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 CHARLES WILLIAM WASON 
 COLLECTION 
 
 CHINA AND THE CHINESE 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 CHARLES WiLUrAM WASON 
 
 CLASS OF 1876 
 
 1918 
 
Cornell University Library 
 G 469.R32 
 
 A-rovng he would go :froni the Southern 
 
 3 1924 023 257 144 
 
The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023257144 
 
A- Roving He Would Go 
 
 From the Southern Cross to the Arctic Circle 
 
 By 
 Milton Reed 
 
 Author of " The Democratic Ideal," 
 "The Sea o£ Faith," etc. 
 
 Boston 
 
 Sherman, French fif Company 
 
 1910 
 
 ,0,0 UN I I i 
 
 u,.Hivi:u;-n Y 
 
Copyright 1909 
 Sherman, French <S- Company 
 
" As one that travelleth." 
 
 Proverbs VI, 11. 
 
 " Among new men, strange faces, 
 other minds." 
 
 Tennyson; " The Passing of Arthur.'' 
 
 " You shall comprehend all vagrom 
 
 men." 
 
 Shakespeare: "Much Ado About Nothing." 
 
 " Wandering from clime to clime ob- 
 servant strayed, 
 
 Their manners noted, and their states 
 surveyed." 
 
 " Odyssey." 
 
NOTE 
 
 The following chapters are based 
 upon the author's personal experi- 
 ences and observations gathered in 
 two extended tours in 1908 and 
 1909. 
 
 The series of chapters beginning 
 with that on the Hawaiian Islands 
 and ending with that on German 
 Cities, were written while the au- 
 thor was on the tour, and have since 
 been revised. The others, begin- 
 ning with Egypt and ending with 
 Greece, were written immediately af- 
 ter his return. Thus all were writ- 
 ten while the author was under the 
 spell of novel impressions. The arti- 
 cles, as originally published in a 
 local paper, are believed to have in- 
 terested a good many readers. The 
 author hopes that, in their expanded 
 form, they will interest even a larger 
 number. 
 
 M. R. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS . . 1 
 
 II. JAPAN 22 
 
 III. KOREA 42 
 
 IV. CHINA 56 
 
 V. MANCHURIA 74 
 
 VI. SIBERIA 85 
 
 VII. RUSSIA 97 
 
 VIII. SWEDEN AND NORWAY . . .108 
 
 IX. STILL IN THE NORTHLAND . 128 
 
 X. SOME GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN 
 
 CITIES 146 
 
 XI. EGYPT 163 
 
 XIL EGYPT: ANOTHER VIEW . .178 
 
 XIII. PALESTINE 198 
 
 XIV. THE ISLES OF GREECE . . .218 
 XV. CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE 
 
 TURK 234 
 
 XVI. GREECE 243 
 
THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 
 
 And afterwards he brought me to the gate, even 
 the gate that looketh toward the east. — Ezekiel. 
 
 The Hawaiian Islands are indeed a gate that 
 looketh toward the east; although next to the 
 Phillippine Islands they are the most westerly 
 outpost of the American Republic. It is only 
 since 1898 that they became an American pos- 
 session ; and a beautiful and noble possession they 
 are. 
 
 It Is more than thirty-five years since my 
 fellow student at Harvard, Hon. William R. 
 Castle, a native of the islands, a son of devoted, 
 self-sacrificing missionaries, a member of a fam- 
 ily whose services to education, morals, and pub- 
 lic duties, and whose honorable business record, 
 have made them universally respected among aU 
 the Hawaiian people, — painted to me a glowing 
 picture of his island home. Ever since, I have 
 desired to see with my own eyes what his eloquent 
 words had visualized in my imagination. Many 
 years were to pass, with all their lights and shad- 
 ows, joys and sorrows, before I was to set foot on 
 his native shores. To say that the reality is 
 beyond my anticipation is to use words mildly. 
 
 1 
 
2 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 After a few weeks of residence on these enchanted 
 islands of the deep, I can see how justly they have 
 been called, " The Paradise of the Pacific." 
 
 There has always been a certain appeal which 
 islands have had for me. Rarely have I seen one 
 in any of my wanderings on the ocean when I 
 have not felt a siren call to put myself on its 
 shores. After one has been tossed about on the 
 top of the billowy ocean, and has almost lost 
 belief in the existence of land anywhere, a glimpse 
 of the yellow sands or rugged cliifs of some 
 island poking its head out of the waters seems 
 to create to " that inward eye which is the bhss 
 of solitude," a new sense of beauty, and to the 
 heart, a sense of home-like restfulness. There 
 is a magic, as well as a pathos, in the call of an 
 island. Insular settlements are apt to be inter- 
 esting, and I have rarely visited an island town 
 without deriving much pleasure from treading 
 upon its soil, and feeling the heart-beats of its 
 people. And of all islands which I have vis- 
 ited, there has been none whose appeal has been 
 so strong as this chain of romantic islands in the 
 mid-Pacific. They were known in my boyhood 
 days as the Sandwich Islands, so-called by Cap- 
 tain Cook, their English discoverer, in honor of 
 his patron, the Earl of Sandwich; but have now 
 fortunately been impressed with the better name 
 of the Hawaiian Islands, from Hawaii, the largest 
 of the group. This name is a reversion to that 
 
THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 3 
 
 given to the islands by the natives; and surely 
 they had a right to choose their own name. 
 
 There are eight inhabited islands in the archi- 
 pelago : — Hawaii, Maui, Kahulawi, Lanai, 
 Molokai, Oahu, Kauai, Niihau. These sibilant 
 names, caught from the dying Polynesian speech, 
 have a strange sound to us, whose ears have been 
 trained to the rugged English tongue: — but 
 how trippingly they fall from Kanaka lips. 
 Strange, that the most primitive languages are 
 often the most musical. Is it because they are 
 poured out from the heart of the race, before so- 
 called culture had debilitated and confused, as 
 well as enriched, the brain.'' 
 
 What in the way of human utterance could be 
 simpler than the native speech of the Hawaiians.'' 
 I think I have been told that it has but twelve 
 letters. If primitive thoughts were simple, the 
 vehicle of expression answered its purpose beau- 
 tifully. If there was no art in it, yet it re- 
 flected the close relation of mankind to the won- 
 drous world of external nature in which it was 
 thrust, when it arose from the vital slime and 
 dust. 
 
 Although Hawaii is the largest island, the cap- 
 ital city, Honolulu, is on the island of Oahu ; it is 
 a place of some forty thousand inhabitants, gath- 
 ered by reason of the splendid harbor, one of the 
 finest on the great Pacific. 
 
 The delicious climate of the islands is pro- 
 
4 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 duced by the trade winds, which belt them like 
 a protecting rampart, refrigerating the sub- 
 tropical heats, and repelling extreme frost and 
 cold. For nine months of the year, these trade 
 winds blow from the northeast; and act as a 
 shield from the damp heat which sometimes is 
 swept in waves from the equatorial regions lying 
 to the southward; for the Hawaiian Islands are 
 only about eighteen and one-half degrees north 
 of the equator. The climate is remarkably uni- 
 form; great extremes of temperature are prac- 
 tically unknown. Winter and summer are almost 
 alike ; no buildings are heated ; surf bathing is had 
 the year round; trees are always in leafage and 
 shrubs in blossom; summer clothing, especially 
 white, is the universal costume. Of course, this 
 uniformity of climate is not an unmixed blessing. 
 One who is accustomed to the tingling cold and 
 frosty skies of a New England February, misses 
 something out of life, even when one can sit in 
 the evening in shirt sleeves on an open veranda, 
 called here a laiim. Yet there appears to be no 
 lack of vitality among the people, although life 
 here is without the lash and spur which are sup- 
 posed to breed hardy races. As the islands are 
 of volcanic formation, the general aspect of the 
 landscape is rugged, being broken into mountains 
 and valleys. In some respects it resembles the 
 coast of California, which is 2,080 miles distant. 
 No land intervenes from the time the steamer 
 leaves the Golden Gate until, the course having 
 
THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 6 
 
 been in a southwest direction, the headland of 
 these islands appears. A vast waste of water 
 has been traversed in almost absolute solitude; 
 — the jetty of a whale or the sparkling mail of 
 a flying fish, or a seabird wheeling in the bound- 
 less air, being the only companions which the 
 trackless Pacific grants on the lonely voyage, 
 over its immeasurable abysses. 
 
 As the voyager approaches the islands, gen- 
 erally under gold-touched clouds, the concave 
 sides of extinct craters, then the sharp peaks of 
 mountains, then dappled valleys running down 
 from the hills into the violet sea, streaked with 
 the play of shadows and sunshine, swim into his 
 sight. Soon he sees the fronded tops of palm 
 trees, and the white surf breaking over coral 
 reefs, and knows that he is approaching a sub- 
 tropical land. As the steamer enters the harbor 
 of Honolulu, it rounds a beautifully moulded 
 hill, known as Diamond Head, which was once 
 an active volcano, and whose large crater, visible 
 from the deck of the steamer, tells the ghastly 
 story of those days, whose date is unknown, when 
 vast sheets of flame and lava were vomited from 
 its burning stomach. Diamond Head is a mag- 
 nificent ornament to the landscape; turn almost 
 where you will in Honolulu and you see it 
 stretched out like a lion couchant, a grim pro- 
 tector of the city which has grown under its eye. 
 It is indeed now a protector of Honolulu, as 
 our government is turning it into a great forti- 
 
€ A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 fication. Tunnels and airchambers have been 
 bored through it, and in time it will become a 
 smaller Gibraltar. 
 
 Before the steamer reaches the dock we have 
 the sight which greets the traveler in many Med- 
 iterranean ports; stalwart, swarthy Kanaka 
 boys, swimming in the blue water, alluring coin 
 from the passenger's wallet, which they earn by 
 diving after it as it is tossed from the deck. 
 Two accomplishments every Hawaiian seems to 
 have, in a high degree of perfection, swimming 
 and riding horseback. 
 
 Almost every inhabitant of Honolulu is hospi- 
 table. A more open-hearted people can hardly 
 be imagined. The hospitality begins at the 
 dock ; the landing is lined with swarms of people, 
 many of them dressed in white. Now one begins 
 "to learn the beautiful love of flowers among the 
 natives. Many men and women who are gathered 
 upon the wharf are garlanded with wreaths on 
 their hats or necks. These wreaths are called 
 leis in the Hawaiian language; sometimes they 
 are made from green leaves, sometimes from 
 bright flowers. It is a pleasant custom to wel- 
 come the coming or to speed the parting guest 
 by putting such a wreath around his neck. At 
 a native dinner — and we enjoyed one such de- 
 lightful experience at Mr. Castle's house — all 
 the viands being of the ancient Hawaiian cook- 
 ery — all the party wore such wreaths ; — grave 
 
THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 7 
 
 judges, prominent business men, clergymen, edu- 
 cators. Such a feast is called a Ltum. Another 
 custom of the natives was to eat the food with 
 their fingers, knives and forks being then un- 
 known to them. A distinguished judge, who sat 
 near me, who has lived on the islands all his 
 life, followed this custom and used his fingers 
 for this occasion, as did several other guests; — 
 saying that the native viands seem to be more 
 palatable when eaten in the native fashion. A 
 Yankee housewife would be surprised to know the 
 resources of the culinary art among the natives, 
 and what delicious dishes can be concocted from 
 the Hawaiian fruits, vegetables, meats and fishes. 
 One article of food, once considered by the na- 
 tives as a luscious delicacy, a roasted dog, 
 which had been fattened on poi, the popular 
 vegetable diet of the islanders, was most con- 
 siderately omitted by our host, on the menu. 
 
 Another charming interest of the Luau was 
 the presence of a glee club of Hawaiian singers 
 who, accompanied by their national instruments, 
 crowned the feast with a round of beautiful 
 airs. The charm of the music was in its simple 
 melody. Their songs, as all true singing should 
 come, sprang from the heart. The Hawaiians 
 seem to be natural singers. Their songs are often 
 of a wild cadence, falling into a minor key. 
 They have in them the pathos of a vanishing 
 race. The wild, untaught melody, rising up 
 from the national heart, now throbbing with 
 
8 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 the unconscious joy of buoyant vitality, now 
 sinking into the sob of fading glory and lost 
 power, and a sense that the race will soon be no 
 more, is the voice of the national heart. Out of 
 the heart are the issues of life ; music that comes 
 from the heart is the outward expression of in- 
 ward emotions that cannot be suppressed; and 
 such is the only real music. 
 
 I have spoken of the Kanakas as a dying race. 
 No one admits this grim fact more readily than 
 themselves. The impact of the dominant white 
 race has had its advantages and disadvantages. 
 It has raised the Kanaka from barbarism to a 
 considerable degree of civilization; it supplanted 
 a degraded paganism with a truer worship ;. abol- 
 ished human sacrifices, introduced education, es- 
 tablished order, wiped out the feudal power of 
 the native chiefs, protected every man and his 
 property, and has developed the resources of 
 the islands to a remarkable degree. The grass 
 hut has given place to the beautiful villa. The 
 ravages of small-pox and deadly infantile dis- 
 eases have been stayed. 
 
 On the other hand, since the discovery of the 
 islands in 1778 by Captain Cook, when the na- 
 tives were supposed to number some 400,000 
 souls, alcohol and insidious diseases have entered 
 by way of the vices of sailors, with awful results. 
 Victims of rum and disease, the Kanakas have 
 faded to a little more than a tenth of their former 
 
THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 9 
 
 number. They are a fleshy, good-natured, kind- 
 ly, rather indolent people, who take life easily 
 and who are contented with little. Their wants 
 are few and simple; they live mainly on poi and 
 fish; they are hardy and honest; the white men 
 invariably speak of them with respect. They 
 have intermarried very largely with the whites, — 
 for there seems to be little of color prejudice 
 here, — and the result is a race of half-breeds. 
 The Kanaka features are merged into a new 
 form of face, which makes many of the women 
 very attractive. The children of the two races 
 mingle freely in school and sports. There is no 
 reproach to a white man in marrying a Kanaka 
 wife, and many prominent whites have done so. 
 I met one half-breed boy, just out of Oahu Col- 
 lege, who was to start that day for West Point; 
 a very bright and attractive fellow, the third of 
 his family to receive an appointment to a West 
 Point cadetship. 
 
 The most frequent intermarriages, however, 
 among the natives are with the Chinese. Few 
 of the latter bring women with them, and those 
 who marry pick up wives among the natives. I 
 never have heard a resident of the islands speak 
 unfavorably of the Chinese. It is the universal 
 verdict that they are honest, frugal and indus- 
 trious. A few of them have accumulated large 
 wealth on the islands. As our immigration laws 
 exclude the Chinese, none of them have come in 
 
10 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 late years; but until the laws excluded Japanese 
 the latter came in large numbers, and are seen 
 everywhere. Most domestic service is rendered 
 by these two races, and most of the hard labor is 
 done by them, and by Portuguese and Italians. 
 The popular judgment upon the Japanese is not 
 so favorable as on the Chinese. The former are 
 represented as shifty, sharp and uncertain in 
 performing their contracts. The native indus- 
 tries are gradually falling into the hands of 
 Orientals, who outwit the simple-minded Hawai- 
 ians in trade. The Japanese have acquired all 
 the fishing industries of the islands, and even the 
 native food, pot, which was formerly pounded 
 out of the vegetable taro, by rude stones, is now 
 produced by Chinese with mechanical contrivan- 
 ces in factories. Thus slowly the Hawaiian is los- 
 ing his grip ; and in a few generations his islands 
 will know him no more. He wiU exist, however, 
 in the names, sweet, sibilant and melodious, which 
 have been universally stamped upon the geog- 
 raphy of the islands. The simple dialect is ren- 
 dered very musical by the repetition of vowel 
 sounds, and every vowel is pronounced. The 
 language, like that of all primitive peoples, is 
 phonetic; that is, it is a tone language. Few 
 Americans can talk it correctly, and even the 
 native children learn it only in a mongrel form. 
 It is generally believed that if our government 
 had not taken these islands Japan would. Even 
 as matters are now, the Japanese, through their 
 
THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 11 
 
 large families, are multiplying faster than any 
 other stock ; and it will not be many years before 
 those Japanese bom on the islands will be numer- 
 ous enough to make a majority of the voters. 
 In 1909 the mayor of Honolulu was a native 
 Hawaiian, and the majority of the territorial 
 legislature is native. Everywhere is heard the 
 complaint of a scarcity of labor. The Japanese 
 have formed themselves into trades unions and de- 
 mand higher and higher wages. Bret Harte's 
 line, " we are ruined by Chinese cheap labor " 
 would have no meaning here. The cry is for 
 labor! labor! — but the laborers do not seem to 
 come so fast as wanted. Meanwhile, the sly, 
 alert, weasel-like Jap holds the key to the labor 
 market. 
 
 It has often been charged — I saw the state- 
 ment frequently in American newspapers during 
 President Cleveland's second administration, 
 when the question of annexation was unfortu- 
 nately made a political issue — that the descend- 
 ants of the missionaries had acquired possession 
 of the lands of the natives by indirection and 
 sharp dealing. This is not true. While some 
 of them have acquired considerable wealth, it 
 has not come in any large measure from the 
 ownership of land. I am told that by far the 
 greater part of the rentals paid for the use of 
 real estate goes into the pockets of natives, some 
 of them thus having a large revenue. 
 
12 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 The great industries of the islands are the 
 growing of sugar-cane, pineapples, bananas and 
 rice. The last named industry is controlled by 
 the Chinese. Bananas are raised on almost 
 every farm, and in almost every garden. While 
 the banana crop is profitable, large quantities 
 of the fruit being exported to California, it is a 
 very small factor in the industrial revenue of 
 the islands, compared with sugar-cane and pine- 
 apples. The latter industry is new, but has as- 
 sumed large proportions in late years. The great 
 scale on which the agricultural industries are con- 
 ducted requires much capital, and therefore most 
 of the concerns have been incorporated, some with 
 many share-holders. The value of the annual 
 output of sugar will range between $20,000,000 
 and $30,000,000; and when scientifically man- 
 aged the profits are sometimes large. The rec- 
 iprocity treaty with the United States gave free 
 admission of the products of the islands, and thus 
 the culture of sugar, then as now the chief ag- 
 ricultural product, was stimulated. The subse- 
 quent annexation of the islands was a benefit 
 both to them and the United States. A consid- 
 erable amount of crown lands passed into the 
 ownership of our government, and the customs 
 revenues have more than liquidated the debt of the 
 puny kingdom which the United States assumed 
 at the time of the annexation. 
 
 Some of the sugar plantations cover many 
 
THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 13 
 
 thousands of acres. In sailing along the shore 
 of the island of Hawaii, we followed it for about 
 seventy miles, where the land is exclusively de- 
 voted to sugar raising, with elaborate systems 
 of water supply, conduits, railways and irriga- 
 tion contrivances. The cane is greedy of water, 
 and the amount of it consumed is something 
 enormous. The natural rainfall on Hawaii is 
 greater than that of Oahu; so that on the latter 
 island an artificial supply is sometimes obtained 
 by a system of artesian wells. One who has never 
 visited a mill where the sugar is extracted from 
 the cane can hardly realize how complicated a 
 mechanism is required. The laborers live in little 
 villages, where one sees the white huts, an occa- 
 sional church spire, and school house, and swarms 
 of swarthy children. 
 
 A most memorable incident of my visit here 
 was an excursion to the volcano Kilauea, on the 
 island of Hawaii. On the map these islands seem 
 like specks on the bosom of the Pacific. You 
 would almost think you could step from one 
 island to another. On the contrary, we had to 
 sail more than two himdred miles, and over pretty 
 rough waters to get from Honolulu to Hilo, on 
 Hawaii. Let him who is afraid of nausea be 
 shy of this trip, or placate the gods of the winds 
 before he starts ; or, better still, be brave and take 
 what comes. The prize is worth the effort. 
 Personally, I had no complaint to make, but a 
 
U A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 good many of my companions did not fare so 
 well. On both passages we made stops at queer 
 little ports, where passengers and freight were 
 delivered on lighters, which threaded their way 
 in darkness to the rocky shores. The stalwart 
 Hawaiian boatmen are fine sailors, and accidents 
 rarely happen. Honolulu and Hilo are the only 
 two ports where wharf dockings are made. 
 
 The sail along the island of Hawaii gave a 
 panorama of splendid scenery ; skies almost cloud- 
 less; crested waves of the ocean; rugged shore 
 lines ; a vast stretch of fields of vivid green, where 
 thousands and thousands of acres of sugar cane 
 have been planted; little clusters of villages; 
 many waterfalls gurgling down to the sea; the 
 great expanse of land slowly rising till it touched 
 the foothills of the tremendous volcanoes, Mauna 
 Loa and Mauna Kea, the latter the highest moun- 
 tain on the whole Pacific, being 13,805 feet in 
 height, 200 feet more than Mauna Loa. Between 
 the valley and the mountain range was a great 
 stretch of forest, whose somber color contrasted 
 with the glistening snow, which lay on the sum- 
 mits of the volcanoes, the fiood of green from the 
 sugar cane, the opal of the skies and the iri- 
 descent hues of the waves breaking over the coral 
 reefs on the bristling shore. 
 
 The island of Hawaii is in area nearly double 
 that of all the other islands put together. Some 
 idea of the beauty of the water-scapes of this 
 
THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 15 
 
 island may be gathered from the fact that, on 
 the east coast of this island, in one reach of 
 thirty miles, eighty-five streams and water-falls 
 flash down to the shore. Some of these are 
 spanned by trestle bridges. 
 
 The volcano of Kilauea, which is sixteen miles to 
 the southeast of Mauna Loa, is reached by a rail- 
 road ride of about twenty-two miles, a stage ride 
 of some nine miles, when a stop is made at the 
 Volcano House, a comfortable hotel, strangely 
 enough kept by a Greek, who had wandered from 
 his native Ionian shores to the mid-Pacific. The 
 volcano Kilauea is two hundred and sixty miles 
 from Honolulu, and is said to be the largest 
 active crater in the world. It is about four 
 square miles in area; its circumference is nearly 
 eight miles. The fire pit, which is about in the 
 center of Kilauea, is called Halemaumau, " the 
 house of everlasting fire." It has a depth of 
 between seven and eight hundred feet; sometimes 
 the lava will rise to the level of the pit ; but when 
 we saw it, it was from three to four hundred 
 feet below the rim. No words can describe the 
 awful sublimity of the sight, when, under cover 
 of darkness, one looks over the rim and sees the 
 lake of molten lava gleaming below one, assuming 
 different shapes every minute, as the waves of 
 fire now jetty into spray, now divide into eddies 
 of burning, spurting, hissing fire. The ghastly 
 sight gives one the impression that one is peer- 
 
le A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 ing into the core of the earth, and touching those 
 primal forces which have developed its crust, and 
 which are still doing their terrible work, although 
 unobserved by man. The physical qualities of 
 men seem to shrink into nothingness when one sees 
 how frail is the crust or scum on which we poor 
 mortals tread and follow out our fitful lives. 
 I have felt the majesty and thrill of wonder that 
 come from the geysers of the Yellowstone park; 
 the incommunicable charm of the spuming cata- 
 racts and towering cliffs of the Yosemite Valley; 
 I have looked into the monstrous rocky gash, 
 where the Colorado shrivels to a silver thread, 
 of the Grand Canyon of Arizona; I have heard 
 the voiceless appeal of the deserts of Egypt and 
 Syria ; and again and again I have been impressed 
 with the sohtudes of trackless oceans; but never 
 have I seemed to come so near to cosmic mysteries 
 as when I gazed into the burning pit of Kilauea. 
 
 Like all sub-tropical regions, the vegetative 
 beauties of the Hawaiian Islands are in shrubs 
 and trees rather than in flowers. Many kinds of 
 ornamental trees and flowering bushes and vines 
 have been transplanted here, and thrive in the 
 delicious climate. As in southern California, the 
 Australian eucalyptus has been planted in large 
 numbers; so also have been the pepper, orange, 
 lemon, guava, papaia, which keep company with 
 the palms, which grow in great variety. Every- 
 where one sees the magenta of the bourgainvillia. 
 
THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 17 
 
 the yellow cheek of the euphorbia, the light blue 
 of the wistaria and the red flash of the poinsetta. 
 The coleus grows up into a shrub, like our for- 
 sythia; the hedges are generally of the hibiscus, 
 sometimes of the oleander. The lantana, or sage- 
 bush, grows in such rank confusion that it is a 
 pest. It is said that formerly there was a splen- 
 did growth of roses on the islands, but they have 
 been greatly injured by a Japanese beetle. 
 
 This is the land of outdoor life. Most of the 
 houses are lightly built and are open to the sun- 
 shine and the air; with large rooms and halls; 
 with an open porch or lanai on almost every 
 house. The most common type of architecture 
 is the bungalow. Probably few of the homes are 
 exceedingly expensive, except in their furnishings. 
 Trim lawns, graceful foliage, overhanging trees, 
 the red blossom of the hibiscus, the pendant co- 
 coanut and papaia, the dwarfed and royal palms, 
 often citrus trees with the golden fruit hanging 
 like jewels under the green leaves, give a gentle 
 charm and a restful sense of comfort and dignity 
 to many of the homes. 
 
 We were fortunate enough to be in Honolulu 
 on Washington's birthday, which, coming in the 
 tourist season, is the great occasion of the year. 
 There was a procession of mounted cavalry men 
 from the United States army, splendid riders, 
 too fine stuff to become food for powder ; a long 
 
18 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 line of floats, floral cars, decorated automobiles 
 and some vehicles, and a detachment of bicycle 
 riders. But the part of the procession which was 
 most interesting to me was the detachment of 
 male and female Hawaiians, almost all mounted, 
 about sixty of the women riders wearing the long 
 flowing ancient costume of Hawaiian women, gen- 
 erally with a dark waist. The women rode astride 
 the horses, the long, divided skirt or fa-v, reach- 
 ing on either side of the horse, almost to the 
 ground. The women seemed to ride as well as 
 the men. Each of the eight islands of the Ha- 
 waiian group was represented by a princess at- 
 tended by a bodyguard of outriders of young 
 men and women. The occasion seemed to be a 
 sort of pale revival of the ancient patriotic spirit ; 
 a fleeting moment given to a reversion to barbaric 
 royalty, — merely a play, a dream, a flash, by 
 which the half-breed descendants of the old kings 
 felt for a moment the wild dignity of their former 
 glory, now forever a thing of the past ; — like 
 all royalty, merely tinsel. Indeed, an old Ha- 
 waiian, from time to time, chanted in broken tones 
 of the glory of the old kings. Few seemed to know 
 what he was saying, as he looked down from his 
 horse upon the crowd of sightseers; he knew he 
 belonged to the by-gone time; that others pos- 
 sessed the government of the land of his fathers ; 
 that the old order had changed ; that new forces, 
 a new spirit, a different life had arisen to remould 
 
THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 19 
 
 into a higher and better form the social hfe of 
 his beautiful country. 
 
 As there is little of manufacturing on the 
 islands, almost all the articles of ordinary use 
 must be imported, including most of the solid 
 food stuffs; hence living is necessarily higher 
 than on the mainland. The tourist finds that he 
 pays a little more for almost everything that he 
 buys than he would even in California, where hving 
 expenses are proverbially large. So far as I 
 have been able to learn, wages are correspondingly 
 high, as there is almost a scarcity of labor. 
 Planters are trying to encourage the immigra- 
 tion of Italians. School teachers are paid fairly 
 liberal salaries here, yet they justly complain 
 that the high cost of living leaves them a scant 
 margin over their board, which usually is about 
 ten dollars a week for a good quality of accommo- 
 dation. 
 
 Five weeks spent on these lovely islands were 
 almost timeless and full of charm. Nature has 
 been niggardly in not contributing to them any 
 mineral wealth; but she never expends all her 
 bounty on any one section. She did not curse 
 the islands with a soil of spontaneous fertility. 
 Hence the natives, who are said to be closely allied 
 to the Maoris of New Zealand in language and 
 racial qualities, never sank into that indolence 
 
20 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 which is bred in lands where the conditions of life 
 are too easy. Men had to work in order to eat. 
 Low as the social life of the natives was, before 
 the discovery by Captain Cook in 1778, it was of a 
 higher grade than that of most of the Polynesian 
 races. It can hardly be said that cannibalism 
 was ever their custom, although human sacrifices 
 were offered to the gods. Tabu and the hideous 
 rights of the ancient idolatry were abolished be- 
 fore the coming of the Christian missionaries in 
 1820. All the natives are now Christians, at 
 least nominally. 
 
 In the fine Bishop Museum in Honolulu, there 
 is a most interesting collection of the hideous 
 idols, the primitive tools and household utensils, 
 the implements of war, and specimens of the rude 
 industries of the Hawaiian and other Polynesian 
 islands. Rudimentary vestiges of the old pagan- 
 ism still linger among the natives. Supernatural 
 deities are still believed to be enthroned in the 
 volcanoes: eruptions are their outbursts of anger 
 or revenge: even now the offended Pele is pro- 
 pitiated by the sacrifice of a pig or some other 
 animal. The last terrible eruption of Mauna 
 Loa, which threatened destruction to the island 
 of Hawaii, evoked this lurking superstition. 
 Schools, churches, colleges, are a wonderful sol- 
 vent in washing at least the surface of such super- 
 stitions among primitive folk, but their roots 
 clutch deep at the heart, and they die hard* 
 
THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS 21 
 
 Much could be said of the city of Honolulu. 
 It is a very attractive place. It is the gather- 
 ing-ground of a very composite civilization, with 
 a queer mixture of races. Its schools swarm 
 with Japanese and Hawaiian children ; only a 
 small percentage is American. The future of 
 any community is unreadable, but the future 
 complexion of this city and of the Hawaiian 
 Islands is veiled in a strange coloring. The 
 chain of little islands is indeed a melting-pot of 
 diverse races ; a strange racial amalgam will be 
 the human product. 
 
 However, a tourist, like myself, cannot fail 
 to be impressed with the vivid charm of this de- 
 lightful home of scenic beauty, where rainbow 
 chases rainbow in the soft valleys; where water- 
 falls murmur down the mountain sides; where 
 billowy clouds swim in an azure-tinted sky; 
 where the surf of the ocean booms against the 
 rocky shores; where fruit and flower respond 
 to the genial climate ; where the vast Pacific rolls 
 in solemn grandeur; and where — at the time I 
 write, the Southern Cross gleams amid its sister 
 constellations, and moves among the stellar hosts 
 in the mighty march of " the army of unalterable 
 law." 
 
II 
 
 JAPAN 
 The Diamond Edition of Humanity 
 
 Very much has been written in late years about 
 Japan ; yet it is full of surprises to an American 
 who visits it. Probably no nation has ever 
 forged to the front in the same number of years 
 so fast, in so many effective and admirable ways, 
 as Japan has in the last generation. The little 
 island kingdom, lying at the northeast comer 
 of the vast Asian continent, hardly more than a 
 few specks on the map of the world, has de- 
 veloped a power in the arts of war and peace as 
 amazing as it is universally conceded. 
 
 The Japanese have been willing to be taught 
 by others, and that is always the first step towards 
 knowledge. They are imitative and adaptive; 
 they have shown a wonderful power of assimila- 
 tion. Hence one sees in Japan a strange blend- 
 ing of the old and the new. This is true even of 
 the costumes of the people. The women and 
 the peasantry still cling to the ancient manner 
 of dressing. It is rare that one sees a woman 
 wearing any headgear. The use of leather shoes 
 has not yet become common with the female sex. 
 The clang of the wooden clog is heard every- 
 where on the street. On the other hand, the 
 
JAPAN 23 
 
 officials, the military, policemen and many of 
 the business men in the large cities have adopted 
 the ordinary European or American costumes. 
 
 Moreover, a similar change is working in the 
 style of architecture. Practically no wooden 
 Japanese house is ever painted. Houses are gen- 
 erally small, of the cottage type, invariably built 
 of wood, generally one and a half stories high, 
 and in them paper is used very often for win- 
 dows and partitions. Glass has been expensive 
 and has not come into general use. In the large 
 cities, homes and stores are often combined in 
 one small building, of the cheapest kind of ma- 
 terial, set on a little bit of land quite commonly 
 six feet square in area. In the business sections 
 and where population is congested, few of the 
 smaller shops seem to be more than twelve feet 
 wide. 
 
 It must be remembered that Japan is a very 
 diminutive country in territory. The whole area 
 of the kingdom covers 162,371 square miles, 
 nearly one-half of which is comprised by the 
 island of Honshu, on which the large cities, 
 Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Yokohama, Kobe and 
 Nagoya, are located. Nagasaki is on the south- 
 em island. 
 
 In this limited area, smaller than the one state 
 of Texas, are crowded 49,685,875 inhabitants. 
 That is, a country which has only one-twentieth 
 of the area of the United States, has five-eighths 
 as much population. Moreover, a considerable 
 
24t A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 part of the area of Japan is made up of mountain 
 ranges. There are said to be on the islands 76 
 mountains more than 6000 feet high; so it wUl 
 be seen that, with so much land valueless for ag- 
 riculture, the density of population must needs 
 be great. Indeed, the total area of all the arable 
 land in the several islands is given as about 16,- 
 000,000 acres; less than three acres per human 
 unit. Think what this means to an ambitious 
 country, seething with patriotic fervor, aiming to 
 leadership of the weltering hordes of Asia. 
 
 Japanese cities have grown very rapidly. 
 Tokyo, the capital, has more than 1,800,000 in- 
 habitants; Osaka, the center of the cotton indus- 
 try and other great memufacturing interests, has 
 nearly 1,000,000 people. Everywhere one hears 
 of the same tendency, as in America, for popula- 
 tion to gather and huddle in the large cities at 
 the expense of the small towns. 
 
 It is this strange people, living in this con- 
 tracted territory, who bearded the Russian giant^ 
 wrested Korea and the control of Manchuria from 
 his grasp; humbled China, from which it seized 
 Formosa, and leaped, almost at one bound, as a 
 nation whose army and navy had shown them- 
 selves to be most efficient instruments of war, as a 
 first class power, into the world family of nations. 
 
 All this is familiar history. The interesting 
 question is, What is there in the Japanese char- 
 acter that has developed such great results? 
 
JAPAN 25 
 
 Nothing could seem more peaceful than the Ja- 
 pan of to-day. We have been in many cities and 
 towns, and yet we have hardly seen a hundred 
 soldiers in uniform, and possibly not one Japa- 
 nese naval vessel. I do not think that I have 
 heard a Japanese mention the late terrific Rus- 
 sian war more than two or three times, unless I 
 first mentioned the subject. When I was in Ger- 
 many a few years ago, many of the museums 
 and picture galleries, and in Berlin the streets 
 and squares, were adorned with mementoes of the 
 German victories in the Franco-Prussian war. 
 The exultation was barbaric. Not so in Japan. 
 A few cannon in some yard of a fort or castle, 
 bearing a legend to the effect that it was cap- 
 tured from the Russians, is almost the only me- 
 mento which one sees of the great naval and mil- 
 itary victories won by Japan over Russia. 
 
 There is, however, a sobering reminder of what 
 war and its victories cost, in the national debt of 
 Japan, which is said to amount to one-twelfth of 
 the property of the entire country. This means, 
 of course, heavy taxation and increased cost of 
 living. It is the sweat of the toiler as well as 
 the blood of the soldier that wins victories in war, 
 and pays the cost thereof. Japan is no longer 
 a cheap country for a tourist; the cost of living 
 has advanced by leaps and bounds; few articles 
 can be bought much cheaper than in America; 
 many things are even higher. To live in Japan 
 after the American pattern would cost more than 
 
26 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 to do so in the United States. It is the frugality 
 of the people, the abstinence from flesh food, the 
 simplicity of dress, the absence of heat in houses, 
 except from braziers and for cooking purposes, 
 that enables a Japanese family to live in toler- 
 able comfort. Increase the wants of Japanese 
 families to the American standard of domestic 
 comfort, and living would be impossible on the 
 present scale of wages. 
 
 For instance, as our steamer entered the har- 
 bor of Nagasaki one morning, it was surrounded 
 by scows or barges fiUed with soft coal, to be 
 loaded on the steamer. About 800 persons, men 
 and women, working under a contractor, shoveled 
 the coal into small baskets, and passed them up 
 from hand to hand, working just as fast as their 
 muscles permitted. No machinery was used; all 
 was done, after the primitive method, by human 
 flesh and blood. Why? Because labor is so 
 cheap ; cheaper than a steam derrick, which could 
 be operated by a few men. I was told that the 
 wages of these laborers are about fifteen cents a 
 day in our money. On this pittance, a Japanese 
 family is supported. 
 
 I have spoken of the sobriety of the Japanese 
 people, even when under the flush of great mil- 
 itary victories, and of their frugality. These 
 qualities are invaluable in the national character. 
 It is said that Japan has but few people of great 
 wealth; that is, wealth which is large, after our 
 modern standard. The people are keen traders; 
 
JAPAN 27 
 
 they have the Oriental instinct for sharp bargain- 
 ing; but it is only just to say that in all my 
 wanderings through the country I have seen no 
 attempt at extortion and no dishonesty. 
 
 If Japan were nearer to the United States, it 
 would be flooded with tourists. It is the distance 
 and expense which remove this strangely interest- 
 ing country from the range of ordinary travel. 
 In the way of scenery and unique social life, 
 hardly any country offers more of recompense 
 for the long journey hither. 
 
 My first impressions of Japan were disappoint- 
 ing. We landed at Yokohama in early March 
 after a delightful passage of ten days from Hon- 
 olulu on the fine steamer Tenyo Maru of the Toyo 
 Kisen Kaisha (Oriental Steamship Company). 
 The captain of the steamer was an Englishman; 
 the waiters and stewards were Chinese. To 
 step on the deck of this splendid vessel, which 
 is only one of a large fleet which Japanese cap- 
 ital has built in national or foreign shipyards, was 
 to pass into the composite life of the Orient. We 
 arrived a little too early in the season. The Japa- 
 nese climate is somewhat like that of North Caro- 
 lina. For several days there were murky clouds 
 and a drip of rain. Not only this, but a few days 
 before Yokohama had been visited by an earth- 
 quake, which had shaken chimneys and disturbed 
 things generally. The streets of the city had a 
 very perceptible odor of smoke and soot. 
 
28 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 About a week after our arrival, I was awak- 
 ened in my bed at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo, 
 by an earth-tremor, and for the first time felt 
 the sensation of a real quake. It was but a sam- 
 ple shock; just enough to let me know what an 
 earthquake really is. The ever-present possibil- 
 ity of such earth-movements has controlled the 
 method of building in Japan. It is subject to 
 shocks at any time; and a slight one is regarded 
 as a most ordinary occurrence. An earthquake 
 in the early hours of the morning, or, indeed, at 
 any other hour, is a rather novel experience for 
 an Old Colony Yankee; it gives one rather a 
 shivering sensation when the bed begins to shake 
 and the furniture to find a change of location 
 desirable ; one hardly knows " where he is at." 
 It is not a sharp appetizer for breakfast. I do 
 not recommend one for "a lifter" (all earth- 
 quakes are lifters or sinkers), or for a steady diet. 
 
 No other companion earthquakes have made 
 their bow to us. We have stayed in Japan long 
 enough to outlast the March winds, and the juicy 
 downpours of early April. The fair daffodils, 
 " that come before the swallows dare " — " the 
 violets dim," and the long pageant of spring 
 flowers have been the attendants of April's dance 
 here as in New England. Now we are having 
 the triumphal pomp of fruit-blossoms. Cherry, 
 peach and plum trees are in gorgeous bloom. 
 
 One of the attractive elements in Japanese life 
 
JAPAN a9 
 
 is the universial love of flowers. So warm is 
 this love, that in the early season, before the 
 genial sunshine had quickened the trees into floral 
 beauty, almost everywhere, in hotels, shops or 
 even on the street, one saw artificial flowers, and 
 in many instances the imitation was so skilful that 
 the flowers were taken to be real. The cherry 
 blossom is the favorite flower in Japan. By one 
 of those remarkable parallelisms in human cus- 
 toms, the Buddhists celebrate the birthday of 
 Buddha at about the same time as the Christians 
 observe Easter. The temples and shrines are dec- 
 orated; people walk the streets in processions, 
 singing and playing on musical instruments; 
 often with dancing girls or priestesses in gaudy 
 apparel, with a great flourish of flowers and 
 boughs of fruit-blossoms. This is even so at 
 funerals. One afternoon in the streets of Kyoto 
 I passed a Buddhistic funeral; the mourners were 
 all dressed in white; part rode in jinrikishas, a 
 larger number walked; the priests were gor- 
 geously gowned in robes of scarlet or purple; 
 and there was almost a forest of flowers and blos- 
 soming boughs. Only one mourner, probably the 
 mother of the boy or girl whose body lay in the 
 richly decorated casket which was sustained on 
 the shoulders of the bearers by poles, showed 
 the least external signs of grief. The streets 
 swarmed with a vast crowd of lookers-on, none 
 showing any emotion. With truly Oriental fatal- 
 ism the Japanese accept death as a natural inci- 
 
30 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 dent, something to be avoided, of course, so long 
 as possible; but when it comes it does not seem 
 to elicit the heart-ache and tears which surge from 
 the more active emotionalism of Occidentals. 
 
 In southern Japan, in the luscious spring, the 
 dance of blossom and flower is a feast to the eye. 
 One misses the wave of green grass which muffles 
 the damp sod of our New England fields in these 
 early spring days. In fact, there is little of what 
 we call grass in Japan; what there is is of a 
 ranker and coarser growth, like that in our South- 
 ern States. The country is heavily wooded, some 
 of the trees being of great size and of unusual 
 height. The land is carefully tilled; no grain 
 or substance is wasted which can be utilized for 
 fertilizing. The trees are trimmed, bent and 
 twisted to give them artistic beauty. What Shy- 
 lock said of the Jews : " For sufi^erance is the 
 badge of all our tribe," may be applied to the 
 Orientals: patience, attention, assiduous care, are 
 the basis of all industrial life here; and nowhere 
 are these qualities applied more than in agricul- 
 ture. Men, women and children can be seen 
 almost anywhere, working in the rice swamps or 
 planting seed in the fields. Most of the farms 
 are small ; every inch of arable soil is cultivated ; 
 none is allowed to waste. 
 
 The country now seems like one great park. 
 In southern Japan one sees acres upon acres of 
 yellow rape seed, of a flashing yellow color like 
 
JAPAN 31 
 
 the mustard. As many of the cherry blossoms 
 are pink and the peach and plum blossoms often 
 of a deep red, the color effect is almost startlingly 
 beautiful. Japan is a land of color contrasts. 
 From the snowy cap of Fujiyama, rising into 
 the crystal skies: along the verdant hillsides; in 
 ihe gleaming meadows; upon the somber forests, 
 — the colors play and flicker in one perpetual 
 prism on a sunny day. Japanese art reflects this 
 color-spirit; color is demanded everywhere as a 
 part of the national sense of art. Even the re- 
 pulsive habit of using red pigment on the faces 
 of women and of the little children of both sexes 
 probably had its origin in a barbaric love of 
 heightened color, which has been transmitted from 
 early days. One thing of beauty I have missed 
 in Japan, with which the Hawaiian islands are 
 glorious, — the rainbow, — " the bow that shines 
 in showers." 
 
 The month of April is the season of the cherry 
 dance by the Geisha girls. There is nothing 
 indecent or even un-moral in the dance, as given 
 in the theaters. The dancing, — a series of evo- 
 lutions and changes in posture, — which would 
 not be called dancing at all with us, is supple- 
 mented by splendid scenic effects; the scenes be- 
 ing shifted before the eyes of the audience by some 
 apt mechanical contrivance. The dancers are 
 splendidly gowned in kimonos ; there were thirty- 
 two dancing girls in the theater at Kyoto and 
 
32 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 twenty-two girls singing or playing rather dis- 
 mal music on the kind of mandolin or guitar 
 which is used. The whole affair was a pageant 
 of the seasons; all was directed to color effect: 
 gowns, fans, wreaths, scenery, streamers and 
 flags. The theater was a flimsy wooden struc- 
 ture, densely packed with people; and we came 
 near to a catastrophe, as one of the silken stream- 
 ers attached to the fan of one of the dancers 
 caught fire in a candle used as a f oothght. For- 
 tunately the fire was extinguished before the in- 
 cipient panic in the audience gathered head. The 
 dancers retreated from the stage in good order, 
 and the audience, as a whole, behaved with Or- 
 iental passivity. Soon a policeman announced 
 that there was no danger, and the performance 
 went on to the close. Some of the scenes were 
 very artistic ; a rich blending of color with spark- 
 ling electric lights ; a symphony of brilliant hues. 
 Among the Orientals, men do not dance. At 
 the Shinto temples, the priestesses dance to the 
 crowd, upon the payment of a small sum of 
 money; but the dance seems to me ungraceful; 
 in fact, it is no dance at all, only a short series 
 of posturings. 
 
 There is always a prosaic and an esthetic side 
 to every specialized civilization. The industrial 
 life of any community, which, of course, is al- 
 ways the real basis of society, is hum-drum and 
 commonplace. The Japanese are learning the 
 
JAPAN 3S 
 
 power of associated effort. Their manufactur- 
 ing and banking interests are conducted by 
 corporations; their steamship companies are 
 building great steamers of the first order; their 
 railroad system is largely under government own- 
 ership, and is well conducted. But it is the es- 
 thetic side of any national life that attracts the 
 stranger. In no civilization is the emphasis on 
 esthetics more prominent than in Japan. In 
 music the nation is deficient, as it is in all Asiatic 
 civilizations. The sense of tone, melody and har- 
 mony seems to be only rudimentary. Music, how- 
 ever, is taught in the public schools. I heard 
 a teacher, in a public school in Tokyo, drilling a 
 class of young boys in singing; and some of the 
 orchestras and military bands do creditable work. 
 What the possibilities of the race in the line of 
 music may be, I do not know, but it will take 
 generations of musical culture to develop any 
 such national love for tone effects as even we 
 Americans have, to say nothing of such nations 
 as the Germans and Italians. It is in a certain 
 delicacy of touch and color that the esthetic side 
 of Japanese life attracts. Everything is finished, 
 polished and perfected; even lunch-baskets, fruit, 
 everything which is sold in packages, generally 
 have some simple decoration. 
 
 Then there is the Japanese smile — a great 
 national asset. Everybody smiles, bows and 
 courtesies. All is formal, ceremonious and done 
 
34 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 according to rule. People bow low to each other, 
 when meeting on the street. Waiters serve with 
 a smiling face. There is no rudeness to strang- 
 ers. The Japanese hotels are supported by tour- 
 ists, and, while the charges are high, the best of 
 service is rendered, and small tips seem to satisfy. 
 There is no rudeness or vulgarity on the streets. 
 Public drunkenness is very rare. The tourist is 
 accosted by but few beggars. Cleanliness is 
 also a national trait. This is carried so far that 
 in entering a home, shop, theater or temple, one 
 is expected to remove shoes, and sit or walk in 
 stocking-feet or slippers. The food of the peo- 
 ple is very simple ; rice is the great national diet ; 
 fish and poultry are the main flesh viands. 
 Smoking is universal; every railroad car is a 
 smoking car; women smoking as freely as men. 
 Tea is the national beverage; tea-houses every- 
 where. Real Japanese food is unpalatable to a 
 stranger. I have tried it in tea-houses a few 
 times, but it was impossible; I paid for my food, 
 but, " chameleon-like, fed on air." All the bows, 
 smiles and grins of waiters could not appetize my 
 stomach for the amazing concoctions set before 
 me, called food by way of compliment. 
 
 One also misses here the joyous buoyancy of 
 youth. The Japanese are skilful athletes, espe- 
 cially in wrestling and fencing; but I have seen 
 few field sports and competitive games. An en- 
 larged idea of associated athletics must be worked 
 
JAPAN 36 
 
 out as the nation advances to a fuller self -con- 
 sciousness. 
 
 The dark side of the Japanese life is the prac- 
 tical servitude of women to men. Yet, bad as 
 this phase of the national life is, it is not by any 
 means so bad as in Mohammedan countries. 
 Women are in all the avenues of industrial labor 
 and are treated, externally at least, with respect. 
 I hear no complaints that they are subjected to 
 personal brutality. One need not be in Japan, 
 however, very long to know that the Oriental con- 
 ception of woman as the inferior of man pervades 
 Japanese society. The regeneration of its social 
 evils must come through the women, who, as time 
 runs on, will demand and acquire more rights, and 
 insist that there is but one moral standard for 
 both sexes. The Japanese women accept their lot 
 cheerfully ; they are taught to please ; their whole 
 life seems to be directed by the thought that they 
 are to please by submission, grace and docility, 
 as puppets of men. 
 
 There is a rising indignation against the license 
 of prostitution, seen in the horrible Yoshiwaras 
 in Tokyo and Kobe, where the heterce, or public 
 prostitutes, gowned in kimonos of diverse colors, 
 are herded, like captive beasts, in cages. The 
 poor, simpering, painted creatures, with their 
 flaming colors, seem to be unconscious of their 
 moral degradation. It is said that they are often 
 sold, for this base purpose, by their fathers, in 
 
36 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 payment of debts. The term of servitude varies 
 with the amount of the debt. Others are often 
 castaways, waifs on the billows of life. The 
 municipalities realize a considerable revenue from 
 the Yoshiwaras, which are under police control 
 and medical supervision. Those seductive plague- 
 spots of gilded vice are as harmful to the male 
 as to the female sex. The best sentiment of Japan 
 is against this sexual pollution. It poisons the 
 fountains of domestic purity, and is only one 
 phase of the contemptuous disregard of the sanc- 
 tities of womanhood — the very core of human 
 society — so common in the Orient. It weakens 
 the moral fiber of men. This is a subject which 
 one cannot discuss in as plain terms as one could 
 wish. However, one thing is sure: the vital 
 morals of any country cannot survive when vice 
 is recognized as legal; is clothed with police pro- 
 tection and is projected into unhealthful prom- 
 inence in alluring colors. Unless checked, and 
 unless higher sanctions for conduct are empha- 
 sized, the heart of Japanese social life will be 
 eaten out. 
 
 The religion of Japan is Buddhism and the 
 ancient Shintoism; the latter is largely ancestor- 
 worship. There is absolute toleration in reli- 
 gion ; pilgrims pass from the temples of the one 
 faith to the other. There is no orthodoxy or 
 heresy. There is much more sympathy in the 
 relation of the two sects than unfortunately some 
 
JAPAN 37 
 
 of the Christian sects have towards each other in 
 our own land. 
 
 Shintoism has its roots in Japanese social life; 
 practically it is not a religious system. It seems 
 to be an idealization of Japan; a symbolism of 
 the national evolution. It has a priesthood, but 
 with practically no images, statues or ritual. Its 
 temples are always denoted by an arch, called a 
 tori, meaning " the arch of the doves or of 
 peace." The repulsive feature in Shintoism is 
 the dancing priestess. Otherwise the cult seems 
 to me harmless ; and possibly the basis for a purer 
 faith to come. 
 
 Buddhism has more adherents in Japan than 
 Shintoism. It has an elaborate ritual; many of 
 its ceremonies resemble those of the Roman 
 Catholic church. It is highly polytheistic. One 
 ancient temple in Kyoto has 33,333 gods, repre- 
 sented by 1,001 statues, having heads, hands and 
 feet, to make up the complement of deities. All 
 the temples, Shinto and Buddhistic, are of wood ; 
 many of them very attractive in architecture; 
 often set on hills or in groves. Perhaps the most 
 interesting which I have seen were in the sacred 
 towns of Nikko and Nara, which have been for 
 many centuries shrines for the expression of na- 
 tional worship. 
 
 Christian missionaries are doing a good work 
 in Japan. There seems to be little or no preju- 
 dice against them. They exercise a wholesome 
 and invigorating moral influence. A very intel- 
 
38 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 Ugent Japanese, who has adopted a rationalistic 
 Tiew of Christianity and abandoned Shintoism, 
 told me, what I have seen in several of the local 
 journals, that the imperative need of the Japan 
 of to-day is a higher morality ; that the educated 
 men and women of the country are gradually out- 
 growing crude Shintoism and idolatrous Bud- 
 dhism; but, as those ancient faiths are closely 
 related to the national morals, there is great 
 danger of ethical degeneration unless some new 
 sanctions come. Christian morality, with its in- 
 sistence upon personal righteousness, forgiveness, 
 the brotherhood of mankind, and the purity and 
 €quality of womanhood, will furnish the solvent. 
 The missionaries do their work hopefully and be- 
 lieve that the Japanese will ultimately embrace 
 Christianity ; but the natives say that this is most 
 improbable; as the ancient faiths closely reflect 
 the national character and are the deposit of ages. 
 I am sure that the adoption of any pure form of 
 Christianity would be a mighty uplift to Japan. 
 
 Everybody who has read anything about Japan 
 knows that the old streets in the cities are very 
 narrow, although probably not so narrow as in 
 some of the Chinese cities and some which I have 
 seen in Algiers and Cairo. In former years, 
 when the hand of man was always ever to be 
 raised against other men, and when one city was 
 the natural enemy of another, people huddled to- 
 gether for safety. Men were beasts of burden; 
 
JAPAN 39 
 
 human life was short, cheap and full of danger. 
 The use of horses as burden carriers was an un- 
 known force. To-day in Japan one sees compar- 
 atively few horses in the cities. The universal 
 mode of personal conveyance is the jinrikisha 
 drawn by a man. Its use in the Orient is not old ; 
 in fact, it is an American invention, thought out 
 by a missionary for the use of an invalid wife. 
 There are many thousands of them in Japan. It 
 is said there are 10,000 in Osaka alone. It is an 
 easy and rather pleasant mode of conveyance, and 
 is cheap. One soon learns to like it. The cool- 
 ies who draw them are good-natured, chattering 
 fellows, grown-up boys, many of whom have 
 caught a few words of English, who generally 
 want a little more than the legal charge. It is 
 surprising what fatigue they can endure. Every 
 tourist is their prey, but they render their menial 
 service so good heartedly, without the least 
 thought that it is menial and that they are used 
 as beasts of burden, that one soon learns to like 
 them. Motor cars are few in Japan; for the 
 streets in the cities are too narrow for their use. 
 
 Just a word as to a magnificent house in Tokyo, 
 belonging to a Mr. Asano, which we were per- 
 mitted to visit. The owner, forty years ago, was 
 a laborer, working for 30 sen a day (15 cents in 
 American currency), and is now one of the 
 wealthiest men in Japan. The house is not yet 
 finished, although it has been more than eight 
 years in construction. The tiles on the roof are 
 
40 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 of copper, and the panels, screens, and decora- 
 tions, the mats and the rugs are of the highest 
 form of Japanese art. No expense has been 
 spared. No one is allowed to tread on the mag- 
 nificent floors except in soft slippers. A family 
 of eleven children wiU bye-and-bye occupy it. It 
 is a palace of art, beauty, color, glow and ex- 
 quisite contrasts of metal, lacquer, embroidery 
 and woodwork. Yet this palace is built of wood. 
 
 In a word the charm of Japan lies even more 
 in the gentleness, sweetness and delicacy of its life 
 — what, perhaps, the French would call leg 
 petites morales, than in its mountains, groves, 
 temples and foaming cities. This gentleness must 
 not be mistaken for effeminacy. The Japanese 
 are wonderful athletes, and are not a soft, but a 
 " husky " race. China and Russia have learned 
 that they can strike hard. Under the glove of 
 velvet is a hand of iron. 
 
 The voyage from Kobe to Nagasaki took us 
 down the Inland Sea of Japan. Here we had 
 a fleeting glimpse of the silver-sweet mists which 
 hang over the dreamy mountains, and veil the 
 shadowy shores in a film of mysterious light! — 
 of fane-crowned islands; of gentle villages clus- 
 tered in soft valleys, where the stream of human 
 life has trickled in a drowsy flow from generation 
 to generation ; of quaint customs and limited 
 range of activities. 
 
 The land-locked harbor of Nagasaki is pictur- 
 
JAPAN 41 
 
 esque. At this season the country round-about 
 is tinted with the pink flush of the cherry and 
 peach blossoms. All the people seem to be out- 
 doors. Bare-headed women, carrying babies on 
 their backs, shuffle along the streets on wooden 
 clogs; boys are playing niarbles; priests and 
 dancing girls move from temple to temple in 
 solemn procession ; over all a tremulous, quivering 
 light falls down from the skies, radiant with 
 sparkling solar rays. Men, women, tree, flower, 
 hut, temple and swarming streets are illumined 
 with an almost preternatural glow of color. 
 Men-of-war ride in the harbor. Jinrikisha cool- 
 ies shriek for customers. Flowers and fruits are 
 offered for sale, spangled with ribbons. Hill 
 rises behind hill, all " appareled in celestial light." 
 Such is the working, in the spring-time, of 
 nature's recurrent miracle of recreative forces. 
 Life rises from its obscure retreat in sullen clod 
 and sleeping tree to seek the warm sunbeams, and 
 to be nursed into healthful growth. As our poet, 
 Whittier, sang : " And ever out of low decay, 
 the greenest grasses spring." 
 
Ill 
 
 KOREA 
 
 The Land of the Morning Calm 
 
 The steamer run from Japan to Korea was not 
 unpleasant. It was rather a wrench to tear one's 
 self away from the flowering trees and picturesque 
 life in Japan; but there are limits to a tourist's 
 time, and an around-the-globe travel-trot does 
 not allow an indefinite stay in any one country. 
 
 We took the steamer at Shimonoseki, which we 
 had passed when sailing from Kobe to Nagasaki. 
 Shimonoseki is not one of the interesting Japa- 
 nese towns, but is known in history from the fact 
 that here the treaty between Japan and China was 
 negotiated at the close of the war, which had re- 
 sulted so disastrously to the latter country. As 
 we took the steamer in the evening for the run 
 over the Straits of Korea, we saw little of the 
 body of water imtil the gray cliffs of the Korean 
 coast began to emerge the next morning. We 
 must have passed very near to the scene of the 
 tremendous naval battle in the Russian-Japanese 
 war, when the Russian fleet was almost completely 
 destroyed by the Japanese fleet commanded by 
 Admiral Togo. 
 
 The coast of Korea is wild, bare, nigged. In 
 42 
 
KOREA 4S 
 
 the early morning, after a run of some 140 miles, 
 we landed at the terminal town of Fusan, where 
 we were to take the railroad for Seoul, the capital 
 of Korea. On landing we found ourselves in a 
 new world. Immediately a rabble of men and 
 boys gathered around us shouting, gesticulating, 
 grabbing at our luggage. All of them had a 
 curious kind of wooden cradle hung across their 
 shoulders by straps, in appearance somewhat re- 
 sembhng a saw-horse, made out of the branches 
 of trees, on which any kind of luggage may be 
 carried, varying in size from a basket or bundle 
 to a large trunk. All the men in Korea wear the 
 national costume of a long, flowing white robe, 
 nearer in style to the Chinese than the Japanese 
 dress. The women generally wear one of green 
 color, with a hood or fold at the top with which 
 the head or face is partially covered. Children 
 wear very smart colors. Consequently the Kor- 
 ean costume is strikingly diff'erent from ours. 
 Moreover, the men wear a high-crowned hat, made 
 of horsehair or bamboo, or of both materials, with 
 an under-frame on which it rests. The men also 
 do up their hair with a top-knot from the time 
 they reach the age of manhood. The Koreans 
 are very tenacious of these customs in dress. 
 After the Japanese occupation, an order was 
 issued by the government forbidding the use of 
 the top-knot and of the white robe in winter, but 
 the Koreans resented this interference with their 
 formal attire more than they did the loss of their 
 
44 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 independence, "The solid cake of custom" in 
 any country is not broken easily. The order was 
 ineffective except as applied to officials. If the 
 change to European dress ever comes, it must be 
 gradual, the growth of a national sentiment, not 
 the result of any sumptuary decree. 
 
 Korea has been, in late years, the storm-center 
 of much that is warlike and tragic. The little 
 peninsula was a land almost unknown thirty years 
 ago. It was separated from Japan by an arm 
 of the sea and from China and the Russian pos- 
 sessions in Asia by a rpnge of high mountains. 
 For some two hundred years it had paid annual 
 tribute to the Emperor of China. A formal em- 
 bassy would go from Seoul to Peking, carrying 
 the tribute and presents, attended by a retinue of 
 traders, who carried Korean goods. There was 
 little other intercourse between the two countries. 
 Korea was in fact, as well as in name, " The Her- 
 mit Kingdom." Little seems to be known of the 
 past history of the country. It was simply a 
 geographical expression. The few strangers who 
 reached its shores were generally castaways from 
 shipwrecks, wandering adventurers, or Catholic 
 missionaries. Most of the former were driven 
 from the country or mercilessly killed; while the 
 labors of the Catholic missionaries resulted in a 
 great turmoil and led to the intervention of 
 France to protect the missionaries and the con- 
 verts. 
 
KOREA 45 
 
 Korea, however, was destined soon to be awak- 
 ened out of the sleep of ages. Two powerful, 
 aggressive nations, Russia and Japan, were begin- 
 ning to realize the strategic importance of the 
 Korean peninsula, and to menace its frontiers. 
 At once Korea became the focus of diplomatic in- 
 trigue. China was becoming the prey of the ag- 
 gressive nations of the world, and her hold upon 
 Korea was too shadowy to continue against the 
 growing power of Japan and Russia. It was the 
 Korean question which largely led to the war be- 
 tween China and Japan; when the outside world 
 learned for the first time the growing power of the 
 latter. China was humbled to the dust, and the 
 Japanese expected to obtain the control over Korea 
 and possession of the great fortifications of Port 
 Arthur, which is in lower Korea, as the fruits of 
 her great victory. The intervention of Russia, 
 Germany and France held her hands off, and 
 Japan was suUen with disappointment. Its gov- 
 enrment saw that another and a greater war would 
 be necessary before Japanese control over Korea 
 could be assured. Hence, the great war between 
 Japan and Russia in 1904 and 1905. Its history 
 is too recent for any recapitulation by me. Ja- 
 pan had strained every energy, and had adopted 
 every device of the most improved military and 
 naval art to prepare for the impending conflict. 
 
 Russia, torn by internal dissensions, little knew 
 the resourceful enemy with which it had to cope. 
 The Russian naval vessels on the Korean coast 
 
46 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 were pounced upon, disabled, sunk or captured, 
 one by one, almost before Russia knew that the 
 war was begun, and thus the control of the sea 
 was secured for the transportation of the vast 
 Japanese army to Port Arthur and Manchuria. 
 The outside nations rubbed their eyes when they 
 saw how superbly the war was conducted by Ja- 
 pan. Some mistakes were made; but in sanitary 
 and commissary equipment, the world never saw 
 the like of Japanese success. Russian advance in 
 Asia was checked; its prestige was broken, and 
 the coveted prize of Korea fell into the lap of 
 Japan, won by a tremendous expense of money, 
 frightful carnage and awful agony. The Japa- 
 nese flag now waves over Port Arthur. What the 
 future may bring forth, no one knows. Russia 
 is too great and powerful a nation to be per- 
 manently crippled. A newer and greater Russia 
 will arise, as a newer and greater Japan has 
 arisen. Both nations are burdened with tremen- 
 dous debts, and have learned the frightful cost of 
 war; as all nations will learn, who adopt the law 
 of force instead of the law of justice and love. 
 
 At the present time Korea is going through a 
 great transformation and offers a most interesting 
 study. Its civilization is being slowly moulded 
 after the pattern of Japan. That nation has car- 
 ried things with a strong hand, and will probably, 
 in the end, annex Korea to the Japanese empire. 
 
 Every student of history has been interested in 
 
KOREA 47 
 
 the problem of the strange laws by which one na- 
 tion advances and another retrogrades. Why has 
 the social progress of the Asiatic races been ar- 
 rested until the awakening of Japan? Some one 
 has defined national progress as the power to 
 adopt " conservative innovation ; " a willingness 
 to diverge from the ancient ways when a better 
 way is offered. So far as we know Asiatic his- 
 tory, the natives have been for many ages what 
 and where they are now. European armaments 
 may thunder at their gates; conquering armies 
 may trample upon them; commercial intercourse 
 may enlarge their relations with the outer world; 
 the telegraph, telephone, electric light, railroad 
 systems, may gradually modify the manners of 
 life; — yet, after all, the changes are superficial. 
 Remove the outside pressure, and the nation again 
 walks in the ways of its fathers. The law of 
 progress does not seem to work in Asia as in the 
 Occident. Inertia is greater than the impulse that 
 leads to an advance. 
 
 Perhaps this problem could be studied very 
 profitably in Korea. Here is an isolated nation 
 suddenly thrown into rude contact with the most 
 progressive nations in the world. It is a country 
 rich in minerals. It is said that ninety per cent, 
 of its mining interests are in the hands of Ameri- 
 cans. It is well known that mining of the pre- 
 cious metals appeals to the ever active gambling 
 instinct in mankind ; attracts adventuresome spir- 
 its from many lands. So it may be in Korea. 
 
48 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 The development of its mines will unquestionably 
 bring the country into closer and closer relations 
 with capitalists and engineers, and thus a fresh 
 element of intellectual power and scientific knowl- 
 edge will gradually tend to modify the inherited 
 inertia of the ages. 
 
 There are also several hundred missionaries, 
 many of them with families, actively at work in 
 the effort to bring the Koreans into the Christian 
 fold. The Koreans are nominally Buddhists, hav- 
 ing imported this religion several hundred years 
 ago from China. We are told that most of the 
 Koreans have but a languid interest in Buddhism, 
 and missionaries believe that the nation is in a 
 more receptive mood for the adoption of Chris- 
 tianity than any other in Asia. I do not know 
 how this may be. Buddhist temples are not nu- 
 merous, at least in Seoul ; and most of those which 
 we have seen have little of the dignity and grace 
 of many of the Shinto and Buddhist temples in 
 Japan. Among the few guides and business men 
 with whom I could talk in my own language, I 
 have found considerable agnosticism and indiffer- 
 ence to religious forms. They are abandoning 
 Buddhism, but have not yet found a new sanctu- 
 ary for their spiritual instincts. However, we 
 are told by missionaries, that the Koreans are nat- 
 urally a moral people. Polygamy is rare, except 
 among the wealthy; adultery is looked upon as 
 disgraceful ; and, now that piracy and brigandage 
 
KOREA 49 
 
 have been suppressed, life and property seem 
 fairly safe. 
 
 The Koreans are a big, indolent, chattering, 
 apparently good-natured folk, who accept life 
 with Oriental fatalism and follow the line of the 
 least resistance. The morning after my arrival 
 in Seoul I took a walk alone. Our hotel was near 
 the east gate of the wall which encircles the city. 
 I walked through it and found myself alone on 
 a street nearly a mile long and perhaps one hun- 
 dred feet wide, lined with little booths, squalid 
 huts, cottages and hovels. Men, swarthy, tall, 
 clothed in white, were coming out of the huts, 
 almost all smoking long pipes ; the women moved 
 among them, dressed in green. Everything was 
 so drowsy, ghostly, unreal. I saw small crowds 
 gather, point at me and whisper. American dress 
 and ways are not yet so common here as not to 
 attract some attention. Back of the main street, 
 many narrow alleyways ran into a maze of other 
 huts, where the people Uve in congested hives. 
 All of this was very Oriental; a stream of pas- 
 sive, somnolent, ineffective life. Yet there were 
 touches of modernism. An electric trolley line 
 ran through the street. Soon I came upon the 
 office of the trolley company. A few stores had 
 signs translated into English. Later on I came 
 to the large and impressive building of the 
 Young Men's Christian association, given by 
 
60 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 John Wanamaker of Philadelphia, The street 
 was patrolled by policemen, some Korean, some 
 Japanese. Here was surely a strange blending 
 of the old and the new. Which will be the strong- 
 er.? Back of the old are the inherited tendencies 
 of unknown ages; back of the new are all the 
 forces of modern civilization. 
 
 Seoul is not rich in elements of sight-seeing. 
 Few of the national buildings are interesting. 
 There is an occasional pagoda, and gates in the 
 wall surrounded by some wooden structure which 
 could be used for observation in time of war. 
 There are few if any museums. The Koreans 
 have not yet become sufficiently modernized to 
 know how to conserve what is beautiful and sig- 
 nificant in the past. 
 
 Probably the arch-enemy to Korean progress 
 has been its miserable government; an Oriental 
 despotism, corrupt, ignorant, cowardly, and often 
 cruel. There was no protection for property, 
 no incentive to its acquisition when the miserable 
 owner must surrender it to the tax-robber. 
 There are only 10,000,000 to 15,000,000 Ko- 
 reans, and few of them wealthy. Seoul is the 
 one large city. As an example of royal extrava- 
 gance, there are two immense establishments in 
 this city known as the old and new palaces, the 
 abode of royalty. On them millions and millions 
 of money have been lavished, all wrung from the 
 pockets of the Korean people. Since the murder 
 of the Queen of Korea in 1895, the old palace 
 
KOREA 51 
 
 has been abandoned. Its great buildings, courts, 
 lotus ponds, vast arches and corridors, summer 
 houses, reception halls, temples and vestibules, are 
 now of no use, and are fast falling into decay. 
 The old emperor was forced to abdicate, by the 
 Japanese, and the present emperor, his son, lives 
 in the new palace. He is only a puppet; the 
 real governor of Korea is the administrator ap- 
 pointed by the Japanese government. 
 
 There is much in Korean landscape, skies and 
 color to remind one of Syria and Jerusalem. 
 The historical interest which rests upon Syria as 
 a sacred legacy is wanting here. Korea is singu- 
 larly barren in history. But above its gaunt 
 hills there is the same cloudless sky; the air is 
 charged with the color and powder of limestone, 
 as in the environs of Jerusalem. The same prim- 
 itive implements are used in agriculture when 
 carried on away from the large cities. The 
 homes of the poor are of a like wretched mud. 
 
 However, there is a certain wild beauty in a 
 Korean village. The humble houses are nestled in 
 valleys, or on the slant of the hills; the circular 
 roofs, thatched, look like enlarged mushrooms. 
 The streets, if the little alleys can be called such, 
 are narrow and winding. Children, dogs, hens, 
 even pigs, swarm in them. Gossiping, lounging, 
 idle men and women sit in the doors of the 
 huts or are curled up in crowds near some shop. 
 All is passive, dreamy, a vision of a rather squalid 
 
62 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 wonderland. There is no such dominant love of 
 color and flowers as among the Japanese. The 
 Korean civilization is coarser and ruder. Yet, 
 the heads of the people are well shaped; eyes 
 keen and sharp; they are quick-witted in trade; 
 sharp hucksters in the little articles a tourist 
 buys, and while they have not cultivated the pro- 
 fessional Japanese smile, and the women are more 
 reserved and distant than the Japanese of the 
 fair sex, they greet you courteously. Like all 
 Orientals, they get all they can out of you for 
 their wares. One day I entered the Seoul Ba- 
 zaar to make a small purchase. The dealer began 
 by asking eighty cents for two articles, and 
 finally accepted fifteen cents. They are so good- 
 natured, and cheat one so pleasantly that, where 
 little money is involved, the purchaser rather en- 
 joys the chaffering as an intellectual exercise. 
 There is a great excess in the number of shops. 
 One of the industrial needs of Korea is technical 
 education for boys and girls. Formerly the 
 Koreans excelled in certain kinds of small wares, 
 bronzes, gilding, perhaps in pottery, but rapa- 
 cious taxation and wretched government stifled 
 almost all enterprise. Now there is an attempt 
 to revive the ancient arts. In the villages a good 
 deal of small manufacturing is done in the homes, 
 mostly by hand-work. 
 
 Outside of the battlements of Seoul there are 
 numerous villages, and some agreeable excursions 
 
KOREA 53 
 
 through the moiintain passes. One pleasant trip 
 is to see the White Buddha. On a glowing Sun- 
 day morning we secured a guide and made the 
 journey on foot. The way led us out of the 
 city walls, through the Peking gate, through 
 which the official embassies to and from China 
 pass. All was wild, strange, unusual, almost un- 
 canny. The grim, ashy hills rose into the fleck- 
 less sky; the brooks gushed down the hillsides 
 and ponded in the meadows, here and there, 
 where Korean women washed and pounded clothes 
 in the same primitive manner as their mothers 
 and grandmothers had for a thousand years. 
 The trail led us up and down the limestone rocks, 
 over several fords of the mountain streams, which 
 we crossed on stepping-stones. After a hard walk 
 of about three miles, at a turn in the road, on 
 the mountain side, carved in the solid rock, washed 
 with white paint, surmounted by the frame-work 
 of a rude temple arch, was the benignant face 
 of the Buddha. A little Buddhistic monastery 
 was on the cliif above; a priest asked us for 
 alms. When I asked him how old the statue was, 
 he said he did not know; that the legend was 
 that it had arisen one night out of the river and 
 was found gored into the cliff. Strange, how 
 the religious sense of mankind lends itself so 
 easily to exaggeration, legend and myth. 
 Whether I visit Christian, Moslem or Bud- 
 dhistic shrines, I often am regaled with incredible 
 stories, told by some priest or attendant, with a 
 
54 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 solemn face, with every appearance of honest 
 credulity, which the reason is forced to reject. 
 When will the religious sense be adjusted to that 
 nice sense for veracity, which is the basis and 
 core of all true religion? However, the restful, 
 calm, kindly, gentle face of the Buddha carries 
 with it a thought of peace. Amid scenes of 
 bloodshed, anarchy, wickedness and wrong, it has 
 been a speechless monition to a higher life, a call 
 to spirituality, a type of the Oriental passivity, 
 which has been the staying strength of untold 
 millions of men. May it stand there until a 
 higher type succeeds to it. 
 
 We returned to the hotel when the sun was in its 
 meridian splendor, at high noon. Around me cir- 
 cled the great stone wall built to guard Seoul from 
 the entrance of enemies through the mountain 
 passes ; screaming muleteers ; women with swarthy 
 babies lashed to their backs ; bare-footed children 
 playing by the roadside ; the gaudy colors of the 
 flowering fruit trees ; an air of solemnity, unearth- 
 liness. 
 
 " A wonder edges the familiar face; 
 She wears no more that robe of printed hours, 
 Half changed seems earth, and fairer than her flow- 
 ers." 
 
 Korea is about the size of Great Britain. Its 
 principal asset is its mineral wealth. All the 
 foreign residents, with whom I have talked, speak 
 well of the people, especially of their family life. 
 The national feeling against Japan is intense; 
 
KOREA 55 
 
 but the yoke is on their necks and cannot be 
 shaken off by themselves. Many bloody atroci- 
 ties are laid at the door of the Japanese. I have 
 noticed a certain lordly, contemptuous attitude 
 of the Japanese towards the natives. A nation 
 must, indeed, be broken in spirit to submit to 
 foreign domination without at least a sullen pro- 
 test. Yet, could any rational Korean wish to 
 revert to the hideous burlesque of a government 
 under which the nation groveled for unknown 
 centuries? The Japanese are slowly evolving or- 
 der out of chaos; are giving to Korean life a 
 fresh impulse; they have taken it under tutelage 
 and are leading it to a gradually growing sense 
 of orderliness. Life and property are now safe. 
 Capital is flowing in to vivify the stagnant in- 
 dustries. The dreams of the past are dissipated. 
 The silent kingdom is opening its windows to the 
 streaming light of modern civilization. There 
 will be, doubtless, much discord; some injustice, 
 painful collisions between the old and new order, 
 racial hatred, and many other evils incident to 
 radical changes. It will be impossible to stay 
 the hand of progress. A new light is breaking 
 on its grey hills. Soon a new spirit will enter the 
 soul of this strangely interesting country, a 
 derelict from the vast passiveness of the Orient; 
 a by-way to the heart of Asia. No longer a 
 hermit kingdom, the hush of the morning calm 
 will be succeeded by the harmony of an orderly, 
 industrious, vigorous and improving, national 
 life. 
 
IV 
 CHINA 
 
 The Asian Mystery. — Lord Beaconsfield. 
 
 It seemed easy enough when I looked at the 
 map. We were to get from Seoul, Korea, to 
 Tientsin, China. All there was to do, was to 
 take a short railroad ride of twenty-five miles 
 to Chemulpo on the Korean coast, then a steamer 
 to Dalny, near Port Arthur; and after a short 
 stay there, to continue by steamer to Ta-Ku, 
 the port of Tientsin. Nothing could be simpler. 
 But, alas, the reality was somewhat different. 
 Bobbie Bums said : " Nae man can tether time or 
 tide." The railroad ride through the southern 
 part of the Korean peninsula, took one and one- 
 half hours. We reached Chemulpo in the late 
 afternoon, just as the Asian skies began to pour 
 down rain in freshets. I thought I must hunt 
 up a banker to get some money on my letter of 
 credit — which I afterwards found was entirely 
 unnecessary. After a walk of many twistings and 
 windings, with two coolies as guides, holding bam- 
 boo umbrellas over our heads, we at last found 
 the bankers, and were received very courteously. 
 
 There happened to be an unexpectedly large 
 passenger list for the little steamer Santo Maru. 
 As we booked late, we were informed that all the 
 56 
 
CHINA 57 
 
 first-class cabins had been taken; so we were 
 obliged to take second-class tickets. The clerk 
 in the steamer ofBce, with a bland Japanese smile 
 and eminent politeness, told me that there were 
 four berths in the cabin, and if I wished to have 
 the cabin to ourselves I must pay about $10 of 
 American extra. As I wished to have " the se- 
 clusion which the cabin grants," I put up the 
 cash (I afterward found that the second-class 
 cabin list was so small that it would have been ex- 
 tremely improbable that the berths would be 
 used) ; however, the company got my money. 
 The cabin was not bad ; the only intrusion into its 
 sanctity was by a few unwelcome cockroaches. 
 Being second-class passengers (my first experience 
 of this kind in all my steamer travels), we were 
 entitled to Japanese food only. And what con- 
 coctions! We tried it twice and then weakened; 
 but an extra payment of fifty cents for each meal 
 brought European food. So, by paying per- 
 haps a little more, certainly as much as a first- 
 class passenger, I became entitled to accommoda- 
 tions about half as good. However, at Dalny, 
 by the payment of a reasonable charge, we were 
 transferred to the first cabin. 
 
 This was not all. Hardly had we left Che- 
 mulpo before a dense fog dropped upon the Yel- 
 low Sea. For eighteen hours the steamer lay 
 drenched in its folds, and thus we were so many 
 hours late in our run. It was dismal enough; 
 but, as Shylock said : " Ships are but boards. 
 
58 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 sailors but men," all we could do was to ac- 
 cept the inevitable, and wallow in the trough of 
 the sea until the sun should bum the fog away. 
 An old globe-trotter like myself has had a good 
 many experiences with sea-fogs. I have been en- 
 veloped in the thin, clammy shroud for nearly a 
 week at a time in the " roaring forties " of the 
 North Atlantic. I know how depressing and dis- 
 quieting they are, and what dangers lurk under 
 their gray folds; so I admired the prudence of 
 the Japanese captain, who came to anchor, when 
 barely an hour from port, and did not really make 
 a start until midnight of the second night. He 
 took no unnecessary risks in this dangerous coast, 
 toothed and clawed with jutting rocks and crowded 
 with little islands lying in the path of the steamer. 
 
 Dalny, called by the natives Dairen, is the south- 
 em terminus of the Siberian railway, and is as 
 modem a city as one can imagine. It will become 
 in time a great distributing center. As a base of 
 military operations it figured prominently in the 
 Japanese-Russian war. Vast sums of money are 
 being spent in developing its water-front; fine 
 modem buildings are under construction. At 
 present, the town has little to interest a tourist. 
 Here we first came across Chinese coolies as jin- 
 rikisha men ; up to this time we had seen only 
 Japanese and Koreans. We took a short 'rick- 
 sha ride about the town; and in a few hours the 
 steamer was dancing on smooth waters and under 
 
CHINA 69 
 
 sunny skies. We sailed by Port Arthur and had 
 a fine view of the system of great forts. It is, 
 perhaps, at the present time, the greatest and 
 strongest fortress in the world. It took many 
 years and an enormous cost of money and human 
 blood for Japan to close her fist over it ; but it is 
 hers, and she proposes to hold it. We could see 
 the outlines of fort after fort, and the moat, 
 three yards wide, which stretches over the hills, 
 and which was choked with the dead Japanese 
 who fell in the storming of the huge ramparts. 
 More than 30,000 Japanese were sacrificed in the 
 awful siege. 
 
 The soft skies looked down upon a most peace- 
 ful scene as we sailed by the fort; no one would 
 have thought of the diabolic horror upon which 
 they looked only a few short years ago. Nature 
 is a wonderful solvent of a man's cruelty. We 
 are but creatures of a day; the havoc and ruin 
 which our folly causes are soon repaired by the 
 healing processes of universal laws. 
 
 The Yellow Sea is appropriately named. As 
 one approaches the Ta-Ku, it is a sheet of liqui- 
 fied mud. The water is shallow, the coast level, 
 the silt of the rivers is poured into it. Although 
 it is the only maritime approach to the vast pop- 
 ulation of Northern China and was covered with 
 vessels of all sizes, from fishing boats to great 
 steamers, the channel of the bar and the river 
 Pei-ho, on which Tientsin is located, is narrow 
 and shallow. The harbor was full of steamers. 
 
60 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 awaiting the rise of the tide to make their tortu- 
 ous path up the river. When our steamer was 
 nine miles out from shore we were transferred 
 to a light-draught launch, which under careful 
 guidance was made to reach port. The channel 
 is so narrow that the business interests maintain 
 a system of small steamers to which revolving 
 fans are attached, by which the channel is swept, 
 by the same process as streets are cleaned in our 
 American cities. 
 
 Nothing could be more uninviting than the 
 approach to Ta-Ku. This was my first glimpse 
 of China, the Flowery Kingdom, the Celestial 
 Empire. All that the eye could see was great 
 stretches of dusty plains, of mud houses, of dirty 
 villages where not a tree, flower or shrub was 
 visible. We passed the forts which were bom- 
 barded by the allied fleets during the Boxer rebel- 
 lion in 1900. 
 
 Tientsin and this adjoining region were the 
 theater of the Boxer war. The year 1900 was a 
 trying one for missionaries and foreigners. It 
 was from Ta-Ku that the allied armies, Russian, 
 English, German, French, American and Jap- 
 anese, marched to Peking. The city of Tientsin 
 has had a great growth since that time and un- 
 questionably has more than a million inhabitants, 
 perhaps nearer two million. Concessions were 
 wrung out of the Chinese government by the 
 allies, after the war, of certain districts in the 
 
CHINA 61 
 
 city, which are called the Russian, German, Jap- 
 anese quarters, and so on. These quarters are 
 covered with modem buildings; have wide streets 
 and large squares. The flags of the several 
 countries wave over them. They are new and 
 raw, and have no charm to travelers. 
 
 It is in the Chinese quarters, with their con- 
 gested swarms of human life, narrow alleys, 
 labyrinthine turnings, and endless rows of small 
 booths, where every imaginable article of Oriental 
 make is offered for sale by importunate hucksters, 
 that the tourist knows he is hearing the call of 
 the East. What a weltering, foaming, swelling, 
 moving mass of picturesque humanity. It is in 
 these human hives, with their buzzing life, that 
 one finds one's self in the heart of the Orient. 
 The street life of the Japanese cities is not so 
 interesting. One misses the color effects, the flare 
 of bunting, the gush of flowers so common in 
 Japan. The Chinese genius is more practical. 
 One sees few women, whereas in Japan the streets 
 are full of them. In Japan, small children are 
 carried on the shoulders of women, now and then 
 of a man; in China they are carried in baskets 
 hung on a pole resting on the shoulder. A few 
 women, with compressed feet, waddle on the street ; 
 most of them ride. The hideous practice of foot- 
 compression is said to be dying out ; and it is well 
 for China that such a reform is on the way. 
 
 As a race the Chinese are larger and taller than 
 the Japanese, but are not so well dressed. The 
 
62 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 Chinese countenance has something stoical in it; 
 something of " the stony British stare." Now 
 and then a woman rides by in a jinrikisha chair, 
 whose face is daubed with vermillion, but gen- 
 erally one sees no apparent eiFort after attractive- 
 ness among the female sex in China. Women 
 are not so active in industrial life as in Japan. 
 I have seen none acting as clerks in stores or 
 bookkeepers or waiters. It is evident that the 
 precepts of Confucius, that home-life and do- 
 mesticity are the proper sphere for women, have 
 sunk deep into the Chinese national life. In fact, 
 one sees so few women and girls on some of these 
 busy streets that one sometimes queries whether 
 all the people in China are men and boys. All 
 this is in sharp contrast with Japan, where women 
 and girls are seen everywhere. Yet somehow the 
 stranger is forced to believe that, with all its blem- 
 ishes, absurdities and outgrown traditions of the 
 superiority of men, which are common to all 
 Oriental nations, the home-life of China is of a 
 higher type than that of Japan. 
 
 What a scene the street life in a great city 
 like Tientsin or Peking presents. One who never 
 has seen it cannot picture it to the inner eye. 
 Waves of human life, tossing about like flecks 
 on the ocean, are jammed into a narrow street, 
 some not more than six or seven, few more than 
 twelve or fifteen feet in width; the little shops 
 that line each side of the street are crowded with 
 
CHINA 63 
 
 clerks keen as razors in a trade, each anxious to 
 catch the attention of the unwary tourist and 
 to turn a few pennies out of his purse. Cloth, 
 clothes, blankets, flags, streamers, lanterns flut- 
 tering in the air; unearthly noises coming from 
 a thousand human throats, and such strange 
 noises, too — sometimes fifty men screaming at 
 once as they flap their goods before your eye; 
 an endless line of jinrikishas threading the street, 
 the cooHes snapping out to each other and to 
 the pedestrians, to step out of their way. The 
 invariable rule in Asia is to keep to the left, an 
 inversion of our usual American custom. 
 
 Once in a while, a jinrikisha will force its way 
 through the crowd, in which sits some solemn 
 high-caste Chinese, or wealthy merchant, tricked 
 out in a gorgeous robe, perhaps of crimson or 
 yellow or blue, with a long queue, his face as 
 impassive as the Egyptian Sphinx; sometimes a 
 painted woman, her cheeks of the heightened color 
 of a full-blown peony, her baby feet curled up 
 in front of her, in the little carriage. About one- 
 half of the crowd wiU be bare-headed; the front 
 of their heads shaved and their queues hanging 
 down their backs, often with a string and tassel 
 attached which reach to the bottom of their long 
 robes. The head gear of those whose heads are 
 covered is generally a fold of cloth, something 
 in the fashion of a simple turban. All wear san- 
 dals or slippers; few are without stockings of 
 
64 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 some kind. As a whole the Chinese garb is 
 warmer and closer than the Japanese. Generally 
 in both countries women rarely wear anything on 
 their heads. 
 
 The Chinese have not cultivated the Japanese 
 smile. Yet, in pushing through these mazes of 
 streets, we never have seen one act of incivility 
 or rudeness. Chinese honesty is proverbial. I 
 met with an instance in Tientsin. I was in a shop 
 and had made a small purchase, in payment of 
 which I handed the clerk a Japanese bank note, 
 the only kind of money which I had with me, be- 
 ing in some doubt whether it would be accepted 
 at its face. As I have said, Chinese shops are 
 hives of clerks. In this shop the main counter 
 was lined with them. The bank note was handed 
 by one clerk to another, all of whom felt of it 
 and examined it closely before passing it on. I 
 began to think that the bill would not pass current 
 in Tientsin at its face. At length, a clerk who 
 could talk some English came forward with it, 
 and told me that it was worth a premium in 
 Tientsin money, and that the premium would be 
 allowed me. As I did not know this when I 
 handed him the bill and was in doubt if it would 
 be accepted at par, I felt myself quite fortunate. 
 The larger shops have fixed prices and will not 
 make concessions; but in the little booths, there 
 is real intellectual exercise in higgling with the 
 dealers, you and he being ignorant of the other's 
 language. He is anxious not to lose a bargain; 
 
CHINA 65 
 
 it may be his one sale for the day. He will 
 begin by asking more than he expects to get, 
 and will finally drop to his " last price," which 
 you must give or go without. Sometimes this 
 " last price," as in Egypt, Syria and Turkey or 
 Italy, is one-half, perhaps even one-third of that 
 which he asked in the first instance. Such is 
 Oriental trading, at least in small aifairs. 
 
 It is not always prudent, however, to rely upon 
 Chinese honesty. In small matters the common 
 people are fond of catching bargains. For in- 
 stance, when we visited the great Temple of 
 Heaven in Peking, where the emperor goes three 
 times a year to pray and offer sacrifice, we saw 
 an instance of this greed. The visitor is expected 
 to pay five cents of our money to each door- 
 opener, and, as there are eleven of these doors, 
 the process became somewhat monotonous. In 
 paying one door-keeper, he asked me if I would 
 give him a silver dollar in exchange for small 
 coin; our guide said nothing and I did so. As 
 several door-keepers in succession asked me to do 
 the same thing, I inquired the reason, and found 
 that the " plunker " was worth five cents more 
 than its face value in small cain. Another trick 
 is to claim that the coin you pay with is not 
 genuine and to hand a leaden coin to you as 
 the one you gave. This trick or something in its 
 nature I know to be common among the Arabs in 
 Egypt. 
 
66 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 It is surprising that the Chinese government 
 does not regulate its currency. The silver used 
 is the Chinese or Mexican dollar, but the two do 
 not represent the same value. There is also a 
 variance in the value of smaller silver coins. 
 One must be constantly on guard against depre- 
 ciated currency. That coin which is good in one 
 city is often not worth its face value in another 
 place a few miles away. Copper cents are in 
 universal use. Even the street car conductors 
 will give you coppers in exchange for a silver 
 dollar. Indeed, the Chinese dollar is depreciated 
 to about the value of the Japanese yen, 48 cents. 
 A currency reform is greatly needed in the Celes- 
 tial Empire. 
 
 One discomfort in northern China in the warm 
 season of the year is the prevalence of high winds, 
 which are charged with alkaline dust. Eyes, ears 
 and throat are filled with it. Little attempt is 
 made to water the streets, and the dust is swept in 
 volumes over the heads of travelers. 
 
 Peking is a city of vast distances. In fact, 
 it is a city made up of several cities; a combina- 
 tion of one city with another, like a Chinese box 
 puzzle. There is the Forbidden City, which no 
 foreigner can enter; the Tartar city, the Im- 
 perial City, and so on. All are circumvallated 
 with high walls, on the gates of which are watch- 
 towers. Then there are the foreign reservations. 
 
CHINA 67 
 
 where the police regulations are extra-territorial; 
 that is, they are subject to the laws of the sev- 
 eral countries which control them. Some of the 
 foreign countries, notably Russia, have elaborate 
 buildings for their legations. The Chinese city 
 proper has the narrow streets and congested life 
 of which I have written in regard to Tientsin. 
 In some of the other quarters the streets are wide 
 and many of the buildings are of modern archi- 
 tecture. There are many more brick and stone 
 buildings than one finds in any large city of 
 Japan. Some of the temples are public build- 
 ings, and are enclosed in large areas of land. 
 The Temple of Heaven is in a great park, sur- 
 rounded by walls six miles in circumference. 
 
 The summer palace of the royal family is some 
 ten miles out of the city. It is reached by a 
 tedious carriage ride over hard roads; but it 
 repays the effort. No palace in Japan which I 
 saw can compare with it in magnificence and 
 architectural effect. Pagodas, palaces, towers, 
 bridges, marble boats, audience halls, courts and 
 flower gardens are piled along and above each 
 other and encircle a large artificial lake. An 
 interesting feature is the lotus ponds. The vast 
 buildings are now unoccupied. They are on the 
 verge of the great plain on which Peking is loca- 
 ted and run back to the slopes of high hills. All 
 the splendor seemed dreary enough. The expense 
 of maintenance must be very large ; and it is said 
 that in a few years they will probably be aban- 
 
68 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 doned. The royal family live in the winter pal- 
 ace, so-called in the Imperial City. 
 
 The nominal Emperor of China is a boy, two 
 or three years old ; the executive government is in 
 charge of a regent. The state funeral of the late 
 Emperor, — that unfortunate man who was for 
 years a prisoner in his own palace — occurred 
 the day before we reached Peking. It will be re- 
 membered that he and that remarkable woman, the 
 Empress Dowager, died within a day of each 
 other ; a mysterious coincidence. The royal fam- 
 ily of China, being Manchurian, is considered 
 alien by a large portion of the Chinese people; 
 and this is one reason for the lack of a spirit of 
 intense patriotism which would consolidate the 
 great nation into a mighty whole. 
 
 After all, the benefit and, indeed, the main 
 pleasure in travel does not consist in running 
 through museums, or in staring at big buildings, 
 or visiting churches, cathedrals, temples, palaces, 
 and shrines, unless they have some special his- 
 toric interest ; it is rather in a study of the social 
 and industrial life of a strange nation. Each 
 nation on the globe must exist under some social 
 arrangement that keeps the people together on 
 some principle of adjustment. In this respect 
 the Chinese Empire has been the teacher of the 
 world. It was a coherent nation when England 
 was the home of barbarians; before Rome was 
 founded; when America was a wilderness; prob- 
 
CHINA 69 
 
 ably before the patriarch Abraham came out of 
 Ur into Canaan. It has preserved its homo- 
 geneousness during all these ages to a wonderful 
 degree. Its territory is immense ; nearly a million 
 square miles larger than that of the United States ; 
 its population is believed to reach the enormous 
 total of 400,000,000 souls; it is divided into 
 provinces, one or more of which have a popula- 
 tion of 70,000,000 people; it has, after the 
 Oriental way, protected the home and family; 
 it has outgrown national blood-lust, at least in 
 warlike aggressiveness and the spirit of foreign 
 conquest. It passed through all these evolution- 
 ary stages ; recoiled upon itself, sheltered itself be- 
 hind its Great Wall on the north, the deserts on 
 the west, the ocean on the east, tremendous moun- 
 tains on the south, and then, so far as the outside 
 world was concerned, went to sleep. It did not 
 interfere with other nations, and believed that it 
 was immune from interference from them. 
 
 But no man and no nation liveth to himself 
 or to itself alone. Contact with others is neces- 
 sary to develop character. Human institutions 
 are too mobile and fluid to remain stationary. 
 China paid for its self-imposed isolation by lag- 
 ging behind in the march of progress. Remote 
 nations — barbarians, they seemed to her — be- 
 come tough through contest and collision; they 
 crossed the vast oceans, climbed mountains, pen- 
 etrated deserts, and knocked at her doors. Her 
 
70 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 national exclusiveness brought its penalty of 
 inertia, stagnation, debility. China could not 
 cope with the tougher nations of the West; her 
 3)ride has been humbled. She has been used often 
 xoughly, often unjustly. Slowly she is loosening 
 herself from the deadly grip of her conservatism, 
 and is seeing a new light. Fortunately the nation 
 has a certain steadiness of character, a constancy, 
 ■which will probably sustain it in its collision with 
 new forces. Its adoption of the moral teachings 
 of Mencius and Confucius had great value to the 
 nation. Its ancestor-worship has been pushed to 
 a paralyzing extreme. It will be ready in the 
 fullness of time for vital Christianity, for a spirit- 
 ual uplift, an ethical awakening, based upon 
 Christian morals and hopes. 
 
 I do not know how many times on this tour I 
 lave heard experienced observers say : " Watch 
 China; there is the coming nation." Prophecies 
 are always unsafe. However, the spectacle of the 
 awakening of a nation of some four hundred mil- 
 lions of people is a profoundly interesting one. 
 The impending change should not be convulsive 
 or come too rapidly. China needs railroads, tel- 
 egraphs, telephones, sanitation, industrial educa- 
 tion. This great city of Peking, in which I am 
 writing, has as yet no trolley cars and no sewer- 
 age system. Above all, the Chinese empire needs 
 enlightened government. 
 
CHINA Tl 
 
 The incoming change is prefigured in many 
 ways. Most of the temples which I have visited 
 seem practically devoid of worshipers. The so- 
 called Hall of Classics in this city presents dreary, 
 empty rooms. The School of Instruction, where 
 Chinese youth formerly took their civil service 
 examinations, from all parts of the empire, was 
 ruined during the Boxer rebellion. On every side 
 the old order changeth; the new must be on 
 the way. There is an immense amount of raw 
 human material in the empire to be moulded, we 
 wiU hope into a great civilized republic, adjusted 
 to modem thought and orderly liberty. 
 
 It will not be without regret that the future 
 tourist may miss much that is strange. In the 
 present order, the proud mandarin, riding in his 
 gilded carriage, with a mirror set in front of his 
 seat, with a retinue of liveried outriders; prin- 
 cesses in heavy carts, with trumpeters riding be- 
 fore and behind ; funeral processions, with gaudy 
 banners, flourishes of music, hired mourners, the 
 empty chair of the deceased always being taken 
 to the grave ; the Manchu women wearing immense 
 fan-shaped head-dresses ; the strange garb of men 
 and boys. Physically the Chinese need athletic 
 and disciplinary training. The policemen and 
 soldiers look slouchy in their uniforms. They 
 have none of the jaunty esprit du corps of the 
 Japanese. I have seen no athletic games, nor 
 indeed any out-door sports, in any Chinese city 
 which I have visited. 
 
72 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 The tourist travel in China is slight; barely 
 more than three thousand foreign wanderers find- 
 ing their way hither in any year. Most of this 
 is confined to the coast-cities and the rim of the 
 empire. Its vast mineral resources have hardly 
 been touched. Its industries are primitive. The 
 Great Plain of China is the seat of the tea and 
 silk interests. The Chinese have an absorbing 
 love for jewels. The bazaars of the great cities 
 are full of small shops, where jade, agates, jasper, 
 rubies, diamonds and exquisite crystals, carved 
 by the hand, are offered for sale. 
 
 That wonderful Italian boy, Marco Polo, who 
 traveled in China, in the thirteenth century, lifted 
 the veil from the dubious mists in which the vast 
 empire had been shrouded. Since his day, mis- 
 sionaries, diplomats, merchants, warriors, tourists, 
 have been here, and then have given their impres- 
 sions to the world. Yet, who knows anything 
 about China? Who has understood the soul-life 
 of this wonderful nation; of its outlook on the 
 world-problems.'' It has absorbed its conquer- 
 ors ; its very immobility has been its strength. It 
 has had a timeless history. Dynasty after dyn- 
 asty has risen and fallen; the centuries have 
 dropped upon it like bubbles. Powerful in its 
 inertia, impervious to the currents which have 
 eroded so many European states, the nation 
 stands, unspent in years, vigorous in its masculine 
 power, awaiting the touch of some Bismarck, Na- 
 
CmNA 73 
 
 poleon, Lincoln or Washington, — some statesman 
 of constructive genius, to weld its chaotic elements 
 into associated action. 
 
MANCHURIA 
 
 Antiquity and Modern Times are alike. All un- 
 der Heaven (China) are one Family. — Chinese 
 Proverb. 
 
 We were soon to leave behind us the great city 
 of Peking, with " its fierce confederate storm of 
 sorrows " : Peking, perhaps the strangest of all 
 the great cities of the world ; where life rolls along 
 in a monotonous flow, from generation to genera- 
 tion ; where inveterate custom has become crystial- 
 lized into law; where men and women live on the 
 scantiest incomes, and do the work of beasts of 
 burden, unmurmuringly and stolidly, as their an- 
 cestors have for countless generations; Peking, 
 with its mazes of winding streets, its bazaars 
 foaming with the full tide of human life; where 
 the Manchu dynasty sits upon the throne of the 
 conquered natives ; where European and American 
 ideas and influence are trying to wedge themselves 
 in, against the almost impenetrable barrier of pas- 
 sive indifference or impotent contempt; Peking, 
 where, in spite of its dust, winds, dirt and squalor, 
 a strange fascination hovers over its throbbing 
 life and mysterious ebb and flow of human action. 
 
 No other great city which I have seen resembles 
 it. It grows into quickened interest upon ac- 
 quaintance. The visitor at first feels himself re- 
 74. 
 
MANCHURIA 75 
 
 pelled ; then he hears the dull throb of its mighty 
 heart; he learns he is touching the nerve center 
 of the most populous nation the world has ever 
 known, and one whose mysterious characteristics 
 other nations are just beginning to know; whose 
 potency for weal or woe to the human race is one 
 of the darkling problems of the unknown future. 
 So, when the tourist leaves Peking, he feels as if 
 he had left an unexplored world behind him; he 
 regrets that he cannot touch its mighty life longer 
 and study, with an enlarged knowledge and keener 
 vision, into its vital qualities. 
 
 At least, such were my feelings when I took 
 the railroad train from Peking to Mukden, I 
 felt that I had scarcely scratched the surface of 
 its shadowy, glimmering realities. However slug- 
 gish the flow of its mighty life may be, 
 the flow has been steady. Empires have been 
 bom and have died; Chinese life, typified in in 
 its capital city, has been a part of " that duration 
 which maketh the Pyramids pillars of dust, and 
 all that's past, a moment." 
 
 Before me was a long tour across the northern 
 part of the Asian continent; vast reaches of 
 space ; the longest continuous railroad ride on the 
 globe. I knew that many hours of monotonous 
 travel were to come before I should pass over the 
 continental divide in the far-off Ural mountains, 
 which separate Europe and Asia. 
 
 Railroads are comparatively new in China ; and 
 
76 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 even now the vast empire has but few. Their 
 introduction was bitterly opposed by Chinese re- 
 actionaries. They were disturbed to know that 
 the power of quick transportation might shake up 
 the torpid life of the nation. Moreover, ancestor- 
 worship is the rock basis of religion and social 
 morals in China. The graves of dead ancestors 
 are held in reverence as sacred shrines. The con- 
 servatives shook their heads and said : " Shall 
 railroad tracks be laid over land which perhaps 
 covers the bones of our fathers? Shall we allow 
 steam and electricity where our fathers were satis- 
 fied with ox-carts, sedan chairs and the nerve-and- 
 bone power of our millions of coolies ? " But the 
 progressive party happily prevailed; railroads 
 were built; and more are to be built. Even now 
 the Chinese government is building one from 
 Peking to a station east of Irkutsk on the frontier 
 line of Manchuria and Siberia, which will shorten 
 the distance several hundred miles. If China is 
 to exist as a coherent empire, the population must 
 become more mobile; there must be better means 
 of communication. Ultimately the government 
 will do what Japan has done; unite the past and 
 the future by utilizing the present ; build the na- 
 tion upon what is good in its permanent qualities 
 and invigorate its life by gathering from other 
 nations what China needs. 
 
 I found, to my discomfort, that much of the 
 railroading in China is still primitive. The ride 
 from Peking was to cover a day and a night. 
 
MANCHURIA 77 
 
 But there were no sleeping cars. Even a first- 
 class ticket did not necessarily mean a seat or 
 settle. It was pot-luck and a game of grab to 
 get either. The few compartments had been 
 " cornered " by the knowing ones. I was lucky 
 enough to secure the use of a settle, where I 
 stretched myself for the dreary night. People 
 were aU mixed up : Chinese, Japanese, Americans, 
 English, French, Germans; young and old; male 
 and female; smokers and non-smokers. The 
 night was chilly ; no coverings were provided ; be- 
 fore dawn the cold was severe. But wait for to- 
 morrow, and it comes. The long, long night, 
 with all its discomforts, gradually wore itself 
 away; streaks of light from the eastern skies 
 lifted the sable shadows from the earth, and our 
 tired, almost sleepless eyes looked out upon the 
 great level plains of Manchuria. 
 
 There was no trace of the marchings and tramp- 
 lings of the Russian and Japanese armies in the 
 recent war. The sun shone down upon 
 
 " The silence that is in the starry sky. 
 The sleep that is among the lonely hills." 
 
 Farmers were plowing and sowing their fields. 
 The Chinese are skilful farmers. For genera- 
 tions they have kown how to harvest two crops in 
 one year. There is no waste of soil or fertilizer. 
 
 Manchuria has been for some time past the 
 storm-center of intrigue and collision between Ja- 
 
78 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 pan, Russia and China. It is a corporate part 
 of the Chinese empire, but the weakness of that 
 empire has led to concessions which have given 
 to Japan and Russia certain rights of occupancy 
 and control of railroads. The country is not 
 only rich agriculturally, but has valuable mineral 
 deposits, upon which the covetous eyes of Euro- 
 pean nations have set. China now realizes the 
 importance of Manchuria ; it is sending emigrants 
 thither in considerable numbers. A large detach- 
 ment of immigrants were waiting at a station at 
 which the train stopped. They were herded like 
 sheep; officers did not hesitate to use their billies 
 upon them. In fact, this is a common sight in 
 Chinese cities. If a jinrikisha driver transgresses 
 in the slightest degree the rules established for the 
 order of precedence, an officer will beat him un- 
 mercifully. China may have outgrown the lust 
 for war; but, in its punishment of criminals and 
 treatment of the citizen, the infernal lust for 
 cruelty, so often lodged in the human heart, finds 
 outward expression. 
 
 Late in the afternoon of the second day from 
 Peking the train reached Mukden. All the rail- 
 roads in Northern Asia have a semi-military char- 
 acter. They are a part of " the far-flung battle- 
 line " of Russia, Japan and China. Like all the 
 railroads in this section, the North China road is 
 under government control; and files of Chinese 
 
MANCHURIA 79 
 
 soldiers — rather sorry looking " food for pow- 
 der," patrolled every station. The train had 
 gone through a rich, level country. The farmers 
 were at work at their spring sowing; some of the 
 fields were vivid green with winter wheat. The 
 trees were putting out their tender leafage; here 
 and there bright wild flowers garnished the way- 
 side. In the cars were quite a number of Man- 
 churian Chinese; some of high class, decorated 
 and gilded. At one of the stations a Chinese 
 woman, evidently of high rank, attended by a 
 maid, left the train. A cart, drawn by two 
 horses, was awaiting her; bows and kow-tows fol- 
 lowed from the lackeys in waiting. She toddled 
 to the cart ; after a prolonged exchange of postur- 
 ing and kow-tows, she was assisted into the cart, 
 took the back seat; a curtain was drawn in front 
 of her; the maid took the outer seat; the driver 
 in front of the maid ; slowly the stiff, clumsy, two- 
 wheeled cart with no springs left the station. As 
 the train approached any station, the Chinese mil- 
 itary guard gave a salute. 
 
 Asiatics know how to travel without paying 
 extra charges for over-weight of luggage. 
 Nothing is more common than to see a Chinese 
 or Japanese surmounted by bundles, boxes, cans, 
 lunch arrangements, blankets and all sorts of 
 stuff. Every car is a smoking car; and the Asi- 
 atics, men and women, are usually smoking cig- 
 
80 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 arettes or cigarillas when they are not snoozing. 
 Restlessness, worry, haste, do not seem to be a 
 part of the Asiatic character- 
 Mukden is in the center of a great plain. It 
 is thoroughly modern. There is a high pagoda 
 near the station; a few monuments which mark 
 some events of public interest. The Great Wall 
 of China was seen at Shan-hei-Khwan, en route 
 from Peking. This wall is now perforated by 
 the railroad track and is useless for military pro- 
 tection; it is only a reminder of the isolation of 
 China; of her false sense of seclusion from the 
 rest of the world, for which she had profound 
 contempt; that restless world which is now so 
 rudely shattering her dreams and disturbing her 
 passive national life. No time was given for 
 sight-seeing in Mukden. I learned from some 
 inquiries where the vast armies were stationed dur- 
 ing the great battle. They covered an arena of 
 200 miles; 800,000 soldiers, possibly the largest 
 number ever engaged in one battle, certainly the 
 largest number authenticated; here those vast 
 tides of humanity met in deadly collision; here 
 Japanese and Russian clutched at each other's 
 throats ; here the military skill of Oyama proved 
 itself superior to Kuropatkin; here the tide of 
 Russian advance into northern Asia was stayed. 
 Not a vestige of this sanguinary conflict was 
 seen by us. Four or five years have erased its 
 stains of blood and ravage. Japanese and Rus- 
 
MANCHURIA 81 
 
 sian now trade with each other, meet freely in 
 the courtesies of life. " Grim-visaged war hath 
 smoothed his wrinkled front." The war is a part 
 of almost forgotten history. 
 
 As the three governments are interested in the 
 railroads of northern China, one cannot buy a 
 through ticket if the journey takes one on several 
 systems. The Imperial Chinese railroad could sell 
 a ticket only to Mukden; at this place a change 
 was made to the North China Railroad, which is 
 controlled by Japanese; and a splendid system it 
 is, too. We took the sleeper at Mukden late at 
 night ; and it was impracticable to undress, as we 
 were to make another change at Changchun very 
 early the next morning. So for two nights we 
 slept in our clothes. All this made me think of 
 the remark which several good friends made to 
 me when leaving home : " How glad I am that 
 you are to have such a fine rest." These words 
 always brought a sardonic smile on my face. In- 
 asmuch as I have practically been an idler by pro- 
 fession, a wanderer, a semi-tramp for several 
 years, I did not feel myself to be particularly in 
 need of rest. Moreover, as a veteran traveler, I 
 knew something of the fatigue of travel. No 
 work is more exhausting than globe-trotting and 
 sight-seeing. Let no one be deceived into the 
 thought that travel is restful. It brings, indeed, 
 a change of interests and activities ; it is pleasing 
 in anticipation and retrospect; but it means re- 
 
82 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 nunciation of home comforts, separation from 
 friends, often extortion and greed; always inev- 
 itable discomfort. Like everything else in life, 
 there is in it a mingling of pleasure and annoy- 
 ance. Especially is this true of touring in the 
 Far East. So I accepted the miseries of the Chi- 
 nese railway and the sleeplessness on the Japa- 
 nese; but found the latter to be one of the very 
 best in equipment. From Changchun on, we saw 
 no more of the slouchy, slatternly Chinese soldiers, 
 looking ill at ease in thin uniforms. They were 
 succeeded by platoons of trim, alert, keen-eyed 
 Japanese soldiers, who had the dominant air of 
 conquerors, masters of the situation. 
 
 At a very early hour on the second morning 
 from Peking, the train reached Changchun. 
 Here new tickets were to be bought and a change 
 of cars to be made. At Mukden we had met the 
 passengers from China who had come by way of 
 Dalny, and who naturally had " cornered " all the 
 good berths. At Changchun it was again pot- 
 luck for seats. No breakfast was to be had. We 
 did not know then that lunch-hampers could have 
 been bought at the Japanese buffet; and so we 
 started from Changchun breakfastless. All we 
 had to eat until the train reached Harbin, late in 
 the afternoon, was what we could buy from ped- 
 dlers at the station. However, we did not starve ; 
 met pleasant company, and made our course over 
 the battlegrounds of the Japanese-Russian war, 
 
MANCHURIA 83 
 
 through places of which everyone was reading a 
 few years ago. Here and there was a dismantled 
 breastwork, or a trench, or some other reminder 
 that tremendous conflicts had been waged here; 
 otherwise, all was serene and softly beautiful, 
 bathed in May sunshine, " kissing with golden 
 face the meadows green, gilding pale streams with 
 heavenly alchemy." 
 
 Late in the afternoon the train reached Harbin, 
 where we made connection with and were trans- 
 ferred to the regular Trans-Siberian railroad, on 
 the train which had come from Vladivostock, the 
 easterly terminus of the road. Here we learned 
 the meaning of over-weight in baggage, as I was 
 mulcted thirty dollars, as an extra charge for lug- 
 gage from Harbin to Moscow, which an American 
 railroad would carry free. 
 
 So, at length, after having had experiences with 
 a Chinese, Japanese and auxiliary Russian rail- 
 road, we were launched on the long journey on 
 wheels of 5,000 miles to Moscow. It had taken 
 from Monday night to Wednesday afternoon to 
 reach it ; and now we settled down for eleven con- 
 tinuous days of railroading. 
 
 There is little of interest in Harbin. Its ficti- 
 tious " boom," created by the war, is burst. It 
 has the aspect of a decadent town; with vestiges 
 of ghastly wreckage. At one time it reeked with 
 saloons and gambling-hells; the sad concomitant 
 of soldier-life. We stayed here a few hours, im- 
 patient to leave a place, once familiar to the world 
 
84 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 as a military station, now apparently a desolate 
 outcast. 
 
 The part of Manchuria through which we trav- 
 eled is not inviting. It is said to have rich min- 
 eral deposits in its mountain ranges. By and by 
 it may blossom into prosperity. At present, it 
 is the foot-ball of politics. Its blood-soaked 
 plains have been the grave-yard of unoffending 
 Russians and Japanese, bowled to death, as pawns 
 in the selfish game of politics. Its political status 
 is ambiguous : — Japan and Russia are crowding 
 China into all sorts of concessions. It is only a 
 fragmentary hem of the vast Chinese empire: — 
 one element in the hell-broth of territorial lust 
 which impels nations to injustice. What its fu- 
 ture is to be no man knows. New railroads will 
 soon be coiled over its dusty plains, which will 
 articulate it more closely with Korea. It rules 
 China, through the royal family, yet is stranded 
 in the wilderness of international rivalry. 
 
VI 
 SIBERIA 
 
 The Land of the Never, Never 
 
 The Trans-Siberian railroad was a masterful 
 undertaking of the Russian government. It is a 
 part of its military system. For the first few days, 
 from Harbin westward, armed soldiers stood senti- 
 nels on each platform of the car. The regular 
 state trains, so-called, are run three times a week. 
 We went on the special International train, under 
 charge of the Wagon-Lits (sleeping car) com- 
 pany, called the Train de Luxe. All the cars were 
 compartment sleepers, first or second class; there 
 were no ordinary day coaches. The line runs at 
 first through Manchuria, territory nominally Chi- 
 nese. At the town of Manchuria the train entered 
 Siberia, and the puffing engines were under the 
 Russian flag. 
 
 Here I had my first experience with Russian 
 customs officers. It was not very pleasurable. 
 
 First, the Chinese officials exacted a small ex- 
 port duty on a few inexpensive articles I had pur- 
 chased in China. My trunks were ransacked ; but 
 fortunately the Chinese officials could talk Eng- 
 lish and I managed to escape from their clutches 
 by payment of a small duty. But the Russian 
 officials declared a few little trinkets, which I had 
 85 
 
S6 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 innocently bought In Japan as inexpensive curios, 
 to be contraband. There was no use in expostu- 
 lation; trains will not wait for a tourist to make 
 liis peace with officialdom ; and so the best I could 
 do was to submit to having my trunk sealed, at my 
 expense, and placed in transit, that is bonded, to 
 Moscow. I little dreamed then how much trouble 
 this was to cause me. But enough of this at pres- 
 ent. Taxes and customs duties are not pleasing 
 themes for discussion; they touch the pocket 
 nerve. 
 
 I cannot undertake to describe in detail the 
 journey across Siberia. I did not find it tedious. 
 The word Siberia means to most of us a desolate, 
 ice-bound, dreary waste; a lazar-house, a penal 
 settlement, where heart-ache, the prison and mis- 
 ery are the portion of suffering humanity. It is, 
 indeed, stUl a penal colony ; it is the home of exile 
 :for political offenders; it may have untold hor- 
 Tors. Of all this I saw nothing. Our train took 
 lis through a richly fertile, verdant country, where 
 there are many smiling villages in every one of 
 "which one sees the Byzantine domes of churches of 
 the Greek Orthodox faith. 
 
 On and on through the vast reaches of Siberian 
 territory, the train made its way. Very few of 
 the passengers were Russians ; there was one other 
 .American; a few Germans and French, more of 
 English. The Siberian railroad is a great con- 
 venience to commercial men doing business in the 
 
SIBERIA 87 
 
 Far East. The distance from Shanghai to Lon- 
 don can be made in eighteen days. In the warm 
 season of the year the railroad route is preferable 
 to the voyage via the Indian Ocean and the Suez 
 Canal, by reason of the intense heat which one is 
 apt to experience by the sea route. Our special 
 train de luxe, in its equipment, was fairly well up 
 to a Pullman train. Few of the employes knew 
 much of the Enghsh tongue. The meals were 
 quite good, and were served at lower prices than on 
 Pullman cars m America. As all the berths were 
 in compartments, the passengers did not meet in 
 close relations except at meals in the buffet car. 
 This car was the only lounging room, and was not 
 used much for social life, as it was rather small 
 and the service of meals was quite frequent. The 
 cars are all made with vestibule platforms. The 
 train made frequent stops, and, both before and 
 after we reached Irkutsk, the engines were changed 
 again and again. The railroad is now of a single 
 track only ; but the government is laying a second 
 track. Siberia is still a sort of military outpost 
 of the Russian empire-, and at practically every 
 station there was a detachment of soldiers. 
 
 The word Siberia connotes vast space. It is as 
 large, even larger, than all Europe. It is sparsely 
 inhabited, the great territory having only five or 
 six millions of people. Russia, however, is doing 
 what may be done to people it. Scores and scores 
 of immigrant trains, coming from Russia, met the 
 train de luxe. The immigrant trains were long. 
 
88 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 and were composed of cars very much like our 
 baggage cars, into which men, women and chil- 
 dren were crowded like cattle. The immigrants 
 are a hardy, rough, illiterate body of people ; they 
 look to be good-natured and civil. They are car- 
 ried to the Amur district, near Vladivostock, on 
 the most easterly verge of Siberia, where the land 
 is said to be fertile. The government assigns to 
 them farming land and seed for a certain number 
 of years, and furnishes free transportation. As 
 the immigrants apparently provide their own food, 
 en route, the government provides hot and cold 
 water at all the stations for their use. At 
 most of the stations the villagers offered for 
 sale simple food, in the form of milk, often boiled, 
 big loaves of black bread, cheese, sausages, and 
 fruits. As Siberia is almost exclusively an ag- 
 ricultural country, the output of milk is very 
 large. 
 
 It is said that the Russian government is pour- 
 ing into Siberia 500,000 immigrants every year; 
 and it will be observed that they are located near 
 to the theater of the Japanese war. Swarms 
 of children were among the immigrants. Pos- 
 sibly in this way Siberia may become a bulwark 
 of the nation, and a nursery of soldiers in case 
 Russia should come irto another collision with 
 Japan. I was told, however, that a good many 
 of the immigrants become discontented and re- 
 turn to Russia. On some of the emigrant 
 
SIBERIA 89 
 
 trains I observed the intellectual faces of several 
 well-dressed men, who seemed to keep to their 
 seats when the train came to a halt. They looked 
 out of place among the rough immigrants, who 
 were their companions. I was afterwards told that 
 they were political prisoners, who were transported 
 to Siberia in punishment for some offense. I am 
 not sure, however, of this fact. If true, 'tis pit- 
 iful. 
 
 Under the May skies, in the crisp, sharp air 
 of the high northern latitudes, one soon forgot 
 that Siberia is wrapped in snow more than half 
 of the year. It seemed almost impossibly to be- 
 lieve that the green fields, swelling forests of ever- 
 greens and birches, the orchards glowing in their 
 wealth of blossoms, were just emerging from the 
 long sleep of winter. As the days were hasten- 
 ing to the summer solstice, they became longer 
 and longer, and there was no brilliant display of 
 constellations in the Siberian skies. The evenings 
 were clear as the day. At many places one saw 
 the rollers for the second track, which will soon 
 be completed by the government. In some sec- 
 tions it has already been laid. 
 
 At Irkutsk, the capital of Siberia, the outward 
 train made its terminus, and the passengers were 
 transferred to another train of exactly the same 
 character, each passenger being assigned to a 
 stateroom, or coupe, as it is often called in the 
 East, of the same number and location as in the 
 original train. This change is made for the rea- 
 
90 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 son that it is thought that the strain of the 
 long run of 6,000 miles would over-tax the cars. 
 
 It must not be thought that all of Siberia is 
 level. On the contrary, as our train for several 
 days skirted the boundary line of Mongolia, 
 which is Chinese territory, we could see on the 
 horizon long reaches of snow-capped mountains. 
 Over and beyond these mountains lies the great 
 desert of Gobi. On the third day of the journey 
 the train reached Lake Baikal and Irkutsk. It 
 was in the early morning that I looked from the 
 window of my compartment and saw the long line 
 of snowy hills glittering in the spring sunshine, 
 outlined against the horizon, rising into the sky, 
 in ghostly silence beyond Lake Baikal. This 
 lake is one of the largest bodies of fresh water 
 in the world. For several years before the track 
 was laid which now runs around one side of the 
 lake, the trains were taken across the lake in 
 winter on tracks laid on the ice, which was thick 
 and strong enough to sustain its weight. On 
 the morning that our train skirted Lake Baikal 
 for several hours the ice and snow had not entirely 
 melted from its waters. This made the scene 
 more lovely; — the distant hills, the shining suiv 
 face of the lake, the shores margined with ice, 
 the fields of living green, the blossoming trees, 
 the morning silences, the hush which seemed to 
 have fallen upon everything but ourselves and 
 the moving train; — all these made the scene al- 
 
SIBERIA 91 
 
 most spectral. I began to wonder if it was a. 
 reality or a stage setting. I thought of Aubrey 
 de Vere's gentle verses, beginning 
 
 The lights on yonder snowy range 
 Shine yet intense and tender; 
 
 And slowly parting seem to change 
 From splendor xmto splendor. 
 
 All seemed like the visions of dreamland, 
 caught " 'tween asleep and wake." But, in a 
 few hours, the train had left the shores of Lake 
 Baikal, and crept into Irkutsk. And here was 
 a veritable city of brick and stone, which seemed 
 to have dropped out of dreamland; well-built, 
 with wide streets, large public buildings, a uni- 
 versity, the seat of government of Siberia, and. 
 a military outpost of great importance. The 
 morning sunlight played upon the gilded domes 
 of many Greek Orthodox churches. I have ob- 
 served in the Far East, and in Syria and Greece,, 
 a great similarity in the architecture of churches 
 of this faith. There is in it a plainly defined 
 element of Orientalism. They are nearer to what 
 Lord Beaconsfield called " the Asian mystery," 
 than any other of the Christian faiths. The 
 longer I live and the more I see of the outward 
 expression of the religious sentiments of man- 
 kind, the more I am satisfied of the one-ness of 
 aU religions; that they are mainly ethnical and 
 local expressions of the same inner principles. 
 
92 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 There was not much time to spend in Irkutsk. 
 It is the commercial center of a large territory. 
 Siberia is rich in precious minerals, and Irkutsk 
 is the market where many of them are distrib- 
 uted. The dealers had booths near the station 
 and offered most attractive gems for sale. They 
 seemed to be reasonably honest and to be willing 
 to advise the customer whether or not the gem 
 was spurious, or genuine. 
 
 To the northward of Irkutsk and the hne of 
 the Trans-Siberian railroad stretches a vast ter- 
 ritory, most of which, I presume, has never been 
 explored by man; there is the realm of snow, 
 frost and ice, the haunt of the polar bear, the 
 musk, the white fox and fur-bearing animals; 
 of winter, shadowed by perpetual darkness, of 
 summers, when the midnight sun shines in the 
 skies. Of this great part of Siberia I know noth- 
 ing. The part which I did see was well worth 
 the seeing. It would be useless to recite the 
 names of the towns at which the train made stops. 
 Most of them are unpronounceable. A station, 
 generally neat and substantial; booths for the 
 sale of fruits and food; one or more domed and 
 turreted churches of the Greek Orthodox faith 
 rising above the village; houses clustered in 
 groups, generally of wood, sometimes of brick 
 or stone; often with thatched roofs; one or two 
 long streets running through the village; a bar- 
 racks for soldiers; a garrison of tough-looking 
 clumsy Russian youths clothed in uniforms; a 
 
SIBERIA 93 
 
 few officers, to whom the privates give most 
 deferential respect, glittering in gaudy uniforms ; 
 these make up a good part of the outward aspect 
 of a Siberian village. 
 
 One noticeable feature of Siberian and, later 
 in Russian country Hfe, is the absence of de- 
 tached farmhouses such as we see in the United 
 States and in Western Europe. I hardly saw 
 one of them. This may not be so in aU sections 
 of Siberia and Russia; it may be for the reason 
 that the land is owned in large estates ; it may be 
 required for protection from dangerous animals 
 or from want of water; or it may arise from the 
 habits of the people. 
 
 Siberia is a land of immense forests. Some of 
 the timber has been wastefuUy cut, as in our own 
 country. For the first half of our long rail- 
 road run the engines were fed with wood. Great 
 piles of wood are often seen at the stations. In 
 the background, away from the village settle- 
 ments, immense forests of evergreen trees darken 
 the landscape and sweep over the plains or hiUs ; 
 where these have been cut birch succeeds. 
 
 I should not fail to say something about the 
 great rivers of Siberia. They are one of the 
 most interesting features of the journey. Some 
 are very wide and of great length; the Lena, 
 Obi, Yenesei, rising in the mountains of Chinese 
 Turkestan, creeping down to the level lands of 
 the Siberian plains, fed by the snows of winter, 
 
94 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 gathering head as they sweep onward to the 
 Arctic ocean; silent, glassy, shining in the sun- 
 light, or sombre under the darkening clouds of 
 even, all fascinate the observer. As the towns 
 are generally located on their banks, the rail- 
 road track often runs for many miles along their 
 curves, often crossing and recrossing them several 
 times. Some of them are navigable for many 
 miles to the northward wastes, and are covered 
 with small steamers. Swollen by the thawing 
 snow and ice, draining the watershed of the Mon- 
 golian mountains, they sometimes look like lakes, 
 being so wide and smooth. Later on in Russia, 
 the train touched the banks of the great Volga 
 river, the largest in Europe, which rises in the 
 Ural mountains and pours itself, after its long 
 coil over Russia, into the Caspian sea. 
 
 As the train approached the Ural mountains, 
 which are the divisional range between Europe 
 and Asia, the country became rougher. We 
 could easily tell our bearings and distances, as, 
 along the whole railroad route, there are sign, 
 posts, every mile, or verst, as the Russian mile 
 is called, about three-fifths of an English mile. 
 All the names of towns and stations were in the 
 Russian language. In Japan they are trans- 
 lated into English. The Russians have not yet 
 learned what Switzerland, Italy, Germany and 
 France have learned — the value of tourist travel 
 as a commercial asset. Yet there is no discour- 
 
SIBERIA 95 
 
 tesy or coldness manifested towards strangers ; on 
 the other hand, my belief is that the Russian peo- 
 ple are kindly and hospitable. 
 
 The Urals are rather disappointing to one who 
 has seen the Rockies and Alps, hardly rising, in 
 the passes through which our train penetrated 
 Europe, above the dignity of moderately high 
 foot-hills. As we approached the mountains, and 
 were leaving the Siberian plains behind us, the 
 atmospheric effects, which had been fine during 
 the entire journey, became even more sparkling. 
 The streaming sunlight illumined the flowering 
 fields almost " with the light that never was on 
 sea or land." The sunbeams flickered and danced 
 in the crisp Siberian air. Our farewell to Si- 
 beria, and to Asia, was honored with one of the 
 most magnificent sunsets imaginable. The train 
 was headed towards the Ural mountains, and was 
 crossing a great plain almost in a westerly di- 
 rection. The sky had been flecked with some 
 purple clouds, which were mirrored in the peace 
 of the green fields. Soon a great mass of sable 
 clouds was banked against the western sky; then 
 the sunlight edged its rim with a gold-line of 
 dazzling brilliancy ; then, as the sun sank down to 
 the horizon behind the cloud-bank, the latter was 
 lifted from the surface of the earth, was raised 
 into the air, and under it the sun poured out a 
 sheen of golden fire, which widened and widened. 
 
96 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 as the sun dropped lower and lower. I turned 
 to a clergyman standing near me, and recited 
 the lines from Moore's well-known poem: 
 
 When day with farewell beams delays 
 Among the opening clouds of even, 
 And we can almost think we gaze 
 Through golden vistas into heaven, 
 Those hues which make the sun's decline 
 So soft, so radiant. Lord, are thine. 
 
 In this world of evil, suffering and sin, what 
 is the meaning of the presence of so much beauty .'' 
 Why such magnificent appeals tq the higher ele- 
 ments of our nature, which lift us out of our 
 petty selves, in a world which has room for the 
 wolf, for the cobra, the shark.'' How baffling the 
 problem is when we attempt to adjust the rela- 
 tions of iron physical laws, and the things of the 
 spirit. 
 
VII 
 
 RUSSIA 
 
 " Approach thou like the rugged Russian bear." 
 — Shakespeare: — " Macbeth." 
 
 The Ural Mountains crossed, we were in Eu- 
 rope; far away on the eastern edge, to be sure, 
 but yet in Europe. Asia, with its teeming, wel- 
 tering millions, was behind us. A few months 
 ago we had crossed the American continent; had 
 spent six days on the Pacific in reaching the 
 Hawaiian Islands; had had five most enjoyable 
 weeks in that Pacific paradise; then ten days 
 more of ocean travel, from Honolulu to Yoko- 
 hama, during which a da.y had dropped out of 
 the calendar and drowned itself in the ocean 
 or the air; the other days having pushed it out 
 of their way ; then Japan, with all its strange in- 
 terests and brilliant color; then Korea, with its 
 morning calm and flowing white; then China, 
 with its indescribable mysteries and unimaginable 
 immensity ; then Manchuria, with its blood stains, 
 the hell-broth where political diabolism and in- 
 trigue are always fanning wars; then Siberia, 
 with its vastness, its silences and its picturesque 
 strangeness; now European Russia, ancient 
 Scythia, the land of the Slav, the Cossack, — and, 
 above all, the home of the greatest writer of our 
 time. Count Leo Tolstoi. What are mountains, 
 97 
 
98 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 rivers and cities when compared with the value of 
 a Shakespeare, a Dante, a Goethe, a Tolstoi? 
 
 There was no distinctive change in the land- 
 scape after the passage through the Urals. The 
 vast estates of Russian archdukes and grand- 
 dukes were clothed in the fresh green of spring. 
 For the first two days the towns were as small and 
 settlements as scattered as in Siberia. When the 
 train reached Samara, we touched the railroad 
 system that extends to Astrachan, Afghanistan, 
 the Caspian sea and Persia. It was almost in- 
 credible that some of the trains which we met 
 at the station were about to start for these distant 
 regions; but such was the fact. We also saw 
 long trains of oil cars which had brought crude 
 petroleum from Astrachan and the regions of 
 Asiatic Russia in which are oil beds. 
 
 At the end of the twelfth day from Peking, 
 we began to see the domes and pinnacles of Mos- 
 cow, the ancient capital of Russia and its largest 
 city. It has many imposing buildings and has 
 a picturesque appearance which I have not ob- 
 served in any large European city except Con- 
 stantinople. It still had a wintry aspect, even 
 under the sunny skies of the last of May. The 
 men and women wore winter garments; twice at 
 least during the week following there were snow 
 falls. Instead of the jinrikishas of Japan and 
 China, we had the droschka, a one-seated carriage, 
 almost always with a sandy-haired driver wearing 
 
RUSSIA 99! 
 
 a stubby Kossuth hat. At many comers there 
 are shrines and chapels of the Greek Orthodox 
 church. No people could be more devout, at 
 least in the outward observance of religious forms, 
 than the Russians. The churches and shrines 
 are always open and there are ever throngs of 
 worshippers bowing and crossing themselves be- 
 fore the altars and ikons or sacred images. The 
 rooms of the custom house, railroad stations and 
 hotels, as well as public houses, are adorned with 
 ikons. Drivers of droschkas remove their hats 
 in passing a church or ikon in any shrine. Sol- 
 diers, pohce officers, laborers, hasten into a church 
 or shrine, cross themselves and rush out. I know 
 something of the religious fervor of the commun- 
 icants of the Greek church from what I have seen 
 in Syria and Greece; but the intensity of the 
 Slav is remarkable. Priests of the church are 
 seen everywhere. Religious holidays come often. 
 
 One peculiarity of Russian life is that the 
 calendar is thirteen days behind ours; so one is 
 easily confused in reckoning time. I could write 
 a good deal about the great Kremlin Palace, with 
 its Church of the Incarnation, where all the 
 czars of Russia are crowned; of its range of 
 halls, museums and curiosities, collected by czars 
 through many years; of the immense Metropol- 
 itan Church of St. Savien, which cost nearly $5,- 
 000,000, built as a memorial to the Russian sol- 
 diers in the Napoleonic war; of the diamonds. 
 
100 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 pearls, malachite, lapis-lazuli, and other precious 
 stones with which the Russian palaces and 
 churches are so well supplied. There is a cer- 
 tain barbaric fondness for jewels and smart colors 
 in the Russian character. The treasure-house of 
 the Kremlin has jewels worth many millions. 
 Yet the tourist is everywhere importuned by beg- 
 gars on the streets, indicating that there must be 
 much of extreme poverty. Russia is also very 
 laggard in education; the great majority of the 
 people, — it is said seventy-five per cent., — can- 
 not read or write. However, my impressions of 
 the Russian people are that they are a kindly, 
 home-loving, manly race; vigorous in health, in- 
 dustrious in work, when properly directed; and 
 that in the Russian empire, — the largest terri- 
 tory under one government in the world, — there 
 is the matrix for a powerful civilization. Russia 
 needs just what China needs, education, directed 
 to modem industrial needs. 
 
 I could fill pages in writing of my amazing 
 experiences at the Russian custom-house. Not 
 that any one was discourteous or dishonest with 
 me, for no one was; — but the red-tape, the 
 mazes and intricacies of Russian officialism, the 
 almost interminable delays, the fuss over nothing ; 
 — all these were trying to the patience and de- 
 tracted from the pleasure of the visit; but they 
 were incidentals, and are now of the fading past. 
 
 Moscow, the ancient capital of Russia, has 
 
RUSSIA 101 
 
 a certain flavor of semi-Orientalism. It is said to 
 have a thousand churches of the national faith. 
 Most of these can be told at once by their rounded 
 towers, a style of architecture from which few 
 of them depart. Some of the interiors are mag- 
 nificent in decorative art; there are no seats; 
 the service is largely the intoning of the liturgy 
 by priests, who often are not seen by the con- 
 gregation. The worshippers " perform their 
 adoration " while standing or bowing to the floor. 
 As I have written before, never have I seen such 
 fervor of devotion as in the churches of the Greek 
 Orthodox faith. The performance of the ritual 
 is a part of the social life of the Russians ; every- 
 body seems to go to church ; nothing is commoner 
 than to see men and women praying on the 
 streets ; almost every building has in each room, 
 an ikon, or sacred picture. Soldiers, policemen, 
 princes, beggars, laborers, aristocrats, all classes 
 and kinds bow before it in humble adoration. Is 
 it only empty formalism ; does it appear in fruits 
 of Christian love.'' I do not know. I hope the 
 latter. One thing is sure; the devotion of the 
 Russian to his national church will not be lightly 
 dislocated; it is woven into the warp and woof 
 of his character ; a part of his daily life. 
 
 In Moscow the great object of interest is the 
 Kremlin, the ancient royal palace; an immense 
 structure, formerly a fort; now palace, religious 
 sanctuary, treasury, museum, fort, arsenal, court 
 of justice and numerous other things combined. 
 
102 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 Here have transpired many of the most stirring 
 events in Russian history; here sovereigns are 
 crowned, royal children christened, confirmed and 
 married; here high ceremonies are enacted; here 
 in the past dark tragedies have thrown their sin- 
 ister shadow over its history. Here a few years 
 ago the Grand Duke Sergius was assassinated. 
 Pew buildings in Europe are more interesting. 
 Here the visitor feels the speU of bygone ages; 
 the touch of royal dignitaries long since gath- 
 ered into the dust; the pageant of stately cere- 
 monies; here he reads the scroll of Russian his- 
 tory; here Napoleon Bonaparte came, nominally 
 as a conqueror, but found Moscow in flames, and 
 fed on a ghostly victory which was the precursor 
 of his ultimate ruin. Few chapters in human his- 
 tory are more sickening in horror than the tale 
 of the retreat of Napoleon and his army from 
 Russia. The conquering general found the 
 snows and icy rigor of a Russian winter more 
 terrible foes than cannon and musketry. 
 
 Moscow is rich also in art. One picture gallery 
 is of exceptional interest: — the TetriakofiF, as it 
 contains some three hundred paintings of the 
 great Russian painter, Verestchagin. It will be 
 remembered that his greatest paintings have a 
 moral purpose. They are designed to teach man- 
 kind the unspeakable horrors of war, the greatest 
 scourge of mankind and the least excusable. 
 One can study these splendid and pathetic pic- 
 tures for hours; they make one detest the diab- 
 
RUSSIA 103 
 
 olism of war. Yet Verestchagin was himself a 
 victim of war. He obtained consent to accom- 
 pany the Russian fleet in the Japanese war, and 
 was one of its first victims, having gone down 
 to a watery grave, " unwept, unhonored and 
 unsung," at Chemulpo, where the Russian man- 
 of-war on which he was a guest was sunk by the 
 Japanese. Thus miserably died one great artist 
 who, like his noble compatriot, Tolstoi, attempted 
 to stay the hand of war and to teach his country- 
 men the blessings of peace. 
 
 The street life in Moscow interests the stran- 
 ger; the sandy-haired, bearded men, rough look- 
 ing, stocky, sturdy, with blue or gray eyes; the 
 market women and peddlers, often carrying 
 baskets on their heads; the blue-coated cabmen, 
 with their one-seated cabs, the droschkas, the little 
 shops, stands and booths; and, here and there, 
 men and women bowing and crossing themselves 
 before some wayside shrine; the bearded priests 
 of the church in long robes and stiff hats ; flower 
 girls; shop signs in unreadable Slavic words; 
 soldiers and policemen armed with swords; but, 
 withal, no rudeness or uncivility to a stranger. 
 The Russians are a hospitable race. 
 
 St. Petersburg, the capital of Russia, was 
 reached by us by way of Berlin. The railroad 
 route lay through northeastern Germany; we 
 went through Koenigsberg, once the home of Im- 
 manuel Kant, the great German philosopher, and 
 
104 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 then and now the seat of a university. At Wir- 
 ballen we crossed into Russian territory, but had 
 no trouble at the custom house. It has been so 
 cool here that it is hard to realize that it is mid- 
 summer. Few flowers are in blossom, and people 
 still wear heavy clothing. The cab-men are 
 fairly swathed in thick woolen wrappers. 
 
 The electric trolley in St. Petersburg was in- 
 stalled by the Westinghouse Company of Pitts- 
 burg. The droschka, a one-horse cab, is to 
 Russia what the jinrikisha is to Japan; it is in 
 universal use. In this northern latitude there 
 is scarcely any night in the long June days; 
 there is an almost unnatural brightness after sun- 
 set, or rather, after the time for sunset. It is 
 hard to tell night from day. There is even a 
 frosty sparkle in the air. 
 
 Tourists have told me that St. Petersburg is not 
 an interesting city. This is a mistake. It is the 
 capital of one of the greatest nations on earth, 
 and presents the court side of Russian life. Es- 
 tablished by the prescience of Peter the Great — 
 the most forceful character who has sat upon 
 the throne of the czars, — in order that the coun- 
 try might have a seaport for its capital, it has 
 absorbed the national interests. Situated on the 
 river Neva, which connects a lake about seventeen 
 miles to the eastward with the Gulf of Finland, 
 it is divided into islands by three canals, and 
 therefore has a great deal of water frontage. 
 It is a great trading center; the business streets 
 
RUSSIA 105 
 
 are unusually wide and many of the department 
 stores look to be as well equipped as those in 
 the large American cities. I will make no at- 
 tempt to catalogue the museums, hospitals, public 
 institutions, picture galleries, palaces and churches 
 with which St. Petersburg abounds. The Her- 
 mitage gallery is considered one of the finest 
 collections of pictures in Europe; and in the 
 Alexandrian gallery there is a collection of paint- 
 ings by Russian artists. No one can look upon 
 these paintings without feeling that there is a 
 glow of mysticism and a depth of sentiment in 
 the Russian character which generally is not 
 patent on the surface. It is remarkable to ob- 
 serve how many of the paintings have a solemn, 
 moral grandeur in showing to the eye the horrors 
 of war and the hatefulness of cruelty. Russian 
 artists use a wealth of bright colors. 
 
 We have visited the three royal palaces, the 
 Winter Palace, on the banks of the Neva in the 
 city, and the Peterhof and Tsarskoe-Selo, which 
 are some miles out; also several of the great 
 cathedrals and churches. Here, in these palaces 
 and sacred edifices, are found collections of jew- 
 els of almost inestimable value. It seems to be 
 characteristic of the spirit of reverence among the 
 Russians to decorate the ikons in churches and 
 shrines with the most valuable jewels. In the 
 sanctuary where the members of the royal family 
 are buried is one ikon invested with such a glitter 
 of diamonds, rubies and pearls that it is said to 
 
106 A-ROVING HE WOUXD GO 
 
 have cost more than the immense church. It is in 
 the Russian churches, also, that one sees a fine 
 display of the rare and valuable stones, especially 
 of malachite and lapis-lazuli, which are mined 
 in Siberia. At the shops the smallest article made 
 from these stones brings a considerable price. 
 What must be the value of the great columns and 
 vases built by making a mosaic of small pieces of 
 those fragile stones.'' The ritual in the national 
 church is invested with all possible decorative 
 effect; gorgeous vestments for the long-haired 
 priests; shining altars; rich emblems; the sheen 
 of gold and silver. 
 
 Let me advise American tourists who can do so 
 to visit Russia. Its life and ways are out of the 
 common. It is a country which has brain, mus- 
 cle, vigor, strength and undeveloped potencies. 
 It has been through many vicissitudes and trage- 
 dies. Its great national hero is Peter the Great; 
 tlje log cottage on the banks of the Neva, in 
 which he hved while building this city, is pre- 
 served with pious care ; his tools, — he was a re- 
 markable mechanic, — are exhibited in the Her- 
 mitage gallery. A great, strong, tough, 
 hard-headed character was this Peter. The 
 Russia of to-day is largely of his moulding. 
 
 I can say that my experiences in Russia and 
 its dependency, Siberia, saving the custom house 
 red tape in Moscow, have been among the most 
 pleasurable of this long tour. 
 
RUSSIA 107 
 
 The railroad ride through Poland, from Mos- 
 cow to Berlin, was quite interesting. Like the 
 Ukraine and the Volga land, Poland is level, but 
 fertile. Warsaw is a noble city. I regret that I 
 did not see more of it ; it is as modern as Chicago. 
 It is said to have nearly 1,000,000 people. An 
 American who visits such a city soon finds that 
 the Old World can teach us a good deal about 
 municipal administration. At Alexandrova we 
 left the Russian territory, at least temporarily, 
 and came under the flag of the German Father- 
 land. Here I had a home-like feeling. The lan- 
 guage, imperfect as my knowledge of it is, is more 
 familiar than the Russian, with its rough edge and 
 forty-four letters. The transit from Tokyo, 
 Kyoto, Seoul, Tientsin, Peking, Irkutsk and Mos- 
 cow is sharp. Yes, it is a small world, after all. 
 
VIII 
 
 SWEDEN AND NORWAY 
 
 " Far in the Northern Land, 
 By the wUd Baltic's strand." 
 
 "Skoal, to the Northland, Skoal." 
 — Longfellow: "The Skeleton in Armor." 
 
 The water journey from St. Petersburg to 
 Stockholm was one of the pleasantest experiences 
 of my long tour. We took the steamer Uleaborg, 
 of the Finland Steamship Company, at its float- 
 ing office on the river Neva. The law regulating 
 tourist travel in Russia is so stringent that before 
 one can enter or leave Russian territory one must 
 have one's passport certified by some Russian con- 
 sular officer. So we have been obliged to go 
 through this form and incur this expense four 
 times. Such is Russian officialdom. It is said 
 that this vexatious and expensive proceeding has 
 been incorporated into Russian law for two 
 hundred years. Every other country in Europe 
 but Turkey abandoned it many years ago. As a 
 result, millions of the money of tourists is poured 
 into the pockets of their hotel keepers, railroad 
 companies, cafes, theaters and summer resorts 
 every year from tourist travel; a good part of 
 which could be shared by the Russians, if its laws 
 were more hospitable to strangers. 
 108 
 
SWEDEN AND NORWAY 109 
 
 The river Neva is the artery by which the com- 
 merce of St. Petersburg reaches the sea. We 
 sailed down the river past great pubHc buildings 
 and warehouses. There is a public religious 
 festival held each year in St. Petersburg called 
 " the blessing of the Neva." This festival is 
 undoubtedly a link that connects the present with 
 the nature-worship of the unknown past. There 
 is a similar ceremony in Venice, known as " the 
 marriage of the Adriatic," and one in Cairo, 
 Egypt, in which the Moslems pray for the bless- 
 ing of the Nile, which river is the source of all 
 the fertility of that parched land. Thus the 
 vestiges of nature-worship are found in the re- 
 ligious ceremonies of the three faiths: the Greek 
 Orthodox, the Roman Catholic and the Moham- 
 medan. The people observe the traditions and 
 forms which their fathers have followed from 
 primitive times. 
 
 It was on a bright, sunny afternoon that we 
 had our last glance at the retreating domes of 
 the great churches in St. Petersburg; some of 
 them shining like burnished gold; nearly all of 
 the cheese-like oval form, so common in the archi- 
 tecture of the Greek church. We were leaving 
 behind us a great and peculiar civilization; one 
 of the mightiest powers on the globe ; now feeling 
 the birth-throes of a new order of things; now 
 taking its first steps towards a government " of the 
 people, for the people, by the people." The way 
 
110 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 will be long, hard, rough, and probably blood- 
 stained; but it will be trod. 
 
 The shores of the Neva are mostly flat; often 
 heavily wooded, with a forestry similar to that 
 of the Northern States in America. The first 
 point of marked interest was when the steamer 
 passed the island of Kronstadt, where an immense 
 naval station and a system of powerful forts are 
 maintained. Here we saw a good many warships, 
 the wreckage of the Russian navy. From Kron- 
 stadt the Russian fleet sailed on its long voyage 
 to the desolate Korean seas, where destruction 
 awaited it, from Admiral Togo and the Japanese 
 navy. 
 
 After entering the Gulf of Finland, we found 
 our voyage more picturesque. We sailed by al- 
 most innumerable islands, through devious bays, 
 along sunny villages, and in sight of neat 
 Finnish homes. At Helsingfors, the capital of 
 Finland, a large, well-built city, the steamer made 
 a stop of several hours. This gave us an oppor- 
 tunity to take a carriage-drive and visit some of 
 the suburbs. The Finns are Protestants, and 
 while Finland is a part of the Russian Empire, 
 it has a separate parliament and a good measure 
 of local self-government. Women have the right 
 of suffrage, and sit as members of the Finnish 
 Parliament. The Finns have resolutely resisted 
 the restrictive measures of the Russian govern- 
 ment to suppress their nationality. There 
 
SWEDEN AND NORWAY 111 
 
 is little in common between the two nations. 
 Finland was formerly under the government of 
 Sweden, with which country it has much more 
 affinity in racial characteristics, religion and civ- 
 ilization than with autocratic Russia; but escape 
 is impossible for the resolute Finns from the claws 
 of the Russian bear. 
 
 The other town in Finland, at which the steamer 
 stopped was Hango, the last port on the Gulf 
 of Finland, near where it merges with the Baltic 
 sea. Hango is much smaller than Helsingfors 
 and is the port of entry into Finland in the win- 
 ter season, when the waters of the gulf and the 
 Baltic are frozen. In the winter, traffic between 
 Sweden and Russia is conducted on sleds over 
 the ice of the Baltic and gulf. The Gulf of 
 Bothnia begins north of Hango. 
 
 We crossed the Baltic in the night, and in the 
 morning awoke to find ourselves in the arms of 
 the sea leading to Stockholm, the capital of 
 Sweden. The approach was through picturesque 
 rivers, on the banks of which are the summer 
 villas of the wealthy people of Stockholm and 
 a considerable number of pleasure resorts. 
 
 Stockholm is built partly on islands and partly 
 on the mainland, — old Stockholm was entirely on 
 islands, and has appropriately been called, " The 
 Venice of the North." It has between 300,000 
 and 400,000 inhabitants, and is a wealthy, vigor- 
 ous and prosperous city. 
 
112 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 The days spent here were pleasantly employed. 
 Sweden, although shorn of its former greatness 
 by its disastrous wars with Russia and other coun- 
 tries in the last two centuries, has been still 
 further weakened by the secession of Norway in 
 1906. In fact, the whole Scandinavian peninsula 
 of Sweden and Norway has only about 7,500,000 
 inhabitants, of whom about two-thirds are in 
 Sweden. Although the birth-rate among the 
 Scandinavians is the highest in Europe, a con- 
 stant stream of emigration to the United States 
 and Canada prevents any large increase in pop- 
 ulation and drains these countries of their vigor- 
 ous young blood, just as Ireland has been drained 
 in the last seventy-five years. The winters are 
 severe, and, except in the deposits of iron ore, 
 Scandinavia has little mineral wealth. Sweden 
 exports iron, wood and a lustrous black granite 
 called labrador, which is used for monuments in 
 cemeteries. Much of the soil in both Norway 
 and Sweden is poor ; the countries, like the United 
 States, are becoming deforested by the exporta- 
 tion of lumber, largely to England. Yet, the 
 Swedes are a very industrious people, and are 
 touched by a revival of the national spirit since 
 the secession of Norway. Sweden has had for 
 many years a public school system, and the people 
 are intelligent and very courteous to tourists. 
 
 Our visit in Sweden was confined to the central 
 and southern parts of the country, a region 
 
SWEDEN AND NORWAY 113 
 
 which, in its midsummer dress, in a certain deli- 
 cate softness and greenness, resembles English 
 landscapes. In the long days of July a rich 
 color rested on the land; the skies were soft, the 
 trees in fresh foliage, the gardens and fields were 
 spangled with flowers, and the long evenings 
 practically extended into the morning light. 
 Northern Sweden is mountainous; but Southern 
 Sweden, with its soft landscapes and fields of 
 vivid green, is in sharp contrast with the wild, 
 rugged scenery of Norway. 
 
 Stockholm has many fine public buildings. 
 The royal palace is almost shabby when compared 
 with the glittering embellishments if the Russian, 
 Austrian and Hungarian palaces, which we had 
 lately visited. The national museum is very in- 
 teresting, and illustrates the successive phases of 
 Swedish national life. In an ancient church we 
 saw the tombs of Swedish monarchs since the days 
 of the intrepid Gustavus Adolphus, the greatest 
 of Scandinavian kings. The Swedes are lovers 
 of music and the theater. Stockholm abounds 
 in places of amusement and concert gardens, to 
 which people throng in the evening. Like all 
 Teutonic races, they are great beer drinkers. 
 
 The Swedish aristocracy own the greater part 
 of the land of the country, mostly in large estates. 
 One cause of the long-continued friction between 
 Sweden and Norway was that the former was 
 aristocratic and the other democratic. 
 
 Sweden refused to concede what the Norwe- 
 
114 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 gians demanded, and separation was the result. 
 It is said that Sweden is honey-combed with 
 socialism. While we were in Stockholm, the Czar 
 of Russia was visiting the King of Sweden, and 
 the city was spic-and-span with flags and bunt- 
 ing. The Swedish socialists were angered by the 
 visit of the Czar, as the representative of the most 
 repressive government in Europe. The protest 
 foimd expression in the assassination of General 
 Beckmann of the Swedish army, on a park in 
 Stockholm, while we were in the city, by a young 
 Swedish anarchist, who committed suicide. The 
 government of Sweden is now becoming Uberal- 
 ized ; the right of suffrage has been enlarged, and 
 the aristocracy are slowly yielding to the demands 
 of the people. 
 
 The center of higher education in Sweden is 
 the ancient university at Upsala, which is about 
 fifty miles to the north of Stockholm. As I always 
 make it a plan to visit educational institutions 
 when I can, I could not forego the opportunity 
 of seeing this famous university. It is beauti- 
 fully located on a plain, enveloped with stately 
 trees, like most of our American colleges. It has 
 2,000 students, 200 of whom are women. The 
 buildings are plain ; it has none of the ambitious 
 structures which are rising on the grounds of 
 American seats of learning. The Swedish gov- 
 ernment maintains the university, and tuition is 
 free. Among its professors and graduates have 
 
SWEDEN AND NORWAY 115 
 
 been many of the most famous statesmen and 
 scholars of Scandinavia. Among its interesting 
 buildings is a small brick church, called " The 
 Peasants' Church," one of the oldest structures 
 in Sweden. The interior has been remodeled, 
 and the building, which is of the architecture of 
 the Middle Ages, is used for Lutheran worship, as 
 the Lutheran is the established church of Sweden. 
 Upsala University represents that faith. 
 
 The Cathedral of Upsala is a noble stone struc- 
 ture of mediasval architecture. It is the burial 
 place of many men eminent in Swedish history. 
 Here was buried Gustavus Vasa, the king who 
 gave to Sweden its first impulse to a national life. 
 His crypt is richly decorated with armorial es- 
 cutcheons. 
 
 The main interest to me, however, in the 
 cathedral as a mortuary shrine was in the crypts 
 in the center on opposite sides, where are buried 
 Linnaeus, the Swedish naturalist, who was the 
 founder of the modem science of botany, and 
 Emanuel Swedenborg, the eminent Swedish scien- 
 tist and engineer, and the religious seer upon 
 whose doctrines the sect known as the Church of 
 the New Jerusalem has been organized. Sweden- 
 borg, as scientist and scholar is justly held in 
 great reverence in Sweden; his religious views 
 have never been accepted by any large number of 
 his countrymen. 
 
 Sweden has been tardy in doing honors to the 
 
116 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 memory of one of her greatest sons ; for, what- 
 ever view one may take of the mystic revelations 
 of Swedenborg — the purity and exalted spiritu- 
 ality of which are universally recognized by all 
 who have examined into them — his place among 
 the world's scholars, his magnificent intellectual 
 power, and the serenity and dignity of his char- 
 acter place him among the great ornaments of 
 the human race. Swedenborg died in London 
 and his remains were interred there and there they 
 rested, until, by vote of and at the expense of 
 the Swedish government in 1908, they were 
 brought to Upsala, where he was once a profes- 
 sor, and deposited in the Cathedral for their final 
 resting place. A Lutheran professor in the uni- 
 versity, who told me that he had no sympathy 
 with the theological views of Swedenborg, but 
 who admired the splendor of his intellect and the 
 nobility of his life, took us to the mausoleum and 
 narrated with animated pride the details of the 
 great gathering of Swedish statesmen, Lutheran 
 bishops and scholars who joined in the honors to 
 the memory of Swedenborg. He said : " I am 
 glad that my countrymen have at last done jus- 
 tice to one of her greatest sons. Swedenborg and 
 Linnseus are in my judgment the two greatest 
 men that Sweden has produced and I rejoice that 
 their bodies lie in this ancient cathedral." 
 
 The Gota canal, which connects Stockholm 
 with Gothenburg, and with which the memory of 
 
SWEDEN AND NORWAY 117 
 
 Swedenborg is associated — although it was not 
 completed in his day — is one of the great artifi- 
 cial waterways of Europe. We were three days 
 and two nights in making the canal passage from 
 Stockholm to Gothenburg. The canal is a work 
 of fine engineering, the passage through the many 
 locks being quite interesting; the boats are com- 
 fortable; the waterway begins with arms of the 
 sea near Stockholm, extends through rivers into 
 the Baltic, and after a long passage through arti- 
 ficial canals, leads into Lakes Vettern and Vennern, 
 two of the largest bodies of fresh water in Eu- 
 rope, then over a part of the straits of Cattegat 
 to Gothenburg. We were the only Americans 
 on the steamer. The Fourth of July came dur- 
 ing our passage, and with the aid of a few natu- 
 ralized Swedes, who live in America, and who have 
 become intensely loyal to our country, we impro- 
 vised a rather faint patriotic celebration. The 
 route was through a lovely country, finely culti- 
 vated. 
 
 I have been considerable of a wanderer in my 
 life-time, but always found some new experience, 
 as I move from land to land. If travel is to have 
 any benefit, — save the mere gratification of curi- 
 osity, and the pleasure derived from novelty, — 
 it must consist in adding to one's knowledge of 
 people and things. No two nations are exactly 
 alike. Each nation has its own customs, gen- 
 erally the inheritance of ages. For example: it 
 
118 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 was on the Finnish steamer and on the Swedish 
 canal-boat that I learned the peculiar manner in 
 which Scandinavians serve meals. At the first 
 meal on the steamer, I went to the dining-saloon, 
 when the gong sounded, took my seat at the table, 
 and waited to be served. No waiter appeared; 
 there was no food on the main table. Soon I 
 saw a crowd of passengers, " who had been there 
 before," swoop down upon a buffet at the end of 
 the saloon, seize plates, knives and forks, and help 
 themselves to the food placed there: whole hams, 
 side-dishes, salads, white bread, coarse brown 
 bread; such a bewildering variety. Never did I 
 see such an arrangement of dishes ; so many mix- 
 tures; there was no stint; everything was abun- 
 dant. One by one, the passengers loaded their 
 plates, then sat down- at the main table and 
 gorged. The food in Scandinavia is of the 
 heartiest character : meat, fish, vegetables. These 
 side-dishes were only the introduction to the meal. 
 Next came what there was of regular service : soup 
 and relishes in the middle of the meal. A Yankee 
 housekeeper would wonder at this strange in- 
 version of serving food. In a little while, the 
 traveler becomes used to it, and can grab his food 
 as quickly as the descendants of the Vikings. 
 
 We did not stay long in Gothenburg. It is a 
 growing city ; not so attractive as Stockholm, but 
 with evidence of more of business activity. We 
 moved on by rail to Christiania, the capital of and 
 the largest city in Norway. Here there was 
 
SWEDEN AND NORWAY 119 
 
 another custom house ordeal, but not very serious. 
 We have had quite a variety of customs exam- 
 inations during this tour: Japanese, Korean, 
 Chinese, Russian, Austrian, German, Swedish, 
 Norwegian. But custom officials are usually cour- 
 teous and, except in Russia, we had no incon- 
 venience. 
 
 The new national spirit in Norway is very de- 
 monstrative. King Haakon VII. is the son of 
 the late King of Denmark and Queen Maud is the 
 daughter of King Edward of England; their 
 little son Olaf is the idol of the Norwegian people. 
 The national flag flies on all sides; home-made 
 goods and crockery are for sale in the shops ; 
 portraits of the royal family are exhibited every- 
 where. The little kingdom, with hardly more 
 than the population of Chicago, maintains a royal 
 establishment, an army and navy, a university, 
 technical schools, and a public school system. 
 Railroad building in Norway has involved great 
 expense; tunnels have been bored through the 
 rocks and mountains; bays, rivers and gorges 
 bridged; wonderful feats in engineering per- 
 formed; yet the national government bears the 
 expense and owns the railroads. Taxation must 
 be onerous. We Americans are always grum- 
 bling about our taxes, often with justice, for few 
 American cities have intelligent and scientific ad- 
 ministration ; but in Europe the tax rates are often 
 at a figure which we should consider confiscatory. 
 
120 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 Italy is taxed to death; in Germany the cities 
 impose taxes three times as heavy as in most 
 American cities. Poor little Norway wiU find 
 that national independence is costly, and that the 
 liberty to tax means that taxes will be burden- 
 some. However, this is a matter for the Nor- 
 wegians. I am told that taxation in some Nor- 
 wegian cities is fifteen (15) per cent. This can- 
 not be endured long. 
 
 No language can describe the magnificent 
 scenery of Norway. Poets, authors and ar- 
 tists have been sounding its praises for many 
 years. It is a land of rugged mountains, of 
 dense forests, of a coast indented with many bays, 
 called fiords; dotted with almost innumerable is- 
 lands. Its seas teem with fish. In the winter 
 30,000 fishermen invade the cold waters around 
 the Lofoten Islands, and catch cod and mackerel. 
 The fisheries and forests are Norway's main 
 wealth, imless we consider its matchless scenery 
 as a national asset, which draws thousands of 
 tourists hither every season, fills the hotels and 
 supplies passengers to railroads and steamers. 
 Norway is one of the most attractive countries in 
 the world. The mountains are not so high as the 
 Swiss Alps; but it has the invaluable charm of 
 water routes, while Switzerland is an inland coun- 
 try. Both the Swiss and Norwegians are a 
 hardy, frugal and industrious folk, with a con- 
 scious pride in their noble countries. 
 
SWEDEN AND NORWAY ll21 
 
 The railroad ride from Christiania to Bergen 
 covered a long day. It was through one of the 
 most picturesque regions in Norway. We swirled 
 through tunnels, climbed giant hills, crossed deep 
 chasms ; sometimes skirted the glassy waters of the 
 coast-fiords, and then, ascending the tough hills, 
 found ourselves in the realm of eternal ice and 
 snow. Snug little villages, with thin turf -roofed 
 houses, modest Lutheran churches, and rugged 
 inhabitants were scattered on the shores and hill- 
 side. The railroad, a tremendous government 
 undertaking, has not been fully completed; at 
 one time we were transferred to a steamer and 
 spent between two and three hours on a mountain 
 lake. I will not venture to try the names of moun- 
 tain, lake or town, as many of them are almost 
 unpronounceable and unspeakable. The Norse 
 language, a variant of the old Teutonic speech, 
 from which our English is derived, is as rugged 
 as the hills and people. Yet it is surprising how 
 many Swedes and Norwegians can talk more or 
 less English. Nothing is commoner than to find 
 Scandinavians who have been in the United States, 
 principally in Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin. 
 They have crept back to the homeland, bringing 
 with them many American ideas; some of them 
 express their intention of again living under the 
 Stars and Stripes. America is the magnet which 
 draws the great migratory nations ; although only 
 16,000 people emigrated from Germany in 1908. 
 The wonderful development of German industries 
 
122 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 is the check which now keeps the race, naturally 
 migratory, in its home environment. 
 
 Bergen is a fine city. It has a background of 
 noble history, has been the home of many of the 
 most famous of Norwegians, and is now the arena 
 of a busy industrial life. We spent a day there 
 in agreeable sight-seeing, and took the steamer 
 Ragnvald Jarl (Earl Reginald) for Trondhjem. 
 Now began the realities of my dream of many 
 years ago, to see the magnificent fiords of 
 Norway, with their sinuous curves, towering walls 
 of mighty hills, flowing cataracts, glittering gla- 
 ciers and magical color. 
 
 Many times in my life I have fed upon the 
 beauty of natural scenery. One who has seen the 
 glories of the Yo Semite VaUey; the spume of 
 the geysers of the Yellowstone Park; who has 
 looked into the burning entrails of the volcano 
 Kilaluea ; who has watched the ever shifting play 
 of colors on the stone walls of the Grand Canyon 
 of the Colorado; who has passed several times 
 through the rocky jaws of the Royal Gorge; who 
 has been overpowered by the incommunicable, 
 mysterious hush of an Egyptian or Syrian des- 
 ert; who has stood under soft Italian skies, and 
 breathed the enchanted air of Greece; who has 
 felt the awful silences of the Atlantic and Pacific, 
 and heard their voices rising out of voicelessness 
 into the roar of a storm-lashed ocean, might be 
 pardoned if one imagined that one had felt to the 
 
SWEDEN AND NORWAY 123 
 
 quick all possible impressions which natural phe- 
 nomena can produce. Not so, however. There 
 is a power in the gaunt, frozen Northland which 
 enchains the eye and enslaves the spirit. No- 
 where can one see skies glitter so awfully with 
 " the light that never was on sea or land." In 
 the mid-summer, when day and night are one ; 
 when an unearthly light transfigures earth and 
 sky with a milky whiteness; when rock, ocean, 
 land, lake and forest are touched with a ghastly 
 splendor, one wonders that this old earth can be- 
 come so beautiful. And such sunsets; such gor- 
 geous colors spangling the sky and sea ; such a 
 flood of liquid gold melting on the gross sub- 
 stances which are so rude under the light of com- 
 mon day. The voyage of three days from Ber- 
 gen to the ancient city of Trondhjem through 
 fiord after fiord, was a panorama of glorious 
 scenery, a kaleidoscope of mysterious colors. 
 
 When we sailed into Trondhjem, the city of the 
 Vikings, the nursery of Norse seamen, the hive 
 from which intrepid navigators, in frail crafts, 
 set out to cross the Atlantic years before Colum- 
 bus was bom, it seemed as if we were in a new 
 world. The ancient cathedral, a noble type of 
 Roman-Gothic architecture, still stands, renovated 
 and restored. Here in days of old the Nor- 
 wegian kings were crowned, and here, after the 
 old order. King Haakon VII. was crowned in 
 1906. A salt air sweeps over the tough old city ; 
 it still hears " the calling of the sea " ; it still 
 
124 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 breeds strong men and women. Old, yet young; 
 rough, but hearty and hospitable; not the 
 Trondhjem of the twelfth century, but the hardy 
 city of the North ; it still defies the Frost King ; 
 it accepts trolley cars, electric hghts and rail- 
 roads ; but stni reaches its aged hands into the 
 misty past. It is the center, or rather the rim, 
 of tourist travel in Northern Norway. 
 
 At Trondhjem we were transferred to another 
 excursion steamer, the Kong Harald, for our final 
 plvmge toward the North Cape and the midnight 
 sun. We knew that this excursion might mean 
 •dubious weather and rough seas, for it would 
 necessarily take us outside of the shelter of the 
 fiords into the surge of the North Atlantic and 
 Arctic oceans ; but the wanderlust had given us a 
 sharp appetite for travel, and if one is determined 
 io see Arctic scenery one must wager its cost. 
 However, the cost was not high, except one roar- 
 ing night which disturbed the stomachs of some 
 passengers. The sons of the Vikings are natu- 
 ral sailors ; the sea is their real home. As Emer- 
 son said of the English race : " They are bom 
 web-footed." Such a medley of humanity on the 
 steamer; Americans, -a few English, Austrians, 
 Russians, Belgians, French, Spanish, and Ger- 
 mans in the preponderance. At our table were 
 perhaps a dozen Germans and one Russian. We 
 two had to maintain the honor of the Stars and 
 Stripes, which the kindly steward placed on the 
 
SWEDEN AND NORWAY 125 
 
 table before our plates. Ensconced behind the 
 American flag, I threw my " pidgin " German at 
 our sedate Teutonic companions, who held their 
 face and abstained from laughing at my gro- 
 tesque blunders. We had a social time, neverthe- 
 less, and became quite well acquainted with each 
 other in the seven long days of unbroken day- 
 light which we spent together. 
 
 The steamer put in at quite a number of places 
 to enable us to see glaciers and natural curiosi- 
 ties, to take some delightful excursions, and to get 
 the charm of the outposts of northern life. The 
 longest stops were at Tromsoe, Hammerfest and 
 the North Cape. Tromsoe is the town from which 
 most of the Arctic explorations set forth on their 
 uncertain adventures in search for the north pole. 
 Hammerfest is the most northerly town in the 
 world; we reached both these places after we had 
 crossed the Arctic circle. By the way, the Arctic 
 circle does not have good manners. Four can- 
 nons were discharged from our steamer to evoke 
 it from its secret lair in the foaming sea, but even 
 this noise did not bring it to the surface. I was 
 reminded of the dialogue which Shakespeare puts 
 into the mouth of Percy Hotspur and Owen 
 Glendower : 
 
 Glen. I can call spirits from the vasty deep; 
 Hot. Why, so can I, or so can any man : 
 But will they come when you do call for them? 
 
126 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 At length, when the naughty Arctic circle re- 
 fused to come at our summons, I concluded that 
 it is only a geographical expression, a trick of 
 science, a meaningless phrase, to mark the north- 
 ern circuit of the sun and the merging of two 
 great oceans into one mighty flow of brine. 
 
 The North Cape, jutting out into the Arctic 
 ocean from an island which is the nose of Norway, 
 stands in its solemn grandeur, almost devoid of 
 vegetation, resisting the mighty currents of the 
 Arctic, defying storm, frost and snow. We 
 made the ascent of about 1,000 feet, a joUy crowd 
 from our steamer and two other excursion steam- 
 ers, the English steamer Amazon, and the Ger- 
 man steamer Bliicher, starting about ten in the 
 evening and returning at about two in the morn- 
 ing. At the top is a broad plateau about a mile in 
 width. On the edge of the plateau is a wooden 
 pavilion, where refreshments are sold. Here the 
 crowd gathered, and, while the German band 
 played, sang national airs. Around us blew the 
 hoarse winds from the dreary north; at the base 
 of the cliff the waves of the Arctic ocean crooned 
 their monotone. Over us was the ghastly, lurid 
 light that streamed from the voiceless skies. Al- 
 though the evening was cloudy, the light was 
 almost preternatural in its glowing intensity. 
 
 On the next evening, — if I may use this word 
 of a day, glorious, vitalizing, rich in splendid 
 colors, passed amidst scenery of surpassing gran- 
 
SWEDEN AND NORWAY 127 
 
 deur, — we had a magnificent view of " The Mid- 
 night Sun." Words cannot describe the mystery 
 of the scene; the brilliancy of the sunlight, the 
 sparkle of the air, the heightened colors, the 
 strange setting of the picture. It was in the 
 Lyngenfiord, where island follows island, cliff 
 rises beyond cliff, and mountain succeeds to moun- 
 tain, where cataracts tumble into the sea, swollen 
 with melted snow, where the steamer threads its 
 path through a maze of islands. It was a wild, 
 almost uncanny scene, unearthly in its mystery. 
 There was no setting of the sun ; it sank in golden 
 splendor, tricked its beams, and then rose into the 
 western sky to make its half -circuit over the 
 frozen north. 
 
 This was the high hour of our trip. In wealth 
 of color, in strangeness of setting, in radiant glow, 
 it crowned the idle holiday of a vagrant tourist, 
 with an awful sense of the power of beauty, 
 " Thou eternal fugitive hovering over all that 
 live." 
 
 Once more we are in Trondhjem, on the last 
 lap of our long wanderings; and from this an- 
 cient city, smacking of by-gone years, I send this 
 letter. 
 
IX 
 
 STILL IN THE NORTHLAND 
 
 ' For Saxon or Dane or Norman we. 
 Teuton or Celt, or whatever we be." 
 
 — Tennyson, 
 
 " Lovely as a Lapland night." 
 
 — Wordsworth. 
 
 The raikoad ride from Christiania to Copen- 
 hagen was long and tedious ; that from Trond- 
 hjem to Christiania (about 350 miles) was equally 
 so. Such wearisome rides are one of the penal- 
 ties for sightseeing. Christiania, the capital 
 of Norway, is a bright, clean, active city. It 
 and Bergen are centers of the industries of south- 
 em and central Norway. In Christiania lived, 
 while he was in his native land, Henrik Ibsen, 
 the greatest of Scandinavian writers; here he is 
 buried in the public cemetery. We went to this 
 shrine of the dead on purpose to see his monu- 
 ment. Nothing could be less ostentatious; a tall 
 shaft of black Labrador stone; on it is engraved 
 a mallet, this alone; it is an allusion to one of 
 his well-known poems, " The Miner," beginning 
 with the words, " Break me a way to the moun- 
 tain's heart." At the base of the shaft his name 
 is inscribed. What could be simpler? Yet Ib- 
 128 
 
STILL IN THE NORTHLAND 129 
 
 sen's poems and dramas are read the world over. 
 They give voice to the world-protest against 
 social conditions, which he attacked with Ber- 
 serker rage. Near this cemetery are the build- 
 ings of the National University, a free institu- 
 tion of no mean repute ; also a museum containing 
 pictures and statues by Norwegian artists. 
 
 Two of the most interesting objects in Chris- 
 tiania are the Viking boats, which were discovered 
 a few years ago. One of them we saw, which was 
 found in 1889 near one of the fiords. The Vi- 
 king chiefs were laid at rest in their ships with 
 their arms and treasures, as many kings of old 
 were buried with their war horses. This one was 
 used in the ninth century by some rover of the 
 sea, now unknown. It is 77 feet long and 16 
 feet wide. The wooded structure, imbedded in 
 clay, has survived even the bones of its posses- 
 sor; they long since crumbled into dust. Per- 
 haps this very boat may have been in the waters 
 of some New England bays. Who knows? The 
 savage Vikings scorned the perils of the deep. 
 No voyage was too adventurous for them. The 
 sea winds, the howl of the tempest, the scream of 
 the gull and hawk, were companions for them. 
 The first of all seafaring races to venture, with 
 keel boats, on long voyages, they discovered Amer- 
 ica five hundred years before Columbus ; but their 
 numbers were so few and their intelligence so 
 limited, that their discoveries had no value to man- 
 
130 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 kind. Scourges to commerce, robbers of mer- 
 chantmen, they swooped, like sharks or birds of 
 prey, upon ships and towns. Murder, piracy, 
 robbery were their pastime. As I looked at this 
 ancient craft and then at the noble buildings of 
 the university, I thought who can doubt the law 
 of progress and who can fail to see the finger of 
 God moving in human history.'' To be sure, we 
 do not know why progress should come through 
 blood and agony ; why the splendid Scandinavian 
 races should have passed from the cave-men and 
 Vikings to an Ibsen, Bjornson, Jenny Lind, Ole 
 BuH, Linnaeus, Swedenborg and Grieg; but they 
 did. Ages of darkness and wolfishness seemed to 
 be necessary to develop the courage, brain, con- 
 science and character of this and every other race. 
 
 Once more on our railroad ride, we skirted the 
 Gota canal; we passed through a pastoral coun- 
 try, with fine farms and ripening crops. Again 
 we passed over the boundary line into Sweden, 
 the part called Smaland ; emerged from the moun- 
 tains to the plains. The shadows of evening were 
 upon us as we neared the Sound, a part of the Cat- 
 tegat, the arm of the sea which separates Sweden 
 from Denmark. So we left the Scandinavian 
 peninsula, a most interesting and richly historic 
 region. Let me add a few words in regard to it. 
 It is a land which retains many customs and tra- 
 ditions of the past. From it England and Amer- 
 ica have sucked many of their characteristics. 
 
STILL IN THE NORTHLAND 131 
 
 much of their law. A considerable part of the 
 population of England is of Scandinavian, in- 
 cluding Danish, descent. Probably, if we were 
 aware of it, there are few of us, of English origin, 
 who do not have a tinge of Scandinavian blood in 
 our veins. In love of liberty, in the equality of 
 woman, in town government, in maritime instincts, 
 in the assertion of individual rights, in protest 
 against priestly domination, in the very breath of 
 the nostrils of the English-speaking races, lurks 
 the ancient spirit of the wild Norsemen. As the 
 race grew out of piracy, it became humane. It 
 recognized the sanctity of human life. It stead- 
 ied down to self-control. Even in the treatment 
 of dumb animals, a pleasing spirit of humanity is 
 often seen. In carriage drives over the moun- 
 tains, the police regulations often compel a pas- 
 senger to get out and walk at the steeper places. 
 What would be thought of this in modern Italy, 
 where cruelty to and over-working of animals so 
 often shocks the sensibiUties of the tourist? 
 Sometimes in the stations we see the sign, " Be 
 good to the horse." And this in the land of the 
 descendants of the murderous Vikings! On the 
 excursion rides no carriage is allowed to drive 
 ahead of the one in front of it. 
 
 In popular education, also, Norway especially 
 has been as progressive as Switzerland, Scotland, 
 and Holland. It is said that Sweden has been 
 somewhat laggard in this respect, but now rigidly 
 
132 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 enforces compulsory education. So does little 
 Denmark. The sons and daughters of these ro- 
 bust countries, whose people are inured to cold, 
 snow and ice, carry to their homes in the New 
 World, not only the spirit of orderly liberty, but 
 the elementary learning got in the national 
 schools. Compare this with Russia, Italy, Spain, 
 and Portugal ; although it is gratifying to know 
 that even in those backward countries there is an 
 awakening for education. 
 
 Then as to cleanliness. The cities and towns, 
 not to speak of hotels and homes, are well kept. 
 House-plants show their smiling faces in most of 
 the homes, however humble. A good degree of 
 sanitation is enforced. One who has seen the un- 
 speakable filth of many Italian and Spanish vil- 
 lages, with their squalor and dirt, — in spite of 
 the historic charms with which some of them are 
 invested, — wonders if the ancestors of the vil- 
 lagers, who were once the dominant force in the 
 political history of Europe, lived in such utter 
 contempt of the laws of sanitation. 
 
 Then as to thrift and industry. Russian, Ital- 
 ian and Spanish towns swarm with beggars. The 
 tourist is hounded for alms at almost every turn 
 of the road, by wretched creatures. The lame, 
 blind, and halt creep out of their covers, parade 
 their infirmities, and bless or curse you accord- 
 ingly as you give or refuse alms. In Scandinavia 
 work is honorable; idleness dishonorable; mendi- 
 cancy is very rare. No doubt much is due to cli- 
 
STILL IN THE NORTHLAND 133 
 
 mate ; but most of the outrages on humanity are 
 spawned from governmental abuses, and from 
 traditional superstition and enforced ignorance. 
 They will not last, however. The emancipation 
 will come in due time, and then the proud Latin 
 races will march abreast of their Teutonic neigh- 
 bors towards an ever-higher civilization. 
 
 There probably is no great industrial develop- 
 ment to come in the future to the Scandinavian 
 kingdoms. The limitations of climate and natu- 
 ral resources will hardly admit of this. Scant 
 soil, immense mountain ranges in the north of 
 Sweden and Norway, long, rigorous winters, ex- 
 panses of dazzling glaciers, vast ice-plateaux, 
 remnants of the Glacial Age, when most of the 
 land in the North Temperate Zone was wrapped in 
 the cold grasp of icebergs and sheets of snow ; — 
 vast archipelagoes on the western coast of Nor- 
 way, — all these forces limit the productiveness of 
 the countries. The natural assets of the Scandi- 
 navian peninsula are the fisheries for the coast 
 population, which support 100,000 people; in- 
 deed, a great many more if we include the furs of 
 sea-animals, the catch of lobsters and shell-fish ; — 
 the immense forests with which the hills are cov- 
 ered; and the adaptation of the many harbors to 
 shipping interests. There is an abundance of 
 timber for ship-building. The commercial fleet 
 of little Norway ranks next to that of England 
 and the United States. The hands of the de- 
 ^scendants of the Vikings (dwellers on vikes or 
 
134 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 creeks) have not lost their cunning, either in the 
 construction or manipulation of vessels. The 
 iron deposits in Sweden are valuable ; both Sweden 
 and Norway are developing potteries and lace 
 manufacturing. 
 
 I think I have not mentioned one of the sweet- 
 est attractions of Sweden and Norway, — the wild 
 flowers. Although these countries run far into 
 the inhospitable North, the genial Gulf Stream 
 tempers their climate and shears it of its fangs. 
 In the long mid-summer days, when the sun is the 
 fairy godmother to bring gifts of warmth and 
 cheer to the bleak hills and sodden valleys, the 
 landscape is painted with a lush profusion of 
 flowers. Some of them are homelike. They 
 show to the English and American tourist th(f 
 home-land of many of our garden flowers, and 
 other flowers once domesticated, but now reverted 
 to the wild, which are not indigenous to North 
 America, but which came over in the transit of 
 civilization. Nowhere are the bluebells bluer, the 
 buttercups yellower, the daisies brighter, than in 
 the land of the Midnight Sun. They turn up 
 their sweet faces to you and seem to say : " We 
 bring you a message from home. We are a part 
 of your mysterious life. We follow your com- 
 ings and goings. We have in us the breath of 
 the northern hills. We, like you, can defy the 
 keen edge of the North wind and the blistering 
 heat of summer. We live through the dreary. 
 
STILL IN THE NORTHLAND 135 
 
 dark night of winter, and come back, from oui 
 long sleep, with the song-bird and leaf." 
 
 One thing that helps to the steadiness of the 
 Northern races is the comparative homogeneous- 
 ness of the population. The Scandinavians, like 
 the English, are a branch of the great Teutonic 
 race. No one knows when they came into the 
 peninsula. The remnants of the original inhab- 
 itants, the Lapps and Finns, are now negligible 
 elements; only about 24!,000 Lapps and 22,000 
 Pinns are left in Norway and Sweden — the 
 Lapps, like the Kanakas in the Hawaiian Islands 
 and the Indians in North America, are a fast van- 
 ishing race. They are still children in civiliza- 
 tion; they have been ground out by the impact 
 with the tougher Germanic stock. 
 
 The present feeling between Sweden and Nor- 
 way is not very fraternal. The separation is too 
 recent. These two countries and Denmark, the 
 other Scandinavian kingdom, have had all sorts 
 of relations, ranging from bloody wars to politi- 
 cal unions. From 1814 to 1906, Sweden and 
 Norway were under one government. Norway 
 had been restive under the union for a good many 
 years; the movement for independence gathered 
 head, and in 1906, by a vote of 362,980 to 182, 
 the Norwegians withdrew from the union and 
 formed a separate kingdom. 
 
 Thus with a total population of only about 
 10,000,000, the Scandinavians are distributed into 
 
136 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 three kingdoms; each maintaining a royal estab- 
 lishment, an army, navy, a customs and consular 
 service. This is, in itself, evidence of the thrift 
 and economy of the people; for such burdens 
 would drain the life-blood of most small countries. 
 How long this condition of things can last, no 
 one can foresee. There are dreams of a Pan- 
 Scandinavian kingdom, but at present it seems 
 far off. The three little kingdoms of Sweden, 
 Norway and Denmark must " play a lone hand " 
 until, in the unknown future, some reconcihng 
 force appears. 
 
 Now to return to my narrative. At Helsing- 
 borg, the last station on the mainland of Sweden, 
 the train was transported across the narrow sound 
 which at this point separates Sweden and Den- 
 mark, to the town of Helsingor, in the latter 
 country. It was dark, but the distance was so 
 short that we could easily distinguish both 
 shores; but there was not light enough for us 
 to detect clearly Kronberg castle, once a palace 
 of the Danish kings. Here on what he calls 
 " The platform before the castle of Elsinore," 
 Shakespeare located the famous ghost scene in 
 Hamlet. The myth-creating process, so power- 
 ful in human instincts, has worked out an imag- 
 inary grave for Hamlet, and a pond where un- 
 happy Ophelia found " watery death." A Dane 
 tells me that these " fakes " have been created in 
 his lifetime; are absolute fiction; and yet, the 
 
STILL IN THE NORTHLAND 137 
 
 newspapers report that a New York theater man- 
 ager is on his way to Copenhagen, in order to 
 purchase these " fakes " for a new theater in the 
 American metropolis. One feels like exclaiming 
 with Shakespeare's Macbeth: — 
 
 " Can such things be and overcome us like a summer 
 cloud. 
 Without our special wonder? " 
 
 Yet it is surprising what a magic spell the gen- 
 ius of Shakespeare has woven about little Den- 
 mark. One looks instinctively for the blond- 
 haired Danish girl who will answer for unhappy 
 Ophelia ; the young dreamer, — his face " sicklied 
 o'er with the pale cast of thought," — who ^iU 
 pass for the mystifying Hamlet; for an old 
 worldling like Polonius ; for a Horatio, " who is 
 not passion's slave." What the high-bred Danes 
 of a thousand years ago may have been, I do 
 not know, but the Danes of our day seem to me 
 a plain, matter-of-fact, sane, thrifty folk, much 
 like other people. If there are any half -insane 
 Hamlets among them, or love-distracted Ophelias, 
 or Kings " whose offense is rank and smells 
 to heaven," — whose hands and conscience are 
 smeared with a brother's blood, — any Yorick, " a 
 fellow of infinite jest and most excellent fancy," 
 any Queens, " who speak with a wicked tongue " ; 
 — any ghosts, " revisiting the glimpses of the 
 moon," they do not parade their wares on the 
 public streets. 
 
138 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 So we will remit Hamlet and his courtly train 
 of spies, murderers, enviers and intriguers, to the 
 realm of ghosts; only remembering the noble 
 words with which Horatio, the one true-hearted 
 man in the ghastly drama, bade the dying Ham- 
 let good-bye: 
 
 " Now cracks a noble heart: — 
 Good night, sweet prince. 
 And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest." 
 
 Also those strange last words which Shakespeare 
 puts into the mouth of his favorite and greatest 
 character : — " The rest in silence." 
 
 No, not silence, for as long as men can read, 
 Hamlet and his train will live, where he saw his 
 father's ghost, — " in the mind's eye, Horatio " ; 
 more real than the fair^haired, sturdy, plodding 
 Danes of to-day, who, like all the rest of hu- 
 manity, are marching to the land of ghosts, and 
 who will all be ghosts in due time. 
 
 Copenhagen, a city of more than 500,000 in- 
 habitants, is one of the beautiful capitals of Eu- 
 rope. It is very old; its history running back 
 nearly a thousand years. It is admirably located 
 for commerce; thousands of steamers and vessels 
 enter its harbor every year. Denmark, like Hol- 
 land and Belgium, is only a dot on the European 
 map; it has hardly 3,000,000 people. It was 
 shorn of the valuable provinces of Schleswig and 
 Holstein when the iron hand of Bismarck grasped 
 
STILL IN THE NORTHLAND 139 
 
 them and incorporated them into the Germanic 
 Empire. The protests of aged King Christian 
 and the Holsteiners were of no avail; as well ask 
 a shark or wolf to yield its prey. Denmark was 
 left with only the province of Jutland on the 
 mainland. Copenhagen is on the island of Zea- 
 land. A few other adjacent islands, and, as col- 
 onies, Greenland, Iceland, and three islands of the 
 West India group, and there is all there is of little 
 Denmark. The Danish royal blood, however, has 
 spawned many Kings and Queens. The Dowa- 
 ger Czarina of Russia, the King of Norway, the 
 King of Greece, Queen Alexandra of England 
 are children of the late King Christian. Others 
 of the royal Danish blood have inter-married with 
 other royal families of Europe. The late King 
 had a well-stuffed purse and attractive daughters ; 
 so they were sought and caught in the matri- 
 monial net, by royal suitors. 
 
 Copenhagen is rich in art. Some of its mu- 
 seums are among the finest in Europe. Tourists 
 of artistic taste throng here to visit the Thor- 
 waldsen Museum, where the statuary of the great 
 Danish sculptor, one of the noblest the world 
 has produced, is exhibited. When I went through 
 this splendid museum and saw the breathless fig- 
 ures, many of them carved with consummate skill, 
 I was impressed with the world-character of true 
 genius. It transcends national limits, time, space, 
 and language. Thousands and thousands of 
 
14.0 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 replicas and copies of Thorwaldsen's figures are 
 hung, as pictures or placques in homes of refine- 
 ment and culture the world over; notably his 
 " Morning and Evening," or " Day and Night." 
 We must acknowledge the immortality and uni- 
 versality of genius. When Shakespeare, gather- 
 ing together the darkling Danish traditions of 
 Prince Hamlet, fused them into his incomparable 
 tragedy, which sounds the depths of human real- 
 ities, " he wrote not for an age but for all time." 
 When Thorwaldsen, in whose brain was a sense- 
 of the highest ideals of art, chiseled the dull, 
 cold marble into shapes of surpassing loveUness 
 and almost perfected human forms, his genius 
 flowed away from the dunes, fogs, and water-ways 
 of his native Denmark into the world-conscious- 
 ness. Genius is absorbed by and belongs to the 
 whole human race. 
 
 Denmark does not lack to-day eminent scholars 
 and thinkers. Its talented musical composer 
 Gade, like Grieg, his great Norwegian compeer, 
 sleeps in the eternal silences, far-ofi' from this 
 noisy world; but every student of music knows 
 something of their wonderful harmonies. Georg 
 Brandes, the eminent literary critic, whose work 
 on Shakespeare was almost epoch-making, and 
 whose place among the writers of Europe is in 
 the first class, is living; and so is Harald HoflF- 
 ding, the psychologist, a professor in the Univer- 
 sity of Copenhagen. I remember that Prof. 
 
STILL IN THE NORTHLAND 14-1 
 
 William James of Harvard says that Prof. Hoff- 
 ding has one of the finest minds of the age. 
 
 So, with its parks, museums, statuary, music, 
 churches, libraries, shady boulevards, and inspir- 
 ing traditions, Copenhagen has very much to 
 interest the tourist. The European city it most 
 closely resembles is Stockholm; but it is much 
 larger and throbs with a richer life. It is the port 
 from which Danish products, mostly of an ag^ 
 ricultural character, are distributed. Danish 
 pottery is justly celebrated; its manufacture has 
 been developed into a great industry. 
 
 In my travels in the Germanic lands, — for 
 the Scandinavian kingdoms, strictly speaking, 
 are Germanic, — in my observations of the social 
 life of the people, I have been impressed with two 
 ever-present traits: love of music and of con- 
 vivial life. Germanic cities abound in concert 
 gardens and swim in beer. The great museum 
 of statuary in Copenhagen, called Glyptotek, was 
 given by a brewer, Jacobsen. And was not the 
 immense fortune of Nobel, who gave it to further 
 the ends of art, literature and peace, acquired in 
 the same way? 
 
 One Sunday night we went to a pleasure- 
 ground in Copenhagen, called the Tivoli. It is 
 typical of such places found all over Northern 
 Europe: — a smaller Coney Island; a veritable 
 Vanity Fair. It was a fine summer evening and 
 
143 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 thousands of people, old and young, were there. 
 Lotteries, slot-machines, merry-go-rounds, chutes, 
 toboggans, riding courses, beer gardens, cafes, 
 public dances, throwing of confetti, side-shows 
 of all descriptions, — everything was there which 
 could allure pennies, called here " ore," out of 
 the pocket and minister to the love of pleasure. 
 Late in the evening there was a really fine elec- 
 trical illumination and display of fireworks. The 
 charge for admission to the grounds was about 
 fourteen cents of American money; there was 
 an extra charge for most of the shows; some of 
 the dances were free. Beer flowed everywhere; 
 it trickled down the throats of thousands of 
 thirsty drinkers. At one cafe food was served 
 on the heads of beer barrels. We stayed until 
 nearly midnight,^ — the grounds are kept open 
 until two in the morning, but I did not observe 
 one drunken person. Evidently the Germanic 
 races are great " holding companies," so far as 
 beer is concerned; to use American slang, they 
 must be " tanks." The theaters were crowded to 
 the doors; many of the audiences, in this and 
 other similar places, sit at tables and call for 
 drinks during the plays. Yet, it should be re- 
 membered that these places are in Protestant 
 countries; countries which are ahead of the rest 
 of Europe, even of England, in popular edu- 
 cation. 
 
 It is in Protestant countries that we have been 
 inclined to look for what Emerson called " the 
 
STILL IN THE NORTHLAND 143 
 
 odoriferous Sabbath " : — the Sabbath of worship- 
 ful restfuhiess : — " sweet day, so pure, so cahn, 
 so bright ; the bridal of the earth and sky." 
 
 When observing this enormous thirstiness and 
 tremendous consumption of liquors, here and in 
 other Germanic cities, I have sometimes wondered 
 if any German, Swede, Dane or Norwegian has 
 ever heard the words " prohibition " and " total 
 abstinence." Then I remembered that among the 
 staunchest prohibitory states in the Union, — 
 Iowa, Minnesota, South Dakota, Kansas, are 
 those where the Scandinavian vote is largest. It 
 seems to be mainly in the big American cities 
 that the sons of the Northland retain their na- 
 tional fondness for beer. Scatter them in towns 
 and on farms, where social life is less vivid, and 
 they gradually swing around to a more moral 
 view of the temperance problem. This great 
 problem will never be settled by hysteria or emo- 
 tion ; but must be handled in a large way by in- 
 telligent, conscientious co-operation of all the 
 forces which make for good. 
 
 My Scandinavian tour has hastened to its set- 
 ting. As I leave the glorious Northland, a flood 
 of reminiscences pours upon me. I think of my 
 varied experiences since last January, when I 
 sailed from San Francisco. What a coil of 
 travel ; what a medley of the human family ; what 
 diverse civilizations ; what blendings of contrasts. 
 
144 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 All is now fusing itself into a confused whole. 
 California, the Hawaiian Islands, Japan, China, 
 Manchuria, Siberia, Russia, Sweden, Norway, 
 Denmark, have I really seen them; have my feet 
 pressed upon their soil? Have I really ridden 
 in jinrikishas; taken off my shoes in Buddhist 
 and Shinto temples ; sat under palm-trees ; peered 
 into the liquid cauldron of the volcano Kilauea; 
 sailed across the Pacific; walked the foaming 
 streets of Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Tientsin, and 
 Peking ; seen the strange life of Korea ; traversed 
 the immense spaces of Siberia; looked upon the 
 wild steppes of Russia; sat under the blazing 
 domes of great Greek churches; stood at the 
 high altar of Catholic cathedrals; watched the 
 processions of kings; heard the sweet tones of 
 vibrant carillons; sailed down the Gulf of Fin- 
 land; spent three days on the Gota canal; drawn 
 inspiration at ancient universities, and at the 
 splendid mausoleums of the many great histori- 
 cal characters; threaded the Norwegian fiords; 
 crossed the Arctic Circle ; climbed the North Cape ; 
 touched the Norse civilization in Norway, Swe- 
 den and Denmark ; gazed upon some of the noblest 
 productions of artists; tramped through Jap- 
 anese, Chinese, Russian, Austrian, Hungarian, 
 and Swedish royal palaces; studied vast collec- 
 tions in museums. Can all this really have been ; 
 or is it an illusion? " the false creation of a heat- 
 oppressed brain? " 
 
STILL IN THE NORTHLAND 145 
 
 Life recoils upon itself. If it be true, as Ten- 
 nyson makes Ulysses say : 
 
 " I am a part of all that I have met; 
 Yet sill experience is an arch, where thro' 
 Gleams that untraveled worlds whose margin 
 
 fades. 
 Forever and forever when I move." 
 
 — if this be true, I shall bring back with me 
 more than I took away; not a fuller purse, to 
 be sure, — for a tourist is common plunder wher- 
 ever he goes, — but more of experience, a larger 
 knowledge of the ways of human beings, a deeper 
 sense of that great stream of action and motive 
 which we call " life," — played on the world-stage, 
 which Shakespeare calls " the wide and universal 
 theater." 
 
X 
 
 SOME GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN CITIES 
 
 " High deeds, O Germans, are to come from you." 
 — Wordsworth : — " Poems dedicated to National 
 Liberty." 
 
 " The Italians are wise before the deed : the Ger- 
 mans in the deed: the French after the deed." 
 
 — George Herbert : — " Outlandish Proverbs." 
 " The German's wit is in his fingers." 
 
 Ditto. 
 
 Our route from Moscow was by rail to Berlin. 
 Afterwards we returned from Berlin to St. Pe- 
 tersburg. This twisting of route, and tortuous 
 return to Russia, were the only escape from the 
 unendurable vexations of the Russian custom- 
 house: — the abuses of which are recognized by 
 the Russians themselves as keenly as by tourists. 
 So let me give one jog of advice to all who intend 
 to enter Russian territory: be sure that your 
 passport is properly viseed by the Russian con- 
 sul at the place from which you leave any other 
 country: and also carry only hand-baggage and 
 as little of that as possible. When one enters a 
 Russian hotel, the passport is surrendered to the 
 clerk, who deposits it with the police authorities 
 of the city, who retain it until the stranger leaves, 
 when it is surrendered, after being again viseed. 
 146 
 
GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN CITIES 147 
 
 Thus Russia is a sort of mouse-trap, although a 
 huge one. Its whole government system is meshed 
 in a web of bureaucracy. However, Russia is 
 richly worth visiting in spite of all this official 
 red-tape. The tourist must smilingly conform 
 to the intricacies of Russian law, leaden-footed 
 as it is. 
 
 The passage from Russia into Germany leads 
 one into an entirely different civilization. The 
 boundary lines of nations are imaginary and have 
 little meaning except as geographical terms. 
 Yet when the train wheels into a station, in a 
 foreign land, and a custom-house officer seizes 
 one's baggage to see if there are any tobacco, 
 liquor, playing cards, or any other dutiable ar- 
 ticles, the tourist has a sharp reminder that there 
 is a concrete meaning to the terms national 
 boundary. For ages the Russians and Germans 
 have lived side by side, now at war, then at 
 peace. On each side of the imaginary boundary 
 hues, great civilizations have been developed, the 
 Slavic and the Teutonic. Each arouses admira- 
 tion in its way. 
 
 Unhappy Poland, for many years the buffer 
 kingdom, separating Russia, Germany and Aus- 
 tria, has had no political independence since its 
 partition among the three powers. It is a fair 
 land, rich in agricultural productiveness and con- 
 taining some great and prosperous cities. War- 
 saw in Russian Poland is one of the finest cities 
 
148 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 in Europe: in Germanic Poland is Posen, a city 
 of considerable size; in Austrian Poland is Cra- 
 cow, a great trade center. Thus Poland, al- 
 though dismembered, contributes to the wealth 
 of each of its imperial neighbors which absorbed 
 it. 
 
 Unless the tourist is able to make a European 
 tour in a motor car, he sees little of the rural 
 districts, except from car windows. The trend 
 of population city-ward is as marked in Europe 
 as in America. In the cities are the museums, 
 palaces, parks, theaters and public buildings, 
 which are the main object of interest to the tour- 
 ist; and here, of course, are the hotels, in which 
 comfortable accommodations can be had. Amer- 
 icans have, little idea of the amazing growth of 
 European cities in recent years. By rough es- 
 timate, here are some figures of the population of 
 a few of the cities of Germany and Russia. 
 Moscow, one of the most picturesque and inter- 
 esting of great cities, has 1,500,000 people; St. 
 Petersburg about 1,200,000; Berlin has 2,000,- 
 000, and with its suburb, Charlottenburg, 3,000,- 
 000; Vienna, 2,000,000; Leipsig, 600,000; 
 Budapest, the capital of Hungary, 900,000; 
 ancient Prague, or Prag, or Praha, as the inhab- 
 itants call it, about 500,000, Hamburg, 900,000 ; 
 Bremen, 300,000. I am speaking only of the 
 cities which I have seen in this tour. Moreover, 
 most of this expansion has come in the last forty 
 years. Not only has there been in each of them 
 
GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN CITIES 149 
 
 a notable and steady increase in population ; 
 there has been a corresponding increase in wealth 
 and enterprise. Medieval walls have been demol- 
 ished; slums extirpated; streets paved and wi- 
 dened; great and beautiful parks established; 
 splendid buildings constructed. Europe has not 
 been asleep, while Chicago, New York and other 
 American cities have been growing. Almost too 
 rapidly the vestiges of the hoary past are dis- 
 appearing. The voracity of business, and the 
 demand for sanitation, cleanliness, quick trans- 
 portation, and the facilities for industrial growth 
 have been as insistent in Europe as in America. 
 We Americans have, as a whole, failed in the 
 government and administration of cities ; the Eu- 
 ropeans have not. Especially in Germany splen- 
 did results have been achieved by the application 
 of science to municipal affairs. I have not heard 
 the word " boss " or " ring " or " grafter " in 
 any European city. The inhabitants are as 
 proud of their municipalities and as hopeful of 
 their future as those of any Western " boom " 
 town. I will briefly speak of a few of the dis- 
 tinctive attractions in some of these splendid , 
 cities, most of which have histories which run back 
 into the Middle Ages. 
 
 BERLIN. 
 
 Berlin, the capital of the German empire, is 
 essentially a modern city. It has gained in pop- 
 
160 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 ulation by leaps and bounds since 1876; increas- 
 ing from 400,000 to 2,000,000 inhabitants. 
 The location is not picturesque; it is located in 
 a plain; its only water privileges are from the 
 little rivers Oder and Spree ; aU that it has and is, 
 is the result of enterprise, intelligence and ad- 
 ministrative skill. Four years ago after a some- 
 ■what extended visit to this splendid city, I came 
 under the spell of its charm. I felt its brilliant 
 color and hterary atmosphere; its wealth of art 
 and charm; the dignity of its splendid streets; 
 its admirable civic orderliness. Subsequent trav- 
 els and visits in other European capitals have not 
 changed my judgment. In art, music, parks, 
 streets, squares, shops, trees, flowers, and in gen- 
 eral neatness, I have never seen its superior. 
 Other cities may excel it in historic interest; — 
 Moscow, London, Paris, Cairo, Constantinople; 
 some excel in architecture; but, as a type of 
 modem skill in municipal administration, it is 
 one of the finest cities in the world. It is thor- 
 oughly modem. Here we had the pleasure of 
 seeing Kaiser Wilhelm, the Empress and the mem- 
 bers of the royal family of Germany in a military 
 parade. The Kaiser had a great acclaim from 
 the populace. Whatever opinion other nations 
 may have of this extraordinary man — the Roose- 
 Telt of Europe — among his own people he is 
 immensely popular. I have never heard a Ger- 
 man speak of him, except in terms of respectful 
 loyalty. The Empress is a lovely woman; her 
 
GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN CITIES 151 
 
 sweet face was lighted with sunny smiles as she 
 bowed her head to us — she rode in an automo- 
 bile — in the shouting crowds. 
 
 Detached houses in Berlin, and, indeed, in most 
 German cities, are not common. People live in 
 apartment houses. The streets are wide, clean 
 and so well lighted that it is hard to tell night 
 from day. What there may be beneath the sur- 
 face in so great a city in the way of immorality 
 and excess, I do not know, but among the thou- 
 sands who crowd the beer-gardens on summer 
 evenings, and on the streets and public places, 
 almost perfect order is maintained. Berlin is 
 finely policed ; all the officers are soldiers and have 
 a military bearing. The city is a great amuse- 
 ment center. Germans love music and social life. 
 Everywhere are music halls and beer gardens, 
 moving picture shows, theaters and opera houses ; 
 ranging from the great theaters maintained by 
 the government down to the picture slot machine. 
 It is a marvel to an American that the German 
 mechanics and clerks who work for about one- 
 third of the wages paid for similar employment in 
 America, can be so well dressed and fed. There 
 must be some principle of economy and adjust- 
 ment of expense to income which many American 
 wage-earners have not learned. 
 
 Bismarck once said : — " We Germans are never 
 happy, unless we are quarreling with one an- 
 other." BerUn has not reached its supremacy, 
 without inciting the jealousy of other German 
 
152 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 cities. On a larger scale, the twenty-three 
 kingdoms, dukedoms and principalities that con- 
 stitute the Germanic Empire, have their jeal- 
 ous bickerings. StUl, the colossal fabric, — the 
 work of the mighty brain and iron wiU of Bis- 
 marck, — is one of the greatest feats of political 
 constructiveness ever known to history. The de- 
 velopment of its industrial order has been phe- 
 nomenal. Bismarck also said : " The nation 
 that has the schools has the future " : — and Ger- 
 many has been the teacher of the world's teachers. 
 No longer the theater of religious persecutions 
 and hideous wars, no longer the hot-bed of a con- 
 geries of contentious states, it has been fused into 
 a mighty whole ; — a compact nation of virile men 
 and educated women. Its great evUs in our day 
 are alcoholism and militarism: voracious devour- 
 ers of the substance of the sturdy people. Alco- 
 hol-lust and blood-lust do not harmonize with that 
 splendid idealism in the Germanic character which 
 has produced Goethe, Schiller, Kant, Lessing, 
 Fichte, Schopenhauer, Wagner, and, centuries 
 ago, the intrepid Luther. The one evil must suc- 
 cumb to higher moral vision, and a deeper sense 
 of the sanctity of the human body. The social 
 customs which are the deposit of centuries cannot 
 be discarded in a day. The crushing weight of 
 militarism in Germany, — as in France, Russia, 
 Austria and England, can be lifted only when an 
 International Court of Arbitration is established. 
 
GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN CITIES 153 
 
 with the support of all civilized nations; — when 
 far-called navies and swollen armies melt into a 
 protective police-force. Every German should 
 pray for the hastening of this consummation. 
 
 LEIPZIG. 
 
 Leipzig in Saxony was the next German city 
 which we visited; memorable as the scene of the 
 defeat of Napoleon and his surrender and sub- 
 sequent banishment to St. Elba. The battlefield 
 is now a public park, and a huge monument is 
 rising to commemorate the victory, which is said 
 to be the largest of the kind in Europe. Leipzig 
 has been for many years famous as an educational 
 center. Its university is one of the largest in 
 Germany ; the Conservatory of Music draws stu- 
 dents from aU parts of the world ; its publishing 
 houses send out every year thousands and thou- 
 sands of books. Although an ancient city, with 
 its roots running back into legendary Germanic 
 history, Leipzig has been thoroughly modernized, 
 and has every convenience which science and me- 
 chanical skill can develop. One distinctive fea- 
 ture in Leipzig is its system of hospitals for the 
 treatment of almost every kind of disease; one 
 long street, Liebig strasse, is lined with them. 
 There are hospitals for the treatment of the dis- 
 eases of animals. All these hospitals are consid- 
 ered among the best equipped in Germany, al- 
 
154 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 though the immense Krankenhaus, or hospital, in 
 Berlin, built as a memorial to Dr. Virchow, is 
 larger than any in Leipzig. 
 
 Associated with the history of Leipzig are 
 some of the greatest names in German history. 
 One is shown a house where Martin Luther lived 
 and a window in a court from which he preached ; 
 also Auerbach's cellar, where Goethe wrote his 
 drama of Faust. The most remarkable thing 
 in Auerbach's cellar now is the extortionate charge 
 made for everything. Really, the memory of 
 Goethe is a valuable commercial asset. Leipzig, 
 with its long reaches of wide, clean streets, its 
 blending of the old and new in architecture, its 
 music, schools and art, is one of the cities which 
 have a charm. 
 
 Illiteracy is almost unknown in Leipzig. Yet, 
 go only a nominal distance across the Russian 
 frontier, and three-quarters of the people are 
 sunk in dense ignorance. Shakespeare said: — 
 " There is no darkness but ignorance." How 
 dark, then, is the future of the great Russian 
 race, until the day-light of knowledge is let in. 
 
 KARLSBAD. 
 
 Karlsbad, the Bohemian hill-town, famous for 
 its hot springs and baths, was our next stopping 
 place. Here we found thousands of invahds, and 
 of those who think themselves invalids, " taking 
 the cure," to use the local phrase. " To take 
 
GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN CITIES 155 
 
 the cure " means to drink the hot brine bubbling 
 from the springs, so many glasses a day ; to bathe, 
 either smeared in mud, or without mud, in the hot 
 baths, and to take a regulation walk over the 
 hills, or on the shady roads. Karlsbad has a 
 romantic situation; it is a town of hotels and 
 boarding houses. Its healing waters are a most 
 productive asset. The town authorities own sev- 
 eral of the large bath-houses ; they are conducted 
 upon an exact system; each bather is given one 
 hour for his bath; he pays for each bath from 
 sixty cents to one dollar of our money. But 
 even at this price, soap is not furnished without 
 an extra charge, — the Karlsbaders are canny, — 
 and he is expected to tip the assistants. On& 
 American woman told me that she had come to- 
 Karlsbad regularly for twelve years, " to take 
 the cure." Karlsbad is Catholic in religion ; and 
 most of the churches are of that faith. It is a 
 rather expensive place, but has many attractions,, 
 even for one who comes not " for the cure," but 
 to see the external aspects of one of the most 
 famous of health resorts. A good many of the 
 patients looked to me rather healthy invalids, and 
 I wondered if " taking the cure " was serious, or 
 only a freak of fashion. Near to Karlsbad is 
 another health resort, Marienbad; we passed 
 through it, but did not stay there. 
 
 Karlsbad has adopted many principles of so- 
 cialism. The city seems to own nearly every- 
 thing worth owning, except the ordinary dwell- 
 
156 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 ing-houses. It owns the mineral-springs. All 
 hiring of horses and donkeys must be from mu- 
 nicipal authorities. Here, as in other cities in 
 Germany and Austria, certain kinds of beer and 
 wine are manufactured by the city and sold for 
 its benefit. An ordinance regulates even the price 
 of coffee and tea. 
 
 VIENNA. 
 
 Vienna, the capital of Austria-Hungary, was 
 our next objective point. The railroad ride from 
 Karlsbad took one night. There is much in Ber- 
 lin and Vienna that is alike ; much that is unlike. 
 Berlin is a Protestant; Vienna, a Catholic, city; 
 in both, religious toleration is had. The two 
 cities are of about the same size, and both are 
 growing fast. Berlin is largely the creation of 
 the last hundred years; the history of Vienna 
 runs back to the old days of Roman imperial 
 domination, the Crusaders and the times of Turk- 
 ish conquest. Once it narrowly escaped becoming 
 a part of the Turkish Empire. It has had many 
 "vicissitudes, as all the old cities of Europe have 
 had. To-day little is left of the old Vienna of 
 poetry, art and song. It is one of the most 
 brilliant capitals of Europe, and has adjusted 
 itself to all that is modern in city life, except in 
 the matter of sky-scraping buildings. These 
 have not yet appeared in any European city. 
 Although inland, the Danube river give? to Vi- 
 
GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN CITIES 157 
 
 enna one of the finest water-ways in Europe ; and 
 to this has been added a canal system which 
 greatly facilitates commerce. Like Berlin, Vi- 
 enna has had its largest growth in the last forty 
 years. Almost all the great public buildings, the 
 City Hall, Imperial Theater, museums and uni- 
 versity buildings have been constructed within 
 that period. The old walls of Vienna have been 
 demolished, and a system of boulevards estab- 
 lished, only a few of the old towers remaining. 
 
 The inhabitants of Vienna are amusement-lov- 
 ing, and the city abounds in theaters, beer gar- 
 dens, cafes chantant, music halls, and everything 
 which caters to the love of pleasure. On Corpus 
 Christi day we saw the long and stately proces- 
 sion of royal personages, including Kaiser Fran- 
 cis Joseph and members of his family, high church 
 dignitaries and imperial officials, enter and leave 
 St. Stephen's cathedral for morning mass. All 
 that music, flags, decorations, gaudy trappings, 
 robes and equipages could do to make the func- 
 tion impressive, was there. The Kaiser, seventy- 
 nine years of age, walked into the cathedral be- 
 fore the service and rode, after the mass, in the 
 magnificent royal carriage. " Uneasy lies the 
 head that wears a crown." Long, turbulent 
 and tragic has been the life of the Hapsburg 
 Emperor; his wife assassinated in Switzerland; 
 his only son, Rudolf, the heir to the throne, dy- 
 ing a suicide's death a few years ago ; his brother, 
 Maximilian, who, if living, would now be the heir 
 
168 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 to the crown, shot by the Mexicans, after fool- 
 ishly accepting the bauble of becoming emperor 
 over that hostile and alien people. No one can 
 envy Francis Joseph his imperial honors. All 
 the gaudy trappings and pomp of royalty can- 
 not soothe the sad echoes in his heart of the tragic 
 fate which has followed him with demoniac fury. 
 The political storms of his earlier reign have 
 abated; and he is now very popular; the one 
 thread that holds together the discordant elements 
 of the Empire of Austria-Hungary. 
 
 The Danube has been immortalized in poetry 
 and song. " The beautiful blue Danube ;" 
 " That night in June along the Danube river ;" — 
 these phrases have a familiar ring. I regret to 
 be obliged to say that the day spent on a Danube 
 steamer running from Vienna to Budapest was 
 quite disappointing. I did not detect one tinge 
 of blue in the waters of the Danube. The first 
 half day's journey was through swamps and low- 
 lands ; in the last half there was a rolling country, 
 and at sunset a beautiful light playing over the 
 Hungarian hiUs. It was on the railroad ride in 
 the return to Vienna that we caught a distant 
 view of the snow-capped Carpathian mountains. 
 
 BUDAPEST. 
 
 Budapest, the capital of Hungary, is now a 
 city of 900,000 people. It lies on both banks 
 
GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN CITIES 159 
 
 of the Danube ; — Buda on the east and hilly side ; 
 Pest on the west and flat side. Formerly two 
 cities, they are now one municipal corporation. 
 The greater part of the population is on the Pest 
 side. The city is one of those European capitals 
 which a tourist wishes to visit more than once. 
 Like Kyoto, Cairo, Peking and Moscow, it has 
 a certain indefinable charm ; something out of the 
 common. This is true of Budapest, although it 
 has adopted modern methods of administration 
 and applied them to a degree which makes it 
 almost a model city. It is said that the sewerage 
 system of reconstructed San Francisco was mod- 
 eled after that of Budapest. 
 
 Hungary is connected with Austria by a loose 
 tie, and is restless even as things are. In terri- 
 tory it is larger than Austria; in population it 
 is less ; Hungary having about 22,000,000 and 
 Austria 28,000,000. Each has a separate parlia- 
 ment ; the empire has no imperial legislative body. 
 One king, one premier, a common coinage, post- 
 age and army, these are about all the bonds of 
 union. The Austrian flag is scarcely seen in 
 Budapest; the German language is not on the 
 street or shop signs. Everything is Hungarian, 
 Magyar. The patriotism of Hungary is intense 
 and the national spirit is constantly rising. 
 What will happen when the aged emperor passes 
 away no one can foresee. A separate royal 
 palace, a parliamentary hall — both splendid 
 
160 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 structures — a distinct language and literature, 
 traditions and natural instincts do not make for 
 imperial unity. 
 
 In the noble park at Budapest there Is a statue 
 of Washington, contributed by Hungarians in 
 the United States, in recognition of the statues 
 of Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, in New 
 York and Cleveland. A splendid memorial to 
 Kossuth has just been erected in the cemetery at 
 Budapest; also one to Franz Deak, the Hun- 
 garian Liberal. 
 
 What the pictures of Verestchagin are to Rus- 
 sian art, so are those of Michael Munkacsy to 
 Hungary. His works are the central interest at 
 the Budapest National Gallery. His most popu- 
 lar work, " Christ Before Pilate," is in America, 
 the property of John Wanamaker. 
 
 The parks in Budapest are crowded with music- 
 loving people, in the afternoons and evenings. 
 At the City park, one of the finest in Europe, we 
 heard a popular gipsy band, but the gipsies were 
 dressed in very conventional costumes, swallow- 
 tail coats and low-cut vests. They are said to 
 be natural musicians, playing by ear. 
 
 PRAGUE. 
 
 From Budapest we went by rail to Prague, the 
 ancient capital of Bohemia, one of those cities 
 where modem activities are blended with a remote 
 and intensely interesting past, the theater of 
 
GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN CITIES 161 
 
 many bloody incidents of the Thirty Years' war, 
 which drenched Germany in blood; where John 
 Huss, the martyr to Protestantism, once lived and 
 preached. In Bohemia, the Reformation went 
 down before fierce fire and sword. Huss was 
 burned at the stake and twenty-seven of the Prot- 
 estant leaders were beheaded at Prague; and 
 Bohemia swung back to Catholicism, and there 
 it has remained. To-day there are only three 
 Protestant churches in Prague, with 62 Catholic 
 churches, and 27 Jewish synagogues. Yet a 
 monument to Huss is to be erected in Prague, 
 and a strong liberal element, at least in politics, 
 is found among the Catholics. The city abounds 
 in nunneries and monasteries ; in many vestiges of 
 the Middle Ages; it has an industrious, mechan- 
 ical and orderly population. Bohemia is largely 
 interested in the manufacture of beet sugar. Bo- 
 hemian glass is world-renowned. 
 
 In cities like Prague, Vienna, Leipzig, Ham- 
 burg, Nuremburg, Bremen and Dresden, and 
 many others in Germany, one is surprised to learn 
 how recent their development has been. The few 
 mementos of their past glory are sacredly pre- 
 served. These ancient cities have moved into 
 modem methods with a wonderful flexibility and 
 have had a new birth. Proud of their past, their 
 citizens are still prouder of the present. There 
 has been no withering of their power ; no abate- 
 ment of their force. They are willing to try 
 
162 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 what are called socialistic experiments, from which 
 American cities shrink. Politics seem happily to 
 be divorced from municipal administration. The 
 scientific spirit of the age is expressed in every 
 avenue of government. The Germanic sense of 
 art ministers to the embellishment of the cities. 
 
 The magnificent Allster basin in Hamburg, 
 with its noble waterscape, its stately trees, ex- 
 quisite parks, and rows of houses set with math- 
 ematical precision in such lines or circles as the 
 municipal ordinances require, is one of the hap- 
 piest illustrations of what science can do when 
 applied to administration. Hamburg has a long 
 history; but the Hamburg of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury is dead; the present Hamburg, brilliant, 
 clean, guarding its water-front as its priceless 
 jewel, has become the chief focus of G«rman com- 
 merce ; inferior in tonnage only to London, Liver- 
 pool and New York. 
 
 So, in a lesser degree, of dignified old Bremen. 
 It has more ear-marks of the past than Hamburg. 
 There relics of by-gone years make an appeal 
 to the sentiment of the tourist; but it is the Bre- 
 men of to-day, with all its splendid municipal 
 equipment, its great parks, its fine streets, and 
 almost every accessory of " creature-comforts," in 
 which the Bremener of to-day is mostly inter- 
 ested. It keeps its Cathedral and Rathaus ; but 
 its people have preserved more than a mere tnagm 
 nomirm umbra, the shadow of a great name. 
 
XI 
 
 EGYPT 
 
 " And Morning opes with haste her lids 
 To gaze upon the Pyramids," 
 
 — Emerson : — " The Problem." 
 
 We often hear that this world we live on, which 
 Shakespeare calls " this huge rondure," is small ; 
 that our modem life is fast bringing the nations 
 of the world together into closer community of 
 thought and action; that although, as Kiphng 
 
 " Oh, east is east, and west is west. 
 And never the twain shall meet," 
 
 the East and West are meeting. But this state- 
 ment is only relatively true. A journey in the 
 Orient soon convinces the tourist of two great 
 facts, — the enormous diversity and yet the es- 
 sential oneness of humanity. 
 
 Egypt, Palestine, Greece, what magic is in 
 these words ! What a spell of antiquity, what a 
 charm of mystery, brood over them! Neither 
 country is large. Egypt, the child of the Nile, 
 is 400,000 square miles in area, yet so much of 
 this territory is covered by the immeasurable Lib- 
 yan deserts, with their glooming silences, awful 
 163 
 
164. A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 mysteries and starved life, that the arable portion 
 is hardly greater than the state of Connecticut. 
 Without the Nile, all of Egypt would soon return 
 to irreclaimable desert. It is the wash and slime 
 of that great river, fed by the snows and rains 
 of Abyssinia, pouring down through the moun- 
 tain fastnesses of the Blue and White Nile, com- 
 ing into the desert at Khartoum, and percolating 
 down to the delta at its mouth in the Mediter- 
 ranean, which gives to this ancient country all of 
 its industrial vigor and vitality. 
 
 Is Egypt interesting? Intensely, almost in- 
 comparably so. It is a coimtry whose history 
 runs into the unfathomable mists of antiquity; 
 to unknown ages whose history is lost ; to extinct 
 races whose influence on the world seems as slight 
 as that of " snow upon the desert's dusty face." 
 A low, flat country, the coast of which is hardly 
 discernible from the sea until you land upon it; 
 a land of few natural resources except the agri- 
 cultural products gleaned from the vivified slime 
 of the Nile ; a land whose people are as strangely 
 mysterious as its physical qualities. In Egypt 
 have been played some of the most interesting 
 dramas of human life. Its authenticated history 
 certainly runs back from seven to ten thousand 
 years. But education, government, social order, 
 property rights, art, architecture, literature, do 
 not come to any of the children of men by a 
 flash of insight. They are developed under bio- 
 logical laws, little by little, " as the thoughts of 
 
EGYPT 165 
 
 men are widened with the process of the suns." 
 So back of historical Egypt must be many thou- 
 sands of years of an unknown Egypt, during 
 which men wrestled with natural laws and step by 
 step emerged from barbarism into civilization. 
 No wonder that the scientist, antiquarian, archae- 
 ologist and philologist go to Egypt for the origin 
 of things, to try to find under its fleckless skies 
 and dry atmosphere the vestiges of races and in- 
 stitutions which are no longer known even by 
 name. 
 
 The first impression which a tourist from Amer- 
 ica receives on landing in Egypt is its utter dis- 
 similarity from our strenuous Western life. The 
 palm, the ohve, the burnouses, gaberdines, flowing 
 tunics, the swarthy faces of the nomadic children 
 of the desert, with their glittering black eyes, 
 coal-black hair, shining white teeth, erect, sinewy 
 forms, take the place of our ordinary externals 
 of civilization and social life. The Greeks of 
 old called the Egyptians children of the sun. So 
 they were and so they are now, just as Herodotus, 
 the father of history, found them. It is largely 
 only in Cairo and Alexandria, where there is a 
 confluence of occidental and oriental life, that 
 we find the accessories of what we call civilization. 
 The fellaheen, or peasantry of Egypt, are the 
 same patient, passive, unreadable human beings 
 as they were under Pharaoh and Joseph. Their 
 methods of handicraft and of farming are just 
 
166 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 as crude and primitive. They pump the water 
 from the Nile, they plow the fields, in the same 
 manner as when the tribes of Israel fled into the 
 wilderness and when the Persian legions of King 
 Cambyses overran the land in destructive war. 
 Great cities like Thebes and Memphis and Kamak 
 have been utterly wiped out. A few tombs, mural 
 monuments, the ruins of some temples, the mag- 
 nitude of which surpasses everything known in 
 architecture, are all that are left of these wonder- 
 ful cities, once the home of myriads of people 
 and the center of a highly specialized civihzation. 
 The character of the fellaheen is practically un- 
 changed. Their spirit has bowed to countless 
 centuries of oppression ; they have been too long 
 the pawns of insolent kings' autocratic power 
 to learn the art of self government except under 
 a long tutelage. Within fifty years the Egyp- 
 tian peasants, to the number of many thousands, 
 have been subjected to the corvee, or enforced 
 labor, by their kings, and have yielded up their 
 lives by thousands and thousands in unpaid service 
 in developing canals and national improvements. 
 A dragoman said to me in driving by the 
 palace of the Khedive in Cairo : " He cannot 
 make me work for him without pay, for board 
 and lodging, as my father had to when a young 
 man. England has stopped that. If we work 
 for him now we get our pay." And in truth it 
 should be said that the present Khedive is an en- 
 lightened ruler, of modern views, a monogamist. 
 
EGYPT 167 
 
 living with one wife, well educated, and govern- 
 ing as wisely and justly as he knows how. 
 Everyone speaks well of him. In looking into 
 his manly, intelligent face, as he rode by one day 
 in the street, I thought he compared well with any 
 ruler I ever had seen. 
 
 Egypt is under the suzerainty of Turkey, and 
 pays a large annual tribute to the Sultan, in 
 return for which it is guaranteed mihtary pro- 
 tection. Within thirty years the Sultan of Tur- 
 key, under pressure from England, Germany and 
 France, deposed Ismail Pasha, whose extrava- 
 gance had almost ruined Egypt, and appointed 
 his successor, the father of the present Khedive. 
 The power of the Khedive is largely nominal. 
 Egypt really is governed by England, and its 
 finances are under control of a joint commission 
 of several European countries ; while the rights of 
 foreigners are protected by a court of first in- 
 stance, composed of judges recommended by 
 their countries and appointed by the Khedive. 
 
 Egypt has two large cities, Alexandria and 
 Cairo. The former is essentially a Greek city. 
 It bears the mighty name of the great Macedo- 
 nian conqueror who founded it. This remarkable 
 man saw with unerring judgment that here on 
 the delta of the Nile was the site for a great city, 
 and he built one and gave it his name. His 
 early death checked his plans for its development, 
 
168 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 and in the anarchy which followed Alexandria 
 suffered eclipse. Under the Ptolemies, a Mace- 
 donian family under whose royal dynasty Egypt 
 was governed for several hundred years, Alex- 
 andria had a checkered history, but fell into a 
 low estate after the Saracenic conquest, and was 
 almost wiped out. But under the new industrial 
 life of Egypt it has sprung into a new growth, 
 and now has some 250,000 people. It has little 
 of historic charm, and few memorials of ancient 
 Egyptian glory. It is a thoroughly modem city, 
 where the Greeks and Armenians exercise their 
 subtle powers of trade and banking, and often 
 accumulate great fortunes. The lighthouse of 
 Pharos, not the ancient structure, which was one 
 of the seven wonders of the world, long since sup- 
 planted by one of modern architecture, flashing 
 upon the blue Mediterranean from the tawny 
 sands of the low shore, is a first reminder to 
 the tourist that he is approaching the land of 
 the Pharaohs. No tourist stays long in Alex- 
 andria; it is no place for seekers after pleasure 
 and novelty. The only other considerable place 
 on the coast is Port Said, located at the mouth 
 of the Suez Canal, a town of fungus growth 
 with a motley population and uninteresting, 
 largely of beach-combers. 
 
 It is on the sands of the shore of Lake Meoris, 
 once a great body of water developed under the 
 ancient kings but now shrunk to only a small 
 
EGYPT 169 
 
 proportion of its former size, that Oxyrhynchus 
 is located, where archaeologists have discovered the 
 papyri and manuscripts of ancient Greek and 
 Roman writings and many memorials of ancient 
 Egyptian history, which have been of great value 
 in connecting our own life with the shadowy past. 
 It should be said right here that it was the quix- 
 otic Egyptian campaign of Napoleon, who 
 brought with him several French savants in 1798, 
 that renewed interest in Egyptian study and laid 
 the foundation for what is now called Egyptol- 
 ogy, which is the study of the ancient institutions 
 of this fascinating land. It was ChampoUion, a 
 young French scientist, who first was able to in- 
 terpret ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and who 
 led the way for the majestic march of students 
 of language and history, who have passed on from 
 knowledge to greater knowledge and have thrown 
 so much light on what Tennyson caUs " the eter- 
 nal landscape of the past." 
 
 Cairo is about five hours' ride from Alexandria, 
 through the garden of Egypt. As Alexandria 
 may be called a Greek city, Cairo may truly be 
 called an Arabian city. It is situated on both 
 banks of the Nile, on the hem of the Libyan des- 
 ert, surrounded by profound solitudes, and is one 
 of the most interesting cities in the world. Here 
 is a mighty confluence of almost every stream of 
 European and Asiatic life, from the coal-black 
 Ethiopian to the fair-haired Saxon. Cairo is the 
 
170 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 center of Egyptian life, the seat of government, 
 the heart of trade. Its streets swarm with a pan- 
 orama of human life which can be duplicated only 
 in places like Zanzibar, Singapore or Bombay. 
 The color of the city is of almost magical bril- 
 liancy. Here I had my first glimpse of an Ori- 
 ental civilization, except the Uttle that I saw in 
 Algiers. Here I first saw the minaret and heard 
 the muezzin call to prayer. Here I saw Moham- 
 medan women with their veiled faces and the lithe, 
 sinewy forms of the Bedouins with a majestic 
 walk that I never saw equalled by human beings, 
 clothed in a variety of color. Here are long pro- 
 cessions of camels, patient burden bearers, — I 
 say patient although the camel's snarling yelp 
 voices his indignation at the burdens cast upon 
 him, — called in the East the locomotive of the 
 desert. Here we heard the braying donkey, pres- 
 ent everywhere, like the camel a burden-bearer, 
 often underfed and too often used with merciless 
 cruelty. 
 
 The streets of Cairo are picturesque in the ex- 
 treme, with their swarms of piebald humanity, 
 women carrying jars of water on their heads, 
 peddlers, money changers, mendicants, cripples, 
 flower sellers, picture dealers, old and young, and, 
 alas, only too often disfigured by the sad faces of 
 the blind. Blindness is the physical curse of 
 Egypt. It is said that when the beneficent ad- 
 ministration of Lord Cromer began, whose work 
 
EGYPT 171 
 
 has been one of the glories of English statesman- 
 ship, more than half of the Egyptians were suffer- 
 ing more or less acutely from ophthalmic trou- 
 bles. This physical curse arose principally from 
 the neglect of children in their early infancy, the 
 prevalence of vermin and insects, and the igno- 
 rant unwillingness of the natives to adopt a modern 
 sanitation. Now, however, asylums for the blind 
 have been established all over Egypt, better care 
 is taken of infants, and the percentage is con- 
 stantly lessening. 
 
 What shall I say of our trip up the Nile, from 
 Cairo to Assouan, the first cataract.'' After 
 spending a few days in Cairo, we took the steamer 
 Victoria of the Hamburg Anglo-American Line, 
 and with a considerable party of tourists, most of 
 whom were Germans, French and Enghsh, we had 
 two weeks of most delightful experiences. The 
 winter season in Egypt is one of marvelous per- 
 fection of climate, fleckless skies, brilliant atmos- 
 phere, orange-red sunsets, the glory and silences 
 of the incommunicable deserts, restful, calming, 
 seductive. One knows little of the real Egypt 
 unless one takes the Nile tour. From the pyra- 
 mids of Gizeh and Sakkarah to the great dam at 
 Assouan, a Nile excursion carries one through 
 one of the most profoundly interesting and his- 
 toric regions of the world. Here one touches the 
 mysterious presence and speaking silences of the 
 Egypt of Menes, Rameses and the Pharaohs. 
 
172 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 One treads the arid sands where once great cities 
 teeming with thousands of people were situated, — 
 Memphis, Thebes, Karnak, now existing only in 
 the form of a few ruins, hardly more than names. 
 On this excursion one . sees the stupendous ruins 
 of statues, sphinxes, temples built when England 
 was a howUng wilderness, centuries before imperial 
 Rome was founded, before Abraham entered Pal- 
 estine from Mesopotamia, before the Greek civi- 
 lization had developed its wondrous beauty and 
 art, and almost before organized government was 
 known except in India, China and perhaps on the 
 banks of the Euphrates and Tigris, No one 
 knows exactly how the pyramids were built or in 
 what way the granite or sienite was brought from 
 Assouan to be moulded into architectural beauty, 
 or what tools were used in the manipulation of the 
 stone. 
 
 The hieroglyphs and cartouches, and now and 
 then some papyri, exhumed from the dreamy past, 
 tell us something of the magnificence and gran- 
 deur of the kingdoms of upper and lower Egypt, 
 — of wars, invasions and conquests. Better still, a 
 few books which have been saved in the wreckage 
 of time tell us that the Egyptians had high con- 
 ceptions of morality, lived under a system of laws, 
 had learned to protect property rights, had con- 
 ceived a notion of immortality and in many ways 
 had an enlightened view of government and order. 
 If their worship of crocodiles and cow-headed 
 gods was tinged with fetichism, if their visions of 
 
EGYPT 173 
 
 the divine were elemental and imperfect, these were 
 only stages of evolutionary growth, necessary 
 steps in the progress of the human mind. If 
 Greece gave to the world an almost supernal sense 
 of beauty, literature and art; if Judea gave the 
 richer gift of spirituality ; if Rome, a younger 
 child of civilization, excelled in administrative 
 power and orderly government ; out of the burn- 
 ing sands and gloomy deserts of Egypt came a 
 mighty effort to teach the supremacy of man over 
 nature and to strive after the continuity and per- 
 manence of things. Of course the Egyptian ef- 
 fort failed, for nothing physical is permanent. 
 The richly embellished tombs of monarchs, war- 
 riors and statesmen, the solemn temples, the rows 
 of sphinxes, the ghastly mummy, embalmed to 
 resist the ravages of decay and often enclosed in 
 splendid sarcophagi, the subterranean tombs with 
 their deposits of jewels and art, must all yield to 
 the tooth of time. Yet a wondrous charm rests 
 upon these memorials of a forgotten past. The 
 instinct which prompted their lavish expenditure 
 was nobly uplifting. Man can conquer physical 
 forces only by obeying them, not by defying 
 them. He can no more evade physical than he 
 can moral laws. Little did the proud builders of 
 pyramid and tomb realize that thousands of years 
 after they had passed into the eternal silences, the 
 work of their hands would be interesting only to 
 the curious tourist and as subjects of antiquarian 
 research. Though dead, they speak, and their 
 
174 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 voice is a counsel to obedience to moral and phys- 
 ical law, teaching the supremacy of the spiritual 
 over the physical. 
 
 Of the 9,500,000 people in Egypt 9,000,000 
 are Mohammedans. Yet in the early history of 
 the Christian church Egypt and northern Africa 
 were the seats of some of the most famous bishops. 
 Christianity, however, as taught in primitive 
 forms, offered metaphysical puzzles to the Semitic 
 mind, and the wave of Mohammedan monotheism 
 washed over North Africa and absorbed in its fold 
 almost all the people. The Copts, who number 
 about 500,000, and who are said to be the purest 
 descendants of the ancient Egyptians, have an 
 ancient, but impure and superstitious, form of 
 Christian worship. 
 
 Christian missions are doing great work in 
 Egypt in educating the children and teaching 
 dignity to womanhood. It is through women, if 
 in any way, that Mohammedan civilization must 
 be advanced. The view of women held by Ori- 
 entals is much lower than that held by Christians. 
 I did not hear in Egypt or in Turkey of any 
 considerable number of Mohammedans becoming 
 Christians ; in fact, I was informed by missionaries 
 that such is not the fact ; but no one can study the 
 present condition of these countries without seeing 
 how beneficent and uplifting the work of Chris- 
 tian missions is, in educating, in giving higher 
 
EGYPT 175 
 
 moral standards, in enforcing sanitation and in 
 a general influence that make everywhere for good. 
 Schools, hospitals, asylums, orphanages, soon fol- 
 low in the wake of missions. 
 
 Mohammedanism is stiU a powerful religious 
 agency and has unquestionably done a great work 
 in lifting barbarous nations out of fetichism, idol- 
 atry and human sacrifices. But the nations that 
 have embraced it are of arrested development. 
 It has apparently passed beyond its militant stage, 
 and where it supplants Christianity the move- 
 ment has been retrograde. It is the religion of 
 children of the desert and of the wild. Its 
 mosques are often exceedingly attractive in their 
 architecture, severe, simple, with no ritual or or- 
 naments, full of haunting silences. One is often 
 impressed with the deep sincerity and the moral 
 earnestness of the Mohammedan believer. Of 
 course, the faith has its awful side of fanaticism 
 and bigotry ; it is a very imperfect vision of the 
 moral law; but its force is by no means spent. 
 Unfortunately it is making many converts in 
 Africa among the wild tribes, perhaps largely 
 from its allowance of polygamy. If these conr- 
 versions mean the reclaiming of these tribes from 
 crude idolatry, to be followed by further advance 
 into ptire Christianity, the movement is benefi- 
 cent ; but if it means the arresting of the spiritual 
 and moral advance of these tribes, the movement is 
 deeply regrettable. 
 
176 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 The great Moslem University in Cairo, which 
 perhaps has the largest number of students of 
 all the universities in the world, and to which 
 they throng from every Moslem county, is a 
 most interesting sight. Here are students ranging 
 from childhood to old age, whose principal and 
 even sole study is the Koran. To one educated 
 in a modem university the whole thing seemed 
 childishly naive and primitive. The one redeem- 
 ing fact was that I knew the students were in- 
 tensely sincere. The range of instruction is ex- 
 ceedingly narrow. The scientific spirit has not 
 penetrated its gray walls. The only severe train- 
 ing seems to be that of the memory. I was told 
 that some of the students can recite the entire 
 Koran by heart. The Oriental mind moves slowly 
 in accepting new forces. To recite certain pray- 
 ers, to perform a ritual of devotion, to learn to 
 despise other nations, to wrap oneself in a pan- 
 oply of bigotry, to padlock the mind and shut out 
 every wave of inspiration that comes from contact 
 with a more enlightened thought, to rest where 
 the minds of their fathers rested, to attain to a 
 miserable self-sufficiency, seems to be the general 
 Moslem conception of education. Thus the in- 
 tellect is stunted, stifled, impoverished, cramped. 
 
 In the hour of sunset, when silence broods over 
 the desert, and all nature seems to be falling into 
 a profound sleep, when one sees the Bedouin 
 wanderer fall upon his knees, turn his face to the 
 
EGYPT 177 
 
 east and bow his head in fervent prayer, we may 
 call the act mechanical, we may know the primi- 
 tive simplicity of his thoughts, we may fear that 
 deep in his heart, are the embers of a smouldering 
 fanaticism and an intolerant bigotry which may 
 flame into awful excesses; yet one cannot fail to 
 be impressed with the solemn devotion and the 
 thought that the one who kneels believes himself 
 to be in the presence of the Infinite. The igno- 
 rant soul, dimly conscious of its immortal her- 
 itage, reaches up to the Source of Light. Kip- 
 ling's beautiful lines occur to me: 
 
 " My brother kneels (so saith Kabir) 
 To brass or stone in heathenwise; 
 But in my brother's voice I hear 
 My own unuttered agonies. 
 His faith is as his fates assign; 
 His prayer is aU the world's and mine." 
 
XII 
 
 EGYPT: ANOTHER VIEW 
 
 " Virtue alone outlives the Pyramids: 
 Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall." 
 — Young: —" Night Thoughts." 
 
 Egypt is so fascinating a country that it is 
 hard for one who is still under its halo to get 
 away from it in memory and interest. Any at- 
 tempt to describe modern Egypt would be 
 strangely incomplete unless some reference were 
 made to the vast irrigation processes, in the form 
 of dams across the Nile, which are not only trans- 
 forming the industrial life of Egypt, but which 
 in the final result may seriously aflFect its climate. 
 One of the popular phrases about Egypt is to 
 say that " Egypt is the Nile, and the Nile is 
 Egypt." This is almost literally true. This 
 great river has been throughout aU ages the 
 source from which the agriculture of the country 
 has been developed. Centuries and centuries ago, 
 the enhghtened rulers of Egypt realized the tre- 
 mendous importance of the river, studied its in- 
 fluence upon agriculture, watched its recurrent 
 ebb and flow and made rude attempts to develop 
 the water supply. Near Cairo, on the island of 
 Rhoda, is an ancient Nilometer, or gauge of the 
 rise and fall of the river. A similar Nilometer 
 
 178 
 
EGYPT: ANOTHER VIEW 179 
 
 was established on the isle of Elephantine, near 
 Assouan, which can now be seen. This was lo- 
 cated near the first cataract. There was also 
 another farther up the river, between Assouan 
 and Khartoum. But it remained for the Eng- 
 lish to bring modem science and intricate mechan- 
 ical processes to bear upon this aU-important 
 question. It is known that Napoleon Bonaparte, 
 more than one hundred years ago, while in Egypt, 
 gave serious study to this problem and would 
 have developed the water resources of Egypt, had 
 his occupation of the country not been inter- 
 rupted by the interference of the English and 
 his recall to France. 
 
 Without going into detail, I can only say that 
 there are now two great dams, or " barrages," 
 to use the popular French term, across the Nile ; 
 one near Ayesut and the other at the first cataract 
 near Assouan, the ancient Siene. Let me add 
 right here that all of the granite or rather sienite 
 (the last term being derived from the jiame Siene) 
 which the ancient Egyptians used in building their 
 temples, tombs, pyramids and statues, came from 
 Siene. In fact, one can see now in the Assouan 
 quarries an unfinished block of sienite, the work 
 on which was interrupted from some unknown 
 cause, which was evidently intended for some gi- 
 gantic monolithic structure, either a piUar or a 
 temple, an obelisk or a statue. Probably these 
 immense blocks of stone were floated down the 
 Nile on rafts. 
 
180 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 The Assouan dam is a gigantL and magnificent 
 structure. It is about a mile and a third in 
 length and in some places more than seventy feet 
 high. It has absorbed the first cataract, and 
 through its great stone arches gurgle, foam and 
 spume vast sheets of spray, making a miniature 
 Niagara. This dam was constructed by English 
 engineers, at an expense of many million dollars, 
 and the mechanical work was done by a firm of 
 Scotch contractors who received no pay until the 
 work was finished, although the process required 
 some ten years before its final completion. Its 
 efi'ect upon Egypt is almost startling in its in- 
 dustrial results. By it one hundred and fifty 
 miles of the territory adjacent to the southern Nile 
 have been flooded and the farm lands of Egypt 
 have been increased by a territory twice as large 
 as the State of Rhode Island. By its means a 
 vast amount of slimy deposit, full of nitrogenous 
 elements, rich in fertilizing qualities, is transmit- 
 ted to lower Egypt, and thus new land has been 
 brought under agriculture, which has been a 
 source of great wealth to the country, as the 
 government sells it at a high price. Generous 
 crops, sometimes two and three a year, are raised 
 almost as by magic on land which a few years 
 ago was dusty, arid, juiceless desert. In this 
 way the land about the delta of the Nile has been 
 converted into great cotton fields. The govern- 
 ment has wisely prohibited the raising of tobacco, 
 as being too exhaustive of the soil. So all of 
 
EGYPT: ANOTHER VIEW 181 
 
 the far-famed Egyptian cigarettes, which bring 
 an exceptionally high price in Europe, are man- 
 ufactured from tobacco raised in Turkey and im- 
 ported into Egypt. The Egyptians, like most 
 Orientals, are inveterate smokers, many of them 
 using the hookahs, or phenomenally long pipes, 
 which they suck as complacently as a phlegmatic 
 Dutchman on the sands of the Holland coast. 
 Another article of which the Egyptians are in- 
 tensely fond is sugar-cane. Nothing is more com- 
 mon than to see men and boys walking through 
 the streets, sucking the saccharine matter from a 
 stick sometimes several feet long. 
 
 Fortimately for the Egyptians and for the 
 world, the Mohammedan law forbids the use of 
 intoxicating liquor. No true Mussulman drinks 
 anjrthing that contains an alcoholic ingredient. 
 If the fire-water of the western nations should 
 ever come into common use among these warm- 
 blooded children of the sun, they would melt 
 away as rapidly as did the North American In- 
 dian tribes when alcoholic poison became their 
 bane. The Egyptian government also forbids 
 the importation of hasheesh, although it is said 
 that some of it is smuggled in by unscrupulous 
 dealers. 
 
 I have alluded of the noble bearing and ma- 
 jestic walk of the Bedouin Arab. Every tourist 
 notices this. There is a certain air of defiance 
 
182 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 and conscious dignity about them, as if they 
 'were saying, " We are no conquered race." An- 
 other noticeable fact is the remarkably white and 
 perfect teeth many of them have. I asked a 
 young dragoman, who had as fine a set of teeth 
 as I ever saw in a human body, how he ac- 
 counted for the fact of his race having such ex- 
 ceptionally fine teeth. He looked at me, rolling 
 his lustrous, black eyes, and said most seriously, 
 *' God gave to us Arabs clean teeth." 
 
 One unfortunate element in Egyptian, and in, 
 fact almost all eastern Mediterranean life, is, 
 that, owing to the precociousness of children and 
 ridiculously early marriages, there seems to be 
 little of what we call youth. I cannot speak of 
 ihe women, for the suppression of the female sex 
 is so complete in Mohammedan civiUzations, that 
 ■a tourist sees nothing of women, except a 
 muffled form and veiled face, and now and then 
 the haggard, prematurely old, features of a girl- 
 wife, over-worked, crushed, ignorant, almost a 
 liuman derelict; — but at fifteen or sixteen the 
 intellectual life among boys seems to be arrested. 
 They have old heads on young shoulders. There 
 seems to be little of that spring, joyousness, 
 freshness, elasticity, which we associate with 
 liealthy young manhood. The suppression of 
 youthful impulses, or rather the merging of such 
 impulses into a stagnant manhood, is deplorable. 
 An English physician, who has lived in Europe 
 
EGYPT: ANOTHER VIEW 183 
 
 many years, and who has had a large practice 
 in native families, told me that few of the native 
 Egyptians lived beyond fifty years. This is the 
 result of the violation of sanitary laws, of forcing 
 youth into manhood, of cutting out the health- 
 ful buoyant sports which generate toughness and 
 powers of endurance, and often of gross sensual 
 excesses which are part of their social condition. 
 Yet, while the Arab-Egyptian does live, his life 
 is intense. A child of the desert, following the 
 nomadic instincts which have been transmitted 
 from countless generations ; believing that he and 
 his race are vmder the special protection of Allah ; 
 literally observing the precepts of that religion 
 as to fasting and prayer; unwilling to enrich 
 his life by adopting scientific methods and the 
 intellectual increment of modern^ civilization, — 
 he too often begins married life at sixteen or 
 seventeen, flits across the stage of human ex- 
 istence for twenty or thirty years more, then 
 bows to the decrees of fate, accepts the inevitable, 
 believing that all things are directed by the God 
 of his fathers, and ends a short life too often most 
 painfully ineffective. 
 
 The Arab-Egyptian, as I have said, in his 
 way Is intensely religious. A certain lethargic 
 fatalism is associated with his life. Cairo and 
 all Mohammedan cities are full of mosques ; some 
 shabby, dirty, some beautiful in architecture and 
 imposing in the sublimity of their vast spaces 
 
184 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 and profound silences. They are always open 
 for prayer. Go into one of them when you will 
 and you will find men, — for no woman is allowed 
 the enter the mosque ; she has no soul, or rather, 
 at her death what little flicker of a soul she has 
 is absorbed in that of her husband, — and there 
 you wiU find the prostrate worshippers. A Mos- 
 lem removes his shoes on entering; — (Christians 
 are supplied with slippers when they go into a 
 mosque), — turns his head to the right and the 
 left, in order to propitiate or avert the friendly 
 or unfriendly spirits, who are called ginns or 
 genii, then kneels to the east and bows his head 
 in prayer. Christians are not allowed to attend 
 the formal service on Friday, which is the sacred 
 day among the Moslems. I was told that few 
 sermons were preached, although once in a while 
 a sheik wiU go into a raised pulpit and preach 
 a sermon. A friend of mine, who is familiar with 
 Moslem customs, told me that he once secured 
 admission to a mosque at a preaching service, 
 and that the sheik preached a sermon of almost 
 fearful intensity of moral fervor. My friend 
 understood the Arabian language. He said the 
 sermon had the intensity of the most fervid ex- 
 hortation in a Methodist church ; that the preacher 
 lashed the people for their sins, and seemed to be 
 an earnest friend of righteousness. 
 
 In his ordinary intercourse with strangers the 
 Arab-Egyptian is courteous and kindly. In fact, 
 the young men are notably so. Yet a nether 
 
EGYPT: ANOTHER VIEW 185 
 
 fire of fanaticism may glow in their hearts, which 
 can be flamed into a terrible heat when an ap- 
 peal is made to their superstitions. It will take 
 generations of association and the most consid- 
 erate treatment from foreigners to have the Mo- 
 hammedan world adopt the principle of religious 
 toleration. It is said to be a part of their law 
 that any Moslem who changes his religion is 
 liable to the death penalty. 
 
 A few words as to the climate of Egypt. As 
 thousands of tourists visit it every year, a large 
 part of whom are Americans, this is surely an 
 important matter. The summers are intensely 
 hot, and no stranger should go there at that 
 season. The Nile begins to rise in April, and 
 just as fast as it recedes, the crops are planted 
 and ripen rapidly. In winter the Egyptian cli- 
 mate, at least such was my experience, is on the 
 whole delightful. Rainless, dry, with an atmos- 
 phere of crystal translucence, with magical color 
 effects, the days are full of splendor and light. 
 The sunsets are often of gorgeous magnificence. 
 On our Nile tour the color sometimes was so 
 vividly brilliant, passing from a pale opal, then 
 into orange and often bursting into scarlet or 
 red, that it seemed almost uncanny. Then all 
 at once a dense darkness would settle upon the 
 deserts. It seemed as if all the candles of the 
 firmament and all the rays of light emitted from 
 the sun had been quenched with absolute black- 
 
186 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 ness; until later on the stars would wheel into 
 sight, sparkling in the dry, clear air and the 
 sky would become one mosaic of stellar light. 
 The nights are cool, and the tourist should never 
 fail to wear reasonably thick flannels as a pro- 
 tection from the chiU winds which sweep over the 
 desert. The most uncomfortable thing is the 
 sand storm. In the railroad ride from Assouan 
 to Cairo or from Cairo to Port Said, the windows 
 are kept closed; otherwise the car would be filled 
 with sand. So it is generally better to make the 
 journey of nearly six hundred miles one way at 
 least, by steamer, if one can spare the time. 
 
 Nothing can be more primitive, nothing more 
 squalid, than the home of the Egyptian fellaheen, 
 or peasant farmer. Egypt has many rich men, 
 who live in superb palaces ; but the common people 
 are miserably poor. In years past taxation has 
 been robbery. There was little encouragement 
 for honest industry and thrift, when the tax- 
 gatherer of a corrupt, dishonest, rapacious gov- 
 ernment would seize practically all of a man's 
 harvest. Even now in spite of the beneficent 
 administration of the English and the fact that 
 the national credit is so well assured that the 
 debt has been refunded at a normal rate of in- 
 terest, taxation is heavy. Turkey receives an 
 annual tribute of three and a half millions of 
 doUars. The Khedive receives a salary of $500,- 
 000 a year and also has an allowance of $500,- 
 
EGYPT: ANOTHER VIEW 18T 
 
 000 more for the support of his family of rela- 
 tives. When we add to this the nineteen and 
 one-half million dollars paid annually for interest 
 on the national debt, the salaries of the hordes 
 of officials, of the extra-territorial courts, and 
 of the English officers and army of occupation, 
 one can easily see why taxation necessarily 
 is high. Nothing but the amazing fertility of 
 the soil, that is, of the narrow ribbon of land, 
 which fledges the river bank of the Nile, saves 
 the country from bankruptcy. 
 
 One reason for the blotting out of Memphis,. 
 Thebes and the great cities of Egyptian an- 
 tiquity was the fact that the homes were built of 
 Nile mud, just as they are to-day. The Egyp- 
 tian being an out-door animal, his humble home 
 is simply a place to sleep in and for his family 
 to live in while he is away. The raising of doves; 
 and hens is a great industry, poultry being al- 
 most the only kind of flesh food which he eats,, 
 excepting occasionally mutton or goat flesh. 
 Egypt has no coal deposit. All coal used is 
 brought from Europe, principally from Wales, 
 and brings a very high price. Dry camel dung- 
 is a fuel used by the poor. Every faggot and 
 stick of wood is preserved. Even the hotels are 
 scarcely heated, although Cairo has many of the 
 finest hotels which a tourist can find. It is the 
 high price of coal which is largely responsible 
 for the cost of railroad travel and the Nile tour. 
 
188 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 However, an Egyptian tour is not necessarily 
 a very expensive one. There are abundant board- 
 ing houses where one can find accommodations 
 at reasonable cost and hotel charges are no higher 
 than they are in Europe. Most of the hotels 
 seem to be kept by Germans, Swiss or Greeks, and 
 they are all good hotel-keepers. 
 
 Indeed, the Nile trip, if one wishes to consult 
 economy, can be taken at a moderate expense. 
 The pyramids of Cheops, Cephrenes, and My- 
 cerinus, with the world-renowned Sphinx, are at 
 Gizeh, only a few miles from Cairo, and can 
 be reached by street cars. If one can resist the 
 importunate clamor for baksheesh, or gifts of 
 money, from mendicants, fakirs and the equally 
 rapacious assaults of peddlers who try to 
 sell you scarabs, postal cards and trinkets, the 
 journey is a very pleasant one. Near these 
 pyramids is the Mena Park and hotel, a beautiful 
 place where every tourist is expected at least to 
 take tea once during his visit in Cairo. 
 
 And how impressive, how startlingly impres- 
 sive are those ancient monuments at Gizeh! I 
 never have seen the temples and monuments of 
 India, but so far as the work of human hands 
 is concerned, these monuments of the hoary past, 
 voicing the silence of centuries, telling of by- 
 gone days, extinct civilizations and modes and 
 forms which the world has outgrown, are ex- 
 ceedingly impressive. Many people fear that 
 
EGYPT: ANOTHER VIEW 189 
 
 the change in the climate of Egypt caused by 
 modern irrigation, will disintegrate all the splen- 
 did monuments of antiquity; for they were built 
 near the Nile. Already the noble ruins on the 
 island of Phylae, near Assouan, are about half 
 submerged, and as the Assouan dam is to be 
 raised some sixteen feet farther, it is only a 
 question of time when the visitor will find that 
 Phylae with its noble architecture, is wholly sub- 
 merged. Such is the penalty of civilization. It 
 is the dryness of climate and the rainless skies 
 of Egypt which have kept her priceless monu- 
 ments from erosion. 
 
 To recur to Gizeh, the Sphinx is already par- 
 tially disintegrated. This vast monument, when 
 buQt nobody knows, was for centuries embedded 
 in sand which preserved it and its base of lime- 
 stone from decay, but the havoc of time and the 
 brutal vandalism of soldiers who used the placid 
 face of the sphinx as a mark for gun-practice, 
 has greatly disfigured it. For many years people 
 puzzled themselves over the question, "What is 
 the meaning of the Sphinx.? " It was built near 
 the pyramid of Cheops, the latter being a mon- 
 ument to the king of that name, about four hun- 
 dred and fifty-one feet high. It has been said 
 that one hundred thousand men worked on the 
 building of this pyramid for twenty years, under 
 the goad of whip and lash, and without pay. 
 But even the colossal size of the pyramid of 
 
190 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 Cheops does not dwarf the Sphinx, a figure with 
 the head of a man and the body of an animal. 
 It used to be thought that the face was that of a 
 woman, but it is now known that the face was 
 formerly bearded, and that the beard has been 
 knocked off by vandalism or has crumbled through 
 decay. All will remember that when Napoleon's 
 French army was about to fight the Mameluke 
 Arabs, he pointed to the pyramids of Gizeh and 
 said, " Forty centuries look down upon you from 
 the pyramids." 
 
 The Pyramid of the Steps and the False Pyra- 
 mid, so-called, are at Sakkharha, a few miles from 
 Ghizeh. However, the most characteristic and 
 magnificent monuments of Egyptian art, that is, 
 in finer detail and more exquisite workmanship, 
 are in the temples of Kamak and Luxor and in 
 the valley of the Tombs of the Kings, at Thebes. 
 The splendid museum at Cairo, one of the finest 
 in the world, a purely national museum, rich in all 
 that pertains to Egyptian art and history, is full 
 of the jewels, ornaments, and equipments which 
 were deposited in these tombs. America has con- 
 tributed its full quota of expert archaeologists 
 who have studied the Egyptian hieroglyphics, 
 who have discovered tombs unknown for centuries, 
 and who have contributed very much to our 
 knowledge of the once-forgotten past. Many 
 of the memorials are in the British museum in 
 London and in the Louvre in Paris and other mu- 
 seums of Europe. Few obelisks are left in 
 
EGYPT: ANOTHER VIEW 191 
 
 Egypt. At the present time, none of the " finds " 
 can be taken from Egypt unless with the consent 
 of the government, and as new discoveries are 
 constantly made the Cairo museum becomes more 
 and more interesting. 
 
 Nothing shows the futility of human ambition, 
 and the uselessness of human pride, better than 
 to see the miunmies of proud, vainglorious, boast- 
 ful kings, which had lain for centuries, encased 
 in magnificent sarcophagi, in the most richly 
 embellished tombs the world has known, unknown 
 and unseen, in the most profound silences, now 
 rifled from their resting place, stripped of their 
 cerements and exposed to the view of idle sight- 
 seers. The walls of many of these superb tombs 
 are covered with vain inscriptions, telling of the 
 wealth, glory, pride and martial conquests, some- 
 times, indeed, of the cruel massacres perpetrated 
 by these kings in bloody wars, with the most 
 grandiose titles; often they built their tombs 
 before their death and scourged their helpless 
 subjects into paying for their extravagant folly, 
 — and now after many centuries they are simply 
 frail memories of an outgrown civilization, 
 ghastly relics of decaying flesh, voiceless wit- 
 nesses to what the Roman historian Tacitus 
 called the ludibria rerum mortalium, the mockery 
 of aU human things. 
 
 It was as hard to leave Egypt as it now is to 
 
192 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 stop writing about it. There is an old saying that 
 a man who has tasted of the waters of the Nile 
 will inexpressibly thirst for it forever. The land 
 of the pyramids and tombs and temples throws 
 a spell around every foreigner who goes to it. 
 The world has but one Egypt. Environed in its 
 sands, wasted by war, full of brooding solitudes 
 and desert, inhabited by strange folk, it has a 
 charm peculiarly its own. One who has seen an 
 Egyptian sunset can never forget it. One who 
 has come under the halo of its wondrous archi- 
 tecture can never escape from its influence. 
 
 We entered Egypt by way of Alexandria; 
 we left it by way of Port Said. The railroad 
 ride from Cairo to the latter place is of about 
 five hours, and is mainly through a trackless 
 desert ; but it gives one a sight of the Suez canal. 
 It seemed almost uncanny to see great steamships 
 puffing through the desert on this narrow conduit 
 of water. Of course the Suez canal was a won- 
 derful mechanical achievement, and yet it is no 
 new thing. Three thousand years ago, under 
 some of the Pharaohs, there was some sort of 
 canal which afterward fell into decay. Several 
 times attempts were made to pierce the desert 
 wastes and bring the Red Sea and the Mediter- 
 ranean into communication by its means. It re- 
 mained for the De Lesseps and French engineers 
 to undertake the work. The history of the canal 
 is unfortunately one of profligate expenditures, 
 waste and considerable corruption. It almost 
 
EGYPT: ANOTHER VIEW 193 
 
 bankrupted Egypt. A great part of its present 
 onerous national debt was thus incurred. It was 
 by the acquisition of the Khedive's interest in 
 this canal that England got the right to occupy 
 Egypt. The occupation was at first to be tem- 
 porary, and France assented to it on that condi- 
 tion ; but it has been so beneficial that its duration 
 is uncertain. The Egyptians chafe under it and 
 would be glad to have it cease. Egypt is not an 
 English colonial possession and Lord Cromer in 
 his recent book says it never should be. He 
 wisely takes the ground that it should be held 
 no longer than to teach the Egyptians self-gov- 
 ernment and to take their place in the family of 
 civilized nations. The English army of occupa- 
 tion is not large, only some five or six thousand 
 soldiers; but the force is extremely mobile, can 
 easily be transferred from place to place, and a 
 stranger would think that the army was five 
 times as large. We were present at a public drill 
 of the English army near Cairo, when it was 
 reviewed by the Duke of Connaught, a brother 
 of King Edward, commander-in-chief of the 
 English army. Tommy Atkins made a fine ap- 
 pearance; the English chaps wore khaki suits 
 and went through their manoeuvers, under the hot 
 Egyptian sun, with admirable precision. I met 
 some of them later in the day in the citadel, the 
 courtyard of which was the scene of the awful 
 massacre of the Mamelukes by Mehemet Ali, the 
 Albanian adventurer, who became the ruler of 
 
194 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 Egypt and whose mosque, made of alabaster 
 stone, crowns the summit of the citadel. It is 
 now garrisoned with English troops. I said to a 
 couple of English soldiers, " You fellows made 
 a fine appearance to-day; the duke should be 
 proud of his army." " Yes," one of them an- 
 swered, " that's all right ; but it was beastly hot 
 and there's no fun in marching ten miles under 
 the burning sun and then drilling for several 
 hours." 
 
 Kipling describes Port Said in words something 
 like these : " There is wickedness everywhere, 
 but in Port Said there is a concentrated quintes- 
 sence of wickedness; Port Said is a sand-bound 
 hell." Our stay in Port Said was very brief; 
 it was there that we exchanged the sunny skies 
 of Egypt for the rough horrors of a Russian 
 steamer; and I cannot say whether Kipling's 
 heightened statement is true or not. No doubt, 
 in a little seaport town, where the wash of many 
 civilizations and hundreds of human derelicts are 
 gathered, there is much wickedness. But our 
 personal experience was pleasant; we rode from 
 the railroad station to the custom house; here a 
 Turkish officer took our names and addresses, 
 and then we were rowed out at once to our 
 steamer. 
 
 When a tourist leaves Egypt he leaves behind 
 mighty historical associations. Many of the 
 
EGYPT: ANOTHER VIEW 195 
 
 greatest personalities in human history have 
 touched it. Most of the Egyptian kings, that 
 is, most of the dynasties, have been foreigners. 
 Wave after wave of conquest has washed over 
 its sands, but in the end the passive endurance 
 of the patient people has made their victors their 
 subjects. Conquerors and kings became Egyp- 
 tian by civilization if they stayed there long 
 enough. It is said that even cattle in a genera- 
 tion or two revert to the Egyptian type. Thus 
 Nature throws her mighty safeguards around iso- 
 lated lands ; thus climate and environment destroy 
 the fibre of a conquering race; and thus, in 
 Egypt, as everywhere else, " the meek shall in- 
 herit the earth." 
 
 Think what names are associated with Egypt. 
 It was here that Herodotus, the father of history, 
 made the first intelligent study of this strange 
 country, which he even then pronounced the most 
 wonderful in the world, and gave us our first close 
 view of the Egypt of his day ; here Alexander the 
 Great, with his Macedonian phalanxes, thundered 
 over the land, and left the impress of his mighty 
 genius on the city which bears his name; Per- 
 sian, Babylonian, Assyrian came in turns with 
 conquering armies. AU know how closely the 
 early history of the Jewish race is associated with 
 Egypt ; yet strangely enough it is said that there 
 is not a reference to the Jewish captivity to be 
 found in Egyptian annals or inscriptions. Pos- 
 sibly the Israelitish captivity may be associated 
 
196 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 with the incursion of the Hyksos, who gave a 
 dynasty of so-called shepherd kings to Egypt. 
 Some of the proudest names in Roman history 
 are intertwined with that of Egypt. Here the 
 mighty Julius Cassar and afterwards his great 
 rival, Pompey, became victims of the charms of 
 Cleopatra, " the serpent of the Nile," those 
 charms that afterwards proved fatal to Marc 
 Antony, whose tragic relations with Cleopatra 
 have furnished so many themes for poets and 
 dramatists. Egypt was one of the granaries of 
 Rome, while it was a Roman colony. It was in 
 Egypt that many religious problems of the early 
 Christian church found an expression. The 
 names of St. Augustine, Hypatia, who was the 
 last of neo-Platonic philosophers, a remarkable 
 woman, whose tragic fate is told in Charles Kings- 
 ley's novel bearing her name ; of St. Cyprian, St. 
 Cyril, St. Athanasius, and many others of the 
 greatest names in early church history, will recur 
 to one who has read of those theological conflicts 
 which rent the early church in two, and which 
 never have been healed. We also know that in 
 earlier days Plato and Pythagoras, two of the 
 greatest intellects that Greece gave to the world, 
 came to Egypt to study her mysteries and phi- 
 losophy. After the decline of the Roman power 
 came the Saracenic and Turkish invasions, which 
 washed out Christianity and carried the people 
 over into the religion of Mahomet. A Moslem 
 told me that Mahomet himself visited Egypt, 
 
EGYPT: ANOTHER VIEW 197 
 
 but I think this is doubtful. And last and per- 
 haps the greatest of all secular names excepting 
 possibly Julius Csesar, came Napoleon Bonaparte, 
 impelled by a desire to cripple the commerce of 
 England and India, and probably more strongly 
 impelled by that mystical element in his character 
 which led him to wish, as he often said, that he 
 had been bom an Asiatic. Thus a hard-headed 
 man of action, a military genius who knew how 
 to avail himself of every resource of science and 
 civilization in conducting war, a mathematician, 
 a man endowed with a power of rigorous thought 
 and almost supernatural application, a bom ruler 
 of men, was also the victim of a strange mys- 
 terious quality, which he never denied, that lured 
 him as by a magnet, toward those Oriental civiliza- 
 tions whose weltering millions and passive social 
 life have always been an enigma. 
 
 But good-bye to Egypt, with all its glorious 
 sunsets, its opalescent skies, its unreadable des- 
 erts, its mysterious life, its ether-like air, its 
 hoary monuments, of ages unknown to modem 
 history; I wiU leave myself on the deck of the 
 Russian steamer en route for Palestine. 
 
XIII 
 
 PALESTINE 
 
 " That all of good the past hath had 
 Returns to make our own time glad; 
 Our common daily life divine. 
 And every land a Palestine." 
 
 — Whittier. 
 
 Palestine is not very far from Egypt, but the 
 ■Children of Israel were forty years in getting 
 into the Promised Land. Our own experience, 
 although not so severe as that of the Chosen 
 People, was severe enough to tax our strength 
 and patience. I had known, in a general way, 
 that Jaffa, the Joppa of the Scriptures, had a 
 notoriously bad harbor; but we found it practi- 
 cally had no harbor at all; simply a sandy beach 
 hemmed by a ledge of sharp jutting rocks that 
 threatens the safety of every vessel which enters 
 it; no mole, jetty or breakwater. To land there 
 is like landing on any one of our New England 
 sandy beaches, exposed to all winds and currents, 
 without any artificial protection. We left Port 
 Said at night and anticipated landing at Jaffa 
 the next morning, having embarked on a wretched 
 Russian steamer, the poorest specimen of a craft 
 which we had on our entire tour. We paid for 
 first-class passage, but found that tickets had 
 198 
 
PALESTINE 199 
 
 been sold far in excess of the accommodations; 
 still, we managed to secure staterooms for the 
 ladies, and several of us, who belonged to the 
 sterner sex, were obliged to take tables or set- 
 tees, with a painful absence of pillows and 
 blankets; comforting ourselves with the thought 
 that the rough experience was only for one night. 
 But the next morning we awoke with a painful 
 disillusion; we found our vessel shaking on the 
 crests of tremendous waves within the tantalizing 
 sight of beautiful JaflFa; waves that produced 
 fearful nausea in those who suffer from sea- 
 sickness. We saw the thundering waves break 
 over the rocks, like those that shook up the ves- 
 sel when the prophet Jonah sailed from this same 
 harbor for Tarshish. We asked ourselves who 
 was the Jonah on board who had evoked this 
 tempest from the caves of the winds. Possibly 
 some of the seasick passengers, cooped up in 
 the musty staterooms of the dirty steamer, would 
 have almost been willing to have exchanged their 
 accommodations for the stomach of the big fish 
 in which Jonah made his habitation for several 
 days. At any rate, there the vessel lay, tossed 
 about like a feather on the top of the great 
 waves which lashed against the beetling rocks, for 
 about thirty hours. A more dejected, bedraggled 
 set of globe-trotters could hardly be found than 
 the crowd of passengers, when a fleet of yawls 
 appeared, rowed by swarthy Arabian oarsmen, 
 to take us and the passengers of several other 
 
200 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 steamers ashore. The process of debarkation 
 was not very delicate; the Arab giants swarmed 
 over the side of the vessel, grabbed us as they 
 would bags of salt, and threw us, men and women, 
 into the stout arms of other Arabs on the yawls, 
 not treating us as old Izaak Walton said a fish- 
 erman should use a frog which he cut up for 
 bait, — " handle him as though you loved him." 
 Once in the yawls we were a long distance from 
 Jaffa beach, and the seasickness of the nauseated 
 passengers did not stop until they got ashore. 
 Fortunately I was among the few who were im- 
 mune from seasickness, but two stout ladies used 
 me for a footstool while they paid their libation to 
 Father Neptune over the gunwale of the yawl. 
 The women in the party thought they were having 
 a pretty rough experience, and some were moved 
 to tears; but I tried to play the part of a com- 
 forter by telling them that it was all a part of 
 life, and that by and by they would describe 
 themselves, to use President Roosevelt's favorite 
 word, as " delighted " with it. 
 
 However, all things good and bad come to an 
 end at last; our stout oarsmen, splendid speci- 
 mens of muscularity, sweated and tugged until at 
 last they shot by the rocks, then got us up to 
 the custom house, which was our first experience 
 in entering Turkish territory, and running the 
 gauntlet of a Turkish custom officer. As few 
 of us had tasted food for at least twenty-four 
 liours, we were as ravenous as we were jaded, 
 
PALESTINE 201 
 
 and were mighty glad when we got through 
 the inquisition of the customs officers of the Sub- 
 lime Porte, and reached the cosy hotel, kept 
 by a German who bears the euphonious name of 
 Mr. Hard Egg. In spite of his repellent name, 
 we found Mr. Hard Egg a very courteous host 
 who greeted us with a smile. 
 
 Jaffa is beantifully located on the Mediter- 
 ranean Sea. In Scriptural history it was of the 
 wonderful Phoenician race, of whom we know so 
 little, but was annexed to Judea in the reign 
 of King David, and became a seaport of con- 
 siderable importance. With proper approaches, 
 it would become a great seaport now, as it is 
 the port of entry for Jerusalem and Lower 
 Syria, and even without a competent harbor it is 
 a port of distribution for dates, figs, oranges, 
 drugs and the other products of Palestine. It 
 is the only city with which Jerusalem is connected 
 by railroad. Further to the north He Haiffa 
 and Beirout, which are the ports of entry to 
 Damascus, with which they are connected by rail- 
 road. These two places have good harbors. 
 
 The next forenoon we devoted to sightseeing 
 in Jaffa; and what a delightful change it was 
 from the horrors of the Russian steamboat. We 
 found Jaffa very interesting. Like all Eastern 
 cities, its population is mixed with strange ele- 
 ments, the Arabs and Turks predominating. 
 While it is a Mohammedan city, there are nu- 
 
A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 merous Christian churches, most of them of the 
 Greek Orthodox faith. One of the latter we vis- 
 ited, a very artistic Greek-Russian church, built 
 over the site of the beautiful story in the New 
 Testament where Peter raised Tabitha to life. 
 But perhaps the most interesting place in Jaffa 
 is the house, a part of which is still seen, or at 
 least is believed to be authentic, where Peter had 
 his sublime vision, on the roof, of the tent 
 descending from heaven; which taught him that 
 Christianity, if it were to live, as a world-religion, 
 was larger than the Jewish race, to which he 
 belonged, and must recognize the solidarity of all 
 mankind. It has seemed to me that this vision of 
 Peter is one of the most sublime episodes of the 
 New Testament, the effect of which was tre- 
 mendous, as, under its impulse and the later 
 teachings of St. Paul, Christianity became a world 
 religion, and the teachings of Jesus were found 
 to apply to every race of mankind, and to be 
 based upon immortal verities, which could not be 
 limited to any one race. 
 
 In the suburbs of Jaffa are many orange plan- 
 tations, and the luscious fruit was then ripe; 
 possibly not so succulent as the oranges of Florida 
 and not so large as the navel oranges of Califor- 
 nia, which have been defined as a circle of gold 
 surrounding a rim of honey and nectar. It is 
 needless to say that after our fast on the Russian 
 steamer we feasted greedily on this delicious 
 fruit. 
 
PALESTINE 203 
 
 Now a word or two as to Palestine, one of 
 the most richly historical regions in the world; 
 associated with the very cradle and birthplace of 
 the highest spiritual truths ever revealed to man- 
 kind. Sacred in art, in soul-consciousness and 
 with all that is noblest and best in the moral 
 heritage of the race, the land seemed to be en- 
 chanted; over it brooded a mystical, celestial 
 light. 
 
 No land can stir such profound emotions as 
 Palestine in one nurtured in the Christian faith, 
 who heard the ancient Biblical stories read to 
 him in his early childhood at his mother's knee; 
 who has heard the voice of praise and prayer 
 in Christian sanctuaries, who knows that from 
 Palestine flowed 
 
 " One common wave of thonght and joy. 
 Lifting mankind again." 
 
 which has enriched so immeasurably the moral 
 possibilities of mankind. Our modem Ufe owes 
 a great debt to Greece, to Rome, and possibly 
 indirectly through long streams of unknown tend- 
 encies, to Egypt and India; but from Palestine 
 have come the holiest and purest impulses. Small, 
 decadent, gaunt, with snow-capped mountains 
 and arid plains, stagnant in civilization, for cen- 
 turies the theater of merciless wars; ravaged, 
 plundered, massacred, enslaved, and even now the 
 victim of unwise government, — yet it rises in 
 
204 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 the historical background, glorious, luminous, 
 overpowering, in wealth of noble sentiment and 
 magnificent tradition. The tourist when first he 
 treads its soil, even if fresh from so marvelous a 
 country as Egypt, feels its wondrous spell and 
 moves about as if he were in an enchanted at- 
 mosphere. No land can evoke such profound 
 sentiment, " deep-seated in our mystic frame," 
 and running to the very roots of our moral na- 
 ture. We often talk of the bigness and majestic 
 powers of countries like the United States and 
 Kussia, of the colonial grandeur of England, of 
 the tremendous energy of the Germanic Empire; 
 and well may we talk of them. But all power 
 is temporal, and aU industrial development transi- 
 tory, and geographical boundaries will not stay 
 put. Even a Hague conference and the grow- 
 ing detestation of war can hardly restrain the 
 so-called civilized nations of the world, armed to 
 the teeth, from flying at each other's throats. 
 Nothing but moral and spiritual truths are last- 
 ing ; these and these alone can resist the gnawing 
 tooth of time. And the gift of Judaea to the 
 world was moral and spiritual, the most precious 
 of all gifts. So the mighty shadow of a great 
 past lingers over this pastoral land. Hither 
 come pilgrims from all parts of the world, and 
 here they will come in larger and larger numbers, 
 when modes of travel are easier and cheaper. In 
 the narrow compass of Lower Syria are com- 
 pressed many places that are stamped with im- 
 
PALESTINE 205 
 
 perishable human interest. There is hardly an 
 inch of its soil, which, if known and authenti- 
 cated, would not be associated with a mighty 
 historic past, transcending the hoarse babel of 
 human speech, and leading the mind back to 
 those immortal fountains from whence have 
 sprung our highest conceptions of rectitude and 
 the moral law ; — 
 
 " Authentic tidings of invisible things ; 
 Of ebb and flow and ever-during power, 
 And central peace, subsisting at the heart. 
 Of endless agitation." 
 
 We made the journey from Jaffa to Jerusa- 
 lem by carriages, thus avoiding the fusty rail- 
 road, a poor affair, which requires about five 
 hours to make a journey of fifty miles. The ride 
 was glorious. We passed out of the suburbs of 
 Jaffa under a flood of gracious sunshine, and 
 soon reached the Valley of Sharon, which lies at 
 the foot of the Judean Hills, a long and wide 
 reach of dreamy, grassy pasturage, where wan- 
 dering tribes of Kurds roam with their herds of 
 cattle; sparsely inhabited. Before us towered 
 the gray Judean Hills, sparkling in the crystal 
 air, with their heads bathed in the flickering light 
 of the afternoon sun. 
 
 Palestine is dowered with a wealth of flowers. 
 One soon understands why so much of the pas- 
 
206 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 sionate poetry of the Hebrews and so many of 
 the parables of Jesus have reference to the lily 
 and the rose, for they gush everywhere along 
 the roadside, spangle the green fields and lift up 
 their dewy heads into the clear air, types of pu- 
 rity and sweetness. In this valley we had our first 
 view of the sweet anemone, which is called in the 
 Scriptures the rose of Sharon. This flower is 
 as common in Judaea as the violet or marguerite 
 in American fields. We could not refrain from 
 stopping to pick the first we saw; they touched 
 our sensibilities and suggested so many beautiful 
 passages of the Bible. Near our stopping place 
 was a camp of Kurds, wretchedly housed in huts, 
 half tents and half buildings, grimy and sooty, 
 suggesting the Scriptural phrase, " black as the 
 tents of Jubal." We walked up to the camp of 
 the wanderers and tried to talk with them, and 
 were greeted with yells for baksheesh from wom- 
 en, little children half clothed, one poor little 
 dark fellow being stark naked. The men evi- 
 dently were ofi' working at some distance. The 
 camp presented an ignoble type of Bedouin hfe. 
 From it we gradually ascended the Judean HiUs 
 and in our descent passed along the further plain, 
 reaching about sunset the town of Ramleh, the 
 ancient Arimathea, where the Joseph lived who 
 owned the tomb where the body of Jesus was laid. 
 Here we found comfortable accommodations in 
 a hostelry kept by a German, who told us that 
 he had lived here for thirty-five years. Ramleh 
 
PALESTINE 207 
 
 is considerable of a town, with Protestant, Catho- 
 lic and Greek Orthodox churches. The main ob- 
 ject of interest is a ruin of an ancient fort and 
 a tower said to have been built by the Crusaders. 
 The next morning we continued on our ride and 
 soon began to see the towers of Jerusalem. 
 
 In riding through the country districts in 
 Palestine, one soon learns the significance of the 
 frequent reference in the Scriptures to sheep and 
 goats. Sometimes they run together, but gen- 
 erally in separate flocks quite often attended by 
 children. Occasionally we would see a little girl 
 carrying in her arms a tired or sick lamb or goat, 
 and observed no evidence of cruelty in the treat- 
 ment of the animals. 
 
 Most of the roads in Palestine are hard and 
 flinty. The country has little wealth except in 
 its minerals, and these have been poorly devel- 
 oped. One of the greatest needs of Turkey is 
 good roads, specially of Turkey in Asia. There 
 are no electric railways, no telephones, and few 
 electric lights in any part of the empire, either 
 in Asia or Europe. Their construction is for- 
 bidden by the sultan. Olive trees are seen every- 
 where, and occasionally the mulberry is grown. 
 Most of the land that we saw seemed poorly 
 adapted for modem agriculture. 
 
 And now, what shall I say about Jerusalem, — 
 Jerusalem the golden, Jerusalem the blest? We 
 entered it late in the afternoon and went directly 
 
208 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 to a hotel, kept by a German, and found good 
 accommodations. We spent a week in Jerusalem 
 and its suburbs, a week of unalloyed delight and 
 intense interest. We looked upon its bulwarks, 
 marked its towers and considered well its palaces. 
 Jerusalem is a strange city. It has an unlovely, 
 ignoble side of narrow alleys, filthy streets, in- 
 ordinate beggary, greed, importunity; it lacks 
 proper sanitation ; and some tourists leave it with 
 a feeling of extreme repulsion. They have read 
 of its ancient glory under David and Solomon, 
 they have idealized it as a vision of loveliness; 
 the reality disenchants them. But there is 
 another side to Jerusalem; one of intense inter- 
 est, of glorious but tragic history. Here one 
 sees a strange mingling of sects and peoples. 
 Religious enthusiasts have flocked to it from al- 
 most every part of the Christian world. It is 
 still considered a holy city, and all property 
 within its walls is exempted from taxation by the 
 Turkish government. The present mayor is a 
 Mohammedan, although there have been Christian 
 mayors. In religion the Greek orthodox church 
 predominates, and swarms of pilgrims visit the 
 Greek sanctuaries, inflamed by fervid piety. The 
 week that we were there, there were hundreds of 
 Russian pilgrims, evidently poor people, many 
 of whom had walked hundreds of miles, impelled 
 by a sense of religious duty to visit the shrines 
 once hallowed by the presence of Jesus and His 
 apostles. Their devotions are intense. They 
 
PALESTINE 209 
 
 would prostrate themselves in the shrines of the 
 Holy Sepulchre, in the gardens of Gethsemane, 
 on the Mount of Olives, and in the Via Dolorosa 
 or Sacred Way, kiss the images and remain in 
 fervent prayer. I was deeply impressed by their 
 sincerity and passionate love of the places en- 
 deared to them by the most sacred associations. 
 
 Unfortunately, however, commonly the clash 
 of the Christian sects in Jerusalem has regretta- 
 ble results. Fervor sometimes flames into big- 
 otry. At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 
 which is sub-divided into chapels representing 
 the Greek Orthodox, Catholic, Armenian and 
 some branches of the Syrian Jacobite church, 
 a Mohammedan guard is stationed in order to 
 prevent personal collisions. On Easter day, 
 when religious fervor reaches its intensest expres- 
 sion, past experience has shown that a large 
 guard must be stationed to avoid an uproar. 
 This unseemly bigotry greatly injures the cause 
 of missions. A missionary told me that the 
 Moslems point to it with scorn and ask why they 
 should be expected to embrace a religion whose 
 adherents seem to hate each other. Yet, this 
 phase of religious fanaticism is gradually being 
 subdued by a sweeter and mellower spirit of tol- 
 eration, and it is hoped that it will soon be a 
 thing of the past. 
 
 We visited the Lutheran chapel built by Kaiser 
 William, near the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 
 on land given to him for that purpose by the 
 
210 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 Sultan. It will be remembered that he attended 
 the dedication of the edifice. It is plain and un- 
 adorned, like most Lutheran churches. The 
 Kaiser also received, much to the displeasure of 
 some of his Mohammedan subjects, the concession 
 of a large tract of land in the center of Jerusa- 
 lem, near the house of Caiaphas, for the use of 
 the German Catholics, who are building a splendid 
 cathedral upon it. The objection to the con- 
 cession was mainly on the ground that the land 
 was one of the Mohammedan sacred places and 
 should not have been used for a Christian church. 
 
 Just a few words to describe our wanderings 
 around Jerusalem. I will refer only to some 
 of the most historic places. Seen from afar, 
 rises the magnificent dome of the Mosque of 
 Omar, on the site of the temple of Solomon. It 
 is a splendid specimen of Arabian art, and is 
 considered one of the most venerable mosques in 
 the world. Few spots are richer in historic in- 
 terest than this site. What preceded the build- 
 ing of the first synagogue here, no one knows; 
 but as the Jews naturjdly made the sacred places 
 of the Canaanites the seat of their own worship, 
 the land may have been appropriated for religious 
 purposes ages ago. At any rate, here arose the 
 proudest and most notable synagogue the world 
 ever has known, not indeed the largest or richest 
 of sacred edifices, not comparable with some of 
 the temples of Egypt and India, and not in the 
 
PALESTINE 211 
 
 same class with many of the great cathedrals of 
 Europe; but, nevertheless, no student of BIbHcal 
 history could fail to be interested in the spot 
 which is so closely associated with the Israelitish 
 faith. Burnt, then rebuilt, then destroyed again, 
 the temple shared in the unhappy vicissitudes of 
 the tragic history of the Jews. Finally, it was 
 succeeded by a temple of Jupiter, built under 
 Herod; and then at last passed under the Sara- 
 cenic crescent and the present mosque arose on 
 the ruins of the Jewish and pagan structures. 
 What will follow? No one knows. Under its 
 splendid dome and vaulted arches, we saw forms 
 of Moslems gliding like shadows with their shoe- 
 less feet over the rich rugs, and then kneeHng in 
 silent prayer. Devoid of ornamentation, as most 
 mosques are, severely simple in its architecture, 
 it is, nevertheless, a most impressive building. 
 
 Think of American tourists taking an outdoor 
 lunch in the Valley of the Dry Bones, made 
 memorable by the vision of the Prophet Ezekiel ; 
 and think, further, not only of visiting the thirty- 
 seven chapels in the Church of the Holy Sepul- 
 chre, the Temple on Mount Moriah, the Pool of 
 Bethesda, the Via Dolorosa, Pilate's house, the 
 Ecce Homo Arch, the Armenian Church of St. 
 James, the house of Annas the high priest, 
 David's tomb, and the building in the upper room 
 of which tradition says the last supper was held ; 
 the house of Caiaphas, the traditional site where 
 
212 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 Peter denied Christ; the huge excavations under 
 the city of Jerusalem, called Solomon's quarries, 
 the valleys of Jehoshaphat and Hinnom, the Jew- 
 ish wailing place, where we saw men, in frantic 
 fervor, with tear-bedimmed eyes, praying for the 
 restoration of Israel to the land of their ancestors ; 
 the tower of David, the pool of Hezekiah and 
 many other places, whose grand historical setting 
 are most moving to the imagination and religious 
 sentiment. And more moving stiU, think of the 
 emotions of a tourist in treading the streets and 
 ways where Jesus trod ; in seeing the gate through 
 which He made His triumphal entry into Jerusa- 
 lem, and of the places where He told His simple 
 parables and gave the lessons in rectitude and 
 morahty which lifted the world to a new plane of 
 spiritual uplift. No doubt many of the places 
 are not properly identified; religious enthusiasm 
 and the desire to trace all that is appealing and 
 sacred in the history of Palestine have led to 
 myth and mistake. For instance, one is not sure 
 whether the Hill of Calvary is located, as is 
 claimed, on the site of the Church of Holy Sepul- 
 chre, or whether, as General Gordon believed, it 
 was in an enclosure at some distance from the 
 church. The tomb of Rachel seems to be well 
 authenticated; as is also the garden of Geth- 
 semane, and, of, course, the Mount of Olives. 
 
 As I walked through the streets of Jerusalem, 
 and was shown the many spots identified with the 
 blessed mission of Jesus, again and again the 
 
PALESTINE 213 
 
 lines of two poets came into my mind. First, 
 those by Matthew Arnold, 
 
 " Now he is dead, far hence he lies. 
 In the lone Syrian town. 
 And on his grave the silent stars 
 With shining eyes look down." 
 
 And the line from Tennyson's " In Memoriam," 
 
 " And so the Word had breath and wrought 
 With human hands the creed of creeds. 
 In loveliness of perfect deeds. 
 More strong than all poetic thought." 
 
 Surely the Crucified One, the Man of Sorrows, 
 and not unacquainted with grief, lives not only 
 in Judeea, where His bodily form was once seen, 
 but lives wherever the moral law reigns and the 
 forces of light and life are dispelling the forces 
 of darkness and evil. 
 
 It is said that there are now only about 60,000 
 Jews in all Palestine, although the Zionist move- 
 ment tends to draw them there in larger numbers, 
 Jewish philanthropists, notably the Rothschilds 
 and Montefiores, impelled by loyalty to their race 
 and by deep religious fervor, have contributed 
 large sums to provide for the Jews who flocked to 
 their homeland. In the suburbs of Jerusalem are 
 rows of attractive houses, built of the beautiful 
 limestone in which the country is so rich, which 
 
214 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 are used for asylums, hospitals, schools and 
 homes for indigent Jews. Unfortunately, these 
 charities, while of most beneficent intent, have 
 tended to pauperize some members of a race 
 which has always been distinguished for its thrift, 
 economy and absolute freedom from beggary. I 
 had scarcely seen a Jewish beggar until I reached 
 Jerusalem. No doubt many of the Jews there 
 are extremely poor, and would not appeal for 
 alms unless driven by urgent need. Others think 
 that some of them have been demoraUzed by the 
 charities of Jewish benefactors and beg from 
 choice rather than adopt habits of orderly indus- 
 try. I do not know what the facts may be. I 
 do know, however, the exalted dreams that many 
 of my Jewish friends have of an ultimate restora- 
 tion of Palestine to their race, where they may 
 once more regather their scattered tribes, rebuild 
 their sacred fanes, and once more take their place 
 in the family of nations. If it be only the mirage 
 of a dream, it is a lovely one; if it be within the 
 limits of human possibility, if the prayers and 
 agonies of this wonderful people can avail to 
 make themselves once more a composite nation, 
 to sit by their fountains and worship the God of 
 their fathers in the land of promise, it would be 
 a magnificent consummation. 
 
 I cannot forbear at least to mention our trip, 
 by way of Bethany, to the River Jordan and the 
 Dead Sea. It was so impressive that it can never 
 
PALESTINE 215 
 
 be forgotten. We rode the first day over the 
 mountain road lined with gaunt hills, the valley 
 fringed with olive trees, stopped for a few min- 
 utes at the Hotel of the Good Samaritan, reached 
 Jericho at night, and put up at an excellent 
 hotel there, which is enclosed in an oasis sur- 
 rounded by palm trees and semi-tropical plants. 
 The next morning we visited the excavations 
 which Austrian archaeologists are now carrying 
 on, with most interesting results, at the ruins of 
 ancient Jericho, where city has been heaped on 
 city, where new civilizations have sprung out of 
 the debris of by-gone ages. The River Jordan 
 is most disappointing. We saw the alleged lo- 
 cation of the baptism of Jesus, and the ford of 
 Gilgal, where the intrepid Joshua led the hosts 
 of Israel over the mountains of Moab, across the 
 Jordan into the Promised Land; and the Pisgah 
 heights, where Moses, — who seems to me one of 
 the greatest characters in human history, — 
 looked into the land of promise, which his feet 
 never were to enter. The whole region is rich 
 in history, and has an almost spectral aspect. 
 
 After leaving the Dead Sea and the Valley of 
 the Jordan, the land rises into great hills between 
 which flows the River Cherith, so prominent in 
 the life of Elijah, Israel's greatest prophet. In 
 one of the ravines, half way up the mountain, we 
 saw one of the monasteries, which are found so 
 often in countries whose religion is that of the 
 Greek church ; — survivals of those mediaeval 
 
216 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 days, when monkish life offered a retreat to the 
 world-weary, to the religious zealot, to him who 
 renounced the pleasures and activities of human 
 society. We afterward saw many of them in 
 Greece; thousands of them can be found in Rus- 
 sia. It would be hard to find a more romantic 
 spot than this isolated Greek hospice, " far from 
 the madding crowd's ignoble strife," resting 
 under the shadow of mighty historical interests, 
 a retreat from that industrial and civic life 
 which, with all its drawbacks and blemishes, is the 
 one hope of the human race, when moralized and 
 regenerated into a higher ethical consciousness. 
 Near us arose the lofty peak of Mount Nebo, on 
 wiose lonely summit Moses was buried. 
 
 Early the next morning we started on our long 
 return ride to Jerusalem. It was before sunrise. 
 As we ascended from the Valley of the Jordan, 
 we turned our faces backward and saw the sun 
 climbing in splendor, radiant with golden flashes, 
 over the top of Mount Nebo and the Moabite 
 Hills, just as it must have arisen in the days of 
 the morning sunshine of the Jewish race; as it 
 shone on Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, 
 Elijah and the great line of seers, prophets, poets 
 and teachers whom Israel has given to the world; 
 — and just as it shone on the greatest of aU 
 spiritual leaders, in whom flowered all that was 
 true and great and noble in the spiritual life of 
 the race, whose gift to the world has been of such 
 
PALESTINE 217 
 
 unspeakable value ; — shining at last in the stream- 
 ing glory of the life bom in Bethlehem, quenched 
 at Calvary; not quenched, but still flooding the 
 world with its immortal message of peace and 
 good will. 
 
XIV 
 
 THE ISLES OF GREECE 
 
 " The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece, 
 Where burning Sappho lived and sung; 
 Where grew the arts of war and peace. 
 Where Delos rose and Phoebus sprung; 
 Eternal summer gilds them yet. 
 But all, except their sun, is set." 
 
 — Lord Byron. 
 
 The word " variability " has become a common 
 scientific term. Writers on biology and the sci- 
 ence of history tell us that the nations which have 
 had the strongest tendency to variability have 
 been the most progressive; that the reason, in 
 part, that the progress of the Asiatic nations 
 has been arrested, is largely owing to the fact that 
 they have lacked a certain flexibility which has 
 been the mainspring of progress among the Eu- 
 ropean nations and those descended from them. 
 Thus we are told that the civilization of India, 
 China, Arabia and Turkey is one of arrested de- 
 velopment. What may come in the future in 
 the collision of races, no one knows; but at pres- 
 ent the European races, and their variants, have 
 outstripped the Oriental in industrial progress, 
 in mechanical inventions, and in the art of ad- 
 218 
 
THE ISLES OF GREECE 219 
 
 ministration. It is in the latter respect, the want 
 of administrative power, that the Turk seems to 
 
 fan. 
 
 A tourist in Palestine is painfully Impressed 
 with the fact that this beautiful region has 
 greatly suffered from want of enlightened ad- 
 ministration. It is under the suzerainty of Tur- 
 key, or rather is a corporate part of the Turkish 
 Empire, and yet it is four hundred years since a 
 sultan has set foot on its soil. The races are so 
 strangely mixed, so many antipathies have been 
 inherited, so many discordant religious faiths are 
 held with intense fervor, that necessarily it would 
 require a strong and most enlightened govern- 
 ment to harmonize the many conflicting elements. 
 What the future may bring forth, is uncertain; 
 but at present Palestine is a neglected, derelict 
 sort of country, the resources of which are poorly 
 developed and which is stagnant for want of an 
 intelligent and cohesive administrative power to 
 bring concord out of so much discord. 
 
 Yet it should be said in fairness that most of 
 the Christian people and most of the Jews and 
 Armenians speak well of the Turkish people. 
 
 In the entire Turkish Empire there are be- 
 lieved to be about thirty-five million people, of 
 whom somewhat more than half are Turks. It is 
 a difficult matter for a stranger to distinguish 
 
220 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 the Jew, the Armenian, the Turk or the Arab; 
 their costumes are so similar and their physical 
 resemblances so close. 
 
 No non-Mohammedan has served, until the new 
 regime of 1909, in the Turkish army; he has 
 paid an extra commutation tax, small in amount, 
 which exempted him from military service. An 
 Armenian told me that the taxes paid by his race 
 are the largest in amount of all the different races 
 in the empire. When we discussed the Armenian 
 massacres of a few years ago, he was then quite 
 unwilling to believe that they were inspired by the 
 sultan, as the latter would be a fool to wish to 
 have the most industrious and productive class 
 of his people murdered. He said the outrages 
 sprang from long-smouldering race hatreds, from 
 religious animosity, and possibly from the fact 
 that the Turk is not generally a shrewd trader or 
 an economist, and was therefore often indebted 
 to the Armenians or Jews, races which excel in 
 those qualities. 
 
 We saw in Constantinople a detachment of 
 Turkish soldiers marching through the streets, 
 and a finer, stronger, manlier, more vigorous body 
 of men could hardly be imagined. We often hear 
 in politics about " the sick man in Turkey " in 
 allusion to the decadent power of the Ottoman 
 empire; but any nation that invaded Turkey and 
 had to meet this army would not have a walk-over. 
 The Turks are no cowards, and when fighting 
 for their fatherland, or impelled by religious 
 
THE ISLES OF GREECE 221 
 
 enthusiasm, are still capable of tremendous re- 
 sistance. 
 
 Now to return to our personal experiences. 
 When we left Jerusalem, with all its glories, mys- 
 teries, and strange aspects of human life, behind 
 us, we took the railroad to Jaffa. Fortunately 
 we had no sinister experiences in getting on board 
 the French Messageries steamer, which was to take 
 us from Jaffa to Constantinople. Once em- 
 barked, we found delightful company. A stran- 
 ger combination of humanity could hardly be 
 imagined. One section of the steamer was set 
 apart for the Moslems, who will not eat the food 
 prepared by Christian cooks. They brought 
 their rugs, couches, blankets and often live fowls 
 and their own meats with them; did their own 
 cooking, ate their meals in seclusion and held 
 aloof from the other passengers. 
 
 On the steamer we met passengers representing 
 a great many nations and very many sections of 
 the world; — for instance, a young Quaker mis- 
 sionary, on a vacation from his work among the 
 Laps, in northern Norway; a German professor 
 from a college in Johannesburg, South Africa; 
 a lady, a Baptist missionary, who was returning 
 to her home in Tennessee, after a service of nine 
 years in Japan; a party of English tourists, in- 
 cluding two clergymen from the Isle of Wight; a 
 wanderer from Australia, who gave us interest- 
 ing stories of the industrial development of that 
 
222 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 far-away land; a considerable contingent of 
 French tourists, most cultivated and admirable 
 people; and, of course, quite a contribution of 
 globe-trotting Americans, some of whom were 
 completing a tour around the world. 
 
 The voyage from JaflFa to Constantinople took 
 six days, and each day was of unmixed pleasure. 
 We sailed over the waters, where, ages ago, the 
 Phoenicians sent their vessels out from Jaffa, 
 Tyre, Sidon and other seaports, on adventurous 
 cruises, in which they often passed through the 
 Pillars of Hercules, now the Straits of Gibraltar, 
 penetrated to England, Ireland and the North 
 Sea, bringing back cargoes of furs and amber, 
 and the metals which they worked in the mines of 
 Spain, England and Ireland. An extinct race, 
 gradually absorbed by more vigorous races; we 
 know little of the Phoenicians, yet it is known that 
 we owe our alphabet to them, and undoubtedly 
 very much of Greek civihzation was derived from 
 this source. When Carthage was destroyed, 
 which was a Phoenician colony, its last strong- 
 hold on the Mediterranean disappeared. The 
 Phoenician race is now only a memory, an urnbra 
 nominis, the shadow of a name, and yet it was 
 one of the most progressive and advanced races 
 of antiquity. Like Babylonia and Assyria, Phoe- 
 nicia was engulfed in the storms of historic 
 tragedy and fluttered to its socket, and then was 
 snuffed out. Are any of our modern races, boast- 
 
THE ISLES OF GREECE 
 
 ful, arrogant, swaggering, dominant, any surer 
 of perpetuity? Is it a part of the moral order 
 that no one race shall retain its distinctive civil- 
 ization, or exclusive social status, for any long 
 period of time? Change and decay are incident 
 to nations, as to individuals. The Eastern Med- 
 iterranean coast and what we now call Turkey 
 in Asia, are the ghastly sepulchres of many an 
 extinct race, once powerful, and no more dream- 
 ing of extinction than the United States, Ger- 
 many or England of to-day. 
 
 " The Isles of Greece, where burning Sappho 
 lived and sung; where grew the arts of war and 
 peace," have been immortalized for centuries in 
 song, literature and art. As we sailed along the 
 picturesque coast of ancient Lydia and Syria, 
 and so many regions famous in Greek and Roman 
 history ; when we breathed the ether of its crystal 
 air and caught the color of its splendid sky; 
 when we saw the snow-capped mountains rising 
 above the ocean line, pushing their snowy heads 
 into the clouds, as the waters of the blue Mediter- 
 ranean lap their feet; when we sailed by Cyprus, 
 which is now an English possession; by Samos, 
 Chios, and above all, by Patmos, where St. John 
 had his Apocalyptic vision — we could in a 
 measure see why, as Lord Byron said, the arts 
 of war and peace grew there. 
 
 It was the environment of the people who in 
 by-gone ages inhabited these lovely shores and 
 
A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 dreamy islands, that developed a sense of beauty, 
 of awe, of mystery, which have come down 
 through the ages, and which, through the study 
 of the ancient classics, have never lost their in- 
 fluence upon advanced education. Christianity, 
 Mohammedanism, Judaism, were all born in or 
 near this region; they are of Asiatic origin and 
 came from the Semitic races. Surely, the region 
 which has been the birthplace of religions, the 
 fount and nursery of great systems of philosophy, 
 the cradle of poetry, art and literature, makes 
 strong claims upon the imagination. 
 
 Our first landing was made at Beirout, a large 
 city with a wonderfully beautiful location. Here 
 among other interesting incidents we visited the 
 Syrian Protestant college, which, under the ad- 
 ministration of the Blisses, father and son, has 
 become the largest and best-equipped missionary 
 college in the East. The officers received us most 
 cordially; we were taken over the charming 
 grounds, were shown through the buildings, and 
 were especially interested in the work of hospital 
 and nursing service, which has been developed 
 here. It was a privilege to meet President Bliss 
 and his gracious wife, who used us with the ut- 
 most courtesy, and perhaps a greater privilege 
 to meet, the venerable Dr. Bliss, who, crowned 
 with the glory of ninety years, after a life emi- 
 nent in service, is enjoying " an old-age serene 
 and bright, and lovely as a Lapland night." 
 
THE ISLES OF GREECE 225 
 
 How benign and blessed is such an old age. How 
 sweet the memory must be of such splendid activi- 
 ties, and such a noble contribution to the intellec- 
 tual and moral welfare of the strange peoples 
 among whom he has lived so long, and to whom 
 he gave of the strength and vigor of his days. 
 
 Later in the day we made the excursion to Dog 
 River, a strange geological formation in the foot- 
 hills of the Lebanon mountains, which has a re- 
 markable historic interest. Through this gorge 
 and along the banks of this tumbling stream have 
 marched some of the greatest of the world's 
 conquerors, some of whom left their memorials 
 carved on " scarped rock and quarried stone." 
 One tablet, almost indecipherable, told of the visit 
 of Nebuchadnezzar; another of a similar visit 
 from Alexander the Great; emulating the exam- 
 ple of these tremendous historical characters, 
 other emperors like Napoleon IH. left inscriptions 
 telling of their visits here. 
 
 On a railroad journey to Dog River we met a 
 highly educated Jesuit priest, a teacher of Ori- 
 ental languages in the Jesuit college in Beirout, 
 who could talk English admirably, and who spoke 
 in the highest terms of the work of the Protestant 
 college. Coming from Jerusalem, where the 
 hoarse discord of sects was painfully apparent, 
 it was gratifying to see how a really high-minded 
 and devout clergyman could praise the work of 
 clergymen of a distinctly divergent faith, with 
 so much intelligent sincerity. 
 
A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 We caught a glimpse of the Isle of Patmos 
 in the early morning. Many of us recalled the 
 beautiful story of St. John, who, dying in ex- 
 treme old age, called his people around him and 
 gave them this beautiful benediction : " Little 
 children, love one another." Next to the su- 
 perbly moving benediction of Moses, when he 
 bade farewell to his people, just before he was 
 gathered to his fathers and laid away on Nebo's 
 lonely mountain, I know of none more pacific or 
 more significant of the spirit of true religion. 
 As we were sailing by Fatmos, I asked a friend 
 what St. John could have meant, in describing 
 his glorious vision of the New Jerusalem, when 
 he used the words : " And there was no more 
 sea." I said, it seemed, by that he must have felt 
 the isolation of his island life, the restraint which 
 it imposed upon human intercourse, and its neces- 
 sary severance of human ties in those days when 
 ocean transportation was made in crazy barks, 
 or flat-bottomed boats, before even the keel was 
 invented ; and that perhaps he felt that in a trans- 
 figured order, when the f anuhes of the earth melt 
 into each other in heavenly harmony, there would 
 be no such dividing source as " the unplumbed, 
 salt, estranging sea." And yet, as I said these 
 words, the gentle waves of the blue Mediterranean 
 flowed around us, sea fowl swept through the air, 
 the gray outlines of lovely islands were rising 
 all around us, and I thought how beautiful after 
 all is the sea; if it divides, yet it unites; if it is 
 
THE ISLES OF GREECE 227 
 
 sometimes lashed with storms, and is cruel in its 
 wreckage and tempestuous fury, yet it is health- 
 giving, invigorating and is full of mystical 
 charm. The Roman poet, Horace, spoke of the 
 dissociabUis ocearms, the un-social ocean ; yet, this 
 is only a partial view of its power. 
 
 So we swept by Mount Hermon, glittering with 
 its snows, and left behind us port after port, and 
 island after island, all of which have been the 
 scenes of great events in human history. We 
 made our next landing at the island of Rhodes, 
 one of the largest of the JBgean group, but did 
 not go ashore. The harbor was full of little 
 boats, manned with sailors in Arabian costumes, 
 some of whom came on board, to sell us contriv- 
 ances, figs, fruits, and the universal candy, sold 
 everywhere in the East, the sweet paste called 
 Turkish Delight. 
 
 On this voyage, and on the subsequent one from 
 Constantinople to Athens, we fell in with some of 
 the shrewdest, keenest, quickest-witted and most 
 versatile men I ever met, Armenian, Greek, and 
 Jewish commercial travelers, wonderful linguists. 
 One of them told me he had perfect command 
 of seven languages; another one, of five. They 
 said they had no difficulty in making contracts, 
 drafting instruments, or dealing with any of the 
 people who talked the difi^erent languages. I 
 found, later on, this remarkable facility of acquir- 
 ing languages to be common among the Italians. 
 
328 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 It is not an unusual thing to find an Italian guide, 
 perhaps not more than twenty years old, who has 
 acquired the mastery of at least four languages. 
 
 When I asked an Austrian Jew how he could 
 ever acquire, at his early age, the command of 
 seven languages, when I had been studying the 
 French and German for years with such sorry 
 results, he answered calmly : " Because I have 
 to. You or any other intelligent man could do 
 the same, and would do the same if you had to. 
 We don't do many things in this life that we 
 don't have to do. The reason that men do not 
 learn modern languages is because they do not feel 
 the need of so doing, but a commercial traveler 
 in the East has got to know them or else he can- 
 not do any business." 
 
 I cannot think, however, that this answer con- 
 veyed the whole truth. It seems to me there must 
 be some defect in the teaching of modem lan- 
 guages in American schools and colleges, when 
 so few graduates retain interest enough in them 
 even to retain a reading knowledge. If not, we 
 must concede that we are a stupid folk in the 
 acquirement of foreign tongues. 
 
 Smyrna, where we stayed for two days, is a 
 city of some 300,000 inhabitants, of a most im- 
 pressive location, the great distributing port of 
 Turkey in Asia. Its harbor is very fine and is 
 now carefully safeguarded. It is really a Greek 
 city; the greater part of its business is done by 
 
THE ISLES OF GREECE 
 
 Greeks and Armenians. Back of it rises a hill, 
 at the apex of which are the ruins of a great 
 castle ; those of us who climbed it were paid by a 
 magnificent view of a vast reach of country. 
 Smyrna also has a typical Oriental bazar, not so 
 extended as that of Cairo, but better kept and 
 cleaner. There is not much of historical interest 
 in Smyrna, although near it are many places, 
 Ephesus, Pergamos, Philadelphia, Sardis, Thy- 
 atira, Sidon, and above all, Troas, the seat of 
 ancient Troy, which are interesting to the anti- 
 quarian. Archaeologists have worked in some of 
 them, and others are awaiting such work in the 
 future. All interested in such subjects have read 
 something of the work of Dr. Schliemann in the 
 ruins of Troy, and of the rich find of ancient art 
 in Sidon. 
 
 A visit to the ruins of ancient Ephesus was one 
 of the most remarkable incidents of my long tour. 
 It is about fifty miles from Smyrna, reached by a 
 railroad ride, for which an abominably excessive 
 charge was made; yet, after all, the expenditure 
 was profitable. We rode through a rich country 
 devoted largely to the vine and the mulberry, and 
 then, at a wretched railroad station, took donkeys 
 for the site of what was once one of the proudest 
 and most artistic cities of the ancient world. 
 Time, war, earthquake, vandalism, the filling up 
 of the harbor by silt, worked a complete ruin. 
 Complete, yes; a ghastly, almost shockingly 
 frightful picture of the possibilities of decay and 
 
230 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 waste inherent in every large city. Once a proud 
 colonnade of statues was extended from the city 
 to the sea. For many years the once immense 
 temple of Diana of the Ephesians, one of the 
 seven wonders of the ancient world, rose into the 
 upper air, said to have been one of the most beau- 
 tiful types of Greek architecture. Now the site 
 of this superb temple is almost indistinguishable. 
 " Great is Diana of the Ephesians," cried the mob 
 surging around the Apostle ; now no longer great, 
 her worship a childish superstition, her shrine a 
 shadow, a mockery. In Ephesus was once a wealth 
 of Greek marble of spotless glittering whiteness; 
 here were a theater, a library, a court-house, a 
 great market place ; but all are now only heaps of 
 rubbish. We had a most companionable party of 
 excursionists; and one young lady carried the 
 New Testament, from which we read the stirring 
 scene in the book of Acts when the Apostle Paul 
 aroused the indignation of the idol makers, by 
 preaching the new faith, with a splendid eloquence 
 coming from lips which had been touched as with 
 a coal from the altar fire. In our company were 
 three very companionable Catholic priests from 
 Chicago and several Protestant clergymen and 
 missionaries; but all sectarianism was melted in a 
 glow of congenial intercourse while everyone 
 seemed to feel the tragedy, the awful tragedy, of 
 standing on the ruin of what was once so glorious 
 a city. Some of the ancient buildings, especially 
 the library and theater, can be traced ; some speci- 
 
THE ISLES OF GREECE 231 
 
 mens of beautiful marble are found here and 
 there; but if ever the plowshare of time with all- 
 destroying power, was driven through a mighty 
 city, it was at Ephesus. The sight was sadden- 
 ing, almost shocking; it was worse than the sight 
 of the ruins of Memphis and Thebes, for so little 
 is left of those cities, under the action of the ab- 
 sorbent climate of Egypt, that one finds it difficult 
 to realize that once they were great. It is the 
 dismembered, scattered, existing ruins of Ephesus 
 which point the moral and adorn the tale. Per- 
 haps the ghastly ruin illustrated, in a measure, 
 the meaning of the poet Wordsworth's splendid 
 lines, when he speaks of " The fierce, confederate 
 storm of sorrow, barricadoed evermore within the 
 walls of cities," Smyrna has been more fortunate 
 than its great rival Ephesus; the former is still 
 a rich, prosperous city; the latter a heap of rub- 
 bish. It is said that there are more Greeks living 
 in Smyrna and in Alexandria, Egypt, than in 
 Athens. The flexible, wily, subtle, velvet-handed 
 Greek and Armenian can trade all round the big, 
 portly, virile Turk. The latter may rule, but the 
 Greek and Armenian will put his hand in his 
 pocket and manage to empty his wallet in many 
 a shrewd trade. 
 
 Five days of faultless weather, of rippling 
 sunshine, of fleecy clouds, of rugged shore-line, 
 of translucent water, and we made our way around 
 the headlands of northwestern Turkey in Asia 
 
A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 and entered the Dardanelles. So much has been 
 written of the beautiful scenery of this section, 
 around which clings so great an historic interest, 
 that I win not attempt anything in detail. No 
 artist who has sought to transmute its beauties 
 into pigments on a canvas, no poet who has sought 
 to transfigure it in word-pictures, could exag- 
 gerate its solemn picturesqueness. For one whole 
 day we saUed from the mouth of the Dardanelles 
 until we reached the Golden Horn; through a 
 region which has been the theater of so much that 
 has ennobled and degraded mankind ; of the tragic 
 and humane side of human life; of exploration, 
 of mythical voyages, of wisely directed colonial 
 effort, of brutal savagism, and, more than all, 
 the theater of interminable diplomatic disputes 
 and international embroilments. We passed by 
 the forts that guard the Dardanelles, and for 
 almost an entire day sailed through the quiet 
 waters of the Sea of Marmora. Late in the after- 
 noon, the turrets, minarets, Byzantine domes, 
 steeples, forts and towers of huge Constantinople 
 floated into our ken. Slowly we moved up toward 
 the Golden Horn, amid a great fleet of steamers, 
 while those passengers who were acquainted with 
 this most interesting city pointed out to us the 
 vast dome of the mosque of St. Sophia and of 
 other immense mosques, the Seraglio palace, mil- 
 itary and naval schools, great public buildings 
 and many other objects of interest. No vessel 
 is allowed to land its passengers at Constantinople 
 
THE ISLES OF GREECE 
 
 after five o'clock in the afternoon; we had found 
 at Smyrna that all passengers must land or leave 
 that city before six in the evening. As we 
 reached our wharf shortly after five we were 
 obliged to spend the night on the steamer, from 
 the deck of which we saw the flashing lights of 
 old Stamboul, Galata and Pera, and here we oc- 
 casionally heard the susurrus of the myriads of 
 people swarming through their streets. It was 
 disappointing that we should be cooped up for 
 one night more in our staterooms; but such was 
 the Turkish law, and we were obliged to conform 
 to it. 
 
XV 
 
 CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE TURK 
 
 " Oh, East is East, and West is West, 
 And never the twain shall meet. 
 Till earth and sky stand presently 
 At God's great Judgment seat." 
 — Kipling:— "The Battle of East and West." 
 
 Constantinople, where we left ourselves at the 
 end of my last letter, is a city of great interest. 
 Not only has it a magnificent location, one of the 
 very finest in the world, but it has also a wealth 
 of history unsurpassed by any city, unless we 
 except Rome, Athens and Jerusalem. It lies in 
 the center of a rich agricultural country and is 
 the national emporium of the confluence of Eu- 
 ropean and Asiatic trade. An ancient Byzantine 
 colony, then made the Eastern capital of the Rome 
 Empire by the Emperor Diocletian, then re-created 
 under Constantine and christened with his name, 
 it became the focus of the civilization of the 
 Eastern Empire and outlasted Rome itself in re- 
 sisting the inroads of the vigorous savages who 
 made the empire their prey. Separated from the 
 Roman Empire by religious as well as by political 
 divisions, it was always infected with a touch of 
 Oriental brilliancy and came under the spell of 
 Oriental mysticism. The power of mediaeval 
 Rome, the invasions of Genoese, and Venetians, 
 S34) 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE 235 
 
 and the fierce onslaught of the Crusaders, only 
 served to divide it more and more from the Papal 
 See. Perhaps it touched its greatest glory under 
 the Emperor Justinian, in whose reign the Church 
 of St, Sophia was built, and under whom the great 
 work of codifying Roman laws, up to that date 
 what Oliver Cromwell afterwards called the com- 
 mon law of England, " an ungodly jumble," 
 was effected. Weakened by internal dissensions, 
 weighted down by the dynasty of inept rulers, 
 it succumbed to the Turks in 1453, — in that 
 wonderful century when the Moors were expelled 
 from Spain, when Columbus discovered America 
 and when the art of printing opened the door 
 to the enlarged intelligence of subsequent ages. 
 
 In Constantinople the Oriental has made his 
 last stand on European soil. The Crescent still 
 floats over its forts, minarets and turrets, and if 
 the presence of the Turk in this fair land seems an 
 anomaly, there is surely no immediate prospect 
 that he will relinquish his grasp. The great city 
 has a population of some 1,200,000 souls. 
 Strangely enough, of this vast mass of human 
 beings, representing almost every phase of human 
 life, it is said that only about 120 are Americans, 
 including the American legation and the faculty 
 of Robert College. So the Yankee in the Eastern 
 Mediterranean countries is so far a negligible 
 quantity. 
 
 The city is full of views and rich in places 
 
A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 which have deep historic interest to the tourist. 
 Admission to the mosque of St. Sophia, one of the 
 noblest of ecclesiastical structures, is obtained 
 from the American consulate. Every such con- 
 sulate in the East has an outside guard or porter, 
 called a kervasse, who is detailed to conduct 
 tourists through those places which require a 
 special permit. As we walked through the vast 
 crypt and under the beetling vaults of the enor- 
 mous auditorium', where almost every vestige of 
 former Christian worship has been obliterated, 
 when we saw the faithful Moslem kneeling in pro- 
 found prayer in the vast silences, I could not 
 help recalling the description given by the his- 
 torian, Gibbon, of the hideous scenes enacted in 
 this building, when the brutal soldiery of the 
 Turkish army massacred the women and children 
 who had fled thither as to a sacred asylum, and 
 when the edifice, dedicated to the worship of the 
 God of Love streamed and reeked with torrents 
 of human blood. Such are some of the awful 
 memories of bygone horrors which troop into the 
 mind of the tourist when he visits places which 
 have been the theater of so much that is horrible 
 and beastly in the excesses of bygone ages. 
 
 Constantinople is divided into three sections; 
 the older, where the Turks live, and by far the 
 largest, is called Stamboul; across the Golden 
 Horn are the precincts of Galata and Pera, where 
 there is a large population of Italians and Greeks. 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE 237 
 
 Stamboul transfers one's thoughts into the heart 
 of Asia. Here the streets swarm with thousands 
 and thousands of Turks, wearing the turban, or 
 fez, while the women, with muffled faces, move 
 about like ghosts. Many of the streets are merely 
 alleys, a characteristic common to all Oriental 
 cities. In Stamboul is the vast bazar, one of the 
 largest in the world, where almost every con- 
 ceivable article is offered for sale, a hubbub a,nd 
 confused jargon of strange tongues, alien speech, 
 swarthy faces, picturesque humanity. Here fab- 
 rics from India, Persia and China are for sale; 
 here the tourist is importuned by the insatiable 
 hucksters, who offer every allurement to subtract 
 money from his wallet. A wonderful study is an 
 Oriental bazar. It has its repulsive side of greed 
 and importunity, but no world's fair, so-called, 
 that I have ever seen can touch it in human in- 
 terest and dazzling diversity of wares, in richness 
 of color and in the vast flotsam af htunanity 
 which jumps upon the customer as a parasite 
 assails its victim. 
 
 Across the Golden Horn, the Galata tower, 
 built by the Genoese, is worthy of a visit. The 
 chmb to the top is hard and wearying, but one is 
 repaid for his fatigue, on a clear day, by a view 
 of almost incomparable richness of beauty. By 
 the way, our tour has been rich in such experi- 
 ences, — the gorgeous panorama of Naples, seen 
 from San Martino ; the great expanse of Egyp- 
 tian desert and of the mysterious life of Cairo 
 
238 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 as seen from the Cairene citadel; the noble view 
 of Jenisalem and its environs from the Mount 
 of Olives; the great sweep of Smyrna harbor 
 and the mountains of western Turkey from the 
 Moorish tower crowning the hill back of Smyrna ; 
 and lastly, the lustre, the glow, the trembling 
 light, the sweet silences, the dreamy hills, the 
 olive groves of Athens as seen from Mount Ly- 
 cabettus. But of all these rich experiences no one 
 combined so many human interests with so many 
 elements of physical beauty as the view we caught 
 of Constantinople and its mysteries and the watery 
 expanses in which it is set, from the top of Galata 
 tower. I believe it is claimed that in these re- 
 spects the view is incomparable; that there is 
 hardly a place where so much is combined to feed 
 the gluttony of the eye. 
 
 We crossed to the Asiatic side and spent a day 
 in Scutari. Here we saw the Turkish cemetery, 
 said to be the largest cemetery in Asia ; a dreary, 
 lack-luster, ill-kempt city of the dead, where un- 
 known thousands of Moslems sleep under " their 
 low green tent whose curtain never outward 
 swings." It will be remembered that Scutari was 
 the headquarters of the allied armies during the 
 Crimean war, and that under the wretched sanitary 
 conditions of those times thousands of English sol- 
 diers died of camp diseases, until Florence Night- 
 ingale, called by our poet Longfellow " the lady 
 of the lamp," began her beneficent work of de- 
 veloping nursing into a science. We saw the 
 
CONSTANTINOPLE 239 
 
 hospital where Miss Nightingale's gracious work 
 was developed, and it was pleasant to think that 
 almost at that very time the government of Eng- 
 land was bestowing upon this gracious lady, bent 
 with years and infirmities, one of the few survivors 
 of the Crimean horror, the distinguished honor 
 of admission to the Order of Merit. Miss Night- 
 ingale is the first woman to receive this honor. 
 We also saw the cemetery where the English dead 
 were buried, where the harvest of death was gath- 
 ered, under these strange skies, in this remote 
 land, when the homes of so many English mothers 
 were left imto them desolate. The bitter words 
 of Kipling might apply to this cemetery, as 
 well as to the result of many of the abortive wars 
 waged by Occidentals against the swarming mil- 
 lions of the East, of whom we really know so 
 little: 
 
 "And the end of the fight is a tombstone white 
 with the name of the late deceased. 
 
 And the epitaph drear : ' A fool lies here, who 
 tried to hustle the East.' " 
 
 In Scutari we also visited the American School 
 for Girls, which impressed me as one of the most 
 useful institutions of the kind I ever had seen. 
 As I have said before, and as everyone who has 
 visited the Orient knows, the one hope of a social 
 betterment in these countries lies in the advance- 
 ment of women. This is the noble work which 
 this school is doing, and is doing well, in spite of 
 
g40 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 very great difficulties and narrow means. The 
 school is practically unsectarian; in fact, one of 
 the teachers is a Mohammedan lady ; and the girl 
 students are drawn from the mixed elements of 
 population that make up this strange country. 
 We attended the chapel service, and looking into 
 the faces of the bright, intelligent Greek, Ar- 
 menian, Bulgarian, Roumanian, Roumelian, 
 and in some instances Turkish girls, gathered 
 for this simple service, it was impossible not 
 to feel how uplifting the work of this in- 
 stitution is. It has secured a site on the 
 shore of the Sea of Marmora, and is awaiting 
 a firman of the Sultan before it can make the 
 change. Legal processes in Turkey move slowly, 
 with snail-like pace, and it may be several years 
 before the institution will receive the concession 
 allowing it to transfer its location. 
 
 Another pleasant incident of our stay in Con- 
 stantinople was a visit to Robert College. This 
 institution is not so large as the Syrian College 
 at Beirut, but is evidently doing a good work. 
 It is beautifully located on high land command- 
 ing a view of the sea. Its teachers are drawn 
 from our American colleges, and we met several 
 of the graduates in our late travels. Its spirit 
 has developed a sense for orderly liberty in 
 Turkey; it has been a fountain from which has 
 sprung much of the liberalism of the Young 
 Turks, — the regenerative element in this reac^ 
 
.CONSTANTINOPLE 241 
 
 tionary country. It stands for the rising dem- 
 ocratic ideal, which in the end will smite Oriental 
 despotism and invigorate Turkey with an un- 
 quenchable demand for a new adaptation of its 
 political forces to the spirit of the age. We 
 pushed our way on iil the steamer to another 
 corner at the east end of the Sea of Marmora, 
 near to the opening of the Black Sea, so famous 
 in Greek mythology, and then returned to Con- 
 stantinople. 
 
 I presume that no reference to Constantinople 
 would be complete without saying a word about 
 the dogs, " both mongrel, puppy, whelp and 
 hound, and cur of low degree," which swarm 
 in the streets of the city. I was told that the 
 Turks, while willing to beat and even to maim 
 dogs, have a superstitious feeling in regard to 
 killing them. Moreover, the canines serve as 
 scavengers, and thus are valued as the buzzards 
 and vultures are in our Southern cities. How so 
 many of them can get food is a mystery. 
 
 .We left Constantinople one beautiful afternoon 
 on a steamer of the Khedival Line for Piraeus, the 
 port of Athens. Once more we sailed on the Sea 
 of Marmora; again we passed through the Dar- 
 danelles, and had a farewell glimpse of the glitter- 
 ing mosques, shining towers, graceful minarets 
 and dancing lights of Constantinople. 
 
A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 Note: — How fast history is made! Since the 
 above chapter was written, Turkey has passed 
 through a constitutional crisis. The cruel despot 
 Abdul-Hamid has been unmasked and deposed. No 
 Armenian could now doubt of his participation, ac- 
 tive or passive, in the massacres to which that an- 
 cient race has been subjected. In common with 
 Persia, another Mohammedan coimtry, Turkey has 
 passed under a constitutional regime. The Young 
 Turk has made his power felt. The teachers in 
 Robert College and Christian missionaries have not 
 labored in vain. The revolution, — at first peacea- 
 ble, then bloody, — opens a new chapter in Turkish 
 history. May it be one of luminous progress: and 
 may aU the races in the composite Empire advance 
 in the path of orderly freedom. 
 
XVI 
 
 GREECE 
 
 And through the trumpet of a child of Rome, 
 Rang the pure music of the flutes of Greece." 
 
 — A. C. Swinburne. 
 
 " The most beautiful thing in the world (was) 
 the Greek Genius, and the grandest the Roman 
 Peace." 
 
 Leaving Constantinople, again our course took 
 us back to Smyrna, where we spent a half a day 
 in the noble harbor; and afterwards the steamer 
 stopped at Mitylene, the ancient Lesbos. Thence 
 our course took us over the blue waters of the 
 ^gean, by island after island, until at noon of 
 the second day we rounded Cape Sunium, at the 
 southwestern comer of the Attic peninsula, passed 
 the island of Euboea, sailed through the gulf of 
 ^gina, and in the early afternoon there came 
 into our vision the famous mountains of Hy- 
 mettus and the Pentelican range, lying back of 
 Athens, and later on we caught a view of the 
 Acropolis. 
 
 On the further shore we saw the island of 
 Salamis, where the Greeks won their great vic- 
 tory over the Persians. We made our landing in 
 243 
 
a** A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 lighters and took carriages for Athens, a ride 
 of about five miles, passing by the Gulf of 
 Phaleron, a most beautiful body of water. It 
 ■was with strange emotions that we rode into this 
 famous city along the remnants of the great wall 
 which the Athenians built at the time of the 
 Persian invasion, and which the Spartans com- 
 pelled them to demolish at the close of the 
 Peloponnesian war, when the city surrendered to 
 Lysander, the Spartan general, and Athenian 
 pride bit the dust. 
 
 Modem Athens is a city of about 250,000 peo- 
 ple. It is modern in every sense of the term. 
 With the exception of the ruins of the Parthenon, 
 the Theseum, the Erectheum, the Odeon and the 
 Theater of Dionysus, on or near the Acropolis, 
 and the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter on the 
 plain, and here and there a few derelicts which 
 have survived the destructive power of ages, the 
 Athens of Pericles, Demosthenes, Socrates and 
 the great artists, writers and statesmen who gave 
 it immortality, is no more. The city is beauti- 
 fully built, with wide streets, abundant squares, 
 and many stately buildings. If Lord Byron were 
 alive now he would not write all the following 
 stirring stanza : 
 
 " The mountains look on Marathon, 
 And Marathon looks on the sea ! 
 And standing there an hour alone. 
 
GREECE 245 
 
 I dreamed that Greece might still be free: 
 For, standing on the Persians' grave, 
 I could not dream myself a slave." 
 
 The modem Greek is no slave. He is a liberty- 
 loving, vivacious, active, trading sort of crea- 
 ture, devoted to the Greek Orthodox church, fond 
 of the drama, often picturesque in his attire, and 
 too often devoted to politics. The modem Greek 
 is a being of bubbling loquacity. 
 
 Greece has only two and a half millions of 
 people in a territory about the size of the State 
 of Maine. The trading instinct of the Greek 
 race has carried it in swarms wherever money is 
 to be made. It is said that there are more Greeks 
 in Smyrna and in Alexandria than in Athens. 
 The natural wealth of the country is meager ex- 
 cepting in beautiful stones and in lovely scenery. 
 I saw little evidence of an energetic industrial 
 life. Agriculture is rather primitive, one-third 
 of the exports of an agricultural character being 
 currants. We were told in Phocis afterwards that 
 almost every farmer between the Helicon Moun- 
 tains and Athens depends largely for his living 
 upon the culture of bees and honey, just as the 
 Greeks did in the days of Pericles. The mineral 
 wealth of the country is not large, although at 
 Laurium on the Attic peninsula is a silver mine 
 which has been worked for 2,500 years. The 
 country is hilly, in many places mountainous,* 
 
246 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 with the exception of the river valleys the soil 
 is scant and small returns come from agriculture. 
 The lives of the farmers are primitive and ap- 
 parently gentle. It is said that serious crimes 
 are very rare. The primitive Greek stock has 
 received so many affluents, especially from the 
 Albanian and Slavonian or Slavic strains, that 
 the race has become very composite. Many of 
 the Greeks still wear the picturesque Albanian 
 costume, with long knitted trousers, short skirts 
 and variegated waists, often richly decorated. 
 These costumes add a great charm to the social 
 life of the people. 
 
 We were in Greece in the month of April, 
 and the weather was exceedingly sharp, with a 
 tingling, penetrating cold. Nothing in the way 
 of clearness could exceed the brilliant, sparkling 
 air, the purple colors that hovered about the gaunt 
 liilltops and the magnificent waterscapes of the 
 ^Ifs and estuaries which make in from the 
 ^gean and Ionian seas. 
 
 Like Palestine, Greece has a marvelous wealth 
 •of flowers. One can easily imagine how the sense 
 of Greek art was developed — the richest and 
 most intellectual the world has known. It was 
 sucked from the gaunt soil, inhaled from the 
 crystal air; its colors were caught from the mir- 
 ror-like, tinted skies. The magnificent rhythm of 
 Greek prose and poetry reflected the monotone 
 of the ocean, the gurgling of the mountain brooks. 
 
GREECE 24-7 
 
 the flute-like notes of the wild birds and the mag- 
 nificent combination of all that appeals to the sense 
 of beauty in mankind. In Greece beauty was 
 more than fugitive: there was and is its dwelling 
 place ; in the narrow compass of a little peninsula 
 there are compressed so many elements of beauty 
 that one cannot wonder that Greek art, even in 
 our day, is the supreme standard of our artistic 
 excellence. 
 
 Greece has but one large city beside Athens, 
 Fatras, on the northwestern Peloponnesus, in 
 Elis. Athens is, as it was in the days of the 
 greatest glory of Greece, the center of its political 
 and commercial life. 
 
 Its location is not that of the natural capital 
 of the little kingdom ; it was its great past that 
 led to its being the capital of to-day. The poet 
 Shelley wrote. " Liberty said. Let there be light, 
 and, like sunrise on the sea, Athens rose." The 
 beautiful city suffered an awful eclipse during the 
 Middle Ages, and was almost wiped out in the 
 days of Turkish power; but to-day a Moslem 
 mosque is hardly found in Greece, unless in the 
 extreme north. Greece suffers from want of ter- 
 minal connections; there is no railroad north of 
 Salonika; so practically all the approaches to 
 Athens are by the sea, there being no railroad 
 connection with Venice, Vienna or the Austrian 
 and other northern Italian cities. When these are 
 provided, it is easy to see that Greece will become 
 
248 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 a great pleasure resort, a second Switzerland. 
 The scenery of Switzerland is on a grander scale, 
 but the historical traditions of Greece and its 
 fairly good climate will make it more and more 
 the resort of tourists in the winter and early 
 spring, 
 
 Athens, the modem Athens, was laid out by 
 French engineers, and is a sort of miniature Paris. 
 The wealthy Greeks are public-spirited, and many 
 of them, who have made fortunes in other coun- 
 tries, have given liberally to the land of their 
 birth. Some of the finest residences in Athens 
 are of opulent Greeks who have returned to pass 
 their declining years in their historic birthplace. 
 The noble Stadium, constructed of spotless white 
 marble, a most impressive structure, was paid for 
 at a cost of $800,000 by a Greek banker who had 
 made his fortune in Alexandria. There are other 
 splendid buildings in Athens, the university, the 
 museum, one of the finest in Europe, and several 
 schools which have been given to the city by pri- 
 vate benefactors. The finances of the kingdom 
 are in bad shape and are in charge of a commission 
 nominated, I think, by England, Germany and 
 France. 
 
 As I have said, there is little in modern Athens, 
 except a few vestiges of the glorious past, to 
 remind the tourist of what Greece was in the days 
 of her greatest glory. We sought out the fa- 
 mous Academy of Plato, but had a most disap- 
 
GREECE 249 
 
 pointing experience. The murmuring groves, 
 the babbling streams, the singing birds, of which 
 he wrote so beautifully, are no more. Instead, 
 we found a barnyard and stable. The hill of 
 Colonnus, where the great poet Sophocles lived, 
 is marked by a memorial; but as a general thing 
 a search after places of such surpassing interest 
 as the Lycemn of Aristotle, the Stoa of Zeno, and 
 the beautiful temples of the gods, is fruitless. 
 Greece is going through a re-creative process ; it 
 cannot live on its past. Yet there are the stir- 
 rings of a new life; the country has a fair edu- 
 cational system; the people impressed me as hav- 
 ing elements of intellectual growth and progress, 
 and I believe that a new Greece will arise in a few 
 generations, to connect the present with the 
 mighty past. 
 
 I must say a few words of our visit to Delphi 
 and Olympia. We took a steamer and sailed 
 through the Saronic Gulf, through the canal which 
 has been cut across the Corinthian isthmus into the 
 Gulf of Corinth, and went through the latter 
 gulf, a most beautiful body of water, to Itea in 
 southern Phocis, where we landed in the early 
 hours of the evening, and took carriages for the 
 steep ride over a circuitous loop of serpentine 
 roads along the foothills of the Pamassan range, 
 and in about two hours, half -frozen with cold, we 
 reached Delphi, the place most symbolic, perhaps, 
 of all ancient Greece. 
 
250 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 Nothing in the Levantine tour, except possibly 
 the ride back to Jerusalem from Jericho, equalled 
 this experience in interest. Delphi, even in its 
 ruins, is sublime. It is one of this world's beauty 
 spots. The government of France, at an enor- 
 mous cost, has excavated the ruins of the splendid 
 structure which once stood in this rift of the 
 Parnassan Hills, and we greatly enjoyed our ex- 
 perience in visiting them. In Delphi, more than 
 in any one place in Greece, Grecian patriotism, 
 art, literature, and worship culminated. Here for 
 generations the Amphictyonic Council met and 
 here the Delphic oracle was consulted for ages and 
 ages by people from all parts of southern Europe. 
 Earthquakes and landslides have done much to ob- 
 literate the ancient locations ; it is not even known 
 where is the precise spot where, the priestess of 
 Apollo sat on her tripod and gave forth her orac- 
 ular utterances. The Castalian fount still whispers 
 down the mountain side, and the impressive ruins 
 of the stadium, the theater and several of the 
 temples indicate what a place of wondrous beauty 
 Delphi must have been. It is a dreamy, myste- 
 rious place, oppressed with haunting silences ; the 
 gloomy and gaunt rocks of the mountain side, 
 the flickering shadows, the chorus of winds, the 
 warble of birds, and the spangle of brightly beau- 
 tiful flowers still remain, and give us a partial 
 idea of what Delphi must once have been. It 
 was the very heart of Hellenic symbolism and 
 
GREECE 251 
 
 mystery; in this enchanted spot those powerful 
 forces found a national expression. 
 
 We returned to Itea, once more crossed the 
 Corinthian Gulf, landed at Patras and early the 
 next morning went to Olympia in Elis, where we 
 also spent two days. The physical setting of 
 Olympia is not so glorious as that of Delphi, 
 yet after all it is a lovely spot. Its charm is 
 of a softer, gentler character. The German gov- 
 ernment has conducted the Olympian excavations, 
 and while the ruins are not in so good preserva- 
 tion as those of Delphi, owing to the erosion 
 caused by the River Alpheus and the landslides 
 from Mount Cronus, enough remains to throw 
 great floods of light upon Grecian art, history 
 and religion. Both at Delphi and at Olympia 
 there are museums in which have been gathered 
 many relics from the stately structures which once 
 graced these famous places. 
 
 The voyage from Patras to Brindishi, Italy, 
 was made in a small Italian steamer bearing the 
 ill-omened name of Charidde or Charybdis. Some 
 of our party thought they had supped full of 
 horrors in the journey from Port Said to Joppa 
 on a fussy Greek steamer. The voyage fronv 
 Patras to Corfu was without un-toward incident ; 
 we landed on that picturesque island for a few 
 hours, where the Emperor William has his winter 
 
252 A-ROVING HE WOULD GO 
 
 home, and went to our staterooms at night with 
 the pleasing illusion that we should wake up about 
 five the next morning and find ourselves across 
 the Adriatic, snugly tucked up in the harbor of 
 Brindisi. But this was not to be. We awoke 
 to a painful disappointment. A wind storm had 
 swept down from the northern Adriatic and stirred 
 up the trough of the sea from its very depths. 
 Our little steamer was tossed about like a midget 
 on the top of frightful waves; the winds grew 
 wilder and wilder ; and instead of making our way 
 to Italy we were making our way back to a Turk- 
 ish port on the bleak lUyrian coast ; as the captain 
 did not dare to attempt to make an eastward 
 course in the face of the fearful tempest. Most 
 of the passengers were frightfully seasick; there 
 were only five of us that were immune. All day 
 long the steamer groaned, twisted, and cavorted 
 under the snarling winds, until about the middle of 
 the afternoon the captain thought it prudent to 
 turn her snout to the westward and we gradually 
 came into view of the Italian shore. We were 
 due at Brindisi at about five in the morning; but, 
 alas, the whole day had slunk to midnight black- 
 ness before we reached it. Some of the passen- 
 gers were so sick they had to be taken from their 
 berths and carried ashore. Ben Jonson wrote: 
 *' In small proportions we just beauties see;" 
 another version might be " On small Italian steam- 
 ers, on the Adriatic Sea, we can suffer and be 
 seasick and unhappy creatures be." 
 
GREECE 253 
 
 We reached Brindisi at last; and soon the sea- 
 sick passengers found new life, got themselves 
 outside a supper at the hotel, tumbled into bed, 
 while the cliffs of Corfu, the snow-capped moun- 
 tains of Illyria, the tumbling white-crested 
 waves of the Adriatic, the bowlings of the fierce 
 winds and the possibility of the frail vessel's 
 floundering under the blast of the tempest, receded 
 into dreamland. After all, a little seasickness, a 
 trifle of discomfort, a few jars upon the nerves, 
 are a part of the price that most must pay for 
 the privilege of marine travel. The discomforts 
 are short-lived, the pleasures of memory, the 
 wealth of experience, the joy of having realized so 
 many anticipations of one's youth, are longer- 
 lived. They are a precious asset. 
 
 Here I will bring my reminiscences to a close. 
 Italy is one of the most interesting countries of 
 Europe, but it has been so often described that 
 little is left that I could say which would be new. 
 To have covered, at least in part, Egypt, Pales- 
 tine, Syria, Constantinople and Greece in one 
 tour; to have traveled more than 15,000 miles 
 without any serious trouble ; to have brought back 
 a great wealth of delightful experience, is one of 
 the delights of life. Emerson speaks of " living 
 with the privilege of the immeasurable mind." 
 One of these privileges is that of the memory oi 
 bright and beautiful scenes in the far-away. Pur- 
 ple East.