ROUNDABOUT TO INDIA.
Baku looks the inartistic, business-like place it is, occupying the base
of brown, verdureless hills. Scarcely a green thing is visible to relieve
the dull, drab aspect roundabout, and only the scant vegetation of a few
gardens relieves the city a trifle itself. To the left of the city the
slopes of one hill are dotted with neatly kept Christian cemeteries, and
the slopes of another display the disorderly multitude of tombstones
characteristic of the graveyards of Islam. On the right are seen numbers
of big iron petroleum-tanks similar to those in the oil regions of
Pennsylvania. Numbers of petroleum-schooners are riding at anchor in the
harbor, and two or three small steamers are moored to the dock.
Our steamer moves up alongside a stout wooden wharf, the gang-plank is
ran out, and the passengers permitted to file ashore. A cordon of police
prevents them passing down the wharf, while custom-house officers examine
their baggage. We are, of course, merely in transit through the country;
more than that, the Russian authorities seem anxious, for some reason, to
make a very favorable impression upon us two Central Asian travellers; so
a special officer comes aboard, takes our passports, and with an
excessive show of politeness refuses to take more than a mere formal
glance at our traps. A horde of ragamuffin porters struggle desperately
for the privilege of carrying the passengers' baggage. Poor, half-starved
wretches they seem, reminding me, in their rags and struggles, of
desperate curs quarrelling savagely over a bone. American porter's strive
for passengers' baggage for the sake of making money; with these
Russians, it seems more like a fierce resolve to obtain the wherewithal
to keep away starvation. Burly policemen, armed with swords, like the
gendarmerie of France, and in blue uniforms, assail the wretched porters
and strike them brutally in the face, or kick them in the stomach,
showing no more consideration than if they were maltreating the merest
curs. Such brutality on the one hand, and abject servility and human
degradation on the other is to be seen only in the land of the Czar.
Servility, it is true exists everywhere in Asia, but only in Russia does
one find the other extreme of coarse brutality constantly gloating over
it and abusing it.
Our stay in Baku is limited to a few hours. We are to take the train for
Tiflis the same afternoon, as we land at two o'clock so can spare no time
to see much of the city or of the oil-refineries.
Summoning one of the swarm of drosky-drivers that beset the exit from the
wharf, we are soon tearing over the Belgian blocks to the Hotel de
l'Europe. The Russian drosky-driver, whether in Baku or in Moscow, seems
incapable of driving at a moderate pace. Over rough streets or smooth he
plies the cruel whip, shouts vile epithets at his half-wild steed, and
rattles along at a furious pace.
Baku is the first Europeanized city either R------or I have been in for
many months; the rows of shops, the saloons, drug-stores, barber-shops,
and, above all, the hotels--how we appreciate it all after the bazaars
and wretched serais of Persia!
We patronize a barber-shop, and find the tonsorial accommodations equal
in every respect to those of America. One of the chairs is occupied by a
Cossack officer. He is the biggest dandy in the way of a Cossack we have
yet seen. Scarce had we thought it possible that one of these hardy
warriors of the Caucasus could blossom forth in the make-up that bursts
upon our astonished vision in this Baku barber-chair. The top-boots he
wears are the shiniest of patent leather from knee to toe; lemon-colored
silk or satin is the material of the long, gown-like coat that
distinguishes the Cossack from all others. His hair is parted in the
middle to a hair, and smoothed carefully with perfumed pomade; his
mustache is twirled and waxed, his face powdered, and eyebrows pencilled.
A silver-jointed belt, richly chased, encircles his waist, and the
regulation row of cartridge-pockets across his breast are of the same
material. He wears a short sword, the hilt and scabbard of which display
the elaborate wealth of ornament affected by the Circassians. During the
forenoon we take a stroll about the city afoot, but the wind is high, and
clouds of dust sweep down the streets. A Persian in gown and turban steps
quietly up behind us in a quiet street, and asks if we are mollahs. We
know his little game, however, and gruffly order him off. The houses of
Baku are mostly of rock and severely simple in architecture; they look
like prisons and warehouses mostly--massive and gloomy.
Everywhere, everywhere, hovers the shadow of the police. One seems to
breathe dark suspicion and mistrust in the very air. The people in the
civil walks of life all look like whipped curs. They wear the expression
of people brooding over some deep sorrow. The crape of dead liberty seems
to be hanging on every door-knob. Nobody seems capable of smiling; one
would think the shadow of some great calamity is hanging gloomily over
the city. Nihilism and discontent run riot in the cities of the Caucasus;
government spies and secret police are everywhere, and the people on the
streets betray their knowledge of the fact by talking little and always
in guarded tones.
Our stay at the hotel is but a few hours, but eleven domestics range
themselves in a row to wait upon our departure and to smirk and extend
their palms for tips as we prepare to go. No country under the sun save
the Caucasus could thus muster eleven expectant menials on the strength
of one meal served and but three hours actual occupation of our rooms.
Another wild Jehu drives us to the station of the Tiflis & Baku Railway,
and he loses a wheel and upsets us into the street on the way. The
station is a stone building, strong enough almost for a fort. Military
uniforms adorn every employee, from the supercilious station-master to
the ill-paid wretch that handles our baggage. Mine is the first bicycle
the Tiflis & Baku Railroad has ever carried. Having no precedent to
govern themselves by, and, withal, ever eager to fleece and overcharge,
the railway officials charge double rates for it; that is, twice as much
as an ordinary package of the same weight. No baggage is carried free on
the Tiflis & Baku Railroad except what one takes with him in the
passenger coach.
The cars are a compromise between the American style and those of
England. They are divided into several compartments, but the partitions
have openings that enable one to pass from end to end of the car. The
doors are in the end compartments, but lead out of the side, there being
no platform outside, nor communication between the cars. The seats are
upholstered in gray plush and are provided with sliding extensions for
sleeping at night. Overhead a second tier of berths unfolds for sleeping.
No curtains are employed; the arrangements are only intended for
stretching one's self out without undressing. The engines employed on the
Tiflis & Baku Railway are without coal-tenders. They burn the residue of
petroleum, which is fed to the flames in the form of spray by an
atomizer. A small tank above the furnace holds the liquid, and a pipe
feeds it automatically to the fire-box. The result of this excellent
arrangement is spontaneous conversion into flame, a uniformly hot fire,
cleanliness aboard the engine, a total absence of cinders, and almost an
absence of smoke. The absence of a tender gives the engine a peculiar,
bob-tailed appearance to the unaccustomed eye.
The speed of our train is about twenty miles an hour, and it starts from
Baku an hour behind the advertised time. For the first few miles unfenced
fields of ripe wheat characterize the landscape, and a total absence of
trees gives the country a dreary aspect. The day is Sunday, but peasants,
ragged and more wretched-looking than any seen in Persia, are harvesting
grain. The carts they use are most peculiar vehicles, with wheels eight
or ten feet in diameter. The tremendous size of the wheels is understood
to materially lighten their draught. After a dozen miles the country
develops into barren wastes, as dreary and verdureless as the deserts of
Seistan. At intervals of a mile the train whirls past a solitary stone
hut occupied by the family of the watchman or section-hand. Sometimes a
man stands out and waves a little flag, and sometimes a woman. Whether
male or female, the flag-signaller is invariably an uncouth bundle of
rags. The telegraph-poles consist of lengths of worn-out rail, with an
upper section of wood on which to fasten the insulators. These make
substantial poles enough, but have a make-shift look, and convey the
impression of financial weakness to the road. The stations are often
quite handsome structures of mingled stone and brickwork. The names are
conspicuously exposed in Russian and Persian and Circassian. Beer, wine,
and eatables are exposed for sale at a lunch-counter, and pedlers vend
boiled lobsters, fish, and fruit about the platforms. On the platform of
every station hangs a bell with a string attached to the tongue. When
almost ready for the train to start, an individual, invested with the
dignity of a military cap with a red stripe, jerks this string slowly and
solemnly thrice. Half a minute later another man in a full military
uniform blows a shrill whistle; yet a third warning, in the shape of a
smart toot from the engine itself, and the train pulls out. Full half the
crowd about the stations appear to be in military uniform; the remainder
are a heterogeneous company, embracing the modern Russian dandy, who
affects the latest Parisian fashions, the Circassians and Georgians in
picturesque attire, and the ever-present ragamuffin moujik. At one
station we pass an institution peculiarly Russian--a railway
prison-car conveying convicts eastward. It resembles an ordinary box-car,
with iron grating toward the top. We can see the poor wretches peeping
through the bars, and the handcuffs on their wrists. Outside at either
end is a narrow platform, where stands, with loaded guns and fixed
bayonets, a guard of four soldiers.
Once or twice before dark the train stops to replenish the engine's
supply of fuel. Elevated iron tanks containing a supply of the liquid
fuel take the place of the coal-sheds familiar to ourselves. The
petroleum is supplied to the smaller tank on the engine through a pipe,
as is water to the reservoir.
Such villages as we pass are the most unlovely clusters of mud hovels
imaginable. Only the people are interesting, and the life of the railway
itself. The Circassian peasantry are picturesque in bright colors, and
the thin veneering of Western civilization spread over the semi-barbarity
of the Russian officials and first-class passengers is an interesting
study in itself.
We have been promising ourselves a day in Tiflis, the old Georgian
capital, and now the head-quarters of the Russian army of the Caucasus,
which our friends of the French scientific party said we would find
interesting.
We find it both pleasant and interesting, for here are all modern
improvements of hotel and street, as well as English telegraph officers,
one a former acquaintance at Teheran. Tiflis now claims about one hundred
and sixty thousand inhabitants, and is situated quite picturesquely in
the narrow valley of the Kur. The old Georgian quarters still retain
their Oriental appearance--gabled houses, narrow, crooked streets, and
filth. The modernized, or European, portion of the city contains broad
streets, rows of shops in which is displayed everything that could be
found in any city in Europe, and street-railways.
These latter were introduced in 1882, and at first met with fierce
antagonism from the drosky-drivers, who swarm here as in every city in
Russia. These wild Jehus of the Caucasus expected the tram-cars to turn
out the same as any other vehicle. Four people were killed by collisions
the first day. Severe punishment had to be resorted to in order to stop
the hostility of the drosky-drivers against the strange innovation.
The day is spent in seeing the city and visiting the hot sulphur baths
and in the evening we attend a big bal masque in a suburban garden. A
regimental band of fifty pieces plays "Around the World," by order of
Prince Nicholas F, who exerts himself to make things pleasant for us in
the garden. The famed beauties of Georgia, Circassia, and Mingrelia,
masked and costumed, promenade and waltz with Russian officers, and
sometimes join Circassian officers in a charming native dance.
We spend our promised clay in Tiflis, enjoy it thoroughly, and then
proceed to Batoum. The Tiflis railway-station is a splendid building,
with fountains and broad nights of stone terrace leading up to it from
the street behind. Our drosky-driver rattles up to the foot of these
terraced approaches at 8 a.m., and draws up a steed with an abruptness
peculiar to the half-wild Jehus of the Caucasus. The same employee of the
Hotel de Londres who had mysteriously hailed us by name from the platform
as our train glided in from Baku the morning before, accompanies us to
the depot now. All English travellers in Russia are supposed to be
millionaires; all Americans, possessed of unlimited wealth. Bearing this
in mind, our Russian-Armenian henchman has from first to last been most
assiduous in his attentions, paying out of his own pocket the few odd
copecks to porters carrying our luggage up from drosky to depot, in order
to save us bother.
The station is crowded with people going away themselves or seeing
friends off. As usual, the military overshadows and predominates
everything. Between civilians and the wearers of military uniforms one
plainly observes in a Russian Caucasus crowd that no love is lost. The
strained relationship between the native population and the military
aliens from the north is generally made the more conspicuous by the
comparative sociability of the Georgians among themselves and kindred
people of the Caucasus. Circassian officers in their picturesque uniforms
and beautifully chased swords and pistols mingle sociably with the
civilians, and are evidently great favorites; but that the blue-coated,
white-capped Russians are hated with a bitter, sullen hatred requires no
penetrating eye to see. The military brutality that crushed the brave and
warlike people of Georgia, Circassia, and Mingrelia, and well-nigh
depopulated the country, has left sore wounds that will take the wine and
oil of time many a generation to heal completely up.
With an inner consciousness of duty well done and services faithfully
rendered, our friend from the hotel flicks off our seats in the car with
the tail of his long linen duster. Not that they need dusting; but as a
gentle reminder of the extraordinary care he has bestowed upon us, in
little things as well as in bigger, during our brief acquaintance with
him, he dusts them off. That last attentive flick of his coat-tail is the
finishing touch of an elaborate retrospective panorama we are expected to
conjure up of the valuable services he has rendered us, and for which he
is now justly entitled to his reward.
The customary three bells are struck, the inevitable military-looking
official blows shrilly on his little whistle, and still the train
lingers; lastly, the engine toots, however, and we pull slowly out of
Tiflis. The town lies below us to the left, the River Kur follows us
around a bend, the train speeds through deep gravel cuttings, and when we
emerge from them the Georgian capital is no longer visible.
Between Baku and Tiflis, the Caucasus Railway runs for the most part
through a flat, uninteresting country. Wastes as dreary and desolate as
the steppes of Central Russia or the deserts of Turkestan sometimes
stretched away to the horizon on either side of the track. At other
points were gray, verdureless slopes and rocky buttes, or saline
mud-flats that looked like the old bed of some ancient sea. Occasional
oases of life appeared here and there, a few wheat-fields and a wretched
mud-built village, or a picturesque scene of smoke-browned tents, gayly
dressed nomads, and grazing flocks and herds. At night we had passed
through a grassy steppe, a facsimile of the rolling prairies of the West.
Though but the 6th of June, the country was parched, and the grass dried,
as it stood, into hay by the heat and drought. We saw at one point a wide
sweep of flame that set the darkening sky aglow and caused the
railway-rails ahead to gleam. It was the steppe on fire--another
reproduction of a Far Western prairie scene.
All this had changed as we woke up an hour before reaching Tiflis. The
country became green, lovely, and populous in comparison. The people
seemed less 'ragged, poverty-stricken, and wretched; the native women
wore garments of brightest red and blue; the men put on more style, with
their long Circassian coats and ornamental daggers, than I had yet
observed. East of Tiflis, the Caucasus Hallway may, roughly speaking, be
said to traverse the dreary wastes of an Asiatic country; west of it to
wind around among the green hills and forest-clad heights of Europe's
southeastern extremity. Lovelier and more beautifully green grows the
country, and more interesting, too, grow the people and the towns, as our
train speeds westward toward Batoum and the Black Sea coast. Everything
about the railway, also, seems to be more prosperous, and better
equipped. The improvised telegraph poles of worn-out lengths of rail seen
east of Tiflis give place to something more becoming. Sometimes we speed
for miles past ordinary cedar poles, procured, no doubt, from the
mountain forests near at hand. Occasionally are stretches of iron poles
imported from England, and then poles composed of two iron railway-rails
clamped together. For much of the way we see the splendidly equipped
Indo-European Telegraph Company's line, the finest telegraph line in the
world. Equipped with substantial iron poles throughout, and with every
insulator covered with an iron cap in countries where the half-civilized
natives are wont to do them damage, this line runs through the various
countries of Europe and Asia to Teheran, Persia, where it joins hands
with the British Government line to India.
Following along the valley of the River Kur, our train is sometimes
rattling along up a wild gorge between rugged heights whose sides are
bristling with dark coniferous growth, or more precipitous, with huge
jagged rocks and the variegated vegetation of the Caucasus strewn in wild
confusion. Again, we emerge upon a peaceful grassy valley, lovely enough
to have been the Happy Valley of Rasselas, and walled in almost
completely with forest-clad mountains. Through it, perhaps, there winds a
mountain stream, fed by welling springs and hidden rivulets, and on the
stream is sure to be a town or village. An old Georgian town it would be,
picturesque but dirty, built, too, with an eye to security from attack.
One town is particularly noteworthy--not a very large town, but more
important, doubtless, in times past than now. Out of the valley there
rises a rocky butte, abrupt almost as though it were some monstrous
vegetable growth. On the summit of this natural fortress some old
Georgian chief had, in the good old days of independence, built a massive
castle, and nestling beneath its protecting shadow around the base of the
butte is the town, a picturesque town of adobe and wattle walls and
quaint red tiles. So intensely verdant is the valley, so thickly wooded
the dark surrounding mountains, so brown the walls, so red the tiles, and
so picturesque the elevated castle, that even K goes into raptures, and
calls the picture beautiful.
The improvement in the Russian telegraph line, perhaps, owes something to
its brief association with the invading stranger from England; and now
among the sublime loveliness of this Caucasian Switzerland one finds the
station-houses built with far more pretence to the picturesque than on
the barren steppes toward Baku and the Caspian. Here is the Caucasia of
our youthful dreams, and the mystic hills and vales whence Mingrelian
princes issued forth to deeds of valor in old romantic tales. Urchins,
small mountaineers, more picturesquely clad than anything seen in Alpine
Italy, even, now offer us little baskets of wild strawberries at ten
copecks a basket-strawberries they and their little brothers and sisters
have gathered this very morning at the foot of the hills. The cuisine at
the lunch-counters embraces fresh trout from neighboring mountain
streams, caught by vagrant Mingrelian Isaac Waltons, who bring them in on
strings of plaited grass to sell.
Humorous scenes sometimes enliven our stops at the stations. The Russian
warnings for travellers to seek the train before it is everlastingly too
late cover fully a minute of time. First come three raps of a bell
suspended on the platform, afterward a station employe blows a little
whistle, and lastly comes a toot from the engine itself, by way of an
ultimatum. Once this afternoon a woman leaves the train to enter the
waiting-room for something. Just as she is entering, the station-man
rings the bell. The woman, evidently unaccustomed to railway travel,
rushes hastily back to the train. Everybody greets her performance with
good-natured merriment. Finding the train not pulling out, and encouraged
by some of the passengers, the woman ventures to try it again. As she
reaches the waiting-room door, the station-man blows a shrill blast on
his whistle. The woman rushes back, as before. Again the people laugh,
and again words of encouragement tempt her to venture back again. This
time it is the toot of the engine that brings that poor female scurrying
back across the platform amid the unsympathetic laughter of her
fellow-passengers, and this time the train really starts. From this it
would appear that too many signals are quite as objectionable at
railway-stations as not signals enough. Every stoppage at a lunch-counter
station, or where venders of things edible come on the platform, gives us
opportunity to turn our minds judicially upon the civilization of our
fellow first-class passengers. They present a curious combination of
French fashion and polite address, on the one hand, and want of taste and
ignorance of civilization's usages on the other. Gentlemen and ladies,
dressed in the latest Parisian fashions, stand out on the platform and
devour German sausage or dig their teeth into big chunks of yellow cheese
with the gusto of half-starved barbarians.
We double our engines--our compact, tenderless, petroleum-burning
engines--at the foot of the Suran Pass. At its base, a stream disappears
in an arched cave at the foot of a towering rocky cliff, and I have
bethought me since of whether, like Allan Quatermain's subterranean
stream, it would, if followed, reveal things heretofore unseen. And so we
climb the lovely Suran Pass, rattle down the western slope upon the Black
Sea coast, and reach Batoum at 11 p.m.
As the chief mercantile port of the Caucasus, Batoum is an important
shipping point. By the famous Berlin treaty it was made a free port; but
nothing is likely to remain free any length of time upon which the
Russian bear has managed to lay his greedy paw. Consequently, Batoum is
now afflicted with all sorts of commercial taxes and restrictions,
peculiar to a protective and autocratic semi-Oriental government.
Notwithstanding this, however, ships from various European ports crowd
its harbor, for not only is it the shipping point of Baku petroleum, but
also the port of entry for much of the Persian and Central Asian
importations from Europe. An oil-pipe line is seriously contemplated from
Baku to replace the iron-tank cars now run on the railroad.
Big fortifications are under headway to protect the harbor; its strategic
importance as the terminus of the Caucasus Railway and the shipping point
for troops and war material making Batoum a place of special solicitation
on the part of the Russian military authorities. R------and I walk around
and take a look at the fortification works, as well as one can do this;
but no strangers are allowed very near, and we are conscious of close
surveillance the whole time we are walking out near the scene of
operations.
A pleasant day in Batoum, and we take passage aboard a Messageries
Maritimes steamer for Constantinople. Late at night we depart, amid the
glare and music of a violent thunder-storm, and in the morning wake up in
the roadstead of Trebizond.
To fully realize the difference between mock-civilization and the genuine
article, one cannot do better than to transfer from a Russian Caspian
steamer to a Messageries Maritimes. The Russians affect French methods
and manners in pretty much everything; but the thinness and transparency
of the varnish becomes very striking in contrast aboard the steamers.
The scenery along the Anatolian coast is striking and lovely in the
extreme as we steam along in full view of it all next day. It is
mountainous the whole distance, but the prospect is charmingly variable.
Sometimes the mountains are heavily wooded down to the water's edge, and
sometimes the slopes are prettily chequered with clearings and
cultivation.
More and more lovely it grows next day, as we pass Samsoon, celebrated
throughout the East for chibouque tobacco; Sinope, memorable as the place
where the first blow of the Crimean War was delivered; and, on the
morning of the third day, Ineboli, the "town of wines."
On the evening of the third day we lay off the entrance to the Bosphorus
till morning, when we steam down that charming strait to Constantinople.
It is almost a year since I took, in company with our friend Shelton Bey,
a pleasure trip up the Bosphorus and gazed for the first time on its
wondrous beauties. I have seen considerable since, but the Bosphorus
looks as fresh and lovely as ever.
While yielding as full a measure of praise to the Bosphorus as any of its
most ardent admirers, I would, however, at the same time, recommend those
in search of lovely coast scenery to take a coasting voyage along the
southern shore of the Black Sea in June. I have no hesitation in saying
that the traveller who goes into raptures over the beauties of the
Bosphorus would, if he saw it, include the whole Anatolian coast to
Batoum.
Several very pleasant days are spent in Constantinople, talking over my
Central Asian adventures with former acquaintances and seeing the city.
But as these were pretty thoroughly described in Volume I., there is no
need of repetition here. With many regrets I part company with R, who has
proved a very pleasant companion indeed, and set sail for India.
The steamers of the Khedivial Line, plying between Constaninople and
Alexandria, have their mooring buoys near the Stamboul side of the Golden
Horn, between Seraglio Point and the Galata bridge. During the forenoon,
Shelton Bey, R--, and I had taken a caique and sought out from among
the crowd of shipping in the harbor the steamship Behera, of the
above-mentioned line, on which I have engaged my passage to Alexandria,
so that we should have no difficulty in finding it in the afternoon. In
the afternoon the Behera is found surrounded by a swarm of caiques,
bringing passengers and friends who have come aboard to see them off.
These slender-built craft are paddling about the black hull of the
steamer in busy confusion. A fussy and authoritative little police boat
seems to take a wanton delight in increasing the confusion by making
sallies in among them to see that newly arriving passengers have provided
themselves with the necessary passports, and that their baggage has been
duly examined at the custom-house. All is bustle and confusion aboard the
Behera, and in two hours after the advertised time (pretty prompt for an
Egyptian-owned boat) a tug-boat assists her from her moorings, paddles
glibly to one side, and in ten minutes Seraglio Point is rounded, and we
are steaming down the Marmora with the domes and minarets of the Ottoman
capital gradually vanishing to the rear.
People whose experience of steamship travel is confined to voyages in
western waters, and the orderliness and neatness aboard an Atlantic
steamer, can form little idea of the appearance aboard an Oriental
passenger boat. The small foredeck is reserved for the use of first and
second-class passengers; the remainder of the deck-room is pretty well
crowded with the most motley and picturesque gathering imaginable. Arabs
and Egyptians returning from a visit to Stamboul, pilgrims going to Mecca
via Egypt, Greeks, Levantines, and Armenians, all more or less
fantastically attired and occupying themselves in their own peculiar way.
The nomadic instinct of the Arabs asserts itself even on the deck of the
steamer; ere she is an hour from Stamboul they may be seen squatting in
little circles around small pans of charcoal, cooking their evening meal
in precisely the same manner in which they are wont to cook it in the
desert, leaving out, of course, the difference between camel chips and
charcoal.
The soothing "bubble bubble" of the narghileh is heard issuing from all
sorts of quiet corners, where dreamy-looking Turks are perched
cross-legged, happy and contented in the enjoyment of their beloved
water-pipe and in the silent contemplation of the moving scenes about
them. As we ply our way at a ten-knot speed through the blue waves of the
Marmora, and the sun sinks with a golden glow below the horizon, the
spirit moves one of the Mecca pilgrims to climb on top of a chicken coop
and shout "Allah-il!" for several minutes; the dangling ends of his
turban flutter in the fresh evening breeze, streaming out behind him as
he faces the east, and flapping in his swarthy face as he turns round
facing to the opposite point of the compass. His supplications seem to be
addressed to the dancing, white-capped waves, but the old Osmanlis mutter
"Allah, Allah," in response between meditative whiffs of the narghileh,
and the Arab and his fellow Mecca pilgrims swell the chorus with
deep-fetched sighs of "Allah, Ali Akbar!"
A narrow space is walled off with canvas for the exclusive use of the
female deck passengers, and in this enclosure scores of women and
children of the above-named nationalities are huddled together
indiscriminately for the night, packed, I should say, closer than
sardines in a tin box. Male sleepers and family groups are sprawled about
the deck in every conceivable position, and in walking from the foredeck
to the after-cabins by the ghostly glimmer of the ship's lanterns, one
has to pick his way cautiously among them. Woe to the person who attempts
this difficult feat without the aid of a good pair of sea-legs; he is
sure to be pitched head foremost by the motion of the vessel into the
bosom of some family peacefully snoozing in a promiscuous heap, or to
step on the slim, dusky figure of an Arab.
The ubiquitous Urasian who can speak "a leetle Inglis" soon betrays his
presence aboard by singling me out and proceeding to make himself
sociable. I am sitting on the foredeck perusing a late copy of a magazine
which I had obtained in Constantinople, when that inevitable individual
introduces himself by peeping at the corner of the magazine, and, with a
winning smile, deliberately spells out its name; and soon we are engaged
in as animated a discussion of the magazine as his limited knowledge of
English permits. After listening with much interest to the various
subjects of which it treats, he parades his profuse knowledge of
Anglo-Saxon athletics by asking: "Does it also speak of ballfoot?"
The cuisine in both first and second-class cabins aboard the Egyptian
liners is excellent, being served after the French style, with several
courses and wine ad libitum. At our table is one solitary female, a Greek
lady with an interesting habit of talking and gesticulating during
meal-times, and of promenading the fore-deck in a profoundly pensive mood
between meals. I have good reason to remember her former peculiarity, as
she accidentally knocks a bottle of wine over into my soup-plate while
gesticulating to a couple of Levantines across the table. She is a
curious woman in more respects than one: she always commences to pick her
teeth at the beginning of the meal, and between courses she sticks the
little wooden toothpick, pen-fashion, behind her ear. Being Greek, of
course she smokes cigarettes, and being Greek, of course she is also
arrayed in one of those queer-looking garments that resemble an inverted
cloth balloon, with the feet protruding from holes in the bottom. She
sometimes absent-mindedly keeps the toothpick behind her ear while
promenading the deck, and I have humbly thought that a woman promenading
pensively back and forth in the national Greek costume, smoking a
cigarette, and with a wooden toothpick behind her starboard ear, was
deserving of passing mention.
The chief engineer of the ship is an Englishman with a large experience
in the East; he has served with the late lamented General Gordon in the
suppression of the slave trade in the Red Sea, and was anchored in
Alexandria harbor during the last bombardment of the forts by the English
ships. "The best thing about the whole bombardment," he says, "was to see
the enthusiasm aboard the Yankee ships; the rigging swarmed with men,
waving hats and cheering the English gunners, and whenever a more telling
shot than usual struck the forts, wild hurrahs of approval from the
American sailors would make the welkin ring again."
"There was no holding the Yankee sailors back when the English were
preparing to go ashore," the old engineer continues, a gleam of
enthusiasm lighting up his face, "and it was arranged that they should go
ashore to protect the American Consulate--only to protect the
American Consulate, you know," and the engineer winks profoundly, and
thinking I might not comprehend the meaning of a profound wink, he winks
knowingly as he repeats, "only to protect the American Consulate, you
know." The engineer winds up by remarking: "That little affair in
Alexandria harbor taught me more about the true feeling between the
English and Americans than all the newspaper gabble on the subject put
together." We touch at Smyrna and the Piraeus, and at the latter place a
number of recently disbanded Greek soldiers come aboard; some are
Albanian Greeks whose costume is sufficiently fantastic to merit
description. Beginning at the feet, these extremities are incased in
moccasins of red leather, with pointed toes that turn upward and inward
and terminate in a black worsted ball. The legs look comfortable and
active in tights of coarse gray cloth, but the piece de resistance of the
costume is the kilt. This extends from the hips to the middle of the
thighs, and instead of being a simple plaited cloth, like the kilt of the
Scotch Highlanders, it consists of many folds of airy white material that
protrude in the fanciful manner of the stage costume of a coryphee. A
jacket of the same material as the tights covers the body, and is
embellished with black braid; this jacket is provided with open sleeves
that usually dangle behind like immature wings, but which can be buttoned
around the wrists so as to cover the back of the arm. The head-gear is a
red fez, something like the national Turkish head-dress, but with a huge
black tassel that hangs half-way down the back, and which seems ever on
the point of pulling the fez off the wearer's head with its weight. At
noon of the fifth day out we arrive in Alexandria Harbor, to find the
shipping gayly decorated with flags and the cannon booming in honor of
the anniversary of Her Majesty Queen Victoria's coronation.
Alexandria is the most flourishing and Europeanized city I have thus far
seen in the East. That portion of the city destroyed by the incendiary
torches of Arabi Pasha is either built up again or in process of
rebuilding. Like all large city fires, the burning would almost seem to
have been more of a benefit than otherwise, in the long-run, for imposing
blocks of substantial stone buildings, many with magnificent marble
fronts, have risen, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of the inferior
structures destroyed by the fire. After seeing Constantinople, Teheran,
or even Tiflis, one cannot but be surprised at Alexandria--surprised at
finding its streets well paved with massive stone blocks, smoothly laid,
and elevated in the middle, after the most approved methods; surprised at
the long row of really splendid shops, in which is displayed everything
that can be found in a European city; surprised at the swell turn-outs on
the Khediveal Boulevard of an evening; surprised at the many evidences of
wealth and European enterprise. In the yet unfinished quarters of the
city, houses are going up everywhere, the large gangs of laborers, both
men and women, engaged in their erection, create an impression of
beehive-like activity, and everybody looks happy and contented. After so
many surprises comes a feeling of regret that this commercial and
industrial rose, that looks so bright and flourishing under the
stimulating influence of the English occupation, should ever again be
exposed to the blighting influence of an Oriental administration.
Red-coated "Tommy Atkins," stalking in conscious superiority down the
streets, or standing guard in front of the barracks, is no doubt chiefly
responsible for much of this flourishing state of affairs in Alexandria,
and the withdrawal of his peace--insuring presence could not fail to
operate adversely to the city's good.
The many groves of date-palms, rising up tall and slender, vying in
gracefulness with the tapering minarets of the mosques, and with their
feathery foliage mingling with and overtopping the white stone buildings,
lends a charm to Alexandria that is found wanting in Constantinople
--albeit the Osmanli capital presents by far the more lovely
appearance from the sea. Massive marble seats are ranged along the
Khediveal Boulevard beneath the trees, and dusky statues, in the scant
drapery of the Egyptian plebe, are either sitting on them or reclining at
lazy length, an occasional movement of body alone betraying that they are
not part and parcel of the tomb-like marble slabs.
The tall, slim figures of Soudanese and Arabs mingle with the
cosmopolitan forms in the streets; Nubians black as ebony, their skins
seemingly polished, and their bare legs thin almost as beanpoles, slouch
lazily along, or perhaps they are bestriding a diminutive donkey, their
long, bony feet dangling idly to the ground. All the donkeys of
Alexandria are not diminutive, however. Some of the finest donkeys in the
world are here, large, sleek-coated, well-fed-looking animals, that
appear quite as intelligent as their riders, or as the native donkey-boys
who follow behind and persuade them along. These donkeys are for hire on
every street-corner, and all sorts and conditions of people, from an
English soldier to a lean Arab, may be seen coming jollity-jolt along the
streets on the hurricane-deck of a donkey, with a half-naked donkey-boy
racing behind, belaboring him along. The population of Alexandria is
essentially cosmopolitan, but, considering the English occupation, one is
scarcely prepared to find so few English. The great majority of Europeans
are Germans, French, and Italian, nearly all the shopkeepers being of
these nationalities. But English language and Bullish money seem to be
almost universally understood, and probably the Board of Trade returns
would show that English commerce predominates, and that it is only the
retail trade in which the foreign element looms so conspicuously to the
fore. An English evening paper, the Egyptian Gazette, has taken root
here, and the following rather humorous account of a series of camel
races, copied from its pages, serves to show something of how the
sporting proclivities of the English army of occupation enlist the
services of even the awkward and ungainly ships of the desert:
5.15 p.m.-Camel race, for gentlemen riders. Once round and a distance.
Sweepstakes, 10 shillings. Don Juan, a fine, long-maned, fast-looking
dromedary, started first favorite, Commodore Goodridge, K. N., our
popular naval transport officer, being as good a judge of the ship of the
desert as he is of a man-of-war. There was some difficulty at the post to
get the riders together, owing to the fractiousness of Don Juan, who,
with Kobert the Devil (ridden by Surgeon Porke), did not seem quite
agreed about the Professional Beauty (ridden by Surgeon Moir). At the
start Shaitan (ridden by Mr. Airey, E. N.) shoved to the front, closely
followed by Surgeon Robertson's Mother-in-law, who, with Lieutenant
Shuckburg's Purely Patience, Mr. Dumreicher's First Love, and Surgeon
Halle's Microbe, rather shut out Don Juan. They kept this order until
rounding Tattenham Corner, when Mr. Dumreicher brought his camel to the
front, proving to his backers that he meant business with his First Love,
and won a splendid race by her neck, Don Juan making a good second, with
Professional Beauty about a length behind.
6.15 p.m.-Camel race, for sailors and soldiers. Once round and a
distance. First prize, 10s.; second, 5s.; third, 2s. 6d. Eleven
competitors turned up for this race, which was very well contested,
although one of the camels appeared to think it too much trouble to run,
and quietly squatted down immediately after the start, and could not be
induced to join his fellows. Abdel Hal Hassin of the Coast Guard came in
first, with Wickers of the Royal Artillery second, and Simpson of the
commissariat and transport corps third.
"Second camel race, for gentlemen riders. This was got up on the course
by a sporting naval officer. Five camels started: G. O. M., Hartington,
Goschen, Chamberlain, and Unionist. This looked a certainty for G. O. M.,
as all but Unionist were in the same stable. However, the jockeys seem to
have been 'got at,' for although G. O. M. got away with a good start, yet
rounding the second corner he was shut out by a combined effort of
Hartington, Goschen, Chamberlain, and Unionist, the latter winning, amid
thunders of applause, by 30 lengths."
Egypt is pre-eminently the land of backsheesh, and Alexandria, as the
chief port of arrival and departure, naturally comes in for its share of
this annoying attention. From ship to hotel, and from hotel to
railway-station, the traveller has to run the gauntlet of people deeply
versed in the subtle arts and wiles of backsheesh diplomacy. At any time,
as you stroll down the street, some native will suddenly bob up like a
sable ghost beside you, point out something you don't want to see, and
brazenly demand backsheesh for showing it. Cook's tourists' office is but
a few hundred yards from my hotel. I have passed it before, and know
exactly where it is, but one of these dusky shadows glides silently
behind me, until the office is nearly reached, when he slips ahead,
points it out, and with consummate assurance demands backsheesh for
guiding me to it. The worst of it is there is no such thing as getting
rid of these pests; they are the most persevering and unscrupulous
blackmailers in their own small way that could be imagined. People whom
you could swear you never set eyes on before will boldly declare they
have acted as guide or something, and dog your footsteps all over the
city; most of them are as "umble" as Uriah Heep himself in their annoying
importunities, but some will not even hesitate to create a scene to gain
their object, and, as the easiest way to get rid of them, the harassed
traveller generally gives them a coin.
In leaving by the train, after one has backsheeshed the hungry swarm of
hotel servitors, backsheeshed the porter who has doggedly persisted in
coming with you to the station, regardless of repeatedly telling him he
wasn't wanted, backsheeshed the baggage man, and bolted almost like a
hunted thing into the railway-carriage from a small host of people who
want backsheesh--one because he happened to detect your wandering
gaze in search of the station clock and eagerly pointed out its
whereabouts, another because he has told you, without being asked, that
the train starts in ten minutes, another because he pointed out your
carriage, which for a brief transitory instant you failed to recognize,
and others for equally trivial things, for which they all seem keenly on
the alert--you shut yourself in with a feeling of relief that must be
something akin to escaping from a gang of brigands. King Backsheesh
evidently rules supreme in Egypt yet.
My route to India takes me along the Egyptian Railway to Suez, thence by
steamer down the Red Sea to Aden and Karachi. A passenger train on this
railway consists of carriages divided into classes as they are in
England, the first and second class cars being modelled on the same lines
as the English. The third-class cars, however, are mere boxes provided
with seats, and with iron bars instead of windows. Nice airy vehicles
these, where the conditions of climate render airiness desirable, but it
must be extremely interesting to ride in one of them through an Egyptian
sand-storm.
At the Alexandria station, an old wrinkle-faced native, bronzed and
leathery almost as an Egyptian mummy, pulls a bell-rope three times, the
conductor comes to the car-window for the second time and examines your
ticket, the engine gives a cracked shriek and pulls out. As the train
glides through the suburbs one's attention is arrested by well-kept
carriage-drives, lined and overarched with feathery palm-tree groves, and
other evidences of municipal thrift.
From the suburbs we plunge at once into a rich and populous agricultural
country, the famed Nile Delta, of which a passing descriptive glimpse
will not here be considered out of place. Cotton seems to be the most
important crop as seen from the windows of my car, and for many a mile
after leaving Alexandria we glide through luxuriant fields of that
important Egyptian staple.
Interspersed among the darker green of the growing cotton are fields of
young rice, sometimes showing bright and green in contrast to the darker
shade of the cotton, and sometimes being represented by square areas of
glistening water, beneath which the young rice is submerged.
The Nile Delta is a net-work of irrigating ditches from end to end. Large
canals, big enough to float barges, and on which considerable commerce is
carried, tap the Nile above the Delta, and traversing it in all
directions, furnish water to systems of smaller ditches and canals, and
these again to still smaller channels of distribution.
The water in these channels is all below the surface, and a goodly
proportion of the whole teeming population of the delta is engaged
between seed-time and harvest in pumping the life-giving water from these
ditches into the small surface trenches that conduct it over their fields
and gardens. The water-pumping fellahs, ranged along the net-work of
canals, often at intervals of not more than one hundred yards, create an
impression of marvellous industry pervading the whole scene, as the train
speeds its way alongside the larger canals.
The pumping in most cases is done by men or buffaloes, and the
clumsy-looking but effective Egyptian water-wheel, a rough wooden
contrivance that as it revolves, raises the water from below and pours it
from holes in the side into a wooden trough, from whence it flows over
the field.
Small rude shelters are erected close by, beneath which the attendant
fellah can squat in the shade and keep the meek and gentle, but lazy
buffaloes up to their task, by constant threats and bellicose
demonstrations. Most of these animals are blindfolded, a contrivance
that, no doubt, inspires them to pace round and round their weary circle
with becoming perseverance, inasmuch as it tends to keep them in
perpetual fear of the dusky driver beneath the shade.
People too poor, or with holdings too small, to justify the employment of
oxen in pumping water, raise it from the ditches themselves, with buckets
at the end of long well-sweeps; in some localities one can cast his eye
over the landscape and see scores of these rude sweeps continually rising
and falling, rising and falling.
A few windmills are also used for pumping, but the wind is a fickle thing
to depend on, and his utter dependence on the water supply makes the
Egyptian agriculturist unwilling to run such risks. Steam-engines, both
stationary and portable, are observed at frequent intervals. Both the
engines and the coal for fuel have to be imported from England; but they
evidently pump enough water to repay the outlay, otherwise there would
not be so many of them in use. It must be a rich, productive soil that
can afford the expensive luxury of importing steam-engines and coal from
a distant market to supply it with water for irrigation.
The sediment from the Nile, which settles in the canals and ditches, is
cleaned out at frequent intervals and spread over the fields, providing a
new dressing of rich alluvial soil to annually stimulate the productive
capacity of the soil.
In the larger cotton-fields the dusky sons and daughters of Egypt are
seen strung out in long rows, wielding cumbersome hoes, reminding one of
old plantation days in Dixie; or they are paddling about in the inundated
rice-fields like amphibious things. Swarms of happy youngsters are
splashing about in the canals and ditches; all about is teeming with life
and animation.
Villages are populous and close together. They are, for the most part,
mere jumbles of low, mud houses with curious domed roofs, and they rise
above the dead level of the delta like mounds. Many of these villages
have probably occupied the same site since the days of the Pharaohs, the
debris and rubbish of centuries have accumulated and been built upon
again and again as the unsubstantial mud dwellings have crumbled away,
until they have gradually developed into mounds that rise like huge
mole-hills above the plain, and on which the present houses are built.
Near each village is a graveyard, also forming a mound-like excrescence
on the dead level of the surrounding surface.
At intervals the train passes some stately white mansion, looking lovely
and picturesque enough for anything, peeping from a grove of date-palms
or other indigenous vegetation. The tall, slender palms with their
beautiful feathery foliage, lend a charm to the sunny Egyptian landscape
with its golden dawns and sunsets that is simply indescribable. There
seems no reason why every village on the whole delta should not be hiding
its ugliness beneath a grove of this charming vegetation. Further east,
near Fantah, nearly every village is found thus embowered, and date-palm
groves form a very conspicuous feature of the landscape. One need hardly
add that here the fellaheen look more intelligent, more prosperous and
happy.
At all the larger stations women come to the train with roast quails
stuffed with rice, which they sell at six-pence apiece, and at every
station along the line children bring water in the porous clay bottles of
the country. This latter is badly needed, for the train rattles along
most of the time in a stifling cloud of dust, that penetrates the car and
settles over one in incredible quantities.
During the afternoon we pass the battle-field of Tel-el-Kebre, the train
whisking right through the centre of Arabi Pasha's earthworks. Near the
battle-field is a little cemetery where the English soldiers killed in
the battle were buried. The cemetery is kept green and tidy, and
surrounded by a neat iron fence; amid the gray desert that begins at
Tel-el-Kebre this little cemetery is the only bright spot immediately
about. From Tel-el-Kebre to Suez the country is a sandy desert, where
sand-fences, like the snow-fences of the Rocky Mountains, have been found
necessary to protect the railway from the shifting sand. On this dreary
waste are seen herds of camels, happy, no doubt, as clams at high tide,
as they roam about and search for tough camel-thorn shrubs, that here and
there protrude above the wavy ridges of white sand. Put a camel in a
pasture of rich, succulent grass and he will roam about with a far-away,
disconsolate look and an expression of disgust, but here, on the glaring
white sands of the desert with nothing to browse upon but prickly dry
shrubs he is in the seventh 'heaven of a camel's delight.
Very curious it looks as we approach Suez to see the spars and masts of
big steamers moving along the ship-canal, close at hand, without seeing
anything of the water. The high dumps, representing the excavations from
the canal, conceal everything but the masts and the top of the funnels
even when one is close by.
Several days are spent at Suez, waiting for the steamer which we will
call the Mandarin, on which I am to take passage to Karachi. Suez is a
wretched hole, although there is a passably good English hotel facing the
water-front. It is the month of Bairam, however, and there is
consequently a good deal of picturesque life in the native quarters.
Suez seems swarming with guides, and as I am, for the greater part of a
week, the only guest at the hotel, they show me far more attention than a
dozen people would know what to do with. Some want to take me to see the
place where Moses struck the rock, others urge me to visit the spot where
the Israelites crossed the Red Sea; both these places being suspiciously
handy to Suez.
Donkey boys dog one's footsteps with their long-eared chargers, whenever
one ventures outside the hotel. "I'm the Peninsular and Oriental Donkey
Boy, sir, Jimmy Johnson; I have a good donkey, sir, when you want to
ride, ask for Jimmy Johnson." To all this, sundry seductive offers are
added, such as a short trial trip along the bund.
The Mandarin comes along on July 7th, and a decidedly stably smell is
wafted over the waters toward us as we follow behind her with the little
launch that is to put me aboard when the steamer condescends to ease up
and allow us to approach. The Mandarin, owing to the quarantine, has kept
me waiting several days at Suez, and when at last she steams out of the
canal and we give chase with the little launch, and finally range
alongside, the whole length of the deck is observed to be bristling with
ears. Some particularly hopeful agent of the Indian Government has been
sanguine enough to ship one hundred and forty mules from Italy to Karachi
during the monsoon season, on the deck of a notoriously rolling ship, and
with nothing but temporary plank fittings to confine the mules. The mules
are ranged along either side of the deck, seventy mules on each side,
heads facing inward, and with posts and a two-inch plank separating them
from the remainder of the deck, and into stalls of six mules each.
Cocoanut matting is provided for them to stand on, and a plank nailed
along the deck for them to brace their feet against when the vessel
rolls. Nothing could be more happily arranged than this, providing the
mules were unanimously agreed about remaining inside the railed-off
space, and providing the monsoons had agreed not to roll the Mandarin
violently about. With unpardonable short-sightedness, however, it seems
that neither of these important factors in the case has been seriously
considered or consulted, and, as an additional insult to the mules, the
plank in front of them is elevated but four feet six above the deck.
They are a choice lot of four-year-old mules, unbroken and wild,
harum-skarum and skittish. Well-fed four-year-old mules are skin-full of
deviltry under any circumstances, and ranged like so many red herrings in
their boxes, with no exercise, and every motion of the ship jostling them
against one another, they very quickly developed a capacity for
simon-pure cussedness that caused the officers of the ship no little
anxiety from day to day, and a good deal more anxiety when they reflected
on the weather that would be encountered on the Indian Ocean.
The officers of the Mandarin are excellent seamen; they are perfectly at
home and at their ease when it comes to managing a vessel, but their
knowledge of mules is not so profound and exhaustive as of vessels; in
short, their experience of mules has hitherto been confined to casually
noticing meek and sober-sided specimens attached to the street cars of
certain cities they have visited. Three Italian muleteers have been hired
to assist and instruct the coolies in feeding and watering the mules, and
to supervise their general welfare. The three muleteers is an excellent
arrangement, providing there were but three mules, but unfortunately
there are one hundred and forty, and before they had been aboard the
Mandarin two days it became apparent that they ought to have engaged an
equal number of Italians to keep the mules out of devilment.
Uneasy in their minds at the wild restlessness and seemingly dare-devil
and inconsiderate pranks of their long-eared and unspeakable charges, the
officers are naturally anxious to avail themselves of any stray grains of
enlightenment concerning their management they might perchance drop on to
by appealing to persons they come in contact with. Accordingly, one of
them approaches me, the only passenger aboard, except some Hindoos
returning home from a visit to the Colinderies, and asks me if I
understand anything about mules. I modestly own up to having reared,
broken, driven, and generally handled mules in the West, whereat the
officer is much pleased, and proceeds to unburden his mind concerning the
animals aboard the ship. "Fine young mules," he says they are, and in
reply to a question of what the government of India is importing mules
from Europe for, instead of raising them in India, he says he thinks they
must be intended for breeding purposes.
Understanding well enough that all this is quite natural and excusable in
a sea-faring man, I succeed in checking a rising smile, and gently, but
firmly, convince the officer of the erroneousness of this conclusion. The
officer is delighted to find a person possessing so complete a knowledge
of mules, and I am henceforth regarded as the oracle on this particular
subject, and the person to be consulted in regard to sundry things they
don't quite understand.
Between the two-inch plank and the awning overhead is a space of about
three feet; the mate says he is a trifle misty as to how a sixteen-hand
mule can leap through this small space without touching either the plank
or the awning; "and yet," he says, "there is hardly a mule on board that
has not performed this seemingly miraculous feat over and over again, and
a good many of them, make a practice of doing it every night." This
jumping mania makes him feel uneasy every night, the mate goes on to
explain, for fear some of the reckless and "light-heeled cusses" should
make a mistake and jump over the bulwarks into the sea; the bulwarks are
no higher than the plank, yet, while half the mules were found outside
the plank every morning, none of them had happened to jump outside the
bulwarks so far. Many of the mules, he says, were putting in most of
their time bulldozing their fellows, and doing their best to make their
life unbearable, and the downtrodden specimens seem so desperately scared
of the bulldozers that he expects to see some of them jump overboard from
sheer fright and desperation.
At this juncture we are joined by another officer, and the mate joyfully
informs him that I am a man who knows more about mules than anybody he
had ever talked mule with. His brother officer is delighted to hear this,
as he has been uneasy about the mules' appetites; they would devour all
the hay and coarse feed they could get hold of, but didn't seem to have
that constant hankering after grain that he had always understood to be
part and parcel of a horse's, and, consequently, a mule's, nature. He
knows something about horses, he says, for his wife keeps a pony in
Scotland, and the pony would leave hay at any time to eat oats and bran;
consequently, he thinks there must be something radically wrong with the
mules; and yet they seem lively enough--in fact, they seem d-d lively.
The two salts are also troubled somewhat in their minds at the marvellous
kicking powers and propensities of the mules. One says he could
understand an animal kicking to defend itself when attacked in the rear,
or when anything tickled its heels, but the mules aboard the Mandarin had
their heels in the air most of the time, and they battered away at one
another, and pounded the iron bulwarks, without the slightest
provocation. "Yes," chimes in the other officer, "and, more than that,
I've seen 'em throw their heels clear over the bulwarks, kicking at a
white-capped wave--if you'll believe me, sir, actually kicking at a
white-capped wave--that happened to favor them with a trifle of
spray." I say I have no doubt what the officer says is true, and not
necessarily exaggerated, and the officer says: "No, there is no
exaggeration about it. You'll see the same thing yourself before you've
been aboard twelve hours. There'll be h-ll to pay aboard this ship when
we strike the monsoons."
After explaining to the officers that there are not men enough, nor
bulldozing and tyrannical mules enough, aboard the Mandarin to scare the
timidest mule of the consignment into jumping over the bulwarks into the
sea; that it is quite natural for mules to prefer hay to bran and oats,
and that it is as natural and necessary for a four-year-old mule to kick
as it is to breathe, they thank me and say they shall sleep sounder
tonight than they have for a week. The heat, as we steam slowly down the
Red Sea, is almost overpowering at this time of the year, July. A
universal calm prevails; day after day we glide through waters smooth as
a mirror, resort to various expedients to keep cool, and witness fiery
red sunsets every evening. Every day the deck presents a scene of
animation, from the pranks and vagaries of our long-eared cargo.
All goes well with them, however, as we glide along the placid bosom of
the Red Sea; the oppressive heat has a wilting effect even on the riotous
spirits of the young mules. They still exhibit their mulish contempt for
the barriers reared so confidingly around them, and develop new and
startling traits of devilment every day; but it is not until we leave
Aden, and the long swells come rolling up from the monsoon region, that
the real fun begins. The Mandarin lurches and rolls awfully, making it
extremely difficult at times for any of the mules to keep their feet;
each mule seems to think his next neighbor responsible for the jostling
and crowding, and the kicking and squealing is continuous along both
lines. While battering away at each other, each mule seems to be at the
same time keeping a loose eye behind him for the oncoming waves and
swells that occasionally curl over the bulwarks and irrigate and irritate
them in the rear. Most of the mules seem capable of kicking at their
neighbors and at a wave at the same time; but it is when their undivided
attention is centred upon the crested billow of a swell that sweeps
alongside the ship and flings a white, foamy cataract at the business end
of each mule as it advances, that their marvellous heel-flinging capacity
becomes apparent. Each mule batters frantically away as the wave strikes
him, and the rattle of nimble and indignant hoofs on the iron bulwarks
follows the wave along from one end of the ship to the other.
One of the most arrogant and overbearing of the animals aboard is a
ginger-colored mule stationed almost amidships on the starboard side.
This mule soon develops the extraordinary capacity of casting its eye
over the heaving waste of waters and distinguishing the particular wave
that intends coming over the bulwarks long before it reaches the vessel.
The historical arrogance of Canute's followers in thinking the waves
would recede at his command, is nothing in comparison to the cheeky
assumption of this ginger mule. This mule will fold back its ears, look
wild, and raise its heels menacingly at a white-crested wave when the
wave is yet a hundred yards away; and on the second day out from Aden its
arrogance develops in such an alarming degree that it bristles up and
lifts its heels at waves that its experience and never-flagging
observation must have taught it wouldn't come half-way up the bulwarks!
Now and then a mule will be caught off his guard and be flung violently
to the deck, but the look of astonishment dies away as it nimbly regains
its feet, and gives place to angry attack on its neighbor and a
half-reproachful, half-apprehensive look at the sea. So far, however, the
mules seem to more than hold their own, and, all oblivious of what is
before them, they are comparatively happy and mischievous. But on the
night of the third day out from Aden, the full force of the monsoon
swells strikes the Mandarin, and, true to her character, she responds by
rolling and pitching about in the trough of the sea in a manner that
fills the mules with consternation, and ends in their utter collapse and
demoralization. Planks break and give way as the whole body of mules are
flung violently and simultaneously forward, and before midnight the mules
are piled up in promiscuous and struggling heaps, while tons of water
come on deck and wash and tumble them about in all imaginable shapes and
forms.
All hands are piped up and kept busy tying the mules' legs, to prevent
them regaining their feet only to be flung violently down again in the
midst of a struggling heap of their fellows. There is only one mule
actually dead in the morning, but the others are the worst used up,
discouraged lot of mules I ever saw. Mules that but the day before would
nearly jump out of their skins if one attempted to pat their noses, now
seem anxious to court human attention and to atone for past sins. Many of
them are pretty badly skinned up and bruised, and a few of them are
well-nigh flayed alive from being see-sawed back and forth about the
deck. It is not a pleasant picture to dwell upon, and it would be much
pleasanter to have to record that the mules proved too much for the
monsoon, but truth will prevail, and before we reach Karachi the monsoon
has scored fourteen mules dead and pretty much all the others more or
less wounded. But this is no discredit to the mules; in fact, I have
greater respect for the staying qualities of a mule than ever before,
since the monsoon only secures ten per cent of them for the sharks after
all.
A week from Aden, and fourteen days from Suez we reach Karachi. The tide
happens to be out at the time, and so we have to lay to till the
following morning, when the Mandarin crosses the bar and drops anchor
preparatory to unloading the now badly demoralized mules into lighters.
Karachi bids fair to develop into a very prominent sea-port in the near
future. The extension of the frontier into Beloochistan gives Karachi a
strategic importance as the port of arrival of troops and war material
from England. Not less is its importance from a purely commercial view;
for down the Indus Valley Railway to Karachi for shipment, come the
enormous and yearly increasing wheat exportations from the Punjab.
Thus far my precise plans have been held in abeyance until my arrival on
Indian soil. Whether I would find it practicable to start on the wheel
again from Karachi, or whether it would be necessary to proceed to the
northeast, I had not yet been able to find out. At any rate, it is always
best to leave these matters until one gets on the spot.
The result of my investigations at once proves the impossibility, even
were it desirable, of starting from Karachi. The Indus River is at flood,
inundating the country, which is also jungly and wild and without roads.
The heat throughout Scinde in July is something terrific; and to endeavor
to force a way through flooded jungle with a bicycle at such a time would
be little short of madness.
Under these conditions I decide to proceed by rail to Lahore, the capital
of the Punjab, whence, I am told, there will be a good road all the way
to Calcutta. As the crow flies, Lahore is nearer to Furrah than Karachi
is, so that my purpose of making a continuous trail will be better served
from that point anyhow.
It is an interesting jaunt by rail up the Indus Valley; but one's first
impression of India is sure to be one of disappointment by taking this
route. It is a desert country, taken all in all, this historic Scinde;
through which, however, the Indus Valley makes a narrow streak of
agricultural richness.
The cars on the railroad are provided with kus-kus tatties to mollify the
intense heat. They are fixed into the windows so that the passengers may
turn them round from time to time to raise the water from the lower half
to the top, whence it trickles back again and cools the heated air that
percolates through.
The heat increases as we reach Rohri and Sukhar, where passengers are
transferred by ferry across the Indus; the country seems a veritable
furnace, cracking and blistering with heat. At Sukhar our train glides
through some rich date-palms, the origin of which, legend says, were the
date-stones thrown away by the soldiers of Alexander the Great. They seem
to have taken root in congenial soil, anyway, for every tree is heavily
laden with ripe and ripening dates. Reclining under the date-trees or
wandering about are many dusky sons and daughters of Scinde, the latter
in bright raiment and with children in no raiment whatever. The heat, the
fruitful date-palms, and the lotus-eating natives combine to make up a
truly tropical scene.
Much of the country population seems to be nomadic, or semi-nomadic,
dwelling in tents with which they remove to the higher ground when the
Indus becomes inundated, and return again to the valley to cultivate and
harvest their crops. They seem a picturesque people mostly, sometimes
strangely incongruous in the matter of apparel, as, for instance, one I
saw wearing a white breech-cloth and a hussar coat. This was the whole
extent of his wardrobe, for he had neither shoes, shirt, nor hat.
Water-buffaloes are wading and swimming about in the overflowed jungle,
browsing off bulrushes and rank grass. Youngsters are sometimes seen
perched on the buffaloes' backs, taking care of the herd.
About Mooltan the aspect of the country changes to level, barren plain,
and this, as we gradually approach Lahore, gives place to a cultivated
country of marvellous richness. Here one first sees the matchless kunkah
roads, traversing the country from town to town, the first glimpse of
which is very reassuring to me.
It is July 28th when I at length find myself in Lahore. The heat is not
only well-nigh unbearable, but dangerous. Prickly heat has seized hold
upon me with a promptness that is anything but agreeable; the thermometer
in my room at Clarke's Hotel registers 108 deg. at midnight. A
punkah-wallah is indispensable night and day.
A couple of days are spent in affixing a new set of tires to my wheel and
seeing something of the lions of Lahore. The Shalamar Mango Gardens, a
few miles east of the city, and Shah-Jehan's fort, museum, etc., are the
regular things to visit.
In the museum is a rare collection of ancient Asiatic arms, some of which
throw a new light on the origin of modern firearms. Here are revolving
muskets that were no doubt used long before the revolving principle was
ever applied to arms in the West. But our narrative must not linger amid
the antiquities of Lahore, fascinating as they may, peradventure, be.