Transcriber’s Note: Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
[Illustration: E. W. HOWE]
Travel Letters
_from_
New Zealand
Australia
AND
Africa
By E. W. HOWE
[Illustration]
CRANE & COMPANY, TOPEKA, KANSAS
Copyright 1913
By Crane & Company
Topeka
TRAVEL LETTERS
_from_
NEW ZEALAND, AUSTRALIA, AND AFRICA
TRAVEL LETTERS
FROM NEW ZEALAND, AUSTRALIA,
AND AFRICA.
SATURDAY, JANUARY 4, 1913.—This is written in the Pacific ocean, on
the ship “Sonoma,” two days out of Sydney, Australia, where we expect
to land next Monday. We have been on the ship seventeen days, and the
passengers and servants seem as familiar as people with whom we have
associated many years. In the main, we have had a pleasant voyage,
although the weather was somewhat boisterous the first few days out of
San Francisco. We stopped eight hours at Honolulu, and five hours at
Pago Pago, in the Samoa Islands. There was an elaborate celebration
on board on Christmas day, which included a big dinner, speeches, and
a dance, and we also had a similar New Year celebration, although we
actually had no New Year’s day. At a late hour on the 31st of December
we crossed the 180th meridian, and, when we awoke the following
morning, the date was January 2, 1913. Ships sailing westward drop a
day on crossing the 180th meridian, and ships going eastward add a
day. In traveling toward the sun, the day increases in length, and, in
a trip around the world, this increase amounts to exactly twenty-four
hours. Every day we set our watches back from twenty to thirty minutes,
and when we reach Canton, Ohio, on our return, this daily increase
in the day’s length will have amounted to the day we dropped. In
traveling eastward, you set your watch forward every day, and, on
completion of your journey around the world, you will have gained
a day.... Few young people travel; only the old or middle-aged
seem able to afford it, while only the young are able to enjoy it.
Adelaide, my niece, is the only youngster on the ship, and, although
she never saw the sea until this trip, she is thoroughly enjoying it.
She was ill in a quiet, ladylike way two or three days, but now she
has forgotten all about the motion, and dreads to leave the “Sonoma”
at Sydney. The stewardess calls her “dear,” but invariably refers to
me as “Mr. Works.” I am trying to get even by inventing a new name for
the stewardess every time I speak to her. Her name is Mrs. Coombs, but
I began by calling her Mrs. Ashton, and followed it with Mrs. Bullard,
Mrs. Comstock, Mrs. Davis, Mrs. Everett, and on down the alphabet until
I now call her Mrs. Wheeler. James, the room steward, and George, our
dining-room steward, know my name, but to the stewardess I am always
Mr. Works. She is an American, but most of the crew are English, or
Australians, outside the captain and his chief officers. It is ship
gossip that the first officer is a very able man, but so ill-natured
that he has never been given a ship, although an older man than the
captain. It is important to understand your trade, but if you hope to
get into fast company, you must also be polite.
* * * * *
Among the passengers is a life insurance man named Adams, en route
to Australia to protest because of unfriendly legislation. His wife
has been seasick almost continuously, and the women say he keeps her
sick because of too much kindness: that the moment she gets a little
better, he stuffs her with unsuitable food, and thus brings on another
spell. He has heard somewhere that champagne is good for seasickness,
and keeps her full half the time. But however mistaken he may be in
his treatment, he is certainly an attentive husband, and the men
are proud of him. It is a beautiful sight to see this good husband
modestly taking the air on deck, after devoting hours to his sick
wife. His duty is to his wife, and he does not seem to care for other
people. The women take turns in going down to sit with his wife. It
was Adelaide’s turn this afternoon, and the good husband walked awhile
with me on deck. He says that a good many years ago there was a demand
from total abstainers that they be given a better life-insurance rate
than smokers and patrons of barrooms. The rate was granted, but, after
long experience, the experts of the Equitable and Mutual life companies
found that the death-rate among total abstainers was slightly greater
than the average death-rate among all classes.
* * * * *
Another interesting passenger as far as Honolulu was the manager of a
sugar plantation who receives $18,000 a year salary. He spent several
years in Porto Rico and in the Hawaiian Islands, but is now opening a
plantation in Mexico. He frequently has two thousand employees, and,
as they are constantly scheming to get the best of him, he delights
in scheming to get the best of them. He told me he had been marked
for assassination several times, but had always heard of it. He
finds that when any body of men engage in a disreputable transaction,
several of them are always anxious to turn informers, and secure a
reward. An informer nearly always asks a thousand dollars, but he will
usually compromise, and take two hundred. If you engage in any kind of
dirty work, remember that some one will know about it, and sell you
out.... The sugar man says that reliable Mexicans tell him that
during the thirty-two years Diaz was president of Mexico, he ordered
forty thousand men shot, and that he didn’t make a mistake in a single
case.
* * * * *
The “Sonoma” is a ten-thousand-ton ship, and has been in the Australian
trade only a few months since it was rebuilt last winter. It ran
between San Francisco and Sydney several years ago, but the owners
claimed the business did not pay, so the three ships in the line lay
in San Francisco bay a long time. Then the owners decided to try it
again, and the ships were rebuilt, and fitted with oil-burners. This is
the fifth voyage of the “Sonoma” since the owners changed their minds.
A good deal of the trade has been lost, and the employees are very
polite, with a view of recovering the lost business. We have enough
fuel oil on board to run the ship to Sydney and back to Honolulu. We
all like the ship, except that it is a great roller. The other night,
while the passengers were at dinner, a big roll sent the dishes and
food into heaps on the floor, and those on deck were shot against the
rail with great force.
* * * * *
Captain Trask is a very pleasant man, and most of the passengers know
him. Some captains, particularly those on the Atlantic, see very
little of the passengers, but on the Pacific, captains have little to
do, and are more genial. On the Atlantic, there is always something
for captains to do. Ships are seen frequently, and if it isn’t ships,
it is fog. But the Pacific is very lonely; a ship is rarely seen here,
although we have seen one on this voyage: the “Ventura,” the sister
ship of the “Sonoma.” We met the “Ventura” on Christmas day, two days
out of Honolulu, but it went by like a race-horse, and we saw little
of it.... Adelaide sits on Captain Trask’s left, a lady with a maid
having secured the coveted place on his right. He likes to talk, and
we are already in possession of many of his reminiscences. He learned
his trade as most Americans do—from the ground up, and went to sea
as a common sailor when fifteen years old. By degrees he learned the
technical side of his trade, and has been around the world many times
in sailing-ships. He is a big fellow, and I imagine he has quelled
many a mutiny with his fists. Occasionally, early in the morning,
I catch him punching the bag on deck, and no other man on board is
equally expert at it. Not long ago, the crew of the “Sonoma” mutinied
at Sydney, in trying to enforce some rule of the union, and he landed
sixty-two of them in jail. He took the ship back to San Francisco with
a new and inexperienced crew, and reached port on time. He is very
good-natured now, but I imagine that, on occasion, he would be real
rough, and I shall behave myself while on board.... Poets love to
use the expression, “As true as the needle to the pole,” but Captain
Trask says the needle is not true to the pole, and does not point
toward it. It isn’t the pole that attracts the needle of the compass,
but the Magnetic North. A good many degrees west of the pole there is
a great magnetic mountain, and this, and not the pole, attracts the
needle by which mariners guide their ships. The pole has no attraction
whatever for the needle of the compass.
* * * * *
Stories told by the captain at dinner: In Australia there once lived
a very rich and very eccentric old bachelor. A certain old maid was
very anxious to capture him, and pursued him so steadily that there was
considerable talk among the neighbors. On one occasion the old bachelor
gave a reception at his home, and the old maid was one of the guests.
During the evening, the old bachelor invited the old maid to walk on
the terrace. She thought he was about to propose.
“You have a beautiful place here,” she said to him, as they walked
about in the moonlight.
“Yes,” he said, “yet it lacks one thing. But for that, I would be a
very fortunate and happy man.”
The old maid thought she had him; that he could mean but one thing: the
refining influence of a wife.
“And what is that?” she asked, coyly.
“Water,” the old bachelor replied.
Australia is a very dry country, and the average Australian longs for
water as you long for money.... The captain says dogs never do
well at sea; that they soon get fits, and die. In order to have good
health, a dog must have grass to eat. But cats do well at sea. When
the captain was master of a sailing vessel, he owned a cat which made
three voyages around the world with him. He tells of the smart tricks
of this cat as you tell of the smart tricks of your dog. While his
ship was once tied up at the London docks, the cat was prowling around
other vessels, and one of them carried it three miles away, to another
loading-dock. The crew mourned the cat as dead, but one day he turned
up: he had found his way back to the ship through three miles of
London’s streets.... The captain says there is nothing in the story
that rats will desert a sinking ship; he never knew a ship to go down
that was not full of rats. In the Indian ocean he once came across an
abandoned ship, and went aboard of it. He found the deck covered with
rats that had starved to death. He tried to burn the ship, as it was a
menace to navigation, but failed. Six months later, two thousand miles
away, he ran across the same dangerous, drifting hulk. This time he
succeeded in burning it.... Captain Trask says that in the old days
of wooden sailing-ships the rats frequently gnawed holes in the bottom,
in seeking water. They could hear the rush of water outside, and, not
knowing it was salt water, worked toward it. When a ship was known to
be full of rats, they were watered regularly, to prevent their sinking
it.
* * * * *
Captain Trask says that on one of his voyages in a sailing-ship, he
was in company every day with another vessel forty-seven days. The
ships were of about equal size, and bound in the same direction. On
another occasion, he left New York with a cargo of wheat, bound for
Liverpool. Another sailing-ship went out of the harbor at the same
time, bound also for Liverpool. They did not sight each other during
the entire voyage, but arrived at Liverpool at almost the same
hour.... The captain says that after a sailor has been ashore a few
weeks, he finds the first part of a voyage very irksome, but after
that he doesn’t care; he has spent six weeks beating around Cape Horn
without minding it much. Frequently a bad wind will undo all that has
been accomplished in weeks of hard work. But that is part of the game,
and sailors usually take it philosophically.... But a story is told
of one captain who fought two months to round Cape Horn, where the
current and the wind flow in a south-easterly direction three hundred
days of the year. He was finally compelled to put back to Buenos Aires
for provisions. Again he struggled for two months without rounding the
cape, and again he put back to Buenos Aires for provisions; but while
lying in the harbor, he killed himself. Thereupon the first officer
took command, and rounded the Cape without the loss of an unnecessary
day, the wind and current being favorable for the first time in months.
* * * * *
At two o’clock one afternoon, Old Neptune came aboard the “Sonoma,”
the ship having crossed the equator early in the morning. Neptune was
dressed in a fantastic way, and followed by a numerous train, including
his wife, several policemen, a physician, a barber, etc. A recorder
read a long proclamation, and the passengers took pictures. It had been
rumored that all those who had not crossed the line before, and could
not produce a certificate showing they had been across, would be shaved
with a wooden razor, and ducked in the swimming-tank. There was a good
deal of nervousness among the passengers, but it turned out that the
ceremony only referred to new members of the crew. About a dozen of
these were operated on, greatly to the amusement of the passengers
gathered on the upper deck. A platform had been erected beside the
swimming-tank, and the victims were seated on this, one by one. First
they were examined by the doctor, and given a huge pill. Then they
were lathered with a paste made of flour and water, and shaved with a
huge wooden razor. This being completed, the victim was thrown into
the tank, and ducked. Sometimes the victim fought, and this caused
great amusement. One of the passengers, a young athlete, went through
the ceremony, to amuse his friends, and he pulled the barber into the
tank. This angered the barber, and he began a rough tussle with the
passenger. The passenger was getting the best of it, when another
member of the crew went to the barber’s assistance. A friend of the
passenger, who had been perched in the rigging, watching the exercises,
climbed down hurriedly, and was preparing to go to his friend’s
assistance, when a word from the captain stopped the row; but for a
time it looked as though there might be a fight between passengers and
crew. A young member of the crew who was being shaved, became gay, and
also pushed the barber into the tank. There was a shout of merriment,
and when the young fellow was chased and brought back to the platform,
he continued his joke, and pushed the doctor in. This caused the barber
to strike the young fellow, which brought forth a round of hissing from
the passengers looking on. Altogether, the affair was pretty rough, but
everything soon calmed down, and Neptune and his lady, and the doctor,
and the barber and his assistant, and the policemen, marched around
the deck and took up a collection. A collection was also taken up by a
passenger for the twelve new members of the crew who had been ducked.
Neptune was represented by a tall young fellow we had seen scrubbing
the decks every morning. He wore a grotesque costume, and represented
his part very cleverly, as did the others. Soon after Neptune and his
court had counted the money taken in the collection, the big whistle
blew for a fire drill, and we had quite a busy afternoon.
* * * * *
We had rather a pleasant Christmas, in spite of hot weather. Christmas
eve we went to bed in sweltering rooms, with electric fans going, and
slept without covering. At dinner next day we found the dining-room
prettily decorated. We had turkey with cranberry sauce, plum pudding,
pumpkin pie, etc. A good deal of champagne was ordered, as it costs
but $2.75 per quart on a ship sailing to a foreign port, as against
$4.50 at the average restaurant. The captain’s health having been
proposed, he made a speech in which he complimented England, America,
Santa Claus, and the passengers. He also said the “Sonoma” had been
talked about unjustly by officers of a rival line. How readily rivals
in any calling talk about each other!... While cracking nuts, we began
throwing little rolls of paper at each other. This soon filled the
room with colored strips of paper, and the waiters got about with
difficulty. The captain began the paper-throwing, which was accepted
as license by the others. While still seated in the dining-room, the
second-cabin passengers passed through the aisles in a procession,
the captain having given them permission to dance on the main deck.
They brought a good violinist and piano-player with them, and the
dancing and music continued until midnight. There is a larger company
in the second-cabin than in the first, and they are much livelier.
One woman, a professional whistler, gave a performance, and attracted
great applause. She is on her way to Australia to fill an engagement.
The pianist is a young newspaper man from Chicago.... Maud Powell,
possibly the best woman violinist living, was a first-cabin passenger
to Honolulu, but she did no playing, although she was agreeable and
much liked by the passengers. My room is on the upper deck, near
where the deck piano is located, and early one morning Miss Powell’s
accompanist played awhile; to exercise his fingers a little, I imagine.
It was really a remarkable performance, and I enjoyed it almost alone.
Miss Powell was entered on the passenger list as Mrs. Turner, her
married name, and her husband accompanied her, as business manager.
* * * * *
Nearly all the passengers on the “Sonoma” are old travelers. On
the Atlantic you meet many people who have never been over before,
but Australia is out of the way, and is usually visited only by
old travelers. Several people I have talked with have been nearly
everywhere, and one man is making his seventh trip around the
world.... We often have three or four rainstorms and rainbows in a
day. A squall of rain came up this afternoon very suddenly, but in
five minutes we were admiring the rainbow that accompanied it.
* * * * *
We have a wonderful country in the United States, but we pay very
little attention to ships. I heard the captain say at dinner today
that the United States sends only twelve passenger ships to foreign
countries, the “Sonoma” being one of them, whereas England sends
eleven thousand. Germany comes next with five thousand, and little
Japan has five hundred. Our decline in shipping began with the Civil
War; we have given our attention to building up the country, and
neglected ship-building. The captain says that many of our rich men are
interested in foreign ship lines, and that they impudently maintain a
lobby in Washington to fight every measure intended to benefit domestic
shipping. Our financiers will in time gain control of many of the big
foreign ship companies; this, in the captain’s judgment, will be the
final solution of the problem.
* * * * *
The Atlantic ocean is small compared with the great bulk of the
Pacific. Immense fields of water never parted by the cut-water of
a ship or steamer lie between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn.
Perhaps half of the Pacific is as yet unexplored and uncharted. In the
lonely South Seas lie the Samoa islands, two of which belong to the
United States. The “Sonoma” stopped at one of these on the 29th, and
we found the harbor at Pago Pago exceedingly pretty. The captain said
we should reach Pago Pago at 4 P. M., and at 3:50 P. M. we
went ashore. The “Sonoma” makes its time as accurately as a railroad
train. Two hours before, the island had been in sight, and long before
turning into the harbor we skirted the island so closely that we could
see children waving at us from the shore. The island is mountainous,
but along the shore were many villages of grass-covered houses, and
many groves of cocoanut trees. The harbor of Pago Pago is completely
land-locked, and has deep water, but the mountains surrounding it are
very high, and we found the weather very warm. As we approached the
dock we passed the little gunboat “Princeton,” the captain of which
acts as governor of American Samoa. His crew comprises the defensive
force, except that fifty natives are employed by our government to act
as police. These men receive a dollar a day, and the sons of the most
aristocratic native chiefs are anxious to enlist. The entire native
population of Tutuila and Manua, the two islands we control, is seven
thousand, whereas the total white population is only a hundred. This is
made up largely of the crew of the “Princeton.” Mail is received from
home only once a month, and as the “Sonoma” was their Christmas boat,
you can imagine that nearly all of the white population greeted our
landing. Packages of newspapers were thrown out before the lines were
made fast, and soon there was cheering: we brought the news that the
naval school at Annapolis won the football game from Hartford. Mingling
with the white men and women of the naval establishment were hundreds
of natives, who looked a good deal like our Indians, except that they
were better dressed. One swell we saw was barefoot, and carried a cane.
The officers told us he was the head chief of a village. Sometimes
the villages are not half a mile apart, but every one has a chief.
Three native villages were in sight from the deck of the ship when we
landed. The best building in Pago Pago is the house of the governor,
which occupies a sightly position on top of a hill overlooking the sea
and harbor. There are perhaps a dozen houses for the officers and men,
and these, with a cold storage and electric-light plant, coal bunkers,
and a small custom-house, make up the naval station. In addition to
the “Princeton,” we found two or three smaller boats in the harbor.
These had come from the other islands after freight and mail from the
“Sonoma.” The “Dawn” I shall long remember as the dirtiest boat I have
ever seen. It runs to Apia, fifty miles away. Apia is controlled by
the Germans, and is much larger than Pago Pago. You may recall that a
good many years ago several gunboats were loafing in Apia harbor when
a great storm came up. Two gunboats belonging to the United States
and two belonging to Germany went ashore, and a good many sailors
were drowned. The incident was one of the big sensations at the time.
Robert Louis Stevenson is buried near Apia, and he wrote that the Samoa
islands furnish the finest climate in the world.... We spent five
hours at Pago Pago, walking about and visiting with the naval officers
and their families. Most of them came to the islands on the “Sonoma,”
and a dozen or more of them dined with us. The government has built a
reservoir in the hills back of the town, and water is piped to all of
the houses occupied by the officers. The naval people were so glad to
see us that they permitted us to fill the ship’s water tanks without
charge. There are two or three American girls visiting married sisters
in Pago Pago, and they told us they had not tired of the place after an
experience of several months. All of them came over on the “Sonoma,”
and they hurried on board to see their friend, the captain. He dined
at the executive mansion. Governor Crose’s lady had peanut soup, and
the captain said it was not only new, but very good. She also had fried
chicken, mashed potatoes, apple salad, and several other things the
captain could not remember when questioned next morning at breakfast,
although he spoke particularly of home-made butter. The governor owns
the cow we saw tied on the hillside near the executive mansion....
Hundreds of the natives were permitted to come on board the “Sonoma.”
Usually they give a dance on the parade ground, and assess the
passengers twenty-five cents each, but the day being Sunday, the
missionaries objected to the usual dance being given. However, Adelaide
and I saw the dance. When we came in from one of our three excursions
on shore, we found sixty or seventy native women and girls in the
ladies’ saloon of the ship, and they were coaxing each other to dance;
it reminded me of a country party when the different guests are coaxed
to sing. Two sailors from the “Princeton” wandered in, and one of them
was coaxed to play the piano for the dancing. He played awhile, but as
no one danced, he finally quit in disgust. Then a native girl, after
much giggling and coaxing, was persuaded to play, and three or four of
the girls danced. Two of them were particularly good; so Adelaide and
I saw the much-discussed Samoan dance, in spite of the missionaries.
But we were the only passengers present; the others were ashore
looking at postal cards. The dance will be given at the approaching San
Francisco exposition, a speculator having arranged already for a Samoan
village. I am certain I saw three hundred natives on board during our
stay at Pago Pago. When I went down to the barber shop to get shaved
before dinner, I found the room packed with native women looking at
the barber’s wares. A ship barber operates a little store, and his
wares include toilet articles, clothing, medicines, confectionery, plug
tobacco, etc. I don’t know that the Samoan women chew plug tobacco,
but I saw a good many of them smoking. By-the-way, the barber on the
“Sonoma” was barber on the “Siberia” when I went to Japan several years
ago.
* * * * *
The afternoon we left Honolulu a new passenger came aboard, and I saw
him first in the smoking-room. He was very plain, and I thought it my
duty to be nice to him. He was agreeable enough, but not much disposed
to talk. Later I learned that he is a member of the British Parliament,
and that he has twenty-eight pieces of luggage. He is traveling with
a doctor, and woman nurse, as he is not well. Ship gossip is to the
effect that he is a son of Sir John Lister, a noted Englishman who
has done much in a scientific way. Listerine was named for Sir John
Lister. I do not see many talk to the British celebrity, except his
doctor. His nurse has been seasick ever since coming on board, and she
cannot be of much use to her employer. The man sits almost opposite
me at the table, and I am satisfied that if anyone should look at him
steadily, he would leave the dining-room. He is very plain, and knows
it, in which respect he is different from Andrew Carnegie. He is known
as “Mr. Lister,” and is going to South Africa to hunt lions. At first,
the passengers picked at him a good deal, but during the long voyage to
Sydney he became one of the most popular men on board, largely because
he is quiet and well-behaved.
* * * * *
One of the passengers is an Australian who lived for a time in
South Africa, and made money in mining. Disposing of his holdings
to advantage, he went to Oregon, and engaged in apple-growing. It
is very interesting to hear him tell of his experiences. He knew
nothing about apple-growing when he went to Oregon, but “picked up”
a practical knowledge of the business through experience. One of his
“experiences” was losing $40,000 in buying a bad orchard. This taught
him caution, and later he made money. His apple-pickers are compelled
to wear gloves, and to twist rather than pull fruit from the trees. His
specialty is buying orchards of shiftless owners, and reviving them. I
heard him say last night that there were two sure ways of making money
in the United States: the best is apple-growing, and the second is
sheep-raising. It interested me greatly to hear that a man might learn
a new business and make a success of it in three or four years, as this
man did in the apple business.... Captain Trask has great contempt
for the modern sailor; he says any old woman of fifty could do the work
of a sailor these days, but in the old days of sailing-ships, seamen
were compelled to work very hard, and their trade was a difficult one.
The sailors on the “Sonoma,” almost without exception, wear blue
overalls, and not the wide pantaloons you associate with sailor-men.
* * * * *
There is a wireless apparatus on board, and every day news of no
importance is posted in the companionway. The night before Christmas,
when we were twenty-four hundred miles out, a good many passengers sent
messages to friends.... When you sit on your porches at home, on
summer evenings, you hear locusts in the trees. Old-fashioned colored
people call them jar-bugs. The wireless, when in operation, sounds
exactly like a locust buzzing: a good many of the passengers have
remarked the similarity. There are two operators, one of whom is always
on duty. One of them is a tall young fellow who does great stunts in
the swimming-pool, and the other looks and talks exactly as Lieutenant
Rowan did when he carried that famous message to Garcia.
* * * * *
We had an enjoyable time at our New Year celebration. First there was
an elaborate dinner, followed by a concert and dance, participated in
by the second-cabin passengers. At the conclusion of the concert, we
all joined hands and sang, “Should Old Acquaintance be Forgot?” When
the dancing began, quadrilles soon became the fashion, and the affair
reminded me of “a good time” among neighbors who had known each other
many years. Most of the talent for the concert was furnished by the
second-cabin, although the best two numbers came from first-class
passengers. Refreshments were passed around, and the gayety continued
until after midnight. Late in the evening, some one tied down the
ship’s big whistle, and the trouble was not located for five minutes.
Members of the crew also got up a grotesque parade, headed by the young
man who blows a cornet three times a day to announce when meals are
ready. Between quadrilles, the passengers stood at the rail, and looked
at the Southern Cross, and found it rather disappointing; near it is a
false cross which looks rather better than the genuine. The Southern
Cross is seen only in the far South, and down here everything in the
heavens is new to Northern eyes. Stars are more numerous than at home,
and the night of the dance the heavens were particularly clear, and the
sea very smooth. Further on, in South Africa, the nights are said to
be so brilliant that it is possible to read comfortably by moonlight.
During the dance and concert, the first-class passengers became so well
acquainted with those in the second-cabin that they now go down to
visit them, which they are at liberty to do, although the second-cabin
passengers cannot come up on our deck without a special invitation
from the captain or purser. Once a week the captain dines in the
second-cabin. The food is about the same in the two dining-rooms, but
our location is amidships, while the second is far aft, and the motion
is more pronounced. The difference in fare is considerable, amounting
to one-quarter or a third.
* * * * *
One of the most interesting men on board is J. L. Dwyer, secretary of
native affairs in American Samoa, and chief district judge. He is on
his way to Sydney, on a vacation. Judge Dwyer has been in Pago Pago
five years. When he arrived, he found a king ruling over the island of
Manua, but he managed to amicably dispose of His Majesty by making him
a district judge. The king lived in a five-room house, and Judge Dwyer
says he was a man of intelligence, and ruled justly, but he abdicated
quietly, and, as district judge, did all he could for his people for
a salary of $25 a month. The king died a year or two ago, but left a
daughter, now twenty years old, who will be married shortly to a white
clerk in a store at Pago Pago. The clerk gave Judge Dwyer $50 with
which to buy a wedding ring in Sydney, and the judge says I may help
select it. I have never before been on equally intimate terms with
royalty.... The Samoan men believe it beneath their dignity to be
annoyed by anything a woman does, so there are almost no quarrels among
them on account of jealousy. But if a Samoan woman becomes jealous of
another woman, trouble may be expected promptly.... The natives
have no income except from the sale of copra, which is the dried meat
of the cocoanut. Traders formerly robbed them unmercifully, so the
United States Government now attends to the selling of copra, without
expense to the natives. The income from this source amounts to $20 per
inhabitant per year.... In going into Pago Pago, we saw a great
many churches; every village seemed to have at least two. Judge Dwyer
says there are too many churches in the islands. Many of the preachers
are natives, and much of the money obtained from copra is sent away to
missionary societies, for evangelistic work in other communities. Five
of our second-cabin passengers were Mormon missionaries for Pago Pago.
The missionaries are thrifty: I was told that every big institution in
the Hawaiian islands is owned by a descendant of the old missionaries.
But there is little in the Samoan islands to develop; almost no
agricultural land, and the little there is (in the vicinity of Apia)
is in the hands of Chinese. At Pago Pago, all vegetables come from San
Francisco, 4,400 miles away. A monthly paper is printed in Pago Pago,
by the government, and distributed gratuitously among the natives. One
column out of eight is devoted to English local news.... In the two
American islands in Samoa there are but four vehicles, and these are
two-wheel carts. There are no agricultural implements, and no farms.
Wealth is calculated by the number of cocoanut trees a man owns. The
trees are worth $5 each, and the nuts from each tree average about $1
per year in value. The waters surrounding the islands produce many food
fish, but the natives do not much care for them. There are a good many
pigs of an inferior breed, and some of these run wild, and are hunted
with dogs. The only other game in the island are wild pigeons, though
there is talk that wild cattle may be found on Tutuila island, a story
Judge Dwyer does not believe. Every little while the natives hunt the
wild cattle, but never find them. Sugar-cane is grown in Samoa, but is
used for no other purpose than to thatch the queer circular houses of
the natives.... A village chief is simply the village mayor, and is
elected annually. Occasionally the elections are very exciting, and
fraud freely resorted to, but in the main the Samoans are a peaceful
people, and fairly honest.... It is impossible to get away from
taxes, and the Samoan head of a family pays 270 pounds of copra as his
annual contribution to the state. This is all used to pay local chiefs,
and none of it goes to the United States.... Communism is practiced
by the people, and when a man earns $20 a month working as a servant
in an American household, he is compelled to divide with members of
his family, but the industrious Samoans are tiring of this plan, and
resort to all sorts of subterfuges to avoid dividing their wages....
Pago Pago is a beautiful place for naval lieutenants to take their
brides, and it was delightful to spend five hours in the American
colony there, but we have no more use for it than we have for Guam, or
the Philippines. The supplies come from San Francisco, and cost a great
deal; coal costs $13 a ton for the cruises of the “Princeton,” but our
government does not receive ten cents a day income from American Samoa.
In our career of conquest in Samoa, we have not robbed the Samoans;
they have robbed us.
* * * * *
At breakfast-time on the morning of December 31, we passed Turtle
island, of the Fiji group. We could see smoke ashore, and that was
about all. The 180th meridian crosses one of these islands, and the
captain says a native has a house on the line. In one end of his house
the day of the week is Thursday, while in the other end it is Friday.
* * * * *
Most of the passengers are English. Among the Americans is a Chicago
doctor named Beeson, who greatly interests me. Dr. Beeson has a son
who is thirty years old, and when the father is away the son attends
to his business, as the son is also a doctor. When the father returns,
the son will take a trip. Harry Clay Blaney and wife, who toured the
country for years in a play called “Across the Pacific,” are also
interesting passengers. Mr. Blaney and his brother Charles operate
theatres in New York, Philadelphia, Brooklyn, Jersey City, and in other
cities, in addition to owning several road shows. Mrs. Blaney is an
actress, but is very domestic, and spends most of her time sitting on
deck doing fancy work.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 5.—We celebrated our approach to Sydney,
Australia, by running into a storm. I have never seen worse weather
at sea. Heavy seas continually broke over the prow, and at breakfast
only one woman appeared in the dining-room. It will surprise you to
learn that this lone woman was Adelaide, the farmer’s daughter. The
gentlemen gave her quite a reception, but I wasn’t there to witness
it: I was sick in bed. Women are very much more subject to seasickness
than men, as a rule.... The night before the storm, we had another
impromptu dance, and Adelaide, who never danced in her life, danced the
lancers with Judge Dwyer, chief judge of American Samoa. There were
two sets, and a good-natured doctor from London called the figures
in an amusing way. I hear it frequently remarked that we have a very
agreeable passenger list; not a disagreeable person on the list. At
the captain’s dinner the captain made another speech, in which he threw
us gorgeous bouquets.
MONDAY, JANUARY 6.—The captain said we should see land on the morning
of the 6th, at 8 o’clock. At almost exactly that hour, land appeared
off the starboard beam (I take this to mean off to the right). When
land first appears at sea, it is very faint, and is only distinguished
from clouds with difficulty. At 10 A. M. we were in plain sight of
Sydney’s famous harbor, and saw other ships entering ahead of us. A
half an hour later, we took on a pilot, and at 11 o’clock we stopped at
quarantine to wait for a doctor. When this official came, we found him
a huge man who would create a sensation in a museum. After the usual
inspection, the “Sonoma” steamed toward her dock, eight miles away,
and we had an opportunity to see the harbor.... In reading, you are
almost constantly in sight of the statement that Sydney has the finest
harbor in the world, and, after you have seen it, you are disposed
to admit the truth of the statement. After passing in from the sea,
a ship travels eight or ten miles to the city docks, and the course
winds around through hills almost large enough to be called mountains.
On either side are bays, and everywhere on top of the hills you see
houses with red tile roofs. Sydney is a city of more than seven hundred
thousand, and has doubled its population in the past twenty-five
years. It is only a question of a few years until Sydney has a million
population, and is destined to become one of the great cities of the
world. Its houses are nearly all built of a native stone of yellow
cast. Through this wonderful harbor we steamed slowly, and finally
landed at noon, as the captain said we would.
TUESDAY, JANUARY 7.—This morning we employed a messenger boy to show
us around Sydney. The boy is fourteen years old, and was educated
in English schools. He talks no other language than English, but we
could not understand half he said: there is this marked difference
in American and English pronunciation. Sydney is an English city,
and its signs are in English, but we do not understand many of them.
Australia is not only an English colony, but the people of its larger
towns have a dialect of their own. Sydney is a fine city, but looks
more like Manchester or Liverpool than it looks like London. There
are no sky-scrapers here, in the American sense; one of the Sydney
newspapers wanted to build a sky-scraper, and occupy it as an office,
but Parliament would not permit it. Everywhere you see American goods,
and signs calling attention to them, and Bud Atkinson’s American Wild
West is giving exhibitions daily in one of the parks. It seemed queer
to me that an exhibition of this character should be granted permission
to exhibit in one of the parks; imagine an Australian Wild West in
Central Park in New York. And I do not recall Bud Atkinson as a noted
American in the Wild West line. This show came over a month ago, in the
ship ahead of ours. I should say a jump of three weeks is a tolerably
big one. This is the summer season here, and the show will return to
the United States in April.... In the fruit stores in Sydney you
see strawberries, cantaloupes, peaches, green corn, tomatoes, etc.
At home you hear a good deal about low prices in Australia. I only
know I paid fifty cents each for cantaloupes, which are known as Rock
Melons here, but they are particularly large and fine. Strawberries
were fifty cents a quart, but they were extra good. I am told that the
people here do not care much for Rock Melons. The melons we bought we
carried to a restaurant, and the woman who served them had never tasted
melons, and thought we had queer taste.... A thing that attracted
our attention in Sydney was an unusually large number of young women.
At one of the bathing-beaches I saw a party of twelve, and nine of
them were young women. We entered Sydney harbor early Monday morning,
and the bathing-beaches were already crowded; there seems to be more
merrymaking here than in American cities. On Monday and Tuesday the
parks were crowded, as were the bathing-beaches. And the parks here
are wonderfully fine, and the zoölogical garden I visited was the best
I have ever seen. The impudent English sparrows may be seen here in
great numbers, and in the parks they enter the cages of rare birds and
rob them of their feed.... Adelaide is very polite, but she says
the people here look funny to her; that it is a constant source of
amusement to her to walk the streets and see the people. She says the
women wear afternoon dresses in the morning, on the street. Along the
docks this morning, we came upon a big crowd witnessing the departure
of a ship. Half the women wore fancy white dresses, and big picture
hats.... The residences here do not seem to be numbered, but each
has a name; a flat with four occupants will have four names, and a
double house will have two. Out in the suburbs, little houses of two
and three rooms will have tremendously big names. And we passed through
miles of suburbs where every house seemed to be new: there is no doubt
that Sydney is growing rapidly.... An attraction here at one of the
theatres is “Faust,” of which America tired years ago. “Marguerite” is
exploited after the fashion of “Little Eva” in an “Uncle Tom” show, and
somehow it looks ridiculous. “Faust” is a ridiculous play, so far as
that goes, and the story of “Marguerite” foolish. One of the bills now
being shown in Sydney represents “Marguerite” being transported alive
into heaven, by angels, in spite of the devil, who is flying along with
the angels, and snorting fire.... We hear in the United States that
there are no labor troubles in Australia; that everything is settled
by arbitration. But I see much more about labor troubles in the Sydney
papers than I ever see in the papers of America. One of the unions now
making trouble is that of the Rabbit Trappers. You may think I made
that up, but I didn’t: there is really such a union here, and it is
just now prominent because of some sort of controversy. Many years ago
rabbits were imported to Australia, to afford sport for the people.
Conditions are so favorable for rabbits here that they soon became a
great pest. Farmers are now compelled to fence against rabbits, and
millions of the animals are caught, frozen, and sent to the London
market.... At least one of the leading newspapers here, _The
Morning Telegraph_, denounces unionism, saying it was originally in the
interest of workingmen, but lately it has become political despotism,
and union labor leaders political adventurers. “Capital,” said _The
Telegraph_, in an editorial this morning, “will leave Australia,
and go where labor is not a political despot.” I do not know of a
leading paper in the United States that would care to print a similar
editorial. Plenty of such editorials are printed in the United States,
but in trade papers, and not in leading daily newspapers.
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 8.—We sailed at noon today for Auckland, New
Zealand, on the ship “Maheno.” It is about the size of the “Sonoma;”
six thousand tons.... We are accomplishing so much by law now
that I suggest the adoption of a law providing that no ship of
less than twelve thousand tons be permitted to carry passengers; a
six-thousand-ton ship is too small. Adelaide drew seat No. 13 at the
table, but I did worse than that: I drew two men in my room. I resent
two men in my room as I do going to jail, but resentment did me no
good; the ship is crowded, and I was compelled to stand it. But what
do you think happened to Adelaide, who occupies seat No. 13 at the
table? She has a room to herself.... One of the men in my room
is a New-Yorker named Bond, an importer who has a branch house in
Sydney. The man with him is one of his traveling salesmen. Mr. Bond
is an old traveler, and has made this trip many times. He hates the
“Maheno,” and predicts a disagreeable experience. He says the “Maheno”
can kick up a rough sea when the weather is fine, and that there is
nothing commendable about the boat except that it usually gets across
in a little less than four days.... You can never know what it
means to be crowded until you have been one of three in a steamship
stateroom. It was a disagreeable experience, getting to bed, which
we attempted at 8:30, as the weather was rough. After I was in bed
with my two roommates, I began thinking: “Suppose one of them should
snore!” I am a bad sleeper at best, and the thought of a snoring man
in my room all night set my nerves on edge.... The opportunity was
too good to be neglected. Mr. Bond and his friend talked business
awhile, another thing I am not accustomed to in my sleeping-room, and
then Mr. Bond began snoring. For years, people around me have paid
attention to my nerves, because I am a bad sleeper, and I resented this
snoring as a spoilt child does when whipped by a neighbor. I stood it
until midnight, and then I crawled out of bed, found a bath-robe and
slippers, and spent the night on a sofa in the music-room.