iiHn!i!):r!ii!ir.'iiiTi^ iiyiiliiiffliiSliiiliJliiiJIB YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY jlOHN F. EMBREE COLLECTION 01 LOAN TO ^UTHEAST ASIA STUDIES yALE UNIVERSITY AN AMERICAN MERCHANT EUROPE, ASIA, AND AUSTRALIA: A SERIES OF LETTERS ^ JAVA, SINGAPORK, CHIJfA, BUNGAL, EGYPT, THE HOLT LAND, THE CRIMEA AND ITS BATTLE GROUNDS, ENGLAND, MELBOURNE, SYDNEY, ETC., ETC. Bt GEO. FRANCIS TRAIN, OP BOSTON. '" WITH AS INTEODUOTION BT FREEMAN HUNT, A.M., ESITOB OF " MBROHANTS' MAGAZINE," ETC. NEW YOEK: a. P. PUTNAM & CO., 321 BROADWAY. 1857. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by G. P. PUTNAM, In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. E. OKUOHEAD, PRINTER AND 8TEEE0TTPEE, Caiton 38utltiing, 81, 83,'and 85 Cenlrt Street. TO ENOCH TRAIN, ESQ. OF BOSTON, These Inklings from foreign lands are respectfiilly INSOBIBEB IN GEATEFDL BEMEMBKANOE OF HIS MANY ACTS OF KINDNESS, fSs a eStaliuate OF HIS COUNTING- HOUSE. INTRODUCTION. Commercial Literature is a new term. I have sought to make it acknowledged. It seems to have been thought that the only books for a merchant to read or to write, were those formidable rows of ponderous ledgers, deal ing only in the inexorable logic of arithmetic, to which learning was a stranger, within whose lids a gleam of fancy or of humor dare not intrude, and whidh summed up the subjects and results of commerce, in the uninvi ting rhetoric of figures. But Commerce no longer ling ers around its ancient haunts. It now pervades the world. The merchant lays his hand upon the entire products of the globe, in all the changing forms, to which human industry and ingenuity may transmute them. Agriculture says to him, " Behold the varied results of my industry in different climes, it is yOurs to make them useful to the nations." ' The Mamifkcturer asks him to carry and distribute the products of the loom. Whatever is valuable . to man, calls on the mer chant for help. The very gold which the sands and iv INTEODUCTION. the rocks of. California and Australia so profusely yield, requires the merchant's ships and system of exchange to make it of the value it really represents. Why then shall not commerce be installed among the occupations whose achievements shall be deemed worthy of record, and possess a literature peculiarly its own. To give it this position, to preserve its doings and experiences, not only its brilliant successes, but its gradual march, . to give permanent record to the whole sweep of mer cantile pursuits, to keep alive the bright names that adorn its progress, has been the main object of nearly twenty years of my life. It has seemed to me coincident with the general scope of these labors, to gather iuto a more permanent form, the following letters of a young American merchant. They contain much information of use to the mercantile community. They were written on ships and steamers, and amidst all the inconveniences, hurry and bustle of travel, and, from the author's continued absence, abroad, have not the benefit of his revision. They therefore appear, as written for the daily journals, with all their evidences of haste upon their head. Prom such deficien cies they are redeemed by the intelligence, difficult of access, which they embody, by their graphic history of INTKODUCTION. the rise and progress of that new world destined to wield the sceptre of the Southern Seas, by their statis tical knowledge, by the glow and sprightliness of their descriptions, and the amusing incidents they relate. The history of the countries through which the traveler passes is compressed into a few pages, and the commer cial details are enlivened by humor and wit. Eeceived with distinction by the merchant princes of the lands he visited, his opportunities were rare and enviable — opportunities which he has not failed to improve. The author, Mr. Geoege Francis Train, went from Boston to Australia in 1853, and established, at Mel bourne, the prosperous house of George P. Train & Co. with which he is still connected. During his residence of thirty-two months at Melbourne, he took a prominent and active part in all measures for the advancement of the colony, and when he left was honored with a compli mentary dinner by the merchants of Melbourne. His portrayal of the marvelous growth of that city from its wharfless condition when he reached there, to its present commercial position, is a description of events which, it is probable, can never be repeated in any other portion of the globe. For this correspondence the title of " Young America yi INTRODUCTION. Abroad" was at first adopted— one of our papers having selected the author, for a biographical sketch, " as a rep resentative of the young American merchant, — of that Young America which pours its energies through all the channels of comtaerce ill all quarters ofthe globe — which, at home or abroad, upholds the high character of its country — which is ready to plant itself wherever great achievements await it, whether amid the furs of the North West or on the quays of the seaboard ; now ploughing the Arctic ices, or searching for new points of development under the Equator ; now carrying our flag and institutions to erect them on the golden rocks of California ; or, as if not finding room enough within our own boundless domain, aiding to establish a new port, build a new city and create a new commerce on the golden soil of Australia." Indeed we must allow Mr. Train to give his own ideas on this subject by quoting from his speeech at Melbourne, July 4th, in response to a toast to " G. F. Train and Young America.'? After tracing the descent of Young America for a thousand years, he says : — " But if the retrospective view has dazzled us, how much more astonishing is the preseut ; when our thir teen little States are rolling on towards forty living INTBODDOTION. vU Republics, bound together as one nation ; when our three millions have grown to thirty, and ' driven by the hand of God,' tp quote De Tocqueville, ' are peopling the Western wilderness at the average rate of seventeen miles per annum ;' when our Lilliputian commerce has whitened every sea, and, our mother tongue has worked its way into every land, and when our Influence and our progress— like, the, ripple in mid-ocean — reaches from shore to shore. " Startle not, my friends, at the lightning pace of the pilgrim's steed. He is sure to win the race, — naught stops him in his destiny ; when danger lurks in his path way, he turns high his he£id and, snorts a proud defiance at the precipice that would have ruined him, and plunges on to victory. * » * Young America is only anoth er edition of Old England, in a binding peculiar to the New World. Young John Bull in his shirt sleeves, working with an energy that commands success. Eng land and America are partners, not rivals. The young er nation is the junior, who manages the western branch of the old concern. Youth gives activity, and hence the young man opens his letters before breakfast, on the steps of the post office, whilst the old gentleman prefers breaking the seal in dressing gown and slippers after vm INTRODUCTION. dinner. Young America showed the same feelings of independence in establishing a house of his own, that every young man experiences who leaves the old house to earn an honest livelihood by his own exertions. " In this instance, however, the connection with the old concern is of more value than that with the balance of the world. The revblution was merely a,n animated conversation, where shot and cannon were introduced to give emphasis to the debate, and when the disputed 'point' was settled, old England rose with renewed vigor, in Young America. The sources of discord soon began to dry, and now, as the flower turns to the sun, the needle to the magnet, the child to its mother, as the twin brothers of Siam receive each the same emotions, so are we bound by speaking the same language, and worshipping the same God, to remember England, the proud old mother of our race, 'And join the Stars aud Stripes and Cross in one fraternal band. Till Anglo-Saxon faith and laws Ulmnine every land.' " HUWT. CONTENTS PART I. Pagb, CHAPTER I. Review of a Thirty Months' Residence ia the Southern El Dorado — Fever of Australian Speculation in 1853-4 — Its consequences and Reaction — Government Blunders — The Mining Troubles — Eco nomical Reforms in the Government of the Colony — The New Constitution — ^Its Effect upon Existing Parties — Australian Na tionality — Independence Looming in the Distance — A Tankee Tour of Pleasure, . 219 CONTENTS. CHAPTER XXIII. Page Native Merchants of Calcutta- How They do Business- The Ba- boos at Home— Cashmere Goats— More Amusement— Theatricals — The American Ice House. - - 229 CHAPTER XXIV. Run from, Calcutta to Suez— A Retrospect of Indian History— The First Overland Journey— The Company and its Commanders — The Black Hole of Calcutta. - 235 CHAPTER XXV. Indian History Continued— Shifting of English Politicians with Respect to Hor — The Annexed Territory — Telegraphs and Kail- ways — Effects of Conquest. - - 246 CHAPTER XXVI. A Crowded Steamer — ^Monopoly of the Eastern Company — ^Their Ships, Receipts and Expenses — ^Arrival in Madras — What Strang ers See. - - 255 CHAPTER XXVII. Run from Madras to Aden — ^Ashore at Point de Galle — The Hotels — How Aden was Taken from the Arabs — ^Ita Population and Situation. - ... 261 CHAPTER XXVIII. Landing Place of the Israelites — Europeans going Home — Manners of some Indian Residents — ^Etiquette of Eastern Officials — What they Think of the United States — Hints to Travelers. - 266 CHAPTER XXIX: City of Suez — Its Population — Hotels and Trade — What it Was and What it Is — Travel to Cairo — Camels, Caravans and Pil grims — A Glimpse of the Pyramids. 271 CHAPTER XXX. A Cairo Hotel and its Charges — A Ramble through the City — Royal xvu Page. Tragedies — How to Look at Alexandria — Europeans in the City — ^Entry to the Seraglio. 276 CHAPTER XXXI. Said Pasha's Improvements — Railway Progress iu Egypt — Donkey Boys at the Pyramids — A Look at the Great Wonders. 286 CHAPTER XXXII. Sensations after a Journal to Jerusalem — Comforts in Syria — ^The City of Jaffa — People Met by the Way — The American Univer sity — Reptiles at the Holy Tombs — Mount of Olives and the Jor dan — The Arabs and Missionaries — An Excitement and Incidents. 292 CHAPTER XXXIIl. Tour in the Levant — ^Alexandria, Jaffa and Constantinople — Cost of the Journey and Hire of a Dragoman — How a Dragoman can Bully, Pray and Cheat — Civilization of the Turks towards their Conquered — Caiffa, the HiU of Carmel, its Convent, and Elijah, and Napoleon — Acre and its Generals — A Run and Ride in the Country — A Ball at a Pasha's Palace — Glimpse of a Lady of the Harem— Zeno's Birth place. - - 302 CHAPTER XXXIV. The Passage from Constantinople to Kamiesch, and its Cost — How the French manage the Post Office — Crowds of Soldiers, Sailors, Ships-of-War, Gunboats and Traders — Scenery on the Bospho rus — ^The Allied Dead and how they went to the Grave — How you enter the Kamiesch Bay — American Ships in Port, and how they were Admired. - 811 CHAPTEB XXXV. The MileSjHorses, Roads and General Travel to Balaklava — Extent of the Allied Lines — A First look at Sebastopol in Ruins — her Eastern Fortresses and Sand Bags — Thoughts ou the Battle Fields — ^Energy and Good Breeding of the Russian Officers — How the Allied Troops Agreed. - 318 Xyiii CONTENTS. CHAPTEB XXXVI. Page How Balaklava Port could have been Defended— What it is and what it was— Our Trade with England and the East— What tha English aud French Leave to the Russians— The Glories of Sar dinia. 326 CHAPTER XXXVII. The Battle Ground on the Tchernaya — General Liprandi's Last Effort — Dangerous Sport — Military Drunkenness and Boston Rum— How the North Side of Sebastopol Looks— Todtleben's Energy — The Diplomats of Russia — ^English Growlers Abroad — Russian Feeling Towards France — Policy of Austria and England — What the French say to Americans of the British — Republi canism of the French Army — ^The Losses of the Russian War,