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 CHARLES WILLIAM WASON 
 COLLECTION 
 
 CHINA AND THE CHINESE 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 CHARLES WILUrAM WASON 
 
 CLASS OF 1876 
 
 1918 
 
Cornell University Library 
 DS 508.C14 
 
 Oriental rambles 
 
 3 1924 023 271 392 
 
•I, ■ 
 
 4f^^ 
 
 ^ 
 
ORIENTAL 
 
 RAMBLES 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE W. CALDWELL, M. D. 
 
 ILLUSTRATED WITH 
 NUMEROUS SNAP-SHOT PHOTOGRAPHS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 G. W. CALDWELL, M. D. 
 
 POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y. 
 
C<tf 
 
 Copyright 1906, by 
 Dr. GEORGE W. CALDWELL. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 No excuse is offered for this volume and 
 no apology is volunteered. The author did 
 the best he could. 
 
 It is not intended as a guide book or a 
 romance, but merely as a true account of the 
 events of travel and the points of interest as 
 the ordinary traveler sees them and his 
 camera portrays them, unhampered by the 
 dry detail of figures, and ungilded by fancy. 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this bool< is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023271392 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I Across the Continent 9 
 
 II The Pacific Voyage — An Ingenious Scheme I z 
 
 III Japan — First Impressions 19 
 
 IV Yokohama — Japan Awakened 22 
 
 V Tokio — Odd Customs — The Yoshawara. 25 
 
 VI The Emperor's Birthday — Japan Trium- 
 phant 33 
 
 VII Nikko and its Temples 37 
 
 VIII Giant Idols — Miyanoshita, and a Trip to 
 
 HeU 45 
 
 IX Kioto — In the Heart of Old Japan 51 
 
 X Osaka — ^Japanese-English, and the Kobe 
 
 Roosters 56 
 
 XI Through the Inland Sea to Nagasaki — Say- 
 
 onara to Old Japan 60 
 
 -- XII Shanghai, Old and New 65 
 
 — XIII Hong Kong 73 
 
 --^XIV Canton and the Cantonese 76 
 
 -'-^ XV The Flower Boats — Chinese Public Opinion 86 
 ^•XVI The Temple of Honan— How the Devils 
 
 are Imposed Upon 92 
 
6 Contents. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XVII The Education of China 9 6 
 
 XVIII Macao, the Monte Carlo of the Eastern 
 
 Sea loz 
 
 XIX Singapore lo? 
 
 XX Penang — Tropical Fruits no 
 
 XXI Arrival at Colombo and a Sad Deception 1 1 4 
 
 XXII In and About Colombo 120 
 
 XXIII Kandy, and the Kandy Tooth 126 
 
 XXIV Calcutta — The Indian Bearer 134 
 
 XXV Darjeeling and the Himalayas 1 40 
 
 XXVI Benares, the Sacred City 149 
 
 XXVII Lucknow and Cawnpore — The Indian 
 
 Mutiny 163 
 
 XXVIII Agra and the Fort of Akbar 169 
 
 XXIX The Taj Mahal 175 
 
 XXX Futtehpore-Sikree, The Deserted City . 179 
 
 XXXI Delhi, the Delightful 184 
 
 XXXII ANautchDance 188 
 
 XXXIII Jaipur and the Rajputs 193 
 
 XXXIV A Trip to Amber, and an Elephant Ride 197 
 XXXV Bombay — The Caves of Elephanta. . . . Z02 
 
 XXXVI The Indian Ocean and the Red Sea .. . 206 
 XXXVII How We Broke Into Egypt— The Re- 
 ward of Honesty 209 
 
CHAPTER 
 XXXVIII 
 XXXIX 
 
 XL 
 
 XLI 
 XLII 
 
 XLin 
 
 XLIV 
 XLV 
 
 Contents. 7 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Port Said to Cairo z 1 6 
 
 Cairo and the Mosques — The Philoso- 
 pher Objects to Mohamtnedism .... 219 
 Donkey Boy Diplomacy — Street Pictures 
 
 — An Antique University 227 
 
 From the Citadel. 234 
 
 The Pyramids — The Philosopher Makes 
 
 Some Discoveries 238 
 
 The Dervishes 242 
 
 Memphis — Heliopolis — The Wisdom of 
 
 the Egyptians 246 
 
 Homeward Bound 250 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 ACROSS THE CONTINENT. 
 
 We Started westward in October. As we 
 rolled through the beautiful Mohawk Valley 
 glimpses from the car window of the sugar 
 maples flaming with their autumn costumes 
 of red and yellow caused just a little pang of 
 regret for the glorious season we should miss. 
 Perhaps in all the world we should see no 
 more charming sight than that of the wood- 
 bine, turned bronze and crimson, festooning 
 the branches of the cedar or the pine tree. 
 When Autumn drapes her gay bunting on 
 the American hillsides all the world should 
 pause and admire, but to us who see this car- 
 nival of color every year it is so familiar that 
 its beauties are not properly realized. So 
 we travel, not only to see the wonders and 
 beauties of other countries, but to make us 
 more appreciative of our own. Change 
 keeps the heart young. 
 
 One does not fully comprehend what a 
 country is ours until he travels across it. One 
 cannot realize what progress and possibilities 
 are ours unless he remembers that the country 
 
10 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 through which he passes with its grain fields, 
 its prosperous farm houses, its villages, its 
 factories and its cities with their teeming 
 millions and stupendous commerce were, 
 twenty-five, fifty or seventy-five years ago, 
 only barren plains, prairies or deserts occupied 
 by wild beasts and savages. 
 
 On the Oregon Short Line in Idaho there 
 is a railroad eating station built of slabs. In 
 the yard was a bear chained to a stake. A 
 few Indians, wrapped In blankets, asked the 
 passengers for money and got an assortment 
 of things Including temperance lectures, chew- 
 ing tobacco, profanity and cold stares. Whis- 
 key would have pleased them better. The 
 noble red men have fallen on grievous times. 
 Over beyond the sand hills millions of acres 
 of wheat fields have taken the place of their 
 rabbit pastures. Artesian wells, mammoth 
 water reservoirs and canals are turning the 
 deserts into gardens. Peach trees grow where 
 the cactus bristled, and alfalfa flourishes 
 where erstwhile withered the sage brush that 
 was not even fit for goose stuffing. 
 
 After the long, hot and dusty ride through 
 the brown Rocky Mountain States, the 
 plunge into the damp, cool and green coast 
 strip of Oregon and Washington was most 
 
Oregon and Washington. 1 1 
 
 refreshing. It is indeed another country. 
 The stately pines, the rushing waterfalls, the 
 heights and depths are more majestic than 
 those of the Adirondacks, or any other east- 
 ern region. There is a quality to the west- 
 ern atmosphere that bids one breathe, and 
 expand, and grow, grow, grow. There is 
 energy in the air. All nature feels it. The 
 trees grow larger and taller than elsewhere. 
 In October, in the wild forest, I saw red and 
 white clover and grasses of heavier growth 
 than can be found in the cultivated meadows 
 of the east. The soil is of incredible depth 
 and richness. At the green grocer's store 
 were exposed for sale vegetables and fruits 
 that would win every prize in an eastern coun- 
 ty fair, and yet they are ordinary here, and so 
 cheap that it is foolish to go hungry. Roses 
 grow like trees on the Pacific coast, and helio- 
 trope hedges are ordinary. The poor little 
 eastern flowers that are reared so tenderly 
 in hot houses, and transplanted so carefully 
 in the spring, and praised so proudly when 
 promise of a bud appears are, after all, only 
 insignificant dwarfs when compared to the 
 sturdy Pacific variety. The west and far 
 northwest have only begun to grow. The 
 possibilities are enormous. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 THE PACIFIC VOYAGE — AN INGENIOUS 
 SCHEME. 
 
 At Vancouver the Canadian Pacific Rail- 
 road Steamer "Empress of India" awaited 
 the Enghsh mail which was rushing across 
 the continent from Montreal twenty-four 
 hours late. The "Empress" looked "kind 
 and sound in wind and limb" as she floated 
 her graceful five hundred feet of length in 
 the waters of Puget Sound. She was white 
 and clean when we went aboard, and no one 
 would suspect she could be restless and 
 "roily" and "pitchy" and inconsiderate as 
 she proved herself in the north Pacific a few 
 days later. We sailed at five in the after- 
 noon and got a fleeting glimpse of pine-bor- 
 dered shore, tree-clad mountain ridges and 
 craggy mountain tops before darkness closed 
 upon us. 
 
 The captain was going to sail over the top 
 of the earth in order to get around it quicker. 
 In other words, he was to take the shorter 
 northern circle to Yokohama. We had 
 hoped the water would be more level at the 
 
"Not Seasick But Slightly Indisposed." 13 
 
 top but were disappointed. My personal 
 feelings are of no importance, whatever, but 
 my friend Phil, the Philosopher from Phila- 
 delphia, lost his appetite among other things 
 early on the voyage. He denied that he was 
 seasick, but complained that the food was 
 not suitable for his philosophical stomach. 
 He spent much time in enumerating the 
 things he did not know about navigation. 
 The item that troubled him most was, why 
 the ship should be made to reek of disinfect- 
 ants when any other odor would be prefer- 
 able even if more deadly. 
 
 The passengers who were not seasick con- 
 ducted themselves in a proud and puissant 
 manner. They went to the dining saloon 
 regularly and brought back the odor of boil- 
 ed pork and cabbage. They laughed im- 
 moderately and looked perniciously cheerful 
 when there was really nothing but sadness 
 and nausea on deck. Our German friend, 
 wrapped in blankets in his steamer chair, ex- 
 pressed our sentiments exactly, when he said 
 as he gazed sadly at the tossing sea, rising 
 and falling with the rolling of the boat: — 
 "I haf no appetite for such an ocean." 
 
 There was a war hero on board. The sword 
 in his strong right hand had mowed down 
 
14 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 rows of Philippines. The gatling gun had 
 no terrors for him. Of the bolo he was not 
 afraid, but as he lay wrapped in blankets in 
 a steamer chair on the windward side of the 
 deck the mere mention of cabbage fried with 
 pork would send him flying to the rail where 
 he would tremble and writhe until all was 
 lost save honor. 
 
 On shipboard people soon become ac- 
 quainted. The iceberg social fortifications 
 with which people surround themselves at 
 home melt away at sea. Any one who does 
 not become sociable on a long voyage is not 
 merely frozen but mummified. 
 
 When my friend, Phil, the Philosopher 
 from Philadelphia, reeled up on deck one 
 morning he saw a white-faced young woman 
 with her head in the lap of a pale and melan- 
 choly-looking young man. They were ap- 
 parently bride and groom. The Philoso- 
 pher's tender heart was touched and he said, 
 "Madam, you look ill. Isn't there some- 
 thing I can do for you ?" 
 
 "No-o," she moaned. 
 
 "Can't I get you a cup of bouillon?" 
 
 "No-o." 
 
 "Well, your husband, he looks ill too; 
 can't I get something for him?" 
 
Burial at Sea. 15 
 
 "No-o, and he isn't my husband, and I 
 don't know who he is." 
 
 The best that can be said of the days of 
 this voyage is that they passed with great 
 regularity and solemnity. They were alike 
 in being cold, damp, dreary and sunless. We 
 passed within sight of some of the Aleutian 
 Islands and they did not appear cheerful. 
 There were fire drills occasionally to show 
 what would happen if the ship burned up. 
 
 The crew was largely Chinese. All the 
 cooks, dining saloon stewards, and room 
 stewards were Chinese. The passengers were 
 from everywhere. There was a Chinese 
 Mandarin going home under a cloud. In 
 some way he had displeased the Empress 
 and there were strong probabilities that when 
 he should reach Pekin a separation would oc- 
 cur in the neighborhood of his Adam's ap- 
 ple. The Empress has such frolicsome ways 
 with those who please her not. He looked 
 very dignified in his blue silk robes and em- 
 broidered skirt, but his mustache had a mel- 
 ancholy droop and his eye a wistful sadness. 
 
 On the fifth day out there was a burial at 
 sea. An English lady seventy years of age, 
 traveling around the world with her daugh- 
 ter for pleasure, had suddenly expired on 
 
1 6 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 deck the day before, and just as the cold 
 morning light was struggling through the 
 fog the services of burial were held. A Brit- 
 ish flag was draped over a human form, 
 wrapped and weighted, lying on a plank by 
 the rail. The ship's officers stood in line 
 around it; the engines stopped their throb- 
 bing; the giant propellers ceased churning 
 the brine into foam; the ship drifted, and 
 all was strangely still. A passenger clergy- 
 man read the burial service of the Church 
 of England, while the cold and foggy winds 
 from the north Pacific blew his vestments 
 about him. All heads were bowed, and at 
 the words "to the sea we commit her body," 
 sailors tilted the plank and the silent form 
 glided from under the flag and with a splash 
 disappeared in the sullen waters. There 
 was a clang of bells, the great propellers 
 resumed their monotonous grind and the 
 ship once more moved westward through 
 the turbulent sea. 
 
 When we were in the middle of the Pa- 
 cific, two thousand miles from America or 
 Japan, and over a mile to the nearest land 
 (straight down) a strange thing happened. 
 We mislaid a day — lost it. At the one hun- 
 dred and eightieth degree of longitude we 
 
A Day Suddenly Disappeared. 1 7 
 
 missed it. It suddenly disappeared. At 
 thirteen minutes after two o'clock Sunday it 
 instantly became Monday at the same hour. 
 The only way to recover it was to go back 
 and pick it up. 
 
 The Philosopher had a new scheme for 
 perpetual youth. All he needed was an air- 
 ship that would sail around the world in 
 twenty-four hours. Then, by sailing west- 
 ward, and keeping under the sun, night 
 would never come, and so no days could be 
 charged up against his age. 
 
 "But," I objected. "You will trip up on 
 this line and lose a day. This one hundred 
 eightieth meridan was evidently put here to 
 foil just such a scheme." 
 
 "It wouldn't foil me," he declared. "I 
 wouldn't cross it at all; I'd go around it." 
 
 At last we sighted land and after steam- 
 ing along the coast for several hours came to 
 rest in the crowded roadstead of Yokohama. 
 Among the ships of many nations that were 
 in the harbor were some of the Japanese war 
 vessels that surprised the world by their victo- 
 ries over the Russians. Steam tenders landed 
 us at the dock and after a few formalities 
 with the polite customs officials we stepped 
 into jinrikishas, "and the little brown men 
 
1 8 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 with bare muscular legs drew us at a rapid 
 trot along the street skirting the water front 
 to the Grand Hotel, and the first stage of 
 our trip was over. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 JAPAN — FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 From my window at the Grand Hotel I 
 looked out upon a strange sight. It was in- 
 deed Japan. At the hotel entrance a group 
 of rikisha men awaited their fares as cab- 
 men do in America, but they were not like 
 the crowding banditti that shout "Keb? 
 Keb?" In the face of a foreigner at the sta- 
 tions or docks in New York, for when one 
 emerges from the hotel these rikisha men 
 will merely smile, and bow, and point to their 
 respective rikishas without offering any physi- 
 cal violence. 
 
 If you should step into one of the vehicles, 
 the lucky owner will bow again, and placing 
 himself between the shafts will run as swift- 
 ly as Mercury on the wings of the wind and 
 you arrive at your destination with a flourish, 
 and as quickly as with a horse. For the ride, 
 including the politeness, only five cents is 
 asked, and ten expected. In this cold season 
 their short muscular legs were encased in skin 
 tight blue cotton trousers and they wore 
 jackets of the same material, but in the hot 
 
 19 
 
20 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 season they divest themselves of much more 
 than the law would allow in America. 
 
 There were children in the street; myriads 
 of them. They seemed to run in pairs, for 
 nearly every urchin had a baby strapped to 
 its little back and the two were inclosed in a 
 single padded kimona. The effect was a lit- 
 tle startling at first, for it appeared that for 
 every pair of legs there were two heads. It 
 was sometimes puzzling to tell which head 
 belonged to the legs. The children looked 
 like the Japanese dolls that are sold in Ameri- 
 ca. They had the chubby round faces, shav- 
 en scalps, (excepting the top knot,) almond 
 shaped, bright eyes, and flat small noses of 
 the dolls. And how they could run, — but 
 not faster than their noses. 
 
 Phil, the Philosopher, said that hereafter 
 his donations to the missionary fund would 
 be limited to handkerchiefs. 
 
 There was a canal at the side of the hotel 
 and on it passed the curious sanpans or boats 
 propelled with an oar or sweep at the stern. 
 Larger ones were rigged with square sails 
 upon which were painted the criss-cross puz- 
 zles that serve as characters of the language. 
 
 Over beyond on the brow of the hill stood 
 a temple, grey with age. The carved wooden 
 
o 
 
Double Headed Children. 21 
 
 dragons on the gables and rafters glared 
 across the expanse of tiled roofs. Nearby 
 was a solitary pine tree. Its long branches 
 stretched across the temple entrance as if 
 in benediction upon the natives as they passed 
 in and out. It was just at sunset. The sky 
 was a riot of colors. From the temple came 
 the deep tones of a gong that lingered in the 
 air with mellow reverberations. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 YOKOHAMA — JAPAN AWAKENED. 
 
 The modernization of Japan began only 
 fifty years ago when Parry anchored his im- 
 posing fleet in Mississippi Bay near Yoko- 
 hama, and by the most clever diplomacy ne- 
 gotiated a treaty by which certain ports were 
 to be opened to the commerce of the world. 
 This terminated the policy of non-communi- 
 cation with the outer world to which Japan 
 had adhered for two hundred years or more. 
 
 During these fifty odd years Japan has ad- 
 vanced from the feudal form of government, 
 similar to that of the middle ages In Europe, 
 to a government with one of the most liberal 
 constitutions of the world. From the dif- 
 ferent countries she has chosen the best models 
 for adoption into her commmercial and politi- 
 cal life. She has won two great wars on land 
 and sea. She has earned and compelled the 
 consideration and respect of all nations. 
 
 When the Japanese were known only as 
 the greatest artists in the world we consid- 
 ered them heathen, but now that they have 
 proven that they can also fight, and have 
 killed and maimed hundreds of thousands of 
 
 23 
 
The Test of Civilization. 23 
 
 Russians, and taken by force countries that 
 did not belong to them, we acknowledge 
 them civilized, and award them a place in the 
 family group of nations. 
 
 Those who would see Japan with the pic- 
 turesque and romantic atmosphere of the an- 
 cient times should go at once. The electric 
 lights will soon make the paper lanterns seem 
 dim, and the trolley cars and the automobiles 
 will given even the rikisha men a hard race. 
 The kimonas are passing. The ugly derby 
 hat and other European abominations are 
 more and more in evidence. The Japanese 
 long to learn and advance in European civil- 
 ization. Clothes help the cause along al- 
 though the people lose in appearance and 
 comfort by the change. 
 
 One may well spend several days wander- 
 ing about the streets of Yokohama. It is 
 all so new and so delightful. 
 
 The Benton Dori, and Honcho Dori are 
 streets in the native quarter devoted to the 
 curio trade, and there one may wander for 
 hours studying the strange and beautiful 
 goods of the olden time. Some may not be 
 as old as they look, for real antiques are 
 getting scarce. However who would object 
 to a really beautiful antique merely because 
 
24 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 it is new! Certainly not Phil, the Philoso- 
 pher. He has a passion for antiques. He 
 has acquired a nice wooden idol with an ex- 
 tended palm, which is, strange to say, wfong 
 side up. That is sufficient evidence that it is 
 not genuine. 
 
 Poor Phil, in Egypt he purchased a mum- 
 mified sacred hawk, guaranteed to be several 
 thousand years antique, but alas, it proved too 
 new and he had to throw it overboard at sea. 
 
 The curio shops are open in front to the 
 streets and you are welcome to enter, and 
 wander about, and inspect to your heart's con- 
 tent. The shop-keeper bows, and smiles, 
 and sucks the air through his teeth in the 
 most polite "Jappy" fashion, and asks ten 
 times as much as he expects to get. 
 
 The labor expended on some trifle of carv- 
 ing or embroidery Is so great, and the price 
 so small that one is tempted to buy and buy 
 until extra baggage accumulates and bids 
 him stop. Ivories, wonderfully carved — 
 porcelains, exquisitely painted — bronzes, 
 cloisonne, lacquer, ancient arms, and em- 
 broideries that are marvels of beauty, fas- 
 cinate and nothing but the joy of possession 
 will satisfy the traveler. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 TOKIO ODD CUSTOMS — THE YOSHAWARA. 
 
 A few hours railroad ride across the rice 
 fields brings one to Tokio, the capital. Ja- 
 pan being a mountainous country with a 
 large population every spot of tillable land 
 is cultivated to the highest degree. The soil 
 is broken, not by plows or spades, but by a 
 long heavy hoe. The lands that can be 
 flooded are planted by hand to rice, and the 
 elevated spots and terraces to vegetables. 
 The rice when ripe is reaped, bundled and 
 hung on bamboo poles or trees planted for 
 the purpose, to dry. When cured the rice 
 is threshed by women who draw the straw, 
 a few spears at a time, through iron combs 
 and then winnow the grain in the wind or 
 with hand bellows. The straw is used for 
 thatch, rope making, sandals, paper, etc. 
 Nothing is wasted. Vegetables are thickly 
 planted. Every inch of soil is utilized. A 
 monster radish, called the daikon, is one of 
 the staple foods. 
 
 The cottages of the farmers reflect the ar- 
 tistic and aesthetic nature of the people. 
 
26 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 Humble though the home may be — its two 
 or three small rooms constructed of straw, 
 bamboo and paper — there will be a minature 
 flower garden — only four or five feet square 
 perhaps, but complete with walks, lakes, 
 arched bridges and with trees and flowers 
 dwarfed to correspond to the scale. 
 
 The Japanese are liberal advertisers and 
 the landscape is enlivened with larger signs 
 than seen in America extolling the virtues of 
 beer, biscuits and tobacco. Japanese char- 
 acters made of painted stones on a distant 
 hillside remind the traveler what to take for 
 "that tired feeling." 
 
 Railroad station scenes are always inter- 
 esting. Japanese women run when going to 
 or from a train. Short steps are required 
 because their knees are bound by tight 
 kimonas. The scuffling of sandals that drag 
 at the heel, and the clatter of wooden clogs 
 become familiar sounds. Japanese crowds 
 are always good natured. In fact good na- 
 ture and courtesy are the characteristics most 
 in evidence. They lead the simple life, live 
 close to nature, and have a keen sense of the 
 humorous as well as the artistic, I have seen 
 grown men rest in their labor of carrying 
 brick, take a top from a pocket and spin it 
 
Japanese Patriotism. 27 
 
 with the merriment of children for a few 
 minutes, then resume their work. It is strange 
 that such gentle people should be such in- 
 vincible warriors. They have never known 
 defeat, and In the hour of their greatest vic- 
 tories they have surprised the world by the 
 modesty of their demands, their kindness to 
 prisoners and their generosity to their fallen 
 foe. 
 
 Intellectually the Japanese are at least 
 equal to any race. They are better students. 
 Education is universal. Their schools are 
 on model lines. Children may be seen in the 
 school yards drilling in military tactics. 
 Their civilization is not new. The Japanese 
 enjoyed books, arts and silks while Euro- 
 peans were still savages dressed in skin. 
 
 To the Japanese patriotism Is not only 
 the greatest virtue, but the fundamental prin- 
 ciple of their Shinto religion. The old Sa- 
 mauri class, or soldier knights, considered 
 that their lives belonged to their feudal 
 lords. Feudalism has been abolished and 
 the clans disbanded, but the spirit of Samauri 
 still lives in the hearts of the people. Any 
 citizen would consider It an honor to die for 
 his country. During the war there was no 
 lack of volunteers. The most dangerous 
 
28 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 duty was sought as a favor. Women sent 
 all the males of the family that would be 
 taken. Women did the men's work and even 
 attempted to reach the fighting line. It is 
 said that women after giving their men and 
 their money even sold themselves to the 
 Yoshawara to get more money to give to the 
 cause. 
 
 The Yoshawara is a city within the city. 
 It has high inclosing walls with a single gate. 
 Within this wall are many streets of three or 
 four story houses. There are said to be 
 twenty thousand women in the Yoshawara. 
 They are sold for a certain period for pur- 
 poses of public immorality and when that 
 period has expired they return to their 
 homes, marry and do not suffer the social 
 ostracism that would follow such a life in 
 America or Europe. If necessary for the 
 support of parents it is considered a filial 
 duty, and a pious act, for a daughter to sell 
 herself to the Yoshawara, that her parents 
 may not want. They are more often sold 
 by parents or guardians. The Yoshawara 
 women are knoAvn by their obie, or broad 
 sash, being tied in front instead of the back 
 as respectable women wear it. They are 
 licensed and supervised by the government. 
 
Social Standards. 29 
 
 The Japanese take the position that since the 
 social evil must and does exist in all coun- 
 tries either openly or secretly, It is better, 
 sociologically, that it be sequestered, and 
 under medical and police control. 
 
 Most travelers, men and women, do not 
 think the visit to Tokio complete unless they 
 walk or ride through the streets of the Yos- 
 hawara in the evening. The streets are 
 brilliantly lighted and thronged by an order- 
 ly crowd. The street floor of the houses are 
 open to the sidewalk except for a grating. 
 Behind this grating with a setting like a 
 stage of a comic opera are groups of Mus- 
 mees in resplendent kimonas with faces paint- 
 ed white with rice powder, lips crimsoned, 
 and hair wonderfully arranged In puffs and 
 wings stiff with paste and glittering with tin- 
 sel hair pins. A half dozen girls may be ar- 
 rayed in lilac kimonas, a half dozen in rose 
 and another bevy in dove color. They 
 amuse themselves by smoking the universal 
 long-stem small pipes that hold tobacco 
 enough for only two or three puffs, when the 
 ashes are knocked out on the side of the 
 charcoal brasier that serves also as a hand 
 warmer. Others may be playing on the 
 seimsen — a form of guitar. They are pic- 
 
30 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 turesque, in no way vulgar or rude, and are 
 much amused at the efforts of foreigners to 
 say the few words of Japanese they think 
 they know. 
 
 Many Europeans sojourning in Japan 
 contract Japanese marriages, taking advan- 
 tage of the extremely easy divorce system 
 which requires no legal formalities. In spite 
 of the fact, that marriage may be dissolved 
 at the good pleasure of the husband, such 
 separations are extremely rare among the 
 Japanese themselves. There a man is truly 
 "master in his own house." No matter how 
 wrong her husband may be a wife must al- 
 ways consider him right, and his will as law. 
 There can, therefore, be no quarrelling or 
 bickering in a Japanese family. In spite of 
 this strange condition the women do not 
 seem to have discovered how unhappy they 
 are, but appear the merriest and happiest 
 women in the world. In spite of all these 
 precautions taken for their protection, Jap- 
 anese men are led around by the cord on the 
 heart, or pushed along with a club on the 
 back, by women just as they are in other 
 countries. 
 
 The Japanese are passionately fond of 
 flowers. Business men and all classes of so- 
 
A Tragedy in Clirysaiifhcinuiiix. 
 
 Ill Theatre Street. 
 
The Chrysanthemum Show. 31 
 
 ciety suspend duties to make a holiday in hon- 
 or of the cherry blossoms. When the wistaria 
 blooms, or the plums blossom, or the chrysan- 
 themum blooms, flower festivals are held. 
 All the phases of nature, are watched with 
 interest. Their admiration for nature 
 amounts almost to worship. Family crests 
 are usually conventional designs of flowers, 
 for instance the Shoguns crest is three leaves 
 of the hydrangea inclosed in a circle. The 
 Emperor's is a • sixteen petaled chrysanthe- 
 mum. 
 
 Late in October there was a chrysanthe- 
 mum show in Ueno Park. It was more like 
 an exposition. Innumerable banners flut- 
 tered from forests of bamboo poles and dec- 
 orated the entrances to the booths that 
 crowded each side of the street. A ticket- 
 seller at each booth loudly proclaimed the 
 superior merits of his show and sold for a 
 penny a wooden ticket large enough to be 
 worth that for firewood. He also presented 
 a program and among the Japanese adver- 
 tisements I noticed a cut of a large bottle 
 -with the legend In English "Try Scott's 
 Emulsion." 
 
 The chrysanthemums themselves were not 
 as large as those grown in hot houses in 
 
32 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 America, but they were displayed in wonder- 
 ful quantities and strange designs. They 
 were used principally to cover set pieces in 
 tableau. Entire scenes from the theatre, 
 with all the characters made of blooms, were 
 set on circular stages that revolved at short 
 intervals, battle scenes, and mythological 
 legends being largely represented. There 
 was a striking tableau of a maiden with a 
 wax face and chrysanthemum kimona, stand- 
 ing under a blooming cherry tree, bidding 
 good-bye to a floral soldier, with a floral Fuji 
 in the background. It seemed to be a glori- 
 fied Eden Musee in flowers. There was a 
 naval battle scene with chrysanthemum bat- 
 tleships in deadly combat, in which, of course, 
 the Russian chrysanthemum ships were sink- 
 ing in a chrysanthemum sea. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE emperor's BIRTHDAY JAPAN TRI- 
 UMPHANT. 
 
 4 
 
 The Emperor's birthday, November third, 
 is a holiday in Japan. The Emperor reviews 
 the army in the morning and there is a state 
 ball in the evening. 
 
 At seven thirty o'clock we left the Imperial 
 hotel in rikishas, proceeding at the usual 
 brisk run to the field. The streets were 
 swarming with people. Flags and bunting 
 were floating to the breeze from every build- 
 ing. Leaving the rikishas at the entrance 
 we entered the field between columns of mili- 
 tary guards, and proceeded to the part re- 
 served for foreigners. This was near a cor- 
 ner of a square of perhaps a half mile to each 
 side. 
 
 To the right was the Imperial tent, and 
 spaces reserved for foreign diplomats. On 
 the opposite side was drawn up the artillery 
 and cavalry, while on the right and left sides 
 were massed many regiments of infantry. 
 This army of upward fifty thousand veter- 
 ans stood as rigid as statues. They were 
 
 33 
 
34 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 awaiting the Emperor. Beyond the soldiers 
 were thousands of citizens, men, women, and 
 children, and in the distance Fugiyama 
 reared its snowy cone twelve thousand feet 
 into the blue sky. 
 
 Through the gates came a multitude of 
 notables — army and navy officers in brilliant 
 uniforms, foreign diplomats and military at- 
 tachees. The uniforms of all nations seemed 
 to be represented. The Chinese officers and 
 diplomats in magnificent brocades, satins 
 and furs, and with peacock feathers in their 
 caps were gorgeous as a millinery store. 
 
 An hour passed. The soldiers stood like 
 statues; not a military knee had moved; 
 with all these thousands assembled there was 
 not a sound; not a voice; not a murmur; not 
 a drum had rolled; not even an eye had 
 rolled. 
 
 At last there was a bugle note. An offi- 
 cer extraordinarily braided with gold rode 
 through the gate followed by a company of 
 cavalry with lances. Then followed the Im- 
 perial outriders, and the Imperial coach in 
 which sat "The Dragon's Eye," the one 
 hundred and twenty-first reigning descendent 
 of the Sun Goddess — The Mikado of Japan. 
 Instantly all heads were uncovered. The 
 
The Military Review. 35 
 
 Emperor, stern of visage, generous of girth, 
 his strong intellectual face scantily bewhis- 
 kered, looked every inch a king. He bowed 
 kindly to the right and left as he passed 
 rapidly to the Imperial tent. There he 
 mounted a waiting horse and followed by a 
 body of officers began the march at a walk 
 around the square. The military band the 
 while playing the national air, a solemn chant 
 suggestive of the dead march from Saul. 
 
 The circuit being completed he took a po- 
 sition in front of his tent while the troops 
 marched in review before him to the lively 
 music with which they had gone to battle in 
 Manchuria. 
 
 The maneuvering of this immense body of 
 men, horses and artillery with clock work 
 precision and great rapidity was in itself a 
 demonstration of its effectiveness and an ex- 
 planation for is successes. There were no 
 delays, no gaps, no hitches. They marched 
 in close formation, double quick. The re- 
 view was all over in a few minutes. A pow- 
 erful army had passed. No wonder such an 
 army could march around the Russians and 
 strike where least expected. 
 
 We left the field before the crowd dis- 
 persed to avoid the rush. In spite of that we 
 
36 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 were caught between two streams of humanity, 
 but the crowd was good natured and orderly. 
 The Japanese are probably the cleanest peo- 
 ple in the world, both in their bodies and 
 clothing. Consequently close crowding is not 
 as abhorent as in some other countries. Pro- 
 fane and vulgar words are not known, at 
 least so the guide said. I hope this is true, 
 but he also said there is no lying, which 
 sounded Irish to the Philosopher. 
 
 The policemen carried ponderous swords 
 at their belts, but were punctiliously polite to 
 the people. At one point the police were to 
 hold back the crowd from passing through a 
 certain street, but when the crowd broke 
 through, the policemen bowed and allowed 
 them to pass without breaking any heads, 
 maiming any children, arresting any women, 
 or using words that would cause the angels to 
 put cotton in their ears. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 NIKKO AND ITS TEMPLES. 
 
 If there is an enchanted forest it is Nikko. 
 If castles could be conjured from the caves 
 of magic, nothing more elaborate could be 
 imagined than its temples. Nikko means 
 "sun brightness" and there is a Japanese say- 
 ing "Use not the word beautiful, until you 
 have seen Nikko." Every turn in the av- 
 enues of giant evergreens brings new and 
 wonderful scenes, — rushing torrents, tink- 
 ling cascades, mossy stone idols on ferny 
 banks, temples, pavilions, pagodas or en- 
 trancing views of mountains and valleys. 
 
 In the dark and mysterious shade of an- 
 cient pines are temples so elaborately carved, 
 gilded and lacquered that they seem more 
 like the jewel boxes of the Gods than the 
 handiwork of man, and about them is 
 that indescribable solemnity which casts a 
 spell like that of the interior of a great cathe- 
 dral. But cathedrals in cities are so palpa- 
 bly artificial, while Nikko seems so near to 
 nature that it might have grown as the flow- 
 ers grow, and its temples have been crystal- 
 
 37 
 
38 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 lized from the essence of beauty after a mil- 
 lion years of refinement in the studio of na- 
 ture. 
 
 When one views St. Peter's in Rome, or 
 St. Paul's in London, or the Temple of Kar- 
 nak in Upper Egypt, words come freely 
 enough — grand, imposing, enormous. But 
 when one stands before that marble miracle 
 of the Taj in India, or a tiny temple at Nik- 
 ko, words fail. To them shall be paid the 
 supreme compliment of silent awe. To them 
 shall be admitted the defeat of words; but a 
 rapture fills the soul, and the mind is hum- 
 bled befitting an approach to the deity. Such 
 creations are in themselves a worship as they 
 were truly intended. Yet each of these we 
 call heathen because they approach the deity 
 by another road than the one we, ourselves, 
 have constructed. Can the Great Spirit of 
 Love — the Creator of Nature's laws — be so 
 particular by what name he is addressed, or 
 the form used in addressing him, provided 
 all forms are equally sincere and worshipful? 
 
 Before an image of Buddha a native was 
 praying. He held in his hand a silken tassel 
 and as he repeated a prayer he turned down 
 a thread. There were hundreds of threads. 
 His face denoted intense devotional concen- 
 
The Spirit and the Form. 39 
 
 tration and a high degree of spirituality. He 
 was In no way disturbed by the presence of 
 our party, indeed he seemed to be unaware 
 of our presence. A good lady turned away 
 with a look of abhorrence and remarked: 
 
 "Poor heathen, how ignorant. Can't he 
 see them idols is dumb?" 
 
 I wonder how the recording angel cast up 
 the account. Perhaps the good-hearted soul 
 Is even now discoursing to some missionary 
 circle how she saw the heathen bowing down 
 to idols of wood and stone, but her explana- 
 tion may not include the fact that these 
 heathen ladies and gentlemen no more wor- 
 ship the idol than Christians worship idols 
 when they pray before the cross, or crucifix, 
 or the altar. In both cases it Is merely a 
 symbol to assist in concentrating the mind 
 on the deity. The Image is not a God, or the 
 Image of a God, but merely the Image or stat- 
 ue of a man, Gautama Buddha, who founded 
 Buddhism in India six hundred years before 
 Christ, and whose followers number nearly 
 one-third of the world's population. 
 
 There is a striking resemblance between 
 Buddhist and Catholic religious services. 
 Each has the Incense, bells, candles, images 
 and processions, and each has a priesthood 
 
40 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 wearing distinctive robes and leading lives of 
 celibacy and charity. They have monaster- 
 ies and schools and attain a state of eternal 
 rest and blessedness, not by the vicarious 
 sacrifice of a Redeemer, or the intervention 
 of saints, but by enlightenment, self denial 
 and pure living. 
 
 It is curious what different ideas devotees 
 of different religions have of heaven. To 
 the Buddhist it is Nirvana, the calm of per- 
 fect rest; to the ancient Norsemen it was a 
 land of perpetual summer; to the Moham- 
 medan it is a palace of sensual delights; 
 while to the Hebrew, it is a city with golden 
 streets, pearly gates, jasper seas, and the 
 pomps and ceremonies of a King of Jerusa- 
 lem. In these luxurious days of the twentieth 
 century any ordinary millionaire can come 
 very near buying any of these delightful con- 
 ditions except the Buddhist's. 
 
 The great Tycoon lyeyasu is buried at 
 Nikko. A temple of lacquer and gold does 
 him honor. Innumerable bronze lanterns, 
 offerings of his loving admirers, stand in 
 rows and avenues. A white pony with blue 
 eyes Is kept saddled and bridled In a build- 
 ing near by ready for the hero in case he 
 should decide to return to earth. 
 
A Temple Gate at Nikko. 
 
The Monkeys of Nikko. 41 
 
 This stable for the sacred horse is also a 
 marvel of carving and lacquer. On it are the 
 famous monkeys of Nikko, which are more 
 celebrated than the bronze lanterns, or the 
 elephant whose hind legs bend the wrong 
 way because the artist was left handed. 
 
 This carving represents three monkeys in 
 a tree. One holds his hands over his ears 
 and an inscription reads "Hear no evil," an- 
 other covers his eyes with his hands and the 
 inscription reads "See no evil," while the 
 third covers his mouth with his hands and 
 the inscription reads "Speak no evil." They 
 illustrate the Japanese saying, "Hear not too 
 much, see not too much, speak not too much." 
 
 To enter a temple one must remove the 
 shoes. One must also remove the shoes to 
 enter the house of the humblest native. 
 Shoes and sandals are for the dirt, and 
 dirt is not for the house. To a Japanese his 
 floor is also his chair and his table. But there 
 are special reasons for removing shoes in 
 these temples. The floors are covered with 
 priceless lacquers polished like the finest 
 piano. Pillars are covered with inches of 
 lacquer, at fabulous expense, and then carved, 
 showing the colors of the successive layers of 
 lacquer. 
 
42 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 The wonders of the temple, its art objects 
 and its relics were shown us. We were a 
 band of foreigners, ignorant in things Jap- 
 anese, not of their religion, and some of us 
 not over respectful, but the priest was polite, 
 considerate and even indulgent. The one 
 who can venerate the sacred objects of an- 
 other is a great man. How much these 
 priests have to bear from some disrespectful 
 foreigners may be judged by the following 
 extracts from the book of a well known Eng- 
 lish author: 
 
 "You buy your ticket, a little piece of 
 coarse paper, with its contents for a wonder 
 in Japanese only, and sealed and counter- 
 sealed with funny little red ink seals to pre- 
 vent the attendants embezzling the money, 
 and you enter with a guide who only talks 
 Japanese and smiles like a seraph, while the 
 Philistine pokes fun at him in English. This 
 I noticed and felt, like the Pharisee, on the 
 verge of uttering thanks that I was not like 
 these Publicans. It really was solemn to 
 me." 
 
 You will be glad he was solemn when you 
 learn how he got in, which he relates on the 
 preceding page of his book in the following 
 shocking confession, which will be better un- 
 
The Sacred Bridge. 43 
 
 derstood if I explain that to enter the sacred 
 groves and temple grounds one must pass a 
 small river or torrent. For this purpose, on 
 the main road, a bridge is provided. It is 
 broad, and sohd, and safe and good enough 
 for even an author. Near this is the sacred 
 bridge used only by the Mikado in ceremo- 
 nials. This sacred bridge is out of the way, 
 inconvenient to reach, gated and locked at 
 both ends, and respected by all natives. 
 Now read the advice of this celebrated Eng- 
 lish author: 
 
 "At the bridge, dismount and send your 
 rikisha and baggage to the hotel to wait 
 for you, then break the law* Traffic does 
 not cross Mihashi, the exquisite red lacquer 
 sacred bridge springing from shore to shore 
 with a single span like the arc of a rainbow, 
 supported at each end by a gigantic double torii 
 of grey granite. But over this airy structure 
 the bodies of lyeyasu and his descendants, 
 living and dead, had been borne for more 
 than two centuries before their dynasty 
 fell. Therefore, break the law* and climb- 
 ing over the feeble gates, enter the holy 
 ground of Nikko by the sacred bridge." 
 
 *Italics mine. — G. W. C. 
 
44 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 Fortunately for the traveling public such 
 law breakers are rare. When General Grant 
 visited Japan he was accompanied to NIkko 
 by a delegation from the Imperial house- 
 hold. As a mark of great honor he was 
 presented with an Edict of the Mikado 
 throwing open the sacred bridge to him. 
 After reading the translation he puffed vio- 
 lently at his cigar and declared, "I will be 
 the last person to break a law of Japan," and 
 crossed the public bridge. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 GIANT IDOLS, MIYANOSHITA AND A TRIP TO 
 HELL. 
 
 From Yokohama there are many side trips 
 for a day about which chapters might well 
 be written. 
 
 Kamakura was an ancient capital and a 
 stronghold, but now the plains where a mil- 
 lion people lived are only rice fields and vege- 
 table gardens. Civil wars, earthquakes and 
 tidal waves have done their work, and only 
 the Gods remain. These are perhaps the 
 most eminent Gods in all Japan. Tidal 
 waves have destroyed the temples that cov- 
 ered the Great Buddha, but its enormous 
 weight has defied time and waves for five 
 hundred years. It is a bronze sitting figure 
 fifty feet high. Visitors may sit upon his 
 thumb for photographs. 
 
 Nearby are parts of the ancient temple of 
 Hachiman, the war hero, with the arms and 
 trophies of many great soldiers guarded by 
 priests. 
 
 On a hillock protected by a shed-like tem- 
 porary structure stands Kwannon, the God- 
 
 45 
 
46 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 dess of Mercy, in wood carving overlaid 
 with gold. She is thirty feet high and hun- 
 dreds of years old. Fires and floods have 
 destroyed the temple that covered her, but 
 they have been merciful to the "Lady of 
 Mercy." 
 
 There is Miyanoshita, that delightful nook 
 in the mountains, where we lingered a week 
 reveling in the scenery and parboiling in the 
 natural hot springs. The waters from the 
 hot springs are piped directly into the hotel 
 to supply the cement tanks in the bathing 
 compartments. 
 
 This hotel is "Jappier" than other semi- 
 foreign hotels at which we had stopped. 
 Nearly all the service is performed by pretty 
 little girls who cluster about like butterflies 
 and seem everywhere present. Their round, 
 laughing faces frequently appeared at the 
 most unexpected times, — even when the rites 
 of the bath were being performed, or during 
 the ceremony of dressing, so sacred to an 
 American. They meant no harm. It is the 
 custom of the country. 
 
 Across the street was a public bath for the 
 common people. It was half open to the 
 the street. There males and females of all 
 ages plunged about in the tanks in the cos- 
 
In Miyanoshita. 47 
 
 I 
 
 tume fashionable in the Garden of Eden be- 
 fore the fall. They paid no more attention 
 to each other than would children. 
 
 My rikisha man was very much amused 
 at my inquiry if there was no impropriety 
 about it. The idea seemed never to have oc- 
 curred to him. "Would foreigners see any- 
 thing wrong in it?" he asked. It was plain 
 he thought foreigners must be a very evil- 
 minded lot. 
 
 The air was chill. Overcoats were neces- 
 sary for our comfort, and yet in the early 
 morning Japanese men could be seen darting 
 out of the bath-house, their nude bodies red 
 as boiled lobsters, and carrying their kimonas 
 on their arms, they would run down the 
 streets to their homes as fast as their legs 
 could carry them. 
 
 At the side of the hotel was a deep ravine. 
 Everywhere the hillsides are so steep that 
 were it not for the dense tangle of scrub bam- 
 boo their sides would wash into the valleys. 
 Springs gushed from the hillsides and bab- 
 bling waters could be heard day and night. 
 In the ravine was a brawling brook. Its 
 course could be traced from far up the moun- 
 tain side. The gleaming foam of the tor- 
 rent, like a silver thread, was woven in anr? 
 
48 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 out among the rich colors, gold and bronze 
 and crimson, of the autumnal brocade. 
 Down across the ravine the steep hill- 
 side looked like a mammoth picture in a 
 frame of pines hung against the sky, so lav- 
 ishly were the colors poured upon the ver- 
 dure. 
 
 A favorite walk was up the ravine to the 
 tea house of the gold fish. There one can 
 drink the weak tea of the country and learn 
 Japanese from the dainty musmees who serve 
 it; and feed little cakes to the gold fish in 
 the fountain. This is said to have been a 
 favorite resort of Sir Edwin Arnold. A 
 more poetical spot can scarcely be imagined. 
 
 In chairs slung on poles and carried by 
 coolies, picnic excursions were made to 
 charming waterfalls, and to Lake Hakone 
 from which a good view was obtained of 
 snow-capped Fiji. Crossing the lake in 
 sampans, as the small boats are called, we 
 were met by another set of carriers who car- 
 ried us back to Miyanoshlta via "Hell." 
 
 There are two hells, called big and little. 
 Little hell is a small affair of sulphur springs 
 and steam, but the "Big Hell" is a terror. 
 Here a volcano must come very near the sur- 
 face. Over acres there is no vegetation, 
 
= I " 
 
On the Lid of a Volcano. 49 
 
 All is dreary and desolate; birds will not ap- 
 proach it. The ground is a hot crust and re- 
 sounds under the feet with a hollow sound 
 and a disquieting vibration. Every few feet 
 there is a vent through which comes hissing, 
 and hot from the caldron below sulphurous 
 vapors, which, cooling in the air, turn white 
 and deposit cones of sulphur like miniature 
 volcanoes. This sulphur is gathered up, and 
 sold, and thus even "Hell" pays tribute to 
 this thrifty people. 
 
 When we had passed this inferno and re- 
 sumed our chairs we were carried by these 
 surefooted mountaineers rapidly along paths 
 on the brink of cliffs, and across mountain 
 torrents on fallen trees. It looked danger- 
 ous, but having passed safely through the 
 realms of Beelzebub, what else was there that 
 could terrify us. 
 
 It was with regret that we said "sayonara" 
 to the smiling and bowing "musmees" who 
 lined up at the hotel door to bid us good- 
 bye. The air was clear, the morning crisp, 
 and our rikisha men fairly galloped with 
 us down the mountain road to the station 
 with the unpronounceable name, where we 
 took the train for Kioto. 
 
 The journey was broken by a day at Shid- 
 
5° Oriental Rambles. 
 
 zuoka and another at Nagoya, where we saw 
 ancient castles and temples. When we 
 reached the comfortable hotel In Kioto we 
 realized with regret that half of our journey 
 in Japan was over. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 KIOTO IN THE HEART OF OLD JAPAN. 
 
 Kioto was the capital of Japan for a thou- 
 sand years, and abounds in temples and 
 aristocracy. We had been advised to defer 
 purchases of silks and embroideries until we 
 reached Kioto. Our guide said we could get 
 there "also curios more antique." 
 
 During the morning we roamed about old 
 temples and gardens and castles. In the af- 
 ternoon we rummaged among the curio shops 
 and silk stores. Such beautiful things were 
 temptations too strong to resist, and no one 
 should resist, for trifles in Japan become art 
 treasures in America. 
 
 After Nikko there is not much to be said 
 of temples. There are many larger but none 
 so beautiful. One large and beautiful tem- 
 ple has recently been completed at a cost of 
 over eight million dollars, — an immense 
 sum in this country where the people are 
 poor. It was built entirely from gifts from 
 the people. The rich gave money or ma- 
 terial; the poor gave their labor. Women 
 cut off their hair and sent it to be woven into 
 
52 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 ropes for hoisting materials. Coils of this 
 rope are preserved as relics. This seems to 
 contradict the statement frequently made 
 that the old religions are being displaced by 
 Christianity. 
 
 A Buddhist theological seminary connect- 
 ed with the temple of NIshI HongwanjI is 
 actually preparing students to be sent Into 
 Christian countries as missionaries. In fact 
 foreign missions are already established. A 
 priest remarked, "If you send men to convert 
 us, why should we not pay you the same at- 
 tention, as we know our religion Is more 
 ancient and logical than yours." 
 
 I wonder if Americans would be as toler- 
 ant of a "Joss House" set up In their neigh- 
 borhood and making an energetic campaign 
 for converts as these Japanese, or even the 
 Chinese, arc of Christian missions. 
 
 The temples of Shinto, the ancient religion 
 of Japan, are exceedingly simple. Before 
 each stands a tori, or arch, which Is merely 
 two upright posts connected by two beams at 
 the top — the upper beam curved with the con- 
 cavity upward. Tassels of rice straw deco- 
 rate It. The temple Itself Is merely a pavil- 
 ion. There is a contribution box, a bell and 
 a mirror. The W9rshiper enters the temple. 
 
Buddhist and Shinto Temples. 53 
 
 tosses a contribution into the box, strikes the 
 gong to ring up the Gods, and gazes into the 
 mirror. If he sees no sin in himself then he 
 goes his way in peace, but if in this self- 
 examination he finds error, he must cor- 
 rect it. The creed is exceedingly simple, the 
 spirit of which is, honor the Emperor, and 
 your parents and go not contrary to your own 
 conscience. 
 
 The earlier wars of Japan on the mainland 
 of Asia were not conducted on the humane 
 principles of the last. A mound was pointed 
 out to us in which were buried thousands of 
 ears taken from slain Coreans, three hun- 
 dred and fifty years ago. Since that time 
 Corea has lent her ears when Japan gave ad- 
 vice. Lending is better than losing. 
 
 It was Russia's attempt to gather in Corea 
 that sent Japan grappling at the throat of 
 the giant bear — a bear which kills its own 
 cubs. 
 
 There is an interesting trip to Lake Biwa 
 to see the giant pine tree with branches two 
 hundred and eighty feet long which need to 
 be supported to prevent their breaking down. 
 Its trunk is about forty feet around, but it is 
 only a hundred feet high. It seems to have 
 run to width like an alderman. 
 
54 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 A ride down the rapids of Katsuragawa is 
 an exciting experience. It is a thirteen mile 
 "shoot the shutes" with curves and rocks and 
 other dangers in the mountain passes. The 
 guide said dragons had been seen in the dark 
 places. (A dragon is a sort of a lobster. 
 It appears in dreams after welsh rarebit sup- 
 pers. ) 
 
 Kioto is a good place to go to theatres, 
 music halls, wrestling matches, dinners and 
 other dissipations. We saw a tragedy and 
 enjoyed it. Imagine a tragedian strutting 
 about the stage with a candle on the end of a 
 stick held in front of his face that the audi- 
 ence may see his terrible grimaces. The 
 super who holds the candle is invisible. You 
 know he is invisible because he wears a sign 
 that says so. 
 
 The Japanese have no Idea of stage light- 
 ing. They have no footlights, side, top or 
 spot lights, but hang candles, lanterns and 
 electric arc lights in a jumble In front of the 
 stage, an arrangement which both lights the 
 stage and blinds the audience. However, 
 for bona fide melodrama, with villains in all 
 their fifty-seven varieties, helpless females, 
 and dashing heroes, the Japanese brand is 
 hard to beat. 
 
Theatres and Music Halls. 55 
 
 At the music hall may be seen some very 
 picturesque dancing. Some of the classical 
 descriptive dances are pleasing and artistic, 
 but the music, — the squeaky, screechy mu- 
 sic, — how can it be described? Phil, the 
 Philosopher, says he now comprehends why 
 the Buddhist longs for Nirvana, the calm of 
 perfect rest. 
 
 In this music hall there was a ladies' or- 
 chestra. Their seimsens twanged like brok- 
 en banjos, their tom-toms thumped, and the 
 shrieks of their bamboo flutes tore dreadful 
 holes in the atmosphere, while a bevy of 
 pretty musmees sang, or rather squeaked like 
 mice. 
 
 The dancing is of the kind peculiar to the 
 far eastern countries. It consists of a series 
 of graceful poses, turning of the hands and 
 arms, coquetting with a fan, an occasional 
 rotation of the body, and lifting of a knee, 
 with the foot turned in and the great toe 
 erect as though the dancer had stepped on a 
 tack. The last position indicates mirth and 
 jollity. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 OSAKA, JAPANESE-ENGLISH, AND THE KOBE 
 ROOSTERS. 
 
 Osaka is a sort of Asiatic Venice, grid- 
 ironed as it is with canals, but instead of the 
 tumble down palaces of a worn out nobility 
 there are the factories and storehouses of 
 commercial Japan. 
 
 The Japanese have two classes of art 
 goods ; one for the Japanese, and on that they 
 spend an incredible amount of patient and 
 wonderfully skillful labor. For this the 
 Japanese themselves pay good prices. The 
 other class of goods is for "export only." 
 No Japanese would tolerate it. This is 
 practically the only class of Japanese goods 
 we see in the stores in America. These 
 goods are coarse and garish with gilt and 
 colors. 
 
 In the loft we found a factory, or studio, 
 for modern Satsuma ware. Here artists, 
 working with magnifying glasses, were paint- 
 ing miniature scenes and figures with won- 
 derful detail; for instance one artist was 
 painting an entire religious procession with 
 
Street Signs. 57 
 
 hundreds of figures and portraits on a tiny 
 vase, no larger than a tea cup. This would 
 require weeks of time, and the price would 
 make it unsalable in Europe or America, ex- 
 cept perhaps to an art collector. 
 
 There is an ancient fortress in Osaka im- 
 pregnable in the olden times of bows, arrows 
 and swords, but taken easily enough now-a- 
 days even by a tourist with a camera. It 
 has immense walls, some stones of which are 
 forty feet long by twelve feet high and ten 
 feet thick. Others at the corners of the gates 
 are twenty feet high, veritable cliffs in them- 
 selves. Yet they were brought from distant 
 island quarries before the time of machin- 
 ery. 
 
 The street signs in Japanese-English were 
 a constant source of amusement. The Jap- 
 anese is a good imitator, but never gets it 
 exact. That is very well with merchandise, 
 but with the English language it is ludicrous. 
 The Jap who has learned a little English as- 
 sumes that he knows the language and pro- 
 ceeds to mutilate it without mercy. Here is 
 a shop sign in Osaka : 
 
 O. KOMAI, 
 Monoplist of Milk. 
 
58 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 Another was more true and appropriate 
 than the proprietor probably surmised: 
 
 HERE ONE DOES EUROPEANS, 
 Curios, things encien. 
 
 This Style of left handed English is not 
 limited to the small shops. I have a recept- 
 ed bill from one of the largest silk and curio 
 stores in Kioto as follows : 
 
 " 2 hangings I got from artist Kobun 
 and he execute hy orders from Prince 
 Nabeshima." 
 
 The above referred to two painted silk 
 curtains and not to a legal execution as might 
 be inferred. 
 
 My camera films and prints came back 
 from a leading photographer, where they 
 had been sent to be developed and printed. 
 They were enclosed in an envelope, beauti- 
 fully embossed in Japanese characters, and 
 the English script "potograph." 
 
 At a rikisha stand the tariff of charges is 
 explained on a bulletin in the following lucid 
 English : 
 
Picturesque English. 59 
 
 "The rikisha charge is by two man for to 
 go up one yen also likewise for to come down. 
 By night and if storm more is double." 
 
 At Kobe we went to see the peculiar Jap- 
 anese roosters which grow tail feathers fif- 
 teen feet long. These birds conducted them- 
 selves with great dignity, trailing their tails 
 and bestowing as much care in their manage- 
 ment as European ladies do with their trains. 
 Perhaps this is the original phoenix bird, 
 which, with the dragon, figures so larg;ely in 
 Japanese and Chinese art. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 THROUGH THE INLAND SEA TO NAGASAKI. 
 SAYONARA TO OLD JAPAN. 
 
 At Kobe we took steamer and sailed 
 through the Inland Sea to Nagasaki. This 
 is a most delightful voyage suggestive at 
 times of the Thousand Islands in the St. 
 Lawrence, Lake George or Lake Champlain, 
 and again broadening out until one might 
 fancy he was sailing the waters of Puget 
 Sound until an approach to the land in a nar- 
 row passage brought to view the torii and 
 temples that are unmistakably Japanese. 
 But the shipping does not let one forget it is 
 Japan. The high-sterned junks with their 
 square sails bring to mind the childhood sto- 
 ries of the "blood-thirsty pirates that scour 
 the southern seas." 
 
 As we neared Nagasaki we passed pictur- 
 esque islands and rugged headlands. One 
 sheer cliff projecting into the sea is called 
 Pappenburg Rock. Over it were hurled 
 thousands of native Christians, converts of 
 the Portuguese and Spanish Jesuits, four hun- 
 dred years ago. At that time Japan had 
 
Early Christianity in Japan. 6i 
 
 more than a million Catholics and Catholi- 
 cism was growing rapidly, but they meddled 
 in politics and the Shoguns suspected that 
 it was the intent of the foreigners to reduce 
 Japan to a dependency of the King of Spain, 
 as had been done with the Philippines and 
 other countries. Then they were completely 
 wiped out, and the country closed to foreign 
 relations. It remained so until the year 
 eighteen hundred and fifty-four, when Perry 
 negotiated the famous epoch-making treaty 
 of amity and commerce with the United 
 States. 
 
 The harbor of Nagasaki is the most pictur- 
 esque in all Japan, its encircling hill being ter- 
 raced and set with temples. 
 
 As soon as our ship had anchored, we were 
 surrounded by a flotilla of coal barges on 
 which were hundreds of chattering women in 
 blue cotton kimonas. The barges were 
 quickly lashed to the side, ladders placed, 
 and the little women passed baskets of coal 
 so rapidly from hand to hand that it fell in 
 a steady cataract into the bunkers. 
 
 We hastened on shore where we took riki- 
 shas to see as many of the sights as the few 
 hours stop-over of the steamer would allow. 
 
 At first we went to the temple of the 
 
62 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 Sacred Horse. Sacred horses are common 
 enough but bronze ones are rare, so wc 
 climbed the hundreds of stone steps under 
 many torii of stone and bronze to the Shinto 
 Temple at the top of the hill. 
 
 The famed bronze horse is not much of a 
 success. Japanese horses are the worst in 
 the world, but this is an unflattering likeness. 
 It seems to have a little hippopotamus blood 
 in it. In an adjoining court there is a real 
 live sacred horse. It is an albino, with weak, 
 watery eyes, mangy coat and a generally dis- 
 reputable and unsanctified appearance. 
 
 Nearby is a tree planted by General Grant 
 and the house built for his entertainment. 
 Japan spared no expense in the honor of the 
 Great American. His remark at the sacred 
 bridge at Nikko was only one of the ways 
 by which he endeared himself to the Japan- 
 ese people. 
 
 After luncheon we visited the "Tea House 
 of the Garden of Flowers," made famous by 
 Pierre Loti in his book "Madame Chrysan- 
 themum." From this tea house there was a 
 charming panorama of forest-clad hills al- 
 most surrounding the harbor, where floated 
 the ships of many nations. The city was 
 spread out like a map below. Beyond the 
 
H 
 
 ta 
 
Farewell to Japan. 63 
 
 harbor entrance were islands studding the 
 bay, and stretching away to the western hori- 
 zon were the blue waters of the China Sea. 
 
 As we sailed out of the harbor, bound for 
 Shanghai, the sunset was draping the hills 
 with golden brown in the sunlit ridges, and 
 misty purple in the shadowy ravines. 
 
 Into the west we sailed, into a sea of gold, 
 and silver, and turquois. The sweet re- 
 verberations of the bell of a distant hillside 
 temple came to us over the waters, lingering 
 in the air, and causing a pang of sadness, a 
 sigh of regret that we. were at last parting, 
 perhaps forever, with dear old Japan. 
 
 There are many things, dear old Japan, of 
 which we may have complained unjustly or 
 treated too lightly, but your people are a 
 kind, courteous and pleasant people. Your 
 most cruel sports are top-spinning and kite- 
 flying. Your vocabularly is complete with- 
 out profanity. You torture trees into dwarf 
 and grotesque shapes, but you make no dis- 
 tortion of the human body. You see no 
 evil in nature's laws. Your list of mortal 
 sins is not so long that you are forever sad 
 with the contemplation of them. You go 
 through life laughing and bowing. You 
 see beauty in the flight of the stork, a sermon 
 
64 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 in the pine tree and a poem in every 
 blossom. 
 
 Sayonara rikishas; Sayonara, tea houses, 
 with the saffron colored tea; Sayonara, 
 geishas, and musmees. May we meet again 
 when the wistaria's radiant clusters beckon 
 from the trellis, and the cherry blossoms 
 come. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 SHANGHAI, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 On the morning of the second day we 
 awoke to find the ship anchored in the mud- 
 dy waters of the Yang-tse River at Woo 
 Sung. Low lying mud banks were visible 
 far away on each side. 
 
 Native boats clustered around from one 
 of which an ancient Chinaman in a wadded 
 jacket climbed over the side. He sat down 
 on the deck unceremoniously, and proceeded 
 to take from his mouth and ears a surprising 
 quantity of paraphernalia with which he per- 
 formed many mystifying tricks of slight of 
 hand. The things he could do with a whip 
 and top seemed to upset all laws of gravita- 
 tion. After this he set himself on fire inside. 
 Flames and smoke poured from his mouth. 
 He belched fire like a volcano. Then he 
 drew forth great quantities of curled papers, 
 and finally a huge bunch of firecrackers just 
 in time to have them explode on the outside. 
 What would have happened if they had ex- 
 ploded on the inside is fearful to contem- 
 plate. Before he had parsed his cap all the 
 
 65 
 
66 Oriental Ramblefs. 
 
 way round a ship oifEcer came along and 
 John did a quick disappearing act over the 
 side. 
 
 Descending the ship ladder we boarded a 
 river tug that took us up the river eighteen 
 miles to Shanghai. On the way we passed 
 many Chinese junks, high in bow and stern, 
 low amidship, their red or brown square sails 
 crossbarred with bamboo poles. A huge 
 eye is always painted on each side of Chinese 
 boats, for, as they say: "Junk no have eye, 
 no can see, no can see, no can sabe, no can 
 sabe, no can go." 
 
 As we neared Shanghai, smoke stacks, 
 factories and ship-yards could be seen giving 
 evidence of the modernization of China. 
 When we reached the landing stage and took 
 carriages and drove along the bund to "The 
 Astor House" we realized we were in an im- 
 portant commercial metropolis of the Euro- 
 pean kind. On the left were substantial 
 stone business blocks four or five stories 
 high, while on the right was a pretty park 
 sloping to the river which was swarming 
 with steamers, junks and small boats. 
 
 The street was thronged. In and out 
 among the carriages of the Europeans 
 passed a multitude of Asiatics. Repulsive, 
 
The National Vehicle. 67 
 
 ragged and indescribably dirty, most of them 
 were. Coolies trotted along drawing the 
 adopted Japanese rikisha; others were 
 carrying immense weights balanced on poles; 
 while others trundled the national convey- 
 ance, the wheelbarrow. 
 
 This barrow has a large wheel with a 
 bench on each side for passengers or freight. 
 The most surprising burdens are carried on 
 this vehicle. It is not unusual to see a per- 
 spiring, mud-bespattered coolie staggering 
 along with four fat and sleek Chinamen on 
 his vehicle. Sometimes the whole family 
 will be along. "Mommer" on one side in a 
 purple silk coat, her small feet in pale blue 
 satin slippers peeping out from dark blue bi- 
 furcated skirts, and her black hair correctly 
 glued Into puffs and wings; while with her 
 arms which are adorned with jade bracelets, 
 she holds her moon-faced offspring from fall- 
 ing Into the mud. On the opposite side will be 
 "Popper" and the rest of the family, with 
 the marketing of vegetables, pigs and fowls, 
 dead or alive. 
 
 The natives of northern China are large, 
 well built and muscular. The Chinamen In 
 America are the small men of southern China, 
 and nearly all from the one city of Canton. 
 
68 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 European Shanghai has been built within 
 the last sixty years on land granted as a con- 
 cession to foreign nations for commercial 
 purposes outside the Chinese city. The Eng- 
 lish and French have their own sections, 
 their own police, and courts. 
 
 The English "bobby" looks as though he 
 had just stepped out of the Strand. The 
 Chinese officer's uniform is a compromise. 
 The middle part is in European style, but 
 he wears Chinese boots and a funnel-shaped 
 tin hat with a tassel. The Indian police are 
 the most picturesque. They are tall and 
 slender, and at the top they have eighteen 
 inches or more of turkey red turban, won- 
 derfully and fearfully made. They also have 
 good durable complexions, dreamy brown 
 eyes and fierce black whiskers carefully part- 
 ed in the middle. 
 
 After several efforts we secured a guide 
 who knew at one and at the same time some- 
 thing of English and something of the town. 
 We then invaded the old walled city of the 
 Chinese quarter. As soon as we penetrated 
 the tunnel-like gateway we realized we were 
 in the real China. On each side lay beggars, 
 derelicts of humanity, in every stage of de- 
 formity and distress. As we traversed the 
 
Street Scenes. 69 
 
 streets, many of which are only four feet 
 wide, in which the sun cannot penetrate, we 
 remembered the Japanese remark, "The 
 Chinese are the dirtiest people in the world 
 except the Russians." 
 
 We passed the open booths of the jade 
 cutters, and comb makers. Then the guide 
 plunged through a dark passage, and we fol- 
 lowed single file, Chinese fashion, through 
 crooked corridors and alleys misty with the 
 weight of the forty-seven original stinks, 
 and emerged into an open court. 
 
 Here were arranged in rows earthen cal- 
 drons containing water in various stages of 
 green stagnation in which were swimming 
 Chinese gold fish in assorted sizes, and vari- 
 ous styles. Each fish had several tails of 
 flowing pink chiffon with ruffles around the 
 borders caught up at the sides with red fins. 
 When they swam across the tank their gauzy 
 tails trailed out behind in a way that was 
 "just too lovely for anything," as the dress- 
 makers would say. 
 
 Guide said, "Suppose Mellican man likec 
 put clean water? Then kille fish; China fish 
 no likee clean water." 
 
 "Must be the same with the men," the 
 Philosopher remarked. "Cleanliness might 
 
70 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 kill them, but If dirt gives health they'll never 
 die." 
 
 We passed on traversing a street bordered 
 on one side by shops and restaurants, and on 
 the other by what might at one time have 
 been a small canal, but which was nearly 
 filled with slimy filth on the surface of which 
 meandered a tiny stream that was liquid 
 enough to flow. Every stone in the street 
 was slippery and sodden with ooze, and the 
 stench, the awful stench! Oh, that a kind 
 providence, in pity and charity, had granted 
 us a cold In China. The memory of it lin- 
 gers, but not by request. 
 
 The "Odors of Cathay" at their best are 
 sandal wood, burning punk, and opium; but 
 alas, there are other odors peculiarly Chi- 
 nese before which the strongest English 
 language Is as helpless as the prattle of an in- 
 fant. They combine into a terrifying ag- 
 gregation of stinks, to which Perfume de 
 Polecat would be as Attar of Roses. 
 
 At last we reached the celebrated Man- 
 darin Gardens, and passing through an 
 elaborate stucco archway, found ourselves 
 standing by a lily pond with banks of grass 
 and flowers. It was a relief. We filled our 
 lungs with the fresh air and looked about. 
 
The Odors of Cathay. 71 
 
 The Garden is enclosed by a wall support- 
 ing the elongated and undulated body of a 
 dragon. Its tearra cotta head is reared in 
 terrifying ferocity at one side of the gate- 
 way, while its body encircles the garden, and 
 its tail is warningly uplifted at the other side 
 of the gate. Its body is formed of half cir- 
 cles of terra cotta roof tiles laid with the 
 convexity upward, each tier resting its edges 
 on the tops of the curves of the tiles beneath ; 
 an arrangement which gives the effect of 
 scales to this uncanny creature. 
 
 In the few acres enclosed by this wall are 
 all the types of rustic scenery. There are 
 ranges of mountains fifty feet high with pa- 
 godas on their summits where one can drink 
 tea. There are cool caves, and shady nooks, 
 and tiny brooks with crescent bridges. 
 
 There is a little lake bordered by willow 
 trees, and in its center is a many-gabled, two 
 storied pagoda supported on posts. A zigzag 
 walk, also supported by posts, leads to it, 
 and on it stood Chinese women looking at 
 the lilies. The picture seemed strangely 
 familiar. Where had I seen it before? Ah, 
 yes ! the plates, the old blue willow-pattern 
 ware ! The picture might have stepped off 
 my Grandmother's platter. 
 
72 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 In the afternoon we drove out the Bub- 
 bling Well Road, and through the Euro- 
 pean concession, and found it clean and un- 
 aslatic. In a Chinese garden we had tea 
 and confections, and saw a native theatrical 
 performance. This consisted of a deafening 
 clash of cymbals, a rattle of wooden clap- 
 pers, and an unearthly shrieking of Chinese 
 fiddles, and a tiresome, lazy dance by children 
 in spangled garments, and old men's masks. 
 
 We observed that at each place where a 
 fee was required there was a terrific war of 
 words between our guide, and the doorkeep- 
 er. We learned it was about the amount of 
 extra "squeeze" which the doorkeeper was 
 to collect from us, and the commission which 
 he should pay our guide. China is the land 
 ■ of "squeeze," and such transactions are only 
 the regular routine of business. After a 
 particularly violent wordy battle with a gate 
 keeper, which resulted in the guide reluctant- 
 ly parting with one of the two Mexican dol- 
 lars, which he had extorted from us, he 
 angrily declared, "Chinaman heap big fool; 
 him catchee one dollar, — wanchee two; him 
 catchee two dollar, — wanchee four." 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 HONG KONG. 
 
 We sailed down the China Sea in a calm. 
 The China Sea is not always calm. There 
 had been a shipwreck not long before, and 
 when we passed the region where it occurred 
 the Chinese, of whom there were hundreds 
 in the steerage, held some sort of a religious 
 ceremony. They burned reams of red paper 
 on which prayers were written, and threw 
 them burning overboard to be scattered by 
 the wind. Various foods were thrown into 
 the sea. By this means they appeased the 
 dragons of the air, and honored the spirits 
 of their countrymen who had perished in 
 the shipwreck. 
 
 On the third morning we steamed up the 
 channel with the rugged island of Hong 
 Kong on the left and the rocky Chinese 
 mainland on the right, and anchored in the 
 harbor of Hong Kong. About us were war 
 ships and merchantmen of many nations, 
 for this, the best harbor of Asia is foremost 
 in the amount of shipping, and one of the 
 busiest ports in the world. 
 
 73 
 
74 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 The city is hung on a steep hillside which 
 gets steeper and steeper until it reaches the 
 rocky "Peak" eighteen hundred feet high. 
 Up this incline runs a cable road to the ob- 
 servatory and signal station at the top. In 
 Hong Kong the social status corresponds 
 with the altitude. "High Society" occupies 
 the pretentious bungalows surrounded by 
 spacious grounds on the upper roads and ter- 
 races, while "Low Society" crowds the slums 
 at the water front. As people become 
 richer they move higher. 
 
 The buildings are of stone with arcades 
 on each floor to temper the heat which even 
 in winter is extreme, at least in the sun. 
 
 Rikisha rides on the fine macadamized 
 drives which belt the hill on three different 
 levels are very interesting. One of these 
 roads is constructed over the main canal of 
 the water work system. Bordering the roads 
 are charming villas perched on dizzy emi- 
 nences, or embowered among tropical shrubs 
 and flowering plants. 
 
 A ride up the cable inclined road is, to say 
 the least, elevating. As the car ascends a pano- 
 rama of city, harbor and shipping is spread be- 
 fore, or rather behind, like a scroll unrolled. 
 It is like going up in a captive balloon. 
 
b3 
 
Hong Kong. 75 
 
 It is only about seventy years since the is- 
 land became a British colony. During that 
 time the English have done much for Hong 
 Kong, but Hong Kong has done much more 
 for the English, forming as it does the key- 
 stone of their arch of trade and influence in 
 the far East. There is a rapidly increasing 
 trade with the Philippines, and now that the 
 Americans have dropped an oar into the 
 Eastern Sea the Yankees of Manila feel 
 quite neighborly with the Britishers of Hong 
 Kong. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 CANTON AND THE CANTONESE. 
 
 By taking the evening boat from Hong 
 Kong one may reach Canton early the next 
 morning. The voyage up ' the bay in the 
 balmy air and sunset glow of Southern China 
 is a voyage long to be remembered. When, 
 at length, the lights have faded in the west, 
 and the timid stars peep out from the purple 
 of the heavenly vault, and the darkening 
 shadows of evening permit only the horizon 
 line to mark itself against the sky, there 
 arises another light, more mysterious, more 
 weird, and more fascinating. Flecks of pale 
 blue light cap the breaking crests of the 
 steamer's wash and glimmer in the wake. 
 The ruffling waves that break from the prow 
 flash into fire, and outline the dark hull of 
 the ship in a glowing frame. This is the 
 phosphorescent sea. 
 
 The next morning at day-break we were 
 awakened by a chattering like a thousand 
 magpies. The boat was moored to the 
 dock at Canton and myriads of Chinese were 
 in view. The dock swarmed with them. 
 
The Phosphorescent Sea. 77 
 
 The river was crowded with their boats. 
 We went ashore, mounted sedan chairs, and 
 were carried by coolies to the hotel on Sha- 
 meen Island, the foreign concession on which 
 are located the European consulates, resi- 
 dences and hotels. This island is connected 
 with the native city by a bridge protected 
 with massive fortified gates and guarded by 
 soldiers. 
 
 After breakfast we began our two days' 
 sight seeing. Coolie chairs afford the only 
 means of rapid transit in Canton. Journeys 
 about the city are not long, for the popula- 
 tion of nearly two millions is crowded into 
 an area of only two miles by four. The 
 streets are perhaps ten feet wide. The 
 buildings are two to five stories high. The 
 narrow chink of sky that otherwise would be 
 visible is obscured by innumerable awnings, 
 and black signs painted with red or gold 
 characters hanging across the street; and by 
 all manner of laundries and sundries hang- 
 ing from the windows. Chairs must be car- 
 ried single file, and turning can only be done 
 at the street crossings. The streets are clean- 
 er and odors less athletic than in Shanghai, 
 although if I had seen Canton first I would 
 not have believed a dirtier place could exist. 
 
78 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 The shops are open to the street and all 
 kinds of queer foods are exposed for sale. 
 All manner of strange fish, birds, beasts and 
 reptiles seem to be represented, trussed on 
 sticks, dried, smoked and apparently var- 
 nished. I saw several small animals in that 
 condition, and from their very long tails by 
 which they were hung up, I concluded they 
 were not rabbits. 
 
 It is a short ride to the Examination Hall. 
 China is the originator of the State examin- 
 ation system. Practically all Chinese are 
 eligible to enter these examinations. Philoso- 
 phy and literature are the principal subjects. 
 On passing the lower grades one becomes 
 eligible for minor political positions. If he 
 desires higher appointment he may enter 
 higher examinations, and if he passes the 
 highest examination he becomes eligible for 
 appointment as Mandarin of the first class 
 or even for Viceroy. These examinations 
 arc said to be impartially conducted by gov- 
 ernment officials. 
 
 One would not suspect the destiny of the 
 most populous empire in the world could be 
 influenced by such an unprepossessing insti- 
 tution. After passing an entrance gate we 
 crossed a barren court populated by pigs. 
 
Chinese Fortune Tellers. 79 
 
 dogs and children equally dirty. We passed 
 up a stone walk covered with a roof of trans- 
 lucent sea shells to a central temple stacked 
 with boards used in making seats and tables 
 required in the examinations. From this 
 temple, walks lead to the twelve thousand 
 individual cells in which the students are 
 locked for the two days and nights allotted 
 for the completion of their essays or poems; 
 for the examinations are on literature and 
 not on the sciences. These cells are only 
 about five and one-half by four feet — rather 
 cramped quarters in which to spend forty- 
 eight continuous hours, for an American, but 
 a whole recreation park for the over-crowded 
 Cantonese. 
 
 One of the curious temples we visited is 
 known by the cheerful name of the "Temple 
 of Horrors" because in side-chapels are de- 
 picted the different varieties of punishment 
 to be expected in the Chinese Hell. It was 
 much like the chamber of horrors in the 
 "Eden Musee" in New York or "The Wax 
 Works" in London. The figures are in wax, 
 life size, and vividly painted. They are 
 supposed to frighten the people into being 
 very, very good. Among the tortures repre- 
 sented are unhappy Chinamen being boiled 
 
8o Oriental Rambles. 
 
 In oil, sawed between boards and crushed 
 under a bell. The one who was being skinned 
 alive was perhaps guilty of grafting. This 
 is a popular temple on account of its many 
 devils. The Chinese pantheon is composed 
 of numerous devils, and they are all bad. 
 If there are any good devils, they are shame- 
 fully neglected, for the Chinese cannot un- 
 derstand why good Joss sticks and fire-crack- 
 ers should be wasted on a God who would not 
 harm them. 
 
 The court-yard is well occupied by for- 
 tune tellers, who will tell you "welly good 
 luck fortune welly, welly cheap," but for a 
 little more they will tell you something im- 
 portant that you "really should know." 
 The way they jerk aside the curtain of the 
 future is by burning strips of gilt, or silvered 
 paper, and observing how the ashes fall. 
 Of course "money must cross the palm" be- 
 fore the charms will work. I believe this 
 is true of the cult in all countries. 
 
 As we proceeded through the narrow 
 streets our carriers gave warning of our ap- 
 proach by peculiar cries. Foot travelers and 
 coolies carrying burdens flattened themselves 
 against the walls to make room for the 
 "foreign devils." But there came a time 
 
A Mandarin' s Pompous Procession. 8i 
 
 when the clash of gongs approaching caused 
 our guide to reverse the order. Our little 
 caravan halted and the carriers crowded our 
 chairs against the wall. A great Mandarin 
 was approaching and he must have the right 
 of way. We straightened ourselves in our 
 chairs, and full of expectancy, awaited the 
 great man. The clash of brass drew nearer 
 and there appeared between the rows of 
 celestials that lined the walls a most ridicu- 
 lous retinue. 
 
 When a Mandarin travels it must be with 
 great pomp, surrounded by his servants and 
 armed retainers, but such a large retinue 
 costs money even in China; so instead of 
 keeping the men he keeps their uniforms and 
 when he wishes to travel across the city 
 sends his servants into the streets to impress 
 into his service any vagabonds on whom 
 violent hands may be laid. This "round up" 
 was a sorry looking lot. There were perhaps 
 fifteen in the straggling procession and three 
 or four uniforms did duty in sections for 
 the entire army. 
 
 First came a man, resplendent in a red 
 cotton iacket, carrying a red banner with 
 black characters announcing the name and 
 degrees of the approaching dignitary. Then 
 
82 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 came a coolie in a pagoda hat tied on with 
 his queue. He was industriously clashing 
 large brass cymbals. Behind him came an- 
 other belaboring a tom-tom with all his 
 might. Then came a fellow wearing the re- 
 mainder of the leading man's uniform. He 
 carried aloft a mighty two-storied, red cotton 
 umbrella. Then came the regular infantry 
 consisting of two men carrying rusty flint- 
 lock muskets. Thus preceded, came the 
 chair of his highness, the Mandarin, — sol- 
 emn, dignified and owlish in immense round 
 goggles, green plush jacket and cone-shaped 
 hat with a big tassel bobbing from the top. 
 Behind him came the cavalry consisting of 
 two men on shaggy ponies, and last of all 
 came the artillery in the person of a coolie 
 staggering under the weight of an enormous 
 flint-lock musket which must have been 
 twelve feet long. It was rusty and dusty and 
 the hammer was tied on with a conspicuous 
 bit of Manilla rope. 
 
 The procession having passed, we pro- 
 ceeded on our way through Jade Street and 
 Ivory Carving Street to the Flowery Pa- 
 goda. Pagodas are the only characteristic 
 monuments of Southern China. This one 
 Is familiar to every school boy, for It adorns 
 
Chinese Prisons. 83 
 
 the first page of the chapter on Asia in the 
 geography, along with the elephant of In- 
 dia, and the junks of Japan. 
 
 No Canton guide will permit his tourist 
 to escape seeing the execution grounds and 
 the prisons. They possess a gruesome in- 
 terest. The execution ground is about the 
 size of a dozen city lots, and is usually oc- 
 cupied by fresh pottery in the process of 
 drying. When wanted for official purposes 
 the pottery is hurried away. 
 
 Criminals condemned to die do not know 
 when will be the time of their execution. 
 They are confined together in a pen and may 
 be called at an time. Every Mandarin, or 
 Judge, must witness the carrying out of his 
 own capital sentences. Whenever he thinks 
 it a good day for executions he travels to the 
 grounds with his terrifying procession, and 
 Hip Hop the Highbinder, or Ping Pong 
 the Pirate, or some other criminal is ordered 
 to be brought before him. 
 
 From the nearby prison the culprit is car- 
 ried securely trussed and safely crated in a 
 wicker cage. He is made to kneel. An as- 
 sistant holds his head by the queue, while the 
 Lord High Executioner does the rest with 
 his trusty snicker-snee. The old executioner 
 
84 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 showed us the official sword used in thou- 
 sands of executions. He called to the curi- 
 ous street crowd that had followed us, that 
 he would cut some one's head off to show the 
 foreigners how it was done, whereupon the 
 crowd fled in a panic. Their terror and 
 precipitate exit seemed such a good joke to 
 the old executioner that he chuckled in 
 ghoulish glee. We consequently saw no exe- 
 cution, but there were plenty of fresh heads 
 on exhibition. Nearby is the cross on which 
 the cruel sentence of cutting in a thousand 
 pieces is executed as an extreme punishment. 
 In the adjoining jail prisoners are herded 
 in pens. Some are loaded with chains, some 
 locked in wooden boxes so small that they 
 cannot stand or straighten their legs, and 
 some were undergoing the punishment of the 
 cangue. This is a wooden collar of two inch 
 plank about three feet square. When it is 
 locked on, the wearer cannot lie down, nor 
 brush from his face the flies and vermin with 
 which the jail abounds, nor even feed him- 
 self. If friends from outside or other pris- 
 oners do not place food in his mouth he 
 will starve. Very few survive the punish- 
 ment of the cangue over three months. The 
 prisoners seemed to bear their suffering with 
 
Chinese Prisons. 85 
 
 stoical indifference and some even with grin- 
 ning cheerfulness. 
 
 We were glad to escape the gruesome 
 sights and return to the European atmos- 
 phere of the hotel on Shameen Island. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 THE FLOWER BOATS CHINESE PUBLIC 
 
 OPINION. 
 
 In the evening in the company of an Eng- 
 lish gentleman, long a resident of Canton, 
 we visited the flower boats. The flower 
 boats are a sort of Cantonese Coney Island. 
 There the gilded youths and giddy old boys 
 of Canton disport themselves with whatever 
 is the Chinese equivalent for wine, women 
 and song. In this case it appeared to be 
 opium, fan tan, and chop suey. These boats 
 are chained together and visitors walk from 
 one to the other to see the different forms of 
 Chinese gaiety, such as music halls, restau- 
 rants, opium dens, gambling establishments 
 and tea houses. The only dissipation we in- 
 dulged in was tea and sweetmeats served by 
 Chinese maidens, whose smoothly-oiled 
 raven tresses were done up in a pad over the 
 right ear and ornamented with wonderful 
 hair pins with silk and tinsel tassels. The 
 furnishings were gaudy but there was a sub- 
 stantial tone added by the heavy black teak 
 wood, carved furniture and walls inlaid with 
 
Chinese Salutation. 87 
 
 mother-of-pearl. The musicians, or rather 
 the noisicians, were ever present. The beat 
 of the tom-tom, the squeak of the one- 
 stringed fiddle, and the shriek of the bamboo 
 fife, rent our ears and wounded our musical 
 sensibilities. 
 
 In another tea house we had an unex- 
 pected pleasure. Our English friend acci- 
 dentally met a Chinese diplomat of his ac- 
 quaintance. He was a man of considerable 
 importance whose name is so top-heavy with 
 fame it would not do to mention it here. 
 Our friend cautioned us not to offer to shake 
 hands when we were introduced but to fol- 
 low the Chinese custom of salutation. 
 
 We were introduced in Chinese and of 
 course did not understand a word our friend 
 was saying about us, but the Chinaman who 
 was robed in resplendent silks smiled like a 
 seraph, bowed low, and with his right hand 
 seized his left hand and shook it cordially. 
 We did the same. Through an interpreter 
 he said: 
 
 "I am always glad to meet foreigners and 
 am very sorry I cannot speak English. I 
 am now too old to learn a language, but my 
 sons speak English and French. I have 
 three sons and they are all in Europe being 
 
88 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 educated. You know China is old but there 
 is a new China arising." 
 
 At his order, there had been placed before 
 us on the teak wood table bowls of tea cov- 
 ered with saucers, but which according to 
 the Chinese etiquette were not to be drunk 
 until the termination of the interview. He 
 explained the many varieties of the tea 
 enumerated on the menu card, some of which 
 were very rare, expensive and never export- 
 ed, and then he inquired: 
 
 "Do you enjoy our music?" 
 
 Our English friend came to our rescue in 
 this dilemma and admitted there was some 
 disagreement on the subject. Of course 
 there was not, for we were unanimous in 
 the opinion that it is a nerve-racking discord. 
 
 "It is not strange you do not appreciate 
 it," said the diplomat in the sing song in- 
 tonation of the Chinese language. "China 
 was the first to compose and write music and 
 had musical conservatories while the people 
 of Europe were still chasing rabbits in the 
 stone age. We have the advantage of sev- 
 eral thousands of years of musical culture. 
 What sounds to you a discord is to us the 
 sweetest harmony. I am told that in America 
 and Europe people who are uneducated in 
 
The Yellow Music Peril. 89 
 
 music prefer simple tunes and primary har- 
 monies to the grand music of Wagner. Mu- 
 sical culture is necessary, to appreciate your 
 grand opera and classical music, but you 
 must be educated still further before you can 
 be expected to arrive at the Chinese type of 
 music." 
 
 This explanation nearly killed the Phi- 
 losopher. With such a yellow-music peril 
 confronting us, he advocated prohibition of 
 musical conservatories, and high license on 
 country singing classes. 
 
 The diplomat smiled at us through his 
 round glasses and asked: 
 
 "Have you been well treated in China?" 
 
 "Oh yes." In that we were also unani- 
 mous. "We have been very well treated in- 
 deed;" and then he put us to shame. There 
 was sadness and reproach in his voice as he 
 replied : 
 
 "I am glad to hear it. Chinese gentlemen 
 who travel to America do not receive the 
 same courtesy. They are taken from their 
 first-class accommodations and thrown into 
 vile prisons at immigration stations to await 
 the red tape of diplomatic intervention. 
 The sons of our Mandarins, traveling for 
 pleasure and education, have been treated as 
 
go Oriental Rambles. 
 
 coolie laborers and sent to detention pens. 
 We are the only people which you discrimi- 
 nate against on account of their nationality, 
 and yet what immigrants do you admit that 
 are more law abiding, honest and hard work- 
 ing than the Chinese? We men of China 
 consider that unfair, and since we do not 
 have the might to force from you the 
 rights you grant to other nations we can only 
 resort to commercial warfare, the boycott. 
 We bear no malice to you as individuals, and 
 shall continue to treat all foreigners with kind- 
 ness, or indifference, but we will try to get 
 along without your cotton, your machinery, 
 your pocket knives with six blades and a 
 cork screw, your music boxes, your whiskey 
 and other agents of civilization." 
 
 The Philosopher Inquired, "Do you ap- 
 prove of our missionaries, and their work in 
 China?" 
 
 "I have a high regard for the missionaries 
 personally, and for their schools and hospi- 
 tals, but the Chinese would prefer to go to 
 their own heaven in their own way. Sup- 
 pose they should have the same experience 
 when they reach the American heaven that 
 they have when they reach an American 
 port. You exclude us from your country on 
 
The Boycott. 91 
 
 earth, why do you insist on driving us Into 
 your heaven? Will our company be more 
 agreeable there?" And he smiled again. 
 
 We assured the diplomat that he had 
 given us food for thought, and drinking our 
 tea we arose. There was more bowing and 
 smiling and shaking of our own hands; then 
 we returned to our boat. As we were being 
 rowed back to our hotel, the Philosopher ad- 
 mitted that this Chinese puzzle is still far 
 from being solved. 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE TEMPLE OF HONAN — HOW THE DEVILS 
 ARE IMPOSED UPON. 
 
 On the following day we visited among 
 other places, the temple of Five and Five 
 Hundred Genii where we saw an image of 
 Marco Polo, in company with those of the 
 five hundred wise disciples of Buddha — 
 rather a distinguished honor to be given the 
 early Italian navigator. 
 
 We reached the famous temple of Honan 
 in time to be present at a Buddhist religious 
 service. It was strikingly like the Christian 
 service. Kneeling worshippers responded 
 in unison to the intonations of the priests in 
 flowing yellow robes, who bowed before the 
 figure of Buddha; there was burning incense, 
 and solemn music. Nothing was missing, 
 not even the collection. 
 
 We made the rounds of the monastery, 
 which is one of the largest in Southern 
 China. We saw the immense caldron where 
 rice is cooked for thousands, and the hollow 
 log on which the cook beats a tattoo to call 
 
 92 
 
Bribing the Devils. 93 
 
 the priests, who come with their bowls to re- 
 ceive their rations. 
 
 We were shown the sacred hogs, who de- 
 vour the food the devout people dedicate to 
 the Gods, that is, they do if the priests give 
 them a chance. These hogs appeared con- 
 tented, and meditative, but not forgetful of 
 the trough, as is becoming their station, and 
 the certain knowledge that theirs is a life 
 appointment, and that when they die, they 
 will be decently buried with proper cere- 
 mony. 
 
 The priest who guided us did not seem so 
 near Nirvana as his porcine associates, for he 
 lusted strongly, after the carnal gratification 
 of tobacco, in fact he reminded us of his 
 desire several times, and finally with suc- 
 cess. 
 
 As we were being carried back to the 
 hotel, the evening burning of Joss sticks was 
 progressing before each shop. The air was 
 heavy with smoke, and vibrant with the rat- 
 tle of exploding fire-crackers. In a niche by 
 the entrance to each building, or shop, stands 
 the family altar with its lamp ever burning 
 for the honor of the ancestors, and the pro- 
 tection of the house against the ever present 
 rnalevolent spirits of the air. These devils 
 
94 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 are to be appeased by various bribes of 
 money, gold, silver, and food, and fright- 
 ened by Joss sticks, and fire-crackers. But, 
 alas, the commercial spirit of the Chinese ex- 
 tends even into their religion, for spurious 
 money, gold and silver made of gilt paper 
 and tinsel, is burned before the altars, and 
 the food offered to the Gods they take back 
 and eat. 
 
 When we were safely taking our ease on 
 the hotel veranda in the foreign concession, 
 we heard the seven o'clock gun, and the beat- 
 ing of the tom-toms, announcing the closing 
 of the outer wall gates, and the inner gates 
 that subdivide the city into wards. 
 
 While the ways of John Chinaman seem 
 strange to us we should remember that our 
 ways are are equally strange to him, and per- 
 haps equally abhorent. It is more difficult 
 to place ourself at the viewpoint of others 
 than it is to write a book about it. 
 
 " O, wad the powers some giftie gie us 
 To see oursel's as ithers see us." 
 
 The following letter written by a Chi- 
 nese tourist traveling for pleasure in Ameri- 
 ca, gives the Chinese view of our flaunted 
 superior civilization. 
 
As We Appear to the Chinaman. 95 
 
 "Waldorf Astoria Hotel, N. Y. 
 Dear Chin Chin : 
 
 America is a most barbaric country. The men do not 
 shave their heads, ears, or eyelids. They eat meat half 
 raw, still dripping blood, tearing it apart by means of iron 
 tools. They cannot use chop sticks and can only afford 
 rice once a week. 
 
 They have scarcely any respect for their ancestors and 
 the way they treat their women is simply shocking. They 
 take them out to what they call "Balls" with scarcely 
 any clothing on the upper part of their bodies, it having 
 mostly slipped down so it drags behind, and there to 
 simply hellish noise, which they call music, they wrestle 
 their women all oyer the floor until they are exhausted. 
 Yours indignantly. 
 
 Chop Suey." 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE EDUCATION OF CHINA. 
 
 Confucianism is the leading religion of 
 China. It is a system of philosophy, ethics 
 and morals founded by Confucius about five 
 hundred years before Christ and a hundred 
 years after Buddhism was founded in India. 
 Its five basic precepts are: fidelity to the 
 reigning authority; reverence for parents; 
 submission of the wife to the husband; obedi- 
 ence of younger sons and daughters to the 
 oldest son; and the duties of man to man, 
 which last is summed up in their golden rule, 
 "Do not do unto others as you would not 
 have them do unto you." One of his five 
 hundred disciples taught that good should 
 be returned for evil, but Confucius rebuked 
 him saying, "What then will you return for 
 good? Recompense injury with justice, and 
 return good for good." 
 
 Whether these teachings have anything 
 to do with it or not, it is a fact that the Chi- 
 nese merchant is considered absolultely re- 
 liable and honest in all business transactions, 
 
Chinese Honesty. 97 
 
 When a Chinese merchant says "Can do" af- 
 ter a verbal agreement, the European trader 
 knows it will be done even if the Chinaman 
 loses money. He drives a close bargain, but 
 when the "Can do" is passed, his word will 
 be kept. There are no bankruptcies. Debts 
 do not outlaw. A failure would be a serious 
 calamity, for the entire family would be held 
 liable and probably heads would fall. 
 
 As we steamed down the Pearl River the 
 next day, returning to Hong Kong, we 
 passed some very pretty hill scenery. We 
 observed that the forts China has construct- 
 ed to control the river are no trifling affairs. 
 Perhaps China will some day be able to kill 
 her thousands like Japan and become recog- 
 nized as civilized. 
 
 In the meantime China Is dreadfully 
 heathen. But there is hope. We are edu- 
 cating her. Our churches contribute mil- 
 lions In money and hundreds of precious lives 
 of missionaries to teach the Chinamen that 
 their religion is all wrong, and their civiliza- 
 tion away behind the times and not suited to 
 them at all. If the Chinamen offer any ob- 
 jection, or throw any stones, or break any 
 windows, or chase the unwelcome teacher 
 of a strange religion out of their neighbor- 
 
98 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 hood, the cable gets hot with the calls for 
 gunboats. The lion roars, and the eagle 
 screams. Then the war ships and sol- 
 diers come and take a province or two; 
 force the helpless government to sign a 
 treaty that the province is gladly given 
 up, sold, leased, or given away; that 
 they love the missionaries dearly, that 
 they are very, very sorry their property or 
 feelings were hurt; and, that they will cut 
 off the head of somebody, and see that it 
 does not occur again. 
 
 But they are learning. They are learning 
 how to build forts and train men, and bor- 
 row money, and manufacture rifles and big 
 guns. In due course of time they will be- 
 come civilized, and have an army of a hun- 
 dred million men; then, perhaps, an Asiatic 
 Napoleon, another Mongol like Genghis 
 Kahn who conquered Central Asia in the 
 thirteenth century will rise up among them, 
 who knows how to handle such an army be- 
 cause he has been educated at the expense of 
 the American people at West Point, and — ■ 
 then may all the world tremble. 
 
 On the way down the river we passed a 
 large house-boat flying the American flag. 
 It was floating lazily at anchor near the 
 
Strange if True, and Strange Anyway. 99 
 
 bank. Its decks were shaded by awnings 
 and comfortable with hammocks and steamer 
 chairs. It looked very cool and luxurious. 
 Its occupants waved us a cheery salutation 
 as we passed. The captain replied: 
 
 "No that is not an American millionaire 
 but missionaries spending a season on the 
 river for the good of the natives. 
 
 The captain was a hardened sailor. He 
 appeared to believe that the foreign teachers 
 destroyed the natives' reverence for the moral 
 code of their ancestors without supplying 
 them with a working quantity of the Chris- 
 tian conscience. 
 
 He related a story of the missionary 
 house-boat, which illustrates the patience 
 required to awaken China. 
 
 The missionary's class having assembled 
 the good man proceeded to throw the light 
 into dark places in this manner: 
 
 "Who made you ?" he asked of the China 
 boy at the end of the line. 
 
 "Ancestors." 
 
 "No. God made you," corrected the 
 missionary. "Now who made you?" 
 
 "God." 
 
 "Correct. Now what did he make you of ?" 
 
 "Spirits," replied heathen number two. 
 
100 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 "No," corrected the missionary again. 
 "He made you of dirt. Now what did He 
 make yoii of?" 
 
 "Dirt." 
 
 "Correct. Now what did he command 
 you not to do?" 
 
 "Confucius, him say, no makee ancestor 
 losee face; no stealee, no talkee lie," prompt- 
 ly answered number three. 
 
 "The answer is 'sin,' " sternly corrected 
 the missionary. "Now what did God com- 
 mand you not to commit?" 
 om. 
 
 "Now what is the Trinity?" 
 
 On this the Chinaman figured some time 
 and finally declared. "One is three and 
 three is one. Chinaman no can do." This re- 
 quired a long explanation and in the mean- 
 time convert number two disappeared. 
 
 "Now we will review the lesson," said 
 the missionary. 
 
 "Now, number one, who made you?" 
 
 "God." 
 
 "What did he make you of?" 
 
 "Sin," came the surprising admission from 
 convert number three. 
 
 "Oh my, no!" 
 
 "Yes, me catche 'sin.' Dirtee Chinaman, 
 
Learning English. loi 
 
 him jump overboard, takee washec. Him 
 talkee plenty good Englis, catchee job guide; 
 him no more likee Melican Joss." 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 MACAOj THE MONTE CARLO OF THE 
 EASTERN SEA. 
 
 Macao is picturesque. As our steamer ap- 
 proached there was a suggestion of a water 
 color sketch in its buildings, tinted pale blue, 
 salmon or gleaming white, which terraced the 
 rugged peninsula in an azure sea. It was 
 built by the Portuguese four hundred years 
 ago, and looks its age. 
 
 The mob of Chinese rikisha men at the 
 dock were held in check by a pompous little 
 Portuguese policeman. He was less than five 
 feet in height and weighed perhaps a hundred 
 pounds. He carried a pistol and an enor- 
 mous saber. His black eyes flashed from 
 under bushy eyebrows, and his exuberant 
 whiskers bristled with importance. He did 
 not hesitate to slap the Chinamen in the face, 
 and if one showed the slightest resentment, 
 he would get a resounding whack with the 
 flat of the saber across his solar plexus, or 
 on his ultimate If he had turned to flee. 
 
The Fan-Tan Game. 103 
 
 When we had at last selected riklshas 
 we made fast time to the Boa Vista Hotel. 
 The view from the porches was of such strik- 
 ing beauty that it brought rhapsodies of de- 
 light from every tourist. The hotel was on 
 a hillside at one end of a crescent bay. At 
 the other end was a cone shaped hill crowned 
 by the Montee fortress. On the glassy sur- 
 face of the bay floated junks and the bat- 
 winged boats of the fishermen. Facing the 
 bay is the Praya Grande, a wide esplanade, 
 thronged with promenaders. It is shaded 
 by banyan trees, and protected from the sea 
 by a substantial granite wall. At the fur- 
 ther end of the Praya Grande are the public 
 gardens beautifully laid out and glowing 
 with tropical flowers. A military band was 
 playing there, and the sweet strains of mu- 
 sic mellowed by distance, were brought us on 
 the fragrant breezes. Macao might be 
 called an Asiatic Naples, but, on account of 
 its many gambling establishments it is known 
 as the Monte Carlo of the Eastern Sea. 
 
 In the evening we went to one of the 
 brilliantly lighted gambling houses to see 
 the popular game of Fan-tan. We were 
 shown to a balcony from which we could 
 look down upon a fan-tan table, around 
 
lo4 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 which was a crowd of Chinamen, Portu- 
 guese, and Eurasians. High class natives 
 and foreigners use this upper balcony when 
 they play. A dealer for the house sits at a 
 large table upon which are painted four 
 squares marked i, 2, 3 and 4. A pile of copper 
 coins is before him. He pushes a handful 
 towards the center of the table, and partial- 
 ly covers it with a bowl. Then the betting 
 begins. The players can place their money 
 on either of these four numbers. When the 
 bets are placed, the dealer lifts the bowl and 
 counts the coins back into his pile in lots of 
 four, using a chop stick that all may see the 
 counting. There will be left over an odd i, 
 2, or 3 coins, or they will come out even on 
 the 4. The number left over wins, and all 
 who have their money on that square are 
 paid three times their bet, less ten per cent, 
 commission. All others lose to the house. 
 An attendant on the balcony attended to the 
 players, lowering their money to the table 
 and drawing it up by means of a cord and 
 basket. The bets were usually silver coins, 
 but sometimes large bank notes traveled 
 down, and fat rolls came up, by the cord and 
 basket route. It is purely a game of chance, 
 and quite exciting. 
 
Camoens' Gardens. 105 
 
 The house served tea and nuts. A few 
 Chinamen were smoking opium on the teak 
 wood divans around the, gallery, or dozing 
 quietly in the opium fiend's paradise. 
 
 On our return to the hotel, how charming 
 were the cool verandas! The street lights of 
 the Praya Grande outlined the crescent of 
 the bay, and from the distant public garden 
 came the soft strains of a waltz. Across the 
 dark waters of the bay stretched a shimmer- 
 ing pathway of silver to the low hanging 
 moon. 
 
 The next day we visited the picturesque 
 ruins of the old cathedral at the top of a long 
 flight of steps. It is interesting from the 
 fact that immense treasure is supposed to be 
 buried in the neighborhood, and that many 
 Japanese converts who escaped the persecu- 
 tion in Japan, assisted in its building. 
 
 Nearby is the entrance to Camoens' Gar- 
 dens where the exiled soldier-poet of Portu- 
 gal completed his heroic epic "The Lusia- 
 das." Through a mediaeval gateway we 
 entered a garden blooming with many flow- 
 ers. The air was sweet with heliotrope, lav- 
 ender, and rose. We passed an imposing 
 old mansion occupied by the military Gover- 
 nor, and walked down an avenue in the cool- 
 
io6 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 ing shade of the spreading banyan trees, 
 then up a small hill, and found ourselves in 
 a little nook shaded by immense overhanging 
 boulders. This is the grotto of the Camo- 
 ens, the spot where the Immortal bard re- 
 tired to receive inspiration to write the 
 greatest epic poem in Portuguese literature 
 for the glory of Louis of Portugal, who had 
 exiled him, because he knew too much, and 
 wrote too truly. 
 
 In an archway formed by the boulders are 
 verses in various languages praising Camo- 
 ens. One In English began : 
 
 "Gem of the Orient, Earth, and open Sea, 
 Macao ; that on thy lap and on thy breast 
 Has gathered beauties all the loveliest 
 Which the sun shines on in his majesty." 
 
 There was more of this poem, but as it 
 progressed It got worse, so I divide it in the 
 middle, and deliver only the top. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 SINGAPORE. 
 
 On the voyage down from Hong Kong 
 ducks came out ; also lawns, and pongees. It 
 was hot, and the dark man who pulled the 
 punka was overworked. The punka Is an 
 early ancestor of the electric fan. If he 
 pulled too lazily at the rope the wrath of 
 some officer was sure to fall upon him. This 
 particular punka oscillated over the table in 
 the dining cabin, and faintly stirred the hu- 
 mid air into the semblance of a breeze. 
 Sometimes he held the cord with his toes, 
 and then the upper part of him slept, but his 
 leg was awake and swung regularly back and 
 forth pulling the cord. 
 
 At Singapore we were within a few de- 
 grees of the equator, and here we stopped 
 for a day. A drive to the Botanical Gar- 
 dens was full of interest. The glare of the 
 chalk roads was relieved by the dense green 
 of the tropical foliage. The bungalows of 
 the European residents are raised on stilts 
 to permit the breezes to temper the heat and 
 incidentally, perhaps, to discourage the ma- 
 
 107 
 
io8 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 laria germs, fever microbes, snakes, tigers 
 and other dangers that are the principal sub- 
 jects for afternoon conversations. In the 
 town itself the malaria and fever germs are 
 constant visitors, and boa constrictors and 
 tigers occasionally call. 
 
 At the Zoological Garden there is a charm- 
 ing collection of snakes — a whole temper- 
 ance lecture, — and several nice glossy tigers. 
 There is also a cageful of monkeys thirsting 
 for knowledge; one reached a surprisingly 
 long arm through the bars and appropriated 
 my glasses. He carried them to the highest 
 perch, then he chuckled with delight and 
 gravely looked through them. He was 
 plainly surprised. His exclamations attract- 
 ed a dozen other monkeys. They quarreled 
 about my glasses, and then divided them, 
 and when I came away one was parading the 
 cage looking through a single eye-glass like 
 Montmorency of the "Happy Hooligan" 
 family. 
 
 The street scenes of Singapore are especi- 
 ally interesting. All the races of the East 
 are represented, with the Malays predom- 
 inating. These people are shady of skin, 
 lathy of leg and not much given to clothes. 
 Such as they have are in all the colors of the 
 
Not Much Given to Clothes. 109 
 
 rainbow. These benighted heathen are still 
 in darkness regarding the advantages of 
 clothing in their hot climate, and they will not 
 realize that it is very improper to go about 
 clad only in red breech clouts and brass ank- 
 lets. Occasionally some dandy among them 
 will appear of a holiday carrying European 
 clothes to extremes by wearing a discarded 
 silk hat and patent leather shoes, but alas 
 there will be no more in the middle than be- 
 fore. 
 
 Here we entered a Hindoo temple at the 
 invitation of the good-natured Cerebus at 
 the gate who wore a few clothes and a kind- 
 ly smile. His teeth were dyed a deep crim- 
 son by the betel nut he was industriously 
 chewing. He showed us several fierce idols 
 and two cars of Juggernaut. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 PENANG — TROPICAL FRUITS. 
 
 All day we sailed up the Strait of Ma- 
 lacca. Some of us slept on deck to catch a 
 glimpse of the Southern Cross. Whether 
 we saw it, is a matter of faith, and "faith is 
 believing what you know ain't so," as the 
 small boy said. We did, however, see the 
 hills of Sumatra, and the mountains of the 
 Malay Peninsula. One of the highest peaks 
 is Mount Ophir, where, according to a tra- 
 dition, the Queen of Sheba had gold mines. 
 
 The sea was serene and on its glassy sur- 
 face the passing clouds were reflected. Fre- 
 quently we saw driftwood. Once we passed 
 a native canoe upturned. The breeze was 
 fresh with the odor of the ocean and soft 
 with the balm of the Indian Isles where : 
 
 "Are still the heavy blossomed bowers, 
 
 And the heavy fruited trees; 
 The summer Isles of Eden 
 
 In their purple sphere of seas." 
 
 There was a langorous charm in the air. 
 To stretch in a steamer chair and give one's 
 
 110 
 
Tropical Luxuriance. 1 1 1 
 
 self up to the happiness of Indolence, was a 
 luxury which was all too soon interrupted by 
 our arrival at Penang. 
 
 Penang, where the nutmegs come from/ is 
 much like Singapore. The people look even 
 more barbaric on account of the custom of 
 painting their foreheads, arms and bodies to 
 indicate their caste. It is very effective on 
 their brown skins. Another race, the Chet- 
 ties, shave the front of their scalps but allow 
 their back hair to fall over their shoulders. 
 
 We took garees, as the native carriages 
 are called, and drove some four miles to the 
 Botanical Garden. The road was through 
 groves of cocoanut, date and areca palms, 
 nutmeg, clove and cinnamon trees. We 
 passed many spacious European bungalows 
 and native palm huts. 
 
 The Botanical Garden is a revel of tropi- 
 cal luxuriance, strange flowers, wonderful 
 orchids and heavy perfumes. Back of the 
 garden rises a hill, billowy with the green of 
 tree tops. From a notch in its crest a moun- 
 tain stream tumbles hundreds of feet in a 
 foaming cascade. In the sunlight it gleamed 
 like a white satin ribbon on a green velvet 
 curtain. We climbed to the cascade, ad- 
 mired Its beauties, and filled our sun helmets 
 
112 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 with brilliant flowers that nodded from the 
 rocky clefts. 
 
 In the cooling sprays of the waterfall we 
 tasted the fruit of the tropics. Our Malay 
 boy opened the basket and presented a fruit 
 that looked something like a yellow toma- 
 to. It was a mango. Its watery interior 
 was held together by a fibrous, cottony net- 
 work, and the eating of one is like unto the 
 sucking of a sweet rag. Another fruit look- 
 ed like a baked potato and tasted like a pear 
 gone wrong. Then came the mangostine. 
 This was a highly-ornamented fruit trim- 
 med with four small leaves at its stem, and 
 a mark on its tip like a marigold. We cut 
 through its purple skin and its rose-tinted 
 husk, and a snowy white heart separated. 
 This readily broke into quarters like little 
 blocks of ice cream. I tasted a portion and 
 gave thanks ; for it melted in the mouth with 
 a cool, refreshing lemon-phosphate taste 
 that would delight a Sybarite, whatever a 
 Sybarite may be. 
 
 The sunset as seen from the ship when it 
 steamed away from Penang that evening was 
 strangely beautiful. The sun approached 
 the distant hills in a glory of golden haze 
 barred by burnished copper. The cloud 
 
Sunset on the Indian Ocean. 113 
 
 margins faded into pale green and turquois, 
 touched here and there with rose and amber. 
 Into this riot of colors, streamers of pink from 
 the sinking sun shot Into the heavens In rays 
 of radiating glory, changing constantly and 
 suffusing all the circle of the horizon with 
 rosy opalescence. It was one of those sun- 
 sets that not even fancy can tint; a fragment, 
 perhaps, of the glory that surrounds the eter- 
 nal throne. 
 
 The colors faded; the clouds darkened; 
 only a dull red glow lingered on the western 
 horizon. The heavenly vault deepened to 
 azure; the tiny stars peeped shyly out; 
 and a great, round, red moon slowly rose 
 out of the glistening waters of the Indian 
 Ocean. 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 ARRIVAL AT COLOMBO AND A SAD DECEPTION. 
 
 As we approached Ceylon we could see 
 the hazy blue mountains with puffs of steamy 
 clouds hanging on their wooded slopes; and 
 forests of palms fringing the sandy beaches 
 where the white line of the breakers could 
 be seen. Many passengers stood at the rail 
 a long time sniffing the air, for the "spicy 
 breezes that blow soft o'er Ceylon's Isle," 
 but all they got for their trouble were sun- 
 burned noses from the reflection of the sun 
 on the water. 
 
 When we came to anchor, numerous na- 
 tive boys in breech clouts paddled to the ship 
 on rafts of three slender logs. Standing on 
 these uncertain platforms they lifted up their 
 voices in glad peans of joy, for money was 
 coming their way. They sang "Ta-ra-ra- 
 boom-de-aye," beating time by slapping their 
 naked sides with their elbows. When pas- 
 sengers had been attracted to the rail, these 
 unchins cried "Throw a penny. Mister?" 
 When a coin was thrown into the water every 
 urchin dived. Down they went, scrambling 
 
The Moral of a Catamaran. 115 
 
 for the coin, and when they came up one of 
 them was sure to have it between his teeth. 
 
 Some of the impatient passengers went 
 ashore on catamarans. A catamaran is a 
 rakish looking craft made of a hollow log. 
 It is capable of sustaining a not too obese 
 passenger in the center, and a lean native at 
 either end. It would immediately capsize 
 were it not for the outrigger, which consists 
 of a small log lashed at the ends of two poles 
 and floating alongside. This humble out- 
 rigger is an essential support of the boat. 
 From this simple craft the Philosopher from 
 Philadelphia deduced some comforting mor- 
 als. 
 
 "It is sometimes given to the weaker 
 half," he said, "to be the support of the 
 strong," and he added sadly, "sometimes the 
 sole support." "It also teaches the value of 
 little things; for instance, if our salary is 
 small we should be consoled by the thought 
 that such as it is, we need it." 
 
 The Philosopher had other inexpensive 
 wisdoms of the catamaran variety, but his 
 audience had climbed overboard to the steam 
 tender. 
 
 After passing through the custom house 
 with that sense of burning shame that comes 
 
ii6 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 from having nothing to smuggle, we stepped 
 into rikishas, and were soon rolling along 
 the sea-shore road to the Galle Face Hotel. 
 
 What a pleasure it is to one who has been 
 a long time on shipboard to feel himself 
 again on the solid earth. With what relief 
 one can fill the lungs with air that has the 
 odors of growing grasses and blooming flow- 
 ers. 
 
 The roads of Colombo are made of molas- 
 ses colored soil, which has a habit of mean- 
 dering through the air, and settling on any 
 face that happens to be convenient. This 
 produces some curious maps on the perspir- 
 ing faces of the tourists, but on the natives it 
 doesn't show. 
 
 As we rode, I remarked to Phil, the Phi- 
 losopher from Philadelphia, the strange ab- 
 sence of men. The way women are down- 
 trodden In this heathen Island is certainly a 
 sin. Reared as I was in a land where wo- 
 men are respected, and protected, it filled me 
 with indignation to see women, lovely wo- 
 men, engaged in every sort of occupation. 
 There were frail women carrying burdens; 
 slender women with soulful eyes tolling in 
 the roads; fat women whose skirts were bad- 
 ly stretched to get around, driving nails and 
 
Imposed Upon. 117 
 
 hitting the heads every time; women driving 
 bullock carts, and using frightful language; 
 and women doing nothing, but throng the 
 streets. 
 
 All of them wore skirts of checked calico 
 tightly wrapped around their limbs, and their 
 long hair was neatly done in top-knots, held 
 by large tortoise shell combs. 
 
 Were there no men on the island? Ap- 
 parently not. The Philosopher had read 
 of some such island in the Southern Sea. Can 
 this be the land of the Amazons? The 
 Philosopher thought not, as he saw no span- 
 gled tights. 
 
 A beggar girl ran by my side. "Give me 
 a penny," she said, tapping her forehead 
 with one hand and rubbing her bare stomach 
 with the other. "Give me a penny." Then 
 she reversed the order, rubbing her forehead 
 and tapping her stomach."* 
 
 "Give me a penny. You are my father." 
 
 "Impossible. I am a perfect stranger." 
 
 "You are my very good father," she in- 
 sisted, salaaming as she ran. "You are my 
 father; give me a penny." She kissed her 
 hand and touched my white shoes. 
 
 "You are my father." 
 
 *A very difficult feat. Try it yourself.— C. IV. C. 
 
ii8 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 Here was a sad case. In all this town 
 there was not a man to be her father. She 
 must beg one. Anyone who had money 
 would do. Not a man in sight but the Phi- 
 losopher; and yet, it was curious, there were 
 children, — many of them — I could recog- 
 nize them anywhere. They wore no dis- 
 guises. Clad in the rich brown tints of their 
 complexions, and Trilby hearts, they stood 
 forth in the perspective, living evidence of 
 the needlessness of the masculine gender in 
 the propagation of the species. I was dumb- 
 founded. Here was a discovery. Beside it 
 Darwin's discoveries and theories were as 
 simple as nursery rhymes. It is true Prof. 
 Loeb had discovered that sea urchins can be 
 produced without male fertilization, but 
 what was that compared to my discovery that 
 land urchins can be produced without man. 
 I would report it to the Scientific world at 
 once, and emblazon my name high on the 
 pinnacle of fame, beside Prof. Smitherene's 
 whose paper on ^'Insomnia of the Industrious 
 Flea" won the the Tanner's medal. 
 
 I bounded into the hotel, ordered a bale 
 of paper and a quart of ink sent at once to 
 my room and sprang up the stairs three steps 
 at a time. 
 
h- 
 
 i# Iff 
 
A Custom of the Country. 119 
 
 At last the writing material was brought — 
 by apparently another woman, — but, Shades 
 of Cleopatra ! this one had whiskers. 
 
 "What," I said, a horrible suspicion chill- 
 ing my blood, "do you women wear whiskers 
 too?" 
 
 He turned reproachful eyes upon me and 
 sadly said: 
 
 "Master, I am the father of a family." 
 
 "But why these skirts; your Psyche knot; 
 your tortoise shell combs?" I inquired. 
 
 "'Tis the custom of my country," he re- 
 plied calmly. "Shall I bring you tea?" 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 IN AND ABOUT COLOMBO. 
 
 My room at the Galle Face Hotel over- 
 looked the ocean. Cocoanut trees waved 
 their fronds in front of the open windows, 
 and cast dark shadows in the evening when 
 the moonlight rippled on the sea. 
 
 I did not occupy my room alone. I shared 
 it with hordes of mosquitoes and red ants. 
 Netting around the bed kept the former at 
 bay, and one gets used to the latter. 
 
 My most frequent visitors were the crows. 
 They came early and stayed late. They sat 
 on the window ledge, and stared with their 
 heads tipped saucily to one side, and cawed 
 for the remains of Chota hadzri, or early 
 breakfast of toast and tea, which is brought 
 before one is out of bed according to the cus- 
 tom of the country. 
 
 One gradually gets accustomed to room 
 boys in skirts, Psyche knots, and hair combs. 
 With a little experience one can distinguish 
 the genuine female from the near-woman va- 
 riety. 
 
 ISO 
 
Keeping an Eye Out for Whiskers. 121 
 
 The women are highly ornamented with 
 anklets, toe rings, finger rings, armlets, neck- 
 laces and ear-rings in curiously worked sil- 
 ver and gold, some set with native precious 
 stones. Even the nose is not spared. Often 
 a jeweled ornament is anchored in one side. 
 Occasionally both sides of the nose are 
 pierced, and hung with jeweled pendants. 
 But men also wear much jewelry, consequent- 
 ly that is of little assistance in determining 
 sex. It is safer, and better judgment to keep 
 an eye out for whiskers. Under seven years 
 of age children are clothed only in jewelry, 
 including a silver chain around the waist 
 from which is suspended an ornament in the 
 form of a Trilby heart in the location of the 
 historical fig leaf. 
 
 The rides around Colombo are sources of 
 ever-varying delight. The roads wind 
 through groves of cinnamon, nutmeg, clove 
 and palm trees. There is a depth of green 
 that throws the purple of the passion flower 
 and the scarlet of the hibiscus into brilliant 
 relief. The palm leaf cottages of the na- 
 tives, half hidden in flowery bowers, the 
 gracefully draped women, and the naked 
 cherubs playing about, are in perfect har- 
 mony with the Orient of our dreams. 
 
122 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 Wherever there is a pond or a river, one 
 will generally find natives at their laundry 
 work. They wash their clothes on them- 
 selves and take them off to dry in the wind. 
 So skillful are they' in exchanging their gar- 
 ments in public that at no time is too much 
 bronze visible. 
 
 The natives wash the European's clothes 
 by trailing them in the stream, and trash- 
 ing a rock with them. This method is guar- 
 anteeed to be the most destructive known, 
 but these native laundries are among the 
 most picturesque scenes in Ceylon. 
 
 One afternoon we drove to a Buddhist 
 Temple, some miles out, where there is a 
 large dagoba. A dagoba is a monument in 
 somewhat the shape of a huge dinner bell, 
 and usually contains some sacred relic or 
 tomb. Far away in the tangled forest of 
 the interior, are ruined cities, with dagobas 
 three hundred feet high and four hundred 
 feet in diameter at the base. 
 
 As it was a festival day we found the great 
 court-yard gay with banners strung from 
 masts. Natives were sitting in meditation 
 under the sacred Bo tree. One of these trees 
 stands in nearly every temple yard. It is 
 considered the most desirable tree under 
 
c: 
 
 ^ 
 
A Visit to a Temple. 123 
 
 which to meditate, because in its shade Bud- 
 dha sat when he attained perfect sanctification. 
 
 A procession entered the grounds. At the 
 head came a band of musicians with native 
 instruments. Then followed young women 
 draped in white, bearing on their heads urns 
 containing rice and fruits as offerings for the 
 support of the temple. Others bore trays of 
 temple flowers, white and lily-like, with 
 heavy perfume. The procession passed 
 around the temple singing. 
 
 I opened my camera and prepared to take 
 a picture. The action was observed, but I 
 was not expelled. On the contrary two old 
 gentlemen with patriarchal beards, who 
 seemed to be the marshals of the occasion, 
 offered to march the procession in any posi- 
 tion I wished that I might get a good photo- 
 graph. The festival was interrupted. The 
 people marched and countermarched. Every 
 suggestion was welcomed with the laughing 
 good humor found in children and heathens. 
 So much attention was embarrassing. 
 
 Finally my good patriarch friends asked if 
 I would like to photograph the high priest. 
 Of course I would, and would consider it a 
 great honor. He said he would arrange It 
 and disappeared. 
 
124 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 Soon a chair was brought and placed at 
 the temple entrance. The venerable priest 
 came out and seated himself. The younger 
 priests and temple attendants gathered 
 around him. My two patriarch friends with 
 the beards sat at his feet, and I took their 
 photographs. The high priest did not speak 
 English, but through an interpreter he wished 
 us well, bowed profoundly, and withdrew 
 within the temple. 
 
 Do you think a Cingalese traveling in 
 America would meet with such courtesy if he 
 should visit our churches during a festival? 
 
 With many bows and thanks we left our 
 gentle heathen friends, the Buddhists. I am 
 afraid I shall feel like a pious slanderer if in 
 the little church at home I sing as the mis- 
 sionary plate is going round: 
 
 " What tho' the spicy breezes 
 
 Blow soft o'er Ceylon's Isle, 
 Where every prospect pleases 
 
 And ONLY MAN IS VILE." 
 
 Just as we reached the hotel a tropical 
 storm overtook us. Black clouds rolled rap- 
 idly across the sky. The wind came roaring 
 upon us, bending and shaking the palm trees 
 like banners. The day suddenly became 
 dark as twilight. Vivid lightnings slashed the 
 
A Tropical Storm. 125 
 
 heavens, and thunder crashed a continuous 
 cannonade. The rain fell in torrents. 
 Presently the storm had passed. All was 
 calm again and the sun shone brighter than 
 before. It was like an outburst of passion 
 that is followed by regret. 
 
CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 KANDY, AND THE KANDY TOOTH. 
 
 After a short railroad ride through a 
 strange and interesting country, we arrived 
 at Kandy, the ancient capital of the Cinga- 
 lese Kings. Kandy is a charming place nest- 
 ling among the hills on the border of an arti- 
 ficial lake — one of the few remaining irri- 
 gation works of the ancient Kings who made 
 Anuradhapura, the half-buried ancient city 
 far away in the jungle, one of the most mag- 
 nificent capitals of the world, rivaling Baby- 
 lon and Nineveh in extent and splendor. 
 
 Near the center of the lake there is an 
 island overgrown with palms and mossy 
 trees. A palace was once there as beautiful 
 as a poet's dream. It was the king's harem. 
 Nothing now remains but a vine-covered 
 arch. The king's gondola no longer touches 
 the half buried marble stairs. The throb of 
 the lute, the tinkle of the castanets, and the 
 laughter of women, are no longer borne 
 across the waters as they dance before the 
 king. Now are heard only the songs of 
 
A Bone of Contention. 127 
 
 birds, and the cooing of doves among the 
 tangled vines. 
 
 The ancient Temple of the Tooth stands 
 by the lake. This is one of the most revered 
 spots in all Buddhism. It appears that when 
 Buddha died he left a tooth which in after 
 years became a bone of contention. During 
 the quarrels of the Buddhists and Brahmins, 
 it was deemed unsafe in India, and was 
 brought to Ceylon in the third century, con- 
 cealed in the hair of a princess. The devout 
 king caused a shrine of gold and precious 
 stones to be built for it. A thousand years 
 later Indian invaders took the tooth, jewels 
 and all, back to India; but it again found Its 
 way to Ceylon, and another shrine was built 
 for it. 
 
 Last of all came the Portuguese, who were 
 described by a writer of the time as "A race 
 of men surpassingly white and beautiful, 
 wearing boots and hats of Iron, eating a white 
 stone, and drinking blood, and having guns 
 which would break a castle of marble." 
 
 The Portuguese landed and proceeded to 
 rob the bodies and save the souls of the na- 
 tives. They spread Christianity by fire and 
 sword. They destroyed the temples; broke 
 the irrigation dams; and carried the tooth of 
 
128 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 Buddha to Goa, where the Archbishop in 
 the presence of the Viceroy, publicly burned 
 that sacred relic of a hundred million people. 
 
 But finally, in the course of time, the Por- 
 tuguese were expelled by a just heaven, — and 
 the Dutch. 
 
 The Dutch were more tolerant, being 
 more concerned in getting business than sav- 
 ing souls; consequently a miracle was per- 
 formed by which the late incinerated molar 
 was materialized from thin air with nothing 
 lost. In fact, those who have seen it say it 
 is large enough for a horse. 
 
 However it may have been secured, it was 
 duly incased in gold, placed in a jeweled 
 casket, in a gold cabinet, in the Holy of 
 Holies of the Temple of the Tooth in Kan- 
 dy, and is accorded all the veneration of the 
 original. 
 
 One morning we were aroused by the 
 shrill notes of flutes, the banging of tom- 
 toms and the shouts of a multitude. We 
 hastily dressed and went out. A country 
 delegation was passing to the temple bear- 
 ing tribute of rice from the recent harvest. 
 They were dressed in the gayest colors, and 
 sang as they marched, two by two, in a long 
 procession. The baskets of rice, bedecked 
 
b 
 
Courtesy to Travelers. 129 
 
 with temple flowers, were carried on the 
 heads. There were many curious banners, 
 and a canopy was carried over the proces- 
 sion. 
 
 We followed into the temple. A polite 
 young priest secured for us an elevated posi- 
 tion from which we were able to see and 
 photograph the procession as it marched 
 several times around the Holy of Holies 
 which is a shrine built in the centre of the 
 temple court-yard containing the sacred 
 tooth. As they marched they sang and 
 shouted "praises to Buddha," as the priest 
 explained. 
 
 The young priest then showed us the treas- 
 ures of the temple. He escorted us into a 
 room dimly lighted with candles. Before 
 an Image of Buddha was a table loaded 
 with temple flowers. The air was oppres- 
 sive with their rich, sweet odor. He opened 
 cabinets and showed us Buddhas in gold, in 
 silver, and incrusted with precious stones. 
 With evident pride, he opened another cab- 
 inet and exhibited a figure of Buddha fifteen 
 inches high cut from a single rock crystal. 
 This he said was a present from the King of 
 Siam. 
 
 He took us to the library. This was an 
 
13° Oriental Rambles. 
 
 upper floor of the turret-like corner of the 
 temple, and was nearly surrounded by an 
 arcade from which a splendid view of the 
 lake and hills could be obtained. We were 
 shown sacred tomes of the Buddhist scrip- 
 tures written by hand on palm leaves and 
 bound in golden covers incrusted with pre- 
 cious stones. He also showed with much re- 
 spect a leaf from the original Bo tree in In- 
 dia, which is still alive, twenty-five hundred 
 years after Buddha sat in its shade. This 
 leaf was brought and presented by Sir Edwin 
 Arnold, author of "The Light of Asia," 
 whose works are on the library shelves to- 
 gether with all the books in all languages 
 that have reference to the religion of Bud- 
 dha. 
 
 We were then piloted through a crowd of 
 natives to the entrance of the shrine in the 
 yard. Up the sacred stairway the priest 
 made a way, crowding to one side the natives 
 who were devoutly crawling up on their 
 knees. These people scarcely noticed us. 
 Their lightly clasped hands, upturned eyes, 
 and rapt expressions indicated intense re- 
 ligious sincerity, and calm and earnest spirit- 
 uality without hysteria. When we had 
 reached the top we found ourselves in a small 
 
9. /^ 
 
 ta 
 
The Devil Dancers of Ceylon. 131 
 
 room dimly lighted by candles, and packed 
 solid with natives. Beyond a railing, which 
 held back the crush of people, was a golden 
 pagoda-like casket, perhaps two feet high. 
 In this is the sacred tooth enclosed in several 
 smaller caskets. The tooth itself is shown only 
 on especially sacred occasions, much as the 
 sacred relics are shown in European cathe- 
 drals. We did not linger long. The air was too 
 redolent of perfumes, piety and perspiration. 
 
 On regaining the court-yard we found our 
 friends of the morning procession engaged 
 in a religious service. The priest secured for 
 us a position on the platform which surround- 
 ed the court from which we could get a good 
 view and photograph of the priests on one side, 
 and the assembled multitude on the other. 
 The priests were gathered on the platform 
 near a corner of the court. An old priest, 
 his strong, kind face uplifted to the heavens, 
 was repeating a service with the intonations 
 and mannerisms of our own clergy. The 
 people kneeling in the court-yard responded 
 in unison, bowing their heads and uplifting 
 their clasped hands at certain sentences. The 
 similarity to our Christian service was re- 
 markable. 
 
 One evening we were entertained by the 
 
132 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 Devil Dancers. The devils of disease and 
 misfortune are supposed to be frightened 
 away by their antics. At ten o'clock a com- 
 pany of nine men with attendants carrying 
 torches came from the hills. There were 
 six men with barrel drums, small drums and 
 cymbals and three dancers. The dancers 
 were loaded with silver bells and fantastic or- 
 naments, which jingled as they marched up 
 the street. 
 
 When this grotesque procession reached 
 the open space before the hotel porch, where 
 the spectators were congregated, they began 
 a weird chant In nasal falsetto to the accom- 
 paniment of their strange musical instru- 
 ments. Gradually their fervor increased and 
 they began to strike the earth with their bare 
 feet. The music became faster and faster 
 and their steps more sprightly until they 
 bounded about in wild acrobatic dancing, with 
 barbaric frenzy, until It seemed they might 
 in truth scare the devils, or that they, them- 
 selves, were possessed of them. The furious 
 energy thrown Into the dance held the spec- 
 tators spellbound. With a flashlight I caught 
 their photographs. As a devil-scarer a 
 flashlight beats dancing, for the whole party 
 Immediately decamped. 
 
b 
 
Among the Mountains. 133 
 
 From Kandy it is a steady climb to Nu- 
 wara Eliya. The railroad penetrates ravines 
 and climbs mountain slopes — ever up and up. 
 This is the region of Ceylon tea — "Lipton's 
 Best." As we went up the thermometer went 
 down. When we reached Nuwara Eliya we 
 were over six thousand feet high, — more 
 than a mile. It was uncomfortably cool and 
 rainy, but in the hot season it is a favorite re- 
 sort for the European residents to escape the 
 heat of the lowlands. We had parted with 
 the palms, but we made the acquaintance of 
 the tree ferns and tea bushes. 
 
 At the rear of the town Is the highest peak 
 on the island, over eight thousand feet in ele- 
 vation. The Cingalese, having plenty of 
 time, call it Pidaru Talaga, but the Euro- 
 peans cut it to Pedro. The view from the 
 summit is well worth the climb. Mountains 
 and valleys, roughly tumbled, extend away 
 to Adam's Peak. But our view was short. 
 A fog from the ocean rolled up the valleys 
 like a tidal wave, engulfing the lesser moun- 
 tains and surrounding our peak as with an an- 
 gry sea. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 CALCUTTA — THE INDIAN BEARER. 
 
 Calcutta is an English introduction to the 
 real India to be found inland. It is associ- 
 ated with the stirring deeds of the founding 
 of the British Indian Empire. At this capi- 
 tal Lord Clive, Warren Hastings and others, 
 with far-seeing diplomacy and intrepid dar- 
 ing, wove the nets and planned the cam- 
 paigns that absorbed the native States one 
 after another. 
 
 Here was enacted the atrocity of the 
 Black Hole of Calcutta, which led to the 
 overthrow of Bengal, and the founding of 
 the British-Indian Empire. In the early 
 days when Calcutta was a mere trading sta- 
 tion of the East India Company, the Nawab 
 of Bengal, having made war on the station, 
 threw one hundred and forty-six of the sur- 
 rendered garrison into a cell eighteen feet 
 square, ventilated only from a small window 
 high in the wall. It was a sweltering night 
 in July. The Nawab was deaf to the cries 
 of the prisoners dying from suffocation. In 
 
 134 
 
The Rules of Caste. 135 
 
 the morning when the doors were opened 
 only twenty-three remained alive. 
 
 The news of the atrocity crept along the 
 shore, and went out to sea. It reached Lord 
 Clive, commanding at Madras, and soon his 
 little army, furious for vengeance, overtook 
 the Nawab's superior force on the field of 
 Plassey, annihilated it, and founded the 
 British-Indian Empire. 
 
 Since then the Nawab and his descendants 
 have had a good deal of leisure time. 
 
 On the site of the prison in which the 
 atrocity was committed now stands the Brit- 
 ish postofEce. In the yard is preserved a bit 
 of old pavement which, according to a brass 
 tablet nearby, marks the site of the black 
 hole. It is a pity the walls themselves could 
 not have been preserved like the residency 
 buildings at Lucknow, for no monument 
 however grand can touch the heart like the 
 humble ruins where the sons of Britannia 
 fought and died for the little green isle in 
 the northern sea which all English people, the 
 world over, call home. 
 
 We rode to the Botanical Garden where 
 the celebrated great banyan tree spreads its 
 branches over many acres. It has over a 
 hundred auxilliary trunks, and is still grow- 
 
136 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 ing. On the return drive we visited the new 
 Jaine temple, and found It a glitter of frag- 
 ments of colored glass set in stucco, and sur- 
 rounded by a garden littered with cast iron 
 Venuses from Europe and porcelain dragons 
 from Japan, all very new and tawdry. 
 
 In Calcutta, according to the custom of 
 the country, we were introduced to the Indian 
 bearer or private servant. If one is to con- 
 tinue to exist in India it becomes a dire neces- 
 sity to employ a bearer who will wait upon 
 you at the table, attend to your room duties, 
 prepare your bath, brush and lay out your 
 clothes, and be a general nuisance so far as 
 his caste will permit. 
 
 This wretched institution of caste is always 
 in the way. Your bearer's caste may permit 
 him to bring you clean water, but it will not 
 permit him to empty the slops. He must em- 
 ploy one of the Sudra caste to do that. The 
 Sudra caste is the laborer, the tiller of the 
 soil, creator of wealth; but it is forbidden 
 that he acquire wealth or learning, or hear 
 the reading of the sacred books. He and 
 his children must forever continue despised 
 Sudras. Caste is the strictest trade union in 
 the world. If a Hindoo performs the work 
 or assumes the privileges of another caste he 
 
Signs of Prosperity. 137 
 
 defiles himself, endangers his soul, and low- 
 ers the standard of his next incarnation. He 
 also postpones the time of his final Nirvana — 
 a dreadful calamity, for next to curry and 
 rice the Hindoo dearly loves rest. 
 
 At night the bearer wraps himself, head 
 and feet, in a blanket and lies before your 
 doorway to guard you from robbery by any 
 unauthorized person. That prerogative he 
 reserves for himself. This is done, however, 
 only in the legal and approved system of 
 commissions. 
 
 The poor Bengalese is a yellowish-brown 
 creature with a striking array of white teeth, 
 that is, when they are not stained dark red by 
 chewing the betel nut. His face displays a 
 fawning smile that seems constantly on the 
 point of disappearance. He wears a won- 
 drous turban. A length of cotton cloth 
 does duty as trousers by being looped 
 around the thighs with one end brought up 
 between the legs. Sometimes the other end 
 is thrown over the shoulder; sometimes a 
 white cotton jacket is worn. The jacket in- 
 dictates European culture. 
 
 An Indian's prosperity can be judged 
 by his avoirdupois. Prosperity and 
 adiposity go together. If the man is 
 
138 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 poor his legs are thin, bony shanks with 
 knobs at the knees. The calf is absent, 
 but he is liberally supplied with feet that 
 would leave large marks in the mud, with toes 
 diverging like a chicken's. When he stands, 
 he is inclined to cross his legs like a camp 
 chair. When he sits on his heels he rests his 
 knees comfortably in his armpits. Sometimes 
 by some unaccountable trick of contortion he 
 thrusts his knees entirely out of sight behind 
 his shoulders, and then, viewed from the 
 front, the feet seem to be attached directly 
 to the body like a turtle's. If you see a 
 pair of fat legs projecting from a loin 
 cloth you know whoever lives over the legs 
 is rich, because he is well fed. If he wears 
 shoes, socks and Boston garters you know 
 European culture has attacked his feet and is 
 progressing upwards. 
 
 Calcutta is sometimes called "The City of 
 Palaces," owing to the large houses of the 
 English oflicers. Their houses are necessari- 
 ly large to accommodate the large number of 
 servants it is customary to care for. This 
 retinue or multitude must make a home seem 
 like an institution. 
 
 At sunset we drove on the fashionable 
 boulevard beside the Hoogly river. At that 
 
The Drive on The Esplanade. 139 
 
 hour it is thronged with equipages of the 
 flower and chivalry of Anglo-Indian, Hindoo 
 and Mohammedan aristocracy. The showy 
 trappings of the horses and the gorgeous liv- 
 eries of the footmen and outriders form a 
 spectacle that cannot be equalled outside of a 
 circus pageant. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 DARJEELING AND THE HIMALAYAS. 
 
 In winter the plains of India are ter- 
 ribly hot. Ordinary English is of no use in 
 describing the heat of summer. 
 
 We Americans are led to believe that 
 Yuma, Arizona, is the hottest place in the 
 world because it was a resident of Yuma, who 
 having died and gone to Hades, sent back for 
 a blanket. But compared with India in 
 summer, Yuma is said to have a cool and 
 salubrious climate. So the Anglo-Indian 
 goes in summer to Darjecling on the back- 
 bone of the world, to cool off. We went in 
 the winter for the same purpose. 
 
 After passing through a tropical plain we 
 reached the Ganges which at this point is a 
 very wide river. During its passage on the 
 steamer we enjoyed an excellent dinner. On 
 the other side we took cars again, and were 
 soon rolled in our blankets on the berths 
 which let down from the sides of the cars. 
 
 The next morning we were crossing a 
 brown, dusty, barren plain with frequent 
 
 140 
 
Mountain Climbing by Rail. 141 
 
 groups of mud houses called villages. Dur- 
 ing the rainy season the plains are green with 
 wheat and barley. The rainy season is ex- 
 pected to come once a year, but sometimes it 
 is careless about it. They have a special 
 God to look, after the rain business, too, but 
 he is a lazy, shiftless fellow, as likely to drop 
 the rain into the sea or on the mountains as 
 where it is most needed. 
 
 About noon we reached the foothill and 
 changed to m'ountain cars. These little cars 
 are much like open trolleys. They are built 
 very close to the narrow gauge track and are 
 pulled by a hysterical, little engine that makes 
 a tremendous noise. 
 
 We soon plunged into the forest, winding 
 about the hillsides, climbing gullies, and ever 
 turning and curving on a grade so steep that 
 we could feel the cars lift. 
 
 At one place we had the novel experience 
 of being run over by our own engine. The 
 train spiraled around a hillock, like a snake 
 chasing Its own tail, and then escaped from 
 the top by a bridge to the mountain side. 
 We, In the rear car, saw our own engine cross- 
 ing the bridge over our heads. 
 
 Two men ran ahead scattering sand on 
 the track. They filled their own baskets, too, 
 
142 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 There is a story that once one fell asleep on 
 the track while waiting for the train to over- 
 take him and was run over. It was not true, 
 but in other respects it was a good story. 
 
 This is the region of jungles and snakes, 
 leopards and tigers. From one of these 
 lonely stations the message was once flashed 
 to the railway headquarters in Calcutta, 
 "Tiger on platform eating station agent; 
 wire instructions." We know this is true be- 
 cause Mark Twain invented it. 
 
 We passed many tea plantations where the 
 steep hillside had been terraced. The hill 
 people have decided Mongolian features. 
 They are heavily and dirtily clothed and 
 wear fierce knives thrust in their belts. The 
 women resemble North American Indian 
 women in their way of dressing their hair 
 in long braids, one falling in front of each 
 shoulder, and in their features which are 
 round, flat and copper colored, with high 
 cheek bones. They carry incredible loads 
 on their backs, steadied by bands across the 
 forehead. 
 
 We were away above the region of the 
 palms, but the trees of the dense jungle were 
 festooned with orchids. At times we caught 
 glimpses of the plain of Hindustan; and as 
 
1 1 nimhiya Children. 
 
Sunrise in the Himalayas. i43 
 
 we went higher it lengthened and broadened 
 until it was spread out like a map, brown and 
 smoky, and slashed here and there by the sil- 
 very ribbons of the streams. Finally a bank 
 of fog came rolling down the valleys, pour- 
 ing over the cliffs like waterfalls and closing 
 out the view. 
 
 When we reached Darjeeling we were over 
 a mile high. For the first time since leaving 
 Japan overcoats were needed. We rode to 
 the hotel in rikishas, along a path that al- 
 most overhung a deep valley. I believe it 
 often rains in Darjeeling, — the rest of the 
 time it is foggy. Sometimes Nature runs 
 out of fog, and then the mountains may be 
 seen at their best. The buildings are mor- 
 tised into the mountains, one end being 
 plunged into the hillside and the other sup- 
 ported on stilts as slender as Hindoo legs. 
 
 From the hotel there was a stupendous 
 panorama. Below yawned an abyss of a 
 valley. Away down in its dark depths was 
 a raging torrent. Across the valley was a 
 tree-clad hill. Over its crest, far beyond, 
 arose the rugged tumble of dark mountains 
 whose cliffs and chasms were barred and 
 spotted with fog banks. Still higher, far 
 above the intervening clouds, a snowy peak 
 
144 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 glittered with the whiteness of everlasting ice. 
 This was Kinchinjanga, — over five miles 
 high. Other peaks, scarcely lower, stretched 
 away into the uncertainty of distance in a 
 gleaming, jagged band of white. 
 
 The next morning we arose at four o'clock, 
 and before dawn were stumbling our way 
 on horseback up the trail to Tiger Hill to 
 see the sunrise on Mount Everest, twenty- 
 nine thousand feet high, — the loftiest moun- 
 tain in the Himalayas. 
 
 When we reached the summit, gray dawn 
 was just breaking. We were on a foothill 
 of the first range. In the deep valley be- 
 tween us and the main range the gloom of 
 night still lingered. Beyond this murky 
 chasm rose the abrupt walls of the Hima- 
 layas, height on height, cloud-scarred, harsh 
 and forbidding. Peak after peak in snowy 
 confusion led afar and away into the western 
 sky, until peaks and clouds blended in the 
 gray of dawn. Cold, cruel, stupendous, 
 these cloud-defying mountains crush the be- 
 holder with their awe-inspiring majesty. 
 
 No wonder the Hindoos located their di- 
 vinities on these inaccessible mountain tops. 
 Brahma, the Creator, — Vishnu, the Preserv- 
 er, — and Shiva, the Destroyer, hold their 
 
In the Bazaars. 145 
 
 courts there In greater seclusion than did 
 Jupiter and Juno on Mount Olympus. 
 
 In the east, beyond the purple plains of 
 Hindustan, a crimson line appeared along the 
 horizon. It broadened and lengthened and, 
 flaming upward, crimsoned the edges of the 
 clouds. Here and there cloud upon cloud 
 was touched with gold and copper until the 
 east became a crimson lake, with purple rifts, 
 and golden shores. Then came a brighter 
 glow with the glitter of polished brass, just 
 at the horizon; brighter and brighter it 
 gleamed, and a ray of sunlight shot straight 
 to the snowy peaks, suffusing their snow-fields 
 with a rosy radiance. 
 
 In the native bazaars may be seen a few 
 Thibetans and many strange people of the 
 hill tribes. The women are heavily loaded 
 with ornaments of silver and brass curiously 
 set with turquois, malachite and agate. In 
 these bazaars may be bought many strange 
 and curious things, such as prayer wheels, 
 idols, and charms made of human ashes 
 from Thibet. These charms are carried in 
 small boxes suspended from a cord around 
 the neck. The boxes are sometimes of 
 brass, and sometimes of tin taken from 
 Standard Oil cans, — which shows how the 
 
146 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 light of American civilization is penetrating 
 the remotest regions of Asia. 
 
 These hill people are good salesmen. 
 When the traveler appears in the street the 
 glad tidings spread rapidly. From doorways 
 and booths come the traders with obsequious 
 smiles, each with a curio of more or less an- 
 tiquity half concealed in his voluminous 
 sleeve. As each one offers his wares he ex- 
 plains in broken English: 
 
 "This Buddha brought from a monastery 
 in Napaul." 
 
 "This prayer-wheel was used by the Grand 
 Llama of Thibet and smuggled over the bor- 
 der." 
 
 "This bracelet, very antique, was worn by 
 the Squegee of Gazoozulum." 
 
 Another serious old trader produced the 
 short brass knife used by Buddhist priests as 
 a symbol of office, and solemnly related this 
 strange history: 
 
 "Sacred knife not made by man, — no," 
 and he rolled his eyes devoutly, "made by 
 hand of God himself and dropped from hea- 
 ven in a thunder-cloud to mountain top, where 
 Grand Llama found it buried deep in rock. 
 Grand Llama with it slew seven dragons of 
 the air and then present to me, because I hon- 
 
A Brass God with a Carbuncle. 147 
 
 est man, — not lie; but I, very poor man. I 
 sell you for sixteen rupees." 
 
 The Philosopher said I would be sold 
 if I bought it; and as the story seemed 
 the most remarkable thing about It, I kept the 
 story and returned the knife. The "honest 
 man" would then take ten rupees, and finally 
 would take an offer. 
 
 There was a brass God from Thibet. At 
 least by calling on the reserve stock of 
 credulity wise travelers should keep on hand 
 for emergencies, — I was willing to believe it 
 came from Thibet. This brass idol from 
 Thibet had a beautiful carbuncle (the jewel 
 kind) on his neck. I longed to possess 
 it and bargained for it according to custom, 
 but did not buy it, because the owner would 
 not come down the usual fifty per cent. 
 When I was seated in the rikisha, he sadly 
 shook his head and repeated, "God very an- 
 tique." I expected he would relent, but the 
 last I saw of him he was standing Irresolute 
 In his doorway with the idol In his hand. 
 And so it passed out of my life forever, and 
 I have mourned it ever since — that brass 
 God from Thibet with the carbuncle on Its 
 neck. 
 
 The ride down the mountain was a coast, a 
 
148 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 toboggan slide, a shute the shutes, and a 
 merry-go-round all in one. When dusk came 
 on, a torch was lighted above the engine. 
 That was thoughtful. It lighted up the for- 
 est, gave the only light for the cars, and kept 
 the tigers off. 
 
 The next morning at dawn we had break- 
 fast on the boat crossing the Ganges. The 
 waters were glassy. The reflections of the 
 trees on the low banks were perfect. Here 
 and there widening circles of ripples showed 
 where fish came to the surface to get the early 
 flies. 
 
 When we reached the opposite bank hun- 
 dreds of natives were performing their de- 
 votions and ablutions in the sacred stream, 
 or sitting silently on their heels, their limbs 
 benumbed by the chill. They were appar- 
 ently engaged in sluggish contemplation. 
 The sun came up a dull red globe, the Ganges 
 responded, the mists of morning lifted and 
 the natives one by one arose and went their 
 way. 
 
CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 BENARES, THE SACRED CITY. 
 
 Benares is celebrated In India as the most 
 sacred of cities, — and elsewhere as the place 
 where the chiseled brass comes from. 
 
 Here we had the first glimpse of the real 
 India of our dreams. Here are the remains 
 of the oriental magnificence and wealth 
 of Ormuz and of Ind. Here we saw 
 the real Indian almost free from the 
 influences that are leading him gradually — 
 very, very gradually, — out of the darkness of 
 superstition into the light of the new civiliza- 
 tion. Here he is unpuffed up by the yeast of 
 British culture. Here pilgrims come from 
 the uttermost regions of India to worship the 
 savage-looking idols, or rather worship before 
 them, and to bathe in the sacred waters of 
 the Ganges. 
 
 As Mecca is sacred to the Mohammedan, 
 so is Benares sacred to the Hindoo. A pil- 
 grimage to these places is a virtuous and soul- 
 benefiting thing, and greatly improves the 
 chances of a happy hereafter. 
 
 The first place visited was the Monkey 
 
 149 
 
150 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 Temple, dedicated, to the Monkey God. 
 Here innumerable monkeys make their home 
 and a very good living, for it is the custom 
 for visitors to buy nuts from the gate-keeper. 
 The monkeys collect the nuts as you go in. 
 They are very entertaining while the rations 
 last, and then, like some human guests, they 
 make off for newer friends, or scamper up 
 the roof and deliberately turn their backs, cut- 
 ting your acquaintance. 
 
 In this temple we saw the ceremony of hair- 
 cutting on a five-year-old girl. The child en- 
 tered the court-yard in the company of par- 
 ents and relatives, followed apparently by 
 friends and neighbors. In the rear of the 
 procession came musicians with flutes, cym- 
 bals and drums, and several nautch girls sing- 
 ing a monotonous air with considerable vio- 
 lence. All the musicians and nautch girls 
 seated themselves in a circle on the pavement 
 of the open court with the maiden in the 
 center. 
 
 The priest in ceremonial robes proceeded 
 to shear her locks and shave her scalp. In 
 the meantime the musicians beat the tom- 
 toms, crashed the cymbals and brought forth 
 ear-piercing shrieks from the flutes, while the 
 nautch girls sang a weird chant. The mon- 
 
A Ceremonial Hair-Cutting. 151 
 
 keys, perched upon the cornices, gravely 
 watched the proceedings. The child being 
 shorn and shaven, her garments were re- 
 moved and others of gorgeous silk, resplen- 
 dent with tinsel and spangles, were placed 
 upon her, and garlands of flowers were placed 
 about her neck. Then the nautch girls ceased 
 their singing and danced a squirmy dance, 
 waving their bare arms to lively music. 
 
 The guide explained that this was a re- 
 ligious rite preliminary to a betrothal, which 
 left its real nature in considerable doubt. It 
 was evidently one of the numerous religious 
 shaves practiced upon the Hindoos. Many 
 of the ordinary things of life are considered 
 as religious rites, at which a priest must 
 officiate, with his usual fee. Between fees to 
 the priests, and taxes to the government, the 
 thin-legged Hindoo has a narrow margin for 
 curry and rice. 
 
 Close to the Monkey Temple is the house 
 and garden of the Holy Man of Benares. 
 This man is a real God, and was, long before 
 he died, for the good man has been dead and 
 in Nirvana some time. He was a very 
 learned Yogi, and in such a state of perfect 
 sanctification that nothing whatever inter- 
 ested him. The guide pointed out his flower- 
 
15^ Oriental Rambles. 
 
 strewn grave under a marble canopy and ex- 
 plained that the accepted way for a good 
 Hindoo to return to dust Is by burning; but 
 if one prefers to be buried it is allowable, pro- 
 vided he is buried alive, for no dead body 
 should contaminate the earth. Therefore, 
 the sacred man being full of years, and near 
 unto death, and knowing through his occult 
 power the exact moment when death would 
 overtake him, caused himself to be buried 
 alive just one hour before he died. 
 
 To the Philosopher's materialistic mind it 
 was a little puzzling to understand how it 
 was that he could be killed by burying just 
 one hour before he died a natural death. The 
 guide entered into a long explanation about 
 the astral body and other things theosophical, 
 trying to make the point clear to the Philoso- 
 pher, but all that he seemed to grasp was that 
 the man was dead, and that it cost something 
 to see where he was buried. 
 
 The Temple of the Sacred Bulls is a place 
 that fortunately can be viewed by unbelievers 
 from a platform. The Philosopher desired 
 to get a nearer photograph of the sacred 
 beasts in their sanctuary, but the floor of the 
 temple, being a stable, was as dirty as neg- 
 lect and wet weather could make it. After 
 
The Lin gam and Triangle. 153 
 
 long hesitation he resigned himself to the 
 probably ruin of his shoes for the sake of the 
 photograph, and proceeded to cautiously step 
 down into the court; but an argus-eyed at- 
 tendant saw his design and in great alarm 
 stopped him, saying that the feet of an un- 
 believer would pollute the place. The Phi- 
 losopher desisted, but his feelings were hurt. 
 
 These sacred cattle roam at will about the 
 city, helping themselves to the best in the way 
 of food from the merchant's supplies. When 
 they blockade the narrow streets the people 
 give them resounding thumps in spite of their 
 sanctity, but they move out of the way with 
 the deliberation and dignity becoming their 
 lofty estate. The ancient wise men knew 
 that by making them sacred they would pre- 
 serve through any misfortune the species of 
 this most useful beast of burden. 
 
 The Golden Temple is a small affair but 
 very sacred. It is overlaid, inside and out, 
 with yellow gold. We were not permitted 
 to enter. 
 
 Far more curious was the less pretentious 
 temple dedicated to the Elephant God. In 
 the center of the temple, on an altar, was a 
 stone post called the lingam. Offerings of 
 flowers were at its base. The Hindoo my- 
 
154 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 thology ascribes sex to the creators of heaven 
 and earth. The lingam represents the male 
 element. The female element is indicated by 
 two interlaced equal-sided triangles forming 
 a six-pointed star like a masonic emblem. Be- 
 fore these altars the natives worship, gar- 
 landing the lingam with flowers, and pouring 
 upon it water from brass urns which they have 
 brought on their heads from the Ganges. 
 
 The most interesting part of Benares, and 
 perhaps of all India, is the river front. Here 
 is congregated all that is Indian in custom, 
 architecture and religion. It is a very sacred 
 spot, for here one of their divinities, the Ele- 
 phant God, made his last appearance upon 
 earth, and a river direct from Paradise finds 
 its underground union with the Ganges. 
 
 Benares is the most ancient city of India, 
 and is expected to last until it becomes a part 
 of Paradise itself. The city is so sacred that 
 any person who dies within its limits will go 
 straight to heaven regardless of his religion 
 or the lack of it. It is a very popular place 
 to die in. But the other side of the rivej- op- 
 posite the city is profane and accursed, and 
 whoever dies there will be born again a jack- 
 ass. 
 
 So firmly grounded is this belief that while 
 
A Safe Place to Die. i55 
 
 the sacred side is crowded with palaces and 
 temples and thronged with humanity, the op- 
 posite side of the river, a few hundred feet 
 away, is abandoned by man. One can see the 
 jackals, wild dogs and other wild beasts 
 roaming the barren sands in perfect security. 
 
 The Philosopher had a new scheme. He 
 proposed to lay out a first addition to Ben- 
 ares on the jackass side of the river and boom 
 it in true western fashion with brass bands, 
 barbecues and auctions, and give a non-jack- 
 ass insurance policy with every corner lot. 
 
 Ridiculous ! Who ever heard of a non- 
 jackass insurance policy? 
 
 The Rajah of Benares has a palace on the 
 other side of the river, but some distance up. 
 He is, however, so suspicious of the location 
 that whenever any of his household are taken 
 ill they are hustled across the river to the 
 guaranteed safe side to await there the re- 
 sult of their disease. If they survive they re- 
 joice that they have escaped the superlative 
 joys of heaven, and give thanks for the cure 
 to the prayers of the priest, but if they suc- 
 cumb, the result is ascribed to the mysterious 
 dispensation of an all-wise and unscrupulous 
 providence. 
 
 We took an observation boat and floated 
 
156 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 down the river past scenes so strange, so 
 bizarre, that they baffle description. The 
 river makes a majestic curve with Benares on 
 the convexity. This is called Sheva's Bow. 
 The level of the city is perhaps a hundred 
 feet above the level of the river. The bluff is 
 occupied by a continuous row of temples and 
 palaces belonging to the various princes and 
 rulers of the Indias; for this is the Newport, 
 the Long Branch, and the Ocean Grove of 
 the Hindoo world amalgamated into one be- 
 wildering mass. 
 
 At certain seasons of the year all good 
 Hindoos, brahmin, prince or peasant, make 
 a pilgrimage to Benares to worship and bathe 
 in the Ganges, and to carry to their homes 
 some of the sacred water. 
 
 From the palaces and temples on the bluff, 
 stone steps and terraces descend to the water's 
 edge. These steps, or gauts as they are 
 called, swarm with the multitude, robed in 
 white and many colors. 
 
 Standing waist deep in the water were men, 
 women and children seriously performing 
 their devotions. As the Hindoo walks down 
 the steps into the river he clasps his hands, 
 bows to the Goddess Gunga, dips his hands 
 in the water and applies it to his forehead, 
 
The River Front as Seen From a Boat. 15 7 
 
 breast, and mouth, as certain prayers are re- 
 peated. At times the hands are clasped, or 
 elevated, or the body bent in adoration. The 
 devotions being completed, a brass urn is 
 filled with the water, and he returns to the 
 steps where he proceeds to wash his clothes. 
 His winding sheet is removed, washed by 
 whipping on the stones and trailing in the 
 water, then dried in the wind. The winding 
 cloth is then replaced around the body and 
 the loin cloth surreptitiously removed and 
 subjected to the same process. When in this 
 manner his body, his soul and his raiment 
 are cleansed, and he is ready to re-enter the 
 streets, he approaches a priest who sits under 
 a wide-spreading basket-work umbrella call- 
 ing out incantations. He kneels before the 
 priest and receives upon his forehead the 
 mark in paint that signifies his caste and an- 
 nounces to all the world that he has fulfilled 
 his religious duties. He then departs up 
 the steps carrying his brass urn of sacred 
 water upon his head. 
 
 We passed box-like pedestals standing on 
 the terraces. These were the suttee towers 
 where formerly widows burned themselves 
 on the funeral pyres of their husbands. By 
 the river bank were the earthly remains of a 
 
158 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 few Hindoos, the men wrapped head and 
 body in white, and the women in red winding 
 sheets. Some were lying with their feet in 
 the sacred stream, while others who had re- 
 ceived the last rites of the river were being 
 consumed on the funeral pyres. 
 
 A Rajah was ascending the steps to pay 
 his respects to a Holy Man. ^ A gorgeous red 
 cloak with gold spangles hung from his shoul- 
 ders. An attendant held an umbrella-like af- 
 fair over his head, and four guards marched 
 behind. At the steps was moored the Ra- 
 jah's boat, a two-storied affair, the upper deck 
 shaded with awnings, under which a silver 
 chair stood on rich rugs and tiger skins. 
 
 Along the river bank could be seen those 
 religious fanatics called fakirs or yogis. 
 Some sat in profound meditation, their naked 
 bodies and bowed heads covered with ashes. 
 One, in whose dark eyes burned the fire of 
 mania, darted about the throng in aimless ac- 
 tivity. He was naked except for the most 
 rudimentary loin cloth. His body was mark- 
 ed in stripes with ashes, like a zebra, and his 
 hair hung in matted ropes to the ground. 
 
 One fakir has achieved earthly fame and 
 spiritual credit as the standing man. He 
 stood upon the left leg, the right foot resting 
 
The Sacred Ganges. 159 
 
 on the left knee. Both arms were extended 
 straight up and clasped over his head. He 
 stood upon a post in the water balanced like 
 a stork. It was said that every day for years 
 he had been in that position and no one had 
 seen him move during business hours. Others 
 attain a state of ecstacy and remain in a fixed 
 position until muscular atrophy results. It 
 is a form of voluntary catalepsy possible only 
 to those religious monomaniacs who have ar- 
 rived at that beatific state by continuous auto- 
 hypnotism. Some of the things they are said 
 to do are apparently impossible, such as sit- 
 ting or lying on beds of sharp tacks, or walk- 
 ing in the fire without injury. These persons 
 are revered as saints by the Hindoos. 
 
 One of these saints sat alone on a post in 
 the water. He wore a coarse brown cloak, 
 and a little brown rag fluttered in the wind 
 from a stick planted beside him. He was 
 greatly respected. He was a continuous-pray- 
 ing yogi. He prayed aloud, and whenever 
 he bowed to the river he held his nose. This 
 was not strange, inasmuch as the river at that 
 point had more the appearance of mullaga- 
 tawny soup than a sacred stream, carrying as 
 it did the city sewage and sundry vegetable 
 and animal remains, for which the citizens 
 
i6o Oriental Rambles. 
 
 had no further use. However, these details 
 did not disturb the pilgrims, who strong in 
 their faith and belief, considered nothing im- 
 pure or unclean which had come in contact 
 with the sacred waters. 
 
 But, as I said before, this particular saint 
 was holding his nose. As it is customary for 
 travelers to ask questions of a guide whether 
 he could possibly know the answer or not, we 
 inquired the reason for the aforesaid nose- 
 holding, and immediately struck a well of 
 curious information. 
 
 It appears that the Hindoo worship is very 
 elaborate in its formality, and their Gods very 
 particular about due respect being shown 
 them, each requiring a special formality. As 
 there are thirty-three millions of Gods, three 
 million of whom have terrible reputations for 
 revenge if slighted, it will be clear that it is 
 not all jam keeping them good-natured. 
 
 The guide said that when a Hindoo in the 
 course of his prayers utters the word Brahma 
 he must press the right nostril with the right 
 thumb. When Sheva is Implored the right 
 forefinger must compress the left nostril. 
 Vishnu claims another finger, and other Gods 
 have reserved the remaining digits. When 
 their names are uttered aloud, and in rapid 
 
Too Much Biography. i6i 
 
 succession, the effect is somewhat startling to 
 the ear and shocking to the sight. 
 
 The guide could not tell the Philosopher 
 what Gods were appealed to when the thumb 
 was applied to the tip of the nose, and the 
 fingers gently undulated, but after some de- 
 liberation concluded that it might be an ap- 
 peal to the Christian Gods as he had seen the 
 rite performed among the English soldiers. 
 
 This guide confidently assured us that he 
 was a very truthful man, good Hindoo, very 
 high caste, Brahma pundit caste, privileged 
 to cook food for the high priests, and was 
 above accepting presents for charity; but if 
 we were pleased with his services he would 
 not refuse a present in case such great lords 
 as we should offer it, and he would thank us 
 kindly, and appreciate it very much as he was 
 a very poor man and he hoped we would not 
 forget him. At that point the Philosopher 
 remarked that would be about all the bio- 
 graphy we cared to know, and he might there- 
 after, as in the past, confine his remarks to 
 history and fiction. 
 
 The Mohammedan mosque whose two 
 slender minarets are the most prominent land- 
 marks in Benares, was built by the last Grand 
 Mogul, a Mohammedan Emperor, who de- 
 
i62 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 stroyed a temple of Sheva to make room for 
 It. The Hindoos believe it was this act of 
 sacrilege which brought ruin upon him and 
 his house. Along the river front are several 
 half buried and ancient palaces destroyed by 
 an earthquake. Our guide explained that 
 foundations are insecure because the river 
 from Paradise flows beneath, and if the gods 
 were displeased they would now and then let 
 a palace drop in. 
 

 
 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 LUCKNOW AND CAWNPORE THE INDIAN 
 
 MUTINY. 
 
 From Benares we crossed a monoton- 
 ous plain of wheat fields nearing the harvest. 
 When the grain crop is good there is plenty 
 in India, but when the rains fail, as they fre- 
 quently do, the poor coolie starves. Some 
 important irrigation works undertaken by 
 the government are expected to relieve the 
 suffering, but India is generally hungry. Un- 
 der the old regime the population was kept 
 down somewhat by wars, thuggee, suttee and 
 drowning of female infants, all of which have 
 been put down by the English who prefer to 
 dig canals for irrigating and let the popula- 
 tion grow. 
 
 It is a dusty, hot ride to Lucknow, enliv- 
 ened by an occasional glimpse of an elephant 
 laboring in the fields or playing omnibus for 
 a family, groups of wild monkeys swinging 
 from the trees, or herons stalking pompously 
 through the ponds. 
 
 In Lucknow we were reminded not only 
 of the splendor of the Kings of Oude, which 
 
 163 
 
164 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 can be touched lightly as a thing apart, but 
 of Anglo-Saxon suffering and heroism in 
 connection with the Indian mutiny of 1857, 
 which must bring to every English-speaking 
 person a thrill of sympathy and pride. 
 
 The defence of the English Residency 
 against overwhelming odds, and the valor of 
 the rescuing columns who cut their bloody 
 way through hordes of rebels, are as heroic 
 as any deeds since history began. 
 
 The causes of the rebellion of the native 
 troops were many. Perhaps one of the most 
 important was insufficient regard given by 
 the English officials for the rules of caste 
 and religious prejudices which, to the Indians 
 are more important than life itself. For in- 
 stance the cartridges were coated with the fat 
 of cows and sheep. To handle such animal 
 products and especially to hold them in the 
 mouth as the rules required was to be defiled. 
 It took a mutiny to change that rule. 
 
 The consideration given the religious sen- 
 sibilities of the natives at that time is indi- 
 cated by Bayard Taylor who visited India 
 shortly before the mutiny and wrote : 
 
 "In India all places of worship, except the 
 inner shrines— the Holy of Holies — are open 
 to the conquerors, who walk in, booted and 
 
The Relief of Lucknow. 165 
 
 spurred, where the Hindoo or Moslem put 
 their shoes off their feet. I should willingly 
 have complied with this form as I did in other 
 Moslem countries, but was told that it was 
 now never expected of a European and would 
 be. In fact, a depreciation of his dignity." 
 
 The English Resident Agent occupied a 
 mansion surrounded by the barracks of the 
 native troops or sepoys In the service of the 
 East India Company. At Lucknow less than 
 seven hundred remained faithful. They, 
 with about seven hundred English troops, 
 intrenched themselves in the Residency 
 grounds and gathered therein all the foreign 
 residents and native sympathizers, men, wo- 
 men and children, to the number of twenty- 
 nine hundred souls. In this frail encampment 
 they were besieged for nearly six months by 
 fifty thousand fanatical rebels with artillery. 
 The grounds were raked with musket bullets 
 and the buildings riddled with cannon shots. 
 The men lived day and night in the trenches, 
 and the women and children in cellars and 
 underground passage-ways. 
 
 After three months the thunder of the guns 
 of Sir Henry Havelock's relieving army was 
 heard on the Cawnpore road. Foot by foot 
 they fought their way to the Residency, but 
 
1 66 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 arrived so weakened and decimated that they 
 could only join the besieged garrison and 
 await further relief. 
 
 At last it came with Sir Colin Campbell's 
 Highlanders. By forced marches in the heat 
 of the Indian summer, during which the tem- 
 perature ranged betwen 120 and 138 degrees 
 in the shade, it cut its bloody tunnel through 
 hordes of rebels by continuous fighting 
 against tremendous odds. Nothing deterred 
 them. After viewing the slaughter of the 
 women and children at Cawnpore, their fury 
 knew no bounds. It was a continuous mas- 
 sacre. At last the Residency was relieved, 
 but of the gallant band of twenty-nine hun- 
 dred only nine hundred were alive. 
 
 The Residency buildings remain as they 
 were left by the siege, — crumbled, blackened, 
 shot-riddled ruins,^gradually being over- 
 grown with ivy — fitting monuments to Eng- 
 lish valor. 
 
 At Lucknow we got our first impressions 
 of the glory of the Mongul Emperors and of 
 the splendid palaces they built. The last 
 Nawab, when reduced to semi-imbecility by 
 dissipation, spent his time dancing the nautch, 
 while the English annexed his kingdom, 
 thereby adding another cause for the mutiny. 
 
The Massacre of Cawnpore. 167 
 
 The Imambarra, the tomb of a Nawab, is 
 a dazzling white marble building capped with 
 groups of white pavilions. In its gardens are 
 fountains, and some British lions painted 
 with stripes to represent tigers. The Indians 
 do not understand lions, but have a whole- 
 some fear of tigers. 
 
 The massive and ornate Turkish gate, 
 nearby, stands out, a shining white pile 
 against the wonderful blue of the sky. In 
 these interior cities the soot and smoke of 
 burning coal are unknown and the buildings 
 retain their pure, white beauty untarnished 
 for hundreds of years. 
 
 We stopped for an afternoon at Cawn- 
 pore on our way to Agra. There is nothing 
 to see at Cawnpore except the monuments to 
 the garrison massacred during the mutiny. 
 Here the garrison after a hopeless defense 
 capitulated to the rebels, only to be murdered 
 at leisure. Most of the women and children 
 were kept prisoners until the rebel leader. 
 Nana Sahib, realized that the English would 
 retake the place. When the roar of their 
 cannon drew near he ordered the prisoners 
 slaughtered. Three Mohammedan and two 
 Hindoo soldiers were selected for the bloody 
 work. With naked swords they entered the 
 
1 68 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 Inclosure where the defenseless women and 
 children were encaged. When the scream of 
 the last terrified woman was silenced ; the sob 
 of the last infant was stilled, they were 
 thrown, the dead and dying, into a well, and 
 when a few hours later the rescuing army 
 came raging in, alas, there were none alive to 
 rescue. 
 
 About that court is now an octagonal 
 Gothic screen of the purest white marble, and 
 over the well stands a marble cross, and an 
 angel with hands crossed meekly upon the 
 breast. 
 
 It was midnight when our train rolled 
 across the iron bridge that spans the Jumna 
 at Agra. In the moonlight we could see the 
 swelling domes of the Jumna Musjid mosque 
 marked with lines of red sandstone and white 
 marble; and the frowning battlements of the 
 great fort at Akbar, the greatest of the Mon- 
 gul Emperors, — soldier, philosopher and 
 law-giver. Within this grim fortification are 
 palaces of such richness and beauty that only 
 in the tales of the Arabian Nights can their 
 equal be found. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 AGRA AND THE FORT OF AKBAR. 
 
 In Agra, as in the other interior towns 
 of India, the foreign hotels are located in the 
 cantonment, or district devoted to the bar- 
 racks of the British troops, the residences of 
 the officers, missionaries and foreign mer- 
 chants outside of the native city. These 
 quarters are very pleasant places in which to 
 live. The semi-European houses are embow- 
 ered in ample gardens bordering the broad 
 streets. 
 
 The hotels in central India are much alike. 
 They have one story wings with porticos 
 upon which open the doors of the sleeping 
 apartments. These apartments are white- 
 washed stone rooms, each with a window 
 high up near the ceiling for ventilation, and 
 a small one by the door to look through. 
 There is a narrow, hard bed with a Turkey 
 red punkah swinging above it. The floors are 
 stone or cement and a small rug tries to make 
 it look cheerful. 
 
 In the rear Is a dressing room and bath. 
 The three-foot stone wall built nearly around 
 
 169 
 
I 70 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 one corner is not a fortification against an- 
 other mutiny, but the bath compartment, and 
 on its cold stone floor rests a three-shilling 
 tin foot-bath — the storied tub of the English- 
 man. Forty dollars worth of stone fence 
 around forty cents worth of plumbing. It 
 was aggravating. The Philosopher said: 
 
 "While we are in Agra we should expect 
 to be aggravated." 
 
 A pun is a protozoic form of wit, and an 
 incitant to crime. 
 
 All through the chilly night the bearer 
 sleeps on the portico in front of your bed- 
 room door. In the early dawn he crawls out 
 of his cocoon of blankets in which he has 
 wrapped himself, clangs the tin tub on the 
 stone floor, fills it with tepid water; brings 
 chota hazrid, (early breakfast of tea and 
 toast,) then sits upon his heels awaiting or- 
 ders. About ten o'clock breakfast is served 
 in the dining room. It is a substantial meal — 
 if you get it — a contingency depending upon 
 the agility and diplomacy of your bearer and 
 upon the caprice of a not over scrupulous 
 providence. That function being completed, 
 the traveler delivers himself into the hands 
 of the guide to be shown things. 
 
 I had a theory that we should begin with 
 
The Palaces of the Moguls. 171 
 
 the less important sights and work up by 
 easy stages saving the Taj Mahal for the 
 last, as a grand climax; but the Philosopher 
 had in mind the old story of the Irishman who 
 being invited to eat all he could at a 
 restaurant, began at the top and ordered 
 something in French. It proved to be soup, 
 he ordered the next — that also was soup ; he 
 tried again and drew soup, and thus proceed- 
 ed until he had taken each kind of soup and 
 was ready to burst. When he saw the really 
 good things coming on for others, he remark- 
 ed, as he sadly withdrew, " 'Tis the chance of 
 me life, and me full of soup." Therefore, the 
 Philosopher, for fear of being over-fed on 
 lesser sights, went off alone to see the Taj 
 Mahal, while I went to the fort. 
 
 Akbar, the Wise and Great, founded 
 Agra and built therein a fort seventy feet 
 high and nearly two miles around. In it he 
 and his successors Shah Jehan, Aurenzebe and 
 others built palaces as beautiful as dreams. 
 
 As we entered the fort our carriage crossed 
 an empty moat, passed under heavy arch- 
 ways, through murky tunnels, and finally 
 stopped before the Judgment Hall of Akbar, 
 the Solomon of the East, the greatest of the 
 Grand Monguls. This hall is a loggia open 
 
172 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 on three sides. Colonnades of marble pillars 
 support the groined marble ceiling. In the 
 closed side is an elevated niche ornamented 
 with mosaics of birds and flowers. This is 
 the Judgment seat of Akbar. His conquests 
 were of short duration. The Empire which 
 he founded has crumbled to pieces ; his palaces 
 are now show places for tourists, but his laws, 
 — the Code \kbar, — are still used in parts 
 of India. The good men do lives after them, 
 and the evil dies with them, — perhaps. 
 
 We passed through a few rooms of the red 
 sandstone palace of Aurenzebe and saw stone 
 ceilings and walls engraved all over in the 
 most dainty designs of arabesque and flowers, 
 remaining as sharp and clear as when the 
 sculptors completed their work three hundred 
 years ago. In some rooms the painting and 
 gilding on the sculptured walls are still bright 
 and beautiful. 
 
 The palace of Shah Jehan is of dazzling 
 white marble cresting the red sandstone walls 
 of the fort. There are majestic halls, airy 
 pavilions, and sunken arenas where tigers 
 and elephants fought for the amusement of 
 the court; and the Persian gardens where the 
 sprites of the harem played hide and seek 
 among the rose and jessamine bowers. On 
 
The Fairy Grotto of the Mirrored Bath. 173 
 
 three sides of this garden were their apart- 
 ments. 
 
 On a marble terrace overlooking the gar- 
 den stands the black marble platform upon 
 which the Great Mogul, the King of Kings, 
 sat cross-legged on his jeweled throne, under 
 a canopy of silken tapestry. 
 
 The black marble platform is now barren; 
 on its beautiful polished surface is a red stain, 
 and through its ponderous body is a fissure. 
 This Is evidence of a miraculous manifesta- 
 tion, for legend has It that the platform rent 
 itself in twain and wept blood, when the Ma- 
 harretta conqueror ascended it, and again 
 when an English Viceroy seated himself 
 thereon. 
 
 The Golden Pavilion, the Jewel Tower 
 and the Jessamine Pavilion are tiny retreats, 
 bird cages In Inlaid marble, for the beauties 
 of the harem. In the mosaic floors are sculp- 
 tured basins for fountains of rose water, be- 
 hind which colored lights were placed. 
 
 There Is the Persian pavilion whose roof Is 
 a single block of marble sculptured with a de- 
 sign of Persian roses. From the capitals of 
 the supporting pillars droop marble rosebuds 
 so delicately beautiful that the soul of the be- 
 holder sings with delight. In this pavilion 
 
174 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 sat the beauties of the harem with silver rods 
 and silken line, angling for gold fish in the 
 fountain below. 
 
 In the harem are the wonderful apart- 
 ments of the mirrored bath. These rooms are 
 as still and cool as marble caves. They were 
 lighted only by many tiny lamps set in niches 
 behind colored glasses. From the walls gush- 
 ed fountains sparkling with the colors of con- 
 cealed lights and falling in glittering cas- 
 cades into marble pools to flow away, bab- 
 bling from room to room over a mosaic bed. 
 
 In such an enchanted grotto, with its silken 
 carpets, its mellow lights, its splashing foun- 
 tains, its heavy perfumes, and its myriad re- 
 flections of the merry nymphs of the harem — 
 the King was wont to take his recreation. 
 
 In one of the rooms of the palace upon the 
 ceiling is inscribed in Persian poetry: 
 
 "If there is a paradise on earth, — it is 
 here, — it is here, — it is here." 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 THE TAJ MAHAL. 
 
 The drive from the hotel to the Taj was 
 through broad streets bordered by trees. On 
 approaching the entrance there appeared on 
 either side massive ruins of caravansaries and 
 palaces; and then came into view, an impos- 
 ing building in red sandstone capped with 
 numerous white marble pavilions. The 
 building is pierced with an Immense pointed 
 archway, and is ornamented with bands, de- 
 signs and texts from the Koran in white mar- 
 ble. Noble as this building is, it is only the 
 gateway to the garden of the Taj. I left 
 the carriage and entered, and beheld in the 
 distance a gleaming white bubble of a dome 
 resting so lightly on a sculptured pile of mar- 
 ble that it seemed to float in the air rather 
 than press upon Its foundation. Leading up 
 to the Taj, through a grove of laurel and 
 lemon trees, is an avenue of Italian cypresses. 
 There is a mosaic pavement in this avenue 
 and through its center is a row of fountains 
 playing in a lily pool. 
 
 The Taj stands on a marble platform aS a 
 
 175 
 
176 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 jewel casket stands on a table, its eight sides 
 carved and inlaid in black marble with Arabic 
 texts from the Koran. Dominating the four 
 smaller domes is the grand central dome, 
 two-thirds of a globe, with the top sharpened 
 to a point. At the corners of the masonry 
 platform, but apart from the Taj Itself, 
 stand four marble minarets, like giant candles 
 before a shrine. 
 
 The Taj Impresses with the magnitude of 
 Its mass, the airy grace of its style, and the 
 detail of its carved and Inlaid marbles. It 
 is love at first sight for there is in the picture 
 a charm which mere words cannot express. 
 It is proportion, and proportion is art, and 
 words are powerless before art. 
 
 I sat on a bench in the garden and contem- 
 plated Its beauties, and they grew more en- 
 trancing as the hours passed. The Taj is 
 like a lover who at one moment commands 
 with his over-powering personality and at 
 another cajoles with a caress. At one mo- 
 ment It seemed like a mountain of ice, at 
 another an Intangible cloud, at another an 
 onyx casket inlaid with ebony. 
 
 When Noor Jehan died following the for- 
 tunes of war, with Shah Jehan in far Cash- 
 mere, he vowed he would build for her a 
 
The Taj by Moonlight. 177 
 
 tomb whose beauty could never be surpassed. 
 For seventeen years, thousands toiled. At 
 last when deposed and old and full of sor- 
 row, Shah Jehan was near unto death in a 
 narrow cell, where for seven years he had 
 been a prisoner in his own palace, he begged 
 the son who had deposed and imprisoned him, 
 that he might see again before he died, the 
 tomb of his Noor Jehan. He was carried to the 
 jessamine pavilion under whose jeweled mar- 
 ble arches he had known with her what joy 
 it was to live; and breathed his last with his 
 eyes resting on the marble domes that gleam- 
 ed beyond the sandy bed of the Jumna. 
 There his love awaited him, and there he 
 rests by her side. 
 
 I visited the Taj again in the evening, and 
 sitting alone by the reflecting waters of the 
 fountains, contemplated its beauty, gleaming 
 white and pure in the magic of the pale 
 moonlight. Then It seemed a pearl palace 
 from the paradise of dreams; a fitting casket 
 for Noor Jehan, the pearl of the palace, "The 
 Light of the Harem," of Moore's immortal 
 poem. 
 
 On entering the Taj one marvels at the 
 detail of the ornamentation. The light comes 
 faintly through screens of marble filigree. 
 
1/8 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 The sarcophagi of Shah Jehan and his 
 Queen are in the center, inscribed with the 
 ninety-nine names of God and extracts from 
 the Koran. They are also inlaid with semi- 
 precious stones, such as agate, carnelian, mal- 
 achite, bloodstone, and coral in floral gar- 
 lands. The lace-like marble screens that en- 
 circle the sarcophagi, and the walls themselves 
 are inlaid in Persian designs with the same 
 beautiful stones. The wainscoting of mar- 
 ble slabs of ivory purity are carved in relief 
 with conventional designs of the lily, iris, tu- 
 lip and primrose. 
 
 There is holy calm and hush in the Taj. 
 The mind is overwhelmed with its beauty and 
 dignity. There is nothing gaudy; nothing 
 inharmonious. With all its richness it con- 
 veys an Impression of purity and simplicity. 
 It breathes of noble thqughts and a mighty 
 love. Shah Jehan may rest content. The 
 tomb of his well-beloved is not surpassed. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 FUTTEHPORE-SIKREE, THE DESERTED CITY. 
 
 We drove to the deserted city Futtehpore- 
 Slkree, built by Akbar. On a hill overlook- 
 ing the fertile plains for miles and miles, 
 stands a walled city with red sandstone pal- 
 aces, and marble mosques with carving as 
 beautiful as lace, and as perfect as when de- 
 serted, over three hundred years ago. No 
 conquering army has destroyed an arch. No 
 vandal hand has marred a pillar. The rooms 
 lack only furniture, rugs and draperies to make 
 them again suitable for the throngs and 
 pomp of a potentate. 
 
 Kipling gives a perfect picture of the de- 
 serted city in these words : 
 
 "What do you think of a big, red, dead 
 city built of red sandstone, with raw, green 
 aloes growing between the stones, lying out 
 neglected on honey-colored sands ? There are 
 forty dead kings there, each in a gorgeous 
 tomb finer than all the others. You look at 
 the palaces and streets and shops and tanks, 
 and think that men must live there, till you 
 find a wee, gray squirrel rubbing its nose all 
 
 179 
 
i8o Oriental Rambles. 
 
 alone in the. market-place, and a jeweled pea- 
 cock struts out of a carved doorway and 
 spreads its tail against a marble screen as fine- 
 pierced as point lace. Then a monkey — a 
 little black monkey — walks through the main 
 square to get a drink from a tank forty feet 
 deep. He slides down the creepers to the 
 water's edge, and a friend holds him by the 
 tail in case he should fall in. When evening 
 comes and the lights change, it is as though 
 you stood in the heart of a king-opal. A lit- 
 tle before sundown, as punctually as clock- 
 work, a big, bristly wild boar, with all his 
 family following, trots through the city gate, 
 churning the foam at his tusks. You climb 
 on the shoulder of a blind, black, stone god 
 and watch that pig choose himself a palace for 
 the night and stump in wagging his tail. 
 Then the night-wind gets up, and the sands 
 move, and you hear the desert outside the 
 city singing: 'Now I lay me down to sleep,' 
 and everything is dark till the moon rises." 
 
 The palace of Miriam, Akbar's Portu- 
 guese Christian wife, has been refurnished as 
 an official residence, and affords an example 
 of how cozy and homelike these old palaces 
 were. Akbar was, like Solomon, a very lib- 
 eral man in religious matters. Himself a 
 
From the Mohammedan's Standpoint. i8i 
 
 Mohammedan, he took a wife from each of 
 the religions of his dominions that through 
 her each denomination might have a sure and 
 and private means of reaching his ear. 
 
 In the palace of Miriam is a fresco of the 
 Annunciation. In the palace of another wife 
 are frescoes of the Hindoo God, Ganeish; 
 and in the others are illustrations of Persian 
 poems. 
 
 We noticed the frequent repetition In the 
 stone carvings of the six-pointed star, or 
 double triangle, similar to the emblem of 
 masonry. But here it is used in its religious 
 significance symbolizing the female element 
 of the world's creation, as the lingam sym- 
 bolizes the male element in the creation of 
 all things animate and Inanimate. This is 
 one of the most ancient symbols in Brahmin- 
 ism, and was doubtless ancient in the time of 
 Solomon. 
 
 Whether the Jews brought masonry from 
 their captivity In Babylon ; and If so, whether 
 the Babylonians In turn derived It from the 
 primitive religion of India, are questions 
 which our Masonic friends may be able to 
 answer. 
 
 We also noticed carvings of the Greek 
 cross. It is recorded that Akbar once replied 
 
1 82 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 to the Jesuits who approached him : "What 
 would you have? Behold! I have more 
 crosses now on my palaces than you have on 
 your churches." 
 
 Many of us thought the Congress of Reli- 
 gions held at the Columbian Exhibition was 
 the first of its kind; but the wise Akbar held 
 one in Futtehpore-Sikree over three hundred 
 years ago. On the main gateway to the 
 mosque, the most imposing building on this 
 hill of palaces, is carved in stone the follow- 
 ing: 
 
 "Jesus, on whom be peace, said: 'The 
 world is a bridge, pass over it, but build no 
 house there. He who hopeth for an hour 
 may hope for eternity. The world lasts but 
 for an hour; spend it in devotion; the rest is 
 unseen.' " 
 
 This is singularly like, "Lay not up for 
 yourselves treasures upon earth where moth 
 and rust doth corrupt and where thieves 
 break through and steal." 
 
 An intelligent and highly educated Mo- 
 hammedan explained this surprising recogni- 
 tion of Jesus in the following words : 
 
 'Mohammedans recognized Jesus as one 
 of the great Prophets, only below Moham- 
 med and Moses in importance. Moses was 
 
From the Mohammedan' s Standpoint. 183 
 
 greater because he gave the ten command- 
 ments, one of which Is continually broken by 
 the Christians when they make graven images 
 of Christ, Mary, or the saints, and bow down 
 before them. We Mohammedans follow 
 that law, and use no pictures or images in 
 our worship. We consider Mohammed a 
 greater Prophet than Jesus because he came 
 later and superseded him. Neither Jesus nor 
 Mohammed was a God, but only prophets. 
 Our cry is "God is God, and Mohammed is 
 His Prophet." If you should tell a Moham- 
 medan that God could be killed by man, or 
 that God died, and was dead for three days, 
 he would say it is impossible. God is immor- 
 tal and therefore cannot die." 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 DELHI, THE DELIGHTFUL. 
 
 Delhi is said to be the oldest capital in the 
 world. It was the capital of an empire when 
 Jerusalem was a barren rock. Within the 
 area of ten miles square there are the remains 
 of seven cities in various stages of ruin. How 
 many have entirely disappeared no one knows. 
 We entered the present city through the 
 Cashmere Gate which was battered and 
 scarred by English cannon during the mutiny 
 when the city was retaken by storm. 
 
 The old fort of Shah Jehan is not as inter- 
 esting as that of Akbar at Agra, because 
 much of it has been destroyed. The gate- 
 way is gay with the capping pavilions in the 
 light and airy style of the Moguls, and it is 
 somewhat of a shock to encounter, the first 
 thing on passing through this gateway, the 
 modern barracks of Tommy Atkins con- 
 structed in the cheapest and most unorna- 
 mental manner. 
 
 The Audience Hall of Shah Jehan has been 
 whitewashed, thus making light of its dignity. 
 Further on we passed through rooms where 
 
 184 
 
Tumbling Tombs of Tyrants. 185 
 
 the whitewash blunderer had committed 
 desecrations equivalent to a crime. Entire 
 ceilings in marble, exquisitely carved, then 
 painted and gilded with masterly art, have 
 been ruined by the whitewash brush. The 
 English have attempted to repair the damage 
 by a restoration, but the expense was so ruin- 
 ous that it was abandoned. When one sees 
 entire ceilings and walls where precious paint- 
 ings in marvelous colors can still be faintly 
 traced through the coat of whitewash, one 
 wonders what manner of man could have or- 
 dered such wanton destruction. Much of the 
 palace has been destroyed to make room for 
 barracks, but there still remains the throne 
 room, the most beautiful hall in the world. 
 
 From the marble floor rises a forest of 
 marble pillars whose arches, inlaid and em- 
 broidered with semi-precious stones, support 
 a ceiling with myriads of pendants painted 
 in green, azure and gold. The screens of 
 marble filigree and the marble walls are in- 
 laid with colored stones in garlands of 
 flowers, — the leaves of malachite and the 
 roses of coral or carnelian in the same man- 
 ner as in the Taj Mahal. In this hall stood 
 the peacock throne, a blaze of diamonds, 
 sapphires, emeralds, rubies and pearls. The 
 
1 86 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 throne was carried to Persia by the conqueror 
 Nadir Shah. Only the marble pedestal re- 
 mains. Once there was a massive silver ceil- 
 ing, but the Mahratta conquerors melted it 
 down for loot. When the beauty of the hall 
 is still so great in spite of the pillage of 
 many conquerors, what must it have been 
 when Shah Jehan, in a cloak of scintillating 
 diamonds, sat upon the peacock throne, sur- 
 rounded by the splendors of the Mogul court ? 
 A ride through the ancient ruined cities 
 about Delhi is full of the interest that attaches 
 to the tumbling tombs of tyrants, and of 
 mighty monarchs whose names are forgotten. 
 There are ruins of observatories with as- 
 tronomical and mathematical instruments 
 and contrivances where, perhaps, the wise 
 men of Chaladee studied astronomy and as- 
 trology. Here Jey Sing, the royal asti-ono- 
 mer who succeeded the Rajahs of Amber and 
 founded Jaipur, reformed the calendar about 
 1693. His astronomical observations were 
 wonderfully accurate. The gnomons, dials, 
 quadrants, and so forth, are on a gigantic 
 scale, built of solid masonry. There are 
 also many curious instruments whose purpose 
 cannot be guessed. The "Wise Men of the 
 East" were very real men. 
 
The Kutub Minar. 187 
 
 Eleven miles away is the Kutub Minar, a 
 mighty tower, two hundred and forty feet 
 high, fluted and banded with carving. Its 
 origin is enveloped in mystery. In the court- 
 yard of an ancient temple nearby is a wrought 
 iron pillar older than Christianity. An in- 
 scription in Sanskrit announces that it is : 
 "The arm of fame of Rajah Dhava, who 
 conquered his neighbors and won the un- 
 disputed sovereignty of the earth." Who 
 was Rajah Dhava? This is the only evi- 
 dence that he ever existed. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 A NAUTCH DANCE. 
 
 I have seen a nautch dance. In my boy- 
 hood I read the tales of travelers, and their 
 descriptions conjured up in my imagination 
 pictures of oriental luxury and delights that 
 have never faded; therefore among the early 
 inquiries I made in India was the question, 
 "Where shall we see a nautch ?" Everyone 
 said "Delhi is the place. Delhi, the ancient 
 capital; the center of wealth, art, poetry and 
 pleasure." 
 
 I had pictured to myself a marble court 
 with Moorish arches, splashing fountains, 
 mellow lights, rich rugs, divans, draperies 
 and the voluptuous odors of sandal wood and 
 attar of roses; and myself sitting cross- 
 legged on a divan, smoking a hookah, what- 
 ever that is, with rose water in the bowl, 
 while slender beauties in gauzy draperies 
 danced before me on silken rugs to the tinkle 
 of castanets, the tremulous cadences of the 
 lute and the soft tones of the lyre, as they 
 did before Solomon and Shah Jehan. In 
 
Expectation and Realization. 189 
 
 fact, I had imagined myself a Great Mogul, 
 or an oil painting. 
 
 At last I saw the nautch. My curiosity 
 was satisfied, but my soul was not. It is sad 
 to lose our illusions, the most beautiful and 
 perfect things we ever possess; and why we 
 should ever want to is one of the fifty-seven 
 mysteries of life. 
 
 Arrangements having been made several 
 days in advance for so important an event, 
 we were ushered into a room furnished with 
 the most complete barrenness. No, the 
 room was not completely barren, for besides 
 the European chairs, there were European 
 chromos on the wall showing some highly 
 colored horse races, and a lithograph giving 
 us the cheering intelligence that "Splittz 
 Beer is Best." In addition there was con- 
 siderable bona-fide Asiatic dirt. 
 
 Ranged against the opposite wall were 
 seven native musicians with strange instru- 
 ments and an English concertina. When 
 the music began, two girls appeared and 
 lifted up their voices in song. They were 
 wonderfully and voluminously appareled. 
 They wore blue satin waists with long 
 sleeves embroidered in gold. Heavy skirts of 
 cloth of gold, very full, reached to their 
 
19° Oriental Rambles. 
 
 ankles. The feet were bare, but were loaded 
 with silver anklets and toe rings too numer- 
 ous to count. Their heads and necks were 
 roped with near-pearls and other jewels of 
 more or less value. A shawl with golden 
 fringe was twisted about the body, a corner 
 of which was occasionally thrown coquettish- 
 ly over the head. I had not seen so many 
 clothes in all India. After the dance we saw 
 these grand clothes being carefully folded 
 and laid away, and the dancers went out into 
 the street, dressed in the usual native cos- 
 tume consisting of a skirt that is too short at 
 the top, and a bust-supporting jacket that is 
 too short at the bottom, thus leaving exposed 
 a generous expanse of bare stomach. 
 
 As I said before, they lifted up their voices 
 in song. The song was not so bad, although 
 we had no idea what it was about, but it 
 seemed to possess the wild passionate thrill 
 of an oriental love song. It had odd little 
 quavers at the end of the measures, and con- 
 siderable rhythm and swing. When they 
 clasped their hands and rolled up their eyes, 
 it was plain enough to me that they were 
 making love, and I was enjoying It as such 
 until the Interpreter explained they were 
 charming snakes. 
 
The Betel Nut Habit. 191 
 
 Then they danced the "Thread-Making 
 Dance" in which they carded imaginary 
 wool, spun and twisted imaginary thread and 
 made an imaginary garment. 
 
 These nautch girls might be called pretty, 
 with their round young faces, raven hair, 
 rich dark complexions and languishing eyes, 
 were it not for the betel nut habit. The 
 crushed betel nuts were placed between two 
 green leaves, with slaked lime for flavoring, 
 and stowed away in their mouths in prodig- 
 ious quantity to be vigorously chewed during 
 the dancing, and shuttled about during the 
 singing. Betel nut chewing may be well 
 enough in its place, as there is said to be a 
 place for everything, and, according to the 
 Philosopher, a hot one for some, but it is 
 unromantic In dancing girls. It is diverting, 
 for it stains their teeth a dark red, the in- 
 terior of their mouths black, and leaves high 
 water marks about their lips and the trail of 
 accidental overflows on their shapely chins. 
 
 One girl fascinated me. She seemed to 
 open her face in song, and as I gazed into 
 the black abyss, I wondered if the mass, she 
 was so skillfully shuttling about to give the 
 song half a chance to escape, would be lost 
 to control and drop into her larnyx, complet- 
 
192 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 Ing the strangulation, or whether it would 
 safely slip down her gullet and be happily 
 "Lost to sight if not to memory dear." 
 
 The nautch dances were a series of postur- 
 ings, attempts at dramatic expression, and 
 while not lacking in grace, were, to us, 
 ridiculous and monotonous. Doubtless they 
 appeal to the oriental mind. They must do 
 so; for they are the steady entertainment of 
 millions of Indians, and have been for thou- 
 sands of years. 
 
 At last garlands of fragrant white flowers 
 were hung about our necks, and the enter- 
 tainment was over. 
 
 As we passed out into the night through 
 the court-yard, we experienced the ordinary 
 odors of the Orient. It was not the sensu- 
 ous perfume of my boyhood fancy, but the 
 pungent emanations of goats, which accord- 
 ing to oriental custom, pass their nights in- 
 side the house. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 JAIPUR AND THE RAJPUTS. 
 
 It Is a tiresome ride over the burning, 
 sandy plain from Delhi to Jaipur, the capi- 
 tal of Rajputana, one of the few native 
 states remaining nominally independent of 
 the English. It is a vast, parched plain from 
 which the sunlight is reflected in a dazzling 
 glare. The car windows are provided with 
 smoked glass, but the penetrating dust is be- 
 yond the control of man. 
 
 This part of India is the home of famine. 
 Occasionally we passed a green plot of 
 ground watered by a government irrigating 
 canal, or well, from which water for irriga- 
 ting is hoisted in leather buckets by oxen. It 
 is said water may be found almost anywhere 
 at no great depth, but rather than dig a well 
 on land owned by the government, which 
 takes most of the produce, the Hindoo lies 
 down in the sun and sleeps and starves. The 
 Indian dearly loves the sun. It is the only 
 thing he enjoys that he gets much of. 
 
 Here is an opportunity for the American 
 well-driver and the wind-mill salesman, or 
 would be if the Hindoo was commanded to 
 
 IBS 
 
194 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 buy, and had the money to pay. He has 
 been governed so much that he does little he 
 is not commanded to do. 
 
 There is an emaciated crowd of beggars at 
 every railroad station. The country is full 
 of pigeons. They walk the streets and flock 
 on the roofs, but before a Hindoo will eat 
 meat he will starve. His religious and his 
 caste principles are stronger than his desire 
 for life. The Hindoo is the easiest "dier" 
 in the world. There is no humor in his life. 
 It is a grim struggle and full of trouble. He 
 bows before whichever of the malevolent 
 Gods his fathers did, bathes in the sacred 
 rivers, follows the inexorable custom of his 
 caste, lives until he dies, — and the mourning 
 is brief. He carves a hideous idol, puts it in 
 a temple and worships It as a God, or the 
 symbol of a God, according to his intelli- 
 gence. The Mohammedan conqueror lifts 
 his battle-axe and smites the idol, saying, 
 "There is no God but God. No images must 
 be made, for God is a spirit and must be wor- 
 shiped in spirit." The Christian comes, 
 and holding aloft the crucifix, tells the beau- 
 tiful story of love, redemption and salvation ; 
 but the Hindoo can no more understand the 
 beatitudes of Christianity than we can com- 
 
Hindoo Characteristics. 195 
 
 prehend the gloomy terrors of Brahmanism; 
 and so, while the efforts of our earnest mis- 
 sionaries are great, and their hopes are high, 
 the results are a little discouraging. 
 
 Though caste is undoubtedly a barrier to 
 progress, it has its advocates. A very intel- 
 ligent Englishman, long resident in India, ex- 
 plained to us that caste, although cruel and 
 tyrannous, is really an advantage to the 
 country, as its laws tend to keep the immense 
 population in order and discipline. It has 
 served well each conqueror of India through 
 all ages. It would be a bad thing for Eng- 
 land or any other reigning power if caste was 
 abrogated and all men were considered equal, 
 free and irresponsible to the higher caste. 
 Anarchy would result. English rule adapts 
 itself to the observation, protection and eti- 
 quette of caste. Although a Hindoo beggar 
 might consider his cup defiled if the English 
 Viceroy should drink from it, the English 
 statesman says "It is well; so be it." 
 
 And thus we see the anomaly of the Eng- 
 lish, as a political body, defending caste and 
 sending their oldest sons as soldiers to fight 
 for it, and the English, as a religious body, 
 sending their younger sons as missionaries to 
 destroy it by the Introduction of Christianity. 
 
I96 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 It seemed that since Shanghai we had been 
 traveling through a modified England, but in 
 Jaipur, the capital of the independent state 
 of Rajputana, we were at last away from the 
 shadow of the English flag, if not away from 
 its influence. 
 
 Rajputana has its Maharajah, who sits 
 in his harem, rides his elephants, parts 
 his whiskers in the middle, and otherwise 
 conducts himself as a progressive and sat- 
 isfactory monarch. But he wisely listens 
 to the voice of the English representative, 
 who is at his right hand to give such 
 advice as may seem good to the uncrowned 
 English despot who resides in the Vice-regal 
 palace in Calcutta. By following that ad- 
 vice as the will of heaven, he is able to con- 
 tinue the enjoyment of his elephants, his 
 French chandeliers, his wives, his many danc- 
 ing girls, and his three hundred assorted 
 beauties of the harem. He paves the streets, 
 builds industrial schools, dispenses grain to 
 his starving subjects, names a museum Al- 
 bert Memorial, paints "Welcome" on a hill- 
 side in white kalsomine, and sent an elephant 
 to take our party to his old palace at Amber. 
 
 The last item alone shows he is a first-rate 
 king. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 A TRIP TO AMBER, AND AN ELEPHANT RIDE. 
 
 The eleven-mile ride to the deserted palace 
 of Amber was in three chapters, carriage, 
 ox-cart and elephant. During the first chap- 
 ter we passed acres of prickly pears. This 
 vindictive vegetable may be very well for 
 hedges, but as a regular crop it is a failure. 
 There are thickets of them occupying the de- 
 serted gardens of suburban villas of graceful 
 Saracenic architecture, which have long been 
 abandoned by the owners to the doves and 
 crows. Wild monkeys scampered about their 
 roofs and commented on our appearance as 
 we passed. 
 
 When the road became bad and the coun- 
 try hilly we changed to a bullock cart. It 
 had no springs, but a good deal of green 
 canopy. We sat cross-legged in the native 
 fashion. The white oxen were very deliber- 
 ate. They stopped so frequently, and looked 
 back so reproachfully that I got off and 
 walked. We climbed a narrow, desolate 
 valley between rocky hills crowned with the 
 battlements of the ancient palace. Passing 
 
 197 
 
igS Oriental Rambles. 
 
 through a gate whose crumbling wooden 
 doors bristled with iron spikes, we saw the 
 royal elephant awaiting us before the "Am- 
 ber Rest House." 
 
 We had luncheon on the veranda. Before 
 us was a narrow valley holding a glassy pond 
 where ducks were swimming. In the water 
 many storks were standing on one leg.* A 
 few natives were performing their abolutions 
 and washing their clothes on the sandy shore. 
 Across the pond rose a hill. A road zig- 
 zagged up its side to the castle, a marble 
 palace on grey sandstone foundations. Still 
 higher on the crest of the hill frowned the 
 red sandstone fortress of the Rajput mon- 
 archs of four hundred years ago. 
 
 The road before our veranda had once 
 thronged with the nobles of a gay court. 
 Here came in triumph the conquerors of Del- 
 hi, but now there came a different retinue, a 
 sorry company of thin-shanked, starving na- 
 tives with a flock of children. There is no 
 race suicide in India, even in time of famine. 
 
 These people respectfully touched their 
 forehead and lips and rubbed their wind- 
 distended stomachs in token of their need, 
 
 *That is, one leg for each stork. It is a foolish habit 
 anyway. — G. W. C. 
 
The Amber Rest House. 199 
 
 murmuring the while that we were their 
 fathers, their mothers, their brothers, their 
 masters and their protectors. A few coppers 
 made them happy. 
 
 And then came another class of beggars, 
 the monkeys. They looked better nourished 
 than the Hindoos and appeared happier. 
 Wild animals are not afraid in India, because 
 the Hindoos do not frighten or harm them. 
 Even tigers are sociable — and very fond of 
 the Hindoos. These monkeys came to us 
 without fear and helped themselves to food 
 from our hands. If they found a hand 
 empty they gave it a slap and chattered an- 
 grily. 
 
 Some wild peacocks, also scenting food, 
 came out of the thickets to watch the pro- 
 ceedings from a respectable distance. 
 
 A stone-laden camel strode by, led by a 
 Hindoo, who salaamed respectfully. We 
 knew by the mark on his forehead he was a 
 worshiper of Sheva. The camel had a 
 drooping under lip, and surveyed us with a 
 stare of contemptuous hauteur. 
 
 The royal elephant in the meantime had 
 been breakfasting off a pile of tree branches, 
 that looked more suitable for a stove than 
 an elephant. As he picked it over hunting 
 
200 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 for tender twigs, he seemed to say, "I eat this 
 'breakfast food,' not because I like it, but be- 
 cause my doctor recommends it." He was 
 not a prosperous-looking elephant. His skin 
 was too loose. But the Rajah had sent him 
 expressly for us as he had for numerous other 
 chance travelers, and will continue to do on 
 request, if the elephant holds together, which 
 on account of his generally moth-eaten ap- 
 pearance is doubtful. He was a dilapidated 
 and tumbled-down elephant with one tusk and 
 the rheumatism. On his back was a howdah 
 or "howdahdo," as the Philosopher called it. 
 The mahout talked to him in elephant and 
 prodded him in the neck. This seemed a 
 good deal of liberty to take with an elephant, 
 but he came down laboriously, trumpeting a 
 protest. We climbed to his back by means 
 of a ladder and he rose, one end at a time, 
 rocking like a boat. Thus perched high 
 above the earth we bobbed along and tried to 
 adjust ourselves to the rolls and bumps of 
 elephant gait. The Philosopher walked 
 back, but I being both brave and lazy, re- 
 turned via elephant. Mark Twain said he 
 could easily learn to prefer an elephant to any 
 other vehicle, but the Philosopher would pre- 
 fer a goat. 
 
b 
 
 rri 
 
The Royal Elephant. 201 
 
 The interior of the palace is not equal to 
 the peerless palaces of Delhi or Agra, or even 
 to the imposing ruins of Futtehpore-Sikree. 
 There is a many-pillared marble hall of audi- 
 ence, and some rooms with thousands of tiny 
 mirrors set in the stucco walls and ceilings. 
 The light came through screens of marble 
 filigree instead of glazed windows, and there 
 were many niches in the walls for lamps to 
 be placed behind colored glass. Here were 
 the only old art windows we had thus far 
 seen in India. They represent scenes from 
 Hindoo mythology, and have strikingly bril- 
 liant and beautiful reds, blues and greens. 
 They are not fragments leaded together, but 
 immense single panes, hand-painted, with the 
 colors burned in. 
 
 From the pavilions on the roof there was 
 a comprehensive panorama of the deserted 
 city. In the gardens no foliage shaded the 
 marble walks, and in the fountains birds 
 could find no drink. Away in the distance, 
 through a cleft in the castellated hills, was 
 the glimmering white sand of the desert slow- 
 ly filling in upon deserted and desolate Am- 
 ber. 
 
CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 BOMBAY THE CAVES OF ELEPHANTA. 
 
 From the veranda in front of my window 
 In the hotel I looked out upon a continuous 
 pageant of oriental life. There were many 
 nations in the Indias before the British con- 
 quest. I think they were all represented in 
 the procession that passed in the street, and 
 besides there were representatives from near- 
 ly every other people in Europe, Asia and 
 Africa. Across the street was a park in the 
 very center of the city. In the grassy shade 
 native children, dressed like cupids without 
 the quiver, romped and laughed in the way 
 of children the world over. Above the bil- 
 lowy green of the tree tops rose the familiar 
 Gothic of the English church. 
 
 In the shade of the park trees, the street 
 entertainers held continuous performances. 
 One Hindoo sat on his heels and rattled a 
 gourd to attract attention. With him were 
 two grave monkeys and a goat. The mon- 
 keys would turn somersaults and go through 
 the manual of arms ; and the goat would walk 
 a globe for a modest consideration. 
 
 802 
 
The Parsees and the Tower of Silence. 203 
 
 Nearby was a snake charmer. He carried 
 a bag of snakes and led a mongoose by a 
 cord. He untied his bag and played a few 
 weird notes on a reed ; a snake came out, and 
 coiling, inflated its hood. It was a cobra. 
 His part of the entertainment was to fight the 
 mongoose. A mongoose resembles a small 
 coon. He has thick brown fur, beady, red 
 eyes and a dissipated nose. He is a sort of 
 thug among the snakes. He has a perpetual 
 grouch and kills for the pleasure, — when he 
 does not get himself swallowed, as sometimes 
 happens. 
 
 The Parsees are a noticeable people on 
 the streets. They are descendants of the 
 ancient Persians, and still follow the religion 
 of Zoroaster, or fire worship, as it is some- 
 times called. In Bombay they are the lead- 
 ers in business, finance, education and phi- 
 lanthropy. They live in handsome mansions 
 on Malabar Hill, and in the afternoon their 
 victorias may be seen among the fashionable 
 throng on the Apollo Bunder Boulevard. 
 Their women wrap themselves in yards of 
 sheeny, thin silks after the Greek fashion. 
 The men wear a peculiar hat, resembling a 
 rimless silk hat with the rear dented in — a 
 hat which if seen on Broadway, would lay 
 
204 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 its wearer open to the suspicion of having 
 had a night out with the boys. 
 
 The Parsees believe the elements, fire, 
 water and earth, to be sacred, and should not 
 be defiled by contact with the dead. There- 
 fore they place their dead on towers called 
 "Towers of Silence" for the vultures to de- 
 vour. 
 
 A sail across the bay to the Caves of Ele- 
 phanta brought us again to a shrine of an- 
 cient India. This rock-hewn temple is one 
 of many of the kind in India and Ceylon. 
 The images and the columns were much dam- 
 aged by the cannon of the Portuguese who 
 took that means to teach the Golden Rule. 
 The Hindoo name is "The Hill of Purifica- 
 tion." The word Elephanta was adopted 
 by the Portuguese on account of the colossal 
 stone elephants that stood before the en- 
 trance. These ruins, and the native temples 
 in India generally, are now carefully guarded 
 and protected by the Anglo-Indian govern- 
 ment, in sharp contrast with the iconoclastic 
 fury of the Portuguese. 
 
 Bombay, like Calcutta, is so Europeanized, 
 that having seen the real India of the interior, 
 there is little to hold the traveler beyond the 
 next sailing day. Consequently we were soon 
 
Farewell to India. 205 
 
 again upon the placid waters of the Indian 
 Ocean. 
 
 Romance and beauty there is in plenty in 
 India, but it is so deeply buried in degrada- 
 tion and desolation that it does not appear at 
 first glance. In time, when the unpleasant 
 things have been somewhat obscured by a 
 merciful forgetfulness, the poetry and subtle 
 charm peep through the picture, and ever 
 after we treasure the memories of the mag- 
 nificent East, — the land of great things, good 
 and bad, — the cradle of the human race. 
 
c 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 THE INDIAN OCEAN, AND THE RED SEA. 
 The Indian Ocean in winter is an ideal sea 
 for the smooth-water sailor. We remem- 
 bered the tossing, cold North Pacific with a 
 shudder. During the days the passengers 
 played shuffle-board, quoits, poker and other 
 deck games, or read and dozed in steamer 
 chairs. In the star-lit evenings there were 
 concerts, dances, flirtations and lemon squash- 
 es to suit everyone. The shadowy fore-deck, 
 or flirtation parlor, as the Philosopher called 
 it, was a favorite retreat for young couples to 
 study the sparkling phosphorescence of the 
 waters as they curled away from the prow. 
 
 In the early morning the sailors hosed 
 down the decks. Then the men passengers 
 went up in their pajamas and walked in their 
 bare feet on the cool, damp deck, took deep 
 breaths of the delicious air, drank their coffee, 
 and envied the Lascar sailors who can go all 
 day in bare feet and pajamas and sail such 
 an ocean as long as they live. For days we 
 saw no ships, — nothing but sea, and sky, and 
 horizon, and the ruffled waters of our wake. 
 
 ?06 
 
Mount Sinai and Moses' Well. 207 
 
 At Aden it rained. This is not mentioned 
 as news, but as a marvel, for Aden is sup- 
 posed to be the driest place on earth. It ap- 
 peared like a mammoth ash heap. Somali 
 boys came alongside and dived for coins. 
 Negroes from Somaliland on the African 
 coast, and Arabs from Aden clambered on 
 deck to sell their ostrich plumes, eggs, bas- 
 kets and other curios, but they were ordered 
 off, and the hose turned on them to accele- 
 rate their departure. 
 
 As we drew towards the northern end of 
 the Red Sea, a brown irregular line rose on 
 the eastern horizon, and steadily grew until 
 the Sinaitic range of mountains spread their 
 barren and ragged outlines against the tur- 
 quois blue of the Arabian sky. 
 
 Mount Sinai, the mountain of the law, can 
 be seen, so the mate said, for a few minutes 
 at a certain point of the course, but like the 
 proverbial golden opportunity, it is easily 
 missed. The eastern shore stretched away 
 in hillocks of drifting sand to the sun-baked 
 mountains that are rocky and torn, like vol- 
 canoes long burned out, and barren as the 
 surface of the moon. 
 
 Near Suez there is an oasis, a patch of 
 green and a few trees on the sandy plain. 
 
2o8 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 This Is Moses' Well, the place where Moses 
 smote the rock and the water came forth, and 
 behold it was bitter. The water is still bitter. 
 It is now an Egyptian quarantine station, a 
 bulwark for Europe against the plagues of 
 India. Some of our fellow passengers who 
 have been detained there said the accommo- 
 dations have not improved since Moses' time. 
 Opposite the spring is the place in the Red 
 Sea where Moses divided the waters, and the 
 children of Israel passed over, dry shod, but 
 Pharaoh's host was swallowed up. The mate 
 said sailors often bring up on their anchors, 
 swords, muskets, chariot wheels and things; 
 but he did not have any for souvenirs just 
 at that time. 
 
 Moses divided the sea, but De Lesseps di- 
 vided the land. When we sat at dinner in 
 the saloon while steaming through the Suez 
 Canal, we could look through the port holes 
 on either side and see nothing but sandy des- 
 ert. We went through the canal in sixteen 
 hours. During the night our search-lights 
 enabled us to proceed at the same speed as in 
 the day. I was informed the toll for our 
 ship amounted to ten thousand dollars, 
 'vhich seemed incredible. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 HOW WE BROKE INTO EGYPT THE REWARD 
 
 OF HONESTY. 
 
 Port Said is supposed to be the wickedest 
 city of its size in the world. It looked inno- 
 cent enough with the shields of the various 
 national consulates displayed from buildings 
 along the water front. In the town the prin- 
 cipal business seemed to be the selling of 
 curios and antiques which looked suspiciously 
 new. 
 
 Here we disembarked for Cairo, but first 
 we had to go to the quarantine station. The 
 very sound of the word "quarantine" filled 
 us with shivers of dread, and forebodings of 
 evil, for we had come from plague-infested 
 India, and had heard uncanny tales of Moses' 
 Well, the quarantine pen and other Egyp- 
 tian health resorts. 
 
 The passengers for Egypt and their bag- 
 gage, were loaded into boats, and the flo- 
 tilla, tied together like canal boats, was towed 
 by a hysterical tug up the canal a mile to the 
 dreaded quarantine station. A dragoman 
 had been gent to help us through, and he 
 
210 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 stood in the prow of the boat like Washing- 
 ton crossing the Delaware. He was to be 
 our interpreter and protector, and when we 
 looked upon him we were reassured, for he 
 had a long cimeter, a fierce red face, and awe- 
 inspiring clothing. He wore a blue Turkish 
 jacket wonderfully embroidered in gold 
 braid, and Turkey red cotton trousers with a 
 lamentable absence of fit. They apparently 
 were cut to fit a pear. Their voluminous 
 folds were gathered around the ankles, but 
 there was an appalling redundancy of seat 
 which trailed in a pouch between his feet like 
 the generous stomach of a goose that had 
 overlaid itself. On the back of his head was 
 a red fez with a flame of a tassel that snapped 
 with the energy of his gesticulation. He as- 
 sured us we were not to be detained, but only 
 baked, boiled, steamed and sterilized for the 
 public safety. 
 
 The quarantine station proved to be a dock 
 with a corrugated iron roof and a terrifying 
 machine on wheels like an ancient locomotive. 
 Into its fiery furnace an Arab was shoveling 
 coal. Above was an oven about the size of 
 a tourist, and from it came the sound of es- 
 caping steam. That was the sterilization 
 plant and they were ready for us. Some of 
 
Our Awe-Inspiring Dragoman. 211 
 
 us were nervous. The prospect for baked 
 tourist was good. The native boys who came 
 with us jumped overboard and escaped. 
 
 A wordy war was going on between our 
 dragoman and the Egyptian health officer. 
 They talked in Egyptian and with both 
 hands. It was plain they were very angry 
 and swearing frightfully. What would we 
 do without our brave defender! Finally he 
 turned to us smiling and said: 
 
 "It is all right; all they want is your soiled 
 linen." 
 
 Ladies who had looked bravely into the 
 fiery furnace turned pale with dismay. They 
 gazed at one another, but no one moved. 
 They were paralyzed with fear. 
 
 Cotton bags to receive the linen were 
 handed around. The Philosopher from Phil- 
 adelphia, being like all Philadelphians, strict- 
 ly honest, opened his trunk and stuffed in his 
 entire laundry. Another man compromised 
 with his conscience by hesitatingly opening his 
 handbag and surreptitiously extracting a suit 
 of pajamas which he turned over to the 
 strong arm of the law. 
 
 In the midst of this turmoil, an experienced 
 traveler, being a diplomat, if not worse, de- 
 nied that he had any soiled linen whatsoever. 
 
212 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 Since India he had not even changed his shirt. 
 It was a brave thing to say, but it seemed to 
 go. It appeared natural enough to the 
 Egyptians. They understood it. He was 
 excused. Then a strange thing happened. 
 Not another passenger would confess to the 
 possession of a scrap of soiled linen, so the 
 proceedings came to an abrupt termination. 
 
 The laundry was returned dripping wet 
 and steaming hot to the two honest men ; and 
 then they had the reward for their honesty. 
 They were required to pay a shilling for each 
 article, which proved quite a tax on the very 
 honest man — the Philosopher from Phila- 
 delphia, who had given his all in the laundry 
 list. He thought they should Iron it for that 
 amount. 
 
 But our troubles were not over. We still 
 had to run the gauntlet at the custom house 
 before we could go up into Egypt land. We 
 were towed to another dock, and our luggage 
 dumped on the platform where the Egyptian 
 custom officers lay in wait for us. 
 
 However, they seemed remarkably mild 
 and confiding for custom officers, for they 
 were rapidly putting their chalk marks on the 
 baggage of the entire shipload of passen- 
 gers as they hurried to the train- There was 
 
At the Quarantine Station. 213 
 
 no annoyance, no trouble in sight. It was a 
 remarkably cheerful place — for a custom 
 house. Our dragoman took possession of 
 our keys, and remarked with a falling inflex- 
 ion, as an eyelid slowly drooped, "No duti- 
 able goods, I suppose." 
 
 It was a mistake to have taken the Phi- 
 losopher into the custom house at all. He 
 should have been safely put aboard the train 
 with a guide book and a cigar. It is strange 
 how the habit of honesty will grow on a 
 person. At first it may be indulged in as a 
 mild recreation or dissipation, but the sen- 
 sation is so strange and enticing that the 
 habit grows until the victim becomes hope- 
 lessly honest and in no condition to be trusted 
 alone in a custom house. I saw the mistake, 
 but it was too late ; he had made the fatal ad- 
 mission that he might possibly have half a 
 box of cigars somewhere in his trunks. 
 
 The officer was plainly astonished at such 
 an unusual admission. He was so skeptical 
 about it that nothing short of seeing them 
 with his own eyes would convince him that 
 the statement was true. He demanded to 
 see the cigars. That required that the trunks 
 be opened, but through some mistake, our 
 dragoman opened the wrong trunk. It be- 
 
214 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 longed to the diplomat of the quarantine sta- 
 tion, and he was displeased about it; for 
 there, before the astonished gaze of the offi- 
 cer, lay his forgotten dutiable articles — all his 
 purchase and plunder of the "purple east" — 
 silks, embroideries, tiger skins, and ivories. 
 .There was duty to pay, and perhaps, fright- 
 ful penalties for having such a poor memory. 
 
 The diplomat explained that he was only 
 passing through Egypt; that rather than pay 
 heavy duties he would express the whole lot 
 through to London. It was no use; he had 
 deceived the government; the government 
 was angry and he must pay. The officer was 
 positive about it. He said so in seven lan- 
 guages and at last in English. Train time 
 was approaching. We had missed our din- 
 ner over this custom muddle and were likely 
 to miss our train. The diplomat capitulated 
 to Egypt and asked for the amount of the 
 duty. 
 
 The officer plunged an arm into one cor- 
 ner of the open trunk, contemplated the oth- 
 ers from a distance, and began to figure. 
 
 "Never mind the harrowing details," said 
 the diplomat, "give us the terrible total." 
 
 "Thirty-three piastres," declared the offi- 
 cer, and proceeded to chalk all our trunks. 
 
At the Custom House. 215 
 
 The diplomat was delighted, for thirty- 
 three piastres are equivalent to only $1.65 in 
 real money. 
 
 As our dragoman got him into the diffi- 
 culty he volunteered to help him out. "If 
 you will all go on the train," he said, "I will 
 attend to this business." 
 
 We were well toward Cairo when the 
 dragoman appeared to return our keys and 
 report the trunks were on board. As the 
 diplomat received his keys he said, "I will 
 settle with you for the duties you paid." 
 
 "I did not pay the duties," declared the 
 dragoman. 
 
 "Neither did I," said the diplomat. 
 
 "Neither did I," echoed the Philosopher. 
 
 "But who did?" 
 
 "At any rate my conscience is clear," said 
 the Philosopher. "It was my duty to declare, 
 and their duty to collect. I have observed 
 that after all, honesty is the best policy — if 
 you are caught at it." 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 PORT SAID TO CAIRO. 
 
 The ride from Port Said to Cairo is full of 
 interest. Even the brown desert has a charm 
 because it is so frankly and thoroughly a 
 desert. Over that course through which we 
 rolled so rapidly and comfortably in palace 
 cars, have passed the hosts of conquering ar- 
 mies. 
 
 If the sands could speak, they could tell of 
 conquerors, whose names were forgotten be- 
 fore history was carved on stone. They 
 could tell of Rameses and his triumph; of the 
 children of Israel brought captives in chains; 
 of Moses, Aaron and David; of the fleeing 
 Israelites, and the pursuing hosts of Pharaoh ; 
 perhaps of the Queen of Sheba journeying 
 from her Arabian capital; of Cambyses the 
 Persian ; Alexander the Great ; of the humble 
 Mary and Joseph fleeing into Egypt with the 
 Christ child; of Julius Caesar; and of Napo- 
 leon pressing on to the seige of Jaffa, eager 
 with ambition to found an Asiatic Empire, 
 and repeat the conquests of Tamerlane. Per- 
 haps if his plans had not miscarried, Europe 
 
The Evolution of Civilization. 217 
 
 would have been spared that carnival of 
 blood during his revival of the Empire of 
 Charlemagne. 
 
 The peculiar natural conditions of the Nile 
 valley were especially favorable for the early 
 development of civilization. Upon the an- 
 nual inundation of the valley depended the 
 prosperity of the people. This fact, together 
 with the mystery of its source, caused it to be 
 invested with sanctity, and considered with 
 reverence by the early Egyptians. On ac- 
 count of the great fertility of the soil, a dense 
 population could be supported. The neces- 
 sity of controlling the currents, and the build- 
 ing of irrigating canals, led to the develop- 
 ment of the science of engineering. As the 
 annual inundation obliterated the boundaries 
 between the individual holdings, it became 
 necessary to re-survey boundaries and keep 
 permanent records. This developed the 
 science of surveying and mathematics. To 
 settle the disputes that would naturally arise, 
 courts were established, and fixed rules, or 
 laws, adopted. This developed a judicial sys- 
 tem. To foretell the dates when inundations 
 would occur, the phases of the moon and the 
 constellations of the starry heavens were ob- 
 served. Thus calendars were tabulated and 
 
2i8 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 the study of astronomy was fostered. To 
 record all these facts a system of written char- 
 acters became necessary, and the priesthood, 
 which was the learned class, evolved the writ- 
 ten language known as hieroglyphics. For 
 economy and convenience, a plant that grows 
 plentifully in the lower Nile was used to 
 make a surface upon which to write. That 
 plant was the papyrus and the product was 
 called paper. In this manner was laid the 
 foundation of the political, legal, social and 
 scientific system which we call civilization. 
 
 Towards evening we saw a green valley 
 ahead, and the glimmer of the waters of "Fa- 
 ther Nile." Beyond was the Libyan desert, 
 and on its edge were three pyramids like 
 geometrical blocks. At last we were in Egypt, 
 — the land of the lotus and papyrus, and the 
 spell of its mystery was upon us. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 CAIR,0 AND THE MOSQUES — THE PHILOSO- 
 PHER OBJECTS TO MOHAMMEDISM. 
 
 At Cairo the orient and the Occident meet, 
 but do not blend. Each preserves its own 
 characteristics. In the great hotels may be 
 found European luxury to satisfy the most 
 exacting of the wealthy tourists who find in 
 the sunlight of Egypt refuge from the rigors 
 of northern winters. 
 
 Here the traveler may ride in a victoria or 
 an automobile. If he prefers the oriental 
 mode of rapid transit he may stride the di- 
 minutive donkey, some of which are so small 
 they have been known to walk out from be- 
 tween the legs of a particularly tall tourist 
 when he inadvertently rested his feet upon 
 the ground. Or he may perch upon the apex 
 of a camel and be shaken and groaned at by 
 that supercilious and over-praised "ship of 
 the desert." 
 
 If he pleases the tourist may sail up the 
 Nile in a dahabeah to Abydos, Thebes, 
 Karnak, and Philae. Day after day he may 
 laze in his hammock under deck awnings, and 
 
220 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 dream of the glory of Egypt that has depart- 
 ed. He may bask in the warm sunlight and 
 breathe the pure air of the desert. He may- 
 watch the passing dahabeahs propelled by 
 lanteen sails or by men with long sweeps as 
 in the time of Cleopatra. He may see the 
 descendants of the ancient Egyptians work- 
 ing at the shadoofs, or well sweeps, with 
 leathern buckets by which water is raised 
 from the Nile to the irrigating ditches. He 
 may see barren deserts, brown hills, green 
 meadows, palm groves, mud villages, and the 
 endless procession of bare-footed women in 
 flowing robes of blue cotton, coming to the 
 bank, and carrying away urns of water on 
 their heads. At his pleasure the tourist may 
 moor his dahabeah at the bank and visit 
 the native market places. He will see the 
 wild Bedouins of the desert and the strange 
 people from darkest Africa. He may see 
 their native dances and be present at their 
 festivals. He may explore ruined temples 
 and subterranean tombs, and purchase scara- 
 bees, statuettes and antiquities that may have 
 been dragged from the tomb of a king which 
 had been concealed in the hills for five thou- 
 sand years, or may have been made in Ger- 
 many last month. 
 
Amusements to Please All. 221 
 
 Cairo is only an upstart city of a thousand 
 years old, — a mere yesterday in Egypt. It 
 was built by the Arabian conqueror on the 
 ruins of New Babylon which had been founded 
 by Cambyses the Babylonian. It contains the 
 purest examples of Saracenic architecture, 
 and is the center of education and culture of 
 the Moslem world. In a few minutes walk 
 from the luxurious hotels one may find quar- 
 ters of old Cairo, where the Arabian civiliza- 
 tion is hardly scratched. It is as it was hun- 
 dreds of years ago. 
 
 The traveler soon gets accustomed to see- 
 ing mosques, for one is always in sight. We 
 naturally dropped into them as we did into 
 the temples of Japan, and the tombs in India. 
 
 There is nothing more pleasing in archi- 
 tecture than a Saracenic arch, nothing so 
 graceful as a minaret. The heavy Roman, 
 the ornate Renaissance and the classic Greek 
 command respect and admiration, but they 
 are the prose of architecture while the light 
 and airy Saracenic is the poetry. The Sara- 
 cenes built not so much to defy time and 
 earthquakes, as to please the eye and cheer 
 the heart. The style suggests happiness, song 
 and laughter, the splashing of fountains and 
 the perfurne of flowers. It is not merely the 
 
222 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 proportions that please but the exquisite art 
 of the decorative finish. If you enter a mosque 
 and behold the rich mellow tints of the 
 tiles in the wall; the intricate arabesque of 
 the ceilings ; the brilliant mosaics of the pulpit 
 and prayer niche, with their geometrical pat- 
 terns in ivory, ebony, jasper, and mother-of- 
 pearl, you will say with the Moslem, "Here 
 I will rest awhile and be content." 
 
 The mosques are always open. In them 
 are no images, no pictures, no seats; but the 
 true believers are always coming and going. 
 The Arab with his fine physique, his flowing 
 robes and dignified turban commands respect; 
 he Is picturesque withal and looks his best in 
 a mosque. He is becoming to the architec- 
 ture and they combine to make the picture as 
 It should be. 
 
 The religion of Islam requires five things 
 absolutely: prayer five times every day; the 
 observation of bodily cleanliness; the pil- 
 grimage to Mecca; the bestowal of alms on 
 the poor ; and the keeping of the fast of Ram- 
 adan, during which for forty days no food 
 whatever must pass the lips between sunrise 
 and sunset. All alcoholic liquors are strictly 
 forbidden by Mohammed. 
 
 When a follower of the Prophet desires 
 
Saracenic Architecture. 223 
 
 to do a good act, he builds a mosque and set- 
 tles upon it an endowment for its support and 
 maintenance. There are no regular congre- 
 gations; everyone may equally enjoy its ad- 
 vantages. If the endowment fails it gradu- 
 ally falls into ruin. A good many seem to 
 have failed in Cairo. 
 
 To a Moslem a mosque is more than a 
 church to be used fifty-two times a year. It 
 is a house of constant prayer and a place of 
 refuge. There he may rest and escape the 
 mid-day heat. There he may refresh himself 
 with food which he has brought, and quench 
 his thirst at the fountain ; the poor man may 
 roll himself in his blanket and sleep ; he may 
 sew on his buttons and repair his clothing; he 
 may read his book or study the Koran. 
 
 From a balcony encircling a slender min- 
 aret, one frequently hears the voice of the 
 Muezzin calling the faithful to prayer. Five 
 times a day he walks around the balcony 
 chanting the familiar cry, "Allah Akbar; Al- 
 lah Akbar; la Allah ill' Allah; Heyya alas- 
 salah." "God is great; God is great; there 
 is no God but God, and Mohammed is his 
 prophet; Come to prayer." 
 
 The followers of the prophet enter the 
 court and at the fountain wash their feet, 
 
22 4 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 faces, and mouths. They enter the mosque 
 barefooted, leaving their sandals at the door. 
 Facing the prayer niche, which indicates the 
 direction of Mecca, they pray to the one God 
 — which in the Arabic language Is called Al- 
 lah, and In Hebrew is called Jehovah. The 
 God of Moses and Aaron; the God of the 
 Jew and of the Christian. 
 
 Unbelievers In the Prophet are welcome to 
 enter and remain as long as they like, the 
 only requirement being their shoes must be 
 covered by mosque slippers, which are fur- 
 nished at the door. 
 
 The Mohammedans come very near to 
 following the Injunction "Pray without ceas- 
 ing." No matter what the work or business 
 on hand may be, the Moslem, who follows 
 the Injunction of the Prophet, Interrupts it 
 five times a day long enough to turn his face 
 toward Mecca and say a prayer. It is no 
 strange sight to see a laborer throw down his 
 tools; devote a few moments to his religious 
 duty, then resume with renewed energy to 
 make up for lost time. The merchant prays 
 In his booth, the sailor on the deck of his 
 boat; even my donkey boy ceased calling 
 maledictions on the head of my donkey, 
 "Yankee Doodle," long enough to mumble a 
 
The Religion of Islam. 225 
 
 prayer which I hope was a plea for forgive- 
 ness. 
 
 Our dragoman told the Philosopher from 
 Philadelphia, that Mohammedism is still 
 growing in Asia and Africa. He recited 
 some of the Koran, declaring that in time all 
 the world would become followers of the 
 Prophet. I think he was trying to convert 
 Phil, but the Philosopher thought such a re- 
 ligion would be inconvenient for every day 
 use, and that it would never become popular 
 in America. 
 
 "Imagine," he said, "the bulls and bears 
 of Wall Street, the people in the department 
 stores, or even the street car conductors, or 
 the icemen interrupting their pursuit of the 
 almighty dollar, five times a day — to pray. 
 How could a religion become popular which 
 requires a six weeks' ride on the hump of a 
 camel across a burning desert to worship be- 
 fore a shrine of Mohammed in Mecca, when 
 there is a shrine of chance wide open in Sara- 
 toga; a shrine of beauty on the sands of At- 
 lantic City; and a shrine of Epicurus at the 
 end of almost any automobile run? The 
 Americans will never submit to polygamy. 
 What chance would a man have against five 
 mothers-ia-law? Imagine the chaos that 
 
226 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 would result if that command of Mohammed 
 prohibiting alcoholic liquors was observed. 
 How could we manage our elections? How 
 would we keep our army of policemen busy? 
 How would we fill our large and commodious 
 jails? How could we even enjoy a good din- 
 ner, or entertain our friends, the 'jolly good 
 fellows?'" 
 
 No, Mohammedism is not suited to the 
 strenuous life of Europe or America. Still, 
 with all our superior civilization we can learn 
 something of the advantages of temperate 
 living from the Orientals. 
 
 " When at the bowl's deep brink. 
 Let the thirsty think 
 
 What they say in Japan, 
 ' First the man takes a drink. 
 Then the drink takes a drink. 
 
 Then the drink takes the man.' " 
 
CHAPTER XL. 
 
 DONKEY BOY DIPLOMACY STREET PICTURES 
 
 AN ANTIQUE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 There is no better way to see Cairo than 
 from the spine of a donkey. It is not grace- 
 ful and not over-comfortable; for your don- 
 key boy, who runs behind, will smite the 
 beast more mightily than did Balaam; and 
 Yankee Doodle, Bonaparte, or whatever his 
 name may be, will cavort and trot with stiff 
 knees until you plead for a slower pace. 
 
 The names of these donkeys are wonder- 
 fully contrived. They vary with the nation- 
 ality of the employer. The shrewd donkey 
 boys, who stand in front of the hotels, assign 
 them names from time to time to please one 
 and all. They are accurate guessers of na- 
 tionality, and an American, no matter how 
 English his pith helmet may be, or how many 
 pugarees he may wind around his hat, is sure 
 to be met with such salutations as "Please 
 mister, mine good donkey; give you long 
 ride; name 'George Washington,' or 'Yan- 
 kee Doodle.' " But if a traveler comes along 
 who bears the unmistakable signs of an Eng- 
 lishman, they will say, "Come have nice ride, 
 
 337 
 
228 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 my donkey, name 'Prince of Wales' or 
 'Gladstone.' " If one appears who wears an 
 imperial and talks with his hands you will 
 hear something that sounds like, "AUez mon 
 chevalet; mon tres joli 'Bonaparte.' " If a 
 man marches out of the hotel, talking in his 
 throat and choking with languages, they will 
 cry, "Das Asel ist nicht spitzpuperi gemacht, 
 namen, 'Bismarck,' Hoch der Kaiser." And 
 all the time it will be the same jackass by the 
 name of Bill. 
 
 Having mounted the donkey with the most 
 attractive name you will see strange sights 
 in the native quarter. Some streets are so 
 narrow that only one donkey can pass at a 
 time, and if you should meet another donkey, 
 or rather if your donkey should meet another 
 donkey, it would be necessary for one of them 
 to squeeze against a doorway to allow the 
 other to pass. As you proceed through the 
 narrow streets the boy cries in Arabic, the 
 warning, "Take heed, fair maid;" "Beware, 
 O Chief," and passersby flatten themselves 
 against the walls. The donkey picks his way 
 among the crowds with almost human cau- 
 tion, and apologizes with his gentle eyes if 
 he crowds against a person. 
 
 The vendors of dntiking water and lemon- 
 
Seeing Cairo by Donkey. 229 
 
 ade carry their goods in goat skins on their 
 backs. They jingle brass drinking bowls to- 
 gether, as they cry, "A drink for the thirsty 
 — sweet water, O Chief — nectar for the 
 faithful, — a drink in the name of Allah." 
 
 The Philosopher says, "If the custom of 
 poetical cries for hucksters should extend to 
 America, we may expect to hear: "Peanuts 
 good people, sweet fruit of the sand; how 
 beautiful are the gems of Virginia. Peanuts 
 O, small boy," and instead of the rancous de- 
 mand of a rude iceman we will hear the gen- 
 tle call, "Ice, oh beautiful lady; ice for the 
 cooler; cold butter for the biscuits; winter 
 frost for the summer nectar. Ice, oh damsel, 
 fair." 
 
 The Arabic tongue is not only poetical in 
 style but pleasing to the ear. Mohammed 
 said, "I love the Arabic language because I 
 am an Arab; because the Koran is in Arabic; 
 and because Arabic Is the language of para- 
 dise." When printed It looks like shorthand 
 gone wrong. Our numerals are Arabic and 
 they are shorthand when compared to the 
 cumbersome Roman. 
 
 We visited the old university of El Azhar, 
 the splendid. This school has been a center 
 of Mohammedan learning for a thousand 
 
230 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 years. During the fourteenth century it is 
 said to have had as many as twenty thousand 
 students. Now it has perhaps five thousand. 
 It continues to send its graduates throughout 
 all Islam from Samarkand to Philippopolis, 
 and Trebizond to Timbuctoo,, wherever they 
 are. It seems like an incredible distance to 
 me. 
 
 El Azhar is conservative. Its curriculum 
 Includes the Koran, which is committed to 
 memory, grammar, rhetoric, versification, 
 Arabic and Persian literature, elocution, ora- 
 tory, logic, mathematics, law and probably 
 other subjects; but modern sciences and origi- 
 nal research are sadly neglected. Tuition is 
 free, and all students, may, if they like, sleep 
 on the floor, eat their food, and have their 
 heads shaven by the tonsorial artist within 
 the courts. 
 
 The students sit upon the floor and study, 
 bobbing their heads. This swaying of the 
 head is a natural inclination of children the 
 world over. Perhaps it helps to shake down 
 the lessons on the principle of a grain hop- 
 per, but in the Mussulman it is a habit ac- 
 quired by the rule that the head is to be bowed 
 every time the word Allah is spoken. In the 
 great court, the students sat on the pavement 
 
El Azhar, the Splendid. 231 
 
 in groups surrounding the teachers, and as 
 all studied aloud there was a constant hum of 
 voices. 
 
 At one side of the court there is an open 
 hall whose roof is supported by one hundred 
 and eight graceful columns of granite, mar- 
 ble, and alabaster. Near the pulpit, two are 
 set close together. There is a legend that 
 only honest men can pass between them. The 
 columns are well worn by those who have 
 squeezed through. Our dragoman related 
 the sad plight of a portly lady, with an hour- 
 glass figure, who got stuck between the pillars 
 at her narrowest point, and was extricated 
 with considerable difficulty by a lot of alarm- 
 ed students. He said the legend had nothing 
 to say about women, so the portent was un- 
 reliable. 
 
 There is a fascination about the native ba- 
 zaars which draws the traveler there many 
 times. He may roam at leisure among cool 
 labyrinthian passages protected from the sun 
 by gaily colored awnings. The booths are 
 wide open to the street and often no larger 
 than American show windows. He may see 
 the silversmiths, the brasscutters and slipper- 
 makers, intent upon their work in the booths 
 where their products are offered for sale. 
 
232 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 The merchants, in their flowing robes and 
 turbans, have plenty of time to smoke their 
 water-pipes, drink their black coffee and 
 gravely converse with their neighbors. 
 
 In separate booths are displayed the rich, 
 soft rugs of Persia; the gold and silver em- 
 broidered veils of Cairo; the metal wares of 
 Damascus; the turquois and pearl jewelry 
 of Arabia and the ostrich plumes and eggs 
 of Nubia. In the booths of the perfumers 
 are the gilded vials of attar of roses from the 
 rose gardens of Tui'key, fragrant herbs from 
 Persia, sandalwood from India, benzoin from 
 Siam, and myrrh and frankincense from 
 Arabia. Their sweet odors escape from the 
 booths and perfume the mazes of the bazaars. 
 
 At every turn is a new scene abounding 
 with the colors which please an artist. It 
 may be a mosque banded with red and white 
 sandstone; a sculptured fountain of ablutions 
 pouring forth its cooling waters; a slender 
 white minaret against a background of a tur- 
 quois sky; or perhaps, an unusually graceful 
 mouchrabiyeh window whose intricate fret- 
 work of cedar spindles clings to the wall like 
 a swallow's nest. 
 
 At the further end of the bazaars is one 
 of the mediaeval gateways in the walls of 
 
In the Bazaars. 233 
 
 Cairo. It is ornamented with Arabic inscrip- 
 tions carved in stone. In its shadowy re- 
 cesses, hung high and safe above reach, are 
 old chains and battle-axes, reminding us of 
 the middle ages when Islam triumphant was 
 beating in the gates of Europe in the valley 
 of the Danube, and on the sunny slopes of 
 Spain. They remind us of the brave days 
 of the Crusades, when Arabs and Turks 
 crossed swords with Christian knights for 
 the possession of the holy places of Palestine. 
 Through that gate passed many a cavalcade 
 of the Chivalry of Islam going forth in the 
 panoply of war clad cap-a-pie in good Da- 
 mascus steel, with mailed hands upon the 
 keen swords of Toledo, and mounted on 
 gaily caparisoned steeds of the best blood of 
 Arabia. 
 
CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 FROM THE CITADEL. 
 
 Sultan Saladin, who captured Jerusalem 
 from the Crusaders, built a citadel, and with- 
 in it a palace, on the slope of the Mokattam 
 hills overlooking the city of Cairo. Moham- 
 med Ali leveled the palace and built on its 
 site his mosque veneered with alabaster slabs 
 and beautified with alabaster pillars. Its 
 great dome, and slender white minarets rise 
 above the frowning battlements and are the 
 most conspicuous feature of the city. 
 
 Mohammed Ali was buried in his mosque 
 in 1849 almost on the spot where he com- 
 mitted one of the most terrible massacres in 
 history. He was a progressive but ruthless 
 man; he did great things for himself and inci- 
 dentally considerable for Egypt. Although 
 a Turk, and a Turkish viceroy, his am- 
 bition was to make Egypt a great and In- 
 dependent nation with realms from the Red 
 Sea to the Atlantic, and from the Mediter- 
 ranean to the source of the Nile. 
 
 The Mamelukes were opposed to progress. 
 They were an Influential military race. Away 
 
 331 
 
Sunset from the Citadel. 235 
 
 back in the thirteenth century they were a 
 corps of cavalry made up of slaves sold to 
 the Sultan of Egypt by an Asiatic Kahn. 
 They were intended as a body guard to over- 
 awe rebellious subjects, but in time they came 
 to own their owners. At various times they 
 seized the government and made their lead- 
 ers sultans, and at all times were turbulent 
 and dictatorial. 
 
 Mohammed Ali, tiring of their opposition, 
 invited four hundred and fifty of their leaders 
 to a conference in the citadel. When they ar- 
 rived, the gates were closed and all were shot 
 from their horses except one who spurred his 
 horse over the wall, falling what appears a 
 hundred feet, and fled, miraculously escaping 
 with his life. At the same time a general 
 slaughter of the Mamelukes was ordered 
 throughout Egypt. Such a carnival of mur- 
 der followed as had not been witnessed in 
 Egypt since the slaughter of the first born. 
 After that Mohammed Ali developed his 
 plans unhindered. 
 
 From the citadel can be seen a panorama 
 of Cairo which can never be forgotten. The 
 best time to see it is at sunset when the pe- 
 culiar azure and golden haze of Egypt add 
 th^ir magical charm to the picture. Nearby 
 
236 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 are the half ruined tombs of the Mameluke 
 Sultans, clustered upon the desert sand at the 
 foot of the Mokattam hills. Stretching away 
 to the north and south is the City of Cairo, 
 thickly dotted with the swelling domes and 
 tapering minarets of mosques. Midway of 
 the valley flows the Nile. Its shining course 
 can be traced far up and down, and on its 
 surface can be seen the lateen sails of the 
 dahabeahs. Over beyond the green valley 
 is the brown waste of the Libyan desert 
 stretching away in sandy undulations, into 
 the golden haze of the distance. On the 
 edge of the desert, as on a platform, stand the 
 three pyramids of Gizeh. Their huge tri- 
 angles notch the sky at the horizon, and their 
 sides seem turned to dull gold by the sunset. 
 Near the Pyramids crouches the Sphinx, gaz- 
 ing back at us with the mystery of the ages, 
 as it gazed back upon Moses, Joseph, Mary, 
 and the sacred child, and St. Mark, who es- 
 tablished the Christian church among the 
 Egyptians; as it gazed upon Rameses, Pha- 
 raoh, Cambyses, Julius Caesar, Cleopatra, 
 Saladin and Napoleon ; and as it will gaze 
 upon ages yet unborn. 
 
 How paragraphs rush to the pen and strive 
 to be free, but I forbear, for who can compre- 
 
'■% '- 
 
Sunset from the Citadel. 237 
 
 hend six thousand years of the past? Who 
 can conceive of the possibilities of six thou- 
 sand years of the future ? 
 
CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 THE PYRAMIDS — THE PHILOSOPHER MAKES 
 SOME DISCOVERIES. 
 
 The drive to the pyramids is across the 
 Nile bridge, flanked by British lions, and 
 along a roadway embanked above the line of 
 inundation and shaded by lubbuk trees. On 
 the road we met many donkeys loaded with 
 vegetables for the city markets, and camels 
 almost enveloped in their load of green grass 
 destined for fodder for "Yankee Doodle," 
 "Bismarck," "Bonaparte" and the other don- 
 keys with high sounding names that carry the 
 tourists about Cairo. We met the Bedouins 
 of the desert with long rifles across their 
 knees, mounted on spirited horses. Behind 
 them came camels shambling along under 
 their loads of Bedouin women, veiled and 
 heavily draped in black. 
 
 There were also automobiles and trolley 
 cars, but we ignored them, and mentally 
 placarded them with the signs worn by the 
 "supers" in the Japanese plays when they are 
 to be considered invisible. They have no 
 
 838 
 
Mountain of Masonry. 239 
 
 place in the memory picture which I wish to 
 preserve. 
 
 As we drew nearer the Pyramids, our re- 
 spect for them increased. As their bulk grew 
 larger in the perspective they grew in impres- 
 siveness. When, at length, our carriage 
 halted before the Great Pyramid, it seemed 
 a colossal stone pile, a mountain of masonry. 
 It has served as a stone quarry for the build- 
 ings of Cairo with little more than scratching 
 the surface. It has been robbed of the casing 
 of polished granite which was covered with 
 hieroglyphics. Its secret chambers have been 
 discovered, and the mummy of its royal build- 
 er dragged into the light much against his 
 wish, but the pyramid remains to the ages the 
 most stupendous structure erected by man. 
 
 Its base is more than an eighth of a mile 
 square. Its apex is over a twelfth of a mile 
 high, and its covers thirteen acres. The se- 
 cret passage to the interior was found on the 
 thirteenth layer of stones, and the average 
 height of each block of stone is nearly four 
 feet. As an evidence of the mathematical 
 and astronomical knowledge possessed by 
 their builders, it is curious to note that the 
 sides exactly correspond with the cardinal 
 points of the compass, yet at that early day the 
 
240 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 compass had not been Invented. The diagon- 
 al of the Great Pyramid projected, forms the 
 diagonal of the second pyramid in the group. 
 The narrow secret passage is built at the cor- 
 rect angle to observe the pole-star from the 
 center of the pyramid at a certain day in the 
 year. The stone used was brought from a 
 great distance on the other side of the Nile, 
 and was probably transported by barges at 
 high water, or by canals built for the pur- 
 pose. All of these facts are comforting to 
 know. 
 
 At present the Pyramids are owned by Be- 
 douins who for a fee will pull and push the 
 tourist to the apex, and for another fee will 
 push him down again. Whether the charge 
 is so much per person, or so much per pound, 
 I did not learn, but the Philosopher discov- 
 ered it was so much per push, for he un- 
 knowingly had an extra pusher, and the 
 Sheik reminded him of it when he came to 
 settle. 
 
 These Bedouins have camels to rent for 
 the ride to the Sphinx. After the ride, which 
 consisted of a boost, a groan, a jounce, and a 
 get-off, the Philosopher proceeded to lead 
 away the animal, thinking he had bought it; 
 but the Sheik sent a dozen Bedouins to bring 
 
o 
 
 >a 
 
The Bedouins of the Sphinx. 241 
 
 It back and collected a double fee for wearing 
 out his camel without a permit. 
 
 The Sphinx, which is carved out of the 
 bed-rock of the plateau, has been subjected 
 to gross indignities. The winds have buried 
 its body with desert sands, which, however, 
 have been partially removed. Its face has 
 been used as a target for cannon practice with 
 the result that it has lost the greater part of 
 its nose, and has acquired a hare-lip. Its 
 beard, for it was originally the likeness of a 
 gentleman known as Amenemhet III, has 
 been plucked and carted away to the British 
 Museum. But in spite of all these insults it 
 has never spoken except once when Ralph 
 Waldo Emerson stood before it, and several 
 persons distinctly heard it say, "You're an- 
 other." 
 
CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 THE DERVISHES. 
 
 Once a week the "Howling Dervishes" 
 and the "Whirling Dervishes" hold services 
 In their respective mosques. "The public are 
 cordially invited to attend." If the drago- 
 man has provided a carriage with fast horses 
 It Is possible to see both In one afternoon. 
 These dervishes are a Mohammedan sect 
 sometimes called fanatics. 
 
 We went first to the "Howling Dervishes," 
 and found a throng of spectators, native and 
 foreign, grouped around a court In the center 
 of which was an elevated platform under a 
 grape trellis. On the platform stood a cir- 
 cle of dervishes repeating in unison with 
 much explosive vehemence, "La Allah ill' 
 Allah." Every time they said "Allah" they 
 violently bowed their heads. The tempo set 
 by the leader gradually increased and the 
 bobbing of their heads became more ener- 
 getic until their entire bodies swung back- 
 ward and forward with wonderful rapidity. 
 There was one who wore no turban and his 
 long hair fairly snapped like a whip lash, as 
 
The Howling Dervishes. 243 
 
 it flew back and forth with his violent exer- 
 cise. It seemed that they would never tire, or 
 that they would fall from exhaustion. After 
 some minutes, the time gradually retarded, 
 and their movements became less violent until 
 they were silent and still again. Again they 
 walked around in a circle and prayed, then 
 resumed their cries of "Allah" and began an- 
 other movement in which deep and rapid 
 breathing seemed to be the object. 
 
 One man especially Interested me. It was 
 he of the flying hair. He was perhaps twen- 
 ty-eight years of age. He had a pallid, deli- 
 cate complexion, sparse, curling, brown 
 beard, and abundant wavy brown hair falling 
 about his shoulders. His large brown eyes 
 seemed to have no sin. The purity of his 
 face, his devotional intensity and his spiritual 
 expression would put any question of his sin- 
 cerity to shame. He was a monk, an ascetic 
 from Palestine. 
 
 By a fast ride we were able to see the danc- 
 ing dervishes. Their mosque at first glance 
 had an irreverent appearance. The center of 
 the building was railed off, and inside the 
 railing were several dervishes, each spinning 
 like a top by himself. No one interfered with 
 his neighbor. With closed eyes and folded 
 
244 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 arms, their leaded skirts standing out like 
 round tables, they whirled until it would 
 seem they must drop. 
 
 These enthusiasts endeavor to induce a 
 condition of ecstacy, hallucination, hypnot- 
 ism, or trance, during which they see visions, 
 and in which their souls are freed from the 
 trammels of the body, and can soar to the 
 realms of the blessed, peep into the courts of 
 paradise, and commune with God. The 
 "Howling Dervishes" adopt the method of 
 violent movements of the head and deep 
 breathing, the effect of which is to disturb the 
 circulation of blood in the brain, and intoxi- 
 cate with an excess of oxygen. The "Whirl- 
 ing Dervishes" adopt the method of produc- 
 ing the desired condition of mind by vertigo, 
 induced by rapid and long whirling. The 
 Hindoo fakirs produce the same condition by 
 mere concentration of mind. 
 
 This condition of perfect subjugation of 
 self during which the spirit, or soul, or astral 
 body rises triumphant over the earthly body, 
 to see things unseen by ordinary mortals, is a 
 state desired by enthusiasts of all religions, 
 and accomplished in various ways. It is the 
 condition that makes the acceptance of mar- 
 tyrdom a trivial thing. Christian ascetics 
 
The World of the Invisible. 245 
 
 have sought the same condition by fasting, 
 prayer and meditation. 
 
 The Persian astronomer-poet, Omar Khay- 
 yam, expressed the purpose and his conclu- 
 sion when he wrote, in "The Rubaiyat" 
 
 "I sent my soul through the invisible. 
 Some letter of that after-life to spell ; — 
 
 And by-and-by my soul returned to me. 
 
 And answered, ' I myself am Heaven and hell.' 
 
 Heav'n but the vision of fulfilled desire. 
 
 And Hell the Shadow of a Soul on fire." 
 
CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 MEMPHIS — HELIOPOLIS — THE WISDOM OF 
 THE EGYPTIANS. 
 
 The Prophet Jeremiah wrote, "Noph, 
 (Memphis) shall be waste and desolate with- 
 out an inhabitant." His prophecy has liter- 
 ally been fulfilled. There is nothing now to 
 mark the ancient metropolis of lower Egypt 
 but the fallen statues of Rameses II, the Pha- 
 raoh of the oppression, which stood before 
 the Temple of Ptah. 
 
 That temple was the most important in 
 Egypt, but its stones have been removed for 
 the building of Cairo, and nothing now re- 
 mains but the gigantic granite statue, forty- 
 two feet high, of Rameses II and the mum- 
 mies in the tombs of Sakkara on the edge of 
 the desert. In the worship and ceremonials 
 of the ancient Egyptians, bulls were employ- 
 ed. They were considered sacred to Apis, 
 and when they died they were mummified and 
 placed in the subterranean tombs connected 
 with the temples in granite sarcophagi, some 
 of which weight sixty-five tons. 
 
 It is an interesting problem how such enor- 
 
 246 
 
The Ingenuity of the Ancients. 247 
 
 mous weights as these sarcophagi, the obe- 
 lisks, and the mammoth statues, were trans- 
 ported hundreds of miles from their quarries 
 in upper Egypt. The statue of Rameses in 
 the Rameseum in Thebes, carved from a sin- 
 gle block of red granite, stood fifty-five feet 
 and is estimated to have weighed eight hun- 
 dred and eighty-seven tons. The quarrying 
 and cutting of these blocks were done with 
 tools of tempered copper, some of which 
 have been found ; but the secret of tempering 
 copper is one of the lost arts, although known 
 to the North American Aborigines. 
 
 In the northern suburbs of Cairo is the 
 site of the ancient City of Heliopolis, the 
 sacred City of the Temple of the Sun, — the 
 "On" of the forty-first chapter of Genesis. 
 This was a center of learning in ancient 
 Egypt — a sort of university town. Moses 
 was a student there, and became learned in all 
 the wisdom of the Egyptians. Herodotus, 
 Plato and Strabo, journeyed there to study 
 philosophy and history. Dionysius, an Egyp- 
 tian astronomer at Heliopolis, recorded a 
 darkness or eclipse on the date of the cruci- 
 fixion on Calvary. Nothing now remains of 
 that great city but an obelisk. Once there 
 were many, but they have wandered far from 
 
248 Oriental Rambles. 
 
 the temple of learning where they were 
 placed five thousand years ago. One stands 
 in Alexandria where it was placed before the 
 palace of Cleopatra, one has journeyed to 
 Central Park, New York, and another to 
 London. 
 
 We spent a day wandering through the 
 corridors of the Gizeh museum, where are 
 gathered the antiquities of Egypt in bewilder- 
 ing profusion. There we saw mummies of 
 Rameses II, the conqueror of the East, the 
 builder of temples, the greatest king that ever 
 ruled in Egypt. He was the Pharaoh who 
 "hardened his heart" against the Israelites. 
 His features which are well preserved are dig- 
 nified and commanding. The aquiline nose 
 and broad forhead indicate a man of great 
 mental force and determination. 
 
 Here also is the mummy of Sethi II, the 
 Pharaoh of the Exodus, the contemporary of 
 Moses. How surprised he would be to learn 
 that his kingdom and his people have passed 
 away, and the spokesman of that band of 
 Jewish slaves became the spokesman of God 
 to a large part of the world; and that the 
 Jews are still a distinct people and are re- 
 markably prosperous. 
 
 Old as Pharaoh is, he seems modern when 
 
Some Old Jokes. 249 
 
 compared to the wooden statue standing 
 guard nearby. This statue is six thousand 
 years old, two thousand years older than Pha- 
 raoh and Moses, and the wood is still well 
 preserved. He is not at all Egyptian in ap- 
 pearance. It might be the likeness of a mod- 
 ern bonvivant or clubman. He has a jolly 
 round face with a humorous, half-repressed 
 smile. The Philosopher listening back six 
 thousand years said he distinctly heard him 
 laugh and remark, "That mother-in-law joke 
 is a good one, but here is a conundrum given 
 me by old Cheops who has that pyramid job 
 down Memphis way, 'Why does a hen cross 
 the road?'" 
 
CHAPTER XLV. 
 
 HOMEWARD BOUND. 
 
 There comes a time in the course of travel 
 when one has seen enough ; when the sight of 
 a temple, or a museum, or an art gallery 
 brings no thrill of joy; when the brain is tired 
 and overcrowded with scenes and incidents 
 too rapidly accumulated to be properly filed 
 away In the index of memory. Then is the 
 time to rest, — then the time to remember the 
 motto of the monkeys of Nikko, "See not too 
 much, hear not too much, speak not too 
 much." 
 
 Once more we went to the citadel to see the 
 sun set across the valley of the Nile. Once 
 more, and this time by moonlight, we con- 
 templated the Pyramids, and watched their 
 triangular shadows lengthen on the desert. 
 Once more we bent our inquiring gaze upon 
 the sad, mysterious face of the Sphinx be- 
 fore we could say farewell to Egypt, and 
 farewell to the purple Orient and its strange 
 people in the multi-colored clothing ; for when 
 we should reach Europe we would again be 
 among the people of our occidental civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
Home, Sweet Home. 251 
 
 As we completed the circuit of the world 
 by sailing up New York harbor, Phil, the 
 Philosopher from Philadelphia, gazed long 
 and lovingly upon the "Gateway to Ameri- 
 ca," and remarked, "After all, the best thing 
 we have seen is the Statue of Liberty." 
 
 THE END. 
 
EXTRACTS 
 
 FROM 
 
 HINDU LAL. 
 
 A New Book in Preparation 
 
 BY 
 
 Dr. G. W. CALDWELL. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE VOLCANO. 
 
 We were well satisfied, the Professor and 
 I, with our botanizing tour. With our lit- 
 tle caravan of Gourka hill men and native 
 ponies we had wandered over the ranges of 
 the Himalayas studying and classifying the 
 strange Flora with which the region abounds, 
 and had finally arrived near the boundaries 
 of the "Forbidden Land." 
 
 We were passing, that morning, up a wild 
 ravine where jungle grass and stunted shrubs 
 grew thick, and lichens clung to the rocky 
 banks. Before us towered the mighty moun- 
 
 157 
 
158 The High Himalayas. 
 
 tain — Jomo Kang Kar — "Our Lady of 
 Snows," where the Gods and Goddesses of 
 the Hindu mythology sit on their crystal 
 thrones secure from mortal curiosity. Be- 
 tween us and the peak, which has never been 
 scaled by man, lay snow fields broad and 
 deep, sending down their glaciers to glitter 
 pale blue in the sunlight, and melt into tor- 
 rents which falling in feathery foam thou- 
 sands of feet over the cliffs formed the river 
 which rushed past us to join with the sacred 
 Ganges on the plains of Hindustan. 
 
 In our travels we had learned from Ram 
 Zan, our interpreter and guide, many secrets 
 of the healing art unknown to the world out- 
 side of the hills of India, and, as said before, 
 we were well satisfied with the benefit that 
 the sick and suffering would receive when we 
 should return to civilization and make them 
 known. 
 
 Ram Zan was relating the strange stories 
 of the Mahatmas, Yogis, Magi and Monks 
 that have their habitations far in the wilds of 
 these almost inaccessible mountains. 
 
 "This path," he said, "is worn by the pil- 
 grims who travel to the Monastery of the 
 Volcano to be healed by Swaami, the Holy 
 Man, whose fame is as broad as India. 
 
The Rescue of Hindu Lai. i59 
 
 At that moment a cry was heard — the cry 
 for aid of a man in terror. We seized our 
 rifles and bidding our bearers follow, hurried 
 up the ravine, answering the call. We had 
 not traveled far when we saw crouching on a 
 rock at the side of the ravine a tiger and a 
 tigress. We three fired at the same moment, 
 and the beasts sprang from the rock. One 
 remained where he fell, but the tigress with 
 a series of bounds crashed through the bushes 
 and disappeared. 
 
 "Here is the pretty pussy," said the Pro- 
 fessor, when we reached our trophy. "We 
 must now learn whether the proprietor of 
 the cry is inside," but we were saved the trou- 
 ble, for only a few feet away we found the 
 man among the rocks where he had fallen. 
 He wore the robes of a priest of the higher 
 order. He was badly injured, having fallen 
 from the rocks and dislocated a hip and re- 
 ceived a severe scalp wound from which the 
 blood was still flowing. 
 
 We stripped his blood-stained turban into 
 bandages, and by means of compresses and 
 the icy waters, soon had the hemorrhage 
 stopped and a neat bandage applied. Then 
 we reduced the dislocation of the hip. The 
 pain caused by such an injury and the manipu- 
 
i6o The Pain Plant. 
 
 lation of the bones Is such as to bring groans 
 of agony from the bravest man, but the 
 priest calmly chewed some leaves which he 
 picked out of the bag suspended from his 
 shoulder. He showed no evidence of suffer- 
 ing. 
 
 Ram Zan noticed this and called our atten- 
 tion to the leaf which he recognized at once 
 as a common umbelliferae. The priest ad- 
 mitted it was the "Pain Plant" of which we 
 heard in Nepaul. At a later time we had an 
 opportunity of putting this plant to the test 
 in our own party, and found to our delight 
 that It had the power of controlling pain 
 without affecting consciousness. 
 
 In a short time the priest was strangely 
 refreshed and strengthened. Through our 
 interpreter he said: 
 
 "I thank you. Sahibs. You have saved 
 my life; I am your servant, Hindu Lai, of 
 the Monastery of the Volcano. As you see 
 I am unable to walk, and a wounded man is 
 an easy prey for wild beasts. I ask you to 
 take me to the Monastery to-night." 
 
 "But the Monastery," we protested, "is 
 two days' travel over the mountain." 
 
 "We will go by the secret passage," he re- 
 plied. "In four hours we will reach the 
 
A Substitute for Food. i6i 
 
 Monastery. Swaami will not forget your 
 service, and if you seek knowledge, as I be- 
 lieve you do, since you were quick to detect 
 the Pain Plant, you shall learn of the master 
 what no man of your race has ever learned 
 before." 
 
 It was plain we could not leave him there 
 alone, so we placed him on a pony and proceed- 
 ed up the path perhaps a half mile, when at his 
 direction we turned into a defile. As we pro- 
 ceeded the defile narrowed to a cleft in the 
 mountain, then abruptly terminated. Appar- 
 ently we were in a pocket, and the only escape 
 was to return, but Hindu Lai bade us pro- 
 ceed to the extreme end of the cleft where the 
 vines climbed thickly up the rocks. The 
 vines proved to be only a curtain hiding the 
 entrance to a cave. Inside of the cave were 
 two hideous idols, with eyes of blood-red 
 carnelian, in the posture of forbidding en- 
 trance. 
 
 Our Gourka bearers were plainly fright- 
 ened. Only after long persuasion was the 
 priest able to overcome their superstition. 
 Apparently the figures served well the pur- 
 pose for which they were designed. Still 
 they reasoned that if it was safe to enter the 
 cave at all, it had better be done with a full 
 
1 62 Through the Secret Passage. 
 
 stomach, and they insisted on a halt for food. 
 
 At this the priest demurred. He wished 
 to proceed at once and as rapidly as possible, 
 so again he searched his bag and brought 
 forth another plant with a thick, glossy green 
 leaf, and calling to the men In the native 
 tongue, gave each a leaf and bade them eat. 
 The faith of the Gourkas In the priest was 
 remarkable. Each did as he was bidden. 
 We also received a portion and ate It. It 
 was strangely satisfying and seemed to ban- 
 ish fatigue and hunger like the cocoa leaves 
 which are chewed by the Indians of Peru. 
 
 The Gourkas were now willing to proceed. 
 We lighted torches which were found behind 
 the idols and entered the cave. We passed 
 along the lofty cavern between rows of Idols 
 that glared at us with blood-red eyes. Our 
 voices echoed and re-echoed until they died 
 away in a faint call from the recesses of dis- 
 tant chambers. 
 
 At length we emerged from the cavern into 
 a circular valley surrounded by vertical cliffs, 
 Inaccessible except at one point where a path- 
 way zigzagged up to the crest. 
 
 "We have come through the secret pas- 
 sage," said Hindu Lai. "This valley Is the 
 crater of an extinct volcano. The cloud of 
 
In the Ancient Crater. 163 
 
 steam arising yonder is from the natural 
 hot springs, and nearby is the temple with 
 the two colossal stone elephants before it." 
 
 As we passed down an avenue we saw 
 many strange people camped in the shade of 
 the banyan trees. They were pilgrims from 
 all parts of India, who had come to be cured 
 at the shrine of Swaami, the Holy Man of 
 the Himalayas. 
 
 We halted at the gateway of the Monas- 
 tery. Two attendants prostrated themselves 
 before the priest, then tenderly lifted him 
 from the horse and carried him in. We fol- 
 lowed through an outer court brilliant with 
 scarlet orchids, — through stone corridors, 
 the walls of which were covered with astro- 
 logical and mystical signs, — across a curious 
 inner court, in the pavement of which a 
 brazen sun was inset, surrounded by the 
 elliptic, the signs of the Zodiac, and other 
 emblems which we did not understand. A 
 door mysteriously opened and closed for us. 
 Our feet sank into the deep, rich pile of 
 oriental rugs. The air became heavy with 
 the odors of burning incense. A moment 
 later we stood in the presence of Swaami, the 
 Holy Man. 
 
 He sat on a cushion, with his legs folded 
 
164 Swaami, the Holy Man. 
 
 as a woman folds her arms. He was thin to 
 emaciation and for clothes he wore only a 
 loin cloth of pure white silk. Unlike other 
 holy men of India we had seen, he was clean 
 — scrupulously clean. His face was strong, 
 and kind, and in his eye was wisdom and con- 
 scious power. 
 
 Behind the Holy Man stood an idol of 
 terrifying aspect. Its eyes were blazing 
 rubies and an enormous diamond scintillated 
 on Its forehead. The interior of its wide- 
 open mouth was blood-red, and for teeth it 
 had rows of jagged quartz crystals. Over 
 its shoulder was a cape of human vertebrae, 
 with a fringe of finger bones, and with a skull 
 as a central pendant. 
 
 Hindu Lai narrated the story of his mis- 
 fortune and our timely rescue. At its end 
 Swaami smiled upon us, and placing his left 
 hand over his heart, touched his lips and fore- 
 head with the fingers of his right hand, which 
 we learned was the secret sign of the Broth- 
 erhood. 
 
 Attendants removed the bandages from 
 Hindu Lai, and after washing the wound, ap- 
 plied some aromatic balm. A tiny glass of 
 red liquid was given him and In a few min- 
 utes his weakness disappeared. 
 
Strange Power of Plants. 165 
 
 "By your kindness to me," he said, "you 
 have won what no man of your race could 
 buy. It is the wish of The Master that you 
 be shown the mysteries of healing, which 
 throughout all ages have been reserved for 
 the elect of the Brotherhood." 
 
 A pilgrim was brought in, leaning heavily 
 upon the arm of an attendant. His breath 
 came fast and short and from his chest issued 
 wheezing sounds. "Save me, oh Master, 
 else I die. A demon is in my chest and he 
 grapples at my throat. Drive him out, oh 
 Master," he panted as he prostrated himself 
 before the Holy Man. 
 
 "Behold the herb the Master will give 
 him," whispered Hindu Lai. "Note the 
 round leaves and the purple veins. To it is 
 given dominion over the Fiend of the 
 Air. With it will the Master exorcise the 
 demon and he shall trouble him no more. 
 One leaf shall he eat at the rising of the sun 
 and the going down thereof for the space of 
 three moon cycles and he shall trouble the 
 man no more." 
 
 The pilgrim took from his finger a jeweled 
 ring and placing it in the palm of the idol, 
 passed out. 
 
 Then came a man from Thibet, being car- 
 ried in a chair. "Oh Master," he said, "the 
 
i66 The Spirit Plant. 
 
 wrath of the Gods rest heavily upon me. I 
 can neither lift my right foot or my right 
 hand." 
 
 "By this," said Hindu Lai, "will the spell 
 be broken. By this will be he healed. It is 
 the Spirit Plant. Place your fingers upon it." 
 We did so and received a sensation similar to 
 an electric shock. 
 
 "He who gathers it," continued the priest, 
 "must needs be cautious. It was that which 
 caused my fall from the cliff this morning 
 when you rescued me. At the magic hour 
 must it be gathered, for only then is the spirit 
 upon it." 
 
 He gave some leaves to the paralytic, and 
 when he had eaten he clapped his hands for 
 joy, and descending from his chair, took a 
 heavy gold chain from his neck and placing 
 it in the palm of the idol, went out praising, 
 strange as it may seem, not the Holy Man or 
 the remedy, but the idol. 
 
 "These poor people," said the Master, 
 "must have a fetish. With their eyes must 
 they see a physical object, for their minds 
 are not capable of comprehending the invisi- 
 ble. Therefore do they bring their jewels 
 and offer them to the idol, and it is well, for 
 therewith may the brothers buy rice, and the 
 
Before Zarlon the All-Seeing. 167 
 
 wise men spend their days in study of the mys- 
 teries of Nature for the benefit of the people." 
 "In this," he continued, showing us a red 
 liquid, "are the elements of life, and it is 
 capable of saving those suffering from dis- 
 ease as bread saves those starving for food. 
 With these elements Nature makes her re- 
 pairs. My sons, in these mountains human 
 life on this planet began, and in these se- 
 cluded monasteries are secrets of Nature kept 
 until the world shall be ready to receive them. 
 They will be revealed to you when you shall 
 become one of us, and shall have taken the 
 oath of the Brotherhood before the blood-red 
 eye of Zarlon the All-Seeing. The ordeal is 
 prepared. The brothers await you in the 
 Cavern of the Eternal Fire."