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Round the World

by Andrew Carnegie · English · Gutenberg #6411 · 543,266 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Round the World

Author: Andrew Carnegie


        
Release date: September 1, 2004 [eBook #6411]
                Most recently updated: December 29, 2020

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6411

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ROUND THE WORLD ***




Produced by Paul Wenker,  Kurt Hockenbury
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.





ROUND THE WORLD

BY ANDREW CARNEGIE




PREFACE


It seems almost unnecessary to say that "Round the World," like
"An American Four-in-Hand in Britain," was originally printed for
private circulation. My publishers having asked permission to give
it to the public, I have been induced to undertake the slight
revision, and to make some additions necessary to fit the original
for general circulation, not so much by the favorable reception
accorded to the "Four-in-Hand" in England as well as in America,
nor even by the flattering words of the critics who have dealt so
kindly with it, but chiefly because of many valued letters which
entire strangers have been so extremely good as to take the
trouble to write to me, and which indeed are still coming almost
daily. Some of these are from invalids who thank me for making the
days during which they read the book pass more brightly than
before. Can any knowledge be sweeter to one than this? These
letters are precious to me, and it is their writers who are mainly
responsible for this second volume, especially since some who have
thus written have asked where it could be obtained and I have no
copies to send to them, which it would have given me a rare
pleasure to be able to do.

I hope they will like it as they did the other. Some friends
consider it better; others prefer the "Four-in-Hand." I think them
different. While coaching I was more joyously happy; during the
journey round the World I was gaining more knowledge; but if my
readers like me half as well in the latter as in the former mood,
I shall have only too much cause to subscribe myself with sincere
thanks,

Most gratefully,

THE AUTHOR.




  "Think on thy friends when thou haply see'st
   Some rare, noteworthy object in thy travels,
   Wish them partakers of thy happiness."




ROUND THE WORLD.

NEW YORK, Saturday, October 12, 1878.

Bang! click! the desk closes, the key turns, and good-bye for a
year to my wards--that goodly cluster over which I have watched
with parental solicitude for many a day; their several cribs full
of records and labelled Union Iron Mills, Lucy Furnaces, Keystone
Bridge Works, Union Forge, Cokevale Works, and last, but not
least, that infant Hercules, the Edgar Thomson Steel Rail
Works--good lusty bairns all, and well calculated to survive in
The struggle for existence--great things are expected of them in
The future, but for the present I bid them farewell; I'm off for
a holiday, and the rise and fall of iron and steel "affecteth me
not."

Years ago, Vandy, Harry, and I, standing in the very bottom of the
crater of Mount Vesuvius, where we had roasted eggs and drank to
the success of our next trip, resolved that some day, instead of
turning back as we had then to do, we would make a tour round the
Ball. My first return to Scotland and journey through Europe was
an epoch in my life, I had so early in my days determined to do
it; to-day another epoch comes--our tour fulfils another youthful
aspiration. There is a sense of supreme satisfaction in carrying
out these early dreams which I think nothing else can give, it is
such a triumph to realize one's castles in the air. Other dreams
remain, which in good time also _must_ come to pass; for
nothing can defeat these early inborn hopes, if one lives, and if
death comes there is, until the latest day, the exaltation which
comes from victory if one but continues true to his guiding star
and manfully struggles on.

And now what to take for the long weary hours! for travellers know
that sight-seeing is hard work, and that the ocean wave may become
monotonous. I cannot carry a whole library with me. Yes, even this
can be done; mother's thoughtfulness solves the problem, for she
gives me Shakespeare, in thirteen small handy volumes. Come, then,
my Shakespeare, you alone of all the mighty past shall be my sole
companion. I seek none else; there is no want when you are near,
no mood when you are not welcome--a library indeed, and I look
forward with great pleasure to many hours' communion with you on
lonely seas--a lover might as well sigh for more than his
affianced as I for any but you. A twitch of conscience here. You
ploughman bard, who are so much to me, are you then forgotten? No,
no, Robin, no need of taking you in my trunk; I have you in my
heart, from "A man's a man for a that" to "My Nannie's awa'."

       *       *       *       *       *

PITTSBURGH, Thursday, October 17.

What is this? A telegram! "Belgic sails from San Francisco 24th
instead of 28th." Can we make it? Yes, travelling direct and via
Omaha, and not seeing Denver as intended. All right! through we
go, and here we are at St. Louis Friday morning, and off for Omaha
to catch the Saturday morning train for San Francisco. If we miss
but one connection we shall reach San Francisco too late. But we
sha'n't. Having courted the fickle goddess assiduously, and
secured her smiles, we are not going to lose faith in her now,
come what may. See if our good fortune doesn't carry us through!

       *       *       *       *       *

OMAHA, Saturday, October 19.

All aboard for "Frisco!"

A train of three Pullmans, all well filled--but what is this shift
made for, at the last moment, when we thought we were off? Another
car to be attached, carrying to the Pacific coast Rarus and
Sweetzer, the fastest trotter and pacer, respectively, in the
world. How we advance! Shades of Flora Temple and "2.40 on the
plank road!" That was the cry when first I took to horses--that
is, to owning them. At a much earlier age I was stealing a ride on
every thing within reach that had four legs and could go. One
takes to horseflesh by inheritance. Rarus now goes in 2.13-1/4,
and Ten Broeck beats Lexington's best time many seconds. I saw him
do it. And so in this fast age, second by second, we gain upon old
Father Time. Even since this was written more than another second
has been knocked off. America leads the world in trotters, and
will probable do so in running horses as well, when we begin to
develop them in earnest. Our soft roads are favorable for speed;
the English roads would ruin a fast horse.

We traverse all day a vast prairie watered by the Platte. Nothing
could be finer: such fields of corn standing ungathered, such
herds of cattle grazing at will! It is a superb day, and the
russet-brown mantle in which Nature arrays herself in the autumn
never showed to better advantage; but in all directions we see the
prairies on fire. Farmers burn them over as the easiest mode of
getting rid of the rank weeds and undergrowth; but it seems a
dangerous practice. They plough a strip twenty to thirty feet in
width around their houses, barns, hay-stacks, etc., and depend
upon the flames not overleaping this barrier.

Third night out, and we are less fatigued than at the beginning.
The first night upon a sleeping-car is the most fatiguing. Each
successive one is less wearisome, and ere the fifth or sixth comes
you really rest well. So much for custom!

       *       *       *       *       *

SUNDAY, October 20.

All day long we have been passing through the grazing plains of
Nebraska. Endless herds of cattle untrammelled by fences; the
landscape a brown sea as far as the eye can reach; a rude hut now
and then for a shelter to the shepherds. No wonder we export beef,
for it is fed here for nothing. Horses and cattle thrive on the rich
grasses as if fed on oats; no flies, no mosquitoes, nothing to
disturb or annoy, while the pellucid streams which run through the
ranches furnish the best of water. There can be no question that our
export trade is still in its infancy. The business is now fully
organized, and is subject to well-known rules. At Sherman we saw the
large show-bills of the Wyoming County Cattle Raisers' Association,
offering heavy rewards for offenders against these rules, and the
Cheyenne _Herald_ is filled with advertisements of the various
"marks" adopted by different owners. Large profits have been made in
the trade--the best assurance that it will grow--but from all I can
gather it seems doubtful whether the experiment of exporting cattle
alive will succeed.

We saw numerous herds of antelope to-day, but they graze among the
cattle, and are altogether too finely civilized to meet our idea of
"chasing the antelope over the plain;" one might as well chase a
sheep. As night approaches we get higher and higher up the far-famed
Rocky Mountains, and before dark reach the most elevated point, at
Sherman, eight thousand feet above tide. But our preconceived
notions of the Rocky Mountains, derived from pictures of Fremont _à
la_ Napoleon crossing the Alps, have received a rude shock; we only
climb high plains--not a tree, nor a peak, nor a ravine; when at the
top we are but on level ground--a brown prairie, "only this, and
nothing more."

       *       *       *       *       *

TUESDAY, October 22.

Desolation! In the great desert! It extends southward to Mexico
and northward to British Columbia, and is five hundred miles in
width. Rivers traverse it only to lose themselves in its sands,
there being no known outlet for the waters of this vast basin.
What caverns must exist below capable of receiving them! and
whither do they finally go?

At the station we begin to meet a mixture of Chinese and
Indians--Shoshones, Piutes, and Winnemuccas. The Chinamen are at
work on the line, and appear to be very expert. At Ogden we get
some honey grapes--the sweetest I ever tasted. It is midnight
before we are out of the desert.

We are up early to see the Sierras. My first glimpse was of a
ravine resembling very much the Alleghany Gap below
Bennington--going to bed in a desert and awaking to such a view
was a delightful surprise indeed. We are now running down the
western slope two hundred and twenty-five miles from San
Francisco, with mines on both sides, and numerous flumes which
tell of busy times. Halloa! what's this? Dutch Flat. Shades of
Bret Harte, true child of genius, what a pity you ever forsook
these scenes to dwindle in the foreign air of the Atlantic coast!
A whispering pine of the Sierras transplanted to Fifth Avenue!
How could it grow? Although it shows some faint signs of life,
how sickly are the leaves! As for fruit, there is none. America
had in Bret Harte its most distinctively national poet. His
reputation in Europe proved his originality. The fact is,
American poets have been only English "with a difference."
Tennyson might have written the "Psalm of Life," Browning
"Thanatopsis," but who could have written "Her Letter," or "Flynn
of Virginia," or "Jim," or "Chiquita"? An American, flesh and
bone, and none other. If the East would only discard him, as
Edinburgh society did his greater prototype, he might be forced
to return to his "native heath" in poverty, and rise again as the
first truly American poet. But poets, and indeed great artists as
a class, seem to yield their best only under pressure. The grape
must be crushed if we would have wine. Give a poet "society" at
his feet and he sings no more, or sings as Tennyson has been
singing of late years--fit strains to prepare us for the disgrace
he has brought upon the poet's calling. Poor, weak, silly old man!
Forgive him, however, for what he has done when truly the poet. He
was noble then and didn't know it; now he is a sham noble and
_knows_ it. Punishment enough that he stands no more upon the
mountain heights o'ertopping the petty ambitions of English life,

  "With his garlands
   And his singing robes about him."

His poet's robes, alas! are gone. Room, now, for the masquerader
disguised as a British peer! Place, next the last great vulgar
brewer or unprincipled political trimmer in that motley assembly,
the House of Lords!

The weather is superb, the sky cloudless; the train stops to allow
us to see the celebrated Cape Horn; the railroad skirts the edge
of the mountain, and we stand upon a precipice two thousand feet
high, smaller mountains enclosing the plain below, and the
American River running at our feet. It is very fine, indeed, but
the grandeur between Pack Saddle and San Francisco, with the
exception of the entrance to Weber Cañon and a few miles in the
vicinity, is all here; as a whole, the scenery on the Pacific
Railroad is disappointing to one familiar with the Alleghanies.

At Colfax, two hundred miles from San Francisco, we stop for
breakfast and have our first experience of fresh California grapes
and salmon; the former black Hamburgs not to be excelled by the
best hot-house grapes of England; and what a bagful for a quarter!
We tried the native white wine at dinner, and found it a fair
Sauterne. With such grapes and climate, it must surely be only a
question of a few years before the true American wine makes its
appearance, and then what shall we have to import? Silks and
woollens are going, watches and jewelry have already gone, and in
this connection I think I may venture to say good-bye to foreign
iron and steel; cotton goods went long ago. Now if wines, and
especially champagne--that creature of fashion--should go, what
shall we have to tax? What if America, which has given to mankind
so many political lessons, should be destined to show a government
living up to the very highest dictate of political economy, viz.,
supported by direct taxation! No, there remain our home products,
whiskey and tobacco; let us be satisfied to do the next best thing
and make these pay the entire cost of government. The day is not
far distant when out of these two so-called luxuries we shall
collect all our taxes; and those virtuous citizens who use neither
shall escape scot-free. Although these sentences were written
years ago, now since we approach the threshold of fulfilment I am
not sure that upon the whole the total abolition of the internal
revenue system is not preferable. We should thus dispense with
four thousand officials. In government, the fewer the better.

No greater contrast can be imagined than that from the barren
desert to the fertile plains below; oleanders and geraniums greet
us with their welcome smiles; grapes, pears, peaches, all in
profusion; we are indeed in the Italy of America at last, and
Sacramento is reached by half-past ten. Since the great flood
which almost ruined it some years ago, extensive dykes have been
built, walling in the city, which so far have proved a sufficient
barrier against the rapid swellings of the American River, that
pours down its torrents from the mountains; but if Sacramento be
now secure against flood, it is certainly vulnerable to the
attacks of the not less terrible demon of fire. Such a mass of
combustible material piled together and called a city I never saw
before: it is a tinder-box, and we are to hear of its destruction
some day. Prepare for an extra: "Great fire in Sacramento; the
city in ashes;" but then, don't let us call it accidental.

What a valley we rush through for the hundred miles which separate
Sacramento from San Francisco! It is about sixty miles wide, and as
level as a billiard-table. Here are the famous wheat fields: as far
as the eye can reach on either side we see nothing but the golden
straw standing, minus the heads of wheat which have been cut off,
the straw being left to be burned down as a fertilizer. Fancy a
Western prairie, substitute golden grain for corn, and you have
before you the California harvest; for four hundred miles this
valley extends, and it is wheat from one end to the other--nothing
but wheat. Granted sufficient rain in the rainy season--that is,
from November till February--and the husbandman seeks nothing more;
Nature does all the rest, and a bountiful harvest is a certainty. In
some years there is a scarcity of rain, but to provide against even
this sole remaining contingency the rivers have but to be properly
used for irrigation; with this done, the wheat crop of the Pacific
coast will outstrip in value, year after year, all the gold and
silver that can be mined. Douglas Jerrold's famous saying applies to
no other land so well as to this, for it indeed needs only "to be
tickled with a hoe to smile with a harvest."

We reached Oakland, the Jersey City of San Francisco, on time to
the minute; the ferry-boat starts, and there lies before us the
New York of the Pacific: but instead of the bright sparkling city
we had pictured, sinking to rest with its tall spires suffused by
the glories of the setting sun, imagine our surprise when not even
our own smoky Pittsburgh could boast a denser canopy of smoke. A
friend who had kindly met us upon arrival at Oakland tried to
explain that this was not all smoke; it was mostly fog, and a
peculiar wind which sometimes had this effect; but we could
scarcely be mistaken upon that point. No, no, Mr. O'B., you may
know all about "Frisco," the Chinese, the mines, and the Yosemite,
but do allow me to know something about smoke. We reached our
hotel, from the seven days' trip, and, after a bath and a good
dinner with agreeable company, were shown as much of the city as
it was possible to see before the "wee short hour ayont the
twal'."

       *       *       *       *       *

PALACE HOTEL, SAN FRANCISCO, Wednesday Evening, October 23.

A palace truly! Where shall we find its equal? Windsor Hotel,
good-bye! you must yield the palm to your great Western rival, as
far as structure goes, though in all other respects you may keep
the foremost place. There is no other hotel building in the world
equal to this. The court of the Grand at Paris is poor compared to
that of the Palace. Its general effect at night, when brilliantly
lighted, is superb; its furniture, rooms and appointments are all
fine, but then it tells you all over it was built to "whip all
creation," and the millions of its lucky owner enabled him to
triumph. It is as much in place in San Francisco as the Taj would
be in Sligo; but then your California operator, when he has made a
"pile," goes in for a hotel, just as in New York one takes to a
marble palace or a grand railway depot, or in Cincinnati to a
music hall, or in Pittsburgh to building a church or another
rolling mill. Every community has its social idiosyncrasies, but
it struck us as rather an amusing coincidence that while we had
recently greeted no less a man than Potter Palmer, Esq., behind
the counter in Chicago as "mine host of the Garter," we should so
soon have found ourselves in the keeping of Senator Sharon, lessee
of the Palace. These hotels do not impress one as being quite
suitable monuments for one who naturally considers his labors
about over when he builds, as they are apt apparently to prove
rather lively for comfort to the owners, and we have decided when
our building time comes that it shall not be in the hotel line. We
got to bed at last, but who could sleep after such a day--after
such a week! The ceaseless motion, with the click, click, click of
the wheels--our sweet lullaby apparently this had become--was
wanting; and then the telegrams from home, which bade us Godspeed,
the warm, balmy air of Italy, when we had left winter behind--all
this drove sleep away; and when drowsiness came, what apparitions
of Japanese, Chinese, Indians, elephants, camels, josses! passed
through our brain in endless procession. We were at the Golden
Gate; we had just reached the edge of the Pacific Ocean, and
before us lay

   ... "the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,
   Or where the gorgeous East, with richest hand,
   Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold.

To every blink the livelong night there came this refrain, which
seemed to close each scene of Oriental magnificence that haunted
the imagination:

   "And our gude ship sails ye morn,
    And our gude ship sails ye morn."

Do what I would, the words of the old Scotch ballad would not
down. Sleep! who could sleep in such an hour? Dead must be the man
whose pulse beats not quicker, and whose enthusiasm is not
enkindled when for the first time he is privileged to whisper to
himself, The East! the East!

   "And our gude ship sails ye morn."

       *       *       *       *       *

HARBOR OF SAN FRANCISCO, Thursday, October 24.

At last! noon, 24th, and there she lies--the Belgic at her dock!
What a crowd! but not of us; eight hundred Chinamen are to return
to the Flowery Land. One looks like another; but how quiet they
are! Are they happy? overjoyed at being homeward bound? We cannot
judge. Those sphinx-like, copper-colored faces tell us no tales.
We had asked a question last night by telegraph, and here is the
reply brought to us on the deck. It ends with a tender good-bye.
How near and yet how far! but even if the message had sought us
out at the Antipodes, its power to warm the heart with the sense
of the near presence and companionship of those we love would only
have been enhanced. In this we seem almost to have reached the
dream of the Swedish seer, who tells us that thought brings
presence, annihilating space in heaven.

We start promptly at noon. Our ship is deeply laden with flour,
which China needs in consequence of the famine prevailing in its
northern provinces, not owing to a failure of the rice, as I had
understood, but of the millet, which is used by the poor instead
of rice. Some writers estimate that five millions of people must
die from starvation before the next crop can be gathered; but this
seems incredible. And now America comes to the rescue, so that at
this moment, while from its Eastern shores it pours forth its
inexhaustible stores to feed Europe, it sends from the West of its
surplus to the older races of the far East. Thus from all sides,
fabled Ceres as she is, she scatters to all peoples from the horn
of plenty. Favored land, may you prove worthy of all your
blessings and show to the world that after ages of wars and
conquests there comes at last to the troubled earth the glorious
reign of peace. But no new steel cruisers, no standing army. These
are the devil's tools in monarchies; the Republic's weapons are
the ploughshare and the pruning hook.

For three hundred miles the Pacific is never pacific. Coast winds
create a swell, and our first two nights at sea were trying to bad
sailors, but the motion was to me so soft after our long railway
ride that I seemed to be resting on air cushions. It was more
delightful to be awake and enjoy the sense of perfect rest than to
sleep, tired as we were; so we lay literally

  "Rocked in the cradle of the rude imperious surge,"

and enjoyed it.

To some of my talented New York friends who are touched with
Buddhism just now and much puzzled to describe, and I judge even
to imagine, their heaven, I confidently recommend a week's
continuous jar upon a rough railway as the surest preparation for
attaining a just conception of Nirvana, where perfect rest is held
the greatest possible bliss. Lying, as I did apparently, upon air
cushions, and rocked so softly on the waves, I had not a wish;
desire was gone; I was content; every particle of my weary body
seemed bathed in delight. Here was the delicious sense of rest we
are promised in Nirvana. The third day out we are beyond the
influence of the coast, and begin our first experience of the
Pacific Ocean. So far it is simply perfect; we are on the ideal
summer sea. What hours for lovers, these superb nights! they would
develop rapidly, I'm sure, under such skyey influences. The
temperature is genial, balmy breezes blow, there is no feeling of
chilliness; the sea, bathed in silver, glistens in the moonlight;
we sit under awnings and glide through the water. The loneliness
of this great ocean I find very impressive--so different from the
Atlantic pathway--we are so terribly alone, a speck in the
universe; the sky seems to enclose us in a huge inverted bowl, and
we are only groping about, as it were, to find a way out; it is
equidistant all around us; nothing but clouds and water. But as we
sail westward we have every night a magnificent picture. I have
never seen such resplendent sunsets as these: we seem nightly to
be just approaching the gates of Enchanted Land; through the
clouds, in beautiful perspective, shine the gardens of the
Hesperides, and imagination readily creates fairy lands beyond,
peopled with spirits and fays. It is not so much the gorgeousness
of the colors as their variety which gives these sunsets a
character of their own; one can find anything he chooses in their
infinite depths. Turner must have seen such in his mind's eye. "I
never saw such sunsets as these you paint," said the critic of his
style. "No; don't you wish you could?" was the reply. But I think
even a prosaic critic would feel that these Pacific pictures have
a spiritual sense beyond the letter, unless, indeed, he were
Wordsworth's friend, to whom

  "A primrose by a river's brim
   A yellow primrose was to him,
   And it was nothing more."

He, of course, is hopeless.

       *       *       *       *       *

THURSDAY, October 31.

We have been a week at sea. Can it be only seven days since we
waved adieu to bright eyes on the pier? We begin to feel at home
on the ship. The passengers are now known to each other, and
hereafter the days, will slip by faster. I went down with the
doctor and Vandy to see the Chinamen to-day. What a sight! Piled
in narrow cots three tiers deep, with passages between the rows
scarcely wide enough for one to walk, from end to end of the ship
these poor wretches lie in an atmosphere so stifling that I had to
rush up to the deck for air. So far three have died, and two have
become crazy. My foolish curiosity has made the voyage less
satisfactory, for I cannot forget the danger of disease breaking
out among this horde, nor can I drive the yellow, stupid-looking
faces out of mind. The night of the day in which I had gone below
we were playing a rubber of whist in the cabin when the port-hole
at my head was pushed open, and a voice in broken English shouted,
"Crazee manee; he makee firee, firee!" I jumped round and saw a
Chinaman. Such an expression--Shakespeare alone has described it--

  "And with a look so piteous in purport,
   As if he had been loosed out of hell
   To speak of horrors."

Fire! that epitome of all that is appalling at sea, the danger
each one instinctively dreads, but no one mentions. One ran one
way and one another. The doctor (a real canny Scot, who sings "My
Nannie's awa'" like Wilson) was over the rail and down the hold in
a moment. I ran to Captain Meyer's room on the upper deck and
roused him. He too was down and in the hold like a flash--brave
fellows that they are, these "true British sailors." I waited the
result, knowing that if fire had really started, a general
stampede of Chinamen would soon come from the hatches; but all was
still. How long those few moments seemed! In a short time the
captain returned, looking, in his night-clothes, like a ghost. One
of the crazy men had broken loose from his chains, and the
Chinamen were panic-stricken. The watchman wanted the most
startling alarm, and found it, undoubtedly, in that word fire. It
is all over; but when he next has to sound an alarm let him "take
any form but that."

We have a reverend missionary and wife, with two young lady
missionaries in embryo, who are on their way to begin their labors
among the Chinese. They are busily engaged learning the language.
Poor girls! what a life they have before them! But apart from all
question of its true usefulness, they have the grand thought to
sustain them, and ennoble their lives, that they go at the call of
what seems to them their duty. We watch the Chinese eating and
laugh at their chopsticks, but we forget that one reason why John
Chinaman prides himself upon being at the pinnacle of civilization
is that he uses these very chopsticks. (None of the races of Asia,
and until recently he knew no other, have ever got beyond
chopsticks, the use of which was first taught China, while most
of them don't even have them yet.) Let us not forget that our
ancestors were using their fingers--barbarians that they
were--when the Chinese had risen, centuries before, to the
refinement of these sticks, for the fork is only about three
hundred years old. Shakespeare probably, Spenser certainly, had
only a knife at his girdle to carve the meat he ate, the fingers
being important auxiliaries. We must be modest upon this chopstick
question. It costs the ship eleven cents (5-1/2 d.) per day a head
to feed these people, and this pays for a wholesome diet in great
abundance, much beyond what they are accustomed to.

While on the subject of the Chinaman I may note that of course we
did not get through California without hearing the Chinese problem
warmly discussed. It is the burning question just now upon the
Pacific coast, but it seems to me our Californians' fears are, as
Colonel Diehl would put it, "slightly previous." There are only
about 130,000 Chinese in America, and great numbers are returning
as the result of hard times, and I fear harder treatment. There is
no indication that we are to be overrun by them, and until they
change their religious ideas and come to California to marry,
settle, die, and be buried there, it is preposterous to believe
there is any thing in the agitation against them beyond the usual
prejudice of the ignorant races next to them in the social scale.

I met the owner of a quicksilver mine, whose remarks shed a flood
of light upon the matter. The mine yields a lean ore, and did not
pay when worked by white labor costing $2 to $2.50 per day. He
contracted with a Chinaman to furnish 170 men at one-half these
rates. They work well, doing as much per man as the white man can
do in this climate. He has no trouble with them--no fights, no
sprees, no strikes. The difference in the cost enables him to work
at a profit a mine which otherwise would be idle; and to such as
talk against Chinese labor in the neighborhood, he replies, "Very
well, drive it off if you please, but the mine stops if you do."
The benefit to the district of having a mine actively at work has
so far insured protection. This is the whole story. Our free
American citizen from Tipperary and the restless rowdy of home
growth find a rival beating them in the race, and instead of
taking the lesson to heart and practising the virtues which cause
the Chinaman to excel, they mount the rostrum and proclaim that
this is a "white man's country," and "down with the nigger and the
Heathen Chinee," and "three cheers for whiskey and a free fight!"
The Chinese question has not reached a stage requiring
legislation, nor, if let alone, will it do so for centuries to
come--and not then unless the Chinese change their religious
ideas, which they have not done for thousands of years, and are
not likely to do in our time.

       *       *       *       *       *

FRIDAY, November 1

We saw flying-fishes to-day for the first time. The captain had
been telling us as we approached the 3Oth degree of latitude that
we should see these curiosities, and, sure enough, while standing
on the bridge this morning, looking toward the bow, I saw three
objects rise out of the water and fly from us. One seemed as large
as a herring, the others were like humming-birds. They have much
larger wings than I had supposed, and shine brightly in the sun as
they fly. We have on board a gentleman connected with the Dutch
Government, who visits their out-of-the-way possessions in the
Malay Archipelago. He has been where a white man never was
before--in the interior of New Guinea--and has seen strange
things. He tells us that the birds of paradise take seven years to
develop. The first year male and female are alike, but year after
year the male acquires brighter feathers, until it becomes the
superb bird we know. Some one remarked that it is just the reverse
with the birds of paradise in man's creation. Here our Eve puts on
gayer plumage year after year until finally she develops into a
still more superb bird, while the male remains the same
sober-suited fowl he was at first; but this was from a bachelor,
I think.

We are in a new world, and the talk is all of people and islands and
animals we never heard of. Do you know, for instance, that such a
potentate as the Sultan of Terantor exists? and, ambitious ruler
that he is, that he now claims tribute from the whole of New Guinea?
Then, again, let me tell you that the Sultan of Burnei gets $6,000
per year tribute from Setwanak, and, like a grasping tyrant, demands
more; hence the wars which rage in that quarter of the globe. The
Setwanaks have appealed to the "God of Battles," and are no doubt
shouting on all hands that "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to
God;" and "Millions for defence; not a cent for tribute." Look out
for their forthcoming declaration of independence; and why shouldn't
they have their "_Whereases_" as well as your even Christian? The
only trouble is that when monarchs fight nothing is settled as a
rule; what one loses to-day, he tries to win back to-morrow, and so
the masses are kept in a state of perpetual war, or preparation for
war, equally expensive. If Herbert Spencer had never formulated
anything but the law underlying these sad contentions between man
and man, he would have deserved to rank as one of our greatest
benefactors. "When power is arbitrarily held by chief or king, the
military spirit is developed, and wars of conquest and dynasties
ensue; and just in proportion as power is obtained by the people,
the industrial type is developed and peace ensues." Therefore the
greatest thinker of the age is a republican. I quote from memory,
but the substance is there, and it is because this law is true that
there is hope for the future of the world, for everywhere the people
are marching to political power. England is yet the world's greatest
offender, because she is still ruled by the few, her boasted
representative system being only a sham. When the masses do really
govern, England will be pacific and make friends throughout the
world instead of enemies, "and sing the songs of peace to all her
neighbors."

The Dutch have 35,000,000 under their sway in Java and the other
Malay Islands; as many as Great Britain has within her borders.
The world gets most of its spices and its coffee from these
people. So the Dutch are not to be credited only with having taken
Holland, you see.

Another Chinaman is reported gone to-day: all have to be embalmed,
of course, and the doctor gets as his fee $12.50 for each corpse.
He complained to me the other day that these people would not take
his medicines, and, Scotchman--like, didn't see the point I
made--that they might naturally hesitate to swallow the potions of
one whose highest reward arose from a fatal result. The Heathen
Chinee is not a fool. The coffins of the dead on the wheel-house
begin to make quite a show; they are covered with canvas, but one
will sometimes see the pile. Not one of these men could ever have
been induced to leave his home without satisfactory assurance that
in case of death his remains would be carried back and carefully
buried in the spot where he first drew breath. I remember reading
in MacLeod's "Highland Parish" that so strongly implanted is this
sentiment in the Highlanders that even a wife who marries out of
her clan is brought home at her death and buried among her own
kith and kin. I confess to a strange sympathy with this feeling
myself. It seems to agree with the eternal fitness of things, that
where we first saw day we should rest after the race is run. Yes,
the old song is right:

  "Wherever we wander in life's stormy ways
   May our paths lead to home ere the close of our days,
   And our evening of life in serenity close
   In the Isle where the bones of our Fathers repose."

One of our company has kindly shown me "some things in waves"
which I have always passed over before. Hereafter they will have a
new interest and a new beauty for me. I now watch by the hour for
some rare effect and colors to which I was before stone-blind.
Some of the rarest jewels are rated by comparison with the emerald
and aqua-marine tints shown by the pure waves of the ocean.
Thanks, my fellow-traveller, for a new sense awakened.

The albatrosses, which follow us in large numbers, are a source of
pleasure. These are not the sacred birds of the Ancient Mariner,
but are of the same species. They excel all other birds, I think,
in power and gracefulness of flight. It is rather a glide than a
fly, as they appear scarcely ever to flap their wings, but sail on
as it were "by the sole act of their unlorded will." No wonder
such woe befell the Ancient Mariner through killing one. They are
too grand to destroy. Last evening I had a treat in seeing these
birds gathering for the night on the waters in the hollow of a
deep wave. A dozen were already in the nest as our ship swept
past, and others were coming every moment from all directions to
the fold; probably thirty birds would thus nestle together through
the long night in the middle of this waste of waters. I was glad
for their sakes, poor wanderers, that their lonely lives were
brightened at night by the companionship of their fellows.

Our second Sunday at sea. As I write, the bell tolls for church.
Our missionary will have a small congregation, for there are only
twenty-two passengers. I trust he will be moved to speak to us,
away in mid-ocean, of the great works of the Unknown, the mighty
deep, the universe, the stars, at which we nightly wonder, and not
drag us down to the level of dogmas we can know nothing of, and
about which we care less. The sermon is over. Pshaw! He spent the
morning attempting to prove to us that the wine Christ made at the
marriage feast was not fermented, as if it mattered, or as if this
could ever be known! and I was in the mood to preach such a
magnificent sermon myself, too, if I had had his place. No; I
shall never forgive him--never!

It is an even chance that this missionary will one day inflict
such frivolous stuff upon the heathen as part of the divine
message; for of the majesty, the sweetness, and the reforming
power of Christ's teaching and character, he seems to have not the
faintest conception. To the enquiry one constantly hears in the
East, why churches send forth as missionaries such inferior men as
they generally do, whose task is to eradicate error and plant
truth--there is this to be said: churches must take the best
material at their disposal, and men who have the ability to
influence their fellows through the pulpit find their best and
highest work at home. This leaves the incapables for foreign
service. The other class from which missionaries must be drawn are
the over-zealous, who have plenty of enthusiastic emotional
fervor, but combined in most cases with narrow, dogmatic
views--the very kind of men to irritate the people to whom they
are sent, and the least likely to win their hearts or reach their
understanding. There are notable exceptions, able men who still go
at duty's call; but such generally see that they can be ill spared
from more pressing home work.

       *       *       *       *       *

MONDAY, November 4.

Our course is the southerly one, 5,120 miles to Yokohama, some
five hundred miles farther than that of the great circle; but for
the increased distance we have full compensation in the delightful
weather and calm seas we experience. The water is about 72°, the
air 73°, so that it is genial on deck. We are really in summer
weather--something so different from Atlantic sailing that I get
accustomed to it with difficulty. Last night at ten o'clock we
passed the half-way point ten days and eight hours out. The
captain showed us his chart to-day, and it was reassuring to see
that to-morrow we shall pass within 120 miles of land--the Midway
Islands. Upon one of this coral group the Pacific Mail Company has
deposited 3,000 tons of coal and a large amount of mess pork as a
reserve supply in case any steamer should be disabled. We passed
the Sandwich Islands, not more than 450 miles to the southward,
when one quarter of the way over, and the Bonin Islands occupy
about the same relative position in our course to the eastward, so
that the immense distance between San Francisco and Yokohama is
finely provided for in case of accident. You have but to sail
southward and find a port of refuge. Indeed, there is along this
entire parallel of latitude a new strip of land under process of
manufacture. A good chart shows islands dotting the South Pacific
Ocean, all of coral formation; these millions of toilers are hard
at work, and it is only a question of time when our posterity will
run by rail from the Sandwich to the Philippine Islands, always
provided that the work of these little builders is not interfered
with by forces which destroy. Thus the grand, never-ending work of
creation goes on, cycle upon cycle, revealing new wonders at every
turn and knowing no rest or pause.

Gone, November 5th, 1878, a _dies non_, which never was born.
Lost, strayed, or stolen--a rare diadem, composed of twenty-four
precious gems--some diamonds bright, some rubies rare, some jet as
black as night. It was to have been displayed at midnight to an
admiring few who nightly gaze upon the stars, but when looked for
it was nowhere to be found. A well-known party, familiarly known
as Old Sol, is thought to be concerned in the matter, but chiefly
is suspected a notorious thief who has stolen many precious
jewels--Old Father Time. Oh! many an hour has that thief stolen,
but this gobbling up of a whole day and night at one fell swoop
seems out of all reason. Yet he has done it! We have no 5th of
November. An amusing story is told of some clergymen returning to
America, in which case a day is gained, and it is necessary to
have two days of the same date instead of omitting one, as in our
case. The line was crossed on Sunday, and the captain, never
thinking, called out to the chief officer to make another Sunday
to-morrow. One of the clergymen was Scotch, and Presbyterian at
that. "Mak a Sawbath--mak the holy Sawbath; ma conscience!" The
order had been given, however, and two Sundays were observed; but
our scandalized friend could never be reconciled to the captain
who had presumed to have a holy Sabbath of his "ain making."

       *       *       *       *       *

THURSDAY, November 7.

These nights were not made for sleep, nor these days either, for
that matter; but of all the nights I have ever seen I think this
one excels. The moon is overhead and at the full, casting her
mellow light around, suffusing with a soft glory the heavens
above, and lending to the dancing, foaming waves a silvery
shimmer. Jupiter is on the western horizon, fading out of sight,
but how lustrous! Lyra, Arcturus, Aldebaran, seem of gigantic
size. All sails are set, and a fair, balmy wind from the sweet
south makes the Belgic glide through the rushing waters. We are
only twenty miles from the Morrell Islands. How I long for a
deckful of my friends to exult with me in this delight! Nothing
but Byron's lines will do it justice. They are too long to quote
here, but here are a few lines, which I must repeat:

                     .... "for the night
   Hath been to me a more familiar face
   Than that of man; and in her starry shade
   Of dim and solitary loveliness
   I learned the language of another world."

One does feel in such moments, when beauty and sublimity are so
overpoweringly displayed, that there are worlds and life beyond
our ken, or should be such, for this short day on earth surely
should be but the foretaste of a sublime existence which such
moods indicate as our congenial home.

       *       *       *       *       *

FRIDAY, November 8.

I know I went to bed some time early this morning, but after
reading last night's effusion in the cold, sober light of day, it
strikes me I must have been rather enthusiastic. However, as I
intend these notes to be an honest record of my feelings, I shall
not attempt to modify the outburst. I know I recited poetry all
the evening as I trod the deck, and therefore was in the mood for
anything. The captain told me to-night that in all his voyages at
this season he had never had one so fine as this. Of course he
hadn't. Just our luck, you see. He never had one who enjoyed a
trip more--that he is free to confess. I fairly revel in the sea,
and pity poor Vandy, who is never quite up to the mark on
shipboard. Some far-away ancestor, some good Scotch "deil ma
care," who took to smuggling instead of the more fashionable
occupation of cattle-stealing, for most of the carles

  "Found the meat that made their broth
   In England and in Scotland both,"

must have implanted in the Carnegies the instinct of the salmon
for the sea. I should have been a sailor bold, and sailed the
"sawt, sawt faeme," a pirate with a pirate's bride captured _vi
et armis_, and all the rest of it.

I am up late again to-night, but, fortunately, there wasn't a soul
on deck to hear me trying to sing

  "Up, up with the flag; let it wave o'er the sea,
   I'm afloat, I'm afloat, and the Rover is free!"

The officer on the bridge halloaed to me once, and asked if I
wanted any thing; but I forgave him. He could only hear my roaring
at his distance; had I been nearer, the melody would no doubt have
reached his ears, and he would have known I was singing a tune.
Still I thought it politic to affect not having heard him, and
quietly stepped down to bed. I shall avoid friend Ryan in the
morning, as it would be embarrassing to be asked, especially
before the young ladies, who or what I was howling at last night.
Some people have no tact, and he might be one of these and fail to
comprehend. With the exception of the officers, our crew, sailors,
stewards, and all, are Chinese, and in all and each of these
capacities they excel. They stand the heat of the furnaces better
than any other people, and as stewards are models.

       *       *       *       *       *

SUNDAY, November 10.

Our third Sunday at sea. The past week has been unbroken sunshine,
moonlight, and smooth seas. So far not a ship has been seen. I
have read carefully eleven of Shakespeare's plays during the spare
hours of the voyage, and have enjoyed those most with which I was
least familiar, while some passages in even the best known I
wonder greatly at not having long ere this committed to memory, to
live there with the rest, and come at my call to minister to me.
They are such gems. I have them now, and feel as if I have made
new friends, whose angel visits will do me good in days and nights
to come. Byron affected to disparage the master, but I note two
other gems, beside many I knew of before, for which he stands
indebted. The idea in his celebrated lines in "Mazeppa"--

  "Methought that mist of dawning gray
   Would never dapple into day"--

is from _Two Gentlemen of Verona_, and the "Bright,
particular star" from _All's Well that Ends Well_. But of
course I do not intend any reflection upon Byron. Such was, and
is, the all-pervading, transcendent nature of Shakespeare's
genius; it was, and is, and shall be for ages yet to come, simply
impossible for any writer to avoid drawing from that fountain, for
every thing has its "environment," and Shakespeare is the
environment of all English-speaking men.

       *       *       *       *       *

WEDNESDAY, November 13.

Four hundred and fifty miles from land! To-day we have had the
only taste of Neptune's power he has favored us with: it began to
blow at midnight, and today we have a grand sea. I have just come
from the deck after witnessing the Pacific in its fury, and no one
would believe that one ocean could differ as much from another as
this does from the Atlantic. The waves here move in immense
masses. It is an acre of water in motion, as one solid lump,
instead of a few feet square dashed into foam. One says
instinctively,

  "What care these roarers for the name of king?"

I have noticed that even in the smallest waves cast aside by the
ship formations are different from those of other seas. It is
midnight, and we are only 125 miles from Japan. Not a passenger
except myself on deck, but I cannot sleep. Vandy would be with me,
I know, poor fellow, were he able to crawl, but the storm has
settled him for the present. How strange that none feel sufficient
interest to stay awake and watch with me! They would be amply
repaid. The phosphorescent sea shows forth its wonders now--not
alone in the myriads of small stars of light, which please you in
the Atlantic, but at every turn of the foam dashed from the bow
and sides of the ship masses of glittering phosphorescence as
large as my travelling cap. What creatures these must be which can
emit light in such clusters! I leave the deck with the cheery
"All's well!" ringing in my ears as the ship dances before the
wind which brings to a close our long flight across the Pacific.
How we have longed for this last night, and yet how often in after
life are we to sigh for a return to the glorious nights we have
lived at sea! Where we have

  "Mingled with the universe to feel
   What we can ne'er express,
   Nor cannot all conceal."

Good-night, my band of dear, dear friends, now in the midst of
your daily toil--for it is yet day with you--racking your brains
that the holiday wanderer may revel as he is now doing. In the
earnest hope that the day may not be far distant when to you may
come similar enjoyment when he is the toiler, he goes at last to
bed.

       *       *       *       *       *

FRIDAY, November 15.

Land ahoy! The islands of Japan are in sight, and the entrance to
the bay is reached at 4 P.M. The sail up this bay is never to be
forgotten. The sun set as we entered, and then came such a sky as
Italy cannot rival. I have seen it pictured as deluging Egypt with
its glory, but this we have yet to see. Fusiyama itself shone
forth under its rays, its very summit clear, more than 14,000 feet
above us. The clouds in large masses lay east and west of the
peak, but cowering far below, as if not one speck dared to rise to
its crown. It stood alone in solitary grandeur, by far the most
impressive mountain I have yet seen; for mountains, as a rule, are
disappointing, the height being generally attained by gradations.
It is only to Fusiyama, and such as it, that rise alone in one
unbroken pyramid, that one can apply Schiller's grand line,

  "Ye are the things which tower,"

Fusiyama _towers_ beyond any crag or peak I know of; and I do
not wonder that in early days the Japanese made the home of their
gods upon its crest.

It was nine o'clock when the anchor dropped, and in a few minutes
after small boats crowded alongside to take us ashore. Until you
are rowed in a sampan in style, never flatter yourself you have
known the grotesque in the way of transportation. Fancy a large,
wide canoe, with a small cabin in the stern, the deck in front
lower than the sides, and on this four creatures, resembling
nothing on earth so much as the demons in the _Black Crook_,
minus most of the covering. They stand two on each side, but not
in a line, and each works a long oar scull-fashion, accompanying
each stroke with shouts such as we never heard before; the last
one steers as well as sculls with his oar, and thus we go
propelled by these yelling devils, who apparently work themselves
into a state of fearful excitement. We land finally, pass the
Custom House without examination, and with sea-legs which are far
from steady reach our hotel. A bite of supper--but what fearful
creatures again to bow and wait on us! More demons. We laugh every
minute at some funny performance, and wonder where we can be; but
how surprisingly good every thing is which we eat or drink on land
after twenty-two days at sea!

       *       *       *       *       *

TUESDAY, November 19.

We have been three days in Japan, and all we can tell you is that
we are powerless to convey more than the faintest idea of that
which meets us at every turn. Had we to return to-morrow, we
should still feel that we had been fully compensated for our
journey. Though we have seen most of the strange and novel which
Europe has to show, a few hours' stroll in Yokohama or Tokio has
revealed to us more of the unexpected than all we ever saw
elsewhere. No country I have visited till now has proved as
strange as I had imagined it; the contrary obtains here. All is so
far beyond what I had pictured it that I am constantly regretting
so few of my friends will probably ever visit Japan to see and
enjoy for themselves. Let me try to describe a walk. We are at the
hotel door, having received the repeated bows, almost to the
ground, of numerous demons. A dozen big fellows rush up, each
between the shafts of his "ginrikshaw" like a cab-horse, and
invite us to enter, just as cabmen do elsewhere. But look at their
costume, or shall I rather say want of costume? No shoes, unless a
mat of straw secured with straw strings twisted around and between
the big toe and the next one may be called a shoe; legs and body
bare, except a narrow strip of rag around the loins; and such a
hat! it is either of some dark material, as big as the head of a
barrel (I do not exaggerate), to shelter them from sun and rain,
or a light straw flat of equal size. These are the Bettoes, who
will run and draw you eighteen miles in three hours and a quarter,
this being the distance and time by "ginrikshaw" to Tokio. We
decline their proffers and walk on. What is this? A man on stilts!
His shoes are composed of a flat wooden sole about a quarter of an
inch thick, on which the foot rests, elevated upon two similar
pieces of board, about four inches high, placed crosswise. about
three inches apart. On the edges of these cross-pieces he struts
along. A second has solid wooden pieces of equal height, a third
has flat straw shoes, a fourth has none. Look out behind! What is
this noise? "Hulda, hulda, hulda!" shouted in our ears. We look
around, and four coolies, as naked as Adam, one at each corner of
a four-wheel truck, pushing a load of iron and relieving
themselves at every step by those unearthly groans. Never have we
seen that indispensable commodity transported in that fashion
before. But look there! A fishmonger comes with a basket swinging
on each end of a bamboo pole carried over the shoulder--all single
loads are so carried--and yonder goes a water-carrier, carrying
his stoups in the same manner, while over his shoulders he has
flung a coat that would make the reputation of a clown in the
circus. The dress of the women is not so varied, but their painted
lips and whitened necks, and, in the case of the married women,
their blackened teeth, afford us much cause for staring, although
I cannot bear to look upon these hideous-looking wretches when
they smile; I have to turn my eyes away. How women can be induced
to make such disgusting frights of themselves I cannot conceive,
but Fashion--Fashion does anything. The appearance of the children
is comical in the extreme. They are so thickly padded with dress
upon dress as to give them the look of little fat Esquimaux. The
women invariably carry them on their backs, Indian fashion. Here
are two Japs meeting in the middle of the street. They bow three
times, each inclination lower and more profound than the preceding
one, infinite care being taken to drop the proper number of inches
befitting their respective ranks, and then shake their own hands
in token of their joy. We soon reach the region of the shops.
These are small booths, and squat on the floor sit four or five
men and women around a brazier, warming their hands while they
smoke. All the shops are of wood, but a small part is constructed
of mud, and is said to be fire-proof. In this the valuables are
instantly thrown when one of the very frequent fires occurs. The
floors are matted, and kept scrupulously clean. No one thinks of
entering without first taking his shoes off. The shop floors are
raised about eighteen inches above the street, and on the edges
purchasers sit sidewise and make their bargains. The entire street
is a pavement, as no horses are to be provided for. We visited the
tea factories at Yokohama. Japan has become of late years an
exporter of tea to America, no less than five thousand tons being
shipped last year. Tea when first gathered is tasteless, but after
being exposed to the sun it ferments like hay. It is then curled,
twisted, baked, and brought to the dealers, who again pick it over
carefully and roll it into the form in which it reaches us. We saw
many hundreds of women and girls in the establishment of Messrs.
Walsh, Hall & Co. rolling rapidly about with their hands a
quantity of the leaves in large round pots under which a small
charcoal fire was burning. And now, for the benefit of my lady
friends, let me explain that the difference between black and
green tea is simply this: the former is allowed to cure or ferment
in the sun about fifty minutes longer than the latter, and during
this extra fifty minutes certain elements pass off which are
thought to affect the nervous system; hence green tea has a
greater effect upon weak nerves than the black, but you see the
same leaf makes either kind, as the owner elects. But here comes
in a strange prejudice. Green tea of the natural color could not
be sold in the American market. No, we insist upon having a
"prettier green," and we are accommodated, of course. What can a
dealer do but meet the imperious demands of his patrons? The
required color is obtained by adulterating the pure tea with a
mixture of indigo and gypsum, which the most conscientious dealers
are compelled to do. But we saw used in one case Prussian blue,
which is poisonous--this, however, was not in Messrs. Walsh, Hall
& Co.'s--and I was told that ultramarine is sometimes resorted to.
These more pernicious substances produce even a "prettier green"
than the indigo and gypsum, and secure the preference of ignorant
people. Moral--Stick to black tea and escape poison. For all of
which information, and many kind attentions, I have to thank Mr.
Walsh, our banker.

One hears very often in Japan during the night a long, plaintive
kind of whistle, which, upon inquiry, I found proceeded from blind
men or women, called shampooers, who are employed to rub or pinch
those suffering from pain, and who cure restlessness by the same
means. It is a favorite cure of the Japanese, and some foreigners
tell us they have employed it with success. I suppose, this
climate being productive of rheumatism and kindred pains, the
people are prone to fly to anything that secures temporary relief;
but it is a new idea, this, of being pinched to sleep.

We live well at the hotels here. Japan abounds in fish and game in
great variety. Woodcock, snipe, hares, and venison are cheap, and
all of excellent quality. The beef and mutton are also good, as
are the vegetables. Turnips, radishes and carrots are enormous,
owing, I suppose to the depth and fineness of the soil. Vandy
measured some of each, and reports: "Radishes, eighteen inches,
and beautifully white; carrots, twenty inches, and splendid."

       *       *       *       *       *

WEDNESDAY, November 20.

We started this morning from Yokohama for Tokio, the great city of
the Empire, which contains 1,030,000 inhabitants, according to a
census taken last year. Until within a few years past Japan had
two rulers--the Mikado, or spiritual, and the Tycoon, or secular
ruler, although, strictly speaking, the former was theoretically
the supreme ruler, the latter obtaining his power through marriage
with the family of the former. The seat of the Mikado was at
Kioto, a fine city near the centre of the island, while the Tycoon
resided at Tokio, or Yeddo, as it was then called. The Mikado was
invisible, being the veritable veiled prophet, none but a
privileged few being ever permitted to gaze upon his divine
person. A few years ago it was decided to combine the two powers,
and make Yeddo the only capital. The Mikado was carried to Yeddo
closely veiled, in triumphal procession, and the vast crowds,
assembled at every point to see the cavalcade, prostrated
themselves, and remained with eyes bent upon the ground as the
sacred car approached. An eye-witness describing the entry into
Tokio says that few dared to look up as the Presence passed.
Lately, the same Mikado has made a royal progress through the
country, meeting the principal men in each district, and
travelling in view of the entire population, so rapidly have
manners changed in Japan. When the Mikado was elevated to supreme
power, the feudal system, which had existed up to that time, was
abolished, and we now see no more of the Samuri, or two-sworded
men, or of the Daimios, the petty princes who formerly promenaded
the streets in gorgeous dresses, accompanied by their military
retainers. The soldiers, sailors, policemen, and all the official
classes are dressed in European style. It is the reigning fashion
to be European, and even furniture after our patterns is coming
into use. It is the same with food. The hotel where we are
rejoices in a French cook, expressly imported, and every night we
have parties of wealthy Japanese dining at this Tokio Delmonico's.
Last night we had a party of the most celebrated actors enjoying a
dinner to commemorate the successful completion of a new piece
which had enjoyed a great run. I amused myself trying to select
the Montagu, Gilbert, Becket, and Booth of the party, and
succeeded well, as I afterward heard. Actors are held in
estimation in Tokio, and these attracted great attention as they
dined. Matters are much as with us, I fancy. Our interpreter, in
his broken English, told us in regard to the two young lovers,
"Very high thought by much high ladies--oh, very high!" I do not
think European dress improves the appearance of the Japanese
gentlemen; they are very short, and--I regret to report
it--generally quite crooked in the legs, and their own flowing
costumes render them dignified and graceful. Indeed, after a
residence in the East for a while one agrees with the opinion he
hears often expressed there that our costume is the most
unpicturesque dress in the world.

We were fortunate in having as shipmates Captain Totaki, of the
navy, and a young lady, Mlle. Rio, who had been in America several
years, and had acquired an English education. They were
excessively kind to us during our entire stay, and much of the
pleasure derived is due to them. The captain gave us one evening
an entertainment at a fashionable tea-house, and introduced us to
the celebrated singing and dancing girls of Japan, of whom all
have heard. We were shown into a large room, the floor of which
was covered with bamboo matting laid upon some soft substance. Of
course our shoes were laid aside at the door of the house. There
were neither chairs nor furniture of any kind, but subsequently
chairs were found for us. The salutations on the part of the
numerous women servants were most profound, each prostrating
herself to the floor, and touching the mat with her forehead every
time she entered or left the apartment. Velvet mats were carried
into the room by a servant and placed around a brazier of
charcoal. In a few minutes servant after servant entered,
prostrating herself to the ground, and placing before us some
Japanese delicacy. One served soup in small lacquer bowls, another
fish, a third cakes, a fourth tea in very tiny cups, and others
various things, and finally saki, the wine of the country, was
produced, served in small cups like the tea. Then came the girls.
Seven approached, each carrying a musical instrument of queer
construction. They bowed profoundly, but I noticed did not touch
the mat with their foreheads, their rank being much superior to
that of the servants, and began to play and sing.

No entertainment is complete without a troop of these Gahazi
girls, and such entertainments form about the only social
amusement of the Japanese. And now for the music. Please
understand that the Japanese scale is not like ours, and nothing
like melody to our ears can be produced by it. They have a full
tone between each first and second note, and a semitone between
each third and fourth, and yet the same feelings are awakened in
them by their music as in us by ours, so that harmony itself is
simply a matter of education after all, and the glorious Fifth
Symphony itself, "Lohengrin," or "Scots wha hae," played or sung
as I have heard them, would convey no more meaning to these people
than so much rattling of cross-bones; but imagine the Fifth
Symphony on any scale but ours! I cannot reconcile myself to the
idea that we have not the only scale for such a theme; but one has
to learn that there are different ways for every thing, and no one
who knows much will assume that he has the best. Owing to the
change of the scale, I suppose I missed the sentiment of every
piece performed. When I thought they were giving us a wail for the
dead it turned out to be a warm welcome, and an assurance on the
part of those pretty maidens of their happiness in being permitted
the great honor of performing before such illustrious visitors.
Our companion, Mile. Rio, took one of the instruments and played
and sang a piece for us, but I was not more fortunate in my guess
with her. It was a wedding chorus, which I was willing to wager
was the Japanese "Miserere"; but this error may have its
significance after all. To us, in short, the music was execrable.
A falsetto, and a grinding, singsong falsetto at that--the most
disagreeable sound I ever heard in music--is very common, and
highly esteemed. The instruments resemble banjos, and there is a
harsh kind of drum accompaniment; but there is one larger string
instrument, the Japanese piano, upon which much older women play,
the younger girls not being sufficiently skilled to perform upon
it.

After a few songs had been sung, several of the girls laid down
their banjos, and after obeisance prepared to dance. Instead of
being a sprightly performance to, lively music, "first ae caper
syne anither," Japanese dancing is a very stately and measured
performance, the body instead of the feet being most brought into
requisition. With the aid of the indispensable fan the girls
succeed in depicting many different emotions, and all with
exquisite grace. It is the very poetry of motion. Each dance
illustrates a story, and is as well known by name as is the
"Highland Fling" or the "Sailor's Hornpipe." Here there was no
difficulty in following the story. Unlike music, acting is a
universal language, and in its domain "one touch of nature makes
the whole world kin." There are no different scales for the
expression of feeling. Love, in some of its manifold forms, as was
to have been expected, is the theme of most of these dances. I
redeemed my reputation here as a guesser, I think. I could give a
very fair report to Mlle. Rio of most that took place in the
dances, and we enjoyed this portion of the entertainment highly.
To a Japanese, how stupid our people must appear whirling round a
room until fatigued or dizzy, all for the fun of the thing!

The dresses of the girls were of the richest and most fashionable
description, the quietness of the colors surprising us, and their
manners those of high-born women. Indeed, they set the fashions,
and are the best educated and most accomplished of their sex.
These girls are sent for to furnish entertainment for an evening
just as we would engage a band for a party. They are said to be
highly respectable as a class, invariably reside with their
parents, who educate them at great expense, and often make, we
were told, very favorable marriages. The contrast between them and
their less accomplished sisters is so great as to strike even us,
who have been here only a few days, and must be held ignorant of
style.

The most wonderful sights of Tokio are the temples and the famous
tombs of the Tycoons. There is much similarity in the latter, but
that of the sixth Tycoon, at Shibba, is by far the most
magnificent. It has been rendered familiar by photographs and
engravings, and at any rate no description would convey a just
idea of it. It is gorgeous in color, and the extreme delicacy of
the gold is surprising; upon it, too, are found the finest known
specimens of the old lacquer. But these tombs totally failed to
impress me with any feeling akin to reverence; indeed, nothing in
Japan seems calculated to do so--the odor of the toyshop pervades
everything, even their temples. As for their religious belief, it
is hard to tell what it is, or whether they have any. One thing is
sure, the educated classes have discarded the faith of the
multitude, if they ever really entertained it, and no longer
worship the gods of old. The ignorant classes, however, are seen
pouring into the temples with their modest offerings, and asking
for prayers in their behalf. It is in Japan as it was in
Greece--one religion for the masses, and another, or rather none
in the ordinary sense, for the educated few.

As in Catholic countries, some shrines are esteemed more than
others. The Temple of the Foxes is the most popular in the Empire.
It is adorned with statues of Master Reynard in various postures.
His votaries are numerous, for the sagacity of the fox has passed
into a proverb, and these people hope by prayers and gifts to move
the fox-god to bestow upon them the shrewdness of the symbol. The
fox may be justly rated as the most successful preacher in Japan:
he draws better than any other, and his congregation is the
largest; but he has a rival not without pretensions in the
favorite goddess "Emma." We found her to be a large, very fat
woman, sitting in Japanese style, and surrounded by images of
children. Babies cluster like cherubs around the principal figure,
while an attendant sells for a cent apiece ugly painted ones made
out of clay, many of which have been placed by worshippers before
the goddess. As we approached, a young woman--married, for her
teeth were black, and respectably but not richly dressed--was on
her knees before the goddess so earnestly engaged in prayer that
she appeared wholly unconscious of our presence. There was no
mistaking that this was sincere devotion--a lifting up of the soul
to some power considered higher than itself. I became most anxious
to know what sorrow could so move her, and our interpreter
afterward told us that she asked but one gift from the goddess. It
was the prayer of old that a man-child should be born to her; and,
poor woman! when one knows what her life must be in this country
should this prayer remain unanswered, it saddens one to think of
it. A living death; another installed in her place; all that woman
holds dear trembling in the balance. How I pitied her! I also saw
men praying before other idols and working themselves into a state
of frenzy. Indeed I saw so much in the temples to make me unhappy
that I wished I had never visited any of them. It gives one such
desponding hopes of our race, of its present and of its future,
when so many are so bound down to the lowest form of superstition.

At one of the principal Shinto temples I saw the sacred dance with
which that great god is propitiated. In a booth two stories high,
in front of the temple, was a small stage upon which sat three old
priests. One beat a drum, the second played a flute, while the
third fingered a guitar. To this music a very pretty young
daughter of a priest, gorgeously arrayed in sacred robes, postured
with a fan, keeping time to the music. This was all. But, like the
tom-tom beating of the Buddhist which we heard at the same moment
from an opposite temple, the dance is thought to dispose the gods
to receive favorably the gifts and prayers of the devotees. We saw
at the same temple a large wooden figure which is reputed able to
cure all manner of diseases. So much and so hard had this figure
been rubbed by the poor sufferers that the nose is no longer
there; the face is literally rubbed smooth. The ears are gone, and
it is only a question of time when all traces of human form will
have vanished. It reminded us of the toe of St. Peter, in the
cathedral at Rome, which has been worn smooth by the osculations
of devout Christians.

Japan is rapidly adopting the manners and customs of European
civilization. There is at present a cry for representative
government, and one need not be surprised to hear by and by of the
Parliament of Japan. War-ships are building at the arsenal, which
are not only constructed but designed by native genius. A standing
army of about 50,000 men is maintained. Gas has been introduced in
some places, and railroads and telegraphs are in operation; and,
not to be behind their neighbors, a public debt and irredeemable
currency (based upon the property of the nation, of course,) have
been created. The currency is now at 22 per cent. discount as
compared with gold, and further depreciation is apprehended. (It
has since reached 50 per cent. discount.) It is modelled on our
American paper money, and is actually printed in New York. Let us
hope that Japan may soon be able to follow the Republic farther by
making it convertible--as good as gold. Notwithstanding its wide
"base"--in short, our greenbackers' "base"--it doesn't seem to
work here any better than at home.

Art in Japan is utilitarian; in no other country are articles of
common use so artistic. The furniture of a Japanese house is
scanty. We see no walls hung with pictures with showy gilt frames,
no portieres or curtains, none of the sofas, chairs, tables,
brackets, chandeliers, etc., which give our rooms so crowded an
appearance. The bareness of the rooms strikes one at once upon
entering, but when one examines the utensils in daily use even by
the poorer classes he sees that they are of uncommon beauty.
Surely this is of more moment than to have art confined to the
few, both as to articles and to persons. In Japan, art may be said
to be democratic; all classes are brought under its sway.

One thing must be said, however, about art throughout the East, in
China and in India as well as in Japan: up to this time it has
been content to remain solely decorative. The higher creative and
imaginative power has yet to be reached. Why this should be so is
an interesting question, and I resolve to read up the authorities
when opportunity offers and see how they account for it. May not
the poverty of the East have much to do with it? So very few are
rich; indeed, scarcely any are opulent in our sense, six thousand
dollars (£1,200) a year being considered a fortune in Japan, I am
told, and very few, even of the higher classes, possess as much.
In China and India it is much the same, a few rajahs in the latter
country excepted.

The start which religion gave to art in Europe is wanting in the
East, for the temples are mean and destitute of costly works. Rich
commercial and manufacturing classes do not exist in the East--as
wealth does not run into "pockets" as it does in Europe--especially
in England--and in America. I fear, therefore, that art in the East
will not advance much beyond the decorative stage for centuries
to come.

       *       *       *       *       *

SATURDAY, November 23.

Vandy and I walked to-day through the principal street of Tokio
from end to end, a distance of three miles. It is a fine, broad
avenue, crowded with people and vehicles drawn or pushed by men.
There is also a line of small one-horse wagons running as
omnibuses on the street--novel feature, unknown anywhere else in
the Empire. Our appearance attracted such crowds whenever we
stopped at a shop, that the police had to drive the gazers away.
The city is built upon a plain, and supplied with water by wells
only. Fires are of frequent occurrence. Japanese cities are such
piles of combustible material that I wonder they exist at all. But
fires are little used--only a brazier of charcoal now and then for
cooking purposes; and as most of the people eat at cook-shops,
there is never any fire at all in many of the houses. Long ladders
are erected as fire-towers, and upon these watchmen sit through
the night to give the alarm. It is only by tearing down or blowing
up surrounding houses that the progress of a fire can generally be
stayed. There is no such thing as insurance in Japan, the risks
being much too great.

The Japanese go to the theatre early in the morning and remain
until five o'clock in the evening. Doors open at five A.M., but
the rich classes do not appear before six or seven o'clock, at
which hour the performance begins. Breakfast is served in the
theatre about noon. The audience smoke, eat, sip tea, and enjoy
themselves as they choose. No seats are provided, but a small mat
is put down for each person as he enters, and beside it a box
filled with sand, in the middle of which are two pieces of glowing
charcoal, at which pipes are lighted. Ladies, as well as
gentlemen, be it remembered, invariably smoke in Japan. Every one
carries a small pipe with a long stem, and a tobacco-pouch
attached to it. At short intervals a little tobacco is put into
the pipe--just enough to give two whirls of smoke--after which the
tobacco is knocked out and the pipe again replenished. In no case
have I ever seen more than two very small whiffs taken at one
time. Even young ladies smoke in this manner, and to one who
detests tobacco, as I instinctively do, it may be imagined this
habit did not add to their attractiveness. A sweetheart who
defiled her lips with tobacco! "Phew!" Neither is it considered
disrespectful in any degree to begin smoking in the presence of
others. Deferential as the singing girls were, when at leisure
they lighted their pipes as a matter of course, wholly unconscious
that they were taking a liberty.

The marriage ceremony differs greatly from ours. The priests have
nothing to do with it, nor is there any religious ceremony. The
parents of a young man select a proper wife for him when he is
about twenty years of age, and manage the whole affair. They
consult the young lady's parents, and if the match is a
satisfactory one to them, writings are exchanged between the
parents of the young couple, the day is appointed, and the bride
and groom drink saki from the same cup; feasting and rejoicings
follow, sometimes continued for several days if the parents are
wealthy, and the marriage is consummated. In all cases the bride
goes to reside with the husband's parents, to whom, much more than
to the husband, it is necessary she should continue to be
satisfactory. Very often three generations live together, and an
amount of deference is paid to the oldest such as we have no
conception of.

The custom of blacking the teeth by married women, is the most
revolting practice I have yet seen. I have been in the houses of
fine people of Japan, and seen women, otherwise good-looking, who
had only to open their lips to convert themselves into objects of
disgust. I rejoice, therefore, to hear that fashion is setting in
against this abomination, and that some of the more recent brides
have refused to conform to the custom.

One readily gets used to anything, earthquakes included, and Japan
has many of these unruly visitors. One night we had three shocks
at Tokio, one sufficiently strong to wake me from sleep. My bed
shook violently, and the house threatened to fall upon us. The
same night we had a large fire in the city, and a hundred shrill,
tinkling bells, like so many cows in the woods, were rung to give
the alarm. The clapping of the night watchmen about our street
assured me, however, that it was all right with us, and I lay
still. The night watchmen here use two small square pieces of hard
wood which they strike frequently against each other as they go
the rounds as their "All's well" signal; but I think strangers, as
a rule, fail to appreciate the point in being awakened every now
and then simply to be assured that there is not the slightest
occasion for their being awake at all.

       *       *       *       *       *

MONDAY, November 25.

To-day we took a small steamer and visited the arsenal upon the
invitation of our friend Captain Totaki, Mlle. Rio being of the
party. It is finely situated on the bay about fifteen miles below
Yokohama, and is quite extensive, having good shops filled with
modern tools. Several ships have already been built here, and two
men-of-war are now upon the stocks--another evidence of so-called
civilization. Japan, you see, is ambitious. All the officials,
foremen, and mechanics, are natives, and these have proved their
ability in every department. The wages paid surprise us. All
branches are about upon an equality. Painters, moulders,
blacksmiths, carpenters, machinists, all get the same
compensation--from 25 to 40 cents per day, according to their
respective value as workmen; common labor, outside, 18 cents; shop
labor, inside, 25 cents; foreman of department, $80 per month. Work,
nine hours per day, every tenth day being a day of rest
corresponding to our Sunday. In addition to the two men-of-war under
construction, the machinery for which is all designed and
manufactured here, the Emperor is having built for his private use a
large side-wheel yacht, which promises to be magnificent. However
poor a nation may be, or however depreciated its currency, if it set
up an emperor, king, or queen, improper personal expenditure
inevitably follows. Even as good a woman as Queen Victoria, probably
the most respectable woman who ever occupied a throne--such a
character as one would not hesitate to introduce to his family
circle, which is saying much for a monarch--will squander thirty
thousand pounds per annum of the people's money on a private yacht
which she has used but a few times, and which is one of three she
insists upon keeping at the State's expense. It is the old story:
make any human being believe he is _born_ to position and he becomes
arbitrary and inconsiderate of those who have exalted him. Serves
the foolish ones right, I suppose is the proper verdict. But one is
not indignant at the worship of their emperor by the Japanese: he is
a real ruler, has power, and stands firmly upon divine right. The
Japanese are yet children politically; but the English should be out
of their swaddling-clothes, surely.

The captain being high in command, and this being his first visit
to the arsenal since his return from a tour round the world, he
was received by the officials with manifestations of delight. We
had another opportunity of seeing the bowing practice in its
fullest development. The various foremen as they approached bowed
three times almost to the ground, and in some cases they went
first upon their knees and struck the floor three times with their
foreheads. We were afterward informed that only a few years ago
these would have added to the obeisance by extending the arms to
their full length and placing the palms of the hands flat upon the
ground; now this is omitted, and I have no doubt, as intelligence
spreads, less and less of this deference will be exacted. But up
to this date it may safely be said Japan is in the condition of
Sir Pertinax MacSycophant, who, it will be remembered, admitted
that his success came from "booing." He "never could stand strecht
in the presence of a great man;" no more can a Japanese.

My writing has just been interrupted by another earthquake shock.
My chair began to tremble, then the house; I could not write, and
looking up I saw Vandy standing in amazement. For a few moments it
seemed as if we were rocking to pieces, and that the end of all
things had come. I shall never forget the sensation. The motion of
a ship rolling at sea transferred to land, where you have the
solid earth and heavy stone walls surrounding and threatening to
fall upon you, is far from agreeable; but it passed away, and old
Mother Earth became steady once more.

The way to buy in Japan is not by visiting the shops, for there
nothing is displayed, and a stranger has infinite difficulty in
learning where certain articles are to be found; but just intimate
to your "boy" what you wish, and at your door in a few minutes
stand not one or two merchants, but five or six, all bowing as you
pass in or out, and awaiting master's pleasure to examine their
wares. They leave any articles you may wish to decide upon, and
the result is that one's rooms become perfect bazaars. The most
unpleasant feature connected with purchasing is that everything is
a matter of bargain. A price is named, and you are expected to
make an offer. Vandy is a great success at this game, and seems to
enjoy it. I am strictly prohibited from interfering, and so escape
all trouble. It is always comforting to know that one's interests
are in much abler hands than his own, and I always have this
pleasure when Vandy is about.

Wherever we go, Fusiyama looks down upon us. What a beautiful cone
it is, and how grandly it pierces the heavens, its summit clad
with perpetual snow! No wonder that the Japanese represent it on
so many of their articles. Thousands of pilgrims flock to it
annually from all parts of the Empire, for it is their sacred
mount and the gods reward such as worship at this shrine. It was
once an active volcano; but there has been no eruption since about
1700, when ashes were thrown from it into Yeddo, sixty miles away.
The crater is nearly five hundred feet deep. Fusiyama stands alone
among mountains, a vast pyramid rising as Cheops does from the
plain, no "rascally comparative" near to dispute its sway.

       *       *       *       *       *

WEDNESDAY, November 27.

We sail to-day for Shanghai, leaving Yokohama with sincere regret;
nor shall we soon forget the good, kind faces of those who have done
so much to make our visit to Japan an agreeable one. Had it been
possible to remain until Saturday I should have been greatly tempted
to do so to accept an invitation received to respond to a toast at
St. Andrew's banquet. It would surely have stirred me to hold forth
on Scotland's glory to my fellow-countrymen in Japan; but this had
to be foregone. At Kiobe the steamer lay for twenty-four hours, and
this enabled us to run up by rail to Kioto, the former residence of
the Mikado, reputed to be the Paris of Japan. The city itself
deserves this reputation about as well as Cincinnati does that of
our American Paris, which I see some one has called it. Kioto is
only a mass of poor one-story buildings, but its situation is
beautiful, and cannot probably be equalled elsewhere in the Empire,
and this one can justly say of Cincinnati as well, while the beauty
of Paris is of the city and not at all rural. There are more pretty
toy villas embowered in trees upon the little hills about Kioto than
we saw in all other parts of Japan. The temples at Kioto are much
inferior to those at Shibba. Our journey enabled us to see about
seventy miles of the interior, and we were again impressed by the
evidences on every hand of a teeming population. Gangs of men and
women were everywhere at work upon small patches of ground, six or
seven persons being busily engaged sometimes on less than one acre.
It is not farming; there is in Japan scarcely such a thing as
farming in our sense; it is a system of gardening such as we see in
the neighborhood of large cities. Compared with that prevalent
throughout the whole country, I have seen nothing equal to it in
thoroughness, not even in Belgium.

We are upon the old steamer Costa Rica, now belonging to the
Japanese Company, which recently purchased this and other boats from
the Pacific Mail Company. Among our cargo is a large lot of live
turkeys which some pushing Jap is taking over to Shanghai for
Christmas; and listen, you favored souls who revel in the famous
bird at a dollar a head, your fellow countrymen in China have to pay
ten dollars for their Christmas turkey. It is said the Chinese
climate is too damp for the noble bird; but it flourishes in Japan.
I wish the exporter who thus develops the resources of his country
much profit on his venture. But it strikes me that, instead of the
eagle, the more useful gobbler has superior claims to be voted the
national bird of America. "A turkey for a dollar!" repeated the
shipper as I told him our price; "a turkey for a dollar--what a
country!" The climate of Northern China is not favorable for
Europeans, and many take a run over to Japan to recuperate, a fact
which argues much for the future of Japan. Although our ship belongs
to the Japanese, the servants are generally Chinamen, and the agent
explains this by informing us that while the former do very well
until they arrive at the age of manhood, they then begin to develop
more ambitious ideas and cannot be managed, while with the Chinese a
"boy" (a servant throughout the East is called "boy") is always a
boy, and is constantly on the watch to serve his master. Again, the
Japs are pugnacious, a race of little game-cocks, always in for a
fight, especially with a Chinaman. The captain told us the other day
a great big Chinaman had complained to him that one of the Japs had
abused him. Upon calling up the belligerent, he proved to be such a
small specimen that the captain asked the sufferer why he hadn't
picked him up and thrown him overboard. The complaint was dismissed:
served the big fellow right. But some missionary should expound the
civilized doctrine to him, per revised edition, which reads: "When
smitten on the one cheek, turn to the smiter the other also, but if
he smites you on that, _go for him_." To-morrow is to be one of the
great days of our trip, for we shall enter the famous inland sea of
Japan at daybreak. Will it be fine to-morrow? is the question with
all on board. The signs are earnestly discussed. The sun sets
favorably, and I quote Shakespeare to them, which settles the
question:

  "The weary sun hath made a golden set,
   And by the bright track of his fiery car
   Gives token of a goodly day to-morrow."

Let to-morrow be fair, whatever we may miss hereafter. This is the
universal sentiment.

     *       *       *       *       *

SATURDAY, November 30.

What a day this has been! Many a rich experience which seemed
grand enough never to fade from the memory may pass into oblivion,
but no mortal can ever sail through the inland sea of Japan on a
fine day and cease to remember it till the day he dies. It
deserves its reputation as the most beautiful voyage in the world;
at least I cannot conceive how, taking the elements of earth,
water and sky, anything more exquisitely beautiful could be
produced from them. Entering the narrow sea at sunrise, we sail
for three hundred and fifty miles through three thousand pretty
islands,

  "Which seem to stand
   To sentinel enchanted land."

These divide the water, making, not one but a dozen pretty lakes in
view at once. It is the Lakes of Killarney, or the English or Scotch
lakes, multiplied a hundred-fold; but instead of the islands and
mountains being in pasture, they are cultivated to their very tops,
terraced in every form, in order to utilize every rod of ground. On
the shores cluster villages, nestling in sheltered nooks, while the
water swarms with the sails of tiny fishing boats, giving a sense of
warm, happy life throughout. These sail-boats add greatly to the
beauty of the scene. I counted at one time from the bow of our
steamer, without looking back, ninety-seven sails glistening in the
sun, while on the hills were seen everywhere gangs of people at work
upon their little farm-gardens. It is a panorama of busy, crowded
life, but life under most beautiful surroundings, from beginning to
end, and we all vote that never before have we, in a like space of
time, seen so much of fairy-land as upon this ever-memorable day. We
begin to understand how the thirty odd millions of the Japanese
exist upon so small an area. The rivers and seas abound in fish; the
hills and valleys under irrigation and constant labor grow their
rice, millet, and vegetables. A few dollars per year supply all the
clothing needed, and a few dollars build their light wooden houses.
Thus they have everything they need, or consider necessary, and are
happy as the day is long, certain of one established fact in nature,
to wit, that there is no place like Japan; and no doubt they daily
and hourly thank their stars that their lines have fallen in
pleasant places, and pity us--slaves to imaginary wants--who deny
ourselves the present happiness they consider it wisdom to enjoy, in
vain hopes of banquetting to surfeit at some future time, which
always comes too late.

On emerging from this fairy scene, we encountered a gale upon the
China Sea, which lasted for the few hours we were upon it before
reaching Nagasaki, the last port of Japan. Here, two hundred years
ago, the Dutch secured a small island, from which they traded with
Japan long before any other nation was permitted to do so. The
Catholics also had their headquarters here. They were so
successful in converting the natives that the government became
alarmed, and several thousand Christians were driven to the island
and all massacred. This was in the sixteenth century; but it is
only a few years ago that seven thousand native Catholics were
banished from this region. To-day all is changed. These fugitives
have been permitted to return, and there is entire freedom of
religious worship. Last month a return was made of professing
Christians (Catholics) in this district, and thirty-five thousand
were reported. Protestants are very few indeed.

As far as I saw in the East, here is the only real and
considerable advance made toward christianizing a people. At other
stations throughout my journey I saw only a few ignorant natives
who professed Christianity--sometimes a dozen or two, rarely
more. European residents invariably told me that these were the
dependants or servants of foreigners who held their places mainly
because of their conversion to the new faith. If dismissed, they
relapsed. One can readily see that the lowest and most
unscrupulous would be the first to fall before the almost
irresistible temptation, for a means of comfortable livelihood
seems the one serious concern of life in all the East to a degree
difficult for us in America, at least, to imagine.

I remember the dear, kind Catholic Bishop of Canton telling me
with such delicious simplicity that every workman engaged in
building the Cathedral--a work of many years and yet
unfinished--had by the grace of God been converted to Holy Mother
Church. The hotel-keeper told me afterward this so-called
conversion was a source of much amusement among the natives. Well,
be it so. I believe, myself, that the holy father is the victim of
misplaced confidence. But here in Nagasaki nothing like this can
be said. Thirty-five thousand professing Christians in a district
where there are not a hundred foreign Christian families, if half
so many, and where to be a Christian is to declare one's self of
the minority and so out of fashion, surely this does prove that
the Church has succeeded, and justifies it in hoping that ere long
this part of Japan at least will one day enter the fold.

One great reason for this undoubted success is probably that
neither the Government nor the people have the slightest objection
to missionaries, for their own religion sets but lightly on the
Japanese. With the Chinaman it is totally different. His own
religion is sacred to him, a vital force, and his gods must not be
defamed. He stands by his faith like a Covenanter. It touches the
most sacred feelings of his nature, and is everything to him. Mrs.
D. O. Hill's celebrated statue of Livingstone in Prince's Gardens,
Edinburgh, therefore, represents too truly the attitude of our
missionaries in the flowery land as well as in other so-called
heathen lands: the Bible in one hand and the pistol in the other.
In Japan the pistol is wholly unnecessary. The man of Japan
regards missionaries as harmless curiosities, and if not disposed
to trouble himself about their new ideas, he has not the least
objection to their being expounded.

There is now no established religion in Japan, Buddhism having
been abolished in 1874. The temples and priesthood are maintained
by voluntary contributions. The poor laws are simple: government
gives nine bushels of rice to every person over seventy or under
fifteen years of age, who cannot work, and the same to foundlings
under thirteen. Out of the total population of thirty-six
millions, there are only ten thousand and fifty paupers, and of
these more than a thousand are at Tokio in the workhouse.

       *       *       *       *       *

HARBOR OF NAGASAKI, MONDAY, December 2.

Vandy and I were off early this morning for the shore, and did not
return to the ship until late in the afternoon, having walked over
the high hills and down into the valleys beyond. We had a real
tramp in the country. It is here just as elsewhere, terrace upon
terrace, every foot of ground under cultivation; water carried by
men in pails, or on the backs of oxen, to the highest peaks, which
it is impossible to irrigate, and every single plant, be it rice,
millet, turnip, cabbage, or carrot, watered daily. What good
Mother Earth can be induced to yield under such attention is a
marvel. The bountiful earth has another meaning when you see what
she can be made to bring forth. Although we are in December, the
sun shines bright, and it is quite warm. I sat down several times
under the hedge-rows, and heard the constant hum of insect life
around me. Butterflies flitted about, the bees gathered honey, and
all looked and felt like a day in June. The houses of the people
which we saw were poor, and the total absence of glass causes them
to look like deserted hovels; but closer inspection showed fine
mats on the floors, and everything scrupulously clean. I counted
upon one hillside forty-seven terraces from the bottom to the top.
These are divided vertically, so that I think twenty-five feet
square would be about the average size of each patch; and as the
division of terraces is made to suit the ground, and hence very
irregularly, the appearance of a hillside in Japan is something
like that of a bed-quilt of irregular pieces. The terrace-walls
are overgrown with vines, ferns, etc., so that they appear like
low green hedges: and this adds much to the beauty of the
landscape. No wonder the cultivators of these lovely spots never
dream of leaving them. Animal food is not half as important to the
Japanese as the supply of fish--indeed the former is said to be
comparatively little used, while fish of some kind or in some form
is ever present at meals. The favorite fish is the _tai_,
which is red when taken from streams with sandy bottoms, but black
when caught at the mouths of the same streams, where the dark soil
of the sea begins. A curious parallel case is seen in the black
and red pines of this country: in sandy soils they grow red, while
in the softer black soil they are dark. Transplant the two
varieties and they change color. The same law, you see, with fish
and plant. We are all creatures of our environment. Therefore let
us choose our companions and surroundings well. To know the best
that has been said and done in the world is no doubt much; to be
planted and to grow among those who have done the greatest work
and who live up to the best standard in our day and generation is
surely equally important.

We had an alarm of fire oft the Belgic in mid-ocean, but this
morning we had the real article. I had just parted from the
captain at the stern of the ship, intending to go ashore, when,
walking forward, I saw dense volumes of smoke issuing from the
walking-beam pit, and in a few moments I heard the cry of fire
from below. All was in a bustle at once, but the crew got finely
to work. Fortunately, although there was no steam in the main
boilers, the small donkey boiler was full, and the pumps were put
to work. Meanwhile boats from the various men-of-war in the harbor
with hand fire-engines came to our assistance. The steamer is an
old wooden craft, and I knew her cargo was combustible. Were the
smoke ever to give place to flame, panic was sure to ensue, and
not one of the small native boats that had until now been
clustering around us could then be induced to approach; indeed,
they had already all rowed off. There was one lady on board, Mrs.
McK., a veritable Princess of Thule from the Island of Lewes, and
I decided that she had better be taken off with her sick child at
once; so, bribing a greedy native by the immense reward of a whole
dollar (a large fee here, small as it seems at home) to come
alongside, I grasped the baby and followed the mother down the
gangway, and remained at a safe distance until the danger was
over. A few minutes more, and the Costa Rica would have followed
her sister ship, the America, which some years ago took fire under
similar circumstances in the harbor of Yokohama, and was
completely destroyed. Fortunately we are about done with wooden
steamships; otherwise they should not be permitted to run as
passenger vessels.

The post-office department of Japan is of recent origin, having
been established in 1871; yet in 1881, after only ten years'
growth, it carried ninety-five millions of letters, newspapers,
books, etc. Thirty millions of these were post-cards. Three
millions of telegrams were also transmitted in that year. Perhaps
no statement will give one a clearer idea than this of the rapid
progress of this strange country in the ways of the West.

Japan has only two short lines of railway for thirty-six millions
of people--a population nearly equal to that of Great Britain: one
eighteen miles from Yokohama to Tokio, the other seventy miles
from Hiogo to Kioto. This seems a scanty allowance; nevertheless
it is not probable that more than a few hundred miles of rail will
be built for centuries. The habits and poverty of the people, and
in many districts the topography of the country, are such as to
render railways unsuitable. The main highways are, however, kept
in admirable order. I was amused with the classification of these.
Those of the first class are such as lead from the capital to the
treaty ports; of the second class those lines leading to the
national shrines. Commerce has thus usurped the first place. Both
the first and the second class roads are maintained by the General
Government as being national affairs. Various grades of roads
follow, some being maintained by large districts; others, of local
importance, by taxes upon a smaller area; but all under the strict
supervision of central officials at Tokio.

Not the least surprising feature in the revolution going forward
so peacefully in Japan is the prompt adoption of the newspaper as
one of the essentials of life. A few years ago the official
Gazette, read only by officials and containing nothing of general
interest, was the only publication in the Empire; to-day several
hundred newspapers are published, many of them daily. A censorship
of the press still exists, however, and leads to the usual mode of
evasion. Pungent political articles are conveyed under cover of
criticisms ostensibly upon the blunders of lands not so
enlightened as Japan. Here is a specimen: "In America during the
Civil War paper currency was issued and made legal tender. At
every successive issue the premium rose higher and higher till the
currency was not worth more than a third of its face. The Southern
States followed in the same path, but they kept on till their
issues were found to be good for about one purpose only--to line
trunks withal--such fools these Americans be. Happy Japan! blessed
with rulers of preeminent ability, who keep the finances of our
land in such creditable form."

The fact was that Japanese currency was then at 22 per cent,
discount and rapidly declining in value under successive issues,
just as it had done in America. Such articles are no doubt far
more effective than open, undisguised assaults could possibly be,
for the cleverness of the evasion gives additional zest to the
attack. The Press is a hard dog to muzzle, and, like dogs in
general, only vicious when muzzled. The Japanese will soon find it
safer to "let Truth and Error grapple" in the full face of day,
for they are not slow to learn.

       *       *       *       *       *

TUESDAY, December 3.

The turbulent China Sea has passed into a proverb. The Channel
passage in a gale, I suppose, comes nearest to it. We started to
cross this sea at daylight, and surely we have reason to be
grateful. It is as smooth as a mirror, the winds are hushed, and
as I write the shores of Japan fade peacefully from view. I cannot
help thinking how improbable that I shall ever see them again;
but, however that may be, farewell for the present to Japan. Take
a stranger's best wishes for your future.

Our cargo shows something of the resources of the country. It
amounts to eight hundred tons, comprising seaweed--a special kind
of which the Chinese are fond--ginseng, camphor, timber,
isinglass, Japan piece-goods, ingot copper, etc. Every week this
line takes to China a similar cargo, and the trade is rapidly
extending. This steamship company is worth noting as an evidence
of what Japanese enterprise is doing. The principal owner, the
Commodore Garrison of Japan, had a small beginning, but now runs
some thirty-seven steamers between the various Japanese ports.
Under the management of Mr. Krebs, a remarkable Dane, this company
beat off the Pacific Mail Company from the China trade, and
actually purchased their ships. There are many things found on
these vessels which our Atlantic companies might imitate with
advantage.

I believe I mentioned that Japan, not to be behind her Western
neighbors, had created a public debt, which now amounts to about
$300,000,000, but $250,000,000 of this was used in payment of the
two hundred and sixty-six daimios and their numerous retainers,
when government took over the land to itself. Each of these
potentates had vested rights in a certain proportion of the yield
of the soil of his district, and this was commuted by the
government into so much in its bonds, a fixed land tax being
substituted for the irregular exactions of former landlords. On
every side I hear that this has greatly improved the condition of
the population--made the people more contented, and at the same
time vastly augmented the products of the soil. Not less than
three millions of the population shared in this operation.

The nationalization of the land is under discussion in England,
and it is conceded that some change has to be made. Here is Japan
proving the results of nationalization, while Denmark shows what
private ownership of small pieces of land can do under a system of
cumulative taxation in proportion to the size of the estate held.
One of these two systems is likely to prevail in England some day.
Meanwhile, here is food for thought for the British tax-payer: out
of seventy-five million yens (£15,000,000) of revenue raised by
Japan, forty-three million comes from the land tax. The tax on
alcoholic liquors yields about seventeen millions more.

Since my visit to Japan an imperial decree has been published,
promising that a national assembly shall meet in 1890; so we have
the foundations of representative government almost at hand.
Surely no other nation ever abandoned its traditions and embraced
so rapidly those of a civilization of an opposite character. This
is not development under the law of slow evolution; it seems more
like a case of spontaneous generation. Presto, change! and here
before our very eyes is presented the strange spectacle of the
most curious, backward, feudalistic Eastern nation turning into a
Western one of the most advanced type.

That Japan will succeed in her effort to establish a central
government, under something like our ideas of freedom and law, and
that she has such resources as will enable her to maintain it and
educate her people, I am glad to be able to say I believe; but
much remains to be done requiring in the race the exercise of
solid qualities, the possession of which I find some Europeans
disposed to deny them. They have travelled, perhaps, quite fast
enough, and I look for a temporary triumph of the more
conservative party. But the seed is sown, and Japan will move,
upon the whole, in the direction of progress. And so, once more,
farewell, Japan; and China, now almost within sight, all hail!

       *       *       *       *       *

CHINA.

In one respect at least pilgrims from other lands must bow to the
empire we are about to visit. It is the oldest form of civilized
government on earth. While the English monarchy boasts its
uninterrupted course of eight hundred years, and America has just
celebrated its first century of existence, this remarkable people
live under a government which has been substantially unchanged for
four thousand long years. The first authenticated dynasty dates
from 2345 B.C., and what is now China has been under one central
government for nearly two thousand five hundred years. Even the
Papacy, the most venerable of existing Western institutions, is
young compared to this. There was something in the reply of the
mandarin to the boast of one of our people as to the superiority
of our system: "Wait until it is tried!" To a Chinaman a thousand
years or so seems too short to prove anything. Theirs alone has
stood the test of ages. That the Chinese are a great race goes
without saying. Four hundred millions (nearly one-third of the
human race) existing for thousands of years under one unchanging
government, riding out the storms which have overwhelmed all other
nations; nay, even absorbing into themselves the Tartar hordes,
who came as conquerors, and making them Chinese against their
will. Such a record tells a story indeed! At a date so remote that
Egypt and Assyria were the great Western powers, when Athens and
Troy had just been founded, and Rome was not even thought of,
these people were governed much as they are now, and since A.D. 67
have published a daily Peking _Gazette_, of which (thanks to
our intelligent "host of the Garter," Mr. Janssen) we have secured
a copy. We are all but of yesterday compared to the Heathen
Chinee, and it is impossible to sit down and scribble glibly of
such a people. In Japan there is no record. It is a new race
appearing almost for the first time among civilized nations. It
has given the world nothing, but how widely different here! It is
to China the world owes the compass, gunpowder, porcelain, and
even the art of printing, and to her also alone the spectacle of a
people ruled by a code of laws and morals embracing the most
minute particulars, written two thousand four hundred years ago,
and taught to this day in the schools as the rules of life. It is
an old and true saying that almost any system of religion would
make one good enough if it were properly obeyed; certainly that of
Confucius would do so. I have been deeply impressed with his
greatness and purity. Dr. Davis writes in his work on China:
"Confucius embodied in sententious maxims the first principles of
morals and of government, and the purity and excellence of some of
his precepts will bear comparison with even those of the Gospel."
In Thornton's History of China I find this noteworthy passage: "It
may excite surprise, and even incredulity, to state that the
golden rule of our Saviour had been inculcated by Confucius five
centuries before almost in the same words." If any of my readers
wish a rare treat, I advise him to add at least the first volume
of the Rev. Dr. Legge's Life of Confucius to his library
immediately, and let him not entertain the idea that the sage was
a heathen or an unbeliever; far, very far from that, for one of
his most memorable passages explains that all worship belongs to
Shangti (the Supreme Ruler); no matter what forms or symbols are
used, the great God alone being the only true object of worship.
But I must resist this fit of Confucianism, reserving, however,
the privilege of regaling you with more of it by and bye, for
really it is too good not to be scattered among you. Meanwhile,
remember well what Matthew Arnold says:

  "Children of men! the unseen Power, whose eye
   For ever doth accompany mankind,
   Hath look'd on no religion scornfully
   That men did ever find.

   Which has not taught weak wills how much they can?
   Which has not fall'n on the dry heart like rain?
   Which has not cried to sunk, self-weary man:
   _Thou must be born again!_"

       *       *       *       *       *

THURSDAY, December 5.

We reached Shanghai Thursday morning, and found excellent
accommodations at the Astor House, in the American settlement. The
Chinese Government has set apart for the accommodation of
foreigners a strip of land, about six miles long and one mile
wide, fronting the river. This is divided among the English,
French, and Americans. During the Taeping rebellion a few years
ago, thousands of natives flocked into this territory and found a
refuge under the foreign flags, and today it contains more than
seventy thousand Chinese, who do most of the retail business of
the city. The foreign population does not exceed two thousand. The
streets are broad, and as well cared for as in an English town,
and it is lighted with gas, has a fine steam fire organization,
and is thoroughly drained. It is here the natives of this district
are learning their first lesson of Western civilization, and at
length some impression has been made upon this hitherto immovable
mass and it begins to move. Mandarins come from the country to
enjoy a drive in the streets, for, let it not be forgotten, there
is not a street or road in the region, outside of the reservation,
in which a horse can travel; only footpaths, where a wheelbarrow
pushed by a man is the only possible vehicle. Now several wealthy
Chinese have set up their carriages, and may frequently be seen
driving; and I learn from many that when any are compelled to
visit their former residences elsewhere, they return to Shanghai
declaring that they could not live any longer in the old style.
But think of one-third of the race living at this late day without
a mile of railroad or of telegraph, or even of macadamized roads!
Communication in China is solely by means of the rivers, canals,
and small branches which have been led from the main channels to
every acre of ground for irrigating purposes, and by narrow
footpaths between the fields. But some of us will live to see this
changed. I saw in a newspaper an official notice permitting the
first telegraph line to be built. True, it is to be only a few
miles in length, extending from the sea to the port of Peking
(Tien-Tsin), but this is of course only a beginning. The question
of railroads is more serious, and what think you is the one
obstacle to their introduction? Graves--the "tombs of our
ancestors." China is one vast cemetery. Go where you will, in any
direction, the mounds of the dead intrude themselves upon you at
every step. There are no cemeteries or places set apart for burial
purposes; on the contrary, the Chinaman seems to prefer having his
dead buried on his own land, and as near to him as practicable. In
this neighborhood their mode of sepulture is revolting. The
coffins are not put into a grave at all, but are laid directly on
the surface of the ground and covered with but a few inches of
earth; and it is not at all uncommon for them to be wholly
exposed, simply laid out in the fields, and so close to the
roadside--I mean to the main roads built by Europeans near their
settlements--that you can almost touch them with the end of your
walking-stick as you pass. The stench from such coffins became so
offensive last year at the rifle range that the European
authorities had to enter complaint to the Chinese Mandarin. I was,
like all others, at first much shocked at the sight of these
evidences of mortality. One day I stood and counted a hundred and
thirty-four different mounds and exposed coffins within sight. I
am glad to say that in other parts of China this custom does not
prevail, the dead being buried in graves, and walls built above
them in the shape of a horseshoe. As is well known, the Chinese
worship their ancestors, and believe that much of their happiness
depends upon the respect shown to those to whom they owe their
lives. Cases have been known where successive afflictions have
been attributed to some defect in the resting-places of the dead;
their ancestors, "after life's fitful fever," were not sleeping
well, and at great expense the bones have been removed to another
place; but it is an extreme case when they venture to disturb the
dead. Every true son of the Empire of the Sun echoes the anathema
of Shakespeare,

  "And curst be he who moves my bones."

One special feature of the Flowery Land is, I think, the
repugnance of the people to debt, or to credits in any form. As I
have remarked, they have no banks of issue; no promises to pay for
the Celestials; they deal only in the coin itself. All debts must
be paid at the beginning of each year. The Chinaman who does not
settle every account and enter upon the new year without an
obligation is accounted either very unfortunate or very regardless
of the duties of life. This aversion to debt, perhaps, accounts
for the fact that these four hundred millions of people had not a
penny of national debt until four years ago. But they have just
made a loan of $12,000,000, I believe, the first ever made by
China in all its thousands of years' history. This may be taken,
perhaps, as another proof that the empire is influenced by Western
ideas, but one cannot help regretting that her long reign of
freedom from debt should at last be stained, even for so paltry an
amount. If I were a Chinese statesman, I would never rest until
the last farthing of this debt was paid off. The fashion nowadays
in America is to urge that it is paying off its debt much too
fast. I am sorry for this. What an example to all lands we shall
give when the last bond of the nation is cancelled at Washington
amid public rejoicings! A republic's part is to give less advanced
nations, still under the influence of feudal institutions, such
lessons as this will be. Do not let us, however, underrate
England's part in. such a work. She has reduced her public debt
wonderfully, and the next twenty years is to see seventy millions
sterling more extinguished, unless legislation now existing for
this end is interfered with.

The general government of China is a very economical one, its
total revenue being only about $125,000,000 (£25,000,000). Of this
$15,000,000 is spent upon the army, a sum which for 400,000,000
people compares very favorably with that expended by other
nations. China has outgrown the so-called heroic age, in which
England still dwells, and has little need of armies. A government
not worth thirty cents (fifteen pence) per year for each
inhabitant, which is the cost in China, is not worth having.

       *       *       *       *       *

FRIDAY, December 6.

In our stroll to-day Vandy and I came upon one of the gates of the
old city, of which there are six in a wall three miles in
circumference, and entered. It contains 300,000 people. We walked
some distance through its filthy, narrow alleys, and saw the poor
wretches in their dens working at all kinds of trades, from the
forging of iron to the production of Joss-money, but the
villainous smells soon overpowered me, and I had to get Vandy to
escort me out. He can go through anything of this kind without
flinching, and means to return; but I have seen enough of it, and
am sorry that human beings have to exist under such conditions.
The Chinese have no coined currency except a small bronze piece
worth one-tenth of a cent, called "cash." It has a hole in the
centre, and when a native goes to market he puts several lots of
them on strings, fifty or a hundred on each string, and throws
them round his neck; think of it, one thousand pieces, ten strings
of one hundred each, to make a dollar! Sometimes they are carried
in the market-basket. In larger operations Mexican and American
dollars are used, but away from the coast people decline to take
even these, insisting upon silver cast in the form of a horseshoe
and called "sice." This silver is hoarded here, and also in India,
and were it not for this its value would probably fall to a point
which would rule it out of the list of precious metals. The evils
of a silver currency are obvious to all here. Its value has
changed three times in one day since we have been in the country.
Business is seriously disturbed, and suffers from this cause, and
it is to such a plight that our misled silverites at home would
reduce us!

       *       *       *       *       *

SATURDAY, December 7.

To-day we walked through the fish and vegetable markets. It was
funny to see the people making their purchases. Each one carries a
small stick with a weight attached to it. This serves as a
weighing-beam, and every fowl, fish, and vegetable is carefully
weighed by the customer. No cheating of a brother Celestial by the
seller. We pass now and then a shop where nothing is dealt in but
Joss-money; hundreds in every place are engaged in its
manufacture. It is made out of thin gold and silver paper, in the
horseshoe ingot form of genuine "sice." I bought a box containing
eight pieces for thirty cents. Some of it also is made in
imitation of silver dollars. This bogus money is laid upon the
altars of the temples as offerings to the gods, who are supposed
to find as much use for it as if it were genuine; and no doubt
this is the case. It would therefore be a great pity, says the
Heathen Chinee, to waste the real article, although I doubt not
the priests would infinitely prefer it.

We attended a "paper-hunt" in the afternoon. Between forty and
fifty riders, all Europeans, on small horses, started across
country, the route having been previously laid down by means of
small pieces of white paper scattered at every point where one of
the innumerable little creeks was to be crossed. The finish was a
rare sight. The banks of the creeks were very muddy, falls were
numerous, and several of the riders came in besmirched from head
to foot. Europeans take to horses here, and a race-course is
maintained. The animals are a small breed from the north, which
are now known as Shanghai ponies. I do not think I could enjoy the
sport of paper-hunting here. The exposed coffins and graves one
has to gallop over from end to end of the hunt are not calculated
to enhance one's pleasure; but perhaps one would in time get used
even to them, though I doubt it.

It was sad to see the roadway which had been prepared for the
railroad from Woosung, at the mouth of the river, to this city, a
distance of about twelve miles. The rails had actually been laid
in some places when a decree from Peking ordered their removal. No
better location in the empire could have been found to prove the
advantages of railway travel, and I believe, if it had been
finished, the Chinese would have quickly appreciated the benefits
to be derived from it. Britain will some day find in China its
best field for railway enterprise. By the time we next visit
Shanghai we expect to see not only the rails restored to this
line, but also many other miles in successful operation.

       *       *       *       *       *

MONDAY, December 9.

We visited the ship-yard of Messrs. Boyd & Co., and found none but
native workmen employed. Blacksmiths receive about five dollars
per week, machinists six dollars; carpenters, sixty to sixty-five
cents per day. But this concern pays high wages, and requires its
men to equal Europeans, which I am told they do. Common gang labor
is contracted for with a head man, who engages to supply day by
day the number of coolies wanted at twenty cents a day per man.
Mr. Grant, the senior partner, told me he was buying Belgian iron
in large lots, assorted sizes, for £4 10s. per gross ton--just
about one cent per pound; ship plates at £6, equal to $29 per
gross ton, free on ship at Antwerp. Such figures prove the
severity of the struggle for existence among the iron
manufacturers of Europe.

The servants at the hotel pay a contractor two dollars per month
for food, they not being permitted to eat anything at the hotel. A
coolie's board costs about five cents per day. For this he gets an
abundance of coarse rice and cabbage spiced with pieces of dried
fish and pickles, and upon such a diet lives from year to year.
Clothing is estimated at two to three dollars per year. This is
the country of low prices, where one eschews luxuries and comes
down to first principles. Cab fare is five cents per mile for
ginrikshaws, which have been introduced from Japan, and are
generally used in Shanghai. At Tokio I remember cab fare was even
cheaper. We paid only eight cents per hour for a man and his
carriage, or seventy-five cents for the entire day. European
society here is quite extensive, and very pleasant and hospitable.
We are indebted to kind friends for numerous attentions. As
General Bailey, our worthy Consul-General, is a public official, I
may be permitted to express to him my special thanks. He was
unremitting in his efforts to render our visit agreeable. It is
from such men that America is to draw its trained diplomatists
when Civil-Service Reform has done its needed work.

We attended last night a very good amateur theatrical performance.
Shanghai society was present in force, and in full evening dress.
The preponderance of fine-looking young men, and the almost total
absence of young ladies, was most marked. The number of married
ladies was not great. In answer to my inquiry where the young
ladies were, I was informed that there were but few in town. One
was pointed out, but as she was engaged she scarcely counted. If
ladies will only be contented with unremitting attentions from a
crowd of handsome beaux, this is their paradise; but, as our lady
friend explained, none of these fine fellows can afford to marry:
they are clerks and assistants in the European houses, the
partners of which unfortunately are married already. I think it
but fair to mention this for the benefit of any of my fair young
friends who might otherwise think of visiting the East. The
absence of young ladies renders the taking of female parts by the
opposite sex a necessity. A splendid "singing chambermaid" of this
kind, dressed and looking the part to perfection, but with a deep
bass voice, caused peals of laughter every time he spoke. During
the evening there was a song cleverly introduced and sung by a
brawny Scot--a parody upon "May I like a soldier fall," beginning,

  "Oh! may I like a Scotchman fall
   Upon St. Andrew's Day."

It appears the Scotch residents had just been celebrating that
memorable night, having brought up from Hong Kong no less a
personage than the head piper of the Highlander Regiment to grace
the festival. But the pipes proved too much for the more
enthusiastic of the party, and capturing the piper about three
o'clock in the morning, they compelled him to march at their head
playing through the town. It may be readily surmised that

  "If no fou, they just had plenty."

As long, however, as the martial strains continued, they managed,
arm and arm, to keep upright and together, but, unfortunately,
from some cause or other not clearly explained, at the turn of the
street Donald himself lost his footing, the bagpipes ceased, and
then, surging one against the other, without the music to keep
them in step, the mass was laid low, yelling to the last, however,
the "March of the Cameron Men." "Oh, what a fall was there, my
countrymen!" The Central Hotel was fortunately not far off, and by
the aid of wheelbarrows they were safely conveyed thither and
taken care of until morning. Ah, well, let the censorious take
note. This is not the first time, as the world knows, when the
sound of the pibroch has kept Scotchmen shoulder to shoulder, "one
stepping where the other fell," when upon them lay the issue of
the fight; nor shall it be the last. Burke pardoned something to
the spirit of liberty, and shall we do less to the august shade of
St. Andrew? Heaven forbid!

While bemoaning the absence of foreign young ladies here and in
Japan, I may as well tell those at home something of the marriage
customs of the East, for Japan, China, and India all have much in
common here. First and foremost, then, please understand that the
couple about to be married have nothing whatever to do with the
affair. The match has been made by the parents, and as a rule
neither has seen the other until after the contract has been
closed; and in many cases it is thought advisable that they should
meet for the first time when the ceremony begins. It is considered
one of the most important duties of a mother to select a wife for
each of her sons as he arrives at maturity, as a failure to do
this might involve the fearful catastrophe of a break in the
worship of the family's ancestors, and indeed of her own and her
husband's ashes, for there might be no men to perform the sacred
rites over them. The parents of the young men take the initiative,
but how to propose is said to be even more embarrassing than it
would be to the son himself, as a refusal implies that the lady's
parents consider the proposal much beneath them. There exists,
therefore, a class of "marriage brokers," who keep themselves
informed of the eligible sons and daughters in their circle, and
can sound the parents, name the _dot_ to be given or
required, and suggest and finally bring about a satisfactory
alliance without wounding the family pride upon either side. The
Chinese are very superstitious, and no union takes place without
the astrologer's sanction. He must consult the stars and see that
there is proper conjunction. If all is favorable, the marriage
takes place.

But now, my lady friends, don't imagine that the happy pair set up
a separate establishment, as you expect to do when you marry. No;
the wife goes in every case to reside with her mother-in-law, to
whom, as also to her husband's father, she renders implicit
obedience. This obedience to parents is the most conspicuous duty
in their religion. Should the daughter-in-law be disrespectful,
even, to her husband's parents, these would be upheld in putting
her away, even against the wish of her husband; and unless the son
happened to have an independent income or means of support, which
is very rarely the case, his parents would select for him another
wife who knew her duty better. The deference exacted and bestowed
not only by children but by grown men and women to their parents,
is wholly inconceivable by Americans; but, remember, their
religion teaches them that those from whom they derive existence
are entitled to their worship. No priest is required at a
marriage. The ceremony always takes place at the man's house, the
bride coming from her parents in grand procession through the
streets in a sedan chair with its blinds closely drawn, the
presents being ostentatiously displayed by men carrying them in
front. We saw several of these processions. I cannot give a tithe
of all the customs observed; they would fill pages. But one is
significant; the bride is required to kneel before the husband's
family tablet, and to worship his ancestors, her own being from
that moment apparently of no account to her, and her father gives
her, as his parting injunction, the command to yield hereafter to
her new parents the obedience and reverence hitherto his due.

When the entire day has been spent in the ceremonies required,
dinner for the couple is announced, and they are left alone with
each other for the first time in their lives; but she may not
partake one morsel of the feast, and, harder still, perhaps, not
one syllable must she speak. Etiquette demands that she "sit in
silence, grave and dignified," and she cannot break fast upon her
wedding day. The woman's chief study is a book giving minute
instructions for her guidance through life. In this are prescribed
the three great duties of woman: 1, obedience when a child to her
parents; 2, obedience when a wife to her husband; 3, obedience
when a widow to her eldest son. The government of man is thus
secured for the weaker vessel from the cradle to the grave. No
Eastern man could be made to believe that the influence of the
masculine intellect is not absolutely essential for the well-being
of the female; and so it undoubtedly will be in the East as long
as woman is uneducated. It is in America we find woman in her
highest development, higher even than the English standard, simply
because in the best circles she receives an education nearer to
that of man than is given her elsewhere.

By many such curious customs is secured the entire absorption of
the woman, her total eclipse as a separate individuality; there is
nothing left of her as far as law and usage can destroy her
rights. This is the Eastern idea. But she has her triumph later.
As a wife she knows there is little for her. Divorce is almost
sure unless she bear a son; but when, in the language of
Scripture, "a man-child is born"--presto change! she is a mother,
supreme, invested with a halo of sanctity which secures rank and
reverence from all. She becomes by this the equal of her lord, and
must be worshipped like him, and jointly with him, by succeeding
generations, for Confucius enjoins upon every son the erection of
the family tablets, to father and mother alike. Nor is her rule
confined to her own children, but, as before stated, to their
children as well to the latest day of her life, and the older she
becomes the more she is reverenced as being nearer to heaven,
dearer to the gods; and it is considered of much moment to any
family to be able to boast a great-great-grandmother living.

Do not mourn too much over the sad fate of a young Chinaman
compelled to marry one whom he has never seen, for indeed there
seems little difference between the young ladies of China. Thousands
of years of seclusion, of unvarying customs, have at last moulded
women into the same form, mentally and physically, and anything like
individuality can exist only to a small degree, and in exceptional
natures. They are as like as peas, and one may as well marry one as
another. If the husband has not the joys of love, neither has he the
anxieties pertaining to that super-sensitive condition; for she is
not to be his constant companion, nor his companion at all if he has
not drawn a prize.

The position of woman would seem, therefore, to be almost entirely
different from what it is with us: in youth she is nothing there,
in old age everything; with us it is the opposite. The "just mean"
between the two would probably yield better results than either.
In China a man may marry more than one woman, but the first only
is recognized as his legal wife; all others are her servants, and
bound to wait upon and obey her; and should there be children,
these are considered as children of the legal wife only, and it is
her they must worship, and not their real mother. Among the masses
wives are invariably bought from the parents, about ninety dollars
being a fair market price among poor people. This sum is supposed
to recompense them for the outlay involved in rearing the young
girl. But this custom is valuable in this, that the possession of
so large a sum by a young workingman is the best possible
guarantee that the son-in-law has acquired steady habits, and is
competent to provide for his family. If a test of this nature
could be applied with us, I think paterfamilias would not regard
it as the worst of institutions. These Chinese have ideas that are
sometimes worth thinking over.

       *       *       *       *       *

FRIDAY, December 13.

Our intended trip up the Yang-tse has been interfered with by a
storm of rain and dense fog, but the days never seem long. We get
a little time to read up. Our book-table shows seven important
works on China and its people--all interesting. To-day is marked
by a notable invitation to dinner extended to us through General
Bailey. We are to have the honor--one not often bestowed upon
globe trotters--of dining with the Mandarin.

The dinner lasted more than three hours, and was composed of I
don't know how many courses. I depended upon Vandy to keep count,
but he found so much to wonder at that he lost the run when in the
teens. From birds'-nest soup, which, by the way, is insipid, to
shark's fin and bamboo shoots in rapid succession, we had it all.
I thought each course would surely be the last; but finally we did
get to sweet dishes, and I knew we were approaching the end. Then
came the bowl of rice and tea, which are supposed to be able to
neutralize the mess which has gone before. Our host pressed all to
drink frequently of a celebrated native wine, the champagne of
China, grown in his district, of the quality of which he seemed
very proud. Whenever he showed the bottom of his cup, guests were
expected to empty and replenish theirs. I did the best I could,
both as to tasting the compounds and drinking the wine, but I fear
I was voted not a great success in either. The natives were quite
hilarious, and smoked at intervals during the feast. They played
the ancient game of digits like Romans, and also a Japanese game
with the hands and arms, the loser in every case being compelled
to drain his cup. When tea was served, the Mandarin, through his
interpreter, addressed General Bailey, as the principal dignitary
present, thanking him for the great honor conferred upon his
humble self by those present having condescended to sit at his
table. The general's reply was equally polite and very happy, and
appeared to please our host greatly, who then hoped that the
illustrious travellers from America would be pleased with China
and return safely to their great country from their journey round
the world, adding that, having now got the telegraph, America and
China and all countries were brought nearer to one another, and
would know each other better. I replied that this was happily
true, and ventured to express the belief that as we knew each
other better we should also like each other more, and that as we,
and all modern nations, had learned so much from his country in
the past, I hoped that in return we might be able, to some extent
at least, to repay that debt by perhaps, showing China some things
which she could adopt with advantage. To this sentiment there was
a most cordial response.

Before rising from table the photograph of the host was presented
to each guest. I requested that his autograph be put upon ours,
that we could insert it in our albums among the eminent men we
met. He replied that he must then go at the very end, because he
had not on his Mandarin hat. But I asked the interpreter to assure
him that we in America did not care about the hat; "it was the
head that was in it" which had raised him so high. This appeared
to please the company inordinately, and we got the autograph, and
so ended our first, and, in all probability, our last, Mandarin
dinner. Vandy ate and drank of everything offered him, and this
morning, when I fully expected him to be as sick as a dog, and
with a head like to split, he surprised me by reporting himself as
all right, and telling me that in some respects Mandarin cooking
beats the world. I should mention that the politeness of our host
was overpowering. The first course he served himself to each
guest, his servants following him round the table and handing him
the dishes ("and I myself shall be your servant, sir, says good
Uncle Toby"), and upon entering, as well as upon retiring, he
stood in the open court outside of his threshold to welcome and to
bid farewell. The shaking of one's own hands instead of grasping
those of your friends is soon learned; but what a world of
pleasure the Chinaman misses by his mode!

Of course we saw none of the ladies of the household, nor were
they inquired for or referred to by any of us. If a Chinese
gentleman were asked how many children he had, he would probably
not count the girls at all, but at all events he would distinguish
thus: two children and a _girl_. When a boy is born the
father is overwhelmed with congratulations, presents are sent, and
rejoicing takes place. If the little stranger happen to be a girl,
the event is hushed up. No reference is ever made to the great
misfortune which has befallen the expectant father. Friends are
apprised of the result by advertisements carried through the
streets. Yellow strips of paper are used if the child is a boy;
_any other color_ means a girl. Among the poorer classes girl
babies are frequently drowned. Some estimate that in the Shanghai
district one-third are so destroyed; the excuse given by the
parents is that they cannot afford to rear a girl. Men monopolize
most of the occupations here, and a woman can earn little or
nothing; besides, a husband for every girl must be provided upon
some terms. After a certain age an unmarried woman is regarded as
disreputable, entailing something of disgrace upon her family; and
so China lacks that most useful, and, as far as my experience
goes, most unjustly maligned class--old maids.

A universal sameness prevails in China which soon becomes
monotonous. One street looks precisely like another. If a traveller
were set down in any city of China, he would be at a loss to tell
where he was. It might be Shanghai, Canton, or Peking. There are the
same rows of one-story, or, at most, one-and-a-half-story huts,
without the slightest attempt at ornament or variety. There are no
grand mansions scattered throughout the land, no city halls,
colleges or commercial exchanges, as with us, but one dead flat
level of low structures wherever you go. Probably the exactions to
which wealth is subject here has much to do with this; all are
concerned to hide their resources, but I am told the Chinese
educated mind has really reached the stage in which ostentatious
display is regarded with contempt. It seeks escape from ceremony and
show, in sweet simplicity of living, as most truly great men have
done and are doing more and more.

Life "_en grand seigneur_" has never been the foible of the
rich American, but as the seigneur is a species of recent growth
and has not yet had time to blossom into flower and show us just
to what his nature turns, we must watch his movements hereafter
with interest. So far, he seems endued with quiet tastes, as far
as personal parade is concerned. A few have built grand mansions,
but still live plainly in the matter of retinue and ceremonial.

Even in England one notes nowadays a general expression of
disappointment at the result of living up to one's rank, according
to the old standard. It is not altogether from lack of means to
maintain great style, although this is the real reason with the
majority, perhaps, who have abandoned former habits. Another cause
is operating, even with such as are wealthy: the squire or his
lordship is not the all in all of his district any more; and he is
educated now, in many cases, to enjoy intellectual pleasures,
which he finds incompatible with so much society and numerous
establishments with their endless staffs of servants to maintain.
Many of the stately homes of England, therefore, are for rent, and
their owners live more within themselves and in simpler manner
than before.

       *       *       *       *       *

SHANGHAI, Saturday, December 14.

We leave for Hong Kong, eight hundred miles south, by the mail
steamer which sails at daylight. Our usual good fortune attends
us. The monsoon blew us to port one night sooner than we expected.
A night saved was quite an object, as the Geelong is a small
craft, and her rocking means something. Vandy was very ill, but I
managed to report regularly at table as usual. We slept on shore
Tuesday night, and the morning revealed one of the prettiest
places we have ever seen in the East. Hong Kong is an island about
twenty, six miles in circumference, situated one mile from the
mainland of China, and just at the mouth of the river leading to
Canton. There is scarcely an acre of level ground upon it except
one little spot which does duty as a race-course, and is not level
either by any means. A narrow strip fronting the water is occupied
by the city of Victoria, which extends about three miles, but back
of this the ground rises rapidly, and houses cluster upon the
steep sides of the mountain. Nevertheless, public gardens have
been laid out with exquisite taste and skill upon the hillside,
and excellent walks reach to the very top of the peak, more than
eighteen hundred feet high. So closely does this crag overhang the
town below that a stone could be dropped into the settlement from
its crest.

It is the thing in Hong Kong to do the Peak, and we did it, but
not in a manner very creditable to our staying powers, I fear. The
fact is, we had been tossed for sortie days upon a small ship. It
was exceedingly warm. I We were very tired (conscience suggested
another word for tired); in short, there were a dozen
reasons--good, bad, and indifferent--why two strong, lusty fellows
should, under the circumstances, be carried up instead of
attacking the Peak on foot; and so each of us, in a sedan chair,
borne by four strong coolies, managed to get to the top and enjoy
the splendid view, coming down in the same novel manner. It was
surprising, after we had returned, to find how decided a
misunderstanding had arisen between us on the subject. I had not
pressed walking up on Vandy's account, while he had only denied
himself that wished-for pleasure in deference to my supposed
inability. You see, had this point been made clearer before we
started, we might have had the walk after all. As it is, the
credit of both is fairly maintained, and I do think that neither
of us regrets the unfortunate misunderstanding; one gets so lazy
in these latitudes!

More than a hundred thousand Chinese have come from the main land
to reside in Hong Kong and enjoy the benefits of British rule, and
the population, which in 1841 was only five thousand, is now a
hundred and forty thousand. So the good work of reforming China
goes forward by the surest of all means, good example. It is at
such points as Hong Kong--one of the keys of the world--that
England does her real work and lifts up mankind.

       *       *       *       *       *

THURSDAY, December 19.

We took the steamer for the Paris of the East, far-famed Canton,
distant ninety-five miles. The steamer is just an American river
boat, and we enjoyed the trip very highly. And here let me note
two strange customs which prevail in China. First, your passage
money generally embraces all the liquor, beer, or wine you choose
to consume on the trip. Such was the case to-day, and passengers
were free to call for anything they wished to drink at any time
(champagne excepted). The other custom is universal. There is no
coin in circulation but silver, and it is so heavy that Europeans
have adopted the habit of carrying none, giving for any debt
incurred I. O. U.'s, called "chits," which are sent in at the end
of each month for payment; a vicious custom, which leads to
deplorable excesses, especially in drinking and in gambling. Men
drink and gamble more freely when immediate payment is not
required, or when the chances of a lucky turn may recoup their
losses; besides, many who have no means to pay incur debts.
Indeed, so many cases of this kind have happened since "hard times
set in" that I am encouraged to hope the end of "chits"
approaches. The rule at the clubs now is that no chits can be
given beyond a trifling amount each month, and that they must be
promptly redeemed. Canton was reached by four in the afternoon,
and such a swarm of small boats as surrounded us was never seen
elsewhere. When we were a full mile from the wharf I saw the mass
begin to stir, and such a stir! and almost all rowed by women,
yelling and striving, and dashing one boat against another, in
their efforts to be first. One of the most active scrambled up the
guards and reached us on the upper deck almost before the boat had
stopped, and secured us as her spoil. How she and a young girl
handled our trunks, carrying them over intervening boats and then
coming back for us, giving us her hand to convey us to her craft!
No mistaking her business capacity, nor her ability to cope with
the strongest and most active man and capture two passengers to
his one. John is no match for a Canton boatwoman on water,
whatever he may be on land.

       *       *       *       *       *

CANTON, Friday, December 20.

We have just returned from our first stroll through the narrow,
crowded alleys of Canton. Pictures and descriptions had prepared us
for what we were to see, but, as is usual in the East, we knew
nothing until we had seen for ourselves. In most cases the more one
reads or hears about a certain locality the more confused he is when
he visits it. He was a traveller who first said, "The eye and the
ear are close together, but what a distance between hearing and
seeing!" This recurs to me constantly. But to revert to Canton. We
decided to walk instead of following the custom of Europeans, who
generally take sedan chairs and dash through, seeing nothing in
detail. We cross the river by one of the innumerable boats rowed by
women, and are in the city. For five hours we are guided through
streets varying from six to ten feet in width through one continuous
mass of Chinamen. As for Chinawomen, they are rarely or never seen.
A few men are in silks; numbers of coolies, with loads, are almost
naked, but more, of a slightly higher order, are in rags; for the
Chinese, unlike their scrupulously clean brethren of Japan, appear
to pile on one tattered, greasy cloth rag over another until they
are a bundle of filth, against which you fear at every step lest you
may be pushed. The shops or booths on each side of the narrow
streets are resplendent just now, preparatory to the New-Year
celebrations, and those which make temple decorations a specialty
are brilliant in the extreme. As every shop, house or boat contains
an altar, which, as well as those in the public temples, must be
freshly decorated at the beginning of every year, the extent of this
trade is surprising, and all that tinsel can do with the most
gorgeous coloring imaginable is seen in this branch to perfection.
One thing appears very strange: even in the principal streets
various manufactures are carried on, the workmen being so close that
you can touch them from the pavement with your cane. We saw to-day
glass-making in a space not more than fifteen feet square, iron-
forging and shaping, cloth-weaving, the making of coffins (such
massive affairs these are, too, in China!), of Joss-sticks and
Joss-money, firecrackers, and many other articles. The front part of
the building is usually occupied by the shop for the sale of the
product, the ornamental shrine serving as a kind of screen to shut
off the manufacturing department; but by stepping behind you see
crowds of almost nude workmen, hard at work, making by hand with the
aid of the rudest appliances almost every article known. The wages
of a tradesman--a carpenter, for instance--is fifteen cents per day;
in addition the master has to give him three times per day his rice,
etc., estimated to cost six to eight cents more. The workmen are fed
by the employer, and allowed to sleep in and about the premises
somewhere or somehow. We saw freely exposed for sale dogs, rats, and
mice, all nicely dressed and hanging upon spits to tempt the hungry
passers-by, while above a large pot from which the steam was issuing
was a card, which, being translated by our guide, read, "A big black
cat within; ready soon." The dogs which are eaten are fed especially
for the purpose, and are hung up in state with labels setting forth
their superior merits. As far as I should have known, they might
have passed for delicious young roasting pigs, delicate enough in
flavor to have satisfied gentle Elia himself.

Our guide, in answer to numerous questions upon the subject,
informed us that some of his countrymen had acquired a taste for
dogs, while others had succumbed to the sweeter attractions of
cats; others again found rats their favorite morsel, but in all
cases these penchants are indulged in on the sly. Upon no account
would a Chinaman think of taking either of these peculiar
delicacies home, for it appears that mesdames, much to their
credit, have serious objections to their use. They draw the line
here, and the husband must confine the indulgence of his uncanny
longings to restaurants, and say nothing about it, or his lady
friends might mark him as one of whom "'twas said he ate strange
flesh." Contrary to the statement of travellers, I find this food
is not confined to the poorer classes. The price of it is about
the same as that of pork, and far beyond that of hare or deer. How
strange these people are! The price of a black dog or cat is fully
double that of a white one, the superstition being that the former
makes blood much faster than the other, while rats are supposed to
make the hair grow.

We returned to our hotel in time for luncheon, and in the afternoon
called upon Captain Lincoln, the United States Consul, to whom
General Bailey had given us letters which secured us a cordial
reception. The European settlement at Canton is very pretty, with
its broad, well-shaded avenues, exquisite flower-garden, and
lawn-tennis and croquet grounds. Its club-house is a gem, comprising
a small theatre, billiard-room and bowling- alley--everything
complete. The colonel took us for a stroll about the settlement, and
pressed us to join a party he was just about taking over the river
to visit the best flower-gardens of the city. We could not decline
such a treat, and this gave us the pleasure of meeting Mrs. Lincoln,
who is so well known in China as to be regarded somewhat in the
light of an historical character. Her collection of teapots promises
to render her famous. She boasts already of more than two hundred,
no two alike in form, and the record grows day by day; and the
melancholy feature is that there is no end for the passion save in
death, a mania for "a bit of the blue" ranking first in the list of
diseases for which materia medico, boasts no antidote.

Almost everything seems to have been tried in China during its
thousands of years of national life. We read for instance that in
A.D. 841 the emperor, seeing the evils of monasteries and
nunneries, suddenly closed them all and sent the inmates back to
their families. So far, perhaps, so good; but he also shut up all
the temples and told the priests to turn their faces in the
direction from which they came. He was far too "thorough," and
when the next emperor was so favored by heaven as to become the
discoverer of a veritable bone of Buddha and brought it to the
capital with many solemn ceremonies, the people were quite ready
for the inevitable reaction, and Buddhism was again restored. This
is a comparatively modern instance. Away back two hundred and more
years B.C., we find the famous builder of the Great Wall
attempting an impossible task with no better result. He was a
great reformer--indeed the first universal emperor of all existing
China, which was consolidated by his genius. The privileged
classes, of course, opposed his reforms and gave him much trouble
by holding up to the admiration of the people the feudal times of
the past, and extolling the heroes of those days to the
disadvantage of those of the present. At last the emperor resolved
to break with the past altogether, and ordered that all books
should be burned except such as referred to his own reign, that
all who even spoke of other books should be put to death; that
those who spoke of the past as superior to the present should be
put to death, and their relatives as well. Soon after this order,
more than four hundred who had disobeyed it were ordered to be
executed. Even the books of Confucius were not exempt; indeed
these were chief offenders, for the sage was remarkable for such
worship of the past as has scarcely a precedent in history.

Of course such an order could not be carried out. The condemned
books were secreted and all the more venerated from the dangers
which surrounded their possession. To-day we are thankful that so
many books exist telling truthfully of the past--those good old
times which were very bad times indeed. The history of the past
should be studied carefully that we may learn not what to copy,
but what to avoid. Let all the records be preserved.

I take it that to many blessings for which we have to thank the
Heathen Chinee may be added our axiom: "Resistance to tyrants is
obedience to God." The Emperor of China is in theory the most
absolute of rulers, and holds in his hands the power of life and
death--"whom he wills he slays, and whom he wills he keeps alive."
So runs the edict. It is the duty of the subject to render
implicit obedience. But here follows another duty no less
imperative: He is bound to resist the emperor's authority if he
"ceases to be a minister of God for the good of his people."
Confucius distinctly teaches "the sacred right of rebellion," and
the next highest authority, Mencius, puts it in even stronger
terms. This seems a striking anomaly, for the whole theory of
government to-day, as thousands of years ago, is the patriarchal
one: as the emperor is the Son of Heaven, so his people are the
sons of the emperor, and he alone can intercede between his
children and heaven. It is his prayers and sacrifices to which
supreme importance is attached. Notwithstanding all this, as we
have seen, the Chinaman believes it to be his duty to dethrone a
bad emperor and even to put him to death. You see, my friends, a
Chinese emperor can do wrong, which follows from his having power
direct from heaven to do anything; therefore the right to
decapitate him upon occasion must be reserved to the people. It is
only in England that the doctrine that the king can do no wrong
can safely be accepted. It is quite true there, for these
Islanders have so managed matters as not to allow that ornamental
appendage to do anything beyond opening fancy bazaars or laying
foundation stones, where even an hereditary monarch cannot go very
far astray.

On the 8th day of the 12th month, in the reign of Man-Ti, A.D.
593, occurred one of the most remarkable events in the history of
our race. An edict was issued that the various texts then in
circulation should be collected and engraved on wood, to be
printed and published. Here began the art of printing, but it was
not till a blacksmith named Pe-Ching, three or four hundred years
later, invented movable types that the astounding possibilities of
the invention were seen. Off hats to the memory of that learned
blacksmith! Tall oaks from little acorns grow; but surely never
before nor since has the world seen such stupendous results from
so small a change as that of substituting little pieces of wood,
each with one character upon it, for larger pieces which contained
many. That blacksmith has revolutionized the world. I shall never
pass one of the craft again without honoring him as distantly
related to Pe-Ching by virtue of his calling. Vulcan has done much
in the past in his smithy, forging the thunderbolts of war, but
put all such weapons together and I will back the movable types of
Pe-Ching for victory.

China carries the principle of home rule to a greater extent even
than the United States do, for each province not only manages its
own local affairs and levies its own taxes, but also supports its
only army and navy. This would seem fatal to the organization of
solid, vital forces; but as the Chinese have passed farther beyond
the barbarous thirst for so-called "glory" (disgrace, rather) than
western nations, it is not essential that either army or navy
should be efficient. Indeed, the less so the better.

I trust, however, the Chinese cannot rob the Republic of the
credit of having the poorest navy and smallest army among the
nations, for this I consider perhaps the foremost evidence that
America gives to the world that she is worthy to lead our race to
nobler issues than those which have so largely occupied it in the
past.

       *       *       *       *       *

SATURDAY, December 21.

To-day has been devoted, like yesterday, to Canton sights; but as
we had several distant places to visit, we took sedan chairs, and
went shouting along, four coolies each, Indian file, through the
town, forming quite a cavalcade, with our guide in front. It was
the same interminable maze of narrow, crowded thorough-fares,
crammed with human beings, that we had seen for the first time
yesterday. A great commotion was seen ahead at one place, out of
which emerged several men in crimson robes, bearing banners,
clearing the way and shouting out the name and dignities of a
mandarin who was approaching. An ornamented chair, borne aloft,
came into view, on which his lordship, an official of the third or
fourth button, sat in state, followed by two servants on ponies,
the only species of horseflesh we have seen in Canton. It is with
considerable difficulty that even these small animals get through,
and their use is confined to escorting high officials.

At almost every corner we pass crowds of poor wretches gambling in
various modes, from fantan down to dice and dominoes. Children
participate, and stake their "cash" with the elders; indeed, a
young Celestial rarely spends his stray coppers in candy without
tossing with the stall-keeper, double or quits; the little scamps
begin early, and at every counter we noticed the dice lying ready
to facilitate the operation. Is it any wonder that the vice of
gambling seems inherent in the Chinese character? We saw rather a
funny illustration of this practice, at which we couldn't help
laughing. A class of venders keep a large pot boiling on the
pavement in some partially secluded place, in which is an
assortment of odds and ends. Such a mess of tidbits--pieces of
liver, chicken, kidneys, beef, almost every conceivable thing!
These the owner stirs up, taking care, I thought, to bring the
largest bits adroitly to the surface. You should see the longing
faces of the hungry beggars around. One risks a cash (one-tenth of
a cent), a rattle of the dice--the customer has won. The fork is
handed to him, and he has two dabs in the pot. What a prize! Down
go the _bonnes bouches_ one after the other, and back goes
the fork to the pot-boiler, who again uses it to stir up in the
pot prizes to tempt the lucky owner of funds sufficient for the
indulgence of this piece of extravagance. I really believe the
poor, miserable, hungry wretches lounging around the pot derived
satisfaction from the odor emitted. And as the lucky gamester
gobbled his prizes, I imagined every one around involuntarily went
through the motion of smacking his lips, as if he shared in the
inward satisfaction of his lucky neighbor. Vandy almost
overwhelmed one of these people by handing him a cash to try his
fortune; but he thinks his man was too hungry to risk the dice,
and took the sure thing. He probably considered one bite in the
mouth worth two in the pot; but he wasn't a representative
Chinaman by any means.

At one point our guide in advance called a halt, and upon our
dismounting he led us into a walled enclosure, and startled us
with the information that we were in the execution grounds. He
pointed out spots still damp with the blood of criminals, several
jars containing the heads of victims, the protruding hair matted
with the lime used to decompose the flesh more rapidly, and a rude
cross still remaining upon which a woman had recently been
crucified and cut to pieces while alive. Her crime was the gravest
known to Chinese law: she had murdered her husband. Poor wretch!
probably he had not illy deserved his fate were the whole story
known, for the provocation which would nerve a woman in China to
rise against her husband and owner must be beyond human endurance.
Instead of this spot being set apart and shunned by man, woman and
child, as defiled by the horrors enacted within its walls, the
area was filled with large clay jars, used as stoves, the product
of a manufactory adjoining, set out there in rows to dry. Men
moved in and around them unconcernedly, and at the entrance and
within the enclosure there was a temporary fantan gambling shop,
composed of bamboo poles and mats, in full operation, surrounded
by crowds of people. Of a surety the Heathen Chinee is peculiar.
The grounds are of course cleared of everything upon "execution
days," and I suppose the swarming masses of Canton see no reason
why even this acre of notorious ground should be permitted to lie
useless several days in succession. There is nothing which is not
put to use in China.

Our next visit was more to our taste; it was to the place of the
literary examinations, which are held every third year. Here the
grounds are kept in good order, and exclusively devoted to this
noble use. It is well known that each province in China has public
examinations for its students. Those who are successful become
eligible for the higher examinations, which are held at Canton and
at two or three of the other great cities. Candidates who pass at
these are permitted to enter for the final struggle at Peking,
where success brings rank, honor, and fortune. At Canton the ten
acres of grounds are covered with long rows of brick sheds,
divided into stalls about six by four feet, with neither door nor
window, and open at the back; a narrow footway permits entrance,
and a blank wall forms the front of the succeeding row, and so on.
The stalls contain no furniture, but a board extending from the
front, half the length of the stall, and working backward and
forward in grooves in the wall, is used as a seat; a smaller one
higher up at the foot of the stall makes a writing-table, and
these combined made a bed. A small lamp is furnished, and the
aspirant remains for three days and nights writing upon subjects
given to him after he has entered the stall. No chance for
cramming here. Out of ten thousand six hundred who competed last
year, only eighty-two were found worthy to appear at Peking. I
believe only a certain number can succeed throughout the whole
Empire, and the standard is, therefore, kept very high.

Amid much which causes one to mourn for the backwardness of this
country, here is the bright jewel in her crown. China is, as far
as I know, the only nation which has advanced beyond the so-called
heroic age when the soldier claims precedence. England and America
must be content to claim that

  "Peace hath her victories
   No less renowned than war,"

while here the triumphs of peace are held in chief esteem. No
general, no conqueror, be his victories what they may, can ever in
China attain the highest rank. That is held only by successful
scholars who have shown the possession of literary talent. When
the news reaches a town or village that a townsman has been
victorious at Peking, a general rejoicing takes place, and
triumphal arches are built in his honor to witness for centuries
how deeply they appreciate the honor conferred upon the town by
their illustrious fellow-citizen. Upon his return the whole
population turns out to meet and welcome him, and his career
inspires other young men to emulate his virtues. Henceforth his
life is one of honor, for from this class the rulers of China are
taken. These are the Mandarins, and there is no other aristocracy
in China. Nor are his honors hereditary. His sons, if they would
be ennobled, must outstrip their fellows in knowledge, as their
father did before them. An aristocracy founded upon learning, and
composed of those who know the most, is an institution with which
we have no serious quarrel. It is claims from birth which make my
blood boil. These are an insult to every commoner, and we must not
rest until every trace of hereditary privilege is swept from the
earth. Neither king, queen, prince, nor lord should live in our
native isle to insult us if I had my way--and my way may come ere
I depart if I get the three score and ten allotted to mortals by
the psalmist.

Our trip to-day had another surprise for us. We were taken to the
city court and prison. A poor naked wretch was on his knees as we
entered, his back a mass of blood caused by the blows just
inflicted with the bamboo which an officer, standing close behind,
still held over the victim, ready to use again at a word from the
judge. What a quivering, miserable spectacle the culprit was! As I
write this I can see him tremble. His reputed crime was stealing,
but he had denied it, and the judge, not getting satisfactory
answers to his questions, had ordered the bamboo to be applied.
Another poor soul sat under torture, laced by ropes against a
large flat board in some diabolical manner so that his features
were distorted by pain, while at a short distance from the door
many hardened-looking criminals, all chained to large balls of
iron, awaited trial and sentence. The most enlightened of the
judges here still urge that it would be impossible to administer
justice without torture or physical punishment in order to force
replies from the accused. If you can compel a culprit to answer
every question which a trained examiner is allowed to put, it is
not difficult to convict the guilty. With us we forego that
advantage by requiring no man to convict himself. Here he has to
prove his innocence in a measure; at least he must tell a straight
story; and this he would never do, it is said, in China, unless he
were held in fear of bodily chastisement or torture. It is an
effectual mode of getting answers, as I can testify. The judge
asks a question which goes to the very root of the matter. The
wretch hesitates an instant. I thought I could see from his
supplicating gesture that he felt the true answer would expose his
guilt. "Bamboo, attend--ready!" Another instant, and the blow
descends, the trembling man stammers out his reply, and his
sentence is pronounced. Another, who has been cleverly allowed to
witness the manner in which recusant parties are dealt with, is
dragged before the judge, his back bared, and he falls on his
knees to make answer. No skilful lawyers here to defend and throw
around the prisoner the safeguards of the law; but neither is
there any upon the side of the prosecution. The accused has only
to satisfy the judge by giving a true account of himself and his
doings. I should say an innocent man would prefer this mode, a
guilty one detest it; and this seems a strong argument in its
favor.

My room fronts on the river, and is upon the second story of this
strange little hotel. This gives me fine views of the unceasing
traffic of the stream, but it is not without its disadvantages as
a place of rest at night. The Chinese gods, or devils rather, have
a strong fondness for fire-crackers, and these are set off at all
hours of the night by the more devout of the boat-women right
under my windows. I waken with a start every now and then, as an
unusally large bunch is fired. It occurred to me last night that
some of the extra fees bestowed upon our woman and her bright
little sister may be responsible for part of this species of
devotion. It is very likely that some part of their extra earnings
is considered due to their gods. I write this at nine in the
morning, and there are two boats busily engaged in their prayers
just now, one battery of crackers responding to the other. One
would almost think a naval war upon a small scale was raging. I
must plead ignorance till now of this strange manner of
propitiating the supernatural powers. If I ever read of it, it has
passed away and been forgotten, like a thousand things one reads
of. Another custom which interferes with slumber is the noise made
by the night watchman, who walks backward and forward beating a
tenor gong with a hard stick. One, two, three, slowly, followed by
two quick taps, is the signal that all is well. Extraordinary
precautions have to be taken in the cities against theft. Almost
every block has its watchman, and gates short distances apart are
shut at nine o'clock, after which only those known personally to
him are allowed to pass. One provision struck me as putting an
effectual check upon mischief of all kinds: no one is allowed to
walk after night without carrying a lantern, and one found
disregarding this law would be held "suspect." Our landlord told
me that the watchman would be sternly dealt with if a robbery
occurred, as he is held responsible for the safety of his block.

The boat population of Canton is famous as being something unique,
but it exceeds all ideas I had formed of it. It is said that three
hundred thousand people live in boats ranging from the size of a
skiff to that of a yawl. I have seen a family of six huddled
together in one of the former size, but these were the poorest of
the poor. The usual passenger boat is twenty feet long by four and
a half wide--the size of the hotel boats we use. We got into one
this morning, and as the crackers were going off from numerous
boats on all sides, our woman explained that the unusually
vigorous fusilade was owing to this being "Joss day." "All people
go Jossee Temple this day." "Do you go?" "No; have got Jossee here
on boatee." "Where? Show us." With that one of the girls at the
stern pushed aside two small sliding-doors in the extreme end of
the boat, and revealed a little shrine with a lamp ever burning,
and Joss sticks in the incense bowl. The entire family burst into
laughter at our surprise, evidently tickled with the idea that it
was a decidedly cute thing to have their Joss cooped up "Jack-in-
the-box" style. Yesterday the Emperor, at Peking, after fasting
all the previous day, would ascend into the Temple of Heaven,
accompanied by two thousand of his highest officials, and worship,
while his subjects celebrate the event by this fire-cracker
carnival.

I was curious to see how a small yawl could be the residence of a
family, and examined several of them. The centre of the extreme
stern is occupied by the Joss temple, on either side of which
small dishes, cans, etc., are arranged; then comes an open space
extending across the boat, about four feet long, over which is
thrown a light board about six inches wide, upon which stands the
woman who sculls and steers the craft. A permanent bamboo roof is
built over about the next six feet of the boat, and around the
walls are hung a few ornaments, generally old-fashioned plates and
cheap prints from the English illustrated papers, while on a shelf
are those indispensable articles, the smoking pipes of the
family--large and curious affairs, with richly ornamented square
brass bowls about four and one-half by two inches in size. A tiny
china tea-set and various little "curios" are found in the best
boats. The next portion, where passengers sit, has nicely
cushioned seats running across the boat, and on each side as well,
and is also covered by the roof. Next to the bow is a platform
three feet deep, upon which stands the second woman, who rows or
poles the boat, as may be necessary. Under her feet is the
kitchen, and she has only to lift a board to show a small square
covered with clay, upon which a fire can be built. Pots and pans
are seen snugly stowed away around this, so that, by means of
movable platforms, trap-doors, etc., the entire boat is rendered
available to its very keel. At night, when the business of
carrying passengers is over, all the boards are made into a fine
flush deck, which is divided, in a very few minutes, into sleeping
apartments by means of bamboo poles and mats; and so it comes to
pass that what I was before disposed to believe almost impossible
is accomplished with a degree of comfort quite surprising. These
boat people live for less than ten cents a day. Rent there is
none; food costs about five cents per day for each person;
clothing does not cost two. From the child of eight to the great-
grandmother, all do something. When not otherwise engaged, they
sew, make Joss-sticks, slit bamboo, or do something or other, the
baby being strapped on the mother's back that her capacity for
work may not be interfered with; and her stepping backward and
forward as she sculls must be a soothing lullaby, for we haven't
heard a child crying yet in China. Upon such boats as I have here
attempted to describe, and many far smaller and destitute of
ornament, millions of the people of China live, move, and have
their being. Children-are born, old men die, upon them, and many
thousands of their occupants have never slept a night upon shore.

I was surprised to hear that there is no theatre at Canton. The
government had some time ago to prohibit night performances, as
they were constantly the scenes of disorder. The only amusement is
furnished upon large gayly decorated boats, where feasts are
given, at which girls belonging to the boats appear and sing. We
saw one of these, but it was a poor performance compared with our
experience in Japan.

       *       *       *       *       *

SUNDAY, December 22.

We allowed our guide to leave us for to-day, and strolled about
alone. In the early part of our walk we heard music--a harmonium
and a well-known old hymn tune--and on entering a building found
Rev. Dr. Hopper preaching in Chinese. We had entered at the wrong
door, and were among the women, who are separated from the men by
a high, solid wall; but Mrs. Hopper rose and conducted us to the
other side, and after service the Doctor came and greeted us
cordially. We spent an hour in their house, and were surprised to
hear that both were old Pittsburghers. There were at church that
morning about thirty Chinamen, all of the poorer classes,
principally servants and dependents of Europeans. In the afternoon
we stumbled upon the large Catholic cathedral, which is now almost
ready for use. It is a magnificent granite structure, three
hundred feet long and eighty-eight feet wide. If anything can
impress the Chinese mind it must be grand mass in such a temple,
with its vaulted roof, stained windows, the swelling organ, and
all the "pride, pomp, and circumstance" of Catholic worship. As we
stood admiring, the saintly bishop approached and greeted us with
exquisite grace. He could not speak English, but. his French was
the easiest to understand of any I ever listened to, and my little
knowledge of the language enabled us to carry on an interesting
conversation. When I told him I had been in St. Peter's at Rome,
and had seen the Pope when the assembled thousands fell prostrate
before him as he advanced up the aisle, carried upon his
palanquin, he seemed much affected, and pressed us to visit his
quarters, apologizing, as he showed us into a poor one-story
building, for the poverty of his apartments, but adding that the
true _prêtre Catholique_ must needs dwell in poverty among
the poor of the earth. I asked if he did not expect to return to
France to die; but, laying his hand upon his heart, he answered
that he must not allow himself to think of France, since it had
pleased God to place him here. For thirty years he had labored
among these people, and among them he must die; it was the will of
God. There were only a table and a few chairs in this bishop's
palace, not even a mat or carpet on the floor; but he ordered a
servant to bring wine, of which he only tasted, while we drank
"_sa santé_." He subsequently took us to the orphanage, where
we saw eighty boys being educated. About an equal number of little
girls are in a separate building. If the Chinese are ever to be
reformed, this is the way to do it--get control of the young, and
teach them. As for the older generation, I fear it is too late to
do much with it. There are in and around Canton about five
thousand Chinese Catholics, mostly recruited, I understand, from
among the young, taken by these sagacious workers into their
schools and orphanages and other institutions, and educated as
Christians from their youth up.

When I told the good Bishop we spent our summers at Cresson, very
near Loretto, and often drove to Count Gallitzin's tomb, he
grasped my hand and gave me his benediction. Oh, blessed man! a
grand Catholic, Father Gallitzin!

Every one has heard of the great wall of China, which stretches
across the northern frontier from the sea to the westernmost
province, a distance of twelve to fifteen hundred miles. It is
fifteen to thirty feet high, with brick towers about forty feet
high at intervals along the whole route. This gigantic work was
begun in the third century before Christ by one of the greatest
rulers of men the world has ever seen, the Emperor Che Hwang, who
hoped that it would prove an insuperable barrier to the inroads of
the Tartar hordes. But a still greater warrior than he; Genghis
Khan, leader of the Mongols, showed in 1212 that it could be
overcome. To this day the Chinese dynasty is Tartar, but the four
hundred millions of people remain the same, having assimilated the
foreign element. The Tartars are fast becoming Chinese, although a
difference between the races is still clearly discernible. The
Heathen Chinee changes not. The Jews and the Scotch are perhaps
the races in Europe who preserve their types with the greatest
tenacity, but compared with the Chinese they must be considered
plasticity itself. Apart from their overwhelming numbers, which,
being of one unvarying type throughout, constitute a mass upon
which it is almost impossible to make much impression, one sees
how climate and conditions of life in China operate to bring to
the Chinese type all foreign elements, and to retain them there.
Mrs. McC. has just been explaining to me to-day how much trouble
she has to keep her children, for instance, from becoming young
Celestials. They are of pure Scotch parentage upon both sides, yet
are constantly alarming their fond mother by developing tastes
wholly opposed to hers in food, dress, habits, manners, language,
everything. It is just the same in India: the child of foreign
parents there must be taken home for years before he is seven or
eight years old, or he becomes a Hindoo. We have just such
differences at home in a less degree. If two brothers leave Boston
with their families, one for New Orleans, another for Chicago, the
differences in their grandchildren will be very noticeable. The
dream of some dreamer, that Englishmen can be grown in Hindostan
or Australia, or even in America (or in Ireland, for that matter),
will be rudely dispelled by a few weeks' residence in China or
India. The opening gowan transplanted from its Scottish glen loses
its modest charm and grows rank upon the prairies of the West even
in its second year. The shamrock pines away in exile beyond the
borders of its own Emerald Isle. Man, the most delicately touched
of all to fine issues, is also the creature of his surroundings,
even to a greater degree.

       *       *       *       *       *

MONDAY, December 23.

Now for a frank confession. Like Mark Twain's preacher with the
car rhyme, "I have got it, got it bad"--the "curio" malady in one
of its most virulent types. Ever since we were dropped upon that
uncanny land of Japan the symptoms of forthcoming disorder have
not been wanting. I had to succumb occasionally, but rallied in
time to preserve a tolerably clean bill of health. But if I have
one weakness more than another, it is for the harmony of sweet
sounds, and this the tempter knew right well. I met my fate in the
famous Temple of Hoonan, in which is the most celebrated "gong" in
China. I struck it, and listened. For more than one full minute, I
believe, that bowl was a quivering mass of delicious sound. I
thought it would never cease to vibrate. In Japan I had counted
one that sounded fifty seconds, and its music rang in my ears for
days. I asked "Ah-Cum" why the temple would not sell this gong and
buy another far cheaper; for my opinion is, and my experience too,
that there is nothing in China that money will not buy. However,
this was an exception. Well, does the priest know where there are
any temple gongs that can be bought? Yes, three that belonged to a
temple destroyed by the rebels some years ago, and which were
still in the hands of curio dealers. The address was obtained, and
off we set to see them. I wish I could describe the places we
visited in our search, the collections of curios we saw! No
antiquary outside of Canton ever saw a tithe of the strange old
things we examined. One might stumble upon a magic mirror, or an
Aladdin's lamp, in some of these recesses, and scarcely wonder at
it; all is so strange. But to the gongs. There is a little bit of
history connected with one of them which is significant. We found
we had to get from one of the priests a certain ticket before the
article could be delivered. I thought a moment, and then:

  "Oh, my prophetic soul, _my uncle_!"

It was even so. The priest had seen "his uncle," the curio dealer,
and in some moment of want or dire temptation had pledged the gong
of the temple for an advance. I got those which had a fairer record,
and told our guide I wanted the other if he could get it; but this
was impossible. Judge of my surprise, however, when the identical
gong reached me at Hong Kong. I have it, with the pawn mark
fortunately only partially obliterated, but so that the name of the
guilty priest is no longer legible. Ah-Cum must have bargained for
that ticket, the rogue, knowing I would pay the price; but really,
had that gong reached me while in Canton, and had it been possible
for me to return it to the right temple, I should not have thought,
under the circumstances, of carrying it off. It seems as if I were
in some degree a receiver of stolen goods; but as it only came to me
after we had reached Hong Kong, and I knew neither priest nor
temple, what could I do but decide to hold it myself until claimed
by the rightful owners? Therefore, my friends, one and all of you,
please take notice: whatever you may take a fancy to among my
curios, don't ask me for that gong. I don't feel my title quite as
clear as I could wish it, but I shall ease my conscience by agreeing
with myself to act as temporary custodian--only that and nothing
more. There are others beside temples' gongs, and I have to confess
to several (genuine "sous chows," all of them). Indeed to-day was
the curio day throughout. I cannot give even a partial record of the
spoils as our procession marched hotelward in the evening. I burst
into loud laughter as I eyed our party. In the advance was Ah-Cum,
the guide, bearing aloft a fearful idol, "the ugliest I could find
in China," this being Sister Lucy's characteristic commission; Vandy
followed with his pockets stuffed with "birds'-nests,"
"Joss-sticks," "temple money," and etceteras too numerous to
mention; then came two coolies, one after the other, naked as Adam
after he donned the fig-leaf, carrying the gongs, while I brought up
the rear with fans, vials, ivory carvings, and what-not. I cannot
tell what part of this maze of shops we had been in, but the curio
shops were so far from our hotel that not a man about them knew
where it was, although there is but one European hotel in the city,
consequently the coolies had to follow us. Vandy has just reported
that it will take nine boxes to hold our spoils from here. I
exclaim, Vandy, for goodness' sake let us get out of this
immediately and try to regain our good, hard common sense, and be
sound, practical men once more. Give me a _Pittsburgh Commercial_
and let me see the price of pig metal, and what is said of steel
rails and coke and manufactured iron, and all the rest of it; and
that monthly report of the Lucy Furnaces and of the Edgar Thomson,
both the largest upon record. Thanks! Ah! now I feel better. How is
it with thee, my friend? Fortunately Vandy felt the necessity for
keeping an eye upon me, and he never was in such danger himself. But
if any one can pass through Canton and escape a touch of the
Toodleian malady, which prompts one to buy everything one sees, I
warrant him sound to the core.

       *       *       *       *       *

HONG KONG, Christmas Eve.

We returned this afternoon from Canton. After retiring I heard a
well-known sound--the ubiquitous mosquito. It was rather odd to be
compelled to rise and ring for our "boy" to put up mosquito-bars
on Christmas evening, but it had to be done. We talked till late
of home, and speculated upon what our friends would all be about
away up there almost above our heads--"topside," as John Chinaman
always expresses it. So far we have only one paper from home; no
letters, these having been missed at Shanghai. The news of the
triumph of hard money views rejoiced us greatly, as proving once
more that in grave emergencies the good sense of the people of
America can always be depended upon. One has only to visit the
East to see what evils the silver basis entails upon a nation.

The economy practised in China is striking. A sweet potato is sold
in halves, or even in quarters, if required; ferriage across the
river in a boat--a stream as wide as the Ohio at Pittsburgh--costs
one-fifth of a cent, and you can engage an entire boat for
yourself for a cent, if you wish to be extravagant; poultry is
sold by the piece, as we sell a sheep, the wings, breast, legs,
all having their price, and even the very feet of a chicken being
sold for soup. Common iron nails are laid out in lots of six each;
these have been used and used again, no one knows how often; we
see the people at work straightening old nails at every turn. You
can buy one-tenth of a cent's worth (1 cash) of either fish, soup,
or rice. Verily things are down to a fine point here!

In one of our strolls we came upon a string of ten blind beggars
wandering through the narrow, crowded street, the hands of each
upon the shoulders of the one in advance, the leader beating with
his cane upon the stone pavement, and all beseeching alms. It was
a strange sight. The Chinese Government gives to every blind
person a small monthly pittance, and well-dressed passers, I
observed, generally bestowed a cash upon the gang.

I have not said much about the temples of Canton or of China, as
they are poor affairs compared with those of Japan; besides, one
becomes sated with temples which are for the most part copies of
one another; the pagodas are much more picturesque at a distance
than when closely inspected. The Chinese actually prefer all their
places to smack of age, and repair them reluctantly, so that all
have a dilapidated air, which gives a very unfavorable impression
to a stranger. At best, China has nothing whatever to boast of in
the way of architecture. We did not see a structure of any kind
which would attract a moment's notice, a few pagodas and temples,
perhaps, excepted; but even these are poor and mean affairs.

The only temple worthy of mention I saw in any part of China is
that of the Sages. In it we were shown tolerably good busts of
five hundred of the most famous characters known to Chinese
history--all the writers, statesmen, and rulers who have
distinguished themselves for thousands of years. Among them,
curiously enough, Marco Polo has by some means found a place.
Compared with the hideous monsters worshipped in other temples, I
regarded this deification of the illustrious dead with sincere
satisfaction. No man can erect a house superior to what his rank
or station in life justifies. A public officer prescribes the
limit of expenditure, after investigating the affairs of the
intending builder, as every one in China tries to conceal his
wealth, fearing unjust exactions by the State. It is easy to see
why no palaces are forthcoming. This is not "liberty;" but I
suspect several of my friends who have erected palatial structures
of late years have seen reason to wish that such a safeguard had
existed when they began to build.

       *       *       *       *       *

CHRISTMAS DAY.

Yesterday's papers announced that the Hallelujah Chorus was to be
performed in the English Cathedral this morning at eight o'clock.
I had been so long out of the region of music that I rose early
and went to church. The Japanese and Chinese music grated so on my
ears, I longed to hear an organ once more. I enjoyed the service
very much. The music was well performed, and as for the sermon--I
had to be back for breakfast, you know. It was specially pleasing
to see at church the detachment of British soldiers, the more so
as they were Highlanders. My heart will warm to the tartan. One
strange feature I shall not soon forget. Several soldiers, in
their scarlet uniforms, sang in the choir. I scarcely ever see
soldiers without being saddened by the thought that the
civilization of the race is yet little better than a name when so
much must still be done to teach millions of men the surest way to
destroy their fellows; but I take hope from this omen--these
mighty men of war engaged this morning chanting the seraphic
strains which proclaim the coming of the better day when there
shall reign "on earth peace, good-will toward men."

Whatever old China may be doing, young China is progressing, for I
saw in the park this morning several youthful Celestials, with
their pigtails securely tied and out of the way, hard at cricket
and baseball. Nor were they "duffers" either, although our wee
Willie and his nine could no doubt, in the way of a "friendly"
inning or two, show the lads a sweet thing, especially in the
"underthrow," for which my little nephew, I hear, is famous.

We are all creatures of prejudice, of course, but I could not help
being somewhat shocked on Sunday, as I strolled about the
Cathedral, to see some thirty odd sedan chairs on the one side,
and I suppose as many on the other, each with two, three, and some
with four coolies in gorgeous liveries in attendance, all waiting
the closing of prayers, lying in the shade, and some of them
improving the opportunity to enjoy a quiet gamble with dice this
fine Sunday morning. It did not seem to me to be quite consistent
for some of my Scotch friends who stand so stoutly for Sabbath
observance to keep so many human beings on duty, say three for one
who worshipped, just to save them from walking a few short squares
to and from church, for the town is small and compact. But custom
has much to do with one's prejudices, for, after all, how is this
worse than to roll in one's carriage to our Fifth Avenue temples?
Yet this never struck me as so much out of the way before, and I
think, unless the future Mrs. C. seriously objects, we shall walk
to church as a rule--when we go. Really, three men kept at work
that one may pray seems just a shade out of proportion.

I astonished Vandy this morning by getting up early; but I did not
care to explain the reason for this phenomenon, which was that I
had to catch the Canton boat to send a note back to Ah-Cum asking
him to get me certain additional curios after all. While at Canton
I had manfully resisted the temptation, but the thought of leaving
China without the treasures proved overwhelming, and now my only
fear is lest Ah-Cum should fail me. I confessed to Vandy, after we
had had a glass of good wine at tiffin, and I shall not soon
forget his quiet smile. "You've got it bad, haven't you?" 'Twas
all he said, but you should have heard the touch of infinite pity
in his tone. Yes, I have got it bad, I know, but to-morrow we
shall escape from this old curiosity shop forever.

The fire-bell rang just after we retired, and from eleven o'clock
until now (two this afternoon--fifteen hours) a disastrous
conflagration has raged, often threatening to consume the entire
settlement; indeed, nothing could have saved it but the splendid
conduct of the 74th Highlanders. They were everywhere, and fought
the fire the whole night long. The singers of the morning were the
intrepid firemen of that tempestuous night. It was only by blowing
up row after row of buildings that the flames were confined to one
district. I saw the brave fellows march into the buildings upon
the edge of the swirling flames to lay the fuse. A moment after
their return the bugle would sound; then came the explosion, and
the men were off to another building to repeat the work. All was
done by bugle call, with military precision. Ten thousand times
more "glory" in this march to save than in all the charge at
Balaklava. Had equal pluck been shown on the field of battle, the
flag of that splendid regiment would have blazoned with another
war-cry. Let them place this record on their banners, instead of
the name of a city destroyed: December 25th, 1878. Hong Kong
_Saved!_ They have no prouder triumph to commemorate, even in
their glorious history.

I have not yet mentioned that slavery, in its mildest form, exists
in China; but the children of a slave are free, and custom, which
is all-powerful there, requires a master to give up his servant if
the latter can repay the amount originally paid for him; and those
who own a woman-servant are expected to provide a husband for her
when she becomes of age. The purchase of boys and girls is, as a
rule, confined to those who wish in this way to be provided with
servants who shall become part of the household and can be relied
upon. In no case can a master or mistress require a slave to
engage in any disreputable calling unless the purpose for which
the sale is made is clearly set forth, in which event the cost is
fully doubled. Without special provisions in the bill of sale, it
is understood that the servant is to perform a servant's ordinary
duties and to be fairly treated, and to be required to do no wrong
thing.

The firing of firecrackers caused me to speak to our boatman one
day, as I was annoyed by the noise, having always had a dislike
for sudden explosions. "Why don't you worship something good and
beautiful," I said; "some god that would detest such things as
firecrackers?" "So we do," said he, "in our hearts, but this is
not worship; it is sacrifice to the bad gods, so they will be
pleased and do one no harm." "But won't the good god be displeased
and do you harm?" "No, the good god would never harm any one." His
words were, as near as I can recollect them, "He no do badee; no
can; always likee he; much goodee; by-by kill bad Jossee may be;"
and so they go, good lord, good devil; no saying into whose hands
one may fall, as the sailor had it. I gave it up, as the business
woman came on board and took command, the husband going off to his
work elsewhere. This woman Susan--Black-eyed Susan, as we have
dubbed her--and her bright young sister-in-law continue to
interest us more and more, they are such active, intelligent
women. The girl is ornamented with bangles and heavy anklets, and
her earrings are of blue-bird feathers; her hair is banged, and
everything about her 

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