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FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR
A JOURNEY AROUND THE WORLD
BY
MARK TWAIN
SAMUEL L. CLEMENS
;'j
HARTFORD NEW YORK
AMERICAN PUBLISHING CO. DOUBLEDAY & McCLURE CO.
MDCCCXCVII
COPYRIGHT 1897
OLIVIA L. CLEMENS (all rights reserved)
THIS BOOK f8 affectionate Ig IFnscribeO to
MY YOUNG FRIEND
HARRY ROGERS,
with recognition
of what he is, and apprehension of what he may become
unless he form himself a little more closely
upon the model of
The Author.
THE PUDDWHEAD MAXIMS. at
THESE WISDOMS ARE FOR THE LURING OF YOUTH TOWARD
HIGH MORAL ALTITUDES. THE AUTHOR DID NOT
GATHER THEM FROM PRACTICE, BUT FROM
OBSERVATION. TO BE GOOD IS NOBLE ;
BUT TO SHOW OTHERS HOW
TO BE GOOD IS NOBLER
AND NO TROUBLE.
CHAPTER I. The Party — Across America to Vancouver — On Board the Wai-rimo — Steamer Chairs — The Captain — Going Home under a Cloud — A Gritty Purser — The Brightest Passenger — Remedy for Bad Habits — The Doctor and the Lumbago — A Moral Pauper — Limited Smoking — Remittance-men. ... 25
CHAPTER II.
Change of Costume — Fish, Snake, and Boomerang Stories — Tests of Memory — A Brahmin Expert — General Grant's Memory — A Delicately Improper Tale 35
CHAPTER III. Honolulu — Reminiscences of the Sandwich Islands — King Liholiho and His Royal Equipment — The Tabu — The Population of the Island — A Kanaka Diver — Cholera at Honolulu — Hono- lulu, Past and Present — The Leper Colony 48
CHAPTER IV. Leaving Honolulu — Flying-flsl^ — Approaching the Equator — Why the Ship Went Slow — The Front Yard of the Ship — Crossing the Equator — Horse Billiards or Shovel Board — The Waterbury Watch — Washing Decks — Ship Paintei-s — The Great Meridian — The Loss of a Day — A Babe without a Birthday 65
CHAPTER V. A Lesson in Pronunciation — Reverence for Robert Burns — The Southern Cross — Troublesome Constellations — Victoria for a Name — Islands on the Map — Alofa and Fortuna — Recruit- ing for the Queensland Plantations — Captain Warren's Note- Book — Recruiting not thoroughly Popular 77
(7)
8 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VI. Missionaries Obstruct Business — The Sugar Planter and the Kanaka — The Planter's View — Civilizing the Kanaka — The Missionary's View — The Result — Repentant Kanakas — "Wrinkles — The Death Rate in Queensland 83
CHAPTER VII. The Fiji Islands — Suva — The Ship from Duluth — Going Ashore
— Midwinter in Fiji — Seeing the Governor — Why Fiji was Ceded to England — Old time Fijians — Convicts among the Fijians — A Case Where Marriage was a Failure — Immor- tality with Limitations 91
CHAPTER VIII. A Wilderness of Islands — Two Men without a Country — A Naturalist from New Zealand — The Fauna of Australasia — Animals, Insects, and Birds — The Ornithorhyncus — Poetry and Plagiarism . . . . _ 99
CHAPTER IX. Close to Australia — Porpoises at Night — Entrance to Sydney Harbor — The Loss of the Duncan Dunbar — The Harbor — The City of Sydney — Spring-time in Australia — The Climate
— Information for Travelers — The Size of Australia — A Dust- Storm and Hot Wind " 109
CHAPTER X. The Discovery of Australia — Transportation of Convicts — Disci- pline — English Laws, Ancient and Modern — Flogging Prison- ers to Death — Arrival of Settlers — New South Wales Corps — Rum Currency — Intemperance Everywhere — $100,000 for One Gallon of Rum — Development of the Country — Immense Resources 119
CHAPTER XI. Hospitality of English-speaking People — Writers and their Grati- tude — Mr. Gane and the Panegyrics — Population of Sydney — An English City with American Trimming — ' ' Squatters " — Palaces and Sheep Kingdoms — Wool and Mutton — Austra- lians and Americans — Costermonger Pronunciation — England is "Home" — Table Talk — English and Colonial Audiences 134
CHAPTER XII. Mr. X. , a Missionary — Why Christianity Makes Slow Progress in ' India — A Large Dreary — Hindoo Miracles and Legends — Sampson and Hanuman — The Sandstone Ridge — Where are the Gates ? 132
CONTENTS. 9
CHAPTER XIII.
Public Works in Australasia — Botanical Garden of Sydney — Four Special Socialties — The Government House — A Governor and His Functions — The Admiralty House — The Tour of the Har- bor— Shark Fishing — Cecil Rhodes' Shark and his First Fortune — Free Board for Sharks 137
CHAPTER XIV. Bad Health — To Melbourne by Rail — Maps Defective — The Colony of Victoria — A Round-trip Ticket from Sydney — Change Cars, from Wide to Narrow Gauge, a Peculiarity at Albury — Customs-fences — "My Word" — The Blue Mountains — Rabbit Piles — Government R. R. Restaurants — Duchesses for Waiters — ' ' Sheep-dip " — Railroad Coffee — Things Seen and Not Seen 151
CHAPTER XV. Wagga-Wagga — The Tichborne Claimant — A Stock Mystery — The Plan of the Romance — The Realization — The Henry Bascom Mystery — Bascom Hall — The Author's Death and Funeral , 156
CHAPTER XVI.
Melbourne and its Attractions — The Melbourne Cup Races — Cup D^y — Great Crowds — Clothes Regardless of Cost — The Australian Larrikin — Is He Dead ? — Australian Hospitality — Melbourne Wool-brokers — The Museums — The Palaces — The Origin of Melbourne 161
CHAPTER XVII. The British Empire — Its Exports and Imports — The Trade of Australia — To Adelaide — Broken Hill Silver Mine — A Round- about road — The Scrub and its Possibilities for the Novel- ist— The Aboriginal Tracker — A Test Case — How Does One Cow-Track Differ from Another ? 170
CHAPTER XVIII. The Gum Trees — Unsociable Trees — Gorse and Broom — A Universal Defect — An Adventurer — Wanted £200, got £30,- 000,000 — A Vast Land Scheme — The Smash-up — The Corpse Got Up and Danced — A Unique Business by One Man — Buying the Kangaroo Skin — The Approach to Adelaide — Everything Comes to Him who Waits — A Healthy Religious Atmosphere — What is the Matter with the Specter ? . . . . 176
10 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XIX. The Botanical Gardens — Contributions from all Countries — The Zoological Gardens of Adelaide — The Laughing Jackass — The Dingo — A Misnamed Province — Telegraphing from Melbourne to San Francisco — A Mania for Holidays — The Temperature — The Death Rate — Celebration of the Reading of the Proclamation of 1836 — Some old Settlers at the Com- memoration— Their Staying Powers — The Intelligence of the Aboriginal — The Antiquity of the Boomerang . . . . 184
CHAPTER XX. A Caller— A Talk about Old Times — The Fox Hunt — An Accurate Judgment of an Idiot — How We Passed the Custom Officers in Italy 195
CHAPTER XXI. The "Weet-Weet" — Keeping down the Population — Victoria — Killing the Aboriginals — Pioneer Days in Queensland — Material for a Drama — The Bush — Pudding with Arsenic — Revenge — A Right Spirit but a Wrong Method — Death of Donga Billy 206
CHAPTER XXII. Continued Description of Aboriginals — Manly Qualities — Dodg- ing Balls — Feats of Spring — Jumping — Where the Kangaroo Learned its Art — Well Digging — Endurance — Surgery — Artistic Abilities — Fennimore Cooper's Last Chance — Aus- tralian Slang 314
CHAPTER XXIII.
To Horsham (Colony of Victoria) — Description of Horsham — At the Hotel — Pepper Tree — The Agricultural College, Forty Pupils — High Ten perature — Width of Road in Chains, Perches, etc. — The Bird with a Forgetable Name — The Magpie and the lady — Fruit Trees — Soils — Sheep Shearing — To Stawell — Gold Mining Country — $75,000 per Month Income and able to Keep House — Fine Grapes and Wine — The Dryest Community on Earth— The Three Sisters — Gum Trees and Water ... 223
CHAPTER XXIV. Eload to Ballarat — The City — Great Gold Strike, 1851 — Rush for Australia— "Great Nuggets " — Taxation — Revolt and Vic- tory — Peter Lalor and the Eureka Stockade —" Pencil Mark " — Fine Statuary at Ballarat — Population — Ballarat English 330
CONTENTS. 11
CHAPTER XXV. Bound for Bendigo — The Priest at Castlemaine — Time Saved by Walking — Description of Bendigo — A Valuable Nugget — Perseverence and Success — Mr. Blank and His Influence — Conveyance of an Idea — I Had to Like the Irishman — Corri- gan Castle, and the Mark Twain Club — My Bascom Mystery Solved 241
CHAPTER XXVI.
Where New Zealand Is — But Few Know — Things People Think
They Know — The Yale Professor and His Visitor from N. Z. 251
CHAPTER XXVII. The South Pole Swell — Tasmania — Extermination of the Natives — The Picture Proclamation — The Conciliator — The Formid- able Sixteen . 256
CHAPTER XXVIII. When the Moment Comes the Man Appears — Why Ed. Jackson called on Commodore Vanderbilt — Their Interview — Welcome to the Child of His Friend — A Big Time but under Inspec- tion — Sent on Important Business — A Visit to the Boys on the Boat 268
CHAPTER XXIX. Tasmania, Early Days — Description of the Town of Hobart — An Englishman's Love of Home Surroundings — Neatest City on Earth — The Museum — A Parrot with an Acquired Taste — Glass Arrow Beads — Refuge for the Indigent too healthy . . 279
CHAPTER XXX.
Arrival at Bluff, N. Z.— Where the Rabbit Plague Began — The Natural Enemy of the Rabbit — Dunedin — A Lovely Town — A Visit to Dr. Hockin — His Museum — A Liquified Caterpiller — The Unperfected Tape Worm — The Public Museum and Picture GaUery 285
CHAPTER XXXI.
The Express Train — " A Hell of a Hotel at Maryborough "— Clocks
and Bells — Railroad Service 290
CHAPTER XXXII. Description of the Town of Christ Church — A Fine Museum — Jade-stone Trinkets — The Great Moa — The First Maori in New Zealand — Women Voters — "Person" in New Zealand Law
12 CONTENTS.
Includes Woman — Taming an Ornithorhyncus — A Voyage in the Flora from Lyttelton — Cattle Stalls for Everybody — A Wonderful Time 297
CHAPTER XXXIII. The Town of Nelson — "The Mongatapu Murders," the Great Event of the Town — Burgess' Confession — Summit of Mount Eden — Rotorua and the Hot Lakes and Geysers — Thermal Springs District — Kauri Gum — Tangariwa Mountains . . 305
CHAPTER XXXIV. The Bay of Gisbome — Taking in Passengers by the Yard Arm — The Green Ballarat Fly — False Teeth — From Napier to Hast- ings by the Ballarat Fly Train — Kauri Trees — A Case of Mental Telegraphy 312
CHAPTER XXXV. Fifty Miles in Four Hours — Comfortable Cars — Town of Wauga- nui — Plenty of Maoris — On the Increase — Compliments to the Maoris— The Missionary Ways all Wrong — The Tabu among the Maoris — A Mysterious Sign — Curious W^ar-monu- ments — Wellington 318
CHAPTER XXXVI.
The Poems of Mrs. Moore — The Sad Fate of William Upson — A Fellow Traveler Imitating the Prince of Wales — A Would-be Dude — Arrival at Sydney — Curious Town Names with Poem 324
CHAPTER XXXVII. From Sydney for Ceylon — A Lascar Crew — A Fine Ship — Three Cats and a Basket of Kittens — Dinner Conversations — Veuve Cliquot Wine — At Anchor in King George's Sound Albany Harbor — More Cats — A Vulture on Board — Nearing the Equator again — Dressing for Dinner — Ceylon, Hotel Bris- tol— Servant Brampy — A Feminine Man — Japanese Jin- riksha or Cart — Scenes in Ceylon — A Missionary School — Insincerity of Clothes 331
CHAPTER XXXVIII. Steamer Rosetta to Bombay — Limes 14 cents a Barrel — Bombay, a Bewitching City — Descriptions of People and Dress — Woman as a Road Decoration — India, the Land of Dreams and Ro- mance — Fourteen Porters to Carry Baggage — Correcting a Servant — Killing a Slave — Arranging a Bedroom — Three Hours' Work and a Terrible Racket — The Bird of Birds, the Indian Grow 345
CONTENTS. 13
CHAPTER XXXIX. Qrod Vishnu, 108 Names — Change of Titles or Hunting for an Heir — Bombay as a Kaleidoscope — The Native's Man Ser- vant— Servants' Recommendations — How Manuel got his Name and his English — Satan — A Visit from God . . . 357
CHAPTER XL. The Government House at Malabar Point — Mansion of Kumar Shri Samatsin Hji Bahadur — The Indian Princess — A Diffi- cult Game — Wardrobe and Jewels — Ceremonials — Decora- tions when Leaving — The Towers of Silence — A Funeral . 369
CHAPTER XLI. A Jain Temple — Mr. Roychand's Bungalow — A Decorated Six- Gun Prince — Human Fireworks — European Dress, Past and Present — Complexions — Advantages with the Zulu — Festivi- ties at the Bungalow — Nautch Dancers — Entrance of the Prince — Address to the Prince 379
CHAPTER XLII. A Hindoo Betrothal, midnight, Sleepers on the ground, Home of the Bride of Twelve Years Dressed as a Boy — Illumination — Nautch Girls — Imitating Snakes — Later — Illuminated Porch Filled with Sleepers —- The Plague 386
CHAPTER XLIII. . Murder Trial in Bombay — Confidence Swindlers — Some Special- ties of India — The Plague, Juggernaut, Suttee, etc. — Every- thing on Gigantic Scale — India First in Everything — 80 States, more Custom Houses than Cats — Rich Ground for Thug Society 393
CHAPTER XLIV. Official Thug Book — Supplies for Traveling, Bedding, and other Freight — Scene at Railway Station — Making Way for White Man — Waiting Passengers, High and Low Caste, Touch in the Cars — Our Car — Beds made up — Dreaming of Thugs — Baroda — Meet Friends — Indian Well — The Old Town — Narrow Streets — A Mad Elephant 400
CHAPTER XLV. Elephant Riding — Howdahs — The New Palace — The Prince's Ex- cursion — Gold and Silver Artillery — A Vice-royal Visit — Remarkable Dog — The Bench Show — Augustin Daly's Back Door — Fakeer 410
34 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XLVI. The Thugs — Government Efforts to Exterminate them — Choking
a Victim — A Fakeer Spared — Thief Strangled 426
CHAPTER XLVII. Thugs, Continued — Record of Murders — A Joy of Hunting and Killing Men — Gordon Camming Killing an Elephant — Family Affection among Thugs — Burial Places 437
CHAPTER XLVIII. Starting for Allahabad — Lower Berths in Sleepers — Elderly Ladies have Preference of Berths — An American Lady Takes One Anyhow — How Smythe Lost his Berth — How He Got Even — The Suttee 447
CHAPTER XLIX. Pyjamas — Day Scene in India — Clothed in a Turban and a Pocket Handkerchief — Land Parceled Out — Established Village Ser- vants— Witches in Families — Hereditary Midwifery — De- struction of Girl Babies— Wedding Display— Tiger-Persuader— Hailstorm Discourager — The Tyranny of the Sweeper — Elephant Driver — Water Carrier — Curious Rivers — Arrival at Allahabad — English Quarter — Lecture Hall Like a Snow- storm— Private Carriages — A Milliner — Early Morning — The Squatting Servant — A Religious Fair 459
CHAPTER L. On the Road to Benares— Dust and Waiting — The Bejeweled Crowd — A Native Prince and his Guard — Zenana Lady — The Extremes of Fashion — The Hotel at Benares — An Annex a Mile Away — Doors in India — The Peepul Tree — Warning against Cold Baths — A Strange Fruit — Description of Benares — The Beginning of Creation — Pilgrims to Benares — A Priest with a Good Business Stand — Protestant Missionary — The Trinity Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu — Religion the Business at Benares 475
CHAPTER LI. Benares a Religious Temple — A Guide for Pilgrims to Save Time
in Securing Salvation 484
CHAPTER LIL
A Curious Way to Secure Salvation — The Banks of the Ganges —
Architecture Represents Piety — A Trip on the River — Bathers
and their Costumes — Drinking the Water — A Scientific Test
of the Nasty Purifier — Hindoo Faith in die Ganges — A Cre-
CONTENTS. 15
mation — Remembrances of the Suttee — All Life Sacred Ex- cept Human Life — The Goddess Bhowanee, and the Sacrifl- cers — Sacred Monkeys — Ugly Idols Everywhere — Two "White Minarets — A Great View with a Monkey in it — A Picture on the Water 496
CHAPTER LIII. Btill in Benares — Another Living God — Why Things are Wonder- ful—Sri 108 — Utterly Perfect— How He Came so — Our Visit to Sri — A Friendly Diety — Exchanging Autographs and Books
— Sri's Pupil — An Interesting Man — Reverence and Irrever- ence— Dancing in a Sepulchre 507
CHAPTER LIV. By Rail to Calcutta — Population — The "City of Palaces" — A Fluted Candlestick — Ochterlony — Newspaper Correspondence
— Average Knowledge of Countries — A Wrong Idea of Chi- cago — Calcutta and the Black Hole — Description of the Horrors — Those Who Lived — The Botanical Gardens — The Afternoon Turnout — Grand Review — Military Tournament — Excursion on the Hoogly — The Museum — What Winter Means
in Calcutta 517
CHAPTER LV. On the Road Again — Flannels in Order — Across Country — From Greenland's Icy Mountain — Swapping Civilization — No Field Women in India — How it is in Other Countries — Canvas- covered Cars — The Tiger Country — My First Hunt — Some Wild Elephants Get Away — The Plains of India — The Ghurkas
— Women for Pack-Horses — A Substitute for a Cab — Dar- jeeling — The Hotel — The Highest Thing in the Himalayas — The Club — Kinchinjunga and Mt. Everest — Thibetans — The Prayer Wheel — People Going to the Bazar 534
CHAPTER LVI. On the Road Again — The Hand-Car — A Thirty-five-mile Slide — The Banyan Tree — A Dramatic Performance — The Railroad Loop — The Half-way House — The Brain Fever Bird — The Coppersmith Bird — Nightingales and Cue Owls 535
CHAPTER LVII. India, the Most Extraordinary Country on Earth — Nothing For- gotten — The Land of Wonders — Annual Statistics Everywhere about Violence — Tiger vs. Man — A Handsome Fight — An- nual Man Killing and Tiger Killing — Other Animals — Snakes
— Insurance and Snake Tables — The Cobra Bite — Muzaffur-
16 CONTENTS.
pore — Dinapore — A Train that Stopped for Gossip — Six Hours for Thirty-five Miles — A Rupee to the Engineer — Ninety Miles an Hour — Again to Benares, the Piety Hive — To Lucknow 544
CHAPTER LVIIL
The Great Mutiny — The Massacre in Cawnpore — Terrible Scenes
in Lucknow — The Residency — The Siege 546
CHAPTER LIX. A Visit to the Residency — Cawnpore — The Adjutant Bird and the Hindoo Corpse — The Taj Mahal — The True Conception — The Ice Storm — True Gems — Syrian Fountains — An Exaggerated Niagara 567
CHAPTER LX.
To Lahore — The Governors Elephant — Taking a Ride — No Dan- ger from Collision — Rawal Pindi — Back to Delhi — An Orientalized Englishman — Monkeys and the Paint-pot — Monkey Crying over my Note-book — Arrival at Jeypore — In Rajputana — Watching Servants — The Jeypore Hotel — Our Old and New Satan — Satan as a Liar — The Museum — A Street Show — Blocks of Houses — A Religious Procession . 582
CHAPTER LXI. Methods in American Deaf and Dumb Asylums — Methods in the Public Schools — A Letter from a Youth in Punjab — Highly Educated Service — A Damage to the Country — A Little Book from Calcutta— Writing Poor English — Embarrassed by a Beggar Girl — A Specimen Letter — An Application for Em- ployment — A Calcutta School Examination — Two Samples of Literature 597
CHAPTER LXII. Sail from Calcutta to Madras — Thence to Ceylon — Thence for Mauritius — The Indian Ocean — Our Captain's Peculiarity — The Scot Has One too — The Flying-fish that Went Hunting in the Field — Fined for Smuggling — Lots of Pets on Board — The Color of the Sea — The Most Important Member of Nature's Family — The Captain's Story of Cold Weather — Omissions in the Ship's Library — Washing Decks — Pyjamas on Deck — The Cat's Toilet — No Interest in the Bulletin — Perfect Rest — The Milky Way an4 the Magellan Clouds — Mauritius — Port Louis — A Hot Country — Under French Control — A Variety of People and Complexions — Train to Curepipe — A Wonder-
CONTENTS. 17
ful Office-holder — The Wooden Peg Ornament — The Promi- nent Historical Event of Mauritius — "Paul and Virginia" — One of Virginia's Wedding Gifts — Heaven Copied after Mau- ritius — Early History of Mauritius — Quarantines — Population of all Kinds — What the World Consists of — Where Russia and Germany are — A Picture of Milan Cathedral — Newspapers — The Language — Best Sugar in the World — Literature of Mau- ritius ^ . . 609
CHAPTER LXIIL Port Louis — Matches no Good — Good Roads — Death Notices — Why European Nations Rob Each Other — What Immigrants to Mauritius Do — Population — Labor Wages — The Camaron
— The Palmiste and other Eatables — Monkeys — The Cyclone
of 1893 — Mauritius a Sunday Landscape 623
CHAPTER LXIV. The Steamer "Arundel Castle" — Poor Beds in Ships — The Beds in Noah's Ark — Getting a Rest in Europe — Ship in Sight — Mozambique Channel — The Engineer and the Band — Thackeray's " Madagascar " — Africanders Going Home — Sing- ing on the After Deck — An Out-of- Place Story — Dynamite Explosion in Johannesburg — Entering Delagoa Bay — Ashore
— A Hot Winter — Small Town — No Sights — No Carriages — Working Women — Barnum's Purchase of Shakespeare's Birth- place, Jumbo, and the Nelson Monument — Arrival at Durban 630
CHAPTER LXV. Royal Hotel Durban — Bells that Did not Ring — Early Inquiries for Comforts — Change of Temperature after Sunset — Rick- shaws — The Hotel Chameleon — Natives not out after the Bell
— Preponderance of Blacks in Natal — Hair Fashions in Natal
— Zulus for Police — A Drive round the Berea — The Cactus and other Trees — Religion a -Vital Matter — Peculiar Views about Babies — Zulu Kings — A Trappist Monastery — Transvaal Politics — Reasons why the Trouble came About . 644
CHAPTER LXVI. Jameson over the Border — His Defeat and Capture — Sent to Eng- land for Trial — Arrest of Citizens by the Boers — Commuted i Sentences — Final Release of all but Two — Interesting Days for a Stranger — Hard to Understand Either Side — What the Reformers Expected to Accomplish — How They Proposed to Do it — Testimonies a Year Later — A " Woman's Part " — The Truth of the South African Situation — "Jameson's Ride" —
A Poem 654
2
18 CONTENTS.
CHAPTER LXVII. Jameson's Raid — The Reform Committee's Difficult Task — Possi- ble Plans — Advice that Jameson Ought to Have — The War of 1881 and its Lessons — Statistics of Losses of the Combat- ants — Jameson's Battles — Losses on Both Sides — The Military Errors — How the Warfare Should Have Been Carried on to Be Successful 667
CHAPTER LXVIII.
Judicious Mr. Rhodes — What South Africa Consists of — Johan- nesburg—The Gold Mines — The Heaven of American En- gineers— What the Author Knows about Mining — Description of the Boer — What Should be Expected of Him — What Was — A Dizzy Jump for Rhodes — Taxes — Rhodesian Method of Reducing Native Population — Journeying in Cape Colony — The Cars— The Country — The Weather — Tamed Blacks — Familiar Figures in King William's Town — Boer Dress — Boer Country Life — Sleeping Accommodations — The Reformers in Boer Prison — Torturing a Black Prisoner 686
CHAPTER LXIX. An Absorbing Novelty — The Kimberley Diamond Mines — Discovery of Diamonds — The Wronged Stranger — Where the Gems Are — A Judicious Change of Boundary — Modern Machinery and Appliances — Thrilling Excitement in Finding a Diamond — Testing a Diamond — Fences — Deep Mining by Natives in the Compound — Stealing — Reward for the Biggest Diamond — A Fortune in Wine — The Great Diamond — Office of the De Beer Co. — Sorting the Gems — Cape Town — The Most Imposing Man in British Provinces — Various Reasons for his Supremacy
— How He Makes Friends 699
CONCLUSION. Table Rock — Table Bay — The Castle — Government and Parliament
— The Club — Dutch Mansions and their Hospitality — Dr. John Barry and his Doings — On the Ship Norman — Madeira
— Arrived in Southhampton 710
llMRAnONS
Dan Beard> A. B. Frost, B. W. Clinedinst, Frederick Dielman, Peter Newell, F. M. Scinor, T. J. Fogarty, C. H. Warren, A. G. Reinhart, F, Berkeley Smith, C. Allan Gilbert.
The publishers acknotvledge the courtesy extended by Walter G. Chase^ Boston, Major J. B. Pond, New York, and F. R, Reynolds, Manchester, England, in furnishing many of the photo- graphs reproduced in this volume.
PAGE
1 Portrait of Author (By Walter G. Chase). . . Fivntispiece
2 They Passed in Review, 24
3 Head Piece, 25
4 Even the Gui-ls Smiled, . ' 26
5 " When I was a Youth," 82
6 The Remittance Man, 34
7 An Awkward Pause (PhiU Page) 39
8 The Climax 43
9 "We Worked until Three," 47
10 Facsimile Page from the Author's Note-book, {Full Page) 49
11 Royal Equipments, 53
12 Something Touched his Shoulder, . . . (Full Page) 56
13 Watching for the Blue Ribbon 66
14 The Blue Ribbon {Full Page) 67
15 "Horse Billiards," 68
16 Diagram, . . . ! 68
17 I Beat Her Brains Out, 72
18 A Day Off, .74
19 Out of Repair 79
20 Southern Cross, 80
21 The Kanaka's Departure 84
22 The Kanaka's Return, 85
23 A Civilized Savage, 90
24 Suva 92
25 Boats Came prom Shore, 93
26 Natives, 94
(19)
20 ILLUSTRATIONS;
PAGE
27 In Town 94
28 Out of Town, 94
29 The Rigors of Winter 95
30 Off Goes His Head {Full Page) 103
31 Was Never in the Ark, 105
33 The Naturalist 108
33 View in Sydney Harbor . . . 113
84 A Comparative Map, 116
35 A Dust Storm, 118
86 New South Wales Corps, . , 123
37 Heedless Man, . . 125
38 Squatter Life, {Pull Page) 127
89 A Difference, 181
40 Hanuman Moving the Mountains, . . . {Fall Page) 135
41 Sydney's Four Entertainments, , . . {Fkill Page) 140 43 "Got it out of a Shark," (Full Page) 147
43 The Oddest Thing in Australasia 152
44 Things Not Seen, 155
45 "Hello, Mark," {Full Fage) 166
46 Sunrise Blue Mountains 169
47 The British Empire (7^^^ Page) 171
48 A Test Case, 175
49 "Here I am Yet," 178
50 "Not Wanted Here," 183
51 Laughing Jackass, . . . 185
52 The White Man's World, {t\ill Page) 187
53 The Old Settlers {Full Page) 191
54 Adam at Practice, 194
55 "Which Fox?" {Full Page) 198
56 "We Marched BY THE Crowd," . . . {Full Page) 203
57 Royal Letter, 205
58 The White Man's Appliances, 208
59 The Usual Spirit, . . 211
60 His Place in Art, 218
61 "No Feeling In It," 230
62 An Aboriginal Athlete 322
63 A Wide Space 224
64 The Three Sisters 328
65 Ballarat Statuary, {Full Page) 236
66 "Do You Remember that Trip?" . . . {Full Page) 240
67 All Through His Influence, 243
68 The Club Badge 247
69 The Faculty Read Up, 251
70 The Scheme Worked, 258
71 "What Do You?" 254
72 "Close to Aus — " .' 254
73 He Looked Dazed, 255
ILLUSTRATIONS. 21
PAGE
74 The Govern ok's Proclamation, .... {Full Page) 258
75 The Last op Her Race, {Full Page) 266
76 "Go 'way from Here!" 274
77 Relics op Convict Discipline, .... {Full Page) 278
78 Lake Manapouri, 286
79 Monument to Maori Robber ^ . 287
80 A Theological Student, 293
81 Australian Bells , . 295
82 Carved Canoe Prow, 298
83 Cattle Stalls on the Flora, 303
84 A Change of Boats, 304
85 Hot Springs and Geysers, {Full Page) 309
86 Protecting the Ladies, {Full Page) 313
87 Maori Women with Feather Robes 319
88 Nose Rubbing, Form op Salutation, . . . - . . 320
89 So Like the Prince, 327
90 "woolloomoolloo 330
91 What the Sailors Believe, . , .... 332
92 Servant Brompy {Full Page) 338
93 Abused Creatures {Full Page) 342
94 Suppressed Vanity, 844
95 A Road Decoration, 847
96 Fourteen Followed {Full Page) 349
97 Oppressively Sociable, 355
98 Indian Crow, . 356
99 Manuel, 362
100 "Satan see God Out," 368
101 Kumar Sohri Samatsinhji Bahaduh, 370
102 One of the Towers op Silence, . . . {Full Page) 373
103 A Parsee, 378
104 The Passers By 882
105 Midnight in a Bombay Street, 387
106 A High-Priced Nautch Girl, 388
107 Nautch Dancing 389
108 A Railway Station, . , {Full Page) 402
109 A Mad Season, . {Full Page) 409
110 Roadside Views 410
111' A Prize Winner, 413
112 "Well, Sor, What Will 2/0 w Have," . . {Full Page) 418
113 " He Had it Upside Down," .... . . 420
114 "You Don't «ay. Sir!" {Full Page) 423
115 He Lighted Me up the Stairs, 425
116 Smythe's Revenge, 450
117 He Stole Blankets, ...... {Full Page) 458
118 A Street Sprinkler, . . • 463
119 A South African Style 464
120 "It Worried Me," 468
22 ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
121 A Religious Fair {Full Page) 472
122 Religious Fakeers, 474
123 They Spoke op it with Rapture 479
124 Do it Reverently, 485
125 The Well op Fate (Full Page) 487
126 Considering the Matter, 493
127 Benares,. {Pull Page) 495
128 The Purifying Waters op the Ganges, , . {Full Page) 498
129 Extra Expense, . , . 501
130 Monkey Antics 503
131 Page prom Bahadur's Book, . . . . . . . 512
182 Title Page of Bahadur's Book, 613
133 A PiciNic IN A Sepulchre, 516
134 Mushy Weather, . . . . 523
135 India, , 525
136 Austria, 526
137 France, 527
138 A Cab Substitute {Full Page) 531
139 Mt. Kinchinjunga, {Full Page) 533
140 The Prayer Wheel, 534
141 We Played with the Train {Fill Page) 537
142 The Loop {Full Page) 541
143 Where the Women and Children Lodged, . {Full Page) 559
144 The Bailie Guard Gate, {Full Page) 563
145 Mouldering Memorials, ... .... 565
146 Rums OF the Residency, {Full Page) 566
147 The Residency Gateway, (Ftill Page) 568
148 An Exaggerated Niagara and the Taj, . . {Full Page) 576
149 An Honest Critic, {Full Page) 585
150 City Gate — Jeypore, {Full Page) 592
151 Sahadat Khan, 593
152 Street Scene in Jeypore, {Full Page) 595
153 "I WAS Embarrassed," {Full Page) 601
154 Types 608
155 A Female Uncle, 610
156 A Cat Would Like that Place, 611
157 "The Mate's Shadow Froze to the Deck," . {Full Page) 613
158 "The Barber Flays us on the Breezy Deck," . . . 615
159 The Wettest Place on Earth, 619
160 Ancient News at Port Louis, 621
161 Only One in Sixteen, 622
162 "The Third Year they do not Gather Shells," . . 625
163 A Stevedore, 626
164 A Cyclone, 628
165 Stupidity in Europe 631
166 Good Fun and Wholesome, .... {Full Page) 638
167 Indians and Chinamen, 636
ILLUSTRATIONS. 23
PAex
168 Like Our Southern Negroes, 688
169 Barnum's Chance, 640
170 Types, 643
171 A Congressional Expression, 645
172 A Fashion in Hair, > . 646
173 The Suppression op Human Instincts, . . {Fall Page) 650
174 Seven Proud Mothers, 653
175 The Political Pot, . . . . . . {Full Page) 655
176 Boer Patrol, ....... {Full Page) 664
177 Boer State Artillery, <« <« gg^
178 Boer Assembling, << << gg^
179 Boers Receiving Arms, 670
180 Pretoria Jail Outside {Full Page 675
181 Prisoners at the Race Course, . . . <« «< g^s
182 Boers Coming into Pretoria, .... <« << g-j's
183 Captors of Jameson " " 675
184 Prisoners at Roll Call 678
185 Tiring the Enemy, {Full Page) 681
186 The Document in Evidence, 684
187 Old Acquaintances, 693
188 He Said "No" Rudely, 694
189 He Felt Stuffy, . . . . . . {Full Page) 696
190 Searching for Gems, 702
191 Compound with Netting, 704
192 The Big Diamond, 705
193 Native Miners Gambling, 707
FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR
CHAPTER I.
A man may have no bad habits and have worse.
— PudiVnhead Wilson''s New Calendar.
rHE starting point of this lecturing-trip around the world was Paris, where we had been living a year or two.
We sailed for America, and there made certain prepara- tions. This took but little time. Two members of my family elected to go with me. Also a carbuncle. The dic- tionary says a carbuncle is a kind of jewel. Humor is out of place in a dictionary.
We started westward from New York in midsummer, with Major Pond to manage the platform-business as far as the Pacific. It was warm work, all the way, and the last fortnight of it was suffocatingly smoky, for in Oregon and British Columbia the forest fires were raging. We had an added week of smoke at the seaboard, where we were obliged to wait awhile for our ship. She had been getting herself ashore in the smoke, and she had to be docked and repaired. We sailed at last ; and so ended a snail-paced march across the continent, which had lasted forty days.
We;moved westward about mid-afternoon over a rippled and sparkling summer sea ; an enticing sea, a clean and cool sea, and apparently a welcome sea to all on board ; it certainly was to me, after the distressful dustings and smokings and swelterings
(25)
26
FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
of the past weeks. The voyage would furnish a three-weeks
holiday, with hardly a break in it. We had the whole Pacific
Ocean in front of us, with nothing to do but do nothing and
be comfortable. The
city of Victoria was
twinkling dim in the
deep heart
of her
smoke-
cloud, and
EVEN THE GULLS SMILED.
getting ready to vanish ; and now we closed the field- glasses and sat down on our steamer chairs contented and at peace. But they Avent to wreck and ruin under us and brought us to shame before all the passengers. They had been furnished by the largest fur- niture-dealing house in Yictoria, and were worth a couple of farthings a dozen, though they had cost us the price of honest chairs. In the Pacific and Indian Oceans one must still bring his own deck-chair on board or go without, just as in the old forgotten Atlantic times — those Dark Ages of sea travel.
Ours was a reasonably comfortable ship, with the custom- ary sea-going fare — plenty of good food furnished by the Deity and cooked by the devil. The discipline observable on board was perhaps as good as it is anywhere in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. The ship was not very well arranged for tropi-
OUR CAPTAIN. 27
cal service ; but that is nothing, for this is the rule for ships which ply in the tropics. She had an over-sufply of cock- roaches, but this is also the rule with ships doing business in the summer seas — at least such as have been long in service. Our young captain was a very handsome man, tall and per- fectly formed, the very figure to show up a smart uniform's finest eifects. He was a man of the best intentions, and was polite and courteous even to courtliness. There was a soft grace and finish about his manners which made whatever place he happened to be in seem for the moment a drawing-room. He avoided the smoking-room. He had no vices. He did not smoke or chew tobacco or take snuff ; he did not swear, or use slang, or rude, or coarse, or indelicate language, or make puns, or tell anecdotes, or laugh intemperately, or raise his voice above the moderate pitch enjoined by the canons of good form. When he gave an order, his manner modified it into a request. After dinner he and his officers joined the ladies and gentle- men in the ladies' saloon, and shared in the singing and piano playing, and helped turn the music. He had a sweet and sympathetic tenor voice, and used it with taste and effect. After the music he played whist there, always with the same partner and opponents, until the ladies' bedtime. The electric lights burned there as late as the ladies and their friends might desire, but they were not allowed to burn in the smoking-room after eleven. There were many laws on the ship's statute book, of course ; but so far as I could see, this and one other were the only ones that were rigidly enforced. The captain explained that he enforced this one because his own cabin adjoined the smoking-room, and the smell of tobacco smoke made him sick, I did not see how our smoke could reach him, for the smoking-room and his cabin were on the upper deck, targets for all the winds that blew ; and besides there was no crack of communication between them, no opening of any sort
28 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
in the solid intervening bulkhead. Still, to a delicate stomach even imaginary smoke can convey damage.
The captain, with his gentle nature, his polish, his sweet- ness, his moral and verbal purity, seemed pathetically out of place in his rude and autocratic vocation. It seemed another instance of the irony of fate.
He was going home under a cloud. The passengers knew about his trouble, and were sorry for him. Approaching Vancouver through a narrow and difficult passage densely befogged with smoke from the forest fires, he had had the ill- luck to lose his bearings and get his ship on the rocks. A matter like this would rank merely as an error with you and me ; it ranks as a crime with the directors of steamship com- panies. The captain had been tried by the Admiralty Court at Vancouver, and its verdict had acquitted him of blame. But that was insufficient comfort. A sterner court would ex- amine the case in Sydney — the Court of Directors, the lords of a company in whose ships the captain had served as mate a number pf years. This was his first voyage as captain.
The officers of our ship were hearty and companionable young men, and they entered into the general amusements and helped the passengers pass the time. Voyages in the Pacific and Indian Oceans are but pleasure excursions for all hands. Our purser was a young Scotchman who was equipped Avith a grit that was remarkable. He was an invalid, and looked it, as far as his body was concerned, but illness could not subdue his spirit. He was full of life, and had a gay and capable tongue. To all appearances he was a sick man without being aware of it, for he did not talk about his ailments, and his bearing and conduct were those of a person in robust health ; yet he was the prey, at intervals, of ghastly sieges of pain in his heart. These lasted many hours, and while the attack con- tinued he could neither sit nor lie. In one instance he stood
CONQUERING AN ENEMY. SO
on his feet twenty-four hours fighting for his life with these sharp agonies, and yet was as full of life and cheer and activity the next day as if nothing had happened.
The brightest passenger in the ship, and the most inWest- ing and felicitous talker, was a young Canadian who was not able to let the whisky bottle alone. He was of a rich and powerful family, and could have had a distinguished career and abundance of effective help toward it if he could have conquered his appetite for drink ; but he could not do it, so his great equipment of talent was of no use to him. He had often taken the pledge to drink no more, and was a good sample of what that sort of unwisdom can do for a man — for a man with anything short of an iron will. The system is wrong in two ways : it does not strike at the root of the trouble, for one thing, and to make a pledge of any kind is to declare war against nature ; for a pledge is a chain that is always clanking and reminding the wearer of it that he is not a free man.
I have said that the system does not strike at the root of the trouble, and I venture to repeat that. The root is not the drinking, but the desire to drink. These are very different things. The one merely requires will — and a great deal of it, both as to bulk and staying capacity — the other merely re- quires watchfulness — and for no long time. The desii'e of course precedes the act, and should have one's first attention ; it can do but little good to rtefuse the act over and over again, always leaving the desire unmolested, unconquered ; the desire will continue to assert itself, and will be almost sure to win in the long run. When the desire intrudes, it should be at once banished out of the mind. One should be on the watch for it all the time — otherwise it will get in. It must be taken in time and not allowed to get a lodgment. A desire constantly repulsed for a fortnight should die, then. That should cure the drinking habit. The system of refusing the mere act of
30 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
drinking, and leaving the desire in full force, is unintelligent war tactics, it seems to me.
I used to take pledges — and soon violate them. My will was not strong, and I could not help it. And then, to be tied in any way naturally irks an otherwise free person and makes him chafe in his bonds and want to get his liberty. But when I finally ceased from taking definite pledges, and merely re- solved that I would kill an injurious desire, but leave myself free to resume the desire and the habit whenever I should choose to do so, I had no more trouble. In five days I drove out the desire to smoke and was not obliged to keep watch after that ; and I never experienced any strong desire to smoke again. At the end of a year and a quarter of idleness I began to write a book, and presently found that the pen was strangely reluctant to go. I tried a smoke to see if that would help me out of the diificulty. It did. I smoked eight or ten cigars and as many pipes a day for five months ; finished the book, and did not smoke again until a year had gone by and another book had to be begun.
I can quit any of my nineteen injurious habits at any time, and without discomfort or inconvenience. I think that the Dr. Tanners and those others who go forty days without eating do it by resolutely keeping out the desire to eat, in the beginning; and that after a few hours the desire is dis- couraged and comes no more.
Once I tried my scheme in a large medical way. I had been confined to my bed several days with lumbago. My case refused to improve. Finally the doctor said, —
" My remedies have no fair chance. Consider what they have to fight, besides the lumbago. You smoke extravagantly, don't you ? "
" Yes."
" You take cofifee immoderately ? "
NOTHING TO FALL BACK ON. 31
"Yes."
" And some tea ? "
" Yes."
"You eat all kinds of things that are dissatisfied with each other's company?"
" Yes."
" You drink two hot Scotches every night ? "
" Yes."
"Very well, there you see what I have to contend against. We can't make progress the way the matter stands. You must make a reduction in these things; you must cut down your consumption of them considerably for some days."
" I can't, doctor."
" Why can't you."
" I lack the will-power. I can cut them off entirely, bat I can't merely moderate them."
He said that that would answer, and said he would come around in twenty-four hours and begin work again. He was taken ill himself and could not come ; but I did not need him. I cut off all those things for two days and nights ; in fact, I cut off all kinds of food, too, and all drinks except water, and at the end of the forty-eight hours the lumbago was discouraged and left me. I was a well man ; so I gave thanks and took to those delicacies again.
It seemed a valuable medical course, and I recommended it to a lady. She had run down and down and down, and had at last reached a point where medicines no longer had any helpful effect upon her. I said I knew I could put her upon her feet in a week. It brightened her up, it filled her with hope, and she said she would do everything I told her to do. So I said she must stop swearing and drinking, and smoking and eating for four days, and then she would be all
S2
FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
right again. And it would have happened just so, I know it; but she said she could not stop swearing, and smok- ing, and drinking, because she had never done those things. So there it was. She had neglected her habits, and hadn't any. Now that they would have come good, there were none in stock. She had nothing to fall back on. She was a sinking vessel, with no freight in her to throw over-
.V ^*
board and lighten ship withal. Why, even one or two little bad habits could have saved her, but she was just a moral pauper. When she could have ac- quired them she was dis- suaded by her parents, who were ignorant people though reared in the best society, and it was too late to begin now. It seemed such a pity ; but there was no help for it. These things ought to be attended to while a person is young; otherwise, when age and disease come, there is nothing effect- ual to fight them with.
WHEN I WAS A YOUTH.
REMITTANCE MEN. 33
When I was a youth I used to take all kinds of pledges, and do my best to keep them, but I never could, because I didn't strike at the root of the habit — the deswe ; I generally broke down within the month. Once I tried limiting a habit. That worked tolerably well for a while. I pledged myself to smoke but one cigar a day. I kept the cigar waiting until bedtime, then I had a luxurious time with it. But desire per- secuted me every day and all day long ; so, within the week I found myself hunting for larger cigars than I had been used to smoke ; then larger ones still, and still larger ones. "Within the fortnight I was getting cigars made for me — on a yet larger pattern. They still grew and grew in size. Within the month my cigar had grown to such proportions that I could have used it as a crutch. It now seemed to me that a one-cigar limit was no real protection to a person, so I knocked my pledge on the head and resumed my liberty.
To go back to that young Canadian. He was a " remit- tance man," the first one I had ever seen or heard of. Passen- gers explained the term to me. They said that dissipated ne'er- do-weels belonging to important families in England and Canada were not cast off by their people while there was any hope of reforming them, but when that last hope perished at last, the ne'er-do-weel was sent abroad to get him out of the way. He was shipped off with just enough money in his pocket — no, in the purser's pocket — for the needs of the voyage — and when he reached his destined port he would find a remittance await- ing him there. Not a large one, but just enough to keep him a month. A similar remittance would come monthly there- after. It was the remittance-man's custom to pay his month's board and lodging straightway — a duty which his landlord did not allow him to forget — then spree away the rest of his money in a single night, then brood and mope and grieve in idleness till the next remittance came. It is a pathetic life.
34
FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
We had other i*emittance-inen on board, it was said. At least they said they were R. M.'s. Tliere were two. But they did not resemble the Canadian ; they lacked his tidiness, and his brains, and his gentlemanly ways, and his resolute spirit, and his humanities and generosities. One of them was a lad of nineteen or twenty, and he was a good deal of a ruin, as to clothes, and morals, and general aspect. lie said he was a scion of a ducal house in England, and had been shipped to Canada for the house's relief, that he had fallen into trouble there, and was now being shipped to Australia. He said he had no title. Beyond this remark he Avas economical of the truth. The first thing he did in Australia Avas to get into the lockup, and the next thing he did was to proclaim himself an earl in the police court in the morning and fail to prove it.
m
CHAPTER II.
When iu doubt, tell the truth. — PiuWnhead Wilson's New Calendar.
BOUT four days out from Victoria we plunged into hot weather, and all the male passengers put on white linen clothes. One or two days later we crossed the 25th parallel of north latitude, and then, by order, the officers of the ship laid away their blue uniforms and came out in white linen ones. All the ladies were in white by this time. This prevalence of snowy costumes gave the promenade deck an invitingly cool and cheerful and picnicky aspect.
From my diary :
There are several sorts of ills in the world from which a person can never escape altogether, let him journey as far as he will. One escapes from one breed of an ill only to en- counter another breed of it. We have come far from the snake liar and the fish liar, and there was rest and peace in the thought ; but now we have reached the realm of the boome- rang liar, and sorrow is with us once more. The first officer has seen a man try to escape from his enemy by getting behind a tree ; but the enemy sent his boomerang sailing into the sky far above and beyond the tree ; then it turned, descended, and killed the man. The Australian passenger has seen this thing done to two men, behind two trees — and by the one arrow. This being received with a large silence that suggested doubt, he buttressed it with the statement that his brother once saw the boomerang kill a bird away off a hundred yards and hring it to the thrower. But these are ills Avhich must be borne.
There is no other way.
(35)
36 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
The talk passed from the boomerang to dreams — usually a fruitful subject, afloat or ashore — but this time the output was poor. Then it passed to instances of extraordinary memory — with better results. Blind Tom, the negro pianist, was spoken of, and it was said that he could accurately play any piece of music, howsoever long and difficult, after hearing it once ; and that six months later he could accurately play it asrain, without havino; touched it in the interval. One of the most striking of the stories told was furnished by a gentleman who had served on the staff of the Viceroy of India. He read the details from his note-book, and explained that he had written them down, right after the consummation of the inci- dent which they described, because he thought that if he did not put them down in black and white he might presently come to think he had dreamed them or invented them.
The Viceroy was making a progress, and among the shows" offered by the Maharajah of Mysore for his entertainment was a memory-exhibition. The Viceroy and thirty gentlemen of his suite sat in a row, and the memory-expert, a high-caste Brahmin, was brought in and seated on the floor in front of them. He said he knew but two languages, the English and his own, but would not exclude any foreign tongue from the tests to be applied to his memory. Then he laid before the assemblage his program — a sufficiently extraordinary one. He proposed that one gentleman should give him one word of a foreign sentence, and tell him its place in the sentence. He was furnished with the French word est, and was told it was second in a sentence of three words. The next gentleman gave him the German word verloren and said it was the third in a sentence of four words. He asked the next gentleman for one detail in a sum in addition ; another for one detail in a sum of subtraction ; others for single details in mathematical problems of various kinds ; he got them. Intermediates gave
A TEST OP MEMORY. 3Y
him single words from sentences in Greek, Latin, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and other languages, and told him their places in the sentences. When at last everybody had furnished him a single rag from a foreign sentence or a figure from a problem, he went over the ground again, and got a second word and a second figure and was told their places in the sentences and the sums ; and so on and so on. He went over the ground again and again until he had collected all the parts of the sums and all the parts of the sentences — and all in disorder, of course, not in their proper rotation. This had occupied two hours.
The Brahmin now sat silent and thinking, a while, then began and repeated all the sentences, placing tlie words in their proper order, and untangled the disordered arithmetical problems and gave accurate answers to them all.
In the beginning he had asked the company to throw almonds at him during the two hours, he to remember how many each gentleman had thrown ; but none were thrown, for the Viceroy said that the test would be a sufficiently severe strain without adding that burden to it.
General Grant had a fine memory for all kinds of things, including even names and faces, and I could have furnished an instance of it if I had thought of it. The first time I ever saw him was early in his first term as President. I had just arrived in Washington from the Pacific coast, a stranger and wholly unknown to the public, and was passing the White House one morning when I met a friend, a Senator from Nevada. He asked me if I would like to see the President. I said I should be very glad ; so we entered. I supposed that the President would be in the midst of a crowd, and that I could look at him in peace and security from a distance, as another stray cat might look at another king. But it was in the morning, and the Senator was using a privilege of his office
38 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
which I had not heard of — the privilege of intruding upon the Chief Magistrate's working hours. Before I knew it, the Senator and I were in the presence, and there was none there but we three. General Grant got slowly up from his table, put his pen down, and stood before me with the iron expression of a man who had not smiled for seven years, and was not intending to smile for another seven. He looked me steadil}^ in the eyes — mine lost confidence and fell. I had never con- fronted a great man before, and was in a miserable state of funk and inefficiency. The Senator said: —
" Mr. President, may I have the privilege of introducing Mr. Clemens ? "
The President gave my hand an unsympathetic wag and dropped it. He did not say a Avord but just stood. In my trouble I could not think of anything to say, I merely wanted to resign. There was an awkward pause, a dreary pause, a horrible pause. Then I thought of something, and looked up into that unyielding face, and said timidly : —
" Mr. President, I — I am embarrassed. Are you ? "
His face broke — just a little — a wee glimmer, the momentary flicker of a summer-lightning smile, seven years ahead of time — and I was out and gone as soon as it was.
Ten years passed away before I saw him the second time. Meantime I was become better known ; and was one of the people appointed to respond to toasts at the banquet given to General Grant in Chicago by the Army of the Tennessee when he came back from his tour around the world. I arrived late at night and got up late in the morning. All the corri- dors of the hotel were crowded with people waiting to get a glimpse of General Grant when he should pass to the place whence he was to review the great procession. I worked my way by the suite of packed drawing-rooms, and at the corner of the house I found a window open where there was a roomy
AN AWKWARD PAUSE.
GEN. GRANT'S FINE MEMORY. 41
platform decorated with flags, and carpeted. I stepped out on it, and saw below me millions of people blocking all the streets, and other millions caked together in all the windows and on all the house-tops around. These masses took me for General Grant, and broke into volcanic explosions and cheers; but it was a good place to see the procession, and I stayed. Presently I heard the distant blare of military music, and far up the street I saw the procession come in sight, cleaving its way through the huzzaing multitudes, with Sheridan, the most martial figure of the "War, riding at its head in the dress uniform of a Lieutenant-General.
And now General Grant, arm-in-arm with Major Carter Harrison, stepped out on the platform, followed two and two by the badged and uniformed reception committee. General Grant was looking exactly as he had looked upon that trying occasion of ten years before — all iron and bronze self-posses- sion. Mr. Harrison came over and led me to the General and formally introduced me. Before I could put together the proper remark, General Grant said —
" Mr. Clemens, I am not embarrassed. Are you ? " — and that little seven-year smile twinkled across his face again.
Seventeen years have gone by since then, and to-day, in New York, the streets are a crush of people Avho are there to honor the remains of the great soldier as they pass to their final resting-place under the monument ; and the air is heavy with dirges and the boom of artillery, and all the millions of America are thinking of the man who restored the Union and the flag, and gave to democratic government a new lease of life, and, as we may hope and do believe, a permanent place among the beneficent institutions of men.
We had one game in the ship which was a good time- passer — at least it was at night in the smoking-room when the men were getting freshened up from the day's monotonies
42 Following the equator.
and duUnessesy It was the completing of non-complete stories. That is to say, a man would tell all of a story except the finish, then the others would try to supply the ending out of their own invention. When every one who wanted a chance had had it, the man who had introduced the story would give it its original ending — then you could take your choice. Sometimes the new endings turnetl out to be better than the old one. But the story which called out the most persistent and determined and ambitious effort was one which liad no ending, and so there was nothing to compare the new- made endings with. The man Avho told it said he could furnish the particulars up to a certain point only, because that was as much of the tale as he knew. lie had read it in a volume of sketches twenty-five years ago, and was interrupted before the end was reached. He would give any one fifty dollars Avho would finish the story to the satisfaction of a jury to be appointed by ourselves. We appointed a jury and wrestled with the tale. We invented plenty of endings, but the jury voted them all down. The jury was right. It was a tale which the author of it may possibly have completed satis- factorily, and if he really had that good fortune I woukl like to know what the ending was. Any ordinary man will find that the story's strength is in its middle, and that there is apparently no way to transfer it to the close, where of course it ought to be. In substance the storiette was as follows :
John Brown, aged thirty-one, good, gentle, bashful, timid, lived in a quiet village in Missouri. He was superintendent of the Presbyterian Sunday- school. It was but a humble distinction ; still, it was his only official one, and he was modestly proud of it and was devoted to its work and its interests. The extreme kindliness of his nature was recognized by all ; in fact, people said that he was made entirely out of good impulses and bashfulness ; that he could always be counted upon for help when it was needed, and for bashful- ness both when it was needed and when it wasn't.
Mary Taylor, twenty-three, modest, sweet, winning, and in character and person beautiful, was all in all to him. And he was very nearly all in all to her. She was wavering, his hopes were high. Her mother had been iu
A Delicately improper tale.
48
opposition from the first. But she was wavering, too ; lie could see it. She was being touched by his warm interest in her two charity-proteges and by his contributions toward their support. These were two forlorn and aged sisters who lived in a log hut in a lonely place up a cross road four miles from Mrs. Taylor's farm. One of the sisters was crazy, and sometimes a little violent, but not often.
At last the time seemed ripe for a final advance, and Brown gathered his courage together and resolved to make it. He would take along a contribu- tion of double the usual size, and win the mother over ; with her opposition annulled, the rest of the conquest would be sure and prompt.
He took to the road in the middle of a placid Sunday afternoon in the soft Missourian summer, and he was equipped properly for his mission. He was clothed all in white linen, with a blue ribbon for a necktie, and he had on dressy tight boots. His horse and buggy were the finest that the livery stable could furnish. The lap robe was of white linen, it was new, and it had a hand-worked border that could not be rivaled in that region for beauty and elaboration.
When he was four miles out on the lonely road and w^as walking his horse over a wooden bridge, his straw hat blew off and fell in the creek, and floated down and lodged against a bar. lie did not quite know what to do. He must have the hat, that was manifest ; but how was he to get it ?
Then he had an idea. The roads were empty, nobody was stirring. Yes, he would risk it. He led the horse to the roadside and set it to cropping the grass ; then he undressed and put his clothes in the buggy, petted the horse a moment to secure its compassion and its loyalty, then hurried to the stream. He swam out and soon had the hat. When he got to the top of the bank the horse was gone !
His legs almost gave way under him. The horse was walking leisurely along the road. Brown trotted after it, say- ing, 'Whoa, whoa, there's a good fel- low ; " but whenever he got near enough to chance a jump for the buggy, the Jiorse quickened its pace a little and defeated him. And so this went on, the naked man perishing with anxiety, and expect- ing every moment to see people come in sight. He tagged on and on, imploring the horse, beseeching the horse, till ho had left a mile behind him, and was clos- ing up on the Taylor premises ; then at last he was successful, and got into the buggy. He flung on his shirt, his neck- tie, and his coat ; then reached for — but he was too late ; he sat suddenly down and pulled up the lap-robe, for he saw some one coming out of the
-A^
TUK CLIMAX.
44 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
gate — a woman, he thought. He wheeled the horse to the left, and struck briskly up the cross-road. It was perfectly straight, and exposed on both sides ; but there were woods and a sharp turn three miles ahead, and he was very grateful when he got there. As he passed around the turn he slowed down to a walk, and reached for his tr — too late again.
He had come upon Mrs. Enderby, Mrs. Glossop, Mrs. Taylor, and Mary. They were on foot, and seemed tired and excited. They came at once to the buggy and shook hands, and all spoke at once, and said eagerly and earnestly, how glad they were that he was come, and how fortunate it was. And Mrs. Enderby said, impressively :
"It looks like an accident, his coming at such a time ; but let no one pro- fane it with such a name ; he was sent — sent from on high."
They were all moved, and Mrs. Glossop said in an awed voice :
" Sarah Enderby, you never said a truer word in your life. This is no ac- cident, it is a special Providence. He was sent. He is an angel — an angel as truly as ever angel was — an angel of deliverance, /say angel, Sarah En- derby, and will have no other word. Don't let any one ever say to me again, that there's no such thing as special Providences ; for if this isn't one, let them account for it that can."
"Iknow it's so," said Mrs. Taylor, fervently, "John Brown, I could worship you ; I could go down on my knees to you. Didn't something tell you ? — didn't you feel that you were sent ? I could kiss the hem of your lap- robe."
He was not able to speak ; he was helpless with shame and fright. Mrs. Taylor went on :
"Why, just look at it all around, Julia Glossop. Any person can see the hand of Providence in it. Here at noon what do we see ? We see the smoke rising. I speak up and say, 'That's the Old People's cabin afire.' Didn't I, Julia Glossop ? "
" The very words you said, Nancy Taylor. I was as close to you as I am now, and I heard them. You may have said hut instead of cabin, but in substance it's the same. And you were looking pale, too."
" Pale ? I was that pale that if — why, you just compare it with this lap- robe. Then the next thing I said was, ' Mary Taylor, tell the hired man to rig up the team — we'll go to the rescue.' And she said, 'Mother, don't you know you told him he could drive to see his people, and stay over Sunday ?' And it was just so. I declare for it, I had forgotten it. 'Then,' said I, 'we'll go afoot.' And go we did. And found Sarah Enderby on the road."
"And we all went together," said Mrs. Enderby. " And found the cabin set fire to and burnt down by the crazy one, and the poor old things so old and feeble that they couldn't go afoot. And we got them to a shady place and made them as comfortable as we could, and began to wonder which way to turn to find some way to get them conveyed to Nancy Taylor's house. And I spoke up and said — now what did I say ? Didn't I say, ' Providence will provide ' ? "
" Why sure as you live, so you did ! I had forgotten it."
"So had I," said Mrs. Glossop and Mrs. Taylor ; "but you certainly said it. Now wasn't that remarkable ? "
A CONSULTATION. 45
" Yes, I said it. And then we went to Mr. Moseley's, two miles, and all of them were gone to the camp meeting over on Stony Fork ; and then we came all the way back, two miles, and then here, another mile — and Provi- dence has provided. You see it yourselves "
They gazed at each other awe-struck, and lifted their hands and said in unison :
"It's per-fectly wonderful."
" And then," said Mrs. Glossop, " what do you think we had better do — let Mr. Brown drive the Old People to Nancy Taylor's one at a time, or put both of them in the buggy, and him lead the horse ? "
Brown gasped.
"Now, then, that's a question," said Mrs. Enderby. "You see, we are all tired out, and any way we fix it it's going to be difficult. For if Mr. Brown takes both of them, at least one of us must go back to help him, for he can't load them into the buggy by himself, and they so helpless."
"That is so," said Mrs. Taylor. " It doesn't look — oh, how would this do ? — one of us drive there with Mr. Brown, and the rest of you go along to my house and get things ready. I'll go with him. He and I together can lift one of the Old People into the buggy ; then drive her to ray house and —
"But who will take care of the other one ?" said Mrs. Enderby. "We musn't leave her there in the woods alone, you know — especially the crazy one. There and back is eight miles, you see."
They had all been sitting on the grass beside the buggy for a while, now, trying to rest their weary bodies. They fell silent a moment or two, and struggled in thought over the baffling situation ; then Mrs. Enderby bright- ened and said :
" I think I've got the idea, now. You see, we can't walk any more. Think what we've done : four miles there, two to Moseley's, is six, then back to here — nine miles since noon, and not a bite to eat ; I declare I don't see how we've done it ; and as for me, I am just famishing. Now, somebody's got to go back, to help Mr. Brown — there's no getting aiound that; but whoever goes has got to ride, not walk. So my idea is this : one of us to ride back with Mr. Brown, then ride to Nancy Taylor's house with one of the Old People, leaving Mr. Brown to keep the other old one company, you all to go now to Nancy's and rest and wait ; then one of you drive back and get the other one and drive her to Nancy's, and Mr. Brown walk."
" Splendid !" they all cried. "Oh, that will do — that will answer per- fectly." And they all said that Mrs. Enderby had the best head for planning, in the company ; and they said that they wondered that they hadn't thought of this simple plan themselves. They hadn't meant to take back the compli- ment, good simple souls, and didn't know they had done it. After a consulta- tion it was decided that Mrs. Enderby should drive back with Brown, she being entitled to the distinction because she had invented the plan. Every- thing now being satisfactorily arranged and settled, the ladies rose, relieved and happy, and brushed down their gowns, and three of them started home- ward ; Mrs. Enderby set her foot on the buggy-step and was about to climb in, when Brown found a remnant of his Toice and gasped out —
46 TOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
"Please Mrs. Enderby, call them back — I am very weak ; I can't walk, I can't, indeed."
"Why, dear Mr. Brown ! You do look pale; I am ashamed of myself that I didn't notice it .sooner. Come back — all of you ! Mr. Brown is not well. Is there anything I can do for you, Mr. Brown? — I'm real sorry. Are you in pain ? "
"No, madam, only weak; I am not sick, but only just weak — lately; not long, but just lately."
The others came back, and poured out their sympathies and commisera- tions, and were full of self-reproaches for not having noticed how pale he was. And they at once struck out a new plan, and soon agreed that it was by far the best of all. They would all go to Nancy Taylor's house and see to Brown's needs first. He could lie on the sofa in the parlor, and while Mrs. Taylor and Mary took care of him the other two ladies would take the buggy and go and get one of the Old People, and leave one of themselves with the other one, and —
By this time, without any solicitation, they were at the horse's head and were beginning to turn him around. The danger was imminent, but Brown found his voice again and saved himself. He said —
"But ladies, you are overlooking something which makes the plan im- practicable. You see, if you bring one of them home, and one remains behind with the other, there will be three persons there when one of you comes back for that other, for some one must drive the buggy back, and three can't come home in it."
They all exclaimed, "Why, surely, that is so!" and they were all per- plexed again.
"Dear, dear, what cnn we do?" said Mrs. Glossop ; "it is the most mixed-up thing that ever was. The fox and the goose and the corn and things — oh, dear, they are nothing to it."
They sat wearily down once more, to further torture their tormented heads for a plan that would work. Presently Mary offered a plan ; it was her first effort. She said :
"I am young and strong, and am refreshed, now. Take Mr. Brown to our house, and give him help — you see how plainly he needs it. I will go back and take care of the Old People ; I can be there in twenty minutes. You can go on and do what you first started to do —wait on the main road at our house until somebody comes along with a wagon ; then send and bring away the fhree of us. You won't have to wait long ; the farmers will soon be coming back from town, now. I will keep old Polly patient and cheered up — the crazy one doesn't need it."
This plan was discussed and accepted ; it seemed the best that could be done, in the circumstances, and the Old People must be getting discouraged by this time.
Brown felt relieved, and was deeply thankful. Let him once get to the main road and he would find a way to escape.
Then Mrs. Taylor said :
" The evening chill will be coming on, pretty soon, and- those poor old
AN IMPRACTICABLE PLAN.
47
burnt-out things will need some kind of covering. Take tlie lap-robe with you, dear."
" Very well, Mother, I will."
She stepped to the buggy and put out her hand to take it —
That was the end of the tale. The passenger who told it said that when he read the story twenty-live years ago in a train he was interrupted at that point — the train jumped off a bridge.
At first we thought we could finish the story quite easily, and we set to work with confidence ; but it soon began to appear that it was not a simple thing, but difficult and baffling. This was on ac- count of Brown's character — great generosity and t kindliness, but complicated with unusual shyness and diffidence, particularly in the presence of ladies. There was his love for Mary, in a hopeful state bur not yet secure — just in a condition, indeed, where its affair must be handled with great tact, and no mistakes made, no offense given. And there was the mother — wavering, half willing — by adroit and flawless diplomacy to be won over, now, or perhaps never at all. Also, there were the helpless Old People yonder in the woods waiting — their fate and Brown's happiness to be de- termined by what Brown should do within the next two seconds. Mary was reaching for the lap-robe ; Brown must decide — there was no time to be lost.
Of course none but a happy end- ing of the story would be accepted by
the jury ; the finish must find Brown in high credit with the ladies, his behavior without blemish, his modesty unwounded, his character for self- sacrifice maintained, the Old People rescued through him, their benefactor, all the party proud of him, happy in. him, his praises on all their tongues.
We tried to arrange this, but it was beset with persistent and irreconcilable difficulties. We saw that Brown's shyness would not allow him to give up the lap-robe. This would offend Mary and her mother ; and it would surprise the other ladies, partly because this stinginess toward the suffering Old People would be out of character with Brown, and partly because he was a special Providence and could not properly act so. If asked to explain his conduct, his shyness would not allow him to tell the truth, and lack of invention and practice would find him incapable of contriving a lie that would wash. We worked at the. troublesome problem until three in the morning.
Meantime Mary was still reaching for the lap-robe. We gave it up, and decided to let her continue to reach. It is the reader's privilege to determine for himself how the thing came out.
WE WORKED UNTIL THREE.
CHAPTER III.
It is more trouble to make a maxim than it is to do right.
— Piidd^nhead Wilson's New Calendar.
ON the seventh day out we saw a dim vast bulk standing up out of the wastes of the Pacific and knew that that spectral promontory was Diamond Head, a piece of this world which I had not seen before for twenty-nine years. So we were nearing Honolulu, the capital city of the Sandwich Islands — those islands which to me were Paradise ; a Paradise which I had been longing all those years to see again. Not any other thing in the world could have stirred me as the sight of that great rock did.
In the night we anchored a mile from shore. Through my port I could see the twinkling lights of Honolulu and the dark bulk of the mountain-range that stretched away right and left. I could not make out the beautiful Nuuana valley, but I knew where it lay, and remembered how it used to look in the old times. We used to ride up it on horseback in those days — we young people — and branch off and gather bones in a sandy region where one of the first Kamehameha's battles was fought. He was a remarkable man, for a king ; and he wOiS also a remarkable man for a savage. He was a mere kinglet and of little or no consequence at the time of Captain Cook's arrival in 1788; but about four years afterward he conceived the idea of enlarging his sphere of influence. That is a courteous modern phrase which means robbing your neigh- bor— for your neighbor's benefit ; and the great theater of its
benevolences is Africa. Kameharaeha went to war, and in the
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AN ENERGETIC MONARCH. 51
course of ten years he whipped out all the other kings and made himself master of every one of the nine or ten islands that form the group. But he did more than that, lie bought ships, freighted them with sandal wood and other native pro- ducts, and sent them as far as South America and China ; he sold to his savages the foreign stuffs and tools and utensils which came back in these ships, and started the march of civilization. It is doubtful if the match to this extraordinary thing is to be found in the history of any other savage. Savages are eager to learn from the white man any new way to kill each other, but it is not their habit to seize with avidity and apply with energy the larger and nobler ideas which he offers them. The details of Kamehameha's history show that he was always hospitably ready to examine the white man's ideas, and that he exercised a tidy discrimination in making his selections from the samples placed on view.
A shrewder discrimination than was exhibited by his son and successor, Liholiho, I think. Liholiho could have qualified as a reformer, perhaps, but as a king he was a mistake. A mistake because he tried to be both king and reformer. This is mixing fire and gunpowder together. A king has no proper business with reforming. His best policy is to keep things as they are ; and if he can't do that, he ought to try to make them worse than they are. This is not guesswork; 1 have thought over this matter a good deal, so that if I should ever have a chance to become a king I would know how to conduct the business in the best way.
When Liholiho succeeded his father he found himself pos- sessed of an equipment of royal tools and safeguards which a wiser king would have known how to husband, and judiciously employ, and make profitable. The entire country was under the one scepter, and his was that scepter. There was an Established Church, and he was the head of it. There was a
52 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
Standing Army, and he was the head of that; an Army of 114 privates under command of 27 Generals and a Field Mar- shal. There was a proud and ancient Hereditary Nobility. There was still one other asset. This was the tabu — an agent endowed with a mysterious and stupendous power, an agent not found among the properties of any European monarch, a tool of inestimable value in the business. Liholiho was head- master of the tabu. The tabu was the most ingenious and effective of all the inventions that has ever been devised for keeping a people's privileges satisfactorily restricted.
It required the sexes to live in separate houses. It did not allow people to eat in either house ; they must eat in another place. It did not allow a man's woman-folk to enter his house. It did not allow the sexes to eat' together ; the men must eat first, and the women must wait on them. Then the women could eat what was left — if anything was left — and wait on themselves. I mean, if anything of a coarse or un- palatable sort was left, the women could have it. But not the good things, the fine things, the choice things, such as pork, poultry, bananas, cocoanuts, the choicer varieties of fish, and so on. By the tabu, all these were sacred to the men ; the women spent their lives longing for them and wondering what they might taste like ; and they died without finding out.
These rules, as you see, were quite simple and clear. It was easy to remember them ; and useful. For the penalty for infringing any rule in the whole list was death. Those women easily learned to put up with shark and taro and dog for a diet when the other things were so expensive.
It was death for any one to walk upon tabu'd ground ; or defile a tabu'd thing with his touch ; or fail in due servility to a chief ; or step upon the king's shadow. The nobles and the King and the priests were always suspending little rags here and there and yonder, to give notice to the people that the
THREW AWAY HIS CHANCE.
53
ROYAL EQUIPMENTS.
decorated spot or thing was tabu, and death lurking near. The struggle for life was difficult and chancy in the islands in those days.
Thus advantageously was the new king situated. Will it be believed that the first thing he did was to destroy his Established Church, root and branch ? He did indeed do that. To state the case figuratively, he was a prosperous sailor who burnt his ship and took to a raft. This Church was a horrid thing. It heavily oppressed the people ; it kept them always trembling in the gloom of mysterious threatenings ; it slaughtered them in sacrifice before its grotesque idols of wood and stone ; it cowed them, it terrorized them, it made them slaves to its priests, and through the priests to the king. It was the best friend a king could have, and the most dependable. To a professional reformer who should annihilate so frightful and so devastating a power as this Church, reverence and praise would be due ; but to a king who should do it, could properl}'^ be due nothing but reproach ; reproach softened by sorrow ; sorrow for his unfitness for his position.
He destroyed his Established Church, and his kingdom is a republic to-day, in consequence of that act.
When he destroyed the Church and burned the idols he did a mighty thing for civilization and for his people's weal — but it was not " business." It was unkingly, it was inartistic. It made trouble for his line. The American missionaries arrived
54 FOLLOWING THP: EQUATOR.
while the burned idols were still smoking. They found the nation without a religion, and they repaired the defect. They offered their own religion and it was gladly received. But it Avas no support to arbitrary kingship, and so the kingly power began to weaken from that day. Forty-seven years later, when I was in tlie islands, Kamehameha V. was trying to repair Liholiho's blunder, and not succeeding. He had set up an Established Church and made himself the head of it. But it was only a pinchbeck thing, an imitation, a bauble, an empty show. It had no power, no value for a king. It could not harry or burn or slay, it in no way resembled the admirable machine which Liholiho destroyed. It was an Established Church without an Establishment ; all the people were Dis- senters.
Long before that, the kingship had itself become but a name, a show. At an early day the missionaries had turned it into something very much like a republic; and here lately the business Avhites have turned it into something exactly like it.
In Captain Cook's time (1T78), the native population of the islands was estimated at 400,000; in 1836 at something short of 200,000, in 1866 at 50,000 ; it is to-day, per census, 25,000. All intelligent people praise Kamehameha I. and Liholiho for con- ferring upon their people the great boon of civilization. I would do it myself, but my intelligence is out of repair, now, from over-work.
"When I was in the islands nearly a generation ago, I was acquainted with a young American couple who had among their belongings an attractive little son of the age of seven — attractive but not practicably companionable with me, because he knew no English. He had played from his birth with the little Kanakas on his father's plantation, and had preferred their lanffuaffe and would learn no other. The familv removed to America a month after I arrived in the islands, and straight-
SOMETHINQ TOUCHED HIS SHOULDEB.
THE DIVER. 57
way the boy began to lose his Kanaka and pick up English. By the time he was twelve he hadn't a word of Kanaka left ; the language had wholly departed from his tongue and from his comprehension. Mne years later, when he was twenty-one, I came upon the family in one of the lake towns of New York, and the mother told me about an adventure which her son had been having. By trade he was now a professional diver, A passenger boat had been caught in a storm on the lake, and had gone down, carrying her people with her. A few days later the young diver descended, with his armor on, and entered the berth-saloon of the boat, and stood at the foot of the com- panionway, with his hand on the rail, peering through the dim water. Presently something touched him on the shoulder, and he turned aftd found a dead man swaying and bobbing about him and seemingly inspecting him inquiringly. He was par- alyzed with fright. His entry had disturbed the water, and now he discerned a number of dim corpses making for him and wagging their heads and swaying their bodies like sleepy peo- ple trying to dance. His senses forsook him, and in that con- dition he was drawn to the surface. He was put to bed at home, and was soon very ill. During some days he had sea- sons of delirium which lasted several hours at a time ; and while they lasted he talked Kanaka incessantly and glibly ; and Kanaka only. He was still very ill, and he talked to me in that tongue ; but I did not understand it, of course. The doctor-books tell us that cases like this are not uncommon. Then the doctors ought to study the cases and find out how to multiply them. Many languages and things get mislaid in a person's head, and stay mislaid for lack of this reme dy.
Many memories of my former visit to the islands came up in my mind while we lay at anchor in front of Honolulu that night. And pictures — pictures — pictures — an enchanting procession of them ! I was impatient for the morning to come
58 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
When it came it brought disappointment, of course. Cholera had broken out in the town, and we were not allowed to have any communication with the shore. Thus suddenly did my dream of twenty-nine years go to ruin. Messages came from friends, but the friends themselves I was not to have any sight of. My lecture-hall was ready, but I was not to see that, either.
Several of our passengers belonged in Honolulu, and these were sent ashore'; but nobody could go ashore and return. There were people on shore who were booked to go with us to Australia, but we could not receive them ; to do it would cost us a quarantine-term in Sydney. They could have escaped the day before, by ship to San Francisco ; but the bars had been put up, now, and they might have to wait weeks before any ship could venture to give them a passage any whither. And there were hardships for others. An elderly lady and her son, recreation-seekers from Massachusetts, had wandered westward, further and further from home, always intending to take the return track, but always concluding to go still a little further ; and now here they were at anchor before Honolulu — positively their last westward-bound indulgence — they had made up their minds to that — but where is the use in making up your mind in this world ? It is usually a waste of time to do it. These two would have to stay with us as far as Australia. Then they could go on around the world, or go back the way they had come ; the distance and the accommodations and out- lay of time would be just the same, whichever of the two routes they might elect to take. Think of it : a projected ex- cursion of five hundred miles gradually enlarged, without any elaborate degree of intention, to a possible twenty-four thou- sand. However, they were used to extentions by this time, and did not mind this new one much.
And we had with us a lawyer from Victoria, who had been
HONOLULU OF THE PAST. 59
sent out by the Government on an international matter, and he had brought his wife with him and left the children at home with the servants — and now what was to be done ? Go ashore amongst the cholera and take the risks ? Most certainly not. They decided to go on, to the Fiji islands, wait there a fort- night for the next ship, and then sail for home. They couldn't foresee that they wouldn't see a homeward-bound ship again for six weeks, and that no word could come to them from the children, and no word go from them to the children in all that time. It is easy to make plans in this world ; even a cat can do it; and when one is out in those remote oceans it is notice- able that a cat's plans and a man's are worth about the same. There is much the same shrinkage in both, in the matter of values.
There was nothing for us to do but sit about the decks in the shade of the awnings and look at the distant shore. We lay in luminous blue water ; shoreward the water was green — green and brilliant ; at the shore itself it broke in a long white ruffle, and with no crash, no sound that we could hear. The town was buried under a mat of foliage that looked like a cushion of moss. The silky mountains were clothed in soft, rich splendors of melting color, and some of the cliffs were veiled in slanting mists. I recognized it all. It was just as I had seen it long before, with nothing of its beauty lost, noth- ing of its charm wanting.
A change had come, but that was political, and not visible from the ship. The monarchy of my day was gone, and a republic was sitting in its seat. It was not a material change. The old imitation pomps, the fuss and feathers, have departed, and the royal trademark — that is about all that one could miss, I suppose. That imitation monarchy was grotesque enough, in my time ; if it had held on another thirty years it would have been a monarchy without subjects of the king's race.
60 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
We had a sunset of a very fine sort. The vast plain of the sea was marked olf in bands of sharply-contrasted colors: great stretches of dark blue, others of purple, others of polished bronze; the billowy mountains showed all sorts of dainty browns and greens, blues and purples and blacks, and the rounded velvety backs of certain of them made one want to stroke them, as one would the sleek back of a cat. The long, sloping promontory projecting into the sea at the west turned dim and leaden and spectral, then became suffused with pink — dissolved itself in a pink dream, so to speak, it seemed so airy and unreal. Presently the cloud-rack was flooded with fiery splendors, and these were copied on the surface of the sea, and it made one drunk with delight to look upon it.
From talks with certain of our passengers whose home was Honolulu, and from a sketch by Mrs. Mary H. Krout, I was able to perceive what the Honolulu of to-day is, as compared with the Honolulu of my time. In my time it was a beautiful little town, made up of snow-white wooden cottages deliciously smothered in tropical vines and flowers and trees and shrubs ; and its coral roads and streets were hard and smooth, and as white as the houses. The outside aspects of the place sug- gested the presence of a modest and comfortable prosperity — a general prosperity ^- perhaps one might strengthen the term and say universal. There were no fine houses, no fine furni- ture. There were no decorations. Tallow candles furnished the light for the bedrooms, a whale-oil lamp furnished it for the parlor. Native matting served as carpeting. In the parlor one would find two or three lithographs on the walls — portraits as ^ rule : Kamehameha IV., Louis Kossuth, Jenny Lind ; and may be an engraving or two : Rebecca at the Well, Moses smiting the rock, Joseph's servants finding the cup in Ben- jamin's sack. There woUld be a center table, with books of a tranquil sort on it : The Whole Duty of Man, Baxter's Saints'
HONOLULU OF TO-DAY. HI
Kest, Fox's Martyrs, Tupper's Proverbial Philosophy, bound copies of The Missionary Herald and of Father Damon's Seaman's Friend. A melodeon; a music stand, with Willie, We have Missed You, Star of the Evening, KoU on Silver Moon, Are We Most There, I Would not Live Alway, and other songs of love and sentiment, together with an assort- ment of hymns. A what-not with semi-globular glass paper- weights, enclosing miniature pictures of ships, New England rural snowstorms, and the like ; sea-shells with Bible texts carved on them in cameo style ; native curios ; whale's tooth with full-rigged ship carved on it. There was nothing remin- iscent of foreign parts, for nobody had been abroad. Trips were made to San Francisco, but that could not be called going abroad. Comprehensively speaking, nobody traveled.
But Honolulu has grown wealthy since then, and of course wealth has introduced changes; some of the old simplicities have disappeared. Here is a modern house, as pictured by Mrs. Krout :
" Almost every house is surFounded by extensive lawns and gardens en- closed by walls of volcanic stone or by thick hedges of the brilliant hibiscus.
" The houses are most tastefully and comfortably furnished ; the floors are either of hard wood covered with rugs or with fine Indian matting, while there is a preference, as in most warm countries, for rattan or bamboo furni- ture ; there are the usual accessories of bric-a-brac, pictures, books, and curios from all parts of the world, for these island dwellers are indefatigable travelers.
" Nearly every house has what )g, called a lanai. It is a large apartment, roofed, floored, open on three sides, with a door or a draped archway opening into the drawing-room. Frequently the roof is formed by the thick inter- lacing boughs of the 7iou tree, impervious to the sun and even to the rain, ex- cept in violent storms. Vines are trained about the sides — the stephanotis or some one of the countless fragrant and blossoming trailers which abound in the islands. There are also curtains of matting that may be drawn to ex- clude the sun or rain. The floor is bare for coolness, or partially covered with rugs, and the lanai is prettily furnished with comfortable chairs, sofas, and tables loaded with flowers, or wonderful ferns in pots.
" The lanai is the favorite reception room, and here at any social function the musical program is given and cakes and ices are served ; here morning callers are received, or gay riding parlies, the ladies in pretty divided skirts,
62 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
worn for convenience in riding astride, — the universal mode adopted by Europeans and Americans, as well as by the natives.
"The comfort and luxury of such an apartment, especially at a seashore villa, can hardly be imagined. The soft breezes sweep across it, heavy with the fragrance of jasmine and gardenia, and through the swaying boughs of palm and mimosa there are glimpses of rugged mountains, their summits veiled in clouds, of purple sea with the white surf beating eternally against the reefs,— whiter still in the yellow sunlight or the magical moonlight of the tropics."
There: rugs, ices, pictures, lanais, worldly books, sinful bric-a-brac fetched from everywhere. And the ladies riding astride. These are changes, indeed. In my time the native women rode astride, but the white ones lacked the courage to adopt their wise custom. In my time ice was seldom seen in Honolulu. It sometimes came in sailing vessels from New England as ballast ; and then, if there happened to be a man- of-war in port and balls and suppers raging by consequence, the ballast was worth six hundred dollars a ton, as is evidenced by reputable tradition. But the ice-machine has traveled all over the world, now, and brought ice within everybody's reach. In Lapland and Spitzbergen no one uses native ice in our day, except the bears and the walruses.
The bicycle is not mentioned. It was not necessary. We know that it is there, without inquiring. It is everywhere. But for it, people could never have had summer homes on the summit of Mont Blanc ; before its day, property up there had but a nominal value. The laddies of the Hawaiian capital learned too late the right way to occupy a horse — too late to get much benefit from it. The riding-horse is retiring from business everywhere in the world. In Honolulu a few years from now he will be only a tradition.
We all know about Father Damien, the French priest who voluntarily forsook the world and went to the leper island of Molokai to labor among its population of sorrowful exiles who wait there, in slow -consuming misery, for death
THE LEPERS OF HAWAII. 63 -
to come and release them from their troubles ; and we know that the thing which he knew beforehand would happen, did happen : that he became a leper himself, and died of that horrible disease. There was still another case of self-sacrifice, it appears. I asked after " Billy " Ragsdale, interpreter to the - Parliament in my time — a half- white. He was a brilliant young fellow, and very popular. As an interpreter he would have been hard to match anywhere. He used to stand up in the Parliament and turn the English speeches into Hawaiian and the Hawaiian speeches into English with a readiness and a volubility that were astonishing. I asked after him, and was told that his prosperous career was cut short in a sudden and unexpected way, just as he was about to marry a beautiful half-caste girl. He discovered, by some nearly invisible sign about his skin, that the poison of leprosy was in him. The secret was his own, and might be kept concealed for years ; but he would not be treacherous to the girl that loved him ; he would not marry her to a doom like his. And so he put his affairs in order, and went around to all his friends and bade them good-bye, and sailed in the leper ship to Molokai. There he died the loathsome and lingering death that all lepers die.
In this place let me insert a paragraph or two from " The Paradise of the Pacific " (Rev. H. H. Gowen) :
"Poor lepers ! It is easy for those who have no relatives or friends among them to enforce the decree of segregation to the letter, but who can write of the terrible, the heart-breaking scenes which that enforcement has brought about ?
" A man upon Hawaii was suddenly taken away after a summary arrest, leaving behind him a helpless wife about to give birth to a babe. The devoted wife with great pain and risk came the whole journey to Honolulu, and pleaded until the authorities were unable to resist her entreaty that she might go and live like a leper with her leper husband.
"A woman in the prime of life and activity is condemned as an incipient leper, suddenly removed from her home, and her husband returns to find his two helpless babes moaning for their lost mother.
64 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
" Imagine it ! The case of the babies is hard, but its bitterness is a trifle — less than a trifle — less than nothing — compared to what the mother must suffer ; and suffer minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, month by month, year by year, without respite, relief, or any abatement of her pain till she dies.
" One woman, Luka Kaaukau, has been living with her leper husband in the settlement for twelve years. The man has scarcely a joint left, his limbs are only distorted ulcerated stumps, for four years his wife has put every particle of food into his mouth. He wanted his wife to abandon his wretched carcass long ago, as she herself was sound and well, but Luka said that she was content to remain and wait on the man she loved till the spirit should be freed from its burden.
" I myself have known hard cases enough : — of a girl, apparently in full health, decorating the church with me at Easter, who before Christmas is taken away as a confirmed leper ; of a mother hiding her child in the mountains for years so that not even her dearest friends knew that she had a child alive, that he might not be taken away ; of a respectable white man taken away from his wife and family, and compelled to become a dweller in the Leper Settlement, where he is counted dead, even by the insurance companies."
And one great pity of it all is, that these poor sufferers are innocent. The leprosy does not come of sins which they committed, but of sins committed by their ancestors, who esGwped the curse of leprosy !
Mr. Gowan has made record of a certain very striking circumstance. Would you expect to find in that awful Leper Settlement a custom worthy to be transplanted to your own country ? They have one such, and it is inexpressibly touching and beautiful. When death sets open the prison-door of life there, the band salutes the freed soul with a burst of glad music !
CHAPTER IV.
A dozen direct censures are easier to bear than one morganatic compliment.
— Pudcfn/iead Wilson^s New Calendar.
SAILED from Honolulu. From diary: Sept. 2. Flocks of flying fish — slim, shapely, grace- ful, and intensely white. With the sun on them they look like a flight of silver fruit-knives. They are able to fly a hundred yards.
Sej)t. 3. In 9° 50' north latitude, at breakfast. Approach- ing the equator on a long slant. Those of us who have never seen the equator are a good deal excited. I think I would rather see it than any other thing in the world. We entered the "doldrums" last night — variable winds, bursts of rain, intervals of calm, with chopping seas and a wobbly and drunken motion to the ship — a condition of things findable in other regions sometimes, but present in the doldrums always. The globe-girdling belt called the doldrums is 20 de- grees wide, and the thread called the equator lies along the middle of it.
Sept. Jj.. Total eclipse of the moon last night. At'Y.30 it began to go off. At total — or about that — it was like a rich rosy cloud with a tumbled surface framed in the circle and projecting from it — a bulge of strawberry-ice, so to speak. At half-eclipse the moon was like a gilded acorn in its cup.
Sept. 5. Closing in on the equator this noon. A sailor ex- plained to a young girl that the ship's speed is poor because we af e climbing up the bulge toward the center of the globe ; but that when we should once get over, at the equator, and start 5 (65)
66
FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
WATCHING FOK THE BLUE RIBBON.
down-hill, we should fly. When she asked him the other day what the fore-yard was, he said it was the front yard, the open area in the front end of the ship. That man has a good deal of learning stored up, and the girl is likely to get it all.
Afternoon. Crossed the equator. In the distance it looked like a blue ribbon stretched across the ocean. Several passengers
kodak'd it. We had no fool cer- emonies, no fantastics, no horse- play. All that sort of thing has gone out. In old times a sailor, dressed as Neptune, used to come in over the bows, with his suite, and lather up and shave everybody Avho was cross- ing the equator for the first time, and then cleanse these unfortunates by swinging them from the yard-arm and ducking them three times in the sea. This was considered funny. Nobody knows why. No, that is not true. We do know why. Such a thing could never be funny on land ; no part of the old-time grotesque performances gotten up on shipboard to celebrate the passage of the line could ever be funny on shore — they would seem dreary and witless to shore people. But the shore people w^ould change their minds about it at sea, on a long voyage. On such a voyage, with its eternal monotonies, people's intellects dete- riorate ; the owners of the intellects soon reach a point Avhere they almost seem to prefer childish things to things of a ma- turer degree. One is often surprised at the juvenilities which grown people indulge in at sea, and the interest they take in them, and the consuming enjoyment they get out of them. This is on long voyages only. The mind gradually becomes inert, dull, blunted ; it loses its accustomed interest in intellec-
HOKSE IJUil.IAKUS.
10
|
8 |
1 |
6 |
|
3 |
5 |
7 |
|
4 |
9 |
2 |
to off
DIAGBAM.
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SHOVEL-BOARD. 69
tual things ; nothing but horse-play can rouse it, nothing but wild and foolish grotesqueries can entertain it. On short voy- ages it makes no such exposure of itself ; it hasn't time to slump down to this sorrowful level.
The short-voyage passenger gets his chief physical exercise out of "horse-billiards" — shovel-board. It is a good game. We play it in this ship. A quartermaster chalks off a diagram like this — on the deck.
The player uses a cue that is like a broom-handle with a quarter-moon of wood fastened to the end of it. With this he shoves wooden disks the size of a saucer — he gives the disk a vigorous shove and sends it fifteen or twenty feet along the deck and lands it in one of the squares if he can. If it stays there till the inning is played out, it will count as many points in the game as the figure in the square it has stopped in rep- resents. The adversary plays to knock that disk out and leave his own in its place — particularly if it rests upon the 9 or 10 or some other of the high numbers ; but if it rests in the " 10- o:^ " he backs it up — lands his disk behind it a foot or two, to make it difficult for its owner to knock it out of that damag- ing place and improve his record. When the inning is played out it may be found that each adversary has placed his four disks where they count ; it may be found that some of them are touching chalk lines and not counting ; and very often it will be found that there lias been a general wreckage, and that not a disk has been left within the diagram. Anyway, the result is recorded, whatever it is, and the game goes on. The game is 100 points, and it takes from twenty minutes to forty to play it, according to luck and the condition of the sea. It is an exciting game, and the crowd of spectators furnish abundance of applause for fortunate shots and plenty of laugh- ter for the other kind. It is a game of skill, but at the same time the uneasy motion of the ship is constantly interfering
TO FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
with skill ; this makes it a chancy game, and the element of luck comes largely in.
We had a couple of grand tournaments, to determine who should be "Champion of the Pacific"; they included among the participants nearly all the passengers, of both sexes, and the officers of the ship, and they afforded many days of stu- pendous interest and excitement, and murderous exercise — for horse- billiards is a physically violent game.
The figures iti the following record of some of the closing
games in the first tournament will show, better than any
description, how very chancy the game is. The losers here
represented had all been winners in the previous games of the
series, some of them by fine majorities :
Chase, 102 Mrs. D., 57 Mortimer, 105 The Surgeon, 92
MissC, 105 Mrs. T., 9 Clemens, 101 Taylor, 92
Taylor, 109 Davies, 95 MissC, 108 Mortimer, 55
Thomas, 102 Roper, 76 Clemens, 111 Miss C, 89
Coomber, 106 Chase, 98
And so on ; until but three couples of winners were left. Then I beat my man, young Smith beat his man, and Thomas beat his. This reduced the combatants to three. Smith and I took the deck, and I led off. . At the close of the first inning I was 10 worse than nothing and Smith had scored 7. The luck continued against me. When I was 57, Smith was 97 — within 3 of out. The luck changed then. He picked up a 10-off or so, and couldn't recover. I beat him.
The next game would end tournament No. 1.
Mr. Thomas and I were the contestants. He won the lead and went to the bat — so to speak. And there he stood, with the crotch of his cue resting against his disk while the ship rose slowly up, sank slowly down, rose again, sank again. She never seemed to rise to suit him exactly. She started up once more; and when she was nearly ready for the turn, he let drive and landed his disk just within the left-hand end of the
CHAMPION OF THE PACIFIC. 71
10. (Applause). The umpire proclaimed "a good 10," and the game-keeper set it down. I played : my disk grazed the edge of Mr. Thomas's disk, and went out of the diagram. (No applause.)
Mr. Thomas played again — and landed his second disk alongside of the first, and almost touching its right-hand side. " Good 10." (Great applause.)
I played, and missed both of them. (No applause.)
Mr. Thomas delivered his third shot and landed his disk just at the right of the other two. "Good 10." (Immense applause.)
There they lay, side by side, the three in a row. It did not seem possible that anybody could miss them. Still I did it. (Immense silence.)
Mr. Thomas played his last disk. It seems incredible, but he actually landed that disk alongside of the others, and just to the right of them — a straight solid row of 4 disks. (Tu- multuous and long-continued applause.)
Then I played my last disk. Again it did not seem possible that anybody could miss that row — a row which would have been 14 inches long if the disks had been clamped together ; whereas, with the spaces separating them they made a longer row than that. But I did it. It may be that I was getting nervous.
I think it unlikely that that innings has ever had its parallel in the history of horse-billiards. To place the four disks side by side in the 10 was an extraordinary feat ; indeed, it was a kind of miracle. To miss them was another miracle. It will take a century to produce another man who can place the four disks in the 10 ; and longer than that to find a man who can't knock them out. I was ashamed of my performance at the time, but now that I reflect upon it I see that it was rather fine and difiicult.
72
FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
Mr. Thomas kept his luck, and won the game, and later the championship.
In a minor tournament I won the prize, which was a Waterbury watch. I put it in my trunk. In Pretoria, South Africa, nine months afterward, my proper watch broke down and I took the Waterbury out, ^vound it, set it by the great clock on the Parliament House (8.05), then went back to my room and went to bed, tired from a long railway journey. The parliamentary clock had a peculiarity which I was not aware of at the time — a peculiarity which exists in no other clock, and would not exist in that one if it had been made by a sane person ; on the half-hour it strikes the succeeding houT^ then strikes the hour again at the proper time. I lay reading and smoking awhile ; then, when I could hold my eyes open no longer and was about to put out the light, the great clock began to boom, and I counted —
I BEAT HER BUAINS OUT.
ten. I reached for the Waterbury to see how it was getting along. It was marking 9.30. It seemed rather poor speed for a three-dollar watch, but I supposed that the climate was
MY PRIZE WATCH. 73
affecting it. I shoved it half an hour ahead, and took to my book and waited to see what would happen. At 10 the great clock struck ten again. I looked — the Waterbury was mark- ing half -past 10. This was too much speed for the money, and it troubled me. I pushed the hands back a half hour, and waited once more ; I had to, for I was vexed and restless now, and my sleepiness was gone. By and by the great clock struck 11. The Waterbury was marking 10.30. I pushed it ahead half an hour, with some show of temper. By and by the great clock struck 11 again. The Waterbury showed up 11.30, now, and I beat her brains out against the bedstead. I was sorry next day, when I found out.
To return to the ship.
The average human being is a perverse creature ; and when he isn't that, he is a practical joker. The result to the other person concerned is about the sam3: that is, he is made to suf- fer. The washing down of the decks begins at a very early hour in all ships ; in but few ships are any measures taken to protect the passengers, either by waking or warning them, or by sendmg a steward to close their ports. And so the deck- washers have their opportunity, and they use it. They send a bucket of water slashing along the side of the ship and into the ports, drenching the passenger's clothes, and often the pas- senger himself. This good old custom prevailed in this ship, and under unusually favorable circumstances, for in the blazing tropical regions a removable zinc thing like a sugar-shovel pro- jects from the port to catch the wind and bring it in; this thing catches the wash- water and brings it in, too — and in flooding abundance. Mrs. I., an invalid, had to sleep on the locker-sofa under her port, and every time she over-slept and thus failed to take care of herself, the deck-washers drowned her out.
And the painters, what a good time they had ! This ship
Y4
FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
would be going into dock for a month in Sydney for repairs ; but no matter, painting was going on all the time somewhere or other. The ladies' dresses were constantly getting ruined, nevertheless protests and supplications went for nothing.. Sometimes a lady, taking an afternoon nap on deck near a ventilator or some other thing that didn't need painting, w^ould wake up by and by and find that the humorous painter had been noiselessly daubing that thing and had splattered her white gown all over with little greasy yellow^ spots.
The blame for this untimely painting did not lie with the ship's officers, but with custom. As far back as Noah's time it became law that ships must be constantly painted and fussed at when at sea ; custom grew out of the law, and at sea custom know^s no death ; this custom will continue until the sea goes
A DAY OKF.
Sept. 8. — Sunday. We are moving so nearly south that we cross only about two meridians of longitude a day. This morning we w^ere in longitude 178 west from Greenwich, and 57 degrees west from San Francisco. To-morrow w^e shall be
A DAY LOST. 'To
close to the center of the globe — the ISuth degree of west longitude and 180th degree of east longitude.
And then we must drop out a day — lose a day out of our lives, a day never to be found again. We shall all die one day earlier than from the beginning of time we were foreordained to die. We shall be a day behindhand all through eternity. We shall always be saying to the other angels, " Fine day to- day," and they will be always retorting, " But it isn't to-day, it's to-morrow." We shall be in a state of confusion all the time and shall never know what true happiness is.
Next Day. Sure enough, it has happened. Yesterday it was September 8, Sunday; to-day, per the bulletin-board at the head of the companion way, it is September 10, Tnesday. There is something uncanny about it. And uncomfortable. In fact, nearly unthinkable, and wholly unrealizable, when one comes to consider it. While we were crossing the 180th meridian it was Sunday in the stern of the ship where my family were, and Tuesday in the bow where I was. They were there eating the half of a fresh apple on the 8th, and I was at the same time eating the other half of it on the 10th — and I could notice how stale it was, already. The family were the same age that they were when I had left them five minutes before, but I was a day older now than I was then. The day they were living in stretched behind them half way round the globe, across the Pacific Ocean and America and Europe ; the day I was living in stretched in front of me around the other half to meet it. They were stupendous days for bulk and stretch ; apparently much larger days than we had ever been in before. All previous days had been but shrunk-up little things by comparison. The differ- ence in temperature between the two days was very marked, their day being hotter than mine because it was closer to the equator.
Y6 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
Along about the moment that we were crossing the Great Meridiaij a child was born in the steerage, and now there is no way to tell which day it was born on. The nurse thinks it was Sunday, the surgeon thinks it was Tuesday. The child will never know its own birthday. It will always be choosing first one and then the other, and will never be able to make up its mind permanently. This will breed vacillation and un- certainty in its opinions about religion, and politics, and busi- ness, and sweethearts, and everything, and will undermine its principles, and rot them away, and make the poor thing characterless, and its success in life impossible. Every one in the ship says so. And this is not all — in fact, not the worst. For there is an enormously rich brewer in the ship who said as much as ten days ago, that if the child was born on his birthday he would give it ten thousand dollars to start its little life with. His birthday was Monday, the 9th of September.
If the ships all moved in the one direction — westward, I mean — the world would suffer a prodigious loss in the matter of valuable time, through the dumping overboard on the Great Meridian of such multitudes of days by ships' crews and passengers. But fortunately the ships do not all sail west^ half of them sail east. So there is no real loss. These latter pick up all the discarded days and add them to the world's stock again ; and about as good as new, too ; for of course the salt water preserves them. •
CHAPTER y. .
Noise proves nothing. Often a hen who has merely laid an egg cackles as if she had laid an asteroid. — Pudd^tihead Wilso7i^s New Calendar.
WEDNESDAY, Sept. 11. In this world we often make mistakes of judgment. We do not as a rule get out of them sound and whole, but sometimes we do. At dinner yesterday evening — present, a mixture of Scotch, Eng- lish, American, Canadian, and Australasian folk — a discussion broke out about the pronunciation of certain Scottish words. This was private ground, and the non-Scotch nationalities, with one exception, discreetly kept still. But I am not discreet, and I took a hand. I didn't know anything about the subject, but I took a hand just to have something to do. At that moment the word in dispute was the word three. One Scotchman was claiming that the peasantry of Scotland pronounced it three, his adversaries claimed that they didn't — that they pronounced it thraw. The solitary Scot was having a sultry time of it, so I thought I would enrich him with my help. In my position I was necessarily quite impartial, and was equally as well and as ill equipped to fight on the one side as on the other. So I spoke up and said the peasantry pronounced the word three.^ not thraw. It was an error of judgment. There was a moment of astonished and ominous silence, then weather ensued. The storm rose and spread in a surprising way, and I was snowed under in a very few minutes. It was a bad defeat for me — a kind of Waterloo. It promised to remain so, and I wished I had had better sense than to enter upon such a forlorn enterprise. But just then I had a saving
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78 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
thought — at least a thought that offered a chance. While the storm was still raging, I made up a Scotch couplet, and then spoke up and said : —
" Very well, don't say any more. I confess defeat. I thought I knew, but I see my mistake. I was deceived by one of your Scotch poets."
"A Scotch poet ! O come ! Kame him."
'"''Robert BurnsP
It is wonderful the power of that name. These men looked doubtful — but paralyzed, all the same. They were quite silent for a moment ; then one of them said — with the rever- ence in his voice which is always present in a Scotchman's tone when he utters the name :
" Does Eobbie Burns say — what does he say ? "
" This is what he says :
' " There were nae bairns but only three — Ane at the breast, twa at the knee." '
It ended the discussion. There was no man there profane enough, disloyal enough, to say any word against a thing which Kobert Burns had settled. I shall always honor that great name for the salvation it brought me in this time of my sore need.
It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with confidence, stands a good chance to deceive. There are people who think that honesty is always the best policy. This is a superstition ; there are times when the appearance of it is worth six of it.
We are moving steadily southward — getting further and further down under the projecting paunch of the globe. Yes- terday evening we saw the Big Dipper and the north star sink below the horizon and disappear from our world. No, not "we," but they. They saw it — somebody saw it — and told me about it. But it is no matter, I was not caring for those
SOUTHERN CROSS. 79
things, I am tired of them, any way. I think they are well enough, but one doesn't want them always hanging around. My interest was all in the Southern Cross. I had never seen that. I had heard about it all my life, and it was but natural that I should be burning to see it. JSTo other constellation makes so much talk. I had nothing against the Big Dipper — and naturally couldn't have anything against it, since it is a citizen of our own sky, and the property of the United States — but I did want it to move out of the way and give this foreigner a chance. Judging by the size of the talk which the Southern Cross had made, I supposed it would need a sky all to itself.
But that was a mistake. We saw the Cross to-night, and it is not large. Kot large, and not strikingly bright. But it was low down toward the horizon, and it may improve when it gets up higher in the sky. It is ingeniously named, for it looks just as a cross would look if it looked like something: else. But that description does not describe ; it is too vague, too general, too indefinite. It does after a fashion suggest a cross — a cross that is out of repair — or out of drawing ; not correctly shaped. It is long, with a short cross-bar, and the cross-bar is canted out of the straight line.
It consists of four large stars and one little one. The little one is out of line and further damages the shape. It should have been placed at the inter- *
section of the stem and the cross-bar.
If you do not draw an imaginary line from star to star it does not suggest a cross — nor anything in particular.
One must ignore the little star, and leave it out of the com- bination — it confuses everything. If you leave it out, then you can make out of the four stars a sort of cross — out of true ; or a sort of kite — out of true ; or a sort of coffin — out of true.
80
FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
Constellations have always been troublesome things to name. If you give one of them a fanciful name, it will always refuse to live up to it ; it will always persist in not resembling
the thing it has been named for. Ultimately, to satisfy the public, the fanciful name has to be discarded for a com- mon-sense one, a manifestly descriptive one. The Great Bear remained the Great Bear
— and unrecognizable as such
— for thousands of years ; and people complained about it all the time, and quite properly ; but as soon as it became the property of the United States, Congress changed it to the Big Dipper, and now every- body is satisfied, and there is no more talk about riots. I would not change the Southern Cross to the Southern Coffin, I would change it to the Southern Kite ; for up there in the general emptiness is the proper home of a kite, but not for coffins and crosses and dippers. In a little while, now — I cannot tell exactly how long it will be — the globe will belong to the English-speaking race ; and of course the skies also. Then the constellations will be re-organized, and polished up, and re-named — the most of them " Victoria," I reckon, but this one will sail thereafter as the Southern Kite, or go out of business. Several towns and things, here and there, have been named for Her Majesty already.
In these past few days we are plowing through a mighty Milky "Way of islands. They are so thick on the map that one would hardly expect to find room between them for a canoe ;
SOUTHERN CROSS.
QUEENSLAND RECRUITING GROUND. 81
yet we seldom glimpse one. Once we saw the dim bulk of a couple of them, far away, spectral and dreamy things ; mem- bers of the Home — Alofa and Fortuna. On the larger one are two rival native kings — and they have a time together. They are Catholics; so are their people. The missionaries there are French priests.
From the multitudinous islands in these regions the " re- cruits " for the Queensland plantations were formerly drawn ; are still drawn from them, I believe. Vessels fitted up like old-time slavers came here and carried off the natives to serve as laborers in the great Australian province. In the beginning it was plain, simple manstealing, as per testimony of the mis- sionaries. This has been denied, but not disproven. After- ward it was forbidden by law to " recruit " a native without his consent, and governmental agents were sent in all recruiting vessels to see that the law was obeyed — which they did, according to the recruiting people ; and which they sometimes didn't, according to the missionaries. A man could be lawfully recruited for a three-years term of service ; he could volunteer for another term if he so chose; when his time was up he could return to his island. And would also have the means to do it ; for the government required the employer to put money in its hands for this purpose before the recruit was delivered to him.
Captain "Wawn was a recruiting shipmaster during many years. From his pleasant book one gets the idea that the recruiting business was quite popular with the islanders, as a rule. And yet that did not make the business wholly dull and uninteresting ; for one finds rather frequent little breaks in the monotony of it — like this, for instance :
"The afternoon of our arrival at Leper Island the schooner was lying almost becalmed under the lee of the lofty central portion of the island, about three-quarters of a mile from the shore. The boats were in sight at some dis 6
82 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
tance. The recruiter-boat had run into a small nook on the rocky coast, under a high bank, above which stood a solitary hut backed by dense forest. The government agent and mate in the second boat lay about 400 yards to the ■westward.
"Suddenly we heard the sound of firing, followed by yells from the natives on shore, and then we saw the recruiter-boat push out with a seem- ingly diminished crew. The mate's boat pulled quickly up, took her in tow, and presently brought her alongside, all her own crew being more or less hurt. It seems the natives had called them into the place on pretence of friendship. A crowd gathered about the stern of the boat, and several fellows even got into her. All of a sudden our men were attacked with clubs and tomahawks. The recruiter escaped the first blows aimed at him, making play with his fists until he had an opportunity to draw his revolver. ' Tom Sayers,' a Mare man, received a tomahawk blow on the head which laid the scalp open but did not penetrate his skull, fortunately. ' Bobby Towns,' another Mare boat- man, had both his thumbs cut in warding off blows, one of them being so nearly severed from the hand that the doctors had to finish the operation. Lihu, a Lifu boy, the recruiter's special attendant, was cut and pricked in various places, but nowhere seriously. Jack, an unlucky Tanna recruit, who had been engaged to act as boatman, received an arrow through his forearm, the head of which — a piece of bone seven or eight inches long — was still in the limb, protruding from both sides, when the boats returned. The re- cruiter himself would have got off scot-free had not an arrow pinned one of his fingers to the loom of the steering-oar just as they were getting off. The fight had been short but sharp. The enemy lost two men, both shot dead."
The truth is, Captain Wawn furnishes such a crowd of instances of fatal encounters between natives and French and English recruiting-crews (for the French are in the business for the plantations of New Caledonia), that one is almost per- suaded that recruiting is not thoroughly popular among the islanders ; else why this bristling string of attacks and blood- curdling slaughter ? The captain lays it all to " Exeter Hall influence." But for the meddling philanthropists, the native fathers and mothers would be fond of seeing their children carted into exile and now and then the grave, instead of weep- ing about it and trying to kill the kind recruiters.
CHAPTER YL
He was as shy as a newspaper is when referring to its own merits.
— Puddn^fwad Wilson^s New Calendar.
GAPTAIN Wawn is crystal-clear on one point: He does not approve of missionaries. They obstruct his business. They make "Recruiting," as he calls it (" Slave-Catching," as they call it in their frank way) a trouble when it ought to be just a picnic and a pleasure excursion. The missionaries have their opinion about the manner in which the Labor Traffic is conducted, and about the recruiter's evasions of the law of the Traffic, and about the traffic itself : and it is distinctly uncomplimentary to the Traffic and to everything connected with it, including the law for its regula- tion. Captain Wawn's book is of very recent date ; I have by me a pamphlet of still later date — hot from the press, in fact — by Rev, Wm. Gray, a missionary ; and the book and the pamphlet taken together make exceedingly interesting reading, to my mind.
Interesting, and easy to understand — except in one detail, which I will mention presently. It is easy to understand why the Queensland sugar planter should want the Kanaka recruit : he is cheap. Yery cheap, in fact. These are the figures paid by the planter : £20 to the recruiter for getting the Kanaka — or " catching " him, as the missionary phrase goes ; £3 to the Queensland government for " superintending " the importation ; £5 deposited with the Government for the Kanaka's passage home when his three years are up, in case he shall live that long ; about £25 to the Kanaka himself for three years' wages
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and clothing ; total payment for the use of a man three years, £53 ; or, including diet, £60. Altogether, a hundred dollars a year. One can understand why the recruiter is fond of the business ; the recruit cheap presents cruit's relatives, not self), and the re-
costs him a few L (given to the re-
to the recruit him- cruit is worth £20 to the recruiter when delivered in Queensland. All this is clear enough ; but the thing that is not clear is, what there is about it all to persuade the re- cruit. He is young and brisk; life at home in his beauti- ful island is one lazy, long holiday to him ; or if he wants to work he can turn out a couple of bags of copra per week and sell it for four or five shillings a bag. In Queensland he must get up at dawn and work from eight to twelve hours a day in the canefields — in a much hotter climate than he is used to — and get less than four shillings a week for it.
I cannot understand his willingness to go to Queensland. It is a deep puzzle to me. Here is the explanation, from the planter's point of view ; at least I gather from the missionary's pamphlet that it is the planter's :
"When he comes from his home he is a savage, pure and simple. He feels no shame at his nakedness and want of adornment. When he returns home he does so well dressed, sporting a Waterbury watch, collars, cuffs.
THE KANAKA 8 DEPARTURE,
THE KANAKA'S OPPORTUNITY.
85
boots, and jewelry. He takes with him one or more boxes* well filled with clothing, a musical instrument or two, and perfumery and other articles of luxury he has learned to appreciate."
For just one moment we have a seeming flash of com- prehension of the Kanaka's reason for exiling himself : he goes away to acquire civilization. Yes, he was naked and not ashamed, now he is clothed and knows how to be ashamed ; he was unenlightened, now he has a Water- bury watch; he was unrefined, now he has jewelry, and some- thing to make him smell good ; he was a nobody, a provincial, now he has been to far countries and can show off.
It all looks plausible — for a moment. Then the mission- ary takes hold of this explanation and pulls it to pieces, and dances on it, and damages it beyond recognition.
"Admitting that the foregoing description is the average one, the average sequel is this : The cuffs and collars, if used at all, are carried off by youngsters, who fasten them round the leg, just below the knee, as ornaments. The Waterbury, broken and dirty, finds its way to the trader, who gives a trifle for it ; or the inside is taken out, the wheels strung on a thread and hung round the neck. Knives, axes, calico, and handker- chiefs are divided among friends, and there is hardly one of these apiece. The boxes, the keys often lost on the road home, can be bought for 2s. 6d. They are to be seen rotting outside in almost any shore village on Tanna. (I speak of what I have seen.) A returned Kanaka has been furiously angry
THE KANAKA 8 RETURN.
♦ " Box " is English for trunk.
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with me because I would not buy his trousers, which he declared were just my lit. He sold them afterwards to one of my Aniwan teachers for 9d. worth of tobacco — a pair of trousers that probably cost him 8s. or 10s. in Queens- land. A coat or shirt is handy for cold weather. The white handkerchiefs, the ' senet ' (perfumery), the umbrella, and perhaps the hat, are kept. The boots have to take their chance, if they do not happen to fit the copra trader. ' Senet ' on the hair, streaks of paint on the face, a dirty white handkerchief round the neck, strips of turtle shell in the ears, a belt, a sheath and knife, and an umbrella constitute the rig of returned Kanaka at home the day after landing."
A hat, an umbrella, a belt, a neckerchief. Otherwise stark naked. All in a day the hard-earned "civilization" has melted away to this. And even these perishable things must presently go. Indeed, there is but a single detail of his civilization that can be depended on to stay by him : according to the missionary, he has learned to swear. This is art, and art is long, as the poet says.
In all countries the laws throw light upon the past. The Queensland law for the regulation of the Labor Traffic is a confession. It is a confession that the evils charged by the missionaries upon the traffic had existed in the past, and that they still existed when the law was made. The missionaries make a further charge: that the law is evaded by the re- cruiters, and that the Government Agent sometimes helps them to do it. Regulation 31 reveals two things : that sometimes a young fool of a recruit gets his senses back, after being per- suaded to sign away his liberty for three years, and dearly wants to get out of the engagement and stay at home with his own people ; and that threats, intimidation, and force are used to keep him on board the recruiting-ship, and to hold him to his contract. Regulation 31 forbids these coercions. The law requires that he shall be allowed to go free; and another clause of it requires the recruiter to set him ashore — per boat, because of the prevalence of sharks. Testimony from Rev. Mr. Gray :
"There are ' wrinkles ' for taking the penitent Kanaka. My first ex-
y^RINKLES." 87
perience of the Traffic was a case of this kind in 1884. A vessel anchored just out of sight of our station, word was brought to me that some boys were stolen, and the relatives wished me to go and get them back. The facts were, as I found, that six boys had recruited, had ruahed into the boat, the Govern- ment Agent informed me. They had all ' signed ' ; and, said the Government Agent, 'on board they shall remain.' I was assured that the six boys were of age and willing to go. Yet on getting ready to leave the ship I found four of the lads ready to come ashore in the boat ! This I forbade. One of them jumped into the water and persisted in coming ashore in my boat. When appealed to, the Government Agent suggested that we go and leave him to be picked up by the ship's boat, a quarter mile distant at the time ! "
The law and the missionaries feel for the repentant recruit — and properly, one may be permitted to think, for he is only a youth and ignorant and persuadable to his hurt — but sym- pathy for him is not kept in stock by the recruiter. Kev. Mr. Gray says:
" A captain many years in the traffic explained to me how a penitent could be taken. ' When a boy jumps overboard we just take a boat and pull ahead of him, then lie between him and the shore. If he has not tired himself swimming, and passes the boat, keep on heading him in this way. The dodge rarely fails. The boy generally tires of swimming, gets into the boat of his own accord, and goes quietly on board."
Yes, exhaustion is likely to make a boy quiet. If the dis- tressed boy had been the speaker's son, and the captors savages, the speaker would have been surprised to see how differently the thing looked from the new point of view ; however, it is not our custom to put ourselves in the other person's place. Somehow there is something pathetic about that disappointed young savage's resignation. I must explain, here, that in the traffic dialect, " boy " does not always mean boy ; it means a youth above sixteen years of age. That is by Queensland law the age of consent, though it is held that recruiters allow them- selves some latitude in guessing at ages.
Captain Wawn of the free spirit chafes under the annoy- ance of "cast-iron regulations." They and the missionaries have poisoned his life. He grieves for the good old days, van- ished to come no more. See him weep ; hear him cuss between the lines I ^
88 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
" For a long time we were allowed to apprehend and detain all deserters who had signed the agreement on board ship, but the ' cast-iron ' regulations of the Act of 1884 put a stop to that, allowing the Kanaka to sign the agree- ment for three years' service, travel about in the ship in receipt of the regular rations, cadge all he could, and leave when he thought fit, so long as he did not extend his pleasure trip to Queensland."
Kev. Mr. Gray calls this same restrictive cast-iron law a "farce." "There is as much cruelty and injustice done to natives by acts that are legal as by deeds unlawful. The regu- lations that exist are unjust and inadequate — unjust and in- adequate they must ever be." He furnishes his reasons for his position, but they are too long for reproduction here.
However, if the most a Kanaka advantages himself by a three-years course in civilization in Queensland, is a necklace and an umbrella and a showy imperfection in the art of swear- ing, it must be that all the profit of the traific goes to the white man. This could be twisted into a plausible argument that the traffic ought to be squarely abolished.
However, there is reason for hope that that can be left alone to achieve itself. It is claimed that the traffic will depopulate its sources of supply within the next twenty or thirty years. Queensland is a very healthy place for white people — death- rate 12 in 1,000 of the population — but the Kanaka death-rate is away above that. The vital statistics for 1893 place it at 52 ; for 1894 (Mackay district), 68. The first six months of the Kanaka's exile are peculiarly perilous for him because of the rigors of the new climate. The death-rate among the new men has reached as high as 180 in the 1,000. In the Kanaka's native home his death-rate is 12 in time of peace, and 15 in time of war. Thus exile to Queensland — with the opportunity to acquire civilization, an umbrella, and a pretty poor quality of profanity — is twelve times as deadly for him as war. Com- mon Christian charity, common humanity, does seem to require, not only that these people be returned to their homes, but that
PROPHECY A RISKY BUSINESS. 89
war, pestilence, and famine be introduced among them for their preservation.
Concerning these Pacific isles and their peoples an eloquent prophet spoke long years ago — five and fifty years ago. In fact, he spoke a little too early. Prophecy is a good line of business, but it is full of risks. This prophet was the Right Rev. M. Russell, LL.D., D.C.L., of Edinburgh :
" Is the tide of civilization to roll oaly to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, and is the sun of knowledge to set at last in the waves of the Pacific ? No ; the mighty day of four thousand years is drawing to its close ; the sun of humanity has performed its destined course ; but long ere its setting rays are extinguished in the west, its ascending beams have glittered on the isles of the eastern seas. . . . And now we see the race of Japhet setting forth to people the isles, and the seeds of another Europe and a second England sown in the regions of the sun. But mark the words of the prophecy : ' He shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant.' It is not said Canaan shall be his slave. To the Anglo-Saxon race is given the scepter of the globe, but there is not given either the lash of the slave-driver or the rack of the executioner. The East will not be stained with the same atrocities as the West ; the frightful gangrene of an enthralled race is not to mar the destinies of the family of Japhet in the Oriental world ; humanizing, not destroying, as they advance ; uniting with, not enslaving, the inhabitants with whom they dwell, the British race may," etc., etc.
And he closes his vision with an invocation from Thomson :
" Come, bright Improvement ! on the car of Time, And rule the spacious world from clime to clime."
Yery well, Bright Improvement has arrived, you see, with her civilization, and her Waterbury, and her umbrella, and her third-quality profanity, and her humanizing-not-destroying ma- chinery, and her hundred-and-eighty-death-rate, and everything is going along just as handsome !
But the prophet that speaks last has an advantage over the pioneer in the business. Rev. Mr. Gray says :
" What I am concerned about is that we as a Christian nation should wipe out these races to enrich ourselves."
And he closes his pamphlet with a grim Indictment which is as eloquent in its flowerless straightforward English as is the hand-painted rhapsody of the early prophet :
" My indictment of the Queensland-Kanaka Labor Traffic is this :
90
FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
"1. It generally demoralizes and always impoverishes the Kanaka, de- prives him of his citizenship, and depopulates the islands fitted to his home.
"2. It is felt to lower the dignity of the white agricultural laborer in Queensland, and beyond a doubt it lowers his wages there.
" 3. The whole system is fraught with danger to Australia and the islands on the score of health.
"4. On social and political grounds the continuance of the Queensland Kanaka Labor Traffic must be a barrier to the true federation of the Aus- tralian colonies.
"5. The Regulations under which the Traffic exists in Queensland are inadequate to prevent abuses, and in the nature of things they must re- main so.
" 6. The whole system is contrary to the spirit and doctrine of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The Gospel requires us to help the weak, but the Kanaka is fleeced and trodden down.
"7. The bed-rock of this Traffic is that the life and liberty of a black man are of less value than those of a white man. And a Traffic that has grown out of ' slave-hunting ' will certainly remain to the end not unlike its origin."
CHAPTEK YIL
Truth is the most valuable thing we have. Let us economize it.
— Pudd^nhead WUson^s New Calendar.
rROM Diary : — For a day or two we have been plow- ing among an invisible vast wilderness of islands, catching now and then a shadowy glimpse of a mem- ber of it. There does seem to be a prodigious lot of islands this year ; the map of this region is freckled and fly -specked all over with them. Their number would seem to be un- countable. We are moving among the Fijis now — 224 islands and islets in the group. In front of us, to the west, the wilder- ness stretches toward Australia, then curves upward to Kew Guinea, and still up and up to Japan ; behind us, to the east, the wilderness stretches sixty degrees across the wastes of the Pacific; south of us is New Zealand. Somewhere or other among these myriads Samoa is concealed, and not discoverable on the map. Still, if you wish to go there, you will have no trouble about finding it if you follow the directions given by Robert Louis Stevenson to Dr. Conan Doyle and to Mr. J. M. Barrie. " You go to America, cross the continent to San Francisco, and then it's the second turning to the left." To get the full flavor of the joke one must take a glance at the map.
Wednesday, September 11. — Yesterday we passed close to an island or so, and recognized the published Fiji character- istics: a broad belt of clean white coral sand around the island; back of it a graceful fringe of leaning palms, with native huts nestling cosily among the shrubbery at their
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bases ; back of these a stretch of level land clothed in tropic vegetation; back of that, rugged and picturesque mountains. A detail of the immediate foreground : a mouldering ship perched high up on a reef -bench. This completes the com- position, and makes the picture artistically perfect.
In the afternoon we sighted Suva, the capital of the group, and threaded our way into the secluded little harbor — a placid basin of brilliant blue and green water tucked snugly in among the sheltering hills, A few ships rode at anchor in it — one of them a sailing vessel flying the American flag;
and they said she came from Duluth! There's a journey! Duluth is several thousand miles from the sea, and yet she is entitled to the proud name of Mistress of the Commercial Marine of the United States of America. There is only one free, independent, unsubsidized American ship sailing the for- eign seas, and Duluth owns it. All by itself that ship is the American fleet. All by itself it causes the American name and power to be respected in the far regions of the globe. All by itself it certifies to the world that the most populous civil- ized nation in the earth has a just pride in her stupendous
THE FIJIANS.
93
stretch of sea-front, and is determined to assert and maintain her rightful place as one of the Great Maritime Powers of the Planet. All by itself it is making foreign eyes familiar with a Flag which they have not seen before for forty years, outside of the museum. For what Duluth has done, in building, equipping, and maintaining at her sole expense the American Foreign Commercial Fleet, and in thus rescuing the American name from shame and lifting it high for the homage of the nations, we owe her a debt of gratitude which our hearts shall confess with quickened beats whenever her name is named henceforth. Many national toasts will die in the lapse of time, but while the flag flies and the Kepublic survives, they who live under their shelter will still drink this one, standing and uncovered : Health and prosperity to Thee, O Duluth, Ameri- can Queen of the Alien Seas !
Row-boats began to flock from the shore ; their crews were the first natives we had seen. These men carried no overplus of clothing, and this was wise, for the weather was hot. Hand- some, great dusky men they were, muscular, c 1 e a n-limb- ed, and with faces full of
character and intelligence. It would be hard to find their superiors anywhere among the dark races, I should think.
Everybody went ashore to look around, and spy out the
BOATS CAME FROM THE SHORE.
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land, and have that luxury of luxuries to sea- voyagers — a land-dinner. And there we saw more natives : Wrinkled old women, with their flat mammals flung over their shoulders, or hanging down in front like the cold- weather drip from the molasses-faucet; plump and smily young girls, blithe and content, easy and graceful, a pleasure to look at; young matrons, tall, straight, comely, nobly built, sweeping by with IN TOWN. chin up, and a gait incomparable for
unconscious " stateliness and dignity ; majestic young men — athletes for build and muscle — clothed in a loose arrange- ment of daZ- NATIVES.
zling white, with bronze breast and bronze legs naked, and the head a cannon-swab of solid hair combed straight out from the skull and dyed a rich brick-red. Only sixty years ago they were sunk in darkness ; now they have the bicycle.
We strolled about the streets of the white folks' little town, and around over the hills by paths and roads among European dwellings and gardens and plantations, and past clumps of hibiscus that made a body blink, the great blossoms were so intensely red; and by and by we stopped to ask an elderly English
DECEPTIVE WEATHER.
95
colonist a question or two, and to sympathize with him con- concerning the torrid weather ; but he was surprised, and said :
"This? This is not hot. You ought to be here in the summer time once."
" We supposed that this was summer ; it has the ear-marks of it. You could take it to almost any country and deceive people with it. But if it isn't summer, what does it lack ? "
"It lacks half a year. This is mid-winter."
I had been suffering from colds for several months, and a sudden change of season, like this, could hardly fail to do me hurt. It brought on an- other cold. It is odd, these sudden jumps from season to season. A fortnight ago we left America in mid-summer, now it is mid-winter ; about a week hence we shall arrive in Australia in the spring.
After dinner I found in the billiard-room a resident whom I had known some- where else in the world, and presently made some new friends and drove with them out into the country to visit his Excellency the head of the State, who was occupying his country residence, to escape the rigors of the winter weather, I suppose, for it was on breezy high ground and much more comfortable than the lower regions, where the town is, and where the winter has full swing, and often sets a person's hair afire when he takes off his hat to bow. There is a noble and beautiful view of ocean and islands and castellated peaks from the governor's high-placed house, and its immediate
THE RIGORS OF WINTER.
96 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
surroundings lie drowsing in that dreamy repose and serenity which are the charm of life in the Pacific Islands.
One of the new friends who went out there with me was a large man, and I had been admiring his size all the way. I was still admiring it as he stood by the governor on the veranda, talking ; then the Fijian butler stepped out there to announce tea, and dwarfed him. Maybe he did not quite dwarf him, but at any rate the contrast was quite striking. Perhaps that dark giant was a king in a condition of political suspension. I think that in the talk there on the veranda it was said that in Fiji, as in the Sandwich Islands, native kings and chiefs are of much grander size and build than the com- moners. This man was clothed in flowing white vestments, and they were just the thing for him ; they comported weU with his great stature and his kingly port and dignity. European clothes would have degraded him and made him commonplace. I know that, because they do that with every- body that wears them.
It was said that the old-time devotion to chiefs and rever- ence for their persons still survive in the native commoner, and in great force. The educated young gentleman who is chief of the tribe that live in the region about the capital dresses in the fashion of high-class European gentlemen, but even his clothes cannot damn him in the reverence of his people. Their pride in his lofty rank and ancient lineage lives on, in spite of his lost authority and the evil magic of his tailor. He has no need to defile himself with work, or trouble his heart with the sordid cares of life ; the tribe will see to it that he shall not want, and that he shall hold up his head and live like a gentleman. I had a glimpse of him down in the town. Perhaps he is a descendant of the last king — the king with the difficult name whose memory is preserved by a notable monument of cut- stone which one sees in the enclosure in the middle of the town.
A FORMALITY WITH A DIFFERENCE. 97
Thakombau — I remember, now; that is the name. It is easier to preserve it on a granite block than in your head.
Fiji was ceded to England by this king in 1858. One of the gentlemen present at the governor's quoted a remark made by the king at the time of the session — a neat retort, and with a touch of pathos in it, too. The English Commissioner had offered a crumb of comfort to Thakombau by saying that the transfer of the kingdom to Great Britain was merely " a sort of hermit-crab formality, you know." " Yes," said poor Thakombau, " but with this difference — the crab moves into an unoccupied shell, but mine isn't."
However, as far as I can make out from the books, the King was between the devil and the deep sea at the time, and hadn't much choice. He owed the United States a large debt — a debt which he could pay if allowed time, but time was de- nied him. He must pay up right away or the warships would be upon him. To protect his people from this disaster he ceded his country to Britain, with a clause in the contract providing for the ultimate payment of the American debt.
In old times the Fijians were fierce fighters ; they were very religious, and worshiped idols ; the big chiefs were proud and haughty, and they were men of great style in many waj^s ; all chiefs had several wives, the biggest chiefs sometimes had as many as fifty ; when a chief was dead and ready for burial, four or five of his wives wer'e strangled and put into the grave with him. In 1804 twenty-seven British convicts escaped from Australia to Fiji, and brought guns and ammunition with them. Consider what a power they Avere, armed like that, and what an opportunity they had. If they had been energetic men and sober, and had had brains and known how to use them, they could have achieved the sovereignty of the archipelago — twenty-seven kings and each with eight or nine islands under 7
98 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
his scepter. But nothing came of this chance. They lived worthless lives of sin and luxury, and died without honor — in most cases by violence. Only one of them had any ambition ; he was an Irishman named Connor. He tried to raise a family of fifty children, and scored forty-eight. He died lamenting his failure. It was a foolish sort of avarice. Many a father would have been rich enough with forty.
It is a fine race, the Fijians, with brains in their heads, and an inquiring, turn of mind. It appears that their savage ancestors had a doctrine of immortality in their scheme of religion — with limitations. That is to say, their dead friend would go to a happy hereafter if he could be accumulated, but not otherwise. They drew the line; they thought that the missionary's doctrine was too sweeping, too comprehensive. They called his attention to certain facts. For instance, many of their friends had been devoured by sharks; the sharks, in their turn, were caught and eaten by other men; later, these men were captured in war, and eaten by the enemy. The original persons had entered into the composition of the sharks ; next, they and the sharks had become part of the flesh and blood and bone of the cannibals. How, then, could the particles of the original men be searched out from the final conglomerate and put together again? The inquirers were full of doubts, and considered that the missionary had not examined the matter with the gravity and attention which so serious a thing deserved.
The missionary taught these exacting savages many valu- able things, and got from them one — a very dainty and poetical idea : Those wild and ignorant poor children of Nature believed that the flowers, after they perish, rise on the winds and float away to the fair fields of heaven, and flourish there forever in immortal beauty 1
CHAPTEK VIII.
It could probably be shown by facts and figures that there is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress.
— Pudd^nhead Wilson^s New Calendar.
WHEN one glances at the map the members of the stu- pendous island wilderness of the Pacific seem to crowd upon each other ; but no, there is no crowd- ing, even in the center of a group ; and between groups there are lonely wide deserts of sea. JSTot everything is known about the islands, their peoples and their languages. A start- ling reminder of this is furnished by the fact that in Fiji, twenty years ago, were living two strange and solitary beings Vvho came from an unknown country and spoke an unknown language. " They were picked up by a passing vessel many hundreds of miles from any known land., floating in the same tiny canoe in which they had been blown out to sea. When found they were but skin and bone. No one could understand what they said, and they have never named their country ; or, if they have, the name does not correspond with that of any island on any chart. They are now fat and sleek, and as happy as the day is long. In the ship's log there is an entry of the latitude and longitude in which they were found, and this is probably all the clue they will ever have to their lost homes." *
"What a strange and romantic episode it is ; and how one is tortured with curiosity to know whence those mysterious creatures came, those Men Without a Country, errant waifs
* Forbes's " Two Years in Fiji."
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100 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
who cannot name their lost home, wandering Children of Nowhere.
Indeed, the Island Wilderness is the very home of romance and dreams and mystery. The loneliness, the solemnity, the beauty, and the deep repose of this wilderness have a charm which is all their own for the bruised spirit of men who have fought and failed in the struggle for life in the great world ; and for men who have been hunted out of the great world for crime ; and for other men who love an easy and indolent ex- istence ; and for others who love a roving free life, and stir and change and adventure ; and for yet others who love an easy and comfortable career of trading and money-getting, mixed with plenty of loose matrimony by purchase, divorce without trial or expense, and limitless spreeing thrown in to make life ideally perfect.
We sailed again, refreshed.
The most cultivated person in the ship was a young English, man whose home was in New Zealand. He was a naturalist. His learning in his specialty was deep and thorough, his inter- est in his subject amounted to a passion, he had an easy gift of speech ; and so, when he talked about animals it was a pleasure to listen to him. And profitable, too, though he was some- times difficult to understand because now and then he used scientific technicalities which were above the reach of some of us. They were pretty sure to be above my reach, but as he was quite willing to explain them I always made it a point to get him to do it. I had a fair knowledge of his subject — lay- man's knowledge — to begin with, but it was his teachings which crystalized it into scientific form and clarity — in a word, gave it value.
His special interest was the fauna of Australasia, and his knowledge of the matter was as exhaustive as it was accurate. I already knew a good deal about the rabbits in Australasia
THE FAUNA OF AUSTRALIA. 101
and their marvelous fecundity, but in my talks with him I found that my estimate of the great hindrance and obstruction inflicted by the rabbit pest upon traffic and travel was far short of the facts. He told me that the first pair of rabbits imported into Australasia bred so wonderfully that within six months rabbits were so thick in the land that people had to dig trenches through them to get from town to town.
He told me a great deal about worms, and the kangaroo, and other coleoptera, and said he knew the history and ways of all such pachydermata. He said the kangaroo had pockets, and carried its young in them when it couldn't get apples. And he said that the emu was as big as an ostrich, and looked like one, and had an amorphous appetite and would eat bricks. Also, that the dingo was not a dingo at all, but just a wild dog ; and that the only difference between a dingo and a dodo was that neither of them barked ; otherwise they were just the same.
He said that the only game-bird in Australia was the wom- bat, and the only song-bird the larrikin, and that both were protected by government. The most beautiful of the native birds was the bird of Paradise. Next came the two kinds of lyres ; not spelt the same. He said the one kind was dying out, the other thickening up. He explained that the " Sun- downer " was not a bird^ it was a man ; sundowner was merely the Australian equivalent of our word, tramp. He is a loafer, a hard drinker, and a sponge. He tramps across the country in the sheep-shearing season, pretending to look for work ; but he always times himself to arrive at a sheep-run just at sundown, when the day's labor ends ; all he wants is whisky and supper and bed and breakfast ; he gets them and then disappears. The naturalist spoke of the bell bird, the creature that at short intervals all day rings out its mellow and exquisite peal from the deeps of the forest. It is the favorite
102 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
and best friend of the weary and thirsty sundowner ; for he knows that wherever the bell bird is, there is water ; and he goes somewhere else. The naturalist said that the oddest bird in Australasia was the Laughing Jackass, and the biggest the now extinct Great Moa.
The Moa stood thirteen feet high, and could step over an ordinary man's head or kick his hat ojff ; and his head, too, for that matter. He said it was wingless, but a swift runner. The natives used to ride it. It could make forty miles an hour, and keep it up for four hundred miles and come out reasonably fresh. It was still in existence when the railway was introduced into New Zealand ; still in existence, and carrying the mails. The railroad began with the same schedule it has now : two expresses a week — time, twenty miles an hour. The company exterminated the moa to get the mails.
Speaking of the indigenous coneys and bactrian camels, the naturalist said that the coniferous and bacteriological output of Australasia was remarkable for its many and curious depart- ures from the accepted laws governing these species of tuber- cles, but that in his opinion Nature's fondness for dabbling in the erratic was most notably exhibited in that curious combina- tion of bird, fish, amphibian, burrower, crawler, quadruped, and Christian called the Ornithorhyncus — grotesquest of animals, king of the animalculae of the world for versatility of character and make-up. Said he —
"You can call it anything you want to, and be right. It is a fish, for it lives in the river half the time ; it is a land animal, for it resides on the land half the time ; it is an amphibian, since it likes both and does not know which it prefers ; it is a hybernian, for when times are dull and nothing much going on it buries itself under the mud at the bottom of a puddle and hybernates there a couple of weeks at a time ; it is a kind of duck, for it has a duck-bill and four webbed paddles ; it is a fish and quadrliped together, for in the water it swims with the paddles and on shore it paws itself across country with them ; it is a kind of seal, for it has a seal's fur ; it is carnivorous, herbivorous, insectivorous, and vermifuginous, for it eats fish and grass and butterflies, and in the season digs worms out of the mud and devours them ; it is clearly
OFF GOES HIS HEAD-
THE ORNITHORHYNCUS.
105
a bird, for it lays eggs, and hatches them ; it is clearly a mammal, for it nurses its young ; and it is manifestly a kind of Christian, for it keeps the Sabbath when there is anybody around, and when there isn't, doesn't. It has all the tastes there are except refined ones, it has all the habits there are except good ones.
"It is a survival — a survival of the fittest. Mr. Darwin invented the theory that goes by that name, but the Ornitho- rhyncus was the first to put it to actual experi- ment and prove that it could be done. Hence it should have as much of the credit as Mr. Darwin It was never in the Ark ; you will find no mention of it there ; it nobly stayed out and worked the theory. Of all creatures in the world it w^as the only one properly equip- ped for the test. The Ark was thirteen months afloat, and all the globe submerged ; no land visi- ble above the flood, no vegetation, no food for a mammal to eat, nor water for a mammal to drink ; for all mammal food was destroyed, and when the pure floods from heaven and the salt oceans of the earth mingled theirwaters and rose above the moun- tain tops, the result was a drink which no bird or
WAS NEVER IN THE AKK.
106 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
beast of ordinary construction could use and live. But this combination was nuts for the Ornithorhyncus, if I may use a term like that without offense. Its river home had always been salted by the flood tides of the sea. On the face of the Noachian deluge innumerable forest trees were floating. Upon these the Ornithorhyncus voyaged in peace ; voyaged from clime to clime, from hemis- phere to hemisphere, in contentment and comfort, in virile interest in the con- stant change of scene, in humble thankfulness for its privileges, in ever-in- creasing entlmsiam in the development of the great theory upon whose validity it liad staked its life, its fortunes, and its sacred honor, if I may use such expressions without impropriety in connection with an episode of this nature.
"It lived the tranquil and luxurious life of a creature of independent means. Of things actually necessary to its existence and its happiness not a detail was wanting. "When it wished to walk, it scrambled along the tree- trunk ; it mused in the shade of the leaves by day, it slept in their shelter by night ; when it wanted the refreshment of a swim, it had it ; it ate leaves when it wanted a vegetable diet, it dug under the bark for worms and grubs; when it wanted tish it caught them, when it wanted eggs it laid them. If the grubs gave out in one tree it swam to another ; and as for fish, the very opu lence of the supply was an embarrassment. And finally, when it was thirsty it smacked its chops in gratitude over a blend that would have slain a crocodile.
"When at last, after thirteen months of travel and research in all the Zones it went aground on a mountain-summit, it strode ashore, saying in its heart, ' Let them that come after me invent theories and dream dreams about the Survival of the Fittest if they like, but I am the first that has done it !
" This wonderful creature dates back like the kangaroo and many other Australian hydrocephalous invertebrates, to an age long anterior to the advent of man upon the earth ; they date back, indeed, to a time when a causeway hundreds of miles wide, and thousands of miles long, joined Australia to Africa, and the animals of the two countries were alike, and all belonged to that remote geological epoch known to science as the Old Red Grindstone Post-Pleosaurian. Later the causeway sank under the sea ; subterranean con- vulsions lifted the African continent a thousand feet higher than it was before, but Australia kept her old level In Africa's new climate the animals neces- sarily began to develop and shade off into new forms and families and species, but the animals of Australia as necessarily remained stationary, and have so remained until this day. In the course of some millions of years the African Ornithorhyncus developed and developed and developed, and sluffed off detail after detail of its make-up until at last the creature became wholly dis- integrated and scattered. Whenever you see a bird or a beast or a seal or an otter in Africa you know that he is merely a sorry surviving fragment of that sublime original of whom I have been speaking — that creature which was everything in general and nothing in particular — the opulently endowed e pluribus unum of the animal world.
" Such is the history of the most hoary, the most ancient, the most vener- able creature that exists in the earth today — Ornithorhyncus Platypus Ex- traordinariensis — whom God preserve ! "
BEAUTIFUL VERSES. 107
When he was strongly moved he could rise and soar like that with ease. And not only in the prose form, but in the poetical as well. He had written many pieces of poetry in his time, and these manuscripts he lent around among the passen- gers, and was willing to let them be copied. It seemed to me that the least technical one in the series, and the one which reached the loftiest note, perhaps, was his
INVOCATION.
"Gome forth from thy oozy couch, O Ornithorhyncus dear ! And greet with a cordial claw The stranger that longs to hear
"From thy own own lips the tale Of thy origin all unknown: Tliy misplaced bone where flesh should be And flesh where should be bone ;
" And fishy fin where should be paw, And beaver-trowel tail, And snout of beast equip'd with teeth "Where gills ought to prevail.
"Come, Kangaroo, the good and true ! Foreshortened as to legs, And body tapered like a churn, And sack marsupial, i' fegs,
"And tells us why you linger here. Thou relic of a vanished time, When all your friends as fossils sleep, ■ Immortalized in lime ! "
Perhaps no poet is a conscious plagiarist ; but there seems to be warrant for suspecting that there is no poet who is not at one time or another an unconscious one. The above verses are indeed beautiful, and, in a way, touching; but there is a haunting something about them which unavoidably suggests the Sweet Singer of Michigan. It can hardly be doubted that the author had read the works of that poet and been im- pressed by them. It is not apparent that he has borrowed from them any word or yet any phrase, but the style and swing
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FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
and mastery and melody of the Sweet Singer all are there. Compare this Invocation with " Frank Dutton " — particularly stanzas first and seventeenth — and I think the reader will feel convinced that he who wrote the one had read the other : *
'Frank Dutton was as fine a lad
As ever you wish to see, And he was drowned in Pine Island Lake
On earth no more will he be. His age was near fifteen years,
And he was a motherless boy, He was living with his grandmother
When he was drowned, poor boy.
XVII.
" He was drowned on Tuesday afternoon,
On Sunday he was found, And the tidings of that drowned boy
Was heard for miles around. His form was laid by his mother's side,
Beneath the cold, cold ground. His friends for him will drop a tear
When they view his little mound."
* The Sentimental Song Book. By Mrs. Julia Moore, p. 36.
THE NATURALIST.
CHAPTEK IX.
It is your human environment that makes climate.
— Pudd^nhead Wihwi's New Calendar.
SEPT. 15 — Night. Close to Australia now, Sydney 50 miles distant. That note recalls an experience. The passengers were sent for, to come up in the bow and see a fine sight. It was very dark. One could not follow with the eye the surface of the sea more than fifty yards in any direction — it dimmed away and became lost to sight at about that distance from us. But if you patiently gazed into the darkness a little while, there was a sure reward for you. Presently, a quarter of a mile away you would see a blinding splash or explosion of light on the water — a flash so sudden and so astonishingly bril- liant that it would make you catch your breath ; then that blotch of light would instantly extend itself and take the cork- screw shape and imposing length of the fabled sea-serpent, with every curve of its body and the " break " spreading away from its head, and the wake following behind its tail clothed in a fierce splendor of living fire. And my, but it was coming at a lightning gait ! Almost before you could think, this mon- ster of light, fifty feet long, would go flaming and storming by, and suddenly disappear. And out in the distance whence he came you would see another flash ; and another and another and another, and see them turn into sea-serpents on the instant ; and once sixteen flashed up at the same time and came tearing towards us, a swarm of wiggling curves, a mov- ing conflagration, a vision of bewildering beauty, a spectacle
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110 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
of fire and energy whose equal the most of those people will not see again until after they are dead.
It was porpoises — porpoises aglow with phosphorescent light. They presently collected in a wild and magnificent jumble under the bows, and there they played for an hour, leaping and froUicking and carrying on, turning summersaults in front of the stem or across it and never getting hit, never making a miscalculation, though the stem missed them only about an inch, as a rule. They were porpoises of the ordinary length — eight or ten feet — but every twist of their bodies sent a long procession of united and glowing curves astern. That fiery jumble was an enchanting thing to look at, and we stayed out the performance ; one cannot have such a show as that twice in a lifetime. The porpoise is the kitten of the sea ; he never has a serious thought, he cares for nothing but fun and play. But I think I never saw him at his winsomest until that night. It was near a center of civilization, and he could have been drinking.
By and by, when we had approached to somewhere within thirty miles of Sydney Heads the great electric light that is posted on one of those lofty ramparts began to show, and in time the little spark grew to a great sun and pierced the firm- ament of darkness with a far-reaching sword of light.
Sydney Harbor is shut in behind a precipice that extends some miles like a wall, and exhibits no break to the ignorant stranger. It has a break in the middle, but it makes so little show that even Captain Cook sailed by it without seeing it. Near by that break is a false break which resembles it, and which used to make trouble for the mariner at night, in the early days before the place was lighted. It caused the memo- rable disaster to the Duncan Dunbar ^ one of the most pathetic tragedies in the history of that pitiless ruffian, the sea. The ship was a sailing vessel ; a fine and favorite passenger packet,
FATE OF THE DUNCAN DUNBAR. HI
commanded by a popular captain of high reputation. She was due from England, and Sydney was Waiting, and counting the hours ; counting the hours, and making ready to give her a heart-stirring welcome; for she was bringing back a great company of mothers and daughters, the long-missed light and bloom of life of Sydney homes; daughters that had been years absent at school, and mothers that had been with them all that time watching over them. Of all the world only India and Australasia have by custom freighted ships and fleets with their hearts, and know the tremendous meaning of that phrase ; only they know what the waiting is like when this freightage is entrusted to the fickle winds, not steam, and what the joy is like when the ship that is returning this treas- ure comes safe to port and the long dread is over.
On board the Duncan Dunbar, flying toward Sydney Heads in the waning afternoon, the happy home-comers made busy preparation, for it was not doubted that they would be in the arms of their friends before the day was done ; they put away their sea-going clothes and pu^ on clothes meeter for the meet- ing, their richest and their loveliest, these poor brides of the grave. But the wind lost fon e, or there was a miscalculation, and before the Heads were si^^'^hted the darkness came on. It was said that ordinarily the captain would have made a safe offing and waited for th-^ morning ; but this was no ordinary occasion ; all about him were appealing faces, faces pathetic with disappointment. So his sympathy moved him to try the dangerous passage in the dark. He had entered the Heads seventeen times, and believed he knew the ground. So he steered straight for the false opening, mistaking it for the true one. He did not find out that he was wrong until it was too late. There was no saving the ship. The great seas swept her in and crushed her to splinters and rubbish upon the rock tushes at the base of tlie precipice. Not one of all that fair
112 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
and gracious company was ever seen again alive. The tale is told to every stranger that passes the spot, and it will con- tinue to be told to all that come, for generations ; but it will never grow old, custom cannot stale it, the heart-break that is in it can never perish out of it.
There were two hundred persons in the ship, and but one survived the disaster. He was a sailor. A huge sea flung him up the face of the precipice and stretched him on a narrow shelf of rock midway between the top and the bottom, and there he lay all night. At any other time he would have lain there for the rest of his life, without chance of discovery ; but the next morning the ghastly news swept through Sydney that the Duncan Dunbar had gone down in sight of home, and straightway the walls of the Heads were black with mourners ; and one of these, stretching himself out over the precipice to spy out what might be seen below, discovered this miraculously preserved relic of the wreck. Ropes were brought and the nearly impossible feat of rescuing the man was accomplished. He was a person with a practical turn of mind, and he hired a hall in Sydney and exhibited himself at sixpence a head till he exhausted the output of the gold fields for that year.
"We entered and cast anchor, and in the morning went oh-ing and ah-ing in admiration up through the crooks and turns of the spacious and beautiful harbor — a harbor which is the darling of Sydney and the wonder of the world. It is not surprising that the people are proud of it, nor that they put their enthusiasm into eloquent words. A returning citizen asked me what I thought of it, and 1 testified with a cordiality which I judged wou] J be up to the market rate. I said it was beautiful — superbly beautiful. Then by a natural impulse I gave God the praise. The citizen did not seem altogether satisfied* He said:
"It is beautiful, of course it's beautiful — the Harbor;
SYDNEY HARBOR.
113
but that isn't all of it, it's only half of it; Sydney's the other half, and it takes both of them together to ring the supremacy -bell. God made the Harbor, and that's all right; but Satan made Sydney."
Of course I made an apology ; and asked him to convey it to his friend. He was right about Sydney being half of it. It would be beautiful without Sydney, but not above half as beautiful as it is now, with Sydney added. It is shaped somewhat like an oak-leaf — a roomy sheet of lovely blue water, with narrow off-shoots of water running up into the country on both sides between long fingers of land, high wooden ridges with sides sloped like graves. Handsome villas are perched here and there on these ridges, snuggling amongst the foliage, and one catches alluring glimpses of them as the ship swims by toward the city. The city clothes a cluster of hills and a ruffle of neighboring ridges with its undulating- masses of masonry, and out of these masses spring towers
and spires and other archi- tectural digni- ties and grand- eurs that break the flowing lines and give picturesque- ness to the general effect. The narrow ^"^ - - " inlets which I
VIEW IN SYDNEY HARBOR. haVC mCU-
tioned go wandering out into the land everywhere and hiding themselves in it, and pleasure-launches are always exploring 8
114 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
them with picnic parties on board. It is said by trustworthy people that if you explore them all you will find that you have covered TOO miles of water passage. But there are liars everywhere this year, and they will double that when their works are in good going order.
Octol)er was close at hand, spring was come. It was really spring — everybody said so; but you could have sold it for summer in Canada, and nobody would have suspected. It was the very Aveather that makes our home summers the perfection of climatic luxury ; I mean, Avhen you are out in the wood or by the sea. But these people said it was cool, now — a person ought to see Sydney in the summer time if he wanted to know what warm weather is ; and he ought to go north ten or fifteen hundred miles if he wanted to know what hot weather is. They said that aAvay up there toward the equator the hens laid fried eggs. Sydney is the place to go to get information about other people's climates. It seems to me that the occupa- tion of Unbiased Traveler Seeking Information is the pleas- antest and most irresponsible trade there is. The traveler can always find out anything he wants to, merely by asking. He can get at all the facts, and more. Everybody helps him, no- body hinders him. Anybody who has an old fact in stock that is no longer negotiable in the domestic market will let him have it at his own price. An accumulation of such goods is easily and quickly made. They cost almost nothing and they bring par in the foreign market. Travelers who come to America always freight up with the same old nursery tales that their predecessors selected, and they carry them back and always work them off without any trouble in the home market.
If the climates of the world were determined by parallels of latitude, then we could know a place's climate by its posi- tion on the map ; and so we should know that the climate of Sydney was the counterpart of the climate of Columbia, S. C,
^
A SYDNEY WINTER. 115
and of Little Rock, Arkansas, since Sydney is about the same distance south of the equator that those other towns are north of it — thirty-four degrees. But no, climate disregards the parallels of latitude. In Arkansas they have a winter; in Sydney they have the name of it, but not the thing itself, I have seen the ice in the Mississippi floating past the mouth of the Arkansas river ; and at Memphis, but a little way above, the Mississippi has been frozen over, from bank to bank. But they have never had a cold spell in Sydney which brought the mercury down to freezing point. Once in a mid- winter day there, in the month of July, the mercury went down to 36°, and that remains the memorable "cold day" in the history of the town. No doubt Little Rock has seen it below zero. Once, in Sydney, in mid-summer, about l^ew Year's Day, the mer- cury went up to 106° in the shade, and that is Sydney's memo- rable hot day. That would about tally with Little Rock's hottest day also, I imagine. My Sydney figures are taken from a government report, and are trustworthy. In the mat- ter of summer weather Arkansas has no advantage over Syd- ney, perhaps, but when it comes to winter weather, that is another affair. You could cut up an Arkansas winter into a hundred Sydney winters and have enough left for Arkansas and the poor.
The whole narrow, hilly belt of the Pacific side of New South Wales has the climate of its capital — a mean winter tem- perature of 54° and a mean summer one of 71°. It is a climate which cannot be improved upon for healthfulness. But the experts say that 90° in New South Wales is harder to bear than 112° in the neighboring colony of Victoria, because the atmosphere of the former is humid, and of the latter dry.
The mean temperature of the southernmost point of New South Wales is the same as that of Nice — 60° — yet Nice is further from the equator by 460 miles than is the former.
116
FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
But Nature is always stingy of perfect climates ; stingier in the case of Australia than usual. Apparently this vast continent has a really good climate nowhere but around the edges.
If we look at a map of the world we are surprised to see how big Australia is. It is about two-thirds as large as the United States was before we added Alaska.
But where as one finds a sufficiently good climate and fer- tile land almost everywhere in the United States, it seems set- tled that inside of the Australian border-belt one finds many deserts and in spots a climate which nothing can stand except a few of the hardier kinds of rocks. In effect, Australia is as yet unoccupied. If you take a map of the United States and
leave the Atlantic sea-board States in their places; also the fringe of Southern States from Florida west to the Mouth of the Mississippi ; also a narrow, inhabited streak up the Mis- sissippi half-way to its head waters ; also a narrow, inhabited border along the Pacific coast : then take a brushful of paint and obliterate the whole remaining mighty stretch of country that lies between the Atlantic States and the Pacific-coast strip, your map will look like the latest map of Australia.
This stupendous blank is hot, not to say torrid ; a part of it is fertile, the rest is desert ; it is not liberally watered ; it has no towns. One has only to cross the mountains of New South Wales and descend into the westward-lying regions to find that he has left the choice climate behind him, and found a
A DUST-STORM. 117
new one of a quite different character. In fact, he would not know by the thermometer that he was not in the blistering Plains of India. Captain Sturt, the great explorer, gives us a sample of the heat.
"The wind, which had been blowing all the morning from the N.E., in- creased to a heavy gale, and I shall never forget its withering effect. I sought shelter behind a large gum-tree, but the blasts of heat were so terrific that I wondered the very grass did not take fire. This really was nothing ideal: everything both animate and inanimate gave way before it ; the horses stood with their backs to the wind and their noses to the ground, without the mus- cular strength to raise their heads ; the birds were mute, and the leaves of the trees under which we were sitting fell like a snow shower around us. At noon I took a thermometer graded to 127°, out of my box, and observed that the mercury was up to 135°. Thinking that it had been unduly influenced, I put it in the fork of a tree close to me, sheltered alike from the wind and the sun. I went to examine it about an hour afterwards, when I found the mercury had risen to the top of the instrument and had burst the bulb, a circumstance that I believe no traveler has ever before had to record. I cannot find lan- guage to convey to the reader's mind an idea of the intense and oppressive nature of the heat that prevailed."
That hot wind sweeps over Sydney sometimes, and brings
with it what is called a "dust-storm." It is said that most
Australian towns are acquainted with the dust-storm. I think I
know what it is like, for the following description by Mr. Gane
tallies very well with the alkali dust-storm of Nevada, if you
leave out the " shovel " part. Still the shovel part is a pretty
important part, and seems to indicate that my Kevada storm
is but a poor thing, after all.
"As we proceeded the altitude became less, and the heat proportionately greater until we reached Dubbo, which is only 600 feet above sea-level. It is a pretty town, built on an extensive plain. . . . After the effects of a shower of rain have passed away the surface of the ground crumbles into a thick layer of dust, and occasionally, when the wind is in a particular quarter, it is lifted bodily from the ground in one long opaque cloud. In the midst of such a storm nothing can be seen a few yards ahead, and the unlucky person who happens to be out at the time is compelled to seek the nearest retreat at hand. When the thrifty housewife sees in the distance the dark column advancing in a steady whirl towards her house, she closes the doors and windows with all expedition. A drawing-room, the window of which has been carelessly left open during a dust-storm, is indeed an extraordinary sight. A lady who has resided in Dubbo for some years says that the dust lies so thick on the carpel that it is necessary to use a shovel to remove it."
118
FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
And probably a wagon. I was mistaken ; I have not seen a proper dust-storm. To ray mind the exterior aspects and character of Australia are fascinating things to look at and think about, they are so strange, so weird, so new, so uncom- monplace, such a startling and interesting contrast to the other sections of the planet, the sections that are known to us all, familiar to us all. In the matter of particulars — a detail here, a detail there — we have had the choice climate of Kew South "Wales' sea-coast ; we have had the Australian heat as furnished by Captain Sturt ; we have had the wonderful dust-storm ; and we have considered the phenomenon of an almost empty hot wilderness half as big as the United States, with a narrow belt of civilization, population, and good climate around it.
A DU8T bXORM.
CHAPTER X.
Everything human is pathetic. The secret source of Humor itself is not joy but sorrow. There is no humor io heaven. — Pudd^nhead Wilson'' s New Calendar.
GAPTAIN Cook found Australia in 17Y0, and eighteen years later the British Government began to transport convicts to it. Altogether, New South Wales received 83,000 in 53 years. The convicts wore heavy chains; they were ill-fed and badly treated by the officers set over them ; they were heavily punished for even slight infractions of the rules; " the crudest discipline ever known" is one historian's description of their life.*
English law was hard-hearted in those days. For trifling offenses which in our day would be punished by a small fine or a few days' confinement, men, women, and boys were sent to this other end of the earth to serve terms of seven and fourteen years; and for serious crimes they were transported for life. Children were sent to the penal colonies for seven years for stealing a rabbit !
When I was in London twenty-three years ago there was a new penalty in force for diminishing garroting and wife- beating — 25 lashes on the bare back with the cat-o'-nine-tails. It was said that this terrible punishment was able to bring the stubbornest ruffians to terms ; and that no man had been found with grit enough to keep his emotions to himself beyond the ninth blow ; as a rule the man shrieked earlier. That penalty had a great and wholesome effect upon the garroters and wife- beaters ; but humane modern London could not endure it ; it
* The Story of Australasia. J. S. Laurie.
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120 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
got its law rescinded. Many a bruised and battered English wife has since had occasion to deplore that cruel achievement of sentimental " humanity."
Twenty-five lashes ! In Australia and Tasmania they gave a convict fifty for almost any little offense; and sometimes a brutal oiiicer would add fifty, and then another fifty, and so on, as long as the sufferer could endure the torture and live. In Tasmania I read the entry, in an old manuscript official record, of a case where a convict was given three hundred lashes — for stealing some silver spoons. And men got more than that, sometimes. Who handled the cat? Often it was another convict; sometimes it was the culprit's dearest com- rade ; and he had to lay on with all his might ; otherwise he would get a flogging himself for his mercy — for he was under watch — and yet not do his friend any good : the friend would be attended to by another hand and suffer no lack in the matter of full punishment.
The convict life in Tasmania was so unendurable, and sui- cide so difficult to accomplish that once or twice despairing men got together and drew straws to determine which of them should kill another of the group — this murder to secure death to the perpetrator and to the witnesses of it by the hand of the hangman !
The incidents quoted above are mere hints, mere sugges- tions of what convict life was like — they are but a couple of details tossed into view out of a shoreless sea of such ; or, to change the figure, they are but a pair of flaming steeples photographed from a point which hides from sight the burning city which stretches away from their bases on every hand.
Some of the contacts — indeed, a good many of them — were very bad people, even for that day ; but the most of them were probably not noticeably worse tlian the average of the people they left behind them at home. We must believe this ;
CONVICTS IN AUSTRALIA. 121
we cannot avoid it. We are obliged to believe that a nation that could look on, unmoved, and see starving or freezing women hanged for stealing twenty-six cents' worth of bacon or rags, and boys snatched from their mothers, and men from their families, and sent to the other side of the world for long terms of years for similar trifling offenses, was a nation to whom the term " civilized " could not in any large way be ap- plied. And we must also believe that a nation that knew, dur- ing more than forty years, what was happening to those exiles and was still content vdih it, was not advancing in any showy way toward a higher grade of civilization.
If we look into the characters and conduct of the officers and gentlemen who had charge of the convicts and attended to their backs and stomachs, we must grant again that as be- tween the convict and his masters, and between both and the nation at home, there was a quite noticeable monotony of sameness.
Four years had gone by, and many convicts had come. Kespectable settlers were beginning to arrive. These two classes of colonists had to be protected, in case of trouble among themselves or with the natives. It is proper to mention the natives, though they could hardly count they were so scarce. At a time when they had not as yet begun to be much disturbed — not as yet being in the way — it was estimated that in Kew South "Wales there was but one native to 45,000 acres of territory.
People had to be protected. Officers of the regular army did not want this service — away off there where neither honor nor distinction was to be gained. So England recruited and officered a kind of militia force of 1,000 uniformed civilians called the " ]SI"ew South Wales Corps " and shipped it.
This was the worst blow of all. The colony fairly staggered under it. The Corps was an object-lesson of the moral condi-
122 FOLLOWING THE EQUATOR.
tion of England outside of the jails. The colonists trembled. It was feared that next there would be an importation of the nobility.
In those early days the colony was non-supporting. All the necessaries of life — food, clothing, and all — were sent out from England, and kept in great government store-houses, and given to the convicts and sold to the settlers — sold at a trifling advance upon cost. The Corps saw its opportunity. Its officers went into commerce, and in a most lawless way. They went to importing rum, and also to manufacturing it in private stills, in defiance of the government's commands and protests. They leagued themselves together and ruled the market ; they boycotted the government and the other dealers ; they estab- lished a close monopoly and kept it strictly in their own hands. When a vessel arrived with spirits, they allowed nobody to buy but themselves, and they forced the owner to sell to them at a price named by themselves — and it was always low enough. They bought rum at an average of two dollars a gallon and sold it at an average of ten. They made rum the currency of the country — for there was little or no money — and they maintained their devastating hold and kept the colony under their heel for eighteen or twenty years before they were finally conquered and routed by the government.
Meantime, they had spread intemperance everywhere. And