ASIA fe^i TXKKiw: u#m tgSl iiK^M Cornell Inioecatta iOibranj 3tt?aca, New Qotk CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION CHINA AND THE CHINESE THE GIFT OF CHARLES WILLIAM WASON CLASS OF 1S76 1918 Cornell University Library G 440.C28 Round the world in 1870 :an account of a 3 1924 023 561 933 The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023561933 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. LONDON': PRrNTKD DT BPOTTISWOODB AND CO., MKW-STIIJUET SyUAHli AND PAHLIAMENT STKEliT ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870: AN ACCOUNT OP A BRIEF TOUB MADB THKOUGH INDIA, CHINA, JAPAN, CALIFORNIA, ■V AND SOUTH AMEEICA. A. D. CARLISLE, B.A. Trdt. Coll. Cam. ...LONDON: U v ■ . i i Y Heney S. Kim ( &■ Co,., 65 Cornhill. 1872. * Svch is the patriots boast: where'er tee roam, Ilis first, best country ever is at home. And yet, perhaps, if countries we compare, And estimate the blessings which they share. Though patriots flatter, still shall wisdom find An equal portion dealt to all mankind; As different good, by art or nature given To different nations, makes their blessings even* GOUJSMITH'S ' PREFACE. The following narrative of a tour round the world, made almost entirely in the course of last year, is taken, in some parts word for word, from a journal kept by the writer while ' en. voyage.' It is not intended to be more than an easy, truthful, and, it is hoped, an interesting account of the men and manners, of the various objects of interest, natural and arti- ficial, seen in the different countries visited. From the short time occupied in the tour (thirteen months only, of which five were consumed in steamers in passing from one country to another), the writer is well aware that his narrative must be in many respects superficial ; nor can he expect to have gleaned many ears in addition to the abundant harvest gathered by previous reapers in the same fields of novelty and interest. For the same reason, and lest he should incur the charge of being guided by 'that hasty knowledge which ' rushes in ' where more mature experience 'fears to tread,' he has refrained from VI PREFACE. entering into discussions on the many moot points of fact, and ' vexatas qusestiones ' of theory, which connect themselves in almost everyone's mind with nearly every country, new or old. If the narrative affords pleasant reading to some, gives information to a few, and encourages anyone who has 1,500Z. to spare, and two years' leisure on hand, (for thirteen months is all too short a time), to start on a similar route round the world, the writer's object will be attained. June, 1871. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. OVERLAND. PAGE G ibraltar — Malta — Alexandria — The Isthmus of Suez — The Eed Sea — Aden— Point de Galle— Wak Wallah— Madras— The Hooghly . . 1 CHAPTER II. CALCUTTA. First Impressions — The Midan — The Burning Ghat — The Bazaar — Hockey— The Botanical Gardens — Barrackpore — 'Banishment' to Calcutta 24 CHAPTER UI. TIRHOOT. Indian Railways — Palkees — Indigo Planters — Indigo — Wild-fowl — The Ganges . . . ......... Si CHAPTER IV. BENARES. The Doorga Khond— The Ghats— The Pilgrims— The Well of Knowledge — The Mosque of Aurungzebe — The Bazaars 43 CHAPTER V. CAAV>TOKE AND LUCKNOW. The Cawnpore Intrenchment — The Boat Massacre— The Well — The Luck- now Residency — The Churchyard — The Palaces — The Imambarras — The Secunder Baeh— The Alumbagh o2 Vlll CONTENTS. CHAPTER VI. AGRA. TAGB The Agra Fort— Th\ Taj-Akbar's Tomb— Futtehpoor Sikri— Sheik Selim's Tomb — Diving Extraordinary 64 CHAPTER VII. DELHI. The Chandnee Chowk — The Port — The Dewans— The Jumna Musjid — The Khootab — Humayoon's Tomb — Jugglers —Ice-making . . 73 CHAPTER VIII. THE HIMALAYAS. Dak Horses — Dak Discomforts — Deyra Doon — Up from the Plains — Mussoorie — Hill Coolies — The Simla Road — The Jumna Gorge — Lukwali— Back to Calcutta 82 CHAPTER IX. PENAN G AND SINGAPORE. The Bay of Bengal — Penang — Singapore — Chinese Gardens — The China Sea " Bo CHAPTER X. HONGKONG AND MACAO. First Sight of China — Hongkong— A Chinese Dinner — A Chinese Theatre —Macao— The Coolie Trade . 101 CHAPTER XI. CANTON. View from the River — Canton Boats — Pawnbrokers — A Canton Market — Buddhist Temples — Canton Streets and Shops — View of the City — Examination Hall . . . . ■ . . , .114 CHAPTER XII. SHANGHAE AND NINGPO, Up the Coast— Shanghae— Its Climate— Chinhae— Chinese Ice-houses— Ningpo— Pagoda— Temple— Monastery— Chinese Scenery . . .129 CONTENTS. ix CHAPTER XIII. THE YANG-TSE-KEANG. FAGK Importance of the Hirer — Chinkeang — Nankin— PorcelainJPagoda — Ming Tombs— "Walls of Nankin — Confucian Temple — KireKeang— River Scenery — Hankow - 142 CHAPTER XIV. NAGASAKI AND THE INLAND SEA. Nagasaki Harbour— The Town— The Streets— The Shops — Sinto Temples — Tea-drinking— A. Theatre— Graveyards— The Suwo Nada— Kobe . 160 CHAPTER XV. KOBE AND OSACA. Kobe 1 — Arima — Foliage in Japan — Tea-houses — Hot Springs — Basket- work — The Moon Temple — Osaea — Its Canals — The Castle — Temples — Street Scenes — ' Wood Works ' — Singing Girls — Out to Mino . • . 172 CHAPTER XVI. YOKOHAMA AND THE NEIGHBOTJEHOOD. Kob6 to Yokohama — O-o-Sima — Yokohama — Fires and Earthquakes— Climate — Curio Street — Excursions — Ponies and Bettos — Kanasawa — Kamakura — Dai-butz — Inosima 188 CHAPTER XVII. YEDO. The Tocaido — Cangos and Norimons — Yaeonins and Couriers — Sinagawa — Yedo — Its Size and Population — The Ronin Burial-ground — ■ The Shogun's Burial-ground — Atango-yama — The O-shiro and Soto- shiro — Asaksa-^Shibaia-'-Hamagoten 199 CHAPTER XVIII. THE COUNTRY. Preparations for Travelling— A Silk Village— Meyonachi— Koyias — Oyama — Odawarra — Meon-ooshta — Sulphur-springs — Komang Atta Yama — Fusi Yama — Hakoni — Shampooing — Cryptomerias — Hatta —The Tocaido 215 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER XIX. ACEOSS TO SAN FEANCISCO. PAGE Tke Voyage— Chinese Passengers — The Parallones— San Francisco— The City — Its Streets and Buildings — Its Prices — Telegraphs — Popu- lation— Climate— Oakland 230 CHAPTER XX THE MAMMOTH TEEES OP CALIFOBNIA. The San Joaquin Valley — Californian Corn-growing — Californian Heat— Gold-mining — The Foot-hills — The Pine Forests — The Sequoias — The Grizzly Giant — Other Giants — Their Size and Beauty — The Silence of the Forest .239 CHAPTER XXI. THE YO-SEMITlH VALLEY. The Sierra Nevada— The Sentinel Dome — The Glacier Rock — Inspiration Point — The Valley — Its Scenery — Its Waterfalls — Indian Names — Back to Stockton 251 CHAPTER XXn. TAHOE LAKE, THE NAPA VALLEY, AND SAN JOS& The Pacific Railroad — Donner Lake — Tahoe — Sacramento — The Napa Valley — Calistoga — Petrified Trees — The Geysers — Suburban Villas — San Jose — New Almaden — Retrospect and Prospect . . . .261 CHAPTER XXIII. SAN FRANCISCO TO PANAMA. The Voyage, as it is, and as it was — The Coast — Manzanilla — Acapulco — Panama — Its decay, and the causes thereof — A Week in the Bay — Taboga 27* CHAPTER XXTV. PANAMA TO VALPARAISO. Payta— A Dry and Thirsty Land— Callao— Lima— Its poor appearance— The Oroya Railway — Lima Society— La Bella Limena— The Peruvian Coast— A Rainless District— Chinese Coolies— Arica— The Earth- quake of 1868— The Chilian Coast— Fellow-passengers . . .283 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTER XXV. CEXTRAL CHILI. FAGK Valparaiso — Its Earthquakes — Its Climate— Chilian Horses and Chilian Eiders — A Chilian Railway — Santiago de Chile — The Chilian Paris — Apoquindo — The Southern Railway — Cauquenez — High mining — The Andes . 299 CHAPTER XXVI. THE STRAIT OP MAGELLAN. Down the Coast — Off Cape Pillar — The Entrance to the Strait— Glaciers and Snow-storms — The Scenery of the Strait — The narrowest part — Punto Arenas — The Eastern Narrows —In the Atlantic . . . 314 CHAPTER XXVII. THE BANDA ORIENTAL. Monte Video — Its State of Siege — The opposing Armies — Effect of the War on the Country — The British Consul's Report — The River Uruguay — The Arroyo Halo — The surrounding Country — Its Climate — Its Animals and Birds—' Pros and Cons ' for a Settler .... 324 CHAPTER XXVHL BUENOS ATRES. Its approaches by Water — Its Houses, Streets and Inhabitants — A Sala- dero — Wholesale Slaughter — Prosperity of Buenos Ayres — The Causes of it — Note on the recent Ferer in Buenos Ayres — Its Nature, Causes and Effects .337 CHAPTER XXIX. OUT IS * THE CAMP.' A model Estancia — A Locust Plague — Merlo — Chivilcoy — The Bragado — Horse-racing on the Pampas — The Gaucho — Espartillares — Pamp* Diet — The Gentleman turned Sheep-farmer — The Pampas — Pampa Horses — A ' Puesto ' — Sheep-farming — Its ' Pros and Cons ' . . 3-5i> Xll CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXX. UP COUNTEY. PAGE The Parana de las Palmas — Rosario — The Central Argentine Railway — A Dead Level — CoTdova — Its Churches and Priests — Its International Exhibition — The Grounds — Cordovan Promenades — Cordovan Wagons — The Sierra de Cordova 368 CHAPTER XXXI. EIO DE JANEIRO. The Bay— The City— The Negroes— Botafogo — Tijnca — Chinese View — Ray's View — Up the Bay — Tropical Forests — Petropolis — A Brazilian Road — The Alto Imperador — A search for it — Brazilian Birds — A fresh Field for Travellers 385 CHAPTER XXXII. BACK TO ENGLAND. St. Paul's Rocks — St. Vincent — Teneriffe — Lisbon — Finisterre — The Bay of Biscay keeps up its character — Pauillac — Home again . . . 400 MAPS. The World, on Mercator's Projection . Part of Japan, from a Native Map . California ..... The Yo-semite Valley The Provinces of the Rio de la Plata . Frontispiece To face page 143 231 251 325 BOUND THE WOKLD IN 1870. CHAPTEE I. OVERLAND. ' Impiger extremos . . . curris ad Indoa.' — Horace. Christmas Day is probably the last day in the year on which one would choose to leave England. But Christmas day, 1869, falling on a Saturday, and a P. and 0. steamer starting on that day — and, like time and tide, waiting for no man — we are driven to the choice of foregoing the enjoyment of the day on shore or of waiting for the suc- ceeding steamer. Choosing the former alternative, we find ourselves at 2 p.m. on board the ' Pera,' in Southampton Dock, waiting for the arrival of the mails from London. Within half-an-hour they come, about five hundred huge sacks-full, giving one some idea of the number of pens in England which every week are busy writing for foreign countries, Just as the short daylight draws to a close, we are out in Southampton Water, and while the vessel is running down the Solent and out past the Needles, we are busy over an orthodox. Christmas dinner, destined possibly to bring matters to a climax with some delicate stomachs. B 2 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. Early next morning we are running across the channel towards Ushant, with a stiff N.W. wind, which streaks the waves with white, and whistles through the rigging a promise of growing stronger. It keeps its promise too, and before mid-day we freshwater sailors are ' on our beam ends,' or, as it has been otherwise expressed, ' keeping a berth-day.' On such occasions we lie in a helpless state of lethargy, with a growing conviction that we are the most miserable men alive. We watch the reflections from the waves dancing on the cabin roof, and watch the curtains and every suspended thing swinging to and fro relentlessly ; we listen to the ' creak, creak, creak,' of the straining timbers, and to the ever-recurring wash of the waves against the port ; occasionally we hear the ' thud ' of some more violent wave against the vessel's bows, followed by a singing noise as the water pours over the decks : then the piping of the boatswain, the half- hourly bells, or the distressing sound of meals going on close to our cabin door, with now and then a crash of plates and glasses, as some heavy lurch deposits everything movable on the floor. Then follows a heavy slumber, and after twenty-four hours of alternate misery and oblivion, we are able to shake off the dire influence of the Spirit of the Deep, and enjoy the sight of a fine sea from the deck. Within fifty hours of passing the Needles we are abreast of Cape Finisterre, and in another twelve hours a sensible increase in the temperature tells us that we are .fjast getting towards the sunny south. The fine weather draws nearly all the passengers from their berths, and we find that we are in the midst of a remarkable variety of interests and professions. Military men, civil servants, lawyers, and merchants, hoping to achieve distinction or win rupees in India ; oflicers destined OVERLAND. 3 for the less trying stations of Gibraltar or Malta ; invalids flying from consumption and bronchitis to the genial climate of the Mediterranean ; coffee- planters for Ceylon ; missionaries and merchants for Burmah and China ; squat- ters for Australia ; travellers for pleasure and information. All these, and more, are thrown together in one vessel for a few days or weeks, and then separated to the four quarters of the globe, probably to see as little of each other during the rest of their lives as they did before meeting in this apparently hap-hazard way. With such variety of company a voyage ' overland ' can never lack interest, apart from that supplied by the num- ber of places at which some stay is made. Here we are at the first of these places — anchored in Gibraltar Bay. The rock rises up right in front of us, with its bare limestone sides and its serrated ridge, in outline not unlike a huge lion crouching — a lion, too, whose head is turned towards the Spanish mainland, as if he professed to be independent of that country, and to keep a watch upon it ! Along the base of the rock lies the town — a thick mass of yellow, white, and red houses : above, in the rock itself, are visible the embrasures of the celebrated galle- ries, looking like so many pigeon-holes; while along the water's edge are many forts with cannon grinning over the ramparts. Two hours on shore give us time to pay a short visit to some of the nearest galleries. They are merely so many tunnels, about ten feet in width and the same in height, cut inside, and parallel to, the face of the rock. At intervals of twenty yards or more- an opening is made from the tunnel to the face of the rock, and from this a gun looks down upon the harbour below, or upon the flat isthmus which connects the rock with the mainland. Though the galleries have earned much fame B 2 4 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. from their exploits in the famous siege of 1780-83, they do not seem to be much relied on now. Heavy guns can- not be fired from them ; and they are objectionable from their rapidly filling with smoke and their deafening re-echoing of sound. New galleries have not been made for many years, and all recently constructed batteries on the rock are open to the sky. Coming out of the galleries, we pass under an old square tower, pitted with shot marks of the time of the siege, and go down one of the steep streets of steps into the town below. We have time to admire some of the fine mules, which seem the chief beasts of burden 'here, and to notice the variety of complexion in the inhabi- tants of the place. We seem to discern various mixtures of Spanish and Moorish blood, with almost every other blood to be found in or out of the Mediterranean ; nothing but a thorough medley of the sanguinary streams produc- ing a genuine ' rock scorpion,' as the lower class of the inhabitants of ' The Gib ' are christened. Here, perhaps, could be found the ' Gibraltar Jew of Yankee extraction,' supposed by many to be the typical embodiment of Shy lock propensities ; and certainly, if we are to portion off territory according to the language of the natives therein, Gibraltar might be claimed with equal right by half-a-dozen European powers, not to mention the Emperor of Morocco or the Bey of Tunis. Before sunset on December 30 we are steaming out of the bay, and, soon after rounding the southern point of the rock, make a direct course for Malta. Next morning we are within sight of Cape de Gata, and have a distant view of the Sierra Nevada, with its higher points white with snow. Almost at the extreme point of Cape de Gata we dis- tinguish a white patch, which looks' like snow against OVERLAND. 5 the dark soil around it. It is a protruding vein of marble, which, before the erection of the lighthouse on the Cape, was a most useful distinguishing mark for mariners. The coast on either side of the Cape looks bare, but we are too far off to distinguish vineyards or smaller patches of vege- tation. After passing the Cape we gradually lose sight of the Spanish coast, and on the next day we sight the mountains of Algiers, draped half way down their sides with the white mantle of winter. Soon after mid-day on January 3 we are passing along the northern coast of Malta. The island has a pervading yellow look : the soil seems a monotony of yellow sand- stone, dotted here and there with a yellow house, or with a few prickly-pear trees — the only vegetation visible. We should have to go a few miles towards the centre of the island to find the verdant spots where grow unrivalled oraDges, and the flowers that make up the bouquets which are sold in the streets of Valetta. Passing into the Quarantine Harbour, under the St. Elmo light, we drop anchor, and look round at the many yellow batteries that line the water's edge, and up at the yellow mass of well-built houses which cover the ridge of Valetta. Landing in a small boat, we are received by a swarm of ' barbarous people,' who seem to have degenerated since the days of St. Paul, and do anything but treat us cour- teously. We make our way up to the Governor's house — the old palace of the Knights of St. John. This noble building boasts an armoury which would rival in interest that of most of the palaces of Europe. Down the two sides of a long hall, and all through the length of two corridors which branch out from it, are ranged suits of armour repre- senting various red-cross knights, guns, battle-axes, pistols, and other weapons, together with many relics of the hard- 6 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. fought siege of 1560, and portraits of the various Grand Masters of the Order of St. John. Among the relics is a curious old musket, which seems to prove that there were Whitworths or Armstrongs three centuries ago, for it is constructed to load at the breech.- As it is the only one of its kind, it would seem that the inventor lived before his time, and could not get his patent accepted by the red-tape government of the day. From the Governor's house we go to the Cathedral of St. John, of no architectural beauty outside, but full within both of beauty and interest. The floor is covered with inlaid marble slabs, the tombstones of the more distin- guished Knights of Malta. On either side of the nave are chapels assigned to the knights of particular nationalities : Spanish, Italian, French, English, &c. The whole interior of the church is covered almost to excess with inlaid marbles, bas-reliefs, mosaics, and ornamental stone- work ; and the arches, especially in the side aisles, are very handsome. We take a short drive along the Strada Eeale, out through the gate of L'Isle Adam, and across the broad moat which surrounds the city ; but darkness comes on, and we return to be fleeced more or less in the shops of filagree and lace, which are here such tempting traps for the innocent traveller. Few towns can boast such picturesque streets as those of Malta, with their rows of well-built houses and their projecting windows of many colours and tasty shapes. There is a clean fresh look, too, about both pavements and walls ; and in every other street one can look down through a vista of gable-ends and balconies on to the sparkling waters and thronging ships of the Great, or of the Quarantine Harbour. Soon after midnight, January 3 and 4, we are off again, OVERLAND. 7 steering for Alexandria, and for the next three days we see nothing around us but salt water. The interval is enlivened by an extempore charity bazaar on a small scale, initiated by a certain energetic lady who sells oranges at the modest sum of 6d. each ; and at last, in her zeal for the good cause, parts with an eyelash for the lucrative amount of 5s. Sums thus earned for charitable purposes are probably among those of which an eminent divine, when asked if he thought they did any good, said ' they went to print the reports.' Early on the morning of the 7th we enter the harbour of Alexandria. The view on entering consists merely of a white mass of houses, mosques, and public buildings, lining the water's edge, and stretching back over the level ground behind, while to the east and west lies an expanse of flat coast, dotted with houses or fringed with palm-trees. But, directly we cast anchor, the peculiar characteristic of the place manifests itself in the motley crowd of boat- men, porters, guides, and hotel agents, who swarm on to our vessel's decks. They are dressed in various costumes, more or less Oriental, and scarcely any three of them seem of the same nation. Arabs, Turks, Copts, Nubians, Greeks, and others, are here jumbled together; complexions of every hue, from that of ebony to an almost Saxon fairness, contrast strongly with each other ; sounds guttural, hoarse, and shrill, all equally unintelligible, issue from a dozen grinning mouths; and the only bond between these diverse specimens of the genus homo seems to be the eager desire which pervades them, one and all, of making money, by fair means or foul, out of the deafened and distracted passengers. We go ashore in a small steam-tender, and then drive to the Hotel Abbat, through streets over which rolls a sea of mud, and compared to which Oxford Street after a thaw 8 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. would be dry land ; we bump en route in and out of ruts and holes which could scarcely be matched in a road through an Irish bog. After lunch we sally out to see as much of Alexandria as is possible during an afternoon. Pompey's Pillar and Cleopatra's Needle are generally re- cognised as the ' lions ' of Alexandria. But they are both disappointing to a mind and senses of ordinary delicacy. The former stands on a raised piece of ground which seems the favourite place for the deposit of all foul rubbish ; and the latter, with its base buried in a sand-heap, and sur- rounded by wretched mud hovels, looks as if it had been purposely degraded and neglected. Modern Egypt seems to have no respect for, and no desire to imitate, its mighty ancestor : it is a slatternly descendant, reckless of the family name, and kicking about its heirlooms as if they were as worthless as itself. It is a pity that the Khedive did not divert some of the million sterling which he is said to have spent recently on the festivities at the opening of the Suez Canal to paving his muddy roads, and preserving and restoring the dilapi- dated monuments of the city. The most interesting sight in Alexandria, at least to a new comer, is the bazaar. This bazaar consists of a number of narrow streets or passages, crossing each other at right angles, and lined on either side with small shops, or rather covered stalls, wherein are displayed numberless Eastern productions, along with their imitations from Birmingham or Manchester. The bazaar is divided into quarters, each quarter peopled with shopkeepers of some particular nationality, and filled with its own peculiar wares. Thus there is the Tunis quarter, the Jews' quarter, the Bedouin quarter, the Turkish quarter, and a score of other quarters. One street is filled with gold and silver- smiths ; another with silk weavers and embroiderers ; a OVERLAND. 9 third with money-changers ; a fourth with tobacco-dealers, and so on. The variety in expression, costume, and complexion, of the owners of the shops would afford ample study to an artist, a physiognomist, or an ethnologist ; but nearly all seem alike in their perfect apathy as regards selling or not ; they seem to nourish a stoical belief that if Allah sends a buyer the buyer will come, and if not — a shrug of the shoulders must fill up the sentence. We have to wait in Alexandria for the steamer from Marseilles which will bring the passengers and mails to go on with as from Suez ; and accordingly it is not till the evening of the day after our arrival that we find our- selves in the train starting on the only ' overland ' portion of this ' overland ' route. The distance of 22G miles from Alexandria to Suez should be accomplished, according to English ideas of railway speed, in some five to six hours, but in Egypt it is a tacitly recognised maxim to do every- thing with a supreme indifference to time ; so though our train is a ' special ' one, it must be understood to have earned this title principally by being specially slow, and our average pace through the journey proves to be about sixteen miles an hour ! We roll along all night, stopping occasionally to supply the engine with water or the passengers with coffee, and passing through a uniformly flat country, diver- sified with lakes, scantily peopled, and partly cultivated. At day-break we are running through a flat gravelly desert, making a parallel course to the Canal, which is a few miles to the eastward. .By 8 a.m. we pass into the middle of the scattered huts, houses, and hotels, which go by the name of Suez, and which seem to be inhabited partly by engineers at work on the Canal, and partly by a crew of mongrel natives, whose chief occupation 10 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. is to beg ' backsheesh ' of passing travellers. The train carries us on to the quay at which the 'Mongolia' is lying. We go on board, and, while waiting for mails and luggage, we may have a look round at this spot, which is destined to see and participate. in the transit of nearly all the trade from the East to the West. On either side of the quay at which our vessel is lying, and reaching some distance out into the bay, are numerous moles and low dock-walls, dividing a large expanse of salt water into so many squares and oblongs, and forming part of the great Canal scheme. A mile away from us, towards the east, we can dis- tinguish the mouth of the Canal by the huge dredges Which stand up out of the level, but which, perhaps because the day is Sunday, are not at present working. No vessel is seen threading its way in or out of the Canal, and from a cursory glance one might be tempted to believe in the croakings of those who prophecy the failure of the gigantic scheme. But we may surely leave it to time to show that the undertaking was nobly planned, and destined both to be a lasting success, and to make us Englishmen rather ashamed that we did not give it a more timely and disinterested assistance. Outside the moles and dock- walls, away to the southern horizon, stretch the waters of the Red Sea, but, in variance with the name, of a brilliant emerald colour. The only red hue in the landscape is that on the bare rocky range of mountains to the west, which terminate towards the south in the head- land of Jebel Ataka. We leave the quayside early in the afternoon, and are soon fairly out on our way to Aden. A few miles down the gulf we passed abreast of what looks in the distance like a herd of cattle, but which in reality is a small OVEELAND. H clump of cactus growing over some ancient wells, which tradition has named the Wells of Moses, and has assigned as the spot near which the Israelites emerged from their passage through the sea. Looking at the dry, scorched-looking, rocky mountains which line the coast behind this spot, within a mile of the tidal mark, one cannot help reflecting what a strong hope of attaining to the Land of Promise, or an equally strong fear of returning to the House of Bondage which they had left, must have encouraged the emigrating nation to venture into such an arid wilderness. Perhaps more truly still, it was the faith, stronger than either hope or fear, which pos- sessed the eager souls of their leaders, and from them spread into their more uncertain followers. The whole country looks as if it had but just cooled down from being in a state of white heat, or as if a searing-iron had been carefully passed over every square foot of it, and had scorched off every living or growing thing; Yet this is part of the poetic land, that is supposed to breathe forth scented gales from its every shore. We must make large allowances for poetic licence, for we should have to wait long here before catching the ' Sabean odours from the spicy shore Of Araby the Blest.' About a hundred and eighty miles from Suez we stop for a short time off the reef on which the unfortunate ' Car- natic ' was recently wrecked, and land some provisions for the divers engaged in getting up part of her cargo. Prom this point we lose sight of the coast on the east with the Sinaitic range of mountains, and strike out into the broader part of the Red Sea ; and as three days pass without our sighting land again, we gain an idea of the immense ex- tent of this sea, which one is so apt to think of as a mere 12 ROUND THE WOELD IN 1870. lake. On the second day, indeed, just at sunset, we can distinguish, away on the western horizon, two or three mountain-tops, but they are in the little-known interior of Nubia, and a hundred miles from where we are sailing. The absence of any living or dead thing to be seen out- side the ship, gives us an opportunity of making notes on the life inside. Our crew is strangely different from that of the ' Pera.' Instead of men with more or less resemblance to the ideal Jack Tar, we have a motley assemblage of Lascars, Malays, Chinamen, Africans, and a very few Europeans. Shem, Ham, and Japhet, are all represented, if not others too, according to some learned authorities. Our passengers now consist of two sections — that from Southampton and that from Marseilles. Between the two there exists a wall of ice which it takes all the heat of the Red Sea to melt ; indeed it will scarcely be completely thawed till we reach Ceylon. Even in this month of January there is an amount of heat in the Red Sea which makes its influence visibly felt on many of us. The god of slumber is almost omnipotent ; at all hours the deck can show an easy-chair or two whose un- conscious occupants are dreaming the happy hours away. The thermometer within an hour or two of noon stands at 86° in the ' companion,' and on asking the engineer what it is marking in the stoke-hole, he says, ' Oh ! only 110 ° ; comparatively cool ; in summer we sometimes have it at 145°.' Of course no Europeans undertake stoking in such a temperature : the work is done by the more salamander-like Africans. As we approach the southern end of the Red Sea, however, the heat moderates again. On the morning of the 14th we pass close by the island of Jebel Tsuga, evidently of volcanic formation. It con- sists of a mountain, apparently about 3,000 ft. in height, sloping up from the sea in an alternation of rocky ridges OVERLAND. 13 and deep ravines. In the hollow of one ravine is plainly- visible an old lava stream, which has rolled down from near the head of the ravine, and, as it neared the flat ground by the sea, has spread out in a black rough- looking mass to the width of half a mile or more. It will forcibly remind anyone who has seen Vesuvius of the lava-covered skirts of that mountain. On the evening of this same day we pass by the little island of Periin, surmounted by its white lighthouse, and leave the Eed Sea behind us. On Perim floats the Union Jack: i.e. whenever there is a breeze in this hot and stagnant atmosphere ; but the island had a narrow escape of being surmounted by a ( red, white, and blue.' Before it had been claimed by any Power, the French sent a frigate to take possession of it. But the frigate put in on her way at Aden, whereupon the English Governor at that place asked all the officers of the frigate to dine with him. Learning, either before or during the repast, the object of their cruise, he despatched a note, while the wine was still circulating, to the commander of a British gun- boat in the harbour, bidding him get up steam, make the best of his way to Perim, and plant the English flag there. So when the gallant Frenchmen reached the spot, and found to their dismay that they had been outwitted even by the slow Britishers, all they could do was to utter many ' sacr-r-res 'on the Governor and his wine, and steam straight home, without even returning to Aden on the chance of a second invitation to dinner. Early in the morning, after passing through the straits of Perim, we are lying at anchor in Aden harbour. After breakfast we go ashore, partly to escape the dust of coal- ing, partly to see what redeeming features we may in this much-reviled spot. We land on the edge of a dry, sandy, parched piece of land, whereon stand a few scattered 14 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. houses and huts ; the coal-sheds of the P. and 0., and other companies, and one or two general stores. Rising abruptly round this flat piece is a huge ring of rocks, reaching to the height of 1,500 ft., bare and sharply cut, and looking as if they had been quite recently scorched, but picturesque withal. Immediately on landing we are surroundod by a swarm of black figures, some with black woolly pates, some with shaven crowns exposed to the blazing sun, some with shocks of hair black at the roots but yellow or ver- milion towards the ends — the result of the application of a kind of clay, used for cleaning and ' depopulating ' pur- poses. Some of them are laden with ostrich feathers, leopard- skins, shells, and other curiosities of the place, for which they demand exorbitant, but will take very moderate, prices ; with others their only plea for touching our purse is a shrivelled arm, a foot in an aggravated state of elephantiasis, or some other ailment equally calculated to move our charity or our disgust. After spending a short time in purchasing a few curiosi- ties, we take a rattletrap, which we could not dignify with the name of a carriage, and drive towards the Cantonment and the Tanks, which lie on the other side of the rocky ridge. We go through a narrow defile, and catch in passing a slight shadow from the overhanging pinnacles, ' the shadow of a great rock ' which must often be so grateful in such ' a weary land.' We pass some trains of camels, which are carrying in to the Cantonment skins of water from the country to the north-west ; for in Aden itself no rain has fallen for two years, yet twenty miles inland there is never a lack of water in the wells. We pass close by the Cantonment, in which are quartered one or two regiments of Sepoys, through a street of the small and dirty town hard by, and then up to the foot of the ravine in which are situated the famous tanks of Aden. These OVERLAND. 15 are said to have been built before the Christian era ; and there is a tradition which assigns their construction to Solomon, the great originator of the overland route to India, but they were only brought to their present con- dition a few years ago, by the English. They are said to be able to contain enough water to supply the whole of Aden for more than two years ; but, as we see them, they would almost seem to have been put up as a satire on the climate, for there is scarcely a hundred gallons in the whole of them. We make our way back to the steamer, and the hour which elapses before we start is employed in watching the diving and swimming performances of a dozen black urchins, who have paddled off from shore in their canoes, in the hope of earning a few coins by their amphibious powers. They dive and swim like so many seals, and seem able to go as fast by swimming as by paddling in ^jheir canoes. Half-a-dozen of them offer to dive under the vessel for ' bucksheesh,' and one of the passengers, ignorant of the fact that the vessel's keel is resting in mud, to the depth of a yard or more, offers a half-rupee to one of them for the feat. The ingenuous youth disappears under water like a stone, and shortly afterwards re-appears at the opposite side of the vessel, grinning and panting; but another observer, who happens to be standing at the stern of the vessel, deposes to having seen the urchin ' break water ' close to the stern, swim round the rudder-post, and dive down again. There is no doubt, however, that these young mermen can, and often do, perform the feat with- out any deception. We leave Aden before sunset, and at ten o'clock next morning pass within a couple of miles of Cape Guardafui, a bold headland with precipitous sides, forming a termi- nation to a high range of mountains running down from the interior. 16 HOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. We had been led to expect light N. E. winds and smooth sea on the passage from Aden to Galle, that being the usual condition of matters at this period of the monsoon. But human calculations seem very uncertain even in such well known phenomena as monsoons and trade winds, and we experience a variety of weather, from a half gale from the N. with a heavy sea, to an almost dead calm with a slight swell and a fierce sun. The time passes somewhat monotonously, and one almost loses count of the different days of the week. We verge on the state of the two passengers between whom and a steward the following conversation is said to have taken place : — Passenger A to passenger B : ' Is this Wednesday ?' Pass. B to Pass. A : 'I don't know; ask the steward.' Pass. B to Steward: ' Steward ! is this Wednesday ? ' Steward : ' I don't know, Sir ; I'll go and see.' When we have two or three hotter days than the rest of the voyage, some of the passengers complain that they cannot sleep at night, and that in the day they cannot do anything else. But, what with the various amenities of life on a good passenger steamer, extending from music and chess to foils and a nautical recreation termed ' slinging the monkey,' the ten days between Aden and Galle soon glide away. One or two of the humorous of the party certainly help them on in their flight ; especially one, whose character may be partly guessed at from the opinion said to have been formed of him by a quondam negro servant in Jamaica: 'Golly! when massa die, him die of laughing!' One evening is spent in watching an eclipse of the moon, and another in attending on theatrical performances given by the steward with great spirit and success. Yet it is a pleasant change to both ear and eye to find ourselves in Galle harbour on the 25th, with the engines stopped, and a semicircle of cocoa-nut palms to look upon instead of a OVERLAND, 17 monotonous expanse of salt water. The harbour has a lively appearance given to it by the number of ships lying at anchor in it ; among them before evening there are no fewer than five P. and 0. steamers, arrived respectively from Calcutta, Bombay, Singapore, Aden, and Sydney. The blue waters of the harbour, fringed by a belt of white sand over which droop the bright green branches of many cocoa-nut trees, must at all times look pretty ; but they probably come with a fresher charm on the senses of those whose latest recollections of dry land consist of the scorched rocks of Aden, the bare desert of Egypt, and the yellow sandstone of Malta. Within a few minutes of our dropping anchor, our vessel is in the midst of a fleet of canoes, whose owners seldom miss a rupee by coming too late for it. The Cingalese canoe is a curious craft, with a length of 30 ft. and a breadth of 2 ft., its equilibrium being secured by a log of wood lashed parallel to the canoe at the end of two poles which project horizontally over the water to a distance of 6 or 7 feet. The owners scramble on board, with a profuse selection of ornaments made of tortoise-shell and ivory, a few genuine precious stones, and a great many rings direct from Birmingham. We will leave them to find what prey they can, and go ashore. Before we have been five minutes in the streets of Galle, we have passed a number of natives of Avhom it would puzzle us to say whether they are men or women. A Cingalee, before he has grown a beard, or as long as he shaves, has little in the mild and soft expression of his face to distinguish him from one of what is not in Ceylon ' the fair sex.' There is, too, this peculiarity in the race, that the man's bust has almost the same contour as the woman's; consequently the distinction of the sexes is almost imperceptible to an unpractised eye. There is little of interest to detain us in the town of c 18 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. Galle, so without delay we tate a carriage and drive out to the hill of Wak- Wallah, some five miles away. Our road leads through groves of cocoa-nut palms, under the shade of which are maDy native huts, made almost entirely — walls, thatch, and furniture — of the useful tree of which so many specimens grow around them. Now and then the continuity of the groves is broken by cleared spaces, irri- gated and converted into rice-fields. The young rice is just protruding its light green stalks above the ooze of mud and water which covers its roots, and here and there is a native working among the plants, up to his knees in slush. We reach the foot of Wak- Wallah, and get out of the carriage to walk up a steep gravelly path. On each side is a fine growth of hard-wood trees, while beneath them is a luxurious undergrowth of ferns and flowers, creepers and sensitive plants, among which flits every now and then a gay butterfly or a beetle with wings of every metallic hue. In the. trees above are not a few songsters, whose notes would do credit to an English wood ; among them is the Bul-bul, or Indian nightingale, whose notes are not unlike those of a song-thrush moderated. Ten minutes' walking brings us to the bungalow at the top of the hill, and an opening in the trees around gives us an extensive and beautiful view into the interior of Ceylon. Immediately below us is a narrow tortuous plain, wind- ing in and out among clusters of wooded knolls, and threaded by a mazy river which serves to irrigate the paddy-fields on either side of its course. Beyond rise a crowd of hills, picturesque in outline, and bright with all the luxuriance of tropical foliage; the view ends in a pile of high mountains, blue in the distance, conspicuous among which is Adam's Peak, 7,4000 ft. in height, and some sixty miles away. The brightness and clearness of OVERLAND. 19 the atmosphere, the blending of hill and dale, wood and. water, in the landscape, the birds in the branches, and the buffaloes slowly wandering by the side of the river below, all may well recall Milton's lines describing the scene in Paradise to which Adam awakes created : — ' About me round I saw Hill, dale, and shady wood, and sunny plains, And liquid lapse of murmuring streams : by these Creatures that lived and moved, and walk'd or flew*. Birds on the branches warbling ; all things smiled ; With fragrance and with joy my heart o'erflowed.' But we must get back again to Galle before sunset, if possible, and so are constrained to leave the beautiful view behind, carrying away with us its memory, to be called upon whenever we are in want of a few moments' pleasant recollection. We spend a cool hour when the stars are out, on the sea-wall, watching the frequent flashes of sum- mer lightning in an electric cloud towards the west, and then, having failed to find comfortable rooms on shore, return on board our steamer. Next morning we go ashore again, and charter a carriage for a drive to the Cinnamon Gardens, the very mention of which probably seems to convey at once to the senses a whiff of the famous spice. If it really does do so, we had better be content with the mention of it, for in the gar- dens themselves no 'spicy breezes' are perceptible, and it is only by plucking a small branch from one of the shrubs, and then rubbing or scraping it, that any scent is perceived. The shrubs here grow to an average height of ten feet ; they are tolerably bushy, with dark green leaves, in shape, colour, and size much resembling the leaves of a camellia tree ; the branches possess the cinnamon scent, while the leaves, when crushed, smell like cloves, and the root emits a scent like camphor. The gardens contain a number of other trees and shrubs, interesting to any one c 2 20 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. fresh to the tropics; among them are the bread-fruit tree, the traveller's tree, the cardamum shrub, and others. We return through the groves of cocoa-nut palms, and cannot fail to notice how every tree of this kind seems to have a bend of its own, some stooping down almost to the horizontal, and others looking as if they had tried hard to grow quite perpendicular. But we may look in vain for a specimen without a bend in the trunk, for a straight cocoa- nut is proverbially in Ceylon as scarce as a dead post-boy in England. In this point these trees differ much from almost every other kind of palm, though when growing in groves most people will allow that they gain variety and lose stiffness by their irregularity. Our steamer is longer in coaling, taking in cargo, and discharging cargo, than her officers had calculated, and it is not till nearly midnight that we are clear of G-alle Harbour and on our course for Madras. Throughout the next forenoon we are in sight of the Ceylon coast, but we lose it again soon after mid-day, and our next land sighted is the coast some twenty or thirty miles south of Madras. At 1 p.m. on January 29 we cast anchor in the open roadstead of that place, and are at once surrounded by a number of large surf-boats, each manned with a dusky crew of Madrasees, from eight to twelve in number, who seem to think that their chief business is to shout and gesticulate to their very utmost. In both these performances they are such adepts that Babel and Bedlam seem undone, and the noise produced would almost do credit to a Pandemonium. The costume of the boatmen is scanty to the last degree. A loin-cloth constitutes the whole of their wardrobe ; for the rest, they follow the fashion of the Garden of Eden. Yet their appearance will not shock you as much as you might have expected. A black skin, somehow or other, has a look of dress about it, and you must reserve your disgust OVERLAND. 21 for the yellow, oily-looking bodies of the Chinamen whom you will first meet at Penang or Singapore. We have heard much of the excitement and danger of landing at Madras in a surf-boat, and are consequently rather disappointed to find that on this occasion both the surf and the danger are at their minimum. Entrusting ourselves to one of the boats manned with ten rowers, we make for the shore, but beyond some frenzied howlings from the steersman as we near the line of breakers, tbe momentary straining of the natives at their oars, and one or two gentle heaves from the breakers as we passed through them, we experience none of the excitement, uproar, and ' pitch-and-toss ' work which is said to be the rule here so often. We land on the hard, surf-beaten beach, and at once begin to realise the statement that Madras is never cool ; for this is January, and yet the sun beats down on us with intense power. We drive through the straight streets, full of dust and lined with dusty -looking houses and shops, and accept a kind invitation to take a meal with a doctor of the hospital which stands on the south-west of the town. We go through the hospital, the wards of which seem almost filled with both natives and Europeans. Of the natives a large number are suffering from crushed feet and legs, the result of the apathy which influences them even in crossing a crowded street, and the recklessness with which their fellow-countrymen drive, when once started. Of the Europeans, alas ! there seem to be more suffering from the effects of brandy-pawnee than from any other disease. In the comparatively cool hour of sunset we go to the Peoples' Park, where Europeans, half-castes, and natives, are driving listlessly round a gravel path, and trying to shake off the languor induced by the labour and 22 ROUND THE WOELD IN 1870. heat of the day. Neither horses nor drivers look very lively; but this a Calcutta companion declares is only what was to be expected in what he is pleased to call the Benighted Presidency. Happily for him, he has in Calcutta a cold season to refresh his frame yearly ; here in Madras it is, as the Irishman said, ' never cooler ! ' A. monotony of heat reigns through the year. After sleeping all night under a punkah, we pay a visit early next morning to the Club, considered the best club in the East, and by 10 a.m. we are off again on the last stage of our voyage. Half an hour after starting we stop again to loosen some screw which was causing a 'hot bearing,' and then we are finally off, extra coal being piled on to the furnaces to make up for some of our lost time. Soon after daybreak on February 2 we are off the outer- most lightship in the mouth of the Hooghly ; the water is already muddy, but the low mud swamps which form the nearest coast are not yet visible. By nine o'clock we are abreast of Saugor Island — a flat mud-bank covered with jungle, said to be a perfect tiger- preserve, and bearing a lighthouse near its northern end. With a favourable tide we run fast up the ninety miles of narrow channels, broad and shifting mud-banks, and un- certain back- currents, which intervene between Saugor Island and Calcutta, and render the Hooghly perhaps the most difficult of navigable rivers. But the Hooghly boasts the finest pilot service in the world ; and steered by one of the members of that fraternity, we arrive at Garden Reach in safety, and bring up alongside the bank, a short distance above the palace of the ex-King of Oude. The bank is tolerably well lined with friends and relatives of many of the passengers of the 'Mon- golia,' and not a few hearty and touching welcomes may OVEELAND. 23 be witnessed on the ship's deck, almost before she is made fast to the shore. Receiving our own share of this, we are soon driving in a ' buggy * with our own kith and kin, and that night we are lying on a more roomy couch than a ship's berth, in the suburb of Ballygunge. 24 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. CHAPTER II. CALCUTTA. A hundred years ago ' the tract now covered by the palaces of Chowringhee contained only a few miserable huts thatched with straw. A jungle, abandoned to water-fowl and alligators, covered the site of the present Citadel and the Course, which is now daily crowded at sunset with the gayest equipages of Calcutta.' — Macavlaijs Essay on Lord Clive. The experience of our first evening and night in Calcutta tends to modify some, and confirm other, preconceived ideas of the place. Accustomed to imagine Calcutta as the hottest of hot places, we are agreeably suprised to find that our first evening there is cooler than any evening we have had since leaving Suez. The water, too, in which we take our morning's ' tub ' is fresher and colder than what the steamer's baths drew up for us from the Red Sea, the Indian Ocean, and the Bay of Bengal. We begin to think of the Calcutta climate with less dread than we did as Indiophobists at home ; and from subsequent experience, first and second-hand, we conclude that for three months out of the twelve — December, January, and February — a pleasanter and healthier climate than that of Calcutta would be difficult to find. For the other nine months, or at least for seven of them, perhaps the less said the better. In another point our English impressions of the place are confirmed. We have scarcely reached the room which is to be our dormitory, when in glides a" white-turbaned, white-skirted native, and dropping down on his knees CALCUTTA. 25 before our chair, with, all that air of mechanical submis- sion which marks one born to serve, proceeds to take off our boots, stockings, and every other piece of apparel we please. Unless we assert our independence, and prefer assisting ourselves, he will not stop till he has really put us to bed, as if we were imbeciles or grown-up children. Next morning he will call us, and if we aspire to becoming thorough Anglo-Indians, we thrust one foot from beneath the bed-clothes, which he immedi- ately invests with a stocking, the process being repeated with the other foot, and continued with the necessary variations to the rest of our enervated frame. If we take a bath after a morning ride, he will rub us down afterwards like a consummate shampooer; indeed, if we stay six months in the country, we shall have grown accustomed to being as much groomed and dressed as a favourite thorough-bred in an English stable. This may be very pleasant and even necessary when the ther- mometer is at 100°, and when every motion brings out the beady drops ; in the cool weather, and to a fresh comer, it seems superfluous. Ballygunge is a pleasant outskirt, lying to the south of Calcutta, occupied chiefly by substantial houses, standing each in its own 'compound,' at a convenient distance (three miles) from the business part of the city, and bor- dering on the south side on a mixture of jungle-land and cultivated ground, through which are many paths fit for riding, and a few good roads. But we will drive into Calcutta on the morning after our arrival, and leave the country rides for a morning when we can get up early enough to anticipate the sun. Our road into the city leads us across the Midan, which may well be considered the glory of Calcutta. It is a great open space of ground, covering, exclusive of Fort William, which 26 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. stands upon part of it, an area half as large again as Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens together. Had it a few more trees, it might be termed a park; at present, it is a broad expanse of not very bright turf, crossed here and there by roads and walking-paths. It serves for a universal recreation ground. Every morning and evening it is dotted with ' sahibs ' taking their exercise on Austra- lian ' walers,' or more symmetrical Arab steeds ; a cricket- ground, a race-course, and a racquet-court, all claim a portion of its spacious surface ; troops are reviewed on it, bazaars and exhibitions occasionally encroach upon it. Round one corner of it runs 'the Course,' whereon the beauty and fashion of Calcutta are wont to drive in 'buggies' and barouches.; near the Course is a plot where in the evenings of the dry season a group of a dozen or more excited Englishmen may be seen pursuing the game of ' hockey on pony-back.' Would that every large town in England had such a noble space for air and exercise ! Crossing the Mid an, we pass close by the gates of the Government House. Alas ! like many other buildings, it looks better in a photograph than in reality. Those hand- some-looking arches, surmounted by a model of the British lion apparently pawing a football, are only plaster and brick, and such is the composition of the main building also. There is no good building-stone to be found within hundreds of miles of Calcutta, and the appearance of Calcutta suffers accordingly. Who named the place the City of Palaces it would be hard to say; he had better have given the name to a more deserving candidate. Passing the Government House, we come to the portion of the city occupied by business houses, shops and hotels, all built on a spacious plan, and bringing in rents worthv of London. Proceeding through this district, we come to the crowded quarter of the native" population. Keeping CALCUTTA. 27 down towards the river, we pass the ' Burning Ghat,' a walled enclosure, inside which we see two or three piles of half-consumed wood, each covering a Hindoo body that is fast fulfilling the universal decree of ' ashes to ashes, dust to dust.' The poorest natives of the place may bring their deceased relatives here, and have them burnt, on the payment of a very moderate fee; and thus a remedy is sought against the former pollution of the river by casting unburnt corpses into it. From this silent haunt of the dead we can pass in a few minutes to the busy hives of the living. The native bazaar is close at hand — a dense mass of narrow streets, lined with small shops, which are filled with a most miscellaneous collection of articles, from Turkey reds and grey shirtings to brazen pots and empty beer-bottles. We may walk in and out of passages and alleys, go up stairs and continue round galleries and through rows of connected rooms, till we have fairly lost our way, and must trust to the native who is with us to lead us back to our ' gharry,' which we left standing in one of the broader streets. We drive back through the crowd ; our ' gharrywan ' engaged in a constant vociferation at various natives who will walk in the middle of the road, till we emerge again from the native quarter into purer air and more space. We have a rather confused impression on our minds of having passed through a maze of low cramped houses, wherein were black figures, draped in every colour, and many costumes, lazily smoking hookahs, and waiting, they don't care how long, for a customer for their wares, or busy over fifty different kinds of handiwork, from working in gold and silver filagree or embroidering in silks, to chopping tobacco or tinkering at brass pots. But it would take months of reading, combined with con- stant observation, to master half the castes, interests, arts 28 ROUND THE "WORLD IN 1870. and habits, of this mass of living beings. It is when pass- ing through a totally new scene of busy life, such as this, that one is impressed with the feeling of how many worlds of thought, belief, motive, habit and action, differing in every point from each other and from our own, this single planet of ours contains. It is a feeling akin to that of looking through a microscope and having our eyes opened to a hundred minute but perfect organisations, of which, we had no idea before ; or of seeing for the first time, through a telescope, a crowd of distant stars where we had thought there was only empty space. But we have not much time for philosophising as we drive through the crowded streets, and finally emerge again into the European quarter. We enter one of the spacious houses of business, whose ground floor is divided into cool and roomy offices, wherein we may see some fifty native clerks at work, some at desks, some writing squatted on the ground. On the upper floor are rooms that would do credit to an English baronial mansion, as far as size is concerned : in the largest of them we take tiffin, and when the day begins to cool, drive out again to Ballygunge, stopping on the way to try our hand at cricket or to watch a game of hockey on pony-back. This latter game has been intro- duced from a hill tribe living in the district of Munipoorie, with whom it is an old-established pastime. The ponies which are used for the game are also from Munipoorie ; they are not unlike Welsh ponies in appearance, and their average height is about twelve- and-a-half hands. Though so small, they are extraordinarily strong and active, as the way in which they carry ponderous sahibs after the ball, turning and twisting at every stroke of the long hockey-stick, fully proves. Not long ago, the Calcutta players, conscious of having attained some skill in the art, brought down a dozen Munipoor men from their CALCUTTA. 29 native country and arranged a match with them. But this attempt to beat the native at his own accomplishment proved too presumptuous to be successful, and in this little matter the Asiatic proved himself superior to the European. 'We will not delay long in Calcutta, as we are anxious to make a trip up to the north-west, and be off for China before the hot weather begins. But before starting ' up country,' we must go across the river to the Botani- cal Gardens, and pay a short visit, too, to Barrackpore. We take advantage of a native holiday — one of about thirty which occur during the year — when native clerks will do no work, and consequently business is almost stopped. Going down to the riverside at Garden Beach, we are ferried across the river, here half a mile in width, in a 'dingy,' and land close to the Gardens. This is per- haps the most unfavourable season for the appearance of a garden here ; . there are few flowers or creepers out, and the fine collection of orchids are also waiting for hotter weather before blossoming. But there are several masses of magenta colour where the bourganvillias are flourishing ; a few bigonias and jasmines are just opening out their flowers ; roses are in full bloom, and the hibis- cus is at its best. The rich variety of ferns from different parts of India, especially from Sikkim, is always green and luxuriant, and there are of course many trees and shrubs of interest. One tree alone, a fine banyan, is worth crossing the river to see. It has a spread of branches which cover a circle of ground sixty yards in diameter, each large branch supported by those downward shoots, which are the most striking characteristic of the tree. Under its "thick shade of dark-green leaves the air is deliciously cool, and we may sit there pleasantly with the column-like shoots all around us, thinking' that we are in a natural temple. Certainly an ancient Greek, had the 30 ROUND THE "WORLD IN 1870. tree grown in his native country, would have held it sacred to his favourite sylvan deities. Near the gardens is the Bishop's College, a handsome building, founded fifty years ago by Bishop Middleton, for the purpose of educating native Christians, if possible, as missionaries. The college is well planned, with a good library, and a simple but elegant chapel. It has not, how- ever, proved a success ; the number of pupils at present is only nine, fewer than attended in any of the first ten years of the existence of the building. It seems that Christianity makes slow progres among the upper classes of natives, and those of.a poorer class cannot afford to pay for such a good education as is here offered. To reach Barrackpore, we must recross the river and go by train out from the city for a few miles towards the north. A short drive from the Barrackpore station takes us to the park, a fine expanse of level ground, thickly dotted with well-grown trees of such kinds as the teak, the peepul, and the mango. At the further end of the Park is the Viceroy's house and gardens — the Indian Windsor, whither the representative of royalty often escapes from the heat and oppressiveness of the town. A few hundred yards distant, and near the bank of the river, is a sequestered spot containing a handsome marble tomb to the memory of Lady Canning. Half a mile away is a small collection of animals, duly caged : among them a magnificent pair of tigers, and a pair of leopards almost as handsome. In returning from Barrackpore we vary our route and start by boat. Going down the river for three miles or more, we land at the 'Grove,' and walk a mile to the bungalow of a well-to do Baboo, who has asked us to pay him a visit. His bungalow is of a moderate size, standing in an extensive garden filled with a great variety of fruit- CALCUTTA. 81 trees and shrubs, from cocoa-nut palms and plantains, to cotton-shrubs and rose-bushes. At one end of the garden is a large ornamental tank, with its banks neatly sipped and trimmed, and surmounted by one or two summer- houses. The owner of the house and grounds, though a native, is considerably Anglicised. He tells us he has long been anxious to pay a visit to England, but his wife's abhorrence of such an un-Brahminical journey has been too strong for him as yet. The lady is of course invisible, hidden from the gaze of the eyes of a Feringhee in the seclusion of the zenana. Our host regales us with a collation in European style, and we leave him rather late in the afternoon, to drive back to Calcutta. Ten days in the month of February in Calcutta leave on us a very different impression of the place from that which one might gather of it in England. In home circles, when a young ' competition wallah,' or an embryo merchant- prince, or a freshly-called barrister, is said to be going out to Calcutta, he is looked upon as doomed to so many years (if he lives as long) of banished life, breathing nothing but germs of fever or cholera, perspiring all day under a sweltering sun, and gasping all night under a sluggish punkah. Mothers and sisters look on him either as an instance of infatuated self-sacrifice, or a victim to the mistaken persuasions of ignorant friends. Perhaps if they could be spirited over the intervening 6,000 miles, and get a glimpse of their ' poor boy ' as he takes a morning canter across the Midan, sits down to a luxurious tiifin in the mid-day interval of his work, or chats and laughs in an after-dinner circle later in the day, they would adopt a more hopeful view of his circum- stances, and even compare his lot favourably with that of his brother or his cousin at home, cooped up in London chambers, or tied to a desk in a manufacturing town. 32 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. The fact is that, with the one desideratum of sound health, life in Calcutta can be, and is, passed quite as pleasantly as in most other parts of the globe. There are very few places where there is such a variety of recre- ation provided for those who are able, or who wish, to enjoy it. Cricket, racquet, rowing, riding, hockey on poDy-back, fox-hunting, snipe-shooting — all are daily possible at one or other season of the year ; and if leisure be extended from a few hours to a few days, anyone keen after sport can make bis choice from a dozen lands, vary- ing from tiger-hunting to duck-shooting, including what is perhaps pre-eminent as a manly and exciting sport, spearing the wild boar, or, as it is somewhat ignomini- ously styled in Calcutta parlance, pig-stickiug. And for anyone who lacks a taste for outdoor pursuits of a vigo- rous character, there is no place abroad where there can be found a society at once so hospitable, polished, and varied. Perhaps it may be thought that the one desideratum of sound health betrays a weak point in the defence of Calcutta as a residence for Englishmen, and at once makes room for exceptions more often occuring than the rule. It is doubtless true that an Englishman who has anywhere a flaw in his constitution runs greater risk in Calcutta than he would do at home ; and a delicate man should not venture to take up a residence there; but to see the number of healthy-looking men who may be met every day there, not a few of them after a residence of ten or a dozen years, one would conclude that a man with a sound constitution and a careful habit of life has a far better prospect of living, and living in health, in Calcutta than is generally supposed. Nor is there any place in the tropics where measures for warding off the effects of the heat and other dangerous points of the climate are so CALCUTTA. 33 universally understood and adopted ; and there are certainly few where better medical advice can be obtained at need. Perhaps we should add, that there is one other deside- ratum to the enjoyment of life in Calcutta, and that is a more liberal supply of the ' sinews of war ' than is required at home. Undoubtedly, in the majority of matters in that luxurious city, a rupee goes very little further than one shilling, though it is intrinsically worth two. But there is at least one important exception to this rule — a good horse can be bought for rather less than he would fetch in England, and can be kept at two-thirds of what he would cost in an English livery-stable. With regard to the lot of an English lady in Calcutta, perhaps we are not qualified to estimate it at its proper value. We may say, however, that we are inclined as a rule to pity the members of our fair sex in the tropics. Debarred by the climate, or by different habits of living, from most of the domestic occupations which fill up their time at home; mixing less with their fellows than the more active sex can do ; with less physical vigour to with- stand depressing effects of sun and sickness ; there are few of them with sufficient strength of mind and body to pass through the ordeal of a residence in the tropics without giving way at one point or another. But it is the -natural rule that everything going through severe test is either much injured or much improved by the process ; and for those Englishwomen who have come out of the tropical test uninjured, having no desire to attempt to ' gild refined gold,' we will not try to praise them. 34 BOUND THE WOBLB IN 1870. CHAPTER III. TIRHOOT. Twenty years ago a journey from Calcutta to any part of the North-west meant a fortnight's travelling in a 'palkee' or a ' gharry.' Even fourteen years ago, in the time of the mutiny, the journey from Calcutta to Delhi involved some 700 miles of travelling in a " gharry.' Now it is a matter of two days' journey on a railway, at a. pace moderate enough to be easy, and in carriages admirably adapted for comfort. But though the rail will run in a very short time from Lahore through the Punjab and down through the whole length of the great plain of Bengal without a break, it will be some years before it reaches Calcutta itself. No profane bridge has yet spanned the sacred waters of the Hooghly, and in leaving Calcutta we have to cross the broad waters in a steamer, in order to reach the ter- minus of the railway at Howrah, on the opposite bank. Accordingly, on February 13, we may be seen seated in the evening train just starting for the North-west. Yery soon after leaving the station we prepare to ' make a night of it, 5 The carriages are divided into com- partments, but the compartments are not again sub- divided. The seat on each side of the compartment is not partitioned by projecting elbow and head-rests, and consequently its flush length makes an admirable bed. The back of the seat is so constructed that it can be TIRHOOT, 35 pulled out, lifted up ou hinges, and fixed horizontally as a second bed. Thus in each compartment four people can lie down at full length, and, so arranged, the carriage looks not unlike an ordinary four-berthed ship's cabin. Taking advantage of this arrangement, we sleep soundly through the night, and at daybreak find ourselves at Sahibgunge, 180 miles from Calcutta, where a range of wooded hills abuts upon the plain of the Ganges. These are the ©nly hills we shall see till we catch a glimpse of the distant Himalayas ; from here you may wander a thousand miles up the plain of the Ganges and not see a hillock on the way. We travel on through the morning, keeping at no great distance from the bed of the Ganges, whose waters are occasionally visible, and before mid-day we reach the station of Mokameh. Here we leave the train in order to pay a visit to an indigo plantation in Tirhoot, on the other side of the river. Our indigo friends have sent to meet us two palkees, with twenty-eight bearers, twelve for the one of us of lighter weight, sixteen for the { Burra Sahib,' or ' heavy swell.' With the bearers, who are so many black figures scantily clothed, is a white- turbaned, white-toga'd native, who is to act as their leader and guide. He informs us that they have not had their mid-day meal, and that he has not enough coolies for the baggage which he sees ejected for us from the train. So an hour and a half is spent in supplying these wants, and then we start off. The palkee, as perhaps many of our readers know, is merely a box, about five feet six incbes long by two feet six inches in height and breadth, with sides usually of canvas. A pole, or a stout cane, runs under and along the top of the box, projecting some five feet at either end. The palkee is carried by four bearers at a time, the 36 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. different sets of four relieving each other every few minutes. As there is room in the inside to lie down almost at full length, the mode of travelling is by no means an uncomfortable one. But we are already at the bank of the river, scarcely a mile from the station, and must creep out of our palkees and transfer ourselves and our belongings to a ferry-boat. While our coolies are occupied with shipping our baggage, we are surrounded by some half-dozen beggars, who have issued from the neighbouring village at our approach. Their ragged scraps of clothing, maimed limbs, or tettered skins, are sufficient proof of the squalid indigence and the loathsome diseases which afflict them ; and the importunity with which they thrust their deformities upon us is so repulsive that we are fain to get rid of them in a rather summary manner, and then gladly take refuge in the boat. The Ganges here is at least 1,000 yards in width, even at this dry season, but it is so shallow that the ferrymen pole the boat across almost the whole distance. Arrived at the other side, we again take to our palkees, and for the first half mile pass across a waste of sand which is usually covered by the river. A strong wind raises a dense and hot cloud of dust and sand over this dry tract, but we soon emerge from it into cultivated land. We wind our way through fields of wheat, barley, opium-poppies, vetches, oats, grain, and cotton, studded here and there with palmyra palms or mango-trees. Every three miles or so bring us through a small village of mud huts, round which a few natives are loitering, almost as bare as the walls of their poor hovels. The soil in the fields looks perfectly pulverised with drought, and we are told that scarcely a drop of rain has fallen for four months. There is said, however, to be always a plentiful PALKEES. 37 supply of moisture at a certain distance below the surface, and certainly the crops look most flourishing. Our bearers carry us along at the rate of five miles an hour, their pace being something between a walk and a run — a quick shuffle, in fact. They keep time with each other by means of a sing-song straiu which they hum over and over again, and which we are afterwards told consists chiefly of the praises of the sahib who forms part of their load. When not shouldering the pole, they chat and joke with each other in quite a lively manner. Looking at their light forms, and reflecting on the fact that their diet is almost exclusively a vegetable one, one would not believe them capable of much continued exertion ; yet they carry us to our first station, the Bogwanpore plantation, a distance of twelve miles, in something under two hours and a half, and seem quite fresh at the end. Our destination for the night is Meghoul; but the Bogwanpore planters will not let us pass on without ' tasting of their salt,' so the remaining nine miles we accomplish after sunset. Arrived at Meghoul, we are sorry to find that our friend the manager of the plantation has gone, on the previous day, unwell, to the house of a neighbouring planter at Dowlutpore. We are too late to follow him before to-morrow, so we call into requisition the Meghoul charpoys, and sleep soundly till morning. It is pleasant to find on awaking that the Tirhoot temperature is de- cidedly cooler than that of Calcutta. The thermometer at 7 a.m. marks only 62°, 6° or 8° less tban the usual standard at this time of the year in Calcutta. By eight o'clock we are off in a buggy for Dowlutpore^ and after half-an-hour's driving over what the planters of the neigh- bourhood are pleased to call a road — but what would be more accurately described as a choice and varied selection 38 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. of ruts and hillocks, with a level piece put in occasionally by way of contrast — we find a hearty welcome at our friend's bungalow. An indigo planter's bungalow varies about as much in appearance and comfort as a farm-house in England. It may be an erection that looks as if it had intended to be a mud hovel, but had thought better of it at the eleventh hour ; or it may be, like the one at which we have just arrived, a well-built house, with good rooms inside and good verandah outside, with garden, stables, kennels, and outhouses to boot. It may be occupied by a rough-and- ready owner, in whom expatriation and solitary living have developed fully all the untidy, boorish habits, into which a bachelor is supposed to fall rather easily ; or it may be adorned by the presence, and kept in order by the manage- ment, of one of the more refined sex, the effect of whose companionship on him who owns the house is that ascribed in the Latin Grammar to the learning of the liberal arts — ' emollit mores, nee sinit esse feros. 5 "We must make the best use of our day here in seeing something of the plantation ; in the evening we can re- turn, to play a game of croquet on the lawn, have our ears regaled with the musical feast provided by our hostess, join in a Scotch reel, and become fully convinced of the flagrant error we commit at home when we imagine an indigo planter must be a creature beyond the bounds of civilisation. The plantation consists of about 3,000 acres of land, the soil of which is that fine alluvial deposit which spreads over the whole of the Plain of the Ganges. We can see no traces of the indigo plant yet, for only half the ground has been sown, and that only a fortnight ago. The sowing, in fact, generally commences and ends with February. If the slightest rain falls during, or less than three weeks INDIGO. 39 after, the sowing, a crust is formed on the surface of the ground which prevents the tender young plant shooting up, and a re-sowing has to be resorted to. At the end of the three weeks the plant is about six inches high, and is then considered safe from weather, unless excessive drought take place. The first cutting of the plant commences in July, the second and third at intervals of a month after that time. The branches, when cut, are thrown into large tanks, or vats, of masonry ; water is poured over them, and they are slightly pressed. The water, passing through the mass, is drawn off into other vats, having assumed a yellow eolour. It is then beaten up with rods by native labourers, and this singular process has the effect of turning it purple. The water is then allowed to stand, and a sedi- ment soon forms at the bottom. The water is now drawn off, the sediment is thrown into large caldrons, boiled for twelve hours, then strained repeatedly, and finally dressed into a solid form. After drying for one or two months in airy sheds, it is fit to be sent down to Calcutta and exported. Owing chiefly to the extreme delicacy of the young plant, the profits of an indigo plantation vary considerably ; and about once every seven years the profits are said to be changed into losses. The capital required to carry on a plantation is considerable, the annual expenses being something like Si. per acre. Yet labour is wonderfully cheap: an able-bodied native's daily pay for ordinary manual labour, such as hoeing, weeding, gathering the plant, &c, averages one anna, or threehalfpence ! There are no strikes and no Trades Unions yet in India. Nearly one half of the indigo grown in Bengal is grown on land owned by natives, on contract with European planters. But to enter into details of the rights and 40 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. customs of the ' ryots ' would open up questions which have caused much discussion at home as well as in India, and have been handled long ago by many able pens. ■ We could spend many pleasant days at Dowlutpore, and we can hardly leave it without trying our fortune at the wild-fowl shooting, of which there is a good variety in the 'jheels' and ' miggeries,' the ponds and meres, in the neighbourhood. Early one morning w.e drive off to a noted ' haunt of coot and hern,' seven miles away, and as soon as we get within half a mile of the reedy mere we can see long lines and dark crowds of wild fowl, stretching across the open water, or clustered round the sedges and rushes that fringe the lake's margin. Stepping each into a long canoe of the most primitive pattern — a mere palm-tree trunk hollowed out — we are poled along gently through the reeds towards where the birds swarm thickest. Two thirds of them are coots; the rest are made up of mallard, teal, widgeon, other ducks whoso names we know not, cranes, paddy-birds, snipe, and a few of strange plumage and unfamiliar forms. The first shot rings out suddenly over the water : there is a whirr of countless wings, the rising of a cloud of moving bodies, and the ' myriad shriek' of wheeling water- fowl ; the coots keep sweeping past our canoes within easy range, but the wary ducks, for whom we have specially come, will keep just beyond our reach, and after three or four hours we return to shore with only a dozen ducks, of at least four kinds, between us. As we drive back we may count up how many kinds of birds we have already seen in Tirhoot which are familiar to us in England. We put down swallows, spar- rows, sparrow-hawks, wagtails, terns, cormorants, snipe, and ducks, besides some handsome varieties of fly-catchers, jays and kingfishers, unknown at home. Of course TIRHOOT HOSPITALITY. 41 the birds peculiar to the country much exceed these in number, and there are not a few of very beautiful plumage, such as the mango-bird with its gorgeous amber breast, or the parroquet with its feathers of brilliant emerald. With the representatives of the vegetable kingdom in Tirhoot we are disappointed. Beyond the palmyra palm, the banyans, and the peepul, there are few hand- some trees ; the feathery bamboo serves somewhat to re- deem the character of the country in this respect; but flowers are few and far between, and of ferns we notice but one kind, a maiden-hair, growing luxuriantly round the sides of a deep well. We have made an appointment to meet a companion for the North-west at Mokameh Station on the 18th, so on the 17th we reluctantly leave our hospitable friends at Dowlutpore, and that night we quarter ourselves on the planters at Bogwanpore. Out in this distant part, where there are no country inns, and where the English planters live at distances of from two to twenty miles from each other, the virtue of hospitality finds a genial soil ; society's weeds of stiffness and formality cannot grow up and choke it. An Englishman travelling through Tirhoot may always count on a welcome and a charpoy at every bun- galow ; we know of one man who told us that he once spent two years in the northern part of the indigo country, engaged in arranging for a supply of timber from the Terai, the belt of wooded land at the foot of the Himalayas, and that during the whole of that time he had lived as a guest in one bungalow or another. We hope he did not get the reputation of being ' a sponge ' before his time came to an end. Early on the morning of the 18th we mount a horse, and, with a syce running behind, make for the Ganges again. Arrived at the bank, we are poled over in a boat, at the 42 ROUND THE WORLD IN 187U. leisurely pace with which a native does everything when left to himself. We move so leisurely through the water that we get close alongside several floating objects that look like knotty logs of wood, but turn out, on a closer inspection, to be alligators, apparently half asleep and moving down with the current. On the long sandbanks that jut out from the river-side, or just appear above the water in mid-stream, are lines of ducks and geese, while overhead fly flocks of pelicans, with their necks doubled back, their feet trailing out behind them, and their wings moving as deliberately and gracefully as those of a heron. In another six months they will have an almost boundless lake here to fly over, instead of a river 1,000 yards in width. Last autumn, when the river was at full flood, there was here an ex- panse of twenty miles of water from shore to shore ; that was indeed an exceptional season ; but every year, after the rains, this river expands to many times its present width. Safely across the sacred stream, we make for the rail- way station of Mokameh, and when the mid-day train comes in, we find our companion, hot and dusty, seated therein. We step in ourselves, and are soon en route for Benares. THE CITIES OE THE PLAIN.— BENARES. 43 CHAPTER IV. 'THE CITIES OP THE PLAIN.' — BENAEES. ' Adorn'd With gay religions, full of pomp and gold, And devils to adore for deities.' — Paradise Lost. Out of Europe, we seldom travel in a railway-carriage at a greater average pace than twenty-five miles per hour. In heat like Indian heat, and dust like Indian dust, this is quite fast enough ; one does not feel inclined to hurry in a hot climate. Accordingly, though we leave Mokameh at mid-day, and have only 200 miles to travel to Benares, we do not arrive at the latter place till between 8 and 9 P.M. In the interval we become thoroughly powdered with the fine white dust which creeps in at every door and window and ventilator, in a manner that defies resistance, and are compelled, after a short period of grumbling and vain attempts at self-defence, to resign ourselves philo- sophically to our fate. During the day we pass Patna, the city of rice and opium, a dense-looking mass of houses, with here and there a Moslem minaret or a Hindu pinnacle standing up above the lower roofs : then Arrah, which looks merely like a wayside station, but is famous as the spot where, soon after the first outbreak of the mutiny, four Europeans and fifty Sikhs held a bungalow for a whole week against 3,000 mutineers, at the end of which time they were relieved : then we cross the fine girder-bridge over the Soane, 1,400 yards in length, at present stretching over a greater expanse of sand-bank than water, but in the 44 EOUND THE WOULD IN 18-70. season of floods spanning a full and rapid river : soon afterwards we pass Buxar, where are the large govern- ment establishments for breeding cavalry horses ; and at 7 p.m. we reach Mogul Serai, where the branch line for Benares leaves the main line. This branch line only carries us a few miles to the right bank of the Ganges, immediately opposite Benares ; we cross the river in a ' gharry ' by the bridge of boats, and then a drive of a couple of miles takes us through the outskirts of the city to the only hotel in the place, kept by a native, where we are ensconced for the night. We are now in the holy city of the Hindus, a spot which is to the worshippers of Brahm and Vishnu what Mecca is to the devotees of Mahomet, what Jerusalem is to the more truly devotional Jews. It is a city ' wholly given to idolatry,' as we shall find before we have spent many hours in seeing some of its most celebrated shrines. We start out early in the morning with a native guide, who styles himself Shiva Datta Pundit, speaks English very well, and is well up in all the lore necessary to a cicerone. He is an antiquarian to boot ; at least he shows us a collection of gold mohurs and other coins and relics, which he affirms to be all genuine, and gathered by himself from unquestionably genuine sources, but upon which, with a mistrust of Hindu veracity which has grown up within three weeks in our minds, we look with doubt. Our first stoppage in our morning's round is at the Doorga Khond, a temple dedicated to the goddess Doorga, one of the incarnations of the wife of Brahm. A large square tank, with broad flights of steps leading down to it on all four sides, is perhaps the handsomest part of the sacred precincts ; the temple itself is formed of a quadrangle, some thirty or forty yards square, with porches running all round it, while in the centre is the shrine, THE DOOEGA KHOND. 45 surmounted by a cone-shaped dome, which in outline resembles a pile of conical shells such as one may see erected in a modern fort. The whole is of red sandstone, cut into many grooves, angles, and cornices, and, like all buildings of Hindu type of architecture, unadorned with arcbes. An ancient and orthodox legend relating to the goddess Doorga has originated the belief that monkeys are under her sacred protection, and accordingly some 500 or 600 of these unsightly animals live in and around the temple, board and lodging free. Down on the steps of the tank, and up on the dome of the shrine, swarm their tawny bodies ; round the red pillars twine their long lean arms ; and as we stand on the pavement of the quadrangle a dozen of them gather round us, blinking at us out of their bleared eyes, and waiting eagerly for a supply of nuts or sweetmeats. As we look at their wrinkled faces, and their dingy, often mangy skins, we wonder if humanity can come to a lower point of degradation than that of holding sacred its animal caricature. But perhaps we shall find even worse superstitions than this. Let us go down to the river-side, near the upper end of the town, take a boat, and float slowly down the stream. "We shall see a sight which, in its peculiar way, we could not match without going to Mecca among the crowd of yearly pilgrims, or to the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Easter. Benares is built entirely on the left bank of the Ganges, which is approached from the city by an almost unin- terrupted succession of broad flights of stone steps, called in India ' Ghats,' and extending hero for tbe length of nearly a mile. As we push out into the middle of the stream, this line of Ghats, broken here and there by the projecting wings of some devout Eajah's palace, or by the 46 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. red pinnacles and clustering cones of a Hindu shrine, and terminating just under the dome and minarets of the white Mosque of Arungzebe, cannot but strike us as remarkably picturesque both in outline and colour. But what is the picturesqueness of the Ghats themselves compared to that of the throng of human beings gathered on their lower tiers of steps ? On these Ghats, every year, and every morning of the year — more especially, of course, at certain sacred festivals —are collected hundreds, sometimes thousands, of Hindus from every part of India, thronging to wash in the sacred waters, to say a few prayers to their favourite gods, and to go away under the treacherous delusion that they have washed away moral as well as physical stain. There are Mahrattas from the south and Punjabies from the far north-west; light-haired and light-complexioned girls from Cashmere ; others, dark as jet, from the tribes of Central India ; half-starved vagrants, clothed in rags as dark and as dirty as their skins, and rich rajahs with their attendants, all dressed in gaudy colours ; aged and infirm men who have tottered through many a weary mile, to reach the sacred brink before they die ; boys and girls too young to be conscious of the supposed solemnity of the ablutions they are performing ; wild-looking fakirs, with strings of beads hung round their necks, muttering their mumming prayers, and smearing themselves with ashes, or glaring in bigoted anger at the boat which carries past them the infidel Feringhee; comely youths and maidens who seem to be enjoying the bath, and are hardly able to res- train a smile at the curious Europeans ; old and young, rich and poor, dark and fair, ugly and pretty, all busily engaged in the same superstitious rites ; all with one general creed, but in everything else differing entirely one from the other. Here and there, too, in the midst of this varied living THE GHATS. 47 scene, mingling with it, yet in strange contrast with it, is a Burning Ghat, where one or more corpses are being reduced to ashes, before being finally thrown into the sacred waters. There, just immersed in the brink of the river, within ten yards either way of a group of living bathers, is a swathed body, undergoing its last purification before being placed on the pyre; immediately above it the flames are already leaping up over one whose ablu- tions are for ever finished ; they would almost seem to be placed there to call to those around : ' Make haste, per- form all your ceremonies, ere you be like us 5' or perhaps in a more bitter, but truer vein : ' What can all your washings avail you, when you come to this ? ' In this half-mile or mile of Ghats we have a variety of colour and costume, of oomplexion and feature, of race and language, which would afford an almost unrivalled field for the study of an artist, the deductions of an ethnologist, or the reflections of a philosopher. It is strange how ludicrous ideas and sights will some- times come in side by side with what is solemn and even awful. Here we have a most perfect instance of such a strange juxtaposition. The Hindus, with many other Eastern nations, are remarkable for the unusual whiteness of their teeth. This, no doubt, is partly owing to their habit of constantly cleaning them with water and a piece of stick. The end of the stick they chew, till it is in a soft pulpy state, and then they use it, making a fresh end each day, and considering the European tooth-brush used over and over again a most uncleanly article. Here, then, is a Hindu, seated on the lowest step of a Ghat, brush- ing his teeth with the aid of the water at his feet. But though he is particular about the brush, he is not about the water which he uses, "for he has chosen a spot not ten rards from a corpse which is lying in the water before 48 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. being burnt, and the stream is running down from it towards bim ! Could sucb another instance of foul clean- liness be found ? We might spend a long time watching in more detail the varied groups collected in the scene before us ; but we have more to see to-day, and as the morning hour passes away the crowd of bathers visibly grows thinner. Let us follow those of them who are walking up one of the central Ghats, each with a small earthen or brazen pot of the sacred water in his or her hand. We pass through one or two narrow paved passages, thronged with natives hurrying to and fro, and then come to the entrance of the ' Bisheswar,' or ' Golden Temple,' sacred to Shiva, and styled ' Golden ' from the fact of two of its domes being covered with a thin layer of gold. There is little in the interior that is attractive to the eye, beyond the ordinary picturesque effect of the Hindu architecture. One or two shrines with images of the goddess, and a number of symbols cut in stone, on which the devotees are sprinkling water from their little pots, or strewing flowers, are all the ornaments, if they may be so called, of the place. We are scarcely inside before we are glad to get out again, and escape from the overpowering odours ; though in stepping into the narrow crowded passage, we only change a fetid atmosphere for one slightly less so. Hard by the Bisheswar is an ancient well, the Well of Knowledge, which from its name a European might con- jecture had beeu placed in the midst of such fearful igno- rance in satire. To any but a native it would be rendered more accessible by the establishment, within a moderate distance, of a well of rose-water. The spot is thronged by worshippers, passing and repassing, pouring water from the Ganges on the well's mouth, and going through various superstitious rites ; but there is no bucket to the well, and THE IDOLS OF BENARES. 49 evidently the Well of Knowledge is not be drawn from by the common people. To judge from the whiffs that come up from its black depths, the knowledge must be of a very doubtful kind. In a different direction from the Bisheswar, but at an equally short distance, is a temple in which several sacred cows wander at will. A high priest sits beneath a canopy in the quadrangle, impressing with his forefinger a red mark of some paint or dye on the forehead of each worshipper that chooses to pass in front of him. If you like to receive his mark or his blessing, he will not object to taking a rupee from you. These are one or two of the most celebrated of the shrines of Benares, which are said to number, all told, close upon a thousand. The city is, indeed, full of idols. In this quarter, through which we have just been passing, every passage-corner, every nook, contains a shrine to some god whose attributes and symbols are more or less loathsome. Some, indeed, are mere incarnations of evil, who are only worshipped and addressed in order to avert their wrath and to invoke their baneful influence upon enemies. And the more celebrated and more sacred the shrines, the more loathsome is the atmosphere around them. Truly, if cleanliness is next to godliness, filthi- ness is very near idolatry. Near the lower end of the Ghats, as already mentioned, is the Mosque of Arungzebe, founded one hundred and sixty years ago, over the ruins of a Hindoo temple. It is of no great pretensions architecturally ; but if we go there from the Bisheswar, we shall find the comparative clean- liness and quiet of a Moslem mosque a refreshing change from the dirt and bustle of a Hindoo shrine. From the top, too, of one of the handsome minars we can have a fine view of the city and the river. E 50 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. Benares trades in other things as well as in the credulity of her idolaters, and has other arts besides those of the priest and the wizard. In her bazaars are many productions of skill and patience, and of her artisans the most flourishing and most numerous seem to be the workers in brass and the embroiderers. The latter pro- duce some handsome silver and silver-gilt embroidery ; the former are chiefly occupied, like the Ephesian artisans of old, in making shrines for the goddesses of their city, or in constructing the brass pots which are almost uni- versally used by the Hindus for drinking-vessels. The makers of wood toys and talc-pictures are among the less important classes ; but the former deserve mention, from the fact that their productions are valued in England as being almost indestructible, and being coated with a polish which never rubs off. In strong contrast to the appearance of the Hindu temples and the Moslem mosque, is that of the Queen's College, near the European suburb of the town. It was built twelve years ago for the education of natives, and has proved very successful and popular^ — a Well of Know- ledge of a very different kind from that which has stood for centuries in the city. Another effort to counteract the dense mass of ignorance which reigns here, is the branch of the Zenana mission, established here by the Church Missionary Society. One of the workers in it we had the pleasure of knowing before our visit here. She has had three hard years' work in the cause — very hard, to judge from her face — but speaks of being at last successful beyond her hopes. She has recently established a school for native girls and ladies, and has as many as thirty pupils in it. In a brief tour through the Cities of the Plain, two days in Benares are sufficient to see something of it in its most BENARES. 51 unique character as the centre of Hinduism ; the one city above all others that is drenched with the beliefs and superstitions of the wide-spread religion of Brahm : sufficient to see much that is striking, much that is in- teresting, more that is disgusting, and not a little that is saddening. Forty-eight hours after reaching it we are again in the train, this time bound for a place of very different associations, and very different appearance — Gawnpoi-e. 52 . BOUND THE "WOULD IN 1870 CHAPTEK V. THE CITIES OP THE PLAIN. CAWNPOBE AND LUCKNCW. ' Forget not the field where they perished, The truest, the best of the brave.' — T. Moore. Fbom Benares to Cawnpore is a journey of about ten hours by train, and as we go through the intervening country by night, we can say little about it, except that it is as flat as the rest of Bengal, and that about midway in it occurs the city of Allahabad, at the junction of the Jumna and the Ganges, the former of which is crossed by the railway, on a fine iron-girder bridge. Arrived at Cawnpore, we drive across a mile of open flat ground, crossed by one or two roads, and dotted by one or two barracks and other military buildings, which form part of the cantonment, and make our way to the bungalow which has been turned into an hotel. The native town of Cawnpore is a crowded dirty place ; and as it was never of much importance during the times of the native rulers, there is little to induce a European to wander through it. Ever since 1857 the interest of Cawnpore to a foreigner has centered almost exclusively in those parts of the can- tonment, and of the suburbs of the native town, which were the scenes of the most thrilling and awful incidents of that terrible year in India. Let anyone who wishes to read an admirably written account of those scenes — full of vigorous, pathetic, and brilliant passages — peruse at once 'Cawnpore,' by G. 0. Trevelyan. It CAWNPORE. 53 would be difficult to find a more heart-stirring account of heroic endurance and human agony. We will take a ' buggy,' and spend a morning in visit- ing the three chief points in the now historic ground — the scenes of the gallant defence, and the subsequent treacherous massacre, of the Cawnpore garrison of 1857. A mile to the north of the railway station, and about the same distance south-west from the left bank of the Ganges — in the centre of a flat, bare, dusty piece of ground — a handsome church is in course of erection. The piece of ground is nearly square, a quarter of a mile each way, and is well marked off by roads running round all its four sides. This is the memorial church ; and it was on this open piece of ground that General Sir Hugh Wheeler, with his slender garrison of 500 men, together with 500 women and children, stood at bay for three weeks against a horde of mutineers who were thirsting for their blood. There was nothing to protect them from the deadly hail of round shot and bullets but a mud wall, oyer which a horse could leap ; nothing to shelter them from the scarcely less deadly strokes of the summer sun but the thin roofs of their shed-barracks, which, before the siege was half over, were ignited and burnt by the enemy's fire. Here, through those terrible three weeks, the men toiled incessantly through the weary night and through the scorching day ; working guns, plying rifles, wielding the bayonet when the cowardly foe mustered courage enough to make a charge at the weakly bulwarks ; carrying the wounded from wherever they fell to the wretched barracks in the centre of the ground, or drawing water from a well on whose mouth the fire of the rebels was especially directed. And here the women toiled at tending the wounded, nursing the children, and preparing what scanty meals they could; and suffering such agony of fear s grief, privation, 54 ROUND TSE WORLD IN 1870. sickness, death, itself, as perhaps falls to the lot of few even to dream of. North of the Intrenchment, and but two hundred yards from it, stands a handsome white cross, placed over a well now filled up. It was to this well that, night after night of those score of dreadful days, the ever-diminishing garrison bore steal- thily the bodies of those whom the whizzing bullet, the crashing round shot, or the silent strokes of cholera and sunstroke, had released from a life which to many had all the agony of death ; and when the three weeks were over, a fourth of the garrison lay in that well of death, while the rest survived to meet a yet more dreadful end. A mile to the north-east of the Intrenchment stands, on the bank of the Ganges, a small Hindoo temple, hard by where a ravine, now dry, but in autumn a water-course, runs down to the main stream. It was down this ravine that the remnant of the gallant garrison passed, march- ing, limping, or carried in dhpolies, after a safe-conduct down the river had been pledged them by the treacherous Nana. They thought indeed that their sufferings were over, and that the bitterness of death was passed; but the safe-conduct was in all but name a death-warrant, and they were passing down the Valley of the Shadow of Death. It was within a few yards of this temple that they embarked in the two dozen boats provided for them ; and it was here that, as soon as all were on board, a fire was opened upon them, so sudden, so treacherous, so deadly, that more than half of the helpless crews were at once shot dead or wounded and drowned ; while of the remainder all but four, who escaped as by a miracle, were seized and carried off for a death not long delayed. A mile again from the Intrenchment, due north, is now a pleasant-looking, well-kept garden, where roses, jas- THE WELL OF CAWNPORE. 55 mines and acacias, grow luxuriantly round a central cluster of dark cypresses. Within this ring of cypresses, half hidden by them, is a grassy mound, crowned by a marble statue within a screen of worked stone. The statue represents an angel with face serene, sad, and down- cast, and hands which, crossed over the breast, hold each a palm-branch. Bound the screen is carved the text: ' These are they which came through great tribulation ; ' and round the pedestal of the statue is inscribed: ' Sacred to a great body of Christian people, chiefly women and children, who were foully murdered by order of the rebel Nana Doondoopunt, and cast, the dying with the dead, into the well below, July 16th, 1857.' It was within a hundred yards of this well that the tragedy of the defence of the intrenchments, and of the treachery at the boats, had its final and most bloody scene enacted in that massacre of the surviving 270, ' chiefly women and children,' which has marked the Nana -with the foulest stigma that history can record. It was in this well that there were found, by the soldiers of Neill's avenging army, those ghastly remains which roused in them such terrible resolves of retribution. It is well that the horrid memories that would otherwise haunt this spot are now somewhat softened by the quiet seclusion of the garden and by the beauty of the memorial tomb. It is well, too, that over that other Well of Death there rises now a symbol of peace and hope, and that over the ground where once were heard all the horrid sounds of war will soon spread the sound of a Christian service. From Cawnpore to Lucknow is only a distance of forty- seven miles, which we traverse by rail in two hours and a half, after crossing the Ganges by the Cawnpore bridge of boats. Would that in 1857 the transit between the two places had been as easy ! 56 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. In Benares, all interest to a traveller centres round the native portion of the city. In Cawnpore, the native town is forgotten in the interest that gathers round the canton- ment. In Lucknow, there is an interest of both kinds : one in the remains of buildings which were the scenes of some of the most remarkable episodes of ' the Mutiny,' one in the old native buildings which might give to this city, much more rightly than to Calcutta, the title of ' The City of Palaces.' Let us go first to the Residency ; it is only half a mile from the hotel — once a palace of the King of Oude's minister^-in which we are staying. A few acres of earth, earthwork and buildings ; a piece of rising ground, over- looking the river Goomtee and the best part of the city of Lucknow, and covered with the remains of a few bunga- lows in which formerly lived some of the leading English civilians stationed at Lucknow : such is the ' Residency ' which, since the eventful year of the Mutiny, has given such an undying interest to Lucknow, at least in the eyes of Englishmen. Passing through the 'Bailey Guard Gate '— round which the fight raged so often and so fiercely in the months of July, August, and September, in that terrible year — we find ourselves among ruins which evidently have become such by the sudden defacement of war, not by the slow decay of time. Every outer wall is pitted with bullet- inarksj as numerous as rain-drops in a heavy shower, leaving scarcely a single unmarked space that might not be covered by the palm of 07ie's hand 5 while the larger holes, the shattered columns, the roofless rooms, tell where the round shot and shell held their deadly course. On each building there are some short but telling inscriptions, such as : ' The Tyekhana (cellar) occupied by the "Women and Children during the Siege ; ' ' The Banqueting Hall, used as a Hospital ; ' ' Irinis' House ; ', The Cawnpore THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN.— LUCKNOW. 57 Battery,' and others, marking the various important points of the defences. Some are much sadder : in one room we read ' Here Sir H. Lawrence was struck by a shell ; ' in another, ' Here Sir H. Lawrence died.' Near the highest point of ground within the Eesidency Enclosure is an obelisk of granite to the memory of that gallant soldier and Christian gentleman to whom reference has just been made. Within the churchyard, which is also included in the Enclosure, is the plain slab which covers his remains, bearing the well-known inscription, placed there by his own wish : 'Here lies Sir Henry Lawrence, who tried to do his duty. May the Lord have mercy on his soul ! ' Such was the manly modesty of one who was only conscious of having tried to do his duty ; while all who knew him knew that he did it only too well. Here, too, is the tomb of General Neill, with those of many officers and men of his regiment ; of Captain Fulton ; and of many other brave officers who ' yet attained not unto the first three.' More convincing proof than even the bullet-marks and the shot-holes, of the fierce fire to which, up to the first relief alone, the Lucknow garrison were exposed, is this churchyard, so densely crowded with ' turf in many a mouldering heap,' and with tombstones to women and children, as well as to men and soldiers. Slabs there are not a few to English wives whose years had not reached twenty-five, and to children whose age is, oftener than not, counted by months. In this plot of ground were buried, during the three months of the first siege, no fewer than 400 of a garrison which had numbered not 1,400; afterwards, 600 more, who died in accomplishing the two reliefs, the first under Have- lock and Outram, the second under Sir Colin Campbell, were laid side by side with those who had fallen within the ramparts. And there are slabs which tell of the deadly effect of the subsequent campaigns, giving the number of 58 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. men lost from single regiments by the enemy's bullets, by cholera, and by sunstroke, during the suppression of the mutiny : 370 in one case, 360 in another, 260 in a third. Such is the record of bravery, of suffering, of death, on these simple slabs; such the catalogue of those whose best monuments are the ruins around them — the scene of their unflinching gallantry or their patient suffering. Let us cross over the river from the Residency by the brick bridge which has replaced the old bridge of boats, and drive to the Badshah Bagh, a large enclosed garden, with an old palace in it, from the top of which we can have a fine view of the city. The palace is now un- occupied; when there was still a King of Oude, it be- longed to one of his ministers ; but when the Peringhee took possession, the former tenants were ejected. Mounting to its flat roof, we look across the river, which is only a quarter of a mile away, on to the imposing mass of palaces which are clustered on the other side. There is the Chutta Munzil, the Fuhreed Buksh, the Kaiser Bagh, the Begum Kotee, and a number of smaller build- ings, handsome in outline, and bright and clean in colour. True, they are only of brick and plaster, yet the first effect is not the less striking on that account ; their unsubstantial character does not offend one's eye till after looking at them for some little time. Though they look much the same as they must have done fifteen years ago, they no longer contain the magnificence and luxury of an oriental court. Some of them have been put to strangely different uses from those for which they were originally designed. The Begum Kothee, the palace at whose storming Major Hodson at last lost his oft-risked life, is now a post-office ; and not far off is what was once a Moslem mausoleum, but is now a bank ! When ' Eussian aggression ' has finally succeeded, from THE PALACES OF LUCKNOW. 59 Cashmere to the Sunderbunds, will the Czar turn to similar uses the Government House and Cathedral of Calcutta? Alas for the feelings of the Anglo-Indian of the twentieth century who will have to look upon such a desecration ! But we are forgetting the scene before us. To the left of the mass of palaces already mentioned we can see little but an irregular expanse of roofs and pinnacles, merging into an apparently thick and extensive wood, above which, in the distance, we can distinguish the tops of the Shah Nujjeef, the Secunder Bagh, the Dilkhoosha, and the Martiniere. To the right, and scarcely a mile from where we stand, are the buildings of the Residency, hiding from our view the dense portion of the native city ; still farther to the right are the pinnacles and lofty walls of the two Imambarras, with the minars and dome of the Jumma Musjid. Let us drive up the river to the Inn Bridge, cross, and go on to these somewhat famous buildings. The Great Imain- barra is the first in our way. It consists of a very large quadrangle entered by a lofty gateway, opposite to which is a handsome flight of steps leading up to the Great Hall, which forms one of the sides of the square. The style of architecture is imposing and massive rather than beautiful; and, as with all the buildings of Lucknow, the material is brick and plaster. The Great Hall is, in extent at least, a magnificent room; its dimensions are 165 ft. in length, 53 ft. in width, and 49 ft. in height. But the walls and ceiling are neither painted nor carved ; and it was either never finished and decorated, or has suffered much from mutilation. It is now used by the Indian Government as an armoury, and is chiefly filled with the great ship guns with which Captain Peel, of the 'Shannon,' did such good service during the advance of Sir Colin Campbell on Lucknow, especially at the storming of the Secunder Bagh and the Shah Nujjeef. 60 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. Passing out again from the Great Imambarra, we have not far to go to the Hoseinabad Imambarra. This, like its neighbour, is of brick and plaster ; but its architecture is of a more fantastic kind, and it is hideously painted. The quadrangle is filled with a strange mixture of handsome trees and flowers, with grotesque casts of animals and men ; the hall, which occupies the ground floor of the main building, is crowded with glass chandeliers, English and Trench clocks (none of which are going), gaudy glass balls, and tinsel ornaments, mixed up with massive silver shrines canopied with rich embroidery ; altogether a most curious jumble, as if the monarch who had designed it had taken the idea from an English twopenny peep-show, but had carried it out on a scale of oriental profuseness. It is in this building that the great Mohurrum festival is - celebrated by the Mahomedans of Lucknow at its appointed season. The strange mixture which then takes place of quasi-religious enthusiasm with heathenish revelry, viewed in this gaudy quadrangle, under the light of countless lanterns, must be a curious sight to a foreigner. As we are so near the Jumma Musjid, we may as well go up its broad flight of steps, look in at the interior of the mosque, and then wind up one of the tall minars at its corners. Erom the top we overlook the whole of the city, and far into the green and well-wooded plain on all sides ; and from here we get perhaps the best idea of the immense size of the city, with its densely-crowded native quarters, and its population of over 300,000. On our way back to our hotel we pass through the Bazaar, or Chowk, as it is here called. It is narrower and more thoroughly native-looking than the one we shall see at Delhi ; and in respect of cleanliness, or rather dirtiness, ranks between that and the one at Cawnpore, the last- named possessing an odour truly Oriental. It contains THE CHOWK. 61 shops of all sorts, from those whose stock is jewellery and precious stones, to those dealing in paper kites and sweet- meats. The streets of which it is composed are so narrow that in some places our gharry makes a tight fit of it : happily other gharries are not often met in it, and we thread our way throwgh without meeting anything more bulky than a bullock; an elephant or another gharry would have caused a 'jam' absolute. Our next route from the hotel must be in an opposite direction to the Imambarras, out towards the Dilkoosha .and the Martiniere. We drive past the Chutta Munzil, and through the two miles of streets, lined with houses, up which the relieving forces of Havelock and Sir C. Campbell had to fight their way, and of which one of them, in reporting his hard- won successes, said that ' every house was a fortress, every for- tress filled with armed men.' We pass by the Shah !Nujjeef 3 an old Moslem tomb, strong in its own construction, and surrounded in addition by a high and solid wall, round which raged one of the fiercest of the many fierce struggles in the course of the second relief. Soon afterwards we come to the Secunder Bagh, a square garden, whose solid wall resisted for some hours the battering of Peel's naval guns. But when once a breach was made, it soon became the scene of a terrible retribution for Cawnpore : the 93rd Highlanders and a body of Sikhs entered it, and within two hours the place had been turned into a human slaughter-house, for of the 2,000 rebels who fought desperately inside, not one was left alive. A mile further on we reach the Martiniere, a large and handsome, but grotesquely-decorated building, founded in the last century as a school for Eurasians by the French 62 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. General Martine. We pass through the schoolrooms and the dormitories, all very clean and neat, and see some of the bpys playing about or reading, with much more of a European than an Asiatic cast of countenance, and appa- rently in almost as ' rude health ' as our English-bred and English- reared specimens of the genus schoolboy generally enjoy. From a look-out at the top of the building we get a dis- tant view of all the prominent buildings in the city and of the woods on either side. Tn one direction only, the south- east, a flat piece of desert-looking land appears. Half a mile from the Martiniere, standing in a park well dotted with trees and slightly undulating, is the Dilkoosha House, built some twenty-five years ago by a native potentate as a country residence, now deserted and de- caying. It was for awhile the head-quarters of Sir C. Campbell in his advance on Lucknow, and also was used as a resting-place for the relieved garrison on their way to Cawnpore. It was here that Havelock died, when he had lived just long enough to see the final relief of the gai - - rison for whom he had fought so well, and to hear that his country and his Queen were not ungrateful for his life spent in their service. From the Dilkoosha we may strike to the south-east- wards till we reach the Alumbagh, another house within a walled garden which formed an important military point in the operations before Lucknow. It was the first outpost stormed by Havelock and Outram on their entrance into Lucknow, and it was held by the latter general with a force of 4,000 men against a horde of 20,000 rebels, through the three months which intervened between Sir Colin's two advances on the city. In the garden is Havelock's tomb, bearing on it a very lengthy inscription. It is a pity that a hero, whose best THE ALUMBAGH. 63 epitaph is the unwritten memory of his deeds, should lie buried under what looks like a list of post-mortem compli- ments. At the Alumbagh we may suitably end our visit to Lucknow, the city of brick palaces but recently emptied of royalty, and of brick walls but recently invested with interest. We shall pass on to Agra and Delhi, where we shall find the relics of a more substantial greatness — tbe noble buildings left by the Mogul Emperors and by native monarchs who preceded them ; some of these, too, famous as the scenes of memorable episodes of the Mutiny. 64 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. CHAPTEE VI. THE CITIES OP THE PLAIN. THE CITY OF AKBAR. ' Divided by a river, on whose banks On each side an imperial city stood, With towers and temples proudly elevate.' — Paradise Lost. In passing from Lucknow to Agra we have to return first to Cawnpore, and join the Great Trunk Line there. Leaving Cawnpore at 5 a.m., we roll steadily through a hundred- and-fifty miles of bare, flat, hot-looking country, varied with occasional patches of wood or cultivated fields. We reach the station for Agra at mid-day. The sun is in- tensely hot, and at every station there are frequent calls for the ' Bheestie,' who is always in attendance with a goat-skin full of fresh water. Natives seem to feel the thirsty effects of the sun almost as much as foreigners. Of the former there are always great numbers travelling to and fro along this line of railway. To look at an apathetic Hindu, squatting by his hut door smoking a hookah in a blissful state of semi- oblivion, one would think that he would be the last man to be induced, by the advent of a railway, to take to it as a means of conveyance. Accordingly, when these Indian railways were in course of construction, many were the prophecies that they would be an utter failure as regarded the natives, who would never learn to take to them as a regular mode of conveyance. But results prove the fallacy of these conjectures: the THK CITY OF AKBAR. 65 third-class carriages of every train are crowded with dusky figures going from one wayside station to another, or even over longer distances. One great inducement to them to travel by the railway instead of by bullock-carts and gharries is the extremely low fare at which they are carried. The third-class fare, instead of being as with us rather less than half that of the first-class, is only a seventh of the higher fare, and averages rather less than a halfpenny a mile. . Though they must appreciate to some extent the saving of time effected by the railway, their innate disregard to the value of hours is curiously shown in the way in which a native ' catches ' a train. Having determined to make a journey by rail to any place, be proceeds leisurely to the nearest station as soon as he thinks it convenient; and never dreaming, happy soul, of diving into the depths of an Indian Bradshaw, he squats down in a waiting-room or on the platform, and waits minutes or hours, as the case may be, in perfect contentment, till a train arrives to take Vn'm up. If he were under his own roof during the interval of waiting, he would probably be smoking, chewing betel, eating sweetmeats, or sleeping ; and as he can do one or all of these at the station, he is equally happy there, if a sluggish, dreamy nonchalance, can be called happiness. But we have reached the Agra station, and our carriage- door is surrounded by half-a-dozen coolies anxious to earn ' bucksheesh,' by conveying our baggage to a gharry. Leaving the station, we cross the Jumna by a bridge of boats, and enter the city of Akbar. It is only 300 years since that Great Mogul began to make a capital out of what was then a mere village, and it was only eighty years afterwards that the seat of govern- ment was transferred by Shah Jehan, Akbar's grandson, from Agra, or Akbarabad as it was styled, to Delhi. But F 66 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. eighty years, under monarchs who were as powerful and energetic as the Moguls, were sufficient to make Agra a very different place from what it had been previously. The fort alone, which was built during the first part of those eighty years, would be a not unworthy memorial of the greatest of monarchs. It is a very extensive, solid piece of fortification, the circuit of whose great outer walls of red sandstone measures more than a mile. Within it are three buildings, beautiful in design and in material: Akbar's Palace; his Judgment Hall, or Dewan-i-aum; and the Motee Musjid, or Pearl Mosque. The Moguls seldom condescended to build in brick and mortar : regal marble was more in keeping with their mag- nificence, and accordingly that is the material of these three buildings. The Palace is somewhat injured by Time, and by other and ruder hands than his ; but there still remain in it some handsome marble screens, and some marble ceil- ings inlaid with agates, jaspers, and other valuable stones. The Dewan-i-aum is a very spacious hall, 200 ft. in length by 70 ft. in breadth, now converted into an arsenal. Its walls, and the thick columns which help to support the roof, are lined and surrounded with stands of rifles, carbines and muskets, numbering 20,000 in all, and with groups of swords, pistols, daggers, and other deadly implements ; while from the ceiling are suspended flags with records on them of Indian, Chinese, and Burmese campaigns. But the Motee Musjid by far excels in beauty the two other buildings. We pass through a handsome gateway of marble, and enter at once on a quadrangle 60 or 70 yards square, with arched cloisters running round three sides of it. The fourth side is occupied by the mosque itself, its front supported on pillars, and surmounted by three light domes. All is of marble : pillars, domes, walls, screens, and floors. When the sun is shining into the quadrangle, THE TAJ MEHAL. 67 a dazzling brightness robs the eye of the power to look at its beauties steadily ; but when a cloud passes across the sun's face, or in the early and late hours when the sun is low, all has that pure, bright, and polished look which marble alone can give. But if the Motee Musjid is the Pearl Mosque, there is another building not far off which is the very pearl of pearls. A mile and a half from the fort, lower down on the right bank of the Jumna, stands the world-renowned Taj Mehal — that wondrously beautiful mausoleum which is a lasting monument to the taste, magnificence, and affection of Shah Jehan its builder, and to the worth of his wife Noor Jehan, to whose memory it was built. You may have heard many accounts and many praises of it ; you may have seen photographs, which give all its beautiful outline and its exquisite proportions ; you may have formed very high expectations of it, but you cannot realise its full beauty till you see it. The first near view of it — as you pass through the great gateway to the south of it, enter the garden in which it stands, and see its fine white form at the end of a vista of dark-green cypresses — is, you must acknowledge, exquisite : approach still nearer ; walk up the steps that lead up to the marble basement on which it stands ; mark the richness of the inlaid work in precious stones which covers it, the great size but greater lightness of the centre dome, the perfect proportions of the four minars which stand at the four corners of the basement — its charms multiply upon you : entor by the arched door, examine the delicate marble screen which surrounds the tombs of Shah Jehan and his consort ; listen to the fine echo which reverberates in gentle cadence from tbe lofty dome as you sound a bar or two of song, and your admi- ration must have reached a climax. Tou must stay long in and round it, and allow its F 2 68 EOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. beauties to grow upon you, as they are sure to do : and if you would see it a.t its highest perfection, go at full moon, or early in the morning when the cold grey twilight softens and mellows its perfect whiteness. There is about it an elegant simplicity, a chaste grandeur, a rich harmony, which cannot but charm at first sight, and which, the oftener and the longer it is looked upon, tend more and more to make it that ' thing of beauty ' which is ' a joy for ever.' Not far from the Bridge of Boats, on the left bank of the river, there is a building, which but for the proximity of the peerless Taj, would rank perhaps as the first building in or around Agra for uniqueness and beauty combined. It is the mausoleum of Itmud-oo-Dowlah, the prime minister of Akbar. Like the Taj, it is of marble, much inlaid, and stands on a raised basement. But in size it is much inferior : it is oblong, whilst its more re- nowned neighbour is square, and it is surmounted by canopies in the place of domes. Its marble screen-work equals in delicacy and beauty that of the tomb of Noor and Shah Jehan, though the inlaid work will not compare, either in minuteness or finish, with the exquisite mosaics which adorn that unrivalled mausoleum. Akbar did much to beautify his favourite city, and to leave behind him fit monuments of his greatness, nor did he leave out of his list of handsome buildings a mauso- leum for his own remains. Five miles from Agra, is Secundra Bagh, where the great monarch is himself entombed. The mausoleum stands, like the Taj, and like almost every other Mogul building of the same period, in the centre of a large square garden, which is surrounded by a high wall, a lofty gateway being inserted in the middle of each side of the square. It is a massive pile of dark-red sandstone, this stone being hard enough to THE TOMB OF AKBAB. 69 bear cutting into screens and elaborate cornices. On the summit of the building, which is of six storeys, is a small quadrangle, surrounded by pillared cloisters, all of white marble. In the centre of the quadrangle is the marble tomb of Akbar, richly carved, the ninety-nine Moslem sacred names, or attributes of God, forming part of the carving. The Hindus and Mussulmans, thougb excelling, as shown in these buildings and those at Benares, in carved designs and scroll-work, seldom seem to attempt figures of animals or men. As to the Mussulmans, it is against their creed to represent in sculpture any living thing ; but with the Hindus no such obstacle exists, and yet any- thing beyond a grotesque or atrociously ugly representa- tion of an animal or man we have not yet seen in their carving. With flowers just the reverse is the case ; much of the inlaid work in the Taj represents flowers with a skill equal to that of Florentine mosaics ; and in Akbar's palace in the fort at Agra there are several ceilings on which are some flowers in fresco, excellently painted. No traveller should go to Agra, even for a few days, without spending one day, at least, in a drive to Futteh- poor Sikri, and an examination of the ruins there. The distance is twenty-three miles, along a flat and tolerably well-laid road. We commit ourselves to a buggy, and are to change horse — if undersized ' screws ' are worthy of the name — twice on the road. As we get out into the open country, we meet bullock-carts trailing slowly in towards the city, the drivers sitting apathetically on the shaft, and looking as if they would be quite content to travel at even half the slow pace at which they are actually moving. We pass through one or two mud villages, where there are naked little urchins running or rolling across the road, and mongrelly pariah dogs ready to bark furiously at the 70 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. passing Feringhie. Our second horse comes near being a cause of broken bones to us, for, choosing to back instead of go forwards as soon as he is harnessed, he pushes the buggy off the road and down the low embankment at the side ; but by jumping out one at each side, in ap- parently indecorous haste, we rob the Agra surgeons of two interesting cases, and after some trouble succeed in getting the horse and ourselves over the rest of the journey. Futtehpoor Sikri was occupied as a royal residence by Akbar, before he set up the seat of his empire in Agra. The remains of what was once the scene of all the pomp and display of a Mogul court are very extensive. They comprise a large mosque with a very fine quad- rangle in front of it, several palaces assigned to Akbar himself, his ministers, and his favourite wives, and a solid wall which runs round nearly the whole of the ruins. They are nearly all of a hard red stone, similar to that at Secundra Bagh. The palaces are built in a Hindu style of architecture, with angular columns, no arches, and projecting cornices ; and two of them, that of Beerbul, and that of the Belatee Begum, are ornamented with a profusion of carving, both inside and out, which has pre- served its freshness and clearness of outline most re- markably. But the gem of the ruins is the tomb of Sheik Selim, which stands in the great quadrangle in front of the mosque. It is a small building, 40 ft. in length by 30 ft. in breadth, surrounded by a verandah, and standing on a slightly raised basement. Built all of pure white marble, its sides consisting of a series of ex- quisite fret-work screens, the verandah supported on tasteful pillars, and the light roof taking the appearance of an elegant canopy, it stands out in beautiful relief against the red stone which composes the rest of the quadrangle ; and when entered and examined, it shows a PUTTEHPOOR SIKEI. 71 most thorough finish and delicate workmanship through- out. Sheik Seliui is said to have been an extremely holy Mussulman, who had taken up his abode in this then sequestered spot, and whose wisdom, and virtues so at- tracted Akbar, that he built a palace hard by the good man's cottage. The Sheik then became one of Akbar's most trusty councillors, and when he died his grateful master raised to his memory this exquisite little building. As we shall not reach Agra again till evening, we must try what ' tiffin ' we can get at the ' dak bungalow ' here. These dak bungalows throughout India are under Go- vernment management. They are provided along all the frequented lines of road ; but they often consist merely of a couple of bare rooms, which will afford a traveller shelter, but nothing else. At Futtehpoor Sikri, thanks to the Moguls, the bungalow is an unusually good one, for it is the building which was formerly the counting-house of one of the palaces. Whether Akbar had a weakness for good dinners, and had a supply of culinary talent always in these quarters, we know not; but judging from the first-rate collation served up by the ' Khansama,' one would think that the place was still pervaded by the benign influence of imperial'cooks. Not that the dishes are of orthodox Mogul type or name ; we doubt if Akbar ever eat anything half so good as a pancake, and yet such is part of our fare in this remote spot. Before driving back to Agra, we must see a living exhibition which Futtehpoor can produce among the ruins of a past age. One of the walls of the great quadrangle abuts on the edo-e of the raised ground on which the ruins stand. The outer face of the wall is consequently higher than the inner, and measures, as nearly as we can estimate, fully 80 ft. At the foot of the wall, near the eastern end, is a small 72 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. tank of stagnant water, of a depth of 20 ft. or thereabouts. There lives in the squalid village of Futtehpoor Sikri a man rash enough, or skilful enough, to dive into this tank from the top of the wall, for a small ' bucksheesh.' He performs the feat for our benefit, and accomplishes it with apparent ease. Standing on the edge of the wall, immediately above the tank, he seems to be calculating his distance, and taking in breath for a few seconds. He then gives a slight spring forward, and as he shoots down through the air, keeps waving his arms and legs, appar- ently to preserve his balance. Just as he reaches the surface of the water, he closes his legs smartly, and brings his arms close down to his sides; then in he drops like a thunder-bolt, but coming up again almost instantaneously, strikes out for the side of the tank, and walks up to us for his reward. He is a short well-made man, apparently about twenty-five years of age, and though evidently quite used to the performance, he is quivering considerably from the shock of the dive. A number of other natives, some of them young urchins of ten years, are meanwhile dropping into the tank from various heights, ranging from 10 ft. to 30 ft., in the hope of earning a smaller ' bucksheesh.' Like the first diver, they all go in feet foremost. We drive back to Agra in the cool of the evening. To judge from most Englishmen who travel, one would think that one of their national characteristics was that of being always in a hurry. No sooner are the leading features and most interesting spots of one place seen, than off we go to another, cramming in one intellectual meal after another, and deferring the digestion of them till we have got through a whole series. We are afraid that we can claim personally no exemption to this rule. Having spent three days in, and around, Agra, we are off again early on the fourth day to Delhi. THE CITY OF SHAH J KHAN. 73 CHAPTEE VII. THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN. THE CITY OF SHAH JEHAN. ' The long file Of her dead (Moguls) are declined to dust ; But where they dwelt, the vast and sumptuous pile Bespeaks the pageant of their splendid trust.' — C'kilde Harold. Between Agra and Delhi there intervene about 150 miles of flat country, very similar to the rest of the great plain of the Ganges and its tributaries. As we pass through the interval during the hot hours of the day, nature looks even less inviting than usual in this rather monotonous stretch of country. Even the birds and animals, -which are not unfrequent here, are keeping quiet in the oppressive heat. Occasionally a few paddy- birds, or an ibis, will fly up from a pool hard by the railway line ; a pair of demoiselle cranes, with their elegant crests, may be seen standing out in the open plain, in spite of sun and heat ; or a troop of antelopes may be startled from their lair by the train, and bound off to a safer distance; otherwise there is little of animal life visible. The cultivated patches of land intervene rather sparsely between the still uncleared woods, and every now and then there is a great patch of sandy desert on which neither trees nor crops will grow. Native mud Jiuts are few and far between ; wherever they exist, there are sure to be on the tilled land around them a number of wells, whose situation is marked, generally, by an inclined plane leading up to a small platform, with a 74 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. fixed pulley above the well's mouth. Up and down the plane moves a bullock, with a rope running from his rude harness over the pulley and attached to a bucket at the other end. At each descent he drags up a bucketful of water, and at each ascent he lowers the bucket down again to the bottom of the well. Sometimes for the inclined plane a long pole is substituted, the rope and bucket attached to one end, a lump of clay or other weight to the other. The pole is balanced on the head of an upright post fixed above the well, so that when the bucket end is lowered, and the bucket filled, the weight at the other, end is just sufficient to raise the supply of water to the surface. This is the same old style of well as that which may be seen all over Egypt. We cross the Jumna by the magnificent railway bridge only recently completed, and enter Delhi in a heavy thunderstorm, said to be the first rain which has fallen in the district for seven months. The day after our arrival is a Sunday, and we attend service in the English church, which is full of interesting, though sad, tablets to our countrymen and countrywomen who were murdered or fell in battle there during the mutiny. The church itself suffered heavily during the siege ; being close to the Cashmere Gate, many of our own balls, fired from outside, struck it, and at the capture of the city it was almost in ruins. Its weathercock and gilt ball are preserved in the Museum, riddled with bullets, for it is said to have been fired at for practice by the mutineers, when they were in possession of the city. One of the characteristics of Delhi, calculated to strike a visitor almost as soon as he enters the city, is the supe- rior breadth of the streets to those of other cities he has seen in India. One of the broadest and straightest of these streets is the Chandnee Chowk, or Silver Street, THE CHAXPNEE CHOWK. 75 running almost through the city from east to west. An avenue of trees runs down each side of the street, and on the outside of these avenues are lines of low houses, most of which are shops of gold and silversmiths, and dealers in the wares of Cashmere. But do not imagine that a native shopkeeper who deals in these ' gorgeous products of the East,' can make a show in his window such as may be seen among his competitors of the far West. If you want to buy in Delhi a two hundred guinea Cashmere shawl, or a two hundred guinea emerald, you must go up to the native trader's private rooms, along passages, and up dark and narrow flights of stairs. Then you must ' salaam ' him courteously, and sit down on a chair specially provided for you, while he squats down on a carpet and his attendants bring out of various cupboards, and lay before him, all his ' recherche ' articles. Then you will have an ' embarras de richesses ' spread before your admiring eyes, and will vainly wish for the superfluous lacs of rupees of some neighbouring rajah, that you might invest largely on the spot. Look at that Cashmere shawl, hand-woven, with its hundreds of colours, and its myriads of threads, or at that exquisite burnous, or that cloth gorgeously embroidered with silk, or that other, looking as if Danae's shower had fallen upon it — stop ! let us hurry out, for our purses are not as full as that of Midas, nor is our self-restraint equal to our power of admiration. Let us go to where we can admire without wishing to buy. Inside the great fort, with its lofty battlements and its imposing gateways — there we shall find more than one building which we can look on with pleasure. The fort was built by Shah Jehan, two hundred and fifty years ago. He called the city after his own name, Shah- jehanabad, and this name was used to designate the place in official documents up to the last year of the last king of 76 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. Delhi's reign. He had good right, too, to mark the city with his own name, for he made it celebrated in history as the seat of the magnificent Court of the Peacock Throne. The fort he filled with an extensive palace and grounds, and with a number of houses which he built for his ministers and favourites. Now it is occupied by barracks, the Oriental despot's descendants having given way before British bayonets. There still stand, however, to remind one of the perished grandeur of the Delhi dynasty, the marble buildings which were once the halls of justice and audience — the Dewari-i-Aub and the Dewan-i-Khas. The latter is remarkably handsome. It measures 100 ft. by 60, is open at the sides, and its roof is supported on four rows of scolloped arches, all inlaid. In the centre is a clear space where stood the Peacock Throne : at the corners of the pillars surrounding this open space is an inscription in Arabic, meaning, 'If there is a paradise upon earth, it is this, it is this.' This grandiloquent motto received an ironical confirmation when, in Sep- tember 1857, the last of the dynasty was driven out from his paradise by the sword. Outside the fort, but at only a short distance from it, is the Jumma Musjid, the great mosque of Delhi, and con- sidered the finest in India. As in all other buildings of this kind, the mosque itself occupies one side of a- large quadrangle ; the other three are occupied by corridors or cloisters, each of them being pierced in the centre by a large gateway. The gateways of the Jumma Musjid are particularly fine, approached from the outside by broad flights of steps, and each one surmounted by a white marble dome. The quadrangle measures 100 yards each way. In one of its corners is a small shrine, where, with a superstition that recalls to one's mind the relics of Borne or Naples, are treasured a hair of Mahomet's beard, THE JUMMA MUSJID. 77 the print of his foot in a block of marble, and some books written by his grandson I If we ascend to the top of the mosque, we shall have an extensive view over the whole city and its suburbs. We look over the native buildings, less crowded here than at Lucknow or Benares ; over the fort, with its white Dewans inside ; and almost all round the city we can trace the dark red line of wall which gave our troops so much trouble, and cost so much blood, in '5 7. Beyond the city, to the east, we can trace the course of the Jumna, at this season shallow, and running slowly in narrow channels between broad sand-banks ; to the north we can distinguish the Flagstaff Tower, standing on the low heights which were occupied by our troops during the seige of Delhi, and further to the east the scaffolding of an elaborate monument now being built to commemorate the capture ; to the south we look over an immense stretch of country, of as large an acreage as London, Westminster, and Southwark combined, reach- ing from the city walls to a low barren ridge eight miles away, and covered with shapeless mounds and remnants of masonry — the site of ancient Delhi, or rather of several ancient Delhis, for the city seems to have had its position altered and to have been rebuilt more than once. Among the mounds and the piles of stone and rubbish we distin- guish, several domed buildings — mosques and tombs — the most conspicuous of which is the Tomb of Humayoon, the father of Akbar, with its lofty dome of marble. In the far distance, close up to the barren ridge, is a solitary tower, looking in the distance like a lighthouse out of place. That is the celebrated Khootab Minar, the finest tower of its kind in India, possibly in the world. We must go out and see it. Chartering a carriage, we start out in the cool of the morning and drive through three miles of native streets to 78 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. the Ajmere Gate in the southern wall. Outside this, we pass through eight miles of uncultivated la,nd covered with remains of mosques, tomhs, palaces, and walls, mingled with masses of broken bricks and mounds of soil- covered remnants — ' ruin upon ruin — confusion worse confounded ' — once alive with all the ' busy hum of men,' now abandoned to the foxes and the owls. As we draw near the Khootab, it seems to grow in height, and when we halt finally at the dak bungalow under its shadow, the tall column seems like a second Tower of Babel, eager to reach the very skies. In shape it is circular, but its surface is relieved by a series of vertical ribs extending all round it, alternately angular and convex. Its height is 240 ft., nearly 40 ft. greater than that of the London Monument ; but this great height again is relieved by four cornices, running round it and dividing it into five portions, or storeys, of lengths decreasing in a certain proportion from that of the lowest one. The cornices are handsomely carved, and the upper two storeys are faced with white marble, the rest being composed of red granite. The diameter of the column at the base is 50 ft. ; from this it tapers very gradually and gracefully to a diameter at the summit of 12 ft. only. An ascent can be made to the summit by an interior spiral staircase of" 370 steps, kept in very good repair; and all the way up not a single crack or sign of decay in the solid outer wall of the column can be found. There is much uncertainty about its origin and date, but it is considered to have stood at least 500 years ; and, judging from its soundness and solidity, it may stand twice as many more, provided no earthquake shake it, and no rude hands of men pull it down. Round its base are various remains of ancient Hindu buildings, some of them in a very ruinous condition, others with columns and DELHI JUGGLERS. 79 carvings still uninjured and clear. A short distance to the west, among some other ruins, are two or three tanks, where some of the natives from the neighbouring village will give the traveller, if he wishes it, a repetition of the Fut- tehpur Sikri diving performance, but from a lower height. We can return to Delhi by Humayoon's Tomb, which stands some four miles to the eastward of the Khootab. It is well worth a visit for the sake of its chaste and simple architecture, its imposing proportions, and the elegance of its lofty dome. It has a further interest attached to it also by the fact that it was from it that the last king of Delhi was carried off by Major Hodson and a few score horsemen in the face of as many hundred of the king's retainers, in September 1857. From the same building, too, on the day after the capture of the king, his two sons were carried off by the same intrepid officer, to be shot dead before they reached the city, on the signs of some resistance shown by the surrounding crowd. We can spend part of an afternoon in Delhi in witness- ing the. performances of some of the celebrated jugglers of the place. We send a message to one of them, bidding him come to the hotel ; and he is not long in obeying the summons, bringing with him two women whom he calls his wife and daughter respectively. He certainly goes through some very good sleight-of- hand tricks. He takes an earthen pot, full of earth, which is standing in the verandah of the hotel, and plants in it a mango-stone, covering it afterwards with a cloth frame shaped like an extinguisher. He proceeds with some other tricks, returns to the pot, uncovers it, and there is a young mango plant just appearing above the soil ! He waters it and covers it up again, and in a short time displays it again, grown to double its former size ! Such is the cele- 80 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. brated mango-trick, which, in description sounds very marvellous ; but, from tbe way he goes through it, fumbling a good deal with the cover, we have little doubt that two plants are ready folded up in the cover, and transferred to the soil at the moment of covering up. Perhaps the best trick is one performed by the daughter, who mixes up three powders, red, yellow, and white, in a glass of water, drinks off the mixture, and in a short while returns the powders one by one from her mouth in their originally dry state ! Although we are in Delhi at the latter end of the cool season, we can quite imagine, from the tolerable sensations of heat we experience, that in summer these up-country towns are even hotter than Calcutta. An old resident at Agra tells us that in July last, when the weather was more than usually hot, the thermometer inside his house, with all the appliances of tatties, punkahs, &c, to moderate the heat, marked as a minimum for three nights in succession no less than 98° Fahrenheit, in the day of course going higher, the air all the time being heavy and dull, and filled with an almost impalpably fine dust. These places so distant from the coast are also unpro- vided with the supplies of good American ice which are imported so successfully into Calcutta, and which are such excellent antidotes against the heats of the city. The in- habitants practise, however, an ingenious plan for remedy- ing, to some extent, this defect. During the coolest part of the cold season a large number of shallow earthen pans or dishes are placed every night on some open piece of ground, each dish being filled with water to the depth of an inch or so, and raised a couple of inches from the ground on a bed of straw. By this means, the straw absorbing the radiation from the earth, ice is formed in the dishes during nights when a thermometer on the ICE-MAKING. 81 ground beside them would not register lower than from 40° to 44°. The ice is collected very early in the morning, is carried to a store-house, and there pressed together into a solid mass. Though the method does not produce clear, hard ice, it provides a substitute which answers the purpose of cooling bottles and preserving meats very well. We are told in Benares that the process is carried on to so large an extent there that as much as 1,000 maunds (over thirty-five tons) is produced sometimes in a single night. But we are going to escape from the hot cities of the plain by making a short journey up to the lower ranges of the Himalayas. We can reach Saharunpore, within fifty miles of the foot of the giant ' Hills,' in six hours by the railway from Delhi, and we shall have time to spend a week in the fresh air of the mountains before retracing our steps to Calcutta. 82 ROUND THE WORLD I> T 1870. chapter vrn. THE HIMALAYAS. ' Mountains, that like giants stand, To sentinel enchanted land.' — The Lady of the Lake. One would have expected that people living in one of the most extensive flat plains in the world would have a more than ordinary respect for anything like a mountain, and that they would speak of a really lofty mountain range in terms denoting some appreciation of its size. Tet an Anglo-Indian, living from one hot season to another in places where not a hillock is visible, speaks of a journey to the highest mountain range in the world as ' going up to the hills.' It is almost akin to the supposed habit of the Yankees terming the Atlantic Ocean ' the pool.' The country between Delhi and Saharunpore is even drier-looking and flatter than the lower part of the great plain of the Ganges. Great patches of sandy waste are more frequent, and trees are more rare. And while the interest of the country diminishes, so does the speed of our train, so that, after getting a thousand miles from Calcutta, we roll along at the pace of only sixteen miles an hour. Saharunpore is a place of no great size or importance, and after arriving there at midnight we leave again next morning without regretting that we have no more time there. THE HIMALAYAS. 83 We have to travel forty-five miles, to Deyra Doon, which is to be our resting-place for the night. A dak gharry is our conveyance, and we are to change horses every four miles. Changing horses in a dak gharry is a somewhat curious proceeding, and very different from what the term will suggest to an English mind. In the first place the horses are such as no respectable animal of that species would recognise as of the same race with himself: he would object to their being called anything better than half-starved ' screws.' Not one of them but looks as if he had been subject to the Yankee experiment of being fitted with a pair of green spectacles and then fed with shavings ; two out of three of them are suffering from sore backs and withers, and every other one has a spavin, a splint, broken wind, or some other of the ills that horse- flesh is heir to. Not a few would answer to the whole string of vices and infirmities ascribed to the sorry jade in the 'Taming of the Shrew.' No wonder that a Hindu refuses meat of all kinds, for he treats all his animals so wretchedly that he could not get a good joint out of one of them. Then the method of starting these animals differs toto coelo from the orthodox style of setting off a team. The object here is not to hold the horses in till all are ready and then give vent to their impatience to be off, but to get the poor wretches to budge at all. As soon as the ragged ropes and straps which are made to serve as harness are adjusted, the ' gharrywan ' mounts his seat, flourishes his whip, shouts, shrieks, belabours his steeds on back and loins with a sort of frenzied violence, while a couple of horse-boys put their shoulders to each of the back wheels, and make a vigorous attempt to overcome the vis inertias of the vehicle. Presently, off goes the machine at a tearing pace, o 2 84 HOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. the horses, half bewildered, making a frantic effort to run away with it or from it. A couple of hundred yards is passed, while we hold on by door or seat to keep our joints together ; then a sudden stop ; another series of shrieks, thuds, and howls of execration from the driver; then another ' spurt ; ' then perhaps a lucid interval be- tween these fits of frenzy; and so on, till the stage is completed and another begun. At one station we find that half the horses are out, and, of the other half, only one can stand upon his legs ; so for the next stage we submit to be dragged by coolies. As for the ' gharry,' it is as cranky and creaky as an old bathing machine; and before we reach the end of our journey we can feelingly assert that it surpasses the description written of London ' growlers ' — ' They were dirty, they were dusty, they were grimy, they were grim, They rattled and they jolted till you ached in brain and limb ; The drivers drove so slowly that they drove you to despair, To your prayers they made no answer, for your threats they didn't care.' And though the gharrywans expend zeal enough on getting their animals to start, they every now and then relapse into a state of apathy, and the average rate of travelling is scarcely the regulation ' six miles an hour.' After accomplishing eight- and- twenty miles of our journey, we reach the foot of an isolated range of hills, through which, as the road changes from a dead level to a gentle slope quite steep enough to discourage such steeds as we have described, we are carried in palkees. The road winds through a defile in the hills for a distance of some eight miles, following for a considerable part of that distance the course of a rocky stream. The hills on either side, apparently of limestone, are broken in many places into fine precipices fringed with wood. The foliage on the gentler slopes is abundant, THE HIMALAYAS. 85 though the trees are of no great size : a profuse under- growth, among which are many ferns, grows beneath their shade. Emerging from these hills, we enter from the south the Deyra Doon plain, on the further side of which, ten miles distant, rises the outermost range of the Himalayas, 7,000 feet above the sea-level and 4,000 above the plain. Though only a third of the height of the central snowy range behind, this range is near enough to us to shut out the snows from the view. Just as we catch full sight of the mountains, the sun is sinking below the western horizon, and they are tinged with greyish purple ; one could almost fancy they are covered with Scotch heather. On the very top of the part of the ridge right opposite to us we can distinguish a few white dots, growing very indistinct in the twilight. An hour afterwards we see that there are lights where these dots were. They are the houses of Landour and Mussoorie, favourite resorts in the Hima- layas, in the heats of summer, for refugees from the baking plains. We shall be among the first refugees of the season if we get up there to-morrow. We reach Deyra after an hour's drive across the fertile plain, well known as one of the largest tea-growing dis- tricts in Northern India ; we can only distinguish, how- ever, one or two plantations of the useful plant, as we pass along the road. There is nothing to induce us to stay at Deyra, so early on the morning after arriving there we are off again in a gharry for Rajpore, a village lying at the very foot of the mountains, and immediately below Mussoorie. An hour's drive brings us to an end for a time of gharry sufferings, for at Rajpore we take either to ponies or our own legs, the road up to Mussoorie, ascending 4,000 feet in seven miles, being too steep for wheeled carriages. Seven 86 EOUXD THE WOULD IN 1870. coolies shoulder our baggage, the more energetic of us start on foot, the less active one engages a pony. As we wind up through tolerably thick woods, which however open out at almost every corner of our steep and tortuous path, we have constant backward views of the broad plain beneath us, and to the right and left we look over the wooded spurs running down into the plain from the ridge above us. Mussoorie is in sight for the greater portion of the way : a straggling collection of white houses perched on the top of the ridge, like some tourist-haunted village in the High Alps. We can see no snowy peaks yet, and we are disappointed with the bareness of the higher part of the mountains which are visible. We should have gone to Darjeeling or to the Narkunda Forest, beyond Simla, to see Himalayan forests in their full magnificence ; but this we do not find out till afterwards : experientia docet. As we near Mussoorie, we become conscious that we are still within the pale of British civilisation and British advertisements ; a sign-board stares us in the face with the inscription, ' This ivay to Tara Hall and Lammer- moor,' designed doubtless as a sure way of winning over any patriotic Hibernian or Caledonian to take up his abode in a house whose name must be so dear to him. We pass a number of shops and hotels with English names attached to them, and finally reach the Hima- layan Hotel, which the manager, having had no visitors as yet, opens for us. The pedestrian of our party trails in somewhat behind the rider ; and as for our poor Ben- galee servant, who has come with us from Calcutta, his spindle shanks are ill-adapted, either by nature or by practice, to toiling up a Himalayan slope, and he makes his appearance some two hours later. THE HIMALAYAS. 87 The air up here is delightfully fresh and invigorating, and by no means too cold, though we have still two days of February left ; but the ' season ' will not begin for another month or six weeks, by which time the plains will have become heated enough to be unpleasant. Then the Governor-General and his staff will migrate from Calcutta up to Simla, and throughout the ensuing six months all the Hill-resorts will be alive with Anglo- Indians, escaped for a shorter or. longer time, as the case may be, from the great oven below. . Let us walk up to the top of the Camel's Hump, 200 or 300 feet above us, where we can stand quite on the top of the ridge, and have one of the best views which can be found within easy reach of Mussoorie. At the summit, we are standing at an altitude of about 6,500 feet above the sea level. As we look southwards, immediately below us, and reaching to the isolated range of hills through which our gharry was dragged yesterday, is the Deyra Doon, the white clusters of Rajpore and Deyra standing like little islands on its green and well-tilled surface. Beyond the hills we catch a glimpse of the plain near Saharunpore, part of the great plain of the Ganges and its tributaries, which extends from here uninterruptedly for more than 1,000 miles down to the sea. To the east and west of us, we look along the undulating ridge on which we are standing, and over the series of wooded spurs descending from it. Turning to the north, immediately in front of us lies a deep and narrow valley, whose brawling torrent at the bottom is nearly 4,000 feet below us. This great depth of ravine and gorge helps us more than anything else in the scenery around to realise the gigantic scale on which these Himalayas are framed. The wall of the valley that slopes so steeply down from our feet is well wooded ; the opposite wall rises up, equally 88 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. steep, but more barren, till it terminates in a mountain- top due north of us, and 3,000 feet above us. Over tbe right shoulder of this mountain we catch sight of part of the central snow- clad range, which gives the origin of the name 'Him-alaya,' 'the abode of frost or cold.' There are several peaks and summits, one a uniform mass of white, another showing grey and black patches where the precipices are too steep for the snow to lie upon. They are a long way from us — sixty to eighty miles at least — and we must take this into account before we can realise that they are of such enormous heights as from 18,000 to 23,000 feet. Looking to the left of the mountain over against us, we see more mountain-masses piled one behind the other, with here and there a patch of snow upon them. Far below them, and nearer to us, we can trace a deep valley uniting with the one that runs below us at a point ten miles lower down. That valley is the valley of the Jumna, which winds up into the "Himalayas for a hundred miles from that point of junction, to where the infant stream springs from the foot of the Jumnotri peak, at a height of nearly 11,000 feet above the sea, and only a few miles from the glacier which gives birth to the greater river, the Ganges. From Mussoorie to Simla there is a mountain road lead- ing up and down great gorges, and over lofty mountain- shoulders, often traversed by travellers and sportsmen, and provided at intervals in its long course of 120 miles with dak bungalows of a primitive description, but suffi- cient to afford shelter from the weather. We have not time to go through the whole, or even half, of this distance ; but we may spend our four spare days in a short journey along it. The first thing, then, to do is, to get a staff of coolies, who may be found in the village THE HIMALAYA . 89 of Mussoorie, and who, after various attempts on their part to strike for higher wages, agree to go with ns at the rate of six annas (9d.) per day per man — said to be good wages for them. We order them to come at five o'clock on the ensning morning, and meanwhile we get ready such few things as we shall want, and succeed in borrowing a small tent and one or two articles useful in ' camping out.' The ensuing morning comes, but the dawn brings not with it the coolies, who are pleased not to put in an appearance till half-past seven. Then follow various palavers about the number of men required, the amount of baggage they will carry, the supply of rope for the packages, and so forth. Finally they set off, and we, following them after an interval of half an hour, catch them up again at the distance of a mile from the hotel. Sundry invectives are poured upon them, and for some time we find great diffi- culty in getting them to move on at a tolerable pace. At last, finding that they are not to have their own way, they resign themselves contentedly to their lot, and trudge along cheerfully. These hill-coolies are a very different set of men from the natives of the plains. They are shorter in stature, with less of the aquiline nose and lustrous eye of the true Hindu, but much better knit and far more active. They will carry great weights on their backs, their favourite method of packing things being to put them in a wicker tub-shaped basket, fastened by straps to the shoulders like a knapsack. They will trudge over the mountain paths at a slow and steady pace for the greater part of a day. sleeping at night round a fire of sticks, in a cave, or in some abandoned hut, and pur- chasing their scanty supply of rice, with perhaps some milk and meal-cakes, at any village they may pass 90 ROUND THE AYOELD IX 1870. through, during the day. Their clothing is of a rough and simple description — a coarse woollen garment, loose like a dressing-gown, and belted at the loins, being all of their apparel that is visible. Their legs and feet are naked, although their walking is often over paths strewn with sharp stones, as trying to the feet as those of our Cumberland hills. They seem to feed only twice during the twenty-four hours — at morning and at evening. During the day they constantly chew their favourite stimulant — ' betel.' Two of our coolies are told off to carry a ' dandy,' in case one of us or our Bengalee should fall weary by the way. This ' dandy " is about the simplest style of convey- ance that could be imagined, consisting merely of a stout pole with a canvas seat fastened to it lengthwise. As we are carried in it along the paths that skirt deep pre- cipices, sitting of course sideways, and looking down over the pole, on which our arms are resting, we may often see nothing below us but a yawning space of empty air, finishing down in far distant depths in a roaring, rushing torrent, a scattered pile of rocks broken from the height above, or perhaps a clump of trees apparently waiting to receive us, in case we ' fall like Lucifer, never to rise again.' To light-headed people, this is trying at first; but a growing confidence is soon felt in the two bearers, who, with naked feet and supple forms, trudge up and down hill without ever a sign of a stumble, and only stop now and then to change the pole from one shoulder to the other, or to call the extra bearer into service. For some seven miles after leaving Mussoorie, we wind down hill, in and out of deep ravines which run down into the deep valley which lay below us as we stood upon the Camel's Hump. Some of these ravines are filled with rhododendron-trees, many of them really trees, 40 ft. in height and 5 or 6 ft. in girth, and not such bushes as we THE HIMALAYAS. 91 have in England. Only one kind, however, is in flower, and that has only recently begun to bloom. Its flowers are of a deep crimson colour. One other kind we find occasionally, with a minute white blossom on it — a species seen but rarely in our English gardens. When the trees are at their full bloom they must present some gorgeous masses of colouring. We halt at mid-day by a small torrent at the bottom of a deep ravine, and take our lunch in a little nook which is a perfect little paradise for ferns, a dozen different kinds growing in profusion among the rocks and on old tree-roots, the delicate fronds of the maiden-hair being most conspicuous and most beautiful amongst them. Starting again after the hot mid-day hours are over, four miles, first of gradual ascent then of rapid descent, bring us to the Jumna, not here a broad, yellow, sluggish river as we have seen it at Agra and Delhi, but a clear mountain stream, scarcely thirty yards in width, though from the marks on the banks it seems to expand to thrice that size when in full flood. — It has run only a hundred miles from its source down to this point, and yet in that distance it has descended through more than 8,000 feet, while between this point and the mouths of the Ganges, distant 1,400 miles, there is only a difference of 2,200 feet in altitude. We cross the stream by a temporary bridge, close to where a permanent suspension-bridge is in course of erection, and then, after winding up hill again for three miles or more, we reach (near the village of Lukwali) a dak bunga- low, in which we ensconce ourselves for the night. Next morning we start off with the intention of getting to the top of Bairat, a mountain apparently at no great distance from Lukwali, and round which the road to Simla passes. After winding in and out of numerous 92 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. ravines, along a path that ascends gradually all the way, we reach, at the end of six miles, the point where the Simla road turns round the shoulder of the mountain. We have risen more than 2,000 feet since leaving Luk- wali, and as we have been walking on the southern face of Bairat, exposed, except when in the recesses of a ravine, to a burning sun, we do not feel inclined to attack the remaining 2,500 feet that lie between us and the top of the mountain, especially as a haze on the distant horizon promises no very extensive view. As it is, we can enjoy a fine prospect from where we have halted. We are standing on the north side of the Jumna gorge, and can see the torrent rushing along its bottom 3,500 feet below us. On the other side are mountains of various heights, their sides broken into numberless ravines and spurs, some green and wooded, some yellow and bare, all running steeply down into the gorge below. Away to the north-east the snowy peaks are indistinctly visible; one nearer point, marked in the map as 9,900 feet in height, has still a slight sprinkling of snow on its northern face. One noticeable feature in the scenery here is the suc- cession of artificial terraces which rise one above another, like gigantic flights of steps, up many of the sunny slopes to a height of 5,000 or 6,000 feet. It says much for the industry and energy of the mountain villagers that they thus turn the steepest hill-side, down which in ' the rains ' torrents of water must flow, to good account. Nor can we help not'cing the superior appearance in feature, expression, and costume too, of these hardy mountaineers, especially of the women amongst them, as compared with the weak, apathetic-looking villagers of the plains. We spend two or three hours on the shoulder of Bairat, and then retrace our steps to our bungalow. On the way down we notice a fine clump of deodars, growing in the THE HIMALAYAS. 93 recess of a sheltered ravine. These are perhaps the finest trees that grow on the sides of the Himalayas. Anyone who has only seen the elegant young trees that display their graceful shape and foliage in European gardens, would hardly recognise as of the same species the tall, gnarled, and ragged-branched trees which grow in full vigour in these Highlands of North India. In size and shape they much resemble Scotch firs, though they are rougher in the bark, their branches are more twisted, and their foliage lighter in colour than is the case with those trees. We repass the Lukwali bungalow without waiting longer than necessary to collect our coolies, and then move down again to the Jumna, where we encamp for the night. Next morning we have a refreshing bathe in the clear waters. In the early morning both water and air are cold in these mountain gorges, but the change of temperature which takes place as the sun's rays penetrate them is very rapid and very great. We spend the morning in a walk down the wooded side of the Jumna gorge in the hope of finding some game, but beyond seeing one deer and three phea- sants at a distance, and finding the footprints of a hyena, these Himalayan preserves yield us a blank morning. In the afternoon we move our encampment to the gorge where we had found such a luxuriance of ferns two days previously. Our Bengalee seems to find his ' mountain legs ' after two days looking for them, and proves himself very useful in cooking our tinned provisions, and in packing and un- packing our things. When he reaches Calcutta again he will probably have wonderful ' yarns ' to spin to his fellow- servants, who will listen with less than their usual apathy to his accounts of the royal cities of Akbar and Shah Jehan, and of the great snowy mountains of the north. 94 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. After a night in the ferny gorge we spend a morning again in search of quadruped or fowl. One hare and one pheasant fall to our guns, the latter over a cliff into such a tangled shrubbery that we cannot recover him. Before evening we are back again in Mussoorie. We still have the hotel all to ourselves, though one sign of the approaching commencement of the season is that ' Black Monday ' has dawned on several of the English schools, of which there are a large number up here. We stay only one night in Mussoorie, and next morning early we walk down to Rajpore, where we again resign ourselves to a gharry. No fewer than eleven hours are spent in getting over forty-seven miles of road, and it is late at night before we reach Saharunpore. We are again in the plains, and rapidly finding our way back to Calcutta. We stop on the way at Delhi, Cawnpore, and Lucknow; but we have already anticipated those visits, and must imagine ourselves arrived in Ballygunge, after a spell of forty hours in the railway, which, jwith the attendant influences of heat and dust, have restored us to our friends in a somewhat exhausted and decidedly grimy state. We feel, in fact, rather like the individual who appears in the Lord Mayor's show with the Dust of Ages upon him. But a bath soon sets that all right ; and we spend another pleasant day or two in Calcutta before our steamer leaves for China and carries us still further eastwards. PENANG AND SINGAPORE. 95 CHAPTEE IX. PENANG AND SINGAPORE. ' Or other worlds they seem'd, or happy isles, Like those Hesperian gardens fam'd of old ; Fortunate fields, and groves, and flowery rales, Thrice happy isles.' — Paradise Lost. Perhaps before fifty years are over the usual route from Calcutta to Hongkong will be up the Brahmapootra valley, thence by a Fell railway over the Himalayas, then down a portion of the Kin-cha-Kiang, and then by rail again through the southern part of China to Canton — the whole journey occupying four days or so. At present we have to be content with a voyage of four times that length, and must go down to Singapore, and turn the southern corner of Asia, before making a straight course for Hongkong. Accordingly, on March 19, we go on board one of Messrs. Jardine, Matheson, and Co.'s steamers, lying in the Hooghly almost opposite Fort William ; and with the morning ebb tide we are soon steaming down the tortuous and dangerous channel. The navigation of the Hooghly from Calcutta to the Sandheads, a distance of ninety miles, is probably as diffi- cult as that of any other river, for a similar distance, in the world. The tidal currents run up and down at the rate of from four to even eight knots per hour ; the channel is always intricate and narrow, and the banks on either side of it are constantly altering in the most irregular and 96 ROUND THE "WORLD IN 1870. rapid manner : so that, in spite of the excellence of the pilot service of the river, and of the constant surveys which are made of the banks, wrecks on the way up or down are not of uncommon occurrence ; and as we pass down we may see above water the mast-head3 of more than one vessel which has failed to thread the labyrinth, and is being rapidly swallowed up by the all-devouring quicksands. By the time that we reach Culpee, a short distance below Diamond Harbour, the tide has ebbed too far to allow of our steamer, with her deep load of opium, to cross the shallow bar a little further down ; so we anchor for the night, and but for the mosquitoes have a cooler and pleasanter sleep than we could have obtained in Calcutta. Next forenoon, with the tide nearly full, we start again, and before six o'clock that evening we have put our pilot on his brig, and are well out of the river, though still in muddy and not very deep water. But on getting up on the morning of the 21st, we find we are again in real salt water; the muddy colour has disappeared, and a deep blue expanse, with here and- there a snow-white crest, has taken its place. The weather is clear and bright ; a light breeze scarcely fills the sails, all of which are spread ; the sun comes out of the ocean to the east, a clear ball of gold. We have a thousand miles to run before reaching Penang, and we are in for four or five days of real Bay of Bengal weather — -.calm sea, still atmosphere, and hot sun. An almost universal somnolence falls upon the pas- sengers before two days are over ; and though, when one of them maintains that the cargo of opium is the cause, he is thought to be trying to make a joke, subsequent enquiries lead to the belief that such is really the case. The vessel's screw keeps pounding away, making every chair or bench in the saloon vibrate from morning till THE BAY OF BENGAL. 97 night, with one brief interval when a bearing grows hot and a short stoppage ensues, reminding one of the interval vouchsafed by an itinerant organ-grinder when he ceases grinding at one's own door and moves on to the next neighbour's. The small ship's cabins are unbearable in the heat, and everyone sleeps on deck. Early on the morning of the 23rd we pass within ten miles of the island of Narcondam, a mountain rising out of the sea to a height of 2,150 feet, clothed with fine vegetation from base to summit. On the afternoon of the 24th we pass the Seyers Islands, well wooded also, and with their coastline indented into many bays and rocky headlands. Later in the evening we are within a few miles of the coast of Malacca, and can catch frequent glimpBes of it by the aid of the flashes of lightning which play with intense brilliancy all round the horizon far on into the night. Early on the morning of the 25th we are off the But- ton Islands, one hundred miles from Penang. These are small well-wooded islands, each of them just such an islet as would answer to the description of that of Enoch Arden, with its ' seaward-gazing gorge,' and its ' ferns and palms and precipices.' On the same day, before the sun has set, we are anchored in Penang Harbour, between the island of Pulo Penang and the mainland; Between us and the shore of the island are a number of picturesque junks and skiffs of both Chinese and Malayan rig. Lining the shore, all round the harbour, are the walls and houses of the town of Penang, their white roofs interspersed with green clusters of palms and other trees ; behind and above the town rise the hills of which the island is composed, varying in height from 500 up to 2,500 feet, their outline broken into numerous peaks and shoulders, their sides a dense expanse of green forest. Nearest and most con- H 98 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. spicuous among these hills is the Flagstaff Hill, on the sides of which various bungalows peep out from among the trees. Turning to the mainland, we look on the flat coastline, which is the seaward boundary of the Wellesley Province, and which gives way a few miles to the north- ward to a bold and handsome mountain, rising up steeply from the water, and making a fine finish to the view in that direction. Penang has only been in British hands for eighty-four years, and in that time, from being the home of a few Malay families and a few fishermen, it has become the abode of more tban 130,000 people, most numerous among • whom are the Malays, the Chinese ranking next. The island originally belonged to the Malay kingdom of Keddah, but shortly before 1786 an Englishman, Cap- tain Francis Light, received it as a marriage portion with the King of Keddah's daughter, and he transferred it to the East India Company. The name of the island, Pulo Penang, is said to mean ' beetel-nut, 5 that being one of the chief productions of the island. Palm-oil, sugar, indigo, tobacco, coffee, and valuable woods, are also produced. Though the thermometer seldom falls lower than 75° on the island, the climate is said to be a healthy one. Going ashore in the evening we find that there is plenty of stir in the place, especially among the Chinese. Threading our way through the dimly-lighted streets, we find that, the labour and heat of the day being over, the industrious Chinamen are taking care to refresh them- selves in various ways from their toil. Here, at the side of the street, is a great trough, at which a dozen or more of them are performing their ablutions ; here a number of stalls where jellies, sweetmeats, and drinks indescribable, but evidently unalcoholic, are being retailed ; here a tea- house, where weak tea is being drunk in just the same PENANG. 99 way as its kindred beverage is taken in any continental cafe\ In every street we pass a dozen houses whose open front gives a view through the front room on to a shrine, over which is a large tablet inscribed with the name of an ancestor, or of a patron god of the Chinese house- holder, and before the tablet are two candles burning. The Chinese in Penang almost monopolise the shop- keeping : hence the apparent preponderance of their faces and their customs in the streets : among the boatmen and fishermen the majority seem to be Malays. As we row back to our steamer late at night, the water in the harbour is almost motionless, and phosphorescent to a degree seldom witnessed. The ripples fall off from the bow of our ' sampan ' in lines of molten silver, and as the oars splash in and out of the water, every scattered drop is a liquid gem. Our steamer stays twenty-four hours at Penang, so we shall have time to get up to the top of the Flagstaff Hill. Going ashore at daybreak on the 26th, we land at the wharf and charter two neat gharries, each drawn by one of the famous Penang ponies, little fellows not more than twelve hands high, beautifully shaped, and as sturdy and strong as they are small. After driving four miles to the foot of the ascent to the Flagstaff, we leave the gharries and each mount a pony. Then comes a ride of an hour and a half up hill, through a dense wood, which fulfils in every point one's idea of tropical luxuriance of vegetation. The cocoa-nut and areca- palms of the lower levels give place as we rise to forest trees of great variety and often of immense height: a dense undergrowth of smaller trees and shrubs, matted together with creepers, fills up the spaces between the larger trunks : a rich variety of ferns lines the sides of the path, and covers every spot which the more powerful vegetation has spared, while H 2 100 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. here and there an orchid, or a brilliant creeper-flower, gives colour to the otherwise unvarying green. There is, however, that absence of animal life which may often be remarked where vegetable life is so abundant; nor, in the damp, warm atmosphere which pervades these rank forests, can we perceive any of those sharp, fresh scents which the drier and less luxuriant woods of more tem- perate latitudes so often exude. Arrived at the summit of the Flagstaff Hill, we are dis- appointed to find that a mist spreads a veil beneath us over the lower world ; nor have we to wait long before a cloud sweeps up over the summit, and pours down upon us a heavy shower. But in another half hour the mist clears away, and reveals to us a beautiful panorama of the rest of the island, with its wooded hills and jutting head- lands, of the sea stretching away to the western horizon and running in on the east between the island and the opposite coast, and of the mainland with its flat wood-clad plains near the sea and its hazy mountains farther inland. Early in the afternoon we are weighing anchor again, and soon begin to make a course for Singapore. Twenty- four hours' steaming brings us abreast of Cape Rachada on the Malacca coast, a bold cliff surmounted by a light- house ; and three hours later we pass within sight of the British settlement of Malacca, one of the smallest of our dependencies, but possessed of some valuable tin mines, and said to produce the. finest tapioca in the world. In the early morning of the 28th we passed through the pretty group of Carramon Islands which dot the Malacca Straits within thirty miles of Singapore, and by ten o'clock we are fast alongside a wharf in the lesser harbour of that place, distant three or four miles from the town. We go ashore in a blazing sun, which rather tends to contradict the assertion of the Singaporeans that they SINGAPORE. 101 never have it very hot there. It would be a truer state- ment to make of the place that they never have it very cool there, for though the thermometer is said never to go above 95°, on the other hand it seldom goes below 75°. Cholera, dysentery, and sunstroke — the scourges of most oriental climates — are said to be almost unknown ; but, instead of these sharp and sudden ailments, there seems to be substituted a generally debilitating effect on Euro- pean constitutions exposed to it for more then a very few years. Like Penang, Singapore has made a remarkable rise in importance and in population since it fell into British hands. In 1819, when permission was first given to erect a factory on the island, the whole population did not number more than 150, chiefly fishermen; in 1866 the population was estimated at rather over 100,000, of whom half were Chinamen, a quarter Malays, 1,000 Europeans, and the rest most miscellaneous and nondescript. A narrow creek runs down through the settlement of Singapore from the hills in the background, dividing it into two parts, of which the eastern contains the bungalows of the Europeans and the Malay quarter, while on the western stands the commercial part of the town, and the larger portion of the Chinese quarter. Many of the dwellings of the Malays are mere sheds, built below high- water mark, and raised above the water on wooden frame- works. The Chinese are, next to the'Europeans, the most enterprising and wealthy class in the settlement. Ten thousand of these industrious emigrants are said to come down from their native country every year; and after a few years spent in amassing a few hundred dollars, most of them return home, where they can live in what they consider comfort on their slender fortunes. Singapore being the point where a dozen lines of trade, 102 BOUND THE "WORLD IN 1870. from China, India, Australia, the various Straits Islands, and Europe, converge, the number of articles of commerce which go in and out of it are probably as numerous as those of any port in the world, and include everything that Asia sells to Europe, that Europe sells to Asia, and that the different nations of Asia bartpr with each other. One of the most interesting sights in or near Singapore is the garden of a distinguished Chinese citizen of the place, by name Wampoo, whose father came to Singapore, along with 10,000 other Chinamen, as an ordinary coolie, but raised himself in time to rank and wealth, and never returned to his native country. The garden is situated three or four miles to the east of the settlement, and does much credit to its Celestial owner. It contains a fine collection of orchids and tropical creepers ; but perhaps its chief glory is the variety and beauty of the water-lilies, which have been successfully reared in its artificial ponds. Conspicuous among the lilies is the Victoria Regia, which here finds a genial climate, and spreads out its giant leaves to their full extent. In one part of the garden there is a curious collection of plants dwarfed and trained after the most approved Chinese fashion. The plants are of a species not unlike the box-shrub, and by careful manipu- lation have been induced to grow in the most fantastic shapes — dragons, dolphins, stags, junks, pagodas, being all well represented in this combination of art and nature. Nearer the settlement are some public Botanical Gar- dens, which are also worth a visit, containing, as they do, some very handsome tropical shrubs, and some noble specimens of the Araucaria excelsa, or Norfolk Island pine. Thirty hours in Singapore are enough for us to see its objects of interest, and for our ship to unlade and lade her cargo for and from the port ; and, accordingly, on the afternoon of March 29 we are again under weigh. Four THE CHINA SEA. 103 hours after starting we pass close by the Horsburgh Lighthouse, placed upon a rock at the eastern entrance to the straits, and we are now fairly in the China seas. The China seas seem to associate themselves in one's mind with typhoons and pirates, but at this season of the year we are sure not to fall in with any of the former, nor would any of the latter trouble themselves to run after a steamer. Our voyage of nearly seven days, from Singa- pore to Hongkong, is both rougher and cooler than that from Calcutta to Singapore. Once out of the Bay of Bengal, we seem to fall in with really fresh ocean breezes, and the change is by no means an unpleasant one. Early on the morning after leaving Singapore we sight the Anamba Islands, and during the forenoon we pass within three or four miles of them : picturesque islands, with their coasts broken into many bays and headlands, and their surface dotted with low trees, and rising up by gentle undulations to points 600 or 800 feet above the sea. After leaving them, dim and indistinct, astern, we see no more land till the morning of April 5, when ' land in sight ahead' is reported from the bridge, and through a light haze we catch our first glimpse of China, in the dim outline of the Ladrone_ Islands. Before mid-day we are in sight of the high hills which compose the island of Hong-kong. 104 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. CHAPTEE X. HONGKONG AND MACAO. Our first sight of China is a disappointing one. Having been accustomed to picture Chinese scenery as always fresh and green, with an abundance of rich vegetation clothing every hill in it, we are disappointed to see a coast composed of brown-looking hills, with here and there a covering of grass, and in other places great bare patches, like disused gravel-pits, marking where the granite, of which the hills are composed, has disintegrated and ren- dered vegetation impossible. We shall find afterwards that the coast of China, for 1,000 miles north of this, has, with the exception of a few isolated spots, a similar appearance. "We round the western end of Hongkong Island, and enter the spacious harbour — eight miles in length, with a width of from one to five miles — which lies between the island and the mainland. We come in sight of the crowded shipping covering the waters of the harbour on the side nearest the island, and then of the town of Hongkong, with its white mass of European houses and its darker suburbs inhabited by the Chinese. Immediately above the town rise the steep hills of which the island is composed, the highest of them being the Peak, whose summit is some 1,800 feet above the water. So steeply do the hills descend to the shore that the town tries to find room for itself by creeping up the HONGKONG. 105 hill-sides, and stretching out along their bases for a distance of three miles or more, reminding one rather forcibly of the appearance of Gibraltar. The shipping in front of the town is of the most miscellaneous description, from an English ironclad or a great American steamer to a Swatow junk or the little ' sampan ' which is ready to take us ashore. This ' sampan ' is shaped like a broad canoe, with an arched erection like a gipsy tent over the stern, and is ' manned ' by a couple of Chinese women, one of whom has a child of a year old strapped to her back, whom, whether steering at the stern or rowing, she never removes from this trying position. We land on the granite quay which runs along the shore for two miles in front of the settlement, and walk up into the streets of the European quarter, which, in the style of the houses on either side of them, may remind us much of Genoa. We are struck at once by the almost total absence from the streets of animals used either for driving, riding, or carrying merchandise. With the exception of a stray pony- carriage, or one or two larger carriages kept by a very few of the European residents, not a vehicle rolls along the macadamised surface. But this is the case in all Southern China, wheeled vehicles of any description — if we except the wheelbarrows which do duty as hackney- carriages in Shanghae — being unknown and unused by the natives. In one of the temples of Canton may be seen a specimen of the rough cart of Northern China, kept there as a great curiosity. The universal mode of progression in Southern China, when not on foot or by boat, is in a chair fixed between two parallel poles, and carried along at a good round pace by two sturdy coolies, who are clad in broad hats, loose blouses, and wide trousers cut short at the knee. 106 BOUND THE WOELD IN 1870. These Hongkong coolies are the strongest-looking men that we shall see in China : on the quay we often notice a couple of them carrying a full-sized bale of Manchester goods, weighing 600 lbs., suspended from a bamboo which rests on their shoulders. At the first sight of these men, with their broad shoulders and well-developed calves, we almost wonder how it is that John Chinaman always proves such an unequal match for John Bull in fighting. But the explanation may easily be found in the fact of the former fighting entirely by routine, being wretchedly armed, worse officered, and possessing little genuine pluck. It is said that when a Chinaman was asked why he and his fellow-soldiers bolted from the Bogue Forts with such alacrity when the redcoats appeared over their walls, he gave the following phlegmatic reason — ' How can China- man stay when Inglisman come in? No hab got room for two piecey man : number one man come in, number two man go out.' And here we have stumbled across another of the pecu- liarities of Hongkong which are among the first to strike a stranger : the dialect, namely, which is current between Englishmen and Chinamen, when neither has mastered the language of the other. This dialect goes by the name of 'Pigeon English,' and sounds like so much honest Saxon put all out of joint, its pronunciation debased to suit the Chinese tongue, and an addition made of various words of Portuguese, Malay, or nondescript origin. If you have only been on Chinese soil for a' couple of days you will be confounded, on calling on your friend at mid-day, to hear him call out to his Chinese servant, ' Boy, you go topside ; tell that cook, all same that num- ber one China boy„ he makee chow chow, chop chop.' You will require an interpreter to make you understand that your friend is merely ordering lunch for you. PIGEON ENGLISH. 107 While on the subject of ' Pigeon English,' we must not forget an anecdote told us by a Shanghae friend, which illustrates both the eccentricities of the jargon and also the observant powers often found among Chinamen. Our friend had left his office one day for an hour, and on returning was informed by one of his servants that a gentleman had called to see him, whereupon a dialogue took place between master and servant as follows : ' What name that gentleman 9 ' ' My no savey ' (i.e. I don't know). 'Where belong that gentleman?' 'My no savey; but my can tell what fashion he makee look see. One tallo man ; no too muchee stout : hab got one nose all same that Mellican chicky.' Perhaps one versed only in the Queen's English will have some difficulty in making out that the servant was describing the visitor, in the last sentence, as tall, rather thin, with a nose re- sembling in outline that of the noble bird, holder of Jove's thxmderbolts, and favourite emblem with our Transatlantic cousins of the free and soaring spirit of their nation. We have fortunately brought with us to Hongkong a letter to a leading British merchant there, and are conse- quently received with all that free-hearted and lavish hospitality for which Englishmen in China are famous even above their hospitable countrymen in India. Our friend's house,- like those of most of the English residents, is situated a short distance up the hill-side, and from its verandah we have a fine view over the town, the harbour, and the mainland opposite. The greater part of the shipping lies in a cluster near the town ; but there are a few vessels lying farther out, and we can see some anchored close to Kowlung, a promontory on the main- land. This harbour affords good holding ground and deep water in every part of it, and these advantages com- bine with the shelter of the surrounding hills to render 108 ROUND THE WOULD IN 1870. the shipping lying in it perfectly secure. Occasionally, however — once a year or so — a typhoon bursts in upon the harbour from the east, drives the vessels from their moorings, and scatters up and down those that have not gone in behind the Kowlung Peninsula, defying the best of seamanship and the strongest of cables, and not unfre- quently wrecking large vessels within sight of the town. Though the bills of Hongkong Island, as seen from out at sea, present a bare and uninviting appearance, yet if we wander from the town up their northern slopes, we shall find that they possess some pretty gullies, where there is a plentiful supply of azaleas, ferns, and other small vegetation, and through which run the fresh water- courses which have given the island its rather fanciful Chinese name — Heang-Keang — 'the fragrant streams.' Perhaps the prettiest part of the island is the Wong- nei-chong, or as the English call it, the Happy Valley, lying to the east of the town — a flat grass valley enclosed by well- wooded hills, and divided, with little regard for the difference between grave and gay, into a race-course and a cemetery. In the native quarters of Hongkong we have good opportunities of seeing thoroughly Chinese costumes, pursuits, and customs ; but as we shall see these in, if possible, a more thoroughly native mould in Canton, we will only take the opportunity afforded by our host of partaking of a dinner a la Ghinoise at a Chinese res- taurant, and going afterwards to a Chinese ' sing-song,' or theatrical performance. At the appointed hour we are landed by our chair coolies at the entrance of the Celestial ' Vefour's,' and enter a room well lighted with paper lanterns, and adorned with baskets of fresh flowers suspended from the ceiling. Three musicians and three singing-girls are in attend- DINNER A LA CHINOISE. 109 ance, but their monotonously shrill notes fail to soothe the European rugged breast, and we are fain to request them to let us dine without musical honours. To correspond to ' sherry and bitters,' we are served, before beginning the feast, with tea and dried melon seeds. The tea is oT a fine Oolong kind, and has a flavour reminding one of apricots. It is one of the rare kinds which seldom if ever find their way to Em-ope, the flavour being too delicate to stand so long a voyage. Apropos of this fine beverage, our host tells us that he once had a present from a mandarin of a box containing 4 lbs. of tea, of four different kinds, which he found out afterwards must have cost the Chinaman 15JE- or 161. At home we imagine that in its native country tea of all kinds must be extremely cheap ; but there are certain kinds which grow wild, and cannot be cultivated without losing their peculiar flavour, and are therefore rare and limited in quantity, even in China. For these kinds many of the mandarins, who are fond of making ' cumshaws/ or presents, to their friends of anything rare and curious, will often give extravagant and fanciful prices. As soon as we have sipped our tea, we can sit down to the table, which is already spread with a variety of China cups, saucers, and dishes, and has, running down its centre, a line of tasteful little dishes, containing ginger, preserved fruits, chestnuts, almonds, and other relishes, destined to remain on throughout the dinner. One or two Chinese merchants sit down with us : on our left hand is a Mr. Fan Wye, who speaks very fair English, and explains the otherwise incomprehensible dishes which are served up in succession. The menu opens with birds'-nest soup, which tastes very like gelatine, but seems to have its own taste much modified by the introduction into it of slices of 110 ROUND THE WOELD IN 1870. ham. Then follow pigeon stew, seaweed soup, pigeon eggs, minced quail, stewed peas, black seaweed, stewed lotus root, sea moss, ducks' feet, shark's fin ; and we begin to think we must be getting near the end of the landlord's resources. Not at all ! ' The cry is still they come ! ' and after these eleven courses follow twenty more, whose names had better be given to make the list complete : duck and bamboo, Japan sea snails, meat and seaweed, sturgeon jelly, beches de mer, mushrooms, quangsi mush- rooms, guarapoo fish, lotus seeds, sweet cakes, fowl and ham, shark's fin with fish balls, frogs, fish maw, pigeon, quail, bamboo omelette, pork fritters and rice, congee and rice, tea. Blush not for us, kind reader, nor think we have out-epicured Epicurus, when we confess that we at least tasted each one of the alarming series. At any rate, let us explain that the courses are served up in small basins of the size of an ordinary tea-cup, and a mere morsel, for curiosity's sake, is the amount generally taken of each. The viands are accompanied by cups containing thimblesfull of a Chinese wine made from the pear, and also by champagne, which, with bread, forms the only non-Chinese element of the whole dinner. The dishes, as a rule, taste much like each other, owing to the mix- ture in nearly all of them of slices of ham, but they are all excellently cooked. We have no ' implements ' be- yond china, spoons and chop-sticks : the latter, after some awkward experiments, we can wield with tolerable success before the dinner is finished. After dinner we make our way to a large wooden theatre, also in the native quarter of the town, where we find a theatrical performance going on. On the wav there we pass, close by the roadside, a large shed, in which are collected a number of Chinese listening to the monotonous A CHINESE THEATRE. Ill chanting of three Buddhist priests who, kneeling before a table which is covered with dishes of eatables, bronze figures and lights, are performing a funeral ceremony. There is a stolid look of mechanical devotion on their faces as they go through their genuflexions and their shrill chants, and indeed their appearance tends to confirm the statement often made by Europeans in China that the Buddhist priests are a very unintellectual and degraded class. We pass from grave to gay by a rather rapid transition, and are soon inside the theatre, where we form part of a large audience, which fills both the galleries and the pit, and is assembled to hear a performance undertaken by boys and girls only. What the plot of the play is we are unable to make out. There is no scenery on the stage, but the actors make use of much action, especially of the hands and wrists; the parts are recited in a high falsetto strain, approaching at times almost to a screech. There is a running accompaniment kept up of cymbals, fiddles, and pipes by four or five musicians at the back of the stage. Occasionally the voices of the players are almost drowned in a storm of discord from the unharmonious instruments. The performance concludes with a short series of tum- bling and other acrobatic feats given by half a dozen of the boys. The Chinese seem to have as intense a love of dramatic performances as the people of any western nation. They spend large sums over their theatres, and dramatic writ- ings probably form a larger portion of Chinese literature than writings of any other class. The Government en- courages the amusement, yet, strange to say, play-actors in China are legally classed with vagabonds in almost the lowest class of society, as if the tendency of the stage to 112 BOUND THE WORLD. demoralise the actors were even stronger in the Eastern than in the Western world. It must not be imagined that the Chinese stage is in any way a copy of any European one : the institution has existed in the ' Central Flowery Land ' from time imme- morial, and there are several features of it which, from their similarity to those of the Greek drama, would rather tend to prove that the two had a common origin. Some of the plots of the Chinese plays are said to be very clever. Sir John Davis, in his work on China, states that Voltaire's ' L'Orphelin de la Chine ' is founded on the Chinese play, ' The Orphan of Chaou.' The dresses worn by the actors are generally very gaudy and extra- vagant; and as most of their plays are historical, and supposed to have taken place before the Tartar conquest, the costumes are those of the ancient Chinese, and instead of the pig-tail, so characteristic of John Chinaman in our eyes, they show the uncut and flowing hair. Forty miles west of the thriving British settlement of Hongkong, is the somewhat decayed Portuguese settle- ment of Macao. Three hours' sail in a small American steamer, along a barren, but not unpicturesque coast, brings us in sight of the promontory, jutting out south- wards from the island of Hian Shan, on which this ancient European settlement is situated. The Portuguese por- tion of the town, with its picturesque Praya, or prome- nade in front of it, faces the sea to the eastwards, while the Chinese quarter lines the inner harbour, on the western side of the isthmus. North and south of the town rise abrupt but low hills, crowned with one or two forts, a monastery, and the remains of an old church. The harbour is crowded with junks, and in the outer roads are lying two or three large ships of European rig. These latter ships are engaged in the coolie trade HONGKONG AND MACAO. 113 between Macao and the west coast of South America. Coolies are the most profitable, and probably the most badly used, kind of goods that are shipped from this port : the system of the trade is so bad that it was inter- dicted at Hongkong some years ago ; and even the Peruvian Government have the question of its stoppage under consideration. Between ten and twelve thousand of these coolies are annually shipped from here ; more than half of them go to work sugar plantations in Peru, and nearly all the rest are sent to the Havannahs. Landing in Macao, we find a marked difference between its appearance and that of Hongkong. The Chinese quarter is indeed busy and prosperous, but the Portuguese portion looks like a neglected watering-place, and has only some slight advantages over the native portion in being not quite so dirty, and having a certain picturesque- ness lent to its streets by its projecting balconies, and by the tasteful costume of its Portuguese duennas. The chief revenue of the town is derived from the gambling-houses kept by the Government ; though the settlement is ten times as old as that of Hongkong, it has not, except in coolies, a tenth of the trade of that port, neither natural advantages nor a good administra- tion being there to enable it to keep up any competition with its neighbour. Beyond the general picturesqueness of the place, there is little to interest or admire, unless it be an old cathe- dral, which on a saint's-day morning is filled with an array of dark duennas, with their * mantas ' and fans, or the grotto which is said to have been the favourite resort of Camoens, who passed some years of exile here. We need not delay here longer, especially when there is a place so full of interest as Canton within a few hours' sail of us. 114 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. CBAPTEE XI. CANTON. ' Crowded cities please us then, And the busy hum of men.' — V Allegro. Trom Hongkong tip to Canton is a distance of ninety miles, or thereabouts, which, is traversed daily by large and powerful steamers. These steamers are built after the American style of river-steamers, very broad, with a light draught and low bulwarks ; the saloons, cabins, &c, being piled up in two tiers above the main deck, and looking rather as if two flats had been sliced off a large wooden house, and placed bodily on board. Starting in one of these vessels from the Honkong wharf early one morning, we find that we have on board 500 or 600 Chinamen as fellow-passengers, besides some half-dozen Europeans or Americans. The Chinamen keep in a separate part of the vessel from the foreign passen- gers, and are scarcely visible after we have started, most of them stretching themselves on one of the lower decks to sleep or smoke opium. This large number of natives, availing themselves of improved means of communication and travelling, augurs well for the time when other parts of China than those immediately in connection with foreign parts shall have steamers and railways traversing them, instead of canal-boats and sedan-chairs. We soon pass out of the harbour, and enter a narrow passage lying between the mainland and the island of THE CANTON RIVER. 115 Lin Tung. The scenery here is bold and fine, and may remind one of some of the views on the west coast of Scotland, except that the water lacks colour, and there are those ugly bare patches of decayed rock on the hill-side which we could not help noticing when first approaching Honkong. Two hours' steaming brings us abreast of the Bogue Forts, whose shattered walls still remain as they were left by British guns fifteen years ago. Once past the forts, the low paddy-fields within a mile of each side of the vessel show that we are really inside the river's mouth. Going rapidly up with a favourable tide, we reach — within five hours of leaving Hongkong — Whampoa, the highest point to which merchant sailing-vessels at present pene- trate. In another hour, after threading our way through a swarm of junks, and rounding a bend of the river, we come in full sight of Canton ; or, as the proper Chinese name has it, Kwang-chow-fu, Canton being merely the English or Portuguese corruption of Quan-tung, the name of the pro- vince of which the city is the capital. The first view of the city and of the river in front of it is both novel and curious. Masses of rickety wooden houses, of which each seems to be threatening to fall upon its neighbour, bine the river bank on either side, while further in from the river and much higher than these poor houses, rise up here and there tall square buildings of blueish-gray brick, the only buildings in the city — if we except the Pagoda, and the new Roman Catholic Cathedral in course of erection — of any elevation. Two or three miles from the river, and immediately behind the city, to the north, is a hill of about 300 feet in height, surmounted by a low and broad pagoda, up to which from each side runs the city wall. But what are the tall buildings which we have mentioned as most con- I 2 116 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. spicuous in the city? Start not, reader, when you are told that they are pawnbrokers' warehouses ! What a roaring trade must be that of ' mine uncle ' in Canton ! There would seem to be room enough in those buildings to deposit in pawn the clothes of all Canton. And, indeed, such is almost the case. Every Chinaman above the poorest rank supplies himself with a stock of warm clothes, often furs, to be worn in the winter. When cold weather comes on, instead of lighting a fire he puts on one of his winter suits ; as the weather grows colder, he puts on another ; and so on, till by mid-winter he is enveloped in a series of layers of clothes. At the return of spring he commences a cautious and gradual process of ' peeling ; ' and as a rule, being a man of little spare capital, he prefers to put his stock of clothes, when peeled off, in pledge, to keeping them through the summer. Hence the origin and dimensions, in Canton, of the buildings belonging to the fraternity of the three golden balls. To retrace our steps from this digression, let us turn from the city and look at the other half of the view before us — that of the river. If the majority of the Cantonese live on land, there is at all events a large minority who live on the water. The river, where it runs past the city is covered with a thick swarm of junks and boats of a hundred different sizes and shapes. Indeed, the catalogue of the crafts that may be seen in one glance on the Canton river would match in length the celebrated Homeric catalogue of the Grecian fleet. Anchored nearly in mid- stream, just below the city, are the huge and unwieldly- looking merchant-junks, which make their yearly voyage to Singapore or to Shanghae, arranging their times of starting so as to have the monsoon in their favour both in going and returning. Higher up the river, each arranged in their respective stations, are the swift passenger-boats CANTON BOATS. 117 which ply regulary between Canton, Hongkong, and Macao; the slower vessels of a similar character whose routes lie up the river into the interior of the province among a network of canals ; and the long and heavy salt- junks, which carry the yearly tribute of that article north- wards through the Grand Canal to Pekin. Banged close into the river bank, opposite the little island called the Dutch Folly, are the so-called ' Flower- boats,' large flat-bottomed junks, with gaudily-painted wooden houses built upon them, serving as restaurants and houses of entertainment. In another quartei-, below the town, and near where the banks are composed of a series of paddy-fields, are the duck-boats, on each of which a Chinaman finds room for his own dwelling-shed and for the roosting-places of 1,000 or more ducks, which wander about in the paddy-fields during the day and return at his call to their boat at night. Plying backwards and forwards across the river, and moving in and out among all these different junks, are a multitude of smaller boats, ferrying passengers and goods from one point of the river to another. Conspicuous among them is the small slipper-boat, so called from its shape ; and last and least comes the tiny canoe which only affords room for one man with a few bundles of vegetables, baskets of eggs, or other merchandise. Most of these ferry-boats are managed by women, both old and young. In many of them may be seen an elderly matron sculling at the stern while one or two younger damsels sit ' forward,' pulling in approved style, their hair done up in elaborate chignons and ornamented with jade-stone, or trimmed, as according to a recent fashion in England, in a straight fringe across the forehead. All these ferry-boats, excepting the very smallest, form' dwellings for their owners; and it is a curious sight towards evening to see them drawn up along 118 HOUND THE "WORLD IN 1870. the river bank, or up the creeks, in rows of three or four deep, with their occupants enjoying the evening meal, ladling into their mouths with chop-sticks howlsfull of rice, or partaking of a more varied fare of vegetables, bits of pork, fish, or meat of a more questionable nature. The boat population of Canton is probably numbered by tens of thousands, and forms no inconsiderable portion of the whole population of the city. In the municipal and magisterial regulations they are treated as a totally dis- tinct class, and no intermarriage is allowed between them and the people on shore. Passing up through this maze of busy boat-life, we land on the granite river-wall which makes such a handsome front to the European quarter of Shamien. Shamien, twelve years ago, was a mud bank ; now it is an artificial island half a mile in length by 300 yards at its greatest breadth, but containing only some fifteen or twenty houses, occupied by about sixty Europeans. Since the river-ports on the Tang-tse-Keang were opened, much of the foreign trade, which formerly came overland from the interior provinces to Canton, has been diverted to them ; and con- sequently the trade of Canton has decreased, nor is the number of Europeans now stationed there as large as it was ten years ago. We find it difficult, when in Canton, to realise that we are in the same latitude as Calcutta. The latter place, when we left it three weeks ago, was rapidly getting very hot, while here the cool season is by no means over; indeed, it is pleasant to sleep with a blanket over one, and the thermometer at mid-day does not get above 72.° Though we find hospitable friends in Shamien, and take up our head- quarters there, there is too much of interest and novelty in the native city to allow us to spend A CHINESE MARKET. 119 much time among the Europeans. Canton has the repu- tation of being the wealthiest, best built, and cleanliest city in China, so that all its qualities are hardly to be appreciated in a less period than several days. We must remember, however, that all things go by comparison ; and perhaps, instead of inserting ' cleanliest ' as one of the epithets of the city, we should have been nearer the truth with ' least dirty ;' for as to their being a single city in China which could be called absolutely cleanly, that is more than improbable. We can begin our round of the city and its suburbs by crossing over the river from Shamien to the Honam quarter. Landing at a rather tumble-down little quay, we commence walking through a succession of narrow streets, paved with stones, and lined on either side with brick-built shops and small houses. We pass through one section, almost entirely occupied by meat and vegetable-shops. In the former there are some curious specimens of fish, flesh, and fowl. Besides an abundance of pork, ducks, geese, chickens, and fresh fish, we may see here and there a suspended bundle of harvest rats sun-dried, along with ducks that have gone through a similar process, joints of white meat, which our Chinese attendant makes us understand are of canine origin, and certain dried legs and shoulders which one cannot help fancying have once been tame ' pussy.' In the fish-shops are bowls of water containing live eels and other fish, live frogs, and fresh sea-snails, which are not unlike large periwinkles. Certainly the Chinese diet is of a miscellaneous kind ; and while there is little doubt that the wealthy classes are great epicures, there is less doubt that the poor people are generally very foul feeders. We can pass easily from nature to art, and within a short distance of this market find several streets lined 120 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. with shops, fall of the wares of lacquer and ivory for which Canton has long been justly celebrated. There are poor kinds of ivory and lacquer-work, even in Canton ; but if we go into the better class of these shops, we are sure to find a most inviting and perfect collection of card-cases, fans, paper-cutters, glove-stretchers, caskets, puzzles and ornaments of many kinds, both tasteful and grotesque. Not far from the Ivory Quarter is the Honam Temple, celebrated among the Chinese Bhuddists as one of their most sacred and richest buildings of the kind. The temple, together with its adjoining buildings and grounds, covers a very large space. The temple itself is the central building of the enclosure, and immediately round it are the build- ings in which the priests, eighty in number, live ; round these again is a large garden, partly cultivated, partly left waste, and partly devoted to a burning-ground for the bodies of the poorer priests, and a burying-ground for the richer. In the main hall of the temple are three colossal gilt statues of the three Buddhs — Past, Present, and Future ; and surrounding these are gilt images of various Buddhist saints, all very handsomely executed. The three central statues represent the Buddhs in the orthodox squatting position, the faces expressing that abstract contemplation which is supposed to be the per- petual condition of the deity and of his perfected fol- lowers. In this, and in their massive simplicity, they call to mind the sedate-faced statues of some of the Egyptian deities. The priests' buildings seemed very dirty, and the priests even more so. Some of them we witness going through a service in one of the principal halls of the temple ; and as we nctice their costume, their strings of beads, their chanting in procession, and their genuflexions, we can not help being struck with the similarity, in. form of the CHINESE OAEDENS. 121 service, to a Roman Catholic one. When it is known further that they use holy water, worship relics, have prayers for the dead, and practice celibacy and fasting, one is not surprised to hear that one of the early French' Catholic missionaries amongst them came to the con- clusion that the devil had forged a religion for them in imitation of that of the Jesuits. In one part of the out- buildings of this temple is a large shed containing a number of sacred pigs, and another with ducks and fowls, also considered sacred. Passing from the temple, we may take the opportunity of being on this side of the river to see some good specimens of Chinese nursery-gardens, situated on the Fa-ti creek, a short distance up the river. Entering one of the gardens by the picturesque porch on the side facing the creek, we are at once struck by the number and variety of plants arranged in a comparatively small space of ground, and by the great neatness and care with which they are managed. April is not the right month for seeing a show of flowers here, for the camellias and azaleas, the glory of Chinese gardens, are already over ; yet there are some fine hibisci, some ixoras, a few roses, and several other kinds of flowers, of names un- known to us. One of the features of the garden is the collection of dwarfed and trained plants, much similar to those which we saw in Wampoo's garden at Singapore. In one point we might take a hint in English gardens from the much-despised Chinaman : he keeps his plants in glazed pots of various colours and designs, we put ours in those unvarying brick-dust-coloured pots, whose o-eneral shape seems as unalterable as that of the ' chimney- pot ' hat. In these Chinese gardens we miss any attempt at rearing exotic or tropical plants ; glass-houses are quite ignored by the Chinese gardeners, who devote themselves 122 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. more particularly to the improvement of the plants and flowers natural to their own locality. Almost opposite the Ta-ti gardens, up a creek on the left bank of the river, are the pleasure-gardens of a late distinguished citizen of Canton, Poon-tin-qua by name. They have been left since their late owner's death in a neglected state, and are consequently much spoiled ; but there are still remains, more or less perfect, of pavilions, rockeries, and bridges over ornamental sheets of water, which show how picturesque they must once have been. They bring forcibly to mind those representations of Chinese gardens and scenery which exist on the willow- pattern plate, and other familiar designs, from which we once fondly imagined that all China must be a pleasure- garden. And now, leaving the suburbs of Canton, let us hire sedan-chairs and go into the main city. Crossing the creek which surrounds Shamien, and divides the Euro- pean quarter from the native city, we pass through half a mile of narrow streets going eastwards ; and then passing under a gateway, in the main city wall, we are fairly inside Canton proper. The mere sight of the Canton streets must rank as one of the most curious and special city sights to be had anywhere. The streets are nearly all so narrow that there is barely room in them for two sedan-chairs to be carried past each other without touching ; yet they are all paved with large slabs of stone, and lined with good, though small, shops, built of a blueish-gray brick. Each shop has the name and trade of its owner inscribed in large coloured characters on a board of from one to two feet in width, and six to fifteen feet in length. These boards are fixed upright, edgeways to the sides of the shop, or are allowed to swing freely from bars projecting from the CANTON STREETS. 123 eaves ; they give to the streets a very gay and picturesque appearance. Some of them have inscribed on them mottoes which illustrate the thrifty and proverb-loving character of the Chinese ; as for instance, ' Gossipping and long sitting injure business; ' 'Former customers have inspired caution; no credit given ; ' ' Goods genuine, prices true ; ' ' Trade circling like a wheel ; ' and so on. The shops are all open at the front, consequently their wares are easily seen. In some parts of the city shops of the same kind are all clustered together : there is, for instance, one street entirely filled with jade shops, another with druggists' stores, a third with shops full of curiosities, both real and fictitious. In other parts there is a strange mixture : a dealer in silk embroidery has his store next to a fish- monger, while across the street is a fan-shop, adjoining one devoted to fruit and vegetables. Perhaps the most attrac- tive of all the shops are those filled with jade — that pale green stone from which nearly every ornament worn by a Chinese man or woman is made. Next to these come the shops for the sale of embroidery, feather fans, and mandarins' hats. Here and there is a book-shop ; a barber's establishment, where pig-tails are being dressed a la mode; another exclusively occupied with the sale of false hair; yet another, owned and conducted by a Chinese Madame Rachel; and occasionally we pass one where men are cleaning and preparing for sale the world-renowned birds' nests. Up and down the streets, in spite of their narrowness, hurries a constant crowd of Chinese, chiefly coolies, carry- ing all kinds of goods and parcels slung to bamboo poles ; shouting, panting, half running, giving or making way to and among each other, with a bustling eager manner, as if their life depended on the pace they go. Yet, all this 124 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. hot haste seems quite good-natured ; there is no pushing and squeezing, no angry demands for room ; and, from the total absence of wheeled vehicles, and animals other than dogs, there is no danger of being run over or knocked down by some impatient driver or rider. There is, indeed, one unpleasant feature in these busy streets, and that is the various odours which greet the passers-by, and make a scented handkerchief almost a life-preserver. In this respect Canton stands in much the same rank as every other Chinese town, as far as our experience goes ; every other street is a ' Lavender Lane,' and at many corners there is a conflict of three or more odoriferous breezes which may produce change of air, but certainly do not afford a variety which is charming. We might spend many hours in examining all the interesting shops, and the nature of the wares displayed in each ; and as many of them are manufactories as well as shops, we could employ no short time in watching how many of the wares are produced. But we must move on, to see some of the public buildings of the city. Winding our way northwards from the river, through a maze of narrow and tortuous streets, we reach the entrance to what was once the Tannin, or official residence of the Tartar general of the garrison, but which is now occupied partly by the British consul and his staff. It is a picturesque old building, with high roof and far-pro- jecting eaves, surrounded by green sward and trees, which again are surrounded by a high wall, effectually cutting it off from the busy streets outside. As we walk down a pretty glade that runs down the middle of the park-like expanse, and see a deer start from a thicket on either side, and bound across the dell, we can hardly believe that we are in the centre of one of the most populous cities of China. The British consul has PAGODAS. 125 certainly the pleasantest residence within the walls, or indeed within several miles of them. The mention of a Tartar general in Canton may seem surprising; hut it must not be forgotten that the present dynasty in China , is one founded by the Manchow Tartars 230 years ago, and ever since their conquest of the country at that period Tartar soldiery have formed the garrisons of all the principal cities in the empire. Close to the Tamun, but outside its park walls, is an ancient pagoda, the only large specimen of its kind in Canton. It is built in nine storeys of brick, and measures 180 feet in height, i.e. some twenty feet lower than the London Monument. It is said to be 1,300 years old, and like all old Chinese buildings is in a rather ruinous con- dition, the cornices which once ornamented each storey having entirely fallen away. A mile to the north of this pagoda, beyond the Tartar quarter of the city, is the hill which helps to form the background of the city, as viewed from the river. On its summit is a roofed building, open at the front, called by Europeans the Five-storied Pagoda, though it does not appear to have any right to that title, which should only be applied to buildings erected as shrines for sacred relics of Buddh. From the upper storey of this building we have a com- plete view over the low-lying city, which stretches from close to where we stand as far as to the river bank. The streets are so narrow that we can scarcely trace their course among the densely-packed mass of one-storied houses, but we can make out most of the circuit of the city walls. These are scarcely more than six miles in circuit, and though there are extensive suburbs outside them, this comparatively short distance is enough to show 126 BOUND THE WOKLD IN 1870. that the estimates which once set down the population of Canton as over a million were grossly over-stated : prob- ably 400,000 would be much nearer the mark. Looking northwards from our stand-point, a very dif- ferent view meets us from that on the south side. In the latter direction we looked over the crowded abodes of the living ; in the former, the eye wanders over a number of low hills covered by the resting-places of the dead. Hundreds of tombs, of the favourite horse-shoe shape, dug out of the side of the hills, are visible within a mile of the walls ; at one or two of them may be seen a group of Chinese who are burning incense-sticks, or beating gongs, in prayer to, or in memory of, their relative who lies beneath. Beyond these hills of the dead is a broad and flat expanse of paddy-fields, and the view terminates in a more distant and higher range of hills. As we retrace our steps through the city, we may turn in at a temple equally celebrated with that of Honam, the Temple, namely, of the Five Hundred Saints. It is not unlike the Honam temple in its style and plan of build- ing ; but in its central hall, instead of the three placid images of Buddh, are 500 smaller gilt images of as many canonised Buddhist saints. These saints are represented in attitudes, and with expressions, characteristic of the virtue which have en- sured their sanctity. Here is one who looks in as good condition, and has as jolly a face, as a medieval abbot : probably benevolence and philanthropy were his con- spicuous virtues. There is another stroking a tiger whom he has miraculously tamed; a third seems to represent the Buddhist duplicate of Elijah, for he is being fed by monkeys in a desert ; a fourth is figured as holding up a stiffened and withered arm, reminding one of the Indian devotees who aspire to holiness by deformities voluntarily THE EXAMINATION HALT. 127 produced. All the figures are very richly gilt, and executed with much life and vigour. Turning to the south-east from this temple, and pro- ceeding in that direction till we almost reach the corner of the city wall, we come to the Examination Hall, of which there is a specimen in every provincial capital throughout the empire. Once every year there is a general examination held in this hall, for candidates from the whole province of Quan-tung : degrees are conferred, and though the rewards are purely honorary, they often serve as recommendations for a Chinaman applying for a public post under Government. The process of examina- tion is a dreadfully severe one, physically at least ; and a Chinese candidate, not of the strongest frame, must dread the ordeal far more than the most nervous victim of Oxford ' Greats ' or of a Cambridge Tripos. The halls are divided into a large number of cells, from three to four feet in width, five to six feet in depth, and the same in height. The Canton Hall contains no fewer than 8,600 of these little boxes. A plank stretched across each cell serves for the candidate's seat ; a second plank, rather broader, for his desk. He enters his cell at the commencement of the examination, and is never allowed to leave it for any purpose whatever through the three days of the ordeal. It is not surprising that many suffer severely from such treatment, and it is said that in every examination several candidates die in their cells. It is to be hoped that the latter are admitted to a ' post-mortem.' On our way back to the European settlement we will take the opportunity of turning in to an opium-shop. Passing out of the street through a narrow passage, and then through a door, we find ourselves in a dingy back room, round which are ranged a number of low benches. On these benches are reclining six or eight smokers, chiefly 128 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. coolies or shop-assistants. They are all inhaling the fumes of that drug out of which our Government annually makes its millions of revenue, and of which it imported into China, in 1867, no fewer than 10,000,000 lbs., as against 2,500 lbs. in 1767, the trade having increased four hundred- fold in 100 years. The majority of the smokers look like men of average health and strength ; but one or two have the emaciated franie, and the dull, vacant eye, which point out the man who has fallen a victim to excess in the insidious enjoy- ment. With regard, indeed, to the general effects of opium on the Chinese nation, and to the numbers who indulge in its use, there seems the widest divergence of opinion : moderate estimates lead to the inference that not more than one man in ten smokes opium, even in China ; and that of this minority not more than one in ten is brought to a premature end by it. And though the drug seems peculiarly tempting to the temperament of the Chinese, so that ten times as much of it is used in their empire as in all the rest of the world together, yet it is extremely doubtful whether more harm is done by it there than may be traced to the use of alcohol in our own country. If we are at all guilty of an attempt to poison the Chinese with opium, they try to do us an almost equally bad turn in the matter of tea. Just before reaching the European settlement, we pass an open space in front of some tea warehouses, on which are spread sheets of matting covered with some stuff looking like coarse gun- powder. On examining it we find that it is tea- dust, damped and mixed with sand, and rolled up so as to re- semble in shape new leaves. This is probably some of the Marlowe mixture destined to be seized in an English Custom-house, or to escape inspection and be drunk by some deluded ' barbarian ' under the impression that he is imbibing a decoction from the genuine shrub of Cathay. SHANGHAE AND NINGPO. 129 CHAPTER XII. SHANGHAE AND NINGPO. It was said, in the days of the Second Napoleon, that ' Paris is France.' It might now be said with almost as much truth that ' Canton is China.' For in Canton we see reproduced, often on a larger scale and in better style, much that lends interest to the various other cities of at least the southern half of the Celestial Empire. But recent travellers in China have made constant protests against the habit into which earlier travellers fell of describing what they saw in one part of the country as the rule in every other part, so we shall do what we can to avoid this censure by spending three weeks in a part of the country nearly 1,000 miles removed from the great southern city. We leave Hongkong on April 18 by a smart little American steamer trading between that port and Shang- hae. Four full days are occupied in running the 900 miles which separate the two principal Anglo-Chinese ports. Throughout the voyage we are at no great distance from the coast, but fogs continually prevent our catching sight of it. When we do see it, we can distinguish little but lines of sandhills, backed by bare-looking hills which rise up to heights varying from 1,500 to 3,000 feet; occasionally a rocky promontory jutting out from the sandy line, or a walled town close down to the shore, comes into view. Indeed, from the more numerous signs of life on K 130 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. the sea than on the shore, one is rather led to conclude that on this coast an acre of salt water is worth more than an acre of dry land. Fishing-boats abound. Once, when a few miles off Breaker Point, we pass through a fleet of at least 500 of them. They are drifting in pairs with the wind, a drag- net being attached to each pair, and drawn along with them. Each boat contains three or four fishermen, who wear a curious-looking head-dress, composed of long strips of cotton cloth bound several times over their head and under their chins ; one would think they had all had the mumps, and were taking precautions against a relapse. The change of climate experienced within 400 miles of Hongkong on this voyage is very remarkable. We leave Hongkong on the evening of a hot and muggy day, with the thermometer at 80°, but thirty-six hours afterwards we have a stove lighted in the ship's cabin, and wear top- coats on deck. When we arrive at Shanghae we find there pleasant weather, not unlike that of an English May. But we are anticipating slightly. At daybreak on the 22nd we pass some of the group of Chusan Islands, and before mid-day we enter the brown and brackish water which marks where the waters of the Yang-tse are struggling with those of the ocean, making a debateable ground between the two which stretches out seawards for at least a hundred miles from the outermost dry land at the river's mouth. Just in the mouth of the river we pass a number of armed junks, said to be placed there to keep a look-out for the piratical crafts which are tolerably numerous on the coast and among the outlying islets. But these junks are only one of the many instances of the way in which that mass of red tape and corruption calling itself the Chinese Government protects the welfare of its subjects. The junks adhere to THE COAST. 131 the letter of their instructions, look out for the pirates, and when they appear clear off, doubtless on chivalrous principles, and allow a fair fight to go on between them, and any helpless merchant-junks which, are at hand. We turn out of the main river, at a distance of fifty miles from its mouth, and pass up the tributary river, the Wang-poo. Close to the junction of the two rivers is Woo-sung, a large opium station, with a crowd of junks lying in front of it, and its extensive batteries, which once contained 150 guns, standing up behind it. Soon after- wards we come in sight of a number of European-looking masts, visible over the low bank ; and then, getting round the intervening bend of the river, we open out to view Shanghae, with its white bungalows lining the bund or quay, which runs along the front of the English and French concession. Immediately above the foreign concessions, and on the same side of the river, is the native town of Shanghae, a densely populated place, three-and-a-half miles in circuit, and with rather more than 100,000 inhabitants. It is said to be not, like Canton, the least dirty of Chinese cities ; and as there are various rumours of small-pox being virulent in it at present, and it contains no buildings of interest, we shall be content with the view of it from the outside. The English concession is rather larger in area than the native town, having a frontage to the river of two- thirds of a mile, and reaching inland to a distance of a mile and a hah . The half of it nearer the river is occupied by shops, houses of business, and dwelling-houses of the English residents, while the inner half contains a large Chinese suburb intersected by broad streets, a race-course, a cricket-ground, and some waste places. While staying here, we find, as at Hongkong and Canton, ic 2 132 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. a ready welcome and continuous hospitality from our fellow-countrymen. Indeed an Anglo-Saxon will scarcely find a more hospitable country than China, as far as the English settlement go ; and while there, he is sure to fall in for his share of the unstinted, almost lavish, way in which his fellow-countrymen live. The establishments of commercial houses in China are conducted on a scale which would astonish the staff of a house in London or Liverpool ; and yet it is said that the style of living is much more moderate now than it was ten years ago, when every firm was making a rapid fortune in tea or silk, or in both, and when one firm at least was spending 50,000Z. per annum in the household expenses of its branches at five different treaty ports. Even now Shanghae seems to be one of the dearest places a man could choose to live in : we are told that the food alone of an Englishman, not living extravagantly, costs him from 301. to 40Z. per month, and a small house suitable to a bachelor can scarcely be had under 300L a year. One of the peculiarities of Shanghae is the changeable- ness of its temperature, especially in the spring and autumn months. A friend there tells us that he has left Shanghae in November for a boating and shooting excursion in the interior, and while on the first day the weather was so hot that the lightest clothing was neces- sary, and refuge had to be taken from the noonday sun under the covering of the boat, on the night of the second day the temperature fell so low that the canal was frozen thickly over, and the contents of the soda-water bottles in the boat became quite solid. Though there is not much of interest in Shanghae itself, it is a good centre from which to start for other interesting parts of the country. Twenty years ago all that part of the Kiang-su Province which stretches from Shanghae up to THE KIANG-SU PLAIN. 133 Nankin was the part of China which would most have impressed a traveller, and from which indeed most of the glowing descriptions of China, given by early travellers, was taken. At that time it well deserved its title of the 'Garden of China,' for in the fertility of its soil, the wealth of its cities, the industry, prosperity, and relative numbers of its inhabitants, and in the extent and per- fection of its system of interior communication by canals, it bore away the palm from any other district in China. But now much of this is an uninhabited region, overrun with weeds and jungle, occupied by pheasants and snipe instead of by farmers and tea- growers. For during the long years of war between the Taipings and the Govern- ment this fertile, busy plain, became the scene of the devastations of both the Imperial and the Rebel armies. Crops were destroyed, or left to rot, after their cultivators had been slain; cities were sacked, homesteads burnt. The wealthy city of Soochow — the greatest manufacturing city in the empire, the Manchester of China, the circuit of whose walls was double that of the walls of Canton — was left after the rebellion in a state of ruin and in- activity. The same was the fate of Sung-kiang, Chang- how, and many other cities of this crowded district ; and it will be many years yet before the blighted province again smiles with all its old richness and luxuriance. But there is a district to the south of ShaDghae, in the adjoining province of Che-kiang, which suffered less severely from the scourge of civil war, and which perhaps comes next in fertility and wealth to what the Soochow plain once was. A canal route from Shanghae, through the great cities of Kia-hing and Hangchow, to Ningpo, would be a most interesting and quite practicable one; but as it would take a longer time than we can arrange for, we must be content to go straight to Ningpo by one 134 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. of the American steamers -which ply regularly between that port and Shanghae. Starting one evening, a thick fog compels us to lie at anchor through the night, outside the mouth of the Yang-tse. Next morning the fog disappears, and during the forenoon we run across the Hangchow Bay, catching sight, mear the southern extremity of it, of the sea-wall, 130 miles in extent, built almost completely round the bay, to protect the land from inundations. At mid-day we enter the Ningpo river, and immediately afterwards pass abreast the fortified town of Chinhae, the scaling of whose walls gave some trouble to our marines thirty years ago. Above Chinhae, the left, or north bank of the river, is a flat plain, which seems about equally divided into paddy- fields and burial-grounds. The tombs here are not in the horse-shoe form as at Canton, but mere mounds of earth, generally with some picturesque stonework at the sides. But the tombs of the poorer people are often nothing more than a thick covering of bamboo or grass matting spread over the coffins, the sides or corners of which are often visible. On the right or south bank of the river picturesque wooded hills, 1,500 to 2,000 feet high, come down to within a mile of the water's edge, while within a couple of hundred yards of the river are a number of curious- looking houses, with low mud walls, high and thickly- thatched roofs, each with one door only and no windows, and standing in the middle of a large field. These are Chinese ice-houses. Though Ningpo is in the same lati- tude as Cairo, frosts of considerable severity are usual there during the winter. At the approach of that season the owner of the ice-house floods his field to the depth of a foot or eighteen inches, and each morning at daybreak CHINESE ICE-HOUSES. 135 his labourers collect whatever ice has been formed during the night and rake it into the house. In this most simple form of ice-house the ice is preserved through a summer which is much hotter than any summer ever experienced in England. It is sold at the rate of one penny, sometimes three halfpence, per pound, and it is chiefly used to pre- serve fish, of which large quantities are caught in the river. Ten miles up the river from Chinhae we reach Ningpo, whose tall pagoda has been visible since we entered the river's mouth. As in Shanghae, the Foreign Settlement is situated below the native city. Landing at the pier of the former, we soon make our way, by a bridge of boats stretching across a creek, into Ningpo proper. We find ourselves in streets as broad as, and scarcely more dirty than, those of Canton ; but they lack some of the picturesqueness of the streets of the latter place, nor have the shops such a look of wealth and prosperity. Ningpo, however, has the fame of excelling in more than one kind of wares; her gold and silversmiths, and her silk embroiderers, are renowned throughout China, and she is almost alone in her production of inlaid furniture. We pass through one street lined with shops containing a great variety of bedsteads, chairs, tables, cabinets, picture- frames, &c, all inlaid with a number of different kinds of woods, most frequent among which is one of a light chestnut colour. Wending our way to the Seven-storied Pagoda, a rather dilapidated building, said to be 1,100 years old, we ascend to the top by a wooden staircase inside it, and obtain a panorama of the whole city. We can trace the circuit of the walls, five miles in extent, with the dense suburbs outside of them, and the denser quarters inside. Northr wards and westwards, beyond the city, stretches a great 136 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. unbroken plain, divided up into gardens, rice-fields and burial-grounds ; southwards and eastwards, at a distance of a dozen miles, rises a bandsome cbain of mountains, in tbe recesses of wbicb is said to be some very pretty scenery. Descending from tbe Tien Fung T'a, or House of tbe Heavenly Winds, as tbe natives of Mngpo style tbeir pagoda, we pass tbrougb some tortuous streets and reacb tbe entrance of tbe Tien How Kung, or Temple of tbe Queen of Heaven, tbe most celebrated sbrine in Mngpo, built by tbe merchant mariners of tbe Fokien province, and dedicated by tbem to tbeir favourite goddess. It is probably one of tbe best specimens of Cbinese architecture extant. Its elaborate porticoes, and tbe quaint outline of tbe roofs of its many balls, render its style extremely picturesque, wbile tbe carving and otber decoration wbicb covers it at every point is often executed witb consummate care and minuteness. Tbe stone pillars supporting tbe porcb of the central hall, round which runs a profusion of carving representing dragons, serpents, and other strange creatures, intertwined with lotus-leaves, are especially handsome. Indeed, Mngpo seems to excel as much in stone carving as in inlaid furniture, for in various streets of the city are stone archways, erected in memory of dis- tinguished citizens of Mngpo, the carving on which is remarkable for its boldness of design and the clearness and depth of its execution. During our visit to tbe Tien How Kung, every court and corridor in it is filled with a crowd of natives, who are variously occupied in talking, making bargains, listen- tening to the harangue of a soothsayer, or the strange narrations of a professional tale-teller, eating, drinking, gambling ; in short, holding a perfect Vanity Fair. Tbe day is the anniversary of some festival, and with THE TIEN HOW KUNG. 137 that curious mixture of superstition and irreverence which seems to be a part of the Chinese character, they are celebrating it in this secular manner in the precincts of their most highly-esteemed temple ; and if we waited a short time, we should see the strange anomaly of a play being enacted in the hall of a much-revered temple. On our way back to the European Settlement we pass through the fish-market, redolent with Billingsgate odours, and can see the quantity and variety of the fish caught in the Ningpo river. Not that much of it looks of a tempt- ing kind : perhaps the two best species are a pomfret, and a fish called ' Sam-li,' very similar to one known in Calcutta as the ' hilsa. 5 Near the fish-market are a number of vegetable and cooking-shops. Cooking-shops seem very numerous in all Chinese towns ; fuel is in that country such a scarce and dear article, that the poorer classes can only afford to have their food cooked at shops established for the purpose ; and a common object in a Chinese street is a man carrying a small cooking-stall, which he will put down at any promising corner, and offer to supply from it a most extensive, and not expensive, assortment of dishes. In the vegetable-shops we may notice that among the most common articles exposed for sale are young bamboo shoots, which from their name might be judged to be both hard and tough, but in reality are by no means un- pleasant, having a taste very similar to that of parsnips. The bamboo seems as useful a production to a China- man as the palm-tree to the Pacific Islander; he can build and thatch his cottage with it, make his furniture and most of his domestic utensils, rig up a boat-sail, plait for himself a hat or a rain-coat, and get food from it ; and when he misbehaves, it does for the mandarin to flog him with. 138 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. Those hills which we saw from the top of the Tien Fung T'a, lying to the south and east of the city, must not be left unvisited by us, seeing that one or two of their most picturesque spots are easily accessible from Ningpo. We must go thither by a canal, which crosses the plain towards their foot, and then penetrate their recesses on foot or in travelling-chairs. Starting with two English residents of Mngpo in two boats furnished with small cabins near the stern, we leave the European Settlement after dark, and with a strong flood-tide glide quickly up the river, past the larger portion of the town, till we reach the point where the canal leading to the hills leaves the river. The level of the canal is some feet higher than that of the river, so we have to be hauled from the latter into the former over a weir ; for the system of locks is unknown in this countrj 7 , where there are more canals than in all the rest of the world put together. Once in the canal, our boatmen begin to ply their sculls steadily, while we resign ourselves to sleep. Awaking at daybreak, we find ourselves at the end of a branch canal, close to the foot of some fine hills which stand round us in a beautiful amphitheatre. There are a few houses near the canal, chiefly occu- pied by small farmers. From one of them we hire some travelling-chairs (which look "like skeletons of the Hong- Kong chairs), and coolies to carry them. We then start off for the monastery of Tien Tung, situated some six miles away, further in among the hills. Our route lies first over a low saddle between two hills, then up a flat valley containing a number of rice-fields and a few small tea-plantations, together with a moderate- sized village, and finally up a branch valley to the thickly- wooded gorge at the foot of which the monastery lies. The hills around us are of various heights, up to 1,500 TIEN TUNG. 139 feet, clothed to their summits with a bright green covering of ferns, grass, and low underwood, which is just bursting into all the freshness of summer ; here and there are clumps of the Chinese pine, or of the beautiful Mow Chu, the most graceful of the bamboo tribe ; occasionally we may recognise a sturdy camphor-tree, with gnarled trunk and angular branches, while the Cryptomeria Japonica, the hemp palm, and a fine evergreen tree, just losing its clusters of red berries, assist to vary the scene. Among the long and thick grass are bright purple patches marking where the azalea is growing in all its native luxuriance ; and among the other floral beauties here displayed are the clematis, the wild rose, and the well known Westeria. Down in the valley are paddy-fields, freshly ploughed up, or submerged under a few inches of water, with the young rice plants, set out in long straight rows, just showing their delicate green stalks above the surface. Here and there is a native, with his broad bamboo hat, loose jacket, and bare legs, moving about up to his knees in the ooze of earth and water, setting out the young plants and manuring them, or driving a plough, lazily drawn by a sleepy-looking water-bullock, through the yet unprepared ground. Between the low-lying rice-fields and the uncultivated hill-sides are a few small tea-plantations, mere fields hedged in, with the famous shrub planted in rows across them. There is no good tea grown here, and the plants are of a small kind, and apparently still young. To see the fine teas grown in any quantity, we should have to go up into the interior from Foo-Chow, or from Hankow on the Tang-tse. The village in the valley is probably an average sample of Chinese villages in general ; the houses or cottages, of one or sometimes two storeys, run in a single row on 140 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. each, side of the road, and the place looks at least as clean as most parts of Ningpo or Canton. The villagers are poorly clothed, but their indigence seems tempered with a mixture of industry and contentment. The road we have mentioned would, by the bye, hardly obtain such a name in England; it is merely a narrow causeway of rough-hewn stones, scarcely broad enough for two men to walk abreast on it ; on either side of it is a strip of grass, on which, in dry weather, the walking is pleasanter than on the uneven causeway. Except in a very few towns, there is not such a thing in Southern China as a bond fide road ; indeed, where there is such a total absence of wheeled vehicles, and such an elaborate system of canals, anything more than a footpath is unnecessary. We approach the monastery of Tien Tung by a narrow and winding avenue, a mile in length, of Chinese pines, mingled with the Japanese cedar. The monastery boasts a very old foundation, and is much respected by the learned in China ; its courtyards, temple-halls and monks' cham- bers, cover a large space of ground, and are prettily im- bedded in the thick woods which rise up the glen oneither side of it and behind it. Its style of architecture is of the stereotyped Chinese fashion, like that of the Mng-po temple, though not so elaborate; what is peculiarly pleasant about the building is that it is really clean. Nearly one hundred Buddhist monks reside in this pleasant spot. They are said to be very hospitable, and will gladly give you sleeping-quarters if you are inclined to spend a few days among the surrounding pretty scenery. They will supply you with very palatable meals, made of an almost endless variety of vegetables, but their creed forbids them to eat or cook animal food, so that you must bring your own supply of that, unless you are a vegetarian like them- selves. CHINESE SCENEKY. 141 We merely stay long enough to scramble up the glade behind the monastery, from the hill at the head of which there is a fine view of the surrounding hills and the sea- coast to the east. In the afternoon we return to our boats, and instead of going straight back to Ningpo, turn aside, up another thread of the network of canals, till we reach the foot of a fine lake, six to eight miles in length, three to four in width, and surrounded on all sides by beautiful hills, such as we passed through on the way to Tien Tung. There is little sign of cultivation or of inhabitants round the lake, and a sportsman might wander over the hill-sides in pursuit of pheasants, or stroll along the margin of the lake for a chance shot at a wild duck, without meeting a dozen natives, or seeing half-a-dozen cottages, through the day. We pass the night in the boat on the canal, at about a mile from the entrance to the lake ; and, with the aid of dire threats and alternative promises of extra money to the boatmen, succeed in reaching Ningpo again next forenoon in time for the steamer to Sbanghae. 112 BOUND THE "WORLD IN 1870. CHAPTEE XIIT. THE YANG-TSE-KEANG. Not the least interesting point of view from which to look at China is that which takes in its probable future rela- tions with Western nations. And in all speculations on this subject, the Yang-tse-Keang must not be left out of consideration, for besides ' being the glory of Chinese rivers, it is destined, when the country is thoroughly opened to intercourse and commerce with other countries, to be, as its name — ' the Son of the Ocean ' — might imply, a great highway of nations. Considered merely in regard to its enormous length and size, and the geographical interest of the country through which it passes, the Yang-tse would be a river second to scarcely any in the world. Compare it even with the Amazon, and you find that while from the source to the mouth of the latter is a direct distance of 2,000 miles, in the former this distance is only 200 miles shorter. In the volume of its waters, and the distance to which it can be navigated, it bears away the palm easily from the Ganges or the Nile ; while upon its banks is a civilisa- tion, still existing, possibly no less ancient than those for which those two historic streams are famous ; and in regard to the number of human beings that dwell within reach of its fertilising influence — in the value, variety, and quantity of the productions of the country which it drains —this kingly river might consider the Nile its distant and K O S H I a TJ- jnkfih/xxft/ou ^ ^i r - j&* •sGxpeSagami V -* ■„mM PART OF JAPAN Prom a!Natoe Map. The/ rcnmbers after nanves signify Tveujht/ above/ the, stay vn/ftet/. CoustU towns -thus H Th&Jhjfiwr's route. — » The/ Tocadato ; » O.O.SCncu/^) orVriesI. Z.WaUaqlith.-. ZancUm.:Senry S.JSing & C?, SS, CarnhUh. THE YANG-TSE-KEANG. 143 poor relation, while the Ganges would be its younger brother, to whom nature has be'queathed an inferior portion of her inheritance. Gold and iron, coal and wood," rice and maize, silk and cotton, opium and tobacco, the tea-plant and the vine ; each and all of these valuable productions have a home in one part or another of its immense valley ; on its banks every variety of climate and soil is to be found, for it rises near the snows of the Northern Himalayas, and in its course it dips southwards to within 150 miles of the Tropic's. Nor is the transport of the riches of its watershed impeded by many natural obstructions to navigation. Vessels, the largest of those that run from London through the Suez Canal to Hongkong and Shanghae, can continue their course, when the river is in full water, up to Hankow, a distance of 700 statute miles from the river's mouth; gunboats have penetrated 400 miles farther, to Ichang, where the first rapids occur, and have found a minimum depth of eighteen feet in mid-channel up to that point ; and Captain Blakiston, who in 1861 ascended the river as far as Pin-shang, 1,800 miles from the sea, gave it as his opinion that, if the Ichang rapids were cut through, or avoided by a short canal, handy steamers with a draught of eight or ten feet could penetrate at least as far as Chang-king, 400 miles above Ichang, 1,500 from the sea. But unfortunately there is in China a more unyielding enemy to the navigation of the- river, and the develop- ment of the resources of the country, than the obstacles of nature. The incubus which weighs down all attempts at improvements in China is the Chinese Government ; that Government which calls itself Paternal, and treats its subjects as if they were indeed children ; and which has so indoctrinated the people, from the mandarins down- 144 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. wards (or shall we say upwards?) with the idea that everything new is dangerous, that one and all are satisfied to allege long habit, or as they call it ' oula custom,' as an excuse for moving on in the same groove that has held them for centuries. Until the antediluvian tories who rule at Pekin have their views very much modified, or are themselves ' modified 7 in some rough manner, there will be no free trade on the upper waters of the Yang-tse- Keang. Happily much has already been done as regards the lower part of its course. In 1858, by the treaty of Tientsin, the ports of Chin- keang, Kiu-keang, and Hankow, on this river, were opened to foreign trade, and we can now go on board one of the large American river steamers in Shanghae, and steam 700 miles up to Hankow without let or hindrance. Leaving Shanghae at daybreak on May 1, we run down the Wong-poo river, and then, passing Woosung, steam out into the main stream of the great river. And a great river, indeed, it soon proves itself to be. On our left hand, some three miles distant, is the flat alluvial plain, fringed near the waterside with trees, and dotted with cottages, which forms here the right bank of the river. On the right hand, apparently six to eight miles away, is another low line of land, which we take to be the opposite bank of the river ; but, if we look at our map, we find that it is only the coast line of the Tsung- min Island, which lies right in the jaws of the river; an island forty miles in length, by ten or twelve in breadth, i.e. about twice the size of the Isle of Wight. Passing the north-west end of this island, some twenty miles higher up, we catch a distant sight of the real left bank of the river, which is here between twenty and thirty miles in breadth. Soon after passing Kiang Yin, 100 miles from the river's CHIN-KEANG. 145 mouth, the flatness of the river's banks becomes broken by the appearance of a few not unpicturesque hills, and the river narrows to a width of from three to four miles. The water of the river, both here and all the way up to Hankow, is of a dull yellow colour, and is said to be so full of sand and mud that if a ship strike on a bank when the current is strong, and lie broadside on to the stream, within twenty-four hours a bank will have been silted up against her exposed side to the level of the water. A hundred and fifty miles up the river we come to Chin-keang, on the right or southern bank of the river. The native town lies crushed in on a flat plain between the river, the hills which rise up on the south, and a craggy promontory, surmounted by a pagoda, which juts out into the river on the east. Climbing up to the top of this promontory, we find a view from it which amply repays the trouble of ascent. At our feet, and stretching out to the east and west, making a broad band a mile in width across the landscape, is the Tang-tse : looking across it to the north, the eye wanders over a vast plain, stretch- ing away to the hazy horizon, thickly dotted with cottages and trees, with here and there a pagoda with a dark cluster around its base, marking where some large village or town is situated. Across the plain, commencing close to the river bank, and trending due north, we can trace a dotted line of white junk-sails, showing the course of the Grand Canal. The point where the canal joins the river is marked by a forest of junk masts : these junks have either come down from the north, and are waiting to cross the river, or they are waiting for their turn to enter the canal and proceed northwards. Behind us, to the south and west, lies the town of Chin-keang, with its long circuit of rather crazy-looking L 146 BOUND THE WOELD IN 1870. walls : immediately beyond the town rises a fine amphi- theatre of hills, green in the foreground, but in the distance merging into a dark purple. On more than one projecting point, and on at least two of the islands in the river, stands a pagoda : altogether we can count from where we stand no fewer than nine of these characteristi- cally Chinese buildings. Fifty miles further up the river we come abreast of the celebrated city of Nankin. Though not a treaty port, it is undoubtedly the most interesting place on the banks of the river, and we must therefore make a stoppage here. A Chinese gunboat, commanded by a Norwegian, is lying off the city ; her captain readily offers to send one of his crew ashore with us to conduct us through the city to the Southern Gate, near which we can find house-room and a welcome from a fellow-countryman who is here managing an arsenal for the Government. We are soon ashore, but our guide has some difficulty in securing chairs or ponies for us, owing to his being a native of Ningpo, and conse- quently almost unable to understand the Nankin dialect. He confides to us his contempt for any but his own dialect, saying, in his Pigeon English, ' my no savey how that man talkee ■: he no talkee true fashion : he no Ningpo man ; ' but at last the difficulty is surmounted, and we enter, each on a pony, the north gate of the city. But the word ' city ' conveys a very different idea from that presented by the scene which opens upon us directly we pass through the gate. No sooner are we inside, than, instead of entering a street lined with crowded houses, we find ourselves on what has once been a well-paved road, having on either side of it an expanse of fields of barley, beans, peas, tobacco, and other crops, varied by patches of land altogether waste. Here and there a cottage, stand- ing among the fields, shows where the farmer lives ; other NANKIN. 147 cottages in ruins, standing among heaps of broken bricks and rubbish, tell of a once denser population. On either side, in the distance — stretching away round fields, cottages, ruins and all — rise up the huge walls of the city, twenty-four miles in circuit ; indubitable evidence of what the size of this former capital of the Chinese Empire once was. Straight in front of us, to the south, more than three miles distant, is a rising piece of ground with a gateway on its summit : we trudge on, thinking that that must be the Southern Gate ; but when we arrive there, we find that it is an isolated gateway, standing nearly in the middle of the vast expanse within the walls, and we have still nearly four miles between us and the point for which we are making. We can distinguish the real South Gate in the distance, with the line of massive walls on either side of it, whilst between us and it lies the present city of Nankin, a tolerably dense and extensive mass of low houses, but covering scarcely a sixth part of the space within the walls. For another hour we ride on, at first through more waste spaces and cultivated fields, then through a long street, wider than the widest of the Canton streets, but with poorer shops on either side. At last we emerge from the South Gate, and another quarter of a mile brings us to the Arsenal. Close to the Arsenal is the house of its Scotch manager, built partly out of the ruins of the celebrated Porcelain Pagoda, of which nothing but a heap of rubbish, within a hundred yards of the house, now remains. Strange that what was once a chief glory of China should help to provide material for the house of a Western Barbarian ! The destruction of this once beautiful building was but a degree worse than the way in which nearly every archi- 148 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. tectural remnant of old China is allowed to go to ruin by the present Government. The Taipings took possession of Nankin in 1853, and fixed their head-quarters there. Tienwang, their commander-in-chief, was informed that one of his subordinates had boasted that from the top of the Pagoda he could command the city, and accordingly he slew the subordinate and blew up the tower. Such is thq tale of the fate of the tower which the Chinese held to be the most beautiful in the world, though it must be remembered that in a Chinaman's mind ' the world' is synomyous with the Chinese Empire. Though styled the Porcelain Pagoda, it had but one outer layer of porcelain bricks ; some of these survived the ruin, and our friend of the Arsenal tells us that he tried with- out success to bore one of them with his best steel drill — such is the hardness of their material. Nearly in the centre of the present town of Nankin, not far from the Western Wall, on a slightly rising ground, is a new and good speciman of a Confucian Temple. As we have already seen several Buddhist temples, let us ride into the city and see this example of a sacred building of another of the three nominal religions of China (Buddhism, Confucianism, and Tauism.) We say ' nominal,' because the latter two systems are rather systems of philosophy than religion, consisting of the series of moral doctrines left by their respective founders, Koong-foo-tse — or, as we call him, Confucius — and Laou-ken. This temple at Nankin consists, like most of the Buddhist temples, of a series of quadrangles with corridors, lined by the priests' apartments, running round three sides of them, while on the fourth side is one of the main halls of the temple, with its wooden or stone portico in front, and its upturned roof above. It contains, however, no idols ; in the large hall are merely five or six tablets inscribed with the name of Confucius, CHINESE BEG GABS. Ii9 Mencius, and other philosophers, or with aphorisms from their writings. Incense-sticks are burnt before these tablets, but no prayers are made to them ; in fact, the idea of the Confucian ceremonies seems rather that of keeping sacred the memory of the philosopher than of paying him divine honours. From near the temple we have an extensive view over the city and the surrounding country. To the east we can distinguish, apparently not far outside the walls, a conical mound at the foot of the high range of hills which overlook the city on that side. That mound is the tomb of one of the Mings, the dynasty of emperors which pre- ceded the present Manchow dynasty ; a ride out to it will be not uninteresting. As we thread our way through the streets from the temple we can hear every now and then the cry of ' Tang- quei-tse ! ' (foreign devil) from some of the children and women of the city ; further insult we do not meet with, although foreigners are rather rarely seen in Nankin. The most unpleasant part of the passage is the meeting every now and then with a genuine Nankin beggar. More than once, a creature, whom one would scarcely take to be a human being, scantily clad in the ragged remnants of a cloak of straw, his face and legs covered with dust and dirt, or blotched with some hideous skin disease, his hair long and matted, and his eyes either glaring like those of a madman, or sunk and hollow with famine, comes sud- denly in front of us, and poking out with his lean and bony arm a straw platter or an old bamboo hat, will not leave us till we either threaten him or give him some few copper coins. Travellers have stated that there are no beggars in China : from our experience Nankin can show beggar more loathsome than any other place in the world. Passing a great oblong mass of lofty stone walls, en- 150 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. closing the ruins of the Imperial palace, we go out at the East Gate, turn northwards, and ride for half-a-mile close under the city wall. We have here a good oppor- tunity of estimating the size of these famous walls. They are indeed gigantic enough to remind one of the accounts of the walls of Nineveh or Babylon. Their average height is fifty feet, but in many places they are at least seventy feet in height ; their breadth at the base is rather more than thirty feet, and they are wide enough at the top to allow of two carriages passing each other. Their principal material is earth and concrete ; they are faced with well- made blueish-gray bricks, many of which have inscrip- tions on them : these bricks, being laid always with the long face outwards, are in many places falling away. Leaving the wall, we strike across a mile of waste land which, before the Taiping war spread devastation here as in hundreds of other square miles of fruitful land, was cut up into fertile fields. We soon approach the huge conical mound of earth thrown up to cover the five or six feet of clay representing his majesty Choo, the founder of the Ming dynasty. It is probably about two-thirds the size of the Great Pyramid, to which also, in the end for which it was constructed, and in its bulk, it may bear comparison. Eound the foot of the mound runs a brick wall, which is pierced, in front of the mound, by a massive gateway. In front of the gateway are the remains of a handsome stone bridge, leading over a small ravine, and approached by a broad stone causeway. A hundred yards along the causeway is a handsome basement of stone, surmounted by fragments of columns and well-carved tablets. The stone is of a fine gray colour, and apparently hard and close-grained. Leading away from these remains is the most remark- THE TOMBS OF THE MINGS. 151 able feature of all — a semi-circular avenue of stone animals and men. The men are warriors and statesmen, twice the size of life ; the animals — dogs, horses, lions, tigers, camels, and elephants — are half as large again as their living models. They are all arranged in pairs, facing each other : sixty yards separate each .pair. Each is of a single piece of stone, and the whole array are supposed to represent the retinue required by the deceased monarch in the world of darkness. Some of them are in rather a ruinous con- dition : the men look tired of standing, and are gradually leaning over to. their fall : the lions look very tame, and one of them has lost a leg; the elephant has evidently vegetated too long, for a young tree is growing out of a crack in his back. Standing up, as they do, alone in the deserted plain, they have a strange weird look : in their massiveness, want of grace, and rude picturesqueness, they remind us of the style of Egyptian or Assyrian remains : they certainly seem like the remains belonging to an old-world monarchy, and yet they are said to be scarcely 500 years old. We return to our host at the Arsenal, and only regret that we cannot take advantage of his hospitality for a longer time. Having passed through various phases of life, from that of a merchant's clerk in England to that of a general in the Imperial Chinese army, he has a rare fund of anecdotes and information, and a specially inti- mate acquaintance with the habits and character of the Chinese of all grades. But we must leave him at his task of teaching the Chinese how to make rifled cannon and patent rockets, and continue our voyage up the river. For a distance of sixty miles above Nankin we see nothing on either side of the river but a flat, semi-culti- vated bank, backed here and there by a distant range of hills. The width of the stream varies from half a mile to 152 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. two miles. At the end of the sixty miles we pass the large walled city of Wu-hoo, and soon afterwards the scenery improves much ; fine ranges of mountains coming down close to the river bank, and giving the river rather the appearance of a lake. We cannot, however, see this part to advantage ; for the air is filled with a white haze, which is said to be caused by minute sand particles brought from the distant steppes of Central Asia by a north-west wind ; and indeed there is a partial proof of this in the fine layer of sand which gradually coats the deck and rigging as we pass through the haze. A hundred miles above Wu-hoo we pass Ngan-king, a large and crowded-looking city surrounded by the high wall which in China invariably guards every city above the third class, and which is often all that qan be seen of the city from the outside, the houses within being too low to appear over the battlements. Another walled city, Tung- liu, is passed twenty miles higher up, and in the constant groups of cottages visible on both banks of this section of the river we have sure proof of the country being well populated. The river varies in width every few miles ; its surface is seldom free for a mile together from junks of one kind or another. Some are floating down the stream, others are being tracked up against it by gangs of men from three to twelve in number ; for in China men do nearly all the work which in other countries is ap- pointed to beasts of burden — from the labour of carrying a noble lord to that of dragging a canal-boat. Now and then we sight a-head of us what looks like a low island with a small village on it, but which on a nearer view proves to be a huge raft of timber brought down from the upper provinces, on which are some half- dozen wooden huts inhabited by the managers or owners of the raft. Sometimes a flock of water-fowl rise from THE ORPHAN ROCK. 153 the quiet surface and shoot across our vessel's bows, but it is too late in the season to see the hundreds and thousands of aquatic birds which are said to congregate on the river during winter. Occasionally a heron or a kite fly across overhead, or a stray swallow skims the water, but as a rule there is not much sign of feathered life. A short distance above Tung-liu the river suddenly contracts to a width of a quarter of a mile ; on the south side the hills descend abruptly to the stream, and end in a sheer cliff, on Jbhe top of which is perched a Buddhist monastery ; on the other side, separated from the bank by a channel of one hundred yards, is a remarkable conical crag rising straight from the water to a height of three hundred feet, its eastern front sheer and bare, its western sloping slightly and covered with trees, from among which project the gables of a Buddhist nunnery. This beautiful islet is called the Orphan Hock. Sixty miles above Tung-liu we pass the entrance to the Poyang Lake, on the east side of which is Hoo-kow, with the white walls and picturesque gables of its monasteiy prettily perched on the side of a steep and broken cliff. A short distance above the entrance is Kiu-Keang, one of the Treaty Ports, where European merchants found considerable trade when first it was thrown open ; but now half of the dozen foreign houses are uninhabited, and the river quay or bund is in a sadly neglected state. It is said that in these smaller river ports the native merchants have been able to compete successfully with foreigners, by dint of their intimate knowledge of the people and the country, and by their more economical habits. Twenty miles above Kiu keang we enter on a stretch of thirty miles of very fine scenery. The river winds in and out among lofty hills, the highest of which run up to a 154 EOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. height of 3,000 feet. Some of them are rounded in out- line, others more broken into peaks and jutting shoulders of bare limestone; here and there are masses of rich foliage intermixed with breadths of rice or corn-land, or with bare patches of red and rich -looking earth ; in some places, where the hill-sides are too steep for ordinary cul- tivation, the industrious natives have overcome the diffi- culty by converting the slopes into terraces, just as the natives of the Himalayas do on similar, or even steeper, ground. Placed suddenly on the river in this part of it, one might almost imagine oneself on a Scotch lake, except for this terrace cultivation, and that the hills are not so ' stern and wild ' as those of Caledonia, while the water here, instead of having a Loch Lomond hue, is of a dark sandy colour. While noting the appearance of the terrace cultivation, we must not go away with the idea that this system is universal in China. In many of the older books on China the whole country was described as being like a minutely and carefully cultivated garden, and many travellers have been disappointed on arriving in the Flowery Land to find that this is not the case. The fact is, that while some parts of the country are densely populated and highly cultivated, there are still larger parts where there is much land uncultivated, and where even the cultivated part is managed in a rude and unskilful manner. The Chinese have not yet called out all the resources of their soil nor all the riches of their rocks ; their minerals and coal they neglect almost entirely. As a proof of the last statement we may mention that on some of the hills that bound this river we can see here and there bare black patches which mark where coal is actually bursting out of the hill-sides ; and yet it is'ouly worked by the natives in a very superficial manner, HANKOW. 155 nor will the Government grant permission to foreigners to improve on the native system. After passing the thirty miles of fine scenery we enter a stretch of eighty miles of a less picturesque portion of the river, at the end of which we reach Hankow, the last Treaty Port up the river, but yet the largest and most thriving. Situated on the left hank of the Yang-tse, just below where the tributary the Han falls into it after running through the fertile province of Hoo-peh, it commands as extensive a system of river communication with a well-populated country as any place in the world. Some idea of the importance of the situation may be gathered from the fact that in the three angles made here by the junction of the Han with the Yang-tse, there are three large Chinese towns, Woochang, Han-yang, and Hankow respectively, and that these three towns, at a moderate computation, con- tain together a population of rather more than a million. Hankow was opened to foreign trade in the year 1861, and in 1865 an import trade of over three millions sterling, and an export trade of over four millions, were carried on there. During the last four or five years, indeed, there has been a slight decrease in these figures, wiich, however, the Hankow merchants ascribe merely to a re-action, and expect yearly to see altered to an increase. The foreign settlement at Hankow is certainly the hand- somest on the river : the houses are of a, substantial kind, and the ' bund ' is very solid and well kept. And indeed the latter condition is a necessary one for the safety of the residents ; for every autumn Hankow, along with all other places on the Yang-tse, is subject to very heavy floods. In 1869 the river rose oyer the top of the 'bund,' and flooded all the houses to a height of several feet, the total rise of the water from the lowest winter level being no than less fifty feet. This enormous increase in the height of the river, at 156 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. a point where it is a full mile in width, will give some idea of the volume of water carried down by it to the ocean. Hankow must be otir Ultima Thule as regards the Yang- tse-Keang, for no steamers at present run further up the river. We may wish much that we could make a longer voyage up the noble stream, but we must be content, and if we want to wander further in imagination, as we cannot in reality, we must read the excellent description of the Upper Yang-tse, or, as it is called by the natives, the Kin-cha- kiang, or Golden Sand River, given in Captain Blakiston's ' Five Months on the Yan-tse.' That gentleman penetrated as far as Ping-shan, 1,100 miles above Hankow, and gives very interesting descriptions of the fine scenery on parts of the river, the richness and fertility of the Sz-chuan province, the difference in feature and habit of the natives furthest up the river from those on the better known portion, the possibilities of the navigation of the river, and other collateral subjects. Hankow is our last halting-point on the Yang-tse, and it must also mark the end of our last stage in China. Prom Hankow we descend tbe great river, and, with the aid of the current, we make the downward voyage in little more than half the time of the upward one. With no delay at Shanghae, we take passages in the ' Golden Age ' for Japan, and are soon rapidly passing over the 400 miles of sea which lie between the ' Central Flowery Land ' and the ' Land of the Sunrise.' In the interval, we have leisure to look back on the six weeks we have spent among the ' Celestials,' and to con- sider the impressions made upon us during that time. Com- paring these with our preconceived ideas of China and the Chinese, we must confess that the former do not come up to the latter. The idea which one is apt to form of China from THE FLOWERY LAND. 157 hearing or reading accounts of the country, before actually visiting it, is rather that of a country filled with both natural and artificial beauties. The name of China brings up before our mind's eye pictures of lovely hills clad with vegetation of the richest colouring and form, or terraced from base to summit and converted into a succession of hanging gardens ; of plains divided to the last acre into plantations of tea or gardens of mulberry ; of rivers and canals, spanned by the most picturesque of bridges, and bordered by the most graceful of willows; of villages, made up of clean and pretty cottages, attached to each of which is a well-kept garden where the small-footed celestial maidens sit sipping the most delicate of teas ; of cities surpassing in extent those of our own island, and adorned with houses and temples whose furniture and or- naments are all of the richest lacquer or the finest old porcelain ; of a country, in short, which is the favourite haunt of peace and contentment, of wealth and art. But, alas for these illusive pictures ! when we compare them with the originals, we find that many bright colours have been added to them, and many blurs and blotches omitted from them. In fact, the contrast between them and the truth is almost as great as that between the grandiloquent names used by the Chinese, and the tawdry places and things to which these names are applied. One native term for China is the c Flowery Land,' and we might hence imagine that the country is thickly strewn with the sweetest and brighest specimens of the botanical kingdom, and that scented breezes blow into the traveller's face throughout the length and breadth of it; but when we go there we find that though scented breezes are indeed very general in the country, all the scents are alike, and that one scent is anything but lavender. Alas for English noses, if we ever follow the 158 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. Celestial custom of utilising, without deodorising, our sewage. We speak of the inventive genius of the Chinese, as shown in their discoveries of ink and printing, of the compass and gunpowder, in times when our own ancestors might have been legitimately styled by them barbarians ; but there is disappointment here too, for the Chinese have utterly failed to carry these inventions to their highest and most practical ends. Examining their religion, we find that while the aris- tocratic classes profess to follow the pure moral doctrines of Confucius, the only effect on them seems to be the de- velopment of a hard stoicism or a cold fatalism; and while the mass of the people are nominally Buddhists, and Buddhism contains many pure and high-toned allegories and doctrines, yet with the Chinese these seem to have been overlaid or replaced by the grossest and most puerile superstitions, and the only strong form of religion among them is the worship of their deceased ancestors. Test their government, and you will find that whilst that government is a most elaborate, minute, and theo- retically excellent piece of machinery, the dirt and dust of corruption and treachery have rusted its springs, loosened its screws, and clogged its wheels, and it will not work. Head their history, and you find that much of it is a record of one dynasty growing up in rebellion, established in blood, and supplanting a previous dynasty that had become rotten and powerless through apathy and luxury. Look at the temples and pagodas, the canals and walls, on which China founds not a little of her fame, and you find that scarcely one of them is in repair, much less that there are any new works of the kind springing up to THE YANG-TSE-KEANG. 159 supply the places of those which are gradually crumbling under the influence of time. And so we might go on, finding rottenness and decay in every limb and member of this gigantic empire, till we had almost concluded that ' from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores.' The only remedy against such a despairing view of the country, is to consider the good points in the general character of the common people — their soberness and steadiness, their industry and contentedness, their respect for, and as a rule, their obedience to, law and order. These saving points may lead us to think that perhaps the most -interesting and successful portion of the history of China is yet to be acted and written. That great country cannot long remain in the state of oriental isolation and bigoted non-progression in which, owing to its distance and inaccessibility from western countries and ideas, it has so long continued. When the change does come, whether it will be so violent as to shatter the whole social and political system of the country, and involve it in anarchy and ruin, or whether, in a more gradual process, the sterling points in the character of the average Chinaman will stand him in good stead, and conduce to the remodelling of himself, his manners, and his thoughts, we will not venture to prophesy. But there are surely some grounds for hoping that the latter alternative will prove the true one ; and we may trust that, under the good guidance of the Ruler of Nations, better days than can be found in all the records of their past centuries are yet in store for China and the Chinese. 160 HOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. CHAPTER XIV. NAGASAKI AND THE INLAND SEA. Japan, the Land of the Sunrise, that mysterious unap- proachable group of islands which, twenty years ago, had scarcely been visited by more Englishmen than Thibet has up to the present moment, can now be reached from an English settlement within a space of forty-eight hours. We leave Shanghae at daybreak on a May morning, in one of the large vessels of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company, and the next dawn but one finds us snugly anchored in the harbour of Nagasaki. But though only 400 miles of ocean thus divide China and Japan, the gulf of separation in other than geographi- cal points seems much wider. And perhaps between no two spots in the two countries could the difference appear more striking to a traveller than between Shanghae and Nagasaki. The recollections of the former place, with its flat and almost treeless surrounding country, the muddy waters of its river, and its dirty native town, are still fresh in our minds ; but in the harbour of the latter, as we look round in the light of the early morning from our vessel's deck, what a contrast meets the eye ! We are lying in the middle of a land-locked harbour, the extreme length of which is rather more than four miles, whilst its breadth varies from half a mile to nearly two miles. The water of the harbour is blue and sparkling, its surface broken by a number of native junks, and by nearly a score NAGASAKI HARBOUJR. 161 of vessels of foreign rig, which can now visit freely the port which twenty years ago was only entered by two European ships annually. Shutting in the harbour on all sides are some of the most picturesque hills imaginable. Of various heights, from 1,200 to 1,800 feet, their tops are for the most part smooth and grassy, while their bases are covered with rich woods, which combine apparently nearly all the luxuriance of tropical vegetation with all the varied hues of the leaves of colder climes. Deep ravines and jutting shoulders lend variety to the sides of these hills ; in the former are frequently visible groups of gabled cottages ; perched on the points of the latter are here and there neat temples and shrines ; while the green of the hill-slopes is broken by gray patches which mark the situation of rustic graveyards. The thick belts of wood are broken near their lower edges by strips of cleared and cultivated ground, and here and there, over the low ridges that lie between the various hills, may be traced a narrow winding line — a country path leading away to some neighbouring bay or valley. At the north-eastern side of the harbour lies the town of Nagasaki, stretching over a flat piece of ground that spreads along the shore for nearly two miles and runs up into a recess among the hills. Southwards from the town, and dotting the lower hill-sides for some distance in that direction, are the white houses of the recent foreign settlers, chiefly English, German, and American. Projecting into the harbour and built upon a flat, fan-shaped peninsula, is the little settlement of Decima, which, for upwards of 200 years, was the only spot in Japan where a European might live. Truly, those phlegmatic Dutchmen who were content to pass their years there, making much hard cash, doing at regular it 162 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. intervals grovelling obeisance to the native authorities, and getting news and stores from their fatherland once every year, might have had a worse place to live in, small and cramped though they must have felt it to be. It was indeed, in its strict confinement, a mere prison-house, but the view from the windows was better than that enjoyed by most jail-birds ! But we have only a day to spend in Nagasaki, so let us land at once and go through the town. No sooner have we passed through the foreign quarter, and reached the native streets, than the contrast between things Japanese and things Chinese again becomes strikingly evident. Instead of the narrow streets of Canton, lined with brick-biilt shops and houses, we have here broad, well- laid roads, running between picturesque rows of wooden houses, not unlike Swiss cottages of one floor only. Instead of the eager, bustling activity, which reigns supreme in Chinese towns, there is here an air of quiet business and well-to-do contentment. Instead of the guttural voices and harsh accents which fall upon one's ear when- ever Chinamen are within earshot, the sounds heard here are those of a soft, rich language, almost as liquid and as full of vowels as Italian. Instead of the yellow legs and faces, the blue hanging gowns, the pendant pig-tails, we see small and well-knit men, with bronze complexions, dark gowns girt up at the waist, and hair dressed close to the head. This style of dressing the hair is very unique and neat in appearance. It consists merely in shaving close a broad slip down the centre of the crown, gathering in at the back of the head the side hair, tufting it, with the assistance of much pomade, into a short rope or solid cylinder, and laying this along the centre of the shaven space, cutting it short off at the distance of a couple of inches from the forehead. FIBST IMPEESSIONS. 163 It is the almost universal fashion among the men of all ranks in Japan. And then, instead of the flat-faced women of the Flowery Land, clad in stiff dresses which reach up to the throat, and hang down straight and flat to the ancles, we see the aquiline noses, florid complexions, and graceful cos- tumes of the women of Kiu-Siu. Their short and slight figures are tastefully dressed in loose-sleeved gowns, which open in front over inner vests, and are girdled at the waist by broad silk bands, of neat pattern and bright colours. These bands are folded up behind into a large bow, giving an effect not unlike that of the ' panniers ' of a recent English fashion ; indeed, who shall say that the English fashion was not introduced from this costume of Niphon ? As we pass along the streets — almost every one of which affords a vista in one direction or another, of some part of the beautiful hills that surround the town and harbour — we can look into a number of the shops, and notice the variety of their wares, and the neatness and order which seems to regulate all of them. Here is a fish-shop, wherein are many specimens of the finny tribe from the harbour and the neighbouring waters, some dead, some kept alive in tubs of water : among them we may see a huge sturgeon, or a smoked salmon from Hakodadi in the northern island of Tesso. Here is a sandal-shop, stored with every variety of sandal, from the high lacquered clog, which consists of a horizontal piece of wood, supported on two vertical pieces several inches in height, to the common straw sole, which is attached to the feet by a tie which, runing up from the sole between the great and second toes, and dividing across the instep, joins the sole again behind. Close at hand is a book-shop, where books of all sorts, but chiefly illustrated story-books, can be bought at a very cheap rate ; native maps also, and well- it 2 164 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. executed plans of various Japanese cities, are to be had, and even illustrated guide-books. Another shop is filled with writing materials; another with pipes, tobacco-pouches, and trays for holding char- coal; another with articles in wood — trays, cabinets, boxes, toys, &c. Here and there is one devoted to the sale of ornaments in lacquer, bronze, ivory, and tortoise- shell ; and perhaps close to this is a china-store, filled with cups and saucers, plates and vases, bowls and dishes of many kinds of ware, from the delicate ' egg-shell ' china, for which Nagasaki is famous, to the more solid porcelain which is manufactured into larger articles, and often lacquered over. Some of these shops sell their wares on commission from a Daimio, or native Baron, all the principal china manufactories belonging either to the Mikado (or Emperor) or to the Feudal Lords. Nearly all these shops are open to the street, their fronts consisting of sliding wooden frames which are only put up at night-time ; their floors, which often serve as counters, are raised some two feet from the ground : some of them have genuine counters raised another foot, and many have, besides, shelves running round their wooden walls. Nagasaki is said to contain between 70,000 and 80,000 inhabitants, and we walk due northwards from where we entered it for nearly two miles before we begin to emerge from its busy streets. Just on the outskirts of the town we come to the foot of a broad flight of stone steps, lead- ing up to a new and handsome temple. At the foot of the steps is a portal, composed of two upright columns crossed near the top by two horizontal beams a yard apart, the ends of the upper beam being curved upwards. This is the universal pattern of archway at the entrance to the grounds of a Sinto temple ; in this one, the columns are JAPANESE TfMflES. 165 of wood, about 35 ft. high, and sheathed in copper. Ad- vancing up the steps, we pass through a high-roofed porch, and enter the courtyard in front of the main hall. Japanese temples are by no means imposing in appear- ance ; but, like their Chinese prototypes, they are gene- rally picturesque. They are built almost entirely of wood, the main columns and beams being generally made of fine pieces of timber, cut from the Cryptomeria, or from some of the numerous Japanese firs. The ceilings are usually panelled, and the porches very elaborately and handsomely carved. The high, sloping roofs, are sometimes of clay tilesj but more often are covered with many layers of thin wooden tiles, to the thickness of a foot or more. In the front courtyard generally stands an ornamental porch erected over a bronze bell : this bell is struck by a priest, at the commencement of a service, in order to summon the gods to listen to their worshippers. In the Sinto temples the back part of the hall of worship is railed off, and filled with various tables, which are covered with lacquer ornaments, miniature shrines, lamps, and material symbols which it is impossible for one unversed in Japanese lore to decipher. This religion of Sinto is the orthodox form of religion in Japan, but among the poorer classes it probably does not attract as many followers as Buddhism. Being the worship of a number of deified heroes (Kamis), it finds the ma- jority of its followers among the Samurai, or sworded class, a term which includes all the retainers of the Daimios. From the porch of this Sinto temple there is a fine pros- pect over the town of Nagasaki and the beautiful hill-sides beyond ; we can enjoy it at our leisure, while drinking the tea which one of the attendants of the temple has brought to us. Tea is of course the most usual beverage in Japan ; wherever the traveller wants it, it is always ready, and 166 BOUND THE WOKLD IN 1870. yon can scarcely go a day's journey in the country without being offered at least a dozen cups of it, at different points on your route. There is a tea-house to almost every hundred yards of street in every Japanese town ; a tea- house in every country village, however remote or small : a tea-house or tea-shed to every two or three miles of country road, or mountain path. To a new comer the beverage may not be at first very palatable, for it is not only of a different flavour to the black tea which we drink in England, being always of the green kind ; but also it is drunk pure and simple, with scarcely a minute allowed for brewing, and without any such foreign auxiliaries as milk or sugar. Yet almost every traveller or resident in Japan learns to appreciate it, for it is undeniably refreshing, and being taken fresh and weak, is perfectly harmless, even when a dozen cups or more are taken daily. The only other beverage of which there seems any quantity in Japan is ' saki.' This is a spirit made from rice, strong and harsh as a rule, and with intoxicating powers almost as great as those possessed by brandy ; the finer kinds, however, are not unpleasant, and taken ' hot with ' form a good and wholesome kind of ' toddy.' It is generally drunk by the natives in small cups, ' neat.' Descending from the temple porch, and threading our way back through the town, we turn aside into one of the eastern streets where there is a native theatre. Like the theatres of the Chinese, those of the Japanese are usually of wood, and this one is no exception to the rule. It is about mid-day, and the acting is at its height ; for, as in Athens of old, the day, and not the night, in Japan is considered the appropriate time for play-acting. Thus, on days when the theatre is open, a native will take a holiday, and with his wife and children pass most of JAPANESE THEATRES. 167 his time from sunrise to sunset in watching a play ; and if we look round from the box into which we have found our way, and on the chairless floor of which we are squatting, we can see several parties making an extempore lunch off some provisions they have brought with them. The per- formance which is being given is not of a regular kind ; it partakes of the nature of a puppet-show. Several large dolls, about half the size of life, dressed to represent the characters of the play, are brought on to the stage by as many mutes. These mutes, dressed all in black, and sup- posed to be invisible, stand behind the puppets, whose heads and limbs they move so as to suit the dialogue of the play. The dialogue is chanted by two musicians seated on the floor of a recess at one side of the stage. Of course the play is totally unintelligible to us, though by the expressions on the faces of the audience, and their occasional laughter, we can see when a good hit is made, or a popular maxim stated. After sitting half an hour at the theatre, we find our way back to the Foreign Settlement ; and after lunching at the house of one of the twenty or thirty English who reside there, we go out for a walk along the south- eastern side of the bay. A path that winds up among the lower spurs of the hills, which here slope down almost to the water's edge, brings us, after a walk of a couple of miles, to the summit of a prominent ridge, from which we get a most perfect coup d'ceil of the whole of the beautiful bay. To the right of us are the upper waters of the bay, with the town of Nagasaki stretching away from them into the recesses of the surrounding hills ; to the left we look south- westwards through the entrance to the bay, and on to some of the wooded islands outside. Conspicuous among these islands is the small conical isle of Takoboko, or, as it is better known among foreigners, Papenberg, memorable 168 BOUND THE WOULD IN 1870. as the island from the summit of whose precipitous side were thrown a large number of Japanese Christians in the exterminating persecution that was carried out against them 250 years ago. The scene around us, with its combination of water and wood, hill and valley, is of no mean beauty, nor have the natives been insensible to its charms; for, with that fond regard for the dead which seems to be one of the pleasant traits in their character, they have chosen this as the site for a burial-ground. Wherever a Japanese burial-ground is fixed, it is sure either to be on a spot commanding as pretty a view as can be had in the neighbourhood, or to be shaded with trees, and withdrawn into some quiet and peaceful nook. A small and plain stone pillar, with a few characters inscribed upon it, or a simple stone monument cut in the form of a lantern, marks each grave ; all is neat and carefully kept, and in small recesses in front of many of the graves flowers may often be found, left recently by fond relatives or friends. Making our way back to the Foreign Settlement, we reach it not long before dark, and the same evening we re- embark on the ' Golden Age ' to pursue our voyage to Kobe, in the Inland Sea. During the succeeding fore- noon we are coasting up the western side of the island of Kiu-Siu, and admiring the varied forms which its coast- line takes — now composed of bold and high cliffs, now of sloping wooded hills, and anon of a flat strip of sandy or marshy land. Many islands lie off the coast ; one, which we pass at a distance of not more than half a mile, is notice- able from its looking like an eastern imitation of the cele- brated Isle of Staffa. It is rather smaller than its Scotch prototype, but there are the same basaltic pillars — some vertical, like the pipes of an organ, some curved, like the ribs of a vessel — that have rendered the latter so famous. THE INLAND SEA. 169 Early in the afternoon our course is altered from nearly due north to almost due east, and we run in to what appears to be a deep bay, but which gradually dis- closes the tortuous and narrow entrance to the ' Inland Sea.' This entrance is sometimes called the Strait of Van der Capellan, and is not more than a mile in breadth, the actual channel navigable by mercantile vessels being scarcely half the whole width. High hills, clothed with a beautiful diversity of wood and pasturage, slope steeply down on either side ; the coastline is broken up into bays and headlands, which, as our vessel winds from one side of the passage to the other, overlap each ot^er and shut in the view out to sea, giving the strait the appearance of a small lake. This portal to the great land-locked sea of Japan seems to be a favourite trap-door for the entrance and exit of the stormy elements, and as we pass through we have to face heavy squalls of wind and rain which render remain- ing on deck both difficult and unpleasant, and of course mar the effect of the scenery. The straits are not more than four miles in length, and once through them we pass into the rapidly broadening expanse of the Inland Sea, here called by the natives the Suwo Nada. Though called by foreigners the Inland Sea, from the straits of Van der Capellan on the west to those of Linschoter on the east — a distance of about 250 miles — this Medi- terranean of Japan has various names among the natives, according to the different provinces on either side of it. Suwo Nada, Missima Nada, Bingo Nada, and Arima Nada, seem to be the most important of these. Early on the morning after passing into the Suwo Nada, our vessel is threading her way through the narrow waters, beset with small islands, which divide the mainland of Niphon from the island of Sikok. As the morning 170 EOUND THE WORLD IK 1870. advances the weather, which since our entrance through the straits has heen thick and rainy, clears up ; the sky assumes a rich blue colour, flecked here and there with white and fleecy clouds, and the sun brings out all the hues of sea and land to perfection. We have thus a good opportunity of judging of the scenery of the Inland Sea, about which so much has been said, and which we have even heard described as 'the finest scenery in the world.' That it is beautiful there is no doubt, for the outlines of hill and island are remarkably graceful ; every view is broken up into water and land, wood and rock, all, combining and contrasting with each other ; the hues in the sparkling sea, the rich tints on the vegetation, and the colours in the sky above, are as bright and deep as those of Sicily or Greece : and there are not wanting traces of human life in the brown villages which here and there line the shores of the islands, and in the white sails of the native junks that move slowly across the blue water. Each kind of scenery has its special beauties, so we will not bring into the same field with the Inland Sea some grand and well-known lake view in the Alps ; suffice it to say, that in some parts of the Bingo Nada the traveller might easily, without doing violence to the scene before him, imagine himself sailing on the Lago Maggiore with more than one Isola Bella on either side of him. One island which we pass among the many in this Japanese Archipelago is especially beautiful. Rising from the water with a most graceful slope on every side, to the height of 500 or 600 feet, its perfectely conical shape evidently marks it as having once been a small volcano. But it must be many centuries since fire issued from its summit, or lava poured down its sides, for now its head is wreathed in a harmless misty cloud, and its slopes are THE AEIMA NADA. 171 bright with, many hues of green, save at one spot where a village lies half hidden among the trees, while another stretches out its thin brown line along the margin of the water. Passing from the Bingo Nada we emerge into a more open portion of the Inland Sea, called the Arima Nada ; and crossing this in about three hours, we steer through the narrow strait of Akasi, on one side of which is a small Japanese fortress mounted with European guns. We then enter the Idsoumi Nada, or, as foreigners call it, the Bay of Osaca. This Bay is about thirty miles in extreme length by twenty in breadth ; near the head of it stands the city which has given it its foreign name. On the western side is the treaty port of C6bi, or K6be, in front of which, among a score of foreign vessels, we cast anchor. 172 EOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. CHAPTEE XV. KOBE AND OSAOA. Kob ', or, as it is sometimes called, Hiogo — that being, however, the name of an adjoining town — was opened to foreign trade for the first time in the end of the year 1867. Though it is thus scarcely more than two years old, as far as foreigners are concerned, there are already more than a score of houses in it occupied by commercial pioneers from the western nations, and there are still more in course of erection. The export tea and silk trade of Kobe 1 promises to rank second only to that of Yokohama, and the import trade of foreign goods, of which one of the most lucrative branches has been that of guns and rifles, is steadily progressing. The guns and rifles were sold in large numbers to the neighbouring princes during the struggle which took place between the party of the now reigning Emperor — the Mikado — and that of the late Shogun, or Tycoon, as his name is often, though wrongly, written. The native town of Kobe is very similar to Nagasaki, except that it is much smaller, and is not surrounded with such exquisite views: we will therefore spend our time in an excursion into the hills behind the town, to the well-known village of Arima, thirteen or fourteen miles away. The first four miles lead us up a winding gorge to the summit of the ridge of hills which runs parallel to this western side of the Osaca Bay throughout its entire length. JAPANESE FOLIAGE. 173 Another four miles — partly over a portion of the summit of the ridge, composed of hills of decomposed granite, so bare and sandy-looking that it has earned the name of ' Aden ' among the foreigners at Kobe, and partly down a well-wooded ravine — bring us to a picturesque village lying in the middle of a broad valley. The remaining five or six miles of our journey take us up this valley and over a low ridge into another valley, in which lies Arima. Few countries could afford such views of rich and varied vegetation, combined with beautiful outlines of hill-side and mountain-top, as we enjoy throughout this latter part of the route. From each side of the broad valley slope upwards, to a height of 1,500 or 2,000 feet, mountains covered withfoliage of every shade of green and every degree of density. Darkest and densest of all are the clumps of Cryptomerias, with their perfect symmetry of growth, and their close cypress-like foliage ; scattered about in more straggling groups are the lighter- coloured firs of which Japan boasts a great variety, and of which one or two kinds can with difficulty be dis- tinguished from our own Scotch fir ; almost as numerous are the maple-trees, with their light and delicate foliage, showing a paler green than any other tree in the land- scape ; in striking contrast to the dark Cryptomerias are the groups of feathery bamboos, with their graceful stems and light and slender leaves ; here and there among the underwood are masses of lilac, purple, or white colour, betraying where one or more azalea-bushes are in full bloom ; more rarely a camellia-tree, with single dark-red flowers, raises its head above the lower bushes; while from the spreading branches of some larger forest tree, such as the camphor-laurel, or the evergreen oak, droop the lilac blossoms of the Westeria ; and just springing up from the ground are the green stems, which, by the 174 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. end of next month (June) will be supporting the gorgeous ' lilia aurata,' so much prized in European gardens. Arrived at Ariina, we take up our quarters at a ' tea- house,' one of that numerous class of houses which in Japan correspond to our inns. This tea-house is, lite the other houses of the village, of wood, and is built in two storeys ; our rooms are on the upper floor. Before we enter we take off our boots and walk in stocking- feet. For in Japan the floor of every room is covered with very neat reed-mats, and on these mats the natives sit, eat, work and sleep. Chairs and tables are unknown in the country, and a Japanese Gillows can found his fame only as excelling in mats, sword-stands, small cabinets, or lamp-frames. The mats are all of one size (six feet by three), and are rather more than an inch in thickness. From their uniform size they have become a standard for measuring rooms, and consequently a room is described as ' so many mats ' in size, instead of so many feet in length and so many in breadth; and rooms are always constructed so as to have space on the floor for a certain number of mats exactly. The want of chairs is at first distressing to a European frame ; but practice soon shows that we can be as comfort- able on the floor as above it, and if one began the practice young, no doubt one could spend many easy hours a la Japonaise, kneeling on a mat and sitting back upon one's heels with one's toes stretched out behind ! We are scarcely settled on the floor before our landlady glides in, and kneeling down and making a low obeisance, enquires what our lordships will be pleased to have ; while a couple of waiting-maids, or ' moosmes,' bring in trays of tea as a matter of course. Presently our coolies come in with some provisions brought from Kobe - ; and these, with rice and tea, fish and eggs, form our evening meal. When AKLMA. 175 the hour comes for sleep, the ' moosmes ' bring in two large quilts for each of us, one of which, stretched on the mats, serves for bed and mattress, while the other takes the place of sheets and blankets. Pillows we extemporise, for a Japanese pillow has by no means a soporific look. It consists of a box of wood, about the size aud shape of a small stereoscope, the eye-pieces of the latter giving way to a cylindrical pillow, five or six inches in length and two in diameter. With the part of the head immediately behind the ear resting on this, the native of Niphon seems to woo the sleepy god as easily as the least-troubled English head that lies buried in luxurious down; and we can testify to having spent a pleasantly oblivious half-hour after a long morning's ride on one of these same pillows. How many hours of hair-dressing they must save to the fair sex of Japan ! A chignon, after a night on such a pillow, rises composed and unruffled; even the feat of sleeping with tortoise-shell comb and hair-pins adjusted might here be successfully accomplished. Arima is a quiet village, but has some reputation for two things — its medicinal waters and its manufacture of baskets. The waters seem to be of a chalybeate nature : they are hot, and are made to flow from the natural springs into two wooden bath-houses in the main street of the village. Here may often be seen two or three Japanese seeking relief from some of the ills which seem prevalent even in their beautiful country. Europeans, also, sometimes use and derive benefit from the baths, though the latter look as if they had but a yearly changing of the waters, and hardly inviting to anyone who has seen a Western Spa. As to the basket-work, it seems to be the occupation pursued in every two out of three houses in the village. 176 EOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. At any hour of the day the cottagers may be seen, seated tailor fashion in their front rooms, splitting, scraping, plaiting, and fitting the all-useful bamboo. Most of the baskets are perfect models of taste and neatness ; and the variety of their patterns, and the lightness, firmness and cheapness of the work, speak -volumes for the patient industry, natty fingers, and native taste of these rustic artisans. We pass two nights in Arima, and on the morning of the third day make our way back to Kobe. Before going up to Osaca we must make a short excur- sion up to that temple whose white sides and gabled roof we can distinguish among the trees at the edge of the ridge which we crossed on the way to Arima. A ride of four miles brings us to the front of the ridge immediately below the temple, and then comes a steep zig-zag path leading up through rich woods, and ending at the foot of a flight of 220 steps. At the top of these is the temple, 1,800 feet above the bay, over which, and over Kobe, with the shipping dotting the waters in front of it, it commands a fine view. On the way up to the temple we may notice pegs of wood, with inscribed papers attached, inserted in the bank at the side of the path ; these find a climax in an ever- green shrub, half-way up the flight of steps, which has slips of paper, attached to every twig, and looks like a gigantic head in curl-papers. The papers are the prayers of the various pilgrims who on certain festivals come up in considerable numbers to make their devotions to the Sosano-wo-no-mikoto. 1 A small and cranky steamer traverses daily the eighteen miles between Kobe and Osaca ; and though her boilers are pronounced unsafe and her sides leaky, we venture on 1 This deity is the God of the Moon ; the moon in Japan being, from our point of view, unsexed. OSACA, 177 board, and after three hours' steaming arrive at the mouth of the Osaca river. Struggling slowly up against the stream for three miles — of which the last mile lies between rows of wooden houses — we land with the aid of a couple of planks, and make our way to the native house of one of the few Anglo-Saxons residing in the city. We find quarters in a small hotel, also once a native house, kept by a Frenchman, and during the three or four days of our stay find abundance to see and do in this great city. Osaca comes next of Japanese cities to Tedo in size and importance, and contains a population which has been variously estimated at from 300,000 to 750,000 ; probably half a million would not be far from the true figures. It has been not inaptly called the Venice of Japan, for it is intersected by a number of branches of the river Yodo-gawa, which flows down from above Kioto, and these form, as do the canals in Venice, important high- ways. They are, however, broader and cleaner than the drain-like channels (the Grand Canal excepted) which run through the European city ; and the sampans which ply on them being all made of unvarnished pine-wood, and floored with neat mats, are, to our eyes, more inviting, and scarcely less shapely, than the gloomy -looking gon- dolas of the Queen of the Adriatic. On the other hand, the latter need never fear that her architectural beauties are rivalled by any Osaca buildings, for the houses which line the river banks here are nearly all of wood and plaster, and though picturesque in their gables and their balconies, look poor and unsubstantial. An exception to the last statement must be made in favour of the Daimios' houses and the public offices, which stand on the bank of the main channel through the city, and are strong-looking buildings with solid basements of hewn stone, entered by very handsome and massive N 178 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. wooden doors overlaid with metal-work. The banks of the river-canals are in most parts well faced with stone, converted into broad nights of stone steps ; bridges of an elegant, highly-arched outline, but of rough timbers, span the waters at intervals of about 200 yards. But by far the finest specimen of solid building in Osaca is the great moated castle at the north-east end of the city, which, till two years ago, was one of the principal residences of the Shoguns. The castle itself, constructed chiefly of wood, was burnt down soon after the Shogun fled from it in 1868 ; but there remain intact the three moats, with their walled sides, which rendered it such an impregnable position. We can only walk round the outer moat, for no foreigner is allowed to enter within its enclosure. One cannot help thinking that the Shogun fled from here through fear of treachery in his own castle, for this outer moat is as strong a defence against anything short of heavy artillery or starvation as any that a castle could have. It is at most points sixty yards in breadth ; from the brink of the outer wall of it to the surface of the water is a sheer de- scent of forty feet, while from the top of the inner wall to the same level is at least sixty feet. This inner wall has a graceful sweep outwards at its base, and is sur- mounted at its various corners by pagoda-shaped towers ; both the inner and the outer wall are beautifully con- structed of hewn blocks of granite, and some of the blocks are of a size quite Cyclopean. The circumference of this fine moat is nearly a mile and a half; its only weak point seems to be that, instead of being spanned by drawbridges, several solid stone causeways lead across it to the gates of the inner wall. Within half a mile of the castle, on the opposite side of the Yodo-gawa, is a building of a very different date THE PAGODA. 179 and construction, but which, when finished, will also rank as one of the finest buildings in Osaca. It is the Mint, in course of erection by an English engineer, and destined within one or two years to commence a supply of a new coinage for the Mikado's empire. This new coinage will be very similar to that in circulation at Hongkong, the machinery of the Mint having been constructed originally for Hongkong, but having since been bought by thy Japanese from the English Government. Osaca covers a great area of ground, and we have to walk through several miles of streets, or be rowed through as many miles of canals, in order to reach some of its most interesting quarters. A walk of three or four miles southwards from the castle will bring us to the Pagoda, with its surrounding temples. On the way we pass through the Daimios' Street, a broad road lined with trees, and having on either side of it the residences of a number of the feudal nobles. The street is quiet when we pass through ; but at times we might see it enlivened by the processions of one or more of the Daimios, riding on a gaily-caparisoned pony, or carried in a 'norimon,' the aristocratie palanquin in Japan, and attended by a score or more of his sworded retainers. We also pass by a great square piece of ground, enclosed by a stiff palisade, which seems to be the Osaca ' Champ de Mars,' for in it are being drilled about 300 soldiers. They are not dressed in the old style of Japanese warriors, for it has become the fashion with many of the princes to array their men in a European garb, in which it is needless to say they do not look nearly so effective as in their own picturesque costume. The long walk to the Pagoda is succeeded by an ascent up its inner staircase, which is rewarded by a fine view from the summit over the city, with the plain in which it K 2 180 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. lies, and the distant surrounding hills. The Pagoda is entirely of wood, and not more than eighty feet in height ; immediately around it are several small temples, arid close at hand are a number of tea-houses, where we are fain to refresh ourselves with eggs, rice, and ' saki.' There are several family parties of natives engaged in a similar occupation ; it would seem that they are in the habit of mating excursions to a suburban spot such as this, spending probably part of their time in visits to the temples, and the remainder in strolling about the grounds, taking refreshments in the tea-gardens, or amusing them- selves in some quiet manner. Going westwards from the Pagoda for about three miles, we reach, near the middle of the city, two Sinto temples adjoining each other, good specimens of the best kind of these structures. Each of them is of wood, and stands within a spacious enclosure surrounded by a solid stone wall, which is pierced by a massive porch, elabo- rately carved and overlaid with metal work. The floor of the temple is covered with finely-plaited and clean mats ; the ceiling and the pillars supporting it are of unvarnished pine, the ceiling panelled in a plain but handsome pattern ; the shrine, placed against the back wall, within a railed and raised portion of the floor, is handsomely decorated with gilding and painting, and on either side of it are a number of lacquered tables and stools, painted tablets, and bronze lamps. All is clean and fresh -looking. A number of natives are moving about the enclosures, or looking in at the various smaller shrines ; some few are on their knees in the main temple, making their prayers to the patron god or deified hero, and throwing their money contributions into the large chest which stands in OSACA STREETS. 181 front of the railed portion : a few neatly-dressed priests or temple-keepers are also in attendance. In a corner of the enclosure of one of the temples is a handsome wooden canopy, under which is hung a large and fine-toned bell. In the streets hard by these temples are a number of shops for the sale of minature shrines, lamps, and a great variety of articles used in religious festivals and processions. Among these are a large number of bamboo, wooden, or paper tigers, which are largely used in the Matsuri, or festival, which has been in course of celebration during the last few nights. These Matsuri, though originally of a religious character, like other ancient dramatic festivals, seem now to be little else than holiday fairs, held at fixed times and in fixed places, and comprising theatrical performances, dancing, pro- cessions, illuminations, and general merry-making. They are kept under control by a police system, and seem to be of an orderly character. The streets of Osaca, like those of any large Japanese town, are daily witnesses of sights very similar j and yet very dissimilar, to those which we may see in many European towns. That there is in Japan a complete social system is evident from the existence there of many of the ' hangers- on ' to society, which can only exist in a civilised country. As we casually turn the corner of a street we come upon the sound of music, and a few yards away see a man, his face half hidden by an immense plaited bamboo hat of the shape of an upturned bowl, playing on a guitar, while his wife or daughter standing by accompanies his music with her voice. In another street we find a small crowd of natives collected round a strolling juggler, who is spinning a number of tops in some wonderfully abstruse manner, or 182 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. swallowing separately needles and a thread, and then re- producing the latter with the former strung upon it. In a little enclosure leading out of another street, we find a wrestling-match going on, wrestling being a very ancient sport in Japan, dating indeed from a period before our Christian era, and having once, it is said, decided the succession to the Imperial throne. We may turn aside out of another street, and enter a Japanese version of a ' Madame TussaudV — ah exhibition of life-size figures, made of wood, representing various scenes in ordinary Japanese life — 'wood-works' in fact, instead of ' wax-works.' The figures are admirably modelled, the faces true to life, the postures natural, and the costumes equally so ; and the tendency of all Japanese art to take a grotesque line, and excel in it too, is visible in the treatment of almost all the subjects. A barber at his work ; a stage actor ; a group of beggars ; a pilgrimage to Fusi-yama : such are some of the subjects chosen, and nearly all are extremely well represented. And if ' Madame Tussaud ' can no longer claim absolute originality, no more can ' Swan and Edgar ' or ' Marshall and Snellgroye.' Turning up one of the broader streets in the city, we come to a shop that takes up as much street frontage as at least six ordinary shops. There is indeed no rich display of colours to catch the eye of the passer-by; merely a large expanse of floor, covered with the fine mats which form the invariable carpets in Japan, and backed by tiers upon tiers of shelves. But the attendants who are sitting on their heels on the aforesaid mats will soon, if we like, cover half the floor with a profusion of silks and crapes, plain and patterned, simple and embroidered ; the pieces are all ticketed with fixed prices, and we can invest in some of the crapes for which Osaca is famous with- out ny trouble of 'haggling.' "We hardly need the evidence ROYAL BARGES. 183 of a shop such as this to conclude that there is a fair amount of dressing and ' style ' among the aristocracy of Japan. But if we want further evidence of the luxurious sur- roundings of a Japanese in high life, let us take a boat in one of the canals and go out to the southern side of the city, where we shall find, under two or three sheds built by a creek, several pleasure-barges which belonged to the late Shogun. These barges, since their master fell from his more than Wolseyan pinnacle of power, have fallen somewhat to decay, but they still bear traces of having once been most royal vessels. They are each about 50 ft. in length, and about 12 ft. in beam ; their miniature saloons have had both walls and ceilings panelled and richly painted in gold and gorgeous colours ; and all but the lower part of the hulls of the vessels have been beautifully lacquered in gold and black. We can return in our boat and make our way through the canals to one of the best tea-houses in the city, where a resident acquaintance has offered us an entertainment. Our boat is, like all the good ferry-boats in the city, so clean that we cannot creep into its little mat-carpeted cabin without first taking off our boots. As we thread our way through the merchant-junks lying at anchor, and under the numerous bridges which span the river-channels, we pass and are passed by numbers of other boats, and among them by several large passenger-boats, crowded with natives, on their way up the Todo-gawa to the city of Kioto. Kioto is but thirty miles up the river, yet no foreigner is allowed — except officially, and even so only on extremely rare occasions — to make his way there. The city has acquired a kind of sanctity from its having been the residence of the Mikados during the several centuries through which the Shoguns acted as so many 184 BOUND THE WOULD IN 1870. ' maires du palais,' and kept the hereditary Emperors in a real, though not acknowledged, imprisonment. Though this state of things came to an end two years ago, when the Shogun was overthrown, and the Mikado, issuing from Kioto, made a triumphal procession to the true capital, Yedo, the former city has not yet been included in the ' treaty limits " for foreigners. But we have reached the little landing-place for the tea- house, and after walking through a passage and across a street, are ushered into a room of scrupulous neatness and cleanliness, and sit down on four small flat cushions set ready for us. Presently two of the ladies of the house glide in, and, kneeling down, offer us refreshments con- sisting of eggs, sausages, broth, and ' saki.' Then come in by twos and threes a dozen singing-girls, guitars in hand, dressed, with the utmost regard to taste and picturesqueness, in short gowns and sashes of many- coloured silks. Their hair is arranged with an amount of skill, pomade, and hair-pins, that might have been gathered in New Bond Street ; some of their faces and figures are really pretty, the only drawback to the former being that they have adopted the universal fashion of their country, and covered their teeth with black lacquer. Yes ; the fair sex in Japan, though they neither cramp their feet like their neighbours the Chinese, nor pinch in their waists like some of their Western rivals, adopt another phase of deformity, and as soon as they are married, or when they appear in public as musicians, blacken their teeth and shave off their eyebrows. ' wad some power the giftie gie us, To see oursels as others see us ! ' Then would deformity be no longer considered an excel- lence ; and the fair ' fakirs of fashion ' in the West would MINO. 185 breathe more freely, those in the Flowery Kingdom walk more easily, and those in the Land of the Sunrise smile more pleasingly. But, ebony or ivory, their teeth have probably little influence on their singing, which must be judged on its own merits. It is rather of a monotonous and shrill character, but to European ears a decided improvement, in harmony and softness, on Chinese or Hindu strains; and the same may be said of the music which they elicit from. their ' sam-sins,' or guitars. After their music, they go through one or two dances, which are rather a succession of slow and graceful motions than the rapid movements usually associated in the West with the idea of dancing. During the dancing the head and arms are moved in unison with the steps, the wrists and hands are brought largely into play, and there is a constant opening, shutting, and waving to and fro of fans, which are wielded with much dexterity. The entertainment lasts altogether about two hours. Before returning to Kobe we must ride out to Mino, fifteen miles from Osaca, among the hills — a favourite re- sort, when business can be laid aside for a day or two, with the Europeans stationed in the city. Four miles of riding bring us to the outskirts of the city ; another four takes us across a fertile plain, traversed by two or three rivers, or branches of the same river, which we cross in flat-bottomed ferry-boats. Then we reach a low wooded spur of the hills; and, crossing this, traverse another four miles of plain before reaching the foot of the main range of hills. The whole extent of this plain is evidently very pro- ductive, and it is cultivated with a care and neatness which would do credit to a Mid-Lothian farmer. Bearded wheat, now nearly ripe, is the predominant crop, and 186 ROUND THE "WORLD IN 1870. the furrows between its golden rows are as straight and even as the best English ploughman could have made them. Next to the wheat, rice is the most frequent crop; millet, barley, and several vegetable crops, lend other colours to the rich scene, and every here and there the apparently level surface is broken by a tea-plantation, with its dark green shrubs of from five to eight feet in height. But though the eye finds unmingled pleasure in passing over this many-coloured carpet, the nose does not meet with the same pure delight. The Japanese have added agricultural economy to the long list of subjects in which they have taken lessons from their Chinese neigh- bours, and the same process which renders one of these highly cultivated landscapes so rich to the eye renders it ' rather too rich ' for the other organ of sense. It is dark before we reach our destination — a very small village situated a mile or more up a winding gorge among the hills. None of us can speak half-a-dozen words of Japanese, and we have some difficulty in making known our wants, and in finding quarters ; but after one of our horse-boys has had a long palaver with a two-sworded gentleman in a neighbouring country-house, the said gentleman comes down, keys in hand, and opens a small unoccupied house for us, in the upper floor of which we take up our abode for the night. Next morning we wake to find that our room looks out on a beautifully-wooded hill which forms the opposite side of the gorge. An early walk of a couple of, miles takes us through the fine scenery and rich vegetation of the upper part of the gorge, and brings us finally to a pretty waterfall, some seventy feet in height, which tumbles down over a wall of rock and spreads out its white sheet of foam in striking contrast to the varied colours of the THE M1N0 GORGE. 187 maples and cryptomerias, the creepers and the ferns, that grow around in full luxuriance. Before mid-day we are back again in Osaca ; the same evening we hire one of the ordinary one-masted native junks, and pass the night in the small recess under the high wooden deck at the stern, our boatman meanwhile directing the vessel on her way towards Kobe. We reach our destination before daybreak. On the succeeding eveniug we are moving off on board the ' Costa Rica ' for Yokohama. 188 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. CHAPTEK XVI. YOKOHAMA. The sea-voyage from Kobe to Yokohama is one of nearly 350 miles. In fine clear weather it must be a- remarkably pleasant voyage, affording; as it does, coast views for nearly the whole distance; but as the larger portion of it is exposed to the full power of westerly or southerly gales coming in from the Pacific, and at the season of typhoons is not unfrequently visited by those much- dreaded hurricanes of the East, it has oftener than not a full share of the discomforts of the sea. We come in for a fair portion of these, and, what with rather thick weather and a very heavy gale which forces us to 'He to ' for a few hours, our vessel does not average through the voyage more than seven knots per hour. Our fellow^passengers are altogether a mixture. Two near neighbours at the dinner-table turn out to be travelling quacks, one bent on making known to his fellow-foreigners in Eastern settlements the inestimable advantages to be derived from a course of sugar-coated pills ; the other desirous of raising subscriptions for an elaborate history of the American civil war, to come out in numbers, and looking, from his somewhat motley appear- ance, as if he had already come out in numbers himself. Before 10 p.m. of the evening of our leaving Kobe, we have passed out of the Inland Sea. The night is dark, and we can see nothing on either side except straggling lines 0-O-SMA. 189 of red lights bobbing up and down on the water. These are the torch-fires on a number of fishing-boats, serving both to indicate the positions of the boats and to attract the fish which are to be caught in the drop-net commonly used by the Japanese fishermen. All next day we struggle against a head wind, which at nightfall increases to a gale, and it is not till on the second morning after leaving Kobe that we pass Rock Island, not far from the Simoda Cape. On this island is a lighthouse, one of the few already built in Japanese waters, to be followed probably by many others within a few years. At mid-day we pass abreast of Vries Island, or O-o-sima, as the native name is — a volcanic mountain rising out of the sea to about 2,000 feet, and still active. As we pass it we can see no trace of the hidden fires, except a thick white mass of vapour, apparently half steam, half natural cloud, which fills up the mouth of the crater and hangs over its edges. The Japanese fishermen of the neighbouring coast are said to look upon this mountain much as the people of Lucerne look upon Mount Pilatus, and . put to sea or not according to the absence or presence of the cloud on its summit. From this point, if the day were clear, we should see the great mountain of Japan, Fusi-yama, but at present all is cloudy on the mainland. Three hours later we round Cape Sagami and enter the Bay of Teddo, and within another two hours we are anchored, amidst a goodly crowd of shipping, in the shallow waters off Yokohama. Eleven years ago Yokohama was but a fishing village of 1,000 inhabitants, surrounded by a muddy swamp which extended from the shore back to the semicircle of bluffs that hemmed it in on the south. Now, a piece of land, with a sea-frontage of a mile and a depth of half a mile, 190 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. whereon the native village partly stood, is occupied as the Foreign Settlement, and contains a population of more than 1,000 foreigners ; while in the rear and to the west of the settlement spreads a dense native town, with a population probably of 30,000. The houses on the Foreign Settlement have not a very imposing aspect ; partly from the fact of the whole settle- ment having been burnt to the ground, with the exception of the Club and a very few other houses, four years ago ; partly because the frequent occurrence of earthquakes dis- courages the raising of any but very low buildings. Only latterly, in the first half of this month of May, no fewer than 120 shocks were experienced by the inhabitants. Though none of the foreign houses were actually thrown down, many were severely shaken and cracked; several native houses were levelled with the ground, and through- out the whole of at least one night all the inhabitants were in momentary expectation of seeing Yokohama undergo the fate of Lisbon or Mendoza. Many of the foreign residents (of whom, we need hardly say, five-sixths are English, German, or American) have built their dwelling-houses on the bluffs which encircle the lower portion of Yokohama. Many of the sites on these bluffs command beautiful views, and are certainly preferable, in a sanitary point of view, to those lower down ; for, in Yokohama proper, there is at present no municipal council among the foreigners, and the draining of the place has been left to the Japanese officials, who can hardly be expected to possess nineteenth-century ideas on the subject. Not that the Japanese must be con- sidered as only on a level with other Orientals in taking up Western ideas and inventions : a sufficient proof of their greater readiness to learn from others is the fact that already they have allowed a line of telegraph to be YOKOHAMA. 191 laid down between Yokohama and Teddo, and are even now commencing a survey of a line of railway to run from the capital to Osaka, a distance of nearly 300 miles. 1 Yokohama seems to enjoy a temperate and healthy climate, similar in many points to that of our own island. Rain falls at uncertain intervals throughout the year, and in amount is about equal to the average British rainfall. In winter, frosts of some severity are felt: last winter (1869-70) skating was practised for upwards of a week on the neighbouring pieces of water ; and this, be it remem- bered, in the same latitude as Malta. One great excellence in the climate of Yokohama is its almost total exemption from fogs ; such a phenomenon as a 'pea-soup' fog is' unknown there, and even a light one is experienced but once or twice during the year. Nor are the summers trying to an Anglo-Saxon constitution ; for, though certainly hotter than our own, they are seldom sultry, and shade and coolness is always to be found within a short ride or walk of the settlement. There is at the back of the western end of the settle- ment of Yokohama a street which is probably to every visitor the most distinctive feature of the place ; it is called by the natives the ' Benten-Tori,' or ' Benten-Dore,' but is known among English and Americans as ' Curio Street.' It is almost needless to say that it owes its origin entirely to the liking which foreigners have shown for Japanese articles in lacquer and porcelain, and is lined on both sides with a succession of curio-shops. To anyone with a taste for Japanese ' objets de vertu,' there can be no place so well calculated to feast his eyes 1 Since the above was ■written the Japanese have made more than one step in advance on the road of Western civilisation. The railway from Tedo to Yokohama (the first portion of the longer line from Tedo to Osaca) has been opened ; and a postal system along the Tocaido has been established by the Government. 192 BOUND THE WOULD IN 1870. and empty his purse. There he may sit down in a perfect ' embarras de richesses,' consisting of cabinets of ivory, delicately carved and overlaid -with gold lacquer; card-trays, card-boxes, glove-boxes, carefully lacquered in black, and wrought with graceful and life-like repre- sentations of birds, flowers, and insects ; little figures, carved in ivory, inimitable in their grotesqueness of ex- pression, called by the natives ' nitskis,' and used as buttons to prevent their tobacco-pouches from slipping out of their girdles ; ivory fans, bronze ornaments of all kinds ; other rare wares, such as the ' cloisonee ; ' cups and saucers, vases and dishes, in china, of all colours and qualities ; besides a host of other articles which it would be both difficult and tedious to enumerate. But let none venture in among this seductive array with- out having both a long credit and some skill in discrimi- nating between the different qualities of the articles ; for, on the one hand, contrary to ideas prevalent in England, good lacquer or ivory-work is not to be bought for a mere trifle in the land of its production, the native gentry having as high an appreciation, and being ready to pay almost as long prices for it, as ourselves ; and, on the other hand, since the demand for these articles has increased so much by the irruption of foreigners into the market, articles of a much inferior workmanship are manufactured, and palmed off on the unwary or ignorant as equal to the oldest and best. With the aid of a fine climate and sociable fellow- countrymen, a European in Yokohama will probably be able to lead as happy a life as he could in any Oriental settlement. He will, moreover, find his expenses rather less than in the neighbouring ports of Hongkong and Shanghae ; and will be surrounded by a native race, with whom he will find it more pleasant to deal than with the 'BETTOS.' 193 more stolid and less genial Chinese. His native servants will require constant looking after, no doubt, and not un- frequent reprimands ; but, as a rule, they will prove them- selves quick and ready to learn, steady, and fairly honest. In one point at least he will find himself much more for- tunate than the rest of his countrymen in the East, if we except those few at Kobe and Nagasaki ; and that is in the many beautiful and interesting excursions which he can make from his post of residence, whenever he has a few days, or even a few hours, to spare. One of the most interesting of these excursions is that to Kana-sawa, Kama-kura, and Fuji-sawa — a distance in all of about forty miles, and which can therefore be accom- plished with ease in two days' riding. Not many days after reaching Yokohama, we start out one afternoon on this route, each on a Japanese pony, with a ' betto,' or horse- boy, running in front or close behind. These Japanese ponies are many of them shapely and well bred, hardy also, and with good speed ; they have, however, the cha- racter of being vicious, and certainly this we feel bound to corroborate as far as regards more than one of the ponies which we ride in the neighbourhood of Yokohama. The 'bettos' seem to partake of the character which clings to the majority of the various races of horse-boys throughout the world, and are many of them lazy and knavish ; but of course there are ' bettos and bettos,' and we find more than one of the few with whom we have to deal honest and active. These men seem to be a very distinct class among their own countrymen, and one feature which serves to distinguish them very strongly is their practice of tattooing themselves. The art of tattooing is evidently well understood in Japan ; and we may often see there a ' betto ' running before his master's horse, so covered from head to foot with figures of dragons, women's faces, and o 194 BOUND THE WOKLD IN 1870. floral devices, in red, blue, and black, that, though, he has nothing on but a waistcloth, he looks in the distance like a harlequin in tights. In such a cool, yet effective costume, he is able to keep up with his master for long distances. But in this running power, again, there are 'bettos and bettos;' and, while wonderful tales are told of the number of miles they will run with a horse, we do not meet with more than two whose running powers seem at all extraordinary. But while we have been discussing ponies and ' bettos,' both have been getting on at a good pace, and we have passed through the native quarter of Yokohama, and come out on a flat and winding valley, planted out here and there with rice, and bordered by hills thickly covered with foliage. At intervals of a mile or thereabouts we pass tea-houses, where, if we show the slightest signs of stopping, out trips a 'moosme,' with her tasteful dress, bare feet, and elaborately arranged hair, carrying in her hands a tray of the universal ' tcha,' or tea. Six miles from Yokohama we leave the valley, and wind up on to some wooded ridges, from which we have exquisite views over what the Japanese call by a name meaning the ' Plains of Heaven,' or the ' Elysian Fields.' These are a succession of the undulating ridges, beautifully clothed with foliage of every hue, of which the ridge on which we stand forms one; between the ridges are winding hollows, of no great depth, divided, like the valley up which we passed, into bright green rice-fields. These 'Plains of Heaven' fill up nearly all the landscape to the west, ending in a distant and more level plain,- which again is bounded by the mountains lying in front of Fusi-yama. Fusi-yama itself is visible — a cloudy-looking pyramid, with a cap of snow. To the east the view extends over a winding sea-coast, with KANA-SAWA. • 195 wooded headlands and green islands for the prominent points, the sea spreading around and among them, and with its fine blue colour bringing them out into greater prominence. Another six miles brings us down to Kana-sawa, a little village on the sea-coast, where there is a neat tea-house close to the edge of the lagoon which spreads in from the sea. Near the tea-house is a small temple, commanding a beautiful view, known among the natives as one of the * Seven Views of Japan. 5 In the temple has been kept, for many years, a book in which visitors are re- quested to write their names. A night in a Japanese tea-house is sure not to be prolonged far into the ensuing morning ; for the Japanese are early risers, and the traveller can hardly escape being awakened, soon after daybreak, by the noise of the at- tendants moving about, and sliding into their receptacles the wooden shutters which run round all the house. So we are up early at Kana-sawa, and, after a short breakfast, ride on through some pretty scenery to Kama- kura, some five miles further westwards. Kama-kura was at one time the seat of the Court of the Shoguns ; and though it is now a mere village, it is said to be the scene of numerous historical traditions, and it still contains several handsome temples. The principal of these is that of Hatchiman, one of the deified heroes, or kamis, of Japan. The temple is approached by a broad avenue leading under one of the stone ' tori-i,' or archways, which we have mentioned as always marking the entrance to a Sinto temple, then over a solid stone bridge, and then, between a pagoda and a minor shrine, to the foot of a lofty and solid flight of stone steps. The temple is entered by a porch, on either side of which stand two large wooden figures of martial 196 ROUND- THE WORLD IN 1870. deities, not unlike those which guard the entrance to many temples in China. In one of the minor shrines are said to be trophies taken severally from the Mongols on their attempted invasion in the thirteenth century, from the Portuguese on their expulsion from Japan in the sixteenth, and from the native Christians, who were persecuted to the death in the seventeenth century. But as no European seems ever to have seen these relics, their existence may be considered somewhat doubtful. The Kama-kura temples are not kept in good repair, nor do they seem to retain their original import- ance: only a few years ago two of their objects of interest, a handsome bronze bell and a pair of sacred white ponies, were still in existence ; but we look in vain for them, and one of the priests at last informs us that they have been sold ! There still remain, in a grove close to the temple of Hatchiman, two curious-looking black, boulders, railed in, to which parents who wish to be blessed with children are said to repair to worship. Priestcraft and superstition are strong powers among the poorer classes of Japan. If Kama-kura contains what was once one of the most celebrated Sinto temples, there is not far from it one of the most famous and sacred resorts of the followers of the rival religion in Japan. Three miles from Kama- kura, in a sequestered little spot, standing at the end of a short avenue of camellias, azaleas, and other larger trees, is the statue of ' Dai-butz,' or the Great Buddh. This statue represents the god in the usual position, seated, or rather squatted, on a pedestal, his arms bent across his knees, his thumbs meeting at thS points. It has earned its celebrity chiefly from its great size ; for it measures forty-five feet, from the top of the stone base- INOSIMA. J 97 ment on which it stands to the crown of the head, while the circumference of the folded legs is no less than ninety- eight feet. The face alone is eight-and-a-half feet, and the ears six-and-a-half feet, in length, while each thumb is more than three feet in circumference. The statue is of bronze, and is, of course, hollow, the plates which com- pose it being about an inch in thickness. It is a work of considerable merit, apart from its great dimensions; for the face expresses excellently well that contemplative ecstacy which is always represented as the true condition of Buddha. Four miles from the statue of Dai-butz is the seaside village of Katase, where we spend the second night of our excursion. Not that we would now recommend anyone else to do the same, for the Katase tea-house is one of those which has deteriorated in more ways than one from its proximity to a foreign port, and also contains — whether imported or not, who can say? — numbers of those cosmopolitan insect pests which are apt, in other countries than Japan, to feed hungrily on the passing traveller, and render the sleepless hours of night more itching than witching. Within half a mile of Katase, separated from the mainland by a narrow strip of sandy beach, is the little island of Inosima — the * Picture Island,' as its name imports — in position and appearance reminding one much of the Cornish St. Michael's Mount. As one of the many sacred islets on the Japanese coast, it is studded with miniature temples, and at certain seasons of the year is visited by many pilgrims. A pleasant afternoon, can be spent on it, in enjoying the view from its projecting points ; in examining the many beautiful and curious shells and shell-pictures arranged in its village-shops, or ex- ploring a cave, and watching an expert native diver 198 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. fish up shells from its submarine depths ; or in sitting in a native boat, fishing for whiting, rock-cod, or a curious kind of fish with two large fins as brilliant in colouring as the wings of a butterfly. It is from one of the banks lying off this island that are fished up the specimens of ' Hyalonema mirabilis,' well known to conchologists for their extraordinary structure, their rarity, and the recent date of their discovery. From Katase to Puji-sawa, on the Toc'aido (of which more anon), is a pleasant ride of five miles : thence to Yokohama, along the Tocaido, is a distance of thirteen miles. YEDO. 199 CHAPTER XVII. TEDO. If a resident at Yokohama desire change and recreation other than country air and fine scenery can offer, let him at once hire a horse or a carriage and ride or drive up to Tedo. He will find enough on the road thither to attract his attention and rouse his interest for as long a time as he cares to tarry on the way, and in Yedo itself is a fund of attraction and interest (especially to one skilled in the native tongue), which will last as long as his own desire for it. The road between Yokohama and Yedo is, with the ex- ception of the first two miles of it, part of the Tocaido — the Grand Trunk Road of Japan. After traversing the western suburb of Yokohama, we ascend a steep piece of road leading over the part of the bluff that pushes itself forward at this point as far as the coast-line, and just after surmounting the ridge we pass on the left hand the execution-ground. If one or more criminals have been recently decapitated here, per- haps for some crime no more heinous than theft or assault, we may see their heads exposed on a beam not far from the roadside. A revolting sight this ; yet it is not so very long ago that the same might have been seen on our own Temple Bar ; and as to the severity of the punishment, a detected forger would have fared no better in England forty years ago than he would now in Japan. 200 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. We soon find ourselves passing along the Tocaido, the great high road which, under different names, runs almost from one end of the kingdom to the other. Its route is from Nagasaki to the Straits of Simono-saki, where a ferry crosses to the town of that name : thence to Osaka : then on to Tedo ; and thence afterwards to Ni-i-gata on the west coast ; in all a distance of between 600 and 700 miles. The road is said to have been made by the Shogun Tyco- sama in the sixteenth century, in order to facilitate the journeys of his vassal nobles from their own territories to the capital. It is broad and well laid ; in some parts, as we shall hereafter see on the Hakoni Pass, it is paved with large boulder-stones, firmly set, but of course rough to travel on ; through most of its extent it is much softer, indeed, in many parts it is laid with sand or gravel. Between Kanagawa, the neighbouring village to Yokohama, and Yedo, it has more the appearance of a street than of a road, for out of the seventeen miles there are scarcely more than three where houses do not line it on either side. The road is always well filled with passengers, and considering that there is nothing in Japan in the form of a road between the Tocaido and the many bridle-paths which traverse the country, it is no wonder that so much of the life and traffic of the empire should be drawn into this one channel. As we pass along we note many curious costumes and methods of travelling. ]STo wheeled vehicle, unless it be one belonging to a foreigner, or a two-wheeled hand-cart used by the na- tives for transporting bulky articles, passes or meets us. But we cannot go far along the road without seeing the Japanese versions of a hackney-carriage and a ba- rouche. The former is represented by the 'cango,' a mere bamboo platform, thirty inches square, suspended by its four corners from a stout bamboo pole, and borne THE TOCAIDO. 201 by means of the pole on the shoulders of two coolies. The latter finds its parallel in the more aristocratic ' norimon,' which, in shape, but in shape only, is very like a large-sized dog-kennel. It is constructed of wood and bamboo, very neatly fitted and painted; the entrance to it is by a square aperture on either side, provided with a Venetian blind of bamboo : a long and stout pole or beam — the shape of which, according to an established rule, corresponds to the rank of the owner of the nori- mon — runs through the roof, and, projecting at each end for six or eight feet, is supported by two or more pairs of coolies. A 'spic and span' norimon, with its attendant bearers, all dressed in uniform, their loose jackets marked with their master's crest, and their ' dish-cover ' hats all plaited after one fashion, followed perhaps at a short distance by another set of bearers carrying their master's luggage packed in enormous oblong bamboo boxes, is a very picturesque feature of the Tocaido, and forms a far more handsome, and less gaudy, 'turn-out' than the party-coloured sedan-chair and bearers of a Chinese mandarin. , But the majority of the passers-by on the Tocaido are on foot. The greater number seem to be tradespeople, walking steadily and leisurely along, as if bent on busi- ness. Now and then we meet a ' Yakonin,' a man who corre- sponds in many points to a police constable, but may also be a government official engaged on any subordinate work connected with the custom-houses or other public offices. He is mounted on a rough-looking pony, heavily saddled and bridled; he wears a loose, wide-sleeved cape, very wide petticoat-trousers, and a wooden hat lacquered in black and gilt ; his dress looks by no means a convenient one for equestrian purposes, and his stirrups are heavy 202 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. metal shoes, without heels, into which he thrusts his sandalled feet. He has a sword thrust into his waist- belt, and he keeps his lean and shaggy horse going at a rough trot or a still rougher canter. Occasionally we meet a well-knit, active-looking man, bared to the waist, who is running along at a regular jog- trot, never stopping, never speaking, ~ but preceded by another man who clears the way for him. He is a courier, and bears across his shoulder a bamboo staff, in the split end of which is fixed a bundle of letters or dispatches. He will run for two or three miles, and then, reaching a post-house, will be immediately relieved by another courier. Often we pass two or three maidens, with bright costumes and broad parasols, walking, perhaps, to some friend's house, and carrying on a lively gossip en route. Little children stand at the "roadside and stare at us, or scuttle oat of the way, calling out. ' To-jin, to-jin ! ' — ' Foreigners, foreigners ! ' while babies, strapped on the backs of their mothers or their elder sisters, squall in concert, or remain slumbering peacefully in their awk- ward positions, their little heads hanging down over their backs as if their necks were broken. Halfway to Yedo we dismount at a tea-house in the village of Kawa-saki. Close to this is the river Lok-go, which is crossed by a ferry, and which forms a boundary stream to the capital, tolls being collected on it and passes examined, from persons wishing to enter Tedo. The tea- house is full of people, and evidently does a roaring trade, most travellers stopping here on the way, to rest, or to arrange for the transport of their goods and chattels across the stream. After passing the Lok-go, four miles more of the To- caido bring us to the southern suburb of Tedo, Sina-gawa, said to be a quarter with a bad reputation, even among SINA-GAWA. 203 the natives, as being the favourite haunt of outlaw robbers, assassins, and other bad characters. Near the northern end of Sina-gawa, on the rising ground to the left of the road, are the several temples and monasteries which have been assigned by the Japanese government as the resi- dences for foreign embassies. Near one of these, in a tasteful native-built house, commanding a fine view over the Bay of Tedo, lives the Secretary of the British Lega- tion. In this little nook we pass the evening, while our host regales us with much interesting and valuable information about the parts of Yedo best worth seeing, and about many of the manners and customs of the Tedoese. Before midnight we are in the Tedo Hotel, a large rambling building, close to the waters of the bay, erected originally on speculation as a house of business, and after- wards converted into a Joint-stock Hotel. It is still almost the only European-looking building in the city, and con- sequently attracts, daily, numbers of Japanese sightseers, who are allowed to go through it, and seem to do so with almost as much interest as a group of British ex- cursionists from the country go through the Tower of London. The three full days which we pass in Tedo are occu- pied from morning to night in seeing what we can of its great extent and its many interesting features. But who can attempt to give anything like an accurate or exhaus- tive account of a great capital in which he has only spent half a week, and of the language of whose inhabitants he knows scarcely a dozen words? A Japanese gentleman, landed at Dover, and taken up to London for three or four days could hardly be considered to know the. metropolis after his short sojourn, even though he spent it all in a diligent round of "Westminster Abbey, the Tower, 204 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. the Kensington Museum, and other recognised sights. But, at all events, when he returned to Japan he could impart some information about the British Yedo to his countrymen who had never been there at all, and while confessing the superficial character of his narrative, might still hope to interest his hearers. On the same grounds we shall endeavour to give the best account we can, how- ever superficial, of the ' Capital of the Mikado,' so recently known as the ' Capital of the Tycoon.' Not many years ago, before foreigners could obtain admission to the jealously guarded city, extraordinary accounts were related, as they have been with reference to almost every Eastern city, of the size and population of the place. It has now been ascertained, with little doubt as to the accuracy of the calculations (for the city is care- fully laid down in native maps), that Tedo covers an area of thirty-six square miles, of which space, however, rather more than half is occupied by temples and rice-fields. It will be found that an area of thirty-six square miles is equivalent to that which would be bounded by a line drawn from Hackney Wick through Lewisham, Clapham Common, and Primrose Hill, and back to whence it started. But deducting the space occupied by temples and paddy- fields, there remain only sixteen square miles— an area equal to that contained by a line drawn from Hackney Wick to Deptford Royal Dock Yard, thence to the Kennington Oval, and thence via King's Cross back to Hackney Wick. Nor is Yedo by any means a densely populated city. Even of these sixteen square miles, twelve are occupied by the Daimios' residences and the Imperial buildings — low-built structures covering a great acreage compared to the number of their inmates. Hence some of the best recent authorities have considered that 1,500,000 is as THE EONIN TEMPLE. 205 near an estimate of the population as can be obtained ; and of this number 450,000 are retainers of the various Daimios, who merely reside by turns at the capital for six months in each year. Within the last few years this en- forced residence of the Daimios and their retainers at the capital seems to have been partly discontinued, and many of the Daimios' buildings are uninhabited. This will tend to diminish greatly both the importance and the population of Tedo. We may begin our rapid round of the ' lions ' of this great city close to where we first entered it. Hard by the house of the Secretary to the British Legation is a small but much venerated spot, which well illustrates one of the peculiar features of Japanese character and custom. It is the burial-ground of ' The Forty-seven Eonins. ' These men were once retainers of one Takumi-no-Kami, who, because he attacked in the Tycoon's castle-grounds one Kotsuke-no-Suke, a fellow-daimio who had insulted him, was compelled to perform the 'hara-kiri,' that is, to undergo a voluntary suicide. These forty- seven faithful retainers thereupon bound themselves by a great oath never to rest till they had revenged their lord by slaying Kotsuke-no-Suke. To effect this they became ' ronins ' — outlawed adventurers — and spent several years in trying to compass their object. At last they succeeded, killing Kotsuke-no-Suke in his own house. But by this act they had broken a standing law of the empire, and therefore they all solemnly and with much ceremony committed the 'hara-kiri.' They have ever since been looked upon as deified heroes ; here they lie buried, a small stone pillar, before which incense- sticks are constantly burning, marking each grave ; while a forty-eighth stone marks the grave of a Satsunia retainer who, on a false suspicion, vilely slandered the 206 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. leader of the ' Forty-seven,' and afterwards, discovering his mistake, died with them. Close to the burial-ground is a small temple, in which are forty-seven wooden figures, lacquered and painted, and representing with much skill and expression the Forty- seven in various warlike attitudes. 1 Going northwards from the Ronin Temple, and keeping not very far from the Bay, a quarter of an hour's ride or drive brings us to Siba, or Shiba, the burial-place of the Shoguns. This sacred enclosure was never entered by a foreigner till within the last two years ; but now that the Mikado has ' got his own again,' the resting-place of the remains of the descendants of Iyeyasu is almost daily visited by foreigners, under a guard of Takonins. This guard is supplied by the Government, and generally con- sists of three or four mounted Takonins, who follow the party of foreigners directly they leave the hotel, and ride in front or alongside of them throughout the day. Shiba is surrounded by a massive stone wall of some- thing like a mile in circumference. We pass through the wall by a large and handsome gateway, and drive for 200 yards along a broad and well-laid road, with tall trees on either side, to a second gateway, of wood, which leads into an open quadrangle. On the opposite side of this quadrangle is a large temple, much like those which we saw in Osaka ; to the right and left are smaller shrines, and a porch erected over a large bronze bell. Going out of 1 The tale of the ' Forty-seven Renins ' is told at length in Mr. Mitford's recently published 'Tales of Old Japan,' a book containing much new and trustworthy information on many of the most interesting points of Japanese character and customs, laws and traditions. We may take this opportunity of mentioning another recent work on Japan, which, with its numerous and excellent illustrations, will give the reader a better idea of the scenes and scenery, the people and costumes of Japan, than any other book we know. We refer to M. Humbert's ' Le Japon lllustre'.' Paris : Hachette et C ic - SHIBA. 207 this quadrangle again, and turning to the left, we pass along another broad road, with a massive wall on either side. The wall on the left incloses the actual burial- ground. A gateway in this wall, very handsomely overlaid with gilt and bronze plates, which are elabo- rately worked with figures of birds and flowers, ad- mits us to a courtyard surrounded with rows of tall stone lanterns. Through this courtyard we pass into a second, which is similarly filled, and beyond this again we enter the enclosure where are the mortuary chapels. These chapels are of wood, but are very richly lacquered, gilded, and panelled, both outside and inside ; the doors being covered'with carvings of peacocks and other birds of gorgeous plumage, painted in the natural hnes. Part of these chapels are divided off by screens, which our guides refuse to draw aside ; but as they conduct us along a verandah running round the back of this portion, one of our party is curious enough to draw aside for a few inches a side screen. The guides, on discovering the trick, are apparently much dismayed, nor is the curious one rewarded for his temerity by seeing anything beyond an apparent repetition of the sacred ornaments of the other part of the chapel. Behind these chapels are the actual tombs, each in an enclosure of stone screen-work : they are six in number ; one is of bronze, the others of stone. The whole is surrounded by fine old trees ; everything is in perfect order, and as quiet as if the place were miles from a great city such as Yedo, instead of being, as it is, within the limits of one of its more populous quarters. It is said that now that; the Shoguns have fallen from their high estate, this truly royal cemetery of theirs will be allowed to fall to decay. One can well imagine that the feelings of the Mikado towards the 208 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. last of the Shoguns, whom he has succeeded in expelling from all his possessions, and has driven to live incognito in a remote Japanese town, are none of the most friendly ; but one may hope that the maxim ' De mortuis nil nisi bonum' will hold good even in this case, and that this Westminster Abbey of Tedo will be preserved in all its beautiful order and integrity. A mile to the north of Shiba is the hill Atango-Yama; up which we ascend by a steep flight of some eighty or ninety steps. Arrived at their summit, we find ourselves on the flat top of the hill, which is partly filled up with tea-sheds and a small temple. From here we have a fine view over the city, and can well appreciate its immense extent. To the south and east, at a distance of two miles or thereabouts, spread out the waters of the Bay of Yedo ; between us and their blue expanse, and away to the north-east for six or eight miles, lie the denser quar- ters of the Imperial City ; more to the north are the long walks and large quadrangles of the Yashkis (the Daimios' residences), in the Soto-Shiro, the quarter which lies outside the Castle Enclosure. Beyond these, again, is the O-Shiro itself, the moated quarter containing the Imperial Castle and the Yashkis of about twenty of the highest Daimios. The view of the city thus obtained is as pleasing as that of almost any city of as large a size could well be. Though it is, for the most part, flat, and shows, of course, a great surface of roofs, there is a clean and smokeless look over the whole of it, and the uniformity of the scene is much relieved by the appearance here and there of the high-peaked, gabled roof of a temple ; by the white walls of the Yashkis, with broad and level roads running among them; and, above all, by the clumps of fine trees, and the bright patches of garden or rice land, which dot the more sparsely-populated quarters. THE IMPERIAL CASTLE. 209 Descending from Atango-Tama, we may go, still north- wards, towards the ' Shiros,' which together occupy a fifth of the whole area of Yedo. The Soto-Shirois surrounded by a broad moat, which is crossed by a great number of bridges ; and it is further defended by a strong wall and gateways on the inner side of the moat. This moat is said to have a circumference of ten miles ; its sides are built up with solid masonry, and it seems to have an average breadth of about thirty yards. The Soto-Shiro is chiefly occupied by Yashkis ; it contains also a number of temples, and its north-eastern end forms the most import- ant mercantile quarter of the city, being traversed by the Tocaido, which is here called the O-tori, or Great Street. We enter the portion occupied by the Yashkis. These Yashkis have very little to recommend them in their out- ward appearance except their size. As we pass down one of the broad roads, sometimes 100 ft. in breadth, that separate them from each other, we see nothing on either side but straight white walls, built, up to four or five feet from the ground, of solid stone, above that height, of wood and plaster. Along them run two rows of small square windows, grated and barred, and admitting light to the rooms of the retainers who occupy this part of the premi- ses. About midway between any two of the road corners a massive gateway pierces these outer buildings, and gives access to the quadrangles within, where the buildings occupied by the Daimio and his family are placed. The doors of the gateways are of wood, heavily and strongly built, adorned with metal bosses and plates, and sur- mounted each with the owner's crest. The roads running between these Yashkis generally look deserted and quiet, and the faces of a few retainers looking out through the grated windows are often the only human objects visible. Occasionally,- however, we may meet a noble p 210 BOUND THE WOULD IN 1870. baron riding, perhaps, a jet-black pony, dressed in olive-- green silk, and followed by a dozen sworded retainers on foot, or by bis young son and heir, mounted on a spirited young pony, -whose trappings are all crimson and gold. The inside of a Tashki is described by those few foreigners who have ever seen one as very plain and un- ornamented, and differing little from the house of an ordinary Japanese merchant. The O-Shiro is separated from the Soto-Shiro by an inner moat of between three and four miles in circumfer- ence, and between thirty and forty yards in width. This moat is in some parts remarkably picturesque, especially where a green sward slopes down to it from the foot of the wall of the Imperial Castle and Grounds : on this slope grow some fine pine and fir-trees, and on the moat may often be seen flocks of water-fowl. Non-official foreigners are not allowed to penetrate within this second moat, and besides it is said that there is little in the Imperial Castle which has not its fac- simile in the Yasbkis of the Sotb- Shiro. 1 A ride round the moat, however, well repays the time of trouble involved, for it affords some fine views of Tedo and the surrounding country. From the O-Shiro we may go north-eastwards, through the Mercantile Quarter of the Soto-Shiro, past the bridge, known as the ' Niphon Bass '—from which all distances along the Tocaido, or along its northern continuation, the OsMo-caido, are measured — and so on to the cele- brated temple and grounds of Asaksa (or Asakusa, as it is 1 In speaking of the O-Shiro as the Imperial 'Castle,' we must banish from our minds any ideas of a lofty castellated building, such as European castles suggest to us. These Yedo castles are of inconsiderable elevation, seldom more than two storeys in height. The towers which stand at the corners of the walls overlooking the moats have a flimsy appearance, as far as their material goes ; and the solid stonework is confined to the sides of the moats and the basements of the ' Yashkis.' ASAKSA. 211 sometimes spelt and pronounced). This is an interesting ride, for it takes us through, the busiest part of the city. To take in half of what is going on in these streets, or to see half of what is to be seen in the shops on either side, one ought to go on foot, and that leisurely, and more than once. Just as we leave the Yashki quarter, we come upon a small open space at the side of the road, occupied by two or three light wooden sheds, wherein are one or two of the characteristic sights of the country. In one shed is a group of four musicians, who are attempting by both vocal and instrumental strains 'to soothe the rugged breasts ' of forty or fifty listening Tedoese : in the neighbouring shed is a crowd collected round a pro- fessional story-teller, who is evidently a man of a humorous turn of mind, for he is raising constant laughs from his audience, while he himself relaxes his features no farther than to give a sardonic smile at his own witticisms. Riding on through the O-tori, the busy ' Strand ' of Tedo, we have to go some three miles before reaching Asaksa. The original attraction at Asaksa was undoubt- edly its sacred and much-visited temple of Kwan-non. .To approach this temple we pass through one of the orthodox Sinto archways, which in this instance is painted a bril- liant vermilion colour, and walk up an avenue of shops extending for about 150 yards. At the end of the avenue is the temple, raised on a basement, which we mount by a broad flight of steps. The temple is of wood, and evidently old and much frequented : indeed, directly we enter we find ourselves in a throng of natives, who have come apparently rather c to see and to be seen' than to worship. The temple is hung with coloured paper lamps of immense size, and decorated also with a number of pictures, representing, it is said, various famous deified heroes and heroines, though they T 2 212 ROTJND THE WORLD IN 1870. are so obliterated with age that it is difficult to make them out. One very obvious cause of the obliteration is the number of paper pellets adhering to them, these being thrown at them in a moist state by the worshippers, prayers having previously been written on them ! In one corner is an old wooden image of a god, whose fea- tures are quite rubbed away, like the great toe of the bronze statue of St. Peter in Rome, by the constant stream of people who come to rub it with their hands, afterwards passing the latter over their faces and chests. But, though the temple was the first attraction at Asaksa, there are now numbers of other more profane attractions in its immediate vicinity. The transition * from grave to gay ' with the natives of Niphon is evi- dently a speedy one. All round the Kwan-non temple is a Japanese version of Bunyan's Vanity Pair. In one place a theatre ; in another an archery shed ; in another a mena- gerie ; inanother a series of wood-works and a cleverly- worked marionette ; in another a performance of jugglers or acrobats ; in yet another the ' sanctum ' of a fortune- teller. Almost every alternate little house is a tea-house, and at each of these are one or more groups of sight seers and holiday-makers, sipping the refreshing beverage, or taking a more solid meal, in the interval of going the round of amusements. Everything seems to be conducted with the greatest order and good nature, and there are no signs of noisy rowdyism, no sounds of rudeness or insult. In one part of the grounds is a railed enclosure, where one of the national games of Japan is in progress. This game is played on pony-back ; the riders are armed each with a bamboo rod, to the end of which is fixed a cup or bag of netting ; a number of balls are scattered about the ground ; and the game is to pick up the balls in the netting, and throw them through a hole in a board fixed HAMAGOTEN. 213 at the end of the enclosure, each man trying to prevent his neighbour from succeeding. The horsemanship dis- played is not of the best, for a Japanese always seems to think that a horse may be held on to, as well as guided, by the bridle, and acts accordingly. About a mile beyond Asaksa is the Shibara, or Theatre Street, in close proximity to the ill-famed Tosiwara. At any time of the day we may be sure to find in this street a theatre in full play. The buildings are much like the Chinese edifices of the same class ; the acting is apparently much superior, not depending to such an extent on the gorgeous dresses and violent gesticulations of the actors. The plays are said to be mostly historical, and it is stated that no small portion of the history of Japan can be better learned from various authentic plays than from any work written purposely on the subject. 1 We retrace our steps from the Shibara, and make our way back to the Foreign Hotel. Half a mile beyond this, towards the south-west, and close to the shore of the bay, is the Hamagoten — the summer gardens of the Em- peror — which must be to us the last of the Tedo ' sights.' The house and grounds stand in a walled and moated en- closure, the moat being used also as a canal. The house is built, evidently recently, in European style, and fur- nished with European furniture. The best ornaments in it are the sets of frescoes in two of the principal rooms, one set representing hawking scenes in Japan, the other a sport which would seem to be a favourite one with the nobility of Niphon, but which would in England be scouted as childish barbarity — that of shooting at a running dog with bows and arrows. The gardens are 1 For an interesting account of the Japanese drama, and also of Asaksa, see again Mr. Mitford's ' Tales of Old Japan ' ; especially the note therein on 'A Story of the Otokodate7 214 ROUND THE WOBLD IN 1870. very prettily laid out ; full of miniature lakes, ornamental rustic bridges, summer-houses, rockeries, sequestered walks and nooks, and fine trees. Versailles can scarcely call up more bitter-sweet recollections to its late imperial master than Hamagoten must do to the defeated and banished Shogun. THE COUNTKY. 215 CHAPTER XVni. THE COUNTKY. ' Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet With charm of earliest birds ; pleasant the sun When first on this delightful land he spreads His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower Glistering with dew : fragrant the fertile earth After soft showers ; and sweet the coming on Of grateful evening mild.' — Paradise Lost. It is commonly believed in England that travelling in Japan is about equally dangerous with travelling in Central .Africa or among the untamed Maories of New Zealand. A thrust of a dagger, or a cut of a razor- like sword-blade, is supposed to be the fate awaiting at every road-corner any foreigner rash enough to venture beyond the limits of the Treaty Ports. Our own trip into the country is but one among many others that can be brought to prove that such an idea does much injustice to the natives of the Land of the Sunrise. Of the five or six instances of attempts to assassinate Europeans which have occurred within as many years in Japan, more than one were in all probability attempts on the parts of the murderers to avenge themselves for drunken frolics played upon them by Europeans of a low class, while the rest seem only to be accounted for by the in- veterate hostility of some of the Daimios to foreigners of all kinds. This latter feeling seems to have much di- minished of late years, and considering the hundreds of thousands of armed and comparatively idle men who exist 216 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. in Japan as retainers to the various Daimios, the num- bers of quarrels and assassinations which are known to occur in the country must be acknowledged to be remark- ably small. Apart from this sworded class, the Japanese are a very peaceable and friendly people, and a traveller in the country parts cannot fail to be struck with the civility and ready welcome which meet him everywhere. There are, however, one or two minor difficulties to be overcome before a non-resident can start on a tour inland. One is, to find a resident who will act as companion, guide, and interpreter ; another, to procure a ' permit ' which will allow the traveller to pass beyond the Treaty limit of thirty- five miles from a foreign port. This latter difficulty is usually overcome by procuring a doctor's certificate stating that it will be for the good of the bearer's health to visit some of the numerous sulphur-springs which exist in the country: this certificate at once procures a formal ' pass ' from the Japanese officials, and the difficulty vanishes. Then there are the minor difficulties incidental to hiring a pony to carry one's self, and coolies to carry one's provisions. The latter may be dispensed with only if the traveller can make up his mind to subsist for a time on rice, eggs, fish, tea and saki, with a few vegetables and nondescript ' relishes.' With the kind assistance of resident friends, we achieve our preparations on the day after returning to Yokohama from Tedo, and on the subsequent afternoon we start, a mounted quartett, for our first sleeping-place, Hara-matchida. It is disheartening, not to say ominous, for us to have proceeded scarcely a quarter of a mile before one of our steeds steps deliberately on a round pebble in the middle of Curio Street and brings himself and his rider down in the dust ; but this is said to be not an uncommon diversion practised by Japanese ponies, so SILKWORMS. 217 the animal is quickly remounted. In the five days of actual riding to which he is subjected during the trip, he fully keeps xip his quickly-earned character by falling down twice, kicking other horses three times, knocking over two men, and creating great alarm in various peaceful villages. But we are anticipating. A three hours' ride from Yokohama through flat and winding valleys filled with young rice and ripe corn, and then up on to a table-land, rich in black soil, golden crops, and rows of mulberry-trees, brings us to Hara- matchida, just as darkness and heavy rain set in together. Hara-matchida is a moderate-sized village, composed of wooden cottages, very similar in size and construction to the buildings which line most of the streets of Tedo. As in most of the villages of this and the neighbouring pro- vinces to the north and west, a large number of its cottagers make silkworm-rearing and silk-winding their chief occupations. The very next room to that in which we pass the night is occupied by some thousands of the useful worms, placed on trays raised a few inches from the ground. Some of them are still feeding, but most have already (June 10) passed that stage, and are spin- ning their cocoons amid the wisps of straw and twigs, called ' mubashi,' placed over their trays tent-fashion. During the day we may see hundreds of cocoons spread out in the sun in front of the cottages. They have been removed from the ' mubashi,' and are being exposed to the sun with the view of killing the chrysalides within, and so preserving the cocoons for spinning purposes. Just at this time of year, too, the spinning operations begin ; and often, as we pass through some small village, we may count half-a- dozen women sitting in front of their cottages, plying their primitive winding-machine with the right, while the cocoons lie in a small bowl of hot water at their left hand. 218 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. The methods of rearing the worms and of winding the silk throughout Japan are said to be of a primitive kind, notwithstanding the extent to which the occupation is pursued ; and foreign machinery as well as foreign expe- rience will have to be made use of if the country is to keep its supply up to the increasing foreign demand. Some idea of the amount of silkworm-rearing which is carried on in Japan may be gathered from the fact that in the year 1865 no fewer than 3,000,000 cards of eggs, each card containing on an average 3,000 eggs, were ex- ported from Japan to France and Italy. 1 A ride of ten miles from Hara-matchida, through the fresh air, rendered more than usually fresh by the night's rain, carries us across a rich table-land in a westerly direction to the village of Tan-na. Tan-na is close to a fine clear stream, at present not more than sixty yards in breadth ; but which, to judge from the broad stony bed on either side of it, increases during a flood to six times that width. We spend two mid-day hours in Tan-na, then cross the stream by a ferry-boat and ride on towards the mountains which rise up still further to the westward. Nine miles riding brings us to the head of a narrow and pretty valley, and almost into the heart of the mountains. There we leave our ponies and walk three or four miles over a thickly-wooded ridge, and descend to Meyonachi (or Me-ung-assi, as the natives seem to call it), a scattered little village, snugly placed by a brawling trout stream at the bottom of a deep valley, which is walled in by richly- wooded mountain slopes. Prom the top of the ridge there is a fine view of the deep gorges that pierce the sides of 1 Much interesting and valuable information on silk-growing in Japan has been recently communicated by Mr. Adams, Secretary to the British Legation at Yedo, in his Reports (Japan, Nos. 1, 2, and 5 [1870], and No. 1. [1871],) presented to Parliament in 1870 and 1871. KOYIAS. 219 O-yama (the second in height of this group of mountains, and variously estimated at from 4,500 to 6,000 feet), and of the sea-coast to the south, with the volcanic cone of O-o-sima in the distance. At Meyonachi we find quarters in a semi-deserted temple, where an old ' bonze,' or priest, does his best to supply our wants, which happily are not many. Next morning, after a bathe in the cool stream and a breakfast on some of the trout out of it, we retrace our steps over the ridge, remount our horses at the other side, and ride round the skirts of O-yama to the village of Koyias, situated at the foot of one of the eastern slopes of the mountain. Koyias is a large-sized village, con- taining several tea-houses and temples. A mile beyond it, stretching part of the way up the side of a wide ravine which comes down from the central peak of O-yama, is another village, containing several remarkably clean and good-looking tea-houses. The road leading through this latter village, cut in many places into steps, is continued up the mountain to a temple which stands half-way up the ravine; thence a path leads up to the summit. We spend a night at Koyias, intending to scale O-yama on the succeeding day. But alas for ' the best-laid schemes o' mice an' men ! ' The night's rest is to some of us destroyed, to the others much broken, by certain exhala- tions which show plainly that no sanitary commission has ever inspected Koyias. We feel bound to record this, partly from the very fact that it is the exception which proves the rule that Japanese tea-houses, as far as we know them, are well-arranged in this respect. Next morning votes are taken on a motion that O-yama be ascended, and, the weather being doubtful, the motion is lost. 220 BOUND THE WOULD IN 1870. Two of us walk out at 5.30 a.m., however, and make for a jutting shoulder of the mountain which promises an extensive view. Early as the hour is, the village is awake and at work. The noise of the flail, often wielded by female hands, sounds from not a few sheds as it threshes out the wheat or barley cut a few days pre- viously ; and before many doorsteps is the busy housewife already reeling off the white and yellow cocoons. On the ridge we are not disappointed, for we thence have our first good view of Fusi-Tama, the Matchless Mountain, of which more anon. Descending by another path into the ravine of which the ridge forms the southern wall, we pass through a remarkably fine wood of firs, yews, and cryptomerias : one of the latter measures thirteen feet in girth at five feet from the ground, and we estimate its height at 130 feet. In the forenoon we ride southwards from Koyias, and join the Tocaido, which here runs close to the coast, at the village of Mithawa. Heavy rain falls through the rest of the day, and we are in a soaked condition when, just at sunset, we reach Odawara. Odawara is a town of probably 10,000 or 12,000 inhabitants, and extends for two miles along the Tocaido, stretching from that line down to the sea on one side, and on the other inland for half a mile or more, to where a Daimio's castle overlooks and overawes it : for the Daimio levies tribute on all within his territory, and possibly the nearer the castle the heavier the tribute. We can testify, however, that the tribute has not rendered dear all articles sold in the town ; for, when we leave the place, as the rain is coming down, heavily, one of us invests in a waterproof coat, for the modest sum of two ' boos ' and a half : i.e. half-a- crown ; a waterproof cape is offered for one ' boo,' and an umbrella for two ! Truly Messrs. Moses & Son are here ' distanced ' in more senses than one. We should ODAWARA. 221 add that both coat and umbrella are made of strong oiled paper, and last remarkably well. As we walk through the town, and out at its eastern gateway, we are saluted with various cries from little urchins of the universally impudent age of ten or there- abouts, who have evidently not seen many foreigners before. Their favourite cry is ' To-jen ! To-jen ! ' which means merely 'Foreign men ; ' but once at least we hear the cry 'Nankin To-jen!' 'Chinese foreigners!' — a curious illustration of the idea long prevalent, and still lingering among the Japanese, that all foreigners come from some part or other of China. These cries, however, are generally fewer in the villages through which we pass, than those of ' Anatta, ohio ! ' ' Anatta, tempo sinjo ! ' — ' Good day, sir,' ' Give us a ha'penny, sir ! ' the rapidity with which the latter cry follows the former, being as remarkable in Meyonachi and Koyias as it is in places nearer home. Leaving Odawara behind, we continue along the Tocaido for three miles, and then, instead of following its course still further up the Hakoni Pass, we turn off to the right, and take the path for Me-on-ooshta. The rain has been coming down in torrents ever since early morning, and our path, leading up the side of a valley, and winding in and out of wooded ravines, is for the time a watercourse. We rather envy the costume of our coolies, with their single cape, their bare legs, and straw sandals, for all that our civilised clothes do for us is to get speedily soaked, and, by clinging to us, remind us constantly that we are wet through. Seven miles of up-hill work bring us to the desired village with its clean and pleasant- looking tea-houses. At the porch of one of them is the 'okomosan' (landlady) and her 'moosmes,' ready to welcome the drowned-looking foreigners. It is a luxury to repair at once to one of the bath-rooms in the house, pull out a plug which lets in some warm sulphur-water 222 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. fresh from the natural spring, and agree mentally with the doctor of Yokohama, that it is good for our health to visit some of the mineral waters. We pass the afternoon in watching the gradual clear- ance of the weather, and the opening view down the misty valley; in admiring the gorgeous azaleas in the garden of the tea-house; and in making bargains with several women who come in with stores of the neat and pretty woodwork, comprising cabinets, boxes, trays, paper- cutters, and toys, for which many of these mountain villages are famous. The weather clears during the night, and early next morning we are off on foot for Ashinoyu, a village higher up among the hills, and known chiefly for its strong sulphur waters. A walk of three miles, all up hill, and affording fine views of the surrounding mountains, brings us to this small Harrogate of Japan ; and, indeed, were one taken there blindfolded, and set down in the little open space which surrounds the covered baths, one could hardly help guessing oneself to be in the Yorkshire Spa- room, for there is the identical odour, as of rotten eggs, equally strong in the two. The baths are filled directly from natural springs, and are very hot, the thermometer standing in them at 109°. Several natives go through their bathing as we rest for an hour in the verandah of a tea-house : they seem to come to the waters chiefly for rheumatic complaints and general debility. Immediately above the village rises a mountain, called by the natives Komang Atta Yama. A stiff pull of an hour and a half brings us to the summit, 4,350 feet above the sea, according to our aneroid, and 1,500 above Ashinoyu. A magnificent view amply repays the trouble of ascent. Spread out 2,000 feet below us, to the south and west, lies the Hakoni Lake, a fine expanse of water, some six ASHINOYU. 223 miles in length, bordered all round by mountains of which the one on which we stand is almost the highest, and fringed at its upper end by fine groves of firs and crypto- merias, which spread out on each side of the village to which the lake gives its name. Further to the south is a mass of hills forming a pro- montory jutting out into the sea ; from either side of this promontory sweeps out to east and west a far-stretching bay, that to the east being the Odawara Bay, extending as far as Cape Sagami, at the entrance to the Bay of Yedo, that to the west going away to headlands unknown to us by name. Inland from each of these bays stretches a mingled expanse of hill and plain. Towards the north is the finest object in the panorama, for there, at some fifteen miles distance, rising with a noble sweep out of the huge plain that encircles him on all sides, stands Fusi-Yama, his head capped with snow, round the lower fringe of which hangs a necklace of clouds, his lower slopes mottled with wood and pasture. Just over his western slope we can distinguish in the distance a range of snow-clad mountains, evidently of about the same height as this monarch of Japanese moun- tains, but none of them have his graceful outline, or his look of solitary grandeur. Descending again to Ashinoyu, we pass by a large cluster of sulphurs-prings, where, over a space of many acres, jets of steam and boiling water are issuing from crevices in the ground; the mountain-side around is covered with sulphureous" and other deposits, which the natives collect, dry, sort, and send to some remunerative market. From Ashinoyu we descend again to Me-on- ooshta, where we spend a second night. Early next morning, after many ' saionaras ' (adieux) from our land- lady and her attendants, accompanied with a memento 224 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. from the former of half-a-dozen small china cups, we are off again along the path leading further up the valley. For six miles we wind through wooded gorges and over grassy mountain shoulders, and then reach Shenoko, a poor and small village, whose only luxuries seem to be fresh trout and char from the adjoining stream. From here some of our party walk on along a path which leads over the ridge on the north and [west side of the valley, and thrice descend on to the Fusi-Yama plain. After struggling up the ridge under a hot sun, we find awaiting us a noble view of the giant mountain, and the rolling plain which skirts it. We are at a height of 3,200 feet above the sea, but the ridge falls steeply away from our feet down on to the plain 1,500 feet below us. Away to the right and left stretches the broad expanse of this spacious plain, in parts a marshy pasture-land, in parts thickly dotted with rice and corn-fields, with green woods and brown villages. From the middle of it sweeps upwards the matchless mountain, towering up to its crater-summit of all but eternal snow, 14,100 feet above the sea. No wonder that this noble mass is reckoned throughout the length and breadth of Japan the most sacred of natural objects. No wonder that its form appears painted on almost every Japanese vase, drawn in almost every Japanese picture. No wonder that it is supposed to be the abode of Sinto, the founder of the heroic religion of Japan; or that thousands of pilgrims crowd every year to the foot of its imposing slopes, and toil devoutly up its steep ascent. For it stands aloof from all the neighbouring mountains, and lifts its gray head far above them, as if it claimed to be venerated and worshipped by all surrounding nature. In combination of symmetry of outline with giant height, it may well claim to be the matchless mountain of the world. The FUSI-YAMA. 225 Greeks could boast of no such Olympus : Teneriffe must yield to it both in height and beauty : in the Swiss Alps we can find no single outline sweeping up uninterruptedly through such an altitude ; we may doubt whether even in the Himalayas, or in the Andes, can be found a cone at once so graceful, so regular, and so lofty. Retracing our steps to Shenoko, we join the remainder of our party, and more on again up the valley towards the Hakoni Lake. The stream which flows through Shenoko and past Meonooshta is the same that issues from the lake, so that by following its course up a grassy valley, hemmed in by steep mountain slopes, we reach, after rather more than an hour's walking, the foot of this Derwentwater of Japan. After waiting three hours for the arrival of a boat for which we had sent to the Hakoni village, we embark on the quiet water, and then a row of more than an hour carries us to the head of the lake, and we are landed close to one of the many tea-houses in the village. Hakoni village is a pleasant little place, consisting chiefly of a row of shops and tea-houses built along either side of the Tocaido. It is a favourite halting-place for travellers, so that the owners of the tea-houses seem to do a more thriving trade than any of their neighbours, though among the latter the sellers of rough strong sandals, and straw shoes adapted for horses going down the steep pass, are not without employment. Hakoni Lake, like every other beautiful or remarkable lake in Niphon, has a certain amount of sanctity attached to it by the Japanese, who, like the Greeks of old, seem to people every striking natural object with some spiritual being. Accordingly this lake is said to be inhabited by the largest dragon in the Empire, and there is a law against catching any fish in it. Ignorant of this law, we Q 226 BOUND THE WOULD IN 1870. spend a forenoon on the water, fly-fishing with a ten- jointed bamhoo rod bought at Yokohama for eighteen pence. The rod answers very tolerably, but the fish come not; perhaps they have seconded the Japanese officials, and made an agreement amongst themselves that they will not be caught, or the great dragon may have "con- sumed them all — who shall limit an angler's excuses ? It is strange that this lake was set down by Sir Ruther- ford Alcock, in his ' Capital of the Tycoon,' as being 6,000 feet above the sea level. Anyone walking up to it from Odawarra might feel certain that this height was very much over-estimated; our own observations with an aneroid give the height as 2,300 feet. In the evening of our day at Hakoni we call in to our tea- house an ' a-ma,' or shampooer, and some of us go through the ordeal of being shampooed, which in China and Japan is the almost universal recipe for weariness or fatigue, and constantly adopted by the natives before retiring to rest. The shampooers in Japan are nearly all blind, the science being one which a blind man can acquire as easily as a man with eyes. According to our experience, the process consists of the man tweaking the shoulders, poking the ribs, pinching the arms, playing a gentle ' tattoo ' on the 'egs, fillipping the fingers and toes, and generally admin- istering a mild ' kneading.' The result seems to be ' nil,' but many Europeans declare that the operation is a very soothing and soporific one. The second morning of our stay at Hakoni dawns clear and bright, and soon after an early breakfast we walk for a mile or more up the Atami path to the summit of a hill about 900 feet above the Hakoni Lake. From this point we enjoy a superb view of the lake with its surrounding mountains, of the rich plains spreading away from the slopes of these mountains, of Fusi-Yama with his HAKONI. 227 majestic sides, of the sweeping coast-line far away 1p east and west, and of the islands dotting the distant sea. Rising up from the plains, or clinging to the mountain- sides, are wreaths of the early mist ; on the rich woods and on the mountain-tops are hues of the brightest and the deepest green ; on the calm sea and in the sky over- head is a blue equal to the best Italian : all combine to render this Taxied view of mountain and coast, lake and sea, forest and plain, more beautiful than any that has hitherto rested in our memory. Descending to Hakoni, we start again for Ashinoyu. Our walk leads us round the shores of the lake for a mile or more, and through an avenue of cryptomerias which in England would make any nobleman's park famous. The trees are all well grown, and of very even height, the average apparently being just about 100 feet ; the girth of many of them is as much as twelve and fourteen feet ; their trunks are all as straight as a ship's mast, and the rich green of their foliage contrasts finely with the light green moss which creeps up their stems, or the dark red bark which is their natural clothing. The avenue leads to a temple said to have been erected to the memory of a Shogun who lived 200 years ago, and who was deified after death. Near the end of the avenue is also a bronze statue of Teso-Sama, one of Buddha's disciples, and now a god, whose attributes are compassion and mercy. The statue is placed close to the border of the lake ; in front of it is a stone water-bowl, in which worshippers wash their hands before offering their prayers to the deity. From Hakoni to Ashinoyu is but a walk of three miles ; from the latter place we walk down a narrow gorge, beautifully wooded and full of a rich variety of ferns and ' flowers, to Hatta, half way down the Hakoni pass. Q 2 228 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. Just before entering the village we pass by several model gardens, along one of which runs a hedge of azaleas, nearly twenty yards in length, and about four feet in height and breadth. Nowhere have we seen this ' pride of Japan ' in greater perfection, for the whole hedge is a glowing mass of crimson. Hatta abounds in shops full of tasteful woodwork, and in model tea-houses ; one of the latter we declare, after trial, to be the best we have yet found in our tour. The mats are as clean and spotless as if no foot had ever trod- den on them, and behind the house, on the side of the hill, is a little garden, twenty yards square — a perfect bijou group of rockwork, dwarf trees, miniature water- falls, and gold-fish ponds. We spend a couple of hours in trying our fortune at fish- ing on the rocky stream that runs through the pass ; but we are inclined to think that a Frank Buckland is wanted in Japan, for the streams are so netted that there are few fish left in them, and what are left seem very small. A morning's walk of eight miles takes us down the remainder of the Hakoni Pass to Odawara. The pass is hemmed in by lofty and richly- wooded slopes : the Tocaido, in its course through it, is laid with a succession of round boulder-stones, over which the straw-shod pack-horses, laden with merchandise of various kinds, pick their way with difficulty. Prom Odawara to within two miles of Yokohama we follow again the course of the Tocaido. This length of five-and-thirty miles of high road is through more than half its extent lined with houses on either side, forming an almost continuous line of villages. As we pass along, nearly all the villagers are busy with their corn, recently gathered in, and before every door are spread a number of mats, on which the grain is drying in the sun, while here THE TOGAIDO. 229 and there is a woman busily winnowing it by the simple process of letting it fall through the breeze, or wielding with almost masculine energy on the unthrashed ears a heavy flail. The part of the Tocaido not lined with village-houses is generally bordered by handsome pines and firs ; it is in most parts picturesque, and from many points commands beautiful views. We cross several rivers between Oda- wara and Fuji-sawa, either riding our ponies through them, or committing ourselves to the mercies of the regular ferry-porters, who carry us across on their backs or on small portable platforms. We stay a night at Fuji-sawa, where our experience corroborates the statement that the native tea-houses are worst when nearest a foreign settlement. An influx of ' Jacks ' with bottles of beer or of worse liquor, with dirty boots, and no respect for mats, must tend to render a Japanese landlord desperate of cleanliness and neatness. Indeed, it is much to be regretted that many Europeans, when settled in these distant countries, far from any influence of public opinion, not only will not respect and copy the natives in their good points, but even take advantage of their more lax ideas on many other points to throw overboard the higher morality which they might have imported with them from the West. Our inter- course with Japan is not likely to confer real benefit on the Japanese or on ourselves till this is altered. From Fuji-sawa is a short two hours' ride to Yokohama. Here, as we began, so we end our country trip, much regretting that the approaching departure of a Pacific mail-steamer prevents our further acquaintance with Japan, its beautiful country, and its interesting people. 280 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. CHAPTER XIX. ACROSS TO SAN FRANCISCO. ' Nequidquam Deus abscidit Prudens Oceano dissociabili Terras, si tamen impiae Non tangenda rates transiliunt vada.' — Hur. Od. i. ' Vain the god's forethought by the disjoining sea To sever land from land, If ships speed o'er the waters impiously To each forbidden strand.' If the Roman poet dubbed ' impious ' the vessels that iu his time ventured from shore to shore of the Mediter- ranean, what epithet would he find for the great steamers which now ply regularly across the North Pacific Ocean ? Four years ago the mild Pacific was the only ocean whose ' dissociable ' influence was still unbroken ; now it forms but another of the great ' highways of the world.' The great ' side- wheelers ' of the Pacific Mail Steamship Com- pany cross it in each direction every month, and already the Company has found the traffic both ways increase so much that a bi-monthly service is talked of as soon to be established. A lengthened account of the voyage from Yokohama to San Francisco would indeed be ' weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable.' What interest could there be in a detailed narrative of twenty-two days spent on board a steamer ; and of a voyage over nearly 5,000 miles of sea, during the whole of which not a speck of land, not a single sailing vessel, and only one steamer, is sighted — a voyage in 32i .123 36 E.waier.lrtli. ZgndmvBiarryS.Eng A C°, 65, Cornhiili. ACROSS TO SAN FRANCISCO. 231 which the weather proves neither tempestuous enough to be exciting, nor calm enough to be remarkable — in which each day brings its wide expanse of trackless water, apparently the same with that of the day preceding ? A few lines will suffice to note the few interesting features or incidents of the three weeks during which we pass from East to West, from the Old World to the New, from Japan with its civilisation of a thousand years to California with its civilisation of five-and-twenty. Our steamer is the ' China,' one of the largest of the P. M. S. Co.'s fleet; nearly 400 feet in length; and of nearly 4,000 tons burthen, American measurement. She is built of wood, and stated to have cost in America 800,000 dollars ; her engines are of the huge but simple pattern known as the ' walking-beam.' Her cargo consists chiefly of 2,000 tons of the new season's tea from Japan ; her supply of coals adds 1,300 tons to this weight. Her speed is slow, and her motion easy ; her saloons the most spacious, her cabins the most airy and comfortable which we have seen on any steamer ; her ' bills of fare ' some- what monotonous, and betraying a marked preference for such ' national ' dishes as ' pork and beans,' ' waffles,' and ' squash.' Our fellow-passengers in the saloon number forty-five, or thereabouts, and are motley in colour and race; for no fewer than nine different nations are 'represented' among them — English, American, French, German, Dutch, Belgian, Italian, Polish, and Peruvian ; moreover, we are waited on by China ' boys,' and carved for (to our discomfort) by a negro ! In the fore-part of the vessel are no fewer than 580 Chinese steerage-passengers, bent on making their for- tunes, or at least their livelihood, in California, by gold- washing, clothes-washing, or other means. They seem to 232 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. spend all their time in lying in their shelf-like bunks, playing dominoes, smoking opium, eating, lounging, or occasionally even conversing ; but they are never visible on the vessel's upper deck throughout the voyage, except once, when our vessel stops to ' speak ' her sister ship, the 'America,' some 1,400 miles from San Francisco. They have half a ton of rice boiled for them daily, and this, with a modicum of meat and vegetables — being pro- bably better food than nine out of ten of them have been accustomed to at home — keeps them healthy throughout the voyage. Five hundred and eighty is said to be a much smaller number of Chinese coolies than are usually carried on one of these steamers : the steamer of the previous month carried no fewer than 1,250. Arrived in California, these Eastern emigrants find occu- pation in various characters, as house-servants, laundry- men, day labourers, and gold- washers. A fair proportion of them, after making some few hundred dollars in the country, return to their native land, where they are said to be at once subjected to a heavy ' squeeze ' by the na- tive officials ; large numbers of them settle in California, and not a few die there prematurely. In consequence of the latter number, an important part of the cargo of steamers returning to China is — coffins ! For the poor Chinaman has a deep-rooted superstitious dread of being buried in a foreign country ; nor will he console himself, as some Jews are said to do, with the further superstition that, though he may be buried in a foreign land, his body will gradually gravitate towards the land of its birth : consequently, either with his own money, or that of his friends and fellow-exiles, he is generally sent back as cargo by the same steamers which once carried him as a passenger. The weather throughout our voyage may be, as has THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 233 been hinted, sufficiently described as being, like the ocean, pacific : and though it is now midsummer, and we are in the latitude of Gibraltar, the temperature is moderate throughout. Few signs of life are visible outside the vessel. Occasionally a whale is reported in sight, but for many days most of the passengers are inclined to think it is only something ' very like one ; ' till, as the days pass, every person has caught a glimpse of a spout of water suddenly shooting up from the sea without any apparent reason, or of a black line cutting through the blue surface for a moment and then disappear- ing to unknown depths. Occasionally, too, one or more sea-birds are seen following in the vessel's wake, sweeping gracefully across and again across the white band of foam, and with difficulty keeping down their natural pace to that of the steam-driven monster. These birds are of two kinds only, the 'Mother Carey's Chicken,' and another called by the sailors the ' Cape. Hen ' — a brown bird rather larger and longer in the wing than a sea-gull. Both birds are visible when we are in mid- ocean, 1,000 miles at least from the nearest dry land. Inside the ship there is the ordinary ship-board life, varied, however, on one day, the 4th of July, with a few republican festivities. Even 5,000 miles of a sea-voyage come to an end at last, and on July 13 we pass, about mid-day, the Farallones, a group of small and rocky islands, lying forty miles from the Golden Gate, the entrance to San Francisco Harbour. These islands abound in sea-birds and seals, and boast the best lighthouse on the Pacific coast. They are rented by a company, who send from them every year a million sea-birds' eggs to San Francisco, where a guillemot omelette is a recognised dish. 234 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. We are soon passing through the Golden Gate, a strait scarcely two miles in breadth and five in length, with bold hill-slopes on either side of it ; and then we enter San Francisco Bay. Like everything else in California, this bay is on a great scale : together with its fellow- arms, the San Pablo and Suisun Bay, it has a coast- line of 250 miles ; in size and security it is almost matchless as a harbour throughout the world. Landing at the P. M. S. wharf, we find our way to one of the great hotels of which San Francisco has such an abundant and excellent supply. Even in the short transit from the wharf to the 'Occidental,' we are struck with the most distinguishing feature of the city — its evident rapid growth. ' Wal, what d'you think of our small village? Pretty well grow'd for a young 'un, ain't it?' Such is the question asked us, a day or two after landing, by the somewhat familiar emanci- pated negro, who had acted as barber on the ' China.' And such, without doubt, is the most remarkable fact connected with San Francisco. Thirty years ago the land on which it stands was an expanse of sand-hills and salt-water, and might have been bought for fifty dollars, and the buyer considered a rash speculator. Now the city contains a population of 160,000 — not far from half that of Liverpool or Manchester. It has ' grown like a mushroom,' though it does not threaten to decay like one. Following the example of most modern towns, San Francisco has broad straight streets, which cross each other at right angles, and are lined with tall and tolerably uniform buildings. But stone is scarce and dear in the neighbourhood, and in consequence half the houses in the second-rate streets are built of planks, and moi-e than half of those in the principal streets are constructed SAN FRANCISCO. 235 of iron frame-works, filled in with plaster. In many of the streets the pavements are either of planks or bare soil, while the roadways are often of planks also, or of round cobble-stones. Some large and handsome banks, hotels, and business houses, help to give a good appearance to Montgomery and California Street; but even in these best streets the shop-buildings are by no means imposing outwardly, and the city generally cannot claim to much beauty or solidity. In Montgomery Street nearly one shop in four on an average is a money-changer and assayer's, where a miner may sell his ' findings,' or have his nugget valued, and a traveller change his notes and coin for Californian cur- rency, or buy some of the glittering specimens of auriferous quartz which he in the shop-window. The city is well supplied with tramways, which run up and down all the principal streets ; but there are also very roomy and comfortable hackney-carriages ready to convey anyone rich enough (or foolish enough) to pay at the authorised rate of one dollar and a quarter (five shillings) per mile, for one person, and double that amount for two persons ! Therefore let the unwary visitor in the ' Cali- fornian Paris ' count a little loss of dignity better than a greater loss of cash or temper, or both, and condescend to avail himself of the ' tram busses,' or ' street cars,' as the natives have it, and pay cheerfully his six cents for a smooth ride over the rails instead of a rough jolt over the neighbouring cobble-stones or planks. Unfortunately, carriage-riding is not the only item on which San Francisco sets her prices so high. Two sovereigns for a plain pair of buttoned boots, and twelve for a tweed suit, will go rather to the heart of a Britisher; and, if he is an upholder of the time-honoured proverb of ' taking care of the pence,' he will be quite ' non- 236 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. plussed,' for he will find in San Francisco no copper coinage in existence, and the nearest approach to a penny he will discover to be ' a bit,' of the value of fivepence. This latter liberal sum he must pay for a morning paper, or for having his boots ' shone,' and the same probably for an inch of sticking-plaister, or a reel of cotton. He may as well buy new collars as have them washed, for he will pay two dollars a dozen for having them passed through the laundry. For all this he must console himself in his hotel bill, which he will find an exception to the rule, and really moderate : or he must reflect that twenty years ago he would have had to pay much more. He will meet old ' diggers ' who will tell him of the times when the price of fowls in San Francisco was six dollars each, when washing was twelve dollars a dozen, when passengers by steamer to Sacramento, en route for ' the diggings,' paid thirty- five dollars for the voyage of ninety miles, and when the charge for a couple of ' cock-tails ' at a bar was a pinch of gold-dust, and the man with the biggest fingers paid, therefore, most for his drink. Scarcity and dearness of manual labour is of course the origin of the high prices here, and already the influx of Chinamen from the West and Germans from the East has had its natural lowering effect on these. The Chinamen, who live on very little, and work very steadily, have already proved sharp competitors with emigrants from other nations ; and it seems odd, when we land in San Francisco, and think we have reached the ' land of the free,' to find a considerable agitation going on with re- ference to these 'intruding Chinamen,' whom the emi- grants from other countries, and especially those from the Emerald Isle, wish expelled from the State. Of course the wish is not shared by intelligent and respect- SAN FRANCISCO. 237 able Californians, who speak well of the China coolie, and often the reverse of the Irish emigrant. One of the good points in San Francisco, which strikes us more particularly on coming from the remoteness of Japan, is the proximity of the city to Europe as regards the receipt of news. As our steamer draws alongside the wharf, a man thereon calls out to our incredulous ears that a war is imminent between France and Prussia. Two days afterwards we see posted up in the fore- noon in front of a telegraph-office : — ' The Emperor Napoleon will declare war to-day.' The city of San Francisco is eight hours behind London in the matter of time, and she turns this to good advantage. When her corn-merchants go down to their offices in the morning, they find on their desks a report of the Liverpool market of that morning ; each morning paper has two or three columns filled with telegrams of the preceding evening from all parts of Europe ; and not unfrequently there appears among these telegrams a notice of the following kind : — ' The " Times " of to-day has an article in which it says,' &c, &c, giving the substance of that morning's ' leader.' The population of San Francisco is evidently of a mis- cellaneous kind. Natives of the States preponderate, as may be known by the number of black suits and sallow complexions to be met with in every street, as well as by the accents that fall constantly upon the ear ; but if we go into any place of general resort, such as one of the nume- rous luncheon-rooms of the city, we shall see, along with the native luncher who is consuming, standing, his three courses of soup, fish, and meat, in about as many minutes, others of a less expeditious turn of mind or digestion, who hail from the chief commercial countries of Europe. In many of the shops of the city, more especially in those 238 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. of the barbers and tobacconists, we find the irrepressible ' black,' grown more irrepressible tban ever since he was emancipated ; and there is one quarter of the city, called ' Little China,' occupied entirely by emigrants from the ' Central Flowery Land.' One great encouragement to the settlement of people from other countries in San Francisco, is the moderate and equable nature of its climate. Though the temper- ature often changes rapidly, it never reaches an extreme either of heat or cold : residents wear the same clothes in summer as in winter ; and it is said that the mean register of the thermometer in December is only six degrees less than the mean in June. Sea-fogs from the Pacific sweep over the coast regularly daring the summer months, and moderate the effect of the sun ; they extend, however, only to a certain distance inland, so that places twenty miles from San Francisco have a climate as different from that of the latter place as if they were separated from it by many degrees of latitude. This is even the case at Oakland, only a few miles from the eastern side of the San Fran- cisco Bay, where fogs are rare, and hot summers and cool winters are regularly experienced. Oakland has become a favourite suburb of the Golden City : a park, dotted with good houses, and traversed by broad roads and avenues, is there springing up, as every- thing does in California, at an astonishing rate, and large ferry-steamers cross the bay thither, so constructed that carriages can be driven on board of them on one side of the bay, and driven off on the other, without delay of any kind. THE MAMMOTH TREES OF CALIFORNIA. 239 CHAPTER XX. THE MAMMOTH TREES OP CALIFORNIA. ' And over-head up-grew Insuperable height of loftiest shade. Cedar, and pine, and fir— a sylvan scene.'— Paradise Lost. A railway ride of ninety miles, followed by a hundred- and-thirty miles of driving and riding, will take anyone from San Francisco to two of the grandest and most unique natural scenes on earth — a primeval grove of Sequoias, and a valley walled in by giant precipices. People living in London would hesitate before driving and riding, along a bad road, as far as Stafford or Bristol, even to see such sights as these ; but in California distances, as well as cucumbers, are on a large scale, and a traveller who arrives at San Francisco is supposed to be going to take a 'run up 3 to these now world-famous spots as a matter of course. Accordingly, we leave San Francisco one afternoon, to- gether with one or two of our fellow-passengers of the ' China,' and crossing the Bay to Oakland, take the train for Stockton. Arriving there after dark, we start again almost at daylight next morning, wishing to have as many cool hours as possible in our drive up the San Joaquin Valley. This valley, which we might more correctly term a river-threaded plain, is over a hundred miles in length, and in breadth measures, at most points, between thirty and forty miles. Throughout this vast extent its soil, a deep alluvial de- 240 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. posit, forms some of the finest, if not the finest, grain- growing land in the world. Separated from the Pacific coast by the ' coast range,' the valley has a climate very different from that of the sea-board, for its winters are cool, its summers dry and hot. Bain seldom or never falls in it between the months of May and November, and consequently the wheat which is sown on its broad acres, after taking deep and firm root in the rich soil, grows up so strong and becomes so dry as it ripens, that it can be cut, thrashed, and sacked on the same day, even in the same hour : and once in the sack, it can be sent down to San Francisco, and shipped for Liverpool, to pass twice through the tropics, without the slightest risk of its turning mouldy on the voyage. The yield per acre, too, in this and other Californian valleys, is very large. Though the average yield of Californian wheat- fields is said to be not more than twenty-five bushels to the acre, authentic instances are given of as many as eighty bushels to the acre being produced, and numbers even higher than this are constantly stated on good authority. An elderly friend in San Francisco assures us that he has seen, in the Tulare valley (a valley running into this of the San Joaquin far to the southwards), maize growing to the height of fifteen feet, many of the stalks supporting as many as eight heads of grain, and growing to such a thickness as to require cutting down with a hatchet. The rich alluvial soil of these valleys has never yet been manured, though there are parts of them where wheat has been grown for a dozen years in succession. Some of the corn-fields are of an enormous size : fifty acres seems an ordinary number for a single field, and from this they run up to 300 and even 500 acres. The majority of the farms, however, do not extend to more than 300 acres, the farmers being chiefly men with small capital from the States east of the Eocky THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY. 241 Mountains : here and there is a farm held by a man of greater means, extending perhaps to 5,000 acres : in other parts of the State the divisions are larger still, and. farms are spoken of, growing nothing but grain, as spreading over as many as 50,000 acres. Horses here are cheap and numerous, and consequently take the place of steam in working the ploughing, reaping, and thrashing-machines : manual labour is of course dear, harvest wages amounting in many parts to £3 a day, and this is consequently the heaviest item of the farmer's outlay. The season is already too late for us to see much har- vesting going on : most of the corn-fields present a bare expanse of dry ground ; nor are there any root or clover crops to give variety to the surface. All is hot and dry and bare. The sun beats down upon the plain with a fierce glare that reminds one of India : the heated air rises up from the ground, and with its myriad shimmer- ings causes often a treacherous mirage of water : few trees, and those few chiefly oaks of a comparatively small size, dot the landscape; while underneath them, and all around, is a vast surface of dry soil, baked brown and hard by the long summer, and with scarcely a green blade on the whole of it. As the mid-day hours draw on the heat increases ; the thermometer rises to anywhere between 90° and 110° under the awning of our carriage ; a slight breeze comes creep- ing up behind us, following the course of the valley, and raising choking clouds of dust, which are often so dense as to hide from sight even the shaft-horses : larks and other small birds flit away to what scanty shade they can find, and stand in rows, with drooping wings and gasping mouths, in the few inches of shade afforded by a gate-post or a rail : there is only one of the feathered tribe that seems to court the glare and heat, and that is the ground- E 242 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. owl, who stands blinking at the edge of a squirrel-hole, wherein he has made his nest, and looks anything but the ' bird of wisdom ' which tradition calls him. Tet this Californian heat is by no means so oppressive or debilitating in its effects as might be supposed. Anglo- Saxons work here in the open air, dressed in cloth clothes and with felt hats, and never dream of sunstroke. We once made ourselves quite conspicuous by walking through the streets of Sacramento at mid-day with an Indian ' sola tope ' on. The thermometer was standing at 101° in the shade, yet the streets were tolerably full of people, and only one other sun-hat did we see, and that was on the head of another traveller. The air seems to be so dry that perspiration is absorbed before it lodges on the skin, and you may drive a horse in California at a good pace and for a long distance in the sun, and scarcely see a hair on his coat turned. These Cali- fornian horses are wonders, too, in the matter of endurance and strength. A team of four takes our party of nine, in a rather heavy-going open coach, forty-five miles on the first day without staying anywhere on the road for more than ten minutes, just long enough, in fact, to get a draught of water. The next day they travel forty-two miles, and on the third day thirty-five miles, of which a considerable portion is up very steep hills. The driver confesses that they are ' right sober ' at the end, but they look little the worse, and they only have a day's rest and then start off again on almost as long distances. It is not the custom to feed horses in California more than twice a day, and the statement of horse-owners that there's ' something in the air ' that supports them seems certainly confirmed by experience. As we drive on up the valley over miles and miles of bare and parched-looking land, it is difficult to believe G0LD-MININO. 243 that during the winter and spring months all this is richly carpeted with flowers of bright and varied hues. Yet such is the case, if we are to believe the testimony of the in- habitants, including that of a Scoto- American, who has been in other favoured countries, but tells us that he thinks this is the ' floweriest ' land on earth. On the day after leaving Stockton we stay an hour or two at Hornitos, a village on a branch of the San Joaquin valley, and once of considerable importance as a mining- centre. Most of the gold- washing of California is, how- ever, now a thing of the past, and the quartz-mining is carried on chiefly by joint-stock companies. Conse- quently many of the- mining-towns, where nuggets and bowie-knives were once equally common, have much de- creased in size, and the worked-out '■ washings ' are only frequented by Chinamen, who, unlike the more rapacious Saxons, are content if they can find daily a dollar's worth of the precious metal. At Hornitos there is a small quartz mine, where we find two men working away with pick and shovel : they tell us that they found, one day last week, a 'pocket' containing 120 ounces of gold, but that was an unusual piece of fortune. One of them says that he has been mining in California since the ' gold-fever ' began ; and when we ask whether he has not yet succeeded in making a fortune, he answers, ' Yes ! several ; and lost them too.' This seems to be the career of a large number of ' diggers : ' of those who made their ' big piles ' so rapidly during the first few years of the digging, scarcely one in ten has kept his fortune. ' Easy come, easy go,' is a proverb often verified, when speculation, extravagance, and gambling follow hard on the heels of nugget-finding. After leaving Hornitos, we enter the foot-hills of the Sierra Nevada, and the same evening ' pull off ' for the night at Mariposa, another decayed mining-town. The K 2 244 EOXIND THE "WORLD IN 1R70. next morning's drive takes us still further up from the level plains, through the more thickly wooded foot-hills, to 'White and Hatch's,' a 'ranch,' or farm-house, surrounded by wooded slopes. We have not yet reached the pine forests, and the trees that cover these slopes are conse- quently of smaller though of more varied kinds than those which we shall find above. Oaks of several varieties — the white, the black, and the evergreen — are here in abund- ance : yews and laurels are not uncommon ; but the most striking trees are the beautiful 'madronas,' with their lustrous leaves and their layers of pale-green and bright- red bark ; and the ' manzanitas,' dense low-growing shrubs with pea-green leaves and bright red berries. Eight miles beyond White's, at a height of some 3,000 feet from the sea level, we reach the borders of the mag- nificent pine forests of the Sierra Nevada. Another eight miles takes us over a high ridge which descends from the central raDge of the Sierra, and on this ridge are such trees as would make the pines of Norway or the spruces of Argyle look like mere wands in comparison. As we wind slowly up the steep and narrow road, looking round at the noble array of sturdy, towering stems, and up at the lofty canopy of spreading foliage, we begin to think that we have never seen trees before. At every glance we seem to catch one stalwart trunk, taller and more burly than his fellows, but at the next glance we see another, which looks yet more gigantic. In many spots we may stand and count around us a dozen trees, not one of which will measure less than 180 feet in height, and every one of whose trunks at the ' spring ' would require the outstretched arms of four men to span. Most numerous and most conspicuous among these noble trees are the sugar-pines, the yellow-pines, and the red or Douglas spruces. The first, with its dark, rough bark, its full THE FORESTS OF THE SIERRA NEVADA. 245 crown of foliage and its immense cones, forms a handsome contrast to the second, its twin-brother in size, but with light reddish-yellow bark lying in great scales or plates, and with a foliage very like that of our own ' Scotch fir,' If the pines exceed in bulk and massiveness, the red spruces have a stately grace of their own quite unsur^ passed. Shooting up, many of them, to a height of over 200 feet, with their arrowy stems, and their pyramids of foliage tapering in perfect symmetry to the slender top-, most twigs, they seem as if the idea of a cathedral spire had been copied from them, and one almost thinks that the architect of the Duomo of Milan must have taken his model from a group of them. Of these pines and spruces every full-grown tree is a perfect picture of strength and beauty ; for every trunk grows straight and round, every leafy crown looks fresh and vigorous, and no tree leans or crowds against its neighbour. On every side there is a dense array of stately stems, as if nature had here raised to herself a temple of a myriad columns; but between each column there is an ample flooring. Nor do these royal trees suffer any parasites to grow up around their feet, and so hide their beauty or impair their strength, No creepers twine round their sturdy forms, or hang from their lofty boughs ; their trunks are bare of branches up to the height of sixty, seventy, and even a hundred feet ; the ground below them is for the most part bare and brown, seamed here and there with their own knotted and sinuous roots, or scantily covered with low-growing plants of the wortleberry or bilberry kind. But at a lower altitude, where these forests just begin to show their full growth, and in the sheltered gullies amongst them higher up, other trees, of a kindred nature to the piues and firs, grow with them in great luxuriance. Next in size to the sugar pine (Pinus Lambetiana), the yellow 246 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. pine (Pinus ponderosa), and the red spruce (Abies Doug- lasii), conies the Arbor vitae (Thuja gigantea), known also in California as the red cedar — a handsome tree with gracefully-drooping foliage, and a ruddy bark full of deep seams and projecting ridges, growing occasionally to a height of 200 feet. Then there is the balsam-fir (Picea grandis), the young specimens of which, with their hori- zontal branches, and their trunks dotted with transparent drops of sweet-smelling resin, are especially beautiful. The yellow- fir and the white cedar also find here a genial soil ; but the further we leave behind the lower limit of the pine forests, the fewer do the different species become, and the more gigantic are the individual trees. We pass over the summit of the ridge, and while the last rays of the setting sun are making ruddier the ruddy trunks around us, descend rapidly to ' Clark's Eanch,' our resting-place for the night. The evening air cools rapidly, and the change of temperature from mid-day to midnight in these high valleys is very great. At a height of 5,000 ft. above the sea there are frosts in every month of the year, and in this month of July a frosty night will sometimes be succeeded by a day in which the thermo- meter will mark over 90° in the shade. ' Clark's Eanch ' is only six miles from the ' Mariposa Grove,' one of the best groves of the ' Big Trees ' of Cali- fornia. An early up-hill ride at a walking pace takes us to the sequestered habitat of these wonders of the vege- table kingdom. Throughout the ride we are surrounded by such trees as those amongst which we passed yesterday, and again we admire their vigour, size, and grace. One sugar-pine is pointed out to us as having been found, by careful measurement, to be 255 ft. in height, and his trunk at the ' spring ' is 9 ft. in diameter ; yet he is only a trifle larger, apparently, than dozens of others within THE MARIPOSA GROVE. 247 half a mile of him. But we tacitly reserve our admiration till we reach the real ' Big Trees.' Down in a quiet glade, 6,000 ft. up the slopes of the Sierra, grow the monarchs of the world's forests. Half hidden by the huge pines and firs which stand around and among them, and with their tops projecting apparently but little above their tall neighbours, they can scarcely be seen till one is very near them. Then appear, among the darker trunks of pine and spruce, stately stems of a rich cinnamon colour ; and the traveller, pushing through the undergrowth of brake, stands in full sight of them. Pro- bably, at first sight, they disappoint those who have read the measurements given of their great trunks; for it is with these trees as with those great buildings whose enormous size has not outrun their symmetry. It is only by looking at them for some time, and comparing them with surrounding objects, that one can appreciate their superb dimensions. Bound these Sequoias grow sugar-pines and Douglas spruces, which would themselves be giants in any Euro- pean forest; yet they are but dwarfs here, in bulk at least, compared to their enormous neighbours. There is one grand old tree, prostrate on the ground, and fitly named ' The Fallen Monarch,' up whose trunk you may climb with difficulty, and then look down 20 ft. or more to the ground. There is another, standing in full vigour, though with gnarled and ragged branches which tell of many centuries having passed over his head ; we mea- sure his girth at a height of 10 ft. from the ground, and find it 66 ft. At a height of 90 ft. from the ground he throws out his lowest branch ; it measures 6 ft. in diameter. He is named ' the Grizzly Giant.' A short distance away is perhaps the most beautiful tree in the whole grove — 'the Mother of the Forest.' She is not 248 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. quite of such great girth as the Giant, but her stem is all untouched by the forest-fires which have left black marks on most of the, other veterans, and her bright cinnamon bark undulates into vertical ribs which run up distinctly for 70 ft. or more from the ground. Then there are dozens of others, excelling in size and beauty, yet which ' attain not unto the first three.' We encamp for lunch in the middle of a group of the largest, and call them ' David's Mighty Men;' and as we look round we can count a score of them, scarcely one of which has a girth of less than 40 ft. at the 'spring.' We ride past many others equally large, and hardly know which to admire the most. Three very beautiful trees, evidently in their prime, stand close together, and are styled ' The Three Graces ;' two others, apparently twin-brothers, but now aged, and with, their almost leafless heads leaning towards each other, are ' The Brothers Cheeryble,' and so on. On one some neglected Indian camp-fire has seized ; for he lies prostrate, a great black cylinder, his heart burnt out ; and so great has his heart been that we ride through the empty tunnel, our heads slightly bent, at a part of his trunk which, when erect, has stood more than 90 ft. from the ground. There are altogether in this grove alone between 300 and 400 trees of various sizes and ages. The young trees, however, seem remarkably few in proportion to their elder brethren, as if this race of giants belonged rather to past centuries. There are many other groves of Sequoias in other parts of the western slope of the Sierra Nevada ; all are at about the same height— between 5,000 and 6,000 ft. above the sea — nor is this by any means the most extensive grove. Larger trees are mentioned, too, as existing in other groves ; a diameter of 40 ft. is even given for one tree in the Tulare Country, but this measurement seems to be THE SEQUOIAS. 249 taken at the ground, where, from the swelling of the roots, a much greater diameter is attained than at the ' spring.' Compared with the pines and firs around them, the height of the Sequoias is by no means as extraordinary as their girth. The reason seems partly to be that their wood is of a rather soft and brittle nature, so that when their tops rise above the surrounding trees they are constantly broken off by bleak winds or heavy snows. A pine tree on the Sierra Nevada, with a girth of 18 ft., will often attain a height of 220 ft. ; but a Sequoia, with a girth thrice as great, seldom rises higher than 250 ft. The tallest tree in this Mariposa Grove measures 275 ft. — only 20 ft. higher than some of the neighbouring sugar-pines — and the tallest measured tree in any of the other groves is 330 ft. in height. But when we know that even 275 ft. is equal to twice the height of the Duke of York's Column, or 50 ft. higher than the west towers of Westminster Abbey, and that 330 ft. is only 10 ft. lower than the Victoria Tower of the New Houses of Parlia- ment, we may cease to be surprised that these giants are not taller. And if any traveller is disappointed, at first sight, at their apparent dimensions, he should find ample compen- sation in their great beauty, which seems, in descriptions of the trees, to have been almost overlooked in comparison with their size. The graceful outline of their towering stems, the velvety softness and rich colour of their bark ; their gnarled and knotted boughs, spreading out like the brawny arms of some great Briareus ; the rich, bright, green of their elegant, though often scanty foliage, all combine to render them as beautiful as they are tall, as stately as they are sturdy. In the days when 'high groves' were chosen as natural temples, and among nations who looked on old and great trees as the peculiar 250 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. haunts of deities, what sacred shrines these would have been ! Had a Druid, instead of his nineteenth-century descendant, discovered them, how he would have wor- shipped them with the deepest awe, and looked on his favourite oak as overshadowed and supplanted! In these grand and primeval forests there is one feature which strikes us whenever we become separated in them from the remainder of our party, and stand in their midst alone. There is at such times a silence about them most complete and most impressive ; most complete, for often not a leaf stirs in the green canopy overhead, not an insect hums through the empty air, no sound of trickling water breaks upon the ear; most impressive, for all around are the colossal forms of these majestic trees, almost awful in their silent stateliness. These mammoth trees seem to be rightly called ' Sequoias,' as being of the same species as the red-wood tree, the ' Sequoia sempervirens.' In England the tree is known as the ' Wellingtonia gigantea,' that name having been given to it by Lindley ; but it is now generally con- sidered as closely allied to the red-wood, and throughout America ' Sequoia gigantea ' is its recognised name. There is a peculiar interest attaching to the name ' Sequoia,' from the fact that it was formed from the name of a chieftain of one of the western tribes of Red Indians, who was distinguished among all his fellow- chieftains by appreciating civilisation and attempting to introduce some of its real benefits, such as education and agriculture, among his roving followers. There is one other fact connected with these trees which is also, worthy of notice : though they are the greatest of all trees, their cones are scarcely larger than walnuts, and their seeds scarcely a quarter of an inch in length, only a sixth in breadth, and of the thickness of writing-paper. > H I O i j *S s s « -ft JS •as J i-s ^ I* - e I. •8 THE YO-SEMITE" VALLEY. 251 CHAPTEE XXI. THE YO-SEMITB VALLEY. ' The setting sun Slowly descended, and with right aspect Against the eastern gate of Paradise Levelled his evening rays : it was a rock Of alabaster, piled up to the clouds, Conspicuous far, winding with one ascent Accessible from earth, one entrance high ; The rest was craggy cliff, that overhung Still as it rose, impossible to climb.' — Paradise Lost. Thkee-and-twenty years ago the ' Yo-seinite' ' Valley — the Valley of the Great Grizzly Bea,r — was known only to the Indians who dwelt in its secure retreat. Driven gra- dually away from the plains below by the 'white-faces,' .who were turning their hunting-grounds into corn-fields, and their ancient trees into log-huts, these untameable ' red-skins ' still boasted that their mountain stronghold would ever remain theirs and theirs alone. No white man's foot had ever trodden its remote recesses, no white man's eye had ever gazed into its stupendous depths. But the inevitable, unvarying tale of the relative advance and retreat of the two races has been repeated here ; the Anglo-Saxon has cut his 'trail' into the valley, and set up his saw-mill in it ; the Indian has fled to more distant haunts, and those few of his race who have stayed have been made hewers of wood and drawers of water to the domineering white. The calm seclusion of the valley, and its encircling wall of towering precipices, for long 252 BOUND THE WOELD IN 1870. kept away intruders from it, but it was not long after ita discovery that these very features began to draw visitors to it from very distant quarters of the globe. From ' Clark's Eanch ' a ride of twelve miles up steep slopes — round deep 'canons' or gorges, and along high ridges, all covered with magnificent forests of pine, spruce, and cedar — brings us to the ' Half-way House,' the last resting-place before entering the valley. This Half-way House is but a log-hut, 7,000 ft. above the sea level ; it serves as a rough inn during the few summer months in which the snow is off the ground at this high altitude. It is built on the edge of one of the open pieces of meadow- ground which occur constantly in these forests, and which go by the name of ' flats.' To come suddenly upon one of these ' flats ' after riding several miles through the forest is a pleasant change to the eye ; for its green sward is sure to be thickly sprinkled with bright patches of flowers, and round it is often a fringe of graceful young balsam-firs or of light * tamarack ' pines, with clumps of ' chapparal ' growing low among them. From this Half-way House Flat we have our first exten- sive view of the central peaks of the Sierra Nevada. They close in part of the horizon to the eastward, and are from fifteen to thirty miles distant — a bare granite ridge, with here and there a sharp and ragged peak, and with patches of snow lying on their ' shady sides or in their sheltered hollows. No glaciers are visible, and, though the peaks are from ten to twelve thousand feet above the sea-level, from the height at which we are standing there is little that is imposing in their appearance. From the Half-way House a ' trail ' of some five miles, through grassy ' flats ' and up wooded slopes, brings us to the foot of a great slope of gray granite, up which we climb on foot, and so reach the bare summit of the ' Sen- THE SENTINEL DOME. 253 tinel Dome.' The Dome is 8,500 feet above the sea level, and we have approached it from the south by a gradual rise from < Clark's Eanch ' of 4,000 ft. But on the north side this gradual slope is exchanged for a steep descent of 1,500 ft. down to the Sentinel Rock, and then to a sheer fall of 3,000 ft. down into the Yo-semite Yalley. So that, as we stand on the Dome, the wonderful chasm which forms the valley lies in all its depth and abruptness almost at our feet. The valley runs nearly due east and west ; it is eight or nine miles in length and from one to two in width. Its granite walls on the north side stand up before us in all their sheer abruptness — from El Capitan, a magni- ficent mass of bare white granite, rising 3,300 ft. above its western entrance, to the North Dome, 200 ft. higher, but not so precipitous, at its head or eastern end. Eight opposite to us, tumbling down over this northern wall of the valley, is the To-semite Fall, which, when full of snow water in the early summer, is a white mass of foam making a sheer fall of 1,600 ft., the highest known water- fall in the world: in this month of July it is shrunk much from its full size, and looks like a long and narrow cambric veil shaken down over the precipice, waved to and fro by the wind, and catching here and there the projecting points of rock. Over the western end of the valley, on the same side as that on which we are stand- ing, towers the giant form of Tis-sa-ack, whose name has been ' civilised ' into that of ' South Dome ' — a gray mass of granite with a huge precipice for its northern face, and rounded off into a steep bare slope on every other side. Its summit is 4,700 ft. above the valley ; and now that the Matterhorn has been scaled, we can recommend it to the notice of the Alpine Club, for human foot has never yet scaled its steepy sides. 254 ROUND THE WOELD IN 1870. From the Sentinel Dome a trail leads eastward, for a mile or more, down through the forest to the Glacier Rock, 1,200 ft. below. Brace up your nerves and step cautiously as you approach this edge of the valley's southern wall; for, as you stand on the brink, and put your hand into a holding-place in a rock beside you, and lean over, there is nothing between you and the green bottom of the valley but an abysmal depth of 3,200 ft. If you have a weak head you cannot look at all, and even if you have a strong one you cannot probably look down this tremendous precipice for many minutes without flinching. Winding through the middle of the valley, far down below you, is the stream of the Merced, looking like a mere spider's thread ; on either side of it are tall spruces and pines dwarfed apparently to mere bushes ; in the middle of an open space is a square garden, crossed and recrossed by rows of currant-bushes — it looks like a small chess-board. Stand back and throw a stone over the precipice, and you must wait many seconds before you faintly hear it strike the rock ; and yet it has not gone the whole way down into the valley ; for, though, as you look down, the precipice appears vertical, it is not absolutely so for more than 2,000 ft. ; a very slight slope outwards below that depth brings its actual base to about 100 yards in front of where you stand. Hanging over the very edge of this great precipice, the Glacier Rock (which, by the bye, is so named from their being evident traces of glacial action upon it) commands a full view of the upper two-thirds of the main valley, and, being placed just at the corner where a branch valley unites with the main one, it looks up the whole length of this ' South Canon ' also. The South Canon is not walled in by such sheer precipices as the main Yo-semite, but at its upper end are two THE GLACIER ROCK. 255 beautiful objects, visible from where we stand — the Nevada Fall, a fine curved band of foam thrown over a wall of rock 700 ft. in height, and the Py-wy-ack, or crystal water, a broad straight fall of half that height. On either side of the South Canon, and stretching away be- hind and above it, are the rolling rocky slopes of the Sierra Nevada, dotted with pine-trees which grow scantier as the slopes reach a higher altitude, and ending in the bare central peaks with their ragged outline and their glistening snow-patches. But the deep view sheer down the white cliff into the green Yo-semite, and across to the northern wall of precipices, is the wonderful feature of the scene; and when looked upon in a subdued light, when the western sun casts broad bands of shadows up the valley and upon the great white faces of rock, tempering their mid-day glare, the scene is not only grand and unique but beautiful as well. There is no access to the valley from either its southern or northern sides, and we must retrace our steps to the Half-way House, and take a more northerly 'trail,' in order to enter it by its lower, or western, end. Another ride of an hour and a half through stately forests and smiling glades brings us of a sudden to a point almost im- mediately over the foot of the valley, from whence so fine a view is had through the entrance of the valley up almost its entire length, that it has been deemed necessary in California to give it a long name and call it ' Inspiration Point.' Standing on the rock at the extremity of the point, we look across at the huge side of El Capitan — a magnificent buttress of bare granite, 3,000 ft. in height, and as many in breadth — standing out across the entrance to the valley. Almost at the foot of its sheer face is the river, 2,000 ft. 256 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. below us, winding out from the green fields and darker woods which share the level ground of the valley between them, and hurrying into the steep and rocky gorge which conducts it away from its mountain home to the heated plains below. Looking up the valley, a succession of tall precipices tower up on -either side of the vista, and in the distance, beyond where the upper end of the valley is lost behind a projecting rocky bastion, is the main ridge of the Sierra running north and south across the view. We have now the subdued light which we wished for at the Glacier Rock, for the sun is rapidly sinking in the west. The outer face of El Capitan is white and almost glaring, but a broad dark band of shadow stretches from him far up the valley to the eastward : the lofty walls on either side are scarved with alternate sunlight and shade : in the sombre stillness at their feet lies the valley itself, with its patches of green pasture and its groups of tall dark spruces, threaded by the winding river : you may almost imagine you are looking on a real Happy "Valley, created for some superior beings, and hedged in by in- accessible walls from all the outer world. A steep and rough ' trail ' leads from Inspiration Point down to the bottom of the valley below : then a ride of five miles, past the towering rampart of El Capitan, and along the level valley, through the avenue of granite pinnacles and precipices, of which each one, as we pass under it, looks higher than the rest, brings us in the dusk to one of the three inns which already have been ' run up ' in this remote spot. The ' season ' here is short, for the valley is at an altitude of 4,000 ft. above the sea ; and although, from the shelter of its giant walls, it escapes many of the storms that rage above it, and enjoys many a hot and quiet summer's day, the ' trails ' leading into it, passing over heights of 6,000 and 7,000 ft., are seldom free from snow for more than four months in the year. THE YO-SEMITE VALLEY. 257 But to make up for the shortness of the season, the inn- bills are constructed of a tolerable length, and perhaps -the traveller will regret that one of the last impressions made on him in the valley is produced by the fact that his beer has cost him 3s. per pint bottle, and his shirts 2s. each for washing. The former charge he may learn to look at as not unreasonable, when he considers the distance from which the precious liquid has to be brought : as to the latter, from the appearance of many of the inhabitants of this and other parts of California, he may be tempted to conclude that washing is dear in the State by reason of its rarity. But who pays much heed to hotel-bills in the midst of such scenes as make up this matchless valley ? We may spend a week within its limits, exploring, without ex- hausting, its various deep recesses, and its rival scenes of grandeur. In distance, indeed, its different points are but a short space from each other ; but to climb to the foot of one of its great waterfalls, or to penetrate to the heads of its branch canons, often involves slow riding and rough, steep, walking. "When we have explored it more or less thoroughly, the impression left upon us is that in the grandeur of its precipices, and in the number, height, and beauty of its waterfalls, the Yo-semite is unrivalled by any valley of a similar size in the world. Precipices, varying in height from 2,000 to 4,500 ft., wall it in almost completely; and within a radius of five miles it contains six waterfalls, whose average height is 750 ft. Even apart from the sur- passing height of its cliffs and its cascades, the great beauty of its scenery is undeniable. As we move along its level bottom, among the tall and graceful pines and spruces which grow to such perfection in its fostering shelter, or through the copses of oak and hazel, and the s 258 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. clumps of bracken and chapparal which" often line its winding trout-stream, we have on either side of us scenes always grand and always varying. The great white walls of quartz are stained in many colours by the water and the weather, pierced by deep and narrow gorges, and seamed by projecting ledges ; here they fall straight down into the valley with an outline clear and unbroken throughout ; there their sheer faces give place, half-way down, to steep sloping screes, the result of the fall of many of their topmost points : here a great pinnacle stands out in front of them, tower- ing like a giant sentinel erect above the valley ; there their summits are broken into rounded heads rising one behind and above the other, or are jagged and irregular in outline, like the walls of some ruined castle. At some points their rugged buttresses thrust themselves out almost into the middle of the valley ; at others they recede into spacious amphitheatres of rock, over whose sides tumbles headlong a lofty cataract, or on whose ledges tall trees have found soil enough in which to grow up, ' shade above shade, a woody theatre of stateliest view.' In looking on the many conspicuous points that rise above the valley, and on the waterfalls that tumble down its cliffs, one cannot but regret that they have not been allowed to retain their original Indian names, some of which are connected with the Indian legends of the valley, while others are the names of objects suggested to the native mind by the appearance of the different cliffs or cascades. Thus the great rock, ' piled up to the clouds,' which stands at the entrance of the valley, bears now the name ' El Capitan,' but it was known to the Indians as ' Tutockanula,' a legendary and deified chieftain of the valley : the ' South Dome ' was known as ' Tis-sa-ack,' Tutockanula's lover : the ' Bridal Veil Fall ' (the Califor- THE YO-SEfflTE" VALLEY. 259 niaii Staubbach, for it is of tbe same height and of the same form as the European fall of that name), was the ' Po-ho-no,' or Spirit of the Night Wind. The ' Py-wy- ack,' or Crystal Water, has been transformed into the un- meaning ' Vernal Fall : ' the rock arches, which recalled to the Indian the shape of the cover of his child's cradle, and were accordingly called ' To-coy-se,' are known as the Royal Arches ; the great pyramidal rocks which looked to him like giant representations of his pile of acorns stored up for winter, and which he called Pooseenah Chuckka (Large Acorn Cache), are now the 'Cathedral Bocks ; ' and the three rounded mountain-heads, one above the other, which, to his mind, seemed as if they, were leaping over each other, and to which he gave the expressive name ' Pom-pom-pasus ' (the Leap-frog Mountains), have been tamed down into the prosaic ' Three Brothers.' But the poor Indians have long ago given up their say in the matter ; some half-dozen are still in the valley, and still construct their acorn caches ; but they are dressed in a half- European style, look perfectly spiritless, and, like the names of their mountains, have been tamed down by civilisation, and deprived of much of their meaning and their interest. We leave the valley by its western end ; but instead of turning over the southern ridge towards Mariposa, we cross the valley and wind up over the equally lofty wooded ridges on the northern side. A day's ride brings us to Crane Mat, where we have time to see another grove of tbe Mammoth Trees, smaller in number than that at Mariposa, before turning into a rough log shanty for the night. The next day takes us down to Coulterville, on the edge of the San Joaquin plain, once a mining-town of some importance, but recently ' gone plumb down ' as we are told, and looking in consequence rather decayed. From Coulterville to Stockton is a distance of seventy- s 2 260 ROUND THE WOELD IN 1870. five miles over the same hot, dry, and dusty plains which we traversed on the way to Mariposa. The houses in this San Joaquin valley are few and far between. What there are, are of wood, rough and untidy-looking; except in little settlements such as Knight's Ferry, where a number of peach-gardens gladden our dusty eyes, no neat farm- garden surrounds the homely ranch ; the roads are bad in summer and impassable in winter ; the inns are dusty and uncomfortable, and often filled up by miners in dirty blouses, or teamsters in great jack-boots : the traveller here must expect to meet no landed aristocracy, and must leave behind him his ideas of country inns : content to ' rough it,' he will find welcome, interest, and amusement ; not content, he may avoid the San Joaquin Valley, but he will also have to forego the To-semite. TAHOE, THE NAPA VALLEY, ,\ND SAN JOSfi 261 CHAPTER XXII. TAHOE, THE NAPA VALLEY, AND SAN JOS& Op those who from California hend their steps to England, probably nine out of ten follow the straight and short route of the Pacific Railroad. But our route homewards is to be via Panama and Valparaiso, and we shall conse- quently miss the six days' journey from San Francisco to New York, which is represented by different persons under such very different lights, some comparing it to a ' continuous pic-nic,' others of a more gloomy tempera- ment declaring it to be a 'continuous purgatory.' We shall find it worth our while, however, to travel along the line for some short distance, for within two hundred miles of San Francisco lies one of its best portions — its ascent and passage of the Sierra Nevada. We take the ' cars ' at Stockton, and as far as Sacra- mento travel along a dead level over rich plains, now bare, dry, and dusty in most parts, but a month ago covered with a golden harvest. Soon after leaving Sacramento the line commences to ascend, and at a distance of 105 miles from that place it crosses the central ridge of the Sierra Nevada, at a height of 7,040 ft. above the sea-level. As the train winds up the slopes of the Sierra, now turning round the projecting shoulder of a deep ravine, now cross- ing by a lofty wooden bridge over a mountain torrent, the views down the deep wooded gorges, or up to the Sierra peaks, are often very fine. 262 ROUND THE WORLD IN X870. The rate of travel on the way up — twelve miles an hour — gives ample opportunity of seeing all that is to be seen ; and, for the further enjoyment of the views, there is attached to the end of the train a long open truck, with the 'tall' title of 'Observation Car,' from which the traveller can gaze without interruption of window-frames and partitions. Half-way up the Sierra the line passes close to a great gold-washing spot, where the process of washing down tons upon tons of a hill-side by means of powerful jets of water forced through strong pipes, can be seen at work. The auriferous earth, after being washed down by the hydraulic hose, is conducted into sluices ; during its passage through these the particles of gold are precipi- tated to the bottom by gravitation, or by forming an amalgam with beds of quicksilver, which are placed in various parts of the sluices. The railway-line up the Sierra seems to have been well planned, for there is no gradient throughout its course with a steeper rise than 1 in 43 ; and this is a more gradual incline than many on the Alpine railways of Europe, or on the Indian line from Bombay to Calcutta. The roadway seems sufficiently firm, considering the leisurely pace at which the trains are meant to travel over it ; but the rails are merely kept in their places on the sleepers by being pierced with large flat-headed nails ; and the wooden trellis-work bridges which span many of the ravines look decidedly fragile, and creak ominously when a train rolls across them. The ' cars ' are well fitted-up, not divided into compartments, and with a passage run- ning down their whole length ; but their vibration is too great when the train is in motion to allow of this passage being much used as a walking-space. The refreshment-rooms at the various stations along the THE PACIFIC RAILWAY. 263 line scarcely come up even to a Mugby Junction standard. Every few hours a train stays twenty minutes for a meal ; a rush is made into a large bar-room, on whose clay floor stand various long deal tables ; on the tables are a number of thick earthenware dishes, every course, from fish (if there is any) to dessert, being laid out ready: miners, emigrants, farmers, railway-guards, and yourself, set-to simultaneously ; you are provided with one knife and fork to use through the whole campaign, and you must not be shocked at your next neighbour ladling green peas into his mouth, and then cutting slices from the common stock of butter with one and the self-same implement. The hotel-cars, which have been so much extolled, no longer run on the Californian side ; you must go on to Omaha if you want to travel luxuriously in one of those. This Pacific Railroad does not seem to have brought prosperity to all the places which expected to reap advan- tages from it. San Francisco is said to have been not altogether benefited by it ; for it has brought the cities of the more eastern States into more direct competition with the ' Golden City,' and the many who found there such a good market for their labour, have now to be con- tent with lower wages and slower gains. To the original directors of the Railway Company the line 'has been as good as the best of gold-mines ; for what with the large grant per mile made to them by the Government, and the value of the adjacent land given them in addition, the construction of the line drew nothing out of -their own pockets, and, when accomplished, left them with a sure source of income which had cost them nothing. Passing over the central range of the Sierra Nevada, the line commences to descend, and enters a series of wooden snow-sheds, extending almost uninterruptedly for fifty miles : these have only been built since the experiences of 264 KOCJND THE WORLD IN 1870. the first winter. In one of the intervals of these snow- sheds, fifteen miles beyond the summit, stands Truckee Station, close to the group of wooden houses which form Truckee Village. Two miles from this is Donner Lake, a pretty sheet of water, three miles long by three-quarters of a mile in breadth, surrounded by pine-clad hills, along the side of one of which runs the line of snow-sheds mark- ing the course of the Pacific Eailroad. The lake takes its name from the leader of a party of emigrants who met with a fearful fate upon its shores twenty-four years ago. While on their way from the east to the 'diggings,' in the 'fall' of 1846, they were over- taken here by the storms of winter, and snowed up. All the party— with the exception of one or two, who pushed on at once and reached the western slopes of the Sierra, and one old man who survived the winter after feeding, it is said, on the flesh of some of his dead comrades — died from cold and hunger. On the south side of Truckee a rough road of twelve miles, following the course of a broad and rocky stream up a well-wooded gorge, leads to Tahoe, a village on the edge of the lake of the same name. On the way up we stop to change teams at a log-house, connected with which is a trout-rearing establishment, where are an immense number of trout of all ages and sizes, from the troutlet just developed from the egg to the fish of a pound weight, evidently thriving well in sluices of fresh running water. Tahoe Lake is a noble expanse of blue water, thirty- five miles in length by ten in breadth, surrounded by the wooded and rocky peaks of the Sierra, which rise gradually up from its edges to above the limits of the snow-line. The water of the lake is celebrated for its purity and its clearness. As we sit at the bow of the little steam- TAHOE LAKE. 265 launch which makes daily trips across it, we look down through its calm depths, and at a distance of three miles from the shore, where the water is 150 feet deep, we can distinctly see each stone that lies at the bottom : then the water suddenly deepens to 1,700 feet, and that depth of course the eye cannot fathom. As we bathe in the water, we find it less buoyant than ordinary fresh water. Both its clearness and lightness must be due, partly at least, to the absence from it of all vegetable matter, the bottom of the lake being entirely free from weeds. The scenery round the lake is not of a very striking character. On the west side, indeed, there is a little bay shut in by two jutting points, and surrounded on the land- ward side by a fine amphitheatre of steep wooded heights ; it has been named Emerald Bay, and it is certainly the ' gem ' of the lake. On the eastern side is another little bay, from which a road leads up to Virginia City — a great mushroom city, which has grown up with amazing rapidity out of the silver mines beneath it. On a rocky ' scar ' which over- hangs this bay is a remarkable natural portrait of Shak- speare. It is a full-face portrait, made up of natural stains and indents in the rock ; and the great poet's full fore- head, deep eyes, and trim beard resting on an Eliza- bethan ruff, are all clearly represented. Nevada may boast of possessing Nature's own testimony to the immortal poet's being one of her own creating, meant for all time and for all people. From Tahoe we retrace our steps by rail to Sacramento, where we spend two or three of the hottest hours which it has been our lot to experience anywhere. Sacramento is a large town made up of broad streets, lined with large but rather rough-looking shops. Being the capital of the state of California, it possesses an enormous building 263 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. styled the ' Capitol,' of which its citizens are not un- reasonably proud. Like their streets and shops, these citizens have a thriving look about them, but rough withal : indeed, this is the appearance of the inhabitants of all the towns in California, San Francisco excepted ; you seldom meet a man whom you would at first sight ' mistake for a gentleman.' Rough and ready, shrewd, taciturn, and ' thorough,' are the traits of character im- printed on their features. We take the train for Vallejo early in the afternoon, and are soon rolling over the forty miles of heated plain that lie between the two cities. The thermometer in the 'car 7 marks 105°,' and through the open windows the air comes in as from a furnace. Passengers remark on its being unusually hot even for the Sacramento valley, yet many of them are dressed in conventional black, and move about in the sun on the station-platforms with the impunity of lizards. As we near "Vallejo the cooling influence of the sea-breeze is felt, and the temperature on the bay, where the cool air rushes in through the Golden Gate, is only 65°, and thus a difference of 40° is expe- rienced in a journey of three hours. Vallejo is a thriving town of very recent origin, having been ''laid out,' or 'laid off,' as the expression is in California, only twenty years ago. From its position and its excellent harbour it has increased almost at a San Francisco pace, and promises to be one of the most important towns in the State. It stands at the foot of the Napa Valley, one of the richest and best cultivated valleys of California. We take the ' cars ' up this valley, and soon see that in the variety of its crops and the excellence of its farming the Napa Valley compares very favourably with the San Joaquin. Fields of wheat and maize alternate with vineyards and THE NAPA VALLEY. 267 orchards; the farm-houses are of a neater and a more substantial appearance, and the land not under cultivation is so well dotted with oak-trees that it brings to one's mind the recollection of some English park. Half way up the valley, on the western side, in a narrow glen running up among the mountains, are an hotel and baths, called the White Sulphur Springs, a favourite resort for San Francisco holiday-makers. On either side of the glen are dense rich woods ; and here, lifting their tall dark cones of foliage above the oaks, madrofias, and wild figs around them, are a few of the red- wood trees, the brother giants of the mammoth trees of the Sierra Nevada. They are, however, only young trees, for the wood of the ' Sequoia sempervirens ' is too valuable to be left standing, and there are now very few old trees of the kind within a hundred miles of San Francisco. Some of their stumps still remain to testify their size ; one which we measure we find to be ten feet in diameter at the point where the trunk has been severed, three or four feet from the ground. Ten miles further up the Napa Valley is Calistoga, the present terminus of the railway — a village of small size and no importance, and of which the most remarkable feature is an hotel and grounds, built and laid out by an energetic but somewhat extravagant San Franciscan on what was ten years ago an alkali swamp. The owner must have been a man who rejoiced in difficulties, for he has here attacked nature at an enormous disadvantage, and has had to cart some thousands of tons of soil to form a genial stratum for vegetation over the deadly alkali. Six miles from Calistoga, up among the hills on the west side of the valley, are some petrified trees, probably larger in size and more perfect in preservation than any other known specimens of the kind. These trees have been but recently discovered; some small pieces of the petrified 268 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. wood, lying in the Calistoga Hotel, attracted our attention to them. A ride of four miles from Calistoga, up among the lower wooded slopes of the hills, takes us to a solitary ranch standing in a sheltered hollow. Here we find a boy, who undertakes to show us the trees. Going through some scanty wood along the course of a nearly dry stream, we pass, nearly two miles from the ranch, under a high cliff of tufa rock, the lower half of which is strongly water-marked, and contains several water-worn caves. A few hundred yards beyond this is a low knoll, not so high as the hill of which the cliff forms a part, and separated from it by a small ravine. This knoll is covered with manzanita and madrofia bushes, and among the bushes, half-buried in the ground, lie the petrified trunks. There are at least a dozen distinct trees, and doubtless more would be disclosed if the knoll were cleared of bushes and the soil removed to the depth of a few feet : scattered pieces of petrified wood he about in all direc- tions. Only the trunks of the trees are visible, the branches being either buried in the ground, or too much broken up to be distinguishable. One tree, almost the firs£*we see, appears to have been a fir of large size, for he is six feet in diameter, to the best of our measurement, at his lower end : his trunk lies above ground for the length of about forty feet, the rest is buried beneath the soil. From the sharp clean fractures in this and other of the trunks, it would seem right to infer that the trees were petrified standing, and broke as they fell. The petrifaction is very perfect, for the rings in the trunks are clearly visible, and the drops of resin in the various interstices have been transformed into distinct bits of dull crystal. How the petrifaction occurred some scientific head must determine or conjecture. Pieces of THE GEYSEES. 269 petrified wood are found all over a belt of country, a mile in width, and six or eight in length, in which this knoll is included ; sea-shells are also found among the neigh- bouring hills, and volcanic traces abound, both in this district and on Mount St. Helena, on the east side of the Napa Valley. Crossing from the head of the Napa Valley over the western shoulder of this Mount St. Helena at an altitude of 2,700 feet, and then descending rapidly for 1,400 feet by a steep and narrow road which winds along the edge of precipitous slopes, and round corners so sharp that the celebrated driver of the Calistoga four-in-hand coach loses sight of his leaders as he turns them at a canter, we reach another natural celebrity of the neighbourhood — the Geyser Springs. The Geyser Hotel, where we 'pull off,' stands on the south side of a narrow canon, full of wood; on the opposite side is a branch canon, which, as we look across to it in the cold early morning, is full of hissing, rolling steam. Crossing over into it, we soon are threading our way over patches of sulphur, soda, alum, and other che- mical substances, and passing among jets of steam and sulphurous vapour ; while on every side burst out of the soil springs of boiling liquid of various colours, smells, and temperatures. Some of the deposits round these springs are very beautiful, especially the sulphur crystals. Here and there are cold springs, the waters of which taste of iron, alum, or sulphur, as the case may be. The variety of the springs, all within an area of a few acres, may be judged of from the fact that alum, mag- nesia, tartaric acid, Epsom salts, ammonia, nitre, iron, and sulphur, are all deposited by them, and that the temperature of the different springs ranges, from 56° up to the boiling-point. One throws out a liquid said to be 270 ROUND THE WOKLD IN 1870. identical in composition with. Epsom salts; the produce of another is said to possess great curative properties for sore eyes ; a third throws up a liquid which can be used as ink ; another — which boils furiously up into a cavity in the rock, eight or ten feet in diameter and five feet deep, filling it with a black and strong-smelling liquid — is not unaptly termed ' The Witches' Cauldron.' There are pleasant places within easy reach of San Francisco, by train or steamer, in all directions ; and the bankers, merchants, lawyers, and other money-makers of that money-making city, are showing every year their increasing preference for these spots as dwelling-places. Substantial villas, standing' in the midst of gardens, which, in this magic climate and soil, make as much pro- gress in one year as an English garden does in three, spring up in all directions, and the traveller will not have been long in San Francisco before he has met with a kindly reception into the unstilted and pleasant society which reigns within them. If he is fresh from the insular manners and customs of Great Britain, he may be a little surprised at meeting, in the house of a common acquaint- ance, some bewitching San Franciscan, who, before the evening is over, will ask him to call upon her at her father's house in the town, or at the school from which she is not yet emancipated. And if the customs of the family surprise him, so will also those that reign in the lower department of the household. When he leaves his friend's house, he finds that he has to carry his own bag to the railway station, and depart with boots un- blacked. Every man bears his own burden in California, and as to blacking boots, that is left to the established shoeblack, or to the barber, who has his shop in every street of San Francisco. In a Californian house there is no such person as a 'servant;' a 'help' is the nearest approach to such a relic of the feudal system. SAN JOSfi. 271 Going southwards, beyond the suburban villas of San Francisco, a railway ride of fifty miles brings us to San Jose, a town older by fifty years than San Francisco, with a population of some 20,000. v As we enter it we have a good instance of the economical way in which railways are laid down in America ; for the train rolls slowly through the town on the same level with the streets, several of which it crosses at right angles, with no bridging, no embankment, no gates even — merely a loud whistle to give notice of its approach, and warn lesser vehicles out of its way. Close to San Jose are some large and well-managed vineyards, where can be seen a good sample of the wine- growing which has become such an extensive interest in the State. We enter one vineyard belonging to an ex- general of the United States army, who came to California with the army of conquest twenty years ago. He has not been engaged in vine-growing more than six or eight years, and two years ago he had almost to begin over again, owing to all his stock of wine and brandy, just ready for the market, being burnt by a mob of Irishmen, whose sole grudge against him was that he employed Chinamen to work his vineyards. But he still holds to his Chinamen, has not been disturbed since the time of that outrage, and is sanguine of producing good red wines and brandy within a very short time. Certainly the samples already in his storehouse are such as to give him good grounds for his expectations. His opinion tends to confirm our own limited experience, that the red wines of California are better than her other kinds; her champagnes and white wines are of a very moderate excellence, and pro- bably only hold their own by means of the enormous prohibitive duty on foreign wines ; perhaps longer expe- rience is wanted in order to ensure their successful manu- facture. 272 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. Fifteen miles beyond San Jose, at a slight elevation among the hills to the southward, is the quicksilver mine of New Almaden, famous as having been till recently the richest mine of the kind in the world, the old Almaden mine in Spain alone excepted. Now, according to the account of one of the managers, its yield of ore is scarcely sufficient to pay the working expenses. The ore is dug out in the form of a dark-red stone, termed ' cinnabar,' from which the quicksilver is extracted by means of heat. The cinnabar is placed in furnaces, and the metal, under the influence of great heat, leaves the ore in the form of fumes ; these fumes, after passing through several cooling chambers, are condensed gradually, and flow out at the end of the process as pure quicksilver. The miners are nearly all either Cornishmen or Mexicans. Near the works is a spring of water, which tastes slightly of iron, is very refreshing, and is said to be of exactly the same com- position as the French Vichy water; it is bottled, and sold in San Francisco as ' California Vichy water ' at three dollars and a half the dozen. "We retrace our steps to San Francisco, and it is not long before we are again at sea, making this time a southerly course. If we left Japan with much prospective wondering as to what the next twenty years will bring to that country, we leave California with much retrospective wonder at what the last twenty years has wrought there. The impression first received on landing in San Francisco is also the most lasting, and the most often repeated, as we travel through the country. Rapid development of immense resources — such has been the history in brief of California, since the gold-fever began, and such must continue to be her history for many years to come. Gold-mining, indeed, has reached and passed its fullest development, but the other industries of California are RETBOSPECT. 273 still in comparative infancy. Corn-growing gives the State more right to the title of the Golden State than ever her nuggets did; for her export of corn already exceeds that of the precious metal. And just as there are millions of Californian acres still untilled, so the growth of other articles in the State — as wool, wine, and silk — seems as yet only begun, and for several scores of years to come the country may develop as surely, though not as rapidly, as it has done during the score now ending. 274 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. CHAPTEE XXIII. SAN FRANCISCO TO PANAMA. ' ! what a change was there ! ' One morning in the middle of August we thread our way, on the P. M. S. Co.'s wharf in San Francisco — through a crowd of carts, carriages, bales of goods, luggage, porters, tide-waiters, custom-house officials, passengers waiting to go, and friends waiting to see them go — and embark on board one of the large steamers that still ply regularly to Panama and back. The moorings are cast off; ten minutes of cheering, waving of handkerchiefs, farewell shouts, sighs and tears, ensue ; and not long afterwards we have passed through the Golden Gate, and are steaming slowly southwards. Before the Pacific Railway was an accomplished work, perhaps no steamer route was so crowded and so full of interest as this from San Francisco to Panama, ex- cepting that from Panama to San Francisco. For on the latter route travelled nearly all the various adven- turous spirits from Europe and from Eastern America, bent on trying their luck in the Golden State; and on the former travelled most of those who had already put their fortune to the test, and were returning either with ' double-eagles ' and heavy nuggets, or with disappointed hopes and intentions of fortune-hunting elsewhere. But the ' iron road ' has changed all this. Instead of carry- ing Iheir 1,000 or 1,200 passengers up the coast, these SAN FRANCISCO TO PANAMA. 275 steamers now sail with 100 or 120; and on our voyage down we have no more than seventy cabin and about 150 steerage, passengers. The conditions of travelling from San Francisco to New York by land are six days in a railway and 130 dollars to pay ; by sea they are six-and-twenty days in a steamer and a fare of 100 dollars. So that those who prefer the latter course are only such as either fear the fatigues of the rail or whose time is of no value, and to whom a few dollars is of importance. Consequently the passengers on this route are rather what a devotee of style, fashion, and ' blood,' would call ' tag, rag, and bob-tail.' Tet that there are exceptions to this rule among our own fellow-passengers, we can testify. Witness an elderly lady, full of spirits and intelligence, who was one of the first of her sex in San Francisco, and who led the march of civilisation in California by establishing the first school in the State — who was also a ' digger,' i.e. in an amateur way, and for one afternoon only, ' making her pile ' of forty dollars during that time : witness, also an Americo-Swede, a traveller in most parts of the globe, and with a Californian experience of a quarter of a century ; of such dignified appearance, moreover, that he at once passes for a ' General ; ' for in the far West almost every stalwart man is a ' Captain,' every spectacled one ' Doctor,' and every dignified one varies between 'Colonel' and ' General.' Witness also others, whom, however, it might be tedious to specify. But certainly, in the case of the ma- jority, their dialect alone suffices to ' label ' them at first sight, or rather at first sound. That they love ' the silent h' too dearly, and that their tenses are nearly all ' imperfect,' is palpable in the briefest of their sentences ; indeed, with them the English tongue has degenerated from that thorough-bred stock known as ' the Queen's,' has been T 2 276 ROUND THE WORLD TS 1870. crossed with the inferior race of ' the President's,' and has since been mingled with so many mongrel stocks, that the pedigree is hardly traceable, and the original features almost obliterated. Our steamer is so heavily laden with the new season's tea from Japan and other freight, that her pace is even slower than her usual rate of steaming. So, in spite of favourable weather, she consumes sixteen days in getting over 3,200 miles. For the first thousand miles of the voyage we are near enough to shore to catch constant views of the bare and brown-looking hills which line the coast of Lower California. The climate on this coast is said to be one of the finest in the world, as proved by the great age to which the inhabitants generally attain ; but the district is an almost rainless one, vegetation scarcely exists in it, and its gold mines cannot be worked for want of water ; and consequently even the prospect of a long life has tempted few to settle therein. Passing Cape St. Lucas, we lose sight of land for several days, and when we catch it again the first glimpse of it is sufficient to tell us that we are once more in the tropics. The Mexican coast, like that of California, consists for the most part of ranges of steeply-sloping hills. But thdse hills are no longer bare and brown ; they are densely covered with trees and tangled brushwood of that bright green colour which speaks of abundance of moisture. Close down to the sea-shore are often rank and reedy swamps, or lagunes cut off from the sea by a narrow spit of palm-fringed land. Hot and steamy is the air rising up from them, and abounding in germs of cholera and fever : but a day's ride from almost any point on the sea-board will take a person up to healthy spots among the mountains, 4,000 to 8,000 feet above the sea, where the air is clear and light, and the sun's rays tempered THE MEXICAN COAST. 277 by fresh breezes. With these mountain heights in view, and the thermometer in the ship's spacious saloon standing at 90°, we may well wish for some means of aerial transport up to the cooler regions. Scarcely any signs of human habitations are visible to our eyes along the coast, except at the two ports at which we touch — Manzanilla and Acapulco. The former is the port for the inland town of Colima ; we enter it after dark, and can see nothing of it, except its cluster of lights. Acapulco we enter before sunset, and so are in time to admire the beauty of the land-locked harbour, three miles in breadth and as many in length, surrounded by hills thickly covered with rich green brushwood and a few palm trees. The town, with its red roofs and its ruinous remains of old Spanish buildings, looks picturesque as viewed from the water ; but on landing in it, it dwindles to a collection of small houses and narrow streets, with a population of about 5,000 coloured people. This was the harbour from which there used to set sail yearly, for Manilla, a great Spanish galleon laden with Mexican silver and gold,- to be exchanged for the products of China and the Philippine Islands. Hither came Anson, 130 years ago, with intent to seize one of the galleons as it issued from the bay ; but mistaking his position, he lay in wait at the mouth of a bay forty miles north of this, and so his prey escaped him, though he caught the one of the succeeding year, when nearly at the end of its voyage. Those old galleons carried away cargoes from this port valued at nearly half a million sterling, but the exports are much diminished since those golden days; and though it is the nearest port on the Pacific sea-board to the city of Mexico, a little cochineal and indigo, with still a small amount of bullion, seems the only cargo shipped. 278 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. Six hundred miles lower down the coast than Acapuleo we pass close along the Guatemala sea-board, and have a near view of the volcanoes rising up above the city of Guatemala, which they have more than once destroyed. Then ensue three more days, unmarked by special inci- dents, except that on one morning a large school of whales appear within a few hundred yards of the vessel, and give all on board a rare opportunity of watching their rapid and graceful motions, from the jet of water and air which rises a score of feet into the air as they break the surface, and ' blow,' to the toss of their great broad tails as they disappear again below the waves. Early on the morning of September 3 we pass close to Puerco Point, and on the same evening, not long after the burning hues of a brilliant sunset have died away from coast-line and sea, we are lying at anchor close to one of a group of pretty islands, three miles off Panama. If the traveller has not heard a very unfavourable account of Panama before visiting it, and if his first sight of it be had from the anchorage among these picturesquely- formed and densely-wooded islands, he will probably be favourably impressed with the appearance of the place. Looking across the three miles of shallow water which lie between the island and the mainland, his eye rests on an irregular line of wooded hills, whose bases approach more or less nearly to the rippling waters of the bay. Between the foot of the highest hill and the beach is seen the group of white walls and red roofs, with here and there the towers of an old church, or the abutments of a half-ruined fort, which form the city of Panama. Outside the city are masses of rich foliage, and inside it are clumps here and there of palms and other tropical trees. So far, all is pleasant to the eye ; but when the visitor gets into a small boat; is rowed ashore by its one-third Spanish, PANAMA. 279 one- third negro, and one-third Indian owner ; has landed at a rickety flight of steps, surrounded by the indescrib- able mixture of rope-ends, broken bottles, seaweed, stones, fish-heads and fish-tails, which usually mark a third-rate fishing village in England; and has had time to walk through the streets, and take a nearer view of the place, he will come to the conclusion that in this, as in many other cases, 'twas distance lent enchantment to the view. For Panama, seen from within itself, is pervaded with an unpleasant air of mould and mildew. The old churches, of which one or two can boast stone fronts, once handsome, are now in a sad state of neglect and disrepair. Grass and rank weeds grow upon their steps, cling to their walls, and even creep up their mouldering towers. Old houses, which look as if they might have been built by Spanish hidalgos who had marched with Pizarro to Cuzco, or with Cortes to the capital of the Aztecs, are standing empty and gloomy, without either roof or floors remaining. The building which seems, perhaps, the one more full of life than any other in the city, is the prison — a low building, with two large barred windows facing an open green, out of which windows a crowd of poor ragged wretches gaze on the casual passer-by, while the flat roof of their prison overhead forms part of the city's promenade. On this promenade, just when the sun is sinking into the western ocean, and a cool twenty minutes of twilight succeeds the sultry hours of the day, may be seen the rank, fashion, and beauty of Panama catching a few short draughts of fresh and pleasant air. For twenty-three out of the twenty-four hours of the day, the city, to a casual visitor at least, seems to be soundly sleeping; at this witching hour of twilight, it seems to shake itself, and rise to spend a drowsy hour of consciousness; then again 280 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. it buries itselt in somnolence. There is, indeed, one por- tion of the city (not to mention what life may be going on inside the barred windows and closed doors), where the god of slumber seems to lose his potency — this is that por- tion occupied by the ' Grand Hotel,' where is a bar, famous for many seductive concoctions, and an airy verandah, which seems to serve at once for exchange, gossip-shop, and trysting-place for the whole city. For the rest, there are throughout the place traces of a more prosperous and energetic past, mingled with signs of an impending future more dismal even than the present ; and these give it an appearance emblematical of the history of Spanish conquest and possession throughout tropical America — bold and successful at first, but degene- rating subsequently into carelessness, apathy, and almost hopeless decay. And, indeed, it must be a temperament more dogged and untiring than that of a Spaniard, which will preserve its energy and working powers in such a climate as that of Panama, where the air is never light, and the thermometer seldom below summer-heat ; where the only alleviation to the overpowering heat of the sun's vertical rays are the mists and rains, which in their turn are scarcely less deadly. Moreover, events of the last few years have tended much to diminish what little commercial activity and prosperity existed formerly in this transit port. The Pacific Railroad on the north has drawn to itself a very large proportion of the traffic between the eastern States and California, which used to pass through Panama. The new line of English steamers on the south— running from Callao and Valparaiso, through the Magellan Strait, to the Eio de la Plata, the Brazils, and Europe — has diverted from its former course across the isthmus much of the traffic between the west coast of South America and Europe. So PANAMA. 281 that if the Panama merchant finds both his pockets emptied and his hands idle, is it to be wondered at if he puts the latter into the former, whistles ' Auld Lang Syne ' or some other appropriate tune, and takes his ' right guid willie-waught ' in the shape of more ' cock- tails ' than is good for him at the bar of the Grand Hotel. Only a few months before our visit to Panama a fire occurred in the commercial part of the city, and burnt down more than twenty merchants' houses. Instead of rebuilding and starting again, most of the owners are said to have accepted this misfortune as a final hint, and to have moved to more prosperous latitudes. The history of this fire, too, affords rather suggestive testimony as to the despair which reigns among some of the inhabitants of this ancient city of any longer making dollars by a legitimate business ; for the owner of an hotel which was among the houses destroyed by the conflagation was ar- rested immediately afterwards on a charge of incendiarism, he having insured his property a few days previously to a rather large amount. If the inhabitants of Panama find little to do in their own city, it may be surmised that a week passed there by a traveller who has missed one steamer for Callao, and has to wait for the next, is seldom marked by incidents of any interest. Our own week is spent chiefly on board the steamer which brought us down from San Francisco, her hospitable captain offering us quarters on board as an alternative to those to be found on shore. At the end of the week we tranship ourselves and our baggage to the Pacific Steam Navigation Company's new and neat little steamer, the ' Arequipa,' bound for Callao. We have scarcely stepped on board of her before a genuine tropical thunderstorm sweeps over the bay, and lasts for upwards of an hour. The rain comes down with 282 BOUND THE "WOELD IN 1870. such volume and force, and the wind blows so fiercely, that the surface of the sea is changed into a sheet of mingled spray and mist ; the flashes of lightning are frequent and vivid, and are followed instantaneously, as the storm passes exactly overhead, by deafening peals of thunder, each one commencing with a sharp and sudden crash, and ending in a succession of deep and distant growls. A fine evening ensues, and our vessel steams off to the outlying island of Taboga, to take in a supply of fresh water, and wait for passengers from the French mail steamer just arrived at Aspinwall. Taboga is a hilly island of only a few miles in circum- ference, known chiefly for its supply of good fresh water, and for the number of sharks which prowl about off its shores. One of these marine monsters has become quite a public character from the constancy of his visits, his great size, peculiar colour, and the frequent unavail- ing attempts which have been made to catch and kill him ; he is known among the crews of vessels visiting the place as ' Taboga Bill.' We land for a couple of hours on the island, pass through a small and dirty village, and walk up a deep ravine which is densely wooded with tall trees and thick underwood, and which feels like a damp hothouse. Some beautiful silver ferns grow in the more open parts of it, and at its upper end are plantations of pine-apples and bananas. We return to our steamer, the French passengers come on board, bringing some rather astounding news about events at Sedan, and we are soon off, at the rate of eleven knots an hour, towards the south. DOWN THE WEST COAST. 283 CHAPTEE XXIV. DOWN THE WEST COAST. ' Nor tree, nor shrub, nor plant, nor flower, Nor aught of vegetative power The weary eye may ken.' — The Lord of the Isles. Steaming southwards from Panama, through a calm sea and a hot atmosphere, we rapidly approach the equator. On the second evening after leaving the Taboga anchorage we cross the" Line. In doing so we have reason to be thankful that the march of civilisation has recently ex- tended even to sailors, and that the traditional ' tar and feather,' and other jokes too practical to be agreeable, have in consequence been abolished, at least from passenger steamers. Strange to say, in entering the Southern hemisphere, the change in temperature which we experience is such as would rather induce us to believe that we have passed out of the Tropics altogether, than that we had only crossed from one into the other. While, in Panama and for several hundred miles southwards, our thermometer ranged at mid- day between 80° and 85°; no sooner do we approach within one or two degrees of the Line than it falls rapidly, and on the first mid-day after passing the Line, when we are in lat. 2° S., it stands at 65°. This comparative cold continues more or less throughout our voyage down the coast, and is said to be the rule here during the greater part of the year — an almost constant wind from the south 284 HOUND THE "WOELD IN 1870. or south-east, fresh from the snowy Andes, and a constant sea-current from the lower latitudes, being the causes of it. Our first port of stoppage is Payta ; so after catching one glimpse of Ecuador, by sighting Punta St. Helena, the next land visible is part of the Peruvian coast. On the fourth morning after leaving Taboga we anchor at day-break in the open roadstead of what is the most important part of Peru, north of Callao. Not that the appearance of Payta would lead a foreigner to suspect its importance. As we look out from the vessel towards the shore, we see little but a long line of bare yellow cliffs of sandstone and shale, from 100 to 200 feet high, stretching away in a gradual curve towards the north- west and south-west to the two points which form the ex- tremities of the bay. Between the cliffs and the tidal line is a strip of sandy land, on part of which stands the town of Payta— a collection of 600 or 800 low houses of plaster, trick and bamboo, with a church, a town-hall, and a cus- tom-house of the same materials. Not a tree, not a blade of glass, is visible ; and if we ascend to the top of the line of cliffs and look inland, a still wider scene of barrenness presents itself. One vast plain, with a hard surface of pebbles and grit — a dreary grey waste unbroken by a single green patch — stretches away for twenty miles or more to the east, ending in a misty horizon, or in a chain of rocky mountains that look as dry and scorched as the heights of Aden. Old residents in Payta tell how they remember this plain having once burst out into a sudden flush of green, after a short but heavy rain-fall ; but its normal state is absolute barrenness, for rain is a blessing which visits this dry and thirsty land at very rare intervals. 1 1 Quite recently a remarkable exception to this rule has occurred. In the month of March, 1871, rain fell heavily for several days iD Payta, and on the surrounding coast and country. This resulted in a general PAYTA. 285 The nearest vegetation to Payta is said to exist in a river- bed twenty miles to the north, whence all the water con- sumed in Payta, except that distilled from sea- water, is conveyed on the backs of mules. Thirty miles to the south-east lies another river, on whose banks stands Pinra, the capital of the province of that name. Payta is the port through which all the trade of this province passes ; and here accordingly our vessel discharges various bales of prints and other European goods, taking in exchange a considerable number of bags of produce, together with a score or two of barrels of whale-oil from a vessel which has just arrived in the roadstead from a successful cruise off the coast. Before leaving the port we pay a visit to one small object contained in it, which possesses a certain amount of historical interest. This is an image of the Virgin Mary, in one of the shrines of the only church in the place, with a vermilion-painted gash in her throat and another in her chin. These gashes are said to have been made, by way of a rude joke, by some of Lord Cochrane's Jack Tars, fifty years ago : the priests, however, have made good capital out of the intended insult, for on each anniversary of the outrage they display the figure with these wounds bleeding ! From Payta to Callao is a distance of just 500 miles, which our vessel accomplishes in forty- five hours, in spite of a head wind, an adverse current, and a heavy freight. Callao is almost the only well- sheltered port on the west coast of South America ; the island of San Lorenzo, which stretches across it, serving to guard it from the heavy inundation of the district; several villages were destroyed; in Payta itself a number of houses -were swept down by the torrents which poured down from the cliffs into the sea, and for one or two days the streets were only passable for canoes and boats.^-See The Times, April 13, 1871. 286 ROUND THE WOULD IN 1870. swell which often rolls in from the ocean. Sailing in round the northern end of this island, we are soon at anchor among the crowd of ships, chiefly engaged in the guano trade, which are lying in the anchorage. Before us lies Callao, a crowded seaport town of nearly 20,000 inhabitants, full of warehouses, stores, offices, and shops, but with few broad streets or good-looking houses. Though its name is an old one, the present town has not much more than a century of history, for in 1746 the origi- nal Callao was shaken down by an earthquake, and then swallowed up by the sea, and it still lies at the bottom of the waters of the harbour. Behind Callao, at a distance of twelve miles, rise the Andes — a towering range, bare and rocky, with here and there a distant snow-crest visible. At the foot of one of their spurs, and at the head of the broad plain which slopes very gradually up from Callao harbour, the white walls and church towers of Lima are distinctly visible. On either side of the city, especially to- wards the north, trees and green patches of verdure thickly dot the sloping plain : these are the result of careful irri- gation ; for there never falls in or around Lima anything of a nature nearer to rain than a sort of Scotch mist, and so nothing will grow in the district without the aid of borrowed water. We land near the Callao Custom-house, and after spending some little time within its precincts and in walk- ing through the winding streets of this chief port of Peru, we take the train up to the capital. In moving rapidly from place to place, it is well if the traveller can catch a favourable first impression of the places on which he is prepared to bestow his admiration. Such, however, cannot always be his fortune ; and in this instance our precon- ceived ideas of Lima are sorely shattered by our arriving there in the dark, having to spend upwards of an hour in LIMA. 287 hunting for rooms, and coming to the conclusion that the hotels in Lima are all equally dirty and uncomfortable. We even doubt whether the absence of carpet in the room which we at last obtain is not an advantage, as affording so much less shelter to those ' domestic kangaroos ' who seem acclimatised in every country of the world, and especially in Peru. Perhaps the best that can be said of Lima is, that it is the capital of a very large and rich country, contains about 120,000 inhabitants, has straight streets, good shops, and boasts of the beauty of its fair sex. Few other good qualities can be assigned to it. Though it is the seat of a government which is lavish with its money, the home of many rich bankers, merchants, and landowners, and the centre of what social civilisation there is in Peru, it yet cannot boast a single handsome and substantial building, nor one well-paved street. From its cathedral to its cottages, all is of plaster, brick, and old paint ; and though there is a certain picturesquenesss about the Spanish balconies which mark the older houses, and about the bow- windows whose grates and bars remain to tell of times in Peru even more unsettled than the present, there is scarcely a house which, from its outward appearance, a visitor would think worthy of being the residence of a wealthy financier, or of an old and illustrious half-Spanish, half-Peruvian family. The hotels, as we have already hinted, are 'musty, dusty, and fusty;' the cafes and restaurants are scarcely better than those in a second-class Italian town; even the theatres, which, in a nation with strong dramatic tendencies, one would expect to find well-built and well- ornamented, look dingy and small ; and the cathedral and churches, though in one or two cases handsome in design, present very dirty surfaces of paint and plaster outside, 288 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. and, with the exception of some good wood-carving, masses of tawdry ornament inside. It is doubtless true that the fear of earthquakes prevents the Limenans from indulging in lofty edifices, and in- duces them to eschew such heavy and unyielding material as stone ; but their taste, or want of taste, must be held answerable for much of the poor appearance of their city. Many of their houses are lavishly furnished in Parisian style : might not the owners have made clean the outside also ? At the least, Lima might have well-paved streets laid down in it, and a few good roads leading out from it ; but at present most of the streets present the appearance of ridges of cobble-stones, divided by valleys of dust or pools of dirty water, and the only good road leading from . it is the one which connects the capital with its port. There is, indeed, an Alameda, or Promenade, in the northern suburb of the city, consisting of a handsome avenue, 200 yards in length, bordered by a few good statues ; but this is separated from the main city by such a wretched street, that it attracts few promenaders. There are also two good statues in isolated parts of the city, one of Bolivar and one of Columbus ; and there are botanical gardens in course of formation in a suburb as inacces- sible as that of the Alameda ; but a Board of Works might find enough to employ their time and taste, backed by a few millions of dollars, for several years, before turning the city into a fit capital for so large and wealthy a country as Peru. There is, however, one great work going on — which says much for the desire of the present government to open up the immense resources of the country, and supply it with those improved means of communication without which no country can progress in this century of steam and speed. PEKUVIAN RAILWAYS. 289 This work is the railway, already commenced, leading from Lima, north-eastwards, over the central ridge of the Andes, to Oroya, on their eastern slope — a distance of about 120 miles. The contract for this railway, together with another to lead from Mollendo (near Iquique), through Arequipa, and over the Andes to Puno on Lake Titicaca, has been taken by Mr. Meiggs, an enterprising American, who is already known on the west coast for various other undertakings. The cost of the two lines is to be twelve millions sterling, the bulk of which sum will probably be raised from the guano deposits in the Chincha Islands, which still remain in possession of the government. When com- pleted, these two lines of railway will pass over far higher altitudes than that of any hue yet constructed, and will exhibit some of the most extraordinary feats of engineering yet attempted. That from Mollendo to Puno is to cross the Andes at a height of 14,000 feet, and in its course contains several gradients of 1 in 25. 1 That from Lima to Oroya is to rise to the height of 12,000 feet within a distance of 100 miles. The two together are expected to open out the mineral resources of the Andes, which are said to be almost without limit, but which at present cannot possibly be developed, owing to the diffi- culty and expense of transporting machinery or ores up or down the passes and tracks of the Cordilleras. If they succeed in this, Peru may draw from its minerals as much wealth, for many a long year, as it has done for many past years from its guano deposits. From the uninviting appearance of Lima, one might 1 This railway was opened in January 1871, from Mollendo as far as Arequipa, a distance of ninety miles, half its entire length. In this distance it rises to the height of nearly 9,000 feet. V 290 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. be inclined to commiserate those fellow-countrymen of our own whose fate it is, for a longer or shorter period, to dwell therein. Yet from what we hear from their own mouths, they would all laugh at such commiseration. Though they grant that the city and the surrounding country presents few outward attractions, they maintain that nowhere in South America can such pleasant society be found, and such easy intercourse had with the best native families. A constant interchange of free and open-handed hospitality is the rule among the Limenans, both towards each other and towards foreigners. So that with business occupations during the day, and 'tertulias,' or evening parties, afterwards, wherein may be enjoyed the smiles of many a ' bella Limena,' Englishmen and others exiled at Lima declare that the time passes quickly and pleasantly with them. With regard to the supposed matchless beauty of the 'bella Limena,' one ought to pass a longer time in the city than a passing traveller can afford to spare before being competent to form an opinion. Cer- tainly many handsome faces look out from the graceful ' mantas ' which pass and repass along a street of Lima. But their owners chiefly belong to the comparatively poor classes ; for either from apathy of temperament, or from the uninviting state of the public buildings and streets in and around Lima, or from both causes, the people of the wealthier classes, especially the ladies, are seldom seen out of their own houses. A London belle may envy the features and the eyes of a Limena, but she may pity her for the want of a Hyde Park and a Rotten Row, an Albert Hall and a St. James's, wherein to sun her beauty ; nay, she may even wonder that she survives at all, when the only fields for her charms are the draw- ing-rooms of 'her friends and a small watering-place, THE PERUVIAN COAST. 291 Chorillos, where Scarborough and Biarritz are but faintly imitated. A short stay in Lima is sufficient to exhaust the interest of the city itself; a longer period than we can afford would be requisite to arrange and carry out one of the journeys up into the High Andes, to the table-lands of Pasco or Cuzco, which can be accomplished from the capital better than from any other starting-point. We leave Lima on an afternoon cold and doll enough to convince us that though the city is only a dozen degrees from the Line it can hardly be said to enjoy a tropical climate. On the same evening we start from Callao on the coasting voyage southwards, and next morning we reach Tambo de Moro, the first of the score of ports lying between Callao and Valparaiso, each of them an outlet for some fruitful province lying from three to twenty leagues inland, and nearly all of them looking in themselves the most desolate and abandoned spots on earth. The whole Peruvian coast, for a distance of 1,500 miles, from latitude 3° S. to latitude 23° S., is a strip of rainless, and therefore treeless, nay herbless, land. Here and there, indeed, a river, fed by the snows and rains of the central Andes, lasts out, in its westward course towards the ocean, through the thirsty waste ; and then a narrow belt of verdure is seen creeping down almost to high- water mark ; but the general aspect of the coast is one of rock and sand, of drought and dreariness. Here and there, where a range of mountains comes close down to the sea, clouds may be seen resting on their summits and straggling half way down their sides ; and wherever the influence of their moisture is felt, some thin brushwood, and even belts of olive-trees, show their gratitude by lifting their protest against the surrounding barrenness; but the protest seems unheeded, and the V 2 292 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. sand only looks the more yellow by contrast with the exceptional green. The little ports, often consisting of scarcely a score of houses, which have dared to set themselves down on this forbidding coast, have to depend on less unblessed districts inland for a supply of every- thing — meat, vegetables, flour, and even fresh water. Yet, strange to say, many of the inhabitants of these desolate spots, and even Europeans resident in them, are said to grow fond of the surrounding scenes of parched plains and scorched mountain- sides — scarcely less remark- able an instance of the power of custom than the alleged fact that the good missionary Judson, after being fed for a long period in his Burmese prison on rotten fish, retained ever afterwards a strong liking for that kind of food. Though this coast of Peru is now almost absolutely rainless, there are strong evidences that it was once not so. Travellers who have journeyed along various por- tions of it assure us that the remains of river-beds are frequently to be seen crossing its barren breadth ; and in these river-beds have been found organic remains (such as birds' feathers, almost perfectly preserved by the extraor- dinary dryness of the atmosphere) which speak of life having existed there at no very distant period. It is said, too, that when a shower does occur in any part of this district, although previously the surface has been as dry, hard, and stony as a macadamized road, grass and small herbs spring up as if by magic from seeds that have lain dry and shrivelled, but still possessed of germinating power, for perhaps fifty years. Tet this absence of rain is not altogether without its use. Off this barren coast lie islands rich in guano — that valuable product which can only accumulate, in any quantity, in spots where there is no rain to wash it away. CHINA COOLIES. 293 Hence goes the precious stuff, at the rate of nearly half-a- million of tons annually, to supply the high-pressure farms of Europe and America ; the sterility of one part of the world thus sending aid to the fertility of another. On the coast itself, moreover, are found vast deposits of another great fertiliser — nitrate of soda. In such quanti- ties does this cover the ground in some districts, that from the port of Iquique alone have been exported as many as 60,000 tons of it in one year. Thus in one of the most barren districts of the earth are found two of the most fertilising agents known. From several of the more northerly of the Peruvian ports at which we touch our vessel takes in various consignments of products from the sugar-plantations which lie more inland. Chief among these are rum, and a kind of coarse candy called ' chancaca.' These Peruvian sugar-planta- tions belong chiefly to native proprietors, though they are often superintended by Europeans. The labourers on them are nearly all Chinese coolies, who are brought over from Macao in Peruvian, Portuguese, or Central American ships. These coolies are collected in China, chiefly in and around Canton, by agents stationed there ; they are then bound down by written engagements, generally for a period of eight years, and are shipped across the ocean in a manner which, from various accounts, seems hardly less open to the charge of inhuman crueltythan was the African slave-trade. The British Government put a stop some years ago to their shipment from Hongkong, and the Chilian govern- ment have put a veto on their being imported into any Chilian port. An eye-witness tells us of a coolie vessel which arrived in Payta not many months ago, having on board 620 coolies out of 700 shipped at Macao, no fewer than eighty having 294 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. died on the voyage. When transported from the ships to the sugar-plantations, doubtless many of them are fairly treated and tolerably cared for ; but that they are often made to endure great hardships and treated with much cruelty is almost proved by the fact that insurrections among them against their masters are of frequent occur- rence. Only recently, a large number of them, on the estates near Huanachuco, 250 miles north of Lima, rose en masse, murdered several of their masters, and were only suppressed after a body of soldiers had attacked them, and had killed some twenty or thirty of them. This tragedy, a climax to a series which preceded it, has forcibly drawn the attention of the Peruvian Government to the whole question of the nefarious character of the trade ; and it may be hoped that before long, although ' red tape ' is much longer in Peru than even in our own island, this traffic in coolie-slaves will either be abolished or much ameliorated. ' Of the half-score of Peruvian ports at which our vessel touches, there is one which, three years ago, would have been passed by as possessing no interest more special than any of the other ten; but which, in the fearful earthquake which visited this coast in 1868, earned a sad fame which still distinguishes it above the rest. We anchor in the Arica roadstead early one morning, and from it have perhaps a better view of the Cordilleras, with their central snowy heads, than any other which we catch throughout the voyage. We row ashore, and very soon after landing see numerous traces of the fearful ruin which overtook the town two years ago. 1 Quite recently a project has been started of running a line of steamers ' from China to Peru,' via the Sandwich Islands. If carried out, this may result in changing the character of the coolie traffic, and assimilating it to the excellent system of emigration ■which goes on regularly between China and California by the steamers of the P. M. S. Co. AEICA. 295 Before that time Arica was a flourishing little port, with a population of about 5,000 persons, and was reckoned the prettiest spot on the Peruvian coast. The morning of its day of doom found it bright and prosperous, but the evening left it a mass of shapeless ruins. Of its 5,000 inhabitants every one was homeless, and nearly all were penniless: there was scarcely a morsel left for them to eat, no fresh water to drink : of the gardens which had rendered their town the most verdant spot for many a long league of coast, not a vestige remained, with the exception of a single palm-tree, which survived, and still survives, as if to remind those who know it of the many others which once grew around it. The tremendous shock which formed the first part of the tragedy shook almost every house into ruins ; and the tremendous waves which swept in upon the place a few minutes subsequently, as the sea was lifted up above its natural level, scattered and oblite- rated even the ruins, so that many householders could not tell, after all was over, where their properties had been. Along with the sea three vessels came in upon the land, were hurled to the ground as so many shells are thrown up by an ordinary wave, and left high and dry. There they still remain : one a small brig ; one an American paddle- wheel sloop, lying 600 yards above high- water mark ; the third a Peruvian corvette of 1,200 tons, not more than 200 yards from its former element. One vessel, an English- built bark, met with a still more awful fate ; as the sea came in, she became entangled with her chain cable, was capsized, and rolled over and over : and when the waters fell again, was left an almost shapeless mass, her cable . wrapped round her amidships in five coils, and all her crew corpses. A short distance from the port, along the southern beach, was an ancient burial-ground of the native Indians. 296 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. The sea spared not even the dead : several of the graves were ploughed open by the waves, and the mummied bodies thrown up side by side with those whose life had but just left them. Most providentially, all who lived in the town had notice, by a distant rumbling sound, of the coming destroyer, and fled at once out of their houses, so that fewer were buried by the falling walls and beams than were drowned and crushed among the ships. But the miseries of the townspeople did not terminate with the earthquake, nor with the subsidence of the sea. Crowded as they were for many subsequent weeks in tem- porary huts, with a precarious and insufficient supply of food, and with more wine and spirits to drink than water, yellow fever broke out among them, and probably more died from that relentless plague than from the two more sudden scourges which had preceded it. Two years have passed since these crushing calamities befell the town ; and though it shows signs of slow revival in the few houses and shops which have been built afresh, five-sixths of the town are still a waste of rubbish-heaps and ruins, and it must be .long before the place becomes again the Arica which it once was. Earthquakes still visit it at frequent intervals, as they did before the great shock came. But of this fact those few who are rebuilding seem to make little account : slight shocks will not harm them, and they would seem to have a natural, though rather irrational idea, that such shocks as those of 1868 will not occur again during this generation. Five days more of coasting takes us from Arica down to our destination, Valparaiso. During these five days we keep stopping for an hour or two at a succession of small ports, of which each one seems almost as small as its predecessor. Pisagua, Mejillones, Iquique, Cobija, Mejil- THE CHILIAN COAST. 297 lones de Bolivia, Chanaral, Caldera, Carrisal, Huasco, Coquimbo — at each of these our ' parliamentary ' vessel makes a short stay. As we leave the Peruvian, coast behind, and glide along that of Chili, we become gradually conscious that we have passed out of the rainless region. At Carrisal and Huasco there is a pale tinge of green upon the hill-sides which slope up from the water ; and though we should have to go quite down to southern Chili before seeing a really verdant coast-line, that on either side of Coquimbo seems to the eye almost a paradise compared with the memory of Payta or Iquique. Though this coasting voyage begins to seem monotonous before it comes to an end, it affords at least one source of amusement and interest, in the motley and ever-changing crowd of deck-passengers who seem to find room on every steamer which comes down from Panama to Val- paraiso. A few years ago all the coasting trade, and the transport of the natives from each port to each neighbour- ing one, was managed by small sailing-vessels belonging chiefly to local owners. But the P. S. N. Co. have driven these relics of a slower age off the scene, and attracted to their vessels all the traffic, small and great, of goods and human beings, on the coast. Hence we often see on board our steamer such a varied throng as it would be difficult to match on any steamers, except perhaps on those that carry the Mecca pilgrims. Men in Panama hats, gay-coloured ponchos, and long leather boots, with dark complexions, darker eyes, and ragged hair and beards; women with the most varied costumes, of all ages, sizes, and grades of beauty and its converse — from some brunette belle of Payta or Caldera, going perhaps to join her ' amante ' at the neighbouring port, to some fat and ancient matron selling oranges and ' chirimoyas,' with a face that hardly serves to advertise 298 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. her wares ; Chinese coolies on their way to some sugar- plantation or some new railway work, passing the day in playing dominoes and smoking opium ; put all these amid a medley of packages, bales, and boxes, baskets of oranges and jars of eggs, mattrasses and coverlets, waterpots and pie-dishes, pumpkins and pine-apples, ducks and geese, turkeys and game-cocks, goats and puppies, parroquets and monkeys — and you have such a group as you may gaze on in wonder and confusion while steaming down the west coast — a living scene in which it is hard to say whether there is a greater variety of colours, sounds, or smells — a scene, which it would puzzle an artist to paint, half-a-dozen constables to arrange, and almost anyone adequately to describe. CENTRAL CHILI. 299 CHAPTEE XXV. CENTRAL CHILI. Aster touching at a succession of small, and half-grown ports, whereof almost every one is surrounded by barren mountains or backed by a desert plain, it is refreshing to land at one which, besides being backed by heights whose sloping sides can boast a certain shade of green on their surface, has an air of prosperity and activity, and some- thing of a European style about it. The town of Valparaiso is built along a narrow piece of land lying between the harbour and the heights, and extends for a length of two-and-a-half miles, from the western point, on which stands a lighthouse, to where the strip of land widens out into a recess among the hills, so making room for its more populous part. One long irregular street runs through the whole length of this strip, lined towards the western end by first-rate shops, and traversed throughout by a double tramway, here called the ' City Railway ' — ' Ferro-Carril TJrbano.' The town boasts a population of about 110,000, the numbers having increased to that point from 10,000 within forty-five years. Of these 110,000 perhaps a thirtieth are Europeans, chiefly English and Germans. There is little stone in the city ; nearly all the buildings are either of brick and mortar, or of wood and ' adobe ' (baked clay) ; and though they are clean-looking, scarcely any of them can be called handsome. The best-looking 300 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. building in the town is the Foreign Club, recently erected, well finished inside and out ; and, as far as our experience goes, it is decidedly the finest club in South America. Though Valparaiso has been once destroyed by an earth- quake, and is frequently visited by slight shocks, the inhabitants do not seem to have taken these facts into consideration in the buildings which they have erected within the last twenty years. The older buildings were nearly all of one storey only ; the more modern are often of three or even four storeys. Yet all the dwellers on this west coast seem to have a most wholesome dread of earthquakes. So recently as last year, Valparaiso, together with other Chilian and Peruvian ports, was thrown into a state of great alarm by reason of a German prophesying that the whole west coast of South America would be destroyed on a certain day by a terrific earthquake. On the appointed day many people who lived near the beach moved up on to the heights; goods were carried away from the warehouses near high-water mark, and for twenty-four hours the inhabitants were in immediate expectation of the first symptoms of the coming disaster. But no shock was felt, no eccentric wave rushed in from the sea; the dreaded period passed, people breathed more freely, reflected that they must have been considerably befooled, and did anything but bless the false prophet in their hearts. Even during our brief stay in- Valparaiso we experience two earthquake-shocks, slight certainly, but the latter one sufliciently strong to make perceptible a swaying motion of the tall hotel in which we are seated at the time. At the occurrence of the first of the shocks we are in the house of an English resident, and in the room with us are several people who have lived in Valparaiso for some VALPARAISO. 301 years. To our senses nothing is perceptible but a very slight rattling of the -windows, such as might have been occasioned by a cart passing by ; but it causes a start to the more experienced and more sensitive nerves of the ladies of the house, and elicits a half-involuntary excla- mation ' There it is ! ' as if the ' it ' was a visitor too well- known or too much dreaded to be mentioned by name. It is said that all fresh-comers to this earthquake- haunted coast make light of the first few shocks they feel, and are apt to smile at the evident dread of the mysterious agent betrayed by the residents ; but few live for any length of time within the region of its influence without gradually acquiring the same fear of it, and thus affording an exception to the oft-quoted rule about famili- arity with danger breeding contempt for it. And yet, in spite of this, the newer part of Valparaiso is composed of blocks of tall houses, separated only by narrow streets, the narrowness of the level strip of ground inducing the inhabitants to economise space in every possible way. May such a shock as that which levelled Arica two years ago never visit Valparaiso ! else the Chilian port will be the witness of even a more fearful tragedy than the Peruvian. 1 Of the European residents in Valparaiso many have dwelling-houses on the heights above the town, or even among the ' quebradas ' (little glens) in the shrub- covered bills a few miles to the eastward. Round many of these country-houses are extensive gardens, well laid 1 Quite recently Valparaiso seems to have had a narrow escape from destruction by an earthquake. On March 25, 1871, a shock was felt in the town, so sharp and strong that the streets were immediately filled with people who had rushed in terror from their houses ; the inner wall of the Merced Church was cracked ; the tower of the San Augustino was thrown out of the perpendicular ; much damage was done to glass, furni- ture, &c. in many houses, and the water in the harbour was agitated fc r a short time as if by a sudden storm. 302 ROUND THE WOULD IN 1870. out, aud filled with a great variety of plants and flowers. The genial nature of the climate and soil is abundantly testified by the geraniums and roses which here flourish side by side ; camellias and fuchsias grow in the open air ; vines and aloes remind one of the not unsimilar climate of Genoa or Nice ; and one of the most common and most vigorous evergreens here is the Norfolk Island Pine. We have landed in Valparaiso just at its most pleasant season of the year. In the winter months (June, July, and August) there are frequently heavy rains here, dull days, and occasional frosts at night; in the summer months great drought prevails (the whole rainfall for the year amounts on an average to no more than seventeen inches), and strong south winds raise constant clouds of dust in and around the town. But just now (September, October) the temperature is moderate, the ground still green from the effects of its winter showers, the sky often a cloudless vault of brilliant blue, and the air remarkably clear. Every day we have clear views of the ' Cordillera de los Andes,' and not unfrequently the great white head of Aconcagua, the giant of the mighty chain, and the highest mountain in the whole New World, is distinctly visible. This lofty dome of snow is ninety-five miles from Valparaiso in a direct line, yet it is often so clear in outline that we can hardly believe tbat it is more than half that distance from us. It could certainly be seen for a distance of another fifty miles out to sea westwards ; and it is stated that it is often visible at sunset from San Luis, a small town in the middle of the Pampas, upwards of 200 miles to the eastward of it ; ' so that as we watch the ruddy glow of sunset playing around its white summit, it is very 1 See Sir TV. Parish's Buenos Ayres from the Conquest. Second edition, p. 322. CHILIAN HORSES. 303 possible that there are other eyes looking at it from spots as far distant from one another as London is from Edinburgh. Considering the number of European merchants resid- ing in Valparaiso, the place seems singularly destitute of means of recreation. The town does not boast a racket- court or a fives- court, the institutions which so generally follow the settlement of Englishmen in foreign towns. Level ground is so rare in the neighbourhood, that the cricket-ground and race-course are banished to a somewhat inaccessible distance ; and game is so scarce in the country, that shooting is quite at a discount. A pack of fox-hounds has indeed been procured by the foreign residents, but they cannot meet within several miles of the town ; the foxes are few, and the bounds look rather mangy. Under these circumstances, riding is almost the only exercise easily obtainable, and even the pursuit of this is somewhat discouraged by the fact that at least a mile of steep hill must be surmounted by the rider going out of Valparaiso before he can go beyond a walking pace. When once he has scaled the heights, he may turn his back upon the bird's-eye view of the town and the harbour with its hundred ships, and go at any pace he chooses over an undulating table-land where the ground is soft and the hedges few. The Chilian horses are of a small and not very shapely breed, but they are very hardy, universally good-tem- pered, and very sure-footed ; too slow and coarse-looking to make a show on a race-course or a Rotten Row, but well adapted for long and rough rides, and not requiring that constant care which our more full-blooded animals need. Tales scarcely credible, but well authenticated, are told of their powers of endurance and the distances they can travel without rest ; an elderly Englishman in Valparaiso 304 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. assures us that he rode recently from Copiapo to Valpa- raiso — a distance of 430 miles — in eighty-five hours, taking with him throughout the journey a ' tropilla ' or small troop of horses, and using them in turns, but giving one of them more than his share by riding him for more than half the distance. It is curious to see a Chilian horseman riding his steed down a steep hill. Instead of making the horse walk, or holding his head up with tightened rein, he almost invariably canters down, and gives the horse his head. Even some Englishmen who have lived in the country for a length of time adopt this plan, arguing that a horse will travel down more safely with all the muscles of his neck and chest free, and his head thrown forward to view the ground, than with the reins ' taut ' and head and neck thrown up in a cramped position. Horse-riding is far more natural to most Chilian rustics than walking, and a proof of their long habituation to it may be seen occa- sionally when one of them rides past in a state of more than semi-intoxication. Certainly, to put a drunken Eng- lishman on horseback would be the surest way to give him a tumble, but a Chilian in his cups still retains his faculty of sitting astride his steed, and though he may be seen rolling about freely, he seldom falls overboard altogether. We may even see a Chilian sitting asleep on his horse, apparently getting as thorough a 'forty winks' as he could have done in an easy chair. Of course he is much assisted in remaining in ' statu quo ' by the style of saddle which he uses, and which consists of half-a-dozen sheepskins piled one above the other, and strapped firmly down across the middle, so that he sinks down among them as if sitting astride a feather-bed. His stirrups, too, are peculiar, covered in front with metal or thick leather, and looking like the broad-toed iron shoes seen attached A CHILIAN RAILWAY. 305 to suits of ancient armour ; his spurs are blunt, but the star-piece is of the size of a half-crown at least; his bit is very heavy and powerful, enabling him to pull up his horse in a wonderfully short space of ground, though the poor animal's mouth often suffers severely for it. Though Valparaiso may be considered the commer- cial capital of Chili, the social and political capital is Santiago, situated ninety miles inland from Valparaiso, and connected with that port by a railway 115 miles in length. This railway was opened in 1863, and at that time it passed over a higher altitude (2,600 feet) than any other railway either in North or South America, with the single exception of the Copiapo line, also a Chilian undertaking. Half way between Valparaiso and Santiago the line crosses the Cuesta Tabon, an isolated range of hills running parallel to the chain of the Andes ; and in winding up and across the gorges of this range it meets with and overcomes some serious engineering difficulties. Rising 1,500 feet in a distance of twelve miles, it has a gradient 'rather steeper than any on the Great Pacific Railway of North America, and one difficult ravine is bridged by a viaduct of 600 feet in length, which is built on the tubular principle, and possesses the somewhat rare com- bination of a curve of 600 feet radius, and an incline of 1 in 45. Aided by two locomotives, our long and heavy train toils slowly but steadily up these steep gradients of the Cuesta, and, having surmounted the highest point, passes at a quicker pace down into the Santiago table-land, on the eastern side of which rise up before us the snowy peaks of the Andes. This Santiago plain lies at an elevation of from 1,500 to 306 KOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. 1,800 feet above the sea, and possesses a soil, a climate, and a water-supply equal to that of any of the great plains of the world. The vine and the mulberry grow and thrive in it; tobacco is also raised in some quantities; but wheat and barley are its prevailing crops. As we cross it we pass many fields where the young wheat is already (October 12) showing a few inches above the surface; though along with it comes up a weed with a light yellow flower, looking very like wild mustard, apparently in almost as great quantities as the main crop. Farming in Chili, at least in this district, seems to be con- ducted in a somewhat sluggish manner ; a wooden plough, similar to that used by the natives of India or of Egypt, turns up the soil skin-deep ; little care is taken to keep the ground clear of tares and weeds ; and after the crop is cut, it is cast upon an enclosed piece of bare ground and thrashed out by the primitive method of running loose horses over it. Yet, even with this imperfect system of farming, much of the wheat land produces crops excelling both in quantity and quality, and it is not many years since Chili exported grain to what is now the finest grain^growing country in the world — California. Apart from the crops which diversify its surface, this Santiago plain is rendered pleasing to the eye by the numbers of wild acacias scattered over it, each, though still leafless, covered with its numberless golden blossoms, and looking like a mass of Delhi jewellery. We roll rapidly across this rich and extensive plain, and soon reach the city from which it takes its name, our railway journey ending in a station which is certainly a finer one than any on the west, if not also on the east coast of South America. Santiago de Chile is in fact a fine city in very many respects, and passing from the SANTIAGO. 307 railway station we enter at once upon one of its chief beauties — the long and spacious Alameda. This noble road is wide enough to afford room for a broad promenade (ornamented with several good statues), which occupies its central portion, a double line of tramways, two avenues of poplars and chesnut-trees which run along either side of the tramways, and two macadam roads on either side again of the avenues. It runs in a straight line for upwards of a mile and a half, is bordered by several good buildings, and commands throughout its length a fine view of the snowy peaks of the Cordillera. To obtain a good view of the city and of the Cordillera, we have merely to follow this Alameda eastwards almost to its termination, then turn northwards for a few hundred yards and walk to the top of Santa Lucia, a small hill of basaltic rock, within the limits of the city. The city and the plain in which it stands lie stretched out beneath and around us ; the view to the west is bounded by the Cuesta Tabon, and other ranges, isolated spurs of which stand out picturesquely in the foreground ; to the east rise up almost immediately above us the glistening snow-fields and jagged peaks of the giant Andes. The panorama of the city alone is remarkably pleasing .- for instead of being an expanse of dirty roofs and chimney- pots, as the panoramas of most cities of 100,000 inhabitant! are, the white and yellow walls and red roofs in it minglt prettily with the bright foliage of the date-palms and the orange-trees, the araucarias and the vines, which are thickly planted in the ' patios,' or courtyards, of all the better class of houses. Descending from Santa Lucia, we shall find that a walk or a drive through the city will by no means dispel the favourable impression made by the view of the place from * 2 308 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. an elevation. The streets in Santiago are straight, broad, and clean, the shops almost Parisian in style and display, many of the dwelling-houses large and handsome, and some of the public buildings would be no disgrace to a European capital. True, all the buildings, with the excep- tion of the cathedral, which is of stone, are of brick ; but they are well covered with hard plaster, which is kept clean and fresh-looking ; and many of them are of very good designs and ornamented with well-executed friezes and cornices in plaster. The Plaza, in the centre of which stands a handsome bronze fountain, is surrounded on three sides by public buildings, such as the Cathedral, Town Hall, &c; and when the new pile of buildings on the south side, now in course of erection, is finished, the square will not brook comparison with the Plazas of' Lima or Valparaiso. The Museum, the University, and the Mint, are perhaps the most spacious and best-looking public buildings out of the'Plaza ; then there are at least two large theatres, and one or two not unhandsome churches. One of the latter, not yet finished, promises to excel any of those at present existing. Some of the private dwelling-houses are built with great taste, and evidently with no regard to expense ; one is especially noticeable — an elaborate imitation of the style of the Alhambra. To the north of the city is the Pantheon, a very tasteful cemetery, adorned with many fine cypress-trees and many well-carved monuments. Among the plainer tombs is one of very sad interest ; its inscription tells that it covers the remains of about two thousand persons who were burnt in the church of La Compania, on December 8, 1863. Of these two thousand persons by far the greater number were women, and of the women a very large proportion were members of the best families in Santiago. SinGe the APOQUINDO. 309 days when every household in Pharaoh's capital mourned a first-born dead, a mourning so sudden and so universal has scarcely come upon any city in the world. 1 The people of Santiago are much more thoroughly European by descent than the inhabitants of most of the towns on the west coast; indeed, Chilians in general have less mixture of Indian blood in their veins than Peruvians, Bolivians, or Central Americans. This is traceable not only in their features, but in their habits, which are more active and more manly, as well as more neat and cleanly, than those of their neighbours. To this, too, must be partly due the fact that their government is a comparatively stable one, and that they have been troubled with few revolutions, compared with those which have so often torn asunder most of the other republics of South America. In Santiago European customs and manners seem much more prevalent that in Lima ; one minor custom we may mention, which we do not think obtains in any other South American city — the practice of the wealthiest class keeping landaus and barouches, and driving daily along their spacious Alameda, or out by some of the well- laid roads which lead from the city in more directions than one. One of these good roads leads nearly due east to the Baths of Apoquindo, a little watering-place established at the foot of a ravine leading up into the Cordillera,, and deriving its medicinal waters from a hot spring, which throws up its ferro- sulphureous liquid not far above the baths. These baths, with the adjoining hotel, have not long 1 Quite recently, in December 1870, Santiago was very nearly being the scene of another catastrophe of a similar nature. The largest theatre in the city took fire on one evening in that month, not a quarter of an hour after it had been vacated by a large audience assembled to hear Mdlle. Carlotti Patti, and was burnt to the ground. 310 ROUND THE "WORLD IN 1870. been established, but are said to be already becoming a favourite resort of the Santiago people. But there is a more extensive and better bathing estab- lishment, which the proprietor has even been bold enough to call the Chilian Baden-Baden, some seventy miles to the southward of Santiago, and further in among the Andes. Taking a train on the southern line, which runs now as far as Curico, but will probably soon be continued to Concepcion, we roll along at a gentle pace for three hours across the Santiago plain^ and through a low range of mountains into the adjoining plain of Rancagua. All along the route we cannot fail to notice the richness of the plains, and the healthy look of their crops of wheat and barley, and of their plantations of the mulberry and the vine ; nor can we but admire the splendid and constantly changing views to the eastward of the snowy Cordillera. Arrived at a station sixty miles south of Santiago, we leave the train and get into a ' diligencia ' bound for the baths of Cauquenez. Four horses, harnessed all abreast, take us up and down hilk through rivers and along the level, at a most varying, but generally racketty, pace ; the driver now letting them tear down one incline and up another at full gallop, anon allowing them to creep along at a sham- bling trot, or to stop entirely to recover breath. In the first few miles of the road magnificent views of the rich plain which we are rapidly leaving behind and below us, of the scattered mountains to the westward, and of the peaks and passes of the great range into the heart of which we are advancing, break upon us at every fresh corner ; as we get further in among the mountains the views become more contracted, and we see nothing but steep slopes rising up on either side of us, deep valleys branching away from the one whose course we are folic wing, or an oc- casional snowy point visible over a gap in the nearer CAUQUENEZ. 311 mountains. A drive of twenty miles brings us to the baths of Cauquenez, which are all contained in one large straggling hotel, built on the steep side of the gorge of a rushing glacier-stream, the Cachapoal. This hotel owes its origin to the energy of a German, who has sought, and with some success, to attract the good people of Valparaiso and Santiago to Cauquenez by setting up an establishment after a European model. The hotel contains one hundred rooms, not to mention the spacious Spa-room, which is surrounded with a series of bath-rooms into which the sulphur and iron waters are conducted, at temperatures varying from 50° to 95°, from the natural springs. Mountain weather is almost proverbially uncertain, and the weather in the Andes seems no exception to this rule. We spend a whole day at Cauquenez in the condition known as ' weather-bound.' From before daylight till late in the afternoon there is a constant downpour of heavy rain, accompanied by thick clouds which hang far down over the mountains around us, and by a coldness in the air which tells of snow falling at no great distance above us. The only variation in the dreary scene is that the rain falls more heavily at some moments than at others, and that the Cachapoal seems to increase hourly in bulk and swiftness, and dashes over rock and boulder as if exulting in the addition to his strength and size. Bat a calmer night ensues, and next morning the moun- tain-tops are clear of clouds, and glistening in their fresh- fallen coverings of snow. We start on a ride to some smelting-works further up the valley, and to reach them follow a path leading over a ridge which separates two bends or reaches of the valley. An hour's ride up hill, through scanty brushwood, and across one or two flat glades of cultivated or pasture ground, brings us to the top of 312 BOUND THE WOULD IN 1870. the ridge, at a point which commands a fine view tip the valley and across to the main chain of the Andes. The valley lies 1,000 feet below us, and following with the eye its course upwards, we see it divide towards the east into two narrower gorges which wind their way between lofty precipices and bare mountain-sides far into the heart of the Cordillera. Half-an-hour's descent from this point brings us down to the smelting-works. They are small in size, but enable us to see the process of melting down the copper ore, in its various combinations with sulphur, silver, and lead, into the export article termed ' regulus.' The mines which supply these works are eight leagues further up the Cacha- poal gorge, and just at present the approach to them is snowed up. Before the setting in of winter the miners carry up with them to these mines provisions for four months, and are sometimes imprisoned at their lofty abode throughout that period. The mines are at an elevation of about 9,000 feet, yet are by no means the highest in Chili : a friend tells us of having visited a sulphur mine east of Copiapo at the height of 15,000 feet, which, of course, could only be worked for about three months in the year. Immediately above the baths of Cauquenez rises a steep hill to the height of 3,600 feet above the sea (1,300 feet above the baths), from which an extensive view is obtained of the Cordillera. Encouraged by a fine night previous to our departure for Valparaiso, we rise before the sun on the sticceeding morning, and after an hour's stiff climb we stand on the summit with as fine a mountain view before us as could well be wished. Beneath us, and winding out in various directions, are deep valleys, threaded by almost silent rills, or by roaring torrents, and dotted with brushwood or patched with THE CORDILLERA. 313 green plots of wheat land or pasture. Separating these valleys, or their branches, from one another, are moun- tains rising up around us to about the same height as that on which we stand, their steep sides scantily covered with tall cacti, the ' quillai,' the dwarf mimosa, and one or two other low-growing trees not unlike the alder and the hawthorn. Looking westward we catch a glimpse here and there of the mountains beyond the Santiago plain ; looking eastwards the whole view from north to south is bounded by the magnificent chain of the Cordilleras, its snow-fields glistening in the early sun, its black precipices standing out boldly from the mass of white, and its jagged peaks cutting clear and sharp into the deep blue sky above. The giants of the Oberland, as viewed from Berne, are not so near the spectator, and therefore not so imposing as these towering Andes are from our point of view ; we want but a few forests of pine or deodar scattered on the lower mountain-slopes, and a few blue lakes or broad rivers to fill up the valleys at our feet, and we should have a landscape before us equal to any in the Alps or the Himalayas. 314 ROUffD THE WOELD IN 1870. CHAPTER XXVI. THE STBAIT OP MAGELLAN. ' Let the dire Andes from the radiant Line Stretched to the stormy seas that thunder round The southern pole, their hideous deeps unfold.' — Thtmisoris 'Autumn.' Otje intention had been to cross ' the dire Andes ' by the well-known Cumbre or Uspallata Pass leading from Santi- ago to Mendoza, and from the latter place to traverse the Pampas to Rosario or Buenos Ayres. But the Cumbre, being of an altitude of 13,000 feet, is seldom clear of snow, or passable for mules, before the month of November; and from information gathered at Santiago we learn that this season is an unusually late one, and that a crossing cannot be counted on with certainty before the middle of November at the earliest. Unable to spare another month, we reluctantly deter- mine on taking the sea route from Valparaiso to the La Plata, via the Strait of Magellan. From subsequent reports of persons who have made the passage of the Cumbre, we are inclined to regret this the less, inasmuch as the journey over the Andes is described as disappointing in its scenery and variety, and the subsequent ride or drive across the Pampas as monotonous in the extreme. Two years ago a vessel leaving Valparaiso with the intention of passing through the Strait of Magellan would have been looked on as a rarity ; but now the fine steamers of the P. S. N. Co. run through the Strait in each direction THE SOUTH PACIFIC. 315 twice every month, and we have no difficulty in securing a passage in the fitly-named ' Magellan.' We steam out of Valparaiso Bay on a bright forenoon, and rounding the Western Point become immediately aware, from certain lurches and rolls of our vessel, that we are again in the dominion of Neptune, and that that monarch's territory is, as usual, in a disturbed condition. For three days the ' Magellan ' steams resolutely on against a head- wind, which reduces her speed considerably, and occasion- ally sends a shower of spray over her bows. But on the fourth morning the wind veers round to the north-west, and for thirty hours or more we bowl along at the rate of twelve or thirteen knots an hour. We have occasional distant glimpses of the headlands of the Chilian and Patagonian coast, but during the greater part of the four days we look round on nothing but dancing, curling, waves, over and among which skim Cape pigeons and Cape hens, and occasionally a long^winged albatross. On the fifth evening the north-west breeze increases to a gale ; the good ship rolls like a cask; dinner is achieved with difficulty, and not without various catastrophes happen- ing to wine-glasses and pudding-plates : everything not lashed, bolted, or otherwise secured, takes to a wandering, reckless, life ; and there ensues a night of heavy toil to the officers and crew, and of sleepless listening to the thump- ing of the screw and the straining of the timbers to most of the passengers. Early next morning it is judged that we are within a few miles of the entrance to the Strait : the vessel's head is brought round to the wind, and there we lie, and * wish for the day.' The day comes, but little lioht comes with it, and we remain in the same position, riding up and down the waves in the face of a strong gale, for seven hours more. During the forenoon we have a fine opportunity of 316 BOUND THE -WORLD IN 1870. admiring from the deck the grandeur of ' a heavy sea.' The horizon, whenever we can catch a glimpse of it from the top of a tall wave, is dark and gloomy : the sky over- head is a mass of driving clouds, through the occasional rents in which the sun casts for a moment a sickly beam upon us : all around us is a waste of heaving, roaring billows, ©f a dull gray hue, except here and there when the occasional sunbeam flies swiftly across the troubled waters, or when the crests of the taller waves are curled over into foam, and swept off by the gale in flakes of whitening spray. In such a scene of raging nature, the handiwork of man has to play a very humble part. It gives one a forcible idea of the power of water to see our vessel, than which few look more stately or more powerful when in harbour, tossed about at the will of the waves as every ship has been since the days of David. Now 'mounting up to the heavens,' and now ' going down again to the depths,' she seems to be the plaything of ' the great waters.' But though bound to obey the elements, she does so with as good a grace as possible. As we stand near the aft wheel-house and hold on by the side-rail, we can see how well she behaves. When a wave huger than its fellows comes towards her, she does indeed stoop down into the valley at its base, as if bent on burying herself beneath it ; but just as the watery mass, whose crest is seen on a level with her fore-yard, seems on the point of rolling over her, up rises her head, as if proud of her Clyde build and her sturdy form ; slowly and firmly the gray slope is climbed, and she rides over the crest with all the buoyancy of life. While waiting for a glimpse of the land, or an oppor- tunity for an observation of the sun, we are reminded that we are not very far from the former by the score or more of ' Cape pigeons ' who seem quite at home in the storm, CAPE PILLAR. 317 and keep hovering round the vessel's stem in search of their favourite scraps, hattling hard against the wind, and occasionally driven backwards or hurled on to the water by a squall more furious than usual. Just at mid-day an observation of the sun is caught in an interval of watery sunshine, and as a result of it the ship's head is brought round to the north-east, and all steam made in the sup- posed direction of Cape Pillar. In a quarter of an hour the loom of high land is des- cried right ahead, but in another quarter of an hour it is discovered that the true Cape lies more to the north, and that we are making straight for a more southern part of the Land of Desolation, where such unpleasant names as Dislocation Point and Chancery Bay appear on the chart. So the ship's head is brought round again to the north, and after struggling against a heavy sea and a strong current setting down the coast, we round the wild and gloomy-looking headland, passing within a couple of miles of its off-lying rocks and great cold slate-cliffs, and enter the comparatively smooth water of the Strait. Just as we enter we are greeted by a shoal of some hundreds of seals, who come tumbling through the waves across the vessel's bows and in her wake, as if to see what the strange mon- ster can be, venturing so near such a coast on such a day. Once inside the Strait we make rapid progress down the first broad reach, the wind sweeping in angrily after us. On our left, near the entrance, is the curiously peaked and pointedisland, named Westminster Hall ; and behind it, six or eight miles distant, are the mountains of the mainland on the Patagonian side of the Strait : on our right is Cape Pillar, a bold headland 2,000 feet in height, itself the most northerly of the waste of mountains forming the Island of Desolation. As we steam further into the Strait these mountains 318 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. open out one after the other, all bare, bleak, and rugged, their tops hidden in murky clouds, their sides covered with snow down to an altitude of 500 feet above the water. Though only as many degrees south of the Line as the mountains of Wales are north, these mountains are never clear of snow at an altitude of 3,000 feet above the sea. Glaciers, too, whose former existence in our latitudes is only proved by half-erased scratches on Snowdonian rocks or by grooves on Glenroy crags, are here still ex- tant. Some twenty miles from the entrance to the Strait is a glen turning seawards from one of these Peaks of Desolation. "We see two patches of a certain blue colour standing out from the snow, not 1,000 feet above the water, telling of some unnamed Rosenlaui existing beyond the ken of Alpine tourists ; some sixty miles further to the east is a well known glacier of larger size, which, however, we pass in the dark. It is now the 18th of October, a day answering to some day in the latter half of April in the corresponding latitude of England ; but we have unpleasant illustrations of the difference of climate in the two places in the constant squalls of sleet and snow which come sweeping over and past us. Magalhaens must surely have had different weather from this when> 350 years ago, he sailed out of the Strait at this western end, and, finding himself on a calm expanse of water, christened it the Pacific Ocean ! How different this Strait of his from that other Strait, similar to this in extent and tortuousness, through which we sailed five months ago — the Inland. Sea of Japan ! There all was bright colour and gentle outline, warm tints and varied shades : here all is dark in hue and bold in form ; a series of savage mountains rising precipitously from the black reefs and cold waters of the strait, their heads wrapped in leaden cloud-folds, their steep slopes and sheer THE STBAIT OF MAGELLAN. 319 slate-cliffs at one time visible in all their wildness, at another hidden by a thick gray veil of snowsquall. There was a scene which it would require a Claude to paint, and an Italian landscape to outvie ; here is something suited to Turner in his latest style, and which might find its parallel view in some Norwegian Fiord or some Hebridean Sound in winter. Some thirty miles from the entrance of the strait we pass the Bay of Mercy, which rather belied its name two years ago, when the ' Santiago,' a former steamer of this line, ran on an unknown rock therein, sank in a few minutes, and left her passengers and crew to spend eight dreary days and nights on the Island of Desolation before they were taken off by an American vessel which happened, providentially, to be passing at the time. By a rather strange coincidence the very rock on which she struck had been discovered, a very short time previously, by the ' Nassau,' then engaged in surveying the Strait, and the ' Santiago ' was to have taken on board, at Punta Arenas, the Chilian settlement further eastwards in the Strait, copies of the new chart wherein the rock was marked. W hope she will prove the last as Well as the first of her line to be wrecked in the Strait, but the navigation is sufficiently difficult to make the passage a rather dangerous one. The distance from Cape Pillar to Punta Arenas, 180 miles, is too great to be accomplished between sunrise and sunset; anchorage between these two points is almost impossible, owing to the great depth of water in this part of the Strait (often 100 fathoms within half-a-mile of the shore) ; there are no lighthouses or other beacons to warn vessels off dangerous points; strong currents run to and fro with the wind and tides ; the Strait is so narrow for a distance of sixty miles or more, that a long screw-steamer cannot turn round in that part if occasion requires ; and 320 ROUND THE WORLD IN J 870. the weather throughout the Strait is constantly thick and squally. We pass through the Long Reach and the Crooked Reach, the narrowest parts of the Strait (varying in width from three-quarters of a mile to two miles), during the night, the compass and the dim loom of the land on either side being the only guide to the ship. The darkness effectually prevents our seeing what is, from all accounts, decidedly the finest part of the Strait, as far as regards scenery. By daybreak of the next morning we have passed out of the narrow part, and are making across a wider stretch of water towards Punta Arenas. Behind us are the snow-covered mountains which stand on either side of this Inland Sea of Patagonia, ending towards the sea in some distant and high points, which are pro- bably some of the extinct volcanoes of Tierra del Fuego. In front of us, the coast on the side of the continent has changed from steep and craggy cliffs to gentle slopes, thickly covered with woods of beech and elm : on the Puegian side the coast is more distant, and composed of stretches of sandy plains and low undulating bills. We have passed through the southern extremities of the Andes, and are on the verge ■ of the most southerly expanses of the Pampas. We cast anchor at Punta Arenas, or Sandy Point, as it is frequently called, just before breakfast-time, and after breakfast go ashore to see this most southerly civilised settlement in the world. Not, however, that its civilisa- tion is of a very high order. The settlement consists of about seventy houses or cottages, all, from the Governor's house to the poorest store, built of wood. It would perhaps hardly have come into existence but for the desire of the Chilian Government to have, at a convenient distance, some spot to which they could send their con- victs of the worst class. PUNTA ARENAS. 321 There is some tolerably good-looking land in the settlement, and this is partially tilled, but a large part of the supplies of the place are brought from Chili or the States of La Plata. Five miles inland there are mines of lignite, which are worked to a small extent; and quite recently gold has been discovered in a stream which runs into the sea just outside the settlement. Some good nuggets are said to have been picked up in this distant Pactolus ; if it should really prove a rich one, possibly the Argentines, who maintain that the Chilians had no right to make a settlement on the eastern side of the Andes, may have more to say on the subject. At present the chief export from Punta Arenas consists of skins. Every summer bodies of Patagonian Indians find their way to the settlement, bringing with them rugs of guanaco, fox, and puma skins. These they barter with the settlers for such goods as shirts, stockings, blankets, guns, spirits, &c. But the summer has hardly yet begun, so that we miss seeing any specimens of the reputed giants. Nor are we more fortunate with the Fuegians ; the only trace of them which we can distin- guish are one or two wreaths of smoke curling up from the southern coast of the Strait, marking where the half-naked savages are warming themselves in the cold morning, or cooking their scanty meal of fish and limpets. 1 Apropos of this fish-diet of the Fuegians we 1 The statements that this treacherous and debased race often eat something stronger than even animal food, seems confirmed by a tragedy which occurred within a hundred miles of Punta Arenas in March 1871. The brigantine ' Propontis,' bound for Valparaiso from Bremen, in pass- inor through the Strain came to anchor near the Fuegian coast, ninety miles to the south of Punta Arenas. The captain, with three of his crew, went ashore, on assurances from some natives, who came off in canoes, that fresh water was to be had close at hand ; none of the four returned; and two days afterwards the captain's body was found, minus 322 ROUND THE "WORLD IN 1870. may mention that we have on board our steamer a specimen of a Fuegian fish-hormd, to whom attaches a slight history. He was the last of a litter of fish-hounds, found by an expedition sent from Punta Arenas to explore the Fuegian coast. The provisions of the expedition were fast running out when this welcome ' find ' was made, and our canine friend was the only one of the litter who es- caped going to the pot, his brethren sufficing to sustain the explorers during the rest of their journey back to Punta Arenas. He looks like a rough-bred sheep-dog, lanky and long eared ; and the statement that the Fuegians use dogs of this kind to dive and catch fish for them seems supported by the fact of his feet being very broadly webbed. We leave Punta Arenas after a delay there of twenty hours, and in another three hours are passing through the- Second Narrows, where the Strait contracts to a breadth of only three miles. Another eight hours bring us to the First Narrows, where scarcely more than two miles of water separate Patagonia from Fuegia. The land on either side is low and sandy ; no trees are visible, but at a short distance from the shore there seems to be abundance of grass and other low and close vegetation. These slightly undulating plains are in fact the southern limits of the vast Pampas which stretch away northwards from here to the southern limit of the Tropics — a distance of 1,800 miles ; and through that vast distance their appearance probably varies little from what it is here. Three hours again from the First Narrows, and we pass Cape Virgins, the eastern limit of the Strait, 250 miles in direct distance from Cape Pillar, but fully 350, if measured the legs, -within a couple of miles of the spot where he had landed. See The Valparaiso and West Coast Mail of April 3, or The Times of May 17 1871. ' THE ATLANTIC. 323 by the tortuous course of the Strait. We are now in the Atlantic Ocean, -which here at least proves much more Pacific than its western brother. A southerly wind keeps us company from this point for three full days, and after leaving Cape Virgins astern we glide away at the rate of thirteen knots an hour, and see no more land till we catch a faint distant glimpse of the low-lying Cape Corrientes. Twelve hours after we pass this point the Cerro of Monte Yideo is sighted right ahead. We have entered ' the sea- like Plata,' and in four hours more we are lying at anchor outside the harbour of the capital of the Uruguayan Republic. T 2 324 BOUND THE "WORLD IN 1870. CHAPTEE XXVII. THE BANDA OEIBNTAL. Feom no point does Monte Video look so well as from the roadstead to the south of it. Our vessel anchors, among a number of other vesssls of large tonnage, at a distance of about two miles from the shore, outside the sheltered but shallow harbour which runs into the land to the north-west of the city. So while we wait for the health-officer to come on board and untie the red-tape knot which detains us, we have ample time for gaining a favourable impression of the place before entering it. The city is built on a promontory of rising ground, the streets and houses running up from the river on one side, and from the harbour on the other, and finding a sort of apex in the towers of the cathedral. In this respect it re- minds us of the appearance of Valetta rising up from the Great and the Quarantine Harbour on either side of it, with the church of St. John's at its summit. As in Valetta, too, the houses of Monte Video are of a fresh sandy colour, or whitewashed, and built of brick and plaster. On the south-east side of the city the mass of houses ends with the white dome of the cemetery chapel, standing in the midst of a garden of cypress, and other dark-green trees; beyond lies a tolerably verdant and well-wooded country. On the north-west of the city, as has been mentioned, lies the harbour, a semicircular bay MOKTE VIDEO. * 325 sweeping in behind the promontory on which the city stands, large enough, but not deep enough, to hold all the shipping which is ever likely to visit the port. On the side of the harbour opposite to the city rises the Cerro, a hill five hundred feet in height, surmounted by a small fort and a lighthouse. This Cerro, with the site of the city, forms all the high ground visible : the rest of the coast, both up and down the river, is flat and low. We are carried ashore in one of the large broad-beamed boats — whose seaworthy qualities are often tested here when a westerly or south-westerly ' Pampero ' comes sweep- ing down and across the river with its tremendous gusts and its accompanying troubled sea — and land inside the harbour, close to the quay of the Custom-house. We spend a week inside the city, though had we merely wished to ' see the place,' in the ordinary sense of the term, a much shorter time would have sufficed. An hour's walk through some of the principal streets, and a pano- ramic view from the cathedral tower, or from one of the 'miradores' (look-outs) which rise from many of the ' azoteas ' (flat roofs) of the better class of houses, would exhaust all the outward ' sights ' of Monte Video. The city has a general look of freshness and cleanliness; the streets are broad and straight, and all cub each other at right angles ; from any of the cross-streets, which run down from the higher part of the city towards the harbour or the river, pleasant views are obtainable of the water, of the Cerro, or of the open country to the north, thus driving away that feeling of being ' cribbed and confined ' which is felt more or less in most cities. The principal streets are lined with good shops, kept chiefly by French or German people ; and the city can boast more than one spacious Plaza. Of good public buildings, however, the capital of the Banda Oriental is much in lack. The Matriz, 326 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. or cathedral, is such a church as one might see in a second- rate Italian town, except that it is clean both outside and inside; it is built of brick and plaster, and contains no ornaments worth noticing. Of the other churches, none are of any beauty or interest, unless we except one, which possesses two curious fonts, each formed out of one of a pair of scallop-shaped shells of gigantic proportions, three feet in their greatest diameter, and with a thickness of shell of at least three inches. The President's Palace is perhaps the most untidy-looking building in the city, though very solidly built ; and the Cabildo, or Town-hall, is a very ordinary structure. Of good private houses, banks, and hotels, there is a better display. The popula- tion of the city numbers 60,000, of which the native portion is quite a minority; servants, boatmen, porters milkmen, &c, are principally Basques (or Galliegos, as they are here called), and the troops are largely composed of Italians and negroes. While in Monte Video we are forced to confine our movements to the city itself, from the fact of its being in a state of siege ! Yes : Paris is not the only civilised capital undergoing at this time the ' horrors of war.' ' Would that the fair metropolis of France could be besieged with as few real horrors as it seems cities in South America can be ! What can be thought of a city with 60,000 inhabitants and a garrison of 3,000 or 4,000 men, submitting to a siege by about an equal number of ill-mounted and worse-drilled troopers, who, within a year, were all driving cattle or tend- ing sheep ? Such is the case here. Inside the city is a weak and corrupt government (of the party styled Colorados or Reds), whereof every member seems to serve his country for his pocket's good. In the pay of the government — or at least in their employ, for the pay seems doubtful — are 3,000 or 4,000 troops, chiefly, as before mentioned, Italians and A MOCK SIEGE. 327 negroes, described by a newspaper of the city as ' magni- fica infanteria,' but appearing to the unpractised or un- biassed eye a beggarly levy, poorly- clothed, badly-drilled, and wretchedly armed. These gallant defenders of their hearths and homes are on duty in the Plaza, or behind breastworks thrown across the streets which lead out into the country, for the city has now no regular fortifica- tions. Their artillery consists of half-a-dozen old cast-iron cannons (twelve or sixteen pounders) and a similar number of brass field-pieces, of the size of so many blunder- busses. Outside the barricades are the ' advanced guards,' consisting of a handful of the riff-raff of the town — mounted on weedy raw-boned steeds, which have been forcibly impressed from some neighboiiring ' estancia,' or from the livery- stables of the city — and armed with a variety of weapon's, from blunderbusses and carbines to rusty lances and ancient-looking spears, which might have been stolen from the museum of ancient arms and armour nearest at hand. All these doughty warriors are supposed to be prevent- ing the entrance into the city of the opposite party, the 'Blancos,' encamped on the Cerrito, or 'little hill,' outside. These Blancos are pleased further to style themselves ' B.es- tauradores delas Eeyes' (Eestorers of the Laws), and their object of course is to turn out the existing government by force or fraud, fair means or foul — they care not a straw which — and establish one of their own. Their troops are nearly all bodies of rough « gauchos,' who have been got together from all parts of the Banda Oriental, and who, after wandering over the length and breadth of the country, fighting one or two small battles with the bodies of Colo- rados sent to intercept them, making requisitions of cattle and sheep, horses and men, from almost every ' estancia 1 in the Eepublic (but behaving, it is said, in a somewhat 328 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. less wanton manner than the government troopers), have now pitched their camp before the metropolis. They have already been encamped before the city for upwards of two months, and during our stay there are daily reports, 'from the best authorities,' that ' a great attack is imminent,' or ' the Blancos are infallibly coming in to-morrow,' and so on : but evidently these gentlemen are in no hurry to end a siege during the continuance of which they get food, pay, and little or nothing to do. Consequently the extent of the military operations which we can witness, or be near to, is a skirmish resulting in the death of one man and the wounding of another, or the capture of the fort on the Cerro by a detachment of four men, the garrison being asleep at the time ! But the besiegers cause the besieged much annoyance by confiscating a large portion of the beef and other pro- visions which usually find their way into the city from the country, and thus send the price of the former article from 2d. up to the almost famine price of Is. per pound ! Also they prevent peaceable citizens from paying visits to their ' quintas ' (country houses) in the suburbs, and effectually stop the supply of the morning's milk ! How long this mock siege is to continue no one can tell ; the city people betray little political sympathy with either party, inclining the rather to the Blancos, though this is probably more from ' ennui ' of the Colorados than from any higher principle. It is not long since the city under- went a similar kind of siege, which lasted for nine years (1842-1851), and there seems no great reason why this should not last as long — become, in fact, a second Trojan war without the heroes. 1 1 These somewhat melancholy forebodings were happily cheated of fulfilment in the middle of the month of December 1870 ; when, to the agreeable surprise of Monte Videan residents, the Colarados made a EFFECTS OF THE SIEGE. 329 But though the incidents of the siege are in the main almost ludicrous, yet a war of this kind has a most dis- astrous effect on the progress and prosperity of the country. The cultivation of crops in the Eepublic is, partially at least, suspended, the cultivators either having been im- pressed into the army, or hesitating to grow what may very probably be ' requisitioned ' by troops of one or other of the hostile armies. All the best horses have been taken from the various farms and settlements, and the breed throughout the country will consequently be inferior for several years to come. Retail business between the town and country is almost entirely suspended, and investments of all kinds are rendered insecure. Even life itself is regarded as of less value, and is certainly less safe, in such a state of guerilla warfare and general anarchy. Rough, indolent, and savage troopers of both sides, wander about over the country, skilled in the use of the knife, accustomed to scenes of blood and carnage in the 'saladeros' (slaughter-houses) where many of them have been brought up, and ready for almost any deed of violence. Robberies, assaults, and murders, are in consequence by no means uncommon in country districts, nor have the local authorities sufficient energy or power to check these crimes, or to trace out and punish the criminals. In a recent report on the trade and commerce of Monte Video by Major Munro, the British Consul stationed in that city, this lamentable state of affairs is very strongly depicted. The Consul states that while there is an annual immigration into Uruguay of between 20,000 and 30,000 vigorous sally against the Blancos, and with the aid of troops whom they had caused to land in the rear of the enemy, routed them decisively. The siege was thus raised, though the Blanco party held out obstinately in several parts of the country, and is not yet (May 1871) thoroughly crushed. 330 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. persons, chiefly Italians and Basques, a large portion of these are deterred from staying in the Republic by reason of the lawlessness of the country districts, the want of security to property of all kinds, and the frequency of assassinations of Europeans as well as of natives. Thus the great corn-growing powers of the country are thrown into abeyance, attempts to work and improve the land, and to rear stock upon it, meet with nothing but discouragement, and the settlement of industrious foreigners in the Re- public is, for the time at least, effectually prevented. Although we cannot move out of Monte Video on the land side, there is nothing to prevent our exit from it by water ; and as the Blancos have not yet taken to any ma- noeuvres except on ' terra firnia,' the steamers running up and down the river Uruguay continue their usual voyages, so that we can ascend that, river and see something of the interior of the Banda Oriental without molestation. 1 Steaming out of Monte Video harbour in the evening, we spend a night on the broad, waters of the Plata, with a clear sky overhead and a bright moonlight which renders clear the horizon, but fails to bring into view the low-lying and distant banks on either side. By daybreak we are in the roadstead of Buenos Ayres, but we start again by a steamer leaving in the forenoon, and steaming across to- wards the mouth of the Uruguay, in three hours reach the Island of Martin Garcia. This island stands almost in 1 Even this comparative immunity did not last long without being broken through. Only three weeks after our trip up the Uruguay one of the steamers running on the river was seized, by a detachment of Blancos : the captain, suspected of Colorado tendencies, was seized and thrown into confinement, the crew were impressed to work the vessel under Blanco officers, and the passengers, among whom were several English, were landed in an out-of-the-way part of the river, where they had to wait for another passing steamer, which took them off, happily unharmed. THE RIO URUGUAY. 331 the midstream of the Uruguay, just where that river joins the mightier Plata ; it is composed of a fine kind of granite, and from it Buenos Ayres draws all its supplies of that valuable material. Passing into the Uruguay, we steam rapidly up its broad surface, seeing nothing on either side but low bants well fringed with wood, varied occasionally by a bluff headland with a face of red rock, a hundred feet high, which marks where some range of low hills comes down from the in- terior. As the" afternoon wanes, the width of the river, which for twenty miles above its mouth was from six to ten miles, gradually diminishes, till at sunset, when we are from sixty to seventy miles above Martin Garcia, it scarcely measures more than two miles; now and then low jungle- covered islands fill up the space and reduce the river to a number of channels, some of which are but a few hundred yards in width. The current is very slight, the river not being in a full state ; the water is by no means clear, and of much the same appearance as that of the Tang-tse- Keang, the Nile, or any other large river which flows through alluvial land. During the evening we touch at several small ports, of which, perhaps, the most important is Fray Bentos, where there is a large manufactory of ' Liebig's Essence of Beef,' giving strong olfactory evidence of its working full power, or 'full odour,' as the more appropriate term might be. Steaming on through the right, we anchor for an hour, before daybreak, off Paysandu, the leading port on the river, and a flourishing town of about 7,000 inhabit- ants. Three hours more steaming brings us to a point just below the small tributary stream, the Arroyo Malo. Here we land, 180 miles from the mouth of the river ; the steamer continues her passage up to Salto, forty or fifty 332 ROUND THE WORLD IX 1870. miles higher, at which place a slight cataract puts a bar to further navigation. Stepping ashore on a piece of the ground cleared of the thick growth of trees which encumbers the river bank through most of its length, we have to walk but a few hun- dred yards before reaching a ' pulperia' kept by one of our own countrymen. These ' pulperias' are to the ' gauchos ' and farmers of the Banda Oriental and the La Plata States what a ' general store ' in a Californian village is to the miners and settlers of the neighbourhood. Here they can buy what few groceries they use — limited almost entirely to sugar and ' yerba ' (Paraguayan tea) ; here they can purchase also roughly-made hats, boots, and ' ponchos ; ' here they can drink fiery ' cafia ' (a kind of rum made in Brazil) , or the red Carlone wine from Spain ; here they can rest in the middle of a day's ride, beguile a mid-day hour with the aid of a guitar and a ' cigarro,' interchange the scanty gossip of the neighbourhood, or talk, scarcely more seriously, about the prospects of the current revo- lution, and the recent visits of marauding troopers. Prom the ' pulperia ' we ride a league inland, over brown slopes rising and falling with a gentle undulation, to an ' estancia ' (country or farm-house) occupied by an English friend. Here we are kindly housed for several days, at the end of which time we come to the conclusion that sheep and cattle-farming in the Banda Oriental, were it only tolerably remunerative, would be by no means an unpleasant pur- suit. The country is decidedly pretty in many parts, and compared with the flat unvarying plains whereon the Buenos Ayrean sheep-farmers live, it is pretty everywhere. The land is a succession of pleasant slopes, covered, ex- cept when under the influence of a long ' seca,' or drought, with good grass, or thickly dotted with low-growing but URUGUAYAN SCENERY. 333 elegant trees, such as the * cina-cina,' the ' espinilla,' and a variety of acacia. It is intersected in many directions by small streams converging into larger streams, or ' arroyos,' which again find their way into the Uruguay. On the banks of these arroyos there is always a good supply of wood, and every here and there are patches of a tall and stiff kind of reed-grass, which serves admirably for thatching purposes. Especially plentiful and various are the trees growing in the low belt of land running along either side of the Uruguay. Conspicuous amongst them is the ' saibo,' a full-branched tree growing to the height of forty feet, and covered at this season (November) with spikes of crimson blossoms ; and the ' nandubuy, 5 whose wood is almost as hard as iron, and is said to be nearly indestructible by decay or insects. Passion- flowers, and other bright creepers, twine frequently up the tree-stems, or hang from their spreading branches ; orchids are not uncommon, though apparently not re- markable either for brilliancy or variety ; ferns alone seem strangely absent even from the damp and shaded lowlands. The prickly-pear, with its brilliant blossoms, often forms a handsome object as it stands solitary on a rising slope ; and only a few leagues from where we landed there are extensive groves of palm-trees. Here and there are bits of woodland and water which combine to form a picture most pleasant to the eye ; in one of our rides from the Arroyo Malo we mount a low hill not half a mile from the Uruguay, and have an exquisite view over a winding stretch of twenty miles or more of the broad river, bordered on either side with a rich green belt of wood, from which rise the slopes of the rolling uplands, some bare and brown-looking, some dotted with trees, some fringed at the top with tall palms. Nor is there any want of animal life in the district, 334 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. even apart from that supplied by the flocks and herds which graze within it. A few deer are often to be found in the beds of reed-grass by the streams, or in the ' montes ' or plantations which cover many of the slopes in the thickly- wooded belts by the Uruguay or its tribu- tary arroyos ; the capybara, or ' carpincho,' as it is named here, is by no means uncommon ; sport may be occasionally had with a herd of ' peccaries,' or even with a jaguar. Birds are especially plentiful. Foremost among them is the ostrich of South America (thenandu, or common rhea), not so tall and stately as its African relative, nor furnished with such handsome plumes, but a noble-looking bird notwithstanding. We rarely ride three leagues in any direction without sighting a scattered group of a dozen or more of these birds, quietly feeding on the herbage, or scouring easily and rapidly over the rising slopes. As they are seldom chased by the sheep-farmers, owing to the disturbance which is sure to take place in consequence among the flocks, they are at most times of the year tolerably tame, and may often be approached by a man on horseback within a distance of a hundred yards ; but just now their nesting season is at its height, and we have difficulty in getting within thrice that distance of them. Their nests are often found by the gauchos and the sheep- farmers as they canter over the country, and are mere hollows in the ground, wherein are deposited as many as thirty, forty, and even sixty eggs, produced by several females of this Mormonite class of bird ; we find more than one ' huacho,' or stray egg, laid on the bare ground, and abandoned apparently to its fate ; one we carry home and cook ; but from the amount of oil, vinegar, and pepper judged indispensable to the eating of it, it may be con- cluded that its flavour is one which requires ' correcting. ' If the ostrich may be considered as game, it has URUGUAYAN PROSPECTS. 335 several rivals in this part of the Ban da Oriental. In some of the tangled thickets by the river dwells, though in spare numbers, a species of wild turkey ; partridges of two kinds are found on the grassy uplands; ducks, snipe, and pigeons, are also met with in considerable numbers ; of smaller birds there is a considerable variety; two especially must be noticed : the ' oven-bird,' so called from its nest built of clay, shaped like an oven, with a winding passage leading into the recess where the eggs are depo- sited ; and the ' scissor-bird,' named from its tail of two long feathers which, as it flies, meet and separate like the blades of a pair of scissors. A still greater advantage to the settler in this country than its outward beauties and attractions is its excellent climate. Always dry, and never foggy, raw, or more than moderately cold, it is yet never excessively hot. It is a climate in which the open air can be enjoyed almost every day of the year, which encourages and admits of abundant exercise, and at the same time seems to sustain the frame both of animals and men, through long-continued exertion, in an almost equal degree with the climate of California. Yet with all these ' pros ' there are many ' cons ' to be taken into consideration by an intending settler. It seems to be a generally received idea that an emigrant from England leaves behind him, in his native island, all those uncertainties of season and climate which render agricultural operations almost proverbially risky there. But if he settles down in the Banda Oriental he will find that, though his cattle may be tolerably free from lung- disease, and his sheep from foot-rot, yet the former may be decimated by starvation consequent on a ' seca,' and the latter may be scattered and lost by a dust-storm. And though his wheat is tolerably secure against heavy rains at harvest-time, and his garden-stuffs against mildew, 336 ROUND THE WORLD 15 1870. yet the former may be half ruined by an untimely frosty night, and the latter perish in a ' seca,' or be eaten up by insects. During our own stay at the Arroyo Malo, the effect of the drought of the last five months is so severe that we scarcely ride a single hour in any direction without casually passing a bullock lying dead from starvation ; and our host acknowledges to despair reigning in his garden, the result of constant unsuccessful attempts to raise vege- tables for other mouths than those of ants and caterpillars. Yet these natural drawbacks are so much counter- balanced by the natural advantages of soil — and, as a rule, climate too — that the country would be a choice one for settlers were it not for the disadvantages and dangers already mentioned as resulting from the revolutions and civil wars which seem to be the normal condition of the country. Where the settler may be visited any morning by a small troop of gaucho cavalry, whose commander demands from him a dozen of his best horses, fifty of his best cattle, and a hundred of his best sheep, giving him in return a receipt about as valuable as the paper on which it is written, there should be some very strong counter- advantages to enable hjm to find either profit or pleasure in the self-chosen land of his exile. BUENOS AYBES. 337 CHAPTER XXVni. BUENOS AYEES. 'Mendoza at once commenced laying out his first settlement, named by him the port of Santa Maria de Buenos Ayres, in honour of the day, being February 2nd (1535), and from the delightful climate.' — Sir W. Parish's 'Buenos Ayres, from the Conquest.' A tbavelleb approaching Buenos Ayres by sea has to do so by degrees. Unless he lands at Monte Video, and thence takes a passage on one of the river steamers of light draught, his ocean-going vessel will earry him up the Rio de la Plata for a distance of 150 miles, and will cast anchor at a place whence nothing is discernible but other large vessels and an expanse of sandy water. He will have to run up into the cross-trees if he wishes to sight his port of destination, for he is at a distance of from ten to thirteen miles from it, and his vessel cannot approach nearer by reason of the shallowness 5 of the water. Trans- porting himself and baggage into a steam*tender j he will leave the Outer Roads, and run in as far as the Inner Roads, from which he will have another mile to traverse before reaching the end of the long wooden pier at which he will land : then he will have to walk nearly half a mile more along this pier before he is really on ' terra firma.' This shallowness of the river in front of Buenos Ayres has a grievous effect in raising the cost of goods shipped from Europe, the expense of conveying goods from a vessel lying in the Outer Roads to the shore, a distance of twelve miles, being often equal to their freight from Liverpool or 338 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. London, distances of 6,000 miles ! Even a lighter cannot approach the shore within a distance of several hundred yards, so that goods are landed in high carts, which are driven into the water and brought alongside of the lighters, the sandy bottom of the river being here'so hard that the carts, even when full, do not sink into it. 1 Nor is there here any regular ebb and flow of tide which might be availed of for the purpose of beaching the lighters. The rise and fall of the water, which at this distance from the sea is quite fresh, seems influenced only by the wind. Occasionally this influence of the wind is at least as strong as that of the tide in most parts of the world. Only a few years ago, after a strong ' pampero,' the shore was uncovered for a distance of six miles from its ordinary margin ; ships were left high and dry ; and the sailors wandered over the sands picking up articles which had been dropped overboard from various ships during several years. A near approach was made on this occasion to a battle of ' horse-marines,' for the Government despatched a squadron of cavalry to capture a gun-boat belonging to the revolutionary General XJrquiza, which was also left for a few hours high and dry ; the sailors, however, had warn- ing in time to get their guns to bear upon the approaching cavalry, who, considering a semi-naval battle beyond their province, prudently retired, and left the tars masters of the field. 2 1 Several surveys of the port have recently been made, with a view to forming a deep harbour nearer the land than the present roads ; the last effected is that by Mr. Bateman, C.E., who has presented to the Govern- ment a report and plan of the port he purposes making, at an estimated cost of 2,500,00(M., and with an expected saving to the trade of the place of 1,000,000Z. per annum. 2 Just lately (in the month of March 1871) a repetition of this retire- ment of the waters before a ' pampero ' has occurred at Buenos Ayres. The Standard of that place, in describing the phenomenon, says : ' The ITS POPULATION. 339 Buenos Ayres, like Monte Video, looks its best when seen from the water. But even when viewed thus from an advantageous point, its appearance is hardly striking. Nothing is seen but a mass of white and yellow houses which stretch along the river shore for two or three miles, and are backed by the domes of churches and the tops of the higher buildings more inland. The city is of a shape nearly square, for while it has this river frontage of between two and three miles, it extends back from the shore to a distance of two miles at least. The whole of the ground on which it is built is as nearly on a dead level as possible, the highest parts being perhaps thirty feet above the river level, the lowest a few feet below it. The population of the city is estimated at 200,000, having doubled itself within the last thirty years. This is not a very large number, spread over the whole area of the city — nearly six square miles — but it must be re- membered that throughout that portion of the city which is occupied by the shops, houses of business, and private residences, few of the houses are of more than two floors, and many of only one. In the poorer por- tions of the city, towards the south, the population is closely packed, and for the most part housed in ex- tremely wretched and dirty buildings : in these districts the state of the ' conventillos,' lodging-houses of a low class, in which the ' casuals ' of the city herd together for their night's lodging, would seem to equal, in fetid con- finement and accumulated filth, that of the ' rookeries * of any great town in England. The city, however, has in general a clean and roomy appearance. " pampero " blew the river back to such an extent that the shore -was dry for miles. All the smacks and luggers lay over high and dry on the spots where they usually ride at anchor so buoyantly. All the old wrecks in the Inner Roads became visible.' z 2 340 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. Few cities afford such good examples of the ' chess- board ' principle of building as this one. Every street in it runs either due north and south or due east and west ; and the streets of longitude intersect those of latitude at regular distances of 140 yards, thus forming so many ' cuadras ' (squares, or blocks of building), each with four equal sides of 140 yards in length. The public buildings of the city are as a rule mediocre in appearance ; the cathedral, standing at the north side, and the Colon Theatre at the north-east corner, of the great Plaza, are perhaps the only exceptions to this rule. Some of the private dwelling-houses, with their well furnished-rooms, and their ' patios' planted with a variety of pleasant shrubs, are fitting residences for the ' upper ten ' of a large and wealthy city. The streets are nearly all paved with the roughest of cobble-stones, but on the most important of them toler- ably rapid locomotion is secured by means of tramways. The roads leading out of the city are, as a rule, merely broad tracks worn by waggon-wheels and horse-hoofs into the natural ground, and separated from the ad- joining fields by hedges of aloe and cactus ; there is, however, an excellent macadamized road leading out to the favourite suburb of Flores, five miles from the city ; whether this road will be the precursor of others of a similar kind seems doubtful, from the fact that it is said to have cost no less than 8,000Z. per mile. Of the 200,000 inhabitants of Buenos Ayres, about one-third are Europeans. A large number of the porters, watermen, carters, and workers at the ' saladeros, 5 are Basques or Italians; among the shop-keeping class are many French ; and of the merchants of course a large proportion are English and German. Of the latter, many have recently adopted the habit of living in some of the ENGLISH RESIDENTS. 341 suburbs of the city; and in Flores and Belgrano are many good houses, with pleasant grounds outside and hospit- able owners inside, where the European visitor will find a ready welcome from those of his own nationality. There are so many Europeans now settled in Buenos Ayres, that they are able to form societies of their cwn, and the social intercourse which used to exist between the Europeans (especially the English) and the natives, is to a great degree passed away. Perhaps there is no place, exclusive of the English colonies, whither so many Britons have gone, either as settlers or as temporary residents, as this same city of Buenos Ayres. We have a good opportunity of judging of their numbers on the first day of our visit there ; for the day happens to be the one fixed for the holding of athletic sports on the Belgrano cricket-ground. Some very good running is displayed in the various races ; the Grand Stand is filled to the crushing point, chiefly by the fair sex, and of these a large majority seem to be of English blood. The most characteristic sight of Buenos Ayres, and one which no traveller should miss, even if he comes away from it more disgusted than edified, is that of a 'saladero' at work ; a ' saladero ' being an establishment where cattle are killed and converted into salt meat. Early one morning we ride out to the south side of the city, where nearly all the ' saladeros ' are situated, and see the work going on in all its phases. The first operation is the driving of a number of cattle out of the large enclosed space, or corral, in which they have been collected, into a smaller enclosure. This smaller corral will hold perhaps fifty cattle ; it is circular, and strongly fenced with upright trunks and branches of trees fixed deeply into the ground. At one point the fence ceases for about six feet, but at each side of the gap thus formed is a strong upright post ; 342 BOUND THE "WORLD IN 1870. the two posts are connected by a stout horizontal beam, fixed at a height of five feet from the ground. On the upper side of the beam are fixed two horizontal pulleys, between and on which runs a lasso-rope, whose noose end is held by the catcher of the cattle, while the other end is attached to the ' cinchos,' or girths, of two horses mounted by gauchos. Through the gap passes a tram- way, so made as to allow a truck, whose top is level with the ground of the corral, to run in and stop just inside of, and under, the beam. The lassoer, whose office it is to catch the cattle, stands at his post on a level with the top of the corral-fence, and throws his lasso so as to make it fall over the horns of one or more of the animals. Directly he has thrown, the two mounted gauchos urge their horses forward, so as to drag forward the lassoed bullocks till their heads are brought up against the cross-beam on which are the pullies, and their feet rest on the truck below. The lassoer steps forward on to the beam, strikes a short knife into the neck of each animal, immediately behind the horn, touching in each case the spinal cord. The animals drop at once, and are dead almost without a struggle; the lasso is loosed, and the truck wheeled away into a long shed, where the flaying and cutting-up is proceeded with. The various processes of skinning, cutting-up, separating the flesh from the bones, dividing the joints carrying off the horns, hoofs, tails, and other parts to the different sheds of the ' saladero,' are performed with great rapidity, a large number of men being employed, and each man having a specified portion of the work to do. The flesh, when cut off the bones, is wheeled away to a shed, in which it is sliced into thin folds, and passed through brine ; it is then piled up in alternate layers of salt and meat ; and after lying in that state A SALADEKO. 343 for some days it is carried out into an open enclosure, where it is hung up to dry in the sun, its ultimate desti- nation being generally exportation to the Brazils. The hides are also salted and laid in layers ; the bones are steamed in huge vats, then pressed to produce tallow, and finally burnt to be turned into bone-ash. Every portion of the animal is turned to some purpose ; even the ears and nose-tips are collected separately, and are boiled down for glue. The whole operation is certainly not a pleasing one, and the sight of the falling bullocks, of the dismembered carcases, and of the men moving about with reeking knives, their bare legs and arms covered with gore, might perhaps give 'a turn' to a fastidious stomach; but the rapidity, order, and economy of the work, is interesting to watch, and we cannot help thinking that our European butchers might take a lesson from the almost painless method of killing adopted here. The number of animals killed in these Buenos Ayreau ' saladeros ' on a full working day must be enormous ; at a ' saladero ' of an average size, such as the one we visit, the cattle fall during the hours of work at about the average rate of two a minute; and of course there are a hundred or more establishments of a similar kind. Cattle-slaying forms thus a very important interest in Buenos Ayres; and, indeed, the export trade of the place consists almost entirely of animal produce of one kind or another. Sheep and cattle are as much the standard sources of wealth to the country as cotton and corn are to the North American States. Not that they are, at present at least, sources of wealth to their im- mediate owners, for the farmers of the La Plata States are having bad times of it ; but this is no doubt in great part owing to the enormous increase in the stock of 344 HOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. the country. Ten years ago the produce of the wool, sheep-skins, and tallow of the Buenos Ayrean province, was valued at 1,156,000?. ; this year (1870) it is valued (at much lower prices) at more than SfiOOfiOOl. 1 Almost every interest in or around Buenos Ayres has increased within the last ten years in the same way. The population of the city, as we have already mentioned, has doubled since 1840, and the rate of increase. has doubtless been greater in the last decade of the three which have passed since that date than in either of the former two. Thns, in 1860, the immigration for the year amounted to 6,000 ; this year it is put down at 40,000. Of these immigrants of course the majority pass through the city on their way to various settlements and recent colonies in the country ; but no inconsiderable portion of them re- main in the city, and engage in pursuits of every kind, from shop-keeping to cattle-killing. In 1860 the custom- house revenue of the port amounted to 600,000Z. ; for 1 870 it is estimated at four times that sum. Nor has the increase in wealth been a benefit to the city alone. One undeniable advantage to the country has been the extension of railway lines in every direction from the city. Ten years ago there were only fifteen miles of railway in the whole of the Argentine Confederation ; now there are four distinct lines leading out of Buenos Ayres alone, with an average length of sixty miles to each ; and, with the line from Rosario to Cordova, there are at 1 If we go rather further back in dates, the increase in the value of sheep and their productions is still more remarkable. Before 1830 sheep- farming was unknown in the Argentine Confederation. The few sheep that existed in the country were descendants of the sheep taken out there by the Spaniards more than 300 years ago ; they were such poor, scraggy, rough-skinned animals, that they were considered as almost absolutely worthless; mutton was never seen in the Buenos Ayrean markets, and a frequent use of the animals was to burn them as fuel in the brick-kilns. GROWTH OF THE COUNTRY. 345 present 472 miles of railway in operation, while nearly- double that number are in course of construction. The secret of this rapid increase in the wealth of the country must be looted for scarcely so much in its natural resources, as in the comparative tranquillity which it has enjoyed of late years. The existence in it of a tolerably stable government, bent, more or less earnestly, on de- veloping the resources and increasing the wealth of the country, has been a powerful incentive to immigration, and has had a remarkable effect in inducing European capitalists to invest their money, as well as European emigrants to use their brains and arms, in its various and extensive enterprises. NOTES ON RECENT EVENTS IN BUENOS AYRES. The last few months have sorely changed the condition and prospects of the capital of the States of La Plata. Scarcely six weeks after our departure from the city — in the latter end, namely, of January 1871 — a fever of a very alarming kind broke out in its low and thickly-populated southern districts. The sphere of action, and the number of the victims, of this fever rapidly increased ; with the fever spread the alarm which it caused ; and soon thousands of the inhabitants began to fly out of the city' from the dreadful scourge. All through the hot months of Feb- ruary and March the death-list grew longer and sadder daily ; till the climax was reached early in April, when no fewer than 700 deaths occurred in one day out of a population reduced, by flight and fever combined, from 200,000 to 70,000.' This proportion of one death in 1 The largest proportions of deaths occurred of course in the crowded portions of the city. Out of one of the ' conventillos ' mentioned pre- viously as situated in the southern portion of the city, no fewer than seventy-three hodies were taken to burial — all victims of the fever. And 316 BOUND THE "WORLD IN 1870. every hundred inhabitants in a single day is greater than occurred even in London during the time of the Plague, but happily it did not continue long in Buenos Ayres at that maximum height. Thousands more of the inhabit- ants kept flocking out into the country, partly driven away by their own fears, partly urged to leave the plague- stricken city by the Government. By April 12 it was estimated that not more than 30,000 people were left in the city ; of this number it was calcu- lated that 7,000 were ill of the fever, and there were still as many as 300 deaths occurring daily. Within another fortnight, however, the daily number of fatal cases had sunk to 100 and, in fact, from the middle of April may be dated the decided decrease of the ravages of the plague. But within this short space of less than three months, what a change had been wrought in the aspect of the city ! Shops were shut, and business suspended ; in the market-places and the exchange, .formerly filled with noise and bustle, now was nothing but silence and deso- lation. The streets, but lately so full of busy life, were hashed and deserted, traversed only occasionally by a gloomy dead-cart, by some poor family hastily flying at the last moment from the influence of the mysterious deadly foe, by a few forms pale and haggard, on whom the fever had spent its force but failed in its work of death, by one or two bold and still unharmed men, hurry- ing hither and thither to administer what aid they could to the suffering and the dying. From being the scene of busy work and the home of yet those who were attacked by the disease and recovered from it are said to have been much more numerous than those who succumbed to it. In the less crowded and cleaner parts of the town seventy-five per cent, of those attacked are said to have recovered ; so that while throughout there were about 26,000 deaths in the city, the whole number attacked must have been a large proportion of the whole population of the city. THE PLAGUE. 347 living thousands, the city had been changed, one half into a vast hospital, the other into a dismal cemetery ; health and life had been driven from it, and in their place reigned disease and death. Outside the city the scene Was indeed less melancholy, but yet sufficiently distress- ing. Nearly a hundred and fifty thousand people were crowded into small villages at distances of from five to twenty miles from the scene of the plague, or camped out in the open country, deprived of their ordinary means of subsistence, and many of them living scantily on such food as they could beg or steal. Happily, in the neigh- bourhood of Buenos Ayres, life under a tent-roof or in the open air is not attended with the dangers which ac- company it in more uncertain climates ; and where sheep and cattle are so cheap and numerous, starvation is of rare occurrence. The ruinous effects of this fearful visitation must long be felt in every branch of life and business throughout the city. Even after the fever shall have been pronounced as over, at least for a time, it will be long before all the interrupted work in the place can be resumed, and trade flow again into its old channels ; should the disease re- appear in the ensuing summer, fresh alarm, and a fresh rush out of the. city, will ensue ; the former high character of the place for healthiness has vanished, and emigration from Europe will be checked in consequence ; it will even become a question whether the removal of the capital to Eosario, a plan talked of for some time past, may not be advisable, even though entailing enormous expense and temporary disarrangement of affairs in general. With regard to the nature of the fever, it seems that for some time after its first appearance it was almost una- nimously supposed to be yellow fever. But two plain facts soon sufficed to contradict this — on the one hand, no case 348 BOUND THE "WORLD IN 1870. of the fever was reported on any of the ships in the port, and it is a well-known fact that in ports where yellow fever rages the shipping suffers more than any portion of the town ; on the other, the disease was not known to have been communicated in a single instance by those who fled from the city to those dwelling in the country. It was evident, therefore, that the fever was a typhoid, or putrid fever, of a strictly local kind, and not even existing in the air, for otherwise how could both the shipping and the suburbs have escaped ? The air and the water being thus exempt from the charge of infection, nothing remained but to lay the blame upon the earth. And here no long search had to be made for a sufficient reason for the plague. The sanitary regulations of the city have long been the ground of remonstrance on the part of the inhabitants, and of dilatory discussion on the part of the Government ; and those who know on what plan the draining of the city was not conducted, wonder not so much that a fearful epidemic has broken out in it, as that it did not break out long ago. Buenos Ayres is probably the only city in the world with 200,000 inhabitants which is totally unsup- plied with drains. All the matter which should be carried away to. a distance from a large city, is here deposited in cesspools, which are dug in the back ' patios ' or court- yards of every house in the place. Some of these cess- pools are of great depth, being generally dug through the soil down to where water is met with; twenty- seven yards is mentioned as the depth of many of them. When one becomes full, another is sunk at the distance of a few feet : so that the city, from repeated excavations of this kind, now stands on a honey-comb of cesspools ! The dry nature both of its air and soil alone protected it for so long against the pestilence which it was accumu- THE PLAGUE. 349 lating for itself. After such a plague- visit as has at last come upon them, the authorities will of course be driven to adopt some plan of draining the city ; this will be a difficult undertaking, owing to the low level of the whole place ; but the customs revenue of two whole years such as 1870 will not be spent unreasonably if the expenditure can secure the place from losing revenue, trade, and population as well. 350 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. CHAPTEE XXIX. OUT IN 'THE CAMP.' ' Plains immense Lie stretch'd around, interminable meads, And vast savannahs, where the wandering eye, Unfixt, is in a verdant ocean lost.' — Thomson's ' Summer.' There seems a natural and very general tendency among men to find out the shortest possible names for things and persons familiar to them, and to adopt these in pre- ference to longer and more correct terras. In harmony with this tendency is the practice among Europeans, at least among Englishmen, in Buenos Ayres and Monte Video, to speak of all outside the cities, not as ' the country,' but, by an abbreviation of the Spanish word 'campo,' as 'the camp.' This ' camp ' fifteen years ago was the El Dorado of most European emigrants to ' the Plate ' (another some- what undignified abbreviation), for it was there that were made the large and rapid fortunes in sheep-farming which drew such numbers to the same pursuit, and which, by the law of reaction, produced a subsequent and still existing failure of that interest, from the simple fact of its being overdone. With the extension of sheep- farming, and the suddenly increased demand for peons and gauchos to tend the sheep, the price of land and of labour went up rapidly ; nor, though the value of sheep has diminished within the last twelve years almost as much as it increased before, have these items of ex- A MODEL 'ESTANCIA.' 351 penditure dimininished in proportion. But sheep-farming still continues, nay, increases, though it is not at present remunerative ; and a visit to the ' camp ' is interesting, both from the peculiar interest of the country itself, and from the residence in it of many Englishmen engaged in this sheep-farming life. As a rule, the best farms in the Buenos Ayrean pro- vince are those within a moderate distance of the city. We will take the best first, and go out for a short visit to one often spoken of in the city as ' a model estancia,' some thirty-five miles out on the southern line of rail- way. It is owned and managed by a German gentleman, and is supposed to carry out the idea of an estancia to a very perfect point, albeit that point is not a paying one. It consists of land to the extent of two square leagues, all enclosed by wire fencing, a good farm-house and garden, extensive stables, shearing-houses, barns, and other farm buildings. Of this land, 2,000 acres are this year under wheat and maize ; fifteen flocks of sheep, each flock containing from 1,200 to 1,500 sheep, wander over the remainder of the pampa; a fine lot of horses, including some thoroughbreds from the Trachenian stock belonging to the King of Prussia, fill up the complement of live-stock. Among the flocks of sheep is one of thoroughbred ISTegrettis, the young rams of which, six years ago, sold at an average of thirty pounds each : now they only fetch five pounds each — such is the depreciation here in sheep of all kinds. A steam thrashing-machine, a number of reaping-machines, and ploughs of the most approved style, are used for the agricultural work of the farm. In spite, however, or perhaps partly by reason of, the money laid out in bringing this farm to perfection, the owner freely confesses that it does not 352 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. pay, and even declares that if he could get back half the capital sunk in it he would leave at once and return to the Fatherland. At the time of our visit the land is very dry and parched by reason of the ' seca,' which has now con- tinued for several months : and one effect of this is that in some parts of the ' estancia ' there are swarms of young locusts, which fly up in thousands from the grass and nettles as we ride by. Our host, however, antici- pates rain within two or three weeks, which will destroy or scatter them before they become harmful to the ripening wheati A day or two afterwards we mentally congratulate him, as we watch in Buenos Ayres the approach from the west of a great black Wall of dust, which, sweeping over the city, and darkening it for a few moments as with a mantle of fog, is followed by a tremendous down- pour of rain. This rain continues for upwards of half an hour, at the end of which time the roofs and pavements are clean and bright, the air is cooled and freshened, the gutters are full to the brim, and one or two streets in the low parts of the town are three feet deep in turbid water. But alas for the uncertain hopes of a farmer ! The storm partially avoids the locust-haunted estancia: the ' seca ' continues, and the following is the description of the ravages committed there by the locusts three weeks later, contributed to the ' Buenos Ayrean Standard ' by an eye-witness. ' The wheat crop, covering 1,500 acres, was in magnificent condition at sunset on Saturday, the 10th inst. (December 1870). As early as six o'clock on Sunday morning the locusts commenced to swarm, and were so thick at eight o'clock that it was impossible to walk outside. By two p.m. one field of 160 acres, in which the wheat was till then four feet high, was cut A PLAGUE OF LOCUSTS. 353 down to six inches, and not a head of corn left. In two hours more the whole wheat crop of 1,500 acres was gone, except patches here and there, which may yield 300 or 400 'fanegas' out of an estimate of 5,000. There was also a maize crop of nearly 1,000 acres, which had come up healthy and strong, to a height of three feet : on Monday morning you could not even point out the place where it had been. The locusts were so numerous that they even invaded the houses, eating up the curtains, clothes, &c. . . . On the 12th their numbers were sen- sibly less, but they returned in awful numbers on the 14th, and consumed the little they had left before.' Such is an instance of the ruinous locust-plagues to which farmers in South America are occasionally ex- posed. A wheat farmer, migrating from England to Buenos Ayres, may escape ten years of mildew in his crops, but a day's visit of a few myriads of these destroying insects may bring as much loss to him as a hundred days of the pests of damper climates. 1 Model ' estancias ' are rare in South America, and to see sheep-farming and agriculture as it is usually carried on in the Buenos Ayrean province we must go further than thirty-five miles from the city, get beyond the present limits of the railway, and penetrate into the wild expanses of the Pampas. Going out on the western line of railway, we stay for a night at a well-known 1 We are sorry to hear that such was the result in this case. The loss occasioned by this locust plague to the German owner of the model ' estancia ' was so great that the property was shortly afterwards sold. As to the ' seca,' it continued so long that the price of all green food rose to double its nominal amount : many cattle and horses in the neighbourhood of Buenos Ayres died, or dwindled almost to skeletons : and when finally rain came, grass sprang up so rankly and rapidly that many more died from over-feeding on the herbage for which they had so long hungered. A A 354 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. ' estancia,' eight leagues from the city, corresponding perhaps more than any other in the neighbourhood to the English idea of a dairy-farm. There is a look of ' home ' in the pleasant cottage, with its well-kept garden in front, and its plantation of tall poplars hard by. Behind the cottage are several 'ombu' trees, of older date than the 'estancia,' reminding one, with their sturdy trunks and full round head of foliage, of the oaks on some village green in Kent or Surrey. These ' ombus ' seem to be almost the only trees which are natives of the well-nigh treeless Pampas, though many foreign trees, especially willows, poplars, and gum- trees, thrive well when planted in the rich alluvial soil. A few hundred yards from the ' ombus ' is the dairy, whence about seventy pounds of butter are sent weekly to the Buenos Ayrean market, yielding a good profit to the sellers; for in this country, with its millions of cows, good milk is a rarity, and butter is worth two shillings a pound. A fine herd of cattle, with English ' short-horn ' blood plainly traceable in their form and markings, are grazing not far from the dairy-sheds ; a flock of 'mestizo sheep,' half Lincoln half the native merino, are out on the open ' camp ; ' a ' caballada,' or troop of horses, ' coralled ' near the farm buildings, completes the pastoral scene. We stay but one night at Merlo, and early next morning are seated in the train going further westward. Four hours' travelling bring us to Chivilcoy, the present ter- minus of the western line, a hundred miles from Buenos Ayres — a village fast increasing into a town. The country on either side of the line is of course flat, and so far monotonous; but there are changes and varieties in the crops and natural herbage covering the ground CHiviLGoy. 855 which help to relieve the sense of sameness. In the tilled ground, crops of wheat, of maize, and of ' alfalfa ' (Lucerne-grass) predominate : in that still left as pasture, large patches of nettles, said to have sprung originally from specimens brought into the country from Europe, acres of ' paja ' or pampas-grass, of trefoil, and of a very bright purple flower — called here, simply from its colour, the 'flor morada' — alternate with tolerable equality. Here and there a hedge of aloes, or of tall cacti, stands up stiffly round a tilled field ; or a line of poplars or willows marks the whereabouts of an * estancia ' ; but there is little else to be seen above the level of six feet from the ground; for the maize is not yet full-grown, nor have the thistles shot up, as they do later in the summer, tall enough for a man on horseback to hide himself among them. Arrived at Chivilcoy, we content ourselves with the best breakfast attainable at a somewhat primitive cafe, know- ing that we shall have to go . on shorter, or less varied, commons further out, and soon after mid-day we are off in the 'diligencia* for a drive of eleven leagues to the Bragado. Chivilcoy is the centre of one of the most extensive wheat- growing districts in the province, so that our road for a few miles passes by many fields filled with fine-looking crops of wheat on the eve of flowering, and of maize three or four feet above ground. Of one field we take especial notice, both from the full and healthy look of its crop, and from its enormous size — nearly a square mile in extent. Our Merlo friend says he has never seen a crop of better promise in the country. Alas, again, for the farmer's hopes ! Within a fortnight of this date (near the end of November, a time of year corresponding to the end of May in Europe) two or three frosty nights occur over all this district, the wheat is caught just as it is flowering, A A 2 356 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. the crop on this fine field is ruined, and has to be cut and sold as fodder ! Leaving the wheat-fields behind, we emerge into the open pampa, where the only signs of farming are scattered flocks of sheep, herds of cattle, and troops of horses. In the middle of our drive we are overtaken by a ' tormento,' or storm of wind and rain, which comes sweeping across the plains from the north-west with considerable force, and is cold enough to change the rain for a few minutes into large pellets of hail. An hour before sunset we find ourselves in the Bragado, a growing village, with straight and broad roads, an open green ' plaza,' a church, and a number of general stores where a farmer coming in from his ' estancia ' can buy anything he is likely to want, from a plough to a flannel-shirt. As the weather looks threatening, we agree to stay the night in the village, and accordingly ' put up ' in the inn, where we find a miscellaneous collection of travelling merchants, Basque and Italian farm-labourers, store-keepers of the village, and ' gauchos ' of rough features and picturesque costume. Early next morning we are off on horseback for the Espartillares Estancia, seven leagues to the south-west. A ride of an hour or more brings us to a ' half-way house ' in the shape of a neat ' estancia ' owned by an old hand at sheep-farming, possessor of some of the best land and flocks in the district. If all sheep-farmers' houses were as neat and orderly as this one, we think the occupation would not prove such a roughening one as it generally seems to do. But then there are comparatively few ' es- tancieros' who have a wife and daughter to keep their manners gentle and their houses tidy ; and perhaps no- where is the influence of < the other sex ' in these matters so ' conspicuous by its absence ' as in many of the frontier ' GAUCHOS.' 357 ' ranchos ' of the Buenos Ayrean province. In the after- noon we ride on towards Espartillares, but stop on the way to look at some races, which are being held by a number of ' gauchos ' on a piece of more than usually level ground, near a solitary ' pulperia.' The races are only for short distances, from three to six ' cuadras,' i.e. from a quarter to half a mile ; the horses only run in couples, and there are generally six or eight false starts in each race. The starting, curiously enough, is under the control of the riders, who, beginning together at a quiet canter, gradu- ally increase their speed to a gallop, but do not finally let go their horses till both, by calling out ' Vamos ! Vamos ! ' (Let us go !) and striking their horses, have signified their consent to make the course good. Thus the riders will canter a third of the way down the course half-a-dozen times without -going farther, one of the two refusing to answer to the ' Vamos ! ' of the other, either through a wish to tire his adversary, or through thinking that his own horse is not quite on a level with the other. To a stranger the most interesting part of these races is the concourse of 'gauchos' assembled to hold them. They are perhaps 300 in number, collected from the various ' estancias ' and ' chacras ' (small farms) within a circuit of many leagues. Of course all are mounted, for a borse is as essential an adjunct of a ' gaucho ' as his * poncho ' or his cigar. Imagine, then, a small and rather weedy-looking horse, whose trappings consist of a treeless saddle formed of several layers of borsehide and sheepskin, a pair of small triangular stirrups of wood, reins and head- piece of plaited hide, and a ponderous iron bit with a large metal boss or button on either side of it. Put on the horse's back a dark swarthy man, half Spanish, half Indian, lithe in limb, and but of average height, with aquiline nose, coal black eyes, shaggy eyebrows, ragged beard, and 358 BOUND THE WOULD IN 1870. hair ' unkempt.' Clothe him with an old felt hat, a flannel shirt surmounted by a waistcoat of faded silk, and a gaudy poncho thrown gracefully over the shoulders, or hanging as a cape round the neck; add a pair of 'chiripas' ( (coloured trousers as loose and wide as those of a Turk, formed in fact of a 'poncho' gathered up at the corners), a pair of unblacked ' Wellington ' boots, or, if he is to be a gaucho of the old style, the dressed skins of a colt's hind- legs formed into a natural pair of leggings reaching to the toes. There you have the regular type of the South American 'gaucho,' the half- tamed Arab of' the Pampas. In common with the Bedouin of the Desert, almost the only ' work ' to which this personage takes is that of tending flocks and herds ; and in common with him, too, he is of an uncertain, easily-roused character, at times taciturn and stolid, at times voluble and passionate, with a natural dislike to any regular or stationary toil, and a propensity for robbery and deeds of violence and bloodshed. Give him a pouch-full of tobacco and a handful of dollars, and he is content to canter to the nearest ' pulperia,' smoke the former, and spend the latter in drinking ' cana ' or in gambling ; and when he has lost his last cent, and perhaps the 'poncho' off his back into the bargain, he will go off and get a month's occupation in tending, shearing, or killing sheep or cattle, will feed on half-cooked meat and sleep on the ground till he has paid his debts, and has made a few extra dollars wherewith to ' start again.' He is far more at home on a horse's back than on his own legs ; he will throw a lasso or ' bolas ' with seldom-failing skill ; but he can as rarely read as he can write, and his only accom- plishment is the playing the guitar in a somewhat droning manner, and accompanying the music with some plaintive, dirge-like ballad. SHEEP-SHEARING. 359 Three hundred men of this class and character, -with a few natives among them of a higher caste — 'chacreros' or ' estancieros ' — form a far more orderly assembly than might have been expected. Whether there will be many ' scenes ' after the races are over, and part of the spec- tators repair to the ' pulperia,' we do not wait to see ; but where a number of rough characters,, each with a long sharp knife in his belt, and with skill and practice in the use of it, meet to pay up bets, gamble for 'double or quits,' or drink ' carlone ' or ' cana, ' it is not to be wondered at that knives are often drawn, and that blood often flows, among them. An hour's ride from the racing-ground brings us to Bspartillares soon after sundown ; the sheep- farmer's fare of mutton and biscuit is soon produced and enjoyed, and not long afterwards all ' turn in' on the ' catris ' or tressel-beds which are the universal rests for the weary in the ' estancias ' of La Plata. With November generally begins the sheep- shearing season in this country, and on the day after reaching Espartillares we see the first fleeces taken from the flocks of that ' estancia.' Sheep-shearing in the province of Buenos Ayres is of course much the same as sheep- shearing in any county in England, with the exception that in the former country it is not preceded by sheep- washing ; that the shearers are ' gauchos,' ' peons ' (servants) of more than one nationality, and native women ; that the amount of wool taken off in one fleece does not often exceed 5 lbs. ; and that the shearers are regaled three or four times during their day's work with roasted sheep instead of bread, cheese, and beer — with these exceptions, the processes in the two countries- may be considered identical. This roast sheep, which goes by the simple name of ' asado ' (roasted), is the standard food of sheep-farmers and gauchos. Its preparation is primi- 360 BOUND THE WOELD IN 1870. tive in the extreme, consisting merely of slaying, skin- ning, and cutting in half the animal, then piercing each half with a long iron skewer or spit — the ' asador ' — and fixing this spit into the ground over a fire made of caked sheep's-dung. Half an hour suffices to cook the meat — for the sheep of La Plata are of a thin and small kind — and then the spit, with the meat upon it, is removed from the fire, and fixed into the ground again in the middle of the group of eaters. Plates and forks are not thought of; each eater produces a knife from his belt or his boot, cuts a piece as he fancies it, holds it in his left hand, and slices it into his mouth con gusto. The meat is of course quite hot and juicy, and we can testify to its tasting better in this way than when served up on cold plates. A ' gaucho ' will live on this food for weeks, nay months at a time, rarely getting even a piece of biscuit or bread to accompany it, and washing it down with copious draughts of water, or occasionally with ' cana.' Even an English sheep-farmer, unless he keeps a garden and fowls, which does not often seem to be tbe case, or lives within reach of a village, has scarcely any alternative to 'mutton roast,' unless it be 'mutton boiled,' with the water in which the boiling took place served up with rice as broth. A visitor to the Buenos Ayrean ' camps ' may often experience a rather odd sensation in meeting, in sheep- farmer's guise, a friend whom he last saw in civilised England. The man who, say eight or nine years ago, was a ' bit of a swell ' in some social circle at home, par- ticular in manner and neat in dress, clean shaven about the chin, and much given to ' correct ' ties and gloves of faultless fit, is now met with a rough beard and a tanned cheek ; a red handkerchief loosely tied round his collar- less neck, and a pair of corderoys disappearing into his SHEEP-FARMERS. 361 Wellington boots. The cigar has given place to a short clay pipe, and the elegant cane to a cow-tail whip ; the white hand enshrined in kid has developed into a brown and horny palm ; and the ' bel air ' has been rubbed off somewhat from constant intercourse with gauchos and cattle. But though the outer shell has grown hard and rough, the kernel is still there, and perhaps the loss of polish and suavity has been replaced by a development of heartiness and independence. At first sight you may think you have stumbled across a stray engine-driver, or a quondam wagoner, but you probably soon find that it is only a gentleman in disguise. There are scores of such men out in this land of sheep- farmers, whose transformed figures their friends at home would scarcely recognise ; some of them have undoubtedly given way to the temptation to become boorish and slovenly, but others have preserved their better traditions, can show you a neat and well-ordered ' ranch ' when you go to see them ' at home,' and a gentleman whenever you meet them. These facts occur to us as we canter across three leagues of ' camp ' in company with one quondam home friend to the 'ranch ' of another. The ride is pleasant in the comparatively cool morning air, and we have leisure to notice the peculiar features of the ' vast savannahs ' which stretch away on all sides of us, and which form part of the ' interminable meads ' of the Pampas. We are on a portion of that ' verdant ocean ' which almost rivals in extent the liquid expanses to which it has been compared; for, reaching from far within the Tropics to the southern extremity of the Continent, from the region of the palm almost to that of perpetual ice, the Pampas spread over an area of 1,500,000 square miles — double that of the Mediterranean Sea. Throughout this 362 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. vast extent its surface differs but little in appearance, so that the small portion of it over which we are riding may be taken as a fair sample of the rest. Of course anyone has a tolerably correct idea of the Pampas in thinking of them as immense grass-covered plains ; but there are lesser features in them which do not readily occur to one's mind without one's having really seen them. In the first place, they are not so perfectly flat as one is apt to imagine them. They are rather a series of gentle undulations, far too gentle indeed to deserve the name of hills, but sufficient occasionally to hide from view between the slopes a herd of cattle, a small 'laguna,' or shallow lake, or even a low 'ranch.' Sometimes the eye does wander over what is to all appearance a dead level stretching right away to the horizon; but more often, in one direction or another, some slight slope hides the real horizon from the view ; and if we canter to the flat erest of the slope, we can see somewhat further on all sides than we could at the foot of its gentle acclivity. The depressions between these slopes go by the name of ' canadas,' and are often noted as the resorts of deer, or the favourite feeding-places of sheep and cattle. Nor is it often that the view over the Pampas is entirely unbroken by anything higher than grass or nettles. An 'ombu' tree, with its spreading form and dark foliage, not unfrequently affords one object for the eye to rest on, one landmark for the rider to go by ; and in any sheep- farming district there is nearly always to be seen, in one direction or another, a 'monte,' marking where some ' estanciero ' has fixed his habitation, a mud ' ranch ' where a native ' peon,' or an Englishman beginning the pursuit, tends his single flock in solitude. Then, again, the vegetation of the Pampas is by n THE PAMPAS. 363 means one vast monotony of grass. The parts carpeted with short even grass are scarcely so numerous or so extensive as those which are thickly dotted with clumps of ' paja ' — a coarse tufted grass — or of its taller brother, the 'cortadera' — the 'Pampas-grass' of European gardens. Here and there a patch of the wild artichoke, or of a small plant of the aloe or yucca tribe, usurps the soil ; and often we may ride over acres of sward which are bright carpets of purple or crimson, according as the verbena of the one or the otber colour predominates. There is a considerable variety, too, in the birds which now and then attract the attention of the traveller over these rolling plains. Most numerous are the ' tiri-terus,' spur-winged plovers, rather larger than the English plovers, but in their flapping uncertain flight, and in their plaintive cry, exactly like the latter. Next in number are the ground-owls (apparently identical with the Cali- fornian species), who are constantly seen standing de- murely at the edge of some forsaken ' biscacho '-holes, or wheeling about with shrill cries overhead. Partridges of two kinds — one of the same size as the English bird, the other as large as a grouse — now and then rise with the well-known ' whirr ' almost under one's horse's feet ; and occasionally a pair of turkey-buzzards rise heavily on the wing a hundred yards away. There are, too, a few birds conspicuous for the beauty of their plumage. One, tolerably common, of about the size of a thrush, has a brilliant red breast and wing-tips ; another, rarer, is of the same shape and size, but its markings are blue instead of red. There is one little bird, not bigger than a tit, brilliant red in every feather, and called in consequence by the gauchos ' la cispa de fuego,' or ' spark of fire ; ' another, less brilliant, has a black body, with snow-white breast and wings. 364 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. Besides these, there are occasional cranes and flamin- goes, gulls and terns, ostriches of course in the more distant Pampas, and in winter a great variety of ducks and geese on the ' lagunas ' and shallow rivers. Of quad- rupeds there are but few specimens : a small kind of deer, the ' biscacho ' — the rabbit of the Pampas — the pole-cat, marten, and some smaller vermin, being almost the only representatives. Over the springy ground of these not-all-unvarying Pampas our horses canter easily and almost untiringly. Anyone accustomed to the careful way of riding and tending horses which rules in England would be rather astonished to find that out in the Pampas a rider is seldom seen with his horse at a walk. A perpetual canter is the general rule, often kept up for three, four, or even six leagues at a stretch, and this too with a horse fed only on grass or ' alfalfa.' As in Calfornia, feeding a horse in the middle of the day is considered quite unne- cessary; nor are horse-cloths, stables, or rubbings-down, ever thought of but as pure luxuries. A horse of average power is expected to be able to go seven leagues in the morning, be tied up at a post for the mid-day hours, go back the same distance in the evening, and then be turned out to find his own food on the ' camp,' without the slightest, risk of injury to wind or limb. Of course the cheapness of horses in the country renders their owners far less considerate for them : where a good horse can be bought, in the ' camp ' for from 51. to 101., and in the town from 10Z. to 201., we can hardly expect him to be treated as well as his more valuable relative in England. Pew of these Pampas horses are really fine-looking animals: they are generally of light make, small in bone, and lacking in symmetry ; yet they are wiry and hardy, and there is no doubt that the PAMPAS HOUSES. 365 climate of the country is such that, from a good English stock introduced there, would spring animals equal to the ' walers ' of Australia or the best ' mustangs ' of California. One curious fact connected with the horses met with among the ' estancias ' of La Plata is that their owners never think of giving them special names, and know and speak of them merely by their colour and markings. The ' gaucho ' terms for the varieties of these qualities seem almost endless ; and a man with a troop of fifty horses can describe in two words any one of them, so particular are they in defining the different shades of colour by different words. We have discussed the Pampas, with their animal and vegetable concomitants, at such a length, that our three- league ride is at an end. We arrive at the 'puesto,' or outpost ' ranch,' of our friend, and find him finishing his shearing operations. He is up to the elbows in greasy wool, which he is endeavouring to tie up in bundles as fast as it is handed to him by the shearers. He has but one flock of sheep, so that his shearing is not one of many days ; and his wool will be so small in quantity that he must send it over to a neighbouring ' estancia,' where it will be packed with other wool in one of the huge two-wheeled arch-roofed wagons of the country, and then dragged by a team of la2y bullocks, driven by an apathetic wagoner, over 150 miles of ' camp,' to Buenos Ayres. At Buenos Ayres it will stand in the wagon in the large ' plaza ' at the west end of the city, which is used as a wool-market : this 'plaza' will be full, for two months or more, of wagons from all parts of the province ; the wool in them will be gradually sold, as buyers appears on the scene, at prices varying from 40 to 60 paper dollars the ' arroba,' i.e. from 3d. to 4%d. per lb. Our friend's ' puesto,' like every other ' puesto ' in the 366 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. province, is merely a mud cottage thatched with reeds. Following the theory of ' every man his own architect,' he built it himself, with the aid of one ' peon,' constructing it on an architectural plan so far ahead of those of most ' puestos * that it contains two rooms instead of one. In such modest houses as these — often, in the dinginess and dustiness of their outside, bearing a striking resemblance to a Highland ' shanty ' — live the men, fresh from civilised English homes, who have not yet made dollars enough to buy or rent a regular ' estancia' with a brick house and a dozen flocks of sheep. Here they live from year end to year end, with plenty of fresh air to breathe, leagues of open camp to ride over, and abundance, though not variety, of meat to eat — healthy and independent — hoping ever for a rise in the price of wool, and keeping up each other's hopes and spirits by such social meetings as men who are separated from each other by leagues can arrange ; some- times with abundance of rough hard work to do, some- times with many weeks of comparative idleness on hand ; missing or forgetting many home comforts, often losing home interests, but lacking perhaps most of all a frequent sight of that cheering object, ' the human face divine.' We leave the sheep-farmers with the feeling that, for a man who cannot or will not endure a sedentary life at a desk, and who is bent on a free and open-air existence, this Pampas life, in its better phases, has its charms and its advantages. It is a life which is hard, healthy, and independent, but often solitary and rough, and at present unremunerative. When a man could enter it with the prospect of making in five, six, or even ten years, enough money to take him home and keep him there, it was undoubtedly attractive for this reason alone; but there seems small prospect of this kind to anyone entering it now — nothing, in fact, to repay the privations and isola- LIFE IN THE PAMPAS. 867 tions of the life beyond its freedom and its healthiness ; and therefore, to anyone inclined to adopt it, unless he has a special wish to combine in his own life something of the isolation of a hermit with something of the mere physical existence of a savage, we would, with all defer- ence to better authorities, offer the simple advice — Don't. 368 BOUND THE WOULD IN 1870. CHAPTEE XXX. tTP COUNTRY. By the completion of the Central Argentine' Railway, which was accomplished early in the present year (1870), the difficulties and delays of reaching the interior of the Argentine Confederation have been much diminished. The interval between Rosario and Cordova, formerly a journey of four days, can now be traversed between the dawn and twilight of a summer's day; and the rough jolting of the 'diligencia' has given place to the com- paratively easy motion of a railway-carriage. Taking advantage of these improvements of the 'iron age,' we leave Buenos Ayres one morning by the northern line, and soon pass over the twenty miles which inter- vene between the city and the banks of the Tigre creek. These twenty miles of country are for the most part well cultivated : in many of the fields the crops have been already (the end of November) cut, and the wheat lies piled up in circular stacks within a fenced enclosure, waiting to be spread out and thrashed by the trampling of troops of 200 or 300 mares. From the Tigre start all the steamers which run up the Parana, the deep water of the creek allowing them to lie close up against the bank, instead of their having to anchor a mile from shore, as at Buenos Ayres. At mid-day the 'Capitan' leaves the wharf, and for the next two hours we are threading a succession of the narrow channels into a thousand of which the Parana is here divided. Many of the islands formed by these THE PARANA. 369 channels have been converted into peach- gardens, which in the springtime make a brilliant display of blossom. The peach-tree grows so quickly and -so well here, that much of its wood is used for fuel, and its fruit is so abundant that pigs are not unfrequently fattened on it. When the fruit is ripe, anyone can go into these gardens and eat as many peaches as he likes for five paper dollars — tenpence; and carry away as many as he likes for a similar sum : whether such a proceeding may not result in a medical bill of more than twice five paper dollars, those who have closed with Ihe offer must determine. Many of the channels up which we pass are so narrow, that occasionally the branches of the drooping willows on the banks are within a yard of the steamer's paddle-boxes on either side; and to get round one corner we have recourse to warping, while others are only turned by dint of much easing, backing, and careful steering. Some of the channels present the appearance of avenues of fine weeping-willows : in others, thick patches of reeds, or tangled masses of brushwood, looking like the mangrove swamps of the Tropics, line the banks. We soon pass out of these narrow creeks into the broader channel called the Parana de las Palmas : yet even this branch of the great river is in few parts more than half, and occasionally not more than a quarter of a mile in width. Nor is it much less tortuous than the narrower creeks : now and then we make out, across the land on either side, the masts of a ship half a mile away ; in another ten minutes we have steered in a half circle round an intervening bend, and we either meet or over- take the ship, which is really moving in the same channel as ourselves. The banks on either side are thickly fringed with trees of apparently the same species as those seen in the B B 370 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. Uruguay, the ' saibo,' as on that river, being again con- spicuous here. After eighty miles of steaming we pass out of the Palm as branch into the main stream, which at this junction is apparently nearly three miles in breadth. Steaming on through the night, we reach at daybreak San Nicolas, on the right bank of the river, and four hours afterwards we draw up to the small pier at Eosario. The right bank of the river here, and for some distance both up and down, is approached more or less nearly by a line of ' barrancas,' or cliffs, of stiff clay : the left bank (or rather, the margin of the island opposite, for the true left bank is not visible), being low and wooded, and distant nearly two miles. These 'barrancas' average some seventy feet in height : occasionally they overhang the river, and at other places leave a flat margin between themselves and the water. Just at Eosario, however, they are so broken as to pre- sent rather the appearance of an irregular slope : at the foot of the slope the bank of the river falls away so steeply, that vessels of 600 or 800 tons lie with their sides against the bank, afloat in deep water : ' on the level ground stretching away inland from the top of the slope, stands the town of Eosario. We make our way up from the steamer to the Hotel de Paris, said to be at present the best in the place, and if so, reflecting very strongly on the qualities of the others : after breakfast we walk out to make what observations we can upon the town. It is nearly mid-day, and the ther- mometer in the shade stands at 85°, so that we find the 1 The Parana here, and for several hundred miles further up, is subject to sudden changes of level, according to the prevalence of wind from one quarter or another. After heavy rains up the country, and ■with a strong wind blowing up stream, it has been known to rise rapidly to a height of twenty feet above its usual level, remain at that height for a few days, and then, with a change of wind, fall agaiu rapidly. ROSARIO. 371 streets baking in a white blaze of heat, windows and verandahs closed tightly with green 'Venetians,' and scarcely a soul stirring. The aspect of the place is decidedly monotonous : and we have to wait till evening to see signs of life or motion among its 20,000 inhabitants. Then, for an hour or more, the Plaza is tolerably full of people come ' to see and to be seen : ' the streets can boast more passers-by, and some good shops open out their shutters, and make their best display. The town is built upon the ' chess-board ' principle : there are no public buildings with the slightest pretensions to size or good looks, and the houses are nearly all of one floor only, with flat roofs, and uniformly built of brick and plaster. A few European houses of business have been established here, to meet the wants of the dealers from the interior, but the result has not been encouraging hitherto ; nor does the railway to Cordova seem as yet to have had much effect on the trade and life of the place. "We stay one night in Rosario, and by 6 a.m. on the next morning are seated in the train for Cordova. The railway premises at Rosario are very large, including, besides the station, various sheds for repairing engines, storehouses, &c. Indeed, the company have had little cause to grudge space in their operations, for one of the conditions of their laying the line was the grant to them by the Government of a strip of land a league in width, on each side of their line, all the way from Rosario to Cordova. The distance between the two places being 247 miles, this strip contains very nearly 1,500 square miles of land ! It is on part of this land, near the Ro- sario end, that the company are endeavouring to establish colonies. The results so far have not been very encour- aging : this year a ' seca ' has continued for so long a time B B % 372 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. - -eight months in some districts — -that the crops and cattle of the colonists have suffered severely. In traversing these 247 miles from Eosario to Cordova we consume no less a period than fifteen hours— a long time measured by English ideas of railway speed; but compared with the pace of the displaced ' diligencia,' or indeed considered with regard to the ideas of time in general held by Argentines, sufficiently short. For the first fifty miles there are constant signs of man's handi- work on each side of the line. Fields of barley, wheat, and maize, and an occasional ' rancho,' break the monotony of the plain. A herd of cattle rush across the line within a hundred yards of the engine : a troop of mares, or a flock of sheep, are seen feeding on the short herbage : a band of mules laden with produce from distant provinces, or with foreign goods from Eosario, move slowly along, showing that this ancient system of conveyance has not yet been entirely driven off the route by steam. Further on all trace of cultivation ceases, and the line passes across leagues and leagues of level ' pampas.' Here is the place to realise one's jdea of a ' boundless prairie.' As far as the eye can reach, there is on every side an expanse of flat plain, covered with short dry grass, and as level as a cricket-ground. Eight across the vast savannah runs the railway line, with its avenue of telegraph posts stretching in a geometrically straight line from one horizon to the other. No other trace of man is visible : not a cottage, not a hedge, not a tilled acre, not a tamed animal. No tree breaks the monotony of the scene : no ' laguna ' glistens in the sunshine amidst the waste of brownish- green : no rippling stream breaks the universal stillness. Except when a deer starts up from where he has crouched among the grass, or an ostrich rises from his nest and scuds away apparently into boundless space ; save when a THE CENRAL ARGENTINE RAILWAY. 373 weird dust-column, raised by some strange whirlwind current, dances with ghostly swiftness across the silent scene ; or when a pampa-fire rolls up its waving mass of smoke, there is naxight of life, naught even of motion, to be seen. If one could banish the railway, and stand alone in the centre of this vast expanse, one would almost believe that all nature, except grass, had died. The railway company had little difficulty in making this, or indeed any, part of the line. Except within the first three miles out of Cordova, there is not a cutting or an embankment in the whole 247 miles ; for 54 miles, between the stations of Villa Maria and Tortugas, the line is perfectly straight, and on a dead level ; and with the exception of the construction of two or three bridges across the shallow Rios Tercero and Segundo, and the slight cuttings already alluded to, all that had to be done in the making of the line was to cut off the sods from the surface of the ground, dig a shallow trench on either side of the roadway, throw up the earth from the trenches on to the centre, lay down the iron brackets which act as sleepers, and fit in the rails. Already a branch line has been commenced from Yilla Maria, a station nearly half way between Eosario and Cordova, intended to lead due westward to a station on the Rio Quarto. This line is the undertaking of an inde- pendent company, and projects of continuing it to Men- doza are already under discussion : this route is also to be followed by a Trans- Andine line of telegraph to Valparaiso, which there is seme hopes of having finished before the year 1872. Even the 'boundless prairie' Las its end, and by the time that we are half way to Cordova the scene is gradually changed by the appearance of trees in considerable num- bers, though of no great height. At times they are. only 374 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. visible at a few miles' distance, at times the line passes through what might be taken for a somewhat neglected English park. But there are still scarcely any signs of habitation, and at the stations at which we stop, generally about twenty miles apart, there is often not more than one ' rancho ' near the line, and another visible near the horizon. The colonisation of the land near the line is evidently commencing from the Eosario end of it, nor does it show signs of advancing quickly as yet. At 9 p.m. we arrive at Cordova, and from the crowd of people collected on the platform of the station we conclude either that Cordova is such a 'slow' place that even the arrival of one train daily is looked upon as a source of gentle excitement, or that the novelty of a railway pene- trating to such an inland spot is so great as not yet to have entirely worn away. White streets, white walls, white houses ; heat, dust, and glare : such are the most striking features in the picture of Cordova impressed upon us during our week's stay there. It is the beginning of December, and there- fore close upon the hottest time of the year : there has been a long drought in the neighbourhood, and conse- quently all around is dry and dusty. Happily the weather is calm, so that we escape the dust-storms which, during dry and windy weather, are said to be often peculiarly violent and overwhelming here; and being comfortably housed in a good hotel, we are not driven, as in Eosario, by dirt and stuffiness within, into the oven-like atmosphere without. Cordova, however, will compare well with Eosario in every respect, and with Buenos Ayres in not a few. Its situation is superior to that of any town in the flat Pampas, for it is within three leagues of a high range of hills, and is even partly surrounded by two spurs of these CORDOVA. 375 hills, which reach out eastward from the main chain far into the level plain. Fine rows of poplars, and clumps of other lower trees, stand about in its outskirts ; so that the view of the city from many points outside of it, the white church towers mingling with the green foliage, is really pretty. Nor is Cordova deficient in good public buildings, though nearly all are of brick and plaster. Perhaps the best, at all events the most useful, in the place, are the University and the National College. Both these institutions are just now making a fresh start under the influence of Sarmiento, the President of the Republic, who is almost the first in that oflice who has shown a desire to promote education in the country. The University is attended at present by 150 students : it contains a tolerable library, some good lecture-rooms, and a newly-added chemical school. The National College is really little more than a school, attended by eighty or ninety boys from all parts of the Republic, some of whom are admitted free, while others pay the very moderate sum of twelve hard dollars, or £2, per month. Drawing seems taught in this school almost to the exclusion of more important subjects : in the build^ ing are two rooms, one containing a large selection of models and copies, the other some very fair drawings executed by the pupils. . The most numerous public buildings in Cordova are, of course, the churches ; and one or two of these are certainly finer than any we have seen in Monte Video, Buenos Ayres, or Rosario — not that this is very high praise for them. The cathedral is a massive domed building, of good pro- portions, and contains some good pictures. The Jesuit church is remarkable for its handsome painted roof. Cordova is the chief stronghold of the priests in the 376 HOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. Argentine Confederation, and consequently contains, be- sides churches, a goodly number of convents and monas- teries. The latter are said to be wealthy : the priests are nearly all Argentines, and though extremely bigoted, are of a better class, intellectually as well as morally, than the Italian ' padres ' in Buenos Ayres, who are, as a rule, such low characters that they with difficulty find their way into any good society. The strong priestly influence still existing in Cordova may be seen every Sunday there in its effect of inducing many men, as well as women, to attend masses in the various churches. It is not more than three years ago that this influence was manifested in a much more unpleasant way : popular indignation was stirred up against Pro- testant heretics, the American Consul hooted and stoned in the great Plaza, Englishmen and Germans saluted with opprobrious names, and even a French Protestant's grave attacked and violated. While we are in the city, a Pro- testant (Scotchman) dies, and his friends only consent not to send the body down to Rosario for burial on repre- sentations that such a proceeding would be a mark of a want of confidence in the municipal authorities : so he is buried in the small cemetery outside the city — the first Protestant so buried since three years ago. More kindly and less bigoted opinions are, however, making their way even in Cordova ; and one great instance of ' modern progress ' in the city is the fact of an Inter- national Exhibition being appointed to be opened here in the course of a few months. The building is already nearly completed, and the adjacent grounds laid out with great taste and success. The building consists merely of one long hall, entirely of wood, 100 yards in length, by 25 in breadth. It is expected to be entirely filled with objects for exhibition. Europe sends a considerable number of THE EXHIBITION. 377 goods, especially agricultural implements : America also : but the majority of the thiDgs are of course Argentine ; and, except Bolivia, scarcely any other country in Sonth America sends anything. Probably the visitors will prove fewer in number than the Exhibition deserves. Buenos Ayres and Monte Video will of course supply some, but where any number of others are to come from it is hard to say. 1 In the grounds adjoining the Exhibition is an aviary, with a very good collection of native birds, and a shed where a large number of silkworms are being reared with great success. Another shed contains a collection of the wool-bearing animals peculiar to South America : alpacas, llamas, vicunas, and guanacoes. These animals can rarely be seen in Europe, though lately the London Zoological Society has secured specimens of all except the vicuna. The alpacas are natives of Bolivia alone, and the Bolivian Government make a monopoly of them, not allowing any to be taken out of the country except on rare occasions. The specimens at Cordova are part of a flock which an Argentine gentleman, who had lived near the Bolivian frontier, and been of some service to the Bolivian Government, had special leave to take out of the country. The majority of the flock were sent down to Monte Video, and, according to our informant, sold there for 400 hard dollars (£85) each, their wool alone being considered worth a dollar a pound. They are now being reared in the Banda Oriental, but with what success we failed to learn. The llamas are of course from Peru, where they are used as beasts of burden : trains of them may often be seen coming into Lima, bearing on their 1 Owing to the breaking out of the fever in Buenos Ayres, the opening of this Exhibition was delayed, and still (May, 1871) stands postponed. 378 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. backs loads to the amount of six arrobas, or J 50 lbs. — half the limit of a strong mule's burden. While the alpacas and llamas look not unlike large sheep with elongated legs and neck, the vicunas, with their delicate legs, necks, and heads, and their light bodies, look at first sight as if more allied to the deer genus. Their wool is very fine and soft, of a fawn colour, and much valued throughout the Argentine Republic as ma- terial for 'ponchos' — a poncho well made of this material selling commonly for three gold ounces, or nearly £12. The ' guanaco ' seems to be the nearest approach among South American animals to the camel of the Old World. He is, of course, much smaller than the tall ' ship of the desert,' measuring barely six feet in height to the top of his head : but in his peculiar feet, which are cloven and provided with soft spungy pads, and in the deep clefts which seem almost to separate his haunches from his body, he much resembles that well-known animal. As in every town with a sub-tropical climate, and no great amount of business, the inhabitants of Cordova, at least of the wealthier classes, are seldom visible out of doors during the daytime. Cordova does indeed possess a 'paseo,' or promenade, shaded with tall poplars, and leading round a cool sheet of water ; and here, near the hour of sunset, when the bats are issuing from their crevices, and the ' biscachos ' from their burrows, the good people of Cordova also appaar for a short interval of air and exercise. On Sunday mornings also a goodly number of dames and damsels may be seen passing along the streets, to or from the early masses. But it is on Sunday evening that the city seems to empty from the shuttered houses into the open plaza all its well-dressed classes, to the last able person among them. Then it is that the plaza, which all day long has been abandoned to the heat, COBDOVAN "WAGONS. 379 the glare, and the proverbial ' dogs and Englishmen,' puts on suddenly an appearance of life, colonr, and gaiety : then it is that the fair Cordobesas begin their promenading, their sitting-out, and their chatting, and continue the same till long after twilight has vanished into night. There are some pleasant rides to be had in the neigh- bourhood of Cordova, both on the west, in among the glens of the Sierra, and on the east, out over the projecting spurs of this Sierra, towards the level pampas. Riding out in this latter direction, we are sure to meet or overtake one or more of the huge wagons of the country, dragged along at the rate of two miles an hour by three or four yoke of bullocks, and forming decidedly one of the most characteristic objects of the district. Their great wooden wheels, nine feet in diameter, their high arched roofs, and their long and ponderous shafts, fully entitle them to dis- tinction among the various classes of wagons. The bullocks here, as in other parts of South America, are harnessed to the yoke by the horns, a hollow in the yoke fitting on to the animal's neck immediately behind the horns, which again are lashed to the yoke with ropes of hide. In some of the wagons, the method of urging on the bullocks is ingenious and curious, not to say ludicrous. A long pole projects horizontally from the roof of the wagon forwards. "From the end of this a hide rope is suspended, and in a loop of the rope is siung a still longer pole, the butt-end of which is within reach of the wagoner, while the point is armed with a short metal spike, and can be directed, rather after the fashion of a battering- ram, against the flanks of the leading pairs of bullocks. In driving a single yoke of bullocks, this extensive apparatus is of course not necessary, and the driver then generally walks in front of his animals, poking them oc- casionally with a pole which he carries with him. To see 380 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. a wagon -with three or four yoke of oxen trailing slowly along the dusty roads, following the tortuous course of their valley-like ruts, while the driver sits like a dummy on the wagon-end of the shaft, blinking to the strong glare or the blinding dust, and every now and then droning out a word of encouragement or malediction to some particular .bullock, accompanying it with a lethargic swing of the battering-ram, one would think that a few months of bullock-driving, a la mode de Cordova, would effectually turn nine men out of ten, accustomed to some-. thing better, into idiots, while perhaps the tenth would develop into a philosopher — probably a ' common-place ' one — in the truest sense of the words. To penetrate into the Sierra to the west of Cordova, a longer journey than an afternoon's ride is necessary, and accordingly we start off one morning on horseback, with a native ' vaqueano,' or guide, accompanying us, prepared to spend a couple of days among the mountains. Two hours of dusty riding in a north-westerly direction bring us to the foot of these mountains, which in the distance look brown and barren, but on a nearer approach appear to be sparsely covered with trees of scanty foliage. Before entering them, we halt for an hour at a cottage known to our ' vaqueano,' where we are regaled with * mate,' and treated most politely by the humble yet well-bred owners. One of the men produces a guitar, and runs over some of the not unmelodious music of the country : the ' vaqueano ' suggests a dance, and in a few minutes, first a polka, then a native dance, takes place upon the clay floor. Then follows more ' mate,' which blisters more than one lip of those unaccustomed to the touch of the hot metal 'bombilla ' or pipe, through which it is sucked : then a multitude of ' adios ' and complimentary farewells, and soon we are ridinar on asrain into the mountains. Another hour and a THE SIERRA. 381 half brings us well inside their lower ranges, and we bivouac for lunch on a shady bank above a tumbling mountain-stream. Towards the middle of the afternoon we move on again, and after passing up a narrow well- wooded glen, strike into a broader one, which runs straight up from the plain to the main ridge of the Sierra. An hour of steep and stony up-hill work carries us up. this glen to the summit of the ridge, where we halt at a height of 2,300 feet above Cordova, and nearly 3,500 feet above the sea level. Looking backwards, towards the east, the view takes in the whole course of the glen up which we have come, with the various shoulders of the mountains on either side of it, and the hot and hazy pampas in the distance. Towards the west we look over a finely-wooded plain lying about 1,500 feet below us, on to a further and higher Sierra. Through the plain winds a small and silvery river, supplying the only trace of water in the landscape. A drought of nearly five months has dried up all the standing water, and its effects are visible even in the dull and faded look of many of the trees around us. The majority of these trees are of three or four kinds on ly — the ' algaroba ' (or locust-tree), the ' tala,' and the ' quebracho,' a species of mimosa, being the most common. There is also a smaller tree, apparently of the acacia or mimosa kind, with handsome upright cone-clusters of white flowers with long red stamens : this tree our * vaqueano ' calls the ' lagafia de perro,' or ' dog's eye- water,' for what reason we cannot make out. Here and there, over the lower trees, a passion-flower trails its delicate chains of leaf and flower, and on not a few bushes are conspicuous the white flowers of a jasmine very like that known as the 'Cape jasmine.' A variety of ferns grows among the crevices of the rocks, and along the 382 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. banks of the dwindled streams : a ' maiden-hair ' is often visible, side by side with a variety of the spleenwort ; and there are two small kinds — a ' Pellsea ' and a ' Myriopteris ' — which seem identical with specimens observed by us in the To-semite valley in California. We notice during our ride up to the ridge several handsome birds— in particular a woodpecker with a brilliant red crest, and a humming-bird with a gorgeous emerald body and black tail. Shortly before sunset we start down from the ridge into the plain to the westward, and after a somewhat toilsome ride, some of our horses being evidently unaccustomsd to hill- work, and showing signs of ' knocking-up,' we reach a small ' rancho ' belong- ing to a friend of our guide, where we take up our quarters for the night. These quarters consist of a mud outhouse, on the floor of which, amid bundles of maize, stirrups, bridles, and a variety of articles, is stretched a cowhide to serve as a bed for two, while a mattress of stiff maize-stalks stretched on a ' catri ' in a corner, serves for the resting- place of the other two of our party. In spite of the anti- soporific qualities of these couches, we sleep the sleep of the weary, and early next morning rise refreshed, and ready to explore the neighbourhood. A * mate ' and some bread is sufficient to start upon, and we spend the morning in riding to a pretty winding glen to the north of us, which has a fine cool stream running through it, offering a deli- cious natural bath. These little streams are availed of by the people in the valley for the purposes of irrigation, and our host of the ' rancho,' in spite of the drought, has a good field of ' alfalfa ' to show us, and some healthy-looking young plants of tobacco in his garden. Yet the people here are evidently very poor and primitive ; and our host, with a ITS INHABITANTS. 383 small water-mill to yield him an extra trifle of income, is probably better off than most of his neighbours. His family consists of his wife, mother, and three children, all of whom sleep in their one room, with its walls of mud and its roof of thatch. The furniture is of the simplest kind, and ' mate, 5 coarse bread, eggs, and occasionally mutton, seem their only fare. Yet they have much of the manners of well-educated people, and their polite speeches, and modest but not cowed bearing, bespeak the ' nature's gentlefolk.' The head of the family, indeed, in his anxiety to be perfectly agreeable, makes a point of assenting to almost every remark, good or bad, relevant or irrelevant, made by his visitors, till at last the frequency with which the usual words of assent, 'Como no?' (How not? or of course ! ) enter into his conversation, becomes rather amusing. In the afternoon a heavy storm of hail, rain, and thunder, sweeps over the valley, pouring down a good supply for the half-empty streams, but treating rather roughly the standing crops. Our intention of leaving in the evening is abandoned, especially as there is evidently more rain brewing, and we spend another night in the mud outhouse, whose defective thatch lets in various heavy drops upon us during the cold and blustery night. Daybreak affords a good excuse for getting up, and we are soon off on our return ride to Cordova, taking a different route from that by which we had come. An hour and a half brings us to the summit of the ridge, to the north of where we had crossed it previously, and then three hours are spent in scrambling down to the bottom of a steep and rough glen, our guide being evidently unacquainted with this route, and missing his way more than once. 384 ROUND THE WOULD IN 1870. After an hour's stay, to cook and eat a shoulder of mutton which we have carried with us, we start off again ; wind about for an hour or more in tortuous glens, and over sparsely wooded slopes ; and then, emerging from the Sierra, have three hours more riding through heat which is a forcible contrast to last night's cold, into Cordova. EIO DE JANEIRO. 385 CHAPTER XXXI. EIO DE JANEIRO. We retrace our steps rapidly from Cordova, to Rosario, Buenos Ayres, and Monte Video. From the latter port a four days' voyage of a very uneventful description, with weather quiet and dull, no land and few sails visible, and even the sun obscured throughout from observation, brings us late at night, on the 14th of December, into the Bay of Rio. Early next morning we are up to catch the first sight of the surrounding beauties of nature which have led the bay to claim the first rank among the beau- tiful harbours of the world ; but they are half veiled for a while by heavy clouds which hang upon the mountains behind the city, and by dark showers which come sweeping down at intervals over city and mountains alike. But as the morning advances the weather clears, and before mid-day the waters of the bay glitter blue and brilliant beneath the sun's hot rays ; the magnificent peaks of Corcovado and Tijuca, with their handsome out- lines and their dark clothing of rich and rank vegetation, stand up in all their beauty over the city, which stretches at their feet along the winding margin, of the bay ; the Pao d'Assucar — the Sugar Loaf — lifts its bare sides of rock above the entrance to the south, seeming to stand as sentinel at the boundary of ocean and inland sea; and across the view towards the north the lofty range of the Organ Mountains stands bathed in a faint haze, its fantastic peaks standing up clear against a cloudless background of c c 386 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. blue. Certainly, as far as we can judge, the claim of the bay to the palm both of beauty and security is well made. There is but one harbour which we have seen which can venture to put in a rival claim on the former point, and that is the harbour of Nagasaki. There the surrounding mountains are equally beautiful and more varied in the vegetation which clothes them, and they stand in a more complete ring round the enclosed waters : but this Brazilian diamond is four times as long and four times as broad as the miniature gem of Japan, and the outlines here are bolder and more picturesque than those in the island of Kiu-siu. We row ashore through a maze of steamers and sailing- vessels of all sorts and sizes, and land, as usual, close to a custom-house. The difference between Rio and any other city which we have seen in South America, strikes us forcibly directly we enter it. Apart from the towering masses of rocky peaks and wooded slopes which close in the vista of abnost every street, there seems in streets, houses, and inhabitants, a total change from what we have been accus- tomed to in the cities of the west coast, or those of the La Plata States. The streets are neither so broad nor so mathematically and monotonously straight as those of Santiago or of Lima ; the houses are not of that almost universal white plaster which creates the blinding glare of Eosario or of Cordova : nor are the people such a mixture of Basques, Italians, Germans, French, English and natives, which make up such a motley population in Buenos Ayres or in Monte Video. Good granite paving-blocks, well squared and evenly laid, take the place of rough cobble-stones : houses with solid stone fronts and far-projecting balconies appear instead of bare fronts of plaster-covered brick ; and among BIO DE JANEIRO. 387 tie inhabitants a predominance of dark skins, especially of those of the ebon descendants of Ham, everywhere meets the eye. There is throughout the city every appear- ance of brisk business and solid wealth. Along the borders of the bay are numerous docks, wharves, solid stone quays, ship-yards, foundries, and other buildings connected with the repair and equipment of ships. In the many squares of the city are handsome and spacious public buildings, and every appearance of money having been, and being still, spent in making the city a worthy capital of the empire of Brazil. Most of the streets are lined with excellent shops, which seem to enjoy abundance of custom from dawn to twilight: for there are no siestas apparently here, and no empty pave- ments and closed shop-fronts during the mid-day hours. Tramways run through most of the principal streets, and out to the suburbs of the city : they are drawn by mules, which seem preferred to horses even for use in private carriages. An old-fashioned chariot, handsomely painted, and with silver or gilt ornaments, drawn by a pair of large and well-bred mules, and driven by a portly negro coachman, is no uncommon nor unpicturesque sight in the streets of Rio : and the pace at which the pair will go, and the fine action they display, fully justifies the high prices (as much as £60) said to be given for a single one of these useful, hardy, and handsome animals. Much of the carrying portion of the labour of the city is done, however, not by mules, but by negroes. These negroes are, for the most part, still slaves ; for though all importation into the country of fresh slaves has been prohibited for some years, comparatively few of those in the country are as yet emancipated. 1 Many of 1 An Emancipation Act was passed in Brazil in September of this year (1871). c c 2 388 EOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. those in the city are allowed by their masters to hire themselves out as porters or day-labourers, on condition of their handing over a certain portion of their earnings : in this way, some of them, by earning often as much as three milreis (more than six shillings) a day, accumulate, after working for several years, a sum large enough to purchase their freedom. Many of them are remarkably stalwart and well-made men: and, together with the negresses — who keep stalls in the market-places, or are met with in the streets carrying fruit and vegetables for sale, picturesquely attired in cotton prints, and turbans of bright colours — they form decidedly the best-looking por- tion of the population, as far as size and figure go. Nor are they much less numerous than the natives of the city ; for they number about 90,000, as against 100,000 native Bra- zilians, the remaining 1 20,000 of the population being made up of resident Europeans (chiefly Portuguese) and others. Although we are now in the middle of December, a month corresponding to the month of June in the northern hemisphere, and although Rio is within the tropical line — the same distance, in fact, from the equator as Calcutta — the heat we experience here is by no means excessive. In the middle of the day the thermometer stands at 87° in the shade, the point which it reached in Cordova and Bosario a fortnight ago. Pith helmets seem almost un- known here, and a European walks out beneath a vertical sun, and an umbrella, without fear or danger. Yet there is an oppressive feeling about the air, and the nights in the city are not much cooler than the days — a fact which leads all Europeans who can do so to live out in some of the fresher and cooler suburbs, spending only the daytime in the city. One of the most popular and most beautiful of these suburbs is Botafogo, two or three miles to the south of BOTAFOGO. 389 the city, standing on the north side of a little bay which branches out from the main bay, and has on its south side the towering mass of the Sugar Loaf. A tramway leads out of the city to Botafogo, passing on the way the Promenade Gardens, full of handsome tropical plants and trees, and many well kept private gardens, where bourgan- villas, jasmines, and magnolias, vie in beauty with other creepers whose names we know not. The houses to which these gardens are attached are in general very handsome and spacious : there is one built on a particularly large and elaborate scale, bearing on a tablet, high up on a balustrade running round the flat roof, the letters B. N. P. These are the initials of the Baron of Nova Friburgo, who is said to have spent a quarter of a million sterling in the erection of this house. Since his death, which occurred a year or two ago, it has remained unsaleable by reason of its excessive value. The baron began life as a boatman, and seems to have made his money partly by slave-dealing, partly by rather ques- tionable monetary transactions, whence his initials have been variously interpreted by his non-admirers as stand- ing for ' Baron de Notas Palsas' — ' Baron of the Bad Bank Notes,' or for ' Buon nunca foy ' — ' Good he never was.' If Botafogo, cool and healthy as it is, compared with most parts of the city, is yet not altogether free from the fevers which often are so deadly in their attacks in Rio, there are other places, up among the mountains which surround the bay, which can be reached within a few hours from the hot city, and yet enjoy a really cool and salubrious climate. Nearest of these is Tijuca, ten miles to the west of the city, 800 feet above the level of the bay, and lying in a hollow under the Tijuca Peak, which rises more than 3,000 feet above the same level. A drive of five miles through the western suburbs of 390 BOUND THE "WORLD IN 1870. the town, past many well-built houses and luxuriant gardens, brings us to the foot of the Tijuca Pass : another hour spent in riding up this pass in an open coach drawn by five sturdy mules, over a finely-made macadam road, takes us to one of the two homely but comfortable hotels which seem favourite refuges, among Europeans, from the heats and fevers of the fair city below. On either side of the hollow in which Tijuca stands rise up lofty slopes, profusely covered with the densest and richest vegetation : but to gain the most commanding spots, and enjoy the finest views in the neighbourhood, we must ride a few miles in one direction or another along the broad gravel roads, or the narrow overgrown forest paths, which lead out from Tijuca over the shoulders, and round the deep gorges, of the surrounding mountains. Perhaps the finest of these views is that called the ' Chinese View,' from the Chinese coolies who were em- ployed some years ago to lay out the gravel road which leads to it. An hour's ride along this road, through dense woods, and among winding glens, affords constantly varying views towards the south and south-west, over mountain and sea. One mountain, appearing in many of these views, is remarkable for its broad square-cnt summit of bare rock, which has earned it the name of ' La Gavia,' or ' The Topsail : ' in contrast to it, there rises up just below it a perfect cone of rock springing from a base of dark green forest slopes. But the view which suddenly discloses itself, as we turn round the last shoulder of the mountain on our left, and emerge from a short pass between this and the mountain on our right, is such a union of almost all- the possible beauties of a landscape, that all the other views are merged and forgotten in it. Looking down from a height of 1,300 feet through a gap in the dense trees in front of and below us, we gaze 'CHINESE VIEW.' 391 on one of the most beautiful 'coups d'ceil' imaginable. Immediately below us the forest slopes steeply down to a green and level plain half-a-mile in greatest width, and two or three miles in length. The boundary of the plain on the right is the winding shore line, at one part curving inland round a shallow lagoon, so as almost to cut the plain in two. On the left of the plain rises a steep wood- covered slope, up to the foot of the sheer front of the Corcovado Peak, which towers a thousand feet above where we stand. Beyond the plain, towards the right, are the picturesque mountains standing together on the western side of the entrance to the Bay of Rio : conspicuous among them is the Sugar Loaf, whose top is just on a level with ourselves, and whose bare mass of rock, as seen from here, looks like a gigantic thumb thrust up from beneath the earth. To the left of this group the plain widens out, becomes dotted with houses, and continues to the bright waters of the bay : beyond the bright waters another group of mountains, of wonderfully bold and varied outlines, stand crowding one upon another, their intervening valleys filled with the gray mists which the morning sun has not yet dispelled. The whole scene is such a perfect and har- monious combination of rock and verdure, mountain and sea, that one would almost think Nature must have con- • suited Art before she framed it: if transferred to canvas, it would assuredly be judged to be the creation of some painter who had gathered into one view all the lovely bits of scenery which he had seen in many wanderings. Within another hour's ride from Tijuca, in a north-wes- terly direction, is another point which has become famous for the panorama to be obtained from it — a panorama perhaps inferior in beauty, but superior in extent, to that which unrolls itself below the ' Chinese View.' Starting 392 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. about mid-day from Tijuca, we wind along a narrow path among dense forests and across open glades and glens, ascending almost continuously, and finally reaching a projecting point on the eastern face of the Tijuca Peak, 1,300 ft. below the summit of the peak and 2,000 ft. above the waters of the bay. Although the sun is vertical, the air up at this height is light and cool, and during our ride the trees and matted creepers which overshadow most parts of the path, aided occasionally by a white umbrella, effectually shield us from the fierce rays of the fiery god of day. A far hotter and longer ride would have been repaid by the superb panorama which lies stretched out beneath us as we stand on this protecting point on the shoulder of the Tijuca Peak. The mountain falls steeply away below us down into the broad and winding plain, which, dotted with trees, houses, and with isolated knolls of verdure-covered rock, runs almost round the Bay of Rio, separating its waters from the Tijuca group of mountains on the west and from the Organ Mountains on the north. The peerless bay lies spread out below us as on a map, its blue surface sprinkled with islets covered with rich green palm-groves, and bounded by graceful sweeps of sandy beach, or by jutting, jagged headlands. The city of Rio, with countless red roofs and tall church towers, lies basking in the sun upon its southern margin : and on the shallow waters in front of the city are some hundreds of ships and steamers. Hanging over the city are the handsome peaks of Corcovado and the Sugar Loaf: beyond the shipping, on the opposite side of the bay, is the white town of Nictheroy, backed by the range of mountains which showed to such advantage from the ' Chinese View ' : away to the north is the stately range of the Organ Mountains. Over, all there is that vividness RAZ DE SIERRA. 393 of colour, that bright transparency of atmosphere, and that brilliancy of sky, which give such an impression of warmth and life to anyone accustomed to look on the colder and duller scenes of more temperate latitudes. Want of time compels us to leave Tijuca with half its beauties unexplored ; and, after spending two nights there, we ride down the hill on the succeeding morning, and enter Rio just as its streets are being heated up for the day, and all the Plazas are baking in the sun. Before the afternoon is half over, we are off again in the steamer, bound for the north end of the bay. After a sail of an hour and a half, with constantly changing views through- out of the groups of mountains round the bay, we land close to the terminus of a short railway at the north end. Half an hour in the railway takes us across the plain — here level and swampy, and densely overgrown with tall reeds, rank creepers, and matted bushes — and brings us to the foot of the first range of Organ Mountains, at the terminus of Eaz de Sierra. Here we leave the railway, and change into coaches ; and, drawn by teams of hardy mules, upon whose patient backs the drivers' whips fall fast and furious, we go rapidly up a zig-zag macadamized road. Pine views of the bay behind us disclose themselves as we ascend, as well as of the bold buttresses of rock which rise up on either side of our road. But even these per- pendicular rock-faces are in few parts absolutely bare, for in this damp and warm climate the steepest cliffs are striped with bands of green mosses, and every crevice is filled up with bunches of ferns or clumps of grasses. And while even the precipices are partially clothed with verdure, on all the level ground, and up the sloping moun- tain-sides, grow forests so dense that, where there is no 394 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. made path, they have to be traversed with the aid of axe or torch. A tangled overgrowth of ferns and countless herbs and weeds completely hides the surface of the ground : over this thick carpet the meeting foliage of the trees spreads a shade which even a vertical sun can scarcely penetrate ; and these upper and under growths are often closely bound together by the creepers which festoon every branch, or hang in long ropes from tree to tree, and from tree to their mother earth again. By some this rich abundance of vegetation may be looked on with unmixed admiration : to us, in spite of the occasional gorgeous colours of the creepers and flowering trees, there is a monotony, or rather a surfeit, of rich green, and a lack of individually fine trees, which much impairs the appearance of these tro- pical forests. The shades of brown, yellow, and red, which give such wonderful variety to the foliage of Japan, and the massive trunks and ponderous branches which lend such grandeur to the forests of California, are alike wanting here : we seem here' to be looking on Nature run to wanton riot, instead of, as there, on Nature in the prime of strength and unwasted vigour : in these tropical regions her energies are dissipated, and the result is { a huge, unweeded garden ; ' in more bracing climates her coppices are tended, and her parks are kept in order. Just as the sun is setting, we reach the top of a pass leading through the first range of the Sierra, and in an- other quarter of an hour we arrive at Petropolis, a village lying in a sequestered basin, 2,500 ft. above the sea, shut in on all sides by higher points of the neighbouring mountains. Petropolis, from the salubrity of its climate and its easiness of access, has for some years been a favourite resort during the heats of summer and autumn for both PETEOPOLIS. 395 European and native residents in Rio. Just on its western outskirts stands a large and tolerably handsome building, surrounded by a well-planted, though not extensive, garden. This is the Emperor's Summer Palace, and here every year before and since the Paraguayan war (for, during that war, money was flowing out of the imperial treasury so fast that the Emperor set the example of economy even in his domestic expenses), his Imperial Highness Don Pedro Segundo has spent two or three months of summer or autumn, and thus ren- dered Petropolis a Brazilian Balmoral. The village is laid out in a style not unbefitting a rustic haunt of royalty. Through the main street runs a stream artificially banked in, and bordered with a double row of trees, chiefly arau- carias ; on each side of the street are good shops and houses and several small hotels ; good roads lead out of the village in more directions than one. Of these roads the principal one is hardly to be dis- missed with the mere epithet of ' good.' Brazilians are prouder of the Juiz da Fora road than of any other work in their country: nor is this to be wondered at, since even Englishmen have declared it to be the finest road in the world. Its length from Petropolis to Juiz da Fora is eighty-five miles ; it is of great breadth ; is maca- damised throughout, protected by side walls at exposed parts, and properly arched, so as to let rain run off from its surface into the side drains. It was laid down about fourteen years ago, chiefly with a view to facilitate the transport of coffee from the plantations in the interior to Rio, and is said to have cost the enormous sum of 10,Q00Z. per mile. Coaches run along it regularly, and traverse the whole distance, drawn by mules, at the rate of nine miles an hour. We drive along it for a few miles ; and, as far as we 396 EOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. see it, it is certainly equal to the best of English turn- pike roads, besides being laid through more difficult country than could be found anywhere in England, Cum- berland perhaps excepted. But the further half of it, from Paranahiba to Juiz da Fora, is said to be kept in far finer condition than this half, and to be so smooth and hard that a heavy cart moving over it leaves no perceptible trace upon it. Along that part still go the coffee-laden carts and mules ; from Paranahiba there is now a railway to Rio, and this of course has diverted the traffic from the nearer half of the road, which consequently has not so much care spent upon its preservation. The scenery on the road is said to be very fine through- out ; and if the first five miles of it from Petropolis are average samples of the rest, it deserves in this respect also to rank among the finest roads in the world. As we drive along it, spacious glens, walled in by massive moun- tains, open out to the view on either side ; a broad and rocky torrent rushes rapidly along a few yards below us ; rich and luxuriant foliage meets the eye everywhere. At the end of the five miles this torrent tumbles suddenly over a sloping wall of rock ; but the beauty of the fall has been much impaired recently by the cutting down, and converting into charcoal, of the forest which grew on the slope that, rises up from the right bank of the fall. Perhaps the best feature of the spot is the great abund- ance of the ferns which grow around, varying from the tall and majestic tree-ferns down to the cosmopolitan but ever beautiful ' maiden-hair.' Of the many fine rides which lead out in almost every direction from Petropolis, the one most highly recom- mended to the passing visitor is that to the ' Alto Impera- dor,' a high point on the southernmost range of the Organ Mountains, from which a fine view over the bay and of THE ALTO IMPEEADOR. 397 its enclosing mountains is to be had. We start out early on the morning after our arrival, with the intention of reach- ing this point ; and being told that no guide is necessary, nor is to be had at less a price than twelve milreis (twenty- five shillings), we go trusting to our owu sagacity. Our road for the first four miles winds along the course of a narrow valley threaded by a rapid stream. On the banks of this stream grow many handsome plants, of which perhaps the most conspicuous are the trumpet-lilies, the deutschias, and the begonias. Striking out of the valley, the road leads upwards through dense woods, becomes very narrow, rough, and muddy, and soon betrays numerous branch paths, no smaller than itself, leading off to right and left. We follow what we judge to be the main path for another two miles, and finally emerge from the woods on to the top of a slope cleared of trees. Here we have only a partial view of the bay, and are evidently at the wrong point. Retracing our steps and meeting two charcoal-burners, we follow, from their directions, as far as we can under- stand them, another path. This again soon branches out into other paths leading to charcoal kilns, or to spots where wood is being, or has been, felled for charcoal, and again we reach the crest of a cleared slope. From this we have a more extensive view than from the previous one, and see the bay, 3,000 ft. below us, through almost its whole extent ; while behind us the wooded crests and rocky sides of the Sierra stand up boldly over the richly- wooded glens which run in amongst them. But again the view on either side is shut out by higher points than that on which we stand ; and the sun's rays growing somewhat fierce, and an inner consciousness warning us that the sus- taining effects of the early cup of coffee have nearly vanished, we retrace our steps and wind back to Petropolis, 398 BOUND THE WOELD IN 1870. fully satisfied with the ride, although we had not reached our intended goal. As we ride through these dense woods, which would seem such an excellent resort for the feathered tribes, one fact strikes us forcibly, and that is, the scarcity of birds among them. The. very mention of Brazil calls up to many minds recollections of cages of stuffed humming- birds or tall bouquets of feather-flowers; and when we land in Eio, and walk past or into the many shops in that city, whose display of feather-fans and flowers, of stuffed birds of the most gorgeous plumage, and of beetles of the most brilliant hues, would outvie in their glitter the best jeweller's shop in Europe, we naturally expect that when we ride among the primeval forests on the neighbouring mountains we shall see the quivering of many bright wings and the flashing of many splendid crests. But we are disappointed, for in these woods near Petropolis or Tijuca both birds and quadrupeds seem rare. The explanation seems to be, that the brilliant birds of Brazil live chiefly in the more northern provinces, and the owners in the. feather-shops in Eio acknowledge that their supplies come for the most part from the districts lying near the Amazon. To this general scarcity of birds near Eio there may indeed be said to be one exception. Hum- ming-birds are by no means rare in the gardens of the city's suburbs ; in fact, they seem much more frequent there than in their native forests. It is a pretty sight to see a flock of these feathered jewels sweep across an open sward : or to watch one of the little fellows close at hand, tiny but fearless, darting from shrub to shrub, while every colour of the prism flashes from his breast and head ; to see him hovering every other second before a fresh-blown flower, and, with his long beak and tongue thrust into the calyx to drink in the honeyed liquor, plying his wings so HUMMING-BIRDS. 399 rapidly that they give out a drumming sound, and are rendered almost invisible by their swift motion, while his body remains balanced in the air and motionless ; • to mark how in this one operation of feeding on a flower he gives rise to the name by which we know him, and to the several names, such as ' picaflor ' (the flower-pecker), and ' chupa- miel ' (honey-sucker), by which he is known among the Spaniards. We leave Petropolis after a stay there as short as our previous one at Tijuca ; and on the next day we leave Rio, conscious of having seen but a few of the charms of its neighbourhood, and with the impression that a month might well be spent in exploring the beauties of the country within a radius of less than fifty miles of the city. We cannot but think that if Rio and its neighbourhood were better known in England than they seem to be, they would be more frequently visited by numbers of that great travelling public who are ever in search in all corners of Europe for ' fresh fields and pastures new.' Did they but know that during any month, from June to October inclusive, a three weeks' voyage in some of the finest steamers afloat would land them in a country where they would find in almost everything — in people, in customs, in scenes — a more complete change from England than they can find in any part of Europe ; a country where the climate is healthy, and the scenery magnificent; where they can enjoy six weeks of travelling in the interior without un- dergoing any extraordinary hardships or dangers ; did they know this, we should hear of a goodly number of them booking to Rio Janeiro or to Bahia, instead of to Geneva or Berlin. 400 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. CHAPTEE XXXII. BACK TO ENGLAND; ' Who can light on as happy a shore All the world o'er, all the world o'er ? ' Tennyson's ' Sea Fairies' Embarking on one of the P. S. N. Co.'s fine vessels, we steam out from the Bay of Rio, soon lose sight of the stately mountains which stand about its entrance, pass into the open ocean, and begin to feel the first of the con- trary winds which are destined to be our fate on almost every day of our passage home. Christmas-day is passed within ten degrees of the Line, and Christmas wishes some- how seem colder under the influence of a vertical sun than they do when uttered amidst frost and snow. Two days later we cross the Line, and pass within a mile of the first land we have seen since leaving Rio. Dry land we can hardly call it : it is nothing but a bare ridge of rocks, 300 or 400 yards in length and half that in width, standing up out of the otherwise unbroken expanse of blue ocean ; and ■ when a gale is blowing there can scarcely be a spot on the rocks* over which the surf and spray does not sweep. These St. Paul's Rocks are 500 miles from the nearest mainland ; within two miles of them the water deepens to 1,200 feet, and within a few miles more to ten times that depth ; so that they would seem to be the summit of a second Teneriffe which, in its upheaval from unknown depths, just, and only just, reached the over-spreading. surface. ST. PAUL'S ROCKS. 401 Not a blade of anything green, unless it be sea-weed, lives on these lone rocks ; but that they are not altogether useless is evident from the numbers of sea-birds which stand like so many bottles on the jagged points and shelves of rock, or wheel round over the adjacent surfs and shallows where their finny prey is to be found. Possibly man may some day make use of this solitary islet as a resting-place for a submarine cable half way between the African and American continents : at present the mariner takes care to steer clear of it, and of the cur- rent which makes down upon it from the north : the ut- most use he makes of it is to catch a sight of it, and so correct his reckoning ; or, if becalmed near it, he may perhaps lower a boat and catch a few boobies or fresh fish to add variety to his bill of fare. On the morning of the last day of the year, we sight through a dull haze the outline of St. Yincent, one of the Cape Verd Islands, and are soon afterwards passing under high cliffs — as barren, as jagged, and as picturesque as the rocks above Aden — into the sheltered harbour which forms a coaling depot for more than one line of ocean-going steamers. While our steamer takes in her supply of fuel, we go ashore ; for the mere change from dry planks to dry land is sufficient, without further inducement, to lead us from the vessel. And certainly further inducement there is none at St. Vincent, at least for the ordinary tra- veller ; perhaps a geologist might find both interest and in- formation in examining the volcanic rocks of which the island seems composed ; or an ethnologist found various theories, and draw many deductions, from the variety of complexion and feature which he may notice among the islanders. A small village containing inhabitants of every colour, from that of the ebon negro to that of the fair Saxon, stands at the head of the bay which forms the D D 402 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. harbour. A solitary chapel, two or three taverns, and a few shops — where all the few stores required by the in- habitants are to be bought — compose part of the village : the rest consists of small cottages and hovels, where the labouring portion of the community live. But almost the only labour done here seems to be that connected with the coaling of the numerous steamers which call here on their way to and from Europe, South America, and South Africa; and a considerable portion of the people, especially the boys, seem to have nothing to do but beg of stray passengers who land among them for an hour or two. There does not seem to be a single product of the barren island worthy of being offered for sale to the passer-by ; but from the neighbouring island of San Antonio, which is more favoured by the rains and dews of heaven, comes to St. Vincent a good supply of oranges and plantains. Ships from the west coast of Africa bring hither numbers of grey parrots, along with a variety of smaller birds of gay plumage ; and traders from Madeira trans- port a supply of the lace and inlaid woodwork for the manufacture of which that island has some repute. These articles, with a few shells and other marine curio- sities, are employed to draw a few dollars from passing steamers. We leave St. Vincent after only a few hours' stay there. Fifty miles away from it the Old Tear is ushered out* and the New Year ushered in, with a discordant peal of nearly all the ' Patagonia's ' bells, a few rockets, and a chorus of human voices. New Tear's Day, 1871, dawns on us struggling against a strong north-east trade wind, and from this point to Lisbon the elements are adverse throughout. Four days after leaving St. Vincent we sight, at six TENERIFFE. 403 o'clock in the morning, the Peak of Teneriffe, sixty miles ahead : and at mid-day we are passing between the island of Teneriffe and the adjacent one of Gomera. In this Gomera Strait we find comparatively smooth water, and a pleasant hour is ' passed in admiring the fine cliffs on the Teneriffe side, the great Peak occasionally appearing through a gap in the clouds, and looking down upon us from his immense height of over 12,000 ft. The Strait is soon threaded ; we round Cape Teno, its north-eastern headland, over which, is breaking a magnificent surf, dashing up in clouds of white foam and spray to a height of 100 ft. or more ; again we face the strong trade wind, and our good ship tosses and dips to every wave. Through the remainder of the day the Peak is every now and then visible through a gap in the clouds ; and at sunset, when we are again sixty miles from it, there it still stands with its collar of cloud, and a thin sprinkling of snow upon its head, a peak such as the Greeks would have fixed upon as the throne of Poseidon, from the unrivalled extent of its view over the Sea-God's watery domain. It is stated on good authority that, under favourable conditions, this towering Peak can be seen at a distance of 150 miles, and there is no doubt that it is constantly visible at a distance of over 100 miles. Another three days of head-wind, and adverse sea, and hourly diminishing hopes of reaching our destined port on the appointed day. Early on the morning of January 8 we cross the bar ah the entrance to the Tagus, and in another hour are anchored off Lisbon. Some hours are spent in tiresome delays in performing pratique ; we are then at liberty to go ashore, and lose no time in again setting foot on European soil. An Argentine landing at Eio de Janeiro, fresh from his native country, could scarcely help being struck with B D 2 404 BOUND THE WORLD IN 1870. the greater solidity and wealth in the appearance of that city than Buenos Ayres or Monte Video can display. A Brazilian landing at Lisbon must be prejudiced if he does not experience the same sensation. Here we have spacious streets, well paved, and lined with symmetrical rows of tall stone houses ; handsome squares surrounded with well-designed and well- constructed public buildings : promenades and ' alamedas ' kept in perfect order, and planted with a well-chosen variety of ornamental shrubs ; markets whose neatness, cleanliness, and abundance of supplies, would have done credit to Paris before the siege ; churches with much of ornament and beauty inside as well as outside ; views from various points on the upper parts of the city, which for picturesqueness and pleasing effect would match the views in almost any capital in Europe. Three or four hours ashore enable us to see all this general effect, as well as to examine more minutely one or two particular buildings. The Estrella church, with its complete lining of marbles of every colour and variety of markings, and its extremely graceful dome, claims a por- tion of our time. We spend a few minutes in the British cemetery, where, under the shade of a noble avenue of cypresses, stands among others the tomb of Richard Fielding, with an inscription bearing witness to his genial unselfishness (aliis, non sibi, vixit), and his intimate knowledge of human nature (qui intima cordis reserare potuit). The large reservoir into which runs the cele- brated aqueduct, built 300 years ago, and conveying fresh water to the city from Cintra, fourteen miles away, is another object of interest. But the gem of Lisbon buildings is the exquisite cloistered court attached to the convent of St. Jerome, in the outskirts of the city, near the Tower of Belem. The LISBON. 405 wonderful richness and beauty of design of this court, and its almost uninjured condition, render it one of the most perfect of its kind; and its interest is increased from the fact of its being attached to a building which is doing a most benevolent work in Lisbon — educating more than 900 orphan boys and girls, as well as clothing, feed- ing, and lodging them in all neatness and comfort. Soon after dark we are again on the move, and, passing out of the Tagus, commence pounding away against half a gale from the north, evidently with not much prospect of making up for time already lost. Thirty-six hours are consumed in getting up the coast abreast of Cape Finis- terre, the wind all the time being dead ahead. Rounding the Cape, and giving it a wide berth, we pass the buoy moored over the place where the ill-fated Captain is sup- posed to have sunk ; then, altering our course for Bordeaux, we begin to improve in pace, the wind being on the beam. All anticipate a good run to the mouth of the Gironde, but again we find how truly the poet sang — ' The best laid plans o' mice an men gang aft agleg.' Squalls of wind and rain speak of quarrels amongst the elements, and about midnight a stronger squall carries away the fore-topsail, the sea at the time being rapidly on the increase. The ship's head is brought round to the wind, and not too soon ; for the wind and sea continue to increase, and it would have been a matter of difficulty to bring round a long screw steamer against such waves as . those over which we are soon riding. For the succeeding twenty-four hours our proceedings may be epitomised by half a verse from Dibdin, telling how that ' There we lay, all that day, In the Bay of Biscay, ! ' 406 ROUND THE WORLD IN 1870. The ship's head is kept facing the sea, the engines are slowed down, the officers and crew prepare for the worst and hope for the best. Of the passengers a large propor- tion remain below stairs, in various stages of wretched- ness ; those who have in other seas earned exemption from such a fate have an opportunity of looking on as grand and wild a sea as could be found' in a twelvemonth ; on huge billows, streaked with ribbons of white foam, and topped, some of them, with broken crests of green, rolling towards the vessel, one after the other, in a succession that seems endless ; and on the good ship climbing, sur- mounting, and descending the watery slopes with steady perseverance, and occasionally taking in a few tons of water bodily on board. Shortly before the twenty-four hours are expired, the gale moderates a little, and the vessel is put on her proper course again : all that day she makes good way against a moderate sea and a cold east wind. Late in the evening the Cordouan Light, on the south side of the en- trance to the Gironde, is sighted, its brilliant crimson glow being visible nearly twenty- five miles across the water ; and before midnight the 'Patagonia' is anchored in the Verdun Roads, twenty miles up the river. By breakfast- time next morning we are lying off Pauillac, the furthest point up the river to which large steamers can penetrate. With the thermometer standing at 22°, and the river covered with floating ice, the aspect of everything is sufficiently winterly ; but we are told that three weeks ago the frost was much more intense, and at a mile from us are visible above water the masts of a brig, lately sunk at her anchorage by the drifting ice. Pauillac is a small village, with two or three hotels and an old church, and owes all its interest to its vicinity to the vineyards which produce the most celebrated of the PAUILLAC. 407 Bordeaux wines. The chateaux of Latour, Lafitte, St. Jullien, St. Estephe, and several others of well-known names, are within a few miles of the little port ; and if we walk out from the village away from the river side, we come at once upon an expanse of carefully cultivated and neatly-trimmed vineyards, stretching away to the horizon, their uniformity broken here and there by the appearance of a white chateau standing, with its surrounding build- ings, in the midst of a tall clump of trees. We are detained at Pauillac for two days, waiting for coal, and when at last we weigh anchor again and steam out of the Gironde, we find outside a favourable wind wait- ing for us. At last we think our prolonged homeward voyage has outlived its accompanying bad weather. But we have another taste of the proverbial weather of the Bay before we are fairly out of it. A heavy gale from the south-west springs up, the sea rises, and fierce squalls burst upon us, carrying away several sails and breaking in two the main topsail-yard as if it had been a match. The engines are again slowed down for some hours, little advance is made in a homeward direction, and the ship rolls like a log, occasionally making an angle of 45° to the horizon. Then the gale moderates somewhat, we clear TJshant, and run more freely across the Channel for the Land's End. Truly the Bay of Biscay deserves' its bad weather cha- racter most thoroughly, as far as our experience goes ; for in crossing it on the voyage out, and again on the home- ward voyage, we have had more rough weather in it than in all the rest of our voyages put together. Twelve hours suffice for the run across the Channel, and in the middle of the night we catch sight of a glow on the horizon, waxing and waning every minute, at one moment red, at the next white. It is the brilliant light thrown from the 408 HOUND THE "WORLD IN 1870. lighthouse recently placed on the Wolf Rock, a dozen miles from the Land's End. Twenty-four hours more enable us to run up the Irish Channel, pass round Holyhead, and come to anchor at the bar of the Mersej', where we wait for a flowing tide. The fog which hangs over everything as we land in Liverpool would alone convince us, if we lacked other testimony, that we have reached the ' old country' again. But who shall grumble at a raw morning if it brings him a ready welcome from waiting friends ? Who shall think of the cheerless weather when surrounded by the plea- sures of a cheerful English home ? LONDON : PRINTED BT ^I'OTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE AND PARLIAMENT STREET '!?§&&tlL~'-%-- ^5=^#» mm •Li I lifl* ft^ SoSf