In Which Passepartout Finds Out That, Even at the Antipodes,
It Is Convenient to Have Some Money in One's Pocket
The Carnatic, setting sail from Hong Kong at half-past six on the
7th of November, directed her course at full steam towards Japan.
She carried a large cargo and a well-filled cabin of passengers.
Two state-rooms in the rear were, however, unoccupied--those
which had been engaged by Phileas Fogg.
The next day a passenger with a half-stupefied eye, staggering
gait and disordered hair, was seen to emerge from the second
cabin, and to totter to a seat on deck.
It was Passepartout. What had happened to him was as follows.
Shortly after Fix left the opium den, two waiters had lifted the
unconscious Passepartout, and had carried him to the bed reserved
for the smokers. Three hours later, pursued even in his dreams by
a fixed idea, the poor fellow awoke, and struggled against the
stupefying influence of the narcotic. The thought of a duty
unfulfilled shook off his torpor, and he hurried from the abode
of drunkenness. Staggering and holding himself up by keeping
against the walls, falling down and creeping up again, and
irresistibly impelled by a kind of instinct, he kept crying out,
"The Carnatic! the Carnatic!"
The steamer lay puffing alongside the quay, on the point of
starting. Passepartout had but few steps to go; and, rushing upon
the plank, he crossed it, and fell unconscious on the deck, just
as the Carnatic was moving off. Several sailors, who were
evidently accustomed to this sort of scene, carried the poor
Frenchman down into the second cabin, and Passepartout did not
wake until they were one hundred and fifty miles away from China.
Thus he found himself the next morning on the deck of the
Carnatic, and eagerly inhaling the exhilarating sea breeze. The
pure air sobered him. He began to collect his sense, which he
found a difficult task, but at last he recalled the events of the
evening before, Fix's revelation, and the opium house.
"It is evident," he said to himself, "that I have been
abominably drunk! What will Mr. Fogg say? At least I have not
missed the steamer, which is the most important thing."
Then, as Fix occurred to him: "As for that rascal, I hope we are
well rid of him, and that he has not dared, as he proposed, to
follow us on board the Carnatic. A detective on the track of Mr.
Fogg, accused of robbing the Bank of England! Pshaw! Mr. Fogg is
no more a robber than I am a murderer." Should he divulge Fix's
real errand to his master? Would it do to tell the part the
detective was playing? Would it not be better to wait until Mr.
Fogg reached London again, and then impart to him that an agent
of the metropolitan police had been following him round the
world, and have a good laugh over it? No doubt, at least, it was
worth considering. The first thing to do was to find Mr. Fogg,
and apologize for his singular behavior.
Passepartout got up and proceeded, as well as he could with the
rolling of the steamer, to the afterdeck. He saw no one who
resembled either his master or Aouda. "Good!" muttered he; "Aouda
has not gotten up yet, and Mr. Fogg has probably found some
partners at whist."
He descended to the saloon. Mr. Fogg was not there. Passepartout
had only, however, to ask the purser the number of his master's
stateroom. The purser replied that he did not know any passenger
by the name of Fogg.
"I beg your pardon," said Passepartout persistently. "He is a
tall gentleman, quiet and not very talkative, and has with him a
young lady--"
"There is no young lady on board," interrupted the purser. "Here
is a list of the passengers. You may see for yourself."
Passepartout scanned the list, but his master's name was not upon
it. All at once an idea struck him.
"Ah! Am I on the Carnatic?"
"Yes."
"On the way to Yokohama?"
"Certainly."
Passepartout had for an instant feared that he was on the wrong
boat; but, though he was really on the Carnatic, his master was
not there. He fell thunderstruck on a seat. He saw it all now. He
remembered that the time of sailing had been changed, that he
should have informed his master of that fact, and that he had not
done so. It was his fault, then, that Mr. Fogg and Aouda had
missed the steamer. Yes, but it was still more the fault of the
traitor who, in order to separate him from his master, and detain
the latter at Hong Kong, had inveigled him into getting drunk! He
now saw the detective's trick, and at this moment Mr. Fogg was
certainly ruined, his bet was lost, and he himself perhaps
arrested and imprisoned! At this thought Passepartout tore his
hair. Ah, if Fix ever came within his reach, what a settling of
accounts there would be!
After his first depression, Passepartout became calmer, and began
to study his situation. It was certainly not an enviable one. He
found himself on the way to Japan, and what should he do when he
got there? His pocket was empty. He had not a solitary shilling--not
so much as a penny. His passage had fortunately been paid for
in advance, and he had five or six days in which to decide upon
his future course. He fell to at meals with an appetite, and ate
for Mr. Fogg, Aouda, and himself. He helped himself as generously
as if Japan were a desert, where nothing to eat was to be looked
for.
At dawn on the 13th the Carnatic entered the port of Yokohama.
This is an important port of call in the Pacific, where all the
mail-steamers, and those carrying travelers between North
America, China, Japan and the Oriental islands put in. It is
situated in the bay of Yeddo, and at but a short distance from
that second capital of the Japanese Empire, and the residence of
the Tycoon, the civil Emperor, before the Mikado, the spiritual
Emperor, absorbed his office in his own. The Carnatic anchored at
the quay near the customhouse, in the midst of a crowd of ships
bearing the flags of all nations.
Passepartout went timidly ashore on this so curious territory of
the Sons of the Sun. He had nothing better to do than, taking
chance for his guide, to wander aimlessly through the streets of
Yokohama. He found himself at first in a thoroughly European
quarter, the houses having low fronts, and being adorned with
verandas, beneath which he caught glimpses of neat peristyles.
This quarter occupied, with its streets, squares, docks and
warehouses, all the space between the "promontory of the Treaty"
and the river. Here, as at Hong Kong and Calcutta, were mixed
crowds of all races--Americans and English, Chinamen and
Dutchmen, mostly merchants ready to buy or sell anything. The
Frenchman felt himself as much alone among them as if he had
dropped down in the midst of Hottentots.
He had, at least, one resource--to call on the French and
English consuls at Yokohama for assistance. But he shrank from
telling the story of his adventures, intimately connected as it
was with that of his master; and, before doing so, he determined
to exhaust all other means of aid. As chance did not favor him in
the European quarter, he penetrated that inhabited by the native
Japanese, determined, if necessary, to push on to Yeddo.
The Japanese quarter of Yokohama is called Benten, after the
goddess of the sea, who is worshipped on the islands round about.
There Passepartout beheld beautiful fir and cedar groves, sacred
gates of a singular architecture, bridges half hid in the midst
of bamboos and reeds, temples shaded by immense cedar-trees. He
saw holy retreats where there were sheltered Buddhist priests and
sectaries of Confucius, and interminable streets, where a perfect
harvest of rose-tinted and red-cheeked children, who looked as if
they had been cut out of Japanese screens, and who were playing
in the midst of short-legged poodles and yellowish cats, had been
gathered.
The streets were crowded with people. Priests were passing in
processions, beating their dreary tambourines; police and
custom-house officers with pointed hats encrusted with lace, and
carrying two sabres hung to their waists; soldiers, clad in blue
cotton with white stripes, and bearing guns; the Mikado's guards,
enveloped in silken doubles, hauberks and coats of mail; and
numbers of military folk of all ranks--for the military
profession is as much respected in Japan as it is despised in
China--went hither and thither in groups and pairs. Passepartout
saw, too, begging friars, long-robed pilgrims and simple
civilians, with their warped and jet-black hair, big heads, long
busts, slender legs, short stature and complexions varying from
copper-color to a dead white, but never yellow, like the Chinese,
from whom the Japanese widely differ. He did not fail to observe
the curious equipages--carriages and palanquins, barrows
supplied with sails and litters made of bamboo; nor the women--whom
he thought not especially handsome--who took little steps
with their little feet, upon which they wore canvas shoes, straw
sandals and clogs of worked wood, and who displayed tight-looking
eyes, flat chests, teeth fashionably blackened and gowns crossed
with silken scarfs, tied in an enormous knot behind--an
ornament which the modern Parisian ladies seem to have borrowed
from the dames of Japan.
Passepartout wandered for several hours in the midst of this
motley crowd, looking in at the windows of the rich and curious
shops, the jewelry establishments glittering with quaint Japanese
ornaments, the restaurants decked with streamers and banners, the
teahouses, where the odorous beverage was being drunk with saki,
a liquor concocted from the fermentation of rice, and the
comfortable smoking houses, where they were puffing, not opium,
which is almost unknown in Japan, but a very fine, stringy
tobacco. He went on till he found himself in the fields, in the
midst of vast rice plantations. There he saw dazzling camellias
expanding themselves, with flowers which were giving forth their
last colors and perfumes, not on bushes, but on trees, and within
bambooenclosures, cherry, plum and apple trees, which the
Japanese cultivate rather for their blossoms than their fruit,
and which queerly-fashioned, grinning scarecrows protected from
the sparrows, pigeons, ravens and other voracious birds. On the
branches of the cedars were perched large eagles. Amid the
foliage of the weeping willows were herons, solemnly standing on
one leg. On every hand were crows, ducks, hawks, wild birds and a
multitude of cranes, which the Japanese consider sacred, and
which to their minds symbolize long life and prosperity.
As he was strolling along, Passepartout saw some violets among
the shrubs.
"Good!" said he. "I'll have some supper."
But, on smelling them, he found that they were odorless.
"No chance there," thought he.
The worthy fellow had certainly taken good care to eat as hearty
a breakfast as possible before leaving the Carnatic; but, as he
had been walking about all day, the demands of hunger were
growing. He observed that the butchers' stalls contained neither
mutton, goat, nor pork. Knowing also that it is a sacrilege to
kill cattle, which are preserved solely for farming, he made up
his mind that meat was far from plentiful in Yokohama--nor was
he mistaken. In default of butcher's meat, he could have wished
for a quarter of wild boar or deer, a partridge, or some quails,
some game or fish, which, with rice, the Japanese eat almost
exclusively. But he found it necessary to keep up a stout heart,
and to postpone the meal he craved till the following morning.
Night came, and Passepartout re-entered the native quarter, where
he wandered through the streets, lit by vari-colored lanterns. He
looked on at the dancers, who were executing skillful steps and
boundings, and the astrologers who stood in the open air with
their telescopes. Then he came to the harbor, which was lit up by
the resin torches of the fishermen, who were fishing from their
boats.
The streets at last became quiet. The patrol, the officers, in
splendid costumes, and surrounded by their suites, succeeded the
bustling crowd. Passepartout thought they seemed like
ambassadors. Each time a company passed, Passepartout chuckled,
and said to himself: "Good! Another Japanese embassy departing
for Europe!"