CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY THE CHARLES WILLIAM WASON COLLECTION ON CHINA ANTD THE CHINESE DS 9.R32°''"^" ^"'"^'^"y Library .,A|j around Asia / 3 1924 023 061 892 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023061892 ALL AROUND ASIA A GEOGRAPHICAL READER Scene in Uic Himalaya ilounLains. REDWAY'S GEOGRAPHICAL READERS ALL AROUND ASIA BY JACQUES W. REDVVAY, F.R.G.S, AUTHOR OF " ELF..MEXT ARY niYSirAI, GKOl'.R A I'i I Y " AND "commercial C.EOGRAPUY " ILLUSTRATED CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK:::::;:::::::;::: 1911 Copyright, iqio, by JACQUES W. REDWAY /^A- ^' {^ ■■«%i PREFACE The following pages arc intended to round out the knowl- edge of American cliildren concerning our neighljors across the Pacific. With the exception of the countries of the Iran Plateau, the routes followed are regular highways of tra\el which are open to all travellers. Such a trijj may be made without much personal discomfort, and the entire expense need not exceed eighteen hundred dollars. It is hardly nec- essary to add that the information presented in these pages does not properly belong in a text-book of geography. I wish to thank the editor of the Popular Science MonlJdy for the use of the two photographs of the bore of the Tsien Tang. They are presented on page 54 of this \x)lume, through his courtesy, and are protected by copyright. J. W. R. jMt. Vernon, N. Y., March, 1910, CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. The Asiax Continent i II. Across the Russian Empire 5 III. KORE.V, THE HerAIIT XaTION . 26 I\'. Chix.a — Its Early History 40 V. An 0^T;RL00K of China 50 \'l. Chin.a — In .A.ND Out of Peking 64 ^TI. Chin.a — The V.angtze, Hongkong, and Canton . . So \TII. How China \Vas Opened to thi: Co.mmerce of the World 97 IX. Village Life in Chin.a loS X. What Chin.a Gi\T,s to THE Rest of the World . . . 122 XL J.APAN — Through the Inla.nd Sea 134 XII. Japan — Kobe and Osaka 145 XIII. Japan — Frosi Osaka to Tokyo 157 XIV. J.APAN — How the People Live 173 XV. In and About Indo-Chin.a 1S4 X\T. Sla.m — THE L.and of the White Eleph..\nt 194 XVII. .Sia.m — Hunting the Elephant 204 XVIII. Singapore, the Malay Peninsula, and Bur.nla . . . 210 viii CONTENTS CHAPTER PACK XIX. India — the Hindus 227 XX. What India Has Given to the World 242 XXI. Around and Across India 24S XXII. The Iran Plateau — Afghanistan and Balukistan . 267 XXin. The Iran Plateau — Persia and the Persians . . . 275 XXIV. Through Armenia, the Holy Land, and Arabia . . 286 Index 311 ILLUSTRATIONS pAr.E Asiatic Types — Malay i Asiatic Types — Japan i Asiatic Ty])es — Indo-Cliina 2 Asiatic Types — Ciiina ^ "Petersburg" — Tlie Si|uarc 5 At Eight o'clock Our Train Pulls Out. Moscow — Railway Station . d ^Moscow — General \'iew S Moscow — The Kremlin g A Droschky — In ^^'inter the Body is Set on Runners 11 Zlatust — The Heart o£ the Ural Mountains 12 We are within the Boundary of Siberia 13 Crossing the Ural ilountains 14 Camels are in Sight ^ ^ Russian Peasants 16 Irkutsk — The Capiital of Siberia ly The Ice-breaker, Angara 20 Harbin — The Railway Station 22 A'ladivostok — The Russian Port of the Pacilic 23 Chcmulpho — The Harbor and Water Front 27 Chemulpho — A Street Scene 29 We Enter the City through the South Gate 31 Seoul — The East Gate 33 Korean Costumes t,-^ A Young Man in ^Mourning 34 Korean Women 36 A Korean Farm Village 37 Pan ku 40 After Nu wa Came Three Sovereigns 41 The Great Wall 46 Confucius 47 X ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Marco Polo 48 St. Francis Xavicr 49 The Flood Plain of the Iloang — The Bluffs are Com])osed of Dust Blown from the Desert of Gobi 52 On the Upper Yangtze 53 The Bore of the Tsien Tang 54 The Caravan Carries Bales of Tea from Peking to Kiakhla . . . 58 In Tibet — The Road to Lasa 60 Map of Eastern China 61 A Corner of Lasa 62 A Chinese Junk — The Sail is Made of Sirips of Banibo 64 Tientsin — The Grand Canal 65 Temple of f-Iea\'en , 65 Tientsin— A' Street Market 66 A Chinese 'Bus 67 A Palan(|uln 68 The Walls of Peking — The South Gate in (he Distance ..... 70 Peking — The Moat; The British Comjmund in the iJistance ... 72 Peking — A Business Street 73 •Peking— The Tartar City ............... 75 Chinese "Cash" 76 Shanghai — The Foreign Quarter and the Bund ...,.,,. Si Shanghai Silk Factory ................ 82 Nanking — The Road tcj the Tomb of the I-'ounder of the Ming Em[)erors 84 "India" Ink 85 Nanking — One of the Gates 86 A Bridge Across the Yangtze 87 A Barge on the Yangtze Sg Hongkong Harbor 91 Canton — The River Front; The Large Building on the Right is a Godo«-n 93 Canton — The Pagoda of Flowers 95 Prince Ching — C)ne of China's Great Men 97 The Kowtow 99 Charles George Gordon 100 Frederick Ward joi Li Hung Chang — China's Greatest Statesma.n 104 ILLUSTRATIONS xi PACE Captain Bowman McCalla loi; An Interior \'illage ion How Some Criminals arc Punished no A Cliinese School in Each Character Stands for a Word 112 A Brush and a Box of Ink ; .... 112 A Shrine in the Temple ir^ The Doctor ir^ A Chinese Lady of Rank 116 A Successful Student 117 The A[)parel of an Officer of High Ivank i uS A Coolie and His Raincoat: 119 The Examination Hall, Peking 121 Rice Fields — The Fields arc Terraced so that lOach C)ne nnn- be Flooded 123 Rice Planting 124 Preparing Tea for the Russian ^Market 126 Tea Bales on Their Way to Europe 127 The Forest Timber Has Long Since Disa[ipearerl 131 A Clump of Bamboo 132 Fujiyama, the Sacred Mountain of Japan 135 Nagasaki — The Harbor 13S In the Inland Sea — Japanese Junks 139 A Panorama of Kolic 141 Japanese Dwelling — Exterior J42 Dwelling Interior — Sliding Partitions 143 Map of Japan and Korea 145 A \'ery Formal Tea 146 A Formal Visit J4S Kobe — Decorating Japanese Lanterns 149 Arima 15° Osaka — A Street Scene r52 Osaka — A Tea-house and Clarden . . . ' 154 Osaka— The Pagoda 155 Making Silk 15S Nagoya — The fJreat Castle 159 The Golden Dolphins 161 xu ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Sonic Ja])ancsc Poller) — Cloisonne, Kaga, Salsunia 162 "i'okohama — The Harbor 163 Yokohama — The Bund 164 Tokyo — Ri\'cr Junks 1615 Tokyo — The CasUe Moat 166 Uyeno Park — A Family Parly in a Wislaria Tea-house 167 Trtkyo — Tlie Government Palaec 168 Tokyo — The Palace (jf the Mikarlo , 169 Tokyo — A Business Street 170 Mutoshito — Mikado of Ja]ian 171 The Ricksha Man 174 A \'illagc Street 17^ A Bit of the Tokaido 176 A Ja[)anesc Farm-house „ 178 A Japanese School 17c; Japanese Carpenters at W'oil: iSo Rapid Transit 1S2 Manila — Pasig Is.i\'er Landi'ig 1S6 Bangkok — ()nc of the Temples 195 Bangkok — The Klawng or Canal . 196 Siam — Every Family Has One or More Boats 197 Siam — A Native Dwelling . 19S A Native \'illage 199 Siam — Tw) Little Princes 200 Bangkok — The Wat Cheng Temple 202 Cajjtivc Elephants in the Kraal 206 Traineil Elephants 208 Singapore — The Public Sf|uare 211 Capturing a Man-Eating Tiger 214 Burnrese Men of the Upper Class , . 216 Burmese Women 2rS Rangun — The Shoay Dagon 219 Prome — The Temple 222 Mandalay — The IMoat and Walls 223 Mandala)' — The Water Front 224 The Ele[)hant as a "Travelling Crane," Piling Teak Logs .... 225 Calcutta — A Panorama 228 ILLUSTRATIONS siii f.m;e Calcutta — The Strand and Water Front 2,^0 Hindus of Brahman Caste — Man and Wife 234 Hindu Women of Rank 2 ;;6 A Native House 23S A Native Farm Village 240 Spinning Cotton 24^ A Cashmere Shawl 241; Madras 2_|q Madras — A Parsi Fire-Worshi]iper 251 Colombo — The Harbor 2^2 A Buddhist Temple 25 -; Darjiling — The Raihvay Train 255 Mount Everest — The Top of the \\'orl 1 257 Benares — The Ri\"er Front 25S Benares — The Bathing Ghats . . 2(0 Agra — The Taj Mahal . . 261 Delhi— A Street 262 Bombay .... . 21)3 Khaibar Pass — The Gateway to India 264 A Persian Tree of Life Rug 269 Rug Wca\'er3 , 270 Map of Iran Plateau 275 The Persian Frontier — The Near Side is I'lussian, the ( ']i[»TifS — Japan ALL AROUND ASL\ two great divisions to be a single Ijody of land, which we are sometimes taught to call Eurasia. And although no physical feature seems to separate them, the two divisions of the continent are \ery much unlike. The great Arctic plain /- extends across both divisions, it is true, but ' ^ Ijeyond that feature the two divisions have little in common. From the Arabian Sea northward there extends a highland trav- ersed by very rugged mountain ranges. Not only is this plateau \'ery rugged, but much of it is a desert; and excepting two or three narrow passes across the ranges, there are \ery few places where it can be penetrated by commercial traffic; indeed, much of it is impassable to all but the hardy triljes who li\'e there. This desert plateau is the real di\iding Ijoundary be- tween Europe and Asia. On the Asian side tlie people are chiefly herders of cattle and tillers of the soil — people who are living in much the same manner as did their an- cestors two thousand years ago. On the Fkiropcan side the people ha\'e learned the uses of the vari- ous metals, of the steam-engine, of machinery, and of coal as a power-producing mineral. The central part of Asia is a basin-shaped plateau as large as the United States. Its floor is from one to three miles abo\-e sea level and its rim in places is more than a mile higher. The Himalaya Mountains, which form the southern part of the rim of this basin, are the loftiest mountains in the world, and some of the peaks are more than five miles high. From the rim of this great basin flow the great rivers of Asia — north, south, and east; several, like the Brahmaputra, rise within the basin and cross its rim through deep canyons. Asiatic Tvpi'S — IniJu Ciiinii THE ASIAN COXTIXEXT but most of them flow from its outer slopes. There are more salt lakes, some of them called seas, in z\sia than in any other grand division, and nearly all of them are within the basin. The Caspian Sea is a salt lake, and the largest in the world; it is about five times the size of Lake Superior. The Sea of Aral and Lake Balkash are also salt. The former is about the size of Lake Supe- rior, the latter is as large as Lake Ontario. Lake Baikal, the wonder lake of the world, is the lar- gest fresh-water lake of Asia; it is larger than Lake Michigan. Along the great Arctic plain the plant and the animal life are much the same both in Europe and Asia. South of the plain, however, they could not be more dilTerent if the two divisions were separated by a wide ocean; for southern Asia is the land of tlic elephant, tiger, rhinoceros, leopard, hyena, tapir, and many other ani- mals that are not found in Europe. Asia is the land from which most of our domestic animals and many of our food- stuffs originally came; it is also the continent from which come spices and teas, and much of our rice, silk, porcelain, and drugs. It is thought that mankind first appeared on the earth somewhere in Asia. Xo one knows the exact locality where man first appeared, but the records of the history of man- kind in Asia reach back for more than six thousand years. Asiatic Types — China 4 ALL AROUND ASIA Some of the records car\-ed upon stone or stamped on brick may be much older. Asia is peopled by dark-skinned races. In the eastern part are the peoples of the yellow race, of which the Chinese are examples. In the south-east and in the near-by islands are the brown, or Malay peoples. In the Hindu peninsula we find the real Indians, who, although usually classed with the white races, are almost as black as negroes. In the south- west are the Arabs, who are also dark-skinned, with black hair and bright, wicked black eyes. All these peoples we shall see in a journey around Asia. We shall start at St. Petersburg, the capital of Russia, pass through Moscow, and cross Russia and Siberia to Vladivostok, the Pacific port of the Russian Empire. We shall visit Korea, the "Hermit Nation," and thence we shall enter China at Tientsin and visit Peking, its capital. From Peking we shall go to Shanghai, and thence up the Yangtze River to Ichang. Descending the Yangtze we shall go to Hongkong, to Japan, and then to Saigon in Farther India, or Indo-China as it is now called, visiting also Siam. Thence we shall go on to Rangun, British Burma, stopping at Singapore and Penang. Leaving Burma we shall \'isit India, and then go to Arabia and the Holy Land. Thence we shall visit Persia and the Iran countries, and return to Europe by way of the Black Sea. CHAPTER II ACROSS THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE At 8 p. M. our train pulls out of the station at St. Peters- burg — or "Petersburg," as the Russians call it — bound for Moscow. Although the distance to Moscow is less than four hundred miles, we find that we shall not reach the city until ' Petersburg " — The Square eight the following evening. The train, which would be considered very slow in America, is an express in Russia; it has ordinary first, second, and third-class cars, two sleeping- coaches, and a dining-car. The sleeping-car is divided into 5 6 ALL AR(JUND ASL-V compartments, and each compartment is arranged for two passengers. By midnight we are in the heart of the Russian forest. Now and then we cross sluggish streams, and here and there the bright moonhght shows us a httle \-illage in the midst of a clearing. The railway is built along a straight line. It is said that, when the route was surveyed, the road was planned to pass through a number of towns. When a map of the route was shown to the emperor for his approval, Copyr!,dil, /(?('(;, hy ]]'. B. Moure, ChUaf^o. At Eight O'clock Our IVain Pulls Out. MJ.;, by W. D. iluurc, Clikaso. Harbin — The Railway Station enjoy the prospect of several days of rest in the excellent hotel. Vladivostok is the Russian port of the Pacific. The Russians spent millions and mihions of dollars to make it the hnest Asian port of the Pacific, and in all respects but one it is that. One thing, however, they could not do; they could not keep the harbor from freezing during the winter, and so the work went for naught — while much of the money went into the pockets of thieving contractors. The city is built on a peninsula that partly shuts in the Golden Horn, or bay. 24 ALL AROUND ASL'\ The bay is a fine anchorage for a lleet, but if the ships un- fortunately happen to be in the bay when the ice forms they are pretty apt to stay there the rest of the winter. But the Russians ha\'c made Vladivostok an attractive city, and in spite of the ice, it is an important naval station. The plain that we have crossed almost shuts in the Arctic Ocean. It is the largest of the world's great plains. In spite of its great size, however, scarcely more than half of it is adapted to human life. Nearly one-third of the area is so far north that ordinary food-stuffs will not grow. The part that lies next the Arctic Ocean consists of half-frozen swamps called '' tundras," in which nothing but coarse moss will grow. Let us see why these swamps are there. Most of the ri\crs of Siberia rise in the mountains far south where the weather is warm. I'hey flow across tine plain into the Arctic Ocean, far north, where the ice does not begin to melt until June or July. But long before May, the snow and ice in southern Siberia have melted and the ri\'ers are bank-full of water. When the water reaches northern Siljeria it is in a region so cold that the ice will not begin to melt for many weeks; so it spreads out over the low coast and promptly freezes. Then when the Arctic summer comes along, the whole coast becomes a deep swamp. The middle belt of Siberia is forest-covered where\'cr there is water enough for the growth of trees. But there is much open land along the river flood-plains; and these are the lands that are making Siberia a great wheat-growing country. In years to come Siberia will be able to feed a population nearly as great as that of Europe. Much of the southern part of Siberia is too dry to produce food-stuffs, but it is a fme cattle country and the fertile river \-alleys here and there will yield great crops. In time, even the arid regions will have millions of sheep, and it is pretty certain to become a famous wool-producing country. ACROSS THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE 25 What is still better, there is plenty of gold, copper, iron, and coal, and these in themselves are sufficient to make Russia in Asia one of the great powers of the world. It is a cjuestion only of time, education, and money wisely spent. CHAPTER ITT KOREA, THE HERMIT NATION After a week of rest at Vladi\'ostok, we lioard a small steamship that plies between \'ladi\-ostok and Korean ports. The oflicers are Russians, but tlie deck hands, firemen, and coal-heavers are all Cliinese. Formerly Japanese were cm- ployed, but once upon a time, just after the steamer had left Fusan, something or other happened to the steering gear. For several hours the ship steamed \-ery slowly in a straight line toward Nagasaki. Somehow or other the vessel would steer all right toward Nagasaki, but the Japanese quarter- masters could not make her go in any other direction. So the captain concluded to call at Nagasaki. As soon as the ^'es- scl was in the harbor, all hands dropped work, bade the honorable captain of the honorable steamship an affectionate good-by, and got ashore as best they could, expressing a wish that the rest of the honorable \"oyagc might be pleasant and prosperous. After that trip no more Japanese sailors were employed on the A'essel. The steamship calls at Gcnsan, where we see none but Japanese; and also at Fusan, or "Kettle Mountain," where the Japanese have a military ]X)st. Then we round the penin- sula and sail northward to Chemulpho. Flere we land within a fine harbor at the principal port of Korea — the "Hermit Nation." Tlie peninsula of Korea is the backJjone of a mountain range that stretches southward from Manchuria. On one side is the Yellow Sea; on tlie (jther, the Sea of Japan; on KORKA, THE HERMIT XATir)N 27 the north, ni,i,',^cd mountains form a barrier ijetween it and Manchuria: and thus sluit off 1jy seas and mountains it is ahiiost isolated from tlie rest of the world. It is just as thou,. ^ i o 34 ALL AROUND ASLA a Shetland pony. The bundles of wood that the poor brute carries are about as large as the animal itself. The pony is a sorry-looking specimen and the brutal driver is con- stantly beating it with a cudgel. The large slouching hat lie wears is a badge of the class to which he belongs — about the lowest in the scale. In sijite of the cruel treatment wliich they receive, the jjonies endure \-cry long tri])s, bearing heavier loads than the stout Indian ponies used to carry when the pack-horse was the locomotive of the far West. Ugly and vicious they may be, but they are wonderfully useful animals. Another hat of tremendous propor- tions comes in sight, and it is a won- der! It looks much like a half-opened umljrcUa and it is as large as a parasol. The wearer of this hat is in mourning for his father. The hat is black and is drawn so far o\'er him that head and face are liidden. For fear that his grief may be seen, he has a cloth screen stretched between two sticks of bamboo in front of his face. He must wear both the hat and the screen for a year after At the end of the year he may remo\'e the screen, but he must wear the hat. After the second year he may replace the hat by one of the shape ordinarily worn, but this time it must be of straw color instead of black. For two years he wears in public a long gown of gray or straw color, but during the third year he gradually replaces his mourning clothes with the ordinary garb. For three years also he is supposed to gi\'e up all business, though he may carry on business through others; and this he does, unless he is wealthy. \ Yuung Man in ^Mournir the father's death. KOREA, THE HERMIT XATIOX 35 We meet sc\-eral go\-ernmcnt officers of high rank. They are carried in richly carved chairs, each borne by four stout coolies. Guards are at the front and in the rear of tlie chair, and a runner with a \-oice like a fogdiorn goes ahead to clear the way. The officer over whom all this fuss is made sits complacently in the chair, seeming to notice nothing. He \\'cars a robe of the finest silk, and the long slec\x"s hide his hands. The robe is a pale, beautiful yellow in color, and it is bound abo\-e the waist by a silk cord. The buttons in front are of amber. Just behind is a chair bearing another officer, but the latter wears garments of European cut and a high silk hat. An official of high rank would not think of going about the city afoot and, indeed, to do so would be neillier safe nor proper. On a side street, in a \'ery plain but neatly kept house, is a Korean school. All told, there arc not more than twenty jnipils. Their ages vary from fi\'C or six to about fourteen. The master is an old man, perhaps sixty years of age. His beard is long and white, and the lenses of his heavy gold s]:>ec- tacles are large and saucer-like. His robe is of while linen and he wears a turban-like hat. Two boys sit on the floor before him reciting in a sing-song drawl; the others are studying from books printed in characters like those of the Chinese language. The studies are much the same as those an American boy must master — reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and history. Besides these, a boy must also be \'ery familiar with the " Book of Conduct " — a book from wiiich he learns liow he must behave and what he should do under all possible circumstances. Within the past few years very goorl schools have been established in the larger cities of Korea, so that young men may learn European methods of commerce. In these schools the Korean and not the Chi- nese language is used, for the Korean language has an alpha- bet, and is much better for doing business with foreigners than is the Chinese language. 36 ALL AROUND ASL-V Near by are two Korean women floing the laundry work for the family. They are women of low rank, or they would not be in a place so public. One of the women is spreading on the ground the pieces she has just washed. The otiier is wrapping around a wooden roller a garment that has been folded with great care. She wraps it about the roller so nicely that there are no wrinkles, and then Ijcgins to Ijeat it with a stick. Tin's she does imlil it is smooth and dry. It is a rather crude way of "ironing" clothes, but the Korean washerwomen manage it AXTy sl;ilfully, and the clothing ^^•e see is as while and smooth as (he garments from an American laundry. A little farther on we come to a market. It is not a clean place, and the odor of fisli, stale fruit, and garlic is rather strong. There are fine apples, tomatoes, oranges, lily bulbs, peaclics, Japanese persimmons, anrl grape-fruit in tempting piles. Rice, American flour, fresh fish, dried fish, poultry, beef, dog meat, and bacon are all for sale. Eggs wrapped in straw and tied in the form of sticks are one of the curiosities of the Korean market. A husky young farmer leading an ox loaded \vith straw is just coming to the market- jjlace. The straw, twisted into hanks almost as hard as pieces of wood, is used as fuel, for coal is a luxury that few people can afford. The Korean farmer is patient and hard-working. The tools he uses are rather primitive. His plough, if he has one, is a luxury. It is made of rough pieces of wood and is armed Kurean Women KOREA, THE HERISFIT NATION 37 with an iron shoe, which can be readily removed wlien the flimsy wooden frame is broken or knocked to pieces. Quite as hkely the ploughing is done by a spade and three men. Two pieces of rope are fastened to the lower part of the spade; one man holds the spade in position, the others just pull, and the spade makes a shallow furrow. Rice is the chief crop in the lowlands and such helds as may be irrigated; in the ui)lands, millet, barley, and a kind of upland rice are A Kurtan i'\irm Viilagt: grown. Rakes, flails, baskets, and ricks for holding the grain are made of bamboo. A hea\'y wooden or stone pestle suspended from the end of a spring-beam of bamboo is used to pound tlie grain into a coarse flour. Beans, peas, p)otatoes, sorghum, and rice form the chief food-stuffs of the Koreans. Along the coast, fish is used chiefly as meat, but in the interior the traditional pig is kept in the traditional parlor. In spite of his twelve hours of daily labor, the Korean farmer lives pretty well. Betweentimes 38 ALL AROUND ASL\ he and liis family manage to grow a little cotton, flax, and a kind of grass that is used for making cloth When they can- not work out of doors they make clotli sandals, baskets of willow or of bamboo, woodcnware, and matting. Now and then the farmer takes a day off and "goes to town." He piles a bamboo rack with the various wares he wishes to sell. It is a heavy, unwieldy load that he carries, but he plods along the deeplj-worn trail to the market-town perhaps twenty or thirty miles away. Once at the market, he loses no time in disposing of his wares. This done, he becomes a true "s]oort" and })lunges into dissipation to the amount, maybe, of twenty-fi\e cents. There are sla\'cs in Korea. In a few instances the slaves are boys; most of them, however, are women. A widow or a single woman may sell herself into slavery. Women un- able to support themselves are apt to do this: and a woman doing so becomes the drudge of the family into which she sells herself. If she has children, they also become slaves. The family of a man who has been tried and found guilty of any great crime may be sold into slavery, and this is very often done, if the man has been sentenced to death. But slavery, e\'en in such cases, is by no means so common now as in years gone by. Two nations are each very desirous of annexing Korea — Russia and Japan. For a long time the Russians coveted Korea. Any one of the Korean ports would have been more serviceable than Vladivostok, the chief Russian port and naval station on the Pacilic ; moreo\'er, there are rich gold- mines and great areas of tine timber which the Russians wanted. It is not very strange that the Japanese wanted these same things, not to speak of a market for Japanese manufactures. So when the Russians began cutting the magnificent timber along the Yalu Ri\-er, the Japanese very soon found an excuse for declaring war against the Russians. KOREA, THE HERMIT NATION 39 The Japanese now ha\'c pretty nearly e\'erytlnn"^ tlieir own way, and although they ha\e not formally annexed Korea, it is just aljout as much a part of Japan as though a Japan- ese emperor sat upon the Korean throne. After spending a week in and about Seoul, we take the rail- way train, returning to Chemulpho, where we await a steam- ship that is to take us to China. CHAPTER IV CHINA-ITS EARLA^ HISTORY Long, lon^ ago, so long indeed that tlie memory of man knoweth not, in\-adcrs made their way, through deserts and over mountains shrouded in c\-erlasling snow, into the fertile plains of eastern Asia. Who the im'aders were, or whence they came, we know not. Out of the many traditions one can be certain of but little; but some- where between four thousand and five thousand years ago, these invaders dro\'e the native peoples out of the plains of the Hoang River. That was the name which the invaders gave the river be- cause its swift current was yellow with the mud of the wind-ljlown dust from the deserts beyond. The invaders massacred the na- tives who refused to submit; they adopted those who yielded. Thus was created China. The earliest books of China's history tell us aljout this great invasion, but the accounts are composed of tales quite as mar\-ellous as those of the Arabian Nights. From these books we learn that once upon a time heaven and earth were all in one. But there came a man of divine power who rent them apart, and brought order in each. This divine man was Pan ku, and one may now and then find 40 Pan ku CIIIXA-ITS EARLY HISTORY 41 pieces of rare porcelain on whicli Pan ku is depicted. In these pictures Pan ku's tremendous weapon, half battle-axe, half sledge-hammer, is making suns and moons fly like chips from a log, as it splits the everlasting hills in the misty horizon. But in this fascinating story we get a glimpse of the Divine command: Let tlicrc he Liglit. Apparently Pan ku was a trifle careless ajjout the work- manship on his J0I3, for a few thousand years later a part of the sky fell. But his suc- cessor, Nu wa, knew a tiling or two about mending broken heavens, and she concluded that mending such a tri\'ial matter as a broken sky was easy. So she fastened eacli iDrolvCn fragment into its place with a precious stone — and, in time, each jewel jjc- came a star. Perhaps tliere are people who are incred- ulous aljout Nu wa's work- manship; for if one attempts a story that seems a bit too strong for a Chinese listener, he will tell you that you are patching the sky with jewels. After Nu wa, came three so\'ercigns, eacli of whom reigned for eighteen thousand years. Tliis trio of rulers could not ha\e counted for much, however, for in all tlie four and fifty thousand years of their reign the people had not learned to house, clothe, nor govern themselves. The "Fi\'e Rulers" who followed the three shiftless rulers were mighty decent fellows. One of them, observing that the birds built nests, taught his people to make huts. Another, the Tubal Cain of his times, taught them that fire could be .\Hcr Xu w a Came Three- So\tT(.'igns (From an aiUiqiic portehua loaned b\" Miss K. \'. flark) 42 ALL AROUND ASIA made by rubbi-ng together two pieces of wood. Then Shin nimg, in a reign many times as long as the days of Methuse- lah, taught the art of agriculture. Shin nung is easily the pa- tron saint of the Chinese, and in his honor the emperor must yearly plough a furrow or two, so that the children of his empire may have example of frugality and industry. Still another emperor taught the art of letters, inventing the char- acters of Chinese writing that are the despair of c\ery F.uro- pean. Blending mythical and real history, there follow the reigns of Yao and Shun. They lived and ruled about forty-two hundred years ago, as we reckon time. In his leisure hours, Yao was something of an astronomer and used to trace the mo\'ements of the stars. He was also famous for his m^iny \irtucs; he was so good and happy himself, as the books tell us, that his example infected all the people of the empire. His son, however, did not turn out very well; so, in his old age, Yao looked around for a more worthy successor. The mantle of Yao just fitted Shun; for when Yao in(|uired who was the most worthy in all the empire to become the ruler of his people, all agreed that it was Shun, because of his love for his parents, and his kindness to all with whom he came in contact. And thereby hangs a tale; to this day the Chinese are noted the world o\'er for the veneration they ha\'e for their parents, their ancestors, and their elders. We Ameri- cans often use the contemptuous term of "heathen" in speaking of the Chinese. But in this respect, who are some- times the real heathen? The most interesting thing that we learn in the reign of Yao was the clear-headed, business way in which he sohed a certain problem in astronomy. The good people of the empire were very much put out o\'er a dispute concerning the length of the year, and the proper time to celebrate New Year's day — just the same as happened in Europe in 1752 CHINA— ITS EARLY HISTORY 43 — about four thousand years afterward. Yao ordered one of his wise men to travel east, while another went west. When they had reached their respective stations each one observed the times at which certain stars were in mid-sky. Then they compared notes, and Yao informed them that the year was just three hundred and sixty-six days. Perhaps nowadays some one might find fault with Yao's method; but who will dispute the result? Did not the wise men of Baby- lon obtain the same result, and in the same manner ? During Shun's reign, says the Book oj History, "the wa- ters embosomed the high hills and insolently menaced hea\en itself." We may strongly suspect that this impertinence was a flood of the Hoang Ri\-er. At all events, the ministers looked about the empire to find some one who could punish the wa- ters and keep them within their bounds. The man was Kun. Kun went about his task doing just what the American en- gineers did when they first tried to control the Mississippi — he tried to straighten the ri\-er by building embankments. But the Hoang just washed them away in the same manner that the Mississippi does to-day. For his failure, Shun per- mitted the unfortunate engineer to be his own executioner and to choose the method of his execution; and so Kun was gathered to his fathers. It was rather hard that Kun's son, Ta yu, should be ordered to take his father's pdace. Ne\'ertheless, he took the job in the spirit of a true engineer For nine years he worked and he worked. Thrice, as he passed his home, he heard the voice of wife and child, but he turned a deaf ear. For his fidelity, heaven granted him success. And at last, when Shun saw the shadows closing upon him, and looked for a worthy successor, there was but one whom he could trust. So Ta yu, the son of the beheaded Kun, became the ruler of all China. Somehow or other it is difficult to count the "Five Rulers" and make less than seven. Perhaps one of the wise men of 44 ALL AROUND ASIA China would tell us that this way of rcckoninjj; would puzzle barbarians only. But even Confucius does not explain how they are to be counted as five. Moreover, it is better to take the records of the Booh of History not too literally. Like the accounts of any history of ancient times, the real facts are apt to be badly mixed with myth and romance. Of one thing, however, we may be fairly certain: when the peoples of Europe were still savages, the Chinese were using written speech; they were making beautiful cloth fabrics; they used the magnet as a compass; and they were skilful workmen in clay and metals. Ta yu was something of a geographer as well as an engi- neer. He caused surveys of his domain to be made, and maps of the nine provinces were engra\'ed on as many bronze taljlets. These date back to about 2200 B. C, and the out- lines thereon arc not far from correct. For the next two thousand years there were emperors and emperors, good, indifferent, and bad. In this period, how- e\er, there came a man whose thoughts were to reach to the whole world — Kung foo-tse, or Confucius, as we best know him. Kung was born about five hundred and fifty years be- fore the Christian era. Had there been railways and ocean greyhounds and postal service in those days, he might have \-isitcd both with Socrates and the prophet Isaiah, and they would surely have considered him a great man. As a simple priest, Kung studied the conduct of the true life. At the age of forty or fifty, he became a "foo," or high priest, and at sixty his "tse," or code of morals, began to be the belief that was to leaven all China. " Do not unto others," he said, " what you would not have them do to you." " My first prin- ciple of conduct," he also said, "is fidelity"; "the second to put one's self in the place of another." About 246 B. C. China became an empire, and the name of the emperors, Tsin, gave the empire its present name, CHINA— ITS EARLY HISTORY 45 China; for "Tsin" and China arc different forms of the same word. During this time hterary men and scholars of all sorts Hocked to China, and the greatest engineering project the world has known, the Great Wall, was begun. Ne\'er- theless, the memory of an emperor, Tsin, is hated by the Chinese — all because he Ijurned the sacred writings of Con- fucius, and persecuted disciples of the great philosopher. The Great Wall was built to guard the empire from the Tar- tars and Manchus. The grand canal, the only engineering work of real value to China, was built six hundred years ago by the people the Chinese sought to exclude. The Great Wall is about fifteen hundred miles in length, twelve feet wide at the top, and thirty feet high. It consists of "facing walls" of brick filled in with earth and broken stone — grouting, we should call it now. At intervals of a few hundred feet there are towers with battlements; and a coping, not quite the height of a man, protects the top both on the inner and the outer side. The building of a structure like this might be compared with the building of a double-track railway em- bankment, thirty feet high, from New York to Kansas City. But the Tsin emperors were overthrown because they made too many reforms. The "empire on horseback," as it was called, was succeeded by the Han emperors. These rulers taught the wisdom of Confucius. One of them, Ming-ti, en- couraged Buddhist missionaries and teachers; and Buddhism is probably the only important thing that China sought out- side her own boundaries. Under the Han emperors, the boundaries of China were extended both north and south. The half-savage tribes of the north were extraordinary people. Some Chinese historians say that they were the an- cestors of the Huns, who o\-erran Europe; others say they were Tartars. Certain it is, they were brainy fellows. In bringing new ideas into the "Three Kingdoms," by which name China was then known, they did much for China. CfllNA-ITS EARLY HISTORY 47 Paper was in\-cnted about the first century. The hair pencil, or brush, still used in writing, came two centuries later. The art of printing came in the tenth century. Gunpowder, or ''Chinese snow," as it was called by the Arabs, is descriljed by a writer of the thirteenth century. It was used to scare the enemy, because of the fire and noise it made. The canals that connect the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers were constructed about the end of the sixth century. But the building of these same canals brought an end to the emperor who constructed them. The work was done by conscript labor, and the taskmaster was just as cordially hated by the Chinese as he was in Egypt. The army finally turned against the emperor, who was stricken down by one of his generals. Li Yuen was the first of the Tang emperors, antl llie line thus founded lasted for three hundred years — until A. D. 007. In no other period of its existence did China make such rapid strides. The system of examinations for office was extended. It was the common saying alleged to have been taught by Confucius — "Study poetry; learn the art of prac- tising politeness; then apply yourself to music." That was the way in which China taught her young men to be good citizens; and there are some who follow his advice to-day. At one time there arose a great scholar named Wang. He was great because he achieved the highest percentage at the examinations. He had a theory that the empire should own and operate all industrial enterprises. Perhajjs llie plan might have worked smoothly had not the Manchu Tartars Confucius 48 ALL AROUND ASIA begun to raid the northern provinces. But Wang's theory did not keep the Tartars out; so for a few years the Tartars were bought off by money payments. Such a pohcy can ha\e but one ending, and the Chinese emperor soon became a vassal of the Tartars. Then he did an even more fooh'sh thing! Genghis, the fierce Mongol khan, had conquered the country northwest of China; so the em- peror sought his aid, and hired him to make war on the Tartars. Genglns was not only a warrior; he was a business khan as well. When he had disposed of the Tar- tars he turned his army on China, and quickly made himself master of the country. Kublai, the grand- son of Genghis, occupied Peking in 1264; and willn'n a few years he had subdued the pro\'inces. Just about this time there hajjjjened an incident that is a landmark of history not only to China, but to the whole world. This event was the first European invasion of China. It was a very peaceful affair, it is true, and the invaders were the brothers Polo, merchants from Venice. In 1261, the Polos had found their way into Bokhara; hearing there of the magnificence of the Grand Khan, Kublai, they went on to his capital. Kublai saw there might be many advantages in Western methods; so he bade the brothers return to Venice and fetch with them a hundred Europeans. In 1275 they arrived the second time at Peking, bringing with them Marco, a son of Nicolo Polo. For seventeen years the Polos held positions of honor and confidence under Kublai. When Kublai died they went back to Europe. In time the Chinese again came into power, under an CHINA -ITS EARLY HISTORY 49 emperor named Ming. JNIing means "light"; and a secret society, sometimes called Chinese Free Masons, still bears the name. The Ming emperors lasted from 1368 to 1644. It is interesting history that the causes which led to the dis- covery of America also led to ^•arious invasions of China by Europeans. The voyages of I3arthoIomew Diaz and Da Gama had opened a new, all-water route to India — and China was only a little beyond India. So, early in the sixteenth century, Portuguese and Dutch trading vessels began calling at the coast cities. At hrst they were kindly recei\-ed, but in the course of years their beha\'ior became so bad that trade \\-itli them was forbidden. In the meantime missionaries had penetrated the coast regions, but the Chinese did not take \-ery kindly to them. One of them, St. Francis Xa\'ier, died after a long-continued effort to enter the empire; but for e\'ery one that fell by the way a score of missionaries came. Father Ricci spent twenty years in trying to enter Peking; and at last he baptized both the emperor and his daughter. The old saying, "the conqueror has no worthy successor," is many limes true in the history of China. Manchu soldiers were called in to aid the last weakling of the Ming emijerors, who could not put down a rebellion against him. The Man- chu general first scotched the insurrection; then he quietly dethroned the emperor; and China has been ruled by Man- chu emperors ever since. One of them, Kanghi, who reigned from 1662 to 1723, easily ranks with Elizabeth of England, Frederick the Great of Prussia, and Peter the Great of Russia as a statesman and ruler. "He was every inch a king." St. Francis Xa\'i( CHAPTER V AN OVERLOOK OF CHINA By looking at a globe we find that China is just about half-way around the world from the United States. If we trace its outlines on thin paper, and cut out the tracing, the outline will cover the United States, southern Canada, and northern Mexico. From the globe, or from a map, we may also discover several other interesting facts: the northern part of China is in the same latitude as the thickly peopled part of Canada, and the southern ].)art is in the tropics; moreover, there is about as much mountain land in the one country as in the other. There is also about the same pro- portion of dry and of desert land in the one as in the other. In fact, because of their situation in the same latitude and in like parts of the continents, the two regions are much like each other. American travellers say that the climate of China is not so pleasant as that of the United Slates, but a Chinese trav- eller might also make the same claim for his own country. However, in the northern provinces, which correspond in position to Quebec, the summers are hotter and the winters are colder; the climate is also materially drier than that of Canada, and the forests have long since dissappeared. There are mountains, ri^•ers, and plains in China as well as in our own country. On the west and south-west, China is walled in by the highest mountain ranges in the world; on the north the great plain descends to the Arctic Ocean. So 50 AN OVERLOOK OF CHINA 51 this great empire is almost completely shut olT from the rest of the world, and perhaps that is one reason why the Chinese so long kept to themselves; for to communicate by land with Europeans, the Chinese must cross the loftiest ranges and the fiercest deserts on the face of the earth. Three great ri\'ers open far into the interior of China, and two of them are great highwaj's of trade. In the north of China the word ho means "ri\'er"; thus Pei Ho is "north" river; Hoang Ho is "yellow" river. The Hoang is one of the long ri\'ers of the Avorld. From its farthest source, in the plateau of Tibet, to its mouth is about twenty-eight hundred miles; sometimes it is more, some- times it is less, for the Hoang has a very unpleasant way of getting out of its channel and flowing — well, almost any- where. Nine times in the last twenty-fi\'e hundred years, so the Chinese historians tell us, the Hoang has changed its channel, each time spreading death and desolation along its course. A very serious break of this kind occurred in i8i:;i. Prior to that time, from near Kaifong, in the province of Honan, the ri\'er flowed into the delta of the Yangtze. As a matter of fact, Kaifong has been a sort of a hinge on which the lower river has swung back and forth. For many cen- turies Chinese engineers have built great embankments there, and the river has just as surely washed them away. In 185 1 the embankment, or levee, was fifty feet high and one hundred feet broad at the base. But the ri\'er made short work of it; and when it had been swept away, the stream was making a new channel to the Pechili, nearly five hundred miles from its former mouth. One may wonder at the freaks of the river, but they are not very difficult to explain. The bed in which the Hoang flows, and the cliffs that skirt it, are composed of dust almost as light as the water itself. This dust, moreover, is wind- blown material from the desert of Gobi. The winds of the 52 ALL AROUND ASLA. Gobi blow with a lierceness unknown outside of desert regions. The h'ghtesl and finest dust is blown the farthest, and now covers much of northern China. This wind-blown dust — loess, it is called — has co\'ered the surface of the coun- try fifty, a hundred, two hundred feet deep. Time and time again coolies by the tens of thousands, under skilful engi- neers, ha\'e worked day and night building banks that one might think would hold back the ocean; then a Hood would come along, almost like a cyclone, and the banks would dis- appear, melting away like snow in a sum- mer wind. But what strength could one expect of banks made of dust almost as light as the water itself! It is not strange that the Hoang is called the "sorrow of Han." The Yangtze is the Mississippi of China; perhaps it would be more nearly right to compare it with the Amazon, for it is certainly a mighty stream. Big ocean craft steam to Hankau, six hundred miles from its mouth; river boats, mostly stern- wheelers, ]:)ly to ports five hundred miles above Hankau; then comes the real battle, for the omnipresent coolie is not to be stopped by such trifling obstructions as rapids; stripped of all unnecessary clothing, he tugs away at a hawser that is to tow a shallow barge three or four hundred miles farther up the river. The \-alley, or basin, of the Yangtze is the most fertile part of China. East, west, north, or south, it is a human beehive. Imagine all the people of New England, Illinois, Ohio, Penn- AN OVERLOOK OF CHINA 53 sylvania, and New Jersey put into New York State; that would represent the population of the Yangtze. The valley of the Si Kiang, or West River, is another human beehive. The Si is neither a large nor a long river. One can compare it with the Delaware, for it has a wide, na\-igable On the Upper Yangtze delta. But an unusual feature of the delta of tlie Si is that each arm or passage of the delta is an estuary, and this makes the Si a very important river, for the small craft that ply upon the maze of channels of the delta number tens of thousands. Some of them are steamboats belonging to British, or, per- haps, to Chinese "hong" merchants; but many of them are clumsy flatboats, on which families are born, li\e, and die. 54 ALL AROUNlJ ASIA One of the siglils of Cliina occurs at the mouth of the Tsien Tang. As a ri\-er the Tsien Tang does not count for much; but the mouth of the ri\'er, an estuary as large as that of the Amazon, or larger, is Hang Chau Bay. Now it happens that this estuary faces the tide; and as the tide wa\'e moves up the estuary and is s(|ueezed into a nar- rower passage, it and depth what it loses in breadth. Twice a month, and especially in Octo- ber, the tides are \'cry high, and the wave moves with great velocity. As the water is slack at ebb, the upper part of Hang Chau Bay is a great mud flat through which here and there insignifi- cant tidal streams, yellow with mud, are trying to decide whether to flow in or to flow out. Then olT on the horizon line a muddy streak much like a bit of low-lying, dirty cloud comes into sight. As it advances, the almost inaudible moan grows to a roar, and the "bore," a wa\'e about thirty feet high, broken into dirty foam, comes rolling up the estuary. Woe to the small, skiff-like boats that are not out of the way; one of them would stand about as much of a chance as an eggshell in a cyclone. By the time the bore has reached Hang ' V ^^^^ ^•^^lAi'^^^ •^^^m ^^T^,i?^.> -» ^^^\ W^jJa^^iat ' ii^:i^l^!m>. ^^^" -j. Mrtt^^i^ J^wMMVy ' iirw ..«_ A HsB^Rs^^ Hui^H^^^^fe^^^ifl^^^l^^^HII 1 1 liL Lure ot tliL TsiLU lang AN 0VF:RL0()K oI'- CMIXA 55 Chau its force is much broken, l)ut iIk' Jazy-looldn^ junks, and even the kirger foreign craft, tliat lia\-c been lying in tlie mud, are caught by the swirl of \\'ater and tossed about as though they were bits of wood. For two or three hours the tide hlls rapidly; after slack Avater it slips away — slowly at ilrst; and then like the A\-aters rushing (kjwn a mill-race. Of the countries comjjosing the Chinese ICmpire, China jjroper is hrst in importance, in wealth, and in population. Of the four hundred millions of ])eople in the empire, about nineteen of e\"ery twenty li\"e in China [)roper. Of tlie eighteen provinces, the smallest, Chih Kiang, is about the size of Maine, but it contains nearly twice as many people as New York State; Szechuan, the largest pro\'ince, is not quite so large as Texas, but its ]jopulation is nearly as great as that of the main body of the United States; Shantung, a little larger than New York has more than fi\-c times as many people as the Empire State. A'ery little land in these pro\'inces goes to waste. The back yard is altogether too \'alual)le a pilace to be gi\'en u]) to the family ])ig; so mistress pig is kejjt in the house, and the yard is utilized lo the last s(|uare inch; and if there are any odd corners around, pots of earth, each with its half dozen or more pjlants, are tucked away in those same corners. Even in the mountainous regions not much land goes to waste, for the mountain scarps are terraced, step above step, giving the appearance of hanging gardens. Of the other divisions of the Chinese Empire, Manchuria is the most imjjortant. By looking at the ma]) one will hnd that Manchuria is in the latitude of wheat production, and wheat is fast becoming the foremost crop in IManchuria. The Russians need the wheat for their own consumption. They also need the Chinese people li\'ing there, — for to whom else could the Russians sell cotton cloth and coal oil ? The Russians and Chinese built the great city of Harbin together 50 ALL AROUND ASL\ but it was built on the Russian principle, "What is yours is mine, but what is mine is my own." Harbin is certainly a wonderful place, and the Russian merchants might have e\-erything their own way were it not for a trivial thing. And that thing is the Chinese merchant. The Russian mer- chant is shrewd, keen, and honest; the Chinese merchant is shrewder, keener, and equally honest. Moreover, the Jap- anese trader has an eye to business, and especially to business in Manchuria. But Manchuria has a great future in the growth of wheat and the sale of flour and other food-stulTs, and the merchants who find there a market for manufactured goods ought to prosper. Mongolia and Turkestan are to China what the half-desert region of the South-west is to the United States. Intolerably hot in summer, frightfully cold in winter — and such winds! When the simoon gets down to regular work, other breezes get out of the way. The simoon comes almost like an explo- sion. Off in the distance one may watch its approach as a dense and rapidly moving cloud of dust. In a moment a blinding, choking, suffocating hot blast drives every living thing to the ground; one might as well try to face a storm of leaden bullets, for the wind drives the sharp pieces of rock waste so swiftly that they cut the flesh cruelly. Then the blast ceases almost as suddenly as it begun, lea\-ing an almost impenetrable mist of rock flour suspended in the air. Much of Mongolia is occupied by the desert of Gobi — the fiercest of all regions of the kind in the world. Simoon-swept, treeless, and desolate, about the only scenery are the jagged rocks that here and there rise above the surface of an ocean of sand dunes. Still farther west, in the basin of the Tarim, the desert region is so completely walled by high mountains that the rivers have no outlet to the sea. The northern part of Mongolia and Turkestan, although rugged, are fertile. From this country hordes of warriors AN OVERLOOK OF CHINA 57 have descended upon nearly every part of the continent. It was the land of Genghis and the ancestors of Attila; it was likewise from this land that the Turks originally came. As between the Tartar tribes of Mongolia and Turkestan there is but little to choose. Fifteen centuries ago they were called the scourge of God, and they have not changed in that time. Long years ago there came an edict from the throne of China, permitting Russian merchants to bear a tribute to the Son of Heaven once in ten years. At least, that is the way the emperor told it to his people. The Russians make the story a bit different. According to their version, they asked per- mission to pass a certain outpost, in order to engage in trade and also to minister to the wants of some Cossack rough riders. Permission being refused, they killed about e^'ery- body in sight, and when they had finished there was no one to deny them permission. Little by little there followed the opening of a trade route, from the profits of which the Russian merchants grew sleek and prosperous. From Irkutsk and other points this traffic goes to Kiakhta. Kiakhta is Russian and magnificent; Maimatchin, just across the international boundary, is Chinese and wretched. From this point a "post road," as it is called, though nothing but a caravan trail, goes to Urga, and thence to Peking. There are but few towns in Mongolia, and Urga is the only one of interest. It is the holy city of Buddha, and the great monastery there ranks next in importance to that of the Grand Lama in Lasa. Not many years ago Turkestan included an area nearly twice its present size; but little by little the crafty Russian stretched the boundaries of Siberia until Bokhara and the western part were all under the domain of the czar. The way in which this annexation was accomplished was very simple. Two nati\-e tribes would get into trouble and settle the matter by fighting. Somehow or other the trouble always AN OVERLOtJK OF CHINA 59 occurred near a Russian outpost; and just as surely Russian property was destroyed. Then Cossack rough riders were let loose; and when the trouble was o\"er, the line of Russian outposts was mo\"ed forward. That the greater jjart of Turkestan remaining in the possession of China has not been thus annexed is merely because the Russians did not think it exjiedient to ha\-e it. Ask a Russian official about the annexation of these regions, almost as large as New York and Pennsylvania together, and he will explain to you that under Russian domain the nati\'e peoples are peaceful, jirosperous, and infinitely better off than under Chinese rule. And e\'ery word of it is true; the Russians are certainly kind to welkbcha\'ing tribes whom they ha\'e conquered. Ikit their methofls remind one of tlie brothers Ali and Mustapha. AH said to Mustapha; " Brother, an impudent moscpiito has settled itself on your head and is feeding u])on your blood; behold! I ^'ill punish its insolence." Thereupon Ali, seizing a hea\'y scimitar, swung it with all his might and main; and when it descended it cut the imiiertinent moscjuito C{uite in two! The Russian will tell you also that, many years ago, Turkestan was occuijied by Russian peoples, and that Mongol hordes in\-aded the country. And in this the Russian is also right. Then the "scourge of God" was a Mongol; now he is a Cossack. But Turkestan has always been the land of lire and sword. Tibet is even fiercer and more desolate than Turkestan. Put Switzerland three times upon itself and sjjread it out until it is as large as the Rocky INIountain region of ihe United States and you ha\e Tibet. From this vast high- land the great commercial rivers of Asia break forth. It may not be the roof of the world, but it certainly is the roof of the continent. More than twelve hundred years ago Buddhist monks made their way to the most inaccessible part of the country, where a native king had established his court. The 60 ALL AROUND ASL\ latter supplied the means of warfare and defence; the former became a great religious power. Early in December, merchants from all parts of China make their way toward Lasa through the deep snows and In Tibet — the Road to Lasa over the frozen wastes. Long before they reach Lasa, fierce- looking cut-throats, armed with antique weapons, are hover- ing about the caravans in order to intercept all except Chinese traders. So well have the Tibetan scouts guarded the trails \JJ li ^^Ifij i° S o ut.h S e a EASTERN CHINA. 60 100 !i& Q SCALE OF 5TATUTE MILE9. Trentj Porta we undoracored, ns'Longilude Eaet frum On 62 ALL AROUNM) ASIA that, in two or three centuries, scarcely a dozen foreigners ha\'e entered the forbidden city. Nevertheless, a trivial thing is now brealH': AiCh: 1U,3 In 1897 a new secret society, known as the " Roxcrs," became a very powerful organization. Tl:e Boxers had Ion" been known as a dangerous element, but their mischief at this time was due to the growing hatred of foreign nations for taking Chinese territory. The Emperor Kwang Su was very progrcssi\-e, but his adoption of Western methods was not always with the best judg- ment. So the empress dowager stripped him of his power and confined him to his palace. Prince Tuan, the head of the Boxers, became the chief ad\iser of the empress. Reforms that could be dropped without offend- ing foreign powers were dropped. The hostile feeling against for- eigners grew rapidly in the north- ern provinces. Railways were torn up; telegraph lines were destroyed; foreign goods were boycotted, and threatening plac- ards were displayed. The government did not attempt to stop such actions. Chinese Christians were attacked and hundreds were massacred. Then the foreign powers de- manded the suppression of the Boxers, Isut the only reply was the murder of several missionaries and the destruction of the property of foreigners. The foreign settlement at Tientsin was surrounded by Boxers, and war-ships were ordered to the Pei Ri\er. In June, Admiral Seymour, of the British fleet, landed two thousand men at Tientsin, and began to repair the railway to Peking. They were surrounded by imperial troops and Boxers, and before they could retreat to Tientsin nearly four hundred were killed. Captain Bowman Captain Buwniun McCalla 103 ALL AROUND ASL\ McCalla of the American navy aided in the rescue of the Brit- ish troops, and was commended for his bra\'ery. A few days later the Chinese forts at the mouth of the Pei began firing on the lleet. The European war-ships silenced the forts, howe\'er, and their troops carried the fortifications. The fighting about Tientsin then became general, and the Boxers and imperial troops were finally dri\'en out of the city. By the latter part of July, thirty thousand European and American troops had gathered at Tientsin, and about half that number were sent to the relief of the foreign resi- dents at Peking. The relief column had to fight Chinese troops and Boxers all the way to Peking. And all this time the foreigners in Peking had been con- stantly fighting both the troops and the Boxers. There were eight hundred Europeans and o\er two thousand nati\e Christians gathered in the "compound," or walled inclosure of the British Legation. The German minister, who went to the Chinese Foreign Ofl'ice to demand protection, was shot down l:)y a soldier. The troops and Boxers were under the command of Prince Tuan. It was the first time in modern history that the ofllcers of a cixilized government attempted to massacre all the members of the foreign legations. But the order to kill the Europeans and Americans had been signed by the empress herself. For nearly two months no one knew the fate of the foreign representatives. Then President McKinley demanded that the Chinese minister at Washington should find out whether they were dead or alive. A few days later the news came that the foreign troops had entered Peking. The empress dowager, the court, and the chief members of the Boxer party had fled. The allied foreign troops remained at Peking for about six months. Prince Tuan was degraded and exiled, and his son was depri\'ed of the succession to the throne. Many of the leaders were beheaded or ordered to put now CIIIXA WAS OPENED To COAEMERCE 107 themsch'cs to death; other.; were imprisoned or otherwise punished. Not the Chinese people, Init a few Chinese oflicers, must be blamed for the Boxer outljreak. The .governors of the southern pro\'inces refused to take any ])art in it, and refused to obey orders from Peking that would molest for- eigners. Li Hung Chang took no part in the movement. The Boxer outbreak was the beginning of a new era in China. When the government was again restored, the door into China w'as op)en to all the world. Since that time se\'- eral thousand miles of railway ha\'e been built; telegraph lines have been rapidly extended; iron-mines and coal-mines ha\'e been opened. But the most important facts are that China has agreed to respect the rights of other nations, and the latter have agreed to respect the rights of China. CHAPTER IX VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA To learn about the Chinese people one must live in a village rat^S^'^^jH a city. Most of the people of a small \'illage g^^'clatecH^ther by blood or by marriage. In such a \'illag(nhcre isy^ry little wealth; and although the people, as a^^hole, seerf to be \'ery poor, there is not much suffer- ing; moreo\-er, they are apparently happy and contented. The village is nominally governed by oflicers whom one might call o\'crseers, and these are appointed by the go\'ernor of the province or by his reprcsentati\'e. A village in China is much more democratic than in America. The overseers are responsiljle for the good behavior of the village, and they usually preserve good order. In China, as in America, the "boss" is very much a part of the political system. In China the boss is usually the magistrate of the village. As a magistrate, he is fairly just and wise in his ollice, but inasmuch as his income from his office is a mere trifle, it is admitted openly that he is entitled to a "squeeze" on all business that goes through his office. When business comes from outside the village, the scjueeze is apt to be generous. If one's property has been stolen; if one is anticipating a lawsuit; if one desires a permit to do anything; it is best to talk first with the magistrate. He may be a trifle expensive, but he is good for what he promises. The police protection of most villages is put on a very business-like basis. A householder pays a certain sum per year to the police, and the latter insure the return of prop- 108 VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA 109 erty that may be stolen, or pay the owner therefor. The poHceman usually makes a consideral:)le noise as he patrols his beat, a proceeding which ser\-es the double purpose of in- forming all concerned that he is guarding his post and frightening away thieves as well. If a petty thief is caught, An Interior \illage his punishment for a first offence is comparatively mild; he is led about the village by a cable-tow fastened a1wut his neck. The policeman who leads the offender proclaims the offence in a high-pitched, shrill voice, while another officer follows, every few steps plying a bamboo stick on the culprit's back. A man who becomes a habitual criminal is pretty certain to receive a death sentence in the course of time. 110 ALL AROUND ASIA A severe punishment consists in wearing a wooden frame called a "cangue," about three feet square, around the neck. The unfortunate wearer of this necktie cannot lie down, nor can he rest his head and ):)ack against a support, as he sits; he must even depend on some one to feed him. Sometimes How Some Criminals arc Punislied it happens that the poor wretch condemned to wear the cangue drops to the ground from exhaustion and is strangled because he is unable to regain his feet. For a very serious offence a convict may be suspended by the neck in a wooden cage. He stands on tiptoe as long as possible, and quite likely is strangled unless his friends intercede by pay- ing his prison-keeper to lengthen the rope around his neck. VTLI.AGE LIFE IN CIIIXA 111 Learning is everywhere much respected in China. The public schools arc not supported l^y the state, as in this country, but e\ery village has one or more schools. The teacher may be a former official who has lieen deprived of otTice, but more likely lie is a student who has failed in the ex- aminations. Almost always he is a scholarly man, and, next to the government officials, is the most respected man in the \ illa^e. If a teacher has been successful in tlie examinations, A Cliimsr SdK.,,1 he is considered the most distinguished man in the village. His salary as teacher is anywhere from four to six dollars per month. The village school is for boys only; girls are not thought to be worth teaching. When a boy goes to school for the first time, he is either accompanied by his father, or else he carries a most formidable-appearing card of introduction. On en- tering the presence of the master, he kowtows until his head touches the floor. The younger pupls may possibly sit on the floor, but the older boys sit on bamlxjo stools ]12 ALL AROUND ASLA around little tables not much higher than an ordinary chair. In learning to read, a boy must know several thousand char- acters by sight, each character standing for a word. In learning to write he uses, not a pen, but a brush and a cake of India ink. He studies aloud so that the master may know that he is not idle, and when he recites he turns, not his face, but his back to the mas- ter. He learns only a little arithmetic — merely enough to handle ordinary business accounts. This he studies by the aid of a numeral frame on which the sliding buttons are arranged in twos and fives. When he is older he studies history and learns the writings of the great scholars, such as Confucius and Mencius. As in America, most of the pupils drop out of school after learning to read and write. There are no churches in China excepting those established by Americans and Euro- peans; in the smaller villages such a thing as a church is not known. But every village has one or more temples; Chinese temples are chieffy for honoring the spirits of ancestors. A temple has little in it except a few idols, and perhaps one or sufiUHisi m is Mr&^=^ EachrhHi-iUtcTSUinds f.jr a Wun] .a y A Brush and a Box oi Ink VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA 11.- more tablets containing tlie ancestors' names. The exterior and interior of some temples are richly carved with intricate A Shrine in ihe Temple patterns and decorated with golddeaf. The idols arc not worshipped, as many suppose, but serve to fix the attention of the one praying on the spirit whom he is entreating. There lU ALL AROUND ASLA. are no Sundays in China, but tlicre arc many liolidays, and, besides tliese, there are days when families ha^'ing an ancestor of distinction repair to the temple, burn papers on which prayers are written, and celebrate his virtues by a feast. Any one who chooses may practise medicine in most parts of China, and Chinese medicines are apt to be what medical students call "shot-gun prescriptions" — that is, there are so many things in the prescription that one or more of them must hit the disease. A prescription may contain twenty or thirty dilTcrent suljstances. The Chinese are quite as fond of taking medicine as are their western brethren, and the doctor who can put up the most villanous mixture — of which powdered insects, lizards, etc., form a generous part — is regarded as a ^•ery skilful phy- sician. Educated Chinese usually employ American or European physicians when possiljle, but in the ^'illages the people are superstitious and believe their ailments are due to evil spirits. "I have a little dragon within me," said a mer- chant to a Chinese doctor. The doctor looked at his patient carefully and wisely. "No," said the doctor, "it is the spirit of a very large dragon; but in four days it can be frightened away." Whereupon the doctor proceeded to rub a handful of earthworms and honey in a mortar until they were thor- oughly mixed; the patient took the medicine; and, sure enough, in four days the evil spirit was scared away! In most parts of China there are doctors who travel from village to village. On the arrival of a travelling doctor, his servants make a tremendous racket, beating gongs and cymbals, and shrieking the many virtues of their master. No matter what may be your ills, he will cure you; and if an only child happens unfortunately to be a girl, his medicines will change her to a boy! The doctor's booth is erected in the most conspicuous part of a village — perhaps in the temple. Inside and outside hang strings of teeth, dried snakes, bunches VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA 115 of herbs, strips of bark, and packages of dried insects. He will show you with pride plasters that have cured many and various ailments, and have been returned to be used on other patients. As a crowd of idlers gathers around the doctor's booth, a man with an aching tooth presents himself. A quarter of an hour is spent haggling over the fee that is to be paid, during which time both parties to the trans- action shriek themselves almost into hysterics. Then the doctor adjusts a hideous-looking wrench upon the offending tooth, and is ready for business. The howl of pain from the unfortunate patient as the tooth is drawn is drowned in yells of delight from the crowd. To western people the houses of even the wealthy Chinese are models of discomfort. Village dwellings in the farming communities are all this and more too, for they are also dirty in the extreme. Rarely is there a chimney in a house, and if there are windows they contain neither sash nor glass; at best they are covered with oiled paper. The floor is of clay, which now and then is wet to lay the dust; and if there is more than one room no door shuts off one from an- other. The fireplace is of stone and mud; the fuel is usually dried grass, reeds, or shrubs, and the smoke escapes through the doors and windows. The furniture consists usually of narrow benches that ser\-e for chairs, a board or two that "> i t hH ^M ' " * hBb pQ '.' m -^ ;' ■ f * <> 1 \ 0^f^, I The Doctor 116 ALL AROUND ASIA may be converted into a table in flaylime and a bed at night. Almost always there are three small shrines, and in front of each is a little swinging light and an incense-burner. One of the shrines is usually dedicated to the earth-god and incense is burned before it e\'ery e\'ening. The houses of the wealthy people may have many rooms; the floors may be of stone or of tile; but the furni- ture is uncomfortable, and there is an absence of plastered and papered walls. In the place of ujjholstery, the chairs, tabrets, and benches are most exquisitely carved; brocaded satin, worth almost its weiglit in gold, is used for curtains and table covers; and beauti- ful porcelain \-ases on car\-ed teakwood stands take the place of oil- paintings. A girl in China has but little to hope for. From the time of her birth she is regarded as a misfortune. The chances of her receiving an education are very remote; they depend chiefly upon her being adopted by Americans or Europeans, or upon the rare good fortune of having parents who have travelled abroad. If her parents are poor, she is destined to be a household drudge all her life; if they are well-to-do, she will be kept in idleness and most likely her feet will be bound so that they are never larger than those of a babe. A Cliincsc Lady of R;ink VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA 117 During her early child life she has few playmates; she cannot play in the street; and the only boys whom she knows are her brothers. As a young woman she is l^ept in seclusion; she cannot go to parties, nor can she have the company of young men. Her betrothal is arranged by her parents, and she docs not see the man whom she is to marry until the hour of the wedding. After marriage she goes to the home of her husband and be- comes the slave and drudge of her mother-in-law during the life of the latter. Ne\ertheless, the Chinese woman is perhaps cjuite as much respected as the woman of America and Europe. With- in the home her wishes are supreme. She may not have the liberties enjoyed by Ameri- can women, but she has some that they ha\-e not. She is the mistress of her household; her advice is always sought on important affairs; and, indeed, she is pretty apt to dominate the political atTairs of the vil- lage. There is a well-worn Chinese pro\'erb — "Hearken to the counsel of an old woman, for sorrow has gi\'en her much wisdom." By nature the Chinese are \'ery polite, and the lirst lesson in etiquette taught both at school and at home is that chil- dren must respect elder people. In school a boy is tauglit the rules of good behavior for all times and places with the same care and exactness that he is instructed in reading and A Successful Student lis ALL AROUND ASL\ writing. Cliinese boys are better behaved in public tlian are American boys. Im]joliteness to a stranger, e\'en to foreigners, was once \'ery rare, but the latter ha\'e so often misbehaved that nowadays they are looked u[)on with some suspicion. When a Chinese gentleman pays a formal \isit to an ac- ([uaintancc, he prepares for the event with great care. His apparel is what would correspond to our full e\'ening flress. A formal call or an official \'isit is not made in the morning, but in the e\'ening. It ^^•ould disgrace a Chinese gentle- man were he to go afoot in mailing his calls; he must hire a chair if he does not own one, and the chair must be carried by four coolies. His ser\-ant precedes the chair, bearing the master's \-isiting card, which is about the size of a page of this book. The card is of the finest paper, red in color, and bears not only the name, but a humble salu- tation as well. If the one to whom the ^•isit is paid is of a higher rank, the \-isilor leaves his chair at the outer court; if he is of ecjual rank, he remains in his chair until he reaches the doorway. On being in\'ite(l to enter, he salutes his host with low bows, shaking his own hands and not the hand of his host. He praises e\'crything belonging to his host but belittles himself. All these formalities being o\'er, the \'isitor and his host settle down to a sensible conversation over one or more cups of tea. The visit finished, the ceremonies of Iea\-ing are quite as elaborate as those of entering. All are carefully prescribed in the "Book of the Proprieties." An Ameri- The Apparel c.f an Officer of High Rank VILLAGE LIFP: L\ CHINA IIQ can might criticise them as senseless, but they are just as sensible as the formalities of fashionable calling in America. ^Moreover, an educated Chinese is as genuinely ].)olite as his American brother, and he ne\-er forgets to be a gentleman. Chinese skilled laborers are exceedingly cle\-er. Ha\ ing an old garment as a model, the tailor w ill reproduce it faith^ fully, and the workmanship will be of the best, no matter whether it is a man's frock coat or a woman's e\ening gown. Your \\'atch or a piece of jewelry will be just as skilfully repaired in Canton as in New York. A_ Chinese carpenter can make almost anything and e\'erything out of bamboo. An ivory car- \er will cut three balls, one within another, each beauti- fully car\-ed on the outer sur- face — all being cut from a single block of i\'ory. In what might be called "tinkering" the Chinese workman is an artist, anfl his craft is an art. E\-ery trade has its guild or union; and in the cities and towns remote from the seaports the guilds are the social as well as the fraternal centres. Each trade has its o\^-n guild- hall, anfl these are the chief resorts in the town. The guild looks after its sick members, aids the worthy destitute, buries its members at death, and pro\-ides for the training of orphans. In many of the guilds the members are forbidden to drink sake, or rice whiskey, or to use opium; e\en tlie use of tobacco is forbidden by some of the guilds. The outer clothing worn by a coolie or by a farm laborer lii^ Ruinitial 120 ALL AROUND ASIA consists of a blue or brown cotton blouse, a pair of trousers with wide legs that come to the ankles, and sandals. If the day is rainy, he wears also a cloak made of shredded palm- leaves or reeds, the loose ends of which hang clown very much like the thatching of a straw roof. This cloak sheds the rain quite as well as a mackintosh. In summer his hat is a scoop-shaped affair fastened to a narrow band that rests on his head. It is a most comfortable hat for hot weather. For cold weather the blouse is padded with cotton, which is quilted into the garment. The blouse of a well-to-do Chinese gentleman is commonly of silk, and his trousers, of similar material, are carefully gathered at the ankles. His shoes have black velvet or silk uppers, split at the great toe; the sole is of a material like felt. His black silk skull-cap may or may not have a button at the top. The color and material of the button shows his rank. In making formal visits, his blouse is pretty apt to be of brocaded satin of light color, the sleeves of which reach beyond the finger-tips. A gentleman almost always carries a silk fan; if he is a scholar, his fan is covered with inscrip- tions from the works of other scholars. When not in use, the fan is carried in an embroidered satin case attached to his girdle. If he goes for a walk, his pipe is carried by a servant who follows him. In the villages as in the cities by far the greater number of people are very poor. They fortunately want but little, and are quite as happy as their brethren of the West; they cer- tainly are more contented. The Chinese Government is very democratic, and most of the government officers are appointed by competitive exami- nation. The iirst examinations are held in the various districts. The successful candidates then go to the capitals of their provinces. There the examinations are very severe, and perhaps one candidate in several hundred will carry off VILLAGE LIFE IN CHINA V2l high honors. Those successful in the provincial examinations are eligible to hold office in the province, but many choose to go to Peking and take the examinations for imperial offices. At Peking the examinations are held in little cells built of brick and plaster. A student is assigned to each cell. The The Examination Hall, Petcing cell is open in front but has no windows. The furniture consists of two boards, one being a bench, the other a table. The candidate carries food, lights, and writing ma- terial into the cell, and there he remains for three days and nights, watched by inspectors. To be successful at this ex- amination entitles the candidate not only to a high olhce but to honor and fame as well. CHAPTER X WHAT CHINA GIVES TO THE REST OF THE WORLD China is sometimes called the land of "topsy-tur\'ydom," meaning that the way the Chinese do many things is just op])osite to the way we in the West do them. To use the Chinese way is " topsy-turvy," because they shake their own instead of their guests' hands at meeting; because they laugh instead of weep in announcing the death of a friend or a relative; because the waistcoat is worn over the coat instead of under it; because they begin at the right- hand lower corner of the page and read upward, instead of reading from the top left to right as we do; because they wear white as a sign of mourning instead of black; because the family name is written first, as Smith Charles, instead of Charles Smith; because fractions are expressed with the denominator o\-er the numerator — because of these things and many others we find ourseh'es saying the Chinese are a vcvy curious peo])Ie. Now, inasmuch as the Chinese were a highly civilized nation centuries ago, when our ancestors were the most savage peoples of Europe, it might be a bit more logical to assume that we, rather than our brethren in the East, are the ones that should be called curious. The Chinese were the first people in the world to have a literature, the first to have the art of printing, and the first to have a newspaper. As a matter of fact, the explosives 122 ^\•HAT CHINA GI\-ES TO THl'; WORLD 123 and fire-crackers with Avhich the American boy fleliglits to celebrate the Fourth of July were used Ijy tlie Chinese two thousand years, more or less, before tlie American continent was discovered by Columbus. The Asian continent has furnished to the rest of the world many domestic animals, food-stulTs, and use- ful things, and China is still gi\"ing us four articles that ha\-e had much to do with the progress of Western, ci \-ili/;at ion — rice, tea, porcelain, and silk. These articles ha\e not been con- fined solely to Cliina, it is true, but Western nations obtained them originally from China, and although all are now produced elsewdiere, we still look largely to China for their production. Rice is probably used by more people than any other grain in the world. Some kinds grow in the hill lands, but most of the crop is grown in the low coast plains of southern and eastern Asia and in the flood plains and delta lands of the great rivers. The fields in which it is to grow must be surrounded by dikes, or banks, in order to hold the water; they must also be furrowed so that the water may be drained off. Before the rice is jdanted the fields must Copyright by Underwood &= Underwood, A^. F. Rice Fields — Tlie Fields arc Terraced so that Each One may be Flooded 124 ALL AROUND ASIA be flooclcd for several days, or even weeks. If the flood of llie ri\-ers is not high enough to cover them, the water must be pumped or brought by hand. Early in the sea- son one may see thousands of men watering the fields, working night and day. If the field is a small one, two men dip the water out of the river with a huge paper-lined basket and pour it over the surface. More often, however, the water is drawn up by means of wooden Rice Planting chain-pumps that are worked by tread-mills. One or two coolies tread patiently for fourteen or sixteen hours on the roughly made wheel that operates the pump, stopping work only long enough to shift the troughs into which the water is poured from one part of the field to another. Occasionally a water-buffalo harnessed to a windlass is the motive-power. Usually seedling plants are grown in trenches to be after- ward transplanted, but sometimes the seed is sown broad- cast; in either case, as soon as the seed is sown or the seed- WHAT CHINA GIVES TO THE WORLD 125 lings are transplanted, the water is drawn off until it barely covers the surface. After the plants are once started they grow very rapidly — so quickly that it is often possible to get two crops a year from the same held. The stalk grows to a height of about two feet and the ripened grain is not un- like the oat. The grain is cut by hand and the rice is sepa- rated from the straw by flicking the bundles against a bamboo rod, or by drawing the heads of the grain o\'er the teeth of a comb made for the purpose. The rice is still in- cased in husks, and in this form it is called "paddy." Very little of the rice grown in China is sold outside the country. Nearly all is consumed within a iew miles of the fields in which it is grown; indeed, the crop is not large enough for the needs of the people, and both rice and wheat flour are im- ported into China. Until within a few years nearly all the tea consumed in the world was grown in China, and by far the greater part is still produced there. The tea of commerce consists of the dried leaves of a small tree, the leaves themselves much re- sembling those of the common rose-bush. The tea-trees ordinarily grow to a height of fifteen or twenty feet, but they are kept pruned to about the size of hazel bushes. The tea "gardens" as they are called, are planted with the trees in rows two or three feet apart. When the trees are three years old the leaves are picked for the first time; at five years of age they yield the best crops; after they are twelve or fifteen years old the leaves begin to be inferior. The picking takes place three or four times a year, but the leaves of the first p)icking of each year are the best. To prepare the leaves for the market they are first dried in the sun. In this condition they may be kept without spoil- ing until they are made ready for the market. The lea\'es for export are sent to the various factories to be made ready for shipment. Hankau and Fuchau are the chief centres of the Preparing Tea for the Russian Market WHAT CHINA GIVES TO Till-: WORLD 127 export trade. When the sun-dried leases reach the factories they are iirst steamed, and tlien dried until they are soft with- out being moist. Then they are taken leaf by leaf and either twisted between the lingers, or else rolled into little pellets between the palms of the hands. In the latter form they are "gunpowder" tea. This done, the leaves arc "Tired," by heating cjuickly in pans over a charcoal fire, or else arc Tea Eciics on Their Way to Europe dried very slowly in the open air. The former process pro- duces black tea; the latter, green tea. It is cust(jmary to allow the steamed leaves to remain moist for se\'eral days be- fore rolling if black tea is to be made. Most of the tea is packed in chests lined with lead. To keep the sea air and moisture out, the metal joints of the chest linings are soldered. By the time the tea is ready for ]28 ALL AROUND ASL\ shipment, steamships are waiting at \'arious places along the Yangtze. As soon as they are loaded, the race for home be- gins; and the first steamship to reach a British port earns a large sum of money, for the first tea in port sells at a high price. The Chinese declare that they were the first to make wares of porcelain clay, and it is pretty certain that they have the right to make this claim. Articles of common use were made of baked clay long before the first records of written history, but it is doubtful if one can find glazed pottery of white clay made at a time before the Chinese manufactured it. Indeed, wares of porcelain clay were made in China more than thirty- six hundred years ago, and to this day porcelain wares are called "china" in Europe and America. Porcelain clay, or "kaolin," is found in many parts of China, but it is probably named after the Kao Ling Moun- tains. It is formed when certain kinds of granite rock de- compose, and it is deposited by running water in layers. When it is first dug out of the beds it is tolerably hard. Near any large pottery one may see hundreds of coolies — and fre- quently women are among them — with big bamboo crates or baskets on their backs, filled with the clay which they are carrying from the quarry to the pottery. The clay contains stones, sand, and other impurities and it therefore must be crushed and washed to remo\'e them. When the washed clay is about as stiff as mud, it is " mixed." This is a long and tiresome process, and no better way of mixing has yet been found than the tramping of human feet. Sometimes water-buffaloes are used, to begin the mixing, but the finishing work is done by the feet and hands of men. The mixed clay is left for a week or more to "temper." The potter does his work in much the same way the world over, and the Chinese potter is like his brother workman else- where. Indeed, if we study the pictures of the pother's art WHAT CHINA GIVES TO THE WORLD 129 made four thousand years ago, we find but little change in it since then, and nothing new. The potter puts a mass of soft clay on the centre of his wheel, or revolving table. Then gi\-ing the latter a whirl, he moulds the clay into a cup, a plate, or whatever is to be made. He has no tools except his wheel and a little strip of wood or of metal that will reach where his fingers will not. After the piece is moulded, it is set aside to dry \'ery slowly so that it will not crack. Then it is baked in a kiln,- or oven, that is kept at a white heat for one, two, or three days. Even after it is baked, the kiln is not opened for a day; it must cool slowly so that the pieces will not crack. In the decoration of the wares the Chinese have few, if any, superiors. Only mineral colors are used, for the colors must be fired, and the intense heat would quickly destroy \egetable colors. On some of the choice wares the designs are so delicately drawn that one needs a magnifying-glass to see the work clearly. As a rule, each color must be fired separately. When the decoration is finished the pieces must be coated with a transparent glaze. This consists of mineral substances ground into a fine powder and mixed with water. Each piece is dipped into the glaze and a coating of the latter adheres to it. It is just as though it were dipped into white paint, for the glaze covers and hides the decoration completely. When the glazing mixture is dry, the pieces again go to the kiln. Each piece is set on the points of a little tripod so that the glaze will not be ruljbed off. The last baking or firing is done by means of charcoal, and the heat is just enough to melt the glaze. The melted glaze is as transparent as glass; it not only protects the colors of the design, but it deepens them just as varnish would. Much of the china, such as the common Canton ware sold in Europe and America, is of the cheapest kind. Only a little of the very fine ware is sold outside of China. The wealthy loO ALL AROUND ASL\ and educated Chinese prize it highly, and se\'cral thousand dollars is not an unusual price to pay for a vase not more than a foot high. It is thought that the making of silk originated in China. More than forty-hve hundred years ago a famous em- press, Le ling si, taught her people how to rear the silk-worm and reel the silk from the cocoons. There is a story that the Chinese were so jealous of the secret of making silk that to carry the worms or the silk-moths out of China was for- bidden under the penalty of death. As the story goes, a prin- cess of the royal family who was to be exiled to India con- cealed some seeds of the mulberry-trcc and some eggs of the silk-moth in her head-dress and succeeded in reaching India with them. From India the silk-making industry was car- ried to other parts of Asia. The silk-worm is the grub of a large gray moth hatched from the eggs which the moth lays. The eggs are kept on paper in a cool place until the time for hatching. Then the slieets are placed on bamboo racks in a warm room. The process of hatching is complete in two or three days and the tiny grub is at once ready for his chief work, which is to eat. Its only food is the leaf of the mulberry-tree. At first the leaves are chopped into small pieces, and the grub is put on a fresh piece e\-ery half-hour or so, throughout the entire day and night. It grows rapidly, and the feeding process is cut down until it has only three or four meals a day. Each time it feeds, however, it is put on a fresh leaf. Three or four times it casts its skin, remaining torpid until the new skin is formed. In a month it has reached its growth and is about as long and as large as one's little finger. When the grub completes its growth it ceases to eat and begins to spin its cocoon. The substance which forms the silk is a viscid lifjuid contained within the body and nearly filling it. This is forced out of the spinning-tube in the form WHAT CHINA GIVi':S TO THE WORLD 1:H of a very fine filament, or strand, which quickly hardens. This silken strand the worm winds around and around itself until it is completely incased in it. The process of spinning takes usually fi\e or six days. By the time it is complete the lower part of its body is greatly shrunken and the worm has become a chrysalis, or cocoon. Some of the cocoons are ke]jt until the moths appear, jjut most of them arc placed near a charcoal fire so that the li\ing part may Ije killed. Then they are thrown into Ijoiling water in order that the silken case may be softened. For the rest of the work nimble fingers are re- quired, and it is done mainly by women, girls, and boys. If the loose end of the silk strand is not in sight, it must be sought by sharp eyes and found quickly; when found it is wound on a reel. Then se\'eral strands are slowly unreeled at once and twisted by hand into a thread. The Chinese silk- wea\er has no spinning ''jenny" which twists half a hundred threads at a time; his silk thread is spun and made jjy hand. His loom, moreo\'er, is of the most simple kind. Yet, in spite of all this, no satins, brocades, or plain silk cloths surpass those made in China; and so far as the finer brocades are concerned, nowhere else in the world arc they ef|ualled. Practically all the forest timber has long since disappeared from China, but there is one substance with which the skilled Chinese workman can do anything and out of which he can make a most wonderful array of useful articles — namely. TtiL- Forest TimlicT has Long Since Disappeared 132 ALL AROUND ASLA bamboo; even in our own country we find a score of uses for it outside of its traditional employment for fishing-poles. Bamboo is a species of jointed grass, and it is the most accom- modating species in the world. In the tropics it grows any- where one wishes it to grow, except on the surface of a rock; and it makes a humble apology for this shortcoming by grow- ing readily in the clefts of rocks. It can be culti- vated to grow to about any height desired up to forty or fifty feet. If a low, thick stem is wanted, the bamboo can be trained to respond. It will reach its growth in two or three months, but when the conditions are right it will grow two feet in a day. The stalk is a hollow tube with joints from a few inches to three feet apart. When crushed, it may split to the nearest joint, but no farther. It might be stronger if made of metal, but it is just as strong as wood fibre can be. The Chinese house-builder makes the corner-posts, stud- ding, floors, rafters, and joists of the house from it. More than likely the rooms are separated by paper made of bam- boo fibre. If one needs a bucket, he cuts a large stalk just above one joint and below the next joint. Then he drills two holes on opposite sides of the open end, twists several young shoots into a handle — and lo! his bucket is all ready. His .m m p-'';i#iii ^■.■•^*'!'''i';:'; ^f.■■.,..^:;;^r' B"" '^^ mm #■';'"'.■■>•.:':'-,■','■ ^ A Clump of Bamboo WHAT CHINA GIVES TO THE WORLD 133 wheelbarrow, plough, sedan-chair, tables, chairs, tabrets, and other pieces of furniture are made of it. Bottles, tubes, pencils, brushes, rope, hats, mats, baskets, blow-guns, bows, arrows, and spears are bamboo; the masts of sailing vessels, and even the sails themselves, are made of it. The young sprouts just out of the ground are just as fine as asparagus, and when preserved in rice vinegar are excellent pickles. The feathery tops make good roof-thatching; the seeds ground into flour are wholesome and nutritious; and if a poor chap has a bad cold and doesn't want to call the doctor, he merely doses himself with a cure-all tea made from the fresh leaves. CHAPTER XI JAPAN— THROUGH THE INLAND SEA A CHAIN of mountains off the east coast of Asia cur\-es like a great bow for a distance of eigliteen liundrcd miles. This long mountain chain is partly co\ercd by the sea. The plateaus and peaks ajjovc sea-le\'el are the islands of Japan, and four of them contain nearly all the people of the empire. The largest, Hondo — the Japanese call it Honshu — is about as large as New York and Pennsylvania together. Yezzo, which the Japanese call Hokushu, is a little more than half the size of New York. Shikoku is about as large as Massachusetts, and Kiushu, twice as large. In these four islands, not quite three times the size of New York, li\e forty millions of peo- ple, or about half the population of the United States. Aside from these and to the north-west there is the island of Karafuto, or Sakhalin, as it is called by Americans and Europeans. This barren land the Russians once seized from Japan, but after the recent war between the two nations they were compelled to give back half of it to the Japanese. To the east of Sakhalin the rocky and almost barren Kuril Islands extend northward to Yezzo, almost to Kamchatka, and islands variously called Loo Choo, Liu Kiu, and Ryu Kiu extend southward from Kiushu into the Torrid Zone. Formosa, farthest south of all and half as large again as Massachusetts, was the chief prize won in the war between China and Japan. All the larger islands are \'ery rugged. The crests of many ranges are more than a mile high, and some of them are 134 JAPAN— THROUGH THJ': INLAND SEA 1:J5 nearly two miles high. Many of the hi,ij;h peaks are llie cinder cones of \'olcanocs, and of tliese tlierc are se\'eral hun- dred. None of them have had eruptions of la\'a within the memory of man, but some of them still pour forth occasional clouds of steam. One of these \'olcanoes, Mt)unt Fujiyama, or Fujisan, is a sacred object to the Japanese. Its beautiful white cone can be seen far out at sea. A land of \-olcanic peaks is usually beset with earthquakes, ]■ Lijiyarr c SiiLi-cd Mnunliin of Jiipai and Japan is no exception. Throughout most of the islands light shocks are very frequent, and occasionally there are shocks hard enough to destroy many lives and much ])ro])- erty. About two hundred years ago the city of Yeddo, where Tokyo is now built, was destroyed, and most of the people killed; and a little more than fifty years ago, a great sea wave caused by an earthquake rolled in upon the town of Simoda l.'ifi ALL AROUND ASIA and swept it away. A severe earthquake quickly shatters the houses, and seams the ground with great cracks. There is but Httlc level land in Japan. Narrow coast plains skirt most of the shores and the Hood plains of the short streams extend back into the ravines a few miles. There are also many mountain valleys, but for the greater part they are small in area. The rugged surface does not worry the farmer, howe\'er. If he needs level land for growing rice, he proceeds to dig, fill, and embank until his field may have a dozen different levels, each one a basin that can be flooded when necessary. Japan has not an abundance of mineral wealth. The coal- mines yield ten million tons a year — just about enough to supply New York City. One-quarter of this is sold abroad; the rest is used mainly in manufacturing establishments. About fifty million gallons of petroleum are produced, and nearly all of this is consumed at home, in addition to the many million gallons which are brought to Japan from the United States. Copper is the most important metal, and Japan is one of the leading copper-producing countries in the world. Gold and sih'er are so scarce that much of the metal needed for coins must be purchased. Next to the rice-fields the sea produces most of the food- stuff's of Japan. Fish is the chief meat food of the Japanese and excepting in the larger cities beef and mutton are almost unknown. The government takes great care of the fisheries, even to stocking them with certain kinds of fish. From Hongkong we take a North German Lloyd steam- ship for this great island empire, the foremost native power of all Asia, and one of the great powers of the work!. At first sight the ship seems to be new, and certainly she is spick- and-span. But we learn that she formerly plied between New York and German ports. Being too slow for this service, her upper works were rebuilt for tropical seas. Her boilers are JAPAN— THROUGH THE INLAND SEA 1:37 new, but engines and hull are about as they were when they were built twenty years ago. Hitherto the ship has sailed between Hongkong and Nagasaki. With this voyage, however, she proceeds to Kobe. Between the islands of Hondo and Shikoku is a great sound called the Inland Sea. In shape it is not unlike Long Island Sound, and the two bodies of water ha\e about the same size. Approaching Nagasaki, instead of making the usual land- ing, the ship drops anchor a quarter of a mile away from the foreign settlement. We take aboard some pigs, chickens, a tank filled with live fish, and a lot of fruit. Then a little naphtha launch comes spitting alongside. A shijj's ladder is lowered, and three officers in uniform mount to the jjrom- enade deck. The last one, a young man, vaults over the rail easily and gracefully. A few minutes later he is talking to another passenger in the best of English. He proves to be a graduate of the Naval Academy at Annapolis. After a stay of not more than two hours, the steamship picks her way out of the harbor and is rounding the north- west coast of Kiushu. It is a difficult passage from Nagasaki to Shimonoseki, for there are many reefs and islands off the coast. We therefore take a pilot for the trip. In a few hours we are between the island of Ikeshima and tlie main- land. This island was the scene of an aft'air that did not reflect much credit on the American Government. In the eighties an American war-ship steamed close to the island, and, without giving warning to the many villages, the officers and crews began their usual target practice. As a result, several Japanese villagers were killed and many more were wounded. At that time Japan was not a "power," but only an insignificant country that had neither ships nor guns. As a compensation, our government paid the Jajjancsc the princely sum of fifteen thousand dollars! By evening we are at Shimonoseki. We are told that at JArAN— THROUGH THE INLAND SEA r.i'j night-time the ship cannot jjass tlirough the narrow strait that forms tlie western entrance of the Inland Sea; we are also informed most pohtely thai, owing to quarantine regula- tions, no one will be permitted to land until next morning. But as we arc to pass through the strait early next morn- ing, there is not mucli comfort in the infor- mation. Shimonoseki also has a small part in the history of the United States. In tlie summer of 1863 three ^-essels — an American, a Dutch, and a French shi p — were fired upon while passing the strait. The next year a fleet of war-ships ap- peared in the harbor, bombarded the town, and destroyed it. E\'en this was not considered punishment enough, and the Japanese were required to pay a fine of three million dollars. A few years later the Ameri- can Government, ashamed of its part in the transaction, returned its portion of the money. With daylight we are on deck. The tide is right, and the ship is in the boiling swirls of the narrow strait. There are sampans and junks by the hundred, and even at the early hour of daybreak it seems as though all the city were on the lookout. Dozens of bumboats hover about the shi|), but they are kept at a good distance by a spiteful-looking launch that bears the flag of the Imperial Customs. A few minutes only are recjuired to take us past the water-front, through the strait, and into the Inland Sea. In the Inland Sea — Japanese Junks 140 ALL AROUND ASIA The scenery is not unlike that of the Irish coast; but a fog settles upon us, anci we creep along at half speed accom- panied by the mournful blast of the siren; then the churn of the propeller stops and we hear the rumble of the cables as the anchors drop. We are at anchor all night, and the nasty roll of the ship makes many of the passengers ill. It does not affect the three naval officers, for they remain in the smoking-cabin playing JDridge whist. In this they receive their instructions very gracefully from the young officer, who certainly learned something more than the science of war at Annapolis. By daylight the fog has lifted and we are again under way. The steamship is pointing at what appears to be a solid wall of rock. But it seems to give way and we are in another narrow strait. We pass wicked-looking fortifications; they are the Takamatsu and Wakayama forts, whose concealed guns might sink any hostile fleet that enters the straits. An inc|uisiti\'e passenger asks the young Japanese lieutenant about the forts, and the latter says nothing so very politely that no offence can be taken. Then an English merchant who has li\ed many years in Japan tells us that these forts protect Kobe, Hiogo, Osaka, and Kioto, four of the most im- portant cities in Japan. He tells us also that the channel is set with torpedoes, any one of which can be exploded the instant a \'essel is over it. A few hours bring us to the head of the bay of Osaka. The rugged mountains seem to rise abruptly out of the sea, but as the ship approaches them the low shore comes in sight ; then we see the buildings of Kobe and Hiogo behind the multitude of vessels. Kobe and Hiogo together form a great centre of Japanese trade. Formerly Kobe was the residence of foreign merchants, but in recent years many of them have moved into Hiogo. Hiogo has also taken much of the commerce from Nagasaki. We steam slowly past three American ships. 142 ALL AROUND ASIA They have brought kerosene oil from Philadelphia, and they are waiting for their return cargoes of rugs, matting, and the Japanese wares that one finds in American stores. ' From the deck we can see much of the city. The business houses, factories, and godowns arc on the bund, a low plain that skirts the coast. The residence streets in steps and terraces reach Ijack into ravines in the mountains, whose slopes are very steep. Along the Japanese end of the Ijund Japant-SL' Dwcllinji — Exterior are hundreds of junks. A little steamer comes out swiftly toward us, wig-wagging a flag which is answered by flag sig- nals from our steamship. It comes alongside and several olTicers in uniform lioard the steamship. They are the health and the customs ofl'icers, who check the passengers by name. iMerything seems to be right, however, for the ship keeps right on to the wharf. At the dock a policeman summons one after another of the JAPAN— THROUGH THE INLAND SI' A 14:5 ■\Yaitin_ii; rickshas. There is a good liotel and also a clulj- liouse in Koljc, Ijut a private h(juse has been engaged for our use, and a Japanese servant, or " boy," is in waiting to accom- pany lis. He is a natty, well-groomed young man, named Alatsu, who has been a steward on a Canadian Pacific steam- ship and a bell-ljoy in Seattle. Rickshas take us along the Motomachi, the principal street of Kobe, and then into a Duelling InlL-rior — Sliding I'artili'ins winding way that is a bit too wide for a sidewalk but too nar- row for a street. The house before which we stop kxjl.s small enough to jje a doll's house. At first sight it seems to ha\'e no front whate\-er, fnit two ser\'ants slide wooden screens into place which shut in the front of the house. Paper screens are arranged so as to di\'ide the house into three rooms. Matsu has also arranged "American" furniture for us — se\-eral bamboo chairs and a very small writing-taljle. 144 ALL AROUND ASIA The Japanese themselves sit on small cushions instead of chairs, ]jending the legs back so as to rest on the heels. The table, or tabret, on which they serve their food is about four inches high, the top being but little larger than a platter. The bed consists of one or two thick quilted mats with a thin- ner one for a cover. The pillow is a little wooden saddle hollowed so as to fit the head and neck, and covered with padded cloth. Matsu knows pretty well that no foreigner could rest with such pillows, and he has provided us with rub- ber air-cushions instead. In a little while tea is served. A small cup is filled half full of tea leaves; hot water is poured into it; it is covered with a porcelain saucer that fits loosely inside the cup; after a minute it is poured off into a second cup, from which it is drunk. The water is kept hot in a little metal-lined box, ashes surround the little kettle, and there is a handful of burning charcoal at the bottom. Oranges, soup, and most deliciously cooked fish make the rest of the evening meal. When night comes, all Kobe and Hiogo are glowing with the light of lanterns. Even the junks off shore have lanterns at their mast-heads and these sway as the junk is rocked by the waves. CHAPTER XII JAPAN— KOBE AND OSAKA Next morning the bath is announced as ready. The bath-tub, an o\-al-shaped affair, is more than half full of hot water. Under the tub is a metal box in which charcoal is [. . -.- . . . buiiiiono.i'l.i^ rt.UamUton-'' .' ', .T'Mf'JiA quelpIbti.O" / - " ..V 80- /K™i*'-'"l'ai!'- 'S'""'«" ,I OSAKA TO TOKYO 1(19 and one large ceiling decoration is made almost wholly of gold l^iligree. The gardens contain pretty nearly every plant that grows in Japan, and the lakes have a great variety of fish. Wild ducks arc \'ery common in Japan, and great numbers of them alight in lakes and moats, where they always find plenty of ? j^-v/^^th^i'/iwm %i(mmmm, rf rr ■HfMliHHP'P'*^ iHN«n| 1 — f— 1 fa?SSSp(«^^ ^^ '-'*:; m... •^ '•W_ '.,.," ..' ..!7»( 1 ■■•^Jl iir . ** si.' Tokyo— The Palace of llie Mikado food. Netting wild fowl is one of the sports of the young princes. The ducks are attracted by food to the place where the net-thrower is concealed. At the right instant the net is thrown in much the same manner as a cattle-herder throws the lariat. To throw the net over the wild fowl recjuircs great practice and skill. The Parliament buildings are near the imperial estate, and are surrounded by high walls. The Parliament is much like 170 ALL AROUND ASIA that of Great Britain; one house consists of nobles, the other of men who are elected by the people. To be a voter in Japan a man must be twenty-five years old and pay taxes amounting to about fifteen dollars a year. The post-office Tokyo — A Business Street department is much like that of the United States. All the larger cities have free delivery and there are rural deliveries along all the princij^al country roads. The postage on letters is two cents and on cards one cent, as in Europe and the United Stales. Japan is a military nation, and Japanese soldiers are JAPAN— FROM OSAKA TO TOKYO 171 ranked among ihe best in the world. With the mihtary rille in\entcd by a Japanese they excel in marksmanship; and in the accuracy with which they use the heavy guns of the war- ships they also rank among the best. Many of the officers of their army and navy were educated in the military and na^■aI academics of Europe and the United States. The police of Tokyo are very military in appearance. They ^vear uniforms of dark -blue woollen cloth in winter and white fluck in summer. They carry swords instead of clubs, and when an oiTender is arrest- ed, instead of handcuffs a short rope is used to jjinion his arms. The man \\ho is to become a policeman must ha\e a long and thorough training. He must know enough la\v to a\-oid break- ing the law himself; he must know enough about medicine surgery to act promjAly in severe accidents; he must know a great deal about criminals and where to find them if \\'anted; he must be so cle\'er at wrestling as to throw his antagonist by a simple twist of the hand. In the jjractice of this art, which is called " jiu jitsu," the Japanese police are experts. Once a little mite of a Japanese, who was exhibiting the art of jiu jitsu in New York, threw a famous wrestler half a dozen times in succession with but \'ery little effort. The Japanese policeman, therefore, has but little trouble with a refractory prisoner. Now and then a drunken sailor attempts to use his fists on the jjoliceman who arrests him, but in an instant he is sprawling on tlie ground. If he still shows fight he is thrown again; and by the time his Mulnshito— Mikado of Japan 172 ALL AROUND ASLA arms are lied behind him he has become very tame and obedient. But whatever one may find in Tokyo either that dehghts or that disappoints, a visitor cannot help seeing that the best of Eastern and the best of Western civihzation are brought to- gether in this the most v/onderful city of Asia. CHAPTER XIV JAPAN— HOW THE PEOPLE LIVE The streets of the large cities in Japan may remind one of tiiose of Pelting, or of Shanghai, or of Canton; but they are noticeably different in many ways. They are broader; usually they are ]ja\'ed; and almost always they are clean — indeed, the habit of cleanliness in Jajian is so general that one finds little of which to complain. One may walk about the streets in comfort, and everywhere politeness is the rule. Years ago the sedan-chair and the kago, a most uncomfort- able cart, were the chief vehicles, but all these have given way to a Yankee in\'ention — the jinricksha, or "ricksha," as it is universally called. The ricksha is a little two-whcclcd cart with sjirings and a sun-shade. A rickslia of tlie better class is much like a \-ery large baby-carriage; and its moti\'e-power is a man. Some- where in the sixties there came to Jajmn a missionary, Jona- than Gobel, of Connecticut. The good dominie was pos- sessed of two disf_iualifications for walking about the streets of the Japanese city: In the first place he had a very rotund body that did not readily fit into a sedan-chair; he also had an exasperating rheumatism that forbade his riding in a kago. He therefore took a ])acking-case, fashioned it into a carriage body, and placed it on two wheels. That was the first ricksha. A useful in\'ention the rickslia certainly was, and in less than a score of years it was introduccfl into China, India, and Korea. The word jinricksha means "man-power car- 174 ALL AROUND ASL\ riage." The modern ricksha is a liandsome affair that is made and sold in Japan for twenty dollars and upward. In many instances the rickshas are owned by the coolies who draw them; in the main, however, they are operated by companies. In any case, the ricksha man is properly regis- tered and numbered, his number being displayed upon his hat and likewise on the lantern he carries at night. The ricksha man wears a loose tunic and a pah of short, tightly fitting trousers, in sha])C not unlike bathing-trunks. A paper or cloth cov- ered hat of bamboo frame and a pair of rice-straw sandals com])lete his cos- tume. A ]jair of san- dals will last perhaps a day, and he may have two or three pair fastened to his ricksha. A swift runner may discard all clothes except his trousers and sandals. The ricksha man is usually good- natured and anxious to please his fare. He trots along at a six-mile gait, taking one hour's rest in three or four. 0;i a good road he will carry his fare twenty miles in three hours. On muddy or \'ery hilly roads he requires a helper. For an or- dinary trip of a mile the ricksha man's fee is about five cents, but ricksha men have learned the fine points of labor-union organization and prices are advancing. The routes of many American railways follow old Indian trails. The railways of Japan follow the lines of former roads. These old highways are go\-ernment roads. The principal one extended from Kioto, the old capital, to Tokyo, Till' Ricksha Man JAPAN— HOW THE PEOPLE L^'E 175 and was called Tokaido, or Eastern Sea-road; another ex- tended from Kioto northward; a third connected the more remote pro^•inces with the capital. Of these the Tokaido was the most important. A better route could not be found to- day. The foundations were stone; its surface, co\-ered with A Village Street graded sizes of rock, was nicely rounded off like a modern macadami/X'd roarl of to-day. On both sifles it was flanked by runways that carry the storm waters into the various irrigating ditches. In Italy the railways were built upon the old roads; in Japan the iron roads were built alongside them. The old roads are still kept in excellent condition, and the railways do not seem to interfere with the great local traffic, for the 176 ALL AROUND ASL\ ricksha and the multitude of packmen arc yet competing with the train service on the iron road. About the first road to be built was the line from Yoko- hama to Tokyo. The distance is eighteen miles, and a better- built road-bed does not exist in the world. In building it A Bit of the Tokaido the English plan of road-bed-making was followed. At first English-built locomotives were used, but it was found very quickly that American locomoti\es were better adapted for the grades and curves. Now the Japanese are building their own locomotives and they are quite as good as those formerly purchased abroad. When the railways were first built, American and European engineers were employed, but the Japanese put bright young men in training for such JAPAN— HOW THE PEOPLE LIVE 177 work, and now practically all the engineers and trainmen are Japanese. A trip on a Japanese railway is not a very comfortable affair. The coaches arc much narrower than ours. There are first, second, and third class coaches to choose from. Most of the Japanese ride third class for which they pay about half a cent a mile. Foreign tra\x'llers usually travel first class. Most of the coaches are di\'ided into compart- ments like those of the English railways, but cars of the Ameri- can pattern are used on some of the roads. The seats are not comfortable, and there is no place where one can wash the hands or get a drink of water. There are neither parlor cars, dining cars, nor eating stations on most of the roads. At many stations, however, a little pot of tea and a box of cooked rice may be purchased. First-class fares are half as great as on most American railways, being about one and one-half cents per mile. Japanese farming is carried on in about the same manner as flower-gardening in America. A Japanese farmer plants wheat or rice in little bunches, and when the plants are three or four inches in height they are transplanted in rows. Each plant is cultivated, watered, and weeded as though it were a flower. When ripe, the stalks are cut close to the ground, tied in bunches, and hung upon bamboo poles to dry. Some- times the heads of grain are cut off and threshed; more often they are drawn through the teeth of an iron comb. In winnowing the grain, one woman pours it from a basket, while another fans vigorously to blow away the chaff. The straw is carefully saved for a great variety of uses; hats, matting, sandals, wall-partitions, baskets, and rope are some of the more common ones. With the butts fastened to a cloth cape, it becomes the water-proof coat of the Japanese farmer and ricksha man. All the softer parts are carefully saved for fodder, for the grass of Japan makes very poor hay. 178 ALL AROUND ASL\ There are \'ery few horses in Japan. The nati\'e horse is not larger than a small pony; it is ugly in disposition and cannot do hard work. (3xen are more common but they are used chiefly for drawing loads. Instead of the yoke, a padded collar is used; and rope instead of leather is used for tugs. The ox-cart is two-wheeled and is not more primiti\e A Japanese Farni-hmise than those in America. The plough is a small pointed blade fixed to a curved piece of wood; it has but one handle, and it is usually drawn by man-power. A Japanese farm is rarely more than two acres in extent. If the land can be ilooded, rice will be the chief crop. Japan- ese rice is very superior in equality and commands a high price. So the farmer commonly sells his entire crop, and buys Chinese rice for home use. An ordinary farm will have — besides wheat and barley — onions, lettuce, turnips, beets, sweet-potatoes, beans, and peas. Any part that cannot be made to grow fruit is planted with trees for timber. The farmers live in villages and a farmer may li\'e more JAPAN— HOW THE PEOPLE LI\'E 171) than a mile away from the land which lie cultivalcs. There are no fences or walls to separate the farms; usually the line between is an irrigating ditch. Women do a large part of the farm work, and there is no distinction between the kind of work done by women and by men. The puljlic schools in Japan are not unlike those of the A Japanese Schoul United States. All children between six and ten years of age are required to attend schools. There are high-schools for those who wish to attend the universities and trade- schools for those who wish to ht themselves for the various trades of skilled workmen. The Japanese write with a brush in the same manner as the Chinese. 'There are forty-seven letters in the Japanese alphabet, and nearly one hundred thousand characters are used. When a Japanese boy goes to school he lea\-es his shoes at the outer door. 180 ALL AROUND ASL\ At the approach of the teacher he Idows very low and draws his breath through his half-closed lips and teeth as a mark of respect. The beginning of a Japanese book is at what we would call the end. It reads up from the lower right-hand corner of the page. In figuring, the Japanese use the J.apanese Carpenters at Work "soroban," a frame with buttons which slide back and forth on wires. A partition extends along the bo.\; on one side of the partition five buttons are strung on each wire; on the other side, two buttons. The live buttons correspond to the fingers on each hand; the two buttons to the two hands. It is not difl'icult to perform most calculations in arithmetic by the use of the soroban. A Japanese carpenter pulls the saw toward him instead JAPAN— HOW THE PEOPLE LIVE 181 of pushing it from him. If he uses a hand plane he also draws it toward him. Sometimes the blade of the plane is set edge upward in the bench; then he pushes the board across it. In building a house the roof is made first and then raised to its place. In the place of studding, bamboo is woven or braided between the corner-posts. The skele- ton wall is plastered both inside and outside; it is then covered with clapboards, or perhaps with stucco, which is painted. Board surfaces are usually polished instead of be- ing painted. There is far more growing timber in Japan than in most parts of China; and whenever a tree is cut down several are planted in its place, for the supply of timber is less than the demand for it. Bamboo groves are everywhere cultivated, but the timber is used almost as rapidly as it grows. There are pine and fir in the northern islands, but lumber can be purchased more economically and shipped from Puget Sound. Building-timber is also brought from Korea. Most of the camphor now comes from Formosa. The camphor-tree is one of the largest trees of the tropics. It grows in the island of Kiushiu also, but camphor is no longer produced from it. The camphor-tree is a kind of laurel and somewhat resembles the common laurel of the United States. To prepare the camphor of commerce, the tree is hacked into chips, and the chips are boiled with water in tanks that are lined with straw. The camphor crystals gather on the straw. The lacc[uer-tree is also one of the valuable products of Japan. The tree is of the same kind as the poison oak. The laccjuer is obtained by cutting little gashes into the bark, and from these a thick sap flows. The sap is very poisonous and not many are willing to gather it. The varnish, called lacquer, made from it is the hardest known. If it is to be black 1S2 ALL AROUND ASL-^ it is treated with nut galls. A coating of this \-arnish is ap- plied to wood-work and rubbed down until it is fairly smooth. Se\'eral other coats are added until it has the required thick- ness. Then it is ground until the surface is smooth and regular. Japanese lacquered wares are sold in nearly e\'ery country. A moist climate does not alTect the lacquer. Japanese parents are held responsible for the conduct of their children. If a child is disobedient or becomes dis- Rajiid Trunsit sipated, the parents share the disgrace. A Japanese boy would not think of speaking to a stranger without bowing, and a stranger is always received with politeness. We are apt to think of the Japanese as inferior to ourselves. They cer- tainly are not so wealthy, and perhaps as a whole they are not so learned. Their houses are not so comfortable as ours. But there are some things which we may learn from them. The go\ernment of cities is much more economically and JAPAN— HOW THE PEOPLE LI\'E 183 honestly carried on in Japan than in the United States. As skilful farmers they arc not surpassed by any other people in the world. Their home life and their patriotism arc an example that other peoples may well copy. CHAPTER XV IN AND ABOUT INDO-CHINA At the steamship agency in Yokohama we find that in three weeks we can take a steamship for Saigon, by way of Hai Fong; but we are also told that by going first to Manila and taking there a steamship we may reach Saigon about two weeks sooner. The steamship for Manila leaves Yoko- hama in two days, and we find that many passengers are already booked, several of whom are Americans. Some are tourists, others are merchants, and we hear much about San Francisco in their conversation. There are several Japanese whom by their manners we suspect to be officers in the army. The steerage is filled with Japanese coolies on their way to Manila, who are noisy and quarrelling. During the passage we have a taste of the typhoon of the Chinese coast. It catches us as we are passing through the strait of Formosa. The ship rolls and pitches so that most of the cabin passengers are glad to stay in their berths. We almost cut a Chinese junk in two, but not one of her crew is in sight. Her sails have been torn in shreds and her mast is broken. An officer of the ship tells us that she may have been a pirate junk abandoned and turned loose on the high seas. Another steamship meets us and signals " High winds at Manila." But by the following day we have ridden through the cyclone; for the wind, still high, is in almost the opposite quarter. We are far within the tropics by the time we are opposite Manila Bay, and the weather is very warm. When we reach 184 IN AND ABOUT INDO-CHINA 185 the entrance to the bay, a signal gun from the ship announces our approach, and a flag is flown on the shore. It is e\'idently a signal, but the sailing-master tells us that the signal code for so important a place as Manila is very crude when compared with that of Japanese and Chinese ports. As we reach the head of the bay the great dome of the cathe- dral is in sight, but instead of going on to Manila we drop anchor off Cavite. Near by is a steamship with steam up, tak- ing on coal from a lighter; it is the ship on which we are to take passage to Saigon. She signals us that she starts at day- break the following day. A launch comes alongside and takes our passengers and baggage to the dock at Manila, about three miles away. It is a surprise to see an American cab, but there are a dozen or more at the dock, and we are carried to a very pleasant and comfortable hotel. We hasten to the steamship office to ar- range our passage, and find that only a few passengers are booked for the voyage. The next morning, half an hour before sunrise, the lighter is taking us out to the steamship. As we reach the ship, a stairway is let down from it to the deck of the lighter and we are soon aboard. Cook, stewards, and crew are Chinese. One of the passengers is a Chinese gentle- man, evidently of high rank. His blouse is of the finest silk and his face shows him to be a man of intelligence. He is attended by half a dozen servants. With him is a young man in American clothing who speaks English fluently and correctly. The young man, we learn, has just finished his studies at an American university; the Chinese gentleman is a commissioner who has been visiting the Philippine Islands and is going to Saigon, and thence to Hongkong. The ship is old, but comfortable and clean. At the table we find much of the food cooked in Chinese style. Chop suey is one of the meat courses, and it is a most relishable dish. It is a stew of chicken meat containing mushrooms, 186 ALL AROUND ASIA cliop])e(l pineapple, and rich gra\y. Rice is ser\ed in various forms, but our steward tells us that most foreigners hly the Burmese. The l<''-biG' palaces are within walls surrounded by walls. Once, the palaces formed a forbidden city like that of Peking, and any one who entered the king's presence must kowtow or approach on hands and knees, with his forehead touching the floor. But the present king, Chulalongkorn, is a \'ery bright and capable business man. He puts aside all such nonsense, and permits his people to approach him freely on matters of business. Any one may enter the palace grounds. The gate of the palace stands open, but it is guarded Ijy soldiers. The palace is not unlike a public building such as one might find in Europe or America, although it has the Oriental curved roof. On the line paved walk in front are great lamp-posts each with four globes of glass covering the gas-jets. Marble steps lead to the entrance from both the right and the left side, and these are flanked by gilded ele- phants each on a pedestal of marble. The walls of the great audience hall are covered with designs wrought in gold, and the ceiling is a mosaic of jewels cut from colored crystal and set in gold. Plants, . shrubs, and little trees are ranged against the walls so as to look like a garden, and these, too, are of gold and silver. A tree or shrub of gold is con- sidered the proper sort of present for the king, and most of those in the audience hall are gifts from his people. The throne is covered with designs wrought in gold. Near it are umbrellas also decorated in gold. In Siam the umbrella is one of the signs of royalty, and when the king is on the throne, receiving visitors or giving orders to his officers, one or another of the umbrellas is held over the throne by officers of high rank. In another part of the palace grounds arc the royal apart- ments of the king's wives. Most of the women of the house- 2U2 ALL AROUND ASL'\ hold are attendants or ladics-in-waitini^; others are servants. The queen is a half-sister of the king, and this relationship is required by law. is ca The great Wat Cheng is the most wonderful ^. ,;Jda in the world, and one of the largest. As we look at it in front, it is like a cone-shaped tower about two hun- dred and fifty feet high set astride a building with a high peaked roof. The top is a high, slender dome set in the middle of a cluster of four smaller domes, or spires. It is built chiefly of jjrick and stone, but the surface is covered with staff, or white plas- ter. The outside is or- namented with little turrets, spires, statues of Buddha, and figures of animals. Some are gilded; one is covered with gold plate; all are decorated in color. In one temple is a giant statue of Buddha sitting with legs cross- ing each other. The statue is about twenty-fi^■c feet high. In still another is the famous sleeping Buddha, a reclining image measuring not far from one hundred and fifty feet from foot to forehead. About five hundred years before the birth of Jesus Christ there arose a great teacher in India. He was a prince by birth, but when he began to teach the people he put on the Bangkok— The Wat Cheng Temple SIAM—THE LAND OF THE WHITE ELEPHANT 2o;5 garb of a beg,ij;ar. Like Confucius, he tauglit tliat people should be kind to one another, and that brotherly love should be the practice of our lives. He called himself the " Buddha," a name which means enlightened. Many Buddhists beliexc that when a human jjeing dies, his soul enters the body of a dumb animal, and for tliat reason a strict Buddhist will neither kill nor harm an animal. The Siamese Buddhist priests also teach that the soul of Buddha himself li\-es in the body of a white elephant, and for that reason white elephants are the most sacred objects in Siam. When one is captured it is kept in an apartment furnished by the king and has a special guard of honor. That is one reason why Siam is sometimes called the "Land of the White Elephant." CHAPTER XVII SIAM-HUNTING THE ELEPHANT The Siamese elephants are not so large as those of India, but, as few are permitted to be killed, they arc more numerous; moreover, in Siam all elephants are the property of the king, and the king's mahout, or chief driver, is an officer of high rank. In the interior of the country some of the natives carry on an illicit killing of tuskers, sending the ivory to China and Japan, but the business is very risky and the hunters, if caught, are put to death. In capturing an elephant the illicit hunters dig a pit about eight feet deep along the trail that leads to a watering-place. The pit is covered with brush, and dirt is spread upon it so that it looks to be a part of the trail. Once the animal steps upon it he falls into the pit. The region over which the royal herds of Siam roam is cjuite large, and one of the chief mahout's duties is to know where the herds are to be found. This is not difficult be- cause natives trained to the business are employed for that purpose. Once or twice each year one or another of the herds is rounded up. In some of the herds there are as many as two hundred animals. When a herd is to be rounded up and driven to the kraal, or great stockade, it requires perhaps four or live weeks in time and hundreds of men. The herd may be scattered so as to be six or eight miles from one side to the other. Under the direction of the chief mahout the line of men strings out back of the herd. But little noise is made, and each man tries to keep out of the sight and also beyond the scent of the animals. The power 204 SIAM— HUNTING THE ELEPHANT 205 of scent in the elephant is \'ery keen and the scent of a man alarms him. He thrusts his trunk high into the air and makes a loud, shrill sound somewhat like that of a trumpet. The drivers do not attempt to start the herd for two or three days or c\-en a week after it is found. They wait and watch, falling back to get behind stragglers as well as to avoid frightening the herd. The elephant is both nervous and timid, and will not fight unless angered by being wounded or irritated. All the time, however, the line of men little by little is gradually closing in. There is no sudden movement, and the greatest care is taken to avoid frightening the animals. The line is so managed by the chief mahout that the animals do not turn back; they are pointed in the direction of the nearest kraal, which may be thirty miles or more away. Night is the time of greatest danger, for elephants are noc- turnal in their habits; at this time they take most of their food and water and are most active. The drivers must have at least a little sleep each day, for their work may require two or three weeks, and the herd must not escape. In India, when a herd has been surrounded, the hunters beat gongs and shoot off fire-arms to frighten it. But the king's herders are better trained. There is neither shooting nor gong-beating. Instead, brush iires are some- times made a few yards apart. Even this is not always neces- sary, for to avoid frightening the animals is the secret of driv- ing them. Now and then an elephant attempts to break through the line, but he rarely succeeds; the drivers close around him and, setting fire to bits of dry bush, force him back with the rest of the herd. In the course of a few days the elephants lose much of their fear of the drivers. At first, they do not attempt to force the herd, which sometimes does not advance more than five or six miles in a day. I3ut as it ncars the kraal the advance is more rapid. The circle of drivers 206 ALL AROUND ASLA narrows, and the animals grow resti\'e and nervous. Within a few miles of the kraal a few tame elephants are turned in with the herd, and a number of mahouts, mounted on trained animals, join the drivers. Most likely the herd must be dri\-en across the ri\er. In this case the mounted mahouts t':iIiti\L' Elephants in lUv K.r:ui form two lines across tlie river and the herd is dri\'en between the lines. When the kraal is reached the circle of dri\'ers closes in around the V-shaped entrance. At this time begins the most dilTicult part of the dri\-e, for the animals, discovering that they are trapped, become very nervous. The chief mahout rides fearlessly among tlicm. He and his mounted assistants se])arate the tame animals and drive them to the front, so tliat they are the first to enter the kraal. This is done because it would be almost impossible to drive a wild ele- SIAM— HUNTING THE ELEPHANT 2()7 phant through the narrow j^assage if a tame animal had not preceded. When several of the tame elephants are within the kraal, the mounted mahouts surround one after another of the wild elephants. The frightened animal may mal MALAY TKNIXSULA-BURMA 219 ''bazars," and the Ijazars of Rangun are among tlie most interesting in Asia. The Shoay Dagon is probably the largest pagoda in the world. It stands on a terrace about one thousand feet square, built of earth and stone. The pagoda itself is Ijuilt of stone and mortar, which seems to have been sliapod in .le je. The is a large age of Bud- nd early in - -■^.^^V or thirty ' " 'M 1 teep bank 'e women ,bout two are great -Licinu lands kangun — I'he Shfjay Dagtjn ,.er. nurseries and Women do much the same way as are concrete build, g^^^j^^j-y jg (^g The outer surface is co\'ered with gold-leaf, a ^^ ^^ ^-^^^ ,^ that about two hundred pounds of gold wer^^ j^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ the iron lattice-work that forms the spire. J ^^^ coming and are various temples and shrines, and in eaci-^^j^.^^ ^^j^'^ ^^^ Buddha. Some of the images are more than ii most of them are hea\-ily plated with gold and ., p^^Q^j^g of and colored glass. The Shoay Dagon is about 220 ALL AROUND ASIA dred feet high. It is safe to say that the builders did not intend it to be a channel range for steamships plying the Irrawaddi, but that is its most important use to-day! Burma, of which Rangun is the commercial capital, is now a part of British India, but for several centuries it was an independent kingdom governed by a native king. It was the richest and most powerful country of Indo-China. The Burmese also have reached a higher ci\'ilization than any other people of Indo-China. In the native villages their houses in many ways are much like those of the Chinese in the south of China, and they are far better than the houses of the Siamese. In Rangun and Mandalay the well-to-do B^urmese live quite as weU and as comfortably as do the same of people in China or in Hindustan. There is so much ,t many of the houses are built of teakwood. The Bge has usually a single street, both sides of which 11 thickly with date, banana, and cocoanut palms. ' Jages the native costume of both men and women a long strip of cotton cloth wound around the hips, gji^.et reaching below the hips. The women frequently dais; the men go barefoot. Both men and women taken eitriti-^g^jj- Jong; the men gathering it in a knot at the top riotel are C.j. ^j-jg women fasten it at the back of the head, who came ti su^lly wear a colored piece of cloth about the size banks, and ^^sndkerchief folded into the form of a skull-cap. i he Chinese j.g ygj-y g^p^ ^q j^g tattooed from the hips to the Rangun as m the r^gg q£ children's ears are almost always \-isited. I hey hOg opening is stretched until it will hold an women, who man^^ across. WeU-to-do Burmese as a rule are city. The shops other East India^^ g^^^ fruits form the principal food, and a little^ stalls, Oy rubbing stale fish into a paste with spices is one Imds m thgg(j_ -pj-^g Burmese use the betel-nut quite as cities. I heSg, ^he Siamese, and they also smoke tobacco very SINGAPORE— MALAY PENINSULA— BURMA 221 freely; indeed, it is a common thing to see very young children puffing at big cigars. We talce a river steamer that goes up the river to Mandalay, but the water on the bar of Rangun River is so shallow that the steamer returns to the city. So we take a train for Prom'e, to remain there until the steamer goes around by the China Bakeer channel. The railway is well built and the carriages are divided into compartments in the same manner as are English railway carriages. Prome is in the flood plain of the Irrawaddi, where the river curves sharply. It is more attractive than most cities of Indo-China, and we walk about the city through clean streets. Custard apples, ba- nanas, and cocoanut palms grow profusely. We pass open cottages in which the women are weaving silk cloth. The looms are very simple but they are very cleverly made. The patterns are gay and brightly colored. There is a large pagoda, and in one of its temples is a bronze image of Bud- dha that is most wonderfully wrought. We pass the night at a very comfortable hotel, and early in the morning our steamer is at the dock. Twenty or thirty coolies are carrying big bundles of wood down the steep bank to throw them in the hold. Nearly half of them are women and the bundles they carry must weigh each about two hundred pounds. All along the river flood plain are great rice-flelds, and this is one of the chief rice-producing lands of the world. The plants are first started in nurseries and planted when the field is covered with water. Women do most of the work. Above Prome the river scenery is de- lightful. We pass many towns and villages on the way, and anchor in the river at night. In the daytime we are scarcely out of sight of pagodas. Passengers are coming and going at each stop, but most of them are natives who are crowded into the forward part of the lower deck. Then we come in sight of the temple spires and pagodas of '»-) ALL AROUND ASIA Mandalay. The landing-place is a sand-ljank and our hotel is three miles away. Rickshas take us thither. We cross the wide moat outside the city wall, and pass through the gate into the city. There are twelve gates — three on each side. The main streets extend across the city from gate to gate; the Prumu — The Temi other streets are irregular, and there arc canals along the sides of many of them. We meet a company of native troops wear- ing brass helmets and bright-red coats. The upper half of the company has certainly a military appearance, but the lower half consists of bare legs and very dirty feet. Many of the native people are wealthy, and one may find young men who have been educated in Europe. We meet people of the hill tribes decorated with brass jewelry, just as are the hill peoples SINGAPORE— MALAY PEXIXSULA— BURMA 223 of India. We also see a great many Shans, who prolml:)ly are the people from whom the Siamese descended. Manda- lay has one very important industry; some of the finest silk cloth of India is made there, and it commands a high price in Europe. On our way down the river, back to Rangun, we see great loads of teak logs. Teak is a wood that gro\\'s chiclly in Mandalay— The Mi.at : Indo-China. It is much the color of seasoned oak, somewhat harder than chestnut, and about as fine in grain. It is \cry strong and does not split easily; it is therefore a most ex- cellent timber for ship-building and for all sorts of frame- work. The most of it is cut in the forests of the interior and brought down the Irrawaddi to Rangun. Rangun is the great market for teak, and the lumber yards are among the largest in the world. A great deal of the work in handling the logs and the heavy timbers is done by trained SINGAPORK-MALAY PENINSULA- BURMA 225 elephants. The animal bends his fore knees, puts his tusks under the piece of timber, wraps his trunk over the top, and walks away with it. All the time the mahout perched on his neck is scolding, and perhaps prodding him with a sharp The Elephant as a "Travelling Crane," Piling Teak Logs metal point bent into a hook. The animal carries the log to a pile, and puts it carefully in place with the other timbers. In America we should have travelling cranes and steam "donkeys" to do this sort of work, but in Burma the elephant does it quite as well. All the hea\'y work about the lumber- yards is done by trained elephants — and they seem to be about as intelligent as their mahouts. When the time for 226 ALL AROUND ASIA quitting work is at hand, the animal drops his load in a hurry and shambles off to get his feed. In Upper Burma nearly all the ploughing and field work is done by trained elephants. When a piece of jungle is to be cleared, the top growth is first cut or burnt. Then an elephant is harnessed to a very heavy plough. Two or three stout men hold the handle of the plough in order to steer it, and the elephant walks away with it, cutting and pulling up the matted roots of the jungle growth, as easily as though they were weeds. The elephant is also the "post horse" of Upper Burma. He travels easily through dense jungle growths, and will swim a river as readily as a pack-mule wades a creek. Altogether the elephant is the most useful animal in Burma. Perhaps the elephant might get along very well without Burma, but certainly Burma could not get along without the elephant. CHAPTER XTX INDIA— THE HINDUS We leave Rangun on a steamship much too cro\Yded and not very clean. In the cabin are Euro])eans, se\'eral Oriental Jews, an Arab, and half a dozen rich looking Parsi merchants. There are also sexeral nuns with sweet faces, of whom we have an occasional glimpse. The steerage is crowded with Hindus and Chinese, but they are kc|jt apart in order to pre- vent the quarrels that are likely to occur between the two races. In two hours wc are out of the muddy delta of tlie Irra- waddi, past Elejjhant Point; in another hour we arc past China Bakeer light. A lookout is set for Krishna Shoals light; tlicn seven Jnmdrcd miles of the Bay of Ikngal must be spanned before we reach the mouth of Hugh River, one of the delta arms of the Ganges. The sailors are "laskars," which means that they are Indian sailors by caste, and a pretty bad lot on general principles. The captain is a bronze- faced Englishman, very strict and a bit jolly; the chief en- gineer is a Scotchman; and that is also true of most English vessels in the Indian Ocean. Our passage lasts four days, but long before we sight land the water of the sea begins to change in color from deep black to greenish tints, anrl then we see patches of muddydooking water. By and by a light-shi|j is in sight, and then another, but we pass them at a distance. Signals to denote "safe passage and no stormy weather" are hoisted on the steam- ship. Then a light-house is in sight. At hrst it seems to 228 ALL AROUND ASIA rise out of the sea, but very quickly we discover the low edge of green. It is Saugar Island, and as wc approach it we see a flag-staff, from the outrigging of which a cone with a ball underneath is swinging. The captain tells us that it Calcutta — A Panorama signals a storm. The pilot who is to take the vessel up the Hugh boards the vessel at Saugar Island. Before we enter the Hugh we hear much talk about the " James and Mary." This proves to be the name of a shoal, but we are told that the tide is still high and we shall be able to cross it safely. On every side of us are shoals and bars made by the waves and tides from the mud brought down by the Ganges and Brahmaputra. Some of these mud deposits are great islands nowhere more than a few feet above high tide. They are called the Sunderbunds, and because of their fertile soil many of them are peopled. Years ago a INDIA^THE HINDUS 229 heavy storm-wind from the south blew so fiercely that the waters of the Bay of Bengal rose higher and higher until the Sunderbunds were co\'ered. Then some of the islands seemed to melt away, and so quickly did they disappear that only a few of the thousands of people who lived on them escaped. When the storm was over, a large part of the Sun- derbunds had disappeared, but here and there were great mud flats — new islands made out of the material of the old. Now these are all covered with jungle, and some of them are inhabited. AVe anchor at Diamond harbor, where we stay until morn- ing, for the Hugh is full of shifting cjuicksands, and no pilot dares to attempt to cross them at night. The Hugli is the western arm of the Ganges delta. The delta itself is one of the largest in the world, and the Ganges and Brahmaputra pour their combined floods into it through many hundred channels. At daylight we are on our way. The river is wide, but the channel, marked with buoys, is very narrow and winding. We look along the banks for forests and jungles^ but instead we see cultivated farms with here and there groves of cocoa- nut palms. In a few hours the domes and spires of Calcutta are in sight, and soon we are steaming along the ten miles of its water-front. Calcutta is the capital of British India, and British India is one of the great empires of the world. It is surpassed by Russia and China in size; by China in pop- ulation; but by neither in wealth. India is ruled from Cal- cutta, and not from London. The country is kept in mag- nificent order, moreover, by not more than two hundred thousand Englishmen. They found it chaos; they have made it orderly, rich, and prosperous. A century or more ago the invention of the steam-engine made the English people the foremost manufacturers in the world. Now people who manufacture commodities of all 230 ALL AROUND ASIA sorts must also have markets in which to sell them; and India was one of the marlvets. At lirst the British possessions included only a small part of the peninsula of Hindustan; in time, one native state after another was acquired, until at Calcutta— Tlic Strand and Water Fnint present British India includes about all of Asia that faces the Indian Ocean, except Arabia and Persia. The name "India" means river, and one of the great rivers of the country, the Indus, has the same meaning. The name Hindu, applied to the people of the country, has the same meaning, too, and Hindustan means "country of the Hindus" — the country of great rivers. Four rivers, the Indus, Ganges, Brahmaputra, and Irra- waddi, drain the greater part of India. They are not \'ery long rivers, and aside from those named there are many streams not more than two or three hundred miles in length. INDIA— THE HINDUS 231 But all of (hem are large streams, a part of llie year at least, and all of them are born in the Indian Ocean; let us see how. The winds of India blow from the north half of the year, and from the Indian Ocean the other half. These winds are called monsoons. The northerly, or land, wind comes from the desert region north of the Himalaya Mountains; and while it blows, all India is dry and parched. But in Septem- ber, when the monsoon changes, the wind blows from the sea; the air is laden with vapor which, falling as rain, transforms the dry and dead land into one of the most fertile regions on the face of the earth. India is shut off from China by the Himalayas, the loftiest mountain wall in the world. Idieir crests are about three miles, and some of the highest ]:icaks are more than five miles high. Rarely do the rain-clouds rise higher than these sum- mits; almost all the rain is shed on the southern slopes, and it is this great rainfall that helps to grow the food-stuiTs of three hundred millions of people. It is this, too, that fills the ri\'er channels. Under the fierce, tropical sun and heavy rains there results, in many parts of India, an excessive thic]^ IP^ rr fir ;m^^-^v' ri'i nii'*'^, A Cashmere Shawl usually time to get a second shot, but if these fail to bring the animal down, all hands scatter as best they can, for if the elephant gets his wicked little eyes upon any of the would-be slayers there is not much chance for them. In much of the elephant-hunting the hunter takes only the tusks — sometimes, perhaps the skin. The tusks of the Indian elephant are usually between four and hve feet in length. From the largest tusk not more than live or six billiard balls 24li ALL AROUND ASIA can be made; the rest of the tusk is made into fan blades and other ornaments. Cashmere shawls and brocaded silks of India are famous the world over. The shawls, now made in various parts of India, rccei\'ed their name from the fact that they were once marketed in the pro\'ince of Kashmir. They are made of the finest floss combed from the Cashmere goat; and only a \'ery small quantity is obtained from an animal. In wea\ing these shawls, the loose ends of the yarn are left hanging from its "wrong," or reverse side, giving it a rough, shaggy appear- ance. Cashmere shawls are the finest and most beautiful woollen fabrics made. A weaver may require several years to make one; and the finished shawl for which he recei\'es perhaps not more than two hundred dollars will sell for three or four thousand dollars in the American department store. In the dull season, Kashmir wea\'crs often go to Am- ritsar to work at carpet-making. One result has been the making of Amritsar a great centre of that industry. Silk-weaving is an art of India, and although the silk fabrics of Persia may be equally as good and artistic, they are certainly no better than those of India. Some of the shawls are so fine and gauzy in texture that one may be drawn through a finger-ring. Silk lace so fine that one must use a magnifying-glass to see the design clearly is also made by Indian weavers. Most of the silk-weavers are Muhamma- dans, and silk-weaving is the occupation of families for generation after generation. If a man follows this trade, it is safe to say that his great-grandfathers were and that his grandchildren also will be weavers of silk fabrics. In one kind of brocade, wire of gold or of silver is used to make the patterns. Hindu silversmiths are very clever in drawing wire, and from a silver rupee, a coin about the size of a half-dollar, an expert workman will draw a wire nearly a mile long. The coin is heated to soften it and beaten into a WHAT INDIA HAS GI\'EN TO THE ^\■ORIT) 247 rod. The silversmith tlien forces the slender rod through a hole in a steel plate that is a little too small for it; the rod therefore comes out smaller in size, but longer. It is tlien drawn through another hole just a little smaller than the first, and so on. The hnest holes are drilled in crystal, and when the wire is drawn through the smallest of these it is liner than a hair. CHAPTER XXI AROUND AND ACROSS INDIA One does not learn much about India by staying in Cal- cutta, for it is more European than Indian. The broad, well-paved streets are as clean and attracti\'e as those of Paris, or Berlin, or London. The buildings are like those of an American or a European city, but are much cleaner, for coal smoke is unknown except near some of the great factories. The residences are roomy, and are built for comfort in a very hot climate. The porches and balconies are shut in by grass-cloth screens, called "tatties." In very hot days water is thrown on the screens and a huge punkah, or fan, is kept swinging by coolies in order to temper the fierce heat. Every hotel table and every private dining-room has its pun- kah and coolies. During the hot season in Calcutta not much business is done after ten or eleven o'clock in the morning. In some of the colleges the working part of the day begins at four in the morning and ends at nine. Excepting the few natives one may see about the streets, the city seems almost deserted in mid-day. We learn to distinguish the Brahmans by their robes. The priest looks fat and sleek as he struts leisurely along the street in white robe and turban. He appears to own about everything in sight, and low-caste Hindus bow with humility, or perhaps avoid meeting him face to face. Servants in gayly colored costumes are going to and from the market. Here and there are ghurries, or cabs, drawn by horses so poor and rickety one might expect them to drop in the street if AROUND y\ND ACROSS INDIA 249 they were not held up Ijy the shafts of the carriage. The dri\-ers wear white cotton robes and brightly colored turljans. By five o'clock the shops are open again and the city shows signs of stirring. A handsome carriage drawn by fine horses speeds along the street; a coachman and a footman are on the box of each, and two servants are on the scat behind. In the carriage is an English officer. In order to be respected in India one must make a great show of wealth and power. The British officers in India have learned this, and that is one reason why a great army is kept there. An officer in the civil ser\'icc must have half a dozen or more servants in India, though in London he would get along with one — and the latter would do about as much as the six in India. We lea\e Calcutta for Madras on a small steamship. In spite of rough weather the trip of four days is pleasant. There 250 ALL AROUND ASL\ is no river estuary or protecting bay for vessels calling at Madras. Both steamships and sailing vessels formerly anchored off a shore exposed to storms and high winds. Not infrequently sailing vessels were blown ashore and dashed in pieces. During heavy cyclones, the masters of sailing vessels used to slip their anchor cables and put out to sea, in order to avoid the almost certain wrecking should the ship be blown aground. A steel pier and sea-wall were recently biult so as to make an artificial harbor, but Madras is still regarded as a dangerous port. The Coromandel coast, as the south-east coast of India is called, has a very bad reputa- tion — and it is fully deserved. Years ago a French fleet was destroyed by a hurricane and more than twelve hundred were drowned. Passengers and freight are usually put ashore by broad lighters called "massula boats," though small steamships may go alongside the new steel pier. The massula boats are made of a light but tough wood that is ideal for building wooden craft. The planks, rather strangely, are not bolted to the ribs but are fastened by thongs. As we approach the shore we see a long line of massula boats, and great stacks of rice sacks which the stevedores are carrying to the flat-roofed warehouses just back of the shore. Once we have reached Beach Street, as the bund is named, we are beset by swarms of beggars. They are half nude, wearing only pieces of cotton cloth wrapped around the waist and reaching to the knees. Their bodies are thin and bony and their faces are haggard. It is a case of hunger, pure and simple — hunger that is hardly a step from starvation. We scatter among them all the small coins in our possession — annas and small silver coins amounting to three or four rupees. The fierce scramble for possession of them is almost a riot; then we take refuge in a ghurry and are driven to the hotel. This is kept by a Parsi, who comes outside AROUND AND ACROSS INDIA 251 after our reciuest for food and lodging has been made. He wears white trousers, a black frock coat buttoned to the chin, and a high hat without brim or \ isor. He bows low and in a very dignified manner invites us to enter. The floors and walls of the hotel are of stone and there is a broad latticed bal cony surrounding it. A natixe servant conducts us to our apart- ments. He brings us our meals, cares for our apartments, looks after our laundry work, and guides us about the city. This arrangement is common in the hotels of India and is a very con- \enient one. Madras is an important mili- tary station and Fort St. George, about the earliest British posses- sion in India, is the centre about which the city is built. The city itself was originally a cluster of native villages, but within recent years the streets hax'e been straightened and pa\'ed. Years ago Madras was called the "Ijenighted" city, but it is now one of the prosperous ports of Asia. There are cotton-mills, cotton-presses, coffee-cleaning mills, and tanneries. A finely woven cloth of silk and cotton receives its name from the city m which it originated, but an imitation Madras cloth is now made in a dozen cities of the United States. The modern cloth contains no silk and is not made of the best cotton. We take passage for Colombo, the chief city and port of Ceylon. At Colombo we find a goodly number of tourists, or "globe trotters." Eastbound trax'ellers from New York, Madras — A Parsi Fire- Worshipper 252 ALL AROUND ASL\ or from London, may there shake hands with their country- men who arc wcstlaound; for Colomljo, next to Singapore, is the traveller's most important half-way house in the East, just as Honolulu is in the West. Many travellers think that Colombo is the most beautiful city in the tropics. The Dutch founders of the modern city were very generous with shade trees and well-paved streets, and so were the English Colombo — The Harbor engineers who built the magnificent road named the Galle Face. The Prince of Wales, now King Edward VH, saw the value of Colombo as a port when he laid the corner-stone of the magnii^icent sea-wall. The European cjuarter has low houses with broad balconies. They look much like Dutch buildings, and, indeed, the plans of the Dutch founders of Colombo have been followed, be- cause they make the most comfortable houses that can be built in the tropics. In the native quarter we find a babel of tongues and most picturesque costumes. The "natives" include a population of Hindus, Burmese, Alalays, Chinese, AROUND AND ACROSS INDIA 2,33 Arabs, along wilh the Singhalese, as the nati\es of Ceylon are called. Strange to say, they live together with compar- atively little quarrelling. The name Colombo has nothing A Buddhist Temple in common with Columbus. Arab merchants named the place Kalambre, and European sailors did the rest. Kandy, the capital of Ceylon when that was a native kingdom, is about seventy-five miles from Colombo. A comfortable train with an odd-looking locomoti^'e takes us thither with a ride of about four hours. Kandy surrounds 254 ALL AROUND ASL\ a beautiful artificial lake; it is the holy city of the Buddhists in Ceylon. There are about a dozen Buddhist temples, and several Brahman shrines and temples. The kings of Ceylon are buried in Kandy, and there are many tombs and mauso- leums. Opposite the hotel at which we stay is the Temple of the Sacred Tooth. We are told that the Princess Kalinga man- aged to obtain a tooth from the skull of Buddha and, conceal- ing it in her hair, carried it from India to Ceylon. A thousand years afterward, some Malabar soldiers, learning about it, seized it and carried it back to India. The King of Ceylon then sent some of his shrewdest officers in disguise to India in search of the sacred relic. After following it for years, they found it, killed the guards who kept it, and started back to Ceylon. Unfortunately for them, they were captured by Portuguese and taken to Goa. The possessors of the tooth were put to death and the tooth was burned. But a little trifle of that sort did not disturb the King of Ceylon. He ordered a tooth to be made of ivory. The new tooth was duly finished and was acceptable. The fact that it is big enough for a man about one hundred feet tall does not disturb the pious Buddhists who place their gifts before it. One of the products that connects Ceylon with the rest of the world is the spice we know as cinnamon. Centuries ago, it was regarded as too precious for ordinary people, and none but royal persons could use it. But commerce and ships have broken down ancient custom, and the spice tliat once commanded several hundred dollars per pound may now be bought for a few cents. The cinnamon of commerce is the inner bark of a kind of laurel, and most of the world's supply is shipped from Colombo. We now return to Calcutta and prepare to cross the penin- sula of Hindustan to Bombay; but our plan is to make the trip by going first to Darjiling, a \'illage or "hill station" far up AROUND AND ACROSS INDIA in the foot-hills of the Himalayas, nearly seven thousand feet above the le\'el of Calcutta. Darjiling is scarcely four hundred miles from Calcutta, but the journey requires nearly twenty- four hours. We lea\-c Calcutta in the afternoon. The scats of the railway coaches arc arranged so as to make very comfort- able couches at night. Next morning we are in the midst of a jungle so dense that it is a wonder how enough of it was cut away for the railroad to be built; and it is equally a wonder that, e\en after the thicl 'I'l 25G ALL AROUND ASIA and dry. The village is in the midst of a famous tea-growing district, and the crop from this part of India brings a high price. As a matter of fact, the tea-tree is native to the south slope of the Himalaya Mountains, and was thence taken to China. In' Darjiling we see a number of people from the native state of Nepal. They are Ghurkas, and belong to the war- rior caste. They look much like American Indians in feat- ures, and have a brownish colored skin. The states of Nepal and Bhotan are not a part of British India. The Ghurkas are thought to be of the same race as the Hindus, but many of the people living in these states are Tibetans. They are the laborers and artisans, although many of them live wandering lives. The Ghurkas are far superior to the other peoples of these states. At Darjiling the Himalayas, the great mountain wall between India and China, are in sight. Long after sunset we can see the golden light on their white crests; then they become gray and purple and stand like giant spectres in the sky. Early next morning we ride to the Tigers Hill to see the sun rise. From this place Everest and Kinchinjunga, the two highest peaks in the world, are in sight. We leave Darjiling and return to the main railway line in the Ganges plain for Benares, the holy city of India. Among Hindus there is a belief that whoever bathes in the Ganges at Benares is blessed and recei^'es forgiveness of sins. So every pious Hindu is as anxious to make a pilgrimage to Benares, as is the disciple of Muhammad to go to Mecca. It is no uncommon thing for a pilgrim to go five hundred miles afoot in order to pray in the temples and bathe in the Ganges. Sometimes there are as many as one hundred thousand pilgrims in the city. Most of them are poor, and some are beggars. They sleep in the streets or on the steps that go down to the river. With the few AROUXD AND ACROSS INLIA 2.37 coins \yhich they beg they buy enough rice to keep body and soul together. Many of the pilgrims are rich, however; they travel with dozens of ser\'ants and spend their money laMslily. Some of it is thrown by ser\'ants to the crowds M.junt E\cRSl— Tlie Top .if Ihe W.irld of beggars, but thousands of rupees are given to the sleek- looking priests in the temples. There are several hundred temples in Benares; most of them are near the bank of the river, and the steps or stairs of stone leading from them to the water form a water-front about three miles long. One temple is sacred to monkeys, another to cows, others to whatever objects may be consid- ered sacred. The Golden Temple is on the hill in the highest part of the city. Pilgrims, many of whom are women, enter AROUNi:) AND ACROSS IXDIA 2."/! it at dawn to scatter yellow flowers and sprinkle Gan.L^es water in front of the shrines of the gods— Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva. The river front is called the Bathing Ghats, and early in the morning there may be more than twenty thousand bathers — men, women, and children — for no pious Hindu will eat before he bathes and offers prayers. There are hundreds of priests, each sitting under an umbrella, who i)rcach to their disciples, or teach them, incidentally collecting har- vests of rupees. It is only about fifty miles distant to Cawnpur and about the same to Lucknow. These cities arc in the most thickly peo]iled part of India. Years ago, in 1857, when the Eng- lish had not long occupied this part of India, the nati\e Indian troops mutinied and most of the English residents were killed. At Cawnpur we visit the place where a small body of English surrendered to the rebel leader. Nana Sahib, and were then massacred, their bodies being thro«'n into a well — now the "Memorial Well." At Lucknow we visit the shops famous for Indian muslins and gold brocade. Lucknow has fine colleges, schools, and hospitals. On the banks of the Gumti, a branch of the Ganges, is the Chattar Manzil palace, with ils gilded umbrella domes. About two thousand English \ictims of the mutiny are buried in the old cemetery of Lucknow. We go on to Agra, a former ca])ital of the district in which it is the chief city. Agra was once a native state, and one of its rulers, Jehan Shah, was a man of great ability. The city is famous for the Pearl Mosque and the Taj Mahal, both of which were built by Jehan Shah. The Taj Mahal, one of the "Seven Wonders of the World," is the tomb, or mausoleum, of his favorite wife, and it is also his own buriabplace. The building is in the midst of a beautiful garden and surmounts a great marble ])latform on the summit of a hill. The mausoleum is built of while marble and decorated with 2G0 ALL AROUND ASL\ most wonderful carved work. Within is the vault in which the shah and his favorite wife now rest. Delhi, on the Jumna, also a branch of the Ganges, is our next stopping-place. In this part of India the cities and towns are \'ery near to one another, and the railway ser\-ice is good. crarcs— The Halliing dials After resting at an excellent hotel, we take a carriage at day- break to visit the ruins of the ancient city. A high wall built by Jehan Shah partly surrounds the modern city. Delhi was also a scene of an Indian mutiny, and just outside the Kashmir Gate a memorial column commemorates the event. It was in Delhi that the late Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India on New-Year's-Day, T877. We go on to Jaipur, the chief city of Rajputna. Rajputna AROUND AND ACROSS INDIA 2(il is a native province governed by a "maharajali," or native prince. A British "resident" is the real power, but the government of the various states is carried on by native officers, and the British Government does not interfere. The main business streets are very wide and are kept clean. The bazars, or shops, are among the linest in India, and the mar- Agra— The Taj Mahal kets at the intersection of the wide streets are interesting. The old capital, Ambir, is a few miles distant, and wc ride thither — not in rickshas, nor on ponies, but on an ele]jhant! The elephant is pretty old; his tusks ha\-e been sawm off and metal bands are fastened around the ends. The animal is very docile; on his back is a tiny house, called a "howdah," and the trappings are \'ery fine rugs woven for the purpose. The animal has been trained to kneel on all-fours, and we mount to the howdah by means of a short ladder. He then 2(;2 ALL AROUND ASL\ rises and puts out a fore leg, by means of which the mahout quickly swings to his place, striding the elephant's neck. The sights in and about Ambir do not interest us much, but the trip does. We meet a dri\'er with two camels, one of which has lain down with his load of grain. The dri\-er is shrieking and cursing the camel, and the latter cries and howls in a most doleful way. The driver yells louder and shriller until he seems about ready to fall in a fit, at the same time laying a bamboo pole on the poor beast with all his might and main. Finally, the camel quits his blubbering, gets up, and shambles off as if nothing had happened. From Jaipur to Bombay, across the western Ghats, is the pleasantest part of our trip across India. Bombay is on an island. The harbor lies between the island and the main- AROUND AND ACROSS INDIA 2(i3 land, but the city faces Back Bay on the south side of the island. The raihvays cross the shahow lagoon on the sea- wall built from the mainland to the north side of the island, and the sea-wall, or filling with mud at the sides, has made the island a peninsula. Bombay began to be a great city and Bombay port during the time of the civil war in America. While this war was in progress the English cloth-makers could not get cotton from the United States, so they turned to India, which, a century before, had furnished England with cotton for their supplies. The India cotton all went to Bombay to be shipped to England, and Bombay became the second city of India. In the bazar section, or business part, the buildings are much like those of a European city. The residences of the well-to-do Europeans are in a part of the city by themselves. 264 ALL AROUND ASIA The houses are not quite so imposing as those of Calcutta, but are quite as comfortable. As a rule, each house is in a large garden or "compound." Many of them are buiU on Malabar Hill, a ridge on the west side of the island that over- looks the sea. There is a large population of Hin- dus. They are the skilled workmen and day laborers. The Parsis are shrewd business men. They are largely engaged in banking, and con- trol much of the business of the city through their banks. A great deal of the ;:.• ■ KhaibarPass-Thc Gateway. to India COtton grOWn in In- dia is now made into cloth in the mills of Bombay, where labor is much cheaper than in England. In Bombay, as in other large cities of India, we find telephone exchanges, electric car lines, a good sewer system, wholesome drinking water, and fine swimming baths; indeed, the cities of India surpass some of the large cities of Europe and America in such matters. One of the grewsome sights of Bombay is the Towers of Silence. As a rule, the bodies of the dead in India are cre- mated, but among the Parsis the dead are carried to the Towers of Silence and there quickly consumed by vultures. Formerly in some parts of India, whenever a Hindu of high rank died, it was the custom to burn his widow in the fire that AROUND AND ACROSS INDIA 2(35 consumed the body of her husband, but the British long since put an end to this practice. From Bombay we take a steamship to Karachi, the great port at the mouth of the Indus. As age is reclioned in India, Karachi is young. A hundred years ago a native village was there because the harbor of Shah Bander, the ancient port of the Indus, had filled up with storm-swept sands. But when the English had mastered India, they saw that the mouth of the Indus was an open door that could be easily entered by the Russians, so they built Karachi to guard this doorway. There is also an open door at the north end of the Indus ■ valley through which the Russians might enter India were they to have an opportunity. This doorway is Khaibar Pass, a narrow canyon across the high summit of the Hindu Kush Mountains. There is an old saying that "whoso would be master of India must first make himself lord of Kabul." The British Go\'ernment knew full well that Kabul guarded Khaibar Pass Just as Karachi guarded the entrance to the mouth of the Indus; so various treaties were made with the Amir of Afghanistan, whose capital is at Kabul. At the present time, although Afghanistan is not a British pos- session, the British Government will support the Afghans if the Russians attempt to take away any of their territory; and the Afghans, in turn, agree to make Khaibar Pass an open higiiway to the British. A railway, the "Sind-Pishin" it is called, has been built along the Indus valley, from Karachi to Peshawar, by the British, and a branch extends to Kandahar. Peshawar, a city of nearly one hundred thousand people, is in India and is near the eastern end of Khaibar Pass and also at the head of the Indus valley; it is therefore an important military position and likewise a collecting place for the commerce of the Indus valley. Most of the people of Peshawar are Muhammadans, and they have surrounded their city with 266 ALL AROUND ASLA a wall of sun-baked brick. Camel caravans are always coming and going. Arab and Jewish merchants control a large part of the traffic which is gathered at Peshawar to be sent to Bombay. CHAPTER XXII THE IRAN PLATEAU— AFGHANISTAN AND BALUKISTAN The Iran plateau really includes most of the rugged high- land west of India and north of Arabia, but usually it means the three countries, Persia, Afghanistan, and Balukistan. It is one of the most difficult countries of the world to tra\el through; for although the three countries are about as large as that part of the United States east of the Mississippi River, there are scarcely one hundred miles of railway, and none at all in the interior. Moreover, the only navigable ri\'ers near by are the Tigris-Euphrates, the Amu Darya, and the Indus. The first-named stream touches the border of Persia but does not enter it; a tributary of the Indus enters Afghanistan, but it is not navigable in that part of its course. Straw boats ply the Amu Darya, but the navigable part is in a desert. Almost the whole plateau is mountainous, and on its bor- ders the mountains are high and very rugged. Here and there are tracts of level plain, but most of them are deserts. Because of the sparse rainfall, the ri\'ers in the interior are short mountain streams not one of which reaches the sea. E\en many of those on the coast slopes do not flow into the near-by seas; these waters are lost by evaporation in the hot sands. Not a single lake has an outlet. The climate is one of extremes — the fiercest summer heat and intense winter cold. Along the coast regions only is the temperature mild, and even in these regions the climate is harsh to Europeans. 267 268 ALL AROUND ASIA In spite of all these drawbacks, about fifteen millions of people live in the Iran plateau. Persia and Afghanistan are about as thickly peopled as Texas; Balukistan is very sparsely peopled. Lands which have no drainage to the sea are usually very fertile, because the nutrition of the soil is not washed out and lost. An acre of land having water near enough to produce crops will yield far more than an acre in the most fertile part of the Mississippi valley or the Danube flood plain. So this great plateau, in spite of its deserts, easily produces enough food-stuffs for its fifteen millions of people; and of all this land, three-fourths yields nothing except a little grass. Almost all the crop lands must be irrigated. The farms are along the short streams and the water is measured out almost as carefully as though it were gold. The fruit grown in the Iran plateau is marvellous for its fine quality, and some of the fruits of Europe and America most likely came originally from Persia. Apples, pears, peaches, grapes, plums, apricots, and melons of all kinds are so profuse that even the poorest may have them in plenty; and the same is true of filberts and walnuts. There is little if any pine, fir, and cedar, but the beach, oak, and ekn are abundant*' in the moist lands. As for flowers, there is scarcely a species known in the temperate zone of Europe and America that is not abundant in the cultivated lands of this plateau. There are many kinds of wild animals. Tigers are plenti- ful about the Caspian Sea, but they are cowardly whelps that slink away at the sight of man and attack chiefly sheep and helpless calves. Lions are occasionally seen in the des- ert regions of the southern part. Wolves, hyenas, and jackals live wherever there may be herds of cattle and sheep. The Persian cat is one of the few animals of Asia which is sought in about every part of Europe and America. These animals are sometimes called "angora" cats, but they come. AFGHANISTAN AND BALUKISTAN 269 not from Angora, but from Ispahan. Throughout this re- gion the camel is the real "ship of the desert," and about all the goods that are carried to the railway are brought to it by camel caravans. One product of the Iran plateau is world-wide in use — namely, (3riental rugs. These are made in the entire |iJ''iEiiiiiiil A Persian Tree of Life Rug plateau region and even in that part of Russia south of the Caucasus Mountains. The looms on which they are made consist of two long, upright pieces of wood joined by cross- bars five or six feet in length. The crossbars may be eight or ten feet apart. Threads of wool or of cotton are stretched 270 ALL AROUND ASIA Rug Weavers from one crossbar to the other, so closely together that from twelve to twenty or more lie side by side within the space of an inch. These form the "warp" of the rug. When the warp strings are laid, the weaver takes a thread of fine woollen yarn, ties a knot around two warp threads, and brings the ends on the side toward him. Having tied a row of knots, he runs a thread across the top of the row, back of one warp thread and in front of the next. With an instrument something like a great comb, he then pushes the knots and thread down as firm as they can be made. Then another row of knots is tied and another thread is woven through the warp. When he has made several rows he shears the loose ends of the knots pretty close to the warp. The shorn ends form the face of the rug, and the figured pattern is made by using wool of different colors. All this seems very simple, but it is not. In the first place, wool and goat's hair fit for good rugs can be produced in arid regions only. The soil must be right; the grass on which the herds feed must be right; and the climate must be right. As a matter of fact, no other part of the world pro- duces wool for rug-making so good as that grown in the Iran plateau. In the second place, no other part of the world produces dye-stuffs having the same quality as those growing in this region. Moreover, rug-making has been an industry in the Iran plateau for several thousand years, and the art has been handed down from family to family for many gen- erations. AFGHANISTAN AND BALUKISTAN 271 Rugs made in the same part of the plateau arc apt to be much alike in both pattern and color, and one may easily learn to distinguish the rugs of one part of the plateau from those of another. Strong sunlight may soften the colors of these rugs, but it will not fade them. They are also far more durable than the rugs made in Europe and America. It is not uncommon to find an Oriental rug more than one hundred years old as beautiful as the day that it came from the loom. Of the three states named, Afghanistan is the most im- portant because it is a "buffer'' state; that is, it is situated between Russia and India; and both nations regard it better to have Afghanistan an independent state than to go to war over dividing it between them. The Russians would like to possess the country because it would bring them much nearer to the Indian Ocean where for more than one hundred years they have wanted a seaport. The British want it be- cause the only overland routes to India pass through the country. Afghanistan is about the size of Texas. The northern part of Afghanistan is more fertile than Persia, but it is also very rugged. Many centuries ago, when trade was first opened between Europe and China, the trade route lay across this part of Afghanistan. The great highway was almost a continuous town or village, and there were several large cities along the route. Several of these, such as Herat, Balkh, and Kiva, are places of considerable trade e\en at the present day. The Afghans proper are dark-skinned people who differ from the Hindus. They are much like the Arabs in character, and like the Hebrews in feature. They claim to have de- scended from King Saul and call themselves " Banai Israel," or children of Israel; but they are Muhammadans in re- ligious belief. Some of the Afghan peoples ha\'e reached a low state of civilization, but many ha\e tribal forms of go\-ern- 272 ALL AROUND ASIA ment and are barbarous. The better class arc frank and hospitable, but they are apt to be treacherous to foreigners. They are somewhat boastful, and resent any attempt at enforcing laws to punish crimes. An old Afghan chief once said to a British officer: "We are content with war against our enemies; we are content with bloodshed and fighting among ourselves; but we will never be content with a master." Most of the people live in tribes, and the tribes are parts of clans. The tribes and clans have chiefs; the head chief of a number of clans is called a "sirdar" ; and the ruler of all Afghanistan is the Amir. The government is of a mili- tary kind and is not much unlike that practised by the Six Nations of Iroquois Indians during American colonial times. There are also many Persians and Hindus among the Afghans. The Persians usually live in the cities and towns. Most of the lousiness is carried on by them, for no Afghan will become a skilled workman nor carry on commercial business. The Afghans are soldiers whenever they can be, and herdsmen if they cannot be soldiers. They grow only enough food-stuffs for their own use, but sell their cattle and sheep pelts. The finer wool is used in making rugs and carpets. A kind of sheep known as the Persian sheep is greatly esteemed as food. This animal has a large, heavy tail that weighs ten or twelve pounds. The pelts of the sheep have very fine curly wool. The best are exported and are used in making overcoats and jackets. Out-of-door life with their herds makes the Afghans fine horsemen and the best kind of material for rough riders. Many Afghans live in tribes and wander from place to place with their herds. Some of these are but little better than robbers and bandits; they keep their herds as best they can, but murder and rob caravans whenever there may be an opportunity. AFGHANISTAN AND BALUKISTAN 273 Herat is one of the most interesting cities in the Iran plateau. Much of the water of the Heri River, which flows past the city, is drawn off into irrigating canals, and the region above its plain is very fertile; it is the most thickly settled part of Afghanistan. The city is surrounded by a wall twenty-five feet high and more than twelve feet thick. This wall is built on a wide earthwork or bank about fifty feet high, in front of which is a deep ditch or moat nearly fifty feet wide. There are five gates in the walls. Within the city there is a great reservoir holding water enough to last the city a year. The principal street is covered for most of its extent and is an almost continuous line of bazars. The houses are built mainly of sun-dried brick, and are almost like pens. Most of the streets are very narrow and very filthy. The trade consists mainly of fine rugs, carpets, silk goods, and leather. Many of the Herat rugs are finally marketed in New York. Kabul, the capital, rather singularly, has no walls. High walls formerly surrounded the city, but they were le\elled; and both the British and the Russians have taken care that they were not rebuilt. There is a strong citadel in the city, however, and this is preser\'ed. The houses are flat-topped and most of them only one story high. The streets are so narrow and crooked that to drive a horse and wagon any distance would be impossible. But Kabul is very important to the British because it lies along the only approach to Khaibar Pass. It is quite as much a great military camp as a business centre. Balukistan is an arid country inhabited by tribes of herd- ers. The Balukis belong to the same race as the Afghans and are like them in character — perhaps rather more treach- erous. They will entertain a stranger, treating him with politeness and kindness, and then murder and rob him after he leaves their village. Almost all of them are herders. 274 ALL AROUND ASIA Unlike the Afghans, who use horses, the camel is the beast of burden in Balukistan. The only products of the country sold in Europe and America are the beautiful Balukistan rugs. The tribes elect their own chiefs and sirdars, and these are responsible to the chief ruler, or khan. Kelat, the capital, is the only place of importance. There are several thousand people within its walls and about as many living without the inclosure. Kelat is cleaner and more pleasant than either Herat or Kabul. The streets are wider, and in some parts of the city the roofs of the houses project so as to cover the streets. The water that supplies the city is drawn from a great spring near by. Very curi- ously the water issuing from the spring at night is much warmer than that which flows from it in the daytime. Gwador is a port where occasionally a steamship lands sup- plies for the village. It is not British territory, but belongs to Oman, and is in the domain of the Sultan of Maskat. CHAPTER XXIII THE IRAN PLATEAU— PERSIA AND THE PERSIANS Persia is larger than all the stales of the Atlantic coast together — more than six hundred thousand sfjuare miles in all. But in this great country there are only a few more ]jeo],'lc than in New York and lY'nnsyhania together. One reason Mcip of Iran Plateau for the sparse population is the light rainfall. The rainfall is not sufficient to produce any great amount of food-stuffs. Almost all the food-stuffs are grown on irrigated lands, and the water of e\'ery available stream is drawn off into ditches that convey it to fields and gardens. But the lands thus 276 ALL AROUND ASL\ irrigated are so rich and fertile that an acre will yield three or four times as much as the best lands elsewhere. Many of the irrigating canals are fine examples of the engineer's skill. The rivers themselves are short mountain streams. When they reach the plains, if the water is not drawn oft" into covered canals it evaporates so quickly that the stream bed is a dry • - '-X^. - j»«^4f**';- "^■l ^^^^^1:. , ^"^^^3 t«»%j(|PB!S^^^^ X '-4 J^m i "^^ss^ -i^^^ ^^^ ^B Hh^HH^'^^ ^%^''^^m^ I 'I'liL' Persian Fixjntier — Tiic- Near Side is Russian, llie Opposite Side, Persian wash most of the year. In many places, during part of the year, one may find stream-beds that are dry in the daytime and full of water at night. From May until November but little rain falls. Rather singularly, from December to March, the northern half of the country is covered with deep snow. But even in midwinter, when snow covers the Caspian Sea slope, the Persian Gulf slope is very hot. These two parts of Persia are much like California in this respect; for while Mount Shasta is buried deep in snow, the people in the southern part of the state are sweltering with heat. PERSIA AND THE PERSIANS 277 In spite of the want of water and the absence of roads, farming is the chief industry of Persia. The plough is a sharp- ened stake to which an iron point is attached. Wheat is sown in the fall and is harvested in the following July. It is cut with a sickle, and usually it is not bound in bundles. It is tlireshed by passing over it a number of thin iron disks A Cara\anscir\' — I'hc Lauding Place for the Commerce of the Caspian Sea fastened to an axle. One end of the axle is made fast to a post, and the free end is drawn round and round. The iron disks cut the straw in short pieces, and cattle are then driven over the loose straw in order to husk the kernels of grain. There are very few horses and oxen, because these animals are too expensive for the farmer to keep, and there is but little need for transportation. The donkey is almost always the beast of burden, and its keeping costs practically nothing. 78 ALL AROUND ASIA The first cost of a donkey is about that of a good horse. The farmers hve in villages as in most parts of Asia. As a rule they are very poor, and not many can read and write. The herdsmen are much better off than the farmers. Most of them belong to wandering tribes. In all Persia there are not more than lifty miles of railway. A branch of the Transcasjjian Railway crosses the Persian border from z\skabad, in Turkestan, to Kuchan, in Persia; there is also a line about ten miles long from Teheran to a small suburb. In place of the railwaj' there are a number of post-roads. One of these extends from Mount Ararat in a pretty straight line soutli-west to Gwador, just across the bor- der in Oman. It makes almost a bee-line from north-west to PERSIA AND THE PERSIANS 27(» south-east. At the city of Kashan a branch of this ])Ost-road extends to Shiraz, and then to Bushire, a very jjoor harbor, but the best on the Persian Gulf. These post-roads are not wagon-roads, for tliere are but few wagon-roads in all Persia, and they are \-ery ])oor ones at that. The post-road of Persia is only a trail. All along this trail, about fifteen or twenty miles apart, arc stations, where little, stocky Arabian horses are kept. To go from Tabriz to Ispahan, for instance, one must first get a pass or per- mit from the go\-ernment ofl'ice. At each station along the line the traveller notes in a book his name, his servant's name, and the time of leaving the station. A rider goes along to the next station to return the horses. In the towns or villages the houses are made usually of brick plastered or covered with stucco. The house of a well-to-do merchant is built in a court-yard, surrounded by a high wall. Few of the houses are more than two stories high, and most of them are but one. Perhaps one wall of the house may also be part of the wall of the court-yard; if so, there are two or more small windows overlooking the narrow street. There is usually a well, a fountain, or a stream running through the court-yard. Rows of Lombardy poplars are grown around the court-yard, which always contains a profusion of flowers. Inside, the house is divided into "outer" and "inner" apartments. The latter are for the use of the women, for, as in India, the women are kept secluded. There is not much furniture. Usually there are one or more divans and couches, and always a number of rugs. Even in the cottages of the poorest people, almost always there are rugs. In the recep- tion-room, which is used by men only, the kalyon, a huge tobacco pipe, is kept lighted much of the time. It has a large bowl with several mouth-pieces, and the smoke is drawn through water before it is inhaled by the smoker. The 2S0 ALL AROUND ASIA kalyon stands in the centre of the room, and half a dozen men may sit about it, all smoking at the same time. The dwellings of the poorer people have floors of clay. There is very little, if any, furniture in them, and often the cooking is done in the street. At night the mattresses are spread on the floor. In Ihe Bazar In hot weather, however, it is the custom to sleep on the flat roofs of tlie houses. A well-to-do Persian gentleman rises at daybreak, and at sunrise prostrates himself in prayer, as is the custom of Muhammadans. His first breakfast is a cup of tea. Then he attends to his bath and toilet. His hair and beard must be dyed and his fmger-nails stained. After this he may go to his PERSIA AND THE PERSIANS 2S1 place of business. At ten o'clock he has his regular break- fast of bread and sour milk. From noon until about three o'clock little business is done, and the time is spent in rest and sleep. Even the day laborers spend much of the mid-day time in resting. By three or four in the afternoon business is resumed and carried on until early evening. The ])rincipal meal of the day comes after sunset, and consists of meats, TL'hcran — A General View fruits, salads, rice, and bread made of unbolted flour. Wine or lirjuor is forbidden to Muhammadans, but slierbets con- taining a ^•ery small proportion of wine are used freely, and tea is a universal drink. Rice is used more than any other food-stuiT. Such things as plates, knives, and forks are found among the wealthier people only. Very often thin cakes of bread are used as plates. The public bath is to be found in nearly e\-cry city and town. It is always a popular resort, and much time is spent there. There are tanks for plunge-ballis, and e\-ery- 282 ALL AROUND ASIA thing needed in the ordinary Turkish bath is provided for a small fee. There are also free baths. A tea-garden is usually a part of the public bath, and it is the favorite place where people do their visiting, and indulge in card-playing and gossip. Persian boys are sent to school at the age of six or se\'en. There are no public schools, and no free schools as we know Tchcnm — The Fire-Worshiplitrs' Ccmclery them in our own land; but about every mosque has one or more schools. At the mosques, which are Muhammadan places of worship, the teachers are "mullahs," or priests. The boys sit on rugs around their teacher. They learn to read from the Koran, the sacred book of the Muhammadans. At these schools reading, writing, and a little arithmetic only are taught. If the pupils desire other studies they must hire private tutors. Almost all boys are trained to become good horsemen. PERSIA AND THE PERSL\NS 2S3 Boys that have learned to read, write, and tigure accounts accurately are put to work. A boy usually follows the busi- ness of his father, and every carpenter, smith, mason, or tailor has one or more boys as apprentices. Girls are rarely taught to read and write, but most girls are taught housework. Among the wealthy Persians they are also taught embroidery and dress-making. Many parents would think it scandalous were a daughter sent to school. In several of the larger cities, like Tabriz and Teheran, the missionary societies have established schools for girls. Girls are usually betrothed when they are ten or twelve years of age, and married at sixteen. The women of Persia are far better oS than those of India. Teheran, th& capital, has a population of 200,000. For- merly it was surrounded by a wall of mud brick about twenty feet high, but the city now extends beyond the walls. In the poorer parts of the city the houses are also built of mud brick, but there are many wooden buildings well built and comfortable. The flat roofs of the houses are the most com- fortable part, especially in the evening. If there is a yard adjoining the house, it is pretty apt to be a stable as well. Alost of the streets are narrow and dirty, but in recent years several wide, jjaved streets ha\'e been made. The shah and his royal household live in the inclosure containing the citadel. There are several caravanseries, or markets, where trading is done. These are yards surrounded by walls, within which the camel caravans receive and deliver their goods. Instead of large stores, the retail traders gather in covered arcades called bazars. Each shop is very small. Most of the retail trade is carried on by Armenians from Turkey, but the caravan trade is largely controlled by Arabs. There are se\'eral beautiful mosques and a college to train young n^en for business. Tabriz is the most important city of Persia, because it is 2S4 ALL AROUND ASLA at this city that the commerce of Russia and Turkey is carried on with Persia. In population it is about as large as Teheran, but the amount of business is far greater. Silk fabrics and dried fruit are exported from Tabriz, and the famous Tabriz rugs are found in every civilized country in the world. There arc said to be more than three hundred mosrjues in the city, Le^f.^'^' d*. _^»^ ,1 ^^f'^^^^^^^^^-^'^^^^*^ """ 1'*' — '.^^^^^'''"MiflUHl i^H^Jl^^^^^^^ dH 1 ^ «'-'? "^SS? ^^^^^Hl ^Hh^^^^^^u /a|Hi^^M^^^g|^^^H^e ^fe^-^L/^^^^ ^^HHlMi aw IH JbHiP^MIR sw 1 ^^^ i^^ P f '^"^^ffllw ■K ■ 'fXt ^^"'^O^-'^C*'-'^ hB^h H ^ m * ^.^^Lr" L fcsT ^H ^^^^^^1^1 i^B IHiIII^^^H ^H 1 Tabriz — The Suburbs and Tabriz is one of the few places in Persia where Christians are allowed to build churches. The Christian population consists chiefly of Armenian merchants and their families. Not far from Tabriz, in the western part of Persia, is the famous Lake Urumia, or Urmia. The lake valley, or basin, is the most fertile part of Persia. There is a tradition that this valley was the Garden of Eden. Lake Urmia is the largest lake in the Iran plateau, and is about the size of Great Salt Lake, in the United States. Like Great Salt Lake, its waters PERSIA AND THE PERSL\NS 285 are so salt and briny that nothing can h've in thcni. The city of Urmia, one of the most prosperous in Persia, is the head- quarters of American missions. There is a tradition that Zoroaster, a great scholar and religious teacher, was ])orn in this city. Kirmanshah, Hamadan, Ispahan, and Sliiraz are all famous for the beautiful rugs of which they are markets. The rugs arc collected l^y camel carawans and most of them are carried to Constantinople or to Athens. Some of them are sold in the large cities of Europe, but most of them finally reach New York City, which is one of the chief rug markets of the world. Persia has no seaport at which large steamships can land supplies. Bushire, on the Persian Gulf, is the only port that can be approached by large vessels, and they must anchor more than three miles from the town. During the season when Muhammadans make their pilgrimages to Mecca, mail steamers call at Bushire to take the pilgrims back and forth; but the town has very little to do with the outside world. A small area of Persia on the south-west coast Ijc- longs to the Arabian state of Oman, and Arabians ha\-e most of the trade on the south coast of Persia. CHAPTER XXIV THROUGH ARMENIA, THE HOLY LAND AND ARABIA The Turkish or Ottoman Empire is half as large as the United States and has half as many people. Turkey in Asia is historically one of the most interesting parts of the world. Next to Egypt it has the oldest historical records, and it certainly has the oldest written history, for it is the land of Bible history. It is a country of strange geographical features, too, for within its borders only a few hundred miles apart are Mount Ararat, whose top is nearly four miles above sea-level, and the Dead Sea, whose briny waters are thirteen hundred feet below it. It is a region of extreme heat and of bitter cold. One may find at Erzerum, on the Black Sea, the tempera- ture of Winnipeg, and at Aden, on the west coast of Arabia, the scorching sun of the Colorado desert; indeed, Aden is reputed to be the hottest place in the world. As for people, pretty nearly every race is represented. In Asia Minor, or Anatolia, as it is called, the most important part of the population is the Armenian element. The Ar- menians are nominally Christians and are therefore most cordially hated by the Muhammadans, whose chief business seems to be slaughtering all who do not follow the faith of the Prophet. The Armenians are the progressive business people of the empire, and without them the sultan's income would be very small. . 286 ar:\ienia, thf. holy i.axd, and Arabia 2S7 The Turkish element outnumbers all the rest of the popu- lation nearly ten to one but, so far as wealth and industry are concerned, it plays a very small part. This is partly due to the religious teachings of the Muhammadan faith, but chiefly to the government, which taxes all products so hea\'ily that the Turkish farmer is better ofl" if he grows only enough to keep body and soul together. Many of the Turks arc tribes- Turkoman Kurds men who ha^'C no fixed homes. Even the most intelligent are inferior to the Turks — or Osmanli, as they call them- selves in Europe. The Circassians form a consideraljle part of the pop- ulation, most of them living in the A'icinity of the Caucasus Mountains. In the eastern part of Asia Minor are many Kurds. They li\'e tribal li\'es in the main, and are herdsmen. In the western part are the Syrians. With the Greek mer- chants and sailors they practically control the trade of the Mediterranean coast. 2,SS ALL AROUND ASL\ The Jews form an interesting element of the population of the Mediterranean coast. They arc remnants of the Israelites whom King David organized into a powerful king- A Farm Near Beirut dom. They are not an important element in the affairs of Turkey, but they have not lost the thrift for which they are famous. The Arabs of Arabia are the most picturesque of all the people in the sultan's domain. So far as any close control over them by the sultan is concerned, they might just as well be elsewhere. It is only along the coast of Arabia that the ARMENIA, TtlE JIOLY LAND, AND ARABIA 2,S9 sultan has any real power. But the Arabs are great traders and are rich; so it is more economical to be loyal to him at the seaports and the near-by plantations than to be at war with him. The Arabs control nearly all the trade that comes from the interior, and their caravans are everywhere in the deserts of Asia and Africa. We may enter Turkey in Asia at several large seaports. Smyrna is the chief port of Asia Minor. We have heard MIlugLTs \\ca\ing Mats much about "Smyrna rugs," but, a few carpets excepted, rugs are not made in Smyrna. The alleged Smyrna rugs are made chiefly in Philadelphia, and Yonkers, New York. Many years ago the rugs made in Asia Minor were marketed in Smyrna, and came to be Smyrna rugs for that reason. A great many rugs are still exported from Smyrna, but they are the beautiful Oriental rugs which are named after the city or vilayet in which they are made. 200 ALL AROUND ASLA But Smyrna is a great and prosperous city, with its 200,000 ])eople. Its water-front is a sea-wall more than three miles long, and modern stone buildings give the city an imposing appearance from the harbor. These, with a hne electric rail- way along the sea-wall, give the city a European appearance; but this quickly changes as one gets a short distance from the water-front, for it is scarcely a minute's walk from the West to the Far East. The business buildings are of stone, or stone with timber frames. Away from the water-front they A TLirkish Heartli-Kug are mainly of a sun-dried brick. High walls conceal the marljle-tiled yards and gardens of the well-to-do. Beautiful llowers and fountains are within the walls; deep dust, in- tolerable heat, and discomfort are without. A dozen or more caravan routes and several railways con\'erge at Smyrna. Dried figs, bales of rugs, goat-skins, cotton, silk, and goats' hair to the amount of over twenty millions of dollars are brought by camel caravans and the railway every year. These are hnally sold to the consumers in Europe and America. Smyrna figs are world-wide in ARMENIA, THE HOLY LAND, AND ARABL\ 291 reputation. Formerly they were a pretty dirty lot of stuff as they came to the market, but in time European llrms began to engage in the packing and export trade, and now the figs are clean enough to satisfy the most dainty. Beirut is another port of considerable importance, though not much more than half as large as Smyrna. It is the port of a very productive country the centre of which is Damascus. Damascus is one of the oldest cities in the world. It was a place of importance in the time of AJjraham, and it was the scene of the story of Naaman the leper, whose house is now a leper hospital. In turn the Hebrews, Babylonians, Per- sians, Macedonians, Romans, and Saracens held the city. About the time that Columbus discovered America Turkish hordes captured it and have held it ever since. Here, nineteen hundred years ago, Saul, a man of wonderful ability, after having been a leader in persecuting Christians, was himself converted to Christianity and became St. Paul. Damascus has a population of about a quarter of a million. Camel caravans scouring the country around and reaching e\'en into Persia gather rugs, grain, apricots, prunes, and goat's hair. The Turkish prunes and apricots have a ready market in Europe and America. The goat's hair is mixed with fine wool and made into rugs by Jewish manufacturers in Beirut. To two famous products Damascus has given a name which is known all over the world — a cloth this day called "damask" and a most famous cjuality of steel. The damascene sword blade, inlaid with gold, was so elastic and so finely tempered that it could be coiled like a watch- spring. Damascene swords are still made, but they are clumsy imitations, good for nothing except to deceive tourists. At a distance Damascus is beautiful with the gilded minarets of its hundreds of mosques. A massive wall sur- rounds the city. Within the walls there is more of comfort ARMENIA, THE HOLY LAND, AND ARABLE 293 than in any other city of Asiatic Turkey. The "Street which is called Straight" traverses the city. It is lined with bazars in which beautifully brocaded silks, killims, and rugs are sold. The bazars are among the finest in the world. Sleek-looking merchants sit in tiny stalls surrounded by their wares. They know pretty nearly at a glance whether Damastus — TliL Rner \liana or not a prospecti^•e customer has money to spend and how much. A merchant pulls from a cloth case a score of cash- mere shawls worth from one to three thousand dollars apiece ; then he takes from his turban a packet of precious stones, in value a small fortune. If these do not attract the customer a lot of rich laces follow- then comes beautiful jewelry. Finally he is content to sell an amber mouth-piece of a pipe for five piastres. 294 ALL AROUND ASL-^ Public letter-writers sit at street corners, almost always surrounded by groups of peasants. Engravers of seals are here and there. They are very important persons, because in this part of Turkey deeds and contracts bear seals instead of signatures. At the bakers' shops one may see the bakers rolling dough into thin sheets and pasting them against hot stones. As fast as they are baked men and boys carry them to the streets shouting, "O Allah, send customers." Lemon- ade, raisin water, and lic|uorice water are peddled al>out the streets in glass jars or in goatskin bottles. After the bazars the most attractive features are the baths and the cafes. In the hot part of the day, from tweh'e till four, all people who ha\'e leisure go to the baths, where great volumes of cool water, flowing from the mountains, are caught in fountains, streams, and swimming pools. "Are not Abana and Pharpar rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?" From four until six or seven all are at business again, and at nightfall the crowds go to the cafes. Perhaps they are not so stylish as the cafes of Paris and New York, but they are mighty comfortable and one has the best of food and scr\'ice. At Damascus the river breaks into hundreds of small channels, and the cafes are hidden in the dense foliage growing along them. The private houses are the wonder of the P"ar East, and a ^•isitor is fortunate who may be a guest in one of them. The house is surrounded by a mud waU tliat is not unlike the wall of a corral in Mexico; a low door and a narrow, winding passage lead to a reception-room. Erom this, one passage leads to the apartments of the women and another to the court-yard. The latter is filled with flowers and fruit trees, and if there are no fountains there is at least a well of running water. Arched doorways of the fmest marble lead to the men's apartments, which are furnished with rugs and di\'ans. The floors are marble and the walls are mosaic ARMENIA, THF, HOLY LAX!), AND ARABIA 20. patterns. Beautifully wrought jjronze lamps hang from the car\'ed ceilings. The houses of the very poor are in strong contrast — mud walls inside and out, mud tloors with ne\'er a rug, no court- yard, no running water; nothing but a ho\-el that is unht to be a stable for the soredjacked donkey which is the entire fortune of its owner. The breakfast of the ryot consists of a little fruit, some coarse sour bread, and possibly some coffee. His dinner and suj.)per are about the same, with possiljly a little rancid butter or a drink of goat's milk. The donkey fares about as well. During the day it is the rid- ing animal of the tourist, while the owner, running behind, beats the poor beast and shrieks himself into hysterics with shrill cursings. The drixer and the donkey are brutes of a kind and either one is about as near human as the other. Of all the cities of Asia, Jerusalem is the most interesting. Just how old it is no one knows. When David had gathered the Israelites into a kingdom he needed a capital and Jerusa- lem looked good to him. It was then a stronghold of the Canaanites — Jebusites, they called themselves — and was sujjposed to be the one fortress that King David could not capture. But capture it he did and made it the capital of his kingdom. It was not much of a city at that tinic, and King Da^'id lived in a very humble wooden palace built by foreign laborers. He planned the magnihcent temple, which he did not live to see, but \\-hich Solomon built with the aid of his friend Hiram, King of Tyre. Years afterward the city was attacked and looted by near- by enemies, and then it was captured by Nebuchadnezzar, who carried many of the people off into captivity. Twice it was captured by Roman soldiers, one of whom, Titus, de- stroyed it. For many centuries it was held by one or another invader and even now it is in the hands of Muhammadans. No one knows with certainty the site of King David's pal- 206 ALL AROUND ASLA ace, or that of Solomon's temple, for modern Jerusalem is built on the ruins of the old city. Yafa — Joppa, it used to be called — is the port of Jerusalem. It is built on a rocky height that overlooks the Mediter- ranean Sea. Its narrow streets are deep with dust, and the landing-place swarms with beggars. The low, stone-built Jerusalem — The Road to Bethlehem houses seem but little better than hovels. The Turkish authorities have made a fine carriage-road to Jerusalem, and more recently a railway has been built. Each is about forty miles long. Both roads pass through the rich Plain of Sharon, a beautiful pasture-land, with here and there thrifty-looking orchards and fields of blood-red poppies. Jerusalem is on a plateau, surrounded on three sides by deep valleys. There are hills around and about the city, one ARMENIA, THE HOLY LAND, AND ARABIA 297 of \Yhich, the Mount of Olives, has a name that will never be forgotten. From its top, on a clear day one may get a glimpse of the Dead Sea toward the south-east, and the Mediterranean Sea on the west. The city is surrounded by high walls of yellowish lime- stone. From the outside the walls are so high that a ladder of ordinary length would reach less than half-way to the top, and the slopes of the valley sides are so steep tliat one can scarcely climb them except where paths ha\'e been cut. So far as trade and commerce are concerned Jerusalem has but little importance, and most of the money brought into the city comes from the ])ocket-books of tourists. Within the walls the stone-built houses seem to be piled up like packing-cases in a warehouse. Some of them are nothing but caves in the limestone rock; most of them are without windows; others are much like the dugouts of mining camps; a hole has been cut into the side of a cliff and a front has been built upon the edge, the whole being covered with a flat roof of clay. Some of the houses are built one atop of another. Some of the larger and more pre- tentious dwellings are roofed with grass-plots or gardens, and in hot weather these are the only comfortable places within the walls. For the greater part the Jews, Armenians, and Muhammadans are each in a quarter of the city by themselves. The streets are very narrow — so narrow that in some of them an ordinary carriage cannot be driven. Some of them are paved with blocks of limestone, others are deej) with dust or with mud. In places the narrower streets are partly covered by stone houses that have been built over them. In two or three places the street is much like a tun- nel. The less pretentious shops are very small — so small, indeed, that the customer must stay in the street while making purchases. One of the streets, the Via Dolorosa, 29S ALL AROUND ASIA is said to be the street upon which Jesus bore the cross on his way to the crucifixion; but this is very improbable, for the streets of Herod's time are covered many feet deep. Several gateways are in the walls. The Yafa and Damas- cus gates mark the roads to tlie cities whose names they bear. Turl^ish sol- diers stand at each gate — not to guard it, but to collect a tax on everything ])assing through. E\-ena small basket of fruit carried into the city must be taxed one-tenth of its value; not only that, but the sol- diers help them- selves liberally to anything they want. The placeof chief interest in the city is a walled square, now called " Haram esh-Sherif," or chief sanctuary. It is in this place that King Da^'id built the first altar, and it is also the site of Solomon's Temple. But the temple was destroyed and the children of its builders were made captives and taken to Babylon. A second temple was built and it was destroyed. Then King Herod began the building of a third temple that was to be grander than either of the others, but it was never finished. Long before the beginning of the Christian era the JcTusalcm — A StreuL Scene ARAIENIA, Till' HOLY LAND, AND ARABLE 290 x\rk of the Covenant was stolen from its restin,^-])lace, the Holy of Holies, and to this day no one knows what became of it. Years afterward the Seven Golden Candlesticks were seized, when the city was captured, and taken to Rome. There they remained until Rome was sacked, and they too disajjpcared. i\ mosque, the Dome of the Rock, is built o\-er the place where the Holy of Holies is thought to ha\-e been, and upon \\diich the Ark of the Co\'enant rested. Muhammadans say that the Prophet Muhammad once of- fered prayer uijon this rock, and it is therefore sacred to them. But e\'en to this day j^ious Jews will not enter the inclosure, fearing to tread upon what was once a holy jjlace. The mosque, or dome, was built about tweh'e centuries ago; it is also called the Mosque of Omar. Just outside the Haram is the "Wailing Place" \\'here pious Jews from all parts of the world gather to lament the destruction of Jerusalem and pray for its res- toration. IMuch has been done for the city both by Je\vs and by Christians. There are schools, hospitals, and churches supported by people who are generously inclined; for the industries of Jerusalem come no\'\-here near to supporting the life of its po]Ailation, and most of the people are wretchedly poor. In each vilayet, or political di\'ision, there is a Turkish governor, and usually he lives in a city or Jerusalem — The W'liiling Place 300 ALL AROUND ASL\ other important place in tlie vilayet. Tlie governor usually acts as a judge, and he sees to it that the taxes are collected. As in most parts of Asia, the farmers do not li\'e on their farms; they cluster in villages, and in most villages there is a headman called a "sheik." He is responsible to the go\'ernor for the conduct of the villagers, and is allowed to use his own methods in governing them. The badge of his office is very commonly a good, stout cudgel, and he is not at all sparing in the use of it. All the produce, whether crops or herds, must be brought to the public threshing-floor or market-j^lace, and the watch- men of the tax-gatherers are stationed around and about to see that nothing is carried away until the taxes are col- lected. In many places watchmen stand at the top of towers built for the purpose. Of all crops and produce the government gets its tenth, good measure. And, inas- much as the government officers are not given to asking questions about things, the tax-collectors — they used to be called publicans — help themselves pretty liberally from the rest. If a poor victim is suspected of hiding a part of his crop in order to escape the tax-collector, the sheik's cudgel is at once brought into vigorous use, and it never fails to produce the tax-money. The road to the river Jordan passes through the village of Bethany where Jesus once lived, and where Mary and Martha also dwelt. Then the road descends to Jericho, now a collection of hovels and beggars. Not far away is the old town of Jericho whose walls fell when the trumpets of Joshua sounded. A few miles from Jericho is the bathing-place of the Jordan where Jesus was baptized. Although the Jordan rises high on the slopes of Mount Hermon, at the pilgrims' bathing-place it is below sea-le\'el, and the Dead Sea into which it flows is at the lowest point of the land surface of the earth. Its waters are a brine so salty ARMENIA, THE HOLY LAND, AND ARABIA 301 that nothing can hve in them. It is said that more than six milhon tons of water flow daily into the Dead Sea, but all this water evaporates as fast as it flows into the sea. Of all the land in Asiatic Turkey the lower part of the plain between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers is the most fertile. This region is called Mesopotamia, " the country between rivers." From Mosul to Bagdad the Tigris skirts the foot- hills of mountains, and the Euphrates flows through the Syrian Desert. Below Bagdad, however, the low flood plain is a maze of canals and irrigating ditches. This region produces dates and grain, which are consumed chiefly at home; wool and goat's hair, which are made into rugs and sold throughout America and Europe; cotton, which is made into a gaudily colored cloth at Bagdad; and horses, which are sold in India. Because of its fertility it has always been coveted. More than three thousand years ago, Nebuchadnezzar I. made it a part of his great kingdom of Babylon. Since that time Chaldeans, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and Turks have held it. Babylon was once the chief city of the region, but King Sennacherib punished its reljellious people by putting most of them to death, tearing down the buildings, and turn- ing the Euphrates through the city. There was a Babylonian colony about lifty miles up the river, however, and this settlement became the city of Bag- dad. Even to this day bricks stamped with the name of Nebuchadnezzar are found along the banks of the river. The present city was founded by the caliph Haroun el- Raschid, made famous in modern times by the delightful stories of the "Arabian Nights." For many centuries Bagdad was a very rich city, to which gathered much of the trade between Europe and India. But when Vasco da Gama discovered a trade route to India around Africa, which the Turks could neither pillage nor 302 ALL AROUND ASIA blockade, Bagdad little by little lost its trade. The old city was on the west side of the Tigris; a new Bagdad has been built on the opposite side. Bridges of boats cross the river between the old and the new cities. There are mosc[ues with brightly colored and gilded minarets, churches for the Chris- tian population, and synagogues for those of Jewish faith. The bazars are much like those of other Turkish cities, and 1 ^*dito niiiiii^ ^^^isiiiBs -";rMPr:-^^"i| ^' -'iMMi -L_ m^i-i^i . ■ - -■Rrs: i'Wm -.-^y— "- IP -1 ' Bagdad — The Custom House and the Euphrates Ri\er the merchants who ask a customer fifty piastres for an article will be satisfied with ten. Below Bagdad very comfortable little river steamboats have taken the place of the boats built of straw that only a few years ago were used to carry freight to Basra, or Bassorah, near the mouth of the Tigris. Passengers and freight from Mosul, the centre of a famous rug-making district, are sent by keleks. The kclck is a very ingenious raft. To the under side of a loosely covered framework about two hundred sheep bladders are attached, and on the top a rough cabin is built. Two or three boatmen manage to keep the kelck from breaking to pieces as the swift current carries it to Bag- dad. But the river steamboat is fast taking the place of the ARAIENIA, THE HOLY LAND, AND ARABL\ 303 native boats, and a railway from Constantinople is ncaring completion. In the past few years the Arabian peninsula has l:)een more closely connected with the rest of the Ottoman Empire tlian ever before, for a railway now con- nects Mecca, the holy city of tlic Muhammadans, with Damascus and the Ivlediterranean Sea. With the exception of the coast prov- inces, however, Arabia has Init little to do with the rest of the world. The interior of the pen- insula is a hot desert refi;ion, in- habited by half-sa\'age Bedouins, many of whom arc herdsmen when they are not roljbers. In this part of xAsia the children of Israel wandered for forty years as a punishment for their dis • obedience. Fed by manna, and led Ijy a pillar of cloud or by a gleam of light, they wandered and wandered imtil all who had sinned were sleeping their last sleep in the desert. But Arabia of the present day has given several things to the rest of the world, and these have been of no little im- portance. One, the gum exuding from the acacia-tree, has made the name of the peninsula a household word — gum arable. The Arabian horse is another. The stocky little pony bearing the name is neither so large nor so strong as the ordinary American horse, but it is hardier and can endure more hardship than any other horse in existence. The Moors who o\'erran Spain were great horsemen, and carried the Arabian breed of horses into Spain. Tlie Spaniards carried them to Mexico and the Pacific coast, and the A Sheik 304 ALL AROUND ASIA mustangs and cayuses of to-day are descendants of the Arabian horse. Coffee is another product that has made Arabia famous. The vilayet of Yemen, which borders the en- trance to the Red Sea, for centuries has been celebrated for its coffee. This was marketed at Mocha and came to be called Mocha coiTee. The little, rounded kernels are not sightly in appearance, but they have a flavor that is not surpassed. Arab traders gather the coffee at the various plan- tations, and the camel caravans head — not for Mocha, but for Hodeida, from which port the coffee is now shipped. On the way to Hodeida, trader and drivers spend every spare minute in sorting the coffee berries into different grades. The sorting is done by hand, and every berry is inspected. The choicest berries are not exported from Turkey; they are sold in the larger cities, where they command a price sometimes as great as five dollars per pound. None but the lowest grade reaches western Europe and America. The rehgious life of a pious Muhammadan is very strict. Five times a day — at daybreak, at mid-day, in early afternoon, at sunset, and at nightfall — a priest, or muezzin, calls from the minaret of the mosque: "Allah is great: I testify that there is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his prophet: come to Bedouin Arabs ARMENIA, THE HOLY LAND, AND ARABIA .305 prayer." To bathe before prayer is a religious duty, and in every village and city there are pools for the purpose. In the desert one may use sand instead of water. At the first sound of the muezzin's voice, the faithful turn their faces toward Mecca, prostrate themseh'es until their foreheads touch the A ^Nlosquc — TliL Iu\\Lr frcm whlLh tht Muezzin Calls to Prajtr ground, and recite the prayer: "In the name of God, the merciful and gracious: praise be to God, the Lord of all creatures, the merciful and gracious, the Prince of the day of judgment. Thee we serve, and to Thee we pray for help: lead us in the right way, the way of those to whom Thou hast shown mercy, upon whom no wrath resteth, and who go not astray. Amen." Every good Muhammadan is expected to fast one day 306 ALL AROUND ASIA a year, and from sunrise to sunset not a drop of food or drink is taken. During summer, especially in the desert regions, the intense thirst causes great suffering, but the fast is faithfully kept. After sunset, however, a feast follows. Every faithful follower is also bound to make a pilgrimage to Mecca, the holy city, at least once in his lifetime. Since the building of the railway from Damascus southward toward Mecca, Damascus has become the chief gathering-place. Thousands yearly make the pilgrimage, most of the pilgrims stopping a short time at Medina, where the Prophet is buried. Perhaps the railway may ne\'er enter Medina, for it would defile sucli a holy place were the shadow of a Christian struct- ure e\-er to fall upon it. But the railway is mighty, and, AR^IP:NIA, THIC HOLY I.AXD, AND ARABIA :;()7 sooner or later, it will Ijring Western ci\'ilization even to tlie gates of Medina and Mecca. Just Ijefore reaching Mecca all clothing is put aside, an apron is jjound aljout tlie waist, and a cloth is thrown over the left shoulder. In the inclosure of the sanctuary is a stone Iniilding, the The Kaal.a Kaaba, built in the form of a cube. Within the kaal)a is the black stone, most hkely a meteoric stone, that is said to have been given to Abraham by the angel Gabriel. After entering the sanctuary the pilgrim walks seven times around it, stop- ping to kiss the black stone and to touch each holy object. Thence he proceeds to the sacred mount to hear a sermon, ending his ceremonies by stoning Satan in the near-by valley of Mina. Few Muhammadans make more than one pilgrim- age to Mecca, but whoever makes the one is a person of dis- tinction for the rest of his life. One port of Arabia has commercial importance — Aden. 308 ALL AROUND ASIA It is a calling-place for many of the steam-ships of the canal route to India. Aden has one distinction; it is the hottest place in the world. It is told that a very wicked Englishman, who had long lived in Aden, died and went to the place where the wicked are said to go. After a few days he came back in ghostly form and called for an overcoat and fur cap. There is more money in fresh water than in anything else Jromedanes belonging to Aden, because only a mighty little of it is to be had. In the main, it is made by evaporating sea-water and condensing the steam. The plutocrats who own the water- making machinery are the only rich men in Aden. The town is a dazzling white mass of sand, rock, and stone houses with here and there touches of brown. The brown is the dirt on the native faces; and it must be cheap, because there is a lot of it. Not a thing of living green is in sight — well, yes; there is. It is the tourist who asks for a drink of water. But he, too, changes color when he pays the charges. Selling coal and water to steam-ships is the only paying business in Aden. A ARMENIA, THE HOLY LAND, AND ARABIA 309 company or two of British soldiers keep things orderly. They are well groomed and natty in appearance. Evidently they use plenty of water externally, but it is too expensive to drink. The traveller who takes the steam-ship from Bombay west- ward is thankful when the Red Sea and Suez Canal are traversed, joyful when he boards the transatlantic greyhound, and happy when the shores of the American continent are once more in sight. INDEX Aden, 308. Afghanistan, 271. Agra, 259. Ah Muk and Toy Lun, 186. Ambir, 261. AnatoUa, 286. Angara, the, 19. Arabian horses, 303. Arabian peninsula, 303. Arabs, the, 28S. Arima, 150. Ark of the Covenant, 299. Armenians, the, 286. Bagdad, 302. Balukistan, 273. Bamboo, 132. Bangkok, 194; Klawngs of, 197; Wat Cheng temple, 202. Barges on the Yangtze, 88. Bathing Ghats, 259. Beirut, 291. Benares, temples of, 257. Betel nut, 192. Bombay, 262. Bore of Tsien Tang River, 54. Boxer war, 105. Brahmans, 234, 239. Brick tea, 85. sacred tooth of, 254. women merchants of, Buddha, 202 Burma, 219; 218. Bushire, 285, Calcutta, 229, 248. Cambodia, 190. Camphor, 181. Canton, 94. Cashmere shawls, 246. Caste, 234. Cawnpur, 259. Ceylon, 251. Chemulpho, 28. China, early history, 40; origin of name, 44; canals of, 47; climate of, 50; rivers of, 51; provinces of, 55; foreigners in, 104; village life in, 108. Chinese conveyances, 67; hotels, 68; money, 76; schools, in; temples, 112; doctors, 114; houses, 115; girls, 116; women, 117; customs, 120. Cinnamon, 213, 254. Circassians, the, 287. Civil service examinations, 120. Cloves, 214. Cochin China, 187. Colombo, 251. Compradore, the, 92. Confucius, 44. Damascus, 291. Darjiling, 256. David, King, 295. Dead Sea, 286, 301. Delhi, 260. Dome of the Rock, 299. Elephant hunting, 204; kraal, 206; training, 209. Elephants as working animals, 225. FlKE-CRACKERS, 1 23. Floating hotels, 96. French Indo-China, 192. From Rangun to Calcutta, 227. Fujiyama, 135. Georgetown, 216. Godowns, 94. Gordon, "Chinese," loi. 311 INDEX Gunpowder, invention of, 47. Gwador, 274. Hankau, 85. Haram Esh-Sherif, 29S. Harbin, 21. Herat, 273. Hindus, 232, 233, 239; women, 239. Hiogo, 140. Hoang River, floods of, 43; dust plains of, 52. Holy of Holies, 299. Hongkong, 90. House-boats, 189. Hugli River, 227. Ice breaking, 19. Ichang, 86. India, geography of, 230; customs, 237; dwellings, 23S; farm lite, 239- India ink, 84. Iran Plateau, 267. Irkutsk, 17. Irrigated lands, 26S. Ivory hunters, 244. James and Maey Shoal, 228. Ja|)an, geography of, 134. Japanese dwellings, 143, 147; bas- kets, 151; ingenuity, 152; rugs and mats, 154; pottery, 161; flowers, 166; policemen, 171; rail- ways, 174; farming, 177; schools, 179; lacquer, 181. Jehan Shah, 259. Jericho, 300. Jerusalem, 295. Jews, the, 288, 295; wailing-place of, 299. Jinricksha, the, 173. Jiu-jitsu, 171. Jordan, the, 300. Jungles, 231. Jute, 242. Kaaba, the, 307. Kabul, 273. Kandy, 253. Karachi, 265. Kelat, 274. Kelek, the, 302. Khaibar Pass, 265. Kioto, 157; Yasaka pagoda, 159. Kobe, 140. Korea Peninsula, 26. Korean people, 28; costumes, 28, 34, 35; hotel, 32; school, 35; farmer, 36; women, 36; slaves, 38- Kowtow, the, 97. Kublai Khan, 48. Lake Baikal, iS. Lama, the Dalai, 62. Li Hung Chang, 1 01, 104. Long-tailed sheep, 272. Lucknow^, 259. Madras, 250. Malacca, 215. Malay Peninsula, 212; peoples, 212. Manchuria, 21, 56. Mandalay, 221. Manila, 185. Marco Polo, 48. Matsu, 143. Mecca, 306. Medina, 307. Mending a broken plate, 77. Mikado, the, 167. Ming emperors, tombs of, 84. Mocha coffee, 304. Mongolia, 56. Monsoons, 231. Moscow, 7. Mosul, 302. Muezzin, the, 305. Muhammadan prayer, 305; relig- ious life, 304. Muhammadans in India, 232. Nagasaki, 137. Nagoya, giant castle, 160; golden dolphins, 161; potteries, 161. Nanking, 83. Napier, Lord, 98. Oman, 274. Omsk, 14. Opium cultivation, 243. Opium war, gS. INDEX .313 Oriental rugs, 269. Osaka, 151; great castle, 155; goda, 150. Iia- Peking, walls of, 69; cities of, 71; Lumantze Street, 74; banks, 75; street scenes, 76; Temple of Heaven, 78; attack on, 103. Penang, 216. Pepper, 213. Persia, 275; farming in, 277; post roads of, 279. Persian dwellings, 279; public baths, 28 1. "Persuading" a camel, 262. Peshawar, 265. Petropovolosk, 13. Physical geograjihy, 2. Pidgin English, 92. Pnom Penh to Saigon, 190. Porcelain clav, 128; decoration, 129. Prome, 221. Punishment of criminals, 109. Railway train, 5. Rangun, 217. Reed crop, 88. Rice cultivation, 123. Rice pjaper, 84. Ricksha, 173; men, 174. Running amuck, 213. Russian enterprise, 21. Ryots, 239. Smyrna, 289. Solomon's temple, 298. Soy, 160. Stoning Satan, 307. St. Petersburg, 5. Straw boats, 302. "Street called Straight," 293. Sunderbunds, the, 228. Tabriz, 283. Tai-ping rebellion, loi. Taj Mahal, 259. Taku and Tongku forts, 64, 103 Ta.x gatherers, 300. Tea cultivation, 125, 243. Teak wood, 223. Teapot Hill, 160. Teheran, 283. Tibet, 59. Tientsin, 65. Tigers, man-eating, 231. T(jbolsk, 15. Tokaido Road, 160, 175. Tokyo, 165. Transcaspian railway, 27S Trans-Siberian railway, 7. Tundras, 24. Turkestan, 57. Turkey in Asia, 286. Turkish taxes, 298. Urmia, Lake, 284. Uyeno Park, 166, Saigon, 187. Vladivostok, 22. Seoul, a ricksha trip to, 30. Seven Golden Candlesticks, 259. Ward, Frederick, i Shanghai, 80. Wistaria, 1O6. Shimonoseki, 137. Shoay Dagon, the, 21S. Shooting-up a port, 98. Siam, 194. Silk culture, 130; weaving, 246. Sind-Pishin Railway, 265. Yafa, 296. Yangtze River, 52; trip to Ichang, 86. Yemen province, 304. Yokohama, 161. Singapore, 210. Si River, 53. Zlatust, 13. rge of, So 11/ r