Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
On page 128, the sentence starting "I did not," may be missing words.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
A YANKEE
IN
THE FAR EAST
A YANKEE
IN
THE FAR EAST
BY
GEORGE HOYT ALLEN
_Author of "It Tickled Him"_
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
H. S. WELLER
CLINTON, N. Y.
TRAVELOGUE-ART ASSOCIATION
INCORPORATED
1916
_Copyright, 1914_
BY TRAVELOGUE-ART ASSOCIATION, INC.
_Copyright, 1915_
BY TRAVELOGUE-ART ASSOCIATION, INC.
_All rights reserved_
SECOND EDITION
To my Friend
J. WHITFIELD HIRST
CONTENTS
PAGE
Author's Preface 1
I. War Hell and Bull Fights 7
II. "Missouri" and His False Teeth 17
III. Wong Lee--The Human Bellows 28
IV. Hawaii--and the Fisherman Who'd Sign the Pledge 33
V. The Umpire Who Got a Job 44
VI. The Japs' Five-Story Skyscraper _and_ a Basement 53
VII. Japanese Girls in American Clothes--They Mar the
Landscape 59
VIII. Ceremonious Grandmother--"Missouri" a "Heavenly Twin" 64
IX. Ushi the Rikisha Man 79
X. Missionaries, Tracts, and a Job Worth While 91
XI. Yamamoto and High Cost of Living 99
XII. The Soldier Said Something in Chinese 103
XIII. Ten Thousand Tons on a Wheelbarrow and the Ananias
Club 114
XIV. "Missouri" Meets a Missionary 120
XV. A Sto-o-rm at Sea 133
XVI. The Islands "Discovered" by Dewey 138
XVII. White Filipinos, Aguinaldo, and the Busy Moth 147
XVIII. Singapore--The Humorist's Close Call 156
XIX. The Hindu Guide a Saint Would Be 168
XX. Penang--A Bird, the Female of Its Species, and the
Mangosteen 172
XXI. Burma and Buddha 176
XXII. Baptists and Buddhism 181
XXIII. The Rangoon Business Man Who Drove His Sermon Home 185
XXIV. The Glass of Ice-Water That Jarred Rangoon 188
XXV. The Calcutta Sacred Bull and His Twisted Tail 194
XXVI. The Guide Who Wouldn't Sit in "Master's" Presence 201
XXVII. Royalty vs. "Two Clucks and a Grunt" 206
XXVIII. One Wink, Sixteen Cents, and Royalty 210
XXIX. The Englishman and Mark Twain's Joke, "That's How
They Wash in India" 215
XXX. English as "She Is Spoke" in India 223
XXXI. Five Days' Sail and a Measly Poem 225
XXXII. Beating the Game With One Shirt 240
XXXIII. Through Hell Gate Steerage 257
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
I found myself jammed in with the cruelest, most
blood-thirsty, cut-throat gang I've ever seen 11
They tortured three yesterday, but I was more than satisfied
with one, when I left them to their sport 15
"You see, Mr. Allen, I got those teeth to please my wife" 20
"When I didn't have them in my wife was giving me Hail
Columbia" 24
"With a mouthful of victuals I'd find myself chewing those
false teeth with my other teeth" 26
"Wong," I said, "how fashion you talkee so?
"No can slmoke stlate loom!
"No tlouble slmoke stlate loom. Can slmoke stlate loom easy,
see?" 29
My great fear was that before we landed at Yokohama Wong
would surely burst in his efforts to keep the smoke in my
state room blown out of the porthole 31
I snitched it from a folder put out by the Hawaiian
Promotion Society 37
A fellow tied up that way can't come to the Hawaiian Islands
to live 39
Just one look at that fish and he'd yell and drop fish, line
and pole right back in the pond 41
You wouldn't expect to find any kickers in the Islands 43
But I'll bet it would make it shy 47
I won't say it would scare a locomotive off the tracks 48
Author's illustration 49
Believe me, that umpire could make anyone see 51
They have the taxicab, but someone else had it during my
three days' stay 55
While you're working out the problem your car passes 57
She is a part of the landscape that way. She fits in and
makes me glad 62
Pained! Grieved! Shocked! were too mild words. I was
disappointed in "Missouri" 65
"Lord, Mr. Allen, I'm glad to see you," he said, as the
machine stopped 67
We S. O. S.'d Yokohama for four hours with that saki house
telephone 73
That surely was some bow 76
But Ushi's card had pulled a customer 81
"Ushi, what for you mope? Didn't I make a deal with you last
night to be my rikisha boy today? Hitch on behind and push,
Ushi" 87
With reckless abandon I had decided to blow myself for a
whole dollar, and twenty-five cents for ten hours' horse and
carriage hire 88
That missionary seemed to exude tracts--I didn't know one
missionary could hold so many 93
Except potato bugs, I always want to poison them 97
He said to have a foreigner as a guest at his humble home
would bring around his house such a crowd of curious
neighbors 100
I felt a good deal better after what I'd said, and I think
what the soldier said made a hit with him 110
With a mighty bound I landed in that man's arms 112
"Dr. 'Blank'," I said, "you're the one man in China I'm
looking for. I have a warrant for your arrest" 113
The chance acquaintances would cast significant glances and
cough 115
There _are_ some Americans whom even a Shanghai wheelbarrow
don't particularly interest 121
"Women who are interested in foreign missions and preachers
in our town set quite a store by me" 123
"For about a minute, as I looked at what was in front of me,
I couldn't think of anything but the two of diamonds" 126
"Humph!" snorted "Missouri," "he said, 'You've probably
gathered your information of the missionary work in the Far
East from your bar-room associates'" 129
As we jounced along over the bridge in front of our hotel on
a Shanghai wheelbarrow 131
Word has come to me that some of my readers are disappointed
that I shied at a description of seasickness, but instead
went off on a tangent about false teeth 134
Astride the bowsprit, pen in hand, writing a sto-o-rm at sea 137
Admiral George Dewey of the American Navy discovered these
islands May 1st, 1898 140
I hit a prominent official in Washington for a free pass on
a transport to the Philippines 144
You cannot starve these people; they live in a land of
perpetual summer 148
There is not another city in Japan, China, or India that can
equal it in cleanliness 150
The chief industry of the owners of the shacks is to roost
in them out of the sun and rain 152
Ye gods! Tell a Singapore official to his face that you are
going to shake the town! 159
I swelled out my chest and swaggered away and thought I was
_funny_ 161
The "funny man" gently lifted the derby from the dozing
passenger's head and set his own sombrero in its place 163
"And dommed if I didn't thank him twice when I should 'ave
punched his 'ead" 166
No matter what the hole you're in, there is a deeper one 167
And now there _is_ something to write about--the mangosteen 174
Would be like going to Venice and not having your picture
taken with the doves roosting all over you 189
The only thing of note in the whole transaction is the boy's
self-satisfied air of having done his whole duty 192
She said: "I wish I were a flying fish, o'er ocean's
sparkling waves to sail" 195
"Twist his tail," I said, "that will start him" 197
"You stay where you belong. I'll do the sacred bull business
around this neck of the woods" 199
Get that? Royalty, don't you know 203
It's hard lines to pour out money in this way on Lal--but
Royalty is expensive anyway 205
"Of course I don't," I came back at him. "You stung me the
last trip across India" 208
Lal tells the string of porters to put "Master's" baggage
into the compartment--no matter how much, put it all in,
boxes, bags, bedding, and trunks 212
The town turned out _en masse_ to hear me talk 216
The coffee began to boil in the church kitchen, the aroma
floated through the auditorium 218
That old joke about the English being slow is no joke--it's
a sad fact 220
And every time the Englishman has explained to me that he
wasn't trying to break the stone 221
Home loomed large in my mind--I wanted to go home 226
Just like committing suicide 229
He had been filled as full, if not fuller, than myself 230
To write that invoice all over again * * * to get out of
that was the determining factor 233
With my teeth chattering with valor 235
Anxiously watching specks in the horizon 238
We do, on occasions, don it 241
I've attended twenty-two "he" tea parties on this voyage 245
No hope of being sunk before dinner 247
I turned that shirt around 248
I felt like a thief in that shirt 251
With my jack-knife to rip and some puckering strings I went
at it 253
I turned that shirt upside down 254
Also, _I_ finally accepted his apology 255
"You're a third-class passenger on this ship"--and further
conversation with me seemed to give him a pain 264
He swore like a pirate 271
"It _is_ hard when they loiter, isn't it?" 274
And "Beef" came in 279
And those pants did look bad. There was no doubt about that 281
"If Mr. Allen says I have insulted women, he's a liar" 284
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
There are so many ways suggested these days by the various periodicals
on how to make money at home, it would seem that all ingenuity in that
direction must be exhausted; but how to make money abroad seems to me
to be almost a virgin field.
New pastures have always interested me, and if I can add to the sum of
human happiness by a wise suggestion, and point the way to satisfy an
almost universal longing to see the world,--for instance, if I can
show how one can make a luxurious world tour and come out ahead of the
game while doing it,--I shall be only too glad.
It's no new trick to _beat_ one's way around the world with the
hardships attending such an enterprise, but to tell how to do it in
ease and luxury surely ought to earn me the gratitude of my
fellow-men.
Get a bunch of pencils and some pads of paper and announce to a
waiting editorial world that you are about to take a trip around the
globe, and that you propose to write some letters of travel and
syndicate them. That, for a consideration, you'll let some good papers
print 'em.
Don't be modest about naming a good round price for the consideration
of letting your papers in. Because you'll need the money.
All editors you'll find are hankering for letters of travel.
Letters of travel are a novelty. The first editor you call on early in
the morning, say about ten o'clock (that's early enough to get to work
in this new enterprise I'm tipping you off to--gone is grinding toil
and worry--let others moil), this first editor of some big daily (big
dailies are the easiest)--don't be timid--brace right up to him, and
give him your proposition in a nutshell--easy-like--right off the bat.
It will be a pleasure to you to watch him brighten up at your offer.
Managing editors of big dailies are hard-worked men.
Atlas' job (merely physical) is easy compared with the mental strain
and worry the managing editor of a big daily paper is subjected to
these days.
You'll find him feeling the need of something--it's travel dope.
Don't be too arbitrary with him when he inquires in a tentative,
anxious way, as he is about to affix his signature on the dotted line
in your contract: "Of course no other paper in our town gets these
letters?"
Assure him he will have exclusive use in his town. One paper in a town
is enough, if you select the biggest and best one.
If (an almost impossible contingency) there should be any hesitancy on
the part of the editor in grabbing your offer, if it seems to you that
the price may be giving him pause, don't make the mistake of cutting
the price. Tell him you may (don't promise for sure,--it won't be
necessary,--a hint will be enough), tell him you may run a little
poetry into your letters--that poetry comes easy for you to write--a
sort of a fambly gift.
Don't stall, for fear you can't write poetry. You can do it if you
think you can. It's dead easy.
Newspapers are just crazy for poetry--so crazy for it that lots of
them will buy it when every line don't begin with a capital--where the
poet ends a sentence right in the middle of a line, puts a period
there, and just to beat the compositor out of a little fat starts a
new verse after that period.
Why, they will buy poetry where the reader will get half through the
piece before he discovers that it _is_ poetry, and after he has caught
the swing he will start at the top and begin over, and go clear to the
end every time, and feel good over it.
This is where this kind of poetry differs from patent medicine
advertisements.
In the latter, when the poet begins to advise the use of a new brand
of pills, when the poet's ulterior motive begins to crop out, you stop
reading, get mad, and want to swat the poet.
The paper gets paid for printing the pill poem. It is in cahoots with
the poet to put one over on the public, but it pays money for the kind
of poetry I have described.
I'm glad I thought to post you about the poetry, because it's just
barely possible that the editor may be contemplating a trip himself,
in which case his paper won't want your stuff,--_he_ will send in some
articles; or that his brother, or his sister, or his cousin, or his
aunt, all of them gifted writers, are now on the bounding billows, en
route for foreign parts, armed with pencils and pads; or that even now
one of the paper's big advertisers is in Europe, and some travel stuff
he is writing is just beginning to arrive and space must be found for
it somewhere (it's just barely possible, I say barely, that that is
one of the editor's problems as you drop in on him at 10 A. M.), so
don't forget about the poetry.
This is important, because if you do, in all probability the next issue
of that paper will have a scoop in a news story headed:--"Mysterious
and Brutal Murder! Unknown Man Found Mutilated Beyond All Possibility
of Identification! No Clue to the Perpetrators!"
So, after you've made your offer, and before the editor has time to
draw his gun or grab an axe, tell him you can write poetry, which,
when set in his paper, will at first sight look just like Johnnie's
composition on Spring.
In addition to saving your local paper from publishing a harrowing
tale of a mysterious disappearance, you'll land your contract with
that hint of some possible poetry. When, I started out to do what I am
advising you to do, I made nine towns before I signed up a paper.
There was considerable iron in my soul when I tackled the tenth town,
and I had to do something,--so I dropped a hint that I might possibly
run in a little poetry. After that it came easy.
With this kindly hint on "How to Make Money Abroad," herein is
presented the letters I wrote on my 1914 world tour for a syndicate of
papers.
With the kindly aid of the artist to help you over the hard places, "A
YANKEE IN THE FAR EAST" for a title (a book must have a title), and
good, plain print, the publishers launch this little book.
A YANKEE
IN
THE FAR EAST
I
WAR HELL AND BULL FIGHTS
Up in the interior of our country we don't look upon the Mexican
situation with the same passionate interest that they do down here on
the border--in El Paso, for instance.
Here is a town of sixty thousand. A magnificent city, with everything
that goes to make our modern civilization desirable. A city of
sky-scrapers, a million-dollar hotel (the one I'm stopping at), with
still others that would do credit to a city twice its size. Splendid
stores, residences, and railway station, and forty-five miles of fine
macadam streets--a city of gimp, go, and bang--a city to make an
American citizen proud of his country.
It costs five cents and ten minutes' time to go from the center of El
Paso over to Mexico across the Rio Grande--a muddy, dirty stream that
one could wade across--into the city of Juarez--a town of about ten
thousand--the quickest change from everything desirable to everything
undesirable that I have ever experienced. A fit title to the story
would be "From Heaven to Hell." I went to see a bull fight in Juarez,
the first and last bull fight I shall ever witness.
I wonder if Sherman ever saw a bull fight; I don't believe he did, or
he would have said, "War is the vestibule--the real thing is what is
called a bull fight." In my humble opinion the Almighty allowed the
devil to institute war among men to give us a warning foretaste of
hell. The devil, ambitious to outdo himself, made one more try and
invented the bull fight (which is a misnomer--it is not a "fight"),
and then the devil said: "I'm through, beat it if you can."
War is a fight--men against men, intellect against intellect. A cock
fight is a fight--cock against cock. A dog fight is a fight--dog
against dog. A prize fight is a fight--bruiser against bruiser, go to
it, and may the best side win.
The devil invented all these, but there was an element of fairness in
them. The devil looked upon them and saw the element of fairness. It
girded him. He tried once more, invented bull torturing, baited his
hook by naming it bull "fighting," and fished for a nation to adopt
it. Spain bit, and she and her offspring deserve all they've reaped in
consequence--and then some.
For a hellish, damnable, brutalizing institution, I place the
torturing of bulls for amusement at the head of the class for the
double-distilled quintessence of his Satanic Majesty's final and last
effort to put one over on the Angel of Light. The horrors and
cruelties practiced since time began have back of them ambition, hate,
bigotry, ignorance, or supposed justice; but the bull fight has none
of these back of it for an excuse. It's done in the name of sport! for
pastime!
Ambition?--"It's a glorious cheat," but posterity may reap the
benefit. Hate?--It burns itself out. Bigotry?--Darkness, preceding
dawn. Ignorance?--It can be cured. Justice?--Blind but sometimes hits
the mark. But the bull fight! Invented for sport, pastime--that which
is as necessary to man's development as food. A country that lets its
children have the bull fight to play with is on the toboggan slide.
I've seen them chop off human being's heads in China, in the name of
justice. It jarred me some. I've seen the awful condition of human
life in India. That jarred me more. But yesterday I saw five thousand
men, women and children gathered to witness bulls tortured for "fun"!
I found myself jammed in with the cruelest, most blood-thirsty,
cut-throat gang I've ever seen--and the fact that human beings could
be brought to look upon that thing as "sport," "pastime," "pleasure,"
jarred me most of all--and Juarez is only a little more than a stone's
throw from El Paso! El Paso has poignant feelings on the Mexican
situation--the nuisance is at her door.
Twenty-five years ago El Paso was a cluster of mud huts. Juarez was a
town five hundred years ago, and it's little more than a cluster of
mud huts now. Some fair-size two-story brick buildings, but a sorry
makeshift of a city, the chief thing in evidence being poverty, vice,
and dirt. Its chief pride, and by all odds largest building, is its
bull ring--an amphitheater that will seat 10,000, built around an
arena. This arena, about 100 feet in diameter, is fenced in with a
high-board fence. A gate opens out of the arena, through which first
come six gaily-dressed bull baiters on foot, followed by three more
riding blindfolded, scarecrow horses, sorry, poor, limping old beasts,
which, in man's service have earned a merciful death--their value in
the open market would not exceed $2.00 each. Their riders are armed
with long-handled spears. They all, on foot and horseback, have
official names. I don't know, nor want to know, what their titles are.
They are men!--not brutes. It would be an insult to the brutes that go
to make up the sketch to call them that. They doff their hats and
salaam to the throng, who answer back with lusty cheers.
[Illustration: I found myself jammed in with the cruelest, most
blood-thirsty, cut-throat gang I've ever seen]
And now the bull comes from the darkened pen, where he has been kept
for twenty-four hours,--a walk of thirty feet through a fenced-in
lane. His bovine majesty, a splendid bull, comes walking leisurely
along, rejoicing to get into God's sunlight, no thought of malice in
his heart. He seems to nod a kindly good-afternoon to the attendants,
who drive him towards the gate that opens into the arena. As he is
passing through the gate a man perched up out of harm's way jabs a
cruel harpoon on the end of a handle decked with gaily colored ribbons
between the bull's shoulders.
There is no maddened rush of an angry bull. He stops for an instant
with a startled look--surprise, and hurt wonderment, and "what for?"
written on his face as plain as man can talk. A baiter inside the ring
with a blanket shook out at his side stands just ahead of him. The
bull charges the blanket--no danger to the man--the gate is shut, and
the baiters with their blankets held out at their sides get the bull
more and more into fighting trim.
But the crowd wants blood. So a baiter on a horse, rides up and jabs
the bull's shoulder with his spear, and another rider jabs him on the
other side. The bull wheels to catch his tormentor, who is out of
harm's way on his horse. The bull charges back and forth, from rider
to rider, until one of them deliberately reins his blinded horse
directly in range of the bull, who rips its entrails out. The rider
deftly and easily dismounts; the blinded horse is down, and the bull
finishes him with a thrust or two, and the crowd goes mad with
"delight." The remaining two riders have played their part, and
withdrawn from the ring, and six baiters on foot take up the "sport,"
and with their blankets draw the bull from the now dead horse. He
charges from one to the other, with no more danger to the trained
athletes on foot than there would be to a hound after a rabbit.
* * * * *
But the rabbit has a chance for its life--the bull none.
* * * * *
And now another baiter comes with two harpoon spears on handles two
feet long decked with ribbons, and tempts the bull to charge him. The
bull accepts the challenge, and as he charges the trained baiter
side-steps, and, as the bull passes, plants his harpoons in the bull's
sides.
Good act! The crowd goes wild again. This sport is kept up for half an
hour, till the poor beast's sides are full of barbed spears, and the
crowd cries out for blood, more blood, when the lord high executioner
steps up with a long, murderous, stiff-bladed sword, about four feet
long, and with his blanket tempts the tired bull to lower his head,
then he drives the sword to its hilt between the bull's shoulders.
The bull does not drop dead. The matador missed his heart; but with
that blade thrust through his body, the bull staggers--braces himself
on his four feet. The matador vainly tempts the bull to charge the
blanket. The look in the dying bull's eyes would move a heart of stone
to pity--he trembles, falls to his knees, drops in a convulsive heap,
and dies.
The matador salaams low as he receives the plaudits of the crowd. A
team of fine horses, decked in red blankets, is driven on a gallop to
the dead bull, a rope is attached to his legs, and the horses gallop
out of the arena, snaking the bull in their wake.
[Illustration: They tortured three yesterday, but I was more than
satisfied with one, when I left them to their sport]
The team comes back, and in like theatrical manner the dead horse is
snaked off, and the crowd sets up a howl to bring on another bull.
Three to five bulls are tortured for an afternoon's "entertainment."
They tortured three yesterday, but I was more than satisfied with one,
when I left them to their "sport." Carranza's headquarters are at
Juarez. He "graced" the bull fight with his presence, and if Huerta
had been in Juarez he would probably have been there too.
II
"MISSOURI" AND HIS FALSE TEETH
I labor under a great disadvantage in writing this ship-board letter,
en route from San Francisco to Yokohama.
My contract reads that these letters shall tell of personal
experiences, and when I discover a new, fresh theme that I am not
qualified to tackle, I naturally feel that fate has been unkind to me.
There has recently been discovered a strange malady which attacks
travelers at sea. I find competitors in writing travel stuff have me
on the hip in this regard. This new malady, in which I know the public
must have a breathless interest, is so replete with possibilities from
a pencil pusher's standpoint, I more than half suspect that some
writers aren't playing fair.
I fear some of them are no more qualified from personal experience to
write about it than I am, but they are banging ahead and writing about
it anyway, just because it is a new, fresh subject, full of thrilling
possibilities for the pen artist, and as for the artist who can draw
pictures to illustrate it--honest you'd die laughing, there's so many
funny things about it.
The ship's doctor, whom I've interviewed for data, advised me to cut
it out; that, like everything new, the writers have already overworked
it.
He told me they called it seasickness in the steerage, and _mal de
mer_ in first cabin, and that it hits first cabin harder than it does
steerage.
I never was strong on fads. The beaten path for me!
I am also under contract to write about the folks I meet. Now there's
a subject worth while,--folks. You'll strike them on shipboard. I'm
pretty close to one chap so soon. He is on a business trip to China.
He is from some place in Missouri--he's from Missouri all right.
I understand he has dealt largely in horses. It's his first trip to
Japan and China, and he seems to cling to me, and I have much of his
life's history. The first thing I noticed about him was his beautiful
teeth--as fine a set of teeth as I ever saw in a man's mouth. The
first meal after sailing he got up and left the table abruptly, and I
missed him till the next meal, when again he left the table--seemed to
be in trouble.
The next time I saw him was at dinner, and I was shocked! He had lost
two teeth on one side and three on the other--upper teeth. It made a
great difference in his personal appearance--but he seemed to enjoy
that meal without any break.
After dinner, on deck, away from anyone else, I commiserated him on
the loss of those teeth--felt well enough acquainted--you can make
better time getting acquainted on shipboard than anywhere else.
I asked him why he had to sacrifice those teeth; that they looked like
fine teeth. Was it really necessary to have them out? Hadn't he taken
a chance in having the ship's doctor play dentist? And then he poured
out his whole soul to me about those teeth.
[Illustration: "You see, Mr. Allen, I got those teeth to please my
wife"]
"Mr. Allen," he said, "the ship's doctor didn't take them out. I
haven't lost them. I'm wearing them in my coat pocket. Those teeth
were artificial, Mr. Allen."
"You see," he continued,--it seemed as if he just wanted to talk about
those teeth, now that he was started,--"You see, Mr. Allen, I got
those teeth to please my wife. I didn't really need them, only for
looks. I've got all the rest of my teeth, except those side ones.
"Wife said it was all right while I was home where my friends all knew
me--were used to me; but in taking this trip among strangers, I
really ought to have those gaps filled in. So I went to a
toothsmith, and he shod me up with some new teeth. He talked about
bridges, and scaffolding, and roofing, and one thing and another, and
owing to the situation he found in his explorations, 'a partial
plate,' as he called it, he thought was the best way out.
"When he connected me with those teeth, it felt just like it looks to
nail a shoe on a horse. I felt as a colt must feel when it's first
hitched up with bit and bridle.
"'Do you mean to tell me,' I asked that dentist, 'that I've got to go
through life with that in my mouth?'
"'Oh, no,' he said, 'this is only a partial plate. Some day you'll
lose all your teeth and will have to have a double set, upper and
lower. Then you _will_ feel as if you were somebody else--this is only
a little trouble. You'll get used to this partial plate and not mind
it a bit. They look dandy. Just take a peek at yourself. You look ten
years younger. You just stick to them for a couple of days and you'll
be all right.'
"I went home feeling that the bloom of youth was all rubbed off--felt
as if I had a billiard ball in my mouth.
"My wife was delighted, and gave me that same josh the dentist handed
me--said I looked ten years younger.
"I felt forty years older, and told her so--and when it came to
eating, everything tasted just alike--and all bad.
"I stood it for six hours, and gave up. I went to take them out and
got scared. I couldn't get them out. Then I was sure the dentist had
nailed them in.
"I called him up and asked him would he go to his office? Told him I
was in trouble. When I got there I found him waiting for me.
"He wanted to know where they hurt.
"I told him, 'All over.' That the joy and jounce and bounce of life
had all left me. He had filled me full of woe and sadness. That my
shoes pinched, my hair pulled, and my collar choked me.
"'Take 'em out, doctor, take 'em out,' I sobbed. 'I don't believe they
were made for me. I think you've made a mistake and got some other
fellow's teeth in my mouth. I think these teeth were made for a very
large man with a very large mouth,' I said.
"He pried me loose from the work of his hands, and took the artificial
part of me into his den, put it on his anvil, and ran it over his buzz
saw and through his planer, and brought it back to me, and said,
'Open up,' just as if I were a horse; and he bitted and bridled me for
another race.
"I wrestled with those teeth for a week before I left for this trip. I
kept them in different places--in the bathroom, on top of my
chiffonier, and in my pocket. Not all the while, you understand. I got
so I could take them out myself, and I alternated them between the
place where they made me look ten years younger, and those places I've
mentioned; and when I didn't have them in, my wife was giving me Hail
Columbia. Said I didn't have as much sand as a Chippy bird; acted as
if I were the only person who had ever had to learn to wear false
teeth.
"I made a few more trips to the dentist, to ask him if he was dead
sure he hadn't got me breaking in some other fellow's teeth; and if he
would plane them down a little here and there.
"He growled considerable. Said he'd get them too loose, and then I'd
be having trouble the other way.
[Illustration: "When I didn't have them in my wife was giving me
Hail Columbia"]
"Well, I got so I could wear those teeth and think of something else
at the same time; and then I started for San Francisco to catch this
ship. I can't understand it at all; but somehow or other, those teeth
have shrunk. They began to shrink as soon as I struck the Pullman, and
when I got aboard this ship the blamed things had shrunk some more.
They got so they would drop on me while eating. I'd be going along all
right, when all of a sudden, with a mouth-full of victuals, I'd find
myself chewing those false teeth with my other teeth. I felt like a
cannibal chewing a corpse. I felt like a ghoul robbing a graveyard. It
was worse than the neck of a chicken, that any man who has kept house
for twenty years or so, knows all about. After you've helped all the
rest, all that's left for you is the neck, don't you know?"
"Missouri" had me crying; but I gave three emphatic and sympathetic
nods. I've kept house for more than twenty years, and I'm a
connoisseur myself on that part of the fowl--and the gizzard.
"Well," "Missouri" continued, "I felt like a Fiji Islander before the
missionaries taught them to love their enemies, but not to eat them.
So I'm wearing those teeth in my coat pocket.
"I may not look so young, but I don't feel so like a blithering
savage. I hate to go home without a full set of teeth, though.
"How are the Japanese on dentistry, Mr. Allen? Do you suppose I could
get fixed up over there?"
[Illustration: "With a mouthful of victuals, I'd find myself chewing
those false teeth with my other teeth"]
I told him I didn't know about their dentistry, but that they were
clever little beggars. That they were strong on tea and tooth
brushes.
"Tea, teeth, and tooth brushes," "Missouri" said, in a speculative and
hopeful tone. "Now maybe so, maybe so," and we parted for the night.
"Missouri" is not a half bad sort, and, anyway, his teeth story is
different than a yarn on seasickness.
III
WONG LEE--THE HUMAN BELLOWS
This is a fine, large ship--Japanese line.
I don't call to mind any line of ships I have not sailed on prior to
this voyage in my chasing up and down the world in search of a "meal
ticket," and pleasure; but this is my first voyage on a Japanese
liner, and I'm simply delighted with it.
It contrasts delightfully with a ship I sailed on, on one of my former
trips across the Pacific.
That boat was all right, too. Good ship, good service--particularly
good service--Chinese help; and anyone who has ever sailed with
Chinese crews, waiters and room boys, knows what that means--nothing
better in that line. I had a fine stateroom and a good room boy--that
boy was a treasure.
I cottoned to that boy the minute he grabbed my baggage at the wharf,
and blandly said, "You blong my," as he led me to my stateroom.
There was an obnoxious sign in that stateroom which read: "No Smoking
in Staterooms." I settled for the long voyage, hung a coat over that
sign, and lit up.
[Illustration: "Wong," I said, "how fashion you talkee so?
"No can slmoke stlate loom!
"No tlouble slmoke stlate loom. Can slmoke stlate loom easy, see?"]
Wong Lee flagged me with a word of warning: "No can slmoke stlate
room. Slmoke loom, can do."
"Wong," I said, "how fashion you talkee so? 'No can slmoke stlate
loom!' No tlouble slmoke stlate loom. Can slmoke stlate loom easy,
see?"
If anyone tells you the Chinese can't see a joke, tell them to guess
again. Wong saw that little one--saw it through a cloud of smoke, at
that. Wong shut my stateroom door, like a boy in the buttery stealing
jam, and said: "Lofficers findee out. They flobid."
"All right, Wong, I won't tell them if you don't," I said. And Wong
didn't--Wong certainly didn't betray me.
The further we sailed the more I became attached to the boy--he took
such excellent care of me--I got so I really loved that boy.
All Wong's other duties seemed easy compared to his efforts, in my
behalf, to see that my slight and harmless infraction of the ship's
rules should not be discovered. If I dropped a little ash, Wong was on
hand to brush it up. A tell-tale cigar stub, carelessly left--Wong was
there to whisk it out of sight with: "Lofficers may come insplection
any time. No can tell when."
[Illustration: My great fear was that before we landed at Yokohama
Wong would surely burst in his efforts to keep the smoke in my
stateroom blown out of the porthole]
It wasn't my uneasiness at fear of being found out that robbed me of
some of the pleasures of the trip, but an anxious fear that Wong,
'round whom the tendrils of my heart's affections were gaining
strength each day as we neared the mystic land of the rising sun--my
great fear was that before we landed at Yokohama, Wong would surely
burst in his efforts to keep the smoke in my stateroom blown out of
the port-hole.
Now this ship is different. No silly rules that drive a man out of his
room onto the deck, or the smoking room, when he feels like drawing a
little inspiration from the weed that cheers but don't inebriate--I
like this ship.
"Land ho!" Hawaii in the distance.
IV
HAWAII--AND THE FISHERMAN WHO'D SIGN THE PLEDGE
"Under the setting sun, in the Mid-Pacific, lie the Islands of the
Hawaiian group, which present to the traveler or home-seeker more
alluring features than are combined in any other country in the world.
Nowhere else are such pictures of sea and sky and plain and mountain,
such magnificence of landscape, such bright sunshine and tempering
breeze, such fragrant foliage, such brilliant colorings in bush and
tree, such dazzling moonlight.
"With a climate world-excelling for its equableness, these happy
islands afford a refuge for those who would escape the rigors of cold
or heat encountered in the temperate zones; an entertaining resort for
the pleasure-seeker, an almost virgin field of research for the
scientist, a sanitarium for the ill, weary or overwrought. For the man
who would build a home where conditions of life are most nearly ideal,
and where nature works with man and not against him, Hawaii smiles a
radiant welcome.
"It is withal an entrancing land, these mid-sea dots, for the
combination of tropical sunshine and sea breeze produces a climate
which can be compared to nothing on any mainland, and by reason of
peculiar situation, to that of no other island group. Hawaii has a
temperature which varies not more than 10 degrees through the day, and
which has an utmost range during the year from 85 degrees to 55
degrees. Sweltering heat or biting cold are unknown, sunstroke is a
mythical name for an unthought thing, a frost-bite is heard of no more
than a polar bear.
"Conjure up a memory of the most perfect May day, when sunshine, soft
airs and fragrance of buds and smiling Nature combine to make the
heart glad, multiply it by 365, and the result is the climate of
Hawaii. The sky, with the blue of the Riviera and the brilliance of a
sea-shell, is seldom perfectly clear. Ever the fleecy white clouds
blowing over the sea form masses of lace-like broidery across the blue
vault, adding to the natural beauty, and when gilded or rouged by
sunrise or sunset make the heavens a miracle of color.
"And, as in Nature's bounty the climate was made close to perfection,
so the good dame continued her work and gave to the land such features
as would make not alone a happy home for man, but as well a pleasure
ground: for there are mountains and valleys, bays and cataracts,
cliffs and beaches in varied form and peculiar beauty, foliage rich
in color and rare in fragrance, flowers of unusual form and hue, and
all without a poisonous herb or vine, or a dangerous reptile or
animal. To fit the paradise was sent a race of people stalwart in
size, hospitable, merry, and music-loving. The door is always open and
over its lintel is '_Aloha_,' which means 'Welcome.' All are given
cordial greeting on the summer shores of the Evening Isles, and
nowhere else may be found so many joys and such new lease of life as
under Hawaii's smiling skies.
"More prominent than any other cause for this condition of affairs is
the fact that Hawaii is windswept throughout the year. The northeast
trades bring with them new vitality, and make of Hawaii a paradise
where life is pleasure all the year round. From out of the frozen
north, picking from the blossoming whitecaps the fragrant and
sustaining ozone, sweeping across the breakers to caress the land,
comes the constant northeast trade-wind. It is not a strong, harsh
blow at all, rather a fanning breeze--Nature's punkah. The average
velocity for the year is but eight miles per hour. The mission of the
trade-wind is a beneficent one always. Cyclones or hurricanes in
Hawaii are unknown."
* * * * *
I didn't write the above. That is a piece of pure plagiarism on my
part. I snitched it from a folder put out by the Hawaiian Promotion
Society.
The first time I saw that folder I got hold of it on shipboard a few
hours before reaching Honolulu the first time I came here, years ago.
I read it through and smiled like Noah's neighbors when he allowed
there was going to be a wet spell--and got off the ship and "did"
Honolulu.
I kept on smiling, albeit not cynically.
No living man can adequately describe the beauties of these islands. I
just wandered around in a daze until I found myself on top of one of
their mountains, and when I took it all in I felt as if I'd burst if I
didn't say something, and I began apostrophizing Hawaii in a rapturous
rhapsody.
I felt a good deal better after that, but as I was pressed for time I
had to leave the islands and hike along; or I thought I had to. I did,
at least.
But that rhapsody stands. The islands are still here, and as lovely as
ever.
[Illustration: I snitched it from a folder put out by the Hawaiian
Promotion Society]
What I can't understand is, that there are only 191,000 inhabitants on
these islands, with room for several times that many; and something
over a billion in the rest of the world. I don't know why I'm not
living here myself, and for the life of me I don't know why I leave
them--my ultimate aim has been to get to Heaven.
I can only account for it on one theory: I own a house and lot and
some land in Central New York, and I'm so busy shoveling snow outdoors
and coal indoors from some time in November to some time in April, and
during May and June getting some stuff started, hoping it won't get
nipped by the late frosts, and working it along before September frost
gets it--in the meantime saving it from more bugs than a fellow, if he
saves his crop, can take time to learn the names of--what with
hustling that stuff through between frosts and saving it from pests,
and planning the while to be in shape to get some coal to keep from
freezing to death the coming winter--a fellow tied up like that can't
come to Hawaii to live. I suppose that billion or so who are not
living in the Hawaiian Islands are all fixed in some such a way.
[Illustration: A fellow tied up that way can't come to the Hawaiian
Islands to live]
But I feel a little sore at that Hawaiian booster. He didn't tell
about the fish they have here. There is an aquarium in Naples, Italy,
said to be the finest in the world. I've been through that Naples
aquarium several times, and it is a drab affair compared with the
aquarium here at Honolulu. In the Honolulu aquarium may be seen fish
of odd shapes and so brilliantly and beautifully colored that no
artist could show these colors with paint and brush. There is the
Humuhumu for instance. A fish six or seven inches long. It has bright
green fins, and a stripe of jet black starting in a narrow band at the
top of its back, broadening out diagonally around its body. On its
side, set in the band of black, is a bright red spot. Rearwards of the
black band its body is a bright red, and forward of the band the body
is bright red shading off to white. Its tail is striped, red, yellow
and black. Somewhat bass-shaped, its eyes are not in its head, but set
on top of its back.
A man not knowing such a fish existed, if he were fishing in one of
our ponds in New York State, if he should pull up a Humuhumu, he would
stop fishing. He certainly would. And he wouldn't stop to land it,
either. Just one look at that fish and he'd yell and drop fish, line
and pole right back in the pond, and hunt up the chairman of the
temperance movement in his town and sign the pledge.
Then there is the Lae-Nihi. A fish about eight inches long, all blue.
You can't know how bright and beautiful blue can be until you see a
Lae-Nihi swimming in the water. Dozens of other odd-shaped fish,
wonderfully marked in brilliant variegated patterns, are in the
aquarium.
[Illustration: Just one look at that fish and he'd yell and drop
fish, line and pole right back in the pond]
The government at Washington has made colored plates showing the
shapes, markings, and giving the names of these fish, and attempting
to show the colorings. Anyone looking at the colored prints and not
knowing of these wonderful fish would say, "Preposterous! No such
colored fish exist!" But the cold fact is, those colored prints but
faintly portray the brilliant colors of the fish as they are seen in
life.
With all this, you'd think they ought not to be anything but happy in
Hawaii. You wouldn't expect to find kickers on the islands.
But the truth is, they are in a blue funk. They think that the islands
are going to the bow-wows financially, because of the tariff
legislation on sugar. I tell them to brace up and advertise the
islands as more than the biggest show on earth; and, in place of
begging for settlers, to pass out the word that the truly good may
come, for a satisfactory consideration; and that the chances are they
will have standing room only, and won't know what to do with their
money.
[Illustration: You wouldn't expect to find any kickers in the
islands]
V
THE UMPIRE WHO GOT A JOB
More and more I am convinced of the cleverness of the Japanese after a
voyage across the Pacific in one of their magnificent ocean liners--a
22,000-ton ship, built at their yards at Nagasaki, Japan--built,
owned, and operated by the Japanese. The officers are Americans, with
the exception of the chief engineer, who is Japanese. The crew is
Japanese. Dining room waiters, Chinese and Japanese; and room boys are
Japanese.
The cuisine more thoroughly conforms to American tastes than that
found on any other ocean liners I am acquainted with, and nothing left
to be desired in quality, variety, and way of serving. All the
appointments of the ship for luxurious and comfortable travel are as
nearly perfect as anything can be, with absolute cleanliness
emphasized at every point--a trip through the culinary department
prior to sitting down to a meal adding zest to one's appetite--and
that's some test. The management does everything possible for the
passenger's enjoyment. Nearly every evening a moving picture
entertainment is given on one of the spacious decks. The ship carries
films to the Orient as an item of freight, and has the use of them en
route.
A seventeen days' voyage from San Francisco to Yokohama is not long
enough to exhaust the supply if an hour's exhibition were to be given
every evening. The event of the voyage is the theatricals given by the
ship's crew, the common sailors, who do the work of running the ship.
I was not surprised to see Japanese sailors in an exhibition of ship
games for the passengers' entertainment one forenoon, carrying them
off creditably--games indulged in by sailors the world around: the
tug-of-war, chair race, potato race, cock-fighting, etc.; but to see
them put on an elaborate theatrical for an evening's entertainment
filled me with wonder and admiration.
The first act on the program was a "Union Dance." In this all leading
nations were represented. And next was "The Lion Dance." They say the
Japanese are imitative. I would like to know which nation they
imitated in producing that beast! It was an animal about fifteen feet
long. It had a bushy tail that stood in the air three feet and waved
continuously. Along its back was a series of short, stubby wings; and
its head! Fearfully and wonderfully made was that head, which was
mounted on a serpentine neck. The genius who created that head must
have searched the earth, sea, and air for inspiration in his work.
And it danced!
Oh, that beast danced!
The power that moved the thing was two sailors inside, but how under
the heavens they kept that tail waving, those wings working, and the
eyes, ears, and tremendous jaws of that combination of earth, air, and
sea monster all going at one and the same time, the while it danced,
and reared, and crawled, and writhed, and gamboled, and all but
flew--I would like to know how they did it. If anyone will tell me
which nation they imitated to put that number on, I'll make a trip to
that country--I want to see those folks. I've seen something on this
order, large animals, elephants, bears, cows, etc., impersonated with
man power inside, in New York, London, and Paris. They were good, too.
A lot of fun. Amuse the children. But here was something good enough
to--to--well, I won't say to scare a locomotive off the track, but
I'll bet it would make it shy.
[Illustration: But I'll bet it would make it shy]
[Illustration: I won't say it would scare a locomotive off the track]
The next number was "Wrestling and Fencing." A half dozen pairs of
contestants. Japanese wrestling is always good and needs no comment,
but the actor who announced the bouts, and the umpire who started
them and announced decisions, would have made a whole evening's
entertainment in themselves. Adverse comments on some of that umpire's
decisions, by certain Japanese passengers, brought him to the front of
the stage with a little preachment. It all being in Japanese, of
course I couldn't understand what he said, but there seemed to be fire
and tow and ginger in that umpire's words; indeed, everything that he
did savored of fire and tow and ginger.
[Illustration: The artist hasn't quite the right idea of that beast,
so I'll draw a picture of it myself, and then you can see just how
it looked, only it was fiercer, you understand.
--_The Author._]
I asked a Japanese passenger who sat next to me and who was not one of
the dissenters: "What did the umpire say?" Turned into English the
umpire said: "Go chase yourselves, you lobsters who are finding fault
with my decisions. I'm umpiring these bouts, and my decisions go,
see?" And they saw. Believe me, that umpire could make anyone see.
The commander of the ship told me that that umpire finally made _him_
"see."
[Illustration: Believe me, that umpire could make anyone see]