j'.VW 
 
 »'.-.>■■;'■ 
 
 f& 
 
 
 >•' 
 
 
 
 i'.M.iV 
 
 ■•>''*,' 
 
 >.• n'i.'^'T'V 
 
 '/♦•; 
 
 •vo 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 '*^-^vl:^^--v ■■■■■;- :•■•■■■;;;■■■■• ,: : 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . : yM^^ 
 
 :;<i> 
 
 ;;;' 
 
 
 
 
 U^'- 
 
 ; 
 
 : 'A ■.■:■;.•■■ '■.'■:/MA>tr 
 
WORLD PICTURES 
 
WESTMINSTER, ENGLAND 
 
WORLD PICTURES i^ v- 
 BEING A RECORD IN 
 COLOUR BY MORTI- 
 MER MENPES • TEXT BY 
 DOROTHY MENPES • 
 PUBLISHED BY ADAM ^ 
 CHARLES BLACK SOHO 
 SQUARE • LONDON • W. 
 
 rr -n 
 
 R. H. RUSSELL 
 NEW YORK- 1902 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1902, By 
 ROBERT HOWARD RUSSELL 
 
 Entered at Stationers' Hall, London, England 
 
 Printed in the United States in July, 1902 
 
 
 THE LIBRARY OF 
 CONGRESS, 
 
 Two Coptta BfccsivED 
 
 NOV. ? 1902 
 
 CLA88*^»XXo No, 
 COPY 8. 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON 
 AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 England 3 
 
 Holland 25 
 
 France 41 
 
 Normandy 57 
 
 Brittany 65 
 
 Switzerland 77 
 
 Italy 93 
 
 Sicily 113 
 
 Spain 119 
 
 Morocco 133 
 
 Turkey 143 
 
 Greece 153 
 
 Palestine 165 
 
 Egypt . . . . ' 183 
 
 South Africa 199 
 
 IifjDiA 207 
 
 Cashmere 233 
 
 Burma 245 
 
 China 261 
 
 Japan 283 
 
 Mexico 309 
 
 V 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 1 . Westminster Frontispiece 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 2. Trafalgar Square 2^ 
 
 3. A Surrey Porch 8 
 
 4. A Cottage in Surrey 14 
 
 5. Welsh Woman 20 
 
 6. Rotterdam 24 
 
 7. At Volendam 26' 
 
 8. Type of Dutch Residence 28'" 
 
 9. Edam 30^' 
 
 10. A Provincial Interior 32^ 
 
 11. A Dutch Fisherman 34 
 
 12. The Seine at Paris 40 
 
 1 3 . On the Seine 46 
 
 14. A Kiosque, Paris 52 
 
 15. An Old-Fashioned Hearth 56 
 
 16. Rouen 58 
 
 17. Cathedral at Lillebonne ; . . . 60 
 
 18. Vegetable Market 64 
 
 19. Breton Peasant 66 
 
 20. A Breton Woman 68 
 
 21. Pig Market 72 
 
 22. Goschenen 76 
 
 23. Chalet near Lucerne 78 
 
 vii 
 
List of Illustrations 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 24. Goschenen 80 ^^ 
 
 25. Interlaken 82^ 
 
 26. Interlaken 84V 
 
 27. A Mountain Torrent 86 
 
 28. Lake of Lucerne 88"' 
 
 29. Neighbourhood of Chamounix 90^ 
 
 30. A Doorway, Venice 92*/ 
 
 3 1 . Street in Venice 94 
 
 32. A Garden, Rome 98^ 
 
 33. Inside St. Mark's, Venice 100 
 
 34. A Street in Naples 
 
 35. Naples and the Bay 
 
 36. Capri 
 
 37. Remains of Ancient Rome 
 
 38. Deserted Houses 
 
 39. Palermo 
 
 40. On the Outskirts of Palermo . 
 
 41. A Courtyard, Seville 
 
 42. Courtyard in Seville 
 
 43. Seville 
 
 44. Tangier 
 
 45. Street Scene in Tangier .... 
 
 46. A Courtyard 
 
 47. Mosque of St. Sophia, Constantinople 
 
 48. Scutari 
 
 49. Tower of the Winds, Athens . . 
 
 50. A Garden, Athens 
 
 51. Courtyard in Damascus .... 
 
 52. The House of Ananias, Damascus . 
 
 02V 
 
 04v/ 
 
 06'^ 
 
 08^ 
 
 12^ 
 
 14V/ 
 
 16^ 
 
 18 
 
 22 
 
 28^/ 
 
 32\/ 
 
 36^ 
 38V 
 
 42V 
 46 V 
 
 52. 
 
 64 
 
 66 
 
 Vlll 
 
List of Illustrations 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 53. On the Road to Bethlehem 170 
 
 54. Jerusalem 172^' 
 
 55. Mosque of Omar, Jerusalem ^7^^' 
 
 56. Mount of Olives 176*'' 
 
 57. Bethlehem 178*^ 
 
 58. Cairo 182^ 
 
 59. The Pyramids 186'^ 
 
 60. Fruit Stall 190 >^' 
 
 61. A Cairo Street ^94 
 
 62. Near Kimberley 198*^ 
 
 63. Bloemfontein 202 >^ 
 
 64. A Seed Stall, Delhi 206 
 
 65. Bazaar at Delhi 208 
 
 66. The Porcelain Dome, Amritsar 210 
 
 67. The Taj at Agra 212' 
 
 68. The Golden Temple 214^' 
 
 69. Moslem Women 216 
 
 70. Jeypore 218"^ 
 
 71. Town of Amritsar 220" 
 
 72. Nautch Girls 224*"'' 
 
 7 3 . Delhi 228 
 
 74. Srinagar 232 
 
 75. Family of Nomadic Tribe "... 234^ 
 
 76. Sapoor 236*^ 
 
 77. River Dwelling at Srinagar 238 
 
 78. A Singing Girl 240 
 
 79. " On the Road to Mandalay " 244 
 
 80. Watching a Boat-Race 248 
 
 81. An Up Country Village 252*^ 
 
 ix 
 
List of Illustrations 
 
 FACING PAGE 
 
 82. At Mandalay 256/ 
 
 83. In the City of Shanghai 260^-^ 
 
 84. A Tea House, Shanghai 264 > 
 
 85. Canton 266 
 
 86. Nursery Garden 270'^ 
 
 87. On the Yellow River 272^ 
 
 88. A River Scene 276'' 
 
 89. Chinese Cook 278*^ 
 
 90. At Kioto 282'^ 
 
 91. An Iris Garden 284^ 
 
 92. Entrance to a Temple 288 
 
 93. Geisha Girls 292 
 
 94. Children Watching a Play 296 
 
 95. A Tea House 298 
 
 96. The Ogara River at Tokio 302 
 
 97. Mexico City 308 
 
 98. Tehuantepec 316 
 
 99. A Mexican Village 324 
 
 100. Puebla 330 
 
ENGLAND 
 
 
 
 
TRAFALGAR SQUARE, LONDON 
 
ENGLAND 
 
 There is perhaps no scene in all England so thor- 
 oughly typical of English life, English sports, and 
 English people, as that of Henley Regatta. The 
 river laughs in the sunshine, sloping green lawns touch 
 the water, bulrushes make sweet music in the wind, 
 and the whole brilliant pageantry of London life is 
 floating idly down the stream, men and women of the 
 fashionable world recline on silken cushions, dressed 
 in the smartest of boating flannels and the daintiest of 
 summer costumes. The picture is so typically Eng- 
 lish that a gaily painted, picturesque gondola, with its 
 attendant white-robed gondoliers, seems rather out of 
 place, although it adds somewhat to the confusion and 
 wealth of colour. Gorgeous house-boats, each strug- 
 gling to outdo the rest in beauty and originality, line 
 the river side. One is painted salmon colour and 
 smothered with salmon-hued flowers, and even the little 
 boats attached and the gowns of the ladies are arranged 
 to harmonise with the scheme of colour. Later on in 
 
 3 
 
World Pictures 
 
 the season the same salmon-coloured party will be there 
 still, not quite so gay, perhaps, but clinging desper- 
 ately to the river, for one does not pay rates and taxes 
 or ground rent in a Thames house-boat. Almost 
 every day during Regatta week the stream is packed 
 from bank to bank with boats of all descriptions. 
 
 — canoes, punts, row-boats, dinghies, — each carry- 
 ing its charming cargo of lovely laughing women 
 shaded by flower-like silk parasols, and propelled by 
 heated perspiring men, for even the mildest tempered 
 of individuals might lose his temper in negotiating 
 crowded locks. All this appeals to one at the first 
 glance because of its swing and sparkle. 
 
 I love the gay river life and the magnificent scenery, 
 the grand grey ruins, the poplars, the mossy banks, 
 the flowers and the fields, — all that goes to make up 
 the Thames of Henley, Windsor, Oxford, Richmond, 
 
 4 
 
England 
 
 
 'i0MiW^;0^m4^My^^^^^^ 
 
 
 and Teddington. But what of the Thames of Chelsea, 
 Battersea, and Westminster, where the green and am- 
 ber river is changed to a river of steel grey, ghost-like 
 and mist-shrouded, where barges, steamers, warehouses, 
 gas-cylinders, railway bridges, and factory chimneys 
 replace flower-decked house-boats and brilliant mid- 
 summer pageants ? What would a foreigner think of 
 this London Thames in comparison with the glisten- 
 ing Seine or mystic Nile, or even one of our own 
 countrymen accustomed to the green-banked Med- 
 
 way 
 
 ? He would turn 
 
 his back on it promptly 
 as a dirty, gloomy, fog- 
 bound place unworthy 
 of consideration. And 
 so would we, no doubt, 
 had not the great mas- 
 ter Whistler taught us 
 to love this grey river 
 of ours, to discover un- 
 told joys in its black 
 barges, Dutch boats, 
 its tangle of rigging, 
 masts, funnels, and 
 cordage, and, above all 
 
 
 X-5^^ 
 
 J._ .-^- 
 
World Pictures 
 
 in the grey mist, enshrouding both the river and the 
 city on its banks as with a filmy curtain of silver 
 gauze. It is this haze, dreamy and poetic, that 
 in reality forms half the beauty of the Thames, and 
 through it one can catch Turneresque effects. For 
 instance, you will see a phantom bridge in the far 
 distance with all the lower part swept away in dense 
 mist, and just a broad band of purple showing as 
 though the bridge were suspended in mid-air. It was 
 Whistler, also, who first discovered that there could 
 be beauty in a warehouse ; now, when I am told 
 my house resembles a warehouse, I am exceedingly 
 flattered. 
 
 The Thames at night is of the darkest inky blue ; 
 a thousand black shapes and ghastly piles loom for- 
 midably in the distance, and the dark water is all 
 a-glitter with in- 
 numerable spar- f >^- [ 
 kling lights. No- 
 where in England 
 could you find 
 better material for 
 pictures than in 
 Chelsea, more es- 
 
 liiMiiiiiiT f .1 
 
 '^ C^O 
 
 T ^ "I'll -f, 3 f II aiFi ni-i.,iiiW,a^A«cw' I "p^s^s) «i -. m «"ii /^rrs-'"'''ii' ■■ I , 
 
England 
 
 pecially Chelsea as it appeared four or five years 
 ago ; but it was then practically owned by James 
 McNeil Whistler. There were his little shops, his 
 rag shops, his green-grocer shops, and his sweat 
 shops ; in fact, so nearly was it all his, that after a 
 
 time he sternly forbade other painters to work there 
 at all. I remember an artist telling me that he was 
 once in the middle of making a little sketch down 
 a side street in Chelsea, fondly believing that he had 
 securely hidden himself, when suddenly the master ap- 
 peared as though from out of the earth, pounced upon 
 the miserable man, and demanded how he dared to 
 paint in his Chelsea. The artist hastily packed up his 
 paraphernalia and slunk off, thoroughly ashamed of 
 
 7 
 
World Pictures 
 
 himself, feeling that he had really been acting as a 
 mean poacher on the preserves of another. 
 
 There are few places more closely linked with the 
 lives of great men than Chelsea. Thomas Carlyle, 
 Steele, Addison, and even the great painter Turner, all 
 lived in Chelsea. Dante Rossetti, one of the greatest 
 pioneers of modern times, whom Burne-Jones and 
 the Pre-Raphaelites look up to as to a master, lived 
 all his life in Chelsea. At the' time -when Oreihorne,, 
 that fashionable meeting-place for artists, was in exist- 
 ence, he and Whistler and Swinburne used to spend 
 their evenings there, enjoying from the grounds the 
 magnificent night effects on the Thames. It was just 
 about this period that Whistler was painting his 
 Thames masterpieces, and among them a picture of 
 the fireworks seen from Cremorne, which Ruskin 
 roundly slated, declaring it to be " a pot of paint 
 
 8 
 
A SURREY PORCH, ENGLAND. 
 
England 
 
 flung in the eyes of the British public." One night 
 Rossetti, who had a perfect mania for animals and 
 stocked his garden with beasts of all kinds, when walk- 
 ing home with Whistler, saw a calf, which he im- 
 mediately bought and led back to his house. Whistler 
 gingerly following. The next day Whistler called on 
 Rossetti and during the morning went out into the 
 garden to make a sketch. As lunch time came round 
 and Whistler did not return, Rossetti went out himself 
 to search for him. He found him up a tree with the 
 calf at the base, daring him to descend, while Whistler 
 feebly gesticulated with his cane. 
 
 What is it that makes the mystic charm, the irresist- 
 ible fascination of London ^ Dull, solid, fog-bound as 
 it is, with long unlovely streets, why is one so attached 
 
 
 /^ 
 
 :r 
 
 
 
World Pictures 
 
 to this smoky city ? Why is it that one's thoughts 
 centre round London always, even when away in 
 sunny Capri? One thinks always of what one will do 
 when back again in London, of what people are doing 
 at that moment in London ; one's mind almost uncon- 
 sciously harks back and hankers after London. Is it 
 because it is the centre of the universe, or is it, again, 
 because of its glorious historic associations, because it is 
 
 Millie 
 
 IMmSX- 
 
England 
 
 the largest city in the world, or because of its ancient 
 stones? One's affection springs partially from every 
 one of these reasons, but chiefly because of the intense 
 interest of the great human drama in London, and 
 also because of its really great beauty. One invariably 
 feels a real joy in returning to London, whether from 
 Japan, from Australia, from the wild woods, from the 
 ^iB tropics, or from countries teeming with 
 
 sun and colour. Yet the sensation, though delightful, 
 is nearly always different. There is the arriving at New- 
 haven on a summer morning when the white cliffs rise 
 glistening from the sea, then the landing, the getting into 
 the train, and the hurrying through the lovely English 
 country with the downs on either side, seeing the peo- 
 ple going to their work, and the old grey churches nest- 
 ling amongst the green trees. I don't think, you can 
 get a more typical glimpse of England than you can 
 in this way. The whole run from Sussex up to Lon- 
 don is an example of the beauty of the English land- 
 
World Pictures 
 
 scape, which has so often been sneered at by those \^ho 
 go abroad in search of what they consider to be greater 
 beauties. 
 
 The drawing near to London is an experience of 
 itself. There is no grandeur in the approach, there 
 very rarely is in the approach to any great city, but as the 
 
 -■?/:! 
 
 f.^iqf/i 
 
 ""^n, 
 
 
 v;. 
 
 train flashes by what Arthur Morrison calls " the low 
 mean streets," their fluttering garments and dirty back 
 yards, you are proud and surprised at the vastness of the 
 city, which seems to extend for ever. You read your 
 paper and try to forget the time, but on looking up 
 again there are the same suburban houses, the same 
 long vista of tiled roofs. You go over a bridge and 
 feel that at last you have reached the terminus. But 
 no, you must cross the Thames half a dozen times 
 
England 
 
 more before London is reached. When you actually 
 do draw near to Victoria Station you get a superb 
 view of the historic river, and catch a glimpse of a 
 brilliant city which makes you realise that London is, 
 as the artists call it, the most beautiful place in the 
 world. 
 
 You will be full of admiration as you are driving 
 through the streets and through some of the squares 
 past splendid Hyde Park, and down Piccadilly, which 
 if you really regard it in the 
 sense in which it should be 
 regarded, you will consider 
 one of the most lovely streets 
 in the world, with its fine 
 irregular buildings on one 
 side, and the Green Park on 
 the other. The foreigner I 
 am afraid would be at once 
 struck with the extreme ugli- (^t^^i - 
 ness or our wall-posters, es- ' --^.^-j 
 pecially in comparison with " -' 
 
 13 
 
 -^-.H 
 
World Pictures 
 
 those of Paris. They are better than they were, I 
 am thankful to say, but much more might be done 
 towards beautifying London in this direction. Also 
 London would be far finer if it were cleaner ; all 
 those fine old buildings that have their exquisite 
 architecture hidden beneath a thick layer of dirt and 
 grime should be brought to light. What a pity the 
 whole town cannot be distempered over in some way, 
 c-:n for this would both preserve the build- 
 p^, ings and add greatly to their 
 
 beauty. London by rights should be placed in the 
 hands of the poet and of the artist. Imagine rose- 
 red, brilliant white, and palest green houses, seen 
 through a silver-grey mist. The city would un- 
 doubtedly be the joy of the whole earth. 
 
 Nothing could possibly be more beautiful than 
 London at night when the Criterion and many other 
 fine buildings are lit up with myriads of lights. Then 
 consider that magnificent sweep into Regent Street ; 
 
 14 
 
A COTTAGE IN SURREY 
 
England 
 
 — ^HA-^ 
 
 
 
 jsM^^^ 
 
 ^Zl- 
 
 it is fine enough for any picture. The Strand is in- 
 tensely interesting from the historic standpoint, though 
 not of course from the picturesque. Again, there is 
 Bond Street, Hterally the centre of the world, the prin- 
 cipal street in England. There is no outward show, 
 but one cannot help feeling that here is the centre of 
 all interest. If you show your pictures at all you 
 must show them in Bond Street. It is the gallery for 
 all fine arts and for all articles of beauty. Perhaps 
 one of the wonderful sights to be seen there, and a 
 ii^ls sight which one cer- 
 
 tainly can see nowhere 
 else in Eng- 
 
 yf'i 
 
 :V^^ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ''^m 
 
 5? 
 
 15 
 
World Pictures 
 
 .tn/fv- ^,„,.., 
 
 
 
 -"?^^ 
 
 land or the world, is the long procession of beautiful 
 women in hansom cabs, who drive up and down Bond 
 Street at all times of the day during the season. I 
 remember once walking through this street with a very- 
 eminent French painter. We watched the people 
 pass and repass, and I remember his remarking that 
 
 the most beautiful 
 women he had ever 
 seen were here. It 
 was not in drawing- 
 rooms that he had 
 found them, but in 
 hansom cabs. 
 
 Just fancy what 
 England with its an- 
 cient buildings must 
 be to an American; 
 think how he must 
 value the traditions 
 which hang ■ round 
 the old grey cathe- 
 drals and splendid 
 
England 
 
 time-worn palaces which stud our country in every 
 direction ! Take, for instance, Gloucester, and its 
 cathedral, and the beautiful old Deanery. I was stay- 
 ing there a summer ago with the Dean. We were 
 sitting in his study and he said to me: "Do you know 
 that this room is 
 nearly eight hun- 
 dred years old ? 
 It was built almost 
 immediately after 
 the Norman Con- 
 quest, and in this 
 very room more 
 than one of the 
 Parliaments of 
 England has been 
 held ; that was in 
 the days when Par- 
 liament followed 
 the King wherever 
 he went. In this 
 
 room Anne Boleyn spent the first years of her wedded 
 life, and it is said that her spirit haunts these passages 
 to this day." 
 
 There is another Deanery around which the most 
 splendid memories hang, the Deanery of E'ly. I was 
 there but a short time ago, and almost exactly the 
 same associations are grouped round that stately and 
 beautiful building as are grouped round the Deanery 
 of Gloucester. Edward the Third and his wife 
 
 17 
 
Philippa used to take their meais every day in the 
 room in which the Dean and his family now break- 
 fast. The bedroom in which I slept was five hundred 
 years old, and is said to be the room built for himself 
 by Crawdon, the Abbot of the great Ely monastery. 
 
 Do you know Freshwater in the Isle of Wight, 
 where the poet Tennyson used to live, and of which 
 he has written so charmingly in that invitation of 
 his to Frederic Dennison Morris — " Come, Morris, 
 come, come to the Isle of Wight," and he goes 
 on to speak of his careless ordered garden and the 
 wave that breaks in foam upon the beach ? I scarcely 
 know a more lovely bit of English scenery. Then 
 there is Dorking, where George Meredith lives, the 
 grey landscape, the Surrey Hills, and the corn-fields 
 so typical of England. Here you get brilliant colour 
 because of the lack of sun ; in fact, in Surrey the colours 
 are almost more brilliant than in the East, for the 
 sun is not so bleaching and the haze heightens the 
 tints. Shakespeare's house at Stratford-on-Avon is 
 
 1 8 
 
Great Britain 
 
 of course one of the most delightful spots in England, 
 both from its charm and its associations. 
 
 The scenery of Ireland is somewhat bare and deso- 
 late, stretches of vivid green with dark, almost black, 
 browns, dotted all over with little white cottages. 
 Before one of these half a dozen babies roll contentedly 
 in the mud, and a donkey cart, piled up with bright 
 green cabbages, is standing outside. The houses for the 
 most part suggest bathing machines with their queer 
 pointed roofs. The peasants of Ireland are not 
 universally beautiful as one is led to imagine, but now 
 and again one does come across a fine specimen with 
 the blue eyes and the jet black hair and clear Irish com- 
 plexion that is really quite unmistakable. 
 
 Wales is the happy hunting-ground of English 
 artists. They all swarm to Bettws-y-Coed, where 
 David Cox did so much of his work, and all, as far as 
 I could see, paint the self-same scene in the Fairy 
 Glen. Why these poor dears should come all the 
 way to Wales to paint the Fairy Glen is 
 '"^■* beyond my comprehension ; they would 
 
 , ^-j..i^- i^ii- ^^^^^:)j^*<-^ le^j'u'-^'si-iii'- 
 
 TjSLAo^u^^^'^'^SSSjBif^LyiM^i -?:iSp. •I.- ^- ;% 
 
 19 
 
World Pictures 
 
 have done far better to stay at home and paint Chelsea 
 or Surrey. But they must get in their mountains and 
 their waterfalls. Personally, waterfalls do not appeal 
 to me in the least, and the Fairy Glen impressed me 
 chiefly because of its remarkable array of sketching 
 umbrellas. It was like a camp of soldiers. 
 
 Take the 
 finest bit of 
 you 
 
 P, 
 
 finest bit of Switzerland and the 
 Norway, dip them in water, and 
 Scotland. I have never seen Scot- 
 
 d 
 
 
 ■m .^mu 
 
 land myself save through a mist of rain, but it 
 was very beautiful nevertheless. It is like taking a 
 flatted oil picture and soaking it in oil ; the colours 
 are intensified, and even the slaty greys and greens 
 develop into vivid tones, rich and full of colour. 
 That is the chief charm of Scotland — one sees every- 
 where such rich, deep, stirring colour. On rainy 
 days, in the mosses and heather, in the stems of 
 trees, the roofs of houses, and wherever there is a 
 
WELSH WOMAN, ENGLAND. 
 
Great Britain 
 
 chance of a splash of colour, you get it to the full. It 
 is not the colour of the Orient — white houses with 
 blue shadows, red turbans, and yellow slippers — but 
 the rich deep tones that one associates with Rem- 
 brandt, trunks of trees and beeches the colour of 
 burnt sienna, Vandyke browns and bitumen if possible, 
 the grass a vivid emerald, with reds in the scenes as 
 deep as the deepest carmine. No country in the 
 world is to be compared with Scotland for rich col- 
 ouring. One can dispense with Norway and Sweden, 
 and even Switzerland, if one has Scotland. 
 
HOLLAND 
 
 

-^^ 
 
 i 
 
 ■-. A% 
 
ROTTERDAM 
 
HOLLAND 
 
 Most people go to Holland purely to study pictures, 
 to Haarlem for Franz Hals, to Amsterdam for Rem- 
 brandt, and so on and so on, and no doubt a lifetime 
 could be spent in the galleries, studying that masterful 
 school of old Dutch painters, without nearly exhaust- 
 ing all Holland's glorious store. But in their admira- 
 tion for the Dutch landscape school, travellers are apt 
 to miss the real sources of inspiration, which are before 
 their eyes wherever they may go in Holland, and 
 which are indescribably attractive alike to the artist 
 and to the writer. 
 
 Holland is undoubtedly the country for skies. It 
 may be because of the water that abounds everywhere, 
 or because of the flatness of the country ; but certain it 
 is that one gets, as the Dutchmen have so faithfully 
 represented in their pictures, a huge expanse of sky, 
 generally of a clear blue with glorious and most fantastic 
 masses of rolling pink and white toned clouds of beau- 
 tiful form, against which a narrow strip of silver-grey 
 
 25 
 
World Pictures 
 
 landscape, coloured with 
 small red-roofed houses and 
 innumerable windmills, is outlined, and every feature 
 of this scene one sees clearly and distinctly as though 
 it were a model in miniature. It is extraordinary how 
 this flat scenery grows upon one after even a short stay 
 
 in Holland, and I 
 can quite under- 
 stand the remark 
 which the Dutch 
 Queen, on return- 
 ing from Switzer- 
 land, made to an 
 artist who had the 
 honour of paint- 
 ing her portrait : 
 " Mountains, moun- 
 tains, mountains, 1 
 am so weary of 
 them, and oh, how 
 
AT VOLENDAM, HOLLAND 
 
Holland 
 
 glad I am to be back again in my own dear flat 
 countryland." 
 
 Edam and Volendam are perhaps the most delight- 
 ful little towns in all Holland, and yet the majority of 
 people are not aware of their existence and have prob- 
 ably never even heard of their names. Edam for 
 colour is absolutely unsurpassed by any place I have 
 ever seen, and for the colourist as for the etcher it is a 
 veritable paradise. Nothing could possibly be more 
 beautiful than its delightful old houses with their multi- 
 coloured brick work, sometimes so mossy and stained 
 by age that it resembles the bloom on a peach ; and 
 almost as attractive are the quaint tottering houses 
 
 27 
 
World Pictures 
 
 abutting on the narrow waterways, covered with flowers 
 and green with ferns and lichen. To Volendam one 
 
 journeys from Edam in a httle 
 |:£to ! wooden covered-in boat, drawn 
 
 ,^!/%|^^^ along the bank of the canal by 
 
 ■~-^vt^^<^V^^ means of a rope attached to the 
 
 ■^f^fy^'xl/C^^^^ shoulders of a sturdy Dutch- 
 A^(\'f\}\ ^X4 man, who plods cheerfully all 
 |'-w^'vV\v, - '^.^"^^^-^r the way there and all the way 
 ^^/ '<l^^^j.--^j^ back for a very trifling sum. 
 f^^t^''^-~<^f/}J^'\y Volendam boasts of one long 
 ^rt^p ^ ■ /"''^'^^ ''-j/ street, from which dozens of 
 Y ' f ^ fl J small alleys spring. These 
 
 \\ ^\ ^ are reached by flights of stone 
 
 steps, down which one catches 
 glimpses of fine old gabled houses, making a perfect 
 jumble of quaint colour and form with, at the back, 
 either a tangle of shipping — quaint old hulls with 
 brown sails and flapping pennons — or else green- 
 watered canals. 
 
 But Volendam interested me chiefly because of the 
 crowds of little children swarming in the streets ; girls 
 dressed in big white lace caps with flaps, wearing blue 
 blouses and skirts, and mufllers of all colours, and corals 
 round their dainty little necks ; while the boys were more 
 fascinating still, perfect small copies of their fathers, 
 dressed in the same clothes and with almost the same 
 lines in their tiny faces. They wear baggy trousers of 
 all shades of rusty browns, blacks, and blues, tight- 
 fitting maroon jackets with immense silver buttons, 
 
 28 
 
TYPE OF DUTCH RESIDENCE 
 
Holland 
 
 and red shirts varying from new ruby tones to faded 
 old rose, violets, and blues ; deep black velvet caps rise 
 above their round pink and white chubby little faces, 
 and huge wooden sabots, miles too big for them, are 
 on their little feet. 
 
 It was at about the time of the commencement of the 
 war in the Transvaal that I 
 visited Holland, and from 
 the rumours we had heard 
 of the intense hatred of the 
 Dutch for Englishmen I 
 quite expected to be badly 
 treated. As it happened, 
 it was entirely the reverse. I 
 never met with more charm- 
 ing and delightful people 
 in my life, and wherever I 
 went I was treated with the 
 greatest courtesy and kind- 
 ness. Only once did we 
 suffer any trouble or any 
 
 29 
 
World Pictures 
 
 
 inconvenience whatever, and that was in Volendam 
 with a little Dutch boy, who followed us all over 
 the village, shouting, " De English berry bad, de 
 English berry bad." He looked so sweet in his 
 old-fashioned costume and with 
 baby face, as he walked backwards, 
 repeating the one English phrase 
 he knew, that I could n't help 
 loving him in spite of his bad 
 opinion of us ; and when after a 
 time he stumbled and fell back- 
 wards, over a log of wood, I 
 rushed forward with genuine sor- 
 row and commiseration. As I 
 picked him up, and set him on 
 his feet once more, he looked up 
 in my face, laughed and said, " De 
 English berry good," and then 
 ran shyly away. This was the 
 3° 
 
» 
 
EDAM; HOLLAND 
 
Holland 
 
 most serious trouble we experienced during all our 
 long stay in Holland. 
 
 The cleanliness of some of the Dutch villages strikes 
 one with pleasure and admiration, and one sometimes 
 sees women on their hands and knees outside their 
 
 houses scrubbing the very cobble stones, so partic- 
 ular are they. Beautiful spotless interiors one sees 
 all over Holland, kitchens that Peter de Hooche 
 might have sat down and painted just as they stood, 
 fine old rooms with polished oak and mahogany fur- 
 niture, blue china, brass-bound buckets, kettles, and 
 candlesticks, absolutely golden in colour. One does 
 not truly appreciate the beauties of brass until one 
 
 31 
 
World Pictures 
 
 visits Holland. Through the open 
 doors of such rooms one catches 
 a glimpse of old world gardens 
 filled with sweet-scented flowers, 
 and the interior, teeming with 
 mellow golden light, seems sombre 
 by comparison with the brightness 
 out of doors. Such scenes bring 
 back to one the pictures of De 
 H o o c h e, Terburg, 
 and Gerard Dow. 
 
 Take, for instance, 
 Terburg : what mar- 
 vellous painting of 
 flesh is here, every 
 
 little feature ex- 
 quisitely and simply 
 drawn; while the 
 colour of a certain 
 vermilion dress is as 
 fine as anything in 
 this world could pos- 
 sibly be. There is ^'^ 
 no attempt at what is 
 called broken colour 
 and all those modern 
 tricks to overcome 
 technical difiiculties 
 which only end in 
 producing a face that 
 
 .v<.^ 
 

A PROVINCIAL INTERIOR 
 
Holland 
 
 resembles nothing so cl 
 fresh, clear paint, put 
 place. Pictures painted 
 in the exquisite method 
 of this Dutch school 
 must involve a power- 
 ful knowledge of the 
 materials used for the 
 work. It is quite obvi- 
 ous that the artists must 
 have had their colours 
 especially ground and 
 prepared, and that the 
 fine, enamelled surface 
 quality must have been 
 the outcome of a tre- 
 mendous amount of care 
 and labour. One reads 
 that it was not at all 
 
 "^ 
 
 osely as a Persian carpet, but 
 on solidly and in the right 
 
 t=3 
 
 \ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 li'tJ'-'/ 
 
 
 33 
 
World Pictures 
 
 
 
 unusual in those days for a man when he had left 
 his studio hermetically to seal the room (entering 
 again goodness knows how, by the chimney I should 
 imagine), lest he should disturb the dust ; and painters 
 have actually been known to go out to sea in a boat 
 and stay there until their pictures should be hardened 
 and impervious to dust. 
 
 At Haarlem I spent many weeks in the picture gal- 
 leries studying the Franz Hals ; in fact, for a time I 
 actually lived with these pictures. Imagine a room 
 filled with masterpieces, huge, sparkling pictures 
 swarming with figures of burgomasters and archers, 
 each face a perfect portrait. Such work teaches one 
 much. But greater than Terburg, De Hooche, Franz 
 
 34 
 

 ■MM,- 
 
 \ 
 
 i 
 
 *f 
 
 f 
 
 -^^^'■. 
 
A DUTCH FISHERMAN. HOLLAND 
 
Holland 
 
 Hals, Dow, '" " _£ V 
 
 greater than ^' 
 
 them all, and towering above 
 them all, looms the majestic 
 figure of Rembrandt, the mas- 
 ter. Holland is practically Rem- 
 brandt ; he possesses all the 
 qualities of the lesser men com- 
 bined with his own magical 
 genius. All other pictures, I 
 was going to say, but I will 
 moderate my opinion and say 
 almost all other pictures in the 
 world, fade before Rembrandt's 
 masterpiece — "The Night 
 Watch." What elaboration, what 
 breadth, what glorious technique 
 is here ! Above all, what a golden 
 
 35 
 
World Pictures 
 
 of them cannot but appear 
 slaty, dull, and monoto- 
 nous. It is considered a 
 smart and modern thing 
 to belittle Rembrandt, to 
 place Velasquez upon a 
 pedestal and Rembrandt 
 far beneath him, but peo- 
 ple who affect this pose 
 have only to go to Hol- 
 land, to Amsterdam, and 
 to study Rembrandt 
 amongst his own surround- 
 ings, and I doubt not they 
 
 light these men are 
 living in ! One 
 cannot tell how it 
 is done, whether it 
 is painted on gold 
 or lit up in some 
 way from the back, 
 but the people are 
 alive, the tones are 
 like fire, and as one 
 turns from it to the. 
 other pictures in the 
 room, even the finest 
 
Holland 
 
 will soon change their tone and admit that Rembrandt, 
 if even by that one picture of" The Night Watch," has 
 amply earned his right to be placed side by side, if not 
 higher than Velasquez. These pictures taught me the 
 value of Rembrandt as an etcher, and on returning 
 from Holland many a long and pleasant day I have 
 spent with the kind help of Professor Sidney Colvin 
 enjoying the superb collection of rare proofs in the 
 possession of the British Museum. 
 
 
 
 37 
 
FRANCE 
 
 j-5^_JU-Jj^(fS^^^<3iih^l^ 
 
 
 
 
THE SEIN-E AT PARIS 
 

 FRANCE 
 
 One of the first things, I think, that one notices 
 when arriving in Paris are the posters. The walls and 
 shops are decorated with works of art, for the posters 
 are carefully thought out from the decorative stand- 
 point, and each one is a picture in itself. One finds 
 this perhaps more in Paris than anywhere else. The 
 numerous kiosks, with their blaze of gaily coloured 
 papers, are another distinctive feature. In France, as 
 in America, even the poorest rag of a half-penny jour- 
 nal has its one or two illustrations in colour, — some- 
 times not so badly reproduced either. These kiosks 
 are invariably the centre of interest, and at all times 
 of the day little knots of blue-bloused ou'vrierSy hotel 
 gar^ons, and boulevard loungers are to be seen gazing 
 open-mouthed at brightly coloured cartoons of Kitch- 
 ener being defeated by the Boers, or of Mr. Chamber- 
 lain with an abnormally large eye-glass and button 
 hole, being worsted in some ridiculous way or another. 
 These cartoons are pasted to the advertisement boards, 
 
 41 
 
World Pictures 
 
 
 Q' 
 
 
 >2|l \ "Bm gT f^ . V: 
 
 or sold by a little white-capped old lady within. Cer- 
 tainly the Parisian book-stalls are an improvement 
 upon the black and grey aspect of the paper shops 
 one sees everywhere else in the world. 
 
 Where do the American and English women hail 
 from, I should like to know, who parade the streets 
 of Paris ? Do they reserve a particularly hideous 
 type of garment that they may appear more atrocious 
 than ever by the side of the neat, smart, Parisian ladies, 
 and be put to shame by the Spotless, tastefully dressed 
 bonnes and shop-women who, young or old, pretty or 
 plain, manage to present an appearance far more ele- 
 gant, sad to relate, than any of our own country-women 
 to be seen in the streets of the French capital ? One finds 
 in England the most beautiful women in the world, 
 and in America the best dressed, yet in Paris they 
 must needs appear clothed in what they choose to 
 
 42 
 
France 
 
 term "good useful garments ; " andnothingin thisworld 
 can be more terrible than the good, useful, flat-heeled 
 shoe, the useful skirt, and — above all — the useful hat. 
 But there they go, swinging along the streets absolutely- 
 oblivious of their cruelly unattractive appearance. 
 Small wonder that the Parisians have so poor an opin- 
 ion of our taste in matters of dress ! 
 
 I once saw a middle-aged woman, evidently on her 
 way from Italy through Paris, wearing a summer hat 
 (it was then late autumn), trimmed with a large assort- 
 ment of poppies, cornflowers, wheat, and bedraggled 
 chiffon, — a hat for the existence of which the only 
 possible excuse could be that its owner had either 
 tumbled down a well head foremost or been out in a 
 series of violent storms. " Cest ridicule de porter un 
 chapeau comme ^a " was the remark I overheard from a 
 
 
 43 
 
World Pictures 
 
 crossing-sweeper near by, and I could not but agree 
 with him. 
 
 By way of illustrating the extent to which such 
 women will carry this abominable negligence I cannot 
 refrain from giving the following remarkable instance. 
 
 7.//^' t^ i^ft3M^K^^SiK^^SA"%- I 
 
 R 
 
 
 
 I was sitting enjoying an opera in Paris one evening, 
 in the height of the season, when in the middle of 
 the performance a woman dressed in mackintosh and 
 goloshes, and carrying a number of parcels and a 
 canary in a cage, stalked into the theatre and sat down 
 in the front row of the stalls. Now there was not a 
 soul in that opera house but saw and ridiculed the 
 woman, muttering under their breath of the discourtesy 
 of " ces affreuses Anglaises." Such are the spectacles 
 which make the blood of a patriotic English man or 
 woman boil. 
 
 44 
 
France 
 
 There is one matter in which we differ greatly from 
 the French people, and that is in our appreciation of 
 the pleasures of home life and of the family circle. A 
 domestic existence, such as we lead, would seem to them 
 little short of imprisonment. All the Parisian world 
 and his wife live out of doors, at all events so far 
 
 as the middle classes are concerned ; they surge through 
 the broad white streets and boulevards, and swarm 
 outside the numerous restaurants, sipping their cafe 
 noir and talking over the gossip and pleasures of the 
 day. 
 
 At the time that I was in Paris the Russian fleet had 
 arrived, and all the French world, with its usual extrav- 
 agance, went mad with enthusiasm and exuberance of 
 joy. Men embraced one another in the open street, 
 and literally sobbed as they read the accounts of com- 
 plimentary Russian speeches to French officials in 
 their morning papers. Fetes and holidays and public 
 
 45 
 
World Pictures 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 rejoicings took place nearly every day in the week, 
 when Russian healths were quaffed in extra large 
 draughts of absinthe and cognac. French and Rus- 
 sian flags fluttered from every window and house-top, 
 Russian soups, Russian fish, and Russian valses were 
 de rigueur, every ragged gamin whistled the Russian 
 national air, while people even went to the absurd 
 length of wearing gold rings and lockets with gigantic 
 R's gaudily emblazoned upon them. Can enthusiasm 
 go further ? Yet what a strong undercurrent of dis- 
 content and repressed fury lies beneath this frivolous 
 gay exterior ! And of such changeable stuflF is the 
 French nature made that this impulsive afi^ection is 
 ready at any moment to leap into passionate hatred, 
 and the claws of the tiger are hidden closely beneath 
 the velvet paw, so that they are prepared to fondle 
 almost at the precise moment that they kill. I re- 
 member one fete night sitting in a cafe at about the 
 period of which I speak. A girl had finished singing, 
 and the men were quietly drinking and playing domi- 
 noes, when suddenly, almost before one could look 
 
 46 
 
ON THE SEINE, FRANCE. 
 
France 
 
 
 
 ^— \ 
 
 round, there was an uproar ! Some one had discovered 
 that the proprietor of the hotel was not flying a Franco- 
 Russian flag, and therefore he must be a traitor to 
 France. The idea originated probably with one foolish 
 man, but in an instant they had all caught the infection. 
 Before five minutes were over, absolute chaos reigned 
 in the orderly cafe, and not one bottle, glass, or article 
 of furniture remained intact. Then, no doubt, that 
 wretched hotel proprietor would have strung his house 
 over with Russian flags at a moment's notice, and in 
 any case had probably only hauled them down for the 
 night, yet these people must needs make this disturbance 
 to demonstrate their intense patriotic feelings. 
 
 The noble army of Copyists at the Louvre are quite 
 a feature of Parisian art life, and very interesting, 
 almost pathetic, it is to watch them at their patient 
 daily labour. But it is only as one of themselves, by 
 attempting to make a sketch of a picture, that one can 
 be admitted into this little inner world. The artists live 
 apart from others, and understand and appreciate little 
 else but their own particular trade. I have seen men 
 come day after day and week after week to labour away 
 
 47 
 
World Pictures 
 
 at the same pictures, and ladies also, who, by the by, 
 almost invariably perch themselves upon ladders, and 
 copy the largest and most ambitious pictures in the 
 gallery. There was one man whom I noticed particu- 
 larly because he never painted anything but saints in 
 blue dresses, being able for each picture, he proudly 
 informed me, to command the sum of thirty-five francs. 
 It always struck me, though, that on each picture he 
 must spend quite its money's worth in concentrated 
 energy. For such a small sum he could only afford 
 common colours in bladders, such as flake white and 
 yellow ochre ; but to glaze his picture over he required 
 rose madder and cobalt, both most expensive colours. 
 To watch the ingenuity with which this poor little 
 I fellow would steal pig- 
 
 'f ment from off other 
 
 J;ii?M^ __ men's palettes was one 
 
 of my daily, almost 
 hourly, amusements. 
 This is how it occurred. 
 ^M^fl^^^-^-^^ From his exalted posi- 
 J.|=-— iii^^^^^^^^^^jon on the top of a 
 ^i;i«gi|k^ I ladder he would catch 
 ,.^,-^^^cvv,-7^=r: sight of an artist of the 
 
 f^fy I'i'l [gl- 'til li fI'' typical shilling shocker 
 ^'-^-^ - type, obviously an ama- 
 
 
 '(« 'ri^^lf^^nd^i'! ''^^ teur, dressed in a velvet 
 
 ■^''^^''P'ffp'ir\r,^T jacket, and fitted with 
 
 •,<fc^--H-. all manner of bran-new 
 
 traps, and with extrava- 
 
France 
 
 gant blobs of colour, squeezed on to his large bran-new 
 palette. The little man on the ladder would begin to 
 stare at the artist's work with a cold critical eye, which 
 the novice soon began to feel. He would turn sharply- 
 round, but our impoverished friend was gazing elabo- 
 rately at the ceiling. This went on for some time until 
 at last the newcomer asked him flatly if he could see 
 anything wrong with his picture. 
 
 " No, not at all," replied the other nonchalantly, 
 proceeding with his work. 
 
 " Now look here ! I know there 's something you 
 don't like about my picture ; be a good fellow and tell 
 me what it is." 
 
 " Well," said our wily friend, clambering slowly down 
 
 49 
 
World Pictures 
 
 from his ladder and standing behind the other, "if you 
 really want to know, I tell you frankly that 1 don't 
 think that figure is quite, quite in proportion." At 
 this the artist began to gesticulate with his right hand, 
 as all Frenchmen do, holding the left over his shoulder 
 
 with the palette on his thumb. Flip ! — off went a 
 fat curl of rose madder safely folded in the critic's palm. 
 Then, as the palette went back again, to make the poor 
 wretch still more excited it is suggested that a certain 
 blue, which is obviously greenish, is too purple. This 
 suggestion always proved a great success : the palette 
 was flung back and all the pigment safely scraped off 
 with a careful forefinger. Then the helping friend 
 went back with his magnificent haul to finish his picture, 
 leaving the artist muttering to himself something about 
 
 50 
 
France 
 
 " Ridiculous ! ridiculous! anybody can see that that's a 
 greenish blue. Purple indeed ! " 
 
 Presently you would see him stand up and look 
 curiously about him, examining first his coat-tails and 
 
 then his sleeves. After gazing for some time with 
 blank amazement at his swept palette, which looked as 
 though some one had been sitting on it, he would 
 squeeze out more pigment and begin to spoil his work 
 by correcting the badly drawn figure ; and, altering the 
 offending blue to verdigris, he would probably end his 
 days in the nearest lunatic asylum. 
 
 Parisian life has its charms, but French country life 
 is, in my opinion, still more attractive. I once spent 
 some months at a little country town on the Seine, and 
 the subjects to be procured there for pictures as well 
 
 SI 
 
World Pictures 
 
 as for studies were simply superb. There were the 
 patient fishers who never seemed to catch so much as a 
 sprat, for all their labours ; the river barge life and the 
 wonderful colour effects produced at all times on the 
 river. When the tide is low the sky reflected in 
 the mud flats produces a bluey tone quite indescribable, 
 and when the tide is high on late autumn evenings a 
 
 
 ■/A- 
 
 52 
 
A KIOSC^UE, PARIS 
 
France 
 
 purple haze envelops river and sky, while the golden 
 lights from every barge and the new slim silver moon 
 above the bridge are the only touches of colour, and 
 the deep silence is broken only by the plodding of a 
 
 weary old horse dragging a heavy boat along the river 
 bank. 
 
 Some of the scenery in France is truly beautiful : the 
 grey landscapes, the slim avenues of carefully trimmed 
 trees, the well-wooded forests with, in the autumn, their 
 magnificent carpets of salmon leaves mingled with 
 silver stems. 
 
 French hotel life in a small town is quite an experi- 
 ence, and it is always the same, wherever one may go. 
 
 53 
 
World Pictures 
 
 There is the same indifferent red wine, and the half- 
 dozen unsatisfactory courses for every meal, and invari- 
 ably the same group of commercial travellers. To 
 watch these gentlemen at their meals, though a repul- 
 sive, is sometimes rather an amusing sight, the business 
 they make over it, as though their very life depended 
 on it. The importance they attach to the tucking in of 
 the serviette, and the spreading it over their capacious 
 chests, the yard-long loaves of which they will eat 
 almost the whole during one meal, and the violent way 
 in which they gesticulate, as though in a towering rage 
 with one another, — all these things are so many indi- 
 cations of character well worth studying. 
 
 54 
 
NORMANDY 
 
 M/il' 
 
 L!|»vi^ixt.r 
 
 
 
AN OLD FASHIONED HEARTH 
 
m 
 
 
 NORMANDY 
 
 It is good to get away from London, from the social 
 degradation, the toadying to the rich, the petty 
 meannesses, the crowded " At Homes," and to find 
 oneself in one of the peaceful little villages of Nor- 
 mandy, if only for a few 
 weeks. It is good to live 
 for a time amongst the sim- 
 ple kindly people, who still 
 cling to the traditions of 
 their ancestors, loving to 
 do as they did, taking a 
 pride in their beautiful 
 old houses, and striving to 
 preserve them from decay. 
 That usefulness is the basis 
 of all righteousness and 
 true art one realises to the 
 full in Normandy. These 
 grand old houses, with 
 
 57 
 
World Pictures 
 
 their massive rafters, projecting gables, quaint niches, 
 window seats, and corners, bringing back memories 
 of the mediaeval days that we set such store by, 
 this strength and simplicity of design that we ad- 
 
 mire so greatly, are in reality merely the outcome of 
 the simple, pure lives of the people. These houses 
 were built with a view to comfort and usefulness, in an 
 age when men gave thought and consideration to every 
 work of their hands, however great or insignificant. 
 No one followed his neighbour then or strove after a 
 certain style of architecture, but each man built his 
 house according to his requirements and his tastes ; 
 built it strongly so that it might be handed down 
 unto his children's children in good repair ; built it 
 sumptuously according to his means. His offspring 
 in their turn enriched the " family mansion " with 
 
 58 
 
ROUEN, NORMANDY 
 
 i 
 
Normandy 
 
 carvings and improved it still further, each faithfully 
 carrying out the ideas of their elders, and guided, as 
 it were, by a kind of artistic intuition. 
 
 
 A great many of these houses have, of course, 
 become uninhabitable. Though black and stained with 
 age, they are still beautiful, as they lean one against 
 the other, tottering on the verge of ruin. The new 
 houses are built very much on the same lines, half 
 timbered, but not so richly carved, and are surrounded 
 by flowering shrubs and creeping vines. 
 
 They are a conservative people, these Normans, 
 living much the same lives as did their ancestors hun- 
 dreds of years ago ; in fact, they are almost Oriental 
 in their unchangeableness. One cannot imagine liberty 
 
 59 
 
World Pictures 
 
 flourishing in Normandy, nor picture to oneself fans 
 nailed to the fine oak walls and umbrellas glued to 
 the raftered ceilings. It would be, in fact, just as incon- 
 gruous as to attempt Gothic architecture in London. 
 There would be a want of fitness in living in a mediae- 
 val house nowadays. We should have to begin all 
 
 11 iMlill-i^^^^ 
 
 
 mm 
 
 1 \ \\\t\fi V 
 
 
 ' I I 
 
 H §). 
 
 
 '■ 111 n' in-"' PT'IV nP f 
 
 over again and live simpler and better lives. Such 
 things should not be forced, but allowed to come 
 about naturally. 
 
 Some of our modern inventions are becoming quite 
 beautiful objects because they have been designed 
 purely for the sake of their usefulness and nothing 
 else, every detail in them being designed to serve 
 some purpose. Take, for instance, a hansom cab, 
 that most useful of conveyances. The West has pro- 
 
 6o 
 
CATHEDRAL AT LILLEBONNE 
 
Normandy 
 
 duced no greater triumph architecturally. Then again, 
 the much-abused bicycle is developing into quite a 
 thing of beauty, simply because it has been carefully 
 thought out with regard to its usefulness and comfort 
 alone. Its only blot is, perhaps, the maker's name 
 or crest, in which his own decorative instincts have 
 been brought into play, with almost infallibly exe- 
 crable results. 
 
 6i 
 
BRITTANY 
 
 }M^^ 
 
 •''■l/r / ■■ 
 
 

VEGETABLE MARKET, BRITTANY. 
 

 K^"A 
 
 r 
 
 ( ^• 
 
 .*^' 
 
 W^b^ 
 
 
 BRITTANY 
 
 No part of France is more useful for artistic studies 
 than Brittany, no town more picturesque than Pont- 
 Aven. There costume, architecture, craft of all sorts, 
 physiognomy, manners, and customs are primitive and 
 unique. There I found myself in the midst of an 
 amazing nest of French and American painters, all the 
 newer lights of the French school. There one was 
 free to work at whatever one liked, yet with unlimited 
 chances of widening, by daily argument, one's knowl- 
 edge of technical prob- 
 lems. For two or three 
 years I remained on this 
 battlefield of creeds, and 
 conflicts of opinion raged 
 constantly. Every one 
 was frantically devoted 
 to one or other of the 
 dominating principles 
 
 65 
 
World Pictures 
 
 of the modern school. There was a regular bevy 
 of schools there. One, called the Stripists, painted 
 in stripes, with vivid colour as nearly prismatic as 
 possible, all the surrounding scenery ; then came 
 the Dottists, who painted in a series of dots ; there 
 were also the Spottists — a branch of the Dot- 
 tists, whose differ- 
 ence from the latter 
 was too subtle for my 
 comprehension. Men 
 there were who had a 
 theory that you must 
 ruin your digestion be- 
 fore you could paint a 
 masterpiece. No physi- 
 cally healthy person, 
 they declared, could ever 
 hope to do fine work. 
 ^And they used literally 
 to try to bring about 
 indigestion. 
 
 One man, celebrated for his painting of pure saints 
 with blue dresses, over which Paris would go crazy, 
 never by any chance attempted to paint a saint until 
 he had drunk three glasses of absinthe and bathed his 
 face well in ether. Another poor dear creature de- 
 cided that he was going to have an exhibition of 
 merry-go-rounds in Paris which should startle all 
 France. He, too, had a theory that the only way to 
 get at the soul of the thing was to paint when quite 
 
 66 
 
BRETON PEASANT 
 
Brittany 
 
 drunk ; he maintained that the merry-go-rounds 
 whirled round faster then, and I never doubted him 
 for an instant. One day I went to his studio. I was 
 dazed. I did n't know whether I was standing on my 
 head or on my heels ; catherine-wheels were n't in it. 
 It was quite impossible to see Black Bess or any of the 
 pet horses we knew 
 so well, for the pic- 
 tures were simply 
 one giddy whirl. 
 Then there was the 
 bitumen school, a 
 group of artists who 
 never painted any- 
 thing but white sun- 
 lit houses with 
 bitumen shadows. 
 A year or two after- 
 wards a terrible thing 
 invariably happened. 
 Without any warn- 
 ing whatsoever the 
 pictures would sud- 
 denly slide from off their respective canvases onto the 
 floor, the bitumen having melted. 
 
 The Primitives, again, afforded me pure joy. Their 
 distinctive mark was a walking stick, carved by a New 
 Zealand Maori, which they always carried about with 
 them, as they said it gave them inspiration. And so 
 powerful was the influence of these sticks that even 
 
 67 
 
World Pictures 
 
 the head of a Breton peasant assumed the rugged 
 aspect of these primitive carvings in their paintings. 
 The most enthusiastic disciple of this curious sect was 
 a young man who was continually receiving marvel- 
 lous inspirations. Once, after having shut himself up 
 for three days, he appeared at length among us, look- 
 
 
 -f<^\ 
 
 ing haggard and ravenous. Without a word he sat 
 down heavily near a table, called for some absinthe, 
 and giving out one huge groan, sunk his head in his 
 hands and murmured, "Ah me ! ah me ! " Of 
 course we were all in a fever to know what the mys- 
 tery was. After some minutes of dead silence he rose 
 majestically from his chair, stretched forth one arm, 
 and with a far-away look in his eyes said, " Friends, 
 last night when you were all asleep a beautiful crea- 
 ture came to me in spirit form and taught me the 
 secret of drawing, and I drew this." Then he brought 
 
 68 
 
A BRETON WOMAN, BRITTANY 
 
Brittany 
 
 out a picture and showed it to us. It was certainly 
 far above his usual style, and the more credulous of 
 us envied his good fortune. Some weeks afterwards, 
 however, it was discovered by a painter with detective 
 instincts that the marvellous vision was in reality no 
 
 more nor less than a chambre au clair^ that is to say, 
 a prism through which objects are reflected on paper, 
 enabling one to trace them with great facility. 
 
 The hotel where we all stayed was kept by a 
 woman called Julia. From being a maid servant 
 she had succeeded by reason of her own untiring 
 energies in becoming the proprietress of this huge 
 establishment. Her fame as hostess and manager 
 was bruited all over France. Every one seemed to 
 know of Julia, and year after year artists and their 
 families came back regularly to stay with her. There 
 
 69 
 
World Pictures 
 
 was one man, a retired officer, 
 whom no one could manage 
 but Julia. He had come to 
 stay in Pont-Aven, because /^"; 
 he could live there for a few ^^ 
 francs a day, and drink the 
 rest. He suffered from 
 hallucinations and took 
 great pleasure i n chasing 
 timid artists over the country 
 side. He was consequently ' 
 the terror of the village. He 
 had a house on the quay, and 
 one early winter's morning, when the snow lay thick 
 upon the ground, just because a small vessel came 
 into the river and began blowing a trumpet or making 
 a noise of some kind, he sprang out of bed in a tower- 
 ing rage, rushed in his nightshirt into the cold street, 
 
 and began sharpening his 
 sword on a rock, shouting 
 to the ship's captain the 
 while to come out and be 
 killed if he dared. The 
 captain very naturally did 
 not dare. 
 
 The Breton peasant is 
 full of dirt and dignity. 
 He lives on coarse food, 
 lodges with the pigs, and 
 rarely changes his clothes ; 
 70 
 
Brittany 
 
 yet nowhere will you 
 meet with such dignity 
 of bearing, charm of 
 manner, and almost 
 nobility of feature, as 
 among the peasantry of 
 Brittany. On entering 
 __ the poorest cottage you 
 are received with old 
 world courtesy by the 
 man of the house, who 
 comes forward to meet 
 you in his working gar- 
 ments, with dirt thick 
 upon his hands, but with the dignity and stateliness 
 of an emperor, begging that you will honour his 
 humble dwelling with your presence. He sets the 
 best he has in the house before you ; it may be only 
 black bread and cider. 
 
 but he bids you par- 
 take of it with a kingly 
 wave of the hand which 
 transforms the humble 
 fare. 
 
 These peasants re- 
 mind me very much 
 of Sir Henry Irving. 
 Some of the finest 
 types are curiously like 
 him in feature, the same 
 
 71 
 
World Pictures 
 
 magnificent profile and well-shaped head. It is quite 
 startling sometimes to come across Sir Henry in black 
 gaiters, broad-brimmed hat, and long hair streaming 
 in the wind, ploughing in the dark brown harvest 
 fields, or else chasing a pig, or dressed in gorgeous 
 holiday attire, perspiring manfully through a village 
 
 
 gavotte. Surely none but a Breton could chase a 
 pig — that most elusive of animals with the most 
 tapering of tails — without losing his self-respect, or 
 count the teeth in a cow's mouth and look dig- 
 nified at the same time. No one else most certainly 
 could dance up and down in the broiling sunshine 
 for an hour on end, and preserve a composed de- 
 meanour. 
 
 The Breton peasant is a person quite apart from the 
 rest of the world. One feels, whether at a pig-market 
 
 72 
 
PIG MARKET 
 
Brittany 
 
 P 
 
 'S 
 
 r 
 
 ii U 
 
 
 or a wayside shrine, that these 
 people are dreamers, living in 
 a romantic past. Unchanged 
 and unpolished by the outside 
 world, they cHng to their own 
 beautiful traditions ; every stone 
 in their beloved country is in- 
 vested by them with poetic and 
 heroic associations. Brittany 
 seems as though it must have 
 always been as it is now, even 
 in the days of the Phoenicians, 
 
 and it seems impossible to imagine the country in- 
 habited by any but mediaeval people. In the silver 
 landscapes with their sharp touches of vivid green 
 you see Corot's pictures everywhere. 
 
 73 
 
SWITZERLAND 
 
 
i 
 
 I 
 
 GOESCHENEN, SWITZERLAND. 
 
; -^.1 -:^« "=<*''- "■'*«=- 
 
 SWITZERLAND 
 
 There is no country in the world quite like Switzer- 
 land, with its glittering fields of snow and its magnifi- 
 cent stretches of green, changing constantly in aspect 
 at all times of the day. Fancy Monte Rosa at day- 
 break with the yellow-flushed sky deepening into pmk, 
 and then changing into blue, until one sees a glistening 
 ridge of mountains far ahead, with the sun blazing 
 down upon them so dazzlingly that one's eyes can 
 scarcely bear the brilliant vision. 
 What I have noticed especially 
 about Switzerland is that one 
 gets such clear limpid colour- 
 ing; in the extreme distance there :f;i^;$i|^|s|=>,^\ '-'-'ii 
 are pearly greys and greens and 'iTl] 'Ji'n"''- 
 rose tones, butm the foreground ^rsj wji • - 
 the colours are rich, dark greens 
 and dark browns. The timber 
 looks like burnished gold, and 
 sometimes towards sunset the 
 natural wood of the houses 
 
 77 
 
 ':{l""Sal 
 
 Sv'^/^j.i'.'a"- 
 
World Pictures 
 
 has appeared so brilliant that I have actually gone up 
 close, and peered right into them, to see if they were 
 not made of metal. The colour changes are very 
 violent, from wet to sun, from storm to calm, 
 
 I remember once going up to the mountains near 
 Geneva. It was a brilliant sunlit day, with a great 
 
 ^f 
 
 /'vr 
 
 
 ''it 
 
 ■4 
 
 
 '^<£-^ 
 
 78 
 
CHALET NEAR LUCERNE 
 
Switzerland 
 
 deal of wind and clouds of dust ; but in the afternoon 
 suddenly, very suddenly, there blew up a tremendous 
 pile of clouds far over the mountains, followed by a 
 good deal of thunder and lightning, and a deluge of 
 rain which lasted half an hour. Then the storm 
 seemed to be swept to leeward, and the sun burst 
 
 79 
 
World Pictures 
 
 out, making every little leaf 
 
 and twig and blade of grass 
 
 sparkle in the sunshine, as 
 
 though laden with jewels, 
 
 while the birds burst into 
 
 a perfect frenzy of song. 
 
 The magnificent greens of 
 
 the foreground almost caused 
 
 "% one to forget the dazzHng 
 
 ',./»... , '• ' white mountains beyond. 
 
 -"■-*'.' Nature resembled a handful 
 
 of seaweed, dragged out of the water and thrown 
 
 dripping on to silver sand. 
 
 In this very place Mr. Ruskin was walking one 
 evening with a friend, and in turning a corner they 
 came full in view of a range of snow-clad mountains, 
 absolutely crimson in the setting sun. As the colour 
 gradually faded away, Ruskin turned to his friend, and 
 
 
 80 
 
GOESCHENEN, SWITZERLAND 
 
Switzerland 
 
 said very sadly, " Ah, space 
 
 is infinite; why cannot time 
 
 be made infinite also ? " 
 
 Ruskin more than any one , 
 
 else has illustrated to us 
 
 with the magic art of his 
 
 pen and also of his pencil J| 
 
 — I care not whether his 
 
 art was correct or not — 
 
 surely he more than any -^^ iis^^ 
 
 one has taught us some- "^~~ 
 
 thing of the making of the Alps. The other day I 
 
 was looking at a picture that he called the " Buttress 
 
 of an Alp," and nothing, it seems to me, could give us 
 
 a finer idea of the mystery and the solemnity of the 
 
 Swiss mountains than that sketch of his, which, though 
 
 obviously the work of an amateur, was delightful in its 
 
 suggestion of sadness. 
 
 Unfortunately, most people who go to Switzerland 
 
 8i 
 
World Pictures 
 
 
 look upon it only as a modern show place, and in so do- 
 ing lose a vast amount of pleasure, for they appear to 
 forget altogether that Switzerland is, for its size, with 
 the exception of Palestine, more fraught with splendid 
 historic memories than almost any other part of the I 
 world. You cannot pass down the lake of Geneva upon 
 a brilliant summer day without recalling the battles that j 
 were fought upon it in the days of the Romans. | 
 
 ^ ___ And Geneva itself con- i 
 jures up memories of the 
 PfJ" most extraordmary mter- 
 est. It was here that the i 
 protestant Calvin burnt 
 his brother protestant I 
 Servetus, for the slight- i 
 est difference in their mu- 
 tual faith. Jean Jacques | 
 82 
 
INTERLAKEN 
 
Switzerland 
 
 H, 
 
 ^^^^. 
 
 "^^S^^^^^msm 
 
 Rousseau laid the scene of many of his most stormy 
 romances upon the blue lake of Geneva, Voltaire 
 lived and died beside the lake, and in its immediate 
 neighbourhood Gibbon brought his " Decline and 
 Fall of the Roman Empire " to a brilliant conclusion. 
 Madame de Stael's most brilliant moments were passed 
 in this delightful locality, and no one can visit the 
 castle of Charlemagne without recaUing with a thrill 
 Byron's splendid lines upon the infatuated Bonnivard. 
 
 *^'-^I; 
 
 83 
 
World Pictures 
 
 It was in Switzer- 
 land that William Tell 
 played that practical 
 joke that was not 
 wholly unconnected 
 with bows and arrows 
 and an apple upon 
 that evil tyrant Ges- 
 sler. It was in Swit- 
 zerland that the brave 
 Arnold fell at the head 
 of his men, dying the 
 most splendid death 
 that a patriot has ever 
 
 been known to die. Switzer- 
 land is indeed not only to be 
 valued for its superb natural 
 beauties, but as the homeland of 
 
 some of the greatest people the ,^ /k^ ^'^'f^0W 
 world has ever known. " x'^TTa..^, fM^ 
 
 There is one village in Switzer- 
 land where, if you call out in 
 the middle of the day " Waiter," 
 everybody rushes out of every 
 house shouting, " Yes, sir." I 
 also noticed that Switzerland 
 is curiously devoid of cuckoo- 
 clocks and art ; this only by 
 the way. 
 
 84 
 
■,--^.. 
 
INTERLAKEN, SWITZERLAND. 
 
Switzerland 
 
 There are few more charming experiences than go- 
 ing up in the train from Interlaken to Grindelwald. 
 You go up and up, every moment nearing the eternal 
 mountains with the eternal snow upon them ; you 
 catch the most superb glimpses of the crimson sunset 
 sky reflected upon the brilliant white of the mountains, 
 and then as the darkness comes on, your train runs 
 
World Pictures 
 
 into Grindelwald. Then there is the glorious sensa- 
 tion of waking the next morning : the morning before 
 you were in hot, dusty Geneva ; this morning you are 
 in the finest, the most exquisite climate in the world. 
 
 86 
 
A MOUNTAIN TORRENT 
 
Switzerland 
 
 
 
 ■^w.^ 
 
 
 
 '' I 
 
 ■//^ 
 
 
 All is absolute freshness ; you can almost smell the 
 snow and the ice, and from your bedroom window you 
 see ghttering afar off one of those beautiful but deadly 
 glaciers for which Switzerland is so celebrated. You 
 can go for a walk, to the blue ice grotto, always with 
 
 87 
 
World Pictures 
 
 
 
 those vast silent snow-capped mountains towering 
 above you, and in doing so you pass one of those 
 curious mountain horns with which the natives call up 
 the echoes from the mountains. Nothing more ex- 
 quisite can be imagined than those echoes tinkling 
 down the mountain side from point to point, repeat- 
 ing themselves a hundred times over. When you 
 reach the grotto itself, you find that you are hedged 
 in, as it were, by the most perfect prismatic colours of 
 
 "^ «1J J_u^iiiS nil '' 
 
 ^3' i 
 
 - ■ X 1 ,1 
 
 m'y ■■^'^M 
 
 88 
 

 I 
 
LAKE OF LUCERNK 
 
Switzerland 
 
 .^W^lJ,,m}MiiM:=^: 
 
 "^s^dmi^^^M^^^^^^^ 
 
 green and white and blue ; and through it all is a 
 transparency that you cannot describe. In the after- 
 noon you will perhaps go for another walk, winding 
 along beside one of those awful defiles that you 
 sometimes come upon in the Alps, — a snow stream, 
 cold as ice, and white and grey in colour, running be- 
 neath your feet, and the whole landscape charged with 
 the freshness of the icy breeze. 
 
 "JJ'^ym^^-" 
 
 89 
 
■V- ■v 
 
 
 
 \- .i^//' 
 
 ,rf\2;><,..:--. *>- 
 
 
 ■■■w^ ' • ,^f ^-V-^ 
 
 k,^^' 
 
 J ' 
 
 "4' 
 
NEIGHBORHOOD OF C H A M O U N I X 
 
ITALY 
 
A DOORWAY, VENICE, ITALY 
 
A. ■■ 
 
 ']=^^^0>^^^^^^^M^^^^^^0M^^^^^-^^£^^^ 
 
 ITALY 
 
 Every city in Italy has a character peculiarly its own. 
 Each is in a way unique and totally dissimilar from its 
 fellows, and each is proud in the possession of a dozen 
 or more structures famed for their architectural beauty. 
 Venice, the stately queen of the Adriatic, is literally 
 made up of magnificent palaces, and churches, and 
 fine examples of architecture, of such rich and varied 
 wealth and such diversity of styles that one is almost 
 overpowered. Gothic palaces stand side by side with 
 venerable specimens of the Renaissance, Venetian, and 
 Italian periods, architectural glories sufficient to turn 
 the heads of all artists and lovers of the picturesque. 
 Time has laid heavy hands upon Venice, yet it seems 
 to have augmented rather than diminished her charm. 
 This fairy water-city was born beautiful, and beauti- 
 ful she will remain to the end of the chapter. Like 
 Cleopatra, like the serpent of old Nile, " age cannot 
 wither nor custom stale her infinite variety." This is 
 clearly proved by the fact that painters continue year 
 by year to paint her, without the public showing signs 
 
 93 
 
World Pictures 
 
 of weariness. Perhaps the failure of the artists to re- 
 produce the undying charm of that dazzling pearl of 
 cities is both the excuse and the reason for the per- 
 tinacity of the tribe. Woman-like, she eludes them ; 
 man-like, they still pursue. 
 
 It is difficult for any one to see the often represented 
 Venice with a wholly fresh eye, and to give a flavour 
 
 of freshness to familiar topics. It is therefore wisdom 
 to avoid those important monuments which belong to 
 history, and are part of every one's experience, and 
 rather to seek out Venice in her humbler and more 
 homely aspects, in out-of-the-way nooks where no one 
 has painted her before, to go down side canals where 
 old houses and rickety archways harbour the true 
 Venetian, and fascinate the observer who is not too 
 keen of smell. Here are capital opportunities for 
 varied combinations of rich colouring ; houses built 
 of weather-worn brick and stone rise steeply from 
 out canals of green water ; there are grated windows 
 and red shutters ; doorways, picturesque and shabby, 
 
 94 
 
STREET IN VENICE 
 
Italy 
 
 coloured by the lapse of time, half lost in gloom, but 
 still conveying a sense of beauty, through which the 
 eye catches glimpses of a long-buried past. Here is 
 a washerwoman's house of multi-coloured brick-work, 
 with grass-green shutters ; there a strip of red cloth 
 hangs over a carved stone balcony, upon which the 
 light lingers lovingly, while four women employ them- 
 
 selves in hanging white clothes upon a line before a 
 yellow-washed wall. After a shower of rain the colours 
 of these narrow waterways show themselves in their 
 finest and most vivid aspects. One notices then the 
 stained marble and the rusted iron-work, for their 
 colouring is brought out and intensified a hundred- 
 fold. 
 
 Few have seen the real Venice, the Venice of Rus- 
 kin, and Turner, and Whistler. Pictures have been 
 painted by the score, brutal pictures with metallic re- 
 flections and cobalt skies, all wonderfully alike, and 
 equally untrue. Venice is not for the cold-blooded 
 spectator, for the amateur, and the art dabbler, but for 
 
 95 
 
World Pictures 
 
 the enthusiastic colourist and painter, the man who 
 sees and does not merely look. Visit Venice in a 
 healthy, simple spirit, uninfluenced by sickly senti- 
 ment, and one cannot but be amazed and overpowered 
 by its daintiness of form and its fairy-like colour. It 
 is a wonderland that bursts upon one. Venice is a 
 revelation. She resembles a scintillating opal. 
 
 W^hen one looks at the city from a distance, its rows 
 of stately pink and violet toned palaces, reflected in the 
 pale green water, appear to be shrouded in a grey veil 
 of atmosphere, like a casket of precious stones en- 
 circled by a silver haze, or like a brightly painted ceil- 
 ing reflected in a black lacquer floor. You are seeing 
 Nature under new conditions, as though standing on 
 your head. Sir Edward Burne-Jones was wont to 
 declare that to paint Italy as she should be painted 
 one must needs live for three thousand years ; the first 
 
 thousand should be devoted 
 ■-ffiir,-^M^ Ff^'Wi---^ to experimentmg m various 
 
 ^^ei9-.|i3^|i f/ "^edia; the second to pro- 
 
 smnf^m-^^^^^^ii- ■ 1 ducing works and destroying 
 
 them ; the third to slowly com- 
 pleting the labour of centuries. 
 He would never have dreamed 
 of spending a painting holiday 
 beyond Italy, that is, unless 
 he had been permitted to live 
 over five thousand years, and 
 even thus it was his firm opin- 
 ion that no man could paint 
 96 
 
 
 
 M 
 
 ^.^- 
 
Italy 
 
 
 zt 
 
 
 g:s,ii>a'ji.'- 
 
 St. Mark's, because it was unpalntable ; mere pigment 
 could not do it. 
 
 There is an artistic atmosphere about Venice that 
 affects every one who visits it, however unsympathetic 
 he may be. Harsh voices become modulated, cross- 
 grained, querulous natures sweetened, and even the 
 flat-faced, spectacled tourists, when they step from 
 the railway station into a little waiting black gondola, 
 and glide out on the smooth steely waters of the canal, 
 into a mystic water-city alive with a myriad glistening 
 lights, become unconsciously and despite themselves 
 transformed into beautiful and delightful people. 
 Women who have hved in Venice, when they come 
 to London, should be accompanied wherever they go 
 by a four-wheeler full of Venetian backgrounds, if 
 they are at all desirous of keeping up their reputations 
 as beauties. 
 
 v: I lived for six months in Venice, and I saw and 
 painted the superb city of the Doges under every 
 
 97 
 
World Pictures 
 
 
 
 t'-f 
 
 
 
 possible aspect. I have seen Venice in early dawn, 
 at midday, in the evening, at night, in rain, and in 
 sun ; and I can never decide at what time of the day 
 she appears most beautiful. Venice at daybreak is 
 like a phantom scene ; everything is of a delicate 
 pearly grey, the distant dome of the Salute is illu- 
 mined with a faintly rosy glow, and the only spot 
 of positive colour is formed by the orange sail of 
 a fishing boat, as it glides noiselessly past. At mid- 
 day Venice is enveloped in a warm golden light; 
 there are rich red browns, orange yellows, and burnt 
 siennas, all the tints of a gorgeous wall-flower. The 
 clear green water is now alive with orange red sails, 
 but the quay is the centre of life. There a busy 
 crowd is buying and selling silver fish, and fruit and 
 vegetables are being bartered. A pumpkin barge 
 is in the act of unloading its lovely orange and 
 golden freight against a pink palace, flecked with the 
 
 98 
 
A GARDEN. ROME, ITALY 
 
Italy 
 
 delicate tracery of luminous violet shadow ; the sky- 
 is light blue overhead, and a long, sUm black gondola 
 at the foot of the steps makes the one sombre touch. 
 And, most glorious of all, the whole scene is reflected 
 again with a liquid gleam in the water below. The 
 piazza at this time of the day is alive with countless 
 crowds of pigeons, the sacred birds of Venice, all 
 pushing, and jostling, and stretching their purple 
 and emerald necks to the light ; the square is dark- 
 ened by their wings. Venice at night is most beauti- 
 ful of all. Purple is the prevailing colour then, deep 
 purple. Palaces which in the daytime are of every con- 
 ceivable hue, now loom pale and dim in the purple haze, 
 and the water is like tempered steel, smooth and shining. 
 There is only one black note — a passing gondola, 
 swift and silent, and even its interior is bright golden. 
 
 99 
 
 L.ofC. 
 
World Pictures 
 
 Naples, dearly loved yet much abused Naples, 
 how familiar it all seemed to me ! Where had I 
 seen Naples before ? In the comic operas, of course, 
 in the scene in the " Runaway Girl," and in coloured 
 picture books. I recognised it at once. There were 
 the same tall white houses with balconied windows, 
 the heat, the laziness, the beggary, the gaiety com- 
 
 
 h^.^^:y^' 
 
 
 
 bined with absolute wretchedness, the crowded streets 
 filled with people, the carriages of all descriptions 
 bowling along at breakneck speed, and, above all, 
 the same brilliant sharp light (limelight), and strange 
 southern feeling about the place. But the Bay of 
 Naples was perhaps most familiar of all. I knew 
 it line for line, and tone for tone. I was neither 
 disappointed nor surprised, for I had seen it so often 
 before. Naples, in fact, behaved to me honourably 
 and just as it should have done ; the sky and the 
 
INSIDE SAINT MARK'S, VENICE 
 
Italy 
 
 sea were not one whit less blue nor less beautiful 
 than I had expected, and Vesuvius gave out just 
 the correct and orthodox curl of blue smoke, not 
 too large nor yet too small. Her conduct was really- 
 commendable and worthy of great praise. Here was 
 no cause for the burying of shattered ideals, but for 
 soothing, purring satisfaction. 
 
 We went at first, as does every English tourist, 
 to Cook's, with the vague idea of going to Pompeii 
 or Vesuvius. There we were told that a party had 
 not been made up as yet, but that some people would 
 probably arrive soon : would we wait? As we sat 
 there, travellers poured in by the score, peevish 
 American spinsters, English men and women dressed 
 in hideous unsightly garb such as they would not 
 dare to wear at home, all complaining, and pestering, 
 and haggling about the- afternoon's enjoyment in loud, 
 rude voices. Our minds were made up ; we slunk 
 
 lOI 
 
World Pictures 
 
 quietly out of the office, hailed one of the many- 
 carriages, and drove off into the country. 
 
 Up a brilliant white road we went, with white 
 houses and white walls on either side of us, over 
 which flowers of red and yellow poured their masses 
 of blossom, past groups of hollow-cheeked, miserable 
 
 iii'ili 
 
 
 children, half naked, and all screaming for pennies. 
 The heat was overpowering and terribly fatiguing; 
 no wonder that the peasants lay all the day sleeping 
 under doorways and bridges, in any spot where a 
 patch of shade and comparative coolness was to be 
 obtained. A barrow of watermelons and muscatel 
 
 1 02 
 
A STREET IN NAPLES, ITALY 
 
Italy 
 
 
 
 grapes tempted us with their green freshness as we 
 passed, and for a few pence the carriage was loaded 
 with fruit. The grapes were sour, but the melons 
 opened pink and juicy, as cold as ice, and wonderfully 
 refreshing. The driver begged that we would give 
 him the rind for his horse. Poor beast, he looked 
 terribly tired, for the road was very steep. Presently 
 we came out on to a flat terrace, and there, rolling 
 far below us, lay distant Naples, with its clustering 
 white houses glistening in the sun, and the blue 
 Adriatic beyond. 
 
World Pictures 
 
 Up we went again, until we reached the museum, 
 where we were courteously received by the chief official, 
 a gentleman of great culture, who showed us the finest 
 view of all, a marvellous panorama stretching beneath 
 our feet, which interested me not at all ; then we were 
 taken into his own private study, which interested me 
 
 
 greatly, stocked as it was with priceless gems of sculp- 
 ture, painting, and literature. An intelligent little dog 
 was trained to fetch whatever his master wanted from 
 the adjoining room by a whisper in his ear. We were 
 directed to visit a garden over the way, where the 
 famous palm tree with Naples in the distance was to 
 be seen. 
 
 A whining Neopolitan pestered us with requests that 
 we should taste his orange liqueur and buy a bottle, 
 
 104 
 
NAPLES AND THE BAY 
 
Italy 
 
 only one bottle. This made us cross, for we were very 
 hot, and neither I nor my daughter drink wine. More- 
 over, the man was blocking our view. To get rid of 
 him we attempted to climb a wall by the side of a well. 
 I got over safely, but in attempting some more graceful 
 and acrobatic feat, my daughter missed her footing, and 
 
 
 
 fell headlong into the well below. On rising to the 
 surface, she clung, like grim death, to a small piece 
 of mossy stone projecting from the side of the well, 
 and I, above her, waited in agony of mind, scared and 
 shivering, until ropes and ladders were lowered, and 
 she half walked and was half pulled up. The most 
 excited person of all was the wine merchant, who leant 
 over her, his face deadly white with patches of green, 
 pouring pints of his precious orange liqueur down her 
 
 105 
 
World Pictures 
 
 
 
 throat, gratis. The garden belonged to him and he 
 was liable to a heavy fine and punishment for leaving 
 a deep well of sixty feet uncovered, ready to entrap 
 unlucky visitors. I never saw a man so frightened in 
 my life, as he dried the damp clothes, lent rugs and 
 cloaks, and offered cases of liqueur. He even went 
 down on his knees, and quavered that he would give 
 us half his worldly wealth if only we would not inform 
 the police. 
 
 That same afternoon we found our way to the beach, 
 and to the fish-market, the dirtiest, poorest quarter of 
 dirty, poverty-stricken Naples. The sun was setting 
 gloriously, shedding its rosy light over the silver waters 
 of the bay, and I was anxious to secure the fleeting 
 effect. But no sooner was the paint box opened than 
 we were surrounded by dozens of half-naked children, 
 dancing and grimacing, peeping over our shoulders 
 
 1 06 
 
CAPRI, ITALY 
 
Italy 
 
 and under our arms, almost lifting us off the ground 
 with their jostling and pushing, and entirely obscuring 
 the view. Every minute they seemed to gather in 
 force and number, until I should think there were quite 
 three hundred children assembled. The brilliant colours 
 were fast fading from the sky, and the only thing to be 
 done was to make for a blank wall some yards off and 
 plant our backs against it. We started running ; of 
 course the children were overjoyed, and ran too, fight- 
 ing and falling over our feet. There was obviously no 
 work to be done that day, and we went off in despair. 
 Unfortunately, we gave some of them money, — a fatal 
 mistake, for they followed us out into the streets and 
 all over Naples to the very door of our hotel, begging 
 and screaming for charity. 
 
 The older one gets the more one realises that Italy 
 is the centre of the world, the cradle of all true art, a 
 country which has produced the finest specimens of 
 every article that has ever been made, 
 from pictures down to fire-irons. Sup- 
 pose a millionaire with taste — a phe- 
 nomenon which prob- 
 
 zh 
 
 the best of everything, A ^-^ i^ •- •v-'^ 
 he must needs go to ^^4L1LM 
 Italy. Once there, he ' ^"^^ 
 
 can procure every sin- '^>>--^/ /ll 
 gle thing necessary to j 
 
 107 
 
 ably does not exist 
 wishes to furnish his 
 London house with 
 
World Pictures 
 
 his ^establishment, except perhaps his carpets, which the 
 Orient can best supply. What is finer than the Italian 
 furniture ? Certainly not the Dutch, which by com- 
 parison is mere kitchen stuff. The famous Henri II 
 chair was built upon Italian lines. Where else can 
 you procure velvets equal to those from the looms of 
 Genoa ? What is finer than that metal work by Ben- 
 venuto Cellini ? Where can be procured finer ex- 
 amples of glass, silver plate, architecture, painting, 
 sculpture, and literature than in Italy ? 
 
 All these things were produced at a time when men 
 had something to say or do, and it was an exertion to 
 
 1 08 
 
REMAINS OF ANCIENT R O ^M E 
 
Italy 
 
 give out what was in them, when princes vied with 
 one another in gathering together all the finest students 
 of Europe, the best caligraphers, masons, wood-carvers, 
 poets, and craftsmen of all kinds that were to be had. 
 This was the Renais- ^c-> sance period, the re- 
 
 juvenation of Art J^ which developed and 
 developed, and at \C^^] length culminated in 
 that great master ^fi'V--/]) Giorgione. He was 
 the Whistler of his "^ ffi day, the man who 
 
 Is, 
 
 
 
 opened the door, the one great modern genius of his 
 period, whose influence remains, and is felt to this day. 
 Whistler would never have existed but for Velasquez, 
 and Velasquez in his turn would not have existed but 
 for Giorgione. It was he who first began to paint 
 landscapes as backgrounds to his pictures instead of 
 the usual conventional designs. Imagine this young 
 Giorgione, with his new ideas, and his sweeps of golden 
 colouring, suddenly appearing in a studio full of men, 
 all painting in the correct academical style established 
 at the period. Such a man must needs influence all 
 his fellow students ; even Giovanni Bellini, the Watts 
 
 109 
 
World Pictures 
 
 of his day, acknowledged the young man's genius and 
 almost unconsciously began to mingle Giorgione's 
 style with his own. 
 
 This great master produced no more than twelve or 
 fourteen works, and the picture of his that appeals to 
 me perhaps most of all is an altar-piece of the Virgin 
 and Child at Castel Franco. It is painted in the pure 
 Giorgione spirit. St. George in armour is at one side, 
 resting his arm on a spear which appears to be coming 
 right out of the picture, while on the other side there 
 is a monk, and in the background a banner of rich 
 brocade and a small landscape. 
 
 The Florentine school seems to have begun with 
 Giotto, and risen higher and higher until it reached 
 Michael Angelo. These two masters have established 
 the scale from the lowest bass to the highest treble, 
 and no one since seems to have done more than play 
 within that scale. There have been grand variations 
 and glorious melodies, it is true ; but no one has yet 
 gone an octave further. 
 
SICILY 
 
 
':./' 
 
 I 
 
DESERTED HOUSES 
 
SICILY 
 
 Palermo impressed me chiefly because of its delight- 
 ful situation. A vivid indigo blue sea, a glittering 
 white town set in emerald green, and backed by 
 scraggy grey blue mountains, — this is the first glimpse 
 one catches of the Sicilian capital on arriving by 
 steamer, and it puts one in a good humour with the 
 place at once. As every ^ 
 one knows, Palermo is |\ 
 exceedingly rich in vegeta- ?\i\cl 
 tion ; groves of orange and 
 lemon trees, prickly pears, 
 aloes, and cactus plants thrive 
 everywhere. But such 
 scenery as this is not re- 
 stricted to Sicily, which dif- 'iS-l 
 fers, in fact, very little from 
 any southern country in 
 Europe. 
 
 113 
 
World Pictures 
 
 every spoke of which 
 is an excuse for an 
 extra bit of colour. 
 You will see per- 
 haps a chrome yel- ~ 
 low wheel picked out 
 with verdigris green 
 and ornamented with 
 a line of vermilion. 
 The body of the cart 
 is generally violet, 
 smothered with 
 painted panels, de- 
 picting religious 
 scenes, brilliant pro- 
 cessions, battles, and 
 
 Now, when I look 
 back upon my stay 
 there, the only feat- 
 ures that I can re 
 member as being 
 remarkable for their 
 distinctive nature 
 and as being es- 
 pecially character- 
 istic of Sicily" are the 
 mule or donkey carts 
 calltdcaretu. These 
 are gorgeously 
 painted spring-carts, 
 
 - - ., . 
 
 
 114 
 
PALERMO, SICILY 
 
Sicily 
 
 figure subjects, — all 
 just about as vivid as 
 
 — and some of them 
 more elaborate than 
 
 — many of our acad- 
 emy pictures. 
 
 But most entertain- 
 ing of all is the donkey 
 or horse, generally a 
 very poor, lanky ani- 
 mal. We laugh at 
 him, and he, poor 
 beast, is fully con- 
 scious of his ridicu- 
 
 
 
 lous appearance. Shame 
 and degradation are de- 
 picted in his melancholy 
 eyes, as he trundles the 
 Royal Academy about 
 the streets of Palermo. 
 He feels himself the 
 skeleton at the feast, 
 with his hair tied up 
 in gaily coloured rib- 
 bons, as though he 
 were a frisky poodle dog 
 with nodding plumes on 
 his head, tassels and 
 beads hung about his 
 body, and a little em- 
 
 "5 
 
World Pictures 
 
 broidered saddle on his back. He alone fails to grasp 
 the humour of the situation ; life to him is grim, 
 earnest, and so, so melancholy. 
 
 
 "^^^vN^iyfl^v/ 
 
 ^"^ 
 
 \ 
 
 ii6 
 
4 
 
 ON THE OUTSKIRTS OF PALERMO 
 
SPAIN 
 
 f% 
 
 %7'^;'f>i,- 
 
 

A COURTYARD, SEVILLE, SPAIN. 
 

 SPAIN 
 
 It is rather sad that Sunday, and the recurrence of 
 rehgious festivals, such as those of Holy Week, should 
 be considered fit occasions for bull-fights, cock-fights, 
 fairs, balls, and national gaiety and enjoyment by these 
 pious but buoyant Spanish people. So thought I to 
 myself on my first morning in Spain, as I watched 
 from the point of vantage of my balcony the light, 
 joyous crowd of eager Sabbath pleasure-seekers, surg- 
 ing through the streets of Seville. Sad indeed! but 
 sighs and regrets cannot alter the characteristics nor 
 the habits of the people of Spain that have been 
 established for generations ; bull-fighting is the na- 
 tional sport, and will doubtless remain so until the 
 nation itself ceases to exist. 
 
 119 
 
World Pictures 
 
 Seville, always bright and 
 beautiful, at the time of my visit 
 was literally bubbling over with 
 gaiety. The whole city seemed 
 alive ; girls decked out in holi- 
 day attire of flowered kerchiefs 
 and gay petticoats, with roses 
 in their carefully dressed black 
 hair, laughed as they passed 
 through the evergreen and 
 flag-bedecked streets ; the boys 
 laughed ; the children laughed as they played at being 
 bull in an imaginary gutter arena, charging at an 
 outstretched coat ; every one laughed on their way 
 to the bull-fight. Their gaiety was infectious. Even 
 I, whom the thought of a bull-fight revolted, hastily 
 threw on my coat and hat, and calling my compan- 
 ion to follow me, bounded down the stairs two steps 
 at a time, eager to breathe that same intoxicating joy- 
 ous atmosphere, to be swept along in the strong, pure 
 sunshine with this crowd of happy laughter-loving 
 children. Everything I saw that day fascinated and 
 held my attention. I passed down narrow streets 
 with windows and balconies that almost met over- 
 head ; past loosely built booths of green boughs filled 
 with tarts, sugar toys, and reeking cookery ; past men 
 and women dancing on a space of green turf, reserved 
 for that purpose; they filliped their fingers, rattled 
 castanets, and stamped enthusiastically on the ground, 
 as they beat out the measure of an accompanying guitar. 
 
Spain 
 
 The bull-fight itself im- 
 pressed me principally be- 
 cause of its unreality. It 
 never occurred to me that 
 those dainty darts covered 
 with gorgeously coloured 
 ribbons, and thrown with such 
 delicacy and precision on to 
 so satiny and jet-black, a tar- 
 get as the sides of the bull, 
 could possibly cause pain or '"• 
 
 suffering to that great, mild- "^\. 
 
 eyed rocking-horse of an animal, mechanically bob- 
 bing backwards and forwards. The arena, I thought, 
 placed itself perfectly, and formed an excellent com- 
 bination of colour. And as to the audience, closely 
 packed tier upon tier, as it seemed to the very sky, 
 with their myriads of fluttering fans and the sun shin- 
 ing full upon them, they were comparable to nothing 
 less brilliant in colour than a flower-bed or a carpet of 
 jewels. It would be audacity to attempt to describe 
 the effect they produced. The only detail in the 
 whole performance that I really did not approve of 
 were the gentlemen on horseback. They were loaded 
 with metal and protected on every side themselves, 
 and their one object seemed to be that their horses, 
 half-dead, pitiable creatures, should be slaughtered on 
 the horns of the bull. The Portuguese method I 
 consider to be far more humane and considerably 
 better sport, if the term may be applied in this con- 
 
 121 
 
World Pictures 
 
 nection. There, it is considered as a great degrada- 
 tion for a man to lose his horse, which is almost 
 invariably from the royal stables. The bull-fight 
 itself held no very great attractions for me, and now. 
 
 when I come to look back upon my travels in Spain, 
 nought but a very faint and somewhat faded picture 
 remains to recall the much vaunted glories of that 
 famous spectacle. 
 
 Uppermost in my thoughts is the scene of a thou- 
 sand or more Spanish women entering a large marble 
 hall in single file. The sun shining through an open- 
 ing in the wall, gleamed brightly on the head and 
 shoulders of each girl as she passed, lighting up the 
 glossy hair adorned with its single rose which made a 
 
 122 
 
COURTYARD IN SEVILLE 
 
Spain 
 
 jewel-like spot of colour in the white interior. Dis- 
 tinction and charm attended their every movement ; 
 the mantillas were arranged either on head or shoul- 
 ders with a studied grace ; and the little feet set so 
 
 MM 
 
 daintily and proudly on the ground were " worthy to 
 tread the carpet of a palace." All these details give to 
 these simple factory girls, busy at their work of rolling 
 cigarettes, an almost queenly dignity. And then to see 
 the women in the courtyards at their domestic duties : 
 peeling vegetables, pumping water, and chatting gaily 
 with one another the while, or smiling brightly down 
 upon the passer-by from their balconies. 
 
 Spain is a country of courtyards, brilliant and sunlit. 
 The general colouring is brilliant white, picked out 
 
 123 
 
World Pictures 
 
 with small, concentrated touches 
 of colour, so that the scene 
 literally sparkles. Unlike In- 
 dia, where one gets sweeps of 
 rich colour, the Holy Land, 
 Turkey, or Italy, where the 
 sun is a coloured sun, and the 
 tones are golden, here the sun 
 is white, the tones keen, sharp, 
 and silvery, the whole is a bed 
 of silver sprinkled with bright- 
 hued flowers. To reach this 
 brilliancy with mere pigment is no easy task. I tried 
 painting upon Chinese white, but produced mud. In 
 these courtyard scenes colour is dragged in wholesale. 
 It hangs from out of every window, appears on the 
 shutters in emerald green, beautifies a whitewashed 
 wall with clumps of yellow and 
 
 orange. 
 
 The women, too, made fine 
 patches of colour; but so 
 queenly was their carriage and 
 so dignified their manners that, 
 although they voluntarily sat 
 for me, it seemed to me both 
 a sacrilege and an insult to offer 
 them a reward. I was desper- 
 ately shy, and managed, as I 
 stole out of the yard under the 
 fire of their handsome laughing 
 
 124 
 
 n 
 
 A^=^^ 
 
 
 
 ife.. w 
 
Spain 
 
 eyes, to lay a small pile of 
 silver for each duchess on 
 the centre pump. Afterwards 
 I learnt that they would have 
 been quite satisfied with a 
 penny, but I could never 
 have brought myself to 
 offer it. 
 
 It was in one of these 
 ^ courtyards that I met a 
 
 Spanish artist, also painting. " Come with me to my 
 home," he cried at once, smiling and bowing delight- 
 edly. His manners were so charming and so courteous 
 that I accepted, and followed him into a magnificently 
 decorated studio. The place was filled with Japanese 
 ivories, cloisonne and satsuma. I expressed my admi- 
 ration for some of the 
 finest pieces. "Take 
 them," cried my generous 
 host. Overcome with joy, 
 I thanked him warmly for 
 this magnificent gift, for I 
 was then in the throes of 
 a mania for collecting 
 Japanese curios. What a 
 superb country is this 
 Spain, thought I, how ^: 
 generous, how open- V 
 hearted are her people ! 
 He had given me too 
 
 125 
 
World Pictures 
 
 ni H 
 
 much though, and I felt that I must admire nothing 
 more. But, determined to strip his studio, this gener- 
 ous Spaniard followed my eyes whenever they alighted 
 on any especially beautiful objects, chairs, pictures, 
 jewelry, everything he possessed, 
 and he presented them to me with 
 many compliments. By the time 
 that I turned to go he had bestowed 
 such an enormous number of gifts 
 on me that I began to meditate. 
 Like a flash, I remembered hearing 
 a story of a Britisher who had had 
 presents showered upon him by a 
 Spanish gentleman, but on wrap- 
 ping them up into a parcel and 
 preparing to depart, he had re- 
 ceived a bullet in his brain from 
 126 
 
Spain 
 
 the amiable foreigner. Such is the custom of the 
 country. Therefore I accepted a small picture from 
 my new friend, and sent him one in return that same 
 afternoon. One cannot be too particular in these 
 matters. 
 
 Dear, stately, courteous Spain, how 
 I love her southern colouring, her rich 
 sonorous language ! Idle, apathetic, 
 half asleep, she is picturesque in her 
 decay. What romances and legen- 
 dary stories one weaves around Spain 
 as a child ! Don Quixote, Sancho 
 Panza, all surely lived. In Madrid 
 how delightful it must be, thinks the 
 girl, to be serenaded, like Juliet, by 
 a guitar underneath one's window, 
 
 127 
 
World Pictures 
 
 # 
 
 and to throw a rose to the 
 handsome troubadour be- 
 neath as a reward for his 
 song. In Toledo how 
 thrilling, thinks the school- 
 boy, to see bold men in 
 armour dashing about the 
 streets on horseback with 
 drawn swords of Toledo 
 steel flashing beneath their 
 velvet cloaks ; and to see 
 duels, tournaments, bull- 
 fights, taking place every day just as common oc- 
 currences. 
 
 My preconceived ideas of Spain were not entirely 
 disillusioned. At all events my experiences in To- 
 ledo, the centre of heroic romance, were by no means 
 devoid of excitement, and, in a way, of tragedy. To 
 begin with, I arrived there at 
 midnight, and was bumped 
 all over the city in a little 
 cart down twisting alleys 
 with tall grey walls on either 
 side, over huge cobble- 
 stones, and there was never 
 a sign of life or habitation 
 anywhere. We drew up at 
 length before a little flat- 
 roofed house, my hotel. 
 The proprietor, a ruffianly- 
 
 128 
 
SEVILLE, SPAIN 
 
Spain 
 
 looking man, spoke not a 
 word of English, and as my 
 knowledge of his language 
 was nil, our intercourse was 
 carried on by means of pan- 
 tomime. With much diffi- 
 culty he at length understood 
 that I required a bedroom 
 and some supper. He led 
 me up innumerable stair- 
 ways and intricate passages 
 and left me with scant cere- 
 mony in a room which to 
 my consternation I discovered was full of nothing but 
 washing-stands. There were at least thirty-three of 
 them. Granted that this article of furniture is cer- 
 tainly very useful, since one must wash, still, when 
 there is no bed, no chair, no dressing-table, no car- 
 pet, nothing but washing-stands, one vaguely wonders 
 
 how one is going to spend the 
 night. 
 
 After this dispiriting survey, 
 I found my way to the dining- 
 room by much diligent search. 
 There I was ushered to my seat 
 by a most ferocious-looking 
 waiter, who glared at me in a 
 very bloodthirsty manner. He 
 flicked his serviette viciously 
 about my face, rattled the plates, 
 i2g 
 
World Pictures 
 
 and dashed off to get my meal. Returning with a 
 basin of soup he set it down with a bang before 
 me, but no sooner had I laid my spoon down for 
 an instant than he snatched it away, sat down to 
 the table, and wolfishly swallowed the lot himself 
 before my ^^^^^^ eyes. I was 
 
 frightfully hun- ^^^^^^^^^ S^Yj ^^* so 
 murderous was '""^^^^^^^^^M ^^^ aspect that 
 I dared not /^^^^^^^WJ utter a word of 
 complaint, and V % ^^^^^P patiently stifled 
 my feelings, \^ J^^\ waiting in 
 
 silence for the /^^'^**x::^-^^N ^^^^t course. 
 
 Presently he j/f / ^^^v#J;\ brought a kind 
 of small bird, /n , ^fff ///\ \ and pressing 
 his oily fingers /7 ' /yr/ / ^ down upon the 
 
 table, he stared / /{] ^ iV hungrily at 
 
 me while I ate ' it. His face 
 
 twitched, and his eyes blinked, and every mouthful I 
 swallowed seemed to give him positive pain. At last 
 I was compelled to lay down my knife and fork and 
 wait until he should withdraw his face. In an in- 
 stant he had dragged the bird by one leg from my 
 plate, devoured it as he stood there, bones and all. 
 I never knew from that day to this what the food 
 at that Spanish hotel was like, for I never got an 
 opportunity. I do not remember whether I spent 
 the night in a basin or in a jug ; I fancy it must 
 have been a combination of the two. 
 
 130 
 
MOROCCO 
 
TANGIER, MOROCCO 
 
MOROCCO 
 
 Had Tennyson's enchanted heroine, who sat serenely 
 alone in her grey tower watching the many-coloured 
 stream of humanity drift over the surface of her mir- 
 ror, riding down to Camelot under the blue sky, 
 through the golden grain, had the fairy lady but been 
 a painter, very simple, true, and dainty, no doubt, 
 her " notes " would have been. To paint Tangier, 
 that marvellous city to which three continents lend 
 whatever is most fantastic, gor- 
 geous, and grotesque, one would 
 need such a clear and impartial 
 mirror as that of the Lady of 
 Shalott's to be one's guide in 
 choice of subjects. 
 
 It is a weird, unreal world, this 
 into which one has strayed. It is 
 easier to believe that that old Arab, 
 
 133 
 
World Pictures 
 
 who emerges from the shade of a narrow street, sedate, 
 imperturbable of aspect as the mule he rides on, has 
 come straight from the pages of the "Arabian Nights " 
 than that he is an ordinary mortal, bent on some 
 worldly twentieth-century business, and that he is 
 
 probably en route for the market. His profile, 
 like a finely moulded mask of bronze, is sharply de- 
 fined for an instant against the dazzling white of a 
 sunlit wall, and then he is gone, while a score of other 
 figures, as surprising as he, come and go in a bewil- 
 dering dream of colour and quaint form. How mag- 
 nificent are the types ! Can it be that these figures 
 are unconscious themselves of their grand poses, and 
 the swinging grace of their movements ? Even the 
 round-headed little urchins playing in the dust by 
 
 134 
 
Morocco 
 
 the roadside are fine, with their drollery of feature and 
 a few scanty rags. 
 
 The dominant quality of the scenes is their blaze 
 and breadth of light, and light so penetrating that 
 all colours are harmonised and all crude;iess swal- 
 
 :l:^;<#i^"v?^. 4^^^^'-^' '^^.^ 
 
 ^' 'CS 
 
 ,. ^/. 
 
 lowed up. It is the radiance of the African sun which 
 brings together such exquisite combinations of colour 
 as are to be seen at every turn. Here is a sunlit yard, 
 with a space of dusky foreground leading up to a little 
 group of men and animals, the most strongly accen- 
 tuated details being a mule's pointed ears ; the shadow 
 under a wooden shed is sharply crossed by a slender 
 pole in light, while in the background are some arched 
 gateways delicately defined. Under the awning of a 
 little shop there is a glimmer of bright-coloured stuffs 
 and figures in the shade. A slipper of yellow leather 
 
 135 
 
World Pictures 
 
 ^s^ 
 
 and a bare sinewy ankle above it come prominently 
 into the light. One notes it down quickly as an at- 
 tractive detail, with the pretty little shadow of the 
 slipper on the ground. Almost before one has time 
 to sketch it, the owner of the foot, a dusky figure just 
 .before lost in the mass of shadow beneath the low, 
 dark archway, steps suddenly forward into the sunny 
 street. The unexpected flash of light crossing the 
 gateway is almost painful in its brilliancy. 
 
 To try after effects of sunlight in Tangier is at once 
 the most fascinating and most hope- 
 less problem of the painter, who has 
 but his colour box of dull pigment to 
 compete against nature and her tones 
 of fire. What can one do with a sky 
 which shows deep and purple blue, 
 but is in reality so light that the 
 whitest paper in shadow is dark 
 beside it ? 
 
 Much has been done in this city, 
 which the brilliant but somewhat 
 136 
 
S: 
 
 ^ 
 
 #^ 
 
STREET SCENE IN 1' A N G I E R S 
 
Morocco 
 
 -'A 
 
 j\^j ': ij 1(71]. Ml hrfffrirf}:^]''— '-"" -J — --_• 
 
 ^^tm'-:^'^^mmSi^^^ e-v 
 
 theatrical painters of the French and Spanish schools 
 have in a measure made their own, but a day spent 
 in wandering through its streets and courts is enough 
 to show how much there still remains to be done 
 in the way of fresh and artistic impressions. It is 
 strange, after a few hours' journey, to find oneself trans- 
 ported from modern Gibraltar with its fortresses and 
 its soldiers into the ancient Moorish town of Tangier 
 where grand old Orientals drift about 
 with all the dignity of their ancestors, 
 where the sun blazes down with true 
 Oriental brilliancy, bleaching every- 
 thing it falls upon with the intensity 
 of its rays. The houses are white, 
 the walls are white, and even the 
 background is white, so that every 
 little splash of colour shows out with M\ 
 tenfold distinctness and force. It is "^ 
 as if you were to mount a brilliantly 
 
 137 
 
 
World Pictures 
 
 painted water-colour drawing upon a white What- 
 man's mount where the colours obtain an added value, 
 whereas were you to substitute brown for white half 
 their brilliancy would be lost. 
 
 Grand, glorious sun, harmoniser and purifier, what 
 would Morocco do without you, I should like to 
 know ? When piles of refuse are thrown out of every 
 house in a long street, if the sun were not in atten- 
 dance waiting to act as dustman, how long would the 
 people live ? They would die off like flies within 
 a day. When a man falls Into the river, or goes 
 out in a shower of rain he waits for the sun to come 
 out and dry his garments, or rather his garment, for 
 the Moor usually wears but one long white robe. 
 
 Walking is a matter of some difficulty in Tangier as 
 the streets are one mass of holes and boulders, but an 
 
 138 
 
A COURTYARD, MOROCCO. 
 
Morocco 
 
 €iJ" 
 
 
 
 artist should be oblivious to 
 such minor obstacles as these. 
 If so, and if he can become in- 
 different to odours unsavoury" 
 and sounds unharmonious, he 
 will be thrice blest, for there 
 surely never was a city so 
 choked full of subjects and 
 little glowing pictures as Tan- 
 gier. The market scenes are 
 perhaps finest of all, crowded as they are with de- 
 tail ; camels, horses, and mules are accompanied by 
 their handsome owners with features as finely moulded 
 as those of any Greek statue ; piles of fruit are kept 
 by women muffled in shapeless garments; and red- 
 
 
 
 139 
 
World Pictures 
 
 brown oxen are standing about in the sunny square. 
 The Moor's few efforts towards cleanliness seem to 
 be centred on the outside of his house, which he 
 takes pains to keep snow-white. Continually one 
 may see the men and children of a family white- 
 washing their walls with little lumps of tow in order 
 to preserve the pristine purity. 
 
 140 
 
TURKEY 
 

 /' ---^^ 
 
 
 |^,,jr\=^Si®igvt 
 
 
MOSQUE OF SAINT SOPHIA, CONSTANTINOPLE 
 
TURKEY 
 
 When one thinks of Turkey, one's thoughts instinc- 
 tively fly to Constantinople and perhaps not without 
 reason, for after all the " Sick Man's City" may be said 
 to be the centre round which both Turkish and Eng- 
 lish interests are chiefly focussed. Was there ever 
 such a city, so gay, so full of colour, so strangely new, 
 even to the travelled eye of an artist ? Turkey is a 
 place that one has always dreamed about ; when a 
 child, one remembers it above all others as being a 
 far-away place, the home of Turkish delight, of Ali 
 Baba and the Forty Thieves, of long curved daggers 
 and red fez caps, and also as being remarkably adaptable 
 for puns and charades. When grown up, one regards 
 Constantinople as a much overrated place, impover- 
 ished and tawdry, and its inhabitants as opium-eating 
 knaves ; yet it is interesting because of its critical con- 
 
 143 
 
World Pictures 
 
 dition, and because of the poor, sickly, frightened 
 Sultan who lives there. When one actually visits 
 Constantinople, all political questions and preconceived 
 ideas, childish and mature, lose themselves in wonder 
 and admiration. 
 
 A glittering white city rises out of a sea of bright- 
 est amethyst and it is honeycombed with miles upon 
 miles of square windows ; there are occasional grey, 
 
 
 curved domes topped with golden crescents, gaily 
 striped mosques and hundreds of slender snow-white 
 minarets tinged with palest rose from the sunrise 
 sky, — such is the picture of Constantinople from the 
 sea of Marmora. When, however, one comes to dive 
 into the streets and byways of this wondrous fairy 
 city, the first glorious impression fades somewhat. 
 Other senses besides that of vision are brought into 
 play and tickled not so agreeably. One must seek 
 nothing else save the picturesque in Constantinople, and 
 
 144 
 
Turkey 
 
 keeping that in view one will be more than satisfied ; 
 if one makes use of one's nose and ears, or thinks of 
 bodily comfort, by the end of the day one will be 
 thoroughly discouraged and unhappy. The smells 
 are offensive, the rough streets hurtful, the heat is 
 oppressive, and the dirt repellent. But keep the 
 mind nobly fixed upon the search of the picturesque, 
 as upon a star in the firmament, heeding not the 
 odours, or the streets, or the heat, looking upon all 
 dirt as tone, and the artist's soul will revel and rejoice 
 in the myriads of pictures that surround and almost 
 overwhelm it with their wealth of beauty. 
 
 There are those magnificent fountains which almost 
 
 145 
 
World Pictures 
 
 invariably form the principal feature of any scene in 
 the city. Wherever they are situated, by the river 
 side or in the centre of some market place, or under 
 the shadow of a noble mosque, they are always crowded 
 with beggars, street vendors, children, dogs, pigeons — 
 in fact all the refuse of the Constantinople streets. 
 Old turbaned Turks squat serenely beneath wide- 
 spread, vivid green umbrellas, selling highly coloured 
 dainties into the nature of which one does not care to 
 inquire — probably rice, blanc-mange, and maize-cakes. 
 Then there are vermicelli makers, lemonade and sher- 
 bet sellers, letter writers, innumerable trades of all 
 kinds are carried on in the shadow of the street foun- 
 tain. Every one comes here for water, both rich and 
 poor, soldiers and civilians, Armenians and Turks, 
 
 146 
 
SCUTARI, TURKEY 
 
Turk( 
 
 ■y 
 
 men in fact of every nationality and calling. There 
 are pictures to be seen at every one of these fountains. 
 That one near the mosque of St. Sophia swarms with 
 pigeons; thousands and thousands of them push and 
 flutter around, smothering the fountain and the court- 
 yard with their jewel-like plumage of purple, green, 
 and grey. Another is a picture in itself, a veritable 
 Sultan's palace in miniature with domes, marble pillars, 
 flights of steps, gratings and doorways. It possesses 
 a gate wrought in bronze of the most fairy-like struc- 
 ture, in its delicacy almost resembling lacework. There 
 are inscriptions and poems in green and gold — in fact 
 it is more like a temple than a fountain, a temple 
 erected to some water sprite. 
 
 The streets of Constantinople were my delight. 
 They literally, teemed with colour ; the wares were 
 
 147 
 
World Pictures 
 
 bright, the sellers were bright, the buyers were bright, 
 and the sun shone down brightly — alas ! too brightly, 
 like a ball of fire — upon all. Water carriers, oil car- 
 riers, soldiers, policemen, women muffled to the chin in 
 mummy-like robes, black slaves, Turkish gentlemen 
 
 
 dressed in black European clothes with fezzes ranging 
 from new crimson colour to weather-beaten lobster 
 shade, thronged the dark narrow streets, or rather 
 lanes. On either side were the regular Turkish shops, 
 little low cupboards with slanting slabs on which the 
 bath towels, slippers, daggers, silk goods, and the 
 usual rubbishing stock in trade were displayed. Those 
 most admirable liars and cheats, the salesmen, sat 
 cross-legged, smoking and drinking coffee as though 
 
Turkey 
 
 business were the very furthest thought from their 
 majestic minds. Then there are streets filled with 
 men of a totally different stamp, there are the workers, 
 patient and industrious. Gold beaters, carpenters, 
 jewellers, pipe-makers, fez-makers, tinkers, tailors, 
 and candlestick-makers, all hard at work. Here I 
 spent most of my time, for the atmosphere of the 
 hammer and anvil were more congenial to my mind, 
 than the close-scented air of the bazaars. 
 
 149 
 
GREECE 
 
 fMiO'fc 
 
 ^■U-<y 
 
 
 
 

 td 
 
 n?ir 
 
 
 
 U 
 
 
 t - 
 
TOWER OF THE WINDS, ATHENS 
 

 ^ >^'=''^-_ 
 
 
 GREECE 
 
 Greece is practically virgin soil, for no one that has 
 been to Athens, Corinth, Thebes, or any of these 
 ancient places seems to be capable of telling anything 
 about them. They have seen them, and that is nearly 
 all the information one can gain. Books give one 
 hardly any tangible idea of the country or the people, 
 and altogether it is with a mind as clean and blank as a 
 slate, and absolutely devoid of any preconceived ideas, 
 that one first visits Greece. One has not even seen 
 pictures or photographs of the place, all one can think 
 of is ancient Greece. From that standpoint it is, of 
 course, sadly disappointing. 
 
 The blank look on the faces of some of the expec- 
 tant tourists when they reach Athens is pathetic, and 
 sometimes amusing. At first there is deep silence, no 
 one utters a word : Athens is totally different from 
 what every one expected, yet they are not going to 
 
 153 
 
World Pictures 
 
 betray their ignorance by word or look. But the reality 
 is naturally a great blow to them, and the greatest shock 
 of all is the scantiness of the ruins. Many of these 
 tourists have been through Mexico, which abounds in 
 ancient fortresses and churches, yet here in Athens 
 there is scarcely anything of the kind to be seen. Then 
 
 
 
 again, among the first things they look for are fine 
 antique figures in the streets. They search in vain 
 for living Venuses resembling that of Milo and for 
 Dianas in all sorts of out-of-the-way places, even among 
 the post-office girls, and the young women selling socks 
 in drapers' shops. They have all studied in the 
 antique room at South Kensington, working labori- 
 ously for weeks on end upon black sooty drawings 
 from the Antinous or Discobolus, they all know 
 what a fine Grecian profile should be like, and when 
 
 154 
 
Greece 
 
 the crushing absence of such outlines in the streets of 
 modern Greece is at length brought home to them, they 
 are all feverishly anxious to illustrate to one another 
 what is really meant by classic line ; and one sees these 
 plain people turning sideways so that their profiles may 
 
 
 be clearly outlined against the sky, exhibiting perfect 
 abominations in the way of turned-up noses, shelving 
 foreheads, pointed heads, and receding chins. They 
 really want cooling medicine, these poor dear people in 
 Greece ; in fact, I should insist upon Eno's fruit salt 
 being included in their outfit for the journey. I am 
 sure if their relations at home could see them poring 
 over books of ancient Greece, and pegging away for 
 dear life, as though they had not a moment to lose, at 
 the " ancient tongue" which they will insist upon using 
 
 155 
 
World Pictures 
 
 
 V — if"-. 
 
 to every one they come across oblivious of snubs, they 
 would disown them at once as hopeless lunatics. Their 
 naive questions about art are also most quaint. One 
 man I met fully expected to come across oil pictures in 
 gold frames down among the ruins! These people 
 will give you the benefit of all sorts of newly acquired 
 information as to frescoes and tempera, the words roll- 
 ing glibly off their tongues with the greatest gusto. 
 That they make the best of the situation, truly, nobly 
 and heroically, it must be admitted, but modern Greece 
 is a very heavy blow to their sensitive, art-loving souls. 
 
 
 156 
 
Greece 
 
 However, they are consoled by quoting pages of 
 classical poetry and sketching one another's profiles 
 against the Acropolis at sunset. 
 
 Seriously, to enjoy oneself thoroughly, one should 
 make a long stay in Greece, wandering dreamily about 
 the sites of the famous cities, peopling them once more 
 
 in imagination, cruising amongst the islands where the 
 people are living perhaps the purest and most simple 
 lives of any nation in the world, and where one some- 
 times finds groups of truly beautiful Grecian types, 
 especially among the young boys. 
 
 One sees many curious garbs in Greece, but perhaps 
 the most striking of all are those of the great men's 
 servants in Athens. They resemble peacocks as they 
 
 157 
 
World Pictures 
 
 strut about in stiffly^ starched kilted skirts and bright 
 yellow boots, presenting the appearance of something 
 between a ballet girl and a Scotchman. Brigandage is 
 still carried on to a great extent almost all over the 
 country, and in the cities the men will glare fiercely at 
 you, greatly preferring to get money out of you by 
 force and robbery rather than by cringing. 
 
 ^iK 
 
 
 In Athens there is an almost inexhaustible supply 
 of white marble from the quarries on Pentelicus, not 
 far away, and the people make use of these advantages 
 to a very great extent. But perhaps, after all, it is not 
 a very great advantage, for the glare of the brilliant 
 white marble houses, and the suffocating marble dust 
 lying thick upon the roads, is almost too much for 
 any one to bear. One's eyes positively ache to-day in 
 modern Greece, when closely inspecting the statues, 
 
 158 
 
A GARDEN, ATHENS, GREECE 
 
Greece 
 
 
 the palaces, and the architecture ; and one can quite 
 beHeve that such a nation of artists as the ancient 
 Greeks could never have stood this cruel whiteness in 
 such a clear atmosphere, and that they must have 
 modified its brilliancy in some way by staining the 
 marble. It sounds like vandalism to talk of staining 
 white statues, and so it would be if carried as far as 
 an attempt to stain, 
 for instance, the El- 
 gin Marbles. We 
 are not as highly 
 cultured in matters 
 of art as the ancient 
 Greeks, and we can- 
 not attempt to stain 
 or paint any relief 
 work without de- 
 grading it. We do 
 not seem to have 
 
World Pictures 
 
 ■MiJl^mr^::^ 
 
 
 
 r-'-T^^ '■- ' " .;tfl«i. 
 
 sufficient artistic sense to accomplish it successfully, 
 and other than in a clumsy and somewhat vulgar way. 
 The Japanese successfully paint and gild their gro- 
 tesquely carved wooden gods and Buddhas, and their 
 small representations of Daimios, because they make 
 pretence of realism. If one attempts to stain a marble 
 statue, as some of the modern French school have 
 done;, so as to suggest realism, changing the pure, 
 cold lips to vermilion, and the blank eyes to blue 
 orbs, one invariably ends in creating nothing else 
 than a Madame Tussaud's waxwork. This extremely 
 delicate task must be done purely from the decorative 
 standpoint, as it was done by the ancient Greeks. 
 What desecration to colour the Elgin Marbles ! It 
 would be just as terrible and almost as impossible as 
 it would be to try to complete the missing arms of 
 the Venus of Milo. Almost every sculptor in the 
 world has had a try at this task, but no man has 
 
 i6o 
 
Greece 
 
 succeeded in producing anything but an absolute 
 figure of fun. 
 
 There is perhaps no scene in all Greece that im- 
 presses one with such a deep sense of awe and majesty, 
 that brings back such a mighty flood of sacred mem- 
 ories, as that to be witnessed when standing amid the 
 ruins of the Acropolis on a moonlight night. Athens 
 lies around one, sleeping beneath the stars, while the 
 Parthenon, grey and classic, with its impenetrable 
 black shadows, and its pillars silvered by a full moon, 
 is outlined in sharpest relief against the purple night. 
 An almost unearthly silence hangs over all. Such a 
 scene as this cannot easily be forgotten, nor can it fail 
 to provide food for serious and sacred thoughts, even 
 to the most frivolous and flippant among us. 
 
 i6i 
 
PALESTINE 
 
 
 
 
 
 -^i^"^ 
 
 'J'-T- 
 
'\s^ 
 
 
 
 ■\-t3y / 
 
 3^ 'J 
 
/ :. fl 
 
i 
 
 COURTYARD IN DAMASCUS 
 
^mBJ^miM n-4 
 
 PALESTINE 
 
 Damascus is not considered one of the cities of the 
 Holy Land, yet who that has seen the city can resist 
 including her among them ? Of all Eastern cities she 
 is the most picturesque, and one of the most holy. 
 Almost everything possible has been said, sung, or 
 written of Damascus. Travellers rave over her, poets 
 laud her to the skies, describing her as " the Pearl of 
 the Desert," or " a priceless diamond set round with 
 emeralds." The Damascenes firmly believe their city 
 to be a terrestrial reflection of Heaven, her gardens 
 those of Eden, and her rivers the two that watered 
 Adam's paradise. Even the prophet Mahomet him- 
 self, when looking down upon Damascus for the first 
 time, was so struck with her beauty, that he turned 
 away and refused to enter her gates, making the long 
 famous remark, that as man could enter only one 
 paradise, he chose the one above. 
 
 The train journey from Beyrout to Damascus was 
 for the most part long and tedious. The day was 
 
 165 
 
World Pictures 
 
 broiling hot, the carriage filled with natives and their 
 babies, and we wound up and around the mountains 
 at a snail's pace for hours and hours. Nearing Damas- 
 cus the scenery became flatter and more interesting. 
 We passed gardens luxurious with fruit, and forest 
 trees, — poplar, palm, walnut, citron, pomegranate, and 
 fig ; past vast lonely plains where great cities probably 
 once flourished, but inhabited now by jet-black goats 
 
 
 
 that looked like overgrown poodles, their long hair 
 smothering legs and eyes with a thick shroud. Swarthy- 
 complexioned, black-bearded shepherds walked in 
 front, playing weird music upon a pipe. These last 
 delighted me, they confirmed my juvenile ideas of 
 shepherds in the Bible so thoroughly, dressed as they 
 were in long, loose garments of brown, striped with 
 bufi^, and with white cloths on their heads, wound 
 round with coils of tightly bound goat's hair. 
 
 Damascus itself, the oldest city in the world, soon 
 lay before us, — "a long white oasis in a mass of 
 
 i66 
 
THE HOUSE OF ANANIAS, DAMASCUS, HOLY LAND. 
 
Palestine 
 
 green." It can be described in no other way. I do 
 not agree with some writers that Mahomet did a wise 
 thing when he refrained from entering the walls of 
 Damascus. If they but had their chance over again, 
 they would camp upon Mahomet's hill, say these 
 writers, feast their eyes on the distant city, and then 
 
 
 smm Mmi L 
 
 
 mm 
 
 depart. For myself, I think that if Mahomet was 
 anything of an artist, with an eye for colour and the 
 picturesque, he missed a great deal in not seeing 
 the streets and houses, market places and bazaars of 
 the city. The streets, it is true, are narrow, crooked, 
 and filthy, while high houses and mud walls hide the 
 magnificent gardens without. Yet they act only as 
 a background of grey monotone upon which the 
 
 167 
 
World Pictures 
 
 sparkling, vivacious, human picture is portrayed and 
 silhouetted, all the more clearly for the contrast. 
 
 This is an Eastern city more rich and prosperous 
 than any I have yet seen. It is thronged to over- 
 flowing with people. Caravans, camels, and donkeys, 
 laden with merchandise from Bagdad and from Mecca, 
 rich men's carriages, and the swarm of foot-passengers 
 make walking or driving difficult in the narrow streets. 
 No disappointing European costumes are here ; every 
 one dresses in the beautiful flowing garments of the 
 East, mostly white with bright-coloured turbans and 
 sashes. Real old biblical patriarchs with long grey 
 beards sit smoking their chibouks, and money-changers 
 and scribes drive a thriving trade at the street corners. 
 The houses, though ugly in the extreme on the out- 
 side with their tawny square-topped roofs and mud 
 
 i68 
 
Palestine 
 
 walls, disclose perfect visions of Eastern beauty when 
 once the doorway is passed. You find yourself in a 
 many-coloured marble-mosaic courtyard with the blue 
 dome of the sky above for a roof; a marble fountain, 
 half covered with creepers and flowers, and tossing 
 silver sprays high into the air, is in the centre, while 
 all around are alcoves in the walls decorated most gor- 
 geously and furnished with divans and cushions, where 
 the women recline, smoking and chatting and looking 
 out upon the fountain. We were taken to see the 
 reputed houses of Ananias and Judas, the tomb of 
 Mahomet's children, Naaman's ancient dwelling place, 
 where ghastly lepers mostly congregate, and other 
 interesting spots. 
 
 But we must pass on to Jerusalem, — the holiest 
 city on earth. One can get there from Jaffa, either 
 by carriage or train. I went once by train with some 
 
World Pictures 
 
 / 
 
 
 ■(J 
 
 "'^ ^m>vW 
 
 ladies, who, as we were winding slowly up a hillside, 
 caught sight of some lilies of the field growing near 
 by. Nothing would satisfy them but picking some. 
 The engineer very obligingly stopped the train for us, 
 and we got out, guard and all, and gathered great 
 bunches of these lilies, which were more strictly pink 
 anemones. On another occasion I made the journey 
 by carriage, starting at two in the afternoon and arriv- 
 ing at twelve o'clock at night. It seemed as though 
 we should never reach the Holy City. Sunlight 
 changed to moonlight, we passed village after village, 
 and still no Jerusalem came in sight. At Ramah and 
 
 170 
 
ON THE ROAD TO BETHLEHEM 
 
Palestine 
 
 Beroth we stopped to rest the horses and drink 
 coffee. In a light as clear as day we could see hordes 
 of camels and goats resting with their attendants on a 
 dusty roadside. A band of real Bedouins rode up 
 on gaily decorated horses, and leaped off before the 
 
 
 animals had stopped. Each man unstrapped from 
 his saddle a small Turkish rug, spread it upon the 
 ground and began to pray, bowing slowly backwards 
 and forwards towards the East. 
 
 After many false alarms we eventually reached 
 Jerusalem. Nothing much was to be seen that night. 
 We wound up a very ordinary street into a still more 
 ordinary American hotel, and that was all. After 
 staying a week in Jerusalem I came to the conclu- 
 
 171 
 
World Pictures 
 
 sion that it was no more than a little old grey town, 
 and not so very old either, save for Saladin the 
 Magnificent's ancient red wall which surrounds it. 
 Walking through Jerusalem is like walking through 
 the pages of the Bible. An old woman comes riding 
 along on a donkey, and a young man steps forward to 
 
 greet her dressed in the Bedouin Arab costume, — a 
 robe that differs not one particle from that which 
 Abraham wore. The old woman, bending forward, 
 salutes him on the forehead, and one can hear those 
 two superb Arab voices mingled together in greeting, 
 although the language is unintelligible. 
 
 The streets of Jerusalem are full of dirt and super- 
 stition. There are bazaars arched over and shaded, 
 where embroiderers, tinsmiths, and shoemakers con- 
 
 172 
 
'm-^ 
 
JERUSALEM, HOLY LAND. 
 
Palestine 
 
 gregate, but they lack the brilliancy and busy move- 
 ment which characterises most Oriental bazaars. No 
 carriages or camels can pass through the narrow streets 
 or lanes, but only troops of donkeys, laden with 
 immense loads of garden produce. Many places of 
 interest are pointed out in the city, among them the 
 house of the rich man Dives, who never existed save 
 in a parable, and the very stones on which our Lord 
 stood while being judged ; they could not have been 
 less than forty feet below. 
 
 I went to the wailing place of the Jews, where they 
 congregate every Friday to lament over the scattering 
 of their nation. I saw an old Jew, dressed in a black 
 robe, kneel down and press his head against the huge 
 
 
 •^^ir/ 
 
 ^73 
 
World Pictures 
 
 stones, weeping real tears over them. He was genuinely 
 distressed, and it made one feel quite miserable to 
 watch him as he watered the stones of Solomon with 
 his tears. I went also, of course, to the church of the 
 Holy Sepulchre, which should be the most interesting 
 church in all Christendom. Noisiness, confusion, and 
 gorgeousness were its characteristics. Men of all 
 nationalities and sects worshipped at their separate 
 
 
 
 
 
 altars, and the babel of voices in that sacred place was 
 almost deafening. For peace, deep and beautiful, you 
 must go, not to any Christian church, but to the 
 Mosque of Omar with its splendid " dim, religious 
 light." 
 
 Perhaps there is no spot in the Holy Land which 
 is so absolutely authentic as the Garden of Geth- 
 semane. The very same trees under which our 
 Lord prayed on that last terrible night are said to 
 exist to this day. You are allowed to walk round 
 
 174 
 
MOSQUE OF OMAR JERUSALEM 
 
Palestine 
 
 '-—ir- 
 
 
 
 
 - ( ,^ •.-^- 
 
 the paths, and on leaving, a venerable old monk pre- 
 sents you with some olive branches. The pool of 
 Bethesda is exactly what one imagines it must have 
 been when the angel came to trouble the water, 
 so different from the pool of Siloam, which is filthy 
 in the extreme. The field of blood is shown to 
 you, and the very tree upon which Judas is a 
 supposed to have hanged himself, also the fe 
 
 4}t-^ - 
 
 a r 
 
 'iNiw^eu ■.-^■^if mmp^ 
 
World Pictures 
 
 Tyropoean Valley, the 
 Mount of Olives, the tomb 
 of Absalom, and many 
 other sacred and interest- 
 ing spots. 
 
 There are many dan- 
 gers, however, to be 
 avoided whilst sight-seeing 
 in the Holy City. Fierce 
 dogs descended from those 
 amiable animals that 
 ^ • "" chased Jezebel swarm out- 
 
 side the city walls ; and as they are not needed to 
 chase the sheep, they chase the people for sport, 
 and viciously too. Then the place abounds with 
 slippery steps down which one invariably toboggans ; 
 the narrow streets are full of baby donkeys, which push 
 and jolt you unmercifully, and you have to keep 
 a sharp lookout for the bayonets of Turkish soldiers 
 
 176 
 
MOUNT OF OLIVES, HOLY LAND 
 
Palestine 
 
 which protrude unpleasantly near. The "growlers," 
 too, are a source of great inconvenience to portly- 
 travellers in the Holy Land, as sometimes the floor 
 gives way, and you run round Jerusalem with the 
 cab. These are but minor drawbacks, however, to 
 a city which is at once the most pathetic and most 
 interesting in the world. Even the most flippant 
 of tourists cannot but be impressed with the sacred- 
 ness and grand solemnity of the place. Their 
 cockney tones become unconsciously modulated to 
 
 177 
 
World Pictures 
 
 awed whispers whilst walking in the Garden of 
 Gethsemane, or when overlooking the Holy City. 
 A strange poetical sadness pervades it which one 
 can neither account for nor ignore. You feel at once 
 that here in very truth is the scene of the divine 
 tragedy. 
 
 
 I remember once standing on the roof of a house 
 in Jerusalem, looking down upon the city stretched 
 round about my feet, every grey-white house, each 
 little window, shining in the silver sun. The clouds 
 overhead hung black and threatening, but the sun 
 illumined the city, turning everything to a most 
 heavenly silver, as though Nature herself must needs 
 favour it. Jerusalem looked like a lovely little silver 
 model of a town and it produced an effect upon 
 me that I shall never forget. The tomb of Rachel 
 is the spot where tourists from Brixton or elsewhere 
 congregate in abundance. It is a beautiful spot over- 
 lookinPf the corn-fields where Boaz met Ruth, and 
 where the shepherds kept their flocks by night. 
 
 178 
 
BETHLEHEM 
 
Palestine 
 
 The imagination lingers there as much as on any 
 place on earth. There is a well on the road to 
 Bethlehem where David spilled upon the ground the 
 water that three armed men brought him, rather 
 than drink the price of blood. A pretty tradition 
 tells how at this very same well, one of the wise 
 men, having lost sight of the guiding star, stopped 
 to give his horse drink, and as he did so, caught 
 
 sight of its silver reflection glistening in the water, 
 and set out on the right roaa to Bethlehem once 
 more. 
 
 The church of the Nativity looks more like an 
 old mediaeval fort than anything else. The door 
 is so low that every one, whether Christian or heathen, 
 is forced to make an obeisance, or else be hit on 
 the head. I saw that the place glistened with jewels, 
 but that is about all, for I was almost torn to pieces 
 directly I entced by guides, drivers, and salesmen, 
 each one shouting in a shrill, high-pitched voice 
 
 179 
 
World Pictures 
 
 that he wanted to take me down to see the manger 
 where Christ was born. In the end I refused to go, 
 so disgusted was I with the haranguing, swarming, 
 noisome pack of people. How can one think in 
 such a place as this ! And so it is wherever you 
 go in Palestine. The more holy and sacred the 
 spot, the more revolting and noisy are the crowding 
 beggars and pedlars. Hallowed Bethlehem is not 
 by any means all that one could desire. 
 
 i8o 
 
EGYPT 
 
 'fl,.Ar&^m®M 
 
1 
 
 
 I'i -. V'^i 
 
 .^r>^\ 
 
 t' 
 
/* * ' S ' 
 
CAIRO, EGYPT 
 
n 3 & 
 
 LI 
 
 ■^W'i\ 
 
 OGfiuti 
 
 "•"f 
 
 rl^i^>vX.L 
 
 f 
 A 
 
 f 
 
 or '" 
 
 <^ 
 
 (iJf 
 
 oSr ^^ MJ^^Ssi' 
 
 -4n po 
 
 -"^^'' ' ' fr-i^^^^^^ic^*, " ^ 
 
 f n 
 
 EGYPT 
 
 When I say that it was through a Sphinx at the British 
 Museum that I decided on visiting Egypt, I may be 
 accused of joking ; but the statement is literally true. 
 It came about in this way. I was at a big dinner- 
 party and felt, as one is apt to do at the end of a Lon- 
 don season, the cynicism, the affectation, the insincerity 
 of it all, and the absence of disinterested motives, 
 with decency almost hidden. The feeling impressed 
 me so strongly that I could not shake it off the next 
 day. So I strolled into the British Museum, and 
 looking listlessly about came upon a small carved head 
 of a Sphinx, which attracted me strongly. The more 
 I studied it — and I sat there for some hours — the 
 more I felt how clean and simple it was. It seemed 
 to inspire a longing to go back to a simpler civilisation 
 of thousands of years ago. Now, as the travellers 
 agree, the life of people in Egypt to-day is practi- 
 
 183 
 
World Pictures 
 
 cally unchanged, and then and there I made up my 
 mind to go to Egypt. 
 
 My motive may possibly have been to study its 
 archaeological past, but when I reached Cairo I found 
 that the Egypt of to-day was overmastering in its in- 
 terest. There the old Bible history seemed alive again 
 
 
 before my eyes. Yet it was not so much its picturesque 
 incident as its colour that fascinated me, not so much 
 the Egypt of history, but modern Egypt, with its 
 bazaar and home-life in all its vividness and full 
 rich colouring. Every bazaar, every little shop, was 
 in itself a picture full of dazzling colour, almost 
 like a flower, the strongest and most brilliant colours 
 in juxtaposition, yet all in complete harmony. In 
 Japan, in Burma, in the Spain of the Moors, I 
 found nothing so rich in tone as in Cairo. There 
 was an orange shop that I remember especially, a 
 
 184 
 
Egypt 
 
 yellow wall with a hole in it. Dilapidated wood- 
 work of a purple hue surrounded that hole, and in 
 its depths the eye gradually discovered its pictur- 
 esque wares set out for sale. A beggar — an old 
 man in a lemon-coloured gown, picked out in black 
 — stood close to the wall. The rich mixture of 
 
 orange and purple and lemon-yellow can hardly be 
 described. There are many people who might im- 
 agine that such colours could not go well together : 
 they have n't seen that street. No doubt it is the 
 brilliant sunshine that acts as a universal harmoniser 
 in bringing all these vivid colours together. Many 
 people may tell me that I exaggerated the colouring 
 of Cairo, and, if so, their criticism will make me 
 proud. For at the time I was working there, — in 
 the shade, of course, — the brightest pigments on 
 
 i8s 
 
World Pictures 
 
 my palette appeared dull and mud- 
 coloured by the side of Nature in 
 sunlight. A cheap way out of the 
 difficulty was to use white as a har- 
 moniser — that is, by making the col- 
 ours greyer, and nearer each other 
 — but for me the reign of white was 
 over. To get a vivid green with even 
 a taint of white is quite impossible. 
 The hopelessness of trying to paint 
 with a mixed palette where one has 
 to fish for the right tone oppressed me. 
 a clean picture of a clear, sunlit scene, one must 
 have a clean palette. It is n't easy to make my 
 meaning understood — but Egypt revolutionised my 
 ideas of work. Then, I despaired of distantly ap- 
 proaching the brightness of Egypt ; now, if I am 
 accused of exaggerating it, it will give me pleasure. 
 There is no living art in Egypt, but a dead art lives 
 unconsciously. The people are 
 biblical and dignified in appear- 
 ance and devoid of vulgar curi- 
 osity ; at least they appeared so 
 to me. The old men were very 
 handsome, and had wonderfully 
 fine heads. They had rarely 
 more than one eye, for the sun 
 ^and the sand — chiefly the sand 
 I fancy — afi^ects the sight. 
 Then the native doctors clap on 
 i86 
 
i 
 
 •*'»Si*r- ' >v i\ 
 
THE P V R A .AI T D S 
 
Egypt 
 
 onions, and absolutely poultice the eyes 
 out. A man with a remaining eye is a 
 lucky mortal. My servant, I recollect, 
 had only one. 
 
 Amusing experiences do not fall in 
 
 ^^T^ one's way when hard at work, but I re- 
 
 member once being well scared. I had 
 told my servant to procure me a num- 
 ber of old rags, rags that the sun had 
 tinted and softened in colour, brilliant 
 still, but changed and altered. A whole 
 street of people tumbled out of doors 
 and showered their treasures at my feet. I never saw 
 such a sight. But as the owners quarrelled over their 
 bargains, my mute admiration was interrupted by a sud- 
 den reflection. The cholera ! and at the thought of 
 my danger in buying, I hurried out with a sickly hor- 
 ror impossible to describe, and fled. My servant in- 
 sisted on completing his purchases, but I had lost 
 interest somehow, as had the rags their dangerous 
 value. 
 
 Grand Cairo, magnificent Cairo, where is her peer ? 
 The winding streets teem with people that have scarcely 
 changed in appearance or in manners these hundreds 
 of years. The same glo- 
 rious Eastern life goes 
 on before your eyes at 
 the present day. Groups 
 of natives in the most 
 gorgeous robes stand by ^^ 
 
 187 
 
World Pictures 
 
 > r ' — 4-^ 
 
 
 nr^ 
 
 — - ^'j. 
 
 the doors of their houses, in a bazaar where nothing but 
 carpets are sold, and so vast, so curious, so dark that 
 it might have been built six or seven hundred years 
 ago, or even before the Crusader, for all that one can 
 tell. Every house is hung with magnificent tapestries 
 and carpets. A shaft of sunlight streams through on 
 to a rug of vermilion and emerald green, rich as the 
 glories of the East, brilliant as the stones on the dress 
 of a harem beauty. But the luminous shadows of the 
 interior — profound and far-reaching, yet full of sub- 
 dued light and colour — are no less striking than the 
 humming-bird blues, the rubies and amethysts of the 
 draperies in sunlight. One passes coffee-houses where 
 Eastern story tellers are seated, surrounded by an ad- 
 miring mob of men and children in multi-coloured 
 Eastern robes, eagerly listening to wonderful, myste- 
 
Egypt 
 
 rious stories everywhere as \ 
 interesting as Arabian Nights ^ V 
 of the olden days ; sweets- 
 sellers with their impossible 
 dainties ; water-carriers with 
 their ancient cry ; baby don- 
 keys and their good-natured 
 drivers jostling one in the 
 narrow streets. 
 
 The finest view of Cairo 
 is to be had from way up on the citadel towards the 
 end of the day, when the wonderful mediaeval city is 
 spread beneath you, wrapt in a golden mist, with the 
 long, unbroken line of the desert in the distance, 
 purple and splendid, broken only by the misty 
 pyramids. Suddenly there is a tremendous roar from 
 the citadel. It is the sunset gun. Cairo seems but 
 just to have awakened from her midday slumber; 
 in the twinkling of an eye the streets are swarming 
 with devotees on their way to prayers ; children 
 laughing, and camels screaming, while every little 
 
 window of every house is 
 transformed into a square of 
 burnished gold. Just as 
 suddenly the scene is changed 
 once more. The sun sets 
 behind the hills ; there is a 
 ' minute or so of the unearthly 
 beauty of the after-glow, and 
 darkness reigns almost im- 
 189 
 
World Pictures 
 
 mediately, not to be relieved until the golden stars 
 come out one by one, and form a glorious canopy 
 overhead. 
 
 Cairo of late years has been built over to a very 
 great extent, and portions of it do not differ in appear- 
 
 ^1 'pia^> 
 
 ance from any ordinary French or Italian town. This 
 in some people's minds is considered an improvement, 
 but to the artist, or to the scholar, or to the person 
 who is really interested in the country for itself, it is 
 decidedly a drawback. Now, Luxor and Karnac are 
 absolutely different from Cairo in that they are not in 
 the slightest degree modernised, except perhaps for the 
 presence of one or two hotels. You pass slowly, and 
 silently, and dreamily, up the beautiful river Nile until 
 one evening, just about sunset, your Diahbeer anchors 
 off the ancient temple of Luxor. Here you are in, as 
 
 190 
 

 -i 
 
 Hffli^^'- ■ ■■■■ - ■ - '^M^' <■ 
 
 
 •e 
 
 Ihhi 
 
 •*^^5 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 
 ^^^^^^K^HpH 
 
 ^^m 
 
 1 ■ 
 
 
 '■*■ 
 
 -'•:f- !^,M 
 
 B 
 
 f0^ ■'i 
 
 * 
 
 1, ...^it^MiiH^^^^B 
 
 ,_ -^'^"^^ 
 
 ^Jjt^J 
 
 » '•'^ « 
 
 .■:.*pfiv;';'f-. ^^aH 
 
 I**!:-""'' ■'( 
 
FRUIT STALL, EGYPT 
 
Egypt 
 
 it were, the very cradle of the world's history ; you are 
 confronted with all that is most ancient, most mysteri- 
 ous, and most beautiful, in the civilisation of the 
 world. There is nothing quite so impressive, not even 
 Karnac itself, as the temple of Luxor seen at sunset. 
 
 But when you have been to the hotel, after witnessing 
 the sunset in the temple of Luxor, and the moon has 
 risen, and the stars are shining, and the absolute silence 
 of the Egyptian night has fallen over the desert, you 
 should take a trip — as most people do — to the mag- 
 nificent ruins of Karnac. I think what will strike you 
 most, with regard to Karnac, is its immense size. 
 Somehow or other, travellers have never told us, and 
 books of travel do not seem to have given us any in- 
 formation, as to the enormous size of KarnaCi When 
 
 191 
 
World Pictures 
 
 H"r> 
 
 4 
 
 
 
 I was there, two or three years ago, there were upwards 
 of three thousand men working every day at these 
 wonderful ruins. I do not suppose there is a more 
 magnificent sight in the whole world than the temple 
 of Karnac by moonlight. 
 
 But we must not linger too long in these temples of 
 Luxor and Karnac. One of the great things to do in 
 this part of the world is to ride along the valley of 
 Thebes from Luxor to the Tombs of the 
 Kings. This in itself is an experience 
 well worth undergoing. You pass be- 
 tween two splendid twin statues of Alexis 
 the Great, which sit there looking for 
 ever towards the sunrise, and then ride 
 slowly along until the great crimson des- 
 ert is reached. I use the word " crim- 
 son " advisedly, for there is nothing 
 more startling, more extraordinary, or 
 192 
 
Egypt 
 
 //. 
 
 
 
 — ^77 
 
 
 
 ^f i _ r 
 -OS. 
 
 '^-Sfc^ 
 
 more vivid, than the contrast between the green Nile 
 valley of Thebes and the brilliant crimson of the des- 
 ert into which you enter from a defile between these 
 splendid red rocks. You ride along a little way until 
 your guide stops you with the information that you 
 have reached the Tombs of the Kings. 
 
 Into these tombs you descend by steps which take 
 you sometimes as far as a hundred feet down into the 
 ground ; for Heaven alone knows how 
 long these wonderful tombs may be. 
 Here are paintings that were executed 
 over six and seven thousand years ago, 
 the colours of which are as bright and 
 clear as though they had been painted 
 yesterday. It was in one of these tombs 
 that I saw the picture of a man carry- 
 ing his chibouk over his shoulder, clearly 
 proving that the Egyptians had been ac- 
 
 193 
 
World Pictures 
 
 customed to the use of tobacco, 
 and had smoked seven thousand 
 years ago. There are several 
 other tombs here to be seen, but 
 one serves as a sample for the rest. 
 Here you get glimpses of the 
 life of the Egyptians ; the social 
 life, the literary life, the life of 
 the hunter, and the life of the 
 soldier, exactly as it was lived in 
 those far-off days, and can read 
 its history in the tombs — as indeed you can all over 
 Egypt in the old temples — exactly as you read it in 
 the Bible. Frequently vou will find that the inscrip- 
 tions on the tombs serve but as verifications of what 
 you have been accustomed to read for years and years 
 in your own Bible at home. You pass several temples 
 on the way home, details concerning which it is un- 
 necessary to give, since they are very much the same 
 in every part of Egypt. There is one thing, how- 
 ever, that is, I think, noticeable everywhere, and that 
 is the curious beautiful grey colour of these temples 
 as contrasted with the brilliant red of the desert. 
 
 One never-to-be-forgotten day I came across the 
 Sphinx. To me she is a woman no matter what 
 name she bears. My best friend — the one dear 
 and true friend which the world holds for me ; the 
 friend who lifted me out of the debasement into 
 which I had fallen and revealed to me the reality 
 and the power of Art. I have known Her in ages 
 
 194 
 
A CAIRO STREET 
 
Egypt 
 
 
 
 
 past, perhaps on the banks of the mysterious Nile, 
 perhaps in further ages still. I have loved Her, 
 and I shall love Her again in the ages to come. On 
 Her forehead is the serpent symbol of wisdom. 
 She is of the Sphinx type which died before the 
 Romans went to Egypt, — the type which belonged 
 to a past when there were gods among men. She has 
 the Sphinx conformation of brow and nostril, lip and 
 chin, the majestic simplicity, the serenity, and the might ; 
 She has the Sphinx smile, sweet, strange, and inscru- 
 table — that smile which, but for its unutterable sweet- 
 ness and sympathy, would have in its scornful curve 
 the cynical contempt of a race of gods for the inex- 
 pressible littleness of a race of men. The smile on 
 that black face seems to tell of a sublime pity, too. 
 She seems to say to me, " I have lived, I have loved, 
 I have found Art, and I am Art — Art human and 
 
 195 
 
World Pictures 
 
 divine, and for all time. I will give you comfort. I 
 will give you knowledge. I will give you strength." 
 The eyes look at me with wide pupils, and yet, when 
 I peer close, there is no definition of pupil ; the lips 
 smile at me, — that all-meaning smile. And yet so 
 simple are the curves of the mouth that it is as if a 
 child had modelled them ; so simple those grand restful 
 eyebrows, that a child's finger might have laid them 
 on ; so strong and so simple the moulding of the nos- 
 tril and of the chin, that it is scarcely possible to think 
 of them as having been made by men. Here is 
 breadth and simplicity in truth. How is it done ? 
 Where is the technique ? There is none. Where is 
 the art ? We cannot tell. It baffles us, it is Art itself 
 We know only that this thing is, and that it is great. 
 
 Whenever I am lonely now, and dispirited, and 
 soiled with the grime of modern London — its social 
 and artistic vanities and pettinesses, its meannesses, its 
 // hypocrisies, and its sordid cring- 
 ings, when the sense of hopeless- 
 ness and degradation lies heavily 
 upon me, I wander into the Egyp- 
 tian Court of the British Museum. 
 There I find a friend. It is only 
 a little black woman's head, placed 
 on a pedestal close by one of the 
 windows ; but once more I come 
 away soothed, and strengthened, 
 and cleansed. 
 
 196 
 
SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 
 

 
 .M ' /. \ 
 
NEAR KIMBERLEY, SOUTH AFRICA 
 
SOUTH AFRICA 
 
 That part of South Africa which appealed to me most 
 was not the gorgeous tropical scenery, so raved over 
 by tourists, which has given to Natal the nickname 
 of the " garden colony," but strangely enough the 
 scenery round about Cape Town. Natal has a certain 
 beauty, but it is a beauty that one can see anywhere ; 
 it has no distinctive character of its own. The trees 
 and foliage there are vivid green, the glossy green of 
 the magnolia, the palm, and the camellia mingle in a 
 tangle of tropical vegetation. The country is luxurious 
 almost to unhealthiness, that is to say. Nature seems to 
 have got beyond herself, to be in a state of hysteria, 
 she creates freaks, and bursts out in all sorts of unex- 
 pected places. For instance, you will often see a tree 
 with its fruit or flowers growing from out of the stem. 
 There is no reserve about it, and one would so much 
 rather it had waited and come out quietly in the proper 
 place. 
 
 199 
 
World Pictures 
 
 If you want to picture to yourself the colouring of 
 Natal look at a pineapple. There you have all the 
 colours of its rich scenes combined in the one little 
 fruit, — yellow, gold, orange, brown, and green. Hold 
 up a pineapple out of doors, anywhere you may choose 
 in Natal, and you will see the truth of this statement ; 
 
 
 
 the fruit becomes so merged into the landscape as to 
 be almost indistinguishable from it. 
 
 Most people rushing on their way to Natal and the 
 Orange Free State, money-making or pleasure-seeking, 
 never glance at Cape Town and its beautiful surround- 
 ings. 
 
 To me, that is the most fascinating part of South 
 Africa. There is Sea Point, Wynberg, Rondebosch, 
 Groote Schoor, Paarl, and a hundred lovely districts I 
 could mention, each and every one with landscapes far 
 more attractive in their sweeping breadth and cool sil- 
 ver colouring than any others to be found in the whole 
 extent of South Africa. I have heard the scenery de- 
 
South Africa 
 
 scribed by unthinking strangers as monotonous ; but to 
 me this so-called monotony serves but to give value to 
 the exquisite colour-changes that are continually taking 
 place. At midday, when the sun was at its zenith, 
 the landscape appeared to be more or less of the colour 
 which is described as khaki ; but after a violent down- 
 pour, leaving the veldt one sheet of water, the scene 
 
 \ -^^^ffl 
 
 '^^»s 
 
 » \ -^A ' Ji al\ 
 
 
 
 -^.•4^- 
 
 changed from dull gold to a sweep of deep rich purple. 
 The colours varied so continually at sunrise, at sunset, 
 in shadow, and in sunshine, and with such extraordi- 
 nary rapidity that within a single hour there were a 
 dozen violent changes in effect. Yet there was invari- 
 ably one point of similarity in these scenes, however 
 marked the contrast: the colouring was always cool 
 and silvery. Even the white of the little Dutch farms 
 that seemed to form a part of the South African land- 
 scape had brilliant touches of cool spring green in the 
 shutters, and the warm tones in the sky at sunset in- 
 clined rather to rose than vermilion, rather to violet 
 than yellow. 
 
World Pictures 
 
 
 
 The veldt never has been described and never will 
 be described, because it is indescribable. It exercised a 
 strange, subtle influence over me for which I could not 
 account. It may have been its vastness, or its beauty, 
 — I cannot tell ; I only know that it took possession 
 of me, that it filled me with a sensation of joy and 
 greatness, that it made me feel a better man. In its 
 vastness and grand simplicity it impressed me very 
 much as did my first glimpse of the Sphinx ; and this 
 impression, after living for four months on the veldt, 
 changed not but grew stronger. 
 
 Now that my journey is at an end, and I look back 
 upon those months of campaigning, I cannot help think- 
 ing of how little men, who have not lived in the country, 
 or have not seen the veldt, can realise the tremendous 
 influence it exercises upon the people, and how utterly 
 impossible it would be to attempt to pacify and govern 
 the two Republics without a thorough knowledge of 
 the conditions under which their inhabitants live. One 
 cannot ignore the influence of the veldt, for it will not 
 
 202 
 
HILL COUNTRY NEAR BLOEMFONTEIN 
 
South Africa 
 
 be ignored. It draws men together, however antago- 
 nistic they may be, and whenever they may meet else- 
 where the power of that association will still influence 
 them. 
 
 Yet at the same time one realises that the Boers, for 
 whom it is the ideal home, are the only people in the 
 world that could live permanently on the veldt ; a Eu- 
 ropean would find it dreary, desolate, and well-nigh 
 intolerable. 
 
 203 
 
INDIA 
 

 li^m^mmi 
 
A SEED STALL, DELHL INDIA 
 

 ^ I 
 
 INDIA 
 
 My first impression of India was a very splendid one 
 indeed. I found myself, when landing at Bombay, in 
 the ancient portion of the town, surrounded by a 
 wealth of colour, in an atmosphere of radiating light, 
 freshness, and brilliancy. India surpassed my wildest 
 expectations ; the scenes I saw fired my brain, quickened 
 my pulses, and filled my soul with a mad and eager 
 longing to paint, paint, paint, now and at once. But 
 alas ! my colour box did not hold such pigment ; the 
 brightest colours in my tubes appeared but dull and 
 faded, and would not nearly correspond to the glowing 
 tones of earth and sky, houses and shops, and of the 
 ever-changing multitudes that thronged and filled the 
 streets and scenes about me. I wanted something 
 purer, brighter, fresher ; this was not a gold country 
 or a blue country, but a country which demanded the 
 full range of my palette. I used it, but only suc- 
 ceeded in creating mud, sombre and hopeless. Even 
 my sheet of Whatman's paper seemed by comparison 
 
 207 
 
World Pictures 
 
 more true, and to match more nearly the sparkling 
 clearness and brilliancy of the scenes. With dis- 
 couragement and despair fast settling on my spirit I 
 wandered about the city, drinking in with eager eyes 
 the glories that were denied to my brush. Men and 
 women of all races pushed and jostled me in the 
 narrow thoroughfare ; there were slender Bengalese, 
 Pathans, Portuguese and Parsees, Malays and Mhugs, 
 Chinamen, and here and there a British soldier or 
 sailor, elbowing his way with characteristic national 
 persistency. Carts and carriages of grotesque ap- 
 pearance, drawn by meek-eyed bullocks, gently pushed 
 and forced themselves among us. 
 
 The houses on either side the road were of every 
 kind of structure. Some were stately edifices, others 
 mere huts ; one and all were bright with reds and 
 greens and golds, and rich with massive carvings. 
 
 208 
 
BAZAAR AT DELHI 
 
India 
 
 Shops could be seen everywhere, with their owners, 
 grain sellers, idol sellers, money changers, sellers of 
 sweetmeats, workers in silver and gold, squatting 
 white-robed within them. The shop-fronts were decked 
 with indescribable mosaics of gold-coloured matting 
 and bamboo, each arranged in a different pattern, with 
 endless variety of invention. The whole city seemed, 
 as it were, a kaleidoscopic jumble of moving flower- 
 beds, bright with endless varieties of colour, dazzling 
 to the sight and changing with bewildering rapid- 
 ity. How is it possible, I thought to myself, that 
 gorgeous and varied colours such as these, gathered 
 together in one small street, can be made to blend and 
 harmonise ? Is it that 
 the natural taste of the 
 people is more perfect 
 than that of any other 
 nation, in the East, or 
 the West, or on the 
 face of the globe ? No, 
 it is the sun that tones 
 the colouring of India 
 so greatly. Wherever 
 one goes one cannot 
 but feel its power as a 
 harmoniser ; — the cos- 
 tumes of the people 
 by it are made beauti- 
 ful ; colours which in 
 the rays of our pale 
 
 209 
 
World Pictures 
 
 and flickering Western sun 
 appear crude and vicious 
 here are enveloped in its 
 wondrous golden embrace 
 and literally forced to har- 
 monise. 
 
 India, unlike any country 
 I had yet visited, unlike 
 Japan or China, was a gor- 
 geous country, a country 
 that boasted fine architecture, magnificent temples and 
 mosques of exquisite workmanship, teeming with full 
 and sumptuous colour. Palaces met one on every 
 side, side by side with hovels unfit for pigs, mere 
 holes in the earth, inhabited by whole families of 
 wretched natives, who live there all their lives long. 
 Over the native himself a veil is drawn ; no European 
 can understand him and therefore nothing can be said. 
 My first object in India was to catch sunlight, to 
 mirror the bright light as it burned hour by hour on 
 the temples and on the pal- ;,^ 
 
 aces in the land of the 
 Princes, bleaching the walls fe'i^' W 
 
 and making them look 
 whiter than they are, and 
 illuminating the thousand '."iLp,'*' 
 and one pinnacles as if each M^:^^§^^m^ 
 was a settmg or precious gff^^[^ .■■r, ■.:■■■■ fM 
 stones. Shall I ever forget 
 my first sight of the Taj ? 
 
 2IO 
 
THE PORCELAIN DOME, AMRTTSAR, INDIA 
 
I was travelling in the railway train to Agra, and hav- 
 ing the compartment to myself, was stretched at full 
 length on the seat, sleeping and dreaming frantically. 
 As I awoke I saw a bubble, a huge variegated bubble 
 of a million dainty colours reflected in the window 
 opposite to me. For a moment it seemed a part of 
 my dreams, but glancing over my shoulder I saw the 
 original, a most fine and elegant building, of faultless 
 proportions, a triumph of architecture. It was of 
 white marble, exquisitely sculptured and inlaid with 
 colours and jewels, a thousand golden ornaments and 
 minarets. The great dome swelled heavenwards and 
 tapered to a point. It was all glittering and bathed in 
 that warm orange light which only the setting sun 
 sheds. It is impossible to describe the Taj, because 
 there is nothing in the world like it, except perhaps 
 
World Pictures 
 
 a bubble from which I think the architect must have 
 taken his inspiration. Over and over again I have 
 seen artists attempting to paint the temple, at all times 
 of the day, in early dawn, at midday in a perfect blaze 
 of sun when the sky shows a vivid blue and the 
 temple a clear luminous white, at sunset, and in 
 
 
 twilight, and yet there has never been a picture 
 painted in oil or in water-colours conveying the 
 faintest idea of the Taj as I saw it. But my most 
 vivid recollections and remembrances of India and 
 those which are chiefly impressed upon my mind are 
 not of the beautiful palaces nor the fortresses, not so 
 much the memory of the Taj and its marvellous echo 
 within, but, strangely enough, of the smell of the 
 
I 
 
 THF TAJ AT AGRA 
 
India 
 
 dry dust, a curious acrid smell — I have it in my 
 nostrils still. It lingers not unpleasantly, for it wove 
 itself into this ancient place, ancient yet so novel to 
 me, and it brings back to me now all those first 
 impressions and novel sensations which make a coun- 
 try dear to one. 
 
 On my first morning at Delhi I roamed idly about 
 in a temple courtyard enjoying myself. The heat of 
 India was above and around me ; the clanging of ham- 
 mers, silver bells, and ornaments sounded in my ears. 
 Turning sharply round to look at a fruit-stall, I sud- 
 denly banged up against a great stone-coloured sacred 
 bull, an odious character, a pompous, rampant, super- 
 cilious brute, straying about the streets, walking straight 
 through the throng of the people and knocking them 
 
 213 
 
World Pictures 
 
 
 
 down right and left like ninepins. They picked them- 
 selves up smilingly, and no doubt considered it a great 
 privilege to be thus treated. Anyhow, they were all 
 frightfully kind to the beast, feeding and petting it 
 outrageously. When it came pounding along towards 
 me I raised my stick and struck it a sounding thwack 1 
 Cries of indignation were raised on every side, even 
 from the Mohammedans ; and the Brahmin bull, who 
 had never received such treatment before, was more 
 indignant than anybody. So indignant, in fact, was he 
 that I found it neces- 
 sary to remove myself, 
 as far and as quickly 
 as possible, from his 
 neighbourhood. 
 
 With an artistic 
 prospect so boundless 
 as the daily life of the 
 214 
 
THE GOLDEN TEMPLE, AMRITSAR, INDIA. 
 
India 
 
 people, their picturesque costumes, street, river, and 
 holiday scenes in Peshawur, Lahore, Delhi, Amritsar, 
 Jeypore, Ajmere, on the Shelum, the Ganges, and the 
 Irrawaddy, it would be strange indeed if an artist could 
 not find abundant scope for his efforts. 
 
 
 '"■^oV,: 
 
 ';Uj'*^l#;.!i;#,ir,)£ 
 
 But Benares, the greatest opium city of the world, 
 is in my opinion the most decorative place in all India. 
 It is an abounding delight to the artist and altogether 
 indescribable. I spent three days in a boat on the 
 river watching the panorama on the shore, and mak- 
 ing a hundred sketches, of which only two or three 
 were at all satisfactory. It would take a lifetime to 
 paint the place as it deserves ; one is choked with 
 material. It is quite hopeless to paint on ordinary 
 oil-coated panels. The only way to approach the 
 atmospheric brilliancy is to paint on a ground of pure 
 
 215 
 
World Pictures 
 
 Chinese white, and even then the result is disappoint- 
 ing. Nothing in the world resembles the colour of 
 Benares ; no pigment can reproduce it. The chief 
 element is its tremendous brilliancy. Thousands upon 
 thousands of small boats float on the holy river, and 
 as many people, all sick and dying Hindoos, bathe from 
 
 
 ^^ffl^tt^^ 
 
 
 its tawny banks in multi-coloured raiment, bright be- 
 yond description. The houses of the town are pinkish 
 white in colour. Little ramshackle jetties, loaded with 
 people, some of whom are seated and others praying, 
 jut out on to the river ; both river and shore are one 
 seething mass of humanity. It was at Benares that I 
 was taken to see a little old woman living in a dug- 
 out cave, a holy woman who, by strong hypnotic 
 power or by a simple juggler's trick, I know not 
 
 216 
 
M S L E M WOMEN 
 
India 
 
 which, distinctly rose up in 
 the air some feet from the 
 ground and slowly de- 
 scended again before our 
 eyes. In broad daylight 
 this was rather disconcert- 
 
 
 m 
 
 I sat down to paint a 
 
 g- 
 
 The holy city of Mootra 
 is always associated in my 
 mind with monkeys; there 
 were monkeys everywhere, 
 temple, but monkeys climbed on my shoulders, mon- 
 keys picked up my colour tubes and squeezed them 
 dry, monkeys peered mockingly into my face, plucked 
 out my hairs one by one, and gloated and gibbered 
 over them. Yet I dared not touch them, for these 
 little demons were supposed to be holy ; rather was 
 I exceedingly polite to them, almost deferential, in fact, 
 in my manner. A friend of mine, an artist, once went 
 to Mootra ; but he has never been since, for he is a 
 marked man there. He was capti- 
 vated by a baby monkey, a charm- 
 ing little creature, and so he tucked 
 it under his arm one day and made 
 off with it. He had not taken two 
 steps before the hue and cry was 
 raised all over monkeydom, and 
 instantly thousands of monkeys 
 swarmed upon every roof and door- 
 way and rushed pellmell upon the 
 217 
 
World Pictures 
 
 
 unfortunate man. They chased him over walls, in 
 and out of ditches, ferreted him out from hiding 
 places, until, panting and exhausted, he arrived at his 
 hotel with all the monkeys of Mootra at his heels, 
 rampant, and demanding their brother. The mon- 
 key was instantly given up, but the transgression 
 was never forgotten or forgiven. That man, on pain 
 of death, was not able to show his face outside the 
 
 hotel door, and he was forced 
 : rapidly and ignominiously to 
 llf depart from Mootra under 
 ^}^ cover of night. He has never 
 been there since, for fear of 
 
 iSM^f!/f,''- --ecognition, so keen and re 
 
 'Wim^'^ 
 
 \ tentive is a monkey's mem- 
 ory reputed to be. It was at 
 Mootra that I saw one of the 
 
 218 
 
JEYPORE, INDIA 
 
India 
 
 most extraordinary and interesting sights possible — a 
 contest of knavery between a crow, the most artful bird 
 extant, and a holy monkey. A monkey sat on a wall 
 with his head on one side, apparently wrapped in deep 
 slumber ; a plate of food stood before him, A crow 
 approached from some few yards off, hopping cau- 
 tiously backwards and forwards 
 and from side to side. Its small, 
 beady eyes glanced swiftly now 
 and again at the sleeping monkey, 
 and between times took in the 
 landscape with several sharp sur- 
 veys. Approaching close to the 
 dish, but still keeping a cautious 
 lookout, it made one frantic grab 
 at the meat, as swift as light- 
 ning ; but the monkey, who must 
 
 219 
 
World Pictures 
 
 have had a slit open somewhere, was quicker still, 
 pounced down from the wall, and collared that crow. 
 And then a most awful scene ensued. The monkey, 
 who, by the by, was the most wide-awake animal I 
 
 have ever come across, certainly chuckled with dia- 
 bolical glee, as he climbed back to his perch, and, sit- 
 ting on one leg of the crow, he pulled the other wide 
 apart, and began deliberately and slowly to pluck out 
 the feathers one by one. And so I left the pious 
 monkey having a perfectly glorious time. This is cer- 
 tainly not the type of person to be trifled with, — 
 hence my gentleness and forbearance. 
 
TOWN OF AMRITSAR 
 
India 
 
 At Jeypore I began to work very hard and in ear- 
 nest, for the place fascinated me. It reminded me 
 of nothing so much as Dickens's description of 
 his house in the south of France — "the pink jail." 
 Jeypore is a collection of pink jails : all the houses 
 are painted pink, and some have latticed and barred 
 windows. Colour, air, and sunshine are alike lovely, 
 and every bazaar glows in the clear light like a bunch 
 
 j^ffWi'' 
 
 yt 
 
 4 SJ'^^K- 1\ , ^. 
 
 
 
 of orchids. The costumes are beyond description for 
 variety and beauty of colour. In the afternoon when 
 the sun is losing power, everybody turns out to a 
 kind of celestial Rag Fair. Jeypore is beautiful 
 because it was treated as a city should be treated. It 
 was made a pink city in one day, when the authorities 
 distempered the whole place, before the visit of the 
 Prince of Wales to India many years ago. This 
 pink city at night when the sun sets takes an old 
 
 221 
 
World Pictures 
 
 rose-red tone, faint heliotropes appear, then bluey 
 tints and purple, whilst three deep rose tones are re- 
 flected in the sky in a higher key. Of all my im- 
 pressions of India perhaps this one is the most vivid, 
 the rose-red city towards evening with the glowing 
 white robes of the people, which created a harmony of 
 old rose and silver unequalled by anything I have 
 
 :ii:C|,,|^tfr^ 
 
 \ 
 
 
 -:^^:^4im 
 
 
 ever seen. If one takes up a stand at a street corner 
 some most extraordinary ai|jl startling outfits are to 
 be seen in Jeypore in the way of carts. A camel at- 
 tached to a carriage will pass by, then a couple of oxen 
 drawing a cart that must certainly have been designed 
 in the days before the flood. There are also leopards 
 and lions pulling small chariots for all the world like 
 a circus, but the whole is most picturesque in effect. 
 
 In Hyderabad, that most gorgeous and sumptuous 
 of cities, there is noticeable everywhere a strange 
 mingling of the modernity of life with absolute 
 
India 
 
 mediasvalism. On the Rotten Row great noblemen 
 sweep by in smart up-to-date equipages made in Long 
 Acre, with fine horses and bran-new trappings, followed 
 by retinues which must most certainly have existed 
 five hundred years ago, and even in the time of the 
 Saracens. There are superb Parsees dressed in chain 
 armour, whirling their rifles about so vigorously and so 
 
 ferociously that one is quite terrified as they pass. As 
 I swung in a graceful rocking movement through the 
 streets, holding a superior view of the city from my 
 elevated position on the back of a monstrous elephant, 
 I seemed, almost in a moment, to be transported back 
 to the days of the old "Arabian Nights" of long ago. 
 Being the only European in the city that afternoon, — 
 for the natives were rather fanatical just then, and one 
 generally requires a small escort, — I enjoyed myself 
 thoroughly, despite the fact that I had spent one long 
 weary morning learning to climb on to my dignified 
 
 223 
 
World Pictures 
 
 mount, and was spending as much time now in en- 
 devouring to keep on it. 
 
 I found myself in a place that has been very rightly 
 described as the hot-bed of intrigue. Scandal, malice, 
 and mystery lurked behind every lattice. As I passed 
 houses luscious with colours of yellow and orange, I 
 could almost hear the whisperings of the women and 
 the stealthy rustling of their silken garments. One 
 learns from the rhapsodies of Hindoo writers that the 
 ladies of India are exceedingly beautiful — that they 
 have locks as black as the clouds of June, and brows 
 as bright as the autumn moon. By European writ- 
 ers, also, much has been said of their costume and of 
 their beauty, but I never saw an Indian lady, except 
 on rare occasions when one of their little gilded cars 
 chanced to pass me by ; regular little moving temples 
 
 224 
 
NAUTCH GIRLS, INDIA 
 
India 
 
 they are, gorgeous with carvings and bright colours, 
 when I caught a swift glance of a fair female face peep- 
 ing out. One sees many women about the streets sit- 
 ting before their houses or carrying burdens ; in fact, 
 the country swarms with them, but the great ladies are 
 secluded. At the village wells, which have been very 
 truly described in the Bible as being the centre of life, 
 women are to be seen in great abundance, dressed in 
 bright purples and reds, chatting and laughing gaily 
 with the men, as they draw their daily portion of 
 water. The wells are particularly remarkable in 
 Hyderabad, whence, by the way, I seem to have 
 wandered. 
 
 On the outskirts of the city, as I and Jumbo were 
 wending our way homeward that memorable afternoon, 
 we came across a small Indian boy, who, as we passed, 
 began to laugh mischievously and to beat upon an 
 empty biscuit tin which 
 bore the name of Messrs. 
 Huntly and Palmer. We Qil^JJ'tf I, ,, , 
 passed in dignified silence, 5-?|fg J1 l^^jO^S^! \- 
 taking not the slightest no- '^"^^^^ ■] iL^jl X||l 
 
 tice or the noise ; but un- j5_ 
 
 fortunately for us, a buzzing ~^^~^\\ jj )'/ ) !'[ ' 1 1 j ', i\ >i \ 
 nest of bees close by no- ,/l 
 ticed it very particularly, "^ 
 and evidently taking it into "^ 
 their stupid heads that the — ^ 
 elephant and I had beaten ^ 
 
 the tin expressly to annoy 
 
 225 
 
World Pictures 
 
 thenij they came swarming after us in one huge wave. 
 Certain death stared us in the face when, contrary to 
 my expectations, Jumbo heroically rose to the situa- 
 tion, put on his smartest pace, and literally sprinted 
 along the edge of the cHfF. I clung to his neck, as 
 his huge bulk swayed backwards and forwards over a 
 
 4^ >-^A. , , 
 
 'f, 
 
 i! ^i 
 
 
 yawning precipice certainly not less than eight hundred 
 feet in depth. However, we left the enemy behind 
 us and returned home in safety. That was a disgust- 
 ing experience, and frightened me even more than the 
 episode of the leopard who sneezed on me, although 
 that, too, was by no means a pleasant sensation. I 
 was coming home from dinner late one moonlight 
 night, accompanied by my servant, when from a hedge 
 close by I heard a heavy depressed sigh, followed by 
 a huge sneeze which sprinkled me all over. I looked 
 up and saw a leopard with great green eyes smiling 
 contentedly with relief at his convulsion. " Leopard 
 
 226 
 
India 
 
 coughing," said my servant. " Master running," 
 said I ; and suited the action to the word. 
 
 In Hyderabad, I stayed with some delightful people 
 who were just then in the throes of that not unmixed 
 joy, house-decorating. The wife, who was by way of 
 being artistic, persuaded me to help her with one of the 
 rooms, the dining-room I think it was. I accepted, 
 
 W^nn^,rtf^} '\- 
 
 
 z^ — I. 1-7%== 
 
 
 sri-^-. 
 
 partly out of affection for them, and partly because I 
 was curious to see something of the Indian artisan. 
 The experience damped any preconceived ideas I may 
 have entertained of building a house in India. There 
 were twenty-five painters in the one room, besides innu- 
 merable servants. A week was occupied in procuring 
 size to mix with the distemper for the walls ; brushes 
 were not to be got at all. The men had not the faintest 
 idea of technique or how to handle paint, and they 
 dabbed it on the walls by aid of small, hard bits of 
 cotton-wool rolled into tiny balls. Nevertheless, they 
 showed a certain appreciation of colour and a facility in 
 
 227 
 
World Pictures 
 
 matching tones, ^uch as the ablest of our skilled British 
 workmen could riot equal. I met in this same house 
 one of the clergymen attached to a most scholarly and 
 
 learned mission 
 who had come 
 try to convert 
 Brahmins and 
 men who possess 
 vated and subtle 
 world. I was 
 how the mission 
 and that gave 
 vulgar question, 
 many converts 
 the previous 
 not sure of him 
 ly repHed. This 
 
 from Cambridge, 
 out to India to 
 the high - class 
 Mohammedans, 
 the most culti- 
 intellects in the 
 anxious to know 
 was progressing, 
 rise to a rather 
 I asked him how 
 he had made in 
 year. " One, and 
 either," he frank- 
 to tal seemed 
 
 rather discouraging as the result of a whole year's hard 
 work by a dozen or so of England's finest scholars, 
 but the clergyman assured me that it was better to 
 win over one man than to net them in sackfuls, as a 
 minister, whose sect shall be nameless, once did — 
 twenty-five thousand joyous, happy converts in the 
 course of a few short months. 
 
 The temples of India are perfect paradises for the 
 etcher : he finds such marvellous lattice work ; such 
 domes — some of copper richly gilt, others of blue 
 porcelain, and green and gold enamel ; such lofty sculp- 
 tured arches ; and marble minarets of exquisite beauty 
 
 and proportion, with colours like an angel's dream. 
 
 228 
 

DELHI 
 
India 
 
 The golden temple of Amritsar, a solid golden temple 
 blazing in the afternoon sun, with a perfect counterpart 
 of its magnificent self reflected in the smooth waters of 
 the river beneath, is perhaps the most beautiful of all. 
 If you wish to be reminded of the grand monuments 
 which many of the great of India raised to the memories 
 of their consorts, you have simply to turn your eyes to 
 Oodeen's Tomb where the faithful are seen on the ver- 
 andah standing in dreamy attitudes, for it is their custom 
 to assemble here to wish, and to dream, and to build 
 castles in the air, under rich-coloured rugs of Persia, 
 which serve as blinds when the sun makes it too hot 
 to gaze out on the open courtyard. No one but Mr. 
 Rudyard Kipling has shown us the true India ; the 
 Moslem lounging in the little blind house on the city 
 wall, the Hindoo of Hindooism in the bazaar and the 
 temple, and the Hindoo of English service, lurking 
 about the compound of the Sahib. By his work alone 
 we are enabled to see the blaze of Oriental colour, 
 through the sobering gaze of a northern temperament. 
 He has shown us Indian children, Indian night, and 
 Indian winter ; he has convinced us of the India of 
 byways, suburbs, country roads, daily labour, and 
 *' universal sun;" he has given us scenes that reveal 
 the full, common, but alien vitality of the race and 
 the place. 
 
 229 
 
CASHMERE 
 
AT SRINIGAR, CASHMERE 
 
CASHMERE 
 
 Cashmere is a perfect etcher's paradise, full of small 
 and graceful form. It is the quaintest place imagin- 
 able, for the houses look as if they had been sitting up 
 all night, or as if they had been engaged in a sort of 
 diabolical dance, and had been struck stationary in the 
 midst of it, for no two of them are at the same angle. 
 Syrinagar is perhaps the ideal city for the etcher and 
 master of line ; there are bridges composed of myriads 
 of blocks of wood, irregular buildings looking almost 
 like lacework of wood, beginning with a plain white 
 wall, probably dazzling with sunshine, and getting 
 richer and richer, until they culminate at the top 
 in a perfect blaze of detail and masses of flowers. In 
 fact, these Cashmere houses seem in their dainty 
 structure to resemble nothing more closely than 
 flowers. One cannot help thinking that if James 
 MacNeill Whistler could only be let loose for a while 
 in Cashmere, what joys there would be for the col- 
 lector and art lover. 
 
 233 
 
World Pictures 
 
 
 
 I myself lived for some months in a boat on 
 the Jhelum, and this is, without doubt, the dreamiest 
 and most beautiful life imaginable. One drifts lazily- 
 down a golden river, bound in with hills of blue, 
 and lying beneath a pale green sky. At sundown 
 the water changes to a bluish grey, and how well 
 the grey sky, mixed with opul tints, with a crimson 
 ^^--- dash of the setting sun, 
 'F^^^^Sff^' is reflected on its calm 
 Irf".' surface, while the banks 
 Iw' and the groves of wood 
 '%/ behind are bathed in a 
 mystic atmosphere of 
 greenish mist ! At noon, 
 numerous figures in col- 
 oured dresses are to be 
 seen seated on rafts, and 
 on steps, under big um- 
 234 
 
I 
 
I 
 
 FAMILY OF NOMADIC TRIBE 
 
Cash 
 
 mere 
 
 brellas, trying to catch a breath of the air, as it 
 now and then wafts itself in warm gusts across the 
 river ; and a Cashmere family of small brown babies, 
 clad in red and blue, at play on the edge of the river, 
 is a charming subject for a picture. Many bold and 
 rich effects can be obtained by painting an Eastern 
 city at the hottest hour ; there is the dull green river, 
 with brown steps leading to it, perhaps a white arch- 
 way, with delicate foliage of tender green, and a clear 
 blue sky, and all these details gain tone from the 
 dark shadow within the archway. It sounds crude 
 on paper, and many an artist would make it so on 
 canvas ; to be successful one must be able to triumph 
 over the difficulties of blending strong colour in a 
 strong light. 
 
 Everybody is prepared to find picturesqueness 
 
 - / . 
 
 235 
 
World Pictures 
 
 
 :^ 
 
 in Japan, while, on the other hand, almost all the 
 artists and writers, with the exception of one or two, 
 who have painted or treated Indian subjects since 
 India became British, have left an ineffaceable impres- 
 sion of dulness on the mind. The dulness must 
 have been in the artist or in the critic ; it most 
 certainly is not in the ancient cities, with their 
 streets, temples, and natives, which are mines of 
 picturesque beauty, boundless fields for the work of 
 the artist. Until quite lately, India was as much 
 given over to ready-made art and gaudy convention 
 as the Italy of half a century ago, when all the women 
 wore laced bodices and " tovaglie," all the men Tyro- 
 
SAPOOR, CASHMERE 
 
Cashmere 
 
 lean hats, and all the landscapes had balustrade fore- 
 grounds. The East is not the East save in her own 
 light. The sun is the centre and the ruler of her 
 life, and art has not been trained to serve the sun. 
 Unfortunately, a short tour in India seems to pro- 
 
 ^--/^^ 
 
 
 J 
 
 vide a man with sufficient material for dull studio 
 pictures painted at leisure in Bohemia to last him 
 his lifetime. He puts in plenty of hot coppery 
 colour, cobalt skies, hard blue shadows, and burning 
 midday light ; but the more violent and metallic 
 the colour, the less the illumination, and his big 
 canvases, outdoing one another in strong yellow 
 and indomitable blue, never show a touch of the 
 luminosity of even a London sky. 
 
 I have seen India in every possible aspect, its 
 
 237 
 
World Pictures 
 
 churches and houses, 
 its streets with native 
 shops and workers in 
 brass and metal, its 
 sacred rivers with their 
 house-boats and pil- 
 grims ; and my opinion 
 is, that the aesthetic and 
 artistic possibilities, in 
 various forms, that are 
 to be found in our great 
 Indian Empire — that 
 empire of which every 
 Englishman is so justly 
 proud, and of which most Englishmen know so little 
 — are not to be surpassed in any country on the face 
 of the globe. If a depreciator of India's charms and 
 picturesqueness could but see a pink homestead, sweet 
 in colour, abutting on the river wherein it is reflected 
 in opalescent shadows, or catch a glimpse of Cashmere 
 through its pearly haze, with the women seated, like 
 queens of merchandise, at the street corners or in the 
 bazaars vending their goods, the men, when labour is 
 done, sitting at the door of an inn in grey bernouses 
 enjoying their pipes and coffee, or a belle of Cash- 
 mere with a gorgeous veil all wrought in gold and her 
 ears richly bedizened with the wonderful gold work 
 o^ Jeypore, — surely he, too, would succumb to her 
 charms and frankly admit that the great Indian Em- 
 pire is the home of loveliness and beauty. 
 
 238 
 
- -/^- 
 
RIVER DWELLING AT SRINAGAR 
 
Cash 
 
 mere 
 
 When I painted in Cashmere, my great wish was to 
 realise the brilliancy of Indian sunlight, to represent 
 the dazzling luminosity of the atmospheric effects, 
 rather than to make studies of the local colour and 
 native types. As a means to the end, I adopted a 
 particular manner of using oil paint, applying it to my 
 canvas in such a way that the sur- 
 face of each picture had something 
 of the quality of pastel. By this 
 device, and by avoiding hard de- 
 finition in the rendering of light or 
 shade masses, I succeeded, I think, 
 in fairly suggesting the curious 
 shimmer of heat, and the blaze of 
 light which in the tropics bleaches 
 even the most vivid colours and 
 modifies them to a harmony of 
 warm greys. 
 
 239 
 
World Pictures 
 
 Once when travelling 
 in Cashmere I and my 
 daughter had a very 
 narrow escape. Our 
 guide had gone on be- 
 fore to prepare a meal 
 for us at the next dak 
 bungalow and somehow 
 or other we lost our 
 way. To add to our 
 discomfort, we knew 
 that just about this time people were being murdered 
 right and left by the natives for a rupee or two. 
 Night came on, dark purple night, and it was im- 
 possible to see a foot ahead. We could not even guide 
 our horses, but trusted rather to their instinct. Yet, 
 for all we knew, they might at any moment dash us 
 over a precipice into the water thousands of feet below. 
 The loneliness of that ride 
 was simply petrifying. Sud- :iisf~^,^f| 
 denly, in the distance we saw '^ 
 a light, and as we drew 
 nearer we could detect little 
 black forms jumping in front 
 of it. Presently two lights 
 detached themselves from 
 the general mass, and came 
 moving towards us. As 
 they approached, we dis- 
 covered that they were car- 
 
 240 
 
A SINGING GIRL, CASHMERE 
 
Cash 
 
 mere 
 
 ried by black men, giants, as they seemed to us In our 
 fear. They advanced, waving flaming natural torches, 
 made of boughs of trees, above their heads, and shout- 
 ing in hoarse voices. They dashed straight up to us, 
 swung me oflF my horse on to their shoulders, as though 
 I were a feather-weight, while another man led my 
 daughter's pony. We thought that our last moment 
 had come, that they were about to murder us, crucify 
 us, or hack us in pieces. My daughter told me after- 
 wards that she had thought during the few hours that 
 followed of everything she had ever done or said ; she 
 had even thought of the back-garden and the fowl-run. 
 For my part, I endeavoured to be very polite, and 
 from my undignified position I even tried to bow, and 
 to flatter our captors on their personal appearance, 
 though it was in a small, faint voice. They took not 
 the slightest notice of either of us, however, but 
 trudged on and on for about six miles. Suddenly 
 they stopped, and laid us down very gently on the 
 
 241 
 
World Pictures 
 
 steps of our own dak bungalow, took our horses 
 round to the back to be cared for, and slipped quietly 
 off, without a word> and without even a request for a 
 tip. 
 
 This was our last adventure in Cashmere. 
 
 242 
 
BURMA 
 
 ._^^ ^gj ^m? ^m^mjiR.^ — ^-r.^.r-.^.-^ . ^ 
 

gg|: 
 
 ^^n^^ 
 
 
 
 .' ....'v-Jw. V.:,:*.5 
 
 
 
 ft. ' A- 
 
 J, 
 
 
 
 Bt-^-^ 
 
 
 A 
 
 
 'i^.vSfr*:^i*«ffrr-^-rfcr 
 
 ,.»n' ni ;^ >»a i C i'l i m , - 
 
"on the road to mandalay" 
 
=^"fr^ 
 
 ■% 
 
 <-4^.^'- 
 
 
 : .^'^ 
 
 iM 
 
 
 
 BURMA 
 
 On the way to Mandalay I met a remarkably pretty 
 little Burmese girl. She got into the same railway 
 carriage with me, and her small face wore an expres- 
 sion of such unutterable grief that I felt constrained 
 to say something to her. " Can you speak English ? " 
 I asked in a loud, clear voice. With the prettiest, 
 sobbing, broken accent I have ever heard, she answered, 
 " Just a little." " But you seem very sad. Where 
 are you going ? " I inquired. " Ah," she said, " I am 
 going to Mandalay. I have just been to Rangoon to 
 see my husband off. He is an English officer ; he is 
 going away in a big boat, and he may never, never 
 come back to me again." Here the poor little girl 
 broke down entirely. " Dear me, that is very terrible. 
 What is your name ^ " said I very gently. She looked 
 up at me from out of her little pocket handkerchief 
 with serious, woe-begone eyes, and gave me a long, 
 utterly unpronounceable Burmese name. I told her I 
 
 245 
 
World Pictures 
 
 thought it rather a strange name, and difficult for me 
 to pronounce. " Yes," she said, " I suppose that 
 would seem a strange name to you. But you know 
 he never called me that; he called me by quite a differ- 
 ent name, an English name ; he always called me 
 * Darling.' " And this poor little lonely mite was 
 proud and comforted in the possession of a real Eng- 
 lish name. 
 
 Burma is the land of orchids ; rare blooms grow in 
 abundance on every hillside, and flourish in lieu of 
 geraniums in every cottage window. From being iso- 
 lated throughout so long a period of her history, 
 Burma has evolved quite a type of her own. The 
 Burmans are a charming, loyal, light-hearted people, 
 and their system of education is simple, but very good. 
 The children, adored by every one, are allowed to go 
 wherever they choose, and do whatever pleases them 
 most ; hardly anything is denied to them. Adults in- 
 terest themselves in their sports and games, and every 
 little detail of their daily life and education ; in fact, 
 
 246 
 
Burma 
 
 they are looked upon as their equals in every respect. 
 'I^hus a Burman's childhood is one long dream of un- 
 mitigated joy. He is rarely punished, for he is seldom 
 naughty, and he is taught to reverence every one older 
 or weaker than himself. Burma reminds me to a very 
 great extent of Japan ; the people there have that same 
 happy temperament, and love of the beautiful, the 
 same unselfish, loyal disposition as have the Japanese. 
 The young Burman is taught from a very early age to 
 be brave and self-reliant. When only one year old, a 
 baby is trusted to crawl or walk alone upon a flimsy 
 platform, on a bamboo mat several feet above the 
 ground or water. Its own natural instincts to bathe 
 and splash about in the first warm, dirty shower- 
 puddle it comes across are never restrained by the 
 mother ; the child thus soon becomes accustomed to 
 water ; and as Burman babies wear little or no clothing, 
 no real harm is done. When a child is four years old. 
 
 247 
 
World Pictures 
 
 all the friends of the family assemble to decide upon 
 its name. If a boy, and adopts a religious life, he 
 enters upon his monastic novitiate between the ages of 
 twelve and seventeen. He is equipped in royal attire, 
 and is attended with much pomp and magnificence to 
 the monastery. A recluse is showered with presents 
 and comforts of every possible kind in Burma, since 
 nothing is considered too good or too beautiful for a 
 man who devotes his whole life to religious services. 
 A Burman's idea of a perfect life is, first, to become 
 healthy, then to acquire knowledge, then to become 
 versed in the art of pleasing, and lastly to marry, after 
 which he settles down to work. Having amassed 
 sufficient wealth, he leaves his work to his children, 
 and spends the remainder of his life in pious devotion 
 to his religion. This accomplished, he dies perfectly 
 
 content, with his 
 \ brightest ambition 
 
 S realised. Children 
 
 swarm everywhere in 
 Burma, in the streets, 
 in the gardens, and in 
 the houses, and woe 
 betide the unfortu- 
 nate person who dares 
 to wound or repulse 
 even one of these lit- 
 tle ones. Parents 
 employ their leisure 
 hours in making boats 
 
 
 wA- 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 '\-J 
 
 -77^ -TM 
 
 248 
 
WATCHING A BOAT RACE, BURMAH. 
 
Burma 
 
 and kites and peg-tops for their children, also in teach- 
 ing them the use of those implements which they 
 must handle in after life, such as mills for grinding 
 rice, spring wheels, boats, and carts, and tools used 
 in pottery, dyeing, weaving, lacquer-making, black- 
 smith's work, etc, etc. The children grow up with 
 these things, and later learn to take a real share in 
 their manipulation. 
 
 A Burmese crowd is the most brilliantly coloured 
 spectacle you could possibly imagine. I remember 
 once going to see a boat race. The race itself was in- 
 teresting, for thousands and thousands of men com- 
 peted. They were all huddled together and paddling 
 away for dear life, while one or two stood up, dancing 
 and singing and venting war-whoops to encourage the 
 rowers to greater energy. But the performance was 
 as nothing compared to the picture created by those 
 scores of spectators massed together on the slope of a 
 sandy bank, in every variety of gay costume, in silks, 
 satins, and smiles, enveloped in a blazing sun-charged 
 atmosphere ; every eye was expectant and strained for 
 a glimpse of the struggle taking place between the 
 rival boats. The Indian silks are lovely, but they are 
 
 249 
 
World Pictures 
 
 as coarse as canvas compared with the dresses of these 
 people ; and the colours were marvellous. There were 
 pinks, yellows, oranges ; the turbans were of rich deep 
 red and old rose, and the umbrellas of every hue 
 imaginable. The sky was pale blue overhead, and the 
 scene full of brilliant and yet most exquisitely and 
 subtly harmonised colour ; it was eloquent with joyous- 
 ness and hot with Eastern sunshine. 
 
 Burmese women are the most delightful people 
 imaginable, their manners are so cultured and refined. 
 Their dress is composed of a single length of cloth or 
 silk wound round and about the figure ; flowers and 
 jewels being worn in the hair, and over the shoulders 
 kerchiefs made generally of bright Chinese embroidery. 
 Every evening, when the day's work is over, and the 
 plates have been washed and put away after the even- 
 ing meal, the young girls of every family retire to 
 beautify themselves for the visits of their beaux. 
 Tresses of false hair are wound in amongst their own 
 
 250 
 
Burma 
 
 and a thick white paste smeared over their faces. 
 Heavy gold bangles or ear-plugs are worn, as well as 
 broad necklaces of jewels and pearls. Sometimes a 
 woman will carry on her person several thousands of 
 rupees' worth of gold. Her evening toilette completed, 
 the girl descends to the house-place and begins some 
 light, easy work. Presently the lover appears ; he too 
 has made his toilette, and his face is glossy and his 
 long hair neatly coiled. If he is at all an ardent wooer 
 he should arrive laden with flowers and ornaments, 
 oranges, rolls of poetry, and all kinds of presents to 
 lay at the feet of the fair one. He is allowed only one 
 hour of bliss, for the old people, who are always some- 
 where in the background acting as chaperons, retire to 
 bed soon after twilight. Of course this is a very ad- 
 vanced stage in Burman love-making; the Gordian 
 knot is then almost tied. Many forms and obser- 
 vances have already 
 been gone through A 
 
 at the cost of much "Nj I 
 
 patient labour on M^ \i^^Mj^, 
 
 the part of the young ^-%:^,W«'t'l V#>"I?W i i 
 
 man. Inthebegm- _^^¥;^„^i^_^^i5i^^^ i 
 e makes love ..'}^r-zJ-3-^'-:-^^r^--^^:E=^—'^ 
 
 the girl goes he fol- ~Tt7'^"^* 
 lows her; whether >rr i\__ 
 she goes to market 
 to sell or buy, or 
 
 251 
 
World Pictures 
 
 -^r^-'i^ 
 
 
 whether she goes for a walk down the street, he must 
 be there, staring hard at her face, his eyes almost bolt- 
 ing out of his head. I once painted a silk market in 
 Mandalay. I was there for quite a fortnight, and 
 every day I saw a silly fool of a boy seated on an 
 upturned barrel, never moving a muscle, but staring 
 with all his might and main at a very pretty little girl 
 selling silks in a stall. She apparently was perfectly 
 unconscious of his gaze, and went on with her work, 
 never once looking in his direction. Nevertheless, she 
 had seen him ; somehow or other out of the corner 
 of her eye she had taken note of his clothes, his feat- 
 ures, his bearing, and by the next day she could tell 
 you exactly how much money he had got and who 
 his parents were. After three days of this, a girl, hav- 
 ing satisfied herself that the man is a good match, will 
 turn, her head and look at him once or twice. This is 
 
 252 
 
I 
 
 AN UP COUNTRY VILLAGE 
 
Burma 
 
 considered to be a giddy day ; the lover is more than 
 content, and is nervous and hysterical, for his affairs 
 are advancing almost too rapidly. If, by chance, at 
 the end of a week the girl has looked at him for three 
 or four minutes at a time, he is transported into a 
 seventh heaven of joy, and if when two weeks are 
 over, her eyes have lingered continually in his direc- 
 tion, he begins to make his toilette for the twilight 
 visit. Then comes the supreme moment of his life. 
 He is admitted into a lower room and told to push 
 his hand through a hole in the ceiling ; there he must 
 wait some minutes, trembling with anticipation. If 
 the girl likes him, the hand will be firmly grasped ; 
 if she rejects his suit, it will be rapped sharply over 
 the knuckles. Some years ago in Burma it was not at 
 all an unusual thing if a girl really disliked a man for 
 her to take out a knife and playfully chop off one or 
 two fingers. 
 
 '^ r 
 
 ^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 \'^ 
 ):%' 
 V 
 
 
 
 
 ^0 
 
 >' 
 
 ^ ; ^ 
 
 253 
 
World Pictures 
 
 Burma is full of fascinating subjects for the painter. 
 If an artist were to pitch his sketching easel at, let us 
 say, a street corner in Mandalay, and supposing his 
 search to be not only for the fatal " picturesque," but 
 simply for life, life of air, of light, of movement and 
 accident, he would find a wealth of material of which 
 artists are, as a body, entirely ignorant, even though 
 he were to paint Burma taken unawares, as she comes 
 and goes in her working garments. There are few, if 
 any, countries where such a vast field lies open to the 
 artist as in India, and there is not one which has been 
 so sparsely and feebly occupied. From the eternal 
 snows of the Himalayas to Ceylon, the mountains, 
 jungles, rivers, palaces, and people, all supply materials 
 which from their magnitude and wealth of colouring 
 almost defy reproduction. It is this, perhaps, that has 
 made painters of standing shrink from venturing upon 
 the undertaking ; at any rate, the ground remains 
 practically unbroken, and beneath it lies a mine not 
 
 only of material, but of gold 
 for whoever successfully ex- 
 plores it. It is astonishing 
 that artists have practically 
 allowed amateurs to be the 
 sole traffickers in a most im- 
 portant business. In Manda- 
 lay one might almost hold up 
 a frame to nature and, shifting 
 it about, paint haphazard what 
 may be seen through it. 
 254 
 
Burma 
 
 As in Japan, the interest of 
 the artist or the writer in Burma 
 is much engaged by the chil- 
 dren. There is a child among 
 large red pots on a bamboo 
 balcony ; three little figures are 
 taking a quiet smoke on the 
 road ; a tired woman is carry- 
 ing her baby home on her hip, 
 which is the way of perambu- 
 lating children about in Burma. 
 This mother has evidently had 
 a hard day's toil, and the infant 
 is weary, too. Both mother 
 and child are gnawing at some 
 luscious sugar cane, but apparently with little relish, 
 having waited for food so long that they are simply 
 too exhausted to enjoy their meal. A sturdy little 
 child comes trotting down the road clothed in a single 
 white garment, though, judging from the charming 
 indifference portrayed in the face, the small person 
 would be just as happy without any clothes at all. 
 A slender girl in a rich red garment is turning towards 
 an inner chamber like a cave. But if I were to call 
 attention to all the delightful little peeps into Burman 
 child life to be seen during a single morning while 
 sketching in the streets I should have no room to say 
 anything else. 
 
 I was at first a little disappointed at the colour of 
 the sky ; it had not the full deep tone of even an 
 
 255 
 
World Pictures 
 
 Italian sky, but something of the slatey hue much 
 affected by modern painters, especially in France. 
 What I enjoyed most of all were the street scenes, 
 with their accompaniment of brightly dressed figures 
 set out upon backgrounds of shop or temple, or the 
 
 
 
 
 ■ iA ''*^1 
 
 
 
 masses of buildings, mostly in sunlight. The effect 
 of the sunlight throwing violet shadows is very bril- 
 liant, without being dazzling. The scenes swim in 
 light, the air seems tremulous with colour. To pro- 
 duce this quality of colour trembling in the light, or 
 mysterious in the shade, upon canvas is no common 
 achievement, — one indeed apparently untried by most 
 artists, whose paint is as dead as a paving stone. I shall 
 not attempt to exhaust the artistic variety of the scenes, 
 — the butchers' shops, with their green awnings ; the 
 picturesque confusion of forms on the river, with its 
 
 256 
 
AT MANDALAY, BURMAH 
 
Burma 
 
 medley of boats and poles and stages ; the delicate 
 and complicated drawing of architectural masses ; the 
 trees sometimes with their gold leaves melting into 
 a morning sky, sometimes flecking a red wall at sun- 
 down with a trembling network of shadow ; the river 
 with the white sun just glinting on it, and the slight 
 wooden bridge, over which are passing in single file 
 six or seven tired labourers returning from their toil. 
 The white glint of sun seems to say good-bye and 
 good-night. 
 
 257 
 
CHINA 
 
IN THE CITY OF SHANGHAI 
 
CHINA 
 
 The colouring of China, of her cities and canals, re- 
 minds me of a meerschaum pipe, the old and favour- 
 ite pipe of an inveterate smoker. The cities, with 
 their rich red-browns and golds ranging right away- 
 down to blue-blacks, have an ancient, smoked, and 
 polished appearance, partly due to actual varnish, but 
 mainly to the continual friction of thousands of human 
 bodies from time immemorial. The gardens are black 
 and sooty in colour, the lakes are green and stagnant, 
 and yet to the painter how beautiful ! The rocks and 
 temples look cold, bleak, and neglected, but what per- 
 fect design and placing is here ! They are strangely 
 saddening, these poor dead gardens, ghosts of an art 
 that was once so great, but which has lain buried for 
 two thousand years, and is now as stagnant as their 
 lakes. They are evidences of a people whose minds 
 were once so fine and so creative, of an empire the 
 
 261 
 
World Pictures 
 
 greatest and the most an- 
 cient on the face of the 
 earth, that had attained its 
 present civilisation at a 
 time when all Europe 
 might be considered com- 
 paratively as barbarous. 
 One feels that they are 
 marking time, these peo- 
 ple, that they are waiting 
 for something. Their 
 minds and imaginations 
 are as fine as ever ; they 
 do not lack the genius 
 to conceive nor the dex- 
 terity to execute ; and 
 yet they remain stationary. Surely when China does 
 move forward once more we shall hear of it. 
 
 The finest picture I have ever seen was painted by 
 a Chinaman ; the manufacture of earthenware has been, 
 brought by the Chinese to a pitch of perfection un- 
 equalled by any nation ; their discovery of paper- 
 making is of very ancient date, while of the antiquity 
 of the art of printing in China there can be no doubt. 
 With the state among them of agriculture, the thera- 
 peutic art, and the sciences I will not deal, as I am 
 concerned more nearly with things Chinese that are 
 beautiful and picturesque. Their architecture, music, 
 literature, and painting are greatly undervalued and 
 quite misunderstood by the average traveller in China.. 
 
 262 
 
China 
 
 For instance, I had a pre- 
 conceived idea that Chinese 
 architecture was void of taste, 
 grandeur, beauty, or conven- 
 ience, whereas it appealed to 
 me tremendously from the 
 artistic standpoint. I found 
 it beautiful in line, quaint and ^(^O^ 
 unexpected in arrangement, 
 magnificent in colour, and 
 their pagodas and temples, 
 stone figures and columns 
 towering on the hills like 
 monuments to departed great- 
 ness, interested me extremely. 
 
 With regard to Chinese 
 poetry, modern and ancient, it is difficult for a 
 European to form a proper judgment, and their music 
 to the Western ear is equally involved ; while upon 
 the perfection of their various instruments — clarionets, 
 kettle-drums, gongs, and violoncellos — I am quite 
 incapable of passing an opinion. The manufacture of 
 silks has been established in China at a period too 
 remote to be ascertained from history, but perhaps of 
 all the mechanical arts the cutting of ivory and the 
 manufacture of various metals and trinkets of silver 
 and gold filigree are those in which the Chinese have 
 attained the highest degree of perfection. 
 
 China is the country for the artist, not for the nice- 
 minded tourist who looks upon its dirt as dirt and 
 
 263 
 
World Pictures 
 
 'MiS^^M?^ 
 
 not as tone, who shudders as he passes their many- 
 butchers' shops, revolts at the sight of cats, dogs, 
 and nests of mice displayed for sale in lieu of beef and 
 mutton. The decorative sense of the artist overcomes 
 his natural dislike for what he sees there ; the horrors 
 of the butcher's shop are to him unknown, and he 
 looks upon them merely as gorgeous notes or colour- 
 splashes of red on a grey street. Loathsome diseases 
 pass by and leave him unmoved ; nauseous odors 
 come not near his nostrils ; no thoughts of any signifi- 
 cance in nature present themselves to him, except the 
 purely artistic delights of colour and form. China is, 
 par excellence, the happy hunting-ground of the im- 
 pressionist ; and to the painter who goes there for 
 inspiration, so clear and impartial a mirror as that of 
 
 264 
 
A TEA-HOUSE, SHANGHAI, CHINA. 
 
China 
 
 Tennyson's heroine, the Lady of Shalott, might well 
 be the only guide in the choice of subjects. He need 
 feel but the one regret, that no matter how keen and 
 rapid may be his powers of observation, he can 
 fix and make his own only a meagre selection of the 
 hundred pictures on every side. The joss houses, the 
 river scenes, the gardens, the streets, all overwhelm 
 and daze him with a wealth of colour and surfeit of 
 subjects. Of all the many possible pictures, perhaps 
 that of a typical street scene will transport the reader 
 most effectually into the true atmosphere of China, 
 and give him some faint idea of that country which, in 
 my opinion, is the most gorgeous, fantastic, and truly 
 beautiful to be seen on the face of the globe. 
 
 Imagine yourself standing in the principal street of 
 the old native city of Shanghai, watching a bony, 
 
World Pictures 
 
 browned, and wrinkled old man, 
 with his horde of assistants, dyeing 
 silks and cottons in the open air, 
 using dyes of colours which have 
 never been seen out of China, — 
 delicate blues suggestive of the skies 
 of some of the early Italian pictures, 
 yellows you have never yet seen, 
 and vermilions only dreamt of. Imagine this man 
 printing coarse linens with beautiful designs, exactly 
 as a wood-engraver prints a fine India proof, by 
 burnishing from the back, and offering for sale this 
 fine work which has taken him a whole week to 
 execute at the meagre sum of twopence per yard. 
 Close by the cotton printer you may see a poor wretch 
 with his head stuck through a block of wood, every 
 one as they pass jostling and kicking him ; he has 
 perhaps stolen something. 
 
 The first and predominating feature of the scene is 
 the blaze and breadth of life. Radiating, palpitating 
 light hangs before everything like a veil, shutting out 
 detail by excess of brilliancy. Wherever the light 
 shines, the colouring is brown and rich, but on peering 
 beneath archways and into shops one looks into a 
 bluey-black atmosphere, in which little 
 ivory figures detach themselves crisply 
 and delicately but never abruptly. The 
 whole city has a battered, ramshackle, 
 and ancient appearance. There are 
 enormous lanterns of fantastic shapes 
 
 266 
 

 ^-. ^' 4 
 
 '£ ?y 
 
 \..- •*. 
 
 ' '^^j^v-^K._P^^^J^^;/,, 
 
 
 ^'> 
 
 M\. 
 
CANTON 
 
Chi 
 
 ina 
 
 at street corners, adorned with sweeps of red and 
 black lettering, lanterns that look as if they had 
 been there always ; the houses have a tumble-down 
 appearance and are of natural wood, with a deal of 
 dainty lattice work about them looking like lace ; the 
 
 "-;^-b^ 
 
 joss houses are neglected and forlorn ; the dogs half 
 starved, with the bones piercing through their flesh ; 
 little round-headed, ivory-coloured children sit sad and 
 serious, playing in the gutters ; while old gentlemen of 
 over a hundred, but hale and hearty, are seen literally 
 frisking about the city. Blues, greens, golds, and ver- 
 milions abound everywhere ; long strips of signboards 
 
 267 
 
World Pictures 
 
 hang from every house, bearing inscriptions in gilt char- 
 acters setting forth the nature of the wares to be sold, 
 and the honest reputation of the seller ; temples with 
 pagoda-shaped roofs and golden images fill one with a 
 
 fN 'f^ 
 
 kind of supernatural awe as one passes ; large gateways, 
 splendidly gilt and coloured, are placed at different 
 points in the city, and these are monuments to the mem- 
 ory of those who have deserved well of the community, 
 or who have attained an unusual longevity. 
 
 Against this brilliant background full of colour is the 
 surging mass of the people, ever flowing onward like a 
 gigantic wave. It seems rather sad in colour, with the 
 ivory-hued faces, blue or black cotton jackets, wide 
 
 268 
 
China 
 
 cotton trousers, and large straw 
 hats and shoes. Here and 
 there an aristocrat is to be seen 
 with his short jacket buttoned 
 
 ~yO^^ close round the neck and 
 
 folded across the breast, the 
 sleeves remarkably wide, his 
 quilted satin petticoat, black 
 velvet cap, and black satin 
 boots. Women are commonly seen among the crowd, 
 either walking or being trundled along in wheelbarrows. 
 Most of them are dressed in blue cotton frocks like 
 those of the men, reaching to the middle of the thigh, 
 with red, green, or yellow trousers reaching a little below 
 the calf of the leg, where they are drawn in close, the 
 better to display an ankle and a foot, which, for singu- 
 larity at least, may challenge the world. This little, 
 distorted, disproportionate member is as fine as tinsel 
 and tawdry ornament 
 can make it, and the 
 ankle is bandaged round 
 with parti-coloured 
 cloths, ornamented with 
 fringe and tassel. The 
 hair, which is screwed 
 up close behind and 
 folded into a ridge or 
 knot across the crown 
 of the head, is adorned 
 with large artificial asters 
 
 269 
 
World Pictures 
 
 of red, blue, or yellow, and two bodkins of silver, brass, 
 or iron. The face and neck are daubed with white lead 
 and vermilion, and the eyebrows blackened. 
 
 Shanghai is full of buzzing, palpitating life; the 
 houses are full ; the streets are full ; the dingy little 
 
 
 shops are full. There is no loafing ; each one is intent 
 on his own particular business. And everything is 
 business in China; the streets are lined with sellers of 
 the most curious wares imaginable; doubtful dainties 
 of quaint colours and shapes are spread out on flat 
 wooden trays, or perched on barrels to tempt the 
 passer-by ; curious fruits in wicker baskets are sold by 
 doubled-up, wizen-faced old men ; also daintily carved 
 wooden gods, rice, tea, and other eatables. All these 
 tents and booths, as well as the movable workshops of 
 tinkers, gilders, wood-carvers, cobblers, and blacksmiths 
 
 270 
 
NURSERY GARDEN, CHINA. 
 
Chi 
 
 ina 
 
 swarming in the road, con- 
 tract the spacious street 
 into a narrow pathway, 
 just wide enough for two 
 of the little vehicles to 
 pass one another. All is 
 in motion. There are 
 processions of men in 
 office passing continually 
 with their numerous re- 
 tinues, bearing umbrellas 
 and flags, painted lanterns, 
 and a variety of strange 
 insignia of their owner's 
 rank and station ; troops of dromedaries laden with 
 coal from Tartary ; wheelbarrows and handcarts stuffed 
 with vegetables ; pedlars with their packs ; jugglers, 
 conjurors, comedians, fortune-tellers, and mounte- 
 banks ; while the buzz and confused noises of this 
 mixed multitude is positively deafening. There are 
 trains accompanying, with lamentable cries, corpses 
 to their graves, and, with equally squalling music, 
 wives to their husbands ; there is the 
 bawling of those who are crying their 
 wares ; the wrang- 
 ling of others; with 
 every now and 
 then a strange 
 twanging noise like 
 the jarring of a 
 
 271 
 
 <i£ 
 
World Pictures 
 
 cracked Jew's-harp, — this is the barber's signal made 
 by his tweezers ; and the mirth and laughter that pre- 
 vails in every group could scarcely be exceeded. This 
 strange system of economising space in the roads an- 
 swers very admirably ; there are few accidents, both 
 pedestrians and equestrians jogging along at what- 
 ever pace they choose. I have even seen men stop on 
 the pavement to eat a whole square meal from a cook- 
 ing apparatus, without causing a serious obstruction. 
 
 The river scenes in China are the most picturesque 
 in the world. A capacious volume might be written 
 upon this subject alone. In Shanghai harbour there 
 are thousands of sampans stretching away literally for 
 miles around, and so closely packed together that one 
 might go for a six-mile walk on the ocean by stepping 
 
 272 
 
WBBh 
 
 .MHl 
 
 '■■„,■ 
 
 
 , •!'( 
 
 ■'tK^ 
 
 M'-' 
 
 i 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 1'' 
 
 f 
 
 ■ ^•*fy 
 
 jT'^ 
 
 fr- 
 
 
 
ON THE YELLOW RIVER 
 
China 
 
 from one to the other. A great proportion of the 
 population are born and Hve and die upon their 
 sampans ; whole families live, eat, and sleep, huddled 
 together, beneath one little bamboo covering all the 
 year round, in sun, in rain, in all weathers. Here 
 ^rnany trades are carried on, such as making baskets 
 and lanterns, tearing up weeds that grow beneath the 
 water, fishing, and cooking rice ; and the activity 
 of these people in their floating homes, whether old 
 men or little babies, is quite extraordinary. There 
 are boats laden with cargoes of flowers and vegetables ; 
 junks of colossal size, carrying monstrous sails tattered 
 and patched with gorgeous rags ; cormorant fishing 
 boats, and many strange craft of all forms and colours, 
 and many of which I do not know the names or 
 uses. 
 
 273 
 
World Pictures 
 
 When one gets out into the real country in China 
 it is then beautiful and picturesque as far as one can 
 see. Emerald-green rice fields stretch away into the 
 distance, intersected and cut up by creeks and canals, 
 
 li^r '■ 
 
 clumps of trees, and bamboo groves, which last, in 
 my opinion, form the most beautiful and impressive 
 sights imaginable. The land is well cultivated, and 
 everywhere there are well-kept farms, and villages 
 of queer thatched houses, just such as one might see 
 in any little English hamlet. China is dotted all over 
 with graveyards. The country is full of them, and the 
 graves vary greatly in shape ; some are mere mounds 
 of earth, others are like miniature houses ; some are 
 
 274 
 
China 
 
 covered over with thatched straw, while 
 those of the mandarins take up almost 
 a mile of ground and are possessed of 
 wide avenues of trees, flights of marble 
 steps, stone statues, and a great deal of 
 rich carving. Nearly all the streets in 
 China are mostly composed of undertakers' shops or 
 butchers' shops, the former displaying in their windows 
 magnificent funeral biers, mingled with equally gor- 
 geous marriage cars. 
 
 The joss houses are the most curious places of all. 
 Both people and priests alike seem to treat their 
 religion as one huge joke, and outwardly, at any rate, 
 appear to have no respect for the person of the sacred 
 Buddha whatever ; they throw paper pellets at him, 
 and spend their time turning the handle of a machine 
 that rolls off mechanically so many score of prayers 
 a minute. The priests, in their yellow robes, circle 
 round and round the altar like half a dozen donkeys 
 pacing round a water-mill, and with about as much 
 intelligence. After having completed a certain num- 
 ber of these rotations, and when the 
 beads on their chaplets have all been 
 counted, they elaborately chalk up a 
 mark, registering in this manner the 
 number of their ejaculations to Fo. 
 The Chinese have a settled conviction 
 that three spirits inhabit their bodies : 
 one that travels topside with them 
 when they die, one that lives in their 
 
 275 
 
World Pictures 
 
 grave, and one that in- 
 habits the tablet that 
 they keep at home to be 
 reverenced. But the 
 one great and all-prevail- 
 ing idea of the Chinese 
 religious enthusiast is to 
 try to the best of his 
 ability to avoid trouble 
 here on earth, and to 
 make sure of a more 
 or less good time here- 
 after. 
 Turning to another subject, I may say that a 
 
 Chinese dinner, contrary to one's already preconceived 
 
 ideas of that meal, is very 
 
 pleasant indeed to the West- 
 ern palate. To be sure, now 
 
 and again when your host 
 
 desires to do you especial 
 
 honour, he will have served a 
 
 nest of warm new-born mice; 
 
 but that, happily for the 
 
 Englishman, is only on rare 
 
 occasions. Ordinarily Chinese 
 
 dishes are excellent, neatly 
 
 dressed, and served in dainty 
 
 porcelain bowls. The pastry 
 
 for lightness and snowiness 
 
 might challenge the world, 
 
 276 
 
„"?rT-rS 
 
A RIVER SCENE, CHINA 
 
Chi 
 
 ina 
 
 France not excepted ; the soups with their savouring 
 of soy and other ingredients are dehghtful, and the 
 vermicelli, of course, is above reproach. The luxury 
 of ice is, in the larger Chinese cities, within the reach 
 
 of the poorest peasant, and all 
 fruits are cooled upon it. A 
 criterion may be formed of 
 the state of mind in which a 
 Chinaman happens to be by 
 the number and quantity of 
 the dishes at table. 
 
 Night in China, with its 
 deep blues and orange light, 
 appeals to me more than any 
 hour of the day. On the 
 night of the famous feast of 
 lanterns the whole empire is 
 lighted up from one extremity 
 to the other in every possible 
 277 
 
World Pictures 
 
 way that fancy can suggest, and the people exercise 
 their ingenuity by making transparencies in the shape 
 of different animals, — birds, beasts, and fishes, — with 
 which they run up and down the streets by night, 
 accompanied by squibs, squalling music, sky rockets, 
 
 
 coloured fire, and what not ; the effect is whimsical 
 enough. On this night the cities are cities of lanterns, 
 the roads and roofs and houses being strung with 
 them. There are lanterns in the shape of weird beasts 
 such as have never been seen on the earth, carried 
 about on poles, and there are processions of lanterns 
 which are truly beautiful, for the tawdry side is lost in 
 the gloom, and only the fantastic shapes loom ghost- 
 like and golden against the purple night. 
 
 278 
 
CHINESE COOK 
 
JAPAN 
 
 ■-Vi',y- 
 
 ^4-^^« 
 
 

( 
 
 AT KIOTO 
 
JAPAN 
 
 Japan is the land of flowers ; so the travellers have 
 told us. We see in the picture books that they bring 
 back with them strange, and to our minds distorted, 
 pictures of flowers arranged in vases, of gardens with 
 miniature pine trees curved and twisted into decorative 
 patterns. Everything in these picture books is queer, 
 exaggerated, impossible. Why, even the babies' heads 
 are represented as being carved with designs, quaint 
 little knobs of jet-black hair being left isolated on di- 
 minutive white pates. Caricatures ! ridiculous ! we 
 remark. Not at all. The picture book baby is an exact 
 portrait of the living, breathing, Japanese child. The 
 picture book gardens, the picture book houses, are 
 exact representations of gardens and houses, as one 
 sees them blooming and standing in the streets and 
 open places of Japan. How true they are one does 
 not realise until actually visiting the country. 
 
 283 
 
World Pictures 
 
 A flower-land Japan is said 
 to be, and a flower-land it is 
 in very truth. From Haru 
 (that is, springtime, February) 
 round to Haru again, flower 
 fetes and flower festivals are a 
 part of the little Jap's life. 
 Almost every month is known 
 by its special blossom. We 
 have our groves of oaks or 
 elms or chestnuts. They have 
 their avenues of flower-bearing 
 trees. In February, the eldest 
 brother of a hundred flowers, the weirdly formed plum 
 tree, is in bloom. It is at that time leafless. It 
 keeps in flower for four weeks, and it is not a little 
 group of trees that you find, but an avenue a mile 
 long, sometimes two miles or even longer. April is 
 the month of the cherry tree. The blossom does not 
 cling so long as the plum ; the wind scatters it more 
 quickly. Here we grow the single flower for fruit. 
 In Japan the tree is grown for the delight of the eye ; 
 so the double bloom is seen most often. White with 
 a tinge of green is the rarer bloom ; but there are 
 great sheets of the pale pink blossoms. The cherry 
 is hardly turning into fruit before you have the wistaria 
 in flower, great screens of purple, the flowers hanging 
 in deep fringes that are undreamt of with us. The 
 bluebell is not a stranger at this time, nor the azalea. 
 Then in June the irises come — a wonderland in them- 
 
 284 
 

 ss. 
 
 w 
 
 f 
 
AN IRIS GARDEN, JAPAN 
 
Jap 
 
 an 
 
 selves. They line the million 
 tiny streams in the gardens. 
 They form a flower-bed along 
 the sides of the rivers — a car- 
 pet of jewels, of white, purple, 
 and gold. It would be au- 
 dacity to attempt to describe 
 the eflfect. The word " mag- 
 nificent " but poorly conveys 
 the idea. With the iris come 
 the peony and lotus flower. 
 The peony is a great flower, sometimes as big as a 
 football ; some of the blooms measure a foot across. 
 The hydrangea and the sunflower are companions at 
 this time ; the carnation is also a favourite flower, and 
 is seen in great variety. In early autumn the chry- 
 santhemum puts in an appearance. In Japan it is a 
 giant among its fellows, a multitude in itself. I cannot 
 tell you the number of varieties, they seem to be infinite ; 
 the greatest number are white, then comes yellow. 
 
 I brought some flowers 
 ^^(=5*^1^^"% home with me one day; it 
 "^SZKt^xi- ^^^ ^^ sprmgtime m 
 
 sY^/r^ Tokio, and the flower was 
 cherry blossom. 1 arranged 
 them in a pot, in a bunch 
 as I always used to do at 
 home, and stood a few paces 
 oflf to view them. What 
 was the matter ? The flow- 
 285 
 
World Pictures 
 
 ers looked ugly and wrong. Over and over again I 
 tried, but still with the same result. Then I made 
 up my mind I would go to a Japanese professor in 
 the art of flower arrangement and learn from him. I 
 found then how much there was to learn. First of 
 all, I discovered a fact of which I am sure nearly every 
 one is ignorant ; namely, that the arrangement of flow- 
 ers in Japan has for centuries been regarded as a fine 
 art, — an art the property of the learned men, and the 
 men of letters, and the ladies of the aristocracy. 
 
 Tradition governs all things. As in the garden, 
 so in the arrangement of a bouquet, nature is de- 
 ceived by art. Bouquets are arranged on a system. 
 There are the three, five, and seven line arrangements, 
 and so on. In composing a bouquet the Japanese 
 
 286 
 
Japan 
 
 would shudder at our cabbage-like mingling of flow- 
 ers. He takes two, or sometimes three, kinds of 
 flowers, perhaps with foliage, and artificially trims both 
 flowers and foliage, forcing twig, leaf, and flower into 
 the strange shape which fashion has taught him they 
 should assume. In spring the bouquet is designed 
 to look strong and sturdy to express growth ; in 
 summer, it is full and spreading to indicate luxury ; 
 in autumn, spare and lean to show that summer has 
 gone. 
 
 To please his guest is the one idea a Japanese 
 host has. And one side — or rather a recess in the 
 side of the room — is where he lays himself out to 
 pay his compliments. He hangs on his wall a kake- 
 mono, and in front of this is usually placed a vase 
 
 287 
 
World Pictures 
 
 before a guest. 
 
 or a pot of flowers. 
 By means of their ar- 
 rangement he wishes 
 you joy, health, 
 riches, long life, a 
 pretty wife, or some 
 other good wish. 
 Flowers with a strong 
 odor are considered 
 unsuitable for placing 
 There is no plant, flower, or tree, as 
 I have said, but has a lucky or unlucky omen cling- 
 ing to it. 
 
 Quaintly the Jap separates nature up into sexes. 
 You have male and female flowers. The male is always 
 the more vigorous, the female the simpler. In Flower- 
 land the buds are female, the flowers male. Red, 
 purple, and pink are male colours ; blue, yellow, and 
 white, female. The front surface of the leaf male, the 
 under surface female. White is the colour most loved, 
 yellow comes next. To be an expert in either flower 
 arrangement or gardening calls for a long apprentice- 
 ship. The gardener ranks with 
 the poet and the artist. Often 
 he is not a workman's son, but 
 belongs to a family of the higher 
 grade. In the land of the 
 Rising Sun the learned men, the 
 poets, and the painters are nearly 
 all students of Flower-land. It 
 
ENTRANCE TO A T E M P L E 
 
Japan 
 
 is a part of their education — more than that, a part 
 of their life — to be versed in the anatomy and prop- 
 erties of every flower of the field. 
 
 To a Japanese a garden is his paradise. There, that 
 which otherwise is silent has a language. All things 
 
 speak. In the gardens, not a flower is born to blush 
 unseen ; not a flower grows but has a meaning at- 
 tached to it. It is of either good or evil omen. We 
 know that you cannot paint a lily, or gild a rose, but 
 the Japanese come very near to doing this. The plan- 
 ning and designing of a garden in Japan is a subtle 
 craft — more subtle, I would say, than the work of a 
 jewel setter. 
 
 Flowers are worshipped in Japan ; they are a part 
 
 280 
 
World Pictures 
 
 of the people's lives. The peasant is poor, but if 
 he can he will have what is equivalent to our poor 
 folks' window-garden, his pots of flowers. The 
 merchant has his villa garden. This, in reality, may 
 
 wMm 
 
 not be more than fifty or sixty yards square ; but, 
 by an ingenious arrangement, it is made to appear as 
 endless as the prospect you get in a fairy scene on the 
 stage. Design outwits nature. A lyric becomes a 
 highly polished sonnet. How is this brought about ? 
 Why, the Japanese gardener is an artist. Like the 
 great painters of all times, he draws directly on nature 
 for his material. The impossible does not exist, or 
 barely, in the mind of a Japanese gardener. He looks 
 on his native land as a picture. And after due con- 
 templation, he is prepared to reproduce in miniature the 
 main features of " the land of a thousand islands " as 
 a whole, or in part, in the form of a landscape garden. 
 
 290 
 
Japan 
 
 The garden is planned on a Lilliputian method. All 
 is arranged to scale. You view nature with an eye no 
 bigger than that of a tiny Japanese doll. You know 
 what a raised or modelled bird's-eye view map of the 
 physical geography of a district looks like. Well, 
 
 apply a very powerful magnifying glass to it and you 
 have the idea. 
 
 The Japanese gardener works only after study and 
 contemplation. Say he has a garden to design. His 
 patron has visited or heard of some beautiful spot. 
 Having heard or suggested what is wanted, the gar- 
 dener-artist hies him away to the spot, and then begins 
 to make studies. One by one, he seeks out the notable 
 views of the place, and makes notes of them ; then con- 
 templates, first the individual views, and then the whole 
 scene collectively ; and ends by being prepared to build 
 up a doll's garden scene of what he has been studying. 
 
 2gi 
 
World Pictures 
 
 A bank so many feet high would represent a mountain ; 
 a tiny stream, a river ; a group of a few trees, a forest. 
 Then, miniature pagodas, temples, and shrines, all built 
 to scale so as to fit together uniformly as a whole, add 
 to the illusion. Half closing your eyes, you may 
 dream that you are in a garden of royal proportions, 
 when it is only what we should describe here, in our 
 more prosaic way, as " a nice piece of ground attached 
 to the house." 
 
 To be plain, a Japanese garden is a bird's-eye view, 
 a poetical conception in which are embodied the most 
 striking features of the landscape of the country : arti- 
 ficial lakes, torrent beds, a miniature living picture of 
 some more spacious landscape. The gardener-artist 
 works more correctly than the camera. He is warned 
 not to follow too closely in his work the real details, but 
 to look on the whole scene and then produce the effects. 
 His perspective is perfect ; his illusions, as I have said, 
 are those of a scenic artist. Throughout the design 
 there is no one spot on which the eye is allowed to 
 
 292 
 
GEISHA GIRLS, JAPAN. 
 
Japan 
 
 rest ; he gains immensely by his use of variety. Yet 
 the illusion may be roughly dispelled. I saw a dog, an 
 ordinary sized animal, walk over one of the tiny bridges. 
 He appeared a Gulliver among the Lilliputians. 
 
 Supreme importance is paid to the smallest trifles. 
 Even a door must not have more head nails visible in 
 it than custom prescribes. Trees (there are but few 
 big ones) and stones play a large part in the display 
 of a Japanese garden. Each stone is measured, and 
 its place is allotted with all the etiquette of the law of 
 the Medes and Persians that altereth not. Trees, too, 
 are arranged. For example, there is the tree of solitude, 
 the tree of the sinking sun. Then there is the waiting 
 stone, the perfect view stone, the guardian stone, the 
 worshipping stone, and the stone of two gods. In this 
 way, the garden is a kind of Walhalla. The idea is 
 full of romance, full of beauty. 
 
 lit' " " 7^^, ' ~' I 
 
 ^33\ 
 
 293 
 
World Pictures 
 
 So much for Japanese Flower-land. Although my 
 space is limited, I am tempted to wander there all 
 day. But is Japan merely a land of flowers ? Has 
 it no other beauties to reveal, no other joys ? What 
 of the geishas, the children, the workers, the living 
 art of the country, the painters and their methods, 
 the science of placing, the characteristics of the people, 
 the drama ? On each and every one of these subjects 
 a volume might be written, and much be still left 
 unsaid. There is the geisha — the educated woman 
 of Japan, the entertainer, the hostess, the charmer. 
 She is the life and soul of every tea-house and feast ; 
 always gay, always laughing, always young, she forms 
 the merry, sparkling side of Japanese life. When- 
 ever one dines out or is entertained, a geisha forms 
 the principal part of the entertainment. She herself 
 
 294 
 
Japan 
 
 decorates the room where you are dining as would 
 a gorgeous tropical flower, a fascinating exotic figure, 
 a bewildering symphony in vermilion, orange, and 
 gold. Oh, the witchery of the geishas, flirting with 
 their fans, with the sweetest little shoes, and the 
 daintiest httle feet, and the darkest little eyes and 
 wisps of hair in the world ! Miss Pomegranate, 
 Miss Butterfly, Lady Lavender, and Lady Helio- 
 trope, all are equally entrancing. 
 
 How delightful it is to travel in Japan : to feast 
 one's eyes on the gorgeous sweet-stalls and the tea- 
 houses, the theatre exteriors so characteristic of the 
 country, the fairs and markets, the small children 
 blowing soap bubbles through straight straws, the 
 booths shaded with multi-coloured umbrellas, the 
 brilliantly coloured crimson lanterns, the quiet canals, 
 and the curtained entrances to the shops ; the demure 
 children of the streets with their short-cropped heads 
 and audacious faces, and their bamboo trumpets ; 
 the golden dragon screens, displayed 
 for sale in the shops ; the dye-works 
 of Osaka, with the strips of blue 
 fabric hanging up to dry ; or the 
 fair at Kioto, where behind the um- 
 brella-shaded stalls you see the 
 great stone lamps with which the 
 Japanese cities are lighted. 
 
 The life of the Japanese streets 
 is singularly dainty. There is a fra- 
 gility and ricketiness about all the 
 
 295 
 
World Pictures 
 
 things made by these little peo- 
 ple, beside which our solid con- 
 structions, our iron, and clamps, 
 and blocks, and girders, are 
 like matters of another planet. 
 Their shaky but dainty houses, 
 umbrellas, cabinets, decora- 
 tions, were made for gentle 
 hands that will not break them, 
 \ and beside the light touch of 
 which our grasp looks brutal. 
 Everything is small, and slow, 
 and careful. When the Japanese makes his little fire, 
 he lays on fuel fit for a doll, with little chop-sticks 
 smaller than the tongs that lift the sugar into our 
 cups. Things need not be very strong for people of 
 such a gentle attitude, and this slenderness is charm- 
 ingly rendered in the street scenes with the slight 
 
 houses, the great rows of paper , - - - 
 
 lanterns, the open shops, the 
 gay and orderly play of the 
 children about the sweet-meat 
 stalls. A very great proportion 
 of the surfaces presented to the 
 eye are of paper, a fact which 
 in itself suggests this Japanese 
 slightness most expressively. I' |[ 
 
 I was attracted in Japan by ^_ 
 the shops rather than the tem- 
 pies, by the lanterns and stream- 
 
 296 
 
 r-jjfV" <" ■> . 
 
 l^ J' 
 
 
 
 v 
 
 
 __imSM 
 
 t&:z' 
 
 cy.- 
 
 "1 ^i^ 
 

CHILDREN WATCHING A PLAY 
 
Japan 
 
 ers rather than the trees, by the dancing girls and the 
 children rather than their fathers and mothers. I 
 loved the butterfly beauty of the festal costumes and 
 umbrellas, and the gorgeous hues of the lanterns ; the 
 babies with their true baby looks of wonder ; the 
 larger children blowing bubbles or intent on sweets ; 
 and the Japanese boys, philosophers every one of 
 them, reading the Yokohama " Star," as they ran 
 through the streets, or gathering, round-eyed and 
 solemn, round a theatrical playbill. You may see a 
 small Japanese maiden with another not much smaller 
 than herself on her back, dainty and delightful as 
 only a Japanese child can be. 
 
 The Japanese "bobby" is a dear little fellow — so 
 tiny, so pretty, and so charmingly dressed that you 
 feel inclined to embrace him. He is greatly respected, 
 and I was given to understand is of noble family. 
 Although you would have to roll about twelve 
 together to make an average Lon- 
 don " bobby," law and order are 
 admirably preserved, and there are 
 no unpleasant police scandals, no 
 blackmailers, and no brutality. They 
 were so polite to me that they used 
 to put a model in position and keep 
 him there until I had done with 
 him. They have tremendous power, 
 and whenever a fire takes place all 
 that the policemen have to do is 
 to encircle the burning building with 
 
 297 
 
 /<^i^ 
 
World Pictures 
 
 ways die early. 
 
 a piece of twine, a device which is 
 quite sufficient to keep the crowd 
 back. When a policeman arrests a 
 prisoner he ties a bit of string round 
 his arm, and he never thinks of 
 breaking away. 
 
 One travels from place to place in 
 rickshaws. My men sometimes car- 
 ried me as far as thirty miles a day 
 in return for a couple of shillings. 
 The rickshaw men, by the way, al- 
 They run themselves out, and fre- 
 quently drop down dead in the shafts. They are 
 tremendous " swells," and for dignity I should com- 
 pare a rickshaw man with a member of our House of 
 Lords. 
 
 The Mikado's garden is a lovely retreat, with ver- 
 dant trees and shaded walks, cooled by splashing foun- 
 tains, warmed by the glowing tropical sun, which 
 shoots its brilliant rays through the leafage, and casts 
 a thousand fleeting shadows on the lively scene below. 
 The lines of lanterns sway in the 
 soft wind, the band plays w^altzes, 
 
 — none of your tum-tum music, 
 
 — the Japanese Irving struts on 
 the improvised stage ; there are old- 
 fashioned dances, and the ladies of 
 the ballet, who have not yet taken 
 to tights, relieve the tedium of the 
 tragedian. It was a delightful after- 
 
 298 
 

 
 
 »; i I 
 
A TEA IIOUSK, JAPAN 
 
Japan 
 
 noon I spent there, and full of curious experiences. 
 The Mikado wore a tall hat. Yes, a tall hat, a frock 
 coat, and patent leather boots on his feet. The court 
 had had general orders to appear in the latest Parisian 
 styles, so instead of the ladies tripping it like Yum 
 Yum and the " three little maids from school " in 
 Japanese, they wore toques and Worth " creations." 
 
 The dramatic author in Japan holds a very different 
 position to that which is his here. He is not only the 
 arbiter in literary matters, but he handles the whole 
 technique of the production as regards scenery, dresses, 
 and general mounting. There, no actor or actress 
 with a fad would get a hearing, nor would one think 
 of questioning the author's arrangements. Besides, 
 there they indulge in no ridiculous attempts at realism. 
 They don't try to deceive you with make-believe 
 moons, and suns, and waves, grabbing at nature, as we 
 
 299 
 
World Pictures 
 
 do here, thinking that we are producing art. If a man 
 has to die on the stage, he breathes his last in a proper, 
 orthodox sort of way. and then quietly gets up and 
 walks off; or, supposing an actor comes on whose dra- 
 peries require arranging, in that case some little black 
 boys proceed to do what is necessary ; the audience 
 making it a point of honour not to see them ; in fact, 
 they are so used to this sort of thing that really I don't 
 think they do see them. There, Art is the suggestion 
 of Nature in colour, in tone, and appropriate patterns, 
 while the limit of the picture is not confined to the 
 space formed by the proscenium, the decoration being 
 carried from the stage into the theatre, the very actors 
 often passing through the audience from their dressing- 
 rooms. 
 
 Another difference is the use of a rotary stage, so 
 that the next scene can be arranged whilst one is being 
 
 300 
 
Jap 
 
 an 
 
 presented to the audience. All the people in the pit 
 and gallery sit on the floor; and as refreshments are 
 constantly needed (the play lasting some time), every 
 one regales himself, some of the people, the poorer 
 ones, bringing in their little trays of comestibles, while 
 the wealthier purchase them at the counters in the 
 theatre, and proceed to warm the contents on the char- 
 coal stoves. 
 
 Their most eminent actor is Danjuro, a thorough 
 artist and a most capable draftsman. He is universally 
 admired, and an immense favourite everywhere, but he 
 holds a very small place in society, in spite of the Eng- 
 lish residents having done much to better the general 
 position of the dramatic profession. In fact, the Japan- 
 ese regard the actor as a somewhat effeminate person, a 
 mere strutter on the stage, and persons of rank would 
 never dream of entertaining him in any social way ; 
 even the middle class would think twice before classing 
 an actor among their friends. He would come more 
 under the denomination of " acquaintance." Danjuro 
 plays parts of every 
 kind ; and though he is 
 sixty years of age, I have 
 seen him play a young 
 girl of eighteen so as to 
 deceive the Japanese 
 themselves. I remem- 
 ber on one occasion a 
 whole row of nurses 
 taking him for a woman 
 
 30 J 
 
World Pictures 
 
 for a long time, until he made some little slip in 
 manner or deportment which revealed the deception. 
 You may be surprised that he should be playing a 
 female part, but in Japan the sexes are not mixed in 
 the companies. At some theatres the company Is en- 
 tirely composed of men, while at others — generally 
 of an inferior class — only women are engaged. As a 
 
 matter of fact, I think I 
 
 may say that there is not 
 a thoroughly good actress 
 in the whole of Japan. 
 The plays themselves may 
 generally be classed under 
 the head of dramas and 
 melodramas. 
 
 I was surprised at the 
 attention paid to rehears- 
 ing. All the players seemed 
 302 
 
fa^r:' '■ 
 
 1 
 
 ^ 
 
 i 
 
THE OGARA RIVER AT TOKIO 
 
Japan 
 
 to be fairly letter-perfect. The costumes are most 
 gorgeous, and the classical plays are of the most 
 elaborate character, the correctness in detail often 
 being due to having been copied from old drawings 
 and original paintings. 
 
 In describing Japan one should not be content with 
 depicting the ordinary everyday tourist aspect of 
 Japanese life which every one is getting a little tired 
 of, just as they are becoming weary of the third-rate 
 Japanese curios, fabrics, and pictures with which Eng- 
 land has been deluged within recent years. One should 
 wander in the less frequented tracts, explore picturesque 
 , corners, go behind the scenes, and study the life and 
 character of the people, become familiar with their 
 
 303 
 
World Pictures 
 
 country, and master the peculiarities of their race. 
 There is inevitably a kind of indulgence in the West- 
 ern treatment of Japanese character, a confession of 
 the grotesque, mingled with the respect due to Japan- 
 ese dehcacy and fastidiousness. An Englishman in 
 Japan must have an uneasy consciousness of the dec- 
 orations he has left behind him — of the vulgarisms 
 of the European world, of its wholesale trimming and 
 its shouldering manners ; and yet he must needs feel 
 that Greece and Rome are in the ancestry of this dull 
 and rough world, and are absent from the ancestry of 
 that gentle and exquisite world of the extreme East, 
 and that Japanese gentleness, humbleness, instinct, 
 and art are to us alien from the beginning. 
 
 304 
 
Japan 
 
 ^^ 
 
 \ \^ i '' 
 
 I 
 
 T ' 1 
 
 >'--:M 
 
 ^a 
 
 To a stranger there is an absence of expression, an 
 inscrutability about the face of a Japanese. Ignorance 
 of the language can be but little in comparison with 
 ignorance of the eyes, and the eyes of the Japanese 
 keep secret even the suggestion that there is anything 
 to hide. They make denials of all mystery. The 
 whole broad face utters a foreign language, but so 
 habitually do we look for communication from the eyes 
 that Japanese eyes seem to us to refuse all utterance 
 whatever. But, after all, it must be to the works of the 
 Japanese man — his art, his illumination, his garden, 
 his selection, the fewness and the charm of his adorn- 
 ments of labour and life, his delicate buildings, his 
 planted flowers — to these and not to his own mo- 
 
 305 
 
World Pictures 
 
 notonous little form and his unclassical presence that 
 we must look. 
 
 A gentle rosy lantern, a luminous white iris, and a 
 purple and twilight moon, — such things make the 
 touching beauty of this ultimate East, where the tem- 
 perate climate is unsmirched, the earth sweetly culti- 
 vated, the mountain-forms strange, and the sky that 
 of the ocean-side of the globe. 
 
 306 
 
MEXICO 
 
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO 
 
MEXICO 
 
 I JOURNEYED to Mcxico in an Indian Pacific cargo 
 boat, which landed me at Tampico in the Gulf of 
 Mexico, whence I began the usual beaten tourist track 
 round Guadalquava, Puebla, the capital, and so on. 
 The traveller who goes to the city of Mexico ex- 
 pecting to find local colour will be disappointed. 
 Capitals of all countries have cosmopolitan points in 
 common, and one must go further afield to get at the 
 real traits and manners that are the inner characteris- 
 tics of a nation. I might have been going round that 
 circular tour still if a good man called Clegg, manager 
 of the Inter-Oceanic Railway, had not put me up to 
 the peculiar virtues of Tehuantepec as a place to stop 
 at. The actual travelling to Tehuantepec was rather 
 curious. The line was a new one, badly laid, and 
 stoppages had occasionally to be made in order to cut 
 wood for the engine. Whenever we came to a bridge 
 
 309 
 
World Pictures 
 
 a man had to walk over first to see that it was safe. 
 Then the train walked over ; and then I walked over, 
 for I judged it might be safer if the train and I did 
 not walk over together. Tehuantepec is the centre 
 of the Zapateco race, and I should not like to say how 
 
 
 
 old that race is. They were never conquered even by 
 the Aztecs, but used to flee up to a stronghold called 
 Gine-ugula, on the top of a mountain, whence nothing 
 but a machine gun could fetch them. I paid a visit 
 to Gine-ugula. We ate parrots on the way, and got 
 the most magnificent views it is possible to im.agine, 
 right away to the coast of the Pacific. But it was a 
 tremendous climb. 
 
 I had a servant called Antonio, the most useless of 
 servitors, but paintable at every moment of his exist- 
 
 310 
 
Mexico 
 
 ence from the picturesque point of view. Antonio 
 was most interested in my work, even to the extent 
 of choosing subjects for my pictures. He hailed from 
 the lowlands, and on that memorable journey to Gine- 
 ugula up the mountains made sufficient ludicrous mis- 
 
 takes to fill a stout volume. Full of energy to start 
 with, he collected together all the bedding and bag- 
 gage belonging to myself and other travellers, and so 
 surrounded himself with packages as to be indistin- 
 guishable at twenty paces; but within half an hour 
 he cheerfully dropped the impeding bags or rugs along 
 the road, and turned up practically luggageless, while 
 search parties had to set out in all directions to pick 
 up what he had dropped. After resting for an hour 
 he began to collect wood for my camp fire. He 
 
 3" 
 
World Pictures 
 
 started on a sapling, which immediately gave way and 
 landed him in the embrace of a peculiarly prickly 
 form of cactus called the " Devil's Needle." That 
 night he distinguished himself again by fixing my 
 hammock to an outhouse only slightly built and used 
 as a chicken roost ; consequently, directly I got in, the 
 whole concern came down with a crash and damaged 
 six chickens. Quite unabashed, Antonio fixed me up 
 again and went off to mind the camp fire, which pres- 
 ently, forgetful of my presence overhead, he nursed up 
 nearer and nearer, until at last the flames crackled 
 briskly directly beneath my hammock. My pain and 
 fear were mingled in one mighty howl, as I leapt out 
 with all the agility of a practised athlete. Antonio 
 expressed genuine sorrow at my discomfiture, and pro- 
 ceeded to unsling my hammock from the friendly trees, 
 
 312 
 
Mexico 
 
 one of which he discovered, to his horror, was literally- 
 composed of myriads of nests of ants. The poor 
 blunderer was frightfully bitten. I have painted 
 Antonio in all attitudes and disguises, for though he 
 would n't work, he served admirably for a model. It 
 meant sitting still and doing nothing, which well suited 
 the lazy beggar, who was really quite the " comic 
 relief" of my time at Tehuantepec. 
 
 What a country and what a people ! Despite all my 
 efforts, my pictures were pale in comparison with the 
 rich splendour of the land and the gorgeous beauty of 
 the race. The women are marvellously beautiful, with 
 a classical grace of carriage and firmness of figure that 
 come through the habit — centuries old — of carry- 
 
 ^-:J 
 
 
 
 m'-' 
 
 
 ir^: 
 
 \^ 
 
 Z^l 
 
World Pictures 
 
 ing weights on the head. To me they suggested 
 ancient Egyptians. In every way they are superior 
 to the men ; all the marketing and trading are left in 
 their hands, while the men devote themselves to tilling 
 the ground and drinking " mezcal." They have a 
 
 picturesque sense of colour in clothes ; and one of the 
 most interesting sights to be seen is the dyeing of the 
 natural material by the seashore. They use the secre- 
 tions of a kind of murex, the real old Tyrian dye. It 
 is no unusual thing on a fine sunny morning to see 
 hundreds of these beautiful women sitting on rocks by 
 the sea, squeezing dye from shellfish on to snowy 
 skeins of cotton. Instead of killing the shellfish, they 
 
 3H 
 
Mexico 
 
 ■^ ^ 
 
 are careful to put them back again 
 into the sea. Cotton dyed in this 
 primitive fashion, by the time it 
 is woven and shaped into skirts 
 and shawls, suggests to one the 
 varied tints of an opal. Think 
 of a market place in Tehuantepec 
 filled with two thousand or more 
 of these, the most beautiful women 
 in the world, with their superb 
 carriage and the dignity of duch- 
 esses, with their exquisite figures 
 swinging hither and thither in the 
 
 sunshine, and all dressed in Tyrian-dyed skirts and 
 
 chemisettes, for all the world suggestive of a great 
 
 potpourri of rose petals and violets thrown 
 
 silver sand — the sand of the Mexican desert. 
 
 not a man is admitted to spoil 
 
 the harmony, save perhaps an 
 
 artist like myself. That is one 
 
 of the few scenes which will 
 
 remain with me as long as I 
 
 live. It was my first picture 
 
 in Tehuantepec. I will refrain 
 
 from describing these Zapateco 
 
 beauties more minutely, as to 
 
 do so always creates a disturb- 
 ance. My audience, more 
 
 especially if of old gentlemen, 
 
 invariably set off in search of 
 
 3^5 
 
 upon 
 And 
 
 
World Pictures 
 
 ,v/r 
 
 atlases that they may find 
 out the exact whereabouts 
 of Tehuantepec, and even- 
 tually make a bee line for 
 the place. 
 
 When I arrived at the 
 hotel there, I found my- 
 self among a lot of amaz- 
 ing roughs. Railroad 
 men, Americans, the scum 
 of the earth, refugees from '^' . ' 
 
 Panama, who had made 
 
 even that ill-reputed locality too hot to hold them, 
 dare-devils of every description, murderers, — in brief, 
 a gang of utterly hopeless scoundrels. They regarded 
 me in the light of a mere wandering artist who could 
 do naught else but paint ; and as they were full of 
 
 mezcal — a spirit far stronger 
 than brandy — it may be imag- 
 ined they were not the most 
 reliable companions in a lonely 
 place. Each man carried a 
 machete at his belt, and the 
 ease with which they whipped 
 these weapons out was alarming. 
 The machete has a blade two 
 feet and upwards in length, and 
 is the last article of clothing that 
 a Mexican would discard. They 
 started by " ragging me " rather, 
 316 
 
 -^_^-:^\. 
 
TEHUANTEPEC, MEXICO. 
 
Mexico 
 
 and "hustling" me about. 
 My only way of winning 
 them over was to beat them 
 at their own game. I have 
 shot at Bisley, Wimbledon, 
 and the most famous ranges 
 in the three kingdoms ; and 
 so seizing a revolver, I gave 
 them an exhibition of what 
 I could do. They were 
 won at once, and a very awk- 
 ward moment was turned into a veritable hour of tri- 
 umph. They respected me accordingly, and became 
 my staunch friends. One man offered, as we sat in the 
 hall, to tell me the histories of the various men as 
 they entered. There was a San Salvador colonel, a 
 most satanic-looking gentleman with black mustachios 
 and billy-goat beard, who was endeavouring to recruit 
 filibusters to reinstate the 
 exiled ex-president Ezeta. 
 Then there was a charming 
 character with a pock- 
 marked face and ferocious 
 red beard. He was a pirate 
 and an opium smuggler, a 
 desperate man who con- 
 fessed to having killed - 
 people by scores. I noticed 
 a washed-out, middle-aged 
 man, perfectly dressed, but 
 
 317 
 
 
 
World Pictures 
 
 with a shifty expression that would have caused a Scot- 
 land Yard detective to turn three somersaults back- 
 ward and exclaim, " By heaven ! I am on his track." 
 His nose was like the prow of an old war vessel ; 
 behind this one could see two slatey eyes and a weak, 
 vacillating mouth, closely resembling that of a water 
 rat. His left ear was missing, having been chewed 
 off in a public bar-room in Puebla by an infuriated 
 railway conductor, who would probably have masti- 
 cated his whole carcass had he not been unwilling to 
 deprive the gallows of a lawful victim, and had there- 
 fore allowed him to depart, slightly disfigured, but 
 still in the ring. At the time I saw him he was em- 
 ployed to pull a bell in a neighbouring church. I 
 was advised, if he came near my room, to nail every- 
 thing down to the floor. There was also a British 
 
 V 
 
 
 ^.Jk 
 
 
 
 j^ 
 
 3f^ 
 
Mexico 
 
 trooper of the Irish Lancers, 
 harmless and amusing, chiefly 
 noted as being a gentleman 
 oppressed by doing nothing. 
 One very gentlemanly-looking 
 Mexican, with a kind, good- 
 natured countenance, was pointed 
 out to me as being the cause of 
 between four hundred and five 
 hundred deaths. Such were the 
 men who were to be my com- 
 panions for the next three months 
 or so. Of course they were not , 
 all so bad as these, and the fine- 
 haired villains kept themselves 
 apart from the common herd ; but still, I have met 
 some curious characters in my time. Some of them 
 were very amusing fellows indeed, and I would sit by 
 the hour listening to their stories, told in that quaint 
 American lingo which at first is almost unintelligible 
 to a Britisher. 
 
 The first evening in Tehuantepec, my new friends 
 proposed to take me to a cantina or a " mezcal joint," 
 where, they said, I should see some pictures of Mexi- 
 can home life. Nothing loath, I followed them, 
 escorted by a half-crazy policeman as bodyguard. 
 He was a plucky little chap, perfectly thorough in all 
 he undertook. Eleven years ago he was the only 
 man who volunteered to bury the corpses during the 
 great cholera epidemic of 1883. Once, during an 
 • 319 
 
World Pictures 
 
 excursion to the cemetery, one of his passengers had 
 the impertinence to sit up, and actually attempted to 
 get out. The policeman indignantly knocked him over 
 the head with his spade; but when they arrived at 
 the cemetery, the rebellious corpse absolutely refused 
 to be buried and the little fellow lost his temper, and. 
 
 ^-ir 
 
 squaring his fists, went for him. If it had not been 
 for the timely interference of a passer-by, he would 
 have carried the day. 
 
 Accompanied by this energetic man, we arrived at 
 our cantina, a little gaudily painted shop, with a great 
 gold ball hanging from the door, and a sign written in 
 four different languages over it, adorned with pictures 
 of tropical scenery painted by a native artist with a 
 careless disregard of perspective. The shop was filled 
 with half-drunken people, and lighted by a smoking 
 
 320 
 
Mexico 
 
 lamp and two dripping candles. The walls and 
 ceiling were decorated with dried Spanish moss and 
 festoons of coloured paper, with depending glass balls. 
 Behind the counter were a number of gaily painted 
 barrels, containing the various liqueurs. In the centre 
 of the room was a large, rickety table, around which 
 
 321 
 
World Pictures 
 
 the lowest types of men imaginable were seated, drink- 
 ing and smoking. They had eight different bottles 
 — cognac, mezcal, pulque, chartreuse, and so on. 
 Men dressed in cheap straw hats, loose breeches, and 
 sandals lounged about, drinking, playing dominoes, 
 or grouped themselves about a blind man who was 
 playing on a guitar and singing. These songs were 
 
 fine examples of native melody, more or less in a 
 minor key, a nasal drawl at the end of each Hne, with 
 a rising inflection, giving a peculiarly weird effect. 
 Women gorgeously dressed mingled amongst the 
 crowd. The atmosphere reeked with smoke and 
 odours of stale liqueurs. It was by no means an 
 enjoyable place in which to spend an evening, but 
 interesting and unusual in the extreme. All kinds 
 and types of faces and costumes were crowded in the 
 stuffy little room. There were miners dressed in 
 their Sunday clothes, in wide sombreros, full blouses 
 over wide trousers, bright sashes wound round the 
 
 322 
 
Mexico 
 
 waist, and shod In sandals or yellow high-heeled 
 boots ; farmers in pleated smocks, loosely tied buck- 
 skin trousers, made wide and open down the sides, 
 with many buttons ; artisans in black felt hats, 
 turned-down collars and white shirts, low-necked 
 waistcoats, coloured ties, short jackets cut in the Eton 
 
 shape, tight trousers, and high-heeled boots. Heavy 
 swells swaggered about in clothes ornamented with silver 
 buttons, and carried silver-handled pistols, and chains. 
 Carriers and muleteers were to be seen in hats of palm 
 leaves, with white duck trousers tucked into high 
 yellow leather boots, and a kind of leathern armour 
 over all ; they had long whips coiled round the waist, 
 with the handles hanging down, and belts full of 
 pistols, knives, and cartridges. They were all strong, 
 brawny-looking men, these Mexicans, very square- 
 shouldered, with fine limbs, faces burnt to a copper 
 
 323 
 
World Pictures 
 
 brown, bushy eyebrows, 
 piercing black eyes, good 
 teeth, aquiline noses, and 
 oval faces. 
 
 The fact of our not 
 being clothed in regula- 
 tion white suits caused 
 us to be looked upon 
 with suspicion, which 
 dangerous sentiment we 
 hastened to allay by 
 purchasing a bottle of 
 mezcal and presenting it to the company. As the even- 
 ing wore on the crowd became more and more noisy, 
 and it was evident to us, the only two sober men in the 
 cantina, that a row was breeding. Suddenly there was 
 a scuffle and flash of steel. The blind musician 
 dropped his guitar, and all pretences with it, and fled 
 over the counter. The pro- 
 prietor rushed into the night 
 howling for the police, while 
 women joined in the tumult 
 with screams and yells. The 
 crowd made precipitous darts 
 for the various doors, only to 
 be met by the police with rifles, 
 who promptly placed the entire 
 mob under arrest. The wounds 
 of one of the fighters were pro- 
 nounced to be not fatal, and he 
 
 
 'km^P-'} 
 
 324 
 
1 
 
A MEXICAN VILLAGE 
 
Mexico 
 
 was prodded to his feet, 
 and placed in a line with 
 the other prisoners, and 
 the procession wound 
 slowly into the dim 
 night, leaving the weep- 
 ing women behind. The 
 proprietor returned and 
 calmly threw down a 
 shovelful of earth over 
 the scene of the disturb- 
 ance, made us a low bow, 
 and hoped we had not 
 been disturbed. I could relate some horribly brutal 
 things, seen and heard of in Mexico, sufficient to turn 
 your blood cold ; but perhaps they are not much to 
 
 the point. After all, it 
 was from an artistic, not 
 an ethnological point of 
 view that I was chiefly in- 
 terested in the country. 
 
 Sunday is the day to 
 paint markets and street 
 scenes in Tehuantepec. 
 The trees in the public 
 square bloom with oranges 
 and mangoes. Clustered 
 round and about the church 
 are scores of dark-skinned 
 market women, sitting 
 
 325 
 
World Pictures 
 
 around on palm mats, stout, good humoured dames 
 with gaily plaited black hair, low chemises, necklaces 
 of gaudy beads, huge crescent-shaped earrings, and 
 shawls of native manufacture wound round their 
 heads. A piece of canvas held by a bamboo frame 
 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 shields both the woman and her wares — oranges, 
 bananas, and tropical fruit and vegetables of all kinds 
 — from the rays of the sun. Seiioras, dressed in ex- 
 cessively starched print dresses, clean and white, reach- 
 ing to the ankles so as to show two high-heeled, 
 pointed-toed boots and white stockings, move amongst 
 the crowd, market basket on one arm, prayer-book 
 and rosary on the other. Two long plaits of black 
 hair, tied at the ends with coloured ribbon, hang 
 down to the waist. A servant walks behind, dressed 
 in a white shirt, tucked into broad pyjama trousers ; 
 round his waist is the usual scarf, and a palm 
 leaf hat is on his head. He is generally a good- 
 
 326 
 
Mexico 
 
 humoured, grinning lad. A round-faced, kindly priest 
 moves among the crowd, talking to the vendors, 
 and collecting from their hands many an offering of 
 fruit and vegetables. He is dressed in a shiny top 
 
 hat, long black coat and trousers, and carries a large 
 green umbrella. 
 
 At twelve o'clock one goes in search of a twelve-cent 
 dinner at some cheap open-air shop. Such an one is 
 not difficult to find, and one sits down at almost the 
 first deal table one comes across. A stout, good- 
 humoured old lady, adorned with glass bead jewelry, 
 generally attends one, assisted by her daughter, often 
 
 327 
 
World Pictures 
 
 a nice-looking girl, who has clear 
 olive skin, bright eyes, good teeth, 
 a large mouth, and is very viva- 
 cious. She brings you an earthen- 
 ware brazier filled with charcoal. 
 On this is a huge ollar, or pot 
 of earthenware, containing the na- 
 tional dish of mole, — a sort of 
 curry, generally turkey, — which 
 is retailed in small earthenware 
 dishes at six cents a portion. 
 Besides this, there is a large pile 
 of tortillas, or maize cakes, and 
 a pot of pulque made from the fermented juice of 
 the aloe ; all for twelve cents. 
 
 In the evening, I invariably made my way back 
 again to the market place. I might have been said to 
 have indeed haunted that quaint old market place in 
 Tehuantepec at one period of my visit. Those mar- 
 vellous dresses worn by the native women, as they 
 squatted about amongst heaps of gorgeously hued fruit 
 and vegetables, made a scheme of colour which was no 
 less fascinating to me in the evening by the flickering 
 light of an occasional lamp or candle than it was in the 
 glory of midday and mellow sunshine ; in the groups 
 of olive-complexioned natives in the varied employ- 
 ment of their city Hfe, strongest orange reds, and 
 apple greens, and lurid yellows, lit everywhere by an 
 intense light as from a furnace, by which the colours 
 of petticoat and cloak and tawny flesh are again and 
 
 328 
 
Mexico 
 
 again reinforced and blended into a strange harmony. 
 Still, the effect is undeniably striking, and the luminous 
 gloom of the backgrounds reminds one continually of 
 Rembrandt, although the soft, brown, golden atmos- 
 phere of the great Dutchman is here replaced by a 
 lurid furnace glow. 
 
 I stayed in Mexico about six months — long enough 
 to observe many national customs. The house of the 
 Mexican peasant compares favourably in some ways 
 with our dwellings for the poor. It consists of four 
 forked uprights, supporting longitudinal beams, which 
 form a foundation for the roof of palm leaves. The 
 walls are made of cane piles, driven into the ground as 
 close together as possible. To these are applied three 
 or four inches of mud inside and outside, which, when 
 dry, is decorated with a coat of whitewash. These 
 " adobe " domiciles are built in a day. Any one in 
 Tehuantepec, provided he belongs to a parish, has a 
 right to erect a house anywhere within 
 its boundaries. After having col- 
 lected sufficient materials for the pur- 
 pose, he invites his friends to come 
 and help him to build. They are 
 regaled with mezcal and " tomales " 
 during the process, and by the united 
 efforts of the party the house is com- 
 pleted before sundown. 
 
 The main fact of social life seems 
 to be the importance of being a 
 godfather. Parental influence is all 
 
 329 
 
World Pictures 
 
 very well but the vicarious power of the sponsor is so 
 great that nothing can be done without his consent. 
 If you ask a father to allow you to marry his daughter, 
 he in his turn is obliged to obtain the consent of the god- 
 father or godmother. There are also financial respon- 
 sibilities, but the post is one of great honour, and 
 gladly accepted by every one. All ceremonies are an 
 excuse for promiscuous drinking. The popular bever- 
 
 ^ = 
 
 age, mezcal, is a concoction of the Mexican aloe. But 
 the strongest beverage in the country is called " Cat- 
 alan," which must not be confounded with the Catalan 
 of Spain. This spirit is prepared from sugar cane, and 
 is distilled and redistilled until it is almost pure alcohol 
 — seventy-five per cent at least. There is also a milder 
 form of spirit which is known as " aguardiente." Mez- 
 cal has a curiously sedative effect : everything becomes 
 couleur de rose^ and if you were to see a man mur- 
 dered while under its influence, you would look on with 
 an amused and tolerant smile. Births and marriages 
 
 330 
 
PUEBLA, MEXICO 
 
Mexico 
 
 are occasions for long debauches. On November i of 
 each year, the Mexicans and Indians lay out spirits upon 
 a table, and open the doors and windows in case the dead 
 should be disposed to quench their thirst. Needless 
 to say, the dead refrain, whereupon the relatives assem- 
 ble on the following night, and have a glorious time. 
 
 The greatest entertainment is the annual fair, called 
 "Vela," which lasts for several days. It consists of 
 fireworks, processions, — formerly interspersed with 
 Pagan ceremonies, but now concluded by the Mass, 
 — and dancing, which is a strange medley of native 
 dances and European measures. The women dance, as 
 they do everything else, with a wonderful unstudied grace 
 and dignity. There is a procession called the "Con- 
 vilo de Flores " which is very beautiful. Hundreds 
 of ox-carts are adorned with sugar cane and whole 
 plants of bananas, and the oxen decorated with flowers. 
 The most important men of every parish follow, each 
 carrying a large wax candle, decorated with ribbons and 
 flowers, and weighing generally from twenty to twenty- 
 five pounds. Then come the musicians, as many bands 
 massed together as the parish can afford, followed by 
 beautiful girls of the poorer class, dressed in the na- 
 tive costume, generally red or indigo blue. Towards 
 the end of the procession come the daughters of the 
 richer families, dressed in heavily starched cotton skirts 
 over three or four starched petticoats, which produce the 
 effect of crinolines. All the girls carry painted gourds 
 filled with rose petals, which, when they meet, they 
 throw at one another. Boys and men let off rockets 
 
 33^ 
 
World Pictures 
 
 at street corners and generally make as much noise as 
 possible. Then the flowers are deposited on the floor 
 of the church. The next evening there is a grand ball, 
 to which every one but drunken men are admitted. 
 Any woman or man invited is compelled to dance. 
 The ball lasts until daybreak. The revels are kept up 
 all the next day, after which for a week every one in 
 Tehuantepec, man, woman, and child, is more or less 
 laid up. 
 
 332 
 
 /Pa- 
 
 '/>- 
 
^^WW'-J 
 
^—^ 
 
 Library of Congress 
 Branch Bindery, 1903 
 
LIBRARY 
 
 v>' >.;<; 
 
 
 
 
 
 '.'.t, •>• 
 
 "N'i 
 
 " '4.