THE VOYAGE ACROSS THE CHINA SEA
The tide was right at six o'clock in the morning, and the order had been
given the night before to sail at this hour. Mr. Frôler and Captain
Rayburn were on deck before this time; and the latter took a boat to his
vessel, after very hearty thanks for the pleasure he had enjoyed.
"I don't feel at all like leaving your steamer, Captain Ringgold, but I
suppose I must," said the French gentleman, as the commander took him by
the hand in the morning.
"I am as sorry to have you leave as you are to do so," replied the
captain. "We have seen the place, and made the acquaintance of quite a
number of the people. In fact, you have turned our visit into a general
frolic, and I am sure my party have never enjoyed themselves more than
during the past two days; and we owe it all to you, Mr. Frôler."
"You praise my feeble efforts to enable you to see the place and some of
the people more than they deserve," replied the Frenchman.
"When I meet you in New York, I shall do my best to reciprocate your
very kind and hospitable reception, and I am confident all my passengers
will do the same. I should be most happy to have you continue on
board."
"I should avail myself of your very kind invitation so far as to go to
Manila if there were a line of steamers between that port and Saigon.
But I should have to go by the way of Singapore. With your permission, I
will go down the river with you."
"What is this coming alongside?" asked the captain, as he moved over to
the rail.
"It is one of the gunboats, Captain," answered Mr. Frôler. "There is the
governor on her deck and two ladies. His Excellency has come off to say
good-by to you."
"He is very considerate."
"And there is the landlord of the hotel."
"I paid his bill yesterday afternoon, and for everything up to this
morning," said the commander as he hastened down the gangway to receive
the governor.
On his way he called Louis, who was on deck early, and directed him to
have the stewards call all the passengers, and to inform them that His
Excellency was coming on board. The distinguished official was received
by the captain, and conducted to the deck. It was a cordial greeting on
both sides. The governor declared that he had never enjoyed himself more
than on the day before, and he should go down the river for the purpose
of saying his adieux to the party.
The gunboat would escort the ships to Cape St. Jacques, and he would
return with it. In ten minutes after the call the passengers began to
come on deck, and the governor greeted them as though they had been his
friends for years. He was a jolly old fellow, and made himself as
familiar with the tourists as though they had been his intimate friends.
When Miss Blanche came up he rushed to her, and took her by both hands.
Mr. Frôler suggested that the governor had come more to see the
beautiful women on board than for any other purpose.
The barge was hastily dropped into the water, and sent for the
passengers of the Blanche, the third officer being in charge of the
message. The landlord of the hotel said he had come on board to pay his
respects to his late guests, and he would go down the river with them.
The barge returned after some delay, for none of her party were out of
their rooms. They warmly welcomed the governor and the captain of the
gunboat, who had been one of the guests the day before.
Both ships got under way at once, for the anchors had been hove short.
Mr. Sage and the cook were set to work. The governor divided his
attentions between Mrs. Noury and Miss Blanche; and the pacha was not at
all disturbed by his old Mohammedan notions about wives. The rajah took
Mrs. Blossom on his arm, and promenaded the upper deck with her under
the awnings.
"Faix! Oi belayve the ould feller manes to marry her," said Felix.
"Nonsense, Flix! He is a Mohammedan, and she is a Methodist, and neither
of them would consent to marry the other," replied Louis.
"He knows she's a fust-rate nuss, and that's what he needs. Oi'll give
my free consint to it," added Felix, as Louis was called away.
The three hours' run to the sea was a continuation of the frolic of the
day before, even including the games. At nine o'clock, with the ship in
a sheltered bay, breakfast was served; and it was as lively as all the
other meals had been. More speeches and a confusion of tongues followed.
The two ladies who had come off in the gunboat were the lady who was
said to have detained Mr. Frôler so long in Saigon, and her mother; and
they were treated with the utmost consideration by all. The band played
during the breakfast, having been sent for by the pacha.
Everybody was so happy that Captain Ringgold remained three hours longer
than he had intended. Then the time to separate came; and the parting
was long and difficult, bringing about another confusion of tongues, but
it was over at last. The gunboat received her passengers for up the
river; but the craft did not go that way, and accompanied the two
steamers about five miles to sea, with the American flag flying at the
fore.
As the vessels were to separate finally, the gunboat fired a salute of
seven guns, which was returned by both ships; and then they sped on
their voyage of eight hundred miles to Manila. The captain gave out the
course east by north half-north, and the French flag was hauled down
from the topmast. The passengers of the Blanche had been sent on board
of her, while those of the Guardian-Mother continued to promenade the
deck. The commander noticed that some of them were gaping and yawning,
and he remembered that they had had only three or four hours' sleep.
"I advise you all to turn in and finish your night's sleep," said he.
"Professor Giroud will give his lecture on the Philippine Islands and
Manila to-morrow at half-past nine. There is nothing to do till
dinner-time. No lunch will be served to-day in the cabin, for you have
but just left the breakfast-table; but any one can ring his bell, and
send for whatever is wanted."
The passengers seemed to think favorably of this advice, for they all
went below. There was nothing to see; for there was not a single island
in the course, and the ship was soon out of sight of land, not to see it
again till she made Luban Island, off the entrance to Manila Bay. The
wind was almost dead ahead, though it blew very gently; but this
circumstance soon attracted the attention of Scott, who had been so busy
with the frolics that he had not had time to consult his books and
chart.
It was not his watch; and he went to his stateroom, returning very soon
with the blue book that goes with the chart of the Indian Ocean. He
found that there was an east monsoon which prevailed in the China Sea
north of the equator.
"What's the matter, Mr. Scott?" asked the captain when he found him
absorbed over his book. "Do you think we are going wrong, or that there
is a typhoon within hail?"
"Neither, sir; I was looking to see why the wind was east to-day,"
replied the third officer.
"You have discovered by this time that there is an east monsoon coming
in between those from the north-east and south-west."
"But we did not find it coming up from Sarawak to Bangkok," added the
young officer.
"Your course carried you within between one hundred and one hundred and
fifty miles of the Malay Peninsula. This and the great island of Sumatra
doubtless have some influence on the winds. Both of these bodies of land
are very hot; and, as the air from them tends to the cooler atmosphere
of the sea, they favor the south-west monsoons. All these bodies of land
modify to some extent the prevailing winds."
Scott was satisfied with the explanation, for it conformed with what he
found in his book. When he carried his authority back to his room, he
turned in and took his nap, in order to be ready for his watch at eight
bells in the afternoon watch. In fact, all but the watch on deck were
asleep.
The passengers seemed to be rather logy in their movements and heavy of
intellect, perhaps because they had slept so well. It was cool at sea in
comparison with the shore, and they had by this time become accustomed
to extremely hot weather. But they waked up before the meal was
finished, and all the talk was about the frolics of the last two days.
"What do you call the place where we go next, Captain Ringgold?" asked
Uncle Moses. "I see it spelled in the books with a single _l_ and with a
double _l_. Which is correct?"
"Both," replied the commander. "If you are writing Spanish, you use one
_l_; if you are writing English, you may use two _l's_, though I don't
believe in doing so."
"Do the Spaniards ever double the _l_?"
"I will leave the professor to answer that question," replied the
captain.
"They never spell Manila with two _l's_ when they spell it correctly;
for that would make another word of it,--a common noun instead of a
proper, and meaning quite another thing," the professor explained.
"Perhaps I am stupid, Professor, and I know next to nothing of the
Spanish language," added Uncle Moses, "but I don't quite understand you.
If a Spaniard spelled the capital of the Philippine Islands with a
double _l_ it wouldn't be the capital at all?"
"It would not."
"What would it be?"
"It would be something of which Miss Blanche has a couple in her
possession; and I may say the same of every lady at the table," said the
professor with a cheerful smile on his face.
"But which no gentleman has?" suggested the worthy trustee.
"I don't say that; for the word means in Spanish a small hand."
There was a general laugh around the table, and all the party held out
their paws like dancing bears.
"Then Spaniards must be good spellers," said Dr. Hawkes. "There is very
great difference between the capital of the Philippine Islands and Miss
Blanche's pretty little hands."
"_Ll_, which we call double _l_, is treated as one letter in Spanish,
and it has its own peculiar sound, nearly equivalent to _ly_ in English;
and therefore Miss Blanche's small hand would be called mah-nil-ya,
which is not the capital spoken off. The name of all the islands is
spelled in English with double _p_,--Philippine; but that is not
Spanish, though the geographers have generally adopted that orthography.
The Spanish name is _Las Islas Filipinas_."
"Thank you, Professor; and I think I understand it now," added Uncle
Moses.
"_Quiera V. enseñarme sus manillas, Signorina Blanche?_" said Louis with
a laugh. Of course she did not understand him; and he added, "Will you
show me your small hands, Miss Blanche?" But she did not do so.
"I should very much like to have all geographical names reduced to a
common standard, for I do not believe in translating proper names," said
the commander. "I have been sometimes greatly bothered by the difference
in names. When I came to Aachen in Belgium, I did not know where I was
till I looked in my guide-book, and found it was Aix-la-Chapelle.
Vienna has about three or four different names, and people there would
not know what you meant if you called it as we do, or Vienne as the
French write and spell it."
"I think you are quite right, Mr. Commander," added the professor.
"But I have a few words to say about our voyage; for I find it necessary
to repress the ambition of some of my passengers," continued the
captain. "Some of them wish to visit all the Philippine Islands, and
there are about two thousand of them."
"Oh! oh! oh!" groaned some of the party.
"But the number I gave includes every rock, reef, and shoal that lifts
its head above the water. Some call it twelve hundred. We will not stay
to count them; but there are many of them big enough to have quite a
number of towns on them. I wish to announce that it will not be possible
for us to go to any of them except Manila, spelled with one _l_, and
make an excursion up the Pasig River, and to the lake. But the ambition
of the party is more expansive in regard to China and Japan. As I have
told you, we can take only a specimen city in each country we visit.
Hong-Kong and Canton in China, with some more northern port or city not
yet selected, will be enough to give us an idea of the Central Flowery
Nation."
The party left the cabin, and went on deck to study the map of the
islands they were to visit.