y ** BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD A SERIES OF LETTERS DESCRIBING THE INCIDENTS AND EVENTS OF A JOURNEY THROUGH JAPAN, THE PHILIPPINES, CHINA, MALAY STATES, BURMA, INDIA, CEYLON, EGYPT, ITALY, SWITZER- LAND, FRANCE, ENGLAND BY BERTHA ADELE PENNY DEDICATION To the numerous friends who have requested the publication of these let- ters, and To Mr. D. F. Robertson, the "Sun- shine" of the party of Californians who toured the world in 1911-1912, this volume is affectionately dedi- cated. BERTHA ADELE PENNY. Long Beach, California. 1912. 2082703 I know not where His islands lift Their fronded palms in air; I only know I cannot drift Beyond His love and care. Whittier. CONTENTS Los Angeles to Japan 1 Japan 10 Japan Continued 20 Manila 36 China 49 Toward the Equator 60 Picturesque Sea Highway 70 Burma 80 India's Coral Strand 86 India Continued 94 India Continued 107 India Continued 114 India Continued 123 Ceylon 131 historic Waters 141 Egypt 148 Egypt Continued 158 From Africa to Europe 165 From Rome to India 173 Paris 177 London 178 Brain Fag 179 LOS ANGELES TO JAPAN Train to Seattle The resident of Southern California starting out to girdle the globe, wonders if in all his worldwandering, he will find another spot as fair as his own sunny land. Starting from Los Angeles on a bright autumn morn- ing, one sees, as the train speeds northward, a wonder- ful panorama of mountain and valley, sea and shore. Tiny ranches are tucked away in the foothills, their checkered patchwork of cultivation brightly green against the rugged brown background of hills. Great fit-Ids of alfalfa are in the fertile valleys valleys once a barren desert, reclaimed by the patience and ingenuity of man. We passed vast fields of cacti, perhaps the spineless sort evolved by the immortal wizard, Luther Burbank What a pity Mr. Burbank does not turn his attention fiom the vegetable to the animal kingdom, and produce something with a spine. For instance, a species of strong vertebrated men and women to replace the spine- less creatures we often meet in that ultra-set called the idle rich. In Ventura county, miles of Lima beans were be- ing harvested as we rushed along. Great cook wagons stood in the fields, and armies of workmen toiled like ants about the threshers, from the engines of which smoke arose like incense from a mighty censer. Huge v-agons laden with the spoils of the harvest and drawn 1 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD by eight horses moved slowly along the road, enroute to the nearest shipping point. Red-roofed ranch houses, picturesquely set in the midst of groves of trees dotted the landscape. Near Ventura we came in sight of the sea, dimpling and sparkling in the sunlight, its opales- cent surface reflecting the azure of the heavens. Far- ther north the coast line, weaving in and out, now ap- pearing, then lost to view, seemed as sinuously elusive at. a dish of spaghetti that a novice attempts to corral. On the stiff grades the sheer cliffs stretched away on either side, scarred and serrated with the marks of in- finite age. Near the busy hum of business marts we glimpsed the brown walls of old missions, and thought that even in this newest part of our new country, we have antique piles comparable in romantic interest, at least, with the ruins of the Old World. And so it was, throughout California, the eye con- stantly regaled with scenic beauty; with the meadows ablaze with the bloom of wild flowers; with the rosy blush of ripening fruit in orchard and garden; with the wonderful distances of sea and plain; with the peace of the everlasting hills brooding over all; and when the sun sank behind the distant peaks and the purple shadows of tw Tight gave way to the dark curtain of night, we sighed at the thought that the land we love so well would be lost to us for many months. vSailing Day The sailing day of a huge ocean liner is always an interesting one to people dwelling in harbor cities and to the visitor from an inland town, to whom all shipping is a novelty. On the days when these boats are to sail the docks are filled with an eager crowd many coming merely to satisfy curiosity, others to say goodbye to friends. 2 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD We boarded the "Minnesota," which was to sail at about ten o'clock in the morning, and after finding our state room and seeing that our baggage was deposited therein, we hurried on deck to watch the passengers ar- rive, and gather in the sights and sounds of harbor life. All was bustle and confusion. The creaking and groan- ing of the great cranes hauling up freight from the dock and depositing it in the black depths of the hold, in- termingled with the strange jargon of the roustabouts, was deafening. The morning was cold, gray and threatening, but the elements did not keep back the human tide that surged on the dock beneath us. Autos glided up, de- positing passengers. Messenger boys leisurely climbed the stairs, bearing huge florist boxes and baskets of fruit. A group of Dunkards, bidding goodbye to some missionaries of their faith the clerical attire of the men, and the dark clothes and close-fitting plain bonnets of the women, giving a somber note to the kaleidoscopic mass of color. There were pretty girls with arms laden with long-stemmed American Beauty roses; Chinese deck boys, in queer little blue garments; ships officers in brilliant uniform; babies in arms and babies tod- dling; steerage passengers, men in strange foreign garb, wildly kissing each other goodbye; patriotic women pas- sengers waving tiny American flags; pervading all, a combined odor of tarred rope, Celestial smells, turbid, seaweedy water, and the smell of cooking food. On the dock and on the deck, teary farewells and twisted smiles; above, the gray lowering heavens seemingly about to weep. Out on the sound tugs were darting about, puffing and shrieking; sea birds circling low over the water, uttering strange discordant cries; many for- eign ships stood majestically at anchor, proudly bear- ing their country's flag; numberless small pleasure craft dotted the sound, the glint of their burnished metal the only note of color in the enveloping grayness; on 3 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD the rugged shore the tall, straight pines looked black and dismal in the mist. At last the gong sounds a warning, and the command, "All ashore that's going ashore," sends the visitors scurrying down the stairs. A group of pig-tail Celes- tials haul in the gangway, and the city and the dock, with its howling waving mass of humanity, seem to glide away from us. We leaned on the deck rail and gazed with mingled emotions at the fast receding shore. Presently the recreant sun pushed aside the gray cloud- curtain, and a radiance illumined the scene, changing somber tones to blue and silver. The Cascade range of mountains, dark blue and clear cut as a cameo, stood etched against the sky. The ragged shoreline, wooded to the water's edge, was reflected in the placid depths of the sound. As the sun sank low in the heavens, the pearly whiteness of the snow-crowned mountains be- came tinged with pink, and a rosy blush suffused the now azure sky. This vivid coloring soon sank into paler tints, pastel shades of soft gray and mauve, and, as we stood with straining eyes gazing at our beloved homeland, the shore line sank on the horizon in the gray twilight of de- parting day. * * * Ijfe at Sea An observant person is not affected with ennui on an ocean voyage, even though he does not see land for over two weeks. If he believes with Pope that the proper study of mankind is man, he will have little time to indulge in homesickness. The proper vantage ground for such study is a deck chair, the time, any hour of the day. Just lie back comfortably wrapped in y6ur rugs, and watch the tide of humanity flow by. Our fellow passengers are mostly Americans. Almost every state is represented, California sending the great- est number. There is a sprinkling of many nationalities; 4 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Englishmen, many of them in business in the Orient, others, confirmed globe trotters; Scotch linen buyers, taking linens to Japan to be embroidered; wives of English army officers stationed in the colonies; two dis- tinguished looking Russians, who do not mingle with their fellow voyagers; a Hungarian violinist of note; the British Consul-General to Bangkok; a noted London newspaper critic; American school marms, with a com- mission to teach in the Philippines; a gay young Ger- man sprig of nobility, wearing a bracelet watch and struggling with imperfect English; a supreme judge from Hong Kong; a British peer; Los Angeles society girls and well known club women from the same city. There are also a number of women going out to be mar- ried to men in the colonies. Many of them were of un- certain age, but each was placed carefully under the pro- tective care of the captain. To the casual observer it would seem that such chaperonage was unnecessary, but one thinks one owes certain obligations to conventions. And so we are in a little world of our own, peopled, it's true, with many nationalities, but away from the fret of town and city, in the peaceful environment of sea and sky. The passengers on this ship who read "Jinrikisha Days" before embarking, and prepared for bleak, cold days, howling winds and blasts of rain, were wise in their generation, for we have had in ten days, only two of sunshine. But the cold does not keep the experienced traveler in doors. The polite little deck stewards swath us like mummies in innumerable rugs, with hot water bottles for hands and feet, and when the fitful shivery wind sweeps the deck, the recumbent lounger only sinks more deeply in his deck chair. The more vigorous ones keep up the circulation by playing some of the many deck games, shuffle board, ring toss, hand ball with sand bags and quoits. Each evening an entertainment of some description, musical, 5 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD literary, bridge or a lecture is given in the saloon, and on Sunday religious services are held. One evening a lancy dress ball was given on the forward deck, which was enclosed with awnings and gaily decorated with flags and bunting and illuminated with hundreds of tiny colored electric lights. The serious business of life on an ocean liner is stowing away the numerous meals served the passen- gers each day. We begin the day with coffee served, whether we want it or not, while we are yet in bed and avid of forty more winks. Then the gong rings for breakfast at 8:30. At 11 beef tea and wafers are served on deck. At 1 o'clock tiffin is served. Tiffin, if you please, is East Indian for luncheon. At 5 o'clock every one troops down to the saloon for tea and muffins, and at 7 dinner is served with the stately accompani- ment of decollete frocks and swallow tails. At 10 o'clock all who have not locked and barred their doors for the night, are begged to indulge in a "light" supper of cold roast, salads, coffee, etc., and when the haven of our stateroom is finally reached, a dish of fruit to stay hunger during the night greets us. It is needless to add, that the one over-worked man on the boat is the doctor. Chinese Crew The crews of Pacific steamers are Chinese, and the dining room boys wear a garment which is a cross be- tween the sheath gown, beloved of the feminine heart the past year, and a man's night shirt. At breakfast and tiffin these gowns are blue, with deep white cuffs, and at dinner they are all white. They are made in one piece reaching to the heels, buttoned down one side, and so narrow that the garment is slit up at the sides, 6 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD half way to the knees, to enable the wearer to shuffle along in some semblance of comfort. We have the greatest difficulty making the little yel- low men understand our wants, and it is just as dif- ficult to understand them. Only two sentences are in- telligible to me so far. They are: "Can do," and "No can do." A little personal experience will best illus- trate their density. One morning I asked the bedroom boy for hot water. He said, "No can do." I then pro- duced a hot water bottle and said, "see, get warm, eh?" A look akin to intelligence passed over his mask-like face and he fled precipitately to return soon bringing the ship's carpenter, also Chinese, who insisted on fix- ing something. We almost had to send in a riot call to rid ourselves of him. That experience reminds me of the girl who was traveling in Mexico. She could speak no Spanish, and she wanted some milk. She could not make the waiter understand, so she drew a picture of a cow on a piece of paper. The waiter understood then. He went out and returned with a ticket to the bull ,fight. Steerage In browsing around the ship we visited the Oriental steerage, where the Chinese passengers have their quar- ters. Aside from the collective odor of Asiatic human- ity one encounters in visiting Chinese habitat, there were no disagreeable features noticeable. Order and cleanliness were apparent everywhere, proving a fal- lacy the popular belief that the steerage is filthy and un- wholesome. The long board eating table and benches were scrubbed white, and in the kitchen, where a savory mess was stewing, the same cleanliness prevailed. The few Chinese who were not benumbed with opium, were playing a gambling game, their faces ab- solutely wooden. Tiers of bunks swung from the sceil- 7 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD ing and in many of them lay the yellow Celestials in a blissful opium stupor. A Chinese baby boy, three years old, was being taught the jiu jitsu by his father. He wound his tiny feet about his father's ankles and wrest'.ed vigorously. The indications are that he will get the strangle hold on some one before many years. In the women's quarters the child's mother lay in her bunk suffering from sea sickness. She smiled a wel- come to us from her slant, black eyes, when we said, "Ohayo." The bunks were covered with gaily colored Oriental fabric, and hanging in conspicuous places were strange wooden idols, beautifully hand carved. Before these Joss, tiny candles and lamps of vegetable oil burned, and prayer slips were heaped on the altars. There was an unusual chattering in the long syllabled Chinese jargon one morning, and we learned that one of the crew had died during the night. His body was embalmed and placed in one of the coffins which the Chinese always carry on shipboard. The body will be taken back to China, as the steamship company is under contract with the Chinese government to return to his native dust the body of any Chinaman dying during a voyage. * * * A Day Lost An interesting incident on a Pacific liner is "Crossing the line," the 180th meridian, the beginning and end of the calendar day, noontime of which is Greenwich. Going westward the voyager loses a day, and unless he returns over the same route, he will always be one day short, so far as the calendar goes. We went to bed on Sunday night and the next morn- ing awoke to find it Tuesday. We had slipped a cog and Monday had passed away. There was considerable discomfort attendant upon its passing, for, during the 8 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD night we encountered the tail of a retreating typhoon, and the boat cut up in a very unseemly manner for Sunday. It dove down fore, then aft and humped up amidships for all the world like a bucking broncho try- ing to ditch its rider. The four winds of heaven twisted us first this way then that, and high seas swept over the deck. Frenzied females in nondescript attire thronged the corridors, hugging valuables to their bos- oms. The only man who was frightened went to bed with a life belt on, to be ready for any emergency. He dropped off to sleep and placidly slept through the storm. Isn't that just like a man? The captain's dinner on the last night before reach- ing Japan was the notable event of the voyage. During the dinner prizes were awarded the successful con- testants in the various deck sports and games, and many toasts were drunk to the ship's officers and distinguished passengers. The traveler who flippantly remarks, "After all, the world is quite small, you know," is not a good guesser. After seventeen days spent on the sea, with never a sight of land, one feels that there is entirely too much water. There's a dreadful waste of wetness, one-third would be quite enough. We shall reach the Nippon Empire tomorrow, two days overdue. BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD JAPAN 'Fair Japan 3 The traveler in Japan may just as well make up his mind to agree with the poet, Riley, that "It's no use to grumble and complain It's just as easy to rejoice When God sorts out the weather, and sends rain Why, rain's my choice." For it's an even bet that he will see rain three hundred and sixty-five and one-fourth days out of every year, with an extra hour of wetness tucked in somewhere. One begins to wonder after weeks of moisture and cloudiness if the title Fair Japan is not a fine bit of sarcasm. It's true, the sun shines with a sort of coy, veiled beauty at times and a highly colored rainbow appears, with studied dramatic effect, on the sky's painted drop curtain. We are vouch-safed a ravishing glimpse of Fuji, Japan's wondrous snow covered mountain, when, suddenly, a passing cloud that surely belongs to the United Order of Rainmakers, drops down like an asbes- tos curtain over the splendid scene and we philosophical- ly conclude that "it is not raining rain at all, it's raining violets down," and go on sight-seeing. Yokohama Yokohama, v/here the voyager from American shores first lands, is the leading trading port of Japan. It has 10 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD a picturesque shore line bordered with many beautiful suburbs. The bluff, an extensive tract of elevated ground is the residential district. It is an ideal spot, dotted with picturesque little villas nestled amid evergreen trees and flowers, and completely segregated from the trade atmosphere of the business part of the city below. There is not within the city much of interest for the traveler, aside from the shops, for the Oriental is fast being crowded out by the European, but it is a center from which many delightful excursions may be made. The Daibutsu, the great bronze image of Buddha, is at Kammakura, a beach settlement near Yokohama. Here also are many temples and shrines. Since temples and shrines and stone representations of Buddha, have been the theme of newspaper, magazine and guide book articles from time immemorial, these letters will con- tain but brief mention of them, but instead, will be more intimate sketches of the life, manner and customs of the people. . In the cities, which are rapidly becoming European- ized, the customs and dress of our country are fast crowding out the picturesque Oriental life, but in the hill country, in villages, the natives cling steadfastly to the habits and traditions of a long past era. In a province near Kyoto, the native women are still wearing a band of white across the bosom as a badge of mourning for an emperor who died seven hundred years ago. It seems that when this emperor died, an edict was issued commanding all women to wear this emblem of mourning for two years. At the end of the prescribed time, the custom had become a fixed habit and has continued to this day. In many provinces, the custom of changing the coiffure with the change of name in marriage, is still the mode. The unmarried woman wears her hair brushed stiffly up to the glossy, blue black coil, which all Japanese women affect. The wife wears a loop of hair depending from the coil. One 11 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD would never, on casual inspection, suspect the Japanese women of wearing false hair, but we passed a store in Kyoto where puffs and switches, janes and rats were, quite brazenly, exposed for sale. Alas for the dignity and repose of Old Japan. American false hair had add- ed another note to the death knell of her vaunted in- dividuality. Native Dress Fortunately for the picturesqueness of Japan, the Japanese women cling fondly to the native dress, the kimono. From the woman of the highest caste in her silks, brocades and crepes, to the humble worker in the field in her poor cotton gown, the style of the garment is the same. The better class women wear a rich dark silk kimono, with surplice folds of white, or a contrast- ing color in the neck of the garment. She wears many under kimonos of filmy silk and about the waist is wound many yards of silk tied in a flat bow in the back over a stiff, square pad. The sash is called obi and for street wear is of dark rich silk, but for festive occasions is bright hued and heavily embroidered. The purse, handkerchief and fan are carried in the folds of the obi. On her feet she wears white tabi, the digitated socks which the Japanese men and women both affect, and either wooden clogs or sandals. The elaborately coiffured glistening black hair is left uncovered. Japanese women go with bared heads except in the coldest weather, when a dark scarf is worn. An oiled paper umbrella for the frequent rains, completes the costume. The women wear very little jewelry, a ring or bracelet or gaudy hair ornament satisfying their fancy for trinkets. There is a diversity of attire among the men of Japan. Many business men as well as those in official and professional life wear European dress. The majority, 12 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD however, wear the kimono of dark silk, woolen or cot- ton according to the station in life. The garment is folded tight about the limbs and reaches to the ankles. In cold weather he supplements the kimono with a loose short coat of the same cut. Many of the men go with uncovered heads, particularly the younger men, but others wear derby or straw hats. The combination of Japanese and European is incongruous. The men are fine specimens of physical manhood. Not tall, but brawny and athletic, and they walk with a graceful bear- ing that is puzzling when one looks at the wooden clogs on the feet. When one recalls the little aenemic Jap- anese men of California, one wonders if the "runts" are sent away purposely and the best specimens kept at home. There is no indication of race suicide in Japan. There are babies everywhere. The streets are full of them and they sprawl in very doorway. In the poorer streets every woman one meets has a baby strapped to her back, its round shaven head lolling helplessly and its black bead-like eyes squinting in the sun. Not only do the women carry babies but little boys and girls have a similar burden. The little girl, so soon as she begins to walk, has her "doll strapped on her back so that she may learn to carry her little brother or sister prop- erly when she shall have grown large and strong enough. It does not interfere in the least with the romping and playing of the children. They seem unconscious of the burden. The side streets, aside from the musical clatter of clogged feet on the pavement and the warning cry of swiftly running jinrikisha boys, are very quiet. The throngs of children play noiselessly and the street ven- ders have a sort of subdued chant which they monoton- ously repeat. There are no motorcycles to deafen one with hideous noises, no heavily rumbling cabs or drays and few automobiles. 13 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Jinrikishas The chief means of conveyance in Japan is the jin- rikisha. This vehicle was invented by an American, a Yankee missionary. It is a high, two-wheeled, rubber- tired cart, comfortably upholstered with immaculately clean linen and drawn by a coolie. If Jinrikishas were the mode in the States they would soon be enlarged to family size with room on the back for bags and trunks and at least a brace of coolies running tandem. The coolie wears shirt, tights and loose coat of dark blue cotton. In hot weather white trunks replace the long tjghts and the coat is dispensed with. He is either barefooted or wears straw sandals attached to the feet by a thong between the great toe and the other toes. His head gear is a straw creation shaped like a wooden bread bowl. In his belt at the back hang his tobacco pouch and pipe. These men are abnormally developed as to limbs and chest, due to the eight or ten hours of dog trotting, daily, pulling heavy loads. The charge for jinrikisha hire is seventy-five cents a day and as most of the coolies are in the employ of a hotel or transfer company and do not own their vehicle, one can readily imagine what a small part of the seventy five cents their share is. How- ever, each rider is supposed to give his human steed a small tip, about ten or twenty sen. This is called cum- sha, tea money. In making a turn in the road or meet- ing another vehicle, the head coolie utters a sharp little cry which is echoed by all the jinrikisha boys behind him as a warning to others. At night these queer ve- hicles are illuminated with paper lanterns and a proces- sion of them flitting by in the darkness looks like huge glow worms. When it rains the coolie dons a coat of straw look- ing not unlike the Hula skirt of a Hawaiian dancing girl. His fare is comfortably tucked away in rubber 14 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD blankets which, with the baby carriage cover effectually excludes the rain. Altogether, the jinrikisha is the acme ot comfort and enjoyment as a mode of transportation. Scenic Beauty We are in a toy world. Everything in Japan, from the tiniest garden to Fuji, the world's one, absolutely symmetrical mountain, is constructed with the precision as to detail and outline of a German toy. Even in the timber lands where the trees grow naturally, one is impressed with the idea that they were planted there tor artistic effect, so evenly do they grow. The eye is constantly delighted with charming vistas sea scapes and landscapes, not of long distances, but ravishing bits of flashing blue sky through dim, wooded aisles. The scenic beauty of Japan combines and harmonizes many varieties of nature's beauty found in various countries of the globe. Being surrounded by seas on all sides its rugged coasts and picturesque mountains form an artistic picture which once exposed to mem- ory's lens is indelibly impressed. The Japanese have an easthetic appreciation of the art of nature in harmonizing the color of blossoms with that of the leaves and stems, so a single spray of flowers or a branch of cherry or plum tree in an exquisite vase expresses to them a more artistic effect than a huge cluster of flowers. They are surely the best gar- deners in the world, and every inch of the ground is cultivated. If the Japanese farmer needs all of his tiny farm for growing grain or vegetables, he grows flowers in boxes, pans, bits of rock or old tree stumps. Every window ledge has a pot of dwarf pine and chrys- anthemum or other flowering plant. The stations at even the smallest villages have shelves of potted plants. The process by which the pine trees are dwarfed is a 15 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD carefully guarded secret known only to Japanse garden- e^s. Trees not more than ten or twelve inches high are a century old. The gnarled and twisted trunks and sprawling branches are considered very artistic. The tiny truck farms and rice fields are separated by hedges of cape jasmine or privet. The ridge pole of the thatched roof of the peasant's hut has a row of Chinese lilies turning their faces up to the refreshing rain and infrequent sun. These lilies furnish food for both soul and body, for the blossoms and odor delight the senses and the bulbs are boiled for food. The edible Ictos which grows so profusely in Japan serves many purposes. It has a beautiful pink bloom, a confection is made from the seed pod and the stem and roots are used as a vegetable. Japan's Capital Tokyo, the capital of Japan, and the seat of gov- ernment, as well as the financial and commercial center of the empire, is only one hour by railway from the har- bor city of Yokohama. Its population is more than two millions. The emperor's palace stands in the center of the city within a double line of moats, on the site once oc- cupied by the Shogun's castle. The city is not as pic- turesque as some others in Japan, for its large European population demands modern buildings, electric cars, tele- phone and telegraph, and modern dress has been very generally adopted by the male element. Tokyo has its share of shrines and temples and the guides and jinrikisha boys seem in league to convey the tourist to each and every individual place of worship. A noted place is Hibiya Daijiugu, a Shinto shrine built in imitation of the famous temple of Ise, dedicated to the sun goddess. It is coming to be the custom for 16 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD wealthy citizens of Tokyo to have the marriage cere- mony performed at this shrine, using it as we use churches in America, except that we need not pay for the use of a church for such purposes, while the Tokyan pays from five to fifty yen. The world-famed Yoshiwara is the quarter of Tokyo which is given over to licensed vice. It is interesting to visit this part of the city and observe how Japan controls one of the most vexed of questions to the west- ern world. One thing is quite sure. Tokyo streets are not infested with those familiar characters that are constantly encountered in almost every American city. Many of the houses within this district are palatial in appearance and in the evening present a spectacle un- paralleled in any other country of the globe. The in- mates, decked out in gorgeous raiment, sit in rows in outdoor rooms or cages, with gold screens behind them and protected from the outside by iron bars. Splendid Schools Tokyo is a city of schools. There are three splen- did universities, the Imperial, which is supported by the government and has eleven thousand students; the Waseda, with seven thousand students, and the Kaio with four thousand students. About forty per cent of the Tokyo boys attend the universities and of the girls only the daughters of the wealthy citizens. The girls of the middle class attend the primary and grammar schools only, and many of them are sent into Euro- pean homes as servants, that they may master domes- tic science. We visited a primary and grammar school. Our jinrikisha boys, who could speak a little English, ush- ered us into the principal's room, where we presented 17 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD our cards. We were received with many bows and the gentlest courtesy, but not one word escaped the Japanese lips. We were escorted to a private room and tea was served, then a teacher appeared with an armful of books showing the work from the first to the eighth grade. The hieroglyphics on the huge pages looked like hen tracks, but our school books would appear just as unintelligible to them. We visited the various rooms of the different grades and found the same comfortable desks and benches the American pupil is provided with. The rooms were well ventilated and immaculately clean. During the recess period the children were put through a series of exercises. The boys are taught military tac- tics from the primary through the grammar grades, but are exempt from such practice in the universities. The playgrounds are in a quadrangle formed by the long, rambling buildings. Shinto Funeral We witnessed a Shinto funeral one day in Tokyo. It \vas that of Dr. Hatiyama, a noted educator, dean ot the Waseda university. First came several hundred young men in uniform, students of the university; then more than three hundred kimono-clad men carrying what looked like Christmas trees. They were pine trees about six feet tall, profusely decorated with white paper prayer slips. Each tree was rooted and was intended for planting about the grave of the deceased. Then followed a company of men carrying huge stiff-looking bouquets, floral offerings from friends. Then men carry- ing large cages of pigeons. In Japan pigeons are tokens of affection from friends and the birds are freed rfter the body is interred. The body came next, resting on an elaborately deco- 18 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD rated cart with a sort of temple or shrine covering all. The little house was gaily painted and looked like a miniature Swiss chalet. The active pall bearers wore white robes and the honorary ones black robes. Just back of the catafalque was an escort of soldiers and then came dozens of carriages and jinrikishas bear- ing the mourners. The widow sat alone in a carriage end was dressed from head to foot in white. It is said the Japanese have great reverence for their university instructors, showing them every deference and courtesy during life, and when they pass on, plan the magnificent spectacle we witnessed. 19 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD JAPAN CONTINUED A Japanese Inn With the splendid modern hotels found in every place in Japan, the traveler need never be uncomfortably housed, but if he deliberately chooses to spend a night in a really truly Japanese inn, just to get the atmosphere and local color, he may find such a place, with its at- tendant discomforts, in one of the remote villages. A party of four California ladies and one lone man from Philadelphia sought out and found such a place and ar- ranged with the landlord for dinner and a night's lodg- ing. Arriving in the late afternoon, the party was met by the entire household of kimonoed, kowtowing men and women and ushered to large, bare upper chambers. The rooms were separated by sliding paper screens and while there was a semblance of privacy, there rea'ly was none, for the aforesaid household stood outside peering curiously through the openings. "The honorable bath was ready if the augustly per- sons would deign to follow," explained the interpreter, and visions of public baths, of plural, triple, quadruple and sextuple baths, flashed simultaneously into four California minds. One woman only was game, and find- ing kimono and straw sandals in her room, slipped out ot street clothes and followed the attendant. The bath tub, a huge wooden vat, stood on an outside porch, with 20 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD only a frail paper screen between it and the whole Japanese empire. A woman, a boy and the interpreter crowded inside the screen, gravely solicitous. The lady explained that she wanted them to depart. The interpreter said they waited to assist the august one, that it would be dis- courteous to leave. She finally made them understand that she preferred solitude, and they withdrew, forming a bewildered group just outside the screen. The bath was scalding, as is every bath in Japan, and, as there was no cold water, the lady splashed towels about as though she were in the tub and then ran the gauntlet to her room. On another occasion the party visited the public baths, and seeing the freedom with \\hich the sexes bathe unclothed, in the same pool, real- ized as never before, that Japan, seen from the bath tub, is the real Japan. It is the only place where the sexes congregate for gossip and general conversation, and if one has an in- terpreter close by to translate, he finds the talk is of the busy affairs of everyday life. When told the cus- tom was shocking to Americans, a Japanese man said, "We have been bathing thus for two thousand years, why should we change? There is no evil in a custom to those whose minds are free from evil." When dinner was announced, the party, in kimonos and sandals which every Japanese hotel provides Its guests, was conducted to a room which, like the bed- rooms, was bare of furniture except the cushions placed on the thick straw mats that cover all Japanese floors. These mats, called tamina, are about three by six feet, thickly padded and the edges bound with silk. The pre- scribed Japanese fashion of sitting is to kneel on the cushion and then rest the body on the heels. The nov- ice finds legs most inconvenient appendages in rooms that have no chairs. 21 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD In front of each person was placed a beautiful lacquer footed tray upon which was an array of strange looking mixtures in various shaped bowls, dishes and baskets. There were no knives, forks or spoons, only chop sticks, and the little serving maid gravely instructed the diners how to use them. Course followed course in bewilder- ing succession, each more beautiful and artistically ar- ranged than the one preceding. But alas, that anything so pleasing to the eye could be so displeasing to the palate. Soup was served in covered lacquer bowls at the end of each course. There were sundry and various kinds, among them, a puree of seawead that was in- describable. The menu included raw fish, fried eels, chicken and mushrooms, boiled lotus bulbs, a salad of finely chopped radishes with a dressing of raw fish and thick soy, cold boiled rice rolled in seaweed with a dab of horseradish in the center, boiled crawfish, pickled eggs of a vintage of a long past era, rice birds served with heads and feet attached, strange pickled spices and stranger spiced pickles. The dessert was great golden persimmons and rosy apples with huge pieces of rock candy served in brown wisteria baskets, wreathed with sprays of dwarf pine. Tea, of course, was drunk without sugar or cream, and with every course hot sake, a fermented drink made of rice, was served in tiny bowls of red lacquer. The guests were told that the bowls must be held in both hands when drinking. It is the custom to exchange bowls with every guest and a bowl of hot water for rinsing them after drinking was near the trays. Each guest must first drink, rinse the bowl, fill it and pass to his neighbor, receiving one in return. Each must do this at least once with every guest, and as sake is about the strength of sherry, if the guest list is large the result is, to say the least, not desirable. 22 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD When the hour for retiring came, serving women appeared bearing huge rolls of bedding, spreading them on the thickly padded floor. The lower sheet was ad- justed and a block of wood about five inches high and twelve inches long, hollowed out on one side and softly upholstered, was placed for a pillow. The little toy maids then smilingly waited for the guests to disrobe and retire, for it is the custom of Old Japan to "tuck in" the retiring guest. The top covering of heavy wadded silk was carefully adjusted and patted into place, the candles extinguished and a tiny flame of burning oil in a bowl left as a night light. The maid pattered away, sliding the paper screens noiselessly, leaving the wide- awake to distorted dreams. Marriage Customs When a Japanese girl reaches a marriageable age, her parents select her life partner, or arrange for the match through the medium of friends or professional matchmakers. The girl can raise no objection if the parents' choice does not suit her. In Japan girls must obey. After the preliminaries are completed and the dowry settled, a meeting between the betrothed couple is arranged at some public place a tea house or theatre and friends of the contracting parties are present. This is in the nature of a formal reception, and the happy couple is so carefully chaperoned that they can only exchange furtive side glances. At this function presents are exchanged by the engaged pair. This is supposed to bind the contract. The presents may be articles of attire or food, or, if circumstances permit, money is given. In the last named case, it is the cus- tom for the recipient to reciprocate by returning half ot' the money. All of the gifts are sent to the groom's house. 23 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD With the assistance of a fortune-teller, a date for the wedding is selected, and on that day the bride-to-be, accompanied by her parents, goes in a jinrikisha to the house of the groom. We met and followed a bridal party in Tokyo. The bride was beautifully dressed in white embroidered crepe kimono, a white wedding hood concealing her face. Inquiring why the bridal procession raced up and down side streets as though trying to elude us, our guide said that it was the custom for bridal parties to pass through streets which bear names of happy mean- ing, such as Good Health, Happy Days, etc. The vicinity of the groom's ho'use was gaily deco- rated with branches of trees thickly hung with red paper lanterns. The groom and his attendants, each carrying a lighted lantern, met the bridal party outside and conducted them within the home. It is said that there is no religious service connected with a Japanese wedding except among the highest class, who repair to a Shinto temple to celebrate the event. The ordinary ceremony is for the bride and groom to drink sake from a cup nine times, alternately. After this a wedding feast is partaken of at which clams in some form are served. Since each pair of clam shells has hinges that never fit any separate shell, the serving of clams is considered a happy symbol. Geisha Dance No one should visit Japan without witnessing a Geisha dance. When we reached Kyoto we found the city placarded with screaming posters and flaunting red banners which were unintelligible to us. Our guide explained that a convention of Geisha dancers, which 24 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD occurred only once in ten years, was being held, and it would be our privilege, that evening, if we chose, to wit- ness a dance of the most famous dancers in Japan. We were afterward informed that this same famous conven- tion is held every time a party of tourists arrive. Paying two yen fifty sen, which is one dollar and twenty-five cents of our money, for our tickets, we en- tered the flimsy wooden structure called Geisha Girl theatre. The auditorium was a large room with sloping floor and with elevated boxes along the sides and back. The walls were hung with bright-hued cotton drapery and the drop curtain was of gorgeous red and white striped satin brocade. The floor space had no aisles, but was divided off into pens or boxes by a low railing over which the people stepped to reach their places. The dance began at two o'clock in the afternoon and lasted until ten o'clock at night. We went early that we might see the people arrive, and sat in a box in the rear overlooking the floor. Each little group that pattered in bore a tea service consisting of a brazier of burning charcoal, a tea pot and cups and a basket of rice cake and confections. Vivid scarlet blankets were spread on the floor of the pens, or compartments, and the occupants knelt on knees and heels throughout the performance, except be- tween dances they visited other boxes and exchanged cups of tea, bowing profoundly and talking animatedly. The curtain arose, disclosing three dainty maidens sitting to the right of the stage holding strange looking musical instruments. These instruments are called samisen, koto and drum. The first two are stringed instruments. As the preliminary chords were struck a brilliant vision drifted, as light as thistle down, from the wings to the center of the stage. It was a Geisha girl in all the bravery of dance attire. Her glistening, blue-black hair was thrust through with sparkling orna- 25 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD ments, and bright hued chrysanthemums beneath each ear vied with the vivid scarlet of her tiny mouth. Her kimono was of violet silk crepe, shading in its shimmering folds from palest lavender to deepest purple and heavily encrusted with gold embroidery. Her under kimonos of filmy white showed coyly in the posturing of the dance. To the wailing accompaniment of the musical instru- ments and the singing of the musicians, she began a series of poses, gliding from each posture to another with fascinating grace. Our interpreter explained that her dance meant "The New Year," and we concluded that in Japan, truly, every little movement has a mean- ing of its own. Other dances followed, some where two participated and at one time five beautiful doll-like figures appeared in perfect poses. We would have been sitting there yet, in perfect rapture, but for the music. There is a cruel surprise in store for the foreigners who think they will like Japanese music. When those three fairy-like creatures on the stage struck the strings and drum, it sounded worse than sweet bells jangling out of tune. And when those ruby, smiling lips opened to chant the poem descriptive of the dance, we were totally unprepared for the series of weird, discordant notes which rent the air. Japanese music is like grand opera to some people. It is an acquired taste. Japanese Manners Japanese politeness is one of the most charming characteristics of the country. You may in time, sus- pect that the politeness does not mean very much, per- naps, still it is charming, this wondrous courtesy, and 26 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD you compare it very favorably with the bluffness of western people. The Gentleman from Philadelphia picked up a Japanese lady's handkerchief in the train one day and restored it to her with a bow. She re- sponded with so deep a salaam that he, perforce, had to bow again. Again she bowed, and by this time her husband had joined her and his bow had to be returned. The trio of international bows kept up until the Ameri- can backed out of the car. When the traveler in Japan reaches a hotel, he is greeted at the entrance by a horde of kowtowing house boys and maids. Inside, every nook and corner has its salaaming artistic figure. It all seems like a stage picture. At the entrance to the dining room, instead of a lordly head waiter, one is greeted by a dainty ki- monoed figure and literally bowed into place. At the fine silk and curio stores, milady's jinnkisha deposits her at the entrance, where her boots are re- moved by salaaming boys, and sandals substituted. She then is conducted past rows of bowing clerks to a tea room where tea is served her, and then when Madam is sufficiently rested and refreshed, if she cares to in- spect the wares of the establishment, they are brought to her. No need of running from counter to counter in Japan. Articles from the topmost floor will be brought to the customer if she desires. A gentleman from Los Angeles was walking through the crowded streets of Tokyo one day, when he acci- dentally trod on the foot of a native. Instead of being challenged to a duel as he would have been in some countries, or glared at as in America, the Japanese, bowing low, said, "Honorable sir, august pardon deign. My unworthy foot was the way in." A party of Los Angeles tourists were speeding through the streets of a Japanese city one evening, when they ran down a man, hurting him severely. Just before 27 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD he lapsed into unconsciousness, the Japanese apologized humbly for being in the way. Until the English-speaking people invaded Japan, profanity was unknown. About the worst thing a na- tive could call another in those days was a fool. That was considered the vilest epithet known. But "civiliza- tion" has taught him to swear glibly not only in English but in Japanese. And profanity is not the only vice civilization has brought to this gentle race. The adage to "See, speak and hear no evil," does not prevail as it once did. There is no word for kiss in the Japanese language. It seems when the missionaries first came to Japan and translated our Bible into the native language they could find no Japanese word to express kiss. In the story of the prodigal son where he returns and the father meets him afar off and falls on his neck and kisses him, they substituted the word "lick," explaining' that since a cow affectionately licks her calf, that was the next best word to use. So the Bible in Japanese reads, "And the father fell on his neck and licked him." Nikko's Glory There's a saying in Japan, "Don't say Kekko till you have seen Nikko." Kekko means magnificent and Nikko is a small mountain resort two thousand feet above the sea. Of Nikko more has been written and spoken by foreigners than any other place in Japan. Murray says, "It has a twofold charm; the charm of nature and the charm of art. Its beautiful mountains abd cascades, and its noble trees are famous. Its temple aichitecture is the most splendid in Japan." From the magnificent slopes and mountain tops cov- ered with evergreens and maples, and adorned with 28 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD temples, one looks down upon a landscape which no artist can ever hope to adequately portray. It is a wonderful combination of man's most perfect handiwork and nature's highest effort toward perfection. If one sees it in the autumn as we did, with the hills a glory ot gold and red and brown, it is a most gorgeous scene. Maple leaves are counted among the flowers in Japan and really, they have a right to the distinction. Color simply runs riot blood-red, golden yellow, brown and green, blend into a perfection which is only under- stood by those who have seen it. The maple dance which takes place in November is danced by thirty-two Geisha girls. It is a typical Japanese dance and great attention is given to all the details of costume and set- ting. Maple branches are used in the stage scenery and the autumn tints prevail in the costumes of the Geishas. Approaching Nikko by train the traveler rides for many miles parallel with the world-famous avenue of cryptomeria trees. This double row of giant, red-trunked trees borders the road to the temples at Nikko for twenty miles. Tradition says that three hundred years ago when a sacred temple was in the process of building, the reigning Shogun asked for contributions from all of the people. One old man who was too poor to give anything conceived the idea of planting an avenue of cryptomeria trees leading to the shrine. With the aid of his three sons he painstakingly planted twenty miles of tender saplings which today stand a living monument to his religious ardor. The simple religious faith of the Japanese is beau- tiiul because it is so childlike and so picturesque. The natives do not assemble for worship, neither do they need revivals of religion once or twice a year to stimu- late their faith. But they never neglect their devotions. 29 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD A mother with her little babe strapped to her back enters a temple and striking the gong or clapping her hands to attract the attention of the gods, tosses her few coppers in the slotted box that marks every temple entrance, and murmuring a prayer, goes on her way sure of absolution. In front of one shrine we saw strands of human hair attached to prayer slips and were told that when a worshipper suffers from an illness of any kind she cuts off her hair and offers it to appease the gods. Our interpreter gravely informed us that it never fails to affect a cure. The Inland Sea It is said that no body of water in all the world can compare with the Inland Sea in scenic beauty. It is not unlike the Thousand Islands of the St. Lawrence river, only, of course, on a much larger scale. The scenery is so varied that the eye never wearies. A soft, vague haze hung over the mountains the day we steamed slowly through the beautiful body of water. The sun seemed ever just ready to peep through the fleecy bank of cloud, but it remained hidden throughout the day, giving an impression of early dawn. The placid bosom of the sea is dotted with innumerable islands, every one of them under cultivation. Along the ter- raced shore stretch chains of picturesque villages, with stone sea walls, castles and temples soaring above the clustered roofs. Along the wooded slopes, half hidden by heavy foliage, forts may be glimpsed, the black out- line of the menacing cannon an inharmonious note in a scene of pastoral simplicity. Queer fishing junks and sampans lie anchored in fleets or skim lazily across the water. While speed on the Inland Sea is not desired by the enamored traveler, one could not hurry if one 30 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD wished, for the channel is so narrow in places between the islands that the vessel must proceed with caution, often passing within a stone's throw of the shore. Nagasaki, the first stop- out of the Inland Sea, has a land-locked harbor which is considered one of the most beautiful in the world. It is deeply indented with small bays and the town nestles against the mountain- side with a wonderful panorama spread out before it. Nagasaki is the principal coaling place in Japan for all ships, and it is a novel sight to watch the men, women and children passing the coal up in small bas- kets from the barges. Wooden platforms are erected against each side of the ship about five feet apart and on these stand the laborers. The women work right along with the men, while the small children stand near the bunkers and throw the rapidly emptied baskets back to the barges. Theatre Street A fine place to study types in Japan is in Theatre street, Kyoto. Theatre street is not unlike the board walk of our California beaches. There are bazaars, rows of tiny shops, small theatres, side shows, fortune tellers, jugglers, sweetmeat venders and numerous other de- vices to lure the nimble sen from the pocket of the passerby. Each attraction has its "barker," who proclaims his wares. The street is covered by an awning of matting stretched from roof to roof of the squat buildings. No jinrikishas are allowed to traverse this section, only pedestrians. An American is immediately surrounded by a curious throng who follow him from booth to booth, touching his clothing, nudging each other and chatter- ing like monkeys. 31 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD We stopped at booths and made small purchases, the guide interpreting for us. The small shops are merely a platform open to the street and on it squats the mer- chant. Japanese people never hurry. If you are pressed for time never attempt to make a purchase in Japan. Only one article is shown the prospective purchaser at a time. If that does not suit his fancy, it is taken away and another is shown until he is pleased. Then when the time for payment comes the dealer takes a little wooden frame of sliding wooden beads, and slipping them through his fingers, mutters to himself until the total sum of, perhaps, fifteen cents' worth of goods, is computed. Mental arithmetic is Greek to him and the most trifling sum must be worked out by the "sora- ban." If you are leaving a hotel in Japan any hour before noon, you must ask for your bill the day before or else serious complications will ensue. If you want a rail- road ticket to any point, it is well to notify the railroad officials several days in advance. It makes it easier for all parties concerned. By Rail Japanese railroads are narrow guage and the coaches have rows of benches down each side of the small com- partments. The native traveler spreads a flaming red blanket on the seat and kneels or squats on knees and heels in the nest thus formed. Just across an aisle from us, one day, knelt a fat Japanese gentleman, in kimono and toe-ed socks. His sandals reposed on the floor near him. He slept while he kept his upright position on the narrow bench, his head nodding like a toy Chinese mandarin. His wife, a wizened crone with blackened teeth, knelt apart from him, but was ever watchful of the needs of her lord and 32 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD master, rolling his cigarette or filling his tiny pipe or serving him tea from the tea service wnich is the in- evitable accompaniment of every Japanese traveler. At every station boys appear at the windows with steaming tea pot and cups. The tea, including pot and cups, costs five sen, two and one-half cents of our money. Baskets of lunch attractively decorated with ferns and flowers, disclosed when opened queer little boxes of food. There were tiny wooden pill boxes for the salt, pepper and mustard. A miniature firkin held the butter. Lit- tle wooden trays had layers of raw fish and cold boiled rice dressed in many ways. It's fascinating to watch the natives eat rice with chop sticks. They carry the food swiftly and surely from plate to mouth with unconscious grace, never spill- ing a morsel. All our efforts at mastering the elusive, maddening sticks were unavailing. The outlying districts of Japan are even more pic- turesque than the cities. There are few farm houses, the natives preferring to live in the small villages, where they repair at night when the day's labor is ended. It is said that this "collective" habit was formed in early days in Japan, when bandits and marauders terrorized the inhabitants, and the people had to live near each other for protection. In these villages the odd little shops and peasants' huts are strung along the road. In the shops the kimono- clad tradesmen crouch, like huge spiders, in a web of many hues. In many houses, as our train sped by, the morning "meal was being eaten and as the huts are open to the street, he who passes by train or other- wise may see all the domestic economy and intimate home life of the native. At breakfast papa, mamma and the numerous smaller folk knelt on straw mats around the brazier which cooked their rice and brewed their tea. The brazier, in which a few handfuls of char- 33 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD coal is burned, serves in the poorer houses of Japan the double purpose of cooking and heating. Our train skirted the borders of a bay upon whose sparkling blue waters sailed a flotilla of quaint fishing craft, the bronzed bodies of the fisherfolk innocent of clothing save a loincloth and mushroom hat. Other craft were queer square-sailed boats and high-sterned junks such as one sees in old Japanese prints. Here and there rose knolls terraced to the top for rice, the tender grain palely green in the morning light. Many of the rice fields were girdled with straw rope on which flut- tered white prayer slips as a protection against evil spirits. We passed fields of buckwheat and sugar cane growing side by side, embryonic hot cakes and corn syrup. Plodding alongside the roadbed were natives on their way to market. Men and women with huge baskets of vegetables strung on long poles resting on their shoulders. Oxen, with straw-sandaled hoofs, moved slowly by, laden with great water casks. In the hilly region we skirted overhanging rocks, sheer cliffs, their white walls gleaming under a veil of green vines and ferns. Litt'e singing streams trickled down tiny ravines to meet a foaming torrent below. Many hillsides were covered with bamboo, which is one of Japan's valuable assets. The trees grow to enormous height and their slender trunks crowned by feathery foliage are beautiful. Many huts we passed had great cracks in the plaster walls, caused by earthquakes. Japan has the earthquake habit, three hundred tremors a year being the average. All the houses are built on the earthquake plan. To quote from "The Heart of Japan": "If any of you build here, see to the door posts, and especially to the lin- tels across the top of the posts. Have the lintels over the windows strong, too, or else do not have the win- dows directly one above the other. A row of windows 34 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD running up a wall in a straight line is like the perfor- ation in a sheet of postage stamps. When the quake comes, there's where the wall will tear, right up and down along that row of windows." English as She is Jap-ed One of the amusing things in Japan is studying the signs in the streets. There is much of human interest in them. The average Japanese, when wishing to use the plural of any noun, adds an s. For instance, a sign in a Kobe window, "Trouser fixer for Mans. Wrinkles take." A sign in front of a tea house read, "The teas are restful and for sharpen the mind." The man who safeguards against sun and rain declared, "Of shop our parasols the pleasure is." Over a laundry this inscrip- tion, "First nice washer mans." Over a transfer office, "Endure any responsible and awaiting all the time for honorable orders." A signpost to a cascade: "High above me up water fall. This way from ten minutes walked." A bridge v*as marked as follows:: "Wagons and other vehicles except those of the unloaded are to pass not." One might fancy that inscription was addressed to those who look upon the wine when it is red. In passing a large hospital one day, we inquired of the jinrikisha boy what it was. He replied, "Just now sick mans. Bymeby get well house." The same boy in explaining the significance of the food, water and incense before a wayside shrine, said, "Man makee fire. Joss he smile. Morning time he eat chow and drink like mans." Inquiring about an imposing stone by the roadside, the boy explained, "Jap mans makee die, put up a stone; small mans, small stone, large mans, large stone." 35 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD MANILA Stars and Stripes The American traveler who has been forty days and nights on ship board, stopping here and there at various foreign ports, feels an indescribable thrill of delight when he enters a harbor floating the glorious Stars and Stripes and hears an American band playing American tunes. Manila, Beautiful Manila! in a wonderful setting of opalescent bay, azure sky and emerald verdure, was home to us from the moment we reached there until we regretfully left. Instead of chattering tongues that we could not un- derstand, instead of dirty palms outstretched for coins, we met genuine American Handclasps and a cordial wel- come in a language our very own. Long before our steamer anchored in the bay of Manila a committee of citizens came out in launches to meet us, bringing the information that the "Pearl of the Orient" was ours for the asking and their attitude toward us throughout our stay confirmed the suspicion that the information was authentic. The constabulary band, the best in the Far East, greeted us very appropriately with "America." Joy filled hearts that were torn with the in- sistent longing for home and loved ones, eyes brightened and pulses quickened, at the sight and sound of faces and voices of our own kind. Manila Is a fascinating co-mingling of Spanish civili- 36 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD zation of the sixteenth century, Oriental life and Ameri- can occupation. It would not be nearly so attractive were any one of the three lost. The old walled city with its quaint Spanish archi- tecture, its quiet and dreaminess, is in strange contrast to the bustle and business activity of the American dis- trict, while Rosario street, on which are the Chinese shops and residences, Is like another world. Crossing the Bridge of Spain, one looks down the winding Pasig river, upon a motley fleet of queer river craft. The shore is lined with a sort of house boat, called Casco, in which live the "floating population." These boats are awkward, flat structures with a rounded roof covered with straw matting. The natives, many of them, live in the boats, rearing their families and wrenching a miserable living from fishing in the river, or earnng a few pesos doing odd jobs of work on the docks. If the average Filipino of the lower class has a little portion of fish, a bit of rice, a package of cigarettes and a box of matches he will not work so long as they last. Like Mexico, Old Manila is a land of Manana tomor- row the native does not trouble trouble until trouble troubles him, and is not work trouble? He thinks so, at least, so he dreams drowsy day dreams and is lazily content. True, if his Querida (sweetheart) expresses a desire for perfume or cheap jewelry or a new ribbon, the lu.mbre will work until that need is supplied, then he rests from his labors. The native Filipino woman wears very gaudy raiment. Her skirts are of bright hued material fitting the figure ciosely about the hips, but spreading out at the back in a flaring train. Over a chemise she wears a trans- parent waist called Camiso, made of gaudily striped native cloth called Jusi cloth. This waist has huge, stiff 37 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD outstanding sleeves and a sort of fichu collar of the same material. The women all smoke cigarettes, both in their homes and on the street. Some of the types are very beautiful. A Mestizo is a half-breed, Filipino and Chinese. I asked an American gentleman residing in Manila what a Mestizo was. He replied, "A Mestizo is a woman one-fourth Filipino, one-fourth Chinese and one-half rice powder." She surely shows all the facial indicia of the last, for the native is anxious to appear as fair as her American sisters and plasters cosmetics on her face thickly. The male native of the Philippines is of small stature and as slender as a sapling. His hair is straight and g!ossily black, and his skin a yellowish brown. His eyes are brown with an expression of languor in them. The men of the better class wear American clothes. Native houses are built on stilts with the living apart- ments above and the stable underneath. The frame- work of the huts is bamboo, and it is covered with a sort of coarse straw matting called Nipa. The roofs are thatched and wire covered and the windows are tiny squares of the transparent inner lining of oyster shells. On many roofs we saw sharp iron rods protruding and were told that they were placed there to prevent evil spirits from alighting on the house. In the evening from six to seven o'clock, the con- stabulary band plays in the Luneta, a public plaza or park which was once the esplanade of the Spanish aris- tocracy. Everybody whose name appears in the Manila blue book and many whose names do not appear; in fact, people of every station of life, ride, drive or walk about the Luneta during the band concert. My lady, in full evening dress and elaborately coiffed bared head, lolls luxuriously back in her Victoria or Limousine. She is ready for the eight o'clock dinner which usually 38 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD takes on the dignity of a formal party at one of the fashionable clubs. Manila's social life is attractive, the army and navy circles making it exceedingly gay and desirable. The Elks club and the Army and Navy club are each housed in beautiful buildings and in these places the smartest social functions are given. We were privileged to attend a tea given by an Amer- ican lady who lives in one of the old Spanish homes. As we entered the wide, imposing entrance on the ground floor, we found we were on the threshold of the stable, which, in this instance, happily, sheltered the family tour- ing car, instead of the usual live stock. Through open- ings in the rear of the stable we looked out upon a paved court yard where chickens clucked, goats browsed and native dogs lay idly in the sun. Mounting a winding stair we entered an imposing living room, more than fifty feet square. The brilliant afternoon sun shone but dimly through the creamy opaque shell windows and brilliant hued blossoms nodded from every window sill. On one side a conserva- tory balcony overhung the court below. Tropical ferns and flowers glowed through the open casements and the silver tinkle of falling water from a fountain, mingled with the cooing of caged love birds. The gracious hostess showed us all over the splendid home; the cool, darkened bed chambers with screens swinging outward to exclude the sun and with ceiling fans waving noiselessly; the state dining room, large enough for an hotel and furnished with the splendid Narra wood, one of the hard woods of the islands; the old Spanish kitchen with its stone floor, its polished copper utensils and its primitive brazier for cooking. However, American needs had added a modern note in 39 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD the large steel range. It looked decidedly out of place IB Its primitive surroundings. The American housekeeper in Manila need not bother her head about the details of housework. Native help is so cheap, a dozen servants may be had for the wages of one in America. In fact, the householder must have many, for a cook will do nothing but cook, the bedroom boy keeps only the bedrooms in order, the dining room boy serves the meals and the stable boy does only stable work. Then one must have a laundress and a children's nurse and a lady's maid and a seamstress and so on. Shopping Shopping in Manila is a fascinating pastime if one frequents the small Tiendas (shops) in the native quar- ter. These shops are merely booths fronting on the pavement. The customer sits sidewise on the counter 01 on a small stool in front, while the tradeswoman lolls in the midst of her finery. There are lengths of wonderful shimmery, gauzy Pina cloth made of pine- apple fibre and the gaudy striped Jusi cloth made of hemp. The native hats, woven by hand, of a fine straw, are so soft and pliable they may be drawn through a ring. These hats may be bought for from two pesos to thirty-five or forty pesos, according to the fineness of the work. A peso equals our fifty-cent piece. An industry In which the Filipino women excel is embroidery on fine material. The work is exquisitely done and is more delicate than the work of either the Japanese or Chinese women. The gossamer lawns with their fairylike tracery of needlework are dainty enough for a frock for Queen Titania, and the intricate drawn v^ork on the cobweb table linen fit for a fairy feast. 40 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Schools The Manila schools are perfectly organized and thor- oughly graded. There are about thirty thousand pupils enrolled in the city. Every pupil receives industrial in- struction for an average of three hours each day. Es- pecially is the making of native hats and embroidery emphasized. In many districts the sale of articles made by the children has put this kind of instruction on a self- supporting basis. Besides the public schools there are a number of private institutions. There is a normal university, a school of arts and crafts and a medical institution. Climate The climate of Manila is greatly misunderstood in America and other countries. We were told that one would suffer from heat, but aside from two hours in the middle of the day, when we felt decidedly more com- fortable in the shade than in the sun, we found the climate not unlike Southern California summers, inland. The climate is tropical but the heat is tempered by the proximity of the sea and the presence of large mountains which practically surround the city. The atmosphere is surcharged with humidity, which makes it seem hotter than it really is. The nights are always cool. Churches Being a Catholic community, there are numbers of very large and beautifully decorated churches of that faith. They are all of ancient design and workmanship, showing the effect caused by the ravages of time and 4t BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD storms, except the new steel church, San Sebastien. This splendid church is probably the most conspicuous building in Manila, for its two towers are the highest in the city. It is built of steel plates made and fitted in Europe, and was especially designed to resist earth- quake and fire. Most of the protestant churches are located outside the walled city. The Episcopalians have a beautiful building of stone and concrete called the Cathedral. It was completed about two years ago at a cost of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The Methodist Episcopals have a large following in Manila, and the Presbyterians have recently erected a building of concrete and stone. This church is thorough- ly up to date and has a roof garden auditorium for its social assemblies. The Y. M. C. A., which has obtained a position of strength and importance in the islands, will soon erect a building which will cost, when completed, one hundred thousand dollars. Cemeteries In Manila the native dead are buried in niches in a stone wall, owing to the flat marshy character of the soil, which prevents the digging of graves. It was this strange method of burial that occasioned a former gov- ernor general to remark, "We pigeon-hole our dead for future reference." The walls are from seven to eight feet in thickness and the niches in which the bodies are placed are as ciose together as possible. The cemetery is supported by a system of rentals. One's relatives or friends must pay rent for the niche in which the body is placed. When the rent fails to come, eviction follows and the 42 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD great pile of bones in an enclosure near the wall shows that many people are in arrears. This method has been changed by the authorities in late years and now the bones are disposed of in a way less revolting to the visitor. Filipino English The native of Manila is exceedingly desirous of quali- fying as an American citizen if it is not at the expense of too great an effort. Especially is he if he seeks work at all, seeking a clerical position. Manual labor does not appeal to him. The following letters are, re- spectively, an application for work and a protest against dismissal. They are typically Manilan: "Dear Sir: I, the undersigned applicant obtained reputable conditions when ceased the schools and am studying and writing a pretty good speed of words. I am a married man, 19 years old, for these reason I re- spectfully request you a clerical position at a salary of not to exceedingly forty pesos. If dissatisfaction are doubted, further talk will be told." "Sir: I, boss on steamer loading in bay respectfully present and expose. That reference of those day when the laborers are in strike, nobody has been concurred in this office neither bosses had been appeared here only the expositor as you know my person is able to com- promise in such manner of dis-gust with the laborers. Mr. Lasada gave me order to come early to dedicate the work result of our weariness to come about five o'clock sharp in the morning has already been given to another Bosses. I think Mr. Lasada, he puts in Jokes his orders that I know now has no honor his words. I earnestly 43 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD request to proceed this matter according to reason above stated." Query: What is the reason? An Industry One of the principal industries of the Philippines is the preparing of tobacco in its various forms for the market. Vast quantities of tobacco are grown in the islands and there are many factories for the making of cigars and cigarettes in Manila. These factories em- ploy thousands of men, women and even little children. These people become so deft from long practice at this \vork that they appear like human machines. The long, slender, tapering fingers of the natives seem especially adapted to rolling the tobacco into the smooth symetri- cal cigars and they have cultivated the sense of touch until they can without once looking at their work com- plete a cigar or take up a bunch of twenty-five or fifty at a time without counting them. * * * Cavite A trip to the old naval town of Cavite was replete v/ith interest. Cavite, the scene of Admiral Dewey's scrap with the Spanish, lies across the bay, ten miles distant from Manila. The little group of red-roofed white buildings nest- ling among the trees, the quiet stretch of sandy beach upon which the sparkling blue waters of the bay lisp crooning measure, looked peaceful enough as we sailed into the harbor searching vainly for some indication of Uncle Sam's belligerency in 1908. It's true the moss grown walls of Fort Gaudalupe, with its Spanish sentry box standing perkily aloof like a 44 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD saucy child, still remain and there are a few guns in evidence, but mating birds chirp love songs as they build tbeir nests in the very mouth of the cannon and grace- ful trailing vines have mercifully veiled the wall against \vhich the thirteen martyrs stood to receive their death wound. It's true, a lone sentry, gun on shoulder, faced the dock and we tried to conjure up visions of reeking battles, but instead of the clash of arms we heard the droning, drowsy hum of bees. Except for the clang of machinery in the naval yards Cavite seems to have been dropped back into the fif- teenth century. In the old churchyard we saw only ruin acd desolation, and the crumbling walls of the old Spanish buildings are pitiful reminders of a lost power. We had lunch in the dim, cool cloister of an old cathedral. Soft-eyed deer thrust their noses through the bars of the grated windows and ate from our hands. Truly, the world's peace congress could find no fitter n eeting place than Cavite, that only thirteen years ago witnessed such frightful bloodshed. Back to Manila we hired a victoria, and taking a small Filipino lad as guide and interpreter, started out for a drive to the shops. The boy explained proudly that his name was Sixto de Dios, that is, sixth son of God, and that the Americanos ladies would be protected with his life, if necessary. After shopping, in which the boy was useful, we directed our driver to take us to the dock where our steamer lay. On the way the horses became frightened and the driver sprang from the box to their heads. Three frightened California women hastily scrambled out of the low carriage and ran to the rear. Quieting his horses, the driver, without observing the absence of his fares, mounted to his seat and drove rapidly away, leaving three surprised women and the sixth son standing in a pouring rain. Sixto de Dios 45 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD wrung his hands and implored the Americanos ladies to be calm. The Americanos were shrieking with laughter despite their unenviable plight. The carriage disap- peared down the avenue and Sixto de Dios, who was go- ing to protect us with his life, carefully turned up his coat collar and lighted a cigarette. Just then not the sixth son but one of God's good men, an American, came along and, inquiring our difficulty, had another car- riage for us in a very short time. But just fancy the consternation of that driver when he reached the dock and found his fares had vanished as if by magic! Bilibid Prison The most unique institution of its kind in the world is Bilibid prison. It covers an area of nearly seventeen acres on which there are fifty odd buildings. It is the largest penal institution under the control of the Ameri- can government and, some say, is the largest in the world. We visited the prison at the evening parade hour, four forty-five o'clock, and witnessed from the tower in the center of the grounds, the semi-military maneuvers of the prisoners. The four thousand prisoners are di- vided into squads of twenty-four, each squad being in charge of a hundred per cent good conduct prisoner, who is charged with the supervisory responsibility of his squad. A section, which is composed of a number of squads, is in charge of a keeper. Overseers are in charge of groups of sections. From our high observation post the long lines of men in striped clothes, all diverging from a central point, looked, in their systematic drill, like the writhing and twisting of a monster serpent. After drill the marching ranks filed past the tables where the evening meal was being ladled out from mam- 46 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD moth cooking vats. In exactly seven minutes, four thousand men had received their portion and were on their way to the cell houses. With regular hours for \^ork, recreation and rest and employment at interest- ing labor, the prisoner rapidly acquires the work habit, with the result, that at the end of his term he has changed his viewpoint of life and there is little likeli- hood of his ever returning to his former mode of living. There are many instances in Manila of men who have served time in Bilibid, who are now useful, law-abiding citizens. Various trades are taught the prisoners by the most competent trades instructors available. The trades taught are blacksmithing, machine iron work, wagon making, silversmithing, wicker furniture, tailoring, car- I entering, painting, baking and many other trades. The management of the prison endeavors to procure employ- ment for the prisoners upon their discharge and tries to make them feel that they can ask for advice and guid- &uce at any time. Altogether the percentage of crime is very small in Manila as compared with other cities of its size in the United States and foreign countries. Amusements Driving through the miserable drunkenly winding streets of the Old Town, we observed in almost every dooryard, native men lolling at ease, caressing brilliant- hued game cocks. The fighting cocks form no small part in the joys and tribulations of the ordinary Filipino. The cock fight is the one way of adding to or losing all of his meagre capital. The cock pits are the most popular resorts, especially on Sunday, when the most important combats take place. Aside from the cruelty of the sport the vice of betting on the outcome of the fight 47 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD is a most pitiable feature. Many natives in a short time lose all they have earned in a month. Feast days probably come under the head of amuse- ments, and they occur almost daily. To see these leisure- loving people in holiday dress, with lighted candles and with gay music honoring some patron saint, is a sight both impressive and lasting. Rev. George Miller, in writing of the peaceful at- mosphere of Old Manila says: "Earth has no cure for the nervous quest, The tense unrest, the hungering haste of fate, Like the soothing balm of the tropic palm, In the land where things can wait." 48 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD CHINA Eve of War Long before this letter reaches America matters will have reached a crisis in China. On this, the first day of November, the Chinese believe that a few days more will see the commencement of one of the bloodiest times since the Taiping rebellion. All trains are stopped in Northern China and telegraphic communication cut off in many places. Chinese merchants are complaining of the disturbance to business which the trouble in the provinces is causing. Of course, such a state of things is inevitable in such a tumult, and many a trader and corporation will go to the wall ere the imperial forces and the revolutionists settle their differences. The queue cutting movement is gaining fresh impetus since the rebellion began. A barber in Shanghai has issued a police to the effect that he will remove the hated ap- pendage free of charge for a certain length of time. When the Manchurians conquered China more than two hundred years ago, they compelled the Chinese, as a badge of servitude, to grow queues, and so they have done until the recent edict, which permitted them to remove the pigtail. One-third of the human race is believed to be Chi- nese and there are enough Chinamen living outside their own country to make a small nation by themselves. As a rule, the Chinese make very little fuss, and are not much heard of by the outer world. Just now, however, 49 DROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD all the world is watching them with intense interest. They are supposed to have reached a parting of the ways to be undergoing one of those great periodical changes which, for thousands of years, have prevented their intense conservatism from seriously hampering their development as a nation. Whether the rebels or the imperialists triumph in this setto, is a matter of secondary importance, because, in any case, the effect of the revolution will be to set new and powerful forces at work which will have a marked effect upon the char- acter of Chinese government and administration. Every- body with whom we talked in Hong Kong and Canton both Chinese and English seems to be in sympathy with the rebels and predict their ultimate victory. Ever since the Boxer trouble in 1900, the Chinese have been formu- lating plans for independence. The change in govern- ment may be tentative for several years, but it is bound to come. Forecasters say that the uncounted millions in China are awake and active ready, as one Chinaman said to me, "to fight to a finish" to dethrone the Manchus. Hong Kong Sailing through the emerald waters of the China Sea, the voyager enters the beautiful harbor of Hong Kong. Hong Kong is an island lying off the coast of China. It was ceded to Great Britain in 1841. The island is mountainous, its verdure-clad peaks rising nearly two thousand feet above the sea, r r esent a beautiful land- scape when viewed from the bay. Hong Kong consists, practically, of two towns. In one, the American and European merchants and their clerks, with the military and naval forces, live, in the other, the Chinese. 50 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD There are only eight thousand inhabitants in the European quarter, while the native part of the city houses three hundred thousand. Hong Kong is the third largest seaport in the world. The Bund is the water- front, a wide street open to the water, with wide drives and shaded walks and with imposing business blocks. On the heights, called the Peak, which is reached by inclined railway, are the homes of the wealthy English and American people. The houses are all built with massive, pillared balconies across the front, facing the sea. This peculiar architecture is said to be necessary to b r eak the force of the wind during the typhoons which rage fiercely at certain seasons of the year. If a ty- I-hoon should strike the wall of a house squarely, the windows and doors could not withstand the shock. Hong Kong is policed by huge Sikh men from India. They are black-bearded brown men of great stature. They wear a khaki uniform and a turban of gaudy oriental stuff is wound about the head. We addressed several of them, asking directions, but found none that could speak a word of English. Their chief occupation seems to be twirling their moustaches and kicking coo'ies out of their way. There are many beggars in Hong Kong. A blind beggar will be led about by one who can see. Both have outstretched palms and whiningly beg "Howdo, good-bye master, chow chow." Some waggish American, evidently, has taught them the sentence chow means food. The chief means of transportation about the Chi- nese cities is the sedan chair and one feels very stately and important sitting in one and being borne on the shoulders of the coolies. The chairs are made of bam- boo, lightly suspended between two poles. In this chair the traveler reclines at ease and is carried by two coolies who rest the long poles of the chairs on their 51 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD naked shoulders. Unlike the jinrikisha boys, who run a!l day in a sort of jog trot, the sedan chair coolies walk at a very moderate pace, so we cannot get about in China as rapidly as in Japan. The sedan chair tariff is only about thirty cents gold an hour, so one may travel cheaply as well as comfortably. The Shops Every tourist spends much time as well as money in the Hong Kong shops for they are noted for the pro- digious variety of oriental goods displayed. One may find the most exquisite embroidery on silk or linen, filagree and hand carved work, stuffed birds of wonder- ful plumage, sandalwood curios, camphor wood chests, bamboo trunks and packing cases of feather weight. The Chinese are clever artisans and are very original in their designing. It is said that the Japanese copy most of their beautiful work from the Chinese, who originate it. Their delicate carving on ivory and wood and ebony is world known; the fairy like tracery of gold and sil- ver wire in their filagree is like a kind of sorcery; their splendid woven fabrics shimmery soft silks and glisten- ing grass linen and heavy gold threaded brocades r.ie vnexcelled, while their embroideries are marvelous ex- amples of dextrous needlework. The Los Angeles travelers almost went broke in Hong Kong purchasing wearing apparel. A Chinese tailor will make garments for a ridiculously small sum in comparison to what we pay in the States. The men had white linen suits made for six dollars Mexican that is about three dollars gold. The ladies were ad- mirably fitted with pongee silk suits for from twelve to fifteen dollars, while cotton crepe frocks cost only 52 BROWSING 'ROUND TH WORLD two fifty to three dollars and the beautiful embroidered grass linen dresses only about ten dollars of our money, all made to order. Then there were wonderful filmy scarfs, for a song, and embroidered table linens so inexpensive only the most hardened traveler could resist them. Many pur- chased extra trunks in which to stow away their newly acquired belongings. When the day of reckoning comes at the customs office in New York, things will not be quite so inexpensive. Botanical Gardens The bontanical gardens at Hong Kong are situated in a spur of the hill slope leading to the Peak. They are sixteen acres in extent and the various parts of the garden are reached by flights of stone steps crowned with colossal stone vases holding brilliant tropical plants. The variety of flora on the terraces seems countless. Every country in the Far East has contributed its quota of queer, freakish plant life. There are spider orchids that look exactly like the huge hairy insect from which they get their name, creamy camelias as large as a din- ner plate, great flaming azaleas, mammoth hydrangeas, lordly looking cockscomb, and many forms of tropical bloom unlike anything the westerners had ever seen. It was truly wonderful and beautiful, but we found our- selves wishing for one "wee, modest, purple-tipped vio- let," or a pure white lily, or a rose somewhat smaller than a cabbage. Chinese Feast Four California ladies, the writer included, were guests at a Chinese banquet in Hong Kong, given by Yee 53 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Lew Long Lam Ansam, a Chinese banker of great v/ealth, a relative of the former ambassador to the United States, Wu Ting Fang. The banquet was given a.i a fashionable Chinese cafe and we were bidden to be at the rendezvous at five-thirty o'clock. At exactly that hour, our chair boys deposited us at the imposing en- trance of a gaily decorated five-storied building. Prom the balconies overhanging the narrow street hung crim- son and blue banners, and pots of flowers, hanging bas- kfts and oddly shaped Chinese lanterns added to the riot of color. Our gracious host, an elderly, gray-haired man of ge-ntle, courteous demeanor, met us at the threshold and conducted us up many flights of stairs to a hanging gallery just outside the banquet room, where we met the other guests. They were Yee Ben Tan, a university professor; Yee Chon Kee, a student just home from a course of study at Washington state university, and Yee Ong Chun, a Chinese merchant. All of the gentle- men spoke English more or less fluently. Yee Ong Chun's use of American slang mystified us until he an- nounced that he had lived in Montana fourteen years. Seated about the balcony, which was converted into a miniature garden by a prodigal use of flowering plants, the initial ceremony of tea drinking took place. I use the word initial advisedly, for the tea drinking was a continuous performance throughout the evening. Teak- wood tabourettes were placed one in front of each guest and a covered cup and saucer placed thereon. A servant brought in ink pot and a brush, the Chinese pen, and the host requested each guest to write his or her name on the cover of the cup, so that they should not become mixed during the frequent replenishings and that the proper one might be carried away finally, as a souvenir. Then a small pot of tea was ceremoniously added to the other paraphernalia on the tabourettes. 54 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD While the tea was brewing, which process was anxious- ly watched by the four Chinese gentlemen, who sniffed tit the various pots from time to time, a servant brought steaming Turkish towels, wrung out of hot water and gravely handed one to each of us. We were at a loss to know what to do until, watching our host, we saw him carefully cleanse his face and hands with the towel. We did the same and then poured our tea and drank it just as he did without a grimace, although it was black and strong and innocent of cream, sugar or lemon. With the tea watermelon seeds were served, the Chinese guests showing us how to crack the seeds and extract the tiny kernel. The host then gave each guest two tiny, stiff bouquets and a place card. The latter was a strip of red board about two by six inches, with the recipient's name in black Chinese lettering on it. We were then conducted to the banquet room, a k.rge apartment with festoons of flowers and gay hang- ing baskets depending from the ceiling. Beautifully carved teakwood chairs and tables were arranged stiffly against the walls and in the center was the circular banquet table, fearfully and wonderfully decorated. The centerpiece was a miniature floral Chinese pagoda tow- eiing toward the ceiling, and circling about it on the cloth were row upon row of tiny dishes holding condi- ments, sweetmeats, ginger, preserve, ground dried fish, etc. Between each row of dishes were garlands of china alters and dwarf magnolias. The banquet began with turtle soup and dragged tl. rough innumerable courses, each "soupier" than the one before, until ten-thirty o'clock. I cannot under- stand why the Chinese cook and serve every article of their diet swimming in some sort of soup, and then wash that liquid down with constant libations of tea and wine. We had roast chicken, nut and chicken suey, rose mushrooms, broiled quail with ham, go.d and silver 55 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD pigeon egg's served whole in soup, shrimp, sweet almond nectar, birds' nests, Chinese fruits, nuts, various kinds of cakes and confections, and curious balls of pastry fried in fat. Between each course a fresh pot of tea \\as forthcoming and the hot wet towel used in lieu of a napkin. Rice wine was served in tiny glasses no larger than a thimble. The wine was brought on in quaint little pewter pots and the glasses were refilled many times, each swallow being accompanied by a toast to someone present. It is the custom at Chinese formal dinners for the host to toast each guest in turn and only he and the one so honored drink at that time. By the time he has drunk to the "Blessings and many children ' of each, and each guest returns the compliment, the pewter pot has been emptied many times. During the dinner professional entertainers came in and sang and played strange instruments. These ar- tists, the host explained, are daughters of aristocratic but poor parents. They are taught from childhood the gentle art of entertaining and it is more remunerative than any other field of work open to Chinese women. The usual pay for one song is two dollars, and as they are in demand on all occasions and can appear at many functions during an afternoon and evening, it may readily be understood how they can afford to wear rich garments and fine jewels. Four different girls appeared during the course of our dinner, each one accompanied by a servant who car- ried the musical instrument and adjusted it for her mis- tiess. The singers were dressed in silken trousers and loose coat and wore many bracelets, rings and neck chains. The inevitable jade ear-rings were in the tiny ears and jade ornaments were thrust through the smooth coils of glossy black hair. The musical instrument was something like a guitar 56 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD and the long sensitive fingers of the Chinese girls swept the strings throughout the wailing dirge without the per- former once looking toward the instrument. The Chi- nese singing voice, like the Japanese, is strained and harsh, and the singers of both nations tell in one song v/hat seems long enough for a two-volume novel. Canton Our visit to China was ill-timed on account of the var scare, and we were warned not to pay a visit to Canton or any interior city as an outbreak was feared at any moment. However, twenty adventurous Americans, among tbem three newspaper correspondents, determined to visit Canton and boarded a steamer one night for the five hours' trip up the Pearl river. We were awakened at dawn by a fusillade of shots which scared the whole bunch almost into hysterics. Every one thought the rebels were upon us, but inves- tigation proved that it was the natives firing firecrackers to scare away the evil spirits, a usual morning habit. Hastily dressing and going on deck, we found the steamer surrounded by sampans, their occupants ges- ticulating and shouting wildly. These sampans with their owners form a veritable floating city. Nearly one quarter million of the Cantonese are born, live, many and die in these small houseboats on the river. The men and women eke out a miserable existence as boatmen or porters, conveying passengers and bag- gage from the big steamers to the shore. Each sampan has from three to a dozen children climbing like mon- keys over the boat. Canton is one of the most interesting cities in China. Within its moss-covered walls, heavy with the scars of 57 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD centuries, are contained a priceless collection of objects of historical value, beautiful temples and monasteries. It is said the city has not changed much in the last one thousand years. When we reached shore we found that owing to threatened riots, the gates of the walled city were closed and we could not enter. We were advised to return to our steamer at once as it was considered unsafe to be on the streets. However, the American spirit of ad- venture and fearlessness pervaded the crowd, and se- curing sedan chairs and guides, we were off for a look at the city outside the wall. Canton proper extends to a breadth of about two miles, is about six miles in circumference and is en- closed by walls twenty feet thick and from twenty-five to forty-five feet high. The gates into the old city are sixteen in number, with two water gates which are closed at night. It is a foul-smelling, filthy place. The streets in many places measure only five or eight feet in width. Canton is a huge bazaar from one end to the other. There are booths of wonderful old porcelain, teakwood furniture, wares and curios, jewelry and beautiful jade and soapstone. One industry from which we probably got the idea ot enameling rosebuds, is the enameling of the feathers of the kingfisher bird, and fashioning the delicate blue feathers into bits of jewelry, brooches, ear-rings and scarf pins. It is said a workman cannot follow this trade for more than three years without losing his eye- sight. No European has ever lived within the walled city. For centuries the wall has shut out the world that the Cantonese seems to fear, and which, in course of time, he must admit. Canton has always been a hotbed of intrigue and duplicity, and in its annals can boast of 58 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD greater outrages against justice and the laws of hu- manity than any other city in the world. Some day, when civilization shall have stamped out superstition and ignorance, it will be found that the Chinese are resourceful, virile, hardy and industrious. Some day China, at once the oldest and the- youngest o* the great nations old in a history wholly unique, and young in a virility that is unsurpassed, will startle the world with her untold wealth of resources. 59 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD TOWARD THE EQUATOR "Blow Hot, Blow Cold" We have been alternately frappe-ed and pan-roasted on this world tour. On the trip across from Seattle it was bitterly cold and throughout Japan the cold rains chilled the marrow in our bones. In Manila we almost suffered sunstroke, in China we cooled off a bit, but it remained for Singapore to add the crowning stroke of torture to frazzled nerves. Only eighty miles north of the equator, it is so hot we can do nothing but sit un- der an electric fan and drink iced drinks. One feels that it is not worth while to travel ten thousand miles just to do that one can fan and drink at home. We packed all our heavy clothing at Hong Kong and shipped it on to Ceylon and now we are given the cheering information that it is bitterly cold in Northern India, at night, and we shall need our heav- iest clothing; that the hotels and trains do not furnish bedding of any description. Just fancy a bunch of Ca'i- fornia men and women toiling through India, attending the coronation of the king, carrying a pack of quilts and pillows. We shall look like a lot of steerage pas- sengers. If there's anything in suggestion we shall contract every disease flesh is heir to. Everybody in the Far Kast seems to take a fiendish delight in telling the sus- cc-ptible American tourist what he may suffer 'ere he 60 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD escapes to a healthier clime. They begin with "Dan- gue," a sort of malarial fever, which every one must have or be hopelessly out of style, and run the gamut of human ills to leprosy and elephantisis. We have been warned not to eat green vegetables because of the soil's poor drainage; told that meat is too heavy a food for the tropics; that we must, on no account, eat acid fruits because they make the blood thin; that the water throughout the Orient is deadly and one must drink the bottled soda water. Then some one bobbed up with the information that soda water would cause a calcareous deposit around the joints. I do not know what a calcareous deposit is, but it sounds awful. Some one advised us to live on rice and curry. We began, valiantly, to consume quantities of that fiery, pep- pery stuff, when, alas! another croaker said: "Curry will enlarge and harden the liver." We are warned not to be in the sun more than ten minutes at a time and never turn our backs to it else we'll have sunstroke, and never, never go out in the rain, else we'll have chills and fever. We have concluded that the only way to be well and happy is to return home and never again leave Los An- geles county, California, U. S. A. The East is absorbingly interesting and the native study from a sociological standpoint is an education, but it takes a stout heart and a clear brain and a strong physique to meet the suggestion of disaster without suc- cumbing. Kipling says: "If you can keep your head while all about you are losing theirs if you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve their turn long after they are gone, you'll be a man." It requires just such strength of will to be happy end comfortable in the Far East. 61 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Singapore Singapore is an island, south of and just off the Malay Peninsula. It is the most southerly point in Asia. The city of Singapore is the capital and the largest city of the Straits settlements. It is under British control. This Malayan city is called the gateway to the East and it is the port of call for steamships from every part of the world. Every transport, every passenger boat, every freight boat, every big maru and every war ves- sel that sails from Asia to Europe puts in at Singapore. Never was a sea so "deeply, darkly, beautifully blue" as the harbor at Singapore. Looking out from the gal- lery of our hotel over the green plaza with its towering palms and vivid hued tropical blooms, across the red graveled bund to the turquoise water sparkling in the brilliant sunshine, one is impressed with the thought that some sort of fiesta is taking place. The water is alive with merchant craft and palatial steamships from every country and grim warships stand majestically at anchor. There are odd house boats of the natives white winged yachts and luxurious launches of the English residents, Chinese junks with the great eye painted on the prow for "How can go if cannot see? How can see if have not eye?" The vari-colored flags of the cosmopolitan shipping make it a scene of unusual interest. When a boat steams into the harbor it is im- mediately surrounded by scores of native canoes ID which sit Malayan men and boys, nude save for ab- breviated trunks, their brown bodies gleaming in the sun. These human fish dive for the coins which the in- dulgent travelers, who crowd the deck rail, throw into the water. Discordantly jabbering and frantically pad- dling with one oar, the boatmen eagerly watch for the coveted copper and when it is tossed far out into the water, a dozen or more lithe, brown bodies dart grace- 62 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD fully after it. They come up sputtering and blowing, the lucky finder holding the coin aloft, his white perfect teeth showing in a broad smile, his gentle, doglike eyes pleading for more. They are only happy, irresponsible children, these Malayan men and boys. Not only is Singapore very hot, it is also very moist. It rains daily during certain seasons and the steaming earth sends forth a moisture that is enervating and depressing. The European who comes here to live soon feels the need of a stimulant and resorts either to drugs or intoxicants. I ana told that it is the custom of Euro- peans to swallow from three to five grains of quinine daily, just to tone up his system. He acknowledges that it does not prevent fevers, but it minimizes the se- verity of the attack, whereas if he did not take the drug the high temperature would last many days. The morning greeting in the Straits settlement is not "How are you," but "What is your temperature this morning?" It is incomprehensible how much liquor the Europeans in this country can consume and show no signs of intoxi- cation. Every man and many women sitting on the hotel galleries have a glass of brandy and soda at their elbow. At table it is drunk instead of water, and it supple- ments the afternoon tea. They say it is absolutely neces- sary to keep one "fit." When you visit at an English home in the East you are offered a brandy and soda as soon as you are seated. The European man in business in Singapore seems to have a lot of leisure time. He spends an hour at tiffin (the noon meal) lolling at the table smoking cigar- ettes and consuming "stingers," an abbreviation for drinks of any description. He is back on the hotel gal- lery at four for tea and then more stingers and cigar- ettes. It must be that the enervating climate makes leis- urely living imperative. The Malay language is very easy to learn. The vocabulary is limited, it has no 63 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD grammar and inflection means many different things in the few words the language contains. A Los Angeles \voinan said she believed there were only twelve words it: the Malay lexicon and each one meant a different kind of drink. Many Tongues Not only is the shipping at Singapore cosmopolitan, the city contains many varieties of both Asiatic and Euro- pean races, and, naturally, there are many different re- ligions and modes of life. The Chinaman is very much in evidence, as is the case throughout the East. He is considered a more thoroughly reliable servant or labor- er than any other of the eastern races. Besides the na- tive Malayans there are in Singapore Siamese, Singhalese, Turks, Burmese, Armenians, Arabs, Africans, Japanese, Tamils, Portuguese, Indians, Javanese, English, Scotch, Germans, Eurasians and the ever present American tour- ist The Eurasians are Europeans in which there is a touch of black blood usually Portuguese. The Eurasian women and children are beautiful. The women have great brown, velvet eyes, long lashed and languorous, creamy olive skin and scarlet full lips. The children look like little fat, unwinged cherubs. The Malayan men are tall and slender, splendidly poised, with straight back and fine shoulders. They are very proud and while a servant will assume a suppliant pose when addressing his master, he is in no sense cringing. Their wonderful, velvety eyes holding in their depths a confiding, appealing expression, give them an appearance of childish innocence which is all the more fascinating when one discovers that they are adepts at "tricks that are dark and ways that are vain." The native Malayan men and women of high caste wear 64 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD a "sayrong" of gaily striped cotton draped about the hips, falling to the knees and knotted in front. Over this a loose white cotton coat is worn and on the head is artistically draped a turban of scarlet or striped Oriental stuff. Both sexes affect much jewelry. The women wear rings all about the rim of the ear, some of them having as many as twenty gold circles in each ear, the tortured organ sagging with the weight of them. Both sexes wear nose rings and ornaments, necklets, ankle rings, bracelets, many odd charms depending from each ornament. Babies are loaded down with silver and gold ornaments of curious workmanship, about their fat body, neck and legs. Their only other rai- ment is the shining black skin they made their debut In on this planet. The coolie class of natives wear only a loin cloth and it's a curious fact that the black skin robs them of an appearance of nudity. Singapore is important for size and commercial build- ings and for its extensive commerce. The government work, of course, is carried on by the English and there are many Europeans engaged in various kinds of busi- ness, but almost all of the merchandising is carried on by the Chinese and East Indians. There is an English residence quarter where there are many pretty villas and bungalows hidden away in the dense tropical foliage. The principal objects of [interest are the shops, a Buddhist temple, a joss house with a statue of the sun holding a bull in its mouth, a Mohammedan mosque, the native markets and the botanical gardens. These gar- dens contain the finest specimens of scientific tropical plants In the world. The vegetation Is curious and un- usual to a westerner. There are many kinds of orchids, the beautiful parasite c'inging to trees, old stumps ruined walls and anywhere the sensitive tendrils can get a resting place. The scorpion orchid startlingly resembles that huge insect and the cathedral orchid has 65 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD the churchly lines that give it its name. The variety erf palm life is prodigious and they grow to mammoth proportions. The traveler's palm, transplanted from the African desert, is a fan-shaped tree which, when tapped, yields a pint of cold water. There are bread fruit trees from which the native gets a valuable article of diet, banana and coffee trees and countless other plant life. The Flame of the Forest is a tall, stately flower- ing tree with great clusters of scarlet bloom more than e'gbt inches across. Wild monkeys infest the gardens, playfully swinging from tree to tree, but scampering out of sight at the approach of strangers. Part of the original jungle has been kept intact in the garden and a keeper told us that they were greatly bothered by tigers coming down at night and destroying the palms. Markets It is interesting to visit the market early in the morning when the natives are purchasing food for their own simple needs or the day's supply for a European home in which they are servants. The European in the East never goes to market. It requires too much energy. The house boys purchase all that is re- quired and it's a novel sight to watch their bartering. They ringer and handle meats, fruits, pies and bread im- partially, and when they have made their selection carry their purchases away uncovered meats fish, veg- etables all tied together. The variety of delicious look- ing and uncommon fruit is inviting, but to the western taste they are mawkish and insipid. The California delicatessen is out-classed in the Orient. The natives cook and serve everything on the street and the amus- ing part is, a cook man with his stove and parapher- nalia will squat down any place, in the middle of the 66 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD thoroughfare or on the pavement, where the passerby n.ust step over him or go out of his way. He broils tiny morsels of fish and meat on skewers over a bed of char- coal. He serves soup or vegetables, queer little pats and dabs of pastry and numerous and sundry articles of food unlike anything seen in the civilized world. The natives crouch around on their heels eating their por- tion and tendering their copper coin in payment. A flat basket tray is the cash register and money box combined and no one ever disturbs it. Sometimes a gharri will dash madly by scattering food and natives. The tradesman patiently gathers up his stock and re- sumes business at the old stand. Gharri is the name of the vehicle which is used by every visitor to Singapore. It is a small four-seated en- closed carriage drawn by a small Javanese pony. The turbanned Malay driver sits on a high seat on the top. Bullocks are used for heavy drayage. The freight carts are cumbersome, two-wheeled affairs. Hotel Life One need not confine himself to the study of native life in Singapore to find novel and amusing things. He can find them in his hotel. When we were shown our rooms in one of the best hotels the city affords, we found them, except as for charges, which were first-class, about on a par with our third and fourth rate hosteMes at home. True, there was more space in the bedchamber than an ordinary California bungalow contains, and each room opened on a large individual lanai or gallery overlooking an attractive palm filled court. But cleanli- ness was noticeable by its absence and sanitation is not found in the Malay lexicon. A flight of matting-covered stairs winding up from my room piqued my curiosity 67 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD and investigation revealed a so-called bathroom with a cement floor slightly inclined so that the water could flow out through an aperture in the wall. The tub was a huge stoneware crock or jar shaped like a dower pot. It stood under a faucet and near by hung a large tin dipper. It seems that the latest in bath fashion in the East is to lather the body well with soap and then with the dipper dash the cold water all over oneself. If one is especially prosperous he has a servant to throw the water on him. An English woman residing in Singapore explained that it was much more c'eanly to bathe so than the American way of immersing the body in soapy, dirty water. I did not trouble to tell her that it was a very simple matter to drain off the soapy water and immediately have a fresh supply. The hotel bedrooms are furnished cumbersomely with the marble topped furniture of a long past era. The huge four poster bed has a tester from which the very neces- sary mosquito netting hangs. Not only does that fes- tive marauder infest the day as well as night, but red ants trail in endless caravans about the floors and tiny lizards dart about the walls. One may eat in peace and comfort in a Singapore ho- tel if one can endure the food and the service. The dining room is in a stone flagged court with towering paJms and vine wreathed pillars all about. The music of a native orchestra sounds faintly from a distant gal- lery and while you sit "in the shade of a sheltering palm" dreamy-eyed native youths in white sayrongs, jackets and snowy turbans supply your wants. It's true your wants must be simple else you'll spend hours at the table. Each guest has from three to six boys at his elbow, yet the service is execrable. The coffee boy will not pass the marmalade and the purveyor of toast may not also produce the butter without encroaching upon the preserves of another servitor. An Englishman in- 68 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD quired of me "Aw, what time do you feed?" I told him I spent the entire day and part of the night trying tn feed, but had failed miserably so far. Johore An hour's train ride from Singapore and just across the bay on the mainland is Johore, a sultanate, the most southerly point of the Malay peninsu ; a. Here great crowds of people go on Sunday to gamble, as it is the Monte Carlo of the East and various games of chance are conducted for the amusement of the public. The games are run by the Chinese and their yellow, mask- like faces are expressionless as a bronze Buddha as they rake in the earnings of the men and women of many nations who congregate there. Johore has a resident sultan whose palace shelters twenty-six wives. This blase sprig of Malayan nobility is only thirty-four years old, yet he has, so he thinks, drained life's cup to the lees. He spends his time seek- ing new sensations and if nothing better offers, it is said, he shoots a horse just for amusement. It was told that a few months ago he imported two fair typists from Australia, but his twenty-six wives arose in righteous wrath and the typewriting maids were compelled to take the next steamer back. 69 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD PICTURESQUE SEA-HIGHWAY Near the Jungle There is no colony or protectorate over which flies the British flag that offers to the traveler more alluring prospects of fine river or jungle scenery and a pleasant, restful holiday after much strenuous sightseeing than a trip up the Straits of Malacca to the Perak river and on up that winding stream to the rubber estates, touch- ing en route, at several ports in the Federated Malay states. A week may thus be profitably spent in the en- joyment of ever changing scenery amidst picturesque people and unusual surroundings. Such a journey through the peninsula will not only satisfy the traveler's craving for new scenes and strange faces, but will take him out of the beaten track of travel to places rarely visited by any one save prospectors and others on busi- ness intent. The writer with three other California women were the only cabin passengers, one week, on the little Brit- ish India steamer that plies the narrow searoad the length of the peninsula. The skipper, a bluff English- man with a voice that roared like a bull, proudly told us we were the first American ladies to visit that region. Like happy, imaginative children, we "played" we were voyaging in our own private steam yacht and truly it seemed like it, for we had the entire promenade deck at our disposal and each had three white-clad black boys to do her bidding. 70 It's true, the ardor of the sun did not abate one mo- ment except when a passing cloud paused long enough to spill torrents of rain, giving us momentary relief from the heat. But with double awnings of canvas, with great lazy chairs of bamboo, with punkahs stirring the list- less air into some semblance of activity, with great "stingers" of lemon squash at our elbows, we managed to keep cool. The "play" part ceased when we leaned on the deck rail and looked down on the natives huddled like cat- tle in the steerage. There were men, women and chil- dren of all ages and many nationalities mixed in with 1'reight and live stock, the strong pushing the weak aside and all scrambling for a place to spread the bit of mat- ting that serves as bed, chair and table for the native of the East. There were child mothers, pathetic little fig- ures with a baby strapped on their back; East Indians of the lowest caste with the white marks across their forehead significant of their pariahship; there were lit- tle Javanese men and women, their Dutch blood showing in their stolid indifference to their surroundings; there were Malay men and women, the men proudly erect and empty-handed, the wife bowed under a load of family baggage; there were Chinese coolies on their way to work on the rubber estates; there were people of many other nations and their attire and lack of attire formed a picture at once amusing and pathetic. But one's compassionate interest is wasted on the average native of oriental countries. He knows no other life and seeks nothing better. He works on the rubber estate for a wage of two shillings a day. He can live very well on twelve cents. His clothing costs prac- tically nothing and a bit of rice and curry satisfies his gastronomic needs. We passed a settlement far back in the jungle, on the Perak river, whre a tribe of half-wild Malayans live, 71 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD getting everything from nature. They do not know the meaning of money and cocoanuts is their only legal ten- der. They live on government land and the land, without any effort on their part, produces the cocoanuts which they barter at the nearest village for tobacco, rice and the bit of cotton cloth that suffices for clothes when they wear any. The hut of this son of nature is constructed from a species of palm called Attaph. The huge stems are woven together to form the sides of the hut and the roof is made of the palm leaves. His boat is a sort of barge made of bamboo poles tied together with a thatch roof over it to exclude the sun. His meat is supplied him in the jungle, where game is plentiful, and in the river swarming with fish. Many tropical fruits and nuts grow all about him, so his food is found at the expense of a little effort. His hut is built on high stilts as a protection against snakes and wild animals and nere he dwells, happily content, in primitive solitude, fleeing at the approach of strangers. The jungle stretches down to the river bank and repels one with its mystifying solitude and aloofness. No one but a native can thread the mazes of a jungle with- out a compass, and even then it is a diffcult matter. A rubber planter told me he had occasion at one time to go to a neighboring estate, which, around by the road, was quite a distance, but through the jungle only about two hundred yards. He thought he would risk it through the jungle and plunged in only to lose his way. He wandered about tnree hours, finally coming out on the same side two miles farther down. Many wild animals infest the jungle and the tigers are so bold they come into the coiripound surrounding the es- tates at night in search of food. Rubber planting is the chief industry of the Malay states and the planters are European. Fifteen years 72 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD ago coffee was the chief product of the peninsula, but as the crops diminished yearly almost every bit of cultivated ground today is planted to rubber. It takes five years for trees to mature sufficiently to be tapped. The rubber fluid, called latex, is found in the inner layers of the bark of the rubber tree. The tree is scored every morning by the natives and a small tube inserted to carry the latex to a cup placed to receive it. Acetic acid is added to the fluid to cause it to coagulate. It 'S then put through a process of maceration in machines which converts it into thin sheets ready for shipment to the London markets. The crude rubber is selling today for four shillings a pound, the lowest in years, yet the planters say they could make a fair margin of profit if market prices were to go down to two shillings. Many Travelers It is astonishing, the number of people in the pil- grim class those of the leisure world whose tasle turns to travel. The number is prodigious. But not all of the tourists travel for pure love of travel or for the knowledge it brings. Many rush madly about from point to point or around the world in sixty days, just for the notoriety or for the sake of saying they have visited such and such a place. They seem satisfied, this class of tourist folk, with a casual glance at places of historical and scenic interest, then are impatient to dash on to conquer new fields. Camera armed, the contingent sweeps ashore at every port, swarms to the nearest temple or shrine or garden or palace or museum or gallery or whatever of interest the place holds. Perhaps the shops invite their in- spection. There are a lot of male as well as female 73 bargain fiends on every ship and they spend the time in port haggling over curios and selecting picture post cards. Curiosity satisfied, they, dishevelled and hot, hurry back to the boat and declare they "have seen everything." The pity of it! Eyes have they and they see not. To glance flippantly and indifferently at the wonderful handiwork of a wonderful people who lived many years before the dawn of our civilization! Travel discloses the fact that not all the interesting sights and people and things are to be found in the land of our nativity. Each country and each race has its own peculiar and dominant characteristics. True, travel induces comparisons, invariably favorable to one's own country, but it does not make us intolerant. On the contrary, it overcomes prejudice which a limited knowl- edge causes, enlists the interest, broadens the sympa- thies, in short, educates and enlightens. I met an insufferable little Englishman, an officer on an Indian boat a man who had never been any- where outside of his "right little, tight little isle" except to touch at a few coast towns in India, on his voyages. He talked brutahy and with great finality about America, meaning the United States. He said wo were a set of grafters and money-mad people; that we had no language except what we borrowed or ac- quired from his country; that we lacked the civilization of the old world, were loud, uncouth, boorish. Yet, I have never heard, even in the back country districts of the few unenlightened portions of the States such ex- ecrable English as issued from his lips. He recognized neither mode, tense, gender or parts of speech, but wal- lowed through a mire of misplaced adjectives and over- worked adverbs. He complained bitterly about the Englishman's small working wage in comparison to the average American's pay, showing he is as money- mad about the English sovereign as we are about the American dollar. His finger nails and teeth showed a 74 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD woeful lack of attention. Could there be a greater indi- cation of a lack of culture? One could not permit oneself to become angry at sbch a puerile exhibition of ignorance and prejudice. Some day when that chap is sent by his steamship com- pany to America, his education, scarcely begun, will be completed by leaps and bounds, with, let us hope, a f*-w swift kicks added for good measure. He will learn first of all that we do not wear war paint and feathers and kill buffalo on Broadway. I also met a short, fat, insolent Dutchman from Hol- land, who claimed to be a war correspondent. He couldn't find words bad enough to say about the United States, particularly our government. I fairly itched to take him across my knees and spank him soundly, but felt that the contract would be too great, from several stand- points. He, too, had never visited our shores, but he had "heard and read a lot." The great bunch of con- ceit! If one could prick the bubble of his vanity there would be nothing left. War correspondent, forsooth! He shovrid have on a white apron, a cleaver in his hand, or he should be put in a frying pan, placed over a fire, and he would shrivel up to the pork sausage that he is. They say that this big world of ours is a mirror. It we smile, we get back a smile, if we frown we get back a frown. Everything is a matter of reflection. We may not see results now, but later. I went on that the- ory with both the Englishman and the Dutchman, and smiled grimly though it cost a dreadful effort. I am still awaiting results. * * * The Steamer Habit One acquires the steamer habit after a long voyage, and every other mode of travel loses its charm. Es- pecially is this true in the Par East where railroad travel is maddening. The cars in many places are 75 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD d:rty, unsanitary and infested with rat fleas. One must provide his own bedding for night travel and must have a native servant to look after his baggage and serve his meals. When the traveler reaches his stopping place, he finds many hotels as bad as the train. Even the places cf interest the temples, markets, native huts, etc., are fiithy and odoriferous. So is it any wonder that the wind swept deck of an immaculately clean steamer holds an irresistible charm? Sightseeing on shore, in the pros- trating heat, soon palls, when one can lie at full length in a bamboo chair, with double canvas awnings shut- ting out the torrid rays of the sun, with the gentle dip of the boat showing first the blue line of the horizon, then the broad expanse of deeper blue water, rippling under the tropic breeze; to feel that there is no such word as hurry dreamily content to drift along looking out on limitless blue distances no squalor no famine i\o beggars no guides telling us impossible stories just repose, "sweet doing nothing." The hotels in the East are first-class only in their charges. One man said he stopped at a seaside hotel that was called "The Gull." He said it surely was a bird of a hotel, for when he got his bill it was as long as a pelican's. One hotel charged us one cent each for Btickers with which they insisted on decorating our bags. It seemed strange when we boarded a German boat where officers, deck hands, crew and most of the pas- sengers spoke nothing but German, to hear the band playing "My Old Kentucky Home." I fear me there were many cases of homesickness that day, and every- body looked limp and lifeless. Strange how homesickness takes the starch out of the human laundry, but leaves in the blue, just as rain affects the linen on wash day. This particular German vessel had a skipper who was the exact image of the "Captain" in the Katzenjammer Kies, except he did not have a wooden leg. The whisk- 76 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD ers were there, bristling like a half halo and the accent was flawless. Looking down the long white linen vista 01 the captain's table at dinner, the numerous beer bot- tles grouped about his plate looked like ten pins in a bowling alley and one fairly yearned for a croquet ball or an orange or some such spherical object to hurl down the glistening length and make a ten strike. That night the orchestra played "Home, Sweet Home," and there wasn't a dry throat at the table. Tigerish Sea The Bay of Bengal is like the Bengal tiger untama- ble. You never know when it is going to act up. There is a season for monsoons and a season for typhoons, but this deceptive bay does not recognize climatic con- ditions, but is moody or stormy or pacific just when he chooses. The British India steamers are not especially large and they toss around in a storm like a scrap of paper in a whirlwind. Luckily the tempest soon passes and the capricious, tigerish bay dimples and smiles again as though nothing had happened. The cabin boys on the India steamers are Moham- medans and they wear long white cotton robes flapping about their bare feet, above wide cotton trousers of the same color. The robe is confined at the belt with three twisted coils of black and white cotton and a queer little black and white hat shaped like a soup bowl is perched atop their long straggling black hair. They have fierce black eyes and they glare at the "dog of a Christian" with glances any but loving. To have one stand at your elbow throughout a long, hot meal pressing food upon you that you feel in your inner consciousness he would like to poison if, in reality, he has not already done so, is disconcerting, to say the least. 77 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD The deck hands look like sure enough pirates in long blue cotton robes confined with a brilliant scarlet sash and a turban of the same vivid color on the head. The Indians cling to primitive customs and look with dis- favor on the modern methods which would lighten their labor. Instead of using a hose they haul water up in buckets from the sea to wash down the decks. They disdain the use of soap and launder the linen by slap- ping it on great flat rocks. The ship decks are scrubbed with sandstone once a week, on Sunday morning. The scrubbing brush is a flat square stone which is called Bible stone, because the work is done on Sunday. It was the only religious ceremony observed so far as we were able to see. After the meals are served the serv- ing men place all the soiled dishes and silver on trays on the dining saloon floor, and providing themselves with buckets of hot water, they squat in a posture which looks to be anything but comfortable, and wash and dry the utensils. It takes a half dozen native Indians to do the work of an average American laborer. They are lazy and incompetent, but nevertheless it enrages an American to observe how they are treated by the Europeans. They never ask them courteously to do anything, always command them in a very threatening voice, often accompanied by a blow or a gesture as if about to strike. They say it is necessary to get them to work, that unless the master is harsh the servant will shirk. An officer on our boat told a deck hand to do something. The fellow was slow about obeying. Turning to the ladies sitting about the deck, the officer said: "Pardon my temper, ladies," and grabbing the native by the neckband, tore his shirt entirely off of him and kicked him to his task. You cannot hurry the East and the visitor to this sizzling land soon learns that he must take things easy 01 stand a chance of suffering the fate Kipling describes so graphically: 78 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD "It is not good for the Christian race To worry the Aryan brown, For the white man riles And the brown man smiles, And it weareth the Christian down; And the end of the fight Is a tombstone white With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph clear, 'A fool lies here Who tried to hurry the East.' " The tropic sun is the one and only thing in the East that hurries. It rises as suddenly as a jack in the box when you release the spring, and sinks as swiftly to rest. There are no soft purple twilights, the brilliance of the day is succeeded by night as if a black curtain i>ad suddenly fallen. The days and nights are of equal length near the equator. The sun rises and sets at the same hour every day, month after month and year after year. I saw the "dawn come up like thunder out of China across the bay" this morning. When the first faint streaks of light began to illumine the darkness of my cabin, I hastily arose and peered from the window. The horizon was shot across with shafts of vermilion and gold and soft pale greys. The wonderful coloring spread as swiftly as the bits of glass in a kaleidoscope and soon the vast greyish black dome overhead was illum- ined and the glossy black surface of the bay changed to incarnadine. Suddenly the brazen disk of the tropic sun emerged from the water, rested his yellow rim an instant on the horizon and sprang into the heavens Day was born! 79 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD A Rich Country The trave^r acquires an awesome admiration for the British after he has journeyed many weeks over their possessions. The little English island, v. hich has London for its capital, is merely the front door or business office for an empire so vast that it fairly takes one's breath away to contemplate it. India with its three hundred million souls and its untold wealth; Burma with twelve hundred thousand square miles; numerous islands and peninsulas, large slices of Africa, China and the two Americas all float the British flag. Does it not stagger one to comprehend it? Burma, portions of which have been annexed by the British at various times since 1824 until 1866 when the entire country became part of the empire, lies in the southeastern part of Asia, just east of the Bay of Bengal. It is an upland territory containing much roll- ing country and the forests abound in fine trees, among them teak holds a conspicuous place. Gold, silver and other valuable minerals are found in Burma, as are also precious gems, among them rubies and sapphires. The soil is lavish in yield and rice is the chief agricultural product. Five-sixths of the total cultivated area is planted to rice. Other articles of export are timber, hides, petroleum and precious gems. Of the Burmese handicraft their carving on wood 80 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD and ivory, their work in gold and silver, their silk weaving and lacquer work all elicit admiration. Buddhist Pagoda In religion the Burmese are Buddhists, fully 85 per cent of the population professing that religion and the entire country is dotted with pagodas of greater or less magnificence. I cannot refrain from giving a brief description of one which is at Rangoon, the capital of the province and the seat of government. It is called the Shwe Dagon or Golden Pagoda, and it is said to be the finest in the world. Its brilliant golden pinnacle silhouetted against the sky is the first thing the trav- eler's eye rests on as he enters the harbor at Rangoon. This one glorious pile is the dominant note of the Bur- mese city. The unattractive harbor, the muddy river, the sea of red-roofed houses, form a pitifully inadequate setting for so glorious a gem. The reader will, in a measure, comprehend the grandeur of the pagoda when he learns that one-quarter million dollars worth of gold has been used in its construction. From base to apex this bell-shaped structure is covered with gold plates twelve inches square and one-fourth inch thick of twenty- two carat gold. It was constructed by voluntary labor, and money and jewels with which the vane is richly studded flowed in from all parts of Burma. At the base, in various places, are curious stone figures, half lion, half man, the peculiar significance of which is, according to Murray's Guide, as follows: The legend runs that years ago a king's baby son who had been lost in the forest was found by a lioness and suck- led by her. When the young prince grew to man's es- state he left his foster mother, swimming a broad river to escape from her. The tender heart of the lioness burst at this desertion, and she died. In remembrance 81 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD of her mother love, the lion figures are placed at the foot of all the pagoda steps. In the pagoda the worshippers come in groups or singly, each bearing offerings of flowers, rice, fruit, cakes, candies or trinkets of various descriptions. They kneel on the bare stones and with clasped hands pros- trate themselves before the gods. The place is never deserted. Long before daybreak the worshippers come and long after midnight the chanting of prayers may be heard above the silvery sound of the "tinkley temple bells." Native Types The Burmese women when young are very beautiful. They have large, expressive dark eyes, exquisite teeth and a healthy olive tinted skin. They are neat and dainty in their attire and are cheery and vivacious by nature. The Burmese are of Mongolian descent, to- tally unlike the natives of India. They are short of stature and the men and women dress exactly alike except the men wear a bright silken scarf or kerchief on the head, while a woman's head is bare save for the jeweled ornament or the rose thrust coquettishly in the jet-black hair. The Burmese are not slaves to fash- ion's decrees as we are. Their style of dress never changes. It consists of a short jacket of linen or silk usually white, and a closely fitting silk skirt of some brilliant color, usually pink or yellow. A scarf the same color of the skirt is qften worn. The jacket has jeweled buttons if the wearer is well-to-do, and the women wear many rings and bracelets. Even the poorest Burmese wear dozens of silver anklets and bracelets and it is said that their money, be it little or much, is always invested in jewelry. It saves the trouble of banking. The Burmese woman's uncorseted figure is slender 82 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD and girlish even after middle life, and she walks erect and well poised. Carrying burdens on the head is said to be responsible for her graceful carriage. The women ol every class from the highest to the lowest smoke the huge cheroots of the country. They are eight and ten inches long and quite thick, and it's a funny sight to see a pretty, dainty Burmese maid walking or driving along the street smoking the huge, smelly thing. The Burman is an idealist, he is by nature idle and loves ease and pleasure. The women are the workers. They attend to all business and are said to be much more capable than the men. Burmese cities are, in the main, disappointing be- cause they are losing their eastern flavor. Under the rapid encroachments of the Europeans, the gentle Bur- mese people are leaving the ports and inhabiting remote interior regions. Modern methods in the East as well as everywhere else, is good business, but one would like to find at least one spot where commercialism is not rampant where the grayish brown thatch of na- tive huts is not replaced by corrugated iron, where iron rails do not despoil the palm fringed, smooth red laterite roads, where the picturesque native bazaar is not crowd- ed out by huge flaunting department stores. Burma is interesting to the friends of missions every- where, and indeed to all who appreciate real heroism, as the scene of the sufferings and service of the Baptist missionaries, Dr. and Mrs. Judson. Since their work in Rangoon in 1813, Burma has been the scene of mis- sionary work that is generally regarded as among the most interesting and successful to be found anywhere in the East. The work among jthe Karens, a people v.hose traditions marvelously prepared them for the re- ception of the gospel, has been especially successful, there being over 100,000 Christians among them who not only sustain the institutions of Christianity among 83 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD themselves, but also send ministers to evangelize other tribes and peoples in this and adjacent lands. Lightning Changes It is rather discouraging to get up every third or fourth morning and face a new country, new people, new language, new money, new postage stamps, new food, new drinks and then presently take a new boat to the next place and repeat the same process over again. The money Is maddening. I used to think, when a child, that I would as lief have Captain Kidd's treasure of Spanish doubloons as the coin of my own realm just any old kind of money would do the yel- lower and larger the pieces the better. But I have de- cided it is better to have the bright Lincoln penny or a two-bit piece with the good old U. S. stamp on it than a pocket full of annas and liras and pices and not know the monetary value thereof. There are money changers in every hotel corridor and on every street corner, and they charge you an extortionate rate of exchange for taking your crisp American bills and giving you instead yens and sens, pesos and pesetos, marks and pfennigs, rupees and annas and so on, for every little rocket handkerchief excuse of a country has its own particular legal tender. In some places they use coins of such infinitesimal value that you get a quart or two or' coins for one of our dollars. I had a traveler's check for twenty dollars cashed in Burmah and had to ask four people to help me carry the coin away. The money changer said he didn't have quite enough and would bring the rest to my hotel as soon as he could get it. The postage stamps are just as bad. You go to the postofflce and have your letters weighed and ask the clerk how much. He may say thirteen centavos or eight pices each. Your overworked brain tries to do 84 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD a mathematical stunt while you are fumbling in your purse for the strange coins that have no number to denote their value. You end by handing the purse to the clerk, begging him to take the right amount. You probably would be none the wiser if he were to take a dozen times the amount. Then when the letter is dropped in the box you never feel quite confident that it will reach the land of the free and the home of the brave, even though it has fourteen stamps on the front and six on the back. Each new country visited means an interview with the customs official. Usually he is an important, be- spectacled, serious-looking individual and he un- eorths the dark secrets of your past with the assurance of a great surgeon probing for a vemiform appendix. One man marshalled us on deck, and, carelessly, but significantly, placing a huge, shiney black gun that looked as large as a cannon, on a pile of documents, relentlessly questioned us. Did we have any spiritous liquors or cigars or cigarettes? Did we have passports? Please show your vaccination scar. Are you married? If a widow, grass or sod? What occupation? Where from, where to? Any temperature? How's your liver? Please show your tongue. Have any ot your family ever had chilblains or Angina Pectoris? And worst question of all: How old are you? The size of the gun forced the truth from unwilling, femi- nine lips. 85 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD INDIA'S CORAL STRAND Calcutta Little did I think, many years ago, when I sang that good old missionary tune: "From Greenland's Icy Moun- tains," that some day I would be roaming India's coral strand, India seemed and is such a vast faraway country, such a strange, many-sided country. There are so many different religious faiths so many strange ton- gues, so many bad smells. It's confusing, yet compel- ling, attractive and yet repellant. Ninety miles from Calcutta, the voyager en route from Burmah to India enters the Hoogli river, one of the many estuaries of the mighty Ganges. Owing to the shifting shoals of the river it is extremely dangerous to navigate and a special pilot is taken on each steamer as it enters the river from the Bay of Bengal. He directs the course of the vessel past the most dangerous shoal called "The James and Mary," from a vessel which was wrecked in that spot many years ago. For six miles the river is full of dangers and the crews and passengers of all steamers are usually mus- tered on deck to be in readiness to escape in the life- boats in case the steamer should be caught in the quick- sand and sunk. The trip is never made at night, always in daylight, at an nour when the tides are favorable. Along the banks, here and there in the jungle tangle, arise white towers of refuge, where the shipwrecked may save themselves from the beasts of prey that roam the jungle. We were told all this before the boat start- 86 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD ed on an eighty-mile trip so, naturally, we entered India in a very cheerful frame of mind. India is said to have a population of three hundred millions, or one-sixth of the whole human species. I know it is true, for I counted nearly that many on the wharf at Calcutta while we were waiting for the boat to dock. Calcutta is an Oriental city with an appearance very European. Its broad streets and modern buildings, its parks and statues are like those of any modern city. Its human tide of white-robed Hindus, the narrow streets and open-air bazaars of the native quarter is like being in an atmosphere of constant masquerade. We visited the New Market on a Sunday evening when the crowds are greatest. It is a whole city block of small booths or stalls, each one selling different things. One may purchase anything from a thimble to an auto- mobile. It's a busy beehive with no drones. The opu- lent tourist flits from booth to booth like a bee from flower to flower, gathering the glittering gew-gaws. The Ing, fat, brown bees in the stalls store away the money instead of honey. All sorts of arts and crafts work is carried on in full view of the strolling multitude the wily Oriental is happiest when he has an absorbed audi- ence. He knows the frailty of womankind where bar- gaining is concerned, and every one sooner or later suc- cumbs to the tempting bait spread before her. There are clever artificers in gold and silver orna- ments and dark-skinned beauties bending over intricate embroidery; venders of sweetmeats and cooked foods prepared while you wait; flower booths brilliant and odoriferous. Soft, pleading voices implored memsahib "to buy from poor Indian man, please." We concluded that New Market was a misnomer. It should be called Jew Market, for the "Jewing" process was carried on incessantly. No one ever thinks of paying the price the dealer first asks. He appears indifferent and starts 87 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD away when the dealer follows him and asks him to say what he will give. Of course, the prospective purchaser puts the figure very low. Then ensues a quibbling and haggling, the dealer at intervals reducing the sum a few annas. After much .excited conversation on the part of the dealer and indifferent shrugging of shoulders on the part of the buyer, a compromise is effected, and lo! the article is secured for half the original price. Our "Bhoy' We have acquired a valet a man servant. It does not sound exactly decent, but no self-respecting woman or man either ever travels in India without a bhoy. Caste, that weird and mystic, yet absurd idea that pre- vails throughout the Indian empire, demands that no European, American or hign-class Indian ever does anything that he can have someone do for him. You lose caste if you so much as carry a picture post card or open and close a door. As for turning on your own bath water or unfolding your napkin at table, you would be ostracised in India for that. I made a dreadful mistake one day. I got out of a carriage in the rain and attempted to open my umbrella. Horror of horrors! Two men beside our own servant n?ade a dive for that self -same rain stick, all the while regarding me contemptuously. I surely would have put ashes on my head in deepest contrition if only there had been a convenient ash barrel. Our bhoy's name is James Antony, but we call him "Marc" for obvious reasons. Marc is black as the ace of spades and he wears a snowy white sheet draped about his classic figure. His feet and legs are bare, but there are yards and yards of white cloth draped about his head, turban fashion. The Clubwoman says they have inverted the teachings of her youth in India 88 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD they keep the head hot and the feet cool, instead of the reverse, as she was taught. It is awfully hard to live up to Marc. American women are unconventional, tc say the least, and aside from the Princess, who at- tempts to uphold the dignity of her small retinue, we, doubtless, do many things that bring the blush of shame to Marc's dusky cheek. Our trusty slave sleeps on a mat in the hall outside cur door, to protect the memsahibs from the many dangers, which, according to guide books and hearsay, lurk in every nook and corner. At promptly seven a.m. Marc enters our rooms bear- ing our chota hazri, which, if you please, is little break- fast. At nine o'clock we have a burra hazri in the hotel dining rooms. (Burra means meat.) The association of the word burra with meat compels me to avoid the nine o'clock breakfast. We dare not tell our servant we would much prefer to sleep and have several meals served later at one and the same time. It's the proper thing to eat this chota mess of tea and toast and marmalade and impos- sible fruit, and we meekly arise and sleepily gulp down tea so black and strong that it fairly makes the hair curl to drink it. I've registered a solemn vow, if ever I get out of this country alive, I'll never drink another cup of tea. The tannic acid I have consumed in the Orient so far would supply all the spinsters in the New England states with a mild intoxicant for the next de- cade. Hindu Worship On the banks of the Tolly Nullah river, an old bed of the Ganges, stands Kalighat, an old mystic Hindu temple. Kalighat, from which Calcutta gets its name, derives sanctity from the legend that when the goddess 89 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Kali was cut to pieces by order of the gods, one of her fingers fell on this spot. A wealthy and devout Hindu, vho owned the land upon which the goddess' finger, fell, cleared the jungle and built the present temple, naming it after the goddess and allotting 194 acres of ground for its maintenance. We visited the place early in the morning when the devout gather for prayers. The worshippers first bathe in the sacred river. The muddy stream was fairly alive with a motley throng of brown-skinned men, women and children. They splashed and dipped and raised implor- ing hands to heaven. They washed body and brief clothing impartially, then resumed the wet rags and the devout posturing. Emerging from the water, they placed the mark of their particular caste in red or white paint on the brow, then prostrated themselves, full length upon the stone flagging before the altar. Those who can afford to do so, those who have many sins to atone for, or who wish to rid themselves of sickness, offer as a sacrifice, a young kid or bullock. We passed a shed where the poor little trembling animals were tied, awaiting a purchaser. As u;any as fifty goats and bullocks are sacrificed every morning. The poor bleating animal is dragged to the altar by the religious fanatic, his head secured between two upright posts, and he is decapitated with one cruel stroke of a huge knife. The heads of all animals killed are given to the priests to propitiate the gods, while the body of the animal is, if the owner is rich, distributed among the poor or else carried home for food for his own table. The first animal killed each day goes to the priests, so often the ceremony is delayed, each wor- shipper hoping some one else will be the giver. The small stone square surrounding the altar ran rivers of blood and was crowded with frenzied, howling v/orshippers. Among them the unctious priests who live off the bounty of the pilgrims, moved, collecting alms, 90 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD here and there. Little children played about the horri- fying place, each with hands outstretched for coppers. Black Hole People familiar with the history of India know of the famous Black Hole with which the name of Calcutta ip always associated. Our American heroes of Ander- sonville prison experience doubtless know the story of the Black Hole and can appreciate to the fullest the suffering of the people imprisoned there. The so- called Black Hole was a dungeon or small room which was used as a lock-up for disorderly prisoners of the garrison. On the night of the 20th of June, 1756, after the Bengalis had overpowered the English, 146 English men and women were crowded into this small room 22x 14 feet. When morning dawned it was found that only 23 of the number had survived the fearful night's ex- perience. The spot where the dungeon stood is now narked by a stone floor showing the dimensions of the room and a marble tablet in memory of those who lost their lives. 91 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Smells of Calcutta Calcutta is a very satisfactory city barring her smells. The odor is overpowering ali-pervading. We always search memory's casket for a parallel and I can recall, away back in my childhood days, two horrible scents that the stench in Calcutta reminds me of. One was the assafoetida bag which my careful mother hung about my neck to ward off contagious dis- eases. I remember how my very soul revolted at, not only the smell, but the concession to that huge Moloch, fear. My playmates avoided me when I and my smelly bag approached, I was a pariah, an outcast on the school ground. But the crowning humiliation was when the family cat, my especial pet, fled from me with arched back and swollen tail. The other smell was that of skunk hides which per- vaded a fur warehouse that I used to play about. If the reader is familiar with those two smells and will fancy the two intermingled and greatly intensified, he vrill have a faint idea of the stench of the capital of India. Rudyard Kipling, than whom there is no greater in graphic description, says: "For diffused, soul sickening, expansiveness, the reek of Calcutta beats both Benares and Peshawar. Bombay cloaks her stenches with a veneer of tobacco and disinfectants. Calcutta is above pretense. There is no tracing back the plague there to any source. It is faint, it is sickly and it is indescriba- ble. It is certainly not an Indian smell. It resembles the essence of corruption that has rotted for the second time, the cloying odor of blue slime and there is no escape from it." If Edgar Allan Poe, whose beautiful verse is receiv- ing a tardy and greatly merited recognition, had visited Calcutta and had written "The Smells" instead 0* "The 92 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Bells," he would have sprung into instant notoriety. How rythmically he could have dwelt on the smells something like this: O Calcutta of the smells, awful smells, What a lot of cholera their s-melody foretells: Through the torrid air of night They enfold us like a blight. Is it sewer gas Or rodent dead? O, the stench that round me floats, Can it be the sacred goats, Can it be the charnel house Or prison cell? O. Calcutta, you outrank Limburg cheese and septic tank, With your smells, smells, smells, smells, Smells, smells, smells. 93 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD INDIA CONTINUED Retraction In a former letter I wrote exhaustively and with considerable heat, of the miserable train service in India. I am now willing to swallow my words, or, to swear I never said them, for we have been traveling on real trains, since then. It seems there are trains and trains in India, some of the "jerkwater" variety and others that would compare favorably with ours in the states. In Northern India we had a compartment that was quite luxurious. We had a tiled bathroom with 1 orcelain tub. There was plenty of water bwt no towels. The long seats on either side of the car were leather upholstered and quite soft and "springy," but, a<: is the custom in India, there was no bedding and as tLe days are very hot, we had provided ourselves with very little in the way of covering, thinking the nights would not be many degrees colder than the days. That night was at least twenty-four hours long and had Alaska beaten, for cold, by many degrees. We slid around on those slick leather couches, the insidious cold creeping up from benumbed feet toward the vitals. Some of the more philosophical of our party began figuring on how it would seem to see the world from a wheeled chair, for it appeared that our legs would never be of any use to us again. One consoled herself with the story of the little girl who, when she returned from church, was asked by her mother to re- peat the text. The child promptly answered, "Many are 94 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD coll, but few are frozen." The text was, "Many are called but few are chosen." As there is no passage between the compartments, there was no way of calling for help, save by pulling the bell rope and stopping the train. A conspicuous sign gave the information that a fine of fifty rupees would be in posed for the improper use of the bell rope. While we felt that we would be justified in pulling it, we were not quite certain that our belief would be shared by the train officials. Persistent Collector No one but the native drinks the water in India Even after it has been boiled and filtered it is unfit tor use, so the traveler and European resident must acquire a taste for bottled water, soda or ginger ale or some one of the various aerated waters. They are quite iiiexpeusive and just as unpalatable. One day at a small station Marc appeared at our compartment win- dow with four bottles of soda. After he left, a black man, long haired, unkempt and looking like a stage brigand, leaned in and began a volley of small talk. Of course we could not understand a word. It sounded like shot rolling around in a bottle. We agreed to all he said and smiled reassuringly. Presently the whistle blew and the train started and still the brigand held on to that window and begged imploringly for something, we knew not what. The train gathered speed and dashed around curves and over chasms. We thought with a shudder that every moment would be the last for the poor wretch, but he hung on like a bulldog. After a seemingly interminable lengtn of time, the train stopped a' another station, and calling a guard we asked him to explain the man's conduct, it seems that Marc had not 95 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD paid him for the soda, and he rode sixteen miles to col- lect eight annas, just sixteen cents! Darjeeling In Darjeeling, the injunction of a great writer comes vividly to mind. "Live greatly, think greatly on the heights as though on a mountain." Beautiful Dar- jeeling nestling high in the incomparable Himalayas, sentineled around by the snow-capped crowns of ever- lasting hills. It must be the benumbed the spiritually frozen who can feel no affinity of soul with peaks of snow, the vast distances, the purple depths of valley with the stainless dome of turquoise blue above. After Calcutta, with its stenches, its heathen temples, its people praying in the market places, what a relief to swing high into the glorious forests and crisp untainted air of the hills, to round the edge of a precipice, dart over a mountain torrent and look out on one of the most wonderful pano- ramas in the world to worship at an altar profound and splendid erected by a great and loving Father the altar of nature. Darjeeling, a beautiful mountain resort, where the European residents of Northern and Central India spend their summer vacation, lies under the shadow of the great mountain Kinchingaunga and is surrounded by other peaks of the stupendous Himalayas. In this splendid mountain the observer has a vision of five miles of the earth's surface in vertical height for it is 27,000 feet high. Around it other giants rear themselves. One hundred and twenty miles away, Mt. Everett, the high- est mountain in the world, lifts a glistening white cone against the blue sky. Truly, as some writer has said, "this is the roof of the world." Apropos of the Himalayas a story comes to my mind 96 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD of a Mrs. Newly Rich who had just returned to her home in America from an extensive trip abroad. A friend asked her if she visited the Himalayas while in India. She replied, "No, I did not, for they were traveling on the continent while I was there." East Indian English The following is a copy of a letter written by an Indian to his employer. The letter was accompanied by a gift: Respected Sir: I most humbly to say your kind honour. Sir, that you came froi^ Japan with good health, so I am much glad by see to you with good health. And I am come from India in last month and I brought some kind cloth made of India for your as a presently, so I beg your kindly except this my presently things. Sir, I pray for your and your all family ever and ever from God for your good health. Your obedient servant, BAHADAR SINGH, Indian Mans. Street Scenes in India A funny sight in the native quarter of Indian cities ie the barbering and hair dressing conducted on the streets. The barber and his victim squat on the ground, at the street corner or in the road, or anywhere they chance to meet. The barber grips his customer by the ear and without a bit of latner, just wets the face a little and shaves his victim with a few deft strokes of a vicious looking razor. Between each stroke he hones the razor on his bare black leg. Some casts require 97 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD the head be shaven except a small tuft of hair on the top. One is apt to come upon a Mohammedan at his wor- ship at any time and place. At stated intervals the de- vout white-robed Mohammedan drops to his knees, be it in the crowded street, in mosque or by the roadside. He grovels and murmurs and salaams and kisses the earth regardless of onlookers. The water carriers are objects of interest in India. They carry water in bags made of an entire pigskin and dole out the concentrated essence of microbes to the natives for a pittance. A pittance in India is so small that the American mind cannot grasp it, so I will not mention the amount. In some places the streets are sprinkled from these pigskins. One often meets a Mohammedan woman on the streets, in her long draperies, concealing her from crown to toe. There are slits for the eyes and nose in the white mask they wear over the face. I saw one yester- day whose mask was torn. If they are all as hideously unattractive as she was, I do not wonder they conceal the features. The Hindu women do not conceal the face entirely. They wear a graceful drapery over the head, and when approaching a stranger, draw the scarf down or across the face. Sometimes only one eye is left uncovered, and if the wearer is young and very much alive, that one eye is as expressive of coquetry as the average Ameri- can girl's two eyes are. The patient camel and the stolid elephant are fa- miliar scenes on Indian city streets. The camels are used for drayage and the elephants for lifting heavy timbers in building and in loading and unloading boats. Burros, the tiniest in all the world, are also used for pack animals. They are no larger than a dog, but carry burdens two or three times their size. 98 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD The jugglers are in evidence everywhere in the cities of India. For a rupee they will make a tree grow five feet in as many minutes from a small seed planted in a pot of earth. They carry the hideous flat-headed cobra si-akes in bags over their shoulders or in baskets. Squatting on the ground with the basket in front of them they play a weird measure on a flute-like musical instrument. Soon a swaying head thrusts the basket lid up and reaching higher and higher sways in time to the music. The juggler is oftentimes accompanied by a mongoose, a small furry animal not unlike our squirrel. If one pays enough he may be regaled by seeing the mon- goose and cobra in a fight to the death. Of course the mongoose always kills the snake. Driving through the streets in the early morning, the natives may be seen, on every hand, at their ablu- tions. Frequent bathing is part of the Hindu religion, and if the native is not near a river he bathes in his "lotah," a small brass bowl. This small brass lotah is the in- evitable accompaniment of every Hindu man and woman. They use them for cooking, drinking and bathing. When not doing one of these three things they are seen vigor- ously scrubbing the brass to a brighter luster. The aver- age Hindu of the lowest caste seems to the casual ob- server to spend his time praying, bathing and scrub- bing brass. The Hindu women adorn themselves fearfully and wonderfully. Of course I do not know of what class or caste I am speaking for it is impossible for a stranger to distinguish between them, but one meets on every side women literally loaded down with jewelry. They wear great jeweled nose rings, oftentimes five inches in diameter. Others wear nose "bosses," a sort of jeweled ornament piercing one nostril. Silver bracelets cover the arms from wrist to elbow and often the upper part 99 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD of the arm is similarly decorated. Anklets of heavy beaten silver, with jingly ornaments attached, make music as the coy maiden passes along, and various strings of beads and silver ornaments swing from neck and waist. The bare toes are beringed as are also the fingers. Scant skirt and scantier blouse of some gaudy material constitute the costume of a Hindu woman, with the scarf or head drapery. Caste Distinction Caste distinctions play an important part in Indian life. Not only is there a broad line of demarcation be- tween the upper and lower castes, but the latter are hopelessly separated from one another. These various castes will not drink from the same well or use the same dishes or occupy the same quarters. The Hindus consider one not of their faith an outcast and unclean. I wished to buy a brass bowl from one of the natives, not a new one, but an antique. One day I met some women bearing lotahs on their heads. Now, I thought, was my time, for I knew the Hindu love of rupees. Ap- proaching them I began to speak and point to the bowls. They threw up their hands, and wailing loudly, fled down the street. I was aghast until a soldier explained their attitude toward "outcasts." He said if I had touched the brass bowl they would have cast it aside as unclean. Caste is the greatest social problem in India. The Brahmins believe that in whatever social stratum a man is born, there he must live and die. He must not marry out of his class or caste. It is different from the social problems of other countries in that it gathers its author- ity from religious belief. The Hindu does not expect or desire a change, even though wealth comes to him 100 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD even though he has advantages of education and culture he-fitting him to fill a higher station. It would be wrong, he thinks, to evade the decree of heaven. A child in the mission school may not accept a cup of water from the teacher. The child would be contaminated. The native of each caste is proud of his mark which he paints on his forehead. Some are in white paint and some in red. There are vertical and horizontal lines, dcts, scrolls, triangles, crescents and many others. The native of the lowest caste lives in direst squalor. His hut is of mud, scarcely more than a hole in the ground covered over with a straw-thatched roof. The outside of the hut is plastered over with cakes of cow dung mixed with dried grass. This is the only fuel the natives have. They have no chimneys in their hovels, so a fire is made on the ground outside the hut and the family huddles around the blaze. Until the trav- eler learns the cause of it, he wonders why there is si-ch a smoky haze over Indian cities as soon as night f&lls. It is caused by many fires in the native quarters. One has to shut one's eyes to so much in India. The squalor is appalling sickening. If one let one's self see and feel it, life would be unlivable even the few days the average traveler spends in each place. The crippled and maimed, the mis-shapen and blind, cling to the car- riage steps and beg for backsheesh. Many half-naked men are living skeletons, and there are many shrivelled old crones who look so like mummies one wonders if ever they could have been radiant with youth and life and love. Every temple has its coterie of beggars and "holy" men. The holy men sit in supposed profound Meditation and so great is the Hindu's regard for a dev- otee, that he contributes to the needs of the priest regardless of his own meagre store. The "holy" men are nothing but religious vagrants. They claim to have re- nounced the world, but they show no eagerness to re- 101 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD nounce food; on the contrary, they have fine appetites. Ir is a shame that these lazy fellows are permitted to live in absolute idleness supported by individuals many of them hard-working underfed people. The mendicants, professional beggars, sit in the sun, their hair dyed a bright red, and their almost naked bodies covered with ashes. Hindu women, even of the better castes, are not given the same educational advantages the men have. Before marriage the women are obedient to the will oi their father, after marriage they are slaves of their husband. Some writers say that only one out of two hundred Hindu women can read and write. On the whole the lot of the Hindu woman improves as the years go by. Only a few years ago, the widow threw herself on the funeral pyre of her dead husband. Tbanks to the government and the efforts of the mis- sionaries that practice has been abandoned. Hinduism has no creed. There is, probably, no religion which is so tolerant of a variety of beliefs. Mr. E. Greaves, in his book on India, says of the Hindu religion, "Hinduism is neither a creed, nor a church, nor a society with unalterable rules and regula- tions, but a loose federation whose only uniting bond is a general consent, expressed or implied, to an undefined biotherhood of sympathy and loyalty to an unwritten tradition that 'we are all one body though differing gieatly.' While they worship many gods they are loyal to each other. They believe that the 'masters,' those learned in Sanskrit, may accept all the Hindu sacred lit- erature, but for the uneducated masses, they must be satisfied with crude idolatry. While they believe in dif- ferent stages of development, their religion is loyalty to each other. 102 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD vSacred City What Rome is to the Roman Catholic or what Mecca is to the Mohammedan, that, or more is what Benares is to the Hindu. It is the most sacred city of India, the stronghold of Brahminism, tne seat of Sanskrit learn- ing and the home of Indian philosophy. It has a popu- lation of more than two hundred thousand, seventy-five per cent of whom are Brahmins, the remainder mostly Mohammedans with a sprinkling of Buddhists, Parsees Curistians and a few other faiths. Benares is the best place in India to study the super- stition and ignorance of native Indians of the low castes. The scene of most interest in the city is the river front. For three miles along the banks of the sacred Ganges tliere is an almost continuous line of ghats, or steps leading down into the water where the Hindus congre- gate daily to bathe. The best plan for the visitor who wishes to study the customs of this queer people is to secure a boat and float down the river past the bathing and burning ghats. In the foreground the observer may see, at close range, the busy scene at the water's edge. The thousands of bathers, men, women and children busy with their ablutions and their prayers, oblivious to all ahout them. Some standing in the water with arms upraised worshipfully to the sun, some kneeling in the shallow depths, some squatting on the stone steps and tathing from brass pots. In the background a strange medley of temples and red-domed buildings of slender minarets piercing the sky. The variety of buildings along the banks of the Ganges at Benares, is incredible. There are temples of every shape and in all stages of completion and dilapidation and at all angles of inclination. During the monsoon season the tides rise alarmingly, washing out the banks and undermining the huge structures, mak- ing them grotesquely out of perpendicular. There are also many fine private residences of Indian noblemen. These houses are unoccupied save by caretakers. The 103 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD owners seldom or never visit them. A superstitious re- gard for possessing property in the sacred city is prob- ably the cause of their not selling the houses, when their residence is elsewhere. Little shrines are dotted here and there upon the ghats and there are various wells hard by where one may drink and be rid of any disease. There is a well of knowledge where all who drink become wise; a shrine where wives pray for handsome sons. The Hindu women all worship at the shrine of fecundity. They believe so strongly in the sacredness of the Ganges that they think it impossible that anything could defile it. They bathe where the sewers empty into the river and where the bodies of the "holy" dead are thrown. Natives come from all over India to this river to bathe. Their religion teaches them that by doing so they insure the transmi- gration of their soul into a higher caste than the one they occupy in the present Karma. They do not expect nor desire higher caste in this life, but beyond. Bathing in the present stage of existence in the sacred waters cleanses the soul from sin. Drifting down the river one reaches the burning ghats where the bodies of all Hindus dying in Benares are cremated. An average of fifty bodies a day are in- cinerated. In the two hours that our party spent on the river we saw two bodies burned and six more waiting to be cremated. The body is wrapped in cloth, the men in white and the women in red, and carried by four native men, on a bier made of bamboo poles. Reaching the water's edge the bier with the body tied firmly on is dipped in the sacred water and then left with the feet immersed while the mourners go to the charcoal and wood venders to strike a bargain for fuel with which to construct the funeral pyre. After much apparent haggling the fuel is secured and piled on the ghat. The body is then loosed from 104 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD the bier and placed on the pyre and then more wood is piled on. A "holy" man with a huge oblong drum hung about his neck beats a weird tattoo, dancing about the mourners iu time to the music. After the body that we were watch ing was all ready for burning, and we were holding our breath waiting for the match to be struck, the mourners strolled unconcernedly away and we wondered what next. Presently we saw each man squatting on his naunches in front of a barber, being shaved. It seems that the male relatives of the deceased must shave, bathe and don clean clothes before they can see their kin go up in smoke. Finally all was ready and the match applied. The dried wood burned brightly and soon the whole mass was reduced to ashes. Two men v/ith long bamboo poles raked the fire to see that the body v/as entirely consumed and then a female relative came with a stone jar of water on her head. She threw the jar on the fire, breaking the jar and extinguishing the blaze. Then more women came with baskets. They carefully gathered up the ashes and sifted them into the sacred river saving each bit of charred wood to use for the next cremation. While we were absorbedly watching this weird pic- ture a wailing chant and the clanging of a gong sounded back of us on the river. Looking around we saw a boat coming, rowed by many men robed in white. Stand- ing in the front of the boat was a man beating a gong and in the back of the boat, on a sort of platform, was the dead body of a man, trussed up with cords in a sitting posture, with a stone slab on his chest. Marc explained to us that it was the body of a priest, or "holy man," and that they were never burned, but instead the body is thrown into the Ganges. Rowing to the police boat near by the boatmen ob- tained a permit to bury in the river the sacred body of 105 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD tbeir beloved dead, and then they rowed out to mid- stream and without any cermony other than the ding of the gong and chant of singers, consigned the remains to its watery grave. The Hindus believe that the bodies of the "holy" men continue to do good after they are thrown in the river; that they render the Ganges all the more sacred. One could linger for hours in a boat on the river, watching the bathing, praying, chanting, swarms, all classes, all ages, a panorama unequalled apywhere. Sacred white cows sun themselves on the stone steps and brown figures, vividly clad, pass in endless proces- ion. Monkeys gambol along the roofs and crows make the air discordant with their raucous cries. The sick who are brought to the ghats to die turn their faces toward the Ganges, that their last glance may linger on the sacred water. Benares holds much of interest for the traveler be- side the bathing and burning ghats. A few miles out are the ruins of the old city of Sarnath, where Buddha ai peared after his long communion in the wilderness. It is said he preached his first sermon at Sarnath. Benares is noted for its brass work, which is one of the chief industries. There are over 600 factories for making brass articles. It is said that the Indian Christian population num- bers only about 800, although missionaries have occupied the field for nearly a century. While the visible results of the work of the Christian missionaries may be disap- pointing, there is in no sense a failure, for the influence of Christian educational work among the boys and girls is being felt more and more every year. 106 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD INDIA CONTINUED The Durbar To go or not to go, that was the question. Whether it were better for four women to suffer The deprivations of an over-crowded city, Or give up the pleasure of seeing the Durbar And go through Delhi, nursing a "grouch," With never a glance, And by that means to save our time, our money, Our patience, our temper And all those necessary things congested humanity makes us part with. Although we were advised by every one not to go to Delhi, told we could not get shelter of any kind, and that it would be impossible to obtain food in a city taxed with hundreds of thousands of troops and visitors, we went and hobnobbed with royalty. The American eagle almost laid hands on the British lion's tail, almost, but not quite. We reached Delhi in the cold dawn of a December n.orning. It was the day the king and queen were to make their entry and we, as loyal citizens of a sister kingdom, felt that it was as little as we could do to get there a bit in advance and give them a hearty Amer- ican welcome, the "glad hand," so to speak. Fortunately, one of our party had a letter of intro- duction to the wife of the governor of an Indian province, and we were given tickets for the state pageant, the unveiling of the monument to King Edward and to the 107 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD coronation. But best of all, better than a seat in the press box to witness the crowning of their royal 'igh- nesses, we were given a tent on the Durbar grounds, on the same sacred grounds upon which George and Mary had their tents set. It's true that four or five miles intervened between our tents and theirs, and there was a slight difference in the construction of our habitations, and there were fifty million troops, more or less, be tv. een us and the emperor and empress to keep us, and other canaille, at bay, but the air we breathed was the same and it wafted to us the strains of "America," that grand tune that the English have the audacity to call their national hymn. One thing only pained us. When we reached Delhi, there was no unusual demonstration, yet when the king's train arrived four hours later, a salute of one hundred and one guns greeted him. We were inclined to feel re- sentful at first, but on sober second thought, concluded that the crowded condition of the city and the excite- ment incident to the arrival of so much royalty had caused the powers that be to overlook our arrival. The salute of guns was answered by the rattle of rifle fire, rising and falling, now near, now far, along the lines of troops stretching for miles along the route of the king's entry into the city. It was exhilerating, soul- stirring, and grasping our bits of pasteboard entitling us to seats in an enclosure near where the king was to be received, we sought our places. Delhi was certainly in festival dress. Flags and bunting, banners and triumphal arches everywhere. While waiting there was much to interest us. To the left the red walls of the fort stood, grim sentinel of the king's possessions. On every side as far as the eye could reach were splashes of bright color, where the troops in vari-colored uniforms, stood at attention. On a slope near Delhi gate were five thousand native school children grouped 108 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD on the greensward. They wore robes of pink and green and white, and carried gay garlands with which to pelt the royal pair. To the right of us rose the white dome and minarets of a splendid Mohammedan mosque. Grouped about us were dense throngs of people. It seemed that every ri'.ce and creed in the wide, wide world were represented, each in a different costume. The Durbar will have passed into history long before tl is reaches the reader, but perhaps an American's im- pressions will be readable even though the event has been chronicled far and wide for many weeks. The King's Entry Surely never has mortal vision looked on a more dazzling, a more splendid, a richer, gayer sight than that of the king-emperor's entry, as the pageant was called. The English troops, of course, came first, and the king's trumpeters wore dazzling scarlet and gold uni- forms. These contrasted, not unpleasant'y, with the dark biue and gold of the gunners and the green of the Gurk- has and the sober brown khaki of the volunteers. When George the fifth rode by on a splendid black charger, he in the splendid uniform of a field marshal, with the blue ribbon of the Star of India crossing his tunic, he was greeted by a subdued huzza and clapping 01' hands. Not a rousing, thunderous, heaven-echoing cbeer such as we give our mayor when he rides in a parade, but a dignified, thoughtful, English expression cf approval. But I was disappointed. I wanted to throw my hat in the air and shout. I wanted some one to shout "What's the matter with George?" and have a 109 million voices shout back, "He's all right!" That's the way we would do it in America. The queen-empress followed in the splendid state car- riage drawn by six horses. She was attended by her mistress of robes and the lord high steward. Now the most interesting part. She wore a robe of soft white satin, brocaded in a design .of roses and true lover's knots, in pastel shades of pink and blue. She wore the badge of the Order of the Garter and also of the Crown of India. Her hat was of white straw, rather small from an American point of view. It was trimmed with shaded pink and blue ostrich tips. She held a parasol of white moire and she bowed graciously to the right and left as the carriage passed slowly along. It was a matter of deep regret to the Indian princes that no elephants appeared in the parade. It seems that the queen empress is unable to ride the large beast, the rocking motion causing her to suffer from nausea. So, not from royal edict, but out of deference to the queen, no one appeared on an elephant. It is said that at the last Durbar, that feature of the pageant was the most magnificent, the various scions of Indian nobility riding in richly bejewelled howdahs on the backs of pachy- derms. But to our unaccustomed eyes unaccustomed to the lavishness of Indian festivities the scene was one of unrivalled splendor. After the English officials passed and the Indian royal scions began coming, in their state carriages, it all seemed like a bewildering stage picture. It surely could not be real, this panorama of vivid color- ing, and flashing, dazzling, glinting light from bejewelled crowns and robes. There were state carriages heavily emblazoned with pure gold and set with precious gems. Some of the vehicles were shaped like Cleopatra's barge and entirely covered with silver plate. The beautiful Arabian horses 110 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD proudly pranced under their jewelled trappings, the gol- den chains clanking and the silver fringes swaying. In these carriages sat the royal princes of India, their dusky faces crowned with turbans heavily encrusted with diamonds, emeralds, rubies and other precious gems. Their exquisite robes, woven of heaviest gold and silver embroidery, the design picked out in seed pearls or other tiny jewels. It was bewildering, overwhelming. Many wore breastplates of glowing red rubies, others v/ore ropes of pearls about the neck and turban. From bare brown hands and arms flashed diamonds and emer- alds, and jewel-encrusted girdles had gem fringes worth a king's ransom. Then there were mailed horsemen clad in chain armor from crest to spur. Weird, dark figures looking like phantoms from the days of the Crusade, a splendid foil for the brilliant color all about them. The trumpeters blew fanfares upon horns of curious shape and the splendidly caparisoned horses arched their necks and caracoled to the time of the music. In each native prince's carriage sat with him a quiet figure in plain blue uniform. They are the king-emperor's English representatives, ever present in every Indian province, to assist in guiding the ship of state in peace- ful waters. The only Indian lady in the pageant was the Begum of Bhopal, the only and last queen in India. Only one province in India is ruled by a queen and when she passes on her son will succeed her, and there will be no more petticoat rule. Come to think of it, she wears trousers, for she is a Mohammedan. She wore a drapery of pale blue and her head and face were completely covered. Two small slits in the mask over her face marked her eyes, and she seemed to be eagerly watching the multitude. Her son, the prince, sat with her in the carriage. 111 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD The Begum is a woman of refinement and education. She speaks English well and travels often in Europe, but always closely veiled. She has written a book on India, vhich permits the outside world a glimpse into the life of the women of India. In the pageant were serious-looking, gawky camels, literally burdened with gold and silver trappings; there were huge bejewelled fans waved by attendants over royal heads and there were great, golden, gem-set um- brellas to shield the royal heads. The king's lancers, in crimson and white, held couched lances, the spears glistening in the sun and graced with pennants the colors of the uniform. Many of the troops had leopard-skin saddle blankets. It seemed that every device possible was used to add to the eastern picturesqueness of the scene. A note of great interest was when the mustered vet- erans appeared. These were white-haired, white-bearded Englishmen and Indians who held Lucknow and stormed Delhi during the Sepoy mutiny in 1857. These white and brown men* were rewarded impartially with the Victoria Cross, which emblem of distinguished service each proudly wore on the tunic of his uniform. There were judges of the high court, stately men in the robes and wig of their office; there were arch- bishops in red robes and white caps; there was one na- tive troop with queer, clanking accoutrements on the shoulders, that looked like wire pot-cleaners; there was enough gold lace and gold braid displayed to trim the Los Angeles city hall from top to bottom. For vividness, variety of color and gayness, surely the king's entry into Delhi nas never been equalled since the field of the Cloth of Gold. It was like an Arabian Nights' entertainment. The next day we saw the king-emperor unveil the cornerstone upon which the equestrian statute of his 112 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD father, the late King Edward, will be placed. And now we are to attend the coronation on Tuesday and our in- vitation reads, "levee dress will be worn." Now, what the dickens is a levee dress? We are like Mrs. Wiggs' family in the "Cabbage Patch." Each one has some cherished article of attire, but no one of us a whole costume which might be construed into a levee dress. The Princess has a lingerie frock suitable for a garden party, but only a steamer coat to wear over it, and it's cold as Greenland in Delhi. The Clubwoman has a brand new opera coat, but will have to wear it over a rainy-day skirt. We all will have to wear the cork hel- mets of this country, for we shipped our hats with all other luggage to Colombo, because, forsooth, every one said we would lose our boxes in India. There's one thing sure, after the coronation on Tuesday, the English will talk more than ever about "those queer Americans." 113 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD INDIA CONTINUED India's Variety Traveling across the great peninsula of India, vir- tually a continent in itself, is like seeing a new country and a new people every day. Each city visited has a distinctive charm unlike any other. There are so many races, tongues and religious faiths, and a range of cli- mate almost as wide as that of North America. The mental notebook of the keen observer soon be- comes filled. What with the variety of scenery and cli- mate, visions of the highest mountains on the globe and of the most inspiring rivers; glimpses of splendid architecture as old as the everlasting hills; with a study of a strange people in a strange setting. Travel in a modern land seems commonplace when one compares it with vistas seen from an Oriental car window. It is fascinating to view the constantly recur- ring temples and mosques about which are grouped the low mud huts of the natives. Monkeys swing from tree to tree and the gorgeous peacock suns himself on wall or steps. Along the roadside may be seen vehicles of quaint construction; clumsy two-wheeled carts drawn by bul- locks; camel trains laden with packs for the desert; flocks of goats roaming the hills, tended by a bare, brown shepherd. Many phases of the life of the Indian farmer are to be seen. In the preparation of his land for the grain, iu sowing and reaping, the same primitive methods are 114 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD in use that were adopted centuries ago. The old-fash- ioned wooden plow is still drawn by the patient bul- lock. Harvesting is done entirely by hand. At the railway station forty languages may be heard in the few minutes the train requires to load and un- load its human freight. The station platform is a gay bazaar, its stalls glinting with brasses and shimmer- ing with silken embroidery. Venders of sweetmeats and strange, tropical fruit, thrust their wares through the car window, and there is a medley of color and sound, compelling and irresistible. The thing that haunts one most is the pleading ex- p'-ession in the eyes of the native Indian. Some writer has said, "Those eyes, those strange eyes of India! You may see them everywhere, in man, woman and child. They seem not busy with the present, but occupied with what was behind yesterday or is beyond tomorrow." And it is so. A vague, intangible, unfathomable something lies in the liquid brown depths of Indian eyes that puzzles me. Taj Mahal All my life I have dreamed of seeing the Taj Mahal, the wonderful marble tomb an adoring husband erected in memory of a loved wife. In my callow days when I devoured light fiction, the description of the splendid structure in "St. Elmo" filled me with a longing to see so marvelous a piece of work, and later the opinion of historians and artists augmented the desire. So the reader may judge of my delight when I found myself iii the Taj garden really beholding the noble pile. Times without number has this wonderful mausoleum been described, but an adequate account of its surpass- ing beauty yet remains to be written, and failing in this 115 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD in is but idle to waste epithets on a building that defies criticism and is within more measurable distance of per- fection than any other work of man. One writer calls it a "dream in marble." Another writes, "It is at Agra that Emperor Shah Jehan put a whole passionate story ir.to the fairest marble when he built the Taj Mahal as a last resting place for the Persian wife he loved most of his harem's beauties; and in doing this gave us the loveliest tomb, the most enchanting building ever reared; the most satisfying, whether seen in the sunlight, ris- ing white and fair in its perfect garden, or in the moon- light, with yellow tints coming from the lamps that al- ways burn behind the screens of delicately perforated marble." The Taj is surely beyond any other structure in grace and delicacy in beauty of carved marble and mosiac in- lay. As many as three hundred different stones are used t-> make one marvelously tinted mosaic flower, and the walls are embellished with diamonds, sappnires, tur- quoise, pearls and semi-precious gems. The mausoleum stands on a raised marble platform, at each corner of which is a tall and graceful mina- ret. Beneath the large dome and within an enclosure of delicately carved marble fretwork, are the richly inlaid tombs of the emperor and his queen. Above the tombs proper are the cenotaphs of carved white mar- ble, inlaid with a variety of gems in the form of flowers and upon the walls are inscriptions from the Koran inlaid in black marble on the white. Truly, as someone has said, the Taj represents the highest form of purely dec- orative workmanship in the world. 116 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Historical Places Cawnpore and Lucknow, two cities of Central North- ern India, derive notoriety from their connection with the Sepoy mutiny, the native uprising in 1857. The v/holesale butcheries committed in Cawnpore in July of that year are unequalled for foul atrocity and treachery, by any of the numerous other fearful slaughters by the rebels during the horrors of that three months' Kiege. Perhaps no other cities in India hold the same interest for the English as these two places, where their gallant soldiers and the hapless women and chil- dren were massacred. In Cawnpore a beautiful marble figure has been erected over the well where hundreds of dead and dying English were thrown in a heap. In Lucknow the ruins of the residency, where the most gallant defense in his- tory was made, is now mercifully covered by vines and screened by beautiful tropical verdure. Jaipur One of the most interesting cities in India is Jaipur, which means "city of victory." The city formerly occupied a commanding position in the foothills, seven miles from its present location. The founder, a king of the olden time, was engaged, as was the custom in the early days of India, in a conflict with other tribes. On the eve of a battle he consulted a noted seer as to its outcome and was told that his city was doomed and he would have to remove himself and his chattels to another place. In just three days the wise old ruler gathered together his Lares and Penates, which in India means wives and children, and escaped to the valley below, where he built a new city, all pink and white stucco. 117 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD The ruins of Amber, as the old city is called, are most interesting. To visit the place, the traveler must make application to the resident representative of the maharajah. A formal invitation is then issued with the information that the maharajah will be pleased to send his state elephants to convey the traveler to his destina- tion. Of course, the traveler is delighted, even though he knows a tax of ten rupees for each elephant will be expected. The morning our party climbed, gingerly, to the back of the huge pachyderm, a salaaming Indian suavely in- formed us that the maharajah would like the "American photographs." Of course we were willing to accommo- date his royal highness at fifteen rupees per half dozen photos. " The tricks were all so transparent that we really enjoyed our donation to the treasury of the Am- ber exchequer. Seated comfortably in the padded howdah on the elephant's back, we leisurely climbed the steep moun- tain road. We were surrounded by serfs, vassals and minions, before and aft and on either side. Some goaded the elephant in the back and some prodded him in front. One picked roadside blossoms for us and one ran hallooing in front of the caravan to clear the way. Many handed us drinks at the refreshment booth and others turned somersaults in the dusty road for our entertain- ment. Some, quite brazenly, held out a begging hand without attempting to give us value received, and all stood in line and exacted annas when our destination was reached. We have found out in India that one need not go down into Jericho to fall among thieves. The ruined city is surrounded by a crenallated wall in a remarkable state of preservation. On a height above is a fort still garrisoned by a native troop of soldiers. The old palace occupies a beautiful situation on the 118 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD mountainside, surrounded by hills on all sides. From the terraced balcony, moss-grown and ivy-wreathed, one looks off through a cleft in the hills to the valley spread out like a prayer rug at the foot of a colossal altar. """ The interior is beautiful with the highest expres- sion of artistic workmanship in marble and brass. Delicately carved marble screens the windows through v;hich the beauties of the harem viewed, in the olden days, the elephant fights in the courtyard below. A stagnant pool is all that remains of the moat that once surrounded the noble structure. Inside the palace grounds is a Hindu temple where the goddess Kali is worshipped. Each morning the maharajah donates a kid which is sacrificed at the altar and the flesh given to the palace caretakers, for food. The gateways to the palace are of superb and ex- quisite hand decorated brass. 'Tis a wondrous sight, this white marble pile with walls adorned with arabesqued carved panels, nestling against the mountain side, the old citadel towering above and the pink and white town below, and beyond, the fertile plain stretching away to illimitable distances. In direct antithesis to the old city is Jaipur the new, the garish, the tawdry. Seeing it is like getting a too close view of a stage setting. The new palace is a can- en ture of the ruins in the hills. But there is marked in- dividuality about Jaipur. It is brimful of oriental life and color and the natives seem happy and prosperous. The streets are wide and clean, an unusual feature of Indian cities. Driving through them one sees every fea- ture of native life unconcealed. The people apparently eat, sleep, work and have their being on the pavements. Groups of women sit on the curb stones embroidering the slippers for which the 119 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD place is famous. Others sift grain in huge straw baskets and then pass it on to others who grind it between flat stones. Another woman mixed the grain with water, and small boys, clad only in their dusky skins, kneaded the dough, using both knees and fist. A charcoal fire close by baked the loaves which were offered for sale. At many wells by the roadside a picturesque Re- bekah, in flowing crimson robe, drew the water which she carried away on her head in a stone jar. In the square, which is the centre of the city, sacred cows wander aimlessly about, their horns gaily painted and garlands of flowers about their necks. Multitudes of cooing pigeons flutter about begging for the grain which the natives all carry for them. The maharajah's band plays in the square at sun- set. The music, if one may call it such, is a caterwauling shriek and wail which makes the listener flee to escape its discordant notes. Truly, life in Jaipur is picturesque. Money Flies Along about the third month of an extended foreign tour, the traveler of average purse, begins to wonder if he will have sufficient funds to complete his trip. Many unthought of, unheard of expenses crop up to deplete his store of rupees and he looks with horror at his shrinking pile of traveler's checks. If the traveler is young, buoyant and a man he is apt to run up against the wall early in the game, and ir,ust either cable home to papa or visit his "uncle" en route. We have had examples in both classes. Young Richleigh, which isn't his name by the way, finished school last year and as a reward of merit was sent on a world tour by his proud papa. Before starting the youth made up a cable code of his own for possible 120 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD use while absent. He kept a copy himself and handed one to his father, who without deciphering it, locked it up in his desk. A month later the elder Richleigh received a cable consisting of one word, "Laugh." He laughed. It seemed to be something quite pleasant. His code was at his office in his desk. He went thither in the best of humor, took out the code and read "Laugh Send me five hundred dollars." Mecca For Girls If the American girls who appreciate masculine at- tention realized what a mecca India is, they would pack up bag and baggage and set sail for the Far East. There are about five hundred European men to one woman in India and the Straits settlement, and the ad- vent of a young, good looking girl and even an old, plain looking girl, is hailed with delight. The men vie with each other in lavishing attentions on her and her path is, figuratively, strewn with roses and literally with bon-bons and automobile rides and theatre parties. Not only is this true of the larger cities but on the large rubber estates and tea and coffee plantations where the male element has undisputed sway. We met a young Scotch woman who had been out to visit her brother on a plantation. There were forty bachelors living within a radius of ten miles and the canny Scot had the time of her life. She was carrying much excess baggage in the shape of tiger skins and claws, spear heads and points, old war lances, elephant goads, silken sayrongs, jade jewelry and many unset gems, all the gifts of admiring men who offered their heart and several acres of rubber with the gifts. She had had thirty-nine offers of marriage and 121 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD all that saved her from one more offer was the fact that the fortieth man was her brother She had refused them all, probably because she was afraid the hearts were as elastic as the rubber the men grew. To have some semblance of home life, these lonely bachelors build a large bungalow in the midst of their estates and all live together with Indian men servants to look after their needs. These homes are called "Chummeries" and a set of rules are drawn up which must be observed. One rule makes it imperative for each man to wear a dinner coat at dinner. He may be never so tired after a tedious round of overseeing, but he cannot appear at "feed", as the English out here say, until he has changed his clothing. An Englishman told me that it was quite necessary to enforce that rule and ethers. If they did not the men would, in a short while, slump into an untidy state and wear as few clothes as the natives. 122 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD INDIA CONTINUED Like a Moving Picture We have seen a bit of adored Southern California in this faraway land. Or is it really home and it is all a dream, this being in the land of the Aryan? A few days ago we chose to see Southern India mountain scenery and went by train to Abu Road, a junction, thence by tonga to Mt. Abu, seventeen miles distant. Let me tell you what sort of a vehicle a tonga is. It is a low, two-wheeled dachshund of a cart with the build of a gun-carriage. You wedge yourself in between the back seat and the tailboard and hold on like grim death while the lithe little Arabian ponies gallop up the mountainside. Just fancy how uncom- fortable it is. But all sense of discomfort is forgotten when we look out and see California. The same rug- ged foothills, bare and brown, as in our dry season; the same cloudless blue dome overhead, the same gol- den sunshine, the valley a rumpled carpet of gray-brown, sun-burned stubble, the ring of dun-colored mountains en- closing it. Against the mountainside cluster low bungalows over which brilliant red poinsettias nod a friendly greeting and everywhere the eye rests are our very own kind of palms and ferns. The mountain road winds in and out, hugging the sheer cliffs in breathless spaces, and again widening out into a broad country road, just like up Arrowhead way or the Santa Ana canyon. It is California 123 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD and this gay cavalcade we see coming is a Biograph company taking pictures out Sunset Park way, for a moving picture reel. Along the brown, dusty road, bordered by chapparal and cacti amble the strange, stage like figures. They are a band of Jain pilgrims en route to the marble temple ar Mt. Abu to make their adorations. The men, splen- did bronze figures, bare save for a loincloth and a band cf white about the mouth. The women in decollette bodices, reaching just below the breast and a wide, pleated crimson skirt, fastened low about the hips. The brown skin of the Indians rob them of any appearance of nudity. En route to this Mecca of Jain faith, the little band is equipped with bedding and food all strapped on huge, awkward camels. There are many children in the group, of all ages, and all bare save for a superabund- ance of silver bangles. The men bear brass lamps with seven tiny lighted wicks swimming in a bath of oil. The lamps are shaped like that of the vestal virgin, or to be more bluntly de- finite, like a gravy boat. One man kneels in the road before a wayside shrine. He presents the lamp to his forehead, then follows the outline of a cross with the flaming urn. The sunshine glints on his freshly oiled body and in his religious ardor he seems to be oblivious to all about him. The "holy men" beat with bare knuck- les on oval pigskin drums, and the balmy California air, redolent of orange and lemon bloom, is rent with the hideous clanging of gongs. Indeed, it will make an interesting film. 124 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Jains Notwithstanding their eccentricities, I have a feel- ing of deep respect for the followers of the Jain faith. If they would send a few missionaries to America and we would hearken to their teaching, we would be more humane, more decent, more civu.zed. Jain means "con- querors of vice," and while these people worship idols, they live clean, pure lives. They believe that all animal life has a soul, and, indeed, they think souls repose in all inorganic matter. They think it a sin to take any animal life and their reason for wearing a cloth about the mouth is to prevent breathing in and killing the infinitesimal insects that impregnate the air of India. The Jain farmer sits on a raised platform in the midst of his grain fields and with slingshot and pebble, scares away from his crops, the birds his faith forbids him to slay. A Jain feels nothing but hideous disgust when he sees a European feeding on the flesh of any animal. To him the murder of a cow or sheep or chicken is much more appalling than manslaughter, because the animal is weaker, the man stronger, and all have souls. They use no intoxicants whatever, considering the use of spirituous liquors the most infamous of vices and the most debasing to human nature. To them, infidelity in husband or wife is a crime punishable by death. They place the highest value on chastity and honesty. They believe that the greatest honor that can come to a family is the advent of many children. Our Marc has \ wife eighteen years old and they have four children. When the American race dwindles to a mere handful, the Ayran brown will inhabit the earth. 125 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Child Widows The number of child widows in India has been var- iously estimated and it seems difficult to find a figure which one could say was authentic. Some claim there are a million, others say many times that number. At least one can truthfully say there are thousands of them, and they are, indeed, pitiable objects. Child marriage is the rule in India. The children are betrothed at a very early age, when mere infants, in fact. A money transaction always figures in the betroth- al, the father of the girl bestowing upon the parents of the boy, a sum or a value of some kind, commensurate with his means. A Hindu man told me that if a man were a king of finance in India, he would be a beggar if he had five daughters to marry off. The marriage is not consummated until the years of maturity, about eleven or twelve in India, are reached. In the meantime the little girl is carefully guarded in her parents home. If the boy dies before the marriage is consummated, the virgin widow may never again marry. She is an object of contempt and derision and must do penance the rest of her days. The older widow who has borne children is to be pitied even more than the child widow. She has her family to support and there are only the worst menial tasks given her to do. The widow believes that an evil spirit within her murdered her husband and that she must make many sacrifices and do penance in order to appease the gods. However young and beautiful a widow may be, a new union is altogether impossible, as the invincible custom of the country forbids it. As soon as the husband dies, the female relatives of the widow cut the thread by which is suspended about her neck, the Tahly, the little gold ornament which all 126 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Indian wives wear as a symbol of marriage. Her head is then shaved and her pretty bright garments taken from her and a plain white cotton robe substituted. She may not attend any festival or rejoicing of any description. While all of them are despised as outcasts, those without cnildren are especially objects of derision and hatred. One wonders if of the two evils, the suttee practice, forbidden by the government twenty years ago, were not more humane than the present system of social ostracism. At suttee the widow threw herself on her husband's funeral pyre and was soon reduced to ashes. Now she must die a slow death hounded by humiliation and despair. Towers of Silence The Parsees of Bombay who are a wealthy high caste class of Indians, have a peculiar way of disposing of their dead. They have such a veneration for the ele- ments that they do not wish to defile them with dead bodies, so have erected stone towers, cylindrical in shape and about thirty feet high, in niches of which they place their dead and allow the vultures to eat the bodies. They think fire is too sacred to be used for burning the dead and earth and water are equally respected, so in crder not to pollute these elements they invented this singular method. Everything possible has been done to rob this char- nel house of an aspect of grewsome uses. The garden about the towers is a beautiful park and the House of Prayer where the body is taken for religious rites be- fore its final disposition, is as restful as our houses of worship. Yet when one visits the place and sees the huge black birds of prey, perched about on the towers waiting, waiting, it is blood curdling. It is said that 127 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD after a body has been slipped into one of the niches only three-quarters of an hour elapses before the flesh is stripped from the bones. The bones are left to bleach and dry, tiien are swept oft into a huge tank beneath the Towers where they crumble into dust. The rains carry off the dust through drains made for that purpose, so that every particle of the dead body is absorbed either by the vulture route or by filtration into the earth. About four bodies a day are disposed of in this manner. Hallucinations The sun in India has a curious effect on people. Na- tives swathe the head in heavy folds of cloth, and the whites all wear the cork topi which prevents sunstroke. It is said a white person could not endure the direct rays of the sun on his uncovered head three minutes without suffering a sunstroke or a fever. The sun intoxicates some and causes others to ho'd the fear of being poisoned by the natives. One army man I read of fancied himself a duck and occasionally would cry quack! quack! Another army man fancied he was a shilling and talked about it to his wife so much that she, in her dis- tress, went to the colonel of the regiment about it. "Thinks he is a shilling, does he?" said the colonel, with ft chuckle. "Then why don't you change him?" The natives seem to thrive in the heat if only the head is covered. They lie in the strong sunlight, some aimost naked, others in heavy wraps. In one settle- rient we saw every mode of Indian dress from the white linen of the hot south to the heavy goatskin of the eternal snows, all reduced to a harmonious whole by the neutral tint of universal dirt and all grovelling in the rays of their adored sun-god. 128 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Missions Murray says, "The spread of Christianity in India is a matter of deep interest to everyone. Reports show a remarkable increase of native Christians during the last decade. In Southern India the increase was 19 per cent." Of converts the Roman Catholics have the greatest number. Of the Protestants there are converts to nu- merous faiths, Baptists, Methodists, English Episcopal, Lutheran and others. Whatever may be individual opin- ions regarding the work or results of proselyting in India, the value of the work done in mission colleges and schools and hospitals is immense, and is becoming very far-reaching in its effects. A note which might have a double meaning is en- tered in a certain church register in India. A native convert wishing to dohonor to a Christian missionary who was killed by his servant, took the register and wrote with a sigh, in the simplicity of his heart: "Isidor Loewenthal, missionary of the Presbyterian mission. Shot by his own chowkidar (servant). Well done, thou good and faithful servant!" Goodby to India "These are they which came out of great tribulation," may well be applied to four California women and a brown, native servant, after a four weeks' tour of India. India Is marvelous, filthy, fascinating, smelly, wonder- ful, weird, speckled over with oriental pessimism and mysticism, and no traveler should leave it off his itiner- ary. It is a veritable Pandora's box for the antiquarian, the historian, the artist, the sculptor, the student of humanity, the theologian, the sociologist and the ordinary 129 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD globe trotter who seeks strange things. The many physi- cal discomforts which I have enlarged upon in previous letters are more than overbalanced by the mental stimu- lation one receives. The best things of this life come oiily after great effort and we must take the bitter with the sweet. A young Englishman was helping us with our hur- ried packing one day. Turning to the Club Woman he said, "And you say you have a comfortable home in the states?" "Yes," replied the Club Woman. "Well, why don't you go home and enjoy it?" said he. "You Ameri- cans endure more privations and discomforts for the sake of sightseeing, than the people of any other na- tion." Travel in India is as Josiah Allen's wife said, a pleasure exertion. I think I could have endured the frightful extremes of heat and cold, the filth and stench, the hard beds and poor food, with better grace if only I had been vouchsafed water plain, ordinary water like that which comes, so abundantly, from my kitchen sink. I know now why camels can go for so long without water, there's none in India but the fizzy marble dust sort and the camel, wise old beast that he is, refuses that. I have drunk "charged" water until I feel like a seething volcano that may burst its bonds at any mo- ment. I have heard that one can dig one's grave with one's teeth. I can claim a greater distinction. I am erecting with my throat, a tall, white marble grave stone that I feel sure will soon be all that is left of me. 130 CEYLON Rough Passage To reach the Island of Ceylon from the Indian Penin- sula, one must cross a very turbulent channel in the Indian Ocean, called the Gulf of Manar. The voyage takes twelve hours and it is fraught with all the misery that sea sickness entails. It is needless to waste words on sea sickness besides no one could do the subject jus- tice. But the suffering is nothing compared to the dis- appointment, the humiliation, the voyager feels in mak- ing such an entry into the scene of Milton's "Araby The Blest." The very name, Ceylon, celebrated in hymn and song and story, conjures up visions of drifting out on a sparkling, sunlit sea, gently wafted by scented breezes, tenderly rocked by lapping waves and, ultimately, drop- ping anchor on a golden strand as beautiful as St. John's vision of the streets of the New Jerusalem. The cold, brutal truth is, one boards a small chan- nel vessel for an all night ride and finds berths so hard that a board is soft in comparison. The atmosphere is hot and humid and the small red ants that infest the boat crawls, in tantalizing trains, over perspiring mortals. This is one affliction that, mercifully, was spared Job and surely Dante never heard of it, else it would have been immortalized in the Inferno. 131 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD The choppy, spitful sea twists the boat first this way, then that, the sullen, lowering sky frowns, the wind sings a mournful dirge in the rigging and all nature seems to have entered into a conspiracy to make miserable the intrepid traveler. I sat out on deck as we neared the island and tried my level best to fancy I was inhaling "the spicy breezes that waft o'er Ceylon's isle," but my nostrils were as- sailed, only, by the tang of roilly salt water and the odor of a strong cigarette a man next to me was smoking. I could 1'or the first time in my life appreciate the disap- pointmc nt and chagrin a young boy feels when he learns the true identity of Santa Glaus, or is told that rabbits do not lay Easter eggs. Beautiful Verdure Approaching Ceylon, as far as the eye can reach, the oval of the island is a mass of vivid green. The ragged foliage of the cocoanut palm towers above the other verdure, looking as Mark Twain so graphically describes "like a feather duster that has been struck by lightning." Colombo, the chief city of Ceylon, has a population of 175,000. It has an excellent harbor with a magnificent breakwater nearly a mile long. Beyond the harbor the deep red of Colombo's buildings and the vivid red of the gravelled roads make an harmonious note of color against the green background of verdure. Ceylon may justly claim to be one of the most beautiful and interest- jng islands in the world. It is noteworthy above every- thing for its beautiful flora. All the towns are tropical gardens where the buildings are hidden behind rare trees and plants. Ceylon, like nearly every other country in this east- ern world, is an English possession. It Is a crown col- 132 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD ony with a governor in charge. Not many English live on the island however. Like India, Ceylon's population offers a variety of races, color and costumes. One may find there beside the native Cingalese, Arabs, Tamils, Parsees, Kaffirs, Afghans and other races. The variety of costume worn by each race in accord- ance with caste or social position, from the simple loin cloth of the coolie to the gorgeous attire of the wealthy and high caste gentleman, the different complexions and modes of hair dressing, the avocations carried on in the open street are all entertaining to the visitor even though he has viewed native life in various parts of the Orient. The Cingalese man of burnt sienna complexion, wears his long hair twisted in a coil at the back of his head and, what strikes the stranger from the West as being peculiar and extraordinary, he wears on top of his head a horseshoe shaped tortoise shell comb. The waiters in our hotel all wore these combs and it is said that it is the great ambition of a man of humble posi- tion to possess and wear a .con.b of finer lustre than his neighbor. The Cingalese women do not wear combs, but instead thrust a silver or gold jewelled pin through the coil of black hair. I supposed I had seen in Malay, Burmah and India, China and Japan, every style of oriental dress, but Ceylon styles are different. The wom- en wear above the sayrong that confines the lower limbs, a white close fitting "basque" outlining the unstayed fig- ure. The feminine reader will remember the basque of twenty years ago with its peplum around the lower edge. The basque of the Cinga'ese women is cut low over the bust and the neck is outlined with the native hand- made lace. The peplum is edged with the same lace and the sleeves are short and of the "flowing" variety. The Cingalese, like the Indians, wear a lot of jewelry, particularly about the neck and ankles. Ceylon, a green oasis in an ocean desert, lies less 133 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD than six degrees from the equator, and consequently, is very hot and humid. The small boy's definition in his school essay, "The weather is a thing you talk about when you haven't anything else to say," does not fit this case, for one could fill columns or volumes about the many things of beauty and interest in the island. Still, the beauty and charm of it does not change climatic conditions and I found myself many times during my stay there, wishing as Sydney Smith did that "I might strip off my flesh and sit in my bones." Apropos of the weather, I heard a story of an Ameri- can visiting in Ceylon who complained bitterly of the heat. In the presence of an English woman, one day, he said, disgustedly, "Colombo is as hot as Hades." Quick as a flash the woman said to the group about her, "My, how these Americans travel!" On account of the intense heat the houses are con- structed with over-hanging eves to exclude the sun's rays. At our hotel each room had a balcony screened with bamboo and cooled with lazily waving punkahs. There were no screens in the windows but the beds were swathed in a heavy netting to exclude mosquitos. There are thousands of crows in Colombo and one may expect a visit from one of more of them at any time. They hop in at the open windows and pick up any bright ob- ject and fly off with it. One gentleman at our hotel had a scarf pin and a pair of scissors purloined by a pilfering crow. Another person complained that one of the black thieves came in and stole her early morning toast from the tray at her bedside. 134 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Industries The extensive output of precious stones for which Ceylon has been famous from earliest times gives em- ployment to many natives who cut and polish them. The island yields an abundance of sapphires, rubies, cats eyes, moonstones, amethysts and garnets. It is said they may be purchased for less than half what they cost in the United States. Basket weaving is an industry in Ceylon that is car- ried on chiefly by native girls. The baskets are made of the fronds of the Basket Tree palm. Thin fibres are stripped from the fern fronds and are dyed witti veg- etpble dyes brilliant orange, red and black. They are then woven by hand into various shaped baskets and are very attractive. Tea planting and growing is carried on extensively in Ceylon and there are many splendid tea estates in the foothills, owned by Europeans. It is interesting to see both the plant itself growing and the process by which it is prepared for market. If left to nature the tea plant will grow to the height of about twenty feet with a circumference in proportion, but the art of the planter keeps it down to about three feet, by constant pruning. The new shoots that are con- stantly forming produce the valuable leaves of commerce. The plucking is done chiefly by girls and women. They have a basket on the shoulders, holding about 14 pounds vhen full, suspended from the head by ropes. Into this they deposit the first three leaves of the new shoots. These tender young leaves are dried on trays where they partly ferment. They are then rolled in semi-hot condition by a huge rotary roller. After this they are again dried by artificial heat and finally are passed through a sieve containing holes of three sizes. The smallest leaf at the top of the shoot, the second and 135 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD third are thus sorted and separated. The small leaves form the finest and best tea. After a year or two of plucking the tea plant naturally loses the vitality requisite to send forth an abundance of new shoots. It is then pruned back to such an extent that it looks hopelessly ruined, but after a few weeks rest it bursts forth with renewed vigor and soon is ready lor renewed plucking. The tea pluckers earn fourpence a day, working from six in tne morning until four in the afternoon. A unique feature of the native quarter of Colombo iy the stall or small shop where betel is sold. Betel leaves take the place of tobacco for chewing purposes, in the Par East. A nut of the areca tree is rolled and twisted into a leaf of the betel tree and it is then sold to the native, men, women and children, vho chew assiduously from morning until night. The areca nut is sliced in tiny slivers, a bit of lime made from sea shell or coral is added, and the whole wrapped, tidily, in the succulent betel. Chewing this concoction is said to have a soothing effect. It certain- ly produces a feeling of disgust in the observer, for the betel colors the lips and mouth a vivid red and the teeth are soon hopelessly blackened. Kandy At last I have inhaled the "spicy breezes that waft o'er Ceylon Isle!" Poetic license permits a rhymster a wide range of expression, but really between you and me, don't you think he should be compelled to be exact in locating smells, etc? I do. Kipling threw me off the scent, as it were, several times, about India, and then Watts, or was it Isaac Watts, who wrote the hymn atout Ceylon? Anywav, the composer of the hymn was not definite enough. He should have stated explicitly, 136 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD if not in the poem, in a footnote, that the scented breezes began at Kandy. Oh, those spicy odors! I can close my eyes and in- hale them now and think of "sugar and spice and every- thing nice." Kandy is the seat of government of Ceylon and lies ou the mountain side about seventy-five miles from the sea. We left Colombo in the early morning for the four hours' ride up the mountain. Almost immediately my nostrils were pleasantly aware of an aromatic odor. In- vestigating it, we were told that the engines pulling the trains in Ceylon, burn the wood of cinnamon and spice trees and the fragrant smoke pervades the atmosphere. As we progressed and entered forests where grew the nutmeg and frangipani, the clove and cinnamon tre< the all-pervading scent of everything aromatic was al- most overpowering. I felt like apologizing to Mother Nature for being cross about Colombo. For two hours the train keeps on a level, passing tl rough dense jungles where wild elephants roam, past marsh and rice fields. Then we began to ascend, climbing by many zig-zags the precipitous side of the mountain. At every turn fresh and more beautiful views opened out before us. The variety of vegetation is extraordi- nary. Every tree seems to have a neighbor of a dif- ferent species, and all festooned with creepers and para- sites. In the cleared spaces, the tea estates, prim and clean as a New England kitchen, hugged the mountain side. Through a gap in the range we looked away to a far-away sea ot low broken hills with the misty plain beyond. As the train climbs further up the grade, the culti- vation increases in variety. There are rubber planta- t'ons, cocoanut groves and cinnamon reserves. Here and there the traveler is fascinated by a glimpse of prim- itive native villages peeping out beneath the shade of magnificent palms. Many mud huts nestle under the 137 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD branches of the giant rhododendron which grows to a height of sixty feet, and which sheds its leaves when the magnificent red blossoms appear. The starry white jasmine, the sacred flower of the Buddhists, is every- where in evidence, gleaming in chaste purity, in the most squalid environment. Kandy is incomparably beautiful. The town is situated in a basin fashioned by the surrounding hills. There is an artificial lake in the center of the town, \vhich is bordered with a wealth of tropical trees and flowers. High on the mountain side facing the lake is the pavilion of the last king of Kandy, and near it is the temple where the tooth of Buddha is kept. This Temple or' the Tooth makes Kandy a Mecca for the millions of Buddhists of the world. The devout believe that in the temple is enshrined one of the eyeteeth of the great teacher, rescued from his funeral pyre five hundred years before Christ was born in Bethlehem. It is said the tooth was brought to Kandy concealed in the hair of a princess. It is carefully preserved and jealously guard- ed and no one may see it, for it reposes on a lotus flower of pure gold hidden under seven bell-shaped shrines, each one tightly sealed. Once a year a procession of the tooth is held and at that time many thousand Buddhists make a pilgrimage to Kandy to make their adorations. Luckily, I managed to be there at the time the adored relic, or the receptacle in which it is kept, was exposed. The procession was enlivened by the prsence of sixty gaily caparisoned sacred elephants, on the back of one of v/hich was the tooth. Many priests with shaven heads and gowned in brilliant orange robes, walked in line, their devout followers holding jewelled umbrellas over them to protect the sacred heads from the sun's rays. In line also were the chiefs, descendants of the old Kandian kings. They are handsome men and in their beautiful court dress were imposing. They were attired 138 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD hi yards and yards of white silK embroidered in gold, wound about the hips and lower limbs, ending in neat little frills at the ankles. A jacket of brocaded silk of brightest hues was worn over a white shirt fastened with magnificent jewelled buttons. A jewelled belt and a gem-studded tri-cornered hat completed the costume. At intervals the parade would rest to allow the Nautch girls a chance to dance before the Duke and Duchess of Teck, who were interested observers of the festivities. The dance is a disgusting snake-like writhing ot the body, the contortions making one think of the antics of a cobra when it is swaying to the tune of the juggler's flute. The dancers were clothed mainly in beads and jew- elry. The super-abundance of jewelled bands on arms and ankles, head, breast and waist looked burdensome. The network of beads woven in intricate patterns, fol- lowed the lines of the lithe brown body, clothing it like the glistening skin of a serpent. Buddha not only cut his eyeteeth in Ceylon, he also left a footprint on Mt. Adam, a high mountain peak. Strange to say, this footprint is claimed by others than Buddhists. The Hindus claim that it is that of Siva, one of their gods, while the Mohammedans say that it is the print of Adam's foot. That when Adam was ex- pelled from the Garden of Eden, he was sent to the island of Ceylon because it possessed the nearest ap- proach to the beauties of the home from which he was exiled. There is at Kandy a sacred Bo tree said to have been planted 250 years before Christ. The reason it is held sacred is because the Buddhists believe that it is an off- shoot of the orignal tree under which Buddha sat and meditated six years in the wilderness. It is carefully guarded, the caretakers never hav- ing left it one moment since it was a seedling. 139 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Buddhism Buddha, the founder of the Buddhist religion, was opposed to caste, holding that all men are equal. The IPW or doctrine is reverence, self control, kindness to all men and a recognition of the sanctity of all life. Guatama Buddha was born 500 years before Christ. He married and at the birth of a son retired into a jun- gle, fearing lest the new tie should bind him too closely to things of earth. He was at that time 30 years of age. He remained six years in retirement, and through privations and meditation, lound enlightenment. Then ne came out and began preaching. Buddhism is a religion of singular simplicity. It teaches that all life is sad but that its sadness depends on the individual and not his surroundings. He must work out his own happiness unaided. He can attain Nirvana if he is persistent in his striving, and there he will find peace. It is a religion of faith and works. It recognizes neither rites nor ordinances, but holds that one's future depends upon one's self. * * * Tn a Word To sum it all up in a few words, Ceylon has a past, and, unlike many another past the reader may have heard of, it may be told to both old and young. The child will be glad to hear that the island was the scene of Sinbad's adventures; the Bible student will be interested to learn that Ceylon is the country mentioned in the trnth chapter of First Kings, where Solomon's ships went to get "gold and silver, ivory and apes and pea- cocks;" the antiquarian would love to roam Ceylon's hills because it is the cradle of antiquity and all who have a sweet tooth should join the Kandy Kids. They are all little brown chocolate drops. 140 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD HISTORIC WATERS Christmas at Sea It was a heavy heart I carried up the gangway of the steamer Bremen, at Colombo, on December 24. The day before Christmas and I, alone, ten thousand miles from home! The birthday of a King, on the morrow, and not one friend to rejoice with me over the anniver- sary of the supreme event in the world's history. I hurried to my cabin, fairly loathing the pink cheeked German officers who greeted me so cordially. I felt abused, lonely, heartsick. Like the old colored aunty "I jes nacherly wanted to triberlate." I locked my door and meant to give myself over to gloomy thoughts and, possibly, tears. The faces of dear ones spending Christmas together, somewhere across broad seas, blurred my vision, but through the mist of tears I be- came conscious of the Yuletide decorations in my room. Of the bits of green tucked away here and there, and the gay little red bell swaying in the port hole. It seemed to say "Peace on earth, good will to men," and it was borne in on me suddenly that His paths are in the sea as well as on land; that the Spirit of Christmas which is love and God is Love, knows not distance, but reaches all far and near. I opened my steamer letters marked for Christmas and found words so genuine so full of good cheer, that tbe loved voices so far away, all but sounded in my ears. I felt the warm hand-clasp that reached out to me over 141 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD vast distances and a tiny message from a little maid and a wee, small lad, who live near the sparkling blue Pa- cific, comforted me immeasurably. The simple faith which is in the heart of a child came to me and I felt as never before the presence of the Christchild. When I went to dinner that evening, a splendid Christmas tree met my vision. It occupied the center ci the dining saloon and reached quite to the ceiling. It was brave with tinsel and twinkling lights, with jingling ornaments and brilliant toys. Just as the 300 passengers were seated all the lights were extinguished except those on the tree, and then as we sat breathless in the semi-darkness, the orchestra concealed in the balcony over the room, played softly "Still as the Night." It was thrilling and the great room full of voyagers, representing many nationalities, gave il, the "perfect tribute" of absolute silence. Then the musicians sang a Christmas song in Ger- man and then I remembered that I was on a German boat and that jolly old Kris Kringle lives in the German empire and has his toy shop there; that our Christmas tvee and many Yuletide customs are learned from them, and that I could not shut out the message of Christmas if I tried never so hard, so long as there was a German about. Very appropriately the steward put all of the Ameri- cans we were seven at one table. To my joy I found that two of them were from Southern California. The orchestra paid us the compliment of playing a medley of American airs, "The Star Spangled Banner," "Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean," and "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." When the last was played we looked furtively at our English cousins to see if they would rise, and found they were looking just as furtively at us. They did not rise and an Englisn lady explained to me later that they supposed it was the "American version," since it was mixed in with American tunes. 142 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD There was much hilarity that night of a subdued Sun- day sort. The popping of Christmas crackers mingled with the singing of Christmas hymns. A Santa Claus with a huge pack on his back came in and distributed favors. The dinner served us had the true American flavor and included in the menu just what we would have had at home, loast turkey, cranberry sauce and plum pud- ding. With the dessert, tiny flags of all nations rep- resented that night, were given us and each person vaved, in unison, the flags of Germany, England, Amer- ica, France, Ireland and Holland. Prejudices were cast aside and the amiability and congeniality of the rep- resentatives of the different nations indicated that the peace conference at The Hague had not been in vain. We had our coffee in the smoking room, as is the cus- tom on German boats, and we sat there until far in the night, some silent, busied with reminiscences, others lo- quacious, but we all went back along the "road to yes- terday," and clasped hands with the spirit of our own youth, and before we said good morrow, we went out in the still, summer night and looked up at the stars the same kindly stars that shone above the manger where the Mother and Babe lay. * * * Indian Ocean It is an eleven-days' voyage trom Ceylon to Port Said, Egypt, and the voyager traverses the Indian Ocean, the Arabian Gulf, the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. The Indian Ocean is as much of an enigma as our American Indian. One is never quite sure of it or of him. On our voyage, the sea was a good Indian, calm, inscrutable, monotonously quiet. The big inert mass of coldly blue water never so much as rippled and the zephyrs that were wafted to us from African shores 143 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD were as soft as a caress. But the treacherous Indian Ocean, like the Indian man, is vindictive when it wants to be, and many ships go down in its furious gales. So on the whole we were glad to sail into Aden, Arabia, at the entrance to the Red Sea. Aden, a military post, is the most desolate, barren spot imaginable. The mass of rock upon which the nouses are built is of volcanic origin and there is not soil enough to grow even a tiny sprig of grass. Not a vestige of green is there to break the dead monotony of gray rock and yellow sand. It is said that rain has not fallen there in twenty years. It looked as if it would require twenty years of rain to give the place a thor- ough wetting and then the moisture could not sink in. Red Sea I thought the name of the Red Sea a misnomer, its waters are so darkly, deeply, beautifully blue, until I arose one morning to see the dawn, and then I under- stood. The whole surface of the sea was as red as though the blood of Pharaoh's host had colored it. The heavens, too, were a blaze of fire, great crimson rays heralding the approach of the sun god. When the brilliant, fiery disk emerged, suddenly, from the sea, the surface of the water changed gradually from red to amethyst shades and then to sapphire, with golden lights in the white- capped waves. The crimson of the sky gave way to tur- quoise, flecked with fleecy, white clouds, and the sterile shore, unrelieved by the green of vegetation, was gold- enly yellow. I began to realize the true meaning of the expression, "Oriental coloring. We are sailing into the country from which our pro- genitors sprang where our respected first father and mother dallied in the Garden of Eden. I, probably, shall 144 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD behold, spouting in the distance, a lineal descendant of the whale that swallowed Jonah, and see the offshoots of the bulrushes that concealed the cradle of the great- est lawgiver the world has ever known. Yesterday we passed the "Seven Apostles" rocks and today saw dimly tbe outlines of Mt. Sinai, where the tables of the law were written and where "the sight of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire in the eyes of the chil- dren of Israel." Suez Canal "A blue-green ribbon of water dropped in the desert between a marsh and a plain, stretching off for miles from the narrow sand dune's border," does not ade- quately describe the fascinating beauty of the Suez canal. Its beauty lies in its coloring. The narrow strip of water connecting two seas is of varying shades of green and blue, bordered by the warm yellow sands of the desert. In the dim, granite hills, there are amethyst shades from the dark tints in the shadows, to faint- est lavender, near the summit. The houses at the sta- tions which mark every mile, are uniformly yellow with dull red roofs, and there are odd pink-violet shades shimmering under the infrequent palms. Flocks of pink flamingoes and geese with brilliant-hued plumage fly over the marshes, while gray gulls with wings tipped with crimson circle about the boat. The sky is In- tensely blue and air and water are full of shifting color. Along the sandy banks caravans of camels with their Arab drivers pass slowly. These caravans bringing figs and raisins to market are very characteristic. An Arab boy rides on a donkey at the head of the procession and the camels follow in single file, bound together by a rope. A bell Is hung about the neck of the last camel 145 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD in the caravan so the Arab can always tell whether or not his team is complete. Green oases with minarets and stately buildings pass in mirage before us as the steamer slowly passes along. The scene is one of such fascinating interest that the lover of the beautiful in nature sits on deck all day and far into the night. There is an enormous traffic on the canal and it is too narrow tor steamers to pass each other both in motion, so one steamer must tie up to the bank while the other passes. The passing of a steamer is the sig- nal for the passengers on both boats to frantically wave and shout while the bands try to outplay each other. At night the big searchlignts on the steamers play on the banks, illuminating them a half-mile ahead, and then the passenger sees slinking jackals and foxes pass- ing along the radius of light. The star-lit sky, which is unusually clear in the dry desert air, is no less fas- cinating than the earth. But, strange as it may seem, there are a lot of peo- ple who ao not enjoy the weirdly beautiful. If there's a note of gray in the brilliancy of a scene, the chromo lever is bored. To some people pastels are weak just fancy! A young girl sitting near me as the boat passed a fascinating bit of golden desert sand dunes said, "Well, this is too monotonous for anything. I wish we could see some scenery." Youth is truly" beautiful, but thank a beneficient providence, there are compensations in ma- turity and in o!d age and so long as life shall last. I find as we grow older that the same age glaze which intensifies the atmosphere of a picture, mellows all the rawness the crudities of life and we see things with an indefinable charm impossible to the sharp eyes of youth. 146 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Militant Attitude It is but a short time ago, when it seemed to a good many intelligent people that nations had at last made up their minds to "beat their sv/ords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning hooks." All international litigation was to be so'ved harmoniously at the peace conference at The Hague and the Palace of Peace was to supplement the Temple of Janus. That, alas, has proved a vain dream, for this year of our grace, 1911, has witnessed the sweeping aside of conciliatory settle- ment. China is still in the throes of revolution and the Mo- rocco affair and the Italy-Turko war have proven serious things. As we sailed through the Red Sea we had to go at a snail's pace at night, because, forsooth, on the Turkish side of the sea, the lights in the light- houses were all extinguished because they did not want to help an Italian boat to find its way about. Now we cannot visit Algiers and Tunis because it is not safe, and if we choose to call at Constantinople we may meet many obstacles. 1 quite agree with Gen- eral Sherman in nis definition of war. 147 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD EGYPT Indefinable Charm No single word awakens in the traveler so intense an interest as Egypt. It stirs the most sluggish im- agination and conjures up before the mind's eye, visions of yellow desert sands, waving feathery palms, purple shimmering atmosphere, gigantic piles of stones which have resisted the ravages of time, the majestic Nile upon whose bosom float white sailed dahabeahs, the mys- terious sphinx, graceful mosques, imposing pyramids and obelisks, fantastic tombs in which repose mummies, covered with gold and jewels. Other places have their charm, but where may we find such a varied array of interesting things? Egypt has a charm which one cannot analyze, simply accepts. It may be its mystery its elusiveness, that stimulates the interest; it may be the vision of narrow streets with the close-barred windows of mysterious harems; it may be the atmosphere impregnated with the history of a great and powerful people; whatever it is, a trip through the Nile country is something to re- member throughout the life of the traveler fortunate enough to make it. Herodotus said of the land of the Pharaohs : "It con- tains more wonders than any other land, and is pre-emi- nent above all countries in the world for works that one hardly can describe." 148 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Cairo Cairo is the meeting place for the fashionables of the world and Shepheard's hotel is the rendezvous for the idle rich. One could fancy one's self in a splendid American or European hostelry, so" modern is this hotel, if it were not for the oriental attire of the servitors. But outside, in the streets of the Egyptian capital, one rubs shoulders with Bedouins from the desert, swarthy Su- danese from the south, Arabs brilliantly dishevelled, with pistols and dirks in belt, mysteriously veiled women, half naked beggars whining for backsheesh in monotonous intonation, and the thousand and one strange features of an Oriental city. Cairo may well be called the City of Alladin, and one feels in viewing it that he is turning the pages of the Arabian Nights. The bazaars of Cairo hold a fascination for the tourist of every country. The streets are so narrow in places that no vehicle can traverse them, so the shopper must descend from his carriage at the entrance to the native quarter and thread his way through the devious paths accompanied by the inevitable dragoman. A tourist must always be accompanied by a dragoman in Egypt, even it" only going shopping. The boy acts as interpreter, keeps beggars away and in many ways makes himself useful. The tiny stalls in the native business quarter are 1 right with oriental coloring and the tradesmen and na- t've purchasers are resplendent in gaudy turbans and flashing jewels. There are the booths of the shoemakers, where the pretty red Turkish slippers may be purchased in endless variety; carpet bazaars where the rich products of Indian and Persian looms are displayed; antique stalls where genuine antiques made in Birmingham are greed- ily sought by the guileless tourist; there are ostrich 149 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD leathers and ivory from the Soudan, and workshops of tbe gold and silversmiths and the worker in brass. The flashing jewels, glass and otherwise the "genu- ine" scarab ingeniously manufactured, the really beau- tiful gold-threaded shawls and embroidered silks, the camel's-hair cloths, soft and silken, all form an effect bewildering in its magnificent coloring and uniqueness and reminding one of the fabulous glories of the "Thous- and and One Nights." Pyramids and Sphinx Of course the average trave.er's first thought in visit- ing this many-sided city of the desert is of the sphinx and pyramids. They are about eight miles from Cairo, and are easily reached by tram, carriage or automobile. There is no more delightful road in the world than the splendid avenue that leads trom Cairo to the pyramids at the entrance of the desert. Along its entire length are superb and lofty trees. We reached Cairo in the early" evening and as the moon was then at its full we determined to have our first view of the mysterious sphinx and the gigantic pyramids by moonlight. It is by moonlight that a visit to the desert is so charming, so we hurriedly secured a motor car and scurried out to the scene of the early labors of the Pharaohs. Long before we reached the spot the gigantic outlines of the Cheops met our view on the left. The pyramids stand just in the entrance to that vast silent sea of sand the desert, and the still- ness, the solitude and the immensity inspires a feeling of awe The full moon rose as softly as the bright-hued poppy opens its leaves at the sun's touch, and under its pale, raellow light the face of the sphinx wore a mystic look, 150 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD as if the colossal creature were looking forward past the vista of time into eternity. There is a dignity, a nobility, about the pyramids and sphinx that one cannot analyze. The sense of keen appreciation is within one, but analysis seems impossib'e. The severe, simple, almost forbidding lines of the sphinx brings a feeling of reverence and the brooding silence which clothes it round about makes one feel lonely even when in a crowd. Standing before that huge stone figure, gazing into the sightless eyes which seemed to be seeing past me, at the voiceless lips that hold the secrets of long gone centuries, awed in the presence of that inanimate crea- ture which perpetuates a mysterious past, I found my- self thinking humorously of W. J. Lampton's reply to a suffragette's definition of the sphinx. She said, "The si hinx is a stone suffragette representing the perfection of womanhood." Lampton replied thusly: The Perfection of Womanhood Upon the silent sands She stands And for some thousand years has stood, The sign of perfect womanhood. A suffragette? Not yet, For thus far she has never tried To swat man's pride; Nor by her frenzied deeds Upset his creeds; Nor ever cast a vote, Nor put on pants, Nor had the whiskers grow On that severe expanse Of face she shows 151 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD To every man who goes Her way. And say, In all the years and years and years Of history of hopes and fears Oh ladies, how in silence all, The sphinx has never talked at all, The sphinx has never talked at all, The sphinx has never talked at all, THE SPHINX HAS NEVER TALKED AT ALL! Aye, there she stands Upon the silent sands, And for some thousand years has stood, The sign of perfect womanhood. Wow! ! ! Travel Trouble The traveler must pay fare for his trunks on trains in Egypt, only hand luggage being carried free. It cost me a pound to go from Port Said to Cairo by rail, and I parted with the greater part of another pound to have my wretched little steamer trunk, filled with travel- stained garments, conveyed to the same city. Apropos of travel-stained garments, the returned trav- eler who writes newspaper letters advising people what not to take on a long foreign tour, should be suppressed. A short time before I left home I read an article in a Los Angeles paper which said all a woman traveler would need in the way of dresses for a trip around the world was a couple of tailored suits, one best and one second best, and one evening frock, not very elaborate. That was all she would need for a tour which included every variety of climate from the frigid to the torrid zone. I have found that one must run the gamut from fur-lined garments and sleeping bags with hot water 152 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD bottle attachments, to the sheerest gauze, with ice packs on the side. And not only variety, but quantity must be considered. Tropical countries are worse extermina- ters of clothes than moths that corrrupt and thieves that break in and steal. Dresses simply fall to pieces, and laundered articles do not survive many beatings on the rocks, which is the approved method of washing in the East. In every city we have visited, evening clothes is the rule for dinner for both men and women. Indeed, at Cairo, at the ho- tels, guests are informed through the medium of a pip card posted in their rooms, that to appear in the dining room at dinner one must wear full dress. If the guest chooses to dine in his street togs, there is a pri- vate dining room for him. So they, literally, separate the sheep from the goats, or the birds of fine plumage from the barnyard fowl or little brown wren. Now how long would one evening dress last donned every evening for eight months, my sisters? About four weeks. So my advice to the intending traveler is, take a large trunk or two, and every garment you pos- sess, and be prepared to cast old ones aside and purchase new ones very often. It is the inability to make himself understood which causes the most trouble to the wanderer in strange lands. Woe unto the person who sallies forth hugging the popular delusion that English is spoken everywhere, or that the miserable book of "foreign phrases in com- mon use" will take him across the great gulf of unintel- ligible jargon that flows all about him. The first time that he learns there are really people too stupid to converse in the real language, he dives into the foreign l.hiase book, and what does he find? Only such asinine questions as "How's your mother-in-law?" "Do you wear flannels?" "Have you a mustard plaster?" and all such tommy-rot, when what he really wants to ask is 153 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD the time a train is to start or the price of an article, or about the location of his baggage. I have learned two Arabic words. One is "bachsheesh," v/hich means money or gift, and it is hurled at me hun- dreds of times a day by beggars; and the other is "imshi," which is my answer. It means, go away. The Arab is a born diplomat. He may rob you right and left and deceive you shamelessly, but he will al- ways be soft-voiced, he will always be pleasant and agree- able. He will natter and cajole and his pleading brown eyes win you even when you know you are being hood- winked. He will say when greeting you, "God give you a good day," or "Allah grant you joy." Our dragoman's name is Mustapho, and it should be Mephistopheles. He is a finished scoundrel and yet we are warmly attached to him. His very nerve is fas- cinating. He wheedles piasters from us without the slightest pretext, and if we dare refuse, a disdainful shrug of his handsome shoulders brings forth the cov- eted coin. The Bedouins are the handsomest men I have ever seen. They are very tall, straight and lithe, with broad shoulders and a proud, dignified carriage. Their eyes are the softest brown and fringed with thick, heavy lashes. The skin is olive and the cheeks are rosy. They have long, slender, aristocratic hands, and they use them to advantage in gesturing. The long dark blue or black burnous that drapes them from head to foot and the white turban adds to their picturesqueness. As to the beauty of Egyptian women I cannot vouch, for I have not seen the face of any save the coolie women of the lowest class. All the others wear veils. The fellah women, peasant types, wear black robes and a black scarf over the head. Across the face a black veil is hung, revealing only the eyes. The Mohammedan women of the upper class wear a 154 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD thin white gauze veil across the lower part of the face. They also dress in all black. II the Arab is gentle and sweet-natured to Europeans and Americans, he is not always so to his own race. The dragomen and donkey boys have frequent quarrels and it's laughable to hear their imprecations. One day our Mustapho had a misunderstanding with another dragoman. "May all your relatives have the hair of a dog," said Mustapho. "May your mother-in-law have the lace of a cat," replied his adversary. Their little ex- change of pleasantries continued until the time for our departure. Several times a day and night the cry of the Muezzin from some mosque tower calls the faithful Mohammedan to prayer. At dawn, at noon, at setting of the sun, and wedged in between four or five times a day millions or' men turn their faces toward Mecca and make con- fession of their faith. When the call to prayer sounds the Mohammedan prostrates himself regardless of where he is or who may see him. They seem oblivious to the gaze of passers-by. As Robert Hichens says, "The rich man spreads his rug and prays. The poor man spreads nothing at all, but he prays too." One day at sunset I saw a Mohammedan kneeling on his rug in the open field. The glory of the departing day clothed him in a flood of color wonderful to see. His upturned face was illumined spiritualized. It was exactly like Jules Guerin's "Prayer in the Desert"- that wonderful Egyptian poem on canvas. The Sacred Carpet Either we have been fortunate in arriving at various places on the eve of some notable event or fiesta, or tbe events are arranged when tourists are expected 155 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD and they are told they occur just once in so often. The wily Oriental is capable of deception, I am convinced, but whether or not tne cermony of the "Sacred Carpet" was coincident with our coming, by design or by acci- dent, I do not know. Suffice it to say a huge sign displayed in the office of Shepherd's informed the traveler that the sacred carpet ceremony would be held on the following day. So we tumbled all over each other, securing carriages and dragomen for the event. It seems that the carpet ceremony is one of the few religious celebrations of Egypt that still retains its full significance and importance. Every year hundreds of thousands of men, women and children journey from the ends of the earth to the holy city of Mecca. Cairo's special tribute is the holy carpet, a new one being sent each year to cover the tomb of Mohammed, the prophet. A public holiday marks the starting of the carpet on its way, and a similar celebration is held upon the re- turn of the pilgrims. The events are the most important festivals of the Mohammedan year and never fail to at- tract large crowds of visitors. The khedive always honors the occasion with his presence, and the ceremony ir, one of the most picturesque to be seen in Egypt. The ceremony takes place in front of the great stone citadel in a square or plaza reserved for militia ma- neuvers. The procession of the carpet was to start at 9:30 o'clock, and long before that hour we were in the enclosure reserved for foreigners. The great square was lined with native troops, while carriages containing veiled ladies of the harems and notables and officials, filled every vacant space. The frowning walls of the citadel were lined with native devotees and as far as the eye could reach were crowds of eager onlookers. A salute of guns from the citadel announced the start- ing of the pageant and in a short time a detachment of 156 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD lancers heralded the approach of the khedive. Another salute proclaimed the entry of the carpet. The sacred carpet is carried on a camel under a mahmal, or tent of embroidered silk. Mounted on the camel's back and preceded and surrounded by police, the massive palanquin, glittering with its bullion em- broidery, was borne to the center of the square, from whence it circled, seven times around, with all due sol- emnity, to the accompaniment of a curiously insistent, blatant melody, contributed by the massed bands of the native soldiery. Eventually it made its way to the pavilion, where sat the khedive, who greeted it and re- viewed the troops who were to be responsible for its safety during the pilgrimage. The ceremony lasted only a few moments, but was full of interest, while its setting beneath the walls of the citadel and amid so vast a concourse of semi-oriental people gave it a peculiarly impressive character all the more enhanced by the glorious sunshine of a typical Egyptian morning. It would be difficult to realize a more picturesque sight than the passing of this procession, with its glitterng mahmal swaying to the steps of the camel bearer, with its attendant pilgrims piping their plaintive music and the followng of Egyptian soldiery, bcth cavalry and infantry, as it slowly wound its way along the road, deeply lined with eager spectators, be- neath those dark, high walls of the citadel, from the top of which the minarets of the great mosque soared heav- enward to the glorious arch of blue. The devout pilgrims who accompany the carpet come from India, China, Persia, Afghanistan, Egypt and Moroc- co from remote corners of Asia and Africa. They en- dure toil and privation, risk life and property, that they may perform the service to God which to them the pilgrimage means. 157 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD EGYPT CONTINUED Up the Nile To see the old, the really Oriental part of Egypt, one must leave Cairo and its mixture of modern and an- cient things and penetrate into the fastnesses of the desert along the valley of the Nile. Cairo and the pyramids and the wonderful sphinx are only the threshold of the mystic land that is the cradle of civilization. It is at Karnak, Thebes, Abydos, Philae, that one gets into the atmosphere of antiquity that one marvels in round-eyed wonder at the evi- dences of a work so stupendous as to be almost incom- prehensible. In a trip up the Nile by steamer or "dahabeah," which is a native sailboat, native lire and manners may be observed at close range. The boat calls at many vil- lages where the houses are sprawling structures of Nile mud, roofless save for a bit of thatch over one corner. The intervillage life of the banks is revealed in a series of old-world tableaux; the quaint native huts that seem to have retained today the form of the days of Pharaoh; the bronze figure of the half-naked "fellahin" drawing v,ater for irrigation with the "shadoof," as he has since the time of Rameses I. The shadoof is a weighted pole resting on a crossbar similar to the water-lifting appli- ance known in the states in early days as the well sweep, immortalized in verse along with the old oaken bucket. The fellahin, sometimes two or 158 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD three men, pull the bucket on the end of the pole down ii:to the Nile, fill it and the weight on the other end raises it to a basin, where it is emptied by one of the men. Above are other men drawing the water up to higher basins, and on, until it is at the top of the bpnk, where it is turned into the irrigation ditches. The "fellah" woman, in black flowing robes and closely veiled face, revealing only the eyes, is a pic- turesque figure on the bank, balancing the earthen water jug on her head. The sailboats with their queer double sails on long, tapering masts, glide along, bending grace- fully to the wind. From the moment the boat leaves the dock at Cairo, places and things of historic interest are pointed out to the interested voyager. On the left rise the huge pyra- mids, and nearby is the island of Rhoda, where tradition says, Moses was found in the bulrushes. The boat hugs the bank closely, and we pass under the spreading branches of the Virgin's tree, under which the Virgin Mary was supposed to have rested during the flight into Egypt. We passed the ruins of the old city of Memphis, vhere is the colossal statue of Rameses the Second, and the tombs of sultans, sheiks and sacred animals. Every community in Egypt once worshipped some god that manifested itself in the form of some animal a bull, a wolf, a cat, a crocodile, etc. These deified animals could not be killed, but when one died, its body was laid, with much ceremony, in the stone tombs. We passed great fields of doura, the Indian corn of Egypt, the kind that Joseph went down to buy for his brethren; we passed date groves where the huge, tawny clusters of fruit g^am goldenly in the feathery green branches. Mosques and ancient temples spring into view and beyond the narrow strip of irrigable land the desert sands gleam in the sun's rays. 159 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Luxor Of all the resorts of Upper Egypt, along the Nile, Luxor, with its sunshine and its temples, is, perhaps, the most popular with the traveler. It is 450 miles from Cairo, and is built on the site of the ancient city of Thebes the city of which Homer sang. Thebes, once the center of learning and religious thought, is today a splendid ruin, a small village peopled with natives who probably do not know as much of its splendid history as we do and who care for nothing save the piastres they can cajole from the gullible tourist. At this point rises on one side of the Nile, the village of Luxor, with its magnificent ruins of temples, and on the other the tombs of the kings and queens, the ancient Pharaohs. The tombs are buried deep in the brown cliffs which rise sheer against the intensely blue sky. These cliffs so symmetrical, so commanding, recall to the American visitor, memories of the Palisades of the Hudson. . The temple of Luxor is right on the bank of the Nile. In the center of the ruins is a magnificent obelisk the twin of which has been in the Place de la Concorde in Paris since 1836. In the ruins are also found a colossal statue of Rameses the Second. This is the Pharaoh who treated the children of Israel so shamefully. The oM duffer seems to have been reverenced by the Egyptians, for we found statues of him in many places. * * * Karnak About two miles out of Luxor, in the village of Kar- nak, is the ruins of the great temple of Karnak, the greatest temple in all Egypt. Karnak was for many centuries the sacred place to which the Pharaohs and their people offered treasure to the gods. 160 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Many columns of this once splendid temple are still standing, carved with hieroglyphic inscriptions from v> hich the Egyptologist reads the history of ancient times. The size of the ruins is stupendous overwhelming. The bulk and immensity of it are so bewildering that one, at first sight, regards only the titanic proportions, and not the architectural beauty. It contains 13-1 columns, each as large as the Ven- dome column in Paris. The ancient Egyptians knew not how to make arches, so they had to choke up their temples with pillars, placed no further apart than would admit of one stone spanning across from one pillar to another, in forming the roof. The great temple almost stupefies the visitor by its enormous size. Six men would be required to span the colossal pillars, and the forest of columns stand so thick that irom no one spot is it possible to see the whole area of the stupendous enclosure. The Egyptians built by brute force. Having no cianes or lifting devices, or scaffolding, they heaped up the earth around the building as it rose, and thus car- ried the material to its place. Then, when all was com- plete, they patiently dug and carried away the embank- ment thus made. Egyptian Sunset We saw the sunset one evening from the great Pylon ot the Karnak temple. From the summit of this huge gate\vay we looked down the narrow streets of the vil- lage of Karnak, with its tumbled-down buildings, at the headless colossi and ruined arches in the great audience chamber of the temple, and we dreamt of the era that they represent. The romance of the past crept out from the fantastically curved pillars that lay dipped in the purple shadows of the sun's declining rays. We lived 161 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD for a brief time in the triumphant reign of the glorious Egyptian kings. The sunset probably wove the spell of enchantment over the little group that watched so bieathlessly. The African sunset has a way of its own, and one does not wonder that Hichens felt the "Spell of Egypt" that he so graphically describes in his book. As we watched, waiting waiting, the sun, orange-red, dropped silently down behind the furthermost undulating hHock of sand, and the yellow gold of the desert turned to dull gray as gray as the schoolboy's slate when he rubs out arithmetical problems with the sleeve of his blouse. The crests of the sandspurs illumined by the last rays of the sungod were as foam topped waves of the sea and the hollows, where the shadows fell, were richly purple. The afterglow began, a brilliant purple, which soon melted into tenderest blue; then to faintest green, and then by 'infinite gradations, to amber and gold. Slowly the color faded and the sky darkened to black, as if before a summer thunderstorm. The silver crescent of the young moon showed faintly in the east, like the crescent on the Turkish flag. Later, when the sky grew opaquely gray, the stars came out one by one, until the whole map of the heavens was studded with sparkling jewels. The Nile in the distance looked like a metallic ribbon wound about the bronze hair of a colossal goddess and the wind sighed gently as it swept in from the voice- less sea of desert sand. Tombs of Kings Across the Nile from Luxor are the tombs of the kings, many ruined temples, and two gigantic statues, the co'.ossl of Memnon. 162 BROWSING 'ROUND THE Y/ORLD The tombs are vast chambers hewn out of solid rock many hundred feet below the earth's .surface. The v/alls of the tombs are covered with pictures and texts carved into the stone and still retaining, after long gone centuries, traces of the brilliant colors used in the decorations. To me there is something infinitely sad about the tombs of the kings. The Egyptians had given so much of time and labor and money to the digging of a grave fit for a king and far removed from a vandal's hand, and now, many centuries later, a splendid civilization (?) has penetrated the poor secrets of these long gone people and exhibits tha work of their hands and the mummyfled remains of their dead at so much a look. It is the gross- est sacrilege to hang an electric light bulb over the sight- less eyes of a king whose greatest desire was utter and complete isolation from the world. Yet the gaping world hurries along, avidly gazing at the poor, shrunken figures in the stone sarcophagi that were not sealed strongly enough to exc'ude the vandal's hand. The island of Philae is quite near Assouan, at the first cataract of the Nile. The temp'e of Philae is small, but is counted the most graceful and charming of any in Egypt. Confusing Things While I am leaving Egypt with genuine regret, it wi 1 ! be a relief to get away from a country that has a different system of weights and measures from ours; v/hose clocks register the time fiorn one to twenty-four instead of one to twelve; whose time tables say a train leaves at twenty-three o'clock at night, when our watch- es say e'even; and whose calendar months, instead of being January, February, etc., are Ramadan, Sefer, etc. I bought some veiling in Cairo. I said to the clerk, 163 "How much?" She said, "twenty piastres a metre." I almost collapsed, but managed to say that I would take a metre. It proved to be just right, a little more than a yard. I ordered some cakes and candy over the 'phone. The salesman said the cakes were so much a kilo. I didn't know a kilo from a Scotch collie, but I ordered five of th^m. I got enough cakes to scatter over the Nile from Cairo to the second cataract, and the deckhands on tbe steamer almost foundered from an excess of sweets. There is an Arab proverb which says "He who has once tasted Nile water will return to drink it again." 1 believe that if he does not return he, at least, will want to, for as I draw away from the palm-fringed shores, with the elusive desert beckoning in the distance, I feel a tugging at my heart that no other country save my very own has ever produced. And so among the pearls of happiness that are threaded on my rosary of life, the weeks spent in sunny, langourous Egypt, gleam with a radiance which will be soft and clear when other memories may have lost their brilliance. 164 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD FROM AFRICA TO EUROPE Disillusion The voyage across the Mediterranean from Africa to Europe was not at all what I expected. Song and story had taught me to think of that vast body of water as, ever and always, a sparkling summer sea, its broad, blue bosom reflecting the golden sunlight, its tranquil waves bearing along, as gently as thistledown is borne by a zephyr, the palatial yachts and splendid steam- ships that navigate its devious paths. It seemed to me that a sea so fringed about with the romance, the history art, music and literature of a world, could be nothing but calmly dignified, sweetly placid, artistically blue, but "Year by year and day by day Romance's sunlight dies away. And long before the hair is gray The heart is disenchanted." I greatly erred, for the Mediterranean was a can- tankerous, bumptious old cross-patch from the time we left Port Said until we put in at Naples. Talk of blue sky and blue sea! The perspective about us was one settled, dismal smudge of unpleasant neutral tint a nasty, coldly repellant gray. Of course the boat cut up all sorts of didoes, what could you expect of mere wood and iron, when a divinely created thing set such a bad example? 165 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD We all sought the seclusion that the cabins grant and stayed until the worst force of the storm was spent. When we crept, greenly, out on deck, the Blonde Capi- talist from Los Angeles had lost his jaunty, debonair manner. He looked as if he did not care whether a gusher ever gushed or not. His wife, the erstwhile dig- nified club president and parliamentarian, was wan and dejected. She couldn't have put a motion to save her life, but she probably wanted to rise to a question of privilege and ask the captain to overrule the motion of the boat. When we went down to lunch there were rails on the table to keep the dishes from sliding off. Said the Widow to the Blonde Capitalist: "How long is it since you ate from a trough?" Wasn't that piggish of her? The first course was served. The captain said: "I hope that all of you twenty-five will have a pleasant trip and that this little assemblage of twenty-four will reach port much benefited by the voyage. I look upon the twenty-two smiling faces much as a lather does upon his family, for I am responsible for this group of seventeen. I hope that all thirteen of you will join me in drinking to a merry trip. I "believe we seven fellow passengers are most congenial, and .1 applaud the judgment which chose from the passenger list these three persons re- maining at my table. You and 1, my dear sir, are" but everybody had melted away, and the captain was left alone. Italy But as all things unpleasant must end, so did this tumultuous voyage, and on the last day we found a haven in the straits between the Sicilian and Italian shores. Poor, stricken Messina lay on one side, proudly arrogant in her defiant growth, on the very site of the 166 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD ruined city. On the Italian shore Reggio nestled against the mountain side, picturesquely beautiful. We steamed ir.to the bay of Naples under a brilliant sky, and found the celebrated sheet of water as blue as it is painted and infinitely more beautiful. The blue is such a warm, deep cerulean, flecked with lights and shadows and shading off, where it kisses the sand, into opal tints and mother of pearl. No country in Europe has been more highly favored by nature than Italy and the southern part of the penin- sula is like Southern California I find the same lux- uriance of vegetation, the identical fruits and flowers and nuts, the same richness of color and the same bril- liant sunshine. The one thing Italy has which we have not is its history, its wealth of tradition, its wonderful remains of a past power. The greatest drama in an- cient history was played on the classical soil of Italy. The greatest tragedies were enacted within its borders. As George William Curtis once said to the poet Long- fellow, when they were discussing the relative interest or the old world and the new "It is not what you see, but what you feel behind what you see" that makes this country so interesting. We Americans are just mushrooms in a grove of palms and cedars, but we are mighty good eating these days. The chief asset of Italy is the opulent tourist, and he is here in large numbers, and largely American. English and Germans come to- Italy for the winter, to escape the rigors of their climate. Americans come to see and compare notes, and some of them rush through like mad. A great deal of fun is made of the average American traveler, and it is often deserved. In the Holy Land a party of Americans landed at Jaffa, rushed off, pell mell, to Jerusalem, and the same afternoon boarded their boat, declaring enthusiastically that they had "seen everything." I met a gentleman 167 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD and his wife in the Catacombs at Rome. They had left New York just fourteen days before I met them and were sailing the next week for home. They had "done" Europe. I met a man, American, I am sorry to say, in the Vatican. He was armed with a Baedeker and his eye gleamed in triumph. He raced through those splen- did rooms glancing hastily at masterpieces of painting and sculpture. I am positive he did not spend fifteen minutes in any room. The world is made up of all kinds of people, and Mr. and Mrs. Newly Rich must travel as well as the poor people who would give up the last crust to indulge their fancy, when the wander- lust seizes them. Probably Mrs. Newly Rich, when she returns home, will be asked: "What did you enjoy most on your motor trip through Egypt?" And she will reply: "Well, one of my most delightful experiences was hearing the French pheasants sing the Mayonnaise." Neapolitans Naples is called the playground of Italy. Her people are a mirth-loving, irresponsible set, the men and women childlike in their conduct, the children happy, dancing cherubs. When our launch from the steamship attempted to land us at the Naples pier we were surrounded by groups of laughing singers with guitars and mandolins. With lustrous madonna eyes and rosy, pouting lips the beautiful, girlish creatures begged "Ah, Signora, maca- roni," and many willing coppers filled the outstretched palms. There is a charm, a fascination about a people who are habitually so cheerful. The beggar in the street smiles at you, does not whine as they do in India. The flower seller thrusts great clusters of Parma violets, or creamy camelias, into the carriage window, and 168 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD whether you buy or not, she shows her white teeth In an irresistible smile. It is true Naples is not notable as a commercial center. Her hotels, her coral sellers, her shops, depend upon the tourist, but the people's wants are few and the climate induces to a life of somnolence and ease. They love the natural beauties about them, the sunshine, the flowers, the brightness and they live the simple life. That, perhaps, is the secret of their appearance of happiness. * * * Vesuvius and Pompeii Of course, every visitor to Naples visits Vesuvius and Pompeii. I found Vesuvius a tiny, pocket hand- kerchief edition of the stupendous volcano Kilauea, on the island of Hawaii. I rode up to the summit on the "funicular" road which has an incline of 55 per cent, and I was scared almost into fits. Will you please tell me why idiots will persist in doing things that frighten them just for the sake of sightseeing? Never again for me. Vesuvius, on that balmy January morning, looked like a huge contented cat, crouched in sleep. A thin gray vapor arose from the summit as if the cat were breathing frosty air. There was an entire absence of anything menacing, except in that wretched funicular toad, nothing that would indicate the fact that the Nea- politans expect upheavals at any time. I talked to an eld Italian who works about the station on the summit. I said, "Are you not afraid?" He replied with a fatalistic shrug, "No, no, what the good God sends, I am ready for." Pompeii, the city which disappeared nineteen cen- turies ago, is the most wonderful of Italy's antiquities. The visitor blessed with a vivid imagination appreciates Pompeii to the fullest extent, for the ruins really give one the impression of the actual presence of a Roman 169 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD city. Here are the walls of the palaces and theatres, her forums, her temples, her thermes. The confines of the old city are four miles square and only one half of that area is excavated. The work of excavation goes on daily, and we were shown skeletons that were uncovered only a few days previous to our visit, and which were yet unplaced. But enough of ruins. You can read about Pompeii in any history of Italy or in any European guidebook. Nature is so much more interesting than temples, ruins and grand cathedrals than any work of man's hands. I'd rather study nature, be it a child, a puppy, or a "modest primrose by the river's brim" than browse through musty museums. Naples' Environs There are a number of beautiful islands within two or three hours' sailing from Naples. Notable among them is Capri, with her famous blue grotto. At Capri we visited the ruins of the villa of Tiberius Caesar, the cruel emperor who lived in the Christ's time. His villa occupied a commanding position on the cliffs, 1000 feet above the sea, into whose angry waters he used to throw his prisoners from the dreadful cliffs above. Capri is a brilliant jewel in the great diadem which surrounds Naples. Nowhere have I seen such an entrancing view of blue sea and azure sky as from the heights above the city. On our return from Tiberius' villa we stopped at a little rest house for refreshments and were en- tertained by a group of dancers in national costume. They danced the Tarantelle with all the fiery tempera- ment, grace and charm that belong to these irresponsible children of southern Italy. From Capri we sailed to Sorrento, a most attractive little town on the Italian peninsula, famed as the resi- 170 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD dence of Marion Crawford, the novelist. We visited the late Mr. Crawford's villa, on an eminence overlooking the sea. From his study we looked over the broad ex- panse of rippling water, at the purple outline of the Appenine mountains in the distance, at the little town nestling amid orange and lemon groves, at the vineyards dotting the hillside and we ceased to wonder at the novel- ist's feverish desire to begin writing another, so soon as cne novel was finished. In such an environment, with such an imagination, is it remarkable that Mr. Crawford was so prolific in romantic fiction? The grounds about the villa are beautiful a typical Italian garden with its old-fashioned sun dial, its statues gleaming in leafy nooks, its wealth of flowers and noble trees, its charm- ing "tea retreats" with marble seats and tiled floors. From Sorrento we took the famous carriage drive to Arnalfi and La Cava. This drive is said to be one of the most beautiful in the world, thirty-four miles of mountain road, which following the curves of the sea coast, presents a constant succession of lovely views, rising as high as 600 feet above sea level. The mountainous shores which we traversed were thickly sown with villages, the white cottages perched dizzily on precipitous heights. In other places, in rifts between the hills, in the shallow valleys, the same lit- tle villages nestled. In every available spot that couM be terraced, rose row upon row of tilled ground. There were tiny patches of vineyards, the scant earth banked up by stones. Against these moss-grown stones forming the walls, lay the great, gray blue swords of the century plant. Orange and lemon trees, figs and olives clung to the rock-strewn earth. I thought until I visited Italy that the Japanese were the best gardeners in the world, the most economical of the soil. They cannot compare with the Italians. Amalfl is beloved of artists. It is said no other vil- lage in all the world has its exquisite setting. High up 171 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD against the hills is an old Capuchin monastery, that has been converted into a hotel. Its tiny cloisters, where the Capuchin monks used to sleep, are now the guest rooms for visitors from all over the world. As I looked cut from the vine-covered terrace of that old monastery, drinking my morning coffee in the early sunlight, I drank with it a draught that I shall never forget. My heart, like a brimming chalice, was filled to overflowing. The sea and sky were a whirling blur of brilliancy and color. The fishing boats on the sanded shore beneath were just pushing off for the day's work. I heard the musical notes, "Santa Lucia, Santa Lucia," in a rich sonorous voice, from a nearby vineyard it was thrilling, beautiful. The poet Longfellow wrote of Amalfi: "Sweet the memory is to me, Of a land beyond the sea, Where the waves and mountains meet. Where amid her mulberry trees Sits Amalfi in the heat, Bathing ever her white feet la the tideless summer seas. Lord of vineyards and of lands, Far above the convent stands, On its terraced wall aloof Leans a monk with folded hands. * * * This is an enchanted land Round the headlands far away Sweeps the blue Salernian bay, With its sickle of white sand." 172 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD FROM ROME TO LONDON Advice It looks as if these Browsing letters were being turned into "Hints for travelers." I never knew it to fail. Po soon as any one takes a trip abroad or even travels ns far as Podunck township, he or she begins giving ad- vice to intending travelers. There are two kinds of travel bores the one who talks you to death after he gets home and the other who seeks the medium of the printed pages to air his opinions, Of the two evils, I consider the latter the lesser, for you can throw aside or burn the newspaper, while you can only mentally consign to the flames the one who bores you by word of mouth. So here goes and pray do not yawn. Speaking of yawning, I heard a good story of a chap who traveled quite a bit and who, upon his return from his journeying prated endlessly of his experiences, to a long suffering aunt. Upon one occasion, he began as usual, "And there I stood, aunt, with that dreadful chasm yawning before me " "William," interrupted his aunt sternly, "are you quite sure that chasm was yawn- ing before you reached there?" My advice today, little flock, is to repeat what I said in a former letter: Do not travel abroad without learn- ing a few phrases of the language of the countries you expect to visit. It Is quite true that English is spoken everywhere but one does not always find the English speaking Italian, Arabian or Indian. Nine times out of 173 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD ten a cab driver will not be able to understand you or you him. In many of the shops English is not spoken at all and few waiters understand. And then, signs in a foreign language are so misleadig to the one-tongued person. I dislike to confess the numerous mistakes I have made owing to gross ignorance, but my sense of humor forbids my keeping anything so good to myself. The first German boat that I boarded, it was late at night and I hastily arranged my bath hour with the stewardess, without locating the bath room. The next morning, kimono clad, I scurried down the aisle look- ing to the right and left for the women's bath. I saw over a door, the words, "Damen Bad." I concluded that was not it. That sounded like profanity, so I went a little farther and found the word, "Herrein." That sounded better. "Her" was surely feminine so I pushed open the door and walked into an astonished group of men bathers. In a little Italian village I had to wait an hour in a cold, draughty waiting room, for a train. Through a window I saw a brazier of cheery red coals, in an ad- joining room. On the door opening into the room was a foreign word which I afterward learned meant "private." I walked in. A fierce looking individual in uniform, waved me back, crying "Allez." It is needless to say I allezed. I went to a Catholic college in Rome to present a letter of introduction which would secure me a much coveted audience with His Holiness, the Pope. I went in fear and trembling for I had not been coached in the proper line of conduct to follow in a college for priests. My ring was answered by a porter so Italian that when he spoke he made a noise like he v;as gargling. I knew by the expression of his face that my airy persiflage sounded a whole lot worse to him. 174 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD I presented my letter with what I fondly hoped, was an ingratiating smile and he stepped back and said something that sounded sort of friendly, so I crossed the threshold. Horror of horrors: I had done the wrong thing, of course. A gentle, old priest finally made me understand that the reception room for women was at another entrance. I sought refuge in the vestibule and wished that the door mat, which had "Welcome" printed on it in large "American" letters, would rise up and hit me. A door on another side soon opened and the smiling recipient of my letter explained that if only I had known a few, common, Italian phrases I would have been spared the annoyance and humiliation I suffered. The menu cards throughout the Far East and on the European continent are printed in French. The gentleman from Philadelphia does not know a \vord of French so he ordered his meals by number. I have known him to get Brussels sprouts and plum oud- ding at the same course and at another time, poached eggs and fried chicken. As the darkey said "He got de chickens before dey was done bawn, and after dey was daid." Another bit of advice is in regard to the pernicious custom of tipping. Pernicious as it is, it must be done it cannot be avoided. But if you would save yourself a lot of annoyance, let the hall porter or concierge of the hotel at which you are staying, do it for you. Give him ten per cent of your bill and ask him to disburse it for you in the proper manner giving each servitor his share. For instance, if you are a guest at a four dollar a day hotel, when you are leaving, give the concierge forty cents for each day of your stay. That seems a small amount compared to what we pay in America, but it is quite sufficient. If one attempts to pay one's own tips he will find servitors springing up on every side. They 175 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD form a servile, but insistent batallion and to run the gauntlet of fifteen or twenty outstretched palms is dis- concerting, to say the least. A story is told of Artemus Ward oifcJxis last visit to England. As he stood on the up- per deck of his vessel just before sailing he called to the crowd on the dock below, saying, "If there is a man in the British Isles or the whole continent of Europe that I have not tipped, if he will come forward and make himself known, I will gladly give him something I don't Avant him to feel lonely." Rome Every day the call of home sounds clearer and louder and after Italy sunny bright Italy, so much like Cali- fornia, we shall hasten homeward. Rome, that splendid storehouse of art treasures and architectural wonders, held us willing captives many days beyond the allotted time. That small word of four letters means volumes. We think of Rome through her centuries of monarchy, of her five hundred years a re- public, and of that same lenght of time an empire. We think of her kings, her dictators and triumvirates, her Caesars and her emperors. We think of her in her youthful strength and arrogance, and of her pitiable de- ray and consequent fall, and now we see her after years of medieval and modern history again a dominant power. Rome stands for domination more than all else. The fierce domination of war, the domination of church, the domination of law. From that small centre has radiated, throughout the world, more influence for good and evil than from any other source. We gazed, in reverent awe, upon the Roman Forum, probably the most famous structure in the history of the world. We visited the palaces of the Caesars and drove 176 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD out the Appian Way, where St. Paul walked. We spent hours and walked miles in the famous galleries and we left Rome with deep regret that months could not be spent among her priceless treasures of pictorial and sculptural art. Paris Europe is too well known for me to take the reader's time in airing my small knowledge of it gathered in a two months hurried stay. Every newspaper one picks up contains some traveler's impression of some one of its interesting countries or cities. Every writer waxes elo- quent over the fascinating charm of the Italian and French Riviera, over the grandeur of the Swiss Alps, over the frivolity and gaiety of Paris. Paris for a frivol- ous city, is very wise. She covers up all the old wounds and scars of battles with beautiful museums or tombs. The eye is regaled gladdened, instead of saddened. I have only one quarrel with Paris. They have no speed limit there for automobiles and one never feels quite safe in crossing the streets. It's true they have "is- lands" at intervals in nearly all of the streets and they make the danger less menacing, but I never attempted to cross to one of them that a shrieking juggernaut in the shape of a motor car did not try its level best to run me down. And the worst of it is, if you are run over you are fined for being in the way. If you are killed your body is held as a ransom until your relatives pay the fine. 177 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD London We crossed the English channel in the late afternoon and as we neared Dover we saw Kipling's "Coastwise lights of England the lights that come and go." Scurrying by train through the deepening twilight, we entered London at Victoria Station and it the station looked next to as large as "all out of doors." London was not disappointing. It was as we expected, wet, moist, dripping. The acrid fog and smoke clutched our throats ilke a cruel hand and carefully coiffed hair straightened out and hung in disconsolate wisps. Sunday morning we strolled about Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens to Buckingham Palace, where we saw the king's guard changed with all the solemnity and ceremony the English attach to the most trivial occur- rence. Back through Rotten Row we gazed at the Smart Setters riding horseback for the benefit of the gaping public as well as to reduce their own waist lines. To get the atmosphere of the past as well as to satis- fy a very substantial hunger we went to the old Cheshire Inn, once the habitat of Dr. Johnson and Bos- well. We were served the famous beefsteak pudding that Dr. Johnson consumed in such large quantities, washing the indigestible mess down with ale served in a pewter tankard. Although a portrait of the dear, dirty old man faced us and his autograph adorned the wall we could not enjoy the sticky pudding. Its only merit was, it was filling. At Westminster Abbey we attended a service sitting near the bust of our beloved poet, Longfellow. It is awe inspiring, that splendid old gothic structure with its vaulted ceiling black with the marks of time, with its buried treasure of royal ashes and its marble tablets to the memory of our old book friends. 178 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD We browsed around the old part of London that Dickens loved out Kensington way and Fleet street where "Tiny Tim," the cripple, lived, past Bell's Yard where Charlie lived, the little girl in Bleak House who went out washing to support the family after her father died. We met many a little man who called to mind Moloch of the Haunted House, who, whatever he did or where ever he went was always seen carrying his baby brother. There are still Mrs. Bumbles to be seen in Cheapside and Dick Swivellers on every corner. Brain Fag After one's brain has registered many new impres- sions every day for six months after the mental stimu lation and physical exaltation of viewing strange sights and scenes for so long a time, there follows a sort of lassitude, a mental and physical weariness that dulls one's sense of appreciation. After an ordinary sized, mediocre sort of a brain is already filled with a chaotic mess of temples and ruins, Buddhas and other heathen gods, to then begin viewing the masterpieces of the brush and plastic art in the gal- leries of Europe, is a sort of sacrilege. After one has spent the better part of a lifetime avid- ly yearning for a glimpse of the work of the old mas- ters and, at first, feels the expected thrill of pleasure but soon lapses like a tired horse too often spurred, it is time to call a halt. When one finds on visiting the notable galleries that the dominant thought is a dull wonder how the old mas- ters could have covered so many miles of canvas unless thev put the paint on with a hose and to speculate upon why Rubens and Rembrandt chose fat cook ladies for models instead of the willowy creatures we saw in the 179 BROWSING 'ROUND THE WORLD Latin quarter in Paris, it is time to quit and go home. Home which spells rest and real flesh and blood babies instead of Raphael's painted cherubs. Home where there is the welcoming lovelight in friendship's eyes in- stead of the haughty stare of a Holbein or Van Dyck portrait. Every night I think of the little men and women I left behind little toddlers just creeping about mother's knee, that in six months have grown prodigiously, who will look at me with wondering averted glance, but who will eventually be persuaded to come to hungry arms. Of the little new babies that have chosen wisely in selecting Southern California for a home babies that I may cuddle and the touch of whose rosy, clinging fingers will smooth out the tired lines. And my own humble roof tree! The drawn curtains and the easy chair drawn up in the firelight's glow. Sit- ting there before the dancing flames memories will pass in review before me, memories of a glorious journey happily ended. But uppermost will be the joy of the present the being at home. "God gave all men all earth to love, But smce our hearts are small Ordained for each, one spot should prove Beloved over all." 180 J!2! R . N _ nEGIONAI - I-*"*"* FAOUTY A 000 046 338 o