THROUGH EASTERN STRAITS AND ISLANDS
In every long journey there comes a time when one feels a little dreary.
So many new things have been seen that the mind and eye are tired. Then
maybe there is just a touch of home-sickness mingled with it, and when
one gets to a part less beautiful than what has gone before all at once
there is a longing to turn and fly back to all that we are accustomed
to. It seems to me that you and I are suffering from that now. We have
left Burma behind, and for two days have ploughed down the Gulf of
Martaban toward Penang in the Straits Settlements. We did not want to
make friends with anyone on board, and were just a trifle grumpy even
toward each other. We felt the parting from Joyce and her mother, who
had made Burma so enjoyable, and we weren't ready to begin making new
friends all at once.
Burma forms the western part of a great peninsula, and stretching out
southward from it is a long arm, the shape of an Indian club, narrower
in the neck and broadening out, to run up finally to a point. Alongside
of the broadest part is the great island of Sumatra, belonging to the
Dutch, who are our principal rivals in this region of the world.
"The captain's compliments, and we're going to set off some rockets to
scare the sea-birds," says one of the officers, suddenly appearing
beside us. "We're passing close by that little island there--Pulo Pera."
Now there is something to see we wake up at once. Sure enough there it
is ahead, a little island rising like a cliff out of the water. It is
evidently deep close in, for we go quite near to it. Just as we are
abreast off goes rocket after rocket, and in a moment the scene is
transformed as if by magic. A dense mass of shrieking, screaming birds
springs to life. The moment before the sun was shining in a clear sky,
now in an instant it is obscured as by a thick cloud. You never saw
anything like it! The birds on the Bass Rock are fairly thick, but
here--day is turned to night and the commotion and uproar are wildly
exciting, like the clash of legions in the sky.
Long after we are past we can see them thinning down gradually as some
keep dropping back on to their island home, while the more restless,
nervous spirits still circle and swoop in loops and curves.
A marvellous sight!
Penang itself is an island, and as we swing round to the capital town,
Georgetown, on the inner or land side, we see an astonishing mass of
green, with a great hill clothed almost to the summit rising behind the
town. We can go up there to-morrow if you like, as we have a day to
spend here owing to a change of steamers.
As we come to anchor in the bay a perfect swarm of small boats, called
sampans, dance round the ship, and the owners offer their wares with
astonishing noise. Looking down you can see the yellow faces of the men
who have narrow eyes and pigtails coiled round their heads under
enormous hats. It looks as if we had tumbled into China by mistake, for
these are nearly all Chinamen, and yet the inhabitants of this country
are Malays. The Malay, however, is like the Burman in that he does not
care to exert himself if he can help it, so he lets the Chink, as the
Chinamen are familiarly called, do all the business. The rich earth
yields a hundredfold, and the Malay has only to scratch a very little of
it very gently, and plant or sow a small quantity of something, and he
is provided for for a year! The Chinaman is an industrious soul and an
uncommonly good market-gardener, so he grows vegetables for sale and
makes a good thing out of it; half these boats are full of vegetables
grown by the very men who are selling them.
Soon we are in a sampan, being rapidly rowed shore-wards. The man works
the boat standing up and faces the way he is going; he does it very
easily, with the ends of his long oars crossed over and worked almost
entirely by wrist play. We are right under a high, old-fashioned-looking
trading ship now; do you see that great eye painted on the bows? There
is another on the other side. That shows it is a Chinese ship; the men
have a superstition that the ship cannot see without these eyes. They
say, "No got eye, no can see; no can see, no can savee."
Great rocks stick out from the foliage on the hillside, and nearer is
the town, with its pretty thatched houses and palatial mansions and
avenues of greenery. It is all slightly different from the countries we
have seen already, and yet it is difficult to say quite where the
difference lies. Here is our old friend the rickshaw man, only he is a
Chinaman, of course, and some of these rickshaws are two-seated, so we
can both get into one; the man who pulls starts off gently as if it were
no trouble. He wears nothing above the waist, and we can see the
well-developed muscles moving under his sun-browned skin. On the road we
meet many Chinese women dressed in trousers; you must have seen some in
Hyde Park, I think, for people often bring them over to England as
nurses for their children, they are so clean and reliable. They all wear
trousers like that, just plain, straight down, shapeless trousers, with
a tunic falling over them; it is a neat and effective dress.
[Illustration: CHINESE LADY IN TROUSERS.]
Whew! It's hot! I don't feel inclined to move a limb; this steamy heat
is so much more trying than the heat we had in the dry zone of Burma,
where you and Joyce got lost; there the nights were always cool, almost
sharp sometimes. That building you are pointing at, with the dragons
over the doorway, is a Chinese temple, and I don't suppose they would
mind our going in at all. It looks nice and cool, anyway. We stop the
rickshaw man and pass through several courtyards enclosed by high walls.
In one is an open upper storey like a first-floor room with a wall
knocked out; this is a stage. You may well ask how anyone in the
courtyard can see the play--they can't! Only the favoured few who sit in
the galleries get a good view!
In all the courts a few Chinamen lounge about on the steps; they are
probably half-stupid with opium, for they are not naturally lazy.
Passing on to the inner shrine we see a much-decorated screen, behind
which an image is hidden, but we are not allowed to pull it aside. The
room in which it stands is crowded with hideous figures, squat devils,
grinning dragons, and other disagreeable forms. Before them are empty
tin biscuit-boxes full of sand, in which are stuck messy little tapers.
There is a funny smell of incense mixed with tallow in the air. It is a
creepy, uncomfortable place, and the Chinese religion is not one that
would attract a stranger; I expect you would have to be brought up in it
to understand it!
Unfortunately next day our expedition to the mountain is spoilt by
torrents of rain which stream down unceasingly, and time hangs heavy on
our hands.
"It always rains here, all the year round, more or less," says a
friendly Englishman in the hotel. "If you like I'll take you to see a
well-to-do Chinaman who is a friend of mine. The Chinamen are all rich
here, lots of them keep motors." We gladly accept and go off under
borrowed umbrellas to the outskirts of the town. The house stands by
itself in a clump of trees and is very imposing with its great white
marble pillars; as we get near we see huge gold letters in weird
characters all across the front. Then before we have time to notice any
more we are in the hall looking at a great bowl of gold-fish, and in
another minute our host is bowing before us. He is wearing a very
magnificent embroidered coat of red silk with great wing-like sleeves;
the embroidery is a marvel, dragons in blue and gold, and fishes of
rainbow hues disport themselves all over it. Under it is a short black
satin petticoat, rather like a kilt, and black boots with thick white
felt soles. The gentleman is tall and well made, a fine figure of a man,
and on his head is a little round black cap, from which escapes his
pigtail. He stands bowing before us and shaking hands with himself,
which, as a method of greeting, is perhaps better than our own way. He
takes us into a dark gloomy room full of cabinets of black lacquer
richly decorated with gold and mother-of-pearl. There are sombre carved
wood chairs set back against the wall. It is all very costly, but to us
it seems uncomfortable and funereal. The chief things that attract us
are rows of little red pieces of paper of odd lengths hanging over
strings from the ceiling, as if they were drying after a washing-day.
The Englishman explains that the Chinaman is very proud of these, for
they are all New Year's greetings from his friends, and the number of
them shows what a popular man he must be. As the Chinese New Year's Day
is on April the first, and that was only a week ago, these are all new;
but if we had arrived at any time of the year we should have seen them
just the same, for they are left hanging all the year round till the
next lot arrives.
[Illustration: A CHINESE GENTLEMAN.]
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF CHINESE HOUSE AT SINGAPORE.]
On the whole we are not sorry to leave Penang; we have felt limp all the
time, worse even than we did in the Red Sea. The steamer we board this
time is the _Khyber_ of the P. & O. Company. She belongs to the
Intermediate Line, which comes right out to Japan from England, taking
about six weeks on the way. For anyone who wants change and rest and no
worry that's a fine voyage, as the boats stop at many places. We shall
go on with her to Japan. As we are starting on the steamer we hear
various cracks and snaps from the boats near, where crackers are being
exploded. The captain happens to pass on the way to the bridge and
smiles as he hears them. "They're not firing salvos in our honour," he
says; "they think the ship is full of devils, and in case a few have
escaped and might land in their blameless boats, they're frightening
them back again before it is too late." It makes a great difference to
have a captain who takes an interest in his passengers and bothers to
tell them incidents as they happen, though to him they may be dull as
ditch water, as he has been through them all dozens of times already.
The next time we meet the captain it is growing dusk, and he points
ahead to what looks like a black rock looming up sheer from the sea.
"Curious thing that," he says meditatively; "it's an island, Pulo
Jarrak,--islands are all Pulo here,--and owing to the quantity of rain
which falls here the vegetation grows so thickly it makes the island
stand right out; even on a dark night you can see it ten to twenty miles
off. It looks quite black."
We have only one stop on the way to Singapore, exactly midway between it
and Penang, at Port Swettenham.
As we pass southward the Straits narrow and we can see the hills of
Sumatra on one side, and sometimes funny little villages built on piles
out over the water on the other. Pretty good sport to be able to drop a
fishing-line out of one's front door, isn't it?
When the land gets very close on both sides we swing round suddenly, and
behold! we are at Singapore, which, like Penang, is an island, and
stands at the extreme south point of the long peninsula. It guards this
useful passage where all the traffic between China and Japan on the one
side comes to India on the other, just as Aden guards the Red Sea and
Gibraltar the Mediterranean. Great Britain manages somehow to pick up
all the lucky bits, and it is not by design either, it just happens that
way. I can tell how this one happened; it was because there chanced to
be a Man out here--a Man with a capital letter!
We go ashore and get into rickshaws and start for the town, which is a
long three miles off. We shan't have time to do more than look round.
The road runs by the docks at Singapore, which are enormous and extend
all along the coast up to the town. On the way we pass men of all
nations. There are natives of India, companies of Sikhs, Madrassees like
Ramaswamy,--who is well on his way back to his master now,--Cingalese,
Tamils with frizzy heads, little Japanese ladies in rickshaws, plenty of
Chinese, and many Malays. The Malays are yellow rather than brown; they
have just that slight narrowing of the eyes which tells they are akin to
the Chinese, and they are, as a rule, well-made neat men, wearing loose
blue skirts, with orange or red sashes, and large hats; some of them
have short white jackets which are the universal top garments out here,
when there are any at all.
The town itself is astonishingly well built; electric trams run
everywhere, and there are splendid public buildings. As we trot along in
our rickshaws we enter a large square. Do you see the name up there?
Raffles Square. Sir Stamford Raffles was the man who made Singapore. In
his time, the first part of the nineteenth century, Great Britain was
very anxious to give away everything she had in the East to the first
person who asked for it, as she did not want to fight about it, and
could not see what use it could be, for the idea of Imperialism and
Empire had not been developed. The Dutch asked largely and always got
what they asked for, whether they had a right to it or not; this enraged
Raffles, who happened to be out here, and so he looked around and
noticed that the island of Singapore was placed in a wonderful position
for trade, that it commanded the Straits, and that no one as yet had
made any claim on it. He settled down here and put up the British flag.
It was years before his country finally decided to acknowledge him and
not give his territory up to the Dutch, who immediately asked for it;
but in the end they did, and now here stands Singapore, a mighty city
with miles of docks, a colossal trade, and a teeming population. There
is a statue to Sir Stamford Raffles, as it is right there should be. The
Botanical Gardens are worth seeing, and we can get tiffin in one of the
palatial hotels, and then we must go back to the ship.
[Illustration: A VILLAGE BUILT ON PILES, SUMATRA.
LITTLE BROWN BOYS PLAY ABOUT AND FISH.]
The scene in the bay as we depart is most lovely; ships of every nation
are at anchor there, and as we pass out slowly we see island after
island all covered with that rich green growth which is the result of
the constant rain and warmth. Blue and green and gold is the world, and
the little brown boys play about their water-built villages, tumbling in
and out of the water, and living in the warm sea as much as on land day
by day. Shoals of them come round us in their catamarans and dive for
money, catching the silver bit as it twinkles down through the water,
even though they make their spring from many yards off. As we get
farther out we feel the difference in temperature at once, for now we
are heading north, and the night is cold and rough--it is like passing
into another climate.
[Illustration: PIGTAILS.]
These are wonderful seas, and dearly should I like some day to bring you
on a cruise in and about this group of great islands to the south, which
is like nothing else in the world! There is Borneo, that gigantic
island, twice as large as the British Isles, which belongs partly to the
British and partly to the Dutch. The story of Sir Stamford Raffles is
outdone by the story of the Rajah of Sarawak, which shows that even in
our own times the blood of Drake and Cook runs in the veins of
Englishmen.
Hong-Kong is another island and also belongs to the British; it was
given to them by treaty in 1841. As we sail in under the lee of the
island by the narrow entrance to the bay between it and the mainland, we
see what a splendid natural harbour this is. High above on the island
rises what is called the Peak, and up and up and up it, in rows and
terraces, are the houses of the people who live here. We can go up the
Peak by a tram-line if we have time. The city is called Victoria, and is
actually built on the rock or, rather, on terraces cut out of the face
of it, one above the other. It is strange to find this little British
colony isolated here on a bit of China, separated from the real China by
half a mile of sea. As the steamer comes to rest on the mainland side at
Kowloon Wharf we must take a ferry over to the city.
Once we are there we find a well-built town with wide roads, tree lined
and very clean; there are many quite English-looking buildings of stone,
and in the shops a strange mixture of wares, European and Eastern. Some
of the shops are piled with the rich Eastern silk embroideries, ivory
and lacquer work, carvings and fans, silver and metal work, paintings
and furniture.
We have time to run up to the top by the tramway, and higher and higher
as we go, houses still, houses all the way, and even at the very top
there are some houses where the governor and other important people live
in summer. It has been gloomy and cloudy all day, threatening rain, but
just as we reach the summit the sun comes out in yellow glory, dropping
to the West, and all the innumerable inlets and bays are turned to gold.
The land between stands up in capes and cliffs and headlands, rather dim
and misty, with the golden water flashing between.
We are off once more and up the coast to Shanghai, the last Chinese port
we touch before going over to Japan.
Next morning we come up on deck to find a wet, clammy fog--we might be
back in England again--how astonishing!
Now and again appearing out of the folds of swathing mist we see little
islands and gaily painted fishing-boats, the owners of which seem bent
on committing suicide. The boats sometimes are junks, with the square
brown sails that we have by this time seen so often, or they are tiny
little boats; whichever it is, they seem as if they deliberately tried
to get under our bows, as you have seen village children run across in
front of motor-cars. Again and again we feel the steamer sheer off a
little to clear them, and sometimes she just succeeds in doing so. I
expect the captain's temper is being pretty severely tried up there on
the bridge. He stays there while the fog lasts, but when it clears a
little in the evening he comes down for a hasty dinner.
Then we get at him and make fresh demands on his patience by questions.
He seems to have a stock left, for he laughs good-humouredly when I
speak of the native boats. "They _do_ do it on purpose," he says; "they
think it's good joss, as they say,--good luck that is, just to cross our
bows. It means a never-ending look-out all along this coast, and nothing
cures them. All the same they're some use when one gets fogged here, for
you can generally tell where you are, to some extent, by the
fishing-boats; they run in different colours and patterns at places
along the coast, each part has its own special fashions in paint and
rig."
He has hardly time to swallow his dinner before he is back on the
bridge. It's a ticklish bit of navigation here.
We still thread our way close inshore through innumerable islands. One
of them stands up stiff and straight, pointing like an obelisk to the
sky. It is called the Finger Rock. We notice, too, very frequently, the
white lighthouses, kept very clean. Then we go through a pass, two miles
wide, called "Steep Island Pass," and are into the mouth of the
Yangtsekiang River. Up this we go for a hundred miles before reaching
Woosung, the Gravesend of Shanghai, which is still twelve or thirteen
miles farther on. Then a turn and we are in sight of Shanghai with its
factories and chimneys and great sheds called "godowns" with galvanised
iron roofs. It is a disappointing place, but as we go farther on we see
a public promenade and some clean, well-built stone houses. The
Europeanised part of the city is, however, uninteresting, and we don't
care to go into the native part by ourselves, so our chief amusement is
watching the Chinese coolies loading and unloading the ship. Notice,
they never push things on trollies, as our men do; they always carry
everything slung on a bamboo. Even that great lump of iron, which must
be part of some machinery, there it is, surrounded by a shouting horde
of men, all slinging it up by their own little ropes, all giving a hand
to carry the great mass along.
We have gathered very little of China in our short time at the ports,
but we shall be able to get a better idea of Japan. Our first idea of it
is when we stop at the island of Rokwren two days later and take on the
pilot who is going to run us through the far-famed Inland Sea. At the
same time two or three smart little Japanese doctors in European dress
come on board to inquire into the health of passengers and crew, and
give us a permit, for the Japs are most particular about not letting any
foreign germs be landed on their shores, and at every port doctors come
on board to make quite sure everyone is free from illness.
The next thing we know about Japan is her coal, for 1500 tons of it are
brought on board, in little baskets, handed from one to another of long
rows of men, women, and children, all working equally hard.
[Illustration: CHINESE PORTER.]
The narrow strait that leads into the Inland Sea is only a quarter of a
mile wide, and after passing through it we steam along quietly amid the
most beautiful scenery we have passed since leaving England. Everywhere
are little islands, well cultivated, woody, and rocky. Rocks and hills
and capes break up the vistas, and every time we turn a corner we see
something better than before. The ship stops at Kobe, but, unluckily,
you have got a touch of the sun and the doctor strictly forbids you to
go on shore. Never mind, we'll soon be at Yokohama, which is far better.
By that time you are quite yourself again, and when the captain calls
us up on deck you are eager to go. He points to a solid triangle of
rock, sticking up out of the sea not very far distant, and as we look at
it a flash of red flame spurts out into the air and something red-hot
rolls swiftly down the scored sides. What does it remind you of? It is
another Stromboli, of course!
"That," says the captain solemnly, "is the safety-valve of Japan. If it
were blocked up there's no knowing what might happen." Then he swings
round and points in another direction. Clear against the soft blue of
the sky we see a sharp-pointed white cloud of a very curious shape, like
an opened fan upside down. It seems quite detached from everything else,
merely a curious snowy fan hanging in mid-air. "Why, it's Fujiyama, of
course."
So it is! The famous Japanese mountain seen in thousands of the
country's drawings and paintings; in fact, it has come to be a sort of
national signboard. Now that we know where to look we see that the white
fan part is merely the snow-cap running in large streaks downward, and
that this rests upon a base as blue as the sky. Henceforward we shall
see Fujiyama at many hours of the day--never a wide-spreading view but
Fujiyama will be there, never a long road but Fujiyama at the end of it,
never a flat plain without it. So odd is the great mountain, and so much
character has it, that we feel inclined to nod good-night or
good-morning to it when it greets us.
Then we enter the magnificent harbour of Yokohama with its hundreds of
sampans, junks, tugs, ships, steamers, and every other craft. The
smaller craft surround us clamorously, and looking down upon them we see
that in almost every case there is a cat on board the junks, many of
them tabby or tortoise-shell.
"'Cat good joss,' as the Chinamen would say," remarks a man standing
near us, "specially three-coloured cats. They wouldn't give a fig for
our lucky black ones without a white hair."
Hundreds of coolies are now clamouring for jobs all round. They are
almost all dressed in blue, and those that wear upper garments have huge
hieroglyphics of gay colours on their backs--these are the signs of
their trades, or trades unions, as we might say, and each man wears his
with pride.
So, with a fleet of attendant boats, gaily-dressed coolies, and
complacent cats surrounding us, we come to our anchorage, say good-bye
to the captain with great regret, and make our plunge into this new
land.
[Illustration: GATEWAY, JAPAN.]