are in sight of land, but if there has been any in sight today I have
not seen it. There was a rain-storm this morning, but it soon passed
away. This is our fifth day out, but the sea has been remarkably
smooth; I have never seen it equally gracious, either on the Pacific
or the Atlantic. We have not had enough motion to disturb the weakest
stomach, and I shall always remember the Indian ocean with gratitude.
The weather has been hot, but usually we can find enough breeze to
be comfortable. A good many slept on deck last night, finding their
cabins stuffy.... The leader of the band and orchestra is a waiter
in the dining-room. I cannot understand why a man able to lead a very
good orchestra with a violin, and a very good band with a cornet, is
compelled to work as a waiter. The bass player in both organizations
is our table steward, and he is very capable, although he cannot speak
a word of English.... There are eight at our table. One was born in
France, one in Alsace-Lorraine, one in Scotland, one in England, one
in Wales, one in Spain, and two in America. One of the ladies traveled
three years in India and two in Australia, with a circus owned by
her husband, and did a riding act. She is now a widow, and conducts
a riding-school in Johannesburg. One of the men is a Johannesburg
electrical engineer, on his way to America to study late developments
in the science. Another is Sammy Marks, a theatrical manager, who will
shortly open a new theatre at Nairobi, British East Africa. This town
is 350 miles inland from Mombasa, and on the way there he will pass by
rail through as good a game country as there is in Africa. His wife
looks and talks like an American girl, and, being accused of it by me,
replied that she was glad of it. She was born in Paris, but has lived
in Africa since she was a little girl. Still another man at our table
is the Frenchman before referred to, one of the politest and oddest
characters I have ever known. He is an automobile agent, and told me
that on his present trip he sold eighty-five machines in Africa. He
doesn’t like the Germans on the ship, and makes them all the trouble
he possibly can. One day at dinner he ordered fish, and six different
kinds of meat, which he nibbled at, and sent away. He always drinks
two kinds of wine at dinner, and sometimes three. He keeps the waiter
so busy that the others at the table complain of neglect. The food
on the “Burgermeister” is surprisingly good and abundant.... I
suppose there was never a chief steward on an ocean-going vessel who
was not a mean man. He it is who must say “no” when passengers become
unreasonable. When a woman complains to a retail grocer of one of his
clerks, the grocer sides with the woman, but at heart he believes
the clerk was right. It is the same way when a passenger complains
to the captain of the chief steward: the captain is sympathetic, but
believes the steward is right. Our chief steward is a big, good-natured
man, and while we are all in league against him, we are disposed to
like him. The captain is not only the youngest man I have ever seen
in command of a ship, but the best-looking. The chief officer is not
over thirty years old. All the members of the crew are young, and
speak enough English to “get along” after a fashion with the English
passengers. One woman ordered a cup of tea, and the waiter brought
her two bottles of whisky, opened. Another woman ordered a plate of
crackers, and the waiter brought her a whisky and soda. These are
cases you hear of; I have had no trouble, and congratulate myself
that I chose a German ship instead of an English one. There is a
quiet gentility about the passengers I greatly admire. I heard before
coming on board that there would be no English-speaking passengers.
Nearly all of them speak English, and the bill of fare is printed in
English, as well as in German. The African trip is not an advisable
one, owing to the great distances, but anyone who makes it in spite
of my advice to the contrary, should go home by the East Coast in a
German boat.... There are a large number of young men on board,
and all of them well-behaved. There are only two girls on board,
and only ten women altogether. The orchestra plays every night, and
there is usually dancing; the five dancing women receive a lot of
attention.... The feeling between the English and Germans is more
intense than I expected to find it. When an Englishman asked me what
would be the attitude of the United States in case of war between
Germany and England, I was amused, but since then a dozen have asked
me the same question. They all seem to think the United States
should assist the English. On one of the ships of the German East
Africa line, a few weeks ago, there was an incident which might have
precipitated the long-talked of war between Germany and England. Among
the passengers were several Englishmen; one of them with a title. On
this line it is a habit among the women to drink coffee after dinner
in the smoking-room. The Englishmen did something that was considered
offensive by the German women, and, the captain hearing of it, he
promptly called the Englishmen to account. The Englishmen were furious;
particularly the one with a title. He said the women had no business
in the smoking-room; that he had done nothing offensive, and would not
be corrected by anyone, captain or no captain. The captain also had
a temper, and he replied that if a titled Englishman didn’t know the
ordinary rules of politeness, he would teach him. The two men glared
at each other a few moments, and the incident was closed, but it
might easily have resulted in serious trouble; if the captain had put
Sir Thomas in irons, an international complication might have arisen
speedily. The Germans have hasty tempers, and are slow to apologize;
the same thing may be said of the English, and both have a very good
opinion of their fighting ability; with Germany rather in the lead
in conceit, since the Boer war.... This morning the band played a
selection which closed with “God Save the King.” Two Englishmen who sat
near me, arose to their feet, and stood until the hymn was finished.
Yesterday the band played “The Watch on the Rhine,” but the Germans
paid no attention to it; they did not even applaud. Last night the band
played “The American Patrol,” closing with “The Star-Spangled Banner,”
but the two Americans on board paid the air no special attention....
A printed notice was placed on the bulletin board this afternoon,
stating that Law mass will be celebrated in the ladies’ parlor next
Sunday, at 10:30 A. M. There was great curiosity to know the meaning of
Law mass. Being a printer, and accustomed to the mistakes of printers,
I was able to solve the riddle: the printer should have set up the
word “low” instead of “law.” The mystery was nothing more than a
typographical error.... There is a bride and groom on board, and the
fact that one or the other is sulking most of the time has attracted a
good deal of attention.... One passenger has attracted everyone’s
admiration because he is a fine walker. Most people walk in a very
awkward manner, but this man, a Portuguese count, walks with so much
grace as to attract compliments.... At 9 o’clock tonight we came to
Zanzibar, and were at once surrounded by the usual crowd of screaming
boatmen. Near us was anchored the steamer for Bombay, and the Hindu
deck passengers packed up and departed. I shall miss them every morning
when I look out of my window; they came to know me, I was so close a
neighbor. The Hindu juggler was my favorite: he had a far-away look
that would have become a mystic. The big negro Mohammedan who took so
much pride in his prayers also stood high in my estimation, as he was a
very dignified and quiet man. I went down to the gang-plank, and said
good-by to these two as they disembarked carrying their pans and pots,
and boxes and bundles.... Some of the passengers went ashore, but
I remained and listened to the band concert, and watched the unusual
scene of activity about the ship. The men engaged in unloading are
mainly Mohammedan negroes, and they make more noise and do less work
than any other workmen I know anything about. They not only scream all
the time, but keep up a sort of song. At intervals they all quit the
work on which they are engaged and clap their hands in unison.
SATURDAY, APRIL 12.—Zanzibar is unusual in many ways, but not as
unusual as I expected it to be. I measured several of its streets this
morning, and found them nine feet wide. These were mainly residence
streets; the principal business streets are a little wider, and
automobiles run in them. I met a gentleman named Hay in Zanzibar, an
official of the cable company, and called at his home several times.
He lives in the queerest house I have ever seen. It fronts on the sea,
and was built and occupied many years by an Arab gentleman. The house
is enormous in size, and some of its rooms must be thirty or forty feet
square; it amused me immensely to see a dining-table, set for two, in
the centre of the enormous dining-room; Mr. Hay has no children, and
he and his wife are the sole occupants of the big house, except that
four native servants slip about as quietly as mice. In the centre
of the house is an enormous court, open to the sunlight, and when I
visited the place we used to run across this, to avoid sunstroke. The
bath-room of the house is another large room, with a depression and
drain in the cement floor; every floor in the house is of cement and
the walls of rough stucco plastered outside and inside. The water
for bathing is carried to the Hay home by negro women, and for this
service they receive three shillings a month, or seventy-two cents.
The women carry the water on their heads, in Standard Oil tins, and
have the best figures in the world, because of their habit of carrying
loads on their heads. In the Hay house, as in all the other homes
in Zanzibar, there is a roof garden, where the dwellers go when the
nights are excessively hot. The Hay servants receive $1.25 a month,
and board themselves. Mr. Hay told me they were great thieves; most
of the other white people I met in Africa spoke highly of the honesty
of the blacks. The approach to the house is a crooked street nine
feet wide, and the front door an elaborate affair of bronze. An Arab
invests a great deal of his money in his front door, as river pilots
are said to invest most of their money in watch chains. This queer,
rambling house rents for $20 a month. While sitting on its veranda,
looking out to sea, a warship lying only a few hundred yards away
fired a salute of a dozen guns, and caused Adelaide to scream, as
the guns were pointed directly at us.... Mr. Hay has lived on the
edge of the east fifteen or twenty years, as an employee of the cable
company, and says that in his bachelor days he never shaved or put on
socks except when a ship was expected in the harbor. The arrival of a
ship in these far-away places is a big event to the white residents,
as they nearly always dine aboard, and hear gossip from home....
Zanzibar, the town, is not as large as I expected to find it. I don’t
know how many blacks are scattered over Zanzibar island, which is 50
miles long and 25 broad, but the total white population amounts to less
than one hundred and fifty. Of white women and girls, there are only
fifteen; and all of them smoke cigarettes, one citizen told me. When I
meet a woman over here who smokes cigarettes, I am usually told that
her husband is coaxing her to quit the habit. While in Zanzibar, the
subject of women smoking cigarettes came up, and several men said to
me: “My sisters never smoke; they would as soon think of cutting their
throats.” I have rarely known a woman cigarette-smoker who did not
tell me that her husband objected. Nice women smoke, but they would be
nicer if they didn’t. Cigarette-smoking in women seems to be associated
more or less with drinking: I sat in a party one night, at one of our
stopping-places, and one woman drank five highballs, in addition to
smoking nearly a box of cigarettes.... There is one narrow, crooked
street in Zanzibar which is occupied entirely by Hindus. The street is
so narrow that a carriage cannot be driven through it, and the shops
of the tradesmen are very small; a merchant may sit in the middle of
his shop, and reach everything it contains. Many of the occupants
of the street are jewelers, and manufacture very wonderful articles
with very simple tools. Leading off the street referred to are other
narrow streets, and there is nothing more curious in Cairo or Delhi.
Prices are actually very high in Zanzibar, unless you haggle with the
merchants. One woman who was asked $35 for a cat’s-eye, finally paid
$5 for it; another was asked $7.50 for an opal, and got it for $1.25.
A professional horse-trader might do well as a shopper in Zanzibar,
but the ordinary traveler is robbed. In San Francisco are curio stores
displaying eastern goods five times larger than any similar store in
Zanzibar. And in San Francisco the one-price system prevails. There
are still larger stores in New York for the sale of curious things
of Japanese, Indian or Chinese manufacture, and the merchants are
reliable, whereas if you attempt to buy anything in Zanzibar, you
usually deal with a rogue.... I had an automobile ride in Zanzibar
I shall always remember. We drove across the island, a distance of
twenty-four miles, and were almost constantly passing through native
villages. The natives of Zanzibar seem to be more prosperous than the
other negroes we have seen, and they have adopted all the customs of
the strange races they meet here. Everywhere we saw negro women hiding
their faces behind veils, a custom learned from the Hindus. We also saw
negro women with gold buttons in their noses, rings on their toes, and
bracelets on their ankles; they had seen these customs practiced by
other women, and adopted them, without any particular reason.... I
believe I saw more cocoanut trees on Zanzibar island than I ever before
saw anywhere; and everywhere the people were preparing copra, the
dried meat of the cocoanut. Copra produces an oil used in soap-making,
and is in brisk demand. Wherever we go here we get the disagreeable
smell of copra; it reminds one of very rancid butter.... We also
passed through many miles of clove trees. Ninety per cent of all the
cloves produced in the world are raised on Zanzibar island, where
conditions are just right. Cloves are widely used in the manufacture
of perfumes; in nearly every perfume is a little of the oil of clove.
The clove trees are eighteen to twenty-five feet high, and do not
look unlike orange trees. The crop is gathered by native women and
children, and finds its way to every portion of the world. The island
of Zanzibar is not unlike the island of Ceylon, of which it reminded
me. Rice is extensively grown, and the banana and mango flourish, as
do mosquitoes, malaria, donkeys, goats, and the inclination to go
naked all the year ’round. Returning from the automobile trip, we were
late, and the driver, a Hindu, tore like mad through the streets of
the native villages. We lit our lamps at a native village, and entered
Zanzibar after nightfall. Riding through the narrow streets of this old
town after night, in an automobile, was an experience I shall always
remember, for Zanzibar reminds every visitor of the towns described in
“The Arabian Nights.” It is a typical Arabian town, and there seems to
be a mystery and a romance behind every door. The town was ruled for
hundreds of years by a Sultan, until the English took charge. There is
still a sultan, who receives a salary from the English government, but
some day he will be deposed, and there will be no further pretense of
a Sultan having anything to do with the government. The old palace of
the Sultan—an ugly affair which looks like a boarding-house—is used for
offices by the British. Near the palace is the harem, now deserted,
since the present Sultan has but one wife. The Sultan who had trouble
with the English was educated in England, and spent much of his time,
and all of his revenues, in Paris. One day an English gunboat sailed
into the harbor, and the captain told the gay Sultan that he had been
ousted. The Sultan resented the high-handed proceeding, and sent word
to the defenders of his dignity to sink the English gunboat and put
the insolent captain in the dungeon. There was an old fort near the
palace, on the walls of which were mounted a few rusty iron cannon. The
defenders of the Sultan tried to fire these at the English gunboat, but
they burst, one by one, and almost wiped out the Sultan’s defensive
force. The captain of the English gunboat then began dropping shells
into the palace, and, with one solid shot, sank the Sultan’s navy: a
small vessel which carried four guns. The last remnants of this wreck
were being removed from the harbor the day I was at Zanzibar....
Near the middle of the town is a place called “The Gardens.” It was
formerly the bathing resort of the wives of the Sultan. The place
is now used as a town hall, and I went there with Sammy Marks, the
theatrical manager, who wished to engage it for an attraction. He paid
twelve shillings for the use of the hall. Dances are also held in the
hall; the bathing-pool is covered with planks when the hall is rented.
On other days, the bathing-pool, formerly the resort of the Sultan’s
wives, is used by the school-boys, and scattered around the hall I saw
a good many pieces of gymnastic apparatus.... Our summer weather is
never as hot as the hot weather of Africa. Whenever we go ashore we
carry a sunshade, and, with that protection, suffer more from heat than
we ever suffer at home.... After our return from the automobile
trip, Mr. and Mrs. Hay were our guests for dinner on the ship. They
remained until nearly midnight, listening to the band concert, and
“visiting.” Their boatman was anxious to go ashore, but Mr. Hay dared
him to; there is a law here that a native boatman who takes a passenger
out to a ship, must wait until the passenger is ready to return....
This afternoon we drank tea with an English official on the other side
of the island. The official invited in several other Englishmen and
their wives. The Englishmen were very polite, but I have never felt
more uncomfortable in my life. I didn’t know when we started on the
automobile ride that there was to be a function; it was arranged as an
agreeable surprise by Mrs. Hay. I am sure the polite Englishmen enjoyed
the parting as much as we did.... Dozens of native guides came on
board last night and this morning, offering their services. Most of
them had big names; one called himself George Washington, another
Abraham Lincoln, another Oliver Cromwell, etc. But one quiet, modest
negro said to the passengers:
“Me Poor Charley.”
And Poor Charley was a favorite; everyone who needed a guide tried to
engage him.
SUNDAY, APRIL 13.—England and Germany are not far apart in East Africa.
We left Zanzibar, which is in British territory, at 5 A. M. this
morning. Four hours later we were in Dar-es-Salaam, the capital of
German East Africa. I shall remember this place particularly because
the ship entered its harbor through an entrance which did not seem to
be more than two hundred feet wide in one place, and because of the
great number of Germans who came aboard, and remained all day, and
nearly all night, drinking beer and singing songs. Most of our German
visitors wore uniforms; Germany uses more uniforms than any other
country in the world, population considered. We went ashore at 9 A. M.,
and found a very pretty modern town with the usual fifty blacks to one
white. There is a hotel at this place which is considered a wonder, and
a good many of the passengers went there for lunch or dinner....
All the time we were walking about, black ricksha boys followed us,
and finally they proved a blessing when a rain came up; we entered the
vehicles, and went to the hotel, where we found a lot of our passengers
drinking beer on the verandas.... Cocoanut trees grow in great
profusion here, and on one I counted fifty-four nuts. I have always had
a notion that four or five nuts is a pretty good average for a cocoanut
tree.
MONDAY, APRIL 14.—We have been in three different towns today:
Dar-es-Salaam, Zanzibar, and Tanga. We left Dar-es-Salaam at daylight,
and stopped at Zanzibar for the mails at about 10 A. M., remaining an
hour. Several of our friends came on board, but none of the passengers
went ashore. Dozens of Indian merchants came out to the ship, and
worked rapidly, as they expected the whistle to blow any moment. The
passengers also shopped rapidly, having heard that goods might be had
at low prices during this brief shopping period. Hundreds of purchases,
mostly of useless trifles, were made. Most travelers are as particular
to buy presents for all their friends as they are to remember them at
Christmas-time. When the whistle finally blew, there was a scramble
of merchants and their assistants to get into the little boats, and
one man was compelled to jump and swim for it. Many of the passengers
ordered clothing of the Zanzibar tailors, on Saturday, which was
delivered today. A pants and coat of white duck, so generally worn
here, cost $2.50 for the best quality, and as low as $1.75 a suit for
lighter material. The ladies also ordered skirts, and the charge was
$2.25.... At 11 A. M. we left Zanzibar, and six hours later were at
Tanga, also in German East Africa. We have made very little progress in
the last three days, our time being devoted to loading freight. But I
think we took on most of all at Tanga. All through the night the steam
winches were going, and they did not cease work until after breakfast.
One gang of men slept while the other worked. The forward winches are
not many feet from my cabin window, and all through the night there
was a tremendous racket, but, greatly to my surprise, I slept fairly
well.... The usual uniformed Germans came on board at Tanga, and
visited our officers. At Dar-es-Salaam and Tanga every vacant berth
on the ship was filled with a German, and several are sleeping in the
music-room. Five of the new passengers are babies, and several of the
others are Kaffir nurses. One of these nurses is a man with whiskers,
and certainly six feet high. To see him caring for a baby is very
amusing. Still another new passenger is a Kaffir girl, a nurse, but
she is so scantily dressed that she has been refused the run of the
upper decks.... A young German girl left the ship at Tanga, and we
hear she is engaged to the ship doctor. Their love affair has been the
subject of much gossip, and when the girl left for shore in a small
boat she wept bitterly. Bets of two to one are freely offered that the
engagement will not result in marriage.... There is general relief
because a young bull, which has been on board ever since we left Beira,
departed on a scow at Tanga, after being lifted over the sides by the
steam winches. The bull seemed to understand that he was about to get
rid of his long confinement in a narrow box, and behaved very decently
while being unloaded.... The trip up the east coast of Africa is
distinguished because of its many stops, but this makes it a long trip.
We are becoming tired, and did not go ashore at Tanga.
TUESDAY, APRIL 15.—There must be a tremendous amount of cargo on this
boat. We ceased loading at Tanga at 9 o’clock this morning, and at 5
P. M. began again at Mombasa. At 5:15 we went down the stairway at
the side of the ship, and a fight began among the boatmen over our
patronage. The negro crew of row-boat No. 5 won, and we went ashore,
stopping on the way at the “Adolph Woerner,” lying in the harbor.
Landing, we walked a block to the street-railway, which is one of
the queer affairs called a “trolley” over here, although there is no
trolley. The street-railway runs from the port, called Killindini, to
Mombasa, a mile and a half away, and only handcars, pushed by native
men, are operated. There is a double track, with branches to every
important section of Mombasa. Every citizen of importance owns one
or more handcars, called “trolleys,” and these are lifted off the
track when not in use, and you see them standing everywhere about the
town. The fare up-town by trolley is not five cents, as is the case
in the United States, where the people are mercilessly robbed by the
corporations; the fare is forty-eight cents per passenger, after 6 P.
M., and twenty-four cents during the day. Three men pushed our trolley,
and, when they came to a piece of down-hill track, they all rode. We
had employed a black boy as guide at the landing, at thirty-six cents
an hour, and when we struck an up-hill piece of track, the guide also
helped push. Thus with four men we got along very well, and were soon
in the heart of old Mombasa, said to have been besieged oftener than
any other town in the world; which is a pretty good story, if true, for
there is fairly accurate authority for the statement that Jerusalem
has been besieged and taken fifty times.... The trolley system of
Mombasa stops at the postoffice; we left our car there, and walked
into the old part of the town. In Zanzibar the streets were crooked,
but in the old section of Mombasa the buildings seem to have been
built without any order whatever. There are no streets; only spaces
between the buildings, and these are very narrow. The inhabitants
of the section through which we passed at about 6 P. M. are mainly
people from India, and thousands of children were playing about the
narrow passages, or in the quaint shops, which were almost as small as
shops set up by children at play. It was almost dark, and the usual
illumination in the average shop was a lantern. The shopkeepers wore
turbans, and all sorts of strange clothing, and there was a touch of
every country except the country I am most familiar with. I could not
have named one-tenth of the articles displayed in the shops, and in
one place a phonograph was playing Hindu airs as strange to me as the
old town of Mombasa. We went to a market where hundreds of people were
quarreling over food prices, and where the people seemed to come out
of foreign books rather than out of real life. Occasionally we came
across a wholesale house, and in the offices of these we saw Hindus
working at typewriters. Drinking-shops abounded, and out of these came
drunken men who leered at us impudently and curiously. There were a
good many native hotels with guests sitting idly about. Mothers ran
everywhere hunting their children, and the streets, not much wider
than our sidewalks, were crowded with jabbering, gesticulating men
and women who seemed to us to be rather ill-natured.... We passed
an old fort which looked as large as Edinburgh castle, in Scotland;
Mombasa is a big town, and prosperous, and its institutions are on
a large scale. The guide said there was a still more interesting
fort fifteen minutes away, and we went there by trolley. The fort
is situated on the seashore, and only a ruin, but it looked very
interesting in the moonlight. The old cannon used in defense of the
place, I don’t know how many centuries ago, were still looking grimly
out of ruined portholes, and just below the portholes the waves were
tumbling noisily, as if anxious to climb up the rocks and complete the
ruin of the place. Near the old fort was a lighthouse, flashing its
signals out to sea, and directly in front of the lighthouse was the
wreck of a steamship. The tide was out, and we went on board for a few
minutes. There is probably nothing which so completely depicts ruin
and desolation as a wrecked ship, lying on its side, and stripped of
everything of value by vandals and the sea. We also climbed up to the
lighthouse tower, and the keeper showed us the mechanism. It was the
first lighthouse I have ever inspected at close quarters; usually they
are located on rocks hard to get to.... When we went back to town,
neither English nor German money would satisfy the trolley-boys, so I
went into the shop of a money-changer, and paid twelve cents for enough
Indian rupees to satisfy my creditors. The three trolley-boys who had
taken us to the old fort took us to the landing, at a breakneck speed.
One of the three rode all the time, and they relieved each other at the
work of pushing. When the grade was down hill, they all rode. Down one
long hill we must have traveled at the rate of thirty miles an hour.
When we left the trolley, we were seized upon by a boatman who had
wandered from the landing to get the first chance at ship passengers
returning from town.