on to the 
 roof as the engine carried them flying around the track. 
 
 In our ride through Yokohama we now see many 
 foreigners. There are telegraph wires running through 
 its main streets. There are both electric and steam rail- 
 roads connecting it with other parts of the country, and 
 we see that the business portions of the city have many
 
 24 JAPAN. 
 
 foreign stores containing goods much like those which are 
 sold in America. We are told, however, that Yokohama 
 is not altogether like the other towns of Japan, and we 
 leave at once for the city of Tokyo, the capital, which is 
 only fourteen miles off up the bay. 
 
 III. THE WONDERFUL CITY OF TOKYO. 
 
 IT is less than an hour's ride by train from Yokohama to 
 Tokyo. The railroad skirts the beautiful Bay of Yeddo. 
 We are carried through green rice fields, past villages of 
 thatched houses, and are landed at last in one of the 
 busiest parts of the capital of the Japanese Empire. Out- 
 side the station there are jinrikishas by hundreds, with 
 their owners standing beside them. We pick out the 
 best-looking runners, and, after a few moments' bargaining 
 as to the price per hour we shall pay, we begin our ride 
 through the streets. 
 
 We direct our men to carry us all over the city, and ask 
 how long it will take to visit its principal parts. We learn 
 that such a ride would consume several days. Tokyo is 
 one of the largest cities of the world, for it contains a 
 million and a half of people. It is nine miles long and 
 eight miles in width, and its area is more than seventy 
 square miles. 
 
 Here and there over the city are towers made of wood 
 which rise high above the other buildings, and upon which 
 watchmen stand day and night on the lookout for fires. 
 One of these is not far from the railroad station. We 
 climb to its top and take a look over the city. 
 
 Tokyo lies in a plain or wide valley which is backed by
 
 I H
 
 TOKYO. 
 
 25 
 
 " — take a look over the city." 
 
 green hills, and cut up by canals. On the south side 
 is the beautiful Bay of Yeddo, upon which boats of all 
 kinds float to and fro. Running north from the bay 
 are thousands of one- and two-story houses roofed with 
 black tiles ; and such buildings form the greater part of 
 the city. The houses are built along the edges of streets 
 that have no sidewalks. They are of unpainted wood 
 turned gray by the weather, and, with their roofs, they 
 wall the streets with long lines of black and gray. A 
 wide river flows through the city, and upon it float queer 
 Japanese boats. Here and there among the houses may 
 be seen parks and gardens, in which are massive wooden 
 buildings surrounded by trees. These are the temples 
 where the Japanese come to worship according to their 
 religion, of which we shall learn more farther on.
 
 26 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 In the center of the city there is a large open space 
 surrounded by three wide moats, or great ditches, walled 
 with stone. These moats are filled with water. They 
 run one inside of another, with wide spaces between them, 
 and inclose the great park in which are the palaces of the 
 emperor. In the grounds between the two outside moats 
 there are some fine modern structures of brick and stone, 
 not unlike the large public buildings of our American 
 
 "These moats are filled with water." 
 
 cities. These buildings are occupied by the great depart- 
 ments, through the officials of which the empire is gov- 
 erned. 
 
 Let us take our jinrikishas and ride through the streets. 
 How queer it all is ! The buildings look more like the 
 bazaars of a fair than the substantial blocks of an Ameri- 
 can city. There are few large houses, and a building 
 rarely has more than two stories. The low, ridged roofs 
 extend about three feet beyond the walls of the houses. 
 The floors are well up off the ground. The outer walls
 
 TOKYO. 
 
 27 
 
 are made in sections which sHde in grooves back and 
 forth ; and during the day the front of each lower story is 
 pushed aside so that the passer-by can see all that goes on 
 within. We look in vain for windows and doors. The 
 rooms are separated from one another by walls of lattice- 
 work backed with white paper, through which the light 
 
 iir^VW^^! 
 
 A Japanese Store. 
 
 comes. These walls are also in sections which move aside 
 in grooves, one inside the other; and in going from one 
 room to another you push aside a section of the wall in- 
 stead of opening a door. 
 
 The Japanese are naturally modest, but their customs 
 are different from ours, and we see much of their family 
 life as we ride through the streets. Here is a slant-eyed
 
 28 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 maiden making her toilet. She sits on her heels on the 
 floor before a little round mirror, and primps, and powders, 
 and paints her lips red, while the people go by without 
 noticing anything strange in the scene. Next door there 
 is a family eating their dinner. They sit or kneel on 
 the floor, and each has his own table, of the size and 
 height of a shoeblack's box. 
 
 Further on is a store. The merchant sits flat on the 
 floor with his goods piled around him, and the floor is his 
 counter. His customers sit on the floor as they shop, and he 
 takes down piece by piece while they wait. As we look, 
 the sections of the wall at the back are pushed wide 
 
 apart, and the merchant's 
 whole family come in to 
 watch the sale. The little 
 boys have almond eyes 
 and short hair, and the 
 little girls slant eyes and 
 long hair done up just 
 like their mother's. Dur- 
 ing the shopping, the mer- 
 chant's bookkeeper sits 
 on his heels at one side, 
 and figures up the profit 
 and loss with a box of 
 wooden buttons strung 
 upon wires. By moving 
 these up and down, he adds and subtracts quite as quickly 
 as we do with pencil and paper, and his figures rarely go 
 wrong. 
 
 But let us turn from the shops to the people. The 
 streets of Tokyo are not narrow, and we are not jostled 
 as we move through the crowd. The hundreds of queer- 
 
 figures up the profit — '
 
 TOKYO. 
 
 29 
 
 looking men and women who pass us are all good-natured, 
 and they treat us as brothers. They smile and bend low- 
 as they meet one another, and when we stop at their 
 stores or enter their houses, they bow again and again 
 until we think they will break in two. We try to be polite 
 in return, but the Japanese back is more elastic than ours. 
 We soon grow stiff with the unusual motion, and we feel 
 that even the India-rubber man of the circus would wear 
 himself out with bowing in a tour through Japan. 
 
 Japanese Shoes. 
 
 Clatter, clatter, clatter ! What a noise the people make 
 as they go along the street ! They wear curious sandals 
 of wood or straw, and their stockings are a kind of foot- 
 mittens, in which the big toe has a separate place. Dur- 
 ing wet weather they wear sandals with blocks or legs on 
 the bottom about three inches long, and the whole Japa- 
 nese nation becomes just three inches taller whenever it 
 rains. At such times the women pull their gowns up to 
 their knees, and the men tuck theirs up under their belts, 
 to keep them from being spattered with mud. They all 
 carry paper umbrellas, which cover the upper parts of 
 their bodies, and the street seems to be filled with bare 
 yellow legs which are walking off with the people.
 
 30 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 The Japanese dress is peculiar. Both men and women 
 wear long, flowing gowns extending from their necks to 
 their feet. These are folded across the body in front, and 
 are fastened at the waist with a sash. The chief difference 
 in the dress of women and men is in the sash, which, for 
 the women, is usually a strip of fine silk more than half a 
 yard wide, and so long that it can be tied in a great bow at 
 the back. The gowns of both sexes are open at the neck. 
 
 Girls are taught in walk- 
 ing to take short steps 
 and to turn their toes 
 inward, thus becoming 
 pigeon-toed, as it were, 
 in order that they may 
 not pull their dresses 
 apart. The sleeves form 
 the pockets, being made 
 long and full and sewed 
 up at the wrists. The 
 colors of the clothes are 
 modest in the extreme, 
 and in our ride through 
 the city we see silks 
 and cottons of dark 
 blue and gray, rather 
 than the bright, gaudy 
 hues which many peo- 
 ple suppose to be most liked in Japan. 
 
 How busy every one is ! As we go through the prin- 
 cipal streets we find the stores and houses filled with 
 workers. There are crowds at the shops buying goods, 
 and peddlers by hundreds carrying their wares through 
 the streets. There are porters by scores with great loads 
 
 Girls in Summer Dress.
 
 TOKYO. 3 1 
 
 on their backs, and servants carrying heavy bas- 
 kets fastened by strings or ropes to the ends of 
 poles which rest on their shoulders. 
 
 Children in groups play about everywhere. 
 There are whole families on their way to 
 the theaters, which here give their per- 
 formances during the day ; and other fam- 
 ilies are starting out to worship at the 
 Japanese temples, carrying a lunch in 
 order that they may picnic in the groves porter with Lumber, 
 after their prayers. There are Japanese 
 students walking along arm in arm, discussing their les- 
 sons. Jinrikishas pass by us, carrying Japanese statesmen 
 to the Houses of Parliament, and other jinrikishas are seen 
 here and there, in which are bareheaded ladies who are 
 going out calling, or taking the air. 
 
 There are hardly any horses, and very few carriages 
 other than jinrikishas, and as we look we are impressed 
 with the fact that man power still runs the land of Jajjan. 
 Here comes a little post-ofifice wagon carrying the mail. 
 It is pulled by a man who wears a blue jacket and tights. 
 Behind is a dray of one of the big wholesale establish- 
 ments, with a load of goods for the train. Its motive 
 power consists of those two almond-eyed men who are 
 harnessed in front, and the two others who shove hard 
 behind with both head and hands. Their muscles stand 
 out like thick cords as they work, and the sweat rolls 
 down their brown skins in diamond-white streams. 
 
 We notice that most of the streets are still watered by 
 hand, but everywhere amid these old Japanese methods 
 of work we see that our civilization is pushing its way. 
 Along some of the main streets there are now street cars. 
 There are telegraph lines running through all parts of the
 
 32 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 city, and our guide points out a building which he says is 
 the central telephone station. We find that some parts of 
 Tokyo are lighted at night by electricity. We are told 
 that the city has excellent public schools and a great 
 university. We meet newsboys on every street corner, 
 and we wonder at the changes which have taken place in 
 Japan since the days of Commodore Perry. 
 
 "— with a load of goods for the train. 
 
 Then Tokyo was known to the world as Yeddo. It was 
 the place where the sho'gun or tycoon' had his head- 
 quarters, and it was rather a great military camp than 
 a city. The shogun was the commander in chief of the 
 army. The country was then divided up into large es- 
 tates owned by daimios (di'mi-6z), who had many soldiers. 
 These soldiers were called sam'urai, and each of them
 
 TOKYO. 33 
 
 carried two swords. They despised the tradesmen, me- 
 chanics, and farmers who made up the rest of the people, 
 and they forced everybody to pay taxes to the daimios. 
 
 Each daimio spent a part of the year at Yeddo, living 
 there with his soldiers, ready to march forth to war at the 
 command of the shogun. At this time, the emperor was 
 kept by the shogun and the daimios in the palaces at his 
 capital, which was then the city of Kio'to, in central Japan. 
 They, pretended that he was too holy to rule, and so the 
 shogun, daimios, and samurai governed Japan, oppressing 
 the other classes of the people. 
 
 In 1868, however, a number of the great men of Japan 
 decided that this must be changed. They resolved to over- 
 throw the shogun, and to make the emperor the real ruler 
 of the Japanese people. They began a great revolution, 
 defeated the shogun, and brought the emperor from Kioto 
 to Tokyo, which they made the capital of the empire. 
 Shortly after this. Western methods of government began 
 to be brought in. The daimios gave up their estates, re- 
 ceiving pay for them from the emperor, and the lands 
 were divided among the people. All men now have equal 
 rights, and we find that Tokyo has all the modern improve- 
 ments of a city like New York or London. It has doubled 
 in size since 1868, having since then increased in popula- 
 tion from 700,000 to about 1,500,000. 
 
 oXXc 
 
 IV. HOME LIFE IN JAPAN. 
 
 THE best place to study a people is in their own homes, 
 and we can learn much by spending a night in a 
 Japanese house. The Japanese live very simply, and,
 
 34 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 "—a type of the homes of Japan." 
 
 though there is some difference between the rich and the 
 poor, the mode of living is everywhere of the same general 
 character, and the home of the well-to-do family which we 
 shall visit to-day will serve as a type of the homes of 
 Japan. We take our jinrikishas and soon reach our 
 friend's dwelling. It is an unpainted frame building of 
 two stories, with a heavy roof of black earthenware tiles 
 supported by gray wooden posts which rest upon stones. 
 We can see clear through the house and get a glimpse of 
 a beautiful garden lying behind. The outer walls have 
 been pushed back for the day, for the sun is warm ; and 
 the air rushes through on all sides. 
 
 We see almost the whole house before we leave our 
 jinrikishas, and as we look we wonder at first if the family 
 has not moved away. The rooms are all here, but there 
 
 ''
 
 HOME LIFE. 
 
 35 
 
 "The rooms are all here — ' 
 
 is nothing like our American furniture in sight. Where 
 are the tables ? There are none, for the Japanese do not 
 use such tables as ours. Where are the chairs .-' Those 
 cushions which lie on the mats take their places, for these 
 people prefer to sit on the floor. 
 
 How clean everything is ! The road in front of the 
 house is well swept. You can see yourself in the strip 
 of bare floor which runs round the house about two feet 
 above the ground, like a porch ; and the rooms just back 
 of this are covered with matting of the cleanest white 
 straw. This matting forms the carpet of Japan. It is 
 not made like that which is sent to America. It is woven 
 in miats three feet wide, six feet long, and about twice as 
 thick as this book. These are bound at the edges with 
 black cloth, and they are fitted together closely, so that
 
 36 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 the floor is covered with panels of white bordered with 
 black. The mats are of the same size all over Japan, and 
 the size of a room is known, not as so many feet wide and 
 so many feet long, but by the number of mats required to 
 cover the floor. 
 
 How is the house heated .-" There are no stoves in sight, 
 and there is no cellar or basement in which a furnace 
 might be hidden. The house has no chimney, and there 
 are no signs of stovepipes. The heating is done by little 
 brass-lined boxes filled with ashes, in the center of which 
 a handful of charcoal is burning. These boxes are known 
 
 as hibachis (hi-ba -chez). 
 They are common all 
 over Japan. They form 
 a poor means of heat- 
 ing during cold weather, 
 and, as winter comes on, 
 the people keep warm 
 by putting on more 
 underclothing, so that the nation appears to be growing 
 fatter and fatter as the weather grows colder. But how 
 can they cook without stoves ? They have little clay ovens 
 in which they put charcoal, and boil and fry over the 
 coals. 
 
 Let us go into the house. As we approach, a little 
 maidservant comes to the front. She gets down on her 
 knees, spreads out her hands on the floor, and bumps her 
 little head on the mats in order to show us respect. She 
 asks us to take off our shoes and come in. The Japanese 
 never wear shoes in the house, and we have already 
 learned that it would be far more polite to keep our hats 
 on than our shoes. So in our stocking feet we step up 
 into the house, and take our seats on the cushions. 
 
 Hibachi.
 
 HOME LIFE. 
 
 37 
 
 Very soon some of the family come in. They bow low, 
 getting down on their knees and bending again and again 
 to the fioor. As they rise, they suck in their breath with 
 a loud, half-whistling sigh, as though they were overcome 
 by the honor which we are conferring upon them by call- 
 ing. We do the same as we bow in return. Then the 
 maidservant brings in a little box of charcoal for lighting 
 our pipes, for in Japan every one is expected to smoke. 
 She next fetches a little tray which she places before us 
 on the floor. It contains a porcelain teapot and some little 
 cups, each about the size of half an eggshell. The little 
 servant gets down on her knees and offers them to us, 
 with a bow. We drink from them in Japanese style, suck- 
 ing the tea in with a loud sipping 
 noise to show that we like it. 
 
 Here come the children who have 
 been playing in the garden back of 
 the house. They are dressed like 
 their parents, and they bow to us in 
 the same way. They are very re- 
 spectful, for to have a bad child in 
 Japan is disgraceful, and all Japa- 
 nese children honor their parents. The mother takes one 
 of the little boys in her arms, and rubs her cheeks against 
 his. It is in this way that the Japanese show their affec- 
 tion. They do not kiss, nor do they shake hands, though 
 boy friends and girl friends often go about with their 
 arms around one another's shoulders or waist, and the mem- 
 bers of a family show that they are fond of each other. 
 
 What is that on this little one's back ? 
 
 That is a doll, and the little girl is carrying her baby. 
 The mothers here often go about with their babies tied 
 to their backs, and the children sometimes do the same 
 3 
 
 a porcelain teapot 
 
 CARP. ASIA- 
 
 462536
 
 38 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 
 with their dolls. As soon as a girl is old enough, she is 
 taught to take care of her little sister in this way, and 
 as we ride through the streets we shall see children with 
 live babies hung to their shoulders. A girl of eight or 
 nine years sometimes has a little baby tied to her back, 
 and carries it about as she plays. The baby blinks out 
 of its queer eyes at the great world around it, and when 
 it grows tired it drops its head on its shoulder and sleeps 
 away while the little girl nurse goes on 
 making mud pies, or playing with a ball, 
 or at other games. 
 
 Our Japanese friends invite us to take 
 supper with them and to stay over night. 
 They entertain us in the parlors, which, 
 as is often the case in Japan, are at the 
 back of the house. Soon they tell us 
 that the bath is prepared, and as the 
 honored guests we have the first turn. 
 
 The Japanese are exceedingly cleanly, 
 and every well-to-do home has its own 
 bathroom. It is a sign of good breeding 
 to ask a guest to have his bath first. 
 The custom is such that all the fam- 
 ily, no matter how many the children, 
 bathe in the same water and in the same tub, and the 
 servants get in at the last. No soap is used until after 
 getting out of the tub, and the body is finally washed off 
 by pouring water over it with a basin after the soaping. 
 There are public baths in all the cities, and in Tokyo they 
 number eight hundred, in which three hundred thousand 
 people bathe daily at a cost of less than one cent for 
 each person, so that even the poorest can keep themselves 
 clean. 
 
 ' — when it grows 
 tired — "
 
 HOME LIFE. 39 
 
 The little maidservant comes and leads us to the bath- 
 room. It is a clean little room with movable walls of white 
 pine. She pulls one section of the walls back, and we 
 enter. In one corner of the room a stream of cold water 
 flows through a wooden pipe into a barrel, from which a 
 trough carries it off into a little brook that flows through 
 the garden outside. From this barrel we shall get cold 
 water after we are through with our bath, and with that 
 shining brass basin which we see on the floor we can pour 
 cold or warm water over our bodies after using the soap. 
 
 The bath tub is of wood. It is much like a short, oval 
 barrel. It has a charcoal fire under it, with a stovepipe 
 running up through the water at the back of the tub, this 
 pipe being protected by a strip of white pine which keeps 
 one's body from touching it. As we look, the water 
 smokes slightly, but it seems no warmer than milk when 
 fresh from the cow; and, having undressed, we jump in. 
 Whew ! How hot it is ! The water is almost boiling, and 
 we gasp as we sink, half scalded, to the bottom. We 
 climb out very quickly, finding our skins now as red as 
 a beet, and the little servant, who stands outside the wall 
 and peeps in, giggles as she enters and hands us our 
 clothes. The Japanese are 
 fond of hot baths, and the 
 people of all ages, from 
 grandparents to babies, take 
 them every day. 
 
 By this time supper is 
 ready, and we shall have a "° ^^'^ 
 
 Japanese meal. We all eat together, but each has his own 
 table. It is not quite a foot high, and we sit on the floor 
 as we eat. The first course is Japanese wine or sa-ke 
 with sweet cake and candy. This is brought in by our
 
 40 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 Japanese Family at Dinner 
 
 little maidservant, who gets down on her knees and bows 
 low as she hands it to us. Next comes a soup made of 
 
 beans, and with it raw fish 
 cut in slices and served with 
 a queer sauce called soy. 
 This is of a dark brown 
 color, and is made of a mix- 
 ture of vinegar, salt, and fer- 
 mented wheat. Then there 
 are salads and pickles of 
 various kinds. There are 
 green pears as hard as 
 stones, so served because 
 the Japanese like this fruit 
 green. 
 
 The supper closes with rice and tea. The rice is 
 brought in to us in a big, round, wooden box of the shape 
 and size of a peck measure. It is offered to us again and 
 
 "The rice is brought in — "
 
 HOME LIFE. 
 
 41 
 
 again, for the theory is that no one need go away hungry 
 if he has plenty of rice. The tea is served in little cups, 
 but we notice that our Japanese friends sometimes pour 
 their tea into their rice. 
 
 Throughout the meal we watch our friends eat, and as 
 far as possible act like them. The soup is offered to us 
 in bowls, the size of a large coffee cup. Each of us has 
 a bowl, and we drink the soup by raising it to our lips. 
 The fish, rice, and salads we try to eat with our chopsticks, 
 but this we find very hard to 
 do. If you will take two 
 slate pencils, balance them 
 between the two first fingers 
 and the thumb of your right 
 hand, and try to pick up 
 grains of rice and bits of 
 hash with their ends, you can see 
 with what difficulty the first Jap- 
 Even well-to-do people of 
 more than two courses at a meal. 
 a day, — a breakfast on rising, a 
 another meal at sunset. The 
 their tables are well prepared. The Japanese make deli- 
 cious fish soups, and they broil and fry fish, making dishes 
 fit for a king. They eat but little meat, and they do not 
 have butter or cheese. Rice forms the chief part of the 
 food eaten by most of the people, but some are so poor 
 that they cannot afford rice, and millet, a kind of grass 
 seed, and other grains are used in its stead. 
 
 The supper over, the family sit around on the floor and 
 chat. The neighbors come in, and all, both women and 
 men, smoke little pipes as they talk. The children play 
 games. Those who are in school perhaps study their 
 
 anese meal is eaten. 
 
 Japan seldom have 
 
 They eat three meals 
 
 dinner at noon, and 
 
 esss and fowl on
 
 42 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 lessons for the morrow, and the httle girls play with their 
 dolls. And so our evening passes until the time comes 
 for sleep. Then there is a commotion. The servants go 
 out to shut up for the night. They pull the sliding walls 
 to, until the whole house becomes a well-closed box, and 
 the only ventilation is through the cracks at the corners. 
 
 Japanese Bed. 
 
 We have been wondering all the time where we should 
 sleep. We have gone through the house, and so far have 
 seen no sign of a bed. Our little maidservant takes us 
 upstairs. She slides back a board which hides a recess 
 in the wall, and pulls out armful after armful of soft, thick 
 quilts or comforts. She lays these on the floor, one on top 
 of another, and turns down the last one for a cover. We 
 look for the sheets, and are told that the Japanese do not
 
 THE EMPEROR AND HIS GOVERNMENT. 43 
 
 use them. Then we ask for pillows, and the maid gives 
 
 each of us a block of wood about the size of a brick. This 
 
 stands on its side, and has a roll of 
 
 soft paper on top. We are expected 
 
 to put them under our necks, and let 
 
 our heads hang over the edges while 
 
 we sleep. We try it, but find that, 
 
 though they do for Japan, they will 
 
 not do for America ; so we roll up "" '^" "''" °^ ^ ^""'^ " 
 
 our coats and use them instead, and are soon dreaming of 
 
 home. 
 
 V. THE EMPEROR AND HIS PALACES. 
 
 WE shall visit to-day some of the high officials of 
 Japan, and shall learn something of how the 
 empire is governed. The emperor rules through his cab- 
 inet and parliament, and our first journey will be to his 
 majesty's palaces. He has a vast estate in the heart of 
 Tokyo, made up of hill and valley, and containing lakes 
 and woods and several acres of one-story palaces. The 
 grounds, as we have seen, are surrounded by wide moats, 
 and upon the water magnificent lotus flowers float on their 
 green leaves. We cross the moats on bridges of marble, 
 and, passing soldiers and servants in European clothes, 
 find ourselves in the home of the Japanese ruler. 
 
 The palaces are of wood, built much after the style of 
 the Japanese temples, of which we shall learn later on. 
 They have hundreds of rooms, and many of the walls 
 consist of sliding screens of plate glass, which move in 
 grooves and can be pushed back so that many rooms can 
 be thrown into one. Some of the ceilings are decorated
 
 44 JAPAN. 
 
 with the finest embroideries, and one room is ceiled with 
 woven gold tapestry that cost ten thousand dollars. The 
 walls of the other rooms are covered with brocaded silks 
 as fine as that of a ball dress, and the inlaid floors have 
 matting almost as soft as a velvet carpet. 
 
 There are all sorts of flowers in the emperor's gardens, 
 and his lakes are filled with many kinds of fish. He has 
 large ponds, fed by canals, where he takes part with his 
 nobles in the netting of ducks. This is a favorite amuse- 
 ment of the rich Japanese. There are many wild ducks 
 about Tokyo, and, as they fly over the palace grounds, 
 they are enticed to alight by means of decoy-ducks which 
 float on the emperor's ponds. Other decoys are scattered 
 along the little canals which run out from the ponds, and 
 which are so lined with trees and bushes that a man can 
 easily hide on their banks. Grain is scattered about in the 
 canals as bait, and when the ducks swim after this, the 
 emperor and his nobles, concealed in the bushes, catch 
 them by throwing nets over their heads. It requires great 
 skill to throw a net properly, and the princes are said to 
 delight in the sport. 
 
 You must not think, however, that duck netting is the 
 chief business of the Japanese ruler. He is a hard-working 
 monarch, and most of his time is occupied in managing the 
 government of his country. His cabinet ministers bring 
 him daily reports from all parts of his empire, and he has 
 the American newspapers translated, so that he can tell 
 what they are saying about Japan. 
 
 The emperor's quarters in the palace are entirely 
 separate and apart from those of the empress. Her 
 majesty has a complete court of her own, with her sec- 
 retaries and servants. She is at the head of all move- 
 ments for the advancement of Japanese women. Like
 
 THE EMPEROR AND HIS GOVERNMENT. 
 
 45 
 
 his majesty, the empress now wears foreign clothes upon 
 state occasions. She has abandoned the old Japanese 
 custom whereby a wife shaved off her eyebrows and 
 blackened her teeth in order to show her devotion to her 
 husband by making herself so ugly that it would be impos- 
 sible for any one else to admire her. This horrible fashion, 
 however, has prevailed widely in Japan until lately, and, 
 as we shall see, it still exists in 
 some parts of the country. 
 
 We pass many policemen on 
 our way back from the palace, 
 and see that good order is every- 
 where kept. The police dress 
 in clothing much. like that which 
 we wear, but they all carry 
 swords. They tie their prison- 
 ers with ropes, and drive or drag 
 them on the way to the jail. 
 Japan has now as good a police 
 system as ours, and there are 
 police stations scattered all over 
 the empire. There are many 
 detectives, and the spy system of the Emperor of Japan 
 is almost as efficient as that of the Czar of Russia. 
 
 In making our tour through the country, we learn that 
 we must have passports, or papers showing just who we 
 are and where we are going. Each passport must contain 
 the name of the owner and a full description of just how 
 he looks. It gives his age and height, and tells whether 
 his eyes are brown, blue, black, or gray. These papers 
 will be asked for at every city or village we visit, and the 
 hotel keepers must see them before they will give us our 
 rooms. Every foreigner in the Japanese Empire must 
 
 "They tie their prisoners
 
 46 JAPAN. 
 
 have a paper of this kind ; and if he cannot show it upon 
 the demand of the police, he is regarded as a suspicious 
 character, and may be thrown into prison. In this way 
 the emperor knows just who are in his country, and what 
 they are doing, and he can tell almost to a man where 
 every stranger sleeps every night. His own people are 
 not allowed to leave the country without the permission 
 of the government, and those who break the laws are 
 almost sure to be punished. 
 
 Japan now has good courts. It has hundreds of 
 lawyers, and every man is allowed a fair trial. The 
 greatest penalty permitted is death by hanging, and for 
 small offenses the fines are sometimes as low as five 
 cents. 
 
 In the past, the laws were made by the shogun and 
 the emperor. Now the Japanese people make laws for 
 themselves through their Houses of Parliament. The 
 Upper House is composed of the nobles, and the most 
 of the members are chosen by the nobility, though some 
 receive their appointment directly from the emperor. The 
 members of the House of Representatives are elected by 
 the people. Every Japanese man has to be twenty-five 
 years old before he can vote, and a voter must have 
 enough property so that his taxes amount to at least 
 fifteen dollars a year. 
 
 The Houses of Parliament have officers much like our 
 Houses of Congress. The members make speeches, and 
 they discuss all measures relating to public affairs. They 
 vote all the money that is to be used in carrying on the 
 government, with the exception of the emperor's house- 
 hold expenses, with which they have nothing to do. The 
 people of Japan formerly had but few rights. They were 
 forced to pay such taxes as were demanded by the nobles
 
 THE EMPEROR AND HIS GOVERNMENT. 
 
 47 
 
 and the army. Now they fix their own taxes, and every- 
 thing is fair and just. 
 
 The parliament buildings are situated in Tokyo, not far 
 from the palace. There is a big wall around them which 
 is entered by gates, and when the houses are in session 
 you see on each side of these gates about five hundred 
 black jinrikishas, with barelegged men in butter-bowl hats, 
 
 Parliament House, Interior. 
 
 tights, and blue jackets, sitting in them, waiting for their 
 employers, the members of parliament, to come out. 
 
 Leaving the parliament buildings, it is but a short drive 
 to the Department of War, where the officers sta}- who 
 control all matters relating to the Japanese armv. The 
 emperor has now one of the best armies of the world ; 
 every Japanese boy of seventeen years is expected to 
 enter some branch of it, and after he becomes a man he 
 has seven years to serve as a soldier.
 
 48 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 The rifle used by the army was invented by a Japanese, 
 and is one of the best in the world. The soldiers are 
 trained by officers, many of whom have 
 been educated in the German army, 
 and it was this training that enabled 
 the little Japanese nation to conquer 
 the great nation of China, which has 
 about ten times as many people. Japan 
 has a fine modern navy, and its war- 
 ships are e<qual to those of the great 
 nations of Europe. 
 
 We shall find that one of the most 
 important officers of the emperor's cabi- 
 net is the minister of communications. 
 His department has to do with the postal 
 and telegraph systems of the empire. 
 In the past, all letters in Japan were 
 carried by messengers, whose costume 
 consisted chiefly of a cloth about the 
 waist, and of a rich coat of tattooing. 
 The service was so expensive that only 
 the rich could afford to send letters. 
 Now Japan has a postal system like 
 ours, and letters are sent to all parts 
 of the country for two cents apiece. 
 
 An American from our Post Office 
 Department at Washington went to 
 Japan and showed the emperor how 
 we carried our letters, and he ordered 
 that his officers should introduce the 
 same methods there. The Japanese 
 now make their own postage stamps. They have postal 
 cards, and if we call at the Post Office Department, we 
 
 Japanese Postage Stamps.
 
 THE EMPEROR AND HIS GOVERNMENT. 
 
 49 
 
 in i ,iiii i H!iiii.'ii!!in!!( ra) 
 
 •a 
 
 can learn that the postal service in one year carried over 
 three hundred million letters, and more than eighty mil- 
 lion newspapers and periodicals. 
 
 We shall meet Japanese post- 
 men on the streets of every city 
 we visit. They wear blue clothes, 
 and their blue-mittened feet rest 
 on straw sandals. They deliver 
 their letters at all the houses, and 
 collect from the street postal 
 boxes, just as our American post- 
 men do. The telegraph system 
 is equally good. All the lines be- 
 long to the government, and you 
 can telegraph more cheaply in 
 Japan than in America. 
 
 We visit also the Treasury De- 
 
 "They have postal card 
 
 "We shall meet Japanese post- 
 men — " 
 
 five-sen pieces of silver. 
 
 partment, one division of which 
 makes the money of Japan. The 
 Japanese use gold, silver, copper, 
 and paper as money. They have 
 a banking system much like that 
 of the United States, and in the 
 Bureau of Engraving they make 
 their own bank notes. The unit 
 is the yen, which is a silver coin 
 of the size and shape of our silver 
 dollar. Each yen contains one 
 hundred sen, or cents, and each 
 sen contains ten rin. There are 
 fifty-sen, twenty-sen, ten-sen, and 
 There are nickel coins worth five 
 
 sen, and copper pieces of two sen, one sen, one half sen.
 
 50 JAPAN. 
 
 and one rin, or one tenth of a sen. The paper money is 
 in bills of one yen, five yen, ten yen, and upwards, the bills 
 being wider than, but not so long as, our national bank 
 notes. 
 
 VI. JAPANESE CHILDREN AT SCHOOL AND 
 AT PLAY. 
 
 JAPAN now has public schools, and the little yellow- 
 skinned, slant-eyed Japanese can have an education 
 almost equal to that of children in the United States. In 
 the Japanese cities there are more than one hundred kin- 
 dergartens, where little girls and boys of from three to six 
 years begin their school life. All children are compelled 
 by law to attend school from their sixth to their tenth 
 year, and there are advanced grades for those who wish to 
 study longer. 
 
 Many Japanese families are so poor that they need the 
 help of their children who are more than ten years old ; 
 and such children are then put to work in the fields, in 
 stores, at trades, or in the factories. Thousands of boys, 
 however, are kept at school until they are grown up, hav- 
 ing most of the studies taught in our country. Hundreds 
 attend the colleges which are to be found in the different 
 Japanese cities, and many graduate yearly at the Imperial 
 University at Tokyo. 
 
 The empress has established a girls' school at the capi- 
 tal, where the daughters of princes and nobles are edu- 
 cated. Here they study French, German, and English, 
 and learn everything fitted to make them good wives for 
 the men who are to govern Japan when they are grown up. 
 
 The studies of Japanese children are more difficult than
 
 CHILDREN AT SCHOOL AND AT PLAY. 5 I 
 
 ours. We have only twenty-six letters in our alphabet. 
 The Japanese have forty-seven in theirs, and there are so 
 many word signs in addition that an educated man must 
 know thousands of characters. Many of the signs mean 
 whole words or short sentences, and there are curious 
 endings and crooks which have to be learned. 
 
 Let us visit a primary school, — not one of the new city 
 schools, some of which now have desks like our own, but 
 one of the common primary schools, such as we shall find 
 all over the country. It is early in -the morning, and the 
 children, dressed in gowns, stand about with their books 
 in little satchels hung from their backs. 
 
 Here comes the teacher. We can hear him afar off, as 
 he clatters along on his wooden sandals. He wears a 
 gown of dark gray, and has spectacles covering his eyes. 
 As he approaches, the children bow down almost to their 
 knees, and as they rise they suck in their breath as a 
 polite mark of respect. The teacher does likewise, and 
 he smiles upon them as he comes up to the house, and, 
 placing his sandals on the ground, walks over the white 
 mats on the floor of the schoolroom and takes his seat 
 under the blackboard. He may have a chair, or he may 
 sit on the fioor with a low desk before him. 
 
 The scholars as they come in leave their sandals in 
 order outside. They squat in their stocking feet on the 
 floor mats, and study with their books on their knees. 
 
 How queer the books arc ! They begin at the back 
 instead of the front, and the lines run up and down the 
 page instead of across it. What curious letters ! They 
 remind us of the Chinese characters which we see on the 
 tea boxes, and they seem almost alike. 
 
 Here is a class of five boys learning their letters. The 
 teacher makes the characters on the blackboard, and the
 
 52 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 boys copy thcni on sheets of paper, singing out their 
 names as they do so. Do they write with pencils or 
 pens ? No, they have brushes much Hke those we use for 
 
 water colors, and they paint the 
 letters with black India ink. 
 Notice how they hold the brush 
 as they write. Their hands do 
 not touch the paper, the brush 
 is almost vertical, and instead 
 of writing, as we do, across the 
 page from left to right, they 
 begin on the right hand of the 
 sheet, and paint their lines from 
 the top to the bottom. Each 
 child has an ink stone beside 
 him. Upon this he puts a few 
 A Writing Lesson. ^^^.^^^ ^^ watcr, and then rubs 
 
 the stone with a little black cake of India ink, thus making 
 his own ink as he writes. No blotters are needed. The 
 paper is soft and porous, and sucks in the ink as it comes 
 from the brush. 
 
 There is a little boy learning to count with the soroban, 
 an aid to calculation by 
 which the Japanese, to 
 a large extent, dispense 
 with mental arithmetic. 
 It is a box of wooden but- 
 tons strung upon wires, 
 as wide as this book and 
 about a foot long, like 
 the one we saw the bookkeeper use in the store. 
 
 The Soroban. 
 
 The 
 
 buttons represent units, tens, hundreds, thousands, etc., 
 and by moving them up and down, the Japanese boy is
 
 CHILDREN AT SCHOOL AND AT PLAY. 53 
 
 able to do sums of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and 
 division ; and it is said that any sum in arithmetic can be 
 done in this way upon the soroban, even to extracting 
 square and cube root. 
 
 In some of the schools we shall find translations of 
 American tc.xt-books, and many of the scholars will tell 
 us that they think their hardest study is English, because 
 everything connected with it seems to go wrong end fore- 
 most. They must begin at what seems to them the wrong 
 end of the book. They write from the other side of the 
 page, and the sentences seem to go across the page the 
 wrong way. They also find the pen very awkward to 
 handle, but they feel that they must learn to write English, 
 for the government officials and the best business men of 
 Japan now understand this language and use it. 
 
 In the past, the boys of the upper classes looked for- 
 ward to the day when they could go about wearing two 
 swords, and when their chief business would be fighting. 
 Now "the pen is mightier than the sword," for Japan has 
 become a land of books and newspapers. It has large 
 bookstores and great printing establishments. There are 
 now published thirty-five Japanese magazines devoted to 
 law. There are scores of different papers treating of 
 farming. There are all kinds of scientific journals, and 
 daily newspapers are sold in all the cities. We meet 
 many Japanese newsboys, who go about the streets, each 
 ringing a bell as the sign that he has papers for sale. 
 
 The Japanese newspapers, like the books, begin at the 
 back. Their columns are wider than those of our papers, 
 and run horizontally across the page instead of up and 
 down it. The lines run up and down the columns instead 
 of across them, and you begin to read at the top of a line 
 instead of at the side. You read to the bottom of the 
 
 CARP. ASIA 4
 
 u'r 
 
 ni 
 
 I'lij «« 
 
 ^is■. 
 
 
 JpSP i«"i ',"i.bi°' *""-""'' "'■"^■"i^l'^! 
 
 
 ;■£: 
 
 
 
 
 e «>!» 4 » 1 iV?,'* nil T .ii« ainanTT-ii as > OiJinSaBlS iltr ■■ •i-.t.WK •.nri.'A m 
 
 Japanese Newspaper, One Page.
 
 CHILDREN AT SCHOOL AND AT PLAY. 55 
 
 first line, and then go to the top of the one next to the 
 left, and so on until you come to the end of the sentence. 
 This is marked by a Japanese period, which is a little 
 circle, instead of the dot we use. The newspapers con- 
 tain advertisements, editorials, and all kinds of telegraphic 
 dispatches. 
 
 It takes a vast number of characters to form the type 
 for one issue of a Japanese paper, and sometimes a thou- 
 sand different letters may be used on the same page. The 
 characters are so many that in a Japanese printing ofificc 
 a number of boys are employed to run about through the 
 cases and collect the type for the compositors, who call 
 out the names of the letters they want. 
 
 How about play ? Are the lives of Japanese children 
 made up of nothing but school and hard work ? No, in- 
 deed ; they play fully as hard as they study, and they 
 have as much fun as any boys and girls in the world. 
 They have all sorts of playthings, and there are toy stores 
 in all the cities. There are peddlers who wander about 
 through the country selling nothing but toys, and there 
 are men who carry little ovens or stoves with real fire in 
 them about the streets, and who have sweet dough for 
 sale. A boy or girl can rent a stove for an hour for less 
 than five cents, and the stove man will furnish the dough, 
 and look on while the child makes up cakes and bakes 
 them. Sometimes the man cuts out Japanese letters, and 
 the child cooks them and learns their names as it plays. 
 There are men who sit in the streets and mold animals, 
 jinrikishas, and other things of rice paste for children, 
 according to their orders, for a very small sum. 
 
 The dressing of dolls is a great pastime for girls. There 
 are three days of every year during which all the peo- 
 ple celebrate what is called the Feast of Dolls. At this
 
 56 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 time all the dolls which have been kept in the family for 
 generations are brought forth, set upon shelves covered 
 with red cloth, and admired. Some of them represent 
 the emperor and the empress, and are treated with great 
 honor, receiving the best food of the play feasts, to which 
 the dolls are treated three times a day. After the three 
 days are ended, these dolls are put away, but the little 
 
 " — selling nothing but toys — " 
 
 Japanese girl has other dolls with which she plays the 
 year round. 
 
 There is also a day devoted to the boys. We shall 
 know it by seeing great balloonlike paper fishes floating 
 in the air from sticks fastened to the roof of each house 
 in which a boy baby has been born during the year, and 
 also from other houses where the parents are glad they 
 have boys. The Japanese boys have kites of all kinds 
 and shapes. Some are singing kites, which make a music
 
 CHILDREN AT SCHOOL AND AT PLAY. 57 
 
 like that of an yEolian harp as they float in the air, kept 
 steady by two long tails, one tied to each lower corner. 
 Others are made in the shapes of dragons and babies, 
 eagles and butterflies, and all sorts of animals. 
 
 Some kites have their strings soaked with glue into 
 which powdered glass is dusted, for a length of thirty feet 
 from the kite. When the glue hardens, this part of the 
 string becomes as sharp as a file. These are called fight- 
 ing kites. The boys try to get the strings of two of 
 them crossed while in the air, and each pulls his kite this 
 way and that until one of the glass-powdered strings 
 saws the other in two. In such cases the owner of the 
 victorious kite is entitled to the one which has been cut 
 loose. 
 
 Japanese children have games of instruction, as well as 
 games of pure play. They have block maps made of 
 pieces, and by putting these together they learn the shape 
 of Japan and of the world. They have a game much like 
 our "Authors," called " One Hundred Verses of One Hun- 
 dred Poets," which teaches them the names and best say- 
 ings of the great Japanese scholars. Many of the games 
 they play teach them lessons in morals. For instance, one 
 of their games is like our " Pussy wants a corner;" but 
 in Japan the "pussy" is known by a name which repre- 
 sents a Japanese devil, and the corners of the room are 
 called the Harbors of Truth, in which places only can 
 safety be found. 
 
 The Japanese have two great religions. One is called 
 Shin'to-ism. It is the oldest religion of Japan, and con- 
 sists largely of the worship of the heroes of Japanese his- 
 tory. The other is Buddhism, which was introduced into 
 Japan about 600 a.d., and of which we shall learn more 
 in Siam and India. Connected with these religions there
 
 58 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 are gods of all kinds, and many persons have their favorite 
 gods. Every Japanese house has a little shrine in it, before 
 which the people place offerings and pray ; and there are 
 public shrines and temples devoted to religion in all parts 
 of Japan. Some of these are considered especially holy, 
 and pilgrims by the thousands, with staves in their hands 
 and with baggage tied to their backs, walk from one holy 
 place to another to offer their prayers. 
 
 We meet Buddhist priests, who go about with shaved 
 heads, and we spend hours in admiring the beautiful 
 
 temples which have been 
 erected to Buddha. They 
 are one-story structures of 
 wood, with heavy roofs of 
 black tiles. Many of them 
 are of vast extent, and the 
 interiors of some are gor- 
 geous with carvings. Some 
 temples have rooms papered 
 with gold leaf and walled 
 with paintings by the Japa- 
 nese masters, and many of 
 them contain images plated 
 with gold. 
 
 Japan has one statue of 
 Buddha which is among the 
 great art works of the world. This we visit at Kamaku'ra, 
 a small town on the seacoast not far from Yokohama. 
 The statue is made of bronze plates so fitted together 
 that the joints cannot be seen. It is known as the Dai 
 Butzu (di boot'soo). It is an immense sitting figure as 
 tall as a four-story house. We get some idea of its size 
 when we find that its bronze thumbs are so large that 
 
 Japanese Priest.
 
 FARMS AND FARM I NT,. 
 
 59 
 
 as tall as a four-story house." 
 
 two men can sit on one of them and have room to spare, 
 and that its eyes, which are of gold, are each three feet 
 
 in length. 
 
 ^1=^^*^ 
 
 VII. JAPANESE FARMS AND FARMERS. 
 
 THE country scenes are among the most interesting 
 sights of Japan. Let us leave Tokyo and make a 
 tour overland to the cities in the central jiart of the 
 empire. Mow shall we travel .'' We might go by railroad, 
 and, in cars much like ours, could ride from one town to
 
 6o 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 another almost as fast as on our trains at home. We 
 should find the cars filled with Japanese people, and might 
 note that many of the girls and boys, not used to foreign 
 benches and chairs, squat on the cushions, with their feet 
 
 tucked beneath them. 
 Japan is fast building 
 railroads. Great trunk 
 lines now connect all 
 the main centers, and 
 the rates of fare are ex- 
 ceedingly low. 
 
 The railroad, how- 
 ever, is too quick for 
 our journey. We want 
 to see something of 
 Japanese farms, and to 
 learn how the people 
 live in the country. So 
 we will take jinrikishas, 
 with two men to each 
 carriage, and will ride 
 One man will 
 
 " — cars filled with Japanese people — " 
 
 almost as fast as though we had horses 
 pull in the shafts, and the other will push hard behind 
 when we go up the hills, or by a rope will harness himself 
 to the front and run on ahead. We soon get over our 
 shame at driving our almond-eyed brothers, and we poke 
 our human steeds in the back and urge them to hurry. 
 
 We find the roads very good. There are villages every 
 few miles, and we stay at night in country hotels, where 
 we must sleep on the floor. The landlord's children watch 
 us with wonder as we come in. When we have gone to 
 our rooms, they may poke their fingers through the paper 
 walls, and, gluing their eyes to the holes, see how the
 
 FARMS AND FARMING. 
 
 6l 
 
 Strange foreigners look as they take off their clothes and 
 prepare to go to sleep. Some of them have never before 
 seen an American, and our straight eyes and fair faces 
 seem to them very queer. 
 
 We have some rainy days on our journey, during which 
 we pass many travelers wearing the waterproof cloak of 
 Japan. This is a sort of shawl of rice straw which hangs 
 from the shoulders, and which, with the big straw hat 
 above it, makes the wearer look like a gigantic yellow 
 bird trotting along through the fields. We cross now and 
 then over mountains so steep that we must leave our jin- 
 rikishas and be carried by men in conveyances known 
 as ka-gos. The kago is a 
 basket-work chair hung to 
 a long pole, which is car- 
 ried on the shoulders of 
 men. You squat in the 
 chair crosslegged, and hold 
 on for dear life as your men 
 carry you along precipices, 
 over the stones of rushing 
 mountain streams, going up 
 hill and down. 
 
 We pass through much 
 beautiful scenery. Japan 
 is made up of mountains 
 and valleys, and the moist 
 air keeps nature refresh- 
 ingly green. The moun- 
 tains feed many short rivers, and brooks by the hundreds 
 gurgle down the green hills. The Japanese understand 
 the science of irrigation, and some of those streams are 
 dammed up in the mountains, and the water is carried 
 
 the waterproof cloak of Japan.
 
 62 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 The Kago. 
 
 from one place to another through winding ditches, so 
 that one stream feeds many farms. The hills are often 
 cut into different levels or terraces, over which the streams 
 flow successively on their way to the valleys. 
 
 The mountainous nature of Japan is such that less than 
 one tenth of the empire is under cultivation; but that tenth 
 gives more than half of the people constant employment, 
 and it produces enough to feed Japan's entire population. 
 The soil for farming is not richer than ours, but the 
 Japanese so increase its fertility by good cultivation that 
 one acre often produces from three to five times as much 
 as the same space does in America ; and it is said that 
 there are farms in Japan which for centuries have pro- 
 duced two crops every year.
 
 FARMS AND FARMING. 
 
 03 
 
 How queer the farms arc ! The whole country looks 
 like a vast garden, with ponds of silvery-white water 
 showing out through the green. There are no very large 
 fields, the average farm being less than two acres in size. 
 The crops are of all shades and colors, from the gold of 
 ripe wheat to the green of sprouting rice. We look over 
 the fields in vain for fences, houses, and barns. The 
 
 A Farmer's House. 
 
 Japanese have no fences. They do not live on their 
 farms, but in villages of thatched wooden houses strung 
 along the main roads. There is no need of barns, as the 
 crops are sold almost as soon as they are harvested. 
 
 There are very few horses, cows, or sheep. In some 
 parts of the empire the people would look upon sheep as 
 wild animals, and a cow would be as great a curiosity as the 
 elephant is to us. The horses we sec arc not bigger than
 
 64 JAPAN. 
 
 good-sized ponies. They are used chiefly as pack horses, 
 though now and then we pass one hitched to a cart and 
 led by a big-hatted peasant. 
 
 We notice that the horses are shod with straw shoes. 
 The straw is so braided that it forms a round mat about 
 half an inch thick, which is fastened to the animal's foot 
 by straw strings running around the leg just above the 
 hoof. Each pack horse has a stock of fresh shoes tied to 
 his saddle, and the farmer who leads him looks now and 
 then at his feet, and changes his shoes as soon as they 
 become worn. Such shoes cost less than one cent a set. 
 The distances through the country districts are often meas- 
 ured by the number of shoes which the horses wear out 
 while traveling them, and it is said that the average horse- 
 shoe will last for a walk of eight miles. 
 
 We find that the farmers of Japan have not been greatly 
 affected by our civilization. They think, act, and live much 
 as they did in the past, and we observe everywhere the 
 customs of the old Japan. We see Japanese women whose 
 heads are shaved close to the scalp, and who have no sign 
 of eyebrows. They seem homely indeed, and upon inquiry 
 we learn that they are widows who keep their heads shaved 
 in order to show their grief for the loss of their husbands. 
 We see many women who look very pretty until they open 
 their mouths ; but then we notice that their teeth are as 
 black as a pair of new rubber shoes. They are farm wives 
 who are destroying their beauty to show their husbands 
 that they do not care for the attentions of others. The 
 men in some cases have their heads shaved on the top, 
 with the long locks at the side and the back fastened 
 up on the crown of the head in a stiff queue like a door 
 knocker. This is the old style of wearing the hair, and 
 was the usual fashion some years ago.
 
 FARMS AND FARMING. 
 
 OS 
 
 The men at work in the fields wear hardly any clothes, 
 and we see some who have on nothing except a flat hat of 
 white straw, as big as a parasol, and a cloth tied around 
 the waist. We see children with tools on their shoulders, 
 on their way to the fields. We see barefooted women 
 clad in big hats and blue cotton gowns, and notice that 
 there are as many women as men at work out of 
 doors. The women and men work side by side, and 
 the children have their share in the toil. How hard 
 
 m 
 
 ^PIPI 
 
 WM 
 
 
 H 
 
 B^^^^ 
 
 
 jr ^M 
 
 fli^^^ 
 
 
 
 IBb. 
 
 •*'*^' - J^^S 
 
 f '. ^1 
 
 ^^^^P 
 
 
 
 Bk. ' 
 
 ^ 
 
 EL. ^^ *^ •'^Kif^^ ^ ^I^B 
 
 IB 
 
 
 
 .3; 
 
 i 
 
 ^m 
 
 
 -B 
 
 ^^S|^ 
 
 
 Plowing Rice Ground. 
 
 they all work ! They dig up the ground with mattock 
 and spade. There are but few plows or other modern 
 implements, and all sorts of seeds are planted by hand. 
 The harvesting is likewise done by hand, and we see 
 that it is human muscle which makes Japan's broad. 
 
 The crops are of all kinds, for nearly everything can be 
 raised in Japan. We see patches of wheat and barley, of 
 tobacco and cotton, and of other plants which are strange 
 to our eyes. Wc go through thousands of rice fields. Rice 
 is the most important crop of the country, for it forms the
 
 66 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 chief food of the people. The majority of the world's 
 inhabitants eat rice, and for at least one third of them it 
 is the principal food. 
 
 There are almost as many different kinds of rice as 
 there are different kinds of apples, and the Japanese rice 
 is among the best. It requires great care in its cultiva- 
 tion. The grains must first be sowed in soil which is well 
 soaked with water. They sprout ir four or five days, and 
 within a month or six weeks they are ready to be trans- 
 planted. The rice fields have in the mean time been 
 flooded. The farmers now take the young sprouts, and 
 
 and set them out in the mud." 
 
 in their bare feet wade through the water and set them 
 out in the mud. They flood the fields again and again 
 during the summer. They keep the rice free from weeds, 
 and by the latter part of September the crop is ready for 
 harvest. 
 
 The rice plants grow much like our wheat or oats. At 
 first they are a beautiful green, but as they ripen they 
 become a bright yellow. The straw is cut close to the
 
 FARMS AND FARMING. 
 
 ^7 
 
 ground with a sickle, and is tied up in little sheaves which 
 are hung over a pole resting on legs, so that the heads of rice 
 are off the ground. The grains are pulled from the stem 
 by drawing the straw through a rack which has teeth like a 
 saw. The grains fall off and are laid away to be husked 
 when required. We find rice fields in all the lowlands of 
 the island of Hondo, and in many other parts of Japan. 
 
 Cleaning Rice. 
 
 We stop now and then at the tea fields or tea gardens, 
 which are to be found throughout the greater part of the 
 empire; and, as we get nearer Kioto, in central Japan, we 
 spend a few days in the region of Uji (oo'je), whore the 
 tea grown is especially fine. One kind is known by a 
 Japanese word meaning "jeweled dew," and is worth from 
 five to eight dollars a pound. It is in Uji that the tea for 
 the emperor and empress has been grown for years. 
 
 The tea plant of Japan is a kind of camellia. It grows 
 much like the American box, and it is carefully cultivated
 
 68 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 " — the hedges run in parallel rows — " 
 
 in hedges which rise to a height of from three to five feet, 
 and which are usually about two feet in width. In a tea 
 garden the hedges run in parallel rows from one side to 
 the other, the rows being about as far apart as those of a 
 potato field. The leaves, which form the tea of com- 
 merce, look somewhat like those of a rosebush, their color 
 being a very bright green. 
 
 The plants produce their best tea from the fifth to the 
 tenth year, but some plants are said to live longer than 
 the life of a man. They are picked several times during 
 the season, the first tea crop of each year being the best. 
 The work is done almost entirely by girls, who walk 
 through the bushes and pick out the bright, new, green 
 leaves from the old, dark ones. They put the leaves in 
 great baskets and carry them off on their backs.
 
 COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY. 69 
 
 The leaves are dried in the sun, then steamed, and dried 
 again. That part of the crop intended for export is then 
 shipped to the tea factories at the ports, where all the 
 moisture is taken out of the leaves by rubbing them about 
 in great iron bowls set in ovens. This rubbing is done by 
 the hands of women and men, and under it the leaves 
 change their shape until they become the little, hard, 
 twisted things that we buy as tea in America. After they 
 are thoroughly dried, they are sorted by Japanese girls, 
 and then packed in boxes for shipment. The work is all 
 done by hand, and every cup of tea that we drink is made 
 from leaves, each of which has been handled again and 
 again by Japanese (or other Asiatic) men, women, and 
 children. 
 
 VIII. COMMERCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL 
 JAPAN. 
 
 RIDING through tea gardens, passing by great fields 
 of cotton, and finding at every few miles villages 
 busy with the making of porcelain, cotton, and silk goods, 
 we at last come to Kioto. The region about the cities of 
 Kioto and O'saka is one of the busiest parts of the world. 
 We find in Kioto men and women weaving beautiful silks 
 on the rudest of looms, not far from modern silk mills ; 
 and in Osaka we may see large cotton mills, in which the 
 long-stapled raw cotton, shipped by the thousands of bales 
 from our Southern States, is mixed with the shorter Japa- 
 nese cotton, and, with modern machinery, is woven into all 
 sorts of cloths for the people. 
 
 We find many factories devoted to the manufacture of 
 the jute rugs which are shipped to America from Japan ; 
 
 CARP. ASIA — 5
 
 70 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 and wc arc surprised to see that these beautiful rugs arc 
 woven in most cases by children of ten years and upwards, 
 who receive for a day's work from five to ten cents. The 
 women and men also get low wages ; and when we enter 
 the workingmen's homes, and note how cheap everything 
 is, we see that the Japanese could easily live upon what 
 we of the United States waste. We notice the introduc- 
 
 Mil 
 
 ' 1 1 
 
 1 
 
 flllHIIiPillllllllPiniil'iilPilP 
 
 '' Ijf'I 1 1 Be KaHVy i\ 
 
 
 Cobbler, using Feet. 
 
 tion of our labor-saving inventions, and wonder if the time 
 will not soon come when these people, with their great 
 skill and low wages, will be competing with our workmen 
 in all kinds of goods and in all the world's markets. 
 
 At present the greater part of the work is done by 
 hand. Nearly all the native manufactures are produced 
 in this way. In the villages given up to the making of 
 porcelain we see numerous small factories where the clay 
 is modeled by hand, and where the artists squat on the
 
 COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY. 
 
 71 
 
 floor and paint the vases and dishes with the beautiful and 
 curious designs found on Japanese china. 
 
 There are artists who carve rats and monkeys and many 
 other figures out of ivory tusks, to be shipped as curios 
 all over the world. There are shops in which Japanese 
 lanterns are being made, where dozens of boys and girls 
 squat together, bending bamboo hoops into the proper 
 
 Japanese Cooper. 
 
 shapes and pa.sting the paper upon them. There are um- 
 brella makers and fan makers sitting in their shops by the 
 roadside and drying their goods in the sun. 
 
 As we look, we see that the Japanese artisan has what is 
 equal to four hands and twelve fingers. He is usually bare- 
 footed, and he uses his feet almost as much as his hands. 
 He holds all sorts of articles steady by pressing them be- 
 tween the soles of his feet. His two great toes are equal 
 to two extra fingers, and he can pick up a nail with his toes.
 
 72 
 
 JAPAN. 
 
 As we go on, we notice that some Japanese methods 
 of work seem to be the direct opposites of ours. There 
 is a carpenter planing a board. He pulls the plane toward 
 him, instead of pushing it from him as our carpenters do; 
 and when he uses the drawing knife he pushes it instead 
 of pulling it, as would seem to us to be the natural way. 
 The American builder begins his house with the founda- 
 tion. The Japanese builder makes the roof first. He puts 
 
 it together in pieces 
 upon a scaffolding of 
 poles, and then fills in 
 the framework beneath. 
 The logs are often 
 brought to the building, 
 and the boards sawed 
 out by hand as they are 
 needed. In the lumber 
 yards of Japan the saw- 
 mill is an almond-eyed, 
 barelegged man, who 
 stands on top of a log, 
 or beneath it, and pulls 
 or pushes away with 
 the saw until he has cut the log into boards. 
 
 We find that Osaka has a vast trade. It may be called 
 the New York of Japan, for it is the commercial capital of 
 the empire. The city itself has a population of about five 
 hundred thousand, and with the manufacturing villages 
 which make up its suburbs, it contains more than a million 
 people. It has many great wholesale establishments and 
 hundreds of large retail stores. 
 
 In its stock exchanges we learn something of Japanese 
 trade, and we find that Japan sells to other nations every 
 
 Sawmill.
 
 COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY. 
 
 year one hundred million dollars' worth of goods. We of 
 the United States buy of Japan several times as much 
 goods as she buys of us, and her trade with us is increas- 
 ing. The chief things that we export to Japan arc kero- 
 sene oil, different kinds of machinery, and raw cotton. 
 More than half the homes of the Japanese people are now 
 
 Making Matting. 
 
 lighted by American oil ; many of the modern mills of the 
 empire have machinery from America; and millions of 
 the Japanese working people are kept warm by cotton 
 from our Southern States. On the other hand, our ladies 
 use Japanese silks by the millions of yards ; many of our 
 houses are furnished with Japanese rugs made of cotton 
 and jute ; and the most beautiful matting sold in our stores 
 now comes from Japan.
 
 74 JAPAN, 
 
 The greater part of the tea which flows down American 
 throats is made from leaves raised on Japanese soil, and 
 almost all the camphor used by the world comes from 
 Japan. The United States imports tons of this drug every 
 year, and in our tour we now and then pass great camphor 
 trees. There are camphor groves scattered throughout 
 the western part of the empire, the trees of which are 
 perhaps the most valuable known to the world. In the 
 village of Tosa, in western Japan, there is a group of thir- 
 teen trees about one hundred years old, which, it is believed, 
 will produce forty thousand pounds of crude camphor, 
 and which are worth, as they stand, four thousand silver 
 dollars. 
 
 The camphor tree is an evergreen of the laurel family. 
 It has a trunk not unlike that of an oak, and this, in full- 
 grown trees, usually runs up from twenty to thirty feet 
 without limbs. Above this point branches extend out in 
 every direction, covered with an evergreen foliage, and 
 forming a well-proportioned and beautiful tree. Some of 
 the camphor trees of Japan are fully fifteen feet in diame- 
 ter, and some are more than three hundred years old. 
 The trees are destroyed in the production of camphor. 
 They are cut, roots and all, into chips, and these pieces 
 are boiled so that the camphor sap and oil are cooked out 
 of them. The sap and oil go up with the steam, which is 
 conducted into a vessel kept cool by running cold water 
 over it. This condenses the vapor into a deposit of oil and 
 camphor. The oil is pressed out, and that which remains 
 is the crude camphor of commerce. 
 
 From Osaka, a half hour by rail takes us to Ko'be, the 
 chief seaport of central Japan. It lies at the entrance 
 of the famed Inland Sea, through which we pass on our 
 way to Ko-re'a. We travel in a Japanese steamer, float- 
 
 n
 
 COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY. 
 
 75 
 
 ing in and out among mountainous islands, the hills of 
 which are terraced, and which have many black-roofed 
 villages dotting their shores. We pass through narrow 
 channels, moving in and out among Japanese craft. We 
 float for hours through the most beautiful scenery, and at 
 last find ourselves at anchor in the mountain-locked har- 
 bor of Nagasaki, the westernmost port of Kiushu. Here 
 we take coal, hundreds of half-naked little Japanese women 
 and men passing it in small baskets from one to another 
 from a barge on one side of the steamer, until the coal 
 is at last stored in the hold. 
 
 Our ship is called the Tokyo Maru (ma-roo). It is 
 lighted by electricity, and heated by steam. We travel 
 almost as 'comfortably as we did on the steamship in 
 which we crossed the Pacific. The sailors and officers 
 are all Japanese, and the Japanese passengers stand with 
 us at the stern of the boat, and with us look longingly 
 back as we steam out into the ocean, and say " Sayoiiani' 
 (sl-yon-a'ra), or " Farewell," to Japan. 
 
 -ti- 
 
 Coodby.
 
 ^6 KOREA. 
 
 IX. THE HERMIT NATION. 
 
 A SHORT sail from Japan brings us to the land of big 
 hats and long gowns, the land of the Koreans, the 
 curious people who have gained the title of "The Hermit 
 Nation." We knew nothing about them until a short 
 time ago, yet they existed as a nation two thousand years 
 before America was discovered, and their history records 
 their doings as far back as twelve hundred years before 
 Christ. 
 
 The Koreans have always looked upon their country as 
 the most beautiful of the world, and have tried to keep 
 other nations from learning about it, for fear that they 
 might come and seize it. For this reason the Koreans 
 have until lately driven travelers away from their shores, 
 and when sailors were shipwrecked there, they were not 
 permitted to leave, lest they might carry the news of 
 Korea to their homes. 
 
 You have learned how the United States introduced our 
 civilization into Japan. It also opened Korea to the rest 
 of the world. In 1882 one of our naval officers, Com- 
 modore R. W. Shufeldt, was sent to this country. His 
 vessel entered the harbor of Chemul'pho, and he there 
 made a treaty by which the King of Korea consented to 
 open his land to all nations. Since then travelers have 
 been permitted to go where they please. The Koreans 
 are now exceedingly hospitable. We shall find ourselves 
 treated as guests, and we can learn much about this 
 curious country. 
 
 Korea is a mountainous peninsula of about the same 
 shape as Florida, and not much greater than Kansas in 
 area. It is bounded on the northwest and northeast by
 
 THI-: HERMIT NATION. JJ 
 
 Manchuria and southeastern Siberia, and is separated on 
 each side from Japan and China by boisterous seas. Its 
 shores are rocky and peppered with islands. It contains 
 many fertile valleys covered with rice, and streams by the 
 hundred flow down its green hills. We shall find its soil 
 rich, but nowhere well farmed. The climate is much the 
 same as that of our North Central States, and we shall 
 notice that the trees are not very different from those we 
 have at home. In the mountains there are rich mines of 
 gold, and valuable coal fields which have not yet been 
 worked ; and in a recent trip across the country the author 
 saw many signs of petroleum. 
 
 Korea has numerous birds and many wild animals. We 
 shall not dare to travel at night for fear of the tigers, and 
 we may shoot a leopard as we ride through the mountains. 
 The country contains about twelve million people, who 
 live in a few large cities and numerous villages. Both the 
 towns and their inhabitants are unlike those of any other 
 part of the world, and we rub our eyes again and again, 
 wondering whether we are really still on our own planet, 
 or whether by magic during the night we have not sailed 
 into one of the stars, or perhaps to the lands of the moon. 
 
 We sail around the foot of the peninsula and halfway up 
 the west coast until we come to the harbor Cheniulpho. 
 This is the port for the capital, the city of Seoul (sa-ool'), 
 which is situated twenty-six miles back from the seacoast, 
 on the other side of a small mountain range. We see 
 white-gowned figures walking like ghosts over the hills as 
 we enter the harbor, and a crowd of Koreans surrounds us 
 as we land on the shore. 
 
 What curious people they are ! Many of them dress 
 like women, but their faces are men's. They are not 
 Chinese, and still they are yellow. They are not Japanese,
 
 78 
 
 KOREA. 
 
 though their eyes are like almonds in shape. They are 
 taller than the Chinese we have in America, and their 
 faces are kinder, though a little more stolid. They have 
 cheek bones as high as those of an Indian, and their 
 noses are almost as flat as a negro's. They are stronger 
 and heavier than the men of Japan, and some carry great 
 burdens of all kinds of wares. 
 
 Here comes one trotting along with a cartload of pot- 
 tery tied to his back. During our journey over the moun- 
 tains to the city of Seoul, men of that 
 kind will carry our baggage, weighing 
 hundreds of pounds, twenty-six miles 
 for a very few cents. They will fasten 
 our trunks to an easel-like framework 
 of forked sticks which hangs from 
 their shoulders, and they are so strong 
 that they will trot over the hills as 
 though they were loaded with feathers. 
 Such men are Korean porters. They 
 carry the most of the freight of the 
 country, and they form but one class of 
 this curious people. 
 
 At the top there is the king, who 
 governs the country, and who has vast 
 estates and acres of palaces. He lives in great state, 
 and his officials must all get down on their knees when 
 they meet him. There are nobles by hundreds, who strut 
 about in gorgeous silk dresses, who own the most of 
 the land, and who live by taxing the rest of the people. 
 They are the drones of the country. They spend their 
 days in smoking and chatting, and they fan themselves as 
 they ride through the streets in chairs carried by their big- 
 hatted servants. 
 
 — with a cartload of pot- 
 tery tied to his back."
 
 THE HERMIT NATION. 79 
 
 There are government clerks by the thousand, dressed 
 in white gowns, who earn their living as scribes for the 
 nobles. They act as policemen and taxgatherers, and 
 often oppress the people below them. There are farmers, 
 merchants, mechanics, and slaves ; and the men of each 
 class have their own costume, by which we may know 
 them. The gowns of the clerks have tight sleeves, while 
 those of the nobles are so big that they hang down from 
 their wrists like bags. No one can do hard work with his 
 arms enveloped in bags, and the sleeve of a Korean noble 
 could hold a baby. 
 
 We see servants and slaves dressed in jackets and full 
 pantaloons of white cotton. They have stockings so 
 padded that their feet seem to be swelled out or gouty, 
 and almost burst the low shoes which they wear. The 
 gowns are of all colors, from the brightest rose pink to 
 the most delicate sky blue, and the men who wear them 
 go about with a strut, and swing their arms to and fro, as 
 they walk up and look at us, the strange foreigners who 
 have come to their country. 
 
 But queerest of all, to our eyes, are the hats and head- 
 dresses. Some heads show out under great bowls of 
 white straw as big as an umbrella, and others are deco- 
 rated with little hats of black horsehair, which cover only 
 the crown of the head, and which are tied on with ribbons 
 under the chin. This is the high hat of Korea, which, 
 like our tall silk hat, is considered the mark of a gentle- 
 man ; and as we go on we shall find that each hat has 
 its meaning. Here comes one of bright straw, as large 
 round as a parasol, which seems to be walking off with the 
 man whose shoulders show out beneath it. That man is a 
 mourner, for, according to the Korean belief, the gods are 
 angry with him and have caused the death of his father.
 
 8o 
 
 KOREA. 
 
 For three years after the death of a parent the Korean 
 wears a hat of that kind. He dresses in a long gown of 
 light gray, and holds up a screen in front of his face to show 
 his great grief. During this time he dare not go to parties, 
 and he should not do business, or marry. 
 If, at the end of his mourning, the other 
 parent should die, he must mourn three 
 years longer ; and when the king or 
 queen passes away, all the people put on 
 mourning for a season. 
 
 But here come two men with no hats 
 at all. They look very humble, and they 
 slink along through the crowd, half 
 ashamed. They part their hair in the 
 middle, and wear it in long braids 
 down their backs. Those are Korean 
 bachelors, and until they are married 
 they will have no rights which any 
 one is bound to respect. Only mar- 
 ried men can wear hats in Korea, and 
 those without wives, whether they be fifteen or fifty, are 
 boys, and are treated as such. 
 
 Married men wear their hair done up in a topknot of 
 about the size of a baby's fist. This is tied with a cord, 
 and it stands straight up on the crown of the head like a 
 handle. Unmarried men and boys are obliged to wear 
 their hair down their backs. They tie the long braids 
 with ribbons, and look more like girls than boys. The 
 Korean women, as we shall learn farther on, are seldom 
 seen on the streets, and we meet only men and boys at the 
 landing. 
 
 But let us travel over the mountains, and visit the great 
 city of Seoul. It is the largest city of Korea, and it is the 
 
 'That man is a mourner-
 
 THE HERMIT NATION. 8 1 
 
 home of the king and his court. It is only twenty-six 
 miles from Chemulpho, the chief seaport ; but the roads 
 leading to it are rough, and there is little trafific upon 
 them. We ride in Korean chairs, each of the party sit- 
 ting crosslegged in a cloth-lined box swung between poles 
 and carried by four big-hatted coolies. As we go, we 
 tremble at the prospect of not reaching Seoul before dark, 
 for we know that we shall have to stay outside all night if 
 we get there after sunset. 
 
 The Korean capital is surrounded by a massive stone 
 wall as tall as a three-story house, and so broad at the top 
 that two carriages abreast could easily be driven upon it. 
 This wall was built by an army of two hundred thousand 
 workmen five hundred years ago for the defense of the 
 city, but it is in good condition to-day, and it can be en- 
 tered only by the eight great gates which go through it. 
 These gates are closed every night just at dusk by heavy 
 doors plated with iron, which are not opened again until 
 about three o'clock in the morning. The signal for their 
 closing, as for their opening, is the ringing of a big bell 
 in the center of the city, after which those who are out- 
 side cannot get m, and those who are inside cannot get 
 out. 
 
 We know but one word of Korean, which means " go 
 on," or "hurry." We cry out this word again and again, 
 until we are hoarse. Our coolies go on the trot, and we 
 reach Seoul in time to climb to the top of the walls and 
 take a view of the city before the gates close. 
 
 Seoul lies in a basin surrounded by mountains, which 
 in some places are as rugged and ragged as the wildest 
 peaks of the Rockies, and which in others are as beauti- 
 fully green as the AUeghanies or the Catskills. The tops 
 of these mountains rest in the clouds, and as we look we
 
 82 
 
 KOREA. 
 
 see watch fires burning upon them, and learn that these 
 form the telegraph system of Korea. They are the last 
 of a series of fires which flash from hill to hill all over 
 the country and by their number and size tell the king 
 whether the people of his various provinces are at peace 
 or about to break out into war. The wall around the citv 
 
 " — a view of the city 
 
 climbs upon these mountains. It bridges a stream at 
 the back. It runs up and down hill and valley, inclos- 
 ing a plain about three miles square, in which lies the city 
 of Seoul. 
 
 What a curious city it is ! Imagine three hundred 
 thousand people living in one-story houses. Picture sixty 
 thousand houses, ninety-nine out of every hundred of them 
 built of mud and thatched with straw. Think of a city 
 
 I
 
 THE HERMIT NATION. 83 
 
 where the men arc dressed in long gowns, where the ladies 
 are not seen on the streets, and where the chief business 
 of all seems to be to smoke, to squat, and to eat ; and you 
 have some idea of Seoul. 
 
 It is altogether different from our cities of the same 
 size. Cut the houses of a great American city down to 
 the height of ten feet, and how would it look .'' Tear 
 away the walls of brick, stone, and wood, and in their 
 places build up structures of cobblestones put together 
 with unburnt mud. Slice the big buildings into little 
 ones, and move the mud walls out to the roadwav. Next, 
 run dirty ditches along the edges of the now narrowed 
 streets. Cover the houses with straw roofs, and over the 
 whole tie a network of clotheslines ; and you have a 
 general idea of the Korean capital. 
 
 As you look, you think of a vast harvest field filled with 
 big haycocks, interspersed here and there with tiled barns, 
 and with a great inclosure of more imposing barns under 
 the mountains at the back. The haycocks are the huts 
 of the poor, the tiled barns are the homes of the nobles, 
 and the great inclosure contains the palaces of the king. 
 The nobles live in large yards back from the street. 
 Their houses look much like those of Japan. They have 
 walls of paper between the rooms, and they are heated by 
 flues which run under the floor. The huts of the poor, 
 which make up the greater part of the city, are built each 
 in the shape of a horseshoe, with one heel of the shoe 
 resting on the street, and the other running back into 
 the yard. 
 
 In the houses of both the rich and the poor the men 
 live in the front, and the women are shut off in the rear. 
 They have no views of the street except through little 
 pieces of glass about as big as a nickel, which they paste
 
 84 
 
 KOREA. 
 
 over holes in the paper windows. The doors which lead 
 into these houses are of the rudest description. They are 
 so low that you cannot go in without stooping. At the 
 foot of each door a hole is cut for the dog, and every 
 Korean house has its own dog, which barks and snaps at 
 foreigners as they go through the streets. 
 
 But, as we are looking over Seoul, the sun drops down 
 back of the mountains. The great bell in the center of 
 the city peals out its knell, and the keepers close the gate 
 doors with a bang. Similar ceremonies are going on at 
 the other gates of the city, and that bell, like the curfew 
 of the Middle Ages, sounds the close of the day. We 
 climb down the steps on the inside of the wall, and take 
 our seats again in our chairs. We do not go to a hotel, 
 but our coolies take us to the home of the American minis- 
 ter, who is a friend of the author, and who entertains us 
 during our stay. 
 
 a hole IS cut tor tne dog — ''
 
 TRAVELS AMONG THE KOREANS. 85 
 
 X. TRAVELS AMONG THE KOREANS. 
 
 THIS morning we are to explore the strange city of 
 Seoul. A Korean who speaks English acts as our 
 guide, and we are escorted also by two of the native sol- 
 diers who are furnished to our legation by the king. 
 There is no danger, but appearances are everything in 
 Korea, and great people, among whom we are now 
 classed, since we are the guests of the minister from the 
 United States, never go out without soldiers and servants 
 about them. 
 
 We have to watch where we step. The streets in most 
 parts of the city are narrow and winding, and the sewage 
 flows through them in open drains which take up much of 
 the roadway. There are no waterworks in Seoul except 
 the Korean water carrier, who almost fills the street as he 
 goes from one part of the town to the other, carrying 
 his two buckets, hung one from each end of a pole across 
 his back. The clouds are left to do the work of sprinkling 
 the streets, except here and there, where the servants take 
 dippers and ladle the dirty water out of the sewers to settle 
 the dust. 
 
 The smell is disgusting at times, and mixed with it just 
 now is smoke, for all Seoul is cooking its breakfast. 
 Each of the huts has a chimney which juts out into the 
 street at right angles with the v/all, about two feet from 
 the ground. The people use straw for fuel, and this 
 produces the great smoke which the chimneys are pouring 
 out into the streets. 
 
 Our eyes smart as we walk on through the city. W^e 
 try to keep out of the way of the porters, the water 
 carriers, and the people who are going to the markets, 
 
 CARP. ASI.-V. — 6
 
 86 
 
 KOREA. 
 
 which arc situated at the foot of the chief business street, 
 and about the gate through which we entered the city. 
 We follow the crowd, and soon find ourselves in the 
 busiest place in Korea. 
 
 There are thousands of men in all sorts of costumes, 
 selling and buying. There are porters by scores who 
 have brought loads of fresh fish from the seashore on their 
 
 backs over the mountains, and 
 by dozens who are selling beef, 
 kinds of game. There are 
 the selling of rice. White- 
 on the ground with bushels 
 them. There are boys ped- 
 which are shavings with 
 sulphur, and which have 
 burning coal before they 
 dreds of men buying 
 sorts of wholesale and 
 The sales are not 
 by handfuls rather 
 seem very curious, 
 ten being laid end 
 with long straw -Eggsar 
 
 there are butchers 
 
 venison and other 
 
 booths devoted to 
 
 gowned men squat 
 
 of red peppers before 
 
 dling Korean matches, 
 
 their ends dipped in 
 
 to be touched with a 
 
 will light. There are hun- 
 
 grain, and carrying on all 
 
 retail business. 
 
 large, and things are bought 
 
 than bushels. Some articles 
 
 Eggs are sold by the stick, 
 
 to end and wrapped around 
 
 so tightly that they stand out 
 
 straight and stiff, sold by the j^ stick of ten eggs brings about 
 three cents. Here ^' " is a man selling pipe stems. 
 The most of them are as long as himself, for the Korean 
 gentleman's pipe is so long that he has to have a servant 
 to light it, as he cannot reach out to its bowl when the 
 stem is in his mouth. 
 
 See that man in a black hat and white gown, with a 
 pile of clubs before him ! They are not unlike baseball 
 bats, and we wonder if our American game has not been 
 brought out to Korea. We ask our guide, and he tells us
 
 TRAVELS AMONG THE KOREAN'S. 
 
 S7 
 
 that those are ironing clubs, and shows us how the women 
 use them for ironing. The clothes are first washed in cold 
 water and dried on the grass. They are then taken into 
 the house and wrapped around a stick, which is laid on 
 the floor. Now one or two women squat down before 
 the stick, and pound upon the cloth with these wooden 
 clubs until it becomes as smooth and as glossy as the 
 best work of an American laundry. 
 
 " — and pound upon the ciotn - 
 
 Our guide points to his own gown of snow white, and 
 tells us that it was ironed in this way, and as we go on 
 through the city we hear the musical rat-tat-tat which 
 comes from the ironing. This noise is to be heard through- 
 out Seoul at every hour of the day, and during nearly 
 every hour of the night. The garments are such tliat 
 they must be ripped apart whenever they arc washed. It 
 takes a long time to iron them, and when thcv arc finished
 
 88 
 
 KOREA. 
 
 they must be again sewed together, so that you see Ko- 
 rean girls have quite as much to do as our girls at home. 
 
 We learn that only the higher-class women receive any 
 education, and that very few know how to read. After 
 girls are seven years old they must stay in the women's 
 quarters in the backs of the houses, and must no longer 
 play with the boys. The noble women will not go out 
 on the street except in closed chairs, and the poorer 
 
 women whom we meet dur- 
 ing our tour have green 
 cloaks thrown over their 
 heads, which they hold tight 
 in front of their faces, with 
 just a crack for the eyes. 
 This is so that the men may 
 not see their beauty as they 
 go through the city. 
 
 Leaving the markets, we 
 walk through the crowd up 
 the street till we come to the 
 little temple containing the 
 bell which sounds the open- 
 ing and closing of the gates. 
 This is in the business center 
 of the city, and the streets surrounding it are thronged with 
 merchants and peddlers, with dandies and loafers, from 
 sunrise to sunset. The ordinary Korean store is a little 
 booth or straw shed which juts out into the street, and 
 which contains, perhaps, a bushel-basketful of goods. The 
 merchants wear white gowns and black hats, and we see 
 them squatting outside their stores with their hats on, 
 smoking as they wait for their customers. 
 
 About the little temple there are large buildings or 
 
 A Korean Lady.
 
 TRAVELS AMONG THE KOREANS. 
 
 89 
 
 Korean Shoes. 
 
 bazaans, each of which is devoted to the selling of one kind 
 of goods. These buildings have many little rooms, each 
 the size of a very small closet, and every little room is a 
 store. The merchants 
 sit in the halls outside 
 the closets, with their 
 hats on, and bring out 
 piece by piece as you 
 order. They are by 
 no means anxious to 
 sell, and the more 
 goods you want, the 
 higher the price they 
 will ask. You may get one pair of shoes, for instance, for 
 fifty cents, but if you want a hundred, the merchant will 
 be very sure to charge you at least a dollar a pair, on 
 the plea that if he sold all his goods he could not keep 
 his store open. 
 
 A great deal of peddling is done 
 by boys, some of whom have fires on 
 the streets, on which they roast chest- 
 nuts to sell hot from the coals. We 
 meet little fellows everywhere ped- 
 dling candy. They have trays which 
 hang from their shoulders at right 
 angles with their waists, and their 
 money boxes consist of pieces of 
 twine, upon which they string the 
 ■•- peddling candy." Korean " casli " which serve as the 
 
 money of the countrv. These cash are about the size of 
 an old-fashioned red cent, with a square hole cut out of 
 the center. It takes more than two thousand cash to 
 equal the value of one of our dollars, and we find that in
 
 90 
 
 KOREA. 
 
 taking a long journey we must have an extra bullock, 
 or a couple of porters, to carry the money we need to use 
 on the way. 
 
 What is the noise we hear coming from that little hut 
 just off the main street ? 
 
 That is a Korean school. The teacher squats on the 
 floor in a gown of white or of some bright color. To-day 
 he wears rose pink, and he has a cap of black horsehair. 
 The glasses of his spectacles are as big as trade dollars, 
 
 •■ — studying their lessons out loud. " 
 
 and his appearance is very imposing. His scholars squat 
 about on straw mats studying their lessons out loud. They 
 sway themselves back and forth as they sing out again 
 and again the words they are trying to learn, all shouting 
 at once. If one stops, the teacher thinks he is not study- 
 ing, and calls him up for a whipping. 
 
 At our request, the teacher shows us how scholars are 
 punished. A little fellow, well knowing that he has done 
 nothing wrong and will not be hurt, stretches himself on
 
 TRAVELS AMONG THE KOREANS. 91 
 
 his Stomach flat on the floor, while the teacher takes a rod 
 and taps him a few blows on the thighs. We laugh. The 
 little Korean laughs, too, and when we have given him a 
 handful of coins worth about a cent of our money, he runs 
 back to his seat, the happiest, as well as the richest, boy in 
 school. 
 
 The studies of Korean boys are made up chiefly of 
 learning by heart the sayings of great Chinese scholars. 
 They do not now have the advantages of our American 
 children, but important changes are going on in the coun- 
 try, and the little Koreans will probably soon have schools 
 like our own. 
 
 It is through public examinations in the grounds of the 
 palace, that the officials of the country are chosen. The 
 Koreans have great respect for good scholars. They are 
 lovers of poetry. Young men often have poetry parties, 
 where each guest shows his skill in writing verses upon a 
 subject given out at the time. 
 
 We find other curious customs, some good and some 
 bad, which have grown up during the ages the Koreans 
 have lived by themselves. The people have much natural 
 refinement. They are intelligent and kind, and, as we 
 travel among them, we feel that with a good government, 
 new laws, and equal rights for all men, such as they may 
 have in the future, they will make as respectable a little 
 nation as can be found anywhere. 
 
 We feel sorry to leave them, but we must go across the 
 peninsula to the east coast, in order to get a ship for 
 Siberia. We travel on ponies, riding for seven da\s up and 
 down the mountains, j^assing through thousands of rice 
 fields, and now and then skirting the wilds whore we dare 
 not go after dark for fear of the tigers. We find numer- 
 ous villages of thatched huts, and notice that the farmers
 
 92 
 
 KOREA. 
 
 live in villages and not on their farms. We stop some- 
 times at Korean inns, where we sleep on the brick floors, 
 half baked by the straw fires beneath us. Sometimes we 
 stay with the magistrates, who, on our departure, as a 
 mark of honor furnish us with trumpeters to toot us out 
 of the town. 
 
 At last we reach the fine harbor known as Gensan. 
 Here we board a Japanese steamer on its way from Na- 
 gasaki to Vladivostok (vla-de-vos-tok'), and after a few 
 days' sail northward we find ourselves at anchor in the 
 Gulf of St. Peter the Great, with the largest seaport of 
 Siberia lying before us. 
 
 Plowing in Korea.
 
 THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILROAD. 
 
 93 
 
 'There is a Russian church- 
 
 XI. SIBERIA AND THE TRANS-SIBERIAN 
 RAILROAD. 
 
 VLADIVOSTOK is the key to eastern Siberia (see map 
 on p. 301). It is the great seaport of Russian Asia, 
 and is one of the most strongly fortified towns on the 
 globe. The Gulf of St. Peter the Great, in which we 
 come to anchor, is surrounded by mountains. At the 
 foot of these, running up the sides of the hills, stand hun- 
 dreds of wooden and brick houses. They look more like 
 those of an American town than the structures of j^ajier 
 and frame in Jai')an, or the mud huts of Korea which we 
 have just left. There is a Russian church, and we see 
 many business places not unlike our stores at home.
 
 94 
 
 EASTERN SIBERIA. 
 
 The harbor is filled with steamers. Russian men-of-war 
 lie beside us, and the hills are covered with barracks, in 
 front of which Russian soldiers march up and down. Si- 
 beria is governed by Russia, and about three fourths of its 
 five million inhabitants are of Russian birth. 
 
 The czar is trying to people the country with Russians, 
 and among the ships which lie between us and the city we 
 see large emigrant steamers which have come from the 
 Black Sea, through the Straits of Bosporus, over the 
 Mediterranean Sea, through the Suez Canal, and around 
 southern Asia, bringing Russian farmers to Siberia. The 
 steamers will carry them from Vladivostok one thousand 
 miles further north, and land them at stations along the 
 great Amur (a-moor') River. 
 
 Siberia is a very rich country. It is of vast extent, and 
 it is said to have enough good soil to support a great 
 people. It is not all a snow-clad desert, as many suppose, 
 but it has plains and plateaus covered with grass, upon 
 which hundreds of thousands of horses and cattle feed 
 during the summer. It contains many coal mines, and the 
 iron of the Ural Mountains is of very fine quality. Large 
 deposits of gold are found in many parts of Siberia. 
 There are valuable gold fields in the Altai (al-tl') Moun- 
 tains, in the Urals, and in the mountain chains of eastern 
 and southern Siberia. There are now about forty thousand 
 miners at work, although in some places the gold-bearing 
 soil is so frozen that fires must be built upon it before it 
 can be dug up for washing. Nuggets of gold weighing a 
 quarter of a pound have been found, and the grains of 
 Siberian gold are said to be on the average larger than 
 those of any other part of the world. 
 
 The country of Siberia is so large, and it has so few 
 people, that we do not know just what it contains. The
 
 THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILROAD. 95 
 
 land is in the form of an irregular plain, sloping northward 
 to the sea, and is made up of three long belts. 
 
 The first belt, lying along the edge of the Arctic Ocean, 
 is frozen and bleak during most of the year. Upon this 
 no trees grow. The land is swampy in the summer, and 
 in the winter the Arctic Ocean freezes for a distance of 
 hundreds of miles from the shore, and both land and sea 
 are so coated with snow that you might ride for days with- 
 out knowing where the land ended and the ice began. 
 This is the land of the reindeer, the polar bear, and the 
 black fox. It is the land of long days and long nights, 
 the land where there is nothing but darkness for several 
 weeks during midwinter, and where midsummer is one 
 long day, in which the sun never sets. 
 
 South of this region, there is a great belt made up of 
 almost impenetrable forests, filled with wild boars, wolves, 
 and all kinds of fur-bearing animals. Siberia has sables 
 whose furs are worth almost their weight in silver. It 
 has numerous otters and squirrels, and the beautiful white 
 ermines whose skins are used to line the cloaks of kings. 
 
 The third belt is that nearest China. This contains 
 the farming lands of Siberia, and upon it will be located 
 the vast population which the country wdll support in the 
 future. This region has many post stations. The Rus- 
 sians travel through it in winter on sledges drawn by 
 relays of horses, which gallop swiftly over the dazzling 
 white snow. Clad in two coats of fur, the traveler is able 
 to withstand the cold, and by rubbing his nose and ears 
 now and then, he keeps them from freezing. 
 
 At this time the rivers are covered with ice many feet 
 thick. Men can ride in sleighs for miles on the Amur, 
 which is one of the great streams of Asia, and on the ice 
 they can cross Lake Baikal, one of the largest lakes of
 
 96 
 
 EASTERN SIBERIA. 
 
 the world. They go through mountains as picturesque as 
 the Alps, and pass rapidly over the vast plateaus which 
 will sometime be covered with farms. 
 
 It is through southern Siberia that the Trans-Siberian 
 railroad is now being built. This road will be 4696 
 miles long in Asia alone, and when connected with the 
 European lines it will form the longest continuous stretch 
 of railroad in the world. It will be one of the g-reat 
 
 'The trains are already running — 
 
 trade routes of Asia, and vast quantities of the silk and 
 tea which are now carried by ships around that continent, 
 through the Suez Canal to Europe, will pass over it in 
 the near future. 
 
 The work of building is now going on along different 
 parts of the route, and we may find hundreds of Russians 
 at work grading the road and laying the rails. The 
 eastern end of the railroad is at Vladivostok, and the 
 western end is at Cheliabinsk', in the Ural Mountains. 
 The trains are already running over the first eastern sec-
 
 THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILROAD. 
 
 97 
 
 tion, and we can take a ride upon this, one of the greatest 
 trunk lines of the world. 
 
 We first explore the city of Vladivostok. It is a slice 
 of Russia in Asia. It contains a mixed population of 
 about twenty thousand Russians, three thousand Koreans, 
 an equal number of Chinese, and thousands of Russian 
 soldiers. Its streets are filled with long-bearded men 
 wearing black caps and thick coats which reach to the 
 tops of their high leather boots, in which arc stuck their 
 full pantaloons. We 
 ride up the hills in dros- 
 kies, or Russian car- 
 riages, drawn by black 
 horses which gallop 
 like mad. Our drivers 
 speak only Russian ; 
 and, as they do not un- 
 derstand English, we 
 direct them which way 
 to go by motioning to 
 the right or to the left. 
 
 Our first call is upon 
 the police. The government is exceedingly strict. 
 
 A Drosky. 
 
 You 
 
 can do nothing in Siberia without applying to the officers, 
 and if we would take a ride on the Trans-Siberian rail- 
 road, we must first get a permit from the chief of police. 
 Armed with this, we go to the station, which is much 
 like an American railroad depot, except that it is filled with 
 soldiers, who tramp up and down, and who look fiercely 
 at us as we purchase our tickets. We find a soldier who 
 speaks English, and he shows us the way to our train. 
 We ask for the sleeping cars, but are told there are none 
 as yet, and that the only cars used are third class.
 
 98 
 
 EASTERN SIBERIA. 
 
 " — we go to the station — " 
 
 If you could take an American freight car, seat it with 
 wooden benches, and above them put wide shelves run- 
 ning across it from one side to the other, you would have 
 a car much like the one that we take for our journey. 
 We find the lower seats filled, and are told by our friend 
 that the shelves are the upper berths, and that we must 
 sleep upon them. 
 
 The train leaves at midnight. It is lighted by candles 
 and heated by a wood stove which stands at the end of 
 the car nearest the engine. The Chinese, Tartars, and 
 Russians, who occupy the lower benches, are snoring, and 
 we climb upon the shelves and lie down. We bundle up 
 our coats to use them as pillows, and try in vain to make 
 ourselves comfortable. We turn over and over again, 
 seeking the soft side of the boards, and every moment we 
 find bones aching which we never imagined existed. The
 
 THE TRANS-SIBliRIAX RAILROAD. 
 
 99 
 
 road is new, and the cars jolt up and down as they bump 
 over the rails. 
 
 We ride in this way all night, and wake up in the morn- 
 ing in the midst of great plains, the soil of which is 
 as black as your boots. We travel for miles over mead- 
 ows and great fields of wheat. We find that the Siberian 
 Russians live in villages made up of log cabins, and 
 we are told that the lands are held in common. The 
 
 Siberian Elders. 
 
 elders or chief men of the towns divide the farms among 
 the people year after year, and the men of each village all 
 work together. 
 
 We stop for a time at Nikolsk, a town of perhaps ten 
 thousand people, which looks very much like one of our 
 new towns of the West. Here are more barracks of 
 soldiers, and all along the line of our journey we find 
 soldiers who evidentlv wonder what we Americans are 
 doing in Asia, and who seem to suspect us as spies.
 
 lOO EASTERN SIBERIA. 
 
 They want to know all about us, but they speak nothing 
 but Russian, and our conversation is carried on by signs. 
 
 We look in vain for the convicts who we have sup- 
 posed were to be seen in all parts of Siberia. The 
 worst convicts are now taken to the island of Sakhalin (sa- 
 kil-len'), northeast of Vladivostok, and they are not forced 
 to work on the railroad, as they were in the past. But we 
 see many Chinese, and at some of the stations find a few 
 of the queer Siberian natives who make up a part of the 
 population of this far-away land. 
 
 We learn that many of the native tribes have curious 
 customs. For instance, the Buriats (boo'ri-ats), who live 
 near Lake Baikal, are fond of horses, and when a man 
 dies they kill a horse in order that its spirit may carry him 
 on his long journey through the land of the hereafter. 
 These people have slant eyes, thick lips, and snub noses. 
 They shave most of their heads, and wear the remain- 
 ing hair in queues, like the Chinese. They are fond of 
 tobacco, and Buriat children of eight or nine years go 
 about with pipes in their mouths. 
 
 Another tribe is that of the Tunguses (toon-goos'ez), 
 who live in the Amur valley and in other parts further 
 north. Some of these people are breeders of stock, but 
 the greater part are nomadic hunters. They roam through 
 the woods without tents, living for the time in caves or 
 hollow trees. They travel from one part of the country 
 to another on sledges pulled by reindeer, and they raise 
 and breed reindeer for sale. They are very fond of 
 animals, and those branches of the Tunguses which have 
 fixed settlements often have menageries of bears, foxes, 
 and wolves. 
 
 In northern Siberia there are people who are much like 
 those we have in Alaska, and who live in tents made of
 
 THE TRANS-SIBERIAN RAILROAD. 
 
 lOI 
 
 skins ; and the island of Sakhalin has natives similar to 
 the hairy Ainos of Yesso in northern Japan. There are 
 curious tribes in western Siberia, which we may visit by 
 going northward from the Caspian Sea, after we have 
 traveled around Asia by way of China, Siam, and India. 
 Just now the great Empire of China lies almost south 
 of us. Were the Trans-Siberian railroad completed, a 
 branch line would probably be built through the Great 
 Chinese Wall, and in less than a day we could go by rail 
 to Peking. At present the sea is the only safe route, and 
 we take the railroad back to Vladivostok, where we catch 
 the Russian steamer, w^hich, sailing southward around the 
 Korean peninsula, will land us in China. 
 
 J.<fi.-K.,A ., ,.. 
 
 -live in tents made of skins — ' 
 
 CAKl'. ASIA — 7
 
 102 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 A Chinese Family. 
 
 XII. CHINA — A TRIP TO PEKING. 
 
 TO-DAY we begin our travels among the Chinese. 
 They are more than one fourth of all the world's 
 people. They have yellow skins, black hair, slant eyes, 
 and little fat noses with very broad nostrils. The men 
 and boys shave their heads, with the exception of a spot 
 on the crown, as big as the palm of your hand, from 
 which a long braid of hair, called a queue, hangs down 
 the back. The women have very small feet, made so by 
 having been bound so tightly from childhood that they 
 have been unable to grow ; and the hands of both women 
 and men have long, slender, tapering fingers. The men 
 often dress in long gowns, and the women, in some parts 
 of the country, wear pantaloons.
 
 A TRIP TO PKKIXG. 
 
 103 
 
 These people have many curious customs, and we shall 
 find ourselves traveling through a new w-orld. It is a 
 great world, too. The Chinese have vast cities, in which 
 there are hundreds of workshops, banks, schools, and all 
 sorts of stores ; and we shall find the people everywhere 
 
 The Chinese Empire. 
 
 working. Their minds are as bright as our own, and when 
 we trade with them we shall have to look out or they will 
 get the best of the bargain. They are an old people. 
 They had a civilization long before Rome was founded, 
 and they have numbers of villages which were in existence 
 hundreds of years before Columbus discovered America.
 
 I04 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 The Chinese have one of the greatest and richest of all 
 the countries in the world. Their empire — which consists 
 of China proper and the vast tributary provinces of 
 Manchuria, Chinese or Eastern Turkestan, Mongolia, and 
 Tibet — is one third larger than the United States. It has 
 millions of acres which have for centuries produced two 
 crops a year. Its mountains contain all kinds of minerals, 
 
 and there are said to be coal 
 and iron lying near to each 
 other in every one of the 
 eighteen provinces which 
 form China proper. 
 
 China proper is where the 
 most of the Chinese live. 
 It is not quite one half the 
 size of our country, but it 
 has at least five times as 
 many inhabitants. Fully 
 one half of it is mountain- 
 ous, and the southern part 
 is largely made up of hills. 
 The remainder consists of 
 plains which extend back 
 from the edge of the sea, 
 and which are cut up into 
 small farms, supporting millions of people. It is a land 
 of many climates. At the north the people dress in sheep- 
 skins during the winter, and in the southernmost parts the 
 children often go barefooted at New Year's. 
 
 We begin our travels with a visit to the city of Peking. 
 It is the capital of the Chinese Empire, and there is no 
 capital in the world so hard to get at. It lies in the north- 
 ern part of the country. The nearest port is Tientsin 
 
 Winter Costume.
 
 A TRIP TO PEKING. IO5 
 
 (te-en'tsen), which is situated on the little Pei (pa) River, 
 about fifty miles from its mouth. This stream, the Pei Ho 
 (the word ho means "river"), forms the only entrance to 
 the vast country of north China. The river is narrow and 
 winding. It curves in and out like a snake, and as we 
 move up it we see, both in front and behind us, the white 
 sails of queer Chinese boats apparently floating through 
 the green fields as they pass along the course of the river. 
 
 We are entering the Great Plain of north China, which 
 extends for seven hundred miles along the coast, and 
 which runs from one hundred and fifty to four hundred 
 miles back into the interior, supporting, it is .said, more 
 people than any equal area on the globe. The land is as 
 flat as a floor, and we can see for miles on all sides. The 
 plain is cut up into farms without fences, and spotted here 
 and there with small clumps of trees surrounding the col- 
 lections of mud huts which are the homes of the farmers. 
 
 The banks of the Pei Ho are dotted with little cities and 
 villages. The stream is so narrow that we often float 
 close to the houses. We observe that the walls are made, 
 in most cases, of sun-dried bricks, and that their low, slant- 
 ing roofs are composed of bundles of reeds plastered with 
 mud. The houses are all of one story. They look more 
 like boxes than houses, for some of them are not more than 
 fifteen feet square. They arc built close uji to the streets, 
 which are narrow dirt roads without sidewalks. In some 
 places, parts of the buildings extend out over the banks 
 of the river, and we are told that the freshets often wash 
 the foundations away and drop such houses, families and 
 all, down into the water. 
 
 We see the streets swarming with curious people. 
 There are yellow-skinned merchants in black satin caps 
 and gay-colored silk gowns. There are shaven-headed
 
 I06 CHINA. 
 
 workmen whose queues are tied up in order that they may 
 be out of the way, and who are dressed in bkie shirts and 
 wide, flapping pantaloons of blue cotton. There are bare- 
 headed women in coats of green, purple, and crimson, 
 below which show out their bright-colored trousers and 
 little silk shoes. There are yellow-skinned boys and girls 
 dressed like their parents, some playing about, and others 
 watching the steamer go by. The poorer boys are more 
 than half naked, and we tremble at their danger as we 
 watch them wrestling together, rolling each other over and 
 over on the banks at the very edge of the water. 
 
 The roads along the river between the towns are filled 
 with a stream of yellow-skinned people of all classes, con- 
 ditions, and ages. There are half-naked porters, who go 
 on the trot as they carry great loads balanced on the ends 
 of the poles which rest on their shoulders. Now and then 
 we pass ladies on their way to a call on their neighbors. 
 Their feet are too small for them to walk comfortably, and 
 they ride on the backs of their men-servants, their ban- 
 daged feet in gay slippers bobbing up and down out of 
 their silk pantaloons as they hold on by clasping their 
 arms around the necks of the servants. There are Chi- 
 nese gentlemen who are being carried along in sedan 
 chairs swung between poles, and there are small-footed 
 old women who walk on with canes. There are laborers 
 and peddlers of every description, and hucksters with bas- 
 kets on their way to the markets. We see hundreds of 
 people at work in the fields, and we get our first glimpse 
 of the industry of the Chinese, which is unsurpassed in 
 the work of the world. 
 
 The numbers increase as we go up the river, and at 
 Tientsin we find scores of brawny laborers ready to handle 
 the freight at the wharves. They carry the great boxes
 
 A TRIP TO PEKING. 10/ 
 
 and bales out of our ship upon poles which they rest on 
 their shoulders, all grunting and yelling together as they 
 raise and lower their burdens. As we look closely at 
 them we are surprised at the size of these men of north 
 China. They are taller than those of the southern part 
 of the empire, from which the Chinese of America come. 
 Some are fully six feet in height, and not a few can lift 
 five hundred pounds each at a load. 
 
 Tientsin is the chief business city of north China. It 
 contains more than a million people, and Peking, the 
 great Chinese capital, is only eighty miles away. The 
 two cities are not farther apart than New York and Phila- 
 delphia, and you would think that the Chinese w^ould have 
 some rapid method of getting from one to the other. A 
 passenger train could cover the distance in two hours, but 
 there is no railroad which goes to Peking. 
 
 Our trip will have to be made in Chinese fashion, and 
 we find that the journey by land will require two or three 
 days. We might go part of the way by water, taking a 
 house boat and making a several days' sail up the Pei Ho 
 to the town of Tung Chow, which is fifteen miles from 
 Peking. But in this case we should have to use donkeys 
 and carts for the rest of the trip, and if the winds were 
 unfavorable our sailors would walk on the banks and pull 
 the boat up the river by a rope tied to its mast. We shall 
 therefore travel the whole way by land. We can ride on 
 ponies or in carts, or, if we would go very cheaply, we can 
 each hire a wheelbarrow and be pushed and pulled to 
 Peking by men. 
 
 And do the Chinese travel on wheelbarrows .'' 
 
 Yes, you see people riding upon them in all the great 
 cities. In Shanghai there are nearlv two thousand pas- 
 senger wheelbarrows. Vast quantities of goods arc carried
 
 io8 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 from one city to another in this way, and if we have a 
 strong wind during our trip over the Great Plain, we may 
 see some of these barrows with sails fastened to them so 
 that the pushers may be helped on by the wind. We find 
 many barrows with both men and donkeys harnessed in 
 front, thus aiding the owner, who holds up the handles 
 and shoves hard behind. 
 
 A Passenger Wheelbarrow. 
 
 The Chinese wheelbarrow is larger and heavier than 
 ours. The wheel comes up through the center of the bed, 
 instead of being at the front end. There is a framework 
 over the wheel, and the passenger sits, with no support 
 for his back, on the ledge on one side of the framework, 
 facing the front. He rests one leg on the ledge, and sup- 
 ports the other foot by a stirrup of rope which is fastened 
 to the front edge of the barrow ; and he holds on by
 
 A TRIP TO riilvLXG. 
 
 109 
 
 throwing his arm over the framework inclosing the wheel. 
 Such barrows, however, are used more for freight than for 
 passengers. They form, to a large extent, the drays of 
 the country, and they carry much of the goods which go 
 from Tientsin to the capital, the boxes and bales being 
 tied to the ledges on each side of the wheel. You may 
 see, now and then, a barrow with a hog or sheep on one 
 side and on the other a pretty Chinese girl, who, like as 
 not, has paper flowers in her hair and rouge on her cheeks. 
 
 "—the common means of Chinese road travel-" 
 
 I have traveled to Peking in every way except on the 
 wheelbarrow, and by my advice we take carts. Those 
 form the common means of Chinese road travel, and they 
 are in use all over the empire. Usually each cart is pulled 
 by two shaggy mules, harnessed one in front of the other, 
 and driven by a Chinaman who sits on the shafts. 
 
 What a clumsy vehicle a Chinese cart is ! Its two 
 wheels are twice as heavv as those of the carts used in the
 
 no 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 United States for repairing the roads. The shafts are 
 about half as thick as telegraph poles, and the bed of the 
 cart rests upon them without springs. Above the bed is 
 a framework covered with blue canvas which forms the 
 roof of the cart. This is too low for a seat to be placed 
 beneath it, and we are told to get in and sit fiat on the 
 bottom of the cart. There is no support for our backs, 
 and when we attempt to lie down we find the bed so short 
 that our feet hang out at the front, disturbing the driver. 
 
 The mules go on a trot, and our flesh is almost jolted to 
 jelly by the ruts of the road. The dust is so thick that 
 we can taste it. Our lips become dry, and when we lick 
 them they are straightway coated with clay. We are tired 
 
 out before we have rid- 
 den ten miles, and we 
 are surprised when we 
 learn that this is one of 
 the best roads of China. 
 The empire is said to 
 have four thousand 
 roads, but these have 
 been so cut up by the 
 wheels of the carts dur- 
 ing the ages, that trav- 
 eling upon them is like 
 going through ditches. 
 They are filled with 
 clouds of dust when the weather is dry, and when it rains 
 they are turned into rivers of mud. 
 
 We see strange sights everywhere as we go on our way 
 to Peking. We pass through many villages. We spend 
 two nights in Chinese hotels, the surroundings of which 
 make us think of a barnyard. The rooms are stablelike
 
 PEKING, THE GREAT CAPITAL. m 
 
 sheds built about a court filled with donkeys which bray 
 at all hours of the night, and with camels which cry like 
 whipped babies. 
 
 Our bed is an ovenlike brick ledge about two feet high 
 which fills one half of the room. It is heated by flues 
 running under it. The fuel is straw, which quickly burns 
 out; and the bed is stone cold before a new fire is 
 lighted. We are therefore alternately roasting and freez- 
 ing. There are no springs and no bedding. We turn 
 over again and again, and at daylight get up with all our 
 bones aching. 
 
 We start at six in the morning, and ride until dusk, and 
 about ten o'clock the third day we find, by the increased 
 number of wheelbarrows, donkeys, and carts, that we are 
 nearing the great capital of China, and far off in the dis- 
 tance we see the walls of Peking. 
 
 ol*<c 
 
 XIII. THE GREAT CAPITAL OF CHINA. 
 
 PEKING is a walled city. Its million and a half of 
 yellow people live in a vast inclosure surrounded by 
 walls so high that you would have to climb to the toj-) of 
 a very tall tree to look over them. Think of surrounding 
 New York or London by walls — not fourteen-inch walls as 
 high as a fence, but great walls sixty feet thick at the bot- 
 tom, as tall as a four-story house, and so broad at the top 
 that you could drive four wagonloads of hay side by side 
 upon them without crowding. Let these walls be faced 
 inside and out with gray bricks, each as thick as a big 
 dictionary. Let the space between be filled with earth so 
 packed that the ages have made the whole as solid as
 
 112 CHINA. 
 
 Stone. Build great towers here and there upon the top 
 of the structure, above gates which go through it and 
 form the entrances to the city ; and you have some idea 
 of the walls of Peking. 
 
 Such walls surround every important Chinese city, and 
 it is estimated that there are four thousand walled cities 
 in China. The walls were built as a means of defense. 
 Upon some of them cannon still stand, and on others 
 piles of stone are collected to be thrown down at the 
 
 M'^or^Tl^'' ' 
 
 ■'-1^ ■ -. *-9i,-^- 
 
 Baa^i £ds^ j^^-nSC^i^ , : ^^^,'^5^:^^^^-.. 
 
 Walls of Peking. 
 
 enemy in case of a siege. The towers were intended for 
 watchmen, that the city might be warned of the approach 
 of an enemy. The gates under the towers are great 
 arched tunnels lined with stonework. They form the 
 only entrances to the cities, being open during the day 
 and closed at night by doors plated with iron. There are 
 sixteen such gates leading into Peking. We can tell where 
 they are by the towers, which we see long before we come 
 up to the walls. 
 
 We ride for miles through the dust outside the city
 
 PEKINC;, tup: great CAriTAL. 
 
 113 
 
 and finally reach one of the gates. We are jostled by the 
 crowds, but our cartmen push their way through the 
 entrance, and we climb up into the tower and take a 
 
 view of Peking. 
 
 What a curious city it is! It looks like an immense 
 orchard cut up by the wide dirt roads forming its streets, 
 through which move all sorts of animals, vehicles, and 
 
 •.ike a view of 1 
 
 men. The city is filled with trees, but among them we 
 can see the thousands of one-story, stablelike structures 
 of gray brick which make up the stores and homes of the 
 people. Here and there a governm,ent building, shaped 
 somewhat like a big American barn, rises above the trees ; 
 and all around, and running here and there through the 
 whole city, are these mighty walls. 
 
 Peking is divided by the walls into throe different cities. 
 There is the great Tartar city at the north; and almost in
 
 1 14 CHINA. 
 
 the center of this is the imperial city, surrounded by two 
 sets of walls, one of which runs inside of the other. The 
 imperial city contains many palaces roofed with yellow 
 porcelain tiles, in which the emperor lives with his wives 
 and his thousands of servants. There is the Chinese city 
 at the south, in which we see the temples of Agriculture 
 and Heaven, the places to which the emperor, as the rep- 
 resentative of his nation, goes out in an elephant cart to 
 pray to his ancestors for a prosperous year, and where in 
 the spring, with a gold-handled plow, he starts the first 
 furrow, after which all the Chinese farmers begin to put 
 in their crops. 
 
 It is in the Chinese city that the most of the business of 
 Peking is done. The streets there are narrow, and are 
 lined with all kinds of stores, as we shall see later on. 
 
 The Tartar city is the seat of government, and in it we 
 shall find the real capital of China. Centuries ago the 
 Tartars from beyond the Great Wall conquered the 
 Chinese. They reigned a short time, and then were driven 
 out ; but a few hundred years later they again conquered, 
 and since then the rulers of China have been of Tartar 
 descent. The present emperor is of that race, and he has 
 a large number of Tartars, as well as Chinese, among his 
 officials. We shall meet many of the officials on the streets 
 of Peking, and we shall see here types of the curious 
 people who make up this great Chinese Empire. 
 
 Let us go down from the tower, and make our way 
 through that crowd of pushing, howling men and beasts 
 which moves through the gate from the Tartar city to the 
 Chinese city from sunrise to sunset. What a wonderful 
 collection it is ! There are caravans of brown, woolly cam- 
 els, on their way to Mongolia, loaded with tea, and ridden 
 by fierce-looking Tartars. There are carts without number
 
 TEKING, TlIF (,REAT CAPITAL. 
 
 115 
 
 containing the silk-dressed nobility, and there are common 
 workmen known as coolies, half naked, on foot. There 
 are little gray donkeys by hundreds straddled by yellow- 
 skinned merchants, and urged on by the blows of yellow- 
 skinned donkey boys who follow behind. 
 
 There are sober-faced scholars wearing spectacles, the 
 glasses of which are as big as silv^er dollars, and there are 
 dandies dressed in satins and silks. There are shaven- 
 headed priests from Tibet in gowns of bright yellow, and 
 travelers from all parts of the empire in costumes of all 
 shades and tints. There are barefooted beggars in rags, 
 and there are gorgeously dressed princes on ponies, all 
 pushing and scrambling and shouting as they force their 
 way through the gate. The busiest parts of the city have 
 similar crowds, and we hire donkeys in order to ride 
 through the streets.
 
 ii6 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 ><:gsair'=<rr;; 
 
 ;t^^l 
 
 ? 
 
 A Street Lamp. 
 
 How dirty, how vile, how shabby every- 
 thing is ! The streets of Peking are dirt 
 roads full of ruts, and the carts are 
 dragged through them with the mud up 
 to their hubs. The streets take the place 
 of sewers. Decent language cannot de- 
 scribe their condition. Pools of dirty 
 yellow water are everywhere, and wher- 
 ever we walk in Peking we have to pick 
 our way through the filth. At night we 
 must carry lanterns, for the city has neither gas nor elec- 
 tricity. Its only street lamps are latticework boxes, backed 
 with white paper and raised up on a framework of poles 
 
 to the height of a 
 man's head. In the 
 boxes are candles 
 which are lighted at 
 night, and which 
 through the paper cast 
 rays so dim that you 
 can hardly see the 
 ground just beneath 
 them. 
 
 Take a look at the 
 stores. They are all 
 of one story, with the 
 front room coming 
 close to the edge of 
 the street. There are 
 no plate-glass windows. 
 The light comes in 
 through open doors or latticework walls backed with white 
 paper. How gorgeous the fronts of the stores are ! The 
 
 "The woodwork is carved -
 
 PEKING, THE GREAl" CAPITAL. 
 
 117 
 
 woodwork is carved, and is painted with the brightest 
 of colors, in many cases being covered with gold leaf. 
 The signs are long boards of red, black, green, or gold, 
 upon which Chinese characters are painted. The signs 
 run up and down the sides of a shop instead of across 
 its top, as with us. The merchants wear caps and long 
 gowns, and they keep their hats on in the stores. They 
 stand behind counters as we do. They are very good 
 salesmen, but they have no fixed prices, and ask three 
 times as much as they 
 think you will pay. 
 
 Here and there we pass 
 banking establishments, 
 and at the corners of the 
 streets we may often see 
 money changers sitting at 
 tables with piles of copper 
 and brass coins before 
 them. These coins are 
 called cash. They form 
 the chief money of China, 
 and it takes about two 
 hundred of them to equal 
 in value one of our cents. They are similar to the coins 
 we saw in Korea, being like a big penny with a square 
 hole in the center in order that they may be strung upon 
 strings. Cash are heavy, and we find that thirty dollars' 
 worth of them would be a load for a mule. Here are the 
 author and his Chinese servant holding cash, the total 
 value of which is not more than ten dollars. Large trans- 
 actions are carried on by means of silver, which is valued 
 by weight, a Chinese ounce being known as a tael and 
 worth a little more than the silver in our silver dollar. 
 
 not more than ten doUa.'-s.
 
 Il8 CHINA. 
 
 A Chinese store, as a rule, sells but one kind of goods, 
 and stores of the same kind are usually to be found close 
 together. There are streets lined with book stores, and in 
 some parts of the city we find scores of hat stores and fur 
 stores and shoe stores. 
 
 There are many things sold which would seem strange 
 if offered for sale in America. The drug stores, for in- 
 stance, have board signs advertising ground tigers' bones 
 to strengthen faint hearts, and extracts of rat flesh to 
 make the hair grow. There are shops which sell nothing 
 but gold and silver paper, which the Chinese burn at the 
 graves of the dead in order that they may not go without 
 money into the land of spirits. 
 
 We shall find large establishments that make and sell 
 coffins, some of which cost hundreds of dollars. The 
 Chinese often buy their coffins a long time before death, 
 and it is not unusual for a good son to present his 
 father or mother with a fine coffin at New Year's. The 
 father will keep the present in the best room of his house, 
 and will show it with pride to his neighbors. 
 
 There are many bird stores in Peking. The Chinese 
 are fond of pets, and we shall see old men on the streets 
 who carry little birds about with them on sticks which 
 they hold in their hands. The legs of the bird are fastened 
 to the stick by a string which permits it to fly a short dis- 
 tance. We find pigeons sold on the edge of the markets. 
 These birds are the messengers of Peking, and they are, 
 perhaps, the only pigeons in the world that whistle. As 
 they fly through the air they make a noise which on the 
 approach of a flock sounds like a whole school of boys 
 blowing on tin whistles. This noise comes from whistles 
 of wood which the people tie to the tails of their birds to 
 scare off the hawks.
 
 PEKING, THE GREAT CAPITAL. 119 
 
 There are great porcelain stores in Peking, and shops 
 which contain the finest of silks and the most beautiful 
 satins. There are lock peddlers by hundreds, and hard- 
 ware stores. There are places where wood is sold in little 
 bundles by weight, and where you may buy for fuel round 
 lumps of mud mixed with coal dust, of about the size of 
 a baseball, for a few cash apiece. 
 
 Another surprise meets us in the markets. We have 
 thought of the Chinese as living on nothing but rice, cats, 
 dogs, and rats, but we discover that their markets are 
 almost as good as ours. They have the choicest of fruits, 
 and we can buy oranges, grapes, and nuts of all sorts. 
 They have many kinds of fish, which they bring alive to 
 the cities, keeping them in tubs of water until they are 
 sold. They have excellent mutton from the sheep of 
 north China, which are of the fat-tailed variety, a single 
 sheep's tail often weighing several pounds. They have 
 all sorts of game, and you can buy deer and squirrels, 
 snipe, quails, and many other kinds of birds. 
 
 One of the chief meats sold is pork. We shall see 
 black hogs all over China. They trot through the streets 
 of Peking, and they wallow in the puddles by the side of 
 the road near the gates to the emperor's palaces. They 
 seem to us the dirtiest hogs in the world, but the Chinese 
 think that there is no meat more delicious than pork. 
 They are especially fond of one kind of this meat which 
 is produced on an island off the coast of south China, 
 the pigs from which it comes being fed almost entirely on 
 sweet potatoes and chestnuts. 
 
 As to cats, dogs, and rats, these are sometimes sold and 
 eaten in the poorer parts of the cities. I once bought a 
 dried rat in Canton for three cents, and I have visited 
 restaurants where soups and stews of cat and dog meat 
 
 CARP. ASIA— S
 
 120 CHINA. 
 
 are kept always on hand. In one place I saw a dog 
 being cooked. The flesh looked like pork, the fur having 
 been scalded and scraped from the skin, with the excep- 
 tion of a bit on the end of the tail. This bit of fur was 
 jet black, and it was left on to show the dog's color, as the 
 flesh of black cats and black dogs is considered the best. 
 
 XIV. THE EMPEROR, AND HOW CHINA IS 
 GOVERNED. 
 
 FROM the walls of Peking we can see the roofs of the 
 emperor's palaces. They are made of bright yellow 
 tiles which blaze like gold under the sun. Yellow is the 
 imperial color of China, and almost everything connected 
 with his majesty is of this golden hue. When the em- 
 peror goes out into the city, the streets and roads over 
 which the royal procession is to pass are first covered with 
 bright yellow clay, and we may see Chinese laborers bring- 
 ing such dirt into the city in wheelbarrows during our 
 stay. 
 
 But can we not see the emperor himself .-" 
 
 No, such a thing is impossible. No foreigner except the 
 ministers is allowed to call upon him. He lives in his 
 palaces inside the walls of what is called the Pink For- 
 bidden City, shut off from all foreigners and from even 
 his own people. If any one dares to go through the gates 
 of the imperial city without permission, he will be flogged 
 with one hundred strokes of a bamboo stick upon his bare 
 thighs; and a stranger found in the emperor's apartments 
 would surely be strangled. Even the servants and those 
 who have business with the emperor must have passes to
 
 GOVERNMENT AND EDUCATION. 
 
 IJI 
 
 go in and out, and the guards at the gates scowl at all 
 foreigners. 
 
 When the emperor takes an airing, the Chinese officials 
 send word to our minister that Americans will go upon the 
 street at their peril. The soldiers at such times clear the 
 streets of all carts. The people are supposed to remain 
 within doors. They hang mattings up in front of their 
 houses, and strips of 
 blue cotton are stretched 
 across the side streets, 
 so that no one may look 
 out. As the procession 
 goes by, the Chinese get 
 down on their knees 
 behind the mats, and 
 bump their heads on the 
 ground in honor of the 
 emperor. If, being out 
 in the country and un- 
 able to get out of the 
 way, they should sud- 
 denly come upon such 
 a procession, they must 
 at once get down on 
 their knees and keep 
 their heads on the ground until his majesty has passed out 
 of sight. The emperor has soldiers with him. and he is 
 usually accompanied by archers. These look out for 
 sight-seers, and the man who peeps through a hole in 
 the mats may get an arrow or a bullet shot into his eyes. 
 
 The Chinese call their emperor "The Smi of Heaven," 
 and thoy look upon him as holv. He is so great that his 
 officials have to remain on their knees while they are in 
 
 A Chinese Archer.
 
 122 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 his presence. When he tried to learn English some time 
 ago, his teachers knelt before him while they taught him 
 his lessons. 
 
 The emperor is an absolute monarch who rules his peo- 
 ple through many officials. He has his cabinet ministers, 
 
 who preside over the govern- 
 ment departments, and who have 
 many officers and clerks under 
 them. The ministers report to 
 his majesty the most important 
 measures for his sanction. If 
 the emperor approves, he makes 
 marks to this effect upon their 
 reports with a red paint brush 
 known as the vermilion pencil, 
 and the measure becomes a law. 
 In a vast empire like that of 
 China, however, only a very few 
 of the public matters can be 
 submitted to the emperor, and 
 the business of the government 
 is largely left to the officials, 
 many of whom are very corrupt and take a large share 
 of the public moneys for their own use. There are eigh- 
 teen provinces or states in China, each of which has a 
 governor with hundreds of officials under him. Each 
 village has its own officers, and every family is, to a large 
 extent, responsible for the good conduct of the neighbor- 
 hood. If a boy commits a crime, his father, his elder 
 brothers, and his teachers are sometimes punished, as well 
 as himself ; for the Chinese say that if they had taught 
 him properly he would not have broken the laws. 
 
 All cities and villages have jails, and the punishments 
 
 A High Official.
 
 GOVERNMENT AND EDUCATION. 
 
 123 
 
 connected with them are among the most cruel of the 
 world. For small offenses the criminal must wear about 
 his neck a frame of heavy boards called a cangue (kang). 
 The frame is about three feet square, or about the size of 
 the top of an ordinary kitchen table. It is made in pieces 
 so that it can be opened and the man's neck fitted into a 
 hole in the center. The common cangue weighs twenty- 
 five pounds, but there are many so loaded with iron bars 
 that they weigh as much as ninety pounds. 
 
 Now, if you wall imagine your neck fastened through a 
 hole in a kitchen table weighted with iron, you can see 
 how you would be punished if you committed a very small 
 crime in China. You would find that the frame extended 
 out so far beyond your neck that you could not possibly 
 reach your mouth, and you would have to rely upon 
 others to feed you. You could 
 not lie down with such a frame 
 fastened about your neck, and 
 if a fly or a bee happened to 
 light on your nose you could 
 dislodge it only by shaking your 
 head. Upon the top of the 
 cangue, on each side of the hole, 
 are pasted strips of paper de- 
 scribing the crime committed by 
 the wearer, and the people sto)-) 
 and read them as the criminal 
 passes through the streets. 
 
 The worst crimes that can be committed, we find, are 
 those by children against parents. There is no other land 
 where fathers and mothers have so much power. Par- 
 ents have the right to whip their children to death if they 
 will not obey. The punishment for striking a parent in 
 
 "For small offenses-
 
 1 24 CHINA. 
 
 China is death, and if a son kills his father or mother he is 
 condemned to execution by the slow process known by the 
 Chinese as "ling che." The man is tied to a cross and is 
 slowly sliced into pieces. Only a small piece of flesh is 
 taken off at a time, until his eyebrows, the muscles of his 
 arms, the calves of his legs, his cheeks, and other parts 
 of his body have been removed ; and the man dies by 
 inches, as it were, from the numerous cuts. 
 
 The Chinese, however, love their children as much as 
 our parents love us, and it is seldom that any one becomes 
 liable to this terrible punishment. Obedience to parents 
 does not stop when children grow up, but it lasts until the 
 death of the parents. Men and women are often whipped 
 by their fathers and mothers, and a man after he is mar- 
 ried often asks his mother's permission if he wants to go 
 out after dark. I remember an instance which occurred 
 during my stay in Canton some years ago. Mr. How 
 Qua, a Chinese millionaire about forty years old, was 
 asked to dinner by the American consul. He replied, 
 " I think I can come, but I must first ask my mamma." 
 
 You would not suppose that any people could have such 
 barbarous customs as the punishments here described, and 
 still have, in some respects, a high degree of education 
 and civilization. The Chinese, however, are full of con- 
 tradictions. They are as polite to one another as any 
 people of the world. They are fond of books, and they 
 are great philosophers, always talking about virtue and 
 justice. 
 
 The ruling class is made up of the scholars of the 
 empire. Many of the highest officials have been poor 
 boys, and the aim of nearly every schoolboy in China is 
 to learn his lessons so well that he may become an official, 
 for it is through good scholarship that officials are chosen.
 
 A Chinese Girl.
 
 GOVERNMENT AND EDUCATION. 1 35 
 
 The Studies are mostly made up of Chinese history and of 
 the sayings of Confucius and Mencius, two great Chinese 
 scholars who lived centuries ago. The studying consists 
 largely of memorizing the works of the great Chinese 
 scholars, and of writing essays and 
 
 poems on virtue, justice, and govern- ,lf*t$*fi^^^^*$ 
 ment. The boys also learn a little 
 arithmetic, for which they use a 
 framework of buttons on w-ires, 
 
 The Chinese Counting Box. 
 
 much like the Japanese soroban. 
 
 But the Chinese have no other such practical studies as 
 
 we have — as, for instance, chemistry and geology. 
 
 Education is confined to the boys, and few girls ever 
 learn even to read. There are no public schools, and the 
 teachers receive their pay from the pupils. A boy is sent 
 to school at five or six years of age, and on the first day 
 he carries a red visiting card with him. He also takes a 
 present of money to his teacher. He always bows to the 
 teacher when he enters or leaves the room. He studies 
 out loud, and, as we go through the streets of Peking, we 
 shall often hear a noise as though a dozen boys were 
 fighting and howling. If we follow the noise, we shall 
 find that it comes from a school, and that the boys are 
 merely learning their lessons. They sit either on their 
 heels on the floor, or on benches before tables, and they 
 shout out at the tops of their voices the words they are 
 trying to commit. If a boy stops shouting, the teacher 
 thinks he has stopped studying, and gives him a caning. 
 
 Let us see how the reciting is done. The teacher calls 
 a boy to his desk. The boy hands his book to the teacher, 
 and then, turning his back so that there may be no chance 
 of his getting a peep at the book, rattles off his lessons by 
 rote.
 
 126 CHINA. 
 
 The Chinese boy must learn to read and write the 
 Chinese language, and he must commit to memory many 
 thousands of verses during his school life. At about the 
 age of seventeen he is ready to take his first public exami- 
 nation, and he goes to the capital of 
 :K ft^\ [^ ^ flfl "^ ^hc district in which he lives. He 
 ^ '{^L ^ i^^p^f^ finds thousands of other boys there. 
 M^ ^h 0t 3^ 3f ^ The government ofificials are in charge 
 ^llfe 'if^'p^ W ^^ °^ the, examination. At the firing of 
 *^ iM. 3^- ^ '4' ^ 2- cannon the boys go into great halls 
 "l^ ^ *^/ ii^ '^ ^ and sit down at tables to write essays 
 ^1^ ^ W) ftk ^ ^ ^ri^ poems. The examination lasts 
 S^P ^ ^ j^ ^'^ several days, and it is so strict that 
 i^ V\i #''l^ f^. ^^ only about one student in a hundred 
 ^ /T 'f^l^ Jt ^ ^ is ^^'^ t^ pass. After passing this 
 ^ 3\ f ^ l?» ^ iS ^^^^> there is another examination at 
 , ^,. „ , the capital of the province, and the 
 
 Portion of a Chinese Book. ^ '■ 
 
 Students who are successful there 
 have the right to go to Peking to be examined for a still 
 higher rank. 
 
 - The Peking examination halls consist of rows of little 
 brick cells. Each one is about big enough to form a stall 
 for a donkey. It is open in front, but it has neither 
 windows nor doors. The student sits on a board which 
 is set into the wall at about the height of a chair, and 
 he writes on another board above this which serves as a 
 table. Each student carries his own food, candles, paper, 
 and ink into his cell with him, having first been searched 
 by the officials to see that he has no notes concealed in 
 his clothes. He is watched by soldiers all the time he is 
 in the cell, and for three days and nights he writes poems 
 and essays upon subjects which are given out at the time. 
 Those who pass this examination are sure of an office,
 
 GOVERNMENT AND EDUCATION. 
 
 127 
 
 and the boy or man who stands highest is honored all 
 over China. 
 
 At the Peking examinations there are men of all ages. 
 Persons who fail try again and again, and grandfather and 
 grandson often write their essays in neighboring cells. 
 The examination is sometimes so hard that the worry and 
 
 -~^- r .-i~\ 
 
 Exanundtion Halls ai Peking. 
 
 fatigue of sitting up for three days and nights causes 
 death ; and in the walls which surround the examination 
 halls of Peking we may see a hole where the students who 
 die during the tost are dragged out. Not long ago, a 
 bright Chinese boy who had finished his essay grew tired 
 and drojiped off to sloop. Mis candle fell oyer and his 
 papers woro buriKil. \\c was so ilisappointed by the acci- 
 dent that he killed himself in his cell.
 
 128 CHINA. 
 
 XV. THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA. 
 
 A RIDE of three days on donkeys takes us from 
 Peking to the Great Wall of China. The road goes 
 through the mountains, and is therefore too rough for 
 carts. We have learned a lesson from the sleepless nights 
 we passed on our way to Peking, and we carry our own 
 bedding, which we lay on the brick floors of our rooms in 
 the Chinese inns where we stay over night. 
 
 Our donkeys are not much larger than Newfoundland 
 dogs. The saddles are made of a number of blankets 
 piled up on their backs and so strapped that they stand 
 out like flat boards. The stirrups are heavy iron rings 
 tied to the blankets with pieces of rope. The donkeys 
 have bridles, but these have been put on them because 
 we are foreigners. The Chinese seldom use bridles on 
 donkeys, and the average Chinese donkey does not under- 
 stand the use of the bit. He is accustomed to being 
 directed this way or that by a blow on the neck with a 
 club. Each donkey is driven by a boy, who runs at the 
 side or behind, with a stick in his hand. 
 
 In addition to our donkeys we take some mule litters, in 
 which we can ride when we are tired. The mule litter is 
 a sort of a kennel-like box, covered with cloth, and swung 
 between two thick poles, each about thirty feet long. 
 These poles stick out in front and behind, forming two 
 pairs of shafts, in which the mules walk or trot in single 
 file. The shafts are bound to the sides of the mules. 
 The litter is open in front. It is furnished with blankets, 
 and you crawl in and lie down, being jolted by the mules 
 as they carry you over the road. 
 
 It takes us more than an hour to pass through the city
 
 THE GREAT WALL. 
 
 129 
 
 from our hotel to the gates, and outside the walls at the 
 north we find the roads lined for a long distance with mud 
 huts. We cross marble bridges, and soon reach the great 
 highway which goes from China to Mongolia, and over 
 which pass millions of dollars' worth of goods every year. 
 Riding upon it is worse than traveling through newly 
 plowed fields. The feet of thousands of donkeys, and of 
 
 A Mule Litter. 
 
 tens of thousands of camels, and the wheels of hundreds 
 of rude Chinese carts have cut the road up into hollows 
 and ruts. The bed of the road has been worn down so 
 that in many places it is little more than a wide ditch 
 through the fields. We are often turned out of our way 
 by gorges and pools of half-liquid mud, and our animals 
 are often in the mud up to their bellies. We cannot make 
 more than thirty miles a day.
 
 130 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 The road in some places is so narrow that we have to 
 step aside for the caravans of camels, which in single file, 
 with soft, velvety steps, move silently and contemptuously 
 along. Six of these beasts are tied one to another by ropes 
 fastened to sticks thrust through the flesh of their noses. 
 The last camel of each six has about his neck an iron bell 
 as big around as a stovepipe, and about a foot long. This 
 
 " — in single file — " 
 
 keeps up a dingdong as long as he moves, and announces 
 to the Mongolian driver that his six of the caravan are all 
 right. Each camel carries two tea boxes, one strapped on 
 each side of his back. These bob up and down as the 
 great beast, grumbling and whining, goes on his way. As 
 we get further north the camels increase in number. We 
 pass some caravans almost a mile long, and we see them 
 far away on the horizon standing out like a long, moving 
 fence against the blue sky of north China.
 
 THE GREAT WALL. 131 
 
 We soon come to the hills and at last arrive at the Nan- 
 kow Pass, by which the caravans cross the mountains on 
 their way to the north. This pass is the chief line of travel, 
 and for more than ten generations its road has been trod- 
 den by millions. It is one of the roughest roads in the 
 world. On a trip to the Great Wall I once met a foreigner 
 who had attempted to go through with a cart. He was 
 forced to leave this vehicle when he came to the moun- 
 tains, and to hire a camel, which carried the cart through 
 on its back. 
 
 We pick our way in and out among great stones for 
 fifteen miles, stopped now and then by droves of black 
 hogs and flocks of sheep with fat tails. We wind in 
 and out along the bed of one stream after another, until 
 at last, on the hills in the distance, we get our first sight 
 of the Great Chinese Wall. Many times we think we 
 are close to it, when a sharp turn shows that it is still 
 miles away. We can see it cutting its way across the 
 mountains, going from peak to peak, seeming almost to 
 crawl over the hills. We finally come to the gate which 
 leads into Mongolia. Then, going off to the side, we 
 find an inclined plane or roadway by which we can ride 
 on our donkeys up to the top of the wall, and explore 
 this wonderful structure. 
 
 The Great Wall was built by the Chinese as a means of 
 defense against the invasion of the Tartar hordes from the 
 north. It begins at the sea and runs over the mountains 
 clear across the northern boundary of China proper, just 
 south of the vast tributary provinces of Manchuria and 
 Mongolia, until it reaches the Desert of Gobi, north of 
 Tibet. In a straight line it is more than twelve hundred 
 miles long, and with its windings it measures, all told, a dis- 
 tance of about fifteen hundred miles. It is about twentv-five
 
 132 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 feet wide and thirty feet high. It is composed of a mass 
 of stone and earth mixed together and faced with walls of 
 gray or slate-colored brick, the interior being so packed 
 down and filled in that throughout much of its eastern 
 portion it is as solid as stone. 
 
 Near the city of Shanhai-kwan (shan'hl-kwan'), on the 
 edge of the sea, a part of the wall has been thrown down; 
 
 "The Great Wall of China was built right over the mountains." 
 
 and I there found that the brick outer facing -was about 
 three feet in thickness. The bricks were fifteen inches 
 long, seven inches wide, and a little more than three inches 
 thick ; and one which I brought with me back to Amer- 
 ica weighs just twenty-one pounds and five ounces. The 
 top of the Great Wall is paved with such bricks, and 
 along its northern side, throughout its whole length, there
 
 THE GREAT WALL. 1 33 
 
 is a battlement or fortlike wall, behind which the Chinese 
 archers lay and shot at the Tartars. 
 
 Great two- and three-story towers were built at short 
 intervals upon the wall. They are made of bricks similar 
 to those just described. They rise about forty feet above 
 the top of the structure, and they have many portholes, 
 through which you can see for miles over the country. 
 The top of the wall is about ten feet narrower than its 
 base, but is so wide that four horses could be easily ridden 
 abreast along its paved highway. 
 
 The Great Wall is just about as high as a three-story 
 house, and its width is that of the average parlor. Now, 
 if you will imagine a solid line of three-story houses made 
 of bluish-gray bricks, from fifteen to twenty feet wide, 
 built across the United States from the city of New York 
 to Omaha, you will have some idea of the size of the 
 Great Chinese Wall. It would be far easier, however, for 
 us to build such a line of houses than it was for the Chinese 
 to construct their mighty wall. Our line would cross the 
 States of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. It would cut the 
 rolling plains of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, where 
 water is plentiful, where there is much clay, and where the 
 railroads could be used for carrying the materials. 
 
 The Great Wall of China was built right over the moun- 
 tains. It climbs the steepest of crags, and in one place 
 it goes over a peak which is more than five thousand feet 
 high. In some parts, there is no clay within thirty miles 
 of it. The bricks were all made by hand, and many of the 
 hills which the wall crosses are so steep that it is said 
 that the Chinese had to tie the bricks to the backs of 
 sheep and goats in order to get them to the builders. 
 There arc few cattle or horses in China, and every foot 
 of this wall was made without the aid of machinery.
 
 1 34 CHINA. 
 
 The Chinese historians say that it took an army of three 
 hundred thousand men to protect the builders, and millions 
 of people must have been employed upon it. They state 
 that this vast work was begun and completed in the short 
 space of ten years, and, as we consider it, we are more and 
 more astonished at its construction and size. It is now in 
 ruins throughout some parts of its length, and the portions 
 nearest the western end, it is said, have almost crumbled 
 to dust. 
 
 The wall has been repaired several times, but much of 
 the structure is supposed to be almost the same to-day 
 as when it was built. No one can stand upon it and not 
 be impressed with the past greatness of the Chinese nation. 
 It was built seventeen hundred years before America was 
 discovered, when Rome was still a republic, and more 
 than two hundred years before Christ was born. The 
 Chinese must have had at that time a high degree of 
 civilization in order to possess such a mighty army and 
 be able to unite their people in such a work. 
 
 XVI. CHINESE BOATS AND THE BOAT 
 PEOPLE. 
 
 WE leave Peking and travel for days, going south 
 through the Great Plain to the Yangtze Kiang 
 or Yangtze River. We are on the Grand Canal, which 
 was built by the Chinese centuries ago as one of the 
 trade routes of the empire. It runs from Tientsin six 
 hundred and fifty miles southward, crossing and joining 
 many large streams, and cutting its way through the most 
 thickly populated plain on the globe. At short intervals
 
 BOATS AND BOAT PEOPLE. 1 35 
 
 along its course we find walled cities. We pass many 
 towns ; and the clumps of trees which we sec scattered 
 everywhere over the landscape, each marking the site of 
 a little farm settlement, show us the truth of the state- 
 ment that China is a country of thousands of villages. 
 
 The Grand Canal varies in width at different points 
 along its course. In some parts it has followed the beds 
 of rivers, and winds in and out, going for many miles 
 without a lock. Here and there between the Hoang Ho 
 and the Yangtze Kiang, where the land is low, the canal 
 is built upon a raised work of earth kept together by walls 
 of stone. Some portions of this embankment are twenty 
 feet high, and the stream which flows upon it is at some 
 points two hundred feet wide. In most places, however, 
 the canal is fast going to ruin. 
 
 In sailing through the canal we cross the Hoang Ho or 
 Yellow River, which, although more than twenty-five hun- 
 dred miles long, is navigable for only small boats. We go 
 on further south until wc find ourselves in that mighty 
 stream known as the Yangtze Kiang. Here we take a 
 Chinese steamer, and, in company with many native pas- 
 sengers, sail up the river. The Yangtze is more than three 
 thousand miles long, and large ocean steamers can pass 
 up its course for more than seven hundred miles. Many 
 streams flow into it, and we see the masts and sails of 
 boats moving rapidly through these across the green fields. 
 
 From our steamer we sec dikes in every direction. 
 There are provinces in China which are cut up by canals 
 much like Holland. There are vast territories where 
 almost every man's house can be visited by boat, and as 
 we go on in our travels we shall find that the greater part 
 of China may be reached by navigable streams and canals, 
 and that these form the highways of the empire. 
 
 CAKl". ASIA — 9
 
 136 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 Many of the great cities are built upon the banks of the 
 rivers, and there are vast manufacturing centers every few 
 miles. Each city is different from the others. Some, like 
 Hankow, far in the interior on the Yangtze Kiang, have 
 dirty paved streets, so narrow that we have to crowd 
 against the walls to let the wheelbarrows go by. Others, 
 such as Nankin, which is also on the Yangtze, but nearer 
 
 ^^Wfy^J—^^^i '^.£=r=k\ 
 
 we see forests of masts - 
 
 the sea, have streets as wide as those we saw in Peking. 
 In Canton, on the Pearl River, we find a great business 
 city containing more than a million people, and in Shang- 
 hai, not far from the coast, the native city is connected 
 with a large foreign settlement of many English, French, 
 and German homes. 
 
 We can get some idea of the trade of the country by a 
 look at its shipping. China is said to have more boats 
 than all the rest of the world put together. At the walled
 
 BOATS AND BOAT TEOPLE. 
 
 137 
 
 cities which arc built here and there upon the Yangtze 
 River, we see forests of masts belonging to boats of all 
 sizes, descriptions, and shapes. There are large Chinese 
 junks with wide-spreading sails ribbed with bamboo, and 
 there are small fishing boats, the sails of which are shaped 
 like the wings of a bat, catching every breath of air as 
 they dash along. There are barges loaded with all kinds 
 of merchandise, and little canoes sculled by men standing 
 up in their sterns. There are boats shaped just like a 
 
 " They are used as dispatch boats 
 
 slipper, and not much bigger than an Indian canoe. They 
 are used as dispatch boats and can be made to go very 
 fast. We find boats with jiackllc wheels at the sides turned 
 by men who labor inside them, a half-dozen coolies doing 
 the work of the common gas engine. There are boats 
 owned by beggars which sail through the canals from 
 one town to another, and lie at anchor while their owners 
 go on shore and ask alms from the people. And there 
 are boats filled with lepers, whom we gladly pav well to 
 keep out of our way. 
 
 The Chinese rivers are sometimes infested by pirates
 
 138 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 A Beggars' Boat. 
 
 who attack private boats; and during our ride up the 
 Yangtze we see long boats and ships cut in halves and 
 placed on end at the edge of a village or city. The 
 owners were thieves or pirates, and the boats mark the 
 places where the criminals have been beheaded. Their 
 boats have been cut up in this way and put there as 
 warnings to others. There are also vessels belonging to 
 the river police, and customs boats whose sole business 
 it is to collect taxes on all kinds of shipping which go 
 up the rivers. 
 
 Each locality in China has boats of its own kind, the 
 only thing common to all being the eyes which are painted 
 on the sides of the prows. The Chinese seem to think 
 that these eyes are necessary to good sailing, and that
 
 BOATS AND BOAT PEOPLE. 1 39 
 
 by them the boats see their way through the waters. The 
 small boats have small eyes. The cargo boats have bigger 
 eyes, and on some of the ships the eyes are as large and 
 as round as a soup plate. I remember that once during 
 a trip on the Pei Ho I happened to hang my feet over 
 one of the eyes of the boat, and the captain rushed franti- 
 cally to me and begged me to move. He said, in the 
 peculiar English that the Chinese use in their talk with 
 foreigners : 
 
 " Boat must have eye. No have eye, no can see ; no 
 can see, no can go." 
 
 This eye superstition, indeed, is held to such an extent 
 that when the Chinese built their first railroad locomotive 
 the workmen argued that it ought to have an eye painted 
 on each side of the smokestack, in order to see its way 
 along the track. 
 
 Most of the Chinese boats carry numerous people, and 
 millions of Chinamen are born, live, and die upon the 
 water. The boats are the homes of the sailors. On the 
 Pearl River in south China, at the city of Canton, there 
 are said to be three hundred thousand people living upon 
 boats, and we shall find many families whose homes are 
 boats not more than twenty feet long. On some of the 
 larger boats the children fairly swarm, and we shall see 
 little ones of three or four years playing about their 
 decks. Many of the boys have little round barrels, 
 about a foot long and six inches thick, tied to their backs. 
 These barrels are life preservers ; if a child falls over- 
 board the barrel will keep him afloat until his mother or 
 father can pull him into the boat. 
 
 We are surprised to see that the little girls of the boat 
 families have, in many cases, no barrels upon their backs ; 
 and on asking the reason whv, we are told that some of
 
 I40 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 the poorer people consider it a piece of good fortune if 
 their girl babies are drowned, as in this way they are 
 saved the expense of bringing them up. I doubt whether 
 this opinion is general, however ; though nowhere in China 
 are girls so much prized as boys. This is especially so 
 among the boat people. I once visited a place just off 
 the river at Shanghai, where there are perhaps five hun- 
 
 
 -at the city of Canton 
 
 dred Chinese babies being brought up by Christian mis- 
 sionaries. One of the ladies in charge told me that she 
 could buy girl babies for from one cent to one dollar each, 
 and she said that they sometimes bought babies, paying 
 their mothers twenty cents apiece for them. 
 
 Among the queer boats we sec on the Pearl River are 
 those devoted to the raising of geese and ducks. The 
 Chinese are, perhaps, the best fowl raisers of the world.
 
 BOxVrs AND BOAT I'EOrLi;. 141 
 
 They hatch thousands of goose and duck eggs by keeping 
 them in baskets of chaff in rooms heated with charcoal to 
 a temperature equal to that which they would have if the 
 fowls were sitting upon them. When the little goslings 
 and ducklings come out of their shells, they are penned 
 up for five days in places where they will not be disturbed 
 by noise. They are fed at first upon rice water. After 
 this they are given boiled rice, and at the end of two 
 weeks they are taken out of the coop, put on these boats, 
 and made to shift for themselves. 
 
 The boats are very clumsy and somewhat like rafts, with 
 cooplike platforms at the side, in which the fowls stay, a 
 single boat often holding as many as a thousand ducks. 
 The owner of the boat rows it up and down the creeks till 
 he comes to a low, swampy place. He then opens the 
 fence which forms one side of the coop, a board is thrown 
 off to the bank, and the ducks run out and pick up the 
 worms and snails which they find in the mud. After they 
 have fed for two or three hours the duck captain makes 
 a peculiar call with his mouth, and the ducks are so trained 
 that they obey his voice and return to the boat. Thev 
 come very quickly, too, for the last duck ahvavs gets a 
 blow with a stick. When the ducks are grown up, the 
 captain carries them for sale from one market to another 
 in his boat. There arc fowl markets in all of the cities, 
 and in Canton thousands of geese and ducks are sold 
 every day. 
 
 In our travels through China we pass manv jilaces 
 where the people are making porcelain and pottery. In 
 some parts of the empire there is a smooth white clay 
 which is used for fine china. The word china, indeed, 
 comes from the beautiful work of the Chinese. Accord- 
 ing to their belief, they were the inventors of porcelain
 
 142 CHINA. 
 
 ware, and their histories state that they had china as far 
 back as seventeen hundred years before Christ. There 
 are now in existence beautiful china cups and vases which 
 it is known were made centuries ago. 
 
 The fine clay of which the best china is manufactured 
 is found in beds. It is dug out with pickaxes and carried 
 by men on their backs to mills, where it is crushed and all 
 the stones and sand are washed out of it. After this the 
 clay is worked by men or by buffaloes who walk through 
 it, mixing it with their feet ; and it is then handed over 
 to the potter. The potter molds cups, plates, saucers, 
 vases, and other vessels from it with his hands, using 
 the potter's wheel to aid him. 
 
 After the vessels are shaped they are put in the sun to 
 dry and harden. Then they are glazed by dipping them 
 into a mixture of varnish and water. 
 
 The next process is firing or baking the china. This is 
 done in ovens which use wood as fuel. After an oven is 
 filled with china, its doorway is closed by brickwork in 
 order that currents of air may not affect the heat. There 
 is only a moderate fire at first, but this is gradually increased 
 until the pieces of china come to a white heat. The fire 
 is kept at this point for three days, after which, time the 
 china is supposed to be thoroughly baked, and the fire is 
 allowed to go out. 
 
 The oven, however, is not opened until twenty-four 
 hours after this, for fear that the cold air rushing in upon 
 the white china might make it crack. The oven cools 
 slowly, and even a day after the fire is out it is still so hot 
 that the persons who remove the vessels have to cover 
 their hands with thick gloves, and their heads and shoul- 
 ders with wet blankets. 
 
 As soon as the china is cooled it is given over to the
 
 FARMS AND FARMING, I43 
 
 painters. Often a dozen painters will work on one piece 
 before it is finished. One artist sketches the design, 
 another may paint the trees and flowers, a third may do 
 nothing but put on the butterflies, and others may be 
 specialists at painting birds or human figures or build- 
 ings. After the china has been decorated, it must again 
 be fired to fix the colors. This is done in circular ovens, 
 at the bottom of which are charcoal fires. 
 
 o>«<c 
 
 XVII. CHINESE FARMS AND FARMING. 
 
 IN our travels through interior China wc find the farmers 
 everywhere at work irrigating their lands. The Chinese 
 rivers bring down from the mountains vast quantities of 
 fertilizing materials. The waters of the Yangtze Kiang 
 and the Hoang Ho arc yellow from the mud which they 
 are carrying down to the sea, and in coming to China 
 by water you see that the blue Pacific Ocean has been 
 turned by these rivers to a light brown for thirty miles on 
 each side of their mouths. The water of the Yangtze 
 Kiang is almost as thick as pea soup. It makes the soil 
 over which it is spread very rich. We see hundreds of 
 men standing in pairs, here and there along the banks, 
 scooping the thick fluid up in water-tight baskets to which 
 ropes are attached, in order to raise it to a higher level 
 and allow it to flow over the fields. 
 
 We see curious irrigating machines worked by cattle 
 and by men. One kind has a rude horizontal wheel which 
 by means of cogs turns a smaller, upright wheel, and 
 with it a sort of a chain pump. As the wheels turn, the 
 pump raises the water and empties it into a trough, from
 
 144 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 which it flows out over the fields. A water buffalo — an 
 odd farm animal of which we learn more farther along 
 in this chapter — drags the first wheel around, and thus 
 forms the motive power. Other machines are worked by 
 men who walk up the outside of a wheel-like framework, 
 stepping always upward ; their weight keeps the wheel 
 
 'A water buffalo drags the first wheel around - " 
 
 moving, and thus raises the water. When we reflect that 
 there are not only hundreds, but tens of thousands of men 
 and animals engaged in such work, we see that a great 
 deal of irrigation is carried on in China. 
 
 The Chinese are a nation of farmers. Their farms are 
 everywhere very small, few being more than two acres in 
 size ; but they are so well tilled that one acre, it is esti- 
 mated, can produce enough food for six persons. The
 
 FARMS AND FARMING. 
 
 145 
 
 farmers save everything for manure. Potato peelings, the 
 hair cut from the heads of the family, the earth from 
 the beds of canals, and the remains of old houses, as well 
 as all other kinds of fertilizing material, are kept for the 
 fields. We see small boys and girls raking up straw and 
 pulling up stubble for use as manure or fuel. 
 
 Almost every kind of farm labor is done by hand. 
 There are but few cattle, though in central and south 
 
 Sicppinj always upv,ArJ 
 
 China the ugly beasts known as water buffalo are to be 
 seen everywhere. These animals are somewhat like cows. 
 They have flat horns which extend almost horizontally 
 backward from just over the eyes. Their bodies are 
 covered with a thin growth of black hair which stands out 
 more like the bristles of a pig than the short hair of a cow. 
 They are used for heavy work, such as irrigating, grind- 
 ing meal, tramping out grain in tiircshing, and plowing.
 
 146 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 " — grinding meal — " 
 
 The plowing, however, is also done with other animals, 
 and in some places we may see men and boys hitched to 
 the plow. On the farms of north China donkeys are 
 sometimes used for this purpose. In a field near Peking 
 I once saw a man and a donkey pulling away side by 
 side, the sweat rolling down the man's face as he tried 
 to do as much work as the donkey. 
 
 Sometimes men alone pull the plows. I remember 
 how I photographed a Chinese father who was plowing 
 with his two sons and a daughter, whom he had harnessed 
 up like horses. He was pushing hard down upon the 
 handles of the plow, and the children were straining with 
 all their might to pull it through the furrow. When the
 
 FARMS AND FARMING. 1 47 
 
 man saw that his picture was being taken, he became 
 very angry ; for many of the Chinese beheve that photog- 
 raphy is a magic art, and that the photographer can, by 
 willing, compel the per- 
 son whose picture he 
 has taken to come to 
 him, and can cause him |c'^*'^^-^''5^.-^^' -v j - aS.^^****^ 
 
 out even soing; near . tr^.Q,. v^?L- *-i^ 
 
 all kinds of trouble with- " "'^'"^^71-..^:^^^^""*^^ 
 
 im. 1 his plowman .-^-■. ^^r^^^i^u ■,- >^:-.sS''>f***^ 
 
 n 
 
 w-' 
 
 ->f:^- 
 
 ,,.*cc:"J' 
 
 clearly believed that I 
 
 ... . . " — harnessed up like horses." 
 
 was dealmg m magic, 
 
 and he tried to seize my camera to break it. I jerked it 
 from him and rushed for my donkey. He followed, but 
 my Chinese servant came to my aid and held him until I 
 was able to mount and make my escape. 
 
 The crops raised by the Chinese are of every kind and 
 description. Much rice and tobacco are grown in cen- 
 tral and south China, and we find wheat, barley, and other 
 hardy grains in the north. The best tea comes from 
 south of the Yangtze Kiang. In the city of Hankow, 
 which is situated 011 the Yangtze about seven hundred 
 miles from the seacoast, we find one of the great centers 
 of the tea trade. 
 
 The fastest of ocean steamers are sent by the great tea 
 importers of Europe to Hankow. The first of the crop is 
 considered the best, and the steamers after loading run a 
 race down the Yangtze, and through the Pacific, the Straits 
 of Malacca, the Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal, and the 
 Mediterranean, each trying to reach the great ports of 
 Europe ahead of all others. The ship that wins the 
 race gets the highest price for its cargo, as the new tea 
 is greatly desired.
 
 148 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 At Hankow we find vast factories in which Chinese 
 girls are picking over tea. Their feet, which are about as 
 big as your fist, are half covered with the leaves of the 
 second-grade tea which they have thrown into the baskets 
 below them. They are rapidly handling the leaves, sort- 
 
 " - picking over tea." 
 
 ing over the bits of tiny green on the tables before them. 
 The tea is fired and prepared for the market in much the 
 same manner as we saw in Japan. It is then packed in lead- 
 lined boxes, and we see half-naked coolies pressing it down 
 into these chests with their bare feet. 
 
 Another great tea center is the city of Fuchau (Foo-chow). 
 Round about it there are tea districts so large that forty
 
 FARMS AND FARMING. 
 
 149 
 
 thousand men and women arc employed as pack animals 
 to carry the tea to the city. Their wages are less than ten 
 cents a day, and it costs, it is said, about two cents a pound 
 to pick the tea. 
 
 At Hankow much brick tea is made. The leaves are 
 ground up and steamed until they are mushy and soft. 
 They are then put into molds about the size of a brick, 
 
 It is then packed 
 
 and are pressed into shape. When they come out, they 
 are as hard as so much pressed clay. The finer varieties 
 of tea are molded into small bricks of just the same color, 
 and about the same size, as the little cakes of sweet choco- 
 late which are sold in our grocery stores. The brick tea is 
 packed up in boxes of such shapes and sizes that they can 
 be carried on camels into Mongolia, or on the backs of 
 men over the mountains to Tibet. Brick tea is used in
 
 I50 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 these countries both as drink and food, being cooked up 
 with fats, as we shall learn in Tibet, into a kind of tea 
 soup. The Mongols often use such tea as money, each 
 brick being worth about fifteen cents. 
 
 Almost everywhere we go in south China we shall see 
 men and women reeling and weaving silk. At Nankin 
 
 " -weaving silk." 
 
 we visit the looms where the satin dresses are woven for 
 the emperor. The machinery is very rude. Men and 
 women twist the thread with their hands, in the open air, 
 and the looms from which beautiful silks and velvets are 
 turned out are operated altogether by hand. 
 But where do the Chinese get the silk thread } 
 It comes from the cocoons of the silkworms, which feed
 
 FARMS AND !■ ARMING. I5I 
 
 on the leaves of the mulberry tree. The worm spins the 
 cocoon or shell of silk about him, and after a time, if not 
 killed in order that its cocoon may be used for silk, it 
 comes out a moth. There are large districts in China in 
 which silkworms are raised, and the people think them 
 so important that even the ladies of the emperor's court 
 have silkworm nurseries. The empress herself, as a good 
 example to the women of China, on a certain day collects 
 some of the mulberry leaves, cutting them from the trees 
 with her golden scissors, and takes them in to feed her 
 silkworms. 
 
 But let us visit some of the silk-raising districts. We 
 find that the care of the worms is by no means an easy 
 task. The worms come from eggs which are laid by the 
 female silk moths upon sheets of coarse paper ; a single 
 moth often lays as many as five hundred. 
 
 The eggs are about the size of a mustard seed, and are 
 of a pale ash color. They are kept in a clean, cool place 
 until the time comes for hatching, when they are put into 
 a well-warmed room, the paper containing the eggs being 
 laid on mats spread over shelves of bamboo wood. The 
 temperature of the room is tested, not by a thermometer, 
 but by a man who now and then strips off his clothes 
 and comes in naked, l^y the feeling of the air upon his 
 skin he can tell whether the room is cold or damp, and 
 if so he heats it with stoves. 
 
 The eggs hatch within a very few days, each egg pro- 
 ducing a little black worm as fine as a hair. Mulberry 
 leaves cut up into very small pieces are now fed to the 
 worms. For the first few days they get such food every 
 half hour, day and night. As they grow older they are 
 fed once an hour, and when they have reached their full 
 growth they eat only three or four meals a day. 
 
 CAKl". AS1.\ 10
 
 152 CHINA. 
 
 During its growth the worm takes a sleep every four or 
 five days, and about the twenty-second day it has its last 
 or great sleep. At this time it lifts up the fore part of its 
 body and rests in that position. During each sleep it 
 casts its skin, continuing the sleep until a new and larger 
 skin is fully matured. 
 
 When the silkworm has reached the age of thirty-two 
 days it is full-grown. It is now the color of amber, and 
 is about two inches long and about as large round as a 
 man's little finger. It is at last ready for the work for 
 which it was created ' It takes no more food, and begins 
 to spin the silk from its mouth, fastening the fine thread 
 to a frame upon which it has been placed. It moves its 
 head from one side to the other as it spins, continuing the 
 operation until its whole body has been enveloped in a 
 cocoon. 
 
 The spinning requires from two to five days, and when 
 it has finished its little silk house the worm again falls 
 asleep. The boards upon which it lies with its sister 
 cocoons are now carried to a slow fire of charcoal or wood, 
 and the sleeping worms are destroyed by the heat. After 
 this the cocoons are put into boiling water, and women 
 and girls unwind the silk. The fine threads are reeled 
 and twisted together until they become large enough for 
 weaving the beautiful silks and satins which are used by 
 the Chinese, and some of which are sent to America. 
 
 In our travels through China we also pass many thickets 
 of bamboo. We see plantations in which the bamboo is 
 cultivated, and we learn that it is one of the most valu- 
 able plants known to man. In some Chinese cities there 
 are whole streets where there is scarcely anything but 
 bamboo sold, and during our tour through the southern 
 Asiatic countries we shall see it in use everywhere.
 
 FARMS AND FARMING. 
 
 153 
 
 The bamboo is a treelike plant, which in China, Japan, 
 and India often grows to the height of from forty to 
 eighty feet. It has a hollow stem with joints at regular 
 intervals upon it. You have seen cane fishing rods. The 
 best of these are of bamboo cane. Now, if you will 
 imagine fishing rods of all sizes and lengths, from some 
 as thick as your little finger to others that are as large 
 around as your leg, and 
 as tall as a six-story 
 house, you can get some 
 idea of the bamboo 
 plants of south Asia. 
 These plants have long, 
 feathery leaves. Their 
 stems are green, and 
 they do not, as a rule, 
 turn yellow until they 
 are cut or have become 
 dead. 
 
 The bamboo is used 
 for many things. Its 
 roots, and the shoots 
 which come up in the 
 spring, are cooked and 
 served somewhat like 
 asparagus, and the seeds are ground up and used for food. 
 The roofs and walls of the houses in many parts of China 
 are made of bamboo, and there is scarcely an article of 
 Chinese furniture of which this wood is not a part. It 
 is used for making chairs and beds. Its splints are woven 
 up into mats and baskets. The most of the umbrellas in 
 Japan and China have bamboo handles and ribs, the 
 framework being covered with oiled paper; and our paper 
 
 — we also pass many thickets cf b-ir
 
 154 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 lanterns which come from Japan are kept in shape by 
 the little ribs of bamboo splints which run around them. 
 
 The Chinese make hats of bamboo, splitting up the 
 wood, weaving it together, and covering it with paper. 
 The blind beggar's stick is a bamboo cane. The washer 
 woman's clothesline is a long bamboo pole, which, raised 
 upon supports, holds the newly washed garments high 
 from the ground. Many of the pens and brushes used in 
 China are of bamboo, and some of the paper upon which 
 the Chinese write is made of bamboo wood which has 
 been soaked and reduced to a pulp. 
 
 XVIII. CURIOUS CHINESE CUSTOMS. 
 
 IN this, our last day among the Chinese, let us consider 
 some of the things in which they differ from us. We 
 call them heathen. They look upon us as little better than 
 savages. They think we are very impolite, and pity us 
 because we do not dress, act, and live as they do. 
 
 When two Americans 
 
 meet they clasp hands. 
 
 When two Chinese 
 
 friends come together 
 
 they shake their own fists 
 
 at each other, and if they 
 
 are going in the same 
 
 direction they walk off 
 
 in single file like geese. 
 
 ^°"^ ^^"s- We cut our finger nails 
 
 short. The Chinese let theirs grow long, and long nails 
 
 are with them the sign of a lady or gentleman. All those 
 
 who do not work with their hands are proud of their nails,
 
 CURIOUS CUSTOMS. 
 
 155 
 
 and the scholars, officials, doctors, and other professional 
 men often have nails from one to six inches long. Ladies 
 sometimes have silver shields which they put over their 
 nails to prevent them 
 from breaking. I met a 
 Chinese merchant in 
 Canton who could rest 
 the palm of his hand up- 
 on his chin and scratch 
 the back of his neck 
 with his nails. 
 
 The Chinese do not 
 kiss. They seldom em- 
 brace, and in bowing to 
 one another they bend 
 down almost to the 
 ground. We take our 
 hats off when we enter 
 a house. The Chinese 
 gentleman keeps his hat 
 on. We ask first after 
 the wives and daughters 
 of our friends. The Chi- 
 nese would consider such 
 questions an insult, and 
 the girls of the family 
 remain out of the room when 
 fathers or brothers. 
 
 The Chinese girls are not courted. Marriages are made 
 by parents through professional matchmakers, and a hus- 
 band seldom sees his wife until he is wedded. The wife 
 is the slave of her mother-in-law, who has the right to 
 whip her if she does not obey. 
 
 A Chinaman in Full Dress. 
 
 Lrentlenien call on their
 
 156 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 In China the men wear the finest embroidery, and the 
 high officials have their hats decorated with feathers and 
 wear strings of beads around their necks. The men often 
 wear bracelets, and gentlemen are fond of long stockings, 
 while their wives go about in short socks. The Chinese 
 women often wear pantaloons, above which there is a sack 
 coming halfway down to the knees. The men in full dress 
 wear gowns which reach from their necks to their feet. 
 
 "The Chinese women are proud of small feet — " 
 
 Some of our women have the bad habit of squeezing 
 their waists by lacing, and some Americans consider a 
 small waist a mark of beauty. The Chinese women are 
 proud of small feet, and they bind the heel down into the 
 foot by tying the four small toes under it, so that their 
 feet are much like the ends of clubs. The binding often
 
 Chinese Women.
 
 CURIOUS CUSTOMS. I 57 
 
 begins when the girls arc three years of age. The band- 
 ages are kept on from that time until death, except when 
 they are removed for washing the feet. The compression 
 causes terrible pain, and the bandage is sometimes so 
 tight that the foot breaks in two at the instep, the bones 
 coming through the flesh. 
 
 We wear black when we go into mourning. The 
 Chinese at such times wear white ; and they send out 
 mourning cards which are printed on white paper, though 
 ordinarily the color of their visiting cards is the brightest 
 red. After the time of mourning has half passed away 
 they send out other cards, upon which is printed " Grief 
 is not so bitter as before." They put on a garb of light 
 blue for half mourning, and when the days of their 
 mourning are ended they give a feast to their friends. 
 
 The Chinese army officials wear buttons on their caps, 
 instead of epaulets on their shoulders, to indicate their 
 rank. The Chinese begin their books at the back instead 
 of the front ; and in dating their letters they put the year 
 first, then the month, and then the day. 
 
 They have many queer kinds of food. They boil their 
 bread instead of baking it, and in north China we meet 
 many cook peddlers who are selling boiled biscuits. The 
 Chinese are fond of an expensive soup made of birds' 
 nests. They eat eggs, but never serve them soft-boiled. 
 They pickle their eggs in lime, and the older such eggs 
 are, the better they like them. They never drink cold 
 water, and their wine is served boiling hot. 
 
 The Chinese have theaters, but the performances are 
 carried on during the daytime ; and instead of lemonade 
 and peanuts, they have themselves served with watermelon 
 and pumpkin seeds, at which they nibble while the acting 
 eroes on.
 
 158 
 
 CHINA. 
 
 They seldom wash the whole body, and it is said that 
 many Chinamen receive only two baths while on earth, 
 one at birth and the other when prepared for the cofifin. 
 They do not wash their hands before dinner, but a servant 
 
 brings a hot, wet cloth 
 to the guests at the 
 table, and they rub off 
 their hands and faces 
 with this, passing it 
 from one to jyiother. 
 "-are usually of cloth." ^^^ Chinese Cat from 
 
 tables as we do, but they use chopsticks and not forks to 
 convey the food to their mouths. The food is served in 
 small porcelain bowls, the meats being cut into little cubes, 
 and the tea is served in cups with the saucers on top. 
 A Chinese gentleman's shoes are usually 
 of cloth. Ours are of leather, and we 
 black them all over; but he whitens only 
 the sides of the soles. 
 
 The Chinese baby has no cradle. The 
 little one is strapped to the back of its 
 mother, or that of a servant, and if the 
 mother is a working woman she goes 
 about her business with the baby tied to 
 her back. When the baby begins to 
 walk it is given a pair of knit shoes 
 with a cat's face on the toes, this being 
 supposed to render it as sure-footed as 
 a cat. The Chinese boys fly kites, but 
 the best kites in China are owned by grown-up men, who 
 enjoy them as much as the boys do. 
 
 The Chinese are great gamblers. Cockfighting and 
 quailfighting are common, and in some of the cities we 
 
 -tied to her back.'
 
 CURIOUS CUSTOMS. 
 
 159 
 
 see men kneeling down on the streets about little bowls 
 in which fighting crickets are placed. The little insects are 
 urged on to fight by being tickled with straws, and they 
 fight until they are dead. A good fighting cricket is valua- 
 ble, high bets being made upon the results of such contests. 
 
 One of the most striking features of China noticed dur- 
 ing our tour is the terrible poverty of the lower classes of 
 the people. The beggars 
 exist everywhere in large 
 numbers. Children are 
 sometimes stolen and 
 made blind in order that 
 they may beg more suc- 
 cessfully. The beggars 
 of each city have unions 
 or clubs, to which they 
 all belong. They divide 
 the city into sections, 
 each member having his 
 own street or block. 
 
 These beggars will un- 
 dergo any pain in order 
 to excite pity. I saw at 
 Shanghai a half-naked 
 man, whose clothes con- 
 sisted of a strij) of coffee sacking wrapped about his hips. 
 He sat on the stones with the two raw stumps of his legs 
 stretched out before him ; and his feet, which he had cut 
 off to e.xcite ])ity, were lying by his side. There is a Peking 
 priest who goes about begging with an iron skewer thrust 
 through his cheek. He twists this now and then so as to 
 keep the hole ragged and sore, and he pounds upon a gong 
 as he pushes his bloody face into yours and asks for alms. 
 
 thrust through his cheek."
 
 l6o CHINA. 
 
 The Chinese can live more cheaply, perhaps, than any 
 other people of the world, and we are surprised at the 
 saving which we see everywhere. Nothing goes to waste. 
 The straw and the weeds, and even the leaves of the trees, 
 are gathered for fuel. Clothing, rather than fire, is used 
 to keep out the cold ; and fuel costs so much that the 
 poor man never builds a fire if he can help it. A large 
 part of his diet is rice, which is cooked in quantities and 
 rewarmed for breakfast by pouring hot water over it. 
 The hot water used at such times and for tea is often 
 bought from hot-water peddlers. You can get a bucket 
 of water for one tenth of a cent, and in Shanghai there 
 is one hot-water store for every twenty families. 
 
 At the restaurants the tea grounds are all saved, and 
 nothing about the cookshops goes to waste. Even the 
 water in which potatoes and other vegetables are boiled 
 is saved and sold for feeding hogs, and the bones are cut 
 from meat before it is sold, in order that they may be used 
 for the making of chopsticks. 
 
 There are public cookshops and soup houses kept by 
 charity in some Chinese cities during the winter, but as 
 soon as spring comes these are shut up, and the poor, as 
 we say of the horses, are turned out to grass ; for they 
 have to live on the weeds and the greens. The necessi- 
 ties of the Chinese are, in fact, so few that a poor man can 
 buy enough food to keep him alive for two cents a day, 
 and upon four dollars a month a man can support a family 
 and put something away for his funeral. 
 
 There is no land in the world where labor is so well 
 organized as in China. The workmen and the government 
 have been anxious to keep new inventions out of the coun- 
 try. The Chinese officials are afraid to introduce railroads 
 rapidly for fear of the anger of the wheelbarrow pushers,
 
 CURIOUS CUSTOMS. 
 
 i6i 
 
 cart drivers, and boatmen. The opposition of these men 
 is so great that in 1896 China had only one railroad, 
 about two hundred miles long. 
 
 We find, however, that the Chinese are skillful in han- 
 dling machinery. They have lately established large gun 
 works for constructing all kinds of cannon, and are 
 making Winchester rifles as good as our own. They are 
 building their own railroad cars, and I saw a locomotive 
 made in their gun works at Shanghai which was as good 
 as those used in our country. They will in the future 
 probably build more railroads. They may become one 
 of the greatest manufacturing nations of the world, and, 
 with their cheap labor, may at some time make all kinds 
 of ffoods for the world's markets. 
 
 Chinese Boys.
 
 l62 
 
 SIAM. 
 
 XIX. SIAM AND THE SIAMESE. 
 
 AT Hongkong we take a steamship that will carry us to 
 Bangkok, the capital of Siam. Hongkong is a little, 
 mountainous island lying off the southern coast of China 
 at the mouth of the Pearl River. It belongs to Great 
 Britain, having been given up by the Chinese to the Brit- 
 ish in 1 84 1, just after a great war which occurred at that 
 time between the two nations. Hongkong is so near 
 
 
 A Chinese Passenger Chair in Hongkong. 
 
 China that you could row in a small boat in ten minutes 
 from one point on its coast to the mainland. You could 
 walk from one end of the island of Hongkong to the other 
 in half a day, for it is only about eleven miles long. Its 
 width ranges from two to three miles, and it is almost 
 entirely made up of rocks. 
 
 You would not think such an island worth having, but 
 it is, indeed, one of the most valuable pieces of land in the 
 world. Its bare, bleak hills, which are from, two to four 
 thousand feet high, surround a beautiful harbor which is 
 visited every year by more than sixty thousand ships and
 
 LAND AND PEOPLE. 
 
 163 
 
 junks, making Hongkong one of the great ports of the 
 world. We find at the wharves ships from India, Aus- 
 tralia, Siam, and Java, and from all parts of Europe. 
 Many steamers which cross the Pacific from America also 
 end their voyages here. 
 
 The city of Hongkong is known as Victoria. It lies on 
 the banks of this wonderful harbor, its houses covering the 
 sides of hills so steep that, in going from one part of the 
 city to another, we are carried up in chairs swung between 
 poles which rest on the shoulders of half-naked Chinamen. 
 
 We find thousands of Chinese doing business in Victoria. 
 There are about two hundred thousand of them in the city, 
 though it is governed by officers sent out 
 from Great Britain. We see red-coated 
 British soldiers everywhere. The police- 
 men arc tall, black-faced, black-bearded 
 East Indians who wear turbans of the 
 brightest red, and who dress in long coats 
 and pantaloons. These men are Sikhs 
 from the British army in India. 
 
 In sailing from Hongkong to Bangkok, 
 we skirt the eastern coast of the great 
 peninsula known as Indo-China or Far- 
 ther India (see map on p. 202). Indo- 
 China has an area about one fourth that 
 of the United States. It has much good 
 soil. Its mountains contain mines of 
 gold, silver, iron, and tin, and in its west- 
 ern part, in Burma, are found some of 
 the most beautiful rubies of the world. 
 Indo-China, however, is to a large ex- 
 tent a tropical jungle, in which wild ele- 
 phants and tigers roam, and through sikh soidier.
 
 1 64 SI AM. 
 
 which crawl many kinds of venomous snakes. The coun- 
 try is inhabited by curious peoples, and we find that it is 
 naturally divided into four great sections. 
 
 The eastern provinces are controlled almost altogether by 
 the French, and are taken up by the Tonquinese, Anamese, 
 and Cambodians. These people have all the vices of the 
 Chinese, without their ability or industry. They have very 
 little civilization, and as they import and export but little they 
 are not of m-uch importance among the peoples of Asia. 
 
 The western part of Farther India is made up of the 
 country of Burma, which is now governed by Great Britain ; 
 the w'edge of land lying between this and the possessions 
 of France is the independent kingdom of Siam ; and on the 
 great prong on the southwestern end of the peninsula, and 
 in the islands about it, live the Malays, who are a most 
 curious people, with many odd customs. 
 
 We shall first visit Siam. It contains about five million 
 inhabitants, and its area is a little greater than that of 
 Spain. It has many rivers, and much of it is cut up by 
 canals. It has rainy seasons, during which the streams 
 overflow and almost the whole country becomes one vast 
 lake. At such times the people move from village to 
 village and from city to city in boats. The houses upon 
 the land are built upon high posts to be out of the way 
 of the water at the time of the floods, and to be somewhat 
 protected from tigers and snakes. A large part of the 
 people, however, live upon the water. The rivers and 
 canals contain hundreds of thousands of floating houses. 
 Bangkok, the capital, is a city of seven hundred thousand 
 people, and it has been estimated that six hundred thou- 
 sand of these live upon the water. 
 
 Bangkok lies upon the river Menam, about forty miles 
 from the Gulf of Siam, and its floating houses extend for a
 
 LAND AND PEOPLE. 
 
 165 
 
 distance of perhaps more than ten miles up and down the 
 banks of the stream. Upon the land are the palaces of 
 the king surrounded by walls somewhat like those we saw 
 in China, the gorgeous temples of the Buddhist religion, 
 of which we shall learn in the next chapter, and a number 
 of stores and dwellino^s. 
 
 "—upon high posts — " 
 
 As we sail up the Menam in our steamer from Hongkong, 
 we see many floating houses. The river is wide, and its 
 banks are lined with a jungle or luxuriant growth of tropi- 
 cal plants and trees, in which birds of gay plumage sing, 
 and out of which monkeys look at us and chatter as we go 
 by. Here and there a canal goes off into the jungle, the 
 houses floating upon it making it look like a street. 
 
 What queer dwellings these floating houses are ! Let
 
 i66 
 
 SIAM. 
 
 US take a look at them as we move among them in Bangkok. 
 They are built upon rafts from fifteen to twenty feet square. 
 The rafts are fastened to piles, and they move up and down 
 with the rise and fall of the tide, which is quite great even 
 at this distance from the Gulf of Siam. Each house has a 
 steep ridged roof, and in some cases there are two ridges, 
 the end of the roof looking like an inverted W. Many of 
 these houses have little verandas in front of them. All 
 
 "They are built upon rafts — " 
 
 are of only one story, and very few of them have more than 
 three rooms. 
 
 We can see into the houses through the open doors. 
 There is hardly any furniture. The people squat on the 
 floor on their heels. We look in vain for sofas or beds. 
 The Siamese sleep on the floor, and as for pillows, these 
 are merely wooden blocks or bundles of stuffed cotton 
 about as large as a brick and almost as hard. The cook- 
 ing is done on little fires of charcoal which burn in boxes
 
 LAND AND PEOPLE. 1 67 
 
 filled with ashes. There are no stoves, and the houses 
 have no chimneys. The windows are merely open holes, 
 and there is not a pane of window glass, I venture, in this 
 great floating city. 
 
 Some houses, we are told, pay rent for their places on 
 the river, but if the owners become dissatisfied they do 
 not need to call in carts or drays in order to move. They 
 merely untie their houses from the posts to which they 
 are fastened, and by means of boats tow them off to other 
 locations. 
 
 Some of the floating houses contain little stores, and the 
 people go shopping in boats. Every house has a boat, 
 and many children have canoes of their own. We see little 
 naked boys rowing boats not more than two feet in width 
 and so long that the least loss of balance would turn them 
 out into the water. 
 
 The river is filled with boats of all kinds. The most of 
 them are managed by women ; and as we go on we find 
 that the women of Bangkok do more than their share of 
 the work, and that the men loaf, smoke, and gossip, while 
 their wives earn the money required for the family. There 
 are hundreds of peddlers' boats rowed by girls who move 
 along from one house to another with vegetables or trin- 
 kets for sale. There are great freight boats rowed and 
 sculled by half-naked women who stand up as they push 
 the oars to and fro. There are boats worked by wrinkled 
 old women of si.xty, and boats filled with crews of women 
 and men carrying merchandise through the citv. The 
 whole river is alive with boats, which dart this way and 
 that, moving in and out among the houses. 
 
 What an odd city it is, and how queer are the people ! 
 The Siamese are of the Mongolian race. Thcv have yel- 
 low skins. Their eyes are slanting, much like those of 
 
 CARP. .\SIA — II
 
 i68 
 
 SIAM. 
 
 the people of Japan and China. They have thick lips, 
 and their noses are almost as flat as those of a negro. 
 Their hair is jet black, but we see many old Siamese 
 whose heads have become as white as snow. Both men 
 and women wear their hair short all over their heads, and 
 it stands straight up like the bristles of a shoe brush. 
 
 What queer clothes they wear ! Some of them Qre 
 half naked. Many Siamese boys and girls under ten years 
 of age wear nothing at all but a piece of twine about the 
 waist. To this string small charms are fastened to keep 
 off the witches and spirits. Even the children of very 
 rich people wear no clothing at times, for at a great cele- 
 bration I once saw a little Siamese prince strutting about 
 with nothing on him but a belt of woven silver an inch 
 wide bound round his waist, and anklets of gold on his 
 legs and rings on his fingers. 
 
 The men of the poorer classes wear 
 little more than a strip of cotton cloth 
 a yard wide and two yards in length. 
 This they wind tightly around the body 
 just above the hips, twisting one end 
 through between the legs and tucking 
 it in at the waist. Some have another 
 strip of cloth which they throw over 
 their shoulders, and the richer men wear 
 jackets of cotton or silk in addition to the 
 garment which thus takes the place of 
 our pantaloons. 
 The women clothe the lower part of the body in much 
 the same way as the men. They sometimes wrap a wide 
 band of cloth about them under the armpits, and fasten 
 it in a knot just over the chest ; but the poorer classes of 
 women arc often bare to the waist. The babies we see 
 
 >i'~^0%'€ 
 
 Siamese Man.
 
 LAND AND PEOPLE. 
 
 169 
 
 on the verandas of the houses wear little more than the 
 yellow powder which their mothers have dusted over their 
 bare skins to keep off the flies and mosquitoes. 
 
 There is a family at dinner. 
 
 They squat on their heels on the floor about a little table 
 not more than a foot high. Their meal consists of pickles 
 and rice, and the rice 
 is brought to the din- 
 ner in the kettle in 
 which it was cooked. 
 All eat with their fin- 
 gers. Each sticks his 
 own hand into the ket- 
 tle, and takes out all 
 he can hold, rolling the 
 mass into a hard ball 
 with his fingers, and 
 then cramming it into 
 his mouth. The men 
 and boys are always served first, and the women take 
 what is left. 
 
 All classes seem to have plenty to eat. The wants of 
 the people are few, and fruits, vegetables, rice, and fish 
 are the chief foods of the country. The use of meat is 
 contrary to the principles of the Buddhist religion. The 
 Siamese believe that the souls of men after death go into 
 the bodies of animals, and hence they do not eat flesh. 
 
 We are disgusted with even the prettiest of the Siamese 
 girls when they open their mouths, for their tongues and 
 teeth are as black as your boots, and not a few have 
 mouths filled with what seems to be blood. We see that 
 all men when not eating are chewing, and that some now 
 and then spit out great quantities of blood-red saliva. We
 
 170 SI AM. 
 
 find that this comes from the chewing of the betel nut, a 
 custom which is common throughout Farther India, and 
 which is universal among all classes of people in Siam. 
 The Siamese have a proverb which states that any dog 
 can have white teeth, but only those who can afford to 
 chew the betel nut can have beautiful black ones. 
 
 The betel nut grows on a kind of palm tree. It is 
 about the size of an American black walnut. It has a 
 green skin, is of a soft, spongy nature, and has a bitter 
 taste. Its use has much the same effect as tobacco upon 
 those who chew it, taking away hunger and stimulating 
 the nerves. A Siamese cuts off a piece of this nut, and 
 adds to it a pinch of red lime and a bit of tobacco. He 
 puts this mixture into his mouth, and chews and chews. 
 The betel juice and the lime color the teeth black. 
 
 Betel chewing is a vile, filthy habit, and it has changed 
 the Siamese from a handsome people into a most ugly 
 one. Babies are given betel nuts to chew before they are 
 able to talk, and old women have betel nuts pounded up 
 in order that they may roll them about over their tongues 
 between their toothless gums. Nearly every person in 
 Siam carries a box containing betel nuts with him. Smok- 
 ing is as common as betel chewing, and all Siamese — 
 men, women, and children — smoke cigars and cigarettes. 
 
 XX. THE KING OF SIAM AND HIS ROYAL 
 WHITE ELEPHANTS. 
 
 THE King of Siam is the absolute ruler of the five 
 million people who make up the Siamese nation. 
 The country and the people are supposed to belong to
 
 THE KING AND HIS ELEPHANTS. I7I 
 
 him. His subjects are required by law to work for him 
 during a part of each year. He can throw any man into 
 chains or put him to death; he can deprive him of his 
 property, or have his daughter sent to the palace as one 
 of the royal wives. 
 
 The king has immense palaces built on the banks of 
 the Menam River in Bangkok. These buildings cover 
 many acres, and the walls about them are several miles 
 long. Inside the walls there is a little city laid out in 
 streets. Many of the buildings are of foreign style. 
 Some of them are never entered by any man except 
 the king. These are the quarters devoted to the king's 
 wives, of whom his majesty, it is said, has several hundred. 
 At the head of them is a queen, who by law is the king's 
 half-sister. All the ladies of the palace have short hair, 
 like the other women of their nation. Many of them 
 have foreign dresses, but they usually wear the ordinary 
 Siamese costume, adding to it a jacket of silk and a scarf 
 around the shoulders. 
 
 The ruler of Siam until recently made his subjects 
 crawl about on their knees and bump their heads on the 
 floor when they appeared before him. It was King Chu- 
 la-lang'korn, who ascended the throne in 1868, that first 
 allowed his subjects to stand in his presence. He intro- 
 duced many improvements, including a post office, a mint, 
 and an agricultural department. There is now a street- 
 car line on the land part of Bangkok, and a little railroad 
 has been built. There is, however, great room for 
 improvement in the condition of Siam. The people are 
 sunk in superstition, laziness, and vice. Gambling is 
 common. Very few Siamese are educated, and of the 
 rich lands of the valley of the Menam only about one 
 twentieth is cultivated.
 
 1/2 
 
 SIAM. 
 
 "—we come to an immense building 
 
 But let us visit one of the king's palaces. We pass 
 soldiers at the gate as we go through the wall, and after 
 a short walk we come to an immense building of brick 
 and stone covered with stucco, a kind of plaster. It is 
 painted white, and under the bright rays of the Siamese 
 sun it appears to be made of marble. It has several 
 stories, and wide marble stairways lead up to a great 
 front door. The stairways are guarded on each side, 
 at the bottom, by elephants of iron plated with gold. 
 
 We walk between these elephants, pass up the steps, 
 and soon find ourselves in one of the most splendid rooms 
 of the world. It is the state reception room of the king. 
 Its walls are frescoed with gold. Its ceiling is of pieces 
 of glass of all colors, which, with the light shining through 
 them, look almost like jewels. At the back of the room is
 
 THE KING AND HIS KLEPIIANTS. 
 
 173 
 
 the king's throne, with the state umbrellas decorated with 
 silver and gold standing beside it. These umbrellas are 
 held over his majesty when he receives his subjects. 
 
 All around, placed against the wall, and half filling the 
 room, are trees and bushes of the precious metals. The 
 leaves of these trees are of solid gold and solid silver, 
 and the trunks are of wood or metal plated with gold and 
 silver. The w-orkmanship is as beautiful as that of the 
 most skillful jewelers of Europe. 
 
 This is, perhaps, the most valuable collection of trees in 
 the w'orld. It is composed of the offerings made by the 
 king's officials and by the rulers of his tributary provinces. 
 They make him presents of gold and silver trees every 
 year, and in this w'ay he gets a large part of his wealth. 
 
 The King of Siam is, indeed, a very rich man. His in- 
 come is said to be 
 about ten millions of 
 dollars a year. He is 
 rich, however, at the 
 expense of his people, 
 the most of whom are 
 very poor, and many 
 of whom are in debt. 
 Just outside his pal- 
 ace walls, I once saw 
 a number of Siam- 
 ese men with chains 
 about their legs, work- 
 ing upon the roads. 
 I was told that they were slaves who had been made such 
 because they could not pay their debts. 
 
 Siam is called the " Land of the W^hite Elephant." This 
 beast is considered royal, and his majesty, the king, has 
 
 
 1^, 
 
 '—with chains about their legs
 
 174 
 
 SIAM. 
 
 elephant stables in his palace grounds. We see pictures 
 of elephants upon all the flags, and the figure of this ani- 
 mal is stamped upon the coins. When the king and the 
 princes go out to ride in state in the streets of Bangkok, 
 they sit in cars placed upon the backs of elephants ; and 
 
 " — they sit in cars placed upon the backs of elephants — " 
 
 at such times the people honor the elephants quite as 
 much as the king. 
 
 The reason for this we find in the religion of Siam, 
 which is a form of Buddhism. Among the Siamese, as 
 we have seen, the souls of men at their deaths are sup- 
 posed to go into the bodies of animals, and each elephant
 
 THE KING AND IIIS ELEPHANTS. 1 75 
 
 by this theory has the soul of some man in it. The souls 
 of very good men go into the bodies of white animals, and 
 those of good kings or saints arc supposed to be born 
 again in white elephants. These animals are therefore 
 worshiped as containing the spirits of departed heroes. 
 The Siamese have always treated them with great honor, 
 though they seem to show less reverence now than they 
 did in the past. In former years, white elephants had 
 their special attendants. Their skins were covered with 
 cloths of velvet, and their ivory tusks were bound with 
 gold bands. Shows and concerts were given in their 
 honor. Gold chains hung from their necks, and they had 
 a number of royal servants to wait on them. We have 
 heard these stories, and we leave the gorgeous room of 
 the golden bushes and go out to find the white elephants. 
 
 What do we see .-' 
 
 Nothing but four wild-eyed, scraggy-looking beasts, with 
 long tusks and with skins not much whiter than those of 
 the elephant in the traveling circus. The only parts 
 really white are their long, flapping ears. The rest of 
 their skins is white only in spots, and we learn that a white 
 elephant is, in fact, a sick elephant. The whiteness comes 
 from a skin disease, and not from any king or hero, as the 
 Siamese suppose. 
 
 As we see how the king's elephants are kept, we doubt 
 whether his majesty, himself, believes that they are of royal 
 blood. The stables are dirty. The animals are chained 
 by the feet to wooden posts, and the men who take care of 
 them arc half naked and quite as dirty n;? the elephants. 
 As we look, one of the keepers holds out his hand for a 
 present of money. We give him a few coins, and he 
 thereupon makes the royal white elephant get down on 
 his knees to us, so that wo feel quite grand for the time.
 
 176 SIAM. 
 
 Now, let us visit some of the Buddhist temples and learn 
 something about this religion of which we see so much in 
 our tour through the Far East. The religion of Buddhism 
 was founded by a prince named Siddhartha (sid-dar'tha), 
 who was born in India in the sixth century before Christ. 
 He saw the poverty, the evil, the wickedness there was in 
 the world, and he went forth from his palace as a beggar 
 and wandered over the earth seeking to learn how to re- 
 lieve it. After a time he thought he had discovered the 
 true religion, and he called himself Buddha, which means 
 "the enlightened." He then went about preaching what 
 he believed, and thus founded the Buddhist religion, which 
 is supposed to have more than three hundred million 
 followers. 
 
 Buddha said that when men died their souls went into 
 animals and insects, and that they possibly might be born 
 again as men, but that man's future state will be good or 
 bad as he is good or bad in this world. He taught gentle- 
 ness, kindness, and brotherly love, but the sum of his re- 
 ligion was that life is a bad thing at best, and that heaven 
 will be a place where man will neither worry nor rejoice, 
 and where he will be as near nothing as possible. 
 
 This religion, however, has changed until it has become 
 little more than a worship of idols. In Bangkok we shall 
 find some of its most gorgeous temples and we shall every- 
 where meet its priests. 
 
 There are more than ten thousand Buddhist priests in 
 Bangkok. They are of all ages from sixteen to eighty, and 
 by a custom of the country every man at some time of his 
 life expects to be a priest. The priests shave their heads. 
 They wear strips of yellow cloth wound around their half- 
 naked bodies. Yellow was the color chosen by Buddha as 
 a sign of humility, because when he was alive the thieves
 
 THE KING AND HIS ELEPHANTS. 17/ 
 
 and criminals of India wore yellow clothes. The Siamese 
 priests we find far from humble. They strut about with 
 cigars or cigarettes in their mouths, chewing the betel as 
 they go from door to door, or float from house to house, 
 begging for rice and presents. 
 
 Every morning they make a tour of the city, each priest 
 having his own rice beat. The people bring the rice, 
 already cooked and steaming, in pots, to the fronts of their 
 houses, and when a priest comes along they fall on their 
 knees and raise their hands as though praying, and ask 
 him to accept the gift. The priests are considered holy, 
 and mothers often thus bow down to their sons who have 
 gone into the priesthood. 
 
 The Buddhist temples of Bangkok are gorgeous beyond 
 description. They are vast buildings covered with white 
 plaster and painted in many colors, with spires taller than 
 the tallest of the palm trees. Some of the temple spires 
 are plated with gold, and one temple, in which the king 
 worships, has a golden spire that cost one hundred thou- 
 sand dollars. The doors of this building arc of ebony 
 inlaid with mother-of-pearl, and one of its rooms has a 
 carpet of woven silver. 
 
 The temple contains an idol twelve inches high and 
 eight inches wide which is made of pure gold and jewels. 
 When the metal was yet liquid in the melting pot, so the 
 Siamese say, sapphires, rubies, and diamonds were stirred 
 into it, and out of the mi.xture were made the hair and 
 collar of the idol. It is before this image that the king 
 comes every morning to i>ra\', and here the ladies of his 
 palace bend their knees at certain times of the year. The 
 idol is on a pedestal which stands high above the floor of 
 the temple. It has a little silk scarf about its neck, and 
 we are told that the king crawls up on a ladder three times
 
 178 
 
 SIAM. 
 
 every year and changes the scarf, giving the idol a new 
 dress for each season. 
 
 We find other idols of all sizes, and in one temple at 
 Bangkok there is one of the largest idols of the world. It 
 is known as the Sleeping Buddha. It is one hundred and 
 fifty feet long, and the soles of its feet measure eighteen 
 
 
 — spires taller than the tallest of the palm trees." 
 
 feet from toe to- heel. A room eighteen feet wide makes a 
 good-sized parlor, and you could not put the two soles of 
 this idol's feet on a floor less than eighteen feet square. 
 The arm near the elbow is as big round as a large oak 
 tree, and the ears, if placed upon end on the floor, would 
 reach about four feet higher than the average ceiling. 
 This immense figure is made of clay plated with gold; 
 and it must have cost a great sum of money.
 
 SINGAPORE AND THE MALAYS. 179 
 
 XXI. SINGAPORE AND THE MALAYS. 
 
 LEAVING Bangkok, wc sail for five days to the south- 
 ward over the Gulf of Siam to the Straits of Malacca, 
 and land at Singapore, within eighty miles of the equator. 
 The voyage is far different from our trip across the Pacific. 
 It is through summer seas, and our surroundings are those 
 of the tropics. All nature is changed. At night the stars 
 seem to be more brilliant than we have ever seen thera 
 before, and Venus and Mars cast rays like those of the 
 moon upon the water. The moon itself appears to be 
 closer to the earth, and larger and brighter than it was in 
 America. 
 
 We sec the stars which make up the Southern Cross, 
 and which are not visible from our part of the world. The 
 Milky Way seems more milky than ever. The sea is bluer, 
 and before the moon rises the flashes of phosphorus upon 
 the water mark out the ship's track as a wide road of fire 
 which loses itself now and then in the darkness, but which 
 springs alive again upon every wavelet that is sent back 
 by the steamer. 
 
 The sun, so hot at midday that we dare not step out 
 upon the deck without some head covering, goes down in 
 the west in a gorgeous splendor unknown to the northern 
 Pacific. Its dying rays color the water with bright tints 
 of gold, which fade one into another, and finally, when the 
 sun has sunk below the horizon, change first to a delicate 
 purple, and then to a rich, dark blue, onlv to light up again 
 under the bright tropical splendor of the moon and stars. 
 When there are clouds in the sky the sunsets are grander. 
 As we near the coast and float into the Straits, the sun's 
 last rays are filtered through palm trees, and the funeral
 
 l8o MALAY PENINSULA. 
 
 song of the dying day is sung by a thousand birds, whose 
 voices are new to the ears of the people of temperate 
 zones. 
 
 We have now reached the land of the Malays. 
 
 We float along the Malay Peninsula, which, though it 
 is near the main line of ocean travel, is but little known to 
 the world. It is in the heart of the tropics, its rich soil 
 being covered with a dense jungle of luxuriant vegetation, 
 and its shores bordered with cocoanut palms which may be 
 seen by thousands with the glass as we sail by. This part 
 of Indo-China has also forests of the choicest hard woods. 
 
 We are now in the home of the snake and the tiger. 
 The Malay Peninsula contains jungles filled with wild 
 beasts. Hundreds of tigers, it is said, swim across the 
 narrow strait between the peninsula and the island of 
 Singapore every year. During a visit which I made to 
 the city of Johore, on the Malay Peninsula, I was shown 
 the tracks of a tiger in the dust of a sawmill. The tiger 
 had called the night before, but had gone away without 
 eating up any of the Malay babies living in the huts sur- 
 rounding the mill, and without playing with the quiet buzz 
 saw. Nevertheless, the mill was in the heart of a large 
 city, where you would not think a tiger would dare to go. 
 
 The danger from tigers and snakes is so great, we find, 
 that the Governor of Singapore gives a reward of fifty 
 dollars for every tiger killed, and that venomous snakes 
 are paid for according to their size, the rewards ranging 
 from fifty cents to five dollars. At Singapore I once saw 
 a man bring in from the jungle thirty-nine venomous 
 snakes, for each of which he demanded a reward. He 
 carried them in a bag, and when he showed them to the 
 policeman, he put his hand into the bag and pulled the 
 snakes out one by one and killed them by cracking their
 
 SINGAPORE AND THE MALAYS. l8l 
 
 heads against the ground. Why he was not bitten I do 
 not know. He did not seem to be afraid of the snakes, 
 although his hands were bare. 
 
 The island of Singapore belongs to Great Britain. 
 Like the island of Hongkong, it is very valuable, though 
 it is quite small. It is only about fourteen miles long, but 
 it has a great seaport, the city of Singapore. This city is 
 the halfway station on the trip around the world from 
 America. All the great ships which trade with China 
 and Japan stop here on their way through the Straits of 
 Malacca. There are weekly steamers to Batavia, the 
 capital of Java, and Borneo is not far off to the eastward. 
 It is a thirteen days' voyage from Singapore to Calcutta, 
 in Hindustan, and almost every day ships come to this 
 point from Ceylon. The result is that the population of 
 the city of Singapore is made up of natives of all these 
 countries, and you find in it a mixture of yellows and 
 blacks, of Hindus (hin'dooz) wearing turbans, and of 
 Chinese with pigtails, of coffee-colored Malays, and of 
 pale-white Caucasians from Europe. 
 
 When the British bought the land in 1824 it was only a 
 flat jungle, and the town of Singapore was scarcely more 
 than a village. It has now grown into a rich city. The 
 island of Singapore, together with the territory on the 
 adjoining mainland, forms the colony of the Straits Settle- 
 ments, which numbers over half a million inhabitants; and 
 the trade of Singapore amounts to more than one hundred 
 million dollars a year, about four million dollars' worth of 
 goods being sent annually from it to the United States. 
 
 It is from Singapore that we get many of our spices. 
 Upon the islands about the Straits of Malacca we can 
 visit nutmeg groves, clove plantations, and large vine- 
 yards from which come our white and black popper.
 
 1 82 
 
 MALAY PENINSULA. 
 
 A pepper vineyard looks much like a hopyard. The 
 vines grow very fast. They are trained upon tree stumps, 
 or upon sticks stuck upright in the ground. 
 
 The vines begin to bear in the third year, and they 
 produce crops thereafter for a number of years. The 
 best of them yield two crops a year, and a single plant 
 
 A Pepper Vineyard. 
 
 often produces two pounds of pepper in that time. Black 
 and white pepper grow on the same vines, but the black 
 kind is made from the pepper berries which are picked 
 when green and turn black, while the white pepper comes 
 from the ripe berries, which when picked are of a fiery 
 red color. The berries are soaked in water, when the 
 red or green outer skin falls off and leaves the pepper 
 of commerce. 
 
 A large number of the people of Singapore are Chinese,
 
 SINGAPORE AND THE MALAYS. 
 
 183 
 
 and on nearly all the islands of the Pacific, if we visited 
 them, wc should learn that Chinese merchants do a great 
 part of the business. There are, in fact, almost as many- 
 Chinese in Singapore as Malays. 
 
 The Malays have inhabited the Malay Peninsula and 
 the islands about the Straits of Malacca for more than 
 two thousand years. They are by no means so civilized 
 as the Chinese, although they look somewhat like them. 
 The Malays we see at Singapore are very lazy, and we 
 
 A Malay Family. 
 
 learn that they live from hand to mouth, working only 
 enough to keep themselves from starving. They have but 
 little clothing, the children of the poorer classes going 
 naked, and the men wearing a baglike skirt which reaches 
 from the waist to below the knees. When a Malay dresses 
 he places his skirt on the floor and steps into it, lifting it 
 
 CARP. ASIA — 1 2
 
 1 84 
 
 MALAY PENINSULA. 
 
 up to his waist and fastening it there in a knot by a pecul- 
 iar twist. The dress of the women covers nearly the 
 whole of their bodies, and the richer girls have light silk 
 shawls upon their heads. The skins of these people are 
 brown. Their foreheads are low and their forms are 
 
 slender. 
 
 The Malays are 
 Mohammedans. 
 They believe in the 
 religion of Moham- 
 med, of which we 
 shall learn more fur- 
 ther on in our trav- 
 els. They keep their 
 women secluded,and 
 it is only those of 
 the poorer classes 
 whom we see on the 
 streets. 
 
 Malay villages are 
 made up of one- 
 story huts thatched 
 with palm leaves. 
 The houses are sel- 
 dom more than fif- 
 teen feet square. 
 They contain but little furniture, the kitchen outfit con- 
 sisting of little more than an iron pan and a cocoanut 
 ladle. The family squat down on their heels or sprawl 
 at full length when taking their ease at home, and the 
 beds are mats spread on the earth floor. 
 
 The Malay men are very proud and haughty. They 
 stand very straight, and their walk is quite graceful. 
 
 Malay Women.
 
 BURMA — I'EOl'LE. 1 85 
 
 The climate about the Straits of Malacca is such that 
 one needs little clothing. We are now near the equator, 
 where the sun rises and sets at the same hour eacli day 
 the year through, where the Howers always bloom, and the 
 trees are always green. Birds by the thousands sing all 
 the year round, and the temperature from one year's end 
 to the other is that of a moist July. 
 
 In riding over the islands we pass through tropical 
 jungles and through cocoanut and coffee plantations. The 
 green cocoanuts hang by bushels in great bunches from 
 the tops of tall palm trees, each of which is from fifty to 
 one hundred feet high, having a trunk which is sometimes 
 two feet in thickness. 
 
 The coffee estates are made up of fields of green bushes 
 which, if not trimmed, grow to a height of eighteen feet. 
 The coffee berries grow close to the branches. When 
 ripe, they are dark red and about the size of a cherr}-. 
 Each berry contains two seeds surrounded by pulp, and 
 these seeds are the grains of coffee. 
 
 XXII. la RAI.\ AND TIIK BURMESE. 
 
 THINK of a nation of eight million jicojile. whoso women 
 wear plugs in the lobes of their ears as big round as 
 your finger, and whose men have their bodies covered with 
 tattooing from the waist to the knees. Let these people 
 have oli\o-brown ccMTiploxions, eyes almost straight, fat 
 noses, and lips a little thicker than ours. Let both sexes 
 have long black hair, which they bind up in a knot on the 
 tops of their heads. Let the men wear turbans of bright 
 red or yellow, and let the rest of their clothing consist of
 
 BURMA. 
 
 a white linen or cotton jacket reaching to the waist, and 
 a gay-colored silk or cotton skirt which falls to the feet, 
 and which is bound tightly about the legs and loins and 
 tied in front at the waist. Let the women dress in much 
 
 the same way, except that 
 their heads have no cover- 
 ing. Let both sexes go 
 barefooted ; and you have 
 some idea of the people of 
 Burma, among whom we 
 find ourselves after sailing 
 along the east coast of the 
 Bay of Bengal and up the 
 mighty Irawadi River to 
 the city of Rangun (see 
 map on p. 202). 
 
 Burma is about twice as 
 large as the island of Great 
 Britain, and it is naturally 
 one of the richest countries 
 of the world. Its broad 
 valleys are cut up by canals, 
 and they produce quantities of delicious rice. It has 
 mines of rubies and sapphires, and its mountains contain 
 gold, silver, and copper. It has many thatched villages, 
 and several large cities. Its former capital, Mandalay, 
 has nearly two hundred thousand people, and there are 
 about one hundred and forty thousand in the city of Ran- 
 gun. The Irawadi River, which runs through Burma, is 
 one of the great rivers of the world, being navigable for 
 small boats for a distance of nine hundred miles. 
 
 Burma now belongs to Great Britain, and is governed 
 as a part of British India. 
 
 Burmese Girl.
 
 PEOPLE. 
 
 187 
 
 The Burmese have their own civilization. They have 
 their own language and literature, and we find the people 
 far better educated than the Malays or Siamese. Nearly 
 every Burmese man knows how to read and write. Every 
 Burmese boy is expected to go to school. The schools 
 are held in the Buddhist monasteries, and the priests 
 are the teachers. The boys squat on the floor while 
 in school, and they study out loud, shouting out the 
 lessons they are 
 
 Q|wooo£q|s@sooo5oD» 01 
 
 trying to learn. 
 The teachers have 
 long whips in their 
 hands and walk up 
 and down the room 
 watching the pu- 
 pils, and the boy 
 who stops shouting 
 is liable to get a 
 cut of the whip. 
 The studies are 
 largely made up 
 of the precepts of 
 the Buddhist reli- 
 gion, and many of 
 the boys become 
 priests after they 
 leave school. 
 
 Burmese girls 
 are seldom taught 
 
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 ooo<^o;»£joqj£;oo^rL)ii 
 
 ^c\^oqj5co5co^n 
 
 oqj^GOOoqu 
 
 J 
 
 A Page from a Burmese Book. 
 
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 to read; for, according to the Buddhist belief, woman is 
 naturally sinful, and it hardly pays to educate her. The 
 only girl schools of Burma are those of the missionaries 
 and some which have been established by the British rulers.
 
 1 88 
 
 BURMA. 
 
 A Burmese boy's chief ambition is to have a rich coat 
 of tattooing. He looks upon this as a sign of manhood, 
 and gladly submits to the pain which he must undergo to 
 secure it. The tattooing is done by a professional tattooer, 
 
 who uses a steel pricker 
 which has at its end four 
 split points as sharp as 
 needles. These points 
 are dipped into ink and 
 then thrust into the 
 skin, carrying the ink 
 under the surface. The 
 tattooer takes up the 
 skin in his hand and 
 pinches it while he thus 
 marks it with the inked 
 needles which are to 
 discolor it forever. He 
 makes pictures all over 
 the boy's thighs in this 
 way, so that when the 
 tattooing is completed 
 the boy or man looks as 
 though he were dressed 
 in kid tights covered 
 with red and blue fig- 
 ures of serpents, tigers, 
 ogres, and demons. Such tattooing is not done all at once, 
 but figure by figure, as the boy or man can stand the pain. 
 It takes some years before one can get a full coat. 
 
 The Burmese are very superstitious, and they believe 
 that some tattooed figures will ward off certain diseases 
 and accidents. One figure, for instance, they think is a 
 
 Mother and Son, the Latter partly tattooed.
 
 PEOPLE. 189 
 
 protection from snake bite, and another, it is thought, will 
 even save a man from drowninj^. Several years ago a 
 man so tattooed was persuaded by his friends to test the 
 fact as to whether this was true by permitting his hands 
 and feet to be tied and himself to be thrown into the river. 
 It is needless to say that the current carried him away, 
 and that neither the man nor his tattoo was ever seen 
 again. 
 
 Another kind of tattooing is of value to schoolboys. It 
 prevents, so they think, the boy's feeling the whip when 
 he is punished at school ; and one of the best authorities 
 on Burma states that the Burmese boys are very anxious 
 to have figures of this kind tattooed upon them. 
 
 The Burmese women look upon the wearing of ear 
 plugs much as the men do upon the possession of well- 
 tattooed skins. A girl is not thought to be a woman until 
 her ears are bored, and we therefore find that Burmese 
 girls are as an.xious to wear ear plugs as our girls are to 
 have their first long dresses. 
 
 The making of the holes in the ears begins when the 
 girl has reached the age of twelve or thirteen. All the 
 sisters, cousins, and aunts are invited to be present, and a 
 big feast is prepared for the occasion. The girl lies down 
 on a mat, and a professional ear borer thrusts a gold 
 needle through the lobe of each of her ears, twisting it 
 around so that it forms a gold ring, which is left in the ear. 
 In the case of the poor, silver needles are used. The girl 
 screams with pain at the time of the boring, but her cries 
 are drowned by the music of a band which plays outside 
 the house. 
 
 It takes the ear some tiiue to heal, and then begins the 
 process of making the holes larger. When the ear is per- 
 fectly well, the needle is taken out, and a fine gold plate,
 
 1 90 
 
 BURMA. 
 
 tightly rolled up, is passed through the hole. This is 
 gradually opened from week to week until the hole has 
 been stretched by it to the size of your little finger, or 
 larger. 
 
 The poor, who cannot afford gold, put stems of grass 
 into their ears, inserting one stem after another until they 
 have a bunch as big around as your thumb in each ear. 
 
 After a long time, when the holes have become of the 
 proper size, the girl puts into them ear plugs or hollow 
 pipes of gold and silver about the size of an open-ended 
 thimble. Sometimes the plugs are set with jewels, and 
 
 sometimes plugs of glass 
 
 or of amber are used. 
 In some cases the holes 
 in the lobes of the ears 
 become so large that a 
 man could put his thumb 
 through them without 
 trouble ; and I have seen 
 Burmese women carry- 
 
 " — several plugs in one ear." 
 
 ing cigars and cigarettes in them. 
 
 You would not suppose that the flesh can stretch as it 
 does. Some of the poorer women's ears are so enlarged 
 by this process that the string of flesh that hangs down in 
 place of the lobe is almost as large round as the ear itself. 
 In Upper Burma holes are made and plugs are worn in the 
 other parts of the ear as well as in the lobes, and many 
 women wear several plugs in one ear. 
 
 But let us take a look at the Burmese houses. They are 
 in most cases little more than sheds set upon piles. They 
 have walls of plaited or woven bamboo, and their roofs are 
 thatched with palm leaves pinned to rafters of bamboo 
 cane as big round as fishing poles. Very few of the houses
 
 PEOPLE. 
 
 191 
 
 are of more than one story. Each is built upon a plat- 
 form so high above the ground that in many cases you 
 could walk under it without stooping. Cattle and horses 
 are often kept in the space under the house, and you 
 climb stairs to get to the first floor. 
 
 The Burmese use but little furniture. They sleep upon 
 mats just as the Siamese do. They keep their heads off 
 
 Burmese Houses. 
 
 the floor by resting them upon little pillow frames of cane, 
 each pillow being about the size and shape of a small 
 loaf of bread. The cooking is usually done out of doors. 
 The fire is built upon the ground, and the cooking utensils 
 consist of little more than two or three earthen pots. 
 
 The chief article of food is rice, a huge platter of which 
 is cooked for every meal. In addition, there is a bowl of 
 curry, a gravylike mixture made of fish and seasoned with 
 pepper until it is exceedingly hot. The rice dish is placed
 
 192 
 
 BURMA. 
 
 on the floor, and the family squat around it, each member 
 having two bowls, a small one for curry and a large one for 
 rice. There are no knives and no forks. Every one helps 
 himself, putting his fingers into his rice bowl and taking up 
 
 as much as he can squeeze 
 into his hand, and then 
 crowding it into his mouth. 
 At the close of the meal 
 every one is required to 
 wash his own dishes. No 
 drinking is done during the 
 meal, but at the end of it 
 each of the family goes to 
 the water jar and rinses out 
 his mouth. Every one, from 
 the gray-haired grandfather 
 to the boy of ten, takes a 
 smoke after the meal, the 
 women and girls joining in 
 with the rest. Several of 
 them sometimes use the 
 same cigar, passing it from 
 one to another and smoking 
 by turns. 
 
 The Burmese people are 
 very hospitable, and, with 
 all their queer customs, they 
 are kind and polite. The 
 
 among the most beautiful 
 
 women are bright and intelligent, and the young ladies of 
 Burma are among the most beautiful women we meet in 
 our travels. 
 
 The Burmese women have more rights than any of the 
 other women of Asia. The Japanese wife is addressed as
 
 pKorLE. 193 
 
 a slave by her husband, and she seldom appears in the 
 room when he has <:^uests. The Korean hidy, as we 
 learned in Seoul, cannot <;o on the street except in a closed 
 chair, and the small-footed Chinese wife is the servant of 
 her mother-in-law. The Siamese girl is expected to do 
 more work than her brothers, and she is, according to law, 
 the projierty of the king. The Malay wife lives secluded 
 in the house of her husband, and millions of the women of 
 India and Turkey are not to be seen upon the streets. 
 But the Burmese women mix with the men everywhere. 
 Burmese wives have equal rights in property and social 
 standing with their husbands, and they generally hr.ve 
 charge of the family purse. 
 
 A large part of the business of Burma is carried on by 
 women. The stores of each city are collected together in 
 what are known as bazaars, each consisting of a large 
 number of little stores or shops under one roof. The 
 stores are small rooms opening upon the streets or pas- 
 sages which run through the ba/aar. luich room is 
 walled with goods. The merchants sit on the floor as 
 they show their wares to the jiurchasers, who stand in 
 the passages and bargain as to the ]-)rice thev shall pay. 
 In most of the stores of Rangun the merchants are 
 women. They sell silks, cottons, cigars, jewelry, and many 
 other articles. Some of the women are old, but most are 
 young girls, who, though they cannot read or write, are 
 able to count very quickly, and who understand how to 
 bargain. 
 
 Girls often go into the bazaars and remain there selling 
 goods until thcv get husbands. In Burma love making is 
 carried on in somewhat the same way as with us, and 
 the Burmese husband has, as a rvile. but one wife, though 
 more are permitted. Parents often arrange marriages
 
 194 
 
 BURMA. 
 
 without asking the consent of their son or daughter who 
 is to be married, but elopements are common, and engage- 
 ments are sometimes made by the young people them- 
 selves. 
 
 The marriage ceremony consists of the eating together 
 of rice out of the same bowl in the presence of friends, 
 and of promising before them to live together henceforth 
 as man and wife. The Burmese believe that women 
 should marry, as will be seen from one of their proverbs, 
 which reads as follows : 
 
 " Monks are beautiful when they are lean, four-footed 
 animals are beautiful when they are fat, men when they 
 are learned, and women when they are married." 
 
 XXIII. BURMESE FARMING AND THE WORK- 
 ING ELEPHANTS. 
 
 ONE of the great sights of Burma is the elephants 
 at work. 
 
 Elephants at work .-' I hear some one ask. What do 
 you mean ? Do these great, clumsy beasts actually do 
 anything except carry men on their backs ? 
 
 Yes, indeed. They are big, but they are not clumsy. 
 They are among the most intelligent animals of the world. 
 Let us visit the lumber yards at Rangun. There we shall 
 find these beasts carrying great logs. They move piles of 
 lumber, and they obey the orders of their masters almost 
 as though they were men and could understand what was 
 said. 
 
 Have you ever heard of the teak tree .'' Its wood is as 
 heavy as iron. It is one of the finest trees of Asia. It is
 
 FARMING i\ND ELEPHANTS. 
 
 195 
 
 large and straight and very valuable. Great quantities of 
 teak wood are shipped from Rangun to all parts of the 
 world for use in shipbuilding and in the making of fur- 
 niture. In the lumber yards at Rangun we find many 
 heavy teak logs which have been brought there to be 
 sawed into boards and beams for the market. Among these 
 logs we see great elephants moving about and doing all 
 sorts of work. 
 
 There is one carrying a log on his tusks. The elephant 
 has thrown his trunk over the top of the log, and he bal- 
 ances his long, heavy 
 burden in the air as he 
 moves slowly onward, 
 picking his way in and 
 out through the piles of 
 lumber. Mis master is a 
 dark-skinned, half-naked 
 man, dressed in a white 
 waistcloth and jacket, 
 and with a red handker- 
 chief tied about his black 
 head. He sits on the 
 animal's neck just back 
 of the great, flapping ears, with his bare legs hanging 
 down on ench side. He speaks to the elephant now and 
 then, and when the animal does not obey he thrusts into 
 the elephant's skin the point of a short brass hook fas- 
 tened to the end of the stick which he has in his hand. 
 
 We follow the elephant to see what he will do with the 
 log. He carries it to the sawmill on the opjiosite side of 
 the yard. Here there is a truck upon wheels so placed 
 that the logs upon it can be moved against the circular saw 
 by which they are to be divided into boards. The elephant 
 
 EIc^.
 
 196 
 
 BURMA. 
 
 carries his log to this truck. He places it lengthwise upon 
 the truck, and with his tusks and his trunk moves it into 
 just the proper place for the saw. 
 
 There is another elephant piling logs. He has laid the 
 logs regularly one on top of another as evenly as though 
 he had calculated their order by measure. See how he 
 raises that log on his tusks in order to carry it to the pile ! 
 He goes to the center of the log and gets down on his 
 knees before it. Next he thrusts his tusks under it, and 
 then, throwing his trunk over the top, rises slowly upward 
 with his heavy burden nicely balanced, and thus carries* it 
 to the pile. At first he can roll the log on the others with- 
 out trouble, but as the 
 I pile becomes higher he 
 has to lift the log to the 
 top. First he stands it 
 upon end, propping it 
 against the pile ; then, 
 placing his tusks under 
 the lower end of the log, 
 he slides it up off the 
 ground and sends it 
 flying into place. 
 
 In other parts of the 
 yard we see elephants 
 gathering up the scraps of lumber and the loose boards. 
 They lay these in piles upon ropes which have been placed 
 on the ground. The workmen tie the ropes around the 
 little piles, whereupon the elephants push their tusks 
 under the ropes and thus carry the bundles of lumber off 
 to their proper place in the yard. 
 
 There goes a bell ! It is noon, and that is the signal for 
 the men in the yard to stop work for dinner. We find that 
 
 piling logs."
 
 !• ARMING AND KLKI'IIAN TS. 
 
 197 
 
 the elephants stop, too. They do not wait for orders from 
 their drivers, but, as the first sound of the bell falls on their 
 ears, they drop their loads and bolt for the feeding shed. 
 Their drivers tell us that they cannot make the animals 
 work after the bell has been rung, and we learn from them 
 some other ciuious facts concerning these beasts. 
 
 We find, that, though elephants are very strong, they are 
 subject to many diseases, and that they must be watchfully 
 cared for. The working 
 elephant is fed regularly. 
 He has his bath twice a 
 day. He becomes ver\ 
 restless if anything gels 
 under the cloth upon his 
 back, and he will tremble 
 like a woman at the sight 
 of a mouse, for fear that 
 the little animal may run 
 up his trunk. 
 
 As we leave the lumber yards we throw some silver to 
 the rider of one of the elephants. The man catches it. 
 He speaks to his elephant, and the great beast throws his 
 trunk high up into the air and gives us a salute, as though 
 he knew that we had been kind to his master. 
 
 Elephants are used in clearing Burmese land of forests. 
 They drag out the logs, and with heavy plows they are 
 able to break up the matted soil of the jungle, in order 
 that it may be turned into farms. The elephant plow is a 
 two-wheeled instrument with a heavv share fastened to it. 
 One man holds the handles of the plow and presses the 
 share into the earth. Aniither sits on the neck of the 
 elephant, and a third, walking bv his side, aids in directing 
 the srreat animal alonu; the furrow. 
 
 He has ins ualii
 
 198 BUEMA. 
 
 Traveling in Upper Burma is done upon elephants. 
 They are the only beasts by which we can make our way 
 through the jungles. They can pull the branches aside 
 with their tusks, and push their way through the thickest 
 of the tropical vegetation. They can swim rivers and 
 climb hills ; and it is said, that, when they come to very 
 steep places, they sometimes sit down on their hind legs 
 and slide downhill in preference to risking a fall by 
 walking. 
 
 The Burmese arc Buddhists. 
 
 Near the city of Rangun we shall visit a great monu- 
 ment which was erected to Buddha, and which is one of 
 the most splendid buildings of the world. It is a great 
 gilded tower, rising in mighty rings from an immense 
 stone platform, and growing smaller as it goes upward, 
 until at last it ends in a golden spire which seems almost 
 to pierce the sky. It is higher than any structure in 
 America except the Monument at Washington, and the 
 whole of it blazes in the sunlight as though it were of 
 solid gold. Upon its top there is a golden umbrella which 
 is studded with precious jewels. The tower is made of 
 brick and mortar, and only its outside is plated with gold. 
 It has been regilded again and again, and there is an 
 enormous amount of the precious metal in it. 
 
 It was built ages ago, and the spot which it covers has 
 been a shrine, or praying place, for more than five hun- 
 dred years. During the last century one of the kings of 
 Burma vowed that he would give his own weight in gold 
 to it. The vow cost him forty-five thousand dollars' worth 
 of gold leaf, for it took just that much, it is said, to equal 
 his weight. The Burmese tell us that this Golden Pagoda 
 is built above a casket containing two hairs from the head of 
 Buddha himself. It is this fact that makes the place holy.
 
 FARMING AND ELEPHANTS. 
 
 199 
 
 About the Golden Pagoda \vc find dozens of women, 
 clad in bright silk gowns and white jackets, kneeling and 
 bowing. Upon the platform we see offerings of rice and 
 flowers, and the air is filled 
 with the perfume of the 
 roses which worshipers have 
 laid at its base. Men are 
 kneeling before it, and as 
 we look boys come up, kneel 
 down, hold up their hands, 
 and pray under the blazing 
 sun. 
 
 Let us take a journey up 
 the Irawadi River and see 
 something of the country 
 outside the cities. There 
 are millions of acres of rice 
 farms in Burma. Rangun 
 is the greatest rice port in 
 the world. The valley of 
 the river is made up of rice 
 fields, and we see men here 
 and there plowing. They 
 use wooden plows, and they 
 are doing their work in the 
 laziest way. In some places 
 they do not plow at all, but 
 instead the children drive 
 the water buffaloes and oxen up and down through the 
 mud until the earth has been thoroughly mixed, and then 
 logs are hauled over the fields to smooth them down. 
 
 The rice plants are first grown in nurseries, just as in 
 Japan, and the women and children set them out in the 
 
 CAKl'. ASIA — 13 
 
 Children from Upper Burma.
 
 200 BURMA. 
 
 fields, using their fingers to make the holes in the earth 
 into which they drop the plants. The farmer usually 
 squats on the edge of the field and smokes while the rest 
 of the family work. 
 
 After planting, little is done with the rice until harvest. 
 The grain is then cut with sickles, little more than the 
 heads being taken off. It is partly threshed by laying 
 it on a hard place upon the ground and driving bullocks 
 over it. After this it is taken to the river and shipped to 
 Rangun, whence it is sent to all parts of the world. 
 
 A grain of rice, when it leaves the farmer, is much like 
 a grain of wheat with the husk on it. This shell or husk 
 must be taken off before the rice is shipped away to other 
 countries, and there are great mills for this purpose, which 
 employ thousands of men. They are not unlike the large 
 flour mills of America. 
 
 Let us visit a rice mill and see how the husks are taken 
 off from the little grains without spoiling the rice. The 
 husks stick to the grains as though they were glued, and 
 it is no easy task. We find that the rice must be passed 
 through one pair of millstones after another. These mill- 
 stones are so carefully set that they tear the husk off with- 
 out breaking the little white grain which lies within it. 
 
 After the husk is removed the grain must be smoothed 
 up for the market. It is queer to think of rice being 
 polished like our best silver spoons, but that is what is 
 done with the rice at Rangun. After the grains are 
 husked they are thrown by machinery against a roller 
 covered with sheepskin as soft as the inside of a kid 
 glove. They are brought into contact with this roller 
 again and again until they are perfectly smooth. 
 
 Five hundred miles up the river we reach the city of 
 Mandalay, where the kings of Burma ruled before Great
 
 FARMING AND ELEPHANTS, 
 
 20 1 
 
 Britain took possession of the country. In times past, 
 according to a custom in Burma, the location of the capital 
 was changed at the wish of the king, and it was in 1856 
 that one of the Burmese monarchs decided to move his 
 capital from farther up the river down to Mandalay. The 
 city is now controlled by the British, and the palaces of 
 the king were for a long time used as government offices. 
 
 In Mandalay we see 
 people belonging to 
 several of the different 
 tribes which make up 
 the population of inte- 
 rior Burma. We find the 
 Karens', who to a large 
 extent worship good and 
 evil spirits; the Shans, 
 who have curious cus- 
 toms of their own ; and 
 a number of hill tribes, 
 who load themselves 
 down with brass jewelry, 
 and are half savage in 
 their ways of living. 
 
 We have discovered 
 that Farther India is 
 almost a little world of 
 its own, and we long for the strange things which we are 
 yet to find in India itself. We sail back to Rangun and 
 take a ship for Hindustan. We steam along the eastern 
 coast of the Bay of Bengal, through the muddy waters 
 which lie at its head. We float along the mouths of the 
 Ganges, and cast anchor at last in the Hugli(hoo'gle) River, 
 under the spires and towers of the great city of Calcutta. 
 
 Shan Women.
 
 202 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 E c > i>?5S Delhi i \^<^^, ■■■T.,>>/v-';ei»SiL '^ 
 
 India and Indo-China. 
 
 XXIV. GENERAL VIEW OF INDIA. 
 
 THE peninsula of Hindustan, or India (without Burma), 
 is almost half as large as the United States. If we 
 could view it all from a balloon we should find that its 
 shape is nearly that of a triangle, the base resting in the 
 Himalaya Mountains, and the sharp southern end lying 
 within a few degrees of the equator. We should see at 
 the north of the peninsula the snow-clad Himalayas, and 
 should notice that its central and southern parts are a 
 vast plateau. Between this plateau and the Himalaya 
 Mountains we might cast our eyes over the wide plains
 
 GENERAL VIEW. 
 
 203 
 
 of northern India — plains so low that if you could sink 
 them but a few hundred feet the sea would rush in, and 
 the central and southern parts of Hindustan would be 
 one great island. If our telescope were powerful enough 
 we might see that the country is swarming with people. 
 We might see villages by the thousand and great cities, 
 the names of which we seldom hear. 
 
 India contains about two hundred and eighty million 
 people. It has more than one sixth of the population of 
 the world within its boundaries, and upon some parts of it 
 the people are crowded more closely together than upon 
 any other part of the earth. 
 
 India is a land of many races. The most of its people, 
 though their skins are dark, have features as regular in 
 their shape as our own, and India is said to have been the 
 cradle of the race from which we sprang. 
 
 The people of India are of different religions. The 
 rich island of Ceylon, off the southern end of Hindustan, 
 is one of the centers of the worship of Buddha. There 
 are parts of Hindustan which are populated almost entirely 
 by Mohammedans. It is said that there are more Moham- 
 medans in India than in Turkey, the number of such wor- 
 shipers being suj^posed to be more than fifty million. The 
 majority of the people, however, are Hindus, who worship 
 idols of various kinds, and whose religious superstitions we 
 shall notice everywhere as we pass through the country. 
 
 The peninsula is divided up into many states, the most 
 of which are governed by Great Britain. Some parts of 
 the country, it is true, are still ruled by rajahs, or native 
 Indian princes, but every such prince has a British adviser 
 at his court, so that the whole of Hindustan is in some 
 way subject to the United Kingdom. Many Englishmen 
 have made great fortunes in India, and their government
 
 204 INDIA. 
 
 collects in taxes from it the enormous sum of more than 
 two hundred million dollars a year. 
 
 This is a very valuable piece of property, is it not ? 
 
 And still England got this mighty estate through a 
 pinch of pepper. In the days of Queen Elizabeth, the 
 Dutch controlled the most of the Indian trade. Holland 
 had foreign settlements in India, and one of the chief 
 articles which the Dutch ships carried from there to 
 Europe was pepper, which then sold for seventy-five cents 
 a pound. This gave a large profit to the Dutch merchants, 
 but they were not satisfied, and they doubled the price, 
 making it ^1.50 a pound. The English merchants said 
 this was too much, but the Dutch would not put down the 
 price, and so the EngHsh formed a company to build ships 
 of their own which should bring pepper and other articles 
 from India to England. This was the famous East India 
 Company, which gradually drove out the most of the Dutch, 
 and from which the British government got possession of 
 the great peninsula. 
 
 The chief ruler of India is now a governor general, or 
 viceroy, appointed by the British government. The gov- 
 ernor general has a great deal of power. He lives in a 
 fine palace at Calcutta, and has thousands of officials under 
 him. He has control of the armies of India. In all the 
 states there are soldiers, and among them are many natives 
 who ride upon camels and elephants. The soldiers of one 
 such army may be of half a dozen different races. The 
 baggage is carried on donkeys, bullocks, and camels, and 
 when the troops pass from one part of the country to 
 another they form a mighty caravan. 
 
 The British have greatly improved India. When they 
 first came into Hindustan the people were almost as back- 
 ward in civilization as the Chinese. Modern schools and
 
 GENERAL VIEW. 
 
 205 
 
 colleges have since been established in many of the cities, 
 and India's exports have increased more than sixty fold. 
 They were not more than five million dollars a year 
 when the English first began to get control of the coun- 
 try, but they now amount to about three hundred million 
 dollars a year. 
 
 ' — who 
 
 Great Britain has introduced its postal and telegraph 
 systems into all parts of India. We find post offices in 
 quite small villages, and in some parts of the country the 
 mail carriers go about upon bicycles to deliver their letters. 
 We shall note a curious thing about the telegraph poles : 
 that they are iron. 
 
 Why are they made of iron rather than wood?
 
 2o6 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 It is on account of the white ant, which is found in 
 many parts of Hindustan. These ants eat up anything 
 made of wood, and a swarm of them would chew up a 
 telegraph pole like those used in America in a single night. 
 But how shall we travel ? Shall we take camels or ele- 
 phants, or shall we have to rely on the rivers as we did in 
 our journey through China .-• 
 
 No. The British have built railroads connecting all the 
 great cities of Hindustan. We can ride over the country 
 
 almost as rapidly as we 
 travel at home. There 
 are about nineteen thou- 
 sand miles of railroads 
 in India, the most of 
 which belong to the gov- 
 ernment. The Indian 
 cars are much like our 
 own, except that the seats 
 are long benches run- 
 ning lengthwise through 
 the cars. 
 
 Can we travel at night .-• 
 Yes, but there are no 
 sleeping cars. We shall have to carry our bedding and 
 rush for the seats, for the man who first gets his bedding 
 down upon a bench has the right to it. If we get there 
 too late we shall be crowded up to the ends of the benches 
 and have to sleep as best we can. 
 
 It is only the first- and second-class cars that have what 
 we should call comfortable accommodations. We find the 
 third-class cars reserved for the natives. They pay less 
 than half a cent a mile to ride, but they are packed in so 
 tightly upon the seats that it is almost impossible for them 
 
 t.-C*!i 
 
 A Native Mail Carrier.
 
 GENERAL VIEW. 20/ 
 
 to move. The first-class fares are much cheaper than those 
 of our railroads. All the trains have native conductors. 
 Tall, dark-faced men in turbans take up our tickets, and 
 we have some curious experiences with them. 
 
 We are amused at the queer things we see on the freight 
 cars. There is one loaded with camels, and there is 
 another in which a little baby elephant is shut off in a pen 
 from the rest of the freight. The conductor tells us that 
 elephant calves are charged for at the rate of six cents a 
 mile, and we wonder what other animals pay. 
 
 In the baggage cars we find that there are compart- 
 ments, or boxes, for cats, monkeys, rabbits, guinea pigs, 
 and dogs. All these animals are classed as dogs, and 
 paid for at the dog rate. No one is allowed to carry any 
 of them into the passenger cars. Not long ago a woman 
 appeared with a turtle in her hand. She was about to 
 enter a car when the Hindu guard stopped her. She 
 asked him why she could not take her pet into the car. 
 He thought for some time and then replied, in his ungram- 
 matical English : 
 
 "Yes, Missy can take! Cats is dogs, and monkeys is 
 dogs ; but turtles is fish, and there is no rule against fish ! " 
 
 But here we are in the city of Calcutta ! What a curi- 
 ous city it is ! Its houses are of stone and brick painted 
 white. They are of two and three stories. They have flat 
 roofs, and doors which open directly out on the street. 
 The streets are wide and well kept, for Calcutta is the 
 capital of India. It is also the largest city of the country, 
 although Bombay, on the other side of the peninsula, is 
 nearly as large, and there arc a number of other great 
 business cities. 
 
 As we go through Calcutta, we are surrounded with 
 curious sights. Naked babies play in the streets. Men
 
 208 INDIA. 
 
 dressed in little more than a long cotton cloth which they 
 have wrapped about their waists go on the trot carrying 
 burdens to and fro. Vehicles such as you will see only in 
 India are driven rapidly this way and that. Th£re are 
 carts drawn by bullocks with humps on their backs. 
 There are cabs known as gharries (gar'rez) pulled by lean 
 horses and driven by coachmen wearing white gowns and 
 bright-colored turbans. There are carriages drawn by 
 magnificent horses, each with a coachman and footman 
 riding on the box and one or two servants standing on 
 the step behind. The most of these carriages contain 
 Indian princes from neighboring states who are living 
 for the time in the city, or they may be carrying the 
 families of rich British officers. 
 
 We see fat Hindu priests known as Brahmans, dressed 
 in white cotton, walking slowly along, and there are 
 Hindu servants in all sorts of costumes running to and 
 fro through the streets. 
 
 There comes a Parsee from Bombay ! His face is the 
 color of cream, and he wears a brimless hat which looks 
 like an inverted coal scuttle. His coat is much like the 
 frock coat worn in America, but it is buttoned up tight to 
 his throat. The Parsees are merchants, and they are 
 among the richest people of India. They have a curious 
 religion, connected with which is the giving of their bodies 
 to be eaten by vultures after they are dead. 
 
 As we go on we see Mohammedans in turbans and 
 gowns. We see black-faced men from south India who 
 wear little more than a piece of white cotton, the size of a 
 sheet, to hide their black skins; — and mi.xed with all these 
 there are other curious characters, each of whom has a 
 dress of his own, and of whom we shall see more in our 
 tour through the country.
 
 FARMS AND FARMERS. 2O9 
 
 XXV. INDIAN FARMS AND FARMERS. 
 
 TO-DAY we leave Calcutta and travel for hundreds of 
 miles along the river Ganges. We are going through 
 the plains of north India, and over some of the richest soil 
 of the world. The sun shines brightly. The crops grow 
 luxuriantly, and birds by the thousand sing in the trees. 
 All nature seems to be joyful, and the only poor thing we 
 can see is man. 
 
 There is no land where men struggle so hard and get so 
 little as they do in India. There are parts of the Ganges 
 valley where three hundred and twenty persons get their 
 living out of every one hundred and sixty acres, and where 
 the population is so great that it averages more than twelve 
 hundred to the square mile. 
 
 The Hindus are a nation of farmers, the great majority 
 getting their living directly from the soil. In fact, India 
 has many more farmers than we have men, women, and 
 children in the United States. The farmers raise all 
 kinds of crops. They grow wheat which competes with 
 ours in the markets of Europe. Their cotton is mi.xed 
 with that from our Southern States in many of the great 
 factories of the world, and they raise quantities of coffee, 
 spices, indigo, and opium. 
 
 You would naturally think such people would be rich. 
 We find them terribly poor. The clothing of the men. as 
 they work in the fields, is little more than a strip of white 
 cotton five yards long which they wrap about their bodies 
 and pull between their legs, fastening the end at the waist. 
 In addition to this many wear cotton jackets, and sometimes 
 an additional strip of cloth which thov wind about their 
 shoulders. Both men and women look as though they
 
 2IO 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 had taken the sheets from their beds to wrap about them 
 as clothing. A woman usually holds the sheet over her 
 face to hide it from the men, leaving only a crack through 
 which we see one of her black eyes looking out. The 
 
 women sometimes have little 
 sleeveless jackets of cotton 
 which reach just below the 
 armpits, and under which 
 there is a skirt which falls 
 to their ankles. 
 
 Almost all of the people 
 go barefooted. The men are 
 barelegged, and as we look 
 we see that the working 
 people of north India are 
 little more than skin and 
 bone. During our travels 
 through the plains of the 
 Ganges we shall probably 
 not see a man who has 
 calves on his legs as big as 
 the muscles of the upper 
 arm of a healthy sixteen- 
 year-old American boy. The women are equally lean, and 
 we can count the ribs of many of the babies, who are 
 usually naked. 
 
 The poor people in this part of Hindustan eat just 
 enough to keep them alive, and it is said that there 
 are millions who do not know what it is to go to bed 
 without being hungry. Their food is rice or millet, and 
 their drink is water. In the opium districts we are told 
 that the farmers sometimes feed their children opium to 
 take away their hunger and to keep them from feeling the 
 
 Peasant Woman and Children
 
 FARMS AND FARMERS. 
 
 211 
 
 cold. Millions of men in India support their families on 
 an income of fifty cents a week, and we see women who 
 are working in the fields for about three cents a day. 
 
 The farmers of India do not live upon their farms. 
 They cluster together like bees in little villages of mud 
 huts. These villages have no modern improvements 
 whatever. The average hut is fifteen or sixteen feet 
 
 Fuel Gatherers. 
 
 square. It has an almost flat roof made of thin earthen 
 tiles, or of straw thatch. It has no chimney, and the 
 smoke finds its way out through the door or from under 
 the eaves. Well-to-do farmers may have several huts with 
 a mud wall around them. 
 
 Upon the walls of most of the huts are plastered lumps 
 of brown mud about the size and shape of a fat buckwheat
 
 2 1 2 INDIA. 
 
 cake. We see tens of thousands of these cakes in every 
 town. In some villages they cover the sides of the huts, 
 and here and there we come upon great piles of them 
 which have been dried and stacked up for sale. These 
 mud cakes form the fuel of a great part of India. ' They 
 are made of manure and earth mixed together. Timber 
 is very scarce on the plains of Hindustan, and the cook- 
 ing is all done over fires of this dry manure. It is gath- 
 ered up every day by the women and girls from the roads 
 and fields, so that not a bit goes to waste. 
 
 But let us look inside the house of an Indian farmer. 
 The floor is of mud and the walls are unplastered. How 
 uncomfortable it is ! There are neither tables nor chairs, 
 and the family squat on the ground at their meals. 
 
 Where is the bed .-' It has been put outside of the hut 
 in order that the family may have more room. It is 
 merely a network of ropes stretched on a framework of 
 wood, with legs at the corners. It is only about four feet 
 long and three feet wide, and the Hindu sleeps upon it 
 with his legs doubled up. If he stretched them out they 
 would hang over the end of the bed. 
 
 Sometimes the men sleep outside the houses. The 
 East Indians of the poorer classes do not use nightgowns 
 or nightshirts, and in our walks through the towns in the 
 early morning we see very few bedclothes, either under 
 or over the black forms which lie upon these networks of 
 rope. 
 
 What are those curtains hung up in front of the doors 
 of many of the huts.? They are to keep the men from 
 seeing the women who are within. The women of the 
 upper classes live in the back huts, or back rooms, for 
 many women are secluded in India, and are never seen by 
 any other men than those of their own family.
 
 FARMS AND FARMERS. 
 
 213 
 
 The farming tools arc of the rudest description. The 
 Hindu plow is little more than a sharpened stick. It is so 
 light that the farmer carries it to and from the fields on 
 his shoulders. The furrows are mere scratches on the 
 surface of the ground, but the fields are gone over so 
 often that the soil 
 is ground to dust 
 and is made to pro- 
 duce very large 
 crops. 
 
 We see men doing 
 everything by hand. 
 There the people are 
 cutting the grain 
 with sickles. The 
 wheat is sometimes 
 pulled from the 
 ground, the straw 
 being saved to feed the cattle. Outside some of the huts 
 we find women at work making the meal or flour for 
 the family. They pour the grain through a hole in one 
 large round stone which rests upon another, and then 
 turn the top stone around until the wheat or millet is 
 thoroughly ground. 
 
 The wheat-growing districts of India are in the north. 
 The British government is doing all that it can to increase 
 the production of wheat, and it is said that the area of 
 Indian wheat farms is now about two thirds as large as 
 that of the wheat farms in the United States. The gov- 
 ernment has constructed great irrigation works in order to 
 make the country as far as possible independent of rain. 
 The rivers of India bring down from the mountains every 
 year vast quantities of rich fertilizing material, and wher- 
 
 Plowing.
 
 214 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 " — and then turn the top stone around — " 
 
 ever their waters can be spread over the land they give 
 the benefit of both the moisture and the manure. 
 
 The people of India can raise wheat more cheaply than 
 we can. They spend but little for machinery. The wheat 
 is threshed by being trodden out by bullocks and buffaloes. 
 They have no barns, and they pile the wheat up on the 
 ground until it is shipped to the markets. Men can be 
 hired to do farm work for from six to eight cents a day, 
 and it costs the farmers but little to live. 
 
 One of the most curious of the Indian crops is indigo. 
 Hundreds of thousands of acres are devoted to it in Hin- 
 dustan. Indigo comes from a plant which grows to a 
 height of from three to five feet. When the plants are 
 ready to flower they are cut off close to the ground, tied 
 up in small bundles, and put into large vats of water. 
 In about ten hours they begin to ferment, and the water 
 becomes yellow. It is then run off into other vats, in
 
 FARMS AND FARMERS. 21 5 
 
 which half-naked men stand and whip the fluid with long 
 bamboo sticks, keeping it constantly in motion for two or 
 three hours. 
 
 After a while the liquor turns from yellow to green, and 
 the blue particles of indigo rise in flakes, which afterward 
 sink to the bottom of the vat. The liquor is then allowed 
 to settle, and the sediment, or that w^hich goes to the bot- 
 tom, is indigo. The water is drawn off, and the indigo is 
 boiled and pressed into cakes to be shipped to different 
 parts of the world for use in washing clothes, making 
 paints, and for other purposes. 
 
 We have beautiful poppies in our flower beds in Amer- 
 ica. India has vast fields of poppies, and we travel for 
 miles through them on our way over the country. The 
 Indian poppies are not for show, however. They are 
 raised for the making of opium. The British government 
 controls the entire crop and receives many millions of 
 dollars every year from the sale of opium. Every Indian 
 farmer who plants poppies must first get the permission 
 of the British officials and agree to sell to the government 
 all the opium he produces. 
 
 The poppy seeds are sown in November, and the plants 
 are plowed and weeded from that time until about Febru- 
 ary, when they burst out into white flowers. When the 
 flowers have become full-grown and are just ready to drop 
 off, the pods are cut or scratched with a thin piece of iron. 
 This is done in the evening. In the morning the poppy 
 juice which has oozed out on the pod is scraped off, and 
 this juice is opium. When it first comes from the pod it 
 is of a milky-white color, but it gradually changes to a rose 
 red. 
 
 It takes a great many plants to make much opium. The 
 farmer rubs the scrapings of each plant oft info the palm
 
 2l6 INDIA. 
 
 of his left hand until he has collected several ounces, when 
 he puts them into an earthen jar. When he has gathered 
 his whole crop he turns the jars over to the government 
 and receives the regular price for it. 
 
 The government officials take the jars, and from their 
 contents manufacture the opium of commerce, which is 
 shipped to all parts of the world. The most of it goes to 
 China, although some comes to the United States. 
 
 Opium is of great value as a medicine. The effect of 
 the frequent use of it, however, is much like that of whisky 
 or brandy. Those who eat or smoke much opium soon 
 find that they cannot get along without it. They become 
 opium drunkards, and it destroys their bodies and minds. 
 
 Another plant which is of great value to the world, is 
 raised in large quantities in many parts of India. This is 
 the flax plant, from the fibers of which linen cloth is made, 
 and from which comes the strongest of our sewing thread. 
 There are many thousands of acres of flax plants in India, 
 but they are not raised there for the fibers. The flaxseed 
 is very valuable. The plants, after growing to the height 
 of about three feet, burst out into beautiful blue flowers, 
 and later on little balls of flaxseed take the places of these 
 flowers. Each tiny ball contains ten seeds. 
 
 The seeds are flat, oval, and dark brown in color. They 
 shine as though they were varnished. Their kernels are 
 very oily, and when pressed they yield the linseed oil of 
 commerce. This is used for making paints, oilcloth, and 
 other things. 
 
 A great part of the linseed oil used by our painters 
 comes from India. Is it not strange to think that the 
 houses in which we live are painted with oil made by these 
 curious people so many thousand miles away on the other 
 side of the globe .''
 
 STORES AND TRADES. 217 
 
 One of the most important of the Indian fiber plants is 
 that from which jute is made. During our tour through 
 Japan we saw beautiful Japanese rugs woven from jute. 
 This material is also used for the making of rope, bagging 
 and other coarse cloth. 
 
 The jute plant is a sort of reed which grows in the low, 
 sandy soil along the banks of the Indian rivers. The seed 
 is sown in April and the crop becomes ripe in August. 
 The plants grow to the height of twelve feet, or twice the 
 height of a man. When ripe they are cut off close to the 
 ground and are thrown into water in order that the outer 
 skin or bark may be rotted. After a short time this skin 
 becomes so soft that it can be peeled off, and the fiber or 
 wood within can be taken out and washed. This fiber is 
 made up of long, silky strands which can easily be made 
 into thread. The fiber needs little preparation for the 
 market, for after washing it is put up in bales, and is then 
 ready for shipment to other part§ of the world. 
 
 A great deal of cotton is raised in India, and we shall 
 find large cotton factories in some of the cities. 
 
 XXVI. THE STORES AND TRADES OF 
 INDIA. 
 
 THE business of the cities of India is done in bazaars 
 much like those which we visited at Rangun, in Burma. 
 We find hundreds of little stores under one roof. Each 
 store is not much bigger than a dry-goods bo.\, and the 
 dark-faced merchant within it ssjuats on the floor with his 
 goods piled around him. 
 
 There are streets lined with shops, each about as large 
 
 CARP. ASIA — 14
 
 2l8 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 as a good-sized closet, in which all kinds of manufacturing 
 go on. Such establishments are open during the day. 
 Their fronts are removed, and we can see men of all trades 
 at their work. We pass through streets walled with shoe 
 shops. The shoemakers sit flat on the floor. They are 
 
 A Business Street in India. 
 
 all barefooted, and they hold the leather between their 
 toes while they sew. The carpenters also use their feet in 
 holding their work, and they saw while squatting down on 
 the floor. 
 
 We see little shops not more than six feet in width, in 
 which men are sitting and making wire of gold or silver. 
 The strands are so fine that at first we think the wire is
 
 STORES AND TRADES. 
 
 219 
 
 silk thread, and cannot believe that it is made of metal. 
 Our guide asks us for a coin, and tells us that he will have 
 it turned into wire. We give him an American twenty- 
 five-cent piece. He hands it over to one of the black- 
 faced workmen, and within a short time it has been made 
 into a silver wire almost half a mile long. There are a 
 thousand men engaged in wiredrawing in the city of Luck- 
 now, and in Delhi we see dark-faced Hindu men and boys 
 using the wire to embroider ladies' dresses which are to be 
 sent to Europe for sale. 
 
 The Indians make most 
 beautiful embroideries, 
 and their embroidered 
 curtains are among the 
 finest of the world. Think 
 of cloth so expensive that 
 enough of it for a lady's 
 dress costs from two 
 hundred to five thousand 
 dollars ! This is the fa- 
 mous kincob cloth which 
 is woven at Ahmadabad, 
 in north India. It is a heavy brocade of gold and silver, 
 and it is, perhaps, the most costly cloth made anywhere. 
 
 Let us take a look at some Indian shawls. The cash- 
 mere shawls are made of the fine wool of the cashmere 
 goat. The weaving is done by families who work at the 
 trade from one generation to another. We find the shawls 
 very expensive ; some cost two hundred dollars and up- 
 wards, according to size. 
 
 Our Hindu merchant has other shawls of all kinds and 
 prices. He hands us one and asks us to lift it. It is very 
 light. He then takes it, and with the aid of his clerks 
 
 A Hindu Carpenter.
 
 220 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 opens it out. It is as large as a bedquilt. He asks us for 
 a ring. I pull one from my little finger and hand it to 
 him, when, lo, he puts one end of the shawl into the ring 
 and draws the whole shawl through it. This is the famous 
 ring shawl of India, one of the softest and finest of all 
 woolen fabrics. 
 
 A Shawl Merchant. 
 
 As we go through the business parts of the Indian 
 cities, we are surprised to see how anxious every one is 
 to sell. Some of the dealers stand at the doors of their 
 stores, and put their hands together and beseech us to 
 buy. They can speak only a few words of English, but 
 they cry out, "Me poor man, Sahib! Me good man! 
 Sahib buy something ! " 
 
 No matter how fast we go, the peddlers run along by 
 our carriages and try to thrust their wares in upon us.
 
 STORES AND TRADES. 
 
 221 
 
 We find that nearly every important merchant has men 
 about the hotels who ask foreigners to come to his shop 
 to trade. Such men are to be seen also about the bazaars. 
 They jump upon the steps of our carriages and beg us to 
 go to their masters' shops. They all say that their places 
 are the cheapest, but we know that if we go with them they 
 will get a commission or a part of all the money we spend. 
 
 " It is made of the purest white marble." 
 
 There are many such men connected with the jewelrv 
 shops, and we soon learn that the making of jewelry is 
 one of the great industries of north Hindustan. The 
 Hindus have been noted for ages for their fine work in 
 gold, silver, and precious stones. At Agra, in north India, 
 stands the Taj Mahal, which is thought by travelers to be 
 the most beautiful building of the whole world. It is 
 made of the purest white marble. When it was completed 
 its interior was largely inlaid with jewels and precious
 
 222 INDIA. 
 
 Stones. It was constructed by Shah Jehan, a Moham- 
 medan ruler of northern India, as a tomb for his favorite 
 wife. 
 
 Shah Jehan was the ruler who owned the famous pea- 
 cock throne. This throne was made in the form of a 
 peacock, the feathers of which were of precious stones in 
 the natural colors of the peacock's tail. Diamonds, rubies, 
 carbuncles, emeralds, and many other kinds of jewels were 
 gathered together from everywhere for it, and it was of 
 such value that it cost, it is said, the enormous sum of 
 thirty million dollars. 
 
 We have heard of these wonderful jewels of India's 
 past, and we see that the women almost everywhere are 
 loaded down with necklaces, bracelets, and rings ; so we 
 ask to be taken to the jewelry shops. We think of the 
 fine stores of our American cities, and a vision of plate- 
 glass cases and of a gorgeous display of watches and rings 
 comes before our minds. 
 
 What do we find .-' 
 
 The store which we first visit is little more than a hole 
 in the wall. It is about ten feet square, and is entirely 
 open to the street. The owner of the store, who is dressed 
 in a long gown, does not look very rich, and we think our 
 guide has made a mistake. 
 
 The merchant, however, asks us to come in, and offers 
 us a seat on the floor. He directs a servant to bring a 
 red cashmere shawl, and spreads this out between us and 
 him. He gives another direction, and the servant goes 
 over to the corner of the room and brings back a bundle. 
 It looks like a lot of old clothes wrapped up in a dirty 
 white cotton cloth. 
 
 The bundle is placed in front of the merchant. He 
 opens it and spreads out before our eyes a stock of gold
 
 STORES AND TRADES. 223 
 
 and silver jewelry, of diamonds, rubies, sapphires, and 
 pearls which dazzle our eyes. Upon the red shawl he 
 lays bracelets and strings of pearls, rubies, and sapphires. 
 Beside them he places a necklace of diamonds, each of 
 which is as big as a good-sized bean, and to these adds 
 strands of topazes and emeralds, hanging one by the other 
 from a great gold band, or set in curiously carved gold. 
 There are rings of all prices. There are brooches of many 
 kinds, and we almost gasp as we see the fortune before us. 
 
 We pick out a ring and bargain an hour before we can 
 buy. In India there are no fixed prices, and it is usual 
 to bargain in making a purchase. We cannot get accus- 
 tomed to this method of buying, and we soon learn that 
 it is best to say just how much we will give, and then 
 walk away. We seldom go more than a few steps before 
 the Hindu comes running after us with the goods, and 
 grudgingly tells us that we can have them at our own 
 price. The Hindu has more time than money, and he will 
 talk all day for a very few cents. 
 
 On our way back to the hotel we are stopped by a 
 wedding procession. We are surprised to learn that the 
 groom is a boy of fifteen, and that the bride is only eight 
 years of age. The groom has a red cloth cap on his head, 
 and is dressed in tawdry red clothes. He is riding a white 
 pony, and with him is a crowd C)f barelegged men and 
 boys, his relatives and friends, who trot along on foot as 
 an escort. 
 
 The little bride follows behind, but we cannot see her, 
 for she is shut up in what looks like a large trunk covered 
 with red cloth. The bo.\ is hung upon a pole which is 
 carried on the shoulders of men. Behind come a number 
 of women who arc bringing the liride's property or dower. 
 One group carries her bed. Another holds up a tray upon
 
 224 INDIA, 
 
 which are her cooking utensils, consisting of three or four 
 iron pots and a rice jar, which altogether would not be 
 worth more than $1.50 of our money. We learn that the 
 bride and groom will not live together until the girl is 
 about twelve years of age, when she will come from her 
 parents' home to that of her husband's and be married for 
 good. 
 
 Thousands of girls are married every year in India 
 while they are still babies. Such wives do not live with 
 their husbands until they have reached the age of ten or 
 twelve years. If in the mean time the husband should 
 die, the fate of the child wife is terrible. 
 
 Hindu widows cannot marry again, and are despised by 
 their families and every one else. A widow usually lives 
 in the house of her mother-in-law, and the members of the 
 family do all they can to make her life miserable, for it is 
 supposed that the husband is happy in heaven just in pro- 
 portion as his widow is unhappy on earth. She cannot 
 go to parties. She must eat by herself, and must cook 
 her own food apart from the family. 
 
 The women of India are in fact the slaves of their hus- 
 bands. They receive but little education, and they have 
 but few rights. The Hindu wife never eats until her hus- 
 band gets through, and she takes what is left. The poorer 
 women do the hardest kind of work. We see them dig- 
 ging in the fields, breaking stone upon the roads, and 
 carrying great burdens upon their heads. 
 
 Such hardships prevail among nearly all the women of 
 India, with the exception of the Parsees. The Parsees 
 are a small colony of people who Iwe in west Hindustan, 
 the most of them having their homes in Bombay. They 
 are of Persian descent, and they have a religion and life 
 of their own. Parsee children are never married under
 
 WII.I) ANIMALS. 
 
 225 
 
 A Parsee Family. 
 
 twelve. The women are not secluded, and they can go 
 about wherever they please. The Parsees are, as a rule, 
 good business men. They are very intelligent, and many 
 of them are rich. 
 
 o>V.c 
 
 XXVII. THE WILD ANIMALS OF INDIA. 
 
 YOU would not think that a country so thickly popu- 
 lated as India could have many wild animals. The 
 peninsula of Hindustan, however, has vast jungles com- 
 posed of forest trees, thickets of bamboo, creeping vines, 
 and growths of underbrush of that dense kind which is 
 found only in trojucal countries. The jungles cover the 
 lower slopes of the Himalaya Mountains for many miles
 
 226 INDIA 
 
 just back of the rich plains of north India, and they are to 
 be found here and there upon the high plateaus of central 
 and southern India. 
 
 In the jungles fierce tigers roam, panthers have their 
 lairs, and jackals, hyenas, and wolves make night hideous 
 with their cries. The wild beasts dash out now and then 
 into the farming districts and kill men, women, and chil- 
 dren. It is estimated that three thousand persons are 
 eaten every year by wild animals in India, and that more 
 than nineteen thousand are killed by poisonous snakes. 
 About one thousand people are eaten every year by tigers 
 alone, and in a single year sixty-one thousand cattle per- 
 ished from the attacks of wild beasts. 
 
 The wild animals of India are of many curious kinds. 
 There are wild dogs in Assam, on the edge of the Hima- 
 laya Mountains, which always hunt in packs. Twenty- 
 five or thirty of these dogs go together, and when once 
 a pack of them is on the track of an animal, no matter 
 whether it is a deer or a tiger, that animal is sure to die. 
 They will follow it for days. If it comes to bay they will 
 attack it at once, and if it runs they will pursue it until it 
 becomes tired out and falls. 
 
 The rhinoceroses which are found in the swamps of the 
 Brahmaputra valley often grow to be six feet in height, and 
 the great horns above their noses sometimes attain a length 
 of more than a foot. There are crocodiles from eighteen 
 to twenty feet long in many of the Indian rivers, and there 
 are wild elephants in some parts of the country. 
 
 The hunting of elephants is now entirely under govern- 
 ment control. It is against the law to shoot them, and who- 
 ever captures or injures an elephant in India without a license 
 will be fined an amount equal to one hundred dollars and put 
 into prison. Elephants are caught by driving them into
 
 WILD ANIMALS. 
 
 227 
 
 Stockades or great pens which are made in the forests. 
 The process is very dangerous, for if an angry elephant 
 can get at a hunter he will jump upon the man and crush 
 him. When the hunter falls to the ground the elephant 
 kicks him backward and forward between his fore and 
 
 Ayi^r. j^'M^. 
 
 Rhinoceros. 
 
 hind feet, and sometimes, it is said, by means of his trunk 
 and his feet tears the body limb from limb. 
 
 Jackals abound everywhere throughout India, and we 
 often hear their yells, which sound somewhat like those of 
 a screaming baby, or of a man in anguish. Jackals look 
 like very large fo.xes. They have jaws so strong that they 
 can crush bones between their teeth. They are sneaking, 
 cowardly animals, who will put their tails between their
 
 228 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 legs and run away at the sight of a man, though they 
 sometimes attack children and infirm old people. 
 
 The tiger is said to reach its greatest size in the jungles 
 of India, though there are enormous tigers in Manchuria 
 and Korea. I once saw a dozen of the largest Bengal 
 tisrers in the Zoological Garden at Calcutta. One of them 
 which measured almost twelve feet from nose to tail was 
 being fed at the time. Some meat had been put inside the 
 
 
 ^.|g#p|||f?firA»«fi 
 
 '^ui 
 
 Tiger. 
 
 door of his cage. The keeper had gone away, and the 
 great beast was devouring the flesh, v/hen I poked my 
 umbrella through the bars as though to touch the meat. 
 At this the mighty tiger raised his head and sprang at the 
 iron bars with a terrific roar. My heart sank, and I started 
 to run. As I did so the keeper came and told me to 
 be very careful of that tiger, as he was a man-eater and 
 had already killed one hundred people.
 
 WILD ANIMALS. 229 
 
 It is said that when a tiger has once tasted human flesh 
 he prefers it to all other food ; and it seemed to me that 
 the tigers I saw in India devoured me with their eyes, 
 licking their lips as they looked, and possibly wondering 
 how good American flesh would taste. A single tiger is 
 known to have killed 108 people in three years. Another 
 is said to have killed on an average 80 persons a year, 
 and a third, only a few years ago, killed 127 people. It 
 prowled along one of the public roads of India for many 
 weeks, stopping all traffic, until an English sportsman came 
 along and killed it. 
 
 The tiger usually does his hunting at night. He often 
 has his lair in a jungle near a village, or near the fields 
 where the cattle are kept. After dark he creeps out until 
 he is within a few feet of his victim, and then with a spring 
 seizes it by the throat, often twisting it about so as to dis- 
 locate its neck. In the case of human beings, an old man- 
 eater will sometimes grab a person by the shoulders with 
 his teeth, swing the body about over his back, and trot off 
 with his living victim into the jungle to devour him at 
 leisure. 
 
 The tiger is very strong. He can strike down a cow 
 with a blow of one of his paws, and can drag it off with his 
 teeth. His claws arc as white as ivory, and almost as hard 
 as steel. They can be covered at will, like those of a cat, 
 and they are drawn in by the tiger while he is walking, 
 so that they are not worn and blunted by being rubbed 
 against the ground. 
 
 Tigers are not brave animals, and, with the exception of 
 those who have tasted human flesh, they will run from 
 man rather than face him. When hunted, however, they 
 fight to desperation. Elephants are much used by the 
 tiger hunters, and a tiger often springs on the back of the
 
 230 INDIA. 
 
 elephant, or jumps up on his head, in the attempt to get at 
 the men who are riding him. 
 
 These fierce beasts are sometimes caught in pits and 
 traps, and the hunters often make a httle platform in a 
 tree near where a tiger comes to eat or drink, and there 
 watch for him with their guns loaded. A young buffalo or 
 a calf is usually tied near the foot of the tree, and when 
 the tiger has sprung upon the animal the hunters shoot 
 him. 
 
 Hindus are very much afraid of the tiger, and the people 
 often leave a village after it has been attacked once or 
 twice by these beasts. A single tiger sometimes drives 
 away a large number of people, visiting a town night after 
 night and taking off a man or a baby at each visit. 
 
 We shall be in more danger, however, from snakes than 
 from tigers in our travels in this part of the world. India 
 has some of the most poisonous snakes known to man. 
 They are often found in the gardens. They live in the 
 roofs of some of the houses, and we shall not dare to walk 
 through the fields without watching. 
 
 One of the most dangerous of all snakes is the cobra. 
 It is not a large snake, being seldom more than four or 
 five feet long, though it sometimes grows to a length of 
 six feet and to a thickness of six inches. The cobra has a 
 small head, which it expands into the shape of a hood 
 when it is angry. It rises on its tail when it strikes. Its 
 bite is almost sure death, few persons ever recovering from 
 it. The cobra cannot move very fast, and cannot, it is 
 said, strike a distance greater than its own length. 
 
 An English lady describes a curious experience that she 
 had with a cobra. She was writing one day at her desk in 
 her Indian home to her friends in England, when all at 
 once she felt as though somebody was looking at her from
 
 WILD ANIMALS. 
 
 231 
 
 behind. She glanced around twice, but could see nothing. 
 At last, on the floor, she saw a cobra raising its hood-shaped 
 head and just about to spring at her. She jumped upon 
 the table and screamed for her servants, who rushed in and 
 killed the snake. 
 
 Many of the Hindu jugglers are also snake tamers, and 
 they are among the most skillful of their kind in the world. 
 
 Snake Charmers. 
 
 We shall meet them in all of the cities. Each wears a 
 couple of pieces of dirty white cotton, one of which he 
 winds around his waist, and the other over his shoulders. 
 His arms are bare to the elbows, and his clothes are so 
 scanty that it would seem impossible to conceal anything 
 in them. 
 
 I remember how a snake charmer once frightened me at 
 Delhi. He asked me to hold out my hand, and he then 
 placed a piece of brown paper ujjon it. He next took
 
 232 INDIA. 
 
 up a flute and began to play, looking at the paper and 
 darting out his eyes as though he saw something there. 
 He danced around me for some time, playing all the while, 
 and keeping his weird black eyes upon my hand. Then he 
 started back and looked at the paper. I also looked, but 
 could see nothing. He did this again and again, dancing 
 about more wildly than ever. At last he dropped the flute 
 and commenced to sing, continuing his dance and pointing 
 again and again at the paper upon my hand. 
 
 All at once, while I was looking at the paper and seeing 
 nothing, he thrust out his naked arm, and clapped his bare 
 hand down upon the paper, and snatched out of my very 
 hand, it seemed to me, three great cobras. He held them 
 up before my frightened eyes, and the snakes raised their 
 hooded heads and darted out their fangs at me, and 
 squirmed and wriggled as he held them. I jumped back, 
 for the cobras were within a few inches of my nose. I 
 could not tell then, and I do not know now, where the 
 snakes came from. I saw the trick again and again, but I 
 could never discover how it was done. 
 
 It is said by some that the jugglers pull out the fangs of 
 the snakes ; but this is not true in all cases. A short time 
 ago an Englishman at Benares accused a juggler of doing 
 this. He said that he was not afraid to handle the cobras, 
 for he knew that they could not hurt him. The juggler 
 protested, and warned the man that the snakes were dan- 
 gerous. The Englishman thought they were not, and 
 seized one of them. It bit him in the arm, and within 
 a few hours he died. 
 
 A juggler's outfit usually consists of three baskets, ran- 
 ging in size from a half peck to a bushel, a couple of cloths, 
 a little string, and some sticks. He has three little wooden 
 dolls with red cloths tied around their necks, and he says
 
 WILD ANIMALS. 233 
 
 that these are the gods which help him in his magic. He 
 sometimes has a monkey's skull which he moves to and 
 fro over the articles he is using, as though calling the 
 spirit of the monkey to his aid. Another assistant in some 
 cases is a little black boy whose clothing is a turban, or 
 cap, and a cloth about his waist. 
 
 With this boy the juggler performs the wonderful bas- 
 ket trick of India, which has become famous all over the 
 world. The boy's hands are tied and he is put into a net, 
 which is drawn over his head and which incloses his whole 
 body so that he does not seem to be able to move. The 
 net is tied after being put on. The boy is now placed in 
 a basket about two feet square, or just about the size 
 of a large clothes basket. This basket has a lid, which is 
 pulled down and fastened with straps running around it 
 and buckled tightly over it. 
 
 The juggler now takes a long, sharp sword, and then, 
 after moving the monkey's skull over the basket, and 
 shaking his little doll babies, thrusts his sword again and 
 again into and through the basket. There is a crying, as 
 though some one was in terrible pain. It is the voice of 
 a child, and the sword comes out bloody. You hold your 
 breath, and if you did not know it to be a trick you would 
 feel like pouncing upon the man. After a few moments 
 the basket becomes still. The juggler sticks his bloody 
 sword into it a few more times, and then unbuckles the 
 strap and opens it. The basket is empty. The boy has 
 disappeared. The man then cries out " Baba, baba," and 
 in the distance you hear the voice of the child, who soon 
 comes up unhurt. How the boy gets out of the basket or 
 escapes being killed by the sword you cannot tell ; you 
 only know that it is a sleight-of-hand performance, and 
 wonderfully well done. 
 
 CARP. ASIA — 15
 
 234 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 XXVIII. BENARES, THE HOLY CITY OF 
 THE HINDUS. 
 
 WE must take an early start for our travels to-day. 
 We are going to visit Benares. It is the holiest 
 of all the cities of Hindustan. The Hindu who dies within 
 
 ten miles of it feels sure 
 of going to a better life, 
 and if he can bathe in 
 the Ganges where it 
 flows by Benares he 
 thinks that all his sins 
 will be washed off for- 
 ever. The Ganges River 
 is holy throughout its 
 entire length, but at Ben- 
 ares is the holiest part, 
 though there is another 
 holy place not far away, 
 at Allahabad. Some peo- 
 ple believe that if a 
 man's head is shaved at 
 Allahabad, he will re- 
 ceive a million years in 
 paradise for each hair which falls into the water. 
 
 Benares contains about two hundred thousand people, 
 and pilgrims go there in crowds from all parts of India, 
 some walking for hundreds of miles, that they may pray 
 and bathe in the Ganges. There are thousands who 
 have moved to Benares to die, and we shall find great 
 numbers in the temples. 
 
 There are more than one thousand temples in Benares. 
 
 Bathing in the Ganges.
 
 BENARES, THE HOLY CITY, 
 
 ^35 
 
 They line the banks of the Ganges for miles, and by tak- 
 ing a boat and floating by them we can see one of the 
 most curious sights of the world. 
 
 We start for the river not long after daybreak. The 
 roads leading to the temples are already filled with thou- 
 sands of dark - skinned 
 men and women clad in 
 long strips of cotton, col- 
 ored white, red, and blue. 
 They wrap the cloths 
 about their bodies, and 
 pull them over their faces, 
 so that their mouths and 
 nostrils are covered, and 
 only their eyes shine out. 
 The air near the river is 
 cold and damp, and is not 
 good to breathe at this 
 time of the morning. 
 
 The people are of all 
 classes. The legs of some 
 of them are bare to the 
 knees, and only the richer 
 people wear shoes. Sonic t, 
 
 of them have cashmere 
 shawls of bright red. All 
 
 the women are gorgeous in jewelry, and even the poor- 
 est have their arms covered with silver or brass bracelets 
 from their wrists to their elbows. Upon the ankles of all 
 are silver or gold bands, while not a few have rings and 
 bells on their toes. Many of them have little rings in 
 their noses, and we see some nose rings which are as big 
 round as the bottom of a tin cup. Others have earrings
 
 236 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 hung from holes running around the outer edge of the 
 ears from the lobes to the tips. All carry brass jars of 
 different sizes and shapes to bring the holy water of the 
 Ganges up to the temples, or back with them to their 
 homes. 
 
 We push our way through the crowds, and at the upper 
 end of the city we get a boat in which to float down the 
 
 Temple on the Ganges. 
 
 river. We have six dusky men, clad in white gowns and 
 high turbans, to row us, and we direct them to keep near 
 the shore. We float along not far from the steps leading 
 from the river up to the temples which line the right bank 
 of the Ganges. There are about three miles of these steps, 
 and upon them thousands of half-naked men, women, and 
 children continually pass up and down.
 
 BENARES, THE HOLY CITY. 237 
 
 It is a wonderful sight. 
 
 Hundreds are bathing, standing in the Ganges with the 
 water up to their waists. Here and there ledges jut out 
 from the steps, and on them sit worshipers muttering 
 prayers as they lift up the sacred liquid in their brass 
 bowls, and pour it over their bodies. The women are 
 bathing as well as the men. They cluster together in 
 groups by themselves, trying to keep their faces covered 
 so that the men may not see them as they splash about 
 in the water. 
 
 As we float onward the sun rises. Its rays make the 
 wet skins of the half-naked men and women shine like 
 polished mahogany. The brass jars look like gold, and 
 the jewelry which the Hindu women wear becomes more 
 gorgeous than ever in the sunlight. A confused noise of 
 prayers and gossip comes to our ears, and we sit and 
 wonder at this worship of the waters of a river, which is 
 real worship to millions of people. 
 
 We reach over the edge of the boat, and put our hands 
 down into the water. It is cold, and we wonder at the 
 invalids whom we see among the bathers. Lean, sickly 
 people stand and shiver as they pour the cold water over 
 their bodies. Many are brought here to end their lives, 
 becau.se they think that if thev die in the holy Ganges 
 their life in the next world will be happy. 
 
 Among the bathers there are many gray-haired men 
 and women. As we look, a skeletonlike old man stands 
 upon the steps of one of the temples, with nothing on but 
 a waistcloth which is glued, as it were, by the water to his 
 dripping skin. He throws upward his shriveled arms, with 
 his long, snaky fingers outstretched, and through chattering 
 teeth prays to the sun. 
 
 Just beyond him is a woman who is casting flowers into
 
 238 INDIA. 
 
 the river by way of worship. All about us, on the dryer 
 parts of the steps, under great umbrellas, sit black-skinned 
 priests with little boxes of red and white paint before 
 them, to mark the bathers, as they come out of the water, 
 with the emblems of the heathen gods. 
 
 Our boat goes onward. We see smoke rising from the 
 banks between two temples, and we row down to the place. 
 The smoke comes from fires built in the hollow, a little 
 back from the water, where the people are burning their 
 dead. 
 
 The Hindus believe in cremation. Every Hindu would 
 like to have his body burned on the banks of the Ganges; 
 for after the burning the ashes are thrown into the holy 
 river, and the souls of the bodies so disposed of are 
 thought to go straight to the better land. The burning 
 of bodies is done everywhere throughout India, and we 
 find cremation places in all the cities. 
 
 The temples of Benares are of many kinds. India is 
 a land of many religions. It is a country where religion 
 enters more into the life and business of the people than 
 in any other part of the world. A man's social rank is 
 largely fixed by religion. The people are divided up into 
 classes or castes. Men of each caste carry on the same 
 business, from father to son, and it is a part of the 
 religion that no man shall do any work not belonging to 
 his caste. 
 
 In parts of India the people worship stones. Some 
 hill tribes worship spirits who, they think, live in certain 
 trees. 
 
 Two of the most famous gods of the Hindus are Siva 
 and Vishnu. Siva is represented as wearing a necklace 
 of skulls and a collar of twining serpents. He has five 
 faces and four arms, and holds a club with a human head
 
 BENARES, THE HOLY CITY. 239 
 
 on the end of it. Siva's wife is the goddess who presides 
 over all ills, suffering, and death. She is generally repre- 
 sented as riding on a tiger, and sometimes she takes the 
 form of Kali (kii'le), a woman with a hideous face, whose 
 head is crowned with snakes and hung around with skulls. 
 
 One of the most famous temples of Benares is the 
 Monkey Temple. Monkeys are sacred to one of the 
 Hindu gods. We find hundreds of them in the temple. 
 Sleek and fat, they climb the trees that surround it. They 
 scamper through the building and chatter at us as we 
 come in. We have brought some nuts with us. We 
 throw them into the air, and the monkeys catch them as 
 they fall, and grin at us between the bites as they eat 
 them. 
 
 You have all heard of the sacred cow of India. It is 
 a beautiful beast. It differs from the ordinary cow in 
 having a great hump just over the shoulders. The Hin- 
 dus worship such cows. They never kill one, and a 
 Hindu would as soon think of eating his grandfather as 
 of eating a piece of beef. 
 
 In Benares we find an immense temple devoted to the 
 worship of cows and bulls. The people think this temple 
 too holy to allow us to enter by the front door, but our 
 guide takes us in through a door at the back. We enter 
 a stone court of about the size of the ordinarv barnyard. 
 We think of a barnyard as we look about us. The court 
 is walled with about one hundred stalls, in which there 
 are a hundred sacred bulls with big humps on their backs 
 and with ears which hang down like those of a rabbit, 
 instead of being almost erect like the ears of our cattle. 
 Some are white, some yellow, and sonic dove-colored. 
 
 Here and there through the courtvard a harmless bull 
 moves. The sloppy, dirty stone floor is filled with bare-
 
 240 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 footed Hindus dressed in bright colors. Many of them 
 have brought water from the Ganges in their brass jars. 
 They give this to the bulls, and stand around chanting 
 prayers as the animals drink. Other worshipers are 
 bringing food. We see pretty girls carrying garlands 
 of flowers into the temple. They have red cashmere 
 shawls about their heads, and these they hold over their 
 faces, but we can see their black eyes peeping out in 
 front through the folds. They feed the flowers to the 
 bulls, and pray as the animals lazily chew at the queer 
 food. 
 
 Upon a platform in the center of the courtyard are 
 several priests who sit crosslegged, with boxes of paint 
 beside them. As the people finish their prayers, they 
 come to the priests and pay money, whereupon each gets 
 a dab of red or white paint on the forehead. These paint 
 
 marks are the em- 
 blems of certain of 
 the Hindu gods, and 
 everywhere in our 
 travels we meet peo- 
 ple so spotted with 
 red and white paint. 
 On our w^ay back 
 to the hotel we see 
 many sacred bulls 
 and cows working, 
 and we learn that 
 the people use them for all sorts of hard labor. They 
 pull the plows, and in some parts act as pack animals. 
 They are used for driving, and we pass the carts of rich 
 Hindus, whose bulls wear gorgeous blankets and have 
 their horns decorated with ribbons and flowers. 
 
 "They are used for driving
 
 A VISIT TO JAIPUR. 
 
 241 
 
 XXIX. THE NATIVE STATES OF INDIA; OR, 
 A VISIT TO THE RAJAH OF JAIPUR. 
 
 APART of our 
 journey to-day 
 will be upon ele- 
 phants. We are go- 
 ing to visit the rajah 
 of one of the native 
 states of Hindustan. 
 The whole of India, 
 as we have already 
 learned, is not ruled 
 by Great Britain. 
 There are native 
 states which are 
 governed by rajahs, 
 or Hindu princes. These rulers have gorgeous palaces. 
 They have thousands of servants. Some of them have 
 armies of their own, with camel and elephant troops, and 
 they ride about upon elephants when they go in state from 
 one place to another. They are, to a certain extent, sub- 
 ordinate to the British officials, but they govern their states 
 much as they please. 
 
 One of the most famous of the native rulers is the 
 Nizam of Haidarabad, who lives in south-central India, 
 and who governs a country as large as Kansas. His 
 capital city contains more than four hundred thousand 
 people, and his subjects number more than eleven million. 
 
 Another great native ruler is the Rajah of Jaipur. He 
 lives in the western part of Hindustan, more than a day's 
 ride by railroad northward from Bombay. 
 
 A State Elephant.
 
 242 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 His capital is said to be the finest native city of India, 
 and it is like no other in the world. Imagine a city as 
 large as Omaha made up of beautiful two-story buildings, 
 all of which are painted a delicate rose pink. Let the 
 houses come close to the sidewalk and have balconies 
 hansfing; over it. Let arcades run below from house to 
 
 A Street in Jaipur. 
 
 house, so that you can keep out of the sun as you go 
 along the street. Let the streets be laid out regularly, 
 crossing one another at right angles, and let them be as 
 hard and as well made as the roads of any city of the 
 United States. Put a great wall twenty feet high around 
 this city, and let rugged hills rise at its back so that 
 they inclose it in a basin ; and you have some idea of 
 the rose-colored city of Jaipur.
 
 A VISIT TO JAIPUR. 243 
 
 We must add, however, to these miles of pink houses the 
 curious sights and the strange people of a rich native 
 Indian city. We must fill the balconies with dark-faced 
 men and boys wearing turbans and gowns, and Hindu 
 maidens with their faces covered with shawls and their 
 eyes shining out through the folds. 
 
 Below, opening on the arcades, are shops in which 
 Hindu merchants squat crosslegged with goods piled 
 around them, and sell the countless knickknacks and 
 other things used by the people. Out in the street is 
 one of the most picturesque crowds of men and beasts 
 to be found in the world. There are dark-faced men and 
 women, some rushing here and there, some moving along 
 leisurely, some chatting, and others pushing and yelling. 
 
 There are hundreds of camels stalking along through the 
 crowd. Here is one ridden by a woman. She sits astride 
 of the hump. Her bare feet, resting against the animal's 
 sides, show out below golden anklets, and one of her black 
 eyes peeps out of the shawl around her head as she directs 
 the driver, who is leading the beast, where to go. 
 
 There is a camel carrying stones. Immense paving 
 flags as big as the top of a table are swung by ropes on 
 both sides of his hump, and he goes along with his lower 
 lip down, pouting like a spoiled child. At the side of the 
 road is another camel being loaded w^ith lumber. The men 
 are tying long rafters, one after another, to his back, and 
 at each addition to his load he blubbers and cries like a 
 baby ; and you can see the tears rolHng down from his 
 proud, angry eyes. Here is a camel ridden by a turbancd 
 soldier, and behind him trots another with a boy on his 
 back. 
 
 There come some elephants. There are a dozen of them, 
 each ridden bv a black driver who wears a white turban.
 
 244 INDIA. 
 
 These elephants belong to the rajah, and the servants are 
 giving them their daily exercise. 
 
 There are thousands of bullocks carrying hay, stone, 
 and merchandise through the city. Here comes a sacred 
 bull with a man on his back. The rider wears a turban, 
 and his long beard, fine gown, and red shoes turned up at 
 the toes attract our attention as he goes by. 
 
 Then there are beautiful Arabian horses ridden by the 
 rich men of the city and by the rajah's officials. Some of the 
 riders have gold chains on their necks, and their arms and 
 fingers are heavy with gold. They wear gold-erhbroidered 
 turbans and costly gold vests, and their legs are covered 
 with rich cloths. They sit up straight as they ride, and 
 by the side of each runs a groom, now clearing the way 
 for his master, and now running along by his stirrup, wait- 
 ing for orders. 
 
 The crowd on foot is as gay as that riding upon animals. 
 Here comes a party of Hindu singing girls, who shout 
 out strange songs as they dance through the streets. They 
 are dark-faced, but by no means bad-looking. Their forms 
 are draped in gay-colored cloths, and their limbs are loaded 
 with anklets. Behind them walk some Mohammedan 
 women, whose dresses make them seem hideous to us. 
 Each wears a short jacket and a divided skirt of red or 
 purple cotton which is full at the waist, but which fits 
 close to the skin below the knees. 
 
 What queer sights are these we see on the streets ! 
 Look at those women breaking stones at the side of the 
 road ! They are clad in garments of dirty white cotton, 
 but, poor as they are, they have great silver rings on their 
 ankles, and bracelets of silver or glass on their wrists. We 
 see women and girls with rings in their noses, and there 
 are many girls with rings on their toes.
 
 A VISIT TO JAIPUR. 
 
 245 
 
 Here comes the street-sprinkling machine of Jaipur. It 
 is that brown-skinned, half-naked man with that bag on his 
 back. The bag is made of a pigskin, and it holds several 
 gallons of water. We have seen men like him in all the 
 Indian cities. They are water carriers, and the business 
 descends from father to son. They scatter the water over 
 the street by holding the hand over the mouth of the bag 
 and swinging themselves 
 this way and that as 
 they walk. 
 
 Passing through 
 scenes of this kind, we 
 come at last to the ra- 
 jah's palace. It consists 
 of several large build- 
 ings surrounding courts 
 paved with marble. It 
 contains many rooms 
 which are carpeted with 
 magnificent rugs, and 
 the floor of one great 
 hall is covered with hun- 
 dreds of skins of tigers 
 and leopards, the hunt- 
 ing trophies of the rajah. 
 
 But we are to have an 
 elephant ride. The rajah has ordered that his best ele- 
 phants be brought out for us. We are going to spend a 
 day in a jaunt through the country. We have not much 
 time to stay in the palace, and we ask to be shown to the 
 stables. 
 
 We find that the elephants are being made ready for us. 
 What magnificent creatures they are ! They are larger 
 
 :et-sprinkling machine
 
 246 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 than any elephants we have yet seen. They have great 
 brass chains about their necks, -and their white tusks — • 
 which are cut off halfway up from the end — are bound 
 with heavy brass rings. 
 
 The keepers lead them out into the courtyard, and 
 Hindu elephant drivers make them kneel down in order 
 
 -we have to mount them by ladders.' 
 
 that they may be saddled, and that we may climb on their 
 backs. The saddle is an immense framework cushioned 
 with cloth. The beasts are so large that even when they 
 are kneeling the saddles are high from the ground, and we 
 have to mount them by ladders. 
 
 Then the drivers straddle the necks of the elephants, 
 each putting his legs just behind the great flapping ears.
 
 A VISIT TO JAIPUR. 24/ 
 
 We are told to hold ti|,^ht to the framework of the saddle, 
 and then the drivers prod the beasts with their steel hooks, 
 and give them the signal to rise. The great elephants 
 grunt as they slowly raise us upward, and we go off in a 
 swinging walk through the city. 
 
 We are as high up in the air as though we were on the 
 roof of a village house, and the servants who run along on 
 the road below us seem very far down. The motion is a 
 swaying one, and at first it has the effect of a rolling ship, 
 making us almost seasick. After a time we become used 
 to it, and soon begin to enjoy our strange ride. We go 
 out of the city and climb up the sides of the mountains 
 near by. 
 
 The road passes through some of the wild country 
 scenes of native India. The people are very kind to wild 
 animals, and all things having life are respected by them. 
 Nothing we meet seems to fear us. We pass through 
 woods in which monkeys jump from tree to tree, and now 
 .and then one of them hops across the road in front of the 
 elephants, frightening the beasts so that they jump back- 
 ward and almost throw us to the ground. We see wild 
 peacocks spreading their gorgeous tails out under the rays 
 of the sun, and along the slopes of the mountains we meet 
 wild hogs. At times we pass between hedges of cactuses 
 twelve feet in height, and not far from Jaiinn- we skirt a 
 lake, on the banks of which we see half a dozen great 
 black crocodiles sleeping in the sun. 
 
 The tame animals we pass on the road are quite as 
 curious as the wild ones that we see in the woods. We g:o 
 by droves of little donkeys so loaded down with great bags 
 and baskets that only their legs show out, and the loads 
 seem to be walking off by themselves. The donkeys are 
 no bigger than Newfoundland dogs, and their dark-skinned
 
 248 INDIA. 
 
 drivers, barelegged, pound and yell at them in Hindustani, 
 as they drive them along without either bridle or rein. 
 
 Here comes a stage pulled by a camel. It is filled with 
 black-faced passengers who are on their way to Jaipur to 
 trade. We pass other camels ridden by men, women, and 
 boys, who look at us with inquiring eyes as we ride by on 
 our elephants. 
 
 Some of the camel riders are by no means polite, as you 
 may see from the shabby trick which one of them played 
 upon me when I was once before riding upon one of these 
 very elephants of the Rajah of Jaipur. We were several 
 miles from the city, and my elephant was rolling along at 
 a good round pace. The flies swarmed about us by thou- 
 sands, and half covered the elephant. They persisted in 
 attacking my eyes and face. I had to hold on tight to 
 the elephant saddle with one hand, and my other hand was 
 busy in carrying the umbrella which kept off the rays of 
 the tropical sun. 
 
 Just then a long-legged, black-skinned Hindu came up 
 on a camel. He was tormented by so many flies that they 
 covered his white gown and made the skin of his camel 
 appear almost black. As he drew near my elephant he 
 took his whip and gave his camel a cut. The beast came 
 toward us on the trot. Just as he reached us the Hindu 
 unwound the shawl which formed his long white turban, 
 and with this swept both sides of his camel as he passed 
 by. The flies left him and attacked me and the elephant, 
 and I could hear his laugh ringing out on the air as he 
 trotted ahead. 
 
 After a time we reach the famous old ruined city of 
 Ambir, and then ride back to Jaipur. At the hotel our 
 elephants kneel, and we crawl down the ladder, thoroughly 
 tired out by the journey.
 
 IN TIIK HIMALAYAS. 
 
 249 
 
 In the Himalayas. 
 
 XXX. ABOVE THE CLOUDS; OR, NATURE 
 AND MAN IN THE HEART OE THE 
 HIMALAYA MOUNTAINS. 
 
 LET us now leave the lowlands of India, and take a trip 
 among the snowy peaks of the Himalaya Mountains. 
 They are the highest mountains of the globe. The word 
 Himalaya means "the abode of snow," and these moun- 
 tains are crowned with eternal frost. The tops of many of 
 them have never been reached by man. Mount Everest, 
 in the Himalayas, is the highest mountain of the world. 
 It is 29,002 feet in height, or more than twice as high as 
 Fusiyama, the sacred snow-capped mountain of Japan. 
 Mont Blanc, the tallest of the Alps, is less than sixteen 
 
 CAIU". ASIA — 16
 
 2 50 INDIA. 
 
 thousand feet high. If you went to the top of Mont 
 Blanc, and from there in a balloon ascended straight 
 upward, you would have to rise a distance of more than 
 two miles before you would reach the altitude of Mount 
 Everest. 
 
 The Himalaya Mountains extend in the shape of a 
 double wall, with a wide, irregular trough or valley be- 
 tween them, along the northern boundary of Hindustan. 
 If you could stretch the Himalaya range over the United 
 States, beginning at New York, it would reach almost to 
 Denver. Its average width would be nearly as great as 
 the distance between New York and Washington, and the 
 mountains of the southern wall, corresponding to those 
 nearest India, would rise steeply up from the plains to 
 a height of almost twenty thousand feet, or nearly four 
 miles. 
 
 The Himalayas have scores of peaks, each of which is 
 higher than Mont Blanc, and at least forty of which 
 rise more than one mile higher than that famous mon- 
 arch of the Alps. It is said that you could drop all of 
 the Alps into some of the valleys of the Himalayas, and 
 at a distance of ten miles from them there would be no 
 perceptible change in the face of nature. 
 
 We read much about the glaciers, or moving masses of 
 ice and snow, in the mountains of Switzerland. In the 
 Himalayas there are moving fields of solid ice from thirty 
 to sixty miles in length, and one of them, thirty-three miles 
 long, lies between two mountains, each of which is more 
 than five miles in height. 
 
 The scenery upon these mountains is unlike that of the 
 Rockies or the Alps. The Himalayas lie on the edge of 
 the tropics, and the moisture rising from the Indian plains 
 gives them a thousand clouds where the Alps have one.
 
 IN THE HIMALAYAS. 25 I 
 
 As wc travel up them, or climb about their rocky recesses, 
 we see great masses of vapor of all kinds and shapes 
 chasing each other over the hills below us. At the dis- 
 tance of two miles above the sea the clouds crawl up the 
 steep sides of the valleys and climb to our very feet. 
 Soon they wrap themselves around us, and for a few 
 moments the mist is so thick that we cannot see the heads 
 of the horses upon which we are riding. A moment later 
 the clouds have passed. They float onward and lose them- 
 selves among the snows above. 
 
 During our travels in the Himalayas we shall often have 
 clouds above and below us. In the hollows in the sides of 
 the mountains we shall see queer-shaped clouds, which at 
 times look almost like men who have sat down for a rest. 
 At other times the clouds appear to have taken the forms 
 of beasts, and in single file race through the air. In the 
 morning the sun gilds the clouds so that they become 
 masses of fire, and at night the moon turns them to curious 
 creatures of silver and gold. In the early morning the 
 valleys of the Himalayas are filled with mists, and as we 
 gaze down upon them from the mountains we seem to 
 be standing above an icy ocean. As we look we may see 
 the sun rise. It kisses the tops of the highest peaks, and 
 makes the snow upon them shine with all the colors of 
 the rainbow. 
 
 We shall visit these wonderful mountains at Darjiling, 
 a little village lying under the shadows of a number of the 
 highest Himalaya peaks. It is situated in the hills about 
 a mile and a half above the level of the sea. The cli- 
 mate there is cold, although it is not very far north of 
 Calcutta, from which we make our start to-day. The 
 plains of India are in the tropics. We ride over them on 
 the railroad, and at last, near the foothills, we dash into
 
 252 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 jungles containing great thickets of bamboo and hundreds 
 of banyan trees, which send scores of sprouts down from 
 their branches into the earth, and make the jungle almost 
 impenetrable. There are thousands of curious plants, 
 there are poisonous vines, and great trees so thick that we 
 can see only a few steps from the train through the green. 
 
 The jungles are the home 
 of the tiger, and as we 
 go through them we may 
 see the bright eyes of 
 this beast staring out of 
 the darkness. 
 
 At the foot of the 
 mountains we take the 
 little narrow-gauge rail- 
 road that carries us up 
 to Darjiling. It is only 
 two feet wide, and it 
 curves in and out among 
 the trees like a great snake. Our motive power is a little 
 steam engine which carries us upward more than a thou- 
 sand feet every hour. There are a dozen horseshoe curves 
 every mile. There are numerous loops, and we cross our 
 track again and again in making the gradual slope which 
 will permit of our being carried further up into the clouds. 
 At times we pass precipices covered with green, down 
 which, out of the car windows, we can look for a thousand 
 feet ; and then we climb along the sides of the mountains 
 above valleys which fade away into the broad plains of 
 Bengal. 
 
 We soon leave the jungle and find in its place huge for- 
 est trees, some of which arc two hundred feet high. The 
 trees are clothed with a luxuriant growth of moss and 
 
 " Our motive power
 
 IN THE HIMALAYAS. 
 
 253 
 
 ferns ; and wc see orchids, curious flowers of many beau- 
 tiful colors and shapes, fastened to their trunks and hang- 
 ing from their branches. As we rise still further we notice 
 the tree fern. This has a tall, round trunk from ten to 
 twenty feet in length, from the top of which immense fern 
 leaves jut out like the leaves of a palm. 
 
 The air is full of moisture, and the vegetation, though 
 not so thick as in the jungle, is still luxuriant. As we rise 
 still higher, the color of the moss on the trees changes 
 from a brilliant green to frosted silver. It is now some- 
 what like the Spanish moss which is to be found in some 
 of our Southern States. 
 This moss clings to the 
 limbs of the trees like 
 a coat. It hangs from 
 their branches in clus- 
 ters, and makes them 
 look in the distance like 
 a forest of green dusted 
 with silver. 
 
 At about a mile above 
 the plains we find many 
 of the trees of our Amer- 
 ican mountains. Roses 
 are blooming in the vil- 
 lages, and the sides of 
 some of the hills are 
 covered with immense tea gardens, much like those we 
 saw in Japan. 
 
 The tea plant grows wild in some parts of the Himalayas. 
 Its natural home is said to be Assam, one of the north- 
 eastern provinces of India, where travelers say it sometimes 
 reaches the size of a large tree. It is supposed that the 
 
 Tea Plant.
 
 254 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 plant was originally taken from this side of the Himalayas, 
 and introduced into China, from where it was carried to 
 Japan. 
 
 By far the greater part of the tea of commerce was pro- 
 duced in China and Japan until within a few years. The 
 British, however, have now planted tea gardens in India, 
 
 "We see groups of natives, known as Leptchas— " 
 
 and they are raising delicious tea. That produced in the 
 Himalayas is shipped to all parts of the world. The plant 
 is grown also in the island of Ceylon, and the people of 
 the United States now use hundreds of thousands of 
 pounds of Indian tea. 
 
 We pass a number of villages on our journey up the 
 mountains. The cars are surrounded at each stop by 
 curious people. We see groups of natives, known as
 
 IN THE HIMALAYAS. 255 
 
 Leptchas, who have faces not unlike those of our Ameri- 
 can Indians. The men are short, with broad chests, big 
 calves, and long arms. They have copper-colored faces 
 and thick, coal-black hair, which they wear in long plaits 
 down their backs. The women have two braids of hair, 
 and both sexes wear robes of striped, coarse cotton cloth 
 which fall to below their knees, leaving their arms free. 
 
 During the rainy season they all wear high boots of deer- 
 skin, as a protection from the terrible leeches which are then 
 found in the mountains. These leeches are so numerous 
 that in a half hour's walk over the grass more than one 
 hundred of them may be found to have fastened themselves 
 upon you. They suck your blood, and they have been 
 known to live for days in the jaws, nostrils, and stomachs 
 of human beings, causing dreadful suffering and death. 
 
 The Leptcha women load themselves with jewelry, and, 
 like the women of the other hill tribes of the Himalaya 
 Mountains, are fond of ornaments of all kinds. We see 
 many girls who have bracelets of silver covering their arms 
 from their wrists to their elbows, and some who have 
 heavy rings of gold and silver about their ankles. Some 
 have flat pieces of gold hanging from their ears, and not a 
 few have jeweled buttons fastened in the flesh of their noses. 
 
 The Bhutanese are another hill tribe which we find in the 
 Himalaya Mountains. They look not unlike the Leptchas, 
 and they dress much the same, except that they paint their 
 faces with a sort of brown varnish. Nearly every Bhutanese 
 woman wears the greater part of her fortune. Some have 
 large beads of coral and turquoise bound about their heads. 
 Some have earrings of gold so heavy that they pull down 
 the lobes of their ears ; and the poorest are covered with 
 jewelry of brass or stone, if they cannot afford silver and 
 gold.
 
 256 
 
 INDIA. 
 
 The women of the Himalaya Mountains are very strong. 
 We see them digging in the fields. They act as porters, 
 carrying great quantities of grain and other things in bas- 
 kets fastened to their backs. Sometimes even babies are 
 
 so carried. 
 
 When we arrive at the 
 station of Darjiling we are 
 met by rosy-cheeked girls 
 who offer to carry our trunks 
 and other baggage up to the 
 hotel. We hesitate a mo- 
 ment at the idea of allow- 
 ing women to do such things 
 for us, but finally consent, 
 and each of these lusty girls 
 picks up a trunk weigh- 
 ing perhaps two hundred 
 pounds, swings it upon her 
 back, and trots off with it 
 up the hill. The charge is 
 an amount equal to about 
 five cents of our money. 
 
 The men of the Hima- 
 laya Mountains are fully as 
 strong as the women. Each one of them carries a great 
 knife in his belt, and many of them are very fierce-looking. 
 The mountaineers live in low huts not much larger than 
 dry-goods boxes. They are made of mud and stone, and 
 have roofs of straw thatch. The people do most of their 
 cooking out of doors. They eat with their fingers. They 
 sleep on the floor, and have but little civilization. They 
 are worshipers of Buddha, and are much like the people 
 of Tibet, whom we shall visit in the next chapter. 
 
 -even babies are so carried.'
 
 TIBET— LAND AND PEOPLE. 
 
 257 
 
 XXXI. TIBET AND THE TIBETANS. 
 
 THE Tibetans do not allow foreigners to come into their 
 country, and those who do so run the risk of losing 
 their lives. A famous Hindu, Baboo Chandra Das, in 1890 
 traveled through Tibet, spending some time in Lassa, the 
 capital of the country. He had to disguise himself as a 
 Tibetan in order to make the journey. In 1846, a Catho- 
 lic priest named Hue 
 was able to make his 
 way through Tibet and 
 to spend some time in 
 Lassa by dressing up as 
 a Tibetan. We have 
 our latest knowledge of 
 the northern part of the 
 country from an Amer- 
 ican explorer, W. W. 
 Rockhill, who entered 
 Tibet by way of Mon- 
 golia in 1892. 
 
 The Hindus call Tibet 
 the Roof of the World. The country consists of an im- 
 mense table-land, about one fifth the size of the United 
 States. It lies between two ranges of mountains, and the 
 greater part of it is more than two miles above the sea. 
 This plateau of Tibet has a number of large rivers, and it 
 contains both fresh- and salt-water lakes. Its largest 
 stream is the Yarn Tsangbu, or Yarn River, which flows 
 for seven hundred miles through southern Tibet, and is 
 supposed to empty finally into the Brahmaputra River. 
 The Indus rises in the western part of Tibet, and the 
 
 J^^- 
 
 <:'& 
 
 A Tibetan Chief.
 
 258 TIBET. 
 
 Yangtze and the Hoang, the two great rivers of China, 
 have their sources in the northeastern part of the country. 
 Tibet is a very rough land, and is cut up by several moun- 
 tain chains. It has many desert plains, and northeast of 
 it lies the great Desert of Gobi. 
 
 The climate of Tibet is exceedingly dry. In the sum- 
 mer, which lasts from May to October, the valleys are hot, 
 though the mountains are covered with snow. In the 
 winter the leaves of the trees wither and become so dry 
 that they may be ground to powder between the fingers. 
 Planks and beams crack and break from the extreme dry- 
 ness of the air, and the Tibetans sometimes cover the 
 woodwork of their houses with coarse cotton to preserve 
 them. 
 
 There is no danger from dampness. The Tibetans need 
 neither refrigerators nor salt to keep their food. Meat 
 of all kinds can be left out of doors without spoiling. The 
 dry air sucks up the juices, and the flesh soon becomes so 
 dry that it can be powdered like bread. When once pow- 
 dered it can be kept for years, and mutton cured in this 
 way is a common food in Tibet. As soon as a sheep is 
 killed it is skinned, cleaned, and hung up out of doors. It 
 quickly becomes a dry, stiffened mass, and is often kept 
 for a long time. 
 
 As is common among the people of cold climates, the 
 Tibetans are very fond of fats, and one of their favorite 
 dishes is a soup made of brick tea mixed with salt, butter, 
 and water, and cooked into a thick, fatty broth. After 
 the broth is taken off the fire, it is thickened with barley 
 meal, the mixture being churned together in a little tea 
 churn. When served it is ladled out into bowls, and the 
 people knead the mush into dough pellets with their fingers 
 before eating it.
 
 LAND AND PEOPLE. 
 
 259 
 
 Both women and men arc fond of tobacco, and they 
 use it largely in the shape of snuff, carrying it in horn 
 boxes which look much like our powderhorns. 
 
 It is estimated that there are about three million Tibet- 
 ans living upon this dry, cold Asiatic plateau. They are 
 divided into many different tribes, each of which has curi- 
 ous customs. 
 
 Many of the Tibetans look much like our American 
 Indians. They have high cheek bones, and those who are 
 exposed to the sun have 
 copper-colored complexions. 
 None of the men have 
 beards, and all carry pin- 
 cers to pluck the hairs out 
 of their faces. Mr. Rockhill 
 found some tribes of Tibetans 
 who had curly hair, and others 
 whose hair was as straight as 
 that of our Indians. 
 
 The different tribes dress 
 much alike, wearing in the 
 winter sheepskin gowns with /| 
 the wool turned inward, or 
 so many other furs that it is 
 often hard to tell where the 
 clothes end and the people 
 begin. In summer the gowns are made of native woolen 
 cloth. The dresses of both sexes reach from the neck to 
 below the knees, and are tied about the waist with woolen 
 girdles. The people are fond of bright colors, and have 
 clothes of red, purple, and yellow. Both men and women 
 have very large boots, which are sometimes made of red or 
 yellow leather, and are held up by bright-colored garters. 
 
 Tibetan Coat,
 
 26o 
 
 TIBET. 
 
 In some parts of the country the men shave their heads, 
 and in these sections hats are always worn. In northern 
 Tibet both men and women wear caps of green, red, or blue 
 
 " Both men and women have very large boots—" 
 
 cloth, which are sometimes faced with lambskin. In the 
 winter time the men wear pointed caps of felt, which are 
 often covered with blue or red silk, and which have large 
 
 ear flaps. 
 
 Some of the Tibetan men 
 never trim their hair except to 
 cut it in front so that it makes 
 a fringe just over the eyes. 
 Behind, it hangs down to their 
 shoulders and forms a sufficient 
 protection against the weather. 
 In some places the hats are 
 high and shaped much like those of Korean gentlemen, 
 with fully as broad brims, and with much bigger crowns. 
 These hats are very gorgeous indeed. Their brims are 
 
 -the hats are high — '
 
 LAND AND PEOPLE. 26 1 
 
 often faced with red or blue cotton or silk, the hat being 
 held on by a string around the throat. 
 
 Both men and women are fond of jewelry, the men fre- 
 quently wearing an earring in the left ear. Such earrings 
 are sometimes set with pearls and turquoises, and are often 
 two inches long. The women wear chains of gold, silver, 
 and copper about their necks. They wear earrings, some 
 of which are so heavy that a little strap is tied to them and 
 passed over the top of the ear to take the weight from 
 the lobe. They adorn their hair with many kinds of 
 jeweled trinkets, plaiting gold, silver, amber, and coral 
 ornaments in with their braids. 
 
 Some of the Tibetans live in tents made of the hair of 
 the yak or mountain cow, and others have rude houses 
 of wood or stone. The houses of the rich are sometimes 
 of three stories. They are built around a simple court, 
 and often contain a number of rooms. The houses of 
 the poor are generally of two stories, with a courtyard in 
 front or behind, and with the ground floor used as a 
 stable. 
 
 The walls of the houses are usually put together without 
 cement. The windows are little holes which are closed at 
 night with wooden shutters. The roofs are flat, those of 
 the larger rooms being supported by wooden pillars. 
 They are covered with earth in most parts of the country, 
 and are often used as threshing floors. The ground floors 
 are generally of earth, but those of the better class are 
 paved with stone or pebbles set in clay and well pounded 
 down. 
 
 The Tibetan houses have but little furniture. The peo- 
 ple sit on the floor, and they sleep upon mats or skins. 
 They light their houses with lamps filled with butter in 
 which a little cotton wick is stuck : and where butter is
 
 1 
 
 262 TIBET. 
 
 scarce they sometimes use chips of pitch pine which they 
 burn on a flat stone in the middle of the room. As a rule, 
 however, the Tibetans go to sleep as soon as it becomes 
 dark, and use no other light than that of the sun. Some 
 of the houses have cooking stoves of clay which are 
 heated by little fires made of dry manure. 
 
 There are not many large cities in Tibet, and it is only 
 here and there that the villages are of any size. Lassa, 
 the capital, is said to contain about fifty thousand people, 
 and it has the finest buildings of the country. These are 
 monasteries. The Tibetans are Buddhists. The country 
 is ruled by Buddhist priests, or lamas, of whom there are 
 about one hundred thousand in Tibet. 
 
 At the head of the lamas is the Grand Lama, who lives 
 in a temple just outside of Lassa, and who is usually a 
 boy. When Chandra Das, the Hindu explorer, visited 
 Lassa, the grand lama was only eight years old. Chan- 
 dra Das says that the grand lama's temple is on a moun- 
 tain, and that it has many golden domes, and is wonderfully 
 beautiful. He had to climb up ladders to reach the temple, 
 and he got down on his knees before this little boy priest 
 whom all the Tibetans worship. 
 
 The Tibetans are very religious. They are always pray- 
 ing, and they have machines of different kinds with which 
 they pray to Buddha. These are called prayer wheels. A 
 number of prayers are written out upon a strip of paper. 
 The paper is wrapped around a stick and inclosed in a little 
 tin or brass box so that by swinging the stick the paper 
 turns around within the box ; and the man believes that at 
 every turn he gets the credit of as many prayers as are 
 written upon it. Sometimes prayer wheels are turned by 
 the wind, and in some places you see them so arranged 
 that the wheel is made to go around by the water of some
 
 LAND AND PEOPLE. 
 
 263 
 
 creek or brook. When a man wants to pray he pulls out 
 a peg, and the wind or water prays for him, wiping out 
 a sin, so he thinks, with each turn of the wheel. Nearly 
 all education in Tibet is confined to the priesthood, and 
 Tibetan books are almost altogether religious. 
 
 One of the queerest of Tibetan customs is in regard to 
 marriage. Instead of one man having several wives, as is 
 
 common in most Asiatic countries, here one woman has 
 several husbands. When a Tibetan girl marries into a 
 family, she often becomes the wife of all the brothers of 
 her husband. She is the head of the domestic affairs of 
 the household, and she is expected to take care of the 
 home, do the cooking, and work in the fields. In the 
 towns nearly all the shops are kept by women, and 
 the Tibetan wife's opinion is usually asked by her hus-
 
 264 TIBET. 
 
 band. She does not think that she has a hard time, and 
 a rich Tibetan lady whom Chandra Das met in Lassa told 
 him that she pitied the women of other countries, who 
 were so poor that they could have only one husband. 
 
 The Tibetans have mines of gold, silver, and copper. 
 Beautiful turquoise is found in some parts of the coun- 
 try, and is brought to India for sale. The people raise 
 small quantities of wheat, barley, and potatoes, and they 
 have some fruits, such as peaches, grapes, and apples. 
 
 The Tibetans are stock breeders, however, rather than 
 farmers. Many of them have large flocks of sheep and 
 goats, and some have herds of yaks or mountain cows. 
 The yak is used for carrying burdens up the hills, being 
 very sure-footed and strong. A yak is about as large as a 
 good-sized cow. Its body is covered with a thick coat of 
 black and white hair about two inches long. It has horns 
 like those of a cow, and its tail, which is like that of a 
 horse, though much more bushy, is in many cases three 
 feet in length. The yak has a hump upon its shoulders 
 which is largely composed of fat, and its hoofs are like 
 those of our cattle. 
 
 Another beast that is found in Tibet is the musk deer, 
 from which comes a large part of the musk perfume of 
 commerce. This animal is smaller than the deer which 
 we have in America. The musk is found in the form of 
 fat in a little sac beneath the skin of the abdomen. The 
 sack is about as large as a small orange, and its contents, 
 which are of a dark brown or chocolate color, look much 
 like moist gingerbread. When the animal is killed, the 
 ball of musk fat is taken out and dried. It is then shipped 
 over the mountains to India and China, and from there it 
 is exported to this country and to Europe, where it forms 
 the basis of many perfumes.
 
 THE PEOPLE OF IRAN. 
 
 265 
 
 XXXII. PERSIA AND THE PERSIANS. 
 
 TRAVELING westward across northwestern India, we 
 ride on horses and camels through wild mountain 
 passes and over high plains, on our way to Persia, and 
 finally come to the vast Plateau of Iran', which includes 
 Afghanistan', Baluchistan', and Persia, the three countries 
 comprising a ter- 
 ritory about one 
 third the size of 
 the United States. 
 Afghanistan and 
 Baluchistan are 
 occupied by nom- 
 ads, or wander- 
 ing tribes, who 
 own large flocks 
 of sheep, goats, 
 and yaks. They 
 have few manu- 
 factures, and raise 
 practically noth- 
 ing for export. The men are straight-eyed and dark-faced. 
 They wear turbans and gowns, and nearly every one we 
 meet carries a gun or a sword. 
 
 The people of these two nations are almost altogether 
 Mohammedans. Afghanistan is ruled by the ameer, who 
 lives in the city of Kabul. This city is situated about a 
 mile above the sea, and contains about seventy-five thou- 
 sand people. Baluchistan has a ruler called the khan, who 
 lives at Khelat, a city with fourteen thousand inhabitants. 
 
 Commerce is carried on entirely by caravan. There are 
 
 The Plateau of Iran.
 
 PERSIA. 
 
 A Nomad Family and House. 
 
 few roads and no railroads, and though both countries con- 
 tain fertile valleys, they are for the most part made up of 
 vast tracts of mountainous lands and deserts occupied by 
 wild animals. We may see herds of wild asses, and if we 
 should pass through the forests we might be in danger 
 from lions, tigers, leopards, and wolves. 
 
 The country of Persia looks very small upon the map, 
 but it is really larger than France, Germany, Great Britain 
 and Ireland put together. It consists of a high table-land 
 lying about three quarters of a mile above the sea, with a 
 rim of mountains around it. The slopes that run down to 
 the Caspian Sea are covered with timber, but the hills that 
 slope inward, and the table-land itself, are made up largely 
 of barren deserts, some of which are covered with salt, 
 while others contain great quantities of sulphur. One 
 salt desert in Persia is about as large as the States of
 
 THE PEOPLE OF IRAN. 
 
 267 
 
 New York and Pennsylvania. A great part of the land 
 cannot be cultivated, and only about one fourth of it is now 
 farmed. The Persians have thousands of little irrigating 
 canals, and many of their fields are watered from wells. 
 
 Persia produces excellent wheat, barley, millet, and 
 maize. It has much cotton, tobacco, and opium. Its 
 fruits are delicious, and among them are grapes, peaches, 
 oranges, dates, and lemons. Dates are sold very cheap, 
 some kinds bringing only about one half cent a pound. 
 
 Street Scene in Tabriz. Persia. 
 
 There are no railroads in Persia. We must make our 
 way through it on camel or mule paths, and we shall have 
 to travel in caravans in order to be safe. We find that 
 most of the people live in villages, that they may the better 
 defend themselves from robbers and wandering tribes. 
 The villages are usually surrounded by high walls. Their 
 
 CARP. ASIA — 17
 
 268 PERSIA. 
 
 gates are closed at night, and the flocks and herds are 
 driven in before dark and kept inside until morning. 
 
 The houses are made of mud, and they are seldom of 
 more than one story. They have flat roofs, and look more 
 like great square or oblong mud boxes than houses. They 
 are built along narrow, unpaved streets which are full of 
 dust and dirt. Nearly every house has a stable beside it, 
 and the yard of the stable is the same as that of the house. 
 In some of the yards we find the women molding manure 
 into cakes, such as we saw in India, and sticking them on 
 the walls to dry. There are few trees, except on the moun- 
 tains, and such cakes are the fuel of a large part of Persia. 
 
 Outside of each village there are threshing floors. These 
 are places about twenty-five feet square, where the ground 
 has been rolled until it is as hard as stone. The wheat or 
 barley is cut with sickles and brought from the fields on 
 donkeys to the threshing floors, where oxen are driven 
 around over it until every grain is trodden out. Then 
 with wooden pitchforks the farmers toss up the straw until 
 the chaff is all blown aside. They keep the straw for 
 feeding the sheep, donkeys, and oxen. 
 
 Donkeys and camels are, to a large extent, the beasts of 
 burden in Persia. We see droves of donkeys everywhere 
 carrying heavy loads, and on the long desert journeys 
 everything goes upon camels. 
 
 The Persian sheep produce excellent wool. The most 
 curious thing about them is their tails, which are very fat ; 
 a single tail often weighs as much as ten pounds. Mr. S. G. 
 Wilson, a missionary who lived a long time in Persia, says 
 that the Persians often milk their sheep and goats, and 
 he describes an odd custom which they have in order to 
 make the cows give down their milk. They think that a 
 cow will become dry if it knows that its calf has been
 
 THE PEOPLE OF IRAN. 
 
 269 
 
 taken away, so they try to deceive the cow. After killing 
 the calf, they take its hide and stuff it with straw, and 
 place this stuffed calf beside the cow at milking time. 
 
 But let us take a look at the people of Persia. There 
 are about nine millions of them, and the most of them have 
 cream-colored faces, straight eyes, and dark hair. The men 
 shave their heads and wear long cloths wrapped around 
 
 
 -where oxen are driven around over it - 
 
 them in the shape of a turban. Many wear high, cone- 
 shaped hats of rough felt. The women cover their heads 
 with Ted handkerchiefs, and when they go out upon the 
 streets they always wear veils. 
 
 Both sexes of the poorer Persians wear cotton gowns, 
 those of the men falling to their feet, and those of the 
 women reaching only to the knees, leaving their limbs and 
 feet bare. The women of the well-to-do class have a street
 
 270 PERSIA. 
 
 costume consisting partly of very full trousers gathered 
 in about the ankles and tied above their fine leather shoes, 
 which are turned up at the toes. Over their shoulders 
 they wear a piece of fine cloth about two yards square, 
 which is put on over the head and covers up the whole 
 person. Such costumes are of blue, black, or striped goods, 
 the women all wearing about the same colors, so that it is 
 hard for a man to tell his own wife if he meets her on the 
 streets. The house dress is different. Indoors the women 
 wear divided skirts which reach to the knees, and loose- 
 fitting sacks with very long sleeves. 
 
 Persian women have to keep in their own part of the 
 house. It would be a disgrace for them to be seen by 
 other men than those of their own family ; and before 
 a caller enters the gate, he is expected to shout out some 
 such words as " Woman, away ! " in order to give the 
 women a chance to fly into their own quarters. 
 
 When a Persian lady of high rank takes a walk through 
 the streets, she often has an attendant with her who goes 
 before her and orders all men to turn their eyes in another 
 direction. A Persian never asks after the wives of his 
 friends, and if a caller should be so impolite as to do so, 
 the host in his reply would not speak of his wife by name, 
 or as his wife, but would refer to her as his children's 
 mother. For instance, suppose that the Persian's name 
 is Smith, and that he has a son named John. Upon being 
 asked as to his wife, he will not reply " My wife is well," 
 or "Mrs. Smith is well," but may say, "I thank you, little 
 Johnnie's mother is so-so to-day." 
 
 The Persian women, in fact, have very few rights, and 
 they are mostly slaves of their husbands. Parents arrange 
 most of the marriages. Girls are often betrothed when 
 they are young, and are sometimes married under ten.
 
 THE PEOPLE OF IRAN. 2/1 
 
 The Persians have ideas of beauty different from ours. 
 Their women to be beautiful must be fat, and a face as 
 round as the moon is much desired. They are proud of 
 high foreheads and heavy eyebrows, and they sometimes 
 paint their brows to make them look thicker than they are. 
 
 The poorer women do all kinds of housework. They 
 milk the cows, prepare the fuel, and do all the cooking. 
 They do not have much trouble in taking care of the fur- 
 niture. The floor of most Persian houses forms the beds, 
 the tables, and the chairs of the family. The people lie 
 upon mattresses at night, using no sheets, and covering 
 themselves with a very thick quilt. In the daytime the 
 bedding is rolled up and put away in a corner. 
 
 All eating is done with the fingers, and the plates of 
 the poorer families are often thin cakes of bread. A man 
 usually eats his plate after he is through with his dinner, 
 and during the meal he tears off a piece of it, and by bend- 
 ing it up picks out bits of meat from the soup and conveys 
 them to his mouth. The diet of the common people is 
 largely made up of bread, cheese, and milk, with a little 
 meat in the form of a stew, or soup, once a day. The 
 Persians drink a great deal of tea, and are fond of coffee. 
 
 Persia has not many large cities. Te-heriin' contains 
 about two hundred thousand people, and is the place 
 where the shah, the despotic ruler of the country, lives. 
 There is a wall and a deep moat around Teheran. The 
 city has many fine buildings, and among other institutions 
 a college where about two hundred and fifty Persian and 
 Armenian boys are educated after modern methods. 
 
 The great business city of Persia is Tabriz', situated on 
 a plain in the northern part of the country. It is about 
 as large as Teheran, but it has not so many fine buildings. 
 It is, in fact, made up of a vast number of one- and two-
 
 2/2 
 
 PERSIA. 
 
 Story houses with mud walls surrounding them. These 
 are close to the streets, and the streets are so narrow that 
 in going through them we have to crowd against the walls 
 to keep out of the way of the donkeys and camels. The 
 walls are from ten to twenty-five feet high, and keep the 
 men from looking in and seeing the women. 
 
 The business of the Persian cities is done almost alto- 
 
 In a Persian Bazaar. 
 
 gether in bazaars, much like those we saw in India. The 
 merchants sit in their little shops in turbans and gowns, as 
 they work and sell. There are, it is estimated, about five 
 thousand such shops in Tabriz, the most of which are not 
 more than ten feet square. Each merchant has his goods 
 piled around him, and you bargain for hours before you 
 make many purchases, because the Persian always asks 
 several times as much as he expects to get, and will not 
 lower the price without much talk.
 
 ARABIA — LIFE IN THE DESERT. 2/3 
 
 In our travels through Persia we shall find that the 
 people are not very civilized. The officers can be bribed, 
 and the most terrible punishments are inflicted. For 
 very small offenses men are often whipped on their 
 bare feet with canes. A man is placed on the ground, 
 and his feet are fastened into a board which is raised so 
 that his soles slant upward and can be easily beaten. The 
 right hands of thieves are sometimes cut off. A few years 
 ago a famous robber chief was caught and put alive into 
 the mouth of a loaded cannon. The cannon was then 
 fired, and the man was blown into pieces. 
 
 There is not much education in Persia, and little more 
 than reading, writing, and arithmetic is anywhere taught. 
 The boys go to school in the mosques or temples. The 
 master reads the lessons, and the children repeat them 
 after him. There are no schools for girls, and very few 
 of the women of Persia know how to read. 
 
 XXXIII. ARABIA, OR LIFE IN THE DESERT. 
 
 OUR best way to go to Arabia will be to return to 
 India and take one of the steamships that sail 
 weekly from Bombay to A'den. Aden is the chief sea- 
 port of Arabia. The ships going from Europe to India, 
 Australia, and China by way of the Suez Canal take on 
 coal at Aden, and the great steamers which carry tea and 
 other things from Asia to Europe also stop at this port. 
 The different tribes of southern Arabia come to Aden to 
 trade, and from Aden are shipped much of the famed 
 Mocha coffee, ostrich feathers, fruit, and other things 
 raised by the Arabs.
 
 274 
 
 ARABIA. 
 
 Aden. 
 
 It takes us a week to sail from Bombay to Aden. Our 
 first sight of land gives us a fair idea of many parts of the 
 Arabian peninsula. There is no country which is less 
 inviting and more desolate. Imagine a great harbor of 
 sea-green water, the shores of which rise almost straight 
 upward in the shape of a ragged mountain of brown rock 
 and white sand. There is not a tree or a blade of grass to 
 be seen. All is gray, brown, and dazzling white. 
 
 The city of Aden itself does not relieve the picture. 
 Its houses are white and brown, being mostly one- and two- 
 story buildings made of sun-dried brick and covered with 
 plaster. Along the edges of the hills there are huts of 
 the same brown color as the rocks themselves. Every- 
 thing is dusty and dirty, and as soon as we land, the hot, 
 dry air of the desert almost parches our tongues, and we 
 ask for a drink.
 
 LIFE IN THE DESERT. 
 
 275 
 
 We find that water is worth money in Aden, and that 
 every one pays for all that he gets. It rains very seldom, 
 and often two years pass without a drop falling. There 
 is only one well in the city. The most of the water used 
 is made by machines which evaporate sea water, leaving the 
 salt behind, and condense 
 the steam into fresh water. 
 Aden is under the control 
 of the British, and these 
 machines belong to the 
 British government, which 
 sells the water to the peo- 
 ple, and gives a certain 
 amount every day to each 
 of the British soldiers who 
 are stationed there. 
 
 Arabia is one of the 
 least-known countries of 
 the world. It is about one 
 third the size of the whole 
 United States, and a line 
 drawn diagonally across it 
 from the Isthmus of Suez 
 to the town of Maskat, on 
 the Arabian Sea, would be A""*^'* ^"'^ "^"'"^^y '" ^='^- 
 
 longer than the distance between Boston and New Orleans. 
 
 This vast territory has no railroads, no great rivers, and 
 very little soil that is good for farming. Most of the 
 southern part of Arabia, on the edge of which is Aden, 
 has never been explored by Europeans or Americans. 
 It is known, however, that Arabia is largely made up of 
 rocky deserts like that about Aden, and that a great part 
 of it is a vast plateau more than half a mile above the sea.
 
 2/6 
 
 ARABIA. 
 
 Arabia contains a population about as large as that of the 
 State of New York. We find the people very fine-looking. 
 The men are straight and well formed. They have dark 
 faces, coarse black hair, and aquihne noses. Here comes 
 
 one of them leading his 
 camel. He wears a long 
 white cotton gown or 
 shirt which is open at 
 the chest, and which is 
 bound around his waist 
 with a girdle of leather. 
 He has a goat's-hair 
 cloak of black and white 
 stripes thrown over his 
 shoulders, and his head 
 is covered with a bright 
 yellow silk handkerchief 
 which is tied on with a 
 black band of twisted 
 hair about as big around 
 as your finger. This 
 band is bound around 
 his head, and the long 
 end of the handkerchief 
 hangs down upon his 
 shoulders. His ankles 
 and feet are bare, though 
 his feet are protected from the hot streets by sandals. 
 
 Behind him comes a woman. She wears a gown which 
 is open at the neck and which falls to her feet. A piece 
 of dark blue cloth covers her head and the most of her 
 figure, and trails on the ground behind her. She does not 
 wear the veil which is common in Persia, nor does she 
 
 Arab Girl.
 
 LIFE IN THE DESERT. 
 
 277 
 
 conceal her face so carefully as the women whom we saw 
 in India. 
 
 The inhabitants of Arabia may be divided into two great 
 classes — those who live in tents, and those who dwell in 
 the towns and villages. The tent dwellers are generally 
 known as Bed'ou-ins. They are the wandering tribes who 
 pick out the good pasture grounds, and upon them graze 
 
 'The tent dwellers—" 
 
 the flocks of sheep and the herds of camels from which 
 they get their living. They are the people of the desert, 
 and we shall meet more of them as we go northward 
 through Syria. They are a very bold race, and are hos- 
 tile to strangers. If we should attempt to pass through 
 Arabia we should have to go upon camels, and in order 
 to travel with any safety we must pay a tribute to the 
 Bedouin chiefs, or sheiks, to keep them from robbing us.
 
 278 ARABIA. 
 
 The Bedouin tents are generally made of cloth of goat's 
 hair dyed black. A tent is seldom more than twenty feet 
 long, but it usually has one part shut off for the women 
 and children. There is no furniture to speak of. The 
 cooking is done over an open fire, and all the family eat 
 with their fingers. The Bedouins wear but little clothing. 
 The boys go naked until they are thirteen, and the girls 
 until they are seven. 
 
 Some of the tent dwellers raise a little wheat and barley, 
 but millet is their chief crop. Millet and dates form the 
 principal food of the Arabs. The millet is ground to flour 
 and made into cakes. The date comes from the date palm, 
 and it is eaten by the horses and camels as well as by 
 the people. 
 
 We have all heard of the wonderful Arabian horses, 
 but in Arabia camels are much more important animals 
 than horses. They carry almost all the burdens, and it 
 is upon them that the Bedouins travel when they move 
 from one place to another. 
 
 There are riding camels and freight camels. The riding 
 camels are the more gentle. Some of them are very rapid 
 travelers, making six miles an hour and keeping up this 
 pace for fifteen hours every day for a week at a time. 
 They are very valuable in passing through the deserts, 
 because they can go a long distance without food or water. 
 A camel can store away enough water at one drinking to 
 last him for a week. 
 
 The best Arabian horses are produced in the province 
 of Nejd, in central Arabia. They are not so large as the 
 average American horse, and we have many race horses 
 which can go faster than they can. They are usually 
 gray in color, though some of them are chestnut, sorrel, 
 or black. They are noted for their beauty, for their kind-
 
 LIFE IN THE DESERT. 279 
 
 ness, and for their endurance. They are trained to travel 
 long distances without water, and a good Arabian horse 
 can canter for twenty-four hours in summer, and for forty- 
 eight in winter, without drinking. 
 
 The Bedouins think a great deal of their horses. These 
 animals are brought up by their masters almost as care- 
 fully as though they were children, and they are seldom 
 sold. The Bedouins ride them with halters instead of 
 bridles, guiding them this way and that with the knee. 
 
 The Arabian villages look more like dust heaps than 
 anything else. They are surrounded by mud walls. The 
 houses are seldom of more than two stories, and the major- 
 ity are of only one story. They have flat roofs, and are 
 made of bricks dried in the sun. Each village is cut up 
 by winding, narrow streets, and such shops as it has are 
 built about a market place where the people come to 
 trade. The shops are often kept by women, and very 
 little else than food is sold in them. 
 
 But suppose we make a visit to one of the high-class 
 Arabs. His house is like all Arabian town houses, only 
 a little better than that of the average native. We pass 
 through a low door, and into a large coffee or reception 
 room. Here all guests are received, and if we should stay 
 over night it is here that we should sleep, on the floor. 
 
 Our host is a well-to-do man, and we find the room cov- 
 ered with carpets. There arc cushions here and there, 
 and we take seats on the floor. At one end of the room 
 there is a fireplace. Upon this some coffee is steaming, 
 and we are offered a cup as soon as we are seated. It is 
 served in little china cups, as big around as an eggshell. 
 The fluid is as thick as molasses and as hot as fire. We 
 sip it gingerly, and enjoy the rich aromatic smell. 
 
 We find our Arabian friends very hospitable, so we
 
 280 ARABIA. 
 
 Stay until evening, and are then asked to take dinner. 
 Many of the Arabs eat only one full meal a day, this being 
 served soon after sunset. Our dinner consists of thin 
 wheat cakes baked to a crisp on an oven, and of a stew 
 of tough camel's flesh. 
 
 We eat with our fingers, and pick the meat out of the 
 stew with pieces of the wheat cakes, which we double up 
 for the purpose. Then dates and other fruits and sweets 
 are offered to us. When we have finished, a bowl of water 
 is brought in and every one washes his hands. Then a 
 covered bowl with incense burning in it is passed around 
 to each guest, in order that he may perfume his hands, 
 face, and clothes. No liquor is served. Very few Arabs 
 drink wine ; for they are Mohammedans, and the drinking 
 of intoxicating liquors is against the rules of their religion. 
 
 We find the people very simple in their habits and very 
 clean as to their persons. They bathe often, and are 
 especially careful of their teeth, which shine out like rows 
 of ivory from the dark backgrounds of their complexions. 
 Nearly all the men and boys shave their heads, as is the 
 custom with all good Mohammedans, and not a few of the 
 men in the cities wear large white turbans. 
 
 We find that the Arabs have very bright minds, though 
 they are almost altogether uneducated, and very few can 
 read. A thousand years ago the Arabs were among the 
 most learned people of the world. They had the best 
 doctors, and they were also famous as mathematicians and 
 astronomers. They were the first to introduce the study 
 of algebra into western Europe, and they were early noted 
 for their knowledge of geography. 
 
 Arabia was long the seat of the Mohammedan religion, 
 and the city of Mecca, where Mohammed was born, is 
 still a holy place to the millions of people who believe in
 
 LIFE IN tup: desert. 
 
 2«I 
 
 this religion. Mecca has about forty-five thousand in- 
 habitants. It lies in a sandy valley surrounded by rocky 
 hills in the interior of the country, seventy-five miles east 
 of the Red Sea. Pilgrims by the thousand come on 
 camels in caravans from Turkey south through Palestine 
 to Mecca, and many go by ship to Jiddah, which is the sea- 
 port for Mecca, and from 
 there travel inland on 
 camels, or on foot. 
 
 Mecca contains a great 
 mosque or Mohammed- 
 an temple covering 
 more than an acre, in 
 which is a famous black 
 stone. This stone, ac- 
 cording to the native tra- 
 dition, fell out of paradise 
 when Adam was thrust 
 out of the Garden of 
 Eden. The Mohammed- 
 ans believe that if they 
 kiss it their sins will 
 pass away as their lips 
 touch the rock. This 
 stone is now black. Ac- 
 cording to tradition, it 
 was originally whiter 
 than snow, but the Mo- 
 
 A Mohammedan at Prayer. 
 
 hammedans say, that, having been kissed through many 
 generations, the sins of the people have gone into it and 
 turned it black. The real nature of the stone shows that 
 it is of meteoric origin, and we know that there are many 
 similar stones in other parts of the world.
 
 282 PALESTINE. 
 
 XXXIV. PALESTINE AND ITS PEOPLE. 
 
 LEAVING Aden, we prepare for a tour through the 
 great Turkish Empire (map on p. 275). Turkey 
 in Asia comprises the western and northeastern parts of 
 Arabia, and takes in Palestine and the whole of Asia 
 Minor. We may begin our trip by sailing around the 
 southern coast of Arabia, through the Persian Gulf, and 
 up the river Euphrates, or we may take one of a regular 
 line of steamers and go through the long Red Sea and the 
 Suez Canal into the Mediterranean. The first route would 
 be through the pearl fisheries of the Persian Gulf, and we 
 should see native divers by hundreds gathering pearls. 
 
 The Arabs are expert divers. We see something of 
 them in the harbor of Aden, Little black fellows wearing 
 nothing but a cloth tied around their waists swim about 
 like turtles in the water near our steamer, waiting for us 
 to throw coins into the ocean in order that they may dive 
 down and catch them before they fall to the bottom. They 
 do not speak our language, but they have picked up a few 
 words, which they shout at us something like this : 
 
 " Hab-a-dive .'' Hab-a-dive .'' Hab-a-dive .-* " 
 
 They sing out the words, showing their white teeth as 
 they do so. Some are in canoes. There are perhaps a 
 hundred about the ship, swimming and rowing. We throw 
 out a silver coin, the size of a ten-cent piece. As it strikes 
 the water a score of black boys dive for it. A moment 
 later one comes up and turns his face toward us, and we 
 see the coin shining out between his white teeth. 
 
 The best pearl beds of the world are those opposite 
 Bahrein in the Persian Gulf, where from one to two million 
 dollars' worth of pearls are found every year. There are
 
 A TRIP TO JERUSALEM. 283 
 
 many villages of Arabs here which are supported by the 
 pearl fisheries. The divers wear only a girdle about the 
 waist, to which a basket is fastened. They plug up their 
 ears and noses, and tie great stones to their feet in order 
 that they may the more easily remain under the water. 
 
 Pearls, you know, come from oysters, the beds of which 
 are away down at the bottom of the sea. The divers 
 gather the oysters and fill their baskets, and then, giving a 
 signal, they are drawn up by means of cords which are 
 fastened to their bodies. 
 
 The oysters yield the best pearls when they are about 
 four years old, and pearls, we find, are of value according 
 to their shape and the beauty of their tint. Those which 
 are perfectly round are the most prized, and the finest 
 pearl known to the world is in a museum at Moscow, Rus- 
 sia. The largest known pearl is in the South Kensington 
 Museum in England ; it weighs three ounces. It is as big 
 round as a walnut, but its shape is not a perfect sphere. 
 The pearls found in Arabia are of all sizes, some being no 
 larger than a mustard seed. 
 
 The route to Asia Minor passes along the Euphrates 
 and the Tigris up to the old city of Bagdad, and thence 
 by caravan over the country to Aleppo. But we wish first 
 to visit Palestine, so we take the other route. Sailing over 
 the Red Sea for fourteen hundred miles, we float through 
 the Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean. We land at 
 Jaffa (the ancient Joppa), a ragged, dirty town built upon 
 the rocks at the edge of the sea. Here we take carriages 
 for Jerusalem, which lies up in the mountains about forty 
 miles away. There is now a railroad from Jaffa to Jerusa- 
 lem, but the carriage ride is pleasanter, for every foot of 
 Palestine is historic ground, and its scenes are among the 
 most interesting of all Asia.
 
 284 
 
 PALESTINE. 
 
 The road is smooth and hard. Near Jaffa it is lined 
 with orange groves, and we drive through these out upon 
 the plains of Sharon, where the Philistines lived in the 
 days of Goliath and David. Our road goes through flat 
 meadows on which fat cattle are grazing. The grass is 
 as green as that of our fields in June, and it is spotted 
 with thousands of poppies, the flowers of which are as 
 big as the palm of your hand, and as red as blood. 
 
 "We land at Jaffa— ' 
 
 In some places the farmers are plowing. We see that 
 the plows are made of two sticks of wood, one set into the 
 other at almost right angles, and that the farmer holds the 
 plow by one hand while he carries a goad in the other. 
 Now we pass a couple of camels hitched to a plow, the 
 proud, ungainly beasts stalking across the fields with a 
 sullen air, as though they felt the humiliation of their labor. 
 
 On the hillsides are dark-faced shepherds watching their
 
 A TRIP TO JERUSALEM, 
 
 285 
 
 flocks ; and there in the field, pulling up bunches of grass 
 for her cattle, is a girl who makes us think of Ruth gather- 
 ing wheat in the harvest fields of Boaz. The plains of 
 Sharon are the richest part of Palestine, and we do not 
 wonder that the Philistines fought for them. 
 
 " — a couple of camels hitched to a plow — " 
 
 It takes us a half day to reach the hills upon which the 
 Israelites lived. The road winds in and out among little 
 mountains. We pass groves of olive trees, and, climbing 
 higher and higher, we come at last to the little plateau 
 upon which the city of Jerusalem stands. 
 
 Before we enter the city, let us take a bird's-eye view of 
 Palestine. Its size is a surprise to us. We knew that it was 
 small, but we did not think how very small it is. Pales- 
 tine is not, on the average, more than fifty miles wide, and 
 it is about one hundred and fifty miles long. Were there
 
 286 
 
 PALESTINE. 
 
 a railroad across it, a fast express train could go from one 
 side to the other in an hour, and if the road ran length- 
 wise we might start at the north at eight o'clock in the 
 morning, and by noon reach the other end of the country. 
 Just opposite Jerusalem, not a mile from the walls, is 
 the Mount of Olives, which is twenty-seven hundred feet 
 high. We can stand on this mountain, and on a bright day 
 can behold the Mediterranean on the right hand, and on 
 
 the left the Dead Sea and the 
 river Jordan. It is not so far 
 from Dan to Beersheba as from 
 New York to Washington, and 
 the Jordan is so narrow that al- 
 most any boy could throw a stone 
 across most parts of it. The 
 country is rocky and at present 
 mostly barren and uncultivated. 
 Jerusalem is surrounded by 
 hills covered with limestone. 
 The walls of the city are of 
 yellow limestone, beautifully cut, 
 and of the height of a four-story 
 house. They run around the 
 town, skirting the edges of a little plateau. From three 
 sides of this plateau the ground slopes down into val- 
 leys at an angle so steep that it is almost impossible to 
 climb up without getting down on your hands and knees. 
 The fourth side of the city faces a plain. 
 
 The space inside the walls is covered with a mass of 
 boxlike limestone houses, built one on top of the other 
 and crowded along narrow streets in all sorts of shapes. 
 Above them here and there rises the spire of a church, 
 and at one corner of the city there is a space of thirty-five 
 
 ""ItV '^'^T' |,T. A L E S T I >■ E 
 Ascalon l"?- ^ * 
 
 Het.ion' 
 
 i j CHRISTIAN ERA 
 '""-'\ 4 [■ Scale of Miles 
 
 Beeraheb&j y //> ^ 
 
 10 20 ao 40 
 
 Ancient Palestine.
 
 A TRIP TO JERUSALEM. 287 
 
 acres, in which stands an immense round building with a 
 dome of bronze. This is the Mosque of Omar, which is 
 built on the site of Solomon's Temple, and under which 
 scientists suppose the ruins of the temple to be. 
 
 In the center of the city, rising out from among the 
 stone boxes, may be seen another great dome. This 
 crowns the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, and is supposed 
 to cover the spot on which Christ was crucified. In it is 
 kept the marble tomb in which the Oriental Christians 
 think the body of Jesus was laid. 
 
 The remainder of Jerusalem is made up of the narrowest 
 streets walled with houses more closely packed together 
 than those of any other city of the world. There are more 
 than forty thousand inhabitants, and the area of the city is 
 less than a square mile. There are families of Jews, 
 Greeks, and Armenians, each living in one small room — 
 so small, indeed, that it would be thought hardly large 
 enough for a bedroom in America. 
 
 Many of the houses have no windows, the rooms being 
 vaulted caves, floored, walled, and ceiled with stone, and 
 lighted only from the front. Such houses often stand one 
 on top of the other. We visit parts of Jerusalem in which 
 a half dozen families are packed into a like number of 
 rooms about a little court upon which the rooms open. 
 They are so small that their owners cannot cook in them, 
 and the cooking is generally done in the court. 
 
 The roofs of the Jerusalem houses are flat, and not a 
 few of them are covered with grass. They form the 
 evening loafing places of many families, and in warm 
 weather the people often sleep upon them. There are 
 no chimneys, the fuel used being charcoal, which does not 
 make much smoke. 
 
 The streets of Jerusalem are as queer as the houses. 
 
 CAK1>. ASIA — 18
 
 288 
 
 PALESTINE. 
 
 They are narrow and winding. In some places the 
 houses are built over the streets, and often in our walk 
 through the city we seem to be going through long lines 
 of vaulted caves. We find in some streets that each of 
 the caves is a shop. The shops open right out upon 
 
 the street. They arc 
 not large enough for the 
 customers to enter, and 
 hardly big enough for 
 the shopkeeper to turn 
 around in them. 
 
 The workshops are of 
 the same cavelike char- 
 acter, and all Jerusalem 
 looks as though it had 
 been made by a people 
 who had been brought 
 up in caves and had 
 modeled their houses 
 after the homes of their 
 fathers. This is so with 
 the villages of Palestine. 
 Many of them are built against the sides of the hills, the 
 hills forming the back walls of the houses. 
 
 What a wonderful variety of faces we see on the streets ! 
 There are men from all parts of the Turkish Empire, 
 and from nearly every country of Christendom. There 
 are pilgrims by the thousand, and the streets are filled 
 with curious characters and costumes. 
 
 Let us take a seat on the top of one of the houses and 
 look down on the crowd which passes below us. That 
 dark-faced man in a long brown and white gown with 
 red leather shoes and a yellow kerchief covering his 
 
 — houses are built over the streets
 
 A TRIP TO JERUSALEM. 
 
 289 
 
 head is a Bedouin. His face is brown and his features 
 are kindly. Around his headdress are two thick strands 
 of black rope which are tied about it like a crown, and he 
 reminds us of the /Vrabians we saw at Aden. Next him 
 stands a shepherd from l^ethlehcm in a coat of sheepskin, 
 with a gown underneath which falls to his feet. He has a 
 Bethlehem girl with him, and we see that her face is as 
 fair and her features as regular as our own. Her dress is 
 of red and green silk, and the front of her head is orna- 
 mented with rows of gold coin strung upon strings and so 
 tied that they form a 
 cap above her white 
 forehead. 
 
 Then there are pil- 
 grims from Russia in 
 long coats and trousers 
 like ours, which are 
 worn inside of high 
 boots. There are Arabs 
 on donkeys, and men 
 from the desert on 
 camels. It is hard for 
 us to tell which are 
 the Mohammedans and 
 which are the Chris- 
 tians, for the dress here 
 gives us little idea of a 
 person's religion. 
 
 There is one class of pcojilo, however, whom we cannot 
 mistake. They are the Jews of Jerusalem. They have 
 olive-brown faces, curved noses, and long curls of hair 
 hanging down in front of their ears. Thcv wear long 
 gowns and caps bound with fur which rest flat on their 
 
 Shepherds from Bethlehem.
 
 290 TURKEY IN ASIA. 
 
 heads. The fur stands out from the cap, forming a ring 
 round it like the quills of a mad porcupine. With these 
 men are Jewish women, who wear bright-colored dresses 
 and cover their shoulders with flowered shawls. 
 
 And then there are Greek men with many skirts reach- 
 ing from their waists to their knees. Their heads are cov- 
 ered with skull caps of red felt, known as fez caps, and 
 they wear embroidered white jackets. There are men 
 from Ethiopia with faces like jet, and men from the north 
 whose complexions are as fair as our own. The scene is 
 one of the strangest on the face of the earth, and in no 
 other city can you find so many different types, represent- 
 ing so many different races, countries, and creeds. 
 
 oX>ic 
 
 XXXV. TRAVELS AMONG THE TURKS. 
 
 WE travel on horses from Jerusalem through the Holy 
 Land northward to Damascus, one of the oldest cities 
 of the world, and then move in caravans from one place to 
 another, visiting the chief towns of Turkey in Asia. We 
 meet everywhere the officers of the sultan. They demand 
 our passports and must know just where we are going. 
 The sultan is the despotic ruler of the Turkish Empire, 
 which embraces Turkey in Europe, Turkey in Asia, and 
 the Turkish provinces of Africa. The capital of the em- 
 pire is Constantinople. It is situated in Europe, but the 
 majority of the sultan's subjects live in his Asiatic terri- 
 tories, which are almost as large as our Southern States. 
 
 Turkey in Asia has more than sixteen million inhabitants. 
 We think of it as the land of the Mohammedans, but it 
 contains also many Jews and Christians. The Turks are
 
 TRAVELS AMONG THE TURKS. 
 
 291 
 
 everywhere the rulers. They came originally from central 
 Asia, and gradually conquered the different provinces 
 which now make up Asiatic Turkey. They adopted the 
 religion of the Mohammedans, and for centuries they have 
 been the leading people of this faith. 
 
 The Governor of Jerusalem is a Turk. On the plains of 
 Sharon, over which we passed in the last chapter, there are 
 high stone towers in which Turkish soldiers stand to watch 
 the fields, when the crops are ripe, to see that no one gath- 
 ers the grain or fruit without giving the sultan his share. 
 The rule is that one tenth 
 of every crop must go to 
 the government, and that 
 this tenth must be col- 
 lected at harvest time. 
 
 The farmers of the 
 Turkish provinces live in 
 villages. Outside of each 
 town there is a threshing 
 floor to which the wheat, 
 barley, and like grains are 
 brought as soon as they 
 are cut, and trodden out 
 by oxen or donkeys. The farmer dares not take his grain 
 away from the threshing floor until the taxgatherer has 
 come and taken out the sultan's tenth. 
 
 Most Turkish cities are surrounded by walls, and at the 
 gates are stationed officials to tax everything that comes 
 into the city for sale. During my visit to Jerusalem there 
 were two soldiers at each gate, who collected money upon 
 everything, even to a single chicken or a head of lettuce. 
 At one of the gates I saw a farmer come in, bringing a 
 load of wood on the back of a little donkey. The wood 
 
 ^Wmm> 
 
 '— there are high stone towers —
 
 292 
 
 TURKEY IN ASIA. 
 
 was olive roots, and there was not, all told, more than 
 enough to fill a two-bushel basket. My guide told me 
 that the man expected to get twenty-five cents for the 
 load. I saw the soldiers stop him, and after a moment he 
 handed them coins worth about three cents as a tax on the 
 wood, after which he was allowed to pass in. 
 
 Turkish villages are little more than collections of mud 
 huts. We shall be surprised at the poverty of the people 
 
 as we pass through the 
 country, for Turkey con- 
 tains some of the richest 
 soil of the world. The 
 peninsula of Asia Minor 
 is made up of high pla- 
 teaus covered with fine 
 pastures of rich grass. 
 The sheep and goats 
 there produce some of 
 the finest wool in the 
 world, and the soil is 
 excellent for farming. 
 
 East of Syria is Meso- 
 potamia, which was the 
 seat of some of the rich- 
 est empires of the past, and in which was the great city 
 of Babylon, where Nebuchadnezzar ruled. This country 
 is an almost unbroken plain, well watered and very rich. 
 
 The provinces of Armenia and Kurdistan are composed 
 of highlands, some of the plains there being more than a 
 mile above the sea. In Armenia we find Mt. Ararat, upon 
 which Noah's ark is said to have landed, and the Arme- 
 nians have a tradition that the Garden of Eden was located 
 in their country. 
 
 Turkish Soldiers.
 
 TRAVELS AMONG THE TURKS. 293 
 
 Throughout all these countries the people live in vil- 
 lages. The small towns of Asia Minor arc made of 
 houses of sun-dried brick. They have fiat roofs, and 
 their windows are usually only holes through the wall. 
 
 The Armenian villagers live very simply. They have 
 little furniture, the possessions of many a family consist- 
 ing of only the straw mat which covers the floor, a rude 
 chest which contains their clothes, a few copper vessels, 
 and some stone water jars. The cooking is done upon 
 open fires, or in ovens of clay or stone. The floor is used 
 for serving the meals, and the fingers of the people take 
 the place of knives and forks. 
 
 The houses of many of the Armenian villages are built 
 either wholly or partly under the ground. An excava- 
 tion is made in the side of a hill, and the houses are built 
 within it, so that we can hardly tell where they are unless 
 we come to them from the front. They are of one story, 
 and their flat roofs are covered with two or three feet of 
 earth, on which the grass grows. There are no fences 
 about the roofs, and we often see cattle and sheep eating 
 grass on the tops of the houses. 
 
 The floors are usually sunk below the level of the 
 ground, and we have to step down to go in. Upon enter- 
 ing we find a cow stable on one side, and on the other 
 side the room which often forms the kitchen, parlor, and 
 bedroom of the family. It is very cold in Armenia during 
 the greater part of the winter, and this is why the houses 
 are built in a cavelike manner. 
 
 We find the Turks very hospitable. At each village the 
 ruler asks us to take dinner with him, and he is expected 
 to offer strangers a place to stay for at least one night. 
 If we should offer to pay for our entertainment, the Turk 
 would be insulted.
 
 294 
 
 TURKEY IN ASIA. 
 
 You see few beggars in Turkey, but the poor man with- 
 out a dinner often goes at mealtimes to call upon his more 
 wealthy neighbor, and is seldom turned away. The food 
 of the people consists of rice, millet, wheat, and different 
 kinds of meat. They are fond of sweets, and they make 
 delicious candies, sirups, and preserves. 
 
 Turkey has a number of large cities. Smyrna, on the 
 Mediterranean Sea, contains about two hundred thousand 
 people. Damascus is quite as large. Bagdad has one 
 hundred and eighty thousand, and Aleppo has more than 
 one hundred thousand inhabitants. In these cities live 
 many rich merchants, who have comfortable homes. The 
 houses of the well-to-do Turks have special quarters for 
 the women, guests of the other sex being received in the 
 outer apartments. 
 
 The women of Turkey are shut off by themselves, and 
 the women's quarters of a rich Turk's house are often 
 
 guarded by slaves. A 
 Turkish woman never 
 goes out upon the street 
 without covering her 
 whole form in a blue or 
 black gown, which makes 
 her look as though she 
 were walking about in a 
 balloon. In addition to 
 this garment she has a 
 veil over her face. On 
 the street it is impossible 
 to lell one woman from another, the veils being so thick 
 that you cannot distinguish the features, nor see whether 
 the faces are beautiful or not. The house dress consists 
 of a pair of very full trousers and a jacket. 
 
 Turkish Woman.
 
 TRAVELS AMONG THE TURKS. 295 
 
 Many of the Turkish men wear gowns which reach to 
 their feet, and under these very full pantaloons. Some 
 wear pantaloons of cloth, and short jackets much like a 
 roundabout. The pantaloons are tied at the ankles, and 
 the shoes below are usually turned up at the toes and 
 are often made without heels. Many of the men's jackets 
 are embroidered with silver and gold, and the men are, 
 as a rule, fond of fine clothes. They have their heads 
 shaved, with the ex- 
 ception of a lock on 
 the crown, and they 
 wear skull caps or tur- 
 bans, keeping them 
 on while in the house. 
 
 In Turkey husbands 
 and wives do not eat 
 together. They do 
 not mix together at 
 parties. Children are 
 
 promised in marriage in infancy, and boys are encouraged 
 to get married while they are still in their teens. There is 
 no courting done. AH marriage arrangements are made by 
 the parents of the bride and groom. At the time of the 
 betrothal the mother of the groom takes a present of 
 candy to the bride. The bride bites one of the choicest 
 bits in two, cats half of it, and sends the other half back 
 to the young man. It is said that he usually receives it 
 with joy as a love offering, and eats it. Weddings usually 
 take place in the afternoon, when the bridegroom says a 
 prayer in the presence of the bride, kneeling on her bridal 
 veil as he does so. 
 
 The Turks are not as a rule well educated. The Mo- 
 hammedan priests act as the teachers, and the mosques or
 
 296 
 
 TURKEY IN ASIA. 
 
 Turkish Men and Boys. 
 
 temples are often used for schoolhouses. Turkish boys sit 
 crosslegged on wide lounges or divans, or on the floor, as 
 they study. They hold their books on their knees and 
 study out loud. They have no school desks, and they hold 
 their copy books in their hands while they write. The 
 Koran, the Mohammedan bible, forms a large part of 
 their studies. Most of the people, it is said, learn to 
 read and write, and every boy commits to memory the 
 different prayers required in his religion. 
 
 The chief products of Turkey are wheat, cotton, and 
 opium. Quite large amounts of raw silk and wool are ex- 
 ported. The people weave fine silks and beautiful cloths 
 of silver and gold ; and some of the most costly rugs of 
 the world are made in Turkey. They are woven by women 
 and girls in their homes, upon the rudest of looms. The
 
 GEORGIANS, KIRGHIZ, AND SIBERIANS. 297 
 
 weavers kneel or sit crosslegged at their work, several girls 
 often working at the same rug, each taking a section of 
 about two feet to weave. 
 
 The work is done entirely by hand, the tufts of wool 
 being tied together and fastened into the threads without 
 the aid of a shuttle. The rugs are finally clipped smooth 
 with scissors. They are so woven that they are as soft 
 as the finest of machine-made carpets, and they last very 
 much longer. Such work is very slow. A good weaver 
 cannot make more than three or four inches of carpet a 
 day, and a hearth rug of the best quality, seven feet long 
 by four feet wide, requires six months' steady work. 
 
 XXXVI. RUSSIA IN WEST ASIA. 
 
 WE take our last view of Asia in traveling through 
 the Russian possessions on the western side of 
 it. We recall our visit to eastern Siberia, on the northern 
 Pacific Ocean, and here, after thousands of miles of travel 
 in strange countries, moving through all kinds of climates 
 and all varieties of scenery, we find ourselves again on 
 Russian soil. 
 
 We stand amazed when we think of the possessions of 
 Russia in Asia. They consist of the province of Trans- 
 Caucasia (map on p. 265), the vast territories east of the 
 Caspian Sea known as Russian Turkestan, the Kirghiz 
 Steppes, and Siberia — embracing an area, all told, which 
 is about twice the size of the United States. 
 
 In Trans-Caucasia we visit the city of Tiflis. It has a 
 population of more than one hundred thousand Georgians, 
 Armenians, and Russians. The Georgian men wear long
 
 298 RUSSIA IN WEST ASIA. 
 
 robes gathered in by a belt at the waist, pantaloons, high 
 boots, and cone-shaped caps of black wool or astrakhan. 
 They have rows of cartridges upon their breasts, and 
 carry pistols in their belts. Many of them wear swords, 
 and they impress us by their fierce looks. 
 
 The Georgian women are very pretty and are much 
 desired by the Turks as wives. In the past, Turkish slave 
 traders carried on a regular business in buying these girls 
 and shipping them to Constantinople. This is now con- 
 trary to law, but it is said that beautiful Georgian girls are 
 still often sold by their parents to the slave traders, and 
 are sometimes stolen and smuggled out of the country. 
 Georgian women have fair, rosy complexions, black hair, 
 large eyes, and white teeth. They have slender forms, 
 with small hands and feet. They are fine dancers and are 
 fond of music, many of them playing upon tambourines 
 and a kind of a guitar. They wear gowns much like 
 those of the women of Europe, and their headdress con- 
 sists of a small round cap, over which is thrown a white 
 silk or lace handkerchief tied under the chin. 
 
 We visit the Russian oil regions about the Caspian Sea. 
 The city of Baku, on its western shore, is the great oil 
 center. The territory about it is spotted with derricks or 
 high frameworks for the pumping of petroleum, and it 
 reminds us of the scenes in the oil regions of Pennsylvania. 
 
 At Baku we get a steamer which takes us across the 
 Caspian Sea and lands us on the opposite shore, and thence 
 hy a land journey we come to the great Trans-Caspian 
 railroad, which carries us nearly a thousand miles into the 
 heart of central Asia. Both the engines of the steamer 
 and those which pull our cars use petroleum as fuel. 
 
 We travel for miles through deserts, visiting now and 
 then an oasis, or fertile spot, where the land is cut up by
 
 GEORGIANS, KIRGHIZ, AND SIBERIANS. 
 
 299 
 
 irrigating canals and every drop of water is saved to feed 
 the thirsty soil. 
 
 We pass through the little countries of Khiva and 
 Bokhara, peopled by Tartars who raise wheat, rice, barley, 
 cotton, tobacco, and silk. We find delicious peaches, 
 melons, and grapes. The railroad takes us through vast 
 fields of cotton, the seed of which was brought from Amer- 
 ica, and the product of which is now competing with our 
 cotton in the markets of Russia. We see tribes of wander- 
 ing Tartars, who live in tents and look not unlike the 
 
 Turks we saw in Tur- 
 
 key. This region was , '| 
 
 the original home of the 1 
 
 Turks, and from here 
 they moved westward 
 to the countries along 
 the Mediterranean Sea. 
 
 The land rises as we 
 go to the east. We 
 reach the Pamir (pa- 
 meer'), which is one of 
 the highest countries of 
 the world, and then move northward on a high plateau 
 through Russian Turkestan on our way to Siberia. Passing 
 between the great bodies of salt water known as the Aral 
 Sea and Lake Balkash, we travel over the Kirghiz Steppes 
 and meet the Tartar herders and shepherds who form its 
 inhabitants. They are known as Kirghiz, and they are one 
 of the most numerous of the nomad races of Asia. There 
 are more than three millions of them, and their country is 
 more than a third as large as Russia in Europe. 
 
 The Kirghiz have vast numbers of camels, sheep, horses, 
 and cows. They think it is more respectable to live in 
 
 Siberian Farmers.
 
 300 RUSSIA IN WEST ASIA. 
 
 tents and to move about from one pasture field to another, 
 than to live in towns, and they are proud of being stock 
 breeders rather than farmers. 
 
 They remind us much of our American Indians, and we 
 find them not unlike the Tartars whom we saw north of 
 the Great Wall of China. They have high cheek bones, 
 small, oblique eyes, and complexions which are almost the 
 color of copper. Both men and women wear yellow or 
 red leather trousers fastened at the waist with a girdle. 
 Over these they have long robes much like dressing gowns 
 tied in by a belt at the waist. The women wear a close- 
 fitting shirt in addition to their trousers and robe. 
 
 The Kirghiz are Mohammedans, but the women do not 
 cover their faces so carefully as in other Mohammedan 
 countries. They are fond of jewelry. They paint and 
 powder their faces, and braid ribbon and horsehair into 
 their locks in order to make their hair appear longer. 
 
 The Kirghiz have some curious marriage customs. Girls 
 are married at the age of fifteen, and at twenty-three an 
 unmarried girl is looked upon as an old maid. The groom 
 has to pay a certain amount to the parents of the bride 
 before the marriage can take place. This payment is gen- 
 erally in the form of sheep, honses, or camels. A poor and 
 rather homely girl is often sold for one or two camels, but 
 the beautiful daughter of a rich man may bring as much 
 as one hundred sheep or fifty camels. 
 
 The Kirghiz men allow their wives to do the most of 
 the work. The women put up and take down the tents 
 and load them upon the camels when the family moves 
 from one place to another. They aid in watching the 
 stock, and they are expected to do all the milking. This, 
 among the Kirghiz, is a great task, for not only the cows, 
 but also sheep, goats, and mares are milked.
 
 302 
 
 RUSSIA IN WEST ASIA. 
 
 Cows, sheep, and goats are milked only in the morning" 
 and evening, but the mares are milked three times a day. 
 One of the greatest dainties among the Kirghiz is made 
 from mare's milk. It is a kind of liquor known as kou- 
 miss, which is made by putting the milk into a leather bag 
 and keeping it there for about two weeks, during which time 
 it is now and then stirred and shaken. It soon ferments 
 
 "—mares are miiked. 
 
 and produces a liquor which tastes somewhat like butter- 
 milk, but which, if too much is taken, will make one drunk. 
 
 Just north of the Kirghiz Steppes lies western Siberia. 
 It consists, to a large extent, of an unbroken plain, some 
 of which is made up of bog and swamp, but a great part of 
 which is fertile soil. It is watered by the great rivers Obi 
 and Irtish, and its southern portion will at some time in 
 the future support a vast population. 
 
 Western Siberia already contains about three million 
 inhabitants, more than ninety per cent, of whom have
 
 GEORGIANS, KIRGHIZ, AND SIBERIANS. 
 
 303 
 
 come from Russia and arc engaged in farming, stock 
 raising, and mining. The remainder are native Siberians 
 who are hunters and laborers. 
 
 We find but few towns, and no very large cities in Sibe- 
 ria. The capital is Irkutsk, which contains about forty- 
 thousand people, and which, though so far away from 
 Europe, has excellent schools, a museum, a theater, a 
 library, and a good hotel. 
 
 Irkutsk reminds us of home. Its outskirts have log 
 houses like those of our pioneer towns, but the buildings 
 on the main streets are of brick and stone. Were it not 
 
 Plowing in Siberia. 
 
 for the Russian characters on the signboards, some of the 
 stores would not seem out of place in America. Many of 
 them have plate-glass windows, and upon entering we find 
 all sorts of goods which have been imported from Europe. 
 We meet women on the streets whose dresses are not un- 
 like those of our mothers at home, and it seems good to 
 find again men wearing hats, coats, shirts, and pantaloons, 
 instead of turbans and gowns. 
 
 Irkutsk is on the line of the Trans-Siberian railroad,
 
 304 RUSSIA IN WEST ASIA. 
 
 far in the interior of southern Siberia. We move along 
 the line surveyed for the road to the westward, finding 
 the Russians at work in many places, until we at last 
 reach the western section of the railroad, which goes 
 from Omsk to the town of Cheliabinsk in the Ural 
 Mountains. 
 
 A large part of the western section has been completed, 
 and we soon come to the cars and finish our tour of Asia 
 by steaming into Cheliabinsk. We are now at the western 
 end of the great Trans-Siberian railroad, and as we stand 
 in the Ural Mountains we can in our minds look back 
 across Siberia along this trunk line and see the point at 
 which we first visited it, at Vladivostok on the Pacific. 
 We learn that the main line of the road, 4696 miles long, 
 will cost the enormous sum of one hundred and seventy- 
 five million dollars, and that it will be completed in the 
 year 1905. We see that through it southern Siberia will 
 sometime become one of the richest and most populous 
 countries of the world, and we are more and more struck 
 with the vast area and riches of the country. 
 
 We see more of the Russians as we take a rapid flight by 
 rail through Russia to Germany. Fast trains carry us to 
 Moscow and St. Petersburg. After a short stay at the 
 capital of the czar, we go by rail to Berlin, and thence to 
 Hamburg, where we get a steamer for the United States. 
 The passage across the Atlantic requires only seven day.*^, 
 and within a week after sailing we find ourselves again on 
 American soil in the city of New York. 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGEX^S