came out onto prairies, and as far as the eye could reach the same
sparse population, mud huts, and ugly graves, but all tilled like a
well-kept garden. I'd lost my German friend for six hours now--and
from morning until noon, having had no one to talk to, there had
accumulated in me a considerable store of oratory.
We had stopped at a splendid brick station--perhaps some day a town
will grow around that spot--and I got out to stretch my legs. A row of
Chinese soldiers stood on guard; and in good old United States, the
only tongue I speak, I broke loose on one of them: "China is a fine
country, sir," I said; "a fine country, sir. The agricultural
possibilities of China, sir, are great! Your boundless plains and
mighty rivers are grand, sir; grand! Unshackled from your past, you've
burst the bands of superstition, lethargy, inertia. You've climbed out
of your rut. Unleashed from all your past, you've grasped the pregnant
present, and now, with your eyes turned to the mighty achievements yet
to come--with this glorious new Republic you've achieved, what the
future holds for China is impressive, sir; impressive."
The soldier said something in Chinese.
"This railroad over which I've ridden, sir, is an earnest of greater
things in store for China. The rolling stock is fine, the road well
built, and wonderfully well ballasted.
"There is little left to be desired in the service on your trains.
With the architectural taste displayed in this splendid station house,
none but a carping critic could find fault. I'm pleased with what I've
seen, sir; pleased--delighted, sir."
The soldier said something in Chinese.
I felt a good deal better after what I'd said, and I think what the
soldier said made a hit with him, but we weren't getting anywhere,
when, at that moment, there came along a foreigner to board the train.
He'd overheard part of my talk. He looked at me and said: "You're from
the United States, aren't you?"
[Illustration: I felt a good deal better after what I'd said, and I
think what the soldier said made a hit with him]
"Pretty near," I said.
"Oh, from Canada?" he asked.
"No," I said, "I'm from New York State."
"Why," he said, "I was educated in Oneida County, your State."
"Indeed!" I said. "What institution?"
"Hamilton College," he said.
"And your name is?"
"'John Blank'," said he. With a mighty bound I landed in that man's
arms. I fell on his neck and wept.
"Dr. 'Blank'," I said, "you're the one man in China I'm looking for. I
have a warrant for your arrest."
We got into the dining car, and dined and talked, and talked and
dined, and talked, until we reached Tientsin, four hours later.
We changed cars there and rode into Pekin. All the way it was the same
level country, well-tilled fields, mud huts, and ugly graves. From
Tientsin, a city of 1,000,000, to Pekin, a city of 1,300,000, is
ninety miles, and not one-tenth the population in evidence that you'll
find on that ninety-mile ride between New York and Philadelphia.
[Illustration: With a mighty bound I landed in that man's arms]
[Illustration: "Dr. 'Blank'," I said, "you're the one man in China I'm
looking for. I have a warrant for your arrest"]
XIII
TEN THOUSAND TONS ON A WHEELBARROW AND THE ANANIAS CLUB
I was glad of the opportunity to come to Pekin, where I might see with
my own eyes a Pekin cart.
Modes of travel and transportation have always had a fascination for
me.
For instance, I was so captivated with the Shanghai wheelbarrows, that
the first thing I did after arriving in Shanghai on my first trip to
China was to tackle the first Chinaman I saw in the street pushing one
of those empty barrows, dicker with him, and then and there buy that
wheelbarrow.
Three dollars was the consideration, but, with first cost, boxing,
freight, and duty it cost me $29.05 landed in Clinton--and I've never
regretted the purchase.
When telling circles of chance acquaintances and friends at home that
a Chinaman would carry a mixed cargo of from five to ten thousand tons
on one of those barrows, the chance acquaintances would cast
significant glances and cough, while my dear friends would hand me
life membership cards in the Ananias Club.
[Illustration: The chance acquaintances would cast significant
glances and cough]
My only regret in the matter is, that in telling about the Shanghai
wheelbarrow I was not acquainted with all its possibilities. When a
chance acquaintance doubts my word it's immaterial to me whether he is
caught with a nasty little hacking cough, or contracts a violent and
fatal congestive chill, and as for those dear doubting Thomas friends
of mine who, from me, might have stood for a load of, say from three
to five thousand tons--for their benefit I want to chronicle here that
as you travel north from Shanghai they put _bigger_ loads on that same
pattern of wheelbarrow and rig them up with mules or sails, and I have
photographs to prove it; and apologies will be accepted.
Now as to the Pekin cart:
We have all read of it and seen pictures of it, and travelers,
irresponsible travelers of no reputation, or travelers without a
sensitive and jealous regard for their veracity, have so misled me
about that vehicle that what I expected to see was two wheels sawed
off the end of a log, set on an axletree, a hood covering, and two
stiff saplings for shafts. And, as I shut my eyes to let the picture
sink in and tried to recall the motive power, I couldn't recall that
there was any motive power. The cart was stuck in an awful rut in the
streets of Pekin, and even though motionless, I could hear it squeak.
A dead dog was lying to the right of the cart, the carcasses of a
couple of cats to the left, and in the cart a load of human
corpses--the life having been joggled out of them by being jounced
over the awful ruts in the Pekin streets.
But now I find the Pekin cart with a well-tired wheel, having a felloe
six inches wide, and for ornamentation studded thickly with
wrought-iron headed nails the size of boiler rivets. The wheel is
thickly set with spokes centering in a splendid hub set on a
well-oiled axletree. The hood, however, is true to the picture, but
the whole affair is varnished and shines like an undertaker's cart;
and hitched to it is the most splendid mule I have ever seen in all my
wanderings.
That mule would redeem any kind of a vehicle he might be hitched
to--such a large, fat, well-groomed, glossy mule.
His ears are several sizes shorter than those of the mule of story and
of song--an urbane, genial, gentle, loving-looking mule--I don't
believe the Pekin mule would kick. Judged from the obvious care that's
bestowed on him, the Pekin mule has no kick coming.
And the ruts in the streets of Pekin?--there are no ruts. Wide
thoroughfares, well paved.
And the rubbish in the streets? Not there. It's a fairly clean city; a
city of many modern and splendid buildings. A city of many legations
set in ample grounds, with beautiful and imposing entrances bordered
with trees, shrubbery and flowers. A city of ancient Chinese temples;
a city set in a fertile plain and walled about--Pekin is a
different-looking city than I expected to see.
Martial law prevails--the country is under martial law.
China a republic? A joke!
No more absolute monarchy could be imagined than Yuan Shih-Kai's China
today.
An upper and lower house of his own choosing, an autocrat, a dictator,
wishing for the old order, and himself the emperor. These are pretty
generally the opinions you'll hear expressed. He seems to be the one
statesman in a country of 400,000,000 whom foreigners and Chinese
generally center on as the only man to hold the reins. Hated by many,
feared by more, plots and counterplots against his life--all agree
that chaos would result were he taken away.
China today, some say, is a smoldering volcano, but more will not
venture an opinion as to what the future holds for her.
With her centuries of conservatism drilled into a population which has
submitted to official greed and graft, and accepted it as a matter of
course, China has few statesmen, none on the horizon to contest the
supremacy of Yuan Shih-Kai, who has seized the reins of power. That
China has not fallen to pieces long before is the wonder of students
who have spent their lives in China, and the most profound opinion
hazarded is--she has lumbered along because she has; and because she
has, the chances are she will continue to lumber along. What seems to
be her weakness is her strength--400,000,000 patient endurers, with
power to endure and not ask too much for the privilege to exist. There
are no other people with their peculiar temperament. With a nervous
organization that don't give way to trifles, a people who can grin and
bear it--this seems to be the opinion of those who are in best
position to render judgment.
Greedy nations have stood by and waited for her to fall to pieces, and
are even now waiting. China has fooled them right along, and she may
fool them yet a spell--so keep your eye on China, but keep on winking.
XIV
"MISSOURI" MEETS A MISSIONARY
I found "Missouri" in Shanghai on my return from Pekin, and he seemed
to be in a dejected mood. Something had evidently gone wrong with him.
"How do you like Shanghai, 'Missouri'?" I asked.
"Fine," "Missouri" said. "Good town--lot of go."
"Had any rides on these Shanghai wheelbarrows?"
"Missouri" only grinned and didn't go off into wild, exuberant
enthusiasm, by which token I knew there must be something the matter
with "Missouri."
[Illustration: There _are_ some Americans whom even a Shanghai
wheelbarrow don't particularly interest]
There _are_ some Americans whom even a Shanghai wheelbarrow don't
particularly interest. But there are some Americans who can't see
anything particularly interesting in lots of things; who go mooning
along through life; who, if you told them the moon was made of green
cheese, would get into an argument with you on the subject and tell
you there must be some mistake about it. But from what I'd seen of
"Missouri" I didn't put him down for that kind of an American; and I
knew there must have something gone wrong with him or else he'd have
warmed up over the wheelbarrows in Shanghai.
"Business bum, 'Missouri'?" I asked.
"Nope," said "Missouri." "Done better than I expected to."
"What's the matter, 'Missouri'?" I asked. "Your false teeth aren't
aching are they? You seem to lack enthusiasm. Anything gone wrong
since I saw you last? Bad news from home? Long on mules and the bottom
dropped out of the market? Has the treasurer of the Epworth League at
home run off with the funds, or has your bank cashier run off with
your safe?"
"Say, Mr. Allen, the bank's all right. Mules and horses are O. K.
Everything is lovely so far as the outcome of my trip is concerned in
a business way.
"But that Epworth League is no joke. You see, my town is looking for
me to bring home a report on the missionary game out here in the Far
East.
"As I've told you, I'm a fairly good proposition where I live--an easy
mark when it comes to digging down and boosting anything worth
boosting.
[Illustration: "Women who are interested in foreign missions and
preachers in our town set quite a store by me"]
"Women who are interested in foreign missions and the preachers in our
town set quite a store by me, and I was given that commission to
look up the missionary in Tokio and report on his work, and you know
all about how I came out on that enterprise.
"I got tied up in Japan, so I didn't go to look his field
over--thought I wouldn't have any trouble to get next to missionaries
out here, and when you told me how you came out with that missionary
in Kioto, I thought it would be a cinch to take back a report from
some of these posts.
"Say, Mr. Allen, I'm never going to get funny again as long as I live,
if I ever have anything more to do with the 'cloth.'
"After you left me to run up to Pekin I got things shaped around here
in Shanghai where I could spare a day, so I looked up the missionaries
in the city directory, and by a little inquiry, located one who was
said to be a hot tomolie in his line. Didn't have a letter of
introduction to him, but banked on my general appearance to carry me
through.
"I found my man and told him where I was from. I noticed he was a
solemn-looking individual. I lit into him in a more or less
free-and-easy way, and that's where I got in bad with that particular
dispenser of the gospel to the heathen.
"I told him that I was a business man and that I wanted to learn
something of the missionary work to tell about it when I got home.
"From what you'd told me of your experience in Kioto, I rather
expected he would enthuse somewhat.
"But he didn't enthuse.
"He made a diamond of the index fingers and thumbs of his hands, held
them in front of him, and waited for me to proceed. I looked at him--I
looked at him twice. And then I told him of my effort in Tokio.
"I said: 'I started out to do this thing in Tokio; started one Sunday
morning, but got tied up in a saki house, where I met a delightful
bunch, and didn't get away from that saloon till five o'clock in the
afternoon, and I have yet to come in personal contact with the
missionary work in the Far East.'
"I meant to say something that would jar his hands out of the position
they were in, but it didn't work that way.
"He kept them held just so, and his mouth took on something of the
same shape. 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. Between you and
me, that missionary is a two-spot, all right.
[Illustration: "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"]
"Then I elaborately explained about the automobile breaking down in
front of the saki house, and how the keepers of the saki house had
befriended us, but the whole story didn't warm him up.
"I discoursed along and tried to overcome the bad impression I had
made. I did my level best to make that chap see that while I didn't
have any letter of introduction, that it might be well to consider
strangers, because we've Holy Writ for it that by so doing a good many
have caught angels unawares.
"But that fellow couldn't see any angel in me. He acted as if I had
hoofs and horns.
"I was having the time of my life to get through that missionary's
crust. I did enough mental and 'charming personality' work to sell a
trainload of mules to a business man.
"It was a one-sided confab, but I didn't propose to give it up. I said
to myself: 'I've pulled over harder deals in my life than mellowing up
and bringing this missionary around.' I went along careful like,
discoursing and discussing (if one man doing all the talking could be
called discussing)--I'd cash a stranger's check at our bank on half as
good a showing as I was making--and I rather thought I was getting
by.
"He had shut his mouth, and while he held his hands in that same
position, with his mouth shut, he didn't remind me so much of a
two-spot. He looked more like an ace, and I thought I was winning.
"And then I let go one that gave him the opening he'd evidently been
waiting for. I told him that I hadn't found the cordial relations
existing between the business men of the Orient and the missionary
cause I had expected I would find--and then he said something. What do
you think that missionary said to me, Mr. Allen?"
"I haven't an idea, 'Missouri'. What did he say?"
"Humph!" snorted 'Missouri'. "He said: 'You have probably gathered
your information of the missionary work in the Far East from your
bar-room associates'."
I laughed. "Hard luck, 'Missouri'. Did you tell him about the funnel
and anæsthetic?"
"I did not," disgustedly. "I left him encased in his armor plate of
self-righteousness."
[Illustration: "Humph!" snorted "Missouri," "he said, 'You've
probably gathered your information of the missionary work in the
Far East from your bar-room associates'"]
"Oh, forget it, 'Missouri'," I said. "The missionary work is a
tremendous undertaking. There are thousands of missionaries scattered
over the world. You can't pick out thousands of men for any great
work, in religion, business, politics, or war, without occasionally
drafting one whom the French so graphically describe as '_damphol_.'
That particular missionary has evidently missed his calling."
"Um," "Missouri" pondered meditatively. "Just what sort of a calling
would fit that kind of a man? I wouldn't undertake to make a banker of
him. I wouldn't trust him with a big mule deal. He'd scare trade away
from a country store"--
"Forget it, 'Missouri.' Let's take a wheelbarrow ride and you can use
my Kioto experience when you get home--just tell it to your good
people as if it had happened to you. Or, if you have time when you get
to Canton, go and call on my friend S----.
"He is a missionary. I won't let him know that you are coming to see
him, and I won't give you a letter of introduction to him--you won't
need a letter.
"Go at him just as you did at your 'two-spot'--you won't fool
him--he'll see back of it. You wouldn't have fooled me in Yokohama if
you'd declaimed it instead of writing it to me. You're something of a
josher, 'Missouri,' but you don't exactly impress even the ordinary
run as a gleaner of your views from bar-room associates.
[Illustration: As we jounced along over the bridge in front of our
hotel on a Shanghai wheelbarrow]
"S---- would have made a whale of a business man if he hadn't given
his life to missions. He's a whale of a business man as it is. I
misjudge him, and I misjudge you, if he don't work you for a
contribution to foreign missions that will make the Board in New York
throw up their hats when they hear of it, and show you a story to take
back home that will make the tight-wads in your community loosen up
when the hat is passed around for foreign missions."
As we jounced along over the bridge in front of our hotel and along
the bund on a Shanghai wheelbarrow, passing mixed cargoes of
merchandise and passengers on those same homely vehicles, and as I
explained to "Missouri" how those were only _little_ loads, how up
north they piled on more and more and then rigged them up with sails,
the absolute ludicrousness of it all made "Missouri" forget his
grouch, and he promised me that he'd try to look up S---- in
Canton--and I thought I saw where Missouri mules might be hitched to
Foreign Missions--and that's some motive power.
XV
A STO-O-RM AT SEA
Since starting my series of travel letters, word has come to me that
some of my readers are disappointed that I shied at a description of
seasickness--an eminently looked-for and expected dissertation--and
instead went off on a tangent about false teeth, which was not in the
regular line of letters of travel; and I also learn that the hope is
entertained that I will not close this series without describing a
storm at sea, the which is a regular, fit, and greatly-to-be-desired
adjunct to such a series of letters as I am writing.
I have written on former occasions a description of St. Peter's Church
at Rome, taken a running jump at the Pyramids, and once, just once, I
wrote a rhapsody--about the Hawaiian Islands--most beautiful spot on
earth. But I've always promised myself that I'd leave a sto-o-rm at
sea alone.
But when an exacting public drives, a hack must needs travel, and if I
must come through with a storm at sea, right here and now is the time
and place to do it, as we are in the midst of a typhoon.
[Illustration: Word has come to me that some of my readers are
disappointed that I shied at a description of sea sickness, but
instead went off on a tangent about false teeth]
Now a typhoon is conceded to be the most colossal kind of a storm, and
right here in the China Sea, between Hong Kong and Manila, is the
place where they grow the biggest typhoons--this is headquarters for
typhoons--and we are now in the midst of the biggest of its kind. So
while I have the data right at hand where I can pick it fresh from the
hat--get all the local coloring--I'll do the regular and conventional
thing, albeit under protest. Ah me! ah my! ah mo! ah me! I say, and
then some more. I wish you might be with me now and hear the billows
roar. A storm has struck this good old ship, the waves are mountain
high, the billows rise, and rise, and rise, and mount up to the sky,
while gullies in the vasty deep the valiant ship must try. Down, down
she goes, and still down, down, into the depths of hell, and then she
strives to rise again on ocean's mighty swell. She climbs, and climbs,
and climbs, and climbs--almost she makes the top--the billow
breaks--comes crashing down--the ship is in the sop. Ten thousand tons
of briny sea come crashing on her deck; another blow like that I fear
the gallant ship will wreck. Forked lightning splits the inky sky,
with blinding flash on flash, while thunder-bolts shoot up the ship
with awful deafening crash. Up through the billows, up she comes, she
whoofs, and groans, and creaks--a mightier billow still in store the
ship's destruction seeks. She rides the crest, then plunges down to
greater depths below; the greedy sea laughs in its glee, then
thunderous billows throw o'er bow and poop of fated sloop--they stab
her through and through, they wash the captain overboard, likewise his
mate and crew. The bos'n and the cook are gone, also the nine-lived
cat--on all the ship no soul is spared, no, not one lonesome rat. The
ship is lost! Where is the scribe--the boy, oh where is he? Astride
the bowsprit, pen in hand, writing a sto-o-rm at sea.
MORAL: Genius should be coaxed, not driven.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Astride the bowsprit, pen in hand, writing a sto-o-rm
at sea]
XVI
THE ISLANDS "DISCOVERED" BY DEWEY
I arrived in Manila--not seasick--I never was seasick in my life (I've
mentioned that before, haven't I?)--but anyone who read my last letter
with that degree of attention necessary to get the meat out of letters
of travel will have gathered that there was a bit of a blow coming
over from Hong Kong, and that it was a rough crossing.
Those of my readers who regret that the bowsprit and I reached Manila
are no friends of mine, and any invidious remarks they may make about
my last letter are of no consequence to me.
The Philippine Islands are a tropical group. There are about 3,000 of
them. They lie between five degrees and twenty degrees north latitude,
and one hundred and seventeen degrees and one hundred and twenty-seven
degrees east longitude, and they contain 120,000 square miles of land.
The Pacific Ocean washes their eastern boundaries and the China sea
the western. The largest islands are Luzon and Mindano--Luzon with
about 40,000 square miles and Mindano with 36,000. About 400 of the
islands are inhabited.
They are quite a big chunk of land, as big as New England, New York,
and New Jersey. Winter never comes; three crops of corn can be raised
on the same piece of ground in a year, and six crops of corn fodder.
While they are mountainous, they are not so mountainous as Japan, and
have broader valleys of rich, fertile land. They are pretty nearly as
large as Japan, without its new possessions of Formosa and Korea, the
difference in area being about 170,000 square miles in Japan against
120,000 in the Philippines. They are just a little shy of having
9,000,000 inhabitants, who are chocolate brown in color, have straight
hair, and in stature are about the size of the Japanese.
Admiral George Dewey of the American navy discovered these islands May
1, 1898. No one except the natives knew anything about them until that
momentous date in history.
We were at that time at war with Spain, a decrepit old nation which
hadn't progressed beyond torturing bulls for pastime, when Admiral
George, walking his fleet out for a constitutional one morning before
breakfast, out here in the China Sea, saw something flying the Spanish
flag.
[Illustration: Admiral George Dewey of the American Navy discovered
these islands May 1st, 1898]
George had got word that we were at war with Spain, and anything
flying the Spanish flag was fair game for the doughty George, so he
shot it up.
He lowered a boat and rowed off to pick up his game, and found the
Philippine Islands.
None of my readers who were old enough at the time to remember
anything will fail to recall how the United States went mad with joy
over the discovery.