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BIRDSEYE VIEWS OF FAR LANDS
_by_
JAMES T. NICHOLS
Author of "Lands of Sacred Story," "The World Around," etc.
Published by
JAMES T. NICHOLS
University Place Station
DES MOINES, IOWA
Copyrighted 1922
[Illustration: JAMES T. NICHOLS]
INTRODUCTION
Birdseye Views of Far Lands is an interesting, wholesome presentation of
something that a keen-eyed, alert traveler with the faculty of making
contrasts with all classes of people in all sorts of places, in such a
sympathetic way as to win their esteem and confidence, has been able to
pick up as he has roamed over the face of the earth for a quarter of a
century.
The book is not a geography, a history, a treatise on sociology or
political economy. It is a _Human Interest_ book which appeals to the
reader who would like to go as the writer has gone and to see as the
writer has seen the conformations of surface, the phenomena of nature
and the human group that make up what we call a "world."
The reader finds facts indicating travel and study set forth in such
vigorous, vivid style that the attention is held by a story while most
valuable information is being obtained. The casual reader, the pupil in
the public school and student in the high school, professional men and
women, will all find the book at once highly interesting and
instructive. In no other book with which I am acquainted can so much
that is interesting be learned of the world in so short time and in such
a pleasing way.
Teachers in rural schools will find the book especially helpful. It will
inspire the pupils in the upper grades in these schools to do some
observation work themselves and to in this manner seek to learn their
own localities better, while at the same time it will suggest the
collection of materials about other countries, their peoples, products,
characteristics and importance from sources other than text books.
_Every rural school as well as every high school and public library in
the land should have one or more copies of this book._
W. F. BARR
_Dean College of Education
Drake University_
AN ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The contents of this book have appeared, in substance, in Successful
Farming, a magazine that has a circulation of more than eight hundred
and fifty thousand copies per issue, and the book is published largely
at the request of many of the readers of this journal.
The author began traveling in foreign countries many years ago. Some of
the countries described in the book have been visited many times and
often with unusual opportunity to see places and people as they really
are.
When the writer began traveling it was with no thought of ever writing
for a magazine or publishing a book. It is only natural, however, that
one would read what others say about the countries he expected to visit.
Travel books and articles were often read in public libraries and the
habit was formed of making extensive notes, sometimes entire sentences
being copied in notebook without the use of quotation marks or any
reference whatever to the author. It is therefore impossible to give
credit where credit is often due.
No literary merit is claimed for the book. The information was gained in
every possible way and the book is sent forth hoping that it will be
suggestive and helpful, especially to those who find it impossible to
visit foreign lands. If the eye of an author of a book or magazine
article should read the following pages and fall upon a thought or
sentence that is familiar it will be evidence that your book or article
was very helpful to the one who writes these lines. This book is simply
an effort to pass some of the worth while things on to others.
"Jas. T. Nichols" [handwritten signature.]
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I The Land of Opposites--China 5
II The Pearl of the Orient--Philippines 12
III The Country America Opened to Civilization--Japan 20
IV The Transformation of a Nation--Korea 28
V A Great Unknown Land--Manchuria 35
VI The Land of Sorrow--Siberia 43
VII The Home of Bolshevism--Russia 51
VIII The Nation That Conquers the Sea--Holland 58
IX The Nation That the World Honors--Belgium 65
X A Glimpse of America's Friend--France 73
XI Some Impressions of the Great Peace Conference 81
XII The Nightmare of Europe--Alsace-Lorraine 88
XIII The Home of the Passion Play--Oberammergau 95
XIV The Country Where the War Started--Servia 102
XV A World-Famous Land--Palestine 110
XVI A World-Famous City--Jerusalem 116
XVII A World-Famous River--The Jordan 122
XVIII The Playground of Moses--Egypt 128
XIX A Country With a Thousand Rivers--Venezuela 136
XX A Land of Great Industries--Brazil 143
XXI Uruguay and Paraguay 151
XXII The Wonderful Argentine Republic 158
XXIII Yankeedom of South America--Chile 165
XXIV The Switzerland of South America--Bolivia 173
XXV The Land of Mystery--Peru 179
XXVI The World's Great Crossroad--Panama Canal 186
XXVII The Seven Wonders of the World 193
CHAPTER I
THE LAND OF OPPOSITES--CHINA
A half century ago the world laughed at Jules Verne for imagining that
it would ever be possible to go around the world in eighty days. It was
not until years later that Nellie Bly, a reporter, actually encircled
the globe in that space of time. Now we are dreaming of making such a
journey in ten days and our aeroplanes are flying at a rate of speed
that would take one around the world in eight days. At this hour
thousands of young men can handle these flyers as easily and with almost
as little danger as they can handle an automobile. With aerial mail
routes already established in many countries it will not be long until
mail service by aeroplane will be established around the world.
This book is a series of Birdseye Views of Far Lands something the same
as one would see on a flying visit to various countries. In this way it
will be possible to get glimpses of countries on every continent in one
small volume and thus give interesting and valuable information about
countries and peoples in all parts of the world. Young people especially
are in the mind of the writer. As most of the information was secured by
rambling through these countries and rubbing elbows with the common
people it will be difficult to keep from using the personal pronoun
quite often.
It is fitting that our first view be of China which is one of the oldest
civilizations on the earth. This great agricultural people have tilled
the same soil for forty centuries and in most cases it yet produces more
per acre than the soil of perhaps any other country. The Chinese are a
great people. Although they are just awakening from a sleep that has
lasted twenty centuries or more, yet the world can learn many valuable
lessons from them. They used to embody the genius of the world and even
yet have skill along certain lines that is simply amazing. Many of the
great inventions that have blessed the world and which we are using
today were wrought out by these people and it will not be out of place
here to recount some of their achievements.
The Chinese invented printing five hundred years before Caxton was born
and the Peking Gazette is said to be the oldest newspaper in the world.
They invented paper nearly eighteen centuries ago and had books hundreds
of years before the days of Gutenburg. They invented the compass twenty
centuries before Jesus was born in Bethlehem. They invented gunpowder
ages ago and were the first people to use firearms. They used banknotes
and bills of exchange long before other nations, and the modern adding
machine is founded upon a principle which has been used by them a
thousand years. They discovered the process of rearing the silkworm and
they dressed in silk when our forefathers wore clothing made of the
skins of animals. The writer has crossed the Atlantic more than a dozen
times on ships with watertight compartments, a so-called modern safety
device, but the Chinese had watertight compartments in their junks
hundreds of years before modern steamships were ever dreamed about.
To the Chinese we must credit the making of asbestos, the manufacture of
lacquer, the carving of ivory and many other important industries. Even
today they make the finest dishes and the best pottery. At one time
they built a tower two hundred and fifty-six feet high entirely of
porcelain. Ages ago they dug the longest and in some respects the
greatest canal ever dug on earth, the Grand Canal of China, which was a
thousand miles long and some of which is in use to this day. They built
the Great Wall of China which was fifteen hundred miles in length and
which was a greater undertaking than the building of the Pyramids of
Egypt.
The Chinese were the first people to coin money in a mint; the first to
have a standard of weights and measures; the first to have a system of
marking time. They had a celestial globe, an observatory, and noted the
movements of heavenly bodies more than four thousand years ago. A
Chinaman was the first to distill and use intoxicating liquor and for
this he was dismissed from the public service by the ruler who said,
"This will cost someone a kingdom some day." They are industrious,
resourceful and skillful and should they become warriors and introduce
modern methods and instruments of warfare the world would be up against
the most frightful peril of all ages. Napoleon Bonaparte said of China,
"Yonder sleeps a mighty giant and when it awakens it will make the whole
world tremble."
The Chinese are one of the strongest races of people in existence. They
have only been conquered twice but in both cases they absorbed their
conquerors and made Chinese of them. Although old, out of date and slow,
they have principles in their civilization that will last as long as
time, and China will be a great nation long after some of the so-called
great nations now in existence are forgotten.
With the exception of Russia as it was before the world war, the
Chinese Empire is perhaps the largest the world has ever known. Its
population comprises one-fourth of the human race. If the single state
of Texas were as densely populated as at least one of the provinces of
China, there would be living in this one state more than two hundred
million people or nearly twice as many people as are now living in the
whole United States. The resources of this great country are almost
boundless. There is said to be coal enough in China to furnish the whole
world fuel for a thousand years. While in China I was told of one
mountain that has five veins of coal that can be seen without throwing a
shovelful of dirt. Some years ago the German government investigated the
iron resources of China and published the fact that they are the finest
in the world. This no doubt explains one reason why Germany was trying
to get a foothold in China.
But in agriculture the Chinese shine. As noted above they have tilled
the same soil for four thousand years. Some of this soil too is very
thin and poor but it produces as well today as it did a thousand years
ago. While most of their methods are the oldest and crudest that can be
found, yet in some other ways the whole world can learn lessons from
them. They use fertilizer in the form of liquid and put it on the
growing plant rather than on the soil as we do. The farmer will feed his
plants with the same regularity and care that our farmers feed and care
for their horses and cattle. Every drop of urine and every particle of
night soil is preserved for fertilizer. This is saved in earthen jars
and gathered, mostly by women, each morning. A Chinese contractor paid
the city of Shanghai $31,000 in gold in a single year for the privilege
of collecting the human waste and selling it to the farmers around near
the city. Where a beast of burden is at work a boy or girl is near with
a long handled dipper ready to catch the urine and droppings as they
fall.
In China the farmers have always been held in high esteem. While the
scholar is highest, the farmer is second on the list in the social
scale. It is interesting to know that the soldier is fifth or last on
the list because his work is to destroy rather than to build up. The hoe
is an emblem of honor in China. For hundreds of years the Emperor with
his nobles went every spring to the Temple of Agriculture to offer
sacrifice. After this ceremony they all went to a field near the temple
and paid honor to the tillers of the soil. At a yellow painted plow, to
which was hitched a cow or buffalo, with a yellow robed peasant leading,
the Emperor dressed as a farmer put his hand to the plow and turned nine
furrows across the field while bands of musicians chanted the praises of
agriculture. Even the Empress set the example of honest agricultural
toil by picking the leaves from the mulberry trees, early each spring,
to be fed to silk worms.
All China is a network of canals and the Chinese are a race of
irrigators. Both men and women stand from daylight until dark walking on
a sort of a windlass turning an endless chain with buckets on it, one
end of which is in the canal and the other end up on the bank, pumping
the water up to flood the rice fields or irrigate the growing crops. No
people toil harder or more earnestly than do these simple people. While
they grow an abundance of vegetables, yet rice and tea are the greatest
products of China.
The great rivers of the empire are so liable to disastrous floods that
in many of the lower lands the people content themselves with fishing
and raising geese and ducks. A duck farm is most interesting. A large
shed by the river, or a raft, will serve as a shelter for the night. The
farmer of course sleeps in this shed. Early in the morning he opens the
door and out come the ducks. At night they return from every direction
scrambling over each other to get in. The Chinaman sits near the door
with a long bamboo pole herding them in. He even trains drakes to assist
him and they care for the flock something like a good shepherd dog will
care for sheep.
The Chinese do nearly everything backward or opposite from the way we do
it. The reading in their books begins at the end. Instead of across the
page the lines are up and down with footnotes at the top. The Chinaman
laughs at a funeral and cries at a wedding. He beckons you to come when
he wants you to go away. Instead of shaking his friend's hand in
greeting him he shakes his own hands. When he gets puzzled instead of
scratching his head as we do he kicks off his shoe and scratches the
bottom of his foot. When he gets mad at another he kills himself
imagining that his dead spirit will haunt the enemy and make life
miserable for him. Men often do crochet work while women dig ditches and
drive piling. Men wear petticoats and women wear trousers.
The Chinese launch ships sideways. Their compass points to the south. In
building a house they make the roof first and the foundation is the last
thing they put in. The key in the door turns backward to lock it. The
kitchen is in the front while the best room is in the back of the house.
When a Chinaman sprinkles clothes for ironing purposes he uses his mouth
as the sprinkler. I never had a collar washed in China that was not
ironed wrong side out. He pays the doctor when he is well and stops the
pay the moment he gets sick. You can almost bank on a Chinaman doing
anything the opposite from the way you do it and he laughs at your way
as much as you do at his.